Warm Hearts (19 page)

Several minutes passed before he was able to respond, and then his voice had a gruff edge to it. “You're too agreeable, Caroline. I can see how you get yourself involved in doing things you don't really want to do.”

“But I
would
like to come here again, or go to another place like this. Maybe we could try an inn in the country next time. I have a terrific book that lists them.”

“You're a fan of country inns?”

“I like reading about them.”

“Have you visited many?”

She shook her head. “I daydream a lot.”

“Why only daydream?”

“Because,” she answered without pretense, “it's no fun to travel alone.”

Something warm and reassuring flowed through Brendan just then. It was his life's blood, he knew, but it was infused with new vigor. He felt suddenly stronger, more buoyant. He felt as though the future was definitely looking bright.

*   *   *

The feeling lasted for six hours. During that time he and Caroline ambled slowly through Georgetown, pausing to browse in the shops or eat or find a comfortable spot to sit and talk. At the end, though, they reached her door. She invited him in, but he had to return to his loft to organize his papers and thoughts before his trip the next morning. When he invited her back to his place to read or relax while he worked, she smiled—a little sadly, he thought—and said that she'd better catch up on her own chores. So they kissed with a brief, sweet passion and parted.

In hindsight, Brendan realized that they'd been foolish in not choosing one of their lofts and staying together. He didn't get much done that evening. He tried, but his gaze regularly wandered through the open French windows and across the courtyard. Whenever he caught Caroline's eye, he went to the window and indulged in that special, silent communication they shared.

The game they were playing was a torturous one. The night was humid, and he was hot in every sense of the word. Kneeling on her window seat, with her hair caught at the top of her head, the skin of her face and neck visibly moist, her thin shift simultaneously covering everything and nothing, Caroline was even more the innocent seductress than she'd been before. Because now he knew her. Now there were open smiles and meaningful gestures. He knew what it felt like to plow his fingers into her hair, to catch trickles of sweat with his tongue, to explore the feminine curves beneath her shift. She had merely to rest her head against the window frame or scoop loose strands of hair from her neck or arch her back in a hot, lazy stretch and he was on fire. Everything about her was simply sultry.

But she was there and he was here and because of that he felt uneasy. He cursed the timing that was engineering a separation so early in their relationship. He had no doubts about his feelings for her. After weeks of daydreaming, he'd only had to meet her briefly to know that she was the woman for him. But he needed more time to convince
her
.

He knew that she felt something for him. What they'd experienced that weekend had gone far beyond the sexual marathon they'd joked about. If it had been only sex, they'd never have been able to talk as they'd done. And there was something else—he had to smile a little slyly when he thought of it—something that was promising. Caroline had insisted on taking his spare key so that she could drop his mail in his apartment each day. He'd made vague sounds of protest, but she'd said that she really wanted to do it, that it was something she'd do for any good friend and certainly she considered him that. He refrained from pointing out that “doing things” was what she'd wanted to avoid. He suspected that she truly did enjoy being generous with her time and effort—when she didn't feel taken for granted. And he took care to see that she didn't.

The fact of the matter was that he liked knowing she'd be checking into his loft each day. It was a small thing, a link, and it gave him solace at a time when he was needy.

His greatest fear—it came to him in cold flicks of emptiness—was that someone else would discover her and steal her away while he was gone. He knew he was being silly, because while he was gone she'd be going to work, seeing the same people she always saw, and if nothing had clicked with any of those people before, there was no logical reason why it would now. But it seemed incredible to him that she
hadn't
been discovered before. She was so perfect. Didn't the rest of the world see it?

Four days. That was all he'd be gone. But, damn, he wished he weren't going at all.

His greatest frustration, he decided, was that he couldn't share his greatest fear with her. If he'd had his way, he'd have already bared his heart and begged a commitment. But that wasn't part of the bargain he'd made with her—which was also why he'd been evasive when Mrs. Cooper had asked about his intentions toward her daughter.

Intentions seemed an old-fashioned word to him, and he'd never thought of himself as an old-fashioned man, yet what he felt for Caroline was old-fashioned through and through. He wanted the whole thing—flowers, double rings, the wedding march, the bridal suite—and he wanted it yesterday.

But he'd wait. He'd wait until Caroline acknowledged what he already had—that along the line of their unorthodox introduction, what they shared was totally and wonderfully unique. He'd wait if it killed him—not that he'd be twiddling his thumbs in the interim. He'd work on her subtly but steadily. She wouldn't know what had hit her until she was well and truly hooked.

*   *   *

Caroline knew very well what had hit her. She couldn't deny that when she went to work Monday morning her spirits were soaring. To some extent, she was feeling relief. She'd called Elliot the night before, and though he'd been miserly with words himself, she felt that she'd explained herself well and smoothed over at least one or two raw edges.

In greater part, though, her light spirits were due to Brendan. For the first time in her life, she had an ally. He was someone to talk with and play with. He'd proven himself capable of listening and offering compassion and advice. He'd even taken on her mother—something that they'd laughed about afterward but that had meant the world to her. A little help, a breather once in a while—that was all she asked. And Brendan seemed more than willing to provide it. He'd told her to use him. She didn't even have to feel guilty when she did it.

So, life seemed a little easier. The knowledge that she'd be talking to Brendan, then seeing him later in the week was the touchstone she needed when those little frustrations piled up. And they did that.

When he phoned on Monday night and asked about her day, she readily told him about her mother's call. “The phone rang at seven o'clock this morning, Brendan. That's six o'clock her time, and mother's never been a naturally early riser. She was probably counting the hours all weekend.”

