Heartbeat

by Joan Johnston

  Jack moved Amy into deeper water, so he was face to face with her. “How about you and me and Donald here taking a swim together?” he said to Amy.

  Amy patted the duck’s head and said, “Donald.”

  Jack patted his own head and said, “Jack.”

  Amy patted his head and said, “Jack,” whereupon Jack patted her head and said, “Amy.”

  Amy laughed, delighted with the game. She patted the duck’s head again and said, “Look, Mommy. Donald.”

  It was only then Amy noticed her mother was gone.

  Her head swiveled as she searched her surroundings. When she couldn’t find her mother, Amy turned back to Jack with woeful eyes and a wobbly mouth and asked, “Where’ s Mommy?”

  Jack turned the duck toward the patio, leaned close to Amy, and pointed to the grill. “See those hot dogs over there?”

  “I like hot dogs.”

  “Your mom and dad are in the house getting the catsup and mustard and pickles—”

  Amy wrinkled her nose. “I hate pickles.”

  “Me, too,” Jack agreed. “But I love ice cream.”

  Amy and Jack began talking about foods they liked and didn’t like, and it was obvious that, for the moment, Amy had forgotten all about her mother’s disappearance.

  Maggie couldn’t believe how good Jack was with the little girl. Amy seemed fascinated by him, and Maggie could easily understand why. She found Jack quite fascinating herself.

  “You two look like you’re having fun,” Maggie said, unaware of the wistfulness in her voice.

  “Come on over and join us,” Jack said with a grin, splashing water in her direction with the heel of his hand. “Amy and I could use some company.”

  “Company,” Amy said, splashing her hands in the water in imitation of Jack’s gesture.

  “The water’s too deep for me to stand up there,” Maggie protested. The last thing she wanted to do was get any closer to Jack’s practically naked body. Even from this distance, his magnetic attraction was doing strange things to the underwire in her swimsuit bra. Or maybe the damned thing was just rusty . . . like she was when it came to dealing with male advances.

  Her black suit, cut low at the top and high in the thigh, was more than ten years old. At the time she’d bought it, Maggie had wanted Woody to appreciate every bit of what she had up on top and down at the bottom. Right now, she’d have given anything for a swimsuit with a skirt to hide her thirty-five-year-old thighs and some sort of corrugated fabric to conceal her turgid nipples.

  Jack had obliged her by scooting Amy into what, for him, was waist-deep water. “Is this better for you?”

  Maggie realized she was being watched by Isabel and Tomas, and rather than “protest too much,” she swam over to join Jack and Amy.

  Amy immediately patted Maggie on the head and said, “Maggie.”

  Maggie laughed and tweaked Amy’s nose. “Amy’s nose.”

  Amy picked up on the new game, and pretty soon they were all three touching each other’s noses and ears and eyes and mouths as Amy identified each part.

  Maggie wasn’t sure, but it seemed to her Jack’s touch lingered on her mouth too long and brushed her cheek too intimately. He caressed her earlobe in a way that sent a frisson of feeling skittering down her spine.

  “Cold?” he asked when she shivered.

  The sun was hot, and the pool was heated. She slanted a glance at him and admitted, “As a matter of fact, it’s a little too warm right now for me.”

  The scoundrel didn’t look the least bit repentant. He bent down and grasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and stared at her until she got lost in his steel gray eyes. When it seemed inevitable that he would kiss her, Amy grabbed his chin and said, “Whiskers.”

  Jack let go of Maggie as though kissing her had been the farthest thing from his mind, rubbed his thumb across Amy’s chin, frowned ferociously and asked, “Where are Amy’s whiskers?”

  Amy giggled. “Only daddies have whiskers,” she informed him.

  Jack suddenly caught Maggie by the nape and rubbed his bristly cheek against hers. “No whiskers,” he said sadly to Amy, shaking his head.

  Amy giggled again. “No whiskers on mommies. Just daddies!”

