Dust Devil (33 page)

“
Do
you mind if I join you?” he asked, the glittering intensity of
his dark eyes as they surveyed her belying the lightness of his tone.

“
Actually,
it’s late and I was just leaving,” she insisted, fumbling
for her handbag and silently cursing the waitress, who had yet to
reappear to take care of the bill. Although Sarah had dreamed of this
meeting for years, now that it was upon her, she found she perversely
didn’t want it, after all. She was tied up in knots inside, a
nervous wreck—not at all the calm, cool, poised femme fatale
she had planned and imagined. Her heart was still pounding at an
alarming rate; her mouth was so dry that she could hardly swallow. “I
don’t know why that waitress hasn’t returned. I’d
better go find her.”

But
to Sarah’s sudden panic, before she could get up, Renzo
smoothly slid in next to her on the banquette, effectively preventing
her escape and forcing her back into the comer. His arm rested along
the back of the seat, almost but not quite touching her shoulders.

“
Please
don’t tell me you turn into a pumpkin at midnight. I won’t
believe you.”

“
No,
but I—” She broke off abruptly, biting her lower lip.
Dear God, she was so rattled by him that she had nearly said,
But
I have a son waiting for me at home.
“
But
I have to work tomorrow,” she ended lamely, acutely aware of
his proximity, of the heat and muscle of his thigh pressed against
hers.

“
Really?”
Renzo lifted one thick, unruly black eyebrow with mocking skepticism.
“And here I thought only workaholics and journalists labored on
Saturday.”

“
Yes,
well, since, in addition to my regular job at Field-Yield, Inc., I’m
currently handling all the advertising and promotion for J. D.
Holbrooke’s senatorial campaign, my schedule is pretty hectic
at the moment.” To Sarah’s relief, the waitress showed up
at last, but she was carrying a small, round, cork-lined tray on
which sat a Tom Collins
and
a glass of Scotch, neat. “Miss, I think you’ve made a
mistake. I didn’t order another drink.”

“
No,
you didn’t, but I did.” Reaching into the inside pocket
of his jacket, Renzo withdrew a long, elegant black leather wallet,
from which he removed a credit card. Then, picking up the folder that
held Sarah’s dinner check, he casually took out her Visa card,
returning it to her and replacing it with his own American Express. A
platinum one, she observed. Even Bubba’s was only gold. Closing
the folder, Renzo then handed it to the waitress, saying, “Thanks.
You can cash me out now whenever you’re ready.”

After
the waitress had gone, Sarah, having had a moment to try to gather
her wits and composure, inquired tartly, “What do you think
you’re doing, Renzo?” She didn’t want to be
beholden to him for even so much as supper. She wanted nothing
whatsoever from him or to do with him, she insisted to herself. Not
now, not ever. He had no right to walk casually back into her life
like this, to entrap her in the booth and coolly pay for her meal—as
though he owned her. She had loved him, trusted him, given him her
innocence—and he had repaid her by callously abandoning her,
leaving her pregnant and alone. As she thought of that, all her old
anger and resentment flared inside her. “I can pay my own bill,
thank you very much!” she snapped indignantly.

Extracting
a pack of Marlboros and a gold lighter from another pocket, Renzo lit
up, dragging on the cigarette deeply before he exhaled, blowing a
stream of smoke from his nostrils. “Humor me,” he said
shortly. “I owe you a dinner, at least.”

“
For
what?”

For
an interminable moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer,
He stared down at his drink, as though he were lost in the past or
hadn’t heard her question—or had and intended to ignore
it. Then, lifting the glass, he took a long swallow of the smoky
Scotch it contained, drew on his cigarette again. Finally, as though
he had just fought some violent, inner battle with himself—and
lost—he glanced at her nakedly and spoke.

“
For
being so damned foolish as to leave you behind twelve years ago.”
His voice was soft but raw with emotion, and a muscle worked in his
jaw, as she remembered it always had whenever he had been enraged or
upset or both. If he had suddenly slapped her, she couldn’t
have been more stunned or dismayed. She couldn’t seem to think
anymore, such was the impact of his words upon her. Of all she had
thought he might say, this was the very last thing she had ever
expected. She was even more startled and distressed when he went on,
his words coming now in a low, harsh rush that rang with truth and
sincerity. “Damn it, Sary! We were going to be married! I loved
you! I thought you loved me! So why’d you disconnect your
telephone and refuse to answer my letters? Did you finally come to
believe I’d actually murdered Sonny Holbrooke, as everybody
else in town claimed? Is that why you cut me off as though I were
just so much dead weight?”

This
wasn’t happening, Sarah thought dumbly, utterly stricken now,
cold and sick inside. This wasn’t real, but the product of her
wild imagination, fueled by too many Tom Collinses. He wasn’t
truly here, wasn’t truly saying all
these
things to her. Because If he were telling her the truth, she couldn’t
live with what she had done to him, would never forgive herself for
it. He simply
must
be
lying, as he had once lied about loving her, about wanting to marry
her. Well, no matter what, she wouldn’t be a gullible, trusting
fool again!

