Choices (A Woman's Life)

by Marie Ferrarella

  Jordan placed the vase on the table next to Shanna and took her hand. She balled it into a fist. He held it for a moment longer, then released it. This was going to take time, he counseled himself. “Shanna, there’s a lot to explain,” he began.

  She looked at him. His shoulders were sagging, like a man who’d been beaten, a man who had come to beg forgiveness. He always knew just how to play an audience, she realized suddenly, just as he had always known how to play her. She had been disgustingly easy for him.

  “I don’t think there are enough words in the English language for you to explain with, Jordan. I asked you once to get out and I meant it.”

  He wasn’t going to give up so quickly. It had been an uphill battle to get where he was, a fierce fight against poverty, against abuse. He wasn’t about to be licked by a bitchy spoiled brat. There was a way out of this.

  “You were distraught when you said that, Shanna. You weren’t thinking clearly—“

  She avoided his eyes. Mesmerizing, beautiful, they had always been her downfall. She was probably part of a large club, she thought bitterly. She knew now that he could charm the skin off a mink without making an incision. And she had to be very, very careful not to fall back into the trap. She didn’t pretend to deceive herself. She was still susceptible to him, still vulnerable. Everything she had felt when she fell in love with Jordan was still there within her. All the insecurities, all the needs. She just had to find a way to rechannel them.

  “No, Jordan,” she said firmly, “I am thinking very clearly, probably more clearly than I have in the last two and a half years.” Digging her knuckles into the mattress on either side of her battered body, she pushed herself up against her pillows. It gave her leverage and seemed to help somehow. “I mean it. I want you out of my life.”

  Jordan wished again that she had died. It had been his first thought when the police had called to notify him of the accident. If she had, he could be playing the bereaved widower right now before the press. It would have undoubtedly garnered him the sympathy vote in the primary, perhaps even the election. Instead he was standing here, trading words with a vengeful little mouse who unknowingly held his future in her hands.

  He touched her cheek, the way he knew she always loved. This time she pulled back. A growing panic began to fray his temper.

  “Shanna, darling, you can’t throw everything we’ve had together away because of one stupid mistake, one mindless indiscretion. She’d been after me for the last few months, hounding me.” He lowered his head while raising his eyes to her face. It was a look calculated to be appealing. “A man can only resist for so long. But it’s over, I swear. I fired her.”

  When Shanna appeared unmoved, he felt a bead of sweat winding its way down his spine. Who could he get to back him if Shanna told her father about this? Though he was ingratiating himself to several other financial backers, he was counting on Brady’s support to win him this primary.

  It amazed her how sincere Jordan could appear while he lied. A mirthless smile rose to her lips. The effort hurt her face. Rumors crowded her head, rumors she had always refused to acknowledge. “One? One indiscretion? Just how stupid do you think I am, Jordan?”

  He wanted to strangle her. Was she doing this on purpose, getting her revenge, making him dangle this way? Didn’t she realize that this was his life she was threatening to cut short? All because of her goddamn injured pride.

  A muscle in his cheek twitched as he sat down on the bed next to her and took her hand again. It felt cold, lifeless. The way she had been in bed, he thought. The way his political career would be if he didn’t find a way to make her take him back. He cursed the lust that sent him questing from one warm, willing body to another. Most of all he cursed her.

  “I never thought you were stupid, Shanna.”

  He sounded so well rehearsed. All his words did. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Why had she been so blind? “When do you stop lying, Jordan? Or have you lied so much that you don’t know what’s true and what’s not, what’s real and what’s illusion?”

  His patience shredded and he dropped her limp hand.

  “Spare me your Psychology 101 crap, okay?” Jordan snapped and then realized what he had said. Blowing out a huge breath, he dragged a hand through his hair. “I was out there in that frigging hallway half the night, just waiting to find out if you were going to live or die. Do you know what that’s like, do you have any idea? Wondering if you were a widower? Knowing you were responsible. And then to come in and hear that you don’t ever want to see me again? Goddamn it, Shanna, you’ve pitched me straight into hell without so much as a backward glance.”

