Forbidden

by Pat Warren

  Hearing a noise coming from the rocks on the right, Liz turned her head. It had sounded like the meowing of a cat. She walked closer and saw she was right. A calico cat sat on a smooth rock formation alongside the figure of a man.

  “You remember Rosie, don’t you, Liz?” Adam asked.

  Had she known he’d be out here? Had she set out with that subconscious goal in mind? She didn’t know, didn’t care. Smiling, she moved closer and picked up the bundle of fur. “I can’t believe she’s still around.”

  “Seventeen years isn’t so long for a cat. She’s not quite as peppy as back then. But then, neither am I.” Adam inched over. “Come sit with us.”

  She glanced up at the Reid house. “No Secret Service man around, Senator?”

  “Nah. Fitz is up there somewhere, probably on the phone or going over one of his endless reports.”

  “No one else?” she asked cautiously.

  Adam shook his head. “Diane’s in Washington. I may have mentioned that she’s not fond of living near water.” Even less since Keith’s drowning. But he didn’t want to think about that right now. “It’s lovely out here. Thanks for telling me this place was for sale.”

  “I’m glad you’re happy with it.” She recalled another early memory. “Do you still have your boat, Jezebel?”

  Adam nodded. “Sure do. But I haven’t taken her out in ages.”

  Liz suddenly remembered the date. “Why aren’t you out somewhere celebrating? You shouldn’t be sitting here alone on your birthday.”

  His eyes on the darkening sky, Adam shook his head. “I’m not in the mood to celebrate.” Silently they stared at the frothy waves for several moments. “How’s your father doing? I heard he had a stroke.”

  Liz sat down, settling the cat in her lap. “Not good. I doubt he’ll ever come out of the coma.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve liked and admired him for years.”

  She cocked her head, looking at him. “I’m not surprised. You’re a lot like him.”

  His elbows propped on his bent knees, he turned to her. “Both ambitious, you mean?”

  “Yes.” She rubbed Rosie’s sleek fur. “I imagine your father was, too; right?”

  Adam dropped his gaze and picked up the piece of driftwood he’d laid at his feet. “For a while, I guess. But he got off track.”

  “You mean he died too young to go very far?” Only once had Adam mentioned his father’s death and then only briefly.

  He was silent for a long moment. “My father killed himself.”

  “Oh, Adam.” She reached to touch his arm.

  He gazed out toward the sea. Funny how she’d brought up the subject very much on his mind tonight. “He came home on time for dinner for a change on my twelfth birthday. I remember he brought me this really great watch I’d been wanting; picked it out himself, he said. We had cake and ice cream, then he excused himself and went up to his den. A few minutes later, we heard the shot.”

  Her fingers tightened. “Dear God.” On his son’s birthday, yet. “Did he leave a note? Did you ever learn why he did it?”

  “No note, but Mom knew why he did it.” Adam’s voice was heavy, bitter. “My Dad was a brilliant lawyer who worked for this very prestigious firm. He did awfully well, drove a new Cadillac every year, bought us a big house. Except he made a mistake. He fell in love with the boss’s wife, who was a very beautiful woman. Apparently she led him on, had a brief affair with him, then told him it was over. He couldn’t handle it, couldn’t get her off his mind. He didn’t want to live without her.” Adam understood that and still couldn’t forgive his father.

  “How sad. Your poor mother.” Liz let the cat go, turning toward Adam.

  That had been the worst part. Perhaps he could have recovered from his own pain, but for years after, he’d watched his mother suffer silently. “I hated him for what he did to my mother. She had to sell everything, go to work, live with the humiliation. That night, I stomped on that watch over and over, and I refused to go to his funeral. The sonofabitch had to pick my birthday to blow his brains out.”

  She could understand his pain, even after all these years, and his disappointment. But it wasn’t healthy to harbor so much anger for so long. “He was a troubled and sick man, Adam.”

  “He was a selfish man. A weak man.” His eyes when they met hers were dark with emotion. “Like I am.”

