To which a hot, sweaty, grubby little body had never felt so welcome, or so sweet. Summer tried to scold. “Helen-honey, what on earth where you thinking of?” But then she had to bury her face in her child’s hair just once more, breathe in the dusty, salty, little-girl smell-liberally laced with chlorine, naturally. And nothing had ever smelled so wonderful.
At her elbow, David was beside himself, waving his arms and screeching, “What did you do that for? Helen, sometimes you are such an-”
“David,” Summer warned in a tremulous voice, “not now. Not another word, do you hear me?”
He threw her a furious look, then frowned at his feet and muttered, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Helen, did you say thank-you to Mr. Riley?”
They all turned, but Riley was no longer there.
When they went back into the house, Summer heard the sound of water running upstairs in his bathroom. A little later, while she was shampooing the dust and spiderwebs out of Helen’s hair, she heard footsteps on the stairs and the distant sound of a door closing. And from the window in the children’s room she watched the Mercedes back out of the garage and roll away down the long, curving drive to finally disappear under the canopy of live oaks and their waving fronds of Spanish moss.
I don’t blame him for leaving, she thought What are we doing to him? What am I doing?
She felt such a heaviness inside. And at the same time, wired and edgy, as if her skin had been charged with electricity. Yes, like that, she thought as thunder rumbled suddenly outside. Just like that.
Though that particular storm passed them by well to the north, the thunderclouds lingered through the afternoon, hanging over them like a threat while the heat and humidity became almost palpable and the sun played a malicious little game of hide-and-seek with poisonous-looking clouds. Summer finished mowing the lawn with one eye on the sky, her skin prickling with that peculiar sensation of awareness, as if every nerve and cell were listening…
Afterward, with the thunder still keeping its distance, she gave in to the children’s pleadings and let them swim, even joining them in the pool, wearing the streamlined white tank suit Riley had bought for her. It wasn’t the first time she’d worn it, but for some reason today everywhere it touched her, with her skin in that strange, sensitized state, it seemed to itch and burn, as if she’d broken out in an all-over rash.
It’s the weather, she told herself; all this electricity in the air. Sure, they all felt it-the children were wired and nervous, Cleo was shrieking dire warnings from the living room, and Beatle was upstairs shivering and shaking under David’s bed. California-raised, none of them had quite adjusted yet to thunderstorms. Why should she be immune?
By early evening Riley still hadn’t returned. The sky had turned the ugly blue-black of bruises. It was as dark as if night were falling, even though Summer knew that at that hour, somewhere up there beyond the clouds, the sun must still be high in the sky. Thunder rolled and rumbled almost continuously; the wind picked up, howling and moaning around the house like some wild creature denied entry, lashing out at the trees in its disappointment and rage. Summer covered Cleo’s cage with a cloth to calm her and while the children watched with round, worried eyes, made popcorn in the microwave. And all the time, her skin prickled, the back of her neck tensed, and her ears seemed to hum with…listening.
When the popcorn had finished popping, she poured it into a big wooden bowl and carried it upstairs. Then they all-including Beatle-climbed onto Summer’s bed, pulled the edges of the comforter around them and settled down to watch Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book, Helen’s favorite video, on the VCR. David and Helen had already watched it several times-Summer had asked Riley to rent it for them a few days ago and he’d purchased a copy instead, so she’d made up her mind not to ask him for another one. And now, seeing it herself for the first time in years, she began to get an inkling of what might have inspired Helen to crawl out onto that tree limb!
Meanwhile, the storm hit like an artillery barrage. The thunder no longer rolled and rumbled; it cracked and boomed and shook the house. Rain rattled against the windows and the wind screamed like a creature in agony. Beatle crawled under the covers and the children huddled closer against Summer’s side-but she noticed they never once stopped the methodical relay of popcorn from the bowl to their mouths, or took their eyes from the television screen.
Through all that terrible din, Summer bumped up the volume with the remote control and sat tense and still, trying her best to concentrate on the movie. But every nerve ending in her body vibrated…listening.
