The painting kit broke open as it fell, spilling brushes and tubes of paint around their feet. 'You . . . took a phone call for me?' she repeated.
Avoiding her eyes, Fred crouched to collect the debris. 'Yes. Will you eat supper?'
'Tell me, Fred!' She stared down at him, hating him suddenly.
Both hands full, he looked up at her. 'Jade, it wasn't much . . .' Suddenly he looked sorry he'd spoken. 'Will you eat?'
'Yes! Tell me!' She knelt in front of him, her eyes wild.
Fred sighed. 'He just said to tell you "hi", and that the book was working at last.'
'That was it?' She searched his face desperately.
His lips tightened. 'He said you should mail the key back, that someone called Mona needed it.' He looked down and found her roll of paintbrushes, tossing them in to the kit. 'I didn't know you had a key . . . You'll come eat now?'
'That was all?' Her voice sounded hoarse, she noticed.
'That was all.' Fred reached for the broken top of the kit and stood up. 'So come and eat.'
Somehow she got through the meal. Someone ate the food they put on her plate and it must have been her. Somehow she finally got away, then hurried to a phone booth a few blocks away where she could be alone.
But Zan's phone number had been disconnected. Jade stared at the phone in despair, remembering how he'd once said his apartment was sublet for the summer. Where had Zan been staying then? Was he even still in the city?
There was only one person she could think of to ask, and information did have a number for Irena Adams. It was awfully late to be calling, she thought indifferently, as she dialled. She's asleep, she thought as the phone rang again, and then again.
'Hello.' His low, warm voice was unmistakable.
'Zan.' Her lips formed his name.
'Hello, hello, hello, hello,' he tried impatiently. 'Come on, speak up or go to bed!'
There was suddenly nothing to say. What a fool she'd been to call! All the numbers she had gathered around her was shredding away at the sound of him.
'Who is it, darling?' Irena's throaty voice carried clearly.
'Some nuisance caller. Want to listen to him listening to you? Hello?' Zan snorted, and the phone clicked down.
So that was that. It's time to put it behind you, Jade told herself, as she wandered homeward. Time to pick up the pieces and start over again. Somehow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
'You're sure you won't come with us, Jade? You've always wanted to go to a Tangle wood concert.' Fred looked down at her impatiently as she sat on the top step. 'It would do you good to get away.'
Jade shook her head briefly. 'Thanks, Fred, but . . .'
Cathy sat down beside her, her round eyes anxious. 'You ought to come, Jade! The Berkshire mountains are beautiful, and my parents' house has plenty of room. They'd love to meet you.'
Jade smiled and shook her head briskly. 'Thanks, Cathy, but I've got a week left till classes start. I'm going to wash my hair and do lesson plans. Maybe sleep late tomorrow . . .'
Fred shrugged resignedly. 'Okay, Jade, have it your way. We'll see you late tomorrow, then.'
Cathy's face was a pretty mix of sympathy and delight as she followed Fred to his car, and Jade's eyes were wistful as she watched them drive away. Zan's ill wind had blown someone some good anyway. Another month, and Fred would take that ring back.
Across the street, a Mercedes pulled to a stop and parked deftly. Jade looked down at her hands. Was he working or playing tonight?
'You're Jade.' The slender girl—woman—standing before her had a voice like a bell, clear and light. In daylight her hair would be as silvery as her voice.
Jade's eyes widened. There was no mistaking her. 'And you're Mona,' she said softly.
Mona broke into a delightful grin. 'Zan's long-suffering aunt,' she agreed ruefully.
'Aunt?' Jade could feel her jaw dropping.
Mona threw back her head, her laughter tinkling around them. 'You mean the dope still won't admit to that? He's hated that since I was in fourth grade and he was in fifth, and I used to pull rank on him at school!' She sank down on the step beside Jade. 'I've been meaning to come find you for a week, Jade, but Peter and I have been doing such a wholehearted honeymoon, I never got away.' Her eyes, pale, wide, and light grey, crinkled at the corners in a way that was painful to watch.
She was studying Jade now, the cool, shrewd eyes flicking lightly over her face. 'Are you all right, Jade?' she asked suddenly.
