This Time Love

by Elizabeth Lowell

  I should have been with her.

  Is she pregnant even now? If she is, where will she be when she gives birth?

  Where will I be?

  The questions came at Gabe like rocks careening down the face of a Peruvian cliff. And like the cliff, there was no cover for him, nowhere to hide, no way to turn aside the battering tide.

  Has she learned to protect herself?

  Has she simply cut the possibility of pregnancy from her life?

  Does she think that now is a safe time for her, that she can be my lover for a few days and not get pregnant?

  Or did she want me so much that she took the risk without thinking?

  The most logical answer—that for whatever reason Joy couldn’t get pregnant right now—was probably also the correct one. But he couldn’t be certain.

  The Joy of today was not the Joy of seven years ago. She gave her body to him, yes, perfectly. But the rest of her was like Lost River Cave, moments of glittering illumination against a backdrop of mystery as deep as time.

  It wasn’t so much that Joy hid.

  It was that she didn’t reveal.

  Despite their time together, he wasn’t much closer to truly knowing Joy than he’d been in Peru.

  She trusts me enough to be my lover. That’s progress, isn’t it?

  But becoming his lover today didn’t require the same level of trust for her that it had seven years ago.

  Not once in all the shattering intimacy of their recent hours together had Joy cried out her love for him. Not once had she even hinted that she wanted a future that included him.

  Not once.

  This time there are no ties, no traps, no hidden expectations.

  There is no future.

  There is only now.

  Seven years ago he might have accepted the passionate moment and asked for nothing more.

  It was too soon for you to love seven years ago—and now it’s too late for me.

  Gabe told himself that Joy was wrong, that it wasn’t too late. Then he told himself again. And again.

  He couldn’t lose her before he even knew what he had found.

  Twenty-six

  AS JOY DROVE THE JEEP BACK TOWARD COTTONWOOD Wells, she sensed Gabe watching her with shadowed eyes. The only conversation in the Jeep was Kati’s chatter, bright and overflowing with fun. Joy answered her daughter’s questions with part of her mind, which left plenty of time for her to wonder what Gabe was thinking that had put such darkness in his eyes.

  She was afraid that it was the circumstances surrounding Kati’s birth. He’d been visibly shocked. Well, that wasn’t surprising. She’d been shocked herself when she realized what was going to happen. And then she didn’t have any time or energy or emotion left over for anything but giving birth to her impatient daughter.

  Joy knew that he would question her about the birth as soon as they were alone. She was grateful that he was waiting to satisfy his curiosity. Seven years ago he wouldn’t have let anything get in the way of his questions. He’d been almost ruthless then. He still could be now.

  But so could she.

  She understood now what she hadn’t understood seven years ago: some ruthlessness was necessary in order to survive.

  “Can Laura stay this weekend?” Kati asked eagerly. “You can pick us up after school and you can take us to the bus on Monday. Then I can go home with her for the last week of school.”

  Joy made an all-purpose mothering sound that said she was listening but not promising anything.

  Quickly, earnestly, Kati kept talking, words spilling out one after the other. This was just one of many skirmishes in the two girls’ continuing effort to persuade both mothers that they should have two daughters at a time or none.

  “Then you won’t have to get me to the bus stop all the time, and you’ll have lots and lots of time to go caving, too. ‘Specially since I can’t go with you anyway,” Kati finished triumphantly. She turned to Gabe with a bright smile. “Don’t you think that’s a great idea?”

  “I think you’re asking the wrong person,” Joy said.

  “But—”

  “Your mother’s right,” he said. “It’s not fair for you to try to get someone else to say yes for her.”

  Kati gave him a very disappointed look out of big gray eyes. “You’re no fun.”

  He smiled and shook his head slowly at her.

  “Won’t work, button,” he said, tapping the golden freckles on her nose with a gentle fingertip. “I was a kid once. I know all the ways to wheedle a yes out of parents.”

  In flat disbelief Kati looked up at the man beside her. “You were a kid?”

  “Sure was.”

  “Really? Did you have a mother and father and everything?”

