A few minutes later Sebastien went back to Tom’s cubicle, where the photograph of him—grinning on a sunshine-filled day—promised all the future an eight-year-old could want. Several residents followed him, curious about his mission. He ripped the photo down and tore it in two.
“Nice attitude,” one of the doctors muttered. “Real professional.”
Sebastien grabbed him by the shirt front and was drawing back a fist when the others latched onto him. The resident looked terrified.
Sebastien turned the resident loose and shrugged off the restraining hands. He went to the table beside Tom’s bed, jerked the drawer open, and took Amy’s video token. No one was brave enough to ask him what he was doing. Or to comment when he went back to the operating room and kissed Tom on the forehead.
Amy forced herself to sit down and stop pacing around the waiting room. People shared the room with her; people pretending to watch Hill Street Blues on the television set in one corner, pretending that they weren’t nervous.
Amy shivered. This was the big leagues of waiting rooms. She checked her watch. She’d been in here for an hour. Something awful must have happened. Her fears were confirmed a few minutes later, when Sebastien appeared in the doorway. His beautiful suit had been replaced with green surgical scrubs, rumpled and baggy. His hair looked damp, as if he’d had a shower.
His face was set in a strained, impatient expression. He beckoned her briskly even as she hurried over. “Let’s go.”
“What happened?” He smelled of antiseptic soap, and the skin of his face was red, as if he’d scrubbed it very hard. Amy pressed her hands to her throat and shook her head. “Oh, no, oh Sebastien—”
“Don’t cry. Walk.” He grabbed her hand and led her down the hall, almost pulling her.
“Where are we going?”
“As far as we can.”
He tugged her into an elevator. They leaned against the wall. Amy felt the hard, hot clamp of his hand on her wrist. She was afraid, but not so much of him as for him. She’d never seen so much anger in anyone’s eyes. “The little boy died,” she said wretchedly.
“I lost him. He gave up.”
“Why do you talk about it that way? As if it were your fault? You tell me not to feel guilty all the time, but you—”
“Don’t analyze me,” he said in a voice full of warning. The elevator came to a stop at the basement parking level. He pulled her over the threshold and swung her to face him. “I’m not in a mood to be kind to you. I don’t want your simple little sentiments.”
“How about this, then?” She knew she was losing her mind, because a sane person wouldn’t do what she did next. She flung both arms around his shoulders and hugged him ferociously, and when he tried to push her away she held on. And then she stomped on his foot.
He made an ominous sound, lifted her by the elbows, and pinned her against the concrete wall beside the elevator doors. He looked furious, disbelieving, and desperate. “Are you insane?”
Her teeth were chattering. Her feet dangled against his legs. “Bingo. Stop it! Stop it, Doc! I feel like a real small sumo wrestler.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to make you happy. I want to go wherever you want to take me. Anytime. Forever.”
His anger shook them both. Between gritted teeth he said, “I’m not taking you with me when I leave for Africa. You’re too young. I don’t want to be bothered with you. Do you understand? I will never take you with me.”
“I said wherever you want to take me. Anytime. Forget about the forever part. Stop arguing. We only have a week. Doc, I’m sorry about Tom. I’m so sorry—”
“Be quiet! Do I look like I need your sorrow? Do I look like I care?”
She was crying now, big tears sliding unnoticed down her cheeks. “Yeah.”
“Dammit! Don’t cry!” His throat convulsed. He put her down, his fingers tightening on her arms. “Don’t, don’t—”
“Doc, it’s okay, it really is. It’s okay for you to cry, too.”
“It’s useless! Nothing is helped by it!”
“So what’s the big deal, then?”
He shut his eyes and swallowed harshly, struggling for control. “Your logic … evades me, evades the issue—”
“The issue is simple. People die. You can’t die for them. You hurt. You cry. After grieving you feel better.” She struggled out of his grip and slid her arms around him again, then put her head in the crook of his neck. “Aw, Doc, you’re such a sweet guy, and you don’t even know it.”
He shuddered and took her in a harsh, desperate embrace, his hands digging into her back and shoulders. She held him like that, standing in the muggy, dim recesses of a stark place, and listened to him cry.
She knew that she was an adult now; she had no fantasies about him changing his mind and taking her along when he left for Africa. She didn’t deceive herself that she could bridge the gap between their ages and cultures, or their status in society. But for now, he was hers.
He pressed his cheek against her hair. She drew one arm from around him and lifted her hand to the tears on his face. He was very still and accepting as she stroked them with her fingertips, even angling his face so she could reach both sides.
But when he spoke, his voice was bitter. “Is this your idea of making me happy? This is a rather fascinating first for me.”
“Doc, you’re so dumb sometimes.” She cupped his face in her hand and patted it gently.
“Enough. I’d hate it if anyone beside you saw me like this.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
They walked swiftly to his black Ferrari, their hands entwined so tightly that Amy’s fingers ached. When she was seated in the passenger side, he leaned across her and grasped the seat belt, then jammed it into its clip.
“Put yours on, too,” she said.
He stroked a hand down one side of her face, brushed his fingers over the small bandage on her chin, but ignored her order entirely. Amy felt a sad, poignant exhilaration as he jerked the car out of the parking lot and sent it rushing into the blue dusk of the summer evening.
