by J. R. Ward
The answer came before the first ring had even finished. "Lizzie?"
Her eyes closed as Lane's voice went into her ear and through her whole body.
"Hello?" he said. "Lizzie?"
There were a lot of places to sit down in her living room or her kitchen--chairs, benches, sofas, even the sturdy coffee table. Instead of putting any of them to use, she leaned against the wall and let her butt slide down to the floor.
"Lizzie? You there?"
"Yes." She put her forehead in her hand. "I'm here. Why are you calling?"
"I wanted to make sure you got home all right."
For no good reason, tears came to her eyes. He'd always done this. Back when they'd been together, no matter when she'd left, he'd called her just as she was coming in the door. Like he'd put a timer on his phone.
"I don't hear the party," she said. "In the background."
"I'm not at home."
"Where are you?"
"At the Old Site. In the barrel room." There was some rustling, as if he, too, were sitting down. "I haven't been out here for a long time. It smells the same. Looks the same."
"I've never gone there."
"You'd like it. It's your kind of place--everything simple and functional and handmade."
She glanced over at her living room and then focused on the first spade she'd found out in those fields that she planted with corn every year. The thing was old and rusty, and to her, beautiful.
The period of silence that followed made her feel like he was in the room with her.
"I'm glad you haven't hung up," Lane said finally.
"I wish I could."
"I know."
She cleared her throat. "I thought about what you told me all the way home. I thought about the way you looked when you were talking to me. I thought . . . about the way things were."
"And?"
"Lane, even if I could get past everything--and I'm not saying I can--what exactly do you want from me?"
"Anything you'll give me."
She laughed in a tense burst. "That's honest."
"Do I have a shot with you again? Because I'll tell you this right now--if there's any chance you'll have me, I--"
"Stop," she breathed. "Just . . . stop."
When he did, she pulled at her hair, tugging, tugging, so hard it made her eyes water even harder. Or maybe that was happening for other reasons.
"I wish you hadn't come home," she heard herself say. "I wish . . . I was almost over you, Lane. I was getting my breath back, my life back. I was . . . and now here you are, saying things that I want to hear, and looking at me like you mean them. But I don't want to go back. I can't."
"Then let's go forward."
"Like that's so easy."
"It's not. But it's better than nothing."
As the quiet stretched out again, she felt the need to speak, to explain things further, to go into greater detail. But as words jammed in her head, she gave up the fight.
"There hasn't been a night, a day, that I haven't thought of you, Lizzie."
The same was true for her, but she didn't want to give him that kind of ammunition against her. "What have you been doing all this time up there?"
"Nothing. And I mean that. I've been staying with my friend Jeff . . . drinking, playing poker. Waiting, hoping to get a chance to speak with you."
"For two years."
"I would have waited a dozen."
Lizzie stopped with the hair pulling. "Please don't do this--"
"I want you, Lizzie."
As what he said sank in, her heart pounded so hard her she could feel the increase in blood pressure all across her chest and face.
"I've never stopped wanting you, Lizzie. Thinking about you. Wishing you were with me. Hell, I feel like I've been in a relationship with a ghost. I see you on the streets of New York constantly, some blond woman passing me by on the sidewalk--maybe it was the way she had her hair, or the sunglasses, or it was the color of her blue jeans. I see you in my dreams every night--you're so real that I can touch you, feel you, be with you."
"You've got to stop."
"I can't. Lizzie . . . I can't."
Closing her eyes, she started to weep in the solitude of her oh-so-modest farmhouse, the one she had bought and was almost finished paying for, the very best symbol of why she didn't need a man in her life now or ever.
"Are you crying?" he whispered.
"No," she choked out after a moment. "I'm not."
"Are you lying?"
"Yes. I am."