Swallowing painfully, Jade nodded and smiled. This doesn't change anything, she told herself desperately.
Mona's silvery, delicate eyebrows disappeared into her bangs, but she nodded. 'You've got to help me, Jade,' she announced.
'Of ... of course. How?' She couldn't look at those eyes. Couldn't look away. God, it shouldn't hurt like this after three weeks, should it?
'Zan commissioned me last week to buy your wedding gift, and the brute was no help at all!' Mona laughed indignantly. 'I'm supposed to buy you something absolutely exquisite, cost no object, and I haven't got a clue as to what you'd like. We're on our Way down to Washington tonight—I'm giving Peter a whirlwind tour of the East Coast—and I thought maybe I could find you something there, if you'll give me a hint?'
'I. . . er . . . no. Thank you.' Jade swallowed again.
'No, thank you, what?' Mona asked bluntly, her eyes refusing to release her.
'No, thank you anyway, but I'm not getting married, thanks,' Jade blurted, springing to her feet.
Tilting her head back gracefully, Mona stared up at her. 'Zan was so sure,' she murmured thoughtfully. 'First week in September, he said.'
'He got it wrong. I'm not getting married at all.' She had to get out of here. Jade took a step backwards.
Still the grey eyes, Zan's eyes, held her. 'I see,' Mona said softly. 'Okay.' She glanced towards the car. 'In that case, I have something for you, Jade. Wait here,' she commanded firmly, waiting for Jade's nod before she scampered back to the Mercedes.
The man at the wheel said something, and Mona's laughter pealed out. She skipped back up the steps. 'I was supposed to put this in with your gift.' She handed Jade a white envelope and backed off a pace.
'I. . . thank you.' Jade stared down at the envelope. 'Goodbye, Mona.'
Her laugh tinkled softly. 'I'll be seeing you, Jade.' Light footsteps pattered across the pavement, and a car door shut.
It was too dark to read on the porch. Jade's legs shook as she climbed the stairs, shook so much that she had to sit at the kitchen table before she could open the letter.
She'd never seen Zan's right-hand writing before, but it was not surprising. It was big, jubilant, fiercely angular. He started off without greeting, as if he were resuming a broken conversation, not beginning one.
'I couldn't find the confession, Jade, but consider the debt cancelled. Paid in full. We were even by the time I'd wrung it out of you, but I couldn't bear to tell you that.
I never told you the quote either, did I? It's nothing much, but I always liked it. I thought I might use it as the title for this book.
It concerns the British J-Boat, Endeavour, which just barely missed winning the America's Cup, as you know now. It's by John Scott Hughes.
"Am I sentimental about the old Endeavour?" he asks. Why "the darling jade nearly broke my heart!"
Be happy, Zan'
His words were blurring, vanishing behind a curtain of tears. If only she could have broken Zan's heart! If only he'd had a heart for the breaking! Jade dropped the letter and groped her way to the bathroom. She stood under the shower, crying, until she couldn't stand any more, then she knelt and cried on. God, it had no right to hurt so much any more! Wouldn't it ever stop? Wouldn't she ever be free of him? If love lasted for ever, did the pain last too?
The pain continued, but the hot water finally gave out. Shivering, she crept out of the shower. Numbly, mechanically, she dried herself, combed her hair out and blew it dry. She made a cup of coffee and forgot to drink it. It wa
s time to be gone anyway. There was no way she could stay here tonight, no way she could face a bed and the time to think. Pulling on a light sweater and jeans, she started out of the door, then stopped.
The letter was on the kitchen floor. Gently, carefully, she folded it and slipped it into her pocket. She would never read it again. She would keep it always.
There was no moon tonight, but her feet knew where they were going. Knew it long before she did. Halfway down the hill, Jade looked up to see the lights of the bridge curving across the dark sky, but by then it was too late. Her feet carried her on down the road, across the damp grass, and up to the door.
For a long time she stood there, as if, any moment, Zan would open to her. Finally, sighing, she drifted around the corner to the low wall which enclosed the patio. From here she'd seen Irena and Zan kissing, so long ago. Somehow Irena didn't matter any more. Just Zan, and the great, gaping hole he'd torn in her life when he left it.
