Undying Love

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Domesticity,’ he smiled. ‘It feels good to wake up in the morning and feel you beside me. I even enjoy spoiling you with breakfast in bed occasionally. And I more than enjoy our nights together,’ he teased.

  So did she. It seemed as if Rick only had to touch her for her to be trembling with desire, and not a night had passed without that desire flaming between them at least once. Sometimes their lovemaking would take them through until dawn, when they would finally sleep satiated in each other’s arms. It was at these times that her body felt so drained of strength she felt as if she might never wake up, and although Rick occasionally mentioned her tiredness he didn’t pursue the subject.

  ‘How about you?’ he prompted softly.

  She shrugged. ‘I’ve enjoyed our time together too. But it can’t last, can it?’ Her tone was light, her eyes unblinking as she saw his face darken with displeasure.

  ‘Why can’t it?’ he demanded.

  She sat back against the pillows with a sigh. ‘How long do your affairs usually last?’

  ‘This is diff—’

  ‘How long, Rick? What was the longest relationship you ever had?’

  ‘Shanna—’

  ‘Please, Rick, this is important!’

  His mouth tightened. ‘I think—six weeks,’ he muttered.

  ‘And we’ve already been together three and a half weeks,’ she pointed out.

  ‘That has noth—Damn!’ he rasped as the ringing of the telephone interrupted him. ‘I’ll get it,’ he told her as she went to get out of bed, her nakedness in front of him something she no longer felt embarrassed about.

  She let him go; most of the calls to her flat lately had been for him anyway. She could hear him talking on the telephone for several seconds, and then he came back to the bedroom.

  ‘It’s for you,’ he told her flatly. ‘Henry,’ he murmured as she reached the door.

  Shanna hesitated only fractionally, before pulling on her robe to go and talk to her brother. She had seen nothing of Henry the last few weeks, although she had spoken to him several times on the telephone. As far as she was aware, he knew nothing of Rick staying here. Although that might not be true now!

  ‘Hello, Henry,’ she greeted calmly.

  ‘Shanna? Is everything all right? Rick said you were in bed.’ Her brother’s concern could be clearly heard.

  ‘I was,’ she said dryly. ‘He’d just given me my breakfast.’

  There was silence at the other end of the line for several long seconds. ‘He’s there rather early, isn’t he?’ Henry sounded confused.

  ‘Not really, he was here rather late.’

  ‘Shanna…? Is it true, then, is he living with you?’ her brother demanded. ‘There’s been talk, but I couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Believe it,’ she said dully. ‘Rick’s been staying here for almost a month.’

  ‘Shanna!’ Henry sounded deeply shocked.

  She sighed. ‘You were the one who thought I should go out with him,’ she reminded him.

  ‘But I didn’t mean you to set up house with him!’

  ‘I haven’t set up house with him,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not living with him either. Both those terms imply a sort of permanence to the relationship, and we all know there’s nothing permanent about this.’

  Henry gave a deep sigh. ‘You’re twenty-five years old, old enough to know your own mind, but I can’t help but be surprised about this affair with Rick.’

  ‘I know,’ she sympathised gently. ‘And I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologise, Shanna, it’s really none of my business. Actually, I telephoned to ask you over for dinner one evening—we haven’t seen you for weeks. You’d better bring Rick with you, I suppose,’ he added grudgingly.

  ‘I’ll sort out an evening and get back to you,’ she promised. ‘Give my love to Janice and the children.’

  ‘Shanna!’ he stopped her ringing off.

  ‘Yes?’ she was wary now.

  ‘Take care, won’t you?’

  Her mouth twisted. ‘Yes, Henry, I’ll take care. And I’ll call you soon.’ She turned from ringing off to find Rick scowling across the room at her.

  ‘What did he mean by that last remark?’ he rasped. ‘Does he think I’m irresponsible enough to get you pregnant?’

  ‘Rick—’

  ‘Because I wouldn’t do that to you.’

