Window on Yesterday (8 page)

“Two whole years,” Alycia answered tautly.

“Oh.” Though he gazed at her intently, Sean let the subject drop and concentrated on his oysters.

The conversation deepened during the entree.

“What happened to your marriage?” Sean inquired too blandly as he pried the succulent white meat from one half of a large lobster tail.

“It ended.” Alycia shrugged, and broke a piece off the end of her poached salmon.

“I deduced that all by myself,” Sean said dryly, spooning sour cream onto his baked potato. “Why did it end?” He gave her a piercing look. “What went wrong?”

“Everything.” Alycia sprinkled salt on her parsley potatoes and carefully chose a clarifying explanation. “We were both much too young for the responsibility of marriage,” she went on when he continued to stare at her.

“Can you talk about it?” Sean casually poked his fork into his salad. “I mean, does it still hurt you to talk about it?”

Alycia smiled, and finished chewing a bite of tomato. “No, it doesn’t hurt me to talk about it. What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” Sean coolly dipped sweet lobster meat into hot cocktail sauce.

To her amazement, Alycia found that once she started talking she couldn’t stop. Beginning slowly, hesitantly, she related the sorry circumstances of her marriage. Except for the murmured observation or comment, Sean was quiet throughout her narrative. When she had finished, Alycia sat back, stunned by the realization that she had consumed every morsel of her food but hadn’t really tasted any of it.

“Did you enjoy your meal?” Sean’s eyes gleamed with inner amusement.

Alycia smiled vaguely and shrugged. “I suppose I must have.” She glanced at her empty plate. “But I’m not sure.”

Sean treated her to his slow, devastating smile once more. “I think perhaps you were too caught up in pouring out to notice what you were taking in.”

“Perhaps,” she conceded, returning his smite.

“You’re not accustomed to talking about your private life, are you?”

Touched by the tenderness and compassion in his tone, and the understanding shadowing his eyes, Alycia shook her head and averted her face by glancing out the window. “I”—she paused to clear her throat of a sudden tightness— “I...” Her voice failed as warm moisture clouded her vision, blurring the scene of snow-laden fir tree branches.

“Talking about it gives you a feeling of exposure, right?” Sean murmured, filling the moment of silence.

“Yes.” Alycia swallowed again. “I was as much at fault as he,” she said softly. “I realize that now, but even after all this time, talking about it makes me feel”—she turned to look at him—”like such a failure.”

Sean stared at her for several seconds; then he sighed. “And you’ve been unable to trust a man, or yourself, ever since.” His tone lacked the inflection necessary to make it a question or a statement.

Knowing full well that his blandly voiced observation was based on her incoherent remarks of the night before, Alycia didn’t attempt to dissemble. Squaring her shoulders, she gazed directly into his eyes. “Yes. I—ah, haven’t been with a man since, if you know what I mean?” She frowned as his lips began to twitch.

“Oh, I know exactly what you mean.” The twitch intensified. “And what it means for me is that not only am I chauvinistically thrilled to know there has been no one else, but I have my work cut out for me.” The twitch finally lost to a teasing grin. “Haven’t I?”

“Sean, you gave me your word,” she said warningly, yet secretly pleased by his underlying note of possessiveness.

“And I’ll keep it.” His voice was hard with conviction. “But I fully intend to earn your trust, and I hope to teach you to trust yourself as well.”

Whether Sean realized it or not, he had given her an opening. Alycia didn’t hesitate in taking it. “Is it because of a lack of trust in women that you’ve never married?”‘

His wry expression told her he understood and appreciated the swiftness with which she had turned the conversational table on him. “Partly,” Sean admitted.

“Because of your mother’s defection?”

Cradling his coffee cup in his palms, Sean leaned back in his chair and lifted the cup in silent salute. “Very astute,” he said softly. “But only partly correct.”

Alycia returned the salute with her cup. “Only partly?”

“Hmm.” Sean sipped his coffee. “My father adored my mother. Her leaving devastated him. He never fully recovered. Having witnessed the effects of one woman’s rejection on the person I loved most in the world, I grew up hating her and distrusting all females.”

