The tears, when they dripped slowly from beneath tightly closed lids, mixed in with the sweat. Fell unnoticed. Forgotten. Allowing no forgiveness for a sin not committed—and then committed six years after the fact.
This was the second time he’d contributed to the ruin of a perfectly lovely woman’s life.
He deserved to rot in hell.
And that was just what he feared would happen to him. Only it would be a hell of his own making, right here on earth, in this place of shelter where everyone else had family and friends and knew the comforts afforded by love. It was going to be his own private hell. Even in this journey of everlasting destruction, he would be all alone.
IT WAS LATE on the first Tuesday night in November, and Phyllis had just arrived home from Phoenix when the phone rang. She’d been at a pet-therapy session with Cassie and a woman who’d been brutally raped by a colleague while working in a nursing home.
Sighing, she picked up the phone, a portable. “Surely you’ve seen a doctor by now.” The voice didn’t bother with introductions or hellos.
She considered lying, but that wasn’t her style.
“I have.”
“When? Today? Is that where you’ve been all evening?”
If he’d sounded like someone who was checking up on her—instead of like someone who was driving himself crazy with frustration—Phyllis would’ve been able to handle the conversation a lot more effectively.
“I went last week,” she admitted. “Today I’ve been in Phoenix with Cassie Montford, helping her with her pet therapy. We went to see a woman in Phoenix who’s crawled so deeply inside herself that she’ll respond to nothing but one of Cassie’s dogs. We’re using the dog Angel to help her learn how to trust enough to interact with human beings again. If we don’t succeed, she’s going to live the rest of her life shut away in an institution.”
Phyllis wasn’t usually a babbler, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that she didn’t want to give Matt a chance to say what he’d called to say. She’d managed to put him out of her mind for hours at a time this past week. She didn’t need him back there.
“Have you had any success?” he asked when her words finally stopped.
Sinking into the couch in her tiny living room, Phyllis leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Yeah, just tonight,” she told him, feeling strangely comforted.
Cassie had Sam at home, waiting to hear all about it. Phyllis had no one.
“She’s been petting Angel for weeks without reacting at all. Tonight, for the first time, she looked at her and there were tears in her eyes.”
“And that’s good?”
“It means she’s in there—and that she’s starting to come out. She’s going to need a whole lot of reassurance before that can happen, though.”
“She didn’t cry before?”
Phyllis said no, started a technical explanation of hysterical amnesia and paralysis, and her own understanding of the things she’d read in the abused woman’s eyes, and then abruptly stopped herself. She’d learned long ago that people didn’t want to hear any of these things. She must be more tired than she’d thought.
“And you could tell she was searching for reassurance just from that one look at a dog?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Phyllis said softly. “Her mind’s been protecting her for a long time. She’s lived inside a place that exists only in her own head, and she’s afraid to come out. She’s going to need constant reassurance that when she does, there’s a safe, protected environment waiting for her.”
“And you can provide that in weekly visits?”
“Of course not.” Kicking off her shoes, Phyllis pulled her feet onto the sofa, tucking them beneath her. “We’re just the door through which she’s going to travel. The environment is right there waiting for her. She has a team of counselors working with her. People who’ve been around her, speaking with her, for months. At least one of them is with her twenty-four hours a day.”
“What about her family? Do they come to see her?”
“Her sister does. Everyday. The two of them lived together before Ella was raped.”
“Isn’t it hard sometimes? Dealing with stuff like this?” He asked a question Phyllis rarely allowed herself to ask. “Seems like it could be…painful.”
“It is,” Phyllis said, remembering the year before, when she’d had Tory Sanders living with her. Under her guidance, Tory had been coming to terms with her abusive past, as well as grieving for her dead sister—Phyllis’s best friend, Christine. “But then the light goes on in someone’s eyes and suddenly I have all the energy in the world,” she continued. “I’ve learned that when I’m feeling discouraged about a patient’s recovery, I need to focus on the eventual appearance of that light, to look for it in the tiniest of signs, and I find myself getting little bursts of energy.”
“Like tonight.”
“Right.”
“You’re amazing.” There was wonderment in his tone, and Phyllis felt an impulse, irrational but overpowering, to dismiss Matt’s approval.
“I also spend most of my working hours in a classroom lecturing to healthy students,” she reminded him. “Cases like this happen much less frequently.”
“So what did the doctor have to say?”
She stiffened. He’d caught her off guard. Again.
“To take my vitamins.”
“Everything’s okay?”
He wasn’t supposed to ask. Or care.
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I saw a bill. An insurance deductible, maybe? Vitamins?”
They both knew he hadn’t.
Sitting up, Phyllis slipped back into her shoes and walked to her bedroom. She was tired. Needed a long soak in a hot tub. Just as soon as she got him off the phone.
“I’m a psychologist, Matt. I know about emotions and relationships, and I’m very sure that this will be much healthier for both of us if we agree to let this situation be mine.”
