Sealed with a promise (27 page)

  “Well, it is, of course, and for Tyler’s sake I hope she gets better, but it’s too soon to get excited about the prospect. In the meantime, it’s Tyler’s birthday. His birth mother is dead, and both his father and his grandmother are incommunicado.”

  That was just like Pickett. She was thinking of how Tyler would feel on his first birthday after losing his birth mother. For Tyler’s sake she was more than willing to maintain a relationship with a mother-in-law left over from Jax’s first marriage. “Do you think she should have waited until after his birthday?”

  “Not really. When a person is finally willing to seek treatment, it’s important to act right then. I don’t know if he’ll be hurt if she doesn’t call or send a present. He’s really too little to have built up those expectations. The main reason for coming home is that Tyler enjoys having cousins so much, and he doesn’t know many children here yet-”

  “And you know you can trust your family to make a big deal over his birthday.”

  “Well, I can. Anyway, will you come too? Aunt Lilly Hale has already asked me if you’re coming.”

  Grace had suggested she attend as a way of revealing her makeover to a friendly audience, but Emmie had let it slip her mind. Deliberately. She hadn’t wanted to go if Pickett wouldn’t be there. The habits of being unnoticeable were still strong, and she didn’t think she could face the crowd, if her presence was about
her.
Anyway, the reveal, such as it was, had already happened.

  Everything changed if Pickett was going to be there. “When is the family reunion?”

  Pickett chuckled in fond exasperation. “Today, silly. That’s why I’ve been calling you and calling you. I’ve got to see your new clothes. I’ve got an idea for a few items I think you should get. Grace’s taste is infallible, but, you know, serious. You need some fun clothes too.”

  “Fun clothes? You mean sports clothes?”

  “No. I mean apparel, the purpose of which is entertainment. That’s a foreign concept for you, isn’t it? I’ve got to admit I hadn’t fully grasped the possibilities myself until Jax,” Pickett added with a chuckle that was positively
sultry.

  More than ever, Emmie regretted that she hadn’t been around for Jax and Pickett’s courtship. This was a side of her friend she’d never seen before. Being in love had evidently brought out new elements in her Pickett’s personality. There was a new kind of confidence about her, a deeply personal self-assurance. Emmie was a tiny bit shocked and a tiny bit envious.

  “What kind of fun are we talking about here?”

  Pickett giggled. “The kind you’re thinking about. But also frivolous or provocative things-like you’d look great in high-heeled boots.”

  Emmie was on the verge of pointing out how utterly impractical high-heeled boots were when she got a picture of standing in front of Caleb wearing them. And nothing else. Her heart did a double backflip.

  “Say you’ll come, Emmie.”

  “I don’t know. Caleb is here.”

  “Oh, that’s right! So much has gone on here, I forgot today was
the
day. How did it go?”

  “We went to the open house, but Caleb got thrown out.”

  “Is he there now?”

  “He’s in the living room.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In the bathroom.”

  “Why are you in the-forget I asked that. This conversation has gone way off track. But now, you’ve got to come because I’ve got to hear the whole story, and I’ve got to tell you what I think sent Lauren into treatment.”

  Caleb was in Emmie’s big blue velour easy chair reading a book, his tie loosened, his shoes kicked off, his feet in coffee-brown socks propped on the ottoman, when Emmie returned to the living room. He had switched on the standing lamp behind the chair. The light brought out the gold in his reddish-brown hair and dwelt in loving lines along the planes and angles of his face. He wasn’t handsome, and he never would be. He was beautiful. Her artist’s eye noted the color composition, palest yellow shirt, tobacco brown slacks, deep blue chair.

  His legs were crossed at the ankles, his elbow propped on the armrest, his head supported by the headrest. Light, reflected from the open book, limned the underside of his chin and found the golden fringe of his lashes. A buoyant lightness filled her chest as if something she had waited and waited for had at last transpired.

