Nash froze and his eyes met hers, before he groaned and fell backward onto the bed. “You are drunk, aren’t you?”
“No,” she insisted. “Just happy. Now kiss me and quit asking so many questions.” She was reaching for him when it happened. The pain shot like fire through her leg and, groaning, she fell onto her side.
Seven
Nash recognized the effort Savannah made to hide her agony. It must have been excruciating; it was certainly too intense to disguise. Lying on her back, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, gritted her teeth and then attempted to manage the pain with deep-breathing exercises.
“Savannah,” he whispered, not wanting to break her concentration and at the same time desperately needing to do something, anything, to ease her discomfort. “Let me help,” he pleaded.
She shook her head. “It’ll pass in a few minutes.”
Even in the moonlight, Nash could see how pale she’d become. He jumped off the bed and was pacing like a wild beast, feeling the searing grip of her pain himself. It twisted at his stomach, creating a mental torment unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
“Let me massage your leg,” he insisted, and when she didn’t protest he lifted the skirt of her full-length gown and ran his hands up and down her thigh. Her skin was hot to the touch and when he placed his chilled hands on her, she groaned anew.
“It’ll pass.” He repeated her own words, praying he was right. His heart was pounding double-time in his anxiety. He couldn’t bear to see Savannah endure this unbearable pain, and stand by and do nothing.
Her whole leg was terribly scarred and his heart ached at the agony she’d endured over the years. Her muscles were tense and knotted but gradually began to relax as he gently worked her flesh with both hands, easing them up and down her thigh and calf. He saw the marks of several surgeries; the scars were testament to her suffering and her bravery.
“There are pills in my purse,” she whispered, her voice barely discernible.
Nash quickly surveyed the room, jerking his head from left to right, wondering where she’d put it. He found the small clutch purse on the carpet. Grasping it, he emptied the contents on top of the bed. The brown plastic bottle filled with a prescription for pain medication rolled into view.
Hurrying into his bathroom, he ran her a glass of water, then dumped a handful of the thick chalky tablets into the palm of his hand. “Here,” he said.
Levering herself up on one elbow, Savannah took three of the pills. Her hands were trembling, he noted, and he could hardly resist taking her in his arms. Once she’d swallowed the pills, she closed her eyes and laid her head on the pillow.
“Take me home, please.”
“In a few minutes. Let’s give those pills a chance to work first.”
She was sobbing openly now. Nash lay down next to her and gathered her in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
“For what?”
“For ruining everything.”
“You didn’t ruin anything.” He brushed his lips over the crown of her head.
“I…didn’t want you to see my leg.” Her tears came in earnest now and she buried her face in his shoulder.
“Why?”
“It’s ugly.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“For one night…”
“You’re wrong, Savannah. You’re beautiful every minute of every day.” He cradled her head against him, whispering softly in her ear. Gradually he felt her tension diminish, and he knew by the even sound of her breathing that she was drifting off to sleep.
Nash held her for several minutes, wondering what he should do. She’d asked that he take her home, but waking her seemed cruel, especially now that the terrible agony had passed. She needed her sleep, and movement might bring back the pain.
What it came down to, he admitted reluctantly, was one simple fact. He wanted Savannah with him and was unwilling to relinquish her.
Kissing her temple, he eased himself from her arms and crawled off the bed. He got a blanket from the top shelf in his closet and covered her with it, careful to tuck it about her shoulders.
Looking down on her, Nash shoved his hands in his pockets and stared for several minutes.
He wandered into the living room, slumped into his recliner and sat in the dark while the night shadows moved against the walls.
He’d been selfish and inconsiderate, but above all he’d been irresponsible. Bringing Savannah to his home had been the most recent in a long list of errors in judgment.
He was drunk, but not on champagne. His intoxication was strictly due to Savannah. The idealist. The romantic. Attending his sister’s wedding hadn’t helped matters any. Susan had been a beautiful bride and if there was ever a time he could believe in the power of love and the strength of vows, it was at her wedding.
It’d started early in the evening when he’d exchanged vows with Savannah as if they were the ones being married. It was a moment out of time—dangerous and unreal.
He’d attempted to understand what had happened, offered a litany of excuses, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever find one that would satisfy him. He wished there was someone or something he could blame, but that wasn’t likely. The best he could hope for was to forget the whole episode and pray Savannah did the same.
Savannah. She was so beautiful. He’d never enjoyed dancing with a woman like he did with her. Smiling to himself, he recalled the way he’d been caught up in the magic of her joy. Being with her, sharing this night with her, was like being drawn into a fairy tale, impossible to resist even if he’d tried. And he hadn’t.
Before he knew it, they were parked at Alki Beach, kissing like there was no tomorrow. He’d never desired a woman more.
Wrong. There’d been a time, years earlier, when he’d been equally enthralled with a woman. In retrospect it was easy to excuse his naïveté. He’d been young and impressionable. And because of that, he’d fallen hopelessly in love.
