by Carol Devine
Reiterating her point, Meg handed Katie over to Jack for the walk outside to the car. He had proved himself tonight, both as parent and ally. To pretend otherwise denied the profoundness of the insight he had shared with Katie.
Following him out to the Jaguar, Meg helped buckle Katie into the back seat. They spoke in tones suitable for a funeral, hushed and grave. Meg conceded it was a funeral of sorts, a burial of the bitterness she had felt toward him just a scant hour ago. There was much more to Jack Tarkenton than met the eye.
She studied him in the darkness of the car as he drove the serpentine road, noting the frequency with which he checked the rearview mirror, his concern for Katie evident. No longer was it hard for Meg to believe that this man had been a towheaded little boy in short pants who, some thirty years ago, accepted the American flag that had draped his father’s coffin. Jack knew exactly what Katie was going through because he’d been there himself.
He was capable of selfless giving, of empathy. She had just been too bitter about their affair to admit it. But admit it Meg did, the moment the car cleared the gates of the estate. “Thank you for what you said to Katie tonight. She obviously needed to hear it.”
“I’ve lost almost five years with her, Meg. I don’t want to lose any more. I want us to get married as soon as possible.”
Meg flinched at the flatness in his tone. “I concede the pointlessness of sticking by my original conditions,” she said carefully. “But I won’t dishonor my late husband’s memory by considering marriage right now.”
“Then when?”
Meg rubbed her temples. The pressure she felt hardly eased. It didn’t help when warm, strong fingers reached over and massaged the tightly wrought muscles of her neck. “Don’t,” she protested.
As usual, he didn’t stop. As usual, she felt guilty about how good it felt, how attuned he was to what her body needed, how frightened it made her that he soothed her in exactly the right way. The need to succumb beckoned with its siren’s call.
The force of that need brought a terrible ache to her throat. She hated how easily he did this to her, hated the division between her body and her mind. Even if he was willing to make the sacrifices necessary to do right by Katie, falling into his arms was not the answer. Leopards didn’t change their spots, and perennial playboys like Jack Tarkenton didn’t give up their taste for the fast lane, either.
“Meg? What is it?”
She shook her head, unable to speak past the huge lump in her throat. He was still the same man, all right, the man who had caused her unspeakable heartache. Just because he had a soft spot in his heart for Katie didn’t mean he had a soft spot in his heart for anyone else.
Meg swiped her eyes. Quick as it was, it didn’t escape his notice. Swearing, he swerved onto the shoulder of the road and stopped the car. She protested, but his hands settled on her shoulders and brought her around to face him.
“Meg, talk to me. What’s the matter?”
The dim lights of the dashboard carved shadows into his face, emphasizing the strength of his features. What was she supposed to say? That she was far more attracted to him than to her dear, departed husband? “I can’t,” she whispered.
“Yes, you can.” He tipped her chin up, his fingers cradling her jaw. “After what we went through tonight, you’ve got to know you can tell me anything.”
She squeezed her eyes shut to ward off the intensity of feeling in his eyes, but she could still hear the persuasiveness in his tone and feel the warmth caressing her face.
“You can cry, Meg. It’s all right.”
Shaking her head, Meg thumped the seat and bit down hard on her knuckles. He was wrong. Crying didn’t help. Crying didn’t stop the people she loved from being hurt. She didn’t want them to feel disappointed m her or betrayed. She didn’t want Katie to feel betrayed, either. Katie had been told the most lies of all.
The torrent of agony that thought unleashed had Meg shaking with the grief she should have felt when Allen died. Except Katie was the one Meg truly grieved for. How could she forget all the times Katie waited at the window of the living room, staring out at the street? Or more terrible still, the mornings Meg found her curled on the floor under her bedroom window, fast asleep.
“I should have known,” Meg choked out.
“Should have known what?”
“What Katie was going through. She’s been looking for Allen all this time, but I didn’t know what she was doing. I didn’t understand. But I should have. I’m her mother. I should have known.”
“Meg, honey, don’t do this to yourself. You’re a good mother. The best. Even the best can’t know everything.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He swept her damp cheeks with his thumbs, and her chin trembled with the tenderness of the act. “Don’t forget, Meg. You were grieving, too.”
“No,” Meg cried. “You don’t understand.” She caught the open sides of his jacket, bunching it m her fists. She was always so afraid of letting the truth slip, of dropping more than his name, of revealing how well she really knew Jack Tarkenton. “Don’t you see?” she cried. “Everything is a lie.”
Gathering her to his chest, he held her head against the comforting hardness of his shoulder. “Not everything, Meg. Not Katie. If you hadn’t been there to make her feel safe, she never would have opened up tonight.”
“I’d give my last breath to save her from any more pain.”
“I know, babe.” His voice broke. “Me, too.”
Moved by the hot feel of his tears, Meg drew back and reached with her fingertips, finding moisture under his eyes. Holding her hand up into the slicing headlights of passing cars, she rubbed the gleam of moisture between forefinger and thumb.
