Twice in a Lifetime

by Rebecca Flanders

  "A daredevil type," added Kate.

  "Stunt man," corrected Michael.

  Kyle sipped his drink placidly.

  "She's all for leaping in to his life-style with both feet," Kate said with only a slight frown as she glanced at the glass of milk Michael had insisted she have instead of alcohol. "She's got this wild little sports car that she drives like a maniac and her new fellow is teaching her to fly—"

  Now Kyle's face tightened noticeably and he looked up. "Fly?"

  Kate nodded. "Stunt planes. I swear, Kyle, how that woman has lived this long is beyond me. She lives like she's bent on suicide."

  "What the hell is she thinking of?" exploded Kyle. He downed his drink in a single gulp and stood abruptly. Furious tension surged through him but was most evident in the tightening of his fingers around the delicate stemmed glass. "She's got no business running around with men half her age and making a fool of herself. Hell, she can't even drive, much less fly!"

  A shocked silence followed his outburst, which Michael covered smoothly with, "You know how she is, Kyle. You can only believe about half of what she says, anyway. She was as high as a kite when we talked to her."

  "She's always high," snapped Kyle. "That's exactly what I mean." He lifted the pitcher to pour himself another drink, changed his mind, and returned it to the bar.

  Barbara said in a small voice, "We'd really better start dinner."

  With a glance at Kyle's hard, dark face Kate agreed, and they left the room. In a few moments Barbara heard Michael begin to speak in a low, calming tone, but she could not hear what was said.

  In the kitchen Kate turned to her, disturbance in her eyes, and began, "Babs—" But then she clearly remembered Michael's instructions about noninterference, she bit her lips briefly, and then smiled. "Nothing," she said.

  It was just as well. Barbara knew she was going to try to explain Kyle's violent reaction to the mention of his ex-wife, and there was really no need. Barbara thought she understood it all too well. And it was only a matter of days before she understood even more.

  The four of them were going out to dinner. Kyle had never said a word to Barbara about Roseanne, and by the next morning she could almost believe she had imagined the entire episode. They were talking and laughing and teasing Kate about the tight fit of her dress, which really wasn't very noticeable at all, when the doorbell rang. Kate went to answer it.

  She returned rather nervously with one of the most beautiful women Barbara had ever seen. She was almost as tall as Kyle, her perfect figure molded sleekly into a pair of designer jeans and a glittering, daringly low-cut sweater. The ash-blond hair was swept glamorously to a loose bun on the one side of her head, and low over one eye. The color, thought Barbara critically, was certainly not natural. She entered the room with a sweep of Dior perfume and the style of a professional model.

  "Roseanne," began Kate uncertainly, "I'd like you to meet my sister."

  But Roseanne ignored her, going straight for Kyle with arms outstretched. "Darling!" she cried effusively. "I just couldn't stay away. I heard about your accident and I was simply devastated!"

  Not a flicker of expression crossed Kyle's face as he stepped deliberately away from her threatened embrace. "I'm glad to see you survived the shock," he responded coolly, and Barbara's spirits lifted cautiously. Perhaps he had been telling the truth when he insisted he had no more feelings for Roseanne, but Barbara found it hard to believe any man could completely get over a woman as beautiful as Roseanne. She watched them carefully, her apprehension tinged with something unpleasantly like jealousy.

  Roseanne did not appear to be in the least affected by the rebuff, but hung on to his arm with a slithering motion, laughing lightly. "Now, sweet, don't be cruel. You know I'm so busy I'm always the last to hear any news, but if I had known, I would have rushed to your side with flowers and candy, you do know that, don't you?"

  Kyle gave a noncommittal "Hmm" and disentangled his arm. "I suspect, however, that you've rushed to my side this time for no other reason than a temporary shortage of cash, am I right?"

  Roseanne glanced about the room in amusement, and Kate and Michael took a unified stance against her, leaving only Barbara to feel like the intruder. What she really wanted to do was leave the room, but she could not bring herself to miss the exchange, however painful it was to watch, between Kyle and the woman who had broken his heart.

