Playing for Love at Deep Haven Read Free

her coffee and newspaper, tilting her head to the side and smiling at him.
His hand was on the doorknob and his freshly shaved face managed to look
youthful and shrewd at once, his cerulean eyes set off by a crisp blue oxford
and Vineyard Vines tie. “Hmm?”
    “I was thinking
we should make things official. You and me. I was thinking we should …”
    Her heart raced
from peaceful plodding to a gallop and the sudden impact took her breath away,
making her gasp. The newspaper fell to the table in a soft rustle. She fought
the insane urge to run back to the bedroom, throw the covers over her head and
act like he hadn’t spoken. She reached up with one hand to straighten the
Coke-bottle-thick, black-rimmed glasses she wore every morning before putting
in her contacts, then rested her hands on her flushed cheeks.
      She had simultaneously dreamed of and dreaded
this moment ever since they graduated from Yale together six years ago. In her
dreams, she was wearing a cocktail dress, sporting a perfect manicure, and had a
heart overflowing with love only for
Shepherd Smalley. She pulled her threadbare bathrobe around her body as she
took in her unmanicured hands, the nails chewed down
to unattractive nubs. And her heart . . . her heart raced, thumping
uncomfortably in acknowledgment of its deceit, hating that someone else still
took up a large chunk of real estate there. She balled her hands in her lap and
looked up to catch his eyes, feeling overwhelmed and slightly nauseous.
    “We should . . .
?” She gulped, unable to finish the sentence, overwhelmed by panic and guilt.
    His glance dropped
to her fisted hands, then to the neckline of her ancient bathrobe before
returning to her face. He winked at her, looking boyishly sheepish. “No, Vi,
you’re right. This isn’t the right way, is it? I can do better than this.
Somewhere special with candlelight and…”
    His voice
tapered off and he turned toward the door and lingered for a moment in thought,
fingering the pocket of his suit jacket. She didn’t say anything. Not a word.
She stared at him as he looked back at her and winked again before closing the
door behind him.
    We should . . . ?
    Those were the
last words he would ever hear from her lips. They haunted her.
    We should . . . ?
    A million times
since his death, she’d finished the sentence for herself. Mostly, remembering Shep’s laughing blue eyes and easy manners, she’d finish it
like this: We should go back to bed where
we’re safe. Where no teenagers late for school are driving and texting while you
innocently walk to the law office where you’re the brightest and youngest
partner. Where the diamond ring you’re holding in your suit jacket pocket
doesn’t get knocked into the park across the street from the impact of the car.
The car. On your beautiful body.
    Since his death,
Violet indulged an idealized version of Shep , casting
their imperfect relationship in the hazy half-light of perfection—the best
moments and good times taking precedence over the rest. Sepia memories of Shep , who’d rescued her broken heart in college, who’d loved
her more than she deserved to be loved. She remembered them as happy together.
She remembered herself happy with him.
    But there were
rare moments—dark, agonizing times when her brain overrode her attempts to
whitewash the truth, even in the midst of her grief. In those hated moments,
the bright, unforgiving glare of truth replaced Shep’s affable blue eyes with turbulent dark gray, shrouded by long, thick, chestnut
brown lashes. She’d grapple to hold on to Shep’s face—so
comforting and genteel—as it was eclipsed by another visage: brooding, serious,
intense. And the way she finished the sentence would inevitably change: We should never have stayed together for so
long, Shep . Not when someone else still owned half of
my soul and refused to vacate my heart, despite my bitterness, in the face of
my contempt, regardless of my efforts to forget him and accept