The Right Time (40 page)

Those words—go back to step one—hit her right in the chest. Townsend’s lower lip started to tremble, and she sniffed. “I have to give my chips back, don’t I?”

With a gentle smile, Hennessy nodded. “You’ll earn them again.”

Townsend began to sob, the strength of her reaction surprising the hell out of her. “They mean so much to me,” she murmured. Pulling the plastic disk from her pocket, she held it in her shaking hand and regarded it with deep longing. “I rub it when I feel tempted. It’s my lucky charm.”

The expression on Hennessy’s face was heartbreaking. Like she was the one who’d slipped. “I’m so sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am that you had a slip.”

Her fingers closed around the disk, then she turned her hand and slapped the damned thing onto the table. Any luck it bore was long gone. “I didn’t have a slip. I had a crash.”

“No, you didn’t,” Hennessy said, her eyes vivid with confidence. “You can get up and start over. Nothing is broken, there’s no lasting harm. It was a slip.”

The old women at the next table had stopped talking. Now they were sneaking looks at her, then whispering behind hands held over their mouths. Townsend wiped at her eyes and slid out of the booth. “Can we get out of here? People are staring at me.”

“I’ll pay the check. You wait outside.”

Townsend watched Hennessy through the window, patiently waiting to pay for something they hadn’t received. Knowing her, she’d leave a tip, too.

Hennessy came out, slipped her hands into her pockets and rocked back and forth on her heels. “Is there any fast food around here? I’m really hungry.”

“No.” She thought, then said. “There’s a nice place about twenty minutes from here. I’ll buy,” she added quickly.

Nodding, Hennessy got back into the car.

“Head north,” Townsend directed. “Just follow this road and it’ll lead us to a bigger town.”

“Well, we’ve got a long drive ahead of us. How do you want to pass the time? I know,” she said before Townsend could begin to answer, “let’s talk about what was going on in your head that made you want to drink.”

“That sounds like fun,” Townsend grumbled. “Are you always this lively on car trips?”

“Always. Just part of my fun-loving personality.”

“All right.” Townsend curled up in the large, leather seat, tucking her feet under her body. After reclining the back, she faced Hennessy and stared at the side of her face for a long time. When Hennessy gave her a puzzled look, she said, “I think better when I’m looking at something pretty.” Images of the past day and a half started to seep into her memory again and she closed her eyes tightly, hoping that would help banish them.

Townsend fidgeted in her chair, then reclined it further. If there were a way to get out of the car, or better, out of her head, she would have taken it in a second. But she was stuck, unable to clear her mind or stop those penetrating blue eyes from boring into her. “I don’t know if you’re the right person to talk to about this.”

Hennessy nodded, as if she expected that answer. “It’s all right if you can’t talk to me, but you should talk about it with someone. Soon. Do you…can you call your therapist?”

Letting out a bitter laugh, Townsend said, “I don’t have a real therapist. Just some employee who tries to get stuff out of me to go to the warden with.” When Hennessy’s eyes widened with surprise and dismay, Townsend leaned her seat back further. Looking into that innocent, trusting face made her want to hurl herself from the car. She’d promised she’d work harder in therapy.
Promised.
How many damned promises had she already broken? A dozen?

But Hennessy wasn’t in a reproachful mood. As always, she was ready to move on. “That’s why I want to make sure you have a sponsor. You need someone to talk to. Someone who’ll keep your secrets.”

Secrets. If she told anyone all of her secrets—she sucked in a breath. Images of Hennessy, innocent, open, filled with desire, had been assaulting her since that night. Her guts were a ball of pain, spasming every time those visions snuck in and refused to leave.

“I know I need to talk to a therapist,” she said. “But I have to talk to you, too.”

She could see Hennessy’s body tense. God knew what she was waiting for, but whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as the reality. “Go ahead,” Hennessy said, her knuckles whitening on the wheel.

Townsend stared at the ceiling, trying to summon her strength. Touching Hennessy always centered her, but today she looked at her hand and pulled it back, unwilling to taint her with it. Like ripping off a bandage, doing it fast was best. “We have to talk about the other night. The way I treated you.”

“The other night?”

“When we were…kissing.”

Hennessy turned her head and gave her a quick smile. “We’ll get there. I’m proud of you for working on being patient. I know sex is a big thing for you, but we have to talk about your slip.”

“I am,” Townsend said quietly. “That was the first step.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not patient,” she said, contempt for herself infusing her words. “I didn’t stop because I understood it’s important to wait. I stopped because I…I’d tricked you into going as far as we did.”

“Tricked me? What in the hell are you talking about? How do you trick someone into…that?”

Smacking her forehead with her open palm, Townsend moaned, “Damn, Hennessy, sometimes you’re as naïve as a child. It’s incredibly easy to trick someone into going further than they want. I’ve had it done to me a dozen times and I’ve done it to others.”

“You did that to me? On purpose?” Hennessy sounded like she was about to cry. That made it so much worse. Being yelled at was many, many times better than hurting someone’s feelings.

“Yes, damn it, I did that to you.”

“Fuck. Just…fuck.”

Townsend knew she should find something,
anything
, to say to let Hennessy know she hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but she had nothing. Having never learned how to apologize for something she felt shitty about, she didn’t know exactly how to do it with any kind of sincerity.