  ‘I know that,’ she soothed him, going over to lightly touch his arm. ‘Rick, he’s my brother, he’s naturally concerned for me. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by what he said just now.’

  ‘I should damn well hope not!’ His arms came about her. ‘How would it look if you were pregnant when I introduce you to my parents?’

  Shanna stiffened, pulling back to look up at him. ‘Your parents?’ she repeated softly.

  He grimaced. ‘Sweetheart, I didn’t want to tell you like this, but it doesn’t look as if I have any choice. There’ve been some problems in the States that I have to go back and sort out. I thought you could come with me, meet my parents at the same time.’

  ‘No!’ She moved out of his arms, standing some distance away from him. ‘I have no intention of going to America as your mistress.’

  His expression darkened. ‘Who said anything about a mistress?’ His eyes were narrowed to black slits. ‘I may be thirty-seven years old, but my father would bodily throw me out of the house if I introduced one of my mistresses to my mother. I want to take you to them as my wife, Shanna. I was trying to ask you to marry me when Henry called just now.’

  Marriage. It wasn’t a word she associated with Rick, it wasn’t something she had even thought of in connection with him, and she couldn’t think of it now either.

  ‘Shanna?’ He sounded anxious as she didn’t answer him. ‘Honey, this wasn’t the way I had it planned, just blurting it out like this, but I love you, and I want to marry you. I don’t like the impression your brother has of our relationship, I don’t like anyone thinking that about you, but at the time it was all you would accept. Honey, please answer me, will you marry me?’

  Shanna swallowed hard at the ragged pain in his voice, wishing with all her heart and soul that she could throw herself into his arms and never have to leave. ‘I—I can’t,’ she turned away. ‘I can’t, Rick!’

  Pain flickered across his face, his eyes were darker than ever. ‘I know something about your first marriage has made you wary of that sort of commitment, but whatever it was, it doesn’t apply to us. God, I’m not even asking that you love me in return, all I want is for you to let me love you, take care of you.’

  She chewed on her bottom lip to stop it trembling, overwhelmed by the wealth of love Rick was showing her. She hadn’t believed he was capable of loving like this, and yet she couldn’t doubt him, could see it all in his face, in his eyes. And she loved him so much in return.

  ‘Cindy once told me,’ she moistened her lips nervously, ‘she told me you don’t bet on losers. I’m a loser, Rick. I’d be no good for you.’

  ‘I’m sure Cindy wasn’t referring to you when she spoke about losers. And I happen to think you’re very good for me. I want you for my wife, Shanna,’ he repeated firmly.

  ‘I can’t!’ she repeated raggedly.

  ‘Why the hell not?’ he rasped, not used to opposition in anything. ‘You would never want for anything as my wife, and I can’t continue living like this. I moved in here with you because you made it plain you wouldn’t accept marriage then, but I have to leave next week, and I don’t intend going without you.’

  ‘You’ll have to,’ she said dully.

  ‘No—’

  ‘Yes!’ she told him forcefully. ‘Can’t you understand, I don’t want to marry you!’

  His breathing was harsh and ragged as he looked at her as if he had never seen her before. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t love me? What?’

  ‘Work it out, Rick,’ she sighed wearily, wishing he would just go away and stop torturing her.

  ‘I’m okay f
or an affair, to go to bed with, but you don’t want to marry me, is that it?’ he bit out tautly. ‘Answer me, damn you!’ he moved to shake her roughly.

  ‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Yes, that’s it exactly.’ Her hair swung about her face where he shook her.

  ‘God!’ He pushed her away from him with an agonised groan; he was very pale, almost grey beneath his tan. ‘I’ll come back for my things later,’ he spoke almost dazedly. ‘I just have to get away from you.’ He shook his head, pulling on his jacket, suddenly looking up at her with pained eyes. ‘Why do I get the impression that this scene is exactly what you wanted?’ he groaned. ‘That you planned for me to walk out this way?’

