One Secret Too Many

by Vanessa Grant

  She went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of milk, taking it with her up the broad stairway. She set it down on the bedside table in the bedroom that was Sam’s. The shirt was where she had thought it would. be, stuffed into the wardrobe. The button was in the pocket. Sam was a surgeon and if he could sew up people he could probably sew on a button. It didn’t matter. She wanted to do it, although he would probably never notice.

  Then, when the shirt was mended, she would wash it with her things in the washing machine down in the basement. Once that was done, she should start packing. There was not very much to pack, but it would be best to have it done, while the numbness inside her persisted. The next two days were not going to be easy. She would have to hold herself against the feelings. Thankfully, tonight was the night Maggie had invited them all to supper. There would be fast talk and laughter, and she need not say many words to Sam.

  Tomorrow would be a business day. She would arrange things, and she would have to tell Sam she was leaving. She would postpone that as long as she could, avoiding being alone with him.

  Her parents would have to know she was leaving, but, cowardly or not, she could not face them yet. She would write a letter and post it on her way to the ferry. It would be easier for all of them that way. No awkward contact.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HE KNEW that Alex had made some decision. Through most of the dinner at the MacAvoys she was silent, as if content to listen to the conversation. But it was in her eyes, the gaze that would not meet his. He watched the thick dark lashes fanning over her cheeks as she stared down at her dinner plate.

  Maggie was animated, telling them about the fireworks that had ensued today when a fisherman had moored his fifty-foot boat outside a twenty-foot speedboat. Young Dixie was heatedly arguing the chess game she had lost to Neil, a dispute that seemed to show that neither of them had the rules very clear in their minds. Michael was laughing, his usually cool grey eyes sparkling at Maggie. ‘Listen to that wife of mine! Another war on the wharves! And you’re the lady to keep them all in line, darling!’

  ‘Well, he’s not going to do it again!’ said Maggie heatedly, and Sam believed it. He wouldn’t have wanted to be on the wrong side of Maggie himself, and he suspected that she and Michael had their share of battles although they obviously loved each other very deeply. As Maggie told the tale, Alex’s interest had been caught and she had come out of her pensive stillness to give Maggie a half-smile. ‘Which one of them won’t do it again? The fisherman or the speedboater?’

  ‘Both of them! The pleasure-boater knew better than to moor in an area reserved for commercial fishermen! But the fisherman—that stupid turkey Solly! He’s such a hothead.’ Sam almost laughed aloud, because if anyone was a hothead it was Maggie MacAvoy. She added, ‘I had to kick Solly out last fall, and I should never have let him back!’

  Michael leaned across and combed Maggie’s wild curls back, his eyes warm. ‘Alex, some day you should get her to tell you about the wars between Solly and Rex. The first time I saw Maggie, she was standing between the two of them, all five foot four of her facing down two big, angry fishermen who were trying to kill each other over a dog!’

  Sam saw Alex’s dark eyes sparkle. ‘You know,’ she said slowly, ‘it’s a wonder there hasn’t been murder done down here. Think of it!’ He recognised that look in her eyes. Her mind was busy putting together the tendrils of a plot. ‘The night I came here, Maggie—remember how dark it was?’ Maggie shook her head, but Alex said, ‘Pitch-black. It was low tide and the lights were shining so high above the wharves that there was no light down where I was walking. Lonely. Dark shadows of boats stretching across the planks.’ She absently chewed on a forkful of salmon, and mused, ‘I think I’ll murder someone down here some day.’

  Michael jerked, startled, and Sam assured him, ‘She’s not really violent. She does all her murders in fiction.’ Then he smiled at Alex, but she had gone away from him again.

  Her eyes were glazed over with a pensive worry, the dusting of freckles across her nose emphasising the paleness of her skin. Her hand was guiding the fork in an aimless abuse of her salad. It wasn’t like her at all. She always had a healthy appetite, and she laughed easily. Her eyes should be glittering, because she loved listening to Maggie’s waterfront stories. He restrained an urge to cover her restless band with his.

