Emily's Ghost (48 page)

She jumped up from the
chair, incapable suddenly of sitting still, and began to pace the
room. Her eye fell on the necklace lying on the dresser. She picked
it up, fingered it idly, tossed it back.
This has to be resolved. Tonight.

There was a door joining
the two rooms; Lee's had been a sewing room in days gone by.
Nothing separated them now but a thin wall.
It's always something. Money. Family. Status. Fergus. A coma,
for Pete's sake. And now lath and plaster.
Unwilling to put up with it anymore, she marched up to the
door and banged on it. She heard him say, "Come in." And that's
what she did.

He was in his pajama
bottoms, sitting in a chair facing the same starry view that she
had, with his legs outstretched and his feet perched on the inside
windowsill. The window was ajar. There were no lamps on in his
room, only a shaft of light that poured in from hers. It fell
across his chest, which was bare, but left his face in relative
darkness.

He said nothing. He didn't
move. She seized on the sound of the hissing radiator as her excuse
for exploding into his privacy. "I was wondering ... it's too hot
for you, isn't it? My father keeps it unbearable. Just turn the
knob clockwise on the radiator."

Still, he said nothing.
"Unless you'd rather just leave the window open."

Nothing. Still. "Dammit,
Lee! I need an answer!"

"What was the question?"
he asked in a voice devoid of emotion.

"The question? The
question? Do
you love me
or
don't
you?"

"Gee." He laughed under
his breath. "Let me think."

She stood there, panting
and frightened, like a small bird that alights on a sailboat a
hundred miles from shore and clings to the rigging, hoping it won't
be shooed away.
Don't say no,
she begged.
If you say
no, I'll die..
Suddenly it was as simple
as that. Crystal clear, and as simple as that.

He stood up from his chair
and walked over to her. "Do I love you?" he repeated in a voice
drawn bow tight. "I love you enough not to make you think you love
me."

She wanted a yes, was
dreading a no -- but this?

He saw her confusion. "Let
me put it another way," he said, taking her by her shoulders. He
brought his mouth down on hers in a kiss of such deep, searing
intensity that it took away her breath, took away speech, took away
choice.

He's right,
she thought dizzily.
When he takes me in his arms, he can make me do whatever he
wants.
She was awed by it, this ability he
had to electrify her and make her feel powerless at the same
time.

He let her go gently,
gradually, as if he didn't want her to fall and be hurt. "I need
more than that from you, Emily. Once it would have been enough, but
not now.

"How much more can there
be?" she asked weakly, collapsing wobble-kneed on the side of his
bed.

He towered over her, hands
on his hips, in a pose of classic confrontation. "There can be
a
lot
more," he
said impatiently, almost angrily. "There can be a wedding.
Anniversaries. Kids. Little League. Shopping. Biking.
Disneyland."

He sat on the bed next to
her and took her hand in his, dropping a sudden, wistful kiss in
her open palm.

"There can be Trivial
Pursuit ... picnics ... birthdays ... tomato plants ... grandkids."
He cradled her face in his hands. "There can be a whole long life
together. I love sharing your bed, Emily. But it's not enough. I
need to share your life."

"Is that what this is?"
she whispered. "A
proposal?"

"I know it's mundane," he
said. "You've been through an unbelievable time, gone wandering
through the stars, experienced incredible things. But this is all I
am, Emily. This is all I have."

A tear of joy rolled down
her cheek, and then another. She said, "You're everything to me.
Don't you know that? I do love you -- before, during, after the
kiss. It's true, I did go wandering through the stars. But then I
fell back to earth. And when I realized you might not be there to
pick me up ... don't you see? That's why I'm here. That's why I
barged into your room in a panic.'

He broke into a sudden,
broad grin of relief and wrapped his arms around her waist. "I
thought it was to turn down the heat," he quipped, nuzzling her
neck inside her pajama collar.

"No, sir," she murmured
with a crazy kind of glee, arching her neck to his kisses. "It was
to turn it up."

After that he wanted her
to stay the night with him, but only after whispering in her ear,
"Would your father be upset if he found out?"

Emily laughed low in her
throat, a laugh that was wise in half a dozen new ways. "He owes me
for Tommy," she whispered back, and Lee knew enough not to ask who
Tommy was.

"I love you," he murmured
in a voice hazy with pleasure, drawing her down on top of him. She
pulled back, bracing herself on her hands and hovering above him,
the better to see him, to drink in the wonder of him.

Slowly his fingers opened
each of the buttons of her pajama tops; carefully he pulled them
aside, exposing her breasts. His fingers strayed lightly over the
pink tips with a conjurer's touch, deliberate and magical. Robbed
of strength and resolve, she found herself lowering down on top of
him, her soft flesh pressing the hard, muscled surface of his
chest, their lower torsos separated by two thin barricades of
cotton.

"It's been a long, long
time," he said in something close to a groan. "Probably you can
tell."

She laughed wickedly and
pressed herself to him. "Ah,
time."
She rolled the word luxuriously over her lips,
savoring the taste of it. "It's something we'll have so much of
from now on."

"Which reminds me,
darlin'," he said, sliding his hands around her buttocks, holding
her close. "Was that a yes to Trivial Pursuit?"

She teased him
mercilessly, her lips playing over his, her tongue testing and
tasting his. "Hmm, didn't I say?" she asked, catching his lips
lightly in her teeth, holding them with taunting good
humor.

He waited until she
released him. Then he brought his hand quickly behind her head and
held her mouth to his in a kiss of instant, annihilating
eroticism.

"Ah, Lee," she said when
at last he let her speak. "Isn't it obvious? I'd rather pursue
trivia with you than with anyone else on earth. Yes. I'll marry
you.
Yes."

