Stitch In Snow

by Anne McCaffrey

  Three weeks in a doubly empty house? And Mairead far too involved with Nick to want to share his company? I would go absolutely stark raving bonkers.

  I noticed glumly that the calendar said it was D-Day. Deserted Day, I grembled to myself. I was on my fourth cup of coffee. Mr. Murphy had brought only circular mail, sent surface from the States. It was fund-raising time for colleges so I didn’t even have anything palatable to browse through with my coffee. Or answer later, thus disposing of more heavy time. Injury upon insult!

  The doorbell purred and then someone applied the knocker vigorously to the door as if they didn’t trust mechanical devices.

  ‘I’m coming! I’m coming.’

  I wondered who the hell would be so insistent. And then ran, because, maybe something had happened to Tim and Trish, and it was the Gardai . . .

  I hauled open the door and stared.

  Leaning indolently against the doorjamb was Daniel Jerome Lowell, his mouth twitching in echo of the pure devilment in his serge-blue eyes.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  I clung to the door handle so as not to throw my arms about his neck, sternly telling myself that I’d’ve been glad to see anyone who wasn’t the bearer of bad tidings.

  The light went out of his eyes. I know I had sounded shrewish with relief, but I was trying not to sound overjoyed, too. Nothing more certain to put a man off . . .

  I grabbed his hand and pulled him over the threshold.

  ‘Tim and Trish left yesterday on their bikes . . .’ I said in a rush of explanation. ‘And the way you . . . summoned me . . . I was scared stiff it was the Gardai reporting an accident. Don’t stand there! Come in. When did you get here? Oh, you’ve a car. Why didn’t you phone? I’d’ve picked you up at the airport. Are you staying long? I didn’t mean to sound inhospitable or . . .’

  Baggins came charging out of the bushes to inspect the newcomer and the awkwardness of my greeting was covered by necessary introductions. I wasn’t surprised that Baggins liked Dan and lick-kissed him. I’d’ve been more surprised if Baggins had been aggressive.

  ‘I got in this morning,’ Dan said, still ruffling Baggins’ neck fur, ‘I don’t know how long I’m staying and I didn’t mean to alarm you. I need a car for transport so I didn’t phone you and you’re a marvelous dog, aren’t you, Baggins?’

  Baggins promptly produced more ecstasies of welcome, wriggling between Dan’s legs so that he almost tripped Dan up.

  ‘Would you like some coffee, Dan?’

  ‘I’d love some . . .’

  ‘. . . Or breakfast?’

  ‘I’d in mind to invite you out to lunch . . .’

  ‘Good heavens, what time is it?’

  ‘Nearly twelve . . .’

  ‘But you must be exhausted if you came in on that morning flight.’

  ‘I’m used to flying.’

  ‘I’ll fix the coffee. I won’t be a minute . . .’ I got out of the room, so flustered that I dropped the kettle into the sink as I tried to fill it. The fluster then descended to my innards and my hands shook so that I spilled coffee as I filled the filter top, dropped a coffee mug, fortunately only into the plastic dish drainer so it was unscathed.

  ‘This place is just right for you Jenny.’ he said, appearing in the archway from the dining room. ‘Had it long?’

  ‘Three years now.’ Yes, yes, talk inanities until you can get your breath back. ‘You’re sure you don’t want an egg and some good Irish bacon?’

  ‘I said I wanted to take you out to lunch . . .’

  He really was in my kitchen, the warm orange of the walls making his tanned face darker. He looked much less haggard than he had the last time I’d seen him. In Denver, in Peter’s living room. His hair was shorter, though, and he’d trimmed the moustache recently. The casual shirt, open at his throat, the dark blue blazer made his presence all the more overpowering for me.

  ‘Unless you’ve something else planned . . .’

  ‘No, Tim and Trish left yesterday on their trip . . .’

  ‘I know . . .’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You just told me,’ and he jerked his head backwards toward the front of the house and then he grinned, coming towards me. ‘Besides, Tim told me he and Trish would be gone by the sixth . . .’ Dan moved across the small room, towards me.

  ‘Tim told you?’

  ‘Yes, when I came to Bethlehem. Only you’d already hightailed it out of the States . . .’

  I swallowed. To think I had missed him by such a small margin. ‘I had no reason to remain. My tour was over. Tim and I had had our visit. I was anxious to get home . . .’

