And she asked quietly, ‘What is it, Heath?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Is there anything else you’d like?’
He didn’t answer immediately. Then he said brusquely, ‘Nothing you could give me, Sasha.’
She pushed her hair, which was floating in a shining cloud about her shoulders, back. ‘You don’t know that until you tell me, do you?’ she said reasonably.
She stood up to clear the plates and was suddenly conscious of him watching her intently, so that her skin prickled faintly and her hands were’t quite steady.
‘All right, I will tell you, Sasha,’ he said abruptly. ‘I could do very well with the services of someone like yourself tonight. And the fact that your hair is gleaming and catching the light and I can smell the perfume of it and have to watch you in that very fetching garment that’s so demure it’s an invitation to rip it off in itself—all this isn’t helping. But don’t get me wrong, Sasha, it’s not particularly you. You just happen to be on hand.’
She stood with her head bowed beneath the weight of his words and gasped as if he had plunged a knife into her heart.
Heath said tautly, ‘You did want me to tell you, didn’t you?’
She found she couldn’t answer and she surreptitiously wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and her head averted so that her hair hid her face.
‘But I presume your concern for me stops short of that, Sasha,’ he said mockingly. ‘Or does it, I wonder .
‘Stop it, Heath!’ she said hoarsely, then suddenly made up her mind. ‘I’m going.’
She turned away precipitously, but he was up in a flash, reaching for her, knocking over a chair and cursing viciously but managing to get her arm in an iron grip so that she cried out as he swung her towards him.
‘You’re not going anywhere, Sasha,’ he ground out. ‘You forced yourself on me, and the way things are I’d be a fool to knock you back.’
And then she was as angry as he was. ‘I hate you!’ she spat at him. ‘And you were right… oh, so right! You won’t ever be ready to be tied down to one woman, because you’re no better than a torn … tomcat on the prowl! You have to equate every passable woman with sex. Well, I’m not interested, and what’s more, I’m going—and you can’t stop me. Goodbye, Heath,’ she added with a flash of fury, and struggled desperately to free herself.
‘Oh no, you don’t, Sasha,’ he replied, and pulled her into his arms.
‘If you try to kiss me again, Heath,’ she said very softly through her teeth, ‘I’ll bite you and scratch you with all my strength,’ she threatened.
He stared down at her enigmatically and simply tightened his hold on her as she moved convulsively in his arms and finally subsided, panting.
‘Has Brent… slept with you, Sasha? he asked then.
‘That’s got nothing to do with it!’ she cried. ‘Let me go, Heath!’
‘But it has, technically speaking,’ he drawled, not for a moment relaxing his hold. ‘Yet something tells me he hasn’t, and I can’t help wondering why.’
‘Well, it’s none of your business in the first place,’ she said fiercely. ‘Not everyone is like you,’ she added contemptuously. ‘And anyway, I wouldn’t be too sure, if I were you, because there’s no way you can know and no way you’re going to find out!’
Heath grinned then and all his old devilry glinted out of his deep blue eyes. ‘Of course you’re right,’ he said lazily. ‘About there being only one way to find out. All the same, I’d like to bet I’m right. Because you lack the cool someone with experience would show in handling these awkward little situations and immoral, dissolute persons—like myself, for instance.’
She tightened her lips, but he only laughed at the expression of outrage that filled her grey eyes and she knew she had no chance of outwitting him verbally. Her shoulders sagged involuntarily and she said wearily, ‘Let me go, Heath.’
