The Harder They Fall (17 page)

“I had understood that this was a marriage of convenience to Martin’s brother because of the child. But now that the pregnancy is... terminated... you want a divorce, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes,” she said shortly. Terminated. What a word.

“Then I think you should see him. Brockman says here in his letter that your husband will come to this office any time to address this. Should I arrange it?”

Helene was silent.

Kerry waited expectantly.

“All right,” she said finally, rising and shouldering her purse. “Let me know the time.”

She walked out of the office as Kerry stared after her, his expression thoughtful.

* * * *

It was the day before Halloween, a blustery autumn afternoon, when Helene walked up the interior staircase of Kerry’s office building to his suite. She had been there many times with Martin, but since she had been coming to this place in connection with her divorce, the very carpets and pictures and plaques seemed different, alien. She had taken special care with her appearance, selecting a peach wool two-piece dress to wear with a new pair of pumps. She thought she was ready, but nothing could really prepare her for her first sight of Chris in close to six weeks. Her heart was beating rapidly and her mouth was dry as she opened the door to Kerry’s office and saw Chris sitting in the waiting room, alone.

He stood as he saw her and their eyes met. Helene thought immediately that he looked thinner, but it made him even more handsome, giving his cheekbones more prominence and accentuating the planes of his face. He was wearing an eggshell sweater with a tan checked jacket and brown twill slacks. He seemed too big for the office, too tanned and fit to be confined by four paneled walls. Had she forgotten how black his hair was, how firm and sculptured his mouth? Why couldn’t the man ever look bad? she wondered desperately. His undimmed allure wouldn’t make dealing with him any easier.

“Hello, Helene,” he said, in the husky, haunting voice she heard nightly in her dreams.

“Hello, Chris.”

“You look terrific,” he said.

What a liar he was. She hadn’t slept for two nights running in anticipation of seeing him and she probably looked like Mina Von Helsing after a visit from Dracula.

“Thank you. I’m feeling better.”

“Are you working?”

“I’m substitute teaching on a day-to-day basis. I hope to get something more permanent after the holidays.” She paused. “How is the ranch?”

“Fine. I left Sam in charge.” He coughed nervously. “We bought three new Arabians last week.”

“That’s good.”

“Maria tells me you write to her all the time.”

“Yes, I miss her.” Was it possible that they were standing in this sanitized cubicle exchanging pleasantries as if they were former classmates meeting at old home week? She felt as if she were watching herself in a movie.

“Mr. Kerry will see you now, Mr. and Mrs. Murdock,” the receptionist announced behind them.

They filed in together and took seats across from Kerry’s broad desk, which was littered with files. His phone had several lines, two of which were glowing.

Kerry got up briskly and shook hands with Chris after nodding to Helene.

“Nice to meet you, Murdock. Martin always spoke well of you. We really miss him around here, I can tell you.” He glanced past Chris into the hall. “Brockman didn’t come with you?” he added, sitting again in his leather chair.

“I don’t need him. Whatever Helene wants is okay with me. I’ve already said so,” Chris replied.

“I don’t want anything,” Helene said quickly.

“Now, Helene, don’t start that again,” Kerry said. “We’re having this meeting so that we can agree on a reasonable sum for alimony, and you knew that when you came here.”

“I was hoping to change Chris’ mind,” she said.

“I have to tell you, Helene, you’re quite a departure from the divorcing wives I usually encounter in my practice,” Kerry said dryly, adjusting the knot of his tie.

“Helene is unusual in a lot of respects,” Chris said flatly.

Kerry stared at him for a moment, then cleared his throat as he picked up a file.

“Let’s get down to it,” he said, “and then I’ll call Brockman and see if we can finalize this.”

The session was mercifully brief and concluded with Helene agreeing to accept a minimal sum just to end the agony of enduring Chris’ presence next to her. As they were leaving Kerry said jovially, “I wish all the couples I saw were as reasonable as you two. In fact, I’m having a little trouble understanding why you’re divorcing at all.”

The silence was deafening.

“So,” Kerry said, to break it, “Chris, how long are you staying in town?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Can I arrange to drop you somewhere, your hotel or anything, the airport?”

“No, thanks, I can handle it,” Chris replied.

“Well, nice meeting you,” Kerry concluded. “If there’s anything else I can do, just let me know.”

“I will.”

The two men shook hands and then the lawyer hurried back into his office.

His farewell left them standing awkwardly in the waiting room. Helene glanced over at the receptionist, typing away behind her glass screen, headphones in place. The woman looked up and smiled pleasantly, obviously wondering why they were lingering when their business was done.

“I have to go,” Helene said suddenly, bolting into the hall.

Chris dashed out after her.

“Are you really going to just go away and leave me?” he said.

Chapter 9

“Chris, please don’t do this,” Helene said, continuing to flee down the hall.
 

“Do what? I just want to talk to you.”
 

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Do you want it to end this way, in a lawyer’s office?” he asked, moving ahead to block her path.

“It has to end some way. We’ve hurt each other enough.”

He jammed his hands in his pockets, taking a breath. “Helene, I’m sorry about the baby.”

She looked away. “I know you are.”
 

“It was our last link to Martin, a loss for both of us.”
 

She nodded.

“They wouldn’t let me see you at the hospital.”

