Chapter Twenty-Two

It seemed to be his day for soothing feelings and easing guilt. Tucker wondered how a man could get through most of his life riding just above the surface of troubled waters, then find himself neck-deep in the swirl.

Caroline's emotions still sizzled in the air. It was as if someone had tossed a live wire into those churning waters, where it would snap and spark.

He wished he had a cigarette, but the pack was upstairs, probably drenched by his wet shirt.

He looked up those shadowy stairs-not without longing for the peace and solitude of the bedroom-then back toward the kitchen, where the lamplight flickered and tension brewed.

When he went into the kitchen, she was standing at the sink, looking out the window much as she had the morning after Burns's visit. Only this time she was facing the dark.

Tucker didn't want her to face it alone. He walked up behind her, felt a wave of frustration when her shoulders stiffened at his touch.

"You know, my usual routine on finding myself with a broody woman would be to make some joke and talk her back into bed. If that didn't work, I'd find the quickest way to the door." Despite her resistance, he began to knead her rigid shoulders. "The usual doesn't seem to have much to do with you."

"I wouldn't mind a joke right now."

He laid his brow on the back of her head. Wasn't it a damn shame he couldn't think of one, he mused, or of anything except what was hurting her. "Talk to me, Caroline."

With a restless movement she switched on the tap to wash the sink clear. "There's nothing to say."

As he lifted his head, he could see the ghost of their reflection in the black window glass. He knew she could see it, too, but he wondered if she knew how fragile it was, how easily wiped away.

"When you walked downstairs a few minutes ago, I could still feel the way you'd been, lying there with me. All soft and easy. Now you're all tied up in knots. I don't like seeing you this way."

"It's nothing to do with you."

The speed with which he whirled her around surprised them both, as did the barely restrained violence in his voice. "You want to use me for sex and leave out everything else, then make it plain right now. If what went on between us upstairs was just a tussle on hot sheets for you, then say so and we'll play this your way. But it was more for me." He gave her a quick shake, as if to rattle the wall she'd thrown up between them. "Dammit, it's never been like that before."

"Don't pressure me." Eyes blazing, she shoved against his chest. "My whole life I've had to tolerate other people pressuring me. I'm done with that."

"You're not done with me. If you think you can take a few swipes and send me out the door, you're wrong. I'm sticking." To prove his point, he pressed his lips to hers in a hard, possessive kiss. "We're both going to start to get used to it."

"I don't have to get used to anything. I can say yes, or I can say no, or I can-" She broke off, squeezing her eyes shut. "Oh, why am I fighting with you? It's not you." After a deep breath she slipped away from him.

"It's not you, Tucker. It's me. Shouting at you isn't going to make it go away."

"I don't mind you shouting-much-if it makes you feel better."

She smiled, rubbing absently at her temple. "I think one of Dr. Palamo's miracle pills would do a better job of it."

"Let's try something else." Catching her hands, he drew her to a chair. "You sit here while I pour us a couple of glasses of that wine I brought you a while back Then you tell me why that phone call got you all het up."

"Het up." She sat, closing her eyes again. "That expression covers a lot of ground, doesn't it? My mother would say overwrought, but I like het up." When she opened her eyes there was the faintest hint of amusement in them. "I've been het up quite a bit over the last months. That was my mother on the phone."

"I got the drift of that." He drew the cork on the wine. "And that she was-overwrought-about what happened yesterday."

"Yes indeed. Particularly since it was a topic of conversation at a dinner party she attended. Gossip's a habit of Yankees, too-though my mother's crowd would call it socializing. But she was most particularly upset since the press has picked up the scent, and I have an important engagement pending. She's afraid the President and the Soviet Premier might not want to hear Mozart's Violin Concerto Number Five played by a woman who so recently shot someone's face off." She accepted the glass Tucker held out and offered a quick toast. "Georgia Waverly's daughter Caroline isn't supposed to attract unsavory publicity. What would the Women's League think?"

"Could be she was scared for you."

"Could be. Oh, to give her her due, she wouldn't want anything to happen to me. She does love me, in her way. It's just that her way is so difficult to live up to." She sipped her wine, and it was cold and tart and bracing. "She's always wanted the best for me-her idea of the best. I've spent my entire life trying to give her that. Then I had to take a hard look and admit that I couldn't give her that anymore."

"People get comfortable with the way things are." He sat beside her, with the oil lamp flickering on the table between them. "It might take her a while longer to accept that you've changed the rules."

"Or she might never accept it. That's something else I have to understand." Cradling the glass in both hands, Caroline looked around the room. The old refrigerator thudded, then began its whining hum. Rain was dripping musically from the gutter.

Worn linoleum and faded curtains, she thought. The lamplight was kind to the room, as it would have been to a tired woman. Caroline found that incredibly comforting.

"I love this place," she murmured. "Despite everything that's happened, I feel right here. And I need…"

"What?"

"I need to belong somewhere. I need the simplicity, the continuity."

"That doesn't sound like something you should apologize for."

So he'd heard it, she thought with a grim little smile. It was still there, that habitual tone of apology whenever she took something for herself.

"No, it's not. I'm working on that. You see, she'd never understand what I'm saying to you, what I'm feeling. And she certainly can't understand what I need."

"Then I guess it comes down to pleasing her, or pleasing yourself."

"I've come to that conclusion myself. But it's difficult, when pleasing myself alienates her so completely. She grew up in this house, Tucker. She's ashamed of that. She's ashamed that her father chopped cotton for a living and that her mother canned jellies. Ashamed of where she came from, and of the two people who gave her life, and did the best they could to make that life a good one."

"That's something for her to deal with, not you."

"But it's because of that shame that I'm here at all.

It connects us. I guess that's what families do, and you don't really have any choice about your link in the chain."

"Maybe not, but you can choose what comes after you."

"And what comes after is still bound with what came before. She never gave me a chance to know my grandparents. They did without a lot of things so that she could go to college in Philadelphia. I didn't hear that from my mother," she added, and there was bitter regret in her voice. "I heard it from Happy Fuller. My grandmother took in laundry, sewing, did what the ladies call fancy work to sell. All to scrape together pennies for tuition. They didn't have to pay it long, which was a blessing, I suppose. She met my father during the first semester. He's often told me how he'd tried to weasel out of the blind date his roommate had hooked him into. And how, the moment he set eyes on my mother, he fell in love. Do you ever picture your parents that way? On their first date, falling in love?"