‘In a minute. You know you’d enjoy it, Sasha—I’d make sure of that. We could do it on the rug in front of the fire if you liked. I’m sure you’d look like a lithe, supple goddess with the firelight playing on your pale, perfect skin and your beautiful hair …’
He loosened his arms a fraction as she stared up at him with her lips parted, and smiled faintly. ‘Yes, you would,’ he said, his voice suddenly curiously uneven. ‘Your breasts and your thighs would glow like pale marble overlaid with gold … And I’d spend a long time just touching you, because that’s half the pleasure of it. Skin touching skin, mine touching yours, first my hands, then my lips, then my body on yours and your hands on me …’
Sasha wanted to tear her eyes away from his, but found she couldn’t, and she also found that she was breathing rapidly and her pulses were clamouring at the images he had created in her mind and a slow sort of heat was invading her body. And she marvelled at how he could do this to her. Then she thought of the one thing he hadn’t said and she knew she’d hate herself, and perhaps him, if she submitted to the unbearable pleasure he was telling her of, knowing full well he didn’t love her, and maybe was using her as a substitute.
And her bright head sank slowly and she shuddered.
‘Sasha?’ he said at last, very quietly and on quite a different note.
‘No, Heath,’ she said huskily. ‘I can’t—I’m sorry. It’s … it’s better if I go.’
‘All right,’ he said gently. ‘I mean it’s all right if you don’t want me to make love to you. But you don’t have to go.’
‘Yes, I do,’ she whispered. ‘How can I not!’
He leant his head back against the wall and loosened his arms again so that they were just clasped loosely about her waist. ‘Perhaps you could forgive me again,’ he said at last. ‘Please stay, Sasha’ I don’t know what I’d do without you and I don’t know what moved me to … treat you like that. You see, even if you were my sister, I couldn’t value you more.’
She closed her eyes, but the tears refused to be checked and he brought his fingers up to smudge them from her cheeks.
‘Don’t cry, Sasha,’ he said, and pulled her forward so that her head was buried in his shoulder. ‘I told you what kind of a man I was,’ he said with a sort of suppressed violence, although he stroked her hair gently. ‘Now you really know.’
I. don’t know what I know any more, she thought miserably. In fact I don’t know anything any more outside of this moment…
‘We could play Gilbert and Sullivan tonight,’ he said, his voice deep while his hand still stroked her hair. ‘Ever since I came home you haven’t played any of it, and I know you have the whole range here. And do the crossword—and since we both didn’t eat much we could toast muffins on the fire and make some mulled wine. Would you like that?’
She moved her head and swallowed her tears.
‘Would you, Sasha?’ He looked down at the head cradled in his shoulder at last and closed his eyes briefly. Then he took his hand from her hair and put his fingers beneath her chin to tilt it upwards. ‘Sasha?’
‘I … yes.’
They did it all.
And gradually Sasha relaxed so that by the time they went to bed it was as if nothing tempestuous had happened between them—outwardly, at least.
But inwardly, as she climbed into the bed that had been hers for as long as she could remember, the tears were still there, and as she lay listening to the wind as she had so many nights this winter, she knew finally that she loved Heath Townsend because nothing he did made her hate him—however hard she tried.
The next day the sun shone and a fragile, precarious warmth in the air turned Sasha’s thoughts to the garden. So she went out armed with a pair of clippers and started to prune the roses. Heath joined her after a while and they worked together in a companionable silence enjoying the first touch of spring.
And it was when he rolled up his sleeves that she noticed the long; new-looking scratch on his forearm.
‘When did you do that?’ she asked. ‘It looks as if you’ve been having a go at the rose
s already.’
‘Oh, that,’ he said casually. ‘I got my coat caught up in an old barbed wire fence yesterday. I had to take it off to get it disentangled and scratched myself in the process. Which annoyed me somewhat, so that I took an incautious step—it was down on the riverbank—and I slipped and landed flat on my back.’
‘Which annoyed you more?’ she hazarded with a grin.
‘Too right, as they say in the Antipodes.’ He grinned back at her. ‘Just as well there was no one around to hear!’
‘Is that all the damage?’ she asked.
‘Almost. A few bruises, but I can’t see them.’
‘Ah,’ she said understanding^, and they went back to pruning energetically.
That evening Sasha almost fell asleep in front of the fire. They were watching television and she was curled up in a big armchair like a cat.
‘… Sasha.’
She yawned and rubbed her eyes.
‘Yes?’ she looked enquiringly at Heath.
