Can't Stop Loving You

by Peggy Webb

  But there was nothing for Helen in the play.

  He didn't ease open the front door as was his habit, then tiptoe through the house so he could surprise her. Instead he made a bold and noisy entrance.

  "I'm home," he called.

  "In here."

  She was sitting in the sun room with her yellow skirts spread out around her and her hair loose over her shoulders.

  "You look like a daffodil." He kissed her lips. "Hmm. Taste like a rose."

  Usually she had a snappy comeback. Today she merely smiled and caressed his cheek.

  The script under his arm felt like a betrayal.

  "I'm having iced tea," she said. "Do you want some?"

  "Yes. Tea sounds good."

  Hairs prickled along the back of his neck. She was so still, so reserved. Pulling back his chair, he studied her face. She was thinner. When had she lost weight and why hadn't he noticed?

  She'd been working too hard. Maybe the script under his arm wasn't a betrayal at all but a salvation. Helen needed to take a break, to stay at home and soak up the sun beside the pool, to walk in the sunshine and eat ice cream, to loll on the patio, reading a good book and listening to great music.

  Helen handed him a glass from the tray, and he reached for the pitcher of iced tea. That's when he saw the script lying on the glass-topped table— The Glass Menagerie.

  He glanced from the script to Helen. Her face flushed, and she brushed her hair back from her forehead, a gesture she used only when she was flustered.

  "I was thinking about doing something different for a while," she said. "Laura Wingfield."

  "It's a great role."

  "It's in Houston."

  "Houston should be nice this time of year."

  She toyed with her glass. He ignored his tea.

  "You could come," she said.

  "When?"

  "Rehearsals start the day after tomorrow."

  So soon. She must have known for a while. Why hadn't she told him?

  "Actually, I was thinking of doing something different myself."

  He pulled the script from under his arm and laid it on the table. Helen picked it up and studied it.

  "It looks interesting. Just the kind of role to showcase your talents." She laid his script back on the table beside hers.

  "I'm glad you think so."

  They both picked up their glasses and pretended to drink tea.

  "When do you start rehearsals?" she asked.

  "Next week."

  "Hmmm." She thumbed through her script, ruffling the pages back and forth. "This might be good for us, you know? Taking solo roles. We're so accustomed to each other, perhaps we're getting stale." Her cheeks colored. "Onstage, I mean."

  "I knew what you meant."

  Cold winds of fear blew across his soul. She was leaving in two days. Once she was out there in Houston, Texas, would she decide not to come back?

  Lifting his glass, he studied his wife over the rim. Her eyes were lowered, the eyelashes fanning across her porcelain cheeks, a lovely blush covering her face, her lips moist from the tea and slightly parted.

  No force in heaven or on earth could ever take her away from him again.

  "Helen…"

  She glanced up, her eyes riveted on his. There was a crash as his chair fell over backward, then a blur of yellow and a rending noise as he pushed aside her skirts and tore the wisp of silk. In one swift move he lifted her onto the edge of the table and entered her. The tea tray went skittering away and crashed to the floor. Their glasses tipped over and ice cubes clattered around the glass tabletop.

  Theirs was the wild mating of two desperate people, the kind of love that sought to obliterate everything except their bodies and the many ways they could use them to please each other. Buttons made small pinging noises against the glass as Helen tore his shirt open. Her eyes never left Brick's as she reached blindly for an ice cube. She brought it dripping to the bodice of her dress. Riveted he watched her rub the ice around her nipples.

  It made a dark, wet circle on the yellow fabric. Passion exploded through him. The table threatened to turn over.

  Still joined, he eased her to the floor. Leaning over, he circled his tongue around the wet fabric, then pulled her nipple in his mouth, suckling deeply. She spasmed again and again.

  She brought the nearly melted ice cube to his chest, traced a line from his throat to his navel. Wild with need, drunk with hunger, they rolled around the floor, changing positions. She licked the small, cool trail of water off his chest, using the long sweeping movements of some fine jungle cat grooming her mate.

