Vivian's Return

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  Admit it, sweetheart, you’re too used to being your own boss.

  This was something she had to do, though, if she and Paul were to have any chance at all.

  But this was Paul.

  From out of nowhere, surprising her with the clarity of recall, came a memory.

  Estelle’s elopement.

  Lorenzo and Maria had been against her relationship with Terry from the beginning, for Estelle had frankly admitted he had a criminal record. Lorenzo had been beside himself and had refused to listen to Estelle’s entreaties. He had barred Terry from the house.

  Only Paul had been willing to talk to both Estelle and Terry and he had done so despite his father’s uncharacteristic order against it.

  A few days later Paul had broached the subject again, trying to coax Lorenzo into at least meeting Terry and deciding on the basis of who he was now, rather than what he had been once.

  Lorenzo had been adamant but Paul chose to be just as stubborn. Vivien remembered them standing almost nose to nose and Paul’s words, “People change, Dad! They make mistakes and learn from them. Haven’t you ever made a mistake?”

  “I am the head of this family!” Lorenzo had roared back and Vivien saw Paul flinch. But he did not back down.

  “She’s your only daughter. You run the risk of losing her.”

  Lorenzo had turned and walked away without a word.

  Paul came across and sat down next to Vivien on the sofa and when he took her hand, his own was trembling. He looked wretched and Vivien knew that opposing his father, who he loved and respected above any other man in the world, was probably the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.

  She also understood that Paul was fighting for what he thought was right. He would not give in.

  For the next month Lorenzo sat with his head turned to the corner and he began to lose weight.

  Paul persisted in trying to convince Lorenzo to give Terry a chance.

  Finally, Terry and Estelle forced the issue. They ran away to the city and got married. Paul went to Perth after them and brought them back to face Lorenzo and Maria. Estelle had been defiant and Terry looked as miserable and exhausted as Lorenzo. Possibly that was the key to breaking Lorenzo’s silence, for he took Terry by the arm and led him out into the garden shed, where they stayed for hours. For all of those hours Paul paced the carpet, unable to sit still.

  He got his way. Three months later, Estelle and Terry had shared the Christmas table. It was that strength and determination upon which Vivien’s future rested.

  “Good odds,” she murmured and ran on.

  But even the best odds in the world didn’t take away the fear.

  Chapter Nine

  There was a jug of water and a glass sitting on the table when she returned, wet and contented, from her jog and the swim she nearly always finished off with whenever she ran along the beach. The water in the jug was at room temperature, for which she was grateful. Paul had remembered.

  He was standing at the radio, the microphone in his hand and his head down, with a dark fringe of hair falling across his brow. He was concentrating, listening to a conversation taking place between two other people.

  While Vivien alternately dried herself and drank deeply, she listened, trying to establish what Paul was so engrossed in. It appeared to be a conversation between someone on dry land and someone at sea—the static-filled jerky relay of a mobile radio was unmistakable. Straining to pick out the electronic megahertz display from her position at the table, Vivien identified the band that the Harbor Authority used most of the time.

  When the conversation ended on an inconclusive note, Paul lifted the microphone to his mouth. “I’ll stay on standby too. Out.” He replaced the microphone and then noticed her. “You’re back. How far did you go?”

  “About three miles.” She nodded toward the radio. “What’s happening? Is there a problem?”

  Paul shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just the Harbor Authority getting paranoid. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t do that!” Vivien cried, bringing her hand down flat on the table top with a crack, suddenly vehement. “Do you treat Jenny this way? Why do you do it?”

  Paul stared at her. “Don’t do what?” he asked, astonished. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Don’t dismiss me that way. I want to know what’s happening—I don’t want your censorship.” She shook her head. “Damn it, Paul, that’s exactly the way you used to react before, whenever I asked you about your work. I was patted on the head and told to run along.” She couldn’t believe that after her optimism of barely twenty minutes ago, Paul was already proving her wrong. She closed her eyes. “This is crazy,” she murmured to herself. “This is never going to work.” She looked at him. “I’m leaving,” she said flatly, moving toward the door that led to the bedroom, where she had left the rest of her gear.