  She sprang to his defense. “You aren’t the least bit selfish or weak.”

  “Yes, I am, like he was. He couldn’t get a beautiful woman off his mind, and neither can I.” And the torment was eating at him more each day. “God help me, Liz, it’s you I love. I have from the beginning. I was just too damn afraid to admit it, because of what such passionate love did to my father.” His face was tortured, miserable. “And I’ve paid for that decision over and over.”

  It was becoming clear, alarmingly clear. “Are you saying you went to Sacramento after that first election and stayed away from me on purpose because you were afraid history would repeat itself?”

  Adam tossed aside the stick and got to his feet, pulling her up to face him. “Yes. I wanted so much: to be a good attorney general, to get into the Senate. And later, even more. I’ve realized some of those dreams, and they haven’t made me happy. Back then I wasn’t ready to love someone, yet you came into my life. So, like a coward, I ran from you. By the time I realized what a terrible mistake I’d made, you were already married to Richard.”

  “What about Diane?”

  He took a step back and ran a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t have married her. The party bosses kept after me that voters didn’t trust a single man. I shouldn’t have listened. We’ve been miserable.”

  Liz felt drained, limp. “I don’t know what to say. We… we both made some mistakes.”

  “Not you. Me. I made the mistakes.” His hands closed around her upper arms as he drew her nearer so his mouth was a breath away from hers. “My life is so empty without you. When I’m making love to my wife, when I’m inside Diane, you’re inside my head. Why is that, after all these years?”

  She stared at him, unable to answer, her heart aching for all the years forever lost to them.

  “I want so badly to kiss you. I know I lost the right years ago. I know I can’t have you.”

  Liz struggled with needs unspoken, with longing unanswered. But she couldn’t do this. One kiss would never be enough. While she was still able, she pulled free and stepped back. If she didn’t leave now, right now, she knew they’d be on the sand in moments, past the point of no return. “I’ve got to go.” She turned, almost stumbling, hurrying.

  “Liz, wait!” Adam called after her, and began to follow.

  “No! Don’t come, please. I… I need to go.”

  Running now, her bare feet slapping the damp sand, she headed toward home, ran for her life, hardly aware that tears were slipping down her flushed cheeks.

  CHAPTER 14

  Diane hung up the phone with far more force than was necessary. In reality she’d have liked to fling the instrument against the wall. In her outrage, her hands were trembling so badly that she had difficulty lighting her cigarette. When she finally did, she drew smoke deep into her lungs, hoping a rush of nicotine could calm her.

  It didn’t.

  Damn Adam! How could he prefer staying in that tacky beach house with Fitz rather than returning to Washington for the weekend? In just two hours she was attending a luncheon where she would be honored for her contribution to battered women and children, and her husband wouldn’t even be there.

  She drew more smoke into her lungs before propping her gold holder in the crystal ashtray. She pulled out the stool and sat in front of her dressing table.

  The room off the master bedroom was elegant, exactly as she’d designed it herself. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors hid two enormous closets that housed her growing wardrobe. Flattering lighting surrounded the mirrors she faced, and the table itself held a vast array of eye makeup, brushes, blushes, lipsticks, loti
ons, and creams. Diane took comfort in this, her private place.

  Their apartment was in Georgetown with a breathtaking view of the Potomac, and she loved it. But the building, as they all were in that area, was old, and their quarters had needed updating. Fortunately Adam had been too busy for much input, and he’d given her carte blanche. The result was, in Diane’s view, lovely and spacious, a gracious place to live and entertain.

  The trouble was, Adam was home so seldom that she had precious little opportunity to entertain.

  Even on his birthday week he’d wanted to stay in that hellhole. He knew she positively hated being near the ocean, a lake, or even a pool, having grown up alongside a mosquito-infested stream that made up the backyard where her parents’ trailer had been parked. Then there was the reminder that water had taken their little boy. But did her dear husband give a rat’s ass about her feelings? Hell, no. He’d gone ahead and bought that white elephant on the ocean without so much as asking her what she thought.

