The Season Of Love: Beloved

There was a rough sigh and she saw his good hand go irritably into the pocket of his trousers. “This isn’t like you,” he said after a minute. “You don’t run and you don’t cry, regardless of what people say to you. You fight back. Why are you leaving?”

She lifted tired eyes to his and hated the sudden jolt of her heart at the sight of his beloved face. She clenched every muscle in her body to keep from sobbing out her rage and hurt. “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me,” she said huskily, “least of all your malicious girlfriend. Yes, I’ve spent most of my life fighting, one way or another, but I’m tired. I’m tired of everything.”

Her lack of animation disturbed him, along with the defeat in her voice, the cool poise. “You can’t be worried about what the newspapers said,” he said, his voice deep and slow and oddly tender.

“Can’t I? Why not? They believed every word.” She inclined her head toward the ballroom.

His features were unusually solemn. “I know you better than they do.”

She searched his pale eyes in the dim light from the house. Her heart clenched. “You don’t know me at all, Simon,” she said with painful realization. “You never did.”

He seemed to stiffen. “I thought I did. Until you divorced John.”

Her heart stilled at the reference. “And until he died.” Defeat was in every line of her elegant body. “Yes, I know, I’m a murderess.”

His face went taut. “I didn’t say that!”

“You might as well have!” she shot back, raising her voice, not caring if the whole world heard her. “If Melia had died in a similar manner, I’d never have believed you guilty of her death! I’d have known you well enough to be certain that you had no part in anything that would cause another human being harm. But then, I had a mad infatuation for you that I couldn’t cure.” She saw his sudden stillness. “Don’t pretend that you didn’t read all about it in the paper, Simon. Yes, it’s true, why shouldn’t I admit it? I was obsessed with you, desperate to be with you, in any way that I could. It didn’t even matter that you only tolerated me. I could have lived on crumbs for the rest of my life—” Her voice broke. She shifted on trembling legs and laughed with pure self-contempt. “What a fool I was! What a silly fool. I’m twenty-eight years old and I’ve only just realized how stupid I am!”

He frowned. “Tira…”

She moved back a step, her green eyes blazing with ruptured pride. “Jill told me what you said, that you blame me for making you look like a villain in public with my so-called suicide attempt, as well as for John’s death. Well, go ahead, hate me! I don’t give a damn anymore!” she spat, out of control and not caring. “I’m not even surprised to see you with Jill, Simon. She’s as opinionated and narrow-minded as you are, and she knows how to put the knife in, too. I daresay you’re a match made in heaven!”

His face clenched visibly. “And you don’t care that I’m with another woman tonight, instead of with you?” he chided, hitting back as hard as he could, with a mocking smile on his lips.

Her face went absolutely white. But if it killed her, he’d never hear from her how she did care. She smiled deliberately. “No,” she agreed softly. “Actually I don’t. All this notoriety accomplished one good thing. It made me see how I’d wasted the past few miserable years mooning over you! You did me a favor when you told me what you really thought of me. I’m free of you at last, Simon,” she lied with deliberation. “And I’ve never been quite so happy in all my life!”

And with that parting shot, she turned and walked slowly to the driveway where Charles was pulling up in front of the house, leaving Simon rigidly in place with an expression of shock that delighted her wounded pride.

After what she’d said, she didn’t expect Simon to follow her, and he didn’t. When Charles had installed her in the passenger seat, she caught just a glimpse of Simon’s straight back rapidly returning to the house. She even knew the posture. He was furious. Good! Let him be furious. She was not going to care. She wasn’t!

“Take it easy,” Charles said softly. “You’ll burst something.”

“I know how you felt earlier,” she returned, leaning her hot forehead against the glass of the window. “Damn him! And damn her, too!”

“What did he say to you?”

“He wanted to know what she said, and then he gave me his opinion of my character again. But this time, he didn’t know he’d hit me where it hurt. I made sure of it.”

