He had just started for the secretary's desk when another line of the phone rang. For ten cents—no make that five!—he'd waltz right out the door and forget that the phone was ringing and that one of his foremen was waiting for some important figures.
Instead, he depressed the second lighted button, the one screaming for attention, and said, "Gal-Tex. Could you hold a moment, please?" Walker didn't wait for a response, but rather automatically put the second caller on hold.
In seconds, owing to what Walker considered a lot of luck, he found the list of figures he was searching for on the secretary's desk. He read them to his foreman, then terminated the call.
"Thank you for holding," he said after he'd reconnected the second caller.
There was a pause, then a soft, feminine voice said, "You sound like a zookeeper trying to round up all the animals that got loose during the night."
Walker realized, if only peripherally, that Lindsey's voice was the nicest thing that had happened to him all morning. In fact, it might be the nicest thing that had happened to him since he'd last heard her voice. He grinned.
"Your metaphor is apropos. It is a zoo around here. The phone's ringing off the wall, and I haven't even uncapped my coffee." As he spoke, he took the lid off the cup of coffee he'd bought en route to the office. Normally Gerri had coffee waiting for him, but with no Gerri awaiting him, there'd certainly be no coffee.
"Ah, poor baby," Lindsey said in a tone that Walker thought steamier than the vapor rising from the cup.
He grinned again, thinking that the vampy sound was even better than nice, which he hastened to tell himself was all right to think even though Lindsey was his goddaughter. He was, after all, only making an idle observation.
"And here I was thinking that you were going to be sympathetic," he said as he brought the cup to his lips and sipped.
"I am. And to prove the point I'm going to give you time to uncap the coffee."
"I already have, smart aleck," he said around a grin that obviously would not die. "I've already had a swallow, thank you very much."
"And can you feel that caffeine racing through your body, waking up every sleepy little cell?"
What he could feel was something he hadn't felt in a long while. It was so simple, so subtle, that he almost wasn't aware of feeling it at all. And he wasn't at all sure how to define it, except to say it was a sort of hey-isn't-it-great-to-be-alive? feeling. Even with the phone ringing off the wall, even with work stacked up to his chin, even with life less than perfect, it was great to be alive with the day, and its endless opportunities, stretching before him. Lindsey's joie de vivre must be rubbing off on him.
"Has anyone ever told you that you can sometimes be a little too big for your britches?" Walker didn't dare entertain the silk and lace images that flitted just at the corner of his mind. Such images would be so inappropriate that there would be absolutely no way to excuse them.
Lindsey laughed, lilting notes of a cheery song, but then the notes faded and her voice was serious when she asked, "Has Dad come in?"
"No, not yet, but he should be here any minute." Before Lindsey could make any further comment, Walker asked, referring to her meeting with her father, "How did it go yesterday?"
"It didn't," Lindsey answered bluntly.
Walker halted the cup in midjourney to his lips. "What do you mean?"
"Just what I said. I didn't see Dad."
"But I thought—"
"So did I. He called at noon with a list of excuses a mile long. He was still tied up on the job, he was tired, he needed to run by the office, he needed to darn his socks." This last was said with sarcastic flippancy.
Walker but barely heard the sarcasm. He had keyed in to Dean needing to run by the office. Walker knew that he hadn't, however. Not unless he'd come by after seven o'clock, which he doubted seriously. Even though he knew that his friend couldn't be looking forward to the confrontation with his daughter, still it wasn't like Dean to lie. Another thought occurred to him, causing Walker to frown. Surely Dean wasn't seeing someone. Was he?
"...please."
Walker realized that he hadn't heard a word that Lindsey had said.
"I'm sorry. What did you say?"
"Would you hang on to him when he gets there? Rope him, chain him, hit him over the head, but don't let him get away. Okay?"
"You coming down?"
"I'm leaving in about ten minutes."
"How's your mom?"
