Lovers and Strangers (24 page)

"My l-life," Faith said through her tears. "He w-wrote my l-life."

"Your life? What do you mean he wrote your life? Oh, Lord, Faith, honey, please. Stop crying like that and tell me—Oh, never mind. It doesn't matter." Sammie-Jo put both arms around her and held on tight. "You go ahead and cry," she said, and began rocking Faith like a child.

It took Faith a few minutes to get control of herself but she pushed out of Sammie-Jo's arms, finally, and sat up, wiping at her streaming eyes with her palms.

"Okay now?" Sammie-Jo asked. She pulled a handful of tissues out of the pocket of her bathrobe and handed them to Faith. "Are you ready to tell me what's the matter?"

"It's nothing," Faith said and blew her nose. "And I'm fine now, anyway. Really," she added when Sammie-Jo looked skeptical. "Everything's just fine."

"Then what was that all about?"

"Jack's script," Faith said.

"What about Jack's script?"

"It's about me."

"About you? That two-timing snake wrote about you?"

"I told him about something that happened to me. Something bad. Something that I always thought was my fault. And he wrote about it—" she smiled, her eyes alight with joy "—and showed me that it wasn't."

"I don't understand."

"I can't explain now," Faith said as she jumped up from the chair. "I'll explain later. I've got to go tell Jack."

* * *

He was awake when she came knocking on his door.

He'd realized almost immediately that he'd left the two copies of the script behind him at Flynn's. And he'd known she would find it. And read it. And, maybe, that's the way he'd planned it. Otherwise, why had he forgotten them? Wasn't it Freud who'd said there were no coincidences?

He'd been waiting for the last hour and a half for her to finish it and come to him. He'd known she would. Faith was a woman who faced things straight on, no matter what the consequences. That was one of the things that made her too good for him. One of the many things.

He walked down the hall to the door to answer her knock, slowly, reluctantly, knowing what he would find on the other side. She would be hurt and angry.

Hurt and angry enough to throw his betrayal in his face and walk away. Forever.

He was wrong.

"Oh, Jack," she said when he opened the door. "Oh, Jack, it's beautiful."

He stood there, stunned. Her face was wet with tears. Those, he understood. Expected. But, "Beautiful?" he echoed.

"You took what happened to me and you turned it into something good. Something worthwhile. The girl you wrote about grew up to be strong and caring, in spite of what happened to her. Her story is so inspirational. It's..." She looked down at the envelope she held clutched to her breasts as if she might find the words she needed there. "It's just so beautiful."

Jack was totally, completely bewildered.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
he demanded, feeling as if he'd just fallen down the rabbit hole. His whole world was spinning out of control and she was rambling on about beauty.

"The script," she said, as if it should be obvious. "Your script." She held it out to him in both hands.
"Lovers and Strangers."

He reached out and grabbed her by the arm. "Get in here," he said. Jack's answer to his confusion—to any puzzling emotion—was action. Aggressive action. "And tell me what the hell you're talking about." He dragged her into the living room, then pushed her down on the couch. "Talk," he said.

"I loved it," she said, gazing up at him with adoration in her eyes. "Every word. Every syllable."

Jack shook his head, as if that would clear it. "Are you crazy?"

"Crazy?"

"I betrayed you, dammit! I took what you told me in confidence and I wrote about it."

"Betrayed me?" Now Faith was the one who was confused. "You didn't—" And then the light dawned. "Oh, no, Jack. No." She dropped the script onto the table in front of her and stood up, reaching out for him. "How could you think you'd betrayed me by writing that?" she said, taking one of his hands in both of hers. "It's a beautiful story. When I read it I felt... I don't know... cleansed, somehow. As if all my guilt and shame had been washed away."

"You were never guilty of anything," he said, furious that she would say so. "Never."

"I know that. Now. After reading what you wrote, I truly do know it. I didn't before, not really. Oh, intellectually, maybe, I might have known I wasn't really to blame. But in here, inside—" she brought his hand to her breast in both of hers, pressing the back of it to her heart "—I didn't really believe it. Some part of me always thought that if I'd been a better person or been more spiritual or stronger, or if I'd just done something different—anything—it would never have happened."

"It wouldn't have mattered," Jack told her, the same conviction in his voice that had been in his written words. "You were abused by the very people who should have been doing everything they could to shelter and protect you. Nothing you could have done would have changed the fact that they didn't do their duty." He touched her hair, brushing it back from the side of her face with his free hand, wiping at her damp cheek with his thumb. "You've got to believe that."

She lifted his hand to her lips. "I do now," she said and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

"My God, Angel," Jack said, unbearably, painfully moved by her simple, unselfconscious display of affection and gratitude. "Why do you never do what I expect you to?"

"Maybe because you keep expecting me to react like someone you dreamed up. I'm not a dream, Jack. I'm me. And I do things my own way. It's not always the right way, or the smart way, but it's my way. You're just going to have to get used to it."

He was almost afraid to ask. "Am I going to get the chance?"

"Do you want it?"

"Yes." God forgive him. "Yes, I want the chance. I know I don't deserve it. I know I'll never deserve it. But I-"

"Don't say that," Faith said furiously, jumping to his defense as if a third party had slandered him. She reached up to put her hand over his mouth. "I don't want to hear you say that to me ever again. It's not true. It's never been true. You're a good man, Jack Shannon. A wonderful, caring, compassionate man. And you're not responsible for your brother's death. Do you hear me?" She put her hands on either side of his face, making him look at her. "You didn't push him. He jumped. He killed
himself."

Jack wrapped his fingers around her wrists, pulling her hands away from his face. "After I told him he had no talent."

"Was it true?"

"You asked me that before."

