Tom had reached the upstairs hall when a muffled cry stopped him in his tracks for the space of about a heartbeat.
He quickened his pace. Then, hearing another muffled cry and a thud, as though something had fallen, he flat-out ran toward the sound.
The door to Ronnie’s office was open. Light from the hall spilled into the room, but other than that it was dark. A flash of glittering red was the first thing he saw; then feet with high-heeled satin sandals kicking furiously.
It became clear to him what was happening even as he dove to her rescue. Some overeager asshole—for his money, Beau Hilley—had Ronnie bent back over her desk, kissing her even as he groped the front of her dress. She was twisting every which way and beating him back with one fist and pulling his hair with the other as she tried to get away.
Tom had felt like committing murder so few occasions in his life that he could count them on one hand.
Chalk up one more.
He didn’t say a word, just caught the would-be rapist with one hand twisted in the seat of his pants and one hand curled under the neck of his jacket and yanked him away from Ronnie. Then, even as the fellow turned, he let go with a right that would have done Mike Tyson proud.
His victim gurgled, and dropped like a stone.
“Tom!” In an instant Ronnie was up off that desk and in his arms, which was just where he wanted her to be. She clung to him, her arms around his neck, and he could feel her shuddering breaths. He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight, and kissed her ear and her neck while he murmured sweet words of reassurance—and inhaled the illusive, erotic scent of her with every breath.
Then he took a good look at the man who lay stretched out at their feet, and froze to the spot.
“Jesus Christ!” Tom said, all ministrations to the woman in his arms temporarily suspended. A dozen thoughts swirled simultaneously through his mind. First and foremost that he had just decked Senator Lewis Honneker IV in his own home for attempting to make love to his own wife.
“What?” Arms still wrapped around his neck, Ronnie lifted her head to stare up at him.
“That’s your husband,” he said, as if it were possible she didn’t know. His arms were still around her, but his hold on her had definitely slackened.
“Yes.”
She knew.
“So what in hell is going on here?” Guilt combined with confusion, and a growing anger sharpened his voice.
“What do you mean, ‘what in hell is going on here’?” There was an ominous undertone to her voice that Tom had heard before. Ronnie was on the verge of losing her temper. Well, she was in good company if she did, because so was he. He didn’t like feeling like a fool—or a louse. Given the situation, he was almost certainly one or the other.
It had occurred to Tom some time back that Ronnie may have been coming on to him merely to get back at her errant spouse, but he had never really given the idea more than passing consideration: The electricity between them felt so sizzlingly real, he didn’t think it could be faked.
But he’d been wrong before.
“Was he supposed to find you with me, or was I supposed to find you with him?” His voice was little more than a growl. “Or did you just conveniently forget that you invited me up here?”
“What?” Words seemed to fail her for a moment, and she sputtered. Then, “Don’t you see, he was attacking me!”
“He’s your husband,” Tom said, cold as ice.
She wrenched herself out of his arms. On the floor the Senator stirred and moaned. In reflexive reaction Tom flexed his hand. The knuckles hurt.
Ronnie glanced down, then up at him again. “Good-bye, Tom,” she said witheringly. Turning on her heel, she walked out of the room.
The Senator rolled to his side, then sat up, shaking his head groggily.
Torn between going after Ronnie and aiding the man on the floor, Tom decided that the Senator’s needs had to take precedence, and dropped to one knee beside him.
Ronnie in a snit would come to no harm. The Senator, on the other hand, might really be hurt; he was not a young man, and that had been a jackhammer right.
Tom felt like the biggest dastard unhung.
“I’m sorry, Senator. Are you okay?”
“Is that you, Tom?” His Honor blinked at him. He was drunk; the smell of alcohol on his breath was strong enough to make Tom’s eyes water.
“It’s me, Senator. Can you move your jaw?” Tom squinted as he searched the other man’s face for signs of serious damage.
“She won’t give me any, you know.” The Senator cupped his chin in one hand and waggled his jaw dolefully. “Not for more’n a year. Even has a separate bedroom. Hell, what does she think I married her for?”
Tom sank back on his heels. “She won’t give you any?” he repeated carefully.
“She looks hot, don’t she, boy? I saw she had you pantin’ after her. She gets all of ’em pantin’ after her! Hell, me too. But she’s really cold—cold as ice. Won’t put out. I even tried—even tried begging her! But she won’t. Don’t tell Marsden I told you, will you?” His expression grew suddenly worried.
“I won’t,” Tom promised, running a questing hand along the Senator’s jaw. There was the beginning of some swelling, but the bone seemed to be intact.
“I got rights where she’s concerned. I tried to tell her. But she says she’ll leave me if I force her, and she knows she’s got me over a barrel, because I can’t take another divorce. This last one just about killed me in the polls. You know that yourself.”
“I don’t think you’ve got the right to force her, Senator,” Tom said carefully. “I think that’s called rape.”
“Hell, a man can’t rape his own wife!”
“Times have changed, Senator, and laws have too. My understanding of the way it works is that if a woman says no, it’s a surefire gospel no, even if she is your wife.”