“I—”
“I don’t need your help. Not financially or in any other way,” she interrupted, lining up her shoes in her closet. She’d been doing this ever since she’d seen her friend Randi do it. Now her shoes were much easier to find. Besides, she found the effect visually pleasing—and any activity that created a sense of order was a good thing, in her view. “As a matter-of-fact, if you want to help me, then rest assured that what would help the most is if you’d just let me get on with my life. There’s no point including you when neither of us want you to be part of either my life or this child’s.”
“But—”
“I promise to call you if anything changes,” she said. “If I get into trouble or have any problems, I won’t hesitate to let you know.”
“You’d better mean that,” he said, his voice rougher then usual.
“I do.”
“Then I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
Not if she could avoid it.
The man confounded her. He jumbled her thoughts—and that was something Phyllis just could not tolerate. Her emotions she couldn’t always dictate, but her mind was the one thing she had to be able to count on. And Matt Sheffield threatened her mental clarity, her ability to analyze, to make rational, informed decisions. She hung up the phone with finality.
“Okay, baby,” she said, her voice several notches higher—and happier—as she bent to run her bath. “Let’s go play in the tub and then I’ll give you a nice long rubdown with the oil the doctor gave us. How does that sound?”
It was still far too early in her pregnancy for any response from the tiny fetus growing inside her, but Phyllis knew that somehow the baby heard her and was learning to recognize his mother’s voice.
That might not be a rational belief—more of an intuitive conviction—but Phyllis didn’t question it for a second.
MATT HAD NO REASON to be at the faculty meeting. He rarely attended them, preferring to have pressing business at the theater whenever Will Parsons called a meeting with his faculty and staff.
Will had never given him any crap about his inclination to steer clear of large groups—a bit of leftover discomfort from the claustrophobia he’d developed in prison. But he’d always made certain that Matt received whatever information he needed.
Matt suspected that the older man understood the more urgent reason he chose to keep his distance from his colleagues. The more time Matt spent in their company, the more chance they’d ask the kinds of personal questions he didn’t want to answer.
He caught Will’s raised eyebrow when he slipped into the back of the large lecture hall, where the university president was giving his mid-November faculty address.
If Matt wasn’t careful, he was going to be raising other questions he wasn’t prepared to answer.
He noticed Phyllis Langford sitting between an English professor and the head of the Psych Department, up near the front of the hall, and slid into the back corner seat. She was the reason he was there, the person he needed to speak to. He had no concrete ideas of what he was going to say to her, no suggestions to present. He only knew that, through her, he had to find some degree of absolution. He had to reach an understanding of his role in this whole baby thing, otherwise he’d never get rid of the guilt.
Will announced all the shows scheduled at the Performing Arts Center during the holidays. Mentally planning his crews, Matt felt a twinge of unease as Sophie Curtis topped the list on every show that mattered. As stage manager of the most recent show she’d worked, the girl had missed several cues, failed to get the props onstage in time, pulled the curtain too soon and left the house lights lowered for the first five minutes of intermission.
Matt couldn’t remember when he’d last seen her smile. She barely resembled the vivacious blonde of a year ago.
Will Parsons was speaking about a new promotional video the college was making. Matt would help with the shooting of some of the inside segments—and probably have a hand in the editing process, as well. He’d designed a couple of gobos—metal pieces placed in front of lights to throw shadows for special effect—they’d be using.
He was still finishing a note to himself when the meeting ended and his co-workers started filing past. A few nodded at him politely. The dance director smiled. No one stopped to speak.
He relaxed a bit.
And waited.
Phyllis Langford walked right past him, engrossed in conversation with her department head. She was wearing a navy suit today, with a navy-and-white polka-dot blouse. She looked great.
And not the least bit pregnant.
“Hi,” he said, stepping up behind her.
Swinging around, she knocked into him, her purse walloping him in the ribs. “Matt! Hi,” she said, smiling at him for a second. He hated how quickly her face sobered. “Did you need something?” she asked much more hesitantly, glancing at her superior.
Matt glanced at the older man, as well, wondering if Phyllis had any interest in him other than a professional one.
Wondering, too, if his baby was going to prevent her from pursuing that interest.
“I’d like to see you for a second, if you’ve got the time,” he said. She was the entire reason he was at the damn Friday-afternoon meeting. A carefully planned, casual running into each other, just to see how she was doing. He hadn’t spoken with her in almost two weeks.
Excusing herself to Dr. Ellington, Phyllis followed Matt out into the hall.
“What’s up?” She appeared to be very carefully keeping a distance between them as they walked out of the building and across campus toward the faculty lot where they’d both parked. Matt was grateful to her for that distance.
“Just wanted to make sure there were no problems.”
She frowned. “I told you I’d call if there were.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“I’m just making sure.”
“Matt, the whole idea is that I’m on my own here. That means you don’t check up on me.”
He nodded. Glad to hear she still seemed confident in her decision. And then he remembered the good Dr. Ellington.
