The Awakening of Dr. Brown Read online

  She was amazed by the way he seemed to know just what she wanted-and gave it to her. And touched beyond measure by the easy unselfishness of his giving. As impatient as she was, as brittle with desire, the quick but careful way he prepared himself for her was a revelation. And as she came astride him and felt the first bright shock of penetration…then the slow, sweet filling…that hard and shiny ribbon of desire inside her somehow became entangled with something softer…a delicate fluttering streamer of feeling, gossamer as spiderwebbing, lovely as a butterfly’s wing. As she moved over him, rocking her body with his, the two coiled and danced through her consciousness, becoming so inextricably knotted she couldn’t tell, finally, one from the other. Hopelessly tangled, she began to feel clumsy, shaky, out of control.

  “Easy…” he murmured, smiling up at her. His hands ran up and down her sides…then around to her back, dipping under the wet-silk fall of her hair to cup her buttocks as he set himself deep inside her.

  She felt her body coiling…bracing…and tears rushing up in her throat. She gazed at him, defiance of the tears blazing hot and fierce in her eyes…

  It came so suddenly…her eyes bright as chips of sky one moment…the next dissolving in misty rainbows. She swayed, and he drew her down onto his chest, her body wrapped in the webbing of her hair, quaking and trembling, release mixing with sobs. Swiftly then, while she clung to him, her body still hot and pulsing, he drove himself into her and gave her his own completion like a gift…a sweet shuddering rapture that was like nothing he’d ever known…

  Gradually, he understood that she was crying. Not the sobs of reaction to overwhelming climax, but deep, wrenching, grief-stricken sobs. He didn’t try to stop her tears, nor did he feel any remorse, understanding that tears were a necessary antedote to grief, and a prerequisite for healing. Instead, he wrapped her in his arms and warmed her with his body while he stroked her back and murmured reassurances into her damp hair.

  “Sorry,” she croaked, when the weeping had subsided into exhausted snuffles, sounding grumpy in her self-disgust. “I thought I was done with that. I really hate to cry.”

  “Why shouldn’t you cry?” Ethan said matter-of-factly-a trifle gruffly. “You’ve lost someone you care about very much.”

  She didn’t say anything for several minutes. Then, in a careful whisper, lest she bring forth the lurking sobs again… “He was…the only person in this world who loved me. Now he’s gone. And now there’s…no one.”

  “That’s not true.” He paused, his hand still moving up and down her back. And then he softly said it. “I love you.”

  He couldn’t have been more surprised when she rolled away from him, as suddenly and violently as if he’d turned into something monstrous and vile right there in her embrace. Crouched on her knees just beyond his reach, she snatched up the forgotten towel and drew it jerkily around her.

  “Well,” Ethan said mildly, as his heart banged without mercy against his ribcage, “I had hoped for a little different reaction.”

  She snorted, but said nothing, concentrating instead on knotting the towel above her breasts. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t see the hurt in his eyes that he tried so hard to hide with that quiet, gentle way of his.

  “I do, you know. I shouldn’t think that would come as much of a surprise. Men must fall in love with you all the time.”

  She did look at him then-as penance, perhaps, for the pain she was causing him. “They do,” she said evenly. “I suppose I just never cared before what happened to any of them. I guess I thought they got what they deserved.”

  “Oh-” and his lips twisted into a droll little smile “-and what’s the terrible penalty for loving Phoenix? Do I turn to stone? Oops-no, that’s Medusa.”

  She snorted and looked away again. Turning sideways to him, she settled herself cross-legged and began to gather her hair into her hands. “You just…shouldn’t,” she said, mechanically twisting it into a rope. “I’m not very loveable.”

  “Don’t you think you should let me be the judge of that?” His voice sounded almost amused…but she hadn’t missed the burning brightness of his eyes.

  “You don’t know who I am,” she mumbled, hating what she was doing to him. Hating herself.

