by Lisa Jackson
“That’s how it is in the city. It’s kind of…lonely sometimes, don’t you think?”
Her candid question surprised him.
He met it with one of his own. “You’re lonely?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes. Usually I’m too busy to be, but…well, sometimes.”
“What about…I mean…don’t you have anyone in your life?”
“I’ve got friends, and I visit my parents out west a few times a year, so…”
“No,” he said, “that’s not what I meant.”
“You mean am I involved with anyone?” She refused to meet his eye. “No. Not really.”
“Not really? What does that mean?”
“I should have just said no.” She took a deep breath, let it out. “No, I’m not involved with anyone. What about you?”
“No. I’m not involved with anyone, either.” He slid a little closer on the couch, wondering what the hell he was doing.
Still, she refused to look at him.
Why was he trying so hard to make her?
That wasn’t all he wanted—eye contact. He wanted to touch her.
Outside, in the distance, thunder rumbled.
It seemed to startle her. She looked up at the window, then, at last, at him.
The look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know—for now, anyway.
She was feeling it, too.
He dared to reach out a hand and let it rest on her forearm. Her skin was soft, cool to his touch.
He heard her breath catch in her throat.
“Don’t,” she said, but she didn’t flinch or pull away.
“Why not?”
“It’s not a good idea.”
“You’re right,” he said, “but you and I were never known for common sense when we were together.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “You make it sound like we were together, together.”
“I know. That’s because somehow I keep forgetting that we weren’t.”
“You know what? I keep feeling like that, too. Do you think it’s because of…you know, him?”
Our son.
She still couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“No,” he said, “because I felt that way even before I knew he existed. He’s not the only connection we have. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I think I do.”
He kissed her, then…
Later, looking back, he would wonder where he found the nerve.
But he didn’t think about it, couldn’t think at all as his mouth brushed hers lightly, then boldly, then claimed it with a hunger too long denied.
Yes, she was smart.
Smart enough to know better than to waste too much time trying to hunt the kid down in this weather.
It was raining like hell, thundering, lightning. It wasn’t safe to be out there, poking around in the woods, looking for Lindsay and Wyatt’s son.
Anyway, he was really just a little detour from the main journey. An added means of making Lindsay Farrell suffer.
She didn’t really believe losing a child was a fate worse than death.
What could be worse than death?
Particularly the death she had in store for Lindsay Farrell.
It had taken her well over ninety minutes to get back to the city. Traffic was horrendous, accidents everywhere, flooding, trees down in a few places, too.
She could only hope that if Lindsay had left Wyatt’s place when Leo failed to show up, she hadn’t yet made it home.
I have to stay a few steps ahead of her. That’s the key. A few steps ahead, and everything will work out just fine.
For the second time in her life, Lindsay Farrell found herself lying naked in Wyatt Goddard’s arms.
This time, though, the sheets that entangled them were soft, imported white cotton rather than worn, nubby blue polyester. The mattress was a luxurious king-sized pillow-top, not a lumpy twin bunk.
Only the rain that steadily pelted the roof overhead was the same.
The setting didn’t matter, though. Nothing mattered but how he made her feel when he made love to her.
And afterward.
Even now, when she should be utterly spent, lingering ripples of pleasure refused to ebb entirely.
Propped on his elbow, the naked length of his body stretched alongside her own, he ran a fingertip down her bare rib cage.
“Stop,” she said, not meaning it.
“Why?”
“Because when you touch me like that, you get my hopes up all over again.”
“Really.” He did it again, and his hand came to rest on her hip.
“Really. And you can’t possibly follow through…again.”
He grinned wickedly. “You don’t think so?”
She shook her head, and he took her into his arms and kissed her again. And again.
This time, his lovemaking was languid, as opposed to the last, when they had fervently found their way up here, pent-up passion erupting like a volcano.
Now, she felt as though she were filled with molten lava as he trailed a lazy tongue across the taut slope of her belly. She moaned when it dipped lower, lower still, clutching his hair and gasping his name as he brought her to the brink, then beyond.
“You don’t have to get home tonight, do you?” he asked with a grin.
“No,” she said, still panting. “I definitely don’t.”
“Leo? Is that you?”
“Yeah, Ma,” he said, and shoved the soggy tissue into the pocket of the jeans he’d changed into when he arrived home. He grabbed the latest issue of Sports Illustrated from the floor and hurriedly opened it. “It’s me.”
He heard footsteps, then she poked her head into his bedroom and saw him lying there on his bed. “You’re done working early tonight.”
“Yeah.” He tried to remember where he’d stashed his sodden suit when he stripped it off. On the floor by the closet? At the foot of the bed?
“How come?”
