“They’re nonfiction. You can’t compare apples and oranges.”
“Still, we’re talking another ball game.” He laughed softly and added an aside. “Sorry about that. This new thing is in my blood.”
“How did it get in your blood—writing, that is? Did you specialize in school? Did you always know you wanted to write?”
Michael gazed out across the sand and shifted one long leg to the side. “For a while I thought it was the last thing I wanted to do. Writing runs in my family. I wanted to be different.”
“I can buy that,” she said. “Did you try?”
“Oh, yeah.” He looked down at his hands. “When I was in high school, I worked afternoons for a landscape architect. I was a lousy gardener, but I prepared a terrific PR brochure for my boss. During the year I took off after high school to bike across country, I did everything from short-order cooking to computer repairs to support myself; the real money came months later when my father had the letters I had sent home serialized in a magazine.” Propping his elbows on his knees, he looked seaward again. “By the time I got to college I thought I was headed for law school and the diplomatic corps; I spent most of my senior year collaborating with one of my professors on a book about the Russian Revolution. Even my stint in Vietnam backfired; the things that kept me going were the editorials I was sending back home.”
When he looked back at her, the frustration she had seen on his face had vanished. “Everything seemed to be pointing toward a writing career. I could only fight it so far.”
“Is your family overbearing?”
“Overbearing?” He chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it. But wait. I’m being unfair. My father is the only real villain there,” he decreed, but he was grinning. “Everyone else is okay.”
“How many are there?”
“Four of us kids, plus Mom and Dad.”
Danica’s eyes lit up. “Four kids? You must have had fun growing up.”
“We did, thanks to Mom. She’s a free spirit, as easygoing as Dad is demanding. She kept a handle on him as much as she could, at least until we were old enough to speak up to him. Poor woman,” he mused fondly, “after all her struggles to offer us the world, we’ve all ended up doing one sort of writing or another.”
“Really?”
“The oldest, Brice, works with my father in New York. The youngest, Corey, edits his own magazine in Phillie. Cilla writes feature articles for one of the papers in D.C.”
“Cilla?”
“Priscilla. My sister.”
“Is she older or younger?”
“Older by six minutes.”
“Twins! I don’t believe it! Are there two people like you in the world?”
He laughed. “She’s a she, which means we’re fraternal twins, which means we’re no more alike than any brother and sister. She’s very different from me—more outgoing, aggressive. She loves the rough and tumble of newspaper reporting; I’d be a basket case in a matter of months.”
“Everyone has his strengths. And since you do what you do so well—”
“Now, you don’t know that,” he teased with a lopsided grin.
“I know,” she vowed, guided by instinct. “And I think it’s great that you’re doing what you enjoy. And that you’re so successful at it. The other Buchanans must be proud.”
Michael hesitated for a moment, but not because he had doubts about his family’s pride. Rather, he was wondering when Danica would begin to put two and two together. The mention of the name Buchanan, the talk round and about newspapers and magazines…
“Michael?”
“Hmmm?”
Her face was a study in dawning awareness, a showcase for dismay and apprehension. “You haven’t said exactly what it is your father does.” Her voice was suddenly quiet.
“I think you just guessed.”
She closed her eyes and dropped her chin to her chest, then suddenly threw her head back and laughed. “I don’t believe it.” Her gaze met Michael’s. “I don’t believe it! Do you know how much my father hates yours?” But she was grinning. It had suddenly occurred to her that it wasn’t her war.
Michael agreed. “I can imagine. I’m not sure if the two of them have ever actually met, but I’d hate to be around when that happened. Our papers haven’t been kind to your father over the years.”
“My father hasn’t inspired kindness.” She shook her head in amazement, trying to assimilate what she had learned. “The Buchanan Corporation. Unbelievable.” Then a thought struck and her knuckles grew white on the rock by her hip. She had come to trust Michael completely; it would be a blow to find she had misplaced that trust. “You’ve known all along?”
But he was already shaking his head. He had anticipated her apprehension and prepared his defense. “I had no idea who you were that first day. It wasn’t until I spoke with Judy that I learned you were the senator’s daughter, and since then I’ve been wishing I belonged to any other family but my own.” He swiveled on his rock to face her. “You could hate me for some of the things our papers have said about your father, but please believe me when I say that I never condoned that kind of attack. That’s one of the reasons I’d never have made it with the Corporation. I meant what I said on the beach last time about my writing not being threatening. I would never do anything to hurt you, Danica. You know that, don’t you?”
She searched his face then, seeing the things she had seen all day and more. It was a handsome face, with its melting brown eyes and its windblown cap of sandy hair, and it held warmth and strength and affection. It also held desperation, and that she understood.
Slowly she nodded, thinking how very lucky she was to have found a friend who wanted her friendship every bit as badly as she wanted his.
Danica took her time driving back to Boston the following day. She felt relaxed and refreshed, free of the anger she had felt the morning before. She knew that Blake would be home that night, that she would tell him about the house, what she had bought, how she had slept on the living-room floor.