“But—”

“But I’m fully grown now,” he went on as if she hadn’t tried to protest. “I have been for some time.” His voice took on a chiding note. “And I’m a student of history. I do understand that trustworthiness is not exclusive to the male of the species.”

“Then why—” Alycia began, only to be interrupted once more.

“Up to this point, I simply haven’t met any woman I felt I couldn’t live without.”

The “up to this point” part of his statement sent a shiver down Alycia’s spine. Still, she needed clarification on the remainder of his remark. “You do mean figuratively couldn’t live without, don’t you?” A strange sensation washed over her when he shook his head.

“I mean literally couldn’t live without,” Sean said flatly.

Something tapped at the outermost edges of Alycia’s mind, as if trying to break into her conscious thoughts, some long-ago, long-forgotten memory. She went still, concentrating, mentally reaching out to capture the elusive glimmer, but it was gone, leaving her with an eerie feeling of emptiness and yearning. Made uneasy by the odd feeling, she gave a hollow laugh. “I’m not quite sure I understand.”

“And I’m quite positive you do.” Sean was watching her, noting every nuance of expression that flicked over her lovely face.

And she did—although she didn’t particularly want to, because Alycia had convinced herself that the kind of do-or-die, love-ever-after love that Sean was referring to simply did not exist. Nervous, uncomfortable, she was unaware of her fingers twisting the gold chain around her wrist. She started when Sean’s hand covered hers, stilling her agitated action.

“Don’t let it throw you,” he said gently.

Alycia tried to smile. “I—I...” Her shoulders moved in an I-give-up shrug. “I find it hard to believe that a man of your obvious intelligence ...” She shrugged again as her voice faltered.

“That a man of my intelligence would hold out for the real thing?” Sean prompted.

“Yes.” Alycia sighed. “I have a problem with ‘the real thing.’“ Her soft lips curved into a cynical smile. “To be honest, I have a problem with the word ‘love.’“

Sean’s long fingers circled her wrist, chaining her more effectively than the delicate gold links. “And an even bigger problem with the concept of love at first sight?” he suggested softly.

Alycia shuddered. “I thought it was love at first sight when ...” Her lips tightened in reaction to the old memory that retained the power to hurt and humiliate. “It wasn’t love at all.”

“And whatever it was made you wary and afraid to trust.” Holding her gaze with his shadowed blue eyes, Sean slid his fingers under the loose-fitting chain, binding them together in a way that was both frightening and exhilarating to Alycia.

Unable at that instant to speak, barely able to breathe, Alycia nodded.

Sean nodded also, but his head movement conveyed firm determination, not uncertainty. His fingertips stroked the sensitive skin over her hammering pulse. A tender smile curved his lips. “I guess I’ll have to teach you the reality of trust and love” he murmured. “I have no choice, for you see, my darling, I’m very much afraid that you are the one woman I cannot live without”

* * * *

Alycia was still in a state of bemused shock a half-hour later. Shaken, stunned, while at the same time excited by Sean’s unexpected declaration, she had responded like a sleepwalker when he led her from the dining room to the cocktail lounge.

The dimly lit room was crowded, but Alycia hadn’t noticed. Distracted and confused, all she was aware of was Sean’s tall body beside her, his guiding hand at her spine, and the echo of his voice bouncing off the walls of her mind.

She had sat down automatically when he pulled a chair away from a tiny candlelit table. Her nostrils flared delicately as she caught the combined scents of candle wax and open-grill-steak. She had risen without demur when Sean got up to stand by her chair, hand extended, when the pianist caressed the keys into a romantic ballad and sang the words of love in a low seductive voice. They had remained on the small dance floor since then.

Sean had scrupulously adhered to his promise of no pressure. He didn’t attempt to draw Alycia into an intimate dancing embrace. He didn’t stroke her spine or murmur tantalizing words into her ear. And yet the music swirling around them seemed to encase them in a realm of their very own, separate and apart from the other couples moving as one around them.

Thought suspended, her emotions running perilously close to the surface, her gaze entangled in the infinite blue of Sean’s eyes, Alycia swayed to the rhythm of falling in love.

The mood was shattered when, in a sudden change of pace, the pianist swept his hands over the keys, pounding out a ragtime beat.

Alycia blinked.

Sean smiled and led her back to the tiny table.

