CARLY HAD BEEN down in the morgue in the basement of the newspaper building, reading up on past articles about shelters for battered women, and her heart did a little leap when the doors whisked open in the lobby to reveal Mark.
Her instant smile faded when their eyes linked, however, and she knew in that moment that she’d waited too long to tell him about the play. She wanted to explain, but when she tried to speak, no sound came out of her mouth.
Mark jabbed a button on the panel and the doors closed. The look in his eyes was cold and remote. “I guess I didn’t lose those bets with my buddies after all,” he said, his voice as rough as gravel in a rusty can. “I wasn’t in love—just lust.”
Carly sagged against the wall of the elevator, her hands gripping the stainless-steel railing. “That was cruel,” she said. “I had a reason for what I did.”
He struck another button, and the elevator stopped where it was. His hands came to rest against the wall on either side of Carly’s head, and his eyes bored into hers. “Oh?” he rasped.
She swallowed, wanting to duck beneath his arm and start the elevator going again, but unable to move. She was like a sparrow gazing into the eyes of a cobra. “I wanted a professional opinion,” she managed to say. “I was h-hoping to persuade you to let Broken Vows be produced.”
Mark ran the tip of one index finger down the V of her blouse in a impudent caress. “And make lots of money? The joke’s on you, baby—I already have a fortune. And until an hour ago I would have given you anything you wanted.”
Carly’s eyes stung with tears of humiliation and frustration. “Will you stop being a melodramatic bastard and listen to me, please? I don’t give a damn about your money—I never did! I wanted to see the play produced because something that good should be—”
“Shared with the world?” he interrupted acidly, arching one eyebrow. “Come on, Carly—that’s a cliché.”
“I’m not the one who said it,” she pointed out, battling for composure. “You did.”
He turned away, touched another button and set the elevator moving again. “Goodbye, Carly,” he said. His broad shoulders barred her from him like a high, impenetrable wall, and when the doors opened on their floor, he stepped out.
Carly couldn’t move, she was so filled with pain. And she let the elevator go all the way back to the lobby before she pressed the proper button. Reaching her floor, she hurried into her office, glancing neither right nor left, and closed the door.
She was sitting behind her desk, still trying to pull herself together, when Emmeline buzzed her and announced, with a question in her voice, that Helen Holbrook was on the line.
“Hello, Helen,” Carly greeted Mark’s mother sadly, not knowing what to expect. Despite their conversation in the garden that day in San Francisco, the woman was probably furious with her, and Carly steeled herself to be harangued.
“Edina told me about the play,” Helen said, her voice calm. “She said Mark wasn’t pleased that you’d shown it to her.”
Recalling the way he’d looked at her in the elevator, the cold, bitter way he’d spoken, Carly was anguished. “I’d say that was an understatement,” she got out. “He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me now.”
Helen sighed. “Mark can be positively insufferable. He’s hardheaded, just like his father.”
A despairing smile tugged at the corners of Carly’s mouth. “You’re being very kind,” she said, “but there’s something else you’re trying to tell me, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” Helen confessed in a rush. “Carly, something has happened, and I don’t want Mark to be told about it over the telephone. I must ask you to talk to him for me.”
Images of another automobile accident, with Nathan seriously hurt, filled Carly’s mind with garish sounds and colors. “What is it?” she whispered.
“Jeanine has crashed her car again,” Helen said sadly. “Nathan wasn’t with her, thank God, but naturally he’s very upset.”
Carly’s forehead was resting in her hand. “And Jeanine?”
“She’s in a coma, Carly, and not expected to live.”
Carly squeezed her eyes closed, remembering the beautiful auburn-haired woman who had once been Mark’s wife. “My God.”
“Jeanine has her parents, but Nathan needs Mark. Carly, could you please go to him and tell him, as gently as you can, what’s happened?”
After swallowing hard, she nodded and said, “Yes.” Her heart twisted inside her to think how frightened Nathan must be. “Yes, Helen, I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you,” Helen replied with tears in her voice. Then she added, “I’ll try to reason with Mark while he’s here. He loves you, and he’s an idiot if he throws away what you’ve got together.”
Carly thought of the look she’d seen in Mark’s eyes and grieved. She knew that as far as he was concerned, their relationship was over. “Thanks,” she said softly. Then the two women said their goodbyes and hung up.
Carly found Mark in his office, standing at the window and glaring out at the city. His name sounded hoarse when she said it.
