An intimate little corner, Loren thought as she followed the hostess to the table. The pulse beating erratically in her throat told her that Adam was getting to her. He was directing her thoughts into all the wrong channels, channels still electrified with curiosity. Had they made love—complete, satisfying love—all those years ago, she’d have a different kind of problem.
She sat in the booth, and he placed himself at right angles to her, his knees occasionally brushing hers. He picked up a menu. She followed suit, trying to concentrate on the list of items as her mind cavorted in its own private playground with the charged subject of Adam. Curiosity had always been her triumph and her downfall. Curiosity had put her behind the lens of a camera early in life. Curiosity had led her to try marijuana at a friend’s party, and it was there she’d met Jack.
And now she was still curious about Adam, about what making love to him would be like. Perhaps the experience would be anticlimactic. Most probably it would be anticlimactic, considering the level of her expectations at the age of eighteen. She’d probably discover Adam wasn’t any better at lovemaking than Jack had been. Or Stewart, the man she’d had a disappointing interlude with three summers ago.
That was her other problem, besides curiosity. High expectations. Perhaps no man could live up to them.
“I’ll have the beef stew, salad with Italian dressing and a cup of black coffee.” Adam folded the menu and put it on the table. “If you don’t mind ordering, I’ll call your dad and tell him we’ve been delayed.”
Loren set down her menu and stared at him. She’d totally forgotten about her father and Josh. Of course they’d start to worry soon. She’d better get hold of herself, and fast, or she was liable to do any number of irresponsible things. “I’ll call,” she said, rising from the booth.
“Have you decided what you want to eat?”
“No.”
He put his hand on her arm and gently pushed her back down. “Then let me.” He stood. “Besides, I want to ask Josh if he could take the Geo back to Daphne. It isn’t fair to leave her stranded all day.”
Loren tensed. She hadn’t anticipated all the ramifications of waiting out the storm. Now Daphne would be back in contact with Josh. Her gaze met Adam’s.
“From that stony glare, I assume you don’t approve of that plan. Do you have a better suggestion?” he asked mildly.
“Maybe my father could...”
“Oh, come on, Lor. You act as if you can’t trust your own kid.”
“It’s not Josh I’m worried about.”
His eyes narrowed. “Meaning that if they get into some sort of trouble, it will be all Daphne’s fault? Even your father isn’t that unfair.”
“We’re not talking about fair. She’s a big-city girl. That puts Josh at a disadvantage.”
He braced both hands on the table and brought his face close to hers. She could smell the spice of his after-shave, see the pattern of his eyelashes as they framed his blue eyes, which at the moment snapped with impatience. “You’re overreacting, Loren. I talked to Daphne about yesterday. She understands Josh’s responsibilities at the shop. And she’s not a bad kid, despite what you may think.”
Her gaze flicked from the intensity in his eyes to the movement of his lips. With a guilty start, she looked back into his eyes, her heart hammering. “So you vouch for her behavior? But you’ve admitted you haven’t been very close to her.”
Anger flared in his eyes, making him look slightly dangerous. “I’ll vouch for her.”
His closeness was making her very nervous. “Okay,” she agreed, just to end the debate and separate herself from him. After all, Walt would be at the hangar this afternoon. Daphne couldn’t get Josh in too much trouble with Walt around. Adam pushed himself away from the table and she took a shaky breath.
“I’ll also get an updated weather report from Prescott,” he said.
“Fine.”
She watched him walk away and her heart lurched in the old, familiar way. Oh, she was skating on thin ice. She forced herself to concentrate on the menu, and when the waitress arrived, Loren placed Adam’s order and chose a French-dip sandwich for herself.
Adam returned to the table as the busboy delivered two glasses of water.
“Did you reach everyone?” She tried to sound casual.
Adam nodded as he slid into the booth. “Walt says not to worry. I assume that’s his code phrase to tell you he’ll keep Josh out of my daughter’s clutches.”
Loren ducked her head to disguise her relieved smile.
“And I called Daphne. She wasn’t too happy with the news, but I promised her a long excursion tomorrow. It was the best I could do. I only hope I can deliver.”
Loren’s head shot up. “Why is that?”
“I checked with Prescott, and the front isn’t moving on as predicted.”
Loren swallowed. “But surely it will clear up in a few hours, won’t it?”
Adam gazed at her, his expression enigmatic. “Not necessarily. They’re saying the bad weather may last all night.”
Loren felt a stirring in the pit of her stomach. “We aren’t staying here overnight.”
“I’m glad you have that under control.”
She seemed to be sinking into the depths of Adam’s blue eyes. With effort, she broke the connection and glanced around. The restaurant had no windows, and she needed to look outside and reassure herself that there would be a break in the weather. There had to be a break in the weather. “Excuse me,” she said and slid out of the booth. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
As she walked past the tables, her attention was drawn to the large number of couples—a woman smiling into the face of a man, a man squeezing a woman’s hand, a man and woman leaning across the table toward each other, expressions intent, arms touching, fingers brushing. She’d never noticed before that Laughlin was a hangout for lovers, but now the place seemed filled with them.
