The One Safe Place (17 page)

When she could hold no more, he reached softly between her legs. She gasped, melting. His fingers seemed to be tipped in light. He drew quick circles for a few delirious minutes, or perhaps only seconds.

It was impossible to slow her body's reactions, though she tried. A slight change of pressure, a gentle shift, and everything spiraled out of control. She broke around him so easily, like a fragile silver firecracker. She doubled over, clutched at his arm and throbbed with fiery light.

As it slowly ebbed away, he murmured her name and pulled her gently against his naked chest. Strok
ing her back, he let her gather strength there for a long, blissful minute.

It wasn't enough, she thought hazily, listening to his heart, smelling the sweet cedar he'd been working with, and feeling her body tightening all over again. It was heaven, but it wasn't enough.

And then she remembered.

First,
he'd said.
Here first.

And then…oh, yes. And then more.

“Reed?”

He twisted from the torso, still holding her with one strong hand, and fumbled with the other in the drawer behind him. The first-aid drawer, where the aspirin she had come down here for was stored.

“Reed?” But she didn't finish the question. She was really too weak to wonder, too drugged with passion to do anything but trust. When he held up the condoms with a smile, she could only nod.
Yes.

When she could walk again, he took her hand and led her quietly across the living room, through the darkness to an interior, windowless room that was tucked away in the nook formed by the twisting stairs.

He moved a switch, and a small bedside lamp glowed like candlelight.

It was a simple guest room. Reed had shown it to her when she first arrived, explaining that it was something of an architectural mistake, left over from poorly planned expansions decades ago

It hadn't needed even her meager cleaning efforts. It was never used. It was very plain—just a charming
Victorian bed, an empty hope chest at its foot, a sloping, pine-beamed ceiling and four bare pine walls.

“This has always been called the safe room,” he said softly. “Tonight, if this is what you want, it will be our room.”

She nodded.

“I want you to be sure.” He paused. “You may not want to go any further. Maybe what happened just now was all you needed. Maybe it was just enough relief to help you sleep.”

She tried to turn and look at him. “Reed, you—”

“Faith, listen to me. There will be an ‘us' here tonight, either way.” He held out the condoms. “We don't have to use these. They are not a condition of the ‘us.'”

He was standing behind her, with his hands on her shoulders, giving her the choice. But there was no choice. Did he really believe she could be satisfied with that one, tantalizing glimpse of heaven?

She could feel the swollen heat of him, the promise of his power, just inches behind her. She felt a little dizzy, knowing what was to come. Inside her, things were already coiling back into position, desperation and need building to a higher pitch than before.

She reached back and let her fingertips graze him, thrilling at the harsh gasp that told her how completely his need matched her own.

“Come with me,” she said softly. She let go and walked into the room. She sat on the high Victorian bed and began to unbutton her gown.

“You don't have to do this,” he said tightly from the doorway. “I hope you believe me, there are no strings. Take only what you need, and no more.”

She smiled as she peeled off her gown and laid it on the creamy bedspread. He watched, pale and tense, every muscle clenched, as if he couldn't breathe.

Oh, it was going to be so sweet and fierce and wonderful.

“Then you'd better hurry, Reed,” she said. “Because the night is short, and I'm going to need it all.”

 

W
HEN IT WAS OVER
, when they had wrung every last drop of passion from the long, shadowy night, he held her drenched body up against his to rest. Their hearts were pounding, and, for him, the sound was strangely comforting. It was the sound of being alive. Alive in every way.

He hadn't made love to anyone since Melissa's death. He had sometimes wondered how it would feel. He had imagined he might hold back, saving something of the perfect joy he'd known with his wife. He thought he'd feel the need to protect something for her memory—to prove that he was not letting another woman take her place.

The reality had been so different.

With Faith, he hadn't dreamed of holding back, and he wouldn't have been able to, anyway. His body gave its all, and his heart, too. He could offer nothing less to this rare and beautiful woman, this magical
creature who had arrived at his clinic broken, vulnerable, hunted—and turned to him for healing.

And, miraculously, when he touched her soft, trembling body, he suddenly realized that caring for Faith was no threat to Melissa after all. Melissa's place was permanent and untouchable—because her place was in the past.

Faith was very much in the present. They made love over and over, sometimes hungry and hard, sometimes sweet and slow. In this hidden, windowless room the light never changed, no clocks ticked their time away. He had no idea how long they explored each other. Every time he entered her, it was like starting life all over again.

But finally, exhaustion claimed them. And then, as they lay there, sated, he realized her shoulders had begun to shake. And the moisture where her cheek met his arm was not the sweat of tangled bodies. It was tears.

