Natural Attraction

by Marisa Carroll

  More than a dozen years younger, Jessie calculated mournfully. No wonder Mark was pursuing Kerry so hard. She was everything, obviously, he’d found lacking in Jessie. The perfect age to give him a baby.

  “Well, I for one certainly don’t want to get tied down that young. Just like Joan Grayson,” Lyn said with assumed worldliness, capping the bottle of nail polish with exaggerated care to protect her handiwork.

  “Imagine having a baby at our age,” Ann murmured, styling brush poised above her wisp of bangs.

  “Who’s Joan Grayson?” Jessie rallied her maternal forces, dragging her mind away from the tall figure sitting downstairs, no doubt discussing guest lists and wedding favors chattily with Marta. She still wanted him, needed him so badly it was a true physical pain that tightened her diaphragm and made her breath come in short, hurting gasps.

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you already? Joan Grayson’s a girl in Lyn’s drama club. She’s a senior and she’s going to have a baby at Christmas time,” Ann went on dreamily. “Isn’t that romantic? The father is in the service. They’re going to get married when he gets out of basic training or after graduation or sometime.”

  “Or sometime? No, that is not romantic,” Jessie said in a strangled tone she hoped they attributed to sternness and not to incipient panic. “It’s a very serious situation with consequences that will affect all three of them for the rest of their lives. I just hope everything works out for them.” The odds were woefully stacked against the young couple, Jessie knew. “I think perhaps the three of us should have another talk someday soon.”

  “Not about the birds and the bees again, Mom,” Lyn yelped, hopping off her bed with lithe grace. “You got mixed up enough as it was the first time. Don’t worry about Annie. She’s only bluffing. She wouldn’t even let Bobby Lester kiss her good-night at her birthday party.”

  “Shut your trap,” Ann bellowed. “Mom, it’s none of her business if I don’t want to kiss that creep.”

  “It is my business.” Jessie wished this diversion from her heartaches hadn’t been so explosive a subject in itself. “I still think we should talk.”

  “Whenever you feel up to it, Mom,” Ann teased, grabbing her letter jacket off the curved arms of a bentwood pier glass. Lyn dragged hers off a hook behind the door. Jessie wondered for the thousandth time why she’d paid a fortune to have closets put in the old house. The twins never used them. She could have saved plenty on carpeting, too. Just as many colorful pieces of wispy lingerie and dainty blouses dotted the floor. “We’ll give you a few hints on how to get Mark from Mrs Bay. She’s a piranha in sheep’s clothing if I ever saw one.”

  Lyn giggled at her twin’s use of such a mangled metaphor. “She’ll eat a nice guy like Mark alive,” she corroborated. They exchanged knowing glances. Jessie stared at them as though they’d changed again before her very eyes. They looked so grown-up; she felt so young and insecure. What would Ann and Lyn say if she told them the true underlying reason for her breaking off with Mark? Would they understand her reluctance to have more children? She thought not. Their newly found maturity was a fragile thing, a new experience. It wasn’t fair to burden her daughters with a decision that must be entirely her own.

  “Kerry Bay is looking for a man,” Ann said bluntly in case Jessie was still acting obtuse. She pulled her thoughts back from her own inner turmoil. No, the twins were growing up fast, but not that fast. “She’s a man-eater.”

  The conversation had gone far enough in Jessie’s opinion. “That’s it. No more soap operas for you two. We have no idea what goes on between Mark Elliot and Mrs. Bay.” She couldn’t help wondering how long it had been going on herself but refused to satisfy her curiosity and ask the question. “Don’t judge her until you’ve learned what her life is like. Can you imagine how it must be to be left alone, completely deserted by your husband, with two tiny babies?” That much was general knowledge in the neighborhood. The young divorcée had moved into a duplex just two streets over several months earlier. Her landlady was one of Marta’s bridge partners at the senior center. “You should admire how well she’s coping with her problems.” She probably sounded horribly pious when she was only trying desperately hard to be fair to a woman she was well on her way to disliking already.

  The twins made identical grimaces. “You’re probably right, Mom,” Lyn admitted grudgingly. “But she’s still got two of the brattiest kids we’ve ever had to sit with. Right, Ann?”

