An Inconvenient Husband (14 page)

He shook his head.
"No—in a strange place. Dark, cold...I don't know." He shrugged,
defeated. "It's gone." He straightened his back and raked both hands
through his hair, frustrated.

She bit her lip,
staring at his bare brown chest, feeling the silence pulsing around them. She
hugged herself, feeling cold. "It was only a dream," she said, trying
to dismiss it, knowing she could not.

He looked up, his gaze
meeting hers for the first time since she'd entered the room. "You were
very... distraught, angry." His mouth tilted in a faintly sardonic slant.
"I wish I knew what heinous crime I had committed."

She swallowed.
"It wasn't real."

He held her gaze, his
eyes full of shadows. "You were so... distressed. It was... seemed very
real to me."

She forced a smile.
"Well, I'm not distressed now, so don't worry about it." She moved
away from the bed, her legs unsteady. "I'm going to make myself some hot
tea. Can I get you something?"

He shook his head.
"No." Then he shrugged. "Oh, hell, I'm not going back to sleep
now. I'll have some coffee."

"I'll get
it." She left the room quickly, relieved to be away from the uneasy
atmosphere between them.

Tea and coffee made,
she put the cups on a tray and went into the living room. He was out on the
veranda, leaning on the railing, staring off into the rain forest beyond the
garden. She handed him his cup.

"Thanks." He
gave her a rueful smile. "I'm sorry I woke you. I must have been talking
in my sleep." He sounded calm, and quite awake.

"It's all
right." She sipped the hot tea. "It's interesting out here in the
night. It seems so mysterious."

"Yes." He
took a drink of his coffee. "A universe onto its own. Millions of years
old and it just keeps on going and growing."

The jungle throbbed
and vibrated with sound. "It's so... alive," she said. "All
these plants and animals and insects with their own role to play to keep the
system going. It's all so... awesome, don't you think?"

"Yes."

She gave him a
sideways glance. His face was amused, his mouth curved in a half smile.
"What's so funny?" she asked.

"Oh, I was
remembering you being awed by crocuses coming out of the ground."

"That's
fascinating, too—the why and the how."

In the dark, his eyes
met hers briefly, then he focused on the forest again. "It's what I always
loved about you—your enthusiasm for the little stuff," he said quietly.
"You made me notice things I'd never really paid attention to."

She remembered him
laughing or smiling when she'd get excited about things. She remembered him
teasing her.

"You used to
tease me," she said softly, feeling a sudden painful sense of loss.

"You made me look
at things differently," he went on. "You opened a whole new world for
me."

His words made her
feel light, almost dizzy.
You opened a whole new world for me.

She closed her eyes
and swallowed. "I didn't know you thought that." She heard the
quivering of her own voice.

He was silent for a
moment.

"I remember the
first time I met you, at that party at your parents' house in Washington,"
he said then. "Here you were, looking elegant and beautiful in your long
dress, telling me you loved to put on your hiking boots and go foraging for
fiddleheads in the spring, and how delicious they were and how you had a
special recipe." He gave a crooked grin. "And I had no idea what you
were talking about."

"I
remember." She smiled now, too. She'd explained to him that fiddleheads
were the tender young shoots of certain wild ferns, still coiled and not yet
spread out into their feathery, mature fronds.

"And I kept
looking at you in your elegant dress sipping a glass of champagne and I
couldn't for the world come up with an image of you in hiking boots and jeans
prowling through the woods looking for fiddleheads."

It had taken him no
time at all to come up with a solution to the problem. That very next day, a
Sunday, they'd both been in the woods in search of fiddleheads.

She'd brought a picnic
lunch in her backpack, and they'd been gone for hours. Magic hours. She'd been
so exhilarated, so totally swept off her feet; it had all seemed so unreal, as
if they'd been under a wonderful, magical spell, lost in a fairy-tale forest.

Sitting on a mossy
log, he'd kissed her, as she'd known he would. All the hours and minutes that
had led up to that kiss had been delirious anticipation. It had exploded in
wild abandon and they'd both pulled back at the same time, as if by mutual
agreement. As she'd gazed into his eyes, trembling with need, she'd known that
something very special was happening, something more wonderful than anything
she'd experienced before.

Memories. So many
memories.

A soft cooing came
from somewhere in the garden. A dove? She let out her breath slowly.

"Suppose there
are fiddleheads in the woods here?" Blake asked, an odd note to his voice.

"I don't know..
.1 suppose." Her heart was pounding. Her hand holding the teacup was
trembling. She put it on a small table behind her, afraid she'd let it slip
from her fingers.

Silence. He smiled at
her, his face faintly illuminated by the moonlight and she saw the dark
yearning in that smile and her heart lurched. He reached out and she felt his
hands cupping her face and then he was kissing her, his mouth warm and urgent.

Her body flooded with
warmth and all her senses sprang to life. His arms came around her holding her
more closely, his kiss deepening, stealing her strength. Kissing him back, she
soaked up all the familiar sensations, aching, wanting—feeling his body against
her, wanting her. A soft groan came from his throat as he pulled away from her
moments later.

"Come to bed with
me," he said in her ear, his voice low and husky.

She was trembling in
his embrace, aware that nothing more than two thin sarongs separated them. She
couldn't make her voice work.

He trailed his fingers
through her hair. "Nicky?" he urged.

She swallowed
desperately, fighting the hunger. "I can't do this."

"Why not?"