Love. He didn’t even like the sound of the word. He’d found love to be both painful and dangerous.
Nash didn’t love Savannah. He refused to allow himself to wallow in that destructive emotion a second time. He was attracted to her, but love was out of the question. Denise had taught him everything he needed to know about that.
He hadn’t thought of her, except in passing, in years. Briefly he wondered if she was happy, and doubted his ex-wife would ever find what she was searching for. Her unfaithfulness continued to haunt him even now, years after their divorce. For too long he’d turned a blind eye to her faults, all in the glorious name of love.
He’d made other mistakes, too. First and foremost he’d married the wrong woman. His father had tried to tell him, but Nash had refused to listen, discrediting his advice, confident his father’s qualms about Nash’s choice in women were part and parcel of being too old to understand true love. Time had proved otherwise.
Looking back, Nash realized he’d shared only one thing with Denise. Incredible sex. He’d mistaken her physical demands for love. Within a few weeks of meeting, they were living together and their sexual relationship had become addictive.
It was ironic that she’d been the one to bring up the subject of marriage. Until then she’d insisted she was a “free spirit.” Not until much later did he understand this sudden need she had for commitment. With his father seriously ill, there was the possibility of a large inheritance.
They’d been happy in the beginning. Or at least Nash had attempted to convince himself of that, and perhaps they were, but their happiness was short-lived.
He’d first suspected something was wrong when he arrived home late one evening after a grueling day in court and caught the scent of a man’s cologne. He’d asked Denise and she’d told him he was imagining things. Because he wanted to believe her, because the thought of her being unfaithful was so completely foreign, he’d accepted her word. He had no reason to doubt her.
His second clue came less than a month later when
a woman he didn’t know met him outside his apartment. She was petite and fragile in her full-length coat, her hands deep in the pockets, her eyes downcast. She hated to trouble him, she said, but could Nash please keep his wife away from her husband. She’d recently learned she was pregnant with their second child and wanted to keep the marriage together if she could.
Nash had been stunned. He’d tried to ask questions, but she’d turned and fled. He didn’t say anything to Denise, not that night and not for a long time afterward. But that was when he started to notice the little things that should’ve been obvious.
Nash hated himself for being so weak. He should have demanded the truth then and there, should have kicked her out of his home. Instead he did nothing. Denial was comfortable for a week and then two, while he wrestled with his doubts.
Savannah’s scarred leg was a testament to her bravery, her endless struggle to face life each and every day. His scarred emotions were a testament to his cowardice, to knowing that his wife was cheating on him and accepting it rather than confronting her with the truth.
His wife had been cheating on him. What an ineffectual word that was for what he felt. It sounded so…trivial. So insignificant. But the sense of betrayal was sharper than any blade, more painful than any incision. It had slashed his ego, punctured his heart and forever changed the way he viewed love and life.
Nash had loved Denise; he must have, otherwise she wouldn’t have had the power to hurt him so deeply. That love had burned within him, slowly twisting itself into a bitter desire to get even.
The divorce had been ugly. Nash attempted to use legal means to retaliate for what Denise had done to him emotionally. Unfortunately there was no compensation for what he’d endured. He’d learned this countless times since from other clients. He’d wanted to embarrass and humiliate her the way she had him, but in the end they’d both lost.
Following their divorce, Denise had married again almost immediately. Her new husband was a man she’d met three weeks earlier. Nash kept tabs on her for some time afterward and was downright gleeful when he learned she was divorcing again less than a year later.
For a long while Nash was convinced he hated Denise. In some ways he did; his need for revenge had been immature. But as the years passed, he was able to put their short marriage in perspective, and he was grateful for the lessons she’d taught him. Paramount was the complete unreliability of love and marriage.
Denise had initiated him into this kind of thinking, and the hundreds of divorce cases he’d handled since then had reinforced it.
Then he’d met Savannah. In the beginning, she’d irritated him no end. With her head in the clouds, subsisting on the thin air of romance, she’d met each of his arguments as if she alone was responsible for defending the institution of marriage. As if she alone was responsible for changing his views.
Savannah irritated him—that was true enough—but she’d worn down his defenses until he was doing more than listening to her; he was beginning to believe again. It took some deep soul-searching to admit that.
He must believe, otherwise she wouldn’t be sleeping in his bed. Otherwise they wouldn’t have come within a heartbeat of making love.
What a drastic mistake that would have been, Nash realized a second time. He didn’t know when common sense had abandoned him, but it had. Perhaps he’d started breathing that impossibly thin air Savannah had existed on all these years. Apparently it had tricked him as it had her.
Nash should have known better than to bring Savannah into his home. He couldn’t sleep with her and expect their relationship to remain the same. Everything would change. Savannah wasn’t the type of woman to engage in casual affairs and that was all Nash had to offer. A few hours in bed would have been immensely pleasurable, but eventually disastrous to them both.
