Miracle

by Deborah Smith

  Inside her he moved with convulsive energy, while his hands knotted in her hair and he angled his face to catch the touch of her fingertips. This first time was a struggle between tenderness and greed, restraint and chaos, emotions so raw that they could only bleed before the healing began. In the end she struggled with him, screamed against his shoulder in contrast to the urging of her hands riding his hips. Worlds of light were born in the frantic completion.

  Afterward she stroked his back, trying to calm both him and herself. Then he murmured je t’aime, je t’aime against her mouth, and she fell apart again. “I talked to you in my mind for ten years,” she told him, crying. “I wish you’d heard me sometimes.”

  “I did, love, I did,” he said, thinking of the whispers he had been too distant from himself to understand, until now.

  Outside the open bedroom window the spring afternoon was warm and peaceful, whispering with the winds and the birds, ripe, waiting. It was impossible to move without noticing everything about the man who lay under her, between her knees, his belly and chest a solid, thickly haired enticement that made her press herself down on him and wrap her arms under his neck. She moved—noticing, loving.

  “I’m afraid to look at you,” she whispered against his ear, her breath still fast, still recovering. “I’m afraid you’re too good to be true.”

  Sebastien melted her over him with the stroking of his large hands, gentle but provocative as they journeyed down her back. “I thought it was beyond me to feel this way again,” he whispered in return. He caught the tip of her ear lobe with his lips, then kissed her cheek and chin before nuzzling his face upward so that he could kiss her mouth. She looked down into his dark, gleaming eyes. Their happiness combined with the ruddy flush in his face to make her smile. “Doc, you were worth waiting ten years for.”

  She noted the hardening of his expression and the way his eyes began to see farther than her face. He protested gruffly when she lifted herself from his body and lay down beside him, but she shook her head. She curled a leg over his thighs and stroked his matted chest hair as she studied his change of mood, worried. “It doesn’t matter,” she said softly, sensing his thoughts.

  “It does. We’ve lost so many years. I can’t ignore a feeling of obsessive protectiveness toward what we have now, a feeling that it could disappear again too easily.”

  She touched a mildly rebuking finger to his lips. “Not if we admit the problems. Not if you want to solve them as much as I do.”

  “Problems?”

  “I have a career and it takes a lot of my time. It’s not the kind of work—or the kind of life-style—that’s even remotely like anything you know.”

  “Oh, that.” He dismissed the conflict with a bored sigh. “I don’t mind being the power behind the throne. We de Savins have always played that role in French history. It’s really the most important position.”

  She laughed. “I should have known your confidence wouldn’t be threatened.”

  “I don’t mind your devotion to your work, love. I respect it. When I return to medicine, you’ll respect my devotion, I’m sure.”

  Amy cocked her head and eyed him warily. “There’s a threat there, somewhere.”

  “Only the threat that we’ll both have to compromise. I’ve never been good at compromising, I admit it. But I’ll learn.”

  “I go to the other extreme. You’re looking at an expert on compromising.”

  Her jaunty smile brought a soft chuckle from him. He tweaked one of her breasts. “Good. You can teach me.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  “Then perhaps our only significant problem is Elliot Thornton. Tell me about him.” Frowning, she said nothing. Sebastien curled an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, taunting her a little with his possessiveness. “I’ve told you all that was important about my relationship with Marie. Now you tell me about this Thornton. Compromise, dear Miracle.” He gave her a benign but commanding look. “Talk.”

  “I care about him. I’d like to help him. He used to be a pretty lovable person. But I think I loved being needed by him more than anything else. Eventually I realized that it wasn’t the same as loving him. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yes. But I want him out of your life. I’m not … hmmm, what would be the word?” Sebastien frowned, then found it and nodded. “I’m not modern enough to encourage you to remain friends with him. In fact, I would prefer that you never see him again.”

  “Dear doctor, there isn’t a man on this planet you need to feel jealous of.”