  She was going to leave him. He had never had any claim on her. In Vancouver, it was as if she had walked into his life and wrapped her fingers around his heart, terrifying and charming him at one and the same time. She had felt it, too. Damn it, he would swear there had been love in her eyes then—when she was a mystery lady with no last name.

  He wanted to give her all the things that he had never had himself. A home. Love. His arms around her when she was afraid. He wanted to help her. He could help her if she would let him. He had spent half an hour with her father last week, campaigning for him to say a good word for Neil in court this month. The Reverend Oliver Houseman had been helpful, courteous. As they parted he had asked gruffly after his daughter. Sam had searched his eyes and asked softly, ‘Why don’t you come and see for yourself?’

  Given half a chance, the pastor would reach out to his daughter. The mother would be harder. In fact, she would probably disapprove forever unless Alex agreed to marry him He had trouble believing that Alex and her cool, efficient mother had ever been truly close.

  The thing was to approach her parents together. First ask them over to dinner, let them see that their daughter was happy and content, that—well, let them see that Sam loved her.

  Damn! Why was it impossible for him to go to her parents and tell them plainly that he loved Mary Alexandra Houseman—Alex Diamond—whoever she was! Hell! She had said it would be better if she left, and she had decided now. She was nervous of telling him, but it was in her eyes.

  He was terrified that both she and the unborn child would slip out of his life forever, as so many other people had done all through the past. He had almost asked her in the car earlier. They had stopped on the way to the MacAvoys’ to have a look at the newly erected walls to Michael’s building. Michael had been there, just leaving for home, and Neil had elected to go on to the docks with Michael because he wanted to ask him some questions about the reading he had done.

  Sam had driven the rest of the way in silence, alone with Alex, trying to work out words to ask her not to go. He had parked at the Rushbrooke car park, the wheel still gripped between Dis hands, his mind forming words his lips would not pass.

  Damn it! He was afraid. He was thirty-eight years old and he hadn’t let himself care if anyone walked out on him or kicked him out for over twenty years. Now he was terrified that if he asked her, and she said she was going, he would be begging her to stay. He must not do that! It was no good, clinging to people.

  His beeper went before the dinner was finished. Not now, he thought desperately. He had arranged with Roy to cover his calls tonight. He needed every minute with her, tonight especially, while there might still be some chance to change her mind.

  ‘I’ll phone in and check,’ said Sam.

  Perhaps it would be quick and easy, and he would not have to go out. He had to be here to take Alex and Neil home. He was almost certain that she would go walking alone with him if he asked her once they got home, in the seconds before she disappeared into her rooms. Then, alone with her on the empty streets. . .

  ‘Dr Dempsey? Thank goodness we caught you! It’s Mrs Mallory.’ The voice of the emergency-room nurse was briskly efficient. ‘The ambulance brought her in on an MVA. Dr Box is attending. She’s haemorrhaging badly. He’s ordered her prepped for an emergency c-section. Dr Box wants to know if you can operate.’

  He glanced at his watch, said, ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes—no, five.’ Thankfully, he had turned down the wine before dinner. He had needed a clear head for Alex, and now he would need steady hands. Why hadn’t Roy called in the gynaecologist? No. the man was away at a conference, and in
a city of this size there were no back-up specialists. He pushed aside a memory of Celia Mallory’s last visit to the office.

  ‘Here’s your jacket.’ He hadn’t realised that Alex had followed him from the dining room. Her eyes worried, her hand touching his with fleeting warmth as he took the jacket and slung it over his shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry—’ he began, but she shook her head.

  ‘Don’t, Sam. Michael can give us a ride home.’ She smiled, walking with him to the door as if she understood that he could not stop even for these few words. Her fingers grasped his arm as he pulled the door open. ‘But drive carefully. You can’t help anyone by getting killed breaking all the speed records between here and the hospital.’

