One Secret Too Many

by Vanessa Grant

  ‘I keep dreaming of this,’ he said hoarsely, fingers brushing against the lacy fabric almost as if he was nervous of touching, taking possession.

  ‘I’ve dreamed of you,’ she confessed, and the words were easy to say while his eyes were obsessed with the sight of her.

  ‘I want you to remember.’ His thumb hooked under the strap of her bra and slipped it down over her shoulder. Her breast grew full, the edge of lace still covering the swollen peak. His voice was ragged. ‘I’m going to be in all your dreams.’

  His head bent and she could see only his hair, the curve of a suntanned ear. She felt lips touch the bare flesh at the same time that the warmth of his mouth penetrated through the thin fabric. His teeth gripped the edge of the lace and slowly drew it down. freeing the warm swelling. Cool air touched her engorged nipple. She saw his throat move as be swallowed. His lips parted and he took the hard peak into his mouth, tongue moving softly against her rigid arousal.

  Her head arched back, pressing into the pillow, her fingers clenching in his hair. His hand caressed her midriff as lips and tongue explored the warm softness of her breasts. She was going to explode, the heat and the need pulsing through her, head spinning, his touch fire and sweetness, unbearable pleasure, her ears ringing from the passions pulsing through her arteries.

  His mouth moved to the underside of her breast, pressing, exploring. His fingers caressed the thrust of her hip as she twisted to her side in a desperate need for closeness. She craved his touch on her skin, not masked by the thickness of frothy fabric, diluted and diffused by distance. He swept the barrier of her skirt aside, his fingertips finding the firmness of her leg, the heated flesh of her inner thigh. All her life she had been waiting for this man, this touch. Her knee bent, legs parting, inviting his caress with a depth of need that she could not have concealed to save her life.

  The ringing grew in intensity, louder, repeating, penetrating. She rolled her head in protest, but his fingers stilled and there was only the sound, penetrating again and again from the other side of the house. She swallowed, her eyes opening, her lips moving against the nakedness of his chest.

  ‘Your telephone. Sam—’

  She must somehow have undone the buttons of his shirt. She didn’t remember making the motions, but his shirt was open to the waist, pushed back, his hard naked heat pressed against her. The last echoes of the sun were almost gone, the room thrown into black and white, Sam’s face strangely white against the darkness of his hair. His eyes closed and she felt a shudder go through his entire body. She could feel the immediacy of his need, their bodies closely entwined. His fingers drew away from her thigh, across the bunched fabric that had been a smoothly pressed dress.

  ‘I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.’ His voice was hoarse, his lips seeming full and swollen as they brushed hers. ‘I have to go. It might be the hospital.’

  Her whole body was a heartbeat, flesh pulsing with each surge of life through her veins. She watched as he walked away, towards the door of the bedroom. His shirt was still open and half pulled out of his slacks. It was her impatient hands that had pushed it aside. She closed her eyes when he was gone, trying to breathe steadily, to still the pulsing that shook her lips and her feet, and the molten centre of her womanhood.

  Awareness came slowly, sensations flooding past the all-encompassing desire. Her fingers were moving on the roughness of the quilt, caressing as if she touched the man still. Her hands clenched. The room was almost dark now, the furniture standing out harshly against a sky turned grey. She became aware of the paleness of her exposed flesh. She sat up too quickly, felt a wave a dizziness. Her clothes were twisted, the dress a hopeless mass of wrinkles. She adjusted her bra and tried to make the dress look like a decent covering.

  His voice carried through the open bedroom door, low and confident, holding none of the tremor that hers would if she were forced to speak. She pulled open a bureau drawer and grabbed at the first thing she found. It was desperately essential to cover herself, to erase the image that was reflected back at her from the mirror.

  Anyone who looked would see that she was a woman interrupted on the edge of fulfillment, all soft need and swollen passion. Jeans were better, zipped up securely and feeling a little tight. A shapeless sweatshirt over the jeans. She pushed the dress into the drawer, sliding it shut with a bang. It would be a patient on the telephone, or the hospital. He would have to go in any case, and it would be better this way. She could not bear for him to return and find her lying on that bed, waiting, looking like. . .

