“You don't have to. I don't usually go to bed till midnight.”

“What do you do all alone here?”

“Read mostly.”

“That sounds lonely,” he said softly. They were both lonely, in a city full of people.

“It is sometimes, but I don't mind it. Lonely is good sometimes. It makes you think, and know things you might not otherwise. I'm not afraid to be lonely,” she said bravely.

“I am sometimes,” he said honestly. “My life was so much better when my wife was here. Now I have nothing to go home to. You have Felicia.”

“That's true,” she nodded, as he looked at her, and almost instinctively he touched her cheek, and was surprised by how silky it felt. She was extraordinarily appealing, and very sexy. And she hadn't pulled away when he touched her, which surprised him. It made him feel bolder, and he pulled her gently toward him and kissed her. And she didn't stop him.

“Am I doing something stupid here?” he asked her in a whisper. “I'm not gay, but I am married, and I could turn out to be an asshole.”

“I don't think so,” she whispered back. “I know the deal here … and the ground rules.”

“What are they?” He was startled at how open she was to him. They were two lonely, hungry people, and there was an almost irresistible meal on the table. It was hard for either of them to refuse it. And they felt safe with each other.

“The ground rules are that you love your wife, and you may wind up in California,” she said simply.

“Not may, will.” He didn't want to mislead her.

“I get it,” she said simply, and slipped a hand under his sweater. He was wearing his scrub pants, and she gently untied them. “Do you want to stay here tonight?” she asked and he nodded, and then kissed her, harder this time. Everything about her made him want her. It was all so different than it had been for him over the weekend. This was sweet and pure and simple and honest, and as he touched her, he could feel her longing and her passion. She had no illusions about him, wanted no promises from him. Whatever she did want from him was there for the taking. “Let's go to my bedroom.” Cheating on Meredith was something he had never done before, and yet with Anna, it seemed fair, and he wanted her very badly.

He followed her to a room the size of a closet. It was barely bigger than the bed, and there was a single light, next to the bed. She turned it on for a minute so they could get their bearings, and then turned it off and locked the door. He undressed her in the dark, and lay on the bed with her, and he could feel and sense her more than see her. But there was just enough light from the street lamp for him to see the silhouette of her beauty.

There were no words between them, no promises, no lies, only the sheer raw desire they had for each other, and as he took her, she moaned and moved and aroused him unbelievably. He felt completely overcome with passion. Being with her was like being exploded from a cannon, and when he lay spent in her arms afterward, they said nothing for a long time, and then she gently stroked his hair, like a child, and held him close to her. It was the happiest he had been in a long time, longer than he could remember.

“I don't want to hurt you, Anna,” he said sadly. “This could have a lousy ending for us.” It was almost sure to.

“So can life. It's good for now. If you can live with it, I can.” She wanted so little from him, wanted to take nothing from him, and all she had to give him was in his arms at that moment, but it was a lot more than his wife was willing to give him. “Just tell me when it's over, or you want out. You don't have to slam the door. You can close it softly.” But there were no doors he wanted to close now. He was still opening them, and as he explored her again with his hands and his tongue, she did the same to him, and what she gave him was a night he would long remember.





Chapter 17

MEREDITH DIDN'T SEE Steve for the next month, after the fiasco of the Valentine's Day weekend. She and Callan had to go to Tokyo and Singapore, and Steve could never seem to leave the hospital. They seemed to be drifting apart more each day, and they spoke on the phone less and less often.

She had been gone for five months, and romantically involved with Cal for nearly two, and she felt more a part of his life than Steve's now. They were with each other constantly, at work, at home, in her apartment at night, with his children on the weekend. And Andy finally looked at her curiously in mid-March, and asked her a question which shook her.

“Is your husband really going to move out here?” He wasn't being rude to her, but he wondered.

“I don't know, Andy,” she said honestly. It didn't look like it, and she wasn't sure she wanted him to. And a week later, Andy asked his father if Merrie was his girlfriend.