He tucked her in tighter. It saddened him to know she was crying, but it didn't surprise him. This kind of lovemaking, so raw and real and revealing, tore down all a person's defenses. She had nowhere to hide anymore, from her grief or her fear—or, like Spencer, from her guilt.

“Talk to me,” he said into the nape of her neck. “Tell me what you're feeling.”

He felt her hold her breath briefly, then swallow hard.

“I was thinking about Grace,” she said. “I was
thinking that she'll never have this. She'll never lie in any man's arms again.”

He didn't respond. It was true, and it was tragic. It would be wrong to deny the enormity of even that one small fact among so many bigger facts. But he also sensed that she hadn't yet voiced the real pain, the one that now brought the tears.

He waited. It would come.

“It's my fault,” she said after a few minutes of silence. Her chest was moving again, roughly. “I brought Doug into her life. If it weren't for me, she would still be alive.”

Over the past few weeks, he had sometimes wondered how long it would take her to face this dreadful thing. This crushing burden of guilt, so like the one her little nephew had been carrying. She was so brave—she had faced everything but this.

Maybe this was the real reason she had needed an “us” tonight. Perhaps it took an “us” to conquer something this desperate.

He let her keep talking, keep crying, without interruption, just as he had allowed Spencer to do the same. He let her spill the misery onto his arm, onto the pillow, into the soft pine-scented air of the safe room. Like Spencer's guilt, hers was real to her, and he would not deny her the right to it.

But he also knew something she did not yet know. He knew that, once it had been spoken, once it had been brought out into the light, it would lose much of its potency.

Because it simply wasn't true. Doug Lambert was an evil man. He was to blame for Grace's death, no one else.

Someday Faith would see that. But not tonight.

Tonight she just needed to cry, and then to sleep. And to know that someone was watching over her. Someone else was standing guard.

When she had exhausted her tears, her body began to go limp. As she drifted into sleep she twitched once, her muscles reacting to some lingering phantom.

He tightened his arms and kissed the skin at the edge of her shoulder, where the scar from her wound was still dark pink and tender.

“I'm here,” he said.

She murmured and settled herself closer against him.

“Yes,” she said, the sound slurred and dreamy. “This is the safe room.”

“A
UNT
F
AITH
?
Aunt Faith, where are you?”

Reed came to consciousness slowly. He wasn't sure at first whether the muffled voice was real or part of a dream.

But then he heard the light bumping overhead. Someone was coming down the stairs. Someone small and light-footed, moving slowly, as if he were a little nervous.

Spencer.

Spencer was awake.

Reed rubbed his eyes, trying to think clearly in spite of a thick head that felt like a hangover. He had slept very little, probably less than an hour, all told.

But falling asleep at all had been a mistake.

The last thing he wanted was for that poor little kid to open this door and see Faith and Reed lying here, their clothes on the floor and their naked arms and legs tangled beneath rumpled sheets.

If they were going to tell Spencer they were more than friends, they'd want to do it slowly and diplomatically, couched in generalities that left out any unsettling adult details. And they would probably wait a while, looking for the perfect moment, when Spen
cer was most receptive. Faith would of course want Spencer to view it as a happy thing—not another confusing curve ball thrown by a fate that didn't ever consult him first.

Though she'd begun her sleep in a curled-up, near-fetal position, sometime during the night Faith had rolled onto her back. She'd thrown one graceful arm over her head. The sheets covered one breast, but the other was exposed, its curving swell as creamy white as the sheet, its pink tip as lush as a rose petal.

Such an open, unguarded position was touching. He wished they had another night, another hour, even another minute, so that he could wake her by taking that sexy breast into his mouth and…

But they didn't have another night. And right now every minute counted. This room was hard to find, but not impossible.

He touched Faith's cheek, rubbing his knuckle softly against its peachy blush. “Faith,” he said. “Wake up, sweetheart.”

She stirred then, and stretched like a kitten, pulling the sheet even farther down, exposing her other breast. She opened her eyes halfway and smiled. “Hi,” she said thickly.

He leaned over and kissed her lips, which were warm and full. Sleepy lips.

“We'd better get up,” he said. “Spencer is awake.”

She made a drowsy, uncomprehending murmur,
and twisted toward him, as if she weren't quite ready to absorb words yet. “Hmmm?”

“Aunt Faith?” The little boy's voice was shockingly close. He must be just above them on the stairs. He was close enough for them to hear clearly the anxiety in his tone. Tigger's tags were clinking as he followed the little boy down the stairs. “Aunt Faith, where
are
you?”

