Beyond Eden

17

Taylor / Lindsay

It was beating wildly inside her again, this need, this urgency, this all-consuming wanting of this man. The orgasm that had hit her hard had dazed her, leaving her shaking and hot and strangely fluid, and she hadn’t really understood what had happened but knew that it was going to happen again. This frenzy, it was building fast inside her. She didn’t question it, didn’t hesitate for an instant. She came up and began ripping off her clothes.

“Yes,” she said, all her concentration on getting her bra off, “I want to feel you, Taylor, I want to know everything about you, everything—to touch you, your belly is so beautiful and hard and—”

He paused an instant, his breath coming fast again and faster still as he listened to her. He didn’t question that he wanted her again, as fiercely as he had but minutes before. Blood was pumping through him, and his skin felt itchy and hot. He felt incredibly strong. He watched her tugging clumsily at her bra. He laughed and slapped away her hands. It was a front clasp and he slid it quickly open, and he pushed it back and stared at her breasts, just stared, gulping, his lips moving because he wanted her in his mouth, to suck and caress. His hands cupped them, weighing them, holding them, filling his hands with her, and he groaned.

“Hurry,” she gasped. “Oh, hurry, please, Taylor.”

And he did. When he came over her, her legs parted for him and he moved between them and he felt all of her, her breasts against his bare chest, her belly against his, the length of her legs against his, and he closed his eyes at the intensity of the feelings crashing through him.

“Ah, Lindsay, damn, I’d thought to make this time slow and sweet.”

“No,” she said, pushing at him, trying to touch him with her fingers. He pushed up on his elbows and felt her hands thrust between their bellies and close around him. His eyes closed and he felt himself pushing against her soft hands, his breath heaving, quickening, and he had to jerk away because in another moment or so he would come again. “I can’t, dear God, stop it, sweetheart. Come over me, now.” He pulled her over on top of him.

He saw she didn’t understand. “Come up on your knees and bring me inside you. Then you can move the way you want to.”

She glowed at his words, her eyes as deep and hot as her body, and he saw the intense passion in her and it was dazzling. He watched her stare at his penis, then clasp him, and still she stared at him, her look absorbed and intent and eager. He watched her come up on her knees, saw her ease him between her widespread legs. He felt the heat of her as she slid him inside her. He’d known that heat would be there for him, and so it was, incredible and dark and smooth, this welcoming of hers. He felt the wet of his seed, and the wet of her, he supposed, a woman’s moistness, and the heat that was pouring onto him, and into him, and it eased his way. He didn’t think he could hold on. He grasped her hips suddenly in his hands and in a furious downward motion brought her down hard on him as he jerked up.

She yelled, her back arched. He looked up to see her breasts thrusting out, her head thrown back, her lips parted. She looked pagan with all that thick waving hair like a nimbus around her head. She looked like a woman who had no thought beyond his penis pumping inside her and the pleasure she was drawing from him. He worked her, showing her how to move on him, then paused. He raised his hand. He smiled up at her when, lightly, with a tempter’s touch, his fingertips found her clitoris and gently squeezed.

“Taylor!” She yelled and bucked and heaved, and he went over the edge.

Her palms were flat on his chest, and she was staring at him, seeing him climax, and then Lindsay felt the pressure build higher and higher still until she couldn’t contain it anymore. His fingers were fast and hard, then slow and easy on her, and she yelled again and again, rocking against him, madly, senseless with the lust that drove her.

He watched her as her climax took her, watched her as the deep quivers slowly lessened and her legs relaxed their grip around his hips. She was staring down at her hands, palms flat on his belly. Jesus, he thought, gazing up at her. It was unbelievable, this insane and uncontrolled passion, but he would accept it, willingly, as he accepted her.

He released her hips, saw that there would be bruises on her white flesh, and slid his hands upward to cup her breasts. She quivered again and he smiled.

“You’re very responsive,” he said in the greatest understatement of his life, and he had to laugh at himself. “You’re wonderful, Lindsay.”

“Not like you,” she said, her mouth dry, her mind sluggish, her body growing more limp with exhaustion by the moment. “Not like you.”

“Give me your breasts. That’s it, lean down. Good.” And he took her nipple in his mouth and she jerked with the shock of it, the newness of it, the utter amazement of it, until she could take no more. Her body had stopped.