  "Darling," Roseanne laughed, "you were always so crude! Do you really think we have to discuss anything as vulgar as money in mixed company?"

  "Oh, I don't think anyone minds," replied Kyle, casually, and taking out his checkbook, he went over to the desk. "Will twenty-five hundred be enough to make the next payment on your new sports car, or have you wrecked it already?"

  Once again Roseanne glanced about the room, looking annoyed at his effective dismissal of her, but greed appeared to get the better of her. Barbara's heart ached for Kyle when she remembered his dry words about his ex-wife: "She found a guy with a bigger checkbook." It must have been miserable for him to be used that way, and she experienced a flare of anger toward the woman, who was so blind she could see nothing more valuable in a man such as Kyle than his bank account.

  Roseanne walked over to Kyle and crooned, "I like round figures better, darling." He did not even glance up as he wrote the check, tore it out, and presented it to her. She glanced at it, practically purring with satisfaction, and folded it into her purse. "You're a dear," she said and leaned forward to kiss him.

  He caught her wrist. "I also," he told her coldly, "expect some return on my money."

  Barbara stared at him as Roseanne drew back, startled, trying to cover it with a laugh. Barbara would never have believed that the gentle face of the man she thought she knew could turn so hard, so frighteningly devoid of human emotion. "Why, love," Roseanne exclaimed, "whatever do you—"

  "Come on," he said, giving her wrist a sharp jerk. "We're going to have a little talk."

  The other three watched in unanimous surprise as he led her, laughingly protesting, to Michael's study and closed the door behind them.

  Barbara felt a slow, wretched color stain her cheeks as Michael and Kate glanced uncomfortably in her direction; she avoided their eyes. Oh, God, she would have given anything not to have witnessed that scene, to have been able to go on imagining Roseanne as a shadowy ghost somewhere in the dim recesses of Kyle's past. Seeing them together, seeing how Roseanne could still manipulate him, and seeing all of the unpleasant facets of Kyle's reaction to her had made "the other woman" a clear and present threat, and it shattered Barbara's secure and untroubled present in an expectedly poignant way.

  The moments that passed, punctuated only by the occasional muffled sounds of raised voices behind the closed door, were the longest Barbara had ever spent. She strained her ears to make out the words of the angry conversation, and then forced herself to concentrate on something else. She did not really want to know what was being said. What she had seen was enough, for, whether it was love or hate, it was obvious Roseanne still had a power over Kyle that would not be easy to break. For a while Kate and Michael tried to make conversation, but Barbara was only moderately responsive. Her thoughts were behind that closed door, and her suffering was with Kyle.

  They all tensed as the door of the study opened and Roseanne stalked out. Her color was high and her lips tight as she swept through the living room, looking neither right nor left, and out the front door. In a moment a car door slammed and an engine roared to life. She left with a squeal of tires and a flash of headlights on the window.

  "What do we have that will get rubber off a driveway?" Michael joked weakly, and then Kyle came in.

  Barbara half rose, and then sank back to her chair at his tense, angry stride. His face was ashen under his tan, drawn into grim lines. His eyes were glittering slits of green fire but he did not look at her. Not one breathless moment passed before he was gone, slamming the door behind him with a heavy thud.

  Barba
ra felt a little weak. She had never seen him like that before. Despair tugged at her that Roseanne could do that to him—a woman he claimed to no longer love, but who still had the power to torture him into a blind rage.

  Stunned moments passed in awkward silence before Michael stood, touching his wife's arm lightly. "We'd better go," he said, "if we want to keep our reservations."

  Kate glanced at him, then at Barbara, and she stood briskly. "You're right. Get your purse, Babs."

  Barbara was shaken and still a little befuddled. "Shouldn't—shouldn't we wait for Kyle?" she managed in a moment, in a small voice.