  If he didn’t move away from me, six weeks of careful discipline, or stern exorcism . . .

  He did move, but not away. Closer. He leaned against the counter, facing me, and before I could turn away from his gaze, he had caught my chin and tipped my face up.

  ‘Jenny,’ he said and folded me into his arms because he’d seen the ridiculous watering of my eyes. ‘Jenny, Jenny!’ And he kissed my cheek and stroked my hair, not at all the way Tim does, and loved me with his hands and the length of his body while I stupidly bawled away the longing and frustration of the last six weeks.

  ‘Jenny! Jenny?’ He framed my face with both hands and kissed me slowly, ever so slowly, leisurely as if he had all the time in the world.

  Except that I’d put the kettle on and it’s the whistling kind.

  He didn’t interrupt the kiss but with one hand, he let go of me and tried to find the kettle. He burned his hand and that broke the kiss.

  I was all contrition but my weeps had turned to laughter as I held his burned lingers under the cold water. I got command of myself.

  ‘You’ll freeze my fingers off,’ he complained, pulling his hand out of mine and examining the red marks critically.

  ‘He who pulls kettle from fire without watchful eye gets fingers burned! I’ve something to take the sting out . . .’

  He snatched me back to his side. ‘Jenny, are you glad to see me?’

  Our eyes met and he slowly dropped his hand, his expression puzzled and expectant. Or hopeful? My behavior had blighted him. He must have come straight from the airport to my house. Tim had obviously given him precise directions for how else could he have found the house? His eyes were weary, too, from travel fatigue and the time change, and anxious.

  Slowly I became aware that his anxiety was real: he was very unsure of his welcome. I had attributed to him more self-confidence and assurance than I now realized he possessed. The murder charge had been a terrible, terrible strain and he had not recovered from that either.

  ‘Did you know that it’s D-Day?’ I asked with the first steadying thought that had come to my mind.

  He blinked in an effort to follow my line of thought.

  ‘I was grembling about the house, full of self-pity when you knocked, banged and clattered at my door like the knell of doom. I’d decided that “D” is for Deserted. Now I guess it’s really “D” for Dan Day.’

  I’d said the right thing. The anxiety cleared out of his face and his eyes began to sparkle as I remembered they could from Denver. Lightly he put his arms around my waist, wincing a bit as he inadvertently clasped the burned fingers.

  ‘Tim told me that I should come the day after he and Trish left because you’d be feeling deserted and I could . . .’ He broke off with a laugh.

  ‘Catch me with my defenses down?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He nodded vigorously, his face smiling. ‘I thought he was wrong at first until . . .’ He hugged me to him, swaying both of us back and forth. ‘Oh, Jenny!’ And he buried his face in my hair, nibbling at my neck.

  Resolutely I pushed him from me, and miraculously he let me.

  ‘Yes, Jenny, we need to talk. Seriously. So make me that coffee which has scarred me for life.’

  Dan perched on one of the breakfast stools as I poured water into the filter top, got out the sugar and milk, added another cup t
o the one I had nearly broken.

  ‘So, why besides making it a “D” for Dan Day, are you in Dublin?’

  ‘I’m here to see you, Jenny.’

  ‘I thought you were doing something about off-shore oil.’

  ‘I’m here to see you, first and foremost, Jenny.’

  ‘Where’s DJ?’ I was scared of why he wanted to see me, first and foremost.

  ‘In Denver with the Taggerts. I wanted him to finish school before . . . Before I made other plans for him.’

  He took the cup I offered, lifting it in a salute.

  ‘He’s had a very rough two years, Jenny . . . If I’d had any idea that he was being so abused . . .’

  ‘Abused?’ I got absolutely rigid with hatred of a woman who’d abuse a nice youngster like DJ. I thought of his sensitive face, the haunted eyes, the intensity of his stare when he measured me up as the person who could absolve his father.

  ‘Not physically,’ Dan hastily reassured me, ‘but I’ve a lot to make up to him. By the way, Tim’s a credit to you. I’d’ve known him anywhere from those books.’

  ‘You haven’t ever read them?’

  ‘DJ insisted,’ and Dan smiled again, this time pure mischief at my shock. ‘And I’ll admit that I thoroughly enjoyed them. Them and a second childhood. Tim and DJ got on very well, by the way . . .’

