The Great Escape

by Amanda Carpenter

  After what seemed a very long time, her racking sobs stopped, became controllable again, and her tears dried up. Her breathing came unevenly, in little hiccups, but she was back in touch with reality and no longer dwelling in a well of dark emotion. She felt his hands rubbing her back gently, and his breath stirred her hair. She was in a little cave, made up of his shoulder and neck, and his head rested on the side of hers.

  “I got you all wet,” she said, muffled against his neck, her cheek on sodden material.

  “I’ll dry easily enough,” he whispered back. One hand came up to cup her head, the fingers ruffling her hair and stroking the nape of her neck.

  “I’m sorry,” she choked, perilously close to tears again, and wavering back and forth on that line of resistance. It was lamentably low. “I’m usually in better control than this—I hardly ever cry—”

  “Everyone cries now and then, sweetheart. Everybody needs to. Don’t apologise for that. Nobody can be strong and tough all the time, not even you, and not even me.” His voice rumbled in his chest, and she could feel the vibrations in her own torso.

  “I feel terrible, and I want a bath,” she muttered, taking a deep, unsteady breath. “And I probably look a horror.”

  Mike’s face burrowed into her fluffy hair as he chuckled, the movement and the sound so very nice. “You must be feeling better, then. When a woman thinks of her looks, she can’t be too devastated!”

  A woman, Dee thought dazedly, he called me a woman. That more than anything made her feel much, much better. She pushed against his chest and surfaced back to the world, knuckling her eyes childishly. Then she peeped out from behind her two hands at him, the blue eyes bright again. That look, from under the golden tousled hair, made her seem elfin, half wild, and he grinned at the impression.

  She in turn saw sparkling green eyes set under straight, heavy brows. His hair was tousled as much as hers and the dark brown waves enhanced his features, the strong, aggressive jaw, the hard crooked nose, that wide forehead. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a bath. And if you do mind, I’m going to take a bath,” she said saucily. “When are we kicked out today?”

  “Several hours ago,” he told her, smiling at her look of surprise. “I’ve already paid for another day. You were so exhausted I didn’t have the heart to wake you earlier.”

  “Well then,” she said with satisfaction, swinging her legs out of the bed and sliding off Mike’s lap, “that’s settled for now.” She stood and rummaged in her suitcase for a clean set of underwear and clothes, then she headed for the bathroom, sublimely unaware of her bare long legs, the incongruous nightshirt sticking out from a rumpled black sweater. Her hair was ruffled wildly, and Mike’s eyes followed her out of the room, his expression strangely soft.

  Dee gave a startled, muffled shriek when she saw herself in the mirror. God, what a mess! Running a very hot bath, she sank into it thankfully, bathing briskly and then rinsing with the shower for good measure. She had to wash her hair because of the dried blood, and she grimaced at the tangles that caught in her massaging fingers. Afterwards she dried and dressed in matching blouse and slacks that nearly caught the exact colour of her eyes. Then with her dripping hair hanging down her back, she picked up her nightclothes and padded into the bedroom, grinning at Mike in a mischievous way before dumping her things on her open suitcase. Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror again—and stopped in dismay. The black and blue marks on her neck were appallingly apparent at the open neck of her blouse. The bruise on the side of her head wasn’t so bad, for her hair covered most of it and make-up could conceivably do the rest, but those bruises at her throat were shocking in daylight.

  Mike was contemplating her with his arms crossed casually at his chest. She noted that he had changed his sweater for a dry one. “I’m going to have to wear something besides this blouse,” she told him ruefully, gesturing at her throat. “I hadn’t realised how noticeable the bruises are.”

  Something dark and violent showed fleetingly in his eyes before being wiped clean away. “Yes. They’re going to be noticeable for some time, I’m afraid. At least the swelling has gone down.”

  She rummaged around in her suitcase and brought up a turtleneck, caramel-coloured sweater, waving it triumphantly at him. “The solution has been found! Lord, I’m starved—I’ll hurry so we can go and eat.” With that she set off yet again to the bathroom, intent on reaching privacy to change her top, and Mike shook his head mockingly.

