Heartbeat

by Joan Johnston

  “I don’t know . . .” he hedged.

  She had looked him in the eye and said, “I’m twenty-four, Dr. Hollander. I’ll be graduating in two months, and I plan to practice health-care law. I think these issues are important to my future. I would appreciate having the benefit of your wisdom and experience.”

  She knew it wasn’t her mind he was evaluating as he looked her up and down, and Lisa could tell he liked what he saw. She knew she looked good even in the jeans and T-shirt she was wearing. It was the first time she could ever remember being grateful for her beauty.

  “All right,” he agreed.

  “My name’s Lisa,” she said, as they walked up the stairs of the tiered classroom to the door. When he didn’t offer his first name in return, she prompted, “What’s yours?”

  She saw the struggle on his face, the wariness and the yearning. The hunger had been unmistakable in his dark eyes even then.

  “Roman,” he said at last. “My name’s Roman.”

  “That’s a beautiful name, Roman.”

  “I’ve always thought it was kind of . . . never mind,” he said with a self-effacing smile. “I’m glad you like it.”

  The force of his smile had made her knees buckle. She grabbed reflexively for his arm, and he said, “Are you all right, Lisa?”

  Lisa. The sound of her name on his lips had made her quiver inside. She looked for some excuse for stumbling and said, “I’m a little stiff from sitting, I suppose. The walk to the coffee shop ought to solve the problem.”

  “Take my arm,” he said. It was a gallant gesture men her age knew nothing about.

  “Thank you, Roman.” She had tried to calm her rattled nerves as she slipped her arm through his and laid her hand on his coat sleeve. It was the softest wool she’d ever felt and warm from his body. She stayed as close to him as she dared for the entire walk from the law school to Carey’s Coffee Connection.

  They had drunk coffee until Lisa was floating, while she listened to Roman talk animatedly about medicine. He was dedicated to his work, it seemed, to the exclusion of all else. His dark eyes made her heart jump when he focused them on her, and she was mesmerized by his hands, so strong and skilled . . . and gentle. She knew they would be gentle.

  It wasn’t easy getting Roman to talk about himself, but she did. “I can’t believe you’ve never been married,” she said when he ad-mitted he was a bachelor. “You have so much to offer a woman.”

  A charming flush rose on his cheekbones. “I . . . I . . . “It was the first time in five hours and forty-five minutes he’d been speechless.

  The blush, and the tongue-tied moment that followed it, made him seem less godlike. Those small signs of humanness made her bold enough to say, “I live near here, and this place is about to close. Would you like to come home with me, Roman, so we can continue this discussion?”

  She saw his nostrils flare for the scent of her, watched his dark eyes turn nearly black with desire, saw the rigidity in his full lips. The hair lifted on her arms as he reached across the booth for her hand and held it in both of his own. She felt the pulsing beat of his heart through his skin and realized her own was racing to beat in time with it.

  “Why me, Lisa?”

  She hadn’t expected the question but knew instinctively what he was asking, his voice harsh with confusion and sexual desire. Why are you issuing this invitation-for which I’m grateful and honored-to make love to you? You’re young and beautiful and could surely have any man you wanted. Why did you choose me?

  From things she had gotten Roman to admit, she knew he was overly conscious of the nearly twenty-year difference in their ages, that he was aware most women didn’t consider him traditionally handsome, that he was committed to his work and had very little time to spend dating. He had proved by staying single long past an age when most men married that he wasn’t the marrying kind. So what, he was asking, was the attraction?

  Lisa knew the answer, had known it since Roman opened his speech in the classroom by saying, “Life is uncertain. Everyone here should grab for life with both hands and live it to the fullest every day, because there are no guarantees.”

  As his hands curled into fists, grabbing at a life lived in the here and now with no thought for tomorrow, Roman Hollander had squeezed out the emptiness her father had left inside her. Hope had spilled into the chasm, hope that she could find happiness by choosing to live each day without worrying about the future. And she owed it all to Roman. His words, his ideas, had filled her up and made her whole again.

