The Wall: A Vintage Contemporary Romance

by Thea Harrison

  Those eyes, those warm, self-contained, lonely eyes. Sara shook her head slightly and his arm tightened on her hand. Is intuition ever correct? she wondered, shaken. If so, then I’ve known this man for ever, and everything else has been irrelevant. Their steps slowed.

  “What I’m wondering,” he said thoughtfully, “is why you look so curiously familiar to me.”

  Realisation and sanity hit her like a blow and she jerked away on reflex. “No reason.” It was only a whisper; for some reason she couldn’t get out anything stronger. I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me. He really doesn’t know me. Please, don’t let him find out who I am. She started to hang back and took a few steps in the other direction. “I’d better go.”

  His hand whipped out. “No, not yet,” he began. “I’d like to…”

  Far ahead, the black figure of the dancing dog suddenly stiffened, and a furious barking reached their ears. Greg also stiffened, in an attitude that seemed very reminiscent of his dog’s, and he started forward to run swiftly down the beach. The dog shot to the treeline with a low menacing growl and Sara heard Greg shout directions at him, pointing up to the trees, and the dog changed direction, his great body leaping forcefully. Soon she heard sounds of yelling, and Greg too disappeared into the trees.

  Feeling deeply alarmed, she ran forward too, straining to see what was going on under the shadow of the trees. She thought she saw a shorter dark figure dart forward and attach itself to a taller figure. The swiftly moving man she knew was Greg. Beowulf was attacking someone, a trespasser. She shouted sharply, “Don’t let him bite!”

  A harsh order had Beowulf slinking back from the tall figure, and the strange man who had been attacked straightened, his breathing audible even from where she was. She faltered to a stop just behind Greg’s shoulder, puzzled at his tenseness and very much frightened by the danger waves she was picking up from both him and the dog.

  “What are you doing here?” The words came from Greg like the crack of a whip, and she jumped.

  The other figure hesitated. “Just taking a walk,” came from the unknown other man. He was shorter than Greg.

  “Where from?” Greg shot back.

  “Up north,” the man told him, gesturing vaguely with one hand.

  “That’s private property too. What were you doing there?” Sara had never heard such an ugly tone of voice from Greg and she was growing more and more afraid without knowing why. The realisation that he truly was a stranger was brought home again forcibly when she heard him talk like this.

  “Just exploring. I didn’t mean any harm by it.” The tone from the other man was apologetic, placating.

  Greg didn’t appear to be mollified. “I want you off the property in ten minutes,” he said evenly. Why was he in such a towering rage? He was standing very still and very stiff, Sara could feel it from where she stood. It impelled her to move, to place a tentative, soothing hand on the stiff shoulder just ahead. He shook it off impatiently, and she was so deeply hurt that she fell back. Wrong, she thought, wrong for me to feel this way. He’s nothing but a stranger. Forget it. “If you aren’t off the property in ten minutes, I’ll loose my dog after you. He knows how to search the grounds. Got that?”

  “Look, mister, I didn’t mean anything by—” The man was taking careful steps backwards.

  “Get!” The word whipped the man into a faster pace, and he soon disappeared down the beach.

  Greg stood watching him go, but Sara didn’t wait to find out what happened. She turned and started running back the way they had come, moving as fast as she could. It shouldn’t hurt this way, she thought dazedly, such disappointment in a stranger after all. I shouldn’t care.

  After a minute, Greg turned and saw the fleeing slight figure in the gathering darkness. “Sara?” he called. “Sara! Wait a moment, will you? Sara!”

  She increased her pace until she was running as fast as she could, her breath coming heavily now from ploughing through the sand. She didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It was like a nightmare that she had once had, of being chased and not being able to get anywhere though she tried and tried.

  “Don’t run so fast!” The words were shouted at her, and she heard pounding feet behind her. She knew he had to catch up with her soon. He was so much bigger and stronger for this kind of running and she was deplorably out of shape. Her chest heaved. “You’ll make yourself sick!”

