Part 1b
After a lunch that doubled as breakfast, it had taken four phone calls to connect with the right person, and she sat running the fingers of one hand through hair that was almost dry by now, as Lt. Carillo gave her his rather laconic account of the hours since he'd first questioned her.
"Seven p.m. sharp, Ms. Chandler, our guy makes one Dominic Capo---sometime dealer, currently into heavy artillery, outside the utility door--building across from yours. Clean pickup. Ditto for the three undesirables inside the van. All without incident. Your office is gonna like it a lot."
"So there's no question that he was Denton's contact?'
"Nope. They were all rigged out to move those crates, and no way were they expecting us. Should scare some pretty hot stuff out of 'em about a few interesting characters up the line."
"Did you find out what was in the crates?" she asked, hoping her more innocuous questions would lead to what she wanted to know.
"Weapons--automatic. Enough to arm the whole state of New Jersey. We had 'em out of there by 3 a.m.--the bodies too. Denton and two of his playmates. We've still got men sifting through the debris--just in case there's something else, but I don't expect much."
"And the explosion--do you have any idea what caused it?"
"Not a clue. It was deliberate, that's for sure. Maybe somebody lookin' to horn in on Denton's haul, scared off before they could get to it. Who knows? But we're not about to look a gift horse in the mouth here."
"What about Denton?" she said, throwing caution to the winds. "It seems to me there was something in his file about next of kin. Have they been told?"
A short bark of laughter came over the line. "Now, that's the kind of question only a woman would ask. No disrespect. I know you're good at your job, Ms. Chandler. It's just that a guy's never gonna think about a slime ball like Denton having a family. Women like to know those things, I guess."
There were times, she told herself patiently, when a touch of chauvinism could come in handy. "I was just curious."
"Well, you know it's a funny thing--you asking that, cause it just so happens he had an old man--lived over a store on the west side. We sent an officer around there first thing this morning--you know. after we had the confirmation that Denton was good and dead--and what do you think they found?"
"I have no idea---what?'
"The old fella'd bought the farm himself--the doc said maybe 36 to 48 hours before. One more crazy thing about a crazy case."
A chill went through her, and she remembered Vincent's fear that another confrontation with Mitch might be too much for Sam. "Do you know how...why that might have happened?"
"M.E. said he died in his sleep. Looked like he'd been sick a long time. Neighbor lady used to bring him groceries now and then----said she never knew how he did for himself otherwise. Felt real bad she hadn't checked up on him for a couple of days, and offered to make arrangements for the body. No other known relatives." He cleared his throat. "If I haven't said it. Ms. Chandler, we were all real glad you came out of this thing okay. The boys like you--know you'll give 'em a straight deal. Wish I could say the same for your boss. To tell you the truth he's been a colossal pain in the butt."
"Moreno?" she said, surprised.
"Nan--Maxwell. It was understandable when you were missing. Nobody knew if we'd be fishing you out of the East River, but he's still clucking around here like a mother hen--telling us not to bug you over the weekend, how you've earned a rest."
Good old Joe. She smiled to herself. "And so here I am bugging you."
"No problem. But we will have some more questions for you on Monday."
"I understand. In fact, I'm just getting ready to write my report. Thanks for filling me in, Lt. Carillo."
"Anytime. You take care, Ms. Chandler."
She hung up the phone and sat for a while, pensively staring at the book of sonnets lying clean and crimson on the glass coffee table. Poor Sam. To die alone----unnoticed. But there was no denying the sense of relief. At least Vincent would not have to navigate the treacherous shoals to which his innate morality had committed him. Perhaps it was a final gift of friendship from a dying old man--that he had slipped away quietly, sparing someone he loved from a painful duty.
She sighed and glanced at the clock. Plenty of time to write that report and slip back to the tunnels to forestall Vincent's pilgrimage above.
