Mother To Be

by Cheryl Reavis

  He looked back at her once before he opened the door. She was leaning against her car, studiously picking something off the sleeve of her power suit.

  The door opened easily enough. No warping, no worn lock. He was immediately assailed by the smell of fresh paint and something else – the residual scent of a Navajo ceremony. The place had been purified – by the youngest of Lillian's nephews by marriage, he guessed, the half-Navajo one, Will, who was a good boy and a hard worker, and who was studying to be a medicine man.

  He stepped inside, unprepared for the pristine, uncluttered look of the room. The walls had been painted white, and there was very little furniture. A couch and an easy chair, both of them covered with a brightly colored Southwestern-style blanket. There were no curtains, only the "matchstick" roll-up shades that would have come from one of the discount department stores in Gallup or Flagstaff. Three rooms, he supposed – a combination living room-kitchen area and two bedrooms. And a bath, he noted, opening one of the side doors. The place was heated by a single woodstove in the living-room area – which meant that whoever lived here would eat warm and sleep cold. He himself had grown used to sleeping cold.

  He moved to open the remaining doors. The bedrooms were newly painted – white – and as sparsely furnished as the rest of the house. There was a single bed in one, a double bed in the other. Both of them had been made up by someone who had been in the military – Winston or Jack? The dark brown blankets had mitered corners and were pulled very tight.

  But what would Johnny Becenti do with two beds? He hardly needed one.

  He looked inside the closets, opened the back door to see what was outside. As much as he didn't want to admit it, the place suited him. It suited him very well – because it held no memories.

  When he returned to the living room, Lillian stood just inside the front door, waiting.

  "My nephew by marriage, Will, did a small ceremony to make the place ready for you," she said, confirming his earlier guess. "He's getting good at the hataalii thing. He says you need a really big ceremony later on – if you decide to live here."

  She glanced at him, apparently expecting some kind of response.

  "The front door faces east," she went on when there was none forthcoming. "You'll be able greet the sunrise."

  He stared at her across the room, but he still made no comment. She presumed that such a fine point of Navajo traditional belief would matter to him. Just as she had presumed that he wanted to be well again, that he wanted to return to his job, that he wanted – needed – this house. She was right on all accounts, but he didn't thank her for it. Her penchant for intervening in matters that were none of her concern had to stop. He wasn't going to tolerate it any longer.

  "You had no right to do this," he said finally.

  "I know that," she said. "I'm..."

  "What?" he asked when she didn't go on. "Sorry?"

  She gave a quiet sigh. "No, I'm not sorry. I can't help the way I am. I see a problem and I want to fix it."

  "I am not your problem, Lillian," he said. He walked closer to her. She didn't back away, but he had the distinct impression that she was considering it.

  "I was – I thought this would make things easier for you," she said. "You said you never wanted to go back to your own house."

  "No, I didn't."

  "Yes, you did."

  "If I did, if I told you anything that personal, then it was the fever talking. I couldn't have been in my right mind."

  "It doesn't matter whether you were in your right mind or not. The only thing that matters is whether what you said is true. You told me that Mae's family had taken everything of hers away – but she was still there. You said it hurt so bad to have...nothing of her. To have only the grief and the pain of losing her. You said you wanted to believe that some day you'd see her again, but you didn't – "

  "I never would have told you such a thing!"

  "Well, you did. Maybe I was wrong to interfere. Maybe you are a truly gifted herder of sheep. I don't know. I only know you're good for the tribal police. You're strict, but you're fair and you care what happens to the People – "

  "I don't need a performance evaluation from you!"

  She didn't say anything. He didn't know why; she clearly had the words all ready. But she kept her opinion to herself for once, and her silence provoked him in a way that one of her notorious rebuttals never would have.

  "The only thing I need from you is to be left alone. Do you understand?" he said.

  She still didn't say anything.

  He stepped closer. "Do you understand!"

  She stared back at him, unflinching, full of challenge. Lillian Singer was not about to be intimidated.

  He should have let it go then, but he didn't. It was so quiet in the house suddenly. The bright sunshine strained to get in through the matchstick shades, leaving tiny strips of light on the spotlessly clean floor. He could still smell the new paint, the burned cedar and sage.

  And now he could smell her, too; that soap, that soft woman smell he'd come to associate only with Lillian Singer. He looked into her eyes. She had beautiful eyes. He was staring too long – way beyond what was acceptable Navajo decorum. He needed to say something – or he needed to get out of here.

  But he reached for her instead, his hands resting on her shoulders. She was clearly surprised, but she made no attempt to move away from him. He reached up to touch her face, to stroke her cheek. Her skin was smooth and silky soft. Warm. How long had it been since he'd touched a woman this way?

  He stared at her mouth.

  Beautiful, he thought. He could already taste her, and regardless of her obvious misgivings, her lips parted in anticipation of what he intended to do.

  "Johnny," she said, her voice sounding strained and a little tremulous. "This isn't what you want."

  He had no idea what he wanted.

  Yes, he did.

  He lowered his mouth to almost touch hers. He was like a man about to partake of a forbidden fruit. How dangerous was this going to be? Was he or was he not willing to suffer for it?

