by Peggy Webb
He slid her blouse from her shoulders and buried his face in the soft mounds of her breasts. Her scent was sweet to him, like roses after a rain; her skin, familiar, its silky texture a balm to his battered soul.
He reveled in the touch of her, the taste of her, until his blood was racing like a storm-gorged river.
Still silent, they cast their clothes aside and came together with the fury of two storm fronts colliding over the peaks of Everest. There was nothing soft and sweet about their joining. Their need was too great for gentleness, their passion too-long-denied for tenderness.
Quite simply they devoured each other. The minutes turned to hours and still they were not sated, still they were not spent.
In the midst of their furious lovemaking, Jake had flashes of insight, his mind clear and detached, lucid as a bell. It seemed to him they were trying to deny the truth with their bodies, that they were seeking to wipe out the accident with the sheer force of their mating.
He drove into her ceaselessly, and she matched him with an abandon that took his breath away. Repeatedly he brought her to screaming climax. Repeatedly she arched high against him, went slack, then urged him forward once more.
Jake astonished himself. He was performing Herculean feats that would daunt men ten years younger. Emily’s power to do this to him put him in awe.
She was a sorceress, and in the arena of the bedroom he bowed willingly before her.
But what about afterward? Would this power turn against him? Could it break him?
Jake pushed the thought aside. He was with her, inside her, and nothing else mattered. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Only the here and now.
He wrapped her legs around his neck and tasted deeply of her, feasted on her honeyed warmth until she was begging for release once more. Heaving and sweat-slickened, Jake drove into her until he was finally beyond control.
He called her name, and as the floodgates of passion opened, she gave a shattered cry.
Afterward they lay against each other, spent. The night turned cool, and when Jake reached over Emily to pull up the covers, she didn’t even move.
Tenderly he wrapped the blanket around her, then lay there wide-eyed, holding the whole world in his arms.
Chapter Sixteen
Emily awoke, momentarily disoriented by the strange room and the time difference. She sat up, taking the covers with her.
The bedside clock radio told her she’d only slept four hours. She should be exhausted, but she wasn’t. She was filled with a strange energy. Restless energy. Nervous energy.
“Em?” Jake reached up and pulled her back into his arms. “What’s the matter?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Mmm.” His hands began to move over her in slow, lazy caresses.
She allowed his touch. More than allowed it; she wallowed in the pleasure of it. A jolt of guilt caught her unaware.
How could she do this? How could she lie in bed with Jake making love as if nothing had happened? How could she be happy while her father was in a coma and her mother was in pain?
She started to pull away, but Jake held her fast.
“Don’t go, Em,” he murmured. Sleepy. Sexy.
Emily was powerless to resist. Didn’t want to. Didn’t have any choice in the matter. Already he was parting her thighs. And when he slid inside she felt such a sense of completeness, she wept. The tears rolled silently down her cheeks and wet the sheet she held knotted under her chin.
This was so right. So perfect. And yet…
Don’t think, she told herself. It’s still dark. You can’t do anything to help your father and mother in the middle of the night.
As the slow and lazy rhythm increased, Emily forgot everything except desire, which grew and grew until there was no room inside her for anything except passion. She abandoned herself to it, embraced it as the only sure thing in her life.
Jake rolled onto his back, taking Emily with him, and she rocked above him as fiercely as if she might stop the world with the sheer force of her lovemaking. Suspended, she forgot everything except the storm of emotion that swept through her.
On the way to the hospital that morning, Emily played games with herself. If she didn’t think about anything except her father during the cab ride, he would be all right. If the clouds had vanished by the time they reached the hospital and the sun was shining, he would be out of the coma. If she promised God and Grandmother Beaufort to give up her maverick ways and become more like her mother, Michael Westmoreland would miraculously awake.
“Em? What are you thinking?”
Sitting in the cab in the harsh light of early morning, Jake had the look she’d seen in her father when he returned from his mountain adventures: weathered and wise, as if the glare of sun and snow had not only parched his skin, but had burned away everything extraneous in his life, leaving nothing behind except truth and a soul on fire.
Emily caught her breath and put her hand over her hammering heart.
“Em? Are you all right?”
“Yes, I was just…just thinking about piano lessons.”
“Piano lessons?”
“Yes, I never did try to learn to play. All those lessons and all that money wasted. Why did I do that?”
“I don’t know.” He caught her hand and squeezed. “Is it important?”
“Everything seems important right now. It’s almost as if…I don’t know how to say this. Maybe if I had been different growing up, none of this would have happened. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough.”
Jake looked as if he’d been gut-punched.
“Em, don’t. If anybody’s to blame, it’s me.”
“No. I don’t blame you.”
Don’t you? She wanted to put her hands over her ears to shut out the voice.
“I blame myself,” he said.
Suddenly there was this monster between them, a giant hairy thing taking up all the space, breathing all the air so that Emily felt shrunken. She felt as if all the life had been sucked out of her.