They had ordered wine, and at the moment the waitress placed the stemmed glasses on the table, the pianist announced that there would be a short break in the music. The dancers settled at their respective tables, and their muted conversation became an unobtrusive background murmur.

“Tell me about yourself.”

Though Sean’s voice was pitched low, Alycia jolted at the sound of it. Glancing up from her concentrated study of the bubbles in her wine, she smiled faintly and shrugged helplessly. “What do you want to know?”

Sean returned her smile and repeated his earlier directive: “Everything.”

Dreamy, her senses floating on a flurry, euphoric cloud, Alycia gazed at Sean with her feelings shining from her emotion-darkened eyes. “I’ll tell you my everything if you’ll tell me your everything.”

Sean stared at her with slightly widened eyes, then tossed back his head and laughed. “I love it!” he murmured. “You’re beautiful!” He grew suddenly serious; his voice grew suddenly very low. “I love you.” Before she could respond in any way, either by flinging herself out of her chair and into his arms or by running for the nearest exit, he grasped her hand and drew it to his lips. “I’ll tell you anything, everything. Start me off. What do you want to know?”

Tingling all over from the touch of his lips, the glide of his tongue over her skin, breathless and slightly giddy from the impact of his casual confession of love, Alycia rushed into questioning speech. In rapid fire the questions shot back and forth between them.

“Where were you born?”

“Right here in eastern Pennsylvania.”

“Really!” Alycia laughed. “So was I.” She named the small town.

“That’s less than fifty miles from my home.” Sean shook his head in wonder. “Do you still have family there?”

“No.” Alycia smiled. “My father did hard physical work all his life, while constantly informing anyone who’d listen that all he wanted was to be a beach bum.” Her eyes sparkled with inner amusement. “When Dad retired four years ago, he and Mother sold the house and everything in it, claiming they were going to the Florida Keys to become beach lizards.”

Sean eyed her narrowly. “Why do I have this feeling that there’s a kicker coming?”

Alycia’s soft laughter rippled from her throat. “They invested in a rather run-down bar near the beach.” She laughed again. “And now they’ve got a raging success on their hands!”

“And they both love it,” Sean observed quietly.

“Yes.” Alycia brought her mirth under control. “Isn’t it crazy?”

“I think it’s wonderful.”

“So do I.” She smiled mistily. “My parents have never been happier. They’re together, doing work they love.”

“So,” Sean said in a low tone. “Maybe real love does exist.”

Caught, yet not quite ready to be reeled in, Alycia avoided the issue in the time-honored way of a woman; she changed the subject. “Ah—what’s your favorite color?”

Sean laughed chidingly, but he allowed her to get away with her diversionary action. “Blue. What’s yours?”

“Green,” Alycia said without hesitation. ‘The cool, dark green of a summer forest.”

“Interesting,” he mused, in the most outrageously sensual tone of voice Alycia had ever heard from a man. “The green of verdant earth and the blue of the sky arcs over it.” His eyes had deepened to the shade of sapphire, alluring and enticing.

Alycia was not unaware nor immune to the underlying meaning in his observation. But she still quivered on the brink of uncertainty. Moving slowly, she eased her fingers from his hand and covered her retreat with an impish remark.

“Oh, yes, there’s one other thing you should know about me.”

Smiling in wry appreciation of her delaying tactics, Sean raised one russet eyebrow. “And that is?”

“I absolutely adore pizza.”

The sound of Sean’s soft laughter relieved the residue of tension inside Alycia.

They remained in the lounge another hour, laughing, talking, and simply enjoying the pleasure of being together. They discussed different kinds of foods, favorites, and those abhorred. They compared likes and dislikes in books, plays, art, and films, and the artists who created them. But their deepest, most intense discussion naturally concerned history, especially American history, the one subject dearest to both their hearts.

Alycia was too interested, too involved, and much too enthralled with her companion to be surprised or even to notice how very similar their preferences were. All she was really aware of was a sense of contentment and how very right it felt just being with him.

As they were walking to the car after leaving the motel, Sean leaned over her to whisper in her ear.

“I absolutely adore pizza, too.”

It was immature and perhaps even silly, yet Sean’s admission warmed Alycia throughout the short drive to the apartment and during her preparation for bed.