Tell Me When It Hurts (3 page)

As Archer took her first jump, the Garden quieted. The crowd watched the girl and her beautiful horse move in unison over jumps taller than she was. They went over with no hesitation.
Now,
she thought
,
squeezing with her calves just behind the girth . . .
now . .
. The coiled spring released in an upward sweep of energy as they jumped the five-and-a-half-foot wall.
Jump, stride, stride, jump, jump, stride, stride, jump, stride, jump, jump, and jump
. When they completed the last jump with no faults at breakneck speed, the moment was captured, distilled—timeless.

It was all there. In that dreamy softness between sleep and almost sleep, Archer summoned the exquisite triumph again. At twenty-one, a senior at Smith College, she had lived her one spectacular moment, the moment that would carry her through a lifetime of ordinary, the one that would be retrieved for sustenance when life fell short. The floating canter around the outer edge of the arena; her gloved hand caressing Clique’s neck; Adam’s cheers, identifiable above all others; her father, catching her eye, wiping away a tear as he sat anonymous and proud in the stands, tweed jacket across his lap, felt hat resting on one knee; her own wide smile; and the feel of the horse beneath her making her strong.

CHAPTER 4

Adam MacKenzie sat on his front porch, watching the rain pour down in sheets. He liked Colorado; it was where he had met Allison. The evening was cool, but Adam was comfortable with just a sweatshirt. He propped one foot up on the railing and struck a wooden match to light his pipe, puffing until the coal glowed evenly. He thought about Archer—and Annie, of course. Archer’s birthday was yesterday, September 5, though he doubted that she had bothered to acknowledge it even to herself.

Archer . . .
From the day he met her, he’d known she was something. She’d been so sassy then, always teasing, always tossing that head of dark hair—and laughing. His best memories were of Archer doubled over laughing.

“
Hey, Minnehaha, this is a serious legal issue,” he’d say after describing to her one of his new criminal cases only to find her limp with laughter.

“
But it
is
funny,” she had insisted, gasping for breath. “I mean, they steal a police car and then stop for coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts—the quintessential cop hangout—and are picked up with lattes in hand.” He started to laugh, too.

From their first meeting, on a bus heading back to college, to their wedding four years later, he’d never once doubted their cosmic rightness for each other. But for one twist of fate—his Karmann Ghia being in the shop that week—he would never have been on the lumbering behemoth, grinding north to Dartmouth and passing through Northampton, Massachusetts, home of Smith College. The thought of the near miss still made him wince, decades later.

It came back to him easily, that first glimpse of Archer. He’d been engrossed in
Sports Illustrated
as the bus clunked to a stop in Hartford, Connecticut. Glancing out the grimy window, he saw a gamine girl with a book bag slung over her shoulder come bouncing up the steps of the bus after turning to wave to a stylish blond woman in a black Mercedes. His gaze followed the wave and he caught sight of the woman waving back wanly.

As his eyes turned back to the girl, Adam lost interest in the magazine. She had thick auburn hair falling straight to her shoulders, green or maybe blue eyes, high cheekbones, full lips, pale skin. Neither tall nor short, she had a slight figure and was wearing gray riding pants, paddock boots, and a deep-green parka. Audrey Hepburn, in place of Elizabeth Taylor, as National Velvet, he thought as the girl grinned at the bus driver, her book bag falling forward. She shifted it back, tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her ear, and headed for a seat. As she sat down, he glimpsed “Smith Equestrian Team” in white block letters on the back of her parka.

Adam felt as if he were on a Ferris wheel that had just crested the top and dropped. He knew, with the fervor and certainty of a born-again Baptist, that he was meant to be hers.

The girl took a seat across the aisle, two rows in front of him, plopped her book bag on the seat next to her, and pulled out
The Sun Also Rises.
Then she reached back in the bag and fished out a leather case to put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.

