Handful of Dreams

by Heather Graham

“Lady, the meter’s running, but it’s your money.”

  They sat a while longer, thankful for the heat in the cab. Still, the traffic didn’t move. The radio gave out static; horns beeped so loudly that the night seemed a cacophony.

  At last the driver turned to them, having understood some of the static on his radio. “Seems the bridge is blocked by an accident—a lumber truck. That means all the traffic is headed for the tunnel, and we’ve got heavy traffic ’cause there was a big political banquet today—a huge thing, hundreds of Americans coming over.”

  “Great!” Susan murmured.

  They sat a while longer, then the driver finally suggested that they could reach the tunnel faster by walking.

  They walked awhile, then Madeline’s heel broke off her shoe, so they ducked into what seemed to be the only lounge still open and ordered a drink. Madeline miraculously managed to find a waitress who carried glue and repaired her shoe—for the time being, at least. But then the waitress disappeared into the disgruntled crowd. Susan took her American Express card from her purse to hunt down her waitress. She paid the bill, but when she came back, her purse was gone from the booth. Madeline hadn’t seen anyone, so they crawled around on the floor and at last gave up, Madeline admitting that she had been so involved in pressing her heel into her sole that she might not have noticed if someone in the bar had reached over to snatch the purse.

  They reported the theft to the restaurant; they called the police. The police couldn’t get there, it seemed, and so they had to leave with nothing more than a promise that as soon as possible something would be done.

  “What am I going to do?” Susan wailed once they were on the street.

  “It will turn up.”

  “I have to fly out in the morning!”

  “I’ve got money.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to need it to get back into the States!”

  But the night was intended to get worse. When they reached the tunnel, Bill wasn’t there. Susan talked to a woman at the customs cubicle and was told that there should have been a bus back to the States but that it hadn’t shown up yet.

  “Oh, God! I think I’m going to have to walk back.”

  “Wait!” Madeline told her. “I see a guy over there. Maybe he’s a cabdriver!”

  “Madeline!”

  But Madeline was already rushing over to the bus terminal, so Susan followed.

  “You can’t walk through the tunnel,” the apologetic customs agent told her. “You’d asphyxiate from the fumes.”

  “I’ve got to get back!”

  “I’m sorry, I really am. This night is just an awful mess. The only way you’re going to get back over to Detroit is to hitchhike.”

  Susan turned to her cousin.

  “Well, we’ve got to get you into something, huh?” Madeline said, smiling in a manner that meant she was trying really hard to find the bright side of things.

  “What about you?”

  “Bill will show up eventually.”

  Susan was finding it hard to believe that she was standing in the middle of all the honking traffic, all dressed up, and that no one—no one—would pick her up. “Oh, God!” she said with a moan. But a truck went by then, with a pair of farmers in it. She smiled at them. They looked at her suspiciously. She would have gladly gone in the truck, but they said that there was no room.

  “Maybe I do look like a weapons carrier!” she muttered.

  “Show some leg,” Madeline suggested.

  “I think I’d strip naked if it would help,” Susan said, moaning. “You go out there and try some leg! I don’t believe this!”

  Just when Susan was about to absolutely give up, a horn blared at her. She turned around, shielding her eyes from the sudden flare of lights. Her heart lifted and soared. It was the rented Camaro, and David was driving.

  “A car!” Madeline cried out. “Oooh, and he’s cute! Oh, no—he’s too good-looking. Maybe he’s a mass murderer or—”

  “He’s not a mass murderer,” Susan muttered. “Not that I know of, anyway. It’s David Lane.”

  “Oh! And I’ll bet that—that’s him!” Madeline muttered.

  David rolled down his window. “Get in!” he yelled at Susan. She ran around to obey, much too frustrated to resent his tone or worry about Madeline’s words.

  “Hi. I’m her cousin Madeline,” she said, introducing herself, stretching out a hand graciously despite the cacophony all around them.

  “Need a ride?” David asked.

