“Guilt. Classic case of guilt. I’m a shrink, too, in my spare time. Incidentally, as I know Sara and Evan, I think they would be horrified to hear you say anything at all about ‘owing’ them.”
“Oh, well, yes,” she amended hastily. “But I know what I owe, Bruce, and I’m doing a bum job of repaying it. And then there’s that Mr. Tsung, all primed for a summit meeting with a prominent San Francisco attorney. Boy, when you tell him the truth it’s going to go over like a lead balloon.”
“We don’t know that, Donna. We just know in very vague, general terms what kind of guy he is. He may surprise us.”
“Yes. We may be surprised right out of his office. He can’t have somebody arrested for something like this, can he?”
“Of course not, don’t be an idiot. The worst he can do is tell us to get lost.”
“Oh, how awful. How embarrassing. Bruce, you don’t have any idea how much I want to get out of this.”
“On the contrary, I have a very good idea. You’ve been wiggling on the hook ever since I set up the appointment with him.” He sounded very matter-of-fact.
“Can’t you cancel it? Can’t we get out of it? Can’t you just call up and say it’s a mistake, you wanted some other Mr. Tsung?”
“No. I cannot. We’re in this, and we’re going to see it through.”
“Oh, Bruce.” She lifted her arms and covered her face, moving her head from side to side.
“Please, Bruce?”
“No.” Bruce cleared his throat. “Donna, you don’t know it, but most of the buttons on your blouse are undone.”
“Oh! I’m sorry!” Her hands flew to the buttons, and she began fumbling at them. “What must you think?”
“Plenty, love, but not for your ears. It wouldn’t be so noticeable, but you’re sitting—lying, I mean—right in the middle of a damn moonbeam.”
Donna sat up, too quickly, causing the hammock to rock wildly from side to side. She tried desperately to regain her balance, but Bruce had to leap up and grab her flailing arms to keep her from falling.
“Okay,” he said, as the hammock settled down. “Okay, now? You don’t know a hell of a lot about using a hammock, do you?”
“Not…not very much.” She clung to his forearms, unconsciously straining toward him, her face turned up toward his. Silence fell, a silence that was not silence. It was filled with night sounds, the distant guttural croak of a frog in the pond next door, the sound of a cricket clattering in the nearby shrubbery, invisible birds twittering sleepily in the leaves above their heads. He’s going to kiss me, she thought, almost in wonder. She slid her hands over his shoulders, closing her eyes, waiting. It came with incredible sweetness, his firm lips gentle, tentative, almost hesitant, brushing hers softly again and again. His arms went around her, and she was pulled up against him. He buried his face in her neck.
“Oh, Donna, Donna. What am I going to do with you?” Sighing, Bruce pushed her back down into the hammock, one hand gripping both her wrists and holding them against her chest.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she whispered. “I didn’t, really.”
“You sound like a little kid.”
“I’m not a little kid!” She struggled to rise, but he held her down.
“You could have fooled me, love. That’s what gets to me. One minute you’re a rational, mature adult, the next minute you’re ten years old. It’s driving me nuts.” Silence fell between them again. “Now I suppose I’ve made you mad,” he added, letting go of her wrists and standing up to look down at her.
“No,” she said quietly. “Because what you say is true, I’m afraid. I guess I’ve still got some growing up to do.” Her voice was unsteady.
“Well, hey, that’s no crime. It takes a while, you know. I know it. I was the original perpetual juvenile delinquent—but you’ve heard all that.”
“What did you do? How did you get a handle on things? When did you know you’d crossed the line—become an adult? I mean, really an adult?”
“I’m not sure I have,” he said slowly. He went down on his knees beside the hammock and sat back on his heels. “I don’t think it’s a sudden thing, Donna. I think it kind of comes by stages. As we live. As we cope.”
“And how did you start going through these…these stages?” She didn’t mean to sound so forlorn.
“I can tell you that. I turned the corner when I decided to face up to things. I decided to confront things. It was time to stop ducking problems and meet them head-on.”
“I’m going to do that,” she said after a moment. “It’ll be a start, anyhow. Maybe the start of the beginning of the first stage.”
