Mercy

by Jean Brashear

  “See you soon, then.” He had the next three days off.

  “You and Patrick have fun in Boston.”

  Gregory nodded, opened his umbrella out the door and left, smiling even against the gust of wind that swirled through the opening.

  Kat watched him leave. He had someone to go home to, someone with whom he’d built a life. Someone to plan with, who expected him home. Mona had someone. Even her father did, embarrassing as his obsession with a woman her own age might be. For just one moment, melancholy crept in past the raindrops, and Kat shivered at the chill draft that swirled from Gregory’s exit.

  Metal tape clutched in her hand, she paused and looked out toward the gallery floor. Her eyes roamed the walls where Gamble Smith’s work remained for another two weeks, part of her agreement with the purchasers.

  But in her mind’s eye, she was visualizing another work, a different collection of strokes. That was all it was, really. Oil and colors ground and mingled, caught on sable bristles, applied to canvas primed as the resting place for random thoughts transmitted through nerve and bone and muscle.

  Gamble Smith hadn’t really stolen her soul. She was not that woman caught in his fierce eye, not the honeyed limbs, the eager, dewy beauty who surrendered herself, who yielded her heart with utter trust.

  For a moment, Kat thought of Tansy, so fragile and afraid of the world. Tansy could love that way, if her prince would truly come. But not Kat. Never Kat. Kat was power and strength, Kat said Fuck you and meant it. Kat was an Amazon who leaned on no man, never would.

  Unlike her beautiful, doomed mother or Tansy, both too gentle. Too soft.

  Kat had been bitter for years that her mother hadn’t fought to bring all her children back to New York in those last months. She understood now that her mother had been too ill to do anything but battle for her life. It was her father who had wanted his son beside him and the twin who looked so like his Juliette. His younger daughters had been abandoned. Forgotten. Thank God they’d been left in Nana’s care, Nana who understood being strong, who would have been a terror in these days of liberation, who raised a philanderer’s daughter by herself and taught Kat all she’d learned about standing alone.

  We hide behind others, little Kat. We think they can save us. In the end, we are alone, and we can only save ourselves. My poor Juliette thought Martin was her answer. Answer’s inside, KitKat, not in any man. Love if you want, honey, but never need. Never give away the strongest part of yourself. Hold to yourself, child. Hold to yourself.

  Kat laid down her tools, crossed the floor to Gamble Smith’s work. Reaching out toward those lying brushstrokes, she touched the oils…traced the play of light and shadow.

  He was gifted, no question. Brilliant and self-absorbed. But he didn’t know her. Couldn’t…yet he’d bared her naked in a way no one else ever had. That made him dangerous. Kat was not her mother; she’d worked hard to root out weakness in herself. She was strong, everyone understood that. She used men until she was through with them—not for her, Juliette’s mistake. She was strong enough to be alone, to protect Tansy. Tough enough to fight Lucas Walker for her sister’s soul, if it came to that.

  But Gamble Smith was different somehow. He intrigued her; he annoyed her. She wanted nothing to do with him; she burned to have him. No matter; she must erase the lie he had painted, reclaim the treacherous flaw she’d somehow missed. There was no space in her life to be a woman who could abandon herself that way, and that woman’s very existence was dangerous knowledge in the hands of a stranger like Gamble Smith.

  Chapter Seven

  Lucas stepped off the M5 on Riverside near 82nd and hunched against the slap of the wind, the ancient field jacket he’d bought for five dollars failing the challenge. He shoved his hands into the pockets and glanced at the Tootsie Roll-brown bald head of Mt. Tom.

  He was late today, but he had no idea if that meant anything. He’d spotted Tansy once, missed her once—his idea of attempting to catch her at the same time of day might be futile. Did madness preclude having some kind of routine?

  Was Tansy truly insane? Her imagination had always been robust, vivid…fuel for the beautiful drawings she could dash off with ease. Did she still draw or had her hands gone mute just as she’d slipped into silence after that night…that unspeakable night that had destroyed them all?

