The Last Honest Woman (15 page)

That was the truth. His gut told him that this time she spoke with pure honesty. It only made it more of a morass. "She's not a stupid woman. She had it in her head that she and Rockwell would be married before the year was out."

"I can't realty comment on what she thought."

"What can you comment on?" His anger surged, and because he trusted it, be moved with it. Perhaps with anger he could finally break through her shield. "Tell me this—how did it feel knowing your husband wasn't faithful to you?"

She'd known the question would come up. She'd prepared herself for it. But now, somehow, the answer didn't come as easily. "Chuck and I… understood each other." How flat that sounded, how foolishly sophisticated. "I… well I knew he was under a great deal of pressure, and being on the road like that month after month…"

"…is a license to relieve the pressure anyway you chose?"

She wasn't as calm as she wanted to be, but she was still in control. "I'm not talking about a license, or even an excuse, Dylan. But it is a reason."

"You consider being separated from you, being on the road and pressured by a need to win, is a reason for the women, the booze, the drugs?"

"Drugs?" Her face went a dead white. If the shock in her eyes wasn't real, Dylan decided, she should be the sister in Hollywood. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about cocaine. Freebasing." His voice was clipped and hard, a reporter's voice. He tried not to hate himself for it.

"No." There was a sudden sheen of desperation in her voice. He watched her knuckles blanch as she gripped the counter. "No, I don't believe that."

"Abby, I have it from four different sources." His tone had softened. She was hurting inside. She might have lied to him before, but the pain was real. "You didn't know."

"You can't write that. You can't. The children." She put her hands over her eyes. "Oh, God, what I have done?"

He had her arm. She hadn't heard him get up. "Sit down." When she started to shake her head, he pulled her over to a stool. "Sit down, Abby."

"You can't write that," she repeated, and her voice was a roller coaster of ups and downs. "You can't be sure it's true. If you try to put that in the book, I'll withdraw my authorization. I'll sue."

"What you'd better do right now is calm down."

"Calm down?" She clutched her hands together until her fingers ached. Only determination kept her facing him, and her eyes were drenched with despair. "You've just told me that Chuck was—" She swallowed and got a grip on herself. "Turn that off," she said quietly, then waited until the recorder stopped. "We're off the record now, do you understand me?"

Her eyes were dry again and her voice steady. He had a sudden flash of her carrying his suitcase up the stairs. Stronger than she looked. "All right, Abby. Off the record."

"If Chuck—if he used drugs, I never knew."

"Do you think you would have?"

She closed her eyes. A sense of failure reached up and grabbed her by the throat. "No."

"I'm sorry." He touched her hand, swearing at himself when she drew back. "I am sorry. His mother knew. I have it that she tried to get him into rehab."

A sudden hysterical thought drummed through her. "The last race. The crash."

"He was clean." He thought he heard the relief sweep through her, though she didn't make a sound. "He just took the turn too fast."

She nodded and straightened her shoulders. If Abby had teamed anything over the past eight years, it was to take one step at a time, deal with it, then go on. "Dylan I'm not asking for favors, but I'd like you to remember there are two innocent people involved. The children deserve some legacy from their father. If you try to print anything about this I'll find a way to stop you, even if I have to go to Janice."

"How much will you try to cover up, Abby?"

She gave him a clear, direct look. "You'd do better to ask me how much I'd do to protect my children."

He felt a twinge and fought to grind it down. "Once a ball's rolling, it rolls. You'd have been smarter to stop the book in the beginning."

"Isn't the sex enough for you?" she lashed out, desperate to find solid ground again. How could she take the first step when each time she did she was knee-deep in quicksand? "Do you have to put this ugly business in, too? Can't you leave the boys something?"

"Do you want me to write a fairy tale?" He grabbed her wrists before she could push away from the counter. He should have resented her for making him fed responsible, yet he couldn't. She looked lost and helpless. "Abby, it's too late to stop the book now. The publishers would sue you, not the other way around. Talk to me, tell me the truth. Trust me to tell it."

