Kyle looked at her with interest. "Is that right? What do you do now?"
She remembered the flippant reply when she had asked him about his job, and she answered flatly, "I'm a stripper at the Blue Light Club in Cincinnati."
"Oh," he replied without a flicker of expression. "You're the one." And he turned back to his cake.
Through her laughter Kate informed him, "Barbara doesn't do anything right now—unlike my husband, who is very, very busy. So I suggest the two of you work something out between you."
Kyle replied with a twinkling glance in Barbara's direction, "Now that sounds like a proposition worth pursuing. What do you say, Miss Ellis, shall we work something out between us?"
Barbara ignored him by staring out over the ocean and bringing her glass to her lips.
Michael picked up the thread of the conversation. "Well, I'm not very busy today. Today, in fact, I'm taking a holiday, and to celebrate, we're taking you two out to dinner tonight—the restaurant of your choice. What do you think?"
"Sounds great," replied Kyle. "But now, if you'll excuse me…" He got to his feet rather clumsily, supporting himself on the back of the chair. "I've been sitting on one plane or another for almost six hours today and I think I'd like to take a walk." He hesitated. "Barbara, would you like to come with me?"
She replied politely, "No, thank you," and sipped again from her glass.
After a moment he shrugged and whistled for Jojo. The dog came loping up gladly, and he limped off, a concerned and attentive Jojo at his heels.
After a moment Michael said mildly, "Kyle takes a little getting used to. I hope you won't let him scare you off."
She laughed lightly. "It will take more than that to get rid of me, now that I'm here. As a matter of fact, you might have to force me to leave at gunpoint when the summer is over."
He smiled. "I don't know whether Kate mentioned it or not, but the invitation is open-ended. We want you to stay for as long as you like."
She waved the idea away, touched. "Nonsense! Nobody wants in-laws hanging around indefinitely."
"We do," he assured her seriously. "You're not getting over this thing like you should, Barbara, and we want to do everything we can to help. What else are families for?"
Quickly she blinked back another threat of tears and stood. "Listen," she said brightly, "what I would really like to do right now is take a nap. Does anybody mind?"
"Of course not," Kate assured her quickly. "You look exhausted."
"Well, a little," she admitted. "And about dinner—would it hurt your feelings very much if I begged off? The rest of you go, though, and have a good time, but I would just like to stay at home tonight and get settled in, you know?"
"Sure thing," Michael smiled. "It's your vacation."
She did not really expect to sleep. She had just wanted to be alone for a while, to gather her energy and try to act like a cheerful guest. But she must have been more tired than she had thought, because when Kate woke her up, it was six o'clock. "We're going to take you up on your offer and go to dinner without you," she told her, smiling. "It's so rarely that Michael takes a day off I'm taking advantage of it! There are sandwich fixings in the fridge, and ice cream in the freezer, and oh, just about anything you would want. We won't be late."
Barbara stretched and got out of bed, feeling refreshed and relaxed. She wandered down to the kitchen but was not really hungry. The sea air tempted her, and the golden sunset danced off the whitecaps just visible from the kitchen window. With a sudden enthusiasm she decided to go for a walk on the beach.
She kicked off her shoes at the stairs and was just beginning to descend when she heard a voice behind her. "Wait up a minute! Where are you going?"
She turned and was surprised to see Kyle limping toward her. "To the beach," she replied. "I thought you went with Michael and Kate."
He smiled as he drew up. "I decided to stay behind and keep you company instead."
She turned with an air of deliberate indifference. "I don't need any company, thank you."
"Well, since it looks like we both had a walk in mind, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't do it together."
She shrugged and started down the stairs, but stopped when he spoke again.
"Those stairs look treacherous," he said, "and if I get sand in this cast there'll be hell to pay. How about walking along the cliff instead? That way we can talk."
She said carelessly, "I'd rather walk on the beach."
"Suit yourself."
But something made her look back in a moment, and she saw him beginning to descend the stairs, cautiously gripping the rail with one hand while he maneuvered the crutch with the other. "You're going to fall!" she cried.
"And probably break my neck," he agreed. "How would you like to have that one on your conscience?"
"Oh, for goodness' sake!"
She came back up the stairs in exasperation and slipped on her shoes. "All right," she said impatiently. "I'll walk with you. What do you want to talk about?"
"I want," he declared, swinging into place beside her, "to negotiate the terms of a truce."
She glanced at him uncomfortably. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"For Mike and Katie's sake," he added, a little more seriously. "They're not dumb, you know. Sooner or later they're going to get the feeling they're caught in the cross fire."
She laughed, a little falsely. "Really, I can't imagine what gave you the idea that there's any need for a truce."
"First of all," he continued, perfectly serious now, "I would like to apologize for my behavior on the plane. I wish I could say I don't usually come on to girls like that, but unfortunately it wouldn't be true. It's one of my many bad habits—a sign of insecurity, they tell me."
She laughed. "You? Insecure?"
"Yes, me."