* * *
Savannah woke when dawn light crept through a nearby window. Opening her eyes, she needed a moment to orient herself. She was in a strange bed. Alone. It didn’t take long to remember the events of the night before. She was in Nash’s home.
Sitting up required an effort. The contents of her purse were strewn across the bed and, gathering them together as quickly as possible, she went in search of her shoes.
Nash was nowhere to be seen. If her luck held, she could call a cab and be out of his home before he realized she’d gone.
Her folly weighed heavily on her. She’d never felt more embarrassed in her life.
She moved stealthily from the bedroom into the living room. Pausing, she saw Nash asleep in his recliner. Her breath caught in her throat as she whispered a silent prayer of thanksgiving that he was asleep.
Fearing the slightest sound would wake him, she decided to sneak out the back door, find a phone elsewhere and call for a cab. Her cell phone was at home; there hadn’t been room for it in the tiny beaded purse she’d brought with her yesterday.
Her hand was on the lock to the back door, a clean escape within her reach, when Nash spoke from behind her.
“I thought you wanted to check out my china pattern.”
Savannah closed her eyes in frustration. “You were sleeping,” she said without turning around.
“I’m awake now.”
Her face was so hot, it was painful. Dropping her hands, she did her best to smile before slowly pivoting around.
“How were you planning on getting home?” he asked.
“A taxi.”
“Did you bring your cell?”
He knew perfectly well she hadn’t. “No, I was going to locate a phone somewhere and call a cab.”
“I see.” He began to make a pot of coffee as if this morning was no different from any other. “Why did you find it so important to leave now?” he asked in what she was sure were deceptively calm tones.
“You were sleeping….”
“And you didn’t want to disturb me.”
“Something like that.”
“We didn’t make love, so there’s no need to behave like an outraged virgin.”
“I’m well aware of what we did and didn’t do,” Savannah said stiffly. He was offended that she was sneaking out of his home. That much was apparent.
Nash was an experienced lover, but she doubted he’d ever dealt with a situation similar to what had happened to them. Most women probably found pleasure in his touch, not excruciating pain. Most women sighed with enjoyment; they didn’t sob in agony. Most women lived the life of a princess on a day-to-day basis, while her opportunity came once in a lifetime.
“How’s your leg feel?”
“It’s fine.”
“You shouldn’t have danced—”
“Nothing on this earth would have stopped me,” she told him, her voice surprisingly strong. “The pain’s something I live with every day. It’s the price I paid for enjoying myself. I had a wonderful time last night, Nash. Don’t take that away from me.”
He hesitated, then said, “Sit down and have a cup of coffee. We’ll talk and then I’ll drive you home.” He poured two cups and set them on the round kitchen table. “Cream and sugar?”
She shook her head.
He sat casually in one of the chairs.
“I…I’m not much of a conversationalist in the morning,” she said.
“No problem. We can wait until afternoon if you’d rather.”
She didn’t and he knew that. All she wanted was to escape.
Reluctantly she pulled out the chair opposite his and sat down. The coffee was too hot to drink, but just the right temperature to warm her hands. She cradled the cup between her palms and focused her attention on it. “I want you to know how sorry I am for—”
He interrupted her. “If you’re apologizing for last night, don’t bother.”
“All right, I won’t.”
“Good.”
Savannah took her first tentative sip of coffee. “Well,” she said, looking up but avoiding his eyes, “what would you suggest we talk about?”
“What happened.”
&nbs
p; “Nothing happened,” she said.
“It almost did.”
“I know that better than you think, Nash. So why are we acting like strangers this morning? Susan’s wedding was beautiful. Dancing with you and the two gentlemen from your office was wonderful. For one incredible night I played the glamorous role of a princess. Unfortunately, it ended just a little too soon.”
“It ended exactly where it should have. Our making love would have been a mistake.”
Savannah was trying to put everything in perspective, but his statement felt like a slap in the face. It shouldn’t have hurt so much, but it did. Unwanted tears sprang to her eyes.
“You don’t agree?”
“Does it matter?” she asked, refusing to let him know how deeply he’d hurt her.
“I suppose not.”
“It doesn’t,” she said more forcefully. She was having a difficult time holding back the tears. They threatened to spill down her face any second. “I’d like to go home now,” she said.
“It wouldn’t have worked, you know.”
“Of course I know that,” she flared.
She felt more than saw Nash’s hesitation. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’ve never been better,” she snapped. “But I want to go home. Sitting around here in this dress is ridiculous. Now either you drive me or I’m calling a cab.”
“I’ll drive you.”
The ride back to her place was a nightmare for Savannah. Nash made a couple of attempts at conversation, but she was in no mood to talk and certainly in no mood to analyze the events of the night before. She’d been humiliated enough and didn’t want to make things worse.
The minute Nash pulled into her driveway, Savannah opened the car door, eager to make her escape. His hand at her elbow stopped her.
Savannah groaned inwardly and froze. But Nash didn’t seem to have anything to say.
“Susan’s wedding was very nice. Thank you,” he finally told her.
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