One Good Turn (8 page)

He felt comfortable with her in a way he rarely felt comfortable with anyone—let alone someone of the opposite sex. When he’d teased her about how she seemed to have the TV show memorized she’d poked him in the ribs, and when he’d extended his arm along the back of the sofa she’d promptly cuddled against him so there would be room for Sybil to squeeze onto the cushions next to her. There had been nothing overtly romantic in her nearness—what with three chaperons in the room, Luke wasn’t about to get hot and heavy with her. The fact was, he hadn’t wanted to. He’d been content simply to have her next to him, leaning into him, behaving as if this cozy evening of popcorn and TV was nothing out of the ordinary.

That was the way it was with Jenny. Her closeness—both physical and emotional—seemed natural and right. When he walked with her down Church Street tonight, they held hands, and it meant nothing—and everything. He was still occasionally distracted by thoughts of making love to her, but more often his fantasies centered on simply being with her, talking to her, knowing he could tell her whatever was on his mind or in his heart and she would assure him that it was okay, that he was good, that he had nothing to fear.

“Don’t you see?” she explained, ambling down the street with him, her program clutched in her free hand. “All those nasty characters—they didn’t really want to be the way they were. You could sense the moral struggle in them. They were searching for a way to let their goodness rise to the surface.”

Luke grinned. How typical of her to put a positive spin on such a grim, cynical theater piece. He’d love to hear her dissect
Macbeth
someday: “Lady Macbeth wasn’t really an evil person. Women had so little power in those days. They had to funnel all their ambitions into their husbands. It’s no wonder she got frustrated and cracked up...”

“The trouble with these people,” she declared, referring to the play they’d just seen, “was that they’d lost the ability to listen to their inner voices. They’d forgotten how to trust their instincts.”

“What makes you think their instincts weren’t telling them to con the widow out of her life’s savings?”

“Because they were miserable.” Jenny’s tone implied that she thought this was obvious. “Not just after they conned the widow but before. You could see their torment. They were doing something they didn’t want to do because they’d lost faith in themselves. But faith is something you can regain any time you want. Faith is always there. I don’t mean religious faith, but faith in yourself, in your ability to trust others and do good things.”

“Cornball,” Luke teased.

Jenny chuckled. “It’s really sickening, isn’t it. I wonder if there’s a cure for corniness.”

“I hope not.”

They’d reached Dupont Circle. Cars and bicycles cruised down the avenues that converged at the circle like the spokes of a wheel. Elegant new high-rise condominiums towered over the fashionable neighborhood. A third of the way around the circle from the corner on which Luke and Jenny stood was a cafe with a dining patio; several dozen small round tables were arranged behind a decorative wrought-iron fence, each table adorned with a flickering candle.

“Should we have a drink or an ice-cream?” Luke asked, gesturing toward the patio.

“An ice-cream,” Jenny decided enthusiastically. She’d had a glass of beer with dinner, but Luke had spent enough time with her in the past week and a half to understand that Jenny was not a heavy drinker.

The light turned green and they started across the street. The next arc of the circle contained a small plot of greenery—flowering shrubs and grass, a dogwood tree and a couple of carved concrete benches. A young man in a tee shirt, tattered jeans and torn sneakers sat on one of the benches. His sunken cheeks were darkened by a several-day-old stubble of beard, his shoulder-length hair appeared not to have been brushed in ages, his fingers were grimy and his fingernails discolored. A bulging plastic garbage bag stood between his legs. He oozed the sour smell of unbathed flesh.

Luke instinctively tightened his hold on Jenny’s hand. She wriggled free and stalked across the sidewalk to the man on the bench. For an instant, Luke was too stunned to chase after her. Then he did, panicked by the thought of what the vagrant might do to her.

By the time he’d reached her she was addressing the man in a low, earnest voice: “Have you eaten anything today?”

“I had sumpin,” the man mumbled.

“Do you have a place to stay for the night?”

“Ain’t gonna rain, lady. I’m all right here.”

Luke wanted to scream at her to get away from the man. But he held his words, sensing that Jenny would be furious with him if he interfered. She rummaged in her purse, pulled out a couple of dollar bills and pressed them into the vagrant’s grubby hand. “If you’re not hungry tonight, you can save this for tomorrow,” she instructed him.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said the man. “Thank you. God bless.” He stuffed the money into a pocket of his jeans and then looked away bashfully.