  “No, I’m safe by the customs agents. My husband will get here eventually.”

  “Good night, then!” David rolled up the window and inched ahead with the traffic.

  “Were you following me?” Susan snapped suddenly.

  “No. Other people have friends and relations in Canada, too, my dear.”

  Susan leaned back against the seat, exhausted and at the edge of her temper. She tried to stare ahead through the tunnel. David was doing the same thing.

  “Damn!” he muttered. “Of all nights for someone to try to play Dirty Harry at the border!”

  She didn’t understand his meaning until they came closer to the end of the tunnel. Then she realized that the border guard was taking his duty very seriously. He seemed to be searching every car.

  “You do have your ID?” he asked.

  “I—uh—” Oh, God! It was all in her purse. “I have my American Express card!”

  “What? Oh, my Lord! You’ve been watching Karl Malden too often. Susan, an American Express card is not an ID!”

  “My purse was stolen!” she shouted back.

  He took a deep, deep breath. It was finally their turn at the border. He snapped out his identification and got out of the car. Apparently he had a way with men as well as women; the guard began nodding, then actually smiled at Susan. “You are an American citizen, right?”

  “Right! Right!”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Philadelphia. No. St. Mary’s. Pennsylvania. St. Mary’s is very, very small, that’s why I said Philadelphia. Honest to God, I swear it! You see, my purse was stolen—”

  The guard was shaking his head, looking at David as if he were insane to be with such a scatterbrain. “Drive through.”

  David did just that, casting her a glance that assured her he thought he was insane himself to be with such a scatter-brain.

  “You don’t know where you were born?” he asked softly.

  “Oh, shut up! It’s been an absolutely miserable, rancid night, with everything in the world going wrong, and if you say one more word, I swear I’ll—”

  “What?”

  “Explode! Right here and now. But I’ll tear every hair out of your head first!”

  And for a second she thought that it would happen—that she would tear into him with all her pent-up frustration, anger, hurt, and fear. Or that he would forget all about the wheel and throttle her.

  But it didn’t happen. He stared at her, and then at the road, and then he glanced at her again and burst into laughter, and to her amazement she did too.

  And he reached out, putting an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close to him. “Your purse was stolen, huh?”

  “With everything but my credit card,” she said with a moan.

  “Well, everything can be replaced,” he said, trying to soothe her. Her smile remained. She allowed herself to close her eyes and nestle close to him.

  They reached the hotel and had to bang on the glass doors; apparently Detroit closed up at night. The guard told them that the main door was always open. David smiled and thanked him even though it didn’t matter since they were leaving in the morning.

  His arm was still around her as they wandered up to their rooms, another suite.

  “Want me to order a nightcap?” he asked a little huskily.

  She shook her head—she’d already had the two beers, and she was too nervous about the baby to drink more. But then she smiled again.

  “I’d love a strawberry shake
,” she told him.

  “A strawberry shake?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, at Lane we do try to please.”

  He picked up the phone to see if room service was possible. Susan tossed off her coat and shoes. “I’m going to take a bath,” she told him.

  He nodded in her direction. She walked into her room, closed the door, went to the bathroom, and ran water into the tub. She shed her clothing rather sloppily, wrapped her hair into a knot, and stepped in, feeling a rush of physical pleasure as the nearly hot water soothed her. She rested her head against the rim of the tub and mused that she really was crazy about David Lane.

  Idly, languorously, she began to lather her legs. And then she froze, not languorous at all, when she heard his voice. Very low and husky, and so sensual that her breath caught just as her eyes flew open.

  “I’m going to drop this thing before I get it to you if you keep that up.”

  How long had she been in the tub? He was freshly showered with a towel around his waist, standing in the doorway with a pair of paper cups.

  There were a million things she could have said, starting with, “Get the hell out.”

  She didn’t say it. She watched him move across the room to her. Kneeling by the tub, he ran his fingers over her soapy leg, then smiled as he handed her one of the cups.

