Forbidden Read online

  Liz knew Molly would not reveal her identity, nor would she answer speculative inquiries about this bust, should there be any. Molly was also aware that Liz would never sell it. Molly had argued that she’d just put it on display and let the world see its perfection. Her friend was not above extreme flattery when she wanted something.

  But Liz hadn’t been able to part with it, even for display. She simply didn’t want to share it with anyone, at least not for now. One day, perhaps.

  Carefully she rewrapped the bust and set it back in the far cupboard as she heard the doorbell ring. Emma would get it, she thought as she walked to her worktable and took the wet cloth off her current project, a hummingbird drinking at a feeder. An early December sun shining in through the west windows bathed the large room in golden light as she reached for her finished pick.

  Rapid, angry footsteps sounded on the stairs leading up to her studio. Too heavy to be Sara’s and besides, her daughter was in school. Richard never walked like that. Frowning, Liz turned to the doorway and saw Molly standing there.

  She looked terrible, her eyes red, cheeks tearstained, hair disheveled, clothes rumpled. She stared at Liz, a bleak look filled with devastation as she sucked in a ragged breath.

  Liz dropped her tool and took a step toward her friend. “What is it, Molly? What’s wrong?”

  Molly’s face crumpled as she fought for control, leaning unsteadily against the doorjamb as if her legs were too weak to hold her upright.

  Liz rushed over and slipped an arm around her, fearful she’d collapse. “Tell me, for God’s sake. What happened?”

  Molly held on a moment, then pulled back, raising a fist containing a wrinkled sheet of paper. “The bastard’s called off our wedding. He’s found someone else.”

  “Oh, no.” Liz led her friend over to the window seat, eased her down, then sat beside her. Molly and Nathan had always gotten along beautifully. Or so she’d thought. “Did you quarrel?”

  Molly groped in her skirt pocket for a tissue, found one, and swiped at her mascara-streaked face. “Never. We never quarreled. That’s why this is so out of the blue.” She held the paper out to Liz. “Read it. The sonofabitch didn’t even have the guts to tell me in person. He sent me a note. Can you believe it?”

  Liz unfolded the crinkled letter and read the brief message. She’d liked Nathan, and so had Richard, but she’d been aware for some time that he seemed wary of a second try at marriage. Though Molly had been excited about plans for their June wedding, Nathan had been quiet, letting heir do all the talking. Had she pushed him into a decision he’d later regretted? But this note, this message, was such a cowardly way out.

  She looked at her friend, wishing she could ease her pain. “He doesn’t deserve you, Molly.”

  “Damn right he doesn’t.” She blew her nose, then struggled with a fresh rush of tears. “I hate him, Liz. I absolutely hate him.” Molly lost the battle, letting Liz put her arms around her and absorbing her comfort. “Oh, God, Liz I love him,” she sobbed, feeling as if her heart were cracking right open. “I wish I didn’t love him so damn much.”

  Liz rubbed her friend’s arm and let her cry. “I know,” she said. “I know exactly how you feel.”

  “A room mother doesn’t have to do a lot,” Sara said to her mother. “Just help out at our parties and maybe bring cookies. Emma could make the cookies if you don’t want to.”

  “I have no problem with making cookies,” Liz answered as she turned into their circular drive and parked near the front door. She often drove Sara to and from, school, especially when Richard was out of town, as he was this week. Always chatty, Sara fairly bubbled over with conversation on the ride home.

  “You don’t?” Sara’s blue eyes danced with her excitement. “Then you’ll do it?”

  “Sure. When’s your next party?” Liz got out of the car, ducking her head against the rain that had been coming down for three days, and waited for Sara to come around.

  “It’s a Christmas play next week. I’m a shepherd. I wanted to be an angel but they ran out of wings.” She smiled up at her mother. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll tell Mrs. Porter tomorrow.”

  After opening the door for them, Liz hurried inside. “Tell her to call me if she wants to make sure.”

  Liz watched her daughter skip on into the kitchen, her blond ponytail rising and falling with each step. At seven Sara Jane was beautiful, bright, and full of questions. Liz thanked her lucky stars every day for such a gift.

