Heaven's Price Part 16

"Well, I do." Before she knew what he was about, he dropped the nails which pinged on the concrete slab, dropped the hammer with a loud crash, and plowed toward her, tossing her over his lowered shoulder.

The air was forced out of her body with a whoosh, but when she regained it, she screamed, "Put me down, you oaf." She wiggled, she kicked, she clawed, she pummeled his back with her fists, all to no avail. He swatted her hard on the rump and it hurt so bad tears sprang to her eyes. She dashed them away before he flung her down onto her back on Pam's bed and slammed the door, sealing them alone in the room.

She catapulted off the bed and faced him with both hands grinding into her hips. "I should have known you'd have the instincts of a caveman, a barbarian. They were bound to surface sooner or later."

"I didn't create a scene, you did," he shouted. "I don't apologize for hauling you around like a sack of flour because you have no more sensitivity than one. Even if you didn't mind Pam hearing what we're about to discuss, you should care that Andrew would. He has a wors.h.i.+pful att.i.tude toward you that I frankly think is misplaced."

"Don't lecture me on my behavior," she spat. "I only want to know one thing." Her chest rose and fell with agitation. She could feel the blood boiling in her veins, surging behind her eyelids and making her see red, thundering behind her eardrums and creating a terrible racket.

"Did you or did you not call George Silverton this morning?"

"Yes, I did." His expression didn't change. His inflection was calm.

"Are you a friend of his?"

"Yes. We play tennis when he comes out for a weekend.

His succinct, honest answers perversely infuriated her further.

"Did you sabotage my chances of getting cast in that show?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me," she screamed.

"I'm not," he yelled back.

"You are! You called Silverton and asked him, as a friend," not to cast a Miss Blair Simpson. What did you tell him? That he'd be risking my falling down one night during a performance? That I was a handicapped dancer? Or was it something just between you guys? That I was your current bed partner and you weren't quite ready for me to go back to work? What did you tell him?"

The words that tumbled out of Sean's mouth as he raked a hand through his hair would only be found on the walls of the vilest public restrooms. He stood in an arrogant pose, hands on hips, one leg supporting his weight, while he eyed her with mingled amazement and disgust.

"You really think that?" he asked finally, when she was beginning to avoid the blue heat of his eyes. "After the past few days we've spent together, you can honestly think that I'd do something like that?"

His voice had gradually risen to a roar. He threw his head back to look at the ceiling while he drew in a deep, restorative, rage-suppressing breath. His eyes closed when he expelled the air in his lungs on one long, sustained sigh as he lowered his head.

"No, Blair, I hate to disappoint you, but I did nothing of the sort.

As a matter of fact, your name was never mentioned. I called George, who, yes, is a friend of mine. I knew he was producing that show. I asked him about it. Asked him about the type of show it was, trying to learn just how rigorous it would be for you. That's all. Period.

Believe me or not.

That's the truth."

"Well I don't believe it," she said to his surprise. "I danced too well. I was great. Something kept me from being selected, and it had nothing to do with my performance at that audition."

"And it had nothing to do with me. Why would I do something like that to you?" His voice contained the genuine bafflement he felt. That she could really suspect him of something so devious was incomprehensible.

She laughed mirthlessly. "With your reputation? Are you serious?

If for no other reason, to guarantee yourself a live-in playmate-of-the-month."

Livid color flooded his rugged features and he took a threatening step toward her. "I ought to knock the h.e.l.l out of you for saying that."

"Well that would certainly be in keeping with your style," she flung back at him.

"Or better yet I ought to throw you down on that bed and make love to you sensesless or at least are rendered speechless."

"Conquer with s.e.x. Is that it? Is that what you've been trying to do these past few days?"

"Not conquer. Persuade. Instruct. Convince. Convince you that there's more to life than dancing on a stage."

"Not for me!"

"Oh yes. For you. You've proved it time and again since last Friday night that you can get a high from making love with me that you never knew from dancing."

"No!" "Yes! I've seen you s.h.i.+ne with fulfillment. I've heard you purr with contentment. Radiate happiness like a furnace. Look at you now. Did dancing make you all that happy today? You've been crying your eyes out.