Right in the middle of the climactic battle between Shere Khan and Mowgli, there was a crr-aack! that rattled the windows, and the lights went out. Both children yelped-partly in fear, Summer was sure, but also in outrage that their movie had been so cruelly interrupted. Though it wasn’t late enough for the darkness to be total, she sent David next door to his room to fetch the flashlight she’d given him to keep under his pillow-a bit of extra security to take the place of his bunny blanket. After all, who knew how long the electricity would be off? Then, to pass the time and help allay the children’s disappointment, they sang all the songs they could remember from the movie, and Summer let them pretend to be Kaa, and hypnotize her with the flashlight.
Somewhere in the midst of that, the lights came on, but they were having so much fun, instead of starting the movie going again, they just kept on with their game. So it was, that David was crooning “Come to me-e-e…Mom-cub…” while Summer walked around on top of the bed in stiff-legged circles with her eyes crossed and her arms thrust limp-wristed straight out in front of her, and Helen was rolling around on the comforter shrieking with laughter, when Beatle suddenly gave her soft “Wuf!” of welcome, jumped off the bed and scampered over to the half-open door.
The door opened slowly inward. Summer froze, and for several long seconds before she remembered to uncross her eyes, stared at the twin Rileys that hovered there, framed in the doorway.
David broke off in midsentence and Helen’s giggles subsided, and in the stillness they heard the thunder, which they’d all completely forgotten about, go grumbling away in the distance. In that stillness, Summer felt her heart beating hard and fast. Because at that moment she knew at last what it was she’d been listening for.
Riley had been dismayed, to say the least, to arrive home at the height of the storm to find his security system shut down and his front gate locked up tight. He’d immediately called the security company from his car phone, and was told that the automatic lockdown in the event of a power interrupt was a fail-safe feature of the system, to prevent intruders from gaining access by cutting off the power. The gate could, he was assured, be opened manually, with a key. Which, of course, Riley did not happen to have with him. Which meant he had no choice but to sit in the car and wait for the storm to pass and hope the power would be restored soon. If it didn’t, as soon as the rain let up, he planned to climb over the damn gate and walk to the house and get the damn key.
He was uneasy about Summer and the kids, though, alone in the house and without power in the middle of one of the worst storms of the season At least he had the assurances of the security company that the house alarm system would remain active on its backup batteries for a minimum of two hours. Although what in the hell good that would do anybody was beyond him, when the “armed response” unit wouldn’t be able to get through the front gate!
Needless to say he was out of sorts and edgy as hell by the time the perimeter lights flashed bright and the courtesy light came on again above the intercom and keypad. He punched in his code, waited, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in rhythms that were in no way in sync with the Vivaldi concerto on the CD player and, once the gates were open, gunned through them with an angry little spurt of gravel.
By the time he pulled up in front of the garage, the rain had slackened off to a light mist. When he opened the car door he was greeted with the busy dripping, rustling, rushing sou
nds of the earth setting itself to rights, and off to the west, a strip of crimson sky showed through between indigo clouds and lavender earth. He popped the trunk, got out and locked up the car. Then, taking with him one of the smaller, if heavier of the boxes from the assortment in the trunk, he went into the house.
All seemed quiet. Although there were lights on and remnants of an appetizing smell, the kitchen was empty. Then he heard sounds-voices, laughter-coming from upstairs. A woman’s voice…children’s laughter-until recently, alien sounds to him and to this place, and yet, somehow incredibly alluring. Drawn as if by a siren’s song, Riley hefted the box and began to climb toward the laughter.
Just outside Summer’s room he halted. Through the half-open door he could see them, the children laughing, rolling around on the bed like puppies, Summer-a grown woman!-walking around on top of the bed as if she were in some kind of trance, with her arms out in front of her and her eyes crossed and a goofy smile on her face, that sun-streaked hair out of its ponytail and tousled all over the place. Something shivered inside him.
