by Donna Hill
She half smiled. “Willful, kind of tom-boyish when I was younger.” She followed the shadow of her footsteps as they walked. “I guess I wanted to be the boy that my father wanted. I had a few good friends. I enjoyed school. I was supposed to get a degree in global finance, which would have thrilled my father to no end.” She shrugged slightly.
“Global finance. You’re kidding?”
“Nope.”
“How did you make the switch to photography?”
She drew in a long breath and thought back to that night of her father’s win in the general election. The house was full of supporters. Champagne was flowing. Raucous laughter filled the air. Her brothers were in their element, glad-handing and schmoozing with the political and financial powerbrokers. Jacqueline may as well have been yesterday’s lunch for all the attention that was paid to her. She decided to occupy herself with the present her mother had given her a few years earlier—a Nikon camera.
She’d only used it a few times but after a couple of missteps she got the hang of it, and began snapping pictures of the festivities. It must have been nearly a month later when she thought about the camera again and went to have the film developed.
“I know I shouldn’t be commenting on customers’ photographs,” the clerk had said to her, “but did you take these photos?”
“Yes, why? Is there a problem?”
“No, not at all. These are really good. I mean
really good.”
Jacqueline was so completely taken aback she didn’t know what to think. “And you know this how?”
“In my other life, I do freelance photography for a couple of magazines and they are always looking for people. You’d be perfect.”
Her interest was piqued. “Are you serious?”
“Very serious. You’re really good. The composition is fantastic. The lighting.” He looked right at her. “You have talent.”
Jacqueline smiled at the memory. “His name was Peter Jennings. He gave me the ‘shutterbug.’ Got me my first assignment, mentored me and let me cry on his shoulder when my father went ballistic when I decided to drop out of LSU and take up photography.”
“Hmm, that must have been rough.”
“To a point. After all the yelling and gnashing of teeth,” she snickered, “and threats to be tossed out of the family will, I knew what I was going to do and it didn’t matter what my father and my brothers said or thought. I never respond well to yelling and threats.” She glanced at him from beneath her lashes to see his amused smile.
“And the rest is history as they say,” Raymond said.
“Sort of. I went to New York. Studied, met Traci and slowly started building a reputation for myself.”
“I’m still amazed that you were able to keep the Lawson name from sticking to you all these years.”
“There are two people—not including you—who know who my brother is, but I made it clear I would never trade in my name for a story or a photograph. I want what I do to be of my own merit. I don’t want special treatment or be expected to do more than anyone else.”
Raymond stopped walking. He clasped her shoulders and looked down into her eyes, lit by the overhead streetlights. The unique music of cicadas teased the air that was perfumed with the scents of magnolia blossoms and jasmine.
“And it’s one of the many things that I love about you,” he began, “your determination to be your own woman.” He paused a beat. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m going to say it. I think your stubbornness, your unwillingness to break this invisible code that you have is going to be to your detriment…or ours.”
She turned away. “I’ve made up my mind, Ray. And if you can’t deal with it then…”
“Then what, J? What? You’ll run off again?”
Her eyes snapped. She turned on her heel and headed back to where the car was parked.
“Is this going to be your answer to everything that you don’t want to deal with?” he demanded, catching up with her.
She stopped in midstep. The heat from her eyes was gone, replaced with a barely dim light. “Let’s not do this, Ray.” Her eyes moved slowly over his. “This is what I was trying to avoid.”
He lowered his head for a moment then looked at her. “If I didn’t love you, J, I wouldn’t give a damn what you did or how you did it. But I do and that means I’m invested in this thing and I’m not always going to say what you want me to say, but I’m going to say what’s on my mind and in my heart. And if I’m going to have to deal with your pigheadedness, you’ll have to deal with mine.”
Her mouth tightened then quivered ever so slightly at the corners as a smile teased her. “Deal,” she finally agreed.
Raymond’s dark gaze lightened. He slowly lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers before wrapping his arms tightly around her and molding her to his body. The thought of not having her terrified him in a way that explosions, car bombs and government coups or being lost in African jungles and desert wastelands never had.
The simple kiss mushroomed as their lips and tongues toyed with each other, eliciting soft sighs and rough groans.
“Let’s go home,” she whispered against his mouth.
“Let’s.”
* * *
Back at the hotel, the hunger that was fueled between them on the car ride home, with the slight touches on a thigh, fingers stroking a knee, a look, a sigh, all ballooned and exploded the moment they crossed the threshold.
All Raymond could think about was to possess her and make her understand that she was his and he was hers. To him that meant opening yourself, baring that part of your soul that no one else was allowed to see. It meant good and bad times. Yet, even as he stripped her bare and her lush honey-toned body was stretched out before him, he knew that possessing Jacqueline Lawson was like trying to hold the wind in your hand. You could feel it but when you opened your fist there was nothing left but the sensation.
But at least for now, for these moments when he moved in and out of the hot wet passage to her soul and she raised her hips to meet his every thrust and her legs rode up his back in wild abandon, and her cries of pleasure and the strangled calls of his name lit a fire in his belly—she was his.
