Second Harmony

by Barbara Bretton

  She was about to push her way through the double doors leading to the main lobby when a familiar voice behind her called out her name.

  Larry, in a red silk robe with a white handkerchief jutting jauntily from the breast pocket, whizzed up to her in his motorized wheelchair. His white hair was slicked back, and the unmistakable scent of English Leather hovered over him.

  "Well, well," she said, bending down to kiss his cheek. "Look at you! Do I have competition?"

  "You don't," he said with a grin, "but from what I hear, I sure do."

  "And what have you been hearing?"

  His grin widened. "Oh, a few things here and there about some big strapping Irish boy."

  "I'm going to have to slap a restraining order on Lucie. That woman talks entirely too much."

  He looked puzzled. "Lucie isn't the only one who talks," he said. "Your mom had a few things to say, as well."

  The emotional roller coaster she'd been on since her mother's illness was diagnosed revved up again, and all it took was an innocent reference to Elinor. It had been weeks since Elinor had felt well enough to say much about anything.

  "I miss your phone calls. The Fair Oaks gossip line doesn't seem very active these days," she said.

  "Nothing much to say lately. Things are just going along as always."

  Why had she put him on the spot like that? Did she expect him to call her every single day just to chronicle her mother's steady decline? No one would be that cruel.

  "Don't be such a stranger, missy."

  "I'll be up again next week," she said. And the week after that and the week after that, however long it took to make Elinor see the light. "Call me, please, if anything happens before then."

  "Nothing's going to happen, missy. Things are just fine."

  "You don't have to shield me, Larry."

  He looked confused. "I'm not shielding you from anything. Everything is fine."

  Don't push him, she thought as she said goodbye. Larry wasn't there as a paid informant, after all. He was a patient, just like her mother and a hundred other patients, many of whom would never leave Fair Oaks again. His point of view was bound to be obscured by his own hopes and dreams.

  She should trust Lucie to give her the straight story. Lucie loved her and Elinor both. Where Dr. Gardstein would sometimes slough her off with a "What can you expect from ALS?" Lucie would take the time to explain the ramifications of each step of the journey.

  When the time was right to talk with Elinor, Lucie would let her know.

  Until then, all Sandra could do was wait and hope Michael could do the same.

  #

  Michael couldn't get it right.

  He bent down and approached the hawk's wing from another angle.

  Dead. Lifeless. The worst piece he'd attempted in all his years as a stonecutter.

  He positioned his hammer and chisel and tried to capture the layer upon layer of feathers covering the raptor's mighty wings. He tapped once against the chisel, then tapped again, harder this time. A huge chunk of limestone flew out and shot across the workroom, catching Leon in the back of the neck.

  "Hey, man!" Leon called out. "If you want something, ask for it."

  "An accident," Michael hollered over the sound of the Temptations. "Sorry, Leon."

  "Gettin' so you need a helmet around this place," Leon muttered as he went back to work on the finial for the north tower.

  All eyes in the workroom were focused on Michael. It was bad enough knowing that Art Bentley's flunkies were detailing his every move; lately it seemed as if even his apprentices were watching him, the way people used to gather around Mount St. Helen's when the eruption was imminent.

  He zeroed in on the hawk again, determined to get it right this time. Limestone chalk flew as hammer met chisel.

  Don't think about Sandra. Don't think about David. Don't think about all of the things you can't control.

  Keep the focus where it was. Block out everything but the work. This work was the one thing that would go on long after he and everyone else he loved had passed into dust. The mark he was making would be seen hundreds of years from now. It would last. It would matter.

  Leon and Angel were fighting over the snarling face of a dragon.

  "It needs fire. No dragon I ever seen had no fire."

  "It needs nothin', man. It's fine the way it is."

  "I ain't puttin' my boast on that."

  "Who the hell asked you to, man? Why don't you – "

  Ignore them. He was their teacher, not their baby-sitter. Let them work out their own problems.

  Concentrate on what was important.

  The cathedral. It would –

  The table moved. His chisel gouged the face of the hawk, and six weeks' work was ruined.

  "Son of a bitch!" He whirled on Angel and Leon, whose argument had erupted into a minor shoving match. "What the hell is the matter with you? Can't you keep your problems outside?"

  The young men stared at him in shock. Michael was known for his temper, but this was beyond anything they'd seen before.

  "We didn't mean it, Mike," Leon offered, making sure he was out of target range.

  "Yeah," said Angel, his dark eyes wide. "We didn't mean nothin' by it."

  You're scaring the hell out of them. One shoving match in two years and you're bringing the wrath of God down on their heads.

  The hawk had already been severely damaged by the chunk he'd snapped off it minutes before. He was looking for a way to vent the towering frustration he felt about Sandra and the Bentleys, and he'd picked the easiest target.

  "Just be careful," he said, backing down a little. "This isn't a gym."

  They continued to stare at him.

  "Am I paying you to watch me or am I paying you to produce? A hundred years' work isn't enough for you guys? You wanna make it two hundred?"

  They scrambled back to their workbenches. He felt violent, powerless, trapped in a way he hadn't been since he was a teenager looking for a way out.

