Time Out of Mind by John R. Maxim Page B

not?”
    “ The job, right?” Corbin dropped his eyes. “You're re ally thinking about taking it?”
    “ I'd be a full producer. Of course I'm thinking about it.”
    ” I do want to marry you, sweetheart.”
    “ But?”
    ” I still need some time.”
    “ Perhaps you need some time by yourself.”
    “ Maybe. Maybe I do.”
    Corbin didn't mean that the way Gwen heard it. What he meant was that if he could be alone for a while, ,just a while within himself and with no distractions, the ghosts might take another step or two out of the shadows. He'd either know who they were, or he'd know they weren't real. What Gwen heard was, I care about you, but not quite as much as you'd like me to. And I'm not sure I need you.
    “ I'll miss you, Jonathan.” Gwen was gone a week later.
    By the second week after that, Corbin realized he'd made a disastrous mistake. So great was his sense of loss that it crowded out both his angel and his devil. They did not come further out. They were gone entirely. He called Gwen every day on the network WATS line and again most eve nings to say goodnight. He flew in for weekends with her as often as he could. Gwen remained loving and caring but a touch more guarded than before.
    Suddenly, in mid-August, another job opened at network headquarters. Ben Tyler, the senior producer for sports programming, had suffered a massive heart attack while play ing tennis in the Hamptons. Doctors gave him a better-than-even chance for survival but almost no chance of returning full time for at least a year. The network asked Corbin to fill in, beginning immediately. He leaped at the opportunity. Gwen pretended to be surprised when he called her with the news. But his new boss, Bill Stafford, had already told him how hard Gwen had pushed for him.
    He moved to New York over Labor Day weekend. The network needed him there in time for the fall football sea son. Gwen flew to Chicago to help him pack. They made love on the floor among cardboard boxes after Corbin told her what an ass he'd been and thanked her for being so patient with him.
    “ Was it...Is it another woman, Jonathan?”
    Corbin shook his head and kissed her.
    “ If it is, Jonathan, I want to know. I'll try to give you room to work it out but I won't be made a fool of.”
    “ There is no other woman.” He looked into her eyes. “There's never been another woman.” It was not exactly a lie.
    After Corbin’s first weeks in New York, he allowed him self to believe that he was winning. The woman with the gold-flecked eyes and the man in black had retreated to their dark corners. He was too busy to think about them. The job was going even better than he'd hoped. He had moved into Gwen's apartment in the East Seventies but only, she insisted, until he could find a proper place of his own. One breakup was enough, thank you. Their feelings had some more settling to do before they decided on any longer-term arrangements.
    Meanwhile, Corbin and Gwen, who saw little of each other during their business days, were spending virtually all their free time together. Most evenings and weekends they'd spend hunting down apartments and negotiating bribes with rental agents. Otherwise they'd shop, explore restaurants and museums, see Broadway shows and caba rets, happily sampling all the pleasures of the city in au tumn. In late October, on a Thursday, Corbin placed a deposit on a one-bedroom in a high-rise near the East River just above the Queensboro Bridge. It would be available in three weeks' time. Wouldn't it be fun, Gwen suggested, to celebrate by getting out of the city for the weekend? The leaves up in Connecticut were just at their peak of color and she knew of a lovely old inn in Greenwich that was easily reached by a New Haven Railroad train and taxi. The inn was called the Homestead. It was a marvelous old Victorian house, she told him, formerly a private estate bearing the same name, and totally restored with genuine period furnishings. Which gave her