“
I—I
don’t believe you! You’re lying! Just as you lied to me
all those years ago, so you could—so you could... I never
received any letters from you. There
weren’t
my
letters!”
she insisted desperately, mercilessly assailed by
doubts
despite herself, her heart thudding furiously, her mind racing at the
terrible, unthinkable thought that perhaps she
had
been
wrong all these years about him never trying to get in touch with
her. “You—you
never
wrote!
You never called! My God! Do you honestly believe that if you had
ever written or phoned me—even just once—I would have—”
Shocked, horrified by the words that had nearly tumbled from her
mouth, Sarah bit them back so hard that she bloodied her lower lip.
I
would have kept your son from you?
she
had almost blurted out heedlessly. “I wouldn’t have
answered you?” she amended hastily.

“
Damn
it, Sarah!” Renzo’s eyes, smoldering like embers, seemed
to scorch her own, to burn right through her. “I
did
call.
But all I got was a recording that said your number was no longer in
service. I
did
write.
I never heard back from you. And then my mother sent me a letter,
telling me that barely three months after I’d fled from town,
you’d got married and moved away to parts unknown!”

“
That’s
not true! I never did!” Sarah’s consternation grew with
each new revelation.

“
I
know that—now. But what do you think I thought back then? How
do you think I felt? Especially when I wrote you again and then
again, and you still never replied?”

“
I—I
never got your letters, Renzo,” she confessed, devastated,
compelled at last to admit to herself that he was telling the truth.
She wanted to bury her head in her hands and weep at the realization.
“Honestly, I didn’t. Please believe me. Oh, my God! Mama!
My
own
mama
must have intercepted them. She must have opened them up and read
them, then torn them up and thrown them away without ever telling me
about them.” Sarah knew suddenly with sick certainty, even as
she voiced this conjecture, that it was indeed what had happened, why
she had thought Renzo had forsaken her. It was what Mama had wanted
her to believe.

Dear
God. All these years, she had kept their son a secret from Renzo—to
punish him for leaving her behind, for never getting in touch with
her. What a horrible wrong she had done him! He hadn’t lied to
her, not ever. He had loved her, wanted her—and she hadn’t
known.
She
hadn’t known!
All
those lonely, empty years wasted, when she might have been happy,
when they and their son might have been a family! Sarah felt as
though she were going to throw up, to be violently ill. But it was
too late to put matters right. Renzo would hate her now; he would
kill her, she thought dully. Yes, when he found out about their son,
as he undoubtedly would, he would surely kill her. Italians set such
store by family, by the eldest son, particularly.

“
Why
would your mother have done such a cruel thing, Sarah, not given you
any of my letters? She didn’t even know me!”

“
Because...”
Because
I was pregnant with your child,
she
thought.
Became
she blamed me for Daddy’s death.
“
Because
we... had a lot of trouble after that day at the quarry, because I’d
defended you. People started calling the house, harassing us, so we
had to disconnect our telephone. And they—they sent us
poison-pen letters, too.” Sarah didn’t explain to Renzo
that both the hateful calls and mail had been directed at her,
because she had been unwed and carrying his baby. She didn’t
tell him how often she had answered the telephone, only to hear
unknown male voices saying things like, “Hey, Coal Lump, I got
something real big and hard for you,” and worse. How often she
had opened envelopes, only to find notes inside, scrawled in unknown
female handwriting, which had read, “You slut! You whore! God’s
going to punish you, Coal Lump Kincaid!” and worse, until she
had ceased to open any mail addressed to her. “You of all
people should know how hard and unforgiving this town can be, Renzo,”
she added, her voice ragged with the emotional turmoil that tore at
her ruthlessly.

“
Yeah,
I guess I do.” He sipped his Scotch, crushed his cigarette out
in the ashtray. “People haven’t exactly struck up the
band and rolled out the red carpet for me since I’ve come home.
You probably heard I bought the
Trib
from
my folks and that they moved to Florida.”

“
Yes,
word still gets around in this town, just as it always did.”

“
So
you did know I was back, then. Tell me, weren’t you the least
bit... curious, even, to see me, Sary?”

“
No,”
she forced herself to reply tersely, terrified as to where this
discussion might be leading. She didn’t want to know if he
still loved her. She couldn’t bear it. “Look, Renzo,
twelve years ago we were just a couple of kids.. .in—”
In
love,
she
had nearly said. “Infatuated with each other, yes. But that’s
all. And now, it’s just so much water under the bridge. You
made a life for yourself elsewhere, and I made one for myself here,
and just because you’ve chosen after all this time to return to
town doesn’t mean we’re still the same two people. We’re
not.”

“
I
know that. I know things have changed, and I’m not so foolish
as to believe we can just pick up where we left off. But I
...
”
I
never got over you,
Renzo
wanted to say. “I never forgot you, Sary,” he told her
instead. “Call it
infatuation
if
it pleases you.” His mouth tightened with derision as he spoke
the word, so she knew she had hurt him. “Whatever. I’d
still like to see you again, to take you out if you’ll let me.”