“That’s taken care of. I told you everything was okay.”
“What do you mean, ‘it’s taken care of?”
He let out a deep breath. “You’re not going to believe this, but I paid them off. Everybody I owed money to.”
She’d been right. She couldn’t cope with another shock. “Ben...how?”
“I sold the Harley.”
She managed, but barely, to pull out a kitchen chair and sit down before her knees gave.
“That’s why I needed the job,” Ben went on. “I sold the Harley to Gav, and he’s going to let me buy it back.”
“He’s...trusting you to make regular payments?”
“Well... not exactly. I have to make payments for a while before I get it back. It’s like it’s in hock, you know? Only better, because I know he won’t sell it to anybody else. I’m going to stay out of trouble, Anna. I know I’ve said that before, but I think maybe I’ve learned my lesson this time. And...you won’t laugh, will you?”
She swallowed around a lump in her throat. “No, Ben, I won’t laugh.”
“Well, okay, it’s like this. They’ve got this group out here that meets once a week. It’s called Gamblers Anonymous. I’ve, uh, sorta been going, you know? Gav found ’em for me. It’s good, Anna. I think I’m gonna be okay now.”
Anna covered her mouth with her hand to keep him from hearing her sob.
“Anna? Say something, will ya?”
It took her a moment to compose herself. “I don’t know what to say, Ben. I’m so proud of you...”
“Yeah?”
Oh, God, it wasn’t enough that Gavin had bought the Harley so Ben could pay off his debts, had helped him get a job so he could buy it back. Had gotten him into Gamblers Anonymous. Now Ben was even copying Gavin’s speech patterns. Gavin, Gavin, I think you’ve saved him.
“Yeah,” she answered, her voice shaking. “So very proud, Ben.”
“Gav’s been great, you know?”
“It sounds like it.”
“I’m even staying at his place.”
“You’re...at Gavin’s?”
“Yeah, man, it’s really great.” He rambled on for several minutes about the huge house, the pool, the weight room.
How, Anna wondered, was she supposed to survive if every other word out of Ben’s mouth was “Gavin”? He may have saved her brother, but the process was quite likely to destroy her.
Unless...
Anna sat up a little straighter as her heart started pounding. He’d said he wanted to help her brother. She’d finally come to believe him, and now she knew he was a man of his word.
I love you.
Was there a chance, however slim, that he’d meant those words, too?
Dammit, he refused to love a woman who had so little faith in him. Who did she think she was, turning her back on him when he told her he loved her? Damn her, he’d never been in love before. It was scary enough without being completely ignored.
“Okay, I did it.”
At the sound of Ben’s voice Gavin rammed his fists into his pockets and turned away from staring at the pool lights outside the window of his den. “Good.”
“Yeah. Blew her away, man.” Ben’s smile was forced. “Me selling the Harley, paying off my debts, getting a job, going to the meetings.”
“You told her about the meetings?”
“Yeah. She...” Ben stopped and swallowed, looked away. “I think she cried. I’m glad I called her. Thanks for suggesting it.”
“I shouldn’t have had to suggest it,” Gavin said calmly, his heart bleeding to hear that she’d cried, even knowing she’d cried from happiness over Ben’s progress. The thought of her tears nearly crippled him. “You have to start thinking, pal. Adults have responsibilities, not just for themselves, but to other people. You break her heart when the only time she hears from you is when you need money. You owe her better than that.”
Ben had the good grace to hang his head. “I know.” He dug gouges in the deep pile of the carpet with the toe of his running shoe. “I, uh, apologized to her for what I said to her last Sunday.”
“You owed her that, too. Next time, think before you open your mouth.”
“Yeah, well, I’m trying. Guess I owe you an apology, too, for what I said about the two of you.”
“Meaning?”
Ben shrugged. “I guess I know you wouldn’t use her like I said.”
“You should.” A half smile curved his lips. “But then, a guy always gets a little testy when the lady in question is his sister.”
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“About what?”
“You wouldn’t...you know, use her?”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t. Not that she believes that.”
“Then I guess...”
“Guess what?”
“I guess you meant what you said to her that day, that you love her.”
“I’ve never meant anything more in my life.” He let out a harsh laugh. “For all the good it does me.”
“What are you gonna do about it?”
It was a good question. It was hard to get around the pain of being kicked in the heart. Should he try again to convince her he loved her, and hope like hell she loved him back?
“Gav?”
“I’m thinking.”
If emotions were numbers, Anna would know exactly what to do with them. She could pop them into a spreadsheet and make order out of chaos.
Last week she’d been empty, too numb to feel anything. This week she felt everything, and it was killing her. Joy for what had been, pain for the way it had ended. Hope that maybe if she begged, he would come back. Despair in not believing he could really love her. Horror when she remembered that the one and only time a man had said he loved her, she had turned her back and walked away.
“Your insecurities are pitiful,” she told herself.
Pitiful, true, but nonetheless real.
And even if he had meant it at the time, what did she know about making a man happy, keeping him happy?
Ah, there was something she could assign a number to—zero. She knew nothing about keeping a man happy. He would surely have grown tired of her before long.