  She jerked the quilt smooth as a board creaked. He was moving, coming back. She swallowed and rushed out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her and leaning against it. Why had she let this happen? He would think that she was in his house because. . . because she loved him.

  He did not want to be loved.

  He came through her doorway, stopped when he saw her. For a moment something flashed in his eyes, then was gone. His shirt still hung open, the skin dark between the two pale panels of cotton. He looked tanned, as if he spent long days in the sun, but she remembered the muscled entirety of his naked body and knew that the darkness was everywhere, even on the protected vulnerability of his lower abdomen.

  He wanted her. He had said that, but it did not show in his eyes now. They were still, as his face was. The lines were deep beside his mouth, around his eyes, but there was no warmth or need, only a waiting as his gaze took in Alex standing with her body pressed hard against the closed door of her bedroom.

  The need was purely physical, she realised. His body had yearned for hers, but now it was gone and she was glad she had covered herself and got away from the bed. She felt a brief yearning of regret, the knowledge that her need was greater, that she would spend a long, barren night.

  ‘I—’ He was waiting for her to explain, and she supposed she was doing the unforgivable, going beyond the verge of surrender, then withdrawing. ‘Sam. . .’

  She wished he would do up his shirt, or say something.

  ‘I can’t, Sam! I just can’t do—’ She blinked and pushed her hair back. It was a wild tangle. There had been no time to brush it into smooth order. Tonight she would be terribly conscious of him sleeping upstairs. She would want to walk along the hallway and up the stairs to his room. She must not do that. ‘The only way—Sam, I can’t live here if— Everyone is going to think that we—I can’t stay unless, no matter what the other people think, I know it’s innocent.’

  ‘Innocent?’ He seemed to shudder. ‘Alex, just what do you think we’re doing? Do you think we’re sinning by making love?’

  She shook her head mutely, but the noise was rising in her mind, some kind of raucous symphony comprised of other voices. Dad’s, quiet and worried. Mother’s, high and accusing. Emily’s, a smugly knowledgeable whisper. And Sam’s, but he was silent now, turning to leave.

  ‘Sam,’ she whispered, but he was gone. She waited for the sound of the door slamming, the muted roar of his car starting, but heard nothing. After long seconds she managed to walk slowly across the room, her feet feeling as if she were wading through thick water. She closed the door, shutting him out although he was not there.

  She heard the faint sounds of music. So he was not going out. The telephone call had not summoned him to the hospital. No, of course not. He had come from the telephone directly back to her. He had expected that she would be waiting for him, her arms open and eager.

  She paced through her rooms, from the closed door to the back where windows looked out on the harbour. She could hear sounds through the hallway at the back. She had closed the front door to her apartment and they were separate, two distinct living areas, but joined at the back. There was no doorway to seal him off at the back, just the corridor that led to the kitchen, then on into his dining-room.

  And the mess. The sounds she heard were kitchen sounds. Water running. Dishes clattering. She should go to help him. He was cleaning up the mess. She stood, staring at the corridor, hea
ring him, hugging herself although the sweatshirt was more than warm enough for a summer night.

  She went into her bedroom, but the sound of water running penetrated even as she brushed her hair hard and vigorously. Standing in the dark, listening to him, was harder than facing him. She stopped at the desk, telling herself that it was the evening for her to work on the newspaper article, but it was a joke to pretend that she could do it tonight.

  In the end she was drawn, as if by a magnet. He was not in the kitchen, but the sink held a pile of dishes and the door below swung open, scraps of broken plate sticking out of the dustbin.

  He was in the dining room, scrubbing at the wall with a wet cloth. ‘It won’t come off with that,’ she said dully.

  He stopped, his hand still, not looking at her. ‘What, then?’ he asked, as if there were no other issues between them.

  ‘Maybe some Spic ‘n Span,’ she suggested, bending over to pick up a shard of glass that caught the light from the overhead fixture.