  Well, he and his devoted brother could just stay there and watch the waves roll in and out for all she cared. She hoped never to enter the big old mausoleum again.

  She picked up her hairspray and liberally doused her hair, patting a stray curl here and there. Checking the results, she smiled at her reflection. Not so bad for an old broad of forty.

  Lord, forty. She’d made a practice of not telling her age to anyone, though some of the more persistent reporters dogged her relentlessly. So far she’d been lucky enough to keep details of her past exactly where they belonged: buried.

  Diane stood and examined herself full length in the closet mirrors, which reflected in triplicate. The red silk had cost more than she should have spent, but it artfully hid those damnable extra ten pounds she could never seem to get off her hips. Blondes looked good in red, she decided. Red was also a power color.

  She smiled at that thought. The rumors persisted that Palmer Ames would get the nod at the Democratic convention in August and that his first choice for running mate was Adam McKenzie. Of course, Adam, in his usual close mouthed style, kept telling her that although he’d met with Palmer several times, nothing had been decided and not to get her hopes up.

  A bunch of crap, Diane thought as she took a final draw on her cigarette before putting it out. Adam was the all-American boy, the maverick senator who, voters believed, leaped tall buildings with a single bound. He was not only the perfect choice, he was the only choice, as far as she could see. In just a few months he’d be the vice president.

  And she’d be the second most important woman in the world.

  That was the only reason she’d kept her cool on the phone just now with Adam, venting her anger only after she’d hung up. She’d have to put up with his need to get away and brood silently with his brother occasionally in order to get what she wanted. Never mind that Senator and Mrs. Rivers were giving a huge party Saturday night and, again, she’d be attending alone. In no time at all she’d have several handsome Secret Service men escorting her wherever she went. The thought pleased her, and she grinned as she picked up her handbag.

  Walking into the large living room, she paused to glance out at the river, the trees along its banks, the flowers in bloom in the park across the way. You’ve come a long way from that dumpy trailer, baby, she told herself.

  Frowning at the necessity, she slipped on her new Anne Klein glasses with the fashionable red frames. Lately she couldn’t seem to read without them. Quickly she looked up the number of the limo service, dialed, and ordered a pickup to drive her to the luncheon. Taxis were for peasants. She, after all, was a United States senator’s wife.

  Sitting down carefully so as not to wrinkle her dress, Diane lit another cigarette while she waited.

  Adam leaned back on his leather desk chair and studied the picture his secretary had handed him minutes ago. For safety reasons all parcels were opened for senators; there were a lot of nuts out there. This particular package had arrived this morning, and it gave him pause.

  The framed photo had been taken some time ago at the fund-raiser Richard Fairchild had given Adam at his home, the year of his first run for the Senate. He and Richard, both wearing tuxes, were smiling into the camera, as two friends might. In the background was a piano, and on the piano, slightly blurry but still visible, was a picture of Richard and Liz on their wedding day.

  How ironic.

  Adam read the brief note from Tom Nelson’s secretary, telling him that Richard’s widow wanted him to have the photo as a remembrance of his friend. No, they hadn’t exactly been friends, Adam thought as he laid the picture on his desk. A wave of guilt washed over him, knowing he’d been in love with Richard’s wife all these years and still was. The saving grace was that Adam was certain Richard had never known.

  He doubted that Liz knew until he’d blurted it out like a fool last month when she’d happened along on the beach outside his La Jolla home. Memories of the conversation they’d shared drifted to him, spoiled only by the way the evening had ended with her running off.

  He shouldn’t have called out to her that night, aware of what a foul mood he was in when she’d happened by. Most people celebrated the date of their birth, but his was a day that Adam had dreaded ever since number twelve. Each year, no matter how he fought it, that horrible night would play over and over in his mind. And, like a maudlin jerk looking for sympathy, he’d told the whole rotten story to Liz.

