by Peggy Webb
“You’ll have to wait and see, Hallie.”
“I love presents. How long do I have to wait? Not ‘til Christmas, I hope.”
He laughed. “You remind me of a child.”
With a wicked gleam in her eye, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him in a most adult fashion. “I do, do I?”
“Only sometimes. Other times . . .” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Give me five minutes.” He started toward the bedroom.”
“Josh. . .”
“I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
It was one of the longest five minutes of her life. She’d always loved presents, but she’d always been impatient to get them. Her brothers used to say that if they wanted to know what Santa was bringing, all they had to do was follow her around the week before Christmas. She’d sleuthed out every hiding place her parents could think of. She’d become an expert at guessing what was inside by the way a package rattled.
She paced up and down the room, glancing at her watch every five seconds. After two minutes, she sat down and tried to work on her thesis, but it was useless. Finally, heaving a big sigh, she sat on the edge of the sofa, propped her hands on her knees and waited.
Josh stuck his head around the bedroom door.”I’m ready, Hallie.”
She hurried to the door. “Where is it?”
For an answer, he took her arm, pulled her inside and shut the door. He’d undressed and was wearing his robe. Slowly, he began unbuttoning her blouse.
“We had a conversation once. In a tree.” He tossed the blouse to a nearby chair and reached around her to unhook her bra. “Do you remember?”
“I remember almost everything you’ve ever said to me.”
He smiled. “And?”
“You said if you wanted me, nothing could keep you away.”
Still smiling, he unsnapped her jeans and pulled them down her hips. “True.” He tossed the jeans aside. “I also told you I was a man of many talents.” His voice became thick as he reached for her panties. “And you said—”
Suddenly Hallie grinned. “You didn’t!”
“I did.”
She untied his belt and opened the robe. His talents were wrapped in gold foil and tied with a big floppy red Christmas bow.
“How did you. . .”
“. . . With great care and lots of concentration. The mind is capable of wonderful things.”
She reached for the red bow. “I know something else that is capable of wonderful things.”
o0o
He left Memphis at midnight, heading back to Florence and what he’d come to think of as the real world. He watched Hallie, standing on the street, softly illuminated by the streetlamp, waving until he was out of sight. Already she was like a sweet dream who would only be a part of his memory, not his life. His hands clenched on the wheel. He would never subject to his broken-beyond-repair family.
o0o
The next weekend when he came to Memphis, Hallie broached the subject of coming to see him in Florence.
“No.”
“I don’t see why not.” They were sitting on the carpet, a bowl of popcorn between them, watching a rerun of Psycho. “It’s nearly a three-hour drive, and you have to be at work on Monday morning. I have only my thesis to work on.”
He lifted her right hand and licked the butter off the tips of her fingers. “Part of the magic in seeing you, Hallie, is in getting away. You’re my escape hatch.”
“Have I replaced trucking?”
“You could say that.”
“Do you know what you’ve replaced for me?”
“No.”
“Rodeoing.” She took the bowl of popcorn and set it aside.
“Can you be more specific?” He lay back and pulled her on top of him.
“Riding the bull.” Slowly, she began to undo his shirt buttons.
He grinned. “We’re going to miss the best part of the show.”
“Oh, no, we’re not.” She pressed the remote control switch and the TV went dark. “The best part’s just beginning.”
The best part lasted until dawn.
o0o
As the summer days passed, Hallie felt as if she were caught in a time warp. For her nothing existed except Josh and her thesis. Although she stayed in touch with her family by phone, the calls seemed to come from another time, another place. She was free-floating and happy, living for the moment, letting each day take care of itself.
Dr. Bluett, her thesis adviser, brought her off her cloud.
“Your work is superb, Hallie. So good, in fact, that I’ve taken the trouble to call an old friend and former colleague of mine. He’s very interested in talking to you about a job.”
“That was kind of you, Dr. Bluett.”
“My pleasure. He’s from California.”
“California’?”
Dr. Bluett smiled. “You say that as if California is another planet.”
It almost is.. More than a thousand miles away from Josh. Reality hit Hallie with a bang. It settled like a lump of sourdough in the middle of her stomach. She actually felt sick.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Bluett. You caught me off guard.” She drew up her shoulders and smiled. “Please tell me about this job.”
“After Ray Jones left Memphis State, he returned to his home state, established a small school for the educable mentally retarded in Carmel. He’s doing some wonderfully innovative work out there. A woman of your intelligence and imagination would fit right in. I’ve taken the liberty of giving him your phone number. He’ll call, then the two of you can decide whether you’ll be flying out for an interview.”
“Thank you, Dr. Bluett. I appreciate your interest.”
He pulled off his glasses and tapped her thesis with them. “You’re too good to waste. You’ll be leaving soon, and I want to see you well placed.”
