Intimate Strangers (8 page)

She stooped over to pick up the drawing she had thrown on the floor then sat down on the bed, holding one in each hand. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she looked from one to the other. The first Roarke she had drawn was gentle and tender. This was the face of a man filled with love. This was the face of the man she must have loved. Her heart trembled at the thought.

A glance at the other Roarke revealed a hardened face staring back at her, a face she hadn't created just with her pencil but one she had helped create in real life. Suddenly the black pit of loneliness and fright she had become so familiar with yawned open and tried to swallow her. Tears shimmered in her eyes as the realization washed over her that she was really dependent on a man who didn't seem to care for her and wouldn't help her.

She was alone, friendless, parentless, with no one to turn to except Roarke.

Sara dropped the pad on the bed and tenderly held the single sheet with Roarke's loving face sketched on it.
If only
, she thought,
if only he would look at me like this again. I could love a man who looked like this
. Her fingertips traced the black lines of the picture's lips.
Oh, Roarke
, she wept inwardly,
I don't remember loving you, but how could I have not loved you. I don't remember what I was like then or how I turned you against me, but I'm not that way now. I'm a new person, and… and … I need you
.

A flush crept up her face. What in the world was the matter with her? She absently rubbed her forehead and placed the drawing back into the sketch pad. She went into the bathroom and turned the cold water on in the basin and splashed her face. She stared at her reflection in the mirror as she patted the towel against her cheeks. If only Roarke would help her bridge the gap between then and now, the past and the present. Without his help it was futile to try. Her memory was not coming back, and she was dependent on him.

Martha walked out of the roomlike closet holding a long pale blue sheath in her arms. "This was one of your favorite dresses, Miss Sara, isn't it pretty?"

Sara glanced over her shoulder, then twisted around toward Martha, the eye shadow sponge still held in mid-air. "What a lush color, it is pretty. But why are we getting so dressed up tonight?" She turned back to the mirror again and stroked the sponge across her eyelid.

"When Mr. Roarke came home a few minutes ago, I told him that dinner tonight was going to be very special to celebrate your cast coming off. He said it sounded like a great idea, that he was in the mood for a celebration."

Raising her arms, Sara shimmied her body as Martha slipped the silk over her head and eased it down over her hips. As Martha zipped it up the back, Sara stared forlornly at her reflection in the full-length mirror. "Oh, Martha, it's beautiful, but it's just too loose. You can sure tell where I've lost my weight." The thin straps held a bodice that gaped a little around her breasts.

Martha pursed her lips, studying the dress, then went back into the closet calling back to Sara, "I know just the thing you need. Ah… here it is!"

After Martha left her alone to go downstairs, Sara slowly turned around in front of the mirror, examining herself critically. She had brushed her hair until it lay like spun gold, curled softly on her shoulders, framing her face. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and her eyes sparkled as she studied her reflection. The deep blue of the silk tapestry jacket with its hint of the mysterious orient accented the blue shadow on her eyelids and it covered the loosely fitting bodice of the pale blue sheath beneath. Her amber eyes sparkled yellow in the low light. Somehow she had become caught up with the idea of the celebration and felt excited.

Why am I excited
? she mused as she regarded the room.
This is just another dinner with Roarke, nothing more, nothing less
. She slowly limped over to the table in front of the balcony window and admired the crystal vase and candleholders in the center. The room was filled with an air of expectancy, but what was she expecting?

She lit the two tall tapers and watched as the flames flickered to life and twinkled on the crystal. Two perfect roses of deep blood red poised in the crystal vase seemed to flutter under the flames' reflections.

A light tap on the door caused a sharp intake of her breath. The door opened slowly and her heart quivered in her breast. Roarke was so handsome, her mind raced. His blue eyes sparkled when he spied her standing in the glow of the candles. The sheen of his deep burgundy silk shirt strained across the muscular breadth of his chest.

"You look lovely, Sam." He moved smoothly across the room toward her and took her hand in his and lightly kissed the palm. "I have to say, we've celebrated many things, Sara, but this is the first time we've ever celebrated an event of such magnitude. How is your ankle feeling?"

Sara blushed slightly, not from his teasing, but from the touch of his lips on her hand. "It's fine, although I still have to use this"—she pointed to the cane beside her chair—"for a few weeks. But it's great to have a little more mobility." She sat down and motioned for Roarke to join her at the table.

He glanced at the table and the champagne bucket set beside the empty chair. Reaching over, he took the bottle from its icy nest. "When Martha said we were going to celebrate, she really meant it, didn't she?" He pried at the cork and, laughing as it popped, he poured two glasses and handed one to her. Smiling slightly he said, "They're really spoiling you, aren't they? We haven't had champagne since…" A disturbed look momentarily flashed in his eyes and he stopped speaking.

