Warm Hearts (47 page)

Oliver came up from behind and stood at her side without touching her. “Love is blind,” he said, casting a sad smile her way. “Haven't you heard that saying?”

She gave a meager excuse for a laugh. “Yeah. Dumb, isn't it?”

“Not dumb at all. I let love blind me to your need for the truth. I let it convince me to leave well enough alone.” His voice took on a husky timbre. “I do love you, Leslie. And if you weren't so hurt and angry I think you'd admit that you love me, too.”

“But I am hurt and angry,” she argued, the proof of her words in her large violet eyes, which were open and pleading. “I feel … betrayed.”

“Aw, Les,” he moaned, “I haven't betrayed you.” He reached out to touch her cheek, but she flinched and he let his hand drop. “Everything about me is the same as it was. Psychiatrist and model, they're one and the same. If you could love the model, why not the psychiatrist?”

“I didn't love the model!” she cried, grasping at the one illusion that might save her from the power Oliver had. For she felt it now—the need to touch him, to hold him and be held, to find oblivion in the fire of his passion. “I got … carried away by the romance of the island. That was what it was. Nothing more.”

His gaze narrowed knowingly. “Is that why you were so quiet during the trip home? Is that why you so readily agreed to spend the weekend with me? Is that why you gave yourself to me with such abandon, why you'd do it again if I took you upstairs now? You ‘don't sleep around.' Remember?”

Leslie's heart began to knot up. Whether it was his skill as a psychiatrist or simply that of a very perceptive man, he asked pointed questions. “You're good in bed,” she heard herself say in a voice far cooler than the caldron heating within. “And I needed the escape. Maybe you weren't the only one trying to flee an image,” she said, the words coming fast as the ideas formed. “Maybe I needed to shake the image of the down-to-earth schoolteacher for the week. Maybe I did have a ball. Maybe I was truly sorry to see my vacation end. Maybe my acceptance of your invitation for the weekend was nothing more than a wish to escape for two final days. Maybe I was playing a role, too.”

She'd hit home. Oliver stood suddenly straighter. “I don't believe you.”

“That's a shame. Funny … it seems to be a hazard of trips such as ours. When two people play for a week, it's hard to know afterward what's for real.” Given strength by self-deception, she turned and headed for the front door. “I think you ought to leave,” she said without looking at him. “The game is over.”

“Not by a long shot!” Oliver exclaimed, coming from behind to whirl her around. “I don't believe a word you say. I know you, Leslie. I can see inside.”

She pulled her arm from his grip. “Then you've got a double problem. Because if you want me to believe that, I'll have to believe all those stereotypes about psychiatrists. And if I do, I won't want to be around you. I've got secrets, just like everyone else. And I don't like the idea of being transparent.” She took the few remaining steps toward the door and stood with her hand on the knob for support. Her legs felt like rubber. “Now are you going to leave, or do I call the cops and report a breaking and entering?” She crinkled up her nose in echo of her heart. “Wouldn't be good for the image, Ol. Either of them.”

For a minute he stood staring at her. Though he hadn't believed a word she'd said, his claims to that effect had only hardened her. There had to be another approach, one that would be more successful. Unfortunately, he couldn't think straight. His insides were being chewed up; every bit of his energy was needed simply to keep his cool. Almost as an afterthought he remembered his overcoat on the bannister. Head down, back straight, he retrieved it, then returned to the door as Leslie opened it.

“This isn't the end, Leslie.”

“I think so,” she whispered, suffering behind a mask that barely hid her pain.

He simply shook his head. Daring to touch her because he needed to so badly, he lifted a hand to her face. When she tried to draw back, he anchored his fingers all the more firmly in her hair. “No, Les. What we had on St. Barts was unique. Most people go through a lifetime in a futile search for it. I'm done searching. All I have left to do is to prove that you are, too.” He let his thumb drift ever so gently along her cheek to her lips. She wanted to pull back, to shake it off, to do anything but admit to herself how much she craved him. But she was rooted to the spot.

