First Things First

by Barbara Delinsky

  Tomorrow they’d be headed inland again, but how long could she stay? She went round and round trying to decide if she should be pressuring Sam more about returning, wondering whether indeed he’d follow her if she were to announce that she was flying home. Oh, yes, she wanted him there. She cringed at the thought of life without him. She believed that he loved her, but was that love strong enough to see him through the adjustments he’d have to make in his life to make the city palatable to him? Was it strong enough to see him through the explanations he’d have to hear from her?

  She cursed Beatrice London in one breath, blessed her in another. Had it not been for the woman, she’d never be in the untenable position she was. On the other hand, had it not been for her, she never would have met Sam.

  Sam must have been doing his own share of soul-searching, for by afternoon he seemed as ready for a diversion as she was. When he suggested that they go to the bullfight, she jumped at the opportunity. He’d been to one before, but she hadn’t, and she was curious and eager. If she found it vaguely brutal, there was consolation in Sam’s understanding.

  When the spectacle was over, he took her for a soothing drive through Cancun city. It was a young city, barely ten years old, and had been built up at the same time as the island—which was really unrecognizable as an island because the causeway to the mainland was so short. Aside from shops and restaurants built for the tourists, the city housed workers from the local hotels.

  Sam pointed out various monuments commemorating one event or another, then, on the drive back to the hotel, showed her intricate formations in the median strip shrubbery that she hadn’t noticed before.

  That night they ate dinner at Bogart’s. The high ceiling fans were reminiscent of Casablanca, but the decor was thoroughly modern and the food international. Chelsea enjoyed it as much as she was able, given the fact that she felt an odd premonition about the night. It was to be their last in Cancun, and she felt unsettled.

  Sam was unusually quiet at dinner. She wondered if he shared her uneasiness, particularly when he took her in his arms the instant they entered their room and proceeded to make love to her with an intensity verging on fear. Her own response was no less frenzied, for it bore the sense of desperation she felt.

  There were no words this time, no gentle urgings and soft endearments. But when it was over and Sam was asleep, Chelsea whispered her love to him, over and over until at last she too heard no more.

  The next morning, when she stirred against his warmth, she sensed an unmistakeable tension that had nothing to do with passion. Opening her eyes, she raised her head to look up at him. Wide awake, he met her gaze, and she knew that the moment of truth had come.

  8

  “DID YOU MEAN IT?” he asked. He was propped against the headboard of the bed, and there were shadows beneath his eyes. His expression was shuttered, but the taut set of his neck and shoulders spoke volumes.

  She swallowed. “Mean what?”

  “That you love me.”

  “You heard?” she whispered, and at his nod hastened to confirm it. “Yes. I meant it. I do love you, Sam. More than I ever thought I could love another human being.” She felt it imperative that he know, beforehand, the precise state of her heart. “But there’s more I have to tell you.”

  “I know,” he stated quietly, his eyes never once leaving hers.

  She hadn’t quite expected his statement. Her brow furrowed and she sat up, dragging the sheet around her as she faced him. “You know?”

  He stared at her wordlessly for a minute and her heart began to hammer. When at last he spoke, it was in a low, even tone.

  “Jason Ingram has been dead for three years, Chelsea. He was killed in an automobile accident. I read about it in the alumni publication.”

  Jason Ingram dead? Jason Ingram … her alleged contact …and Sam had known from the very first day. “Why didn’t you say something?” she breathed unsteadily. “Why didn’t you accuse me of being a fraud?” One part of her wished he had; then the truth might have come out long before and she might never have stayed around long enough to get to know Sam, to fall in love. Or she might still have stayed around and their love would have been that much freer and sweeter.

  “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to know. I very successfully pushed it out of my mind.”

  “Until now.”

  “Until you said you loved me.”

  “I do, Sam,” she cried urgently. “You have to believe that. I do love you!”

  The muscle in his jaw flexed. “That’s a pretty strong claim, and you’ve got to know you’re playing with fire. I think you’d better tell me the whole story. The truth, Chelsea. All of it.”

  He was angry, carefully controlled, but angry, and she didn’t blame him. It hurt, because she loved him so, but simultaneously she felt a sense of relief that at last she could bare her heart and mind.

  “Everything I told you about my childhood is true,” she began, begging with her eyes, her voice, the intensity of her pose. “I grew up in a New Hampshire mill town, went off to college and then taught for a year. And yes, I was frustrated with my work, but that wasn’t the main reason I quit after the year.”

  “What was?”

  “Susan’s disappearance. For several months I worked full-time looking for her. I was frustrated beyond belief because it seemed that there wasn’t anyone who could help me. But I discovered that there were scores of other families in similar situations, and in the course of looking for Susan I managed to locate several other of those missing children.” She spoke quickly, her voice at a high pitch, pleading for Sam’s understanding, his trust. When his expression said nothing, she rushed on.

  “So I decided to devote myself to doing that—looking for missing children—because I was already forming contacts and God knows I was dedicated to the cause.”

  “I can understand that,” was his terse reply.

