by Webb, Peggy
“It sounds like fun.” She smiled at her husband, and he leaned over and kissed her cheek.
That was the way Sue Evelyn captured them, looking for all the world like a man and a woman in love.
“Something to remember the honeymoon by,” she said as she snapped their picture.
While the camera whirred and spit out the lie, tears the size of tennis balls clogged Ruth’s throat. If one of them spilled over, she’d say she had developed allergies.
“Newlyweds,” Mr. Ellis said, laughing. “You’d better enjoy it while it lasts. This is the happiest time of your life.”
“Yes,” Ruth said. “The happiest time of my life.”
o0o
BOSTON
As Malone left the lectern, Ruth smiled at him. But not the way she’d smiled at Brett. For a moment a black despair obscured his vision; then, shaking it off, he went down the aisle and took her hand.
“Let’s get out of this crowd before we get cornered. I want to show my wife how happy I am she came with me on this fund-raiser.”
“I’m glad you’re happy, darling.”
If she was so damned glad, why did her face make him think of an underprivileged poster child?
When they got up to the room, he didn’t bother with preliminaries. She received him with pale endurance.
He felt himself building to a climax too quickly, as he always seemed to do lately. He wondered if it mattered to her whether it was fast or slow. It was a question he didn’t dare ask. There were lots of questions between them lately that he didn’t dare ask.
She sighed when it was over. Relief or regret?
He didn’t want to know.
“Why don’t you freshen up, sweetheart, and we’ll go to the bar downstairs and have a little nightcap?”
“You go ahead, Malone. I’m a little tired.”
From doing what? Certainly not from her exertions in the lovemaking department.
She went into the bathroom, and he could hear her preparations to wash all evidence of him away.
He followed her, intending to apologize for not taking the time to get a condom. She was bent over the wastebasket, taking the wrappings off a disposable douche. Something strong and angry rose in him.
“Don’t!” She looked up at him, startled. “Don’t wash it out.” Hadn’t he read somewhere that once a woman bore a man’s child she was a tiger in bed? “I want children.”
“Malone ... I don’t think this is the time... .”
“When is the time? Tell me, Ruth. When is the right time?”
“You’re upset. This is not the time to talk.”
“I’m not upset. I’m damned mad.” He gripped her shoulders. “I make love to you, but you don’t make love back. Why is that, Ruth?”
Her chin shot up, and she got that look that said he’d gone too far. Hell, that was the story of his life. He was always doing and saying the wrong thing.
“I have no intention of getting into a shouting match with you, Malone. Let go of me.”
He didn’t want to let go of her.
“What would it take to make you responsive? Huh, Ruth?” He saw fury in every line of her body. Good. At least he had a reaction. “Who would it take? Brett?”
She slapped him so hard, he actually spun around. He’d be lucky if he didn’t have a shiner.
He could hear her getting her suitcase out of the closet. Panicked, he followed her into the bedroom.
“Sometimes I’m such an asshole,” he said.
“Sometimes you are.”
She paused in the act of throwing a white silk gown into the suitcase. He knew the exact moment she changed her mind about leaving him. Her shoulders sagged; then she straightened up and began taking her clothes out of the suitcase.
“Does this mean you’re not going to leave me?”
“I’m not about to give up on a good man like you, Malone Corday.”
She shoved her suitcase back in the closet, then sat on the bed and patted a space beside her. He sat down, careful not to touch her.
“The problem with us is that we don’t do much talking,” she said.
“I didn’t know there was a problem with us. Let’s don’t talk about it tonight.”
The really sad thing about it all, Ruth decided, was that Malone was telling the truth.
“Let’s kiss and make up,” he added.
“Kiss and cover up is more like it. And everything will still be there tomorrow. The jealousy, the drinking . .”
She figured she was the biggest hypocrite on earth, focusing on his problems. But how could she talk about her own? She knew why she cringed from him; she just didn’t know when she’d get over it.
He squeezed her hand. Hard. There was such a look of sincerity in his face, she wanted to pull his head down to her breast and soothe him as if he were a child.
He really was a fine man—loyal, loving. Maybe a child was all they needed... .
“I promise I’m going to do better,” he said.
“Me too,” she said. “I’m sorry I slapped you.”
“I deserved it.”
They sat that way for a while, holding on to each other, afraid to let go, afraid their future would vanish before their very eyes. She wasn’t going to let it vanish. She was going to fight for them, for their marriage, for their future.
“Malone ...”
“Hmm ...”
“I think you will make a very good father.”
“Ruth? Does this mean you want children?”
“Yes, Malone. I want to have your child.”
“I’ve always pictured myself teaching my son all the things Brett taught me.”
“Brett?”
Was she glowing because she’d spoken Brett’s name, or at the prospect of having a child? He was insane to be jealous every time she glowed. She was a beautiful woman, prone to dewy looks. Malone firmly squashed the green-eyed monster. Hadn’t he promised to do better?
“Joseph never had time. He was always off with his gorillas. But I promise you that I’ll be there for our kid. I’ll even take the midnight dirty-diaper shift.”
