"My sunglasses!" Dean said, making a hurried dash for the cabinet. He had just picked them up when the world came to an abrupt halt.
"Good morn—Daddy!" Lindsey cried.
It would have been hard to say, Walker thought, which of the two—Dean or Lindsey—looked more startled. Each just stared at the other, as if neither quite believed the other's presence. Walker understood their disbelief. He, too, was bogged down in his own. Surely this wasn't really happening. Surely he was only dreaming. Surely Lindsey couldn't have looked more seductive if she had come into the kitchen totally nude.
She wore one of his shirts, a pastel plaid shirt that he'd had on the day before. The shirt draped her braless breasts in a way that was more than alluring, more than suggestive. The garment then fell to just below her knees, which would have provided adequate cover, had it not been sculpted on the sides, thereby revealing a tantalizing glimpse of her thighs. Her bare feet and the fact that her hair was pulled back in a ponytail once more emphasized her youth. It was a youthfulness instantly negated, however, by the question that raced through Walker's mind: Was she wearing the tiny scrap of lace she called panties? Either way, whether she was or wasn't, played havoc with his masculine senses—even under the harrowing circumstances.
"W-what are you doing here?" Lindsey asked, breaking the silence that ominously hovered over the room. Instinctively, she folded her arms across her chest. The action only emphasized the bare state of her breasts.
"I could ask you that same question," Dean said. When Lindsey made no reply, he added, "Tell me that this isn't what it looks like."
Walker recognized his friend's desperate tone. Dean didn't want to believe what he was seeing and was pleading with them to give him a rational explanation. Forget rational. He'd settle for any explanation. Dark rivers of regret flowed through Walker at the pain he knew he and Lindsey were about to inflict. It was a pain he never wanted to inflict. He tried to imagine the situation reversed. How would he feel if Lindsey were his daughter and he'd found Dean and Lindsey together? But he couldn't. In his wildest imaginings, he couldn't.
Suddenly, Dean raked his fingers through his hair, comically laying the bald spot even more bare. "For God's sake, what's going on here?"
Lindsey looked over at Walker. Walker looked over at Lindsey. Something in her eyes said that she didn't regret a single minute of what had happened between them. That fact gave Walker courage.
"Dean," he said, hesitated, then added, "I swear to God I didn't see this coming."
Dean laughed harshly. "You seduce my daughter and you didn't see it coming!"
"Now, wait a minute," Lindsey said. "If anyone seduced anyone, I seduced him. He didn't want to get involved. I was the one who pushed the issue."
"You don't know what you're saying, honey," Dean said, clearly having trouble seeing his daughter as a seductress. Walker suspected that any father would have the same problem.
"It's true," Lindsey said, looking over at Walker and smiling ruefully. "I shamelessly pursued him. And I don't regret it," she added, transferring her gaze to her father, "even if it means upsetting you."
At her open admission that she didn't regret their loving, a knot formed in Walker's throat. He realized that he wouldn't have been able to withstand it if she had regretted their evening together. The few hours they had spent in each other's arms had become a precious interlude in his life.
"I don't regret it, either," Walker said softly, drawing Lindsey's eyes back to him. The world compressed until it was only the two of them—only him, only her, only the memories they shared. He wanted to take her in his arms. She wanted it, too; he could see her need in her smoky-blue eyes. Reluctantly drawing his gaze away, he once more found his friend. "I knew what I was doing. It might have been Lindsey's idea originally, but I didn't resist too hard."
"I'll just bet," Dean said with a sneer.
Like a beast of a dog, the remark bit Walker, making him bleed from the heart. "I don't deserve that."
"The hell you don't! You seduce my daughter—"
"I told you, he didn't seduce me!"
"Okay, maybe I do deserve it! Hell, I don't know! I've wrestled with this until I don't know anything anymore."
"You sure knew enough to know how to take advantage of Lindsey! How could you do this to me and her mother? We trusted you." The pain of betrayal was obvious.
"I told you he didn't take advantage of me."