  “I know you better than you think I do,” he said, and something in the softness of his voice made her turn to look at him. Her heart lurched…stumbled and ran away from her, leaving her cold…cold as ice. Her face must have gone sheet-white, but he went on anyway, in that same gentle way. “Your mother’s name was Rachel. You had a twin brother named Jonathan, and a little sister named Chrissy. They died in an apartment house fire when you were nine.”

  Chapter 14

  Her lips felt as if they’d been sculpted of ice. Numb. “How did you…how long have you-”

  “I just found out yesterday. I went to your studio to talk to you, but you weren’t there. Doveman told me…a little more. We put it together, where you must have gone. That’s why we were both there…at The Gardens…the fire.”

  A choking blackness crawled into her throat. Desperately she swallowed, fighting it down. “Then you-” She swallowed again, and croaked, “Then you know…”

  “I know that you were a child…a little girl…and that you suffered a terrible, terrible loss. And then, to compound the trauma, you were put into foster care, probably without proper treatment for post-traumatic-”

  But she was shaking her head wildly, and when she spoke, her voice sounded like an intractable child’s. “No-but you don’t know what I did. You don’t know!”

  “What don’t I know?” She looked stubbornly away from him-again like a child. He cajoled her like one. “Come on…you can tell me. You can, you know. Whatever it is, it can’t make me think less of you.”

  “Oh, yes, it will.”

  He smiled. “Now, what can a nine-year-old child have possibly done that could be so terrible?”

  “Something…”

  “How terrible? Big black ugly terrible? Or little mean red terrible?”

  She threw him an angry look that dissolved into bleakness, and he recognized the look as the one he’d seen that day in the park beside the basketball courts, the one that looked like rain was falling somewhere behind her eyes. She looked down at her hands, knotted in her hair. Pulled in a shuddering breath. “Momma sent me to the store,” she said softly.

  “That’s why you weren’t there. But-”

  She held up a hand, stopping him. “I was angry. I didn’t want to go-I don’t know why, I was in the middle of something, probably. But I was mad because I always had to be the one to do everything-run errands, take care of the baby, do the chores. Jonathan was always sick-he had asthma, I think. Sometimes he even had to go to the hospital. So I was always the one Momma called on when she needed help. That day I was supposed to get milk for Chrissy and some medicine for Jonathan. Momma told me to come right back, and I promised her I would. But-” she paused to draw another quivering breath “-I was feeling angry and resentful and rebellious. I remember thinking ‘I hate you! I hate you all.’ I don’t know if I said it out loud…” Her voice broke.

  Ethan held himself still. The urge to gather her into his arms burned in every muscle, every fiber of his being. But after a moment she went bravely on.

  “Anyway, I got the things like I was supposed to, but then, instead of going right home like I’d promised, I stopped to listen to some men playing music. There were two of them, and they were always there on that corner-one played a guitar and the other one had a banjo. They’d play and sing, and people would put money in the guitar case that was lying open on the sidewalk. I used to love to listen to them, but Momma didn’t like me to. So, that day I did it anyway, because I was mad at her. And I got so caught up in listening to the music, I just…lost track of time…until I heard the sirens. They came right up the street, getting louder and louder, until I thought my ears were going to burst. The engines went right by me, with this big wind. Screaming…screaming. And f
or some reason, I just…ran. Ran after them. I ran and ran as fast as I could, but by the time I got there…” She choked, and a sob gusted from her, shaking her like a powerful wind.

  Ethan reached for her and gathered her in, encompassing her jutting legs and stiff, unyielding body, and arms that tried to fend him off. Little by little, coaxing and insisting, he drew her close against him. Molded her quaking body to his. “You were a child,” he whispered brokenly. “You were nine years old. What could you have done? If you’d been there you’d only have died in that fire, too.”

