“Nelson! Honey, what...let me.” She draped an arm around his waist and walked with him to her living room. “Lie facedown on the carpet, and take off your shirt.”
She ran hot water from the tap into a bowl, got a towel and applied the heat to his neck. Then he felt her straddle him, but the severity of his pain was such as to preclude the effect that her being in that position would normally have on him.
After she eased the pain with her fingers and repeated applications of the heat to his neck and shoulders, he sat up with his back against the sofa.
She knelt beside him. “Is becoming a four-star general worth this pain, and the crippling disease you’ll probably get from this damage?”
He leaned his head back and looked at her. “Probably not, and if I hadn’t made that promise to my father, I expect I would have given up on it. But I can’t. He went through so much for Joel and me. He sacrificed his own career for us and retired as a lieutenant commander when he should have become an admiral. He turned down one opportunity after another so that we could have a stable family life. After a while, the opportunities stopped coming. Joel is gone now, and that leaves me. I promised my father I’d make it to the top, and in less than five minutes after I said the words, he slipped away from us. I can’t give up.”
He drew her into the circle of his arm. “Didn’t you ever have a goal that your life revolved around?”
She rested her head on his shoulder, tentatively, as if fearing that she might hurt him. “I’m working to open my own practice. When I think of all that it entails, I get goose bumps. It means I start from the bottom with debts and the few patients who will be willing to follow me from the clinic. Most won’t, because the clinic will cost them less.”
“Have you set a deadline for yourself?”
She told him she’d found a place she liked and thought she could afford. “I hope to open by the end of November.”
“Maybe I’ll be your first patient.” He shrugged, dismissing the thought. “Just kidding. You’d have to report it, and I would never knowingly put you in a position where you had to choose between ethics and loyalty.”
“I’m just praying that what you’re going through will be worth it in the end. But I wish you could find a way to get the tests that wouldn’t be prejudicial to your career. It pains me to think about it.”
She had never said the words, and he suspected she didn’t plan to, but she told him in many ways that she cared for him, and it went far beyond that hell-for-leather heat they’d had for each other since they first met. It was in him, too, and deepening with each passing day.
“If you’re sure you’re all right alone here, I’ll leave now.”
She kissed the side of his neck and moved out of his arms before he could react and plunge them into fire-hot passion. As he left her, he had difficulty remembering what he was like as a man before she came into his life.
“This is dangerous,” he said aloud, easing the car away from the curb in front of her house. “I’m getting in deeper and deeper, and I can’t seem to stop myself.” He corrected that. “I don’t want to stop myself.”
* * *
As if she and Nelson were mentally attached to each other, her mind loitered in their private hell. She climbed the stairs, wishing she trusted her judgment about men sufficiently to follow her instincts and let herself love Nelson.
How much proof do I need? She undressed, completed her ablutions, said her prayers and was about to crawl into bed. Feeling perverse, angry at herself and wanton at the same time, she pulled off her gown and slipped her nude body between yellow satin sheets, which were one of her few extravagances.
She didn’t understand the unadulterated wickedness that stole over her as she reach over for the phone and dialed Nelson’s number. The minute she heard his voice, she wished she hadn’t yielded to the impulse.
“Hello, Audrey. Are you all right?”
“I...uh...I just called to say good-night.”
“You sound as if you’re lying down. Are you in bed?”
She wanted to kick herself, because she either had to admit it or lie, and she hated to lie. How could he tell? She decided to finesse the question. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“The soft, kittenish sound of your voice, that’s what,” he said in something approaching a growl. “If you want me to come back over there, just say the word.”
She tried to decelerate the rate of her breathing so that he wouldn’t be aware of her turmoil. “I called to...to say...good-night, Nelson.”
“You owe me better than that, Audrey. You know...one of these days you and I will lay our cards on the table. Secrets, fears, baggage we can’t seem to get rid of. I’ve been wondering what we’d be like together if we didn’t have all that stuff dragging us down.”
“You’re speaking for you, I take it.”
“No. I’m speaking for us. You think I’m so stupid I don’t know the reason you keep a protective barrier around yourself. Same reason that I do. Baggage. I’m going to take a good look at mine, and I think it would be good if you did the same. In my case, the damage was done almost six years ago, which means I’ve let someone control one of the most important areas of my life, a someone whose main contribution to my life has been pain. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
“Well?” he said when she didn’t answer.
“If all you’ve felt is pain,” she said at last, “consider yourself fortunate. I have the pain, yes, but sometimes the hatred I feel is so intense, so passionate, that it’s enervating.”
“I’m sorry. Really sorry. For both of us. We’d be great together, but unfortunately neither of us is able to get over that hurdle. I’ve just had a good talk with myself, though, and I’m turning a corner. I intend to try my damndest to put it behind me.”
She was sitting up now, the felinelike prowl that had beset her earlier had dissolved with the impact of his admission. His words hadn’t surprised her, but she hadn’t expected that he would ever utter them to her. He intended to free himself of the past. If only she could do the same.
“To promise I’ll do the same would be tantamount to telling you I’ll learn how to throw an elephant.”