“Who are you going to meet head-on, honey?” he asked gently.
“Mr. Tsung.”
“Good girl!” He stood up and brushed the knees of his slacks. “Look, are you okay now? I’d better push off. If Mark or Laura wake up and start wondering what’s going on at the bottom of the garden, all hell could break loose.”
“We’re just talking.” She sat up gingerly and swung her legs over the side of the hammock.
“Yeah, but I can just see Mark storming down here, bathrobe flying, to tell me off for compromising little Nell. And Laura, well, I love my cousin, but Laura is sometimes a real mother hen. What’s the matter? Are you laughing at me?”
“It’s funny.”
“Sweetheart, lemme tell you, there is nothing funny about Mark in a rage. I know.”
“No. Not Mark. My parents. You didn’t know me when I was little. I mean, really little. I was the most miserable kid. I had a single part-time parent. What I wanted most in the world was to have a set—two parents. A mom and a dad. I used to make wishes when I saw a new moon, and on a dozen other things. I wished, and wished, and wished, always for the same thing, and now—”
He caught her meaning immediately. “Now they’re all coming true. The answers to all those wishes. You’ve got sets of parents coming out of the woodwork. You’ve got Sara and Evan. You’ve got Laura and Mark. And in a couple of days you may well have the Tsungs.” He was laughing, too.
“It’ll never end. They’ll keep coming and coming and coming. You don’t know how many of those wishes I made.” They clutched each other, laughing helplessly.
When the laughter was spent, he walked her to the terrace door, his arm around her shoulders, holding her close against his side and waited until she stepped inside and locked the door behind her. Then he made a little Okay sign with his thumb and forefinger, and turned to walk away.
Donna stood just inside the door for a long moment, her heart pounding. He hadn’t wanted to let her go. He hadn’t wanted to. She knew it. She had seen it in his eyes, felt it in the slow, reluctant way he had released her on the terrace. Don’t fight me, Bruce, she thought. Please don’t fight me. But he was fighting her, holding back. He wasn’t giving in easily. It was going to take time to destroy his barriers, a lot of time.
She went swiftly and silently to the stairs. “I’ve got time, Bruce. I’ve got as much time as it takes!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
DONNA PEERED THROUGH one of the panes in the greenhouse door. A hazy film blurred the shapes inside, but she could see the bright blue of Laura’s dress moving at the far end of the center aisle.
“You really gonna do it?”
E.J.’s stage whisper made Donna jump, and she glared down into the boy’s round golden eyes. He’d sneaked up on her, and he must have felt her nerve failing. “I’m going to do it, E.J., if you get lost—now. If your mother catches sight of you and figures out this wasn’t my idea, well…” Donna made a slicing motion across her throat.
“Okay, okay.” E.J. retreated, scowling; then he turned and zigzagged, brown legs flashing, through the flowerbeds to the house.
Donna tapped the greenhouse door and turned the handle slowly, gritting her teeth like a latecomer entering church. Once inside, she felt foolish. Laura was a reasonable woman, a good friend, so she wouldn’t mind Donna asking if she could take
E.J. out.
“Laura,” Donna called. Her resolve fled again as the other woman turned clear eyes on her. “Um…it’s lovely in here. Smells so good.” She sniffed the moist, heady air. “Like a greenhouse…”
While Donna cringed at her own awkwardness, Laura smiled benignly, saying only, “Yes, I love it here, too.”
“I was wondering…” Donna began.
Laura carried on as if Donna hadn’t spoken. “How are things with you and Bruce? Any more progress with Raymond Tsung?”
The sense of dread that seemed to linger in the pit of Donna’s stomach lately rushed upward. “Bruce is making wonderful progress with Raymond Tsung. Any day now I expect to find out what the man eats for breakfast.”
Laura looked up sharply. “What’s the matter? I thought you had everything under control.”
“Well, I don’t.” Donna spread her hands and sat down with a thud on an upended crate. “Good Lord, Laura, I’m trying not to think about it at all. One day at a time and all that, but I can’t remember what a full night’s sleep feels like. I’ve really screwed this up.”