Jade sprang up on to the wall and sat there, dreaming. She could almost see him pacing the patio, hear his warm voice spinning out the words, see him pausing at the end of each circuit to stare out at the harbour, his honey-dark hair falling down towards his eyes. She hugged herself violently, shivering, then stepped down on the patio stones.
The curtains were drawn across the glass doors. Jade didn't bother to try the handles; they would be locked, and she felt closer to him out here, anyway. Slowly she padded down the steps to the dock.
The floats echoed hollowly under her pacing feet as she walked out into the harbour. Funny how light it was out here tonight. The lights of the town fanned out across the still water, jewelled and glittering spears reaching towards the cove, flickering and re-forming as a slow-gliding boat cut across them.
Jade sank down on the end of the dock and breathed deeply. This was as close as she could get, unless she went to find him. Her wide eyes followed the arc of white lights beyond the harbour. Over that bridge, and three hours to the south, was that so far? Be happy, he'd said . . . Don't be serious, he'd said too.
Sighing, she lay back to look up at the stars. How about a sign? she pleaded. But the stars stayed fixed, glimmering down just for Newport. None went rocketing southward.
Jade watched until the stars doubled and re-doubled before her swimming eyes, and finally she had to shut them out. Her eyes closed and she lay there while the floats creaked and rocked gently, creaked and rocked.
Her eyes fluttered open and she blinked up at the sky . . . How long had she been asleep? Her body was stiff from the cold and the stars had wheeled across the night. The dipper was not where she'd left it.
The dock echoed hollowly to a footstep. And another.
Jade blinked slowly. She'd dreamed this too often. . . that light, slow, pacing would be striding across her dreams for the rest of her life. She sat up and the ghost steps stopped. The bridge still beckoned southward.
The footsteps came on again. Slow. Heartbreaking.
Carefully, she stood up. How did the myths work? If you turned around to look, your love would be gone? Now she knew why the fools always had to turn.
The footsteps stopped again as she swung around, but Zan was still there, a broad-shouldered, silent shape, the dark head lifting slowly. Slowly, dreamily, they closed the last few feet between them, and they stood staring at each other, silent, unmoving.
'Zan?' she breathed.
His eyes caught the lights and threw them back glittering. 'I didn't think you'd recognise me, without the cast,' he said huskily.
'Zan!'
Between her arms, his waist was hard, warm and trembling. His arms wrapped around her, crushing her against his chest. His chin was rasping across her hair. 'I don't care, I don't care, I don't care!' he whispered savagely.
'Don't care what, Zan?' Her voice was shaking, and his heart was thumping against her ear, echoing the jubilant, thunderous beat of her own.
'I don't care if you think you're getting married tomorrow; I don't care if you don't love me; I don't care if you don't even know how to love! You are mine and I'm not letting you go again! Not ever!'
There wasn't enough air in her lungs to laugh with; it came out on a shuddering breath. 'Please don't! Oh, please don't, Zan. I—'
His lips caught the rest of her words and they clung together, swaying gently as the docks rocked. Finally he closed the kiss, turned his mouth to her eyes, her cheeks, her throat.
'Oh, God, I love you, Zan,' she whispered, arching her neck back beneath his lips.
His mouth froze against her ear. 'Would you repeat that, please?' he asked politely.
'I love you,' she laughed softly.
He leaned his forehead against hers, staring down at her. 'Come again?'
'I love, love, love you!' She smiled up at him, then rubbed her nose against the crisp hair at the base of his throat.
His big hand clamped on her chin, pulling her face up to meet his gaze. 'And when the hell did you finally figure that out, Jade?' he demanded tautly.
Standing very still, she moved a hand to his chest, felt the heart slamming there. She tried to shake her head, but his fingers prevented it. 'I'm not even sure, now, Zan ... I suppose the night we went to the restaurant, was the first time I really—'
'Bloody, hopping hell! If that's the case, Jade, would you please tell me what you were doing in Freddie's bed two weeks ago, when I tried to phone you?' His hand glided from her chin slowly down her throat and his look was murderous.
'In bed with—I—he said that?' she sputtered, thunderstruck.
'I . . . you weren't?' Zan's voice was very quiet, but his head lifted slowly. 'He said you were in bed right there, that you wouldn't come to the phone, and that you two were getting married in—' Jade shook her head urgently. 'I'll kill the bastard!'
