Sarah's Child Read online

  “You don’t know anything at all about me,” she said aloud into the darkness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was a good thing the next day was Saturday, because after a horrible night spent alternately crying and staring at the ceiling, Sarah slept late and rose still feeling tired, her eyes heavy-lidded, her movements slow. She forced herself to do her routine chores, then that afternoon flopped down on the sofa, too tired and uninterested to tackle anything else. She needed to shop for groceries, but simply couldn’t face the hassle. A quick mental inventory of her cabinets reassured her that she wouldn’t starve, at least not for a couple of days.

  The doorbell rang, and she got up, answering the summons without thinking. As soon as she opened the door and looked up into Rome’s dark face, a feeling of despair settled on her shoulders. Why couldn’t he have waited until Monday? She’d have recovered by then and wouldn’t be at such a terrible disadvantage. She didn’t even have the comfort of being properly dressed. Her long hair was loose and hanging down her back; her jeans were old, tight, and faded; and the oversize jersey she wore probably revealed the fact that she was braless. She fought the urge to cross her arms protectively over her chest, even when his eyes dropped to survey her from her feet, clad in blue socks, all the way up to her face, which was bare of even a trace of makeup.

  “Ask me in,” he commanded, his voice even deeper than usual.

  She didn’t extend a verbal invitation; she couldn’t. Instead she stepped back and opened the door, and he moved past her into the room. He was dressed casually, in well-cut tan slacks and a blue pullover shirt, but he still made her feel like something found in the city dump. “Have a seat,” she invited, finally controlling her voice enough to speak. He sat down on the sofa, and she seated herself across from him in an oversize armchair, unable to make polite chitchat, just waiting for him to break the tension by speaking.

  Rome wasn’t aware of any tension; he had been taken too much by surprise by her appearance, and he was having difficulty dealing with this startling new aspect of her character. He’d expected her to be dressed in heels, sleek black pants, and a silk blouse, her coldness firmly in place as a barrier between them. Instead she looked very young, very relaxed, and very sexy in those comfortable old clothes. She had the sleek, aristocratic grace of form and carriage that made it possible for her to wear anything, even an old football jersey, with casual elegance. He knew that she and Diane had been the same age, so that made her thirty-three, but there was a freshness about her bare face that took at least ten years off her age. This was how he’d often imagined seeing her, or at least a variation on the theme. The remote poise he’d expected was gone, and he realized that he had her at a disadvantage. With relish, he looked her over again, his eyes lingering on the obvious freedom of her breasts beneath the jersey, and to his surprise and intensified desire, a warm blush heated her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said abruptly. “At least, about what I said. I’m not sorry I kissed you, or that I almost went to bed with you.”

  Sarah looked away, unable to meet his intense gaze. “I understand. We were both—”

  “Upset. I know.” He gave her a crooked little smile as he interrupted her. “But upset or not, I kissed you the second time because I wanted to kiss you. I’d like to see you, take you out to dinner, if you can forgive me for what I said.”

  Sarah wet her lips. Part of her wanted to jump at the opportunity, any opportunity, to spend time with him, but the other part of her was cautious, afraid of being hurt. “I don’t think it would be a good idea,” she finally said, choking the words out of her dry throat. “Diane…Diane would always be in my mind.”

  His eyes went black as pain assailed him. “And in mine. But I can’t lie down and die with her; I have to keep living. I’m attracted to you, and I’ll tell you up front that I always have been.” He ran an agitated hand through his dark hair, disturbing the lock that usually fell over his forehead. “Hell, I don’t know,” he burst out in confusion, “but last night, for the first time, I could talk about them. You knew them, and you understand. It’s all been dammed up inside me, and I can talk about it with you. Please, Sarah, you were Diane’s friend. Now be my friend.”

  She sucked in her breath, staring painfully at him. What irony, that the man she’d loved for years should come to her begging for her friendship, because he felt he could talk to her about his dead wife. For the first time she resented Diane, resented the hold Diane had on Rome that hadn’t loosened even in death. But how could she say no to him, when he was staring at her with desperation tightening his features? How could she say no to him regardless of what he asked her? It was the raw truth that she couldn’t deny him anything.

  “All right,” she whispered.

  He sat there for a moment; then her words sank in and he closed his eyes in relief. What if she’d refused? In a way he couldn’t understand, it had become vital to him that she not freeze him out. She was his last link to Diane, and more than that, the night before he’d finally broken the ice that surrounded her and found that she wasn’t cold at all. He wanted to do that again. The thought of bringing her to passion interfered with his breathing and made his loins grow heavy.

  To take his mind off his growing desire, he looked around the condo and was again surprised. There was no glass or chrome, only comfortable textures and soothing colors. Her furniture was all sturdy and overstuffed, inviting to a tired body. He wanted to stretch out on her sofa, which was long enough to accommodate his long legs, and watch a baseball game on television while idly munching on freshly popped, salty popcorn, with a can of frosty beer in his hand. The room was that soothing, that comfortable. This was where she let her hair down, literally, he thought, surveying with pleasure the pale tumble of her hair. When she pulled it back into the tight, severe twist she wore at work, she subdued all hint of curl, but now he could see that her hair wasn’t weed-straight. The weight of it pulled most of the curl out, but the ends had a tendency to form frothy, bouncy curls. She was so blonde, it was startling.

  “I like this room,” he said, his eyes on her.

  Sarah looked nervously around, aware of how much of herself was revealed in the atmosphere she’d created for her private lair. Here she’d made a home that gave her the warmth and security she craved and had lacked all her life. She’d grown up in a home that had provided physical comfort, but left her out in the cold when it came to love. The house had been immaculate, and “done” to perfection by a hideously expensive interior decorator, but the coldness of it had made Sarah shiver, and she’d invented excuses, even as a child, to escape it. The coldness had reflected the hostility of the man and woman who lived there, each of them so bitter at being trapped in a loveless marriage that there had been no warmth or laughter for the child who, though innocent, had been the chain that held them together. When they finally divorced, only a few weeks after Sarah had entered college, it had been a relief for all three of them. Never close to her parents, since then Sarah had drifted even farther from them. Her mother had remarried and lived in Bermuda; her father had also remarried, moved to Seattle, and was now, at fifty-seven, the doting father of a six-year-old son.

  The only example of warm home-life Sarah had known was that provided by Diane, first with Diane’s parents, then with the home she’d made with Rome. Diane had had the gift of love, a warm outpouring of affection that had drawn people to her. With Diane, Sarah had laughed and teased, and done all of the normal things that a teenage girl did. But now Diane was gone. At least, Sarah thought painfully, Diane had died without ever knowing that her best friend was in love with her husband.

  Suddenly she collected her manners and scrambled to her feet. “I’m sorry. Would you like something to drink?”

  A cold beer, he thought. And salty popcorn. He’d bet anything he had that Sarah wasn’t a beer drinker, but he could picture her curled by his side, sipping on a soft drink and delving her hand into the bowl for popcorn. Sh