  For one moment she believed him. He sounded so hurt, so sincere. But then, he always had. She forced herself to recall what he had said to that woman when she stood in the doorway of her bedroom, unnoticed. He had called her a bitch. For no reason at all except that she existed and she loved him. A bitch.

  She clutched the term and it helped her rally.

  “Drama.” She nodded her head slowly as if appraising his performance. “You do drama very well.” Jordan got to his feet and began to pace, watching her as she spoke. He reminded her of a caged panther at the zoo, looking through the bars, looking at freedom and knowing it wasn’t to be his.

  Oh, Jordan, if you’d only been honest and loved me the way you said you did.

  “That’s why you’ve gotten as far as you have. That’s why I fell in love with you. You were so dynamic, so forceful, so much bigger than life.” She folded her hands in her lap and then raised her eyes to his face. “But you’re a lot smaller than that, aren’t you, Jordan?” Shanna asked quietly.

  He was losing and he knew it. He couldn’t twist her around the way he always had before. He’d pushed her too far. Desperate, he tried another approach. “What’s gotten into you?” His voice cracked with feeling. He congratulated himself on the touch. “It’s that blow on the head, isn’t it?” He looked at the bandage on her left temple. “It’s making you talk nonsense.”

  She laughed and the sound rankled in him.

  “Maybe I had to be literally hit over the head to finally see what other people have been hinting at all along.”

  “Who?” he demanded heatedly. “Who’s been telling you things? Give me names, goddamn it. Tell me who’s been spreading lies about me!”

  Agitation was causing tiny fissures to snake through his facade. It was crumbling right before her eyes. She felt absolutely no satisfaction. She was just tired.

  “It doesn’t matter who, Jordan. What matters is that it was the truth. You can’t keep secrets in Washington, Jordan. You should know that. There’s always someone to see you, someone to know.”

  Jordan ran his hand over his mouth. He had to have time to think, to regroup. Things would work themselves out once he got her home. He’d give her the attention she wanted, take a couple of days off from the campaign, maybe take her on a second honeymoon. And made sure that Liz was kept the hell far away. Yes, that would be the way to go.

  He leaned over the bed, one hand on either side of her, defining her space. His eyes on her face, he slowly slid his hand along the length of her body, petting, fondling. But the look of longing, of desire, didn’t come. She looked at him with pity and contempt. He fought the urge to hit her for it.

  Straightening, he gave her a warning look. “Look, get some rest and we’ll talk about this in the morning, or when you come home—“

  She was grateful he had stopped. She wasn’t certain how much longer she could have resisted him. Despite everything, he still affected her. “Don’t you understand, Jordan? There is no home for us. There’ll be your home and my home. Two separate places.”

  “I’m sorry, Shanna. I’m sorry,” he cried. There was nothing there in her face. Nothing. God, what did it take to make her come around? “You can’t do this!”

  No, she wasn’t going to cry, she promised herself. Not until he left. He didn’t deserve to see her tears. “Why? Because I’m meek
and mild? Because I’m plain and you’re beautiful? Because I should be grateful that someone like you ever looked my way?”

  He had never seen her like this before and had no idea how to handle her. She had stripped him of every weapon he had. “No, but—“

  “I know why you looked my way, I just never wanted to admit it to myself.” She wadded the bedclothes under her hand, digging deep for courage. Her grandmother’s courage. “It’s because of my parents, of who they are, not who I am. But I won’t be used anymore, Jordan. I do have some pride left.”

  He stared at her, completely appalled at her words. He tried again, trying to tap into her compassion. “Shanna, if you leave me, I don’t know what I’ll do—“

  She didn’t believe it for a moment. “You’ll go on. You’re a survivor, Jordan. You’ll go on.” Her mouth twisted into a cynical smile. “You won’t get any Boy Scout merit badges for the way you do it, but you’ll survive very nicely.”

