Having Faith (25 page)

When he'd successfully nudged Faith into the booth, he slid in opposite her. Without preamble, he pierced her with vibrant brown eyes and picked up where they'd left off.

"What you're doing is totally out of character. You weren't meant to be a coward, Faith. Professionally, you're one of the bravest women I know. You've taken on cases that other lawyers have refused, and you've won. You've taken on Boston's staid legal community and done more for family law than any other lawyer in years. And you haven't done so badly personally, either. You stuck with Jack because you believed in marriage, and when it became obvious that it wouldn't work, you had the courage to let go."

She sputtered out a laugh.

"That's a contrived way of looking at it. I failed in my marriage. I stuck with it because I didn 't have the courage to let go. I only got out when it became obvious that there was nothing left. It didn't take courage at that point."

Sawyer wanted to scream in frustration. He didn't understand why she had to be so hard on herself.

"Why do you insist on seeing the worst?

Why do you choose the most pessimistic view of what happened? There were positive things in your marriage. I saw them. " He gave a small, impatient shake of his head.

"But I don't want to talk about your marriage to Jack. That's over and done. I want to talk about us."

Resting her head against the wood back of the booth. Faith eyed him forlornly.

"Nothing's changed. Back when we were at the Cape, I told you my worries. They're the same."

"You're afraid you'll disappoint me."

"And myself."

"Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday--were you disappointed?"

She thought back to the warmth in which he'd kept her cocooned, and she couldn't lie.

"No. I wasn't disappointed then."

"Because you enjoyed what we did. You enjoyed being together."

She nodded. "But I grew dependent on that, and I don't like being dependent."

"So you tried to put me off. That's why you wouldn't see me yesterday or last night."

She tried to defend herself.

"Things between us have gotten too intense too fast. We need to cool off."

"But we won't. Out of sight doesn't mean out of mind." He spared only a moment's glance at the frothy steins the bartender brought. "I thought about you all last night. Can you honestly say you didn't think about me?"

"No. I thought about you."

"And you decided that since you like me so much, you shouldn't see me so much. You don't want to become too dependent on me--or have me become too dependent on you. You don't want to be disappointed if something goes wrong." Arms on the table flanking his untouched beer, he leaned forward.

"That is convoluted logic. It's like saying that a lamp makes reading a breeze, but you'll sit in the dark so you won't come to rely on the lamp in case the bulb blows. Well, hell, if the bulb blows, you get another. Things can be repaired. So can relationships, if they mean enough to you."

Eyes holding hers, he sat back.

"The Leindeckers are together again. I got a call from Bruce after lunch telling me that they've kissed and made up."

That was news to Faith. "Really?" she asked cautiously.

He nodded.

"I haven't heard anything about it from Laura."

"Because you've been incommunicado since lunchtime. She called. Loni told me."

In the brief respite from her own troubles. Faith allowed a small smile.

"They're forgetting about the divorce?"

"They're going to try to work things out. Bruce was extremely grateful to us. Especially to you. Laura told him that you kept pushing for a reconciliation. You kept telling her to talk with him and tell him how she felt." He paused, wondering if she was getting the point, deducing from the unenlightened look on her face that she wasn't, deciding to make it himself.

"How can you preach that and not do it yourself?"

Her eyes widened.

"I am talking to you. You know how I feel."

"You wouldn't talk with me yesterday, and, no, I don't really know how you feel. You've never said whether you love me or not."

"I have, too. I've told you I love you dozens of time."

"As a friend."

She swallowed. Closing her eyes for a minute, she thought of those warm, wonderful times when she lay in his arms.

"And as a lover," she said, sending him an unknowingly adoring look. "I could never respond to you the way I do, or do the things I do to you if I didn't love you."

For the first time since he'd found her at the library, Sawyer experienced a faint lightening in the area of his heart. Again, he leaned forward, this time beseechingly.

"Then give it a try, Faith.

Don't fight it. Don't ruin the present by worrying about the future. "

When he saw the skepticism on her face, he hurried on.

"Listen, I don't know what the future holds. None of us do. Life doesn't come with a road map telling exactly what turn to take when in order to get to a prescribed destination." That thought gave him pause.

"Where do you want to go? Do you know? Supposing you were to look ahead ten or twenty years, what do you see yourself doing, being?"

"I see myself as a successful lawyer."

"What else?"

"I don't now."

"What do you mean, you don't know? What do you dreamT' " I don't know. "

"You do, but you won't say. You are as bad as Laura Leindecker."

"And you're like Bruce. You won't leave me alone. Why not. Sawyer?

That's all I'm asking, just to be left alone. Is it so difficult to do? "

Straightening his shoulders. Sawyer took a different tack. Keeping his voice low, he said, "Okay. I could leave you alone. I could let you go back to the kind of life where work is basically all there is. I could let you bury yourself in the law. I could disappear from your life. Does that sound better?"

It sounded devastating, but she didn't say it.

He went on. "We could do what we did for years, bump into each other at conferences or seminars or political fund raisers Maybe we'll even have another chance to work with each other. We could meet by accident on the street once in a while, date other people, sleep with other" "I don't want that."

"What?"

"To sleep with other people. I don't want it."

"You don't want to do it yourself, or you don't want me to do it?"

Her eyes blazed.

"Both. Either."

