Amber's Embrace (21 page)

“Are you sorry?”

Her blond hair tickled his throat as she shook her head. “I purposely told him about my son. You were right. It scared him off instantly!”

They both sobered at the subtle reference to Scott. It was a quiet reminder of the lives that lay ahead. It was not only a matter of Zachary and Amber in love; there were others to be considered. But this weekend was not the time for that, they joined each other in unspoken agreement. These two days were for the two of them, to live and love for the present, leaving the future to itself.

If the prescription was for carefree abandon, they followed it to the letter. Sunday found them on the beach, sunning, swimming, sharing the shore with each other and no one else. Amber glowed within, her happiness glittering forth in the sparkle of her lime-hued eyes which, more often than not, focused on Zachary. As they lay on the beach, stretched out beside one another after a vigorous bout with the waves, she let her head fall sideways to look at him. There was so much to him and their relationship, she mused, that she wondered if she would ever fully sort it out.

There had been, first and foremost, that chemical reaction, felt from their very earliest meeting. This weekend had been the culmination of that overpowering attraction; even now, her eye had only to touch the familiar lines of his face, his strong neck, his sturdy shoulders, to spark her instant response.

But there was more. As she had gotten to know him, she discovered a man whose depth of feeling, understanding, and compassion never ceased to amaze her. Even with their minor disagreements, he had known what she wanted. Perhaps even that dismal Friday night, a mere week ago yet seeming eons in the past, had been a lesson, teaching her how very much she did need him.

These two days of bliss had been as a dream in Amber’s mind, a vision of happiness in her heart. Her love for him had deepened until she no longer knew where she ended and he began, so intricately intertwined were the two. From all outward signs, he adored her, reluctant to let her out of his sight—not that she fought him very hard on that score. His protectiveness made her feel warm and vulnerable and safe at once.

Even his quiet understanding of the slow silence that seeped through the car on the return trip to Dover on Sunday night relieved her. Each passing mile brought them closer to reality, to the world of home, family, and career. For Amber, each passing mile brought with it a steadily growing fear that things would not be the same when they returned. Out on the tip of Cape Cod, in that charming cottage by the ocean, there had been isolation and insulation. Their love had blossomed there, unhindered, undiluted. Would the everyday world reveal thorns alongside that beautiful flower? There had been a headiness, a newness to their discovery of each other. Would this vanish with the lusty ocean air left behind? Neither of them was innocent in the ways of love, though there was a uniqueness to their joining that Amber, for one, could not deny. Would the harsher world of reality bring, even in her own love-shaded gaze, a flaw to their relationship?

The dark hand that reached to touch her every so often, to brush her lips or her cheek, to give momentary caress to her shoulder or a squeeze of encouragement to her thigh, could not fill the nascent hollow within. Throughout the weekend, there had been no word of marriage. What
was
their future to hold? Both Scott and Liz would be returning, each from his respective parent, within a few short weeks. Amber assumed that any talk of marriage would have to wait, dependent on the preliminary functioning of the foursome as a potential family unit. Suddenly, however, any wait seemed too long. There was a fiery possessiveness within her too which was unquenchable. Her fear was of losing Zachary, more than of anything else. That Scott would immediately take to the man had never been at issue; nor had the conviction that she could not have found a better stepfather for him. No, Amber felt a purely selfish fear take hold, one whose roots came from the hurt of her first marriage. For this one, wildly ecstatic weekend, Zachary had been hers. Would he be hers forever?

*   *   *

“Amber! Where in the devil have you been? I’ve been trying you all day!” The phone had rung within twenty minutes of her arrival in the lonely old house. “Scott was worried when you didn’t call him this morning—he even called here, poor baby!”

“Calm down, Corey!” Amber urged her friend, pangs of guilt now joining with those other devastating fears. “I was away for the weekend. I spoke with Scott just a few minutes ago, when I first came in.”

“Away for the weekend?” the other echoed, suddenly curious now that she knew her friend was safe and had been in touch with her son. “You didn’t tell me about plans to go away?”

“It was … very … last minute.”

Corey’s broad smile shaped her voice. “Okay, so where did you go? Or”—her voice lowered dramatically—“is that classified information?”