  Her skirt became entangled in their legs. Impatient, she jerked it aside, ripping the fabric. Brick tore the rest of the skirt away, then caught her hips to his. Holding her tightly, he thrust upward, high and hard. She arched, her head falling back to expose her smooth throat. They were champion thoroughbreds racing for the finish line, their bodies lathered and their hearts pumping so hard, they almost burst.

  They reached the end of the race at the same time, their cries of release mingling as she received his seed. Afterward, they lay together a long time, their hearts pounding and their breathing ragged.

  Finally he lifted himself on his elbows and looked around the room. The torn yellow skirt lay among spilled tea, melted ice, and bits of broken glass.

  His gaze shifted to Helen. She had the usual flushed look of a woman well loved, but there was something about her eyes that made his heart stand still. They were shattered, distant, as if they were already seeing things he could not see.

  "I guess we'd better clean up this mess," he said.

  "It looks like a battleground," she whispered.

  Fear began to close in on him.

  Perhaps it was.

  FIFTEEN

  Helen was late for the wedding.

  Brick scanned the crowd, searching for the familiar dark hair, the tall regal body, the exquisite face. The church pews were filled with people who had come to see Matt Rider and Barb Gladly exchange vows, but Helen Sullivan was nowhere in sight.

  Up front, the minister intoned the vows, "Do you take this woman…"

  There was a flurry across the aisle from Brick as Helen slid into the pew. He felt as if he'd been kicked in the gut. She was even more beautiful than he remembered, even more desirable. She glowed, as if candles had been lit just underneath her skin.

  Their gazes met, touched, held.

  Why had he ever agreed to anything that would take him away from her for two weeks? An eternity.

  She turned her attention to the front of the church, but he made no pretense of caring what was going on at the altar. He had eyes only for his wife.

  The ceremony seemed endless, the procession drawn out. Brick's only thought was getting out of the crowd and getting close to his wife.

  By the time the wedding procession had filed out of the church, Helen was caught up in the milling crowd and being propelled out of his sight. There was no way he could get to her short of mowing down several people and leaving them flat on the floor. Even Brick was not bold enough to do that.

  The wedding party had dispersed to the fellowship hall, where champagne flowed freely and cake was being urged on the guests by overanxious women teetering on shoes that made them walk as if they were balancing on a high wire.

  Helen was in the inner circle that surrounded the bride and groom. Brick refused the glass that was being shoved into his hand and made his way toward her.

  She was standing to the left and slightly back of Barb, trying not to steal the limelight. She spotted him when he was halfway across the room. Her eyes never left his.

  "Hello, Brick." Although he was the one who had been hurrying, she was the one who sounded breathless.

  "Helen." He touched her arm, leaned to kiss her lightly on the mouth. What he wanted to do was sweep her into his arms and run with her, run so fast and so far that there would be no theaters to beckon either of them, no reporters to hound them with probing ques
tions.

  But this was Matt and Barb's day. He would do nothing to take attention away from them.

  His need for Helen was so great that he felt certain the wedding guests could see the sparks flying. He kept his hold on her arm, not merely a small contact but as a claim.

  This woman is mine.

  He felt the tremor that ran through her. Was she? Was she still his?

  Matt's friends were regaling him with tales of their own awful wedded bliss.

  "Just wait till you have that first argument. Man, you'll wish her aunt Tilda had never given her a rolling pin."

  "Wait till she cooks her first meal."

  "It's best not to live close to her mother. Martha ran away to her mother at least six times."

  "Six times the first year?" Matt asked.

  "Naw. Six times the first day."

  Brick and Helen politely joined the general laughter, and patiently waited their turn to offer congratulations.

  "Yeah, Matt, and just wait till the babies start coming. All you have to look forward to in the middle of the night is dirty diapers."

  The speaker was a close personal friend of Matt's, Glenn Houser, a body trainer who had often visited Matt in the Sullivan gym. His face lit up when he spotted Brick and Helen.