  Yes, damn it, he thought. He was.

  "Lillian – " he said, and incredibly, she leaned into him. He completely lost whatever else he'd been about to say. His mouth came down on hers. Her lips parted to give him access – she tasted so good to him! He was like a starving man – hungry – aroused. He couldn't get enough of her. His arms slid around her, pressing her against him. He wanted to feel her, touch her. He was trembling; he was aching with desire. How far could he go with this? How far would she let him go?

  "Johnny ," she said, turning her face away. But, she still clung to him. His hand found her breast, and she gave a soft moan. She lifted her mouth to his again, letting him kiss her the way he wanted, the way they both wanted.

  "Johnny – !" she said again, but this time she pushed hard against his chest, twisting herself out of his grasp. Her protest hardly registered. He didn't want to stop and he took a step toward her. She moved backward until she was up against the door.

  She stood staring at him for a moment, breathing heavily, her look as shocked and incredulous as he felt.

  Then she turned and jerked the door open, looking back at him once before she stumbled outside.

  Chapter Six

  Lillian headed immediately back to Santa Fe, her mind barely paying attention to the interstate exit signs and speed limits along the way. She didn't stop by to see the family. She didn't stop for anything. She just drove.

  Stupid! she kept thinking.

  "Stupid!"

  How in this world had she ever let herself get into that kind of situation? She always kept her guard up; after all these years, it was second nature for her to do so. She always, always stayed away from men like Johnny Becenti, because she didn't want to complicate her life in Santa Fe or her career. She lived off the reservation for a reason – because she wanted to – and she only returned long enough to meet the absolute minimum required of her in terms of her fa
mily obligations. She was torn enough about that already. It was the price she paid to make sure that she never let herself become involved with someone who had strong ties to the kind of life she'd been so determined to escape.

  She wanted nothing to do with a man who could make her feel guilty for not living Navajo.

  But, for all her astuteness, she hadn't seen this coming at all. She had only wanted Becenti to look at the house without the pressure of an audience and to know that he had a place to go that wasn't inhabited by Mae's ghost. Perhaps she even wanted him to be a little appreciative of the trouble she had gone to. But she never expected that he would – that they –

  "Oh," she whispered, remembering the urgent feel of his hand on her breast, and the taste of his warm mouth. She had reacted like the sex-starved and spurned old maid that she was, and she couldn't bear to think about how close to disaster she'd come. This was not supposed to happen to her – or to him – especially with each other. He was grieving still, and barely out of the hospital. She was supposed to be pining for Stuart Dennison. She and Johnny Becenti had nothing in common save their ethnic group. They detested each other, for God's sake! Given their history, she could only suppose that he was indulging in a little payback – deliberately trying to teach her a lesson for interrupting his self-imposed exile.

  But, she assured herself, there was no point in dwelling on it. Whatever had flared so suddenly between the two of them wasn't worth all this angst. It was over and done with now. Nothing had happened, not really. A kiss, what was that? She wanted to believe that she had nothing to worry about. It wouldn't be like the closemouthed Captain Becenti to go telling what had happened all over the reservation even if he did want revenge. And, if the past was any indication, she could go for months and months without seeing him again. How often did he come to Santa Fe? How often did she go to Window Rock? It could well be, by the next time their paths crossed, that neither of them would even remember the incident.

  "Stupid!" she said anyway. What could she possibly say to him when she saw him again?

  Nothing, she immediately decided. He started it.

  And I almost finished it, she thought in dismay. She hadn't wanted to stop. She was mortified by how much she hadn't wanted to stop. She had never encountered that dangerous and heady mixture of enmity and lust before. She'd never in all her life come so close to being completely swept away by pure, unadulterated physical need. Even now, she wanted to go to him, to lie with him in one of those austere, military-looking beds in the house with no ghosts.

  Oh, God.

  What if someone had seen them? she thought, her mind off on a completely different and equally distressing tangent. It would be all over the reservation by sundown – Lillian Singer and Johnny Becenti were...

  No, they weren't!

  Nothing happened.

  But it still had to have been calculated, this sudden interest in her as a woman. He had to have deliberately wanted to show her who was in charge here, and show her in a way that would prove the most humiliating. And she had played right into his hands.

  So how do you like having your harmony disrupted, Lillian?

  She didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.

  She nearly missed her Santa Fe exit, but by the time she reached home, she had herself under control. More or less. Self-control was a matter of understanding the situation. And it was simple, really. First, she had run to Window Rock to hide from Stuart. Now she was running to Santa Fe to hide from Johnny Becenti. She had worked hard all her life to establish a certain reputation for being capable and self-reliant and smart. The consummate levelheaded-lawyer type. And here she was behaving as if she were trapped in the lyrics of a very bad country-western song.

  It didn't escape her notice that it was Becenti who was causing all this...yearning...and not Stuart. She had been upset to a certain degree when Stuart announced his marriage plans, but once the initial shock had worn off, she'd almost effortlessly moved on. It was as if some part of her had been expecting the demise of their relationship for a long time, and now that it had actually occurred, it was essentially a relief. A loose end, now neatly knotted and tied. She didn't like loose ends. She didn't like all this emotional upheaval, either. She liked a nice evenness to her life with no major ups or downs – a variation of the Navajo belief in being in harmony with all things, she supposed. There was a lot to be said for harmony, and at the moment, she was a long way from having it.