  In a way she couldn’t define, he had made the chair, the lamp, the corner of the room,
his,
and he looked completely at home there. Except for Pickett, not that many people entered Emmie’s space, and as a rule she felt more at ease when they left it. From now on, the room wouldn’t look quite right without him.

  His eyes lit in welcome when he saw her. He held up the book so she could see the cover. “Asimov’s
I, Robot.
I took it from your bookshelf. Hope you don’t mind. It’s one of my favorites.” He moved his legs to one side on the ottoman in a clear invitation for her to perch there.

  Emmie sank down on the low footrest. A faint, warm shock traveled through her when her hip came in contact with his crossed ankles. His toes, those long, strong, elegant rough-hewn toes stroked across her buttocks in what might have been an accidental settling, might have been a caress. Emmie was momentarily diverted, but his expression was so innocent she returned to the subject of the book.

  “Mine too. I liked the three laws of robotics. I loved them so much I committed them to memory. ‘One: A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human to come to harm. Two: A robot must obey a human’s orders except where to do so would conflict with the first law. Three: A robot must protect its own existence except where to do so would violate rules one or two.’ In the stories, the robots must make moral choices within a nested hierarchy of values.”

  “Unh- unh.” Caleb shook his head. “The robots weren’t acting morally. They’re machines. The three rules were a design function to make them harmless.”

  Again, she felt a stroking movement of his toe near the small of her back. This time she caught the playful gleam that accompanied it.

  “True. Nevertheless, as the three rules are weighted, they are a perfect, logical encapsulation of Christian ideals.”

  His smile left “interested” and shaded into “indulgent.” “Do you think anyone lives by them?”

  “My parents do. The first law of robotics summarizes the commandment to love one another and the Golden Rule. The second rule is about service. My parents’ life purpose is to serve, and their obedience is to the laws of God.”

  “What happens when Biblical commandments conflict with the first law? The Old Testament requires the faithful to stone people for everything from wearing the wrong clothes to sassing their mama.”

  “Right. Deuteronomy 22:5 and Exodus 21:17-although your translation is extremely loose.” Emmie rolled her eyes. “My parents are
Christians,
not 4000 BC desert nomads.
Christ’s
commandment was: ‘love one another.’ It supersedes all the others.”

  “How about looking after themselves?”

  “They would say self-maintenance is incumbent upon Christians-the body is a temple and all that- but they believe it comes third. The first two are much more important. I think I loved the book because at last I could see the logic on which they based their lives.”

  “The logic? Not the faith?”

  “Faith didn’t work for me. I hated that they had sent me to live with my grandmother. I knew they loved me, but it was a paradox. If they loved me, why didn’t my happiness matter? If I couldn’t stay with them, why didn’t they come to the States
with
me?”

  “Why
did
they send you to America?”

  “Two people with our mission were kidnapped and held for ransom by terrorists. They were targeted because they were Americans. My parents sent me to live with my grandmother for my safety.

  “
I, Robot
put the choices they made into a framework I could understand. For my parents, the first law meant they needed to stay and minister, despite possible harm to themselves. However, they could not, through inaction, allow me to come to harm. Anyway, I was a typical self-absorbed teenager. I wanted them to be dedicated to
me,
not to God.”

  Emmie laughed. Until this moment she’d never seen it from this perspective exactly.

  His eyes were gold again. The angles of his cheeks softened, and his lips, those shapely, full, firm-looking Brad Pitt lips, opened in an unconscious smile. He wrapped one hard hand around her upper arm, tugging her forward, lifting her onto his lap. “I don’t think you’ve ever been typical in any way.”

  He tucked her left arm between them and settled her right hand on his shoulder so that her arm was completely supported when he leaned her against his chest. “Shoulder okay?” he murmured. Instead of kissing her as she expected, with smooth strokes he molded her until she relaxed against him with her head on his shoulder.

