No Less Than a Lifetime

by Christine Rimmer

  Once they were settled in the steaming, scented water, they didn’t even make a pretense of bathing. Price lay back against the tub and Faith lay back against Price. They reached for the snifters.

  “Heaven,” Price declared. He set the balloon glass aside after a sip and wrapped his arm around Faith’s neck, settling his hand companionably on her shoulder.

  Faith agreed with him. She’d been in heaven for a week. She never wanted to come back down to earth. She took a sip from her own glass, then set it down next to his.

  Price nipped her earlobe. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “About what?”

  He reached for his glass, sipped again, and put the glass down. “About how I’d like to stay here forever. But I can’t. I’ve got a few things pending at home. I need to get back to them.”

  Faith was silent. Her conscience had just given her a nudge, as it had been doing more and more frequently since the other night, with Evie and Nevada. She and Price really did have to talk seriously about where they were going—if anywhere.

  Price ran a finger along her collarbone. Tiny sparks of desire went off in its wake. He had his own ideas about where they were going. “Come home with me. Just for a little while. We’ll get someone to handle things here.”

  Faith closed her eyes. Who could they get? And how could she leave, with the roof collapsing in half of the place and a blackout in the other? “I can’t, Price.”

  His hand strayed lower, beneath the bath-salt bubbles. He cupped her breast. “You can.” His mouth was at her ear, whispering his temptations. “You’ve got to get real here. Close this place up. And start arranging for all the repairs you need. Do it the way I suggested at the beginning—all at once.”

  “I don’t have the money.”

  “Money’s no problem. You know that.”

  “I won’t take your money, Price.”

  His hand, which had been stroking her arm, went still. Then he reached for his brandy again.

  Faith knew that he would push her no further right then. They’d drink their brandy and soak lazily for a while. Then they’d get out and dry each other off, perhaps make love one more time. And then they’d wrap themselves around each other and go to sleep.

  Tomorrow, or the next day, Price would try again to get her to come home with him. She’d put him off.

  They couldn’t go on in this lovely limbo forever. They had to make some real decisions.

  Faith kept waiting for the right time to talk about it. But somehow the right time just never seemed to come.

  Which meant, she reluctantly decided, that this very moment was as good a time as any.

  She reached for her own glass and took a fortifying sip that burned a trail of false courage all the way down into her belly. Then she set the glass back on the tray. “Price…”

  Was it the tone of her voice? She didn’t know, but he seemed to sense, just from the way she said his name, that she was going to bring up a subject he didn’t want to discuss.

  “What?” His tone was not encouraging.

  Oh, she couldn’t do it. It was just too difficult. Especially like this, lying here naked in the tub after making love on different pieces of her furniture for half the night.

  But she couldn’t put it off anymore, either. He had to know what was in her heart. And she had to know if there was any hope for them.

  And to do what she had to do, she needed a little distance—a little distance, and a towel.

  She gathered her legs up under her.

  “Faith?”

  She stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  She turned to face him. “I…need a towel.”

  He looked up at her. She watched his eyes change as he took in her nakedness and the bubbles from the bath salts that were streaming down her breasts and belly. Faith knew she wasn’t beautiful. But sometimes, when Price looked at her, she felt that she was.

  He reached up, put his hand on her thigh. “Come back down here.”

  Her legs went weak. She wanted nothing so much as to obey his command. He would love her again. With his body. Even if he wouldn’t give her his heart.

  Faith bit her bottom lip, not enough to hurt too much, just enough to stiffen her resolve. She brushed Price’s hand gently aside and climbed from the tub. Her robe hung on the back of the door to the bedroom. She padded to it, took it down and shoved her arms into the sleeves. She didn’t turn to face him again until she’d tied the sash around her waist.

  By then, he’d picked up his snifter once more. Blue eyes regarded her over the rim. After he drank, he set the glass aside. He waited.

  Faith still had no idea how to go about this. She’d kept everything inside for so long. It just didn’t want to come out now.

  She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, the task before her seeming to grow more insurmountable by the second.

  “Damn it, Faith.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was climbing from the tub, tender frustration in his eyes. He was coming for her. He would touch her. And she would never say what she had to say.

  She pushed the words out before he could stop her. “I…I love you.”

  It sounded awful, ragged and low.

  Price sank back into the tub again. Water sloshed over the rim.

  “Price?”

  He didn’t speak.

  “I love you, Price.” Still he said nothing. Desperation seized her. She hugged herself harder. “Did you hear me? I said—”

  “I heard.” The words were flat.

  “Well, then, I…” She sucked in a breath. She couldn’t stop now. She had to get it all out. What she wanted. And the question. What she had to know. “I want to get married, Price. To you.”

  She waited. The silence was endless.

  “Will you marry me, Price?” The question came out shrill. As foolish and desperate as she felt.

  He went on looking at her, his face completely unreadable.

  She couldn’t stand it. She turned around and headed for the bedroom. But when she got there, she didn’t know what to do next. Throw open the back door and run out into the night? Toss herself down on the bed and burst into tears?

