Within Reach

by Barbara Delinsky

  She looked down. “I wish I could be here more. It’s lonesome in Boston.”

  “With all those people around?”

  “It’s lonesome.”

  He touched his finger to her chin and tipped it up. “I know. I bury myself in work so that I won’t have to think about how quiet it is here.”

  “You’re not raising Rusty right. He’s supposed to be your best friend.”

  “You’re my best friend.”

  She wanted to scold him for tormenting her, but she realized that she had been the one to start it all by materializing on his doorstep that morning. Instead, she leaned forward against him, sliding her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to his chest.

  “Just hold me, just for a minute,” she whispered.

  He swallowed hard. “You’re playing with fire.”

  “I know. But I need…just hold me, Michael.”

  He didn’t argue further, because he needed so badly to do what she asked. His arms closed around her, strong and protecting. “Dear God, I love you,” he whispered, unable to stem the words he’d been aching to say all day. She wouldn’t return them, he knew, but the way she was holding him in return was enough.

  Minutes passed and neither of them moved away. Danica rubbed her cheek over the wool of his turtle-neck, imagining she felt the soft sprinkle of his chest hair, wanting desperately to touch it. Michael concentrated on the sleekness of her back beneath his hands, the press of her breasts against him, her soft curves waiting to be explored.

  When his body grew tight, he tried to think of baseball or basketball or hockey, but it didn’t work. “I need you, Dani,” he warned hoarsely, “and it’s only getting worse. I thought once you’d gone back to Boston, I’d be able to regain control of myself, but I lie awake at night thinking about you and I get hard and sore and…” He drew her head back so he could see her face. She looked as stricken as he felt.

  “Let me make love to you, sweetheart. Let me—”

  “We can’t.”

  “Why not? The feeling’s there. It’s inevitable.”

  “But I’m married. I can’t be unfaithful—”

  “You’re already being unfaithful,” he argued, then half wished he hadn’t when her eyes filled with tears. But it needed to be said, he realized. “Dani, you already feel things for me that you shouldn’t feel.” Taking her face in his hands, he brushed his thumbs back and forth along her cheekbones. “You don’t have to say the words, but I know that you love me. If we were to make love, it’d only be an expression of what we both already feel.”

  “I can’t,” she pleaded, “I can’t.”

  “I’m not quite sure what it is you have with Blake, but it can’t come close to what we feel for each other.”

  “I’m bound to him.”

  “You’re not in love with him, not the way you’re in love with me. Do you have any idea how beautiful it would be for us?” He ignored the tiny sound of desperation that came from her throat. “I want to touch you, to kiss you all over. I want to see you, all of you. I want you to be naked, naked and warm and wet. You would be, Dani. I can feel you trembling right now.”

  “You’re scaring me, Michael!”

  “I’m only putting into words what you’ve thought about yourself. Am I wrong?” When she didn’t answer, he pressed. “Am I?”

  “No! But I can’t make love to you. I’m not free!”

  “With me you’re free.” His low voice quivered. “You’d touch me, Dani. You’d undress me and kiss me and move over me—”

  Jerking from his hold, she bolted up from the sofa. Her body was hot and cold and tingling and taut and felt utterly foreign to her. “Stop it, Michael. Please? I can’t do what you want. I just can’t.”

  Her crushed expression gave him the control over his body that neither baseball nor basketball nor hockey had been able to do. Closing his eyes for a minute, he took several deep breaths, then slowly pushed himself to his feet. “Okay, sweetheart. I’ll stop. But I want you to think about something for me. I want you to think about something for me. I want you to think about what you want. You know what I want. You know what Blake wants. You know what your father wants.” When she swayed, he drew her against him and she didn’t resist. “I want you to think about what you could have.” He pressed her hips lightly to his, just enough to alert her to his still aroused state. “I won’t force anything. I couldn’t do that. When you come to me, I want it to be because you want it. I want you to need me to be inside you as much as I need to be there.”

  She moaned softly and began to shake. “Don’t say things like that,” she whispered. “I can’t take it.”

  “But you’re not moving away.” If anything, she had arched her hips closer.

  “It feels so good…”

  He was the one to put inches between them. “Then, remember it. Remember how good it feels now, when you’re back in Boston.” His eyes fell to her breasts, then lower. “Think about how much better it’ll feel without clothes and inhibitions and regrets. Think about it, Dani, because I’ll be doing the same. Somehow we’re going to have to come to terms with all this.” He gave a tired sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Somehow. Someday.”

  There was a thick silence, then Danica’s broken “And in the meantime?”

  He took a breath. “In the meantime, I guess we’ll have to go along as we have.”

  “Would you rather I didn’t come?”

  “That’d be the smartest thing. But it’s not possible. We both know that. You don’t come up much now, anyway.”

  She lowered her chin. “No. Blake can’t, and now that I have this project…What will you be doing once your book’s done?”

  “I thought I’d take a few weeks off. Maybe go to Vail and do some skiing.”

  She met his gaze. “That’d be fun.”

  “Do you ski?”

