Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [19]
She had said to him once, “Never love anything so much that if fate snatches it away, your whole world turns black.”
He knew it was too late for that now—for both of them.
“Lydia, I’m okay,” he repeated softly. He lay very still, afraid to move his hand, afraid she’d let it go.
She searched his face to see if he was lying. Then she nodded and sat back in the chair, keeping her hold on his hand. He watched as she struggled to recover herself. Her skin was flushed, she stared away from him. Anyone else would have thought her face lacked emotion, her small features were taut and still. But her gray eyes told the tale to him alone.
“Don’t you ever die on me, Jeffrey. Don’t you ever,” she whispered.
She seemed not to be able to stop the quiet, choking sobs that shook her shoulders. He would almost rather take another bullet than ever hear that sound again.
“Lydia,” he began, the words he had wanted to say for years on the tip of his tongue.
She stopped him. “Don’t, Jeffrey,” she said gently.
He let it go, too afraid to go forward. They sat in silence, hand in hand, until he drifted off to sleep.
She stayed with him in his midtown apartment for almost a month. She cleaned, she cooked, she nursed him with a tenderness he wouldn’t have believed of her. Not that she was a cold woman. But getting close to her was like trying to get a bird to eat out of your hand. You had to hold that bread crumb out consistently and for a good long time before you earned enough trust to approach without generating a flight response. She slept in his guest room, though she had her own apartment in New York City overlooking Central Park West. She stayed until he became restless to go back to work and she was satisfied that he was well.
Then Lydia left, went off to Europe to find out if Esmy von Buren was really killing her own children as her former mother-in-law suspected. Jeffrey didn’t try to make her stay, just kissed her lightly on the mouth.
“I’ll always be here, Lydia.”
“So will I.” And she flashed him a rare smile.
He strapped himself in now, and was glad to see that the door had closed but no one was sitting beside him, even though he probably would not at any point “take off his seat belt and move freely about the cabin” as the pilot would blithely suggest. Didn’t people know about wind shears?
The plane began taxiing down the runway, picking up speed. He wondered, as he had wondered a thousand times, what would have happened if he had pushed her that night in the hospital. It might have taken only the slightest nudge. Perhaps she would have opened to him like a hothouse orchid. Or perhaps she would have shattered into a thousand pieces, like a carelessly handled porcelain doll.
But as it was, since their month of living together almost a year ago, she’d put more distance between them than ever. At the height of the FBI investigation of Esmy von Buren, which Lydia had been responsible for getting started, she called him almost every day, but they spoke only about the case. He’d seen her only a handful of times when she returned to New York for Esmy’s trial. Then, two months ago, with Esmy tried and convicted of three counts of murder and Lydia’s article turned in to New York magazine, Lydia took off. She left a message on his home machine, though she could have easily reached him on his cell phone.
“I need a rest after this case. Christ, I’m exhausted. I’ll call you. Take care of that shoulder.”
The plane was racing down the runway, doubling its speed by the second and making his adrenaline pump.