The Perfect Letter Read online

  “He surprised me by showing up last night. He asked me to marry him before I left New York, and he was so crushed when I said I needed some time to think. When he asked me again last night I just couldn’t refuse him again. It was too painful. But I don’t think I can marry him, and I don’t think I can break up with him.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “He’s the publisher at my firm. He’s my boss, basically. I’d lose my job. He wouldn’t fire me, but it would be impossible to work with him. I’d have to quit.”

  “That shouldn’t matter,” said Saundra, patting her hand. “You’d find another job.”

  “I could, but I’ve worked so hard to get where I am at the company. It would be like starting over.”

  “No—”

  “It would. I can’t do it, I can’t.”

  “I’m an old lady,” said Saundra, stirring the sugar in her tea, “but we’re not that different, you and me. I used to be young once, too, you know.”

  Leigh smiled. She could picture a younger version of Saundra Craig, with long hair down her back, wearing crocheted vests and bell-bottoms.

  Saundra went on: “My mother was a very controlling woman. She had very strict rules about how late I could stay out, who with, everything. Eventually I married a man I barely knew because I wanted so desperately to get out from under my mother’s thumb.” She smiled. “It was the sixties, and there weren’t a lot of options for women in those days. It was fine at first. I got to have my own house and a little independence, and I loved having those things, but only for a little while. Because we didn’t love each other, not really. When he started sleeping around I was grateful, because it gave me a reason to get out.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Leigh said.

  “Don’t be. It was best for all of us. Because then I was free to meet someone I really did care about, and now I’ve been married to him for thirty-five years.”

  “Really?” Leigh asked. “Why do you think the second marriage worked?”

  Saundra looked around and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “To be honest, the sex was—is—fabulous,” she said, and Leigh had to stifle a sudden laugh. The thought of Saundra and her husband . . . well, it was not what she was expecting. “Don’t underestimate the power of chemistry. It will get you through a lot of tough times, believe me.”

  But Leigh couldn’t see how that helped her at all. “Don’t you think there should be more to it than that, though? I mean, sex is just a little part of your day. What do you do the rest of the time?”

  “Chemistry isn’t just about sex. It’s everything—a shared sense of humor, common interests, common history. My second husband was a boy I knew from high school. We’d grown up together, came from the same hometown. After my divorce I ran into him again, and it was like nothing had changed in all those years. He knew me when I was a kid. He knew who I was and where I came from, because he came from the same place, the same kind of people. That matters. It matters a lot, believe me.”

  All of a sudden Leigh felt a sense of rising panic. Maybe she should have tried harder to get Jake to stay. Maybe she was putting her heart at risk for the sake of her career and her wounded pride. But he’d been so intent on going, so sure they would be better off apart. Who knows—maybe he was right. Because she couldn’t see how the two of them could ever get past the hurt they’d inflicted on each other, intentionally or otherwise.

  “Your career and the rest of it don’t matter,” said Saundra. “The best way to be fair to him is to be honest about your own feelings. Your fiancé’s a big boy. He’ll manage his own disappointment if you don’t marry him. What you shouldn’t do is pretend your feelings are something they’re not. That isn’t fair to you, or to him.” Then, giving Leigh one last pat, she walked off toward the barn, her gaucho pants kicking up dust.

  Leigh wiped her face with both hands, feeling the weight of the ring on her finger. She looked at it—it was beautiful, but maybe Saundra was right: she should stop pretending the ring meant more than it did. She slipped it off her finger and into the pocket of her blue cotton skirt. At least she wouldn’t have to answer any more questions about it, at least not right at that moment. And she had to talk to Joseph. She just didn’t know right then what she was going to say.

  The rest of the morning Leigh worked on autopilot, politely listening to authors and their pitches, asking dutiful questions and nodding along with their responses. It wasn’t until lunchtime, when she grabbed a quick salad in the dining hall, that she even remembered she’d promised to meet Jim Stephens for coffee at the end of the day to discuss his book.

