Eyes of Darkness (14 page)

“I didn’t realize you’d lost your wife,” Tina said. “I mean, I thought it must have been a divorce or something.”

“She passed away three years ago.”

“What happened?”

“Cancer.”

“I’m so sorry, Elliot.”

“At least it was fast. Pancreatic cancer, exceedingly virulent. She was gone two months after they diagnosed it.”

“Were you married long?”

“Twelve years.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Twelve years leaves a big hole in the heart.”

He realized they had even more in common than he had thought. “That’s right. You had Danny for nearly twelve years.”

“With me, of course, it’s only been little more than a year since I’ve been alone. With you, it’s been three years. Maybe you can tell me . . .”

“What?”

“Does it ever stop?” she asked.

“The hurting?”

“Yes.”

“So far it hasn’t. Maybe it will after four years. Or five. Or ten. It doesn’t hurt as bad now as it once did. And the ache isn’t constant anymore. But still there are moments when . . .”

He showed her through the rest of the house, which she wanted to see. Her ability to create a stylish stage show was not a fluke; she had taste and a sharp eye that instantly knew the difference between prettiness and genuine beauty, between cleverness and art. He enjoyed discussing antiques and paintings with her, and an hour passed in what seemed to be only ten minutes.

The tour ended in the enormous kitchen, which boasted a copper ceiling, a Santa Fe tile floor, and restaurant-quality equipment. She checked the walk-in cooler, inspected the yard-square grill, the griddle, the two Wolf ranges, the microwave, and the array of labor-saving appliances. “You’ve spent a small fortune here. I guess your law practice isn’t just another Vegas divorce mill.”

Elliot grinned. “I’m one of the founding partners of Stryker, West, Dwyer, Coffey, and Nichols. We’re one of the largest law firms in town. I can’t take a whole lot of credit for that. We were lucky. We were in the right place at the right time. Owen West and I opened for business in a cheap storefront office twelve years ago, right at the start of the biggest boom this town has ever seen. We represented some people no one else would touch, entrepreneurs who had a lot of good ideas but not much money for start-up legal fees. Some of our clients made smart moves and were carried right to the top by the explosive growth of the gaming industry and the Vegas real-estate market, and we just sort of shot up there along with them, hanging on to their coattails.”

“Interesting,” Tina said.

“It is?”

“You are.”

“I am?”

“You’re so modest about having built a splendid law practice, yet you’re an egomaniac when it comes to your cooking.”

He laughed. “That’s because I’m a better cook than attorney. Listen, why don’t you mix us a couple of drinks while I change out of this suit. I’ll be back in five minutes, and then you’ll see how a true culinary genius operates.”

“If it doesn’t work out, we can always jump in the car and go to McDonald’s for a hamburger.”

“Philistine.”

“Their hamburgers are hard to beat.”

“I’ll make you eat crow.”

“How do you cook it?”

“Very funny.”

“Well, if you cook it very funny, I don’t know if I want to eat it.”

“If I
did
cook crow,” he said, “it would be delicious. You would eat every scrap of it, lick your fingers, and beg for more.”

Her smile was so lovely that he could have stood there all evening, just staring at the sweet curve of her lips.

Elliot was amused by the effect that Tina had on him. He could not remember ever having been half so clumsy in the kitchen as he was this evening. He dropped spoons. He knocked over cans and bottles of spices. He forgot to watch a pot, and it boiled over. He made a mistake blending the salad dressing and had to begin again from scratch. She flustered him, and he loved it.

“Elliot, are you sure you aren’t feeling those cognacs we had at my office?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then the drink you’ve been sipping on here.”

“No. This is just my kitchen style.”

“Spilling things is your style?”

“It gives the kitchen a pleasant
used
look.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to McDonald’s?”

“Do
they
bother to give their kitchen a pleasant
used
look?”

“They not only have good hamburgers—”

“Their hamburgers have a pleasant
used
look.”

“—their French fries are terrific.”

“So I spill things,” he said. “A cook doesn’t have to be graceful to be a good cook.”

“Does he have to have a good memory?”

“Huh?”

“That mustard powder you’re just about to put into the salad dressing.”

“What about it?”

“You already put it in a minute ago.”

“I did? Thanks. I wouldn’t want to have to mix this damn stuff
three
times.”

She had a throaty laugh that was not unlike Nancy’s had been.

Although she was different from Nancy in many ways, being with her was like being with Nancy. She was easy to talk to — bright, funny, sensitive.

Perhaps it was too soon to tell for sure, but he was beginning to think that fate, in an uncharacteristic flush of generosity, had given him a second chance at happiness.

When he and Tina finished dessert, Elliot poured second cups of coffee. “Still want to go to McDonald’s for a hamburger?”

The mushroom salad, the fettuccine Alfredo, and the zabaglione had been excellent. “You really
can
cook.”

“Would I lie to you?”

“I guess I’ll have to eat that crow now.”

“I believe you just did.”

“And I didn’t even notice the feathers.”

While Tina and Elliot had been joking in the kitchen, even before dinner had been completely prepared, she had begun to think they might go to bed together. By the time they finished eating dinner, she
knew
they would. Elliot wasn’t pushing her. For that matter, she wasn’t pushing him, either. They were both being driven by natural forces. Like the rush of water downstream. Like the relentless building of a storm wind and then the lightning. They both realized that they were in need of each other, physically and mentally and emotionally, and that whatever happened between them would be good.

It was fast but right, inevitable.

