Authors: Kathleen Creighton
"Wrong?" She turned on him, warding him off with her hands when he would have taken her into his arms. "You’re going too fast!"
"Fast?" He reacted as if she’d struck him, first with shock, then with anger. "Too fast? Don’t you have any idea how long I’ve waited for you? What you mean to me?"
"You?
You?
Don’t you know what you did to
me?"
There. He’d done it. She was crying again. And yelling again. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but she new she was going to, and somehow the anger made it easier.
"Don’t you know you destroyed me?"
"Destroyed you?" Chayne’s voice was cold, his anger razor edged and dangerous. "You like to make melodramatic statements, don’t you? Do you want to tell me how I’ve destroyed you? By loving you? Or making love to you? I know it was a bit tough on your conscience—"
"Tough on my conscience? You make it sound like I lied about my age, or cheated on my income tax. Chayne, I wiped out every principle I ever believed in, every moral and ethical value I had when I fell in love with you. When I fell in love with a smuggler. A
criminal
."
"Which you now know isn’t true."
"But it doesn’t matter, don’t you see that? I didn’t know that then. Why couldn’t you have told me, Chayne? You saw what I was going through—you said you did. How could you do that to me?"
"I
couldn’t
tell you," he said implacably, watching her with hooded eyes. "I explained that. If you can’t understand…"
"No! You
could
have told me. You weren’t under orders, were you? You chose not to tell me—chose not to trust me! Even at the end, when you left me with your mother, you let me go on thinking… You let me spend a whole night thinking you were going to— And then I watched you being taken away in handcuffs! You’re the one who doesn’t understand!"
"What I don’t understand is why it should be such a huge problem for you. You love me. I love you. And all the misunderstandings are over and done with. They’re in the past. We have—"
"
No.
They’re
not
in the past. They’re right here—inside me." She was pressing her fist to her chest as she faced him with streaming eyes, pleading with him to understand. "It hurts. Chayne, try to put yourself in my place. How would you feel if you’d just compromised everything you believed in? Everything you thought was good and decent and right?"
"I have," Chayne said stonily. "I’ve been there."
"All right, then," Julie gulped, pressing the back of her hand to her nose, "you tell me how long it took you to get over it."
"Years." He sounded unimaginably weary. "In fact, not until I found you. And while we’re wearing each other’s shoes, you tell me how you’d feel if the person you loved hated himself for loving you."
"How would you feel if the person you loved was going to commit a horrible crime and you had the choice of letting him do it—"
"Him?"
"—Or having her arrested? How would you feel, watching this person you loved carted off in irons?"
"There you go being melodramatic again."
"I’m not being melodramatic, damn it—I’m being angry. And I’m
hurting!"
"So am I," Chayne grated between his teeth. "Just because I’m not carrying on like you are, don’t think I’m not hurting, too. What it boils down to, then, is that my loving you isn’t enough, and your loving me isn’t enough to heal your shattered self–image. Is that it?"
"No! I don’t know! For God’s sake, Chayne, give me a little time. This just happened; I’m still reeling. I don’t know which way is up. You can’t expect me to forget everything —the person I used to be, the things I used to stand for—and live happily ever after. I’ve got to put the pieces back together. Find out who in the world I’ve become. Please… I need time!"
"Time?" His voice was quiet again, and strained. And sad. "Julie, I’ve already wasted enough of my life being where you are. You healed me just by loving me exactly as I was. I’m sorry you won’t let me do the same for you."
He turned and left her standing there with her hand clamped tightly over her mouth. A moment later, when she hadn’t heard the front door open and close, she made a small anguished noise and ran after him. She found him adjusting his shoulder holster.
He cast her one narrow, steely look as he picked up his jacket and shrugged into it. "I’m out of time, Julie," he said softly, and picked up his tie. He looped it around his neck and left without another word, or even a backward glance.
* * *
Julie spent the morning crying, though only a week earlier she hadn’t been able to remember ever having really cried.
