MIDNIGHT CHOICES

by Eileen Wilks

  He didn't add "about me." They'd both been careful not to quite put that into words, as if by leaving it unspoken they weren't really betraying Ben. We aren't, he told himself. If she says Ben has no claim on her, then he doesn't.

  The acid in his stomach called him a liar.

  "He said he wants to stay here. Not that he really understands what that means, of course, but I know he…" Her voice faltered.

  "He wants his mother to marry his father."

  "You heard that? Well, yes, that's what he thinks he wants. Naturally. He's too young to understand what it means, any more than he realizes what it will be like to live in Highpoint."

  Suddenly he'd had enough of pretending. His voice came out harsh. "I'm a mess, Gwen."

  "So am I." She sounded surprised.

  "As messes go, we aren't even on the same scale. You'd be better off with Ben."

  "You're probably right."

  Startled, he stole another quick glance. She was sitting very erect, her hands resting loosely in her lap, smiling at him rather shyly.

  In spite of everything, an answering smile tugged up one corner of his mouth. "Not going to argue with me, huh?"

  "If you're going to say stupid things, I can, too."

  His smile lingered until he pulled into the driveway. It died before the car came to a complete stop.

  The lights were off. All of them.

  Ben wasn't back yet. No one was. He and Gwen would be alone in the big old house.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  «^»

  "We can handle this," Gwen said firmly.

  Outside, the sleet had stopped entirely. There was only snow, soft with silence, falling now.

  Inside it was pretty quiet, too.

  They were standing in the kitchen. Duncan had just played back the message Ben had left on the answering machine an hour ago. A tractor-trailer had tipped over, spilling its cargo all over the only highway through the pass. By the time the road was clear it would be too icy to be safe, so he and Zach and Charlie were putting up at a motel in Egerton.

  She and Duncan were alone. They would be alone all night.

  Duncan ran a hand over his hair. The lines of his face looked taut, as if he were clenching his jaw. "We'll handle it. But I think we'd better go back to pretending there's nothing to handle."

  * * *

  They played Monopoly.

  "Come on, dice, be good to Momma." She rolled a seven and chortled. She'd hopped over Boardwalk again – which Duncan owned, the rat.

  "What a competitive monster you are," he said. He was sprawled on the other side of the board, propped up on his elbow. His eyes looked darker than usual, but that might have been the lighting. They were on the floor in the living room with only one lamp and the fire for light.

  His body looked relaxed. Long and lean and deliciously fit…

  She jerked her eyes away from his body and collected her money from the bank for having passed Go. "I'm not the one who piled up hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place

  ."

  "No, you put them everywhere else." He picked up the dice. "Vicious."

  "Me?" She was indignant. "You're the one with a monopoly on the railroads!"

  "Yeah." He grinned and rolled. "So I am. I'm going to put you out of business, lady."

  Outside, the light had faded from dim to black. The last time Gwen had checked, snow had still been sifting down and the window felt icy. Gwen did not approve of snow after Easter. She wasn't sure she approved of it at any time. The darned stuff was cold.

  But there were compensations. It was cold out there, but inside, she was snug and warm. No more cold feet. Though she hadn't broken down and bought slippers, she had picked up several pairs of thick socks before returning to Highpoint. She was wearing a pair now, along with new wool slacks and a cherry-red sweater. A fire crackled merrily in the fireplace … and Duncan was with her.

  She hadn't been sure he would be. Oh, even Duncan wouldn't go running in this weather, but she'd been afraid he might vanish into his room. She'd asked him to build a fire in the fireplace. He'd given her a long, level look, then nodded and headed for the living room. She'd dug up the game and made sandwiches, which they'd eaten off paper plates, sitting on the floor by the fire while they made every effort to destroy each other at Monopoly.

  It was like other nights she'd spent here. It was completely different. They were alone in the house. And now she knew beyond any doubt that he wanted her.

  What else he felt, she had no idea.