  He nodded. ‘It’s a car accident. A—’ There was no time. Her lips were parted slightly as she looked up at him and he let himself have the indulgence of one quick, hard kiss. As if he had the right to promise her everything with his lips. ‘There’ve been enough accidents tonight. I’ll be careful.’

  The sweet honey of her lips was with him as he drove. He kept to the speed limit. because she was right and he would only save thirty seconds or so by speeding. Celia Mallory needed him in one piece tonight.

  Although he had prepared himself for it to be bad, he was Shocked when he saw her. His eyes met Roy’s above the masks and for a moment he wished for the anonymity of a big hospital. He remembered clearly the last time he had seen this young woman. ‘Four weeks,’ she had said, laughing, touching the swelling lovingly. She already had two small children and a husband she loved. Both the previous pregnancies had been without incident, the deliveries uneventful. She had wailed, ‘Dr Dempsey, I’m not sure if I can wait four more weeks. Are you sure this isn’t twins?’

  He’d laughed, enjoying her pleasure. ‘Not twins. You saw the results of the ultrasound.’

  ‘Who have we got for the baby?’ he asked Roy now. The baby would be born under anaesthetic and might have sustained injuries in the accident. ‘I called Alan in.’ Roy adjusted the drip on the intra-venous tube that led into the woman’s arm. ‘Good.’ He was glad to see Wendy step up beside the instrument tray. They were all good. Wendy and Alan and Roy, and he knew that his own steady hands were skillful, but tonight they would need more than skill. He breathed deeply, calming himself, praying that they would be able to save Celia and her baby.

  Alex tried to sleep, and she succeeded after a time, but she was awake the second the car drove up, alarmed without knowing why. Her eyes came open and she listened, hearing the low sound of his engine. She waited for the slight rev that he always gave before he turned the engine off. She did not hear it, nor did she hear the car door slamming, his footsteps on the stairs.

  It was too long. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. She got up, feeling her way in the dark, belting her dressing-gown over the white frothy nightgown as she hurried to the door, not stopping to find slippers to cover her bare feet.

  Yes, it was his car out there in the shadows, the white catching what little light there was from the streetlight across the street. The engine was still running, although quietly. She couldn’t hear it until she was outside, halfway along the pavement to where he was parked on the street. But she could see his silhouette. His head was leaned back against the headrest.

  ‘Sam?’ The driver’s window was partly open. His face looked as it had the night she had first met him on the beach.

  ‘Sam?’ She opened the door, shifting her feet on the cold pavement. He didn’t look at her. ‘Sam, are you all right?’ He nodded finally, his eyes still closed. She crouched down to see him better, positioned herself so that he had to see her too if he opened his eyes. ‘Sam, what is it?’

  He shook his head slowly, his hands still on the wheel. She took the hands in hers, turned them and stared down at his palms. They were inert. She curled his fingers around hers.

  ‘Nothing, honey,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m all right.’

  She knew that it was not true. He should not be alone with the hurt she could see shut inside him right now. ‘Come with me into the kitchen. I’m going to get you some tea.’ She pulled on his hands, but he was too heavy. If he didn’t help there was no way she could get him out of the car.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ he said then, his voice low and toneless. ‘I’ll just go up to bed.’

  ‘No!’ That got through. His eyes focused on her and she said sharply, ‘Sam, come on! Come into the house!’ She reached across and turned the key off, then pulled his arm to urge him out of the car. He came docilely and that was so uncharacteristic that it worried her. She closed the door behind him and led him into the kitchen, pushing him down into a chair at the table.

  He sat there silently as she moved around, plugging the kettle in, getting out the teapot. He acted as if he was in shock, but she was no doctor. She had never even taken a first-aid course, although that seemed like a criminal oversight right now. She didn’t know if tea was right. It seemed to her that the remedy was something hot with lots of sugar in it, but Sam hated sweet tea and coffee.