  She went to bed early, slept fitfully – until it was nearly time to get up, then slept so deeply that she was late for court. Not terribly late. Just late-for-Lillian-Singer late. And it was duly noted by both her colleagues and her adversaries – not to mention the judge, a woman well-known for her penchant for punctuality.

  "Are we keeping banker's hours now, Ms. Singer?" she asked, looking at Lillian over her half-rim, tortoiseshell reading glasses.

  "No, Your Honor. My apologies to the court for my unavoidable delay," she said, her uncharacteristically meek reply causing as much surprise as her belated arrival had.

  She had to will herself to stay focused, and the rest of the day – the rest of the week and well into the next – unfolded uneventfully enough, except that the intense concentration it took to keep from being distracted from the job at hand left her physically and mentally exhausted.

  Stuart kept leaving messages for her everywhere she went. She didn't return any of his calls because she didn't want to. She hadn't liked being accused of deliberately going off to Window Rock without telling anyone just because she wanted to annoy him. She wasn't being vindictive; her feelings had been hurt. She would admit that she used Becenti as an excuse to escape another meeting with Stuart and his fiancée, but that was then. This was now, and Stuart's persistence in calling to reprove her under the guise of making sure she was "all right" was just one more aggravation to add to the ever-growing pile.

  By sheer willpower alone, she lost herself in her work, refusing to dwell on the fact that all the phone calls came from Stuart and not from Window Rock. Not that she expected any – of course, she didn't. And the fact that Becenti didn't call to at least make a token apology for his uncouth behavior only served to underline the obvious. To Johnny Becenti, the clinch in the kitchen had been nothing but a well-timed joke.

  On Friday, she worked late in the law library, bypassing the office and arriving home just ahead of a late-winter storm. The snow had already begun to fall as she drove the last leg of the trip up the winding drive to her front door.

  Because the house was stucco instead of adobe, it was a bit of a misfit for the area – like she was. The house proper was L-shaped with a front porch that filled in the structure to make it the predictable low-roofed rectangle. In warmer weather she had all manner of chairs and rockers dragged onto the porch – wicker, wrought iron, pine – so that she or her guests could take advantage of the view of the surrounding hills. She liked having people come to visit. It was so peaceful and beautiful here, and she liked to share it – usually.

  But today it was as cold and bleak as she felt. Snow was rapidly covering the ground, and the wind chimes on the porch clanged forlornly in the biting wind. She hadn't left any inside lights on, and having to enter a dark house only served to compound her dismal mood. The weekend stretched endlessly ahead of her. She was going to be snowed in. She was going to have two full days of nothing to do but think. She would have brought some legal work home with her – except that, for once in her career and thanks to her desperate need to stay busy, she was actually caught up on the research necessary for her current caseload.

  She carried in a bag of groceries and her dry cleaning in one trip, nearly upending the bag in the struggle to get the door open. She stepped inside, still juggling.

  "I'm home," she called softly to the empty room, needing to pour salt in an open wound, apparently – which was ridiculous. She had lived alone for most of her life. Even in her unprosperous, half-starving law-school days she had always preferr
ed guests to roommates – people who came, had a good time, and then left again. She didn't want anyone underfoot. She didn't need anyone underfoot – which was why she had never actually lived with Stuart Dennison. It was truly an enigma to her as to why she felt so abandoned right now.

  She saw him at the same moment she switched on the lamp by the front door, and in retrospect she would have been hard-pressed to say who, exactly, scared whom. But in any event, she retreated in a flurry of shrieks and groceries and dry cleaning, back out into the snowy evening.

  "Lillian!" he yelled after her. "It's me!"

  She still didn't stop until she'd reached the car and the voice finally registered. She whirled around.

  "What the hell are you doing in my house!"

  "Ah," he said mildly. "You don't like it when the hogan is on the other foot, I see."

  "Becenti, you answer me!"

  "What? Like you answered me when I asked that question?"

  "Becenti – !"

  "Come back inside, Lillian. It's cold. It's snowing. Which, if you ever paid attention, is your answer. I meant to wait outside until you got home, but it got to be too much for me. I'm still recovering, you know. And, I had the cat."

  "What cat!"

  "Your secretary's cat. Gracie's cat. I didn't want us both to get pneumonia – I've already had my turn. Come on," he coaxed, as if she were the one in the wrong here and it fell to him to be magnanimous.

  She walked forward, but she was still angry. And unsuitably glad to see him, she noted grimly. She hated how glad she was to see him.

  "What are you doing with Gracie's cat?" she asked, her tone of voice indicating that she was ready to accuse him of the worst kind of catnapping.

  "I'm being helpful," he said, standing back so she could come inside. "Gracie's daughter went into labor. When I got to your office, she was running in circles like she had one shoe nailed to the floor and she was all worried about this cat – which, I understand, you said you'd baby-sit. So I volunteered to pick up the cat and bring it to you."