The next two hours were spent in a careful detailing of everything that had happened since her abduction--everything that the authorities had a right to know. It was a perfect opportunity to order her thoughts in anticipation of the additional questions they would think to ask her in the interim. Experience had taught her well what those might be, and she paused often to formulate reasonable responses in her mind, so that when the time came. there would be no hesitation, no contradiction that could arouse the suspicion of the police.
When she was convinced she'd done a thorough job, there were still hours of daylight remaining, and she toyed with the idea of phoning Jen. But it was patently obvious that her friend was very busy--probably away for the weekend. While others might accept the news accounts that she had escaped her ordeal unharmed and elect not to bother her, Jenny would have been on the phone by now, demanding reassurance that she was really all right, asking if she could help. No, she decided, Jenny Aronson couldn't have been anywhere near a newspaper, or she would have heard her worried voice by now, bewailing once again the danger of her job. Thank goodness her friends like Jenny and Joe. How did you say good-bye to people like that?
Good-bye? Now why on earth had such a notion sprung to mind? She wasn't going anywhere. The last thing she wanted was a vacation, even to escape the sweltering New York summer. No place on earth held enough attraction to lure her any farther away from Vincent than she already was, and she busied herself with household chores and a light supper until time to close the distance between them.
This time there was no one near the beckoning black circle of the drainage tunnel. Nevertheless, she moved cautiously through the welcome twilight, trying to display little of the soaring anticipation that inevitably accompanied this trek. Once inside she hesitated, wondering if it might be more polite to announce her arrival with a few quick taps on the pipes, deciding finally that no one would mind if she didn't, a thought that was immensely pleasing.
Deftly she threw the lever and passed through the door that obediently opened, careful to check its closing behind her. She moved with confidence over the long, twisting route downward, through passageways of manmade symmetry and chasms ripped from the earth, smooth concrete and ragged brick, stone and crumbling clay, places where the walls closed in or opened above treacherous heights, spaces where the air was cool and motionless or clotted with clouds of steam, the only constant the rusty network or pipes that trailed singly or in thick forests, now vanishing, now reappearing at some nearby turning.
Sometimes the familiar course would be altered: a passage blocked, a tunnel mysteriously ending at a solid wall. She had learned to take such surprises in stride, knowing them to be the clever responses to a sentry's alert or safety measures when structural damage had been round or simply a routine precaution.
Tonight she had traveled only halfway to her destination when a shadow eclipsed the tawny glow at the opening ahead, and her heart quickened, not in fear, but in the titillating knowledge that he had come for her.
He emerged, head lowered, through the low-slung arch and looked at her with a mixture of pleasure and uncertainty, which she was sure must be echoing through their bond.
"Catherine? It's not yet dark."
"I know. I hoped it would be all right if I met you here. Did you realize you hadn't told me where Sam lived?" It wasn't what she'd intended to say, but as usual his presence seemed to obliterate the guidelines of her life as she typically lived it.
"Your image is with me always--it never occurred to me that you didn't know."
"It doesn't matter. I just thought.., maybe subconsciously..."
"Catherine, you didn't come here just to find an address. You could have done that above."
How could the gentlest eyes she'd ever known seem always to pierce through the obvious to some deeper truth? "It's Sam, Vincent," she said quietly, having nothing but her own presence to soften the blow. "He died."
"Died?" He stared at her. "How?"
"The medical examiner thinks he Just slipped away in his sleep--a couple of days ago."
For a while he stood silent, his head bowed, and she let him absorb the news, trusting the caress of her fingers on the furred hand to convey her silent sympathy, wishing the contact could somehow transfer some of his sadness to her.
"Sam knew his time was near," he said after a few minutes. "His last knowledge of Mitch was that he was in a hospital, a place where perhaps someone would be able to help him. He was spared further disappointment in his son." The golden head glinted red from the torch light, as he swung around to face her. "There was a peacefulness in his dying that he could not find in life."