“D’you ever hear such bullshit in your life?” The Senator appealed to him as one man to another. “I guess it’s a good thing you came in when you did, then, ’cause I was aimin’ to take what I married her for. Hot-tempered as she is, she probably would have shot me after, or called the police and had me arrested. I don’t know which would have been worse. God above, think of the scandal! Orde would eat it up.”
“Can you stand up, Senator?” Tom got up, and helped the Senator up too. He was a little unsteady on his feet, but that was due more to the effects of alcohol than to the punch he’d taken, Tom judged as he held on to the older man’s arm just for insurance.
“I guess I’ve kinda lost my taste for any more partyin’ tonight. I think I’ll go on to bed.” The Senator waggled his jaw and winced.
“I wouldn’t try to force your wife again if I were you,” Tom said, releasing the Senator’s arm and following close behind as he walked with great dignity, if an occasional sideways step, toward the hall.
“I guess I won’t,” he said gloomily. “But you tell me what a man’s supposed to do? Wife won’t put out, and damned papers pillory you if you get caught with another woman. Anybody who says this is a man’s world don’t know diddly-squat!”
“You’ve got a point there, Senator.” Tom followed him into his bedroom, where the older man immediately collapsed facedown on top of the counterpane, which had not yet been drawn back from the bed. In less than a minute he was snoring. Tom stood looking down at him for a while, his hands in his trouser pockets. Then he reached over, untied the Senator’s bow tie, and pulled the shoes from his feet. Having done what he could to make the man comfortable, he left the room, closing the door behind him.
Deep in thought, he headed toward the staircase. He had been on the brink of cuckolding a man who had never been anything but kind to him, a man who had offered him work when he’d needed it, a man he’d looked up to all his life.
A man who was, on the other hand, chronically unfaithful, and who had just tried to rape his own wife.
A woman whom Tom still burned to possess.
How had
he ever gotten caught up in such a godawful mess?
Tom walked down the stairs, still pondering.
However he had gotten into it, he was in it now, stuck fast as a pig in quicksand.
What was between him and Ronnie was not going to go away.
He could go away—but he knew he couldn’t stay away.
Not with the best will in the world. Not forever. If he left tonight, he’d be back in a week.
He knew that much about himself.
He’d already tried cutting and running, and see where it had landed him: out of the frying pan and smack-dab in the middle of the fire. The only thing left to do was to face the situation squarely.
First off, he and Ronnie needed to talk.
As he came to that conclusion, he walked out through the front door into the balmy night. Over to his right, past the hundred-year-old magnolia bursting with waxy white blooms that marked the corner of the house and the graceful Doric columns that held up the front-porch roof, the party was still going strong. Laughter and the indistinct sounds of voices intermingling rose above the music. The Japanese lanterns floated over the proceedings like a thousand fireflies.
Overhead, stars twinkled in a midnight-blue sky. A ghostly-pale moon rode high among feathery dark wisps of clouds.
He walked down the steps to the driveway. Finding Ronnie without saddling himself with unwanted companions was not going to be easy. He looked in the direction of the tents, trying to catch a glimpse of red hair.
A glint on the pavement not too far from his feet caught his eye. Something shiny and reflective—a piece of glass? No, it was too small and symmetrical.
Frowning suddenly, Tom stooped to pick it up. It was small and round and crystal clear, and he knew instantly what it was.
Straightening, putting the object into his pocket, he looked around again.
There, maybe a dozen feet away, was another one.
Tom followed the trail of the beads. Like Hansel and Gretel dropping bread crumbs, Ronnie had marked her path, though she had done it inadvertently by shedding crystals from her dress.
He only found four. But then, he had only needed two. As soon as he had seen in what direction she had headed, he had a pretty fair idea of where she was.
Strolling away from the party into the dark at the other side of the house, Tom took a deep breath, and frowned. Though he knew it was pretty close to impossible, he thought that he could detect just a hint of her perfume on the warm wind caressing his face.
Chapter
29
RONNIE HEARD THE CREAK OF THE GATE, and glanced over her shoulder. It was dark in the small fortress around the pool, but not so dark that she could not see the broad-shouldered silhouette of a man as he came through the gate and closed it behind him. For just an instant she frowned. Then the moonlight glinted on his hair and she was left in no doubt as to who he was.
“Go away,” she said, and breast-stroked to the far side of the pool. Though she didn’t think there was enough moonlight for it to be apparent, she was wearing only her panties; her dress, stockings, shoes, and jewelry lay on a chair at the shallow end of the pool.
“I apologize for everything I said in the house. I completely misread the situation,” Tom said. He followed her progress from one side of the pool to the other, pacing alongside her on the concrete deck.
“I don’t accept your apology. Now, go away.”
“This isn’t easy for me, either, you know,” he said.
“What exactly is it that you want from me, Tom?” she asked suddenly, standing up to face him, her arms moving in the water to keep her balanced. At its deepest point the pool was only five feet, which left her, standing on tiptoes, shoulder-deep. She had been breast-stroking since she had entered the pool, and as a consequence her makeup was still largely in place and her upswept hair was still dry except for the tendrils around her neck.
“Now that,” he said, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets so that his coat was pushed back behind his hips, “is a good question.”