  She took the glass to the kitchen and ran a bucket of water with the cleanser in it. Then she went back and worked on getting the mess out of the carpet while he washed the wall. They hardly talked at all, but it seemed that the tension had eased between them by the time they had finished cleaning.

  The next day he called her late in the morning, his voice casual over the phone lines.’

  ‘Hi, Alex.’ She could hear other sounds around him.

  ‘Sam,’ she breathed, sinking down on to the edge of the chair. Be was the only person who had called her so far. ‘Where are you? I hear noises.’

  ‘The hospital. I’ve just finished my rounds. I-how about dinner tonight? My treat, this time.’

  ‘You’re going to cook for me?’

  ‘Not this time. I thought we could go out. I remember you saying you liked Greek food. There’s a Greek restaurant down on third that I’ve heard is quite good.’ He chuckled, said, ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy it more than a Sam-cooked meal. That way, I won’t risk that I’ll throw the dishes all over.’

  She giggled, remembering the hour they had spent scrubbing up her mess after last night’s meal, although it had not seemed at all funny at the time. ‘Do you think it’ll be safer that way?’

  ‘Probably.’ She could hear warmth in his voice and she smiled although he could not see.

  ‘What about Neil? Is he invited too?’

  He paused, then said, ‘Neil, too, of course,’ and she was disappointed although she echoed, ‘Of course.’

  ‘How’s the writing going?’ The sounds around him were busy, but he seemed in no hurry to hang up.

  ‘Pretty good today. Another body just turned up, so that’s two murders.’ She coiled the telephone cord around her finger absently, said, ‘No one knows who the murderer is yet, of course.’

  ‘But you do?’ Someone called his name in the background. He said hurriedly, ‘Just a sec, Alex.’

  She heard a muffled conversation, then his voice saying, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. Is dinner on?’

  ‘Yes.’ She would wear something different this time. A trouser-suit, perhaps, something less alluring than the dress from last night. Neil would be there, and there would be no kisses.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NEIL’S instructor at the college claimed that he had finished the mathematics upgrading in record time. Sam and Alex both had reason to know how hard he had worked. He was seldom seen without a maths text in hand as July swept away into August, and he often spent the lunches and suppers they shared talking about factoring equations or solving geometry problems.

  The three of them ate together most evenings, Alex preferring to cook for them when she could, because she felt uncomfortable dining in public. She was wearing looser clothes now, and she was afraid that people would look at her and know her condition.

  She had still not been to the church, and she had not seen her father again. She glimpsed her mother once when she was shopping downtown, but ducked around a corner and avoided the contact. She knew she was being a coward, but told herself she was being considerate of her mother, protecting her from the embarrassment of meeting her daughter.

  One day she caught Neil’s eyes watching her as she carried their lunch soup to the table. He blurted, ‘You’re going to have a baby, aren’t you?’ and she wanted to run, but she could not let herself.

  ‘Yes.’ She put down the soup in front of him.

  He was silent a long time, blowing on a spoonful of the soup that was too hot to eat. ‘Is it Sam’s?’ he asked finally.

  Would everyone know that? Sam had said he would make sure there was no doubt whose child it was. She closed her eyes, afraid of the criticism she might see in the youth’s eyes.

  ‘Yes, Neil. It’s Sam’s baby.’ It was one thing to theorise about this and to tell herself she could be a single mother, but quite another to have her body growing larger, her secret announced to the world, and herself feeling the terror of it all.

  She should go away, somewhere where no one knew her.

  She hardly went out of the house at all, except for the dinners with Sam and Neil. She hadn’t the nerve to tell Sam of her fears. He seemed to have no sensitivity at all to other people’s gossip and she was sure that he would not understand. She would have liked to eat all her meals at home, but Sam insisted on taking her and Neil out two or three times each week. She spent their restaurant dinners with one eye on the entrance, her eyes dropping to her plate when she recognised a customer.

