Subpoenaed. They’re calling him to Washington to stand before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
She felt as if her whole world had been shattered like a glass bowl dashed against the bricks. What on earth had Mac ever done to deserve this?
“Someone must’ve set him up,” Luke had said as he walked Jane to her car. “The higher you climb, the more enemies you make. I wouldn’t worry about it, Weaver. McCarthy’s days are numbered. It’s gonna be all right.”
But it wasn’t going to be all right. If she knew anything, she knew that. Their wonderful idyll was at an end and she was to blame. The tires crunched through the snow covering the driveway and she applied the emergency brake and got out. It didn’t take second sight to know what had happened. Ginger Higgins, with her suspicions and her mean-spirited accusations, had found her target, and Jane had provided the ammunition. If only she had understood how Uncle Nigel and his book would appear to an outsider. If only she had tucked it away in a drawer or tossed it in the trash.
But not Jane. Jane was proud of her uncle and she’d displayed the bloody thing on her shelf for all the world to see.
And now her husband was paying the price for her stupidity.
Oh, she’d been Miss High-and-Mighty that rainy day in London, so certain that her fortunes had changed at long last. She’d allowed Mac to sweep her up into his strong arms and carry her away across the ocean to a new life, and never once did she stop to think what she would bring to their marriage. She wasn’t the best of cooks and her housekeeping was haphazard, at best. She had a stack of shirts piled up in the laundry basket waiting to be ironed.
She couldn’t even managed to keep their private life private, and—dear God!—she couldn’t give him a child. The hollow in her stomach was a constant reminder of the precious life she’d lost. So many times she replayed the past few months in her mind, seeking desperately to find the clue to the tragedy. Had she eaten too much and slept too little? Was it the day she forgot to take her vitamins? Somewhere there was a clue to the tragedy, and Jane, in her sorrow, was determined to find it.
“Let it go,” said the doctor. “There will be many more babies in your future, Mrs. Weaver.”
Yes, she’d thought, struggling to smile, but there will never again be this special baby. And that small fact meant more to her than anyone could ever know. The child she had lost had been real to her; she’d felt it stirring within her womb. She’d awakened in the night to the gentle rolling motion as it shifted position. The baby’s heartbeat had been her own.
Oh, yes. Mac had done wonderfully well for himself when he picked her out of the coronation crowd. She had no family of her own. No father to smile proudly as he gave her hand in marriage. No brother to warn Mac to treat his sister right. No mother to ease her passage from woman to wife. She had no money, no home, so few possessions she could fit them in one trunk and have room to spare. And now she couldn’t even give him the child he deserved.
“If you were any kind of woman, you’d turn and run,” she said out loud. Certainly he deserved better than she.
Leo Donnelly had written to her last week, a chatty newsy letter that included his standing invitation to rejoin the staff of the Liverpool paper she’d abandoned so blithely in the name of love.
Why not leave? she thought, pacing the length of the living room. Why not end this marriage as quickly as it had started, with one swift stroke of the blade? Mac’s only crime had been marrying her; by leaving him, she could wipe the slate clean.
Surely she was the reason he’d been ordered to appear before McCarthy’s dreaded Committee. All these years and no one had ever bothered him and then what do you know? He married Jane and he found himself facing a hostile senator and this lackeys, hell-bent on making life miserable for Americans whose main concern was freedom.
If she went away, Mac could pick up where he’d left off before Jane entered his life and find the happiness he deserved.
Her passport was in order. She’d emptied her Christmas Club account so she could go shopping for gifts; the money was now in her wallet. She glanced at the clock, then squared her shoulders. If she moved quickly, she could be on her way to England before Mac got home tonight.
* * *
“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way...”
“Mom-my!” Linda clapped her hands over her ears and made a face. “Do you have to sing?”
Nancy met her daughter’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.” The first snow of the season was falling. Christmas was just two weeks away. She’d managed to find a Tiny Tears doll for Kathy at the discount store and a Betsy-Wetsy was on order for Linda. The baby was sleeping through the night and her husband wasn’t.
Frank Capra was right: it truly was a wonderful life.
As bad as things had been before, that’s how wonderful they were now. Who would have imagined that something as simple as conversation, plain ordinary talking together, could have changed things the way it had?
She’d opened her heart to Gerry.
Gerry had shared his dreams with her.
They’d taken a first tiny step toward an exciting future and, for the first time in years, Nancy felt as if the sky was the limit.
And to her delight, the same formula had worked for her and Jane.
If only she could bottle this wonderful secret and give it to all the sad and lonely souls. Why, she’d be a greater humanitarian than Albert Schweitzer.
She eased the car onto Robin Hood Lane, following the tire tracks grooved into the inch of snow already on the ground.
“Look, Mommy!” Linda pointed out the window. “There’s Aunt Jane getting into a taxicab.”
What an imagination her daughter had. Nancy glanced out the window and to her amazement, saw that Linda was right. “What on earth—?” She beeped her horn twice. Jane turned her head in Nancy’s direction and waved as the driver moved away from the curb.