  His free hand slid over her hip and dipped between her thighs. With his fingertips he spread the wetness that came from both their bodies. It was a loving caress, without domination. “I know. But indulge my fierce territorial instinct where you are concerned.”

  She could tell he was struggling not to let jealousy make him sound Neanderthal. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her feelings for him—she knew that—it was that he wanted to drive away any other male who had ever coveted her. The attitude was surprisingly primitive for him, and it made her so happy that she was drunk with wanting to please him. But she knew that she had to be honest.

  “I don’t love Elliot, but I want to help him, if I can. I won’t promise you that I’ll turn my back on him if he wants to be friends again, if he’s capable of being friends.” She paused, girding herself for what she wanted to say next. “Elliot and I were finished a long time before you came back. You don’t have to worry.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

  “Do you … want to talk about Jeff Atwater?”

  Silence stretched between them. His expression became carefully shuttered as he held her gaze. “No, I think not,” he said finally. His hand lay still on the top of her thigh, then began its slow caress again. But there was something hard and challenging in his eyes. “Do you want to remember him?”

  He knew about that night. There was no doubt. “No, it ended ten years ago. It was a terrible mistake.”

  “You had given up waiting for me. I understand why. I never gave you reason to wait.” He halted the line of conversation with an upraised hand. His eyes were colder than she would have liked. “Someday, when we’re old and bored and have nothing better to discuss, we’ll talk about Jeff. But not now.”

  She nodded but wondered how long they could let this painful part of their past remain unexplored.

  “So you want to be friends with Elliot Thornton,” he said abruptly, his tone grim. “And rehabilitate him.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Sebastien lifted a hand and pointed at her in a slow and emphatic gesture of protest that held the future hostage. You test my limits, it said. She met his reproachful stare with an arch expression, while her fingers drummed a deceptively light-hearted rhythm on the center of his chest. “Compromise,” she reminded him.

  His eyes flickered. His attitude shifted to exasperation. He lowered his hand and engulfed her teasing fingers. “So be it. Compromise.” The word came hard, and she knew it. She kissed him in honor of it, and hoped that it would help her in the future.

  Sebastien went with her when she flew to New York to audition for Late Night With David Letterman. She was ecstatic when Letterman’s producer offered her a stand-up spot on one of the following week’s shows. She luxuriated in Sebastien’s pride.

  In their hotel suite the next morning she woke to find herself wearing a slender gold necklace from which hung a diamond pendant. “See what the tooth fairy brought me?” she said tearfully, looking up into Sebastien’s solemn eyes. “And I didn’t even trade a tooth for it.”

  “He must have known that yesterday was a momentous occasion and should be commemorated.”

  “I’ve been getting a lot of goodies lately.”

  “It’s about time, I’d say.”

  “But I need to do something in return. For the tooth fairy, I mean.”

  “You could refer to him by some other title.” He lay back and crooked a finger at her, a sm
ug expression on his face. Laughing, happier than she’d ever been in her life, she pounced on him.

  David Letterman liked her. He had always been nice to her anytime she and Elliot ran into him at the clubs. It was widely rumored that he considered Elliot a jerk, but she forgave him that insight.

  After she finished her routine she sat down in the low-slung guest chair next to his desk and told him a lot of creative lies about growing up in the South. Judging by the sincerity in his gap-toothed grin, and the audience’s enthusiastic laughter, she knew she’d done well. After he broke for a commercial he leaned over and congratulated her, asked her to stay for another couple of minutes, and said he hoped she’d come back.

  “I’d chain myself to your desk and start polishin’ your shoes if you wanted me to,” she assured him.

  He liked that idea.

  But if he was nice he was also mischievous, and when the commercial ended the first thing he did was rear back in his chair and asked her about Elliot. “Come on, now, you used to hang around with this character,” he said cheerfully. “What’s a big night on the town like with Elliot Thornton? I bet he’s the kind of guy who cheats at goofy golf.”

  She played awkward—it was easy under the circumstances—and told a couple of innocent anecdotes about Elliot’s escapades on motorcycles.