  Gabe managed not to wince or look at Joy. “Yes. And a brother, too.”

  “Did you get to live with him all the time?”

  “Whether we liked it or not.” He smiled crookedly, remembering the times when he and his brother had fought. Then the smile slipped. Their most recent fight had been by radiophone, when Gabe had reamed Dan for saying that Joy had had an abortion. Dan hadn’t been pleased.

  Hey, don’t yell at me, little brother. She told me to go to hell and she would do what was best for her. What was I supposed to think? In my shoes, what would you have thought?

  “Gee, were you ever lucky,” Kati said.

  “Yeah,” Gabe said, meaning it. He might want to kick his older brother’s ass around the block a few times, but he couldn’t imagine life without him.

  “I want a sister but Mommy says they don’t grow on trees.”

  His smile was almost sad. “You sure about that?”

  Kati rolled her eyes at his teasing and leaned closer to him. “I used to think they did. Every morning I’d get up and run out and look at the cottonwoods near the cottages.” She sighed hugely. “Just leaves or twigs and branches. Lots and lots and lots of them. Even on Christmas morning.”

  “Tell you what, button.” Joy’s smile was tight, aching. She heard her own endless longing for a sister or a brother in her daughter’s voice. “I’ll call Susan and we’ll work something out about Laura. Okay?”

  “Okay! When? Could we have a cookout when Laura comes over? Will Fish bring his guitar and Gravy-bear sing?” Kati fairly bounced with excitement as she turned to Gabe. “Do you sing?”

  “Not for a long time.”

  “Oh.” Kati’s face fell.

  “For you, I’ll sing.”

  “Oh, goody!” Kati’s face lit up with a smile that was very like her mother’s. “It’ll be so fun! We’ll have a fire and marshmallows and ketchup and—”

  “Ketchup?” Gabe asked warily.

  “Yeah. You know, for the hot dogs.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s a relief.”

  “What is?” Kati asked.

  “That you don’t put ketchup on the marshmallows.”

  “Eeeeewww. Gross. Who’d do a yucky thing like that?”

  “Someone really, really hungry?” he asked, deadpan.

  Joy snickered.

  Kati rolled her eyes again. Adults could be so silly. “When we’re done eating we stay up late and sing and watch the Glitter River. That’s my favorite part.”

  After the ketchup and marshmallow mix-up, Gabe was almost afraid to ask. Curiosity got the better of him. “Glitter River?”

  “Yeah. That’s the, uh, the—I forget the name. Mommy?”

  “Milky Way.”

  “Milky Way,” Kati repeated seriously and turned back to Gabe. “It’s not made of milk, you know.”

  “Really?”

  “How would that many cows get up there?”

  “Um, good point.”

  “It’s stars. Lots and lots of stars. They must be easier to move up there than cows. Mommy showed me a book with lots of pictures. I want to go there when I grow up.”

  Gabe pulled his mind back from visualizing a cosmic herd of Holsteins. “Go where? The stars?”

 
“Sure!”

  Emotion closed around his throat in a vise, squeezing words into silence as he heard echoes of his own childhood dreams in his daughter’s eager voice. When he’d been Kati’s age, he’d wanted to go to the stars. That hadn’t been possible, so he’d done the next best thing. He’d explored as much of the earth as he could.

  And it had been there for his taking, for his exploring, for his unending delight. He drank the wonder of earth’s beauty and variety until he overflowed. Then he shared what he could in words.

  For a time it was enough.

  But no matter how diverse, how extraordinary, how mysterious, the wonders of the world could no longer fill the emptiness he’d sensed growing inside himself. Yet the unknown would always call to him. He could no more imagine a life without exploration and discovery than he could imagine being dead.

  “Glitter River,” he said. “And each possibility is a separate bit of shining beauty.”

  Kati laughed and held out her hands as though to grab it all.

  Smiling, he touched the flyaway softness of her hair and wondered how a child could have summed up his own feelings toward life and living so well. His smile faded when he realized that this bright and beautiful child might slowly, unknowingly, become as empty as he had, an emptiness he was only now beginning to measure as it was filled by Joy.