  What the devil does he mean? she had time to think before two hands hauled her to a stop. She stood with head bowed and chest heaving, the air coming from her in gasps. Greg stood with his hands on her shoulders, frowning at her, but she didn’t see.

  “Why did you run?” The tone sounded to her to be harsh and uncompromising, like the tone he had used with the strange man just now, and the shoulders that he held trembled in his grasp.

  “M-my feet were cold,” she stammered, and gulped air. Her chest felt tight, and her head was beginning to ache behind the ears.

  “You’re lying to me,” Greg started, then stopped a second as he felt her involuntary cringe, so like her fear to the dog. He said slowly. “Sara, are you afraid of me?”

  The trembling seemed to increase at this, and she couldn’t help it. His hands tightened. She thought a moment and decided that honesty was the best answer. “Yes.”

  Silence. Then, a more gentle tone, “Why?”

  “You—that man, I can’t make any sense out of…” She made a huge effort and stopped for a minute with head bent, and took one sustaining breath. “You were so hard on the man. I mean, I’m a trespasser, but you even invited me back, and he was just taking a walk on the beach, and you were going to loose the dog on him, and—”

  “You,” Greg told her, “couldn’t hurt a flea, and we both know that. Furthermore,” and his grip tightened on her shoulders and drew her near him. She resisted, but he drew her near anyway, “I happen to know my neighbours in the north, and he wasn’t any of them. He was a stranger and he was trespassing deep into private property. He was not on the beach but on a path that leads to my house, and he had no business up there. If he’d been on the beach it might have been different. You, I know, are harmless, while he’s virtually unknown…”

  “How?” she burst out, staring up into the darkness where his face was supposed to be. One part of her brain thought, God, I’m shaken.

  “I checked on you this afternoon,” he said simply. “You really are a neighbour who’s rented the cabin for six months. Your landlord even told me that you were right when you said there were two fireplaces and no firewood.”

  “I burned my cigarettes this afternoon,” she murmured, apparently irrelevantly. The hands loosened on her shoulders and one arm replaced them, drawing her into his side and held to his body warmth in a quick hug.

  “Good girl!”

  Then she exploded. “My God, what gives you the right to think you need to check up on me, when you’re acting a damned sight fishier than I am, for heaven’s sake, and all I did was trespass a few hundred yards, and you’re probably going to be responsible for a murder if you loose your horrid dog on that fellow, because you know that he won’t have enough time to get off the property before then, it’s much too big…”

  She was stopped, very effectively, by warm lips that took her mouth in a long, hard kiss that seemed to shock all of the breath out of her. When that dark head lifted from her, all she could do was stare.

  “I wanted to do that when you picked up the sand with both fists,” he said in a voice that sounded as if he was discussing the weather.

  Sara murmured, “It was nice.”

  Greg’s arm came around her again and tightened. He started to walk her slowly, keeping her close to his side. She didn’t object. She should have, probably, but she didn’t. Instead, she snuggled closer.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” he asked her.

  “What?”

  “When you ran so hard. You said to me that you were recuperating from an illness and I was worried that you would do yourse
lf harm by running so recklessly.”

  “Oh,” she said, and then, “oh, no, I hadn’t broken any bones or anything like that. It was—more a virus, you know. I’ve quite recovered from it.”

  “When do you go back to your work?” a quiet voice had asked her, and the question was so close to her own thoughts that she jumped violently.

  “I’m not sure,” she said hesitantly, wondering what to say next. “It kind of depends on how well I recuperate, you see, and if I get bored soon. It may be a few months.”

  “Were you smart to go wading into the cold water like you did? Could it bring back the virus you had?”

  Sara answered this truthfully. “I never even thought of it.” The arm around her tightened again.

  “You need a nursemaid to take care of you if you’re going to be this irresponsible,” he told her, and she put a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing aloud.