She resented her unhappiness, resented the destruction of her peace of mind. Her life had been fine before Gavin Marshall had barged his way into it. She didn’t need kites or roller coasters or fake tattoos. She had her home; her job, and she was starting college in a matter of weeks. Those things should be more than enough to satisfy her.
She hated that they weren’t.
She hated even more the way anticipation tightened her stomach when the phone rang Friday evening at six.
It’s Ben, she told herself. It had been just over a week since he’d called. He was probably calling—at Gavin’s insistence—to tell her he still had his job, was still—please God—still going to the G.A. meetings.
“Hey, sis. I wasn’t sure you’d be home.”
Where else would I be?
“I mean, it being Friday night and all. I was afraid maybe you’d gone out or something.”
“How are you?” she asked, ignoring his comment.
“I’m fine. Listen, I can’t talk. I just called to tell you to be sure and watch ”The Tonight Show’ tonight.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. Promise me, Anna. You have to watch it tonight.”
“Well, if it’s important.”
“It’s life or death. Gotta run. ’Bye.”
As the dial tone buzzed in her ear, Anna frowned. What in the world was that about? Was...was Ben appearing on “The Tonight Show”? He had that new job playing at a club. A job she assumed Gavin had helped him get. Ben was talented on the piano, much more so than she.
Excitement, the first she’d felt in weeks, hummed in her blood. Oh, Ben, I’m so proud of you.
Since she wasn’t going to be able to sit still for four and a half hours until the program aired, she made herself take her time over supper, then she
weeded the flower beds and mowed the yard, bagging the clippings this time just because it would take longer.
Only nine o’clock. Too much time to go. She took a long soak in the tub, adding bubbles to keep her good mood from slipping. It was wonderful to feel something positive for a change, and she didn’t want to lose iL
After her bath she shampooed her hair and blew it dry.
Then she ruined it all by slipping on Gavin’s Looney Tunes T-shirt. She hadn’t even thought about it, just pulled it on over her head, as she’d been doing every night since he’d left.
“I’m not wearing it because it’s his,” she told her reflection in the mirror. “I’m wearing it because it’s comfortable.”
Oh, she’d learned to lie to that face in the mirror quite well lately.
She settled on the couch and watched the news, then chewed her knuckles through what felt like an hour-long sportscast. Why did they think everyone cared about sports so much that they wanted to see it for a full third of every single newscast? She ought to write a letter in protest. Why not ten minutes a night about music? Books? Local events?
Why not just start “The Tonight Show” ten minutes early, you jerks?
Then ten-thirty came.
Finally, finally, Jay Leno filled the screen with his big chin and opening jokes. Despite her tension, Anna managed to chuckle at a few of the more clever ones. Just when she feared the monologue would go on forever, her phone rang.
No one ever called her this late at night. In fact, no one ever called her at all, except Ben.
“Anna?”
“Ben? What’s all that noise?” It sounded as though there was a wild party going on around him. She heard the dull roar of dozens of voices, laughter, music. Ice tinkling in glass.
“What?” he yelled into the phone, laughter in his voice. Oh, it was good to hear him laugh. “You’ll have to talk louder. We’re having a little party here. Are you watching the show?”
“I was.”
“What? I can barely hear you.”
“I said I was,” she shouted into the phone. “Until you called. Am I going to see you on my TV?”
Ben laughed. “I’ll never tell. Just wanted to make sure you’re watching. It’s for you, Anna.”
“What do you mean, it’s for me? What’s for me?”
“You’re the reason what’s about to happen on the show is about to happen. It’s history-making. Just be sure and watch. Gotta go. Love you.” He hung up without letting her ask what he was talking about.
Anna hung up the phone and dashed back to the living room, only to find they were in a commercial break. She was certain that there were people watching who actually cared about whiter teeth, allergy relief and new cars, but just then she wasn’t one of them.
“Just get on with it,” she muttered.
Finally, Jay was back. “Okay, folks, our first guest tonight is an old friend of mine I’ve been trying to get on the show for years.”
Well, that wasn’t Ben. But then he probably wasn’t the first guest of the night anyway, being brand-new in the entertainment industry.
“We finally cornered him, and he’s making not only his ‘Tonight Show’ debut, but also his singing debut.”
Singing? Ben sings? Oh, yeah...this was Jay’s old friend, not Ben.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big ‘Tonight Show’ welcome to the sensational Grammy Award-winning rock-and-roll songwriter Gavin Marshall.”
“Oh.” Anna pressed both hands to her mouth. “Oh, God.”
On the small screen across the room, a curtain parted and Gavin walked out on stage.
In a flash Anna was off the couch and kneeling in front of the television like a supplicant before an altar, her hands raised, touching the screen, wishing with all her heart that it was his warm, strong face beneath her fingers rather than cold, impersonal glass.
As he sat on a tall stool and picked up a guitar that had been waiting for him, Anna’s chest tightened, the backs of her eyes burned. His name was a sigh on her lips.
He looked straight into the camera and said, “This is for you, Anna.”
Then he began to play. And sing.
“I was alone and oh, so cold, drifting along with no one to hold, day after day, just growing old. Until you.”
