“Nothing of value to declare?” the Customs officer said.
“Nothing,” Wendy replied briskly.
Nothing the government would want to hear about, anyway. Only Oprah or Ricki would lift an interested eyebrow if she said, “Well, actually, there’s a swarm of butterflies in my stomach right now because I’m coming home so I can convince a doctor to perform an operation my own physicians call insane.”
That kind of thinking wasn’t good. This was her life. She had to do what she thought best, and why have second thoughts now? The thing to do was concentrate on how great it would be to see Allie. They hadn’t done anything except talk on the phone since the night before the ski team left for France…
The same night Seth made love to her for the very last time.
The thought was so sudden, so unexpected that it almost stole her breath away. She must have made a sound because the Customs guy, who was holding out her passport, raised his bushy eyebrows.
“Miss? You okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine.” Wendy smiled brightly, took back her passport and walked to the exit doors that led into the terminal.
There was a sign just ahead. She paused to check the directions for the connecting flight to Albany. People brushed past her, everyone in a hurry to get somewhere. She was in a hurry, too. The sooner she got to Cooper’s Corner, the sooner she could get started on the future.
Once she’d reached the right terminal, she limped to the waiting area at the gate. Her leg ached something fierce. The doctors had warned her that it would, after all the hours in the air. Inactivity wasn’t good for bones that were held together with screws and steel plates. Muscles didn’t like stretching themselves for the benefit of all that hardware, either.
Not that she’d never had cramped muscles until the accident. A weekend of hard, competitive skiing had often left her feeling as if a sadist had tied her in knots. Seth would see her wince as she rubbed her calf or ankle, and he’d know she was hurting.
“Here,” he’d say, “let me help.”
She’d smile and put her foot in his lap—not easy to do in the confines of the cab of his old truck—and he’d knead her flesh gently, stroke her gently, and after a while a sensation that had nothing to do with pain would turn her bones to liquid.
“Miss?”
Wendy blinked. A middle-aged man had risen from his seat.
“Would you like to sit down?”
She wanted to. Lord, yes, she wanted to. Instead, she gave a thin smile. “Thank you, no.”
“I noticed…” He cleared his throat. “I, uh, noticed that your duffel looks heavy.”
“It isn’t,” she said, trying to sound polite.
Who was he kidding? What he’d noticed was the way she limped. She walked away as quickly as she could, never looking back, tired of people’s good intentions, tired of wanting to scream and tell them that trapped inside the woman with the limp was a girl who’d once been graceful, who’d flown down snow-covered slopes and through the gates like a hawk after a dove.
A sign blinked on. The commuter flight to Albany was boarding.
Not a moment too soon, Wendy thought, and didn’t slow her pace until she was on the plane and in her seat.
* * *
IT WAS THIRTY DEGREES in Albany, with a windchill that made it feel more like eighteen, according to the pilot’s cheerful landing announcement.
Wendy looked out the windows of the terminal as she made her way to the exit. Snow was piled in gigantic mounds. Fresh snow, from the pristine look of it. There’d been a time when she could tell how long snow had been on the ground just by the way the crystals reflected the light, especially on Jiminy Peak. Jiminy didn’t have the highest slopes in the area; compared with the mountains she’d skied in Colorado and Utah, Jiminy was hardly worthy of being called a mountain at all. But she’d skied there as a little girl, discovered her passion for speed on its trails, and it would always hold a special place in…
In what? Those days were gone. Damn it. Was a quick visit home turning her into a bundle of sloppy sentimentality?
An icy wind bit through her as she exited the terminal. She shivered, put down her duffel and zipped her anorak all the way to her chin. Her long, auburn hair was whipping around her face and she put up her hood and tucked the unruly curls inside while she looked around in search of Alison.
“I’ll meet you right outside the door,” Allie had said when they’d touched base a couple of days ago. And then she’d laughed and said how wonderful it was going to be to see each other again. “I can’t believe you’re coming home!”
“It’s just a visit,” Wendy had answered, correcting her oldest friend the same way she’d corrected her mother. Allie had said yes, sure, she understood that, but in a way that made it clear she didn’t believe it any more than Gina.
Snow began to fall, big, fat flakes. Wendy tugged a pair of gloves from her pockets and put them on.
That was all it was. A visit. She was here for a purpose, and if she was successful, she’d be ready to begin life again in a place that was free of memories. Not France, where she’d lived in a kind of twilight world these last years. Not Cooper’s Corner, where everything would only be a reminder of what had once been. She’d find a place where there were no ghosts, no shadows from the life she and Seth had once planned….
“Wendy?”
The snow was falling faster, tumbling down like feathers from a torn pillow in a heavily overcast sky. Someone was rushing toward her. A woman, bundled in a tweed coat.
“Wendy, oh my God, it’s really you!”
“Allie?” Wendy laughed and felt tears burn her eyes. “Allie,” she said, and she grabbed Alison Fairchild in a loving hug. “Oh, it’s been so long!”
The women held each other for long moments. Then they clasped hands, stepped back and grinned.
“I don’t believe it! Allie, you cut your hair!”
“Uh-huh.” Alison bit her lip. “Cut it and colored it, too. What do you think? Too big a change or what?”
“I think it’s wonderful! You look gorgeous!”
“Well, not gorgeous, but I finally figured that it couldn’t hurt to try and improve on Mother Nature. And talk about gorgeous…” Alison cocked her head and her gaze swept Wendy from head to toe. “You look terrific!”
Wendy’s smile tilted. “Yeah. Right.”
“I mean it. You haven’t gained an ounce, for which I just might not forgive you. No gray hairs in those red curls—and please, do not, I repeat, do not bother telling me women don’t get gray hairs at our age. Two years ago, and wham, there they were, silver threads among the gold. Not that the rest was gold then, but you know what I mean.”
“You used to talk about going blond when we were in our junior year, remember?”
Alison rolled her eyes. “Do I remember? How could I forget? There I was, everybody telling me I looked like Barbra Streisand—”
“A compliment,” Wendy said, falling into the old dialogue as if they were still in high school.
“Yes, if you’re la Streisand,” Allie said, picking up her end of the conversation with the same ease. “I may have her nose, but it doesn’t work on my face.”
“You don’t still believe that.”
“What I believe is that we’re going to turn into instant snowmen if