Under the circumstances she thought she could be forgiven such a binge, that it might even be considered therapeutic after the strain she had been under lately. She indulged herself without guilt. But being a novice at it, she wasn’t prepared for the mess several hours of unrestrained weeping could make of one’s head.
She’d almost stopped when, at around ten o’clock or so, the florist’s delivery boy arrived with a dozen pink roses in a long gold box. The card read cryptically:
I know a real tumble when I see one. Your friend always, Colin. P.S.: Equilibrium is vastly overrated.
That started her crying all over again.
At eleven Chief Patrol Agent Dalton called to suggest she look into psychiatric assistance to help her cope with her "post–hostage depression," and to tell her he was putting her on sick leave while she "weathered the crisis."
And that made her angry enough to finally stop.
It was then she discovered that two aspirin and a cup of coffee had no effect at all on a head that felt like a fifty–gallon barrel full of steel wool upon which someone was pounding steadily with a pipe wrench.
At two–thirty her mother called, defeating her attempt to take a nap under a cold washcloth, to ask why she hadn’t called to tell them that she wasn’t coming home for the Expo after all. Listening to her mother’s gentle reproach made her feel more lonely than guilty.
"Mother, I’m sorry about the change in plans."
"Your dad and I were both disappointed."
"Yes, I know, and I’m sorry. But I was reassigned at the last minute."
"It was thoughtless of you not to call, Julie. We were worried, especially when we couldn’t reach you."
"I know, Mother. I’ve been working such odd hours."
"You know you can always call us any time, Julie. We’re always here for you."
"Yes, I know, Mother. I’m sorry."
There were other things she wanted to say—or to ask:
Mother, as a matter of fact there are some questions I really do need answers to. A girl is supposed to be able to ask her mother these things, isn’t she?
Okay, Mom, here goes. How can I love someone so much and be so miserable? I thought love was supposed to be a good thing.
Oh, Mother, how can it be so good between us, and so bad?
How can he say he loves me and not understand something this important?
She could almost hear her mother saying,
Well, maybe it isn’t love at all, Julie dear. Maybe it’s only a matter of, ahem, sex. And if you’re only good together in bed, no matter how good, then that’s not enough to base a relationship on. Is it?
"Yes, Mother, I’ll be up to see you soon, I promise. Yes… I love you too. Give my love to Dad."
Julie hung up feeling more alone than ever. She wished she could talk to someone—a best friend, perhaps, or a sister. But Colin had been her best friend, and she didn’t have a sister. And her mother… She seriously doubted her mother had a clue what kind of dangers her job involved.
No, there was no one to help her. She was going to have to work this one out by herself.
She showered and washed her hair, and that made her feel somewhat better physically. If only there weren’t reminders of him all over the place! They were everywhere, in the kitchen, the bathroom… The bar of soap and the razor on the sink; damp towels on the floor; ghost images in the mirror of his body and hers entwining in wanton patterns of light on dark; erotic hauntings of fragrant steam and moisture sipped from silken skin, more intoxicating than wine… Of soapy fingers slipping over breasts and buttocks and sliding gently into caverns and hollows… Of herself at last becoming nothing but a warm pulsating part of it all—the water, the steam…and Chayne.
She couldn’t bear to look at the bed. Couldn’t stay in the apartment another minute.
The credit cards tempted her; she actually took them out and lined them all up on the desk top before sweeping them back into the drawer. She couldn’t very well go on a shopping spree every time she felt depressed and confused, especially since she was probably going to feel that way a lot in the future. Plus there was the fact that she’d just quit her job.
But there was one place she could always escape to, one thing she had always turned to when she needed to work off frustrations or just get away from her own thoughts…
* * *
"Julie? How much longer do you think you’ll be?"
Julie climbed up out of a fog of concentration, executed a simple dismount from the balance beam and reached for a towel. "My goodness, closing time already? I didn’t realize it was so late, Terry; I’m sorry, I’ll—"
"No, no, you don’t have to go. Just lock up when you leave."
Terry Amato had been a world–class gymnast before an accident had left her with a permanently crippled elbow. Her gymnastics academy was highly regarded on the West Coast; she had already trained one U.S. champion, and at the moment boasted several promising Olympics prospects.
