The evening was soft and smelled of rain. There were lilacs blooming, their scent an elegant whisper on the air. She remembered they had been Joanie’s favorite. To the west, the sun was sinking below the mountains in a blaze of red. Cows stood slack-hipped in the fading light. They walked around the side of the house toward a field thick with hay.
“I hear you’ve taken on a student.”
“Mrs. Driscoll gets around.”
“Actually, I heard it from John Cory while I was giving him a tetanus shot. He heard it from Bill Crampton—that’s Annie’s father’s brother. He runs a repair shop out of his garage. All the men hang around over there to tell lies and complain about their wives.”
Despite her dragging discomfort, Vanessa had to laugh. “At least it’s reassuring to know the grapevine still works.”
“So how’d the lesson go?”
“She has…possibilities.”
“How does it feel to be on the other end?”
“Odd. I promised I’d teach her how to play rock.”
“You?”
Vanessa bristled. “Music,” she said primly, “is music.”
“Right.” He put a fingertip behind her earlobe so that he could watch the jewels she wore there catch the last light of the setting sun. And so that he could touch her. “I can see it now, Vanessa Sexton on keyboards with a heavy metal band.” He considered a minute. “Do you think you could wear one of those metal corsets, or whatever they’re called?”
“No, I couldn’t, no matter what they’re called. And if you’re only along to make fun of me, I can walk by myself.”
“Touchy.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. He was glad the scent of his shampoo was still in her hair. He wondered if any of the men he’d seen her linked with in magazines and newspapers had felt the same way.
“I like Jack,” she said.
“So do I.” They walked along a fence thick with honeysuckle.
“Joanie seems so happy here, on the farm, with her family. I often wondered about her.”
“Did you ever think about me? After you’d left, after you’d hit it so big, did you ever think about me?”
She looked out over the fields. “I suppose I did.”
“I kept thinking you would write.”
Too much, she thought. Too often. “Time passed, Brady. And at first I was too angry and hurt. At you and at my mother.” Because she wanted to lighten the mood, she smiled. “It took me years to forgive you for dumping me the night of the prom.”
“I didn’t.” He swore and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Look, it’s a stupid thing and long over, but I’m tired of taking the rap.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t dump you, damn it. I’d rented my first tux, bought my first corsage. Pink and yellow roses.” Now that he had brought it up, he felt like a total fool. “I guess I was probably as excited about that night as you were.”
“Then why did I sit in my room wearing my new dress for two and a half hours?”
He blew out a long breath. “I got arrested that night.”
“What?”
“It was a mistake,” he said carefully. “But by the time it was straightened out, it was too late to explain. The charges were pretty thin, to say the least, but I hadn’t exactly been a Boy Scout up until then.”
“But what were you arrested for?”
“Statutory rape.” At her astonished look, he shrugged. “I was over eighteen. You weren’t.”
It took almost a full minute before it could sink in, before she could find her voice. “But that’s ridiculous. We never…”
“Yeah.” To his undying regret. “We never.”
She pulled both hands through her hair as she tried to reason it out. “Brady, it’s almost too ludicrous to believe. Even if we had been intimate, it wouldn’t have had anything to do with rape. You were only two years older than I was, and we loved each other.”
“That was the problem.”
She put a hand on her stomach, kneading a deep ache. “I’m sorry, so sorry. How miserable you must have been. And your parents. Oh, God. What a horrible thing for anyone to go through. But who in the world would have had you arrested? Who would have—” She saw his face, and her answer. “Oh, no!” she moaned, turning away. “Oh, God!”
“He was dead sure I’d taken advantage of you. And he was dead sure I would ruin your life.” And maybe, Brady thought as he stared out over the fields, he wouldn’t have been far off. “The way he put it, he was going to see I paid for the first, and he was going to do what needed to be done to prevent the second.”
“He could have asked me,” she whispered. “For once in my life, he could have asked me.” She shivered against a quick chill. “It’s my fault.”
“That’s a stupid response.”
“No,” she said quietly. “It’s my fault, because I could never make him understand how I felt. Not about you, not about anything.” She took a long breath before she looked at Brady again. “There’s nothing I can say that can make up for what he did.”
“There’s nothing you have to say.” He put his hands on her shoulders, and would have drawn her back against him if she hadn’t held herself so stiff. Instead, he massaged her knotted muscles, patiently, with his competent physician’s hands. “You were as innocent as I was, Van. We never straightened it out, because for the first few days I was too mad to try and you were too mad to ask. Then you were gone.”
Her vision blurred before she blinked back the tears. She could picture him all too easily—young, rebellious, angry. Afraid. “I don’t know what to say. You must have been terrified.”
“Some,” he admitted. “I was never formally charged, just held for questioning. You remember old Sheriff Grody—he was a hard-edged, potbellied bully. And he didn’t like me one little bit. Later I realized he was just taking the opportunity to make me sweat. Someone else might have handled it differently.”