‘I said, isn’t it time for bed?’ he asked with a faint smile.
‘Mmm,’ she agreed sleepily. ‘I’m so comfortable, though. Is this programme any good?’
‘Not unless you like everything high-powered and bright and shiny new. The heroine looks as if she’s stepped out of a store window display …’
It was a moment before it struck Sasha that his voice had sounded strange as he stopped speaking. She stirred and then sat up hurriedly as she saw him raise one hand to cover his left eye.
‘What is it?’ Her voice got caught in her throat.
He didn’t answer.
‘Heath?’ She found her mouth had gone dry.
‘I’m not … sure,’ he said at last. ‘This afternoon I though I had something in this eye. Now I feel as if I’m looking through a dust storm with strange … lights.’
Sasha jumped up with all thoughts of sleep fleeing from her mind. ‘J-just stay there,’ she said shakily. ‘I’ll call Doctor James . ..’
Events moved so swiftly after that, she had little time to draw breath. Doctor James refused to comment on the situation himself, but the speed with which he
summoned an ambulance and the look of frustration in his eyes when he tried to contact the specialist and couldn’t immediately, supported Sasha’s own feeling that this was a very grave situation for Heath.
And when they finally got to town, to the private hospital he had booked Heath into, he left them at the reception desk and again went away to phone.
‘Sasha?’
‘Yes, Heath?’
‘Don’t stay. Go to the flat and get some sleep. You’re exhausted as it is. The commissionaire knows you, he’ll let you in.’
She looked down at him, on the stretcher as Doctor James had insisted, and opened her mouth to protest. But something in his pale, grim face stopped her.
‘All right,’ she said quietly, and pressed his hand gently. ‘But I’ll be back in the morning,’ she warned, and forced herself to turn away as two orderlies came up to wheel him away.
But she didn’t go. And it was Doctor Jiames who discovered her in the waiting room. ‘Sasha! I’ve been looking for you. Why aren’t you with Heath?’
‘He doesn’t want me,’ she said steadily. ‘Is it … do you know anything yet?’ Her voice cracked and he put an arm around her shoulders.
‘I can’t get hold of the right people at the moment, Sasha, and I’m no expert on ophthalmology or neurological problems, so I’d rather not say just yet. And as for Heath not wanting you with him when he’s lying there imagining himself going blind and while I can’t honestly give him any assurances to the contrary—my dear, I don’t believe it,’ he said gently, and took her hand. ‘Come.’
The room Heath was in was dark apart from the light coming in from the window—reflected street lights from the city below—and it took a moment for Sasha’s eyes to adjust to the gloom. Then she could make out his
shape in the bed and the white bandage around his head.
He moved restlessly as if he sensed a presence and she said quickly, ‘It’s only me—Sasha,’ and felt her heart beating in her throat as she waited for his reaction.
There was silence.
She licked her lips and said, ‘I’m sorry. I sort of got hijacked into coming. I know you didn’t want me to. I’ll go …’
She turned away, but his voice reached her.
‘How did you get hijacked, Sasha?’
‘Well,’ she temporised, then said wearily, ‘I didn’t ever go. And Doctor James found me. Goodnight, Heath
‘Don’t go, Sasha,’ he said very quietly. ‘Come here,’ he added, and waited patiently as she approached the bed uncertainly. ‘I’m glad you got hijacked, as you put it,’ he said softly, and reached out a hand gropingly.
She put her hand into his and after a moment sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I won’t stay long,’ she said huskily.
‘I wish to God you would.’ He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. ‘I don’t have any designs on you, in case you’re worried about that,’ he said wryly, ‘but I . .,.’
He didn’t finish, but she thought she heard him sigh as he released her hand and seemingly of their own ‘ accord, her fingers wandered to his head and felt his hair damp with sweat and the tension in his temples.
‘I don’t think they’d mind if I stayed for a while. If you wanted me to,’ she whispered.
‘Would you lie down beside me, Sasha?’
She didn’t answer, only did as he bade quite naturally, on top of the covers. He slid one arm loosely around her waist and she stroked his hair.
