Read Online Where Love Has Gone by Harold Robbins - Free Book Online

light. Its red glow turned her skin to flame. “What are you going to do now?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. Go down to Chinatown … the one on maybe.” “That’s pure escape.”
    The light changed and I started the car again. “The purest,” I agreed. “But it’s still the best way I know to turn things off.”
    I felt her hand tighten on my arm. “Is it that terrible?” “Sometimes.”
    I could feel her fingernails through my jacket. “I wish I were a man!” “I’m glad you’re not.”
    She turned toward me. “Will you meet me later?”
    I felt the hardness of her small breasts against my sleeve. I knew then that I had been right. She was everything I’d thought and it was there for the taking, but something held me back.
    “I don’t think so,” I said. “Why?”
    “No reason.” I was annoyed with myself. “It doesn’t matter.” “It does to me. Tell me.”
    I sensed the angry harshness creeping into my voice. “I know at least a dozen places in this town where I could get seconds if that was all I was looking for.”
    She let go of my arm and moved away. I saw sudden tears forming in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been away so long, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how to act.”
    “You don’t have to apologize. I deserved it.” She looked out the window. “Turn here. It’s in the middle of the next block.”
    I pulled the car to the curb.
    “You have three more days of leave?” “That’s right,” I said.
    “Will you call me?”
    “I don’t think so. I’m going down to La Jolla to get in some fishing.” “I could come down there.”
    “I don’t think that would be wise.” “Oh! You’ve got a girl there?”
    I laughed. “No girl.” “Then why—”
    “Because I’m going back to war,” I said harshly. “Because I don’t want any ties. I don’t want to have anything to think about but making the next day. I know too many guys who lost all their tomorrows looking behind them.”
    “You’re afraid.”
    “You’re damn right I am. I told you that before.”
    Her tears were for real now. They rolled slowly down her cheeks. I put my hand on her shoulder. “Look, this is silly,” I said gently. “Everything is screwed up right now. Maybe, someday, when the war is over. If I make it—”
    She interrupted me. “But you told me yourself that no one is three times lucky.” “That’s about the way it figures,” I admitted.
    “Then you really don’t believe you’ll call me. Ever.” There was a strange sadness in her voice. “I always seem to be apologizing to you. I’m sorry.”
    She stared at me for a moment, then got out of the car. “I don’t like goodbyes.”
    I didn’t have a chance to answer as she ran up the steps without looking back. I lit a cigarette and sat there watching as she rang the doorbell. After a moment a man came and let her in.
    When I got back to my hotel, around three in the morning, there was a message under my door.
    Please call me in the morning so that we may continue our discussion.
    It was signed Cecelia Hayden.
    I crumpled the note angrily and threw it into the wastebasket. I went down to La Jolla in the morning without bothering to call her.
    Within the week I was on my way back to Australia and the war. If I ever thought that the old lady was hung up waiting for me to call I would have only been kidding myself.
    There were some things she couldn’t wait for. The next day she called Sam Corwin.
    4

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    “Mrs. Hayden,” Sam Corwin said, coming into the room where the old lady waited for him. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
    “Not at all, Mr. Corwin,” she replied crisply. “Please sit down.”
    He sank into the chair and looked at her with curiosity. Ever since she had called that morning, he had been wondering what it was she wanted to see him about.
    She came right to the point. “Nora’s been nominated for the Eliofheim Foundation Award for