If I'd Never Known Your Love

by Georgia Bockoven

  "The best pancakes in this town?" She was dizzyingly grateful that he hadn't gone where she would have let him go. She was vulnerable and confused and ached for real intimacy. She would have used David, and he was too special for that to happen.

  He grinned. "Okay, so that's not much of a boast."

  "I'll go if you'll do something for me."

  "Sounds fair," he said.

  "Come to dinner Saturday."

  He waited for her to go on, seemingly sensing there was more.

  "My sister and a friend, a male friend, a new male friend, are going to be here for the weekend and I want someone to..." She didn't know how to tell him what she needed without appearing pathetic.

  "You need someone to shift the focus from lust- filled gazes and groping under the table to sensible things like the weather?"

  "Yes," she admitted. "It's not that I'm not happy for my sister—"

  "You just don't want it shoved in your face."

  She let out a sigh. "That makes me seem so selfish."

  "So what? I'd say you've more than earned the right."

  Again, tears welled in her eyes. They weren't the pretty words she would have heard from her family or friends, empty words of understanding meant to ease her pain. She'd known David two weeks, but she'd learned he was too pragmatic to waste time spouting something he didn't believe.

  "I have, haven't I?" she said. "Well?"

  For the question to register took a second. "You drive a hard bargain, Mrs.

  McDonald. This dinner party of yours sounds about as stimulating as chaperoning a high-school prom."

  "You want stimulating? What if I told you I'm fully prepared to dazzle you with a discussion on quarks." From somewhere she found a grin. "I sat next to a man on a flight to Colombia who actually studied them for a living. It was a very, very long flight."

  "And that's supposed to tempt me?"

  "Just how hungry are you for these pancakes?"

  He laughed. "Okay, it's a deal."

  Two days later David went into town with Julia to retrieve Francis from the vet. He was a much different dog from the one she had left, squirming, nuzzling, yipping and trying to suckle anything and everything he could fit in his mouth, including Julia's earlobe. The vet had purposely withheld his last feeding, leaving him ready and eager for his mom.

  Pearl must have sensed their approach because she met them on the porch when they returned, dancing in circles and calling out in a high, rapid whine. There was no way she could see her puppy wrapped inside the blanket Julia carried, but it was obvious she knew he was there.

  Francis squirmed until his head popped free, answering Pearl's call with frantic yips.

  Julia waited until they were in the bedroom to put Francis down. Pearl immediately sniffed and licked him from head to toe, turning him on his back and then on his stomach, talking the entire time, her thin body trembling with joy. Satisfied, she gently picked him up in her mouth and carried him into the closet. Seconds later she had settled and was feeding her family.

  Julia heard a deep contented sigh between the suckling sounds. She looked at David.

  He was standing with his shoulder pressed against the door frame, looking back at her.

  He smiled."All in all, I'd say this ranks pretty damn close to winning the lottery." .

  She returned his smile. "Higher."

  "Seems to me we should be doing something to celebrate."

  "What did you have in mind?"

  "Dinner? I know a little restaurant in town that makes the best—-"

  She laughed."Is it as good as the pancake house?"

  "Better."

  "Give me a half hour to get ready."

  He did a quick appraisal. "You look fine." He cleared his throat. "Better than fine.

  You look beautiful."

  She brought her hand up to her hair, a silly, feminine gesture, an automatic response to the unexpected compliment. No one had told her she looked beautiful since... Since Evan. Just as unexpectedly, her cheeks burned with a sudden blush. She thanked him because it seemed the least awkward thing to do and then insisted on the half hour, needing it now to regain her equilibrium.

  Three Years Missing

  I'm back, Evan. I've worked my way through the tunnel of depression I was in and am out the other side. I'm sorry it took so long. I considered not telling you, but we've always shared everything, good or bad, and I finally decided it was wrong to pretend I've been this never-failing, constant pillar of strength. It's four o'clock in the morning here, which means it's seven where you are. I'm trying to picture what your day will be like today. I want to believe you 're doing something that makes you happy, so I pull out some of my favorite fantasies—that you are teaching kids math, or showing men how to bring clean water to their village—things that will give you a sense of accomplishment when you're home again and reflecting back at the time you spent in Colombia.

  I'm sitting up in bed, a cup of coffee in one hand, a pen in the other, your rose in a vase on the night- stand, keeping me company and triggering the most wonderful memories. Not that I have to have a trigger. You are always with me, Evan. I feel your presence in the air I breathe. I hear your whispered words of love and longing when the leaves rustle in the oak tree and when the birds call for me to fill their feeder. You hold me in my dreams and give me the strength and comfort I need to wake and face another day without you.

  A storm is blowing outside. The rain is hitting the

  windows in crashing waves that sound like your favorite Storm Giant is back, tossing handfuls of sand against the panes. Do you remember telling Jason that story when he was four and woke up terrified by his first really big storm? You might have gotten away with it if you hadn't started with the embellishments. I never did understand why it was necessary to give the Storm Giant great big teeth. How could that be a guy thing?

  He still remembers your giant, Evan. I overhead him telling his friend Shawn about it the other day. Shelly doesn't remember that night, but then you didn't scare the crap out of her the way you did Jason.