She wouldn’t tell him about Michael, though. Not yet. Michael was her own friend, neither a businessman nor a politician. Perhaps it was defiance she felt: after all, Blake had been too busy to make the trip; therefore he had no claim to what he had missed. Besides, she reasoned, she had a right to a friend, particularly one who was as easy to talk with and be with as Michael Buchanan. If there was something naughty about her associating with a Buchanan, so be it. She admired Michael. She enjoyed him. And she was thoroughly looking forward to seeing him again when she returned to Maine.
four
bLAKE WAS WITH DANICA THE NEXT TIME SHE drove north.
“I still don’t believe it,” she teased in the car, hoping to cajole her husband into a better mood. She knew that he’d had second thoughts about making the trip but had yielded for her sake, and she was grateful. She firmly believed that given time alone in a place far removed from the maelstrom of the city, she and Blake could recapture the spark their marriage had had once upon a time.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he stated with the same quiet conviction that characterized his every move. “My desk will be piled high by the time I get back.”
“We’ll only be away for three days,” she scolded gently. “Besides, you owe it to yourself. You’re always working. It’s been so long since you took time off just to relax.”
“A weekend would have been better.”
“But it’s impossible to get away on a weekend, Blake. We’ve been busy every one of the past six, with more to come in June. It’s the pre-summer rush of dinner parties, I guess, not to mention the fund-raising you’re doing.”
“You aren’t still bothered by that, are you?”
“No, no.” Slowly, very slowly, she had acclimated herself to Blake’s active support of Jason Claveling. There had been no argument. She and Blake never argued. They discussed. And with Blake his usual eloquent self when he wanted to make a point, she never really had a chance. So, in t
ime, the hurt had simply faded, then disappeared, as it always did. After all, she did want to be a good wife to him. “I can stand it as long as you can. Doesn’t it ever get to you, the backslapping and handshaking?”
He shot her a fast glance. “It’s business. You should know that. What does Bill say when you ask him?”
“I never ask. With him, it’s a way of life. From the earliest I can remember, he was going to political functions of one sort or another, and Mom accepts them, trouper that she is. You, well, I guess I didn’t expect you’d become so involved.”
“I was involved when you met me. Then I was raising money for Bill.”
“For the longest time I wondered about that. After all, you were a resident of Massachusetts while Dad was the senator from Connecticut.”
“Bill was a friend. I also happened to approve of his stands in the Senate, especially those affecting big business.”
“You were buying an insurance policy.”
His lips twitched at her subtle sarcasm. “It’s done every day of the week. In Bill’s case, it was easy. I liked him personally. And I liked you. With Claveling, it’s business all the way.”
They drove on for a while in silence before Danica spoke again. “If Claveling is elected, what will it mean to you?”
Blake’s answer was on the tip of his tongue, suggesting where his own thoughts had been. “Import quotas. Favorable trade agreements. Tax benefits. Who knows, maybe a cabinet appointment.”
She saw his grin when she darted a look his way. “Fun-ny,” she murmured, and relaxed back in her seat as the Mercedes crossed the Piscataqua River and entered Maine.
In her very biased opinion, the house was stupendous. Since Blake had insisted she let the decorator supervise all the furniture deliveries—and since she had been unable to get away to do so herself—she was seeing the finished product for the first time alongside Blake.
He seemed to approve, though whether he was simply indulging her she wasn’t sure. He walked from room to room, hands buried deep in the pockets of his slacks, and nodded from time to time.
“Well?” she finally asked. Her own excitement was tempered only by the suspense of not knowing what he thought.
“It’s very nice.”
He said the words without passion. Her shoulders sagged. “You don’t like it,” she murmured.
“I do. It’s perfect. You’ve done a wonderful job, Pook.” He gave her a broad smile, then turned. “I’ll get the bags.”
Very diligently, given the fact that they had only brought clothes for two days, and strictly casual ones at that, Blake unpacked while Danica went through the house a second, then a third time. Determinedly overlooking her husband’s apparent indifference, she enthusiastically examined every piece of furniture that had been delivered. It was the antithesis of the Beacon Hill town house, which, in keeping with its structure, had been decorated in a more classical style. Here, newly installed skylights illumined modular sofa clusters, low swirling coffee tables, custom-made wall units. The feeling was one of openness and lack of clutter and was precisely what Danica had wanted.
Blake returned from the bedroom to wander around the living room. He didn’t touch anything, simply wandered.
She rubbed her hands together. “What would you like to do?”
He shrugged and looked toward the deck. “Walk out there.”
He stood on the deck for no less than ten minutes, staring in the direction of the waves. When Danica had grown tired of waiting, she came to stand several feet from him. “Pretty, isn’t it,” she offered with a smile, hoping to get him talking. She hated the lengthy silences that so often existed between them, because she could never tell what he was thinking. His face was always composed, his manner as unruffled as his hair. But she knew that he felt, that he thought. What she didn’t know was why he couldn’t share those thoughts and feelings with her.
This day, this setting, apparently was going to make no difference. He simply nodded.