  “I’ve been doing it for six years, Sam, but the last three of those years I’ve been saving every penny. I worked at Icabod’s at night to earn extra money. I’d decided that I wanted to go back to school to get a Ph.D. in counseling so that I could help prevent some of those runaway situations.”

  “That’s fine,” he said, obviously waiting for the connection between what she’d done in Boston and what she was doing here.

  That was the hard part for Chelsea, but its time had just about come. She clutched at the sheet and took a steadying breath. “Early in June I got a call from your mother. I met with her in Wellesley and she said she wanted to hire me.”

  If Sam’s face had been expressionless before, it was no longer so. His every feature hardened—eyes darkened, nostrils flared, jaws clenched and lips thinned. “You met with my mother,” he gritted. “With my mother!”

  “You must have suspected it.”

  He was too angry to even shake his head. “You did say you phoned her. But I thought maybe one of the guys at the office sent you. I never would have believed you’d been tied up with her!”

  “I went to her house not knowing what to expect. After she told me what it was she wanted—”

  “What did she want? Exactly.”

  “She wanted me to find you and bring you back.”

  “Damn it! What business was it of hers?”

  “That was what I asked her, though not in as many words. I said that you were old enough to make your own decisions. But she’s your mother. She thought she knew what was best.”

  “God damn it!”

  “I didn’t want to take the job, Sam,” she pleaded. “I told her that I didn’t usually do this type of thing.”

  “Wait a minute. I thought you just said that you did.”

  “She wanted me to get you back. That was part of the deal! I was to find you and,” she took a breath, “in your mother’s word, ‘lure’ you back to Boston.”

  Sam bolted from the bed and stalked across the room before whirling to face her again. He was stark naked, but neither of them noti
ced. He was too angry, and Chelsea was too embroiled in what seemed somehow a fight for her life.

  “And you went along,” he snarled in disgust.

  “I had to! She’d hired an investigator. She knew exactly where I’d come from, what I was doing, how much I earned, even how much I paid in taxes!”

  “So? What difference did it make if she knew those things? If she was up to blackmail, she’d have had to have something else on you. What was it, Chelsea?” He glared at her, a white line of fury between his brows. “What else haven’t you told me?”

  “Nothing! You know it all!”

  “But you said you had to do it. Why, for God’s sake? How could you cheapen yourself by agreeing to seduce a man?”

  He didn’t understand any of it, and she was frantic. Her voice was high and trembling. “I didn’t agree to seduce you. When I thought that was what she was suggesting, I told her I wouldn’t do it.”

  “But you did. You did it, Chelsea.”

  She was shaking her head jerkily. “No. What happened between us happened because I’d fallen in love with you.”

  “Bull! You conspired with that witch. Coldly and deliberately.”

  “That’s not true!”

  He had his fists on his hips and his head was thrust forward so that the veins in his neck stood out prominently. “If it isn’t, then why—did—you—do it?”

  “I told you. Because I love—”

  He cut her off with the sharp wave of his hand. “Why did you accept the job?”

  In hindsight, Chelsea would have chosen different words, but at the moment she was disconsolate and perilously close to tears. “Because I needed the money, damn it! I wanted the money! She offered me the one thing she knew I couldn’t refuse! You have to understand, Sam. She knew that I wanted to go to grad school. She knew how long I’d have to go, and that it would take me years more to save up enough money on my own. She knew exactly how long the program was, and how much it would cost. And she offered it all to me, if I’d come down here and somehow get you back.”

  “You couldn’t have needed the money that bad. Haven’t you ever heard about scholarships?”

  “I went through college on a scholarship. But five years ago my mother’s brother died and left Susan and me a trust fund, so technically I don’t qualify for a scholarship.”

  “If you’ve got a trust fund, why would you need it? Why in the hell don’t you just use your own money to pay your tuition?”

  “Because until I’m thirty-five I can only use the interest, and that I give to my parents every month to supplement the little they get from dad’s retirement fund.” Even Beatrice London hadn’t known that, but Chelsea was too distraught to feel any satisfaction.

  She caught her breath and swallowed hard, but Sam showed no sign of softening. “I wanted to go to school,” she said brokenly. “I wanted it more than anything, and she was dangling it right there in front of my nose. She even offered to get me admitted!”

  “I’m sure she did,” he snapped. Spinning around, he dug in the dresser for his shorts. “You were never a writer. You’d done some research on the Maya, but beyond that it was all a lie.”

  “No—”

  “And you sold yourself for the highest price. I have to say,” he muttered, yanking on his cutoffs, “that’s one way to get ahead in the world. I just wouldn’t have expected you to stoop to it.”

  Tears were trickling down her cheeks but she was oblivious to them. “You don’t understand! You won’t listen! At the time I thought it might all work out. I pictured you so very differently. I never dreamed I’d be attracted to you—”

  “Which makes it all the worse,” he interrupted, tugging his T-shirt over his head. “You’d have given yourself to a man you didn’t even like. You’d have wound him around your little finger and then led him home by the nose. That’s disgusting, Chelsea. Really disgusting. I mean, I wouldn’t have put it past my mother, but you?” He ran an angry hand through his hair. “God, I really thought you were different.”

