Woman in Black (44 page)

Somehow she managed to respond intelligently to Hank's suggestions. By the end, she felt she had a handle on it. She told him, “This all sounds good. Why don't I give it some thought over the weekend, and we'll talk again on Monday? In the meantime, I'll make some calls.” First on the list was Perez. She would also reach out to Mr. Henry, her former employer from Greenwich, who was retired now but who still had ties to the banking world—he might be able to help her line up another bank to take over the loan. “Good work, Hank.” She gripped his hand as he was heading out the door. “I want you to know how much I appreciate all your hard work. We'd be in a lot worse shape if it weren't for you.”

He reddened, looking ridiculously pleased, which left her wondering if she had been overly stingy with her praise in the past.

Alone at last, she contemplated the long list of names on the call sheet in front of her, ordered in terms of priority, all of them people with whom she had business of varying degrees of importance to discuss. But there was only one person she
wanted
to talk to …

Before she knew it, she was punching in Vaughn's number.

“Are you doing anything right now?” she asked when she had him on the line.

“Other than reading up on the various methods of mosquito extermination in east Africa? No, why?” he replied with a wry chuckle.

He'd been working his way through Gillian's collection of
Time-Life
books as a way to pass the time while he recuperated. She hesitated before answering, “I was thinking of playing hooky.” The last thing she wanted to do was tax him with a visit if he wasn't up to it.

“Intense day?”

“You don't know the half of it.” She sighed. It was irresponsible of her, she knew, to cut out in the middle of the day, especially with so much at stake, but if she didn't take a break, she wouldn't be of much use to anyone, least of all herself. “Are you going to be home for a little while?”

“Where else would I be?”

“I don't know, out wrestling alligators in Central Park?” She kept it light, knowing he hated being reminded of the reason for his forced captivity.

He laughed. “No such luck. In fact, I could use the company. How soon can you get here?”

She felt a spark catch in her chest and flare as she reached under the desk for her handbag. “I'm on my way.”

“
You re out of
breath. Did you run the whole way?” Vaughn grinned at Abigail as she stepped through the door. It wasn't often that she dropped by on a moment's notice—usually her visits were planned a day or two in advance—and he seemed delighted to see her.

She kissed him on the cheek. “No, but try getting a cab in this weather.”

“What happened to your driver?”

“I gave him the day off. Some sort of family crisis—he had to be in Hoboken.”

Vaughn's eyebrows went up, but he offered no comment. She knew what he was thinking, though: Since when did she give an employee the day off because of a family crisis?

Since I found you
. The words hovered on her lips, unspoken.

She glanced around her as she shrugged off her coat. “Where's Gillian?” Vaughn's ex-girlfriend usually made her presence known when Abigail visited. Even when she had work to do, she found excuses to putter around the loft rather than hole up in her studio. It was a surprise—a pleasant one, Abigail had to admit—to find Vaughn alone for a change.

“Bryn Mawr,” he replied. “Her show opens in a few weeks. She's meeting with the curator this afternoon, then having dinner with some of the patrons who're sponsoring the show. She won't be back until tomorrow.”

Abigail recalled now Gillian's having mentioned that she was having a show at a small museum associated with Bryn Mawr College, just outside Philly. “Sounds like a great gig. I'm sure it'll be a success,” she said. Abigail always bent over backward to be generous toward Gillian, despite Vaughn's ex-girlfriend having little use for her. It was more gratitude than anything else. Not only was Abigail grateful that Gillian took such good care of Vaughn, she knew that if it hadn't been for Gillian, he wouldn't have had a place to stay in the city and might have had to seek treatment in some foreign hospital where he wouldn't have received the same level of care. And where would he be now, if that had been the case?

Where would
she
be?

If at one time Abigail had cast herself in the role of helpmate to a seriously ill friend, the tables had been turned: Now it was just as often Vaughn ministering to her as the other way around.

