Free The Edge of the Gulf by Hadley Hury Page A

another ice cube for her drink, Sydney realized that until she had read the letter for the first time, that evening three months ago, she had actually been allowing herself to toy with the notion that her life was sufficient. That a handsome man who adored her and sizeable bucks and a house on a leafy street in Peachtree Battle were enough. Halfway through the letter, however, she realized that she had, uncharacteristically, been fooling herself, and Sydney did not suffer fools kindly, especially when the foolishness was her own. And so, less than five minutes later when she had handed the letter back across the table to him, she was back on track, in a whole new world of possibility, one that she recognized as truly worth her aspirations, effort, and skill. She had lifted her glass and smiled until he returned the toast, and she had spoken in a subdued but encouraging tone.
    “You should go down and visit him, shouldn’t you?”
    And later, as the Porsche had swept through the pristine, fragrant air of Atlanta in early spring, around the curve past St. Philip’s Cathedral, she had said, “And, in answer to your charmingly persistent question of these last several months, I
am
ready to marry you now. I had been thinking late summer, but now, I think, the sooner the better.” She reached over and he gave her his hand. She held it tightly, and as they turned into Peachtree Hills, she laid her head back.
    He needed her.
    Despite the intermittent slashes of discreetly pale streetlight through the barely leafing tree branches overhead, the face that he saw was, as usual, radiant, constant, and sure.
    ***
    Sydney paced and sipped the last of her scotch, and waited for her knight errant to return. It seemed reasonable to assume that before they slept that night she would know more about how she should help, take charge. Organize possibilities. Her questions were ready, as were a subsequent array of responses and next-step options. She was prepared, she imagined, for anything Chaz might say and, of course, she was perfectly prepared to interpret
how
he said it. She had never intended to be in a position in which she would have so much riding on him. She loved him, she knew, and she loved his ravishing, slightly dissipated good looks, his sexiness, the way his desire for and trust in her shone from his eyes unguardedly, but she had never been blind to his weaknesses. But she drew courage and a quiet excitement from knowing that she had never once in her life taken an uncalculated risk. Although not perhaps in the way he had once said, Chaz’s father had been right about one thing:
He’ll be fine.
    She would see to it.

Chapter 11
    Charlie brought the drinks out onto the upper gallery, following Hudson’s gaze toward the sunset, southwest over the Gulf.
    “It’s yours in a way, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question. He handed Hudson his drink. “That’s how
I’ve
always felt.”
    “I guess you’re right. I never articulated it that way but, yes, you’re absolutely right. Just like people have their own river or lake or pond. This is
our
ocean.”
    “Well, for you Memphis folks, it really is. The Mississippi River feeds it, connects you to it.” He gestured over the railing of the gallery. “Your blood’s out there.”
    Hudson smiled. They had been having parts of this conversation for many years. He had always known that one reason Charlie took a shine to him was that he’d recognized Hudson’s passion for the Gulf. “Well, you grew up on the Ohio, which leads
into
the Mississippi.”
    “Not the same. We seemed a little more removed in Louisville. When I was a boy we vacationed in Virginia, where both my parents had family, usually the mountains. Once or twice the beach, such as it is, Virginia Beach. Didn’t know what real sand was till I got down here in the Navy. The Gulf and I adopted each other.”
    “Forty years?”
    “Forty. My God.” He squinted into the sunset, sipping his drink. Standing straight,