by Anne Stuart
She fell back against the column of the porch, staring stupidly at the growing stain, the smell of it surrounding her. It was like blood washing over her, she thought dazedly. She raised her head to look into Springer's coldly calculating eyes, and another shiver ran through her.
"I was sixteen," she said finally, her voice rusty with pain. "And I was a very young sixteen. I had spent most of my adolescence taking care of my family. I'd never dated, never went to parties, didn't even have any close friends that I could talk with. I thought sex was something that happened in movies, in fields of clover and daisies with pretty people. I didn't know it could be ugly and dirty and painful."
He was standing very still, watching her, the half-empty glass of Scotch in one hand.
"Are you sorry you pushed it, Springer?" she said grimly. "I can make you sorry; I can make you very sorry."
He seemed mesmerized by the husky sound of her pain-filled voice, but with an effort he shook it off. "So you had an unpleasant time with one of your sister's boyfriends," he hazarded. "No one much likes sex the first time. But they don't make a grand opera tragedy out of it; they don't use it as an excuse for the rest of their lives."
"It wasn't one of my sister's boyfriends, Springer," she said, a part of her anticipating his shock, a part of her relishing it. Let someone else share the horror of it for a change, let someone else hurt. "It was my father's drinking buddy. It was a fifty-three-year-old, fat, red-faced drunk who raped me on the kitchen floor while my father was passed out on the couch, who poured Scotch down my throat and did things to me I didn't even know people did to each other. And when my mother came home and my father sobered up, they told me I was lying, they told me I was just trying to get attention, and they told me to apologize to Uncle Bob. And that, Springer, is when I tried to kill myself."
He was standing there, very still, no discernible expression on his dark face. She pushed herself away from the dubious support of the porch and moved close to him, just inches away, and the heat from their bodies made the smell of the Scotch that much stronger. "Do you like hearing about it, Springer?" she questioned, her voice low and hurried. "Does it turn you on to hear just what a victim your son has for a mother?" She reached out and took the glass of Scotch from his hand, draining it defiantly. "I haven't told a living soul about that since my parents accused me of lying. Do you like hearing about it, Springer? I could go into all sorts of details if you'd like. I haven't forgotten it, you know. You accused me of having an incredible capacity for self-deception. But I never deceived myself; I always remembered. Maybe you'd like to hear how he made me help him, made me—"
"Don't, Jessie." His voice was low, hurting for her, and it was the last straw. She had thought she wanted him to hurt, wanted him to feel the pain she'd felt for so long, but she was wrong. The words were said, they were out, and she couldn't call them back, no matter how much she wanted to. And she wanted to very badly.
She looked down at the empty glass she was holding. "You were a piker, you know," she said suddenly in a conversational tone. "You thought you hated your father. It was nothing compared to how much I hated my parents. I hated them so much I would have killed them if I could; I hated them so much I was overwhelmingly, giddily relieved when they died, so relieved I could barely keep from laughing out loud at their funeral."
"Jessie-"
"But I was smarter than you were, Springer. I knew that I loved them as much as I hated them. And I knew I was going to have to live with that for the rest of my life. And I was doing a damned good job of it, until you showed up. Until you strolled into my life and decided to turn it upside down for some stupid whim. And you're still doing it, still pulling me in a thousand different directions, and I'm not going to spend the rest of my life loving and hating someone so that I'm half crazy with it. Go away, Springer. For God's sake, leave me in peace."
"Jessie, stop it." He moved towards her then, and in a moment she would have been enfolded in those strong arms of his, and she would have been lost forever. The sound of Matthew's sudden wails pierced the night.
She could taste the Scotch in her mouth, and the nausea rose suddenly. "Take care of Matthew," she gasped, and turned and ran, stumbling down the front steps and across the lawn.
The woods were still and quiet when she entered them, the only sound the rough rasp of her breath, the crackle of the underbrush beneath her sneakered feet. When she could finally run no more, she sank to her knees in the long grass and threw up the Scotch. She stumbled onward a few more feet, and then she collapsed against a huge boulder, sat there and cried, wept and howled and raged for the child she had been. And she wept away the anger and fear of sixteen years, wept away the shame and the misery and the guilt.
Slowly, gradually the tears died away. She leaned back against the boulder, the granite rough through the thin cotton shirt, and rubbed her sleeve across her wet and swollen face. The moon was almost full, peering at her through the tops of the trees, and Jessica stared up at it, feeling still and peaceful for the first time in years.
The horror was gone. Over. By telling Springer, by letting it out, by crying and raging and storming, she had released it, and the dark cloud that had lodged somewhere beneath her breast had disintegrated, leaving her miraculously alone, somehow fresh and new and clean. Springer had been right about one thing-she needn't make it an excuse for the rest of her life. It was past, over and done with, and it was gone. Wondrously gone.
She had no idea what time it was. She could have been out there for minutes or hours, she had no idea which. It must have been a good long while—the moon had traveled halfway across the sky while she was out there, and it was already making its descent. Stretching out her cramped legs, Jessica stared down at the grass-stained jeans, wrinkled her nose at the lingering smell of the Scotch spilled over her shirt. Slowly she pulled herself to her feet, still trembling slightly, like someone recovering from a long illness. She moved back through the woods toward the house and the lake, silently, ears attuned to any untoward noise.