“It wasn’t such a hot idea,” Laura remarked mildly. “But we all do things on the spur of the moment. You’ll work it all out—Bruce’ll make sure of that. You and Bruce, you spend a lot of time together, but you don’t say anything about…well, you know.”
Donna knew. She was in limbo with Bruce. He’d done exactly what she’d planned, become very much aware of her as a woman. And the awareness had scared the hell out of him. “I’m miserable, Laura,” she said at last. “Absolutely miserable. I love him more and more, and I just feel more helpless.”
“Meaning what? The helpless bit, I mean?”
“Well, I think he cares for me.” She twisted the delicate emerald ring her parents had given her for her high-school graduation. “But you were right at the beginning when you said he’d been scared to death of getting involved with me. Sometimes I catch him looking at me like I’m a bomb about to explode.”
Laura noticed some mud on the toe of one low-heeled white pump, and she moaned. “Look at that. I’m going to have to change shoes.” She checked her watch. “And I’m going to be late for lunch. Look, sweetie, hang in there. For what my opinion on romance is worth, I think old impervious Bruce is cracking a little at his well-glued seams. You’re getting to him. I probably should be discouraging this. In fact, I know I should. I’m a disgrace. But I believe in love, real, honest-to-goodness, head-over-heels love, and you and Bruce might just have the makings of some of that. I know how I felt with Mark. Nothing would have stopped me wanting him once I…” She paled and closed her mouth firmly.
I know how I felt. Laura had used the past tense. A deep sadness and confusion almost overwhelmed Donna. Yet Mark and Laura did still love each other very much; Donna’s every instinct told her that they did. But something was steadily eroding the foundation of that love, and if they didn’t get help, their world would crumble, or simply freeze into separate compartments under one roof, revolving around each other but never touching.
“When does Raymond Tsung get back?” Laura asked. She scraped her shoes on the metal rack near the door.
“In a couple of weeks,” Donna replied. “Bruce has an interview all set up. I’m terrified.”
Laura smoothed Donna’s hair. “Don’t be. Bruce can be Mr. Diplomacy when he needs to be. You should see him in court.”
Donna instantly wished she could do just that. She wished she were with him right now.
“Come on.” Laura waved Donna to her feet. “I’d better go see what condition E.J.’s in.”
There was no mention of Mark, who was working at home today. “Laura, I was wondering…I was wondering…would you teach me about plants sometime? The way you can make things grow fascinates me. It must be a great hobby.” She couldn’t chicken out now. E.J. was counting on her.
Laura, dressed in an expensive linen dress and jacket, wiped a muddy hand across her forehead, then pulled the hand away and frowned. “Damn. Now I’ll have to redo my makeup. Why did I agree to go to one of Dollie’s never-ending fund-raisers?”
“What’s this one for?” Donna asked conversationally. She pulled the hem of her T-shirt lower over her jeans, grateful she didn’t have Laura’s busy social schedule.
“I can’t remember.” Laura found a rag and wiped her hands. “Can you believe that? I give up a perfectly wonderful afternoon when I could be getting some good work done out here, and I don’t know why. Dollie Winthrop never stays interested in anything long enough for me to know what her pet project of the moment is. I’d better look at my appointment book or I’ll be asking her how she’s doing with preserving bay squid when she’s already moved on to motivational programs for privileged kids.”
Donna sucked in her lower lip to suppress a smile. “You could just not go.”
“I paid my five hundred dollars a plate for something-or-other salad, and I’d better show up or there’ll be an empty space at the table with my name in front of it.”
“I bet they won’t mind as long as they’ve got the money,” Donna said. She wished Laura were less preoccupied—and happier. Her blue eyes were so often distant and unfocused, and the corners of her beautiful mouth turned down. Donna remembered her mission. “I shouldn’t have thought a thing like this luncheon would be a place to take E.J. Why not leave him with me?”
Laura paused, the rag between her hands. “E.J. likes to go places with me. Dollie’s grandchildren will be around somewhere; he’ll be in the game room with them.”