He captured her hand and laid it alongside his face, his palm pressing her knuckles with a tenderness that took her breath. Staring into his eyes, she wondered at the haunting guilt and concern she saw there. Or was it a trick of the shifting and ghostly light?
He kissed her softly on the lips. She should have stopped herself then, stopped herself from seeking such solace. Or seeking to give it, especially to him. With Jack, there was no such thing as solace. There was only the taste of their tears, salt-warm and natural, as natural as the hunger that opened her mouth to his.
Cradling her head, he sampled her tongue with long, deep strokes. Her sense of urgency grew. She speared fingers through his thick hair, giving as good as she got, desire stealing what remained of her sense. Until she remembered...
“Katie,” she gasped. “Jack, stop. We can’t. Not with Katie here.”
He froze. “Is she awake?”
Meg pulled away from him and peered into the shadowy backseat. “No, thank goodness.”
Jack straightened behind the steering wheel and raked both hands through his hair. “I can’t believe this. We were necking like a couple of teenagers.”
“This can’t happen again.”
“Agreed. Not until we’re married, at least. So when is the happy day going to be?”
“I told you before. I will not discuss this, Jack.”
“We have a child,” he said doggedly and jammed the car into gear, as if trying to muscle it back on the highway. “We have an attraction strong enough to produce that child. It’s a start.”
It was certainly more of a start than she and Allen had. Guilty at the thought, Meg bit her lip. But why should love matter so much? She hadn’t been in love with Allen when she married him. What if she did give in to Jack’s proposal?
The prospect weakened Meg’s knees.
The memories assaulted her. Memories of the first time they met, the first time they came together, the first time they made love. At least she believed it was love. In his arms, she had felt so cherished, special, beyond compare.
The vividness of her recollection reminded her that she and Jack did have something going for them. But sexual chemistry only went so far, especially when it came to marriage. Love didn’t come from sharing a bed. Eventually
he’d tire of her like he did before—like he did with every woman he showed an interest in. Inevitably, he would move on to someone else. And Meg knew she wasn’t the type who could turn a blind eye to immoral behavior. Otherwise saying yes to his proposal would be an empty gesture, and the vows they would make to each other would be empty, too.
For the hundredth time, Meg wished she knew Jack better. Except she did know him. Every time she got within two feet of him, her pounding heart reminded her of how well. And she couldn’t forget he was the one who got Katie to talk tonight, to confess the wishes in her hopeful little heart. He asked the hard questions, the right questions. And he was her biological father.
Meg closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest of the car, praying for guidance, praying to do what was right.
His life was an open book. Every talk show host in America had interviewed him at one time or another. He’d been endlessly dissected and analyzed by every psychological and political hack on radio and TV. Most called him clever and cagey, citing his quest to circumvent the expectations that came with the Tarkenton name as understandable, considering the enormity of his father’s contributions to the world. The paparazzi certainly never let him get away with a thing.
“What’s it going to take, Meg?” he asked. “I promise to be there for Katie no matter what. You and I will stand together as her parents. Commitments don’t get much more serious than that.”
“I need to see more of you and Katie together.”
“You have seen us together. You’ll see more over the next few weeks.”
“Good grief,” she burst out. “Do we have to decide our entire future tonight?”
“Time is of the essence.” He glanced back at Katie and lowered his voice. “People are already talking about us.”
“If you hadn’t opened your big mouth, your family wouldn’t suspect a thing.”
“I’m not talking about my family. I’m talking about gossips and reporters. My office has already fielded calls about our relationship. Rumors are circulating on the street that we are definitely an item.”
“How can that be? Who else could possibly know?”
“It’s not what people know. It’s what they assume and what they manufacture in order to sell newspapers. Remember when Bram and I picked you and Katie up at her day care center? Somebody there tipped the media. The calls started the next day.”
“You ambushed me there on purpose. You wanted this to happen. You made this happen.”
“The tabloid press is a reality, Meg. Whether we get married in two years or two months, you’ll have to learn to deal with it.”
“Me? What about you? You’re the one who started this!”
“Is that going to be your attitude when the paparazzi turn their cameras on Katie? She’s going to be as much a victim as you are.”
“How am I supposed to explain this to her? I can’t justify getting married to you right now to myself, much less to any one else. People are going to think I’m pregnant and we had to get married.”
“Time will take care of that rumor. As for our decision to marry sooner rather than later, all you have to do is say what I’m going to say: Because of the close family ties between the Tarkentons and the Mastersons, you and I have known each other for a long time. When Allen died, it was natural for me, given my own experience with the death of a loved one, to offer my help and support. But our friendship turned into something more.”
“You should be a politician. You can rationalize anything.”
“It’s a gift that runs in my family.”
But Meg wondered how could she ever trust what he said when he could manipulate the truth so easily. “Your gift is one I don’t particularly like,” she told him.