She fell atop him, sprawling loosely, covering him, and he touched her hair, stroked his hands down her back, and felt himself still deep inside her.

She’d been so tight that first time. Like a virgin, like a woman who hadn’t had sex in a very, very long time.

She’d had two orgasms. He wanted to dance and shout. He wanted to give her ten more. Tonight. Instead, he eased her onto her back and came out of her. She moaned, throwing her arm over her eyes.

“Don’t move,” he said.

She could only moan again, drawing her knees up.

When he came back, he gently spread her onto her back again and pressed a warm washcloth against her, wiping away his seed, but not the heat, oh, no, not the heat of her. He pictured making love to her in the summer, when the outward heat would consume them and they would sweat and heave together and meld and become one. He quivered at the thought. He looked down at her sprawled on her back, those long legs of hers, so beautifully formed, and the softness of her, the streaked blond hair that covered her woman’s mound. She was too thin, but he didn’t care. Even her ribs made him want to come inside her again. And her breasts. Fuller than he expected and round, her nipples a light soft pink. He leaned down and took her nipple in his mouth.

She lurched up, gasping. “Please, Taylor. Oh, God!”

The responsiveness of her made him want to shout.

She was tugging at his head, whispering, “ Goodness—why won’t it stop? Why, Taylor? I don’t understand, oh, God, it’s splendid. Don’t let it end.”

She was babbling with her discovery of it but he knew she was also exhausted. No wonder. He didn’t know what had happened to her in San Francisco. Whatever it was had pushed her to him, completely, openly. “No, love. I’m sorry, forgive me, but you’re so beautiful. Not now, not yet.” He gently pushed her back down, tossed the washcloth onto the floor, and managed to get both of them under the covers. Within minutes they were asleep, wrapped in each other, close and warm and together.

Taylor fought the urge to come inside her again, but he didn’t want to sleep either. He had to think because he had this stark feeling that when she awoke in the morning she wouldn’t think, she would simply react and that reaction would be one of cold fear, fear shaped from the past. He put himself to imagining what she would think tomorrow. After she’d behaved in the dark of the night like the most impassioned of lovers, like a woman to whom sex was the greatest thing in the world, and she’d just discovered it and couldn’t, quite simply, get enough of him. He smiled, a sated smile, one tinged with a good deal of satisfaction, but it faded as his worry grew. He had to bind her to him. He had to make her trust him. Hell, at least she’d told him her name. But it wasn’t enough. The secrets, the puzzles, had to be solved. He shook his head. His brain felt like mush. She’d behaved completely out of the character she’d created for herself. But created when? Why? Nor did he know what had triggered this change in her. Then, quite suddenly, he didn’t care. None of the other mattered, just having her with him, next to him, wrapped around him, here now, and now, now—

He felt her breasts against his chest, felt her leg between his. What the hell, he thought, and gave in. Slowly, gently, he came over her, spreading her onto her back, and slipped slowly and deeply inside her. This time he could feel the stretching of her flesh to accommodate him. Sweet Jesus, she was soft, and that incredible heat of hers made him want to pound deep and not stop. He’d been so frantic before, he hadn’t really felt the tight flesh that surrounded him, the slickness of her, he’d been aware of an incredible tightness that had driven him insane, but he was now aware of every bit of her. He closed his eyes against the wonder of her.

Then she awoke. He felt her muscles clench spasmodically around him. She didn’t, couldn’t, have any idea what that did to him. He rode her gently, not so deep this time, but still he felt his body clenching, tightening, felt his heart pound harder and harder, and knew he would leave her if he didn’t stop, if he didn’t pull out of her now. He quickly eased out of her, came down between her legs to put his mouth on her, knowing she would welcome him. She was sleepy, sated, she wanted him again, and it was dark and hidden, and she was safe with him and she knew it.

She came in soft shudders. Then, to his surprise, as he prepared to ease his rhythm, to bring her down, to soothe her, she came again, her hips lurching upward, reaching a higher level, and he felt the deep flexing of her legs, the tightening of her muscles, the rippling of her flesh. Her hands fisted his hair and he breathed his hot breath against her and she came again. Arching and jerking, she was caught, by him, within herself, and when she quieted this time, he slid into her again, riding her deeply and silently, and spilling himself with gentle shudders deep inside her.