After Hallie left Dr. Bluett’s office, she went straight back to her apartment. Her first instinct was to call Josh at work. She picked up the phone and dialed the first three digits, then she replaced the receiver. They didn’t call each other. It was one of those unspoken rules in their relationship, another of the barriers they didn’t cross. She didn’t intrude on his work, and he didn’t intrude on hers. The arrangement gave her a wonderful freedom, but it was as lonely as Christmas on a Texas range.
o0o
Every morning the first thing Josh did on arriving at his office was check his calendar. He walked to his desk and flipped open his appointment book. July 30. The date struck him like a blow. The summer was half over. The end of summer meant the end of Hallie’s schooling. And then what? She’d be gone. Somebody somewhere would offer her a job. She’d leave the apartment in Memphis. He felt a sudden aching emptiness. Images crowded his mind—Hallie lying on the red robe, honeysuckle cloying the air; Hallie in the Stetson, grinning like a nymph; Hallie in her cowboy boots, laughing at something he’d said. It should have ended for them at the lake—and at the rodeo. But it hadn’t. Logically they should part at the end of summer. He knew that as surely as he knew his name. But he couldn’t let her go.
What to do? He damned sure couldn’t ask her to marry him. Cold sweat popped out on his brow just thinking about it. Impatient with himself, he jerked open his desk drawer and pulled out a pad and pencil. He’d set the facts down in black and white. That always helped him to make decisions. And he’d focus on Hallie. What did she want? She’d been very frank about her visions for the future. Theater, he scrawled across the top of the page. Under that, special children. His excitement mounted as he worked.
Thirty minutes later he buzzed his secretary. “Sadie, reschedule my one o’clock staff meeting. I’ll be out for the rest of the day. This afternoon at four-thirty we’ll take a look at my appointments for the rest of the week to see if I need to make changes.”
He was smiling when he left the office.
o0o
When he arrived in Memphis the following Saturday, the first thing Josh noticed was Hallie’s greeting. She usually launche
d herself at him with a cowboy’s whoop, or sometimes she surprised him with an outrageous costume. Last week she’d met him at the door wearing three yellow roses, one on each nipple and one suspended around her hips by a gold cord. The week before that she’d greeted him wearing a creamy silk and lace teddy that looked as if it had been made from moonbeams. This day her greeting was reserved, almost sedate.
“How are you, Josh?”
He pulled her close and rubbed his cheek against her soft hair. “Great now that I have you in my arms.” Leaning back, he looked down at her. “How about you? Tough week?”
Hallie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The summer was half over, and it looked as if soon she’d be heading for California or heaven knew where, and Josh was acting as if it were just another weekend tryst. If he was feeling any of the panic she felt, it didn’t show. She bristled.
“If it had been a tough week, you would never have known. We don’t call. We don’t talk. I’m just a weekend lover.”
“Dammit, Hallie, you’re more than that and you know it.”
“Do I, Josh?” She pulled out of his arms and stalked to the sofa. “What am I?”
“You’re my friend. I . . . care for you.”
She hadn’t missed his slight hesitation. She didn’t know what she wanted to hear, what she wanted him to say, but it sure as heck wasn’t that.
“The summer will be over in a month.” She made the pronouncement in a voice as black as doom. She even threw in a dramatic sigh. Her brothers used to say that nobody could act upset better than she could.
The sigh wasn’t lost on Josh. He hurried to her side and sat down. His voice was gentle as he put his arm around her. “Don’t you think I’m aware of that? I don’t want our relationship to end any more than you do.”
Hallie had always had a hard time staying mad. She immediately forgot her anger at him and rested her head against his broad shoulder. He felt so good, so solid, so secure. For an instant she closed her eyes, imagining what it would be like to have Josh to come home to every day. “We knew it would be a summer affair when we started.”
“It doesn’t have to end here, Hallie.” Pulling back, he took her shoulders so she was facing him. “I’d meant to save this surprise until later, but I think now is the best time to tell you.”
“Unless your surprise is a magic carpet to Never Never Land, it won’t work. I’m grumpy today.”
He laughed. “I like you anyway. I’d be suspicious if you were Miss Sunshine every time I saw you.”
“I’ll have to remember that the next time I see you—if I ever see you again.”
“I’ve made certain you will.” He took both her hands in his. “Remember the day in the meadow when you told me you wanted to work with a special children’s theater?”
“Yes. Someday I hope I can.”
“It doesn’t have to be someday. It can be as soon as you finish your degree. Early this week I bought a wonderful old theater in Florence. It’s on a cobblestone street lined with maple trees. You’ll love it.”
Alarm bells rang in her head. For an instant she saw the dreadful fence Robert had built around their estate, saw the smirks on the faces of his bodyguards the first time they’d refused to let her leave. She felt panic. “You bought a theater?”
“Yes. I’ve also set up an endowment fund to finance your project.”
“You did all this without asking me?”
“That’s not the reaction I’d hoped to hear.”
She jumped up and began to pace the room. “What had you hoped to hear? You’re about to lose your lover, so you make other arrangements. You’re buying me, Josh. The price is steep and your motives are good, but you’re buying me, nonetheless. Just like Robert did.”
“What in the hell does Robert have to do with this?”
She continued to roam the room as she talked, her fists batting the air for emphasis. “He took everything from me. He had the power and the money to do it. While I was romping in his bed—”
“Hallie!”
