Never Trust A Lady

never entered my head. All I wanted then was to do some of the things I’d always dreamed of doing, in spite of his disapproval. I enrolled in some college classes, for instance.” She gave a soft, derisive snort, and said the rest with a little smile on her face, knowing it would sound too angry, too bitter if she let all her pain and frustration show. “Well, when David found out he couldn’t control me any longer, he just withdrew from me completely. Punishing me, I suppose. Sex was the last thing to go, probably because that meant a certain amount of inconvenience for him, as well. Eventually, all I was getting from him was hostility and disapproval.”

“That’s no way to live,” Tom said in a voice so gravelly it almost hurt to hear it.

“No,” Jane agreed softly, “it isn’t. And I knew that. But it still took a couple more years of pain and fear and the most awful guilt before I was finally able to tell David I wanted out. It was on the eve of our twenty-first wedding anniversary. I think it was partly that-” she smiled a little “-partly the fact that I’d just turned forty. Maybe a little that Lynn was a senior in high school, and I knew she was going to be leaving home soon. Then in a few more years, Tracy…and I’d be truly alone.

“Anyway-” she drew a deep, shuddering breath “-I did it, and it was a hell I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and I vowed that I would never, ever go through something like that again. I also vowed,” and finally she had to whisper, “that I wouldn’t let myself settle, ever again, for anything less than someone who would love me, cherish me…and give me the freedom to fly. It’s been five years, dammit, and I haven’t.” She paused to snatch an agonized breath before blurting out, “Do you think it’s too much to ask?”

Tom shook his head. There was a long silence while he scowled at the floor.

“And now,” she said gently, and his eyes came back to her, warily, still frowning, as if he knew what she was going to say, “you are asking me to give you…all these feelings I have for you.” As hard as it was, she gazed at him without wavering, letting him see everything that was in her heart at that moment, knowing how it must hurt him to acknowledge it. “You want me to give all that I have to give-because that’s the only way I know how. Tom. When I feel something, I give it all. And believe me, that’s a lot. And in return, you can give me… nothing?”

There was another long silence before he finally coughed and said in that voice that was as raw as tearing cloth, “Right now, yeah. That’s about the size of it.”

He stubbed out his cigarette clumsily, like a blind man, and got to his feet. His smile was as skewed and painful as she’d ever seen it when he looked at her and muttered, “I always have been pretty much of a sonuvabitch.”

He paused, then shook his head and added on a note of wonder, “That’s what made Jen such a miracle, I guess. A man can’t expect to get two such miracles in one lifetime.”

And she knew that he was leaving.

It was what she wanted, of course. It was what had to happen. It was the way things had to be-for her sake. For her well-being and happiness, for all that she’d promised herself, all that she’d dreamed. Tom, of the gentle hands, the thrilling kisses, the unthinkingly caring little gestures…Tom had nothing left of his heart to give her. He’d invested it all in a woman and a child and buried it with them when they died. And she was sorry for him. She ached for his loneliness and need. But she couldn’t sacrifice her need for his. She couldn’t.

Oh, God, she thought, please don’t let me do this.

He knew he had to leave. It wasn’t what he wanted. God knows… Hawk actually thought it might have been easier to leave behind one of his appendages-at least for that they gave you some kind of anesthesia.

This was almost as bad as losing Jen and Jason all over again. In a way, he felt as if he was reliving it, those terrible days after the bombing…the hospital…leaving Marseilles, returning to their house in Florence…walking away from it that last time. Feeling as if his whole body had been tied down with lead weights, as if he were swimming against a powerful undertow, and every move he made, even the smallest move, required a tremendous effort, all the strength in his body, all the power of his will.

How many times he’d railed against his own strength and will, wishing he could just give in, give up and let the undertow take him down. But he hadn’t. Something inside him had made him keep making that next stroke, taking that next step, waking up to face one more day. Doing what had to be done. Simply because it was the way things had to be.

That was what it felt like to him now. Like his whole body was lead, and it took all his strength just to move his arms, to pick up his jacket, put one foot in front of the other. But he did it because it was what had to be done. He had to leave Jane standing there looking at him with her rain-drenched eyes. Walk out of her house, get in his borrowed red Nissan and drive away and never, ever come back. Never see her again.

It wasn’t what he wanted. It was the way things had to be. For her sake, because what he wanted from her was something he couldn’t give her in return. And for his sake, because he knew she’d give it to him if he asked her, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did.

He didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He went outside into the March night, carrying his jacket in one hand, not even feeling the cold, feeling only numbness and a terrible sense of urgency. Because he knew that if he didn’t get to the car, get it started and get the hell away from Jane’s house as fast as he possibly could, he might still do the unforgivable. He could still walk back into her warm happy kitchen and take her in his arms and pull her warm, giving body against him and kiss her until she begged him to stay. He could do it.

Please, God, don’t let me do it.

He had the car started, the lights on and his seat belt fastened, and was just putting the car in gear when suddenly she was there at his window. Adrenaline hit him, and it was like running full tilt into a wall. She lifted a hand and knocked on the glass, but he could only stare at her, shocked and jangling like a malfunctioning fire alarm, all his impulses and responses hopelessly scrambled. Don’t do this. For the love of God, just drive away…

But she was opening the door, bending down to him, and he knew it was too late for that now.

“Jane,” he growled just as she was whispering, “Please, Tom. Come back inside.”

“For God’s sake, what are you doing?” Angrily, he threw the gear lever into Park. The heater came on and blew gusty, humid air against the windshield, fogging it.

“I’d like you to stay.”

He could only look at her, everything inside him vibrating like a badly timed engine. Her face was a pale blur in the artificial moonlight given off by the mercury vapor yard lamps. He saw that she was hugging herself in the loose, soft tunic, and from the sound of her voice, he knew that she was shivering.

He stared at her and didn’t know what to say or how to feel. A moment ago he’d been engaged in a tug-of-war with his own impulses, requiring every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from doing what she was now asking-begging-him to do. And perversely, now that she was asking, it was both easier and harder to resist.

Finally, of all the emotions rattling around inside him at that moment, anger seemed safest, the one least likely to produce a boomerang effect. Because it was impossible, under any circumstances, to imagine Jane angry.

“You want me to stay?” he said harshly. “And all that stuff you just told me in there-what was that, a bunch of garbage?”

“I meant every word of it,” she said in her soft, serene way. “And I still want you to stay.”

“Why??”

Why? Because, Tom Hawkins, in looking back over the last few days, I’ve realized that the happiest I’ve ever been in my life was when I was with you. And that the most miserable I’ve ever been in my life, since I met you, was when I wasn’t with you. Bottom line? Under any circumstances, it seems I’m happier with you than without you. Go figure, huh?

“Because,” she said, bumpy with shivers of cold and fear. “I want you.”

He almost laughed, and was fully aware of how ironic it would be if he did. After all, she’d done the same thing to him-twice. He didn’t laugh, not out of any particular sense of chivalry or nobility, but because, even in the bad light, he could see the fear and vulnerability in her face. It had about the same effect on his anger that the Nissan’s defroster was having on the fogged-up windshield.

“You want me?” he said roughly. A pulse began to scrabble behind his belt buckle. “Hell, I want you, too-I told you that. That’s not what this is about, is it?”

She didn’t answer; her face appeared frozen, her eyes fathomless pools. He realized that he’d never wanted anything so much as to have her close to him at that moment, wrapped up in his arms, naked, legs entangled, breaths comingled, and to drive the chill from her body with the raging heat in his. It was like nothing he’d ever felt