Free Within Reach by Barbara Delinsky

town house, which, in keeping with its structure, had been decorated in a more classical style. Here, newly installed skylights illumined modular sofa clusters, low swirling coffee tables, custom-made wall units. The feeling was one of openness and lack of clutter and was precisely what Danica had wanted.
    Blake returned from the bedroom to wander around the living room. He didn’t touch anything, simply wandered.
    She rubbed her hands together. “What would you like to do?”
    He shrugged and looked toward the deck. “Walk out there.”
    He stood on the deck for no less than ten minutes, staring in the direction of the waves. When Danica had grown tired of waiting, she came to stand several feet from him. “Pretty, isn’t it,” she offered with a smile, hoping to get him talking. She hated the lengthy silences that so often existed between them, because she could never tell what he was thinking. His face was always composed, his manner as unruffled as his hair. But she knew that he felt , that he thought . What she didn’t know was why he couldn’t share those thoughts and feelings with her.
    This day, this setting, apparently was going to make no difference. He simply nodded.
    “It’s been interesting watching the changes since I’ve been here,” she went on, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible when in fact she was forcing conversation. Normally she would have been perfectly happy just to quietly appreciate the scene. Somehow now, beside Blake, she felt impelled to chatter. “When I came up in March, it was really cold. The ocean was a mass of whitecaps. You couldn’t smell much of anything because your nose was frozen. Then last month it was warmer. The air was moist and the wind didn’t bowl you over.” She inhaled deeply. “This is nice, though. May. You can smell the beach grass, feel the sun.” Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes and basked, momentarily forgetting Blake’s presence until he made it known.
    “You said something about wanting to pick up paintings?”
    Righting her head, she looked at him. “By local artists. Maybe a sculpture or two, also.”
    “Why don’t we go now? I want to explore the streets and plot out a route to run.”
    “You’re going to run up here? I kind of thought you’d take a break from all that.” When he shook his head, she felt another tiny bit of hope die. “I suppose it would be nice for you to run along the shore,” she rationalized, then sighed and forced a smile. “I’ll get my purse.”
    They spent the next few hours idling through shops, looking unsuccessfully for artwork, then lunching at Cape Porpoise, buying groceries at the market, driving round and about the local streets while Blake calculated the best eight-mile route for him to run. In theory, it was an easygoing afternoon, just the two of them doing things together as Danica had dreamed.
    In fact, it was a letdown.
    To Danica, who was ever watchful, Blake seemed uncomfortable. It was as though he felt out of place, which she couldn’t understand since Kennebunkport was sophisticated, certainly enough to satisfy his tastes. But he kept looking around, restless, as if waiting for someone to talk to. Evidently Danica wasn’t that someone, for he seemed disinclined to carry on more than the most superficial conversation with her.
    Between her watchfulness and those attempts at conversation, she felt drained by the time they returned to the house. Once there, things were no better. Blake wandered around like a lost soul, looking more frustrated than pensive, more awkward than unsure. She was half relieved when he disappeared into the den with the briefcase he had smuggled into the house. When she peeked in on him an hour later, he was talking on the phone and looking happy for the first time all day.
    Busying herself in the kitchen, Danica studied the cookbooks she had brought, then painstakingly prepared a meal she felt sure would impress him. Indeed, he complimented her when he