  They found their shoes quickly in the moonlight, and both had to sit on the sand to put them on. She made a comment about his nice slacks, which he promptly told her not to worry about, and they both sat looking over the dark water that occasionally sparkled from the pale light that gently suffused the October night. The air was getting nippy; even though the days were just like summer with an unseasonal heat, the nights were getting distinctly chilly.

  The water lapping so gently seemed to have her falling into a trance. She lay back on the soft sand and stared up at the sky. The man beside her was silent, almost totally black, and she wondered that she would feel alternately so comfortable with him and at the same time so uneasy. She wondered why he was so distinctly unfriendly to strangers, or why he would want to check up on a neighbour with very little provocation. She decided that he must be either very rich, or illegal, and possibly both. She decided that she didn’t want to know.

  “I want a cigarette so badly, I can just taste what it would be like,” she told him conversationally. “That marvellous smell, the relaxation…”

  “…the smoke damage to your lungs, the heart problems…” added Greg with what sounded like a smile in his voice.

  “…the tantalising curl of the smoke from the glowing end, such pleasure…” she murmured, and laughed. “It’s a good thing I burned my carton of cigarettes! Now there aren’t any in the house—oh, wonderful! I forgot to check the glove compartment of my car, and I always keep a pack there. I’ll have to go and get them.” She didn’t move, in spite of the craving her body felt.

  “You don’t need them. Throw them out!” he told her, propping himself up on one elbow to look down on her face. The moonlight on her skin made it look like polished marble, and her eyes glittered like liquid jewels. “Why should you need artificial stimulation or a depressant? You seem like you can get your happiness well enough on your own. Make it on your own steam, don’t rely on drugs.”

  The marble smoothness of her face cracked, and as he watched, the liquid quality of her gleaming eyes shimmered and two sparkling tears slid down her cheeks. The eyes closed, hiding those expressive orbs. Then, with a sudden movement, she rolled over in the sand and hid her face in her arms to weep.

  Greg moved close, shocked. “What did I say?” he asked her lowly, putting out a hand to lay on those shaking shoulders. They felt so thin! “What did I do?”

  After a little, Sara whispered, “It isn’t you, it’s me.”

  “What did you do?” The question was asked gently. The hand on her shoulder rubbed up and down, soothing and comforting.

  At that, she rolled back over and stared up at the sky, feeling after that first bit of terrible sadness a surprising measure of calm. “I’ve been a fool, that’s all,” she said, smiling a little. “It’s hard to admit when you’ve been a fool, and often you don’t feel proud of yourself. When I was sick, before I knew it, I was feeling really tired and draggy, really down. I could barely get through work. Someone offered me a pill. I guess it was speed. I wanted to take it so badly, and I’ve always been very careful as to what I put in my body and there I was, wanting to take that pill. I told myself that it was only one, that it wouldn’t really make any difference. Of course that’s not true. It’s not the pill that matters, but the reasons and philosophies behind it.”

  He was very still, and when she paused, his low voice prompted gently, “And did you take it?”

  “No,” she sighed, stirring. “But that was when I realised that something was terribly wrong in my life, and that’s why I’m changing it right now. There for a while I was afraid I’d lost myself somewhere along the way.”

  “And do you think you’ve found yourself again?” She turned her head to look at Greg.

  “I think so. I’m not sure. I guess so, if you count gaining back some measure of calm and peace. I’m still looking for my self-respect—I really misplaced that one.” Silence settled on them for a time. Sara felt reluctant to move. The peace that she had mentioned came to her now and settled on her like a comforter, warming her with serenity.

  She felt so good, sitting on the beach with this man. She felt more comfortable with him than she had ever felt with Barry or any of her musicians or acquaintances. There he was, like some black monolith in the night, and she didn’t know a thing about him, but his understanding questions and gentle touch had meant more to her than any overtures that she had been the recipient of for the past six years. It was because he gave them straight from himself to herself. There was no barrier, no underlying motive stemming from who she was, or how influential she could be with the company she worked with—or was there?

