Danger Zone (28 page)

“Doris is a nosy parker and Margaret’s spy,” Linda replied. “I thought I’d better assume the duties myself and keep her out of here.”

They both heard the shower water begin to run and Linda added, “Sounds like your friend will be occupied for a while. You’d better start on this; it will get cold.” She sat on the edge of the bed and picked up a slice of toast, nibbling delicately.

“What did Margaret say after we went upstairs last night?” Karen asked her.

Linda adjusted the sash on her ruffled red satin robe and chewed thoughtfully. “She didn’t say much; I think she was flummoxed.”

“‘Flummoxed’?” Karen repeated, smiling.

“Stunned and bewildered. Speechless, almost, which in Margaret’s case was a beautiful thing to see. It won’t last, however. She’ll recover and have quite a bit to say, unless I miss my guess. And where Margaret is concerned, I usually don’t.”

“I hope we haven’t caused a lot of trouble for you,” Karen said guiltily, reaching for a grapefruit slice and popping it into her mouth.

“Don’t be silly, darling. It was worth any amount of static from Margaret to see the expression on her face when Colter arrived. Poor Field will never be the same. I don’t know why Margaret thinks that dotty artifact would be able to stop anybody from coming in, much less a hearty specimen like your soldier boy, but that’s my stepmother for you. All the help around here is approximately the age of original sin and she wonders why the place is falling to pot.”

Karen chuckled. “Yes, I know, you do have it hard.”

“Don’t start that, Karen—it’s too early in the morning.” She stood and dusted her hands on her robe. “Which reminds me, I’d better get after that sluggardly dressmaker. I have a fitting at ten and I want to confirm the appointment. The last time I showed up there they had confused the time. I had to wait around like Apple Mary while they inserted panels into a gown for some absurdly fat cow who should have been wearing an Arabian tent.”

Karen laughed. “God help them if they keep you waiting again,” she said in awed tones.

“I’ve said it all along; you’re no fun.” She cast a longing glance at the closed bathroom door. “But Colter, however...”

Karen threw a napkin at her. “Get out of here.”

“One would never guess this was my house,” Linda said imperiously and swept from the room.

A few minutes after she left Colter emerged from the bathroom, his hair wet and slicked back, a towel wrapped around his hips.

“Where’s the duchess?” he said, eyeing the breakfast tray with enthusiasm.

“She has an appointment.”

“Did you leave anything for me?” he asked, sitting next to her and grabbing a muffin.

Karen slapped his wrist. “That’s mine; can’t you see there’s a bite out of it? There’s plenty more under that cover.”

He helped himself and silence reigned for a few minutes as he ate steadily, demolishing everything on the tray. Karen watched him until he realized she was doing so and grinned sheepishly.

“Gee, I hope you had enough,” she said breathlessly.

“My last meal was breakfast yesterday on the plane,” he replied.

“Take my word, you made up for it.”

He picked up her hand and kissed it. “I’m a growing boy.”

“If you ate regular meals you wouldn’t get so starved,” Karen said, throwing back the sheet and going to the closet for her robe. “Should we be changing the tape on your hand, by the way? It’s wet. And what about the cut on your head?”

“The tape will dry—it’s been wet before. And I don’t need the dressing anymore; I took it off. The cut’s healing all right.”

Karen sighed. She knew that her words were wasted on him. “I’m going to take a shower. Don’t eat the dishes while I’m gone.”

He waved her on, diving into the plate of fruit. Karen took a long hot shower in the luxuriously appointed guest bath. She washed with glycerine soap pressed into a flower shape and did her hair with an herbal shampoo that smelled like an apothecary shop. She stepped out of the tiled shower stall and wrapped her hair in a thick striped Turkish towel, belting her robe around her. Opening the door to the bedroom released a cloud of steam, and when it cleared she found that Colter was nowhere to be seen.

There was a note pinned to the pillow of the unmade bed.

“Be back in an hour. C.”