Amber gently chided her for her dramatics, desperately hoping to minimize the impact of the weekend in the mind of this friend who saw through her so quickly. “It’s no secret, Corey. I was in Provincetown.”

“Alone?”

“No. Actually, I was with a … date.” That certain something which kept her from blurting out the entire story to this, her best friend, mystified her. Yet she persisted in both her vagueness and her feigned nonchalance.

“A
date?
For the weekend? Who was he?” No waffling here, Amber mused wryly.

“Ah, Corey, you really don’t want to hear all this. It was a weekend. I had a … great … time. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Who was he?” her friend repeated, bluntly ignoring the evasion. When Amber failed to answer, she prodded further. “Come on, love. We’ve shared too much for you to turn secretive all of a sudden. I’m your friend. Nothing you tell me goes beyond my lips!”

Corey was right; Amber had always been able to trust her. Perhaps what was needed now
was
a sounding board, the latter reasoned, as she took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled it. “I spent the weekend with Zachary Wilder.”

A pin drop could have easily been heard in the astonished silence that greeted her admission. “With
who?
” Corey demanded incredulously.

“You heard me. With Zachary.”

“Oh, I heard you, love, but I can’t believe it! You actually spent the weekend with
the
Dr. Zachary Wilder?”

Her friend’s innocent exaggeration brought an involuntary grin to Amber’s face. “Now what’s so special about
the
Dr. Zachary Wilder?” she asked with her own innocence,
as if she didn’t know.
“You were the one who was originally going to fix me up with him, weren’t you? Or was it all a hoax?”

“Oh, it was no hoax, Amber. I had the feeling you two would hit it off. I just didn’t quite expect … a weekend … wow!”

“Corey, you are impossible! We spent a weekend together in Provincetown. Just a weekend.” Her inner fear made a foray to the outer world, causing her to bite her lip and hope that her friend did not catch the waver in her voice. Mercifully, she did not.

“
Just a weekend?
Amber, do you have any idea of what a weekend with that man is supposed to be?” A chill settled in Amber as she listened helplessly to her friend’s chatter. “He is supposed to be
the
most delectable lover in the world! Rumor has it that
one night
with him is enough to spoil a woman forever. But a weekend? Boy, you got more than most. Was it worth it?”

Amber’s heart caught in her throat at the implication of Corey’s words. They had been offered in all innocence; her friend, happily married, would have no reason to make spiteful statements. But she had no idea of how Amber felt about the man, either.

“Amber?” The soft urging of Corey’s voice reflected an awakening of sorts.

“Y-yes, it w-was worth it…” Amber’s eyes filled suddenly with tears, which spilled helplessly over her cheeks. When her muffled sobs reached Corey’s ear, the other was quick to respond.

“Oh, Amber, I had no idea. You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Without awaiting confirmation, she went on, speaking as much to herself as to Amber. “I should have known, with your forced nonchalance, and all. You’ve been seeing him all summer, haven’t you?”

Amber sniffled against the back of her hand, oddly relieved to finally be able to share this news with someone. “You m-might say that,” she stammered, her breathing rough with lingering gasps.

“Should I come over now, love? We can talk—”

“No!” she began vehemently, then quieted instantly. “Thanks, Corey, but I really need to be alone, to sort things out. If I feel like talking, I’ll give you a call.”

“Does he love you, Amber?”

Memory of his words, repeated again and again, rang with symphonic splendor in her ear. “He says he does. But if what you say is true, if he moves around from one woman to another so quickly, maybe he was only infatuated, or—worse—lying.”

“No, love.” It was Corey’s turn to scold her friend. “No other woman, that I’ve heard of, has had words of love. He’s never made promises he didn’t keep. And a man his age is not about to be infatuated, not with the situation he’s been through during the last few years.”

Despite the strength of her reasoning, Amber’s distress raged unabated. “Well,” she began, anxious to get off the phone and to the privacy of her thoughts, “he didn’t make any promises to me, either. It may fizzle out as quickly as it began.” Again, her attempt at nonchalance fell flat, the pain in her voice clear and sharp. But her friend took the hint.