She stood quietly, letting her expression convey her love and understanding, her helpless desire to spare him this moment of melancholy. At last he straightened, and they began walking together. "I'm not sure all the psychiatrists in the world could have helped Mitch, Vincent. He seemed to be missing something."
"Some part of what it is to be human.., yes. He was taught right from wrong, Catherine. He knew the difference, but somehow he was unable lo feel it."
"I got the impression he was obsessed with rejection, but he didn't take any responsibility for causing it. It must have been a vicious cycle---feeling unwanted, striking out, and alienating all those who tried to accept him--vicious and sad."
"Rejection hurts, Catherine---whatever the cause."
"But you've known rejection," she pointed out gently, "and it didn't make you angry at the world."
"I've known love as well," he reminded her, "the generosity of good people, Father's counsel. He saw to it that I was introduced to all the wisdom and beauty contained in books. He made certain, Catherine, that my world would be far wider than the one you see here, that through the eyes of all the great philosophers and poets, I would be able to see past the rejection."
No doubt he was right, but she was sure there was more to it than that. Whatever component of humanity had been tragically lacking in Mitch Denton was just as surely magnified in the incredible man by her side. Gratefully, she realized he'd accepted her presence not only here in the tunnels, but within the shadow of his sorrow.
"There's a place I sometimes go at times like this--the Mirror Pool. Would you like to go there, Catherine?"
"I'd love to go there," she answered softly.
Despite the memories of her last visit, she found no lingering grief when they entered the cavern. Here they had said their last good-byes to Ellie, committing to paper what they hadn't had a chance to say, and the flames had transformed the messages, sending them funneling tip wards, almost gaily, to the world above and the sky beyond. It was that sense of hope and continuity she felt here now.
Vincent removed his cloak, spreading it at the edge of the low bridge that spanned the pool. It lay like an inky reflection of the still waters. He sat down, and she settled automatically against his chest, as his arms came around her. Neither had spoken for some time.
"It's exquisite," she whispered into the echoing silence. "Somehow it seems more real than the sky itself--so alive." Indeed, when she looked up through the soaring chimney of rock, the stars above appeared paler and static, as if painted into place. In the pool they danced and sparkled, winking in the little creases that stirred across the surface.
"When I was eight, my grandmother died. It was my first experience with death, and my mother told me that she wasn't really gone, that she still loved me and would be watching over me from somewhere among the stars. It was very comforting, but after a while I began to worry that if she was always watching, she might see me do something that I shouldn't and be disappointed in me. It was a little confusing."
"Perhaps, when we move beyond this life, we move beyond the limitations of our humanity, as well--to understand without judging, to love unconditionally."
Most of us have to wait to reach that level, she thought, but not you, Vincent--you live it everyday. I feel that perfect love every time you look at me. "A little bit of heaven on earth," she said aloud.
"Yes." He'd obviously taken the comment as a reference to the fleet of stars that sailed magically beside them.
"I felt something like that when I had that extraordinary vision of my father. Maybe Sam has found peace with his son as well."
"I'm sure of it." After a moment he picked up a stone chip and flipped it lightly into the water. The galaxies danced briefly in chaos before shimmering back to their appointed places. "These are the stars I wished on as a boy, Catherine----reflections of yours."
"But still the same stars. Even the ones we see above are lights from long ago---not the stars as they are now. Does it matter how we see them, as long as we can wish?"
"Perhaps not, " he conceded, and a tingle went through her at his breath on her hair, the solid strength of him cradling her close. "But our wishes must have been very different."
"What? What did you wish for, Vincent?"
He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke it touched her that their closeness was not merely physical, that he was opening himself to her the way she always longed for him to do. "When I was very young, I wished to know who I was . . . how I came to be abandoned."
"You must have wondered about your mother."