  But she was shaking her head, wildly, insistently. “No-no, if I’d been there, I’d have saved them. Don’t you understand?” She drew back and looked at him, touching his soul with her wounded eyes in the same way, he realized now, she’d been touching him with her music all those years. “Jonathan was sick-he’d been in bed. Chrissy was little-not even three. Momma couldn’t carry them both! If I’d been there like I promised, I could have helped. I could have gotten them all out-I know I would have saved them…I would have saved them…”

  He had nothing to say to her; the enormity of the burden she carried on her soul, had carried for so many years, utterly defeated him. He could only hold her…stroke her and caress her, trying so hard to tell her with his touch what he couldn’t possibly in words…pleading with her silently to lay her terrible burden down, or if she couldn’t do that, at least to let him help her carry it.

  “It didn’t work, you know,” he murmured when she’d quieted, his voice thickened slightly, as if he were drunk.

  “What?” It was a croak, defiant and angry, making him smile.

  “Your terrible sin. It only made me love you more.”

  Her reply was a hopeless-sounding whimper. But he felt encouraged when she lay quiet, peaceful in his embrace, as if she’d found a home there. And a little while later he heard the cadence of her breathing grow deep and even, and still later, a faint but unmistakable snore.

  Dawn was breaking when she began to stir and whimper in her sleep. He remembered then what Doveman had told him about her nightmares…remembered the lullaby she’d played on his guitar…remembered her grief-stricken, Who’s going to sing to me…? Remembered Doveman’s words: Can you sing, boy? And his own response: Yes, sir, I can. So that’s what he did, brokenly, stroking her hair while his lashes grew wet with his own tears:

  “Hush little baby, don’t say a word, Papa’s gonna buy you a mockin’bird…”

  Phoenix woke to an unfamiliar sound: a man was singing in her shower. No-not her shower, she remembered; the doc’s. Ethan’s shower…Ethan’s bed.

  A sneaky little sense of well-being crept over her in the instant before she remembered exactly how and why it was she’d come to be there. Before she remembered that Doveman was dead, and that Ethan Brown loved her. Two more tragedies she was responsible for causing-two more items to add to the ever-growing list of her sins.

  Defiantly, knowing herself to be damned already, she threw off the bedspread that had been folded over her and tiptoed into the bathroom.

  Ethan had his eyes closed when he felt the sudden rush of cool air and an instant later the silky slide of her arms coming around him…the exuberant press of her body. The bar of soap he was holding slipped from his hands, in much the same way his heart had just slalomed out of his chest and into his belly. Turning in her slippery embrace, he found her mouth there, hungry and waiting, and sank into it with a laughing, good-morning growl.

  “Feeling better this morning, are we?” he said when he surfaced for air.

  “Mmm…I had a very good doctor.” Her hands were busy…busy.

  “Yeah, well…keep in mind, I don’t hand out this particular prescription to just anybody.” Breathless, he caught her hands and brought them together, pinned between their chests, stifling her protest with his mouth.

  Her protests grew in volume, threatening insurrection when he reached behind him and turned off the water. He recaptured her rebellious hands, and, laughing, gave her excuses about winding up in traction, and running out of hot water. But the truth was, he’d had a lot of time last night to think about the implications of what had happened to them. Singing away her nightmares and holding her while she slept, it had come to him that the road ahead of him wasn’t going to be an easy one. Finding Joanna had been the easy part. Loving Joanna, he now realized, had been a given all along. Healing Joanna, now-that was the real challenge. He knew his job as healer had just begun. He very much wanted to get it right.

  Standing dripping on the rug in the middle of the bathroom, he took a towel and mopped water droplets from her face and his while she sipped them thirstily from his chest. With the air chilling their skin and tightening her breasts, raising her nipples to rosy nubs, he turned her to face the mirror. He held her tightly with one arm across her hips, her buttocks cool and firm against him, and with the other hand reached with the towel to wipe away the condensation from the mirror. Eyes half-closed, she leaned her head back against his shoulder and moved sinuously against his body, testing its heat and hardness.

  Desire coiled like a python in his belly, but he held her still and kept his voice gentle as he asked her, “Do you know why I fell in love with you?”

