Lone Eagle

by Danielle Steel

  “I'm watching TV,” she said, still surprised to hear him.

  “Do you want to go out for a hamburger? I'm bored,” he confessed and she laughed.

  “I'd love to, but I don't have a sitter.”

  “Bring the baby.”

  She laughed at the suggestion. “I can't, Joe. He's sleeping. And if I wake him up, he'll cry for hours. Believe me, you wouldn't enjoy it.”

  “You're right. I wouldn't. Have you eaten?”

  “More or less. I ate some ice cream this afternoon. I'm not really hungry. It's too hot.”

  “What if I bring a hamburger over to you?” he suggested as an option.

  “Here?”

  “Well, yes. Where else would I take it?”

  It was an odd suggestion. It seemed strange to have him come to the apartment she shared with her husband, but on the other hand, they were both alone with nothing to do, and they were friends now. She could do this. She had proven it the week before.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” she asked him.

  “Why not? We both have to eat.” It sounded reasonable, and finally she agreed. He knew the address, and he said he'd be there in thirty minutes.

  He was there in fifteen, with two big oozing cheeseburgers in a white paper bag, just the way they both liked them. She hadn't had one like that in years, and as they dripped and dropped ketchup all over the place, and licked their fingers, they laughed at each other as they sat at the kitchen table.

  “You're a mess,” he said, as he watched her. And she giggled, and sounded seventeen again.

  “I know. I love it.” She handed him a stack of paper napkins, and eventually they both cleaned up the mess. And she offered him ice cream from her freezer. It was just like the old days, when he was staying at her parents' house in Boston, and afterward in New Jersey. She had missed that, although she had fun with Andy. Joe was like a giant bird who swooped down, and then settled in for a while, and after that took flight again and disappeared. But she had enjoyed seeing him again. She had forgotten what good company he was, and how much they liked each other. He loved her stories, and she made him laugh at silly things. She was good for him. She always had been. He had been good for her too, once upon a time, but she had worked hard to forget that. It had taken years.

  After they ate, they watched TV. She was wearing sandals, and he kicked off his shoes, and she teased him when she saw there were holes in his socks.

  “You're too successful to wear socks like that,” she scolded him.

  “I don't have anyone to buy me new ones,” he said, trying to make her feel sorry for him, but she didn't.

  “You like it that way, remember? Have Hazel do it.” But his secretary had other things to do, so he never got them. He just wore the socks with holes.

  “I don't like it that way. I just don't want to get married so I can have decent socks. That's a high price to pay for socks without holes in them,” he said, as they sat on the couch and the TV chattered in the background.

  “Is it, why?”

  “I don't know. You know me. I'm afraid to be tied down. I'm afraid I'm going to miss something, or someone will take too much from me. Not money. But me. A part of me I don't want to give them.” He had always been afraid of that. It was the real reason he hadn't married her. But he wasn't afraid of her now. For some reason even he couldn't fathom, he finally trusted her. It had taken a long, long time.

  “No one can take what you won't give them,” Kate said calmly.

  “They can try. I guess I'm scared I'll lose me in the process.” He nearly had with her. She had taken a big piece of him with her, but he suspected she didn't know that. And he wished now that he could reclaim it, and her.

  “You're too big to lose, Joe,” she said honestly. “I don't think you have any idea how big you are. You're enormous.” He was the biggest man she had ever known. He had an enormous spirit and a brilliant mind.

  “I always think I'm invisible, or want to be,” Joe confessed, sounding like a boy.

  “I don't think anyone sees themselves as they really are. In your case, you have a lot to be proud of,” she said generously. It was odd sitting there with him. If anyone had told her a month before that would happen, she wouldn't have believed them, but she was enjoying his company, and they were friends again. There was great comfort in it. For both of them.

