by Sandra Brown
“Why didn’t you tell me last night who you were?”
Ignoring his question, she said, “As you can see, I’m very busy this morning. I have patients waiting. If there’s something you wish to discuss with me, please make an appointment with my receptionist.”
“I’ve got something to discuss with you, all right.” A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. Most of the color had been leeched from his face. Both were manifestations of pain.
“I think you should sit down, Mr. Tackett. You’re in a weakened state, certainly in no condition to—”
“Cut the medical bullshit,” he shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me last night that you’re the whore who ruined my brother’s life?”
Chapter Four
The ugly words struck like blows. Feeling light-headed, Lara took a deep breath and held it. The floor and walls of the corridor seemed to tilt precariously. She reached out and braced herself against the wainscoting.
Nancy elbowed her way past Key. “Now see here, Key Tackett, you can’t barge into a doctor’s office and create a ruckus like this.”
“I’d love to chat with you, Nancy, and reminisce about old times, but I’m here to see the doctor.” He spoke the last word like an epithet.
By now Lara had regained some composure. She motioned Nancy toward the mother and crying child. “Please see to Mrs. Adams and Stevie. I’ll be with them as soon as possible.”
Nancy was reluctant to comply, but after giving Key a threatening look, she shooed the woman and child back into the examination room and soundly closed the door behind them.
Lara stepped around Key and addressed the curious patients who were huddled in the doorway, peering down the hall. “Please take your seats,” Lara said in as calm a voice as she could muster. “We’ve had a slight disruption in our office procedure. As you can see, Mr. Tackett is hurt and needs immediate medical attention, but he’ll be taken care of and on his way shortly.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
The waiting patients heard him and regarded her uncertainly. “I’ll be with you as soon as I can,” she reassured them. Then, confronting Key, she said, “I’ll see you in my office.”
The moment she closed her office door behind them, she vented her anger. “How dare you speak to me like that in front of an office full of patients! I ought to have you arrested.”
“That scene could have been avoided,” he said, motioning toward the hallway with his head, “if you’d told me who you were last night.”
“You didn’t ask for my name, and I didn’t learn yours until seconds before you left.”
“Well, you know it now.”
“Yes, I know it now, and I’m not at all surprised to discover that you’re a Tackett. Arrogance is a family trait.”
“This isn’t about the Tacketts. This is about you. What the hell are you doing in our town?”
“Your town? That’s a curious choice of words for someone who spends very little time residing here. Clark told me that you’re rarely in Eden Pass. To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”
He came a menacing step closer. “I told you before to cut the bullshit. I didn’t come here to play word games with you, Doc, so don’t try to divert me from the point.”
“Which is?”
“What the hell you’re doing here!” he shouted.
Suddenly the door swung open and Nancy poked her head around. “Dr. Mallory? Want me to… do something?”
He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t indicate in any way that he had even heard her or noticed the interruption.
Subconsciously Lara had been preparing herself for this clash, so she wasn’t that surprised at his angry appearance. Since it seemed inevitable that they have a showdown, she decided just to get it over with.
She glanced at the nurse. “No, thank you, Nancy. Try to keep the patients pacified until I can get to them.” Then, looking up into Key’s enraged face, she added, “I’ll try to keep Mr. Tackett’s unreasonable temper under control.”
Nancy obviously had misgivings about Lara’s decision, but she left them alone. Lara gestured toward a chair. “Please sit down, Mr. Tackett. You’re ashen.”
“I’m fine.”
“Hardly. You’re swaying.”
“I said I’m fine,” he repeated testily, raising his voice again.
“All right, have it your way. But I don’t think either of us wants repeated what we say to each other. Will you kindly keep your voice lowered?”
Leaning on his crutches, he bent forward until his face was within inches of hers. “You don’t want what we say repeated because you’re afraid that the few people who don’t already know will find out that your husband caught you butt naked in the sack with my brother.”
She had heard the accusation many times before, and there seemed to be no antidote for its vicious sting. Time hadn’t diminished its effect.
Turning her back to him, she moved to the window, which offered a view of the gravel parking lot. One of the patients who’d been waiting in the reception area was getting into her car. She couldn’t have looked more sheepish if she were leaving an adult bookstore with a brown paper bag full of dirty magazines. Her retreating car raised a cloud of dust.
Watching her had given Lara time to form a response. “I’m trying very hard to put the incident with your brother behind me and get on with my life.”
She turned to face him again and felt much more comfortable with space between them, although, even from a distance, his presence was potent. He still hadn’t shaved and he looked more disreputable than he had the night before. Most disquieting was the raw sexuality he emanated. She sensed it. Keenly. Doing so seemed to give credence to his low opinion of her, and that bothered her tremendously.
Lowering her gaze, she said, “Don’t I deserve a second chance, Mr. Tackett? It happened a long time ago.”
“I know how long it’s been. Five years. Everybody in the nation knows exactly when it happened, because the morning you were caught in bed with my brother marked the beginning of the end for him. His life was never the same.”
