The Wall: A Vintage Contemporary Romance

by Thea Harrison

  “Fine, then I’ll go ahead and put on a pot of coffee. Or would you like tea instead?” Sara flung her hair off her face as she spoke and noticed his eyes touching on her shoulders as it settled back.

  “Coffee’s fine.” Greg was quickly outside again, and she left to go and plug in her coffeemaker. She was rummaging around in her refrigerator when Greg spoke from the doorway. “Where can I wash?”

  She put down the packages that she had hauled out and went to the doorway to stand near him, peering around the corner and pointing out the door. As she stuck her head around and turned her face away from him, she felt a hand in her hair at the back of her head, and looked up enquiringly. “Is something wrong?” He was very close, she realised belatedly, and seemed stronger than ever in such proximity, and larger. His face was bent towards her, and she ran her hand over the jutting bones under the tanned skin. His lower cheeks and chin were getting the finest sprinkle of beard, and she wanted to reach up and scratch her fingers on it.

  “Just looking to see if your hair is dry yet,” he replied, running his hand through the strands slowly. He frowned. Her hair was still damp, being so long and thick, and the strands felt cold to the touch. “You really should blow your hair dry. What if you get sick again? There aren’t any neighbours within calling distance, and you’d be quite alone if anything happened.”

  She answered easily, “I’ll just make a list of emergency numbers, then. Don’t worry so much! I’ve been alone for years and nothing has happened to me yet.” Her eyes moved to the phone book that sat in a little cubbyhole just under the cabin’s only phone. Walking over thoughtfully, she pulled out the book and started to leaf slowly through the pages.

  Greg had watched her without going to wash, and he asked her curiously, “Who are you going to call?”

  “Hmm? No one, just yet,” she murmured, still thinking over whatever had crossed her mind, and not really paying attention to him as he came to stand just by her shoulder. “I just thought I’d make a list of emergency numbers so I would have at my fingertips someone to call if I’m in trouble.” She didn’t look up, pointing with a forefinger to the inside flap of the book. “It looks as though there’s already a list made out in front.”

  Greg was still frowning thoughtfully as he perused the numbers. “It would take time for these people to get here—look, that hospital number is a different area, at least half an hour’s drive away. Can I give you my number to call if you need anything? I can be over here in less than ten minutes if anything is wrong.”

  Sara felt vastly touched by this. “Greg, that’s very good of you. If you really don’t mind the bother—”

  His lips pulled into a crooked smile. “No bother, sweetheart. Just jot this down, and I’ll go and clean up…” She scribbled the number that he gave her, and as he disappeared down the hall, she went back to making sandwiches with a warm feeling inside. He was soon entering the kitchen with his dark hair neat and his hands scrubbed clean, and slowed at the doorway when he found her with a secret little quirk of the mouth that he discovered was deliciously tantalising. “Good joke, I take it?” the deep voice sounded right behind her, and she whirled. Chuckling at the expression on her face, Greg looked past her at the array of sandwiches and the steaming coffee and murmured appreciatively, “A feast for a starving man!”

  “Help yourself,” she invited, pulling out a chair for him and laughing when he sat down. He looked up enquiringly, one dark brow up.

  “Am I the cause of that laughter?”

  “In a way. You make this kitchen seem so small, and that chair positively groaned when you sat in it,” she told him with twinkling eyes. “I guess I hadn’t realised how big you really are.”

  In response to her good humour, he suddenly smiled. Sara couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his strong features. While he ate, she sipped coffee, and they talked about light things, but she got the strangest feeling as they relaxed together. It was as if they were really saying something else, something deeper to each other. Sara looked up from her coffee quickly once and found his eyes on her in the most intent and gentle way. Good heavens, she thought, as she suddenly felt as if she were drowning in that gaze, what’s happening to me? I had no idea he could be so—her thoughts stopped, and she searched for something to say.

  “I—I saw you outside last night,” she commented at random, and the gentle look in his eyes was slowly replaced with a look of puzzlement.

