The Excerpt
Wyatt strode down the path in long angry steps. It took all his willpower, but he didn’t slow, and he didn’t look behind him. He knew what he’d see: A businesswoman in a rain-splotched suit and torn stockings, hobbling in her ridiculous footgear.
What possessed her to come to such a place dressed as if he was her four o’clock appointment? Had she expected all the civility of State Street or Michigan Avenue? Did she even know other worlds existed? That there were places untouched by concrete and inaccessible by cab? Probably not. Or she probably wouldn’t have come.
Why had she?
. . . and a bit more . . .
She could have sent the papers, but she’d insisted upon bringing them herself. So they could talk. As if that would change things. As if they’d ever been able to talk. But she’d said she’d bring them, and he’d been so hungry to see her, he’d foolishly agreed. He’d thought he’d be ready, that he could handle things unemotionally. More the fool. He’d come over to the island to get his thoughts straight, to plan out exactly what he had to say, how he was going to approach her. It hadn’t helped that the sudden bad weather delayed his trip back to the lodge so that he wasn’t there to meet her. He’d carefully choreographed their meeting in his mind, but then she’d gone and thrown everything off with her typical impatience, by rushing in, by crowding him into a back-against-the-wall position. All the calm, rational things he’d rehearsed immediately fled from his mind when he saw her standing on the trail, so lost, so engagingly distressed. Everything inside him had dissolved in an instant. Had there ever been another human being who could reduce him to such vulnerability with just a single look? No, he knew there wasn’t. And it made him angry all over again. Because during the few minutes with her, he wanted her so badly he was willing to forgive and forget everything.
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