“Let me help you.’
She leaned back against the headboard and looked toward the ceiling. “How can you? I need to help myself.”
“Give me a chance.”
“Oh, Nelson. I’ve heard those exact words before, and I complied. To my regret. I know in every chamber of my heart that you’re different, but I can’t see myself opening up to a man. If you knew! If you only knew!”
“When you trust me, you’ll tell me.”
She exhaled a long breath. “I guess that goes for both of us.” She blew him a kiss. “Good night.”
“At least you didn’t forget my kiss. Good night, babe.”
She didn’t want to get up and put on her gown, and she was no longer in the mood to sleep nude. How could you love a man if you didn’t trust him not to break your heart? She didn’t know if she could ever love any man again. And yet...
* * *
Monday morning following that all-revealing Saturday, Nelson sat at his desk working out a military game, a strategy for helicopter defense in the absence of other air cover, when he received a call from Lieutenant McCafferty, the Commandant’s aide. In response to her request, he walked down the hall to Room 100-A, two doors removed from his own office. He entered the Commandant’s reception room and stopped. If his hair had stood straight up on his head, he wouldn’t have been surprised. However, he strolled over to the man whose presence shocked him and offered his hand.
“Good to see you again, Colonel Holden. I’m sure you’re glad to be back.”
Rupert Holden, known in the service as Rupe, had just returned from Afghanistan, where he’d served in the unit that h
ad once been under Nelson’s command. A Lieutenant Colonel, and thus one rank below Nelson, he, too, commanded respect.
“It’s good to be back, too. I’m hoping for a lengthy tour stateside, but I don’t think there’s much chance. I’m told my office is a few doors down from yours, so we’ll be seeing each other.”
The officers stood, and Nelson looked around to see that the Commandant had entered the room. The Commandant introduced them to Rupe Holden in a briefing that lasted about three minutes, after which they were dismissed. Nelson shook hands with Holden again and hurried back to his office. Rupert Holden was the last person he needed in his life, the man who might know about the one time he broke Marine Corps rules and who, given the opportunity and a chance to curry favor, would delight in reporting it.
Holden didn’t mind ratting on his fellow officers and had done so several times. His superiors ignored the incidences Holden reported, claiming that such matters were personal and unrelated to the officers’ responsibilities. Nelson didn’t believe in infidelity, but he didn’t think Holden should have reported the officer who committed the act.
Nelson wasn’t certain, but in an afterthought, it seemed to him that Holden hadn’t given him the deference that one officer accorded a more senior one. If so, it might mean that Holden knew he’d overlooked a Marine sergeant’s infraction of the rules by sleeping on guard duty one night. He’d have to face the consequences of that when the time came.
* * *
“Where you going on vacation, sir?” Lena asked him when he got home. “You and Ricky need a vacation. You know, some change of environment.”
He propped his left foot on the bottom stair step and let a grin play around his lips. Used to Lena’s way of talking around a point when she wasn’t sure of her ground, he laid his head to one side the better to observe her unobtrusively.
“In other words, there’s someplace you want to go for about a week. Right?”
Laughter rolled out of her. “I declare, Colonel, if sometimes I don’t think you’re psychic. You young people don’t do nothing but work. I been telling Audrey she gon’ be dull as dirtballs.”
He held up his hand. “That’s enough of that. There’s no reason for Audrey and me to take our vacations together.”
She tossed her head. “That so? Things must’ve changed since I was your age. All right. There’s this family reunion we have every other year. This year, it’ll be in Orlando. If I’m going, I need to make my reservation right now.”
He wondered if she thought she could wind him around her finger. “When is the reunion, Lena?”
“Uh...weekend after this one coming up.”
“You may go, with my blessings. Do I still need a vacation?”
“Sure thing. But Ricky said he wants Audrey to go, too.”
“Too? You’ve been discussing this with Ricky?”
“Yes, sir, he’s a member of this family.” She rushed from the room muttering, “I do declare.”
He figured Ricky would nag him till he promised him a vacation with Audrey, but it wouldn’t happen. He went to his room, put his cervical collar around his neck, sat down and luxuriated in the relief he felt. Sounds of little fingers scraping across the harp in Ricky’s room drew him, magnetlike, and he found Ricky standing in front of his father’s harp, trying to play it.
The child ran to him, squealing his welcome. “Unca Nelson, I wanna play the harp!”
“But I thought we agreed you would learn the piano first until you got bigger and your arms were longer.”
“I like the piano, but I like the harp, too.”
“All right. I’ll get some professional advice about this and we will act accordingly. You understand?”
“Yes, sir. When will we get it?”
“It may take a couple of weeks, so try to be patient. In the meantime—”
“I know. Miss Lena said in the meantime I have to practice the piano.”
He caressed the boy’s shoulder, and Ricky looked up at him, smiled and went back to the harp. Why, he thought, don’t adults feel free to express love? Ricky’s smile told him more than words ever could. The child adored him. He looked at his watch.
“What do you say we drive over to the Waterfowl Sanctuary and look at the birds?”
