From the Heart (54 page)

Maybe I should change, she thought, and glanced down at her no-nonsense suit of charcoal gray. Even as she headed from the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Liv jolted. Oh, stop being ridiculous, she chided herself, but when she answered the door, her heart was thumping.

“Hi.” She gave him a bright smile that was a little strained around the edges. “Your timing's good; I'll put the steaks on in a minute.” She shut the door behind her and was already wondering what to do with her hands. “Steak's about the safest; I can't do too much to ruin it. Would you like a drink?”

I'm rambling,
she thought. Good God. And he was looking
at her again in that calm, steady way. She went to the bar without waiting for his answer. She could use one, even if he couldn't.

“Do you want scotch?” she asked, pouring first from the vermouth decanter for herself. She felt his hands on her shoulders.

She didn't resist when he turned her, didn't lower her eyes when his looked into hers. Without speaking, he simply gathered her close and held her. With a shuddering sigh, she clung to him and felt the tension flow from her.

“Oh, Thorpe, I nearly went crazy without you. I need you.” That in itself was an awesome admission. They both held on to it. Liv lifted her face to his. “Don't go,” she murmured. “Don't go tonight.”

She pressed her mouth to his. The world focused for her again. “Make love to me,” she whispered. “Now, Thorpe. Right now.”

His mouth still on hers, he lowered her to the couch. He touched her gently, feeling the shape of her through her clothes. Her body was pliant, willing to be explored. Her breath trembled on his tongue. With unbearable softness, he kissed her again and again until Liv felt the total capitulation of mind, body, spirit. She felt no aching drive, no desperation, only a warm, liquifying surrender.

He undressed her slowly, layer by layer, piece by piece, letting his fingertips linger on the point of her breast, on the curve of her hip. Liv sighed and relinquished everything. He was in command, to take her wherever he wished.

His touch was light, almost reverent as he stroked her. Even when he wandered to the heated skin of her inner thighs, he moved without hurry. She began to shudder, to arch under him, but he lingered only briefly at her moist center before roaming on.

He teased the tip of her breast with his tongue, then stopped to savor. Liv felt the passion shoot from the sensitive skin he tasted to the pit of her stomach. It pulled at her until her movements were less languid. But he wouldn't be rushed. His mouth took the same slow, aching journey his fingertips had—over and over her while her skin hummed then quivered, then flashed with heat.

She heard herself calling him in a voice that was rough with needs. Her body was no longer passive, but crying out for him. Only him. He took her, but slowly, while she clung to him mindlessly, a breath away from heaven. Then his mouth was on hers and they rocketed through space together.

“
H
ey.” Thorpe nuzzled Liv's neck to wake her. “Going to sleep all day?”

She snuggled closer. “Um-hum.” She kept her eyes shut. The feel of his body against her was all that she wanted at the moment. It could be night or morning or afternoon. She didn't care.

“It's after nine.” He ran his hand down her back and heard her quiet sigh of pleasure. “We're going to spend the day in a boat, remember?”

Liv let her eyes open to slits. It was morning, she discovered. Saturday morning. And he was with her. With a sleepy smile, she tilted her face back to his. “Let's spend it in bed instead.”

“The woman's lazy,” he decided. And beautiful, he thought as he brushed the hair from her cheek. So achingly beautiful.

“Lazy?” Liv's left brow arched. “I've masses of untapped energy.” Her voice was slow and heavy as she shut her eyes again. “Masses,” she repeated, and yawned.

“Oh yes, I can see that. Should we go to the Mall and jog first?”

She opened her eyes again. “Oh, I've a much better idea.”

He hadn't expected the kiss to be so ardent, or her move to be so quick. She was suddenly lying across his chest with her mouth on his. His sound of pleasure was muffled. Then she touched him. His pulse jumped from an easy rhythm to a
racing pace in the space of seconds. His blood, cool from the night's rest, flamed headily. Her hands were urgent, unexpectedly aggressive, her mouth hungry on his skin. He was caught up in her quickly, before he could fully register that she was leading him.

His instant response seemed to fill her with power. Her mouth was greedy on his, demanding and drawing, then roaming on to his neck, his throat, his shoulders. Her tongue darted out, tracing over his chest, lingering over his nipples, and then on.

When did she become so strong? he wondered, dazed. Or was he suddenly weak? He needed to have her now. Now. He could feel the blood pounding, in his head, in his loins, in his fingertips. Pleasure was a pain clawing at his stomach.

But when he tried to roll her over, she shifted, straddling him and crushing his mouth with her own. He was suffocating, but he pulled her closer. She was in his lungs, in his pores. Her movements on top of him were driving him mad.

Then he was inside her. Sanity shattered. The world exploded. He could hear the thunder of it roaring inside his head until he thought he would never hear anything else. Then it was Liv's breathing—short, shallow. She seemed to melt onto him as the strength seeped from her. He shuddered once, then cradled the back of her head in his hand.

