~•~
He did not leave her after he left her body. He did not even fall asleep, as Cam usually had. She lay on her side, her back to him, and he held her against him and stroked her hair and shoulder. They did not speak; he told her musingly that he wanted to enjoy the quiet, and she stared out into the vastness of the night sky and the bleakness of her own heart.
~•~
How many times she fired, she couldn’t remember later.
The memory played over and over in her mind, he staring at her in a sort of stunned horror, clasping his hand to a rapidly spreading patch of red on his shoulder, she breathing harder and feeling sicker as Francie’s poisons spread through her blood. The baby, having made only a few tentative motions in the course of its short existence, lay quiet and dying in her womb.
Without another word, he walked away and left her.
~•~
After a while, he shifted against her, and she knew a moment of aching despair that he wanted to make love to her again. Not that, please, anything but that, she didn’t think she could endure another failure…. But when he spoke, he said merely, “Do you know one of my great fantasies?”
His voice was low and affectionate, and she thought in relief that she must have brought it off, after all. She whispered back, “You want to tie me up and play pirate?”
Ah, Cat, what a godsend she was.
A pleasant, tired laugh. “Another time, perhaps. I’m not into bondage tonight. No,” and he dropped a kiss on her shoulder, “a lot of nights I turn off the lights and listen to your music. I use the time to recharge my creative batteries. I’ve solved a lot of engineering problems, sitting there, listening to you in the dark.” His hand traveled slowly down the side of her body, into the curve of her waist and up again onto the slope of her hip.
She tensed, wondering what he wanted, afraid to hear any more musing confidences. She didn’t want to know what lay in his heart, what he thought about her lying there in his arms, his wife’s sister, his mistress’s twin. Or, God forbid, the woman of eleven long-ago Chesapeake summers.
“Sing for me.”
A request from the audience, an encore after the curtain call. She relaxed.
“What do you want to hear?”
“Anything,” he said, “your choice.”
She sang. She sang her heart out. A new song, one she had written in those last London afternoons of searching through the depths of her memory for traces of the Laura Abbott who had once lived in her father’s house and loved her sister’s husband. She had thought it a painful song and left it rough and unfinished, determined never to record it. She heard it now, her voice echoing against the southern pine of the walls, and thought it only melancholy.
When she finished, he said only, “Ah, Cat. Another lovely performance.”
Act Three: Remnants of a Late Afternoon
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit
(The Merchant of Venice, Act Two, Scene Six)
Chapter 18: Falling Off the Edge
WHEN LAURA AWOKE, she was alone.
She blinked against the early morning light tiptoeing in through the window, and her arm reached out towards the other side of the bed. The sheets felt cool and vacant. Only her body bore mute witness to the man who had occupied both the night before.
And occupy her he had, twice, a second time at dawn when her eyes had fluttered open to meet his watchful gaze.
And now – now he was gone.
She bolted upright in bed, and she knew that she hadn’t dreamed the night before. Her nightgown lay discarded on the floor, the other pillow still bore the imprint of his head, and his leather jacket hung neatly on the back of her dressing table chair. And her body remembered his very real presence.
She lifted her hand to her face, and smelled their mingled scents.
Mingled… oh, God, mingled scents, shared mouths and bodies. No turning back, he had said, and she had agreed and led him to the bed. Do you want this?
Richard had become her lover. She had become his.
She started to sink back against her pillow, until she heard the unmistakable closing of the front door downstairs. Was he coming or going – but then she heard the faint purr of his car, and the opening of the gates. She squinted at the clock on her nightstand and saw that it was only seven.
What if he decided not to come back?
What if he did?
~•~
Laura took one look in the mirror and recoiled. The emotional storm of the evening before still haunted her face; she had cried so hard that her eyes were still swollen and red. She had the faintest red marks across her jaw; she touched them and realized that they were whisker burns, and that she had matching sets on both her breasts. She could see the marks on her shoulders where he had held her tightly and she had gloried in the pain.
She had gloried in it all, she thought deliberately, and held a cold cloth to her eyes. Heaven only knew he had given her plenty of chances to back out, but she hadn’t. She had wanted him from her earliest memory, and last night he had finally become hers.
And she had failed, at the very moment when she had gained all she had ever wanted.
She distanced herself in the shower, smoothing the soap over her shoulders, letting the soothing water wash away the emotional damage to her face. Okay, so she had failed. It wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t even the end of them. She had started off badly with Cam, and they had managed to make a marriage from it—
Not a good comparison. He paid you. You sold yourself. You took two hundred dollars for sex with him.
And you never once faked anything with Cam. There was always honesty there, at least.
Richard obviously hadn’t been too upset at her emotional disconnection at the critical moment. When she awoke at first dawn, she had turned towards him, following his breathing in the still of the night. She had thought he had been sleeping too, and maybe he had, but she focused on him through the night and saw him watching her steadily. She hadn’t stopped to think. She had leaned over and kissed him, and slowly, Cat Courtney had started to make love to him.
