Within Reach (7 page)

“Tell me what you have, Danica.”

“I have tea bags, half a dozen eggs, a quart of orange—”

“Not that,” he chided. “I can
see
what’s in the cart.” They were leisurely strolling down the aisle with paper supplies, Michael wheeling, Danica ambling beside. “When we were in the restaurant, you mentioned that you have more in life than most people. Tell me. I want to know.”

She reached out to remove a roll of paper towels from the shelf and set it in the cart. “I have the usual, just more of it.”

He sensed a modesty in her. “Nice home?”

“You’ve seen it.”

“Not here.” Again he was scolding, again, though, in the most gentle of tones. “Tell me about Boston.”

She took a deep breath and grasped the edge of the cart as they walked. “We live on Beacon Hill.”

“A town house?”

“Uh-huh. It’s three stories high, with a charming front walk and a courtyard in back. We share the courtyard with our neighbors.”

“The only town house I was ever in on the Hill was weird. It had the kitchen and living room—”

“On the second floor, with the bedrooms above and the family rooms below?” She laughed at his expression, which clearly said he thought the arrangement was awful. “That’s how ours is. It’s really the most practical setup. We have good space front to back and top to bottom, with next to none side to side. The stairs are steep and long. It makes sense to have the kitchen and living room in the middle.”

“I guess.” They had stopped at the end of the aisle, moving on only when the approach of another shopper necessitated it. “Still, it must be hard to get used to.”

“Not really. The rooms may be narrow, but they’re big. We entertain on the first and second floors. Anyway, my dad’s place in Washington isn’t that much different.”

“You lived in Washington rather than Connecticut?”

She shook her head but had no desire to elaborate. “Do you have a dog?”

“Excuse me?”

“A dog. Do you have one?” She pointed to the shelf lined with dog food, but she was eyeing Michael speculatively. “I can picture you running along the beach with an Irish setter at your heels.”

“I had one,” he said, stunned. “It died last year. You had to know.” But she shook her head. “That’s uncanny.” After a minute he took a breath. “One part of me wants to get another. I look in the papers every week. The other part still mourns Hunter. He was a beauty.”

“How long did you have him?”

“Nine years. I bought him when I moved up here. It seemed a great place to have a dog.”

“Get another,” she urged, suddenly animated.

“I think
you
want one.”

The animation waned. “I do, but it’s out of the question.”

“I’m sure lots of people on Beacon Hill own dogs, for protection if nothing else.”

“I often see them out walking. But it’s cruel. A dog needs room to run.”

“You could have one up here.”

“Blake hates dogs,” she stated quietly.

“But if the dog is here and he’s there…”

“The house up here is for the two of us.” She gave a rueful laugh. “If he ever makes it. And anyway, the dog would still have to live in the city. It’s not like we’ll be here fulltime.”

They moved on toward the check-out counter then, with Danica wishing she could live here full-time and Michael wishing she had the dog and no Blake. Both knew they were dreaming, but dreams were fun from time to time. And Danica knew for a fact that she was having fun.

Later, after they stowed her purchases in her house, they headed for the beach. It was breezy but comfortable, as it hadn’t been that day a month before. Though she wore the same stylish jacket she had worn then, now it lay open over her soft, moss-green sweater and winter-white slacks. Michael, too, was more at ease with the elements than he had been then. They walked slowly, pausing occasionally to look at a cluster of seaweed that had washed up, moving on by mutual and unspoken consent.

“What are you writing now?” Danica asked, pushing her hair behind one ear so that it wouldn’t blow in her face when she looked up at him. He was tall and sturdy. She liked that.

“Now? A short history of professional sports in America. It’s something light, something I was in the mood to do.”

“Doesn’t sound all that light to me,” she said. She wondered if he knew she had played tennis, wondered if he would say anything about it. She hoped not. She didn’t want her past to intrude. Not just now. “There must be a whole lot of research to do.”

“Yeah, but it’s fun research, especially the interviews. I’ve talked with some of the old-time greats. Hockey, baseball, boxing—you name it. I needed a change of pace after last year.”

“Last year?”

“Then it was an analysis of religious and racial bigotry as a function of economic depressions and recessions.”

