Red Helmet (2 page)

Brickman nodded to her and said, “Cable asked me to sing a song especially for you,” and, without further preamble, his fingers danced across the keys and he began singing a ballad “Destiny.”

What if I never knew,
What if I never found you,
I'd never have this feeling in my heart.
How did this come to be?
I don't know how you found me.

But from the moment I saw you,
Deep inside my heart I knew,
Baby, you're my destiny.
You and I were meant to be.
With all my heart and soul,
I give my love to have and hold.
And as far as I can see,
You were always meant to be my destiny.

Song's knees felt strangely weak, and she leaned against Cable. Brickman finished his song, then said, “My friend Cable has something he wants to ask you.”

Cable went down on one knee and took her hands. “Song, will you marry me?” he asked.

“That's ridiculous!” Song blurted, but when she looked into Cable's eyes, she saw he was serious. She was utterly astonished.

“You want to marry
me
?”

“I do. Right here on this beach. I've already talked to the resort manager. She said she can make it happen in a day. It'll be fun, and the right thing to do too. We're gonna get married sooner or later, aren't we? You know it's true.”

“You're crazy, Cable. I don't know any such thing.”

“Never make an easy thing hard,” he said. She rolled her eyes, having heard it all before.

“There are no easy things,” she replied with the certainty of experience, “only things that appear easy but aren't.”

Still holding her hands, he stood up. “I know that's what you think, but what a terrible opinion that is of this old world! I love you, you love me, and I don't see that changing. All we have to do is stand up on the beach like all the other couples we've seen at this resort, say I do a couple of times, and we're good to go for the rest of our lives. What could be easier than that?”

Brickman was signing autographs. Their new friends, mostly couples who had come to St. John to be married or to honeymoon, gathered around, urging Song to accept.

Song gave them a cold smile, then pulled Cable aside. “Marrying may be easy,” she said, “but marriage isn't.”

“Is that a no?”

Song did a quick check of her heart. It was giving her a steady signal.

“No, it's a yes,” she said, almost sadly. “This is going to get complicated, Cable, very complicated.”

Cable gave out a shout. “She said yes!”

Cheers followed, Brickman played triumphant chords on the piano, the other couples came up and hugged them, and Song was washed away in an emotional tsunami. When she came up for air, she looked into Cable's eyes, searching for even the slightest hint of doubt. She saw only a rock steady certainty.

“You're amazing,” she marveled.

“Is that good?”

“Not always, Cable. Not always.” She took his hand. “Let's go back to our cottage.”

“I'll go back with you,” he said. “But I'll be sleeping in the hammock tonight. Once you decide to get married, you got to start acting right.”

She had never known a man like this. “All right,” she said. “Does this mean I can wear white at the wedding?”

He laughed. “Just make sure you can get out of it in a hurry.”

“You goofball. I guess Jim Brickman is right. You're my destiny whether I like it or not.”

“Then I guess it's a good thing we're going to get married.”

I
T WAS THEIR
wedding night. Cable was the most marvelous lover. His touches, his kisses, everything he did lifted her higher until at the top of an arc of passion, there was an amazing spontaneous combustion of raw, wild emotion. Song had never imagined such pleasure existed. After they'd made love, they lay quietly in the warm breeze coming through the open sliders. Gradually, the volcano within her subsided, and her rational self returned.

“What have we done, Cable?”

“We got married, that's what,” he answered lazily. He nuzzled his nose into her neck and took a deep breath. “You smell fantastic. I wish I could bottle you up and carry you around everywhere I go. And you are one fantastic loving machine, lady.”

Wheels were turning in Song's head, wheels she'd stopped to get married and then make love but were now fully engaged. Without realizing she was doing it, she twisted on her finger the thin gold band they'd bought at the resort gift shop.

“What are we going to do?”

“In the morning, we'll drive up to Francis Bay and do some snorkeling,” Cable said. “I heard there's tarpon there.”