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  It was her turn to feel a slight puzzlement and she explained, “Out in the front yard, after I went inside, were you—walking around about half an hour later?”

  He frowned. “I went right home. Are you sure you saw something?”

  She sat very still and thought over the last night, and gradually a cold chill crept over her. There had been a dark figure out front, she felt sure, and the realisation that it hadn’t been Greg after all put an entirely different light on the situation. She had completely forgotten that she had been afraid enough when she had thought that it was him. Standing abruptly, she went into the living room to stare out of the front picture window. The direction of her gaze showed her that there was nothing where a tall figure had been before, no brush or bush or tree that could be misconstrued as something else. There had been someone there last night—she was sure of it. A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped violently. Without looking around, she became aware that Greg was very close. She could feel his body heat at her back, and on impulse she leaned back against his chest. He immediately put his arms around her, and it felt so good and warm and right that she sighed, closing her eyes. A slight pressure at the side of her head told her that he was leaning his cheek against her hair. She had never felt so small and vulnerable and yet so safe, before in her life. Greg was very careful in how he held her; she could feel the restrained power in his arms. They stood this way for a long time.

  “There was someone out there last night, Greg—I swear it.”

  His arms tightened and his head went up as he too looked out the window. “Where?”

  She pointed out the spot to him, for some reason unable to feel the alarm that had been so apparent just minutes before. Greg’s presence was too immediate and overwhelming to her. He looked out the window for a minute, and when she tilted her head back on his shoulder to see his expression, he quickly smiled reassuringly and dropped a kiss on her nose. “I need to get going, I’m afraid—got a lot of things to do, and Beowulf is penned up. He needs a meal and a run. Would you like me to stop by later this evening, and have a look around outside, just in case?”

  Sara looked up gratefully at him. “I’d appreciate it if you did. I’d feel much better about things, really.”

  “I’ll knock at your front door, then, and let you know that it’s me prowling about outside, so that you don’t faint from shock, all right?”

  She nodded, and a strange look came over his face, a brooding look that was almost hostile. It was as if a shutter had come down over his features, masking his thoughts from the outer world. She had begun to know him better, though, and to understand him in an instinctive way. She knew enough to look beyond that careful mask, and she saw his dark eyes watching her with great attention. Intuitively guessing his feelings, she ignored that brooding look and went up to him to put a light hand on his arm with a smile.

  “I really am fine, you know,” she murmured. “Don’t worry about me.”

  His body relaxed, though his face didn’t change. He said abruptly, “It’s just that when you didn’t answer the door today, I started to wonder…call me if you need anything.”

  “I will.”

  She walked him to the front door, thanking him again for the firewood. He turned back to answer her, his eyes smiling again in that subtle way, then his eyes lit upon the upright piano. “Oh, was that left here with the furniture?” he asked idly, flicking a careless hand to it. Sara turned to see what he had meant and stiffened. It was an involuntary reaction, a
nd she couldn’t help herself even though she knew that he had sensed her strange behaviour and was looking at her oddly.

  “No,” she replied shortly, moving away. “It’s mine. I had it brought in when I moved.” To tell the truth, she owned three pianos, all in vastly better shape and quality than this one, but she had bought it for temporary use, not wanting to ship hers halfway across America.

  Greg was watching her with an interested look. “So you play. Are you good?” He looked thoughtful and she felt suddenly desperate to wipe that look off his face. She didn’t want him to find out who she was just yet. It would cause a rift, either in his thinking or in hers. He would back away from her like a cat landing on hot bricks, she guessed, because of her exposure to the public, or she would run away from him in a panic, afraid that she would never know his motives for continuing their relationship were he to discover her real identity.

