More Than Friends (23 page)

He sat back on his heels. "Why are you so down on yourself?"

"I'm just being honest."

"Modest is the word. Don't you know how appealing you are?"

"I am not appealing," she cried. "I'm pale and too thin. I have wrinkles on my neck and my hands, my eyes are too close together and when they get shadowed they look even worse, my mouth is too small, I could go on and on." Her voice caught. "There is absolutely nothing exciting about me." If there had

been, Sam would never have been drawn to Teke.

Out of the blue, she started to cry.

Jason rose to his knees and drew her down so that he could hold her. She tried to pull back, but he wouldn't let her go. After a minute she didn't want to. His arms were a comfort.

Sam's had always been that way. They were a haven, waiting to envelop her at times of upset and joy alike. She could sink into them, as she did now, and cry or laugh or simply be, and the reward was always there. A kiss, a touch, a caress--he knew her body as no other man did.

Jason's lips touched her forehead. "You are beautiful," he whispered.

She shook her head against his throat. He smelled different from Sam, but the difference wasn't bad. And his warmth felt good. She had been missing Sam's warmth. And his words, You are beautiful.

""Beauty is not caused. It is,"" he quoted. "That's Emily Dickinson. She's your favorite, and she's right. When beauty exists, it exists. It doesn't need artificial enhancers. Life enhances it. Time enhances it. The kind of beauty that comes from within lasts forever." Annie gave an uneven sigh.

"You are beautiful," he whispered, nuzzling her neck, "inside and out." He kissed her jaw, then her lips.

She wanted to be beautiful. She wanted to be wanted and needed and so sexy that Sam couldn't begin to think of touching another woman.

"I want you, Annie," he whispered more roughly, and even that change in his voice felt good. Every woman wanted to be wanted. Every woman wanted to know that she could pump a man up so that he trembled with the need for release, and he was trembling now.

Every bit of the wine she had drunk had gone to her head, because she was suddenly feeling not warm, but hot and trembling, herself, with a need that arched her closer to him.

He whispered a triumphant, "Yes!" against her ear, then drew back and reached for the buttons of her blouse. Annie heard a tiny ping of warning, but it was in the very back of her mind. In the front was a fascination with the way he was looking at her, perhaps imagined in the dark, but as real as the way Sam always looked at her. She saw pleasure on his face when he opened her blouse. It made her feel so pretty that when he struggled with the catch of her bra, she released it herself.

He caught her mouth with his at the same time that he covered her breasts with his hands. He began to knead them with an eagerness verging on the rough, but that spelled appeal to Annie. It was like a balm, so badly needed that she let herself be drawn onto his lap. She gasped when she felt his hand between her legs.

"I've wanted you for so long," he whispered, and began to stroke her. Again she gasped, this time when the ping came more loudly in her mind, but it faded. She felt pretty. She felt feminine and sexy. She felt wanted. His whispered words, the ragged sough of his breath, the strain of his muscles, all built her up.

Then she heard the rasp of a zipper, too real against the headiness of her illusions. She tensed.

"It's okay," he said, "okay, just touch me here."

"I can't--" But he put her hand where he wanted it. She protested,

"Please, this isn't--"

"I love you, Annie."

She tried to pull her hand away. "I don't--"

"I have a condom, it'll be so good, you'll see."

"My God, nor she cried, because it suddenly hit her that he wasn't Sam, wasn't Sam at all. She scrambled backward with such abruptness that he was taken off-guard. "My God," she whispered more to herself this time as the enormity of what she'd almost done hit her. She clutched at her blouse. In a shaky voice she said, "I'm sorry, Jason, but this isn't right. It's not at all what I want, and it's not what you want."

"Like hell it's not," Jason said, but he had hauled himself to the opposite wall and was fixing his pants. "It's what we both want."

"I'm married."

"What difference does that make?"

"I'm committed to someone else."

"Is that why you let me kiss you? And open your bra?" His glare cut through the darkness. "Were you thinking of your husband then? Or do you want to blame what you did on the wine?"

