Within Reach (9 page)

With that very same arm Michael collared her and tugged her close. The gentle gesture brought her temple to his jaw. When he spoke, his breath warmed her brow. “I wish I had caught you first, y’ know.”

Danica melted against him, feeling very, very good. She’d never been a physically demonstrative person, but Michael was, and she found that she loved it. In hindsight, the way she had earlier run into his arms startled her, yet it had seemed the most natural, most desirable thing to do. She felt wanted, protected, valued. But more, she felt stronger, as if this long-denied human touch had renewed a certain faith in herself.

“You’re special,” she murmured, luxuriating in his touch for a moment longer. In the end, it was he who set her back.

“Not special. Just concerned.” His voice was husky. He cleared his throat. “And we were talking about what you can do to keep your mind occupied.”

“We were?” She felt slightly dazed. It took her a minute to get her bearings.

Michael’s recovery was that much faster, but then, he had the advantage of knowing precisely how and what he felt. Not that knowing made things easier; to be wild about a woman who was married to another man was insanity, sheer insanity.

“If you want a job, why not get one?”

She took a long, unsteady breath. “I’m not exactly trained for anything.”

“You have a degree, don’t you?”

She was finally focusing. “In English. Not very practical in this day and age. But I never expected to do anything with it.”

“What did you expect?” he asked without censure.

“Much of what I got. A husband. A home—two, now. A life similar in many ways to my mother’s.”

“But that’s not what you want.”

She looked down at her hand and nervously twisted her wedding band around. “I feel frustrated.”

“What is it you do want from life?”

“Love,” she blurted out, then realized what she’d said and colored. “I want children, but they haven’t come. Maybe that’s why I feel at loose ends. Maybe that’s why I feel I have to work.” Her laugh was brittle. “I mean, I don’t
have
to work. I just—” she widened her eyes in emphasis “—
have
to work.”

“I hear you.” He had heard every word, including that one she regretted saying but which had told him a great deal, not the least of which accounted for the sadness he had seen in her from time to time. He wanted to ask about her marriage but didn’t quite dare yet. “I think you should look for a job if that’s what you want.”

She was torn. “Yes, it’s what I want. But there are so many factors involved. A job is a commitment. I’d have to shift everything else around. And then there’s Blake. I’m not sure how he’d feel about my working. I’ve always been there when he’s needed me.”

“He’s a big boy.”

“I know, and I didn’t mean ‘need’ in that sense. When push comes to shove, Blake doesn’t
need
me at all. It’s just that he expects me to be there when he gets home. I always have been…looking just right, dressed to go out if he wants. But if I work all day, I’ll be tired at night…”

“He works all day. Doesn’t he tire of the game?”

“He loves it.”

Some guys did. Michael knew the type. They were driven by forces from without and were not, first and foremost, family men. “Okay. But wouldn’t he be able to understand why you want to work?”

“I don’t know. He’s of a different generation in many ways. He’s so like my father, and I
know
my father would resist the idea of my working.”

“Would that bother you?”

A lone herring gull screeched overhead, drawing her attention. She watched it careen along an air wave and envied it its smooth ride. “Yes,” she said at last in a tone filled with resignation, “it would bother me. I’ve always wanted to please him.”

“Wouldn’t it please him to know that you’re happy? Wouldn’t it please him to know that you’d seen something wrong in your life and tried to fix it? If nothing else, Senator Marshall is a doer. When he sees something he thinks is wrong, he works to change it. I may not have always agreed with his stands, but I’m convinced that he truly believes in each and every one of them.”

Danica chuckled dryly. “You must be the only Buchanan who has that faith, at least where it concerns either defense spending or foreign policy. The papers have alternately claimed that he was being bought, that he was carrying out a vendetta or that he was parrying for votes in an election year.”

“Well,” Michael sighed, “I’m not my family, and my argument is that your father might well be sympathetic to your cause.”

