Commitments Page 8

  “That good?” Sabrina asked, amused now that her faith had been marginally restored. She still wasn’t sure about the fellow at the Park Lane, but at least Maura’s mind wasn’t stuck in one track.

  “That good. She’s been running a small catering business out of her house, but she’d like to do something bigger—1 mean, much bigger, with factories and trucks and nationwide distribution—only, she needs financial backing and has no idea how to get it.”

  “Which is where you come in.”

  “Exactly. And why not? Christ, I haven’t got much to lose. If I put the deal together, I get a percentage, which could turn out to be pretty damned sweet if the cheesecake sells.”

  “But will it?” Sabrina asked gently, almost apologetically. “Cheesecake’s been around for a while. You won’t be breaking any new ground, and you’ll be competing with well-established companies.”

  Maura leaned forward, looked to either side, then whispered. “How do … goose eggs … grab you?”

  “Goose eggs?”

  “Shhhhhh! What I’m telling you is confidential, Sabrina. Yes, goose eggs … as in what the golden goose lays … except made of cheesecake. Think of the marketing possibilities. The upwardly mobile American is watching TV at night, gets a little hungry, goes to the freezer and reaches for a treasure.”

  “Ah. I see. Mmmm, that’s interesting.”

  Maura pulled a crestfallen face. “You don’t like the idea.”

  “I do; it’s just that you took me by surprise. Somehow I wasn’t prepared for goose eggs.”

  “Don’t you dare laugh, Sabrina Stone.”

  “I’m trying not to, Maura, really I am.”

  “Damn it, I wouldn’t have to muck around with cheesecake if you’d give me another book to peddle.”

  “I’m not the only author you represent.”

  “But you’re the best. Whenever I see Norman Aguire, he asks about you. He’s still selling your first.” Sabrina had written a biography of her paternal grandmother, whose work with the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s had been legendary. The book was historically exact and presented a view of those times not often seen. “Schools are snatching it up for textbook use, libraries want it—but you know that. You’re still seeing nice royalties. Norm will pay top dollar for another. And don’t tell me that the money isn’t important,” she said as Sabrina was about to say just that, “because it doesn’t have to be the money. You could do it for the intellectual stimulation. You could do it because you were meant to be a writer. You could do it to show up J. B. Or you could do it for something as pure and simple as ego gratification. How about it?”

  Sabrina took another sip of wine. “Do you think I’m competing with J. B.?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know you didn’t, but I’m curious, because I was wondering about that myself not long ago. I’ve never been aware of being in competition with him. It’s always been a more general thing, not so much competing with my family as establishing a separate identity.”

  “That sounds about right. But you’re evading my question. Why won’t you write?”

  “No time.”

  Maura made a face. “You make time for what you want.”

  “My circumstances are extenuating.”

  “Haven’t you heard of hiring baby-sitters?”

  “Doesn’t work with Nicky.”

  “You look tired, Sabrina. You need a break.”

  Sabrina rolled her eyes.

  “I’m serious,” Maura went on. “Writing was always an outlet for you. Why not use it to help you now, when you need it most.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.” Sabrina hummed in a soft, impromptu tune.

  “But I want you to write!”

  Sabrina looked at her friend and sighed. “Oh, Maura. It’s not only a matter of time and space. It’s a psychological thing. I feel emotionally shriveled. Bone dry. The creative juices aren’t flowing. Right now, I’d be hard pressed to name a topic about which I’d have the slightest interest writing.”

  But there was one topic. It stayed at the edge of Sabrina’s mind through the rest of her luncheon with Maura and came to the fore only later that day, when she was putting Nicky through the motions, repeatedly and with monotony, of reaching for an object he wanted.

  She could write about Derek. His experience interested her. She felt an affinity for him. On the surface, their situations were as different as night from day. Beneath that surface, she wasn’t so sure. There were similarities. She could explore them.

  It was as valid an excuse as any for returning to see him again, she thought.

  Chapter 4

  WHEN SABRINA arrived at Parkersville this time, there was no delay. The guards found her name in their book, and she was promptly searched and escorted to the visiting room.

  Again she arrived before Derek. Again the room was uncomfortably warm. This time, rather than sitting, she waited by one of the windows. A thick lock held it shut. She wished she had the courage to ask one of the guards if she could release the lock and let in a little air, but she remembered what Derek had said about the heat. It promoted docility, a desirable quality as far as prison administrators were concerned.

  Sabrina didn’t feel at all docile, or sluggish. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins as it had been doing since she’d left New York. It was a percussive sensation, a rhythm that cried, What’re you doing what’re you doing what’re you doing?

  I’m not sure I’m not sure I’m not sure, was all she could answer. She shifted her voluminous twill topcoat from one arm to the other, ran a hand across the back of her neck, then raked her fingers upward through her hair, letting the thick flaxen strands fall as they would. She thought calm, cool and collected. She felt antsy and unsure. With a concerted effort, she fixed a steady stare out the window.