She laughed, but the sound was unamused. “Don’t be such a hypocrite! You want sex; you’re just having trouble climbing over your conscience to get it.”
He made no reply for a moment, then said, “Let me ask you a question, then: What exactly is it that you want from me?”
Ronnie stared at him, dumbstruck. She had never really thought about it before. What she wanted wasn’t sex per se; it was Tom.
She started swimming again, heading to the opposite end of the pool.
“Sex? Is that what you want from me, Ronnie?” He pursued her on the concrete surround, keeping even with her progress.
“I want you to go away,” she said, reaching the side and turning back for another lap.
“If I did, it wouldn’t help. I’d just come back. We’ve already established that.”
She kept swimming.
“We’ve got to deal with this, Ronnie.” His voice was patient as he paced alongside her.
Standing up in the shoulder-deep water again, she faced him, suddenly angry. “I don’t see any way to deal with it. The problem you have with this whole thing is that I’m married. Well, I can’t change that. I am married.”
“Have you ever thought about getting a divorce?” he asked quietly. He had stopped pacing when she stopped swimming, and now he stood looking down at her.
“No.” She started swimming again.
“So what you want to happen here is for you to stay married to the Senator while you sleep with me on the side, do I have that right?”
The sideways look she cast him was defiant. “Why not?”
“Because I have a problem with that.”
“Then go away.” She finished one lap and headed the other way. He stayed even with her.
“Would you come out of there so that we can talk about this like reasonable people?” There was a touch of impatience in his voice.
“There’s nothing to talk about. If you have a problem with me being married, then I suggest you go back to Diane, who is not married, and have sex with her.”
“I could. Just like you could have sex with your husband the Senator. But I don’t think that would satisfy either one of us.”
She swam without replying.
“Ronnie, would you please come out of that damned pool and talk to me?” There was an edge to his voice now.
She stopped swimming to look up at him. “Lots of people have affairs while they’re married. Hundreds. Thousands.”
“Is that the voice of experience I hear?” he asked dryly.
“Just for the record, during my three years as a married woman I’ve never had an affair. But Lewis has been screwing around since day one. So why shouldn’t I?”
“No reason, except maybe I don’t feel like being the man you’re screwing around with.”
“Why not?”
“Because affairs are messy, and people get hurt. Because tonight when I danced with you, I had to be real careful to pretend I didn’t like it too much so that people wouldn’t get the idea there was something going on between us. Because I might like to take you out to lunch, or dinner, or the movies. Because I don’t like the idea of fitting in fifteen-minute quickies whenever we can sneak off together. I don’t like the idea of having to sneak off together, period.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“It will be like that.”
“Is that the voice of experience I hear?” She mimicked his question to her.
“Maybe.”
“Oh, I’m supposed to confess everything, but you’re not.”
“Ronnie, it is damned hard to conduct this conversation while you’re in that swimming pool.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“You’re avoiding the issue.”
“What is the issue? Whether or not we’re going to sleep together? As far as I’m concerned right this minute, the answer’s no.”
Ronnie started swimming again. Tom stayed where
he was, arms crossed over his chest as he watched her progress. With the length of the pool between them, he was hardly more than a large, dark shadow against the paler shade of the concrete. As she swam back toward him, she saw that he was frowning.
“You don’t sleep with him. You haven’t for over a year,” Tom said when she drew even with him.
Ronnie stopped swimming and turned to look at him. “How do you know that?”
“He told me. Upstairs just now.”
“What were you two doing, comparing sex lives?” Outrage tinged her voice.
“I helped him to bed. He was drunk. We—talked about what he tried to do to you.”
“Oh, did you?”
“He doesn’t love you.”
Ronnie said nothing for a moment, just stared up at him through the darkness. His arms were still folded over his chest, and he was frowning down at her.
“So?” She started swimming again. She knew Lewis didn’t love her, had never loved her. The realization had dawned slowly, but she now knew it was fact. He had married her for the good, old-fashioned reason that he couldn’t get her into bed any other way. Once he’d gotten what he wanted, he’d quickly moved on to greener pastures. Though he had, of course, wanted to keep having sex with his wife whenever he felt like it.
“Damn it, Ronnie, we’re going to talk about this. He doesn’t love you. I know as sure as I know the sun will come up in the morning that you don’t love him. So why do you stay married to him?”
She completed her lap, and swam another.
“Ronnie?”
Now she stood in the water and faced him.
“You really want to know? Fine, I’ll tell you: I grew up in a little bitty ranch house in Boston, one of hundreds of little bitty ranch houses that were exactly the same in our neighborhood alone. My dad worked in a used-car lot for commissions, and most of the time he had to scrape to make the mortgage payment. I know, because my parents were always fighting about money. When I was fourteen, my mother met a man who could give her more, and she took off with him and left my father and sisters and me behind. I was the youngest, and my sisters married and left, and my dad’s income dropped because he didn’t care enough to work hard anymore. The dress I wore to my senior prom cost fifteen dollars. I found it at a resale shop. I vowed right there and then that I wasn’t going to live my whole life like that. I wanted something better.”
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