She knew the sound of the woodland fauna, the little rustle of the squirrels and rabbits, the sudden hush of the litter of foxes down by the edge of the forest, the distant whir of the owl. The raccoons would be out foraging, and the porcupine would doubtless be looking for some inquisitive dog to punish. No one was going to harm her that night.
The house was still and silent, the front light a yellow glow in the moonlit night. She stood for a moment on the front lawn, hesitating. Springer must have settled Matthew back down—he would have gone back to sleep easily enough. He never stayed awake long at night unless he was teething, and Jessica had seen no signs of it that day.
She could go in, take a shower and climb into bed. The moon was shimmering off the lake, the air was fresh and cool and clear, and she didn't even hesitate. She wasn't ready to go back inside, she needed to celebrate her sudden freedom a few moments longer.
The rickety old dock shifted beneath her feet as she stepped onto it, and she could see the darting, swooping forms of the night-flying bats out in the middle of the lake. She kicked off her sneakers and her grass-stained jeans, and pulled the whisky-soaked shirt over her head. And then she dived into the water in one fluid move.
The water was like black satin, warm in the cool night air, gliding over her naked skin like the touch of a lover. She slid through it, cleansing her body as her soul had been cleansed, reveling in the purity of form and feeling and emotion.
She didn't want to leave, but her body was weak from the trauma of the past few hours, and her limbs began to tremble from the exertion. It took the last bit of her energy to pull her body out of the water onto the splintery deck, and she sat there on the wooden planks for a long moment, shivering in the cool night air, too tired and too peaceful to move.
When she finally climbed to her feet, he was waiting. She recognized him without any surprise or embarrassment. Without a word he wrapped the huge beach towel around her chilled body, without a word he bega
n to dry her, his hands gently efficient as they rubbed her icy flesh. And then his deft hands fastened the towel in front, tucking the ends in the cleft between her breasts, with an oddly gentle gesture.
She met his gaze then, fearlessly, not sure what to expect from him. Pity, perhaps. Even reluctant condemnation. But not what she thought she was seeing. It was so unexpected she refused to recognize it, dropping her eyes to the splintered dock.
His hands were on her bare arms, sliding up them with a lover's touch, pulling her gently, inexorably against him. Before she could even guess what he intended, his mouth dropped onto hers, a gentle, searching kiss, devoid of lust, devoid of passion, devoid of that smoking, simmering sex they'd shared. It was a tender meeting of mouths—touching, soothing, loving—and when he pulled back she simply stared at him, too bemused to say a word.
"Come back to the house, Jessie," he murmured. "You need to sleep."
She shook her head, suddenly frightened. She wasn't ready to go to bed with him, she wasn't ready to sleep alone. She wasn't ready to face either of those two possibilities.
"Come back to the house," he said again. "Matthew's sound asleep, but I don't want to leave him for long. I don't want to leave you, either. Come back to the house." A wry smile lit his face, the first she'd seen in hours, days. "I'll even let you have your bedroom back."
She wanted to shake her head again, but she couldn't. One strong arm slid around her shoulders, pulling her against him, and he started back up the lawn to the quiet old house. And leaning her head against his shoulder, she went with him.
And it was only later, lying alone in the narrow bed up under the eaves, that she remembered the words she'd flung at him on the front porch. She'd told him she hated him. That should have come as no surprise. But she'd also told him that she loved him, and the memory astonished her with its rightness. She could only hope that he hadn't heard the damning words. With a quiet groan she turned her face into the pillow and slept, a gloriously free and dreamless sleep.
Chapter Thirty-two
There was a storm coming. Jessica could feel it in her bones, could smell it on the hot, dry wind, could sense it in the tension of the air.
Of course, it could have been the very real tension between her and Springer. They'd skirted each other— oh, so politely—all day long, without even the buffer of Matthew to protect them. Jessica had slept late, physically and emotionally exhausted, and by the time she managed to drag her weary body out of bed, Marianne was already sharing coffee with Springer in the big old kitchen.
Her sudden, irrational surge of jealousy was a bad way to begin the day, and Marianne's searching look didn't improve matters. But for once her tactless friend held her tongue. Jessica could feel the concern radiating toward her, and she knew it didn't come from Marianne alone. But she refused to meet Springer's gaze, concentrating on Matthew, on her mug of strong coffee, on the hot, sunny day outside the open casement windows.
"We're going to the Discovery Museum," Marianne
announced as she finished her coffee. "The kids love it, and I wouldn't be surprised if Matthew got something out of it. Then McDonald's, and home. We'll be back in the early evening. No, don't get up; Springer already got me enough diapers to float the Russian navy."
"Don't give him any french fries," Jessica warned, trying to control the bereft feeling that had swept over her. They didn't need her, Matthew didn't need her, she was a stranger in a strange land.
"Your ma's a stern taskmaster, kid," Marianne informed Matthew cheerfully. "See you later."
