No Place Like Home

by Leigh Michaels

  Her voice was painfully tight as she asked, “What is there to explain to him?”

  Then she held her breath.

  Please, she begged silently. I’ve gone as far as I can. You have to talk to me, Brendan. Tell me you care for me. Tell me that you don’t want me to marry Graham. Tell me anything at all, even that you don’t know what you want right now, that you don’t know if we have a future, but you want to find out—

  The silence lasted a full minute. Then Brendan rolled off the bed with a single fierce lunge, and Kaye clutched her beach bag to her breast, as if it might provide a little protection. But he didn’t come close to her. Instead, he reached for his street clothes, folded in a neat pile on a chair, and started to get dressed.

  “You’re quite right,” Brendan said, with a cold certainty that seemed to cut her into slices. “There’s nothing to explain to him. Just a stolen day of summer, I think you called it. He certainly couldn’t object to you having a holiday.”

  There was a burning ache in her chest, as if her heart had quietly ripped in two. It was an agony too painful for tears to ease; yet, in a way, it hurt less now that she knew for certain where she stood. At least now she wouldn’t make a clown of herself any more. He might have used her, and made a fool of her, but at least he couldn’t laugh at her folly any more.

  In the elevator, though, her control snapped. Brendan had hurt her more than any other man had ever begun to, and he deserved a little pain himself, she thought. He deserved to hear the truth. That would be far more painful for him than anything else she could say.

  “I ought to marry Graham,” she said, her voice low and bitter. “At least I know what to expect from him. He’s honest and decent, and if I don’t exactly love him, at least I can respect him and believe in what he says. He’s stable and dependable—he goes to work every day, and he doesn’t just fling off for a fishing trip or a day in the Bahamas any time it suits his fancy. What you call your precious independence frightens me, Brendan. It looks like selfishness to me. You’re just like my father. You’re the only person you care about. You use people and toss them aside. What are you going to do when the fun runs out? It’s all very well to be a footloose playboy in your thirties, but your memories won’t keep you warm forever. When are you going to realize that the most lasting things in life take work, and dedication, and sacrifice? I feel sorry for you, Brendan. And I feel sorry for myself. My fiancé is in Colorado making sure his product doesn’t hurt the innocent children it’s supposed to help, and I’m here having an affair.”

  “Believe me,” Brendan said harshly, “Graham won’t hear about this little romp from me.”

  Kaye looked him straight in the eye and struck back, in the only way she knew how. “It never occurred to me that you might tell him. It would ruin your chances of selling a house and getting a commission.”

  The instant the sarcastic remark was out of her mouth, she regretted it; if there was one thing Brendan McKenna wasn’t, it was money-hungry, and it was a dirty thing to accuse him of. But she hardened her heart and refused to even think of apologizing. She didn’t regret the other things she had said, and she wasn’t about to start telling him she was sorry.

  At the hotel entrance they were hailed by a middle-aged couple just getting into a taxi. Brendan’s fisherman friend and his wife, Kaye thought. They were late going back as well.

  Brendan’s hand closed on her arm as if to pull her back into the hotel. Kaye shook him off. “May we share your taxi?” she called.

  “Sure,” the man replied. “The driver promised to get us to the airport in record time.” He occupied the time by detailing his day’s sport to Brendan, who sat across from Kaye and watched her all the way to the airport. She wouldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to see what might be in his eyes.

  Finally, the fisherman’s wife sighed. “I spent the day in the casino on Paradise Island so I wouldn’t have to go fishing with him,” she told Kaye, “and I’d just as soon not hear all about it on the way home, either.”

  Kaye nodded her agreement. “Why don’t we swap seat partners on the flight?” she said. Anything would be better than long hours of uncomfortable silence, cramped into the narrow seats of the plane, next to Brendan’s body but miles from his soul.

  She heard scarcely a word the talkative casino player had to say as the jet arced through the night. Kaye was too busy going back over the day—every phrase, every touch, every gesture—searching for meaning, wondering where she had gone wrong and what she could have done differently. She had been so sure that he must care for her, too. How could she have been so wrong?

  “They can’t take memories away,” Brendan had said.

  Too bad, Kaye thought. I’d pay to be rid of this one. But where, she asked herself helplessly, where did I make the mistake?

  *****

  Her anger burned itself out somewhere in the darkness over the heart of America, and she began to wish that she hadn’t flung those angry words at him.

  There was truth in what she had said, of course—his independent streak, his unwillingness to be tied down, did frighten her. But not everything she had said was true.

  He was not like her father, not altogether, and it had been a cruel and hateful accusation to fling at him. He had used her, yes, but had she not used him as well? There was a gentle side to him—a generous and tender side he showed to Nora. Those were things her father had been incapable of feeling.

  Why, she wondered painfully, can’t I seem to touch that side of him?

