Page 45 of Nora
She tipped her head to the side in acknowledgment. “You’re welcome. And it was good to see you, too. Take care,” she said, then quickly slipped around the table and walked toward the host. Lucian followed, halting behind her when she stopped to pay the bill and collect her coat. A few minutes later, they were in her car, heading out of the city.
She desperately wanted to go home to Cos Cob rather than back to the training facility. She wanted the comfort of her bed, the peace of her property, and the familiarity of everything that was her life. But they had a killer to catch, and Lucian had a session to run tomorrow. She also had well-checks to perform in the morning.
Leaning her head against the window, she watched the sights of Boston transition to the suburbs, then to rural Massachusetts. And as the miles clicked by, fatigue washed over her. She was tired of dating but tired of being alone, too. Why was it so hard for her to find someone?
“Nora?”
She rolled her head from where she’d been resting it against the window. “Hmm?”
“That wasn’t Emil.”
She let out a little huff of a laugh. “No, it was not. He had business to attend to but was kind enough to meet me at the restaurant to tell me that he was flying to LA tonight.” Yes, she sounded bitter. It wasn’t a common thing for her to feel, much less express, but she was too tired to hold it back.
“His loss,” Lucian said.
A sad smile touched her lips, and she rolled her head back to look out the window.
“The man, Charlie, he seemed interested, though.”
“Charlie and I dated in college. He’s recently divorced and the only thing he’s interested in is trying to revisit the life he had before it fell to shit. Including the two years we were together when we had no responsibilities and were ruled by hormones. He’s not interested in me, he’s interested in that life we used to have.”
Several miles passed before Lucian spoke again. “I’m sorry,” was all he said.
She shrugged. “Me, too. Maybe I’ll adopt a baby and become a crazy cat lady.”
“You want kids?”
She nodded. “I always have. I figured I’d meet someone at some point in my life who I wanted to have them with, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me.”
“You’re still young,” he pointed out.
“I’m thirty-nine next week, Lucian. Not that young.” She paused, then asked, “You’ve had some major curveballs thrown at you, so maybe this isn’t a good question, but do you ever look at your life and realize it’s not what you’d thought it would be? I know that sounds stupid. Life happens in ways we can’t predict, especially when we’re younger. But there are some fundamentals that I don’t have that I was so certain I would.”
Lucian acknowledged her statement with a small nod. “My life is definitely not what I thought it would be. Aside from Alessandra’s murder, there was everything that happened with AISE. If you’d asked me fifteen years ago where I’d be, I would have said with AISE. I would have still been married. Not sure about children. Alessandra didn’t want them.”
Maybe it was the late hour or the dark of the car, but whatever it was, it gave her the courage to ask her next question. “Will you tell me about her?” She hadn’t known Alessandra at all. They’d met once, at some dinner affair, but hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to each other. She knew Lucian’s family shied away from talking about her. But Nora had never been sure if that was becausetheychose to not talk about her or if Lucian had made it clearhedidn’t wish to speak about her.
Several minutes passed, and she was about to tell him he needn’t answer when he started speaking. “She was tough,” he said with a fond smile. “She knew what she wanted, and she went after it. Including me. She was great with the dogs. She had a talent I’ve never seen since. She liked to cook, but not entertain. She was slow to smile but had a beautiful one when she did. She didn’t care that she’d married into the Salvitto family. She just cared about her dogs and me. Probably in that order.”
“How did you meet?”
Again, he smiled. “In a café of all places. She was meeting her sister, but her sister never showed up. I happened to be sitting next to her. We struck up a conversation, and everything sort of went from there. We spent the rest of the afternoon and long into the night talking, walking, eating, and debating. There was nothing Alessandra liked more than a good debate.”
His voice fell quiet with his last words, and Nora almost regretted asking. Her mother had died when she was seven, and her father had always insisted that they not forget her. They didn’t dwell on her memory, but she, her brothers, and her father kept it alive. They talked about her laugh and the crazy things she liked doing. She’d been an unconventional woman—a painter and poet—who had swept her father off his feet. He’d never remarried but was always grateful for the years he’d had with his wife and the mother of their four children. Talking about the dead was more natural to Nora than not, but that didn’t mean it was like that for Lucian.
“I’m sorry if that was painful,” she said. “You don’t need to say anymore.” A chill washed over her skin, and she shivered. Reaching over to turn the heat up, her hand brushed against Lucian’s, who must have been doing the same.
“You’re cold,” he said, turning the temperature up a few degrees.
“A little,” she acknowledged, accepting that the conversation was likely at an end. It was probably for the best. She didn’t take Lucian’s confidence lightly, but she did have a murderer to catch.
“I don’t know if we would have made it,” Lucian said quietly. The admission seemed torn from his lips, but the minute he said it, his shoulders relaxed. As if the thought had been weighing him down.
“Why do you think that?” she asked.
He hesitated. She wouldn’t push him on this. If he wanted to drop it and ask her to forget he ever said a word, she would. But he didn’t. “I don’t know. And maybe it’s not worth thinking about? Sometimes, I remember the debates we had, and how particular she could be, and how she treated people. She wasn’t unkind, but she wasn’t one to welcome others into her life. And I wonder if it would have become tiring. It was exciting and exhilarating and fun when I was younger. But now? Now it sounds exhausting.”
Nora considered his words very carefully. She didn’t doubt he’d loved his wife. And contrary to his opinion, she suspected that had Alessandra not been killed, theywouldstill be together. Couples evolved and changed. Alessandra and Lucian likely would have as well.