The silence in the kitchen stretched and grew. Jessica kept her attention on her coffee, staring into the black depths as if it held the answer to the questions of the universe. She could feel him watching her, feel those dark, dark eyes trying to read her like a book.
She got up briskly, looking just over his left shoulder.
"Well, I've got work to do," she announced cheerfully.
"What sort of work?" It was the first thing he'd said to her all morning, and the sound of his voice sent shivers down her spine. She felt open and vulnerable after the storm of last night, and she kept her gaze on the shimmering lake out the window.
"Writing."
"What sort of writing?" He asked the question lazily enough, but Jessica could feel the real curiosity beneath it.
Steeling herself, she moved her eyes a fraction to the right, looking directly at him. There was no reason to keep it a secret any longer. " The Slaughterer," she said, and left the room.
She'd dragged out the Selectric, sorted through her papers, and seated herself at the dining-room table when Springer strolled into the room, a mug of coffee steaming in his hand. He set it down beside her, an enigmatic expression on his face. "You usually drink two or three cups of coffee," he observed. "You've only had one."
She reached out a slightly trembling hand for it. "Maybe I should switch to decaffeinated."
"Maybe you should." He pulled out the chair opposite her and slid into it. "How long have you been doing it?"
"Since Christmastime. The last four novels were mine."
"Decker's Return? I thought Johnson had improved."
A smile lit her face. "Your poor father. He thought no one knew that he had ghostwriters."
"Everyone knew," Springer said, tilting back in the chair. "We just let him keep his little fantasy."
"I'm surprised. I think he thought that if you knew you'd somehow use it to harm him."
"There's not much harm a high school English teacher could do to him," he said casually.
"A what!" Jessica shrieked in patent disbelief.
A crooked smile lit his face. "I didn't think that would elicit such a violent reaction."
"You're a high school English teacher?" she demanded, astonished disbelief washing over her.
"Essentially. It's not really a high school, more an experimental educational experience, as they like to call it. But I teach English and American literature and coach their sorry excuse for a basketball team. I thought you knew what I did for a living. I guess I overestimated my fascination for you."
She shook her head. "I never let Elyssa talk about you. I thought you were a moneyed playboy, what with that car and your jet-setting life-style."
"What jet-setting life-style?" He snorted. "Teachers get summers off, not to mention midterm vacations and the like. It doesn't pay well, but it has its advantages. Sorry to disillusion you—I'm just a working stiff. I have a small trust fund from my grandfather, enough for my needs and a few luxuries, but not much more than that." His eyes seemed to be testing her, but she was still too caught up in the novel idea of his profession to notice.
"I always figured you did something very glamorous and very dangerous," she murmured.
He laughed, a soft, unaffected laugh, the first real sound of pleasure between them in a year. "Glamorous, no; dangerous, yes. You can't imagine what it's like with the kids I teach."
"Are they disadvantaged?"
"You might say so. Their only problem is that they're very, very bright. Gifted, all of them. There are times when it would be a hell of a lot easier if I just taught remedial reading."
"So you spend your time surrounded by budding geniuses?"
"It's demoralizing," he said with a sigh. "At least I manage to get my own back on the basketball court."
"I bet you started the basketball program for the sole purpose of salving your ego." She was enjoying this easy, comfortable banter, and she found herself holding her breath, frightened that something might smash the delicate accord, turn it back into the hostility that ate at her soul.
He smiled, a warm, endearing smile. "I thought you said you didn't know me very well," he drawled. "That's exactly why I did it. That, and to keep them from thinking they had it all over their English teacher. Kids can be ruthless."
"Not Matthew," she said firmly.
"Don't you believe it. That baby has you wrapped around his little finger, and he's going to start testing you soone
r than you think. By six months they like to see just how far they can go, and they keep on testing through adolescence."
"You sound like you've had firsthand experience," she said lightly.
He blinked those extraordinary dark eyes of his. "I have," he said. "Didn't you know that, either?"
"Know what?"
"Matthew has a twelve-year-old sister."
She just stared at him, unsure of her reactions. A part of her wanted to rage at him—the depth of her envy was an overwhelming surprise. She also felt an inexplicable longing for a solemn-eyed older sister for her baby.
"Where is she now?" She kept her voice deceptively level as she toyed with her coffee mug.
"With her mother. Maureen has her during the summer; I have her the rest of the time."
"Isn't that a little unusual?" There was no doubt as to her feelings now. They were sheer panic. If he'd already managed to get custody of one child, the second one should prove a piece of cake.
"We didn't fight over it," Springer said after a moment, his observant eyes recognizing her fear and doing his best to assuage it. "Maureen didn't want to be tied down."
"And you did? I thought you'd spent your entire adult life avoiding commitments."
"Just commitments I knew I could never keep. You haven't been going out of your way looking for any sort of commitment, either, as far as I can see."
"Matthew's enough for me," she said staunchly.
"And Katherine was enough for me," he shot back. "Until Matthew was born."
"Katherine?" Jessica echoed softly.
"Katherine," he verified. "Are you sure you never heard her name mentioned? I could have sworn—"
"Oh, her name was mentioned, all right," Jessica said lightly. "But there was never any mention that she was your twelve-year-old daughter. I only knew she was someone important to you."