Family Matters by Carla Neggers

Author:Carla Neggers [Neggers, Carla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Windmill Press

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At the hotel he followed Sage to her room, and she didn’t make any silly or false protests. She wasn’t ready to see him off, not yet. At the very least, she wanted to talk to him—not about the Blue Hill Series or her eccentric grandfather and his own embittered father, but about him. Jackson Kirk. The man she’d had such strong feelings about since the moment she’d seen him. She wanted to listen to him tell her about himself, about who he had been, about who he was and who he hoped to be.

So she served him a glass of iced bottled water, went into the bathroom and peeled off her stockings and then climbed onto her bed in her bare feet and not-too-expensive dress. She crossed her legs in a tailor squat and leaned against the headboard. Jackson had already taken off his jacket and shoes and was lying across the foot of the bed. There’d never been a sexier man, Sage decided; there couldn’t have been.

She made a comment about the weather, and that got them started. They talked about beaches and birds and music and cooking, and they talked about the nuclear arms problem and the plight of the homeless and the upcoming World Series. They talked about their jobs as if they were adventures, not work. Jackson was into a lot of things, but filmmaking was his passion. She could see that in his eyes, hear it in his voice. Yet he wasn’t drawn to Hollywood and the big, expensive commercial films.

Rather, he wanted to do more documentaries, maybe a docudrama that would have a wider appeal. But his work, not commercial success, was what interested him. His ideas intrigued Sage, and she told him about her avocation as a photographer. It was just something she did for its own sake, not to earn money. They went on from there, and Sage could tell he’d learned a great deal from his father, whom he spoke of with respect. None of the frustration that had been exhibited earlier was visible.

Then they were telling funny stories, and sad ones, and ones that made no sense and had no point but were just something to talk about. To listen to. To dream to.

For a while after that they didn’t talk at all. They sat with the drapes open so they could watch the sunset, so close but not touching, and just looked at each other. Without self-consciousness Sage stared into his violet eyes, now not so much impenetrable as mysterious, alluring; his scar no longer seemed menacing, but interesting. He’d gotten it while hiking in New Zealand. Had he told her that tonight? Or had she somehow just known it?

“What are you afraid of?” he asked, his quiet words hardly disturbing the stillness. He got up and shut the drapes, and she didn’t have to ask why.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

When he came back to the bed, he stretched out down the middle, while she sat huddled among the pillows.

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