He seemed blandly sincere, and Barbara could appreciate honesty. After a moment she said, "Well, I guess I'm sorry too. I was pretty rude. I seem to have a tendency to snap at people." She began to twist absently her wedding band on her finger. "I wasn't always that way."
He said quietly, "Bitter?"
She hesitated. "Yes," she answered after a moment. "I suppose so. It doesn't seem fair."
"It must have been rough on you," he agreed kindly. "Was he ill long?"
"Three months," she answered flatly and tried to push from her mind the memory of that bleak hospital room, watching day and night the only man she had ever loved waste away before her eyes.
"No children, I assume."
This would have been the year they had promised themselves they would start a family, whether they could afford it or not. Daniel had loved children and, dreamer that he was, had wanted to start a family as soon as they were married. It was Barbara who was the practical one and persuaded him to wait at least three years, to give him a chance to get settled in his career. "But not one second longer," he had made her promise, and even now she could see his slightly crooked grin filtering through the twilight as they reached the agreement she now regretted so bitterly. Kyle could not know what a sharp stab of pain that simple phrase "no children" sent through her, how much of her grief had been concentrated on that one added emptiness. Daniel was gone, and his death seemed more final because there was nothing left of the love they had shared.
She said with brittle brightness, "No, thank goodness."
The look on his face in the deepening twilight was surprised, and something else she could not quite discern—disappointment? "You don't like children?" he inquired.
She tried to push aside the memory of those nights they had lain in one another's arms. "Three boys and four girls," Daniel had said, and she had countered with, "Four boys and three girls, and all of them will be musical prodigies."
"And all of them will look just like you," he had interjected and they had laughed and dreamed and never doubted that their dreams would come true. She pushed those torturous memories aside forcefully and brought herself back to the present.
>
"Oh, sure," she replied in that same false tone. "As long as they're someone else's. Motherhood is not for me, I'm afraid." It was a patent lie, born of self-defense, but it helped ease the pain of a double loss. There was no point in yearning for what she would never have: a home, a husband, dozens of children, and love filling every corner of her life—all the things she had envisioned for the future with Daniel. It was so much easier to pretend she had never wanted those things at all.
He fell silent, and she quickly changed the subject. "What is your book about?"
"Oh," he replied vaguely, "my work. Pretty dull stuff."
"Your work?" she prompted. "Which is?"
He replied flippantly, "I'm a hit man for the Organization."
"Sounds like a best-seller."
"If I live to tell it."
She gave him a bemused glance of silent laughter, but he offered no further elaboration. She supposed many girls would find that hint of mystery part of his overall charm—and she also supposed that he knew it. She had to admit she was almost enjoying his game, for he was an expert in the art of light flirtation.
They had reached a small overhang, resplendent in wild blackberries and flowering shrubs, and he gestured to the wrought-iron bench nestled near the edge for sightseers. "Mind if we rest here for a minute?"
She shook her head and wandered closer to the edge, catching her breath at the magnificent prism of colors shed by the last dying rays of the sun upon the water. He lowered himself stiffly to the bench and she saw him wince as he stretched his leg out before him.
She came back over to him. "Does your leg hurt?"
"Just a twinge, now and then," he admitted and tucked the crutch under the bench. "What really bothers me is my arm, from leaning on that piece of wood all day. The whole thing is a pain, if you want to know the truth. I never realized before how much I took for granted a simple thing like walking. Getting dressed in the morning—" he laughed "—now, there's a comedy! Getting in a cab, eating in a restaurant, taking a shower—a hundred things that normal people don't even think about. And," he added with a gleam of mischief, "you wouldn't believe what it does to my love life."
"I can imagine," she murmured.
"Another thing that's really getting to be a bore," he confessed, "is having to look up to people when I'm talking to them. It's what you might call a pain in the neck."
She laughed and sat beside him. "Better?"
"Much." He smiled at her. "Did you know you're very pretty?"
She blushed and pushed back her hair with both hands. It was thin and naturally curly, and the sea air had a tendency to make it friz. The wind was blowing it in a dozen gentle directions at once. "I'm a mess," she said.
"Don't do that," he said, touching her hand lightly. "I like it like that."
She gave a small uncomfortable laugh and moved her hand away from his.
He continued to smile, his eyes a very deep green, searching and examining her face with an intensity that made her feel awkward; she had to look away. "You have a very interesting face," he said. "You can read a lot on a person's face."
She glanced at him, wanting to get up and walk away, wanting to change the subject, but somehow intrigued by the natural fascination of the boy-girl game she had not played in too long. "Is that right?" she murmured.
"It is indeed. Your mouth tells me that you are a very sober little creature, you take life very seriously. Your pointed little chin says you usually get what you want. Your eyes—"
"Are two bottomless pools brimming with passion," she supplied dryly. "I've heard this before."
His own eyes twinkled. "But your pert, slightly upturned nose belongs to a person of wit and innate humor. And this line, here—" lightly he touched the bridge of her nose, sobering somewhat"—is a 'want' line. It tells me you've wanted too much and gotten too little out of life, and you'll have to be careful because you can't afford to let it get any deeper."
