Keeper of the Light (39 page)

“Why?”

It would have been easier just to let him pour the wine. She didn’t have to drink it.

“Cleaning up my act a little,” she said.

He sat down. “I was hoping to get you drunk tonight so I could seduce you.”

She felt her cheeks redden and looked down at her plate.

Paul leaned across the table to rest his hand on her arm. “You’re really furious with me,” he said.

“You’ve done some things that are hard for me to simply overlook.”

He nodded and leaned back again, pouring wine into his own glass. “I guess I can’t blame you,” he said, “but I did something today you’ll approve of.”

“What’s that?”

“I donated two of Annie’s stained glass panels to the library.”

She was truly surprised. “You did?”

He sipped his wine. “I can’t just quit cold turkey, Liv, but I’m working on it. The two underwater scenes in my living room. Plus the little oval in my car. The librarian was thrilled. Those panels are probably worth a lot more now that she’s…been gone awhile.” He pursed his lips for a second, as though acknowledging that Annie was dead still hurt him. “I’ll get rid of the rest of them in a week or two, as soon as I find the right place to donate them.”

“That’s good, Paul.” She tried to smile at him. “Whether we get back together or not, you really need to put her behind you.”

He flushed. “What’s your game, Olivia? Are you playing hard to get or what?”

“I’m not playing any game at all.” She looked at him, at the warm hazel eyes behind his glasses. “This is hard for me, trying to figure out how to behave with you. I’m terrified of trusting you, of letting my guard down around you. I’m afraid to commit myself to you when I’m not certain you can make a commitment yourself.”

“It worked before,” he said. “We just need to get away from here.”

She ate in silence for a moment before looking up at him again. “I’ve received a job offer,” she said. “At Emerson Memorial.” She described the call from Clark Chapman, as a smile spread across Paul’s face.

He set down his fork and leaned across the table again, reaching for her hand this time. “It’s a sign, don’t you think? A good omen. We move to Norfolk and start over. Start fresh. Tell him yes, Liv. Call him tonight and tell him.”

She shook her head, but left her hand in his. “I need to think about it,” she said. “I can’t jump into it that quickly.”

After dinner, he served her strawberry mousse in the living room, she on one end of the sofa, he on the other. She wondered how she could get him out of the house before he tried to touch her. He seemed to have no intention of leaving. He took off his shoes and raised his legs to the couch. “I reread
The Wreck of the Eastern Spirit
last night,” he said.

“Why?”

“I wanted to feel good. To feel close to you. It made me remember how I felt during those days when I was watching you in the ER and falling in love with you. Remember how wonderful it was?”

She laughed, bitterly. “It was wonderful all right. Forty-two people died. It was fantastic.” She regretted her nastiness as soon as she spoke. Paul stood up, a hurt expression on his face.

“You’ve changed,” he said. “You’ve become…callous.”

“I’m just afraid to feel close to you.”

“What do I have to do, Liv?”

“To start with, you could get rid of the rest of the stained glass.”

He nodded. “All right. Tomorrow.”

An arrow of fear passed through her, as she realized that even if he got rid of every tangible trace of Annie O’Neill, she still might not want the man who was left. “You made love to her,” she said softly. “That’s what hurts most. You can’t throw that away, and I’m always going to feel like that memory is still with you. If we ever make love again, I’ll think you’re comparing me to her. Or imagining I’m her.”

He looked stricken. “Oh, no.” He sat down, pulling her into a hug. “I love you, Liv,” he said. “I just lost my mind for a while, that’s all.” He tipped her head back to kiss her and she allowed the kiss, hoping she would feel something tender for him, but she wanted to bite his lips, to draw blood. She pulled her head away, awkwardly crossing her arms low on her stomach to keep him from touching her.

He leaned away from her. “I guess you don’t want me to stay over tonight.”

She shook her head.

“I miss you.”

She looked up at him. “I miss you too, Paul,” she said. “I’ve missed you very, very much, but I need to be sure of you. Call me again when you’re over Annie, when you’re one hundred percent finished with her.”

