Heartbeat

by Joan Johnston

  Maggie’s jaw dropped. She closed her mouth and ogled the Texas Ranger. If Jack was just going to come right out and ask like that, why was it necessary to hide his identity?

  Jack identified himself as an insurance investigator for MEDCO and thanked Roman for his examination at the ballfield.

  “How’s your head?” Roman asked.

  “Still attached to my shoulders,” Jack answered with a friendly smile. “I need to know everything there is to know about the Morgan case, doctor, if I’m going to save you a big malpractice claim.”

  Roman smiled. “I’d appreciate whatever you can do, Mr. Kittrick. I did everything I could to save Laurel Morgan. I treated her as carefully, as skillfully, as though she were my own daughter.”

  As the two men walked out the door engrossed in conversation, Maggie realized why Jack wanted to stay incognito. She couldn’t imagine Roman talking so freely with Jack if he’d announced he was a Texas Ranger who wanted to question Roman as the prime suspect in a murder case. Maggie supposed she had a lot to learn about the police business. She intended to ask Jack plenty of questions when he returned to the conference room for the scheduled 10 A.M. meeting between MEDCO’s insurance investigator and SAG’s attorney.

  “Are you sleeping with him?”

  Maggie looked up to find Victoria staring after Jack as he walked down the hall with Roman. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Make sure he wears a decent tuxedo on Saturday. I imagine he’ll have to rent one, so send him to Anthony’s.”

  Maggie felt the heat rising at her throat. Embarrassment on Jack’s behalf? She had wondered herself whether Jack had his own tuxedo, and, to her chagrin, had been thinking about having a tux from Anthony’s delivered to him. Had she really become as class-conscious as her mother-in-law? What had become of poor, good-hearted Cinderella?

  “I’m sure Jack will be able to come up with something appropriate,” Maggie said. “Anything else, Victoria?”

  “You’re missing a button.”

  Maggie looked down. All that remained of the accent button on the upper left-hand pocket of her power suit was two black strings. “Thank you for pointing that out,” she said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Victoria replied.

  Victoria continued looking at her, and Maggie asked, “Is there something else?”

  “Be discreet.”

  Maggie lurched from her chair. “My personal life—”

  “I can see why you find Mr. Kittrick attractive, Margaret. There is something coarse and primitive about the man—the possibility of being carted off by a barbarian in civilized clothes?—that is quite appealing.”

  Was that why she found Jack so attractive? Maggie wondered. Because he would take all the choices out of her hands?

  “But really,” Victoria continued, “Jack Kittrick is not at all the sort of person you should be associating with.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Maggie said. “What difference could it possibly make to you whether I dance, date, or sleep with the man?”

  “You’re a Wainwright,” Victoria said. “Wainwrights have a certain position to up-hold in this community.”

  “I’ve never done a thing to cause gossip since I came here,” Maggie said between clenched teeth, furious that she felt the need to defend herself, but unable to resist doing so. “What makes you think I’m going to start now?”

  “I recognize that look, Margaret,” Victoria said.

  “What look?” Maggie demanded.

  “Although one can hardly blame you,” Victoria murmured. “He looks at you the same way.”

  “What way?” Maggie asked, wanting Victoria to name what it was she saw in Jack’s eyes.

  “Don’t be coy,” Victoria said. “You know perfectly well ‘what way.’ Satisfy your craving for the man if you must, Margaret, but beware your sexual prey doesn’t tum and gobble you up, along with your reputation.”

  Sexual prey? Maggie was too stunned by Victoria’s use of such a term to make any sort of reply. It had never crossed her mind to wonder what Victoria had done to satisfy her own sexual urges over the ten years she had also been a widow. Maggie had never even considered Victoria as a sexual creature, probably because children—and she and Woody had been the children—never imagined their parents “doing it.”

  How did Victoria satisfy her baser urges? she wondered. Did Victoria take lovers? Who were her sexual prey?