"Yes . . . I never blamed her, Catherine. She must have been horrified, stricken--"
"I don't believe that, Vincent. I really don't." She hugged the strong arms that encircled her, tilting her face back to look at him. "I think she must have loved you and wanted you, but something terrible happened." He looked a question at her, and she went on. "Father's spoken often of how you were a rallying point for the whole community, that your presence even as a tiny baby--drew everyone together. They loved you, Vincent. How could your mother do any less?"
He nuzzled closer into her hair. "Your heart is so quick to find the best in people, Catherine, and yet you confront the worst every day."
"Maybe that's how I've learned to tell the difference." She kissed the soft-sleeved arm for emphasis. "What else did you wish for?"
"When I was older,' he said thoughtfully, "when Devin and the others went above, venturing farther and farther into the daylight, into the city, I wished I could do that as well."
"And then Devin left for good. That must have been devastating for you."
"Fearing that he was dead--that was devastating, but the other--his choosing to live above, that was inevitable. Had he chosen to renounce his freedom--to remain below--it wouldn't have given freedom to me."
"But it had to have hurt--to be left alone."
"My aloneness was something I recognized from the beginning," he said with no trace of self-pity. "All the tolerance, the compassion of our community could not alter it."
"And what about now?. What do you wish for on these stars?"
"How can I trouble the stars for more, when what I've found is beyond wishing?" He bent forward to place a kiss in the hair that bunched around her neck, pulling her tighter. She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the exquisitely churning feelings. "And you, Catherine," he murmured at last, "what wishes did you make?"
"Well," she struggled to return to the conversation from the sweet morass of sensations, "when I was very little I used to wish for a brother or sister, so I wouldn't feel so lonely."
"Lonely?"
"You seem surprised. I know I was incredibly lucky to have a mother and father--a family filled with love, but I did wish for someone closer to my age, someone that I could share things with."
"But your wish was never granted."
"No, and after a while I thought of something better. At least it seemed like it at the time."
"Better than a brother or sister?"
"Mm-mm. A horse."
"A horse?" The idea seemed to strike him as uniquely interesting---as if she'd professed the longing to own a unicorn.
"I admit it was pretty impractical," she laughed, "but it's not that unusual. I think a lot of little girls go through a similar stage. Freud probably had something to say about that., too, but it seemed to me a pony would be a perfect companion--someone I could talk to, someone who would take me away from all my worries, my fears. Poor Daddy. I pestered him about it for ages, but as much as he liked to indulge me, he could never quite justify it."
"And the loneliness--did that remain?"
"For a long time," she nodded. "Oh, I had friends and lots of things to keep me busy but always there was a feeling as if something was missing.., until you. So you see our wishes weren't so different after all."
"Reflections," he nodded. A faint breeze stole through some crevice in the rock and skated across the pool, as his incomparable voice whispered in its wake, "For you in my respect are all the world... How can it then be said I am alone?"
"Shakespeare," she smiled.
"A Mid-Summer Night's Drearm"
That had been the start of it--the play and what had followed--the beginning of a whole new dimension to their relationship. Remembering, she tilted her head back to meet his eyes, certain of what he was thinking. In the semi-darkness his eyes seemed to have a light of their own. The torches, inadequate to illuminate more than the rim of the cavern, nevertheless picked out the fine gold along his jaw and in the hair that tumbled over his shoulders.
"What is it you wish for now?" he whispered, running a reverent finger across her cheek.
There was only one wish she was capable of making. It wasn't necessary--or even possible to formulate it in her mind; it was--in an instant--everything. "I think you know," she breathed, and he followed the command their bond had become, his mouth gently, sensuously meeting her own. He kissed her slowly with such tenderness that it was evident their escape from death had intensified the awe they both felt at the gift of each other. As he pulled back to look down at her, she sighed, touching the beloved face with her fingertips.
"Catherine, I will never allow anything to happen again as it did yesterday. I promise you."
"It's up to me, too, Vincent. My job---the way it is--things are bound to happen. Maybe it's time I thought seriously about changing that."