  “There's a lot I'm not proud of, Kate,” he confessed, looking boyish again, and it touched her heart. There was a side of him she had always loved, and knew she always would, and another side of him she had very nearly hated, the side that had hurt her so badly when she left. “I'm not proud of the way I treated you,” he continued, and she was surprised to hear it. “I was rotten to you before you left. I was working you too hard, using you, I wasn't thinking about you, just about myself. But you scared the hell out of me. You loved me so damn much, and it made me feel so inadequate and so guilty. So trapped, I guess. I just wanted to run away and hide. You were right to leave, Kate. It damn near killed me when you did, but I don't blame you. That's why I never called, as much as I wanted to. You were right to go. There was nothing in it for you. I couldn't give you what you needed. I didn't understand how lucky I was. It took me a long time to calm down and figure that out.” And by then she'd been long gone.

  “It's nice of you to say that,” she said generously, “but it never would have worked anyway. I realize that now.”

  “Why not?” He frowned, nothing woke Joe up more than a challenge.

  “Because this is what I wanted,” she said with a wave around the apartment and in the direction of the baby. “A husband, a baby, a regular life. You need a lot more than that in your life, you need power and success and excitement and airplanes, and you're willing to sacrifice everything for it, even people. I'm not. This is what I wanted.”

  “We could have had this, and more, if you'd waited.”

  “Not from what you said then.”

  “It was the wrong time for me, Kate. I was starting a business. That was all I could think of.” It was true, but she knew that his aversion to marriage and kids and responsibility ran deeper than he was admitting. She had seen it. She knew him better than he knew himself. He had been too terrified to let her in.

  “And now?” she asked skeptically. “Are you dying for a wife and a bunch of kids?” She smiled at him. “I don't think so. I think you were right, you'd hate it.” She was convinced of it now.

  “It depends on who the wife is. But no, I'm not looking. I found the right woman a long time ago, and I was foolish enough to lose her.” It was a nice thing to say, but it made Kate uncomfortable. There was no point talking about that now, and she didn't want to. But he didn't want to let it drop yet. “I mean that, Kate. I was an incredible fool, and I want you to know that.”

  “Oh, I knew it,” she laughed at him, “I just didn't think you did.” And then she grew more serious. “I appreciate knowing how you feel about it, Joe. Things happen the way they're meant to.”

  “That's bullshit,” he said bluntly. “They happen a certain way because we screw things up, or we're scared, or we're stupid, or just plain blind sometimes. It takes a lot of brains and courage to do things right, Kate, and not everyone has that. Sometimes it takes time to figure it out, and then it's too late. But you have to fix it if you can. You can't just sit back and leave things screwed up, and say that was how they were meant to be. Only fools do that.” And they both knew he was no fool.

  “You can't change some things,” she said quietly. She understood what he was saying, but she wasn't sure she liked it. There was no point rehashing the past.

  “You didn't give me enough time,” he said, looking deep into her eyes that were the same color as his own. They were like mirrors of each other. They were so alike in some ways, and so diametrically different in others. And it was all so perfect when it worked.

  “I waited two years, after I left you, to get married,” she said sternly. “You had all the opportunity in t
he world to change your mind and come get me. And you didn't.”

  “I was mad. I was scared. I was busy. I hadn't figured it out yet. But I have now,” he said pointedly, and she felt her heart do a somersault when she saw the look in his eyes. He wanted what they had had before, but now it belonged to someone else. That was hard for Joe. He always wanted what he couldn't have. “Look, Kate, I get it. I have a great life, I've built a solid business, but none of it means as much to me without you.”

  “Joe, don't let's talk about this. There's no point.”

  “Yes, there is, Kate,” he said, looking at her. “I love you.” And before she could say another word, he kissed her, and then put his arms around her as they sat on the couch. She felt as though she were drifting into another world with him, floating through space, as her heart soared, and a moment later she fell to earth as she pulled away.

  “Joe, you have to go.”

  “I won't until you talk to me about it. Do you still love me?” He had to know.

  “I love my husband,” she said, looking away from him so he couldn't see her eyes.