"Trust you?" She stared at him, wishing she could see inside him, find some soft, giving spot. "I trusted myself and I've made a mess of it" Faced with the inevitable, she stopped resisting his hold on her hands. "I've got no choice, do I?"

"No."

She waited a moment until she was certain she was strong enough. "Turn your recorder back on." She withdrew from him, not by inches but by miles. As soon as the machine was running, Abby began speaking again. But she never looked at him. "Chuck never used drugs in my presence. We were married for four years, and I never saw him with drugs of any kind. As far as I'm concerned, he never used them at all. Chuck was an athlete, and he was very disciplined about his body."

"For most of your marriage, you only lived together for short periods."

"That's true. We each had certain responsibilities that kept things that way."

"It would seem to me that you had certain responsibilities that should have kept you together."

She would ignore that. She wouldn't wallow in guilt or in self-pity ever again. If the time had come to compromise herself, so be it. She'd take the lesser demon. "To go back to your earlier question, Chuck was often lonely. He was attractive and women were a part of the circuit."

"You accepted that?"

"I accepted that Chuck was not capable of being faithful. I realized that a marriage is the responsibility of two people. In certain areas, I wasn't able to give him what he needed."

"What are you talking about?"

Pride was brushed aside. Abby had found it was rarely useful in any case. "I was only eighteen when we were married. Despite the fact that we were entertainers and on the road continually, I was very sheltered. I was a virgin when I married Chuck, and he often said I remained one. I failed him in bed and so he looked elsewhere. Maybe that was wrong, but it was also natural."

"Stop humiliating yourself this way."

She heard the barely restrained fury and turned to look at him. "You wanted answers, I'm giving them to you. Chuck slept with other women because his wife didn't satisfy him."

"The hell with this." He spun her on the stool until she faced him. "You're a fool if you believe that."

"Dylan, I know what went on in my own bedroom. You don't."

"I know what goes on inside you."

"You asked me if I had ice for blood. I'm answering you."

"No, you're not." He pulled her off the stool to stand beside him. "Now you will."

He had her close. His mouth came down on hers, hot, furious, before she could even think about protesting. Excitement bubbled up inside her to war with a strong desire for self-preservation. She tried to resist. There was something wild and frightening about the way he could take her over, make her hurt with need. The hands in her hair weren't gentle, but held her to him in a kind of angry possession. Slowly, inevitably, she let herself go.

He'd burned for her through the night, through the morning, but he hadn't expected it to be like this. There were waves of fire and smoke blinding him. Her body was tight as a bowstring against his, holding back against the passion he could feel building. Her fingers didn't push at his shoulders, but dug into them. He could almost hear her heart thudding in her throat—fear, excitement, desire, he didn't care. As long as it was for him.

Then, with incredible ease, she relaxed. Her lips softened, her body yielded, and she was his.

Her heartbeat didn't slow. Somehow it increased even as her arms wound slowly around him. She sighed. He felt the soft trickle of air whisper against his mouth. He combed his hands through her hair, gently, soothingly, because she seemed to need it. The flame had gone out of him, but the heat was still there, simmering, sizzling. He could have burned alive with tenderness.

"Come upstairs, Abby." He murmured it against her ear, then against her mouth. "Come upstairs with me."

She wanted to. The fact that she did jolted her. She'd already accepted that she was attracted to him, but it was a different matter to slip into bed with a man. "Dylan, I—"

"I want you." His mouth loitered along her chin, where he bit gently. "You know that"

"I think I do. Please…" Her voice was trembling. Her muscles felt like putty. She couldn't allow herself to tumble over the edge a second time without keeping her eyes open. "Please, Dylan, I just can't. I'm not ready."

"You want me." He skimmed his hands up, molding her hips, tracing her ribs, teasing her breasts. "I can feel it every time you take a breath."

"Yes." She was through denying. "But I need more than that." She took his hand and brought it to her cheek. "I need some time."

Dylan brought his hand up under her chin and held it there. Her cheeks were flushed, as he'd once imagined they would be. Her eyes were dark and unsure. If it hadn't been for them, watching him, almost trusting him, he'd have ignored her protests and taken her.