  Maggie felt Jack’s thumb seductively trace her lower lip before he abruptly released her and leaned down to rub his whisker-rough cheek against Amy’s baby-smooth one. Amy grabbed his ears and held on, laughing as, with appropriate grunts and groans, he tried mightily but unsuccessfully to escape her clutches.

  The masculine rumble of laughter and the childish giggles brought back memories for Maggie of her twin sons at three, playing with Woody on the frozen pond behind their house. Minnesota was the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, but it was so cold most of the year that Stanley and Brian had learned to ice skate long before they’d learned to swim. Her sons had moved on the ice like stiff-limbed Frankensteins once they were bundled up in quilted, goose-down coats, with Minnesota Timberwolves scarves wrapped several times around their necks, hats tied down over their ears, and woolen mittens tugged onto their tiny hands.

  Woody, who had gone to prep school in New England and played hockey in high school, urged her onto the ice, but she was an East Texas girl and preferred dry land. She had been content to sit on a fallen log near the pond and watch. If only she had been watching when . . .

  “Where are you?” Jack murmured in her ear.

  Maggie awoke from her daydream—and the inevitable nightmare that would have followed—with a start and consciously willed her racing pulse to slow. She reached out to Amy with both hands, wanting to hold her, wanting to know she was safe.

  “Up!” Amy said, delighted by the new game. She took both hands off the sides of the duck float and, arms reaching high overhead for Maggie, slipped right through the tube and sank like a stone.

  Maggie didn’t even cry out Amy’s name, just dived under in search of the child. She saw Amy, her eyes and mouth open, kicking like a frog underwater. She caught the child up in her arms an instant before Jack could reach her and popped to the surface with Amy clutched tight against her breast.

  Amy came up sputtering, frantically wiping water and hair from her eyes. Maggie spared a hand to do the same for herself. She took several quick, gulping breaths and waited for her wildly beating heart to stop trying to escape her chest.

  “Never, never take your eyes off a child when she’s in the pool!” Maggie yelled at Jack the instant he surfaced.

  “I barely—”

  “You weren’t watching! You have to watch!” Maggie helped Amy wipe the last of the water from her nose and mouth. “She could have drowned!”

  Jack shot Maggie a frustrated look. “We’re standing right here. She just slipped through the duck. It was no big deal.”

  “What if we hadn’t been here?” Maggie raged. “Amy might have—”

  “Let it go, Maggie. It’s all over. Nothing happened.”

  Amy, none the worse for her dunking, had picked up on Maggie’s hysteria and began crying.

  “Give her to me,” Jack said, clearly exasperated.

  Realizing at last that her overreaction was only making things worse, Maggie handed Amy to Jack. He calmed the little girl, then handed her to Tomas at the edge of the pool. “Amy wants to swing,” Jack said to Tomas.

  “Amy wants to swing,” Amy agreed.

  “Then Amy shall swing,” Tomas said as he headed with her toward the playground at the rear of the backyard.

  “Come here,” Jack said, holding his arms wide open for Maggie. When she hesitated, he caught her wrist and pulled her into his embrace.

  Maggie felt the warmth of him and realized she was shivering with cold . . . with fright . . . with frightful memories. “It was awful, Jack,” she said, pressing her face against his chest. “It was awful.”

  “I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m so sorry.”

  She didn’t say anything else, and neither did he. They simply stood in the soothing—but potentially dead
ly—water and let it lap around them until Maggie was calm again.

  “Do you want to talk about it, Maggie?”

  She shook her head and started to let go of him.

  “Don’t let go,” he said. “My knees are like soggy noodles.”

  Maggie looked up at Jack and for the first time realized his features were pale, his eyes stark, like an overcast sky. “Why, you wretch! You were as scared as I was!”

  “For a heartbeat, maybe. You always think you’re going to be able to save them, but . . . sometimes things go wrong.”

  “Do you want to talk about it, Jack?” Maggie asked, meeting his gaze, returning his offer of solace.

  He shook his head. “It’s all in the past, Maggie. I can’t change it . . . I just have to learn to live with it.”

