More Than Friends (24 page)

"Then you knew he was coming?"

"He wrote that he was, though I didn't know exactly when. I was furious at the thought of his showing up again, but that didn't keep me from repeatedly touching where his pen had touched and holding the paper where his hands might have held it." Her throat knotted as she remembered the past. In a whisper she said, "I loved him so much. You can't imagine."

Annie studied her hands.

"What are you thinking?" Teke asked.

Without looking up she said, "I'm thinking that I

can too imagine. I love Sam that same way, so maybe you can understand the hurt I'm feeling. I'm also thinking that if you loved Grady so much, you should never have married J.D."

"Grady was convicted of murder and sent to prison. Before he went--the last time I saw him--we had an awful argument. He said he didn't want to see me again, ever. I was devastated. I tried to write, but he returned my letters unopened. I tried to visit, but he refused to see me. Same with phone calls. So what choice did I have? He sent me away. He ruled out a future. He told me to make my family with someone else, because he didn't want me. So I did the only thing I could. I put Grady behind me. I met you and Sam and married J.D. and had Leigh and Jana and Michael. They've been good years."

"But not good enough?"

"Good years." Teke was trying to understand it herself, which was one of the reasons she had so needed to talk with Annie. It wasn't that Annie had all the answers, but she helped with the sorting out. "When I got Grady's letter, I was taken off-guard. Suddenly all the things I'd refused to think about all those years crowded back." She hesitated, then pushed on. "My relationship with Grady was very different from my relationship with J.D."

"In what ways?"

"We were both poor. We were soul mates in a harsh world. We comforted each other in a life with few other comforts." She lowered her eyes.

"And then there was sex. Things with Grady were hot. Things with J.D. were tepid."

"Even at the start?" Annie asked.

"It was okay then. I was turned on by the kind of life J.D. and I were going to make together. As the years passed, though, the novelty of it faded. I tried not to make the comparison, but after a while I couldn't help it. It got worse the more I realized that things would never be what I wanted them to be with J.D."

Annie said a quiet, "I didn't know."

Teke smiled sadly. "It's not something a woman brags about, even to her best friend. I feel like I'm betraying J.D. saying it now." She grimaced. "As if I hadn't already betrayed him worse. And you." There was a knock at the door.

"Just a minute," Teke called. In a lower voice she said to Annie,

"Nineteen years of marriage, and I never cheated on him. I didn't mind the lack of passion. I had a home and a family and all of you, and it was so much more than I had as a kid that I used to go to bed thanking my lucky stars that I was where I was. Then, damn it, I got Grady's letter, and I wanted him, just like I had when I was a kid. It was like I was suddenly starved for what I hadn't had all those years, and that terrified me. Because I do have a good life. I didn't want to give it up. So help me God, if I could have gone to my grave without ever seeing Grady again, I would have been fine."

She let out a breath. Using both hands, she scooped her hair to the top of her head, wound a long piece around it, and tucked it in. Absently, nervously, she pulled a few wisps down to shield herself from total exposure.

"It was like the murder," she said. "It was unpremeditated and over and done so quickly that it was hard to believe something so fast could create such havoc with people's lives. I was distracted thinking of Grady when Sam came in. I was overwhelmed thinking of Grady, so much so that I don't remember a thing of what I felt with Sam. It was about as intimate as the four of us skinny-dipping off Sutters Island on a moonless night."

The image made her smile. Skinny-dipping had

always been Sam's idea. The thrill had been doing it without the kids finding out. She wondered if Annie remembered, too--but if so, there was no pleasure in the memory. She looked defeated. And she remained quiet.

"Tell me what you're thinking," Teke coaxed. "I need to know." Annie gave a tiny moan. She drew in a deep breath, wrapped her arms around herself, looked every way but at Teke. "There's one part of me that says "It's over and done. Let's forget it," as though we can go back to the way it was before." Pleadingly she looked at Teke. "But I don't think I can do that. It hurts every time I think of it. I'm feeling things about myself, and feeling things about you and about Sam, that are very new, and it's hard."

