Cross My Heart (22 page)

Then she turned down the covers. "Okay, crawl in," she
ordered when he just stood there.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he asked quizzically,
and looked down at his skimpy blue briefs.

She wrinkled her nose and smiled innocently. "We'll leave
those on," she said. "Now lie down and behave yourself."

He didn't argue, and she smoothed the sheet and a
lightweight blanket over him. He reached up and pulled her off balance
so she tumbled down across his chest. "Don't I get to undress you?" he
asked, and reached under her tank top to unfasten her bra.

She kissed him briefly and slid off the bed. "I'll do it
this time and you can watch."

She slid off her top, taking the loose bra with it, then
quickly unzipped her slacks and stepped out of them, Clint didn't take
his eyes off her as she walked to the dresser and removed a creamy
satin nightgown from one of the drawers.

As she put it on he raised up on his elbow. "Honey, I seem
to have overstated my weariness. I'm tired, not dead."

Elyse stepped out of her panties and turned off the light
before she got in beside him. "I know," she said as he reached for her
and cuddled her against him. "But there's nothing in the house rules
that says we have to make love every time we spend the night together.
You've had a rough day and you don't feel well. Let's wait until
morning, when we'll both be bright eyed and bushy tailed."

"I'm bushy tailed right now," he grumbled, but with a
chuckle in his tone.

She kissed the firm male nipple that lay closest to her
mouth. "You'll get over it," she teased.

"Not if you keep doing that," he murmured, nuzzling the
moist spot where her hair covered her neck. "Oh, Elyse, I do love you."
His voice was a tortured rasp. "Don't ever doubt that."

"I don't," she whispered and felt him begin to relax
beside her.

No, she didn't doubt that he loved her; she knew he did.
But did he love her the way a man should love a wife? Did she stand a
chance now that Dinah had come back into his life to probe old wounds
and rake up long-buried passions?

It was almost two o'clock in the morning when Clint got
out of bed and headed down the hall toward the bathroom. He felt awful.
His head was pounding, his throat was raspy and he ached in every
joint. This was more than just a reaction to shock—he must
have caught something. Several senators had been out with a viral
influenza in the past few weeks.

He groaned at the thought and rummaged through the
medicine cabinet until he found a bottle of extra strength aspirin.
Swallowing a couple of them, he washed them down with cold water
directly out of the faucet.

He was radiating heat and had no doubt he was running a
temperature. Damn. He was going to have to get dressed and go home. He
couldn't risk exposing Elyse, and through her Janey, to whatever was
ailing him.

He went back to the bedroom and found the clothes Elyse
had taken off him. His gaze was drawn to her as she lay on her side,
illuminated by the light from the hall. She was sleeping so peacefully
with her hand under her cheek—like a child dreaming of
sugarplums. Her hair lay in disarray on the pillow around her delicate
features, and he had an almost irresistible desire to climb back into
bed and curl up around her. To bury his aching head in her soft
shoulder and feel her cool hands on his hot skin.

He tore his gaze away from her and dressed before he could
act on his urge. Hell, he was a grown man; he didn't need mothering.

He stepped into his soft leather loafers, then bent over
and shook Elyse lightly. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry to wake you, but I have
to leave."

She opened her eyes and looked sleepily at him. "Clint?"

He
brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. "Sorry, love. Don't wake up. I
just wanted you to know I have to go home."

Her eyes widened. "You're leaving? But why? Is something
wrong?"

"Not really, but I'm not feeling well. I think I'm coming
down with something, and I don't want you to get it."

She sat up, wide-awake. "If you're sick then come back to
bed. Are you running a temperature? Let me get a thermometer."

She threw off the sheet and started to climb over the
side, but he was in the way. "No, don't get up." He put the sheet back
over her. "I've probably caught a flu bug, and I want to get out of
here before I give it to you."

She put her hand against his forehead. "You're burning
up." There was alarm in her tone. "You can't drive home like that.
Please come back to bed. I never get sick."