Cable could be so obtuse at times. It was one of his more endearing traits, one of several that she looked forward to changing. “I mean after our honeymoon. How are we going to work this out? I mean, you in West Virginia, and me in New York?”

Cable's reply was instantaneous. “You'll move to West Virginia. Wait until you see our house. It's up on the mountain that overlooks Highcoal. You can see the mine from there and everything.”

“I can't move to Highcoal,” she replied in a firm tone. “My father depends on me too much. And I love my job. I couldn't possibly give it up. Why don't you transfer to New York?”

He removed his arm from around her, came up on one elbow, and looked at her with more than a little surprise. “I can't go up there. All they do is crunch numbers in that old office. I mine coal for a living. And I love Highcoal. It's my place. Always has been, always will be.”

“You love it more than me?” The question just popped out of her. If she'd thought about it, she wouldn't have asked it, or at least phrased it quite that starkly, but there it was, asked and hanging in the air of the sweet Caribbean night, fragrant with frangipani and plumeria.

She watched him start to say one thing, then she could almost see him change his mind. “Never make an easy thing hard,” he said, as if that settled everything.

“I told you there are no easy things . . .”

“. . . only those that seem easy but aren't. I know.” He gazed at her. “I think you're beautiful.”

Song had been told she was beautiful by other men, all of whom had let her down. She chose to argue the point. “Beautiful? Hardly. My lips are too big, my nose is too small, and my eyes are too narrow. I'm a funny-faced girl. You know it's true.”

He traced a finger across her forehead and down her nose and touched her lips. “Your face is perfect. I loved everything about it from the moment we met.”

“I'm too skinny. I'm too short. And I'm flat-chested.”

“You have a figure most women would die for,” he said.

“My hair! It's so straight. There's not a bit of curl in it.”

“I love your hair,” Cable said, although now there was a touch of weariness in his tone. “Don't touch it, don't cut it, don't curl it, leave it alone. I love everything about you, I swan—!”

“I swan? You always say that but I never knew what it meant.”

Cable explained, “Coal miners think it's bad luck to say ‘I swear' in the mine. It's sort of like taking God's name in vain. So we say ‘I swan.'”

She pondered him. “Am I going to have to learn a new language with you?”

“I swan you might,” he said, allowing a smile, and his dimple appeared. But both vanished when he saw Song was not smiling. “You're really serious about all this, aren't you?”

She scrutinized him. “We've done the most romantic thing, Cable. We got married at sunset on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and we did it on the spur of the moment. But now we're having a business meeting to decide our proper course.”

“A business meeting? In bed on the night of our honeymoon?”

“Yes, Cable. Now pay attention. In any business meeting, it's good to start with a little truth. Do you know what makes me happy? I mean besides you, of course.”

“Not really,” he confessed.

“My work. I crawl up inside a company for my father, see what makes it tick, then mentally take it apart. After I understand everything about it, I either recommend moving on or buying it. If we buy the company, we maximize its profits by making it better. Sometimes that means we
fire everybody and start over.”

Her job description didn't surprise him, but her attitude did. “You make yourself sound ruthless.”

“I don't mean to be, but I have a job to do and that's to make my father money. It's a family business after all.”

“A job is an important thing,” he said. “My job is also my town. That's why I can't leave it. It's a responsibility I took on. I can't walk away.”

They fell silent for a few moments.

“Well, I can't leave New York.”

He rested his head on his pillow and looked at the ceiling where there were only shadows, not counting a stray gecko.

“Don't worry,” he said, after what she considered too long a time. “We'll figure it out.”

“
How
will we figure it out?” she pressed.

“We'll talk.”

“When?”

“Soon. Not now. I'm sleepy. You know. We just made love and all.”

Cable clearly didn't understand they were having a meeting, and Song knew it was important never to leave a meeting with a critical question unanswered. She was quiet for a long while, knowing he probably hoped she'd gone to sleep.

“Do you know who else got married on the same beach we did?” she asked, spoiling his hope.