There was a pause, then, "I think she's better. It's sorta like falling apart allowed her the opportunity to pick up the pieces and start all over again. In fact, over pancakes, she informed me that she'd never really liked those glasses, anyway, that she'd liked another pattern, but that Daddy had liked these."
Walker smiled... and prayed that Dean wasn't having an affair. What in heaven's name would make a man walk away from a woman like Bunny? How in hell could he expect to find a woman who would stand so devotedly by him? He couldn't, and so that put an answer once and for all to the question of whether Dean was having an affair. He wasn't. Something else was motivating him in his request for a divorce.
"So will you hang on to Dad?" Walker heard Lindsey ask.
"I'll do my best, but he's bigger than I am."
"Yeah, but you're quicker."
Walker had heard the comment, which had begun in their high school football days, countless times over the years—brawny Dean and agile Walker. Grinning, Walker said, "Tell that to my middle-aged body."
"Ah, poor baby," Lindsey said once more in that hot-as-a-summer-day voice.
Walker found himself grinning yet again. "Smart aleck."
No sooner had Walker hung up than three more calls came in back to back. Some valve had blown on Rig Four, a foreman needed some time off because of a death in his family and someone was questioning the amount of his pay check. All in all, a pretty routine Monday morning—if he'd had a secretary to help him run interference. But he didn't. All he had were two hands and another ringing telephone. No, make that two lines ringing. As he picked up the receiver, the front door opened and Dean Ellison walked in.
"Grab the other line, will ya?" Walker said, motioning to the phone on the secretary's desk.
Tall—he was exactly three-quarters of an inch taller than Walker, with beefy arms, mammoth shoulders and a solid stomach— Dean did as requested. For minutes, both men spoke to their respective callers, then, within seconds of each other, they hung up.
"Whatever we're paying Gerri," Walker said, leaning back in his desk chair, "it isn't enough."
"Busy, huh?" Dean asked, edging his leg over the corner of the secretary's desk and sitting down.
"That's an understatement."
"You need to hire some temporary help."
"Yeah, I will."
Walker was aware that the conversation was strained. It had been ever since Dean had announced his intention to seek a divorce. Walker supposed that Dean felt defensive, as though he thought he, Walker, was going to judge him. Which Walker was trying hard not to do. Damned hard! He just wished that Dean would open up and talk to him. Walker had thought there wasn't anything they couldn't talk about, but he'd obviously been wrong.
Maybe, though, if he were honest, he would admit that Dean had pulled away from him months before he'd demanded the divorce. Looking back, Walker realized that Dean had pulled into himself. Also, he had become obsessed with health and nutrition and working out. He'd bought a membership at a local spa and spent every free minute there, pumping iron, doing sit-ups, anything that broke a sweat and threatened an inch of fat. It was about that time, too, that he changed his style of dress. Always conservative in his clothes, he began to wear neon-printed pants, jewelry, and sunglasses with iridescent mirrored lenses. It was also during this period that the gray in his hair miraculously disappeared, though there was no way he could eliminate the receding hairline. Maybe Bunny was right. Maybe Dean was simply going through a midlife crisis. Maybe everything would settle back down
in time. Then again...
Walker thought of the classic affair that was usually associated with a mid-life crisis. He had a devil of a time thinking of Dean with a woman other than his wife. He just couldn't believe that Dean would stoop to that. No, whatever else might be going on in Dean's life, Walker couldn't believe that he was having an affair.
"How was your weekend?" Walker asked, taking a swallow of coffee.
Dean whipped off his sunglasses and shoved them into his shirt pocket. His eyes didn't quite meet Walker's. "Fine. Rig Three is operational. The part held."
"Good. Did, uh, did you come by the office yesterday?"
Dean's gaze slid into his friend's. He shook his head once. "No, why?"
"Just wondered," Walker said, taking another casual sip of coffee. "By the way, a valve blew on Four."
Something akin to relief sped across Dean's face. He obviously preferred the safe topic of work. "I've got to go out there anyway." He checked his watch. "I guess I could go on and—"
"Lindsey just called. She's on her way here."
