It was like catching a wave, feeling the surging power of the ocean as it lifted them, then plunged them over the crest to ride together, spent yet exhilarated, to shore.
It was like last time, and yet, as the moon slipped slowly across the sky and they loved and touched and stroked and murmured—and kissed and kissed and kissed—Ally knew that this night promised more than the first night. There was eagerness, yes. But the urgency of the moment in their earlier love-making—the grasping of a single night out of time—was no longer there.
This was different, Ally thought after they had taken each other a second time and lay tangled together in joyful exhaustion. This wasn’t a single moment or even a single night.
It was the beginning of a lifetime together.
Or if it wasn’t, if she was wrong, this night would have to last her a lifetime.
Even though PJ didn’t speak, didn’t offer her endearments, she didn’t care. Words didn’t mean that much. It was what you showed each other, what your actions said to each other, what you gave that really spoke of how you felt.
And the truth was, PJ had given her years of his life. He’d given her time to grow up, to become a woman he could meet as an equal, be proud of and, she hoped, come to love.
And Ally was determined to, desperately wanted to, be worthy of that love—and to give the same to him. She knew what she wanted now—just as she finally understood what she had to give.
This time she didn’t need to turn her back on PJ to go away to find herself. This time she needed to stay, to give herself—to take up her marriage again and make it work.
Tonight he’d made love with Ally Maruyama. No, with Ally
Antonides.
He’d waited all day for it.
No, not all day. Ten years.
He lay there now in the room he’d grown up in, where he’d planned his wild adventures and dreamed his impossible dreams, and knew that the boy he’d been could never have dreamed or planned this.
He lay with his arms wrapped securely, possessively, protectively around his wife. Ally’s head rested on his chest, her hair tickling his nose. She was sound asleep, breathing softly. Satisfied and sated, he hoped.
Heaven knew he was. For the moment, at least. But probably not for long. He had ten years of loving to make up for. Ten years of doing without.
He hadn’t thought about it that way before. He hadn’t known, of course. He’d been young and raw and blind when they’d married. He hadn’t thought, hadn’t considered the consequences, had only acted on his instincts.
And his instincts, come to think of it, hadn’t been bad at all.
But he’d never really thought beyond the night. Even when spending it with her had caused him to catch a glimmer of what actually loving a woman like Ally might mean, he’d known it wouldn’t work.
She hadn’t asked for that. And neither had he.
So he’d given her what she wanted—his name on a legal document and one night in his bed, in his arms.
That was then.
At thirty-two he was a different man. Wiser, he hoped. Steadier. A whole hell of a lot more responsible. And he was no longer interested in living solely for the moment. He wanted a future as well. He was grown up now. A man, with a man’s knowledge of time and sense of missed opportunities, of waves not caught, of loves lost.
Well, he wasn’t losing this time, he thought, stroking her hair, and smiling when she stirred and her fingers moved against him.
“Again?” she asked with a sleepy smile. Her fingers found him, stroked him.
He arched. “Ally,” he warned because amazingly enough he was ready again.
“PJ,” she acknowledged. And she turned her head and kissed his chest, licked his nipple.
His breath hissed, and he pulled her on top of him, settling her over him, thrusting up to meet her, closing his eyes as she took him in. Then they opened again so he could watch her in the silver of the moonlight, could relish the shadowy mounds and curves, the silken curtain of her hair. He lifted his hands and cupped her breasts, shaped them, learned them all over again.
She pressed down on him, then rose and slid down again, making him clench his teeth at the feel of her body taking him in. She sighed and her head dropped back exposing the delicate curve of her neck. He longed to kiss it.
“Ally.” He urged her down so he could. And did.
Their bodies rocked together. Found a rhythm.
Wasn’t going to lose her this time. Wasn’t going to let her walk away. Not too late. It wasn’t too late.
The words echoed in his ears faster and more frantically as the rhythm quickened, as the need built. Then, as once more the climax came, PJ clenched his teeth and pulled her down to hold her tight against him.
This time he had to make her want to stay—not just for a night, but for a lifetime.
This time he was giving it all he had.
The tapping sound woke her.
Ally was tangled amongst sheets and blankets and PJ, her face in the curve of his neck, his arm flung over her, her knee captured between his.
It was awkward and ache-making and absolutely wonderful—just as the whole night had been. Better even than their wedding night because he was still here and—
The tapping came again. Louder now. More emphatic. Someone was knocking on the bedroom door.
One of the kids, no doubt. She’d heard them up and about yesterday, the patter—and thud—of small feet up and down the hallway while she’d lain here alone and miserable. Yesterday morning they wouldn’t have considered awakening her. They hadn’t known her. But she and PJ had become serious favorites of the younger set by dinnertime.
And that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
She turned her head and laid a gentle kiss on the whisker-roughened jaw of the man who had changed them. He didn’t stir, but then, he had to be exhausted.
The tapping came again. Harder. More brisk. “PJ? Ally?”
Not one of the kids, then. In fact the voice sounded like Elias or Lukas. It also sounded urgent.
