A Lover's Gift

Lynn Michaels

Chapter 1

Usually, because she gained five pounds if she so much as sniffed a margarita, Aubrey steered clear of alcoholic beverages. For the same reason she avoided desserts and sauces, but Sara blithely ig­nored her murmured objections and ordered coq au vin, broccoli with hollandaise sauce, a bottle of white wine, and chocolate mousse.

"You have just doomed me," Aubrey told her unhappily as she handed her menu to the waiter and he bowed away from their table. "You, my dear friend, have condemned me to a two-day fast and ten extra sit-ups for the next week."

"We are celebrating," Sara replied airily. "This is your first night in New York and my birthday -- ergo, I refuse to eat like a gerbil."

Sara was the only person Aubrey had ever met who actually used the word ergo in conversation. She'd fallen in love with that archaic little adverb in a course titled "Shakespeare for the Theater" during their sophomore year at Stephens College. For weeks it had been ergo this and ergo that every time she'd opened her mouth until Aubrey had been ready to scream. Now she smiled.

"Okay, Draper." She narrowed one eye and pointed an index finger at her. "Tonight we in­dulge, but tomorrow you hit the exercise mat with me."

"Ugh." Sara wrinkled her small, perfect nose and tilted her head to one side. "Why don't I can­cel the wine instead?"

"Cancel the mousse."

"But it's my favorite!"

"It goes straight to the hips."

"Not my hips," she retorted.

"At your age, Sara, not to mention your profes­sion," Aubrey replied earnestly, folding her hands on the table edge and leaning forward, "you really should start watching what you eat."

"My age!" she shot back indignantly. "Look here, Nichols, you're only four months shy of the big three-oh yourself."

"True," Aubrey agreed, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, "but then I eat like a gerbil, which is the reason I no longer look like one."

She crossed her eyes and puffed out her cheeks, and Sara laughed. Several heads, most of them male, Aubrey noted, turned admiring glances in her direction.

That image of Sara, her lovely face flushed and animated, her blue eyes glistening with pin­points of light, remained crystalline and vivid in Aubrey's recollections of that night. So did the mousse -- which they argued over so long that it arrived at the table before they'd settled the issue -- in capital letters as The Last Dessert Before the Storm.

"Oh, God, I'm in agony," Sara groaned once they'd finished their meal, paid their check, and walked through the dark-paneled, dimly lit res­taurant toward the exit. "Which one of the seven deadly sins is gluttony?" She rubbed one hand on her midriff beneath the paisley shawl draped over her white cossack blouse and shoved open the heavy, carved door with the other.

"I'm not sure," Aubrey replied vaguely, blink­ing to clear the warm rush of the wine that fuzzed her brain and her travel-wearied eyes as she pushed through the door behind Sara. "But in my book --" she faltered and sucked a shallow breath as the humid summer night engulfed her "--it's al­ways been numero uno."

The sticky blackness and hot, exhaust-tainted breeze rocked her slightly on her heels. Her vision blurred, the garish neon tubes lighting the front of the restaurant bled and swam together, and for an awful moment as her throat constricted and the ever-present traffic noises on Columbus Ave­nue roared in her ears, she thought she was going to be sick on the sidewalk.

"Steady, girl." Sara caught her elbow and laughed gently. "You should have let me cancel the wine."

"I wish I had." She smiled weakly and brushed away the heavy strands of auburn hair blown across her face by the sluggish, muggy breeze.

"Never fear, Grandma Draper's Remedy is close at hand. C'mon, let's save cab fare and walk home. Eighty-seventh Street isn't far."

Firmly wrapping Aubrey's fingers around the curve of her right elbow, Sara wheeled on her left heel. She managed half a step before Aubrey balked and jerked Sara around to face her.

"What do you mean walk?" she demanded. "It's dark and this is New York City."

"Oh, for God's sake, Bree, don't be such a hick." Sara made a face and yanked her down the side­walk. "This is real life, not an episode of 'Law and Order.”

Pulled off balance by the sharp tug on her arm, Aubrey stumbled along behind her, dodging and ducking her way around other pedestrians. By the time Aubrey had her feet firmly beneath her again, Sara had towed her across a street and had covered another half a block. So far so good, she thought, but wished the canister of Mace her mother had given her was in her skirt pocket-where Adelia Nichols had told her to keep it rather than in her purse. It wouldn't do her any good in her handbag, her mother had cautioned,  so naturally, that's where Aubrey had put it.

"See, oh timid one?" Sara taunted with a smile as she released her death grip on Aubrey's hand and untied the knotted ends other shawl. "We've walked almost two blocks and we haven't been ac­costed by a mugger or a rapist yet."