And the gentle motion of her fingers seemed to open a floodgate.
‘I thought I’d resigned myself to this, if it happened, Sasha. But it’s the kind of thing you tell yourself, otherwise you’d go insane. And I’ve tried to console myself with the thought that I’ve seen it all—if it happens. That if people talk of yellow, say, I can picture a banana or a daffodil. Only it isn’t much consolation, and I can’t help wondering if Pll forget.’ His voice was husky and very tired. ‘But the worst thought of all is how I’m going to cope with being led around, fed … utterly dependent… I…’ He stopped, and she felt the bitterness in him as if it was her own.
What can I say? she wondered. What can anyone say that doesn’t sound trite and trivial? Wouldn’t it be a jibe at his intelligence to say all the conventional things, because nothing is going to make it any easier for him. - And when she said nothing, just kept stroking his hair, he murmured at last, ‘At least you understand, Sasha, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Heath,’ she whispered.
He lifted his hand and she felt his fingers on her face, tracing the outline of her mouth. ‘How come you understand these things so well?’ he asked very quietly, his lips barely moving. ‘No, don’t try to answer,’ he added with two fingers just lightly on her lips. Then his hand moved away to slide through her hair and he said on an oddly wry note, ‘You once threatened to recite The Man from Snowy River to me. Would you think I was mad if I asked you to do it now?’
‘Not mad,’ she whispered, ‘although you might think - so once I get started. But you can always stop me. Let’s see … There was movement on the station … for word had passed around, That the colt from old Regret, Had joined the wild bush horses—he was worth a thousand pound …’
It was his regular breathing that told her he was finally asleep, after she had gone through her whole repertoire
of Banjo Patterson including Clancy of the Overflow and even Weary Will the Wombat which her mother had recited to her as a child.
And she just lay there for a long time drinking in his presence in the strange half-light and wondering at the magic Heath held for her whether he could see or not, and how defenceless he looked and how vulnerable, and how she had never thought to see Heath like this, at the very mercy of fate.
And every fibre of her being cried out in despair because she knew she was strong enough to see him through wh
atever might lie ahead, just as she knew he wouldn’t let her, didn’t really want her.
CHAPTER TEN
It was a beautiful spring morning that greeted Sasha’s weary eyes several hours later.
She hadn’t left the hospital but had spent the time in the ward’s waiting room while Heath slept. Which was the best thing for him, the Sister had told her, and added confidingly, ‘I was going to give him something, but it’s even better this way.’
Then there was a new Sister on duty and it was she who insisted Sasha go down to the cafeteria for some breakfast.
‘Is he awake? Could I see him?’ Sasha asked.
‘Best not to at the moment, love. There’s a team of specialists due to arrive any minute. But I’ll tell the doctor where you are just in case. Now off you go before we have to find a bed for you too!’ she added with firm kindness.
But when Sasha got back after ordering a breakfast she didn’t eat and several cups of coffee, it seemed they were still with Heath, and her nerves already stretched to breaking point, seemed to stretch that little further.
Then Doctor James appeared and took one look at her and led her back to the cafeteria.
‘Please just tell me,’ she begged. ‘I don’t want to eat or drink!’
‘Yes, you do,’ he said briskly, and ordered two coffees. ‘At least, I do. In fact I rather wish this was champagne!’
Sasha was glad she was sitting down. ‘Is it… isn’t it as bad …’ she croaked, and wondered if her tired brain was playing tricks on her.
‘No, Sasha,’ he said compassionately as he took in her white face. ‘But it’s an amazing coincidence, which was why, although I suspected it, I thought it best to be cautious. As I said, I’m no expert, and with Heath’s history—but there, I’m rambling on. It appears these present symptoms Heath’s suffering from are due to a detached retina which was probably caused by a fall he had a couple of days ago.’
Sasha stared at him. ‘Yes,’ she said wonderingly, ‘he did fall, he told me about it. So it’s nothing to do with the optic nerve?’
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