My woman,
he thought almost fiercely as she rested against him, still trembling. He let himself lie still until the intensity passed. There was still a need to be cautious. “I suppose you want an apology.”

“Hmm?” He could hear the bafflement in the sigh.

“For calling you lazy.”

Liv laughed and clung to him, then shifted to his side. “It does seem to be in order,” she agreed, and prepared to snuggle again. “You can give it to me when I wake up.”

“Oh, no.” Rising, Thorpe grabbed her and hauled her unceremoniously, unsympathetically from the bed. “Rowing,” he said as she tried to scowl at him.

“You're an obsessed man.”

“Absolutely.” He smiled before he kissed her nose. “I'll let you have the shower first.”

“Thanks.”

Her gratitude seemed a trifle mordant, but he grinned at her as she shut the bathroom door behind her.

Thorpe slipped on his slacks and gave an idle thought to fixing coffee. Instead, he reached for the pack of cigarettes that lay on the table beside the bed. From there, he could hear Liv humming as she started up the water for her shower.

Picking up his lighter, Thorpe flicked it and got spark but no flame. Mildly annoyed, he glanced around for matches, then opened the narrow drawer in the table, thinking he might find some there.

The photograph caught his eye immediately. It drew his attention first because Liv's apartment was so conspicuously bare of photos or personal mementos, and second because the child smiling back at him was strikingly beautiful. Lifting it out, he studied it.

It was a small snapshot framed in silver. The boy was hardly more than a year old, full in the cheeks and grinning broadly. His thatch of black hair was thick and left to fall around his face in a style that suited the freewheeling smile. The eyes were dark, dark blue, nearly cobalt, and filled with a mixture of mischief and delight. Here was a child a stranger on the street would stop to smile at—a child aunts and uncles would have to spoil. You could almost hear the laughter that was ready to burst through the grin.

With the photo still in his hand, Thorpe sat on the bed.

“I hope I used all the hot water,” Liv said from behind the door. “It would serve you right for dragging me out of bed at the crack of dawn on a Saturday.” She opened the door and stood for a minute looking down as she belted her robe. “I don't smell any coffee. The least you can do when . . .”

Her voice trailed off as she looked up and saw what Thorpe held in his hand. He watched the laughter and color flow from her face.

“Liv.” He started to explain the hunt for the matches, then stopped. The words would hardly matter, even if they penetrated. “Who is he?”

Thorpe could count a full ten seconds before her eyes lifted to his. He watched her swallow, saw her bottom lip tremble; but when she spoke, her voice was clear and strong. “My son.”

He had known it the moment he had seen the photo. The resemblance was unmistakable. Yet he felt a thud of shock at her answer. Keeping his eyes level, he too spoke calmly. “Where is he?”

Her face was dead white now. He had never seen eyes so dark, so full of thoughts and secrets and pain. A ripple of emotion shook her. “He's dead.”

Quickly, Liv turned to the closet and began pulling out clothes. She saw nothing more than a blur of colors. She chose at random with hands that were too numb to shake. Even when she felt him take her shoulders, she continued, pushing at hangers and pulling out a blouse.

“Liv.” It took a firm hand to turn her.

“I have to get dressed if we're going.” She shook her head, already warding off questions as she tried to break his grip.

“Stop it.” The command was curt, and the shake he gave her was strong enough to draw a quick breath from her. “No, don't do that. Not now, not ever again. Not with me.” Then, before she could speak, he pulled her against him and held her.

She might have withstood the command. But he was offering comfort, strength. She leaned into him, and her defenses crumbled.

“Come, sit down,” he said, “and tell me about it.”

With his arm still around her, Liv sat on the bed. The snapshot lay beside her. She picked it up and set it in her lap. He didn't press her further, sensing she needed a moment before she could begin.

“I was nineteen when I met Doug.” Her viewers wouldn't have recognized her voice now. It was small and hesitant and threaded with emotion. “He was studying law. He had a scholarship. He was a brilliant man, very free spirited, yet intense about what he was going to do. He was going to be the best defense attorney in the country. Change the system from within the system, challenge windmills, fight dragons. That was Doug.”

When he said nothing, Liv drew a deep breath and continued. Her voice grew stronger. “We were attracted to each other right away. Maybe partly because our backgrounds were so totally different and our ideals were so shiny. We sparked
something in each other. And we were so young.” She sighed, gathered strength and went on. “We married quickly, less than three months after we'd met. My family . . .” With a little laugh, she shook her head. “Well, leave it that they were surprised. Sometimes I'm afraid that might have been one of the reasons I married him. I don't like to think it was.”

She stared off into middle distance, into her own memories. For a moment, Thorpe felt cut off from her. He shook the feeling off and continued to listen.