Ricky’s face bloomed into a smile, and he knew what was coming. “Can Audie go, too, Unca Nelson?”
He was beginning to wonder if there was such a thing as Powers disease; if so, both he and Ricky had a severe case of it.
“Call her and ask her.”
“Nobody answers,” Ricky said a few minutes later. “Can we go to her house and get her?”
The child had to learn that he couldn’t always have what he wanted the way he wanted it. Nelson sat down. “Come here. A man does not go to a woman’s house unless she tells him he may visit her. Understand? We’ll ask her to go with us next time. Clear?”
The boy’s balled fists went to his sides, and he slanted his head, as he’d learned to do watching Lena. “Okay. But I don’t like that, Unca Nelson.”
His actions were a parroting of Lena, but the child’s facial expression reminded Nelson of his brother, and he had to push aside the moroseness that attacked him without warning.
“Do we have to go today?” Ricky asked him.
He understood that the child wanted to share the experience with Audrey, and sympathized with him. “No, we don’t. We’ll go one day when Audrey can come with us.”
Ricky looked up at him for a minute, then hugged him. “I’m going to practice my piano lesson,” he said, and ran down the stairs.
Nelson shook his head in wonder. As thanks for my considerateness, he won’t nag me about the harp, and he will practice the piano. Great! He’s only five. What will he be like when he’s fifteen?
He answered his beeper, wary, his senses heightened. “Yes.”
“Checkmate. Your man is in the neighborhood, seemingly out for a stroll, but he’s got company.”
He waited a few minutes, stood beside his bedroom window so as not to be seen and checked the surroundings. Very soon, Mustache walked by with a big black Doberman Pinscher on a leash. Out walking his dog, eh? What a blessing that he and Ricky hadn’t walked out of the house about that time. Suddenly, he laughed as a woman on in-line skates floated past. What a farce! This time, he knew the identity of his caller as soon as he heard the beep.
“Checkmate. Anything of consequence?”
“Not that I could tell. Talk to the old lady on the in-line skates.”
“She’s on the job. That canine is trained to attack.”
He figured as much. “When are you going to let me know who I’m dealing with and why?”
“We should have something for you in a couple of days. A week at most. Tell your girlfriend not to drive home through Rock Creek Park, day or night. If you told her what’s happening, she should know better. We’re putting a man in her reception area. Oh, yes, and tell your housekeeper to vary her marketing hours. So long.”
He waited fifteen minutes and dialed Audrey’s number. “This is Dr. Powers,” she said. He gave her the gist of his conversation with Marilyn and of his now-defunct plan to invite her to visit the Waterfowl Sanctuary with Ricky and himself. “That could have been a close one.”
“Right. Sorry I wasn’t home. I would have loved seeing the Waterfowl Sanctuary, but it might have been well that I left the office early to attend a meeting. This other thing seems serious. How will I know the identity of the person she’s sending to my clinic?”
“He’ll show you his ID before he says a word. Of course, it could be a female. I work for an equal-opportunity employer,” he added with a laugh.
“If this doesn’t get cleared up soon, I’ll have the willies.”
That was only one of his worries. “You and me bo
th.”
“Where’s Ricky?” Told that he was practicing the piano, she said, “He’s lucky to have you in his life.”
Good enough for him, but not for you, he thought and nearly voiced the words. “He’s done as much for me as I have for him. Bye for now.” She said goodbye and he hung up to contemplate his last words to her.
* * *
At noon the next day, he locked his briefcase in his desk drawer and went to meet Rufus Meade for lunch. He didn’t often allow himself the time or the expense of the Willard Room, that turn-of-the-twentieth-century elegance in the famed Willard Hotel where the country’s movers and shakers sealed deals over expensive lunches preceded by whatever cocktail was in vogue. To his way of thinking, that kind of elegance in the middle of the day was conducive to an afternoon of intellectual stupor. A hamburger and coffee was more to his liking.
He followed the maître d’ to the table, where Rufus Meade rose and stepped forward to greet him. A tall man, about an inch shorter than his own six-foot-five frame, Meade looked as fit as he would if he still raced down the field catching passes for the Washington Redskins. As an investigative journalist, the man had achieved legendary status for his meticulous, perceptive, sometimes jarring but always empathetic news accounts, which often precipitated social change. Change for the better.
Meade extended his hand. “Thanks for coming. I’ve been looking forward to this.”
“So have I,” Nelson said. “I’m very familiar with your work.” He looked up at the sommelier who hovered over them and shook his head. “No cocktail for me. Thanks.”
“And none for me,” Meade said. “Liquor fogs up the brain.”
They gave the waiter their order, each preferring a light lunch, and while they waited for the food, he observed Mead’s relaxed, casual air, wondering how much of it was feigned and how much was a natural element of the man’s personality. He didn’t seem eager to rush the interview, but spoke of himself and what he had observed while in Afghanistan.
This man is not only a sharp professional, Nelson thought, but he understands people and he’s letting me know that he’s on top of his subject, that he knows a lot about Afghanistan, the people and the American anti-terrorist activities there. He’s telling me that when it comes to knowledge of the place, we’re equals.
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