A Love for All Seasons (12 page)

“Yeah, like you'd even consider having a woman doctor.”

“I have nothing against women, Alicia. In fact, they're my favorite species.”

“Well, just don't blame me when you get rheumatism in your legs. And don't ask me to iron your pants when they dry and get all wrinkled, either. The iron is hanging on the back of the pantry door.”

“Okay, I promise I'll live uncomplainingly with the consequences of my stubbornness.” He lifted his feet and then lowered them into the warm water of the massage tub. “Ahhh, that feels good.”

“That'll get your blood rushing again,” she said confidently.

His hand rested on her shoulder. “Thanks again, Alicia.” He wanted to tell her she'd make a good wife to some lucky man one day, but his gut told him not to say it.

“Hey, what are friends for?”

Her statement startled him. While he saw nothing wrong with starting off as friends, he wanted so much more than that from her. He couldn't resist asking, “So is that what we are? Friends?” Unconsciously he increased the pressure in the hand that rested on her shoulder.

“I hope so, Jack. I like you. I like being with you, and I hope you like spending time with me. But I can't stand being hemmed in. I can't abide being asked to give up my friends because someone wants exclusive rights to me, like I'm…song lyrics or something.”

At that moment Jack became aware of his hand pressing into her shoulder and immediately removed it. “Oh, I agree,” he said loftily. “In my time a number of women have suggested that I burn my address book.” He chuckled at the memory, but nonetheless Alicia's words stung a little. He wanted more than mere friendship from her, damn it! But he couldn't ask if she saw anything more developing between them without coming off sounding like a simpering idiot, no better than the women who'd tried to fence him in like he was a pet cocker spaniel.

Then he had an idea of how to get a feel for her thoughts without it looking like he was out to pin her down.

“You sound like you've never been in love, Alicia,” he said. “Like you've never met someone you couldn't get enough of. Someone you wanted to be with night and day.”

She didn't reply right away. He watched as she lithely raised her body off the floor pillow and moved to sit next to him, wondering if it was an attempt to stall.

“No, I haven't,” she finally said. “What I've seen of love is stifling. Like Rhonda saying she has to hurry home to fix Pete's dinner. You'd think he never ate before they got married.” Her eyes met his, and she flashed a devilish grin. “On the other hand, I
have
had intervals where I felt I couldn't get enough of someone, but it always passes.”

“You're talking about sex,” he said roughly. “I'm talking about something completely different.”

She pretended to look confused, not fooling him for an instant. “What's wrong with sex?” she asked innocently.

“Not a thing. Sex is good.” He kept up the banter, but privately he marveled at her obvious comfort with what was, in his experience, a subject broached by the man of the species and usually avoided by the female like a credit card bill after a spending spree.

He decided to steer the conversation back to her views on love. “I'm surprised to hear you say you've never been in love,” he remarked.

“Does that make me a freak or something?”

She sounded playful, he noted, not insulted. “No, of course not. Just unusual. After all, you're not a kid. But you're not even particularly close to anyone, are you?”

She thought for a moment. “I guess that's true. I'm really rather self-sufficient. But there are a lot of folks I care about. My mother, of course. And my friends.”

Like me
, he thought. “You've got a lot of friends, don't you?”

“It's rather a small circle. A lot of people merely pass through a person's life. People you see every day at work, for example. Then they move on and you don't see them anymore. And old boyfriends, or in your case, girlfriends. Although I've remained friendly with many of mine.”

Jack immediately thought of Derek Taylor.

“I've even been invited to some of their weddings,” Alicia continued.

“You must have parted on good terms.” He liked this conversation; it gave him important insight into Alicia's psyche. If he expected to get anywhere with her he had to first understand how her mind worked. While Pete's offerings had been helpful, he wanted more. She'd been uncharacteristically open this afternoon.

Suddenly he became aware of the increasing temperature of the water his feet soaked in. “Whoa! This has gotten awfully hot.” He raised his legs, resting his feet on the edge of the tub.

“I'll get you a towel.”

He watched as she hurried toward a closet in the front of the apartment near the bathroom. Her rear end rotated nicely in the gray sweat pants she wore. Then he realized something else.

Alicia's apartment only had one bed.

Where would he sleep tonight?

