Miracle

  “No need to be so defensive.” He grasped her hand and studied the crudely etched heart, which looked deflated. It bothered him to think of a child being permanently marked by superstition; then he considered the fact that his mother’s prayers to the saints and her astrology had marked him in a less visible but equally potent way. “You need a transplant.”

  She shivered under his touch but didn’t pull away. Her fingertips pressed into his palm with disarming warmth. “I’ll trade you,” she said softly. “Heart for heart. Scar for scar.”

  Shaken by such unexpected power, he watched her silently as she withdrew into the plush confines of his guest room.

  He was seated at the island in the center of his kitchen at five the next morning, groggily drinking a cup of thick black coffee, when Amy tiptoed in. She was dressed in denim shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers. She carried her straw hat and sunglasses. He was dressed in a short robe of blue silk. She halted abruptly at the sight of him lounging on a tall black bar stool with his long, naked legs idly crossed and the robe gaping open to reveal most of his chest.

  “I’m sorry—I mean, excuse me,” she managed to say, blushing.

  “Come in. I thought you’d sleep late.”

  Sebastien rearranged himself into a more formal posture and pulled the robe closed. Underneath the cool silk he grew so hard that he ached, not an unusual condition for him in the presence of a desirable female, but dangerous in combination with his emotions for this one. Contentment gathered in his chest—for no other reason than she was looking at him with shy fascination. Even battered and sad her face had a piquant charm; she was certainly not beautiful, but he could hardly take his eyes off her.

  She sat down across the counter from him and put her things on the cool stove top nearby. “I can’t sleep late. I have to leave in thirty minutes if I’m gonna make it to work on time from all the way down here.” She slapped a hand to her forehead and winced. “I forgot! My bike’s over at the hospital! When will you be leavin’ for work?”

  “You didn’t go to bed until after two, and your face is very swollen. How can you possibly make an hour’s drive on a motorcycle, in your condition?”

  “Hey,” she said sharply. “The world doesn’t hold out its hand to lazy people. I’m on my own now, and I’m not gonna blow it.”

  “I admire your courage. But I’m putting you on sick leave for today. I say so, and I’m your doctor. I’m also your employer, remember? Sick leave with pay. Now go back to bed.” He gestured toward a waffle iron beside the stove. “Or have breakfast, and then go back to bed.”

  She clasped her hands and stared at them stubbornly while blinking back tears. Considering her swollen right eye, the effort was painful to watch. Her chin was pink where he could see the beginnings of his stitches. She hadn’t complained at all during the course of his work.

  “This is a sink-or-swim thing,” she whispered, her voice quivering. “My bein’ on my own, I mean. I can’t take your help.” She laughed. “Ol’ Beaucaire will think the worst about me if I call and say I’m with you.”

  “He’ll think what I tell him to think. That’s the privilege I enjoy for being his employer, not his employee.”

  “I can’t—”

  “No work today, Amy. Now answer correctly: ‘All right, Sebastien.’ ”

  “Sebastien?” she whispered, her eyes lighting a little. “You don’t mind if I call you by your first name?”

  “It would be terribly formal for you to call me otherwise now that you’ve seen me in nothing but my robe.”

  “Nothing but—” She covered her eyes gingerly and chuckled. “One of us is embarrassed, and buddy, it ain’t you.”

  “Now, about breakfast—”

  “All right, Sebastien, I’ll stay put for now. I better go get some sleep.” Relieved of her courage, she looked as if she might suddenly droop over the table. “I’ll call … a taxi later on. Get my bike from the hospital. Go up to Athens and find a good motel.”

  Sebastien reached over and took her hands. A knot lodged in his throat. Courage. This morning she was forging ahead on courage alone, more of it than he had ever expected. “You’re a very strong, very determined person,” he told her gruffly. “Very ancient for your age. Bravo! But you must also be wise. Listen!” He shook her hands for attention, because her eyes were shutting even as he spoke. “Be wise. Accept help when you need it.” Sebastien sighed at the irony of his giving advice that he never took. “Stay here again tonight.”