At the start of the evening, the undercurrent of sexual tension made her nervous. She hadn’t been to bed with any man but Michael in the past fourteen years, since she was nineteen. She hadn’t been to bed with
anyone at all
for almost two years. Suddenly it seemed to her that she had done a mad, stupid thing when she’d hidden away like a nun for two years. Of course, during the first of those two years, she’d still been married to Michael and had felt compelled to remain faithful to him, even though a separation and then a divorce had been in the works, and even though he had not felt constrained by any similar moral sense. Later, with the stage show to produce and with poor Danny’s death weighing heavily on her, she hadn’t been in the mood for romance. Now she felt like an inexperienced girl. She wondered if she would know what to
do.
She was afraid that she would be inept, clumsy, ridiculous, foolish in bed. She told herself that sex was just like riding a bicycle, impossible to
un
learn, but the frivolousness of that analogy didn’t increase her self-confidence.

Gradually, however, as she and Elliot went through the standard rites of courtship, the indirect sexual thrusts and parries of a budding relationship, albeit at an accelerated pace, the familiarity of the games reassured her. Amazing that it should be so familiar. Maybe it really was a bit like riding a bicycle.

After dinner they adjourned to the den, where Elliot built a fire in the black-granite fireplace. Although winter days in the desert were often as warm as springtime elsewhere, winter nights were always cool, sometimes downright bitter. With a chilly night wind moaning at the windows and howling incessantly under the eaves, the blazing fire was welcome.

Tina kicked off her shoes.

They sat side by side on the sofa in front of the fireplace, watching the flames and the occasional bursts of orange sparks, listening to music, and talking, talking, talking. Tina felt as if they had talked without pause all evening, speaking with quiet urgency, as if each had a vast quantity of earthshakingly important information that he must pass on to the other before they parted. The more they talked, the more they found in common. As an hour passed in front of the fire, and then another hour, Tina discovered that she liked Elliot Stryker more with each new thing she learned about him.

She never was sure who initiated the first kiss. He may have leaned toward her, or perhaps she tilted toward him. But before she realized what was happening, their lips met softly, briefly. Then again. And a third time. And then he began planting small kisses on her forehead, on her eyes, on her cheeks, her nose, the corners of her mouth, her chin. He kissed her ears, her eyes again, and left a chain of kisses along her neck, and when at last he returned to her mouth, he kissed her more deeply than before, and she responded at once, opening her mouth to him.

His hands moved over her, testing the firmness and resilience of her, and she touched him too, gently squeezing his shoulders, his arms, the hard muscles of his back. Nothing had ever felt better to her than he felt at that moment.

As if drifting in a dream, they left the den and went into the bedroom. He switched on a small lamp that stood upon the dresser, and he turned down the sheets.

During the minute that he was away from her, she was afraid the spell was broken. But when he returned, she kissed him tentatively, found that nothing had changed, and pressed against him once more.

She felt as if the two of them had been here, like this, locked in an embrace, many times before.

“We hardly know each other,” she said.

“Is that the way you feel?”

“No.”

“Me, neither.”

“I know you so well.”

“For ages.”

“Yet it’s only been two days.”

“Too fast?” he asked.

“What do you think?”

“Not too fast for me.”

“Not too fast at all,” she agreed.

“Sure?”

“Positive.”

“You’re lovely.”

“Love me.”

He was not a particularly large man, but he picked her up in his arms as if she were a child.

She clung to him. She saw a longing and a need in his dark eyes, a powerful wanting that was only partly sex, and she knew the same need to be loved and valued must be in her eyes for him to see.

He carried her to the bed, put her down, and urged her to lie back. Without haste, with a breathless anticipation that lit up his face, he undressed her.

He quickly stripped off his own clothes and joined her on the bed, took her in his arms.

He explored her body slowly, deliberately, first with his eyes, then with his loving hands, then with his lips and tongue.

Tina realized that she had been wrong to think that celibacy should be a part of her period of mourning. Just the opposite was true. Good, healthy lovemaking with a man who cared for her would have helped her recover much faster than she had done, for sex was the antithesis of death, a joyous celebration of life, a denial of the tomb’s existence.

The amber light molded to his muscles.

He lowered his face to hers. They kissed.

She slid a hand between them, squeezed and stroked him. She felt wanton, shameless, insatiable.

As he entered her, she let her hands travel over his body, along his lean flanks.

“You’re so sweet,” he said.

He began the age-old rhythm of love. For a long, long time, they forgot that death existed, and they explored the delicious, silken surfaces of love, and it seemed to them, in those shining hours, that they would both live forever.

T
HURSDAY,
J
ANUARY
1

15

TINA STAYED THE NIGHT WITH ELLIOT, AND HE realized that he had forgotten how pleasant it could be to share his bed with someone for whom he truly cared. He’d had other women in this bed during the past two years, and a few had stayed the night, but not one of those other lovers had made him feel content merely by the fact of her presence, as Tina did. With her, sex was a delightful bonus, a lagniappe, but it wasn’t the main reason he wanted her beside him. She was an excellent lover — silken, smooth, and uninhibited in the pursuit of her own pleasure—but she was also vulnerable and kind. The vague, shadowy shape of her under the covers, in the darkness, was a talisman to ward off loneliness.

Eventually he fell asleep, but at four o’clock in the morning, he was awakened by cries of distress.

She sat straight up, the sheets knotted in her fists, catapulted out of a nightmare. She was quaking, gasping about a man dressed all in black, the monstrous figure from her dream.

Elliot switched on the bedside lamp to prove to her that they were alone in the room.

She had told him about the dreams, but he hadn’t realized, until now, how terrible they were. The exhumation of Danny’s body would be good for her, regardless of the horror that she might have to confront when the coffin lid was raised. If seeing the remains would put an end to these bloodcurdling nightmares, she would gain an advantage from the grim experience.

He switched off the bedside lamp and persuaded her to lie down again. He held her until she stopped shuddering.

To his surprise, her fear rapidly changed to desire. They fell easily into the pace and rhythm that had earlier best pleased them. Afterward, they slipped into sleep again.