“Can I offer you a glass of wine?” he asked, padding into the kitchen.

She noticed that he wasn't wearing any shoes, just a pair of gray wool socks. It made her think of an old snapshot that she'd seen of him recently. The other day, she'd been helping Lila carry a piece of furniture over to her place—a small bookcase out of Kent's old study, which Abigail was turning into a sewing room—and they'd been lugging it into the bedroom when she'd happened to spy a framed photo on the dresser. A photo of a much younger Vaughn—the Vaughn she remembered from her youth. She'd picked it up to examine it more closely. In it, he'd been posed barefoot and bare-chested on some tropical beach, brown as a native, wearing only a pair of baggy swim trunks, his longish, sun-bleached hair blowing in the breeze. He might have been on the cover of a romance novel for how heat-struck Abigail had been as she'd stood there gazing at it. He looked that way now, in his oldest jeans and a checked flannel shirt the same deep shade of blue as his eyes, unbuttoned over a faded Greenpeace T-shirt—only slightly older and without the long hair.

“I'd better not,” she said. “I haven't had anything to eat all day. It would only go to my head.”

“In that case, how about a sandwich?”

“That would be nice, if it's not too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all. Have a seat.”

She sat down at the table, watching as he fetched a loaf of bread and a Saran-wrapped bowl of tuna salad from the fridge. She'd had her secretary cancel her lunch at the Four Seasons with Bernice Goodman, from
Country Living
, and now she smiled at the irony of her dining out on a tuna sandwich instead of Dover sole and finding it vastly preferable.

When he'd finished making the sandwich, he carried it over to the table, along with a pitcher of sweet iced tea, which he was never without—the last vestige of his southern heritage—and sat down across from her, pouring them each a glass of tea. “Aren't you having anything to eat?” she asked, noting that he hadn't brought a plate for himself.

“Nah, you go ahead. My appetite's a little off these days,” he told her, a reminder that he'd started his second round of chemo earlier in the week.

That was all he said on the subject. Abigail didn't press him on it. When Vaughn felt like discussing his health, he did. The rest of the time, he kept quiet about it, as if he wanted their time together to be a retreat from all that. Usually when she was with him, she was able to tuck all of that into the back of her mind, too. It was only every so often—like just now—that the thought would hit her like a blow to the solar plexus: He—they—might not have all the time in the world.

She was encouraged, though, by the fact that he'd fleshed out some even since her last visit. He'd managed to get some sun as well. Leave it to Vaughn to find the one ray of sunshine in the gray doldrums of winter. With his hair already in need of a trim, he looked less like a cancer patient than a rangy explorer emerging from the wilderness after weeks of living off what he could forage.

After she was finished eating, they moved into the living room, where they settled on the sofa. Abigail gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows spanning that end of the loft. “Looks like there's a storm brewing,” she said, taking note of the dark clouds massing above the roof of the Flatiron Building off to the east. A moment later, it was confirmed by the rumble of thunder. “I should have brought an umbrella. You wouldn't happen to have one I could borrow?”

“Leaving already?” he teased. “You just got here.”

“You know me, always thinking ahead.”

“I thought that's why you liked coming here, to take a rest from all that.”

“Right you are,” she acknowledged with a laugh, kicking off her high heels and pulling her legs up under her. “Well, in any event, you're stuck with me until this blows over.”

“Have you listened to the weather report? They're saying it could go on all night. In which case, you're welcome to stay over.” He didn't have to remind her that Gillian wouldn't be around.

“Don't tempt me,” she said.

Was it her imagination, the meaningful look he gave her? Lately she'd become aware of a new tension between them. Ever since Kent had moved out, she'd been fantasizing more and more about what it would be like with Vaughn. Vaughn must have been wondering the same thing because every so often she'd catch him looking at her a certain way: the way a man looks at a woman when he has more on his mind than the weather.

“How are things on the home front?” he asked now.