  Firelight loved him, she thought, watching the subtle dance of shadows over his face. He had beautiful cheekbones. Not sharp like some starving male model, but high and clearly drawn. There was strain around his eyes, but his mouth was relaxed. Not quite smiling, but easy.

  "Hey, you going to hang on to those dice all night?"

  She flushed. "It's my new strategy. Not letting you roll." She put the dice on the board near him. They were both being careful. No touching.

  "Ha!" she cried when he landed on Marvin Gardens. "Pay up."

  They were dealing with this just fine. Maybe another kind of excitement simmered beneath the thrill of seeing her opponent land on the hotel she'd just bought for that space, but she was a big girl. She knew right from wrong. She wouldn't do anything, and neither would he.

  He put the play money into her outstretched hand. Their fingers didn't touch. "I should have let you stay with your strategy. If I don't roll, I don't land on any of your hotels."

  "You're right. I need a new strategy." She rolled. "Where did you get that scar?"

  "Which one?"

  "Here." She touched her own cheekbone, not his. "It's shaped like a little sickle."

  "That's where Annie clobbered me with a golf club."

  "She what?"

  He told her about the time he and Charlie and their sister had decided to create their own golf course out back, and how he'd ended up needing stitches because he'd been standing too close to her backswing. She listened and chuckled and watched his hands. And ached.

  It was getting harder to ignore the restless energy skimming along just under the surface of her skin. We don't have to wait forever, she reminded herself. Tomorrow she'd start looking for a place to stay.

  Fortunately he was doing a better job of suppressing all that teeming lust than she was. She had to smile ruefully at the thought. It was fortunate. Not flattering, but fortunate.

  He raised his brows. "When you smile like that, I think I should count my money just to be sure."

  "Nonsense. I don't have to resort to theft to win." She moved her marker – the shoe – missed his railroad and smirked. "See?"

  "You do like winning, don't you."

  "Yes," she admitted. "I'm disgustingly competitive. I don't know how much of that is nurture, how much is nature, but the plain fact is, I hate to lose. To fail. When I found out I had cancer, I felt like I'd failed in some way. Oh, good grief." She shook her head and reached for the dice. "Listen to me. Sometimes I drag every subject back to cancer, as if everything revolved around it, and that is not a healthy way to live. It's a bore for everyone else, too. I'm sorry. I shouldn't—"

  "Gwen." His hand closed over hers, preventing her from rolling the dice. "Shut up."

  His touch startled her as much as his words. Her eyes flew to his.

  He pulled his hand back. "Don't censor what you say to me. For God's sake, do you honestly think you bore me when you talk about your cancer?"

  Nervously she licked her lips. "Some people feel that the cancer is in the past, that I should leave it there. And probably I should. I don't want it to define me."

  "But you're still finding your forward, aren't you? You don't have yourself figured out yet." He paused. "You just came back from burying a friend."

  "Yes." She ducked her head. The little metal shoe was still in her hand. She turned it over, studying the tiny marker as if it held answers. "I've tried to do everything right. I researched the disease, parti
cipated in the decisions made for my treatment, changed my diet. I even learned to meditate. Well, sort of. I'm not very good at it yet, but meditation is something I can do to help myself, so I'm working on it. Only…"

  "Yes?"

  She swallowed. "Hillary did everything she was supposed to do, too."

  "The friend who died."

  She nodded.

  "Did you and she have the same kind of cancer?"

  "No." She exhaled heavily. "That's what makes it so stupid for me to feel this way. Hillary had been fighting cancer for over twenty years. She'd already had it come back once, when she had her second mastectomy." Blindly she turned the little metal shoe over and over in her hand, unable to look at him. "We all like to think we're brave, or could be if we had to be. I haven't much liked learning that I'm not."

  "Gwen." His voice was gently chiding. "What makes you think that?"

  "I'm scared. Scared of dying. It's been nearly a year since the treatments ended, and I'm still scared."

  She felt his fingers first, drifting across the side of her head, sifting through her hair. Chills whispered up her spine. Then his hand cupped her chin, tilting her face so that she looked into his calm gray eyes. "I'm told that bravery consists of doing what we have to do, even if we're scared."