  “No. My parents wouldn’t let me. It was a risk when I was playing tennis, and Blake never wanted to… Damn, I’d better be going. This isn’t getting any easier.”

  There was another silence, then, “Will you let me know what’s happening?”

  She brushed at her tears. “I will.”

  “And you’ll call me if there’s anything I can do to help you with your work?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He cupped her chin in his hand and spoke more quietly. “Will you think about what I’ve said?”

  He was looking at her with such love that it took Danica a minute to catch her breath. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  He smiled. “No.”

  “Then I guess I’ll be thinking about what you’ve said.” She forced a smile. “Wanna know what my tea bag said this morning?”

  “What did your tea bag say this morning?”

  “It said, ‘Often it takes as much courage to resist as it does to go ahead.’”

  “Smart tea bag. Who writes those things, anyway?”

  “Smart men.”

  “If they were really smart, they would have written something like ‘True love awaits you by the sea in Maine.’”

  “That’d be a fortune cookie.”

  “Cookie…tea…same difference.” Before she could respond, he swept her up for a quick hug, then all but shoved her out the door. “Better leave now or I’m apt to throw you over my shoulder, shackle you to my bed and make love to you until you beg for mercy.”

  “Brute,” she teased, but she was running down the path toward her car. She still had the house to check, then the drive back to Boston. She knew she had better keep moving because to one increasingly large part of her the thought of being shackled to Michael’s bed was very, very sweet.

  Two and a half weeks later, Michael threw caution to the winds and called her on the phone. He reasoned that as a friend he had every right to do so.

  “Lindsay residence.”

  “Mrs. Lindsay, please.”

  “Who may I say is calling?”

  He grasped the phone tighter. “Michael Buchanan.
”

  “One minute, please.”

  In less than that, Danica picked up the library extension. “Michael?”

  “Hi, Dani.”

  “Michael,” she breathed, feeling the abundance of tension with which she had lived for the past few days begin to ease at last. “Oh, Michael.”

  “How are you, Dani?”

  “Better, now.”

  “It’s been that bad?”

  “Only in my mind. You know he won.”

  “Yup.”

  “Blake is ecstatic. So’s my dad. You’d think Jason Claveling’s election was the Second Coming.”

  “After all their work, they have a right to be pleased.”

  “Mmmm. Well, at least that’s over. Somehow, though, I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall.”

  “Do you think Blake is expecting an appointment?”

  “He joked about it a while back, but I’m beginning to wonder. God, Michael, can you imagine what would happen then? If Blake accepts a position in the Claveling administration, we’d have to move to Washington. That’s the last place I want to be.”

  “I don’t know. There are many people who’d find it exciting.”

  “Would you?”

  “Not particularly, but then, I’m antisocial.”

  “You are not antisocial. You’re anti-insanity. It’s mad down there. Power and politics. Politics and power.” She made a sound deep in her throat. “Sheer madness.”

  “There’s no point in worrying about it now,” he pointed out soothingly. “The election was just yesterday. Claveling will be taking time off to rest before he begins to think about any appointments.”

  “I suppose. Did you finish your book?”

  “Yup. It’s off. I’m heading for the Rockies tomorrow. What’s doing with you and Bryant?”

  “The proposal’s all done. I’m ready to mail it out. Maybe I’ll have heard something by the time you get back. When will that be?”

  “Sometime before Christmas. Any chance you’ll be up at the house?”

  “I’m not sure. We always spend the holiday with my parents. Afterward, though, I might…I could, but…maybe it’s not such a good idea.”

  “You mean, I’m scaring you away—” he began, then caught himself and lowered his voice. “There isn’t any chance your phone is tapped, is there?”

  The thought hadn’t occurred to her, though it should have. “I don’t know,” she replied, shaken.

  “Mmmm. Well, if you can come up,” Michael went on with deliberate nonchalance, “it’d be great. Sara races out to ask about you every time I pass the store. And Greta and Pat call all the time.”

  “How’s Meghan?”

  “Adorable.”

  “And Rusty?”

  “Resisting my every attempt to house-train him. I think I’m going to confine him to the beach.”

  “You wouldn’t do that. It’s cold now, and he’s just a puppy.”

  “He’s getting huge, which makes it all the worse.”

  Danica laughed in spite of herself. “Poor baby.”

  “Him or me?”

  “Both. Michael?” Her voice grew soft, but mindful of his warning, she guarded her words. “It’s good to hear from you.”

  “Can I call again?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Well then, take care.”

  “You, too, Michael. Don’t break a leg.”

  He chuckled. “I won’t. Bye-bye.”

  “Bye.”

  A week before Christmas Danica was upset enough not to care if Blake did see the call on the bill. She tried to call Michael, then tried again the next day, but he wasn’t home. When he called to her on the third day, she was instantly relieved.

  “Thank God, you’re back” were her first soft-breathed words upon hearing his voice.

  “I’m not back. I took a detour in Phillie to spend time with Corey. I wasn’t sure if I should call.” He dropped his voice. “Are you okay?”