He had no more thoughts. She was against him, part of him, her warm breath against his throat, and when he had climaxed, when his own breathing finally slowed, he smiled down at her, for she was asleep. He joined her and they slept deeply.

Taylor awoke with a start, jerking upright, immediately alert. He whipped about, but he knew he was too late. Eden—No, not Eden and not Lynn. She was Lindsay and she wasn’t there. He felt her pillow. It was still warm, the indentation of her head still clear. God, he prayed she hadn’t run out on him. He cursed himself for not waking when she’d left the bed, for not feeling the emptiness when she’d left him. He prayed he wasn’t too late.

He threw back the covers and ran stark naked out of the bedroom. He ran down the long corridor toward the front door, and right into her, nearly knocking her down. She was ready to walk out the door, dressed, in her winter coat and boots and gloves, her huge bag over her shoulder.

He grabbed her arm, twisting her around.

Her face was white. Fear filled her eyes, fear and something else—something wrenching and frightening was there in her eyes. He ignored it.

He grabbed her other arm. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

She tried to pull away but he didn’t ease his grip. “Don’t you know about lovers’ etiquette? Rule one is you don’t run out. You don’t pull a disappearing act because you can’t face things, can’t face what you—yeah you, Lindsay—wanted to do and did with great enthusiasm and energy and passion. No, dammit, hold still. I’m not letting you go anywhere, so don’t try. Come with me. I’m naked and it’s cold and you belong with me, back in bed. Don’t fight me, damn you.”

He dragged her back to the bedroom. She dug in her boot heels, but it didn’t help. He was strong and mad and determined. She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t made a single sound. There was just her harsh deep breathing. Once he got her in the bedroom, he slammed the door and locked it. He threw the key under the bed. He pulled her bag off her shoulder, then unleashed the strength he’d always controlled around her. He got her out of her coat and gloves and scarf. She was wearing a bulky wool sweater beneath, and tight blue jeans and boots.

He shoved her down onto the bed. She leapt up, only to have him shove her down again. She kicked out and got his thigh. He winced and cursed, realizing in that moment she knew karate, yet she wasn’t out to shred him. No, she battered him with her fists, but even then she was careful. A good sign, he supposed as he grabbed her right leg, held it up by shoving her flat on her back, knocking the breath out of her, and pulling off the boot. He got the other one off the same way. “Now,” he said, and grabbed her sweater. “Progress, at last.”

She began to fight him in earnest now. Still, she said nothing, struggling and twisting and striking out in an eerie silence that he refused to acknowledge. Her blue jeans were tough because they were so bloody tight, but he got them off her despite her fighting him, peeling them down inside out. He’d carry bruises from this, but what the hell. He saw the bruises he’d made on her hips from the previous night. He wondered if she’d noticed, and remembered her frantic movements, riding him, letting him work her up and down on him, his fingers digging into her flesh, all while she’d shouted and moaned and arched wildly.

He left her knee socks and her panties on. She hadn’t bothered with a bra, just a light wool teddy. He was in no mood for niceties now. He ripped it off.

“Now,” he said again, and brought her under the covers with him, holding her, stiff and hard and withdrawn, against him. It made him furious and he bellowed, “Feel me, damn you, Lindsay!” He pressed his hand against her hips, pressing her into his belly, against his hard penis. “I’m yours, dammit, and this body of mine is also yours and I’m not about to let you use me to cure whatever devils were chasing you last night. I’m not about to let you enjoy four damned orgasms that I give to you and then run out on me as if nothing happened. Do you hear me, you damned twit?”

“You’re yelling, of course I hear you. You needn’t use profanity.”

“Good, at least now you’re talking. Dammit. No, that isn’t profanity, that’s just appropriate exclamations. No, dammit, don’t struggle because you won’t get away from me. I like your belly against me; just get used to it. You’ve already bruised the hell out of me. You’re a dirty fighter, Lindsay, and those long legs of yours reached every part of me. But I’ve got meaner, nastier experience, so forget trying to get away from me again. Put your head on my shoulder and relax. Do it, damn you! There, that’s better.”

He could feel her hitching breath, nearly taste the uncertainty, the fear in her. Fear of him? No, more probably it was fear of herself, fear of a past that had colored her every action for years now. Finally her breathing slowed. He kept quiet, content to stroke her until she had eased against him, her muscles loose again.