"You’re working hard," Terry said with a smile. "Does this mean you’re going to take my Wonderkids class next session? We’ve missed you."
Julie shrugged, smiled and gave a noncommittal answer. She’d taught off and on for Terry for years when she could fit it into her work schedule. For the first time it occurred to her that she no longer had a work schedule. She no longer had a job. She was just realizing she was going to have to come up with a new career—or at least a way to pay the rent. Maybe Terry could use a full–time instructor.
But this wasn’t the time to talk about the future. She had come to the gym tonight to forget about that altogether. So she chatted with Terry for a few minutes, promised to lock up tight when she left, and then listened to the tapping of Terry’s heels diminishing as she crossed the cavernous room to the door.
She was alone. The huge building was empty but filled with weird shadows and ghost sounds, like a deserted amusement park.
Alone. Julie loved the gym when it was like this, when she could work with absolute freedom, without self–consciousness, giving in to her creative fancies.
The mat beckoned, as the sand had done that morning in the cove. She selected a cassette at random, punched it into the tape deck and stood with bowed head, eyes closed, listening to the metallic waves of canned music swell to the rafters. She waited, feeling the music seep into her bones and muscles, and then stepped out onto the mat. Bits of old routines and spur–of–the–moment improvisations, technical skills and harnessed passions—she let them all flow through her on a wave of emotion and energy that left her both exhausted and exhilarated.
The music died away, and she settled into a graceful scissor split, arms upraised. Ah, well, not the most imaginative finish, perhaps, but—
A sound intruded on the dying echoes. The sound of a single pair of clapping hands.
Julie’s whole body jerked as quivering muscles received an infusion of adrenaline.
"Nice," Chayne’s voice rumbled as he stepped out of the shadows near the office door. "Very nice."
"How did you get in?" She was amazed to discover her voice still worked; amazed, too, at the jolt that had gone through her at the sound of his voice. She pulled her legs up under her but made no attempt to stand; she doubted very much that she was capable of it.
God, he’s beautiful.
It hurt to look at him. She had an impulse to shade her eyes with her hand as he sauntered toward her across that airplane hangar of a room. There was a half smile on his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. She could see the demon glitter of them long before he reached her.
"How did you get in here?" she asked again, her voice cracking with the tension. "The door was locked."
Chayne grinned, blew on his fingertips and then rubbed them on the front of his jacket. "There are some advantages to my line of work."
Julie shook her head. "No, you didn’t."
"No," he admitted with a shrug, "I didn’t. I intended to if necessary, but your friend let me in."
"My friend? Terry?"
"Small lady, dark hair? That’s the one."
"You’ve been here all that time?" Julie felt her body grow hot with embarrassment. "Watching me?"
Chayne laughed softly and tugged at his tie. "You’re blushing again." His voice was heavy with intimate associations. He took off his jacket and dropped it over the balance beam, then leaned against it and crossed his arms on his chest.
"Do you have any idea what a turn–on it is to watch you do that?" His eyes were hooded and smoky; there was sexual arrogance in every line of his body, in the set of his head, the curve of his mouth, the timbre of his voice. How confident he was, how certain of her response to him!
And how right he was to be so certain. The sight of him made her body tremble and grow heavy and sultry with wanting. Forgotten were the questions and doubts, the harsh words and tears. He was there, for whatever reason; he was there—and that was all that mattered.
Still… "How did you know I was here?" she asked, not really caring.
"Friend of yours at the station told me I might find you here."
"Who?"
"Lupe, I think her name was."
"Oh." She tore her gaze away and got to her feet, tugging her leotard down over her bottom, moving self–consciously under his steady regard. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you want to find me?"
Under his breath and in Spanish he muttered, "
Dios mio, Guerita
. Who knows? Who cares?" And then, with a wry smile and a shake of his head, he added, "It was important enough to bring me here, but after watching you I’m damned if I feel like talking. I wish there was some way you could see yourself. Some way I could make you know how sexy you are. And what it does to me to watch you."