'When? And how? The day I arrived, maybe? When I walked through that door and you threw your arms around me because I was your escape route from Dominique. I knew then that you were the same man I'd known, only it was a bit weird because eleven years had passed and you
'And afterward? You knew I was falling in love with you. I was making plans for our future, and you let me make them although you knew there might not be a future-dear God!'
Her temper flared. She faced him squarely, and there was a steely look in her eyes that was new to him.
'And just what should I have told you, Luke? That I might be dying so that you could be careful not to love me? I should have warned you to hold off and not let your feelings get too deep in case you got hurt? You're very good at holding off, aren't you? Good at protecting yourself by not getting too involved. That's how you survive. By never getting too close to anyone. Generous, great-hearted Luke, with a smile for everyone and a heart for nobody.'
'That's not what I meant,' he cried angrily.
'I think it is. You'd have liked to know, so that you could give just so much and no more.'
He paled with shock. 'I don't believe you said that to me,' he whispered.
'Why not? It's how it's always been with you. Over the years I've gotten used to it. Only I'd forgotten-since I came here, I'd forgotten-and that was very silly of me-'
Appalled, they stared at each other and at the abyss that yawned between them. They no longer looked the same to each other. He saw a woman who'd snubbed him to take the hardest journey alone, who'd spoken of love while secretly despising him. She saw a man who'd fooled her with pretty promises it wasn't in him to keep. Luke's promises were always pretty, she thought in anguish. Best hung on the wall to be admired, but not for everyday use.
She wanted to tell him that she hadn't meant the last words. They were needlessly cruel because she was angry and bitter. But the seconds passed and she couldn't speak.
'I think I'll go out for a while,' he said after a moment. 'I need to do some thinking.'
'Sure,' she said listlessly. She didn't look up when the door closed, and the next moment she heard his car drive away.
Luke had meant to be away for an hour at most, but once on the freeway he seemed to go into a hypnotic trance in which there was nothing but a stream of traffic coming from infinity and going to infinity. He was cold with shock, terrified, disorientated, an alien in a strange universe.
All the familiar places had vanished, or tilted into ugly, unrecognizable shapes that taunted him with his own uselessness. Somehow the earth had turned back on its axis, and his life seemed to be whirling past him in reverse order. It was yesterday and he was completely happy with the woman he loved, their hearts and minds open to each other-except that hers wasn't open to him at all.
It was last week, and she was walking through his door with Josie, transforming a life that had been growing increasingly empty and pointless. He wanted to reach out and seize that moment, because if he could do that everything might still come right. But it was whisked out of his hand and away into the darkness, and suddenly he was back eleven years, saying goodbye at the airport, leaving her, knowing it was all wrong. And that was the moment where he really wanted to stop the world. And it was too late.
He lost track of time. The darkness turned into dawn and still he drove. He stopped for gas and returned to the car like a zombie. When he finally halted at a motel he had to detach his hands from the steering wheel one finger at a time.
He checked in and called home but there was no answer. She must be asleep. He called his parents, who said Pippa and Claudia had collected Josie hours earlier. She'd seemed cheerful and normal, and somehow that made his heart sink because it reminded him how hard it was to know what Pippa was really thinking. But then he recalled that Claudia had been with her, and he felt better.
He tried calling her again and again, but there was never a reply, and at last he fell asleep with his hand on the phone. At first light he started the long journey back, driving as fast as he dared.
He told himself that now he'd got everything under control. There was no way he would let her fly back to England. She must stay here, and he'd book her into the finest hospital with the finest surgeons. He would get her the best of everything, and when she left the hospital he would wait on her hand and foot, caring for her as no woman had ever been cared for before. She would get well, and their future would go on as before. He tried to shut out the sound of the phone ringing and ringing without answer.
It was late afternoon when he reached his house. Even before he opened the back door he could see a shadow inside, and relief swept over him. '
But it wasn't Pippa.
'She's gone, Luke,' Claudia said. 'She flew back to England yesterday. I got here just as she was leaving. She told me what had happened.'
'And you let her go?'
'I couldn't stop her. It's her decision, and by all accounts she shouldn't put that operation off too long. Why should I try to make her stay? So that you could quarrel with her again? Do you think she could take that?'
'How much did she tell you?'
'Everything. I knew she wasn't well. I gave her the name of my doctor in Montecito-'
'You knew she was ill?'
'So would you have, if you'd used your eyes. Those headaches that kept happening, the shortness of breath- yes, I know she had an explanation, but it was all too much, and it happened too often for a young woman. I don't think she really had headaches at all. They were an excuse to lie down and save her energy.'
'Why didn't you say this before?'
'It wasn't for me to tell you. She had the right to pick her own time. Besides, I didn't guess how seriously ill she was. When you think what she's gone through, keeping it to herself, nobody to confide in. And always looking at the future, wondering if it's a blank, and smiling, pretending. It must have been so lonely. I don't know how she endured it. Oh, Luke, sweetie-' He was weeping.
'Years ago, we used to tell each other everything,' he said hoarsely.
'I doubt that. You might think it, but I'll bet there was a lot she couldn't tell you because you didn't want to know. Like how much she loved you.'
'Of course I wanted to know-'
'Now perhaps, but then? In those days, did you ever tell her that you loved her?''
He fought to remember. 'Yes-no-I must have-'
'I wonder. Love means chains to you, Luke. I know that's true now, so I can imagine what you were like then.'
He sat at the breakfast bar and rested his head on his hands. 'What really hurts is that she shut me out. All the time letting me think things were fine when she was actually carrying that burden and not letting me share it. Keeping me on the outside. I'd have liked to help her, be there for her when she was feeling bad. But obviously she doesn't think I could do that. I'm fine for a holiday romance, but not for when things get serious, right?''
'I don't know,' Claudia said. 'Only Pippa could say.'
'I tried to tell her this, but she just thought I was mad at her for not warning me, so that I could stop myself loving her. As though there was any way I could stop that. She actually said that I would have liked to have kept my distance-protected myself-'
'And wouldn't you?'
'No. I love Pippa. I always have. I pretended I didn't-who did I think I was fooling?'
'I think you fooled her,' Claudia said.
Before her eyes his face changed, becoming older. 'It's my own fault, isn't it?' he said slowly. 'I made her think the worst of me. Why should she think anything else? I even ran away now. I didn't mean to. I wanted to come back quickly, but I lost track of time, and now she's gone.' He closed his eyes. 'Tell me some more about when you got here. What happened?'
'I drove her over to your parents to collect Josie, and then to the airport. Frank and Elly were there, and they all caught the night flight to London. Then I came back here to wait for you.'
'I called,' he said, wishing his brain wasn't so fuzzy. 'There was no answer.'
'I was probably still out seeing them off.'
'Josie must have wondered why I wasn't there to say goodbye, poor little kid. Does she know how ill her
