Intimate Portraits

by Cheryl B. Dale

  “It doesn’t matter.” She’d caused his conflict between desire and integrity. She’d end it, make it easy for him. “Don’t worry about it, Rennie.”

  “I shouldn’t have let it go so far. Autumn, anything else wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be right. Francisco—”

  “I told you Fran and I are friends! That’s all we are!” He thought she was in love with Fran. She clenched her fingers so tight the nails hurt her palms.

  “I hope so.” As if released, words tumbled out. “Don’t you see, Autumn? You deserve someone better than Francisco, better than me. Better than anyone like either of us. You need a man who can give you a good life, someone who understands where you come from and who can live up to… You deserve more than either of us could ever offer you.”

  This outpouring was foreign, unlike Rennie. She tried to laugh, but the sound was strained, clearly showing her misery. “What if I think you’re wrong?”

  “You might think it now, but later you’d change your mind. No, Autumn, I can’t… If we kept kissing, it would lead to something else, and then you’d despise me.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  He paid no attention. “You’re too—you're so different than us, Autumn. You’d never be happy with someone like us.”

  How many times did he have to say that? How long did he have to stumble around trying to find reasons for rebuffing her that wouldn’t hurt her feelings?

  The truth was he didn’t want her. Period. Not for himself. Not for Fran.

  She wasn’t good enough to be a Degardovera.

  He wasn’t finished. “You need someone like Paul, someone who’s more—”

  Despite the hot surge that swelled her veins and lifted her breasts and filled her groin, despite the shame of her throwing herself at him, his excuses broke through. “Paul?”

  Great. Not only did he not want her. He thought she deserved nothing better than a staid, dull banker.

  Talk about humiliation. She might have personality problems, but this was the ultimate slap in the face.

  Well, she had some pride left. “I guess I know what I need, thank you very much. And it isn’t anybody vaguely resembling Paul Talliafierro. Why don’t you say what you mean, Rennie? That you don’t want me, that I should leave you the hell alone?”

  She meant to rush upstairs and hide until she could compose herself, but when she turned, he caught her elbow and whipped her around so fast that the long side of her hair flew straight out.

  He had recovered his fluency. “No, no, Autumn, I meant you need somebody who shares your kind of background, someone who knows the right kind of people, someone who’s not, who’s a member of the Piedmont Driving Club. Someone who knows the ropes in your set and who won’t disappoint or shame you.”

  “My set? The Driving Club?” Her jaw dropped. “One of the so-called movers and shakers who spends days planning how much money he can bring to Atlanta or make from the poor souls who live here? Or one of those dilettantes who golf rather than work like mere mortals? Is that what you think of me, Rennie?”

  Scalding fury, egged on by hurt, gushed up and replaced the earlier drowning sweetness. She wrenched her arm away, forgetting her arm socket was sore till the pain hit.

  She winced, wrapped an arm around the sore shoulder to ease it. “Thanks so much, Dr. Degardovera! I’ll have you know I’ve never set foot in the hallowed Piedmont Driving Club except for the stupid debutante parties Aunt Laura made me go to. Or whenever Uncle Parnell took me with him. And they wouldn’t have belonged to it except Aunt Laura’s father joined when it was the thing to do for business. Believe me, I’m perfectly capable of choosing the kind of man I need. I don’t need anyone to do it for me. You—you’re a real shit.”

  He caught her wrists again, held her in spite of her struggles. A low gurgling sound rose from his throat.

  Laughter.

  She had bared her soul and faced his ridicule, and he had turned her down. Again. Now he was laughing at her. “Let me go!”

  Twisting away, she yanked her arm away.

  His grip tightened. His chuckle deepened, turned into a breathy moan of annoyance. “You irrational woman, can’t you see what I’m trying to say? I wouldn’t do for you, Autumn. Neither will Francisco. If you and I—or if he were to make love to you—you’d hate either of us within six months. We don’t know the people you know, Autumn, we haven’t grown up the way you have. We aren’t the kind of people you’re accustomed to being around. Can’t you see that?”