  Paul’s hand snaked out, to catch her arm as she passed, bringing her to a halt. “Talk to me,” he said flatly, the furrow between his brows growing. “Come on, Vivien. You’ve never backed away from a fight in your life.”

  “I have. Seven years ago,” she said softly. “And I’m about to do it again.” She swiveled to look at him. “I can’t do this again. I thought I could. I thought it was worth it, but I fought you for nearly five years and I’m too tired now to step back into the ring.” She tried to smile. “Even with a hide as thick as mine, the blows eventually start to hurt. When it hurts I know it’s time to throw in the towel.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Give me a chance. Everyone makes mistakes, Vivien. Even you.” He lifted his hand and pushed it through his hair. “There’s a small cargo ship coming down the coast that’s failed to report in since it passed Port Hedland. They’d already reported problems with their transceiver and the backup was dodgy, too. It’s a shoestring outfit that’s barely breaking even and it could simply be a matter of faulty equipment but the Harbor Authority is manning the radio and going to low-grade alert until they hear one way or the other.”

  Vivien bit her lip. He was talking to her. He was trying. “Why are you standing by?” she asked.

  “They want me to go out and spot it in the morning if they haven’t heard. In the meantime, if they call in that they’re in trouble, I’ll have to drop everything and go. So, I’m on standby. None of the other pilots is close enough to a radio to do it.”

  Vivien tried to smile at him. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Will you stay?” he asked.

  She hesitated. He was trying. He’d answered her as fully as he could. She had to give as much as he had. She tried to smile. “What’s for dinner?”

  Abruptly and unexpectedly, she was enveloped in his arms, gathered up and held tight and she was surprised to feel his heart beating at a frenetic pace. He pressed his lips to her temple.

  “I’m salty,” she said automatically. She was still wet from her swim.

  “I don’t care,” he muttered. The lips trailed along her cheek, following the curve down to her mouth.

  Her heart picked up its beat, matching his. Vivien felt mental and physical echoes in her mind. She had been here in Paul’s arms so many times before, yet this time it felt like he was holding her for the first time. There was a sense of unfamiliarity that held her responses in check and cried caution.

  Gently, Vivien pulled away. “Paul,” she murmured.

  He lifted his mouth from her skin to look at her and she shook her head. “Not yet.”

  She watched as Paul struggled to contain his needs, the struggle playing out on his face. Finally he released her and stepped back a little so that he was still close but not in contact. He caressed her arm. “You’re right,” he acknowledged. “I’m sorry. For a moment there, when you agreed to stay, it felt like I’d won a major victory already.” He grimaced. “You’d better go and have a shower,” he told her gruffly.

  * * * * *

  Paul was demanding and discerning when it came to food. He was almost pedantically
health conscious. It was an extension of his robust sense of self-preservation—one more means of fighting the odds. But every now and again the yen for home cooking would creep up on him and he would unashamedly binge.

  Vivien found the dining room table was spread for just such a feast when she emerged from the shower, wrapped in the thick terry-toweling robe she had found in the en suite. She had considered getting dressed once more, but the run had left her relaxed and her mind at ease. She resisted donning the binding clothes again. Paul had seen her in a robe many times before and she made sure it covered her properly and completely so he would not mistake the robe as a sign of encouragement.

  She walked over to the table and studied the dishes. Paul entered from another door, a steaming casserole in his gloved hands. He smiled at her and dumped the dish onto a cork mat already waiting on the table. Sliding the gloves off his hands, he grabbed her waist and pulled her up against him and kissed her firmly on the lips. “You’re just in time,” he murmured, tracing the line of her jaw with his lips, along to the sensitive hollow under her ear. His hands were exploring the small of her back through the fabric of the robe and one trailed down to the robe’s hem and underneath, to slide up along the back of her thigh, up until it cupped the swell of her buttocks. “Mmmm...no more salt,” Paul murmured against her ear.