Reed could never in a million years have imagined her reaction.

She pulled back sharply, as if she'd been slapped. Her eyes were wide open, though still slightly unfocused. And then, in a sudden flash, he saw comprehension strike her like an electric current.

Her panic was painful to watch.

She stood, holding the sheet to her nakedness as if it were something wretched and shameful. She scoured the tousled bed with frantic hands, searching for her nightgown.

And all the while she murmured frantically under her breath, the words expelled on a rush of unadulterated fear.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no, no.”

Reed found her gown—his hands were surer, less numbed by overwrought nerves. She whispered a thank-you, and began to fumble with it, searching for the neck. She finally found the opening, and, checking to be sure it wasn't inside out, she slipped the gown over her head.

She looked around the room, buttoning as fast as her fingers would fly.

“Your robe is in the kitchen,” he said quietly.

She grimaced. “Oh, God, that's right.”

“Aunt Faith? Reed?”

Running her fingers through her tangled hair, she turned to Reed, who sat on the bed, watching her, his shoulders against the carved Victorian headboard, the sheet carefully up around his waist.

“He mustn't see us,” she whispered. “I'll take him into the kitchen. You can come later, is that all right?”

He nodded. What else could he do?

“Of course,” he said.

And then she was gone. She shut the door very softly. He heard her voice in the hall.

“Spencer,” she said with a certain forced gaiety. “Hi, sweetie! Hi, Tigger! Are you guys hungry? I was just thinking about some breakfast.”

Their footsteps faded away toward the kitchen, but Reed stayed where he was for several long minutes.

Don't overreact, he told himself. What else could she have done? She felt guilty, having slept through Spencer's waking. She was embarrassed, confused…afraid that the slightest thing might cause a setback in Spencer's recovery.

It didn't necessarily mean that she wouldn't ever want Spencer to know that she and Reed were…

Were what?

They had been lovers last night. But today?

Today they would go back to being friends. Had she ever implied anything more than that?

He remembered the horror she'd shown the night when they'd been making apple pies, when she thought Spencer might witness an innocent kiss. He'd registered the sting of it even then, her automatic assumption that there could never be anything serious between them, and therefore it was wrong to let Spencer get “ideas.”

This was much more dramatic, of course. Now she had nakedness and passion to hide. But, at the core, wasn't it essentially the same thing?

She still didn't want Spencer to get his hopes up. She didn't want him to start thinking Reed might become a permanent part of the family. A friend, yes. A “father figure,” absolutely not.

Which seemed to give him the answer to the question he'd never dared to ask. Yes, she was still planning to leave here as soon as she possibly could. She had no intention of starting anything serious. Anything permanent.

And why should she? Was he really so egotistical that he thought one night of animal loving with Reed Fairmont, and a woman would be ready to kiss her city, her home, her friends, her very life, goodbye? It had been spectacular sex, at least for him. But it was still just sex. It could hardly stop a woman's world in its orbit.

Hell, he couldn't even say she'd misled him. She
had asked for one night. He remembered her words distinctly. “Just for tonight, I need there to be an
us.
”

Just for tonight. She wasn't asking for a real love affair, with implications for the future. She asked for one night, a passionate, no-holds-barred coupling that would give her momentary physical relief. A temporary refuge from a loneliness that had become unbearable.

That his disappointment was unreasonable didn't make it any less sharp. He'd had no real evidence, except the feelings that had been building inside him. Still, he had believed that what was happening between them was something extraordinary. He had even believed it might be the beginnings of…

He stood up and began pulling on his jeans.

He remembered his own words from last night, too. Yeah, he'd been pretty smooth, promising her whatever she wanted.

There are no strings. Take only what you need, and no more.

It
had
been a promise. A vow that he wouldn't make her life any more difficult than it already was. If she needed a friend, he'd be a friend. Arms to hold her chastely through the night? He had 'em.

If she needed the temporary anesthetic of lovemaking, he could provide that, too. And would exact no payment in the morning.

He took a deep breath, fingered his hair into submission, and opened the safe room door.

Vows like that could not be broken.

So it was back to being friends.

But damn it.

He wasn't ready for this.

 

T
WO DAYS LATER
, Detective Bentley called Faith again, as he had done twice a week for the past month. Again he had the same story. No real news.

As usual, Doug Lambert had surfaced everywhere and nowhere. Six tourists in an Atlanta bar swore they'd bought him a pint. Three drunks insisted they'd seen him in a toy store in Manhattan, buying a Casper the Friendly Ghost mask. A hippie in downtown Seattle had called collect to tell them he'd seen Doug's ghost at the bus station, standing on the bare backs of a pair of galloping greyhounds.