He couldn’t intrude; he knew very well what an outsider he’d be in that room. He was about to do it-just back away and leave them to their game, when that silly little beetle-dog gave him away. Then, of course, he had no choice but to push the door the rest of the way open and announce himself.
They all froze when they saw him. Of course they would. The laughter died, and he heard the soft gasps of breath drawn and held. He had an impression of eyes bright with mischief, of smiles struggling to hide, but it wasn’t the children’s faces he was looking at. The only face he really saw was crimson with embarrassment; the eyes that met his-once they’d uncrossed-were wide and almost black with dismay. And the mouth…ah, that mouth. She had no way of knowing how beautiful she was to him then, crossed eyes and all. How incredibly sexy. And thank God, he thought, for that.
Then everyone moved at once, it seemed, like a tableau coming to life. David sang out, “Hey, look-it’s Mr. Riley!” as he scrambled off the bed and ran to meet him, at the same time Helen was chanting, “Hi, Riley, Hi, Riley,” in time to her frog-hops across the mattress. And as for Summer, well…there is no sedate way for a grown woman to get down off a bed when she’s standing upright in the middle of it.
Riley watched her ponder the problem, trying to decide whether to crouch down and scoot, or just do it in one big giant step, and he realized that for the first time all day he actually felt like laughing. He wondered whether, if not for the presence of the children, he might have put the box down and gone over to her, put his hands on her slender waist, perhaps, to help her down. It amazed him, how much he wanted to.
“Whatcha got in the box, Mr. Riley?” The boy was standing in front of him, fidgety, torn between curiosity and good manners. Riley set the box down on the floor and folded back the flaps.
“Books!” David yelled as he sank to his knees on the rug. “Oh, man-Mom, lookit this! Here’s Stuart Little and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Indian in the Cupboard…and a whole bunch of Black Stallion books, Mom! Isn’t this cool? Now you can finish readin’ it to us. Will you read to us tonight? Huh? Please?”
Summer had come slowly, incredulous and silent, to peer over her son’s shoulder. Now she straightened to give Riley a dark, desperate look. “I can’t let you do this.” She muttered the words for him alone.
He shrugged and answered her the same way. “Fine. If you don’t want ’em, you can just use ’em while you’re here-or not, that’s your choice. After you’re gone I’ll find some children’s hospital to give ’em to.” And he felt disappointed without knowing why.
He bent down to scoop up a great big picture book about dinosaurs and handed it to Helen, who was watching round-eyed and, for once, silent “Here, little girl, this one’s for you.” He left her looking as if he’d just conked her with a mallet and turned to tap her brother on the head. “You-come with me. I’ve got some things in the car you can help me with.” And he walked out of the room.
With his longer legs and a head start, he made it to the stairs before they’d all untangled themselves enough to follow. He could hear them coming behind him on the stairs, like a small elephant stampede, but at the bottom David passed him and got to the car first. Riley heard him shout. ‘Oh, cool!” while he was still making his way through the kitchen.
“Is this a computer? It is, isn’t it? Did you buy a computer?”
“Sure did,” said Riley, joining him at the Mercedes’ open trunk. “You convinced me. Okay, now-”
“Mom! Mr. Riley bought a computer! Isn’t this cool?”
“Okay, here-you can carry this one. It’s the keyboard, I think. And you, kiddo-’ he fished a smaller box out of the trunk and thrust it at Helen “-think you can manage this? It’s the mouse.”
“Mouse.” She giggled.
“Okay-you can take those to my study. And don’t run!” They went running off at top speed. And that left Riley alone and face-to-face with Summer.
She was standing beside the car, one hip leaning against it, arms folded on her chest, her face, with the light from the kitchen behind her, in shadow. She’d gathered her hair up and scraped it back into that damned ponytail again; suddenly he wanted to take the rubber band, or whatever she’d used to hold it together, rake it off and throw the damn thing away somewhere where she’d never find it. And then he wanted to comb his fingers through her hair, bury his hands in it…let it fall like cool silk against his skin.