  The main thing was to get him moving, get him talking, somehow snap him out of this. She put the steaming cup on the table in front of him and was relieved to see him pick it up. She pulled out the chair next to him and sat down, watching him intently and with determination. ‘Now, Sam, tell me what happened.’ He was closed, shutting it all in. She watched him drink his tea, and hoped the warmth would help somehow. ‘Thank you,’ he said dully as he put the empty cup down. He stood up. ‘I’m going up to bed now,’ he said, his mind not on his words, or on her. She knew that he was still back there at the hospital.

  His feet were very slow on the stairs, taking him up under automatic pilot, she supposed. There was a floorboard in his room that creaked, but it only sounded once. She hugged herself, standing alone in the kitchen in her bare feet, hating the thought of him alone up there.

  She rinsed their cups, then went outside to close the window of his car and lock it. She did it mechanically, knowing that she had to go to him. She was nervous, a little afraid of being pushed away by an irritated, morose Sam, but above all needing to share his hurt. She locked the front door of the house. Sam usually did that when he came in. She didn’t bother to close the door that led to her rooms, or to turn out the lights downstairs. It wouldn’t hurt them to burn through the night.

  If he heard her coming up the stairs, he showed no sign of it as she entered his room. She closed the door to his room behind her, and locked it. He would not want Neil to see him like this. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, an unopened bottle of whisky in his hands. He must have taken it from the cabinet in the living room.

  She reached back and turned off the light switch then moved to him and took the bottle from his hands. She set it down on the floor. His hands were very cold. It frightened her that he did not respond when she touched his face, that he did not resist as she took off his jacket and started to undo the buttons of his shirt.

  Damn! His skin was so cold, even the flesh of his shoulders and chest. Would it be better for him to have some of the whisky? ‘Sam, help me. You’ve got to get under the covers, get warm.’ He hadn’t done up his cuffs, so she was able to pull the shirt off, although she had to yank to free the shirt-tail tucked into the back of his trousers.

  No tie. Cuffs unbuttoned. ‘You were operating?’ She knelt down in front of him and undid his shoes. If only he would answer! If only she could get him talking! He was sitting on the edge of the bed, now undressed except for his trousers, but he didn’t even seem to know she was there.

  She pulled the covers back and pushed him down, then she tried to figure out how she was going to get his trousers off, He was much bigger than her, heavier, and he wasn’t co-operating.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ he said, his eyes staring up and seeming to see her at last. She shook her head and pulled the leather of his belt free of the loop.

  ‘Alex!’ His voice was hoarse. ‘For goodness’ sake! Get out of here!’ She sw
allowed and watched the brass buckle coming free of the leather. She pulled and the belt slipped out from under him, She dropped it to the floor. She wasn’t sure if she could tackle his trousers but at least, without the belt, he would be a little more comfortable.

  ‘I need to be alone, Alex.’ He was lying near the edge of the bed, an arm thrown across his eyes. She undid the sash of her housecoat and let the robe fall to the floor. She had to climb over him before she could lie beside him. He said hoarsely, ‘Please get out of here, honey.’

  She touched his unruly dark hair, the dry flesh at his temple. He still felt cold. She drew the blankets up over them both, then she pulled his arm away from his face, drew it around her shoulders.

  ‘Please let me stay, Sam,’ she whispered, fitting her softness to his cool hardness. ‘Don’t send me away.’ A shudder seemed to go through him. He turned slightly towards’ her, his arm tightening around her. She cupped his face with her hands and smoothed the tension gently with her thumbs.

  ‘Sam, who did you operate on?’ He jerked, but couldn’t seem to pull himself away. In the moonlight shining through the window she could see his face, still pale and rigid. There was a faint sheen of moisture on the lashes of his closed eyes. Somehow, she had to get him to talk about it.

  ‘Who was it?’ she asked again.

  ‘Celia.’ His head rolled on the pillow. She kissed the closed eyes softly and felt him tremble. ‘Celia Mallory.’

  She wished that she could have recognised the name. It might have helped her to know the questions to ask. She remembered the call he had received hours earlier at the MacAvoys’. ‘Was it a car accident?’ He was shivering. She got her arms around him and burrowed her face into the coolness of his throat. ‘Why did they call you?’