Yes Is Forever

by Stella Cameron

  Dear Reader,

  Writing together as Jane Worth Abbott, my dear friend and wonderful writer Virginia Myers and I produced three books. Faces of a Clown, Choices and Yes Is Forever are each complete novels but share core characters.

  In Yes Is Forever Donna McGrath, adopted daughter of Sara and Evan McGrath from Choices, and Bruce Fenton whom we first saw in Laura and Mark Fenton’s story, Faces of a Clown, have an extraordinary whirl with love…and risk.

  Bruce is twelve years Donna’s senior. They first met when he was the kind man who took her about in San Francisco. Six years have passed and Donna is still only approaching twenty, but she is so in love with unsuspecting Bruce.

  Visualize the scene when Donna decides she must tell him how she feels—and how she expects them to proceed:

  Bruce tried to sound amused, but his voice was strained as he went on. “And to think, while I was buying you popcorn and we were looking at polar bears…”

  Donna’s lowered lashes hid her eyes. “It’s just that I’ve always known I had to do something about the way I felt when I was with you…and the way I thought about you when we were apart.”

  “And that’s where you went wrong,” Bruce said reasonably. “You followed some adolescent whim. But don’t feel bad or embarrassed.”

  “I don’t expect us to march up the aisle this week,” Donna continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “We’ve got a couple of months to get to know each other. Now for starters, why don’t you kiss me?”

  If you’re feeling sorry for someone, don’t let it be Donna, because Bruce is in for the most exciting, the most vexing and the biggest struggle of his life. The odds against him are formidable, and he is only a man.

  I hope you cry a little and laugh a lot when you read Yes Is Forever.

  Best wishes,

  Stella Cameron

  Books by Stella Cameron

  Love Beyond Question

  Moontide

  Faces of a Clown

  Full Circle

  Shadows

  Choices

  All That Sparkles

  No Stranger

  Second to None

  Some Die Telling

  A Party of Two

  The Message

  Once and for Always

  A Death in the House

  Friends

  The Late Gentleman

  Risks

  Undercurrents

  Mirror, Mirror

  Snow Angels

  The Legend of Under Widden

  An Angel in Time

  A Man for Easter

  Mad about the Man

  All Smiles

  7B

  Married in Spring “We Do!”

  The Orphan

  About Adam

  Kiss Them Goodbye

  A Useful Affair

  Stella Cameron

  Yes Is Forever

  For Claire Cameron

  “…the greatest gift is love.”

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  WHEN HAD SHE FALLEN in love with Bruce Fenton? Six years ago, here in San Francisco, when she’d been a spindly thirteen-year-old he took pity on for a day? Or had it happened more slowly, while she’d made phone call after phone call from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia? There had been so many of those calls, perhaps more than she should have made, but at first she’d needed a friend, and later…later she’d simply needed him.

  Donna rested her elbows on the desk and blew into her steepled fingers. How could she not have fallen in love with Bruce? Twelve years her senior, already very much a man when they met, he must have laughed at the adolescent dramas she’d shared with him, yet he’d always been too kind to let her know.

  Joy, pure clear happiness, made her smile while at the same time she blinked away tears. She was back in San Francisco, this time to stay, if she had her way. Her dream would come true, and soon. Bruce was the lonely one now. He needed her; he just hadn’t admitted it yet.

  She wondered what the rest of the office force in this wonderful, discreetly sumptuous suite would do if she suddenly started singing. Something loud and suited to this bursting sense of high excitement, or anticipation, this sense of shivery expectation.

  Everything was turning out right for Donna McGrath—everything. She was doing this summer job very well with, say, a quarter of her mind. Working at Fenton and Hunt, Attorneys-at-Law, in a gofer capacity would do nothing to further her actual career plans, but right now the work was perfect. Her parents were happy that she was staying with their old friends, the Hunts. She was happy as well. Mark and Laura Hunt and their six-year-old son, E.J., were a lot easier to live with than she’d imagined they would be. And she’d already seen Bruce three times this first week!

  Her cup wasn’t just running over: it was bubbling wildly. And she had the whole summer ahead of her—the whole summer!

  Donna glanced at the clock and shuffled a stack of memos into a tidy pile beneath a brass paperweight. In a few minutes, at noon, she was to meet Laura Hunt for lunch. Laura had promised they’d go to some posh place to celebrate Donna’s first successful week in what everyone in San Francisco called “the City”—as if all the other cities in the world, including her own hometown in Canada, were inconsequential hamlets.

  Today bustling Vancouver seemed very far away and small, even to Donna. Sara and Evan McGrath, her adoptive parents, and her little brother, Jim, were there, and she loved them, but today this was Donna’s City, too. She grabbed her purse. Laura would be waiting on the ground floor of the building. She made a breathless dash for the bank of elevators and was lucky to get one right away.

  “Well, that was prompt,” Laura said as Donna left the elevator. “I thought you’d have to take time to make up or something.”

  “No, I don’t use much,” Donna said. “And my hair is so heavy it usually stays put most of the day after I comb it. But I did wash my hands.”