  He didn’t want emptiness for his daughter. He wanted life to be one magnificent Glitter River, possibilities cascading endlessly into her outstretched hands. He felt for his daughter the same helpless love that had made Joy pray Kati would find life more gentle with her dreams than her mother had.

  But there was no guarantee that life would be kind to Kati Anderson.

  The realization sent a shaft of agony through him. He couldn’t live Kati’s life for her, couldn’t choose for her from among the men who would come to taste her sweetness. He could only pray silently that she chose a better man than her father.

  His prayer was no more comforting than Joy’s had been.

  Twenty-seven

  AS THE JEEP PULLED UP TO THE COTTAGES, DAVY CAME out to greet everyone with a triumphant smile. “Fish’s wife is on the way out with supplies. Said she’d play War with Kati while we go caving.”

  “I’ll cook dinner tonight,” Gabe and Joy said at the same time.

  They looked at each other and laughed.

  “Enlightened self-interest at work,” Gabe said in a low voice.

  She gave him a smile and a sideways look that made him catch his breath. It reminded him of how rarely she smiled now compared to seven years ago. The thought that he might have taken her laughter as well as her innocence was as painful to him as the knowledge that he couldn’t save his daughter from life’s unpleasant surprises. He could only watch and pray and love.

  “I’ll clean up,” Davy said quickly. “I hate cooking,” he added to no one in particular.

  “Really?” Gabe’s dark eyebrows lifted. “I thought it was just that everything you touched turned to”—he looked hastily at Kati—“mutt mulch.”

  “Oh, but Kati loves my cooking, don’t you?” Davy asked, lifting the little girl out of the Jeep and tossing her gently toward the sky.

  “You cook just like a Gravy-bear,” she said, laughing and tugging at Davy’s blond hair.

  “I think that child has a career as a diplomat,” Gabe said.

  “Stabbed!” Davy spread one hand over his heart and settled Kati in the crook of his other arm. “By my own sweet little girl, too.”

  “Where’s the blood? Show me!” Kati giggled and pulled at the top of Davy’s T-shirt until she could peer inside. “Eeeeew! Hair! Gravy-bear is hairy, Gravy-bear is hairy,” she singsonged while he carried her up the porch and into the house.

  Gabe laughed softly as he and Joy climbed out of the Jeep. He was amazed by Kati’s unending energy and laughing acceptance of life. He looked over at Joy when they started up the path to the cottage.

  “That’s a fine little girl you’ve raised,” he said. “She’s so open. So alive.”

  Unable to speak, Joy simply stood and watched him with transparent gray eyes. She couldn’t prevent the fine, sudden shimmer of tears as his words sank into her, dissolving away years of hidden fear, secret doubt. There had been so many days when she wondered if she was doing the right thing in raising Kati alone, and so many nights when she’d been too tired or too busy to give her daughter all the time she deserved.

  “Thank you,” Joy whispered. “There are times when I feel I’ve done everything wrong as a parent.”

  He looked into her eyes and saw the hesitations, the doubts, the relentless pressures of raising a child alone. He framed Joy’s face with his hands and bent low, brushing his lips over her damp eyelashes.

  “You’ve always loved her,” he said. “No child can ask more than that of a parent.”

  Her tears felt hot on his lips. He sensed the tremor that went through her. When she turned her face up to him, he kissed her very gently, felt her breath sighing into his mouth as her hands opened against his chest.

  “Dr. Joyce, I think we should try—” The front door of the cottage slammed and Davy’s voice stopped at the same instant.

  Gabe nestled Joy against his body and turned her face into his chest, concealing her tears.

  Davy stared, shocked.

  “We don’t always fight,” Gabe said. “Sometimes we make up.”

  Davy looked from the hard-faced older man to the woman he held so protectively against his chest. “Uh, right. Looks like this is one of those make-up times.” He ran his hand through his thick thatch of blond hair and sighed. “Guess I better get lost.”