Walker thought that the expression on Dean's face would have been funny if it hadn't been so tragic.
"Why's she coming here?" Dean asked.
"To see you. She says ya'll are having a hard time getting together."
"Yeah, well, I've been busy... Rig Three and that hassle… I can't just drop everything. I've got responsibilities. The valve now on Four..." All this he stammered, one word tripping over the other.
"She thinks you're avoiding her," Walker said, pulling no punches.
"Avoiding her?" Dean asked, his voice pitched a tad too shrilly. "That's ridiculous."
"Is it?"
"Of course, it is!" he said, raking his hand through his tinted hair. "Why would I want to avoid her? Why would I..." He stopped, sighed, then swore.
Silently, Walker watched as his friend slipped from the edge of the desk and went to stand before the window. Outside the sun shone, but it did so through a smattering of clouds. The weather forecaster predicted showers. So did Walker's knee.
Dean turned suddenly, saying, "What am I going to tell her?"
It was the old Dean asking the heartfelt question, the Dean who'd been his friend all through high school and college, the Dean he called his best friend, the Dean he'd die for if need be.
"How about the truth?" Walker said softly.
Dean laughed harshly and speared his fingers back through his hair. "And just what the hell is that? How can I explain something to her that even I don't understand?"
Walker stood and, rounding his desk, perched on the edge in a pose similar to the one Dean had only moments before abandoned. "Then tell her that."
"I owe her more than that, man." His voice displayed his self-anger. "A helluva lot more."
"She'll settle for what you can give her. If it's all you can honestly give."
"Yeah, sure, just the way Bunny did."
The sarcasm clearly revealed that his confrontation with his wife hadn't gone well. But then, Walker hadn't supposed it had.
Dean sighed, as though he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders and that, even though those shoulders were massive, they weren't up to the burden.
"I don't know, Walker," he said, obviously mystified himself by what he was feeling. "Have you ever felt like life was choking you to death? Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night wondering if this is all there is to life? Have you ever broken out in a cold sweat because you thought maybe that it was, that you were never going to have anything more than you already did?" Before Walker could respond, his friend added, "Hell, we're getting old, or hadn't you noticed?"
Walker angled his knee into a more comfortable position. "Yeah, I noticed."
"Don't you want anything more than you've got?"
Walker didn't even have to ponder the question. "Yeah," he answered, "I want what you're throwing away. I want someone in my life who loves me—warts and all. I want someone to smile at me first thing in the morning. I want someone to give a damn whether I come home in the evening."
"See, I can't make even you understand," Dean said.
"Okay, so I don't understand, but I'm not condemning you, either."
"Yeah, well, you're not Lindsey. I'm not divorcing your mother."
It was a fact that Walker couldn't deny. Lindsey would be prejudiced in a way he wasn't.
"What is it you want?" Walker asked after a few seconds of silence.
Dean shrugged. "To be young again, to have my hair again, to feel the same excitement about life that I did twenty years ago, to have the chance to play pro football like you.... You didn't know that I'd wanted to play pro ball, did you?"
Walker shook his head. "Why didn't you?"
"I didn't think I was good enough."
"If I was good enough, you were good enough."
"Yeah, well..." Dean answered, leaving the sentence as unfinished as the issue was unresolved.
"Believe me," Walker said, "it wasn't what it was cracked up to be."
"The point is that you got to find that out for yourself."
Walker couldn't argue the logic. Logic. There was still something about all this that didn't make any sense, and so he said, "Up to a point I understand what you're saying, but I still don't understand how divorcing Bunny is going to make you young again, keep your hairline from receding, and make up for not playing pro ball."
Pain streaked across Dean's face, making him look even older than he was complaining of being. "Look, I just can't..." He was obviously searching for the right words, but ultimately had to settle for the paltry, "I just can't be tied down anymore. I don't expect you to understand. Just believe me when I say I can't. It's nothing personal. I mean, I don't hate Bunny or anything—I could never hate Bunny—but I can't be tied down."