  “Don’t go to the trouble, sweetheart. It’s much easier for me to turn my back than for you to wear a path going back and forth to the bathroom all the time.” With that he made good his offer and presented a large, indifferent back for her scrutiny.

  Dee hesitated only briefly and then was scrambling out of her blouse and into her turtleneck in two seconds flat. “Okay,” she mumbled, her mouth hidden in the folds of the sweater, then she was posing in front of the mirror to arrange the neck to her satisfaction. Lean hard fingers came to the back of her neck and lifted out her damp hair, and she muttered a thanks, grinning at how domesticated they looked.

  “That’s a very provocative grin,” he said in her ear. “Do you want to share the joke?”

  “No,” she gurgled merrily. “It’s a private one.” A hand slapped her bottom smartly.

  “That has to mean that I’m the source of your amusement!” he growled. “How long will it take you to get ready to eat? There’s a restaurant right across the highway—if you hurry, I just might let you join me for lunch.”

  A blonde brow cocked. “That’s mighty big of you. I’m so flattered at that gracious invitation, I can hardly stand still in one place!”

  “Well, so long as you’re ready in fifteen minutes, then.”

  “I’ll be ready in ten.” And she was, brushing her hair one final time in front of the mirror before turning decisively to Mike. He surveyed her cheek, a forefinger under her chin and tilting it up.

  “You did a good job with the make-up. It shows only slightly, and only a very observant person would be able to tell there’s a bruise.”

  He opened the door and lazily lounged by it while she scooted by, tucking her brush into her handbag. Then he was following her, slipping the room key into his pocket.

  They opted to walk across the highway instead of taking the car. Dee thrilled to Mike’s unexpected touch when he grabbed her hand to drag her into a running dash across the wide stretch of asphalt. She was laughing when they finally slowed on the other side, cheeks glowing and eyes twinkling. For the rest of the walk, he casually draped one arm around her shoulders and they joked and parried swift witticisms.

  They were seated immediately and she looked over the menu hungrily. When the waitress came back to take their orders, she let Mike order for her, and soon steaming cups of coffee appeared in front of them both. She watched with a wry lifted eyebrow as the waitress lingered over Mike’s cup, her appreciative gaze on him suggestively. He took it very well, leaning back in the booth with a lazy smile that treated the waitress with a warm friendliness that somehow neatly destroyed any sexual connotation that could be construed.

  When she finally walked away, Dee raised her cup to him in a mocking salute. “Well, done, I say,” she murmured. Her hoarseness had dissipated into a rather pleasing huskiness, and she found that talking was no longer painful.

  He grinned swiftly at her. “I thought I’d handled myself quite well too, thank you.”

  “I’m sure you’ve improved with practice!” she retorted laughingly. “Do you get a lot of attention of that sort?”

  “A fair amount,” he countered laconically, his green eyes vivid with his own laughter. Finding him a comfortable and interested companion, she was soon chattering away to him lightly as if she had known him forever. He was for the most part silent, watching her keenly and shouting with laughter at some of the anecdotes she related about the odd experiences one has when one works in a twenty four hour restaurant. She liked to hear his laughter; i
t was a very pleasing sound.

  His attitude seemed to change after a while, and his silence began to have a brooding quality that started to rub on her nerves. She ordered ice cream for dessert and the waitress refilled their coffee cups. After letting the silence fall over them again, Dee finally opened her mouth to ask him about his strange mood when he spoke.

  “Strange, isn’t it, to be buying a cheap lunch for a millionaire heiress,” he murmured, and there was something odd in his voice and eyes, but she was too shocked with what he said to really notice.

  Shock soon gave way to anger, though, and her eyes spat sudden, virulent sparks at him as she hissed, “Don’t you put a label on me, mister! Don’t you dare!” She hated the phrase “millionaire heiress”. As if the only thing about her of value was the money!

