Maybe that’s part of his attraction? He’s a strong, solid family man. A good husband, a good father. He’s built the kind of life that I can never have.
She thought of her past lovers, from Christian Harle through all the rock musicians and bad-boy actors. She thought about the wild sex she used to have in college. About Max and the destructive, animal passion they’d shared. In some ways, we still share it. We always will. Men like Gabriel McGregor, good men, honest men, never fell for Lexi. They watch me and admire me from afar, like safari tourists ogling a tigress. They know it’s dangerous to get close.
As they approached the clearing where they’d be spending the night, the jeep stalled in a deep pothole and Gabe’s body was thrown against Lexi’s. The contact lasted no more than a couple of seconds. But it was enough.
They talked by the campfire till late into the night. Gabe spoke about his childhood. How he’d watched his father’s obsession with the Blackwells and Kruger-Brent eat away at him like cancer. “I knew I never wanted to be like that. Embittered, clinging on to the past. I had to make my own way.”
“So you don’t care about Kruger-Brent? You don’t want it?”
From her tone, it was clear that Lexi found this hard to believe.
“No, I don’t want it. Why should I? It’s just a name to me. Besides, from what I can see, it’s brought as much suffering to your family as it has riches.”
He’s right. But he doesn’t understand. Kruger-Brent is a drug. Once you have it in your system, it takes over. Nothing else matters.
The more Gabe spoke, the more Lexi understood the connection he felt to her family. It went beyond the gray McGregor eyes and a single common forefather. Gabe shared Lexi’s wanderlust, her magnetic yearning for Africa. Like Robbie, he’d been an addict and crawled back from the abyss. Beneath his gentle-giant exterior, Lexi sensed a powerful ambition.
Like me and Max. Like Kate Blackwell.
Gabe had grown up in a family at war, a family pulled to pieces by bitterness and envy. When he spoke about his father, Lexi immediately thought of her aunt Eve, trapped in the past, enslaved by it.
Max and I are enslaved by it, too. But not Gabe. He’s broken free.
He’s like us, but he’s not one of us.
All of a sudden, like switching on a light, she realized why she’d hated Gabe for so long. It was so obvious, she laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.”
I envy you. That’s what’s funny. I envy you your freedom, your goodness, your happy marriage. I envy your ability to care for others. Those kids with AIDS. The slum families you and Dia housed. You can feel. Your heart is still open.
My heart closed when I was eight years old.
That night, Lexi lay wide-awake in her tent, thinking. There was something there between her and Gabe. She hadn’t imagined it. It was real.
Part of her ached to get up, crawl into Gabe’s tent, and make love to him. Just to know what that would feel like, to be held and wanted and made love to by someone good, someone whole. But a bigger part of her knew that she could never do it. Gabe belonged to another woman. He also belonged to another world.
By the time Gabe awoke the next morning, Lexi had left the camp. Eighteen hours later, she was back in New York.
The next week Templeton Estates were offered a 5 percent stake in the Elizabeth Center development, at highly advantageous terms.
They turned down the offer.
TWENTY-THREE
MAX WEBSTER WAS ON HIS HONEYMOON.
He and Annabel, his young English bride, were walking on Table Mountain. Annabel raced ahead, her long honey-streaked hair dancing in the wind. Her feet were lost in a carpet of flowers. Above her head, the sun shone a dazzling azure blue.
Max shouted: “Be careful! Don’t get too close to the edge!” But the wind whipped away his words. Annabel danced on. She was singing an old folk tune Max’s mother used to sing to him in the bath when he was a little boy. Uncanny. How does she know that song? Max tried to hum along, then realized he had forgotten the melody.
The other walkers had gone now. They were alone, and the distance between them was growing. Annabel was right by the edge of the cliff.
Max was screaming. “Come back! It’s not safe!”
“What did you say?”
Thank God. She heard me. Annabel stopped and turned around so Max could see her face. Except it wasn’t her face. It was Lexi’s, swaying back and forth over the abyss like a reckless child.
Max rushed toward her. “Lexi, come back. I love you. I’m sorry.” He reached out his hand to pull her to safety, but he was too late. Her fingers slid through his and she staggered backward. She was falling.
Max leaped after her. They were in each other’s arms in midair, the ground rushing up to meet them. Lexi’s features began to morph grotesquely, like melting plastic. She was turning into Eve.
“You killed Keith. You murdered your father. You didn’t really believe you’d get away with it, did you?”
But, Mother, I did it for you. Everything has been for you. Mother!
“Max.” Annabel Webster shook her husband awake. “Max! You’re dreaming. Wake up, darling. It’s all right. It’s only a nightmare. It isn’t real.”
She held him in her arms till he calmed down, like a baby. This was the third time this week. Whatever pills Dr. Barrington was prescribing, they evidently weren’t working. When he stopped shaking, she said: “Honey, you need to talk to someone. This isn’t normal.”
Max mopped his brow with the bedclothes and slumped back against the pillow. “I’m all right. I’m a little stressed at work, that’s all. It’ll pass. Go back to sleep.”