  She tried to smile back. "You don't sound as if you believe that."

  "Sometimes I do. Sometimes, when I wake up in a cold sweat, I think it's a crock. When do you not feel brave?"

  "Almost any morning at 3 a.m., if I'm awake then. And sometimes I wake up a lot."

  His hand moved, but he didn't pull it away. Instead, he turned it, skimming her cheek with his knuckles. "Now, there's a cowardly act – waking up in the middle of the night."

  Each light stroke of his fingers drew another pulse of that restless energy closer to the surface. Her fingertips tingled. "Then we're a pair of cowards, I guess. You wake up a lot, too."

  His eyes were shadowed, the glow of the fire not reaching them. "Have you heard me?"

  "Duncan … why do you run?"

  His hand stopped moving. She held her breath, waiting for him to reject the question, to pull away.

  He didn't. "I feel better when I'm running. Even when it hurts, I feel better. Maybe it's like your meditation. Running is something I can do for myself."

  Or maybe he wants it to hurt. Maybe he's punishing himself. The flash of intuition so startled Gwen that she acted without thinking, reaching up to take the hand still resting against her cheek.

  He never gave her a chance. His fingers tightened on hers so hard, so fast, she didn't have time to respond rationally. His eyes went from smoke to darkness so quickly she couldn't doubt that he needed her – right this moment, truly needed her. How could she protest when he leaned across the game board?

  How could she fail to lean toward him, too?

  And when his mouth settled on hers, it felt so right she could do nothing but part her lips on a shuddery sigh.

  There was no storm outside, no board game between them, no merry fire in the fireplace. There was only the taste of him painted across her lips with the sweep of his tongue. The firm pressure of his fingers on the nape of her neck, tilting her head. The sigh of her breath as she fell into the moment and his kiss.

  The little shoe fell, forgotten, to the floor as she reached for him.

  He murmured something against her mouth. The words were lost in the liquid rush of pleasure as their bodies touched. She gloried in it. He was firm and warm, known and unknown – a man's body, hard where she was soft, the wall of his chest delicious against her breasts. He was Duncan.

  They were both on their knees – when had that happened? His arm tightened around her waist, pulling her tight against him. His hand skimmed along her side, thigh to hip to waist, ribs, breast. Her breath caught, and his kiss turned fierce.

  Quick as the snick of a key in a lock, pleasure turned to need. She moaned that need into his mouth, her hands seeking him, finding shoulders tense with muscle, the strong line of his back, his buttocks.

  He kneaded her breast. Delight shivered through her.

  "You son of a bitch."

  Ben. Oh, God. Those growled words had come in Ben's voice.

  She jerked away. She had one glimpse of Duncan's face as she turned, still on her knees and awkward with haste and horror.

  Ben stood in the doorway arch. Charlie was behind him. And Zach.

  "Come on, buddy," Charlie said, scooping Zach up and striding out on his long legs for the back of the house. "There's an argument about to happen, and grown-ups need privacy for that. Let's get something to collect some snow."

  "But my mom—"

  "Last snow of the season – we should save some. It's a tradition," Charlie said, his voice fading as they vanished toward the back of the house.

  Gwen pushed to her feet. Ben's face was stone-hard and colder than the weather outside.

  "I'm sorry," she stammered. "I'm so sorry, Ben. I meant to tell you before—"

  "Before you started rolling on the floor with my brother? Hell, if I'd known you were so hard up I'd have taken care of you before you left town. Looks like you need it pretty regular, and if you don't care who you—"

  Duncan launched himself at Ben, connecting in a low tackle. They went down in a tangle of fists and blows.

  Gwen froze. The sudden violence was so alien to her that she just stood there, stunned. There was a sickening smack of fist on flesh, then the men rolled together, bumping a table. The lamp tottered.

  She leaped for it, righting it – and someone's leg crashed into her, nearly sending her to the floor. She lurched back.