Her palm felt so cool and comforting on his throbbing head
that it took all his resolve not to lie down and let her fuss over him.
"Neither do I," he said with all the determination he could muster.
"But I got this, and I'm not going to expose you any more than I have
already. We've got to think of Janey, too."

Elyse sighed and ran her fingers through his hair. "Yes, I
guess you're right. But will you be okay? At least let me drive you
home."

He smiled, liking her concern. "I'll be fine. Don't
forget, Alice and Grover are there, and I'm perfectly capable of
driving myself home."

He stood up, anxious to get away before he lost the battle
with himself and took her in his arms. "I can't kiss you goodbye, but
I'll call you tomorrow."

He turned and hurried out of the house.

The next day Clint's doctor diagnosed his illness as the
viral influenza that had been prevalent for the past month or so in
Sacramento, and he was confined to bed at home. He instructed Alice to
call his parents in Palm Springs and tell them not to come up this
weekend as planned, but to wait until he could be sure he wasn't
contagious.

For the first couple of days he was too sick to care, but
by the third day, Wednesday, he was feeling just enough better to be
restless and irritable. He hated being stuck at home while work was
piling up and his secretaries were cancelling appointments at his
office.

Elyse called morning and night, but he adamantly refused
to let her come to see him. She was sweet and understanding, but she
left him with another ache, which he sure didn't need—the
ache to have her in bed with him. Not that he could have done anything
about it, but he'd had a taste of her tender loving care and he missed
it.

There was something else that tormented his fever-induced
dreams, but he tried not to think of it. Where was Dinah? Why had she
come back and what did she want?

He'd been so thunderstruck when he'd glanced up to see her
coming toward him by the Ogdens' pool that his entire nervous system
seemed to short-circuit. She'd stood before him looking exactly as she
had four years before, and he'd been too stunned to control his
reaction. When she'd touched him he'd taken her in his arms as he'd
longed to do for so long and hugged her to him with all the pent-up
frustration he'd endured for an eternity.

If they spoke he didn't remember. The whole scene was
hazy, like a slow-motion movie photographed through a mist. There was
one thing that came back to him, though, and it didn't make sense.

Dinah hadn't seemed to fit in his embrace the way she used
to.

Maybe that's when he'd remembered he was with Elyse and
started looking for her. From there his memory was vivid enough; the
panic when he'd realized that Elyse had witnessed the meeting with
Dinah and was nowhere to be found, the guilt when he finally did find
her, curled up in a ball and looking so crushed in the Ogdens' office.

Damn it to hell! Was he going to be placed in the
intolerable position of having to choose between Elyse and Dinah?

It was midafternoon when the bedside phone rang, and the
voice at the other end drove everything else from his mind. "Hello,
Clint. This is Dinah."

By Friday morning Elyse had reached the end of her
patience. It had been five days since Clint had fallen victim to that
nasty virus, but he admitted he was feeling better now. He'd sounded
much livelier on the phone when she'd talked to him at breakfast
time—surely he wasn't still contagious. He was sweet to be
concerned for her and Janey, but she'd waited long enough. She wanted
to see him.

She looked at her watch. It was a quarter to eleven.
Janey's nursery school class had gone into Sacramento on a field trip
to Fairy-tale Town and wasn't due back until two. It would take only
about twenty minutes to drive over to Cameron Park; she could go and
have lunch with Clint and be back in plenty of time to pick Janey up.

She reached for the phone to call and let him know she was
coming, but then drew back. He was still afraid of giving his illness
to her and he'd tell her not to come. No, it would be better just to
walk in unannounced. She knew he wouldn't send her away once she was
there.

The red shorts and bandanna print shirt she was wearing
were clean and nearly new, so she wouldn't need to change. She turned
on the telephone answering machine, picked up her purse and rushed out
of the house.

Eighteen minutes later, when Elyse drove into Clint's
parking area, a shiny red Corvair was occupying one of the spaces. Was
someone visiting him? No, that wasn't likely. He'd been very careful to
keep people away. Maybe it was his doctor. She knew doctors didn't make
house calls, but for a senator… who knows?