  In the kitchen, Emma stood by the wall phone, her hand over the mouthpiece. “For you, Mrs. Fairchild. Says it’s urgent.”

  “Who is it?”

  “He wouldn’t say.”

  Frowning, Liz took the phone. “Hello?”

  “Liz, it’s Fitz. I’ve got some bad news. Adam’s been in a serious accident.”

  The urge to deny what she was hearing nearly overwhelmed Liz. Suddenly shaky, she stretched the phone cord and sat down. “Emma, please give Sara her milk and cookies in her room, would you?” She turned back to the receiver. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad.” Fitz’s voice was rough with emotion. “This damn rain. He was driving back to San Diego last night after giving two speeches. He was tired and fell asleep. The car went off the road, hit a tree, and rolled over.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, heart pounding in her throat.

  “He’s got a concussion, a problem with one leg, a broken pelvis, and extensive internal injuries. I’ve been with him ever since they called me. He’s still not conscious.”

  Liz closed her eyes, her hand squeezing the phone so hard her knuckles hurt. “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, but I had to call you. He doesn’t open his eyes, but he keeps mumbling your name.”

  Liz choked back a rush of tears. “What about Diane?”

  “She’s on a trip to Bermuda with several other senators’ wives. I finally reached her, but there’s a severe storm there now and planes aren’t taking off. She won’t be able to make it back until morning, if then.” Fitz made a sound deep in his throat before going on. “I have no business involving you, I know. But if you come, I’ll get you in so no one will know. Please, Liz. He’s… he’s critical.”

  “I’m leaving right now. Tell me where to meet you.”

  Grateful that she’d agreed to come, he did. “And please, drive carefully.”

  It took Liz two tries to hang up the phone. Taking a deep breath, she went upstairs to instruct Emma about Sara.

  Fitz was pacing in the small vestibule as Liz came hurrying through the side door near the back of the large metropolitan hospital. His face was ashen as he took her arm. “Thank you for coming.”

  “How is he?”

  “No change. Let’s go up the stairs. It’s less conspicuous.” At the fourth-floor landing, he opened the door. “I’ve got him in a private room at the end of the hall on the right.” Walking briskly, he held on to her. “So far, I’ve been able to keep this from the press.” At the door to 430, he paused. “I’d better warn you. He looks bad.”

  Trembling in her anxiety, Liz wanted to see for herself. Inside, she approached the bed quietly, pressing her lips together to keep from crying out.

  Adam’s usual tan had faded to a pale, sickly color, nearly as white as the sheet covering him. His face, neck, and arms were covered with abrasions and contusions. There was a tube providing oxygen through his nose, a needle taped to his left arm, and a thicker hose disappearing under the sheet in the area of his groin. Behind him, three separate machines blipped and beeped eerily, their green computer readouts blinking in the dim room.

  Liz handed her raincoat to Fitz, moved to Adam’s right side, and took his hand in both of hers. It was bruised, very dry, too still, but she held on anyway. Her eyes inspected his battered face, noting that his eyes were both blackened. There was a white bandage at his hairline near his left temple. His breathing, despite the oxygen assist, seemed strained, labored. She squeezed his hand
and got no response.

  Fitz spoke from behind her. “The doctor told me to talk to him, that wherever he’s gone to, he can probably still hear.” He paused, his throat swollen with emotion. “What worries me and the doctor is that Adam doesn’t seem to be fighting.”

  She wouldn’t think about that, couldn’t think about it. “You said you heard him say my name?”

  “Yes, several times. He gets restless suddenly, his head moves back and forth and he tries to talk. The only word I could make out was your name.”

  Still gripping his hand, she leaned closer. “Adam, it’s Liz. I’m here. Please keep on fighting.” Afraid her voice was perilously close to a sob, she swallowed hard before trying again. “Please come back to us.”