They sat side by side, wrapped in their separate fantasies, contemplating the child they might have.
“You might already be pregnant,” he said.
“That’s always a possibility.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I want us to get this marriage on very firm ground.”
“If that’s where you want it, that’s where I’m going to put it... . Ruth?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll do anything in the world to keep you. Anything.”
Shivers ran through her. As if someone had just walked on her grave. She pushed the thought aside.
As if he’d read her thoughts, he held her close.
“By the time this honeymoon is over, it’ll be on such firm ground, you’ll be bouncing when you walk, Mrs. Corday. You and the little one.” Lamplight shone on his blond hair as he bent over and kissed her stomach.
Did she dare hope again?
“Malone, where will we be tomorrow?”
“Philadelphia.”
“And after that?” Perhaps by the time she got home, she’d be pregnant and happy, and they’d both be laughing about the rocky early days of their marriage.
“Paradise, my darling. Pure paradise.”
Chapter 40
THE VIRUNGAS
Sometimes Brett felt like a coward, hiding away on his mountaintop with his gorillas and his memories. Usually, though, he just felt like an ordinary man, doing what it took to survive. And surviving meant never seeing anything that would remind him of Ruth—particularly of Ruth and his brother together.
As he rounded the curve in the road, their cabin came into view. Empty now, for they were in the States. Doing what? He didn’t like to think about it. Thinking put him in a place that felt like hell.
He turned his face quickly away from their cabin and toward the main house. Joseph and Eleanor would be waiting.
H
e parked his Jeep and went inside. The house smelled like lemon wax and coconut cake. He stood in the doorway, inhaling deeply and smiling his appreciation.
“What’s the occasion?” he asked.
“Your visit,” Eleanor said. “It’s so rare.”
“Sorry. I’ve been busy.” He could tell his mother didn’t believe him. He’d never been a good liar. “Where’s Joseph?”
“Late, as usual. Don’t worry. He’ll be along when he remembers that we were going to talk about which group would be the best for Cee Cee. If he remembers.”
Brett prowled the room, grabbed a handful of peanuts near Joseph’s easy chair, picked up the latest copy of Time magazine that lay on the coffee table, walked toward the fireplace ... and stopped dead still. The picture was in a silver frame on the mantel.
“Do you like it?” Eleanor asked.
Ruth smiled at him from the photograph. He lifted it and ran his fingers gently over the lines of her cheeks, her eyes, her mouth.
“It came in yesterday’s mail. From Boston. Since I don’t have a wedding picture of them, I thought it would be a good one to frame. What do you think, Brett?”
His fingers moved over her face once more. He could actually feel the texture of her skin.
“In his letter Malone said they’re enjoying their honeymoon. I think this trip will be good for them, give them some time alone without all of us breathing down their necks.”
Eleanor’s voice sounded very far away. He had no thought except the beautiful image in his hand. Ruth. His brother’s wife.
“Brett?”
As if a fog had lifted from his brain, Brett saw his brother, arms wrapped around Ruth, kissing her cheek. Her smile was for Malone. Carefully, he set the picture on the mantel and turned his back on it.
“What time do you think Joseph will be here?” he asked. “I need to get back up the mountain.”
“It’s not Cee Cee that has a fire under your tail. It’s her.” Eleanor stalked to the mantel and jerked down the picture.
“Leave Ruth out of this.”
“Leave her out? Gladly. I’d gladly leave her out if I could. I wish to hell I could. I wish to hell she’d never come to Africa.”
“Don’t say that.”
She ran her fingers through her short bob, then sank to the sofa as if all the steam had suddenly gone out of her.
“I don’t know what’s happening in my own family. What’s happening in my family, Brett?”
“Nothing. Nothing is happening.”
“That wasn’t ‘nothing’ I saw at your camp. And it wasn’t ‘nothing’ I saw when you picked up her picture. I know that look. What I don’t know is what kind of hold this woman has on you.”
“Her name is Ruth. She’s not ‘this woman’—she’s a part of our family, your daughter-in-law and my sister-in-law.”
He stalked toward the door, unable to bear the dissension that had come into the house.
“Swear to me,” she called after him. “Swear that nothing is happening.”
Holding fast to the doorknob, he turned to face his in other.
“I swear to you nothing is happening. Nothing will ever happen.”
Eleanor didn’t believe him. Not that her son would lie. Brett would never deliberately lie to her. What she was afraid of was that he was lying to himself. Somehow Ruth had tangled them up in a web that was pulling tighter and tighter until it would strangle them all. Brett. Malone. Joseph. Even Eleanor herself.
“Not while I have breath in my body,” she said to herself.
There had to be something she could do to save her family. Without thinking, she grabbed her hat and headed to the Jeep. There was one man who could help her, one man she needed to see.
o0o
As she drove up the long, winding driveway of the sprawling plantation, Eleanor put everything from her mind except the favor she’d come to ask of Luke Fisher. Through the vaulted archway she could see him in the barn with his thoroughbreds.
He turned at the sound of her Jeep, then stood with one hip propped against a stable door and a wide-brimmed leather hat pushed back from his forehead.
“Eleanor ... it’s been a long time.”