  You promised you’d get her help, you bastard. You promised—

  Lucas squeezed his eyes shut. Swallowed down rage. He’d been so damn naïve. Thought he’d been such a negotiator, believed he could save her, that pale, still marionette, her limbs naked and too vulnerable, her eyes staring at him unblinking as he lay on the floor bleeding, trying to take in what he’d done.

  Christ, he’d banished that image to the far recesses of his mind, but encountering her brought it all back. Tossing and turning on Al’s narrow cot, he’d felt the weight of failed dreams and lost chances sitting on his chest while freedom strolled out the doorway, mocking.

  But Tansy as she’d once been stood silent in one single shaft of light. And Tansy as he’d seen her in the park called to a mustard-seed remnant of honor.

  She’d rescued him from years of hopelessness and made him reach out for that apple, that Fruit of the Tree…brought him from the darkness into sunlight, given him the mother of a boy’s broken dreams.

  He had no idea why those around her had not been able to halt her descent into madness, had no reason to believe he could do more.

  He only knew he had to try.

  A streak of color roused him from his reverie. Lucas uncoiled from the broad tree where he’d huddled against the wind’s bite and leaned to see more clearly.

  And smiled.

  Her coat was not the black or gray or dark brown of most New Yorkers. It was not the pale blue-and-pink of the day he’d first found her. Her coat was the only evidence he’d witnessed of the Tansy he’d once known.

  Bright kelly green.

  He watched her stop to speak to an old woman who sat on a bench surrounded by all her belongings, watched the old woman’s face light up in welcome. He understood the feeling.

  With steps made lighter by hope, he quickened his pace. When he was a few feet away, she turned. Her face lit in a smile. “Oh—you’re here. Come meet my friend Darla.”

  Lucas looked down at a woman who’d suffered a hard life. Her eyes were warm with affection for Tansy. He sympathized completely.

  “Darla, this is him, my prince. I told you about him.”

  Brown eyes hardened with caution. He understood that, too, and steeled against flinching under the weight of her disapproval. But Tansy’s obvious delight in bringing them together made him reach for manners he’d forgotten.

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  Silently, the old lady studied him. He met her scrutiny, wondering just how much she divined.

  Finally, she nodded as though she’d found what she needed. “You be good to her, boy.” Years of smoking made her voice rough.

  “He will,” Tansy blithely assured her. “He’s my prince.”

  As if that was all that had to be said. Lucas met the old woman’s gaze and nodded.

  Tansy leaned down and kissed Darla’s cheek. “See you later.” Then she was gliding away, chattering to Lucas as though assuming he’d follow. He did.

  “Yesterday I went on a trip to a big store. I think my mother took me there once when I was a girl. For Easter.” Lost in thought, she fixed her gaze on the ground. “Mona got a hat, I got a hat, Mama got a hat,” she chanted. “We were Daddy’s pretty girls.” Her mouth twisted in chagrin. “Baby Kat was too little.”

  Suddenly, her gaze lifted. “I rode in a car. I tried on dresses, and Armand bought me the prettiest one. He said I was beautiful. Kat said it, too.” A shadow drifted over her face. “Paris couldn’t go. I wanted to wear it to show him, but Armand told them to deliver it later.” She studied him. “I was scared. I don’t like to leave Paris. He stays here.” Then she smiled. “If you would go wi
th me, Prince, I might go farther. I wouldn’t be scared if you were there.”

  Oh, God, Tansy. I’m no prince. And I couldn’t protect you, after all.

  She grasped for his hand too abruptly. Lucas recoiled, fighting twenty years of conditioned response. Touch meant danger. The shock of contact rippled through to bone, but soon the feel of her reached into the beast he’d become and spread the oil of kindness over waters long troubled.

  She opened his palm and placed in it a bird. Not a real one, but a fanciful confection of eggshell and shiny beads and feathers in blue and white. As fragile as Tansy. As easy for him to shatter.

  “It’s beautiful. You made it?”

  She smiled and nodded. “It’s a bird.”

  “I can tell. Is this for me?”

  She nodded again, shyly.

  “You like birds?”

  Her eyes grew distant, her face wistful. “Sometimes I wish…”

  Lucas stood quietly, waiting for her answer as she pondered the sky. When no answer came, he prodded. “What do you wish? Would you like to fly?”