  ‘Tim and DJ?’ I sank, strengthless, onto the other stool.

  ‘Yes, when DJ found I was going to Bethlehem, he insisted on coming with me. He wanted to thank you, too . . .’

  ‘Oh, Dan, if I’d only known. He must have been so disappointed.’

  ‘Not half as much as I was but then, he met Tim,’ Dan went on blandly. ‘DJ said for me to tell you that he’d’ve known Tim anywhere, too. And I was to say that Tim in person is even nicer than Tim of the books.’

  ‘Except when you want to get him up in the morning to do chores.’

  Dan laughed. ‘And thanks for that sweater, Jenny.’

  ‘You did get it? Did it fit?’

  ‘I have it with me. That’s why I came.’

  ‘Why you came? But you said it fit?’

  ‘So it does. But I had to come, you see, because you’d sent me the sweater.’

  I was confused.

  ‘Why would that make you come? I mean, I did hope to get a note from you saying that it had come . . .’

  ‘I wanted to write, but after I’d talked to Tim . . .’

  ‘But you couldn’t have got the sweater that fast . . .’

  ‘I’ve had quite a few conversations with Tim, Jenny,’ he said gently, ‘because I wasn’t going to appear where I wasn’t wanted.’

  ‘Wasn’t wanted?’

  He put down his coffee mug and I could see that his expression was wary.

  ‘Look, Jenny, I’d had to involve you in a very messy business. I wasn’t at all sure if you ever wanted to see or hear from me again. I sure as hell couldn’t have blamed you. And that night at Pete’s . . . it seemed to me that you couldn’t wait to get out of the house when you discovered I was there.’

  ‘I only left because I didn’t want to give the D.A. . . .’

  ‘I know that now, Jenny, but that evening . . . I’d been through such hell . . .’

  ‘Oh, Dan . . .’ I took his hands in mine.

  ‘And to see you, so tired . . . so . . . And thinking about DJ and Pete’s two girls . . .’ He rubbed at his hair, grimacing against the memory of that desperate time. ‘Then you up and leave the States, goddamn near as soon as you’d got the all-clear from Pete. I was sure you’d never want to set eyes on me again. And Tim didn’t give me a very warm welcome, either. Until he saw DJ . . .’ Dan managed a little grin.

  I was appalled by Tim’s duplicity. ‘Why, the brat. He didn’t mention a thing. If I’d known you’d come . . .’

  ‘I asked Tim not to tell you. DJ and I went back to Denver. Tim did say that he didn’t think you held any bad feelings for me . . .’

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t. . . .’ His turn to hold hands for reassurance.

  ‘And then the sweater came. Jenny, I’ve thought and thought. I’ve tried to convince myself that it’s only gratitude, that it’s because you are the antithesis of Noreen Sue and this is reboundsville. But Jenny, I can’t get you out of my mind. What in hell should we do about it?’

  He was appealing to me, his eyes, his warm hands, his whole body leaning towards me across the counter. And why in hell did it have to be in the way? For a long moment, I couldn’t answer, couldn’t do anything because of the upsurge of emotion, all joyful and mixed with the primitive response of his presence.

  ‘I think we should talk about it . . .’

  ‘Then you don’t dislike me . . .’

  ‘Whatever gave you any notion that I did?’

  ‘That’s my Jenny!’

  ‘No, don’t get any nearer. We have to be rational, sensible . . .’

  ‘Why?’ and he was nibbling sexily at my left palm and wrist. ‘I didn’t fly three thousand miles to be sensible. I came because I wanted you, I wanted to see you and talk with you and be with you. And I’m selfish, I want DJ to have you, too. And DJ to have someone like Tim in the background, to help erase the darkness of these last two years.’ He was pressing my fingers into his palm, one at a time, enumerating the various points. ‘You’ve a profession, so have I. The two professions are not mutually exclusive. I’ve the house in Denver, you’ve one here. We could even manage to spend a half year in each country. And Tim says he’d love to learn to ski . . .’

  I thought of the blond boy on the black pony and how I’d wondered if DJ would like one.

