For All of Her Life (9 page)

He reminded himself that he had just celebrated Tara’s thirtieth birthday with her. She had lamented her age the entire night, and he’d had no patience with her. Already planning his trip to Star Island, he barely had paid heed to her plaintive words.

He inhaled sharply, suddenly praying that he was doing the right thing. Maybe he was
putting
Kathy into danger, all but forcing her to come down to Florida. And if not maybe he’d just be putting the two of them through a wretched stretch. Like tonight...

God, it still hurt. She didn’t look one damned bit different. Her smile was still so quick, her eyes as warm as whiskey. Maybe she was more confident than he had remembered, but her voice was the same, with just a husky, sultry edge. A lot about her was the same—he knew since he had seen much more of her than either of them had intended.

But strangest of all had been his reaction when she had told him good night.
He could have followed her so easily.
Memories of earlier days had flooded back to him as he had watched her walk into the bedroom and close the door on him. It had been almost frightening to realize how strong the urge had been to go after her. As if ten years could be washed away like nothing. He could have held her so very easily. Made love to her. He remembered the way her lips parted when she was aroused, the smoky cast to her amber eyes, the way she moved. How she whispered in the darkness, cried out...

The phone rang, shattering the memories. He gave himself a rueful shake and turned in the darkness, picking up the receiver. He couldn’t read the small print in a contract so perfectly anymore, but he still had great night vision, and tonight, in his brooding mood, he liked darkness.

“Darling?”

Tara. He wondered why he felt such irritation with her.

“Yeah.”

“Well, what a greeting!” she murmured.

“Sorry. It’s just late.”

There was a second’s silence from her, and he realized in that small beat of time that she had called to make sure he was in his hotel room. It probably shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did.

“What’s up?” he asked her.

“I just called to hear your voice,” she said softly.

He felt a twinge of guilt—and still the impatience. They had a relationship, yes, but he’d never given his life over to her. They didn’t live together; she maintained her own home on Key Biscayne, as well as her main residence in L.A. She’d suggested moving in several times, but he had vaguely mentioned that his daughters came down too often, and yes, he was old-fashioned. It was strange; though he’d probably engaged in more affairs than his ex-wife, he’d always feared that Kathy would be the one to remarry. He had no desire to do so himself. One try at marriage was enough. He was pretty sure Tara understood that he needed a certain independence. He made no demands; he gave no promises. He’d been restless and, like a cat in a strange jungle, on the prowl too long.

But he knew Tara cared about him, and though he would never again experience the desperate passion of his youth she meant something to him as well. She had often been a warm, giving body when he’d felt alone in the night. And she’d been a good friend upon many an occasion; she’d made him laugh sometimes when the world had seemed to weigh him down.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m tired, and it is just really late. It’s... good to hear your voice,” he lied.

“How’s everything going?”

“Fine.”

“Is she coming down?”

“Yes.”

Another silence. Tara had been hoping Kathy would turn him down in no uncertain terms.

“The girls are very anxious for us all to be together.”

Tara sniffed loudly.

“She’s coming with a friend, I believe. A male friend.” He hesitated. “A young, good-looking male friend.”

“Oh?” Tara seemed much happier.

“Ummm.”

“I just wish I understood this obsession of yours with bringing everyone back together. Half of your group is going to have changed for the worse. It’s probably a big mistake. Some things are better left as they were, you know.”

“People don’t really change.”

“Sometimes they do.”

“You may be right.”

“Well, I’ll try to understand all this nonsense.”

“Will you?” he inquired casually, though his spine stiffened. He wasn’t going to be pressured, and her words sounded strangely like a threat. “If you’re really unhappy with it, perhaps you should stay away while it’s all going on.”

“No... You might need me,” she said hastily. “I have some photo shoots out on the islands for the next couple of days, but I’ll come to your house just as soon as I can. I miss you.”

He hesitated. “I miss you, too,” he told her.

He was lying again, caught up in his own tumult and glad she was away. She was a natural platinum blonde, long, lanky and near perfect, with huge blue eyes, never-ending legs, and the ability to make love when necessary with the speed of a bunny. She had no inhibitions, closets were fine, any floor space provided her an ample bed. At the moment, he was damned glad to be alone.