She hurried out of the restaurant and through the clamorous rows of machines toward the bank of windows facing the river. The rain had lessened, but the clouds boiled overhead, and a new element had been added. Jagged lightning bolts flashed like hammered silver hieroglyphics against the dark horizon. And the message was clear. Beware.
Heart pounding, she turned away from the window and searched for a public telephone. She finally found a row of them near the registration desk. Picking up the receiver of the nearest one, she pulled off her shoe and took out the quarter she kept there. Then she punched in the series of numbers she’d memorized so she always had access to long-distance information.
The Prescott Flight Service report was even worse than she’d imagined. In addition to the storm already hovering over Laughlin, a warm front was moving into the area with terrible weather behind it. She set the phone back in its cradle. She was trapped.
CHAPTER FIVE
AS LOREN WALKED toward him, her expression that of a person mounting the gallows, Adam’s heart twisted. He’d had such hopes for their reunion, but she was obviously petrified of him and the potential havoc he might introduce into her life.
She moved her bundle of wet clothes, setting it firmly between them before she sat down. Their food had arrived while she was gone, but he hadn’t touched his. “You should have started,” she said, positioning her napkin on her lap.
“No rush.” He picked up his fork and shoved the prongs into his salad.
She grimaced. “No, there certainly isn’t a rush. I called Prescott again.”
He paused with the bite of salad halfway to his mouth. “Didn’t trust me to give you the truth?”
Her glance was swift, skittering away before he could catch it. “I just wanted an update.”
“Every five minutes?”
“Okay, so I wanted to hear it for myself.”
He was irritated enough to push it. “Because you thought I might have lied to you.”
“No! I just...didn’t want it to be true, thought it might change.”
“And did it?”
“No.” She wouldn’t look at him, just kept swirling her sandwich in the cup of broth and watching the bread disintegrate.
He ate his salad, not tasting it.
“Damn.” She put down her sandwich and picked up a french fry. She didn’t eat that, either. “I want this assignment to be over.”
His stomach knotted and he gave up all pretense of eating as he pushed his salad plate aside. He folded his arms on the table and gazed at her. “I know you do. Believe it or not, so do I. Daphne will never believe that weather kept us pinned down in Laughlin. I haven’t the foggiest idea how I’m going to make this up to her.”
She looked at him, her gaze softening a little, then looked away. “We’ll have to call them, won’t we?”
“Let’s not do it yet. Maybe a miracle will happen and the weather will clear.”
“Maybe.”
He sighed and pulled his plate back in front of him. “We might as well eat this stuff. If the weather clears, we won’t want to worry about food.”
“I guess you’re right.” She took a bite of her soggy sandwich.
They ate in silence, until he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Look, I’m sorry I got you into this, Lor. I didn’t mean for it to turn into such a mess.”
She brought her napkin to her lips. When she met his gaze again, he caught his breath at the compassion in her eyes.
This time she didn’t look away. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “Divorce is hell. I ought to know that much at least, and I haven’t been much help. I think it’s a bad idea for us to get involved again, but if you need to talk, we seem to have some time on our hands. I’m willing to listen.”
He was still for a moment. She was inviting him to talk about his divorce, but he found that wasn’t the subject uppermost on his mind anymore. “I do need to talk,” he said carefully, “but not about Anita or the divorce.”
Wariness flickered in her eyes.
“I’ve been waiting for twenty-three years to find out why you never answered my letters.”
The wariness turned to apprehension as she straightened in her seat. “That was so long ago, Adam. Let’s leave the past in the past.”
“It may be long ago to you, but it’s like yesterday to me. Sending those letters off, one after another, and waiting for mail call the way you might wait for your lottery number to come up. And it never came up.”
“Adam...” She glanced nervously around the restaurant and he realized he must have raised his voice.
Picking up the tab from the table, he tossed down a tip. “Let’s get out of here.”
“And go where?”
He stood. “I don’t know. But this isn’t where I want to discuss this.”
She slid out of the booth. “I think it’s better if we don’t discuss it at”
“Come on.” Without giving her a chance to protest further, he headed for the cash register. After paying the bill, he led the way through the casino and out the door. A brief overhang protected them from the rain, but the space was too confining for him.
He glanced out at the covered boat dock floating in front of the hotel. Every casino had one, and skiffs shuttled people from one gambling opportunity to another. But the rain had discouraged most of the casino-hopping and the dock was empty.
“Let’s go down there,” he suggested, taking her hand. She didn’t withdraw it as they ran through the rain and down the steps to the dock. Under the canopy, Adam found a dry section of bench and sat down, putting his bundle of clothes next to him.
Loren disengaged her hand and sat several feet away, her clothes on her lap. She remained silent, as if unwilling to reopen the conversation.
He took a deep breath. “Well?”
She stared out at the swift current of water for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear it over the gurgling water. “I tore up your first few letters unread, because I wanted to hurt you.” Her grip on her clothes bundle tightened until her knuckles showed white. “You’d chosen that damn war over me.”
