CAITLIN FELT AS THOUGH she were trapped in a surreal romantic comedy, or even a farcical one. Penn had driven her down Canal Street, then turned onto Broadway and parked just past the head of Silver Street, where tourists often stopped to gaze over the Mississippi River before driving down to the Natchez Under-the-Hill district. Penn’s city car smelled stale, and it nauseated her. She looked to her left, at Edelweiss, which had been her favorite house since she’d first visited Natchez seven years earlier. In a city filled with Greek Revival mansions, the three-story chalet with its wraparound gallery on the second floor seemed to float above the bluff like a clean-lined ship. The mere sight of it usually lifted her mood, and tonight was no exception. Owned by an elderly woman in a nursing home, the 1883 gem had been falling into disrepair for years. Only recently had some mystery buyer begun restoring it to its former splendor.
“What are we doing here?” Caitlin asked, perplexed to be parked in the dark.
“I want to show you something down on the river,” Penn said.
“At night? That’s my surprise?”
“Mm-hm.”
She could tell he was suppressing a smile. “Well, why don’t you drive down Silver Street?”
“You have to be up here to see it. Let’s get out.”
He opened the driver’s door of the smelly car. With a tired groan, Caitlin got out and started toward the fence at the edge of the bluff.
“No, over here,” Penn said, walking halfway across the street and beckoning to her. “Let’s go up on the porch of Edelweiss. It’s a lot higher up.”
“Are you sure the house is empty? Somebody bought it, didn’t they?”
“I don’t think the restoration’s finished. Come on.”
She crossed the street and followed him up one of the twin staircases to the broad gallery of the chalet. The cold wind racing up the face of the bluff cut mercilessly through her clothes. Penn went to the rail and looked westward, toward Louisiana. She stood shivering beside him, gazing out over the distant lights, trying to guess where in that dark landscape Brody Royal’s house had stood. From here you could see more than ten miles of the Mississippi River during the day, but all she could think about now was the Jericho Hole, the burned-out ruins of the Concordia Beacon, and the hospital where Henry had died.
“Some view, isn’t it?” Penn said. “Even at night.”
She lowered her gaze a little. Two strings of barges were making their way along the river in a delicate ballet of drifts and pauses. The twin bridges blazed with light, and Highway 84 twinkled like a line of Christmas lights fading into the distance.
“Yes, but it’s the one I’m used to. What am I supposed to be looking for?”
Penn shrugged. “What are you looking for?”
She pulled her coat tighter and tried to keep her face calm. Had he brought her up here to interrogate her? Did he have some idea that she’d seen Tom? “What are you asking me?”
“Take it easy. Nothing weird. We’ve just been in full-on panic mode since Monday morning. After the insanity of last night, I felt like we needed to remember what our lives are really about. Because tomorrow the craziness is going to start all over again.”
He took her hand and squeezed, and after a couple of seconds, she squeezed back. But one phrase replayed in her mind: what our lives are really about. Though she would never voice the thought, it was during tumultuous times like these that Caitlin felt most alive. What they had endured last night might be terrible from an objective point of view, but she had spent much of her life dreaming about working on stories like the Double Eagle murders, and she wasn’t sure she would undo that suffering even if she could. Penn was different. While trying capital cases in Texas, he’d experienced triumphs and losses she couldn’t begin to match, yet he’d walked away from that life and never looked back, except to analyze some of his experiences in the novels he’d written later.
With a start Caitlin realized Penn was no longer gazing at the river, but at her. She reined in her thoughts and looked back at him.
“Have you ever found out who’s restoring this place?” she asked.
He smiled. “I have.”
“Is it some actor, like the rumors say? I’ve heard everybody from Morgan Freeman to John Grisham.”
Penn laughed. “No. Morgan Freeman’s staying up in the delta, and Grisham’s still in Charlottesville, Virginia.”
“Just so long as it’s not some out-of-towner who’ll stay for a year and then bail. Although, come to think of it, that might not be bad. We could get it for a steal.”
“We’ll never get this place for a steal. But then again, we don’t have to.”
“What do you mean?”
“We already own it.”
A strange numbness came over her as she tried to figure out whether he was joking. “Penn . . . ?”
“I’m serious,” he said, his eyes shining. “This house is your wedding present. I guess now we’ll call it your Christmas present.”
As Caitlin looked back into his face, a hundred little clues and inconsistencies from the past months suddenly fell into place. Disbelief turned to an effervescent bubble of excitement in her chest. She’d thought herself beyond clichéd romantic reactions, but the bubble pressing upward in her chest broke into a thousand tiny ones, and she felt wetness in her eyes.
“You do remember we were supposed to be getting married next week, right?” Penn asked.
“Oh, I remember.” She smiled broadly. “You’re a better liar than I thought.”
“Well, give me a damn hug or something!”
She wrapped her arms tight around him, but even as she did, the reality of all that had been lost during the past few days crashed down on her. She’d held back so much from him that she couldn’t even begin to explain her feelings. For one thing, he didn’t even know she was pregnant. Talk about being a good liar. Worse, she’d just spent an hour with his father and said nothing about it. The trickle of tears on her face became a stream, and she buried her face in his chest.
“Hey,” he said, squeezing her gently. “Are you okay?”
Caitlin nodded but said nothing. She was standing on the gallery of her dream house, yet she felt miserable.
“Caitlin?” he murmured into her ear. “What’s going on?”
She shook her head against his chest, wondering, How did I get here?
“Talk to me,” Penn said, separating them enough for him to see her eyes, which had probably become the usual raccoon mask of running mascara.
“Are we really going to live here?” she asked.
“Of course we are.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“It’s just everything that’s happened. That’s why I wanted to show it to you. To show you we’re going to get past all this. That normal life is waiting for us.”