Surely, he wouldn’t have urged her to put her hands on him, or let her take the lead, if he hadn’t wanted her or—
If he had looked into her eyes and seen the woman who had lain beneath him at Ash Marine, the woman who had teased him and loved him and—
Her mind skittered away from the thought.
The woman who had pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger.
It lay there then, in front of her, the ending of the nightmare that she had never quite relived, the moment she had managed never to remember. For one terrible moment, she knew the heaviness of the gun in her hand, felt the tension in her finger as she pulled back on the trigger, watched the blood spread on his shoulder.
Oh, God! She reached out to brace herself against the shower wall.
Her hands still ached from the cuts Diana had inflicted.
Diana! How could she face Diana today? How could she face her ever?
Richard and I are mated for life.
How could she ever face him?
~•~
He came back. As she toweled off, she heard his car. As she rummaged for something to wear, the front door opened. As she covered up the last ravages of the night, she heard him moving around the kitchen downstairs.
She selected a pretty floral sundress from her wardrobe, all white roses and violets on a shimmery green background, and laid it carefully on the bed. Downstairs, she heard him talking. Max, that traitor, must have run downstairs to hang out for a while with another male. She wondered how long she could linger in the room, but nothing, after all, could keep him from coming upstairs to find her there hiding from him.
And she was hiding. I don’t know how to face him. I don’t know how to act the morning after. I don’t know what he wants or expects….
I don’t even know what I want.
Oh, but she did know. She wanted to turn back time and tide, to make the great sea of their adult lives still uncharted before them. Passion and blood, rage and adultery and the most terrible of betrayals, all still ahead, and this time the iceberg seen in time to prevent the tragedy….
She wanted to wipe the slate clean, and her hands with it.
You will not find absolution in this room.
She stiffened then, and marched back to her dressing table. Her eyes looked better now, not so stretched-out. She said aloud, “All right now,” straightened her shoulders, and walked downstairs to meet her lover.
~•~
He’d gone out to get breakfast. A box of bagels lay open on the island counter, and he’d left a cup of fast-food orange juice for her beside a container of cream cheese. But the room, and the house, had an empty stillness. Not even the ghosts of last evening lingered.
Through the picture window, she saw an unexpected movement of a blue sleeve out near the pool.
For a second, she felt disconnected from all her knowledge of him, as if time had indeed run backwards on her. He appeared as a stranger. He had a book open on the table, and the sun glinted softly off his dark hair as he lost himself in his reading. One hand absently crumbled a bagel. He seemed alone, self-contained, as if he had nothing to do with a common past, a shared afternoon of blood and lust, a past night of anguish and discovery.
This was probably how he appeared to the rest of the world.
Then he turned a page, and that gesture summoned up a small memory, tucked away all these years.
It might have been long ago, a Saturday morning when she joined him for fishing or flying models, and they ate a light breakfast first to satisfy Peggy. So many times she had come across him like this, reading, lost in his own world, relaxed and peaceful. So many times he had looked up with an offhand smile and a “Good morning, Laurie.” Casual and careless always, dispensing the minimal attention due a bit player in his life.
But it wasn’t all those years ago, and he wasn’t her secret crush anymore, and he wasn’t a boy with all his life and loves before him. And she was no longer a girl content to settle for a careless smile and the honor of cleaning his catches or watching him crash a model into the lake.
The world had changed.
Hands shaking, she fixed a bagel and brewed a cup of tea. He lifted his head when she opened the door, and his eyes met hers as she came down the terrace stairs and across the flagstones to the table.
He rose immediately, silently, his book forgotten. In the morning light, she saw further evidence that he was no longer a boy. She saw the remnants of their broken sleep around his eyes, she saw his eyes flare with an awareness she didn’t dare consider, and….
And the world shifted again. He stood there before her, no longer Diana’s boy knight or Francie’s young demon lover. In the darkness, this man had met her equal to equal on the vast plain of desire.
His voice, low, husky, “Good morning, Laurie.” And he took the bagel and tea from her, placed them on the table, and turned back to enclose her in his arms.
I have wanted you across these years, I have waited to step into your arms. Now you’re here, and you’re mine, and what do I feel? What do I say?
His hand rested warmly against the small of her back, stroking her, comforting her. That lovely, reassuring gesture melted her body into his. She lifted her face to kiss him, and with that he too relaxed. Perhaps he had wondered too about this first meeting, perhaps for him also the world had shifted on its axis. She tasted coffee on his mouth; she felt the warmth of his body along hers, and a sudden glorious certainty glowed luminous in her blood.
“Good morning to you too,” she murmured against his shirt.
He smiled down at her. “I thought I was going to have to drag you out of bed. Did you get enough sleep?”
