"Lillian?" Becenti called, and she stepped into his arms, amazed that the consequences suddenly didn't seem to matter anymore. He had been right not to want to analyze whatever was happening between them, and there was absolutely no way to justify it. They had both lost their minds. It was as simple as that. And mindless or not, at this particular moment, she didn't care.
For as long as it lasts, Johnny, she thought.
They took a long tub bath together. It was the first time she had ever let a man wash her hair. Somehow, in all the years she'd spent with Stuart, they had never reached that level of intimacy. And it was intimate, and infinitely tender – a gesture she thought Becenti made simply because he wanted to.
She leaned back against him in the warm water, eyes closed, blissfully enjoying the process. When she was a little girl, she used to beg her grandmother for a yucca-root shampoo, earnestly believing that it was the suds from the yucca plant that always made her feel so much better. It was only at this moment that she realized that it wasn't the plant at all, but the caring attitude of the person doing the washing.
They ate a huge late lunch of cold cuts and bread and fruit, and then they went for a walk in the snow. The sun shone brightly, and the wind was sharp. She showed him all the places around her house that she'd found so beautiful.
"Do you ever hear the hum?" he asked.
"What hum?"
"You know – that strange sound people are always on the tabloid news saying they hear."
"No," she said, taking his hand as they walked. "No hum. What are you going to do about Toomey?"
"Do?"
"Are you going to tell him not to say anything – about us?"
"No," Becenti said, helping her through a deep patch of snow.
"Why not?"
"Because it would be wrong." He turned to look at her. "I'm not ashamed of this. I'm not going to behave as if I am.
He walked on ahead of her, leaving her standing. A hawk suddenly cried overhead, and he shaded his eyes to watch it soar higher and higher until it was little more than a speck in the bright blue sky.
Be careful, Becenti, she thought. You are in danger of making a friend for life, here. It was incredible to her that this heretofore exasperating man could keep doing and saying the right thing.
They walked steadily up the hillside that was visible from her front porch, and she knew all the while that she would be able to look at it again without thinking of this day. They were out of the shelter of a line of junipers now, and the sharp wind made her falter from time to time.
"Are you cold?" he asked at one point.
"Of course," she answered.
"Good," he said, smiling back at her. He waited for her to catch up, and when she did, he put his arm around her shoulders as they continued upward to the ridge.
"Do you...like living here?" he asked.
"Not a good question, Becenti," she said.
"Why not?"
"Because it's not what you really want to know."
"So what do I really want to know?"
"You want to know why I left the rez." She stopped, and she was looking at him as she said it. He didn't avoid her steady gaze.
"So why did you?"
"Because I wanted more."
"More what? More money?"
"Yes, more money. More prestige. More everything."
"Why?"
She frowned. "Why?"
"There must be a reason," he said. "You were brought up the same way I was, I think. Both our mothers are traditional. I didn't want to leave. Why did you?"
She shrugged. "Just one of those things, I guess."
He reached out to move a strand of hair that had blown across her face. "Now who isn't saying what she really means?" he said.
They walked on for a short distance.
"Why do you think there has to be a reason?" she asked abruptly, stopping again.
"Because I know you. You don't do things on a whim."
"I came to your hogan."
"That wasn't a whim. That was a desperate act. You were cornered."
She sighed. "You're right. I was."
"And I'm right about the other thing, too."
"No, you aren't."
"Yes, I am," he insisted. "But you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"Then why are we having this conversation?"
"So you'll know I understand more than you think I do."
She didn't say anything else. She was not at all sure how she felt about his assertion that he "understood." She had gone her own way for a long time now without wanting or needing anyone's acceptance or a critique of her choices.
She was out of breath when they reached the ridge. More so than he, regardless of the weakness in his lungs. They stood side by side, looking back at the snow-covered hillside they'd just climbed.
"I don't think you understand," he said after a moment.
She looked at him. "Then tell me."
"I don't think you understand how...strange this is for me."
"I understand," she said. "You were married to...Mae for a long time."
"I loved her."
She waited for him to go on. She'd had to force herself to say Mae's name, and she didn't know why. She hadn't believed in evil ghosts since she was a child. She had no fear of the wandering chindi and the harm it could do to anyone who spoke its name.
But he didn't say anything else. He moved her over and made her turn around. "Look down there – toward the road."
She looked where he told her, but she didn't see anything. "What is it?"
"Right there," he said, moving her slightly.
This time she saw it – a police vehicle parked on the side of the road, barely visible through the trees.
"I think it's Toomey," he said.
"What in the world is he doing there? Spying?"
"No, my guess is he needs to tell me something, and he's waiting for us to go back to the house."
"Tribal police business, you mean?"
"I expect so. He wouldn't be back here today if it wasn't something important – but it's not a major crisis, or he'd come on in."
