Page 71 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

She was so focused that she jumped a foot when a knock sounded at her door.

It was Henry, wearing his leather jacket, as if auditioning for a movie role as a dashing war photographer. His hair, like hers, responded to the damp air by curling more wildly, and for a single second, she considered simply flinging the door open and inviting him into her bed.

There might be women brave enough to do that, but she wasn’t one of them. Instead, she raised a hand, like a middle-school girl. “Hi. What’s up?”

“Want to go walk some of those meals off?”

“Man! Do I ever. Let me grab my coat.”

“Layer a sweater under if you have it. It’s cold.”

She found her threadbare cashmere and yanked it on, then her blue hat, her ultra-warm fleece, gloves, and the flowered scarf. “Ready!”

He smiled. “Good.”

Outside, he said, “I know you haven’t read it yet, but I thought I would give you a little Hemingway tour, if you’re open. You seem to like history.”

“A little,” she said with understatement. “It’ll give me context when I do read it.”

“That’s what I thought.” He pulled a woolen cap down over his head, wrapped a thick scarf around his neck, and pulled gloves from his pockets. “It’s a pretty substantial walk, maybe a couple of miles to get to the first group of landmarks. Do you want to take the metro?”

“I’m happy to walk as far as we can. Besides, walking is a good way to see a place, don’t you think?”

“Always.”

Night provided a proper backdrop for twinkling Christmas lights. Shop windows gave glimpses of the goods within. They walked a while without speaking, and for once, Veronica didn’t feel the need to fill every silence. She liked his company, and he made her feel safe, both physically and, she realized with some surprise, emotionally.

“You seem to know Paris quite well,” she said after he directed their turns, this way, then that. “Have you lived here?”

“I did, just a year when I was young. I had a job as an international stringer, and it was a good place to jump off into various hot spots.”

“Like where?”

“A lot. Bosnia, a lot of the Yugoslav conflicts. Afghanistan, always. Algeria.”

“Algeria!” she echoed. “That’s like the setting of a black-and-white movie, the dashing French Foreign Legion soldier in love with the daughter of a noble family.”

He smiled. “Maybe you should write a screenplay.”

“Maybe,” she said without commitment. “Are you still doing that work?”

“No.” His voice was gruff. “Not for a while now.”

She waited.

“Caught in the flood of departures from Afghanistan when the US pulled out. A bomb.”

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It was kind of amazing it hadn’t happened before, frankly.” He pointed to their slight left, where a bridge came into view, the black river glinting below. They walked toward the bridge, and she left the question alone, allowing him to embroider or not.

Eventually he said, “It was mostly a mangled shoulder and a concussion, and some burns, but when I healed, I never recovered the stamina I needed for fieldwork.” He gave her a sad smile. “It’s a young man’s game, honestly.”

“What do you do now? I mean, I know you’re doing this project with Mariah, but what do you generally do?”

“Some commercial work, but most of it is fairly straightforward travel stuff. I have a handful of clients who pay quite well.” He paused, hands tucked in his pockets. “I don’t strictly need to work—I never spent any money for thirty years. I was always on assignment.”

A twinge of envy ran through her. She wanted that for herself, the comfort of savings to create a bulwark against the world. “Nice to have that freedom.”