Commitments (27 page)

"You bet. I don't think he'll try any more funny = st fthough. It was one thing when you were in the n ith dozens of violent men. A murder there can easily be made to look like something else. But he knows you were transferred from Parkersville, and he knows why, and he knows I know why. He won't risk murder again, particularly not after he declares his candidacy.' Derek wasn't sure whether the logic was correct, but his mind had already moved on down the road. ' he's 272 ng, I've got a year. One year to link him to Lloyd tine.' avid shifted in his seat. He was always uncomfort-when Derek started in on the business with antine. Not that there was any doubt that k had been set up for murder, nor that powerful rs had pulled strings during the trial. David just't so sure of the Ballantine connection. He'd hate see Derek waste valuable time.. chasing a wild se. Don't go at it yet. Take some time off. You need it,

. You said so yourself, you need to breathe a le. Relax. Have some fun. Decide what you want to about work, and when you've got yourself together, en you go after the Ballantine files.' rek thought about David's words a lot in the week come, especially the part about relaxing and having He didn't do much of either. It wasn't that he't want to, just that it didn't work out - which -n't to say that he didn't enjoy his freedom. He ued all the little things he'd taken for granted for s. He went where he wanted when he wanted, did and if that meant at he wanted when he wanted g a hot shower at two in the morning, going out for Big Mae at nine o'clock at night or wandering around the city for hours at a stretch, so much the better. The I<,roblem was, he couldn't forget where he'd been. He was self-conscious. He felt as though anyone who looked at him knew. Unfortunately, many people did. He'd been seen regularly on prime-time television for four years before his arrest, and. the publicity that had accompanied the trial had, if anything, raised his familiarity quotient. People with familiar faces did -double takes, then stared, cracking wary smiles only 27.3 in response to Derek's quiet-spoken hello. Even his agent, Craig Jacobs, seemed not quite sure what to do with him when he met him for lunch the day after he got back. For the first five minutes they were together, he went on and on about how surprised - and pleased! - he'd been to receive Derek's call and how wonderful Derek looked. Derek knew that he looked tired, pale and thin, so Craig had already blown his credibility by the time he Page 99

Barbara Delinsky - Commitments

reached the part about things not being the same since Derek had left. But Derek was polite. He nodded and thanked Craig for the thought, then suffered through the gossip session that ' a lunch so

'nouvelle' that he would have found it bizarre even if he'd spent the last two years in Paris, rather than prison. He was experiencing culture shock. After his prolonged period of confinement, New York was overwhelming. When he left his apartment on even the simplest oi errands, his pulse raced. He was familiar with it all - the traffic, the people, the buildings - yet he wasn't. Any sudden noise made him jump, and the city streets were full of sudden noises: the honk of a hom, the blare of a siren, the squeal of brakes. And sudden movement. That set him off, too. For two years of his life, sudden noise or movement had spelled trouble. The deconditioning, he realized, would take some time. in many respects, he was still a prisoner. And a murderer. That fact hit him now that he was free in ways it hadn't hit him when he was in prison. He could understand why, he supposed. In prison, he'd been but one of many, and most of those had been such clearly violent types that he hadn't identified with them. Here, he stood out. It occurred to him more than once when he bumped into someone he knew 274 t what he interpreted as awkwardness was, in fact, He was a murderer. He'd done hard time with men. He could be dangerous. @,,What bothered him most, though, was not what ple thought. it was what he thought. For two years,