  It was too difficult to remain, Fitz decided. He was so afraid Adam wouldn’t regain consciousness; it was a possibility, the doctor had warned. He was worried about the press stumbling on to them. He wondered if he’d messed up by calling Liz. If Diane ever found out, she’d have a fit. But the hardest thing was seeing the naked love on Liz’s face as she hovered over Adam, the obvious pain she felt now. He’d give anything to be loved like that. “I’ll be just outside,” he said, leaving.

  Carefully smoothing Adam’s hair back, Liz was scarcely aware when Fitz left. She knew only that she had to reach Adam, had to bring him back. He was too young, with too much left unfinished, to be taken from them now.

  Blinking back the tears that threatened to overflow, she leaned even closer. “Adam, darling, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can.” Nothing. She tried not to get discouraged. “Adam, you mustn’t die. I won’t let you leave us. Too many people care about you. We need you.”

  The only sound was the bleeping machines. She couldn’t let up. So she pulled the chair over and sat down. Holding his hand in her own, she used her other hand to soothe him, to carefully touch his face around the bruise marks. And she kept up a line of chatter, praying he could somehow hear her.

  She reminisced about their summer together, then about how she’d followed his career. She talked about her home, how she loved strolling by the sea, how she missed their walks. She purposely left out any references to Richard and Sara, and even to Diane. She wanted him to think only about her, hoping those good memories would bring him to a state of consciousness.

  Liz wasn’t sure how long she sat there quietly rambling on. At one point Fitz came in with a cup of coffee she didn’t want but drank anyway. Nurses came in occasionally to adjust and check on Adam. Sometime along the way she called Emma to tell her to put Sara to bed, that she wasn’t sure when she’d be home. A bit later Fitz returned to tell her Diane was further delayed by weather and was frustrated, worried, and furious.

  All of it meant little to Liz as she kept her bedside vigil. There were periods through the long nighttime hours when she thought she felt his hand move, then was equally certain she’d imagined it. Occasionally he got restless and thrashed his head on the pillow. The name on his lips, muttered softly but distinctly, was her own. She forced back tears that welled up again and again. She would be strong for Adam.

  Fitz came back in with fresh coffee as a pale gray dawn could be seen from the window. Though he handed a cup to Liz, she set it down without tasting it. Standing in the shadows, he stayed out of the way.

  Unaware of anyone but the one man she’d always loved, Liz tenderly ran shaky fingers over his dear face. She had to keep trying, though her voice was hoarse and strained. “There’s so much I’d like to say. I wish things had turned out differently between us. But even though we’re not together, I want you to know that I care. I care so much.” She paused, hesitant to say out loud the words she’d wanted to tell him for so long. Maybe he needed to hear them as much as she needed to say them. “I love you, Adam. I think I always have. And I know I should not feel it.”

  Adam made a sound, quite indistinct, and his eyes flew open. Almost immediately they closed again, and his fingers tightened on hers.

  “Oh, Adam. Let me know you’re there, that you hear me, please. I love you so much. Please, darling.”

  Slowly his fingers curled around hers of their own accord. Overwhelmed, exhausted, and very thankful, Liz bent her head over his hand, held tightly in her own, and wept.

  Having hurried over, Fitz, too, had tears to shed. Grateful tears. After composing himself, he went to find the doctor.

  CHAPTER 9

  “I think it’s wonderful, exactly what you needed.” Liz poured tea from a ceramic-and-teakwood pot into two pale blue china cups and handed one to Molly.

  Molly took a small taste before replying. “I’ve never done much in the way of volunteer work, though Lord knows my mother tried to get me into it often enough. But this just feels right, you know?”

  Liz couldn’t have agreed more. After Nathan’s rejection last year, Molly had sunk into a deep depression that had frightened her family and friends. She’d stopped seeing people, stopped painting, even stopped shopping, which really was out of character. Finally, after some fifteen months, she seemed over the worst of it. Now she’d found something that had captured her interest and seemed to make life worth living again.

  “You say it’s called Helping Hands?”

  Nodding, Molly set down her cup on the glass-topped table in Liz’s breakfast nook. “It’s small, because their funds are so limited. They’ve got a storefront location off Broadway not far from that dumpy place Adam used for his first campaign, but the rent is donated, so the price is right. The brother of one of the volunteers is a carpenter, and he put up some flimsy partitions to provide a modicum of privacy. Still, they need so much.”