THIRTEEN
As Lane stared across at the old still that had been made by one of his ancestors, he knew he was under the legal alcohol limit to drive a car, but that wasn't going to last. At his hip was a bottle of No. 15 that he'd snagged from a shipping carton, and although he hadn't cracked the seal on it, he had every intention of drinking the thing dry.
All around him, the Old Site was dark, and he'd been surprised that the lock pad and the security alarm had had the same codes as before. Then again, he would have broken in if he'd had to. He felt some compelling drive to be here . . . as if connecting to his family's beginnings would somehow improve where he was at.
He knew he should leave Lizzie alone.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I want to say all the right things, do the right things, and I know I'm not. I know I didn't. Goddamn it, Lizzie."
He cocked his head to the side and held the phone between his shoulder and his ear. Picking up the bourbon, he opened the bottle and put it to his mouth.
The idea he'd made her cry again ate him alive.
"Are you drinking?" she asked.
"It's either that or bang my head into a wall until it bleeds."
As she exhaled, he took another pull. And a third.
When he was finished swallowing and the burn down his throat had eased, he asked the question he'd been dreading the answer to. "Are you with someone else?"
She took a long time to answer. "No."
Now he was the one exhaling. "I don't believe in God, but at this moment? I'm willing to call m'self a Christian."
"What if I don't want you anymore? What are you going to do then?"
"Are you saying that's true?"
"Maybe."
He closed his eyes. "Then I'll back off. It'll ruin me . . . but I'll go away."
More quiet. Which he passed by working on his bottle.
"Friends," she said eventually. "That's as far as I'm going. That's all I can do."
"Okay. I respect that."
He could hear the relief in her voice: "Thank you--"
"But," he interjected, "what exactly does that mean?"
"Excuse me?"
"Well, friends . . . like, what is that? I can call you, right? And friends can share a meal now and then so they keep each other up on the news--you know, divorces, moving plans, new directions, this kind of thing."
"Lane."
He smiled. "I love when you say my name like that."
"When I'm annoyed?"
"It's sexy."
Lizzie cleared her throat. "That is not a friendship word, okay?"
"I was merely making a statement of fact."
"Opinion."
"Fact--"
"Lane, I'm telling you right now, you need to . . ."
As she went off on him, talking in her typical straightforward, no-nonsense way, he closed his eyes and listened to the orders, letting the tone of her voice wash over him. Deep in his gut, that old familiar lust stirred, a dragon woken up--and the urge was so strong, he wanted to get in his car and head out over the bridges to Indiana.
"Are you still there?" she demanded.
"Oh, yeah." Rearranging his erection in his pants, he held back a groan. "Yes, I am."
"What are you doing?"
He moved his hand way, waaaaay away from ground zero. "Nothing."
"Well?" she said. "Are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Falling asleep on me?"
"Hardly," he
muttered.
There was a heartbeat of a pause. Then a tight, "Oh . . ."
Like she'd caught his drift.
"I better go," he said roughly. "You take care and I'll talk to you tomorrow."
Except now she didn't seem to want him to get off the phone--and his cock was very truly happy about that: "So you're really staying?" she said.
Can we talk about something else, his erection thought.
Down, boy.
"Yes, I am." As he shifted on the hard floor, he tried to ignore the way that zipper stroked at him. "I have to meet with Samuel T. about my divorce."
"So you're really going to . . ."
"Yes," he said. "Immediately. And, no, it's not just about you. I made a mistake, and I'm fixing it for everybody."
"Okay." She cleared her throat. "Yes."
"I'm only looking forward, Lizzie."
"So you say. Well . . . good-bye--"
"No," he cut in. "Not that. We say good night, all right? Not good-bye, not unless you want me showing up to sleep on your doorstep like a stray dog."
"All right."
Before she ended the call on her side, he mouthed, I love you. "Good night, Lizzie."
"Good . . . night, Lane."
Ending the connection, he let his arm fall down, and the phone hit the concrete floor with a crack. "I love you, Lizzie," he muttered out loud.
