'I don't know what you mean.'
'If it weren't for you, I'd probably be curled up in a ball someplace. You've taken care of me in a way no one else ever has. But does that mean we can only get along if I need you? Not if you need me?'
Paige toyed with one of the wrinkled oily olives in her salad. 'I like taking care of people. I just never get the chance.'
'You're getting the chance now, and I'm not ready to give it up.' Her voice broke a little. 'I feel battered, Paige. You've given me sanctuary. I'm not used to needing people, and it scares me to think about how much I need you right now.'
Paige's eyes filled in response. 'I always wanted to be just like you.'
Susannah tried to smile, but couldn't quite manage it. 'And I wanted to be like you-a rebel giving the world the finger.'
'Some rebel,' Paige scoffed. 'I don't want my life to be this way. I'm tired of running all over the world and having sex with men I can't stand.'
'Then why do you do it?'
'I don't know. Sex lets me connect, you know. Except I don't connect at all, and that makes me hate myself.'
And then she told Susannah about the boy who had raped her when she was sixteen. She spoke of Aristo and Luigi and Fabio and the string of lovers who existed like spoiled meat everywhere she went. She talked about the filmmaker she had imagined she was in love with and the abortion she couldn't quite forget.
Afterward, they were silent. Susannah thought of the roles they had been assigned from the time they were small children. Paige played the rebel daughter while she took the part of the obedient conventional one. But all along it should have been the other way around. They were like two sisters who had gotten their parts mixed up at some cosmic version of Central Casting.
Paige abruptly shattered the silence. 'I'm starved.'
Their dinner had long grown cold, but they fell on it anyway, both of them suddenly lighthearted from the connection they had made with each other.
'You know what I really want?' Paige said, stuffing a gooey chunk of eggplant into her mouth with her fingers. 'I want to mother the whole world. Sort of like a slutty version of Mother Teresa.'
Susannah, who hadn't imagined she would even be able to smile again, burst out in laughter. They drank more wine and Paige told terrible jokes and they cleaned up the dishes together. Afterward, Paige moved a small lamp into the center of the kitchen table. She gave Susannah her old mulish look. 'I bought something for us in the village. If you start laughing again, I won't speak to you for the rest of my life.'
'All right. I won't laugh.'
'Promise?'
'I promise.'
Paige reached into one of the cupboards and pulled out a cheap coloring book along with a brand new package of Crayola crayons.
Susannah hooted with laughter. 'You want us to color?'
Paige gave her a snotty look. 'Do you have a problem with that?'
'Oh, no. I think it's a wonderful idea.' Without thinking about what she was doing, she swept her sister into her arms and hugged her so tightly that Paige let out a yelp.
They settled down at the table, chairs butted up next to each other as the two Faulconer sisters bent their heads over the coloring book. Susannah worked on the left page, her sister on the right. Paige fancifully shaded her cartoon cow in pinks and roses, then added a comically oversized hat. Her artistic eye held no regard for the thick black outlines of the drawing, even as her homey soul craved strong, respectable borders.
Susannah neatly outlined all the separate parts of her lady pig before she dutifully filled in the blocks of color. Constriction was fine in coloring books, she discovered, but it wouldn't do at all in real life.
'Not fair, Susannah. You wore the point down on the blue crayon. I can't stand it when the points aren't sharp.'
And because Susannah cared more about pushing life to its limits than she did about crayons, she gave Paige the sharp ones and used the dull, blunt nubs herself.
It was an arrangement that made them both blissfully happy.
Chapter 24
Mitch stood at the edge of the patio and gazed down at the secluded beach from behind a pair of silver-rimmed aviator's sunglasses. A sweat stain had dared to form a patch on the back of his pale blue knit shirt, and his gray slacks were rumpled from the long plane trip. But fresh clothes were the furthest thing from his mind as he watched the two women playing in the surf below.
Paige's body, with its full centerfold breasts, was the more voluptuous, but it was Susannah's lean, thoroughbred form that held his attention. Water glittered like crystals on her shoulders, her breasts, and the flat plane of her belly. It slithered down the small of her back and glossed her small, sweet ass as she waded at the edge of the waves.
He knew he shouldn't watch, but the sight of her held him in a grip that was so powerfully erotic, he couldn't turn his head away. Thou shalt not covet thy partner's wife, a voice whispered. But he had been coveting his partner's wife for a very long time.
He didn't know exactly when in the past few years friendship had turned to love or affection had become desire. There was no specific moment he could point to and say-now! Right now I know that Susannah Faulconer is the woman I've been looking for my entire life. He certainly hadn't wanted to fall in love with her. It was messy. Inconvenient. It absolutely violated his moral code. But just the sight of her filled him with a piercing sweetness that transcended anything he had ever felt for a woman.
Except now that her farce of a marriage was finally over, that sweetness had been distorted by anger. For years he had kept his emotions firmly leashed when he was around her. He had never slipped, not once. But when he had heard what had happened, something inside him snapped. He wanted to shake her for her stupidity, for all those wasted years she had held on. He wanted to shake her until he rattled loose whatever it was inside her that had made her an emotional slave to Sam Gamble.
And now he would have to comfort her. He would have to be good old Mitch, patting her back and pretending to be sad right along with her. He would have to be her compassionate and understanding friend when he didn't want to be a friend at all, when he wanted to kick up his heels and shout, 'Good riddance.'
That's what he wanted her to do, too. He wanted her to look up into his eyes and say, 'Thank God that's over. Now you and I have a chance.'
But Susannah wasn't frivolous with her emotions, and he knew that wouldn't happen-not for a very long time, if ever.
The recent turn of events at SysVal made everything more complicated. As he remembered the crisis that had arisen so abruptly, he wondered what he would do if she weren't ready to go back with him.
Paige looked up at the cottage, interrupting his thoughts. He could tell by the way her body grew still that she had spotted him, but he didn't back away. Susannah continued to play in the waves, so he knew that her sister hadn't shared the news that they had an observer. If Paige wasn't going to tell, neither would he. He continued to watch.
Susannah was astonished to see the back of a man's head and shoulders rising above one of the patio chairs as she came up from the beach. He turned and smiled at her, the sun glinting off the metal rims of his aviator glasses as he stood.
'Well, if it isn't SysVal's lost lady.'
'Mitch! What are you doing here?'
'I was in the neighborhood.'
She rushed toward him and then remembered that she was naked beneath her beach towel. Clutching it more tightly in her fist, she leaned forward and kissed a jaw that bore an uncharacteristically rakish stubble.
