O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [60]
“I thought I had a man with the courage to declare our love publicly. That is the only way we can make it stand. You’ve spoken about my father and the Corps. Everyone except you and me. How can it work, Zach?”
“Then write me an ending that isn’t tragic. There can be no fool greater than one leading a cavalry charge without a horse.”
“Take me, Zach,” she demanded.
He wanted to say something about defending her honor, his honor, the Corps’ honor, Horace Kerr’s honor. But there was something grinding at him from her.
Who was that speaking from inside her? Was she truly that deeply in love or hopelessly infatuated or . . .was this the rage of a spoiled heiress holding her breath till she got what she wanted despite the ruination she would wreak?
“How much of this,” Zach said, fearing her answer, “has to do with loving me and how much of it has to do with using me as a pawn in this game, this disease, this plague, between you and your father?”
Amanda had never been spoken to this way. She was exposed and startled.
“How much do you want to beat Daddy?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled, not meaning to speak.
“I didn’t hear you!”
“I don’t know!” she screamed. Then there was the long silence that occurs as one mulls over what one has just discovered about oneself. This young man was as powerful as her father. She had never realized the impossibility of her quest. How do we leave these woods now?
“I guess that in whatever ending we choose for our story, there’s nothing so sacred as your Corps,” she said, trying to give him one last jab with her emotional sword.
“There is something more sacred,” he said.
“What?” she challenged.
“What you let me see and touch on our first night in the garden.”
This put her back on earth. She arched her back. “What happened in the garden was my needing to discover something and needing an honorable Marine to do the deed. So I found out. Having one’s breasts titillated can be rather enjoyable, but it’s not the end of the world.”
“But it is the end of the world!” he said.
“Tits!” she cried. “Is that all you people think of?”
“Pretty much, when we’re off duty.”
She cupped her breasts angrily. “Tits, the minute you get out of the trenches. Tits and trenches.”
“A woman’s breasts are the most beautiful creation God ever made. When they are the breasts of Amanda, they’re damned near worth dying for.”
A hard breeze hit the glade and the limbs all knelt and shook weeping leaves.
So, how do we leave the woods, Amanda? she asked herself. Love him every minute we have left, knowing your heart will be shattered? Run off to San Francisco? Have him desert and follow you? Go to Shanghai? Hear his fifty-year sentence at the court-martial? This man was all and he was not going to bring her to harm.
They had wrung each other dry.
“Let’s go back,” Zach said.
“You ride old Banjo back. He knows the way home. I need to be alone,” she said.
She closed up with nary a word and took her beauty away from his touch. Both of them deeply, deeply wanted her blouse ripped off, but to hell, let damned fools keep their dignity.
She gave a short whistle for the horse, then handed Zach the reins. He mounted.
“I’ll be around for a while, unfortunately,” he said. “What do you think we ought to do about seeing each other again?”
“It’s done,” she said.
Zach jabbed old Banjo in the ribs and the horse headed downstream.
“Zach!” she called.
“Aye?”
“Yes, I want to see you again!”
• 19 •
MONOPOLY
One Week Later—Dutchman’s Hook
Did Amanda’s call mean peace or war? Horace Kerr, an ultimate master of intimidation, was having the tables turned on him. He walked to the boardroom adjoining his office and stood at the high windows looking down on the driveway.
Amanda’s carriage passed through the gate. Amanda closed her parasol and accepted the driver’s hand to help her out, then disappeared into the building.
Horace returned to his office and quickly involved himself in the papers on his desk as his secretary, Mr. Allsop,