Anna’s heart cracked wide-open. But instead of emptying, it filled to overflowing with pride—he was singing his own song instead of letting someone else sing it. The song he was writing the morning after they first made love. His husky voice, a voice she’d never thought to hear again, sent shivers down her spine and caused an ache in her chest. The courage this must be taking for a man who thought so little of his own voice.
“I never trusted love, never thought I needed it, until you.”
And her heart overflowed with love, because he was singing to her. Just to her.
“I played the game, but it was all the same, until you. The road was long, with never a dawn. Until you.”
His eyes. Oh, his eyes. They seemed to be looking straight into her soul.
“You turned the sky so clear and bright. In my arms, you felt so right, and the stars lit up the night, and my heart and soul took flight. I love you.”
Long before the applause faded and the commercial came on, Anna knew just how big a fool she’d been the day she turned her back on him in this very room and walked away. For he did love her. She knew that now.
Ben’s words that terrible day had played on every insecurity she’d ever had regarding Gavin, and what had she done? She’d opted for the safety of the familiar loneliness instead of accepting what Gavin had offered her with his heart in his eyes. She had walked away, her actions flinging his love back in his face as if it were worthless.
While a man in a furniture store claimed to be “the working man’s friend,” Anna wondered frantically how soon she could book a flight to Los Angeles, how she would find him—she didn’t even have—His mother! She would call his mother and get his address.
But would he still want her? Could he ever forgive her for what she’d done?
Had he been saying he loved her with that song?
Or had the song been his way of saying a final goodbye?
The thought was more than her heart could bear. On her knees in front of the television, she doubled over in pain and wept.
She didn’t hear the front door open behind her, didn’t hear the soft oath from a heart as torn as hers. But when strong arms slipped around her, she knew. Somehow she knew that a miracle had occurred and he was there.
“Anna.”
At his husky whisper, she whirled on her knees and threw herself into his embrace. “Gavin, Gavin, I love you. I love you so much. You have to forgive me, because I don’t think I can go on without you in my life.”
Gavin pulled away to look at her. He cupped her face in his shaking hands and wiped her tears away with his thumbs. “Shh, shh, there’s nothing to forgive.”
“Oh, but I was so horrible to you that day. So stupid and insecure and... Oh, Gavin, I do love you.”
“Do you know now that I meant it? That I love you?”
“Yes. I swear I’ll never doubt you again. I swear it.”
“I guess you’ll just have to prove it by marrying me.”
Anna tried to breathe, but the instructions from her brain to her lungs must have gotten lost somewhere along the way. “Marry?” Her world reeled. A few moments ago everything had seemed so hopeless. Now he was handing her heaven. “You want to marry me?”
He brushed his lips across hers. “Say yes, Anna. You’ve got on my shirt. When a woman steals a man’s favorite T-shirt, she really doesn’t have any choice but to say yes.”
With a cry that was half laugh, half sob, Anna flung her arms around Gavin’s neck. “Yes.” She kissed his ear, his cheek, his jaw. “Yes, yes, yes.”
“Thank God.” Gavin captured her mouth, cementing their promises to each other, vowing silently to spend the rest of his life loving this woman, making s
ure that love and laughter filled her days, giving her the babies she wanted, if she still wanted them. He kissed her until he was breathless. Then he kissed her again. He didn’t stop until his favorite T-shirt was once again forgotten on the floor. It was another hour before they made it to the bedroom.
Epilogue
The classic, red, 1957 Corvette, with the top down, rumbled up to the curb and growled like a sleek jungle cat.
Smiling, Anna picked up her books from beside her on the grass and left the shade of the Business Sciences building for the bright California sunshine. It still tickled her to be able to wear short sleeves and enjoy the sunshine in the middle of February.
“Hey, fella.” She leaned over the passenger door of the Vette. “Give a girl a ride?”
“Well, I don’t know.” He looked her up and down, then smiled slowly. “My wife’s kinda on the possessive side.”
“Is she, now? And how do you feel about that?”
“Get in this car,” he said with a throaty growl that put the sound the car was making to shame, “and I’ll show you.”
She started to swing one leg over the door and slide into the passenger seat.
“Dammit, woman, open the door and get in the right way. You’re gonna give me a coronary. Pregnant women aren’t supposed to go climbing over car doors. They’re supposed to be careful.”
“Yes, dear.”
Her meekness was nothing but a sham, and Gavin knew it, but he appreciated that she would humor him by opening the car door and climbing in like a normal person. She was only ten weeks pregnant. He knew, in the logical part of his mind, that a woman did not become an invalid just because a sperm connected with an egg and started forming a fetus.
But this was his woman, and she was carrying his baby. He was going to worry over both of them, and any other babies that might come along, every second for the rest of his life. And he was going to shower them with every bit of his love.
He had, he mused, created a monster by encouraging Anna’s long-dormant sense of humor. She absolutely adored teasing him. And every time she did it, he fell that much more in love with her.
After sliding into the low seat, she closed the door sedately and turned to him, her schoolbooks on her lap. “Is that better?”
Until You Page 20