  Michael looked at her, and then to the door by which his brother had made his abrupt exit. "No," he said in a moment. Then he offered his arm to her with a smile. "Let's go."

  Barbara did not remember what she ate, if anything, nor a word of the banal conversation that must have occupied that evening. She was aware of Kate's occasional sympathetic, anxious glances, but she could not even rouse herself to reassure her sister. In her mind was a constant picture of the two Beautiful People, physically so perfect for one another, and the fairy-tale marriage that had gone bad. She could understand Kyle's attraction to her, and she could understand how deeply and with what cruel ease Roseanne must have hurt him. She wondered if it were possible for him to ever get over a woman like that, when love was all mixed up with pain.

  And it was her own understanding of Kyle's pain that hurt Barbara the most. All this time she had been concerned only with her own problems, never thinking that Kyle had a cross to bear as heavy as her own. She wanted to give him the comfort he must have needed from her all along, but which she had been too self-absorbed to see he needed. She had taken so much from him, and he had asked so little from her. He had been through the bad times with her, but until tonight she had been excluded from the unpleasant parts of his life. Having been there and having seen his suffering, she felt closer to him now than she ever had. She wanted to tell him so.

  She went to bed early, but lay awake, aching with Kyle's pain. When the telephone rang, she snatched at it, not giving Kate or Michael a chance.

  "I'm sorry." It was Kyle's voice, low and heavy.

  She sat up, her fingers tightening around the receiver, not bothering to turn on the lamp. "It's all right," she said softly. "I understand."

  There was a silence, broken at last by his long sigh. "No, you don't," he replied quietly. "But if you think what you do and can still forgive me, I suppose it's more than I deserve."

  Pain bubbled to her throat and she swallowed hard against it. "I—I'm just sorry you're hurt," she said.

  Another silence. "Bobbie, will you believe just one thing?"

  Silently she nodded.

  "It's not that there's still anything between us. I wouldn't lie to you about something like that."

  "I know," she said honestly. What was pulling him was something else—broken dreams and betrayed promises, and wishing for a magic wand to make everything different. She had been there all too often, she understood too well. She could see how Kyle might have been infatuated with a woman like Roseanne, even how he had fallen in love, and how bitterly he must have suffered when he discovered what he had built of her was only a dream, shattered by her cruelty and selfishness, leaving him with not even the comfort of a memory or the possibility of hope. No, it was not love that gave her power over him, but something that was almost as strong.

  The silence this time was not uncomfortable, but deep with understanding and shared feelings. Then he said, "Happy birthday." She frowned a little in puzzlement. "What?"

  "It's after midnight. Happy birthday." She laughed a little, pleased and touched that he had remembered. "Is it? Well, thank you!"

  "It's going to be a good one, Bobbie," he said softly. "Get some sleep, now. You've got to look gorgeous for the party." She smiled again into the receiver. "You too." And, strangely enough, she did manage to sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  The party was an enormous success. There was much to celebrate, and Michael and Kate's friends were warm, enthusiastic, and easy to get to know. They made Barbara feel welcome immediately; no one was a stranger, and hardly a moment passed that she was not talking to someone, drawn into a group or singled out, laughing and having an honest good time. She felt pretty and feminine in the lavender print crepe, the eyes of other men told her so, and she received extravagant compliments along with congratulations on her birthday. But the highlight of the evening was when she first saw Kyle.

  He had stayed so late helping with preparations for the party that he was among the last to arrive. He made his way across the room, greeting old friends, accepting a drink, and all the while his eyes were searching until they found Barbara.

  He was wearing a golden-brown jacket and a turtleneck that was startlingly close to the shade of his eyes, and somehow managed to bring it off without the slightest appearance of pretension. Those emerald eyes were bright with an appreciative light as he crossed the room to Barbara, and if she had never felt more beautiful, it was because of what she saw in his eyes. He took her in his arms and kissed her full on the lips, in front of everyone, and murmured "Happy birthday, Bobbie."

  She felt her color rise with the thrill of his presence, and she laughed. "Are you trying to make a spectacle of me?"