Neither man seemed to be listening to her, "I know," Walker said. "I haven't taken any of this lightly. Believe me. I haven't forgotten my friendship with the two of you. I'm just asking you to cut me some slack. The way I'd cut you some. Just give me some time to try to explain—"
"Explain, hell! What's there to explain?"
"Plenty, if you'll just—"
"Will you two stop it?" Lindsey screamed. Into the sudden silence, Lindsey said, "Will you two just stop it?"
Walker let out a long weary sigh as he dragged his hand across his face. Dean held his ground, his position somewhere between hurt and anger. Lindsey tilted her chin a fraction in defiance.
"How dare you barge in here," she said to her father, "and start making accusations and assumptions. Especially since that's what you've been so eager to chastise me about ever since I got home. You've made it more than clear that I have no right to judge you. And now here you are judging me. And Walker."
"It's different," Dean protested.
"It's not different. And, furthermore, I resent your implication that what's gone on between Walker and me is dirty. It isn't. I'm in love with him. I have been for a long while. Walker's the reason I didn't marry Ken."
"My God, this has been going on for a year and a half?"
Lindsey gave a sigh of total exasperation. "Daddy, will you use some common sense? I've been in England. I needed some time to sort out my feelings. I haven't taken this lightly, either. This isn't some wild weekend fling. And you can't blame Walker. He had no idea of my feelings until I returned home."
Dean shook his head. "I don't believe this. You're in love with the man who's practically been a father to you. My God, he is your godfather."
"Yes, I'm in love with him," Lindsey said calmly, impressing Walker with her serenity, her maturity.
Dean turned to Walker, who was leaning back against the cabinet as though he needed some support. "And what about you? Are you in love with her?"
"Daddy, that's none of your business—"
"That's all right, Lindsey," Walker said, fully aware that she was trying to keep him from being put on a spot.
He hadn't said he loved her. Not once during the night. In fact, she'd halted him from making any comment after her declaration of love. It was obvious that she'd wanted to give him time. He had needed to give himself that, too. At least, he'd thought he had. But now, when the question was put so bluntly, the answer seemed as obvious as the rain striking the windowpanes.
"Yes," he said as he looked Dean square in the eyes, "I love your daughter. I don't know when it happened. A week ago, last night, a minute ago—I don't know when. I only know that it did. I only know that standing here now, I can honestly say I love her." He glanced up, his eyes finding Lindsey's. Even as he watched, hers glazed with tears. "I know, babe. My timing's lousy."
They stared—each at the other. Walker could see her visibly controlling her tears. He could see her lips trembling with her unsteady breath. He could feel her love. God, he wanted her in his arms! He wanted her beneath him! He just wanted her!
Into this emotional warmth, Dean dropped the cool comment, "My God, Walker, have you gone absolutely crazy? She's young enough to be your daughter!"
Slowly, Lindsey turned toward her father. A regal coolness, like a frosty mantle, settled about her. "Let me understand you. It's all right to have an affair with a younger woman, but it's not all right to fall in love with one?"
"I never said it was all right to have an affair—"
"I came by your apartment last night. You were
n't alone."
Dean Ellison turned a sickly shade of green. That was quickly eclipsed by a red anger. "How dare you spy on me!"
Quicker than lightning, all the bottled-up anger exploding within her, Lindsey reached out and slapped her father. "How dare you cheat on my mother!" she raged.
Walker saw stunned disbelief cross Dean's face. He saw, too, that Lindsey had startled herself as much as she'd startled her father. This was evinced by her hand, which flew immediately to her mouth. The hand trembled. Instant contrition jumped into her eyes, though no words of apology filled the silence. That was filled only with the echo of her slap. Slowly, suddenly, Dean shoved on his sunglasses and started for the door. He said not a single word.
Neither did Walker.
Or Lindsey.
He simply took her in his arms and held her until her trembling stopped.
Chapter Ten
Walker loved her.
That fact alone got Lindsey through the next twenty-four hours. Walker insisted that they tell her mother about them. Lindsey concurred but, after her father's response, was worried sick at what her mother's reaction would be. In the end, Bunny was shocked, but not unresponsive. She asked them to give her a little time to adjust to the idea. After Walker left, having given Lindsey a slow kiss at the door, Bunny asked her daughter what she and her father had fought about.