Ally eased her way out of PJ’s embrace, not wanting to wake him if she didn’t have to. She knew exactly how little sleep he’d got last night—and he probably hadn’t had much more the night before.
She tugged her nightshirt over her head, grabbed her robe and pulled it on, threw a sheet over the most exposed bits of PJ, then padded over to open the door a few inches and peer into Elias’s face.
“Oh, God,” he said. “I’d hoped it would be PJ.”
Ally frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Something clearly was. His normally tanned face was uncharacteristically pale. A muscle in his jaw seemed to tick.
“I wanted to tell him, then he could have told you.”
Ally’s heart suddenly bumped. “Tell me what?”
“Someone named Jon called.”
He paused just long enough for Ally to find herself thinking ironically, Jon never calls. Why now?
And then Elias told her. “Your father’s had a heart attack.”
CHAPTER TEN
“I SHOULD have called!” Ally was whirling around the room throwing things in her suitcase, her cheeks flushed, her hair flying.
“Called? Called who?” PJ wasn’t even awake yet. How the hell could he be? He’d been awake most of the night. The wonderful lovely night. The absolutely fabulous spectacular night. The best night of his life—
And now Ally had turned into a whirling dervish. He rolled over and shoved himself up, still foggy with sleep or lack thereof, and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. His gaze, following her from the closet to the suitcase, passed the doorway. His head jerked. He squinted. “Elias? What the hell—”
Elias came in and shut the door, leaning against it. “Yiayia answered her phone,” he explained, plucking it from his pocket.
Ally stopped tossing things in her suitcase and snatched it from his hand, then began to punch in numbers.
“Ally’s dad had a h
eart attack,” Elias went on.
PJ sat up straight, appalled, his gaze on Ally. Her movements were almost frantic.
“He’s alive,” Elias said. “But only just, apparently. Yiayia didn’t know more than that. She grabbed me and told me to tell Ally.”
PJ had a thousand questions. The only one that seemed likely to be answered was, What the hell was Yiayia doing with Ally’s phone?”
It didn’t make sense. None of it.
He wanted to shut it off and go back to sleep, to dream the dreams he’d been dreaming, to relive the night he and Ally had shared—a night that, from the look of her hunched shoulders and nervously tapping toes, she probably didn’t even remember.
“She left her phone in the kitchen. It rang.” Elias shrugged helplessly. “Yiayia answered it.”
“Ally’s phone?”
Elias spread his hands. “Yiayia has no concept of cell phones. Or messaging. She thinks that if a phone rings, you answer it. Sorry,” he said to Ally.
But Ally wasn’t listening. She was pacing and breathing rapidly, alternately biting her lip, clenching her fist and hugging herself with one arm across her chest. “Answer the phone, damn it!” she exclaimed. “Jon, I’m here. Call back for God’s sake and tell me what’s happening? And tell Dad I’m on my way!”
Then she flicked it off and continued to fling her clothes into the suitcase.
“Beat it,” PJ said to his brother. Then added a gruff, “Thanks,” as Elias nodded and opened the door.
“Don’t thank me,” Elias said over his shoulder. “This is nothing to be thankful for.”
And wasn’t that the truth?
As soon as his brother left, PJ got out of bed. Ally was stabbing at the phone again, then flinging it down in disgust.
“I should have called,” she wailed. “I shouldn’t have left him.”
“Your being there wouldn’t have stopped him having a heart attack,” PJ said reasonably.
But Ally was pretty much beyond reason. She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have left! I should never have come here. I should at least have called! I didn’t…I…I have to go home. Now.” She looked at him, eyes flashing, a frantic look in them that he’d never seen before, along with a desperation that seemed to dare him to try to stop her.
But PJ had no intention of stopping her.
On the contrary, he was going with her.
He’d let her go to her father by herself the first time—the day they were wed—to inform him of their marriage. She’d said she didn’t need him there, that it wasn’t his problem, that she could handle it, and he’d believed her.
This time he wasn’t even giving her a chance. He had too much at stake now—his life, his future, the woman he loved.
The word snuck up on him. Love.
Not lust. Not physical satisfaction. Not simply “making love with” though they’d certainly done that often enough last night. No, this was greater than that, far deeper, far more demanding.
It was the love he’d glimpsed all those years ago—the potential for a relationship that had not only a physical component, but emotional, intellectual and even spiritual dimensions.
It was what he felt for Ally. He knew it. He accepted it. He wanted it.
And he wasn’t letting her walk away again.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said, and he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a fierce hard hug.
And then he set about doing exactly that.
Ally felt sick. Desperate. Guilty.
It was true, what she’d told PJ. She should have called. She shouldn’t have come. Not to his parents’. Not to New York at all.
She should have left well enough alone, sent the divorce papers, stayed with her father.
Except…except that then she wouldn’t have PJ back in her life. She wouldn’t have had this past weekend. She wouldn’t have had last night.
Could she regret that?
Could she really? No, she couldn’t.
Guilt and desperation and worry and anguish began bubbling up all over again.