He turned to glower at her.
“Mark, there’s been an accident,” she said in measured tones. She saw the fear leap in his eyes and added quickly, “Nathan wasn’t hurt—it’s Jeanine. She’s—she’s not expected to live.”
The color drained out of Mark’s face, and Carly longed to put her arms around him, but she didn’t dare. In his mood, he would probably push her away, and she knew she couldn’t bear that. “Dear God,” he said, and turned around to punch out a number on his telephone.
Carly slipped out of the office and closed the door.
Mark left five minutes later without saying goodbye, and Carly went into the women’s restroom and splashed cold water on her face until she was sure she wouldn’t cry. Then she went back to work.
When quitting time came, the relief was almost overwhelming. She stuffed her files and notes into her briefcase, snatched up her purse and drove home in a daze. When she pulled into her parking space in the apartment lot, she was ashamed to realize the drive had passed without her noticing.
She went to her apartment without stopping for the mail or a word with Janet, dropped all her things just inside the door and then raced into her room, flung herself down on the bed and sobbed.
After a while, though, she began to think that if Mark was so easily angered, so lacking in understanding or compassion, she didn’t want him anyway.
At least, that was what she told herself. Inside, she felt raw and broken, as though a part of her had been torn away. Carly showered, put on shorts and a summer top and went downstairs to exercise.
When she got back to her apartment, the phone was ringing. Carly made a lunge for it and gasped out an anxious hello, praying the caller was Mark. That he’d come to his senses.
She was both disappointed and relieved to hear her father’s voice. “Hello, Carly.”
Instantly Carly wanted to start blubbering again, but she held herself in check. Her dad was hundreds of miles away, and there was nothing to be gained by dragging him into her problems. “Hi, Dad. What’s up?”
“I just thought I’d tell you that I liked that piece you sent me about the food contest. That was really good reporting.”
In spite of everything, Carly had to smile. Don Barnett wasn’t interested in soufflés and coffee cakes, she knew that. He called purely because he cared. “Thanks, Dad. I’m expecting a Pulitzer at the very least.”
He chuckled. “I never was very good at coming up with excuses. I want to know what’s the matter, and don’t you dare say ‘nothing.’”
Carly let out a ragged sigh. “I finally fell head over heels and it didn’t work out.”
“What do you mean, it didn’t work out?” her dad demanded. “What kind of lamebrain would throw away a chance to make a life with you?”
“One named Mark Holbrook.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah,” Carly answered, making a joke to keep from crying. “You can eat a banana split in my honor. I’d like to drown my sorrows in junk food, but if I do, none of my clothes will fit.”
“Maybe you should just get on a plane and come back here, sweetheart. Ryerton may not be a metropolis, but we do have a newspaper.”
Carly was already shaking her head. “No way, Dad—I’m standing my ground. I have as much right to live in Portland and work at the Times as Mark does.”
“Okay, then I’ll come out there. I’ll black his eyes for him.”
Carly smiled at the images that came to her mind, then remembered that Jeanine was lying in a hospital, near death, and was solemn again. “I’m okay,” she insisted. “If you want to come out and visit, terrific. But you’re not blacking anybody’s eyes.”
“Maybe I’ll do that. Maybe I’ll just get on an airplane and come out there.”
“That would be great, Dad,” Carly said, knowing her father wouldn’t leave Kansas except under the most dire circumstances. He hadn’t been on a plane in twenty years.
Five minutes later, when Carly hung up, she dialed the Holbrooks’ number in San Francisco, and Mark’s father answered.
“Hello,” he said when she’d introduced herself, and there was a cool note in his voice.
Carly wondered what Mark had told him about her. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to know if there was any news about Jeanine.”
Mr. Holbrook sighed. “She’s taken a turn for the better,” he said. “The doctors are pretty sure she’ll survive, though how long it will take her to recover completely is anybody’s guess.” His voice was a degree or two warmer now. “Shall I ask Mark to call you when he comes in, Carly?”
She shook her head, forgetting for a moment that Mr. Holbrook couldn’t see her. “No!” she said too quickly. She paused, cleared her throat and tried to speak in a more moderate tone. “Please don’t mention me to Mark at all.”
“But—”
“Please, Mr. Holbrook. It will only upset him, and he needs to be able to concentrate on helping Nathan right now.”
Mark’s father didn’t agree or disagree; he simply asked Carly to take care of herself and said goodbye.