“No,” she admitted, and then it was all right. He guided her to the table with his hand still warm against her back, and she knew in relief that he didn’t know, the nightmare ending hadn’t happened after all. “But I got more than you did. Richard – you look so tired.”
He caught her gaze and held it as he sat down opposite her, an aware, knowing look that told her he well remembered the feeling of her body against his. “I’ll pay for it later,” he said, “but it was worth it, by God, it was worth it indeed.”
She felt the blush creeping up into her face at the frank look in his eyes, and she wanted to drop her gaze. But no, that was the reaction of a girl, and she had been a woman now in this man’s arms. She had told this man that she loved him, she had confessed her heart to him, she had welcomed him into her body. And in the light of day, face to face with him, she was not sorry.
She sipped her tea steadily. “Maybe you should grab a nap later.”
“Or an early night,” he returned, equally steadily. Oh, what a wonderful idea… an early night together, and forget her failure of the night before. She’d make it up to him tonight. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. We need to talk, Laurie.”
We need to talk…. No, no, no….
Dear God, was he going to tell her it had all been a horrible mistake, he’d changed his mind, had second thoughts…. Let her down easy, because she was still the friend of his youth? But he was still looking at her gently, openly. It was worth it, indeed. He had meant that. He had kissed her this morning in welcome, and not as a friend.
She was not going to panic.
She made herself keep looking at him. “I’m here, Richard.”
Now it was his turn for silence. She watched as he bought himself time and space by pushing his book away, tasting his coffee, brushing aside bagel crumbs. What was he composing in his mind as he leaned forward, shifting ever so slightly to get the sun out of his eyes?
“There was—” he began, and paused. “When I came back here last night, I didn’t intend,” he gestured, “what happened. That wasn’t my intention at all. I shouldn’t have left you, Laurie. No matter what had happened between us, I shouldn’t have left you alone, not after what you went through yesterday. I realized that once I got home. I just left you here, part of the debris of – this whole damnable mess, and I couldn’t let you face that by yourself.”
He stopped and waited for her. She had to say something. And the honesty in him demanded the same of her. “I thought,” she moistened her lips, “I thought – when you left – I thought that was the end.”
“And it nearly was,” he said. “I realized that, if I didn’t come back, we were finished. We’d never survive the way we left things.”
She saw the truth of that. She’d laid too heavy a burden on him, she saw now, with that desperate confession. She had made it impossible for them ever to meet again, except….
Her heart was beating fast now. She took all her courage in hand. “Richard—”
He looked at her, and waited.
She gestured blindly, and to her horror she felt the burning of tears in her eyes. “But you came back. And you – you said that there was no going back. That sex changes things.” Oh, God, she was not going to cry! She was going to face this squarely. After everything else she’d endured, she would face this. She said desperately, “Has everything changed?”
Silence. She blinked away the sting in her eyes and stared hard at him, across the table, across the whole of their lives, and waited for the answer she could not read in his eyes.
He said quietly, “That’s up to you.”
She drew a painful breath.
Richard’s hands closed around hers, and she surrendered to the warm, firm touch of his fingers on hers. “I was wrong last night,” he said, “wrong for more years than I want to think. You were right, I never saw you. But I do know I’m doing the right thing, Laura, when I tell you that you can decide that last night changed nothing. If you want to write off last night as an experiment—”
“No—”
“We can, you know.” He overrode her words, ignoring the way her fingernails were digging i
nto his hands. “We can decide that last night we laid some old ghosts, satisfied some old curiosity. We grew up together, and it’s only natural that, after all these years apart, our friendship has turned into attraction. But we can take care of that. We can sit here rationally and decide that last night changed nothing, and we put it aside and go on from there. And, I promise you, we can make that work.”
Her heart sank.
“Or,” he continued, “we can decide that there’s no going back, last night changed everything. We can go forward, see what we have to give to each other. Laura,” and his voice made her look at him, “it is up to you.”
She wanted to look away, but couldn’t. She whispered, “What do you want to do?”
“What I want,” Richard said, “is to do what you want.”
“I don’t—” and now she had to look away. She couldn’t stand to keep looking at his unflinching gaze. “I don’t want last night to have been – some kind of casual sex – it wasn’t, was it?”
“No,” said Richard above her bowed head. “I’ve never had casual sex. I’ve never made love with a woman I didn’t care about, and last night was no exception. Laura. Look up at me, Laura. It wasn’t casual.”
She regained her voice. She had to say it; she couldn’t let it languish unspoken between them. “Last night – last night I told you I loved you.”
The gift so long unclaimed… and did he claim it now? Or ever?
He took a deep breath, and his eyes turned grave and distant. “I know,” he said, “and of all the gifts you’ve given me, that one I deserve the least. I’ve abused your feelings for me for longer than I want to remember. But, after all that, you still love me. And – and of course you want it returned, don’t you? I wish I could say it, Laurie. But I can’t. I just don’t have it in me anymore.”
All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) Page 43