Can't Stop Loving You (12 page)

“No.” Releasing her, he stepped back. “You’re
free to go, Helen.” She hesitated. “Leave.” He nodded toward the
door.

Still, she watched him.

“All right,” she finally said. “I can’t go.
My curiosity would kill me.” She gave him a rueful smile. “You know
me too well.”

“Or perhaps not well enough.” He raked her
from head to toe with his eyes, loving the way she flushed.

“I’m going to put on my clothes. I feel at a
clear disadvantage talking to you in a towel.”

“Feel free.”

“Turn your back.”

“Turn my back?”

“Yes. Or close your eyes.”

“You have to be joking. As many times as I’ve
seen you dress...”

“You no longer have the right to watch me
dress and undress. You forfeited those two years ago.”

“I forfeited them?”

“Yes. That’s what a divorce means.
Forfeiture. No more rights. No more privileges.”

“I never wanted a divorce.”

“Well, I certainly d—” Uncertain, Helen
paused. “Do as you please, then.” She reached for her clothes.

Brick turned his back on her and stood facing
the door, alternately whistling and grinning.

“Wipe that smile off your face,” she
said.

“How do you know I’m smiling?”

“Because I know you.”

“All right.” He made a dramatic gesture with
his hand across his mouth. “It’s gone. Satisfied?”

“Let me see.”

“Does that mean I can turn around?”

“Yes.”

Barefoot, with no makeup, wearing black
designer jeans and a blue silk blouse, Helen looked sixteen. And
extremely vulnerable.

Brick took both her hands.

“Helen, I hired Barb Gladly to pose as my
fiancee for this trip to New Hampshire because I was scared to
death of you.”

“Afraid of me?”

“Of being near you, of working side by side
on the stage, of seeing you across the table at every meal, of
knowing you’d be down the hall from me curled in bed with your hair
spread across the pillow and your left hand tucked under your
cheek.” He lifted her hands, turned them over, and kissed both
palms.

“I had to protect myself,” he added.

“You thought I would come after you?”

“No. I thought I would come after you.”

o0o

Helen pulled her hands out of his and laced
them behind her so he wouldn’t see how they shook. Passion. Joy.
Hope. All the feelings she’d kept at bay for two years sprang to
life.

And yet, how could she dare to hope? Nothing
had changed.

“That’s totally absurd,” she said, then stood
very still, waiting for him to contradict her,
hoping
he
would contradict her.

I never stopped loving you
, he would
say.
I would never abandon you. Certainly not with a
child
.

He shifted his feet, turning slightly so that
he was looking out the windows beyond her right shoulder. What was
he seeing that held his undivided attention? And why didn’t he
contradict her?

“You’re right,” he said, still not looking at
her. “The notion that I would come after you is utterly
ridiculous.”

A bone-deep ache started in Helen’s chest and
spread throughout her body until she felt heavy with pain,
smothered with it. She had to get out of this room, out of Brick’s
sight.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and
untwisted her hands. It was time for a great exit.

“Well, then... everything’s settled.” Her
manner wouldn’t have fooled a novice director. She tried for
brisk,
but what she got was
forlorn.

Oh, help
. Brick would surely see
through her.

But he was still captivated by the sight
beyond the window.

An exit was no good if nobody noticed. Where
was a good exit line when she needed one?

“It’s snowing,” Brick said.

“I guess that’s to be expected.”

“Yes. New Hampshire in the winter.”

The door was on the other side of a long, hot
desert, and she didn’t know how to make the trek. She glanced
longingly at the door, then back at Brick.

His hair was longer than when they were
married. She noticed how it grazed the top of his collar and curled
under. He’d tucked his shirt in crooked, and it was damp across the
chest and shoulders.

He’d dressed in a hurry. What had been his
hurry?

“It’s not as cold as I thought it would be,”
she said.

“Me either.”

The absolute stillness in the room tore at
her nerve endings. Her heart pounded so hard, she could almost hear
it.

“Even Marsha is not complaining.”

