Commitments Page 4

  “But you’re not sure.”

  She thought about that for a minute. Then she threaded her fingers together in her lap, took a deep, resigned breath and looked down. “I’m sure. It’s just not a popular position.”

  “It wasn’t a popular position back then, either. Therapists claim that regardless of his handicap a child does best at home.”

  Sabrina nodded. “That is what therapists claim.”

  “Shows how much they know.”

  She looked up in surprise, because she could have sworn he was teasing. But there was no humor in his expression, particularly when he asked, “Do you have help?”

  “Some. It’s hard to get sitters to come back a second time.”

  “Is his father home with him now?”

  “Not quite,” she remarked. Then, feeling instant remorse, raced on in the hope that her sarcasm would be overlooked. “My husband is in Chicago on business. Nicky is with one of the two therapists who alternately work with us.”

  As they’d been discussing Nicky, Derek seemed to have relaxed a bit. His shoulders were still straight, but he’d slid a little lower in the chair, crossed his legs at the ankles and dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Sabrina was thinking that, prison garb and all, he was a very attractive man, when he took her off guard by announcing, “I don’t like your husband.”

  Her first impulse was to laugh, because there’d been something sounding suspiciously like jealousy in the declaration. She was flattered. She was also frightened, because her feelings were uncomfortably close to Derek’s, and she sensed that once started she’d very possibly laugh her way into hysterics. She compromised with a slightly uneven, “Where did that come from?”

  Derek pointed to his gut.

  “But you’ve never met him.”

  He shrugged.

  “All that because he wouldn’t cooperate on your story?”

  “All that because I think he makes life hard for you.”

  He was looking out the window, his face as staunchly set as ever, but Sabrina felt a tiny nugget of warmth inside her. It had been a long, long time since she’d felt that someone was thinking of her interests.

  “Why ever would you think that?” she asked in a voice that was a little too high to sound nonchalant.

  Derek made a deliberate, ninety-degree turn of his head and angled his chin to study her. There was suddenly something very personal in his expression, and his voice was oddly intimate. “That day I went to your place, I got the feeling that you would have talked with me if it hadn’t been for your husband. You got nervous when you looked at your watch and saw the time. What would have happened if he’d come home and found us talking?”

  “He would have called the president of your network, as he’d threatened.”

  “I think he would have done more than that,” Derek pressed. “I think he would have given you hell for entertaining me. Forget the fact that I weaseled my way in. Forget the fact that you refused to be interviewed. I think he would have hit the roof. He doesn’t want anyone to know there’s something wrong with his son, does he?”

  She hesitated for the space of a heartbeat. “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, but there’s never been any kind of public acknowledgment, and your husband’s been profiled in the papers a whole lot lately.”

  “The condition of our son has nothing to do with Nick’s career.”

  “Not directly. But Nicholas Stone’s name carries clout. He could raise a hell of a lot of money for medical research if he wanted to go to bat publicly for the cause.”

  Sabrina had to struggle not to squirm. She agreed with what Derek said. She’d said nearly identical things to her husband. She wanted to tell Derek that Nicholas contributed privately to the cause, but she couldn’t … because he didn’t. He refused to believe that there was a cause. He preferred to pretend that Nicky was simply a late bloomer, but he carefully hid the child from the world.

  Derek had been right about that. But Sabrina couldn’t get herself to say so, so she answered his question in the most general terms. “He gives to charity.”

  Derek wasn’t settling for general terms. “They say that charity begins at home. Tell me. Does your husband take his turn walking Nicky when he cries?”

  She hesitated a second too long. “He has.”

  “But not often. How about patterning—I assume you’ve given it a shot?”

  Sabrina had to hand it to him. It might have been a year and a half since he’d done his story, and he’d probably been working on half a dozen others at the time, but he remembered what he’d learned. The proponents of patterning felt that if you brought the child’s hand to his mouth at the appropriate time and for the appropriate purpose over and over and over again, the child would eventually take the hint. Nicky hadn’t.