She stayed seated on the sofa while he put on his shoes. Then he leaned over to squeeze her knee, not speaking to her, not looking at her, and she knew he was close to crying, that once outside, he would probably let the tears come.

She unzipped her jeans when he left, sighing with relief as she drew in a long, deep breath. She rested her hand on her gently rounded stomach and her eyes went to the phone. It was ten-thirty-five and it hadn’t rung.

Alec.

She had to admit the truth to herself: She was four months pregnant by a man she was no longer certain she loved, and she loved a man still in love with his dead wife.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
S
EVEN

The baby moved.

Olivia lay very still. Outside her bedroom window, the first pink light of dawn tinged the sky above the sound.

Again. The flutter of bird wings.

It stopped. She closed her eyes, resting her hands flat on her stomach. Had she dreamt it? No. Too real. Paul’s child.

When she opened her eyes again, the sun was full in the sky, and her room glowed with a clear yellow light. She lay still for a moment, struggling to feel…
something.
Maybe it
had
been a dream. Maybe her imagination.

She had the day off, and so she was still in her robe a half hour later when she picked up the
Beach Gazette
from her front deck and carried it into the kitchen. She’d been tense reading the paper lately, but this morning there should be some mention about Jonathan leaving the ER.

Indeed, there was an article on the front page. Jonathan Cramer had resigned suddenly, the article stated, offering little else except a recap of the mud-slinging situation, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions about his sudden retreat. This would not be enough, she thought, disappointed.

She was halfway through her blueberry muffin when she came to the letters to the editor. She would skip over them today. There were usually half a dozen furiously assailing her for her handling of Annie’s case. She was about to turn the page when she noticed the name at the bottom of the last letter. Alec O’Neill. She flattened the page out again and began to read.

I’m writing to express my dismay over the negative press and outpouring of hostility toward the Kill Devil Hills Emergency Room physician who tried to save the life of my wife, Annie Chase O’Neill. As a veterinarian, I’m well aware of human fallibility in making medical decisions, particularly under the stressful conditions a trauma case presents. Even so, I feel assured that the best possible decisions were made in Dr. Simon’s attempt to save Annie’s life. I understand the anger and readiness to find a scapegoat in the community because I’ve experienced those feelings myself in the last seven months, but those of you familiar with Annie’s generous spirit know that she never would have maligned another person or harmed his or her career. If you trace Annie’s activism in the Outer Banks, from her advocacy for the Kiss River Lighthouse keeper, Mary Poor, to last year’s fight to keep a child with AIDS in school, you will see that she focused her energy only on helping others. Attacking the very person who risked her own well-being to try to help her is not a way to honor Annie’s memory.

It’s ludicrous to think that a woman with two holes in her heart could possibly have survived the forty-five-minute flight to the nearest trauma center. Dr. Simon went beyond the call of duty to treat Annie in our local emergency room rather than wash her hands of the case by transporting her to Emerson and certain death on the way. She deserves our support, not our criticism.

Olivia read the letter through twice, her muffin forgotten. She called Alec’s house, but hung up when the message on his machine clicked onto the line. She called the animal hospital, panicking when the receptionist answered the phone. She couldn’t interrupt him. Surely he was busy.

“I’m concerned about my cat,” she said, realizing as she spoke that she had learned this idiotic ruse from Alec him self when he’d told her he’d made an appointment to see his father-in-law. “I was wondering if I could get in to see Dr. O’Neill today?”

“What’s the problem?”

“Some skin thing.” Olivia glanced into the living room where Sylvie was curled in a contented ball on the rattan chair. “She’s been scratching madly for a few days now.”

“We could squeeze you in around four-thirty this afternoon. Can you make it?”

“Yes.”

“And your name?”

“Mrs. Macelli.” She was afraid the name Olivia Simon would be too familiar to this young woman.