  As she held tight to Jack, Maggie experienced a peace she hadn’t felt for a long time. She wasn’t the only one fighting demons. Jack understood what she’d suffered. Maybe, someday, he would tell her the rest. Maybe, someday, she would tell him, too.

  “Hey,” Jack said at last, looking down at her. “Are you all right?”

  “I was just thinking.”

  “Anything you’d care to share with me?”

  She focused her eyes on the glistening water. “If you listened last night, you already know most of it.”

  “I’m a good listener, Maggie.”

  Jack’s invitation was more than a little tempting, but based on what he’d told her about his relationship with his mother, Jack wasn’t a forbearing sort of man. He wouldn’t be able to forgive what she’d done any more than she’d been able to forgive herself. He might be offering her comfort at the moment, but what he really wanted from her was down and dirty, hard and heavy, panting, sweaty sex.

  If she was lucky.

  Maggie found herself staring at Jack’s naked chest, at the thick mat of dark hair beaded with water crystal rainbows. Woody had been blond, with only a small patch of curls in the center of his chest and a runner’s lean physique. At six feet even, her husband had always seemed tall to her. Standing in Jack’s shadow, Maggie was aware of his greater height, the greater breadth of his chest, his obvious strength.

  If anyone had asked, she would have said such things didn’t matter to her. But it seemed she was as much a creature of nature as any other animal that looked for the strongest mate, the one best able to protect her and her offspring. She found Jack’s strength attractive. She laid a curious hand on his furred belly and heard him gasp.

  She looked up at him, aware of his suddenly hooded eyes, his flared nostrils, the fullness of his lips. “I’ve always wondered what a ’washboard stomach’ felt like,” she murmured. Maggie brushed her fingertips across his ridged flesh. “Now I know.”

  Jack grasped her wrist. “What game are you playing now, Maggie?”

  “The same one you were playing five minutes ago,” she quipped. “What’s the score?”

  “So far, a big fat zero,” Jack muttered. “It seems you’re ready to change that. Let’s get out of here—”

  She laid her hand flat on his chest, a mistake as it turned out, because all she wanted to do was slide it up around his nape and pull his head down so he could kiss her. “It really is a shame I’m a murder suspect and you’re . . . who you are,” she said. “Otherwise, I might be tempted to accept your offer.”

  “Speaking of murder—”

  “Let’s not and say we did,” Maggie said, abruptly stepping back from him and heading toward the stairs in the shallow end of the pool.

  Tomas was still pushing Amy on a swing that was part of an elaborate playground. The little girl’s shrieks of laughter were disconcerting because sometimes it was hard to tell whether Amy was just excited or really frightened.

  “Tomas,” Maggie called, “not so high.”

  “She likes to go high,” Tomas replied.

  “It’s not safe,” Maggie said.

  Tomas caught the swing and slowed it down. “As you wish, mi querida.”

  When Maggie turned to settle herself on the pool stairs, she found Jack already there before her. “You didn’t leave me much room,” she said.

  “You can always sit in my lap.”

  Maggie shook her head. “I haven’t sat in a man’s lap since . . . .” Since Woody died. “For a long time,” she finished.

  “Then maybe it’s time you did,” Jack said, catching her as she started to sit and easing her onto his lap.

  “You have bony knees,” she protested with a laugh.

  “They aren’t the only thing that—”

  She put a hand over his mouth. “You’re in-corrigible.”

  “I can’t resist you, Maggie. I don’t want to resist you.”

  “What about all my secrets?”

  “You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

  Maggie got the unspoken message. He wasn’t willing to wait until she had been proved innocent. Whatever had been started between them would now be resumed . . . had already been resumed, she realized, remembering the playful touches—maybe more than that in hindsight—Jack had given her when they’d been frolicking with Amy.

  Although she had carefully maintained the two inches of space between her back and Jack’s front ever since she had sat down, there was nothing she could do to avoid the feel of his masculine, hair-roughened legs beneath her. Maggie felt a physical need so strong it made her ache inside. Jack seemed ready to move forward, but she wasn’t so sure she was.