  They rolled the other direction. Ben ended up on top. He reared back. His fist landed heavily in Duncan's midsection. Duncan's hand shot up, clipping Ben on the chin. Then he did something with his legs that tumbled Ben off him, and seconds later he was on his feet again.

  This time Ben was the one who launched himself at Duncan. Duncan danced away, but Ben's fist caught his shoulder.

  "Stop it!" she cried. "Both of you, stop it!"

  They didn't hear. Or maybe they couldn't stop, as caught by this frenzy as she and Duncan had been caught in passion moments before. Ben swung and Duncan ducked.

  Ben was forty pounds heavier and ten times angrier than Duncan – who was recovering from being shot, dammit! Frantic, she looked around, as if an answer might float by in the air or be sitting on the mantel, waiting for her to pick it up.

  Should she get Charlie? Could he stop them?

  Then she remembered the only other violence she'd ever witnessed. Dog fights.

  She ran for the front door, flung it open. There should be a hose, a water hose, on the porch – Ben had gotten it out to give the bushes a drink before she'd left. She remembered because he'd drained it afterward so the water wouldn't freeze in it and damage the hose – it was something that would never have occurred to her. But was it still there?

  A loud, horrible crash from inside made her jump.

  Yes. There it was, coiled neatly beneath the spigot. Her breath sobbed in her throat as she fumbled to screw it onto the faucet. Then she turned it on. Water spurted. She squeezed a kink into the hose, stopping most of the flow, and raced back into the house, water dripping and spurting on her and the floor.

  Broken crockery announced that the lamp hadn't fared well in her absence. Neither had the table it had been on. Next to the remains, Duncan crouched, his arms loose and ready, facing Ben. Half his face was covered in blood. "Enough, Ben. I don't want to hurt you."

  Hurt Ben? Was he crazy?

  Ben rushed Duncan again. Gwen unkinked the hose with her finger over the end to make the spray come out hard right where she wanted it. Icy water streamed over Ben, Duncan – and the couch, the floor, the wall.

  The men jumped apart.

  "What the hell?" Ben sputtered.

  "No more." Gwen's hands shook as she bent the hose, kinking it so the spray dwindled to a freezing drizzle that soaked her sock
-clad feet. Only then did she notice that she was crying. Her face was wet with tears, and she hadn't even noticed. "No more, both of you."

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  «^»

  "But how come we have to stay here?" Zach's voice held that particular whiny note four-year-olds use to drive their mothers crazy. He kicked one of the chairs tucked up to the small round table. "This is a dumb place. I hate it."

  Gwen sprinkled cleanser in the stained sink and prayed for patience. Guilt alone ought to grant that to her. But after most of an afternoon of listening to that whine, it took her a moment to get her voice to cooperate with her intentions. "There weren't many two-bedroom furnished places available. This was the best of the lot."

  "I'm bored. There's nothin' to do here."

  The snow had melted, but it was too muddy for him to play outside. And she couldn't go down and watch him yet. "How about coloring in your new coloring book?"

  "Coloring is dumb. I want my Legos."

  "Your Legos are in Florida, honey. It will take a while to get all your things shipped here."

  His lower lip was sticking out so far she could have used it as a shelf. "I want 'em now."

  Gwen scrubbed harder on the sink and held her tongue. Zach wasn't upset because of the lack of a particular toy. She didn't think he was upset about the apartment, either.

  She'd been lucky. After last night she'd been determined to move into her own place right away, but if the ski season hadn't been over, she wouldn't have been able to find anything this fast. Gwen glanced around the tiny kitchen.

  Her new landlady – a friend of Mrs. Bradshaw's – was an eighty-year-old widow who lived on the bottom floor of her old family home and rented out the converted second floor. The sink was stained, but the window over it looked down on a big backyard with a tire swing and an old picnic table. At one end of the galley-style kitchen, two more windows made a sunny nook for the dinette set. If the curtains were faded, they were clean and cheerful. She'd set a pot of pansies on the table, and that brightened things, too.

  More practically, the apartment came with linens, a few pots and pans and cheap tableware. She'd still had to do some fast and frantic shopping, but they had what they needed for now.