  Still she focused into the distance at dreams he couldn’t see but wished he could. Frowning slightly, he dared to touch her hand. “Tansy?”

  She snapped back to him then, dreams scattering as dust. “Paris needs me,” she said matter-of-factly. Like the sun emerging again, she smiled and captured his free hand. “Come on—I want to show you something.”

  He should pull away, but he couldn’t let go. He hadn’t known he’d been so hungry for touch, for the sweet pressing warmth of human skin. For twenty years, he’d been on guard, violence his only experience with contact. It had been a journey back to his father’s fists, a lifelong procession interrupted only once, for those magical months in the oasis of Tansy and Juliette.

  She glanced back. “Hurry, slowpoke. Time’s a’wastin’.” For a moment, he caught a glimpse of the old Tansy again. She’d brought back that drawled phrase from her grandmother in Texas.

  Lucas returned the smile, but his face felt stiff and awkward. She squeezed his hand, and his treacherous, misguided heart responded.

  She’s little more than a child, he cautioned himself. Far too trusting.

  But when she tugged at him again, laughed with pure joy and began to skip, what was left of a long-dead boy ran with her.

  Mona awoke to the press of lips on her throat sending a shock of pure hunger jolting through her body. Drowsily, she smiled, eyes still shut.

  The down comforter descended, and she felt the kiss of cool air on her skin. Silken heat closed over one nipple, and she didn’t even try to stifle the moan.

  “I know you’re awake.” Fitz’s voice, low and hoarse.

  “Nuh-uh…only dreaming.”

  Goose bumps danced as the comforter vanished. With one quick slide, a human blanket replaced it. Fitz parted her thighs, pinned her hands to the sheets and thrust inside her.

  Mona growled and wrapped her legs around him. The night had been everything she could wish. Her Fitz was back, whole and strong.

  Oh, yeah, baby. Very strong.

  Her pelvis rocked in a dance they both knew intimately. Mona refused to open her eyes, lost in fantasies of staying in bed all day. They would love and laugh, drink coffee and get crumbs in the sheets; they would be as they’d been in the beginning—

  “Look at me, Des. Open your eyes, love.”

  Slowly, her lids lifted. His nostrils flared, his face intent. “Look at me and understand how I love you.”

  “I do, Fitz. Oh, God, how I do.”

  The hazel eyes she’d adored for so long held hers, something there that she couldn’t quite read, dark and intense, something so fierce—

  Thanksgiving filled her, bringing tears to her eyes. This is all we need, this is who we are. Like this, we’re incomparable. Invincible.

  Thank God. My Fitz is back. Like a rosary, Mona whispered tiny prayers and rejoiced. She wound her fingers into his and held on, abandoning herself to ecstasy with the man who had finally returned from the darkness.

  They slept then, curled together as puppies, arms and legs a jumble, skin seeking skin. The sun was high when she felt a faint breeze against her hair, a tickle at her ear.

  She opened her eyes and smiled sleepily. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” Golden motes of sunlight danced in the hazel. Then he smacked her behind. “Get up, lazybones. We can’t sleep all day.”

  She gripped the hair on his chest and pulled. “Sure we can. Sleep and…interludes.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Interludes, you say?”

  Mona grinned and nodded. “Interludes.”

  He pressed a kiss to her lips, then caressed her behind with one big hand. “Hold that thought, but right now, we have an appointment in an hour.”

  Mona frowned. “Appointment?”

  He ran one hand over her hair and avoided her eyes. “Just an experiment. To see what you think.”

  She lifted to one elbow, unease stirring. “About what?”

  “Living outside the city.”

  “What?” That brought her upright in a hurry. “Fitz, I can’t live outside the city. Neither can you. Our jobs, the hours we work—” She threw up her hands. He was as aware as well as she of what their lives demanded.

  Then it hit her as though he’d slammed a fist into her chest. “Fitz…no.” She shook her head side to side, trying to make sense of what had happened. “This isn’t about—oh, God, it is, isn’t it?”