  Shanna paled at how astute he was. She had known of his intelligence, his quicksilver method of making decisions, but she hadn’t realised he had come to know her this well, that he would guess exactly what she had been trying to do. She did want him to walk out; she knew it had to be his decision to walk away.

  ‘Shanna, what are you hiding from me?’ He was in command of himself again, had her pinned to the spot with his sharp gaze.

  Nevertheless, she couldn’t meet that gaze, and she looked anywhere but at him. ‘You’re imagining things,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘Why should I want to hide anything from you? We’ve had fun together, now it’s over. Do you always take the end of an affair this seriously?’ she mocked.

  ‘An affair, no. But when the woman I love, the woman who has been my lover, who has seemed as if she cares for me a little in return, turns down a proposal of marriage in the cruel way you’ve done, then I know something is wrong. Why do you want me to hate you, Shanna?’ he asked shrewdly. ‘Why are you pushing me out of your life like this?’

  ‘You’re imagining things—’

  ‘No!’ his fist landed violently on the coffee table, although he didn’t even flinch at the pain it must have caused. ‘I’m not imagining a thing. Why is it imperative I get out of your life, and in a hurry?’

  ‘Perhaps so that someone else can take your place!’ she snapped.

  He gave a tight smile. ‘Careful, Shanna, your desperation is starting to show. I’m not going,’ he told her hardly. ‘Not until I have the truth from you. I know you’re hiding something from—God!’ he rushed forward to catch her as she swayed and fell. ‘Shanna!’ He looked down at her waxen features as he lay her down on the sofa, rubbing her numbed hands as consciousness faded and swam for several minutes.

  As she watched the concern in his face turn to fear, horror, she knew he had discovered her secret. It had always been a possibility, of course, one that she had tried to avoid him realising by trying to avoid him. But being with him these last weeks virtually twenty-four hours a day she had exposed her every weakness, and the truth now was in Rick’s eyes.

  ‘How long?’ he croaked. ‘How long have you known?’

  She swallowed hard. ‘Just over a year.’

  ‘Perry knew?’

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed with bitterness.

  Rick was breathing heavily, swallowing convulsively, a nerve jumping erratically in his jaw. ‘Can anything be done?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said dully.

  ‘God, you don’t mean—’

  ‘That I’m dying?’ she finished flatly. ‘I think so. Yes, I think I’m dying, Rick.’ She touched the rigidness of his jaw as he seemed to flinch.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT had come as much as a shock to her a year ago as it did to Rick now. Old people, people who had lived their lives, had had their children, their grandchildren, had heart complaints, not people of twenty-four! It had been just over a year ago when the doctor had told her of the defect, of the operations she had needed then to right the wrong. She had never had that operation, and the increasing weakness she felt lately seemed to say it might already be too late.

  The possibility that Rick would realise had always been there, the shock of knowing his mother had a similar problem had told her that. He had grown up with the knowledge that his mother was ill, had known all her symptoms, although until this moment his desire for Shanna had blinded him to her own weakness being of a similar kind.

  But he knew now; the full knowledge of it was in the pained blackness of his eyes. She hadn’t meant for him to love her, had never dreamt that he would; she had believed she would just be another affair to him before he moved on. If she had even guessed his feelings for her could develop into something serious she would never have become involved with him. But it was too late for that now, too late for her to stop him loving her. She had caused him this pain, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  ‘You think you are?’ He shook her now, his expression intent. ‘But you don’t know for certain?’

  She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘Not for certain, no. But I’ve been feeling so weak lately, the tiredness has been more intense.’

  Rick seemed to be thinking fast, each problem thought out quickly in his mind and dealt with. ‘Do you have a doctor? Someone who’s been dealing with your case?’

  ‘Well, yes. But—’

  ‘Who is he? What’s his telephone number? Shanna!’ he prompted hardly as she seemed dazed.