He was nothing if not succinct. Karen took off her robe and dressed, annoyed. Why did he keep vanishing like a sorcerer’s apprentice? And why did he wait until she’d left the room to take off, as if she were his truant officer? She had a sinking feeling that something was up and she didn’t like it. As far as she was aware he didn’t know a soul in London, but of course she wasn’t aware of very much where his “other life” was concerned. He must have gone to see someone because Linda’s largesse could have provided anything else that he needed. On a hunch she picked up the house phone and rang Field.

“Yes, madam?” he said in his theatrical accent.

“Did Mr. Colter get a call this morning?” she asked the butler.

“Someone rang for him about ten minutes ago, madam,” Field replied, with just the slightest hint of disapproval in his voice. Karen could understand that Colter was not high on his list of favorites and overlooked it. She was relieved to hear that the call had come while she was in the bathroom. His departure wasn’t premeditated, then.

“Was it long distance, a...trunk call?” Karen asked, feeling guilty about checking up on Colter but desperate to know what was going on.

“I couldn’t possibly say, madam.”

Karen realized she was getting nowhere and hung up. Then she paced for half an hour.

Colter returned when he’d said he would. He was attired in the same clothes he’d worn the night before with the pea jacket over his arm. One look at his face told her that she was in trouble.

“Where did you go?” she greeted him tensely.

He sat down and lit a cigarette, which was always a bad sign. “I had to meet somebody.”

“In London? Who do you know here?”

“I have contacts everywhere.”

“Contacts?” she repeated, her heart dropping into her shoes. “This was about a job?”

“Yeah.”

“How did they know where you were?”

“I left word with Mary Lafferty.”

“Oh, of course, excuse me. I forgot about your referral service,” Karen said sarcastically.

He let that pass, tapping ash into the ceramic tray.

“Well?” she said. “I hope you told them no.”

He avoided her eyes. “I’m going to Lebanon,” he said flatly.

“Lebanon,” she whispered, staring. She simply couldn’t believe it.

He wouldn’t look at her.

“You’re leaving me again?”

He didn’t answer.

“Talk to me, Steven. You’re leaving me today, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Karen’s breath expelled in a sound that was half sigh, half sob. “Then why did you come back?” she asked, bewildered. “Why did you let me believe we’d be together?”

“I came back to show you I was okay, so you wouldn’t worry,” he answered quietly.

“And you think I won’t worry now?” she asked him incredulously.

He said nothing.

“You never had any intention of staying with me, did you?” she said softly.

“Karen, listen to me...” he began.

“No, you listen to me,” she countered wildly. Her gaze fell on his bandaged hand. “You’re not even waiting until that’s healed,” she said desperately, trying anything.

“They need me now.”

“Oh, why don’t you just tell the truth?” she demanded, her anger rising, surmounting the pain. “You can’t wait to get away from me.”

“That isn’t so,” he said. His voice was low, almost expressionless, the tone he used when he wanted to disguise his true feelings. But she could guess what they were.

“You have to get on with your life now, don’t you?” she said bitterly.

He met her with a stony silence.

“You had your relaxation, right? You came here and used me like one of your prostitute friends, and now it’s time to move on to more important things.”

He went white beneath his tan, and she regretted the words almost as soon as they left her mouth. For the first time since she’d known him she felt physical fear.

He picked up a figurine standing on the fireplace mantel and threw it against the wall. The delicate china shattered into a score of fragments. “How dare you say that to me?” he spat between his teeth.

Karen shrank from him, her eyes wide.

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her as she tried frantically to wrest herself from his grasp. Finally he let her go, flinging her away. He sagged against the wall, trembling, his head down.

“Why don’t you just hit me?” Karen asked contemptuously, rubbing her bruised arms. “That’s what you’d like to do, isn’t it?”

“No,” he responded, defeated. “I could never hurt you.”

“What do you think you’re doing right now?” she fired back.

“The right thing,” he answered. “I’m doing the right thing.”

Karen stared at him. “You are unquestionably the most confused character I have ever met. How can walking out on me, on what we have, be the right thing?”

“I know what’s best,” he said stonily. “You’re too emotional. I have to make this decision.”

“You know what’s best?” she said in amazement, almost laughing. “You spend your whole life running headlong into the path of what’s most likely to kill you, and you know what’s best?”