“Maria told me. Let’s not go over it again, Chris, it’s too painful and I’m trying to forget it.”

“Me too? Are you trying to forget me too?” He put his hand on her arm, a muscle in his jaw working.

“I can’t do that,” she whispered.

“But you’d like to?”

“It would be easier.’‘

He released her. “Easier,” he said.

“Yes.”

“All right,” he said tonelessly. “Brockman will take care of the legal stuff. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” she said through a mist of tears, and dashed ahead for the stairs.

By the time she reached the landing she was crying.

* * * *

Chris watched her go, every instinct he had screaming at him to run after her. But he stayed right where he was. Of course, she wanted to be rid of him; of course, she wanted to forget him. What else had he expected? Did he think she would take one look at him and throw herself into his arms?

Well, he had hoped. Obviously she hadn’t missed him as much as he had missed her. Or she was tougher than he had guessed—Chris had a sinking feeling it was the latter. He had an extremely refined self-protective urge himself where emotions were concerned, born of long years of childhood misery. But he was learning that it could be a curse as well as an advantage. It had caused him to doubt Helene, and her experience with him was now causing her to run away from him lest her well remembered pain return.

God, the look on her face when she saw him, the longing battling with the fortified defenses. Her every thought was mirrored in her expression. She might still want him, but her will to resist was stronger than her desire to submit, and he knew he had taught her that—to hold back and consider. He had turned her into the frightened and defensive woman he had met today.

He sat down on the top step of the staircase, rubbing his eyes. It was over. There was nothing left but to go home. He had missed his chance for happiness; his future would be nothing but a catalog of regrets. He bent his head and despair overwhelmed him.

A couple came through the lower door and he stood abruptly, turning away so they wouldn’t see his face. There was a bank of public phones to his left and he walked toward it, intending to call a taxi to take him to the airport.

* * * *

Looking for a distraction, Helene stopped off at the condo to check on her mother and sister, chatting with them about everyday things while dying inside. The day darkened during the afternoon and as she left it started to rain, the weather reflecting her spirits perfectly. She drove back to her apartment in the secondhand car she’d bought during her first year of teaching and parked in the lot of the complex. She held her coat over her head as she dashed for the door.

Inside, sitting on the floor in front of her apartment, his elbows propped on his knees, was Chris.

He got up when he saw her and she stood stock-still, trying to absorb the fact that he wasn’t on a plane but standing in front of her.

“I couldn’t go back without you,” he said simply.

Helene was speechless.

“Will you let me come inside and talk to you?” he asked.

Helene fumbled for her key and dropped it.

Chris picked it up off the floor and unlocked her door, holding it open for her. She walked past him in a daze and then he followed her into the apartment.

“May I sit?” he asked.

Helene nodded, marveling at his Sunday school behavior. Was this the same man who had hired an investigator to dig up dirt about her?

He took off his jacket and dropped it on her reclining chair. Helene noticed that his hands were shaking. He was not as controlled as he appeared.

He sat on her sofa, leaning forward with his hands clasped, staring at the floor. “I’ve gone over this in my mind a thousand times, what to say, how to say it,” he began. “I don’t give a damn about alimony or any of that legal mumbo jumbo. I think you know that. I came here today because it was an excuse to see you and for six weeks I haven’t been able to work up the nerve to do that on my own.”

Helene listened, incredulous. Chris Murdock, lacking nerve? Impossible.

“I know I have no right to ask, after the way I treated you, but I don’t know what else to do. I can’t think of anything but you and how much I miss you.”

“Ask what?” Helene said, finding her voice.

“What do I have to do to get you back?” he said huskily, his eyes meeting hers for the first time since he started his speech.

Helene’s throat tightened but she didn’t say a word.

“Don’t you want me anymore?” he asked, defeat and resignation in every line of his body.

“I’ll always want you,” she said softly.

“But I’ve driven you away,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

“I never meant to do that,” he said quietly. “I was just so scared that you would leave me.”

“Why?” she said. “Why did you think I would leave when it was so clear that I loved you?”

“It wasn’t clear,” he said.

She was stunned. “What do you mean?”

“You had a physical thing for me, but I’ve had that before...” He let it hang, but she knew what he meant.

“You thought I was just infatuated with you?” she asked.

“Sometimes. It was all new for you—I thought you might be confused.”

“And when the infatuation wore off, when desire tempered and I saw what a rat you really were, then of course I would pack my bags. Is that it?”

“Something like that,” he murmured.

“You don’t give me much credit,” she said softly.

“I guess not.”

“Why not?”

He thought a long time before he answered. “It was too good to be true. Things like that don’t happen to me.”

“It did.”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t trust it.”

“Or me.”

He got up and came to her side, looking down at her with the heavily lashed eyes she hadn’t been able to forget.

“Please give me another chance,” he said simply. “I can’t promise that I’ll reform overnight, but I’ll try my best to be everything you want me to be. I’ll never make you sorry you took me back.”

Helene put her arms around his neck and rested her head against his shoulder. “I love you,” she said quietly.

She felt the tension leave his body and he bent to press his cheek to her hair.

“You’ll never be sorry,” he said again, choking on the last word, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe.

They stood that way for a long moment and then he turned her face up to kiss her.

“I missed you so much,” he said against her mouth.