Blaming the wine would have been taking the easy way out. Annie refused to do that. Rather, she buttoned her blouse with raggedy fingers and said, "I was thinking of my husband. That's the problem. I was using you, but you shouldn't be a stand-in for someone else. You deserve more."

With a snort of disdain, he rose. "That's an honorable remark coming from an honorable woman. Excuse me if I don't stick around for more. I might just gag." He pulled the door open and left. The door slammed shut behind him.

Annie thought about that door as she sat on the floor in the dark. She guessed he had closed it when he had come in with the wine and wondered whether he had had seduction in mind from the start. Had it been seduction? Or simply each his own need? She feared the last. She had been vulnerable as could be.

She should have been impressed by the fact that she had stopped, but she wasn't. More important and incriminating--and humbling--was the fact that she had started at all.

Grady approached Michael's room with more hesitancy than ever. It was a new room, a new floor, and there was no window to preview what was happening inside. He had to go right to the door.

Teke was sitting on the chair with her head bowed. High on the wall the television was on, but Michael's eyes were closed.

He entered quietly. It was a minute before Teke looked up. He saw something in her eyes, but he wasn't sure what it was. He wished he did, because she looked different. Wearing a silk blouse and tailored slacks, she was far more Constance than Gullen. She intimidated him a little.

"Hi," he said. "How are you?"

She nodded, shrugged, said a soft, "Okay," and looked at Michael.

"I was glad to hear he woke up." It was the understatement of the year. Grady had been breathing sighs of relief all weekend, had actually gone to church Sunday morning for the first time since he'd been a boy. "How's he doing?"

"Not bad. He's eating. They've been giving him tests. He's lost strength and the range of motion he had before, but the loss isn't permanent. They're working on a therapy plan."

Grady saw that Michael's eyes had opened. They were focused on him.

"Hi," he said with a smile that he hoped hid his nervousness. He was the man whose pickup had taken the boy down. He didn't know what kind of welcome he would get. "It's good to see you awake," he said. "I was real worried."

Michael stared at him for the longest time. "Grady?" Grady didn't see any anger. "You remember I was here?"

"A little. I ran into your truck."

No anger. Grady was relieved. ""Fraid so."

"Did I dent it?"

"Nah. Truck's a lot harder than you. How're you feeling?"

"Okay. I want to go home, but they won't let me." Not wanting to side with the bad guys, Grady asked, "Why not?"

"They want me to go to the rehabilitation center first. They say my arms and legs aren't working right, but what do they know. I'm just weak."

Grady suspected "they" knew more than Michael did. "The rehab center will help you get your strength back."

"I want to go home."

Grady felt at a loss. He sought Teke's help, but she looked bewildered, and when he returned to Michael, the boy's eyes were closed.

The television was tuned to a soap opera. Grady watched for a bit, but his mind wandered. He was surprised when seemingly out of the blue, Michael asked, "Were you really in prison?"

"You remember that, too?"

"Were you?"

""Fraid so."

"For what?"

So he didn't remember everything. "Murder."

"Awesome."

"Not really. It was pretty bad. Both doing it and being punished for it. I don't recommend either."

"Did you have a trial?"

"Sure."

"Who was your lawyer?"

"He was court-appointed. You wouldn't know him."

"Sam does murder cases. Too bad you couldn't have had him. He's awesome." He stopped abruptly, tacked on, "Was awesome," and stared at the television for a minute before asking, "How long were you in prison?"

"Eight years."

"That's not so much. Not for murder."

"It's enough," Grady said.

"Did they let you out early for good behavior?"

"They let me out because I served the minimum of my time and because they needed my bed. I don't know about the good behavior part. I spent my time in solitary."

"Wow."

"Why?" Teke asked.

"There were times when I had to fight to defend myself."

"Solitary must have been horrible," she said.

"It was safe. After a while it felt too confining."

"That's just like what I felt," Michael said with an animation so much like Teke that Grady felt a swell of affection for the boy. "I could see out sometimes, but I couldn't talk to anyone or go outside this tiny little area. Then Sam snapped his fingers. Like someone turned a key in the lock."