"It's...it's not
right." She sounded like a prudish virgin. She didn't know how else to say
it, how to explain her fear.
I can't go back,
she thought,
I can't go
back.

He laughed softly.
"We're both mature, unattached adults. We know each other well. We're
alone and we need each other. Is that such a terrible thing, Nicky?"

She couldn't talk. She
was groping for sanity, fighting the terrible yearning twisting inside her.

"Do you want me,
Nicky?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," she
whispered. It made no sense to lie. He knew her too well. The old magic was
still there between them—the mutual enchantment of the senses, the sweet
intoxication, the fires of passion. Her body still remembered, still reacted to
him with familiar delight.

He knew how to touch
her, how to make her body sing, how to make her feel alive and loved and
special. He had always known that. The memories ached in her consciousness,
suffusing her with naked need.

But lovemaking alone
was not enough. It could not make up for other yearnings, other needs.

For
tonight it will be enough,
came a hungry little voice inside her.
Make love and forget the rest.

Tears burned behind
her eyes. "No," she said shakily. "It's not enough. I can't
sleep with you just because ... because it
feels
good. Because it
would be so... so...
convenient!"

She clenched her
hands, feeling a swell of anger washing away desire, bringing back memories of
the phone ringing in the empty bedroom. "Forget it! I'll be damned, if I'm
going to be
convenient!"

Her words throbbed in
the silence, raw and anguished. He said nothing, a harshness edging his face as
he looked at her with eyes suddenly filled with bitter anger. He took a step
back, as if he could no longer tolerate her nearness.

"What the hell do
you want, Nicky?" His voice was rough with emotion. "What the hell
did you ever want? I gave you everything. Everything! And even that wasn't good
enough!" He turned away abruptly and strode back inside.

She was shaking so
hard, she was afraid to move. "Oh, no, Blake," she whispered into the
throbbing darkness. "You didn't give me everything."

She had breakfast
alone the next morning. Blake was in the office, writing. He came into the
kitchen a while later as she was refilling her coffee cup and gave her a polite
good morning, glancing at her for all of one second. He poured himself a cup of
coffee, as well, and walked out without another word.

She wished she could
just pick up her purse, get in a car and drive away. Only she had no papers, no
car, no money and no place to go. She felt trapped and helpless, which made her
furious. How could fate dare to do this to her, independent, self-reliant Nicky
Arnell?

She left the kitchen,
found paper, pen and research material in her room and went to the veranda to
write.

Next time
you find yourself kidnapped and held captive in the Malaysian jungle, try for a
little culinary adventure to fill the long, empty hours. Go foraging for fungi.
Jungle mushrooms come in a variety of shapes and colors, from skinny little
white ones to large, fan-shaped orange ones. Unless all hope for eventual
freedom has vanished, you want to select the nonpoisonous ones. Some varieties
will make you feel sleepy and lazy, which may be desirable in your
circumstances.

Marinate a
pound or two of these sporophores in a liberal amount of lemon-flavored,
extra-virgin olive oil to which has been added salt and pepper, three or four
cloves of minced garlic and a handful of chopped fresh basil. Skewer them on
thin, green bamboo sticks and roast gently over an open fire for about 10
minutes, or until tender, turning once.

If the
Malaysian jungle is not available, you may substitute your local supermarket
and purchase whatever type of fresh fungi is available within. You may use your
backyard barbecue instead of an open fire.

There was no sign of
Blake during lunch and she didn't see him again until dinner time. The tension
during the meal was thick as smog. He hardly said a word and she made no effort
at conversation. It was hard to swallow the food, but she made an effort so as
not to worry or offend Ramyah.

Having served them
coffee at the dinner table, Ramyah wished them good-night and left to go to her
room.

"There's
something I've wanted to ask you," Blake said, his voice low and
contained.

"What?" Her
throat felt dry as dust. She took a swallow of the hot coffee.

His eyes were smoky
dark and unreadable. "What went wrong? I never understood what went
wrong."

Her heart thundered in
her chest. It was difficult to breathe. She knew what he was asking and anxiety
rushed back with heightened intensity. "It...it just wasn't working
anymore."

His right hand
clenched around the coffee cup. "What kind of answer is that?
Why
wasn't it working?"

"We were never
together anymore!" she blurted, her voice shaking. "You can't keep a
marriage alive if you don't see each other!"

His jaw went rigid.
"We had it worked out so we
would
see each other. It
worked fine for the first year or so. Until you just weren't home
anymore."

Under the table she
felt her legs begin to tremble. She pressed her knees together. "I was
there plenty of times! I was there
most
of the time!"

His jaw tensed.
"But not when I was home." His voice was stone cold. "Not after
the first year or so. Something happened, something changed."

Something had changed.
In her mind, in her perceptions. What had seemed so good, had started to look
different. She could feel again the old anguish, the old fear. And then
suddenly anger overwhelmed her, and the need to lash out at him for all the
pain he had caused her.

She faced him,
clenching her hands in her lap. "It was all right for you to travel for
weeks on end," she accused bitterly, "but / couldn't be gone? I was
supposed to be home for you whenever you had time to grace the old homestead
with your presence! And I did just that, the first year, didn't I? How
convenient it all was for you!"

His jaw tensed into
steel. His eyes were cold as ice. "It was not an arrangement
I
imposed on
you,"
he countered, speaking the words in a slow, clipped
manner. "It was a plan we made together for both of us!"