The Invitation (9 page)

Suddenly he straightened and glared at her. “And now this. You.”

The way he said “you” made her skin crawl.

“I misjudged you. I thought you had a spine. I thought you had the courage of your convictions. You could run away with a man twice your age and thumb your nose at an entire town. You learned to fly an airplane better than any man alive, and you can laugh at the idea that a man is equal to
you.
You swung on tree branches when other girls were afraid to get their hair wet. You can do whatever you want in life. You live life exactly how
you
want, without thought for what the rest of the world thinks, but when it comes to loving, you're a coward. You're ready to throw me away merely because our drivers' licenses say we're different ages.”

She started to defend herself, but he wouldn't allow it.

“Don't you dare try to lie to me or to yourself. The only thing standing between us is your ridiculous notion that we
shouldn't
be together because of our ages. You won't let yourself get to know me. You're afraid to have a conversation with me for fear you might find out that I have a head—a
man's
head—on my shoulders. I'm no more a boy than you are an adult. I was born an old man, and you, Jackie, were born a child, and you'll always be a child. You will never grow up, or at least you'll never grow old. Do you know one of the reasons I love you so much?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Because you keep me young. No matter how old you get, you will always have the freshness of a child. You have no idea how other people's minds work. We who are ordinary think about mortgages and our aching backs, but you don't. You never have and you never will. You think in terms of doing whatever you want at any time you want. If you want to fly an airplane, you do so. Never mind that other people tell you not to. I was eaten with jealousy of Charley. He knew exactly what you were and he had sense enough to reach out and grab you. You were grateful to him, but he knew that he should have been on his knees kissing the ground in thanks that he'd had the privilege of meeting you. He knew that you'd take care of him and make him laugh while you were doing it. He knew your value very well.”

William gave a little snort. “Before you left, Charley ruffled my hair and said, ‘Better luck next time, kid.' You were a prize for him then, and you're a prize now.”

William's handsome face distorted into the barest of sneers, and the way he looked her up and down made her feel ashamed of herself. “At least you
were
a prize. I never thought it would happen, but you got old, Jackie. You became an old woman.”

He stood in front of her for a moment as though waiting for something. Maybe he expected her to throw her arms around him and tell him that she hadn't grown old, and her proof was that she was willing to live with a man ten years younger than she was. But she couldn't do it. She just couldn't do it. No matter what he said, when she looked at him, she saw little Billy Montgomery, and until she got that image out of her head she'd never be able to think of him as anything except a child.

After a long moment of silence, at last he said, “All right, Jackie, you win. Or do we both lose?” He gave a sigh that came from deep within him. “I'll pack and be out of here immediately.”

She didn't move as he walked away. Part of her was sad, but a big part of her was relieved. Now she'd have no more indecision, no more agony. No more watching his strong young body move about the house; no more lying awake to listen for the sound of him.

As she turned away from the house, she wanted to walk, walk for hours and miles. She didn't want to see him leave; she wanted to put off entering the empty house for as long as possible.

She wasn't crying, so she should have been able to see where she was going, but for some reason she wasn't looking. Maybe her mind was too preoccupied, but whatever the reason, she didn't realize that there was no ground in front of her, just a steep drop down into a rocky arroyo filled with rusting debris from generations of litterers. Usually agile, she tried to catch herself, but her foot landed on loose rock and she went tumbling.

She didn't fall very far, but she landed in the middle of a rusty heap of metal that had once been a Ford. Dazed for a moment, she shook her head, mentally feeling if she'd broken any bones. She hadn't. Everything was all right, and she couldn't help smiling in relief. Still smiling, she wiped her hand across her forehead and felt the hot, thick, dampness that could only be blood. Pulling her hand away, she saw that it was covered with blood and there was more flowing out of what looked to be a deep cut in the palm of her right hand. All around her were sharp edges of rust-covered metal, and she knew that she'd cut herself on one of them. Thoughts of lockjaw immediately went through her head.

“Jackie!”

She wasn't surprised to hear William's voice, shouting for her with some urgency. As a child he'd been able to sense when she needed help. And no matter where she was, he could always find her.

“Here,” she shouted up toward the ridge of the arroyo, but her voice didn't come out as a shout. It sounded weak and helpless, as though she were a shadow instead of a real person. But William obviously heard her, for he appeared at the top of the arroyo, high above her head, stopping for a moment, his back to the setting sun, as he looked down at her.

She had no idea how bad she looked until she saw William's face. He was as pale as she felt. Glancing down, she saw blood all over her—on her shirtfront, on her trousers, and no doubt on her face—and her hand didn't seem to be in any hurry to stop bleeding. An unending supply of fresh red blood seemed to be slowly making its way out of her palm.

Jackie closed her eyes for just a moment, but it was long enough for William to make his way down the arroyo. As though he were far away, she heard him tearing down the hillside, rocks flying. Dreamily she smiled and wondered if the rocks were moving out of William's way.

“Jackie,” he said softly, “wake up. Do you hear me? Wake up.”

“I'm not asleep,” she answered, but she felt odd, as though she were in her body yet not in it. “Haven't we done this before?” she said, smiling. “Are you going to rescue me again?”

“Yeah, kid. Hang on and I'll get you out of here.”

She smiled at his calling her kid. Charley used to call her kid. In fact most all men she came to know very well called her that at one point or another. She was vaguely aware of William moving about her. When she heard the sound of ripping cloth, she opened her eyes as wide as they would go, which didn't seem to be very far. William was bare-chested, his broad chest covered with nothing but clean, smooth muscle, no hair on his chest to speak of, just that lovely warm-looking skin.