"Maybe it's not him," she said, and she immediately wished she hadn't. It was entirely the wrong thing for the blase Lillian Singer to say. It sounded too needy, and she certainly wasn't that, not by any stretch of the imagination. Johnny Becenti could go right now and it would be all the same to her. They had nothing between them but their one night together. She didn't have to be filled with regret because he was leaving. She didn't have to try to protect their nonrelationship by not saying his dead wife's name.
"No, it's him," Becenti said, and Toomey or not Toomey, he took her by the hand as they began to walk back down the hillside. He had meant what he said about not behaving as if he was doing something wrong, but that didn't mean that he wasn't all business when they finally reached the house. Toomey drove up almost immediately, eager to give Becenti his report, and Becenti was ready to officially hear it. Lillian stood back and let them talk, using the opportunity to look closely at the man who had suddenly come to mean more to her than she would ever dare admit. She couldn't admit it – not to him and not herself.
No strings, she thought. It wouldn't work any other way, because he had found himself again, and he was completely dedicated to the People and to his job.
No strings. No commitment. No complications.
For as long as it lasts.
He didn't stop to explain his abrupt departure to her. He had to go back to Window Rock and that was that. She didn't follow him inside the house to get his gun belt. She caught Fred as he made a dash for freedom instead, because the snow was deep and she had no wish to have to explain to Gracie that her beloved feline had suddenly found a place of honor in the coyote food chain.
But as much as she adored old Fred, he wasn't the only reason she didn't go in with Becenti. The real reason was because she felt awkward suddenly and didn't quite know how to tell him goodbye.
&n
bsp; She stood on the front porch with the heavy cat in her arms, chatting with Toomey about the late snow until Becenti came back outside again.
"Start the car," he said curtly to Toomey. "I won't call you," he said to her as soon as Toomey was out of earshot. He absently reached out to scratch Fred behind the ear. "I'm not going to intrude on your life here. I guess you're going to have to say what the rules are."
She voiced her earlier thought. "No strings. No commitment. No complications. For as long as it lasts."
He stood for a moment, then nodded. He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but he didn't. He stepped off the porch and walked toward the car.
"Lillian?" he said when he was about to open the car door.
"What?" she said. "What?" she said again when he didn't immediately respond.
"Walk in beauty."
The unexpected Navajo benediction caught her off guard and, incredibly, brought tears to her eyes. He got into the car, and he gave her no backward glances as it drove away. She stood there, staring after it until it disappeared down the road.
She was barely inside the house when she heard the car coming back again. She smiled to herself and put Fred down before she stepped onto the porch. But it wasn't Becenti's car she'd heard. It was Stuart Dennison's.
Chapter Eight
I told you I needed your help," Stuart said. "And I told you to call Gracie and make an appointment."
"Lillian, do you think I'd come here like this if it wasn't important?" He looked over his shoulder. "That was him leaving, wasn't it? Your...guest? The one you stayed with in the hogan."
She didn't answer him, but she did stand back to let him come inside. And the only reason she did was because of the way he looked. She had never seen him so obviously exhausted.
"I need your help," he said again.
"With what?" She moved to the stove and put in some wood. There was coffee made. Becenti had done it so they would have something hot to drink when they came back from their walk. She pushed a pang of regret aside and tried to concentrate on dealing with Stuart. "Tell me," she said, standing with her arms folded.
"Can I sit down, at least?"
"Stuart – "
He held up both hands. "I know I'm trying your patience. And I know I have no right to do that." He gave a sigh and sat down heavily in the horsehair chair, his hand over his eyes.
"Are you and J.B. having some kind of trouble?" she asked.
He looked at her. "No. It's not that – exactly."
She waited in vain for him to be more forthcoming. "Look," she said. "I'm going to get us some coffee. When I come back with it, you had better be in the mood to talk."
He was sitting just the way she'd left him when she returned. He took the cup she offered him, drank very little, and then put it aside. His hands were shaking.
"You need legal advice," she prompted him, taking a seat on the couch. Fred immediately jumped up beside her and began to search for a choice sleeping spot – which she, of course, seemed to have taken.
"I need legal advice," he agreed. "And I need help."
"Stuart, will you get to the point!" she said, startling Fred into finding a quieter place.
"All right! I need legal advice now because I didn't take it before."
"I don't know what that means, Stuart."
He gave a sharp sigh. "Do you remember a year or so ago, when I was going to invest in that big land deal? You told me not to. You told me you thought the men asking me to invest couldn't be trusted."
"I remember," she said, sipping her coffee.
"Well, I didn't listen to you."
"And?" she prompted again when he didn't go on.
"And the you-know-what is about to hit the fan."
"For whom?"
"For everybody involved in it – for me."
"So how much did you invest?"