  “No problem,” Gabe said. “Just wanted you to know the way things are.” With barely a pause he added, “I’ll bet Maggie could use some help getting lunch ready.”

  “Maggie,” Davy said.

  “Yes. Maggie. If you’re interested. If not, that’s okay.” Gabe shrugged. “She’s a lot of woman and nobody’s fool. She’ll find someone else.”

  Davy met Gabe’s hard green glance for another moment before he smiled crookedly. “Funny. In the two years I’ve known her, she never mentioned your name.”

  Both men knew that Davy wasn’t talking about Maggie.

  Gabe didn’t answer. He simply continued to hold Joy against his chest, caressing her hair gently with his hand, shielding her from any eyes but his own.

  Davy hesitated, then shrugged. “Looks like a good time to make sandwiches.” He smiled suddenly. “If you see Dr. Joyce, would you ask her if we’re going to take on Joy’s Castle after I eat?”

  “Yes,” Joy said.

  Her voice was muffled against Gabe’s chest. She shook her head and started laughing helplessly.

  “God,” she muttered, meeting Gabe’s amused, gentle glance, “I feel like a teenager caught on the front porch swing with her date.”

  Davy smiled slightly. “You look like one, too. Didn’t know you could blush. Or is that sunburn on the back of your neck?” he teased.

  She groaned and buried her face against Gabe’s chest again. She didn’t lift her head until the sound of Davy’s laughter faded behind the noise of Maggie’s creaky cabin door opening and closing.

  Sighing, Joy put her arms around Gabe and absorbed the sweetness of being held by him beneath the brilliant desert sun. She didn’t care that Kati or Fish or Maggie might appear at any moment. She needed Gabe right now, needed his strength and his concern, his gentle, supportive hug.

  It had been so long since anyone had held her, simply held her, giving to her rather than asking something of her.

  Silently Gabe bent his head until he could rest his cheek against Joy’s sun-streaked hair. He inhaled deeply, feeling like he was breathing her into his soul and she was a light filling him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a woman with no expectation of immediately making love to her.

  Then he realized that he’d never held a woman like this, ever, absorbing her like she was life its
elf.

  “Mommy,” Kati said, coming out onto the porch, “when are you going to call Susan?”

  Reluctantly Gabe loosened his arms to let Joy turn and face their daughter. Instead of stepping away, Joy put her arms over his and leaned against him.

  “Soon, button,” Joy said.

  Kati looked curiously from her mother to the tall man who held her. “Why were you hugging Gabe?”

  Joy had never ducked Kati’s questions in the past, no matter how difficult they were to answer. She wouldn’t duck them now. “Because I like him.”

  “Don’t you like Gravy-bear and Fish?”

  “Of course I do. Very much.”

  “But you don’t hug them.”

  “They aren’t Gabe,” Joy said simply.

  Kati thought that over for a moment, her gray eyes as serious as her mother’s. Then the little girl nodded, accepting both the explanation and the emotional logic beneath it. “I’m hungry.”

  Joy let out a soundless breath of relief. “On to the really important things in life,” she said so softly that only Gabe could hear.

  “Like food?” he asked equally softly.

  “Like food.” She smiled at her daughter. “Maggie’s fixing sandwiches right now to take down in the cave.”

  “Oh boy! Suppose she’s finished yet?”

  “Suppose you could help her?” Joy countered.

  Kati sighed. Fixing tacos was fun. Fixing sandwiches was work. On the other hand, she was really hungry. “I’ll ask.”

  She started toward Maggie’s cottage with about one-third her normal speed and enthusiasm.

  Together Gabe and Joy walked through the cottage to the backyard, where a long clothesline was hung with freshly washed caving gear. She could have used the electric dryer, but preferred the sun-fresh smell of clothes dried on the line. It took some of the load off the generators, too.

  While Joy took down the warm, clean clothes, he watched her as if seeing her for the first time.

  “Tell me about Kati’s birth,” he said.

  Joy’s hands hesitated over a piece of mesh underwear. Then she lifted the clothespins. “It was a classic case of too much, too soon and then too little, too late.”