Loren Stanfield hadn’t seen Adam Riordan in twenty-three years. Yet the moment he stepped off the plane, she felt like a teenager again. Until she noticed Adam’s sophisticated eighteen-year-old daughter, Daphne, flirting with Loren’s own son, Joshua. Suddenly Loren felt every one of her forty years.
Daphne’s using all the same techniques to dazzle Joshua that Loren had tried with Adam. Should she tell the girl that love can’t be forced—a lesson Loren had learned the hard way? Should she warn her son to stay away from girls like Daphne? Or should she do as Adam suggests—leave the kids alone and concentrate on fixing the mistakes they’d made?
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PROLOGUE
May 25, 1972
LOREN MONTGOMERY was about to surrender her virginity. Stretched on a picnic blanket deep within the cool recesses of Oak Creek Canyon, she lay beside Adam Riordan. His touch played a melody far sweeter than the song of the water rushing beside them over the smooth stones of Oak Creek. The erotic scent of greening moss and sprouting ferns, the sound of crickets chirping, made chastity seem the most unrewarding of virtues.
She closed her eyes against the soft moonlight and turned into Adam’s embrace, the chiffon of her dress rustling against the blanket. Eventually, slowly, the dress would be removed, for even at nineteen Adam knew how to stage a seduction. As his mouth covered hers, his kiss tasted of the champagne her parents had allowed them to sip at the graduation party.
“You’re really sure?” His teeth caught her earlobe and she shivered.
“Yes.”
“I have to tell you something first.”
She opened her eyes. This wasn’t the way she’d scripted this moment in her head. “Now? You have to tell me something now?”
“I should have told you before, but when I looked at you lying there in the moonlight, I...”
“Adam, for heaven’s sake, tell me!”
“I got my draft notice.”
She sat straight up and the breeze felt like ice on her heated back. The draft lottery. “No.”
“I report June fifteenth.”
“No,” she said again, fighting nausea. The sweetness of Adam’s kisses had turned to the bitterness of fear. A year ago, she’d had a few weeks of panic when all student deferments had been canceled, but then, when nothing had happened...
“I’m sorry, Lor.” He sat up, too, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you before. You were so happy tonight, and we had this plan to come down here to the creek, and damn, I want you so much.”
A minute ago the crickets had sounded romantic. Now they screeched like violins in a horror movie.
“But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn’t fair to make love without first telling you about the notice.”
She struggled for breath. “Adam, you’re not going.”
The wind sighed down the canyon, and shadows of leaves caressed his face. “Sorry, but Uncle Sam says different.”
“You don’t mean you’re considering it?”
He shrugged.
She scrambled to her knees and gripped him by the shoulders. “You most certainly are not going! I won’t let you sacrifice yourself in this horrible war!”
Sliding his arms around her waist, he pulled her between his knees and buried his face in her breasts. “You can march and carry signs all you want, but the draft still exists, Lor,” he murmured, biting her nipple through the material of her dress.
She pushed him away. “How dare you be so offhanded about it! Don’t you realize you could be killed?”
“We all have to die sometime.”
“Don’t give me that nonsense! We have to stop this. We’ll get married.”
He grew still. Slowly he gazed up into her face. “No, we won’t.”
“Why not? We’ll tell everyone I’m pregnant, and then I really will get pregnant with little Josh or little Daphne, just like we planned. The draft board will let you off for that. Don’t you remember when Eddie and Sue”
“Loren.” He cupped her face and drew her down until she could look directly into his eyes. “Don’t go off the deep end.”
“I’m not!”
His voice was tender. “Yes, you are.” She wasn’t convincing him. She fought panic as she gazed into his eyes—pale gray in the moonlight, a fierce, irresistible blue in the warmth of the sun. Those eyes had been her undoing from the day she and Adam had started going steady a year ago. That summer, he’d kept the pavement humming up and down the Oak Creek Canyon road that connected Flagstaff, where he lived, and Sedona, where she lived. Everyone had predicted they’d break up during Adam’s freshman year at Arizona State University in Phoenix, but here they were, more in love than ever.
Her throat constricted with grief and she blinked back tears. “We have to do something,” she said.
“Getting married now isn’t a good idea. Think it through. You’re just barely eighteen.”
“And you’re only nineteen! Pretty young to die, wouldn’t you say?” Hysteria threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t lose him. Not to this hateful war.
“Your parents won’t pay for college if you’re married. And if you had a baby...well, it’s just out of the question. I can’t do that to you.”
Desperation made her reckless. She reached between his legs and caressed him. “I think you’re very capable of doing that to me.”
He caught her hand firmly in his. “We’re not getting married and having babies. Not now.”
She had to keep touching him, trying to convince him. She moved both hands to his face and stroked the dark sideburns that made him look like a movie star. “Then we’ll go to Canada. We’ll work ourselves through school up there.”
“And be outcasts for the rest of our lives? I couldn’t hurt my parents like that, and neither could you.”
Loren’s desperation grew. “You think they’d prefer you dead or maimed?”