And what the h.e.l.l happened to your hair?"

Stunned momentarily by the question asked so out of context, she reached up to pat her hair, as though to acquaint herself with what could be wrong with it. "I . . . I frizzed it."

"You mean you did that on purpose?" he asked tactlessly.

Her chin went up defensively. "It looks good from the stage this way.

It makes me look younger."

"Younger! Yeah, you look like a young guru."

"I don't need to listen to this," she said, stamping past him on her way to the door.

He caught her arm in a fist like a steel trap and whirled her around to face him. "Yes, you do," he said through bared teeth. "You've needed someone to tell it to you like it is for a long time. You, Blair Simpson, are the most self-centered person I've ever known. Your selfishness is so much a part of you that you don't even see it. It's time you did."

She struggled to release herself. It was futile.

"Do you think you're the only person in the world who's ever had a setback? Did life ever make you a guarantee that things were always going to be rosy? What if you never get to dance again? What then?

Is that all there'll be to your life? Will you throw yourself in front of a train like your friend Cole?"

"Let me go," she grated, finally managing to jerk her numb arm free.

"I won't give up until I'm a success."

"As what? As a dancer? You are. You've had twelve successful years of a dancing career."

"It's not enough."

"It'll never be enough, because there are other levels of success and only some of them relate to notoriety and affluence. Others have to do with being a warm, caring, loving human being. And as that, Miss Simpson, you're a miserable failure."

The words were like a slap in the face that actually brought tears back to her eyes. "Shut up!"

"No, you shut up and listen to me. No amount of success is ever going to make you happy because you'll never trust it not to fly out the window. You'll still crave acceptance. And it won't matter a d.a.m.n who else accepts you, because you'll never be able to accept yourself.

That's what's wrong with you, Blair. You don't like yourself."

He was too close to the truth and she threw up every s.h.i.+eld she had to protect herself. She had to transfer the pain, the guilt. "How dare you lecture me about something you know nothing about. What do you know of disappointments and setbacks? You sit out here in your cushy little nest and hand down sermons on success. Everything you've ever touched turned to gold. Tell me, King Midas, when you ever knew a day of disappointment and rejection."

"Eight years ago when I went bankrupt and lost everything."

The silence was palpable. Sean's unleashed tension rolled over Blair in waves and choked off her oxygen. He had wished her speechless. He had her speechless now as she stared at him vacantly, trying to absorb what he'd just said.

"Bankrupt?" she wheezed.

"Sit down."

She obeyed him without question, walking to the bed and dropping down.

He went to the window, staring out it with his back to her.

"I was thirty years old, building c.r.a.ppy houses and condos right and left. Buying up land for more houses and condos. As you said, I couldn't go wrong. But I did. Everything went wrongunwise investments, a glutted market, high lending rates, tight money. No one bought the houses or condos. Banks called in their loans. I was down to the socks I stood in.

I filed Chapter Eleven.

"Country club friends and investors forgot my telephone number and wished they could forget my name. It makes people nervous to be around someone who's going under for the third time, as though they'll catch the contagious disease he's carrying. Anyway I wasn't much fun to be around anymore. I had to sell the sailboat, the XKE, the Cadillac, the six horses, my tennis racquet and golf clubs." He laughed. "I'm not joking. It got that bad.

"Luckily my father had pulled out a few years earlier. He didn't like what I was doing with the high-cla.s.s construction business it had taken him a lifetime to build. He was right. Anyway his and Mom's financial futures were secured.

"Through the courts I was able to liquify a.s.sets and pay back the debts. Slowly. Very slowly. But most creditors got back ninety cents on the dollar. I moved out here and started over.

Worked as a carpenter. Found I liked it, working with my hands, building.

"I sc.r.a.ped up enough money to buy my house and worked on it on the weekends. Then I bought another and sold it, using my house as an example of what could be done with an old house like that. I think you can piece together the rest. I was very lucky. I got a second chance and managed not to blow it."

He turned to look at her now. "You were curious about the woman I planned to marry. She took a walk when the going got rough, panicked at the thought of being chained to a husband who couldn't keep up his country club dues, not to mention her Bonwit's charge account."

