Every Time I Love You (23 page)

She was halfway along the lane, heading toward the house, when she heard his voice. She turned around and saw that he was running to her, stark naked, on the lane.

She had to smile. He was as beautiful and graceful as a healthy animal, and he was totally unselfconscious about his nakedness.

He reached her, panting. He set his hands on her shoulders and she didn't fight him. She kept smiling, though tears threatened; and when he held her to his heart, she was glad she felt his warmth and the rapid pounding there.

“Don't go.”

“Brent—”

“I'll see Shaffer. I'll call him, and I'll take his earliest appointment. Just don't leave me. Don't ever leave me. I love you so much. You are everything to me.”

She kissed him; then she laughed; then she cried. Holding his hands, she pulled back and looked at him. “You are bonkers, you know? It's broad daylight, and you're standing here bare-assed in the breeze, and any moment now—”

She broke off. “Any moment” was happening. There was a truck coming down the lane—the morning paperboy.

“Oh, hell!” Brent swore. He looked toward the house, then toward the barn, and decided they were equally distant. “You, my love, are worth it!” he proclaimed. Then he kissed-her quickly and streaked off toward the house.

And Gayle continued to laugh and then she started to cry again. And she sat down, right there, right in the lane, and started to laugh and cry some more.

The paperboy, she was certain, considered her far more dangerous than Brent. He dropped the paper into her lap, asked her if he could help her, and then disappeared before she could reply, as quickly as he had come.

CHAPTER 16

A week later on Tuesday afternoon Gayle sat nervously on the corner of her desk, waiting. Brent was supposed to finish his battery of tests with Dr. Shaffer today, then pick her up at the gallery.

The gallery was filled with bird pictures. Cardinals, hummingbirds, blue jays. Gayle thought they were beautiful. The artist was a woman, a small, spectacled grandmother who had waited most of her life to really put her heart into her work. Geoff and Gayle had both been pleased with the showing—Mrs. Fitzsimmons wasn't a McCauley, but she was very good with her subject, and the paintings and lithographs had sold very well.

At the moment, though, Gayle stared at a red-breasted woodpecker and barely noticed the bird. Geoff came up to her and pressed a glass into her hand; she looked down to see that he had poured her some of his prized brandy.

“Thanks,” she told him, smiling. Curiously, Geoff had been the one she had been able to talk to. She didn't know how happy Brent would be about that, but she didn't intend to tell him. Maybe the fact that Geoff had admitted that he and Tina had begun a bit of a temperamental affair had made her break down. Then again, maybe she finally talked to him because she had burst into tears while they were eating a quick lunch in his office earlier that day. Whatever, she was glad that she had talked to him. He had been warm and understanding, and though he couldn't give her any answers he didn't seem to think that either Brent or Gayle had completely gone off their rockers.

“You look like you need that,” Geoff told her. He slid into the chair behind her desk. Gayle turned to face him. “You don't have to wait, Geoff. You go on.”

“I'll wait. I'm in no hurry.”

“What about Tina?”

He squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, we had a spat again last night.”

“Whatever do you fight about all the time?”

He grinned. “Other women, other men, where to go for dinner, how to drive through the traffic. The list is longer. Want to hear the whole thing?”

“No!” Gayle laughed, then she frowned, remembering the sketch she had hidden away in the cupboard.

“What's the matter?”

“Oh! I was just thinking. Geoff, do you think you could come out soon? I want to show you something.”

“What?”

“A sketch.”

“Brent's?”

“No. No, this is old. It's done on vellum. I found it at a barn sale.”

“And you think it might be worth something?”

She shook her head. “No. Well, maybe. I don't really know or care. It's just upsetting because...because it looks exactly like something Brent has done. I mean, to a T. As if he and this other artist, who probably lived two hundred years ago, had seen the same thing, from the same perspective.”

He arched a brow curiously. “Sure, I'll come out. What does Brent say?”

“I haven't shown it to him.”

“Oh?”

She shrugged and looked away from him. “I found it after the first night he acted—so strangely. I don't why, but I held off from showing it to him.”

The door opened then and Brent stepped in. Gayle looked at him anxiously, then jumped up to greet him with a kiss, glad to see that he was smiling. “How did everything go?” she asked him eagerly.

“Fine.”