She got out of her poor old battered Mustang and hurried
across the bridge and up the steps to the deck. The dogs, which she now
knew as a German Shepherd-chow mix named Bear and a black Labrador
called Pip, had set up their usual clamor, and within seconds after
she'd rung the bell the door was opened by Alice Irwin, the housekeeper.

"Good morning, Alice," she said cheerfully. "I decided to
come over and see for myself how the senator is feeling."

She'd stepped inside and walked past the housekeeper
before she realized that the woman had paled visibly and there was a
look akin to panic in her faded hazel eyes. "Alice… ? Is
something wrong?"

"N—no, Miss Haley. I—it's just that
Senator Sterling doesn't want you to come here and take a chance on
getting sick."

The sound of laughter floated toward them from the
direction of the great room, and Elyse turned toward it. "Oh, my, am I
interrupting something? Does Clint have visitors?"

She walked into the great room just as a man and woman
came strolling out of the hallway that led to the bedrooms. They were
holding hands and giggling like teenagers.

The man, dressed in maroon silk pajamas and a matching
short robe, was Clint, and the woman, wearing an abbreviated pair of
lavender shorts and matching halter top, was Dinah Jefferson!

Clint and Dinah stood in the hallway, frozen in the
position in which they'd been caught like children in the game of
"statue." They still held hands, and their mouths still turned up, but
in smiles that had now become grimaces. Elyse, too, was frozen, with
dismay.

Surprisingly it was Elyse who recovered first. She felt no
pain, but neither did she feel anything else. It was as if her emotions
had been anesthetized, but her mind was sharp and she was in full
control. Had she subconsciously been expecting something like this and
prepared herself for it?

When she spoke her voice was steady, with no trace of a
quiver. "It looks as if I've been tactless, blundering in where I'm
neither wanted nor welcome."

Clint and Dinah both sprang to life and started talking at
once, but Elyse held up her hand for silence and glanced at Clint. He
managed to look both guilty and ashamed, and she wondered if he really
felt either emotion. Probably not. She'd forgotten that politicians
were consummate actors.

"It would have been kinder, Clint, if you'd simply told me
that Dinah was staying with you."

"Elyse!" His voice had a strangled sound. "For God's sake,
that's not true. She just—"

"I just got here a few minutes ago," Dinah broke in.

Elyse's gaze focused on Dinah's feet, which were bare.
"Long enough to take off your shoes, I see. But, then, you're used to
making yourself at home here, aren't you? I'm the one who's the
interloper."

Clint covered the few steps between them and grasped her
shoulders. "Elyse, stop this. Let me explain—"

"Take your hands off me, Clint." Her tone was still
pleasant, but it was reinforced with steel.

His hands dropped to his sides. "Look," he said, obviously
trying to regain his shattered composure. "Let's sit down and talk this
over calmly."

She walked toward one of the big chairs. "But I am talking
calmly. In fact, I seem to be the calmest one here."

She sat down and waited until Clint, who still looked pale
and ill, took one of the other chairs, while Dinah settled on the sofa.
Elyse was uncomfortably aware of her own shorts, and wished she had
something to cover her legs. She felt… violated…
every time Clint looked at her.

"Well, now, what are we going to talk over calmly?" She
turned toward Dinah. "Would you like to tell me what you were doing in
the bedroom with my fiancé?" She swung back to look at Clint. "Or are
you going to explain why you were too ill to see me but are well enough
to entertain another woman in your pajamas?"

It was Dinah who answered. "It's not Clint's fault. He
told me not to come here, but I came, anyway."

Elyse smiled sadly, and wondered why she wasn't screaming.
She wanted to rant and rage and throw things, but it was as if she'd
been split into two personalities—one behaving like a lady
while the other stood by helplessly urging her to stamp her feet and
shout obscenities. "I can't speak for
your
actions," she said quietly, "but, you see, Clint knew how to manipulate
me. He appealed to my responsibility as a mother to keep me away so
he'd be free to make love with you—"