The Still of Night

by Kristen Heitzmann

  She stood to clear her plate.

  Consuela was upon her instantly. “No, no. I will do it.”

  Jill didn’t argue, just thanked her for the wonderful meal. In another situation she would insist on helping. But this was so foreign, she didn’t know what was polite or appropriate. She wandered into the large room off the kitchen. Most of this level was open, one room flowing into the next. She picked up a fine German woodcarving, a Greek vase.

  Two paintings were French, or at least the artist was French and the scenes. No surprise that Morgan was widely traveled. He’d just said his work kept him moving. And his tastes had always been eclectic. It did surprise her that he worked out of his home. She had imagined a large office in a posh high-rise, not a downstairs room with a single assistant.

  She ran her hand over a marble statuette on a side table. Roman or Greek, no doubt. She looked over her shoulder at the vast tasteful room. Morgan’s home. A less aesthetic man wouldn’t bother to create such a complex environment in a home he scarcely lived in. But Morgan had always been attuned to that sort of thing.

  She wandered down the hall to the guest room Consuela had prepared for her. The walls were a muted mustard that she would never in a million years have chosen from a paint chip, but were surprisingly pleasant and perfectly complemented the Thomasville bedding and window treatment. Beside the bed a profuse bouquet of fresh-cut red lilies and yellow freesia scented the room. She lowered her face and breathed the sweetness.

  The bathroom was papered in dulled green with a floral border that matched the bedroom tones. It had been stocked with everything she might receive in a fancy hotel: a basket of shampoo, lotions, and mouthwash, a coarse-textured handmade soap, a beautiful glycerin shell. In a wire basket were a selection of Bath and Body Works prodaucts, body gel, bubble bath, and vanilla lotion. Had Consuela purchased all of that for her? At Morgan’s request?

  Jill washed her face and hands, flipped her damp fingers through her hair, and went back into the bedroom. She made a space in the collection of decorative throw pillows on the bed and took up the phone. She had promised Shelly a call.

  “This has to be you, Jill, calling from Santa Barbara, California.”

  “How’s Rascal?”

  “He and Dan are pining.”

  Jill pouted. “Are you cuddling him?”

  “Rascal, yes. Brett draws the line at Dan.”

  She didn’t want to talk about Dan. “Am I getting you from dinner?”

  “Nope. You forgot the time zones.”

  Jill glanced at the clock. It would be 8:50 in Iowa. “I am a little off-kilter.”

  “I bet.” A tone rife with meaning.

  “Well, we got in just after four and had an early dinner and—”

  “Is he wonderful?”

  She stared around the room, everything prepared for her comfort, no expense spared on any leg of the journey, no request denied. And Morgan himself …

  “I know that sigh. Start from the beginning. I want it all.”

  “Shelly …”

  In Shelly’s best mad-hypnotist voice, “You will tell me everything, ev’rything.”

  “He let me drive his car.”

  Shelly laughed. “Go on.”

  Jill described their night at the Bellagio, perfectly aware that Shelly would read more into it than there could be. “It was incredible— dinner, the show, even the fountains. I always thought Vegas was just trashy. But then you have to be in a different echelon to experience it as we did.”

  “No quarter slots?”

  Jill smiled. “I don’t really know. We walked through the gaming floor but didn’t play anything.”

  “Did he kiss you?”

  Something large and winged fluttered inside. “No.”

  “No?” Shelly was clearly shocked.

  Confession time. “I asked him not to.”

  Shelly’s moan could be heard over the ocean.

  “That’s not why I’m here. Morgan is helping Kelsey. He’s allowed me to be part of that.”

  “I’m calling the tribal headshrinker. Your brain has departed your skull.”

  Maybe so. How else could she explain this total escape from reality? “Shelly, I’m a midwestern schoolteacher. That’s what I do. My kids need me, and I need them.”

  “They give you meaning and purpose?”

  She didn’t like Shelly’s tone.