He smiled the confident smile that could beguile or infuriate her, depending on the context. Tonight the smile filled her with terror. “You know nothing’s going to happen to me. In a couple of years I’ll be back, and you’ll be halfway to your degree, and we’ll finish up together.”
“Oh, yeah?” She had to break through this rational approach of his. Her Adam in combat was too grotesque a possibility to be entertained with such cool logic. “If you’re so sure you’ll be back, why did you have to tell me about the draft notice before we made love?”
“Because...” Uncertainty flickered in his gaze for a moment. “I guess because making love is like a commitment. If we make love, I’d expect you to wait for me, and I’m not sure that’s fair. You might meet someone else.”
How like him. Her noble, fair Adam. But tonight fairness was the last thing on Loren’s mind. For a few moments, she thought of other ways to influence the draft board somehow, but gave up those ideas as unworkable. Only one thing might hold him. One thing might keep him alive. “I don’t want to wait for you.”
He looked as if he’d been slapped.
“Not without a wedding ring on my finger.”
“Are you crazy? For one thing, I’m too young to get a license.”
“You’ve got ID showing a fake birth date, don’t you? We could drive to Vegas tomorrow night. I’ll tell my folks I’m spending the night with Sherry. No one has to know but you and me. We can make love all night, Adam.” She captured his gaze. “All night,” she murmured, and became giddy with relief as his eyes darkened. “You can’t guarantee you’ll be back. Give me this, please. Give us both this.”
He stared at her, his desire a palpable thing. She gathered him close, tears seeping from the corners of her eyes as she squeezed them shut and prayed. “Please,” she whispered.
The moment of decision lasted so long she almost screamed out in fear and frustration, but she forced herself to keep holding him as tears dripped down her cheeks.
At last he nodded, his breath easing out in a long sigh.
She choked back a sob of relief and hugged him hard. Thank God. She had a chance now.
They drove home in silence, the car radio switched off, as if music was too frivolous for a time like this.
“I’ll meet you at Sherry’s at seven tomorrow night,” Loren murmured at her front door.
“All right.”
“It’s what we need to do,” she said, kissing him with all the passion she possessed. Then she went into the darkened house where green, white and brown streamers still hung from the ceiling, along with the peace symbols she’d insisted on. Through the window, she watched his red Capri pull away into the night. Trembling with emotion, she leaned against the cool glass. She must not doubt her power over him. Once they were married, once they’d spent a long night together making love, he wouldn’t want to go to Vietnam. She was gambling everything on that.
* * *
May 26, 1972
LOREN MADE SURE she said hello to Sherry’s parents, who were sitting in the den watching the latest war news. Loren averted her gaze from the obscene pictures flashing across the screen as she answered questions about how her folks were and what she was majoring in next fall. She wanted Sherry’s mother and father to record the fact that she was definitely here and was spending the night. She carried her favorite Fleetwood Mac album under one arm as an added prop. Finally, she excused herself and went to join a breathless Sherry in the bedroom.
“This is so romantic, Loren,” Sherry whispered, although there was no need to whisper with the door closed. “I almost wish Greg would get drafted, so we could run away, too.”
“Don’t say that.” Loren peered out Sherry’s window as the setting sun glowed tangerine on the rocky buttes that circled Sedona like ruined medieval castles. Ten more minutes. “Nobody should be drafted. Why do you think we went to all those rallies?”
“Well, of course, but if Adam hadn’t gotten his notice, he’d be working some highway construction job this summer, as usual, and you’d be developing other people’s vacation pictures at the photo lab, and your most exciting adventure would be going down Slide Rock on Sunday afternoons.” She caught Loren’s glance. “Well, your second most exciting adventure, then. I forgot you two were planning to become lovers this summer. But besides that, your lives would be pretty boring.” She sighed. “Like mine.”
Loren’s stomach felt like a hardening chunk of cement. “I’d take boring right now.”
“What’s in the overnight case?”
“My graduation dress, and I used some of my graduation money for a negligee.”
“Ooh! Can I see?”
“I guess.” Loren’s attention remained on the street. Any minute Adam’s red Capri would appear, and then maybe the petrification of her insides would reverse itself.
“Oh, Loren, this is sexy.”
Loren glanced over her shoulder. Sherry held up the skimpy black nightie in admiration. Loren had debated white or black, and decided on black. She’d heard men went crazy over the naughty-girl look, and she wanted Adam to go crazy tonight. And every night thereafter, until he got over this temporary patriotic phase of his. Until he was safe from harm. “Better put it back. Your parents could come in.”
“Right.” Sherry reverently folded the negligee and tucked it back in the overnight case. “Good thing you went to Planned Parenthood for those pills last month, huh?”
“I’ve stopped taking them.”
“What?” Sherry slapped her hand over her mouth and glanced nervously at the door, but the television set was on loud enough to distract her parents. “Does Adam know that?” she whispered.
“No, and if you tell him, you’re in deep trouble.”
“You want to get pregnant?”
“Sherry, I’ll do anything to keep him from going to Vietnam.”
“Wow.”
The sound of a car engine brought Loren’s attention back to the window, although she knew it wasn’t the Capri. Like a mother who can pick her own baby’s cry out of a nursery full of children, Loren could recognize the Capri’s individual growl from among all the other cars on the streets of Sedona.
She knew whose car had pulled up in front of Sherry’s house, though. The turquoise Mustang belonged to Jimmy Denton, the tight end on the football team and Adam’s best friend. Jimmy got out and glanced anxiously at the house. The chunk of cement in Loren’s stomach twisted, and she whimpered softly in distress.
“What’s wrong?” Sherry came to the window. “Uh-oh.” She squeezed Loren’s arm. “Stay here. I’ll see what he wants. Maybe it’s nothing.”
Loren stayed. She didn’t want to talk to Jimmy. Nothing Jimmy had to say could be good news tonight.
She stood at the window and watched as Jimmy walked back to the car, his head down. Sherry came quietly into the room a few moments later. Loren didn’t turn around.
Sherry came up behind her. “Loren...”
Loren shook her head.
“Adam’s enlisting. He’s staying with a friend in Phoenix until his papers are processed.”
Loren put her hands over her ears.
Sherry’s voice rose a notch and she tried to turn a resistant Loren to face her. “Look, I’m supposed to tell you why. Jimmy said I had to. It’s important.”
Loren took her hands down and balled them into fists. She didn’t look at Sherry. “I don’t care why.”
“But, Loren”
“If he’d rather go to some stinking jungle” Loren’s voice rose to a wail and the red buttes seemed washed with blood “—if he’d rather die than stay with me, then who gives a damn why?”
CHAPTER ONE
July 15, 1995
AS LOREN STOOD in front of Sedona Airport’s terminal waiting for the red twin-engine Cessna 414 circling the field, she hoped the pilot knew what he was doing. The airfield’s only runway bisected a plateau with steep drops on all sides. Loren’s father compared it to touching down on an aircraft carrier, minus the water. Loren would hate to lose Scorpio Steel as a client because the pilot misjudged the runway.
The plane sailed in low and slow, wings steady. Loren let out her breath and admired the black scorpion logo on the fuselage as the pilot taxied in. Scorpio Steel was the perfect sort of client, meaning they had lots of money. And Loren needed money. She’d even agreed to overlook an Icarus Enterprises policy and let a representative from Scorpio ride along on today’s photographic survey trip.
Having a client come along had already become a nuisance. She’d considered modifying her outfit of comfortable shorts and tank top to appear more businesslike, but anything else on a July morning would be too hot and restrict her movement. Restricted movement meant bad pictures, and she’d decided good pictures were more important than propriety.
A small pickup with a Follow Me sign guided the red plane to an open-air tie-down near a row of hangars, and Loren walked over to meet the plane’s occupants. As she approached, a young woman in a denim miniskirt that displayed spectacular legs climbed down from the pilot’s seat. A very young woman, Loren noted with surprise. Couldn’t be much more than eighteen, with tousled blond hair cut in
a wash-and-shake style. Apparently, Scorpio trusted her to fly some senior exec around, although Loren had pegged the company as too conservative for that.
The movements of the man who swung down from the passenger seat were oddly familiar. When he turned to face her, she smiled automatically, as she would at any client, but something about the shape of his face and his carriage sent a rush of adrenaline through her that pushed the smile away.
He wore dark aviator glasses, an open-necked sport shirt and faded jeans. His mahogany hair was gray at the temples and smile lines bracketed his mouth, although he wasn’t smiling now.
Slowly he took off his glasses, and she stared into the cobalt blue eyes of Adam Riordan.
“Hello, Loren.” He smiled slowly, gently, as if she were a wild animal that might bolt at any minute.
Her ears buzzed; her head swam. She put out a hand to steady herself, but there was nothing there to hold on to, so she thrust both shaking hands into the pockets of her shorts to maintain her balance. Swallowing, she opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Hello, Loren. The words, spoken in that achingly familiar voice, reverberated like the ending bass notes of a beloved song.
“Daddy, the plane’s tied down. Am I cleared to pick up the rental car so I can unload the luggage?”
Loren’s shocked gaze veered to the pilot, who had a designer tote bag slung over her shoulder.
“Yes, you are.” Adam’s attention remained focused on Loren. “But before you go, I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine, Loren Mont—I mean, Stanfield. Loren, this is my daughter, Daphne.”
The scene took on a surreal quality. How could Adam be introducing her to a daughter named Daphne? That was supposed to have been their daughter’s name. Then she remembered her son, Josh. Daphne and Josh, just as they’d planned, except for one small detail. They’d both married other people.
Daphne walked forward and stuck out her free hand. “Glad to meet you.”
“Same here.” Loren wrenched her perspiring hand free of her pocket and put it into Daphne’s cool, manicured fingers. This was one sophisticated young woman. Years ago, Loren had heard about Adam’s wedding to a Phoenix socialite named Anita McFarland. And here was the result, Loren thought, forcing a smile and releasing Daphne’s hand.
Adam Then and Now Page 1