  She even took it. Watching him, she sipped the frothy shake while he ignored his own and stared at her, grinning ruefully while he spoke.

  “I didn’t follow you tonight. I did come over, though, when I heard about the accident, hoping I’d find you if you were in trouble.”

  “Oh …”

  He reached for her shake. “Do you really want this?”

  Susan didn’t think she replied.

  “Come on out of there,” he told her, and his fingers, long and bronzed, closed around hers, pulling her up. Then she was standing, stepping from the tub, and murmuring ridiculously, “I need a towel.”

  “Take mine,” he offered, and it was suddenly ripped from around his waist and set around her shoulders. David held on to the ends, using them to urge her closer to his naked body until her flesh was crushed to his, alive with a warmth, beautifully aware of his body and … desire.

  “Tell me, my dear Miss Anderson,” he whispered, his eyes smoky and fiery, passionate and tender, “could you feel tonight, perhaps, just a wee bit of charity for a man who’s desperately in need of your touch?”

  She shivered as she stood there, trembling deep inside. But she couldn’t resist the whisper of his voice, the power of his eyes. Because, against all logic, she believed him. She also believed that what there was between them went far beyond the petty spats that rose between them, even went beyond the mistrust and the anger and … anything that either might have known in the past.

  She lifted her hands slowly, feathering her fingernails lightly over his torso to place her palms against his cheeks.

  “Yes,” she said simply, and then she might have melted, for his arms went around her tightly and his lips were on hers. It was not gentle, yet it was caring. His kiss ravaged with the need and desire of his soft-spoken whisper, demanding entrance to hers, searing her to the core with the thrusting movement of his tongue.

  Her hair slipped from the knot, cascading over his fingers like tresses of silk. A jolt of yearning rippled through him, a jolt of wonder. It was as if a mist surrounded them, shimmering like gossamer, creating enchantment. It was the same as it had been that first night he had touched her, looked into her eyes, stroked her flesh. And he wondered if it would be like this always, erotically sweet and gripping just to hold her, a sensation of purity even while it seemed that jungle drums began to pulse within him.

  He barely remembered moving; he had her in his arms. They fell to the bed together, and he was entangled in the length of her legs, agile limbs that drew his touch, the stroke of his fingers, the brush of his kiss. He rose above her, saw that mist in her eyes as they searched his. Arms braced by her head on the bed, he lowered himself to kiss her again. She welcomed him, slipping her arms around his neck, pulling him down, embracing him with her touch, with the undulation of her body, moving, touching him, thrilling him…

  He was in love with her. And she touched him with the will to give, to love in return. For one bitter moment he held her stiffly; he knew that he had been the one unwilling to give, unwilling to trust. He had been afraid, but he could be that way no more; not if he wanted to hold on, not if he wanted a chance to keep the magic.

  He pulled away from her once again and saw the magic of love in her eyes. He had to tell her.

  “Susan … I love you.”

  Her eyes widened, an emerald fire against the night, sparkling and radiant. And he thought that there might be tears in them, but he would never be sure, for her lashes lowered quickly. The sweet pressure of her lips fell against his throat, and then she showered his shoulders with little kisses and the graze of her tongue, and her nails stroked like a sensual spell against his back, raising the shuddering pulse inside of him to a thunderous pitch. He rolled, catching her to him, burying his head against her to lave her breasts with adoration, catching the nipples, stroking them, teasing them, loving them with tenderness and passion until the beat of his heart joined the thunder of her own, and her whispers were of both love and desire. Ah, and she was more than memory had told him, more slender, more rounded, her breasts fuller, her hips more wanton.

  Yes … he was in love.

  But it was she who cried out the words as he thrust into her, she who kept whispering incoherently, she who matched the wild splendor of his ecstasy and longing. He took the lead, and then she, moving over him, proud and straight in the night, her breasts a fascination that drew his hands, the arch of her throat making her ever more beautiful, her touch, her cry…

  And his hands moved from her breasts to her shoulders, sweeping her beneath him again as all was lost but the driving desire of the body. The feeling, the sensation that grew like a winter storm, raging and passionate and….

