The Invitation Read Free

about?”
    â€œI guess that would have to be adding a wing to the hospital in Denver. I sent the money anonymously.”
    â€œOh, my,” she said, remembering how rich the Montgomerys were.
    â€œAnd you?”
    Jackie began to laugh. “Charley and I had been married for about four years, and with Charley you never stayed in one place long enough to learn your neighbors’ names, much less put down roots. But that year we had rented a small house that had a very nice kitchen in it, and I decided to cook him a marvelous Thanksgiving dinner. I talked about nothing else but that dinner for two weeks. I planned and shopped, and on Thanksgiving Day I got up at four A.M. and got the turkey ready. Charley left the house about noon, but he promised he’d be back by five when everything would be ready to serve. He was going to bring some of the other pilots from the airfield, and it was going to be a party. Five o’clock came and there was no Charley. Six came and went, then seven. At midnight I fell asleep, but I was so angry that I slept in a rigid knot. The next morning there was Charley, snoring away on the sofa, and there was my beautiful Thanksgiving dinner in ruins. You know what I did?”
    â€œI’m surprised Charley lived after that.”
    â€œI shouldn’t have let him live, but I figured the worst thing I could do was not let him have any of my dinner. I bundled everything up in burlap bags, went to the airfield, took up Charley’s plane and flew into the mountains—we were in West Virginia then, so it was the Smokies—where I saw a dilapidated old shack perched on the side of a hill, a measly little trickle of smoke coming out of the chimney. I dropped the bags practically on the front porch.”
    She pulled her knees up to her chest and sighed. “Until now I never told anyone about that. Later I heard that the family said an angel had dropped food from heaven.”
    He had the fire going now, and he smiled at her over it. “I like that story. What did Charley say when he got no turkey?”
    She shrugged. “Charley was happy if he had turkey and happy if he had beans. When it came to food, Charley was into quantity, not quality.” She looked up at him. “What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you?”
    William answered without thinking. “Being born rich.”
    Jackie gave a low whistle. “You’d think that was the best thing that had happened to you.”
    â€œIt is. It’s the best and the worst.”
    â€œI think I can see that.” She was thinking about this as William poured water from a canteen onto a handkerchief and, with his hand cupping her chin, began to clean the wound on the side of her head.
    â€œWhat’s your deepest, darkest secret, something that you’ve never told anyone?” he asked.
    â€œIt wouldn’t be a secret if I told.”
    â€œDo you think I’d tell anyone?”
    She turned her head and looked up at him, at the shadows the firelight cast across his handsome face: dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, that long Montgomery nose. Maybe it was the unusual circumstances, the dark night surrounding them, the fire at the center, but she felt close to him. “I kissed another man while I was married to Charley,” she whispered.
    â€œThat’s all?”
    â€œThat’s pretty bad in my book. What about you?”
    â€œI backed out on a contract.”
    â€œWas that really bad? If you changed your mind…”
    â€œIt was a breach of promise, and she thought it was very bad.”
    â€œAh, I see,” Jackie said, smiling as she wrapped her arms around her knees. “What’s your favorite food?”
    â€œIce cream.”
    She laughed. “Mine too. Favorite color.”
    â€œBlue. Yours?”
    She looked up at him. “Blue.”
    He came to sit by her, dusting off his hands. When Jackie shivered in the cool mountain air, he