  Since both of those options seemed absurdly melodramatic, she sank slowly onto the side of the bed, folded her hands in her lap and wished she could disappear, just fade away to nothing, right there where she sat.

  “Faith.”

  She looked up and saw him standing in the doorway to the bathroom. He’d wrapped a towel around his waist. Water glistened on his chest and on his powerful shoulders. He was so impossibly handsome. Her wounded, distant love.

  “I thought you understood. I told you before you left Sausalito that I was never going to marry again.” He sounded regretful, but resolved.

  And that made her angry. She straightened her shoulders. “So? People do change their minds. Look at me. I was never going to make love with you again. I knew it would be foolish. But here I am. In bed with you every night.”

  “What we have is special.”

  “Yes. It is. But it’s going nowhere.”

  “So? Why does it have to go anywhere? Why can’t we just be grateful for the moment?”

  “I already told you. Because I want more.”

  “Look—”

  “No. You look. I mean it, Price. For me, there does have to be more.”

  He swore under his breath, then threw up a hand. “There’s no point in this.” He started to turn.

  Faith shot off the bed and caught his arm before he could escape her. “We have to talk about it.”

  He looked down at her fingers where they dug into his skin, then up into her eyes. “There’s nothing to say.”

  Faith knew she was getting nowhere. With a sigh, she released him. “All right, then.”

  He must have thought she was seeing things his way. Because he turned fully toward her. “Good.” A knowing smile curved his lips.

  She stepped back. “I want yo
u to leave, please.”

  His smile froze. “What?”

  “I want you to get dressed and go. I want marriage and a family, and you don’t. And that’s the end of it.”

  He stared as if he couldn’t believe what she’d said. But then he nodded. “All right. I’ll go.” He brushed around her and went to her bureau, which lately held as many of his clothes as it did hers. He fumbled in a drawer and came up with a set of black sweats. Tossing his towel aside, he yanked the pants and shirt on. Then he shoved the drawer shut.

  He turned to her. And all the energy seemed to go out of him. He slumped back against the bureau. “Why are we doing this? I don’t want to go.”

  She wanted to cry. “Oh, Price…”

  He began to walk toward her. “It’s too strong, this thing between us. You won’t kill it, just by sending me away.”

  She put up a hand. “Stay back.”

  He stopped where he was. “Faith…”

  “No. I want…more than this, as beautiful as this has been. I want a whole lifetime. With you. And as long as I settle for less, less is what I’m going to get.”

  “Be reasonable.” His voice had turned velvety, coaxing, soft. And he was advancing on her once more. “It can be almost the same as marriage. We’ll be together, just like we are now. There won’t be anyone else for me. And whatever you want, you can have. I’ll see to it.” He was right before her. Tenderly, he clasped her arms. “I swear to you.”

  She refused to be appeased. “Anything I want, I can have?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mean money, Price? You already offered me money, remember? I turned you down.”

  He clutched her arms tighter. “Faith. Don’t do this.”

  She looked up at him defiantly. “I want to know, if not money, then what? How about children? Can we have children, even if we can’t get married?”

  “Stop it.”

  “No. I can’t do that, Price. It’s always…forbidden, to talk about this. But I’ve lived in your house. I’ve seen it all. I remember the ladies. All the nice, smooth, sophisticated ladies. The Annette Leclaires you’ve been with—since you gave up on loving the way you really want to love. Since you made that terrible promise to a dead little boy five years ago.”

  That did it. He let go of her arms and stepped back.

  “You know what I’m talking about, Price.”

  “Don’t…” He backed away.

  Now she was the one advancing on him. “I’m talking about that promise you made on that last night you got so drunk. You cried that night.”

  “Stop—”

  “Do you remember?” She backed him as far as she could, until his calves met the easy chair where he’d made love to her earlier. “Do you remember that night, Price?”

  He glared at her. And then he sighed. “All right.”

  “All right, what?”

  “All right, yes. I remember.”

  “Do you remember that I held you while you cried?”

  He dropped heavily into the chair. “Yeah.”

  She gazed down at him. “And then I helped you to bed.”

  He looked away. “Is this really necessary?”

  “Yes. I helped you to bed.”

  “I don’t remember…how I got to bed.”

  “I do.”

  “What the hell does it matter, how I got to bed?”

  “It doesn’t. It was what happened on the way there. That’s what matters.”

  He looked up at her. And then he looked away again.

  She felt like some kind of heartless monster, throwing all of this in his face.

  She returned to the edge of the bed and sat down. “All right. If you want me to stop, I will.”

  He rubbed at his temples. “No. You’re right. I know it. Go ahead. Say it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Hell. No, I’m not sure. But go ahead anyway. Say it all. Get it out.”

  She folded her hands together and looked down at them, remembering, conjuring up that night.

  When she spoke, her voice was low. “I had your arm over my shoulder and you were a dead weight, more asleep than awake. But somehow, I got you out of the library and on the way up the stairs. One step at a time, we were managing. Kind of staggering along.”