  As if that hadn’t been bad enough, he’d confessed his love for her, apparently scaring the hell out of her. Why else would she have run from him like that, not letting him explain? That wasn’t like her.

  Or was it? He had to admit he really didn’t know the woman she’d become; but he badly wanted to.

  She was off-limits to him. He was married, regardless of the fact that the marriage was unhappy. So were millions of other marriages. He was in the public eye, however, open to censure for each wrong move. He couldn’t disgrace his position, or let down the people who’d put him into office, or embarrass his family.

  Still, he could call Liz, thank her for the photo. Maybe he might even invite her to an innocent dinner, in a public place, and show her he did know how to behave. He definitely had to behave. He picked up the phone.

  When he heard her voice, he almost lost his nerve. “Hi, Liz. It’s Adam.”

  It had been exactly twenty-seven days since the night on the beach, yet the moment she heard his voice, Liz remembered how she’d ached with the desire to kiss him. “Adam, how are you?”

  He smiled. She always greeted him by asking how he was, though he detected a slight hesitancy in her tone this time. “I’m fine. How’s your father?”

  “The same.”

  “And you. How are you?”

  “I guess I’m the same, too.” Just more tired, less patient. Joseph was alive, yet he wasn’t, and his lingering was stretching all of their nerves to the breaking point. The endless days and nights merged in her mind until sometimes she wanted to scream. Her mother had grown even thinner, her face tight with stress. Nancy was a help, trying to make herself useful, but it had been so long since she’d been a real part of the family that there were many awkward moments and embarrassed silences. Sara alone was the bright spot in all of their days, with her youthful sunny disposition that even living in a sick house couldn’t squelch, thank God.

  “You sound tired.”

  “Funny, I was going to say the same about you.”

  “And you’d be right. I called to thank you for the picture of Richard and me.”

  Liz found herself frowning. “Tom told me he’d found some old photos. I asked him to mail them out. I really didn’t know there was one of you and Richard in the stack.” She chided herself for not having checked.

  “I really did like the man, Liz, and I’m happy to have the photo.”

  Whether he meant it or was just being kind, she’d take him at face value today. “I’m glad, then.”

  He hesitated, wondering how to proceed. “I
was hoping you weren’t angry with me, about the way we last parted.”

  She let the silence linger while she struggled to find the right answer. “No, of course not.”

  “I was out of line, and I apologize.”

  On the terrace with the portable phone, Liz glanced through the open doorway and could see no one in the family room. “There’s no need.”

  “I meant every word I said. I apologize only for creating an awkward situation, one you felt you had to run from.”

  “It’s better that way, truly it is.”

  “Intellectually, I agree. But emotionally, I wish things were different.”

  She did, too. “But they’re not.” Pressing a hand to her stomach to quell the dancing nerves, Liz sat on the two-seater. “You’re a married man.” And apparently you intend to stay that way. For your career. For your ambition.

  “Yes, I know.” Adam rubbed a hand across his face. “It’s complicated at this end, you know.”

  “It always was.”

  This wasn’t going well. He’d wanted to clear things between them, and he’d only made it worse. “We need to talk. I’m going to be in California next week. Would you meet me for dinner, some place very public, where we can have a quiet conversation?”

  Liz went with her first instinct. “I don’t think so.”

  He felt the frustration mounting. “What’s wrong with an old campaign worker having dinner with the senator from her state?”

  “I have no business to discuss with the senator from my state.”

  “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  Liz let out a trembling sigh. “Then let me try. I can’t be around you, Adam. It hurts too much. Please don’t ask me to dinner or lunch or a walk on the beach. It would be best if we… if we had no contact at all.”

  Adam closed his eyes at the finality of her words. She was right, of course, and as usual, he was being a selfish bastard. “You’re right. Again, I apologize. Good-bye, Liz.” Slowly he hung up the phone, swiveled around on his chair, and sat staring out the window unseeingly.