  He sat back, wondering what he meant to do with this incredible young woman, and whether he could keep from hurting her. “I’ll be gone until after midnight. You won’t be bothered. Stay here,” he said again, sealing her fate.

  “I’m so scared. So tired. Confused. Such a baby!”

  “No. Anyone would be afraid. We’ll talk about your future later. Now go and rest.”

  He went around the counter to her, guided her off the stool, then picked her up and carried her to the guest room. From the unrumpled state of the bed’s pearl-white sheets, he doubted that she had slept much. No surprise in that, her father had thrown her to the wolves and she was terrified. Holding her close, Sebastien kissed her hair.

  “Everything will be fine, Miracle,” he whispered.

  She nodded against his chest. “Trust … you.”

  Not too much, he cautioned silently, and putting her to bed, tucked the covers around her, then quickly left the room.

  Sebastien had finally gone too far. This flagrant attention to a girl who was no more than a field worker was unforgivable.

  Pio Beaucaire swung his heavy office chair to face the wall of photographs. The images of elite old-world culture were his shrine. The de Savin vineyards. The fifteenth-century château. Le comte de Savin stood in front of it proudly, as a man who knew the value of duty and tradition should. He ruled with a iron fist because he understood that honor, discipline, and obedience were the hallmarks of nobility.

  Pio gripped the arms of his chair. His family had served the de Savin’s for generations. It was a proud service, a loyal service. He and the comte de Savin respected each other’s positions in the world. They shared a very French love for order and continuity.

  The time had long since passed for Sebastien to recognize his place in the order of society. The eldest son of the de Savin family had always headed the family businesses. That Sebastien had denied his duty for so long was a tribute to his willpower. He was headstrong, but that was a good trait. Pio loved him and was proud in a way. When his spirit matured—was tamed—Sebastien would be a credit to his father’s name. Why le comte had not crushed the rebellion when Sebastien was a boy had always bewildered Pio. He had certainly allowed no rebellion from the younger ones, Annette and Jacques. Jacques, unfortunately, had been worthless from birth.

  Pio supposed that le comte had made concessions because of the tragedy. A man who had lost one son was inclined by sentiment and necessity to tolerate faults in the only valuable one who remained.

  But not much longer. While nothing could alter Sebastien’s commitment to spend the next two years in Africa, after that he must not be allowed to ignore his responsibilities at home. No one—and particularly not some unsuitable young woman—must encourage him to return to America.

  Sebastien was unpredictable. This timid young poule might mean nothing to him. But then again, she was not his typical kind of woman. That might be ominous. The comte must be informed of this situation immediately. He would know what to do, Pio felt certain. He always did.

  Two days later Amy was still living in Sebastien’s home, and he was leaving the hospital each night at nine so that he’d have a few hours to enjoy her company before bedtime. Little by little she became more open about herself, and he learned about her father’s drinking, his moods, his past as a circus performer, his tyranny. She was much more than the sum of her timid parts. She loved to read, had keen intuition about people, was a loner like himself, and above all, was a sharp observer of the wor
ld around her.

  She was also an anxious daydreamer with a whimsical way of recreating that world. At breakfast one morning she placed a croissant to her ear as if it were a seashell and said solemnly, “I hear Paris.” He laughed until tears came to his eyes. One evening she wandered around his living room stroking the steamlined fixtures and sleek lines, then observed, “Everything in this place looks like it’s headed somewhere in a hurry.”

  Most disconcerting was the way she viewed him. When he spoke to her she listened avidly, but with her head cocked to one side as if she were trying to make him fit the rest of her world, which was slightly atilt.

  Three nights after leaving home she called her father. She received a vague apology but no invitation to return. Afterward she went to a lounge chair in the little courtyard and sat there silently, surrounded by hot summer darkness, until Sebastien coaxed her to talk. It was not that she had wanted to go home, she explained, but she would have appreciated being asked.