  “Gremlins. Monsters. I can’t think of a word mean enough to describe them. They’re worse than Nell ever was.”

  “That bad?” Jessie gurgled, regaining a measure of her equilibrium now that the focus of their attention had shifted again. She was doing a good job with her children, just as Mark had so often told her. The news about the Grayson girl’s pregnancy had thrown her for a minute, but she thought she’d ridden it out pretty well. The twins were levelheaded and smart. They’d be fine; she just had to learn to let go gracefully, a little at a time.

  Lyn came forward to give her mother a peck on the cheek. It was something neither of them did often anymore. Jessie missed it but respected their need to assert independence in so many telling little ways. She reached up to give Lyn a quick, hard hug, blinking back sentimental tears. “Mark’s a great guy, Mom. Don’t let Kerry Bay get her petite little claws on him. We like him a lot. He likes you, too.”

  “More than he does her,” Ann said with complete conviction. “I can tell. He talks about you all the time when we’re over there. It bugs her. I’d bet next month’s allowance on it.”

  “You’re just imagining things, girls,” Jessie scolded, avoiding their sympathetic gazes as she prepared to rise from the bed. “Mark and I have too many differences. They didn’t show up on the island, unfortunately—” she sighed, bunching up a handful of the black cape “—but they did later on. It’s over. You’d better go on down. Mark will want to get to the party. After all, he is the host.”

  “Don’t look so down, Mom. We’ll talk tomorrow,” Lyn said in her best adult tone. “If we put our heads together, we’ll come up with a plan to get him back for us.”

  It was time to put a halt to this fantasizing before she began to believe it was possible herself. Jessie spoke sharply to hide a suspicious tightness building in her throat. “We’ll do no such thing. Whatever Mark and I might have had is long over. It never really got started. If he wants to pursue a relationship with Kerry Bay, it’s none of my business and absolutely, positively, none of yours. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” They exchanged a last conspiratorial look before they darted out the door and clambered down to the half landing. Jessie took several deep, sustaining breaths and followed more sedately.

  When she reached the landing, the twins were making a deceptively calm entrance into the family room. Waves of competing and highly scented lotions and sprays wafted around them. Mark rose from the couch where he’d still been sitting attentively by Marta’s side.

  “Wow! A minuteman! Mark, you look sensational. A wig and everything,” Ann enthused. “Isn’t that outfit something, Lyn?”

  “Great. Where’s your flintlock?” she added to the complimentary opening gambit.

  “At the magazine,” Mark beamed. They seemed to be over their animosity toward him. He’d been working hard to reestablish good relations ever since he first discovered they were Kerry’s baby-sitters about three weeks ago when he took her home after a late session at the magazine. He still wasn’t sure exactly how he’d let Kerry by a few of the barriers he’d thrown up around himself, but they were definitely drifting into a more personal relationship with every passing day. “It’s the only genuine thing about this costume. The gun belonged to my great-great-great-grandfather. I think I’ve got that right.” He paused, then shrugged expressively. “These buckskin pants are man-made, and the homespun shirt is half-polyester. The hat was made in Hong Kong.” He grinned, and the twins returned the gesture. Mark glanced up as Jessie shifted
uneasily on the stairs.

  The outfit might be a reproduction, but he certainly looked marvelous in it. The dull blue fabric of his shirt strained across the broad sweep of his shoulders; the tight knee breeches accented muscular thighs and ribbed stockings molded long, well-shaped legs. Jessie sucked in her breath to speak. “I’m sorry, Mark, but they have to be home before midnight. Tomorrow is a school day.” She folded her hands primly across her middle. She didn’t let any tinge of softness creep into her tone. If he wanted to play house with a woman a dozen years younger than she, not two months after he’d broken her heart, he was welcome to her. But Jessie wasn’t going to aid and abet his already highly refined seduction techniques by sending her daughters to watch the other woman’s children until the wee hours of the morning. She pinned Mark with what she hoped he’d recognize as a quelling, disapproving glare.