Charles let out a long breath. “Why can’t we love to order?” he asked philosophically.

“I don’t know. If you ever find out, you can tell me.” She stared out the dark window at the flat landscape passing by. Her heart felt as if it might break all over again.

“He’s an idiot.”

“So is Jill. So is Gene. We’re all idiots. Maybe we’re certifiable and we can become a circus act.”

They drove in silence until they reached her house. He turned off the engine and stared at her worriedly. She was pale and she looked so miserable that he hurt for her.

“Go inside and change your clothes and pack a suitcase,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“We’ll fly down to Nassau for a long weekend. It’s just Saturday. We’ll take a three-day vacation. I have a friend who owns a villa there. He and his wife love company. We’ll eat conch chowder and play at the casino and lay on the beach. How about it?”

She brightened. “Could we?”

“We could. You need a break and so do I. Be a gambler.”

It sounded like fun. She hadn’t been happy in such a long time. “Okay,” she said.

“Okay.” He grinned. “Maybe we’ll cheer up in foreign parts. Don’t take too long. I’ll run home and change and make a few phone calls. I should be back within an hour.”

“Great!”

It was great. The brief holiday made Tira feel as if she had a new lease on life. Charles was wonderful, undemanding company, much more like a beloved brother than a boyfriend. They padded all over Nassau, down West Bay Street to the docks and out on the pier to look at the ships in port, and all the way to the shopping district and the vast straw markets. Nassau was the most exciting, cosmopolitan city in the world to Tira. She never tired of going there. Just now, it was a godsend. She hated the memory of Jill’s taunting words and Simon’s angry accusations. It was good to have a breathing space from them, and the publicity.

They stretched their stay to five days instead of three and returned to San Antonio refreshed and rested, although Charles had confessed that he did miss his car. He proved it by rushing home as soon as the limousine he’d hired to meet them at the airport delivered Tira at her house.

“I’ll phone you in the morning. We might have a game of tennis Saturday, if you’re up to it,” he said.

“I will be. Thanks, Charles. Thanks so much!”

He chuckled. “I enjoyed it. So long.”

She watched the limousine pull away and walked slowly up to her front door. She hated homecomings. She had nothing here but Mrs. Lester and an otherwise empty house, and her work. It was cold compensation.

Mrs. Lester greeted her with enthusiasm. “I’m so glad you’re home!” she said. “The phone rang off the hook the day after you left and didn’t stop until three days ago.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine why those newspaper people wanted to drag the whole subject up again, but I guess the shooting downtown Tuesday afternoon gave them something new to go after.”

“What shooting?”

“Well, that man the attorney general had paroled—you remember?—was in court to be arraigned and he went right over the table toward the judge and almost killed him. They managed to pull him away and he grabbed the bailiff’s gun. They had to shoot him! It’s been on all the television stations. They had the most awful photographs of it!”

Tira actually gasped. “For heaven’s sake!”

“Mr. Hart was right in the middle of it, too. He had a case and was waiting for it to be called when the prisoner got loose.”

“Simon? Was he…hurt?” Tira had to ask.

“No. He was the one who pulled the man off the judge. The man had that bailiff’s gun leveled right at him, they said, when a deputy sheriff shot the man. It was a close call for Mr. Hart. A real close call. But you’d never think it worried him to hear him talk on television. He was as cold as ice.”

She sat down on the edge of the sofa and thanked God for Simon’s life. She wished that they were still friends, even distant ones, so that she could phone him and tell him so. But there was a wall between them now.

“Mr. Hart wondered why you hadn’t gotten in touch with him, afterward,” Mrs. Lester said, hesitating.

Tira glanced at her breathlessly. “He called?”

She nodded and then grimaced. “He wanted to know if you heard about the shooting and if you’d been concerned. I had to tell him that you were away, and didn’t know a thing, and when he asked where, he got that out of me, too. I hope it was all right that I told him.”