  “So-so,” she muttered, then she said quickly, “Maybe some day I’ll practice up and play you something. I’m rusty at the moment.” It’s true, she argued silently with herself. I am out of practice. This silent argument didn’t assuage her sense of guilt, for she knew she had let him think that she was a bashful amateur. Her own concept of being out of practice was totally out of the league that she had implied to him she was in. She could sit at that piano and play with a passionate grace at any given time. The tiny mistakes that she would be apt to make would not be noticed by a normal listener.

  Greg was smiling down at her easily. Was it just her imagination or did something flit across his face? “Maybe some time you could. I’d like that—I’m quite a music lover.”

  “Oh no!” she groaned involuntarily, and he looked at her with both brows up. She added hastily, “I bet that means you’re an intelligent and informed critic and you only listen to the masters in the field. Now you’ll never get me to play!” A good excuse, she congratulated herself. Without conceit, she knew that she had a distinctive style, and she didn’t want to try to put him off with a clumsy attempt to play either badly or in another style.

  “But I would take into account your experience and not judge you unfairly,” he promised, with a curious smile.

  “I’ll bet,” she retorted, and laughed. “Enough! I have work to do and you have a starving dog, so I don’t want to hear any more. See you.”

  She leaned weakly against the door after he left. “Fool!” she berated herself angrily, and the sound of her own voice was so loud in the suddenly silent house that she jumped. Why, oh, why hadn’t she lied when he asked her who owned the piano? Was it that she secretly hoped he would guess the truth about her and demonstrate how little it mattered to him? Did she hope that if she gave him some subtle clue as to who she was, he would sooner or later recognise her? Was it a cowardly way of letting him know the truth and yet getting out of having to tell him personally? Whatever the reason, it was too late to change what had happened. She would have to wait and see. Time would tell whether he recognised her or not.

  She was so agitated that she started to pace the living room back and forth. It took her exactly seven good sized paces to cover the open area, then she turned to pace the seven steps back. She noted this with one detached corner of her mind in the crazy, irrelevant way she had whenever she was really upset. It was solemnly filed away for future reference. The other part of her mind told herself emphatically just how stupid she was to be paying so much attention to such a trivial detail while she had other more important things to think about. But she couldn’t help counting the steps once she had made the observation. It was like a tape recording playing over and over again: Seven up, seven back, five to the front door and then seven up, seven back… She forced herself to stop and sit down in an effort to think calmly. Greg Pierson, a man with shadowed eyes, shadowed past, shadowed motives. What did she really know about him? Materially, nothing.

  A tiny voice whispered, his eyes are warm. She shook her head so violently that her hair whipped around and caught on her eyelashes. Raising a hand to push it away impatiently, she stared out of the picture window at the grey day. Would it rain?

  He’s strong, that little voice whispered to her. Sara gave a short mirthless laugh. If she didn’t stop this soon they would be taking her away in a straitjacket! Pretty soon she would be talking to people who weren’t really there, and she promptly said aloud, “So what?” Her serious thoughts gave way to a little bit of giggling, and she shook herself mentally, going into the kitchen to wash up the few dishes that had been dirtied. She took an excessive amount of time with the two coffee mugs. She had bought them in Mexico a few years ago, and they were hand-crafted, very pretty.

  He is gentle with you, and concerned, that small voice spoke again. The still quiet knowledge could not be denied, and she sank slowly into a chair, the dish cloth in her hands, twisted and unnoticed.

  She let herself think of him freely then, without trying to escape from the direction her thoughts were leading her to. It was, she mused, too late for her. It had been too late when she had looked into Greg’s eyes and had seen him smile that first heart-stopping time. What kind of fool was she? She had become infatuated with a total stranger without a second’s resistance.

  She was twenty-eight. She was lonely. So what? Many people are. She had been lonely for most of her life. What was so different now?

  She was eager for some kind of meaningful relationship for a change, instead of the sterile empty acquaintances she’d known for so many years. She wanted the pain and the pleasure of giving and taking, learning and loving. That she would fall for the first decent specimen that stumbled her way without knowing who she really was! What would he think of her if he knew? That had her smiling grimly. She could imagine what he might say. A more amusing thought struck her then: what would Barry think?

