Beyond Desire

“Nothing has changed,” Jacob Graham told her when she asked again whether he was certain of the diagnosis. “Only time will change this; you know that, so you might as well start right now to adjust to it. It won’t be easy, but I’m confident you’ll manage.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll be fine. Give my love to Lorrianne.” She doubted that anything could have depressed her more than his declaration that he knew she’d manage. How was she supposed to do that?

An hour and a half later, she slid into a booth at Caution’s Coffee Bean. She had heard it said that, if you went to the popular eatery often enough, you would eventually see most of the town’s fourteen thousand inhabitants. She barely remembered driving from Elizabeth City to Caution Point, North Carolina, or even parking her car. The waiter brought her usual breakfast of coffee and a plain doughnut and would no doubt have paused for their morning chat, had she not been preoccupied.

She sipped the coffee slowly, without tasting it. In two weeks, just two short weeks, she had tumbled from a state of euphoria to one of despair. She almost wished she hadn’t gotten that promotion; a department head might get away with it, but never a school principal. It couldn’t be happening to her. But it was and, somehow, she had to find an acceptable solution.

“It’s ridiculous,” she heard a man in the adjoining booth say. “How can they charge like that? It must be illegal.”

“They can, and it’s legal,” his companion replied in a deep, resonant, almost soothing voice, a familiar voice. “One hundred thousand dollars for my child’s future. A hundred thousand and she’ll be able to walk like other children. She’s had fourteen months of operations, tubes and needles. Fourteen months in intensive care, and now this. Those doctors charge as much as ten times what the insurance pays. I’ve sold my car, mortgaged my home and my business and borrowed on every credit card I have. And now because the insurance company will pay only thirty thousand of it, I have a little more than a week to come up with seventy thousand dollars, or Amy will never walk again.” Amanda couldn’t help listening to the two men.

“And the bank turned you down flat yesterday afternoon?”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t you? I’m a poor risk right now. A year ago, I could call my shots, but now I can’t even take care of my child’s needs. I told the bank officers that I have a strong damage suit in this case, but all that got me was sympathy.”

“Have you tried Helena? Maybe she’d be willing to help. After all, that British polo player she married is rolling in money.”

“I wrote her about the accident the day after it happened, and I got a note about six weeks later saying that she hoped everything was all right. Not that I expected more; Helena doesn’t have the maternal instincts of a flea. She hasn’t written since and doesn’t know what her four-year-old daughter’s condition is.” Amanda empathized with the man; compared to his problem, hers seemed slight. If she could solve her problem with seventy thousand dollars, she would stop worrying. As heir to the wealth of her parents, grandparents and great-aunt—derived from their interests in one of the regions most prosperous fish and seafood canning businesses, money was the least of her problems. She wanted to peer around the coat tree to get a look at him, but she wouldn’t know which one was Amy’s father. Surely that voice couldn’t belong to the man she first saw in her doctor’s office and then at Lorrianne’s barbecue brunch. But how could two men have that same voice? She sipped some water. Great-Aunt Meredith had always said that sipping water slowly was very calming. The men continued to search for a way to pay for Amy’s surgery.

“Can’t you pay the doctors on installment?”

“They want it upfront,” she heard him say. “Every dime of it. But look, Jack, you’d better go. You’ll be late for work, and you’ve sacrificed enough for me.”

She looked up as “Jack” passed her on his way out, then focussed on the man who remained. Good Lord! He was the same one she’d seen in Dr. Graham’s office and at his home. She regarded Amy’s father, a handsome, clean-cut man whom she thought any woman should be proud to have for a husband. Dr. Graham had said that they could solve each other’s problem. Her gaze held him, seemingly deep in thought, as he stared into his coffee cup. Perhaps…No. She pushed back the absurd idea, paid for her breakfast and left.

