by Susan Fox
“Not just Indonesia,” he said firmly. “Us.”
Stalling, I asked, “Is there an us? Maybe it’s just, you know, really strong lust that’ll—”
“Jenna,” he stopped me. “You know there’s an us. Question is, what do we do about it?”
Part of me wanted to say, Run like hell. But Mark, who never lied, had said he thought I was special. He saw who I was, the real person, and he valued me.
Tentatively, I said, “Maybe we could go to Indonesia and see how things go?” I’d never planned ahead for six months, but now I kind of wanted to.
“That’s what I have in mind. But if you come, I want to know you’re at least open to the idea that we could make it work. Long-term.”
Long-term? “I don’t do long-term,” I replied, panic rising.
“You haven’t. Doesn’t mean you can’t.”
I shook my head. “Mark, this is too much, too fast. I can’t … You scare me, talking this way.”
He gave a rueful chuckle. “I kind of scare myself, too.” Then he reached over to touch my hand. “Okay, how about this? Let’s take a step back. We can both think it over and we’ll get together, uh, how about tomorrow night? There’s a symposium dinner I need to attend, and you’ll want to have dinner with your family, but maybe we could meet after?”
More than twenty-four hours from now. I sighed with relief. “I can handle that. I’ll have to make sure there’s no wedding stuff happening, though.”
He put his hand back on the wheel as we approached the George Massey Tunnel, and we were both silent as we drove through. Driving under the Fraser River always spooked me. I smiled a little, thinking that if I said so, Mark would explain all about the engineering of tunnels. I’d come to know him pretty well. And yet, there were so many things I didn’t know.
When we emerged into the light of early evening, I said, “You may have schedules and project plans, but it seems to me, you really don’t think long-term either. Not much past the next project.”
“Guess that’s true.”
“Yet, you say that eventually you want a partner and kids. How would they fit into your life?” And how could he have used the words long-term with me, when what he really wanted was someone so different?
“Uh, I guess I haven’t worked that out.”
I nodded, easily able to relate to that. “My parents always ask me where I see myself in five years, ten years.” I gestured out the window. “And I say, ‘On the road, having fun.’”
He frowned. “That’s a little superficial.”
Annoyed, I shot back, “Welcome to my world.”
“If you weren’t trying so hard to shock them, maybe you’d say something honest, like ‘working on an interesting, worthwhile project.’”
“Like that’d make them any happier.”
“Jenna—”
I waved a hand, silencing him. “Mark, I tried it. Okay, yeah, I take perverse pleasure in shocking them. The few times I was totally honest about my life, they criticized. I’m never going to be the kind of person they accept, much less respect, so why try? Why care?” As with my infertility, it was crazy to yearn for something you couldn’t have. “No parent-child relationship’s perfect, right? I’ve got love and a safe place to run if I totally mess up. That’s good enough.”
“Guess you’re right about it never being perfect. We should learn from our parents’ mistakes, though. Like, if you had kids, you’d give them acceptance and respect as well as love, wouldn’t you?”
I sucked in a breath, feeling as if he’d slapped me. “You know I can’t have kids.”
“Of course you can,” he said sharply. “I’m sorry about the surgery, sorry you can’t bear children. But you know there are children all over the world who need good parents. If you don’t want kids, that’s one thing, but don’t say you can’t have them.”
Adoption. I had never let myself consider it because it was a stupid dream, one that couldn’t work for me. “It’s not true to say I don’t want them,” I admitted slowly. “I love children. But they don’t fit my life. Tree says I’m still a kid myself.”
“You can be responsible when you want to. It’s a choice.”
Miffed, I said, “Stop lecturing me. Look, yes, I love children, but I’m not like my sisters. All that home and hearth, white picket fence stuff gives me hives.”
Almost grudgingly, he said, “Me, too.” A pause. “I remember you saying you were the one who took your dolls on adventures.”
I nodded, remembering many happy afternoons in the rambling garden of our family home.