Jenny straightened up and turned to Luke. Relief rushed through him that the street person hadn’t mugged her. In fact, the guy had behaved with remarkable civility. Even so, she had taken a huge risk in approaching him, and as soon as they put some distance between themselves and the guy, Luke intended to give her a stern sermon on the limits of mercy in the real world.

He took her hand and hiked with her around the circle to the sidewalk cafe. Except to request a table for two, he remained silent until the hostess had ushered them to one of the candle-lit tables, presented them with menus and departed.

“Jenny,” he said, ignoring his menu, “that man could have hurt you.”

She rolled her eyes at what she clearly considered an overreaction.

“I’m not kidding, Jenny. He’s a bum. He could have done something awful to you.”

“Why on earth would he have wanted to do anything to me?” she asked.

Luke could think of no good reason—but that wasn’t the point. “If he’s deranged enough to be spending his nights on a park bench in Dupont Circle, he’s probably deranged enough to be capable of violence.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jenny argued calmly. “There are plenty of reasons why he might be spending the night on a park bench. Maybe he got evicted from his apartment. Maybe his home was gentrified out of existence,” she said, waving at the luxurious new residential towers that bordered the circle. “Maybe he’s just down on his luck. He could be an alcoholic, or—”

“Exactly. Or a drug addict, ready to knife a naïve lady for the contents of her purse.”

“Just because he hasn’t bathed in a while doesn’t mean he’s a murderer,” Jenny said with a laugh.

“How are you going to feel if he takes that money you gave him and uses it to buy drugs?”

Jenny laughed again. Luke knew she wasn’t laughing at him, though; her laughter was gentle, underlined with sympathy. “I only gave him two dollars. That won’t go far if he’s in the market for drugs. But why assume he’s going to use that money to get high? Why assume the worst? Why not assume he’s going to do something good with that two dollars? There’s always a possibility he’ll spend it on a bagel or a piece of fruit. If I had walked past him without giving him any money, there would have been no chance of that good thing happening.”

She was crazy, arguably as deranged as the street person on the bench. But when Luke gazed into her wide hazel eyes and acknowledged the depth of her compassion, when he opened himself to the power of her convictions, he lost the will to refute her. What a wonderful thing it must be to go through life expecting the best and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt.

He permitted himself a slight smile. “Are you going to feel guilty eating a banana split knowing that a hungry person is spending the night on a park bench a block away?”

“I wasn’t planning to order a banana split,” Jenny told him as she lifted her menu. “That would be much too filling. I was thinking of just a dish of ice-cream.”

“Not even a hot fudge sundae?”

She shook her head. “I’m still pretty stuffed from dinner.”

Dinner had been sandwiches at a gourmet deli a few blocks south of the theater. Since they’d both been at work all day, Luke hadn’t gotten to her apartment until six-fifteen, and curtain time at the theater had been eight o’clock. He’d devoured a side order of fries along with his sandwich and he was feeling a little hungry now, but he supposed a pita-pocket of chicken salad was enough to fill someone of Jenny’s diminutive size.

He ordered a sundae for himself and a dish of hazelnut ice-cream for her. “Eat it slowly,” he commanded once the waitress delivered their snacks.

Jenny eyed him curiously. “Why?”

“I’m not ready to take you home yet.”

She grinned. “I’m not ready to go home.” She tasted her ice-cream and her grin widened. “Wow, this is great. I’ve never had hazelnut ice-cream before. Taste it, Luke.”

He took a taste, then insisted she taste his sundae. He was feeling expansive, delighted that she was in no hurry to bring their night to an end. He wanted to sit with her for hours, watching the flickering light of the candle dance across her face, watching the rare but welcome breezes toy with the coppery waves of her hair. She’d worn it loose, and it spread like a cape over her shoulders, emphasizing their narrowness. Her blouse was a gauzy white linen, the neckline and short sleeves trimmed with crocheted lace, and her skirt was the same white fabric with lace along the mid-calf hem. She looked like an angel, a nymph, a bride.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured.