  But they didn’t know each other well enough for her to tell him that. She had welcomed the signs of his vulnerability but had been careful to show him none of hers. “Does it matter why?” she said at last. “I want you, Roman. Isn’t that enough?”

  Despite Roman’s husbandly devotion for the past four years, Lisa hadn’t been able to shake the fear that had always shadowed her marriage. Lately, the fear had grown to more than a shadowy specter.

  “I love you, Roman,” Lisa said, careful not to let him see in her eyes how much she cared, how much he meant to her. That way, it wouldn’t hurt so much when he left her for another woman . . . as she feared he might someday soon. Her father had taught her nothing was certain . . . or forever. Not even love.

  She felt Roman’s hesitation before he replied, “I adore you, Lisa.”

  Adore, not love. He had never used the word love, except the day he had proposed to her. “Do you love me?” she whispered.

  “More than anything,” he replied.

  “More than Isabel?”

  She hadn’t realized she had said the words aloud until he gasped and grabbed her shoulders, shoving her away from him. The blood left his face, and his eyes turned a cold obsidian.

  “How could you say such a thing? Is that what’s been bothering you these past three months? Isabel is my nurse, Lisa, nothing more. I don’t love her.”

  “But you admire her.”

  “Of course I do! She’s a damned fine nurse. But you’re my wife!”

  “Husbands leave their wives for other women all the time.”

  Before Roman could reply, the screen door slammed as Isabel stepped inside. She looked from one face to the other, and said, “Am I interrupting something?”

  Lisa noticed that Roman had let go of her as soon as he saw Isabel. He wouldn’t want his lover to find him holding his wife . . . .

  You have to stop torturing yourself, Lisa. You have to confront Roman and tell him it’s over. You have to end this now . . . before he does.

  It felt like someone was squeezing her heart, and it hurt. It hurt so much. Lisa made herself walk to the refrigerator and pull open the door and reach for the bowl of cole slaw. “Would you mind taking this out to the picnic table?” She handed the bowl of slaw to Isabel, though it occurred to her how wonderful Isabel would look wearing it on her head.

  Isabel looked toward Roman, as though seeking his permission. When he nodded, she said, “Sure, Lisa. Anything else?”

  “No, nothing,” she said with a bright smile.

  “Before you go, Isabel, would you mind tasting the barbecue beans?” Roman said. “I want to make sure I’ve got your recipe right.”

  Lisa watched in disbelief as Isabel joined Roman at the oven, watched as he dipped a spoon into the casserole dish, blew on the contents to cool it, then gently, carefully, held the spoon to Isabel’s mouth. Their eyes never left each other’s the whole time.

  It has to be tonight, Lisa decided. She couldn’t bear to watch the two of them together any longer. She wanted Roman to confess the truth.

  No, she decided. She didn’t want to know for sure they were lovers. It might be better simply to cut her losses, to tell him she had decided to leave him, rather than wait until he left her. Because he would never let her go if he found out she was pregnant.

  Chapter 13

  The promises Maggie had made to Jack in the pool shimmered between them at the picnic table during lunch, leaving Jack on tente
rhooks. The Hollanders’ picnic seemed endless. He kept expecting Maggie to change her mind.

  So far, she hadn’t.

  She sat across from him in a pair of lightweight khaki slacks, white Polo shirt, and brown sandals—the conservative outfit she hadn’t worn to the firm picnic—chatting with Tomas and Lisa about a Wainwright & Cobb associate’s new baby. She seemed completely oblivious to the earth-shattering nature of the evening he had planned for them—until he caught her looking at him. Their eyes met long enough for him to see her jittery nerves . . . and the banked fires waiting to be stirred into flame.

  Shortly after lunch Amy began whining and fussing, and no suggestion anyone made could keep her entertained. “She needs a nap,” Lisa said. “But I hate to leave you all here without a hostess.”