"How much farther is your building?"

"Four blocks."

"Then I'd say gloating is a bit premature," Au­brey answered and unzipped her oversized brief­case bag as she tugged it off her shoulder.

"Save your Mace," Sara told her. "Mine's in my pocket."

"I thought you said this was real life," Aubrey reminded her as she zipped her bag and side­stepped a couple walking hand-in-hand toward them, "and not an episode of 'Law and Order."

"You really are a hick, aren't you?" Sara glanced her a frown and raised one eyebrow. "Is this the reason it's taken me almost six years to browbeat you into coming to New York? You're afraid?"

"I'm not afraid, Sara," Aubrey denied firmly. "Nervous, yes, and the only reason I'm here is to research my doctoral thesis at NYU. I explained all that in my letter."

"Yes, you did," Sara agreed as she caught and held the fringed ends of her shawl in her hands. "But as I recall, you were very vague and nebu­lous about the details of your trip until I wrote back and told you that Jack would probably fly in from San Diego for the Fourth."

Uh-oh, here we go again, Aubrey thought, just as the toe of her right sandal bumped a crack in the sidewalk. She tripped forward three steps into a pool of pale light beneath a street lamp, pulled herself upright, and glanced over her shoulder at Sara.

"Gotcha." Sara grinned and jerked her shawl free of her shoulders with a snapping, Zorro-like flourish.

"Got me what?" Aubrey asked blankly as she stood flat-footed in the middle of the walk and waited for Sara to catch up.

"Obtusity ill becomes you, Bree." She stopped beside her and tickled one end of the shawl in her face.

"The word is obtuseness," Aubrey corrected her as she batted the fringe out of her eyes.

"Thank you, Madame English Teacher." Sara smirked and tossed her shawl over her left arm. "You know, I find it extremely interesting that my big brother was also very iffy about the Fourth until I told him you would be here." She smiled slyly and wagged her eyebrows again.

"So what?" Aubrey asked flatly, hoping she sounded convincingly bewildered.

"So I think we'll finish this conversation once I've administered Grandma Draper's Remedy." Sara caught her arm again and propelled her to­ward the corner. "We're getting nowhere fast."

"What exactly is this magic cure-all?"

"Hair of the dog, my dear," Sara replied, a de­termined edge in her voice as she tightened her grip on Aubrey's arm and increased their pace.

Smiling, Aubrey let Sara march her briskly down the sidewalk. This had to be at least the fif­teen thousandth time that she'd managed to avoid her friend's not-so-subtle efforts to trap her into admitting that she'd been in love with Jack since she and Sara had been freshmen at Stephens. Her latest tactic -- get her drunk and she'll bare her soul -- smacked of desperation; still, it amused Aubrey and made her wonder why Sara hadn't thought of it long ago.

As bright as she was, and as close a friendship as they'd managed to maintain despite the miles separating New York and Springfield, Illinois, it never ceased to amaze Aubrey that Sara hadn't long ago found a way to wring a confession out of her. Maybe it was her face, still disgustingly round (although her slightly dimpled chin at least showed now that she no longer had cheeks like a chipmunk), or her milk-chocolate brown eyes that gave her such a wide-eyed, sincere look. Or may­be, she concluded with a wry smile as Sara hauled her around the corner onto her block filled with pleasant brownstones and small apartment buildings, just maybe she'd missed her true call­ing. Maybe she should've majored in drama in­stead and gone on the stage with Sara.

About a third of the way down the well-lit street, other sounds -- the steady thrum of air con­ditioners, the barking of a dog -- overrode the roar of the traffic on the busier avenue behind them, which had faded now to a throaty, muted whine. Though the leaves on the few small trees planted along the sidewalk barely stirred in the nearly fetid breeze, Aubrey felt cooler walking beneath their heat-wilted branches.

"Does anyone ever water them?" she asked, and frowned sympathetically at a thin, bedrag­gled specimen that in the darkness looked like it could be either an ornamental maple or an ash.

"Water what?" Sara returned, easing her grip on Aubrey's arm as they turned up the steps to her building.

"The trees," she answered, still gazing at the scrawny little thing over her shoulder.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Sara replied in a voice that said she couldn't care less.

I'll give that one a drink tomorrow, Aubrey de­cided, then turned her head to watch where she was going as she stumbled up a step. The lobby lights glaring through the glass front of the build­ing burned her tired eyes and made them water. She blinked rapidly and smiled at Sam, the stocky, sixtyish doorman, who pushed open the heavy glass portal from the inside.

