Phantom of Riverside Park (21 page)

“I think he just might become
insufferable.”

“Not Nicky. He’s too sensible for that.”

“Yes, he is.” She shot a quizzical look in
his direction, and he leaned back deeper into the shadows. “How did
you know?”

“Instinct. You’re a very sensible woman, and
I assume you’re raising your son to be the same way.”

“Well, thank you. I try.” She stilled her
expressive hands, tucking them back into her lap. “Now, about that
loan ... I suppose you have the paper ready.”

At this rate, Elizabeth Jennings would be out
of his office in five minutes. David cast about for ways to make
her stay, and the silence stretched, screaming, between them.

“How is your grandfather?” he said at last,
embarrassed by his own clumsiness. The art of conversation eluded
him, sometimes even with McKenzie.

“He’s feistier than ever. Having Fred Lollar
for a friend had been very good for him. I’d been so wrapped up in
myself I hadn’t realized how much he needed somebody besides Nicky
and me.”

“You do yourself an injustice, Elizabeth.
You’re the least self-centered person I know.”

He could tell his remark pleased her, and
David felt better about his own ineptness. Maybe he was onto
something, at last.

“Tell me about this Fred Lollar,” he
said.

“He and Papa both served in World War II. Not
many of those veterans are still alive, and I’m so lucky to have
two of them! Nicky and I love listening to their stories.” Her
hands were talking again, and her face was shining so that he could
have switched off the light and still seen the glow.

“You should hear their story about getting
drunk in Paris and accidentally ending up on stage with the
burlesque dancers.”

You should hear.
How natural she’d
sounded when she said it. As if the two of them were long-time
friends in the habit of meeting for lunch and the theater and
leisurely walks in the woods to exchange personal stories that drew
them into each other’s lives.

For a moment David was too full to speak.
Elizabeth mistook his silence for disapproval.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I
know you’re a very busy man. An important man. That was
presumptuous of me. Please forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

Once more he was caught up in a vision of how
things would be if he were a different man, a salesman, say, coming
home from a week traveling in Arkansas, driving across the river
bridge and thinking about Elizabeth waiting for him at the front
door, waiting for him with a smile and a kiss and a heart full of
stories that would draw him back into her life.

“I’ve taken up too much of your time
prattling on about my family. I’m sure you didn’t invite me here to
discuss Papa and Nicky.”

Was she so anxious to leave, then? She had
drawn back into her nervous shell and was sitting stiff-necked and
formal in the unforgiving circle of light. In her case, it had
nothing to forgive. Elizabeth Jennings was flawless.

And he was flawed beyond redemption.

Let her go
, his conscience
whispered. It was the noble thing to do.

“Let’s talk business, Elizabeth.”

“That’s why I came... And to thank you...I
don’t know where my manners are. I haven’t even thanked you for
making Nicky’s surgery possible.”

“I got your note. It was sweet.”

“Oh, well ... thanking a person face to face
is so much better, I believe. So
thank you
...I wish I
could see your face.”

He didn’t answer her. What was there to say?
My face would repulse you. If you saw my face you wouldn’t be
sitting in that chair talking to me as if I’m a normal human
being.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to
upset you.”

“You didn’t, Elizabeth. I don’t talk much,
that’s all. My sister says I brood.”

“You have a family, then?”

“Only my sister.”

“What’s she ...Oh, I’m sorry. I keep
sidetracking you. You don’t have all night to spend with me.”

If only he could. Never had his self-imposed
exile seemed lonelier. He couldn’t take Elizabeth to the Peabody
and listen to jazz. He couldn’t take her to the river and watch the
sunset over the Mississippi. He couldn’t take her to the farm and
watch her race through the meadow with her son.

And so he did the next best thing. He
revealed a part of himself to her, something he’d never done with
another human being except his sister.

“I wanted to have a family, Elizabeth. A
large one.”

“Do you still?”

What good does it do to wish for things
you can’t have?

