Chapter 1

The falling snowflakes of late December dissolved into tiny speckles of water as they kissed the glass of the swiftly moving train, their pattern exquisitely random and as captivating as exalted masterpieces of art. Kate reclined alone in a foursome of seats, her booted feet propped up against the edge of the one facing her, her eyes weary from shifting between the pages of the book in her lap and the landscape, blanketed in hues of grey and white, zipping past her window.

Her randomly chosen train car was, thus far, a quiet one, the post-Christmas travel bustle not yet in full swing, and her journey of nearly twenty hours still in its infancy. She already felt somewhat anxious about it, the event that awaited her at the end of the line, someone else's joyful day, someone who was once hers but whom she now, in all honesty, barely knew as anything more than a collection of photographs and mundane shared on a website designed for people to remain in touch, which they rarely did. The invitation had been a complete surprise, as had been her decision to attend, given the way things between them had come to an end, but New Year's resolutions being what they were, there she found herself, chugging towards the Windy City.

Another announcement hissed from the train's overhead speakers, its muffled message all but lost to the rumble of the metal wheels against the track beneath them, and within moments, they began to slow on approach to their fourth station stop. Kate had been keeping involuntary count, a habit she'd picked up as a child from her mother, who'd always tried to inject some fun into even the most mundane of things. Nineteen stops in all would find her in at her trip's end, a city she knew well from childhood visits and from three years spent in law school at the University of Chicago, one of the very reasons for her attendance at the impending nuptials as a guest, rather than as the bride-to-be.

The train came to a stop and the doors at either end of the car pushed open, the bitter cold air instantly whooshing down the center aisle as though desperate to climb into the warmth to escape its own unrelenting power. Kate's hair fell from behind her ear and she settled it back where it belonged, her eyes on the dark skies of Albany beyond the window. It was the sound of his exhale of relief that drew her attention, his body dropping into the seat diagonal to hers with a grateful smile.

"Hi," he said simply, both a pleasantry and an acknowledgment of their newly shared space. His skin blazed the pink of cold beneath the days absent a razor, and the wind had dried the shine from his lips. He tugged the wool cap from his head and his hair tumbled in release across his forehead, its time beneath the shield from winter air rendering it charmingly graceless. "How do you like it?" he asked, tucking the hat into the front flap of his messenger bag and settling the unruly strands above his ears.

"Oh, I-"

"The book, I meant, not my hair," he said, quickly jumping back in to clarify. "I already know how fabulous that must look," he added with winsome self-deprecation.

Kate smiled feeling the warm blush in her cheeks as she caught herself eyeing him for longer than what might be considered polite. "I've just started it, really, but it's all right so far," she answered, tracing its cover unknowingly with her fingertip, when the truth was she'd hardly been able to absorb a word of it, at least not enough to engage in any sort of intelligent conversation as to its quality. Between her doubts about making the trip in the first place and the allure of the passing scenery, her concentration was definitely at a minimum.

"High praise, indeed," he quipped. "I never seem to be able to read on trains, myself. I always intend to, but I'm too easily distracted by the romanticism of it all, I guess. There's just something about traveling this way that gets me every time." They began to move once again, the city lights glistening like stars in the water droplets on the windows. "I'm Rick, by the way," he said, leaning in and extending a hand.

"Kate," she said, his fingers cold around the warm of her own. "I like trains, too, ever since I was a kid; now, mostly because they can't plummet to the ground from 37,000 feet."

"Well, there is that. But also that whole romanticism thing I mentioned," he said with a wink in his voice. "Bad experience flying?"

"I'm just going to say yes and leave it at that, because I'll embarrass myself, otherwise," Kate said.

He squinted his eyes and nodded as though deep in thought. "Intriguing, indeed. I might be able to do something with that." Kate looked back at him with confusion. "Oh, sorry, I teach creative writing at SUNY. I'm always plucking ideas from people's lives for my students. It's my quirky habit."