  This time, Vivien sensed that Paul was controlling himself and she didn’t try to warn him again. She closed her eyes so that she could concentrate solely on the sensations he was provoking in her body. She had forgotten how easily Paul could stir her senses. She had deliberately forgotten, or the memories would have driven her crazy with desperate need within a month. Briefly, she wondered if she should have put her clothes back on after all.

  This is Paul, she reminded herself. You used to trust him with your life, remember?

  She relaxed again and rested her hands against his shoulders for balance, feeling the warmth of his skin even through the thick black sweater he wore.

  “Hungry?” Paul murmured against the nape of her neck and Vivien suppressed a smile. Eating and making love were to Paul’s mind grouped together as equally delightful ways to spend his time. He could make both a sensuous experience. So it wasn’t the abrupt change of subject it appeared to be.

  “Starving.” She kept her tone light.

  He lifted his head from her skin to look at her and his eyes danced with silent laughter. “And for food?” he asked. “I have prosciutto, a Mount Barker Sauvignon, freshly cooking crayfish and a tub of that sour cream sauce you used to like, Mama Maria’s own tomato sauce, gnocchi and tostados with refried chili beans.”

  “Damn the cholesterol, full speed ahead, huh?” Vivien replied, her own mouth watering at the unconventional but savory selection. It was a mix of Cuban, Italian and local cuisine and if Paul was still the demanding gourmet of old, then it would be cooked to perfection.

  Paul took her hands from his shoulders and led her around the corner of the table to the chair at the end and sat her down. “Time to eat food, now,” he said. “Later, we’ll see.”

  The meal was heavenly. Vivien ate heartily, her appetite always healthy thanks to a demanding lifestyle. Paul’s meal managed to assuage cravings she hadn’t been fully aware of and that Morris’ spicy Mexican lunch the day before had only stirred more fully awake. What other sense-memories had her return to Geraldton prodded? It had been many years since she had indulged in such a rich meal as this one. The last one had been in Paul’s company too.

  As with everything else he did, Paul ate with zest. Vivien watched him, fascinated, refreshing old memories. They had sat many times before like this—eating, touching, and restoring their bodies and souls. Often, they would move gradually from table to bedroom and the touching and tasting would graduate from food to each other’s bodies. No wonder the two activities were related in Paul’s mind.

  To distract herself from continuing the mental imagery, Vivien cast around for a topic of conversation. “I saw the diving manual on your bedside table,” she said, remembering the distinctive spine of the book. “Are you going to learn?”

  Paul shrugged. “I already know how, after a fashion,” he said. “I thought I’d better do it right, seeing that everyone keeps asking me to do underwater salvage.”

  “You’ve been diving on rescues?” she asked, her mouth abruptly going dry and the food in her stomach curdling. She put her loaded fork down and pushed her plate away. “You’ve been diving without any training?”

  Paul grinned. “What’s to learn? You put the gear on, you breathe steadily and you keep an eye out for unfriendly creatures with teeth.”

  To answer him properly would take a week and even then he wouldn’t know it all. Vivien stared at him, appalled at his foolhardiness. A dive for pleasure, if everything went right and there were no problems with your health or your equipment, was just as simple as Paul had catalogued. But training gave you the knowledge necessary to survive if one of myriad non-preventable, unforeseeable things might go wrong under the water. To tackle rescue work without that training....

  “Aren’t there any qualified divers who can do the work?” she asked, her voice strained.

  Paul’s grin faded. “Of course there are, Vivien. For god’s sake, don’t look at me like that. I’m not the biggest fool in the world. Why do you think I’m bothering to learn it all properly? Sometimes a qualified diver isn’t to hand. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been asked to do underwater stuff—”

  “Because you’re the only idiot who will risk it,” Vivien snapped.