  All those years we worked so hard to create big- deal, carefully planned, expensive memories, and this is the kind of thing that sticks. Go figure.

  With Shelly it's all the weekends she spent working with you in your gardens. She's always spotting some new flower or bush that she's going to tell you about when you're home. We're going to need a couple of acres to accommodate everything she's written in the notebook she's saving for you.

  I get so angry sometimes when I think of all you've missed and how much richer our children's lives would be if you were here with them. It's been three years now, Evan.

  Three years. When I break it into days and weeks and months, they overwhelm me.

  I have wrinkles I didn't have when you left. And even though I've lost a few pounds, my stomach isn't as flat as it used to be. Stupid things like this hit me at the strangest moments. I know they don't matter, but they're like height markings on a closet door, indicating the years we've been apart. I still find myself reaching for the phone to call you at work and share something inconsequential that happened during the day.

  It's not the big things you're missing that bother me as much as the small moments that make up our children's lives. We're the only ones who truly care about most of what I'd say. Telling you about Shelly shaving her legs for the first time isn't the same as being here for that tiny milestone on her path to becoming a full-grown woman.

  And I never expected to have to shop for jock straps for Jason. I was so upset that I had to do something that you should have been doing I actually broke down in the middle of the sporting-goods store. Try explaining that to a bunch of people jostling one another to get to the two-for-one athletic-shoe sale.

  Is there a religion I don't know about where prayers have a more direct line to God?

  C H A P T E R 1 2

  Barbara brought her wine into the kitchen and stood within whispering distance of Julia. Okay, you want to
tell me more about this David guy?"

  "There's nothing to tell. He's the caretaker, I owed him a favor, so I invited him to dinner."

  "Now ask me how much of that I believe."

  Julia handed Barbara a bowl of mashed potatoes. "Here, make yourself useful."

  Barbara put the bowl on the counter. "Not until you spill who this guy really is and what he means to you. And, why do you owe him a favor?"

  "He's the caretaker. He means nothing to me."That brought a jolt, forcing her to acknowledge, if only to

  herself, that David meant more to her than she'd ever imagined another man could mean. "And he picked up tonight's roast when he went into town yesterday to get the mail. I could hardly ask him to pick up the meat for a dinner party and not invite him."

  "You could if he was 'just' the caretaker."

  "Give it a rest, Barbara. As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, love is not contagious ."This time she handed her sister the green salad. "Now, go— before it wilts."

  Julia followed Barbara into the dining room and announced dinner. Twenty minutes later Michael sat back in his chair and proclaimed himself stuffed.

  "Wonderful dinner, Julia," Michael said. "Barbara said you were a great cook, but this was extraordinary."

  "Thank you." She'd decided she liked Michael. He was a couple of years older than Barbara, divorced but not bitter, had an offbeat sense of humor that perfectly matched Barbara's own sense of fun and was obviously head over heels in love with her sister.

  Michael held up his wineglass and tilted it toward David."And the wine is exceptional. I don't think I've ever had better, and I was married to a woman who wrote for The Wine Spectator."

  David acknowledged the compliment with a nod. "All I know about wine is what I like."

  "Evan loved port," Julia said. "The first time I had it I thought it tasted like cough syrup, but it grew on me."

  "I'm not there yet," David said. "I've had what people swore was the best and it still didn't do anything for me. What did Evan see in it?"

  Julia laughed. "He only knew what he liked, too. He couldn't tell you why."

  Barbara looked from Julia to David and back again, questions and curiosity burning in her eyes. "Evan was a special man," she said, plainly testing.

  "So I've heard," David told her.

  Julia knew exactly what Barbara was thinking, and would make another attempt to set her straight as soon as they were alone again. The last thing she wanted was for Barbara to leave believing there was something going on between her and David.

  Barbara would be on her cell phone calling their mother the second she was within range of a tower.

  Michael leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table."How long have you been working here, David?"

  "Almost a year."

  "And before that?"

  "Here and there."

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry. It's just that you seem so familiar to me and I was trying to figure out where we might have met."

  "I've lived on the East Coast for the past few years."

  In an obvious eureka moment, Michael slapped his hands together in triumph and grinned. "I've got it. You're Nicolas Golden."

  David glanced at Julia and waited for what seemed an eternity before reluctantly admitting, "Guilty."

  Julia frowned. She recognized the name but not why. "I'm confused. You're not David Prescott?"

  "That's my real name," David said. "Nicolas Golden is a pseudonym."

  "I still don't—"

  "Oh, my God, Julia," Barbara said. "How could you not know the name Nicolas Golden?"

  "You must have read him in college," Michael added. "Everyone did. He's considered one of the most influential writers of the past twenty years."

  David put his wineglass back on the table. "There are plenty of people who would argue that point," he said, shifting position, clearly uncomfortable."Me among them."

  Julia's heart went out to him. Had she realized, she would have warned him that of all her friends and family, she'd asked him to share a meal with the two people most likely to figure out who he was.

  "Flying on Clipped Wings is my all-time favorite book," Barbara said. "I've almost worn out my original copy."