  Neil became fussily protective of her, as if she were a fragile treasure. She saw a lot of Neil, because he seldom went out, and when Neil and Sam decided to have a chess tournament although neither of them played, it was Alex who volunteered to teach them in the evenings.

  She enjoyed those evenings. At first she helped them both with their moves on the big antique chess table in Sam’s living room. ‘If I’ve got the board, I may as well learn to play,’ Sam had murmured one evening, and Neil was eager to try anything that interested Sam.

  As they became more skillful, she brought in things to do as she watched them. She got up her nerve to go into a wool shop one day and started working on a big white shawl for the baby. She was embarrassed at first, knitting what was obviously a baby shawl with Sam sitting there, looking over at her from time to time. Then she met his eyes and thought she saw a warm contentment there. He liked seeing her prepare for the child.

  Some evenings they hardly talked. Others were lively with conversation. When Alex tried to decide how to commit the third murder in her new book, both Neil and Sam made enthusiastic suggestions.

  ‘Slip a syringe of air into his IV,’ advised Sam.

  Alex shook her head. ‘Can’t. He’s not in the hospital. He’s healthy as a horse—a very obnoxious man. Just the kind who never gets sick.’

  Sam moved his knight on the board and grinned. ‘I think you’re bloodthirsty at heart. You want to kill off the poor man.’

  ‘What about electrocuting him?’ suggested Neil.

  ‘Sure, I’m willing.’ Alex put aside the knitting. She was sitting cross-legged on the carpet. ‘Sam, you put Neil in check when you moved that knight.’

  ‘Did I? Oh, yeah. Check, Neil.’

  Neil groaned and Alex smiled as she picked up the knitting needles and pulled some of the fine wool free. ‘How do I electrocute him, Neil? He’s not the type to play with the insides of his own television.’

  ‘You could rig up his car.’ He moved his king out of Sam’s way temporarily. ‘We could get some wire and try rigging up Sam’s Corvette. I’m not sure what you could get out of one of those batteries if you built a circuit for it, but they’ve got a high amperage rating. You might kill somebody.’

  ‘Not the Corvette!’ Sam swiftly moved to close in on Neil’s king again. ‘Guard your queen. And check. Mate, too, I think—and if you touch my Corvette, Alex will have a real murder for her book!’

  She had never realised how much pleasure there could be in sharing her fantasy
stories with other people who were creative and fun-loving. There was a lot of laughter on those evenings, and her book seemed to be writing itself, once she decided to do her murder with poison and picked Sam’s brains for details on poisons a person might be able to buy in a town this size.

  Sam watched her whenever he was near, and he watched what she ate. About once a week he reminded her that she should go in for a check-up with Roy Box at the clinic. She always agreed, but she hadn’t made the appointment yet. She was putting off the clinic, telling herself that she had a doctor watching her every move, her diet and her complexion. There was no urgency about going to Dr Box. Sam would say soon enough if he thought she was not looking after his child.

  Even when he was not in the house she could feel his presence, as if he was thinking of her while he was away. She knew it was the child she carried that he was really caring about, but she couldn’t stop herself from enjoying his attention. He telephoned every morning as he finished his hospital rounds. Oddly, those telephone conversations had a flavour more intimate than the meals they shared. In each other’s presence they both seemed to shield behind Neil, talking to him more than to each other.

  ‘You should eat breakfasts,’ she told Sam during one of their telephone conversations. Every morning she listened to him, heard the shower, then his footsteps running down the stairs, the sound of the kettle as he made himself a cup of instant coffee.

  ‘Can’t face cooking that early in the morning,’ he told her. ‘Coffee is what I really need when I get up.’

  ‘I could cook breakfasts for you,’ she offered.

  There was silence as she clenched the receiver, regretting her offer because he did not want it. Finally he said, ‘Alex, you’ve no need to do things for me.’

  She wanted to. A button had come off his shirt the day before. She had offered to sew it on for him, but he had shrugged a refusal. She didn’t know what he had done with the shirt, but she suspected it was pushed into the bottom of his wardrobe.