“What did she have to say?” Brendan asked. He had a good idea what the answer was, but he wasn't about to offer a guess when he knew that Caroline needed to let off steam by relating it all herself. Besides, he took pleasure in hearing her voice.

“She wanted to know where we went this weekend, what we did and what time we got back.”

“Did you tell her?”

“I told her what time we got back.”

“She wasn't satisfied with just that, was she?”

“No. I kind of fudged the rest.”

“You could have told her the truth.”

“Are you kidding? And open up a whole other can of worms?”

Brendan chuckled. “She doesn't actually think you're still a virgin, does she?”

“She pretends I am. I told her that particular truth quite bluntly years ago, but she chose not to hear, and it's occurred to me since that I'd be wise not to press the point. Do you have any idea what would have happened if I'd told her what we really did this weekend?”

“What?”

“AIDS. She would have gone on and on about AIDS.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. She would have asked how well I really knew you and did I know whether you'd had many women before me and was I positively certain you weren't bisexual and giving me something that could well be fatal.”

“Damn good thing I ruled it out at the start,” he mumbled in a Lord-help-us tone. “Has she done that sort of thing before?”

“She's made general statements about every other sexually transmitted disease. She tells me about so-and-so who contracted such-and-such, and she babbles on for such a long time that I
know
there's a direct message in there for me.”

“She must have known you were sleeping with Ben.”

“She tried not to.”

“Did she like him?”

“Like him?” Caroline echoed tongue-in-cheek. “How could she like him? She never got past the point of wondering whether he was a spy infiltrating the diplomatic corps on behalf of the KGB.”

Brendan didn't want to think what the woman would say when she learned that he dealt with terrorism. “She really is an alarmist, isn't she?”

“Oh, yes. What bothers me most, I think, is that she should trust me to know what I'm doing and she doesn't.” Caroline took a deep breath. She'd been annoyed all day by the call from her mother, but somehow, after telling Brendan about it, she felt better. Unburdened. A tiny smile played at the corners of her mouth. “By the way, she said that you had a nice voice.”

“She did?” he asked, pleased with that.

“Uh-huh. She said that it was compelling in a gentle way—then she went on to warn me to be careful because men with low, charming voices weren't always to be trusted. She said that I should be on my guard, that you might try to con me into something.”

He heard the smile in her voice. “Are you? On your guard, that is?”

“Sure am,” she said, but the softness of her tone hinted that she wasn't terribly worried. She trusted him, which was one of the reasons why, when he called on Tuesday night and again asked about her day, she found herself telling him about Paul Valente.

She was disturbed by the meeting she'd had with Paul that day. Without mentioning names, she briefly filled Brendan in on the situation between Paul and his wife. “He canceled their appointment last week, and this week he came in alone to say that she'd left him. He was really down. I was a little surprised.”

“That he was so upset?”

“No, no. I knew he'd be upset. I just didn't think he'd express it as openly as he did. Other than isolated minutes before or after a session, I've always counseled them together. He comes across very differently when he's with his wife. Alone, he's a more sympathetic character.”

“It sounds like he got to you today.”

“Yes. I feel really bad. He doesn't want this separation. He wants to work things out.”

“Is there any chance of that?”

“Not unless he can somehow convince his wife to sit down and talk, but since communication has never been their strong suit as a couple, the chances of that are slim.”

Brendan knew what she wasn't saying. He could hear it in her discouraged tone. “I think you're blaming yourself for not being able to do more.”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“I'm sure you did what you could.”

“It wasn't enough. You know,” she went on plaintively, “it wouldn't be so bad if he'd have come to me and said that they were separating but that it was the best thing, that he felt relieved because they were really making each other miserable. In a situation like that, I've failed but I haven't. I can tell myself that therapy served a purpose in clarifying their relationship for them. I can look back on it as a last-ditch effort to save something that in the end neither partner cared enough to save. That might have been true for the wife in this case, but not for her husband. He does love her.”

“So you feel that you've personally failed him,” Brendan concluded with compassion. “But the burden of responsibility wasn't totally yours, Caroline. The fellow's
wife
failed him, because she reneged on certain vows she'd once made. She was the one who gave up on the marriage, not you.”

His words soothed her. The plaintive quality had left her voice. “But maybe I could have prevented it,” Caroline argued more calmly, then tacked on a bewildered “somehow.”

“You tried your best, didn't you?”

“I thought I did at the time.”

“Isn't that the bottom line?” he asked softly, then raised his voice a notch. “Hey, I know exactly what you're feeling. When I was a prosecutor in the D.A.'s office, there was many a case I lost despite weeks and weeks of preparation. I could be totally convinced, I mean convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a person was guilty of the crime for which he was being tried, but if that jury found him not guilty, there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.”

“Did you ever question your own competence?”

“All the time. After I lost a case like that, I'd sit down and review everything. There was learning value in it. Sometimes something would come to me in hindsight—something I'd done or hadn't done that could have been pivotal. When I first started, I made some mistakes. But as time went on, the problem was more often in the evidence itself. In other words, the case as I'd been handed it was not quite strong enough to win that conviction.” He paused for the briefest of breaths. “Maybe the analogy fits here. Maybe the case you were given by this couple just wasn't strong enough. Certainly, if you tried your best, no one can find fault. The fact that the husband came in to see you today shows that he doesn't hold you responsible for the separation.”

Caroline was feeling better because he did have a point. “If you were in his situation, Brendan, what would
you
feel? Would you be angry at me?”

Brendan tried to answer as honestly as possible. He respected Caroline too much to do any differently, and he wanted her respect, as well. Telling her only what he thought she wanted to hear would be counterproductive in that sense.