"What do you mean?" Lindsey had asked, even more uncomfortable, if that were possible, with this new turn in the conversation. So uncomfortable was she that she stood and walked about the den of her parents' home. She tried to sound nonchalant as she looked here and there at objects that had been familiar since childhood—the small teacup and saucer that had belonged to her maternal grandmother, a cut-crystal vase that had held a fieldful of flowers over the years, a gilt-framed picture of the three of them, she, her mother and her father, smiling.
"I just heard rumblings that you and your father had words."
Lindsey looked away from the photo. Her father's happy face, the one she'd slapped, mocked her. "He wasn't altogether happy with the news about me and Walker." Lindsey laughed brittlely. "Actually, that's putting it mildly."
"Was that all you fought about?"
"Give or take," Lindsey said, hedging.
Bunny, each strand of hair once more in place, her makeup impeccably applied, hesitated only slightly before saying, "Did you fight about the fact that your father's having an affair?"
It had been Lindsey's turn to be shocked, a fact revealed by the widening of her eyes. "You know?"
Nodding her head, Bunny said simply, softly, "Yes."
"But how?"
"A woman just knows. Oh, not that I didn't turn a blind eye in the beginning. I did. But I couldn't run from the fact forever. It hit me hard. I kept thinking that if I'd just done something differently, your father wouldn't have needed another woman." Bunny smiled, a sad curving of her mouth. "If I'd just combed my hair one more time, if I'd just worn a prettier dress, if I'd just served homemade rolls more often."
"That's absurd—"
"Of course it is. And Don helped me to see that. Your father has a problem, Lindsey. He's scared to death at the idea of growing older. I don't know why. He probably doesn't know, either. He just is. But the truth is that I have a problem, too. One of self-image. I've allowed myself to be your father's shadow. I don't want that anymore. I want to find out who Bunny Ellison is. That goal in mind, I've decided to get some counseling."
Lindsey made the mental note that, should she ever meet this illusive Don, she owed him a thank-you. "That's good, Mom. Real good."
"And a divorce, if that's what your father wants. But," she added, "if he comes to his senses, I'm at least willing to talk to him about a future." She smiled. "He's acted like a jerk, but I'm still in love with him. At least that much I know for sure about Bunny Ellison."
The women had parted on a hug—not a mother-daughter hug, but a woman-to-woman hug, which silently said that women, all down through the ages, had been the preservers of relationships. It said, too, that, although Bunny would need time to come to terms with Lindsey and Walker's relationship, she was at least willing to make the effort, that she, as a woman, respected the heart's choice of a mate. However atypical, however imprudent that choice might be.
That conversation had occurred Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening, Walker and Lindsey had dinner at his house. It appeared that their personal lives might have to be shelved for a while.
"...The depression is now officially being called a storm. With winds of growing intensity, the storm is organizing quickly and continuing to move in a southwestern direction. It is believed, as predicted earlier, that it's headed for the tip of Cuba. Should it strike there, it would lose some of its power before streaking on into the Gulf. In either event, whether it strikes Cuba or not, it could mean trouble for the Gulf Coast..."
"What do you think?" Lindsey asked, seeing Walker's frown of concern. They were sitting at the dining room table. The dinner, which they'd prepared together amid laughter and kisses, was finished. Steaming mugs of coffee had replaced it.
"I think it's too early to tell," Walker said, sipping his coffee. "We should know something by morning, though."
"What's the procedure for evacuating a platform?"
"Batten it down as best you can, get the men off and into inland motels. Your father coordinates the on-site evacuation. I take care of inland responsibilities, like lining up motel rooms, renting boats, extra helicopters—whatever's needed."
At the mention of her father, pain crossed Lindsey's face. In an attempt to hide it, she stood, scraped her food scraps onto Walker's plate, and carried both to the kitchen. At the sink, she ran water and began to wash dishes. No sooner had she submerged them than she felt Walker wrap his arms about her waist.