  If he went to Sandra like this, she'd run back to Sioux Falls before he had a chance to explain.

  "Don't look," he called out to his apprentices in the workroom. "Don't turn around." He picked up the stone hawk and held it up. "Don't anyone say one damned word."

  The crash echoed in the silent room. Pieces of stone scattered across the tiled floor and bounced off the walls. Dust from the limestone covered his shoes and pants. He glared at the astonished faces that had, of course, turned to see what happened.

  "And don't clean anything up. You're not being paid to sweep floors."

  He stormed out of the workshed.

  #

  "You need a long rest, friend," Annie Gage said as she poured him a shot of ecclesiastical brandy in her studio a few minutes later. "A very long rest. I mean, six weeks work down the drain. . . "

  He gulped down the brandy and waited for the fire. "I wrecked it before I wrecked it. Besides, it was either that or kill someone."

  Annie shivered and made a point of sitting down as far away from him as possible. "Fair warning," she said. "Love turns people into monsters. No wonder Leon uses you as his gargoyle model."

  He snorted in disgust. "I'm at the end of my rope, Gage."

  "So I've noticed."

  He leaned back in the rickety wooden chair and closed his eyes. "Bentley's closing in on me. The way things are going, if I keep seeing Sandra, I lose my son. Bentley's determined to make me look like a sexual deviate who entertains women in front of a five-year-old."

  Annie's soft laugh made him open his eyes. "How have I missed out on the fun?"

  "Don't," he warned. "Not now, Annie."

  She shrugged, and her black sweater slipped down over her shoulder. She yanked it back into place. "I may not be the right one to ask for advice," she said, her voice low. "After all, I have a vested interest in the outcome."

  "Help me, Annie." He righted the chair and reached for the bottle of brandy. "As a friend. I don't know what the hell to do
."

  "I'd like to tell you to give up the woman for the child."

  He felt her words like a blow to the heart. "But?"

  "But that would be my jealousy talking." She took a sip from her glass and watched him, her golden eyes level and sad. "Did you ever think there might be something else going on here besides her wanting a courtship?"

  "Something else? Like what?"

  "Another guy, maybe."

  His whole body reacted to the thought. "There's no one else, Annie." The idea of another man anywhere near Sandra made the anger he'd felt in the workroom a few minutes ago seem like a gentle spring rain.

  "Maybe not," Annie said, sounding less certain than he would have liked, "but there sure as hell is something that's holding her back."

  He let his thoughts wander over the weeks since their reunion. The one driving force, the one constant through everything, had been the importance of her work. Her ambition, her need to excel, was as keen today as it had been years ago.

  He stood up and paced the small studio, oblivious of Annie's open curiosity. He understood the need for work; he understood the need to use one's talents to the fullest. He also understood the value of family, of love.

  What he didn't understand was why Sandra felt she had to play one against the other.

  He wasn't the kid he'd been almost twenty years earlier. He didn't believe he could be everything to her, didn't think he could fulfill all her needs. He wanted a woman who was comfortable within herself, and if that meant a woman with a career, so be it.

  "Sandra's coming here tonight for the dedication," he said, turning back to Annie. A huge stained-glass window was being dedicated that evening, complete with the crazy media hype that only New York City could produce. "I'll lay it on the line."

  "Wait a few days," Annie advised, touching his hand. "You're too angry. Cool off and think before you say something you might regret."

  He glanced out the studio window and saw the dark green Buick that had been tailing him for weeks. Jim Flannery had warned him that Bentley was ready to strike.

  If Sandra didn't know by now what he was about, then they didn't stand a chance.

  And he was running out of time.

  ~~

  Chapter Thirteen~~

  There was one thing to be said for the dedication party for the new stained-glass window: it wasn't hard to keep the names straight.

  In the past half-hour, Sandra had been introduced to hundreds of people, and it seemed most of the men had been named Matthew.

  Annie Gage had told her that the cathedral staff had decided that inviting every Matthew in town to the ceremony would be a terrific publicity hook, and from the number of cameras and media people buzzing around, they'd been right.

  If not for the fact that Michael was conspicuously absent, she might actually have enjoyed herself. As it was, she found it difficult to make small talk.

  A handsome blond-haired Matthew smiled at her as he grabbed a glass of champagne.

  "You're the only Matthew I recognize," she said to him. "You play for the Red Sox." He was also the husband of the stained-glass artist responsible for the magnificent window.

  "Played for the Red Sox," he corrected. "I hung up the cleats this season. Now I get to hang around the house and loaf."

  His beautiful, and extremely pregnant, wife, Lainie Randall Ward, came up to them. "Don't you believe it," she said to Sandra after thanking her for her compliments on the cathedral window. "We have two kids at home and another on the way. He'll be so busy that he'll be counting the days until he hits the road as the new Red Sox announcer."

  Matthew and Lainie began bantering back and forth, and Sandra found herself suddenly envious of the obvious deep love between the two.

  Tell me your secret, she thought, moving away from them. Tell me all of these problems will disappear and Michael and I will be where you are one day.

  Right now it was hard to imagine. She took a sip of champagne and scanned the room for his face. Their history had been one of such strife, such passion, that it was almost impossible to envision a future.