"But you don't want to sleep with me."

She didn't answer.

Her lack of response stirred Sawyer's frustration, which in turn made his voice sound harsh.

"What do you want, Faith? Beyond a career, what do you want? There must be other things. You're a woman capable of warmth and love. Don't you want an outlet for those?"

She stared at him. Oh, she knew the answer to that one, but she was afraid, so afraid to give it, and Sawyer knew that.

"Why is it so hardT' he asked.

"You always used to talk to me. You used to tell me everything. Why can't you now?"

"Because things have changed between us!"

"We're more involved."

"Yes."

"So we should be sharing even more." He reached his limit. If she wouldn't say it, he would.

"Damn it, Faith, I want it all! I want you as my law partner, my wife and the mother of my kids, and I think that if you can be honest with yourself and with me, you'd admit that you want those things, too."

Hearing him put it all into words was nearly more than she could bear.

"I do," she cried softly, "but it's a dream. That's all. A dream. Life has ways of taking unwanted twists. I've seen it happen time and again. We hope for things, and when they don't happen, disillusionment sets in. I'd be devastated if that happened with us."

"It won't. We love each other. We have so much going for each other."

"But I'm a lawyer," she said, and tears began to gather on her lower lids.

"I'm a lousy cook and a lousy cleaner, and I wouldn't know how to change a diaper if my life depended on it."

"So you'll learn. We'll learn," "But I'm not even pregnant!" she cried and, feeling an awesome ache, she scrambled out of the booth and ran toward the front of the bar.

Swearing, Sawyer tossed several bills on the table to pay for the beer they hadn't touched, and took off after her. He caught up half a block from the bar. Snagging her by the wrist, he hustled her into the nearest doorway, out of the line of rush-hour foot traffic. His hands went flat against the granite on either side of her shoulders. His large body prevented her escape.

"When did you get it?" he demanded, furious enough to momentarily overlook the tears streaking down her cheeks.

"Your period. When did you get it?"

"Yesterday morning."

"And that's when the trouble started." It suddenly made sense.

"You figured I'd be disappointed that you weren't pregnant."

"7 was disappointed," she cried.

"That was bad enough."

"Because you wanted to have my baby," he said. The gentleness that hit him then, the heart-wrenching care dissolved whatever anger he'd felt.

His hands left the granite, slipped around her back and drew her snugly against him. "Ahhh, Faith. I do love you. You have to be one of the most bullheaded women I've ever met in my life, but I do love you."

"I wanted to be pregnant."

He recalled the way she'd talked when they'd first discussed the possibility, and knew she was telling the truth.

"Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have had to bother with" -- "I couldn't tell you. I didn't know how you felt."

"You could have asked."

"But then I'd have known how you felt."

"Mmm, that makes sense." "It does. If you hadn't wanted a baby, and it turned out I was pregnant, you'd have been disappointed. Same thing if you'd wanted a baby, and I wasn't pregnant. So I was better not knowing."

He tucked his head lower against hers.

"You're never better not knowing. Faith. And you're never better keeping things to yourself. A relationship is about sharing. You know that. You've counseled any number of clients on it, most recently Laura Lein- decker. So if you can tell them to communicate, why can't you do it yourself?"

"Because I'm emotionally involved, and when I'm emotionally involved I can't think straight!"

"You've got that right, at least. As far as the rest goes, you're out in left field."

"See? I'm a disappointment already."

"Did I say that?"

"You were thinking it."

"No, ma'am. I was thinking that I love it when you're out in left field, because it gives me a chance to play hero.

It feeds the macho in me. "

She groaned, but the sound was barely muffled by his coat when he pulled back, took her hand and started off. She had to trot to keep up.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere."

"Obviously. Sawyer, I can't go anywhere," she cried as the breeze dashed the tears from her cheeks.

"I have work to do."

He didn't miss a step as they turned onto Beacon Street. His hand kept hers well in its grip.

"Y'know, I'll bet you didn't give Jack half this much trouble when you agreed to marry him."

"I didn't give him any trouble, and I haven't agreed to marry you."

"I'll bet you just smiled and said yes, when there were dozens and dozens of reasons why the marriage wouldn't work." "I was young and stupid. So was Jack. We wanted marriage more than we wanted each other." "And the irony of it is," Sawyer went on as though she hadn't spoken, "that here we are with dozens and dozens of reasons why a marriage between us will work, and you're driving both of us crazy dreaming up problems."

"I'm not dreaming them up!"

"Some people do that, y'know. They can't bear the thought of happiness so they throw stumbling blocks in their own way." Pulling Faith faster to cross Tre- mont Street before the light turned, he yelled,

"Taxi!" The cab that had just dropped off a customer and was starting to pull away from the curb stopped. Too involved in defending herself to question him, Faith slid in at Sawyer's urging and resumed the discussion the minute he joined her.

"I do want to be happy. I've never deliberately thrown stumbling blocks in the way of that."

"No?" To the waiting cabbie, he said, "Copley Place."

"Copley Place?" Faith echoed.

"Sawyer, I have to work." But the cab was already on its way, as were her thoughts.

"I'm being cautious, that's all, and there's nothing wrong with it. I've already flunked out of one relationship. Every day I see the tattered remains of other relationships. I'm thinking of you, Sawyer."