“Now that you’re back where you belong, I’ve got something to tell you.”

He didn’t say a word. Finally she said, “What?”

He still held silent.

“What do you have to tell me?”

He kissed the top of her head and squeezed his arms around her back. “You’re the best lay I’ve ever had in my life.”

She froze on him, going stiff, and he simply held her. Hell, it was the truth, and some unvarnished truth was good for her. “In addition,” he continued after several moments of her rigid silence, “it’s a relief that you and I are magic in bed, since we’re going to be spending the next fifty years together. Don’t you agree?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sure you do. You enjoyed yourself last night. Good God, woman, you had four orgasms!”

“No, no, please don’t say that, Taylor. I don’t understand any of it, not me, not why or how. Last night—all during the night, I just don’t know. It was five.”

Good start, he thought, grinning as he kissed her ear and said, “Okay, five orgasms. I would have preferred an even half-dozen. Oh, yeah, I like your real name. When I thought it was Lynn, I was willing to accept it because it was who you were. But I must say that Lindsay suits you much better. Yes, I like you as a Lindsay.” When she remained quiet, he continued easily, in a chatty voice, “When you feel like telling me the rest of it, I’m here with ears on alert. I suppose that’s why you’ve kept your mail from coming here. I suppose that’s why you signed the apartment lease with one eye on me and your hand curved over your signature. No matter, tell me when you want to. I swear I won’t go find out on my own, and you know I could, being an ex-cop and a P.I. and a computer whiz on top of all that. I could find out who you are in about three minutes, probably less. I could have found out two months ago. But I didn’t. It’s been a real test of my beliefs in the right to privacy not to find out before.”

She stirred against him, not trying to pull away, just her body showing her restless thought, her uncertainty, but she said finally, “I meant to tell you my name. It’s just that it was never the right time and I was afraid that you’d know the moment you heard it, or you’d find out and hate me and—”

He needed time to sort through what she’d said, but he didn’t have it. “I know, I got you in a weak moment.” What did she mean that he’d hate her if he found out who she was? The Son of Sam’s daughter? Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ illegitimate offspring? Taylor hated unsolved mysteries. They begged to be resolved and there was nothing he liked better than figuring them out to the very last loose end, the very last question. He regretted giving her his word. Damnable trust.

“I didn’t want you to make love to Eden. She isn’t real, she’s nothing really, just a chimera, a fake, and I couldn’t stand it.”

He hugged her again. “Well, you told me soon enough. I knew it was you, and you are real, Lindsay, very real and all mine.” He began stroking his hand up and down her back. “I bruised your hips. You can see clearly the outline of my fingers. Did you notice?”

He felt her nod against his throat.

“I didn’t use anything, I’m sorry. Seeing you, knowing you wanted me, the urgency of it all—well, I lost it and I didn’t use anything. Depending on the time of the month it is for you, I could have gotten you very pregnant last night.”

He waited, absorbing her silent shock, and hoping. To his utter delight, she didn’t blow a fit, nor did she withdraw from him. She was silent as a stone but he was used to that. He knew she was thinking. And she was. Lindsay was remembering the nurse in the emergency room and the pill she’d been given to prevent pregnancy. To prevent her bearing the prince’s child. To prevent her having to have an abortion. She closed her eyes, willing the memory away. And now again, only this time she’d been a willing participant. Taylor’s child. Her mind chilled and went blank.

He waited.

“I’m hard again, as I’m sure you can feel. Do you want me to come inside you, in the morning light, so I can see you clearly and watch you climax? And you can see me clearly?”

She trembled at his words and he felt a very clean surge of pure triumph.

He turned and looked at her beloved face. No makeup, and she looked beautiful. Her hair was loose and wild and deeply waving, thick around her face and over her shoulders. Her eyes were a deep blue, glistening with what he hoped was burgeoning desire. He would soon see. He kissed her, feeling her draw back for a moment, then lean into him, her breasts heaving a bit as she did so. He deepened the kiss, touching his tongue to her lower lip, urging her to open her mouth. She did, but only for an instant.

Then, suddenly, she lurched back, rolling off the bed in her haste to get away from him.