"You and Sam had so much. All that can't be ruined."

"It may not be, but it's changed. There won't ever be that kind of blind trust again. It's gone."

"I'm sorry," Teke said. "I think that's what haunts me the most, you and Sam. Okay, so if you and I aren't ever friends, I can accept that as my punishment, but if things fall apart between you and Sam, that'll be too much. It shouldn't happen. He loves you, Annie." Annie raised her eyebrows in a shrug.

"He does. And you love him. Don't let it fall apart because of a stupid move on my part."

Annie gave her a dry look. "You didn't rape him, Teke." Another knock came. "Just a minute," Teke called, and added quietly but crossly, "Why are people so impatient?"

"Some needs are urgent."

Teke let out a breath. "Okay." She leveled a look at Annie. "But that was only part of what I wanted to

say. I need your help. Jana refuses to talk to me. Leigh does only when absolutely necessary. Neither of them can talk to J.D." which means that emotionally they're on their own. I'm worried about them. I have no idea what they're feeling about all this, besides anger. You're the one they've always talked to, and in this case, you're the most innocent of the parties. Can you talk with them, Annie? Please?" Annie looked uncomfortable. "That's putting me in an awkward situation. I won't talk badly about you in front of your daughters, and I can't talk badly about Sam even though there are times when I'm sure that I hate him, and I have no idea what's going on between you and J.D. What am I supposed to tell them?"

"I don't know," Teke wailed, hit by the same panic that had been hitting her on and off since Michael had slammed the door and run out of the house. "I don't know. But I'm losing them! Tell me what to do!"

Annie must have sensed her panic, because she straightened and said,

"I'll talk with them. I don't know as it'll do much more than buy time--"

"They need a outlet, an adult they can talk to--"

"They need you."

"But they've always gone to you," Teke said. "I know you're angry at me, but I'm begging you, for old times' sake if nothing else, help my kids."

Annie was suddenly angry. "God damn it, Teke, if I talk with your kids, it won't be for old times' sake. I've known them since they were born. I love them. Of course I'll talk with them. All I'm saying is that in the end you're going to have to talk with them yourself." With the sound of another, sharper knock, Annie nudged her aside and pulled open the door. Teke had no choice but to follow her back down the hall.

ten

ON THURSDAY, ONE WEEK AFTER MICHAEL

woke from his coma, he was moved to the rehabilitation center J.D. had selected. It was a forty-minute drive from Constance, but J.D. felt that the quality of the facility and the care there would more than compensate for the distance.

He drove his car while Teke went in the ambulance with Michael. Once at the center, Michael was whisked away for evaluation by the staff. It would be an hour or more, they were told, before he would return to his room. That gave J.D. the time he needed.

"Let's get coffee," he said to Teke.

They went to the cafeteria, where it seemed much of the staff was on break, but the setting was still preferable to home for what J.D. had in mind. He found a table in a far corner where they might have a measure of privacy.

"What are your plans now?" he asked once they were seated. Teke looked uneasy. He could understand why. It was the first time they had been alone together since all hell had broken loose. He wasn't feeling

terribly comfortable himself, and he was the one in the right!

"My plans?" she asked.

"You've been spending most nights at the hospital. Now that Michael's here, will you be sleeping at home?"

She fingered her coffee cup. "I don't know. I haven't thought that far. I want to do what's best for Michael."

"What about Leigh and Jana?"

"They don't seem to want me very much right now."

"Does Michael?" he asked with reason. He had seen the boy with his mother. It wasn't what Michael did as much as what he didn't do that suggested his anger. He avoided looking at her. He spoke to her only in brief answers to questions she posed. He smiled for others, but the smile faded when she came into view.

Michael was the same way with Sam. That gave J.D. a measure of satisfaction.

Teke raised the coffee cup to her mouth, then put it down without a sip. "He may not want to see me, but his situation is different from Jana's and Leigh's. He's younger, and he's hurt. The doctors say he'll spend several weeks here, then months in therapy at home before he'll have the kind of mobility he had before."