  “It is difficult sometimes to make the choice that duty requires,” Victoria said. “But that choice must be made.”

  Maggie gritted her teeth to keep from giving Victoria a pithy, one-word response. Instead she said, “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “Remember what I said,” Victoria cautioned as she headed out the door.

  Maggie snorted. Jack Kittrick as sexual prey. That wasn’t something she was likely to forget.

  Chapter 6

  Victoria drove south, then east across town from the hospital and finally north again to the Menger Hotel, leaving her car to be valet parked at the side entrance on East Crockett. The Menger had been built in the 1860s but had been renovated to preserve its detailed historical lushness while offering the most up-to-date amenities. The hotel was famous for its discreet staff. For over a century, cattlemen, oilmen, and financiers had conducted their affairs—business and personal—without worrying that word would get back to the wrong parties. The Menger served Victoria’s needs perfectly.

  Enough committee meetings were held at the Menger to make it possible for her to explain her presence there if someone saw her. But there was no need for her to go into the lobby, because she already had a key, and once she left her car, the elevator was no more than five steps through the sliding glass doors.

  A young man stood at the window in the elegant second-floor room which overlooked the Alamo, another precious bit of Texas history that had been preserved, incongruously, in the midst of downtown. The shrine to the heroes of Texas freedom stood across the street from the Cowboy Museum, with its life-size replica of Trigger out front on the sidewalk. Hungry tourists could leave the Alamo and stroll over to Wendy’s or Burger King or Pizza Hut, then visit another antiquity—an F. W. Woolworth featuring an unbelievable array of tasteless Texas souvenirs.

  “You’re late,” the young man said as Victoria closed the door behind her.

  “I am never late,” Victoria replied. “Since I never agree to be anywhere at a specific time.”

  “You said to come early.”

  Victoria unfastened her Piaget and set it on the table beside the bed. “Did I?”

  The young man already had his shirt and shoes off and Victoria admired the muscles in his shoulders and arms, the triangle of dark curls on his chest, and the well-defined abdominals separated by a line of black down leading into his trousers. “Come here, Tim.”

  “Tom.”

  She had reached beneath her skirt to readjust a garter and asked distractedly, “What?”

  “My name is Tom.”

  He crossed to her and stood by the bed, staring at her legs. Victoria had very fine stems for a woman of fifty-three. She hesitated as Tim—no, it was Tom—settled on his knees before her and slid his hands up under her skirt. She set her manicured hands on his strong young shoulders and felt him quiver.

  It was only the second time they had been together. She didn’t use them often, these young men. She didn’t keep them long in her web. But sometimes she needed to feel the warmth, the closeness of another human being. It was appallingly easy to lure them here: a smile that promised everything, the suggestion of influence. Never money. She didn’t want to taint what happened between them with money. Besides, it wasn’t necessary.

  She slipped off her Chanel jacket and carefully laid it across the arm of a nearby chair.

  Tom shoved her skirt above her hips and put his face between her legs. She could feel his moist breath against her naked pubis and spread her legs to give him freer access. His tongue was hot and mild
ly abrasive and the feelings delicious. Her knees quickly turned to jelly.

  She took a step back, unzipped her skirt, and slipped it up over her head, laying it neatly beside the jacket, leaving her wearing a lacy black bra, garter belt and stockings, and three-inch high heels.

  “Tom,” she murmured, brushing his springy black hair away from his forehead. “Let’s lie down on the bed. I would like to return the favor.”

  He looked up at her, his brown eyes dark, the pupils huge, his eyelids heavy. He stood and picked her up, carried her to the head of the bed, and laid her down. He undid the belt on his pleated trousers and shoved them down along with his briefs, standing before her with his engorged member pulsing to the rapid beat of his heart.

  She lay on her side, her hand supporting her head, and lifted one knee, posing provocatively, watching him quake with need, making him wait for permission to come to her. She loved the different sizes and shapes men came in, the difference in the way they tasted. Tom was larger than most. Saltier, too.