“That’s not true.”
She offered him nothing but her profile. “Isn’t it?”
“No.” He cocked his knee on the bench so he was facing her. “I chose the person I wanted to be, instead of the one you wanted me to be.”
She met his gaze. “Meaning I wanted you alive and you wanted to be dead?”
“Meaning I had to go and I knew you’d never agree with that. But I thought, in time, you might understand if I explained it. So I wrote the letters.” How he’d labored over them, while the other guys in the unit smoked grass and told him he was an idiot for writing to a commie war protester. “Did you read any of them? The later ones, maybe?”
She looked away and swallowed. “No. I destroyed them all without opening a single one.”
“Damn you! I poured my guts out in those letters!”
Her words seemed forced past a constricted throat. “How could I read them? By the time each letter got to me, you could have been dead. I couldn’t stand to think about you over there, so I pretended you weren’t. If I’d read the letters, I would have had to face what was happening to you.”
He stared at her, his heart a sodden weight in his chest.
She turned her head and her dark eyes glistened with tears. “I loved you so much, Adam.”
A lump lodged in his throat. Loved. Past tense.
* * *
LOREN’S WHOLE BODY ached, as if the dredged-up memories had invaded every part of her system with pain. “I told you we should leave it in the past,” she whispered, wiping at her eyes.
“I can’t.” He halved the distance between them, and her senses flashed a warning. “Being cut off from you all these years was like being cut off from a part of myself. So many times I thought of coming to see you, but you were married. You married Jack before I came home.”
“I know.” She accepted the accusation in his tone, knowing he was right to accuse her. She’d acted out of malice and fear.
“Couldn’t you have waited? I came home two months after you married him. Two months, Loren. Were you so desperate to have him?”
“Yes.” From the way he recoiled, she knew she’d cut deep. “He was the exact opposite of you. He was like a talisman I could hold up to protect myself from you.”
“You didn’t have to protect yourself, for God’s sake!”
“I thought I did. I’d backed myself into an ideological corner. I’d denounced what you did by going over there, but I didn’t trust myself to stay away from you if you came back.”
“What would have been so bad about that?”
“Don’t you see? I thought it was a test of my character to reject you on principle. Jack was a reminder of those principles.”
Adam’s jaw worked and he looked away. “If he was so damn wonderful, why did you divorce him?”
She hesitated, a little ashamed, even now, of how poor her choice had been. “He refused to take any responsibility for me or Josh,” she admitted. “He said it was because he had a responsibility to the anti-war movement and didn’t have the time or energy for a paying job.”
Adam sucked in his breath but said nothing.
“So I worked and supported all three of us while I finished my degree.” Her basic honesty forced her to tell it all. “But a funny thing happened. The war ended, and Jack found another cause that required sign-carrying and passing out leaflets. I finally figured out he was just lazy.”
Adam turned to her, his eyes ablaze. “And that’s the creep who took my place?”
“You shouldn’t be surprised.” Sadness filled her as she remembered all the rifts created during those years. “People chose up sides back then. Jack was on my side. You weren’t. Black and white, right and wrong.”
“God, Loren. It was never that simple.”
“When you’re young, it seems simple.”
“I guess it does.”
“And by the time I let go of my need to be right, by the time y
ou and I could have had a reasonable discussion about our differences...”
“I was married,” he finished wearily.
She nodded. “And judging from Daphne’s age, you didn’t take very long to do it, either.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Such a clich;aae. I married her on the rebound, got her pregnant on our honeymoon. It was as if I had to show you, too. But I still wished you’d have called me. It would have helped so much knowing what was going on in your head.”
“Be honest, Adam. Would seeing each other then have helped anything for us?
He gazed at her for a long while. “I suppose not.”
She gave him a small smile. “And you left me, remember? Then you married someone else.”
“So did you!”
“True, but just because my marriage was a mistake didn’t mean yours was. I had my pride, Adam. I wasn’t about to call you up and admit that my life was in chaos because of bad choices. What if I discovered that yours was just peachy? Then what?”
“But it wasn’t.” He touched her cheek. “I needed you, Loren.”
As his fingers caressed her cheek, she told herself to move away, to put more distance between them. But the tenderness of his gaze still had the power to hold her captive.
His fingers trembled slightly as he cupped her jaw. “When I got home and discovered you’d only been married two months, I made Jim tell me where you lived. I almost came storming over to that little trailer.”
She looked into his eyes, mesmerized as always by the sound of his voice, the whisper of his touch. The telltale quickening of her heartbeat sounded a warning, but she was helpless to heed it.
“I figured if you’d only been married two months, I could get you to leave him.” His thumb brushed her lower lip.
“By then, I was already pregnant.”
“I thought of that.” He drew her subtly closer. “I didn’t care.”
Her blood fizzed in her veins, awakening long-dormant yearnings. “You’d take a woman carrying another man’s child?”
“If that woman happened to be you.” He leaned down, his breath warm against her mouth. “Would you have come with me?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
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