White Lies Read online

  She wished they hadn’t put this responsibility on her. She didn’t want to stay. This strange feeling she had for Steve made her feel threatened. If she left now, it wouldn’t have a chance to develop. But if she stayed… She hadn’t been devastated by their divorce, five years earlier, because their love had never grown, never gone any deeper. In the end it had simply faded away. But Steve was different now; he’d changed in those five years, into a man whose power she could feel even when he was unconscious. If she fell in love with him again, she might never get over it.

  But if she left, she would feel guilty because she hadn’t helped him.

  She needed to find another job. She had to get back to New York and begin doing something to keep her life from disintegrating. But she was tired of the frantic pushing and maneuvering, the constant dealing. She didn’t want to go, but she was afraid to stay.

  Frank saw the tension in her face, felt it vibrating through her. “Let’s walk down to the lounge,” he said, stepping forward to take her arm. “You need a break. See you later, Major.”

  Major Lunning nodded. “Try to talk her into staying. This guy really needs her.”

  Out in the hall, Jay murmured, “I hate it when people talk around me, as if I’m not there. I’m tired of being maneuvered.” She was thinking of her job when she said that, but Frank gave her a sharp look.

  “I don’t mean to put you in a difficult position,” he said diplomatically. “It’s just that we badly need to talk to your husband…sorry, ex-husband. I keep forgetting. At any rate, we’re willing to do whatever is possible to aid in his recovery.”

  Jay put her hands in her pockets, slowing her steps as she considered something. “Is Steve going to be arrested because of what he was doing, whatever it was?”

  Frank didn’t have any hesitation on that score. “No,” he said with absolute certainty. The man was going to get nothing but the best medicine and best protection his country could provide him; Frank only wished he could tell Jay why, but that wasn’t possible. “We think he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, an innocent bystander, if you will. But given his background, we think it likely he would have picked up on the situation. It’s even possible he was trying to help when everything blew up in his face.”

  “Literally.”

  “Yes, unfortunately. Anything he can remember will help us.”

  They reached the lounge and he opened the door so she could precede him. They were alone, thank heavens. He went over to the coffee machine and fed coins into it. “Coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” Jay replied tiredly as she sat down. Her stomach was blessedly calm, and she didn’t want to upset it now with the noxious brew that usually came from those machines. She hadn’t noticed before how tired she was, but now fatigue was washing over her in great waves that made her feel giddy.

  Frank sat down opposite her, cradling the Styrofoam cup in his hands. “I talked to my superior, explained your situation,” he began. “Would you stay if you didn’t have to worry about finding another job?”

  She let her eyelids droop as she rubbed her forehead in an effort to force herself to concentrate on what he’d said. She couldn’t remember ever having been as tired as she was now, as if all energy had drained from her. Even her mind felt numb. All day long she had focused so fiercely on Steve that everything else had blurred, and now that she had let herself relax, exhaustion had crashed in on her, a deep lassitude that was mental as well as physical.

  “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “I have to work at a job to make money. And even if you’ve somehow lined one up for me, I can’t work and stay here, too.”

  “Staying here would be your job,” Frank explained, wishing he didn’t have to push her. She looked as if it were all she could do to sit erect. But maybe she would be more easily convinced now, with fatigue dulling her mind. “We’ll take care of your apartment and living expenses. It’s that important to us.”

  Her eyelids lifted and she stared at him incredulously. “You’d pay me to stay here?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I don’t want money to stay with him! I want to help him, don’t you understand that?”

  “But you can’t, because of your financial position,” Frank said, nodding. “What we’re offering to do is take care of that for you. If you were independently wealthy, would you hesitate to stay?”

  “Of course not! I’ll do whatever I can to help him, but the idea of taking money for it is ugly.”

  “We aren’t paying you to stay with him, we’re paying you so you can stay with him. Do you see the difference?”

  She had to be going mad, because she did see the difference between the two halves of the hair he had just split. And his eyes were so kind that she instinctively trusted him, even though she sensed a lot going on that she didn’t understand.

  “We’ll get an apartment for you close by, so you can spend more time with him,” Frank continued, his voice soothing and reasonable. “We’ll also keep your New York apartment for you, so you’ll have that to go back to. If you give me the word now, we can have a place here ready for you to move into on Monday.”

  There had to be arguments she could use, but she couldn’t think of any. Frank was sweeping all obstacles out of the way; it would make her feel mean and petty if she refused to do what he wanted, when he had gone to so much trouble and they—whoever they were—so badly wanted her to remain.

  “I’ll have to go home,” she said helplessly. “To New York, that is. I need more clothes, and I’ll have to quit my job.” Suddenly she laughed. “If it’s possible to quit a job you’ve already been fired from.”

  “I’ll make the travel arrangements for you.”

  “How long do you think I’ll be here?” She was estimating a two-or three-week stay, but she wanted to be certain. She would have to do something about her mail and utilities.

  Frank’s gaze was level. “A couple of months, at least. Maybe longer.”

  “Months!”

  “He’ll have to have therapy.”

  “But he’ll be conscious then. I thought you only wanted me to stay until the worst was over!”

  He cleared his throat. “We’d like you to stay until he’s dismissed from the hospital, at least.” He had been trying to break the idea to her gradually, first by just getting her here, then convincing her that Steve needed her, then talking her into staying for the duration. He only hoped it would work.

  “But why?”

  “He’ll need you. He’ll be in pain. I haven’t told you before, but he needs more surgery on his eyes. It will probably be six to eight weeks before he’ll get the bandages off his eyes for good. He’s going to be confused, in pain, and they’ll put him through more pain in therapy. To top it all off, he won’t be able to see. Jay, you’re going to be his lifeline.”

  She sat there numbly, staring at him. It looked as if, after all this time and now that it was too late, Steve was going to need her more than either of them had ever thought.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT FELT STRANGE to be back in New York. Jay had flown back on Sunday afternoon and had spent the hours packing her clothes and other personal possessions, but even her apartment had felt strange, as if she no longer belonged there. She packed automatically, her mind on the hospital room in Bethesda. How was he doing? She had spent the morning with him, constantly talking and stroking his arm, yet she felt frantic at spending such a long time away from him.

  On Monday morning she dressed for work for the last time, and was conscious of a deep sense of relief. Until it had been lifted, she hadn’t been aware what a burden that job had been, how desperately she had been driving herself to compete. Competition was a fine thing, but not at the expense of her health, though part of it could be blamed on her own intensity. She had channeled all her temper, interests and energy into that job, leaving nothing as an escape valve. She was lucky she hadn’t developed an ulcer, rather than the less severe stress symptoms of a nervous stoma