"I know, babe."
Closing her eyes, she leaned back into him. She knew that tears were only a permission away, but she wouldn't give herself that permission.
"I slapped him," she said. "We've hardly even had cross words over the years, and I slapped him. Oh, Walker, did you see the look on his face?"
What he saw was that Lindsey was hurting. Badly. "He'll survive, you'll survive, there'll be a tomorrow for apologies."
"I don't know—"
"I do. He loves you, Lindsey. Don't ever doubt that."
"But I hurt him."
"A parent's love is unconditional. Besides, he hurt you, too."
She turned in his arms, her eyes meeting his. "He hurt you, as well."
"Yeah," Walker said flatly, "but then I hurt him. I guess we'll find out how unconditional a friend's love is."
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry I was the one to come between you two."
Walker brushed back a wisp of hair from her cheek. "Don't be. What you've given me is worth any price I had to pay. Besides, don't you think I'm sorry about coming between you and your father?"
"Don't be," she said, repeating his words. "What you've given me is worth any price I had to pay. Tell me you love me," she said suddenly, as though fearful that she'd only imagined his having said the words. A dozen times over the past twenty-four hours, she'd made a similar request.
With the same indulgent tenderness he always displayed, he brushed her mouth with his. "I love you," he said, saying it over and over, "I love you... I love you...."
He grazed her mouth again, then, moaning, settled his lips firmly against hers. The kiss instantly deepened. Her arms, bubbles of detergent still on her hands, encircled his neck. His hips, clothed in khaki slacks, pressed into hers, pushing her back into the cabinet. His thighs melted into hers. His masculinity, steel-hard against her softness, left little doubt as to what was on his mind.
"Do you really want to wash dishes?" he asked throatily.
"Do you have a better suggestion?" she asked, thinking that, if he didn't, she sure did.
"Oh, yeah," he said, scooping her into his arms and starting for the bedroom. "I've got a suggestion that'll b
low washing dishes right out of the water."
In minutes, he had proven his claim. His body, his breath, words of exulted praise flowed over her, making her feel heated, satisfied, complete in a way she'd never felt before. They kissed, caressed, scaled sensual mountains and descended into erotic valleys. They loved. Later, their bodies replete, they cuddled.
"Your idea was definitely better than washing dishes," she purred, lacing her long silken legs with his.
He grinned, entwining his hair-roughed legs with hers. "I thought you'd think so. I also have another excellent idea."
"What?"
"Stay the night."
She grinned. "Why, Mr. Carr, is that a proposition?"
He grinned. "Yeah, and a totally improper one at that." Suddenly, his grin faded as he slipped his hand onto her belly. Her skin felt like velvet, the hair cupping her femininity, like golden fleece. "Lindsey, you know that I'm not taking any precautions against your getting pregnant. I'm assuming neither are you. If you're not, don't you think we should?"
"But I want to have your baby. Okay, maybe not for a while. We'll get used to being husband and wife, then—" She stopped at the streak of pain that darted across his eyes. "Oh, my," she said quietly, hollowly, "have I made a reckless assumption?"
"Lindsey, babe, I..." He hesitated, trying to find a way to explain what he was feeling, thinking. When no words came, he felt her pulling from him. He panicked and held her all the closer. Even so, he knew a part of her had left him. "No, don't go," he pleaded. "Please just listen to me, Lindsey. I want to marry you. I want you to have my baby...."
"...But..." she said, anticipating his next word.
"It wouldn't be fair to you."
"Making me deliriously happy wouldn't be fair?"
"May-December marriages always have a strike against them."
"This would hardly be a May-December marriage. You're not ancient, Walker. Forty-six isn't ancient."
"Forty-seven."
"Excuse me, forty-seven. But that's not exactly over-the-hill, either."
"It may not be over-the-hill, but it's standing on the top looking down." At the argument he saw forming on Lindsey's lips, Lindsey's melon-sweet lips, he said, "Okay, okay. So it wouldn't be May-September. It would still have so few guarantees...."
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