  He would, she thought crudely, have a hissy fit, and the thought made her laugh aloud. “God, Sara!” he would expostulate. “Don’t you know enough not to get emotionally involved with a vacation fling? Baby, you’ve gone right around the bend!”

  Someone knocked on her front door and she moved swiftly to answer. Greg, she thought, but when she swung the door open and smiled widely at the man standing on her porch, her grin of delight quickly turned to a blank stare of astonishment and dismay.

  “Hello, love,” said Barry, shuffling his feet nervously and smiling tentatively at her expression. “Can I—er—come in?”

  “Oh, good grief!” she groaned, letting the door knob slip from her nerveless fingers. The door, left to swing by itself, gently swished and knocked against the wall, and she automatically caught it on the return swing. “Just what in sweet tropical hell are you doing here?”

  “I knew that you’d welcome me with open arms,” Barry said warmly, then coughed delicately at her glare. “Um, could I come in out of the wind and discuss this with you in a pseudo-rational and semi-civilised manner?”

  Sara backed up ungraciously, muttering under her breath, “I’m feeling about as rational as an avocado,” to which Barry choked out a laugh that immediately died when she looked at him so fiercely that he fell back a pace. She was for the most part a very mild person, but when she lost her temper she was like a tornado bent on destruction. She was not, Barry ascertained uneasily, in the best of moods at the moment. The situation might get touchy.

  “You didn’t answer me, Barry,” Sara repeated grimly. “What do you think you’re doing here? I’ll give you five minutes—which is more than you deserve, I might say—and then you get thrown out, so you’d better start talking fast!”

  “Would you really?” he asked, intrigued in spite of himself. She didn’t bother to reply but merely sat down on the couch and looked at him with those large, determined eyes. He stared at her, assessing her expression, taking in the slight tilt to the jaw and the firmly held mouth. She would, he decided. He sat too, at one end of the couch, and regarded her warily.

  He was almost impossibly thin and tall, with a habit of moving jerkily and talking fast.
His sandy hair fell into his eyes continually and one of his nervous mannerisms was pushing it off his forehead with his left hand with a flick of his first two fingers. He did so now, as he stared at her with his light blue eyes.

  “Elise was wondering how you’re doing,” he began, and Sara abruptly threw her head back and laughed.

  “And you came halfway across the continent to tell me that! I’m so touched! Come on, Barry, you’re wasting your time. Spill it!” she ordered tersely. “Why have you come when I expressly told you that I didn’t want to see, hear, think, or otherwise be reminded of yours or anyone else’s presence from California until I gave you word? You fool, don’t you realise that your arrival here could trigger off just exactly the kind of interest that I don’t need right now? What if the press got word of me staying here? You know they’ve followed you in the past. You could have destroyed this vacation, and if you have I’ll never forgive you! God, my first vacation in years!” she ended disgustedly, shooting poison darts at him with her eyes.

  He was watching her with a reluctant admiration. She was very beautiful when she was angry, with her large hazel eyes spitting brimstone, and her face vivid, animated. “I had a time tracking you down,” he admitted. “Then Elise dragged out of her memory the name Three Oaks, and from there it was relatively easy. I called around the area and found a certain Sara Carmichael in residence, so I got the first flight out. What a godforsaken spot!”

  “Watch it!” he was warned sternly. “So, now I know how, but you haven’t yet told me why?”

  “You are going to flip, absolutely flip,” he told her, satisfaction oozing from every thin, awkward line of his body. She had to smile at that, reluctantly.

  “I think I could ‘flip’ right now,” she told him dryly, “and it’s not a favourable reaction at the moment.”

  “Yes, well,” he put in hurriedly, “you’ll love what I’ve got to say. Sara, we’ve been offered a chance to do a television special, to be broadcast nationwide! You wouldn’t believe the monetary figures that they quoted to me, it would just about blow your mind, it—”