  “What?” She couldn’t believe her ears, that Rennie of all people would be a secret bigot. “Oh, I see all right. Thanks so much for your learned opinion on my friends and my character, Dr. Degardovera.” She was as near to losing control of herself as she had been in her entire life. “For a doctor, you’re the most ignorant man I’ve ever met and I’ve met quite a few, believe me.”

  With a final heave, she jerked loose and escaped before she completely gave way to a temper she never lost.

  So he thought she was a socialite, did he? One of the ex-debutantes whose days were filled with clothes and skiing trips and island jaunts and charitable balls. Or worse, one of the fast group Fran ran around with. Men and women who hooked up without bothering to learn each others’ last names.

  I thought I loved him but I don’t even know him.

  Upstairs, she slammed the door and stood in the middle of the dim room, putting her hands to her flaming face and shaking all over. She’d never been so mad.

  She should never have allowed him to hold her, kiss her. But she had. And she was foolhardy enough to kiss him back when she knew in her heart he didn’t think of her that way.

  A banging on the door made her drop her hands.

  “Autumn, let me in.”

  “Go away!”

  Anger died.

  How humiliating. She had betrayed herself. Not only had she clung to him—wrapped herself around him like a lust-struck cat—but she’d all but begged him to make love to her.

  Never again. I’m over you, Rennie Degardovera. For good this time.

  He kept banging on the door. “Autumn, open the door.”

  “Go away.”

  “Damn it, let me in so I can explain.”

  “Go away, go away, go away!” She couldn’t think of anything else to say except, “Leave me alone.”

  She wouldn’t cry.

  The door ripped open and he burst into the room.

  Her eyes popped, her mouth fell open.

  He had forced the flimsy lock.

  This was not Rennie. Rennie would never break into her room like a madman.

  But he had. His eyes flashed and a curly lock of hair fell over his forehead while his face had more color beneath its normal brown tint than she had ever seen. It was a stranger who filled the small bedroom and menaced her.

  She stepped back, away from this disturbing intruder. She couldn’t come up with words strong enough to express her outrage. “You, you—Don’t you touch me!”

  He stopped and lowered hands that had reached out. The volcanic eruption died so that he was again the Rennie she loved. “I never meant to hurt your feelings. All I meant to say was… Ah, Autumn. I couldn’t make you happy and you of all people deserve to be happy.”

  Any remaining anger evaporated.

  He believed that he was wrong for her, that she would be better suited to a plodding banker like Paul Talliafierro.

  Maybe he was right. She would never be warm, outgoing, or assertive like the Degardoveras. Maybe she should find a nice staid man like Paul to share her life with.

  She sighed, saw the broken lock. “We’ll have to pay to get that door fixed.”

  “What? What door?” He was disconcerted. “No,” he said, waving a hand impatiently as she opened her mouth to pinpoint exactly which door she meant, “don’t explain, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to talk. We can’t leave it like this between us. I don’t want you to be upset. I don’t want you to think I don’t care about you.”

&
nbsp; “It’s all right, Rennie. I was mad with myself and taking it out on you. I wanted you.” What the heck, why not turn herself inside out? Why not make her degradation complete while she had the nerve? Then maybe she could find a convenient black hole to climb into. Or a lake. Uh huh, there was a nice big lake right outside the cabin she could use to drown herself in.

  “I wanted to go to bed with you, Rennie.” She studied her nails. They were their normal short and unpolished ovals, but concentrating on them meant she didn’t have to see his disgust. “I wanted to make love with you, and I thought you wanted to make love to me. I thought we could share something together. Sorry. I misread the signals.”

  “You…” It was his turn to pause. His voice twisted, unwilling to say the words. “You didn’t misread the signals.”

  The room about her stilled. She dared a glance. The bare bulb overhead shone down with barely enough light to put a sheen on his curls and expose his face.

  It looked as drawn and miserable as hers must.