  But that wasn’t what Derek had asked.

  “We’ve tried patterning,” she answered.

  “Has your husband helped?”

  “He does what he can, but between sixty-hour workweeks and frequent traveling, he’s just not around all that much.”

  Derek didn’t look at all surprised. “And institutionalization—how does he feel about that?”

  A tiny muscle twitched beneath her left eye. “He has to give it more thought.” Which was an evasive answer if ever there was one. Nicholas didn’t give institutionalization any thought because he refused to admit that his son was seriously impaired. He seemed content to have Nicky stay home with Sabrina—where no one could see the child and judge him retarded. Unfortunately, that left Sabrina with the full brunt of Nicky’s care and the burden of silence. The strain of it was enormous. Just thinking about it strung her out tight.

  Raking her teeth over her lip, she tried to divert herself by glancing around the room, but that was every bit as depressing. A couple had risen and were saying good-bye with an embrace whose fervor was nearly indecent.

  “I’ve seen recent photos of your husband in the papers,” Derek said.

  Sabrina tried to avert her gaze from the couple, but kept returning to them. She kept waiting for them to pull apart—either that, or go up in flames. They showed no sign of self-consciousness. Derek seemed oblivious. The guards were indulgent. Was she the only one embarrassed?

  She cleared her throat. “The company has pulled off several coups.”

  “He looked fresh, full of energy, not at all tired. He’s left the fatigue to you, eh?”

  “He’s been busy.”

  “He’s a fool.”

  Her eyes swung to his. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he’s got a good thing in you, but I doubt he even sees it. You’re loyal. You stand up for him whether he deserves it or not. Does he deserve it?”

  “I’m his wife. Loyalty is a … a given.”

  “Does he appreciate it?”

  She shifted a defensive shoulder. “He doesn’t make little speeches of praise, but I don’t expect that.”

  “What do you expect?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “He’s a fool, because he’ll lose you,” Derek said. Swiveling swiftly and smoothly, he dropped his forearms to his thighs. For the first time he faced her fully. His voice was low, tautly controlled. His eyes flashed. “If you were mine, I’d appreciate you. But you’re not mine. You’re his. And, goddamn it”—his voice fell to a thick, dark rumble—“I don’t know why you’re here. Is it to torment me? You do, you know. It was weeks until I was able to get you out of my mind last time. And it sure as hell won’t be any easier now.”

  Sabrina was stunned. She hadn’t thought … it hadn’t occurred to her … perhaps she’d misunderstood … surely she’d misunderstood. With nervous fingers, she gathered her coat to her, possibly in a prelude to leaving, more probably for the sense of security, however false, it gave. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  His voice was nearly as low, but much, much more forceful. “Don’t be sorry. Just tell me why you’re here.”

  “I don’t kn
ow. I wanted…”

  “What?”

  “I wanted … I want…”

  “What could a visit with me possibly offer?”

  His face was close. His features filled her vision—wide-set eyes now the color of charcoal, ruggedly carved nose, firm-set mouth, tight jaw. She saw the scowl lines on his brow, the sootiness of his eyelashes, the tiny mole at his temple, the way his lower lip was fuller than its mate.

  But his eyes drew her back. In them, hidden behind defiance and anger and pride, she saw despair, and she wanted to cry.

  “Sabrina…” he prompted in a low, guttural command.

  “You understood, Derek. That day. You understood. I don’t know why I’m here now. I didn’t plan it ahead, but it seemed the only thing to do when I knew I would be so close, and after visiting the center I felt so devastated that I was hoping … hoping…” She ran her thumb under her eye.

  “Hoping for sympathy?”

  “No—”

  “Because I’m plumb out.”

