“No, I guess not.” She watched him drive away. “I’m going to be leaving tomorrow. I have to go back to Paris. I let Celene Denarve, a gallery owner, talk me into another show there. It’s scheduled for next week.”
Eve looked at her in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because then you would have tried to make me go back and made it difficult for me if I decided to cancel the show.” She made a face. “Almost as much as Celene would have if she’d had to postpone. She’s been a good friend to me, but she’s got a bit of a Gallic temperament.”
But Jane would have canceled it without a thought if she’d thought Eve needed her here, Eve knew. “You bet I would have made your life difficult. Dammit, you dropped everything to fly to my rescue.” She reached out and lovingly took Jane’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Don’t be silly,” Jane said. “I did it for me. I would have been a nervous wreck if I’d had to gnaw my fingernails worrying from across the Atlantic.” She added teasingly, “What? Do you think I like you or something?”
“I thought there was a possibility.” She reached down and patted Toby’s head. “Of course, it might be that you just missed Toby.” She smiled. “If this is going to be your last night here for a while, I’ll ask Joe to put some steaks on the grill. You always like to barbecue.”
Jane nodded. “I like the ambience more than the food. The sun going down over the lake, the smell of the charcoal, you sitting on a folding chair beside the grill watching Joe. When I’m away, I remember all those things.” Her gaze went to Joe standing by the lake. “It’s good that I’m going away right now. You need some time alone with Joe. Things are . . . different now.”
“I can’t deny that’s true,” she said. “When I picked you up at the airport, I never dreamed how different they were going to be. But Joe seems to be handling it well.” She glanced at Jane. “How are you handling it? We threw a lot of weird stuff at you. To your credit, you never threw up your hands and told us to go to the nearest psychiatrist.”
“What can I say? If you were nuts, I didn’t want to be sane. So I had to go along for the ride.”
“It was a rough, bumpy ride.”
“But we all came through it.”
Eve gazed at her searchingly. “But in what state?”
“You’re asking me if I believe in Joe’s ghost? I still don’t know. It’s hard not to believe in her after you got that call from the senator. Yet it defies everything that’s solid and sure in my life.” Her hand tightened on Eve’s. “But you’re solid, you’re sure, and so I have to believe everything you believe. Yeah, I believe in Nancy Jo, but I’d believe a hell of a lot more if I could see or touch her.”
Eve laughed. “That’s my practical Jane.” She released her hand. “Now I think I’ll go down and tell Joe that a barbecue is in order.”
“I’ll take the steaks out of the fridge.” She hesitated as she turned toward the door. “You told me about Nancy Jo. You didn’t tell me if you’d told Joe that you’d been seeing Bonnie.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It would have been difficult. Nancy Jo was enough of a problem for him to face without Bonnie being thrown into the mix.”
“For him to face, or for you to have to give up to him?”
“What are you talking about?” Eve asked impatiently. “Joe has grown almost antagonistic toward Bonnie in the past few years. It would have just added fuel to the fire for him to know that my obsession has grown to the point that I even dreamed about Bonnie.”
“ ‘Dreamed’?”
“It’s hard for me even now to admit she isn’t a dream. Imagine how hard it would be for Joe.”
“But now he has his own out-of-the-world experience with which to compare it. I’d think that would make a difference, don’t you?”
Eve looked away from her. “I’m not sure.”
“You don’t want to give her up,” she said softly. “I was wondering if you’d react like that. You don’t want to share her. She’s been yours all these years in a way that was incredibly secret and special. To tell Joe about it would be like giving her up to someone else. You can’t stand the thought.”
“Ridiculous. I love Joe.”
“That doesn’t mean you want to share Bonnie with him. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to treasure Bonnie. You just have to realize what you’re doing. It was difficult, but you understood about Nancy Jo. That must have meant a hell of a lot to Joe. This is the time when Joe might come close to understanding why you never shared Bonnie.”
Eve felt stunned as Jane’s words hit home. Dear God, was Jane right? Eve had thought she was protecting herself from everyone thinking she was a nutcase. She had thought she was protecting her relationship by not letting Joe know how overpowering was her obsession.
But she was actually keeping Bonnie a deep, precious secret so that she wouldn’t have to share her. As selfish as a miser hoarding her gold.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” she whispered.
“Only you will know that, Eve,” Jane said gently. “Nothing could be more natural than for you to react like that. She’s your baby. She was taken away from you in life, so you want to keep this spirit of Bonnie close and safe. But either way you have to face it so that you can handle it. As I said, things are different now.” She reached over and kissed Eve’s cheek. “I’m going to go in and get out those steaks and start packing.”
Eve still stood there after Jane had gone inside, staring down at Joe beside the lake. His brown hair was rumpled from the breeze and his tea-colored eyes were squinted slightly from the rays of the setting sun. His shirt was open and even from where she stood, she could see the tiny wounds that scarred his chest and abdomen. Wounds that Jelak had inflicted because Joe wouldn’t allow Jelak to use him as bait. He was stubborn and loyal and giving and as loving as he was tough.
Emotion surged over her as she stared at him. Dear Heaven, she loved him.
She started down the steps. “Joe!”
JOE TURNED TO SEE EVE COMING down the steps. She was smiling, her expression eager.
“What?”
“Jane’s going back to Paris.” She had reached the bottom of the steps. “I thought we’d have a barbecue for her. Okay?”
“Sure. But you didn’t have to come down to tell me. You could have called me back to the house from—” He stopped, stiffening, his gaze going to the top step of the porch behind Eve.
Bonnie.
She stood there behind Eve like a loving shadow.
No, there was nothing shadowlike about the little girl on the step. She was standing straight, her legs slightly parted, all bright curly hair and eyes that shone as brilliantly as the sun on the water. Not a shadow. A guardian, fearless, vigilant, watching over Eve.
And watching over him?
“Joe?” Eve said.
Bonnie met his eyes and slowly nodded.
Then her luminous smile lit her face.
“What’s wrong, Joe?” Eve had stopped on the bank in front of him.
He pulled his eyes away from Bonnie. “Nothing.” He was bewildered, uncertain, and yet he was absolutely sure that nothing was wrong.
He looked back at the porch. No little girl. Bonnie was gone. What else could he expect? She was the one who had taught Nancy Jo the trick.
He tried to clear his head and remember what Eve had said. “You didn’t have to come down to get me.”
“I wanted to come down. I wanted to be near you.” She stopped in front of him. “Touch you.”
He smiled. “Be my guest.”
She reached out and put her hand on his bare chest. He could feel the warm smoothness of her palm, the strength of her fingers from years of working the clay. His heart began to beat harder as it always did when she touched him.
“And I want to talk to you,” she said. “I want to sit down here on the bank and talk about all the years we’ve been together.”
He grimaced. “Past history. Let�
�s strike new territory. I’d rather talk about the future.”
“No, first we have to talk about the past.” She looked up and met his eyes. “Because then we have to talk about Bonnie.”
THE END
* * *
Eve Duncan Will Return
April 20, 2010
Table of Contents
Start
FB2 document info
Document ID: bf0fb06c-1507-4619-bc4e-c8e9bb4cd7a0
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 21.4.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.48 software
Document authors :
Iris Johansen
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
Blood Game ed-9 Page 26