“Fine.” He looked past her to Geoff and grimaced. “This one has nightmares and screams; I act out Rambo fantasies in my sleep.” He looked at her suspiciously, seeming to realize that she had said something to Geoff, then shrugged as if he didn't mind. He smiled at Gayle again. “A clean bill of health. I went through the physical stuff like a Trojan, I swear it. And I stared at ink dots and did the whole bit. I made my life an open book. And I'm clean. There's nothing wrong with me.”

“That's great.”

“Want to come to dinner, Geoff?” Brent asked.

Geoff lifted his shoulders. “Are you being polite? Would you rather be alone?”

Brent shook his head, pulling Gayle against him and resting his chin on the top of her head while his arms slipped around her waist. “No, we can't be alone in a crowded restaurant anyway. Come on along.”

Geoff did come to dinner; curiosity—and that he loved Gayle and really cared for Brent—decreed that he should do so. They were both still beautiful. Gayle in soft swirling gray silk with padded shoulders, Brent in a casual fawn jacket, tailored shirt, and neatly pressed jeans. She was so light; he was so dark. The fairy-tale prince and his angel-haired princess.

But Gayle was showing the signs of strain. There were shadows beneath her eyes and her face had grown slimmer.

Tonight, Geoff noticed the wear on Brent too. His usual deep bronze complexion seemed faded and the tiny lines about his eyes seemed deeper.

He seemed happy that night, though. He told Geoff about the horses and how he planned to do a series using the mares. “Maybe I'll use Gayle in it too.” He smiled at her wickedly. “A Lady-Godiva-type pose.”

They ordered champagne and everything from soup to nuts; Brent was in a celebrating mood. But Geoff noticed that Gayle still appeared worried and drawn. She was quiet, while Brent was animated.

It was over coffee that she finally expressed herself, and Geoff wondered if she was even aware that he was there then.

“Brent, if they can't find anything wrong with you, then what is going on?”

“What?” He paused, his spoon halfway to his coffee cup, and frowned.

“You went through a whole series of tests. They don't show anything wrong. So—what
is
wrong?”

He slipped his hand over hers and squeezed it. “Nothing. Nothing's wrong. I must have been having dreams too, and you must have overreacted to them.”

“Oh?”

“That's what Shaffer suggested. Of course he's suggested that I come and spend a few more hours with him.”

“And?”

He sighed. “I agreed, Gayle. All right? I agreed.”

She nodded at him slowly. He grinned encouragingly, then turned his attention back to Geoff.

They parted on the street. Back in the Mustang with Brent, Gayle still felt a little worried about Shaffer's diagnosis. She pressed Brent again.

“You told him everything that happened? Everything?”

He glanced her way quickly. “I told him everything that you told me happened. I didn't remember it myself, you know that.”

“Hmmph.” Gayle muttered. So Brent was fine—she was the crazy one. Why was it working out that way?

“Oh, stop it with your humphing,” Brent laughed, ruffling her hair. Then she started because he drove off the road and parked the car. He took her into his arms and kissed her, and his eyes were bright with excitement and filled with the old self-assurance. “Everything is fine, Mrs. McCauley. And it's all going to be fine. I love you, you know. Till death do us part.”

“What?”

He looked at her strangely and laughed. “Till death do us part. I love you.”

She squeezed his hand. She still felt uneasy. But he was determined to charm her that night. When they reached home, they went for a long walk around the property, checking the newly planted flowerbeds and stopping by the stable to see the mares, Sheba and Satima. There was a light on in the old spinning house where the new foreman for the property, Hank Gleason, was being lodged. They stopped by briefly to see him, then went back to the house. Brent put on a recording of soft Viennese waltzes, and they went upstairs with more champagne to sit in the Jacuzzi. It was a good night; he was so happy and so relieved, and although Gayle didn't feel the same way she didn't let him know it. She teased with him and laughed with him and loved him every bit as tenderly as he did her. But when he lay peacefully sleeping, she was still awake, staring at the ceiling.

Maybe that was why she dreamed that night.

She never knew what she dreamed; she knew only that she was in terror. And she never knew where the dream began or where it ended. She knew that she was fighting, that she was struggling and fighting to defend herself; and in her heart she knew she was right. She saw Brent again, and it was Brent and it wasn't Brent, and he was furiously angry with her, throwing things. “That was it!” He shouted. “That was it! Oh, my God! You bought my freedom. My God, I could strangle you. I could tear you to pieces...”

