Beloved (55 page)

Mac, still smiling, turned to Jane. "Thanks again."

Jane, the last one there, was wiping her hands in a green-checked dishtowel and thinking,
Nice going, girl.
He'll be calling in a SWAT team to get you out.
"Somewhere I lost track of Uncle Easy," she said, although she hadn't thought about him in an hour. "He must've gone on home?"

"He's up in my bed, staying the night. He petered out quick at the end; but then he never did know how to pace himself."

"He seems like that kind of guy," she agreed.
One bedroom for Uncle Easy, one for Jerry. A makeshift office in the third.
"So where will
you
—"
She stopped herself, too late. Now he'd know she'd counted beds.

He politely chose not to hear the question, which embarrassed her even more. "I'll walk you home," he said. "Buster needs the exercise." He let out a soft whistle. The big, black dog came trotting into the kitchen from somewhere, ready for business. Mac grabbed a sweater for himself, and one for Jane. "You'll want this."

She pulled the baggy soft wool over her head. Big mistake. The one thing she didn't need right now was more of Mac, and this was more of Mac. They stepped outside together. She thought of the last time they'd done that, after his emotional encounter with Celeste. Jane had been jealous then, too, though she'd never have admitted it at the time. But now she did, and freely. Presumably that was progress of some kind?

There was a moon, which was nice; Jane had no desire to trip and fall into a pothole. They ambled along, with Mac throwing sticks for Buster to try to retrieve by moonlight, and talked about the turnout. "Everybody came," Mac said, obviously pleased. "No one wanted to disappoint Uncle Easy. And yet you could see it in his face: a lot of his old friends
had
disappointed him."

"
You mean ..
. by dying?"

"Yeah," Mac said, hurling a stick impossibly far. The dog didn't care; he roared off after it anyway. "And the younger ones, too, by moving off the island. I look at Uncle Easy and I think,
'T
hat'll be me. I'm halfway there.'"

"But you have a son, and he was here tonight," Jane risked saying. "That must've felt good. I mean, compared to—"

"Compared to his not being here at all? Sure," Mac agreed. "I have you to thank for that," he added, stopping to pick up another stick.

He whistled for Buster, who was probably halfway to
'
Sconset, to come back. "That little scene that Celeste and I played out in front of you shocked us both back to the bargaining table. We're going to try again," he said quietly. "We were still ironing out some of the wrinkles at the airport, in fact."

It came as a staggering, shocking blow, a direct hit to her heart. She should hav
e seen it coming, of course ... all evening long ... together ..
. and it explained Celeste's explanation; she and Jane were going to be
neighbors,
for pity'
s sake ... it was unbearable ..
. and it was all Jane'
s fault ..
. her stupid spaghetti
... her stupid timing ..
. and
they were compatible after all ....

Reeling, she forced herself to say, "I'm happy for you, Mac. It's not every couple that can pick up the threads of their marriage again."

"Are you kidding?" he said with an incredulous laugh. "You
are
kidding. Celeste and me?" Jane could see by moonlight that he was shaking his head. "You don't know me at all, then," he said softly. "Somehow, I thought you did. I thought you knew what I was all about."

"How
can
I know? You won't let me near you," she shot back. He stopped in his tracks and she added quickly, "If you and Celeste aren't getting together again, then what
are
you negotiating? Peace in the
Middle East
?"

"Visitation rights, of course," Mac said, obviously amazed that she could be so dense. "We've been keeping it to a verbal agreement. Celeste's a lawyer; she can tie me up in knots any time, and she knows it. We wanted things to be as loose and civil as possible, for Jerry's sake. You see how well we succeeded," he added dryly.

Buster came back, wanting more. Mac threw the stick, this time in the direction of the graveyard
—
Jane could see the gravestones leaning forlornly in the moonlight
—
and Buster went charging happily off again. But he didn't go far before he turned and came back, his tail low, his head down, a low and pitiful moan deep in his throat.

Mac looked quickly at Jane, but she had nothing to say about the dog's strange behavior. He commanded Buster sternly to fall in beside them as they walked on. Jane was hardly aware of any of it. Maybe Judith was somewhere near, maybe she wasn't. Maybe Mac believed in her, maybe he didn't. But one thing was clear now: Celeste, at least, was not a factor. Beauty, brains, and a brilliant career did not cut it with Mac McKenzie. Jane wondered briefly what
did
cut it with him; but mostly she felt a giddy, light-headed sense of relief.

"Did I mention that Celeste was engaged?" Mac asked.

Better yet! "
No,"
Jane answered, breaking into a wide and happy grin. "That's
wonderfuL"

"I don't see what's so wonderful about it," he grumbled. "She hardly knows the guy."

"Oh. How long have they been seeing one another?"

"On and off, a year or so. Maybe two altogether."

"I see your point," she said ironically. "A whirlwind romance."
Oh Lord,
she thought.
How do you hurry a guy who tells time by the passing of the seasons?

"Celeste is a part of my life," Mac said quietly as they continued their walk down the potholed, moonlit lane. "That's how it is. She's Jerry's mother, and I care about what happens to her; I always will. Divorce doesn't undo that, Jane."

He was like no other divorced man she'd ever known. The ones who'd been left by their wives were bitter about them
—
just as the ones who'd done the leaving never gave them a second thought. Mac was that rare breed, an ex-husband who cared.

They were at her back door now, standing in the dim light of the porch lamp. "You're an unusual man, Mac McKenzie," Jane said thoughtfully. "J
ust when I think I have you ..
."

