Can't Stop Loving You (17 page)

She’d kissed him, all right. But had he
turned into a prince?

Right now, he felt like a heel. The sun was
shining, the weather was beautiful, Helen was happy, and all he
could think of was how he’d feel if he had children tugging on his
hands saying, “Lift me up, Daddy, I want to see the panda
bears.”

He glanced around him. There were children
everywhere—a little boy in overalls racing with his sister, a
cherub with a pink face and yellow corkscrew curls crying over her
spilled cotton candy, a devilish urchin with freckles and a cowlick
trying to kick an empty soda can with every step he took.

A vast emptiness overtook him.

“Look, Brick.” Helen grabbed his arm. “Over
there. I’m sure that’s him.”

It was not one of the pandas, but the
movement of a tree limb.

“Do you see him?” she said, her face filled
with happy anticipation.

“Yes. I see him.”

She was so lovely, so trusting, so wonderful.
What was the harm of one more lie?

o0o

The smell of gardenia was overwhelming. Brick
paused on the brick walkway to enjoy the sweet smell of summer.

At least, that was the reason he gave himself
for pausing. The real reason was tucked under his arm, the script
for a new off-Broadway production that went into rehearsals the
next week. He would play the lead, a man plunged in darkness,
stripped of pride by war and illness, fighting his way back to the
light.

It was a great role for him, a chance to
spread his wings, try something new.

But there was nothing for Helen in the
play.

He didn’t ease open the front door as was his
habit, then tiptoe through the house so he could surprise her.
Instead he made a bold and noisy entrance.

“I’m home,” he called.

“In here.”

She was sitting in the sun room with her
yellow skirts spread out around her and her hair loose over her
shoulders.

“You look like a daffodil.” He kissed her
lips. “Hmm. Taste like a rose.”

Usually she had a snappy comeback. Today she
merely smiled and caressed his cheek.

The script under his arm felt like a
betrayal.

“I’m having iced tea,” she said. “Do you want
some?”

“Yes. Tea sounds good.”

Hairs prickled along the back of his neck.
She was so still, so reserved. Pulling back his chair, he studied
her face. She was thinner. When had she lost weight and why hadn’t
he noticed?

She’d been working too hard. Maybe the script
under his arm wasn’t a betrayal at all but a salvation. Helen
needed to take a break, to stay at home and soak up the sun beside
the pool, to walk in the sunshine and eat ice cream, to loll on the
patio, reading a good book and listening to great music.

Helen handed him a glass from the tray, and
he reached for the pitcher of iced tea. That’s when he saw the
script lying on the glass-topped table—
The Glass
Menagerie.

He glanced from the script to Helen. Her face
flushed, and she brushed her hair back from her forehead, a gesture
she used only when she was flustered.

“I was thinking about doing something
different for a while,” she said. “Laura Wingfield.”

“It’s a great role.”

“It’s in Houston.”

“Houston should be nice this time of
year.”

She toyed with her glass. He ignored his
tea.

“You could come,” she said.

“When?”

“Rehearsals start the day after
tomorrow.”

So soon. She must have known for a while. Why
hadn’t she told him?

“Actually, I was thinking of doing something
different myself.”

He pulled the script from under his arm and
laid it on the table. Helen picked it up and studied it.

“It looks interesting. Just the kind of role
to showcase your talents.” She laid his script back on the table
beside hers.

“I’m glad you think so.”

They both picked up their glasses and
pretended to drink tea.

“When do you start rehearsals?” she
asked.

“Next week.”

“Hmmm.” She thumbed through her script,
ruffling the pages back and forth. “This might be good for us, you
know? Taking solo roles. We’re so accustomed to each other, perhaps
we’re getting stale.” Her cheeks colored. “Onstage, I mean.”

“I knew what you meant.”

Cold winds of fear blew across his soul. She
was leaving in two days. Once she was out there in Houston, Texas,
would she decide not to come back?