"Evening, Miss Draper, Miss Nichols." He nodded and touched the bill of the gray cap pushed back on his thinning salt and pepper hair. "Did you enjoy your dinner?"

"I overjoyed, as usual," Sara told him, grimac­ing as she tugged Aubrey through the door behind her.

He grinned and chuckled. Still blinking to clear her misted eyes, Aubrey cast him a backward smile as Sara towed her across the red and white tiled lobby. He winked at her, she winked back, which only made her eyes water, and decided that she was going to like Sam very much.

"Why are you crying?" Sara asked, smiling mischievously as she drew her to a halt before the elevator and pushed the button. "All choked up at the thought of seeing Jack again?"

"Hardly." Aubrey made a face and wiped her mascara-thickened lashes on her index fingers. "I've got something in my eyes, I think."

"Stars, I'm sure," Sara returned with a grin.

"Pollution, I'm sure," Aubrey corrected her and lowered her black-smeared fingers.

Her vision was still blurred, but pleasantly, and she smiled at the prisms of light she saw around the lamps illuminating the lobby.

"This is better than rose-colored glasses," she told Sara. "All the lights have little rainbows around them."

"Pollution, indeed!" Sara laughed, took her el­bow again as the elevator opened, and led her into the car. "You've got a buzz on."

"I do not," she denied vehemently, and shivered as a draft of cold air from the ceiling duct seeped down the perspiration-dampened back of her neck.

"Sober people don't see rainbows, Bree," Sara informed her with a grin, and led her out of the el­evator as the doors opened on the third floor.

Though the plush, dark red carpeting in the cor­ridor muffled their footsteps, the floorboards un­derneath groaned as they walked toward Sara's door. The hallway smelled pleasantly of old wood, and Aubrey, tiring rapidly of the rainbows, wished her eyes would clear so she could make out the pattern in the ivory wallpaper.

"I think I'll wash off my mascara," she said, groping her way into the living room once Sara had unlocked the paneled walnut door and shoved it open.

"It won't help!"

In the bedroom doorway, Aubrey half-turned and stuck out her tongue at Sara's blurry shape near the bar that separated the minuscule kitchen from the living room. She laughed, and Aubrey bumped her way around the doorjamb into the bathroom.

She rinsed a washcloth in the sink, pressed it to her eyes, and sighed. The wet terrycloth square only gummed her mascara, but the cool water felt so good. Hollering at Sara that she was going to take a shower, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the tub. Afterward, wrapped in a thick blue towel, Aubrey attacked her gluey lashes with cleansing cream.

That's the last time I'll use waterproof mascara, she vowed, still blinking at the misty residue clouding her vision. Shivering a little, she slipped into her pajamas and walked barefoot through the bedroom into the living room.

On a pile of pastel floor cushions thrown on the gray shag carpet, Sara was sitting in a lavender nightie. The nineteen-inch color portable mounted on a cherry wall unit was tuned to the late news, and Sara's eyes were fixed on the screen while she clamped a corkscrew over the top of a dark green wine bottle.

Behind her on a low modern sidetable squatted a fat, pink ceramic lamp with a pleated white shade; next to it in a wooden frame sat a picture of Jack. Abruptly, as Aubrey blinked at his dark au­burn hair shining in the glow of the lamp and his smiling green eyes, the mist cleared and the rain­bows vanished.

"Hurry up with that, will you?" she asked. "I think my buzz is wearing off."

Sara glanced up at her, started to laugh, and toppled over onto the cushions. In the hollow of her throat gleamed the heart-shaped gold locket Jack had sent her from San Diego for her birth­day. A tiny diamond chip mounted in its scrolled center winked at Aubrey as she crossed the room and dropped onto a lime green cushion opposite Sara.

"Why in hell," she chuckled, pushing herself up on her hands, "are you still wearing your fat-jams?"

"You remembered!" Aubrey grinned and plucked at the front of her nearly threadbare, blue striped size-sixteen pajamas. "I wear them to remind me what life was like when I was a two-legged dump­ling."

"Bree." Sara looked at her steadily as she picked up the-wine bottle. "Jack calls you Dump­ling for the same reason he calls me Sara Heart­burn. It's a term of affection."

"I know that, Sara." Aubrey smiled as she leaned toward the coffee table and retrieved the two crystal goblets that sat there. "Still, it was a whale of a motivation to lose forty-five pounds."

"Well, I certainly hope you brought along a neg­ligee." Sara grunted and crooked her tongue in one corner of her mouth as she twisted the cork­screw.