  “Just take a look, Des. Lots of people live outside the city and commute. You could have an office at home, go into the city three days a week—”

  “And Jack Bradshaw would have my job in a month. Fitz, this is insane. You can’t cover your beat from the country, for chrissake. You can’t possibly put in the kind of hours—”

  He rose from the bed and shrugged on his jeans, his shoulders stiff and unyielding. “Maybe I don’t want to put in those hours anymore.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “I’ve got an idea for a book. Maybe I want to take it easier, smell the flowers. Maybe you do, too.”

  The enormity of his betrayal was finally sinking in. “I’ve worked like a dog to get where I am. I’m not giving it up to play Rebecca of Sunnybrooke Farm. Jesus, Fitz, you can’t ask this of me.”

  He grew very quiet and still. “I can’t ask the woman I love to understand that my needs have changed? To care enough about me to compromise?”

  “This isn’t compromise. This is abdication.” She leaped from the bed, put her hand on a stomach tumbling with nerves and searched around her for something to cover herself. She grabbed his shirt. The smell of him made her want to cry for all that they were losing.

  They had so much. Why couldn’t he see?

  “Look, Fitz.” She struggled for a reasonable tone. “Of course it was traumatic for you, what happened. Anyone would be shaken. But you’ll get over it. You just have to get back into your routine, give yourself time to settle—”

  “Goddamn it, don’t patronize me. I’m not sick, I’m not deluded. I’m viewing things as they are for the first time in years. You’re the one who’s in denial. You think that job is a substitute for real life. You’re so fucking trapped in the past that you refuse to gamble on the future.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not your father, Des. So he’s a self-centered bastard. So your mother died. Everyone doesn’t betray, Des. Everyone won’t let you down. You keep clinging to me like a leech, afraid to share me with anyone, even a child. But it doesn’t have to be what you had. Families aren’t always screwed up. Families can make you stronger, make life richer. If you hide in your work forever, you’re letting the best part slip away.”

  All she could hear was leech…clinging…afraid. Humiliation was a sirocco, roaring in her head. “I’m not the coward, Fitz. You’re afraid to get back in it, aren’t you? Afraid it could happen again?”

  His face paled, and she knew she’d gone too far. Suddenly bone-deep afraid, she soothed. “An
yone would be scared by what happened to you. It’s no disgrace.”

  His face turned to stone.

  “A book is a great idea. There’s room in the loft. We can rearrange, make an office for you, get some new furniture—” She stopped babbling, watching the man she loved becoming a stranger.

  Nothing made it past the white noise of her fear. She was losing him, and she had no idea how to stop it. “Fitz, please—” She crossed to him, reached up to place a hand on his cheek.

  He recoiled from her touch.

  At that moment, she felt more dread than any day of her life except when she’d realized that her father would never send for her, never let her and Kat come home again.

  Fitz examined her with eyes that seemed years older. Eyes that pitied.

  Damn him. He was the one to feel sorry for, not her. Mona Gerard needed no one’s charity.

  A deep exhalation. “There’s a train that will take you back to the city. It runs on the half hour.”

  A dagger to the heart couldn’t have hurt worse. “And where will you be?” Was that her voice, so thin and high?

  “I’m going to look at houses.” His voice warmed, entreated. “Just try, Des. You might be surprised.” He stepped toward her, held out his hand.

  Mona stared at that hand that had taught her love, had guided her and protected, stroked and caressed, and she couldn’t speak around the boulder lodged in her chest.

  Finally, the hand dropped.

  “Fitz, I—” The planks of the oak floor wavered behind the mask of her tears.

  His sigh was heavy, drained. “I’ll drive you to the station when you’re ready.”

  She thought she felt his hand brush her hair as he left the room.

  Carlton’s houseman opened the penthouse door. “Your coat, Ms. Gerard?”

  “No, I won’t be but a minute. Where is Mr. Sanford?” Mona rushed past the man. She was wet and she’d had to wait forever for a cab. She’d tried to work after leaving Fitz, but she couldn’t concentrate, so she’d switched her focus to the plans for the party at Carlton’s sumptuous Fifth Avenue abode.