She wished she’d never mentioned her guilt. She wished she’d kept her thoughts to herself. She wished she’d talked about the weather. Anything. Anything at all except the one subject that was guaranteed to drive them apart.
“Hospital,” the cabdriver announced, in broken English, and Emily had never been so relieved to reach her destination, in spite of what awaited her inside.
Although she and Jake walked side by side up the long flight of steps to the wide front doors, she felt as if they were on separate planets. They were both silent in the elevator going up to the third floor, both trying not to look at each other.
But she couldn’t help herself. Jake caught her stealing a glance and gave her a tight smile. Forced. Artificial.
She smiled back. What actors they had become.
“Maybe there’ll be good news waiting for us,” he said.
“Yes. Mom was very optimistic last night.”
The doors slid open and they walked down the long, white hallway, not touching. Being scrupulously careful not to touch.
Emily told herself she was distancing herself from Jake for her mother’s sake. She told herself she didn’t want anything to remind her mother of her own loss.
But when she walked into room 308 where her father still lay in a coma, she could no longer avoid the truth. Her love for Jake, a love that had been born in sunshine, could no longer survive the harsh light of day, for during the waking hours a powerful spotlight was trained on their guilt.
A single traumatic event had banished them to the darkness. Only under cover of night did Emily feel free to love Jake.
Her mother sat beside Michael’s bed exactly where she’d been the day before, holding his hand. If it hadn’t been for her wrinkled blouse and the mussed cot beside the window, Emily would think she had sat there all night.
“Any change, Mom?”
“No. None.” Anne drew herself up, drawing strength from some unknown source. “Who knows what the day will bring, t
hough? I expect Michael to be coming awake any minute. He doesn’t like to miss out on things.”
She turned to her husband and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Do you, darling? You’re missing all the fun, you know. Emily’s here. And Jake. Just think of all the places the four of us could go together. Open your eyes, darling. Please. Do it for me.”
Emily never could keep a straight face. Her brother used to tease her and say, “You’ll never be a professional gambler, Em, that’s for sure. You could never have a poker face.”
She felt her face crumbling now. Any minute she was going to start bawling like a newborn calf.
She felt Jake’s hand on her shoulder. How easy it would be to lean back against him and receive the comfort he offered. But even that small gesture seemed like a betrayal of her mother. And her father.
She moved to stand beside the window. Jake’s face gave away nothing as he moved to the opposite side of the room.
On the bed her father lay still as death, and beside him, Anne looked like a woman turned to stone. If that picture didn’t change within the next few minutes, Emily was going to start screaming.
“Mom, Jake and I are going to wait in the hall while you shower and change, and then he’s going to take you somewhere for brunch.”
“I’m not leaving the hospital. Besides, I already ate.”
There was a half-eaten pack of nabs open on the cabinet in the corner of the room.
“I can see that you did.” Emily jerked up the nabs and threw them into the garbage can. “At this rate, I’m soon going to have two parents in the hospital.”
“I’m fine. You two go and get something to eat. I’ll stay with Michael.”
“No. I’m staying with Dad, and you’re going to go somewhere and have a decent meal.”
Anne opened her mouth to protest when Jake intervened.
“We won’t leave the hospital, Anne. There’s a decent cafeteria downstairs.”
“It’s settled, then.” Emily took Jake’s arm and headed toward the door. “Take all the time you need, Mom. We’ll be just outside.”
“Ten minutes. That’s all I need.”
“Great.”
The minute they were out the door, Emily dropped Jake’s arm. He didn’t say anything, just waited beside her until Anne opened the door.
“Come in, Emily. I want you to sit beside your father the whole time I’m gone. Hold his hand and don’t let go. And talk to him. He needs to know we’re here.”
“Don’t worry, Mom.”
Emily sat down and picked up her father’s lifeless hand.
“Good. Massage it. It’ll help keep up his circulation.” Anne bent and kissed Michael softly on the lips. “Bye, darling. I’ll be back before you know it.”
The first time Emily had ever seen a life-size dummy in a wax museum, she had screamed. She’d been six, and terrified.
She wasn’t six anymore nor was she terrified, but her father’s hand felt as if it belonged to a wax figure. It wasn’t real. It didn’t close around hers, protecting, guiding.
Emily escaped to the window. How could she possibly have a conversation with her dad? That wasn’t him in the bed. That was a lifeless body with a mind in suspension.
That stranger had nothing to do with Michael Westmoreland, who had read all the Pooh stories to her and taught her to ride a bicycle and tutored her in the multiplication tables. He had nothing to do with the man who was tall enough to put a star on top of the Christmas tree without standing on a ladder, but not too tall to bend down to listen to a child.
Emily leaned her head against the cool windowpane while tears trickled down her cheeks and made crooked patterns on the glass. When the phone rang, she jumped.
“Hello?”
“Emily, is that you? Where’s Mom?”