“Was the gorgon decent to you?”

“Kathryn?”

“Yes, Kathryn!”

“She was fine.”

“Did you recognize her easily? Has she gone squint-eyed reading all those manuscripts? Gained two tons at her desk job?”

“Wrinkled and dried up like a prune?” he suggested with a trace of humor.

“Something like that,” Tara admitted.

“She hasn’t changed much at all.”

“Was she decent to you?”

“She was fine.”

“Well, that’s good. Of course, God knows, enough time has passed! Maybe her nastiness has just decayed away.”

“She never was nasty.”

“You said you fought like cats and dogs.”

“We did. But I’ve always been fairly difficult. Demanding.”

“Really?” Tara murmured dryly.

“Tara, you will probably like my ex-wife.”

“Why? Do you?”

“Well, of course, I like her,” he said impatiently. “I—” he broke off just in time. He’d been about to tell Tara that he had loved Kathy most of his life, naturally he liked her. “Never mind. Listen, I’ve got to get some sleep. You take care of yourself, and I’ll see you soon.”

“Jordan—” she began.

He hung up quickly, pretending he hadn’t heard her try to stop him.

He walked from the suite’s living room to the bedroom, stripping off clothing as he went until he reached his bed. Naked, he pulled down the sheets and crawled in, never having turned on a light. He folded his fingers beneath his head and stared up at the ceiling.

He could have been better to Tara. Hell, he could have been better to all of them.

He closed his eyes. He conjured Tara’s face, her eyes. The sound of her voice echoed in his mind. He should have told her with feeling that he missed her.

But he didn’t, not tonight. Oddly enough, he couldn’t quite hold on to an image of Tara in his mind’s eye.

Instead, his ex-wife was intruding. He kept seeing Kathy’s amber eyes, hearing her voice. That sweet husky alto. She was a better singer than she had ever known, he thought. Tonight had been strange. When she’d walked into that bedroom, he could have just followed her so damned easily. He would have lifted her up, held her tenderly, made love hungrily to still the painful gnawings that were stirring restlessly within him tonight. Sex with them had always been good. Different, of course, over the length of time they’d been together. Comfortable, still exciting. Sometimes she’d been more in the mood, sometimes he’d been more in the mood. Sometimes, the patter of little feet had interrupted them. So much went on between a man and woman in a marriage of that length. Sometimes sex had been gentle, sometimes adventurous. Sometimes funny. There had been the night they’d first had the whirlpool and had half drowned one another in trying to find a workable position. Sometimes they had just looked at one another, felt the simmering sensations, and gone on from there. Without a word shedding their clothing, slipping into one another’s arms. That was what it had felt like tonight. Meeting her eyes. He’d wanted to taste her lips, explore the sweet feminine silk of her flesh, run over the length of her with lazy wet caresses...

He gritted his teeth, slammed his pillow, and twisted around. His marriage was over.

Over.

He’d accepted that, he’d lived with it. He’d gone on. Kathy, out of sight, out of mind—or at the back of it. He hadn’t lived the life of a monk; there was no sound reason for him to be lying here coveting his ex-wife.

Wanting sex, he taunted himself.

No, wanting
more.

The feelings. Memories now. Shadow feelings. Feelings of closeness, of knowing one another, of sharing dreams, concerns, the love of children.

He stood up and strode back out to the living room of the suite, back to the windows overlooking the park.

Feelings. They haunted him, had never left him.

If his marriage was so damned over...

... why wouldn’t the feelings go away?