  She couldn’t quite understand the necessity for bars. They made a statement, that was all. A prisoner who managed to elude the guards in the room and make it through the window would escape nowhere. He’d find himself on a narrow ledge thirty feet above the prison yard, or whatever it was that lay below.

  She’d always thought of a prison yard as resembling an urban school playground—concrete underfoot, wire fences all around—but what she saw wasn’t so much that as an open area of walks that spread weblike toward various outlying buildings. Grass and shrubbery edged the walks, though most still had the drab, dried hue of winter. It was barely the first of April.

  “Pretty place,” came a sardonic observation from a point over her shoulder. Sabrina didn’t have to look around to know that the voice was Derek’s. She turned, wanting to see him. She’d pictured him many times in the last six weeks, more so in the last two. He looked as strong, as dark-haired and brooding as she’d remembered him. But good. Strangely good. The unsureness she felt began to recede.

  “I was just thinking,” she said, “that the greenery will come alive in another month. Do the inmates do the gardening?”

  “There’s a detail for lawnwork.”

  “The men must fight over it. Being outside has to be better than doing floors or bathrooms.”

  “It is, and they do. Not that there’s much point in fighting. Work details are assigned by the front office. You can express a preference, but it’s usually a case of being in the right place at the right time or, more often, taking whatever’s open. You either get a good assignment or you don’t, and if you don’t…”

  He shrugged to finish the sentence, then lapsed into silence, but he’d said a lot in one breath. She took that to be an encouraging sign and asked, with a tiny head toss toward the window, “Where do all the paths lead?”

  “To fences.”

  “Within the fences?”

  “There are six houses.”

  “You don’t call them cell blocks?”

  “Not here.”

  “Does that mean they’re less prisonlike?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Is the
living dormitory-style?”

  “In some.”

  “In yours?”

  He shook his head.

  The encouraging sign Sabrina had seen was nothing but a memory. She tried to decide if she’d said something offensive. Her questions had been simple, spawned by sheer curiosity. She hadn’t been critical.

  She wondered if he had simply gotten out of the habit of talking, and that possibility seemed a crime in itself. He’d been a talker by profession—actually a question-asker, but he’d had plenty to say in the course of his interviews, and she was sure that in the planning of stories he’d said much more. He was a man to call the shots.

  Standing beside him, she felt not so much the warmth of his body, since the warmth of the room overrode most else, but his sheer size and physical presence. He was an imposing figure. His hair was windblown, almost defiant in its tumble on his brow. That same wind had painted faintly ruddy patches on his cheeks. His jaw was firm-set and deeply shadowed, lending him an air of mystery. Pride squared his shoulders, drawing his shirt smoothly across the muscular swells of his chest, causing his name and prison number to glare boldly from the cloth. He wore his jeans low and beltless. His legs were endless.

  Peripherally she noted that his scar had faded, but she was busy trying to decide whether his eyes held that little bit of warmth she craved. His voice gave nothing away; it was a guarded band of sound.

  “The drive in was easier today,” she said lightly. “No snow.”

  He nodded.

  “I noticed that some of the trees out front were tapped.”

  “It’s sugaring time.”

  “Does the prison make much syrup?”

  “Enough for one morning’s worth of pancakes.”

  She thought she saw a wry twitch at the corner of his mouth, but if so, it was quickly controlled. Sighing, she glanced toward the paved webwork outside. “I imagine that once spring comes the walks might actually look pleasant.”

  “They might, if you can overlook the chain-link fences, the barbed wire and the guard towers.”

  She shrugged and gave a tiny smile. “Can’t have it all.”

  Derek, who had been feeling his way since he walked into the room, was mesmerized by that tiny smile. More than that, he was amazed to find her there. Even more than that, he was amazed that he still wanted to find her there.

  It had been six weeks. After she’d visited last time, after he’d sent her the note, he’d waited for her to come. And waited. And waited. Rationally, he’d known that she couldn’t possibly understand how slowly time passed behind bars, one minute dripping slowly into the next like cold, dark molasses. She couldn’t know how much he needed her visit. Irrationally, he’d been furious that she’d kept him on tenterhooks for so long. He’d also been furious at the system that made him sit and wait until she chose to visit. He didn’t like feeling helpless, and sixteen-and-a-half months’ worth of practice hadn’t helped.

  When he’d been informed that she was here, he’d felt a renewed spurt of that fury. It had dissipated somewhat during the walk to the administration building. He still felt it, but it had competition now. For everything she’d been in the cracks on the nighttime ceiling of his cell, she was more in person.

  “I got your note,” she said. “Thank you. After last time, I wasn’t sure what you were thinking.”

  Derek was thinking that he was allowed a beginning-of-the-visit embrace and that he’d be a fool not to take it, but he couldn’t. Sabrina was untouchable. Pristine and pure. She was off limits. So why had he asked her back? “I wasn’t sure myself.”

  “You seemed annoyed that I’d come.”

  “I was.”

  “Why?”

  He knew the answer. The question was whether he wanted to pass it on. He pondered that for a minute, finally deciding that the humiliation wouldn’t be quite so bad if he admitted to being humiliated, which he could do in a proud sort of way, or so his reasoning went.