  When they finally landed at the airport outside Henderson, it was nearly midnight. Kaye struggled off the plane with her beach bag and her big basket. The shock of the cold March wind outside the terminal, after the glorious sunshine of the Nassau day, nearly took her breath away. She was almost to her car when Brendan called her name.

  She spun around, her heart thumping. Had he, too, spent the flight going over each word? Then, perhaps, there was hope. Perhaps he was coming to tell her that he understood what she had been trying to say, and that he did care after all...

  And she knew, with every cell of her body, that if he said a gentle word she would fly to him. She would leave the world behind and count it well lost if she could have him instead. Better a life with him, unpredictable and unsettling as it might be, than the dull serenity of existence without him, if only he cared about her, just a little bit...

  But the stern set of his jaw removed any hope from her heart. She looked up at him in silence, and he thrust the emerald ring at her. “You wouldn’t want to explain how you happened to lose this,” he said curtly.

  She automatically took it. It was still warm from his hand as she slid it on to her finger. “No,” she said, honestly. “I wouldn’t. Thank you for keeping it for me today, Brendan.”

  He looked at the ring, the outdoor lights reflecting harshly from the green surface of the huge stone. Then he turned, without a word, and strode away across the parking lot.

  She felt as if he had taken her heart with him.

  *****

  Emily and Marilyn wanted every detail. By noon Kaye’s nerves were screaming with the effort of keeping up a bright line of chatter about how wonderful the trip had been, recalling every fragment of the business arrangements for Marilyn’s benefit, and not letting slip a hint of the darker side. She studiously avoided the mention of Brendan’s name, afraid that her voice alone would give her away.

  The only thing that saved her, she thought, was the fact that, with Marilyn there, Emily couldn’t ask the questions she really wanted to. Emily was obviously dying to know how her plot had worked out, and Kaye was determined to give her no satisfaction.

  No, she admitted, that wasn’t quite true. She was afraid of what Emily would say. The last thing she wanted was sympathy, and if Emily gave her any, she would probably melt into a puddle of tears in the middle of the office floor. When Emily went to lunch, Kaye sank into her chair with a thankful sigh. At least she had an hour when no one would be askin
g difficult questions.

  Thirty minutes later, Claudia Forrest came in, and Kaye swallowed a groan. If there was one person she didn’t want to talk to right now, before she’d had a chance to give her engagement ring back, it was Graham’s mother.

  Claudia’s bright blue eyes summed up the office. “Graham’s coming home today, and I thought it would be a nice surprise for him if we picked him up at the airport and took him to lunch.”

  Kaye closed her eyes momentarily in gratitude that she had the world’s best excuse to say no. She couldn’t imagine a more uncomfortable afternoon.

  Marilyn turned from the filing cabinet where she was putting new guide books in order. “You can go early, Kaye,” she said generously. “I’ll cover the office till Emily comes back. Take as long as you like.”

  That’s another person who will be disappointed when my engagement’s broken, Kaye thought. But before she could protest, or attempt to explain, she was being bundled out to the car.

  The airport terminal was quiet, a considerable change from the night before, when the weary planeload of sun burned travelers had debarked. She’d been standing just about here, Kaye reflected, when she’d looked up to see Brendan’s eyes on her. That was when she had fled out to her car, and he’d caught up to return her ring.

  “Kaye,” Claudia said gently.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “That’s just it, dear. I haven’t said anything for ten minutes, and you didn’t even notice.” Then, even more tenderly, she added, “You don’t look like a girl who’s anxiously waiting for her fiancé. You’re dreading the moment when Graham gets off that plane, aren’t you?”

  Kaye nodded, wearily.

  “I was hoping that the strain between you at brunch that day was only wedding nerves,” Claudia mused. “You’re not going to marry him, are you?”

  “No.” It was a painful whisper. “I don’t love him.” Last week, she thought, I’d have said it didn’t matter.

  “Love,” Claudia said.

  Kaye braced herself.

  But then the older woman surprised her. “It’s so easy to talk yourself into believing that it doesn’t matter,” Claudia said softly, “that other things are more important to the success of a marriage. And in the daylight, it really doesn’t make much difference if you love your husband. But in the stillness of the night, Kaye, when the babies are sick, or when you can’t sleep and you find yourself lying in the darkness next to a man you sometimes feel you don’t even know—then love makes all the difference.”

  “You sound as if you know,” Kaye ventured.

  “I do. I was a good wife, Kaye, and I don’t believe that my husband ever realized that there might be something missing. But I knew.” She rubbed her neck absently, as if it ached. She looked suddenly older. “I want better than that for my son. I thought perhaps you were it.”

  Kaye shook her head. “I wish I was,” she said honestly, and for a moment she wondered if it might be possible, after all. It would be so much easier to marry Graham than to have to live with the memories of Brendan—

  They can’t take memories away...