  “Because you have none outside of that? Hello? It’s a job.”

  Defensive anger rose up. “It’s more than a job. They matter to me.”

  “News flash. They’re not yours.”

  Jill’s chest constricted. “I know.” And if things continued the way Ed Fogarty planned, they’d be less and less so.

  “Let me propose an outrageous thought. What if Morgan wanted you there for more than Kelsey’s transplant?”

  “Morgan wants to see Kelsey.” Enough to take drastic action. “He knows I have contact with her and the family. I’m another card in his hand.”

  “Oh, how foolish of me. I hadn’t realized he, too, was devoid of human emotion.”

  There it was again. Ice queen in another form. Fine. Let Shelly believe that. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know where to reach me if—”

  “Rascal needs you?”

  “Yes. Anything. You made me promise to call.”

  “That was when I considered you sane.”

  “Even crazy people need friends.”

  Shelly laughed. “You’re right. But I’ll be tossing pillows tonight.”

  “Don’t hit Brett.”

  Again Shelly’s laugh. It was definitely her finest feature.

  “Bye, Shell.” Jill hung up and dialed Cinda’s cell phone. She got the voice mail option and left Morgan’s phone number as her contact point with a brief explanation that she was assisting him during the bone marrow harvest. They would know where to reach her for any reason. As she hung up, it settled even deeper inside, the difference between her connection and Morgan’s. She didn’t deserve it. He was the one whose marrow worked. She was superfluous.

  She got up and looked out the window. Her bedroom faced the front with a view of the other homes in the small gated cluster, cloaked now in long shadows. Who were Morgan’s neighbors? Other rich professionals? People accustomed to this graciousness, the creature comforts that required a post-office box address. This was not her world.

  She sighed and went outside. The breeze was surprisingly cool. Wasn’t California supposed to be beach-combing paradise? Surfing babes with Coppertone tans? Morgan didn’t even do California the normal way. She wandered his yard, beyond the pool to the winding path through locust, Chinese elm, palm, and mimosa trees, tasteful patterns of color from blooming things throughout.

  She reached the guesthouse and peeked into the front window. It was decorated in seascape tones of blue, beige, and aqua, the furniture contemporary, the pictures stylized seascapes, and a white painted staircase to the loft. Why hadn’t Morgan housed her there?

  She turned at steps behind her and saw Morgan’s assistant, Denise.

  “Hi.”

  Denise smiled crisply. “Hi.” She stepped past and inserted her key in the door.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you lived here.”

  “Yes. I do.” She went inside, brittle and cold.

  Now that she thought of it, Morgan could have meant Denise lived there, as well, though she’d only assumed the woman worked there. Jill followed the path away from Denise’s space and found Morgan just past the pool.

  “Your yard is beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t know the guesthouse was Denise’s.”

  He glanced that way. “She’s been there awhile.” At her curious look, he said, “It’s a long story. Hold on a minute.” He strode into the house and came back with a soft fleecy sweatshirt and handed it to her. “Let’s walk down.”

  She pulled the sweatshirt over her head and rolled the sleeves. In his Birkenstocks, loose
cotton pants, and lightweight gray sweatshirt, Morgan looked very California. She followed him onto a steep path, cutting down a crevice in the cliffs thick with a low ground cover with brilliant multicolored blooms. She caught the scent of the sea as they descended single file to the shore. There was only a narrow strip of sand beyond reach of the waves, and even it looked like it was submerged at times.

  “High tide.” He took off his sandals and walked in the damp sand, giving her the dry.

  They walked a short way and the beach broadened out somewhat, but Morgan stayed just beyond the creep of the thin foam that rushed in, then sighed back out, chased by sandpipers on skinny legs.

  “You were going to tell me about Denise.”

  He nodded. “She moved in eight months ago. I guess you can say it’s sort of a safe house.”

  Jill looked up, surprised.