They were silent while driving through urban streets draped in dogwoods; Amy clung to the armrest and watched Sebastien’s expression of fierce concentration as he whipped the powerful car onto an interstate between office buildings that glinted in the setting sun.
He was not driving toward his town house. She settled in the seat and tentatively rested a hand on his shoulder. When she looked at the speedometer it read ninety. Her heart thudding, Amy watched the utter confidence of his hands. Even the fury inside him couldn’t destroy their skill. A sense of safety washed over her, instinctive and unquestioning.
Take me there fast, take me there so fast that I never look back.
In an hour they reached the foothills of the mountains north of Atlanta. The night rushed black around them, and the highway was empty. “Where are we going, Doc?”
He gave a rough, startled laugh, as if disgusted with himself. “I don’t know. I don’t even know where we are now. How is that for irresponsible behavior?”
“Pretty nice try, Doc. But I think you can do better. If you really want to get lost, let’s get off this highway and find a nice dirt road.”
He did, and a few minutes later the Ferrari was spewing gravel down an alley of forest. The tops of the trees made inkblots against a sky full of stars. The road left the forest and slid between old pastures with fallen-down fences. It rose up a steep hill toward the crumbling silhouette of a chimney.
Sebastien plowed the car to a halt at the top, sluicing the front wheels into the grassy roadside. “More suggestions?”
“This is my kind of territory,” Amy told him. “You gotta roam it on foot. Comeon.” They left the car and she grabbed his hand. On a silent, mutual signal they broke into a run across matted grassland wilted by the summer heat.
A dizzying time later they collapsed on the slope of a valley that stretched for miles. Lights winked in
the distance; cars sped along unseen country roads. A new moon was rising; Amy looked at Sebastien sitting beside her in the faint light but couldn’t read any of his emotions.
“Feel better?” she asked, her voice squeaking.
“Yes. Somehow …” He put his arm around her, and she leaned gratefully into the crook of it. He rested his head against hers and they watched the night sky.
“Wherever Tom is, he’s okay,” Amy whispered. “I hope you believe that.”
“Tonight I choose to believe every good thought you give me.”
“Sometimes you just have to throw back your head and—”
“Howl at the moon?” He hesitated for a moment, then gave a long, bloodcurdling yell filled with anger and pain. It reverberated through the night, silencing the insects, making Amy shiver. He did it again. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she twisted to hold him. She caught his face between her hands and kissed him.
He made a harsh sound but took everything she offered, then wound his arms around her and returned fierce, raw energy so erotic that she shuddered and moaned against his mouth. He pulled back. “I said that I wasn’t in the mood to be kind to you. There is too much going on inside me tonight. It makes me reckless. This can only hurt you. Now stop—”
“You don’t have to worry about hurting me, or make promises about the future, or say a lot of hokey sweet things. You just have to be yourself.”
“Most women would be dismayed at that possibility.”
“I never look at things the way other people do. I guess you’re in luck.”
He shut his eyes for a moment, as if making a decision. “Very much in luck.”
He kissed her again, this time sweetly and with obvious restraint. She sagged against him. Bending her backward, he laid her on the cool, matted grass and undressed her, his hands hurried but careful. She curled and uncurled her fingers, feeling shy, feeling amazed and wanting him so badly that he had already finished removing her clothes before caution prompted her to speak. “I haven’t got any, uhmmm … I’m not on the pill, or anything.”
“I was about to ask you.” He pulled his wallet from a back pocket in the loose orderly’s uniform. Opening it, he retrieved a small, flat package then tossed the wallet aside.
She felt herself blushing. “Oh. Okay. You’re ready for emergencies.”
Reaching for her, he pulled her upright for a moment and hugged her. “You assume that I go around indulging in ‘emergencies’? No. But I’m not a boy. I can’t play innocent.”
She nuzzled her face against his shoulder and marveled at the thought that she was naked in his embrace. “Okay. I can. For both of us.”
He guided her onto her back and sat beside her in the silver-hued darkness, stroking her from breasts to thighs, running the backs of his fingers across her taut, small nipples, drawing his thumbs down the center of her stomach, spreading his hands over her thighs and lightly brushing the inner recesses with his fingertips.
“So you haven’t done this before,” he whispered. He didn’t sound surprised or dismayed.
She covered her face and groaned softly. “You’re so French.”
He bent and began kissing her breasts. “In what way?”
“You don’t … make a big deal out of these things.”
“That’s as it should be, don’t you think? Do you want me to turn away because you’re inexperienced? Or do you want me to treat you like the beautiful woman you are?”
He put one arm under the curve of her back and lifted her to his skillful, slowly sucking mouth. She had never fantasized anything so wonderful. The aura of grief from the little boy’s death gentled what was happening; even though inexperienced she realized that this was not a night for grand displays. His bluntness freed her to be a little frightened without embarrassment, even as her body throbbed.
There seemed to be a direct line of sensation from her breasts to the lovely ache between her thighs. When he slipped a hand between them and eased his fingers inside her, she forgot everything but the feelings that radiated throughout her womb.
