Obviously, Sharpe lives, breathes, and sleeps his work, she thought. Just as I do. The conviction grew the longer she stared down at his prone figure. Still, he was older than James, and retirement for him loomed on the near horizon. He'd be free to come to America. They could both live in the Quantico area where he might buy a large farm-no, a ranch with horses. She loved horses and horseback riding, and when he would call for her to come out on a weekend, she'd drop everything and be there and… Her dreams ran a bit rampant for a half second, her eyes fixed on Richard Sharpe lying alongside her, her “alongsider” friend and lover.
Their lovemaking rivaled any lovemaking she'd ever known, and she sensed it the tip of the iceberg with this man. They had been cautious, yet passionate with one another, halting yet fulfilling each other's needs. Jessica knew that she could grow to love this man.
She reread the letter for the eleventh time. James had desperately tried to make it come clear to her, clear that she either choose her career or him, clear that he could no longer accept the status quo: the burden of the long-distance love affair they'd established had fallen squarely on her shoulders-typical of the male of the species.
Checking the time, realizing it is after twelve noon in Hawaii, Jessica impulsively telephones James. She checks the digital figures on her bedside clock and while she realizes the hour puts him at work, she calls nonetheless. Her toe begins tapping at the air where it dangles alongside the bed, and she mentally taps her thoughts: He will be at his desk, she assures herself, pacing, wondering if he'd done the right thing, calling off their relationship, worried sick about her. On the fourth ring, he answers, acting surprised to hear from her again, when in fact he is not in the least surprised. When he speaks, he spews forth venom, telling her, “Jess, damnit, it's over now! Now, please never call here again!”
In the background, she hears someone softly asking if everything is all right: a female associate. Jessica throws the telephone through a nearby mirror where it is swallowed up. Her eyes open, and she finds, found, located herself in time and place, found herself being held against Richard Sharpe's powerful chest, listening to the beating drum of his heart, feeling the power of his grip on her back where his hands and fingers massaged while his voice soothed her pain.
Sharpe had grabbed her, holding on, telling her, “You're all right, Jessica. Your nightmare is just that, a nightmare.” His voice flowed like fine wine, strong, firm, reassuring, solid.
“Sorry,” she softly apologized, awake enough now to distinguish dream from reality, to assure him that she was no infant in need of coddling.
“Lamenting the death of an old relationship is never easy,” he replied, holding up the letter from Jim Parry.
She snatched at the paper, tearing it even as he welcomed her taking it. “That's private!” she shouted, realizing that this moment could end their relationship with one stroke, that it represented one of those escape exits from a relationship that Dr. Donna LeMonte, her psychiatrist and friend, had so often told Jessica she grasped at like straws. She could so easily overreact, sending Richard out into the night, screaming at him for daring to touch her letter from Jim. She could easily accuse him of having read her private correspondence, of finding the act vile. Or she could hold on. Hold to the moment, hold to Richard, hold.
“I quite well know and understand the depression and horror of a long-term relationship falling apart,” he calmly said, his hands still massaging her back.
“None of my relationships have any chance whatsoever, thanks to my
… This obsessive drive to be the best forensic scientist I can be.” She found herself confessing and not knowing why. Sharpe brought it out in her. She wanted to share everything with him, including her darkest moments and her every mole.
'To be the best at something. No better desire or goal on the planet. And you are, you know, the best M.E. I've ever seen at work. You don't have to keep proving yourself to me. Boulte, yes. Me, no.” He said it with the rich, lusty laugh which he'd trumpeted at the theater.
“God, you're a wonderful man,” she told him.
“That's the nicest thing a woman, any woman, has said to me in a long time.”
She bit on her lower lip, pouting. “So, you've found me out, and quickly. I found you irresistible from the start, from the moment I first saw you in my office.”
“I had no idea.”
“Nonsense, Inspector. You're both too observant and too fast for that, Sharpe.”
He countered, saying, “I find you keenly quick-intelligent, capable-and as to your obsessions, well, I rather fancy them admirable obsessions. Far more so than those of women obsessed with hair, lipstick, and ornamentation.”
She smiled at this. “Will you find it so admirable once I've returned to the States?”
“We're both adults, Jessica. We've both been in prior relationships, both good and bad. I have no wish to put any yokes on you. Besides, it's a great deal closer to London from Washington than it is to Hawaii.”
She looked peculiarly at him. She hadn't explained to him anything about James Parry or ever mentioned Hawaii to him, not that she could recall. “Then you did read Jim's letter. How else could you know it was Hawaii?” she asked, point-blank. “You said so, in your sleep.”
“I did?”
“You repeatedly said the words 'paradise' and 'Hawaii' amidst a gibberish about spawning whales. I could not follow. I tried waking you before you toppled the phone, but-”
'Toppled the phone?”
He pointed to the floor beside the bed. She realized now that the buzzing in her ears was the phone off its cradle where it lay on the floor beside the bed.
“Perhaps you're not quite over this fellow in Hawaii, in which case, I feel that perhaps I ought not to have stayed.”
“No, no, Richard. I'm glad you and I, that we… that we have had this moment. It's been…” She wanted to say therapeutic, but she feared he'd take that description badly. He reached her mouth with his and covered her halting words, taking her breath away, feeding on it. She responded with quick energy, returning his probing kiss, feeling the heat and passion rising in Richard Sharpe again, feeling her own passions well up and boil over.
“It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a woman, and never one so beautiful as you,” he continued the none-too-subtle flattery, and she loved it.
“It's been a long time since a man has lied so well to me,” she countered.
“Lie!” He laughed and repeated it. “Lie? Me? Inspector Richard Sharpe of Scotland Yard? Lie to a lady? Never about such matters of importance.”
“Shut up. Kiss me.” She kissed him, James's letter falling in a crumple on the floor beside the bed with the phone still off the hook.
They made love for the second time, and the second proved better than the first time. Jessica's thoughts and memories of James Parry dissipated and faded as Richard's touch opened her mind to new possibilities. She particularly enjoyed hearing Sharpe laugh in complete and total abandon when he came in her.
They enjoyed a shower together and a large breakfast via room service the next morning, and Richard, having no change of clothes, left ahead of Jessica to swing by his flat to find what he needed. They both felt a euphoria about the step they had taken in forging a personal bond. Neither felt obligated to the other, and yet both wished to get to know the other at a still deeper level. They had parted with this feeling strong between them. Jessica had stopped just short of telling Richard how awful she felt at ever having, even for a moment, suspected him in setting up the Crucifixion murders to further his career. The nasty, vulture-atop-a-tree suspicious mind she had cultivated over the years, so rich in its cynicism, so capable in its bullshit detection, had simply kicked in prematurely there in Hyde Park when Richard had stepped off the crime scene so abruptly, leaving her alone with Copperwaite. Now she rather admired his having simply dropped everything-all of his duties and responsibilities-to seek out his girls in an effort to reassure himself of their safety.