“I picked up some sandwiches from the deli,” she said after she handed him the towel. “Hot subs, with melted cheese and sautéed onion, with fixings that stay cold on the side, like lettuce and pickle. I can heat one up for you if you're hungry. I'm ready for dinner, and it'll take a good fifteen minutes to heat them up.”

“It'll be quicker if you put them in the microwave,” he commented as he dried his feet, which once more felt like a part of his body. He imagined that people throughout the metro area who had gone to work unprepared to tread through deep snow would be soaking their feet tonight. All the shoe repair businesses in the area would probably have a spike in business as well.

She wrinkled her nose. “Microwaves make the bread get all chewy. I'd rather do it the old-fashioned way.”

“I guess I should have thought to pick up some food before I got here. To be honest, all I thought about was getting out of the damned snow and drying off my feet.”

“How are they?”

“Much better, thanks. The circulation is going again. My toes aren't numb anymore.” He smiled at her. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

“Don't worry about it. We're buddies, remember?”

The second time she'd made that point. Next thing she'd be saying another well-used, and in his opinion, equally asinine phrase like “Love means never having to say you're sorry.”

No, he decided. Alicia would never say anything like that.

Because she hadn't the faintest idea what love was.

Nowhere Man

A
fter
they ate she offered to fix him a drink, but he said he'd wait. He pulled out his laptop to do a little work after asking if that was all right with her, and she got on the phone, explaining she'd promised to call her business partner back. “Then I plan to do some work myself,” she said.

He noticed the glass of Zinfandel in her hand. Pete and Rhonda maintained that Alicia didn't drink, but from what he'd seen she imbibed on a regular basis. He considered it might be her way of coping with the stress of Caroline's worsening condition.

Bits and pieces ofAlicia's end of the conversation penetrated his deep concentration, and he couldn't help imagining coming home to a scene like this every day: Spending time talking with his wife, having her massage his feet, perhaps him massaging her back and shoulders, having dinner together while watching the news of the day.

Pete gets to enjoy this every day
. He could get used to this himself. Maybe not the part about him sleeping on the sofa….

“You're sweet, Derek.”

His head jerked.
Derek!
What happened to her business partner…her
female
business partner named Shannon something or other?

He answered his own question.
Call waiting
. He'd been too busy entertaining happy thoughts of domesticity to notice her saying goodbye to Shannon and hello to Derek. That and the fact that he didn't want to eavesdrop. But hey, a studio apartment didn't give many options for a private conversation.

Now he listened closely, wanting to know what she and Derek said to each other.

“Now, you should know I'm not going to stick around to wait until subway service starts getting disrupted and all that,” she said. “I was out of there by two.” Pause. “I doubt there'll be any court tomorrow, no. It'll be too hard for anyone to get in. Attorneys, judges, bailiffs, and of course our contractors. I've done some scoping myself to make sure transcripts are available on time.” Another silence. “I'm glad you're all right, too. Keep in touch, and stay dry.” Another silence. “No, I wouldn't say that at all. 'Bye, Derek.”

From the corner of his eye he watched as she disconnected. “I'm sorry about that. A lot of my friends are calling to make sure I made it home okay, usually while I'm on with someone else.” That moment her cell began its distinctive ring. “See what I mean?”

He managed a half-hearted smile, but the ringing of his own cell phone distracted him. Glad to have something that would force his attentions away from wondering who was calling Alicia now, he said a no-nonsense, “Hello.”

He quickly broke into a smile at the sound of his mother's voice. “Jack, your daddy and I are seeing footage of the storm on TV. Are you all right? Did you make it home?”

He spent a few minutes reassuring her all was well. When he hung up he heard Alicia say, “Here he is.”

He took the phone she handed him and heard Rhonda's voice chiding him. “The next time you decide not to go home in a blizzard, would you at least have the courtesy to call someone and let them know?”

He chuckled deep in his throat. “I'm sorry, Rhonda. I got so into the project I'm working on I forgot to check in with you guys. Not just to tell you I was okay, but to see how y'all are making out.”

“We're fine. I left work at lunchtime, Pete left after lunch. But my doctor says I'm not supposed to get excited, and we've been worried about you. Here's Pete.”