“They’re all teenagers.” Donna shifted awkwardly, kicking clods of earth beneath a bench loaded with flats of cuttings. “I don’t suppose they’re too thrilled with playing nanny to a six-year-old, and since I’ve got a day off work, I’d like to have him with me. I thought we’d go to the park and try out that baseball I bought him.”
“I meant to talk to you about that,” Laura said. Donna saw the muscles in her cheeks tighten. “Those balls are so hard. If he got hit on the head he could get a bad concussion…or worse. I really think he’s too young for baseball yet. Anyway, Dollie’s expecting me to bring him.” She pressed the rag down on a bench in a tight wad and examined her nails. “I’ll have to redo these as well.” She looked up abruptly. “Is E.J. dressed properly, do you know? I asked Mark to remind him, but if I know Mark, he forgot.” A corner of her mouth twitched.
Donna’s stomach squeezed together. What was wrong here? What was happening between Mark and Laura? On the surface they were polite. There’d never been any open hostility that she’d heard. But the undercurrent of tension was as tight as a bowstring.
Before she could press her case, Laura walked briskly out of the greenhouse, and Donna had to hurry to keep up. Mark was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. E.J., still in his tank top and frayed cutoffs, his bare feet swinging, sat close to his father with his nose almost touching the cartoon page in front of him.
Mark glanced up as the sliding door scraped open. He smiled at Laura. “Hi, hon. How does your garden grow?”
“Whew.” Laura headed for the sink. “Pretty good this year. But it’s hot out there.”
“You’re dressed too warmly,” Mark responded. He got up and went to put an arm around Laura’s shoulders. “Why are you wearing a dress—and a jacket, for Pete’s sake—to garden in, love? Go change. We could take an ice chest with cold drinks and buy fried chicken for lunch—dinner too, if everyone wants. Or we could stop for pizza somewhere later. How does that sound?”
Water splashed loudly from the faucet into the sink. Without turning off the faucet, Laura shrugged free of Mark’s arm and stared up at him. “What are you talking about?”
He glanced at Donna, faint color sweeping over his high cheekbones. “I thought it might be nice if we took a day off, completely off. You and I could go to the park with Donna and E.J. and play baseball.” He grinned tentatively. “You’re the star athlete around here. You’ll show us al
l up, but we can take it.”
“Mark, I told you this morning I had to go to lunch at Dollie Winthrop’s. And I asked you, not more than an hour ago, if you’d make sure E.J. changed.” She shot an exasperated look at the top of her son’s lowered head. “I guess you didn’t think it was important, since it was something I asked you to do. I should have asked Mrs. Cooper—”
“Laura!”
Mark’s voice, raised as she’d never heard it raised before, shook Donna. She wished she could disappear.
“Don’t shout at me, Mark,” Laura said, and her voice shook. “Please don’t shout.”
“I’m not.” He shook his head. The handsome lines of his face were deepened by more than fatigue, Donna realized. Mark Hunt was a sad man—a disappointed man? “I’m not shouting,” he continued. “I’m sorry, Laura. I thought since Donna and E.J. were going to the park to play ball, that you and I could go too. We don’t do enough of those things anymore.”
“Whose fault is that?” Laura snapped. She pressed a hand over her mouth, and Donna saw tears glistening in her eyes.
“Mine, I guess. Is that what you’re saying? Well, fine. Go to lunch, if it’s so damned important. I thought you couldn’t stand Dollie Winthrop and her causes.”
“And I thought I was helping you by doing the things everyone else’s wife does.”
Mark closed his eyes for an instant, then pulled her rigid body into his arms. “You are, sweetheart, you are. I’m sorry. I guess I just got the wrong impression about what you wanted to do.” He didn’t look at E.J., who clearly longed to be somewhere else.
Laura did look at the boy. “E.J., you know you’re coming with me. I suppose you sent Donna to persuade me to get you out of it, and assumed I’d say yes. Go and change.”
E.J. left the room without a word.
“Laura, honey,” Mark said quietly, pushing back the cloud of dark hair from her face. “Don’t you think E.J. would be better off at the park? Donna will take good care of him.”
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