Green galloping greyhounds, in fact. Whatever that one'd been drinking had left him prone to alliterative hallucinations.

It went on and on. Liquor, unfortunately, seemed to be the only common denominator.

“You might want to start thinking,” Detective Bentley said after a pause, “what you'll do if he's already left the country. If he simply doesn't turn up.”

Faith was momentarily speechless. He couldn't be serious. She tried to look into that future, a future of never-ending fear, of seeing Doug's face in every crowd, of hearing his step in every creak, his whisper in every gust of wind.

A future without love, because what kind of
woman would ask a man to marry himself to danger and doubt?

A future of never knowing for certain that Spencer was safe.

She tried to look at it, but she couldn't. It was like looking into the blinding black center of Hell.

“You have to find him,” she said, holding the telephone so hard the joints of her fingers burned. “Please, Detective, find him now. Give me back my life.”

When she returned the telephone to the cradle, she realized that Reed was standing in the hallway, close enough to have heard every word.

“Bad news?”

She tried to compose her face. “No worse than usual. They just can't find him, that's all.”

He looked very sympathetic, but he didn't enter her room. She didn't expect him to. In the two days since they had made love, he'd been as distant as a stranger.

A delightful, friendly stranger. Unfailingly thoughtful, amusing and kind. In every way his gentle, normal self.

But it was that very sameness that told her how wrong things really were. They had been lovers. They had shared the kind of night few people ever know.

Things should not ever have been the same between them again.

And it wasn't just a facade to protect Spencer, though that was what she'd told herself at first. Reed was cool, distant, polite and kind in front of Spencer,
yes. But whenever he found himself alone with Faith, he was doubly so. He was suddenly as unreachable as Sergeant Braveheart with his unreadable brown eyes and his painted-on smile.

Foolishly, she had resisted understanding his message for a long time, a whole anxious, nerve-racking day. She'd waited for a sign, searched his words for clues and his eyes for a spark. Humiliatingly, she'd even tiptoed down to the safe room at midnight, just in case he was waiting for her there.

The bed was empty. Only when she saw that raw, naked mattress, stripped of its sheets and left exposed to the night, had she understood what he was trying to show her.

One night, that was all she'd asked for—and that was all he'd promised. Well, she'd had her night. It was over now, and there would be no more to come.

So she made her peace with it. She didn't allow her disappointment to turn to bitterness. He was still Reed. He was still the guardian who had sheltered her and made her laugh and, when she desperately needed to, allowed her to cry. He was the miracle worker who had brought Spencer back to her.

She would always be grateful for those things. Grateful that Reed Fairmont had come into her life.

The rest of it wasn't his fault. He hadn't asked her to seduce him.

And he definitely hadn't asked her to fall in love with him.

“I know the wait must be frustrating,” he said
gently now. He leaned against the doorjamb, his hands in the pockets of his blue jeans, and his gaze soft on her face.

“I heard what you said about getting your life back. It must seem as if you've been exiled for so long, cut off from your home, your city and all your friends.”

She looked at him, wondering what she should say. If she had a home like Autumn House, a city like Firefly Glen…then that would be true. But the vague thought she'd first had on Halloween night had become a certainty. She knew for a fact that she and Spencer would never return to New York City. There was nothing waiting for them there.

But apparently there was nothing for them here, either. Nothing permanent.

“It's strange,” she said. She refused to lie to him outright, and yet of course the truth was unspeakable, too. “You start to be confused about where home really is. You start to feel as if you don't have one at all.”

He got that shuttered look again, the expression she'd started, in her private thoughts, to call his Sergeant Braveheart look.

“Yes, I can imagine how difficult it must be,” he said politely. “I'm very sorry.”

A sudden, hideous thought occurred to her. Was it possible he found Detective Bentley's lack of progress disturbing for more personal reasons? Had she and
Spencer outstayed their welcome? Was he tired of having outsiders in his house?

She hadn't thought so. In fact, she had been pretty sure he had begun to enjoy their companionship a great deal.

Until two nights ago. Until Halloween.

Oh, how stupid she'd been to give into her mindless desires that night. It was quite possible that, by doing so, she'd loused things up forever. It was possible that she'd tipped the delicate balance that allowed them to enjoy one another, and that her presence now had become uncomfortable. A burden.

“You know, you don't have to worry that we'll just camp on your doorstep forever,” she said. “Detective Bentley was saying that, if he doesn't find Doug pretty soon, we'll have to make other plans.”

She looked at Reed and tried to smile. “So really, please. Don't worry about being stuck with us indefinitely.”