He said nothing. Again she envied his empathic abilities. His silences were no less purposeful than his words, and she guessed he simply didn't want to influence her, but in which direction wasn't clear. Was he relieved that she might be willing to move away from the constant danger or troubled at what could seem a weakening of her commitment? "Tell me what you're thinking."
"Only that your work means a great deal to you."
"What does it mean to you?"
"To me?"
"Vincent, my job isn't who I am."
"No." In his eyes there was
an effort to understand what had prompted this pronouncement. It wasn't
surprising that even their connection gave him no clue, when she wasn't
really sure why she'd made it.
"Your job is a choice you've
made, Catherine. Its meaning for you is all that matters."
"A choice," she repeated thoughtfully. "That's really what life is, isn't it--a series of choices?"
"And coming to know ourselves," he nodded, "so that we may choose wisely."
"To thine ownself be true? Why do you suppose Shakespeare gave that line to a basically foolish character?"
"No one understood better the contradictions in the human spirit. A fool may be capable of wisdom, a wise man of terrible folly. Even the hero of the story--people have debated his strength of character for centuries."
"Well, his choices were certainly disastrous--or his inability to make them."
"Who knows, Catherine. Perhaps if he had acted sooner, the results would have been even more tragic."
"More tragic? She gave him an incredulous smile. "I think half the population of Denmark was wiped out. What could be worse than that?"
He arched an eyebrow at her. "The entire population?"
She grinned, and snuggled closer, loving the faint graze of his whiskers against her cheek. "I always thought the idea that some things were written in the stars--that they were meant to be, was just poetic license. I don't feel that way anymore."
"What we think and what we feel can be two different things. What's written there," he said, nodding toward the star map spread at their feet, "may speak to the heart, Catherine, but we're still free to choose whether to follow its designs."
"But not choosing--not doing anything--that can be a choice in itself, and the wrong one. Vincent, yesterday--when death seemed so near--I couldn't help regretting that we had chosen to be so cautious, to move so slowly. I felt that we had wasted the chance to... to be so much more to each other."
He took her hand, pressing his palm against it. Fingers outstretched, her own appeared small and fragile as a child's in comparison. "Catherine, we cannot become so lost in the beauty of the journey that we forget to consider the destination and what it might hold."
"I'm not forgetting," she said, "and I know I'm more confident about the outcome than you are, but everything that's happened makes me more certain of what that will be." She let her fingers slide up to mesh with his. "I'm not afraid, Vincent. All we have to do is trust each other--and ourselves."
"If it was only that--a matter of trust..."
The echo of a song glided fleetingly through her mind--a matter of trust. Rita had been playing it in the car one day. They had cracked some feeble joke, because the lyrics made reference to "lust," and the man they were going to question had been involved in prostitution. . . question... Yes, surely, it was a question of trust, not "matter," and why did she associate it so strongly with a bridge? Of course, Bridgeport--that's where they were going to take the deposition. Somehow the explanation failed to satisfy her, but following the trivial line of thought helped maintain her resolve, while Vincent chose his words.
"Catherine, your trust in me has allowed me to consider certain.., aspects · . . of myself in a different light. It's more important than you will ever know, but even if what we hope for can someday be, if we could find our way safely to that place..."
"Yes?" She tilted her head back to see his expression. "Go on."
"Such a place could hold its own kind of pain. We might be unable to find our way back to the joy we've known."
"The closer we become when we're together, the harder it could be when we're apart?"
He nodded.
"Father warned me about that when we had our talk, and I know there's some truth in it, but, Vincent, it's sad enough that we have to spend so much time apart. If we deny ourselves the happiness we might have when we're together... It just isn't fair."
The fairness of life scarcely required any comment, and he made none, but after a moment, he elaborated. "We may change ourselves, Catherine, even what's between us, but the world around us remains the same."
