Having Faith (23 page)

The fight had left her with the quieting of his voice, and by the time he was done talking, its gentle, almost pleading tone had done a job on her anger. Closing her eyes, she let herself lean against him. "Oh, Sawyer."

"What?" he asked hoarsely.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I don't know."

"Don't know what?"

"What I was thinking. Feeling. Doing."

He stroked her back with large, knowing hands.

"Sure you know. You're just not ready to verbalize it. You're tired. You're in a lousy mood.

Maybe it's that time of the month. "

Tired or not, she probably would have hauled back and socked him if she hadn't heard the teasing in his voice. "That, Sawyer Bell, is the most bigoted thing you've said yet. Men have moods just like women. I have every right to be in a lousy mood. I'm not tired. I'm overtired."

Without another word, he moved her under one arm and headed for the bedroom. When she'd taken her robe off and was tucked into bed, he sat by her side.

"You're right. You need sleep."

She studied his handsome face.

"Are you leaving?"

"You want me to."

"You said you were staying."

"But you'd rather sleep alone."

She darted a glance at the empty side of the bed.

"There's room here.

I'd hate to send you out in the cold. "

"It's not very cold. I can jog back the same way I came."

"Or you can jog back in the morning." She paused, then before she could ask herself what she was doing and why, whispered, "Stay, Sawyer. I want to sleep with you." Sawyer stayed.

"The woman won't talk," Bruce Leindecker complained to Sawyer when he called on Wednesday morning. "I took her to dinner, and we sat like two very civilized people. She listened to what I said, but she wouldn't talk."

"She just sat there, mute?" Sawyer asked. "Not mute, exactly. She offered simple answers to simple questions, but when I asked her to tell me what she felt, she just stared at me.

Let me tell you, that stare hurt. "

"Did you tell her that?"

"No."

Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck. He was getting a little tired of hand-holding, though he was being paid well to do it.

"Maybe you should have."

"Then she'd have done it more. She wants to get back at me. She wants to hurt me like I hurt her. It doesn't seem to matter how much I apologize. She's still angry. Maybe she really does want out."

"Maybe she needs more time." "Maybe I should just give in and file for divorce myself. If I did that, she'd talk. She'd say she doesn't want the divorce after all and attack me for wanting to dump her." He paused.

"Reverse psychology.

It's not such a bad idea. "

Reverse psychology had worked for Sawyer the night before. As soon as he'd said he was leaving,

Faith had changed her mind about wanting him to. He suspected Laura might do the same--and it had nothing to do with a sexist bias, because he used the tactic repeatedly with difficult male clients. No, he suspected Laura might do the same because he was privy to information Faith had passed on. If Laura did love Bruce, she'd protest the divorce as soon as it became a serious consideration.

But gut instinct told him the timing wasn't right for that.

"Wait.

Just a little longer. Reverse psychology can work, or it can backfire.

It would be a tactical error to threaten something and have her call your bluff. Backing down would weaken your position. " He debated the alternate courses of action.

"You're still living at home, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Okay. So keep talking to her and keep after her to talk back. Don't be discouraged. She's been badly hurt, and it's the kind of hurt that won't go away with an apology or two."

"But I'm legitimately sorry. She knows that. She knows me."

Sawyer reflected on the things Faith had said.

"She may have thought she did once, but she never imagined you'd go off and have an affair.

So in addition to being hurt, she's probably afraid to trust you, or her own instincts where you're concerned. You have a long road ahead, Bruce. This isn't something that a woman can easily forgive and forget. " He rocked back in his chair wearing a small, smug smile, thinking that Faith would be proud of him. He might be a chauvinist, but he wasn't beyond being broadened.

Bmce wasn't as pleased as he was.

"From the way you talk I'd do just as well to toss in the towel now. Are you saying that I've got to graven" Sawyer could almost hear him straightening in his seat and donning his executive front.

"I won't do that, Sawyer. I may love the woman, but no woman--or man, for that matter--runs me into the ground like that. I'm not without pride. If she pushes me too far, I'll give her a divorce with pleasure."

"I doubt it will come to that. Just give her time."

Bruce agreed to do that, and Sawyer hung up the phone. His first thought was to call Faith, but he meant what he'd said about disturbing her. It wasn't as if something momentous had happened with the case. And besides, they had a date for lunch.

That gave him the excuse he needed. Lifting the phone, he dialed her number. When she came on, he said, "Was that twelve-thirty or one?

What did we finally decide? " Their plans had been a little muddled in Sawyer's dash to throw on his clothes and get out the door in time to jog home, shave, shower, dress and make an eight o'clock breakfast meeting.

"One," she said softly.

"Ahhh. Okay. That's great." He paused.

"Everything going all right?"

"Fine. Busy." But she didn't hang up.

"Great. Hey, listen, I'm sorry to bother you, but I just wasn't sure and I didn't want one of us waiting."

"You're no bother."

"Maybe I should have run downstairs, just poked my head in and asked you in person."

"That would have bothered me."

"Why that?"

"Because you're a distraction any way you come, but seeing you in the flesh is the worst."

"Is that a compliment or a complaint?"

"You figure it out," she said with a smile in her voice.

"You can tell me what you decide at lunch. Goodbye, Sawyer."