He spun away towards land and she caught at his arm with both hands. 'You can't, Zan! He's gone!'
Zan turned back again, slowly, his face granite. 'Where?'
She shook her head. 'I'll tell you when you cool down.'
His hands reached absently to grip her shoulders, comb into her hair and follow it up to her temples. 'And I left the thumbscrews in New York,' he sighed ruefully. 'I'll just have to torture it out of you with my bare hands.' He tipped her head back and his mouth covered hers, hungry, urgent, unbelievably tender.
She was panting lightly when his head lifted at last. His hands rubbed her shoulders restlessly, hesitated, and then, in sudden decision, he swung her into his arms.
'Zan!' she gasped.
'Lord, you're cold, sweet,' he said huskily, turning towards the patio. 'How long have you been out here?'
She leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed happily. 'Oh, since nine or ten.'
She could feel his laugh as well as hear it. 'I've been sitting on your doorstep since ten o'clock. Exactly two hours and fifty minutes after Mona called.' He stopped walking to kiss her chin. 'I'd finally decided Mona was wrong. That you were off somewhere, sleeping with Fred or even someone new!'
'Mona called you?'
'Mmhmm.' He stopped to sit on the patio wall, and gathered her closer. 'The girl's no fool. And she had a gambling debt to pay off.'
Jade nodded, remembering the telegram. 'What did you win, Zan?'
He laughed softly and stood up again. 'A long, longstanding bet, sweet.' He looked slowly around the harbour and then down at her again. 'I bet her she'd be married before I was.' He laughed again. 'It was always a sure win!'
He manoeuvred them both carefully through the doorway. 'You've sure got long legs, there, Red.'
'Sorry . . .'
'Hey, no complaints! I love every inch of them.' His lips twitched upwards. 'And plan to.'
Jade laughed delightedly. 'And what were the terms of the bet, Zan? What did you get?'
He stopped at the foot of the stairs, smiling down at her. 'We were in high school when we made it. Things seemed a little simpler back then . . . The winner was to get whatever his heart desired.'
&
nbsp; It was hard to tell one heart's beat from the other now.
Jade noticed in passing. 'And that was?' she whispered.
'She gave me my choice tonight between a lifetime supply of butter almond ice cream and you,' he whispered back, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
'And you chose?' she laughed up at him.
'You'll find out,' he promised, as he started up the stairs.
Zan paused just inside the bedroom door. His head turned to the wide, pillow-heaped bed and then he looked down at her, his brows a shaggy, enquiring line.
Jade's answering smile was serene. Tonight was tonight. If Zan's desire for her ended with the daylight, she would face that tomorrow. But for now—just let it be now.
Reading the answer in her eyes, Zan laid her gently across the bed. 'It's the best view in the house,' he said huskily, staring down at her. Slowly he began to unbutton his shirt, his eyes never leaving her face.
But it had been the wrong thing to say. She thought of Irena and her head turned restlessly, her outflung hair rustling against the spread. The bed rocked and Zan's shoulders arched over her, his arms sliding beneath her. His breath steamed against her skin as his lips stroked down the line of her throat. 'Why did you leave me, Zan?' she whispered, trembling.
His lips paused and his head lifted above her. 'Why?' Against her, his chest heaved with angry, incredulous laughter. 'Jade, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't think, I couldn't write You said you didn't want me, told me to go to hell. What was I supposed to do? Stay around till something snapped and I hurt you some way you'd never forgive?' He shook his head angrily, his hands biting into her shoulders. 'And then, to top it off, Mona's telegram came. There she'd found and won her love at last. And here I was, knowing what I wanted, seeing it slip further and further away each day ... I couldn't stand any more. I had to go.' He sat up restlessly, glaring down at her. His wide eyes had a reckless, determined glint to them as his hands found the bottom edge of her sweater and pulled it up.
'And if you loved me, why didn't you let me know?' he challenged softly.
'You said, that time in the boat—' Jade paused as he pulled the sweater over her head, then she waited till his eyes came back to her face, 'you said that I should play around, that I shouldn't be so serious about love.'
The Darling Jade Page 17