"And you never answered. Was it true?"

"Yes," he admitted, reluctantly. "Yes, it was true."

"And do you really think he didn't know it before that night?" she asked softly. "Do you think he didn't know you were the gifted one?"

Jack just stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded. He
had
thought his brother didn't know. For twenty-five years, he'd thought exactly that. It had never occurred to him to think anything else.

She could see the beginnings of doubt in his eyes and pressed her advantage. "Most of us know where our true talents lie. We may not want to admit it, but we know. You told me that Eric wanted you to write the bulk of the script, remember? And that he put himself in charge of making it more commercial. It sounds to me as if your brother knew exactly what his talents were. And what they weren't. So what you said to him that night couldn't have come as any surprise, certainly not enough of one to make him want to kill himself. There had to be some other problem, Jack. Something you didn't know about. You said he was always high that summer, remember? Maybe that was the reason. Or maybe it was something else. A woman. His job. Or maybe all those things together. Who knows? The point is, people don't commit suicide for any one single reason, and to think Eric killed himself because of what you said is..." she groped for a word "...is unbelievably arrogant."

"Arrogant?"

"Yes. Arrogant. You had a fight with your brother—it happens all the time. You made a cutting remark—brothers do that all the time, too. But to think that that's what made Eric kill himself...?" She shook her head. "That's arrogance, pure and simple. You're not responsible for the whole world, Jack. You're only responsible for you."

He stood there for a moment longer, his hands still wrapped around her wrists, staring down at her with an intense look on his face. She could almost see his mind working, the wheels turning, thinking over what she'd just said, examining it from every angle.

"I never thought of it like that before," he said slowly, his eyes focused inward as he worked it through. "I just knew I felt responsible when Eric died. And so damned guilty. He'd asked me to do this one thing for him and I wouldn't do it. After all he'd done for me. The guilt ate at me. And that's what I focused on—the guilt. I've been focusing on it for twenty-five years."

"Then don't you think it's about time you cut yourself a little slack? You forgave me my past," Faith said. "Forgive yourself yours."

"It's not the same. You were an innoc—"

"It's
exactly
the same, except for the details." She leaned into him, grabbing the fabric of his T-shirt in her fists. His fingers were still wrapped around her wrists.
"Exactly,"
she said, desperate to make him understand and accept his own innocence. If he didn't, or couldn't, then they didn't have a chance. "You were young, hardly more than a child, just like I was. And something terrible happened to you. It wasn't your fault but you felt guilty and responsible, the way children do when something bad happens to them. But you're not a child anymore, and you have to let it go, Jack.
You have to."

They stood like that for another few seconds, her hands clutching his shirt, his wrapped around her wrists, both of them tense. Waiting. Wanting. Hoping.

And then something in Jack's eyes changed, something dark and tormented slipped away. "Maybe..." he said slowly, still fighting to hang on to the emotion that had sustained him for the last twenty-five years. "I guess it's something to think about, anyway."

And Faith knew it was going to be all right. Eventually it would be all right. The first seed of doubt about his own guilt had been planted and taken root. It would flower soon, and he'd forgive himself completely. Faith took a deep, shuddering breath and dropped her head against his chest, sending up a quick, fervent prayer of thanks.

Jack pressed his lips to her hair. "What am I going to do with you, Angel?" he whispered, awed.

Faith raised her head. "Love me," she said hopefully.

Jack smiled and bent his head to kiss her.

The meeting of their lips was a silent, solemn vow, a tender proclamation, an unspoken promise of commitment to each other and their future. And then Jack lifted his mouth from hers and smiled down into her eyes. He let go of her wrists, bringing his hands up to cup her face.

"Can you ever forgive me, Angel?"

"For what?"

"For everything. For being so thickheaded. For hurting you. For that harebrained stunt I pulled at Flynn's tonight. For Jill," he said succinctly.

"It was a stupid thing to do," she said.

"Yes," he agreed.

"I don't want you to do it again. Ever."

"No," he agreed again, quickly. "I won't. Ever."

"And I think you owe me a formal apology."

"You got it," he said. "On my knees. In blood. Whatever you want."

Faith smiled up at him, her whole heart in her eyes. "That won't be necessary. A simple 'I'm sorry' will suffice."

"I'm sorry," he said instantly. "Abjectly sorry. I was a jerk. A fool," he added, remembering what Jill had said.

"I think you owe Jill an apology, too."

"I already apologized to Jill," he said, grinning as he remembered it. "She said she hoped you made me suffer before you took me back."

"Should I?"

"It's too late. You've already taken me back."

"Yes. I guess I have, haven't I?" She snaked her arms up around his neck. "You might want to apologize to Sammie-Jo, too," she suggested.

Jack lifted an eyebrow. "Sammie-Jo?"

"She wants to rip your heart out by the roots," Faith told him.

"Well, she's too late," he said, his voice rich with satisfaction. "I haven't got a heart anymore. I gave it to you, Angel."

"Oh, Jack," she breathed, unbearably touched by his tacit admission of love. It wasn't the declaration she had hoped for but it was enough, for now. The rest would come later. "Jack," she said again, and lifted her lips to his.

The kiss they shared this time was longer and deeper, a lovers' kiss. They were both trembling and eager in a moment, moving against each other to find a more satisfying angle, a more perfect fit. Jack lifted his head after a long moment, shifting his hands on her body to lift her into his arms, and carried her into the bedroom, feeling like a pirate with his hard-won treasure.

His loving was lighthearted and playful at first, an expression of the joyous feeling within him. Faith answered him in kind, nuzzling and nipping as they rolled across the bed. And then their eyes met, and they stilled, staring at each other, suddenly breathless, and the mood changed.