  Oh, stop it, Kaye told herself fiercely. If you’re going to remember every crazy thing he ever said, and repeat it inside your head like a refrain, they’ll be hauling you off to a padded cell before the week is out. And who says, anyway, that marrying Graham could make you forget?

  “Tell Graham I’m sorry I couldn’t stay to meet his plane,” Claudia said. “I’ll take a cab and leave the car for you.”

  Kaye rose with her. A dozen things were fluttering through her mind, uppermost among them admiration for the tact this lady displayed in leaving her alone just now.

  I never thought of her as a real human being before, Kaye thought. It never occurred to me that she had feelings, and tragedies. In the end, she said only, “Thank you, Claudia.”

  On the way back to town, she broke the news to Graham. “I just don’t love you,” she finished honestly. “Not in the way that I need to, in order to marry you.”

  “Love can grow,” he reminded.

  “Not—” she hesitated. Not when there’s someone else in the way, she had almost said. “I don’t think it would, in our case.”

  “There’s someone else.” It was not a question, and before she could say anything, he had taken the next step. “That real estate agent.”

  She didn’t deny it, and a moment later he said, “I find that very difficult to believe, Kaye. What has he got to offer you?”

  “Nothing,” she whispered. Not even the hope of a future, she thought.

  Graham sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in arguing with you.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll just say, Best wishes.”

  “Thank you for understanding, Graham.” She tugged the emerald ring off her finger and dropped it into his hand.

  “I didn’t say that I understood,” he pointed out. He sounded a little peevish, as if his pride had been scratched but his heart left untouched. She was glad, suddenly, that she had discovered the truth before she married him. It would have been a disaster for them both.

  He parked the car in front of the travel agency and walked her to the door. “Let me know when the children come, Kaye. I’ll send you a case of baby food. You’ll need all the help you can get, I’m afraid.”

  He sounded like a fretful old uncle, and she burst into half-hysterical laughter and threw her arms around him. “Thanks, Graham. You’re a dear, really you are.”

  He looked down at her. “You would have had everything a woman could want, Kaye.”

  “Except love,” she agreed, suddenly sober. “And if I loved you, and you loved me, that alone would have been enough.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him goodbye, and then she went back into the travel agency to pick up the disrupted threads of her life.

  In time, perhaps, she thought, the painful parts of the last few weeks would dim, and she could remember the glorious moments instead. Perhaps. She hoped it would be soon.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE week crept by. She didn’t exactly expect to hear from Brendan, and he didn’t call. And though she would have liked to be brave enough not to care whether she saw him or not, she made a careful survey of the parking lot at the shopping plaza each day when she went to work, and breathed more easily when she didn’t see his car.

  It will get easier, she told herself. The time will come when you don’t look for him anymore, and someday it won’t even matter to you when someone talks about him.

  But as the days wore on, she found herself regretting more and more the sharp things she had said to him. In the long, lonely evenings at home, she couldn’t keep from going over and over that last conversation in her head.

  She spent more time that week than she had in years reflecting on her father and the things that had made him what he was. He had been a dreamer, an impractical man caught in a prosaic world. Unable to deal with reality, he had fled from it, into one quixotic scheme after another. But never had he set out to hurt anyone. And though Kaye’s childhood had been deprived of material things, she had never been denied love.

  She could not help but wonder, now that she knew herself how it felt to lose a loved one, how much her mother’s death had changed him. Had her mother been the practical one, the person who could have been his anchor? Once he had lost his love, had the rest been preordained?

  And what of Kaye herself, and the man she loved? He was quixotic, too. Could she be an anchor for him— or would she ever have the chance to find out? Had the words she flung at him been too much for any man to stomach?

  She had been hasty, and she had said things that hurt. But the man had made no move to see her or talk to her.

  If he cared the least fraction about me, she thought, he would have called. He would have tried to explain.

  Or at least he would have stopped by to pick up his damned books, she thought, giving the stack of house-for-sale publications a shove. They
were still taking up space on her coffee table, and every time she looked at them it was like a thorn in her heart, a reminder of the precious hours when she had been certain that she mattered to him.

  She tried to feel angry that he hadn’t even come to get the books. He must have a horribly guilty conscience, she told herself, if he would actually replace the books rather than face her to retrieve these. But all she could feel was sad.

  “It’s not crazy to think about him,” she told Omar. “I didn’t imagine all the good things about him—the gentleness, the fun. I accused him of being a playboy, but he wasn’t the one who dragged me into bed. He may have taken advantage of me, but I’m the one who gave him the chance. If I had kept my head, we’d have gone to dinner and back to the plane, and we wouldn’t have had that argument, and I’d still be seeing him now. Damn it, Omar. Why did I have to be such a fool?”