“A mouthful. But fascinating.” And a wonderful diversion. “Is the book out yet?”

“Next month.”

She grinned. “Congratulations.”

He grinned back. “Thanks.”

It took her a minute to catch her breath. “What was your theory?”

“That bigotry is heightened by economic crises. It’s nothing people haven’t known for years, but few have taken the time to document it.”

“You were able to?”

“Easily. History speaks bluntly. In times of economic stress people look out for themselves. They blame their woes on the next guy, particularly if he’s weaker or less able to defend himself.”

“Even if he’s stronger, I’d think. There’s many an ethnic or religious group that’s been
superior
in one field or another and because of that has become the bigot’s target.”

Michael beamed. He had known she would be politically astute. “I discussed that at length in the book. I’ll give you a copy as soon as I get mine.”

“I can buy one.”

“Don’t be silly. It’ll be my pleasure.”

They had come to an outcropping of rocks. Michael jumped up on the first, held out his hand to Danica, who readily followed him. When they reached the top, they perched on adjacent boulders.

“How many books have you written?”

“Four.”

“All published?” He nodded. “Then it must be old hat to you, having another book appear on the shelves.”

“It’s never old hat. There’s always the excitement and the pride. And the fear.”

“Of how it’ll do?”

“You bet. As it is, the books I write aren’t blockbuster material.”

“They’re nonfiction. You can’t compare apples and oranges.”

“Still, we’re talking another ball game.” He laughed softly and added an aside. “Sorry about that. This new thing is in my blood.”

“How
did
it get in your blood—writing, that is? Did you specialize in school? Did you always know you wanted to write?”

Michael gazed out across the sand and shifted one long leg to the side. “For a while I thought it was the last thing I wanted to do. Writing runs in my family. I wanted to be different.”

“I can buy that,” she said. “Did you try?”

“Oh, yeah.” He looked down at his hands. “When I was in high school, I worked afternoons for a landscape architect. I was a lousy gardener, but I prepared a terrific PR brochure for my boss. During the year I took off after high school to bike across country, I did everything from short-order cooking to computer repairs to support myself; the real money came months later when my father had the letters I had sent home serialized in a magazine.” Propping his elbows on his knees, he looked seaward again. “By the time I got to college I thought I was headed for law school and the diplomatic corps; I spent most of my senior year collaborating with one of my professors on a book about the Russian Revolution. Even my stint in Vietnam backfired; the things that kept me going were the editorials I was sending back home.”

When he looked back at her, the frustration she had seen on his face had vanished. “Everything seemed to be pointing toward a writing career. I could only fight it so far.”

“Is your family overbearing?”

“Overbearing?” He chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it. But wait. I’m being unfair. My father is the only real villain there,” he decreed, but he was grinning. “Everyone else is okay.”

“How many are there?”

“Four of us kids, plus Mom and Dad.”

Danica’s eyes lit up. “Four kids? You must have had fun growing up.”

“We did, thanks to Mom. She’s a free spirit, as easygoing as Dad is demanding. She kept a handle on him as much as she could, at least until we were old enough to speak up to him. Poor woman,” he mused fondly, “after all her struggles to offer us the world, we’ve
all
ended up doing one sort of writing or another.”

“Really?”

“The oldest, Brice, works with my father in New York. The youngest, Corey, edits his own magazine in Phillie. Cilla writes feature articles for one of the papers in D.C.”

“Cilla?”

“Priscilla. My sister.”

“Is she older or younger?”

“Older by six minutes.”

“Twins! I don’t believe it! Are there
two
people like you in the world?”

He laughed. “She’s a she, which means we’re fraternal twins, which means we’re no more alike than any brother and sister. She’s very different from me—more outgoing, aggressive. She loves the rough and tumble of newspaper reporting; I’d be a basket case in a matter of months.”

“Everyone has his strengths. And since you do what you do so well—”

“Now, you don’t know that,” he teased with a lopsided grin.

“I know,” she vowed, guided by instinct. “And I think it’s great that you’re doing what you enjoy. And that you’re so successful at it. The other Buchanans must be proud.”