"She just left?" All through his tale, Blair had remained silent.

Learning that this man who epitomized self-a.s.surance and success had known such failure and vulnerability had drained her of anger and replaced it with a sort of awe.

"Yes, and at the time I was glad to see her go. That was just one less responsibility I had to cope with. But I was mad as h.e.l.l that she kept the diamond engagement ring. I was planning on selling it." A trace of humor lit his blue eyes.

"You never saw her again?"

"Oh, yes. Several years later, right after a banker from London jilted her for a richer divorcee, she came out here to see me. She ooohed and aaahed over the houses I had restored. I had just bought the Mercedes, which she trailed greedy little fingers over. The Times had just done a feature story about me in the Sunday edition. I was back on the way up.

She loved my little houses. She loved my little town. She loved me and couldn't imagine why she'd ever thought she didn't."

Blair didn't hide her repugnance. "What did you say to all that?"

"Nothing. I laughed in her face and sent her on her disgruntled way.

I wished her happy hunting. As far as I know she's still stalking for a rich husband with both barrels loaded." He wasn't smiling at his own attempted humor when he came to sit beside her on the bed.

Taking her hand, he laid it in the palm of one of his and marveled over its slender fingers and the faint blue veins threading the back of it.

"If one lives to middle age, Blair, he has to go through upheavals.

Women lose their husbands and have to enter the job market for the first time, men get laid off from a factory job they've had for thirty years and have to find other work, housewives have to cope with idleness when their children leave home.

"I had to start all over. I didn't plan on ever being happy again, yet I'm happier now than I've ever been. This life I'm leading now was totally unpredicted. It just fell out of the blue into my lap like a gift."

Pam had said something like that to her the day she moved into the garage apartment. About something wonderful for her being planned that she couldn't even guess at.

"I love the work I do. I take great pride in it. There's a tangible satisfaction in watching something taking shape under my hands. I never knew that kind of satisfaction by acquiring a parcel of land that really meant no more to me than the printed deed." He tilted her chin up to peer down into her face. "Do I sound like a complete fool?

Maudlin?"

She shook her head. "You sound like a man with both feet on the ground, who knows values by having learned them the hard way. A survivor. A man pleased with his life."

"In all areas save one. My life lacks something vital," he said softly.

He lifted the ma.s.s of hair covering her ear and brushed his mustache along the fragile rim.

Involuntarily her head fell back and her eyes closed. "What vital something would that be?" She was dimly aware that he was lowering them into a reclining position. Their legs dangled over the edge of the bed.

His mouth maneuvered its way over her cheek to ghost against her lips as he spoke. "A woman to love me. To live with me and share my life.

To make laughter and love with." His tongue flicked at the corners of her mouth before gliding along her bottom lip. "Blair, you've been hurt today. If I could, I would have spared you that, but maybe it's better that this happened."

It was hard to think while his tongue was gently probing past her lips and while his hand was playing with the b.u.t.tons on her blouse, but his conciliatory tone jiggled a nerve that wouldn't let her relax completely. "Why better?" she asked.

"Because now you know you're better off accepting your life here.

Now you can forget about ever going back."

She turned her head, dragging her mouth from beneath his. The hand plucking at the b.u.t.tons on her blouse was caught by hers and removed as she sat up. She twisted at the waist to look back at him.

"I don't know anything of the sort, Sean. And I'm not forgetting about anything, especially my career." He came up on one elbow. "You've been telling me for the last half-hour how wonderful and rare second chances are. I've got to make my own second chance. I've got to go back. As soon as I contact Barney." "I don't believe this," Sean bellowed, rolling off the bed and driving one fist into his opposite palm. "I've been talking about a second chance with another life, not the same one. Don't be obtuse, Blair.

You're only hearing what you want to hear and twisting it to suit you.

"Look at who's accusing me of twisting things. The story you've just told me applies to your life, Sean, not mine."

"They could be one and the same." The simple clarity with which he spoke panicked her more than his earlier forcefulness had done.

"But they're not. Not now, not until-" "Not until you're too crippled to dance anymore? Maybe even to walk?"

He was shouting now.