  Susan cried out his name. Her beautiful body went suddenly rigid beneath his, then shuddered again and again. He let himself go, soared like the winter wind to his own climax, and he knew that his body shuddered like hers, trembled and trembled again in the aftermath.

  He lay beside her, lacing his fingers with hers. Light from the bathroom spilled out upon them, reflecting on their locked fingers, on the length of her body, the swells of her breasts, the curves of her hips. When he met her gaze, her eyes were filled with a secret confusion.

  He touched her cheek, smiled, and only lightly qualified his words. “I am in love with you, you know. A response would be nice.”

  She looked at him and smiled a little sadly. “I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time.” Susan closed her eyes and shook a little—relieved as well as incredibly ecstatic. She’d been so terrified that he would know. The doctor had assured her cheerfully that first-time mothers didn’t necessarily show until they were a full five months. Some women gained weight immediately, but she seemed to be the type who did not. But there were differences; differences she could feel. There was a slight swell to her belly, and her breasts were definitely rounder, darker.

  But then the room was dark, and he wouldn’t be looking for such changes. And when he had touched her, nothing had mattered but the will to serve the promise of his words, the tenderness and passion in his eyes. And then, somewhere in it all, she knew she had received even more than the startling power of his lovemaking. She had received something from his soul.

  “David?”

  “Hmm?”

  She bit her lip lightly, then ran her fingers over the lower side of his back where she found the scar. “What happened?”

  He was silent for a long time. For so long that she was convinced he had no intention of answering her.

  Then he turned to face the ceiling, running his fingers slowly and lightly over the length of her arm.

  “When I was youn
g, just before my stint in the service was over, I had one of those wild and wonderful affairs.” He hesitated. “I’m going to say this, Susan, but then I want your promise not to talk about the past. Your past or mine. Promise?”

  “But—”

  “Susan?”

  She nodded, innately aware of what he wanted: a new beginning, time to find each other.

  He ran his hand through his hair and spoke dryly. “This girl was a lovely Eurasian, and like I said, I was young and disastrously in love. I wanted to marry her. She was living in Hong Kong, and I saw her every time I could get there. I don’t think she ever realized quite what I was worth—financially, that is. She did know all about payday, and she knew how to whisper I love you in two dozen languages. Anyway, I was about to leave for home, and I’d asked her to come with me one last time. She wanted to make love and promise that she would marry me—without words. I’ll never forget the way she looked that night.” He rolled back to her and smiled. “She’d intended to kill me that night for the money I carried. She had a full-time lover who didn’t mind sharing her for the money they could get from servicemen. They didn’t kill everyone; I was a special case because she warned her friend that I’d come after them if—if I lived to do so.”

  “Oh, David!”

  “Don’t! Please, don’t!” He laughed. “I think it only haunted me because I did love her. I haven’t loved anyone since. Not—not until you.”

  “Oh, David!” she whispered, gratitude and love shining in her eyes.

  “You can ‘oh, David!’ me that way anytime you want,” he told her huskily. She reached out and stroked his cheek.

  He kissed the line of her throat. “So let me love you, okay?”

  She could only nod. And then whisper and whimper …

  And cry out his name, again and again, with wonder at the beauty of it all. And just before falling asleep, she sighed with happiness and gave a silent little prayer of thanksgiving.

  It was a new beginning, Susan thought deliciously as she awoke four days later. They’d been through most of the cities on the tour, and now there was only Seattle to go. Busy days … wonderful nights.

  She stretched, reaching out a hand across the bed. They’d talked about so many things in little spurts. Lane Publishing, her classes in college, her writing, his work, her agent, his secretary, Maine, Jud—even the troublesome Sam. She’d talked a bit about Carl, told him all about Madeline and Bill, and he’d described his penthouse apartment in New York.