  He seemed totally unconscious of the subtle threat. He included Jessie in his entrancing grin. Her heart flipped over in her breast, and unwillingly an answering smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She ignored it, concentrating her attention on her ragged heartbeat. It was the first sign of life the damned thing had shown since the night she’d left Mark stalking off across a deserted pasture, driven his car home, shut herself in the bathroom, turned the shower on full blast and cried her eyes out.

  “Don’t worry, Jess. I’ll have the twins back safe and sound by the witching hour. Halloween isn’t a good night for fairy princesses to be out that late.” The girls preened under the blatant flattery. Marta chuckled indulgently from the sofa. Nell was the only Meyer woman absent or she’d have been fawning all over him, too. Thank goodness she was off being pleasantly terrified at the Manchester Men’s Club annual Haunted House.

  “I’m sure you will.” Jessie hoped she’d managed just the right note of condescending lack of interest—like a grand duchess, which she felt she resembled somewhat in the huge, enveloping cape, at least now that she’d abandoned her pumpkin head.

  She started forward with her nose in the air, made it to the third step from the bottom and pitched forward when she stepped on the hem of the billowing costume. A startled squeak pushed past her lips as she grabbed for the banister and missed.

  Mark was there in an instant, cradling her in his arms, saving her from an embarrassing and painful fall on the uncarpeted foyer floor. Without a moment’s hesitation he swept her high into his arms, striding back into the family room. It was over in a matter of seconds. Marta jumped up from her seat, scattering wedding dress, thread and scissors onto the carpet.

  “Jessie! My Lord, what a fright! I told you not to wear those awful old shoes. You could have broken your neck, or worse.”

  Jessie didn’t ask what could possibly be worse than breaking your neck, she already knew. Being held in Mark Elliot’s arms was painful and exhilarating. It showed her too plainly what she’d lost. She couldn’t believe how marvelous the touch of him, the scent of him, the strength of him, felt to her. Until this moment she hadn’t admitted even to herself how much she missed him, how much she still loved him, would always love him. Or how great the differences between them really were. She loosened her stranglehold on his neck, wiggling in his arms. “Put me down, Mark, before we both fall,” she said with unnecessary vehemence. “I’m fine, really.”

  “It’s those shoes,” Marta repeated distractedly.

  “I’m not wearing any shoes,” Jessie said sharply, kicking one foot out from under the concealing folds of the black cape. “See?”

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Jess?” Mark asked. His breath tickled her ear, stirring the errant copper curls. He wasn’t even breathing hard, although he held her high against his chest. His heart beat steadily and reassuringly against her side—as it had that night in his bed.

  “I’m fine. Put me down and I’ll prove it.” Jessie’s voice cracked with strain and repressed desire, but her fundamental reservations hadn’t changed. He wanted babies; she didn’t. There was no getting around that fact.

  “You guys look just like George and Martha Washington.” Ann giggled nervously, the color beginning to return to her face. “Except Mom’s taller and not quite as fat as Martha.”

  “And Mark doesn’t have wooden teeth,” Lyn couldn’t resist adding.

  “Thanks,” Jessie said scathingly, pinning her daughter with a chilling maternal glare.

  “My teeth are one of my best features,” Mark mumbled under his breath. Jessie unwisely turned her head, to be impaled by his gaze as he lowered her protesting form to the sofa. The room narrowed down to the space of his arms, everything receded into the background, leaving Jessie alone with him in a pool of enchanted silence. The seconds stretched out endlessly until Mark spoke again, breaking the spell. “You have gained a few pounds these past weeks, haven’t you, Jess?”

  She glared up at her rescuer. “As a matter of fact, Colonel Elliot, I’ve lost six pounds, thank you for noticing.” She’d been too miserable to eat.

  “Should I call Dr. Perkins, honey?” Marta leaned over the back of the sofa after carefully depositing her upended wedding dress on the armchair.

  “No! For heaven’s sake, Mother, I’m fine. I didn’t even hit the floor.” At the moment Jessie wouldn’t have minded being blessedly unconscious. “Stop fussing, all of you. Mark, you’d better be on your way. You don’t want to be late to your own party.”