She made a grab for the covers but went to the floor without them. He laughed and rolled over, staring down at her. “You don’t have to leap away from me. All you have to do is tell me what you didn’t like and I’ll fix it. I’m good, Lindsay, and I do want to please you.”

She was sitting there on the six-by-nine Bokara carpet, in the midst of that deep red, clad only in dark blue knee socks and panties. She was panting and her eyes were dilated. Her hands were fisted on her thighs. And she looked humiliated.

Not that, no, anything but that. He couldn’t stand that. “Come here, sweetheart. You don’t want sex now? No problem. You did have a good dose last night.” He held out his hand to her. She stared at his hand, as if trying to determine what it was. His hand was square, the back sprinkled with black hair, the fingers long, the nails short and buffed. Beautiful hands, a man’s hands, and a man could hurt her with those hands, hurt her like the prince had hurt her. She sobbed aloud and crawled away from him, then rose and ran for the bathroom.

“Well, shit,” Taylor said.

Since he had a clear view of the bathroom door, he wasn’t worried that she could sneak out on him again. Besides, the key to the bedroom door was safely under the bed. He pulled the covers to his chest, fluffed up the pillows behind his head, and lay there watching that damned closed door. He began to speak, of anything that came into his mind. “Lindsay? I guess you can hear me through the door. Did I tell you that my mom was an opera singer? She was really quite good—a soprano, you know. She performed with Beverly Sills, Carlo Panchi, and a bunch of other greats. Her stage name was Isabella Gilliam. Have you ever heard of her? She died in the late eighties, my dad too, in a plane crash in Arizona. Dad was also so proud of her, and you want to know something? He hated opera. But he never let Mom know that. Whenever I remember the two of them now, I wonder if she did know how painful every opera was for him to sit through and I wonder if she simply pretended not to know so he wouldn’t realize that she knew. You know what I mean? Did you want to tell me what you think?”

Silence. Then he heard the shower go on.

Well, enough conversation. He’d been weaving a hopeful dream of unreal cloth to ever believe she’d answer him. He got up and put on a thick terry-cloth bathrobe and went to the kitchen. He couldn’t very well lock her in, so he left the bedroom door wide open and pocketed the key. He made coffee and took some croissants from the freezer and put them in the oven. He whistled, one eye on the door.

When she appeared in the kitchen a half-hour later, he was sitting at the butcher-block table drinking his third cup of coffee.

She’d dried her hair and she was fully and completely and modestly dressed, every inch of her covered from her chin down. In fact, she was so dressed, she looked bulky. Her attempt at armor, he assumed.

“Coffee?”

She nodded and slithered into the kitchen and sat down.

“Croissant with that no-calorie strawberry spread?”

“No, thank you, Taylor.”

As he passed by her, he smelled the clean freshness of her and realized that, unlike her, he smelled of sex. Heady and musky and thick in the air.

He offered his coffee cup up to toast her, but she ignored him. She picked at her croissant, her head down.

“Would you tell me something, Lindsay?”

Silence.

“Would you tell me where you intended to go this morning? You live here, your other apartment is rented out. Where, Lindsay?”

She looked up then, and he saw immediately that she’d had no idea at all. All she’d thought was to escape from him.

It was a shitty realization and he hated it.

“Where, Lindsay?”

“I was going to go to Gayle’s apartment.”

“No, you weren’t, at least not then. You would probably have thought of Gayle soon enough, but not then. Don’t lie to me, damn you.”

She threw her croissant at him. Since she hadn’t buttered it, he was left with only a few flakes on his unshaved chin.

“Better a croissant than a left hook,” he said, and wiped his chin.

“I would like to go now, Taylor.”

“No. Not until we’ve straightened some things out between us. It isn’t fair to me, Lindsay.”

She looked at him then, really looked, saw his rumpled dark hair, the dark stubble on his face, the intensity of his eyes, and something else. She saw concern for her. It was real.

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Yes.”

“I’m a millionaire, Taylor. A multimillionaire.”

He cocked his head to the side.

“My grandmother skipped my father and my older half-sister. I got the mansion and the bulk of her estate. I was also my mother’s only heir. Actually, my grandmother gave them all a million dollars, but that’s considered pig dung and they’re all ready to kill me off.” She shuddered. “It was awful.”

“Come here, Lindsay.”