"A hundred dollars."
She looked at him. "And how much did you get back?"
"Six figures."
"Six figures!"
"I thought it was all on the up and up – "
"Just like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy?"
He ignored her sarcasm. "There's a reporter who thinks the whole deal came about because of insider information and manipulating government contracts."
"Did it?"
"I don't know."
"Can he prove it?"
"I don't know," he said again.
"Stuart – "
"Lillian, all I did was invest the money."
"No, what you did was give them the use of your name. And with that kind of profit, it doesn't matter a whole lot if it was on the up and up or not. We're not in the eighties anymore, Stuart. People are a little more touchy about unethical behavior in their elected officials. Whatever possessed you to do something so stupid!"
"I needed the money!"
"For what!"
"For...J.B."
"Ah!" Lillian said. "Well – if it's for J.B."
"Don't be so damned sarcastic!"
"Oh, excuse me. You're the one who barged in here and demanded my help. Heaven forbid that I should be sarcastic."
"I don't know what to do."
"You get yourself a good lawyer. That's what you do."
"Will you take the case?"
"No."
"Lillian, please – "
"No, Stuart!"
"There's more," he said.
"I don't want to hear it."
"There's the reason I need you to get me off, the reason I need to keep the money."
“I heard the reason – J.B."
"No, you didn't. I need to keep the money because I...don't think I'm going to be here to take care of her."
"What do you mean, you're not going to be here?" For a brief moment, she envisioned that he might be planning to leave the country – or something much more final. But then she looked at his face. "What do you mean?" she asked again.
He tried to smile and didn't quite make it. "I'm sick, Lily."
He hadn't called her that in years – not since she was a bright-eyed and idealistic young law student. His doing so now scared her.
"Tell me," she said.
"It's some kind of leukemia," he said tonelessly. ''For a long time I just thought I was tired, or I had the flu or something. I won't go into the gory details, but I'm going to have to start treatments soon. They tell me the odds aren't that good. It may all be a grand gesture at best. I don't want to go through it, but I don't have much of an option."
"Have you gotten a second opinion?"
"Of course. And a third. They all say the same thing. I'm even considering a faith healer." He managed a smile of sorts.
She looked at him, stunned and trying to absorb what he had told her. She didn't want to believe him, but she did.
"You're not going to bawl or anything, are you?"
"No," she said, but she didn't sound very convincing even to herself.
"Then say something."
"I...don't know what to say. Except that I'm so sorry." He smiled slightly. "That's enough. You're the only person I can believe who has said that."
"Stuart, I still don't understand what you want me to do."
"I want you to be my spokesperson with the media. Keep them off my back as much as you can, without saying I'm ill. They'll find out soon enough, but I'm not going to be the one to give them any of the details. And I want you to start working on liquidating my assets. I'll make restitution if it turns out this land deal was illegal – I know, I know," he said, holding up his hands. "Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. And if it is illegal, I want you to defend me in court, assuming I live that long."
"Stuart – "
"I trust you, Lillian. In fact, you're the one person I'd trust to do this."
"Yes, well, the time to have trusted me was when I told you not to get mixed up in that land thing in the first place."
He smiled again, less painfully this time. "You always said white people lose every bit of sense the
y ever had when it comes to an inch of land."
"Did I?"
"Many times." ^
"You should have listened."
"Yes. I should have. There's one last thing I want you to do."
"What?"
"I want you to help me with J.B."
"Help you? How? I can tell you right now I don't want to be a bridesmaid – even if you are sick."
He laughed out loud. "Lillian, Lillian, this is just what I needed. Someone to not coddle me. Someone to make me laugh."
"Well, I can't help you with J.B."
"Yes, you can. I need you to let her think that you and I are..together again."
"Together," she repeated. She had to think about the implications of that remark for a moment. "Why?" she asked pointedly.
"It will make it easier."
"Easier for whom?"
"For me. I'm not going to marry her. I don't want to give her this kind of trouble."
"You don't want to give her trouble or you don't think she'll take it."
He looked away. "The scandal of being investigated is bad enough."
"Does she know how sick you are?"
He looked back at her. "She doesn't know I'm sick at all."
"Stuart – "
"I'm not going to put her through my illness, too."
"It's her choice, isn't it? If she loves you, you have no light to keep it from her. She's going to know sooner or later."
"It won't matter. She'll think I'm with you."
"That lie will hurt her a lot more than trying to deal with your having leukemia."
He didn't say anything to that. He sighed heavily and sank back into the chair, the exhaustion she'd noted earlier all too apparent.
"Stuart, are you all right?"
"A weak spell. They...catch me off guard sometimes," he said, but he looked terrible.
"Are you in pain?"
"Just my legs. They hurt all the time. I understand that will get worse. Lillian, will you do this for me or not?"
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