Adam flipped through the mental Rolodex of the great loves of his life—well, more like a list of three: Jackie the rower, Joan the artist, Kate the scientist. Or was it Kate the rower, Jackie the artist, and Joan the scientist? He glanced at the girl across the aisle—no chance of ever mixing
her
up with anyone else. Watching her read, he yearned to slip into the seat behind her and lean forward just enough to read over her shoulder and breathe in the scent of her hair.

Adam nudged his duffel forward with his foot and slid into the seat in front of him. Taking a deep breath and wishing his long suit were a James Dean devilish charm instead of a Jimmy Stewart nervous sincerity, Adam leaned across the aisle and cleared his throat. “Um . . . is that seat taken?”

She looked up from her book, eyes wide, and gave a slight smile and a shake of her head. She moved her bag to the floor and went back to her book. Adam kicked his duffel the few feet to her seat and hopped in beside her.

He glanced over at her open book, maintaining a respectful distance but stealing occasional peeks, happy to be sharing this slight familiarity. He glanced left and read:

Adam looked away. Fascinating stuff, that Lady Brett Ashley and her cohorts, he supposed. Better than striking up a conversation with the dull shlub sitting next to her.

For the better part of an hour, he silently rehearsed his best conversation starters until he realized Northampton was fast approaching.

He blurted out his sentence. “So, you go to Smith?”

She looked up, eying him curiously as if for the first time. “Yes.”

“
What year are you in?”

“
Junior.”

“
Ah,” he said, as if this were a most revealing bit of information. “I go to Dartmouth—junior, too.”

“
Oh, do you like it?”

“
Yes, I love it.”

“
Hmm, I always thought the guys from Dartmouth were smart jocks who drank too much on weekends.”

Adam thought fast. “Oh, not me. Well, I mean I am kind of a jock, but at least I’m not smart, and I’m always the designated driver. . . . Oh, right, I’m the exception that proves the rule,” he rushed on.

She broke into a grin. She had straight, white teeth. “I was just teasing you. Everyone I know from Dartmouth is great.” She seemed about to comment further when the bus slowed. She glanced out the window.

“
Northampton,” called the bus driver.

“
That’s me,” she said, rising and gathering up her things.

“
Hey,” said Adam, “I’m Adam Mackenzie.” He held out his hand.

“
Oh, I’m Archer Loh. Nice to meet you,” she said, grasping his hand firmly. Hers was slim and cool. She turned and began moving down the aisle toward the door.

“
Well, maybe I can call you sometime, do you think?” Adam called out.

Stepping down from the bus, she turned and called over her right shoulder, “Oh, sure! Gillette House—” The rest was drowned out as the wind swept in and her words swirled up and away.

Needless to say, he’d found her. They were married right after both graduated from Columbia Law School several years later. Adam had proposed six months earlier, on a snowy day just after Christmas, as he and Archer strolled arm in arm along Fifth Avenue, the Christmas lights haloed in a van Gogh blur in the icy air. They had just had the least expensive dinner in town: tacos and beer at Margaritaville on Forty-first and Fifth Avenue.

“
Hey, MacKenzie, you think I’m some cheap date you can get into bed after just a chintzy taco?” she teased, looking up at him.

“
Well, if the riding boot fits . . .” She punched him on the arm.

In front of Tiffany’s, Adam stopped and turned Archer toward him, both hands on her shoulders.

“
Arch, I may not be able to come up with a Tiffany ring right now, but I can offer you a lifetime of love, law, and laughter,” he said nervously.
And alliteration,
he might have added. “I really, truly love you, and I can’t imagine going through life without you. Will you marry me, Arch? I’ll never make you regret it.”

Grinning, she pulled her ski cap down tighter over her ears and gave him a mittened thumbs-up, then stood on tiptoes and squeezed him with all her strength. “Yes, yes, yes, I will marry you, Adam. Anywhere, anytime.”