  “We did have office space in town, and she lived ten minutes inland with her boyfriend. I honestly do not get what it is with women and jerks.” The depth of his frustration brought her eyes to his face. “I told her two years ago the guy was trouble. Not that it should have been a great mystery—he was already beating her. Just not so that it showed.”

  No wonder she’d seemed so brittle. “I’m surprised he let her work for you.”

  Morgan’s brow drew tight. “Well, that was a rub for sure. The problem was I paid her well, and he liked to snort.” He reached down for a small stone and tossed it into the waves.

  “Cocaine?”

  “I didn’t know that until the night I found her bloody with a cracked skull.”

  Jill stopped and stared. “You found her?”

  “She called me. Lying on the floor, barely able to lift her finger, she speed dialed my number and I went over.”

  “Was he gone?”

  “Luckily for him. By the time she came out of the hospital, I’d moved the office to my house and her things to the guesthouse. To keep her job, she signed the complaint against him and received a restraining order.”

  “To keep her job?”

  “I told you I don’t get it. That threat was my only means of making her see reason.”

  Jill shook the sand from her sandal. “You can’t think she’d go back to him.”

  “I’d be surprised if she ever wants a relationship again. But he could guilt her into it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she has other issues. She’s always been extremely tightlipped, but when I saw her in the hospital, she opened the dike, talking, talking, talking. I’m not kidding. She went on for hours about stuff as far back as she could remember. It would make you sick.”

  “She looks so … professional.”

  “She is. She personally manages the work of a small staff, keeps the teams on track, and me, too. She’s beyond competent, and I now understand her obsessive need for control. She keeps her thumb on every detail. I drive her crazy sometimes when I go incommunicado. But believe me, I need it.” He stopped and turned her with a hand to her elbow. “Look.”

  Jill had been so caught up in his story she’d lost sight of their surroundings. Now she realized the ocean was afire with golden light. Strips of cloud caught the color, tossing it across the sky, and at the horizon a scarlet flame kindled. Amidst the gilded water black dolphins leaped, then vanished, and only the sky remained. The sun would not go peacefully; its dying strength seared a memory in her mind.

  Morgan took her hand and stood in silence. He’d been so good to Denise, rearranging his life for her protection. For Consuela as well, and Juan. It didn’t seem strange at all now that he would do everything for Kelsey. His profession might be to turn around flailing corporations, but his purpose was saving lives. No wonder God had chosen him.

  The last of the fiery orb sank into the sea, splashing out across its surface in molten glory. It was gone, but the water would remember, and the sky, now rose and peach, then yellow fading to gray. Sand-pipers still scurried, pecked at the sand, then rushed back as the new froth chased.

  Morgan turned her to him, slid his fingers along the side of her neck, and caught them in the strands of her hair. “Don’t say no.”

  “Morgan …”

  He lowered his face and kissed her.

  Her heart hammered. Why was he doing this? Both his hands cradled her jaw as his kiss deepened. She remembered too well. Lord! She broke away. “I cannot do this again. I can’t.”

  “It’s just a kiss.” His voice was raw.

  “Not with you.”

  His face tightened painfully. “Jill.”

  She pulled away. “This is about Kelsey. I want to help but …”

  “It’s not about Kelsey.”

  She stepped back. “It is for me.” She hated the pain she saw in his face. Didn’t he see? Couldn’t he realize it was futile? The thread between them had snapped. It had been too fragile and had tangled irreparably. He had rejected God; she craved the Lord’s presence. He lived in a dream world; her world was all too real, and the thought of reintroducing Morgan too terrible to consider.

  He let her go when she turned and headed back the way they’d come. Why did he churn up emotions better left dead? And then it hit her. She was the ice queen.

  CHAPTER

  23

  Need crawled inside him, morphing from the passion of their kiss to a different mind-consuming desire. One night. He had to get through one night. A twelve-hour fast in case they needed to use full anesthesia. But the sweet slide to oblivion called to him with a siren song. He should have stayed inside and drunk to Jill’s health and prosperity instead of standing together with her, the sunset hues igniting her hair and tingeing her skin with gold, her lips like melted roses tempting his.