In her excitement she waved her hands about, patting his shoulders, punching her fists into the soft, rustling grass, then finally reaching into the air, every muscle in her body arching toward the sky. He lifted her upright as if she were a doll frozen in an awkward position, her legs splayed, her arms sticking straight over his shoulders, while soft moans cascaded from her throat.
His hand massaged her intimately, covered in the warm moisture she felt spreading inside her thighs. “You’re wonderful,” he told her. “And so incredibly sensual that you make love in the way that suits you most, without being self-conscious about it.”
She grasped his face between her hands and kissed him desperately, dazed and so much in love with him she could only express it by mewling deep in her throat, like an animal that was starving. It broke his reserve. He undressed hurriedly and lay down beside her, pulling her greedy hands over his body.
“I never thought I’d want to be happy tonight,” he admitted. “And certainly not like this.”
They both grew still. She studied his face. The moonlight and its shadows fell harshly on his tired, pensive expression. Amy stroked his jaw. “I won’t tell your secret,” she murmured. “I think you deserve to be happy, even tonight.”
Shivering, he took her hands and kissed them. He placed the condom in them. “Never let anyone tell you that it’s safe to be careless. Always insist on responsibility. Never let a man take advantage of you.”
She bit her lip and looked away. “Stop being so French! I really don’t want to talk about other men. I’m not that sophisticated yet.”
The stillness that settled in him made her catch her breath. When he spoke, his voice was gruff. “I am sometimes too much a lecturer. And I forget how my logic sounds.” He paused, and when he spoke again he sounded dismayed. “Forgive me.”
“Just … go back to being a horny guy,” she said firmly.
He made a strangled sound. “Oh, Miracle. Come here. Touch me. You have an incredible way of cutting straight to the point.”
She fumbled with the condom until finally, with graceful gallantry, he helped her with it. He moved over her, parting her legs with his knees.
She put her arms around his neck as he settled his weight on her. Amy kissed him, opening her mouth to the hot thrusts of his tongue. His lips feathering hers, he murmured soft words of reassurance as he entered her slowly.
“Oh, Doc, you’re not hurting me,” she answered. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I’ll try not to. Now hold me. Hold me tightly, and we’ll see what kind of happiness we can make in only a week’s time.”
Amy latched her arms around him and buried a distraught expression against his neck, but the feel of his body and then, a moment later, the sweet desperation in his kisses coaxed her sorrow away. His darkness was frightening but irresistible, and she let it surround her.
There was so little time left. Only a few days.
Sebastien listened to the low, seductive music of a Debussy prelude on the bedroom tape deck. The light of a bedside lamp made a pleasant sensation of heat on the side of his face. Across his room the time changed on the Tiffany clock atop his dresser: 4:02. In an hour or so the darkness in the corners of the room would take on the gray tint of approaching dawn.
But for now the night was still and eternal, and Amy lay under his arm, her back against his chest. She held his hand and stroked it with slow, lingering fingertips, unhurried, satiated, as he was, yet unable to stop caressing him. He burrowed his face into the hair at the base of her neck. Every sensation was vivid; the scent of her hair, the taste of her skin, the velvety side of her breast rubbing against his bicep.
The sheet felt like a caress on his lower body, and he remembered the playful, fumbling attention she’d given him with her mouth. I didn’t mean to bite you, Doc. I was thinking about oysters.
Oysters. It was the first time he’d ever laughed at the expens
e of his testicles. He cupped his hips and legs closer to hers, and she sighed.
“Doc?” Her voice was husky, a private whisper liquid with emotion. “Do you ever feel like you’re going to cry because it feels so good?”
He struggled for a moment, then gave up. What need was there to pretend with Amy? In her adoration, there was acceptance. She had no cynicism, no preconceived ideas about how a man and woman should withhold powerful information in bed. “Yes,” he admitted. “Sometimes it’s that wonderful.”
“When you do it with me, I mean?”
“Yes. Of course that’s what I mean.”
“Doc?” She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his fingers. The tension in her grip radiated through his body; she was quivering. “Do you think, after you leave, that you’ll find somebody else, someone you’ll want to do this with? I mean, do you think you’ll find someone else right away?”
He held her tighter and shut his eyes. “No.”
She exhaled wearily. “Good. I didn’t want to think you would.”
“Let’s not talk about the future.”
“Just one more thing. How … how are we going to say good-bye? I mean, where?”
“Where would you like to say good-bye?”
She turned over and looked at him. Her eyes were so tragic that a lump rose in his throat. No matter how right he was to leave her behind, he would always regret it. He had found himself reacting to life in a more open, more emotional way since he’d met her, and he knew he’d lose that ability when he left her. He reminded himself that he didn’t enjoy being dependent on another person, and how foolish it was to be this vulnerable.
But when she gave him a lopsided smile he couldn’t help but kiss her. “Funny Miracle. Where would you like to say good-bye?”
“In bed. After we make love one last time.” She shook her head, tears brimming in her eyes. “But I agree, let’s not talk about it anymore.” She slid down and nestled her head against the center of his chest. “That music makes me think of children playing in a field full of flowers. What’s it make you think of?”