The animation died. It struck Grady that Michael was angry at Sam. And at Teke. He hadn't looked at her once while Grady had been there.

"Do you remember my telling you that I knew your mother when she was little?"

Michael thought about that with his eyes closed. "Maybe," he finally said.

"The one thing she always wanted was a family. She loves you a lot."

"Hmmph."

Figuring that if he pressed, he would blow his credibility, Grady simply said, "Gotta get back to work now. Can I visit again?"

"Sure."

"Can I bring something? Candy? Soda?"

Michael did shoot a look at Teke then, but it was a defiant one. "I want a Ring-Ding. She says they don't have enough nourishment."

"A Ring-Ding it is." With a wink and a thumbs-up, Grady left the room. He paused in the hall, hoping that Teke would come out to talk. When she didn't he started slowly toward the elevator. He glanced back from time to time, but she didn't appear.

Increasingly, Teke needed to talk with Annie. She waited for a time when they might be alone, but it seemed that if the children weren't there, J.D. was, or Sam, or Michael's friends. Come midweek she was desperate enough to take Annie by the arm, hustle her out of Michael's room, and usher her down the hall.

"Just to talk," she assured her.

Annie protested, "There's nothing to say."

"There's too much, all long overdue. The air is festering with everything that hasn't been said. I need you, Annie." She knew Annie would pick up on her urgency, even tired as she was and bruised as she looked. Annie was sensitive to people's feelings, and though Teke felt like a rat preying on that, she neither slowed her step nor spoke until they were shut in the private bathroom at the end of the hall. Leaning against the door so that Annie couldn't escape, she said, "There are certain things I have to say. I want you to listen." Annie frowned at the floor. After a minute she leaned against the handicap rail and raised her

head. She looked so fragile that Teke nearly backed off. But she couldn't. She was too desperate to repair the harm she had done.

"I am very, very sorry for what I did, Annie. I know I've said that before, but I don't know if you heard. I can't tell you--I just can't tell you how much I regret it. I'm embarrassed and appalled. I'm disgusted with myself--and I do blame myself. I was the one who took the first step."

"Why did you?" Annie asked sharply.

Teke hesitated for only as long as it took to fill her lungs with air.

"Because of Grady."

Annie's sharpness became confusion. "The man who was driving the truck?"

She had to make Annie understand her state of mind when Sam had come to the house. "I grew up with Grady. I adored him. We were lovers from the time I was fifteen until the time they put him in jail." Annie gasped. Her confusion turned into hurt. "You never said. You never talked about your past. I always assumed there wasn't anything there."

"I couldn't talk about it. It was too hard. I was trying to forget that I had a past. Grady was my whole life, until he was sent to prison. I woke up thinking about seeing him and went to bed smelling him on my skin. We were going to be married. We were going to have babies. We were going to be together forever and ever. Suddenly all that was impossible."

"Did you know the person he murdered?"

Teke nodded. "He was my father."

Annie gasped again.

"Shocking, huh?" Teke asked, feeling a touch of hysteria. "Well, it is for me, too. This is the first time I've ever said it out loud. But it was more than shocking at the time. It was a nightmare that was just as awful as this one."

"What happened?" Annie whispered.

Teke's eyes filled. She looked at the ceiling. "My father used to manhandle me. Grady told him not to. One night he caught him at it and they fought. That's it. Two lives down the drain--three if you want to count my father's, but I don't." Her voice hardened. "He was a drunk who didn't want to work even to support his family. His life wasn't worth two cents."

At the look of horror on Annie's face, she said, "Does that sound harsh? Are you appalled that this woman you thought you knew can say such callous things about her own father? Well, maybe I am cold and harsh and callous, but do you know that my mother and sisters died because he wouldn't get the doctor? They were sick, but he refused to spend the money. He was the murderer, far more than Grady."

"Oh, Teke," Annie said in a nearly inaudible voice, "why didn't you tell me?"

"If I couldn't allow myself to think about it, how could I tell you? I blotted it out. I separated myself totally from my past. That was the only way I could survive. And I don't want your sympathy now. All I want is for you to understand what Grady meant to me and what it was like for me to think about seeing him again."