  “I don’t want sympathy.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know!” she cried. Startled by the sound of her own voice, she shot a damp-eyed glance around the room. Several of its occupants and nearly all of the guards were looking at her. Embarrassed, she quickly lowered both her eyes and her voice. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe I was hoping for something … a fragment … that warmth I felt when we met and you understood how it was.” Her fingers bit into her coat as she struggled for composure. “Strength. I thought maybe you’d have some. It was foolish, selfish of me, I guess.”

  Slowly, Derek straightened. “Any strength I have now is earmarked for survival; and as for warmth, it’s gone, Sabrina. It just isn’t there anymore.” The words had barely left his lips when he stood.

  Sabrina looked up and caught her breath, but before she could say a thing, he’d turned on his heel and was walking away. His fingers were tight around his jacket. His shoulders were stiff. He paused once at the door and looked back, forever etching in her mind the image of a man scraping for dignity, a man ultimately alone. Then he passed through and disappeared.

  Moments later, Sabrina sat behind the wheel of her car, shaking. It wasn’t the cold air that disturbed her; she welcomed that. It was what she’d seen and felt that caused the quiver.

  Derek was angry. He was bitter, at times hostile. He was the proverbial caged animal, wounded and lashing back with a look, a tone, a word.

  Very probably he’d been right when he said that he didn’t have strength to spare, and she’d been wrong to ask it. But he lied about the warmth. She’d seen it during those few moments when he questioned her about Nicky. And she’d felt it after that.

  I don’t know why you’re here. Is it to torment me? You do, you know. It was weeks until I was able to get you out of my mind last time. And it sure as hell won’t be any easier now.

  She’d felt the alertness of his body, had heard the thickness in his voice, had seen the heat in his eyes. And what was heat but warmth once-removed?

  Oh, yes, there was warmth. It was stashed away, buried beneath crates of anger and bitterness and frustration and distrust. It had to jockey with pride and dignity for a brief showing, and for the most part it lost, but it was there. He’d lied when he said that it was gone. He’d lied.

  Chapter 2

  SABRINA ALWAYS had a thing about lying. She supposed the aversion dated to her childhood, to the times when her mother told her that if she didn’t clean her room the Ardulonian enforcer would turn her ear inside out, or the times when her father forecast a showdown at high noon between her suitors if she got much prettier, or the times when her brother informed her that the nighttime shadow on her bedroom wall was the reincarnation of an ogre who had been buried beneath the oak in the courtyard nearly a century before.

  It took her a while to figure out that the Ardulonian enforcer was nothing more than a figment of her mother’s imagination and that, rather than being an incredibly advanced country somewhere in the vicinity of Antarctica, Ardulon was make-believe. She’d been weaned on Ardulonian lore. She hadn’t realized that the nighttime stories her mother told her were shortened versions of tales that were well sold, well published and well read. Not until she was seven and studying geography in school did she learn—with considerable embarrassment—the truth, and even in spite of that, she continued to keep her room clean on the vague chance that the school map, the teacher and the other students were wrong.

  By the time she accepted the truth, she was onto her father’s imaginative efforts as well. Even if she’d been as pretty as her father said—which she knew she wasn’t—and even if the boys were fascinated with her—which they weren’t—showdowns at high noon, in the OK or any other corral, simply didn’t happen in the second half of the twentieth century … other than in series Westerns like those her father churned out for his legions of followers. Nor were ogres reincarnated into shadows on the wall in anything but the horror genre in which her brother, eight years her senior, eventually went on to make his name.

  She was a gullible child, her family said. They told stories that she believed. Fiction, they called it, and she eventually conceded that such stories, when bound and properly labeled, were okay. But the stories she was told, the warnings and predictions and dread alerts, were offered as gospel.

  She’d been lied to, she decided, and for a time she was furious. Then resignation came, and with it, acceptance. Her family was her family. They were an eccentric bunch, and there was nothing Sabrina could do to change them. Amanda Monroe wouldn’t be Amanda Monroe if her mind wasn’t in outer space half the time. Nor would Gebhart Monroe be the same without a yoked shirt, a stetson and spurs. And J. B., who was unfairly good-looking, had always been and would always be a horror.

