Unspeakable

by Sandra Brown

  She didn’t let the thought form completely, because thinking about Jack made her sad, and she was going to let nothing dampen this moment. Unlikely as it seemed, she had a fan! She wanted to bask in the glow of the shopkeeper’s praise. Unfortunately, there was no one to tell of this news, no one with whom to share this momentous occasion.

  When they arrived home, she was so pumped she immediately loaded her camera with film, gathered her equipment, took David outside, and started posing him on the swing Jack had rigged for him.

  But the heat was oppressive, the atmosphere so sticky it seemed that the air clung to their skin. David got cranky and wouldn’t cooperate. Before long she surrendered to the climate and her son’s recalcitrance. As they trudged back inside, she noticed white, puffy thunderheads on the northwestern horizon, and thought how delicious a cleansing rain would feel.

  She fixed David a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and let him picnic on the living room floor and watch a video about dinosaurs while he ate. She went upstairs to her bedroom for a few moments alone.

  After Dean died, she had redecorated the bedroom so that every time she entered it she wouldn’t be reminded of the days and nights her husband had lain in the bed, struggling for each breath and fearing his own mortality.

  Decorated in shades of apricot and ivory, it was a soothing room, with baby portraits of David scattered about in silver frames. A few of her and Dean. One with Delray and Mary. Her favorite books lined the shelves of the open cabinet in the corner. An area rug broke up the space between the bed and the window, in front of which was a rocking chair. The room was personal but uncluttered. It wasn’t fussy, but uncompromisingly feminine.

  Too feminine. Very chaste.

  Some nights she was assailed by a loneliness so dense it was palpable. She hated sleeping alone. She longed to have someone lying beside her to touch in the night, to feel his breath against her skin, share his body heat, and know that she wasn’t alone in her dark silence.

  Other nights her desires took a decidedly more carnal turn. Following her periods, when she had always been easily aroused, she would have erotic dreams in which she and a faceless man were engaged in incredible sex. Sometimes she awoke in the throes of orgasm. Other times she awoke just prior to climaxing, and for the remainder of the night she was feverish and restless. On those nights, she hugged her pillow tightly and pressed it between her thighs.

  Yes, she missed sex.

  Jack Sawyer had made her realize how much.

  Pushing the thought aside, she moved to the dressing table, sat down on the tufted stool, and looked at herself in the mirror. What she saw terrified her. Because what she saw was a woman who had remained voluntarily mute for six years.

  Following Dean’s death, she simply hadn’t had the heart to continue practicing her speech. She’d been wrong to give it up. Everything she had learned to that point was probably lost to her now and might be impossible to regain. But she had to try.

  The encounter in the sheriff’s office earlier today had been unpleasant and humiliating, but beneficial. It had made her realize that if she were going to oversee the ranch, and negotiate contracts with timber companies, and stave off land-grabbing opportunists like Emory Lomax, and sell her photographs, and combat the ignorance and prejudice of people who spoke down to her because of her handicap, then she must relearn how to speak.

  She did not underestimate the task ahead. She accepted the limitations. Never would she be able to conduct conversations relying entirely on speech. Having been born profoundly deaf limited her capabilities, but it did not restrict her to absolute silence.

  Too long she had relied on others, even her young son, to speak for her. No more. She must learn to speak for herself. She must.

  Opening her mouth slightly, she exercised her vocal cords for the first time in years. She felt the vibration as the air moved across them and knew she had made a sound. It was probably just as well that she couldn’t hear the noise that had come out, or she might never try again.

  She hesitated, reminding herself that thousands of hearing-impaired people relied solely on sign language and chose never to learn to speak. They led rewarding, productive, fulfilled lives.

  But she and her parents had decided when she was a child that she would combine sign language with lip reading and speech. Deaf educators and private tutors had dedicated themselves to teaching her. Hours had been spent in front of a mirror as she was now, following the instructions of patient, caring therapists.