  She saw the dark look that came over his face and knew exactly what he was thinking. Now that she knew the truth, it was easy. “I won’t go to the press with this, if that’s what you’re worried about. I want a scandal even less than you do. Perhaps not less than my mother, but less than you. I’m not particularly partial to letting the world know that my husband’s been having affairs. I won’t damage your chances at the polls.”

  Yeah, right. Jordan had never believed in the kindness of others, not when it came down to the bottom line. Then it was everyone for himself. It was one of the first lessons his father had taught him before giving him the back of his hand. He’d been about three or four at the time. “The divorce’ll do that.”

  “Why should it? We have ‘irreconcilable differences.’ It happens all the time.” She couldn’t resist adding, “You’ll get more women voters—both at the polls and in your bed.”

  “Your father—“ He thought of the backing he would lose, of the money, and gripped her hand.

  “I didn’t tell him why I’m divorcing you. You strike your own deal with him—without me in the middle.”

  Her father would never stay, once he knew. And Jordan didn’t believe for one moment that she was telling the truth. He knew people. She would like nothing better than to go crying to her father about his “betrayal.” “I can’t let you do this.”

  No, we’re passed the point where you have the right to tell me what you want me to do. “You can’t stop me from doing this.” Shanna stared him straight in the eye and lied, wishing fervently that the words were true. Maybe someday they would be. “You don’t mean anything to me anymore.”

  His look was angry, foreboding. She hadn’t loved him any more than he had loved her. “Just like that?”

  Shanna raised her chin. If she could, she would have walked out. Her mother would have appreciated this as an exit line. “Just like that.” Pain seared through every fiber of her being. It far outweighed the physical pain she felt. She still loved him, even though she couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore.

  Jordan searched her eyes, looking for evidence of a lie. They were flat, unfathomable. He’d been right. “You always were a cold bitch.”

  The pronouncement ripped through her like a knife, but she managed not to show how much it hurt. She still had her integrity. Perhaps it was the only thing she had, but it would have to do.

  “If you believe that, you never got to know me at all.” She felt her lower lip begin to tremble and bit the inside of it to keep it still. “Your loss, Jordan, not mine.”

  Swearing at her, he hit the vase with the side of his hand and left the hospital suite. It smashed into a multitude of pieces. Roses fanned out haphazardly on the floor like broken dreams.

  The sound of the vase crashing brought her nurse running into the room. The young woman looked at the shattered vase in surprise. It was a good distance from the bed. “What happened here?”

  Shanna sighed. She felt so hollow, so devoid of everything. Would she ever be able to pull herself together again? “A minor earthquake.”

  The nurse looked at her quizzically before she shrugged away the strange explanation. “I’ll get an orderly to clean this up right away.” The woman glanced at her wristwatch. “Time to take your blood pressure anyway.” She uncoiled the blood-pressure reading apparatus from its storage place on the wall. “Lunch is on its way. So, how are you feeling?”

  Shanna looked at the door that Jordan had stormed through. “Like I died.” Listlessly she raised her arm. The nurse wrapped the gray cuff around it tightly, then pumped the bulb in her hand, inflating it.

  Mechanically she listened for the beat. When it began, she smiled, watching the gauge. It was normal. “No, you’re far from dead, my dear.” She removed the stethoscope from her ears, letting it rest around her neck. “Luckily neither one of you is.”

  Shanna stared at the woman as she let her arm drop against the bed. Neither one? What was she talking about? “Excuse me?”

  “You’re both going to be fine,” the nurse assured her cheerfully.

  “What ‘both’? I was the only one in the car.” Was the woman referring to someone else? “Do you mean the man who hit me?”

  The nurse returned the blood-pressure cuff to its wire cage on the wall. “No, he got away without a scratch. I’m talking about the baby.”

  Shanna’s throat went dry. “What baby?”

  The nurse turned as she picked up the clipboard at the foot of Shanna’s bed. She pulled her pen out of her skirt pocket. “Why yours, of course.” She jotted down the latest reading, then stopped and looked at Shanna. “Do you mean to tell me that you don’t know?”