Jack's friend came on the line and good-naturedly blasted Jack for upsetting his expectant wife by making her wonder where he was. Jack dutifully apologized. Pete added, “I thought you would have called us if you couldn't get home. We always have a place for you, Jack.”

“I appreciate that.” Jack felt grateful to have such good friends, friends who cared about his welfare. Pete and Rhonda had worried about his safety, since he hadn't answered his home phone. Alicia, of course, had called his office to tell him he was welcome at her apartment if he was unable to get to Stamford.

After he hung up he got up and poured some rum into a highball glass, then added some Coca-Cola to it. He'd barely replaced the container of ice back in the freezer when that annoying cell phone ring began again.

He leaned against the sink, making no secret of the fact that he was listening. Alicia spoke to someone named “Bobby.”

Enough already.

He went in the bathroom and put on his still-wet socks. When Alicia saw him putting on his shoes, she said, “Hold on a minute, Bobby,” and covered the bottom half of the receiver. “Are you going out?”

He slipped on his coat. “I just thought I'd see what's going on outside. I'll be back.”

She looked troubled by his explanation, although she nodded.

When he closed the door behind him he heard her continue to talk. Obviously she'd resumed her conversation.

Jack knew it wasn't fair for him to blame Alicia for how he felt. He'd been the one to say how much work he had to do, and she said she would make a few phone calls while he worked. Had she intended to contact the men who ended up calling her first? He would never know. All he knew was that he couldn't bear listening to her talk to other men on the phone, no matter how innocent the conversation.

The streets were practically deserted. He stood outside the building, his shoulder inches away from the row of buzzers, and estimated the accumulation to be at least six inches, maybe eight. He saw a man coming down the street clad in jeans, gym shoes, and a waist-length leather jacket, his hair covered by a wool cap and a scarf knotted around his throat. “Lovely evening, isn't it?” he said in a voice tinged with sarcasm.

“Sure, in Miami Beach.” Something just occurred to Jack. “Hey, did you just come out of the subway?”

“Yeah.”

“Trains running?”

“For now, yeah, although I had to wait an awfully long time.”

“Thanks, man.” At that instant Jack made up his mind. He carefully stepped out into the snow and made his way toward the corner subway stop.

I Just Don't Understand

H
e
called Pete when he emerged at One Hundred Thirty-Seventh Street. “You'll have to tell me how to get to your place from the subway. Everything looks distorted to me in this damn snow.”

“Jack? You're up here? I don't get it. An hour ago you were at Alicia's.”

“I went for a walk. Next thing I knew I was riding uptown on the subway.”

“Something happened,” Pete guessed.

“It's not a big deal.”

“Does she know you came up here?”

“No. I just said I was going out to see what was happening on the street. Coming here was an impulse, once I found out the trains were still running.”

“Don't you think you at least owe her a phone call? She's likely to think you wandered off somewhere and got lost and are somewhere freezing to death.”

“Yeah, you're right. I'll call her.”
If I can get through, that is
.

 

Alicia frowned as she disconnected the call. She didn't know what to make of it. What would induce Jack to venture outside in a snowstorm, much less walk half a block to the subway, in wet socks and wet pants? On top of that, he had to walk several blocks from the subway to get to the Robinson's apartment. He'd seemed perfectly content at home with her, and she felt reasonably comfortable herself, but all that talk about love and marriage combined with having him here in her apartment with its one bed made her uneasy. They had a nice dinner, good conversation…she practically felt domesticated. He even fixed himself a drink afterward, a sign that he felt relaxed.

Then it occurred to her that he might have been annoyed at her talking to male friends like Derek and Bobby. She unconsciously stuck out her chest. It was happening again. Once more a man in her life tried to exert control over her. Well, no one would ever tell her who she could talk to.

She went to the table and powered off his laptop, holding the stem of a half empty wine glass in one hand. If he wanted to stay with Pete and Rhonda, let him.

While she felt angry at Jack, she felt a sense of confusion regarding her own behavior. He treated her just the way she wanted, with respect and consideration, not getting into her business, not making demands for exclusivity, not telling her not to see this one or that one. He was the first man to do that. Even longtime friends like Derek and Bobby had tried to claim her as their property. They eventually understood how she felt, and they reached the comfortable friendship they had now. Other men, unable to accept her terms, simply stopped calling her.

