He gritted his teeth. “Don’t blame Rosie. The war changed all our lives.”
Ignoring Nick’s comment, George patted his wife’s arm. “This business with Zach will soon pass. Now that Nicky’s back, our Rosie wil—”
“No, Dad,” Nick broke in. If he didn’t get through to them now, they might never face reality. And maybe saying the words would help him chart the precarious course ahead.
“To be honest, I have no idea where Rosie and I are going. We’ve lost seven years. We’re like babes in the woods, floundering around, trying to make sense of everything.
“If Rosie was the cruel insensitive creature your anger is making her out to be, she wouldn’t have come to Hill this morning to face me, let alone to tell me the truth about Zach. But she did, and under the circumstances, that kind of integrity is as much as I could’ve hoped for.”
His mother sat up straight in the bed, her eyes red-rimmed. “How can you stand there and defend her?”
Nick expelled a long sigh. “How can I not when she’s made such a wonderful home for Cody, not to mention an impressive career for herself?”
“She couldn’t have done it without our help!” His mother’s sharp words rang through the room.
“Your mother’s right, son.”
“Has she ever shown either of you anything but the profoundest gratitude for all you’ve done?” Nick fired back, feeling the heat of anger sweep over him.
Neither of them met his gaze.
“When she heard I was MIA and presumed dead, a lesser woman might’ve gone to pieces and never succeeded, no matter how much help she’d received.”
“She gave up on you! We never did.”
The truth of his mother’s words hit him like the second shock wave of a bomb blast. Then she was sobbing.
He moved to the side of the bed and embraced her. “That’s because you’re such wonderful parents, and I love you for that. But the fact remains Rosie has done a fantastic job with Cody. For that I will always be grateful.”
His father stirred restlessly. “I think what we all need is a vacation together. Why don’t we pack up the Buick in the morning and head for Yellowstone country?”
Grim-faced, Nick got up from the bed, realizing his arguments had made no impact on his parents.
“Good as that sounds, Dad, I can’t go anywhere until I see about getting a prosthesis of some kind. As for Rosie and Cody, they’ve still got school. I’m afraid that for a while we’re going to have to take things a day at a time.”
Most likely there are going to be many changes you’ll fight, but it can’t be helped.
His mother lay back against the pillows. In the soft light of the bedside lamp, Nick could see how much his parents had aged, though they were still a very handsome couple. He loved them and always would, but he was painfully aware that their single-minded devotion to him had created a breach with Rosie, one he wasn’t sure could be mended.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and Cody poked his head inside. “Hey, you guys? Can I come in?”
“Of course you can.” George chuckled and extended his hands to Cody, who ran toward him. They hugged joyfully while Nick looked on. “This has to be the happiest night of our lives, having your dad back.”
“It sure is!” Cody exclaimed, then ran around the other side of the bed to kiss his grandmother good-night.
Nick noted that the three of them were exceptionally close. Because of his parents’ love and Rosie’s, Cody seemed to be in the best emotional shape of any of them. Again he sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving that, in his absence, his son had been blessed with such a strong supportive mother and grandparents.
In a few minutes, he’d be alone with his wife for the rest of the night. Before they hurt each other any more—which would happen inevitably, despite their most compassionate intentions—he’d offer Rosie his gratitude.
“Come on, Cody. Time to let your grandparents get their rest.”
Nick gave his parents each another hug and said he’d see them in the morning, then ushered Cody from the room, his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “You need to get to bed, too. School’s going to come early in the morning.”
“I don’t want to go school tomorrow, Dad. Please let me stay home with you one more day.”
“That’s for your mom to decide,” he murmured as they entered his bedroom.
Right now Cody had a serious case of hero worship where Nick was concerned; he felt so hurt and angry about Zach he was taking it out on Rosie. It would be very easy for Nick to play on his son’s vulnerability and make it impossible for Rosie to wield any influence. The last thing he wanted to do…
Cody scuffed his toe against the carpet. “Mom’ll make me go.”
“It’s probably for the best, son. I’m going to be at the Veterans’ Hospital most of the day seeing about a new hand. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll pick you up after school. Bring some of your friends along. We’ll get a malt together and talk football.”
Cody’s eyes lit up. “All right!”
Relieved that his son hadn’t objected, Nick added, “Maybe after dinner we can find a gym where we can work out.”
“There’s one in Foothill!”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I go there sometimes with my friends.”
“Okay. We’ll do it. Now, have you said good-night to your mom?”
A sheepish expression crossed Cody’s face. “No.”
“I’ll bet she’s waiting. Why don’t you go give her a kiss, then come on back to bed.”
Cody’s eyes clouded. “I’m so glad you’re home, Dad.”
Again Nick felt that thickening in his throat. “Ditto, son.”
Cody wiped his eyes with his arm. “I’ll be right back. If you want, you can look at my junior-high yearbook from last year. Here. I was showing it to R.T. I’m in three pictures, but they’re kind of dumb. I’ve grown a couple more inches since then.”
Nick took the yearbook. “You’ve grown about five more feet since I last saw you.” He winked at his son. “I’m anxious to look at every picture taken while I was away so I can fill in the blanks. When you and your mom saw me off, you were this little curly-headed guy who liked to ride on my shoulders.”