"At least he'll have it," J.D. reminded her. He had been infinitely grateful when Bill Gardner had finally assured him on that score. "It could have been worse. I wouldn't complain about therapy if I were you."

"I'm not complaining. I'll do whatever has to be done, but it won't be easy on Michael. Therapy is hard work. It's painful and frustrating. He's already down in the mouth about not being able to play basketball, and it'll get worse when the season starts. And he isn't looking forward to being tutored."

"Have you arranged for that?" J.D. asked. He had told her to the week before.

She nodded. "I have someone coming here every afternoon for two hours."

He was instantly skeptical. "Is two hours enough?"

"It's all they advise. Michael still fades in and out. His level of concentration isn't what it was. Besides, he can't write with the cast on his arm, and even when it comes off, he'll need therapy before he'll be able to handle a pencil."

"What if he had a laptop computer?"

"That would help."

J.D. took out his date book and made a note to call Dick White. Dick was a client who owned a large chain of computer stores. He would know which machine to buy and would give J.D. a deal. "This tutor, is he good?"

"He's been highly recommended. He was agreeable when we talked on the phone."

J.D. pictured her greeting a tutor at the front door of the rehab center, walking him to Michael's room, having coffee with him after the sessions were done. "What does he look like?"

"I don't know," Teke said innocently enough, then stiffened when she got his drift. "Please, J.D.," she whispered, "don't insult me that way."

"Why not? You insulted me."

"And I'm paying the price. You can be sure I won't do it again."

"Not even with Grady Piper?" he asked, and could see by her sudden pallor that he had touched a raw cord. That gave him pleasure. He pressed on. "You didn't just 'know' him in Gullen, did you? You were lovers."

Her gaze met his and held. "You knew I wasn't a virgin when we met."

"I knew. I imagined that you had a naughty past, but that was kind of exciting. I thought I was the one who would straighten you out, only I wasn't able to, was I? Once a whore, always a whore." Her skin remained pale. The cup shook slightly when she raised it for a drink. She set it down on the saucer with great care.

"No argument?" he goaded. He wouldn't have minded repeating the accusation.

"If calling me names makes you feel better, go ahead. You know how childish it is, though, don't you?"

"What I know," he said in a voice that was low but vibrating with the anger that was never quite gone, "is that Virginia Clinger did serious damage before I shut her up. I can't tell you how many men have teased me about you and Sam. Thanks to you, I feel like a fool. So if I want to call you names, I will."

She didn't flinch. Looking more weary, she said, "We have to talk about where we're going, you and me."

That was supposed to be his line. He resented her saying it first, but as long as she had, he figured he would give her a chance to make a fool of herself for a change. So instead of telling her what he wanted

--as he knew she was expecting him to do--he sat back in the plastic chair. "Where do you want to go?"

To her credit, she didn't hem and haw. She composed herself much as she did when they were at functions where she was clearly outclassed. Then she said, "My first choice would be trying to see if we can patch things up. That would be best for the kids."

"Forget the kids. Another five years and they'll be out of the house. What about us? Do you honestly think patching things up will work after what's happened?"

"It was one time, J.D.," she countered. "My God, you'd think I'd been picking up men right and left for years. One time. Either you're blowing this out of proportion--or you're using it as an excuse to extricate yourself from a marriage that you've been tiring of for a while." Her eyes sharpened. "I'm not thick, J.D. I know our marriage isn't exciting. It's been pleasant, and it's functional, but I never had the kind of relationship with you that Annie has with Sam."

"So you were jealous? Was that why you went after Sam?"

"I didn't go after him. It just happened. And there wasn't a stitch of jealousy involved. Annie and Sam have played such an important role in my life that I had nothing to be jealous about." J.D. leaned in angrily. "Sex, Teke. Were you jealous of them in that department?"

"How could I be?" she cried. "I don't know what they do."

"You and Annie don't talk about that?"

"Of course not."

He wanted to believe her. He had been bothered by the thought of their making comparisons. He and Sam didn't talk, precisely because they knew each other's wives so well, but women were different. "You talk about everything else. Why not that?"