She had just closed her lips around her spoon, and a small drip of ice-cream got trapped in the corner of her mouth. Staring at him, she slowly removed the spoon and ran her tongue over her lips to capture the drip. After an unnervingly long moment she lowered her eyes. “Maybe we ought to talk about this,” she said.

“Talk about what?” All he’d done was to compliment her on her appearance. He hadn’t mentioned the effect her beauty had on him—or the more disturbing effect of glimpsing the tantalizing pink tip of her tongue as it darted across her lips. Thanks to the strategically positioned table between them, the most blatant evidence of her effect on him was well hidden, and he saw no need to mention it.

“I know we’ve seen each other a few times. You’ve taken me out and spent money on me...”

Taken her out? For what, sandwiches? Pizza? A picnic and a free concert and a pass-the-hat experimental theater performance? Astronaut ice-cream?

Before he could argue she continued. “And Sybil—who’s much more worldly than me, or at least she says she is—anyway, she keeps telling me that sooner or later you’re bound to demand something in return.”

“Wait a minute,” he broke in. “If we’re discussing what I think we’re discussing, let me assure you I never
demand
anything. If it happens, fine. But if it doesn’t, I’m not an animal. I don’t make demands like that. And I don’t know why we’re even discussing this particular subject, Jenny. All I said was that you’re beautiful—”

“We’re discussing it because it’s there,” she persisted, once more lifting her eyes to him. She reached across the table and cupped her hand over his. “I like you, Luke.”

His heart began to pound and his brain instantly reverted to his earliest erotic daydreams of her—daydreams of her lips on his and her small body beneath him, above him, surrounding him. Again he thanked God for the barricade of the table between them.

“I’m just...kind of slow about these things,” she said.

“No problem.” His voice sounded oddly raspy to him.

“I mean, I have to love a person first. Can you understand that?”

She had to love a person first. His pulse began to slow, his abdominal muscles to relax, his respiration to become regular. He wasn’t going to sleep with her tonight, that much was certain. He might never sleep with her. She had to love him first.

While he wouldn’t call that threshold insurmountable, there were no guarantees that their friendship would ever deepen enough to qualify as love. Love took time; love was capricious and unpredictable. They would be together in Washington only six weeks longer. Whatever happened happened.

He should have been immune to her blunt honesty by now, but he wasn’t used to a woman being so direct, so utterly devoid of pretense. He appreciated her candor, and he was determined to match it. “I don’t want to play games with you, Jenny,” he said. “I’m attracted to you. But I’m not going to pressure you. I’m not going to give lip service to love just so I can get you into the sack. If you’re slow about these things, you’re slow about them. I can live with that.”

Her hand tightened on his for a second, and when she relaxed her grip he rotated his wrist and wove his fingers through hers. They finished eating their ice-cream that way, Luke wielding his spoon clumsily with his left hand, happy to sacrifice dexterity for the pleasure of holding her hand. He wouldn’t let go of her, not to scrape the syrup from the bottom of his dish, not to wipe his face, not to pull his wallet from his hip pocket.

Even if what they had wasn’t love, he wanted it. And he had no intention of letting go.

SHE WAS FALLING
in love with him.

It was too soon, really. She’d known him less than two weeks. Just because he was intelligent, just because he was rivetingly handsome, just because he was thoughtful enough to shorten his pace to match hers as they strolled westward toward Georgetown in the balmy, starlit evening, just because her hand felt so secure in his... None of that could explain her certainty that she was destined to love Luke Benning.

It was always possible that he’d made his noble statements about not being demanding merely to soften her up—but she couldn’t believe that. It was also possible she was willing to label her feelings for him love because she was desperately attracted to him—but she knew the workings of her mind and her heart too well to be able to fool herself. If she wanted to make love with him badly enough, she wouldn’t rationalize. She would just do it.

She did want to make love with him—but even more, she wanted to
love
him. She wanted to know all the warmth inside him, warmth he seemed to have spent too much of his life containing and ignoring. She wanted to savor the trust that was building between them, not to rush it but to let it blossom at its own leisurely pace. For the moment she wanted nothing more than to experience the love his fingers were making to hers as his hand enveloped hers.