Amanda drove home thinking that spring recess would soon be over and she hadn’t done any of the things she’d planned. Instead, she had been struggling with the most difficult problem she’d ever faced. She didn’t put her car in the garage as she usually did, but left it in front of the house. She had lived alone in the comfortable, two-story home with its spacious grounds since her aunt Meredith’s death and, though she loved the house with its memories, ghosts and treasures, there were times when she had to struggle with the loneliness. The telephone rang just as she closed the front door.

“Amanda, can you come to my office tomorrow morning?”

“Why, yes. Is there a problem, Dr. Graham?”

“Maybe a solution. I have an opening at eleven o’clock. Would that suit you?” She agreed and hung up. A solution. Solution to what? Well, she’d find out when she got there.

When she walked into Jacob Graham’s office, Amanda supposed that his cheerful greeting was meant to put her at ease but, instead, his smile alarmed her.

“What is it?” He wasn’t wearing his white coat, and he didn’t indicate that he wanted her to go to the examining room. “Is something wrong, Dr. Graham?”

“Amanda, I want to talk with you as an old family friend. Caution Point is a small place, and you’ve just been made principal of the junior high. Small-town people are conservative; you know that. I saw you talking with my friend, Marcus Hickson, in the garden the day Lorrianne had that brunch. Both of you have a difficult problem that you could easily solve together. Marcus is a fine man by any measure, or I wouldn’t say this.”

“Say what?”

“Well, he’s got a problem with his daughter’s health, and…”

“I know,” she said when he hesitated as though not wanting to betray a friend’s confidence. “I overheard him telling someone. What does that have to do with me?” The skin seemed to roll on her neck as she anticipated his next words, and her breath lodged in her throat when he leaned back in his old-fashioned swivel chair, made a pyramid of his hands and prepared to continue.

“Amanda, the answer to your problem and Marcus’, too, is for the two of you to get married. Don’t look so shocked. You pay his daughter’s medical bill, and he’ll be a buffer against what you’ll face otherwise.”

“You’re not serious!”

“Oh, yes, I am. He’s a good man.” Tremors spiraled down her back at the thought of being married to the man she remembered having passed a few minutes with in Lorrianne Graham’s garden.

“But marry a perfect stranger? I couldn’t.” Agitated, she stood abruptly and began to pace. “Do you realize what you’re suggesting?” His gentle smile failed to soothe her, and he must have realized it, for he added, “If the two of you found that after one year you couldn’t get along and didn’t want to stay married, you could separate. Of course, that means you couldn’t consummate the marriage during that year. In fact, I’d counsel abstinence unless and until the two of you learned to care for each other.” She felt the heat scorch her face; she hadn’t been thinking of a marriage of convenience. She sat down and gazed at her feet. Dr. Graham wanted what was best for her, and she couldn’t reject his proposal out of hand.

“What about him?” she asked. “Would he do it?” She was almost certain that he wouldn’t. Jacob Graham looked toward Heaven and slapped his hands on his thighs.

“Probably react same as you, but considering what he’s facing, he may have no choice. Do you want his phone number?” She shook her head.

“I’ll have to think about this.”

Amanda started down the walk toward her car and stopped short. A picture of Iris Elms, a female colleague at the junior high school, flashed before her mind’s eye. Iris, gloating triumphantly. Iris victorious at last. The woman had lost her bid for school principal, but there would be no end to her boasting and baiting if she got the job anyway because of Amanda’s mishap. Amanda was convinced that Iris’ antagonism toward her was more than envy and hatred because she’d lost her bid to become school principal. For months, the woman had derided her at every opportunity. She reached her car and leaned against it. Half of the joy of getting that promotion to principal had come from knowing that Iris would have to treat her with respect. Dr. Graham had said that Marcus Hickson had no options. Did she?

Fighting a feeling of gloom, Amanda got into her car and drove to General Hospital in Caution Point, where she volunteered several afternoons a week. She got in the short cafeteria line, bought a pint of milk and a peanut butter sandwich for her lunch and found a table. Soft music from overhead speakers proclaimed the soothing charm of a wide, sleepy river in the moonlight, and she felt it sweep away the darkness of her mood. Since childhood, she had loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and she rose to get back in line for grape jelly.