"You mean our separate worlds, our separate responsibilities." She watched as he tossed another pebble into the onyx waters, its slight intrusion sending emissaries in ever-widening rings even to the edge of its placid universe, and she wondered if what he'd said was entirely true. Still, their roles in life were as much an impediment to the dream as anything within themselves. "Someday all this will be yours," she said thoughtfully.
"Our world belongs to everyone in the community."
"But eventually Father will have to step back. The responsibility will be yours."
"Everyone here shares in the responsibilities. Everyone has a say in shaping its destiny."
"But there has to be a leader--someone with the skill and wisdom to bring it ail into focus. Believe me, I've served on enough committees to know that if' there isn't any clear leadership the members can argue forever, going in circles, and nothing ever gets accomplished. Already it's you that people turn to---so often. Even Father depends on your input when he needs to decide something, and I've seen what happens when there's controversy--how often you're the one who untangles the conflicts. This world is incredibly lucky to have you."
He acknowledged her avid endorsement with a squeeze and the wry reminder, "This world has little choice. There is no other place for me."
No, that wouldn't change. Any hope of ever making a life together could not depend on the entire human race shedding their prejudices, their blindness, to allow him into her world. The fact brought to mind a fantasy she'd once enjoyed, and she shifted slightly in his arms, if only to reconfirm their coveted presence around her. "You know, one time--it was during one of those meetings, I just mentioned--a lot of interminable talk and nothing being decided, and I was daydreaming about you."
"About me?"
There was a gentle gratitude in his voice. He couldn't know how often his image claimed her thoughts--even in the midst of the busy working day. "I was imagining what It would be like if I woke up one morning and everything had changed. You could walk the streets above with no one thinking a thing of it."
A slight hitch in his tranquil posture told her she'd blundered, and she hurried to make up for it. "No, it's not what you're thinking. There wasn't any change in you. It was everyone else--all the men magically looked just like you. It was a vast improvement."
He lowered his face to look at her, incredulous.
"It's true. I thought how grateful all the women of my world would be if the city was suddenly populated with men who looked like you, thought like you, acted like you. Only, of course, you would still be more you than any of the rest of them, and I could have you all to myself, but we'd be able to do whatever we wanted."
"Catherine." The soft word was half laughter, half embarrassment.
"It was a very altruistic fantasy, Vincent. I was only trying to make the world a better place."
"You do that everyday," he insisted with what she suspected was some relief in changing the focus of the conversation back to her.
"I try to do that, but sometimes I wonder how much it's really helped. The people I come in contact with--our lives touch and they move on. It's not very often that I know how things have really worked out for them."
"But you do make a difference."
"That's what I wanted," she reflected. "To make a difference. My life is so different now than I ever thought it would be---not just you, Vincent, and this place---but everything. The kind of work I'm doing.., the way I look at the world."
"You live your life with generosity and courage. You reach out to those who need your help-that's the most fulfilling kind of life, Catherine."
"But there are many ways to do that. The job I chose... I chose it because it was a logical extension of what I already had been trained to do. There must be a lot of ways to use those same skills." She felt suddenly as if she was moving into a precarious position, like the rickety expanse of the bridge in the Whispering Gallery, pushed by some impulse at the edge of her consciousness. She turned to look at him. "Vincent, you've always said that what I do up there, I do for both of us, that our bond has allowed you to experience life above in a way you never could before. That's important to you, isn't it?"
There was puzzlement in the limpid blue eyes--at the apprehension her anxious look betrayed, and accordingly she could see him striving to order his thoughts, to give the unexpected question the consideration she must have attached to it. "Our bond," he said finally, "has opened a world to me not of people and places and events--but of your reactions to those things. What you feel when you care for someone, or fear for them, what you feel when you've successfully seen Justice done. Those sensations are a miraculous gift. To experience them is to touch those feelings in myself. They have changed me, Catherine. Mine is a different life since you came into lt."