  “That's not what I asked you,” he persisted, and finally she looked into his eyes. “I asked you if you still love me.”

  “I have always loved you,” she said honestly. “But it's not right. And it's impossible now. I'm married to someone else.” She looked agonized as she talked to him. She hadn't wanted this to happen. She had convinced herself they could be friends.

  “How can you love me and be married to Andy?” Joe said, looking profoundly upset.

  “Because I didn't think you loved me, you didn't want to get married…” She had gone over it a hundred times. A thousand. A million. And it was too late. “So you married the first guy who came along?” “That's a rotten thing to say. I waited two years.” “Well, it took me longer to figure it out.” He sounded like a child, but no matter what the words were, it didn't matter. What mattered was what she had felt when he kissed her, what she saw in his eyes when he looked at her, and felt in her heart. She was still in love with him and knew she always would be. Kate felt like she had been condemned to a life sentence, there was nothing she could do about it now.

  “I can't do this to Andy,” she said simply. “He's my husband. We have a child.” She stood up with an unhappy expression. “It doesn't matter anymore what happened, what we did or said or why. We did it, we said it. I left, and you wanted me to go. If you didn't, you'd have stopped me, you'd have asked me to come back. That was all I wanted for two long years, for you to want me back. You were too busy playing with your airplanes to give a damn. And too scared to risk being swallowed up. And the truth is, I still love you. I always will. But it's too late for us, Joe. I'm married to someone else. I have to respect that, even if you don't.” She looked at him miserably then, and stood up. “You have to go. I can't do this to myself, or to him. He doesn't deserve this, and neither do I.”

  “You're punishing me because I wouldn't marry you,” he said, as he stood up to his full height, and looked down at her with regret.

  “I'm punishing myself because I married a man who deserves a real wife, not someone who has always been in love with someone else. That's not right, Joe. We have to forget each other. I don't know how the hell to do it, and by God, I've tried. But I swear, if it kills me, I'll do it. I can't be married to him and in love with you for the rest of my life.”

  “Then leave him.”

  “I love him, and I won't do that. We just had a baby.”

  “I want you back, Kate.” He said it like a man who was used to having his way, and wouldn't settle for anything less.

  “Why? Because I'm married to someone else? Why now? I'm not a toy, or an airplane, or a company you own or want to buy. I waited two goddamn years while everyone said you were dead in Germany somewhere. I was always there, waiting for you. I was just a kid, and I couldn't even look at anyone else. And I pined for you for a year three years ago after you told me you'd never get married. Why now?” She was crying, as he shook his head.

  “I don't know. I just know that you're part of me. I don't want to live the rest of my life without you, Kate. We've come too far. We've known each other for ten years, we've been in love for nine.”

  “So what?” she said unkindly. “You should have thought of that before. It's too late.”

  “That's ridiculous. You don't love him. Is that what you want for the rest of your life?”

  “Yes!” she said firmly, as the baby began to cry. “You have to go, Joe,” she said, still crying. “I have to feed the baby.”

  “Aren't you supposed to be calm when you feed a baby?”

  “Yes, but it's a little late for that.” He took a step closer to her then, and wiped her eyes. “Don't, please…” she cried harder, and he pulled her into his arms as she sobbed. All she wanted was to be with him, and she couldn't. It was a cruel twist of fate that he wanted her back. She couldn't abandon Andy and take their child, no matter how much she loved Joe. And she loved Andy too, but in a different way.

  “I'm sorry… I shouldn't have come here tonight.” He felt guilty for the state she was in.

  “It's not your fault,” she admitted, drying her eyes, “I wanted to see you too. It was so wonderful seeing you the other day, and being with you…. Oh Joe… what are we going to do?” she said as she clung to him. They were lost, and so obviously still in love.

  “I don't know, we'll figure it out.” He held her and then kissed her. All she wanted was to be with him. She left him then to get the baby, and brought him out to lie between them on the couch. He was a beautiful baby, and Joe looked at him silently and then at her. “It'll be all right, Kate. Maybe we can see each other once in a while.”