“Have dinner with me this weekend,” he said before he could weigh the consequences of his words.
“No.”
“We can go to Phoenix, someplace no one we know will see us together.” Her refusal made him more determined. He was doing this for her. And for him, too, he guessed. Somehow he had to find a way to live with himself. He couldn’t allow the pregnancy to throw her whole social life, her career plans, off course.
“No.”
“I have something to discuss with you,” he said, thinking of ways she could have his child and still date and attend conferences and do all the things she’d done before. He hadn’t thought of one, but maybe together they could come up with something….
“What?”
There was no way she could be pregnant with his child and continue with her life as it had been. He just had to accept that fact—and accept his share of the blame.
“My family medical history,” he said, coming up with the idea at the last minute. “You should know my medical background. Your doctor should have it.”
“She did ask…” Phyllis said, and then stopped. Stopped speaking. Stopped walking. She looked up at Matt, her eyes serious, her lips firm.
“All right, one dinner, but that’s all,” she said. “And then I’m on my own.”
“Agreed.”
Matt meant what he said. But he didn’t feel good about it.
CHAPTER THREE
THINKING IT WOULD BE easier to talk if they weren’t facing each other across a table the entire time, Matt suggested he and Phyllis drive up to Tortilla Flat on Saturday, have a late lunch there, and then return to Shelter Valley. That gave them about five hours to reach some kind of accord.
And then get out of each other’s lives.
Phyllis surprised him by agreeing immediately to the date that wasn’t a date.
Things were awkward at first as she climbed into his Blazer late Saturday morning and they headed out. She was wearing a pair of designer-looking jeans and a thick black velour sweater that only accentuated the slimness of her small-boned frame.
It had been so long since he’d been out with anyone for any kind of social occasion that he’d more or less forgotten how to do it.
“It’s a little disturbing to think that we made a baby and know so little about each other, huh?” She broke the awkward silence, apparently reading his mind.
It was disconcerting how she always seemed to know just what to say to get him started. She’d done that in his office the day she’d come to tell him about the pregnancy. And then again on the phone. Hell, she’d probably done it that day they’d worked together in the Performing Arts Center; he’d just been too busy listening to his libido to hear.
He was going to be damn glad when this day was over and he could go back to being the only one privy to the thoughts of Matt Sheffield.
“So how long have you been a professor?” he asked, taking her comment as a cue.
“Eight years, though I didn’t start out with a full professorship.”
“You like it?” Matt turned the utility vehicle onto the highway that led to Phoenix and beyond.
“I love it,” she said, staring out at the road. He caught a glimpse of the smile on her face as he glanced over.
“Me, too,” he said. They had something in common. He didn’t know if that made the job ahead of them easier—or not.
She turned her head to look at him. “How long have you been teaching?”
This was why he avoided social occasions. And relationships. The questions inevitably led to places that were off-limits.
“Twelve years, on and off.”
“Always at a college level?”
He shook his head, reluctant to remember. “I started out teaching theater technology to junior-high and high-school students.”
“You said you’ve been teaching on and off. What did you do in the off parts?”
“Went to school, for one.” Matt ran his hand underneath the collar of his open black leather jacket. He wished he could shove a towel down his back to soak up the sweat collecting there. “Got my masters in theater technology with an emphasis on lighting design. I also graduated from a certificate program in videography.”
Relieved when there were no further questions, Matt concentrated on getting them through Phoenix and onto the two-lane, winding road that would take them up to Tortilla Flat. Apache Trail, as it had been dubbed more than a hundred years before, was at one time the only wagon trail going up to this part of northern Arizona. Tortilla Flat, though only ten miles up the mountain, was about a forty-five-minute drive. It had been the first stagecoach stopping place on the three-day journey from Phoenix to Roosevelt Dam.
The town, now more a tourist spot than anything, was reminiscent of those days, with most of the six or so buildings preserved in their original state. With its population of six, the town boasted a small store and ice-cream shop, a post office and well-known restaurant-cum-gift shop. The businesses were all run by the six-member family that resided there.
“I’ve never been up here.” Phyllis broke the silence that had fallen around them, a silence that seemed so persistent Matt had begun to wonder if they’d actually get around to discussing anything that day.
He’d almost convinced himself that he hoped not.
“This scenery is beautiful,” she continued.
Matt glanced around at the cacti and rocks, the dark greens and myriad shades of brown, the mountains rising above him on one side, the mile-long canyon on the other.
“I come up here fairly regularly,” he admitted. Especially when he was feeling his worst. The vast miles of deserted landscape always seemed to put things in perspective for him. Reminded him just how small he was—or just how big the picture.
She turned to look at him, making him uncomfortable. Somehow he’d let too much show again.
“So tell me about your family,” she said as he maneuvered slowly around the curves with their huge drop-offs only a foot away. There was no guardrail between them and those canyons.
Just Around the Corner Page 3