  “I suppose that wouldn’t be quite the thing, would it?” He didn’t seem to notice the shattering sarcasm Jessie had tried hard to inflect into her tone. He seemed different somehow, she thought wistfully, more sure of himself. This was how she wanted to remember him, tall, imposing, totally in command of himself and the situation around him, not the hard angry shell of himself he’d been the night they’d parted so angrily and so painfully.

  “Don’t forget they should be home before midnight,” Jessie said softly, still caught up in her musings.

  “Midnight it is.” He gave her mother one of his special smiles. “I’ll check up on her then, Marta.” He might have been talking about Cecelia and her kittens for all the emotion in his voice.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Jessie said, pushing herself up against the arm pillows. He must have gotten over her pretty quickly to sound so unconcerned after practically saving her life. That last klutzy performance on the stairs had been just the thing to cure him, obviously. He was probably thankful to be rid of her. “We don’t stay up that late. Girls, do you have your keys?”

  “Yes, Mom.” Another smug glance passed between the twins. Jessie would have liked to get up off the couch and slap their smiling, satisfied faces, but the damned black robe was all bunched up around her legs; she’d probably fall flat on her face again. She didn’t intend to compromise her dignity any further. She contented herself with a withering stare.

  “I’ve been expecting you at the magazine to okay the proofs I’ve chosen for the spring issue, Jess,” Mark ventured as he accepted the dropped tricorner from Lyn. “Can you make it after you leave Abrahms and Mahoney tomorrow?” He couldn’t keep the hint of challenge out of his voice, even though he tried. “I want to get it into production.” He attempted to inject a note of humility into the last statement, hoping Jessie would rise to the bait.

  “Is five-thirty okay?” she answered, capitulating more quickly than he’d bargained for. She wasn’t resigned to being thrown back into his company. Wariness was now obvious in her great brown eyes. Mark wanted to kick himself for bringing back that defensive, defeating attitude.

  “Fine.” He wanted to ask her out to dinner after she okayed the proofs but stopped himself in time. Their last dinner date had ended in his bed. He had a lot of thinking to do before he started anything with Jessie Meyer again. They had plenty of problems to solve between them, and now there was the added complication of Kerry Bay. He must have been out of his mind the past few weeks, or merely very, very lonely to have let his relationship with Kerry go as far as it had.

  “I’ll be there.�
�� Jessie heartlessly denied another leap of her pulses. It was reaction to her near-fall, not to Mark’s asking her to the magazine. This was strictly business, nothing more. It had to be done. It was better to get the meeting over as quickly as possible. It would be shock therapy, so to speak. She’d beard the lion in his den and cure herself of loving him once and for all. “It shouldn’t take long.”

  “No, it won’t take us long now,” Mark replied cryptically. Jessie blinked, wondering if she really did see the telltale teasing glint in his cobalt eyes. “Good night, Jess, Marta.”

  “Good night, Mark, thanks for saving my daughter this time.”

  “All in a day’s work for us minutemen.” He made a creditable sweeping bow with a flourish of the tricornered hat. The twins giggled and sighed romantically. Marta shooed them out the door with loving laughter.

  “You’re a fool if you don’t take that man back,” she said, shutting the door solidly behind them before returning to the family room to pin her daughter with a gimlet stare. “He’s still in love with you.”

  Jessie just flopped back on the pillows and groaned.

  Chapter Nine

  THE FOLLOWING DAY WAS THE longest of Jessie’s life. There wasn’t a thing left on her desk at Abrahms and Mahoney after two-thirty in the afternoon. She doodled her way through half a steno pad, changed the ribbon on her typewriter and the batteries in her calculator. She watered the plants, dusted the windowsill and checked the clock every three minutes. All in all, by the time five o’clock rolled around she was a nervous wreck.

  She even began to wonder if she shouldn’t wear her hair down. It would make her look younger, she reasoned, make it less apparent that she was almost old enough to be Kerry Bay’s mother. She sneaked into the washroom, unpinned the shining knot of auburn curls on top of her head, fluffing it out on her shoulders to study the effect. It didn’t work. She did look younger, perhaps, but shy and less sophisticated, too. It wasn’t a good trade-off. She needed all the self-confidence she could get. It would be confusing to start changing herself now. She was too old and too set in her ways to start making over her life.