“Leaving? I was going to ask if I could join you; the place is practically deserted.” She looked up to see Marcus Hickson holding a tray of food.

“Oh, no. I don’t mind.” Flustered, she pointed to the chair. “Please sit. I’m just going for jelly.” She couldn’t imagine his thoughts as he glanced toward the chair, shrugged one shoulder, hesitated and sat down. She took her time getting back to the table, because she wasn’t in a hurry to talk with him and wondered why he had decided to sit with her when there were at least twenty vacant tables.

“If you’d rather not have company…” he began and let it drift off with a seeming diffidence that she thought didn’t ring true. She remembered that he had a sick daughter and assumed that he had come to the hospital to visit her.

“Please stay,” she said, compassion winning over wariness. “I’m glad for the company.” When she asked if he was visiting a patient, she couldn’t understand his reluctance to admit it. And the dark cloud that seemed suddenly to mark his features troubled her. She thought of Jacob Graham’s advice earlier that day. If this man was as desperate as he looked…

“How is your…your little girl?” She could see that her question surprised him.

“Are you clairvoyant?” She wasn’t, she told him, and waited for his answer.

He didn’t seem to recognize her, but that didn’t surprise her, because she had been wearing dark glasses when they’d encountered each other in the Grahams’ garden and, at their previous encounter, he hadn’t looked straight at her. She braced herself for his reaction to what she was going to say.

“I overheard your conversation with your friend in Caution’s Coffee Bean yesterday morning. I hope she’s better.” He told her that the child was no longer in danger, but that there was a chance she would be crippled permanently. She reached toward him to comfort him when he propped his head with his left hand, his elbow resting on the table, and released a long breath, but she withdrew self-consciously. He stirred his coffee idly, seeming to look through her, lost in his thoughts. If he wasn’t desperate, she decided, the thought of his child’s condition pained him so much that he might…She girded her resolve and seized the moment.

“Since you apparently aren’t married, I have a proposition for you.”

He frowned in disapproval. “I wouldn’t have thought you the type.”

“Please. I’m not trying to pick you up, but you have a problem and I have one, and together we can solve both of them.”

He leaned back, observing her more closely. “Are you by any chance the woman I pulled out of Lorrianne Graham’s flower patch a couple of Sundays ago?”

“Yes.” She bristled at his perusal but, considering what she was about to suggest, he was entitled to appraise her. “Yes, Dr. Graham has tried twice to introduce us, but somehow, it didn’t come off.”

His skepticism was apparent even before he replied. “I suppose you’ve got seventy thousand dollars lying around unused.”

All right, if he didn’t believe her; she knew she didn’t look as if she had a penny. “Yes, I have that much money, and I’m willing to strike a deal with you. I need a husband. At the end of one year, if either of us wanted out of the marriage, we’d call it quits. We could even sign an agreement to that effect. Up to that point, we’d be married in name only. We’d live in the same house, and I’d give you a certified check for seventy thousand.” Both of his eyebrows shot up, his mouth opened, and he stared at her, seemingly speechless.

“I’m only suggesting a marriage of convenience, unless we decided to change that, though I kind of doubt that you’d want to. That way, your little girl can have her operation and I can get out of this predicament I’m in.” He leaned farther back in the chair and looked at her. She saw nothing sensual in the way that he regarded her, but she blushed, obviously surprising him.

“Why do you need a husband desperately enough to put out this kind of money?” She folded her hands in her lap and had to control an urge to squirm, because she hadn’t considered that she would have to give this stranger intimate information about herself. His barely checked sigh suggested that he wasn’t a patient person, and that she’d better hurry and get it out.

“I’m two months pregnant.” That seemed to stagger him, but only for a second, as he blinked eyes that she thought were the most beautiful honey-brown ones she’d ever seen.