Cody made a face. “I looked like a girl.”
Nick chuckled. “Did you ever see pictures of me at five years of age?”
“Yeah.” Cody grinned. “Grandma has a zillion of them. You had a whole bunch of curls and looked like a girl, too.”
“Well, nobody would ever take us for females now.”
Their eyes met in mutual understanding and they hugged. “I’ll be right back, Dad.”
“While you’re at it, you might thank your mom for being such a great mother all these years without any help from me.”
Cody’s grin faded and he looked away. Nick knew his son wanted to say something negative, but at the last second had thought better of it.
As soon as he’d left, Nick flipped through the pages, painfully aware of the years when he hadn’t been part of Cody’s life. Or Rosie’s.
For so long, R.T. had been Nick’s only link with reality. It seemed strange to think that the man who was closer to him than a brother no longer lived on the other side of the wall, and never would again.
All that time, R.T. had been Nick’s immediate concern. On their flight from Germany, Nick hadn’t really believed Cynthia would still be there, waiting for her husband. A marriage of only one year and no children… But by some miracle, Cynthia hadn’t met—or worse, married—anyone else.
Happy as he was for R.T., it was hard to see him drive off with his wife, who was obviously still very much in love with him.
Nick set the book on Cody’s desk and stood up. His palms had gone clammy. He started getting the shakes.
You miss him, Armstrong. You miss him like hell.
And you’re afraid to be alone with Rosie.
“Dad? I’m back. Did you see the picture of me during the
assembly?”
“You mean the one where you’re all in grass skirts and bikini tops?”
“Yeah.” Cody grinned.
Nick grinned back. “Did you borrow your mother’s bathing suit?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I have to say she looks a lot better in it than you do. In fact, I bet your mom’s still the best-looking of all your friends’ moms.”
There was a long silence before Cody nodded. “You love her a lot, Dad, don’t you?”
Nick sucked in his breath. “I fell hopelessly in love with her when I was eighteen and that’s never changed. We had a wonderful marriage, closer than most.”
“Then…”
“Then how come she fell for Zach?”
Cody nodded again.
“For one thing, she thought I’d been killed in the war. For another, you said yourself he’s a great guy. For a third…well, it’s my opinion that people who’ve been in a bad marriage are often frightened to repeat the experience for fear they’ll make the same mistakes.
“Since she’d been so happy in our marriage, she probably wanted to have that experience again and decided Zach could enrich her life. In a way, it’s a compliment to what she and I had shared. Can you understand what I’m telling you?”
I’m not sure even I understand it, Cody, but it’s the only explanation I have for the moment.
“But n-nobody’s like you, Dad,” the boy said brokenly, tears gushing down his cheeks. “Mom always used to say that. How come she can’t feel that way now?”
Cody, Cody. If I had the answer to that question…
“The heart’s a funny thing, son. You can’t order it to feel a certain way. It does what it wants. You can’t get mad at it.”
Cody blinked and stared across at Nick. “You mean you’re not mad at Mom?”
“I was this morning,” Nick confessed quietly. “I won’t lie to you about that. The truth is, I’m in a lot of pain, just like you. Just like your mom. There’s a great deal to work out, and today is only the first day. We’re going to have to be patient.”
ROSIE THOUGHT she was going to jump out of her skin with anxiety as she waited for Nick to come to bed. She’d busied herself cleaning the house, locking all the doors, turning out the lights.
While he was with Cody and his parents, she’d emptied his duffel bag and made room for his things in her closets and drawers. A clean pair of pajamas they’d given him in Germany lay across the foot of the bed. After showering, she’d put on a nightgown she hadn’t worn since before he’d left for the war, then slipped into the pink robe Nick had given her eight Christmases ago.
Finally she’d gone to bed, forcing herself not to think about Zach flying to California. His terse communication had created a sense of loss that made her feel as if her only friend on earth had suddenly deserted her.
But in another sense, she was glad he’d gone to be with his family. He was particularly fond of his older brother, Richard, who could provide needed comfort right now.
Rosie had never had brothers or sisters and could only imagine what a luxury it would be to run to a sibling in a crisis. For that matter, Nick had been an only child, as well. Throughout their marriage, they’d been each other’s best friend, had relied on each other for everything.
She and Nick had married right out of high school, their passion too flammable to endure a lengthy engagement. Nick had been her one and only lover. To Rosie, the physical side of their marriage had been pure ecstasy. But when she thought of making love to him now, she couldn’t summon any actual memory of what those feelings were like.
It was like looking back thirteen years to Cody’s birth—forty-eight long hours of labor. She had an almost abstract awareness that there had been intense physical pain; at the time, she’d thought she would never forget it. But she had forgotten those pains, and until she had another baby, there was no way she could ever relive them.
When Zach entered her life, everything was different. Her feelings had taken a long time to get to the point that she wanted him in her bed. She’d heard too many stories of widows and divorced women who’d remarried and then discovered that after their physical needs had been satisfied, there was little else holding the marriage together.