“Neither was mine!”
“I guess not,” he snorted sarcastically. “Not after you became the nation’s most celebrated femme fatale.”
“I didn’t want to be.”
“You should have thought of that before you sneaked into Clark’s bedroom. Jesus,” he said, shaking his head in bafflement. “Didn’t you have any better sense than to commit adultery while your husband was sleeping in the room down the hall?”
Learning to conceal her emotions had become a matter of survival. At the height of the scandal, she had developed a means of stiffly setting the features of her face so they would reveal nothing of what she was thinking or feeling. She resorted to the technique now. To keep her voice from betraying her, she said nothing.
“Some of the details are a little hazy,” he said. “Clear them up for me.”
“I don’t choose to discuss it with you. Besides, I’ve got patients.”
“I’m a patient, remember?” He propped his crutches against the edge of her desk and, using it for support, hopped on his left foot toward her. “Give me your full treatment.”
The innuendo wasn’t accidental. His wicked grin reinforced it. Lara didn’t respond, at least not visibly.
“Come on, Doc. Fill in the blanks. Clark had hosted a dinner party the night before, right?”
Lara remained stubbornly silent.
“I’ve got all day,” he warned softly. “Not a damn thing to do but stay off my ankle. I can do that someplace else, or I can do it right here. Makes no difference to me.”
Calling the sheriff and having him physically removed was a possibility, but he’d already told her that Sheriff Baxter was an old family friend. Involving him would only create more of an incident than this already was. What was the point of prolonging the situation except to save face? That had been sacrificed years ago. Since, she’d become a pro at swallowing pride.
“C
lark had invited a group of people out from Washington to spend an evening in the country,” she told him. “Randall and I were among those guests.”
“It wasn’t the first time you’d been to Clark’s cottage in Virginia, was it?”
“No.”
“You were familiar with the house.”
“Yes.”
“In fact, because Clark was a bachelor, you’d served as his official hostess lots of times.”
“I had helped him organize several dinner parties.”
“And that sort of put you two together.”
“Naturally, we had to plan menus—”
“Oh, naturally.”
“Clark was a public official. Even casual gatherings involved planning and preparation.”
“Have I disputed anything?”
His condescension was as infuriating as his angry accusations. Lara suddenly realized that her hands had clenched into tight fists. She willed them to relax.
“Arranging all these dinner parties,” he continued, “planning and preparing and such, must have taken up a lot of your time.”
“I enjoyed it. It was a welcome break from my duties at the hospital.”
“Uh-huh. So while you two—you and Clark—had your heads together making all these plans, you became very, uh, close.”
“Yes,” she answered softly. “Your brother was a charismatic man. He had a magnetic personality. I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone who could match his energy, his verve. He appeared to be in motion even when standing still. He got excited about things and had such high ideals, such ambitious goals not only for himself but for the nation. It was no mystery to me why the voters of Texas elected him to Congress.”
“Fresh out of law school,” he told her, although she already knew that. “He served only one term in the House of Representatives before deciding to try for the Senate. Beat the incumbent by a landslide.”
“Your brother was a man of vision. I could listen to him talk for hours on any subject. His enthusiasm and conviction were contagious.”
“Sounds like love.”
“I’ve admitted that we were very close.”
“But you were married.”
“Actually, Clark and Randall were friends before I ever met him. Randall introduced us.”
“Ahh.” He held up his index finger. “Enter the husband. The poor cuckold. What a cliché. Always the last to know that his wife is screwing around. And with his best friend to boot. Didn’t ol’ Randall become suspicious when you insisted on spending that night in Virginia instead of returning to Washington with the other guests?”
“It was Clark’s idea. He and Randall were scheduled to play golf the following day. It would have been ludicrous to drive back to D.C., then return early the next morning. Randall saw the logic.”
“That must have been real convenient for you, Doc. I mean, to have your husband accommodate you like that. Did you also fuck him that night just to throw him off track?”
She slapped him, hard. The slap startled her as much as it did Key. In her entire life she’d never struck anyone. She wouldn’t have thought she was capable of it.
Learning to control herself had been a critical part of her upbringing. Giving over to one’s emotions had been unthinkable in her parents’ house. Crying jags, uproarious laughter, any form of unbridled emotional expression was considered unacceptable behavior. That ability to detach herself had served her well in Washington.
She didn’t know how Key had managed to breach her conditioned restraint, but he had. If the palm of her hand hadn’t been smarting so badly, she wouldn’t have believed she’d really slapped him.
Faster than her thoughts could register this, he encircled her wrist, drew her against him, and pushed her arm up behind her back. “Don’t ever do that again.” The words were precisely enunciated through straight, thin lips that barely moved. His eyes were as direct and brilliant as laser beams.
“You can’t talk to me like that.”
“Oh yeah? Why not?”
“You haven’t got the right to judge me.”