  Leigh felt a pang of regret. Jim’s wonderful book—it was one thing she did have a good feeling about, the same way she’d felt about Millikin. She still wanted to publish it. It was raw and it was rough, but she thought she knew how she could help him polish it up. She had no idea how he’d feel about editorial comments from anyone, most especially from a woman thirty-five years his junior who’d never spent a day in a war zone. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t try. No one had thought she’d talk Richard Millikin into publishing again, but she had.

  The first title from Leigh Merrill Books. She still liked the sound of that—she was still grateful to Joseph for believing in her, for making the dream a possibility—but there was still too much that was unsettled, uncertain. Leigh and Joseph. Leigh and Jake. New York, Texas. Her career, her future.

  She was only sure of one thing: she couldn’t agree to buy Jim’s book. Not under these circumstances.

  For once in her life she was determined to do the right thing, to put other people’s feelings before her own. And if that meant she couldn’t publish Jim’s book, then so be it. But it was a hard thing to do, to tell a man whose work she admired so much that she couldn’t take it, not because it wasn’t wonderful, but because she was afraid she was going to be out of a job soon. She couldn’t very well keep working for Jenks, Hall & Middlebury if she and Middlebury weren’t going to be on speaking terms anymore.

  So when four o’clock rolled around, and her last meeting for the day wrapped up, it was with dread that she walked to the dining pavilion, where she’d promised Jim she’d meet him. His manuscript was tucked into her bag, the white pages poking out like a flag of surrender. She’d make it up to him somehow. She just wasn’t sure right now how she was going to do that.

  The hot, bright May sun was in her eyes, so that it took a few seconds for her to see him clearly, but then she glimpsed Jim at the picnic table nursing a glass of iced tea, waving her over. He wore a dark blue baseball cap with the insignia of the Marines on it, his pale gray eyes twinkling under the brim. “Welcome!” he said, standing up when she came close, a gesture that made Leigh grin—it had been a long while since a man had stood up when she arrived at a table. It was pleasantly old-fashioned and entirely lovely of him. “Thank you,” she said, and sat down.

  “What can I get you?”

  “Oh, no, I’ll get it,” she said, standing up again, but Jim waved her down. “I can fetch you a coffee. It’s the least I can do. What kind?”

  “Vanilla latte,” she said. “Thank you.”

  While he was at the coffee station she took the manuscript out of her bag and put it on the table. She’d always liked the look and feel of manuscripts, the white expanse of unbound pages, the thrill of opening one up and finding new people, new voices, the undiscovered countries that, until they were written down, existed only in the minds of their authors. New books were new hopes, with the promise of buried treasure.

  She flipped to the first page and read the opening line once more. My first day in-country, Jim had written, a stranger saved my life. It was a great book that deserved an editor who would love it, and see it through to success. Leigh just wished it could have been her.

  Jim came back and set the coffee in front of her and another iced tea for himself. He was watching her face, reading it for signs of encouragement. “That good, huh?” he said. “Oh well. Guess it�
��s back to the drawing board for me, eh?” He was smiling, trying to maintain his good humor, but Leigh could see how disappointed he was.

  She took a gulp of her coffee as much to be polite as to swallow the lump in her throat. “Oh, it’s not that,” she said. “The book is wonderful, Jim, absolutely terrific. I couldn’t stop reading it. I wanted to publish it right away.”

  “Wow.” He sat back, smiling broadly. “That’s incredible. It’s better even than I was hoping for. I thought, maybe . . . Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Merrill.”

  “Please, call me Leigh. I think we know each other better than that by now.”

  “Leigh, of course.”

  “It’s a bit rough in spots, but I think with the right editor you could really have something spectacular on your hands.”

  A note of caution crept into his voice, and he looked puzzled. “Wait. Wouldn’t you be the editor?”

  “I loved the book. Absolutely loved it without reservations, that’s the truth . . .”