  She kept very still on the sand as her brain started to click over certain things with an uncomfortable suspicion. Suddenly she remembered the odd way that Greg had looked at her when she had first arrived on the scene that morning and had built the sand castle. His gaze had been very keen and piercing. Sara knew that her face was extremely well known, and the bone structure so prominent as to make her face probably distinctive enough to make one wonder. And he had admittedly “checked up” on her residence. Just how far had that check-up gone? If he had enquired into her past work position or residence, then he would have come up with a complete blank. Sara Carmichael didn’t really exist in a practical sense, for Sara Bertelli had lived for six years in California. If Greg had made the least push to find out what she did for a living, he would have her, for she had no work history, and her landlord knew nothing. If he got suspicious enough to check that far, then the fact that Sara Carmichael didn’t really exist as far as records go would be enough to make him turn ugly with suspicion—for he was so wary of strangers that he must be hiding something, what she didn’t know, but he was definitely hiding something—or it would be enough to push his memory to the truth. Without her heavy make-up she could fob off casual glances her way, but she couldn’t hope to do it with a discerning eye.

  One thing that had struck her about Greg was that he had a definite discerning eye. He noticed everything, like a hawk.

  It was a suspicion on her part, but it was such a strong suspicion, and she had taken so much pleasure in thinking that they had dealt well together, just themselves with no pretence or pressure, that she closed her eyes against it. It was too late, however, and had been too late the moment the thought had entered her mind. The unpleasant part about the whole thing was that she felt so naked, so completely vulnerable now, that she would not feel comfortable around him whether he really knew or not. Just that she would suspect it was enough to destroy whatever natural attitude she had been able to adopt around him, because she knew that she could never ask him for the truth.

  She sat up, staring out in the early evening, blinking like a sleepwalker newly awakened. The night lost all of its magic and its peace and a perfect day was ruined.

  She mumbled, “I’m going home,” and stood, looking around her and trying to remember just where she had put her camera bag. It was so dark that she couldn’t see landmarks very well.

  “This is abrupt,” he said, and stood also. Looking down at her and
trying to catch a glimpse of her face, he asked her, “Something wrong?”

  She was twisting around, trying to keep her face hidden from him, and she asked him, “Can you remember where I left my camera bag?” She walked away from him in a way that suggested hurry. Greg stood very still and watched her.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “It’s so dark that I can’t see where I left it,” she remarked, using the excuse to move even further away from him. The problem was that he followed. She backed up again.

  “I could bring it to you in the morning,” Greg offered quietly.

  “No! That’s all right,” she tried to mollify her terse answer. “I think I can find it, and I don’t want you to go to any trouble on my account.” Why did he make her feel so threatened?

  “It’s no trouble,” he was still quiet, and very still.

  Sara turned and abandoned the conversation, just leaving Greg where he stood. She went to the bushes and started to feel around with her hands, remembering that it was somewhere near the edge and just out of casual sight. She heard footsteps behind her and refused to look up.

  “What happened?” the quiet voice came to her. She stopped looking a moment and then continued, her mouth dry and hands shaking. Ever since she had started to entertain doubts about him, it had thrown all their conversations into a different light. What if he was a reporter? What if he was sent by Barry to keep an eye on her? It was something that Barry would do.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, stalling for time. Her groping hands found the bulky bag, and she swung it up to her shoulder with relief. She had to get out of there; she had to get away from this man.

  “What happened just now? Something did, what I don’t know, but I can tell you just when it did. You’ve thought of something, and you’re shying away like a startled rabbit.” That quiet voice could be so terrible, she found, listening to it with ears pricked with fear. “What did you think of, Sara? Has something started to bother you? Have you forgotten to tell me something about yourself, like, are you a reporter out for a story?”