  “A man doesn’t always like to be seen in surroundings like these.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “I haven’t. I’d still rather be anywhere else.”

  “But you changed your mind about my visiting.”

  “My Thursday afternoon work assignment is lousy. I don’t have to do it if I have a guest.”

  “Mmmm. That’s flattering.”

  He shrugged, but this time she was sure she saw a tiny kernel of warmth somewhere in the depths of those gray eyes of his. It was that tiny kernel of warmth that took the sting from his next words.

  “It took you long enough to get here.”

  “My time isn’t always my own.”

  “Did you leave a number for the sitter?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they don’t need a number. If they can’t function without me for a day, then they’re not worth the money I’m paying, and I’m paying a whole lot. Besides, it’s nobody’s business but my own where I go and what I do during my free time. God only knows I have precious little of it.”

  He grinned, and if she hadn’t been so surprised at her own outburst, she’d have caught her breath, it was so beautiful. It was lopsided, as though rusty, yet it lightened his face, took ten years off his looks, displayed fine, even teeth and a dimple in his cheek … actually, it was more a slash than a dimple, but it had the same heart-stopping effect.

  He looked more mischievous than she wanted him to look.

  “Hit a sore spot, did I?” he asked.

  She would have indulged him anything just then; smugness was the least of it. “Guess so.”

  “You feel your life has been taken over?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Imagine what I feel.”

  She sobered. “I can’t.”

  Derek, too, grew serious. His eyes held Sabrina’s, held them and wouldn’t leave. He saw so much in her, so much goodness, too much goodness. She said the right things at the right times with just the right inflections, and there was nothing programmed about any of it. He’d have known if there were. Her eyes betrayed her thoughts.

  “I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” he muttered.

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t belong here. You’re too clean.”

  She thought of all the things she’d done wrong in her life, things she was still doing wrong. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “I did something awful this morning,” she heard herself say. “I was getting dressed to leave New York, and Nicky was fussing. I’d already worked with him and fed him and bathed him and held him, but I had to put him down so I could do things for me. And he kept fussing.” She took a quick breath, but the words weren’t to be stopped. “The therapist wasn’t due for a while, but I wanted to be on my way out the door when she came in the door. I don’t know why Nicky was so cranky—then again, I suppose he wasn’t any crankier than usual, it’s just that I had other things on my mind. I was anxious to be gone, so I guess I was tense. He fussed and fussed. I thought I’d go out of my mind listening to that awful whine over and over and over again. I tried to coo and cajole, but nothing worked, so I lost my temper.”

  The radiator hissed its disapproval, but Derek showed none. “What did you do?” he asked.

  “I spanked him.”

  “Every kid needs a good spank every once in a while.”

  “But Nicky’s not ‘every kid.’ He can’t help what he does. And I yelled at him. I yelled. I yelled that he was a selfish little brat and that I hated him.”

  Derek had thought himself pretty hardened when it came to other people’s problems. He was surprised, then, when he felt her dismay. “And that hurt.”

  “Yes.” She had her arms crossed, her hand kneading her arm in the same way he’d seen her do weeks before. She took a shaky breath. “So,” she said, “I have my faults.”

  “I wouldn’t call that a fault.”

  “Bellowing at a child who can’t
help himself?”

  “You were venting your frustration. I’m sure Nicky grasped that.”

  “Are you kidding? Nicky doesn’t grasp a thing!”

  “Then he didn’t grasp the spanking, and he certainly didn’t understand the words you said.”

  That gave Sabrina a moment’s pause and Derek a moment’s gratification. She was thinking that he had a point, though she still felt like a heel for what she’d done. He was thinking that he liked it when she got a little upset, because he could calm her down. It gave him a semblance of control, something he hadn’t felt much of lately.

  He decided to goad her a little more. “Does your husband know you’ve come?”

  “No. That’s another of my faults. I can get around it by saying that he’s away.”

  “Is he?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was away last time, too. Did you tell him you’d come then?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He wouldn’t understand. Besides, he was upset enough that I’d left Nicky for so long. I didn’t see the point in compounding the error.”

  “Do you always have to wait until he’s gone to sneak off?”

  “He’s gone more often than not, so it’s not a question of sneaking.”

  “Business must be good.”

  “Either that, or he’s got a hot mistress on the side.” She shot the ceiling a helpless look. “I can’t believe I said that. It must be the warm air in here.” She was feeling a little light-headed. It had to be the air.

  “Are you uncomfortable?”

  “In the heat? A little.”

  “In this prison.”

  “A little.”

  “That’s honest.”

  “I try,” she said, but she was puzzled. She did feel that she could be honest with Derek, which was why she was blurting out the little things that she’d otherwise have kept to herself. But she didn’t understand it. For one thing, she’d thought she was going to have to measure each word, to sort out the acceptable from those that were offensive or tactless, but she wasn’t doing that. For another thing, there were guards in the room, guards in the halls, bars and fences and electronic surveillance, and still she felt free.