"Pigeonholed?" he suggested. "Under which category would that be? Insecure townie?
Defiant poor man? Abandoned ..."

"Stop," she begged in a whisper, putting her hand over his mouth. "No more."

It echoed her action earlier in the evening, when she'd traced the outlines of his face. But she wasn't blindfolded now; she could see the burning hunger in his eyes, and it shocked and thrilled her. He took her hand away from his mouth and lowered his lips to her open palm in a kiss. It was so tender, so restrained, that it shocked her even more. He let her hand go, and he closed his eyes, and for one desolate moment she thought that he was letting
her
go.

And then he shuddered, as though the battle was lost, and took her in his arms and kissed her in a kiss so deep, so longing, so completely, enchantingly masterful, that he had to keep her from falling when it was over.

"Is this what you wanted from me?" he asked in a hoarse voice, his breath coming in a long, ragged gasp.

"
I ... yes. Yes ...
it is," she said dizzily.

"What's the point, Jane
—
what's the point?" He let her go with such force that she felt thrown backward. He turned and took two steps, three steps, away from her.

"
Mac
," she cried.

He turned around and in two strides had her in his arms again, kissing her with the kind of abandoned fury she'd only read about
—
deep kisses that left her helpless, devastated in their wake. "Don'
t go ..
. don't go," she begged in an anguished moan as he buried his face in her hair, breathing in the essence of her, arousing her with the sound of her own name.

He held her away from him and seemed to searc
h her face for some sign of ..
. of what? She didn't know; she could scarcely see through the glaze of tears in her own eyes.

"Don't you get it, Jane? Don't you understand?" he said fiercely. "It didn't work the first time. It won't work the second. The odds get longer, not shorter."

"But they say practice makes perfect," she quipped, though her lips trembled as she said it. She couldn't let him walk away without even trying. She couldn't.

"Is it so funny to you?" he asked in a stiff, barely audible voice. "I suppose it must be."

"No! I didn't mean
—"

But he put his hand gently over her mouth this time, and shook his head. "No more. No more." He whistled softly for Buster, who came tearing around the corner expecting treats, and then man and dog walked off into the silver, moonlit night.

It was a dream, surely some kind of dream, and she'd rewrite the ending as soon as she fell asleep again. That was Jane's belief as she tried the back door and then got out her key. But the time between now and then, this cursed awake time without him
—
how long might that last? For as long as a cup of hot chocolate? For as long as she lived? How long, before she could rewrite the ending and be in Mac's arms again, and hear a promise never to let her go?

Downstairs there was only one dim light over the kitchen stove. Her mother must have gone to bed. Jane hardly bothered to wash up; she was exhausted, and she wanted to go to bed herself, to rewrite the ending.

No more
.
.
.
no more.

The words echoed in her mind like the tolling of church bells as she walked wearily up the stairs to her bedroom. She turned off the small lamp in the hall, then
—
remembering that she had a guest
—
turned it on again, because the bathroom was downstairs and the stairs were steep. She'd plugged night-lights into each of the rooms as well, mostly for her mother's sake, but also to combat the night, which lately had become her enemy.

When she entered her bedroom, her mind was focused completely on Mac. She emptied her watch, earrings, and hair combs on her aunt's old oak bureau and studied herself briefly in the small swiveled mirror that stood atop it. Thank God she hadn't worn mascara; it would've been a smudgy mess by now. She caught a glimpse in the mirror of Mac's sweater, soft and woolly and brown, and held up her arm to her nose, breathing in his scent. She began to pull the sweater off over her head, but it was cold; she left it on.

It was much colder than it should have been
—
cold and clammy and penetrating, like the day of Aunt Sylvia's funeral. Her memory of the funeral became suddenly very sharp. She could see the coffin and the rain beading on its waxed surface. She could see Mac under his big black umbrella, and the tiny red rose in his hand. And her mother, standing in the pouring rain alongside her, looking impossibly crisp.

Judith had been there too.

At the time Jane hadn't realized it; now, in retrospect, she did. It wasn't the cold rain that had caused Jane to be chilled to the bone then. It was Judith. Judith was there then, and Judith was here now. In this room. Now. Jane held her breath as she turned slowly away from the mirror and
—instinctively
—
i
n the direction of the rocking chair that sat in its customary corner of the room. The chair, old and worn and black, was pitching lightly back and forth on its rockers, as if someone had just stood up from it. A cold, hard fear touched Jane's heart. In many ways she was prepared for this moment
—
had both dreaded and looked forward to it. And yet it was all she could do not to run screaming from the room.

She forced herself to stand there motionless, as if she'd come across a wild thing in the woods. Despite the falling temperature in the room she felt as hot as a coal fire. She wanted desperately to rip off Mac's sweater, but she didn't dare. All she could do was wait; wait and watch. After a brief eternity, the kind of eternity an earthquake takes, a lambent presence began to appear in front of the rocking chair. Jane recognized it at once: it was the foggy, tallish column that Cissy had captured on tape with her camcorder.

But this time the process of substantiation did not stop there. The haziness continued to define itself, to assume depth and clarity and detail, until it became Judith.

J
udith Brightman was as tall as Jane, and her black hair was luxuriantly, untamably curled. Those were Jane
'
s first impressions. The gown she wore was not the subdued gray garment of her Quaker years, but a flattering, full-skirted dress of deep blue. Her waist was absurdly small, the waist of a woman who has never borne a child. She was, in fact, past her childbearing years, though she was still very beautiful. Her eyes were very dark
—
either brown, or an enviable shade of violet.