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Oh, I understand perfectly. You’d be amazed how much I understand. This is goodbye, right? I’m supposed to forget you now.”

“That’s the idea,” he said flatly. 

“You knew this was coming, didn’t you? You knew this last night.”

“I just got called this morning.”

“But you knew when you came here that it was only a matter of time. You knew you would take off on another one of these suicide runs as soon as you got the chance,” she accused him.

He confronted her, his fists balled at his side, taking the offensive for the first time. “What did you think would happen, Karen? Did you think I would turn overnight into a CPA or an orthodontist?”

“I guess I thought we would go to your place in Florida. I could get a job; there’s a large Spanish speaking population in that area,” she said reasonably.

“Oh, I see; you were going to support me?” he asked scornfully. “And you thought I’d be happy about that?”

“I didn’t think that far. I just assumed you would want us to stay together,” she cried plaintively, near tears. 

He looked away, steeling himself to be tough. This had to be done. “You understood that I had to go last time,” he said curtly.

“You had no choice!” Karen countered. “You told me that yourself. And you also said you were coming back.” She broke down, crying openly. “You could turn this one down but you want to go,” she went on, wiping her eyes. “It’s an excuse; you just want to get away from me.” Her voice dropped an octave. “Why did you really come back? To make this break all the more painful?”

“I had to see you again,” he admitted huskily.

“I really thought that part of your life was all over,” she murmured, as if to herself. “I thought you loved me. You never said it, not once, but I felt it.”

She wasn’t looking at him and she didn’t see his eyes filling, the wet lashes as he turned his head. “I do love you,” he said quietly. “That’s why I’m leaving you for good. I’m trying to do you a favor.”

“By breaking my heart?” she wailed.

“No. By helping you to save it for someone else.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” she said bitterly.

“You will. You deserve somebody who’ll stay with you, who’ll make a life with you and take care of you. I can’t be that man.”

“Yes, you could. But you won’t try.”

“I can’t try. It’s too late.”

“People can change if they want to badly enough,” she said stubbornly. “But you don’t want to. You won’t make the effort. Is that all I mean to you?”

Colter rubbed the back of his arm across his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to speak calmly. “You mean more to me than anyone ever has, Karen. That’s why I’m doing this. Do you think I could stand by and watch you grow unhappy, old before your time with worry and uncertainty?”

“You could leave that life,” she protested. “You could try something else.”

“I’m no good for you, Karen,” he insisted, hitting on what was, for him, the only issue. Then in a softer voice he said, “I’m just no good, period.”

Karen stared at him. “That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?” she said softly. “You think you’re not worthy of me or some such nonsense, and you also think I’m a child who has to be protected from herself. So you know better than I do what’s best for me. You’re not my father, Steven. Can’t I make that decision?”

“It’s made,” he replied flatly. “I’m going to Lebanon.”

“And this is your way of showing how much you love me?” she demanded bitterly.

“I know you can’t see it, but yes.”

“You don’t love me,” she shouted as she finally realized that he was going to leave no matter what she said or did.

His features hardened and he turned for the door.

“Go on, summer soldier, live alone, die alone. See if anybody cares because I sure won’t!”

He kept walking.

“Go, then!” she yelled after him. “Go to Lebanon, go to Timbuktu, go to hell!”

The door slammed and he was gone. Karen waited until his footsteps had faded from the stairs before dissolving into tears. She cried for a long time, until she was left drained and dry eyed on the tangled bedclothes. She fell into a semi doze that lasted until there was a knock on her door at lunchtime.

“Come in,” Karen called, sitting up and brushing her hair back from her face. Her eyes were sore and sandy, her cheeks stiff and sticky from crying. She wasn’t surprised by Linda’s shocked expression when she came through the door.

“What happened to you?” Linda gasped, looking around the room as if expecting to find the cause of Karen’s misery lurking in a corner.

“Oh, it’s you,” Karen said dully. “I thought it was the maid. She was here before and I sent her away.”

“What’s going on? Where is Colter?”

“Gone.”

“Again?” Linda said.