It was Hannah, her older sister who had always been larger than life to Emily. The sister she’d tagged along behind, trying to stretch her legs so she could step precisely into her footprints. The sister who had ended Emily’s childhood by telling her there was no Santa Claus, and who, years later, had initiated her into womanhood by telling her what a first kiss felt like.
“She’s gone to get a bite to eat.”
No need to mention Jake. Hannah would ask a million questions, then proceed to dispense advice. The last thing Emily needed right now was sisterly advice. Even if the sister was the usually fabulous Hannah.
“How’s Dad?”
“Still the same, Hannah. He’s just…lying there.”
“Oh, God, Em…I didn’t even come to the family reunion.”
“All of us understood why you didn’t come.”
“Couldn’t come, not didn’t. Anyhow, that’s not the point. I thought I’d have years. I thought, with the retirement he’d always be there when I got home.”
“For Pete’s sake, Hannah! Dad’s not dead.”
Silence. Emily could hear Hannah breathing, and then her soft inquiry.
“Can Dad hear you?”
“I don’t know. Mom thinks he can.”
“Then don’t say things like that!”
Suddenly it was all too much for Emily—her father’s accident, her mother’s heartache, her lover’s slow drifting away.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Hannah. Don’t you dare tell me what to do!”
“Hey, all right. I’m sorry. I know how hard it’s been for you, Em. I should have come to Hong Kong.”
Emily wiped her face with the back of her hand. “No, it’s all right. Really. Mom and I are making it just fine. Anyhow, the doctor says we can go back to the States in a few days.”
“In a few days Dad’s going to be all right?”
“No. I didn’t say that. I don’t know, Hannah. The doctors don’t know. Nobody knows. We’ll just be going home, regardless. That’s all.”
“I’ll have this Amazon story wrapped up in a few days. I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
Relief washed over Emily. When Hannah came home, she would share the burden.
“I’ll be glad to see you, and I know Mom will.”
“Good. Tell her I’m coming home. And, Em…tell Dad, too.”
After she’d hung up, Emily sat in the chair beside the bed looking at her father. Although the huge round clock hanging on the wall was electric, she could swear she heard it ticking.
“Dad?” She called his name softly. “Are you there?”
There was no response whatsoever. Not even a tremor of his eyelids.
“I don’t know if you can hear me or not. I hope you can because there are some things I want to tell you. First, Hannah’s coming home. She wants you to know that. She loves you, Dad. And I do, too. We all do.”
Emily’s bottom lip started trembling, and she bit down to stop it. Tears were a luxury she could no longer afford.
“I know you’re planning to come back to us, but I want you to know that until you do, I’ll take care of Mom. If I’d said that two weeks ago, you’d have laughed your head off and told me she was strong enough to handle a hurricane single-handedly. And I’d have said, yeah, Dad, you’re right.”
Emily leaned close and smoothed the cover over her father’s chest. Then she repositioned his hands, lacing the fingers together the way she’d seen him do so many times.
“I’m the only one living close enough to be there for her. And I promise you I won’t let anything stand in my way.”
Not even Jake.
She wondered what her father would say if he knew that she and Jake were having trouble. What advice would he give? Would she ever know?
She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. “Rest now, Dad. Get strong again. And then come back to us. Please.”
Jake had sensed the change in Emily this morning in the taxi, and it had been even more obvious when he and Anne came back from breakfast.
Now he and Emily were back again in her hotel room, and they might as well have been in different cities. That was how wide the gulf between them had grown.
/> Jake found it almost unendurable. He’d never before faced a situation he didn’t know how to handle.
Emily stood at the window in her silk pajamas brushing her hair and looking out at the night-lit city as if she couldn’t get enough of the view.
“Emily?”
She didn’t turn around, not even when Jake stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.
Look at me, he wanted to say. Instead, he took the brush from her hand and ran it through her hair. A few strands escaped the bristles and wrapped themselves around his fingers. A silky caress.
Jake had to have more. Weaving his free hand into her hair, he began to massage her scalp. Only then did Emily start to relax.
Such a small thing. His hand in her hair. And yet, hope doesn’t require much encouragement.
He laid the brush on the windowsill and caught her hand.
“Come to bed, Emily.”
She let him lead her to the bed they’d shared, if not eagerly, then at least willingly. He turned back the covers and when she climbed in beside him, he took her in his arms and began to kiss her.
She allowed his kisses. That was the kindest way to describe it.
“Em?”
“I’m sorry, Jake.”
“Hey, there’s no need for you to apologize. I understand.”
Only too well.
The gulf between them became an ocean. And Jake didn’t even have a paddle, let alone a canoe.
What would he do if Michael were not in a coma? What would he do if he was back in Mississippi where the deep woods surrounded them and the owl’s cry sounded through the darkness?
His hands found the small of her back, and he began to caress her. Softly. Tenderly.
She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Maybe touching her wasn’t such a good idea. Jake took his hands off her and was preparing to roll over and try to get some sleep when she spoke in the faintest of whispers.