It felt right to her, somehow, that he was a writer, not that the craft carried with it any particular look or sound, but it did seem to fit his aspect, at least in her first impression. "So, there's just one then?" she asked playfully.

"You ask as though you don't believe, Kate, and here we've just met. It usually takes people the better part of an hour to realize how delightfully peculiar I am." He leaned back in his seat and propped his feet up along the top of his bag.

"Maybe I'm just that good at reading people," she said, adding a shrug. "Occupational hazard."

"Psychic?"

She released a tiny burst of laughter. "Prosecutor," she told him with a definitive air of pride.

"Better," he enthused. "And now I promise I'll be on my best behavior all the way to…"

"The end of the line for me," Kate said. "Chicago."

Rick crossed one ankle over the other and settled deeper into his seat. "What a small, kind world," he replied. "Me, too."

xxxx

He wasn't like Will, her groom not-to-be. Even in the short time she'd spent with him, Kate already found herself contrasting the two men in her head, the most ridiculous part of that being she had no idea if he was even available, and if he was, what that fact had at all to do with her. She'd always felt a pull towards harder men, men who exuded intensity and who rarely asked her for anything, but something inside her was curious, drawn, or, quite possibly, just being sucked into the fantasy born of a thousand books and films, the one where complete strangers met by happenstance and realized the universe had somehow succeeded in orchestrating the greatest love story ever told.

Rick excused himself to the lounge to buy a snack after the last station stop, and the moment he walked away, she felt anxious for his return. They'd talked for the better part of two hours, something she wasn't accustomed to doing outside of work, and his voice seemed to soothe her. Staring out at the black of night around her in wait, she noted a palpable pang of envy for his students, blessed with the opportunity to experience it in his class every day.

"So, I know you said you didn't want anything, but your eyes told me different, so I brought you some hot chocolate and an oatmeal cookie the size of my head. I hope that's okay," Rick said, plopping back into his seat with his hands full of goodies. "I got a disapproving look from a grandma when she saw this stuff, but I'm pretty sure she was just jealous because it was all to be shared with another."

Kate smiled and relieved him of one of the paper cups. "Breaking hearts one train car at a time, huh?"

"Well, she'll miss me, but I know we'll still be friends," he joked, passing her the enormous cookie. "I told you it was big. Good thing we still have twelve hours on this thing or you'd never be able to finish it."

"So, I guess my eyes must've been starving," she said. "Who knew?" She peeled back the plastic flap on her lid and took a sip. "Thank you for this. It's good, actually."

"They say the eyes are the window, after all, and, if I may say so, a beautiful one, in this case. They have this little dance going on, the greens and the browns," he told her, his words fading into silence while his gaze held steady. "But, um, yeah," he sputtered as though caught looking a bit too long, "it is pretty good for train fare." They sat quietly for the next few moments, each enjoying the warmth of the cups in their hands and the calming motion of the train. "So, if it's not too personal a question, may I ask why a prosecutor?" he asked finally, tearing open a bag of trail mix.

"No, it's not...I mean, it's fine," Kate replied, her finger methodically circling the curved edge of her cup. "My, um, my mom died of cancer when I was eight, and I was just so young, I couldn't understand it. My dad told me I used to talk about how unfair it was all the time. He said that was the word I always used, unfair." She stopped briefly, lost in thought. "Anyway, I kept trying to find answers, reasons where there were none, and I got this silly idea in my head, as kids do, that if I became a cop, if I had the skills and the resources cops had, one day I'd be able to solve the big mystery and explain why. So, that's what I did. I finished school in New York, mostly because my dad told me I had to, and I joined the force."

"You were in the NYPD?" Rick said, more dazzled than surprised.

"I was. It was all I could ever remember wanting to do, and I loved it." Her face changed then, before she made the decision to continue, before she said anything more. "And then one morning, a week past the first anniversary of my graduation from the academy, my partner and I answered a call for backup on a 10-30, a robbery, and he was shot and killed out on the sidewalk on 32nd Street."