Having lunch with Sawyer was a different experience because for the first time, eating at a local restaurant that they both frequented separately, they were seen together. The place was packed with acquaintances and colleagues, most of whom probably assumed they were discussing matters of law.

Faith knew the truth, though. This wasn't a legal lunch but a social one. She enjoyed being with Sawyer. She also enjoyed being seen with him, and that bothered her a little. Professionally, she had her own identity. She wasn't out to get respect riding on another lawyer's coattails. She earned her own respect.

No, the pride she felt didn't have to do with her image as a lawyer.

It had to do with her image as a woman, and that was what bothered her. She felt more feminine when she was with Sawyer. She felt that people would see her as being more feminine, and it surprised her that she cared. But she did care, which meant that she had much more to lose if the relationship ended.

More and more, it seemed, she was growing dependent on Sawyer. He was in her mind whenever her mind wasn't occupied with work. She was quickly coming to expect that she would see him for dinner and then spend the night with him. She feared she'd be crushed if he decided he needed a night alone.

She thought of being the first to do it, of telling Sawyer herself that she couldn't see him that night and sticking to it this time. If she was the one who rejected him, it wouldn't hurt so much, she figured. The problem with the figuring was that she really wanted to see him. Making excuses would be a bit like biting off her nose to spite her face.

On and off through Wednesday afternoon, she wallowed in a state of indecision. Then Laura Leindecker called.

"My husband won't leave me alone," she cried.

"We have to do something. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take."

Faith was beginning to feel like Dear Abby, and she didn't think she cared for the role.

"What's he doing?" "He is waging a campaign to win me over. First it was dinner, then breakfast. He's calling me from the office three or four times a day wanting to know how I am and what I'm doing. This is very strange for a man who absented himself from my life for so many years."

"He loves you."

"He's scared."

"Scared of losing you."

"Scared of losing the house or the Mercedes or the millions he'll have to settle on me."

"From what I understand, he's got more than enough to go around."

"But he's making me crazy with his constant attention. It's gotten so that I feel guilty going shopping because he can't reach me in the stores."

Taking a breath in a bid for patience, Faith said, "Maybe if you gave him a little encouragement, he wouldn't feel that he has to work so hard to convince you of his devotion."

"I don't want his devotion!"

"I thought you did. I thought that was what this was all about. You were complaining that he was never around."

"He wasn't," Laura cried, "but I got used to that. I structured my life so that I had things to do, and I have even more things to do now that the children are grown. But they're women's things, like luncheons and bridge club and garden club, and Bruce is going to be in the way."

Faith sighed. Much as she tried to respect Laura's dilemma, she was tiring of the game. "What is it you want?"

"I want things to be the way they were! I want Bruce to go his way and me go my way, and when he's not on a business trip or tied up late at the office, we can see each other. Maybe I do want him to be devoted, but I don't want to be smothered."

"And you really don't want a divorce."

"No, I don't want a divorce."

"Do you love him?"

"I've loved him for so long that I wouldn't know how not to love him."

"Have you told him that?"

"How can I? It's the only lever I have left."

The phone line was silent for a minute. Then, slowly and quietly.

Faith said, "Please, Laura, please talk to him. Tell him what you've just told me. He doesn't want a divorce any more than you do. There's nothing wrong with your marriage that some good heart-to-hearts won't fix. Tell him how you feel. Not just the surface things, but deep down inside."

"That won't work," Laura said sadly.

"We've never been able to talk that way with each other."

"Maybe it's time you started."

"But I can't trust him. I did once, and look where it got me."

"He made a mistake. He knows that and regrets it." Faith sighed.

"Either you give him another chance, or we file papers tomorrow. You have to decide one way or the other, Laura. It isn't fair to you, it isn't fair to Bruce, and it isn't fair to Sawyer and me. We're lawyers. It's our job to push for reconciliation, but we can't lead you through that the way we'd be able to lead you through court. We're not trained to be marriage counselors. You have to decide which you want."

Laura made a small, bewildered sound.

"Why do / have to make the decision?"

"Because," Faith said with sudden insight, "you're the one with the power."

1 hrough the rest of the day, Faith thought a lot about women and power. They underestimated themselves, she decided. Too often they bought society's line and associated men with the power, and maybe that was true in the business sphere, but not necessarily in the personal, more emotional one. Laura Leindecker was in an enviable position. She knew what she wanted, could reach out and take it if she decided to, and in that sense she held her husband in the palm of her hand.

Sawyer wasn't one to be held in any woman's palm, and Faith wouldn't have it any other way. Still, there were times when she wished he wasn't so sure of himself and his feelings. Then she wouldn't feel so weak by comparison.

Such was her line of thinking that night at his place, which was where he took her after work, and while she watched him grill steaks and toss a salad, she felt increasingly powerless. Her relationship with him seemed to be barreling forward, and as it went, she had less and less control over it.

There were three possible reasons for that, she decided. The first was that Sawyer was right, that the relationship had lain dormant for years and now, under newly favorable circumstances, was ripe for the growing. In that case, the relationship itself, the male- female dynamics were controlling Sawyer and her.

The second possibility was that Sawyer was the one in control, that he was the force behind the onrush of their relationship. He was more aggressive than she was. He was the one making sure that they spent every free minute together, and it was at his insistence that they were sleeping together every night.