She was embarrassed and uncomfortable but would not let him see. She turned the tables on him. "Well, I think I've got the hang of it now. Let's see what I can tell about you."
He did not flinch from her gaze, but returned it steadily, his eyes warm with humor. She pursed her lips in mock thoughtfulness. "I would say merely that you are a very frivolous and carefree person, who takes nothing seriously, wants for nothing, and spends ninety percent of his time laughing."
"How can you tell that?" he demanded.
"Elementary, my dear Watson," she retorted. "Those millions of little laugh lines around your eyes."
He laughed. "A very shallow assessment!"
"But isn't it true?"
He sobered slightly and shifted his gaze. "Oh, I don't know. Not entirely. You never heard of the sad clown—laughing on the outside and crying on the inside?"
"Yes," she admitted. "But I don't think the description applies. What have you got to cry about?"
"Everyone has something to cry about," he returned lightly. "Anyway, I try not to let it get me down, so I suppose in a way you're right. Whenever things start getting heavy, I just take a trip to Maine and soak up some of Mike and Katie's happiness for a while. A miracle cure for all ills."
She half thought he was serious, and that both surprised and disturbed her. She had been prepared to take Michael's free-wheeling brother at a face value—a flirt, a clown, a happy-go-lucky jet-setter— and there was no room in her assessment of him for the deeper side of his nature. She did not want to be drawn into shared intimacies, so she changed the subject. "Where did you learn so much about faces, anyway?"
He bent to retrieve his crutch. "Oh, it's a hobby of mine. I'll tell you about it someday. Right now I'd rather go raid Katie's refrigerator. Are you with me?"
They walked carefully back to the house in the shadowy twilight, and after a while he said, "Does it bother you to talk about your husband? What he was like, how you met, all of that?"
Usually a door would have automatically slammed shut on a question like that. She was surprised at how easily she kept it open this time. Maybe it was time, after all, to start letting go…
She shrugged. "There's not much to tell." Only a million and one things, beautiful things, loving things, which would never live again outside her memory. "He was a musician-songwriter. We met through the magazine I was working on. He was very talented, very gentle, very loving—but not very successful."
"That's odd," he commented. "That you and your sister should both be attracted to the creative, artistic type."
She shook her head. "That's like the man who was classified as a dog-lover, and he replied, 'I don't love dogs at all. I love a dog'."
He nodded, "I see what you mean."
"Personally, I don't care much for the artistic type as a whole. I'm too pragmatic, and I generally try to avoid dreamers. And I don't think creative people should ever marry."
"Why is that?"
"Because they're already married to their art. There aren't too many people who can keep two wives happy. Daniel," she added softly, "was one of them."
There was no sound for a while except the crackle of their footsteps on the path, and then Kyle said suddenly, "I've been married."
She looked up at him in surprise—surprise because she wouldn't have guessed it, and surprise because she couldn't understand why he was telling her. But she thought this fact might shed some light on his earlier statement about crying on the inside. She said softly, "You loved her?"
"I thought I did," he answered. "I guess what I really loved was the idea of being married. You know, house with white picket fence, wife in the kitchen when you got home from work, the whole bit. And she, apparently, was just in love with my checkbook."
She ventured hesitantly, "So what happened?"
"She found a guy with a bigger checkbook. We've been divorced almost two years."
She did not know what to say. They had reached the house, and he turned to her, leaning on the crutch. "I just thought I should tell you," he said, no sign of mirt
h in his eyes now at all. "Some women are really turned off by divorced men.",
That statement, more than anything else, flustered her. She reached quickly to open the back door. "It's no concern of mine at all," she replied coolly.
"I figured you would say that," he answered dryly and followed her inside the house.
He opened the refrigerator and peered inside. "Well, look at this. Half a ham, roast beef, pickles, cheese… Katie knew I was coming, all right." He began to remove platters, balancing them in his free hand, and Barbara came quickly to assist.
"Let me do that," she said. "You go sit down."
"I have got," he replied in mock seriousness, "to learn to do these things for myself. You put on some coffee. Or better yet, see what kind of wine Mike has hidden in that top cabinet over there."
She made a studied search through the cabinet while he made the short trip between the refrigerator and the breakfast nook several times. "Rose?" she suggested, pulling out a bottle.
"Perfect."
She found plates and utensils, and his muffled voice came from inside the refrigerator, "Eureka! Cheesecake." He deposited it on the table with a flourish and admitted, "I sure am glad we decided to stay and dine at home tonight. You couldn't get a feast like this at a restaurant at twice the price."
She laughed and put on water for the coffee.
He lowered himself to a chair and she could feel him watching her as she brought the glasses and began her search for napkins. Then he said suddenly, "Does anyone ever call you Bobbie?"
She found the napkins, and came over to the table, shaking her head. "Why would anyone want to?"
"Well," he said thoughtfully, "you look like a Bobbie to me, and that's what I'm going to call you."
She retorted, "Do I get a choice in this?"
He grinned, "You can always refuse to answer when I call you."
She sat down and responded pertly, "I might just do that."
Twice in a Lifetime Page 3