“She had a suitcase,” said Linda. “Is she running away from home?”
Nancy laughed out loud. Art Linkletter was right; kids really did say the darnedest things sometimes. “Grown-ups don’t run away from home, honey.” She thought for a moment, then a big smile spread across her face. “I’ll bet Uncle Mac is taking her on a second honeymoon.”
“What’s a honeymoon?” asked Linda.
“Like a vacation.” She turned into her driveway and turned off the engine. A vacation for grown-ups.
“This isn’t vacation time,” said Linda, ever practical. “Vacations are in the summertime.”
“Well, some people like to take their vacations in the winter.”
Linda wrinkled her nose. “That’s silly.”
“No, honey, that’s romantic.”
“What’s romantic?”
Nancy thought about moonlit skies and moon-swept oceans; she thought about palm trees swaying in the breeze and silken sand against her skin. “Ask me again in ten years, honey, and I’ll tell you.”
* * *
Well, he’d done about everything there was to do except say goodbye and, as it turned out, that didn’t take long at all.
There was something about a subpoena from the McCarthy Committee that marked “finished” to a man’s day. People looked the other way, they wiped their eyes, they acted as if he’d come out of the doctor’s office with six months to live.
Who knows? Maybe he had.
Mac was still numb from the turn of events. All the signs had been there and yet knowing the subpoena was coming and actually having it served on you were two totally different things. “They’re gonna hit you hard,” McTiernan had said. “I’ve got the name of a great lawyer. You’d better call him before you say a word to anyone.”
His whole life was crashing down around him and threatening to take Janie with it.
McTiernan, to his credit, hadn’t taken the opportunity to give Mac his walking papers. “We’re here for you,” the man said, shaking Mac’s hand. “Remember, al
l you’ve gotta do is give ’em a name and you’re free and clear. One name. That’s all they need.”
“I don’t have a name to give them,” Mac said, “and if I did, wouldn’t I be playing into their hands?”
“You’re not going to beat ’em, so you might as well join ’em.” He wrote a name on a piece of paper, folded it, then handed the paper to Mac. “Give ’em this.”
“I can’t.”
“Don’t be a fool,” said McTiernan. “The guy’s dead. He’ll never know.”
Mac stared after his boss as the older man walked away. The paper burned a hole in his palm and he stuffed it into his jacket pocket and out of his mind. What a hell of a world this was. He looked up at the wall clock over the door. A little after two. There wasn’t much point in hanging around. He’d give Janie a call, then catch the next train out of Penn. He had to break the news to her sometime. Better she heard it from him than in the next edition of the paper.
Janie, you deserve a hell of a lot better than this, he thought as he headed toward a bank of phones at the railroad station. I should’ve left you right there in England where you belong. Let some nice, understanding Oxford type give you the life you deserve.
Their future seemed as dark as the thoughts tumbling through his head. As bleak as his soul. You never were one for the long haul, were you, Weaver? When push comes to shove, you’re always the first one looking for a way out.
Well, this time the joke was on him. There was no way out. He’d have to face Janie and watch as her pride in him crumpled like a house of cards.
He let the phone at home ring ten times, but there was no answer.
He tried a second time. Still no answer.
He dialed Nancy’s number.
“I thought she was with you,” said Nancy, sounding surprised. “When I saw her getting into a cab with her luggage, I just assumed she was meeting you.”
“How long ago was this?”
“About half an hour. DeeDee across the street said she thought she heard Jane say she was going to Idlewild Airport. I just assumed she was meeting you—”
He hung up the receiver and stood there in the middle of the bustling Penn Station and looked himself square in the eye for the first time in his life. It’s up to you this time, Weaver. You can let her go or you can fight for her. It was no contest.
* * *
“You okay, lady?” The taxi driver’s voice seemed to reach her from a great distance.
She cleared her throat. “I—I’m fine. Thank you.”
He met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Heck of a day to be going to the airport, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”
“I don’t mind,” she said, even though she did. “There’s a family emergency. I must return home,” Home is the little house on Robin Hood Lane, Janie. Not London. Not Liverpool. Home is with Mac.
“Well, don’t be surprised if they close down the airport. Can’t imagine they’re having any more luck keepin’ the runways clear than they’re havin’ keeping the highway clear. This snow ain’t gonna stop just because we want it to.”
The snow must stop, even if only long enough for her plane to take off. She didn’t want time to think, time to reconsider, for if she did she would surely turn around and run back to Mac’s arms, the only place on earth where she’d ever felt she truly belonged.
* * *
Mac felt as though he was racing through a nightmare. No matter how fast he ran, pushing his way through crowds of travelers, he didn’t run fast enough. Jane was somewhere in that airport, somewhere close, and still he couldn’t seem to find her.
Gate eleven, the skycap had said. Who in hell would’ve expected gate eleven to be on the other side of the planet?
Don’t leave me, Janie, his heart cried. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted from life. He grieved for their baby, too, but his grief had been a silent thing, trapped behind years of conditioning. Hidden away behind his easy ability to leapfrog over troubles the way another man might leapfrog over a puddle.