  “And then what? We'll always wish we were together. That's not a life.”

  “It's all we've got, for now. Maybe it's enough.” But she knew it wouldn't be for long. They would always want more than just stolen moments and knowing that they loved each other and couldn't be together. It sounded like a lifetime of torture to her. He looked at her then, she looked so tormented, and so unhappy, and he knew she had to feed the baby. “Do you want me to go, or wait till you've fed him?” She knew he should go, but she didn't want him to. She didn't know when or if she'd see him again.

  “If you want, you can wait.” She went in the other room, while he watched TV, and when she came back, Joe had fallen asleep on the couch. He had had a long day, and it had been an emotional evening for both of them. She looked more peaceful after feeding the baby, and Reed was sound asleep in his bassinet.

  Kate sat watching Joe for a while, she touched his hair, and gently stroked his face. It was all so familiar. He had belonged to her for so many years, and she to him. They had so much history together, it was a powerful bond. She just sat there holding him for a long time, until after a while he opened his eyes.

  “I love you, Kate,” he whispered, and she smiled.

  “No, you don't. I won't let you,” she said in a whisper back to him, and he kissed her. They lay on the couch kissing for a long time. It was an impossible situation, with an impossible man. “You've got to go,” she whispered. He nodded, but made no move to leave the couch, and kissed her again and again, and after a while, she no longer cared if he left or not. She didn't want him to go. She didn't want to have left him, she didn't want to hurt Andy, or their son… she didn't want any of it to happen, but the force of what tied them to each other was stronger than they were. He picked her up in his arms and laid her on her bed. She knew she should tell him to go, but she couldn't. Instead, she let him peel away her clothes as he had so many times, and then he took off his own. They made love with all the longing that had haunted them for three years, and afterward, they fell into a deep, peaceful sleep in each other's arms.

  17

  WHEN KATE WOKE UP the next morning, she smiled feeling Andy beside her, and turned to face him, and when she did, she saw Joe. It hadn't been a dream or a nightmare. It had been the culminatio
n of all the years she had loved him, and the three years they'd been apart. But she had no idea what to do now. They had to forget each other, she told herself, as she watched him slowly stir. The baby was still sound asleep.

  Joe woke a few minutes later, and when he saw her, he smiled.

  “Am I dreaming? Or did I die and go to Heaven last night?” It all seemed so simple to him. He wasn't married to anyone, and wasn't in danger of destroying anyone's life, except hers and his own. That was enough.

  “You look disgustingly happy,” she accused him, but as she did, she snuggled close to him. The time they spent in bed, in the morning, cuddled close to each other, and talking, had always been her favorite part of their day. “You must have no conscience at all.”

  “None,” he confirmed. He smiled as he kissed the top of her head. He hadn't been this happy in years, for that moment at least, all was well with the world. “Is the baby okay? Is he supposed to still be sleeping?” It was new to him.

  “He's fine. He sleeps late,” she said, touched that he was concerned.

  He began kissing her then, and they took advantage of the fact that Reed was still asleep to make love again. It was all like a dream. It was almost as though he had never left, except that they had both grown up in the past three years, and she was married and had a child. But what she shared in bed with Joe, and everywhere else, she had never had with any other man. All the feelings they had for each other ran deeper than either of them was able to understand. It was like some kind of primal pull. They had to be together. They were so different, so separate, each so unique, and yet in some part of them, they were as one. It needed no explanations and few words. Most of the time, it needed none at all. The words were only the external excuse for what they felt. The apologies they made. The promises they could no longer keep. The words didn't matter at all. It was the rest that bound them to each other's souls.

  The baby woke up finally with a healthy cry. Kate nursed him while Joe took a shower, and afterward she made breakfast for them. He wanted to linger over breakfast with her, and he laughed when the baby grinned at him from his little seat. And then he said regretfully that he had a meeting that morning, and had to go. He would have loved to spend the day with them.