Miracle (51 page)

“I’m not used to being taken care of.”

He smiled, but there was challenge in his eyes. “You’ll learn.”

They walked through the cool, empty rooms, and she thought how the stone cottage suited him with its mixture of warmth and aloofness. A huge window in the main room captured the hills covered in trellises. Everything had the new green color of spring. Beginnings.

“I see why you love it,” she said.

He stood beside her at the window, looking from the view to her. She liked the serenity she saw in his eyes. “It will never be a grand or self-important place,” he told her. “Just comfortable.”

He showed her a spacious room with nothing but a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser. The bed was simply a large mattress and springs on a metal frame, with a plain quilt and white-cased pillows. “My guest bedroom. For you.” He glanced at the purse she carried, his expression droll. “Put your luggage wherever you like.”

She studied the novels stacked on the nightstand and the bottle of cologne atop the dresser, plus the open closet door that revealed his suits. “I suspect, sir, that this is not only the guest bedroom, but the only bedroom.” They hadn’t discussed the arrangements before. They hadn’t even discussed how long she was going to stay. It was something they both knew, that she would stay.

“I’ll sleep upstairs,” he said quickly. “There’s an attic room with an old couch in it.”

“My guilt level just skyrocketed, Doc. For heaven’s sake, let me sleep on the musty, dirty, saggy old couch.” She put her hands on her hips. “That’s the polite thing to say, but I mean it, too. I insist.”

“No. You sleep in my bed,” he ordered mildly.

“Aw, Doc …”

“That way you’ll think about me. If you sleep on the couch, you’ll think about bats.”

“There are bats up there?”

“Yes.”

She tossed her purse on his bed. “My guilt just faded.” Smiling at him, she asked, “Is there any place around here to shop for clothes? I’d like to buy a second pair of panties and a cheap sundress.”

“There’s a small town a few miles from here. I’ll take you—but only if you let me buy.”

“I don’t want you to buy me a town.”

He gave her a bewildered look, then caught the joke and smiled broadly. “It’s marvelous to have you here. I see why you’re making a good career as a comedienne.”

“Oh, stop flattering me. You already paid for everything else on this jaunt, outfoxing me at the inn when we checked out this morning, grabbing restaurant checks. You’re slick, Doc, and I don’t approve. So thanks, but—”

“Amy, when you’re with me, your money is no good. I know that you don’t have much, not if you’re paying for your father’s nursing care. I know what it costs to live in California, too. So we’ll go shopping for some clothes, something better than a cheap sundress. And I’ll pay.”

She shook her fists at him and started to protest, but he cut her off. “I have money. I was born with it, and I’ll always have it. It’s not meant to impress or manipulate, only to make life easier. If you want to use my money, good. Enjoy it. I approve of noble independence, but not pointless sacrifice.”

“You gave me money ten years ago because it was easier than giving yourself! That’s why I don’t want your money now!”

He grasped her fists and pulled her off balance, then lifted her on tiptoe and kissed her until she was breathless. He set her back down and examined her confusion solemnly. “You can have me, but until you make up your mind about whether or not you like that prospect I think you’ll be happier just taking my money.
Mon dieu
! If I wanted to
buy
a woman’s affection I’d do it with a great deal more
expense.” He hesitated, arching a dark brow mischievously. “Would you like a diamond necklace?”

“A sundress. Panties. Read my lips.”

“Hmmm. Later, when you’re less argumentative.”

They went shopping. Because he was impossible to thwart, they returned with bags full of clothes, plus toothbrushes, deodorant, and all the other items a woman might need to stay indefinitely with a man who, it seemed, intended to keep her.

It was so easy to talk to him about the unimportant subjects. Barefooted, wearing a blue chambray sundress with tiny straps at the shoulders, she felt like a happy peasant in his one respectably furnished room, the kitchen. She followed him around the quaint old place, among dried herbs, pots, pans, piles of vegetables, and the scent of chicken roasting for dinner.

She made certain that it wasn’t obvious that she was following him; she was careful to find little chores to do that happened to be next to whatever he was doing. But she noticed, when she crossed the room for some reason, that he found tasks that moved them close together again.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked, going to a rack of bottles that covered one wall.

She had already perused the rack enough to know that it held a mixture of local wines and de Savin vintages. “Have you got the de Savin Pinot Noir, 1987?”

The look he gave her contained surprise, and then fascination. “You have studied the de Savin wines?”

It was the kind of opportunity she’d imagined in her daydreams years before. Speaking in slow but excellent French, she gave a list of the best wines from his family’s label. Then she bowed.

He came to her and cupped her face between his hands. “Did you learn all of this because of me?”

She shivered with emotion; there was no point in playing games. “Yes. In school I studied French, and made good grades, and did everything else I could to make you proud of me.”

“But why did you sell the Ferrari I gave you?” He looked at her somberly.