“Well, I'd say about a million other folks,” he answered. He made a show of yawning.

“Renée Zellwegger and Kenny Chesney.”

“Who are they? Did we meet them?”

It didn't surprise Song that Cable wouldn't know who the actress was. He didn't seem to know anything about movies or the people who acted in them. But Kenny Chesney? Surely he knew country music. She identified the pair and said, “They had their marriage annulled, Cable. Some say it was because she wanted to live one place, he another.”

That got his attention. He sat up. “Honey, don't talk like that! It's bad luck.”

“I don't believe in luck—except what you make for yourself.”

“Don't say that, either! Saying you don't believe in luck is bad luck all by itself.”

“Cable—”

“No more,” he shushed her. “Miners are the most superstitious of fellows. Don't you know that? Talking about annulments and such on the night of our marriage is like whistling in a coal mine. It just isn't done.”

“All right, Cable,” she said, shaking her head at his little rant.

“Things will be better in the morning. My mother always said that.”

Song turned wistful. “I wish I'd known my mother. They say she was beautiful and brave. But why she chose to risk her life with a baby at home, I don't know. I've missed her my entire life. I know my father never really got over losing her.”

“My daddy had something to say on that,” Cable replied. “He told me—it wasn't too long before he got killed—you ever find yourself a good woman, son, don't you ever let her go, no matter what. Good women don't come around that often.”

She crawled into his arms. “I am not a good woman,” she said, resting her head against his chest. “I'm complicated.”

“Daddy didn't say a good woman had to be simple,” he answered, stroking her hair. He adored her long hair and tried to remember to tell her fairly often. Women were always cutting off their wonderful long hair, and men could never figure out why.

“Will it be okay, Cable?” she asked quietly. “Tell me it will be okay.”

“It will be okay,” he said. “I swan.” His big hands began to explore her again, and she arched her back in pleasure.

“You're beautiful,” he said.

“I almost believe it when I'm with you.”

The business meeting was adjourned.

Two

I
t wasn't long ago that Song had been standing in Times Square watching some street dancers. She looked up and there he was, about as retro a man as she could imagine. A snap-brim hat right out of Indiana Jones, blue jeans, a plaid shirt, and work boots, a country boy in the big city if she'd ever seen one. He wore a bemused smile, as if what he was seeing, not just the dancers but everything and everybody around him, was strange and exotic. Their eyes met across the dancers, and something clicked. One of the dancers lost his balance and fell into her.

Cable pushed through the bystanders to pick her up. He did it so easily, as if she weighed nothing. To her astonishment, he doffed his hat, just like in an old movie.

“I hope you're okay, ma'am,” he said in a twang that somehow spoke to her of coal mines and mountains. He smiled, and that's when she first got a look at the dimple in his right cheek. What is it about a dimple in a man that can fire the heart of a woman?

“I'm okay,” was her answer, but it wasn't true. Her heart felt as if it were going to beat itself right out of her chest. “I was just going for a cup of coffee.” It wasn't pertinent, just something to say.

He stuck out his hand. When she didn't grasp it, he reached down and took her hand anyway. His hand was vast and strong and warm and strangely potent. “My name is Cable Jordan, ma'am, and I'm from West Virginia. Coffee? Don't mind if I do.”

And so they sat down together in a coffee shop, and it was as if they had been friends for life, desperately needing to catch up. She told him everything, of her lonely childhood without her mother, and of her father, whom she adored, and something of her education—MIT and Princeton—and a little of her job as property and acquisitions manager for Hawkins-Song, Inc.

He in turn told her about Highcoal, his hometown in southern West Virginia, and his parents, and how his father, whose name was Wire, had been killed in a coal mine just before Cable graduated from high school, and how he'd joined the army, then gone to get his engineering degree at West Virginia University. Now, he said with pride, he was superintendent of the mine in Highcoal, a position he'd always wanted. Atlas Energy, Inc., the company that owned Cable's coal mine, had its headquarters in New York, and he was there for a meeting with his boss.