  “I feel a ‘but’ coming on here.”

  “But.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I think my circumstances might be changing. I’m not sure I could take it on right now. My situation at Jenks and Hall . . . well, let’s just say I’m no longer certain of my place at the company.”

  “That sounds bad,” Jim said, leaning toward her across the table. “Can you talk about it?”

  She was afraid if she kept talking she’d burst into tears. How unprofessional would that be? Here was a talented writer who’d offered her his book. He didn’t want to hear about her problems with the company, with her love life. Just as she’d done with Saundra, she was losing it, she was falling apart.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

  “Miss Merrill. Leigh. Oh, damn, don’t cry now,” he said, and then he was grabbing a napkin to hand across to her. Of course—Jim was the one who’d just gotten the bad news, but it was he who was comforting her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “God, I feel so stupid. I’m sorry about this. It’s got nothing to do with your book, which, truly, I think is spectacular. My personal life is a huge mess, a total disaster.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Maybe we should have done this another time.” He put a hand on her arm. She took several deep breaths and stopped crying.

  “You’re such a good person,” she said. “Here I should be apologizing to you. I never do this. I never cry, and this is the second time today. It’s so unprofessional.”

  “I don’t care about all that,” he said. “We can talk to each other like human beings, can’t we? Isn’t that more important?”

  “Yes, you’re right.” She wiped her face with the napkin. “I’ve always been so careful to keep people at arm’s length. Keeping things inside. Keeping my problems to myself.” She laughed, crumpling the wet napkin in her fist. “Guess it just spilled over.”

  “It’s not always good, keeping things inside. Take it from someone who knows.”

  “No, you’re right. I don’t know why I have to be so guarded. Maybe it’s because I always feel so alone. I don’t have much in the way of family or friends.”

  “I’d like to be your friend, if you’d let me.”

  “I could use that right about now.”

  “Do you think you could trust me enough to tell me what’s upsetting you?”

  “I can try.” She took a deep breath and said, “My boyfriend proposed to me yesterday.”

  He smiled. “That’s it? I thought that was a good thing.”

  “It should be, but I don’t think I can go through with it. And he’s being named publisher of my company next week, so there’s that, too. If I break up with him, I’ll probably have to look for another job. I can’t in good conscience sign your memoir to Jenks and Hall under these circumstances. I hope you understand—the book would be orphaned if I left the company.”

  “Never mind that right now,” he said, taking her hand in both of his. “My trust is in you, not the company. If you want to wait until you find a job someplace else, then I’ll wait, too.”

  “You’d do that? Really?”

  “Really.” He handed her another tissue. “Now tell me what happened between you and your boyfriend.”

  “I don’t know if anything happened. I think it’s me. Maybe I mistook friendship for love. I’ve been alone so long, I suppose that’s only natural.”

  “Are you afraid of being alone?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Yes. I lost my mother when I was so young, and I never had a father, or siblings. Her life seemed so sad to me. She never had anyone. Whoever my father was, he was out of the picture before I was born. She was alone. Sure, she had me and my grandfather, but she died alone, without finding real love. I don’t want that for myself.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being alone. I’ve been alone most of my life, but it doesn’t mean I will always be. Every day that I wake up and get myself out of bed brings another chance to meet the person who will change my life. Fear is a powerful force, Leigh—it keeps you from hearing your own heart.”

  “So—what? You’re just okay getting your heart broken over and over again?”

  “Sure,” Jim said, meeting Leigh’s eyes. “Better than not having one. I’d rather take a risk and end up alone than never love anybody.”

  Jim’s hands were warm, pressing Leigh’s between them like a flower between the pages of a good book. “If there’s one thing I figured out from the war, it’s that you don’t waste your chances. When something or someone comes along I think is worthwhile, I go for it. The fear that the other person might not feel the same way doesn’t mean I regret taking that chance.”