  “I should get up, Jack. People will get the wrong idea.”

  “People?” Jack said. “Look around, Maggie. Roman and Lisa are in the house. Tomas is busy with Amy. And Isabel. . . .”

  Maggie looked toward the lounge chair where Isabel had been sunbathing and saw she was missing. Maggie followed Jack’s gaze and watched the kitchen screen door swing closed as Isabel stepped inside.

  “We’re all alone, Maggie. There’s no one here to stop us from doing anything we want.”

  “Not now, Jack,” she said.

  He kissed her nape as his hand closed over her breast. His touch was shattering—like a bolt of lightning streaking to her core. Oh, God, this can’t be happening. Not now. There’s no privacy, no—

  “When, Maggie?” he demanded, his voice harsh with need.

  “Later,” she gasped.

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  He bit her on the nape, then kissed away the hurt, his hands making one last grasping foray across her breasts that left her shivering with need.

  He let her go and said, “Okay, Maggie. Tonight.”

  Lisa had barely taken two steps inside the kitchen door when Roman reached for her. She shivered as the air-conditioning hit her damp skin and stepped willingly into his embrace, pressing her body against his seeking heat. His arms surrounded her, and he pulled her snugly against him, hissing as water from her suit soaked through his sleeveless T-shirt and hit his flesh.

  “I’m getting you all wet,” she protested with a laugh. She tried to back away, but Ro-man held her tight.

  “I don’t care,” he said. “I just want to hold you.”

  She pressed her cheek against his. It was almost as smooth as Amy’s and smelled of soap because Roman thought cologne was a waste of money. “People should smell like people,” he’d said. So sometimes Roman smelled of the strong antiseptics he used at the hospital and sometimes like the soap he used in the shower and sometimes, when the musky scent of sex had permeated his skin, she could smell her-self when she pressed kisses on his flesh.

  Lisa had been aware of a sort of desperation in Roman’s lovemaking last night. She had never been so frightened for their marriage as she was when they lay panting on the sheets afterward.

  What’s wrong, Roman? she’d wanted to shout. What’s happening to us?

  She and Roman used to spend hours at night in bed just talking. Last night, Roman hadn’t said two words to her. The only explanation she could find for why he was coming home so late, why he no
longer wanted to talk to her, why he was always so tired after a day at the hospital, was that he was spending his time and energy with some other woman. With Isabel Rojas.

  Then why did he make love to you last night?

  Lisa had no answer to that. Unless it was simply that she’d asked. Maybe she would start asking more often.

  Lisa stood quietly in the middle of the Mexican-tiled kitchen floor letting the warmth of her husband seep into her, wondering whether he had ever held Isabel Rojas this way. She forced the insidious thought from her head as her fingers trailed up Roman’s back to his nape. She felt him tremble and marveled at the power she had to make him quake. Could Isabel make him shiver and shudder and cry out as she could?

  Lisa’s heart pounded in her chest. She knew she should listen to the voice of reason. It told her, Roman would never leave you without warning in the middle of the night like your father did. He loves you and Amy. He would never leave Amy.

  But Lisa’s mother had said her father loved Lisa dearly, too. And her father had left one day and never come back. Her mother had become a bitter and angry woman as they became poorer and poorer.

  Lisa clutched Roman’s neck tighter. If only she could hang on to him all the time. But she had to let go every morning so he could go to the hospital. And nowadays she was as guilty of coming home late as he was. Reason had very little to do with her fears . . . or her feelings for Roman Hollander.

  On the day he had come to give an evening lecture on medical ethics at the Bates School of Law in Houston, she had sat in the classroom, listening to the timbre of his voice and the intelligent sense of what he had to say, and realized long before the two hours were up that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

  He might as well have been a famous movie star, he seemed so unattainable, so unapproachable. Yet she couldn’t let him leave without speaking to him. She had come up to him at the lectern after class with a thought-provoking question, one that would take at least two or three cups of coffee to discuss, and invited him to a nearby coffee shop to discuss it.