* * *
The next day Jacqueline and Ray spent the morning touring New Orleans, taking pictures and sampling all the New Orleans delicacies. They even took a boat ride along the Mississippi.
By the time they returned to the hotel, Jacqueline was beyond exhausted. Her limbs felt like they would give out on her at any minute. Tiny dark spots danced in front of her eyes and her skin was clammy to the touch.
Raymond asked her several times if she was feeling all right as she’d grown quiet as the day progressed. But she insisted that she was fine.
She needed to lie down and close her eyes so that Raymond wouldn’t get to glimpse the fear that rested there. She’d only been out of the hospital a couple of days. She’d even had a transfusion. She was taking her meds. She was eating well. Yet, she was feeling the way she did before she collapsed. It was much too soon to have sunk this far so quickly. Something was wrong.
“I’m going to take a shower and lie down. I’m really tired,” she said, not daring to look at him.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” He walked over to her. She turned to get her robe from the foot of the bed.
“Look at me.”
She barely glanced up.
He clasped her shoulder to cease her movements. “Look at me.” She rolled her eyes, glanced up and stared at him.
“Happy now?”
“No. Not really. Your skin is cold.”
“I told you, I’m tired!” she snapped, more forceful than necessary.
He released her and held up his hands in submission. “Fine.” He backed up. “You’re tired. You n
eed a shower. Fine.” He turned and walked out into the front of the suite.
She was so weak her insides quivered. This is what she didn’t want—Raymond hovering over her, seeing her vulnerable and wanting to make things better. Didn’t he realize that he couldn’t?
She struggled to get out of her clothes. It felt as if it was taking forever and her clothing weighed a ton. She didn’t want to risk falling in the shower, so she ran the tub water and sat in the tub while it filled.
What if the experimental treatments didn’t work? The question continued to haunt her. Each time that it crossed her thoughts her pulse would race out of control and the bubbling feeling of dread rose from the balls of her feet all the way up to her throat. Even as she touted all the new developments, what she didn’t reveal was that with the advanced stage of her illness, the chances of the treatment working were greatly diminished.
Tears spilled from her eyes and her slender body shook as she wept, muffling the sounds by pressing her fist to her mouth. She rested her chin on her bent knees and wrapped her arm around her legs. Oh, God, what if it didn’t work? She didn’t want Raymond to be there to hear it or see it in her eyes. She couldn’t bear it. She simply couldn’t.
It had to work. It had to.
Chapter 16
Jacqueline sat on the side of the bed, sticking her feet into her slip-on shoes, better for getting out of at airport security, and talking to Traci on her cell phone that was tucked between her shoulder and her ear.
“Yes, I forgive you. I know you were only thinking of me.”
“Once you get settled in New York, I’ll be out to see you. I still can’t imagine you not being here,” Traci said, the strains of melancholy filtering through her voice.
“I know. I’ll have to see how things work out. At the time I thought it was the right decision to pack it all up and move to New York.”
“But…”
She sighed. “I’m not sure about much of anything right now. I only want to get through these treatments and then make some decisions.”
“Well, you know in this market your condo may take a while to sell.”
“Actually, I didn’t put it on the market.”
“What?”
“Nope.”
“In case you wanted to come back,” Traci stated more than asked.
“Yeah.”
“Ready?” Raymond called out from the front room. “The car is here.”
“Listen, sweetie, I gotta go. I’ll call you as soon as I can when we get to New York.”
“Let Ray take care of you for once and do what the doctors say.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll certainly try.”
“Love you.”
“Love you back.”
Jacqueline tucked her phone in her purse, quickly checked the room for any forgotten items then joined Raymond at the front door. The bellhop put their bags on the luggage cart and they headed out. In about five hours they would be at her rented apartment on West 72nd Street, blocks away from New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center where some of the most innovative medical discoveries were happening every day.
She was feeling better than she had the previous evening. She’d slept soundly, curled in Ray’s embrace. The solid, steady beat of his heart soothed her throughout the night and she awoke renewed and much more like herself. Her limbs didn’t feel as if they’d been shot with lead. Her thoughts were clear and the spots were gone. What if all that it took to cure her was a good night’s sleep in the arms of a man who loved her?
“What’s that secret smile?” Raymond softly asked as he settled back into his seat and fastened his belt.
“If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret.”
“Ah, touché. Anything that makes you smile is fine with me.” He reached over and held her hand for the rest of the flight.
* * *
They landed nearly an hour behind schedule at New York’s JFK Airport due to raging thunderstorms that had sprung up along the East Coast. The temperature was in the eighties and if it was possible the humidity was higher than in Baton Rouge.
There was no mistaking that they were in New York. The moment they stepped out of the terminal to get in line for a cab, the electric energy of the “city that never sleeps” was palpable. Everything and everyone moved faster, talked faster and seemed to enjoy life at a faster pace. There was an intangible excitement that seeped into the air that was breathed as if all the inhabitants on the isle of Manhattan were secretly being shot with tiny jolts of electricity.