'd refused to dwell on it. He'd relived the crime, but y in terms of what had happened where and and why. He had preoccupied himself with a of mental police report, and when his mind had stray to the moral implications of the crime, he them aside by focusing on the farce that had his trial and the horrors of prison. He couldn't do that now. He was a free man. And Padilla? He was dead. Derek had made him dead unintentionally perhabs, but it had been his hand t directed the gun to Padilla's stomach. Derek thought about that. He thought about it a lot, d it dragged him into a blue funk. Because two other ou ts came on the heels of that one. The first was that he was his old man's son. The second was that Sabrina deserved better. Sabrina. As the week went on, he thought about her ore and more. Each thought tugged at his heart a J. ttle, stirred his insides a little, did something vaguely ebilitating around the backs of his knees. He might ve called or written, but he didn't, and he knew that e was very probably worried and hurt. More than ce he told himself that it was for the best, that if she ,,Was worried and hurt, she'd realize sooner that she was buying grief she didn't need.. The problem was, he didn't want her to realize that.. He wanted to be with her. And the bitch of that was that the ball was in his comer now. She'd had it before. She'd been the one to go to Parkersville, then return month after month. She'd been the first to write after 275 -histransfer to Pine Island. But now she was in her farmhouse in Vermont and she wasn't making a move. She knew that he'd been released. She could have gotten his phone number and called. But she hadn't. Because it was his turn. Even in the bluest of moments, when Derek felt like the scum on the pond in Central Park as he ran by it each day, it never occurred to him not to go. The only qu u [estion was when. After six days in the city, when he'd reached the point where Sabrina dominated his thoughts, he knew the time had come. Packing a duffle with clothes to last him anywhere from two days to a month, he drove north. He had her address packed away in his mind, committed to memory since the instant it had appeared on the lefthand comer of the @ envelope that came in David's packet. With each rest stop he passed, he wondered if he should call. But he should have called a week before. Since he hadn't done that, and since she might be upset with him, and since her love might even have fizzled and died in that time, he didn't dare. So he never did stop to call. He did stop, though, once to fill the car with gas, once to get Page 100

Barbara Delinsky - Commitments

some coffee, once to use the men's room, once to stretch his legs and contemplate the blanket of clouds overhead. He was stalling, he knew, stalling like a yellow-bellied coward, and it gave him one more reason to hate himself. Then, midway through the drive, two things happened. The first was outside. The clouds began to lighten, then thin, then slowly but surely allow for the spotty appearance of blue. The second was inside, inside himself. He felt a pull. It came from the north, and it caused his foot to press 276 more heavily on the gas, caused his heart to beat a little faster. He supposed that it might have been all along; that it might have been responsible for restlessness he'd felt those last few days in New ; that he might have sensed it earlier but for the ts and fears that had worked against it. It was the etic force he'd felt before, and it grew stronger each passing mile. With strength came greater clarity and need. just as had seen Sabrina's face in the cracks on the ceiling his cell, now he saw it on his windshield. He could her, see her smile, feel the warmth of her sun. His ets felt, not the hard leather of the steering wheel d which they were wrapped, but the softness of skin. The scent of jasmine wafted through his d, overpowering the diesel fumes that drifted as he passed a truck, By the time he turned off the highway and started '4 the back road that led to her farmhouse, his "heart was thudding. Ite had no trouble finding her driveway, since her , was new and prominently marked with the number he knew. He paused for a minute, forced ' to breathe slowly and deeply, unclenched his hand from the wheel, shifted and drove on. Thick, shady trees lined the route, crowding the road so tightly at times that branches slapped the sides of his car. And then it came again, an omen that was too trite to be believed. The farmhouse lay at the end of the drive, bathed in sunlight. The light at the end of the tunnel. Swallowing his trepidation, Derek drove the last few yards and drew the Saab to a halt beside a small, sporty green Mercedes that wasn't at all new but looked well 277 kept. He'd often wondered what kind of car Sabrina drove. This one was classy and suited her well. For that matter, he mused, shifting his gaze, the house suited her, too. It was of modest design, done in the finest of materials. in typical Cape style, only the first floor was visible from the front, but the size and slope of the roof suggested a bounty of second-floor space. The roof was of fresh cedar shingles, the facade of fieldstone, the sides of clapboard newly painted a fight Nantucket gray. He climbed from his car and started toward the front door, his stomach knotting in anticipation. At least she was home, he reflected. He'd have hated to arrive like this and find her out. Then again, he didn't know she was here. She could be out with a friend. He should have called. The antique brass knocker made a resounding thud against the door. Derek focused on its bamboard planks. He waited, listened for footsteps. Hearing nothing he lifted his hand and swung the knocker again. Though the sound jolted his own body, itwhad no apparent effect on any occupant of the house. She was out. He should have called. He looked around. The day had turned into-a beauty