“It wasn't the sturdiest marriage—we were young and there were a lot of pressures. College. Doug was cramming for exams; I was interning at a local station and studying every spare minute. Money didn't matter much to either of us, luckily, because there wasn't a great deal of it. We had some good times, but Doug was . . .” She let out a long breath, as if searching for the proper words.

“He had a weakness for women. He loved me, I really believe he did in his own way, but he had a difficult time with fidelity. None of his—slips ever meant anything to him, and I wasn't very sexually experienced.”

Thorpe found himself forced to choke words back. He didn't want to interrupt her now that she was talking, really talking, but the urge to curse the man she had married was almost too powerful to resist. He could remember very clearly her telling him, the first time they had made love, that she wasn't very good at pleasing a partner. Now, at least, he understood how the notion had been planted. He kept quiet and listened.

“We had Joshua within the year—hardly a year after we had first met. My family thought we were mad, starting a family so quickly and with an income far below what any of them could conceive trying to live on. But we both wanted a baby. We both wanted Josh. It seemed, for a time, he'd center our lives. He was so special.” Her eyes fell to the photo in her lap. “I know all mothers think that about their babies, but he was so beautiful, so good-natured. He hardly ever cried.”

She saw the tear fall onto the glass of the frame and squeezed her eyes shut. “We both adored him. It was impossible not to. For almost a year, we were happy. Really, really happy. Doug was a tremendous father. No job was too
small or too demeaning. I remember once he woke me up, absolutely beside himself with pride when he had discovered Josh had cut a tooth.”

Liv said nothing for nearly a full minute. Thorpe didn't want to prompt her. He understood her need to continue at her own pace. Keeping his arm around her, he waited.

“After I had graduated, we moved to New Jersey. Doug had a position with a small law firm, and I had landed a job with WTRL. I had the night desk at first. It wasn't easy on either of us. We were both just starting out, taking career crumbs, working obscene hours, raising the baby between us. I don't think Josh suffered. It certainly didn't seem so, he was such a happy baby. I was with him all day; Doug took over in the evening and put him to bed. Then, there was an incident with a law clerk Doug was attracted to. A small slip; he hadn't had one in a year. I overlooked it.” She shrugged. “Tried to overlook it,” she corrected herself. “He blamed himself enough for it in any case. We tried to put things back together. We had the baby to think of. Nothing was more important to either one of us than Josh.

“Finally, I got off the night shift and onto days. I started reading the weather and doing a few minor reports. We spent a lot of time finding a sitter who satisfied both of us. Even then, we disagreed. Doug wanted me to stop working and stay home with Josh. I wouldn't do it.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes a moment, then laid them back in her lap. “He was so well adjusted, so content. I loved him more than anything else in the world, but it didn't seem necessary, or even wise, for me to stop work, give up my career to be with him every minute. There were financial considerations, and my own needs. And I didn't want to smother him.”

Her voice lost its strength and started to waver. “It was so tempting to just stay with him, spoil him. Doug used to say if I had my way I would have kept him a baby forever. I always thought he was trying to make Josh grow up too quickly. It was really sweet the way he'd buy him a football and talk about two-wheelers when Josh was only eighteen months old. But then he bought this huge swing set on Josh's second birthday. It terrified me, all those high bars. We argued about it a bit—not seriously. He laughed and called my
overprotective. Then I laughed because Doug had been the one to research car seats for three weeks before he'd bought one. If I'd . . . If I'd stuck to my instincts, everything might have been different.”

Liv stared down at the picture a moment; then, she pressed it to her breast. “The sitter called me at work to tell me Josh had taken a tumble from the swing. Just a bump on the head, she said, but I dropped everything, called Doug and rushed home. He'd gotten there even before I had. Josh seemed fine, but both of us were panicked. We took him straight to the emergency room at the hospital. I remember sitting there while he was being X-rayed. This big room, with all these black plastic chairs, metal ashtrays, and overhead lights. The floor tile was black with white speckles in it. I counted them and Doug paced.

“When the doctor came out, he took us both into this little room. He had a gentle voice. It terrified me. I could see it in his eyes before he said anything, but I wouldn't believe it. It wasn't possible.” She pressed her hand to her mouth to try to keep the sobs from breaking through. Every detail was flooding back over her, and with them, all the pain. “I didn't believe it when he told us Josh had thrown an embolism. He was gone. Just like that.”

Liv rocked back and forth, the photo pressed close as the sobs began to tear at her throat. “I don't even know what happened then. I got hysterical; they sedated me. The next thing I remember clearly was being at home. Doug was devastated. We couldn't seem to do each other any good. Instead, we lashed out. We said terrible things. He blamed me for not staying home watching our child. Caring for him. If I had been there, then maybe . . . And I clawed back. He'd bought the swing set. The damned swing set that had killed my baby.”

“Liv.” He wanted to wipe it all out—the pain, the grief, even the memories. She had the photo pressed against her breast as if she would try to bring it to life with her own heartbeat. What comfort could he offer? Not words; there weren't any. He could only hold her.