Schemers

28

JAKE RUNYON

When he arrived to keep his Saturday night date with Bryn, she said she didn’t feel like going out. “Would you mind if we just stayed here tonight? I’ve got salad fixings and a bottle of wine in the fridge.”

“Whatever you like.”

They ate in the dining room, surrounded by rosewood sideboards and glass-fronted cabinets she’d inherited from her parents. By candlelight, because it was pale and soft and she could hold her head so that the covered side of her face was shadowed. The scarf she wore was dark red with a black pattern of Chinese characters. A different one just for him?

There wasn’t much conversation. She seemed far away tonight, even more so than usual. Not unhappy, not exactly pensive-just adrift deep within. He respected her need for solitude, as always, so he didn’t try to make small talk. He wasn’t good at it anyway. The Henderson case was still on his mind, but he wouldn’t have discussed it with her if she’d asked. Even with Colleen, he’d never talked about his work. Professional life, private life-he believed in keeping them separate, so that the one wouldn’t taint the other.

After dinner they took their wine into the lamplit living room. Bryn turned on the gas-log fire and then some music, something quiet by Brahms, and they sat in companionable silence with the hissing flames making flicker patterns on the walls and furniture.

Cliff Henderson kept wandering in and out of his thoughts. What Henderson had gone through Thursday night and Friday morning would have left most men in a bad way psychologically, but he seemed to have come through it without any visible scars. Strong, tough. Lucky. And still believing his father was innocent of Jenny Noakes’s murder. He’d go to his grave believing it, just as Tucker Devries would go to his believing the opposite. No way of ever knowing which one was right, unless someday somebody confessed to the crime, and the chances of that were slim and none. Cold case. Cold forever.

“Jake?”

He blinked and moved out of himself, back into the warmth of the room.

“I need to ask you something,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while… Maybe you have, too, I don’t know. But I need to know.”

“What is it?”

“Do you want to be with me?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean… in bed. Do you want to make love to me?”

The question surprised him. He didn’t answer immediately; he wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear.

“Be honest. Please.”

“Yes,” he said.

“You’ve never said anything, never tried…”

“It’s not my call.”

“Yes, it is, as much as mine. Do you want me? Despite my affliction?”

“I don’t see you that way. Afflicted.”

“How do you see me? As a woman or just a friend?”

“Both.”

“A desirable woman?”

“In every way.”

“You’re not just saying that? Being kind?”

“No. You asked me to be honest. I’m being honest.”

A little time passed. Then she got to her feet, single fluid motion, no hesitancy, as if she’d made a sudden decision. “I’ll be in the bedroom. Give me five minutes before you come in.”

“Bryn…”

“It’s all right. I’m being honest, too.”

He sat motionless, not thinking. When he sensed that it was time, he stood and went down the hallway to where the bedrooms were. Hers was dark; all he could see was the vague shape of her under the covers, the whitish shape of her face, her entire face. She’d taken off the scarf along with her clothes.

“Don’t turn on the light.”

“I won’t.”

“Come in here with me, but don’t touch me. Not just yet.”

He undressed, eased himself into the bed beside her. The sheets rustled-freshly laundered silk. The thought came to him that she’d put the sheets on especially for this, that she’d planned it.

They lay without touching. He could hear the slightly quickened sound of her breathing. And he was aware, then, of the faint, elusive scent of perfume-something else she’d put on just for him.

“All right,” she said after a long, sighing breath. “But promise me you won’t touch my face. Or try to kiss me.”

“I promise.”

She moved over, fitting her body against his in a shy, tentative way. The feel of her bare flesh was electric. Sensations stirred inside him that he hadn’t felt in more than two years.

Colleen…

No. Bryn.

He made love to her as tenderly as if she were a virgin bride. Toward the end she clung to him fiercely, but even then she averted the left side of her face into the pillow.

Afterward, when they were breathing normally again, she clutched his hand in both of hers. “Jake? Was it awful for you?”

“My God, no. You know it wasn’t.”

“I was afraid you’d…”

“What?”

“Pull away. Be repulsed.”

“Nothing about you could ever repulse me.”

Soft sigh. Almost a relieved sigh. “For me, it was… I’m not sure I can put it into words…”

“You don’t need to. We don’t need words.”

Quiet.

“Hold me for a while,” she said, “and then… go. Okay? I’d rather you didn’t spend the night. I don’t want you to see me in the morning. I’m not ready for that.”

“Anything you say.”

Her fingers tightened in his and she curled against him with her knees drawn up, like a child. He held her, staring into the warm darkness.

For the first time since before Colleen’s illness, he felt at peace.