“You don’t know him, Michael,” she murmured. “Oh, yes, he’d be sympathetic to my cause if he believed in it. But he doesn’t.”

“You believe in your cause. Wouldn’t that be enough for him?”

“If only. Don’t you see? It’s not that in theory he’d have any objection to his daughter working. It’s that he sees his daughter as already employed, and he’s not particularly open to another view. He sees things one way and is terribly narrow-minded when it comes to those who think differently. I guess that’s it. But isn’t your father the same way?” From what she had heard, from what Michael had himself intimated, John Buchanan was a dictator in his own right.

“Sure. I was lucky, though. My mother goes to the other extreme.” He thought for a minute. “Have you discussed all this with your mother?”

“God, no. She’s an extension of my father. Not that I’m criticizing, mind you. She’s been the perfect politician’s wife. She enjoys the pomp and circumstance. Apparently, it’s all she needs.”

“Then, she’d agree with your father.”

“Mmmm. And as far as he’s concerned, my place is by Blake’s side. In his mind, everything I do should have some bearing on Blake and his career and, therein, my future security.”

“Do you believe that?”

“No. I’ve just never had cause to fight it.”

“Before.”

She nodded.

“Why the change now?”

She pondered his question. “I guess I’m getting older. I’m twenty-eight. I’ve been married for eight years. I’m beginning to sit back and take stock of things.”

“And you want more.”

Again she nodded, but her attention had focused on Michael’s lips as he spoke. They were firm lips, with a hint of softness in the lower one that took masculinity into the modern age. He was a man to talk with, to understand. She wondered if he was that much less critical and more open-minded than the other men she had known or if it was simply that he shared her views.

When those lips moved to speak again, she dragged her gaze back to his eyes. They were more heated now, filled with a passion she had never seen directed toward her. If only Blake looked at her that way from time to time, things might be different.

“Would a job solve your problems?” he asked softly.

No, she knew. The problem went far deeper than a simple filling of time. Taking a job would be a stopgap measure. What she needed was love and the warm home she had always craved but never had. Financial security, social position—they weren’t enough. What she needed was to be needed, to be respected as an individual in her own right.

She looked down “It would be a start, I suppose.”

“Then go for it.”

“Which brings us back to square one. If only things weren’t so complicated. If only there weren’t these other expectations.”

“They’re other people’s expectations, not your own.”

“That’s what’s so muddled. They’ve been my own for a long, long time—”

“Even though, deep down inside, you’ve probably always wanted something else?”

“Yes,” she confirmed in a small voice. “Even then. I’m just not that courageous a person, I guess. I’m afraid of upsetting the applecart.”

Michael reached for her hand. His thumb brushed her knuckles, gently caressed her fingers. “You’re very hard on yourself, your own worst enemy, I think. Do you remember once we talked of choices?” When she nodded, he went on. “Life is filled with them, and they keep on coming. So many of the choices you’ve made in the past have been dictated by your desire to please. Now you’re discovering that while you may be pleasing others, you’re not pleasing yourself.” He pressed her hand between both of his and searched her features. She looked so very vulnerable that he ached.

“There’ll be other choices, Dani, other choices to be made. At some point you’ll venture down a different road, and when that happens, you’ll feel comfortable with the decision.”

She brushed her free fingers over the soft sprinkling of hair on the back of his hand, then spread her palm there. His warmth seeped into her. His strength was contagious. “You sound so sure that I almost believe it.”

“Come ’ere,” he growled and hugged her to him again.
I know it
, he thought.
I have faith in you
.

I wish I could package you up
, she mused,
and keep you in my pocket all the time. You make me feel so good. You give me such confidence
.

You’ve never been given a chance. There’s so much inside you, so much just begging to be freed
.

Why aren’t the others like you? Why don’t they understand
?

They all take you for granted. I never could. But then, you’re not mine, are you
?

“Oh, Michael…” she whispered.

Reluctantly he set her back, but his gaze continued to embrace her a moment longer. “You’re apt to be missed,” he murmured thickly. “Maybe you’d better head back.”
Before I do something that will complicate your life all the more
.