JEANINE WAS LYING in the intensive care unit, tubes running into her bruised and battered body, her head bandaged. She opened her eyes when Mark took her hand, and her fingers tightened around his.
“Nathan...?” she managed to rasp.
“He’s safe, Jeanine.”
Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Are you—taking him home?”
It wouldn’t be a kindness to lie to her, Mark decided. Jeanine needed to know their son would be loved and taken care of. “Yes,” he said, still holding her hand. He didn’t love her—since his relationship with Carly he’d come to realize that he never had—but it hurt him to see her suffering.
“I was drinking,” she said clearly, her eyes pleading with Mark to understand.
He nodded. “You need some help, Jeanine.”
She tried to smile. “Maybe it’s hopeless.”
Mark shook his head. “You’ll make it,” he said hoarsely, even though he had no idea whether that was true or not. Jeanine was in serious trouble, and they both knew it.
“Take care of Nathan,” she finished. And then her eyes drifted closed and she slept.
Mark went out into the hallway to find Jeanine’s father and mother waiting. They both had deep shadows under their eyes.
“Was she upset that you’re taking Nathan?” his former mother-in-law asked.
Mark shook his head. “She knows I love him,” he said, pitying these people, wanting to ease their pain but not knowing how. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”
The Martins nodded in weary unison, and Mark left them to keep their vigil.
When he arrived at his parents’ home, his mother was waiting up for him. She served him a cup of decaffeinated coffee and launched right into her lecture. “You’re a fool, Mark Holbrook. An absolute idiot.”
He sighed and rubbed his tired, burning eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Mother, I’m not in the mood for this.”
“I don’t care what you’re in the mood for,” Helen retorted. “Carly showed Edina that play because she hoped some professional feedback would convince you to let it be produced, and for no other reason.”
Mark had been cherishing secret dreams of leaving the newspaper business to write plays for over a year, but he hadn’t meant for Broken Vows to be seen by anyone. He’d written it in an attempt to clear his mind of the pain. “When I was married to Jeanine,” he said slowly, “I didn’t know where she was or what she was up to half the time. As you already know, I had some pretty unpleasant surprises. I don’t want to live like that again.”
“Carly is nothing like Jeanine, and in your heart, you know that. Besides, I believe you love her.”
Mark sighed. He was tired, and he ached from the core of his spirit out. “Carly is more like Jeanine than you’d like to think, Mother,” he said evenly, “and as for loving her—I’ll get over it.”
“Will you?” Helen challenged. “Don’t be so sure of that, my dear. You can’t turn love on and shut it off like a faucet, you know.”
He thrust himself out of his chair and bent to kiss his mother’s forehead. “Give it up,” he said with quiet firmness. “It’s over between Carly and me.”
Upstairs, Mark carefully opened the guest-room door and stepped inside. Nathan lay sprawled on the bed, arms and legs askew, his eyelids flickering as he dreamed.
Gently Mark brushed his son’s hair back from his forehead. I wanted you to come and live with me, buddy, he told Nathan silently, speaking from his heart, but I didn’t expect it to happen like this. Honest.
The child stirred, then opened his eyes. “Dad?” he asked on a long yawn.
Mark sat down on the edge of the bed. “Sorry, big guy. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Is Mom okay?”
“Yeah,” Mark answered. “But she has to stay in the hospital for a while.”
Nathan accepted that with the sometimes remarkable stoicism of a ten-year-old. “I can visit her, can’t I?”
In that moment the decision was made. Mark would return to San Francisco, buy a town house and build a life for himself and his son. Maybe he would even write a play—one that didn’t touch every raw nerve in his soul, one he could bear to show to an agent. “Sure you can visit her,” he said. “Now get some sleep. You’ve got school tomorrow.”
Nathan screwed up his face. “I have to go to school?”
Mark chuckled. “No,” he teased. “Of course not. A fifth-grade education will take you a long way in the world.” He started to rise off the bed, but Nathan stopped him with one anxious little hand.
“Dad, where’s Carly? Is she going to live with us?”
Those two simple questions left Mark feeling as though he’d just stepped into the whirling blades of a giant fan. Carly, he thought, and the name was a lonely cry deep in his spirit. “Carly’s in Portland, doing her job,” he managed to say, after a moment or two of recovery. “And no, it’s just going to be the two of us for a while, buddy.”