She tried Jon’s mobile over and over. She got the same terse businesslike response she got whenever something else in his life took precedence and was too important to permit him to talk to her. Ordinarily she just tried again, didn’t take it personally. Of course he was busy.
But her father had had a heart attack! What could possibly be more important than that?
“Call the hospital,” PJ suggested. He was using his own phone, making calls, other calls. His own business obviously took precedence, too.
No, that wasn’t fair. He’d hugged her. She’d felt his hard arms come around her to hold her close and, for just a second, she’d allowed herself to sag into his strength, to let him hold her, support her. She’d even nodded her head when he’d said he’d take care of it.
But of course he couldn’t. How could he take care of her father? She needed to get home.
“I have to call the airline.”
“I called. The flight leaves at one.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got to get on the road soon. Call the hospital. At least you can find out how he is.”
“Yes.” But finding out might make it worse. Her fingers fumbled with the address book on her phone. She’d put the number in there when he’d had his first heart attack, used to know it by heart. But her heart was pounding now and her mind was numb and she couldn’t even remember how to bring it up.
“Here.” PJ took her phone from her. “What’s the name of the hospital?”
At least she could remember that.
He got the number in a matter of seconds, and she could hear it ringing through. He handed her the phone just as it was answered.
She gave her father’s name in a tremulous voice, afraid he wouldn’t be there. Afraid she’d already lost him, afraid it was too late.
But the receptionist said, “Yes. Cardiac intensive care. I’ll put you through.”
Her legs almost buckled with relief. She gave PJ a tremulous smile. He watched her gravely, his hand on her arm.
She hoped one of the nurses she’d got to know during her father’s last heart attack might be on duty now, might remember her, be willing to give her an update.
Where were they? Why didn’t they come to the phone? Her shoulders hunched, her fingers tightened. And then she felt PJ’s hands on her back, his thumbs pressing, kneading, easing the knotted muscles there. She almost whimpered it felt so good.
And then she heard the click of connection and a voice said, “Alice? Is that you?”
“Jon!”
The hands on her shoulders stilled. She barely noticed. “How is he? He’s not—” She couldn’t say the words.
Jon heard them, anyway. “Of course he isn’t,” he said soothingly. “He wouldn’t be here if he were, would he? Where have you been? I rang for over an hour.”
She certainly couldn’t answer that. Not now. “I—it’s barely dawn here.”
“You should keep your phone on.”
“It was. It—I didn’t hear it. Just tell me how he is.”
“He’s had a heart attack, Alice. It’s serious. He’s resting now and he’s conscious, but I don’t have to tell you that after his last one, there is cause for concern.” Then he went into doctor mode and rattled off a bunch of medical terms and analyses that left Ally realizing maybe she really was too stupid to understand when Jon talked about his work.
But then the medical analysis ended and Jon said, “He thought you’d call. He expected to hear from you.”
“I never said—”
“I know. But I thought—well, even I expected you’d keep in touch.”
“I know. I…meant to. I got sidetracked. I’m sorry.” Guilt swamped her again, drowning the small thought that they had phones, too. Jon could have kept in touch, called her. So could her father.
“Never mind. We’re still assessing the damage. The first twenty-four hours is critical of course. Medically there is nothing to say this is true, b
ut I imagine he’d do better with you here.”
“Of course. I’m on my way. My plane leaves at—” She looked helplessly around for the answer, for PJ.
His fingers squeezed her shoulders. “The flight leaves a little after one,” he said, and she remembered that he’d already told her that. She repeated it for Jon.
“So you won’t be here until at least eight. I don’t know where I’ll be, Ally. Maybe you could get a cab from the airport.”
“Of course.” She knew he wouldn’t have time to come and get her. “I’d like—Can I—” But she knew better than to ask to speak to her father. “Just tell him I love him,” she said urgently. “And tell him I’m on my way.”
“I will.”
“And…and I’m sorry, Jon. I’ll see you as soon as I can,” she said. “I—” she’d been going to say, I love you. It had become a virtually automatic end to all her conversations with Jon. But the words stuck in her throat.
There was a pause. Then Jon said, “I have to go. I need to check on your father. I’ll see you tonight.”
There was a click, and Ally stood there, motionless, gutted, feeling as if, were she to move, she would shatter into a million tiny pieces. She could barely even breathe.
And then she felt the rhythmic magic of PJ’s hands on her shoulders again. She felt his breath on her neck. His lips touched her in silent acknowledgment. He was so close she could feel the warmth emanating off his body. And she desperately wanted to lean into it, to let him embrace her, to take away her pain.
But she had caused her own pain. And if she hadn’t caused her father’s, she soon would when she told him what she had to tell him when she got home.
“Come on,” PJ said after a moment, and he took the phone out of her nerveless fingers with one hand and caught her wrist in the other. “Let’s get the stuff into the car.”
PJ’s parents, his siblings, his whole family were instantly and completely sympathetic. They hovered, they patted, they hugged. His mother and grandmother plied her with food she couldn’t eat. His sisters suggested milk and juice and homeopathic tranquilizers.
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