Happily Never After. Kathleen O'Brien

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СКАЧАТЬ dying dragon dominated the bottom third of the window, his sinuous body curled around the feet of the knight, his scales shining like peacock feathers. Up from the dragon, St. George rose like a human tower, tall and triumphant. He lifted his sword into the air, and on the tip of the sword he had impaled the dragon’s glowing red heart.

      It was not any failing of Jean Laurent’s talent that caused Imogene to identify more with the dragon than with the resplendent knight. After all, from ground level, the dragon was mostly what one saw. And, naturally, Imogene couldn’t help comparing the handsome St. George to the handsome Adler Mellon. St. George seemed to be enjoying his kill a little too much.

      Imogene sometimes wondered whether Jean Laurent might have liked the dragon best, as well. The artist had spent so much time and empathetic energy on the dragon’s face. Its eyes were almost human—green, gray, silver and blue pools of inarticulate misery.

      It took about twenty minutes for the sun to climb high enough to illuminate the entire window, but Imogene always waited patiently for the transformation to complete itself. The heart, naturally, was the last to burst into brilliance. The red, jewel-like heart, so real it seemed to be still throbbing.

      Imogene had asked Jean Laurent if the window had a name, like any other work of art. He had smiled and turned to Adler with a bow. Coeur Volé, Jean had said. Of course.

      Another reason to think perhaps Jean had sympathized with the dragon.

      Coeur Volé was French for Stolen Heart.

      “Mom?” Samantha was standing about ten steps above her. She still wore her nightgown. “Are you all right?”

      “I’m fine,” Imogene said. What a ridiculous question. Of course she wasn’t all right. She was dying. They had told her she had maybe a month or two, no longer. “I’m fine. Go back to bed.”

      “Do you want some breakfast?”

      “No.”

      Still Samantha hesitated, her hand on the banister. “Do you want anything?”

      I want to live.

      And I want justice. For my own tormented body, and for the poisoned lives of my children.

      She let her gaze leave the agonized eyes of the doomed dragon. She let it slide up the shining armor, through the muscular thighs and powerful shoulders, and into the lusty, inflamed eyes of St. George.

      Yes, she thought, feeling something stir in her own loins, finally. This, here at the very end, was what she wanted.

      I want, for once in my life, to be the one holding the sword.

      TOM HAD A BAD TASTE in his mouth, and it wasn’t from the salmon salad, which he ordered every time he came to this restaurant and which had been as delicious as ever.

      The taste came instead from the conversation, especially his part of it. His words had a sticky, artificial after-taste. The hard-to-digest flavor of manipulative half-truths and sugarcoated threats.

      From the minute Coach Mick O’Toole had been fished out of the ocean, red-faced and spluttering and flailing his arms wildly, splashing everyone on the boat with salt water, Bailey Ormonde had made it clear that it would be Tom’s job to make sure the man didn’t sue.

      Thus, this hastily arranged lunch with O’Toole, who hadn’t even had the sense to bring his own lawyer.

      Tom knew the drill. There wasn’t much O’Toole could really do to hurt Saroyan, even if he did decide to sue. People like Saroyan paid big bucks to Ormonde, White and Murray to do what they euphemistically called “asset-protection planning.” That was Murray’s specialty, and he was good at it. Saroyan could pretty much get drunk and run down a convent full of nuns with his SUV, and, though he might do time in the slammer, he’d emerge as rich as ever.

      One soggy football coach claiming whiplash didn’t have a chance. But he could annoy and embarrass Saroyan, who had a very thin skin. Saroyan didn’t want a nuisance lawsuit that would keep this unfortunate anecdote alive at every party for the next year. As he’d said during their meeting yesterday, “Goddamn it, boy, just make it go away.”

      Considering that Saroyan was only about ten years older than Tom, and had earned every penny of his fortune buying up slums in Atlanta and then painting over the rotten buildings and raising the rents, that “boy” comment had annoyed the hell out of Tom.

      Still…this was his job. Bailey always said lawyers were actually diplomats. More like gymnasts, was how Tom saw it. He’d just spent the past hour kissing O’Toole’s dumb ass while twisting his arms back and tying his hands.

      He ordered coffee to help with the foul taste in his mouth.

      “You know, I’m used to tempers,” O’Toole was saying. He adjusted his neck brace, which did look damn uncomfortable. “Try coaching a bunch of college kids, and you’ll learn about tempers, that’s for sure. The real problem with Saroyan is that he doesn’t understand football. And if he thinks he’s going to call the plays on the field, he’s got another think coming.”

      Tom considered giving O’Toole a little friendly advice, but then he looked at that thick neck and those beady eyes, and he decided to have another sip of coffee instead.

      “Saroyan didn’t even play football when he was at MGU. He was a math major.” O’Toole said math as if it were something ridiculous, like majoring in tiddlywinks. He didn’t seem to see the connection between Saroyan’s studies and his ability to buy and sell O’Toole ten times a day.

      Tom drained his coffee and tilted his watch under the table. Fifteen more minutes of this, at least, before he could check his watch openly, gasp and imply that he’d been enjoying himself so much he’d lost track of the time.

      Diplomat? Gymnast? Babysitter might be more accurate. Ego babysitter. He tried to tune out the little voice that said this was nothing a grown man should be doing for a living.

      Suddenly, his cell phone began to vibrate. Apparently there was a God.

      Giving O’Toole a “gosh, isn’t this annoying, just when we were having such a good time?” smile, Tom unclipped his phone and answered without even bothering to look at the caller ID. Ordinarily he screened, having just enough old girlfriends to be cautious, but right now he’d welcome a call from any one of them.

      “This is Tom Beckham,” he said formally, already folding his napkin and crooking a finger to let the waiter know it was time for the check. Whoever really was on the other end of this telephone, as far as O’Toole was concerned, it was urgent firm business.

      At first there was just silence. And then he heard a soft female voice.

      “Tom?”

      For about six tenths of a second he honestly didn’t recognize the voice. And then it hit him. Hit him hard.

      It was Kelly.

      An image rushed toward him, leapfrogging the years. An image of the two of them in a dark corner, laughing at first, and then touching, and then she was crying, and he was up against her, and she was kissing him and whispering his name, but crying, crying the whole time.

      Her red-gold hair falling loose СКАЧАТЬ