  “No,” he said, cocking his head to one side to stare at her with those unsettling, assessing, somehow stern eyes. “I should be the last to do that, shouldn’t I? At every turn you’ve slipped out of the neat, tidy little mould I’ve made out for you. You change constantly, like quicksilver, always something new, something unexpected and different. When I’d thought of you as a runaway teenager, you appear to me as a maturing young woman. When I’d labelled you as defeated, you nimbly slip out a second story window to disappear into thin air. Last night, when I’d thought you were beaten, you suddenly strike out with a swiftness and a deadly accuracy that simply floored your opponent. And today,” a slight, uncontrolled smile tugged at one corner of his firm mouth and she stared, fascinated, forgetting her anger, “today when I’d thought you were perhaps dieting because of the salad you ordered—why, you turn right around and order ice cream!”

  The spoonful of chocolate that had been travelling absently to her mouth froze a moment at that, and she stared at it self-consciously. Chuckling inwardly at his whimsical statement, she stuffed the spoon into her mouth with a robust defiance for the calorie intake, nodding pertly. Mike smiled at her playfulness, appreciatively and yet strangely absentmindedly. There was an underlying seriousness about him, an intent quality that made her suddenly drop her act and sit forward attentively.

  “Why did you run away?”

  The question was so simply and quietly spoken that for a moment or two it didn’t register. When she finally grasped the enormity of the question, her thin face took on a bitterness and a peculiarly hard quality, the eyes shadowing over and the mouth thinning until she looked years older. It was an astonishing change, from her previous lightheartedness to this disillusioned look.

  “How long have you got?” she asked him flippantly, the harshness making him wince.

  “As long as it takes. I’d like to understand,” he said quietly.

  At those mild words, her defiant hostility crumbled and she leaned back in her seat, momentarily at a loss for words. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve never articulated my reasons to anyone before. Nobody bothered to ask.”

  “Try. Was it your aunt and uncle? Did things seem to go wrong when your parents died?”

  “I guess you could say that.” She hesitated and a pent-up look filed her eyes. She said, very quietly, “Have you ever been so very miserable that you just can’t take being miserable any more? I mean to the point where, if it was a choice between living in a particular situation or not living at all, you’d choose not to live?”

  “No.” He was very attentive.

  “I have.” Her simple reply seemed to shake him. “I had to leave. It was a choice between suicide or leaving home, and I chose the latter because I wasn’t quite ready to die yet.” Her bright beautiful blue eyes smiled at him slightly as he looked, stricken, into them. And, because he had asked her, she told him about the barren time, and all her frustrations. She told him about the loneliness, the pressures at college, the feeling of entrapment, everything. She talked with an eloquence born from an urgent need to communicate, and it made Mike sit up.

  “You should ask my guardians,” she said conversationally, “how I did in school, and I’ll bet you anything you like that they won’t be able to tell you. They don’t care. They like the allowance given to them for my support, but bother them with my problems? Don’t make me laugh! Do you know, no one remembered my birthday last year? Isn’t that rich? That was the breaking point for me. Oh, I’m not talking about birthday presents, gifts, because I had everything materially that I needed or wanted. It’s that damned dry emotional desert I was living in that was killing me. Do you hear me, Mike? They were killing me!”

  She looked up into his eyes and encountered something brilliant in his green, piercing eyes. There was a curious look about him, as if he were seeing something clearly for the first time and was saddened by what he saw.

  He moved, made an effort to speak. “Wasn’t there anyone that you could talk to, turn to, anyone you could ask for help from? Perhaps you were friends with the housekeeper or someone who helped around the house?”

  Dee just looked at him blankly. “I didn’t know anyone who worked at the house. Judith got rid of all our employees and hired her own staff.”

  “What?” It was a thunderous reaction, and Mike shot up straight in his seat as he stared at her, incredulously.

  Bewildered, she murmured, “I suppose you wouldn’t have known, but does it really matter now?”

  He was staring off into nothing, directing that powerful intellect and attention on to something unseen. He said slowly, “It may and then again, it may not. Dee, if you were to die, who would inherit the fortune?”

