Coda Books 06 - Fear, Hope, and Bread Pudding (MM)

like, and yet now, I could feel nothing but pity for her. She was a stranger, and yet in a way, I had more in common with her than with anybody else on the planet. We shared a family—my son, and hers. And maybe soon, a grandchild.
    I could walk away now. I could let this play out the way Cole and Jon and even Grace expected, all of us returning to our lives, or I could try to make things right.
    “That day tour to Salzburg leaves in less than two hours. Just because they’re gone doesn’t mean we can’t go.”
    “I suppose that’s true.” She was still unsure, but she smiled. “I don’t know anything about Salzburg.”
    “It’s where chopped steak comes from. The kind with the horrible brown gravy.”
    She stared at me for a second, confused, considering my words. “You’re teasing.” But the words were almost a question.
    “I am. I think Salisbury is actually in England.”
    “So what’s Salzburg known for?”
    “Mozart, I think. Anyway, that’s why you go on a guided tour. They tell you why you’re supposed to care.”
    She smiled. She was obviously relieved, although I wasn’t completely sure why. “Okay. How long do I have to get ready?”
    “All you need to do is throw on some jeans. And long underwear if you have them. Although not necessarily in that order.”
    She frowned and touched her hair, and I knew she was thinking about putting herself all back together—hair pulled back, makeup on, designer clothes. I didn’t want that. Whether I was being a horny old fool or whether there was something more, I couldn’t have said, but I suddenly felt brave.
    “Leave it down,” I said.
    A slow blush began to spread up her skin. I was a bit embarrassed to admit I noticed it first on the skin that peeked between the folds of her robe’s neckline. It moved up her neck in inelegant splotches, then covered her cheeks.
    It was absurd. I was sixty-three years old. She wasn’t much younger. And yet here I was, making clumsy attempts to flatter her.
    It worked, though. She smiled at me, and I suspected she was thinking the same things. We’re too old for this.
    But what she actually said was, “I will.”

    T HE tour began with a train ride from Munich to Salzburg. There were a dozen other people in our tour group, and although Grace smiled as we introduced ourselves, I could see the cold nonchalance coming back. It was a self-defense mechanism more than anything. We chatted idly with the other Americans in the group. They assumed we were married, and neither of us corrected them. It seemed easier than explaining that we were little more than strangers.
    Two hours later, we arrived in Salzburg, Austria, a tiny town turned tourist trap nestled on the northern boundary of the Alps. It was beautiful. Majestic mountains rose to the south. To the north, rolling plains, covered in snow. Baroque towers and ornate churches filled the older part of town. It felt quaint and ancient, yet charming.
    The first part of the tour was an hour-long orientation to the sites, and then we were cut loose for three hours on our own. It was briskly cold, and although Grace had done better than I expected, she’d obviously packed more for style than for warmth. Our first stop was to buy her a thicker sweater, a hat, and some mittens. Now that it was only the two of us, she was bright and cheery. She exclaimed over the buildings and things in shop windows with childlike wonder, but she never talked of anything personal. Toward the end of our allotted time, we stopped for hot chocolate at a small café.
    “This is nice,” she said. “I had no idea it would be so lovely.”
    “Me neither.”
    “I’ve never done a tour like this.”
    “Really? I was under the impression that Cole’s family traveled a lot?”
    She pursed her lips and flipped her hair to turn away from me. “That was different.”
    “How so?”
    She furrowed her brow and rubbed the tip of her finger over her lips. “Because it’s okay for me to admit that I’d never even heard of Salzburg until Cole gave us the tickets.”
    “And you couldn’t before?”
    “Not with Cole’s father, no.” She waved her hand toward the window, indicating Salzburg and our presence in it. “He would never have stooped to anything so pedestrian as a day tour. He’d find it insulting. Instead, he’d take me places and be annoyed because I didn’t know anything about them.”
    “That doesn’t sound like much fun.”
    She smiled and waved her hand at me,