But Jack Devlin persisted, calling her infrequently but always sounding glad to hear her voice. He'd proven himself to be her perfect match.

But after all these months she hadn't been able to figure out why she felt so dazed whenever she was close to him. Her stomach fluttered all afternoon yesterday at the mere thought of his spending the night at her apartment. He'd slept at her parents' house a few weeks ago, but that house had hundreds of square feet more than her studio. Genuine concern for his numbed feet had made her temporarily put aside her unnerved state, but it soon returned with their discussion about love and marriage. She expressed her honest opinion, told him how she hated to feel like she was being fenced in, and what did he do? He stalked out into eight inches of snow in a snit.

Well, maybe not exactly a snit. He left with little fanfare, just a quiet announcement of his intent to go downstairs for a closer look at the accumulation on the street. She saw nothing odd about that. He came from a region of the country where deep snow accumulation was almost unheard of, and it could be better seen up close than from a fourth-floor window. But the next thing she knew, he called from Harlem, saying he'd taken a subway to Pete's. When she asked why, he said it was just an impulse, and he didn't really understand it himself. What kind of half-assed explanation was
that?

A question nagged at her subconscious that she tried to shoo away but became too strong to ignore. Might she have subconsciously contributed to his ire by making sure he knew she was speaking to men friends on the phone? Did she really have to use Derek's and Bobby's names so much on her end of the conversation? Wasn't that like rubbing her friendships with them in Jack's face?

Jack probably had every right to feel miffed, and he'd be even more so if he could have heard the actual conversation she'd had with Derek Taylor. Derek, with typical candor, had come out and asked if she felt lonely, hinting that he would brave the elements to get to her apartment. If Jack hadn't been with her she might have told him yes, but she'd merely said “no,” not even telling him about Jack's presence at her apartment.

Alicia made a face. Who was she kidding?

Part of her longed for an uncomplicated relationship like the one she had with Derek, simply because it presented no qualms, gave her no palpitations or nerve attacks; but in her heart she knew she had no interest in being with anyone else. Not since Jack entered her life.

So why did she behave so recklessly? Why had she tested Jack's patience to see how he would react to overhearing her conversations with Derek and Bobby? Did her ego hurt so much at his take-her-or-leave-her non-pursuit that she felt she had to raise his hackles?

And, most puzzling of all, why would she push away an ideal man like Jack Devlin in the first place?

She'd taken a gamble, all right. And from the looks of it, she'd lost.

Alicia sighed, her heart feeling heavy in her chest. This was more serious than reciting her telephone number and not caring that he had nothing on which to take it down. Jack had an easy solution if he couldn't remember it; namely calling Pete. This time Pete couldn't help him.

She tried to see the bright side. At least she no longer had to worry about those butterflies in her stomach she always got from him that she chased away with increasing amounts of alcohol. She'd seen her last day of waking up with a headache.

 

Jack tossed on the sofabed in the Robinson's living room. He couldn't stop thinking about what happened earlier tonight, and none of it made the slightest amount of sense.

The whole thing was nuts. This had to be the strangest relationship he'd ever been involved in. Six months and two seasons had passed since that spring evening when he first laid eyes on Alicia Timberlake at that Upper West Side restaurant not far from her apartment. Since that time he'd seen her perhaps the same number of times, six. Then there was the crazy way her mother looked at him that night he picked her up. If she hadn't been in frail health he would have asked her if something was wrong, but given her deteriorating condition he didn't feel it would be right. Besides, she recovered almost instantly. But what had caused that look of shock to cross Caroline Timberlake's lovely face?

He was crazy about Alicia, but instead of losing himself in the joy of exploring his feelings he had to play this crazy game to keep from alienating her. Today she'd practically come out and admitted that she would bolt from any man who stuck too close.

Jack had no interest in playing games. He wanted a woman to share his life with, and his heart told him Alicia Timberlake was that woman. He did agree with Pete that she'd built an invisible wall around her emotions, but he refused to believe it was impenetrable. He'd seen part of it that day two weeks ago at the hospital, when she allowed herself to lean on him and, he hoped, take solace and strength from him.

His forehead wrinkled as he considered a possible connection between her attempts to hide her emotions and the almost excessive drinking he'd witnessed.

Satisfied that he'd hit upon something worth exploring, Jack closed his eyes and finally fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion.