by Janet Dailey
When his mouth brushed her lips and he felt them yielding softly in response, it all changed. His senses signaled an awareness of firm breasts thrust against his chest and the soft contours of her slender body curved against him. She was wholly desirable and she was in his arms. His mouth came back to seek the sweet taste of her lips beneath their salty covering of tears. Her body warmth ignited the desire that simmered below the surface whenever he was around her. Somewhere he’d lost the reason to control it. Passion flamed through his kiss and she returned it, her lips moving against his in the same spontaneous reaction. He hungrily deepened the kiss and felt her yield to him.
Suddenly her hands were pushing against his chest and she was wildly breaking free from his kiss to stare at him with green eyes that seemed to see a stranger. His hands started to reach for her, but she recoiled from him.
“Don’t touch me,” she warned and managed to scramble to her feet, backing away from him.
“Elizabeth, I—” He searched for the words to apologize for his behavior—for taking advantage of her when she had been in such a vulnerable state.
She rushed to the open door, pausing just long enough to get her bearings before she sped across the yard to the apartment above the garage. Phillip watched her from the stable doors.
Chapter XXI
Someone was climbing the flight of stairs outside the garage. Maggie could hear the footsteps, but she pretended she didn’t and continued to spoon-feed Ty in the high chair. Ty tried to grab the spoon, so she held his hand down and held the spoon to his closed mouth. He regarded her for several seconds with steadfast brown eyes, then shook his head.
“Come on, Ty. Just one more bite,” Maggie coaxed at the same instant there was a knock on the apartment door. She glanced at her aunt, who was scraping the plates from the evening meal before washing them.
“I’ll answer it.” Her aunt smiled at the young mother and child.
While Maggie’s attention was distracted, Ty grabbed the spoon with his free hand. Strained apricots squished through his little fingers and dripped onto the high-chair tray. Releasing an exasperated breath, Maggie reached for the damp washcloth kept nearby for just such emergencies. After prying the spoon out of his strong grasp, she wiped his hands and mouth, then her own and the tray. It had been the last spoonful of apricot sauce from the jar, so she untied the stained bib protecting his T-shirt. His legs kicked the chair while he cooed with delight.
“You want to get down to play, do you?” Maggie teased him while part of her listened to Phillip greeting her aunt. She had guessed he would come see her after what happened that afternoon. She wanted to panic, but that was against her nature.
“May I speak to Elizabeth alone?” she heard Phillip ask.
There was a split-second hesitation before her aunt agreed to the request. “Of course. I was just going to take the garbage out, anyway.”
Maggie had never known her aunt to ask personal questions, and she hadn’t this afternoon when Maggie had dashed to their apartment above the garage. Cathleen hadn’t even delved into the reason Maggie had passed out, except to ask if she felt better. That consideration afforded Maggie the privacy she needed.
“Elizabeth, Dr. Phillip is here to see you.” The influence of the Gordons had prompted her aunt to stop using her given name of Mary Frances. Maggie was beginning to believe that was the name of another person. She looked up to acknowledge the statement and met the level glance of his gray eyes. Then her aunt was gathering the garbage sack to carry it downstairs and leave them alone.
Ty was becoming impatient with Maggie for being so slow in unlatching his high-chair tray and sliding it back. When she lifted him out of the chair, she didn’t put him on the floor as he wanted. Holding him gave her a convenient distraction, an excuse to avoid Phillip’s eyes.
“Elizabeth, I came to apologize for my actions this afternoon,” Phillip said.
“There’s no need,” she denied stiffly while Ty squirmed in her arms.
“I’m afraid there is every need,” he insisted. “I can’t excuse what I did. The only explanation is that I discovered a beautiful woman in my arms and I did what any normal man would do in my place—I kissed her. I never intended to frighten you.”
The last statement made her lift her gaze. She finally looked at him and saw all the things she had been trying not to notice these last seven months. He was handsome and lean, suntanned and vigorous. His hair was the color of steel, but his eyes were a warm gray velvet. Where Chase Calder had been composed of all rough, unfinished edges and aggressively male, Phillip Gordon was the smooth, final product of manhood, suave and charming, always immaculately dressed. A true gentleman.
“You didn’t frighten me.” When Ty started to squeal in anger, she put him on the floor. He crawled hurriedly to his toys in the middle of the living room. Maggie turned to him to finish explaining her answer. “It was me.” She stopped trying to hide her feelings. “You see, I wanted you to kiss me. I wanted you to touch me. More than that.” She grew bolder with returning confidence. “I wanted you to make love to me. I didn’t think a man could make me feel like that again. I didn’t think it would ever be like that.”
“Elizabeth.” He took an involuntary step toward her, desire shining in his eyes. It was there for a fleeting second; then it was gone when he stopped short and shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes, I do, Phillip.” Of her own accord, she dropped the professional title that usually preceded his name when she addressed him.
“You are seventeen and I just turned forty-one. I’m old enough to be your father,” he explained gently.
“I’m not pretending that it’s right to want you to make love to me, but I can’t deny that it’s the way I feel,” she stated, effectively throwing his logic out the window with her counterpoint of the truth.
“It’s only because I’m the most likely male around, and you’re a naturally loving young girl. I’m not going to let you get involved with me. You have too much going for you, Elizabeth.” He stroked a finger across her cheek in a reluctant caress. “You’re intelligent, determined, and ambitious. The last thing you need is an affair with an old man.”
“You aren’t old, Phillip.”
“I suppose you think all this gray hair is just a form of camouflage,” he mocked.
“It makes you look distinguished,” she insisted.
“Which is just another way of saying ‘old.’” He shook his head and smiled. “This fall, when you start college, you’ll be surrounded with lots of handsome young men. You’ll be happier with someone closer to your own age.”
“Like Chase Calder!” Maggie hurled the name, her temper surfacing. “I don’t remember that experience as a happy one.”
“Chase Calder was just one man. You can’t judge all other men by your experience with him. You can only learn from it.”
“Chase was always teaching me something,” she remembered bitterly. “Unfortunately, it was about sex instead of love.”
“You have a lot to learn about a lot of things.”
“And I’m going to learn about everything I can.” From what she had learned so far, Maggie knew there was a great deal that went into making a lady besides fine clothes and fancy homes. There was the whole cultural world to be absorbed. “I want to know about art and music, the theater and the classics. I want to speak other languages fluently and—” She stopped because her list had become endless the more she became exposed to different things. She looked up to see the benevolent twinkle in Phillip’s eyes.
“And you want to travel and see places for yourself.” He perceptively added another item from her long list. “There isn’t room for an old man in your young life. You have too much growing up to do.”
“Phillip—” She attempted a protest.
But he interrupted. “I’m flattered that you find me attractive, Elizabeth. I’m at the age where I would like to kick up my heels and recapture my lost youth with so
meone like you. Please don’t tempt me. I’d like to be spared the indignity of making a fool of myself over you.”
“I would never make you look the fool. I know how that hurts.”
He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Let’s make a pact. When you finish college, we’ll see if you still feel the same way toward me or if you’ve acquired a taste for the young, adventurous type.”
She turned her face into his hand, closing her eyes in silent enjoyment for the feel of his smooth hand against her skin. With a clear-eyed certainty, she met his gaze. “We’ll see what happens when I finish college,” she agreed, because she sensed the wisdom of his suggestion and because she was somehow certain her feelings wouldn’t change. They had grown slowly, not flared up suddenly.
“In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do about broadening your cultural horizons.” This one simple sentence hinted at the things to come.
On a late afternoon early in June, Maggie climbed the steps to the apartment over the garage. She had been with Pamela Gordon, viewing a traveling art exhibit at a local gallery. Each month they visited a different art gallery in the Los Angeles area as a fulfillment of Phillip’s promise to educate her in the arts. In addition, Pamela and Phillip—always the two of them together—had taken Maggie to several symphonies, and to a ballet and the opera.
As she entered the apartment, Maggie called out brightly, “Hello! Anybody home?” A happy squeal came from the kitchen, followed by the sound of running feet. Ty crossed the living room to greet her as fast as his stout little legs could carry him. He was almost a year and a half old—and all boy. Laughing, she swung him into her arms. “You never walk anymore, Ty. You always run.” She hugged him while he jabbered away an answer. “You’re growing so fast,” Maggie sighed and drew her head back to look at him. “Have you been a good boy, Ty?” He regarded her silently with eyes that were decidedly brown.
“Of course he has.” It was Cathleen who answered, entering the living room. “How was the exhibit?”
Carrying Ty in her arms, Maggie walked over to the blue sofa and sat down. “Fascinating.” She tickled the little boy on her lap and watched him giggle while she continued to address her talk to her aunt. “Even when I don’t understand some of the paintings, it’s fascinating.” She laughed, sliding her aunt a rueful glance. “The symphonies, the opera, the ballet, and the art museums—all get confused in my mind sometimes. The terms are so new to me that I get surrealists, impressionists, and cubists all mixed up with counterpoints, fugues, and arias. I have so much to learn.”
“You’ll learn,” Cathleen assured her. Then she said, “There was a letter for you in the mail today.”
“From Culley?” Maggie asked hopefully. “He hasn’t written since Christmas. I know he’s been busy, but I’m beginning to worry about him.”
“It wasn’t from your brother.” The envelope was on a side table. Cathleen brought it to her, a pleased look about her expression.
When Maggie saw the return address that was stamped on the envelope, she set Ty onto the floor and eagerly tore open the flap. “It’s my high school diploma!” She proudly showed it off to Cathleen while she continued to stare at it herself. “Now I’ll be able to go to college this fall. Did I tell you? Phillip thinks he’ll be able to get me a scholarship. Of course, it will mean taking more tests to prove I’m scholastically capable, but I don’t mind. Even if the university won’t accept me, I can enroll in one of the community colleges.”
Maggie won the scholarship and enrolled at the university as a full-fledged student that fall. She received one short letter from Culley that summer, but his letters became less frequent. Mostly, they consisted of notes scribbled in a Christmas card or in the birthday card he mailed each August, with an occasional half-page letter sprinkled in between. Each of them contained some stinging reference to the Calders, a vow of retribution. They never allowed Maggie to push the past totally out of her mind.
She was busy, too. Between carrying a full load of classes at college, taking care of a growing and rambunctious boy, and showing and exercising Phillip’s horses, she continued to avail herself of all the cultural entertainments Los Angeles had to offer. Sometimes she was accompanied by Phillip and Pamela, never Phillip alone. Often she was escorted by a classmate. Those were the occasions when she usually dated, which wasn’t all that often. She did attempt to follow Phillip’s advice and go out with men closer to her own age. Few of them impressed her, but a couple of them had been a lot of fun. She had discovered that passion could be a manufactured emotion.
It was only with Phillip that she felt safe and comfortable. He was a good influence on her, able to turn aside her temper and make her laugh. They usually rode together in the early morning, schooling and exercising his show horses. Sometimes he talked about his work and the built-in rewards that came from taking something scarred and broken and repairing it. It seemed that’s what he was doing with her. As a plastic surgeon, his skills were renowned in medical circles. Maggie admired, trusted, and respected this man, and the physical attraction remained, too.
It was the same for him. She knew it because she had frequently observed the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t watching. When they were in a crowd during a theater intermission, there was always something possessive in the way he touched her and kept her by his side. Maggie was tempted many times to use the feminine wiles she had learned and ignite the desire smoldering under his smooth surface. She didn’t because she remembered the kind of talk that had circulated about her and Chase. Phillip was so sensitive about their age difference that she knew it would be the first thing the gossip-mongers picked on. She cared about him too much to have people making cutting remarks behind his back. So she bided her time.
Tears shimmered in her green eyes as she clutched the college diploma in one hand and hugged the dark-haired five year old boy who had wound his arms around her neck, and smacked a wet kiss on her cheek.
“Congratulations, Mommy.” Ty struggled over the long word, but he pronounced it correctly. He was big for his age, with a large-boned frame that indicated he would grow much taller. His hair was brown, not black, partially bleached by the California sun, and his eyes were brown, but Maggie shut her mind to the child-softened resemblance to Chase Calder. Ty was her son.
“Thank you.” She kissed the air near his cheek because he hated it when her lipstick left a red mark on him. Still bending down to his height, she drew back to look at him and smiled. “Who told you to say that?”
“Pip.” He had never quite managed to twist his tongue around Phillip when he was learning to talk. It had long ago been shortened.
She glanced up to meet the warm pride in his expression, but when she unwound her son’s arms from around her neck and straightened, it was her aunt whom she embraced. This kind, gentle woman who had taken her in, never asking any questions, never offering any recriminations for the illegitimacy of Ty’s birth, and always treating Maggie like her own daughter, an uncomplaining woman so very much like her sister—Maggie’s mother, who had wanted above all else for Maggie to have a good education. Now it had happened.
“I know your mother is very proud of you, Elizabeth.” Cathleen cried softly—as she did everything else.
Her thoughts, too, had taken the direction Maggie’s had gone. There was a lump in her throat, which didn’t allow more than a lovingly stressed, “Thank you, Cathleen.”
Her aunt hugged her close once more, then moved back. “I only wish your brother was here to see you. Do you suppose he didn’t get the plane ticket you sent him?”
“Culley … was probably too busy. There’s a lot of work to be done on a ranch at this time of year.” She made his excuses for him. She had wanted Culley to be here to share this moment with her, but she also realized that he would feel out of place in these surroundings, uncomfortable. Perhaps he knew that. Or perhaps he was really busy. That was more than likely the reason, but she couldn’t help wishing he was here. Turning, she b
ent down to press her cheek against Pamela’s. The lovely blonde was stunning, as usual, dressed in a long pink gown that flowed softly down the front of the wheelchair. Maggie had lost some of her illusions about Pamela. The woman had been so helpful and instructive, but Maggie was accepted by Phillip’s sister because of Ty. She doted on Maggie’s son. Ty even called her “Aunt” Pam.
“Congratulations, Elizabeth.” Her smile was charming, yet no more than pleasant.
“Thank you, Pamela.” Her heart was pounding as she glanced at Phillip, standing attentively by his sister’s wheelchair. His steel-gray hair had turned to silver at the temples, but he looked vigorously handsome, so tall and lean and suntanned. “You look very distingué, Phillip,” Maggie said, practicing a little of the French she now spoke fluently. “It seems I’ve saved the best until last.” She held out her left hand to him, which he took to draw her forward. “Thank you, for everything.”
“This is a proud day … for all of us.” He appeared to add the last to cover the intensity of his regard.
She stood quietly before him, letting him look her over while she radiated a sense of serene confidence. She wore her black hair in a shoulder-length cut that was styled to enhance its tendency to wave. Makeup, artfully and subtly applied, heightened all her best features—softening her strong cheekbones and flattering the brilliant green of her eyes with their sooty lashes. Bold red lipstick outlined the soft contours of her lips. Maggie knew she looked chicly adult and carried herself with an air of maturity.
When he bent his head toward her, she was disappointed when he only brushed his mouth against her cheek. “Haven’t I earned more than a peck on the cheek?” she chided and leaned up to bring her lips against his.