  She gestured with a forefinger.

  The young man scuttled onto the bed, pushing his face between her legs and shifting his hips toward her face, offering her the gift he had brought. Victoria opened her mouth and let him push inside, hard and tight against the roof of her mouth. At the same time she felt his tongue slide into her like liquid fire.

  It was a long time before either of them had another rational thought.

  Victoria wasn’t sure why she enjoyed this so much. She was astute enough to reason that it had something to do with the fact that in her day, “nice girls” weren’t even supposed to know about such things, let alone indulge in them, and God forbid enjoy them.

  She had been a virgin on her wedding night, as had been expected of her. But that had merely been a technicality. Victoria had long before learned the joys of sex without penetration. It was a way of keeping herself “perfect” for her husband, yet indulging needs she could not deny. Nevertheless, she had intended to be a faithful wife. Until she had caught Richard indulging himself with another woman at his office a mere two weeks after their wedding.

  She had made a scene. Really, looking back, it had been a childish thing to do. She knew better. She had been trained from birth to defer to the men in her life. Her father had been a hard taskmaster, and nothing less than perfection would suffice—in dress, in manners, in behavior. Well, she had certainly thrown a perfect tantrum.

  She had raced home to her father, expecting him to take her side. He had corrected her with a slap that had stopped her tears. “You’re Richard’s wife now,” he had said in cold, steely tones that had chilled her to the bone. “Your husband’s word is law as much as mine ever was. Listen to him and do exactly what he tells you. Don’t contradict him or correct him, no matter how wrong you may think he is. Those are the rules, Victoria.”

  The slap had left her dry-eyed, and the lecture had left her raging inside. If her father’s tirade had stopped there, she might have divorced Richard and led an entirely different life. But her father had been so much smarter than she was. He had known all the right things to say.

  He had pulled her into his arms close enough for her to smell the familiar, pungent odor of Cuban cigars embedded in his blended wool suit. He had rocked her and smoothed her hair and said, “Do you want to be loved, Victoria?”

  Who did not? “Yes, Father.”

  “Do you want to know the secret to being loved.”

  Who did not? “Yes, Father.”

  “Obedience,” he said. “That is the secret. Do as you’re told. Follow the rules perfectly, and you will be loved.”

  He demonstrated the truth of his words by hugging her and kissing her forehead and telling her he knew she was a good girl and a good wife and that she would learn not to feel slighted by Richard’s indiscretions. “A man sometimes needs a different kind of woman,” he said. “It has nothing to do with you personally. Be as obedient as I know you can be. That is the way to win Richard’s love.”

  She had followed her father’s advice. She had become a slave to Richard’s every whim. She had set perfect tables and held perfect parties and kept herself looking as perfect as she’d looked the day she married him. She had never caught Richard with another woman.

  But somehow, she had never felt loved.

  She had substituted what she could get: respect and admiration. Of course, it came mostly from other people besides Richard, but it had filled the emptiness inside her. Even today Victoria kept herself perfect because that earned her the respect and admiration of those around her.

  When she was struck with lustful urges, she satisfied them with the young lawyers at Porter’s firm, or the young interns at the hospital, where she was on the board of trustees and the bioethics committee and served as a volunteer reader for the Wainwright Pediatrics Wing on alternate Mondays and Wednesdays. The young men knew better than to kiss and tell. She made it clear from the start that Victoria Wainwright had the power to help them—or destroy them.

  It wasn’t an altogether perfect life, but it was close.

  Victoria felt the young man’s lips graze her cheek as he said, “I need to get back to the hospital. When can I see you again?”

  “You can’t.”

  He frowned, putting old-man wrinkles in his young brow. “Why not?”

  “Don’t be a child about this, Tom,” she said.

  The young man flushed to the tips of his ears.

  They were always aware of the age difference, even if they never mentioned it, she had learned.

  “That’s it? You’re through with me?” he demanded angrily.