  Especially if she had to withhold the knowledge of her mother's illness, the one thing that was at the core of her dilemma.

  She turned and was about to slip into the anteroom for a breath of fresh air when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  "Sorry I'm late."

  His eyes were shadowed, and the faint hint of a beard darkened his skin. He looked tired and worn, and her heart turned over with fear. Something was very wrong.

  "That's okay." She handed him a glass of champagne from the table next to her and forced a smile. "I never knew there were so many Matthews in New York."

  "Have you met many of them?"

  "At least three dozen," she said. "It's been an amazing evening."

  Silence fell between them. The band was playing a slow dreamy tune, and she began to sway with the music, but he didn't pick up the cue and she didn't feel confident enough to ask him to dance. She stopped swaying and fiddled with her glass.

  He put his own untouched glass down and looked at her. "We need to talk."

  She nodded. Her throat was tightening and she could barely breathe, much less speak. "Where?"

  "My office."

  She followed him through the crowd and out a passageway that led across the deserted lot to the workshed and his office. The ground was hard and rocky and she had a difficult time navigating in her strappy sandals, but she didn't ask him for help. There was something terribly forbidding about this Michael McKay, something dark and brooding that warned her to keep her distance.

  "Drink?" he asked after he closed the door behind them.

  She shook her head. "I've had one champagne already. That's it for me. I still have to drive home." Another long, throbbing silence. "You wanted to talk?"

  He dragged his hand through the mop of black curls she loved so well, then loosened his tie. He looked strange to her in a suit; civilized clothing seemed barely able to contain the raw and powerful spirit within.

  Suddenly she knew that before the night was over, her future would be decided.

  One way or the other.

  #

  Damn it, McKay! Say something.

  He'd dragged her off for this final confrontation, and now he couldn't get the words out past the fear snaking through his body and strangling his vocal cords.

  "Something's wrong," he said finally. "We've been saying all the right things, but something's not right between us, Sandra."

  She said nothing. She simply waited, watching him with those beautiful eyes of hers.

  "I want to know what it is."

  "I don't know what to say to you, Michael. Nothing's wrong." She looked so blond, so cool, so untouchable. He felt as if she were drifting away behind a scrim of ice.

  His curse crackled in the air between them. "You've put a barrier up between us. It's been there since the day we started this goddamn sixty-day courtship, and I can't break through."

  "Your imagination is running away with you. There's no barrier. What a – "

  He grabbed her by the forearm. His fingertips, roughened by years of hard work, snagged the delicate silk of her dress. Her eyes widened, but she didn't flinch. She wouldn't, not his Sandra. She was too proud, too strong for that.

  She was everything he'd ever wanted, everything he'd ever dreamed of in a woman, and she was slipping away from him faster than he could stop her.

  "Who is it, Sandra? What is it? Until you level with me, we don't have a chance in hell of making things work."

  For the first time she looked away, and he knew he was losing her.

  "Don't' push, Michael," she whispered.

  The years were falling away from him faster than he could think, and he was eighteen again and losing her to a world he couldn't compete with.

  "Forget the courtship, Sandra," he said, pulling her into his arms. "Forget the candlelight and the candy and the flowers. Marry me tonight."

  She was
like a cardboard cutout, stiff and unyielding. "You're talking like a fool."

  "Then I'm a fool. I don't give a damn what you call me, Sandy, just show me how you feel."

  "Don't do this," she said, pushing him away with both hands. "Just give me a little more time. I promise you soon I'll be able to – "

  "Soon?" He let her go as if she were on fire. He was wild with fear and anger. If he was going to lose her anyway, he was going to say what was in his heart. "Was this part of your plan all along, to shoot me down at the last minute?"

  She stared at him as if he were crazy. Maybe he was. "Why the rush to the altar?"

  "I've waited my whole life for you. How the hell much longer do you want me to wait?"

  Her control snapped same as his had. "Until I'm ready, that's how long. Until I can give you what you need." Her voice broke on the last word and she wiped tears away with a jerky swipe of her arm. "I can't do it now, Michael. No matter how much you want it, I can't."

  "Who is it, Sandy?" He moved toward her and she took a step back. "Is it Gregory."

  "Not in a million years."

  Somehow he knew the real truth was the same truth that had broken them apart years ago. "Your job."

  She hesitated.

  "Come on, Sandy. Tell me. I have a right to know my competition, don't I?"

  She still said nothing.

  It all came down on him then: his fears over losing his son, his terror at losing Sandra, the intense, terrifying love he felt for both of them; his heart broke wide apart.

  "Tell me," he roared. "Tell me!"

  "I can't!" Her voice was a raw, aching scream. "Trust me just once more, Michael. I love you but I can't tell you what you need to know."

  "Not even if our future hangs in the balance?"

  She shook her head. She was crying openly, but he couldn't span the distance between them to comfort her. "Not even then. Oh, God, Michael, I'm – "

  He put his hand up to stop her. "Don't," he said. "I heard it before, Sandy, eighteen years ago. I'm not going to listen to it again.

  He was in his car and headed for the highway before the pain hit.