"I don't own a negligee," Aubrey told her. "I'm not the negligee type."

"You don't have to be the type, Bree," Sara re­plied between clenched teeth as the screw bit through the cork and she struggled to pull it out again. "You just have to wear one when we go to the farm for the Fourth. Mother and Dad will be back from their cruise by then, did I tell you?"

"No, you didn't, and why do I have to wear a negligee?"

The cork came free with a loud pop and Sara set it aside on the carpet. She braced her hands on her folded knees and wrinkled her nose. "Who do you think you're going to seduce in your fat-jams?"

"I know who I'd like to seduce."

"Oh, yeah?" Sara grinned, wiggled forward on her tailbone, and filled the wineglasses. "Who, as if I didn't know?"

Aubrey's gaze slid to the left where the "NBC Nightly News" logo had just appeared on the television screen the late night repeat of the national news.

 "Brian Williams," she sighed dreamily.

"What?" Sara shrieked.

"If you don't mind --"Aubrey frowned at Sara's thunderstruck expression over her shoulder as she shifted her position on the cushion"--this is my favorite news program show and I'm trying to watch --"

In mid-sentence her breath caught in her throat and a fearful chill crawled up her back as Brian Williams’ well-modulated voice caught and held her atten­tion.

"... although FBI spokesmen are still declin­ing comment at this hour, John Collins, presi­dent of Nu-Lite Laboratories, did confirm that correspondence between Dr. Jack Draper and a representative of a foreign government -- corre­spondence alluding heavily to the LC-15 project which Dr. Draper has been developing for Nu-Lite -- had been found this afternoon in his San Diego apartment. When asked if the letters, ex­changed over a period of eight months, concerned Dr. Draper's alleged intent to sell LC-15 to this as yet unidentified foreign power, Mr. Collins re­fused to comment further. . . ."

Involuntarily, the breath trapped in Aubrey's throat expelled itself and she sucked a startled half-gasp of air as she whirled on her knees to face a pale and stricken Sara. Her blue eyes, wide and slowly filling with tears, were riveted to the TV screen. Swallowing the lump that had suddenly risen to her throat, Aubrey took the wine bottle out of her hands, put it down on the coffee table, and wrapped the fingers of her right hand around Sara's wrist.

Pressing her left hand to her own rapidly yammering heart, she looked back at Brian Williams. Behind his left shoulder, Jack's picture, the same one sitting on the table beside the mauve and cream striped sofa, smiled at her.

"One of the country's leading researchers in the field of laser physics. Dr. Draper was last seen this afternoon with Hugh Lawrence, owner of Lawrence Laboratories in San Diego. When ap­proached by reporters outside FBI headquarters earlier this evening, Mr. Lawrence declined to comment on the LC-15 project or the whereabouts of Dr. Draper, who is still wanted for questioning by FBI officials in San Diego."

Beneath her own none-too-steady fingers, Au­brey felt gooseflesh rise on Sara's thin, cold wrist. The station went to a commercial, and she picked up the remote control from the corner of the coffee table. It felt like a lump of lead in her clammy palm, and her thumb trembled on the button as she switched off the set. She scooted around on her knees to face Sara, glanced up as she did, and felt a wrench between her ribs as her gaze fell and locked on Jack's photograph.

"Oh, Brian, how could you," she whispered, and blinked back tears that pricked hotly behind her eyes.

"It's a lie, Bree," Sara said thickly. "It's all a lie."

"Of course it is," Aubrey replied woodenly, even though she knew that it wasn't.

As desperately as she wanted to believe that the report wasn't true, she knew that network news programs didn't air fabricated or unsubstantiated stories. Oh, Jack, she wanted to scream at his pic­ture, why?

"You believe it, don't you?"

The bitter edge in Sara's voice startled Aubrey and pulled her gaze away from the photograph. With a half-guilty jerk of her hand on Sara's wrist, she glanced at her over her shoulder.

"How could you believe that garbage?" Sara shrilled at her as she twisted her hand free of Au­brey's and wiped the tears spilling down her cheeks. "You love him, for God's sake, how can you believe that crap?"

"Sara . . ." Aubrey pleaded, reaching to take her hand again.

"Leave me alone!" she cried and wrenched her­self to her feet.

Arms folded and shoulders hunched, Sara with­drew to the tiny window seat near the small, round dining table. Rising on her knees to look over the back of the hide-a-bed, Aubrey watched Sara huddle there in a miserable knot, the fingers of her right hand tangling in the chain of the locket as she stared out the window at the street below, sobbing.