  “No. I’m torn to bits inside. Blake is in seventh heaven. So are my parents and his parents and our friends, and they all expect me to be, too. Secretary of Commerce. Can you believe it? I swear he had this in mind from the start. Never once did he stop to consider what I might have wanted.”

  “It won’t be that bad.”

  She spoke brokenly. “I can’t make it to Maine, Michael. Blake wants to go to Washington to look at places to live.”

  “I understand. Maybe it’s just as well. You and Blake have a new life ahead of you.”

  “Maybe Blake. Not me. At least, not that life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve already told him that I won’t live in Washington. I’ll commute for weekends if I have to, but I’m staying here.”

  “How did he take that?”

  “Well. Actually, complacently.”

  “And you’re hurt.”

  “You’d think he’d have been upset. You’d think he would want me there. After all, I am his wife. It’s strange.”

  “What is?”

  “I’ve begun to wonder…I mean, he accepted my going to Maine last summer with literally no fight. He didn’t argue when I told him I’d be working with James Bryant. Now he seems perfectly agreeable to the idea of a long-distance marriage. It’s almost as though he’s glad to have me occupied and out of his hair. I wonder if he has a mistress.”

  “Oh, Dani, I doubt—”

  “It’s not impossible. After all, we could easily be—”

  He cut her off with an “Uuuuh! I don’t think you should say things like that.” It was a subtle reminder that something spoken might be irretrievable. “Besides, Blake has his image to consider. I doubt he’d do anything to jeopardize a position he’s worked so hard to get.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  Michael had no idea why he was standing up for Blake Lindsay when he wanted to scream at the man for the way he treated his wife, but he had to do it. The alternative was to give encouragement to something that might be totally false, and given his own less than impartial involvement in the situation, that would be wrong. He never wanted to be accused of actively encouraging Danica’s alienation from Blake; if there was to be alienation that would lead to a breakup, it had to be the sole doing of husband or wife.

  Danica sighed. “I guess I have to give him the benefit of the doubt since the outcome suits me. It would have been worse if Blake had insisted I live full-time in Washington…Michael, I haven’t heard anything on the book yet.”

  “It’s too soon. Don’t be discouraged. Sometimes it takes two or three months for an editor to get a chance to read a proposal.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  They talked for a while longer, and when Danica hung up the phone, she felt better.

  She felt even better when, in the first week of January, she received a summons from one of the most prestigious publishing houses in Boston.

  nine

  tHE DAY AFTER JASON CLAVELING WAS INAUGURATED Blake was sworn in as his Secretary of Commerce. Danica stayed through the festivities, feeling pride in her husband in spite of herself. A stunning complement to him, she received her share of praise. None, however, came directly from Blake, who was more emotionally wrapped up in himself than ever. When she returned to Boston several days later, he didn’t blink an eye.

  Having signed a contract with the publishing house that had been their first choice, Danica and James spent every afternoon together, talking, discussing, recording their words for transcription by one of Danica’s ballet friends who needed the money.

  Danica enjoyed her time with James. He was interesting, sharp even in spite of his age, and lacked the arrogance that so turned her off to politics. Often he would turn around and ask her a question about herself and one of her own experiences. He seemed to accept her as an equal in their enterprise, and that enhanced her enjoyment of it. At last she felt she was doing something. Be
tween mornings spent at occasional meetings and ballet, afternoons spent at James’s town house and evenings spent reading what had been transcribed, she was busy.

  She commuted to Washington several times a month to attend receptions and parties with Blake, and though she found the air of social climbing, ambition, competition and power hunger to be oppressive, she was satisfied to discharge her responsibility to Blake—and to her father, whom she saw more often than ever.

  William accepted her presence with a this-is-your-rightful-place attitude and proceeded to pay her not much more heed than Blake did. Neither man asked about the work she was doing in Boston, as though ignoring it would make it go away. Eleanor, strangely, was the one who expressed interest, and though Danica did talk with her, she felt wary. She couldn’t understand her mother’s interest now, any more than she had been able to understand Eleanor’s coddling the August before. As had been the case then, Danica didn’t quite know how to react. More than once she wondered if Eleanor was doing William’s bidding. Snooping was an unkind word, but given the woman’s distance through Danica’s childhood, Danica couldn’t help but imagine that there might be some ulterior motive for her attentiveness.

  Michael called Danica in Boston from time to time. He was traveling, doing research for a book on the roots of the environmental movement, spending time reading and interviewing in many of the nation’s large cities. He purposely avoided the Northeast, fearing that the temptation to see Danica would be too great, particularly now that he knew how many of her nights were spent alone. He didn’t want to take advantage of the situation. Moreover, he knew that she needed to be alone, to think. Her days were filled and she enjoyed her work; he gleaned that from the detailed phone conversations they held. And her tone of voice, sometimes growing exquisitely soft, sometimes broken, hinted that she missed him as she would never have expressed in words. He had to have faith that in time, when she felt comfortable with herself as an entity independent of both Blake and her father, she’d be more able to take a stand with regard to her future and to him.