  Sebastien sat on the edge of the chair and put his arms around her. She made a sad, satisfied sound and carefully rested the unhurt side of her face on his shoulder. When he began to stroke her hair she cried out and, with the quick, deadly adoration of the inexperienced, kissed him on one corner of the lips. He shivered as if he’d never been kissed before and knew that he had to move away from her immediately or forget common sense.

  “I didn’t mean to make you mad,” she said in a small voice, when he was standing across the courtyard staring into the stars above its whitewashed brick walls.

  He twisted around and straightened formally. It was time to stop their charade of togetherness. “This Friday is my last day at the hospital. I could have left a month ago; my fellowship ended officially in June. But I stayed because I had no interest in taking a month’s holiday before I left the United States.” He paused, watching her eyes widen with understanding. “A week from this Friday I’m leaving for Africa, to work in a hospital there. And I won’t be back.”

  After a stunned moment she bent her head. Her hands knotted against the cool gray material of the lounge cushion. “You think I was expectin’ you to keep takin’ care of me? Is that why you’re telling me this?”

  “Yes.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him. Tears slid down her cheeks, but her eyes were angry. “I’m not stupid. I know how to love somebody without thinkin’ that they’re gonna love me back.”

  Sebastien studied her. She would have made a fine surgeon; she knew how to cut to the heart of the matter. His brilliant logic deserted him; her scalpel had excised rational thought. “You’re very wise, then,” he told her finally. “That’s the best way to love.”

  “No, it’s not, but it’s all I’ve been able to manage so far.”

  “You may find as you grow older that you prefer your relationships to be one-sided—in your favor, of course. They’re much simpler that way.”

  “No, no.” She scrubbed tears from her bruised face and winced. “It’s sad to live like that.” Vaulting to her feet, her control fleeing, she said, “Good night.”

  “Good night,” he told her grimly. Confusion and self-rebuke were not emotions he liked to feel.

  She gazed at him, her expression stern. “Don’t you ever get hurt?” He nodded. Her hand rose carefully, and one fingertip traced the scar under his chin. “Before you leave maybe you’ll tell me how you got this,” she murmured. “You and me are sort of a matched pair, now. I feel sorry for us both.”

  He stayed on the balcony for a long time after she went to bed, his emotions in chaos. A reckless voice whispered, Take her with you. Teach her everything you know. Let her teach you everything you’ve forgotten.

  Lifting his fingers to his scar, he cursed. No, Sebastien thought with bitter resolve. What a fool he was for involving himself with Amy, a vulnerable young woman who would never fit into his world. He would not become his father, ruthless and selfish, ready to ruin a life just to satisfy a moment’s whim. He would not be doomed to watch the magic die again.

  He was ten years old, and his life was wonderful. “Maman!” he called in an imperious tone. He was important and well loved, and he knew it. “I want you to go skiing this afternoon! Antoine and Bridgette and I are going to teach you!”

  His mother turned from the astrology chart that she had spread across a handsomely carved desk. Behind her a large window gave her a Renaissance halo of sunshine. The snow-draped Alps rose craggy and majestic in the distance. Snow crowded the window ledge outside, and far beyond stood the white winter forest. Sebastien had never seen anything more beautiful than his dark-haired mother posed before the window.

  She smoothed a hand down her plain white sweater, pausing for a second to touch a gold crucifix on a thick chain. Her fingers also brushed across the tokens of her most important saints—more than a dozen of them—spaced along the links of a second gold necklace. Then she tugged the hem of her navy skirt over her knees before finally laying her hands in her lap, signaling him that she was ready to listen patiently.

  Maman was a wonderful listener, though she often looked confused when he told her about his studies at school. Maman was very old-fashioned; she had stopped going to school when she was only a little girl. She was so old-fashioned that she never wore slacks, even at home with the family. Sometimes Papa sent clothes from the design houses in Paris and made her wear them, but never slacks. At times Papa’s comments about her clothes caused her to cry.