  Hope, disintegrated and thrown to the winds, rematerialized. She waited, afraid to question him, afraid to breathe for fear he’d say something to contradict what she thought she’d heard.

  His eyes beneath thick eyebrows were unfathomable in the gloom of the bedroom, his mouth screwed up and vulnerable, almost pleading. His tongue slid over the bottom of white teeth as if trying to keep words from emerging.

  They came out anyway, low and ragged. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to have sex with you, Autumn, to make love to you. You don’t know… I’d give anything to be able to do it. But it would change everything between us. We couldn’t be friends any more if we went to bed together.”

  “We couldn’t?” She blinked away the pricking in her eyes.

  “No.”

  He was using the ‘friend’ excuse. What he meant, no matter what he said, was that he wasn’t interested. She’d broken off relationships herself saying she’d rather be friends, broken them off even though she’d liked the man. When she’d known deep down she would never love him as she loved Rennie.

  Pulling back was the honorable thing to do when someone attracted you, but you knew it wouldn’t work.

  And Rennie was honorable. Unfortunately.

  She never shed tears in front of anyone, and this was no place to start. Not here in front of Rennie. She wouldn’t break down, but she couldn’t stop loving him either. Both habits were too ingrained. “I understand, Rennie. It’s quite all right.”

  “Autumn.” The words sounded as if they were being dragged from his throat. “You’re not like us.”

  “No, I’m not. And you can never care for me because I’m too different. I’m not your type. I’m a boring, pitiful woman you feel sorry for but will never love except as a friend. Thank you very much, Rennie. You’ve made your feelings crystal clear. I understand you perfectly. I won’t bother you again.”

  So there. She sounded brittle but composed.

  He reached out a hand, caught her chin when she would have turned away, forced her to look at him. “I do care for you, Autumn. You don’t know how much. I could so easily give in.” His head swayed toward her, stopped. His eyes, their deep brown almost black, bored into hers.

  Hurt filled her, compressed her lungs. “Then what more do you want from me?”

  “I could make love to you, right here and now,” he whispered. His grip on her chin tightened, pressed against the bones underneath until it seemed his hand would become a part of her jaw. “You felt me, you know I want you. I could easily throw you down on that bed and forget everything I believe. But afterwards, what then?”

  Hope wasn’t dead after all. He wasn’t sending her away as he had when she was seventeen. He was about to kiss her again and if he did, what he’d said earlier didn’t matter, couldn’t matter.

  She swallowed. “Afterwards we’d still be the same people, Rennie. We’ll still be friends.”

  “No.” He bent closer. “We wouldn’t be the same. Habits and faults and differences that are tolerated in friends are fatal for lovers.”

  “So you’re saying you could make love to me and enjoy it, but you don’t think sex would make up for my faults,” she said slowly, feeling her way.

  He leaned forward. “Don’t put words in my mouth. You don’t have any faults, Autumn. And I have too many. That’s the problem.”

  His breath stroked her cheek. He was going to kiss her and when he did, they would make love. This time there would be no pulling back.

  Downstairs, a door opened.

  Whatever might have happened was lost.

  The murmur of voices drifted upstairs, and then Norma called, “Autumn, Rennie. Where are you? Paul and I’ve come to say goodbye before we head back to Atlanta.”

  “And to give Paul time to recover from that polka before he has to drive back.” Fran’s teasing words floated up the stairwell followed by Victoria’s uninhibited, hearty guffaw.

  Rennie’s lips, about to touch Autumn’s, pulled away.

  He dropped his hand from her chin and stepped back, pale as she’d ever seen him. “I guess the Festhalle wasn’t so much fun after all.”

  She would die, she would surely die.

  So close to holding him, kissing him, loving him, having him. And still as far away as before.

  One more minute, that’s all it would have taken. One more minute.

  They looked at one another.

  His quick breathing slowed. She forced her own lungs to take long deep gulps of air.

  “I’ll go down, tell them you aren’t feeling well.” He turned away too quickly.