“Slow night.” He forced himself to look at her. Her graying hair looked damp from the rain, and her round face was accentuated with make-up. She was wearing a pair of dress slacks and the comfortable shoes she liked to wear when she went to Manhattan. It was an eight-block walk from the subway to Aunt Rose’s apartment. “How was your day, Ma?”
“Good. Aunt Rose is feeling great. She looks great. She’s putting everything behind her and she and Uncle Paul are planning a trip to Myrtle Beach next month.”
Leo did his best to muster some enthusiasm. “That’s good. Where’s Mario?”
“He ran into Jose downstairs and went over there to play PlayStation.” Betty Cellamino fixed her older son with a worried gaze. “Are you okay, Leo?”
“Yeah, just tired.”
“Did you eat? Aunt Rose sent some manicotti for you.”
“I’ll have it later.”
His mother hesitated in the doorway, then shrugged and went to her own room.
Alone again, Leo tossed the magazine aside and rolled morosely onto his back again, wondering what to do.
He couldn’t tell his mother what had happened—that was for sure.
Nor could he tell the police, because they would tell Ma, and she would be devastated.
Why hadn’t he stopped to think about that before he agreed to meet his birth parents?
Because he was carried away by the fantasy, that was why.
Because he believed that he was actually going to meet them.
How could he have been so stupid? How could he have fallen for such an obvious Internet hoax? You read about stuff like that all the time—on-line predators who preyed on teenagers.
He’d never thought it could happen to him, at his age. He’d never thought he could be so recklessly idiotic.
But how did she know about me? About the adoption?
You moron. How do you think?
People could find out anything on the Internet.
But that hadn’t occurred
to him then. No, he had actually thought he was talking to his biological mother—not some fraud who had conned him with a picture of some woman who happened to look a lot like him.
What was she going to do to him when she drove him up to the boondocks on the pretense of taking him to meet his birth parents?
Rob him? Rape him?
What would have happened if he hadn’t gotten away? There he was, soaked to the skin in his good suit, pathetic, hitchhiking his way back to the Bronx, where he managed to get the subway home.
The whole time, he fought back tears, telling himself that he was a man, and men didn’t cry.
But once he got home, the floodgates opened. He couldn’t help it.
It was sick.
Sick, sick, sick, and he had fallen for it like a gullible little kid being offered a lollipop by some pervert.
No, he couldn’t tell the police. He couldn’t tell a soul.
He just wanted to forget that any of it had ever happened.
“Are you hungry?”
“Hmm?” Lindsay lifted her head from Wyatt’s chest. She had been on the verge of dozing again, more relaxed than she had been in days.
She felt as though she could lie here indefinitely in his arms, her head pressed against his chest so that she could hear the steady beating of his heart, seemingly in rhythm with the rain that dripped from the eaves outside the window.
“I can make us something,” he said, stroking her hair. “I’m starved.”
“So am I.”
“Come on, then.”
He pulled on a pair of shorts and gave her one of his Tshirts to wear. As she pulled it over her head, she was enveloped in the scent of him, and it was all she could do not to bury her nose in the fabric.
In the hall outside his bedroom, he flipped a wall switch.
Nothing happened. The hallway remained dark.
“A power line must be down somewhere,” he said. “That happens a lot when it storms like this.”
He took her hand and led her through the darkened house to the kitchen, where he lit several candles.
In the flickering light, he rummaged through the fridge and cupboards.
“I’ve got steaks, potatoes, and stuff for a salad,” he told her.
“You don’t have to make a big meal.”
“We’ve got to eat the stuff. It’ll go bad, and anyway, I’m leaving tomorrow for a week.”
She watched him assemble the ingredients on the counter, along with a large wooden cutting board and a couple of knives he removed from their special sleeves.
“I’ll chop the stuff for the salad,” she volunteered.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. That’s about all I know how to do.”
“What about your finger?”
“You know what they say. You’ve got to get right back up on the bike if you fall off.”
“I thought it was the horse.”
She grinned. “Whatever.”
They worked companionably in the candlelit kitchen, Wyatt seasoning the steaks and getting them under the gas broiler as she sliced and diced the vegetables.
“I can’t believe what a difference a great knife makes,” she commented. “I’ve got to get a couple of these. Where did you buy them?”
“In France,” he said. “They’re actually hard to find here.”
“I’ll make a note to pick some up the next time I go to Paris, then,” she said wryly, and he laughed.
“That’s not where you’re going on this trip tomorrow morning,” she asked, “is it?”
“No. Italy this time.”
“Do you travel to Europe a lot?”
He nodded and checked the steaks. “Have you ever been?”
“No,” she said. “I’d love to go, though, someday.”
“Maybe you can come with me.”
She clenched the knife handle, hoping he didn’t think she was hinting around.
“What do you think?” he asked, his back to her as he shook some kind of seasoning over the steaks.
“Maybe,” she said noncommittally, when what she really longed to do was give him a fervent yes.