  She glanced up. But he wouldn’t meet her eyes. So she looked at her folded hands again. “We got about halfway up. Then you caught your foot on the riser somehow, and we fell against the stair rail. We were all tangled up together, and I had to pry myself off of you and then try to get you upright again. I grabbed your hand and started to pull and you squinted up at me. You said, ‘Faith? S’that you?’”

  Price shifted in the chair. She looked at him in time to see him put a hand over his eyes.

  She went on, staring into the middle distance, picturing that night just as it had been. “You looked so lost and sad, saying my name. Reaching out for something to hold on to, when so much of what you’d loved was gone forever. And something…happened inside me. Right then, when you looked at me. Like a light switching on. A hot, painful light. Blinding me.”

  He was looking at her now. “What are you saying?”

  She saw herself, on the stair that night, just as she’d been then, a quiet, capable woman whose whole world was suddenly changed—and yet remained exactly the same.

  “I thought, ‘I’m in love with him. With Price. With my boss. After all these years. It can’t be…’”

  Price spoke again, his voice barely a whisper. “You…loved me? You loved me then?”

  A painful laugh escaped her. “Yes.”

  “But I never—”

  “Of course you didn’t. I never intended you to know. From that first moment, when I knew how I felt about you, I started to practice hiding it. You said, ‘Faith? S’that you?’ and I said, ‘Yes, Price. It’s Faith. Come on. Time for bed.’ I was amazed at how calm and unruffled I sounded. I got your arm over my shoulder again, and off we went, stumbling upward.

  “You hung on to me, barely able to stay upright. But agreeable. Obedient as a child. You started mumbling to yourself. But I hardly heard you. I was thinking how strange it was. On the outside, nothing had changed. I was still the loyal housekeeper, trying to get my boss up to his bed. But in my mind, everything was different. I kept going over what was happening inside me. I kept thinking that I loved you. Loved you. You kept on mumbling. I kept thinking that it was impossible, it couldn’t be. But it was. I loved you.

  “And then, right then, when we reached the top of the stairs, I actually heard those words you kept muttering over and over to yourself, like some kind of prayer.”

  Faith took in a breath. Then she asked softly, “Do you remember those words, Price? Do you remember the promise you made?”

  He didn’t answer. But he didn’t try to stop her, either.

  She finished it. “You were saying, ‘I’ll never have another little boy, Danny. I swear to you, Danny. I’ll never get married and I’ll never kill another little boy.’”

  Price closed his eyes, bowed his head. His hand, which rested on the arm of the chair, was bunched tightly in a fist. Faith ached for him, as she had on that long-ago night, when she learned that she loved him and heard his terrible vow.

  She slid from the bed and went to kneel beside his chair. “Your parents are so in love it’s embarrassing sometimes. You grew up with them, seeing every day what love can be. And for a while, I know, what you and Marisa had was good. I think a loving marriage is everything to a man like you. That’s what you made all your money for, what your huge, safe, beautiful house is for. And if you really wanted to punish yourself, if you really wanted to cut the heart and soul right out of your life, the best way to do it would be to deny yourself what matters most to you—marriage and children.”

  Faith put her hand over his. He pulled away. He kept his eyes closed, his head down.

  “Price. Please. You have to stop blaming yourself. It really wasn’t your fault.”

&
nbsp; His head shot up then. He looked at her. His eyes were hard with a bottomless self-loathing.

  Faith felt the tears well up. They spilled over and made wet trails down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. They were tears for him. “Oh, Price…”

  He spoke then. “I blame myself because I was at fault.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Danny was sick, and Marisa knew it. She knew it was bad. But I told her she was overreacting. And by the time even I admitted how bad it was, it was too damn late. She never forgave me. And she was right not to forgive me. I killed Danny.”

  “But all the doctors said—”

  Before she could finish, he shoved himself out of the chair and stalked away from her. He turned back only when he was on the other side of the room. “I don’t give a damn what the doctors said. If we had taken him in earlier, it might have made a difference. But we didn’t. He died.”

  “You did the best you could, Price.”

  “And it damn sure wasn’t good enough.”

  “And so you’ll punish yourself for the rest of your life, is that it?”

  “No, I just won’t—”

  She finished for him. “Marry or have children.”

  They looked at each other across a distance of perhaps twelve feet. It might have been a thousand miles.

  Faith stood from beside the chair. “We’re right back where we started.”

  He let out a long breath. “I know. But I still want you. I can’t see my life without you.” He seemed almost angry about it. “Maybe it will be all right.”

  Faith shook her head. “No. We both know it won’t.”

  “So what the hell do we do?”

  “Oh, Price.”

  “Just say it. Just tell me.”

  “You have to leave me, Price. You have to let me try to get over you.”

  Price stared at her. She watched as acceptance came into his eyes. Foolishly, she wanted to cry out against it, though it was the very thing she’d begged him for.

  He asked, “Will you please take the damn money you need?”

  She started to shake her head again, but then stopped herself. Until she was on her feet financially, he would always feel responsible for her. She was going to have to let him help her with this. “All right. I’ll take that loan.”