Jacqueline had been all around the world and back again and next to her home in L.A. and her roots in Baton Rouge, New York was her favorite city.
The yellow cab zipped along the highway, swerved around cars that were moving too slowly and in no time flat the cabbie was zooming to a stop in front of Jacqueline’s building.
“I’d forgotten how crazy the New York cabbies were,” Raymond said under his breath. Jacqueline giggled.
Raymond grabbed their bags from the trunk, paid the driver, and before they could put two feet in front of them, the cabbie had sped away. They looked at each other and shook their heads in amusement.
Jacqueline looked up at the three-story brownstone. Her new home. She fished in her purse for the keys that had been mailed to her by the NY realtor. She tugged in a deep breath, stole a quick look at Raymond then took her first steps toward her new abode.
Her fingers shook ever so slightly as she slipped the key in the lock of the wrought-iron gate on the ground level. Raymond locked the door behind them and they walked into a small foyer that was already adorned with her small side table and topped with a vase filled with spring flowers. The mahogany woodwork gleamed and the hardwood floors sparkled as if they’d been hand polished. Her black-and-white photo of John Coltrane hung on the wall above the table and vase.
The anxiety that she felt diminished a bit after seeing the touch of home. If the entryway was any indication of the work that the designer and movers had done, then much of her anxiety would be alleviated. All she’d seen were pictures and had a virtual tour but this was the real thing.
To their left were wide mahogany sliding doors that, if memory served her, opened onto the enormous living room, then dining room and a kitchen.
Jacqueline pulled the doors open and her breath caught. The room belonged in a magazine. The centerpiece of the room was the massive brick fireplace and mantel, above which soared a massive mirror, framed in wood and brick that rose to the height of the cathedral ceiling. The all-white furniture—six-foot couch, love seat and two armchairs—were strategically placed throughout the room. Low glass-and-wood coffee tables braced the seating. Teal and soft orange were the accents for the room—from overstuffed pillows to throws to the casual oval rug. Along the back wall next to the archway that led to the dining room was a built-in bar. And from what Jacqueline could see, it was fully stocked. More of her photographs graced the walls.
They walked through to the dining area that was decorated with a long, slender table that would easily seat twelve. A rectangular-shaped chandelier that resembled a waterfall hung over the center of the table. Beyond the dining room was the kitchen that was the size of many apartments. White cabinets above and below provided ample storage and the stainless steel appliances gleamed. A center island with a built-in sink and wok still had enough room for seating of six.
Jacqueline walked over to the window and peeked out at the garden that had been expertly tended from what she could tell.
She spun toward Raymond wide-eyed and with a smile blooming on her face. “This place is…incredible,” she said on a breath and giggled with delight.
Raymond nodded but didn’t comment. He ran his hand along the granite counter.
“Come on let’s go upstairs,” she urged, with childlike excitement i
n her voice. She grabbed his hand and tugged him behind her back down the hallway and up the wide, winding staircase to the floor above.
The long hallway also had wide sliding doors to the right of the top of the staircase along with a door that led back out front.
Raymond did the honors and opened the sliding doors to reveal an intimate sitting- and reading room. A wide wooden desk that Raymond recognized from the apartment in L.A., sat beneath the floor-to-ceiling windows that were topped off with stained glass. Tucked in the built-ins along the side of the desk was some of Jacqueline’s camera equipment.
The center of the sprawling room used yet another fireplace as the focal point with two matching upholstered armchairs in a vibrant print of cherry-red, yellows and greens, and an antique chair with the seat cushion in a bold white-and-gold stripe. Two three-legged tables finished off the sitting area. At the far end of the room, built-in bookcases were lined with many of the photography books that she’d shipped ahead, along with an assortment of classic lit and noir fiction.
Jacqueline strolled along the hardwood floors and pulled open the frosted French doors that revealed her bedroom. It was exactly the way she’d described it to the designer. The king-size bed faced the bay window that looked out onto the garden. The bed was covered in a brilliant winter-white comforter that looked to be five inches thick. Dozens of pillows in a multitude of colors, shapes and sizes were on top. At the foot of the bed was a large oak chest. Mounted above the short headboard, encased in a black frame, was the official attire of a Japanese geisha that she’d purchased on one of her trips.
Vases overflowing with flowers sat on top of the dresser, the nightstand and in the window. She was thrilled to find that her clothes had been unpacked and hung up.
She spun toward Raymond, pure delight on her face and stopped cold when she saw his thunderous expression. “What’s wrong?”
His jaw clenched. His eyes scorched every surface then fell back on her. “Just how long were you planning this? Weeks, months?” His voice held a deathly calm, just above a harsh whisper. “This wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment thing.” He ran his hand across his head in frustration. He took a step toward her and stopped. “Look at this place.” His chest heaved in and out as he stretched his arms. “You were really going to leave. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers and she flinched as if a shot had been fired. “Without one damn word and without looking back! You had a whole other life set up and ready to go.” His scowl was so deep it cut a groove between his eyes.