The Great Escape (20 page)

always been quick to react, intelligent and ready to trust her own

judgment. And the third time, it was she who moved faster than he,

goading him on when his long-fingered hand hesitated briefly over a

certain play, and she flushed with triumph when she captured his final

checker. 'Ha!' she jeered, wrinkling her nose and waving the last

checker under his chagrined nose. 'You got it that time, my man!

Didn't think I had it in me, did you?'

Her hand was captured easily, and his green eyes reached down deep

into her as he smiled a lazy, heartstopping smile that touched her soul.

'I knew very well you had it in you, sweetheart,' he murmured, kissing

her small hand quickly. It quivered. 'I'm the one who spent nine

months learning just how much you do have in you, remember? And I

think I'm only just beginning to dig beneath the surface. You shouted

at me today, crying, "When are people going to stop putting labels on

me!" and I didn't know how to respond, then. But you
are
all those

things you listed, Dee, and not only those things but much, much

more. And you've got to learn that people will see only what you

show them—if you won't show them what's underneath, then they'll

never know the special part that's the essence of you.'

Unexpected tears pricked her eyes. How had they got so serious, so

suddenly? Her eyes slid away from his and her nose and throat

stopped with the tears she was trying hard not to shed. 'But how?' she

whispered, and caught at herself before going on. 'How do you take

the hurt and the cruelty?' Her hand twisted in his. 'How do you take

the indifference?'

Mike stroked her hand into quietness. 'My poor, sweet girl—is that

how you see life? Really? Or is that what you've been taught, in the

past few years? You ran away from the unhappiness at home

physically, but you took it with you as you ran, didn't you? You kept

the memory alive, and you were determined to keep that from ever

happening again, so you walled yourself into a busy little life and an

empty little hole of an apartment. You weren't going to be pushed

away by anyone else, ever again, because you were going to make

sure that no one got that close. You really were on the run, all the time

you were settled in one place, and you'd be on the run now, if you

hadn't smashed right into me.'

Shaken, Dee averted her head as her face crumpled into misery.

'Don't, please,' she muttered, tugging uselessly at her hand. Mike

began to pull her towards him, though, inexorably, and she finally

just collapsed into the warm circle he offered her. A sob shook her,

and then another. She buried her face as she recognised the

sotrl-shaking truth of what he had said to her, and she whispered,

mouth trembling, 'I just don't want to be hurt any more.'

'God!' The word was wrenched from him, right out from th£ deepness

of his chest, from his awareness, and it sounded anguished somehow,

sad and tortured. His arms tightened convulsively on her, and she

welcomed it, both the pain and the comfort, for they were both the

same. His face went to her hair and she felt the jutting bone of his

cheek, the press of his browbone, and the moving sensation of his

lips. Then he was bending, picking her up, carrying her into the other

room. It all happened so fast that her breath felt torn away from the

wonderful emotional shock of the unexpected. In the darkness of the

bedroom, he put her down and wordlessly undressed her with an

urgency that left her shaking. Then she was helping him undress and

they were loving each other, warm and intense and so giving that she

didn't know where to put all the love and emotion. It spilled over on to

the sheets with her dripping tears as she was overcome with the need

and the feel and the love of him.

Much later, he was holding her very, very tightly and tenderly,

wrapping his arms around her with a firmness and a tight demand that

kept her right up to the vitality of his damp, hot, exhausted body.

Silence smoothed over the darkness in a wash of tranquillity, and she

jumped with the unexpectedness of his voice, oddly compelling.

'Dee—Deirdre. Promise me something, sweetheart, please. Can you

bring yourself to promise me this one thing?'

She smiled into his skin and lifted her head slightly to try and stare

into his face. It was a pale-hewn sketch of his features, drawn in

blacks and greys. 'You know I'd promise you anything,' she said

quietly, and felt the impact of her words slice through him.

'I don't deserve to ask this of you, I shouldn't say anything at all,' he

muttered, tracing her cheek with one hand, going over and over it as if

he would like to imprint the feel and the texture of her for ever in his

mind. 'Sweet heaven, I shouldn't be saying this, but—I can't help it.

Oh, Dee, you have no idea of what I'm talking about. But you've just

got to believe in the humanity and goodness of man and never, ever

doubt it. Damn, you don't understand me, and I can't explain,

but—oh, please, Dee, just have faith in mankind, just have faith!'

And she thought she had never experienced such an intense and

fulfilling happiness, even as she wondered blankly what he had

meant.

The next morning she woke slowly, leisurely, luxuriously, and

stretched like a satisfied and happy cat, muscle by muscle, glorying in

her own inherent sexuality in a way she had never before. She was a

woman, in every sense of the word, and she loved being a woman.

Her head turned and her hand went over the sheets, encountering

nothing but pillow and blanket. Mike was gone. He was probably

fixing breakfast, she surmised, running her eyes slowly over the

contents of the room. She liked it. It was plain and yet comfortable,

and it somehow embodied the flavour of him. She savoured it.

Perhaps it was his scent that lingered on the pillow next to hers, or

perhaps it was the casual indications of his presence in the carelessly

laid comb and brush, and the cufflinks that were glittering like

goldfish in a shallow bowl. She definitely liked his masculine

presence in her life. She liked it very much indeed.