Michael hesitated for a moment, but not because he had doubts about his family’s pride. Rather, he was wondering when Danica would begin to put two and two together. The mention of the name Buchanan, the talk round and about newspapers and magazines…

“Michael?”

“Hmmm?”

Her face was a study in dawning awareness, a showcase for dismay and apprehension. “You haven’t said exactly what it is your father does.” Her voice was suddenly quiet.

“I think you just guessed.”

She closed her eyes and dropped her chin to her chest, then suddenly threw her head back and laughed. “I don’t believe it.” Her gaze met Michael’s. “I don’t believe it! Do you know how much my father hates yours?” But she was grinning. It had suddenly occurred to her that it wasn’t her war.

Michael agreed. “I can imagine. I’m not sure if the two of them have ever actually met, but I’d hate to be around when that happened. Our papers haven’t been kind to your father over the years.”

“My father hasn’t inspired kindness.” She shook her head in amazement, trying to assimilate what she had learned. “The Buchanan Corporation. Unbelievable.” Then a thought struck and her knuckles grew white on the rock by her hip. She had come to trust Michael completely; it would be a blow to find she had misplaced that trust. “You’ve known all along?”

But he was already shaking his head. He had anticipated her apprehension and prepared his defense. “I had no idea who you were that first day. It wasn’t until I spoke with Judy that I learned you were the senator’s daughter, and since then I’ve been wishing I belonged to any other family but my own.” He swiveled on his rock to face her. “You could hate me for some of the things our papers have said about your father, but please believe me when I say that I never condoned that kind of attack. That’s one of the reasons I’d never have made it with the Corporation. I meant what I said on the beach last time about my writing not being threatening. I would never do anything to hurt you, Danica. You know that, don’t you?”

She searched his face then, seeing the things she had seen all day and more. It was a handsome face, with its melting brown eyes and its windblown cap of sandy hair, and it held warmth and strength and affection. It also held desperation, and that she understood.

Slowly she nodded, thinking how very lucky she was to have found a friend who wanted her friendship every bit as badly as she wanted his.

Danica took her time driving back to Boston the following day. She felt relaxed and refreshed, free of the anger she had felt the morning before. She knew that Blake would be home that night, that she would tell him about the house, what she had bought, how she had slept on the living-room floor.

She wouldn’t tell him about Michael, though. Not yet. Michael was her own friend, neither a businessman nor a politician. Perhaps it was defiance she felt: after all, Blake had been too busy to make the trip; therefore he had no claim to what he had missed. Besides, she reasoned, she had a right to a friend, particularly one who was as easy to talk with and be with as Michael Buchanan. If there was something naughty about her associating with a Buchanan, so be it. She admired Michael. She enjoyed him. And she was thoroughly looking forward to seeing him again when she returned to Maine.

four

b
LAKE WAS WITH DANICA THE NEXT TIME SHE drove north.

“I still don’t believe it,” she teased in the car, hoping to cajole her husband into a better mood. She knew that he’d had second thoughts about making the trip but had yielded for her sake, and she was grateful. She firmly believed that given time alone in a place far removed from the maelstrom of the city, she and Blake could recapture the spark their marriage had had once upon a time.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he stated with the same quiet conviction that characterized his every move. “My desk will be piled high by the time I get back.”

“We’ll only be away for three days,” she scolded gently. “Besides, you owe it to yourself. You’re always working. It’s been so long since you took time off just to relax.”

“A weekend would have been better.”

“But it’s impossible to get away on a weekend, Blake. We’ve been busy every one of the past six, with more to come in June. It’s the pre-summer rush of dinner parties, I guess, not to mention the fund-raising you’re doing.”

“You aren’t still bothered by that, are you?”

“No, no.” Slowly, very slowly, she had acclimated herself to Blake’s active support of Jason Claveling. There had been no argument. She and Blake never argued. They discussed. And with Blake his usual eloquent self when he wanted to make a point, she never really had a chance. So, in time, the hurt had simply faded, then disappeared, as it always did. After all, she did want to be a good wife to him. “I can stand it as long as you can. Doesn’t it ever get to you, the backslapping and handshaking?”