There were three dogs in the waiting room at the animal hospital, and Olivia wondered if she was being fair to Sylvie to use her this way. The cat trembled in her arms, but she settled down once they had been moved into the small examining room to wait for Alec. This was a mistake, Olivia thought. She would not appreciate anyone intruding on her work time with personal business. She had her hand on the doorknob when Alec walked in from the opposite side of the room.

“Olivia?” He looked puzzled. He also looked extremely well. It had been nearly a week and a half since she’d seen him, and his tan was deep in contrast to his white coat. “What’s wrong with Sylvie?”

“Absolutely nothing.” Olivia smiled foolishly. “I’m sorry, Alec. I just wanted to thank you for writing that letter to the
Gazette,
and there was no answer at your house, and I felt like I couldn’t wait.”

Alec smiled. He reached out to take Sylvie from her arms and the little cat curled up against his chest while he stroked her ears. “You didn’t need to make up an excuse to see me,” he said.

She felt the color rise in her cheeks. This was so adolescent. “Your letter was such a relief to me,” she said.

“You haven’t deserved the public flagellation.”

“Well, whether your letter changes that or not, I just wanted you to know how grateful I am that you wrote it. That you feel that way. I wasn’t sure.”

Alec looked down at Sylvie. She had started to purr, kneading her paws against the chest pocket of his white coat. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you,” he said, raising his eyes to Olivia again. “I’m sure you could have used some support the past week or so, but…”

“Don’t apologize. I didn’t come here to get an apology out of you.”

“We were just getting a little too close for comfort,” he said.

“You must think I’m horrible for letting it go as far as I did.”

“Of course I don’t think you’re horrible. You haven’t had much of a husband lately, and I haven’t had anything in the way of a wife, and… Are you upset about it?”

“Embarrassed.”

“Please don’t be.”

“Well, let me get out of here so you can see your real patients.” She reached for Sylvie, but he turned to keep the cat in his own arms.

“Not so fast,” he said. “Tell me how you’ve been.”

The crush of news from the past week raced through her mind. Paul was back; Paul was remorseful. But she didn’t want to talk about Paul.

“I was about to start on a new stained glass project,” she said, “but Tom’s decided he can’t teach me any longer.”

“How come?” Alec’s eyes suddenly widened. “Not because of the situation with Annie, I hope.”

She nodded.

Alec scowled. “That’s ridiculous. I’ll talk to him.”

“No, please don’t. It might just make things worse.”

“What will you do about the stained glass then? Are you going to quit?”

“I’ll find a way.”

“I’ve got a bunch of Annie’s old tools just sitting at the house. Why don’t you stop by and see if there’s anything you need.”

The relief she felt was completely out of proportion to his offer. “Did she have a grinder at home?”

Alec nodded. “Come over tonight.” He handed Sylvie back to her, and his fingers lightly brushed the top of her breast through her blouse. “My kids will probably be there. They can chaperone us. Keep us out of trouble.”

She set her hand on the doorknob, but made no move to leave. She looked up at him. “I felt the baby move early this morning.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, and she couldn’t read his expression. She shrugged, embarrassed. “I just wanted to tell someone,” she said as she opened the door.

“Olivia,” he said, and she turned to look back at him. “It’s Paul you should be telling.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
E
IGHT

He took Annie’s tool case and grinder down from the hall closet for the first time in seven months and carried them into the den. The case was made of soft brown leather, dusty now, and the sight of it was enough to start an aching deep in his chest. He dusted it off with a tissue before opening it, spreading it flat on Annie’s old work table, steeling himself against the odor, an old, familiar smell, at once metallic and soapy, a mixture of Annie and her tools.

The tools were not in their little pockets but strewn haphazardly as she had left them. Pliers, glass cutters, rolls of solder and copper foil, three-bladed scissors. He was a little embarrassed to have Olivia see this, to see exactly what Annie had been like in all her disorganized glory. He could picture her sitting here in the den, continually fighting with her hair as it slipped into the path of her work. She’d grab the bulk of it in her hands, give it a twist, and toss it over her shoulder, an unconscious gesture he had seen in her since the first night they’d met. It would be good to have Olivia take some of these tools. Put them to good use. Give them a second life.