For a moment Nathan looked as though he might cry. Mark could see that the kid had been spinning dreams of a real home and a regular family in his head, and seeing his disappointment was painful. “Mom said Carly probably had a baby growing inside her. Does she, Dad?”
Mark swallowed, and it felt like he’d gulped down a petrified grapefruit. God, I hope not, he thought. “No,” he said forcefully, trying to convince himself as well as Nathan. “No, big guy, there isn’t any baby.”
EMMELINE LOOKED CONCERNED as she handed Carly her morning coffee. “I guess you know that Mr. Holbrook is leaving the paper and moving back to San Francisco,” she said.
Carly felt as though Emmeline had just flung the scalding contents of the cup all over her. “N-no,” she answered, avoiding the secretary’s gaze and fumbling in the depths of her purse for her glasses. “No, I hadn’t heard about that.”
“Oh,” said Emmeline, and her voice was small and confused. “I’m sorry if I said anything I shouldn’t have.”
Carly took her glasses from their case and poked them onto her face. “What Mr. Holbrook does is nothing to me,” she lied, flipping on her computer. She’d been living at the battered women’s shelter for three days, pretending to be hiding from a violent husband, and she was ready to write about the experiences of the people she’d met there.
Emmeline couldn’t seem to let the subject drop. “His ex-wife was hurt in an accident, you know, and he’s got custody of his son now. I guess he didn’t want to uproot the kid and make it so he couldn’t see his mother.”
“You’re probably right,” Carly answered, deliberately sounding distracted and preoccupied.
Finally Emmeline took the hint. She slipped out of Carly’s office with a muttered goodbye and closed the door behind her. The moment she was alone, Carly slammed one fist down on the desk and whispered, “Damn you, Holbrook. Damn you to hell.”
Fortunately the article absorbed her attention for the rest of the day. As she was leaving that evening, she passed Mark’s office and couldn’t help noticing that Emmeline and several of the other assistants were inside hanging streamers.
“There’ll be a going-away party tomorrow,” Emmeline called to her.
Carly nodded and bit her lower lip. She hadn’t had to say any goodbyes to Mark; he’d said them for her. She made up her mind to busy herself outside the office the next day.
She spent a miserable night, finally falling asleep in the wee hours of the morning, only to be awakened by a wave of nausea with the rising of the sun. One hand clasped over her mouth, she made a dash for the bathroom.
“Oh, great,” she complained, staggering to the kitchen for a cup of chamomile tea, “now I’ve got the flu.”
The tea settled her stomach, though, and after a shower Carly felt better. She also felt guilty about staying away from the office just because of Mark’s going-away party.
Resolutely Carly put on one of her best outfits—a pink silk suit from Hong Kong—and took extra care with her hair and makeup. She walked into the newsroom half an hour later, a Miss United States smile on her face, her briefcase swinging jauntily at her side.
When she was sure no one was watching, she fairly dived into her office and leaned against the door, feeling as though she’d just picked her way through an emotional mine field.
She switched on her computer and opened her briefcase, planning to go over her notes for a proposed article and hide out until Mark had heard a round of for-he’s-a-jolly-good-fellow and left. Then Mr. Clark called an unexpected meeting.
Carly felt like a martyr being summoned from the dungeon for execution. She stood, smoothed her skirt and checked her hair and lipstick in a small mirror pulled from her purse. Then she walked bravely down the hall to the conference room.
Thanks to some cruel fate, she was seated directly across from Mark, and he was making no effort at all to ignore her. His solemn brown eyes studied her thoughtfully while he turned an unsharpened pencil end over end on the tabletop.
Carly willed him to look away, and he seemed to sense that, refusing to give in. Finally she dropped her eyes, her cheeks burning, and devoutly wished she’d followed her original instincts and called in sick that day.
Mr. Clark got up and made a speech about what an honor it had been to work with Mark Holbrook and how they were all going to miss him. Everyone tittered when he mentioned Mark’s plans to write a play—everyone except Carly, that is. Her eyes shot to his face in angry question.
He responded with an infuriating grin.
After what seemed like a millennium, Mr. Clark finished raving about Mark’s accomplishments and suggested that everyone take time for cake and punch. Carly slipped out of the conference room and hurried in the opposite direction.
Even in her office she could hear the laughter and the talk, and it made her heart turn over in her chest. Mark, gone. It was almost impossible to believe that after today she wouldn’t so much as catch a glimpse of him or hear his voice in the hallway.