Again he shook his head, this time with a smile to match the tenderness of his touch. “We found a special something down there, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it go.”

For a split second, she thought he would take her in his arms. Her eyes widened. She swallowed hard. But while she was still trying to decide whether or not to fight, he dropped his hand, stepped away to put on his overcoat and left.

She stood in the doorway until his car was out of sight, then went upstairs and cried herself to sleep.

9

It was a long two weeks before Leslie heard from Oliver again, two weeks rehashing all that had been said and done between them, two weeks of soul-searching. At first she'd been constantly on her guard, wondering when or where he'd show up … for she was sure he would show up. She'd seen that look of determination in his eye when he'd spoken of the special something he'd found, and her feminine intuition told her to beware.

At the start there was anger, anger that Oliver had deceived her, anger that she'd fallen for his ruse. And there was the hurt of betrayal. Yes, they had had a special something, but it had been built on delusion and was now destroyed.

The pity of it was that she'd wanted it, too, that special something. She couldn't deny it any more than she could deny that the mere thought of Oliver set her heart to beating with a vigor it lacked at other times.

Oh, yes, she'd wanted it. Before she'd ever gone to St. Barts she'd been aware of a lack in her life. She'd been restless and searching. Hadn't she debated going back to school, or worse, joining the corporation? But either of those options would have been stopgap measures for an ailment that went far deeper. She loved her work as it was. What was missing was a man, a home, children of her own. She wanted a relationship, a closeness, a warmth. She wanted love. She was thirty now; hadn't she waited long enough?

A special something. She had, indeed, found it on St. Barts. Illusion though it might have been, it had been divine while it lasted. Somehow in comparison the rest of her life paled dramatically.

By the end of the first week much of the anger and hurt had filtered away, replaced by an overwhelming sadness. She wanted to believe everything Oliver had told her that last night at her house, but she couldn't. She was afraid … afraid of trusting, then of being hurt all over again. What they'd once had had been so good; she felt as though she were mourning the loss of a limb or an ideal or a dearly beloved friend.

And she was lonely. So very lonely. Even during the hours she spent at one or another of the centers, she ached. There was some solace in the fact that Diane appeared to be responding to Oliver's ministrations. Though Leslie was unable to shake the vision of destruction at the Weitzes' house, regular phone calls to Tony, then to Diane herself, assured her of progress on that front. It was Brenda, however, who systematically homed in on Leslie's own malady.

“You sound down, Leslie,” she commented during one evening's call.

“I'm worried about Di. You know that.”

“And that's all?”

“Isn't it enough?”

“What about Oliver?”

Leslie stiffened, startled. “What about him?”

“Tony told me—”

“He had no business doing that!”

“He's your brother. He's worried.”

“I told him I'd be all right.”

“You don't sound it.”

“Please, Bren. I don't want to argue.”

But Brenda was insistent. “Is he very special … this Oliver?”

Very special? Ironic choice of words. For an instant Leslie wondered whether Brenda wasn't in cahoots with the man himself, then she chalked it up to coincidence. “Yes,” she sighed wearily. “He is.”

“Then give, Leslie. Give a little.”

She'd already given her heart. What was left? “Brenda…” she warned.

“Okay, but just try.”

“I'm trying, I'm trying,” Leslie grumbled, and indeed she was; she was trying to envision her future, but it remained a muddle. Thoughts of Oliver tore at her endlessly.
Classic withdrawal
, she told herself. Persevere, and she'd be fine. But the ache persisted, and by the end of the second week she'd begun to despair.

Then the kitten arrived. She'd just gotten home when the doorbell rang. For an instant she stood frozen, wondering whether this was the time Oliver had chosen to pop back into her life. But it was a delivery truck on the drive, leaving a small brown-wrapped box in her hand when it drove away.

An F.A.O. Schwarz package? She had no idea. Then she peeled back the wrapping and unearthed the sweetest hand-sized toy kitten she'd seen … since … since she was seven and her own just like it had gone to the laundry and never returned. Her vision blurred as she stared at the tiny silver button in its ear. Steiff. And its name. Jigs. She smiled and sniffed and shook her head. Then, hands trembling, she reached into the box and extracted the card buried therein.