“That was a long time ago,” he said. It was
time to quit torturing himself. And her. It was time to let
Elizabeth go. “The papers you asked for are on the table beside
your chair. Look them over and then if you have any questions,
we’ll discuss them.”

“Can I do it now? Quincy is good about giving
me time off, but I hate to keep asking her, and I don’t need to
miss class.”

“Look them over now. Take all the time you
need.”

o0o

Elizabeth picked up the papers that, deep
down, she’d known were there all along. She reckoned a woman was
capable of all kinds of subterfuge to get what she wanted, only why
she wanted to stay in that office under the spotlight was beyond
her comprehension.

She heard the snort Mae Mae always gave when
Elizabeth told a lie, and it made her wonder what kind of woman she
was turning into. Of course, she knew why she wanted to stay in
that top-floor office, spotlight or no spotlight.

The answer was hidden in the dark behind a
desk bigger than her kitchen table, bigger than her whole kitchen,
practically. She didn’t know how it was possible for a man’s voice
to affect a woman so powerfully. But that was the truth of the
matter. Sitting there listening to David Lassiter, Elizabeth felt
all-of-a-sudden secure, as if nothing bad in this world could ever
touch her again.

She’d deliberately worn her uniform from the
bakery so she could tell herself that she didn’t care how she
looked for David Lassiter. Why should she dress up for a man she
couldn’t even see?

The minute she got to the Lassiter Building
she’d changed her mind. She’d panicked, wondering if he would be
insulted that she’d worn a work uniform. If she’d had time to go
home and change, she would. But there was no time. Her only
consolation was that the uniform was pink.

She glanced up from the papers hoping to
catch David unaware, hoping that while she’d had her head in the
papers her eyes had adjusted to the dark and she could see him more
clearly, or that he’d shifted out of the shadows.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

She told him an outright lie in order to save
face. She had no idea if everything was all right. She’d been so
busy woolgathering she hadn’t read a word on the page.

She skimmed the legalese looking for
something she could understand. There it was: terms of the loan.
One hundred dollars payable ten dollars a year over a period of ten
years.

Astonished, she read the terms once more.

“I can’t possibly sign this,” she said.

“Don’t you think it’s fair?”

“It’s more than fair to me. It’s outrageous
generosity bordering on charity.” She put the papers back into the
manila envelope and laid it on the table. “I can’t sign them.”

“You said you would sign any kind of papers I
drew up as long as they were fair.”

“But these aren’t fair to you.”

“I’m the only one who can judge that,
Elizabeth, and I say they’re fair.”

“No. I can’t do this. I’ll go to the hospital
and make arrangements to pay them, somehow.”

“There are no arrangements to make. All
Nicky’s bills have been paid.”

Elizabeth could barely sit still. When he’d
told about his sister and about wanting a family, when he’d
unveiled that private part of himself to her, she’d listened with
her heart. She’d believed that in spite of the fact that he shunned
the light, they could still somehow become very good friends. Maybe
more.

Now she felt betrayed. She wanted to rage
about the room, flipping on lights.

“You tricked me.”

“You came to me, Elizabeth. You stipulated
the terms.”

“You manipulated those terms.”

“Why don’t we throw those papers into the
garbage can and forget about the loan? Nicky is all right now.
Isn’t that what we both wanted?”

That was the final straw. “My son is not a
pawn,” she said, and then she jumped out of her chair and barreled
toward him like a woman obsessed.

Suddenly the room was plunged into total
darkness, and she ran smack into a table.

“Elizabeth! Sit down.”

“I won’t. I don’t care who you are. I don’t
need your crumbs. I won’t be treated like cotton-patch trash.”

The shocking admission spilled out of her,
and there was no way on heaven or earth that she could take it
back. All the years of struggle and fear and righteous rage boiled
upward, and she started crying so hard she lost her breath.

Sobbing and gulping, lost in the dark, she
wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and pull it in behind
her. She had never felt more alone.