Lifting his glass, he studied his wife over
the rim. Her eyes were lowered, the eyelashes fanning across her
porcelain cheeks, a lovely blush covering her face, her lips moist
from the tea and slightly parted.

No force in heaven or on earth could ever
take her away from him again.

“Helen...”

She glanced up, her eyes riveted on his.
There was a crash as his chair fell over backward, then a blur of
yellow and a rending noise as he pushed aside her skirts and tore
the wisp of silk. In one swift move he lifted her onto the edge of
the table and entered her. The tea tray went skittering away and
crashed to the floor. Their glasses tipped over and ice cubes
clattered around the glass tabletop.

Theirs was the wild mating of two desperate
people, the kind of love that sought to obliterate everything
except their bodies and the many ways they could use them to please
each other. Buttons made small pinging noises against the glass as
Helen tore his shirt open. Her eyes never left Brick’s as she
reached blindly for an ice cube. She brought it dripping to the
bodice of her dress. Riveted he watched her rub the ice around her
nipples.

It made a dark, wet circle on the yellow
fabric.

Passion exploded through him. The table
threatened to turn over.

Still joined, he eased her to the floor.
Leaning over, he circled his tongue around the wet fabric, then
pulled her nipple in his mouth. She spasmed again and again.

She brought the nearly melted ice cube to his
chest, traced a line from his throat to his navel. Wild with need,
drunk with hunger, they rolled around the floor, changing
positions. She licked the small, cool trail of water off his chest,
using the long sweeping movements of some fine jungle cat grooming
her mate.

Her skirt became entangled in their legs.
Impatient, she jerked it aside, ripping the fabric. Brick tore the
rest of the skirt away, then caught her hips to his. Holding her
tightly, he thrust upward, high and hard. She arched, her head
falling back to expose her smooth throat. They were champion
thoroughbreds racing for the finish line, their bodies lathered and
their hearts pumping so hard, they almost burst.

They reached the end of the race at the same
time, their cries of release mingling as she received his seed.
Afterward, they lay together a long time, their hearts pounding and
their breathing ragged.

Finally he lifted himself on his elbows and
looked around the room. The torn yellow skirt lay among spilled
tea, melted ice, and bits of broken glass.

His gaze shifted to Helen. She had the usual
flushed look of a woman well loved, but there was something about
her eyes that made his heart stand still. They were shattered,
distant, as if they were already seeing things he could not
see.

“I guess we’d better clean up this mess,” he
said.

“It looks like a battleground,” she
whispered.

Fear began to close in on him.

Perhaps it was.

Helen was late for the wedding.

Brick scanned the crowd, searching for the
familiar dark hair, the tall regal body, the exquisite face. The
church pews were filled with people who had come to see Matt Rider
and Barb Gladly exchange vows, but Helen Sullivan was nowhere in
sight.

Up front, the minister intoned the vows, “Do
you take this woman...”

There was a flurry across the aisle from
Brick as Helen slid into the pew. He felt as if he’d been kicked in
the gut. She was even more beautiful than he remembered, even more
desirable. She glowed, as if candles had been lit just underneath
her skin.

Their gazes met, touched, held.

Why had he ever agreed to anything that would
take him away from her for two weeks? An eternity.

She turned her attention to the front of the
church, but he made no pretense of caring what was going on at the
altar. He had eyes only for his wife.

The ceremony seemed endless, the procession
drawn out. Brick’s only thought was getting out of the crowd and
getting close to his wife.

By the time the wedding procession had filed
out of the church, Helen was caught up in the milling crowd and
being propelled out of his sight. There was no way he could get to
her short of mowing down several people and leaving them flat on
the floor. Even Brick was not bold enough to do that.

The wedding party had dispersed to the
fellowship hall, where champagne flowed freely and cake was being
urged on the guests by overanxious women teetering on shoes that
made them walk as if they were balancing on a high wire.

Helen was in the inner circle that surrounded
the bride and groom. Brick refused the glass that was being shoved
into his hand and made his way toward her.

