Keeper of the Light

He lifted her hand to his lips, and the moonlight shimmered in the gold braid of his wedding ring. “For the past month or so, when I try to think about Annie, you always get in the way. I’d try to remember making love to her, and the only image I get in my mind is of that night in your living room.”

“Then why are you suddenly so distant? Why do you want to leave?”

He didn’t answer right away.

“Is it the baby?” she asked.

He nodded. “Partly, yes.” He sighed and rolled onto his back again, looking up at the ceiling. “Everything’s wrong about this, Olivia. Everything. Here we are, making love in your husband’s bed. He could come over here any second. What would I do then? Hide in the closet? Climb out the window?”

“Paul and I are separated, Alec.”

“It makes me feel…sleazy.”

Olivia winced. She did not feel sleazy. She felt no guilt at all.

“Paul still loves you. You can see that, can’t you? If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have been so angry when he saw you in the studio,” Alec said. “He wouldn’t care that much. It’s Paul who should be here in this bed with you, not me. This is just plain wrong.” He let go of her hand. “But that’s still not all of it.”

He stood up and began to dress. Olivia pulled herself up to sit against the headboard of the bed. When he’d zipped his jeans he sat back on the bed and looked over at her. “Annie’s been gone such a short time,” he said. “Just eight months. After nearly twenty years, eight months is nothing. I’m still too much…Annie’s husband, and I feel as though I’m betraying her somehow.” He chuckled, but the clear blue of his eyes had clouded over. “This sounds a little…I don’t know, melodramatic, I guess, but a few years ago Annie had to have surgery and she thought she might die. She asked me to promise that if she died, I wouldn’t get involved with anyone for at least a year. She needed to know she was so well-loved that I couldn’t even consider seeing someone else.” He smiled at the memory. “Well, of course I never thought she’d die. Even if she did, I couldn’t imagine being able to care enough about another woman to get involved again for a very long time. When I came over here tonight, I put memories of Annie out of my mind, but when we finished making love, it just hit me. Wham.” He looked out at the sound. “I can see her face. I can remember her asking me…” He shook his head quickly, then looked over at her. “See what I mean?” He smiled. “It’s just too soon for me, Olivia.” He stood up again, picking up his rugby shirt from her dresser, and Olivia wiped the tears from her face while his back was turned.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he straightened the collar of his shirt. “I didn’t mean to use you any more than you meant to use me.” He sat on the edge of the bed again to put on his tennis shoes. “I’m going to call Paul tomorrow, just to clear the air. He and I are into this lighthouse thing too deeply for either of us to just walk away from it. And I want you to tell him about the baby. Please, Olivia. For my sake, all right?” He finished tying his shoes and looked over at her. “Because once he knows, it will straighten him out. He’ll want you back. We both know that, and once you’re back with him, I’ll be able to get on with my life without thinking about you every damn minute of the day. Will you tell him?”

Her voice was thick when she answered. “As soon as he’s calmed down enough to hear it,” she said, knowing she would not want to tell him even then, because Alec was right. Once Paul knew, he would want her back, but she was not at all certain that she wanted him.

“Make that very soon, okay?” Alec stood up and walked to the door, where he stopped and looked back at her. He had stepped out of the moonlight and he was no more than a shadow in the doorway.

“I’ve been thinking lately that maybe Annie was wrong about some things,” he said softly. “She was such a powerful person—such a charismatic person—that I went along with her whether I agreed with her or not. It was just…easier. I always found her endearing—her wackiness, her disorganization, the way she could never get anywhere on time. You are entirely her opposite, Olivia. There’s no way you could ever be like her, don’t you see that? I’ve appreciated all those things in you that are unlike her. Sex with you was different. I knew it would be. You actually like it.” She could not see him, but she heard the smile in his voice. “I feel guilty that I appreciate that in you, because then I have to admit that maybe things weren’t as good with Annie as I tried to make myself believe they were.” He paused. She heard the air conditioner come on, felt the cool shaft of air on her throat.

“I’m rambling,” Alec said. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think I at least owe her the year I promised her. And you owe it to Paul to tell him he’s going to be a father.” He paused again, and she hugged her knees to her chest. “You’re very quiet,” he said.

“I love you, Alec.”

She followed his dark shadow as he walked toward her, as he slipped back into the light, real again. He leaned down to kiss her, his lips light and warm against her own. Then he turned and left the room.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Lacey was asleep when he got home. She had been sticking to her curfew. Friday night she didn’t even go out. Olivia had been right. Although Lacey offered verbal protests, she seemed to welcome the restrictions on her freedom. He’d hear her on the phone, complaining to her friends. “My dad won’t let me stay out that late,” she’d tell them, a sort of perverse pride in her voice.

It was nearly one. Really too late to talk to Paul, but he would not be able to sleep until he did. He needed to have this discussion behind him. He went to the den for his address book and sat down at the desk to dial Paul’s number.

“Hello?” Paul sounded wide awake. Alec heard music in the background. Something instrumental. Classical.

“It’s Alec, Paul, and it’s one o’clock in the morning, so let me start by apologizing if I woke you up.”

“I’m awake,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

Alec laughed. “That’s an understatement.” He flipped idly through the pages of his address book while he spoke. “Look,” he said, “you need to know that I was at the studio when you came in this morning. I heard everything you said.”

There was silence on Paul’s end of the phone, and Alec continued.

“I wish you’d been honest with me,” he said. “You had a thing for Annie. I would have understood. She was very easy to have a thing for.”