  But today she seemed happy. She smiled at his attempt to draw her from the chalet. “No shush-shush for me, Sebastien.” Her Breton accent lay heavy on the first syllable of his name. No one he knew spoke French the way Maman did, or made up new words such as shush-shush. No one practiced astrology or prayed to so many saints. Papa called her a Catholic witch, but Maman was no witch. Maman was special.

  “I’ll teach you to be modern, Maman,” he assured her now. Laughing strangely, she came to him and fussed with the lint on his brightly colored sweater. He was nearly as tall as she, so she didn’t have to bend much to kiss his forehead.

  “Modern I will not be,” she answered. “I am not smart enough.”

  “Yes, you are!”

  “I am smart enough to be a good mother, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Plenty for me, then.” She hugged him close and he smiled against her soft shoulder.

  Antoine and Bridgette bounded into the room then and joined forces with him. Maman would come to the slopes with them this afternoon, if only to watch. Papa would be so pleased to have her there, they were certain. Perhaps he would stop spending so much of his holiday with his old friends in the village.

  “I’ll go and watch,” she finally agreed, “if the younger ones don’t need me.”

  “Oh, Maman, the babies have fine nannies to look after them,” Bridgette said with mild impatience. Sebastien goosed his sister and made her squeal. She was sixteen this year, and someone had to keep her from becoming too arrogant.

  “Fiend!” she yelled at him, but grinned a second later. “I’ll ask Maman’s saints to make you sprain your ankle on the slopes.”

  “Sssh. My saints are kind,” Maman said firmly.

  Antoine, eighteen and nearly as tall as Papa, grabbed her around the waist and whirled her until she laughed, much to Sebastien and Bridgette’s delight. “Then ask them to make all the girls notice how handsome I am!”

  “It would indeed take the saints’ help for that miracle,” Bridgette observed. Sebastien laughed as Antoine chased her from the room. They were wonderful, his older brother and sister. Everyone knew that Antoine was Papa’s favorite because he was the eldest and would head the businesses someday; but Antoine never acted like the favorite, and Sebastien loved him for that.

  He loved fiery Bridgette, too, and his tiny sister, Annette, who was four, and his younger brother Jacques, even though Jacques was a very noisy baby. Sebastien felt lucky to have such a fine family and such a wonderful life, filled with travel, hobbies, and
school, though Father was away in Paris too often and Maman talked to herself oddly at times, when she had been at their château in the Loire for too many months without seeing Papa.

  Several hours later they piled into the small van Papa kept at the chalet for skiing excursions. Antoine drove; Maman sat beside him, wrapped in a pretty fur coat, her dainty legs and feet protected by tall boots. Sebastien sat in the backseat next to Bridgette and amused himself by staring at her tight ski sweater until she threatened to wring his neck.

  As Antoine drove down the winding mountain road to the resort at its base Maman stared silently out the van’s window and seemed to daydream. Thirty minutes later they reached the cobblestoned parking area outside the great lodge, at the center of an exclusive little shopping district.

  Philippe de Savin, tall and handsome, walked out of the lodge as they crossed its stone terrace. With him were several people whom Sebastien remembered vaguely from parties at their house in Paris. Antoine suddenly became brusque and whispered to Sebastien to hold Maman’s hand.

  When Sebastien did so he found it trembling. Alarmed, he looked over at his mother’s pale, strained face. She was staring at one of the women among Papa’s friends. “Madame la comtesse,” she said softly. “I didn’t know you were visiting.”

  The woman nodded without smiling, then turned and walked away. Papa looked angry. His other friends abruptly said that they had to finish their argument about the Americans’ President Kennedy—some admired him, some didn’t. They would settle the disagreement over hot rum inside.

  After they left, Papa lowered an icy blue glare on Maman, He looked so strong and certain all the time; Sebastien wanted to be like him, but wished that he weren’t so stern. Maman’s hand clenched Sebastien’s until it hurt.

  “Here you invited her?” Maman asked in a bitter voice. “Where the family would be?”