  Sabrina rebelled. She devoted herself to being down-to-earth. She watched the evening news, majored in history in college, dressed stylishly, if conservatively. She wrote nonfiction. She liked to believe that she had a firm grip on reality, and she made it a habit not to lie.

  But habits, like rules, were meant to be broken when better judgment demanded, which was why she didn’t find fault with what Derek had done. She wanted to think of him as a friend. She didn’t know why, but she wanted that badly. Anything beyond friendship was impossible, though, and for that reason she was grateful that he denied the heat she’d seen. It could lead nowhere.

  So said better judgment.

  It was this same judgment that caused her to fudge the truth a bit when she arrived back in Manhattan and received a call from her husband.

  “Where have you been, Sabrina?” Nicholas demanded. “This is the third time I’ve called.”

  “I’m sorry,” she answered breathlessly. She’d barely come in, checked on her son, changed her clothes and sent Pam on her way when the phone rang. The housekeeper, Mrs. Hoskins, had dutifully answered it, then passed it on when she learned who it was. Sabrina was still tying to settle a cranky Nicky on her hip. “I had to get out.”

  “Where did you go?”

  Shifting the phone to her other ear, she wedged it between her shoulder and jaw, hoisted Nicky a little higher and belted him in with her arms. “I took a drive.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you since noon. It’s seven now. That was quite some drive.”

  “It felt good getting out of the city.”

  “I hadn’t realized you were bored,” he said with just enough sarcasm to set her off.

  “Not bored, Nick. Tired and frustrated and wound up tight. It’s been an awful month. Taking Nicky out in the slush and cold is twice as hard as taking him out normally, and we’ve had appointments with each of three regular doctors, and two new ones, an eye specialist and a psychologist. I needed a break.”

  “What’s wrong with this connection, Sabrina? I can’t hear half of what you’re saying.”

  She sighed. It figured that he’d miss the message. “I’m walking Nicky, so I’m using the cord
less.”

  “It’s a lousy cordless. You’ll have to pick up a new one next time you’re out.” That settled, he blithely moved to the next item on his mental agenda. “How did the meeting go with Naholy?”

  Joseph Naholy was the manager of the Westchester country club where Nicholas golfed. Once upon a time, Sabrina had enjoyed an occasional afternoon at the pool, but that was before Nicky. She only went to the club now for dinner, and only then when she couldn’t beg off. She and Nicholas were hosting one such affair in two weeks’ time, and she was to have met with Joseph the day before to make the final menu selection. She’d canceled that meeting to drive to Vermont.

  “I couldn’t make it yesterday—”

  “Why not?”

  His imperious tone made it easier for her to say, “Because Nicky was acting up.” She didn’t want Nicholas to know she’d visited the Greenhouse—as the residential center in Vermont was called. It was exclusive and expensive. She wanted to make sure that it was the right place for the child before she launched a crusade for his admission.

  “Nicky is always acting up,” barked his father, “but life has to go on.”

  Sabrina closed her eyes and took an unsteady breath. She didn’t want to argue. Not now. Not when she was feeling just that little bit refreshed after two days’ freedom. “When I talked with Joseph, he said we still had plenty of time.”

  “You could have stopped there today, as long as you were out. That really was a long stretch you were gone, Sabrina. Are you sure you should have left Nicky with Pam all that time?”

  Sabrina kept her voice low and calm. “Pam is a trained therapist. She’s perfectly qualified to care for him.”

  “But he needs you.”

  “No, Nick. He needs someone, but whether it’s me or you or Pam doesn’t matter.” The child chose that moment to stiffen up and wail. In her attempt to soothe him, Sabrina lost her grip on the phone. It fell to the carpet. She knelt down to snatch it up. “Sorry,” she told her husband. Still on her haunches, she gently bounced Nicky on her knee. “Just dropped the phone.”

  “I heard him cry. What’s wrong?”