  Ache and longing. How could he want her so much? Dusk stole over him. One drink. What difference did a few hours make? But in this mood one drink would lead to two and blur the line at three, and he had responsibilities. He jerked the sweatshirt over his head and tossed it to the ground. Next, the pants. In his boxers, in the dusk, he left the sand, fought through the first cold waves and dived low beneath them, then pulled hard until he passed the place where they broke.

  The water was rough with seaweed until the floor fell away. He broke the surface and shook his hair back. Treading, he scanned the deepening darkness. How long could he tread? One hour? Two? He put his face down and stroked parallel to the beach. He knew this shore well, though he’d swum at night only a handful of times.

  Always alone. He would not risk anyone else in dark water haunted by sea creatures who wondered at his audacity. If a shark took him tonight, it better leave enough for them to still draw marrow from his bones. Almost subconsciously, he worked in closer to shore.

  The cold Pacific had taken the sting from his mood, and as his feet touched bottom, he hurled himself forward past the breakers to the shore. He walked out drenched and chilled, scooped up his clothes, and climbed toward the house. Something skittered in front of him and took refuge in the rhododendrons.

  He went into the bathroom in his lower level, took a towel from the cupboard, and wrapped himself in it. Then he went upstairs. The house was quiet, and he could almost pretend it was a night like any other. But it wasn’t.

  He approached Jill’s room, considered knocking, then passed by. She’d made it clear why she was there. He went into his bedroom and refused to think of the decanter table in the corner. Not tonight. If he couldn’t get through one night without a drink, he had a problem.

  He went into the bathroom and realized his toiletries were not there. Still in the car? He stripped off his wet boxers and put on a spare robe from the hook on the door, then went down and took the keys from his desk in the office. Either Juan had not come home from his job, or he’d not been instructed to unload the car.

  Morgan went out and took the bags from the trunk, including Jill’s. What had she planned to sleep in? He hauled them upstairs, left Jill’s outside her door, and gave it one quick rap. Then he took his own things to his room, unpac
ked, and showered. He pulled on a pair of shorts and wrapped again in the navy velour robe.

  The night stretched before him. He should ask Jill to join him for a drink—no, a chat, to clear the air. But then he didn’t want to discuss what had happened earlier. He’d lost his head to the magic of the sunset, crossed a line neither one of them could face.

  He turned on his stereo and tuned it to the classical station. No lyrics to taunt or tempt. He paced his room as a lion its den. He should ask Consuela about Juan. He glanced at the clock. Nine-forty. Early. But she always retired early. He clicked the TV remote, flipped through several channels, and turned it off again. Then he walked down the hall and tapped Jill’s door, noticing the bag was no longer outside it. Maybe she wouldn’t answer. Maybe she was asleep. But it opened a crack and she peeked through.

  “Will you sit with me? I promise to behave.”

  Surprise and concern filled her eyes. “I’m dressed for bed.”

  “There’s a robe in your closet.”

  She stood so long without answering, he was sure she’d refuse. But she agreed and appeared a minute later, wrapped and tied tightly, the sleeves bunched up. He led her out to the balcony. The night was chilly, even though he was mostly dry except for his head, which was still a little damp. The sound of the breakers formed an immutable rhythm as he lit the candle in the glass globe on the table.

  He seated her and pulled a chair from the other side of the table for himself, drawing the peace of the night inside him. A snifter of brandy would be the perfect complement, but he fought the urge.

  Jill looked out over the water. “What are those lights?”

  “Oil rig. Swift of Ipswich.”

  “It’s actually pretty.”

  “They call them crystal ships.” But that wasn’t what he wanted to discuss. “Tell me about Kelsey.”

  Jill crossed her arms over her chest. “She’s beautiful, Morgan. You saw that much in her pictures.” Her voice tightened. “Even though her hair is gone. She has such sweet expressions and a smile you can’t resist.”