  Staring dully at their blurred reflections, she made a soft, snorting sound and shook her head. He let her look for a long time, then lifted his hands to frame her face. The perfect oval gazed back at him, lovely as a cameo, black-fringed eyes like tiny pools, reflecting a summer sky. Lightly he brushed her cheeks with his fingertips…traced the lines of her jaw…her nose…her lips. She gave a sad little sigh and closed her eyes.

  “Not this,” he whispered. “Or this…” His hands skimmed downward over her throat…briefly cradled her breasts…stroked the taut planes of her belly, the subtle curve of her hips. “You are beautiful…so incredibly beautiful. But that’s not why I fell in love with you. Here-shall I show you why?” He took her hand and led her out of the bathroom, and she followed silently, stumbling a little like a just-woken child.

  He led her through the bedroom and into the living room. Standing in front of his stereo, with her close against him as they’d been before, he reached with one finger and pressed the power button. Music poured from the speakers and filled the room, wrapping itself around them. Phoenix’s music.

  She started and tensed against him. “Hush,” he murmured. “Listen…”

  “Newspaper says…

  ‘House Burns, City Woman Dies.’

  Paper never says

  ‘City Woman Dies…Someone Cries…”’

  “That’s you,” Ethan whispered. He laid his hand gently over her heart. “That came from the real Joanna…the one that’s in here.” He turned her to face him, his love for her burning hot in his cheeks, stinging in his eyes…thickening in his voice. “I’ve loved you for years…”

  She didn’t speak or move, just stood there and looked at him with tears streaming down her cheeks. He took her face in his hands and tenderly brushed the tears away with his lips…then carried the sweet-salt taste of them to her mouth. He kissed her for a long time, deepening slowly, like the ripening of fruit in a hot summer sun. Then he took her back to his bed and made love to her the same way, cherishing her with his mouth, his body, and his healer’s hands.

  He came into her slowly, gently…filling her with himself, with all the love that was inside him…fitting them together so sweetly, so perfectly, that it was hard to tell where he left off and she began…then rocked them together as one being, so that when their explosions came the shattered pieces might reform as one inseparable whole.

  She wept again, but softly…and this time, when he told her he loved her, she didn’t pull away.

  She wept often, in the days that followed, and Ethan didn’t try to prevent or stop her tears. It was necessary, he told himself. Healing.

  He did wish, sometimes, while he was making love to her, that she would look into his eyes and smile.

  She stayed with him
from the night of Doveman’s death until the day of his funeral. She made all the arrangements herself, some by telephone, some in consultation with the other members of her band. Ethan’s living room had become their meeting place, with the grudging consent of the Service-after Ethan had appealed personally to his father, through Dixie, of course. He got used to coming home from the clinic to find his apartment throbbing with music-or arguments-and every space strewn with instruments, bodies, and take-out food containers.

  The arguments were mostly about details. Everyone agreed that the services would be simple; that there would be music-lots of music; that in keeping with the traditions of Doveman’s New Orleans jazz beginnings, there would be a procession through the streets. The media would have to be accommodated-there was no getting around that. It would be managed, somehow. Everything would somehow be worked out. On one point, though, Phoenix was adamant. Rupert Dove’s remains would be cremated; she hadn’t decided yet what to do with his ashes, but she was certain of one thing: there would be no internment. A Dove, she said, did not belong in the ground.

  The day of the funeral dawned cloudy, threatening rain, but it had all blown over by the time the procession wound its raucous and joyful way through the streets, past The Gardens, past the clinic, to St. Jude’s Church. During the service, which Father Frank conducted, Phoenix and the band played and sang for the select few invited guests inside the church. Among the songs performed was Rupert Dove’s last composition, the hauntingly beautiful, “Hard To Say Goodbye.”

  After the service, Tom and Carl took Ethan and Phoenix back to his apartment. When, with the door closed and locked behind them, Ethan turned and found her standing tense and still in the middle of his living room, holding the small rosewood box containing Rupert Dove’s ashes in her hands, his heart began to pound. He knew before she said it, in her raspy, Phoenix voice.