Taking another draw off the bottle, he thought how convenient it was that his family's fortunes were based on something that could get him drunk--as opposed to the countless other consumer products which wouldn't have helped him in his current situation: pencils, car batteries, Band-Aids, chewing gum.
When his phone went off again, he snapped to and picked the thing up. But it wasn't Lizzie calling him back.
"Jeff," he said, even thought he didn't really want to talk to anybody.
His Manhattan host's voice was dry. "You're still alive."
"Pretty much." He put the bottle to his mouth again. "How's you?"
"Are you drinking?"
"Yup. Number Fifteen. I'd share it with you if you were here."
"Such a Southern gentleman." His buddy cursed. "Lane, where are you?"
"Home."
Cue the crickets over the connection. "As in . . ."
"Yup."
"Charlemont?"
"Born and bred I was and back to the fold I have returned." Huh. Guess he was getting drunk; he sounded really Southern. "Like you and the Upper East Side, only we have chitterlings and fried chicken--"
"What the hell are you doing there?"
"My . . ." He cleared his throat. "A very important person got sick. And I had to come."
"Who?"
"The woman who raised me. My . . . well, mother--even though she's not my biological mother. She was sick a couple of years ago, but, you know these things. They can return. She says she's going to be fine, though, and I'm hanging on to that."
"When're you coming back?"
Lane took another drink. "Did I ever tell you I got married?"
"What?"
"It was right before I came up north and started crashing with you. I'm going to stay down here until I know Miss Aurora's okay and that dumb idea is taken care of. Plus . . . anyway . . . there's this other woman."
"Hold on. Just, fucking hell, hold on."
There was some rustling, then the chk-chk-chk of someone trying to get a lighter to spit out a flame . . . followed by some puffing. "I'm going to need a Cuban to get through this. So . . . there's a wife?"
"I told you I wasn't gay."
"And is that the reason you haven't been with anyone up here?"
"No, that's because of the other female. The one I didn't marry. The one who is naturally beautiful and way too good for me."
"I'm going to need a Venn diagram," the guy muttered. "Goddamn it, why didn't you talk about all this?"
Lane shook his head even though his old friend couldn't see him. "I was in running mode." Man, he hated that Chantal had called it right. "It was all too loud in my head. The whole thing. So how's you?"
"You drop all that and cap it with a how'm I?"
"I got drinking to do. Talking is only slowing me down, but I'm free to listen." He swallowed a long draft. "So . . . what's up?"
"I'm good, you know, work is the same. Ten thousand screamers calling, a boss who's up my ass, and sixteen Motrin a day to keep my head from exploding. Same ol', same ol'. At least the money's there--especially now that you're not taking me for a quarter of a million dollars every week across the felt."
They spoke for a while more about nothing in particular. Poker games, Wall Street, the woman Jeff was banging. And even though Lane wasn't much for phone convos, he realized he missed the guy. He'd gotten used to the quick talk, the fast wit, and especially that hint of a Jersey accent where words that ended in "a" were pronounced with "er" and people waited on line instead of in line. And it was "birfday," instead of "birthday."
"So I guess this is good-bye," his old college roommate said.
Lane frowned and pictured Lizzie. Heard her voice. Remembered her caution.
Then he rearranged his persistent arousal.
Was there a possibility he might not go back to New York, he wondered.
Then again, he shouldn't get ahead of himself. When it came to getting Lizzie back, it took two to tango. Just because he was ready to resume the relationship didn't mean she was ever going to jump back into things. And then there was his family. As if he could imagine living at Easterly again? Even if Miss Aurora got back on her feet fully and he and Lizzie worked things out, the idea of coexisting with his father was enough to make him think fondly of the Canadian border. And even that wouldn't be far enough away.
"I don't know if I'm staying permanently."
"You can always come back here. My couch misses you already--and nobody plays Texas Hold'em like you do."