“It’s been interesting watching the changes since I’ve been here,” she went on, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible when in fact she was forcing conversation. Normally she would have been perfectly happy just to quietly appreciate the scene. Somehow now, beside Blake, she felt impelled to chatter. “When I came up in March, it was really cold. The ocean was a mass of whitecaps. You couldn’t smell much of anything because your nose was frozen. Then last month it was warmer. The air was moist and the wind didn’t bowl you over.” She inhaled deeply. “This is nice, though. May. You can smell the beach grass, feel the sun.” Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes and basked, momentarily forgetting Blake’s presence until he made it known.
“You said something about wanting to pick up paintings?”
Righting her head, she looked at him. “By local artists. Maybe a sculpture or two, also.”
“Why don’t we go now? I want to explore the streets and plot out a route to run.”
“You’re going to run up here? I kind of thought you’d take a break from all that.” When he shook his head, she felt another tiny bit of hope die. “I suppose it would be nice for you to run along the shore,” she rationalized, then sighed and forced a smile. “I’ll get my purse.”
They spent the next few hours idling through shops, looking unsuccessfully for artwork, then lunching at Cape Porpoise, buying groceries at the market, driving round and about the local streets while Blake calculated the best eight-mile route for him to run. In theory, it was an easygoing afternoon, just the two of them doing things together as Danica had dreamed.
In fact, it was a letdown.
To Danica, who was ever watchful, Blake seemed uncomfortable. It was as though he felt out of place, which she couldn’t understand since Kennebunkport was sophisticated, certainly enough to satisfy his tastes. But he kept looking around, restless, as if waiting for someone to talk to. Evidently Danica wasn’t that someone, for he seemed disinclined to carry on more than the most superficial conversation with her.
Between her watchfulness and those attempts at conversation, she felt drained by the time they returned to the house. Once there, things were no better. Blake wandered around like a lost soul, looking more frustrated than pensive, more awkward than unsure. She was half relieved when he disappeared into the den with the briefcase he had smuggled into the house. When she peeked in on him an hour later, he was talking on the phone and looking happy for the first time all day.
Busying herself in the kitchen, Danica studied the cookbooks she had brought, then painstakingly prepared a meal she felt sure would impress him. Indeed, he complimented her when he finally emerged for dinner, but no sooner had she brewed his coffee than he escaped back into the den, leaving her alone with her tea and her thoughts.
She lifted the tea bag tag. “Love is the magic that makes one and one far more than two,” she read silently, dropped the tag and wondered what had gone wrong. She and Blake were very definitely two. No more, no less. Two individuals, wanting, it appeared, increasingly different things in life.
She went to sleep thinking about that, awoke early the next morning thinking of it. Blake lay on his side of the large bed, his back to her, distant even in sleep. She wondered what time it had been when he’d come to bed, wondering if it had even occurred to him that she might be waiting. Not that she had been; by now she was used to being alone. Still, he was a man. Surely he thought of sex once in a while.
Studying his sleeping form, she reflected on the early days of their marriage. She had been attracted to Blake for his sureness, his social grace, his maturity. Sex had never held a high priority in their relationship, and she had never minded it. She had never seen herself as being a highly passionate person. In that, she and Blake seemed well matched. Still, she couldn’t help wondering whether he found her attractive. He rarely reached out for her, and even then she felt he did so more out of obligation than real need. Even now he looked untouchable.
The sound of a buzz jolted her from her th
oughts. Blake stirred, pushed himself up on an elbow, reached over to turn off the travel alarm Danica hadn’t known he had brought. She had assumed they would sleep late, awaken leisurely, break the pattern that dominated their everyday lives.
Clearly, she had assumed too much, a point the events of that day drove home. Bounding from the bed, Blake put on his fashionable navy running suit and left the house. She had a big breakfast ready by the time he returned and showered, but he ate only the amount he apportioned himself every other morning of the week, so the bulk of her efforts went down the drain.
At her gentle request, they drove up the coast toward Boothbay Harbor, stopping along the way to browse in craft shops and galleries, purchasing a ceramic sculpture and several planters for the deck. Blake was agreeable, if otherwise passive. Again she felt he was merely indulging her whim rather than finding enjoyment in the day himself. Again he disappeared into the den when they returned, and again she felt vaguely relieved. She also felt discouraged, though, and, with a quick word to him, headed for the beach.
Feeling suddenly freer than she had since she arrived, she wandered over sand and pebbles, around fingers of rocks, heading almost by instinct for the boulders she and Michael had shared a month before.
Michael. His name sparked thoughts of relaxation and fun and excitement. Just thinking about him, she felt better. He was different, so different. And he was her friend.
“Yeo!”
She looked up and started to smile, then, without thinking, broke into a jog, coming to a halt not six feet from him. “Michael!”
He looked as roguish, as bold, as welcoming as ever. He wore an open-necked plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, a pair of jeans that had seen better days, sneakers in a like state, and he was smiling from ear to ear. With his hair lightly mussed and his jaw faintly shadowed, he had to be the most stimulating sight she had seen in days.
When he opened his arms, she ran forward, tightly clasping his neck while he swung her gently from side to side. He smelled clean and felt strong, and she reveled in his affection.
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