  “I am what you thought. I’ve been me for the past three weeks—where are you going?” she cried in alarm.

  “Out.”

  “Don’t go! Please! Stay and help me work this through!”

  “You can stay if you want. See if you can find peace with yourself. I know that I sure as hell won’t be able to!”

  “Sam, don t—”

  But the door slammed on her words and Chelsea was suddenly and utterly alone. She stared at the still white barrier, hoping that it might open again and he’d be back. But its only movement was caused by the blurring of her vision. Soft sobs erupted from her throat and grew louder, more heart-wrenching, until at last she crumpled onto the bed and cried.

  She clutched the pillow—his pillow—and hugged it to her, but all it brought back was the scent of him and memories. Beautiful memories that tore into her, cut her apart, left a gaping void in the vicinity of her heart.

  She cried until she was exhausted, until her sobs lengthened into breathy hiccoughs. And she continued to lie where she was because nothing seemed to want to function—not her arms or her legs or her mind.

  It was the knock of the maid wanting to clean the room that finally roused her from her paralysis. She sat up in bed and called to the girl to come back later, then slowly looked around and forced herself to think.

  Blotting her tears on the backs of her hands, she climbed from the bed, showered and dressed. Then she sat in the upholstered chair and waited. Surely Sam was just out walking, giving himself a chance to cool off. Surely he’d see her side. He had to. After all, he loved her … . Or did he? Not once, looking her straight in the eye, had he said the words. He’d kidded that first day, but she had to take that at face value. He’d called her “love” from time to time, but it was an endearment people often used, and it wasn’t the same as a flat out, “I love you.”

  But she’d seen it in his eyes, felt it in his body. Or had she been wrong? Had she simply seen something she’d wanted to see? If he loved her, he’d be back. She knew it.

  So she waited. And waited. As the minutes dragged into hours—she put the maid off twice more—she began to despair, for she forced herself to look at his side of the situation, and what she saw was bleak.

  Sam felt betrayed. He felt used and manipulated. And if he loved her, things were even worse! He’d never been a man to easily give his love, and he was probably cursing himself for a fool!

  Chelsea wrung her hands, stared at the walls, the ceiling, the small clock on the dresser. Her stomach was a mass of tight knots, but her limbs felt rubbery. Noontime approached, and when he hadn’t returned, she began to wonder if he was sending her a message. She realized that when he’d stormed out he’d been wearing his denim cutoffs and familiar T-shirt. Not his “resort” shorts and shirt. Perhaps he didn’t intend to come back at all. Perhaps he was already back at the pueblito!

  Feeling as if she were living a nightmare, she quietly got up and began to pack her things. One thought was predominant in her mind—she’d brought him the pain, the tension he’d come down here to escape. That thought brought her even more anguish, loving him as she did. If leaving, returning to the States would free him of it, so be it.

  Her suitcase was closed and she was repacking her carry-on bag when she came across the small notebook she’d used as a diary. She picked it up, smoothed her hand over its cover, turned it, then held it suspended for a minute. She could leave it for Sam, she realized, let him read for himself what she felt. But no. She tucked the notebook in the bag and zipped it closed. If he hadn’t believed her spoken words, the diary would be worthless.

  She’d reached the end of the line. Breathing raggedly, trying not to start crying again, she slung the carry-on over her shoulder, lifted her suitcase and rushed from the room.

  A taxi was waiting in front of the hotel and had her at the airport in no time. She was able to get a last-minute seat on a plane bound for New York, from where she could easily take
a shuttle to Boston. Ironically, given the waiting she’d had to do when she first landed in Cancun, she was airborne within an hour of leaving the hotel. Another message, she told herself. She should have listened all along!

  But the only thing she could hear, as the plane banked and headed north, was the pained beating of her battered heart. And she knew it would be a long, long time before it eased.

  IT WAS LATE THAT NIGHT before she finally unlocked the door of her small apartment and dropped her things inside. The air was stale and hot, and not much relief came from opening the windows. It seemed that July had been cruel to the city—or was it the other way around? The same temperature, she knew, wouldn’t have been as oppressive in the Yucatan, but then, there was nothing suffocating about the Yucatán …

  She didn’t want to think. She was tired and heartsick. Tossing her clothes in a heap, she threw back the coverings of her bed and sank down on the sheets. They were clean and fresh-smelling and …sterile. She closed her eyes and tried to blot out all that had happened since she’d left, tried to imagine she’d never left and that this was just another hot July night like so many she’d spent here in past years.

  It didn’t work. Her mind kept returning to Sam’s face during that last confrontation—the fury, the disgust, the disillusionment. And though she thought she’d been too drained she started to cry again, which made her all the more hot and uncomfortable.

  There was nothing she could do, though, but let her sorrow vent itself. When her sobbing finally waned, she got up and took a cool shower. It only served to remind her of the primitive showers she’d taken behind the hut, and the tears returned with a vengeance.

  At last she fell asleep, waking in spurts when one dream or another—her mind had refused to leave the Yucatan, it seemed—wrenched at her. Memories crowded in, overlapped, came in flashes that were quickly followed by despair. By morning she knew that her only salvation would be in nonstop activity.