  She had been good at it and had become very proficient. Then Dean had died. Intimidation and self-pity had caused her to give up the skills she had worked so hard to acquire. Delray’s selfish wish for her to remain locked in silence had been a good excuse for her to become indifferent to it. She realized that now. She’d taken the coward’s way out.

  It took a lot of courage to admit that. It took even more to face the mirror and confront not only the seemingly insurmountable task ahead of her, but also her fear of it, her fear of trying and failing.

  Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to sit up straighter. Start with the basics, she told herself. Bilabial stops. P and b. The first sound was nonvoiced, the second voiced.

  P. How to utter a p? Lower the jaw and open the chamber of the mouth, but keep the lips closed. Separate them with a puff of air. She did it. It looked right in the mirror. She did it a second time, holding her fingers an inch in front of her lips so she could feel the air as she expelled it. Yes, that felt right. Did it sound right?

  Now a b. That sound required the same action of the lips, but the vocal cords had to be activated at the same time.

  Concentrate, Anna. You can do this. You have done this.

  Placing her hand against her throat, she tried only the vibration, then made an adjustment and tried it again. The third time, she combined it with the movement of her lips. Too much air? She repeated the action, holding her fingertips near her lips and cutting back on the expulsion of air. Yes, that time it felt right. But was it?

  Her hand seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. She let it fall into her lap and remain there. Her shoulders sagged. Suddenly she felt exhausted, due in no small part to emotional distress and not physical fatigue. Nevertheless, she felt too tired to move.

  As she stared at her reflection, she watched her eyes fill with tears. Would she ever be able to make herself understood? Would she make a fool of herself? Would she make the people to whom she tried to speak feel uncomfortable, make them look away with embarrassment and pity for her?

  Worse, would she embarrass her son?

  David was unselfconscious of her impairment because he didn’t know any better. But what would happen when he enrolled in kindergarten next fall? Because of her, the other children would make fun of him. They would call his mother a dummy.

  At first he probably would rush to her defense. But the time would come when he would be ashamed of her, and resent her for being different, and wish that his mom was like all the others.

  One way or another, her deafness would influence his development. In order to cope, he might grow a real chip on his shoulder and become a belligerent bully. Or he might become introverted and shy, keeping his anxiety bottled up inside. Whatever the effect, it could be profound and might radically change her son’s personality. How sad it would be if her outgoing, engaging little boy was reduced to less than that because of her cowardice.

  She couldn’t let that happen. If not for herself, she must relearn speech for David’s sake.

  With renewed determination, she impatiently wiped away her tears and faced the mirror again. Placing her fingertips against her lips, she tried another consonant. One more difficult. A j.

  As in Jack.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Mr. Lomax, I’m glad you’re back, there’s—”

  “Later, Mrs. Presley. These my messages?” He swept up the pink slips as he passed her desk on the way into his office.

  “Yes, sir, but there’s—”
>
  “I said later. Get me an Alka-Seltzer, will you?”

  The barbecue had given him a bellyache. The beer had left him with a dull headache. And the land developers had been a pain in the ass.

  After lunch they had asked him to drive them out to the Corbett ranch. A half hour out, a half hour spent looking around, a half hour back. Not until he had waved them off toward Houston in their space-age private jet did he feel like he could draw an easy breath. For the moment they were pacified, believing that the deal was in the bag.

  Emory’s nuts were in a vise.

  Returning from lunch over an hour late and getting a sour glance from the bank president because of it, Emory had his heart set on the cool, quiet serenity of his office. He needed some downtime to plot what his next move would be.

  Leaving his secretary with the request for the Alka-Seltzer, he slipped into his office, removed his damp suit jacket, and hung it on the hook behind the door to dry out. Flipping through his message slips, he moved around the corner of his desk. His tall wingback leather chair was facing the window. He spun it around.

  “Hey, Emory.”