  What a strange, lovely man Jim Stephens was. Maybe he was right—maybe it was better to take a chance on love than to freeze yourself solid, hold yourself back from happiness.

  She thought of what Jake had said, that if she broke up with Joseph today, he’d find someone else tomorrow. He was right, of course—a man like Joseph wouldn’t be single for long, not in New York. He’d meet someone new, maybe someone who loved him the way he deserved.

  She was in tears again. “What is wrong with me? Joseph’s educated and cultured and successful, and kind. He loves me. I should love him. I do love him, just maybe not the way you’re supposed to love your fiancé.”

  “There’s no should when it comes to love. The heart wants what it wants.”

  “I think mine must be broken,” she said, her voice catching.

  “No,” Jim said. “You’re stronger than you think. You deserve to be happy. You only have to figure out where that happiness is.”

  “You’re such a good person, Jim Stephens. I’m glad I met you.” He touched the back of her hand with his fingertip, briefly, a suddenly intimate gesture—fatherly, or rather grandfatherly. It reminded her of being home again, on the farm at Wolf’s Head. It reminded her of afternoons spent swimming in the springs, of her room at home, of being safe and whole and young. It reminded her suddenly and completely of Gene Merrill, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “I’m all right, really,” she said. “It’s . . . good to have a friend right now. I haven’t had enough friends in my life, I’m starting to think.”

  “I’ll be at the conference until tomorrow,” Jim said. “If you want to talk, or grab another cup of coffee . . . Well, you know where to find me, okay?”

  Leigh felt back in her pocket for the ring Joseph had given her. It was still there, waiting for her to put it on. It was her choice now. A future with Joseph wasn’t one she could slide into out of fear.

  “Whatever else happens, you deserve to be happy, Leigh Merrill,” he said. “Don’t forget it.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “And thanks.”

  Leigh was halfway to the cottage, thinking what she would say when she saw Joseph again, when she realized she wasn’t alo
ne: a man stepped from underneath a tree to walk beside her. “Miss me?” asked an oily voice. She turned around to find Russell Benoit walking at her side.

  “Not really, no.”

  “Oh, sure you have. You just didn’t realize it. I see you’re still keeping yourself busy,” he said, looking back at the picnic table where she’d just been sitting with Jim. “Another Leigh Merrill groupie. Where do you find these guys?”

  “I have to get back. Excuse me.”

  “I think you have time for me. You know what I can do to your life if you don’t.”

  Leigh stopped walking. His cockiness, his attitude—she hated it, she hated him. She was sick of being afraid of him, of worrying about finding him behind every corner or under every tree. She whirled on him. “I don’t know what you think you found in those letters, but you can’t blackmail me. I wasn’t convicted of anything. I’m not scared of you.”

  “I think you are,” Russell said. “You know you can still go to jail for a crime someone else has been convicted of. You still have an awful lot to lose up there in New York. Your fiancé, for instance. Your job. Your nice cushy life.”

  Leigh felt cold.

  “But you can keep it all, too. All you have to do is give me the money your grandfather left. It’s so close, so easy to get. It’s in the First Austin Bank, just downtown. A few minutes of your time. I’ll even wait here for you to come back with it. The whole lot—the full million—and you’ll never hear from me again. One easy transaction.”

  Leigh froze, considering her options. She could give it to him. She’d still have Joseph, her life in New York, her reputation as an editor. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was possible. Other people did it all the time, managing to live without family money propping them up. It might be good for her, even.

  Maybe it would be payment, finally, for what she’d done—killing a man and letting someone else take the fall for it.

  But giving this man—this man, Russell Benoit, the con artist—her grandfather’s money? The thought galled her. He’d done nothing to earn it, nothing other than get lucky finding a couple of letters. Stick it where the sun don’t shine, Gene Merrill would have told him, and Leigh was sorely tempted to say the same. If she was losing the job and Joseph, she’d need that money. She might have to live on it for some time.