“Who told you about that?”

“Pio Beaucaire. You remember him, he managed the winery.”

“But how would he know?”

“He was spying on you.”

“You told him to spy on me?”

“No. He did it because … never mind why, right now.”

Her shoulders slumped. “My folks needed money. That’s why I sold the car. I loved that car. I could feel you around me when I drove it.”

“Miracle, I should have known. I apologize.”

“You figured I wanted the money to play with, didn’t you?”

“Pio made it sound like that, yes.”

“And you believed him. You were angry at me.”

“Yes, but you were young. And it was a gift without strings, I told myself.”

“Young and backward, and who could expect a hick to appreciate such a gift, right?”

He shook her lightly. “Stop it! I never thought of you as a hick! I don’t care what happened to the stupid car. One of the reasons I gave it to you was so you’d have it to sell if you needed the money.”

“Okay, Doc, if you say so. Let’s change the subject.” She forced a smile. Hidden behind it was the dark realization that the past was catching up with the present, slowly but surely.

She slept hard for a few hours, then woke in a sweat and bolted out of bed. Standing in the darkness of Sebastien’s bedroom, she gulped for air and finally recalled where she was. She stared at the ceiling, thinking of Sebastien, upstairs.

Grabbing the bed’s quilt, she wrapped it around her T-shirt and panties; she padded down the hall and out a back door that opened onto the veranda. She loved the back veranda with its rough stone floor and weathered roof
supports. Going to one of the posts, she leaned against it and gazed up at a half-moon high above the vineyard. She hugged herself and tried to calm down.

“It won’t do any good,” Sebastien said behind her.

She whipped around. He stood at the veranda’s far end. The moonlight showed that he was dressed in loose khaki trousers, and nothing else. “
You have questions to ask. You can’t sleep. Neither can I.”

“There’s so much we never knew about each other. And I don’t understand why you looked for me again. As if I’d meant a lot to you.”

“I hate the unhappiness in your voice.”

“Not unhappiness: shock. I haven’t had time to get my bearings.”

“There’s all the time in the world. But the important thing is that you
want
to know more about me, as I want to know about you, and you came away with me without looking back. Ten years might never have passed. We had a bond immediately.”

“It makes me feel like I’m eighteen again, hanging on every word you say, doing whatever you want, but I’m
not
eighteen, and I’m not naive … reckless and impulsive, yes, but naive, no.”

She told herself that she had no right to be upset, since he’d never promised her anything when he left ten years ago and had, in fact, been exceptionally wonderful to her, except, of course, for not loving her. But she was angry at him for not loving her then, and for acting now as though he
had
loved her.

“I’ve brought a lot of complications into your life,” he said, looking troubled. “And there are questions we must ask each other, very honestly, about the past. They shouldn’t be allowed to spoil the present.”

“I don’t want to talk tonight. I’m not sure I want to hear the answers yet.”

“I’m not anxious to hear them myself. But it’s necessary. Come. We’ll take a walk and—”

“No. Please. I’m afraid I’d say the wrong thing.”

“I remember when you would say exactly how you felt to me. I liked the openness.”

“I had nothing to lose. I knew you didn’t love me the way I loved you. I never thought I was worthy of being loved so much. But I am.”

“I know. I’ve always known, even when you didn’t.”

She made a ragged sound. “It nearly killed me when you left for West Africa. I used to pray you’d write to me, or call me sometimes, even just to see if I was wasting the money you’d given me. But you never did. Why not, if you cared about me so much?”

“I was a fool. I wanted you to be strong and independent, and I feared that I’d hurt you if I let you depend on me at all, even in the small ways. I was so full of pride, and so certain I knew what was best for both of us.” He stepped forward. The moonlight showed the restraint in his expression.

Sebastien took her in his arms, then held her with his head bent close to hers while his hands moved swiftly over her, stroking, soothing. She felt his chest moving in a harsh rhythm against her cheek. And when he whispered in her ear, his voice was filled with anguish. “Because of my pride, other people were able to come between us. I’m sorry, Miracle.” His embrace became a fierce hold.

Did he learn about Jeff and me
? she wondered suddenly. Oh, God, if that surfaced now to hurt her and Sebastien, she’d never forgive herself. She struggled to think calmly. Perhaps he meant Marie. “It wasn’t your fault,” she offered in a careful voice. “Maybe it was just too soon for us to be together. I made mistakes, too.”

“It was so long ago. What I remember now are the joys, the way you made me laugh … and cry. It was good to cry.”

Sorrow burst from her with a soft exclamation. “Oh, how much I’ve missed you over the years, and thought about you, and tried to be the kind of person you could love—”

“And you saved my life, more than once. Look. Look, Amy.” He put a hand into his pants pocket and withdrew a necklace that caught the silver of the light.

She stared at the long silver chain he held up. From it dangled a battered silver coin of some kind. “What is it?”