She was standing to the left and slightly
back of Barb, trying not to steal the limelight. She spotted him
when he was halfway across the room. Her eyes never left his.

“Hello, Brick.” Although he was the one who
had been hurrying, she was the one who sounded breathless.

“Helen.” He touched her arm, leaned to kiss
her lightly on the mouth. What he wanted to do was sweep her into
his arms and run with her, run so fast and so far that there would
be no theaters to beckon either of them, no reporters to hound them
with probing questions.

But this was Matt and Barb’s day. He would do
nothing to take attention away from them.

His need for Helen was so great that he felt
certain the wedding guests could see the sparks flying. He kept his
hold on her arm, not merely a small contact but as a claim.

This woman is mine
.

He felt the tremor that ran through her. Was
she? Was she still his?

Matt’s friends were regaling him with tales
of their own
awful
wedded bliss.

“Just wait till you have that first argument.
Man, you’ll wish her aunt Tilda had never given her a rolling
pin.”

“Wait till she cooks her first meal.”

“It’s best not to live close to her mother.
Martha ran away to her mother at least six times.”

“Six times the first year?” Matt asked.

“Naw. Six times the first day.”

Brick and Helen politely joined the general
laughter, and patiently waited their turn to offer
congratulations.

“Yeah, Matt, and just wait till the babies
start coming. All you have to look forward to in the middle of the
night is dirty diapers.”

The speaker was a close personal friend of
Matt’s, Glenn Houser, a body trainer who had often visited Matt in
the Sullivan gym. His face lit up when he spotted Brick and
Helen.

“Hey, man.” He pounded Brick on the back and
caught Helen’s hand in an iron grip. “Look, everybody, the
Sullivans. Now there’s a man too smart to saddle himself with
kids.” He pounded Brick on the back. “Right, man?”

“Right.” Brick’s response was automatic, a
quick and easy way out of an awkward situation.

Helen stiffened.

He tried to catch her eye, but she moved
between Matt and Barb, wrapped her arms around them, and began to
chat.

Brick waited.

Helen delayed.

In less than an hour both of them would be
flying out, going their separate ways, hurrying so they wouldn’t
miss their curtain calls.

Finally there was no graceful way Helen could
stay wedged between the newlyweds.

“Come with me.” Brick took her arm and led
her through the crowd.

“Where are you taking me? I have a plane to
catch.”

“I don’t give a damn about planes. I need to
see you.”

“You have a curtain call.”

“I don’t give a damn about curtain
calls.”

He found a small empty hallway. Pulling her
into his arms, he leaned against the wall.

“That’s better,” he said. “Isn’t that better,
Helen?”

“Yes.” Her voice was muffled against his
shirt.

Suddenly he was kissing her hungrily,
desperately, as if he were a soldier returned from the war. There
was so much he needed to say, so much he needed to hear. But his
need to hold her, to touch her, to kiss her overrode all
others.

They clung together, devouring each other,
wanting more. Finally they had to come up for breath.

“I wish you didn’t have to fly back, Helen.
Can you change your plans?”

“Can you?”

He had never missed opening night. Not even
for sickness. It wasn’t fair to the people who had paid to see
him.

“No,” he said.

“Neither can I.”

“We have to take some time, Helen. Soon.”

“Yes. Soon.”

Why did her
soon
sound like
never?
The separation was making Brick paranoid.

“My plane leaves soon. Let’s not waste a
minute.”

He crushed her mouth under his once more,
drowning out everything except his need.

o0o

Sunlight poured through the hotel windows and
fell across the suitcases open on the bed.

Trails of lingerie crisscrossed the room, a
jumble of blouses waited to be organized, and jewelry glittered
like stars across the bedspread.

It was the same scene she’d played over and
over the last few weeks, and for a moment Helen couldn’t remember
whether she was packing or unpacking, whether she was in Dallas or
Boston or Chicago.

The hotel suites all looked alike—clean
modern furniture, innocuous pictures on the wall, coordinated
colors.