Three thousand miles away, on the opposite coast, Larry Haley, musician turned documentary film maker, remained awake as well into the wee hours of the night. He sat back in a leather armchair in his handsome study, staring out the window at the moon that rose high over his patio and garden. He held a brandy snifter in one hand, filled to the rim for the second time that evening, though he had learned moderation in drink—and all things!—in these later years of his. His hair, strikingly blond in his youth, and his pride and joy in those days, remained a source of pleasure for him—it had turned silvery white, but all of it—great thick strands of it!—remained on his head. “Thank you very much!” he said aloud at the thought, lifting his snifter to whatever divine entity ruled the universe. He still wore his locks long, queued back most of the time, and the style worked nicely with his California lifestyle. Of course, even in staid New England—where he’d recently gone to film whales off the coast of Maine—he’d seen more and more men in their prime wearing long hair queued back. Woodstock babies coming of age, he thought dryly, which brought him back to the reason for his imbibing so heavily.

Well, Jordan was doing it. At long last. A reunion. He wondered if the others had realized yet that Jordan had scheduled their benefit performance for the tenth anniversary of the night Keith had died.

Larry leaned back, swallowing down the full snifter of brandy, wheezing as the liquor burned into him. His eyes watered, he choked.

“Jordan, you bastard, you!” he said softly. “Why couldn’t you have just left it all alone?”

He wanted more brandy; he didn’t think he could stand up to get it. “Next time you’re on a brandy drunk, old boy,” he told himself, “make sure you leave the bottle where you can reach it.”

He closed his eyes.

Jordan could have kept it all together all those years ago. He could have kept the group going, could have buried Keith and let them all go on with their lives!

But he hadn’t chosen to. Not then. Now he was going to drag them all back.

And Larry meant to go. God help him, he meant to go. They would all go, he was pretty certain. Jordan had summoned them.

He picked up the telephone receiver at his side. Thought about dialing.

No. Not now. Not from his own home.

He hung up the receiver.

“Larry?”

He winced at the soft, hesitant sound of his wife’s voice. Vicky Sue was an Alabama belle, a hopeful beauty who had discovered marriage with him rather than stardom during her quest in California. She was a sweet thing.

The fifth Mrs. Haley.

“You coming to bed, baby?” she asked him.

He grinned stupidly. The brandy. “Sure. Sure, Vicky Sue, I’m coming. Come over here and give an old man a hand.”

She helped him up. His vision blurred as he gazed at her. She looked an awful lot like wives two and three. He grinned. Didn’t matter much.

“Honestly, Larry, I don’t know what’s gotten into you!” Vicky Sue drawled.

Well, she wouldn’t. She had never been a part of Blue Heron. She hadn’t been there the night Keith died. She didn’t know what all of them had lost.

Or anything about what had gone on before that night.

He weaved a little, then determined to stand on his own. Her face came clear to him again. She really was a sweet young thing. “Vicky Sue, please. You go on up, honey. I’m on my way directly.”

“Larry, you might hurt your—”

“I’m fine. I’ll be up directly.”

“Soon.”

“I promise.”

She believed him, and left.

He stared out at the moon one more time. He smiled suddenly. None of it would mean anything if Jordan didn’t get Kathy to come back.

No, without Kathy, nothing would happen. She had been the one to weather all the creative storms between them, a friend to all of them. She’d been casual when tensions had mounted over someone being late, she’d known all their failings, their weaknesses...

Their secrets.

If Kathy did agree to come back...

Well, then...

Things just might be destined to happen. Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah.

Bang!

Laughing, and yet in pain somewhere deep within him, he made his way up the stairs to wife number five who looked just like wives number two and three.

Morning was dawning.

T
UESDAY WAS A MESS
of a day.

Kathy arrived at work early, because of or despite her nearly sleepless night. She’d thought to have some time to lay out her various projects and see just what she had to take care of herself and what she could delegate to her assistant. It started out all right, but first thing, her coffee maker blew, then an author called on her private line, nearly hysterical because she had forgotten to make a copy of the completed manuscript with the revisions. She had sent the only one she had by overnight mail last Thursday. Since no one had received it on Friday, she was certain it was lost. While Kathy was on the phone, calming the author and taking down the trace number, Jim Butler from the art department tossed on her desk the cover designs for two mysteries soon to be published. The first cover was perfect, an almost elegant layout of a candlestick, a flashlight, and a poker along with a pristine pair of white gloves. The colors were just right, enticing, the weapons were just as they were described in the book.