“She always hated cold weather.”

They were talking about the weather as if it
were of paramount importance in their lives. Helen had never felt
so helpless... nor so uncertain.

He turned back to her so suddenly, she was
caught off balance.
His eyes.
They looked shattered, too
bright. Surely it was not tears.

She couldn’t bear it if Brick cried, couldn’t
bear to think what it might mean. To him. To her. To them.

“Thanks for telling me the truth about
Barb.”

She held out her hand. He took it. Polite
strangers.

“You’re welcome, Helen.”

He held on. Or was it her imagination?
Wishful thinking?

Her palm still tingled as she started for the
door.
Don’t look back.

The room was so still. Was Brick watching her
leave? She thought not. Hoped not.

At the door she almost turned and went back.
But what was there left to say?

She closed the door firmly behind her, then
leaned her head against it. Her hand was still on the doorknob. All
she had to do was turn it.

Brick was just beyond the door. She closed
her eyes, picturing how he looked with his hair curling over his
collar and his shirt tucked carelessly into his jeans.

She wanted to smooth back his hair, tuck his
shirt in straight. She was losing it.

From inside the room came the sound of
footsteps. Brick was coming.

Helen raced down the hall. It wouldn’t do for
her ex-husband to find her mooning outside the door.

Thank goodness there were no afternoon
rehearsals. That meant she didn’t have to see him until dinner.

No.
She’d go out somewhere for
dinner, take Marsha and Matt. It would do them all good to get out
of Farnsworth Manor for a while.

She wouldn’t think about Brick tonight; she’d
sleep on the problem. And then, when morning came...

Oh help
.

When morning came there would still be
Brick.

There was no reason for him to still be
standing at the window. It was dark outside. Nobody stood looking
out windows into the darkness except a fool.

Or a coward.

Brick didn’t like to think of himself as a
coward, but that’s exactly what he had been. He’d told the truth
about Barb, but then he’d chickened out. In the face of Helen’s
resistance, he’d pretended that he never had any intention toward
her except clearing the air.

Outside his window he could see nothing
except the glare of snow—pure white shining through the darkness as
far as the eye could see, each unique flake frozen and compressed
with the other flakes until they all blended into one continuous
blanket. Why didn’t he have that ability to blend in? To be a part
of the whole?

No. Not him. Not Brick Sullivan.

He had to be the strong, independent type. So
strong, he couldn’t even tell his ex-wife he still loved her.

He turned his back on the snow. Across the
room his bed was the most lonesome place he could imagine being. So
much room for one man. Too much.

His feet padded on the carpet, and his door
creaked shut behind him.

Farnsworth Manor was a big place. There had
to be a friendly couch by the fire somewhere.

o0o

Helen tossed and turned until she was so
twisted in the covers, it was going to take a rescue squad to get
her out. Sensing her discomfort, the Abominables took turns padding
to the bed to nudge her with their big wet muzzles.

“Go to sleep, girls,” she said. “It’s all
right.”

But it wasn’t all right. Even Gwenella knew
it. The big cat prowled around the room, every now and then
pouncing onto the bed and sniffing around as if she were trying to
ferret out the trouble.

Helen kicked her covers back and padded in
bare feet to the window. Snow everywhere. Shivering, she curled her
toes into the rug. In Georgia it was perfectly all right not to
wear shoes in the house during winter, but in New Hampshire it was
foolish not to wear them. Already she could feel the cold creeping
up through the soles of her feet.

Gwenella rubbed against her legs, purring.
She leaned down to pet the cat and to retrieve her shoes.

Brick had been barefoot
.

The image of him standing in his bare feet
hit her with such impact that she sat on the floor. This afternoon
she’d taken note of his damp shirt and the crooked way he’d tucked
it into his jeans. But not the bare feet.

He’d been in such haste to get to her that
he’d come without his shoes. In New Hampshire. In the dead of
winter. With snow on the ground.

Never mind that he had been in the house. The
drafty old house was cold. Period. Especially the floors.