  She stared at him, trying to make sense out of an apparently senseless question. “I’m not sure. I never really considered the possibility of my own death before, I guess, having chosen the other path… It’s probably a classic case of a youth living in the illusion of her own immortality—it’s just not something I’ve thought about. I guess the next of kin would inherit before I turn eighteen, and they still would, if I didn’t make a will.”

  The words came out slowly from him. “And Judith and Howard are your next of kin.”

  “That’s right. They’re the only family I have. Everyone else is dead.” It was said simply, as she tried to follow the path of his thoughts, failing dismally.

  He said very quietly, “Oh, my God.” And he stared down at his hands as if he could see blood on them and was sickened by the sight.

  “Mike, what is it?” she asked, reaching out and touching one of his hands tentatively. He shook himself like a dog coming out of water, and he looked around as if suddenly realising how long they had sat in the restaurant.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he muttered, sliding out of the booth. Still bewildered and yet patient, Dee followed and waited quietly while he paid for the meal. As they walked out of the building, she lagged a little behind and he turned to look at her questioningly.

  Her eyes were fixed on the ground. “Do you suppose I should have stayed and tried to stick things out?” she asked softly, uncertainty hitting her like a huge, consuming wave. “Do you think I was wrong for wanting to get out from under all that? I always wondered if I was seeing the situation accurately, or if I was just rationalising because I didn’t have the guts to stick out a sticky situation.”

  His arm came around her, hard, drawing her close, compelling her to walk forward with him over the highway. “No, sweetheart, I don’t think you were wrong,” he said at last, and some of the tension went out of her shoulder blades at his support. It was a strange feeling, this sharing. She wasn’t used to it, and she was surprised at how much his approval meant to her. “It’s probably the only thing that saved you.”

  Her head turned, and she tried to make sense out of his stern, frowning expression.

  Back in the motel room she crossed over to the newly made bed and sank down on to it, her eyes following Mike as he walked over to his suitcase and fingered a shirt aimlessly, his expression never lightening. “What is it?” she asked at last. “What’s bothering you?”

  “I could be wrong,” he murmured, putting a hand
to his neck to massage it while he stared at the ceiling. “It’s fantastic. I could be very, very wrong and probably am…let’s forget it for now, all right? Maybe I’ll tell you later. I need some time to think.”

  “Is—is it about me?”

  His head turned at that and he looked at her gently, amusedly. “Honey, I’ve thought of precious little except you for the past nine months or so.” And it wasn’t the words that he said somehow, but the way that he said them that made her go warm all over, a slow suffusion of happiness that melted into her bones and made her blue eyes gradually take on a shining response.

  But the expression died away and she asked in a low voice, “What do we do now? Where do we go from here? It’s funny, but in all the time that I spent running, I—this is the first time I’ve ever actually felt lost. How long does the truce last, Mike?” Something in her eyes shimmered and she looked quickly down at her hands, lying loosely clasped on her lap.

  Footsteps, slow and measured, and then a big warm hand coming lightly to the side of her bent face, running down her neck, under her hair, and then carefully back to cup her tender cheek. She quivered. “Shall we forget the truce and call it a friendship now?” he asked softly. “I don’t know what to do either, sweetheart, but maybe we can figure something out together. Nothing’s quite so hard, if you have someone to share it with. You’ve been too alone, Dee. Let me shoulder some of the weight for you for a while. I’ve strong shoulders and a wide back, and I’ll respect whatever you ultimately decide. You don’t have to run away! I’ll help you find what to work towards, instead of forcing you to pick up and run. Can you trust me, just a little bit?”

  She turned her face into his hand and whispered, “I want to!” and felt him bend down to place a kiss on her forehead. Then he stepped back and his hand fell away. He sat on his bed and regarded her wryly, with a quizzical twist to his lips.

  “Well then. Instead of a truce with neither of us knowing what to do, now we have a friendship, and neither of us knows what to do!” The statement forced a smile out of her, and her eyes fell away to wander the room idly. They landed on her neat pile of clothes by the suitcase, dirty and bloody.