Rosie had been determined to build a rock-solid relationship before she allowed herself to respond sexually to Zach. She’d never felt out of control with him the way she had with Nick. In all likelihood it was because she was much older and because she’d gone through a long period of mourning. Not only that, there were Cody’s feelings to consider. The combination of circumstances had made her cautious. Fortunately Zach had loved her enough to wait until they were married before they consummated their relationship.
Bothered by a headache that had begun during dinner, she got up and padded to the kitchen for some painkillers. While she was putting the bottle back on the shelf, the phone rang, startling her.
The only person she could think of who’d be calling this late was Zach. Was it possible he’d changed his mind and hadn’t gone to California, after all?
She was afraid to pick up the phone, afraid they’d go through another excruciating emotional battle. But the continued ringing would wake the whole house. After another moment’s hesitation, she answered.
“Hello?”
“Rosie? It’s R.T.”
She blinked. “R.T.? Are you all right?”
“Yes. Could I speak to Nick?”
He wasn’t all right at all.
“Of course. I’ll get him. Hold on.”
Laying the receiver on the counter, she ran to find Nick, who was just coming out of Cody’s bedroom. In the near darkness, his tall body was little more than a silhouette.
For an instant, it reminded her of other times when he’d come from the shower toward their bed, a shadowy figure intent on making love to her. She reeled from the impact of such a deeply buried memory that suddenly, unexpectedly surfaced.
“R.T.’s on the phone.”
“I thought he might be calling.”
“If you want privacy, take it in the kitchen.”
“Thank you,” he murmured and strode past her.
Rosie hurried to the bedroom, still disturbed by the strange experience outside Cody’s door. She suspected Nick would be talking to R.T. for a while and decided she’d try to reach Zach on the phone line hooked up to the computer downstairs in her office.
He would be with his family by now, and it was an hour earlier in California. She felt as if she’d lived ten lifetimes in one day; she needed to hear his voice again, if only to say good-night.
Without any further hesitation she darted into the hall and flew down the stairs to the basement. She kept a directory of her personal numbers in her desk drawer.
But a call to his family’s home revealed that they had no idea he was coming to California. He hadn’t phoned them. Maybe he was still on his way home from the airport.
With the assurance that they’d have him call as soon as he arrived, his mother hung up. Rosie replaced the receiver with the awful premonition that Zach didn’t want his family to know any of this. In fact, she was pretty sure he hadn’t told them about the engagement yet.
Maybe he hadn’t gone to California. Maybe at the last minute he’d changed his mind. He could be anywhere. Only his secretary was privy to that information, but it was too late to disturb her. Rosie would have to wait until tomorrow.
On the slight chance that he’d decided not to leave Salt Lake, after all, she phoned his condo, but all she got was the answering machine.
Was it possible he’d gone off somewhere on his racing bike? Whenever he was upset or needed to think, he usually went cycling for a few hours. He’d been training for the Tour de France in Park City when she’d first met him. At the time she’d been unaware that he’d been grieving over the loss of his fiancée.
Rosie, along with Cody and a couple of his friends, had rented bikes to wheel around the restored mining town high in the Wasatch
Mountains. It was early in the morning, and they’d come to an unused stretch of road, or so they’d thought. As they rounded a sharp curve, there was Zach, headed toward them with the speed of a torpedo.
Only his expertise prevented a serious accident. Instead of being angry at having to skid to a stop to avoid collision when it was their fault for being all over the road, he graciously apologized and struck up a conversation. Once they found out he was in training, Cody and his friends were in awe of him, besieging him with questions.
What began as a chance meeting turned into an all-day excursion. Zach led them on an eventful ride to Bridal Veil Falls, where they hiked and picnicked. No one wanted the fun to end, so they ended up having dinner together, as well.
It was the first time Rosie had been in another man’s company—outside of school and work—since Nick’s death. When Zach asked if he could take her and Cody out to dinner the next time he drove down to Salt Lake, she found herself saying yes.
Cody thought it was cool, and the three of them had a lovely evening out. But then it became clear that Zach was attracted to his mom, that he wanted to start seeing her on a regular basis, and Cody became difficult. The problems began.
He’d been difficult ever since. Right up until tonight. Now, suddenly, he was a different child. After the explosion in the kitchen earlier, she hadn’t expected him to come near her, let alone say good-night and give her a hug.
Nick’s influence, surely.
Nick. By now he’d probably be off the phone.
With a guilty start, she replaced the receiver and ran up the stairs to the bedroom. The door stood ajar. She could see him in the middle of the room, tying the ends of the belt of his old striped bathrobe around his waist. His pajamas still lay at the foot of the bed.
There was an odd fluttering in her chest as she made her entrance.
His enigmatic gaze swerved to hers and narrowed. “Obviously, the prospect of sleeping with me was a little too daunting, after all. If you want me to stay on the couch, just say so. No lies, Rosie. At this point, all we’ve got going for us is the truth.”
Nick, I’m not trying to hurt you.
“I was taking advantage of the time you were on the phone with R.T. to call Zach. He left for California in a lot of pain, but it seems I can’t locate him. Is that enough truth for you?”
Strangers When We Meet Page 9