  Liz lifted her hair off her neck, trying to catch the cool ocean breeze coming in through the open window. It seemed quite warm for late March. The winter hadn’t been harsh; they seldom were in southern California. There’d been a lot of rain, and she was ready for drier days. “What is it you do there?”

  “Mostly just talk with the women who walk in seeking shelter.” Molly leaned forward. “I’d never been involved with an abused woman before my cousin called me from the shelter last month. They’re so vulnerable, with such low self-esteem and little self-confidence. They’ve lost their pride, their possessions, their hope. It’s truly pitiful. And yet, time after time, they go back to their abusive situations.”

  Molly had told her that her cousin had been battered by her husband and that she’d returned to him anyway. It seemed a pattern. “Remember that case Adam had, Sam Lorenzo’s daughter, who was ultimately killed by an abusive husband?”

  “Yes, I do. Every time I see one of these women decide to go back, I’m afraid for her. But it isn’t just the physical battering, bad as that is. It’s the mental abuse.”

  Liz reached over and squeezed her friend’s hand. “You must be very good with these women. You have such an empathetic heart.”

  Caustic and irreverent in college and even after, Molly had been changed radically by the hurtful way Nathan had thrown her over. The bitterness still crept through occasionally, but she listened more intently these days and was keenly aware of the pain of others. She was still suffering inside, Liz felt. Despite the fact that Molly was wearing a sassy pink outfit today with an outrageous broad-brimmed hat, Liz knew she was working hard to keep her spirits up, to keep from sliding back down into the well of depression.

  “Thanks, but I get as much out of volunteering there as I give. Maybe you’d like to come with me sometime. Your heart would melt if you saw some of the children these women bring with them. Huge, frightened eyes, undernourished, afraid to trust.”

  Liz wasn’t sure she could handle that. It had been wrenching enough working with underprivileged kids years ago in little theater. “I’ll think about it.” The ringing phone had her rising and going through the archway into the kitchen to answer. “Hello?”

  “Liz, it’s Fitz. Can you talk?”

  Since Adam’s accident last November, he’d taken to calling her occasionally to update her on
his brother’s recovery. Liz braced herself, for usually the things he had to say were upsetting. “Yes. How are things going?”

  Fitz sighed audibly. “Not good. Adam’s body has healed more quickly than the doctors had predicted, as I told you the last time we talked. But recently, he had a setback. He sits in that house in Sacramento and stares out the window for hours. I’ve been taking some work to him, but he seems to have lost interest. Diane’s frustrated, and I’m worried.”

  Liz had heard of depression as a delayed reaction after a serious injury. But usually it involved concern over an incapacitation. “I don’t understand. His injuries have healed, he can walk and even resume work. What kind of a setback did he have?”

  “Adam won’t talk about it, but I got after the doctor and learned that two weeks ago, they told him that due to his pelvic injuries, he’s become sterile. It’s a real blow to him. He’s always loved kids.”

  Liz felt her heart plummet. Dear God, sterile. And two miles away his eight-year-old daughter sat in her third-grade class, looking more like her father every day. She closed her eyes, praying for strength. “I’m so sorry, Fitz.”

  “Yeah, so am I.” He wasn’t sure why he’d called Liz with this information or why he’d been phoning every couple of weeks since that endless night. Maybe because in his mind she’d brought his brother back from a place Adam had seemed reluctant to leave. Despite their two separate marriages, Fitz had realized that night that Liz loved Adam, and that her words of love had finally penetrated his subconscious. Fitz didn’t consider himself an emotional man, but he’d been terribly moved by the scene at the hospital.

  He’d also watched Diane try to raise Adam’s spirits, but he wasn’t responding to her. Fitz was just cynical enough to feel that Diane wasn’t so much concerned with Adam the man, but rather worried that Adam the senator might not recuperate and take her back into the political social whirl she loved more than her own husband. Diane had told Fitz just yesterday that she now regretted that she hadn’t had a child with Adam. Too late, lady.