There was no use bringing up the way he’d sat in the cell, bone-scared, helplessly angry, waiting to be allowed his phone call, while the sheriff and Sexton consulted in the next room.
“There was something else that happened that night. Maybe it balanced the scales some. My father stood up for me. I’d never known he would stand up for me that way, no questions, no doubts, just total support. I guess it changed my life.”
“My father,” Vanessa said. “He knew how much that night meant to me. How much you meant to me. All my life I did what he wanted—except for you. He made sure he had his way even there.”
“It’s a long way behind us, Van.”
“I don’t think I can—” She broke off on a muffled gasp of pain.
He turned her quickly. “Vanessa?”
“It’s nothing. I just—” But the second wave came too sharp, too fast, doubling her over. Moving fast, he scooped her up and headed back for the house. “No, don’t. I’m all right. It was just a twinge.”
“Breathe slow.”
“Damn it, I said it’s nothing.” Her head fell back as the burning increased. “You’re not going to cause a scene,” she said between shallow breaths.
“If you’ve got what I think you’ve got, you’re going to see one hell of a scene.”
The kitchen was empty as he came in, so he took the back stairs. At least she’d stopped arguing, Brady thought as he laid her on Joanie’s bed. When he switched on the lamp, he could see that her skin was white and clammy.
“I want you to try to relax, Van.”
“I’m fine.” But the burning hadn’t stopped. “It’s just stress, maybe a little indigestion.”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.” He eased down beside her. “I want you to tell me when I hurt you.” Very gently, he pressed on her lower abdomen. “Have you ever had your appendix out?”
“No.”
“Any abdominal surgery?”
“No, nothing.”
He kept his eyes on her face as he continued the examination. When he pressed just under her breastbone, he saw the flare of pain in her eyes before she cried out. Though his face was grim, he took her hand soothingly.
“Van, how long have you been having pain?”
She was ashamed to have cried out. “Everyone has pain.”
“Answer the question.”
“I don’t know.”
He struggled for patience. “How does it feel now?”
“It’s fine. I just want—”
“Don’t lie to me.” He wanted to curse her as pungently as he was cursing himself. He’d known she wasn’t well, almost from the moment he’d seen her again. “Is there a burning sensation?”
Because she saw no choice, she relented. “Some.”
It had been just about an hour since they’d eaten, he thought. The timing was right. “Have you had this happen before, after you’ve had alcohol?”
“I don’t really drink anymore.”
“Because you get this reaction?”
She closed her eyes. Why didn’t he just go and leave her alone? “I suppose.”
“Do you get gnawing aches, here, under the breastbone?”
“Sometimes.”
“And in your stomach?”
“It’s more of a grinding, I guess.”
“Like acute hunger pangs.”
“Yes.” The accuracy of his description made her frown. “It passes.”
“What are you taking for it?”
“Just over-the-counter stuff.” And enough was enough. “Brady, becoming a doctor’s obviously gone to your head. You’re making a case out of nothing. I’ll take a couple of antacids and be fine.”
“You don’t treat an ulcer with antacids.”
“I don’t have an ulcer. That’s ridiculous. I’m never sick.”
“You listen to me.” He propped a hand on either side of her head. “You’re going into the hospital for tests—X rays, an upper G.I. And you’re going to do what I tell you.”
“I’m not going to the hospital.” The very idea of it made her remember the horror of her father’s last days. “You’re not my doctor.”
He swore at her richly.
“Nice bedside manner. Now get out of my way.”
“You stay right here. And I mean right here.”
She obeyed, only because she didn’t know if she could manage to stand. Why now? she wondered as she fought against the pain. Why here? She’d had nasty attacks like this before, but she’d always been alone, and she’d always been able to weather them. And she would weather it this time. Just as she was struggling to sit up, Brady came back with his father.
“Now, what’s all this?” Ham said.
“Brady overreacting.” She managed to smile, and would have swung her legs off the bed if Brady hadn’t stopped her.
“She doubled up with pain when we were outside. There’s burning in the abdomen, acute tenderness under the breastbone.”
Ham sat on the bed and began his own gentle probing. His questions ran along the same lines as Brady’s, and his face became more and more sober at her answers. At last he sat back.
“Now what’s a young girl like you doing with an ulcer?”
“I don’t have an ulcer.”
“You’ve got two doctors telling you different. I assume that’s your diagnosis, Brady.”
“It is.”
“Well, you’re both wrong.” Vanessa struggled to push herself up. Ham merely shifted the pillows behind her and eased her back. With a nod, he looked back at his son.
“Of course, we’ll confirm it with X rays and tests.”
“I’m not going in the hospital.” She was desperately hanging on to one small bit of control. “Ulcers are for Wall Street brokers and CEOs. I’m a musician, for God’s sake. I’m not a compulsive worrier, or someone who lets tension rule my life.”