  The next morning, as she and Sebastien were crossing the hotel lobby on their way to take a limo to the airport, a photographer leapt out from behind one of the lobby’s potted ficus trees and began taking pictures.

  He was followed by a woman carrying a tape record. She thrust its mircrophone into Amy’s face, barked her own name and the name of the tabloid newspaper that employed her, then asked, “Elliot Thornton’s show has just been canceled. Is it true that your relationship with him met Elliot Thornton when you were a college student and that he seduced you during a drug orgy at his motel room?”

  Which was as far as she got before Sebastien plucked the microphone out of her hand, jerked it free of the tape recorder, and dropped it into the potted ficus. He then slapped the photographer’s Nikon, which took a short flight into a tiled wall. Amy watched in horror while marveling at Sebastien’s ability to silence both people with a look of sheer menace. They gaped at him and stepped aside.

  When she and he were safely ensconced in the limo, he shut his eyes and leaned his head back on the seat. “I suppose I overreacted.”

  “Yeah, I think you get the Sean Penn award today.”

  “What is that?”

  She took one of his clenched hands and kissed it. “Never mind, Doc. I love your intentions, even if your methods need a little work.”

  “It’s going to be like this often, isn’t it, if you become well known?”

  She cringed. “I hope not. Nobody’d be interested in me if it weren’t for Elliot. They’re after him right now, that’s all. Sebastien?”

  “Yes?”

  “That reporter is probably goin’ to write about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. She’ll call you something like ‘the violent mystery man who stole Elliot Thornton’s girlfriend.’ ”

  “I’ll sue her for libel.”

  Amy shook her head, feeling miserable. “She’ll just write another article about you, and it’ll be even uglier. Then I’ll have to go smack the fire out of her, because I won’t let anybody embarrass you, especially on my account.”

  “No. This is not your fault.”

  “This is not good publicity for a heart surgeon. I want you to be able to work in this country without people snickering at you because of me.”

  “Stop saying such nonsense. My reputation has survived much worse than this.” He settled back in the seat and pulled her close. She hugged him and felt the anger in his body. It alarmed her. She didn’t want him to merely to survive here. She wanted him to flourish. What if he didn’t?

  The Funny Women cable special was a grand new experience. It was taped at the Alexus, a small but prestigious theater in San Francisco. Her knees shook when she stepped up on the famous stage in front of a packed audience, with cameras recording her act and Sebastien seated somewhere in the darkness at the back of the club. She was one of ten female comics. Her agent, a plump powerhouse named Bev Jankowski, was from a small but respectable firm. Bev told her she blew the others away and was, indeed, moving up in a hurry.

  Agents were supposed to say things like that, but Amy liked hearing them, anyway. More important was Sebastien’s reaction. He’d never seen her work before. She met him in the crowded hall outside the dressing rooms, took one look at his smile, and knew that she hadn’t made a fool out of herself in front of him. The tabloid story had been as garish as she’d feared, but he’d weathered it well. He held out his arms and told her gruffly, “I waited a long time to see you prove your talent to other people. But don’t forget, I saw it first.”

  Laughing, she threw herself into his embrace. “My agent gets ten percent of me and you get the rest, I promise.”

  “Hmmm, I don’t know. I doubt that she can appreciate that ten percent as much as I can.”

  “Well, she only gets the public ten percent.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They hugged, then stood there enjoying each other’s presence and the moment. She suspected that she was giving him a goofy, tearful smile, but the look in his eyes said that he was loving it.

  “Cut to the chase, baby, cut to the chase. This is the longest sap scene on record.”

  Elliot’s voice was sardonic. She pivoted to face him. He was thin and his face gaunt. His nose looked raw, and purplish shadows tainted the skin beneath his eyes. Despite his sarcastic remark, he regarded her with a wistful, apologetic expression. “Hi ya, baby. Long time no abuse.” His voice trembled.

  “Hi.” A flood of sympathy made her grasp one of his hands and pat it maternally. “I hope you’re tired of not returning my phone calls. Where have you been?”