  They’d done so many tests, had one of them been a routine pregnancy test? Oh God, had it turned out positive? “Know what?”

  Please, it can’t be true, not now.

  The nurse beamed at her. She’d gotten a look at Shanna’s husband yesterday. Stubble and all, the man was gorgeous. They made a nice couple. “Why, that you’re pregnant, of course.”

  Her grandmother’s voice echoed in her head. They’re not foolproof, you know. And considering the fool you’ve been sleeping with—

  Talk about timing, she thought helplessly, her hand unconsciously splaying over her stomach.

  Chapter 12

  Reid Kincannon sighed as he stretched his legs out before him on the white beach chair. Behind him was the Hotel Lorraine, an exclusive resort where only the very wealthy could afford to stay. His own hotel, far less expensive but suiting his needs adequately, was farther down along the beach. He was partial to the view here.

  He burrowed the tips of his toes into the white sand and sighed. Heady stuff, he mused languidly, for a farm boy from Iowa.

  The balmy air caressed the length of his body with warm, seductive fingers. Back in D.C., the temperature was a crisp forty-one degrees with rain forecast for the rest of the day. He’d checked the newspaper first thing this morning. Knowing he was here instead of there increased the almost innocent pleasure he felt, even though he would be back in D.C. all too soon.

  It was like being in another world here in the Bahamas. And he didn’t take it for granted, not even for one moment. Each minute, filled with nothing but relaxation, was far too precious not to savor. Doing nothing, he was actively purging the stress that had brought him to this point in time.

  This was the first vacation Reid had ever allowed himself. There had never been enough time or money before. Even now, there were just four short days in the sun before plunging back into the hectic world of studies and part-time jobs meant to hold body and soul together until he got his degree.

  Reid smiled to himself. He was older than most of the students who sat beside him at the university, older by probably a good ten years. It hadn’t been easy, getting started in life all over again at his age. But things didn’t always fall into place on a timetable when you were poor and without resources. The only way he could have gotten the education he craved as much as food and water was to give the army a piece of his lif
e first. So he had. He had done his part, now the army was doing its share.

  It hadn’t been so bad, being in the army, he mused, and it had given him shelter for a while and hidden him from Tyler Poole’s family.

  A waiter walked by and eyed him, apparently wondering if he was one of the guests of the hotel. Reid only smiled at him and nodded. Guest was always such an odd term to use when you had to pay, he thought. And he had paid, paid dearly for everything he had. For everything he intended to have.

  The GI bill was helping him get through school. The GI bill and a host of odd jobs that threatened to leave a permanently bloodshot tinge to his eyes as they whittled away at his natural stamina. He had been keeping this pace up for three and a half years now, working two shifts in the summer to save up money for the fall. But a man could only keep going for so long. Eventually he had been faced with a choice of either stopping for a few days, or dropping dead in his tracks. So he had taken a trip to the islands. It was a necessary shot in the arm that had dangerously depleted his emergency fund.

  Today was his last day in the islands.

  A new semester was beginning at the end of the week. Besides, four days was all he could afford to take off without pay. Part-time help was only paid when they showed up.

  He heard sea gulls crying in the distance. Reid glanced at his watch. Eleven o’clock. It was time.

  He turned to the right, anticipating her arrival.

  Like clockwork, the tall, honey-blond-haired woman with the sad eyes appeared. She was dressed in a modest light pink maillot. She moved effortlessly and unselfconsciously, as if she had no idea that she had a very beautiful shape. She had stirred his fantasies, such as he allowed himself, from the very first. She was alone as always and completely oblivious to her surroundings.

  As she had for the last three days, she spread out her turquoise beach blanket on the white sands, propped up her striped, small chair on top of it, then sat down to watch the ocean, her long limbs stretched out before her. There was no radio, no book, no magazine to distract her. She simply stared straight ahead. For hours.