“Not a puppy to chase and fetch, but a kitten to purr and stretch and thrive on attention. I'd even indulge it its occasional bristling. All my love, Oliver.”

Collapsing on a nearby chair with the kitten pressed to her heart and her head buried against her arm, she burst into tears. How could he remember such a small thing as that? How could he do this to her?

But he had. He'd sent her a teaser, then nothing. Another week passed without a word. Staring at the kitten each night, picking it up in her hands and holding it, knowing that Oliver had to have done the same when he'd bought it, she felt all the sadder, all the more lonely.

Predictably, with time, she grew used to thinking of Oliver as a psychiatrist. Unpredictably, given her annoyance that he should be something other than what she'd been led to expect, she grew curious. From model to psychiatrist—it was quite a switch. When she'd been on St. Barts she'd imagined what his life as a model was like. She'd never asked for details, feeling foreign enough, intimidated enough, to be wary of asking. He'd volunteered little. As she reflected on it, she realized that those few times she'd asked him questions he'd deftly turned the conversation around. At the time she'd simply thought him to be all the more modest, all the more attentive to her. Now she realized that his attentiveness had probably been not only habitual probing, but a diversionary tactic as well.

To think of him now as a psychiatrist conjured up quite a different picture of the way he spent his days. Rather than being in a studio, perhaps wearing a terry robe that he'd shrug off when it was time to climb into bed for the shooting of something akin to the Homme Premier ad, he'd be in an office, dressed in conservative slacks and shirt, tie and blazer, much as he'd been dressed when he'd come to Diane's house that night. Tony said he was skilled; indeed Diane appeared to have gotten a temporary handle on the more erratic of her emotions. Tony said he was busy. Leslie pictured him behind his desk, leaning far back in a chair, his long fingers steepled against his lips as he listened intently to his patient's words, interjecting questions or suggestions, concentrating fully on that one individual until the end of the hour, when, like clockwork, the guard would change.

To each patient he would seem all-attentive, fully engrossed. That would be part of his skill, making the patient feel wanted. Just as Leslie had felt wanted, and needed, and loved.

No sooner had she chased that thought from her mind than her curiosity went to work again. She wondered what time he went to work in the morning, when he got home at night, what he did evenings and on weekends. He'd obviously been free enough to invite her away. But certainly he had a social life, and most certainly it would be of a different class from that of a full-time model. Ironically, she assumed it would be similar to the kind of social life her family knew. Oliver appeared to be successful. He lived in Manhattan, had a place in the Berkshires, had been able to easily swing a trip to St. Barts, not to mention the beautiful gold necklace she wore, yes, every day. No doubt he lived well. No doubt he was part of that same social world she'd sworn off so long ago.…

As the days passed, she was prone to abrupt mood swings, high one minute and low the next. She'd miss Oliver with all her heart, then be glad he was gone. She'd be relieved he wasn't a model, then sad it should be so. She'd be proud to think of him as a psychiatrist, then furious at the way he'd so skillfully manipulated her mind. She'd be angry then contrite, indignant then forgiving. But through it all she was confused. Her future seemed more in limbo than ever before. She simply didn't know where she wanted to go, and the unsureness of it all gnawed at her constantly.

By the end of the fourth week, the unbuttoned ear of the small stuffed kitten had begun to show the imprint of her thumb. Much as she wished it weren't so, Oliver was never far from her thoughts. With March nearing an end, spring wouldn't be long. And spring, well, spring was a time for birth and brightness and love.

Had he had that in mind the day he sent the vase filled with violets? Violets … not drooping as she'd been that first day she'd arrived on St. Barts, but fresh and moist and gay. Had he known how desperately she'd needed word from him?

Her hand shook as she read the card written in the now-familiar bold scrawl. “I couldn't resist. I'll never see a violet without thinking of you. Care for them … please?” It was signed, “Love, Oliver.”