Sara had been mesmerized by the touch of his lips on her palm and the low sound of his voice. When Roarke extended his glass toward her, she mentally forced herself to come out of the spell that had been cast. She tapped her glass against his and took a sip of the cold wine, grateful for the chill in her throat because it brought her back to reality. "Martha and Bradley have gone to a lot of trouble, and if they're spoiling me, I love it." She drank some more of the wine and the tingling started to warm her strangely icy body. Baffled, Sara thought,
Why am I so dazed by all of this? Why do I have these surges of anticipation running through me? What am I anticipating anyway
?

Sara looked around her. The room was bathed in a soft golden glow. The only other light in the room besides the candles was the lamp at her bedside. Sara wistfully reflected—if only life could be bathed in a warm golden glow, how nice it would be. The golden warmth smoothed over all the harshness. Candlelight has an effect on people that makes them speak in hushed tones and softens the hard edges of life, the side of life no one wants to admit is there but is reality. Sara shook herself out of her dreaming when she realized Roarke was speaking to her. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" She looked over at him.

"I said, a penny for your thoughts." Roarke leaned back in his chair, his eyes hooded by his long dark lashes.

"I was thinking about candlelight. It makes everything seem so much warmer. Did you ever notice there are no harsh lines in candlelight? Everything is smoothed out and softened." Sara stopped self-consciously. Her candlelight philosophy sounded so absurd when she said it out loud.

Roarke seemed amused. "Candlelight also makes dark corners and some people would be frightened by that. The kind of people who have to have everything right out in the open, with every corner well lit, every secret exposed. Don't dark corners frighten you?" Roarke looked at her intently.

"Dark corners! Roarke, don't you understand my whole life, my whole existence is one large dark corner." Getting up from her chair, Sara grasped her cane and limped over to the balcony window. "I know you find all this hard to believe, but it's true. You think I'm playing some kind of terrible game, but I tell you, I'm not." Sara turned toward the window so he couldn't see the tears that had gathered in her eyes.

Roarke leaped to his feet and stood in front of her. He placed his hands on her shoulders. "Look at me, Sara," he demanded.

She couldn't disregard the command in his voice. Slowly she turned with the faint pressure of his hands and looked deeply into his eyes. Her eyes sparkled in the glow of the candlelight, the unshed tears barely contained, misery echoing in every line of her thin face.

Roarke moved his hand from her shoulder and cradled her face with his palm. "Sara…" he groaned. Gently he gathered her into his arms and held her head against his heart. "Sara, I want to believe in you, I want to trust you again."

Sara pulled away and raised her face to look at him. "Why can't you believe in me? What did I do to you to make you doubt me? Please tell me, I have to understand what there was about me that would make you distrust me. Please, Roarke, please! Can't you understand I need to know?" Sara's eyes pleaded with him, her hands gripping his forearms.

Again he moaned her name and gently pulled her to him, his face an anguished mask.

There was a tap on the door and Bradley and Martha came in with their meal. Roarke drew away from Sara and she sagged inwardly, deflated from frustration, wondering what he had been going to do or say. It was the first time since she had come home that he'd been this open with her—open enough at least for her to feel sufficiently safe to expose her fears to him. They went back to the table and sat in silence while Bradley pushed the cart over to them.

Martha busily uncovered dishes and Bradley checked the champagne bottle to see if it needed replacing. Sara could barely control the urge to cry and tried to concentrate on Martha's chatter about the dinner, hoping to divert her stormy thoughts.

Roarke seemed to share her frustration; his movements were abrupt as he lit a cigarette. "Martha, Bradley, thank you for this, however, we will serve ourselves. I'll ring if we should need anything else."

What was his hurry to get rid of them? It didn't matter if they were alone or not. In Sara's mind their moment had been ruined and she despaired of ever having another chance to convince Roarke that he could trust her.

He talked with her about the weather and other trivial matters, but he seemed to be deliberately skirting the subject of the past. Sara became more impatient while listening to his trivial conversation. This was the side of him she had become accustomed to seeing these past weeks. But she didn't want impersonal charm, she wanted honesty.

"Sara, you have to eat more. All you're doing is moving your food around on your plate. You haven't eaten more than a few bites. You'll be back in the hospital if you don't put on some weight soon."

"I just don't have very much of an appetite. Food seems to stick in my throat." Sara threw her napkin on the table. "I think I'll turn on the news." She started to rise from her chair.

Roarke leaned back, watching her intently. "You're doing a lot of things you never did before. Like staring at that TV. You always said television was a waste of time and turned people into mindless zombies." Roarke's cigarette smoke hid his face, and Sara couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic.

She shrunk back in her chair like a balloon that had lost its air. "I've told you a thousand times that I don't know what I did before."

Roarke stubbed out his cigarette and seemed to be in deep thought. A frown creased his handsome forehead and his lips pursed tightly. His face was a closed book; he obviously wanted to keep his thoughts to himself.