  Laura grinned. She was a beautiful woman, with soft dark hair, startlingly blue eyes and cameo features. And she always seemed so young that Donna had stopped calling her “Aunt” years ago.

  “It’s really beautiful hair, so thick and shiny.” Laura touched Donna’s black curtain of hair.

  “And straight,” said Donna with a laugh. “I’m afraid the Asian genes determined the hair. But once I get it bent at the bottom, it stays. Like florists’ wire.”

  “Oh, come on!” Laura laughed, too. “It’s soft and gorgeous, and you know it.” She tucked her arm through Donna’s and headed across the busy lobby. “One thing about Eurasians, they usually seem to get the best of both races. I’m glad your natural mother chose a Chinese man as your father.”

  Donna nodded at the green-liveried doorman, and led the way outside. “With all due respect to Prairie, wherever she may be today, I don’t think she chose, Laura. I think I was just an accident. Poor little Prairie’s life is a continuous series of happenstances.” Prairie Crawford’s image, her long, tow-colored hair, and her flapping clothes, came and went quickly. “I hope she’s doing okay,” Donna murmured, almost to herself.

  “Have you seen her recentl
y?” Laura asked.

  “Two, maybe three years ago, she turned up in Vancouver for a couple of days. Mom and Dad are certainly great with her, I must say. If I had an adopted child, I don’t know how laid-back I’d be if the birth mother came strolling in every once in a while.”

  “Evan and Sara are special people,” Laura said thoughtfully, shading her eyes against the sun to look at Donna. “Prairie Crawford should see you now. You’ve become absolutely exotic.”

  “So Dad always says. To hear him, you’d think I was a raving beauty. Let’s hurry. I’m starved.”

  “Yes, me, too, and I promised Bruce I’d get us a good table. He called this morning, and I invited him to join us. I like to keep tabs on that cousin of mine. He doesn’t always take very good care of himself these days. I hope you don’t mind if he comes,” Laura said, quickening her pace.

  “No, Bruce is fun,” Donna replied, without missing a beat. She had already realized she’d better tell Laura how she felt about Bruce, but not yet, not this instant. She’d know the time when it came.

  “He’ll meet us at the restaurant. He even told me what to order for him. He was gearing up for some report he wanted to go over with Mark, and he expected to be a bit late.” Laura paused, then added, “I wish those two got along better. Come on, we’ve got the green light.”

  They went with the rest of the surging tide of people going to lunch in the financial district. A blast of cool wind plastered their clothing against their bodies. Buildings of dark shining marble and sparkling glass soared around them, creating man-made canyons beneath the clear blue of San Francisco’s summer skies.

  Donna’s mind held on to Laura’s last comment about Bruce, as it always held on to any idea about Bruce, until they were seated in the restaurant. Bruce was the Fenton part of the firm, the only remaining member of his family—at the moment. Bruce’s father, George Fenton, and Mark’s father, William, had been the founding partners of Fenton and Hunt. With both older men dead, their sons, Mark being the senior partner, held the reins, administrating what had become a huge and celebrated corporate law practice.

  “I didn’t know they didn’t get along,” Donna said tentatively, holding the menu open before her.

  “Who?” Laura asked. “Oh, Bruce and Mark? They never have, really. I think they like each other a lot, but their differences over the business get in the way. They try to keep the peace for my sake, because Bruce is my cousin, and we’ve…well, we’ve become very close. And I must say Mark has always bent over backward to be nice to Bruce—and about him.

  “You’re too young to know this, but Bruce was a pretty wild kid. He’s a late bloomer. He was almost twenty-four before he even started law school. Mark has done his best to help him. Then, of course, since they both inherited a piece of the firm, they have to work together.” Laura pursed her lips, looking over the menu. “The age-old question arises. What shall it be—fattening or non-fattening?”

  “Well, something light for me. I guess you’ve already gathered I’m my family’s health nut.”

  Laura put down the menu. “I can’t say it’s done you any harm,” she said. “Since I quit work, I’ve had to really watch it. Running around after one small son doesn’t seem to quite use up the calories I want to eat. I suppose you’re going to have the pita-bread thing full of sprouts and chestnuts or something?”

  “Sounds delicious,” Donna agreed, then asked casually, “What don’t they get along about, Mark and Bruce?”

  “Just have a general difference in philosophy, I guess,” Laura said. “Mark is a pretty solid citizen, a stick-to-business type, and Bruce, well, Mark says Bruce is really a social worker posing as a lawyer. He says if Bruce has a choice of a client worth a big fee or a small fee, Bruce will find a client for no fee. That’s an exaggeration, of course. It’s not that bad. But Bruce always wants to help the underdog, you know.”

  “Well,” Donna said dreamily. “Somebody has to help them.”

  “But does he have to help them all?” Laura laughed. “Mark says it’s because of a summer job he had a few years ago. He was helping those refugees from Hong Kong. You know, somebody has to teach them how to cope with the bus system, tell them which areas of the City to stay away from, how to shop in the supermarkets and all that. They don’t have an easy time getting used to an alien culture.”

  Donna spread her napkin on her lap. “He liked dealing with the Chinese, didn’t he? He’s mentioned it a few times.”