A moment later, he snapped his fingers and said excitedly, “Hey, that’s it. That’s what I want to do.”
“Excuse me? You want to take your dollies on adventures, Dr. Chambers?”
“My kids.” He glanced over. “There’s no law that a family has to live behind a white picket fence. We can live wherever we want. Home schooling for the kids, with home being a bunch of different places in the world. What an incredible education it’d be.”
“God, yes. I wish I’d grown up like that.” He’d said we. Did he mean it in the general sense, or more personally? He’d said he wanted me to be open to the possibility of long-term …
He was going on. “Stability for the kids, because they’d have two parents who love them. But variety and stimulation, too. And they’d learn that a person’s actions matter in this world.”
My parents had tried to teach us that too, but they were so damned impressive they made me feel inadequate. To them, spending a few months helping autistic kids or counting falcons was frivolous. You had to get university degrees and pursue a serious career. Mark was the only person who’d seen true value in the things I’d done. That butterfly analogy, about me doing good in the world, had blown me away.
And then I thought about his other butterfly comment. “Chaos theory,” I murmured, feeling dazed.
“Yeah.” He shot me a bright smile. “A young woman named Merilee flutters her wings—announces her engagement—which sets her three older sisters on journeys they wouldn’t otherwise have made. Their trajectories intersect with those of three men. Pheromones are rich in the air and …”
“And what?” What were we talking about here? My thoughts, my emotions, were in a mad whirl.
He shrugged and made a comic face. “Everyone lives happily ever after?”
I gave a nervous laugh. Ever after? “And you said you weren’t a romantic.”
I sure wasn’t, not since I was seventeen. But yet … “Chaos theory,” I whispered. Tree was so cynical about men that she never dated. Kitty-Kat had the worst taste and luck in the world when it came to guys. A week ago, if anyone had asked me to bet on the odds of them finding love, I’d have said the possibility was almost as remote for them as for me.
Merilee had always smirked that the one thing she had over the rest of us was being lucky in love. Had she somehow managed to share that luck?
I raised my hands, fingers spread, and pressed them against my face. Oh God, was I really falling in love, for the second time in my life? Did I dare let it happen?
* * *
As he steered the Westfalia over the Oak Street Bridge, Mark inwardly cursed the Sunday evening traffic that demanded his attention.
When he darted a quick glance at Jenna, she looked like she was in shock, fingers taut with tension as they pressed hard against her face. “Jenna? You okay?”
Through spread fingers, she gazed at him. “I don’t know. I never expected this. Never expected you. My life was great, just the way it was.”
One side of his mouth kinked up. “I know what you mean.”
“Yeah?”
“Mine was great, but you’ve shown me it could be better. Hell, you’ve got me tasting food.”
She chuckled as if he’d told a joke.
“You’ve shown me it’s okay to relax and enjoy life. To live in the moment.” He reflected on all the things he’d done, or done differently, since he’d
met her. “That it can be fun to act on impulse, to pick a path at random.” He paused. “At least so long as you have a map in your pocket in case you get lost.”
Another chuckle.
“Not to mention,” he added, “making love with you is incredible.”
She nodded, and slowly lowered her hands. Then she jerked and pointed out the windshield. “You need to take a left at the next light. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
He checked traffic, then pulled into the left lane, signaling for the turn. “We both need to think more about this. We’ll carry on this conversation tomorrow night.”
“Indonesia,” she murmured. “We’ll talk about Indonesia.”
“You know we’re talking about more than just that. That idea of a family, traveling around—”
“Whoa!” She held up her hands in a stop gesture. “What happened to taking this slowly?”
He gave a rueful chuckle. “Okay, sorry if I came on like a steamroller. I’m just excited.” Excited and joyful, his body charged with adrenaline. For the first time, he had a clear vision of a perfect future that combined three kinds of love: work, partner, and children. Partner, meaning Jenna.