  The cowboy sprang from the chair like a striking rattler, grabbed Emory by his necktie, reversed their positions with a brain-joggling spin, and shoved Emory into the chair that was still warm from his body heat.

  Before Emory could even register what had happened, the Corbetts’ ranch hand had him pinned to the chair with a wicked-looking knife. The sharp tip of it was at his throat. Emory gripped the padded armrests of his desk chair in stark terror.

  “Enjoy your lunch?” the cowboy asked pleasantly. “I thought the barbecue sauce was a tad too tame and the pickles too salty, but otherwise it was pretty good. I had a chopped-beef sandwich. I noticed you and your fancy friends had ribs.”

  The door opened. “Mr. Lomax—”

  “Call security!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Wait a minute!”

  To Emory’s consternation, Mrs. Presley, mouth slack with astonishment, holding a foil packet of Alka-Seltzer in one hand and a glass of water in the other, stopped dead in her tracks when the cowboy barked the order.

  Then in a gentle voice he said, “While you’re at it, Mrs. Presley… is that your name, ma’am? Along with the guard, bring in the bank officers. I’m sure they’ll be interested to hear what Mr. Lomax has to say about one of their best customers. You might want to stick around, too. In fact, round up everybody. I think everyone who works with Emory would find what I have to tell very interesting.”

  Emory laughed nervously. “Why, you ol’ son of a gun! When did you hit town?” Working up every ounce of courage he had, he moved aside the knife and clapped the cowboy on the shoulder. “Mrs. Presley, this cut-up, who nearly scared the wits out of you, is a fraternity brother of mine. Uh…”

  “Jack.”

  Emory cackled, releasing pent-up fear. “Jack here was always pulling jokes like this when we were at Stephen F.”

  Except for faltering on the name, it sounded convincing. His diploma from Stephen F. Austin University was hanging on his office wall. He had regaled Mrs. Presley with elaborate stories about his Greek fraternity life, which were grossly untrue because he had never been invited to join one.

  To his vast relief, the cowboy sheathed his knife. “Hope I didn’t scare you too bad, ma’am. I couldn’t resist pulling a good one on my old buddy here.” His hand landed on Emory’s shoulder like an anvil. Emory nearly buckled beneath the grip of strong fingers.

  The secretary smiled tentatively. “What about the—” She held up the packet of Alka-Seltzer.

  “Never mind. But thanks.”

  Still looking uncertain, she backed out through the door and pulled it closed.

  Unfortunately, the Jack person didn’t go anywhere.

  He took his knife out of the scabbard again and sat down on the edge of the desk just above the lap drawer and facing Emory, whose mouth was so dry he could hardly make the moving parts work. However, he did manage to hiss, “Are you insane?”

  “If I was insane, I’d’ve already slit you open from gullet to gonads. Only a thread of sanity has kept me from it. You should be grateful for that, Emory. Can I call you Emory? Of course I can, seeing as how we’re fraternity brothers.”

  “I want you out of my office, or I’ll—”

  “No, now, see, Emory, you’re not in a position to be threatening me. Frankly, I’d love nothing better than for you to call in the guard and make a scene, because then I could recount for anybody listening the conversation I overheard at lunch today. I was sitting right behind you in the next booth and heard every lying, treacherous word.”

  Looking into the steely eyes, Emory didn’t doubt for a minute that Jack would do what he said.

  “Think about it, Emory. How well do you think the lurid account of your fictitious love affair with Mrs. Corbett would go over with the bank president? The other officers? Particularly the women officers. Hmm? You see where this is leading, Emory?”

  Emory did see where this was leading, and it was straight toward disaster. Especially if he wanted a career in banking. He couldn’t give up his job here until his sideline with EastPark paid off. He owed a huge amount on the Jag. Repossession was out of the question.

  “It would be my word against yours.” He forced a laugh that sounded like a sheet of sandpaper scraping across a concrete sidewalk. “Who’s going to believe you?”