  "You wrote Flying on Clipped Wings? You're that Nicolas Golden?" Julia gasped.

  She'd first read the book when she was a freshman, and remembered being so impressed with the ideas and anger and compassion contained in the slim volume that she'd fallen a little in love with the man she imagined the writer to be. She'd told Evan. He'd laughed and told her that it was okay—he was a little in love with the guy, too.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" Julia immediately regretted the question. He didn't owe her that kind of revelation or explanation.

  David shrugged helplessly, trapped into answering by social convention. "It's my past. It has nothing to do with who I am now."

  "I'm disappointed to hear that," said Michael. "I was hoping the long absence meant a new book would be out soon."

  "You retired?" Barbara said. "To become a caretaker?" The insensitivity of the question must have occurred to her as soon as she asked it, because before David had a chance to answer, Barbara added, "Pardon me a second while I get my foot out of my mouth. I really didn't mean that the way it sounded. I was just hoping you were here for the peace and quiet so you could work on a new book."

  "Or that you were doing research," Michael said.

  "You weren't sent here by my agent by any chance, were you?" David asked.

  Feeling protective, Julia decided he'd been put through enough and interrupted."I'm sorry to break things up, but David and I are already an hour late giving Pearl her evening pill." She stood."Why don't

  you go into the living room and finish the wine," she said to Barbara and Michael."I'll make coffee and we can have dessert when David and I get back."

  She retrieved her sweater from the closet and looked back to see Barbara and Michael clearing the table. "Please, leave it," she said, even knowing she would be ignored.

  "I'm sorry," Barbara mouthed.

  Julia gave her a tiny shrug. David held the door and followed her through. They were halfway across the lawn when he said, "You didn't have to do that. I can take care of myself."

  Before Julia had a chance to reply, Barbara came out on the porch and called her.

  "Julia—Shelly's on the phone. Do you want me to tell her you'll get back to her later?"

  Julia hesitated. It surprised her. Evan was the only person she'd ever put in front of Shelly or Jason.

  "Take the call," David told her before she had a chance to answer."It could be something important. I'll wait for you at the house."

  She and Shelly had talked that afternoon and it was unlike her to call again this soon just to chat. Julia nodded to David and told Barbara, "I'm coming." She ran back across the lawn, avoiding her sister's questioning look as she passed her on the way into the house.

  "Hi," she said into the receiver. "What's up?"

  "Not much."

  "You just called to say hi?" She peered out the kitchen window and watched as David disappeared into the trees.

  "Not exactly. I met a guy at Grandpa's Grange meeting last week and he asked me to go to the movie with him tomorrow night. Grandma said I had to talk to you first. I told her you wouldn't care if she didn't care, but—" she dropped her voice to a whisper "—

  you know how Grandma is."

  "Does this guy have a name?"

  "Steve."

  "A last name?" She struggled to keep the impatience out of her voice.

  "Boehm."

  "Ellis Boehm's son?" Ellis was the only boy at her high school who'd actually spent a whole night in jail. He'd done a complete about face afterward, married her best friend, Karol, the day after graduation, became a policeman after finishing community college, worked his way up to chief in six years and made a successful run for mayor—all before he'd turned thirty. She'd met his kids and liked them a lot.


  "I don't know whose son he is," Shelly whined. "I don't want a long-term relationship with the guy. I just want to see a movie with him."

  "Ask Grandma if he's Ellis's son. If he is, you can go. If he's not, call me back."

  "This is so dumb. What possible difference does it make who his father is?"

  "Shelly?"

  "Yeah?"

  "How badly do you want to go?"

  "Enough to shut up and do what I'm told?"

  Julia smiled. "Wow, for me to get that out of you this guy must really be cute."

  "Cute, Mom? Please. You know that word makes me gag."

  "Well? Is he?"

  "I guess so," she reluctantly admitted."He looks a lot like Dad when he was in high school. At least, the way he looked in that picture Grandma has on the piano when Dad's hair was long and he wore that black leather jacket you keep in the closet at home."

  Julia swallowed, hard. She wasn't sure whether the comparison was good or bad, only that it was a connection Shelly had made to her father. She worried, too much at times, that Shelly and Jason would forget Evan now that he was no longer the constant presence in their lives that he had been all the years he was only missing and not dead.

  "Call me when you get home tomorrow night."

  "It could be late."

  "It better not be that late. I have two hours on you. There's no way I'll be in bed by the time you should be home."

  "Love you, Mom."

  Shelly was through talking. "I love you, too, Shelly."

  She made a dash for the door before Barbara could corner her and ask the questions Julia saw bubbling in her eyes. "Be right back. Pearl will eat David alive if I'm not there to intercede." A little melodramatic, and a little unfair to Pearl, but it accomplished what Julia needed.

  David used a fork to dig out the third of a can of wet dog food he used to mix with the half cup of kibble, added a little water to create a paste and sprinkled a teaspoon of the powdered vitamins over the top. Pearl must have heard the preparations because she came to the kitchen door to watch hi nr.

  "How're the kids?" David asked.

  She tilted her head and stared at him.

  "Glad to hear it." He'd been trying to convince himself that she was coming around a little and would one day let him touch her.