For a moment she continued to look at him, absorbing what he'd said, pleased in some way she could not quite define at the answer he had given. It seemed to open a door behind which a flurry of ideas and possibilities snatched at her attention, but they could walt. For now there was the rare opportunity to revel in his nearness, and she settled comfortably back into his embrace. "Do you mind if I wish on your stars?" she asked, savoring the elusive scent or his hair as it tickled delightfully across her nose.
"I give them to you gladly, Catherine. Is yours a secret wish?"
"Not secret from you. It's only that I wish moments like this could go on forever."
"It will live in my memory long after you've gone above," he assured her.
"And mine,' she whispered, tilting her race back to receive the kiss that trembled through their bond before becoming a reality. That reality was all sweetness, all sensual mystery as she wound her arms around his neck. It carried her downward, spiraling toward some pulsing focus of desire, so deep it might have been the very center of her being, deep as the Mirror Pool and as mystically mixed with the bright fires at the vaulted reaches of the sky.
"Oh, Vincent," she gasped, her face pressed against the rapid beat of his heart. "Your kiss is like nobody's--nobody else's in the whole world."
"That's hardly surprising." The low, luscious voice was a bit unsteady with his own response to their exchange, threaded with a self deprecating humor designed to restore equilibrium.
"No, I don't mean physically." Her fingers touched lovingly the softness of the cleft upper lip. Its sensitivity brought a unique, voluptuous quality to his kiss that could never be matched, nor did she ever want to make a comparison again. His was the only touch she would ever crave--and that with the overwhelming urgency of an addiction--but it wasn't what she'd been referring to. "I mean what I feel from you--the passion, the power..."
He hugged her tight, his intensity testimony to the effect of her words, but she sensed he was a little uncomfortable too, unaccustomed to the act, much less an appraisal of its potency. "Are you certain this is a valid judgment?" he teased, skimming a kiss across her hair. "Can you really have experienced so much in the world above?"
"Well, no, but it's a perfectly empirical conclusion, I'm sure of it," she smiled. "It's based on a sampling that--in retrospect--seems definitely random. We have a saying in my world--that you have to kiss a lot of toads before you find a prince, and I guess I've done my normal share." She turned to face him again, surprised at how easily the question came out. "Does that bother you, Vincent?"
"No." She couldn't have hoped for a more direct answer. He was looking into her eyes, his own unclouded by doubt or subterfuge. "Catherine, you've lived your life according to the customs of your society, as we all do. It would be far more surprising to me if you'd never known love.., and never expressed it in the way that is natural for a woman of your time."
The relief she felt at this declaration was short-lived, as a cloud seemed to pass over his features, and he dropped his eyes. "What?" she said softly. "What are you thinking?."
"Only that what you have experienced--the intimacy of love---is not a problem. It's rather what I... have not."
"Vincent." She grasped his hand in both of hers, fastening him with a look of total conviction. "You and I have been more intimate than I ever dreamed two people could be. You are here." She pressed his captive hand against her heart. "In my heart, in my soul, in every part of who I am. That's something rare and extraordinary and.., and humbling. Few lovers are ever able to accomplish that. The rest--the physical--is the easy part. Anyone can do it--it's just instinct."
He had bowed his head, watching her fingers earnestly clasping his, but he raised it now to look up at her under a lowered brow. "Instinct?" He released a breath which might have been a laugh, but in which she sensed no mirth. "What is precisely what I must guard against. You know that."
She nodded, quelled momentarily by this reminder of his greatest fear. "I'm not worried. We'll find a way through it. Remember what happened yesterday."
"You mean what didn't happen.., yes. There is hope in that, Catherine."
"There's hope in everything," she reminded him, easing back into his arms and easing the conversation away from the heart of his turmoil, back to a door that perhaps needed to be opened--to give the pain a way out, to ease its passage with memories of happier times. "Why don't you tell me a little about Sam and how you came to know him?"