  “Oh, I’m sure most of the ladies would. Anna Corbett can’t be the only woman you’ve repulsed with your sexism and slimy come-ons.”

  “You’re bluffing, cowboy. If you were serious, you wouldn’t have ambushed me in my office. You’d have denounced me in the bank lobby where everybody could hear.”

  “The only reason I didn’t was to spare Mrs. Corbett the embarrassment of having her name linked to yours.”

  “Ahh, so you’re sweet on the deaf widow. Touching. Go ahead and make a fool of yourself.” He snorted with derision. “Didn’t you overhear the part about her and old Delray? That row you’re hoping to plow? That old man has been tilling it for years.”

  The cowboy’s eyes narrowed and Emory feared that he’d gone too far. Who was this guy, anyhow? Where had he come from? Emory knew nothing about him. He was stupid to be provoking a man who was still tapping the blade of a knife against his palm, a knife that might have ended other lives. He wouldn’t be surprised if Jack what’s-his-name carried out his threat of disembowelment right then and there.

  Thank God he hadn’t connected Emory to his being arrested this morning. If he had, Emory knew he would already be dead. He was here only to defend Anna Corbett’s honor. Was Emory Lomax one lucky bastard, or what?

  Jack stared hard at him for several moments, then he relaxed. “I’m going to let that remark pass, Emory, because you’re not worth killing over such a ridiculous statement. A word of advice, though. You’d better catch up with the rest of society. Men don’t talk like that about women unless it’s in the strictest confidence.”

  “I was among friends. You were the one eavesdropping.”

  “Hmm, true. And of course you never would have guessed that I was anywhere near that barbecue café. You thought I was safe behind bars, didn’t you?”

  Oh, shit. He stretched his neck out of his tightening shirt collar. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Emory, Emory,” Jack said, tsking and shaking his head. “Your nasty little scheme didn’t work. The sheriff’s office had absolutely no evidence against me, and after questioning me, they realized that I wasn’t motivated to do that to Corbett. I demanded that either they book me for a crime or let me go.” He spread his hands away from his body. “Needless to say… And the real funny thing is,” he continued, “Jesse Garcia and me hit it off right away.”

  Shit, shit, double shit.

  “I paid him a call after lunch. Introduced myself. Halfway through the bottle of tequila, he happened to admire my boots. Said his favorite uncle in
Mexico had been a bootmaker of some renown. By any chance had my boots been made in Chihuahua by a cobbler named Julio?” Jack grinned. “Lo and behold.”

  Emory snickered. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

  “Oh, I was lying,” he confessed. “But your problem is that Garcia believed me. Of course he was a little drunk. He got misty reminiscing about Uncle Julio, who died last winter. He told story after story while I listened. It was a little early in the day for tequila, but all the same, we got to the worm, and I made a friend for life.”

  And Emory was screwed.

  As though reading his mind, the cowboy smiled down at him. Not pleasantly. Dangerously. “If Garcia fingered you—”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  “If it meant either giving you up or going to jail? What do you think? Or if it came down to you or me, who do you think he would give over to the police?” He tapped him on the chest with the point of the blade. “You, Emory. He’d finger you. Faster than a chili pepper moves through a gringo. Then how long do you think your business partners would stick around? They would abandon you in a snap. They said as much over their rib baskets.”

  Of all Jack’s threats, that was the one that frightened Emory most. Connaught played high-stakes poker every day, and he dealt from the bottom of the deck. But he would disown a dealer who got caught at it. Emory nursed no illusions about Connaught’s loyalty; he had none except to himself.

  “Okay, okay,” Emory said, as though he were a little bored by now, “you’ve made your point, John Wayne.”

  The ranch hand squinted at him, taking his measure, as he had the first time he saw him in the Corbetts’ living room. “What really concerns me, Emory, is that you think I’m bullshitting you.”

  He stood and leaned over the chair again, putting his face on a level with Emory’s. The tip of the knife nicked the skin over his Adam’s apple.