“I’ll tell you what you are,” Brady said, anger shimmering in his voice. “You’re a woman who hasn’t bothered to take care of herself, who’s too damn stubborn to sit back and admit when she’s taken on too much. And you’re going to the hospital if I have to hog-tie you.”
“Easy there, Dr. Tucker,” Ham said mildly. “Van, have you had any vomiting, any traces of blood?”
“No, of course not. It’s just a little stress, maybe a little overwork—”
“A little ulcer,” he told her firmly. “But I think we can treat it with medication if you’re going to hang tough about the hospital.”
“I am. And I don’t see that I need medication, or two doctors hovering over me.”
“Testy,” Ham commented. “You’ll have medication or the hospital, young lady. Remember, I’m the one who treated you for damn near everything, starting with diaper rash. I think a cimetidine might clear this up,” he said to Brady. “As long as she stays away from spicy food and alcohol for the length of the treatment.”
“I’d like it better if she had the tests.”
“So would I,” he agreed. “But short of dosing her with morphine and dragging her in, I think this is the cleanest way to treat it.”
“Let me think about the morphine,” Brady grumbled, and made his father chuckle.
“I’m going to write you a prescription,” he told Vanessa. “You get it filled tonight. You have twenty minutes before the pharmacy in Boonsboro closes.”
“I’m not sick,” she said, pouting.
“Just humor your soon-to-be-stepfather. I’ve got my bag downstairs. Brady, why don’t you come along with me?”
Outside the door, Ham took his son’s arm and pulled him to the head of the stairs. “If the medication doesn’t clear it up within three or four days, we’ll put some pressure on her to have the tests. Meanwhile, I think the less stress the better.”
“I want to know what caused it.” Fury vibrated through his voice as he stared at the closed bedroom door.
“So do I. She’ll talk to you,” Ham said quietly. “Just give her some room. I’m going to tell Loretta. Vanessa won’t like that, but I’m going to do it. See that she gets the first dose in her tonight.”
“I will. Dad, I’m going to take care of her.”
“You always meant to.” Ham put a hand on Brady’s shoulder. “Just don’t push too hard too fast. She’s like her mother in that way, tends to pull back when you get close.” He hesitated, and though he reminded himself that his son was a grown man, he could only think that the grown man was his son. “Are you still in love with her?”
“I don’t know. But this time I’m not going to let her get away until I do.”
“Just remember, when a man holds on to something too tight, it slips right through his fingers.” He gave Brady’s shoulder a final squeeze. “I’ll go write that prescription.”
When Brady walked back into the bedroom, Vanessa was sitting on the edge of the bed, embarrassed, humiliated, furious.
“Come on.” His voice was brisk and unsympathetic. “We can just get to the pharmacy before it closes.”
“I don’t want your damn pills.”
Because he was tempted to throttle her, he dipped his hands into his pockets. “Do you want me to carry you out of here, or do you want to walk?”
She wanted to cry. Instead, she rose stiffly. “I’ll walk, thank you.”
“Fine. We’ll take the back stairs.”
She didn’t want to be grateful that he was sparing her the explanations and sympathy. She walked with her chin up and her shoulders squared. He didn’t speak until he slammed the car door.
“Somebody ought to give you a swift right hook.” His engine roared into life. Gravel spit from under the tires.
“I wish you’d just leave me alone.”
“So do I,” he said fervently. He turned off the lane onto asphalt. By the time he’d hit fifth gear, he was calmer. “Are you still having pain?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me, Van. If you can’t think of me as a friend, think of me as a doctor.”
She turned to stare out the darkened window. “I’ve never seen your degree.”
He wanted to gather her close then, rest her head on his shoulder. “I’ll show it to you tomorrow.” He slowed as they came to the next town. He said nothing until they pulled up at the pharmacy. “You can wait in the car. It won’t take long.”
She sat, watching him stride under the lights through the big glass windows of the pharmacy. They were having a special on a popular brand of soft drink. There was a tower of two-liter bottles near the window. There were a few stragglers left inside, most of whom obviously knew Brady, as they stopped to chat while he stood by the drug counter. She hated the feeling of being trapped inside the car with the pain gnawing inside her.
An ulcer, she thought. It wasn’t possible. She wasn’t a workaholic, a worrier, a power-mad executive. And yet, even as she denied it, the grinding ache dragged through her, mocking her.
She just wanted to go home to lie down, to will the pain away into sleep. Oblivion. It would all be gone tomorrow. Hadn’t she been telling herself that for months and months?
When he came back, he set the small white bag in her lap before he started the car. He said nothing as she sat back in the seat with her eyes closed. It gave him time to think.