"How badly did he mess up your head, I wonder."

"No." She shook her head. "This has nothing to do with what happened between Chuck and me."

"You don't believe that and neither do I. He's your yardstick. Sooner or later you're going to find out you can't measure me by it."

"I don't think of Chuck when I'm kissing you. I don't think at all."

His fingers tightened on her skin. "Abby, if you want time, you'd better watch yourself."

She felt the energy that had poured into her so quickly drain out again. "I don't know how to play the games, Dylan. That's the reason I messed up so badly once before."

"I'm not interested in games. And I'm not interested in hearing you shoulder blame. Let's make a deal."

She moistened her lips and wished she could be sure of herself again. "What sort?"

"You tell me the truth. The truth," he repeated, laying his hands on her shoulders. "I'll write it objectively. Then we'll let the blame fall wherever it belongs."

He made it sound so simple, but then he had nothing to lose. "I don't know if I can do that, Dylan. I have the children to think of. Sometimes the truth hurts."

"Sometimes it cleanses," he countered. "Abby, I'll find out everything I need to know one way or the other." It was a threat. He understood that, and he saw by the look that came and went in her eyes mat she did, as well. "You should think about that. Don't you think it would be better if it came from you? I don't want to hurt those kids."

Trapped, she studied him, carefully, critically. "No, I don't think you do, but you and I might not agree on what's best for them."

He rubbed a hand over his face, then paced around the kitchen. It wasn't like him to make compromises. He didn't care for it. Yet he was compelled to find one.

The book? He was beginning to think the book didn't mean much of anything. He wanted the truth from her, about her. And he wanted it for himself. He thought perhaps he wanted it for her.

"Okay, you give me the real story, the true story, without all the little evasions. I'll write it, and then before I submit anything for publication I'll give it to you to read. If there's a problem, we'll work it out. Both of us have to be satisfied with the manuscript before it flies."

She hesitated. "Do you mean that?"

He turned back. She wasn't ready to trust him. The woman had been lied to before, he thought, and lied to in a big way. "You've got it on record." He gestured to the recorder which was still running.

She took the step, though her legs were a little wobbly. "All right."

When he came forward and offered his hand, Abby held her breath and accepted it. Another bargain, she thought, hoping she could keep it better than the one she'd made with herself.

"He hurt you."

Dylan said it quietly, so quietly she answered without hesitation. "Yes."

It made him angry. No, it made him furious. He couldn't explain it, but he knew that fury wouldn't help him get to the truth. And for years, maybe too many years, that had been his driving ambition. "Why don't you sit down again?"

She nodded, then sat with her hands neatly folded and her face placid.

"Abby, you and Rockwell were having serious marital problems."

"That's right." It seemed so easy to say it now. Just as he'd said, cleansing.

"Was it the other women?"

"That was part of it. Chuck needed more than I could give him in so many areas. I guess I needed more than he could give me. He wasn't a bad man." The words were quick and earnest. "I want you to understand that. Maybe he wasn't a good husband, but he wasn't a bad man."

Dylan planned to use his own judgment there. "Why did you stop traveling with him?"

"I was pregnant with Ben." She let out a little breath. "I can't honestly say whether that was a convenient excuse or a legitimate reason, but I was pretty far along, and traveling had become difficult. We were living with his mother in Chicago. At first… at first he managed to fly back fairly often. I think he was happy, maybe a little awed at the idea of being a father. In any case, he was attentive when he was home, and be encouraged me to stay in Chicago and take care of myself. He tried, really tried to ease the uncomfortable relationship I had with his mother. There were long separations."

She looked back, remembering those weeks, months in the luxurious house in Chicago, long idle mornings, quiet afternoons. It seemed like a dream, one in soft focus but with surprisingly sharp edges.

"I was content and rather pleased with myself. I decorated the nursery and took up knitting… badly." She laughed at herself as she remembered her fumbling attempts. "I figured I had just about everything under control. Then one day I found one of those gossip papers on my bed. I've always wondered if Janice left it there." Abby shook that away, it hardly mattered.