- sunny and just warm enough for him to leave his jacket in the car. Maybe she'd taken advantage of the November treat, too. She'd written of woods and meadows and streams. He glanced to the side of the house, where deciduous trees stood mostly bare before more dense stands of pines and firs. Maybe she was out there. Somewhere. Discouraged, he stuck his hands in his pockets and started walking idly around the house to the stretch of lawn that opened onto the river. Sabrina hadn't exaggerated the beauty of the setting. The grass was still 178 n, though strewn with drying leaves in an assortent of late fall shades. The river curved around the e of the lawn, not much more than twenty-five feet We. The slate-blue water was lightened in spots by ks beneath the surface. Page 101

Barbara Delinsky - Commitments

Several boulders broke the ace. A bird landed on an overhanging willow ch, but if it chirped, the sound was swallowed by gentle rush of the water. Derek stood still, drinking in the serenity of the '. Or did the serenity come from Sabrina? He always thought it, though what he'd felt during the ve from New York had not been exactly serene. Remembrance of those feelings brought the moment an end. Turning away from the river, he spotted the He'd always been intrigued by barns. They repsented everything held never had as a kid - a loft to : in, a pet to care for, a way of life that was slower, wholesome, more gentle. There was something peacejul about bams, and though this one wasn't anything special to, look at, it beckoned. He completed the walk around the back of the house until he stood before it. As bams went, it was modest , size. A worn path leading from its front toward a break in the woods suggested that at one point it had housed some form of livestock. It showed its age. Random strips of weatherboarding had come unnailed, the hay door hung askew, and the red paint was tired and wom. Unable to resist the invitation of the half-open great door, Derek moved forward. His deck shoes made no sound on the apron. He slipped through, then stopped and caught his breath. I Inside, the bam was a cavern of shadows. From a single high dormer, a beam of sunlight cut a conical 279

swathe through the dark. In that small pool of sunlight was Sabrina. She was sitting on her heels beside an old captain's table. A piece of sandpaper lay on the wood; the ultrafine grains of sawdust floating in the light attested to the work she'd been doing. She wasn't working now, though. She was grasping the edge of the table with one hand, while the sun glittered off her bowed blond head. And as Derek stood hidden in the shadows, he saw her brush tears from her cheeks. Something inside him twisted and turned. She was everything he'd ever dreamed, kneeling there in a pair of dusty white jeans and an oversized blue shirt. Her hair was a wild tangle. Her feet were bare. And she was hurting. '?' Her head came up fast, a look of alarm on her face as she peered into the dark. He went fox-ward - two steps, then a third. He stopped. Her eyes had widened. She was starin& just starin& and for a minute fear pounded through him so strongly that he couldn't move. But only for a minute, because he had a need to hold her that wouldn't be denied. When he started forward again, he saw her blink, then saw her eyes fill with fresh tears. He hastened his step when she rose from the floor, and by the time he had reached the small circle of light she was throwing herself into his arms. He -caught her to him, swinging her off her feet and around. She couldn't talk at first. Her throat was filled with soft, slow sobs that shook her entire body. Derek held her tighter, his long arms crisscrossing her body while he brushed his face back and forth in the wild waves of her hair. 280 11 thought - ' she cried in a high tremolo that spoke something akin to panic. ' thought you weren't He moaned and crushed her even closer. The tremolo came again. ' thought you'd changed ur mind - that you didn't - want me now that you're F

Letting her feet touch the floor, he took her face in Ads hands and tipped it to his. ' could never change ,.MY mind/he said raggedly. '

love you too much.' Before she had a chance to respond, his mouth took rs in a kiss that was wild and hungry. They were th breathing harder by the time he was done, and ', between those rapid breaths, he pressed moist ' to he nose, her eyes, her forehead. He returned -to her mouth with one that was deep enough to touch er soul, and when he raised his head, his gray eyes ere smouldering. 11 need you/ he whispered hoarsely. 11 need you badly., The need was electric. it was the culmination of months of desire, of foreplay that had been enacted in their minds, where no guards could stop it. It was spontaneous and inevitable and hot. As he bent his head to her again, she met him halfway, her lips as anxious as his. Their hands moved over each other, trying to touch everythin& to know everything at once. But it was Page 102