She felt a familiar pang, thinking of Kent. “Oh, you know … I have my good days and my bad days. Nights are the worst. It's not easy to get to sleep when you're used to having someone next to you in bed.”

He nodded in sympathy. “You were married a long time.”

“
Too
long, according to Kent.” A note of bitterness crept into her voice.

Vaughn reminded her gently, “People fall out of love all the time. It's not a deliberate choice.”

She sighed. “I keep telling myself that, but it's hard sometimes.”

“Have you ever considered the possibility that he's doing you a favor?” She must have looked taken aback, for he hastened to add, “I don't mean to sound heartless. But usually these things work out for the best. Divorce can be a catalyst for change.”

“Like you would know. You've never even been married, much less divorced,” she replied, giving him an affectionate cuff on the arm. “Though I'm sure there have been plenty of women who've tried to corral you into it.”

He didn't respond to that. He only gave his usual enigmatic smile. “All I'm saying is, once the smoke clears you might get a fresh perspective on all this.”

She nodded thoughtfully. She'd already begun to see glimmers of the better life that awaited her. Right now, though, it was hard to see past the wreckage. “I suppose you're right,” she said grudgingly. “At least I've stopped imagining all the ways I'd like to see him suffer. That's progress, I guess. One of these days I might even get around to remembering why it was I married him.” She smiled at Vaughn. “What about you? How come you never got married? Seriously. You never told me.”

He shrugged. “There was never anyone I loved enough to marry.”

“Not even Gillian?” He shook his head, a fleeting look of remorse crossing his face. Or was it regret? “She's still in love with you, you know,” Abigail went on. She hadn't meant to blurt it out like that. But she wasn't sorry it was out in the open. Vaughn's ex-girlfriend was the proverbial eight-hundred-pound gorilla they'd been tiptoeing around, and Abigail was curious to know where things stood between Gillian and Vaughn. Not that it was any of her business, as Vaughn had let her know the only other time she'd brought it up, and not that Abigail had ever seen him show anything more than affection toward Gillian, but men went to bed with women for all kinds of reasons, most of which had nothing to do with love. Why should Vaughn be any different?

But while Vaughn didn't deny that Gillian was in love with him, he didn't seem happy about it. “I suppose I should feel flattered that she still finds me attractive,” he said morosely. “In my present condition, I'd have thought I'd be about as appealing as a blind, three-legged dog.”

“So there's no chance of you two picking up where you left off?” Abigail tried to sound as if she were asking only out of casual interest, but she was aware of her heart rate picking up.

“No.” His voice was soft with regret, but there was no equivocation in it.

Abigail was more relieved than she should have been. “Does Gillian know that?” she asked.

“I think she's gotten the message by now.”

“Maybe, but hope springs eternal. Look how long I waited for you.” She struck a lighthearted tone, but the remark was wrapped around a kernel of truth. She remembered when she used to fantasize about him swooping in to rescue her. She would imagine him showing up at her aunt and uncle's house and the two of them roaring off into the sunset in his shiny red truck. Practical concerns like where they would live and how they would support themselves never entered into the picture. But what was hope if not an absence of reason?

“Did you? Poor Abby. And all you had were those dopey letters I sent.” Smiling, he scooted over to loop an arm around her shoulders, as he had so many times when they were growing up. Only this time it was different. She felt her breath grow short and her heart start to pound.

“They weren't dopey,” she said. “They were …”
the only thing that kept me going.
“They gave me something to look forward to. And believe me, I didn't have much to look forward to in those days. I know it sounds crazy, but I always felt that you somehow
knew
, and that you were doing what you could to make it better.”

“I didn't write because I felt sorry for you.”

“Why did you then?”

“I was in love with you.” His tone was so matter-of-fact that it took a moment for the words to register; then a delicious shock wave coursed through her. “I couldn't put
that
in a letter. I was afraid it would come across as sappy. So I wrote about all the mundane stuff instead.”