The ache in her words hit him like a ton of bricks. "God, Kate, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that happened," he said, knowing well nothing he could offer would help, but wanting desperately to comfort.

"The shooter took a deal and testified against his partner, ended up serving next to no time. After that, something for me just changed." She paused and turned her eyes to the window, and Rick let her have the moment. "If I had to live with seeing his face in my head day after day after day, I wanted them to have to see me, too, to have to remember the face of the person that put them away. So, I went back to school, got my law degree and started with the DA's office." She swallowed down another sip of hot chocolate and looked back at him. "So, can you do something with that, too, professor?" she said more lightly than he expected, given the weight of what she'd shared.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he told her. "That's already a perfect story. Thank you for sharing it with me. I can't imagine that was easy to do."

"No, it wasn't, but the kind audience helped. Plus, you did buy me this cookie, if that's what they insist upon calling it, so I figured I owed you," she said. "And, for some reason, I wanted to. I'm not sure exactly why because I've had sneezing fits longer than I've known you, but I did."

Rick thanked her again with tenderness in his eyes. "This trail mix kind of tastes like cardboard," he said matter-of-factly, apropos of nothing. "Care to make a trade?" He waggled his eyebrows wantingly at her cookie.

Kate shook her head in silent rejection and began peeling at its plastic wrapping in taunt. "How about you tell me, if it's not too personal, of course, why you're on this train to Chicago, and then maybe I'll consider sharing it with you."

Without a second's hesitation, like a child bribed with a piece of candy, Rick sat forward and began talking. "Well, there are a couple of reasons why I'm on this train, counselor, one of them uncomplicated and the other not so much." Kate felt immediately intrigued, her journey likewise complex. "The first, the simple one, is that I'm going to meet with an editor about a book I've written. It's a friend of a colleague and they graciously set it up for me, so while I have the time over holiday break, I figured why not."

"That's great, Rick, congratulations," she said.

"Yeah, we'll see," he replied modestly. "Proust, I'm not, but…"

"Oh, so if I ever get to read it, I might actually be able to understand it, then," Kate wisecracked. "That's good."

Rick chuckled. "Cute, very cute. Now, get ready to break a nice piece off of that bad boy," he said, pointing at her hand, "because I've nearly met my end of the deal." Kate grinned and dropped a piece of the cookie into her mouth, chewing it with exaggerated delight as he looked on. "You're a cruel woman, you know that?"

"Better hurry up and finish your story, or this thing's going to be gone," she replied impishly.

He pushed back into his seat before continuing, what was still to come obviously heavy in his mind. "I'm also going to visit with my father, whom I haven't seen in thirty-five years, hence the not so uncomplicated." Without a word, Kate reached over and handed him half of the cookie, which he accepted with thanks. "He found me through the university and called me out of the blue just before Thanksgiving. He was in New York, but I wasn't ready to jump into anything without some time to think about it."

"And you're ready now?" she asked him.

"Honestly, Kate, I'm not entirely sure I'll ever be ready for it, but I know I wouldn't forgive myself if something was to happen and I never, at least, tried. I was very young when he left, like you were when you lost your mother, and even though it was just my mom and me after that, she never let me live a day thinking I was missing out on something. But, there is a part of me, now that I'm older, that hungers for explanation. I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with the fact that I create fantasy worlds for a living. It's almost too easy," he said, finally taking a breath and a bite. "Wow, okay, this tastes so much better than cardboard."

"So it was worth it then, hmm?" Kate asked, keeping things light, sensing it might be what he needed.

"This decision has already been well worth it," Rick said warmly, his eyes conveying the intended sentiment.

Kate felt her skin flush with his words. "Yeah," she echoed, unaccustomed to the titillation born of such ease with a man so new to her, but allowing it to take hold of her, nonetheless, despite its novelty. "I know what you mean."