  ‘I—He—It’s in my bag,’ she told him abruptly. ‘But I haven’t seen him for months.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’ he rasped, frantically throwing everything out of her bag on to the table, picking up a bottle of pills to frown at them for several seconds before once again searching through the papers he had taken out of her bag. ‘Is this it?’ He held up a card.

  ‘Yes.’ She swallowed hard, her expression turning to one of alarm as he began to dial the doctor’s number. ‘Rick, you can’t call him now—it’s a Saturday!’

  He gave her a look that said he didn’t care if it was three o’clock on a Sunday morning; he was calling the doctor. ‘A damned recording,’ he muttered a few seconds later, grabbing a pen off the table where it had been tipped out of her bag, scribbling down another number as it was obviously recited to him. ‘Go and get dressed, Shanna,’ he ordered as he re-dialled. ‘I want to be able to leave as soon as possible after I’ve made this call. You—Sweetheart!’ he groaned as she buried her face in her hands, crying uncontrollably. He slammed the receiver down to go to her, taking her in his arms, holding her tightly against him. ‘I love you, Shanna. I love you,’ he murmured the words over and over again until she stopped crying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she shuddered back to control. ‘It’s just that—You reacted so differently from Perry. He—hated the thought of my being ill, of something inside me being wrong.’

  Rick’s arms tightened. ‘Tell me about it, Shanna. Tell me what happened a year ago.’

  She lay heavily against his chest, clinging to him but unable to look at him. ‘We wanted children,’ she wiped her cheek dry with the back of her hand. ‘We’d been trying for some time, and so we—we both had medicals. Just general things, because Perry hated all things medical. He’d had so many accidents during the course of his career that he’d grown to hate the sight and smell of hospitals. The doctor found no reason why we couldn’t have children, but he did find—he did find—’ she stopped talking as her voice shook uncontrollably. ‘He said I needed an operation, that if I didn’t have it I would die—’

  ‘Then why the hell didn’t you have it?’ Rick rasped.

  ‘I couldn’t have gone through it without Perry’s support, and—well, as soon as he heard the result of the medicals he went out and crashed in a race. He injured his back and could no longer compete in races. He hated me to be anywhere near him, he began to resent me—blamed me for his accident. We had been so happy until then, but my health and his accident seemed to change everything. He—he—You know the rest!’ she shuddered.

  ‘Other women?’

  ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘And drink. He was drunk when we had the accident that killed him. I wanted to drive, but he said he didn’t want a—a cripple driving him, that I’d probably kill him. He was completel
y drunk when he drove into the brick wall. I don’t know how it was kept out of the newspapers, and at the time I was past caring. Perry was dead, and they told me at the hospital then that my operation was imperative.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I just wanted to die!’

  ‘You told me that two weeks after we met,’ Rick frowned. ‘But I couldn’t believe you really meant it.’

  ‘I meant it. I welcomed death, the idea of it. I loved Perry, and my illness repulsed him, made him hate me. I even went to work at Fashion Lady in the hope of showing him I could carry on a normal life, that nothing had changed.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Even that backfired on me! After the first accident he had to give up his career, and the thought of his wife going out to work made him feel inadequate.’

  ‘But you still loved him.’

  ‘Yes!’ she trembled.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now?’ she blinked up at him.

  ‘I’ve just told you I love you, Shanna,’ he rasped. ‘And if you think another man’s inadequacies are going to rob me of my chance of a wife and children then you’re mistaken!’ His expression was harsh. ‘Perry may have been the man you loved, but he was weak—I’m not. I want you to live, and you’re going to.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’re going to, Shanna,’ he told her with conviction. ‘One day I’m going to watch as you put our children to bed and kiss them goodnight. That was the night I realised I loved you, you know. I watched you laughing with Peter and Susan, watched your gentleness with them, and I knew that I wanted it to be our children, that I loved you. It was the biggest shock of my life,’ he said self-derisively. ‘Especially as you felt no reluctance to show me how little I meant to you.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Yes?’ he prompted sharply.

  Shanna shook her head, biting her bottom lip. ‘Nothing.’