There was no guarantee, really, that they were going to see each other after tonight.
And if their son didn’t want them to be a part of his life, there was really no logical reason to reconnect.
But there was nothing logical about what Lindsay was feeling right now. Nothing logical at all.
Wyatt watched Lindsay sleep, the room illuminated by the candles he had lit earlier. The power had been back on for some time, but he kept the candles burning downstairs as they ate, and up here in the bedroom, where they returned immediately afterward.
He had worn her out, he supposed, with a voracious appetite that couldn’t be sated by food. She’d been sleeping for a while now, her breath whisper soft, stirring the hair on his forearm as he held her.
He never wanted to let go, but he was going to have to. For a while, at least. It was past three a.m., and he had to pack for his business trip to Italy. A car was picking him up here in a little over an hour to take him down to JFK Airport.
If he could have canceled the trip, he would have, but he was handling a car for a new client who happened to be one of the most well-connected financiers in the world. He could probably retire on the eventual word of mouth this was going to generate.
He took one long, last look, relishing the sight of Lindsay, eyes closed, lips slightly parted. He kissed them gently, then gingerly slipped his arm out from under her.
She stirred, opened her eyes.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
She blinked.
She doesn’t know where she is, he realized. She was looking at him as though she was wondering what he was doing there.
He smiled. “Remember me?”
“Definitely.” She stretched. “What time is it?”
“It’s the middle of the night. You don’t have to get up, but I do. I’ve got to leave for the airport. You can stay here and sleep, and I’ll arrange for you to be driven home in the morning…or whenever you want. You can stay here, use the pool…”
Wait for me to come home next week…
Please stay, Lindsay. Don’t ever leave.
She shook her head and sat up, running her fingers through her passion-tousled hair. “No, thanks—I mean, that’s so sweet of you, but I’ve got to go home.”
“Now?”
“When you leave.”
“If you want, my driver can drop you on the way to the airport.”
“That would be good—if it’s not a problem.”
“It’s not.” And that way, he would have another hour to spend with her. It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough to last him until next weekend.
You’re assuming you’re going to see her again.
What if she doesn’t want to?
What if this is it?
“Lindsay,” he said, glancing at the clock, hating that he had to worry about the time, “we need to talk when I get back.”
“About Leo?”
She had actually said it.
Hearing their son’s name on her lips was bittersweet now.
“About Leo,” he echoed, “of course. And about…us.”
Us, like we, was a foreign word on Wyatt’s tongue. Yet it, as we had earlier, now managed to roll off with ease.
He held his breath, waiting for Lindsay to dispute it.
To tell him that there was no us.
She merely smiled.
It was a smile that spoke volumes, so that she didn’t have to.
“I’ll be here when you get back,” she told him simply.
And for the first time in his life, Wyatt found himself wholeheartedly looking forward to the rest of it.
Whore.
That’s what you are, Lindsay. You’re a whore.
She paced across the now-familiar living room like a caged panther, then back again, and looked at her watch.<
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5:21.
A little over sixty seconds had passed since the last time she’d checked.
There was no telling when Lindsay was going to show up. She had obviously rekindled her old flame with Wyatt Goddard.
For all I know, she’ll spend the rest of the weekend with him.
She couldn’t stay here waiting for her indefinitely. She had already arranged to check out on Sunday, and she was scheduled to fly back to Oregon in about twelve hours.
I can’t leave New York without taking care of Lindsay.
No, but she couldn’t take care of Lindsay until she resurfaced.
She yawned deeply and realized she was on the verge of exhaustion. Her shoulders burned with fatigue and her legs ached from standing. She should go back to her hotel room, arrange to stay at least another night, and get some sleep.
She could try again tom—
She froze, hearing a sound at the door.
It was a key in the lock.
Lindsay.
Her gloved hand closed around the handle of the butcher knife she’d stolen from Lindsay’s kitchen drawer.
Heart beating in anticipation, she hurried back to the hiding spot she’d chosen hours earlier.
Lindsay was smiling as she stepped over the threshold into her apartment, her thoughts on the good-bye kiss Wyatt had just given her in the backseat of the limo, along with a sweet, unexpected parting gift.
“I’ll call you when I land,” he promised as she tucked it into her purse. “And I’ll see you the second I get back.”
It was a promise, and she met it with one of her own.
“Good. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Now, at last, exhaustion was beginning to steal in to meld with her dreamy afterglow.
She started to reach for the light switch just inside the door, then changed her mind. The sky beyond the large window above the couch was already pink, and the first light of dawn that seeped into the room was enough for her to see her way through to the bedroom.
All she wanted to do was fall into bed and think about all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours—then sleep.
Yawning, she kicked off her sandals and left them where they landed, under a table by the door. Her purse still over her shoulder, she walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face.
Then she thought better of that.