  "Hey, man." He pounded Brick on the back and caught Helen's hand in an iron grip. "Look, everybody, the Sullivans. Now there's a man too smart to saddle himself with kids." He pounded Brick on the back. "Right, man?"

  "Right." Brick's response was automatic, a quick and easy way out of an awkward situation.

  Helen stiffened.

  He tried to catch her eye, but she moved between Matt and Barb, wrapped her arms around them, and began to chat.

  Brick waited.

  Helen delayed.

  In less than an hour both of them would be flying out, going their separate ways, hurrying so they wouldn't miss their curtain calls.

  Finally there was no graceful way Helen could stay wedged between the newlyweds.

  "Come with me." Brick took her arm and led her through the crowd.

  "Where are you taking me? I have a plane to catch."

  "I don't give a damn about planes. I need to see you."

  "You have a curtain call."

  "I don't give a damn about curtain calls."

  He found a small empty hallway. Pulling her into his arms, he leaned against the wall.

  "That's better," he said. "Isn't that better, Helen?"

  "Yes." Her voice was muffled against his shirt.

  Suddenly he was kissing her hungrily, desperately, as if he were a soldier returned from the war. There was so much he needed to say, so much he needed to hear. But his need to hold her, to touch her, to kiss her overrode all others.

  They clung together, devouring each other, wanting more. Finally they had to come up for breath.

  "I wish you didn't have to fly back, Helen. Can you change your plans?"

  "Can you?"

  He had never missed opening night. Not even for sickness. It wasn't fair to the people who had paid to see him.

  "No," he said.

  "Neither can I."

  "We have to take some time, Helen. Soon."

  "Yes. Soon."

  Why did her soon sound like never? The separation was making Brick paranoid.

  "My plane leaves soon. Let's not waste a minute."

  He crushed her mouth under his once more, drowning out everything except his need.

  Sunlight poured through the hotel windows and fell across the suitcases open on the bed. Trails of lingerie crisscrossed the room, a jumble of blouses waited to be organized, and jewelry glittered like stars across the bedspread.

  It was the same scene she'd played over and over the last few weeks, and for a moment Helen couldn't remember whether she was packing or unpacking, whether she was in Dallas or Boston or Chicago.

  The hotel suites all looked alike—clean modern furniture, innocuous pictures on the wall, coordinated colors.

  Sterile. Comfortless. Empty.

  Marsha bustled in from the sitting room, took one look at the mess, shook her head, and began to organize the packing.

  Dear Marsha. What would Helen ever do without her?

  Tears clogged the back of Helen's throat. She tried to swallow them, but they wouldn't go down. Besides that, her knees felt rubbery and her head hurt.

  Tired of being strong, sick of putting on a front, she sank to the middle of the floor and wailed like a homesick puppy.

  Marsha went into the bathroom and came back with a handful of tissues; then she went about packing and let Helen have her cry.

  Helen dabbed at her eyes, sniffing.

  "I don't know what's wrong with me."

  "I do."

  "I suppose you're going to tell me."

  "If you'd asked me in the first place, we wouldn't be here. We'd be at home sitting in the sunshine instead of trying to avoid being mugged every time we step out on the streets. And we for sure wouldn't be fixing to traipse off to some other godforsaken city so you can wear yourself ragged up on a stage."

  "That's what I do, Marsha. I'm an actress."

  "You're a married actress. If you ask me, this is no way to conduct a marriage." Marsha straightened a stack of skirts, shaking them out so hard, the fabric made snapping noises.

  "Brick understands. He's an actor."

  "He's a man. I don't claim to be an expert on this subject, Lord knows, ornery old cuss that I am. But I figure a man like Brick Sullivan needs a woman in his bed."

  "He would never betray me."

  "I didn't say he would, didn't even think it. I said he needs a woman in his bed." She shook out a blouse with unnecessary vigor. "And I'm wondering how come it's been so long since you've been there. Not that it's any of my business."