She could hear herself denying the charges, denying the things she couldn't even comprehend. But he kept saying things to her, dreadful things, and she didn't want him near her. She was afraid of him, deathly afraid. Then she knew that it was cold and that he was chasing her and that, in the end, he caught her and he held her.

“Gayle! Dammit, please, Gayle! It's me! Gayle, stop, listen!”

She started as a clean slap landed against her cheek. A thousand stars seemed to burst before her, and she suddenly realized that she was standing out on the lawn. Her feet were damp; she could feel the grass. Brent—in his briefs—was standing before her, staring at her with terrible alarm in his eyes. He had just wrapped a robe around her shoulders. She was naked beneath it. Naked, out on the lawn, in the middle of the night. And she'd no idea of how she'd gotten out there.

There was blood dripping down his cheek and long scratches marred his chest. She gasped, then reached out to touch him. She was trembling, shaking so that she could barely reach him.

“Brent?”

“Come on, let's get back in the house,” he said grimly.

She tried to walk; she stumbled and fell. He picked her up and carried her quickly into the house. He paused by the kitchen for a bottle of brandy, then came back out into the passage and carried her on up the stairs. He set her down on the bed, wrapping the blankets around her because she was so cold. As cold as death.

“Brent!”

She reached out to touch him again. He smiled and caught her fingers. “You've got to trim those nails, lady. I'll be back. Just let me rinse these off.”

She sat there shivering while he went into the bathroom to rinse away the blood. When he came back, the scratches still looked ugly and sore.

“Oh, God!” Gayle gasped miserably.

“It's all right.”

“It's not all right!”

“What were you dreaming? That I was an ogre?” He tried to laugh. “That I was attacking you again? I swear, Mrs. McCauley, I've been a perfect gentleman.”

“Oh, Brent, don't, don't! I don't remember anything. This is awful. My God, Brent, something horrible is happening to us, and I can't remember anything.”

He poured out some brandy, taking a sip himself, then situating himself behind her and bringing the glass to her lips. Gayle sipped it and coughed. “Brent, how did I get out there? What did I do?”

He sighed, leaning back. “You had another nightmare. You woke up screaming. I tried to comfort you. You slugged me in the jaw. You've got one hell of a punch, by the way.”

“Oh, God!”

“Sweetheart, I'm teasing.”

“You can't! You can't tease! This is too serious.”

“Maybe we're taking it too seriously,” he said stubbornly.

“Tell me the truth.”

“That was the truth. You slugged me and took off. I grabbed my underwear and your robe and tore after you. They were the closest things that I could find.”

“Brent—”

“It could have been worse. I could have grabbed your underwear and my robe.”

“Brent!”

“Gayle, it's all right!”

“It's not all right. I hit you, I clawed you to pieces and you're telling me—”

“I'll live.”

“Brent, oh please! This is getting worse!”

He slid off the bed, and she could see that he was far more tense than he wanted her to know. He ran his fingers through his hair and then paused to snatch the brandy from her, finishing it. He sat down again. “Gayle, I don't know what to do. I went to Shaffer, and you've been going to the man for weeks now.” He put an arm around her and pulled her close again. “Maybe the man is no good.”

“I don't think that's it,” Gayle said dully. “I have an appointment with him tomorrow.”

“Are you going to keep it?”

“Yes. I'm going to tell him that I ran out of my house in the middle of the night, naked, and that I clawed up my husband's face and chest, and I don't even know why.”

“Sweetheart—”

“Oh, Brent!”

“Gayle,” he asked her, suddenly very serious. “What about Thane?”

“Thane?”

“Thane. The boy you lived with in Paris. The one who—killed himself. You told me why you left him. Do you think that you dream and then fight me, thinking that it's him?”

She shook her head, looking at him pensively. “Brent, it was so long ago! And I never felt for him what I feel for you.”

“I believe that, Gayle. I know that. But”—he hesitated—”tonight you were wild. You were terrified of me and you hated me. You kept screaming...I'm just looking for answers. Talk to Shaffer about it. See what he says.”

“But—”

“But what?”

“Brent, how would that explain—you?”