“We're just friends,” Cal explained, and Mary Ellen raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. They were fooling no one but themselves. But Steve was also no longer talking about the jobs he wasn't getting. In fact, he hadn't even complained about her not coming back to New York for weekends. It would have concerned her if she'd thought about it, but she was trying not to. And Cal asked her no questions. All he wanted was time with her, and he figured they would come to a decision later. He wasn't ready to make a commitment to her anyway. In some ways, this was perfect for both of them. And if Meredith had called Steve at home sometimes, she would have realized he was no longer sleeping in the apartment. She just assumed he was staying at the trauma unit. And she was relieved she didn't have to talk to him.

Harvey Lucas had been back at work for two weeks by then, but Steve had said nothing more about leaving. And he had asked Harvey to consider hiring Anna permanently. And after working with her for two weeks, Harvey agreed that she was terrific. They were trying to keep her for the moment, even on a temporary basis.

But when Meredith came back from Singapore, Steve said he wanted to see her. He had thought about it a lot lately and he was worried about what they were doing.

This time, he asked her before he came out. He didn't want to surprise her. She sounded hesitant at first, but she had no grounds to refuse him. She hadn't seen him in a month, and she knew that she couldn't avoid him forever.

“What are you going to say to him?” Cal asked this time. “Are you going to tell him?” He half wanted her to, and half didn't.

“Tell him what?” she asked honestly. “That I'm having an affair? That our marriage is over?” She didn't know what to say to him, or even what to think herself yet.

“That's up to you, Merrie.”

“Where do we stand, Cal?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“It might,” she answered.

“I think you have to make your own decision on this one. I don't want to be responsible for breaking up your marriage.” That said a lot to her. It told her he was a decent person, but also that he was as confused as she was. The one thing he knew was that he didn't like the idea of her spending the weekend with Steve, though he said nothing about it when she told him. He didn't want to put any pressure on her, and make the situation harder for her.

And when Meredith saw Steve, she was more confused than ever. There was something so comfortable and familiar about him. But this time, when he said he wanted to make love to her, she said she wanted to talk first. They sat down on the couch, and she still had no idea what she would tell him. The one thing she knew was that she didn't want to hurt him.

“I've made a decision, Meredith,” Steve said, and she braced herself for what was coming. She thought he was going to ask her for a divorce, and she didn't really blame him. She wasn't even sure what she would say when he said it. But he surprised her. “I don't think we have a lot of time left,” he said carefully. “If we wait a few more months, living like this, I think it's going to be over between us. We've drifted apart, Merrie,” he said gently. “I think we both know it.” She nodded, and didn't deny it, and wondered if he would ask her why, but he didn't. It occurred to her that maybe he knew, and didn't want to hear the words from her. But she said nothing as she listened. “I'm going to leave the hospital in New York. I talked to a hospital here, in the city. It's small but respectable, and they have a decent ER. It's nothing much, but they have a part-time job available. They get pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, fractures, bellyaches, crying babies with earaches. I can live with it for a while, if I have to. If I wait for the perfect job, we'll be finished by the time I get it. So, I'm going to give notice when I go back, and get my ass out here.” She was stunned by what he was saying, but she knew as well as he did, that if they were going to save their marriage, he had to do it.

“When would you come out?” she asked, without committing herself one way or the other. Her mind was racing as she asked him. Steve's announcement meant that she had to end the affair with Cal, and she didn't feel ready to do that, but knew she had to. “In two weeks,” Steve explained. “Harvey is back, and they have Anna to replace me.” He hadn't even told Anna yet. He wanted to talk to Meredith first, but he had a feeling Anna sensed it. It had gotten too good between them in the last month, and it was dangerous. He wanted to bail out now before he really hurt her. He had been more or less living with her for four weeks now, and he knew that if he wasn't prepared to make a commitment to her eventually, it would be bad for her, and Felicia. And he cared about them both too much to do that to them. According to her categories, he was married, and he was about to become an asshole.