“Why would you think I would not want to come back and stay with you for a bit?” he asked.
Tara looked around Madeline’s penthouse, then waved a hand at the floor to ceiling windows that overlooked a dazzling view of New York City. There was just enough of the of the dark umber glow of late evening to make out the silhouette of the most famous skyline in the world. The world spread out below them in sparking lights and mysterious dramatic shadows.
“Why would you want to leave this?” she finally said, realizing the photographer in her had been so lost in the view that she’d even quit breathing.
“I left it before when I had nothing to go to and pain as my only companion.”
Tara nodded then walked over to the windows. She’d enjoyed the past two weeks, even if there had been a lot of pain involved in watching the man she loved break his own moral code to protect her by endorsing a candidate he knew was in the pocket of The Cirq.
“Maybe after I am home again, my little town will seem too dull. Maybe I’ve become a Big City Girl. Maybe I’ll want to come back to stay.”
Nick smiled. The way he could not keep his eyes off her made her nervous, but in a good way. He joined her at the window.
“It was nice of Madeline to throw me a going away party. I wondered what her place looked like. It’s funny that she likes the modern look and you like…old school.”
With his usual silent grace Nick slipped behind her, and though they’d just ended a long, soul-deep kiss, feeling his body pressed up against hers as they viewed the spectacular sight together was most welcome.
“Maybe you will come back; maybe you will want to live here. Maybe I will want to live there. It doesn’t matter. Places are like things. We think because we get attached to them they are attached to us…that they have meaning. None of them do. You can’t be connected to an inanimate object, no matter what everything in our lives tells us. We can only connect to other people.”
Tara had learned over the past two weeks that her lover would, on occasion, break into heady philosophical monologues. While she usually didn’t understand them she realized it was actually a part of him coming out of the leaden shell he’d closed himself off in for over a decade. She stepped away and began wandering around the sitting room. She needed time to enjoy the quiet after the relative noise of the dinner party Madeline had thrown in honor of Tara’s return home.
“My mom likes you. I mean, I she would certainly like you in any case, but she seems to think you walk on water because you ‘brought me back’.”
The photographer wandered around the room, picking up random objects, examining them without interest then putting them back down.
She was holding a photograph of Nick in his early twenties, with his mother, his father and a second man on some kind of ski vacation when the realization struck her.
“Connections,” she said looking up at him. “I didn’t bring you back, our connection did.”
Nick smiled, and Tara didn’t think she would have the strength to be away from him for an hour, let alone the weeks until he came to visit.
“You are you. You are sincerely, utterly you, Tara. That’s a bravery most people never find. If you weren’t, I don’t think I would have seen you.”
More cryptic words. She looked down at the photograph in her hands.
“Who’s the other man?” She held it up for him to examine.
“Bart Driscoll,” Nick said.
The name struck her like a wet switch, as did the light easy manner in which Nick said it. The last time he’d spoken of Driscoll his voice had bubbled with rage.
“But…but… you said…you said he was the reason you got out of acting.”
He came over to her and took the photograph from her hands, looked at it briefly then placed it back on the end table next to the assumed imitation Faberge’ egg.
“Well, that part is true. Bart is the reason I got out of acting, but not for the reasons I said. He saw I wasn’t all that happy; he said I had a shot at being famous, but it would mean switching gears and dealing with a lot of people that I would not like. Shallow, vacuous people. Yes-men-with-a-knife-ready-to-stick-in-your-back kind of people.”
“Wait, are you telling me a guy who was making bank off you TOLD you to leave the business?”
“Yes. Bart Driscoll sent his cash cow to slaughter.”
“But...” Tara was impressed, with her her mind whirling as it was, that she could even get the word out.
“So I know he’s as honorable as they come,” Nick finished.
Tara’s brain began to work again.
“But you said…you hated him…it was almost the deal breaker with Mr. Hamilton.” Having seen the savagery with which Nick killed the man, Tara was surprised she could say the name, and by doing so relive the image so easily.
“That I hated him? That he was scum? Well, he did move into real estate, and dabbled in politics, but not all politicians are bad.”
“NICK!”
The man smiled.
“Do you remember the men in the meeting that didn’t say anything. Dark glasses, cheap suits?”
“Yes. I thought they were there just to sort of intimidate the other people.”
His smiled broadened.
“You have a cynical streak. They were, but that wasn’t the purpose. They were FBI. They have wanted to take apart Cirq for years, but could not get someone inside to get any good dirt on them.”
Tara waited, more patient because she thought she was beginning to see the reasoning.
“The deal was that I endorse the candidate of their choice. That tied me, you and all my family has created in this city, to Cirq. It was their way of ensuring you nor I ever speak of what happened, because if we did, it would sink us all. They needed a puppet Mayor that would grease the wheels for them and let them keep doing what they are doing. Between their existing connections and money and my endorsement, their candidate getting elected would be a slam dunk. It almost won’t be a race.”
Nick looked down at the picture.
“That was one of the last pictures we took before my dad went off on Candlelight.” He looked back up at Tara, most of his humor gone.
“Hamilton wanted to stick it to me. Remember what I said about ego? People having to win at all cost?”
Tara nodded.
“We used that. We knew if we could show Hamilton a good candidate --and Bart is a good candidate so far as things go-- and one that I hated, he would push to have that guy be the one Cirq backed. Making me endorse him was the turn of the blade Hamilton needed. All I had to do was hate him.”
“And now the FBI has their mole,” Tara said in quiet awe.
“And you’re safe.”
“And you really should not have given up acting,” Tara said, trying to be outraged that he’d been lying to her for two weeks, but unable to find the will.
“No, that path would not have led me to you.”
Then Tara’s mountain man tenderly cupped her face and lowered his mouth to cover hers.
The Heart's Dangerous Trek Page 18
