Cara Colter Read Free Page B

mission.
    He groaned, sat up, stretched. He saw the can of cola that he had taken precisely one swig from, and wondered how it was possible to feel like he had a hangover. The letter was beside the cola tin. He picked it up.
    Don’t read it again, he ordered himself, and then read it again.

    Dear Adam:

    I asked my lawyer to wait a year before sending this on to you. Tory will need time. We married before we completed university, and she needs to know she can make it on her own.
    But she needs to laugh, too.
    I know how much you loved her.
    And I know she loved you more than me. When she picked me, even though she loved you best, I began to believe in miracles.
    You know, I’ve never stopped.
    She was my angel. And now, if things work the way I think they do, I’m going to be hers.
    This is my last request, Adam, and only you can do it. Go home. Go to her. Make her laugh. Teach her to have fun again. Rollerblade, and ride bikes with two seats, fly kites, sit out on lawn chairs at the lake and watch for the Big Dipper and Orion to come out.
    She was always a little afraid of how you grabbed life with both hands. But she knows a little more about the nature of life, now. She won’t be afraid to take what it offers her.
    You were my best friend, besides her. I know why you stayed away. She was mad at you, and probably still is, but I wasn’t. I’m watching out for you. I promise.

    The letter was signed, simply, love , Mark .
    Every single time he read that letter, Adam felt the same lump of emotion rise in his throat. The last paragraph in particular reminded him with such aching poignancy who Mark had been. Solid. Loyal. Loving. The fact that Mark’s handwriting was wobbly with pain, like the writing of a little old man, always seemed to increase that lump in his throat to damn near grapefruit size.
    “This was not a good way to start the day,” Adam told himself, getting up and putting the letter down.
    But the words stayed.
    I know why you stayed away. Adam wished Mark would have said why. Because he didn’t know himself. A thousand times he had almost come home. A thousand times something had stopped him. And he did not know what that something was.
    Pride. Hurt. Anger. Betrayal.
    He shook his head. Mark seemed to think it was something else. But then Mark could be wrong. Look at that nonsense about Tory loving him, Adam, better.
    When he’d first received the letter he’d known he absolutely could not go to Tory. He had several important trials coming up. Kathleen’s sister was getting married, and he was to be master of ceremonies. He had a 1964 Harley panhead in pieces in a friend’s garage.
    He couldn’t just go traipsing across the country to go Rollerblading, for God’s sake!
    And then he found he couldn’t not go.
    Mark’s last request.
    It kept him awake nights. He read over that blasted letter so often that the paper was wearing thin. You would think the lump in his throat would be getting smaller, but it never did.
    Tory not laughing? How could that be? Tory was laughter.
    Finally, he surrendered. The letter was not going to let him go. If he followed Mark’s instructions precisely, fulfilling his last wish would only involve four things. He could probably be done with it in four days. A week, tops.
    And maybe the mystery in that letter would unravel.
    I know why you stayed away.
    “Great,” Adam muttered, “that makes one of us.”
    He went and showered and dressed. What did one wear Rollerblading? He put on jeans and a white denim shirt. Everybody in Calgary wore jeans, even lawyers.
    He went out the hotel door at quarter to nine. A girl with tired looking eyes, in a worn dress, stood on the corner with a basket of flowers. On impulse he bought them all, and was rewarded with a shy and lovely smile.
    Really, it had nothing to do with romancing Tory, he defended himself as he hailed a cab. If she had one weakness, it was flowers, and he needed to get his foot in the door.
    At first he