“. . . he was going behind my back buying off my contract with the modeling agency, shutting down my accounts so I couldn’t finish my degree, buying a great big house with fences and bodyguards. He made me so inaccessible, even my friends couldn’t get to me.” She whirled to face him, her eyes blazing. “I was his possession. I won’t be any man’s possession, Josh.”
Josh strode across the room and took her shoulders in a firm grip. “I’m not Robert.” With one hand he caught her face and turned it to his. “Dammit, look at me, Hallie. I’m not Robert!”
She looked at him, the golden man who had brought her a drooping bouquet of bluebonnets, the noble man who had sacrificed his own happiness to care for his father and his brother, the fierce, passionate man who had loved her as no other man had. Suddenly she knew. She was in love with Josh Butler. In spite of her many avowals to remain free, she’d fallen in love with him. He was every bit as powerful as Robert, probably more so. He had the means to control her as surely as her first husband had.
Instead of feeling fear, she felt joy. Josh was a kind man, a good man. He had a sweetness of spirit that had been totally lacking in Robert. The only thing she had to fear from Josh, Hallie realized, was that he might never allow her to be a part of his life—his real life, his everyday life. He might never let her share his burdens and his problems as well as his joys.
A great sense of peace settled over Hallie as she opened herself to love. Her doomed marriage finally was put in its proper place: It was relegated to the past. A new kind of freedom soared through her—the freedom from fear.
She reached for Josh and tenderly cupped his face. “No, you’re not Robert. You’re the kindest, most generous man I know. And . . .” She almost said, I love you. She’d wait; the time would come. “. . . I appreciate what you did. But I wish you had consulted me first.”
He covered her hands. “Are you turning me down?”
“No.” She led him back to the sofa. “Last week my adviser arranged a telephone interview for me with Dr. Ray Jones from Carmel.”
“You’re going to California?”
She didn’t miss the sudden twist of pain on his face. “I haven’t decided yet. I liked what he said. His program is innovative.”
“I admit my motives were purely selfish. I want you near me. But if California is where you want to go, I can fly out on weekends.”
“Shhh.” She put her fingertips over his lips. “I don’t know what I’ll do yet. I have to have time to think about all this.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you have all the time in the world. The theater will be there if you want it.”
“And you, Josh? What about you?”
“I can’t offer anything, Hallie, except what we have.”
“That’s enough.” She moved into his embrace. With her lips against his, she murmured, “For now.”
Josh took her mouth greedily, and filled with the sure power of her love for him, she welcomed him.
In his hurry, his hands fumbled on her buttons. She heard the fabric rip as he tore her blouse aside. He jerked his own shirt, and buttons scattered across the floor. She found his frenzy exciting, another facet of Josh. He could be warm and tender, funny and playful, intense and serious – so many sides to Josh. And she loved them all.
But did her love her? Were his feelings for her deep enough so that she could dream she might someday have with Josh the kind of relationship that made Anna and Matthew Donovan such wonderful, loving parents. They were a stabilizing force in the family, a shelter from all storms. Anna and Matthew reminded Hallie of eagles. They loved their children so fiercely they flew underneath them when they were trying out their wings, ready and willing to catch them if they fell. But they also knew when to let go, when to send their children into the world, flying free.
The way Josh kissed her, the way he loved, should have said it all. But she needed more. She needed a dream to believe in, a hope to hang onto.
&nb
sp; “Hallie . . . my love.” Josh whispered, his words so garbled against her lips that she hardly dared to believe what he’d said.
But when he said them again, probably totally unaware, she caught the thread of hope and hung on. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
Our time will come. She’d make it come.
I love you, Josh . . . I love you. She said the words, but only in her mind. Then suddenly she was beyond rational thought.
Josh stripped off her shorts. His tongue sought the indentation of her navel, the soft down on her stomach. The sofa wasn’t big enough for them.
The world stopped for Hallie. She was flame. She was fire.
There was a desperate edge to their joining, as if they believed their passion could hold back time.
o0o
Their lovemaking set the pace for the weekend. They didn’t take time to go anywhere, not even the kitchen. They piled the dogs’ dishes with enough food to keep them satisfied, and then they secluded themselves in the bedroom. When hunger intruded, they picked up the phone and ordered pizza, egg rolls, whatever suited their appetites at the time.
But mostly they were hungry only for each other. They didn’t talk much. And when they did, they skirted around the important issues—the end of Hallie’s schooling, the theater in Florence, the job in California.
They were saying goodbye again, and both of them knew it. Not goodbye to each other, but goodbye to a lovely summer idyll, goodbye to an interlude of fantasy, goodbye to the apartment that had become their Never Never Land.
o0o
On Sunday night Josh rose from the bed.
“What time is it?” Hallie asked. She’d been catnapping; her voice was sleepy.
“Past midnight. Time to go.” He reached for his pants, then turned back for one last glance at her. Her hair was tumbled across the pillows. Her face, illuminated by rays of moonlight from the window, was glowing and beautiful. He bent down for one last kiss.
“Hallie, leaving you is the hardest thing I ever do.”
“I know.”
“I won’t be back.”
“I know.”
“You’ll be busy getting ready to defend your thesis.”
“Yes.”
“What about California?”