And Jenna, the woman he’d feared couldn’t commit to anything or anyone, seemed to be seriously considering it.
Before he got ahead of himself, he had to clarify something. He took a breath. “Okay, let me take a step back. All that stuff you said about hating monogamy and fidelity, that was because you’d been hurt by someone you loved. Right? If you and I really do fall in love, tell me you won’t want to sleep with other men. I couldn’t handle that.”
She stuck a thumb between her lips and worried it with her teeth. Talking around it, she said slowly, “I can’t imagine wanting to be with another guy. And if I think of you with another woman …” She removed her thumb and glared at him. “Shit, I’ve never been jealous before, but yeah, it’d piss me off.”
“Good.” He felt like a caveman claiming his mate, and he sure as hell wouldn’t apologize for it. “And I’d never do it.”
“It’s a right turn up here, then a left in two blocks. We’re almost there.”
He followed her directions. They were in an older, expensive part of town with large, attractive homes and beautifully landscaped yards. “Tomorrow night. We’ll talk more.”
“Yeah, we definitely need to.” She gave a quick laugh and shook her head. “Oh God, I’m usually the impulsive one. I hear of something fun and off I go.”
“This is different,” he said with certainty. For both of them, it would be a major change. A major commitment.
Major. Really major. His grandparents would say he was insane. The thought doused the bright flame of excitement within him.
Was he? He glanced over, to see Jenna frowning. Yes, a day apart would be good. Since they’d met, they’d barely left each other’s company. He’d thought from the start that she’d bedazzled him. Maybe, in some odd way, he’d done the same to her. MHC codes?
“Right at the next corner,” she said. Then, “Your grandparents will be waiting for you.”
“Yes.” He made an instantaneous decision. He wouldn’t tell them about Jenna, not until he and she decided what they were going to do. “And your family for you.”
“I don’t think it would be a good idea to invite you in.”
A quick pain stabbed him. Ridiculous, when he wasn’t even going to tell his grandparents about her.
Were these bad signs? Or just common sense?
“Up on the right,” she said. “Pull over here.”
The house he parked in front of was one of the smaller ones on the street, too small for a family with four daughters. Her parents must have downsized when the eldest girls left home.
Jenna unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the passenger door, and hopped out.
He got out and walked around to open the side door of the camper, then climbed in to collect her bags. He handed them down to her, then hefted her small cooler and climbed out with it. “I’ll help you carry things in.”
“It’s okay. Better not. I didn’t tell them about my car, or getting a ride.”
Would she even tell them about him? How had excited optimism so quickly turned to doubt?
He glanced at the house. From behind curtained windows, warm lights glowed, but the front door hadn’t opened. Realizing that the cooler in his arms was a solid rectangular barrier between them, he put it down. “How about I call you tomorrow morning to see if getting together in the evening works?”
“Great. Call my cell.” She scrabbled in her tote bag and came out with a pen and a cash register tape, and scribbled her number.
“You’ll plug it in?”
“I promise.” For a long moment, she gazed up at him, then her lips kinked into a rather wry smile. “Well, Mark, I have to say, it’s been a trip.”
“It sure has.” He glanced at the house. The door didn’t open; the curtains didn’t twitch.
He tugged her into his arms, needing to restore the connection between them. “The best trip of my life, Jenna.”
“Oh, Mark. For me, too.” She tipped her head up and he touched his lips to hers. He didn’t risk open mouths or tongues, just a brief press of lips. A gesture of hope.
Chapter 12
Iwatched the Westfalia drive away, with Mark’s hand waving out the open driver’s side window. The best trip of my life, and now it was over.
But he’d left me with the offer of another and, beyond that, amazing possibilities.
He wanted fidelity. A six-month commitment. He offered the chance at love. A future, even. Children. My mind, my heart, couldn’t take it all in.
I blew out air, sucked it in again, and squared my shoulders. First, I needed to face my family.