“Look, love, you go rest. I’ll be off duty until six tomorrow morning. If you want, give me a call. Okay?”

“Sure, Corey.”

As Amber numbly hung up the phone, she thought of the only one whom she wanted to call. But he would be sleeping, or so he said. Visions of those last few minutes together flashed before her eyes, in vivid recreation of the scene.

When they had reached Dover, he drove directly to her house, carrying her bag to the door, his one free arm linked around her waist. He had kissed her then, reluctant to leave, his hands roaming her back a final time, then her face, his fingers caressing her features as though committing them to memory.

“Why don’t you stay the night, Zachary?” Her spontaneous suggestion was on impulse from the heart.

A sad smile curved his lips, then tugged at her heart. “I’d like nothing better, honey, but it wouldn’t be very wise. I’ve neglected the hospital, as it is, for the weekend. If I’m not in top shape tomorrow morning for rounds, they’re apt to let me go.”

“Fat chance,” she chided him softly, her own arms locked behind his lean hips. “How
did
you get away for the whole weekend? I didn’t even see that infernal buzzer anywhere.” She had recalled, with a blush, its inopportune sounding on another occasion, and had not missed it in the least.

Zachary’s grin held a bit of devilment in it. “I have friends in high places. I even managed to pawn the little box off on one of them. They had the phone number of the main house, in case of an emergency with Liz, but my patients just had to do without me for the weekend.” The fact that the weekend had been hers so totally thrilled her, as did the words which next brushed by her ear. “Meet me at my office tomorrow morning at ten. We’ll have coffee together. Sound all right?”

“Ummm,” she murmured against his chest, the strong beat of his heart filling her other ear and her whole body with his life.

Now, alone and overcome by fears and insecurities, Amber felt that same pounding of a heartbeat in the blood that raced through her veins.
Good night, my love,
she repeated in silent litany.
Good night.

CHAPTER NINE

The night dragged on endlessly, its emptiness a harsh reality after the days and nights of pleasure and haven in Zachary’s arms. Come morning, Amber lingered in lengthy arbitration over her choice of clothes and her makeup, determined to make her most attractive appearance before him at ten. The vacillation of the night—he loves me, he loves me not—had yielded to an emotional limbo that cushioned her through her ablutions, dressing, and breakfast, then filtered around her as she drove to the hospital and put in a token hour of minimally concentrated labor on the last of the articles to be finished for the report on the proposed International Center.

Nine fifty saw her in the ladies’ room, making last minute checks, recombing the hair which had been left loose at Zachary’s preference. Nine fifty-five saw her waiting for the elevator, pulse racing impatiently in hopeful anticipation. Nine fifty-eight saw her tightly controlling her steps toward his office; nine fifty-nine saw her warm with excitement at the door that stood open, awaiting her arrival. But at ten o’clock on the button, her heart broke in two. There in Zachary’s office stood the man himself, his arms about the shoulders of the same woman she had seen once before. The shapely legs beneath the dark skirt and white blazer would have given her away, had not her identity been revealed conclusively by the full chestnut mane that now cascaded over the same strong hands which had caressed Amber only the day before. It was Ginny Warner, his beautiful colleague, come to welcome him back to her arms.

For a long moment of disbelief, Amber stood frozen at the open door. Then, with a small cry of anguish, she turned and fled, blind to everything about her, deaf to the call of her name echoing in the corridor, as she found the nearest stairwell. She returned to her office, left word that she would be gone for the rest of the day, and escaped the suddenly smothering confines of the hospital.

The persistent ringing of her telephone held no interest for her. Even the possibility that it might be Scott failed to diminish her torment. But the house seemed to stifle her, much as had the hospital. Clear thought eluded her, as did that desperate breath of fresh air. Impulsively, she changed her clothes and climbed back into her car, driving aimlessly, stopping occasionally at a roadside spot to think, to mourn, to suffer anew.

She had seen it coming, one part of her declared. Ginny Warner had implied their intimacy that night at Zachary’s house; it should have come as no surprise to find her exhibiting it this morning in his office. But after the past weekend, that other part of her argued—why had Zachary been partner in this deception? How could he have betrayed her so quickly, knowing all that she had once suffered in like manner?