  His eyes crinkled and a smile snapped within them. Then he winked. "Sure you want to stay at this dull old party? It just so happens I know a little place—"

  She struck out at him playfully, and he bent to kiss her cheek before they were separated.

  It was a long time before they met again. Barbara did not lack for company, but she kept looking for Kyle. The house was so crowded, even spilling out onto the lawn, that he was not easy to find. Occasionally she caught glimpses of him, laughing and talking with other people, and more often than not the other people were female. She was aware of a jealous scrutiny on her part on these occasions, but to all appearances Kyle's relationship with these other women was strictly casual. Although there was naturally a lot of playful touching and kissing in the festive atmosphere among good friends, Kyle's behavior was beyond reproach. And she never saw him with the same woman twice.

  As the hour grew late and some who had driven great distances for the occasion began to leave, the atmosphere grew more intimate. A few couples were dancing to slow ballads in the living room, others were sitting on the terrace or walking along the shore. Kyle was not among them. Barbara went into the dining room where the bar and canapés were set up, but he was not there, either. Roger Daily, a plump, bald little man to whom Michael had introduced her earlier, came over to her.

  "Michael tells me you're an editor," he said.

  She laughed and corrected, "Was."

  His eyes twinkled in a friendly, open way. "You wouldn't be looking for a job, would you?"

  She was caught off guard. "Well, I—I hadn't thought much about it— "

  "I have a little outfit in Portland," he explained. "Advertising and market research. I could sure use an assistant right now. The reason I thought of you is because most of our advertising consists of a technical publication we put together six times a year. Naturally I need someone with a strong journalism background and an ability to understand and interpret technical data. I also understand you helped Kyle with his book."

  "Well, yes…" she floundered, completely overwhelmed. Portland! It could be the chance she had been looking for, to stay here and start a new life.

  "We're a small operation," he continued, "and very exclusive. We handle products that never get to the mass market, of course, dealing mostly with big industry and a few government projects. I'll tell you what, Barbara," he offered, pulling out his card. "If you're interested, I think this could work out quite well for you. The salary wouldn't be much to start, but then I wouldn't expect you to work full-time. You could take on whatever assignments you felt you could handle and set your own schedule. You wouldn't even have to come into the office every day. But eventually, if
it works out…" He smiled. "Well, we're a growing business, and I'm looking for a right-hand man— or woman. Will you think about it?"

  She took his card hesitantly. "I—I will," she said. "Thank you!"

  He nodded and left her examining his card in wonder. It was all so sudden, she just wasn't certain. She supposed Portland was as good a place to settle down as any, and she did want to be near Kate and the baby, but she wondered if she was really ready to make an important decision like that. She put his card safely away in a drawer of the buffet and turned at a tap on her shoulder.

  "Do you know," Kyle whispered, "I've been trying to catch you alone all evening? You're a pretty popular lady."

  She stepped very naturally into his embrace, her hands against his chest, as his arms encircled her waist lightly. She tipped her face up to him coquettishly and inquired, "And what did you want to catch me alone for?"

  His fingers were restless on her waist and his eyes darkened with a leap of flame. "Let's not go into that," he said huskily. He turned to lead her out of the room. "A dance is safer."

  "Kyle," she said excitedly as he drew her into his arms in the midst of the other couples dancing in the living room, "do you know what that man did?"

  His brows drew together as he looked down at her cautiously. "What man?"

  She hardly even noticed his tensing. "Roger Daily," she explained breathlessly. "He offered me a job!"

  He relaxed and laughed softly as he drew her closer. "Is that right? And I was getting ready to tear into some poor fellow for making a pass at you!"

  She giggled and snuggled against him, and for a moment everything else faded away as she surrendered herself to the slow, sensuous movements of the dance and his body against hers. And then he stepped back a little, looking down at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "So?" he inquired.

  She looked up at him in confusion. "So what?"

  "The job. Are you going to take it?"