Then suddenly, she was no longer alone. A
pair of arms drew her close. A large hand pressed her head against
a chest that felt solid as a wall.

The wailing wall.
A giggle burbled
upward and mixed with her tears. She was going to be
hysterical.

“Cry, Elizabeth. Go ahead and cry.”

She thought she’d never in her life heard a
more beautiful sound than his kind voice urging her toward release.
She’d never felt a safer haven than the strong arms that held her
as tenderly as if she were a child.

Forgive me, Papa.

This was a different kind of safety she felt,
something altogether miraculous because David offered it without a
shared history. And so she clung to him sobbing because he made it
safe for her to cry.

He started stroking her hair. “You are
worthy, Elizabeth. Your little finger is worth more than all the
Taylor Belliveaus in the world.”

“He’s dead ...” she wailed, then cried
afresh, shedding the tears she had held inside since his
funeral.

“I know, and I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you,
Elizabeth, but I didn’t know how.” He tightened his hold. “I didn’t
know how.”

Then he began to sway, and the gentle
movement was like being rocked in the bosom of a loving protector.
But it was more, too, and that’s the part that disturbed
Elizabeth.

With her nose pressed against his chest she
inhaled the clean spicy scent of his skin. Feelings that had lain
dormant for years rushed to the surface, reminding her that David
Lassiter was more than a benefactor, more than a strong shoulder to
cry on: he was a man.

All at once the lines between right and wrong
blurred, so that Elizabeth felt like a woman torn in half. She was
a conflicted, complicated woman who wanted to hold onto this strong
man and say, “Here. Here I am,” and at the same time she wanted to
run as far away as she could till she came to a place that would
help her remember her independence.

“I want only to help you, Elizabeth,” David
said, as if he’d read her thoughts. “I have no other motive. You’re
carried too many burdens by yourself for too long. Please allow me
to help you.”

“It feels wrong.”

He was still holding her, but when she tried
to push back he held her fast. Was it because he enjoyed the
contact as much as she did, or was it because he was afraid she
would look up and see his face?

“You are your Papa’s granddaughter.”

“How?”

“Stubborn. Quick to argue.”

“How do you know those things? You’ve never
met Papa?”

She felt the tremor that ran through him, and
the sudden stiffening of his body.

“You’re right,” she said, wanting desperately
to make amends. “I am like Papa, and I suppose in most ways, that’s
a good thing. Sometimes, though, I carry a point too far.”

His hands rested lightly on her waist. She
could have wrenched herself free with one movement, but she didn’t
want to. She wanted to stay right where she was until she’d made
things right between them again.

He was deeply troubled. Turmoil wafted off
him like smoke, settling over her in a thick cloud that made it
hard to breathe. She had a crazy urge to croon a lullaby to him,
just the way she did with Nicky when the monsters of his
imagination became too real.

“My sister tells me I play God.” His voice
came down softly around her, his body slackened, and little by
little she began to breathe. “If I had a family of my own, I
probably wouldn’t have this deep
need,
Elizabeth, this
overwhelming urge to do something that will somehow make my life
count.”

She clung to him, pressing her cheek against
his chest and feeling the powerful vibrations of his heart. It was
like hearing the roar of a waterfall coming down the face of a
mountain. A bit frightening, but so awesome it stole her
reason.

“Let me do this small thing for Nicky.
Please... Let me redeem myself with your son, even if the
redemption is fleeting.”

She felt both humbled and empowered. David
had found a way to help her and at the same time allow her to keep
her pride.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m still not sure
why you chose us, but I’m glad you did. We will always be
grateful.”

And then because she had nothing else to
give, she repaid him with her heart. Reaching upward, she sought
his face. When her hands made contact, he sucked in a sharp breath
and for a moment, she thought he would pull away.

Please don’t. Please.

He heard her silent pleas, and for an amazing
instant he stood still while she caressed the jagged, angry scar
that marked his face as well as his soul.