“The hell I don’t. In some parts of the world they still stone women for being unfaithful to their husbands.”
“Would it have evened the score for you if I’d been stoned? Believe me, being brutalized by the media is just as deadly.” The hand within his grip was becoming numb. She flexed her fingers. “You’re hurting me.”
Slowly he released her and took a step back. “Reflexes.”
That was as close as she was going to get to an apology. Strange under the circumstances, but she thought he sincerely regretted hurting her.
He winced and pressed his hand against his side.
“Are you in pain?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Do you want something?”
“No.”
As a physician, her instinct was to reach out and lay her hands on him, render assistance. But she didn’t. For one thing, he would shun her concern. But primarily she was apprehensive about touching him for any reason. Only now that the contact had been broken did she realize how closely he’d held her against him.
As she massaged circulation back into her hand, she tried to make a joke of it, as much to reassure herself as him. “I don’t ordinarily slap my patients.”
The attempted levity didn’t work. He didn’t even smile. Indeed, he was single-mindedly scrutinizing her face. “I didn’t recognize you last night from the pictures I’d seen,” he said. “You look different now.”
“I’ve aged five years.”
He shook his head. “It’s more than that. Your hair’s different.”
She touched her hair self-consciously. “I don’t lighten it anymore. Randall liked my hair lighter.”
“Back to the husband. Poor Randall. Guess he felt like the rug had been yanked out from under him, huh? Wonder why he stayed with you?” His voice had regained the underpinnings of sarcasm.
“I mean there you were, Randall Porter’s lawfully wedded wife, featured on the cover of the National Enquirer, being exposed as Senator Clark Tackett’s married lover. The photos showed Randall hustling you away from the cottage, wrapped up in your nightie.”
“You don’t need to reacquaint me with the reports. I remember them well.”
“And what does Randall do?” he asked as though she hadn’t spoken. “He’s with the State Department, right? A diplomat. He’s supposed to have a way with words, a glib answer for everything. But does he deny the allegations? No. Does he step forward and defend your honor? No. Does he renounce you as a cheating slut? No. Does he proclaim that you’ve realized the error of your ways and become a born-again Christian? No.”
He planted his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “Randall makes like a goddamn clam. Says nothing for the record before hightailing it off to that banana republic and hauling you with him. ‘No comment’ was all the media ever prized out of him.”
He shrugged ruefully. “But then I guess there’s not much you can say when your wife is caught screwing your best friend right under your nose and their affair becomes a political incident of national importance.”
“I guess not.” She was determined not to lose control again, no matter how provocative he became.
“Even though Randall died a martyr’s death in service to his country, if you ask me, he was a coward.”
“Well, I didn’t ask you, Mr. Tackett. Furthermore, I refuse to discuss my late husband and our personal life with you. But while we’re on the subject of cowardice, what about your brother’s? He didn’t go on the record with a denial or defend my honor, either.” Like her husband, Clark had failed to make a statement of apology or explanation. He’d forsaken her to confront the disgrace alone. Their combined silence was as good as an indictment and had been the most humiliating indignity she’d had to bear, both publicly and privately.
“The jig was up. What could he do?”
“Oh, he did plenty. Do you really believe that Randall was assigne
d to Montesangre on a whim?”
“I never thought about it.”
“Well think about it now. That country is a hellhole,” she said emphatically. “A cesspool. An ugly, dirty, corrupt little republic. Politically speaking, it was a powder keg of violence ready to explode.
“Randall didn’t choose to go there, Mr. Tackett. He didn’t ask for the assignment. Your brother saw to it that we were sent,” she said disdainfully. “His way of dealing with the scandal wasn’t to confront it but to sweep it under the rug.”
“How’d he manage that? Thanks to you, no one wanted to know him. His friends turned out to be the fair weather variety.”
“But several people over at State owed Clark favors. He called them in, and—presto!—Randall was assigned to the most potentially dangerous area in the world at that time.
“Do you know the Bible story of David and Bathsheba?” Giving him no time to answer, she explained. “King David sent Bathsheba’s husband to the front lines of battle, virtually guaranteeing that he would be killed. And he was.”
“But that’s where your parallel ends,” he said, sliding off the edge of the desk and moving to stand directly in front of her again. “King David kept Bathsheba with him. Doesn’t speak very well of you, does it?” he asked with a sneer. “Clark didn’t value you enough to keep you around. You must have been a lousy mistress.”
Spots of fiery indignation appeared on her cheeks. “Following the scandal, Clark and I had no future together.”
“He had no future, period. You cost him his career in politics. He didn’t even embarrass his political party by running again. He knew that Americans had had their fill of statesmen getting caught in compromising positions with bimbos.”
“I am not a bimbo.”
“Exception noted. You can probably type,” he said caustically. “The point is that until you came along, my brother was Washington’s golden boy. After that morning in Virginia, he became a pariah on Capitol Hill.”
“Don’t cry ‘Poor Clark’ to me! Your brother knew the potential consequences of his actions.”