"So what do you think?
Will we make a sailor of him?"

Emily took her husband's
hand and laid it over her swollen belly. "Feel that? She's loving
every minute of it," she answered, grinning.

Lee laughed, then drew his
hand across Emily's cheek in a loving caress. "How about you,
kiddo? No nausea?"

"Not a bit. What's to be
nauseated about? The weather's perfect; the sea's quiet; your boat
moves like a dream. And have I mentioned I'm starving to
death?"

He looked startled, as if
hunger were a concept untested at sea. "Really? Great," he said,
rubbing his hands together. "I'd love a sandwich myself," he said,
handing over the tiller to her and diving down the companionway in
search of forage.

"Don't forget chips!" she
yelled down after him. "And a pickle! Two pickles!"

She sucked in a huge
lungful of clean sea air, happy to be alive, happier still to be
alive for two. "This is bliss," she whispered to the elements. She
knocked on wood, easy to do on a wood sailboat, and gave silent
thanks to the gods who'd presented her with a man so considerate
that he'd go without food before running the risk of making his
wife seasick by eating in front of her.

Considerate, and
knock-down sexy. When he popped out of the cabin a few minutes
later with a pickle-filled plastic bag in his teeth, clutching an
egg salad sandwich in each hand, with a diet Coke tucked under each
armpit, she went absolutely giddy with desire.

"Thanks, Senator," she
said, relieving him of a sandwich and the pickles. "Any chance of
getting you in the sack when we reach Hadley Harbor?"

"Oh, ye of insatiable
appetite!"

"Appetites."

"Yeah," he said, kissing
her, "I'd say there's a pretty good chance."

He scooted her over and
took the tiller, steering with his foot while he packed away his
huge sandwich, and half of Emily's, in very short order. They were
sitting on the low side of the cockpit, making it easier for Lee to
see the trim of the jib. Every once in a while the boat took a gust
of wind, sending it heeling on its side, its leeward gunnels awash;
Emily trailed her hand overboard, watching the small but perfect
diamond on her finger glittering through the water.

Lee had his arm around her
waist. "You'd better be careful, girl. Some fish comes along and
chomps off your ring finger, there'll be hell to pay back
home."

She whipped her hand out
of the water, then blushed when he laughed at her gullibility.
"Still, it
was
a
touching gesture on your mother's part to give me her own ring,"
she said. "I can't believe it didn't go to Grace or Hildie," she
also ventured, for the first time.

"Too small a stone for
Grace, too late for Hildie's engagement in Europe. It was you or
never," he said mischievously. "And of course, my mother does
happen to adore you," he added when Emily looked crestfallen.
"Gosh, woman, will you
ever
feel confident among our tribe?"

"I'm making
great
strides," she
insisted.
"Who
had the courage to decline a calligrapher and address her own
wedding invitations?"

"You did."

"And
who
served meat loaf when your
mother and Inez visited last week, instead of working myself into a
frenzy trying to impress them both?"

"You're a model of courage
for us all. Kiss me and take the helm again. I'm about to risk my
life going forward to drop the jib; who knows if I'll come back?"
he said gaily.

She put her hand over his
mouth. "Not funny. Don't say that," she begged in a soft, stricken
voice.

Instantly the expression
on his face changed. "You're right," he said, taking her hand from
his mouth, kissing her tenderly. "I can't think of anything less
funny. I love you, Emily, mother of my child." He leaned over and
kissed her belly. "I love you both."

Just as instantly his
expression changed again, from somber to deadpan. "What I will do
is, I will wrap a line around my waist and secure it to a cleat.
Then I will crawl forward on all fours, even though the wind is
blowing only five knots, and after I douse the sail, I will crawl
back again. To the absolute, impenetrable safety of your
arms."

She pulled off her visor
and whacked him with it.

****

At sundown Lee had a drink
in the cockpit while Emily heated up homemade chili on the tiny
two-burner stove in the yacht's scaled-down galley. Because the
galley was tucked under the companionway, it was easy for them to
chat back and forth while Emily put together a salad.

"Looks like a front to our
southwest," he said lazily. "We may get some thunderstorms later. I
hope I got that leak fixed okay."

"Which leak?" she asked
absently, slicing tomatoes.

"The one above your half
of the berth."

She looked up with a sly
smile. "We'll both stay on your side again, that's all."

"That's all? That's
heaven."

They ate dinner in the
cockpit, and then Lee offered to clean up belowdecks. Emily had her
tea in the cockpit while he did so, enjoying the last perfect
moments of a perfect summer's day. This was her special time,
supper tea, and Lee made a point of letting her savor her solitude,
often in the garden somewhere. She saw a light go on in the berth
up forward; Lee had two more chapters to go in a Tom Clancy
novel.

A half-moon began its
steady climb from the southeast among a few bright stars, while to
the southwest Emily saw occasional, spectacular streaks of
lightning. It was an extraordinarily beautiful sky, bizarre and
exciting at the same time, split evenly between the serene and the
diabolical. She thought of calling Lee away from his thriller, but
she didn't have the heart. There were very few boats anchored in
the nearly landlocked harbor, and the stillness was absolute. There
was no sound except of an occasional fish jumping. It was all so
new, so different, not like any night she had ever known. Her
senses were absolutely alive.

Emily sat with her legs
folded under her, sipping the last of her tea, wondering which
would prevail: the lightning, or the moon. Suddenly a loud hiss
sounded practically under her elbow; she jumped so high the tea
spilled over the edge of her mug. She peered over the cockpit
coaming, and in the combatant light of the night sky she saw it: an
enormous swan, his neck arched to the height of the cockpit itself,
obviously begging for food, just as a family of geese and goslings
had done earlier.