  Emmie nodded, her eyes suddenly hot and wet. Emmie had encountered his strength before. She’d seen the smooth confidence with which he moved her body when he needed to. No matter that she still wasn’t sure how much she trusted him-at some point her body had decided it trusted his. Pickett had told her repeatedly to become more aware of how she was being treated. He wasn’t dominating her as he’d done before when he’d buckled her seat belt. She couldn’t yield though until she understood… something.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  A soundless chuckled moved his diaphragm. “Holding you.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “Because I wanted to.”

  “Is that a good enough reason?”

  “
Emmie.
Stop trying to figure out the regulations for what’s happening between us.”

  Was that what she was doing? From the first she’d been a little afraid of him, sensing he wasn’t a man who would be easily kept in his place. Time had proved her right. She hadn’t successfully managed him. At every point he had been doing what he wanted to, what he saw fit to do, and as she had expected,
she
hadn’t been the reason.

  “And don’t ask me what
is
happening,” he said, apparently having read her mind. “All I know is I went looking for my father and found you. That’s enough for now.”

  
Enough for now.
The words moved around in his mind as if he was deep in a forest, and they were echoes tossed from tree to tree, sometimes right beside him, sometimes impossibly distant. After a while they fragmented, became softer…

  Something had changed. Something that defied every bit of her experience (albeit limited) with men. Despite his protests that he had pulled her in his lap because he wanted to hold her, Emmie had expected him to make love. She had waited, and waited, trying not to control what he was doing. But she did like to understand the goal, and his response indicated there wasn’t one, which wasn’t entirely satisfactory. And then-she wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t happened to her-he had fallen asleep.

  Draped across him as she was, the sensation of moving with his breath was almost like floating, and when he didn’t do anything… and didn’t do anything… she had been lulled into deeper and deeper relaxation. When eventually she had realized that his breath had become deep and regular and he might be asleep, she hadn’t known whether to laugh or to cry. She’d had plenty of experience with men who couldn’t get rid of her fast enough when they learned she wouldn’t put out, but if he could ignore the fact that she was there and go to sleep even with her on his lap, she was insignificant indeed.

  On the other hand, she’d noticed how much of the smiling ease with which he approached life was in fact ironclad self-control. He was miles from the swaggering jocks with their sense of entitlement and unwillingness to take seriously anything that didn’t directly impact their own egos. She was a little ashamed of herself for ever having thought that of him. This afternoon she’d become aware that there was a price for the seeming ease with which he managed and mastered every situation. Maybe the bill had come due, and he was simply exhausted.

  The arm under her was going numb, but she didn’t want to move lest she wake him. It was a small enough courtesy to give the man a few minutes of peace. She was mastering his lexicon of smiles, but she’d never seen his face in repose. He’d sighed deeply and expertly shifted her so that the pressure on her arm was relieved. She was disappointed a few minutes later when he removed the hand on her hip to look at his watch.

  He opened his eyes. Outside the broad slats of the white plantation blinds, night had fallen. He must have dozed for a minute.

  Funny, he couldn’t remember the last time he had dozed off, accidentally, without preparing himself for sleep first. He wasn’t good at going to sleep, period. He’d never gotten the hang of power-napping, as some guys could, sleeping for ten or fifteen minutes wherever they were, no matter how noisy or bright or uncomfortable.

  He’d survived as a SEAL only because he required less sleep than most. Through meditation he could achieve profound relaxation that allowed his body to rest, while he remained alert. He lifted his left arm from where it rested on Emmie’s hip to check his watch. He’d only been out a few minutes. That he had done it while holding Emmie on his lap defied imagination.

  “Are you awake now?” she asked.

  “Um- hmm.” He felt ridiculously good, and when he put his hand back down, he felt even better. The flap in her skirt-the flap that had teased him and tantalized him all afternoon-had come open. His hand encountered the silky mesh of her hose. He was instantly as alert, as fully conscious, as he had ever been in his life. And as hard. But there were some particulars he needed to know first. “When’s your birthday?”

  “February 16.” Suddenly, Emmie sat up straight. “Birthday! I forgot.”