She looked at him, saw him pat his thighs, and he said again, “Come here.”

She did. She sat on his thighs and he held her very close. She didn’t cry. The tears were too deep, too well buried, even from Taylor.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“My father dislikes me. He always has. I’ve known it for a very long time. When the lawyer read my grandmother’s will, and my father realized what she’d done, he turned on me. It was awful. His wife, Holly, was screaming and carrying on and he was as he always is—cold and ruthless and endlessly cruel. Odd, my half-sister didn’t join in the fray. And she’s very good at it. But she held herself in—why, I don’t know. Then the lawyer—his name is Grayson Delmartin—he told me about my mother’s will. I have a trust fund that’s primarily in stocks that supplements my income, but nothing like this, Taylor, nothing at all like this. I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you think your father will contest the will?”

“He was so furious, he disowned me. But he won’t follow through with it because Mr. Delmartin told him if he did that he would have no moral or legal claim on any of my estate were I to die before he did.”

“He sounds charming, Lindsay.”

“Why does he hate me so much, Taylor?”

“Perhaps if you told me more I could come up with some kind of an answer.”

“He’s always given everything to my half-sister, Sydney. She’s nine years older than I am and she’s always been perfect—beautiful, terrifyingly intelligent, she’s got a law degree from Harvard—and she married an Italian prince. Now, of course, she’s here and—”

Taylor waited. Damnation, she’d been talking, but it was over, she’d pulled back again, and he hated it.

“Why did your grandmother leave you her estate, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I know she was immensely proud of Sydney. Perhaps she’d begun to think her son—my father—wasn’t what she thought he was, I don’t know. My father and his wife, Holly, lived at the mansion with her for the past two or three years.” She paused a moment, looking at the fancy coffeemaker that Taylor had brought to the apartment. “I do realize some of it, I think. She wanted to arm me against my father, against Sydney, she wanted me to be powerful, and money was the only way she knew. But, you know, I realized that there was another kind of power that has nothing to do with money.”

He held her even more closely, waiting, but she said nothing more. “What is your full name, Lindsay? You’re going to marry me. I want to know my future wife’s name.”

Her mouth opened, the words hovered. Power. Yeah, she had loads of power. But Paris, what the prince had done to her. Tears pooled in her eyes and she shook her head against his shoulder. “I can’t, Taylor. It’s too awful, believe me—too awful. Please, just give me more time.”

“Are you really very, very rich?”

“Yes, very very.”

“What the hell are we going to do about that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is that what made you want to throw me down and ravish me at the airport?”

Withdrawal, but not completely, no, there was more uncertainty there, and he waited. “What happened, Lindsay? What brought you to me?”

He wondered if she had any idea, and said aloud, “The final show of dislike from your father? The understanding that you didn’t want him to dominate you anymore? A sort of liberation?” Jesus, he thought, idiot words out of his mouth. He wasn’t a shrink and he shouldn’t be playing with the words. But he knew she was the girl Dr. Gruska had spoken about. The whole father thing—but seduction? He didn’t know, and he was terrified to speculate.

“Perhaps. I thought about you, and only you, focused on you, I guess, because I didn’t want all the horrible scenes at the mansion to eat away at me. I wanted you even before I saw you. All I could think about was you. And when I saw you standing there, looking so sane, so reasonable, and warm, and you wanted me and didn’t hate me, I guess—I don’t know.”

“Lindsay?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t leave me. Don’t run away from me again. Whatever disturbs you, whatever frightens you, just don’t leave me. Talk to me, or just sit and stare at me. Even turn your back on me. Just don’t run. I love you and together we can work it out. Could you try to believe that?”

Silence.

“I’ll even let you buy me a hot dog down at the museum to celebrate your new wealth.”

She pulled back in the circle of his arm. She looked at him, saying nothing, and then she smiled. “Okay, I won’t run out on you. It’s time to stop that, isn’t it? I’m not a stupid kid anymore, something I’ve told myself a lot lately. No, not a kid who can be kicked around and carved to the bone with cruel words. No, I’m an adult now, and adults are supposed to think calmly and to exercise power over themselves.”

“Amen,” he said, not quite certain what she meant.

But that Saturday afternoon, after they’d come back from running in the park, Taylor was to learn that life had a way of always serving up new and varied and perverse dishes on one’s plate.