The two of them hung up after a set of good-byes, and as Lane did another round with the lax-arm, phone-flopping-down-on-the-concrete-floor thing, he refocused on the ancient still across the way. The thing had been used for decades around the turn of the century and was now an artifact to be viewed by the tens of thousands of visitors a year that came to the Old Site.
For some reason, it dawned on him that he'd never had a job. The extent of his "professional endeavors" was avoiding the paparazzi--which was more about survival than anything you should make a career out of. And courtesy of all his trust fund junkie stuff, he didn't know about bosses, or annoying cube mates, or bad commutes. He didn't think about needing to be somewhere at a certain time, or performance reviews, or headaches caused from too many hours at a computer screen.
Funny, he'd never once considered the fact that he had so much in common with Chantal. The only difference between them? Her family money wasn't enough to keep her in the lifestyle she'd been accustomed to--which was why she'd had to marry him.
And then there was Lizzie, working so hard, paying off that farm of hers. Knowing her, she'd probably hit her goal already.
It just made him respect her even more.
Also made him wonder exactly what he had to offer a woman of substance. Two years ago, he'd been all raging hard-ons and family drama, so hungry for her physically, so captivated by her mentally that he'd never looked at himself from her point of view. All his money and social position were only valuable to people like Chantal. Lizzie wanted more, deserved more.
She wanted real.
Maybe he wasn't so above that wife of his, after all.
Ex-wife, he corrected himself as he kept drinking.
FOURTEEN
"To what do I owe this honor."
As Gin's father spoke, it was a statement, not a question, and the tone suggested that her standing in the doorway to his bedroom was an intrusion.
Too bad, she thought.
"I want to know what the hell you've done with Richard Pford."
Her father didn't miss a beat over at his bureau, continuing to take
the gold studs out of his French cuffs. His black tuxedo jacket had been folded once and laid on the foot of the chaise lounge, and his black and red suspenders had been shucked from his shoulders and dangled from his waist like ribbons.
"Father," she barked. "What have you done."
He left her hanging until he'd undone his bow tie and pulled the thing free from his collar. "It's time you settled down--"
"You are hardly in a position to advocate for marriage."
"--and Richard is a perfect husband."
"Not for me."
"That remains to be seen." He turned and faced her, his eyes cool, his handsome face impassive. "And make no mistake, you will marry him."
"How dare you! This isn't the turn of the century. Women are not chattel--we can hold property, have our own bank accounts--we can even vote. And we sure as hell can decide whether or not we want to walk down the aisle--and I will not, ever, go on a date with that man, much less marry him. Especially if it benefits you in some way."
"Yes, you will." For a split second, his stare flicked up over her shoulder and he seemed to shake his head as if he were dismissing someone who was out in the hall. "And you will do so as soon as possible."
Gin twisted around, expecting somebody to be standing behind her on the threshold. No one was there.
She refocused on him. "You'll have to put a gun to my head."
"No, I won't. You're going to do it on your own, voluntarily."
"I will not--"
"Yes, you will."
In the quiet that followed, her heart skipped a number of beats. Over the course of her life, she had learned to both hate and fear her father--and in this tense, air-less silence between them, she wondered not for the first time what he was truly capable of.
"You can choose to fight," he said smoothly. "Or you can be efficient about this. You are only going to hurt yourself if you don't do this for the family. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to retire for the evening--"
"You can't treat me like this." She forced some strength into her voice. "I'm not some corporate executive you can hire and fire, and you can't order me around, not when it's going to ruin my life."
"Your life is already ruined. You had a child at seventeen, here in this house, for godsakes, and have followed that up with the kind of promiscuous behavior typically reserved for Las Vegas strippers. You barely graduated from Sweet Briar due to an affair with your married English professor, and as soon as you moved back here, you slept with my chauffeur. You are a disgrace to this household, and what is worse, I get the distinct impression that part of your enjoyment in these exploits is the embarrassment it causes your mother and me."