  “Because they know I’m good at getting myself and other people out of trouble,” Paul finished gently.

  Vivien closed her eyes for a moment, marshaling her control once more. “Will you do me a favor?” she asked, keeping her voice smooth and gentle.

  “Anything. Name it,” Paul answered instantly.

  “Don’t do any more diving until you’re qualified. Please?”

  It was a long moment before he answered and when he did, his voice was low. “I can’t promise that, Vivvy. What if they genuinely need someone? What if someone’s life is at risk? Geraldton’s on the coast...the odds are good that any rescue at sea is going to need underwater work. If there is no one else who can do it, I have to.”

  He was right.

  Paul reached with his fingers to trace the hollow of her cheek with a gentle forefinger. “I only dive when I have to, Vivvy. I don’t volunteer. I’m not suicidal. That’s something you’ve always misunderstood.”

  Vivien bit her lip. “What about when I left? Morris thinks you were suicidal, then.”

  He withdrew his hand. “Yes, it would have looked that way to Morris.”

  “Are you saying you weren’t? That all those breakneck things you were doing were for fun?”

  “I wasn’t anything after you left,” Paul said gruffly. “I was numb. I was trying to feel something. Anything. Any emotion at all—hell, even flying left me cold. Gross fear was the easiest to try to provoke.” He looked away from her, as if the confession was a painful one.

  “You found it then,” she said softly, sparing him further agony. “Morris said you stopped it all, about a year later.”

  “No, I didn’t find fear. I looked at myself one day and really saw what I was, instead of just seeing a face that needed shaving or looked tired. I saw I was in danger of becoming what you already thought I was. I knew you would despise me for it. You’d already left me because of it. So I...just stopped.”

  Vivien shook her head. “I left because you wouldn’t let me be a part of your world.”

  “You already had more of me than anyone else. What else could I give you?”

  “You wouldn’t let me volunteer for sea searches.”

  “I never stopped you,” Paul said evenly.

  “No, you just gave me a choice. You or rescue work.” Vivien couldn’t keep a touch of bitterness from her voice.

  Paul pushed his chair out from under the table a
nd reached for her hand, tugging her to her feet and bringing her around the corner of the table to his side. He pulled her onto his lap, which brought her to just above his eye level. “I was wrong,” he said gravely. “We both know that.”

  “And what happens now?” Vivien said softly. “Where do we go from here?”

  The telephone began to ring, making them both jump. Vivien stood up quickly and for a moment Paul stayed seated, looking at her. It looked as if he was going to ignore the call.

  “It has to be someone you know,” Vivien pointed out.

  Paul nodded and stood too. He seemed reluctant. He crossed the room to the desk and picked up the phone. “Paul Levissianos.”

  Then his face dropped back into the neutral expression Vivien had been confronted with all week. “Hello, Jenny.”

  Vivien whirled away, to look out the window but not before she caught Paul’s quick, almost guilty glance at her. Vivien stared blindly out the window, trying not to listen to Paul’s voice as he spoke in quiet monosyllables behind her.

  Paul has a life too, she thought. I’m not the only one who will have to cut ties if Paul and I try to work this out.

  “I know, Jenny. I’m sorry.”

  Vivien shut her eyes. She shouldn’t be here.

  “No, next Saturday is still on.” It was clear that Paul had made prior arrangements with Jenny.

  Vivien crossed the room to the door that led to the bedroom. She felt like an interloper. She couldn’t stay here. Moving quickly, she dressed and gathered her things together, stuffing them back into the sports bag with no concern for order.

  “You’re not leaving?” Paul’s voice was flat, surprised.

  “Yes,” Vivien replied, keeping her back to him, as she zipped up the bag.

  “Why? Because of the phone call? Because it was Jenny?” he asked.

  Vivien picked up her bag and turned toward the door. Paul stood in the doorway, barring her way. “The phone call reminded me of something I had forgotten,” Vivien told him. “It’s clear you’ve stood Jenny up.”