She nodded and, holding his steadying hand, climbed down from the rocks. When once again she stood on the sand, she focused on the horizon. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow. The next few weeks will be busy. Then I’ll be back. Will you be here?”

“I’ll be here.”

She looked at him. “Writing?”

“That, and relaxing. The summer’s beautiful here. There’s lots to do.”

She smiled, but tears had gathered on her lower lids. On impulse she stretched to lightly kiss his cheek. Then, before she made an utter fool of herself, she quickly set off down the beach.

She didn’t look back. She didn’t have to. Michael’s image was firmly planted in her mind, where it remained for the rest of the day. Much as she tried, given the fact that she was back in her own house with her husband, she couldn’t forget those lips, so warm and firm, that arm, corded and strong, the masculine set of that body, which had hugged her, held her, made her feel special. And feminine. She had never felt so feminine before. She tingled in secret places when she thought of the curling hairs that had edged through the open neck of Michael’s shirt, when she thought of the roughness of his cheek when she had pressed her lips there. She grew warm all over again when she thought of the clean, fresh smell of his skin.

And she was terrified.

That night, Danica Lindsay seduced her husband. It was a deliberate act, born of desperation. And it was a first.

The woman who had always waited for her husband to reach out now did the reaching. She who had been shy undressed openly. She who had been silent whispered an urgent “Make love to me, Blake.” She who had always been in control of herself was now controlled by a greater force.

Aroused as never before, she demanded a fierce pace. Selfish as never before, she concentrated solely on the fire that raged in her straining body. When she reached a heart-stopping climax, she kept her eyes shut and bit her lip to keep from crying out. And when it was over, she curled in a ball and yielded to silent tears of anguish.

For in her heart she knew she had made love to another man. And she wasn’t sure how she was going to handle that fact.

“You’re awfully quiet.” Hand on the banister post, Greta McCabe stopped at the bottom of the stairs to study Michael, who sat sprawled in the shabby armchair he had occupied since dinner. His eyes had been glued to the rug, but when she spoke, he glanced up and smiled.

“Pat ran out to get more beer. You ran up to put Meggie to bed. There was no one to talk with.”

“All night, Mike. You’ve been quiet all night.” She perched on the arm of his chair. “Is something bothering you?”

Michael took a weary breath and leaned his head against the back of the chair. Pat and Greta were two of his closest friends; he had known them for years and years. It didn’t surprise him that he had sought out their company tonight, any more than that Greta had sensed something on his mind.

“I think,” he began, emphasizing each word in a way that would have been comical if Greta hadn’t known better, “that I’m in trouble.”

“Work problems?”

He shook his head.

“Family problems?”

Again he shook his head.

“Uh-oh. Michael Buchanan, what have you done this time?”

He knew precisely what that tone of voice suggested and suppressed a groan. “Nothing. I swear to God—”

“You haven’t taken up with Monica again, have you?” She was trouble from the start.”

“No, I haven’t seen or heard—”

“Then, you left another one waiting for you at La Guardia.”

“Of course not. That happened four years ago and if I hadn’t been so damned preoccupied trying to straighten out the manuscript that got screwed up—”

“You didn’t get a girl pregnant, did you?” Greta said with such stoical calm that he could only grab her hand and squeeze it tight.

“No, Greta. I did not get a girl pregnant. Give me a little credit, will ya?”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m in love.”

The back door slammed coincidentally with Greta’s going perfectly still. “I’ve known you for a long time, Michael, but I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you say that.”

“Say what?” Pat asked, sauntering in with a six-pack under his arm.

“Michael’s in love.”

“Ahhhh. New book idea?”

Michael smirked. “Not exactly.”

“No? Gee, it would be interesting. Taking participatory research to its limits.”

“Pat,” Greta scolded, “he’s serious.”

“He can’t be serious. He told me once that he’d
never
fall in love.”