  ‘I want you, Jenny, for myself and for DJ. You have what we both happen to stand in grave need of: integrity, understanding and compassion. Those qualities come over in your books, you know. And I can trust you. I think that’s the prime consideration. I know I can trust you. You knew what even my best friends, Pete included, did not know: that I couldn’t, wouldn’t, and didn’t take a life.’

  ‘But I knew that. I was there!’

  His grip tightened almost painfully. ‘Jenny, even before Pete told when the murder was supposed to have happened, you told him I hadn’t done it.’

  ‘Didn’t Pete believe you?’ I was incredulous and yet . . .

  Dan shook his head, smiling sadly. ‘Pete’s been in the business too long to trust anybody, anymore. Only you and DJ believed in me. I need you, Jenny, because I can trust you, because I want DJ to realize that he can trust someone again. And if you think that trust, need, respect and . . .’ here that impossible quirk of devilment gleamed in his eyes again, ‘the most agreeable rapport in bed . . . aren’t the basis for a lasting relationship . . . Jenny, couldn’t we just try it on for size this summer? Tim was blunt that I should ask you . . . Couldn’t we see if it wouldn’t work on a more permanent basis. . . .’

  There was that in his attitude that told me he was ready right then to marry me. He rose, still holding my hands as he came round the corner. All discipline deserted me. I had only a few seconds more of rational thought because the moment he started to kiss me . . .

  ‘Couldn’t we, please, Jenny?’

  ‘I rather think we’d better . . .’

  I could tell myself later that it was the challenge of erasing the haunted look in DJ’s eyes but, when Dan’s lips covered mine, I knew that it was to remove, forever, the anxiety in Dan’s.

  THE END

  Also by Anne McCaffrey

  Anne McCaffrey’s books can be read individually or as series. However, for greatest enjoyment the following sequences are recommended:

  The Dragon Books

  DRAGONFLIGHT

  DRAGONQUEST

  DRAGONSONG

  DRAGONSINGER: HARPER OF PERN

  THE WHITE DRAGON

  DRAGONDRUMS

  MORETA: DRAGONLADY OF PERN

  NERILKA’S STORY & THE COELURA

  DRAGONSDAWN

  THE RENEGADES OF PERN

  ALL TH
E WEYRS OF PERN

  THE CHRONICLES OF PERN: FIRST FALL

  THE DOLPHINS OF PERN

  RED STAR RISING: THE SECOND CHRONICLES OF PERN

  (published in US as DRAGONSEYE)

  THE MASTERHARPER OF PERN

  THE SKIES OF PERN

  and with Todd McCaffrey:

  DRAGON’S KIN

  DRAGON’S FIRE

  DRAGON HARPER

  DRAGON’S TIME

  SKY DRAGONS

  by Todd McCaffrey:

  DRAGONSBLOOD

  DRAGONHEART

  DRAGONGIRL

  Crystal Singer Books

  THE CRYSTAL SINGER

  KILLASHANDRA

  CRYSTAL LINE

  Talent Series

  TO RIDE PEGASUS

  PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

  PEGASUS IN SPACE

  Tower and the Hive Sequence

  THE ROWAN

  DAMIA

  DAMIA’S CHILDREN

  LYON’S PRIDE

  THE TOWER AND THE HIVE

  Catteni Sequence

  FREEDOM’S LANDING

  FREEDOM’S CHOICE

  FREEDOM’S CHALLENGE

  FREEDOM’S RANSOM

  Individual Titles

  RESTOREE

  DECISION AT DOONA

  THE SHIP WHO SANG

  GET OFF THE UNICORN

  THE GIRL WHO HEARD DRAGONS

  BLACK HORSES FOR THE KING

  NIMISHA’S SHIP

  A GIFT OF DRAGONS

  The Petaybee novels

  written in collaboration with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  POWERS THAT BE

  POWER LINES

  POWER PLAY

  CHANGELINGS

  MAELSTROM

  DELUGE

  The Acorna Series

  ACORNA (with Margaret Ball)

  ACORNA’S QUEST (with Margaret Ball)

  ACORNA’S PEOPLE (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)

  ACORNA’S WORLD (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)

  ACORNA’S SEARCH (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)

  ACORNA’S REBELS (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)

  ACORNA’S TRIUMPH (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)

  ACORNA’S CHILDREN: FIRST WARNING (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)

  ACORNA’S CHILDREN: SECOND WAVE (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)