“Yes. Almost two years.”
“I suppose you could call me a fair-weather friend,” she said.
“I call you many things, Eleanor, but never that.” He took a step toward her, arms outstretched.
It was a simple hug that had kept her away for so long, a hug that had almost got out of hand.
“No. Please.” Holding up her hand, she stepped back.
“Sorry. Let’s go inside out of the heat.”
The scent of hay and leather and horseflesh clung to him, and Eleanor thought how ordinary it seemed, how comforting, and how far removed from the recent strife on her mountain.
As they made their way to the porch, he didn’t engage in idle chatter, didn’t attempt to fill in the two-year gap that separated them. She sat in a bent-willow swing on his screen-covered porch and watched him make tall, cool drinks, ice tinkling against crystal, silver spoons stirring the pale-gold liquid, linen napkins holding moisture that dripped from the sides of the glasses. Ceiling fans stirred the humid air.
Suddenly she realized she’d missed more than Luke; she’d missed the small niceties of civilization.
His hand touched hers when he handed her the glass. It was no accident. Luke Fisher never did things by accident. She was careful not to react.
“I have a new daughter-in-law.”
“Brett?”
He lingered beside the swing, studying her while he set it in gentle motion.
“No. Malone. He barely knew her.” Unable to contain her unrest, Eleanor sprang from the swing and set her drink on the patio table. Glass clattered against glass. Liquid spilled on her hand.
Luke wiped away the moisture with a linen napkin then wrapped his large, sunburned hand around hers.
“Sometimes miracles happen, Eleanor.”
Miracles. She could hardly bear to think of them.
So long ago.
She’d been young, secure in her marriage, smug in the knowledge that she was a strong woman who could handle anything, particularly two small children and several groups of mountain gorillas while her husband was abroad raising money for the foundation.
Suddenly her secure world had been torn apart. A small band of Watusis, long discontent with the French government, had massacred a French diplomat and his staff then set off on a warpath that left blood and carnage in their wake. Trapped in her remote mountain compound, Eleanor had barricaded the doors and armed herself with Joseph’s .38 Luger.
One day, at the sound of hoofbeats she’d pointed her gun out the window.
“Eleanor! Don’t shoot. It’s me, Luke Fisher.”
Luke Fisher, the man who had been a good neighbor and a staunch supporter of the Corday Foundation since their arrival in Africa.
“I’ve come to take you and the children down the mountain.”
He’d risked his own life and the health of his fine thoroughbreds in order to rescue them. The roads had been blocked. The villages had been a bloodbath. They had waited in the compound until night; then, under cover of darkness, they had taken the steep trails down the mountains.
Brett had ridden behind her, his arms clinging tightly around her waist, and Luke had ridden with baby Malone cradled securely in his arms.
They’d reached his plantation after a grueling six-hour ride.
“You’ll be safe with me,” he’d said.
During the next twenty-four hours she’d felt safer and more pampered than she’d ever been. On her second morning at the plantation, a sound had awakened her. The baby crying? Brett having a bad dream? The Watusis at the door?
She’d stolen out of her bedroom, her gown clinging to her with the sweat of fear, her bare toes curling against the cool, polished wooden floors. Rounding the corner, she’d bumped into a broad, bare chest. Luke had put his hand over her mouth
and dragged her close to keep her from screaming.
“Shhh. It’s me, Luke. The children are safe. Everything is all right.”
Standing in the circle of his arms, she’d felt more than friendship, and she knew nothing would ever be the same again. She’d move forward, Eleanor Corday, wife, mother, protector of the mountain gorilla. But deep inside would always be the knowledge that she was also Eleanor Corday, woman who had to guard against temptation.
She’d kept a careful distance for four days, and when the threat of war was over and the path toward home clear, he’d carried her and the children back up the mountain and delivered them into the hands of a tearful, grateful Joseph.
She’d never allowed herself to touch him in a casual manner ... except that once—two years earlier when she’d been photographing his champion horse for a magazine layout. A simple hug had almost gotten out of hand. In one desperate moment she’d almost negated all her years of sacrifice.
To make up for her weakness, she’d sworn to devote herself to Joseph and his life’s work, to do everything in her power to make the Corday Foundation one of the most respected ventures in the history of science, and the Corday family unshakable.
She’d remained steadfast, her goal uppermost. And now it was threatened again. By a daughter-in-law she hardly knew. Eleanor wrapped her arms around herself to contain the trembling.
“Are you all right, Eleanor?”
“I’m fine. Just a bit overwrought, that’s all.”
Luke drew a pipe from his pocket and took his time tamping in tobacco. Watching his slim, sun-browned fingers holding the fragile pipe bowl, Eleanor marveled that he had never married. She didn’t have to ask why. Every time he looked at her, she saw the reason in his eyes.
To save herself, she didn’t look at his eyes, but instead sat in the swing so she could see the vast expanse of pasture, so rich that it looked as if it had been freshly painted green and left out in the sun to dry.
“Do you want to tell me why you came?” Luke said finally, breaking the long silence between them.
“Yes. I want you to rescue me once again.”