“Listen to me, Jackie,” he said. “You've lost quite a bit of blood and you seem to be going into shock. I want you to concentrate and do what I tell you. You understand?”

She nodded, smiling a bit, but she came alert when he quickly tied a tourniquet about her wrist, using strips of his torn shirt. There hadn't been any pain before, but that thing hurt.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, trying to be brave.

“Good. The pain will keep you awake. Now I'm going to get you up and out of here so a doctor can stitch you up.”

“It doesn't need stitches. Really. It's hardly a scratch. Just a little cut. A bit of tape will fix it.”

“Coward,” he said, as he hoisted her over his bare shoulder and began the climb up the hill.

Jackie thought that her entire body was the same width as one of his shoulders. She was coming out of her initial shock, and her hand was beginning to hurt. “If your father fires you, you can get a job rescuing damsels in distress. Of course, it will be hard on your wardrobe. William, aren't I awfully heavy?” She practically purred the last remark, hoping he'd say that she weighed nothing at all.

“Yes, you are. You look rather thin, so one would think you'd be light, but you're not. You're quite substantial.”

What had she expected from a man who organized everything inside her kitchen cabinets by size? Whimsy?

“You know, I can walk. I cut my hand, not my foot, and I'm feeling better now. If I'm too heavy for you, I should walk.”

“No” was all William said.

When he reached the top of the steep arroyo, she thought he would put her down, but he didn't. Instead, he held on to her and walked back toward the house. She really was all right now, except that pain was shooting up her arm and beginning to fill her entire body. Her arms were hanging down William's back, and there was so much blood on her hand that she couldn't see the cut very well, but she told herself it wasn't very deep. Surely it wasn't deep enough to need stitches. She had always bled a great deal, hadn't she? That was just a sign of her good health. In fact, she didn't see any need to call a doctor. A little soap, a good tight bandage, and she'd be fine.

As though he were reading her mind, William said, “Stitches and no argument.”

With a grimace, she put her hand back down and stopped looking at it.

 

Three hours later, stitched up, as she said, like a Hong Kong suit, and ensconced in bed, Jackie felt like an idiot. How could she have been so stupid as to fall down the side of a canyon?

While she was contemplating her lack of intelligence, her bedroom door opened and William entered carrying a tray of food, which he placed over her knees.

“Chicken soup, crackers, salad, lemonade, and chocolate pudding for dessert. Now eat and get well.”

“Really, Billy, I am perfectly capable of feeding myself. Anyone would think I'd just had a bout of typhoid fever from the way you're acting. I'm going to get up and—” While William watched with a knowing expression on his face, she pushed the tray away and started to stand up. Immediately she felt light-headed and dizzy. The back of her hand to her forehead like the Victorian dainty she felt like, she lay back down on the bed.

“What were you saying? You're not feeling bad are you, Jackie? It's just a little cut, a mere twenty-six stitches, and the loss of enough blood to keep three vampires healthy for a month. So why are you in bed? Why don't you take a plane up? Do a few stunts?”

She was sure she deserved his sarcasm. After all, she had acted like a baby during the stitching. Young Blair had raced to her house, driving his father's car as though it were a grounded airplane, and the moment Jackie saw him, she had started trying to talk him out of sticking needles in her skin. Young Blair—called that to distinguish him from his mother, also a doctor and also named Blair—had blinked at her a few times, but then he had looked at William as though for permission.

“Stitch. I'll hold her.”

And that was what was done. Young Blair stitched while William held Jackie in his strong arms and soothed her as though she were an infant. He stroked her hair and asked her really dumb questions about airplanes. He seemed to be trying to make her angry or to make her laugh, or maybe he just wanted to distract her. To some extent he succeeded, for after the twentieth stitch, William's constant questions, added to the pain, annoyed her to the point that she said, “William Montgomery, you don't know anything about airplanes. You might as well have stayed with paper airplanes for all you know about flying. You have no talent, no feel for the machines or the air.”

“Why won't you enter the Taggie?” he shot back, taking advantage of what she was going through to find out what she refused to tell him.

“Because—Oh! What are you using? A needle for stitching saddles? That happens to be my flesh you're gouging.”

Young Blair didn't pay any attention to her as he continued stitching her hand. “Almost finished. This is a very bad cut, Jackie, and I want you to use your hand as little as possible for the next few days. I want you to give this time to heal. And that means no flying.”

“But—”

William cut her off. “I'll take care of her.”

“And who is going to take care of a youngster like you?” Jackie shot back, in so much pain that she didn't care what she said or whose feelings she hurt.

William didn't seem in the least bothered by her nasty remark. “I've hired an eighteen-year-old virgin to change my diapers. Do you mind?”

Jackie could feel her face turning red as she looked at Young Blair's head bowed over her palm. He didn't look up, but she could feel him smile. William had implied that she was jealous and that they were lovers—which of course was far from true. She wanted to explain to the doctor, but she couldn't think of what to say.

After the stitching was done and Jackie was at last free to rest her head against the pillows, she couldn't help feeling annoyed that Young Blair had taken William aside and talked to him as though he were Jackie's husband or even her father. “Keep her quiet,” she heard Young Blair saying softly. “She'll be okay in a day or two, but she's going to need looking after until then.”

“Of course,” she'd heard William say, as though it was understood that this young—very young—man would take care of her.