  With that hint, Isabel pleaded work at home, Tomas said he had to change clothes and meet a friend for dinner across town, and it was easy for Jack and Maggie to excuse themselves.

  “I’ll give Maggie a ride,” Jack told Tomas, who had brought Maggie in his car.

  “Okay with you, Maggie?” Tomas said.

  “I have a stop to make before I go home,” Maggie told Jack.

  “I’ll take you wherever you need to go,” Jack said, determined not to let her slip away.

  “Then I’ll go with Jack,” Maggie told Tomas.

  Jack hadn’t given Maggie another chance to change her mind. They were in his pickup and on their way in a matter of minutes. When they reached Broadway and Jack started to make the turn south to Maggie’s condo, she told him to go north instead.

  “Where are we headed?” he asked as he made the turn.

  “New Braunfels,” she replied.

  Jack’s eyebrows headed for his hairline. “You could have mentioned that earlier.”

  Maggie laughed. “You seemed determined to stick with me. I didn’t think it would matter.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  Jack watched her smile fade as sexual tension arced between them. Maggie might have postponed the inevitable, but that only gave the pleasant tension in his groin time to build.

  “What’s in New Braunfels?” he asked once they had exited from Loop 410 onto I-35 heading north.

  “My son, Brian.”

  Jack reflexively slammed on the brake, swerved around a Subaru, and when he had control of the pickup said, “You could have given me some warning, you know!”

  “Would you rather not meet him?”

  Jack chanced a look away from the busy traffic in her direction. “I thought he was in a coma or something.”

  “Well, he’s not.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  Getting information out of her was like pulling a calf that didn’t want to get born. “Why is he in a home? What’s wrong with him?” Jack asked.

  “He’s paraparetic.”

  Jack heard “paraplegic” and said, “Oh, he’s in a wheelchair. Isn’t that fancy condo of yours rigged for the handicapped?”

  “The handicapped, yes. Brian needs twenty-four-hour-a-day attention. He’s para-par-e-tic.”

  When she said it slower, Jack heard the difference. “Para-what? What’s that?”

  “Paraparetic,” she repeated. “Brian was in a coma for nearly nine months. It was a miracle he woke at all, but he suffered brain damage that affected him both physically and mentally. Tremors and poor muscle control of his extremities keep him in a wheelchair. He lost his memory and had to learn how to talk all over again. Mentally, he’ll never get much older than the six-year-old he was when he drowned.”

  Jack felt his bowels clench. “I’m so sorry, Maggie.” He tried to imagine what she had been going through all these years, watching her son grow into a man but remain a child.

  She must have read his mind because she said, “One of my few joys is knowing Brian sees life in simple enough terms to be happy most of the time.”

  Jack noticed Maggie’s face had paled, and her hands were knotted in her lap. “What aren’t you telling me, Maggie?”

  “Nothing.” She tried for a smile and failed. “I’m just a little anxious.”

  “If you’re so reluctant for me to meet your kid, why are we doing this?”

  She shot him a cautious look. “I think it’s time, don’t you? I mean, before we get any more involved than we are.”

  “We aren’t involved,” Jack said more harshly than he’d intended.

  “We’re about to make love, aren’t we?” Maggie countered. “That is what you had in mind for the evening, isn’t it?”

  “Sex was what I had in mind.”

  She shrugged and ran a hand through her hair, which she was wearing down on her shoulders. “Semantics. We’ll still end up joined as intimately as two people can be. I thought you should meet my son first.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly,” she said, staring out the window. “I suppose if you’re going to have second thoughts about whether or not I’m a murderer—because of Brian—I’d rather you had them now.”

  Jack’s pithy response made Maggie flinch.

  “I guess that means you have a few reservations,” she said.

  “All right, Maggie. You want to hear what’s going on in my head? Here goes. Why is your kid a forty-five-minute drive away in New Braunfels? Why not someplace a helluva lot closer to home?”

  “Brian gets very good care where he is. And the surroundings are lovely and quiet.”

  Jack snorted.