It didn’t do any good to snap at her. It did even less good to be angry with her for being sick. But it hurt and infuriated him that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him she was in trouble. That she hadn’t trusted herself enough to admit it and get help.
He was going to see that she got that help now, whether she wanted it or not. As a doctor, he would do the same for a stranger. How much more would he do for the only woman he had ever loved?
Had loved, he reminded himself. In this case, the past tense was vital. And because he had once loved her with all the passion and purity of youth, he wouldn’t see her go through this alone.
At the curb in the front of her house, he parked, then walked around the car to open her door. Vanessa climbed out and began the speech she’d carefully planned on the drive.
“I’m sorry if I acted childishly before. And ungrateful. I know you and your father only want to help. I’ll take the medication.”
“Damn right you will.” He took her arm.
“You don’t have to come in.”
“I’m coming in,” he said as he pulled her up the walk. “I’m watching you take the first dose, and then I’m putting you to bed.”
“Brady, I’m not an invalid.”
“That’s right, and if I have anything to say about it, you won’t become one.”
He pushed open the door—it was never locked—and hauled her directly upstairs. He filled a glass in the bathroom, handed it to her, then opened the bottle of medication and shook out a pill himself.
“Swallow.”
She took a moment to scowl at him before she obeyed. “Are you going to charge me for a house call?”
“The first one’s for old times’ sake.” Gripping her arm again, he pulled her into the bedroom. “Now take off your clothes.”
Pain or no pain, she tossed back her head. “Aren’t you supposed to be wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope when you say that?”
He didn’t even bother to swear. Turning, he yanked open a drawer and searched until he found a nightshirt. She would wear silk to bed, he thought, clenching his teeth. Of course she would. After tossing it on the bed, he pushed her around and dragged down her zipper.
“When I undress you for personal reasons, you’ll know it.”
“Cut it out.” Shocked, she caught the dress as it pooled at her waist. He merely tugged the nightshirt over her head.
“I can control my animal lust by thinking of your stomach lining.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Exactly.” He tugged the dress over her hips. The nightshirt drifted down to replace it. “Stockings?”
Unsure if she should be mortified or infuriated, she unrolled them down the length of her legs. Brady gritted his teeth again. No amount of hours in anatomy class could have prepared him for the sight of Vanessa slowly removing sheer stockings in lamplight.
He was a doctor, he reminded himself, and tried to recite the first line of the Hippocratic oath.
“Now get in bed.” He pulled down the quilt, then carefully tucked it up to her chin after she climbed in. Suddenly she looked sixteen again. He clung to his professionalism, setting the bottle of pills on her nightstand. “I want you to follow the directions.”
“I can read.”
“No drinking.” A doctor, he repeated to himself. He was a doctor, and she was a patient. A beautiful patient with sinfully soft skin and big green eyes. “We don’t use bland diets so much anymore, just common sense. Stay away from spicy foods. You’re going to get some relief fairly quickly. In all probability you won’t even remember you had an ulcer in a few days.”
“I don’t have one now.”
“Vanessa.” With a sigh, he brushed back her hair. “Do you want anything?”
“No.” Her hand groped for his before he could rise. “Can you—? Do you have to go?”
He kissed her fingers. “Not for a while.”
Satisfied, she settled back. “I was never supposed to let you come up here when we were teenagers.”
“Nope. Remember the night I climbed in the window?”
“And we sat on the floor and talked until four in the morning. If my father had known, he would have—” She broke off, remembering.
“Now isn’t the time to worry about all that.”
“It isn’t a matter of worry, really, but of wondering. I loved you, Brady. It was innocent, and it was sweet. Why did he have to spoil that?”
“You were meant for big things, Van. He knew it. I was in the way.”
“Would you have asked me to stay?” She hadn’t thought she would ask, but she had always wanted to know. “If you had known about his plans to take me to Europe, would you have asked me to stay?”
“Yes. I was eighteen and selfish. And if you had stayed, you wouldn’t be what you are. And I wouldn’t be what I am.”
“You haven’t asked me if I would have stayed.”
“I know you would have.”
She sighed. “I guess you only love that intensely once. Maybe it’s best to have it over and done with while you’re young.”
“Maybe.”
She closed her eyes, drifting. “I used to dream that you would come and take me away. Especially before a performance, when I stood in the wings, hating it.”
His brows drew together. “Hating what?”
“The lights, the people, the stage. I would wish so hard that you would come and we would go away together. Then I knew you wouldn’t. And I stopped wishing. I’m so tired.”
He kissed her fingers again. “Go to sleep.”
“I’m tired of being alone,” she murmured before she drifted off.
He sat, watching her, trying to separate his feelings for what had been from what was. And that was the problem, he realized. The longer he was with her, the more the edges between the past and present blurred.
There was one and only one thing that was clear. He had never stopped loving her.
After touching his lips to hers, he turned off the bedside light and left her to sleep.