Love, Come to Me(95)

“I damn well could have. I suffered from eyestrain after trying to find a mention of the Cincinnati Red Stockings anywhere in the paper.”

“I couldn’t see anything newsworthy in the fact that some ball club is going professional—”

“And going on an eight-month tour from New York to the West Coast. I read all about it in the Journal—they’re starting a weekly baseball column.”

“Baseball’s going nowhere.”

“The hell it is. Baseball’s American. I’m going to have Bartlett write a page-one feature on the Red Stockings.”

“Next week it’ll be roller skating,” Damon grumbled.

“No matter what your highbrow opinions are, people like to read about sports.”

“Yet another theory on what people like to read. If you’re going to write about sports, let’s do something on cricket. The game of gentlemen.”

Heath grimaced in mock outrage. “Typical. Typical Bostonian for you. I don’t know how you kept the paper going without me.”

“If you want the truth, I enjoyed the peace and quiet while you were gone,” Damon informed him, and they scowled at each other, delighted that things were back to normal. The rest of the editorial room fairly crackled with new energy. Rayne and Redmond—there was nothing like working for the pair of them. Separately, either one of them would have taken the paper to an undesirable extreme. Without Damon’s influence, Heath would have been inclined to leap into creative disasters, and without Heath, Damon would have made it an unimaginative washout. But together, they ran a paper like no one else on Newspaper Row, with daring, innovative leaps and plenty of crispness and starch.

Exhausted by a long day and a drawn-out current events discussion, Lucy was unusually quiet during dinner. Heath, in turn, was preoccupied with matters concerning the Examiner. The result was a short and businesslike meal, after which Lucy retired to the parlor to read and Heath went to the library to work.

When the lacquered brass clock on the mantel struck twelve, Heath finally set his pen down and organized the materials on top of his desk. Passing the doorway of the parlor, he caught a glimpse of Lucy’s wine-colored dress. On impulse, he ducked his head in to check on her. A smile touched his mouth as he saw that she had fallen asleep, curled up on the small sofa. Her magazine had fallen to the floor, while her hands were lax in her lap. She looked young and very vulnerable in sleep. He walked over to her, his smile disappearing as he stared at her.

It had been a long time since he had held her. Suddenly Heath wanted her so badly he could taste it, wanted to crush her in his arms. He knew she hadn’t understood why he had felt the need to put the distance between them for the last several weeks. Because of his own damnable pride, he hadn’t wanted to be dependent on her, and the fact that she had dominated his every waking moment during his illness had been hard to swallow. In order to keep from using her as a target for his frustration, he had drawn away from her. Perhaps that had hurt her, but it had been kinder than subjecting her to his abuse.

His blue eyes were shadowed with regret as he stood over her. His fingers rifled absently through the stray locks of hair that had fallen from her chignon. It testified to her strength, that during the last weeks she had been able to see to his needs as well as her own. And he liked her newfound assertiveness, though many men would call him insane for encouraging it. However, there were times when he had doubts about the responsibilities he had forced her to accept. Had he been right to take away the cotton wool she had been wrapped in all her life? Was she truly happier with things as they were instead of as they might have been?

“Lucy, girl . . . I haven’t made things easy for you, have I?”

Slumbering deeply, she did not hear him. Heath smiled ruefully, bending down and sliding his arms under her shoulders and the backs of her knees. Her body was relaxed and incredibly warm. She made a grumbling sound of awakening and blinked a few times.

“S’all right . . . I’m taking you upstairs.” Only half-comprehending what he had said, she laid her head on his shoulder and went back to sleep, tucking her face against his neck with a tired sigh. Heath carried her upstairs and into the bedroom, enduring her mumbling complaints with gentle indulgence as he stood her on her feet and unfastened her dress. Lucy hung her head and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, yawning. Her childish gesture wrung Heath’s heart, quelling the biting immediacy of his desire.

They had the rest of their lives. He could wait one more night for her. After unfastening her corset and tossing the unholy contraption to the floor, he lifted her meagerly clad body into his arms and settled her on the bed, smiling as she burrowed under the covers and went still.

And his eyes did not move from her as he undressed, for the sight of her in his bed was so natural and fitting that he called himself a fool for not having brought her back here sooner. Naked, he slipped into bed beside her and pulled her close, one hand riding low on her abdomen and the other buried beneath the pillow on which her head lay. The warmth of their bodies mingled beneath the covers, causing him to sigh in supreme comfort; a man should get married for this if nothing else. Sleeping with the same woman every night, becoming familiar with her scent, her body, the pattern of her breathing, was addictive. He, who had never been inclined to form habits before, was developing quite a number of them, and all of them were centered around Lucy.

He had become used to her meeting him at the front door when he came home from the newspaper, and on the occasions when she wasn’t there, he was both annoyed and disconcerted, as if some important task had been neglected. He liked the routines she had established around the house, the apple pie they had for dessert every Sunday, the candles that were always lit for dinner, the patient way she listened when he unburdened himself about the paper and the news. He liked to tease her about being a “manners-mender.” Her concern for etiquette was a sterling New England trait that she would never lose. Someday they would raise children here, and he would enjoy watching as she corrected their language and taught them how to sit straight in their chairs. And he in turn would go behind her back to give his daughters extra money for hair ribbons and fripperies, and teach his boys how to cuss like a Southerner.