But he’d never told her. All the things he’d never told her echoed inside his brain like a Greek chorus gone mad.
He had to find her. He knew now that he’d used her as a dodge against reality, a barrier between his old life and the uncertainty of his new one. Jane was his anchor, his bridge. Now he realized she was much more than that.
She was his life.
He prayed it wasn’t too late to let her know.
* * *
“Miss, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.” The airline clerk looked genuinely distressed as he gestured toward the enormous plate-glass window overlooking the runways. “The airport is shut down by the storm. We have to wait it out.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t wait it out. I must get back to England now.”
“Miss, I’d love to help you, but the weather is beyond my power.”
“Another airline,” she said, leaning across the desk. “An ocean liner. There must be something.”
“Don’t go, Janie.”
I’m going mad, she thought, starting at the sound of her name. Totally mad. Mac couldn’t possibly be there. He was faraway, back in Levittown in their little house.
The clerk was looking over her left shoulder. Jane turned to see Mac standing behind her, dripping snow onto the shiny tiled floor.
“Don’t go, Janie,” he repeated, his vivid green eyes meeting hers.
“No!” The word escaped her lips against her will. She pushed past him, not knowing where she was headed, just knowing she had to get away from him as quickly as she could. “Leave me alone.”
“Talk to me, Janie.” His long legs ate up the distance between them. “We can work this out.”
She shook her head, tears welling up. “It’s over, Mac. It’s better this way.”
He grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to stop. “For who?” he demanded. “For you?” His laugh was brittle, out of control. “It sure as hell isn’t better for me.”
“Let me go. We’re not good for each other. I’m not—”
Her words died in her throat as he pulled her into a deserted corridor and pinned her against the wall with his body. “Tell me you don’t love me,” he demanded, his voice gruff with emotion. “Tell me you’re leaving because you don’t care.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I don’t care. I don’t—”
“Liar!” He kissed her roughly, harshly, the force of his need breaking through his reserve and hers. “I know why you’re doing this. You’re doing this for me.”
“No, Mac. Let me go. Let me go back where I belong. I never should have left England.” She would go back to her sheltered English life, with her sheltered English heart safely tucked away for good. She would rather die than see the man she loved pay for something he hadn’t done.
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“You can’t. The Committee...”
He drew away from her, brows rushing together. “How did you find out?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s all my fault that you’re in this difficulty. Had it not been for me, this never would have happened.”
“You don’t understand, Janie. This was happening before I met you. This was happening from the first day I landed in Korea and wrote about what I saw.”
She shook her head, tears blinding her eyes, sorrow tearing at her heart, as she fought for composure. “Nigel,” she said. “His book. If Ginger Higgins hadn’t seen it...” Her voice trailed off. What was the point in belaboring the issue? What was done, was done. Leaving him was her only chance to make things right.
“You’re wrong.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mac. I can take anything but your lies.”
“Look at me.” He demanded her attention and got it. “Don’t leave me, Janie. I can’t live without you.”
She blinked, her body instantly galvanized by those amazing words. “You what?”
“I need you.”
This was the moment, the one single moment t
hat would change all the moments yet to come. She saw herself standing at the foot of a long and winding road; she couldn’t quite see the end of that road, but with Mac’s hand in hers the trip seemed less frightening.
“The baby,” he said, voice breaking on the word. “I...” He cleared his throat again. “I wanted that baby as much as you did, Janie. A little girl with your hair and your eyes and your—”
Her tears flowed freely and he wiped them away with his large and gentle hands. “A boy,” she whispered. “A little boy you could take to baseball games and teach to be as brave as his daddy.”
“I’m not brave, Janie. I’ve never done a brave or noble thing in my life. Not once.”
“You have,” she whispered. “You married me.”
“That wasn’t bravery, Janie. That was love.”
Love. He had said the word love. “You’re a wonderful man, Mac. Kind and strong and—”
He shook his head. “I’ve spent my life taking the easy way out. I don’t know how to hang around when the going gets tough. I’m a great one to be telling you to stay...” His words trailed off and she felt his sorrow deep in her soul.
“Oh, Mac.” His name was a whisper. Say it, Mac. Please say it.
He met her eyes. ‘It’s all up to you, Janie. You can stay or you can go. I can sweep you off your feet again, but I can’t make you love me the way I love you.”
The last of the bathers around her heart shattered as those beautiful timeless words took root inside her heart. “Too late, Mac,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I already do.”
His face lit with happiness. “You do?”
She nodded. “More than you’ll ever know. I believe I have from that very first moment.”
“Then say it, Janie. Let me hear it.”
“I love you.” Louder still. “I love you, Mac.”
He pulled her into his embrace and kissed away her tears. His lips were warm, tender. The taste of his mouth was sweeter than honey, more potent than the finest wine.
“We can make it work this time, Janie. We won’t make the same mistakes again.”
Stranger in Paradise (Home Front - Book #2) Page 23