He chuckled. “Don’t worry. You’ll come to appreciate it more and more as time goes by.”
“No, I won’t. Look, Jack, drop the idea of us getting married any time soon. It’s not going to happen.”
“No, you look,” he retorted, his cavalier attitude gone. “You’re right about my wild reputation, especially where women are concerned. Couple that with the truth about how Katie was conceived and we’ve got a time bomb on our hands. I can’t protect either one of you without benefit of marriage. It gives me the power to seek legal recourse if some reporter sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“If someone gets wind of the truth, legal recourse is going to be the least of our problems. Besides, even John B. Tarkenton Jr. isn’t rich enough to sue everybody.”
“I won’t have to. I know how these media people operate. If you and I work together, we can string them along, make them believe anything we want. We have to live under the same roof to do it, though. Now, I don’t know about you, but I think our living together is going to be a whole lot easier to explain to Katie and our families if you’re wearing a wedding ring.”
“I’m already wearing a wedding ring. See?” She flashed her left hand.
“You’re a widow, Meg.”
“Can’t you get it through your thick head? Allen’s barely cold in his grave!”
“You loved your husband. I understand.”
Meg opened her mouth to refute him, but at this point, she certainly wasn’t about to engage Jack in a discussion about the finer points of her marriage to Allen. “How would you feel if I threw this back at you?” she demanded. “What if I said you have to completely change how you live your life. No more women. No more parties. No more expensive toys. No more jetting around whenever and wherever you want. For once in your life, you’ll have to consider the feelings of someone else, namely me.”
“Interesting proposition.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Are you saying you want fidelity? You’ve got it. As my wife, you can expect me to be a model husband. I’ll even give you veto power over all my travel arrangements. Satisfied?”
“Separate bedrooms.”
He shot her a glance. “Is that what we’re negotiating now? Sleeping arrangements? Certainly you don’t expect us to remain celibate for the rest of our lives.”
She didn’t bat an eye. “I’m not making any promises. You’ll have to find a job, too.”
“Meg,” he reminded her gently. “I have an office in the city.”
“There’s a difference between a job and an office. I won’t have you hanging around my house all day.”
“Your house?” He hooted. “You can’t seriously believe I’d live in the suburbs of New Jersey.”
“Why not? It’s a nice, quiet neighborhood filled with nice, quiet people.”
Unwilling to enter the territory of nice and quiet, much less explain why he didn’t want to live in the house she had shared with Mr. Perfect Husband, Jack changed the subject. “It’s the media, Meg. They’ll swarm the place. They can’t be ignored.”
“A few weeks of nice and quiet should take care of that problem.”
“We can live anywhere in the world, anywhere you want,” he offered. “You won’t have to work, won’t have to lift a finger.”
“I happen to like working. I happen to like living in the suburbs of New Jersey, too.”
Jack cursed under his breath. “Then I do want to hang around with Katie the three days a week you commute into the city. I want to have that time with her.”
“She likes her day-care place and she likes coming into the city with me.”
“She’ll like her time with me better. Now, the only point of contention is the date of the wedding.”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“What’s not true? You accepted my proposal. You waived your conditions on it. We agree that Katie must be protected at all costs. I’ll concede the point that she should keep Allen’s name. There’s no greater tribute to a father than that. What more do you want?”
“For you to stop rushing me!”
“Suppose your sainted Allen had to make a choice between running the risk of offending people or exposing Katie to possible harm?
Which would he choose?”
Meg said a very inelegant word, in French no less, which only served to make him switch to French, too. Meg shut out the eloquence of his message but that didn’t stop her from remembering he had performed the very same feat when they first met. His fluency impressed her as much now as it did then. Jack knew how to use every persuasive language there was, sensual and otherwise.
She thought she had learned how to answer him. She’d run out of answers tonight.
Six
Meg searched Jack’s determined profile in the dimness of the Jaguar. “What will we tell our families?” she asked.
“The truth.” He shrugged. “We’re getting married on New Year’s Day.”
“In six weeks? They won’t believe it.”
“Then we’ll have to make them believe it, won’t we? A kiss here, a caress there...”
He flashed his patented grin her way, the devil smiling in his eyes. She bit back her own devil and confessed her biggest worry. “You’ve hardly spent any time with Katie. She won’t be fooled.”
“Children never are. Developmentally, her age gives us a little leeway. Fairy tales are as true to her as real life. She’ll see her mother kiss the frog and believe that you and I will live happily ever after.”
The smug authority in his voice irritated Meg. “Since when do you know so much about raising children?”
“I admit I don’t have your sterling credentials. J.J.’s been an education, though.”
“Girls are a lot different from boys.”
“I’ll be sure to look to you for advice. After we’re married, that is.”
Married. Had she actually agreed to it? “I have another condition.”
“And what might that be?”
“I want a justice of the peace,” Meg said quietly. “Only family will attend.”
“I want the ceremony at the estate, in order to keep it as private as possible. And I want Katie there.”