The Abominables crowded next to her on the
floor and put their big heads on her lap. Gwenella arched her back
and huffed off, preferring to sit in regal splendor on the
windowsill rather than share the limelight with mere dogs.

Helen hugged the Danes then picked up the
phone and poured her heart out to Kat, ending with, “He didn’t even
take the time to put on his shoes,”

“It sounds like he’s besotted, Helen.”

Trust Kat, ever the romantic to use such an
old fashioned word. Helen twisted the phone cord while the Danes
licked her hand.

“Nobody has ever been that anxious to see me,
Kat. And I turned my back on him. What am I going to do?”

In the long silence on the other end of the
line, the Danes thumped their tails on the floor.

“After what I did, I’m the last one to advise
you, Helen.”

“You did
nothing,
Kat, except marry
a brilliant, kind-hearted man who has been good to you.”

“I didn’t wait for Hunter.”

“Kathleen Shaw, if you dig up that old ghost
I’m going to come down to New Orleans and personally whip your
butt.”

“You would, too.” Kat’s laughter was a
beautiful as the woman, herself. “Listen, Helen. I think the least
you can do is talk to Brick.”

“What will I say?”

“Whatever is one your heart.”

The same restlessness Helen always got before
a performance overtook her. It might be the performance of her
life. She couldn’t possibly do it without rehearsal.

After she said goodbye to Kat, Helen slipped
her feet in high-heeled mules, grabbed her robe, and hurried from
her bedroom, trailing ostrich plumes as she made her way down the
darkened staircase. A shaft of moonlight slanted through the tall
windows to light her way.

Here she was, skulking about the house at
midnight once more. She covered her mouth with her hand to hold
back the giggles. She felt as if she were in the middle of a made
for television murder mystery, the kind that was always set in some
creaky old mansion in an out of the way place.

She could see the marquee
Murder in the
Manor,
starring Brick and Helen Sullivan.

Brick and Helen Sullivan.

From the moment they’d met they had been a
team. Her heart hurt thinking about their early days together—the
late-night rehearsals, the greasy burgers eaten backstage at
midnight, the flubbed lines, the laughter, the dreams.

She caught the banister at the bottom of the
staircase and closed her eyes, remembering...

“We’ll be America’s sweethearts,” she’d said,
kicking off her shoes among the plastic flowers and propping her
feet on a plastic rock, all part of the set for
The Lion, The
Witch And The Wardrobe
.

She was the White Witch and Brick was the
Lion. Always perfectionists, they’d stayed after the rest of the
cast and crew left to rehearse the White Witch’s death scene.

“The first couple of the theater.” Brick
discarded his mane and grabbed a top hat out of the costume closet.
Setting it at a jaunty angle, he took a cane and did a quick soft
shoe around the stage.

“Care for this dance, sweetheart?” He swept
off his hat and gave her a deep bow.

She donned a red feather boa and a broad
brimmed hat trimmed with ostrich plumes.

“Enchanted, my love.”

Together they did a waltz around the stage,
with Brick humming “Shall We Dance?” from the
The King and
I
.

“They might call us the dynamic dancing duo,”
she said.

“Sophisticated Sullivan and his scintillating
bride.”

“Who,
moi?”

She unslung her boa and tickled his face,
then his neck.

“Want to play rough, do you?” He caught the
boa and wrapped it around her, dragging her close.

“Yes,” she said. He pulled her closer, and
closer still. “Yes... yes... yes,” she murmured as he lowered her
to the stage....

Heavy with memories, Helen made her way
across the hallway and headed to the library. The cozy book lined
room was exactly the refuge she needed.

The doors creaked when she entered. She stood
a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the dark. The light switch
was on the wall near the door, but she preferred the comfort of
darkness.

The heavy draperies over the French doors
leading to an enclosed courtyard were drawn shut. A small sliver of
light made a path from the doorway to the bookshelves. Following
the path, Helen made her way to the bar, her backless slippers
making soft slapping sounds on the wooden floor.