“I can’t let you do this,” she said again in a gravelly voice.
It was the second time she’d said that. The first time, he’d felt it like…fingernails across his skin, raising his hackles and a few goose bumps. This time, it got under his skin. He felt himself go cold and still. Leaning his hands on the edge of the trunk, he raised his head and looked at her and said softly, “Mrs. Robey, are you telling me I can’t buy myself a computer if I choose to do so?”
She shook her head and gasped, “I didn’t… ” then turned and walked into the house. And he felt as if he’d slapped her.
He didn’t see her again until later that evening. He was in his study, surrounded by various pieces of computer hardware, scowling through his glasses at an instruction manual the size of a dictionary and counting teeth in a multitoothed plug when she appeared in his doorway.
He put aside what he was doing at once; he’d never seen her look quite like this before, and he didn’t know whether to be alarmed or stimulated. Her body seemed tense, as if, he thought, she’d rather be anywhere than where she was. Her expression was multilayered and indecipherable.
“Excuse me,” she said softly, “I’m sorry to bother you…”
“You’re not What is it? Something wrong?”
She shook her head. “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. And-oh damn.” She closed her eyes, took a breath and started again. “I really hate to ask this of you-”
Riley’s heart beat faster. Ask something? Of him? He could hardly wait to hear what it might be.
“Do you suppose-would you mind if…” Another dead end. Another deep breath. And then out it came in a rush. “The children would like you to tuck them in.”
Chapter 10
“Tuck…them in?” Riley shook his head, not because he hadn’t heard or understood the meaning of the words, but because they made no sense to him.
Summer sagged against the door frame and folded her arms across her waist “You know, in bed? It means-”
“I know what it means.”
And sometime during the second or two it took him to say that, his mind had exploded with images…of com-silk hair on crisp pillowcases, of rosy-cheeked faces with sweet, smiling mouths and sky-blue eyes full of trust and questions, soft skinned arms and plump little hands reaching up to him… And with the images, came a white-hot, blinding flash of fear. He’d faced violence and even death, gone up against cutthroat lawyers and hostile judges with millions of dollars on the line, and worse,
stared down Southern mamas hell-bent on making him a son-in-law, and he’d never known fear like this. And for what? An act millions of men all over the world performed every night of their lives-were probably performing right now, in fact, at this very minute?
Millions of fathers. But he was not a father. Had never been one. And for his entire life had reconciled himself to the vow he’d made never to become one. How in the world had he come to this?
“I know it’s a lot to ask…” Her lips formed an unstable smile. “They can be very insistent.” She turned to leave. “I’ll tell them you’re in the middle of something. They’ll understand.”
The hell they would. “Not at all,” Riley said in his Trusted Family Solicitor’s voice-Southern, confidence-inspiring, just a little unctuous. “Don’t mind a bit. Be right there.” He couldn’t have felt more fraudulent if he’d been about to step onto center stage at Carnegie Hall and attempt to perform the Brandenburg Concertos.
“You don’t have to do this,” Summer said in a low voice when he joined her. “Really.” She faced him bravely in the narrow confines of the doorway, eyes clinging to his, liquid and impenetrable as ponds.
He gazed into them for a long time before he murmured, with a thickening tongue, “Look, I don’t mind sayin’ goodnight. It’s not a major deal, is it?”
She shook her head and her lashes fell across her eyes. “No, of course not.”
“Well, then.” But all his senses vibrated with awareness of the lie, and from the tension he felt in her, even across the inches that separated them, he knew that she recognized it, too. It was a big deal, he just didn’t know exactly what kind of deal it was. Some sort of mileage post, perhaps, on a journey for which he had no road map nor known destination. He only knew that once he passed this post-or had he already done so?-in either case, there could be no going back now to the safe, secure place he’d started from. That place was lost to him forever.
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