  "Eight weeks is not a long time to be on the road."

  "Balderdash."

  "You don't have to go with me to Seattle, Marsha. I can manage fine on my own."

  "You can't find your way out of a paper sack on your own. You may be brilliant on the stage, but when it comes to dealing with practical matters, you're a babe in the woods."

  "You're too go..ood to me."

  A fresh gale of tears overtook her, and she padded to the bathroom to get some more tissue. When she got back Marsha was posed with arms akimbo and that I'm-not-taking-any-more-of-this-nonsense look on her face.

  "Look at you," Marsha said. "You're worn to a frazzle. What I want to know is how come it's so all-fired important to do that play in Seattle. Why don't you take a break? Go home and be with Brick for a few weeks."

  "Brick's not home. He's in New Yo..ork."

  Helen broke down once more. Alarmed, Marsha went into the bathroom and got a wet cloth for her face.

  "You're going to make yourself sick with all this crying." She washed Helen's face, then made her lie on the bed with the washcloth over her forehead. "You may already be sick."

  "I do have a headache."

  "I don't wonder, with all this flitting around from pillar to post. I'll bet you don't even know what day it is."

  "Sunday." Helen gave her a rueful grin. "I only know because I did my last performance tonight."

  "Sunday the what?"

  "Eighteenth? Twenty-fifth?"

  "See… You're working so hard, you don't even know the date. What you need is a break."

  "I promise I'll take a break soon, Marsha."

  "When?"

  Helen pressed the cloth to her head. It was a good question. One she couldn't even answer herself. The last time she'd tried to arrange a break, Brick had been tied up in Boston. Then when he'd tried to arrange for them to meet, she'd had to stay over in Tampa.

  They'd joked about it on the phone.

  "Guess you've already forgotten what I look like," he'd said when their plans to meet in Jackson Hole had been canceled.

  "You've probably found a new leading lady," she'd joked when their plans to meet back home for a few days had been ditch
ed because of conflicting schedules.

  But was it their schedules that kept them apart? Or was it something else?

  A vivid mental picture of Brick at Matt's wedding came to her.

  Helen didn't even want to think about that right now. All she wanted to do was ease her headache.

  "As soon as I do the next show, Marsha," she said.

  Or maybe the next. Or the next.

  Angelica had never seen Brick so still. He sat on the sofa trying to look relaxed with his feet stretched out on the coffee table, but she knew better. His body was stiff as a poker.

  "I've decided to do Macbeth in Boston," he said.

  "What about Helen? Will she do Lady Macbeth?"

  There was a quick flash of something in his eyes, something Angelica couldn't read. But she knew him well enough to guess, knew both of them.

  There was trouble in paradise. And she didn't like it. Not one little bit.

  "No. She's going to be in San Francisco. Or is it Seattle?"

  "You don't even know where your own wife is." It was not a question but a statement. Angelica stood, smoothing down her skirt. She perched on the front of her desk and fixed him with a motherly look. "I'm just going to say this once, Brick."

  "Perhaps you shouldn't say it at all. I don't like the look on your face."

  "I don't have a look on my face."

  "Yes, you do. It's your cross between Godzilla and Mother Teresa."

  "Gee, thanks."

  "You're welcome." He quirked one eyebrow at her and treated her to his famous grin.

  "I won't be sidetracked by your charm."

  "Am I charming?"

  "Millions of people think you are. At the moment I think you're foolish."

  "Is that a personal opinion or a professional one?"

  "Furthermore, I think you're running scared."

  "I'm not scared of the devil."

  "What about your wife? Are you scared of her?"

  Brick left the sofa and stalked to the window. Angelica had hit a nerve. Ramming his hands deep into his pockets, he looked out over the city. Summertime in New York.

  And Helen was… Angelica was right: He didn't even know where his own wife was.

  "Maybe I am, Angelica… but I don't seem to know what to do about it." He turned back from the window. "Any ideas?"