Though I wasn’t one for keeping careful track of time, I did know it had been months since I was last home and over a year since my sisters and I had been here at the same time.
I hefted a couple of backpacks and trudged past Mr. and Mrs. Wilkerson’s bungalow, then the Abbott family’s pretentious colonial, to the driveway of the big, rambling home I’d grown up in. No way had I wanted Mark to drive me to the door and risk the family rushing out and wanting to meet him. Not until I was ready. Not until he and I had decided what we were going to do.
What we shared felt strong in some ways, but fragile, too. Fragile, because I’d never cared so much for a man before and because this one was stirring up dreams I’d tried to bury more than a decade ago. What in freaking hell was I going to do?
Walking up the drive, I noted that the garden was perfectly manicured. The reception was going to be held here, and no doubt the gardening service had been putting in overtime. Too bad. I liked the yard a little overgrown and wild. So had my dollies.
Maybe, with Mark, I could play those games for real.
Or maybe, if I dared to dream, my heart would be shattered a second time. How could I trust my judgment when my heart got in the way?
The doors to the two-car garage were closed and Mer-ilee’s old Toyota and Matt’s aging Hyundai were parked by the house.
Quietly, I placed my bags on the front porch, then went back to get the cooler and the rest of my stuff, debating what I should do. It was Sunday night. Likely they were in the dining room having dinner. If I knocked, someone would answer the door and see I didn’t have my car. That conversation would happen eventually, but I’d rather put it off.
I never carried a door key. A long, long time ago, after I’d forgotten the house key for the umpteenth time, my parents had given up and taken to hiding one in a knot-hole of the old horse chestnut tree in the backyard. The one where I’d spent many afternoons curled up in a fork reading, watching squirrels, and mostly dreaming. Of California and Greece, of surfing and riding horses, of every adventure imaginable—often with a handsome guy at my side, and three adorable kids.
Maybe I’d climb up there now. Spend a little quiet time before going inside and stepping back into my role as the f
laky daughter. If I climbed up to my dreaming spot, I could think about Indonesia and maybe even love. Tempting, but scary too.
But now that I was here, I felt an urge to see my family. Whatever our issues, there was a strong bond.
Sometimes I thought that Tree, Kat, and I were yo-yos. We’d fly out and away, do our tricks and spins, but there was an enduring thread connecting us to this house and our parents. It always pulled us back eventually.
I decided to sneak around back to retrieve the key, quietly unlock the front door, and get my gear inside before anyone heard me. Who said I never thought ahead or made plans?
Leaving my belongings on the porch, I headed for the backyard, and was surprised to hear voices. I slowed, then cautiously peeked around the corner of the house.
My family sat around the metal patio table. They’d eaten out there, I could see from the empty plates shoved to the middle of the table. Maybe Dad had barbecued. He was the stereotypical absent-minded professor and had trouble even showing up on time for meals, but when he put his mind to it, he could make a mean marinated steak and terrific maple-glazed salmon.
I hung back, taking in the picture, feeling a tug in my heart: love, together with a longing to be part of that scene, just as it was in this moment.
They looked so relaxed for once, so comfortable with each other as they sat back in their chairs, many of them bare-legged in shorts. Was the easy, casual mood due to Mom being in Ottawa? She was always the most demanding, the quickest to interrogate and find fault.
And yet, I felt a childish wish to feel Mom’s arms go around me in a hug. Yes, a moment later she’d be nagging me about something, but I wanted that embrace.
I did a quick inventory. Merilee, my baby sis, looked tired. Her honey-blonde hair was pulled back from a face that was too pale, but she was smiling as she listened to a gorgeous stranger who had to be Kat’s guy. Wow. Tree hadn’t exaggerated. This man Nav was definitely hot, with long, curly black hair, cinnamon skin set off by a black tee, and striking features. Best of all was the warmth on his face, the sparkle in his eyes, a quality of genuineness about him that was so unlike the occasional other guys Kitty-Kat had brought home before.