  “Seeing the wild West.” His gaze shifted to Sebastien. “You were busy, I heard.”

  Sebastien extended a hand and introduced himself. To her surprise, Elliot reciprocated. He looked beaten, lost. “Thank you, man. You’ve inspired me.”

  Sebastien regarded him without malice. “In what way?”

  “To clean up my life.” He sent Amy a hopeful look. “I’m off the bad stuff, baby. I swear.”

  She hugged him, held him, and he burrowed his head on her shoulder. She didn’t know if he was telling the truth or not, but her heart broke for him. “I’m proud of you.” She drew back and studied him sadly. She knew his melodramatic scenes too well, but still, he was pitiful. “If there’s anything I can do for you—”

  “You always said that you and I would have a chance again, if I went straight. Well, I’m going to hold you to your word, baby.”

  “Elliot, it isn’t that simple.” She glanced up at Sebastien. His jaw was clenched, but he seemed more annoyed with Elliot than angry. He knew Elliot was no threat. She grasped Elliot’s shoulders and said as lightly as he could, “Why don’t I meet you for lunch this week? And we’ll talk. You know that I’m still your friend.”

  “Forget this guy, baby,” he said, nodding toward Sebastien. “I’ve had him checked out. I bet you don’t know him half as well as I do.”

  “Oh, Elliot, what a con artist you are. We’ll have lunch, and—”

  “Did you know that he killed his own kid?”

  She blocked Sebastien’s way as he took a step toward Elliot. Looking up into his face, she saw controlled fury but also acceptance. “Where did your investigator get that misinformation?”

  But Elliot stared straight at Amy. She was hypnotized with horror. “His kid was born deformed,” Elliot told her. “So he didn’t wait for it to die. He just did a little slice-and-dice job, a little salvage work, and tossed the rest. He got canned for it, too. Screwed his reputation big time. No wonder he came to the States looking for you. He’s persona non grata among the French medical set. Did he tell you that?”


  “Elliot, you’d better turn around and walk.” Sebastien’s silence made a terrible brand of dread form inside her.

  “Ask the man, baby. Ask him. And call me, okay?” He turned and walked quickly away.

  Slowly she looked up at Sebastien. She saw that what Elliot had said was true, at least in part. “Let’s go somewhere quiet and talk,” he said wearily. “Perhaps I understand the past well enough to explain it to you now.”

  San Francisco Bay stretched below the knoll of the small park, an enormous, black mirror reflecting the pinpoint lights of boats and the city. But the night’s fog edged up to it, threatening the clear view. Already the street lamp nearby was catching the mist in its glow. Amy leaned against the gnarled trunk of a small oak and wondered if yet another turning point in her and Sebastien’s life together would be played out under a night sky. They had always seemed to find lonely, beautiful places by unspoken agreement.

  He talked to her with his attention lost in the black distance, his head up, his hands knotted against his thighs. She listened to him describe the child he and his wife had wanted so much, and even though she knew that he hadn’t loved his wife, she felt like an outcast, the same as when she’d stood in the rain outside his estate and watched the two of them. She had never told him about that day, and didn’t think she ever would.

  But she hurt for him when he talked about the baby daughter he’d loved, and about the way she had died, and his reasons for what he’d done to her. When he finished he turned toward her with a troubled expression. “What do you think of me now?”

  “I think you have a deep capacity for love. I think you did the right thing.” She hesitated, struggling for composure, her emotions leaden. “But I wonder how you feel about children after all you’ve been through.” A chill slid over her skin as she assessed his silence. “Please tell me, Sebastien.”

  “I don’t ever want that kind of grief again.” His voice had a desperate, bitter edge, but she realized it was part grief, part shame. “I have no idea why Marie and I couldn’t have a healthy child … there was no obvious reason for it. If I were the cold-hearted bastard that so many people think I am, it would be easy to become a father again. But to take a chance that another child would be subjected to such torture would be obscene. I can’t do it.”