  “He liked the work a lot. And he made a million friends. That’s led to a lot of dealings with Immigration coming into the firm. Some of the cases Bruce simply waives his fee on. That’s what bugs Mark sometimes. Donna…what is it? You’re absolutely sparkling. Now what’s up?” Laura leaned across the table. “Ever since you got here you’ve been popping with excitement of some kind. At first I thought it was all the health food you eat. Now I think you must be in love. Tell me—are you? And if you are, for heaven’s sake what are you doing in San Francisco? How can you leave him alone and unprotected up in Vancouver all summer?”

  “He isn’t in Vancouver,” Donna said, grinning. “He’s here. In the ‘City,’ as we say in San Francisco.”

  “You’re kidding.” Laura was entranced. “But you don’t know anybody here. The only people you know here are Mark and me. And Bruce, of course. Oh, Donna! It can’t be Bruce! It is Bruce,” she concluded in surprise, the delight fading from her lovely face.

  “Donna,” she said soberly. “Bruce is…let’s see…he’s thirty-one, I think, and you’re only—”

  “Nineteen,” Donna supplied firmly. “Twenty in August. And yes, I think I’ll have the pita sandwich with sprouts and chestnuts. I’m in love with Bruce. I guess I have been since I was thirteen. I think I first fell in love with him because he was so kind.”

  “Bruce is always kind,” Laura said, her voice a little weak. “You know, Donna, Bruce has been married and divorced. His…er…track record with women is…er…a real track record. I mean, I’m not putting Bruce down or anything, but I don’t think he’s in a hurry to get serious about another woman.”

  “I mean to make him want to get serious,” Donna said, “and I have one summer to do it in.”

  “You sound a bit grim. What else is up?”

  “It’s my parents. They are dead set on my going to university in the fall. Because I’ve won some trophies in gymnastics they have my future all mapped out for me. They envision me having a long and happy career as a physical education instructor, or coaching the girls’ basketball team or something. Terrific vision.”

  “You always had a bent in that direction.” Laura’s voice was gentle. “Evan’s very athletic, and he’s so proud of your ability. Sara, too. They just want you to be happy in something you’re good at. But you see yourself doing something else?”

  “Yes. I see myself…please don’t laugh, Laura.”

  “I would never laugh at you, Donna,” Laura said, and Donna knew that she never would. There was a sweetness in Laura that she had always appreciated. She could trust Laura.

  “Well, sure I want to go to school—one day. And I probably would choose to major in phys ed. Training young gymnasts interests me. But first, I see myself as a wife. More specifically, I see myself as Bruce’s wife and eventually as the mother of Bruce’s children.” She swallowed. Dammit, why did she have to get emotional when she wanted to sound mature and determined? She began to turn over the pages of the menu again, looking at them blindly.

  “This is pretty important to you, isn’t it?” Laura asked finally.

  “It is vital to me,” Donna answered, her voice almost a whisper. When she felt more composed she added, “Look, Laura, all my favorite role models are who? They are Mom and Aunt Christine and you. What have you all got in common?”

  “We’re all…we all became homemaker types,” Laura answered ruefully. “All of us opted for the wife-and-mother role.”

  “And you’re all happy, fulfilled? Aren’t you?” Donna d
emanded.

  “Uh…yes. I suppose we are,” Laura said. “And that’s what you want?”

  “Absolutely. I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred women seem to feel they need to start out with a career for fulfillment. I don’t. I’m the one in a hundred.” Donna had noticed the moment of hesitation before Laura’s answer, but she’d brushed it aside.

  Laura drank some water, watching Donna over the rim of her glass. “I don’t disagree that becoming primarily a wife and mother is an acceptable goal,” she said thoughtfully. “But remember, Sara and I had other careers first. Your mother had a high-powered job, and she loved it. She still says she would always have wondered what she’d missed if she hadn’t been part of the business world. And she doesn’t rule out going back one day.” She leaned toward Donna, her eyes bright. “And the clown in me hasn’t totally gone away. You may see me back on the old unicycle yet.”

  “I’d like to,” Donna chuckled, remembering the picture Evan carried of himself and Laura during their days as part of her clown troupe in Seattle. “I’ve never seen you in that crazy wig Dad says you wore.”

  “I’ll show you,” Laura said quickly. “Maybe tonight we’ll get out some of my old stuff and—”

  “Laura,” Donna broke in. “You’re changing the subject. I want to marry Bruce, and I want him to agree before the end of the summer.”

  “Evan will—”

  “I know what Dad’s likely to say and do. That’s why I thought if I could get everything sorted out sensibly with Bruce and everyone here, and be able to present Mom and Dad with the logical way we’ve arranged things they would—”

  “You mean a logical way like, ‘Look, Dad and Mom, old dears, I’ve decided I’m going to marry Bruce, even though he’s twelve years older than me and already divorced once and a bit of a playboy, what do you think?”’ Laura asked dryly.

  “Well…not exactly, but something like that, I guess. And I’ve got the whole summer.” Donna couldn’t keep the exultant note out of her voice. She refused to be put off by anything. Her mother and father would understand and approve of her plan once they saw how much she and Bruce loved each other.