Adam stood still, then threw back his head and laughed at the gods, returning the hug for all he was worth. He had planned this uncountable times. It was to be a grand gesture their grandchildren would beg to hear retold again and again—perhaps on bended knee some April morning among the lilacs in the Cloisters. Or on ice skates in Rockefeller Center on a February afternoon. Or at the top of the Empire State Building some sultry July evening, just like in
An Affair to Remember,
one of Archer’s all-time favorite flicks. Still, the unchoreographed proposal couldn’t have been more perfect.

Now, more than twenty years later, on this porch outside Denver, mountains in the distance, Adam puffed on his pipe and felt again the heartbreak of a dream gone wrong. Archer. She was the love of his life, and he had lost her, and he had lost Annie. Yes, he had Allison and the boys, and he loved them. He was luckier than Archer in that way. He’d taken a second chance. But there can only ever be one first love, the one love that makes you ache with the knowledge that you can never survive its loss and still be who you are meant to be.

In his own dreams that night, Adam could still see her victory lap at Madison Square Garden, the reins in one hand while the other stroked Clique’s neck; her endless smile, and the cocky confidence that comes from being twenty-one and feeling as though you had the world in your pocket.

CHAPTER 5

Archer ran a comb through her hair. The sun was shining after the morning rain and her illicit tour of Connor McCall’s tent. She glanced in the mirror at the door, grabbed her car keys, and headed out. Hadley trotted around the side of the cabin and jumped into the back of the old Jeep. Archer buckled up and cranked the engine.

She headed down the driveway, steering clear of the deepest ruts. Fully three-quarters of a mile long, that driveway had been one of the cabin’s main attractions when, four years ago, she was looking for a place to call home.

She had known that the suburbs no longer suited her. The thought was laughable—the grieving assassin next door.
Oh, going out of town again, Archer? Want us to walk Hadley? Take in the paper? Watch over your arsenal?
No, the cabin was perfect: no questions, no neighbors—a place just to park herself until . . . well, whatever.

The Jeep lurched through a rut near the end of the driveway, jolting her back to the present. Hadley swayed on the seat and lost her footing but scrambled back up easily. At the end of the driveway, Archer got out and opened the locked iron gate, hopped back in and edged toward the road just far enough to clear the gate, then hopped out again, relocked the gate, and pulled into the traffic.

She hummed as she drove to the local Stop & Shop. To her surprise, she had found that she liked to cook. In her old life, meals were brief, no-frills affairs or they were takeout—there was just no time between her practice and Annie’s schedule. Now, though, she had some fifty cookbooks arranged in alphabetical order in the bookcases lining the kitchen walls. She now had time to burn. She cooked meals daily, setting the table with the “good silver,” as her mother called it, a starched linen tablecloth, and taper candles, all for a party of one.

Her last dinner in an elegant restaurant with tablecloths and candles had been in Washington, D.C., when she and Adam were awaiting the trial of Annie’s killer, the day the bombshell was dropped on them: the DA’s office was not going to prosecute.

“
I’m sorry, Ms. Loh, Mr. MacKenzie. We’re just not going to be able to prosecute this one. I’m really sorry,” the prosecuting attorney had said, eyes downcast, mouth drawn tight, his words hanging in the air like a bad smell. He’d been the picture of confidence a few weeks ago. Now he looked defeated, slumping in his leather chair, looking small and ineffectual.

Archer stared, mute, waiting for him to take the words back, to say he was thinking of another case, but he didn’t. Everything in her tightened. Her hands closed into fists; her jaw clenched; her eyes squeezed shut in denial. She leaned into Adam, dizzy, unable to right herself under her own power. She knew that the killer had hired the top criminal defense lawyer in D.C., but even so, they had evidence. They had an eyewitness
. What happened?

She hadn’t waited to hear the maddening, incomprehensible details. Everything she’d done for nine months—her assemblage of a parallel evidence folder, her analysis of the inconsistencies in defense witness statements, her notations on the medical examiner’s report—my God, he was saying it was all of no use. It was all a fraud. There would be no trial, no justice, no satisfaction of even the meanest sort.
Stop!
she had told herself then
. Stop thinking about that
.