After a few lazy yawns, she slid out of bed and made it quickly and

neatly. Then she padded to the small bathroom that belonged

exclusively to the master bedroom, then showered and washed her

hair as fast as she could, impatient with the small delay in starting her

day. After towelling dry and dressing, she ran Mike's comb through

her curls so they would not dry all snarled, then she bounded down

the hall, eager to give him a special good morning kiss.

It was strange that she felt no insecurities about Mike and the future.

She sensed something in him that seemed to speak to the emotion in

her. Can one accurately sense something like that? she wondered

idly.

Could that kind of sensitivity be trusted? She wondered what would

happen if she were in a crowd of people with him, or a full room.

Would she be able to sense his presence and direction of thought then,

or was it all an illusion. . .

The sound of voices hit her a split second before the impetus of her

moving body carried her into the living room, and she was so totally

unprepared for the blow of intense shock that struck her that it was as

if someone had physically hit her, and hard.

'. . . you really were very, very clever, weren't you, Mr Carradine?'

And that voice was one she knew. It was the voice of her aunt Judith.

And Dee couldn't stop her entrance into the room, for the messsage to

move had already been sent to her muscles and was being obeyed,

even while the shock of discovery was slammed into her midriff, like

a knife. Judith was still talking and she was hearing the words, though

she wanted for all the world to stop her ears and block them out for

ever. 'How in the world did you trick her into coming to Knoxville, of

all places, without giving your hand away?'

Then she was in the room, just barely inside the room, and she was

trapped utterly and completely. It was the nightmare that was reality,

and the darkness swamped her, eating at her soul. Her mind screamed

at the horror, as she took in the scene of Judith standing near to Mike,

who was facing the window looking outside, his back ramrod-stiff,

straight. Dee noticed with a fleeting irrelevance that his hair was

sleekly, neatly brushed and that he was dressed in a tailored black suit

with a crisp white shirt. It suited him. Then her eyes, wide and

uncomprehending, slewed to the shorter, squatter figure of her aunt,

who had turned at her entrance and was watching her with a secretive,

triumphant smile on her plump face. It was a very nasty smile.

Howard, she noticed, almost as an afterthought, was slumped in an

easy chair in the habitual cringing attitude he constantly adopted, as if

life were too much for him to bear, or Judith. The still, straight figure

at the window did not move. He could have been an unliving statue.

After the first wide-eyed, incredulous, uncomprehending stare, Dee's

face assumed a semblance of normality, though she did not come

right into the room. It was all surface; inside, she felt the plunge of the

knife sink to her life's centre and the burning tip of the painful hot

steel of despair started a slow turning.

Trust, she thought, a last desperate chance to believe that he hadn't

meant it, hadn't counted on this happening. It was all a huge,

monstrous mistake, a colossal error in logic, an underestimation of

the opposition. Judith and Howard had obviously had his apartment

watched. That was it, surely that was it.

But then Judith was dispelling that last illusion with a cruel accuracy,

hitting her thoughts by an accident of chance. 'He was very good,

dear, wasn't he?' she asked, a sly maliciousness in her smile, if not in

her voice. Her voice was all cooing affection and falsity. 'We never

lost faith in him . ..' and Dee flinched violently at her ironic choice of

words, '. . . all those months. We knew he would bring you back to us,

dear girl. Of course, he had an excellent incentive, didn't he? But he

wouldn't have told you about the staggering bonus we offered him for

your return. And it was all well earned. Well earned, indeed! Well,

girl, have you got your things packed in your suitcase? We've got

quite a lot to do today, and we haven't much time to wait for you.

Your room, of course, is ready and waiting for you.' Her light, almost

colourless eyes watched Dee avidly, storing up all her expressions

and watching for any sign of betraying vulnerability.

But pee wasn't even paying attention to her aunt, for she was

watching that straight, stiff back. Walking slowly across the room,

right by Judith without so much as a sidelong glance, she halted just

behind Mike, right close to his shoulder. She could have moved

slightly and touched him, she was so close. But she didn't. Then, with

a quick, stern glance behind her shoulder at the nearby, hovering

woman, she said with dignity, 'This is private, if you don't mind.' And

at that, Judith, out of a social courtesy, had to withdraw to the other

side of the room. Then, facing that quiet figure that stared out of the

window and feeling as if she were about to scream from the horrible

pain of the knife, Dee whispered shakingly. 'Mike—oh, Mike! I don't

believe them. You couldn't do this. They had your apartment

watched, didn't they? You didn't—tell them, did you?' Trust, she

thought, tasting bitter ashes in her mouth. She was asking for his side

of the story, but she didn't believe that last plea of hers. It was the

death throes of her trust speaking.

'Yes, I did.' The words were a whisper, like hers, and the knife twisted

in deeper. She put a hand to his shoulder, and it felt warm and vital,

living rock. He didn't even flinch or turn around. She could see the

clean line of his jaw and the dark curl of his eyelashes as he stared

unblinkingly out of the window. She got the strangest impression that

he was not seeing what he was staring at.

'God!'
It was a wounded cry, no matter how low she whispered it.

Though he didn't move, she saw a muscle in his jaw jerk

spasmodically. 'You said have faith! You said to me, last night, to

have faith! How can I have faith when everyone around me is so

damnably faithless?'

'I said have faith in humanity, Dee.' And he turned at that, glanced at

her emotionlessly, the look in his eyes completely blank. 'Not in me.'