  Stunned, she watched him leave.

  He did care for her, no matter what he said. And he did want her. She had felt the desire coursing through his skin.

  He had admitted he wanted her.

  Her heart lightened. He does care about me. He does.

  “I’ll come down in a few minutes,” she called to his back, wondering how she was going to explain the broken door lock to Victoria. She’d have to say she’d locked herself out and Rennie had had to break it in. That sounded pretty lame.

  Maybe Victoria wouldn’t notice.

  Hah, a nosy reporter not notice a busted door?

  After her heated face cooled, she had to go downstairs and sit in the great room as if she wanted to be there, smile and make conversation and discuss her unfortunate fall off the bridge as if nothing of consequence had happened between her and Rennie.

  This isn’t finished. I may not be the person he needs, but I won’t give up until he says there’s positively, absolutely no chance for me.

  He had wanted her. He had admitted he wanted her.

  Not that he showed it now. He sat on the loveseat with Victoria on one side of him and Norma on the other.

  Norma kept sneaking perplexed glances at Paul. Norma didn’t understand why he was so casual toward her, why he didn’t behave like the rest of her boyfriends.

  Autumn sympathized, but she had her own problems.

  And her biggest problem smiled across the room and bedeviled Norma about being spoiled and too used to having her own way, before later explaining the responsibilities of his new job at the University to an attentive Victoria.

  The old feelings of being on the outside tried to return.

  Not that she was left out. Fran, his earlier suspicions at her going off with Rennie waning, was overly solicitous. He insisted she take the comfortable stuffed chair and brought her a hot lemon, bourbon and honey concoction he swore would fix her aches and pains by bedtime.

  Paul was considerate, too. He covered her feet with a blanket so she wouldn’t be cold before Rennie got the woodstove blazing, and then pulled out his phone to entertain her with pictures of his cat and toddler nieces.

  Norma fumed quietly. She liked to be the center of attention.

  Too bad. Autumn would gladly have given her the spotlight. People fussing over her wasn’t her style. Especially since Rennie carefully stayed far away fr
om her for the rest of the night.

  After Paul and Norma left for Atlanta about ten, the others took turns in the bathroom. When Victoria exclaimed about the broken lock on their bedroom door, Autumn shrugged, saying she’d stupidly locked it from the inside when she started out. “So Rennie had to break in for me.”

  Her taking the blame made him, she noted with satisfaction, flick that dark glance her way for a second.

  Too bad she couldn’t read anything from his eyes. Only when she was lying in bed did she remember the gash in her fanny pack.

  She was glad Rennie hadn’t brought it up to the others. That would have made them hover over her even more.

  ****

  Sam Bogatti didn’t allow himself to get annoyed.

  Ever.

  But this morning his stress exercises hadn’t helped, and he was close to forgetting that anger was a no-win proposition.

  They were a nice-looking couple, the poised Hitchcockian blonde and the tall olive‑skinned Hispanic. And Sam, having a tender heart and a compassionate soul and knowing it would be their last chance, had given them ample time last night to have their fun. He had patiently waited over an hour before slicking back his hair, snagging a waiter’s jacket, and knocking on their door.

  He’d waited, knocked again.

  No answer. They weren’t in. They’d evidently made whoopee and gone out on the town again. From what he could see, Helen was one big party scene so he shoulda expected it.

  But he hadn’t, and instead of doing the job and heading out as planned, he’d been forced to check into a motel down the way and spend another frigging night away from home and man, was he pissed at them for giving him the slip.

  Never mind. He smoothed his hair and straightened the jacket that was a little bit big. At seven o’clock in the morning now, the lovebirds should be sound asleep in their room.

  His natural optimism returned.

  This might work out better. From what he’d seen the past night, everyone in town ought to be hung over and groggy, including the lovebirds. He might not have to take out the man, too.

  Sam detested unnecessary slaughter.

  When he knocked, a woman’s voice answered.

  Excellent.