So neither of them spoke, the silence heavy and oppressive.

Hennessy pulled over and stopped the car, then rolled the window down and relaxed her seat, leaning back and staring out for a while. The weather was so damned nice, warm and sunny, with the scents of spring heavy in the air. Those little yellow flowers that grew off the sides of sticks were everywhere, making everything look springy. But the atmosphere inside the car was still in the middle of winter—cold and harsh and unyielding.

“Tell me what happened,” Hennessy finally said. “I want to know everything.”

“It’s not that complex.” Townsend just wanted to get it over with. “You were receptive, and I kept pushing until I got what I wanted.”

Turning to face her, Hennessy’s head cocked, clearly puzzled. “That’s not what happened. You didn’t push me at all. Honestly, that was just about the first time we were together that I didn’t feel like I had to be on guard.”

“Right. That’s when you have to be more careful. A user like me makes you feel like it’s your idea, but it’s not. I manipulated you to get you there. It’s as simple as that.”

“But…why would you do that to me?” Hennessy asked, her voice breaking. “You know I didn’t want to do more than kiss.”

“But
I
did,” Townsend said, hearing the hard edge that she’d developed. “I wanted to have sex with you, and when I saw the opportunity, I jumped at it.”

“You don’t do that to someone you love. You just don’t.”

Townsend reached over and grasped her hand, holding it loosely. “But I
do
love you. I do. I’m just… I want to show how much I love you, and that’s how I do it.”

The dark head shook slowly. “Love isn’t what you say. Love is what you do, and trying to trick me into having sex wasn’t a loving thing, no matter how much you wanted it.”

“I know that,” she said quietly. “That’s why I stopped. I couldn’t go through with it. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t go through with it.”

Hennessy paused, then wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Strangely, she started to smile. “Do you mean that?”

“Mean what?”

“That this was the first time in your entire life that you couldn’t go through with having sex?”

Thinking for a minute, Townsend nodded. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

Hennessy turned and reached out to touch Townsend’s cheek. “That’s a good sign,” she said softly. “Whenever you break a bad habit, it’s a good sign. Don’t you see that?”

“All I see is that I treated you like a piece of trash.”

“That’s not true,” Hennessy said, her voice sharp and low. “You stopped to think about my feelings and how it would affect me. That was your conscience speaking.”

“I don’t have a conscience,” Townsend muttered. “Everybody knows that.”

“You’re developing one. The only thing that stopped us from having sex was your conscience—not mine. My self-control was gone. But your conscience was on the job, watching out for me, and for us.” She leaned over and wrapped her arms around Townsend. “
That
was a loving act. A very loving act.”

That couldn’t have been true. She didn’t have self-control. Or a conscience. Every person on Martha’s Vineyard knew that. She was a user. A user who’d done her best to manipulate Hennessy into bed. “I was salivating when I had my hands on you,” she said, her cheeks aflame when she thought of how cold-blooded she’d been.

“Consciences are developed. They don’t spring to life fully formed. You’ll get there. I know you will.”

Townsend sighed, feeling like the weight of the world was resting atop her shoulders. “I’ve got to work to not drink, work to not smoke, work to not have sex, and now I’ve got to develop a conscience? All the while trying to boost a D-plus average up high enough to get into a real college? When the fuck will I have time to sleep?”

Hennessy pulled back a little and met her gaze. As those pretty blue eyes searched her face, Townsend could see her looking for signs that she was joking—but she wasn’t. This was such a load of things to work on, no human could carry it all. Hennessy’s smile evaporated. “I know it’s a lot. And you’re right, it probably is too much to handle all at once. Maybe there’s a way to simplify things a little bit.”

Townsend regarded her warily. She’d tossed that off so casually, but she never said things like that without planning. Hennessy had something in mind, but she wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. That meant it was bad. It always was.

Hennessy had decided to be as agreeable as humanly possible, knowing this was going to be a hard day. She not only didn’t say a word when Townsend directed them to a very opulent country inn, she kept her discomfort to herself when they were shown to a table in the dining room. “Nice place,” she said, after the server offered drinks. “I guess I have to get used to having heavy silverware and white tablecloths when you pick the place.”

“I don’t care about that,” Townsend said. “But I do like good food. This place isn’t great, but it’s the best I’ve had around here.”

The server came with their tea and coffee, and Hennessy spent a moment getting hers ready. “Good,” she said as she took a sip. Want to hear my agenda item? I’ve only got one for the day.”

“Sure. Hit me.”

“I think you ought to give Sharon a call and talk to her about finding another sponsor. See if she has any suggestions for other people. Or see why she thought the first guy she mentioned was tops on her list.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“Let’s see what comes out of that. What time is your regular meeting?”

“Five.”

“Great. After we eat, you make your call. I’ll walk around town and shop for things I’ll never be able to buy.”

Hennessy strolled along, checking out the expensive shops, pondering how many people could have enough money to keep all of these little spots going. Did the local people buy thousand dollar ski coats? Or did enough tourists come through to keep the stores open?

Townsend came up behind her and dropped her hand onto a contemplative Hennessy’s shoulder. “Damn! I was really daydreaming,” she said, patting her racing heart.