Walker refrained from saying that Bunny had probably taken his decision personally. Very personally.
"Talk to Lindsey for me," Dean implored.
"I can't do that."
"Yes, you can. She'll listen to you."
"It's not my place."
"Maybe not, but—"
"No," Walker said firmly, then added, "There's not much I wouldn't do for you—you know that—but this I can't do. Lindsey has a right to hear this from you."
Hiking his hands at his hips, Dean gave a weary sigh. "You're right. I know you're right. Besides, I can hardly avoid her forever."
Dressed in casual denim, Lindsey entered the office. Her gaze immediately went to her father, who sat at the smallest of the three desks in the room. Since he was in the office less than anyone, the smallest desk had seemed the logical choice for him. Now, two things crossed Lindsey's mind in tandem: One, as always, his stature dwarfed the desk, making it appear even smaller than it was, and two, if her mother had changed since last she'd seen her, so had her father.
Lindsey took in his pants—bright yellow, blue, and sherbet pink. A drawcord cinched the waist, while the ankles were pegged. Over his chest fit a shocking-pink cotton jersey. There was nothing wrong with the clothes—far from it. It was just that for a man who'd once balked at any color other than drab gray or basic black or brown, the carousel colors looked wildly out of place. Sadly out of place. The bracelet at his wrist and the iridescent sunglasses in his pocket wouldn't compute, at all!
"Hi, Daddy," Lindsey said in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted that Walker, who was on the telephone, had looked up when she'd opened the door. His presence was comforting. Particularly since the other man in the room, her father, seemed a little bit like a stranger.
At his daughter's entrance, Dean had glanced up, too. The eyes of father and daughter met, held, probed. Slowly, Dean pushed back his chair and stood.
"Hey, sweetie," he said in a voice that Lindsey thought sounded a little uncertain, though maybe she was mistaken. Maybe she was the one suddenly feeling uncertain, as though afraid that not only did he want to cast her mother aside, but maybe
her, as well.
Lindsey crossed to him; Dean crossed to her. And then, she was in his arms. Though his appearance might be different, his arms were wonderfully familiar. These arms, hugging her so tightly that it hurt, were the loving arms of her dad, the man who could slay dragons, the man who could heal young and tender hurts, the man who'd always had implicit faith in her.
"You look great," Dean said at last. "Doesn't she look great, Walker?"
When Bunny had asked Walker the same question, he'd teased that Lindsey had gone and gotten herself ugly. Now, taking in the soft taffy-blond curls that tumbled about her shoulders and the snug jeans that cupped the curves of her shapely rear, even to tease so seemed outrageously ridiculous. And so he simply spoke the truth, "Yeah, she looks great."
For a moment, Lindsey's gaze connected with Walker's. The honest tone of his voice warmed her.
The intensity of Lindsey's steel-blue eyes, a look that said what he thought was important, equally warmed him. Though, to be honest, he wasn't quite sure why. He just knew that it did.
The phone rang again, and Walker swore something decidedly unflattering about Monday mornings and sick secretaries.
Lindsey turned her attention back to her father. "Could, uh, could you take a break? I'll buy you a cup of coffee."
Before Dean could answer, another line rang. Dean punched in the call. It was about the valve on Rig Four.
"Yeah... okay... no, I'll be on out."
Disappointment, frustration, even a bit of anger flowed through Lindsey. "Dad, I really want to talk to you."
Dean looked up at his daughter and covered the mouthpiece with his palm. "And I promise we will."
Lindsey looked skeptical. Highly skeptical.
"Within a couple of hours," Dean said into the mouthpiece. "Do ya'll need anything else?"
Lindsey looked ready to do battle. Just as her father hung up, she said, "Couldn't you spare—"
"Let me get this done, sweetheart, then we'll talk. In fact, I'll tell you what. Why don't I pick you up at seven and we'll have dinner?"
Lindsey's skepticism looked on the verge of returning.
"I know I've been avoiding you, I know we have to talk, and we will tonight. I promise. Okay?"
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