She hadn’t had such a hard time holding back tears since the time she’d set the stage curtains on fire with one of her flaming batons during the Miss Feed and Grain pageant. She’d been fourteen then, and she felt younger than that now.
The only thing to do was work. That, her father had always told her, was the salve that healed every wound.
She turned to her computer and sat back in her chair when she saw the message that popped up on her screen.
Goodbye, Scoop. Better luck next time.
That did it. Carly’s tears began to flow, and she couldn’t stop them. She was standing at the window, gazing out at the city and frantically drying her cheeks with a wad of tissue, when she heard a gentle rap at the door.
She was afraid to turn around—afraid Mark would be standing there, afraid he wouldn’t. “Yes?”
“The party’s over, Carly,” Emmeline’s voice said quietly. “I’ll cover for you if you want to go home.”
Carly was a trouper, and she knew the show had to go on, no matter what kind of show it was. But the front she was hiding behind was teetering dangerously, and she needed to be alone. She nodded without looking at the assistant, grimly amused that she’d thought no one in the office knew about her affair with Mark.
What a naive little idiot you were, she scolded herself, gathering up her purse and turning off the computer. She left her briefcase behind, under no delusion that she would get any worthwhile work done that night.
When she arrived at her apartment, she stayed only long enough to exchange her silk suit for cut-off jeans and a turquoise T-shirt. She went to a matinee at the mall, where she cried silently all through a comedy, then had supper at a fast-food place. When she still couldn’t face going home after that, she went to another movie.
She never remembered what that one was about.
In the morning Mr. Clark called her into his office and asked her if she was aware that she was covered by a company health plan. “You don’t look well, Ms. Barnett,” he finished.
It’s only a broken heart, Carly wanted to reply. In about sixty years it will probably heal. “I guess I’m just a little tired,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t decide the job was too much for her. Being demoted or getting fired would be beyond bearing.
“I liked that piece you did on battered women. It was damn good.”
Carly was reassured, if only slightly. “Thank you. I’ve been thinking about a piece on women entrepreneurs—”
Mr. Clark waved her into silence. “No, that’s been done too much lately. There’s a river rafting expedition leaving on Saturday—one of those things meant to give executives confidence in their inner strength. I’d like you to go along on that. It’s going to last about three days.”
Carly thought of pitching through rapids and spinning in whirlpools and felt her flu symptoms returning, but she managed a brilliant smile. “That sounds exciting,” she said.
“Of course, we’ll send a photographer along, too. That way, if one of you drowns, the other one can still bring back the story.” Mr. Clark beamed at his joke, and Carly dutifully laughed.
Carly took down the information he gave her and left the office early. She had preparations to make, and she was going to need hiking boots, flannel shirts and a sleeping bag, among other things. She went shopping and bought more things than she could possibly have carried without help from the sales staff.
On the way home her car mysteriously headed toward Mark’s house instead of the apartment building. She knew he wasn’t there as soon as she reached the end of the driveway, but she didn’t leave. She just sat, her eyes brimming with tears, remembering how she and Mark had talked and laughed and made love in that house. She’d given him her virginity there, and no matter how many men she might meet in the future, she would never forget that first night in Mark’s arms.
She touched the gold bracelet he’d given her, then fumbled open the catch. Stepping up onto the porch, she dropped the glimmering chain through the mail slot. Then Carly hurried back to her car, started the ignition and left.
That night she slept, but it was only because of nervous exhaustion. And in the morning she was sick again. Evidently, she decided, she’d caught some kind of intermittent flu. She made herself a cup of herbal tea, forced it down and presently felt better.
She spent the day at a local high-school gymnasium, sitting on the bleachers with a lot of other potential adventurers, listening to the head river rafter explain what was involved in the expedition. He said the trip wasn’t for weaklings, and anybody who couldn’t stand three measly days grappling with the wilderness should just go home and forget the whole thing.
That option sounded good to Carly, but she had her job to think about, so she stayed. Besides, she needed to stay busy in order to keep herself from dwelling on Mark and all the things that could have been.
She drove home that night and found a message from Jim Benson, the anchorman, on her machine. He obviously knew that Mark had left town, and he wanted to know if Carly would have supper with him after the six o’clock newscast.
“What the hell?” Carly said to her empty apartment. Life was like a river, and she had to raft down it. She called Jim back and left a message with his assistant that she’d meet him at the station at seven o’clock.