  Maggie met his glance for the two seconds he could spare from the road and said, “It’s also easier to hide Brian from Victoria by keeping him out of San Antonio.”

  “Why the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Why can’t Victoria see her grandson?”

  “Uncle Porter is the one who makes the rules,” Maggie said. “I just follow them.”

  Jack’s brow furrowed. “What does Porter Cobb have to do with anything?”

  Maggie picked at a loose thread on the leather seat, and it began to unravel. “Uh-oh.”

  Jack fought the annoyance he felt at Maggie for pulling his truck upholstery apart, knowing his irritation had nothing to do with the leather seat and everything to do with her clandestine behavior. “I’m waiting, Maggie.”

  She used both hands to snap the thread at its start and said, “You really should get someone to restitch these seats.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” he warned.

  “It’s a long story, Jack.”

  He gestured at the confines of the pickup cab. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Maggie settled her back against the door and folded one knee on the seat between them. He wanted to reach out a hand to her but had a feeling she’d put the farthest distance she could between them for a reason. He was waiting to hear what it was.

  Maggie’s heart was hammering in her chest as she prepared to tell Jack what she hadn’t repeated to another living soul in ten years. She had relived that awful morning in April 1987 a thousand times in her head. Every recollection was as vivid in her mind’s eye as when it had happened. The memory never seemed to fade; the pain never seemed to ease. She was finally about to share the burden with someone else.

  “The day my life fell apart,” she began, staring at the dark road ahead of them, “the temperature was below freezing, with a wind chill cold enough to create icicles along the eaves. Woody—my husband—had to go to work in downtown Minneapolis, even though it was Saturday. I was still wearing the T-shirt and sweatpants I’d slept in when I woke up the boys and fed them a bowl of oatmeal. They wanted to go skating on the pond, but I told them they couldn’t.”

  She turned to face Jack and explained, “The pond was still frozen over, but we’d had warm weather over the previous week that thinned the ice, I dressed the boys warmly and sent them outside to play in the backyard, then called a friend of mine to talk.”

  Maggie looked down at her knotted fingers. If only I hadn’t made that phone call, she thou
ght. And if only pigs had wings they could fly. There was no turning back the clock. At the time, she’d needed very much to hear a friendly voice.

  “I looked out the back window several times while I was on the phone,” she continued. “Every time I did, Brian and Stanley were fine. Since they didn’t have their skates with them when they went outside, it never occurred to me they’d go near the pond. I had no idea . . . . ”

  Maggie felt tears sting her eyes. An invisible band around her chest made it nearly impossible to breathe. When she gasped a breath, it became a sob.

  Jack reached out to her, but she brushed his hand away. “Don’t.” She wanted the comfort, but not until she was sure Jack wasn’t going to change his mind about whether she de-served it.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “You don’t have to do this right now.”

  “I want to.” Maggie dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her Polo shirt and waited for the constriction in her chest to ease. It did, a little, and she began again. “I guess Brian must have dared Stanley to go out on the ice. Brian was always the instigator, and Stanley was always fearless.” The corners of her lips quavered when she tried to smile, so she gave up and went back to playing with the remnants of the loose string on Jack’s leather seat.

  “Looking back, I think Brian must have started yelling for me when Stan first fell in.” She shook her head, trying to remember exactly what his voice had sounded like. An annoyed screech, maybe. Just Stanley teasing Brian. “I thought they were playing, you know, like when Amy was on the swing and shrieking with laughter. So I ignored him.”

  “What tipped you off that something was wrong?”

  “I don’t know. All of a sudden I just . . . knew. When I ran to the window, the first thing I saw was Brian lying flat on the ice. He had hold of Stanley’s hands, but I could see the weight of Stanley’s coat and boots were pulling Stan under, and Brian was sliding in right along with him. The ice around them was cracked, breaking away.”

  “Jesus,” Jack muttered.

  Maggie had known from that first instant that it was hopeless, that she wasn’t going to get there in time to save her sons. But her body had leapt into action. “I dropped the phone and ran.”