in him than she had realizedperhaps too deep. Even virtues like
responsibility and honesty could become obsessions. But, oh, what
lovely obsessions compared with those of other men she had known.
At last he looked at her, met her gaze, and his eyes were full of a
sorrow-almost a melancholy-that she had never seen in them before. But
other emotions were evident in his eyes as well, a special warmth and
tenderness, great affection, love.
He said, “Last night and this morning.. . after we made love. . .
Well, for the first time since before the war, I saw an important choice
that was strictly black and white, no grays whatsoever, and in that
choice there’s a sort of. . . a sort of salvation that I thought I’d
never find.”
“What choice?” she asked.
“Whether to spend my life with your not,” he said.
“To spend it with you is the right choice, entirely right, no
ambiguities. And to let you slip away is wrong, all wrong, I’ve no
doubt about that.”
For weeks, maybe months, Rachael had known she was in love with Benny.
But she had reined in her emotions, had not spoken of the depth of her
feelings for him, and had not permitted herself to think of a long-term
commitment. Her childhood and adolescence had been colored by
loneliness and shaped by the terrible perception that she was unloved,
and those bleak years had engendered in her a craving for affection.
That craving, that need to be wanted and loved, was what had made her
such easy prey for Eric Leben and had led her into a bad marriage.
Eric’s obsession with youth in general and with her youth in particular
had seemed like love to Rachael, for she had desperately wanted it to be
love. She had spent the next seven years learning and accepting the
grim and hurtful truth-that love had nothing to do with it. Now she was
cautious, wary of being hurt again.
“I love you, Rachael.”
Heart pounding, wanting to believe that she could be loved by a man as
good and sweet as Benny, but afraid to believe it, she tried to look
away from his eyes because the longer she stared into them the closer
she came to losing the control and cool detachment with which she
armored herself. But she could not look away. She tried not to say
anything that would make her vulnerable, but with a curious mixture of
dismay, delight, and wild exhilaration, she said, “Is this what I think
it is?”
“What do you think it is?”
“A proposal.”
“Hardly the time or place for a proposal, is it?” he said.
“Hardly.”
“Yet. . . that’s what it is. I wish the circumstances were more
romantic.”
“Well…”
“Champagne, candlelight, violins.”
She smiled.
“But,” he said, “when Baresco was holding that revolver on us, and when
we were being chased down Palm Canyon Drive last night, the thing that
scared me most wasn’t that I might be killed. .. but that I might be
killed before I’d let you know how I felt about you. So I’m letting you
know. I want to be with you always, Rachael, always.”
More easily than she would have believed possible, the words came to her
own lips. “I want to spend my life with you, too, Benny.”
He put a hand to her face.
She leaned forward and kissed him lightly.
“I love you,” he said.
“God, I love you.
“If we get through this alive, you’ll marry me?”
“Yes,” she said, seized by a sudden chill. “But damn it, Benny, why’d
you have to bring the if part into it?”
“Forget I said it.”
But she could not forget. Earlier in the day, in the motel room in Palm
Springs, just after they had made love the second time, she’d
experienced a presentiment of death that had shaken her and had filled
her with the need to move, as if a deadly weight would fall on them if
they stayed in the same place any longer. That uncanny feeling
returned. The mountain scenery, which had been fresh and alluring,
acquired a somber and threatening aspect that chilled her even though