  “Yes.” She didn’t bother to keep the irritation out of her voice or the annoyance from her face. They all knew the rules. When she called, they came. When she was done playing, the game was over.

  The embarrassed flush had receded, leaving his cheeks as pale as chalk. He looked like he was about to throw up, and in fact, he took a step toward the bathroom before he stopped and swallowed convulsively.

  Usually she let them down easier, but she was feeling peeved at the thought of Margaret indulging herself this way with Jack Kittrick. Although why that should bother her, she couldn’t imagine.

  Because you want him for yourself.

  Victoria sat up, patted her hair into place, and languidly walked to the window, still dressed in her black lingerie and high heels. She ignored Tom, who was gathering up his clothes and sulkily putting them on, while she tried to figure out why she should be interested in Kittrick, when he was nearly twice the age of the men who usually caught her fancy.

  It was probably the masculine aura she had mentioned to Margaret. There was something raw and elemental about the man, something unconquerable and unconquered. It would be interesting to have such a man in bed.

  Victoria heard the door snap closed and realized she was alone. The problem was, lately, she felt alone even when she was with the young men. The approaching anniversary of Richard’s and Woodson’s deaths was causing the problem, she knew. She fought the same battle every year, raging against fate for taking the perfect husband and the perfect son from her.

  Margaret was to blame, of course, for both deaths. She was the one who had sent Woodson out onto an icy road that day in early April. And Richard’s stroke had occurred on the corporate jet as they were landing in Minneapolis to be with their mortally injured son. She would never let Margaret forget what she had done, or forgive her for it. But hating Margaret did little to ease her through the horror each year.

  Thank goodness she had a full life. Thank goodness she had her charities and the hospital and Porter. And the young men, of course. Without them, what would she do?

  Jack had missed his 10 A.M. appointment with Maggie. He figured she would understand when he filled her in on what he’d been doing. His interview with Roman had been enlightening—for the five minutes he’d spent with the doctor before Hollander got a STAT call and disappeared behind a pair of swinging doors.

 
It was the discussion he’d had with Isabel Rojas, Roman’s head surgical nurse and, according to the doctor, his “right arm” in surgery, that had gotten Jack excited enough to make him forget all about his meeting with Maggie.

  Once Ms. Rojas realized he was trying to help Dr. Hollander, she’d been willing to tell him anything he wanted to know. Across the table from each other in the cafeteria, where they had sat drinking black coffee, he discovered Isabel had grown up just over the American side of the border in El Paso. Her family had been illegal aliens, but she’d been born in the states, thus securing her citizenship. Determined to live the American dream, she had decided to become a nurse.

  “It was better than smuggling marijuana over the border.” She smiled and said, “The way I’m shaped, I’d have looked like Dolly Parton once I got a few three-finger bags tucked in my bra. The border guards would’ve searched me just for the fun of it!”

  It didn’t take Jack long to figure out why Hollander liked her so much. Besides being a competent nurse, Isabel Rojas had a dry wit that kept Jack chuckling almost the whole time they talked about her life growing up. He couldn’t understand why some man hadn’t snapped her up years ago.

  “Why aren’t you married?” he asked, an instant before he realized the rudeness of the question.

  “I decided to join the Cucumber Club instead,” she answered.

  “What’s that?” Jack asked warily. The name sounded self-explanatory, with lurid possibilities he would just as soon not explore, but he had learned not to make assumptions in his line of work.

  “There are only three qualifications for membership,” she said. “You must have loved or hated a man in the past, love or hate a man in the present, or think you might love or hate a man in the future. Our motto is: ‘A man is no better than a vegetable.’”

  Jack wasn’t sure whether to be appalled or amused.

  Isabel laughed merrily. “The look on your face is priceless.”

  “I’m trying to imagine what your meetings must be like,” he said.

  “The last time we got together at a restaurant, the waitress asked if we were franchised,” Isabel said.