“I don’t want to talk to you, David. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I just want to lie on my bed and cry.”
The statement seemed to wound him; he looked away, scanning cloud-dappled blue skies for a moment. “All right,” he said after a long time. “All right. But, please, let me get you a cab.”
It seemed the least he could do, after fathering a baby he didn’t want. “Thank you,” Holly replied woodenly.
But when she reached her house, high on the South Hill, she did not lie down on her bed and cry. Elaine was there, working on the manuscript, and Madge was cleaning furiously. Both of them were trying so hard to be subtle that Holly forgot her misery for the time being and burst out laughing.
“Yes!” she yelled, spreading her hands wide of a body that would soon swell to pearlike proportions. “I’m pregnant!”
Faced with the certainty, her friends did not seem to know whether to celebrate or commiserate. Thinking it enough that she wasn’t flying apart in pieces, Holly gave them no clue. She simply sat down at her desk and turned on her computer and began working on the last of the cooking columns she was required, by contract with the local newspaper, to write.
For the next two weeks, Holly lived in a frenetic kind of limbo, working day and night, praying that David wouldn’t call or come by and leaping every time the telephone or doorbell rang.
David didn’t call, though. And he didn’t come by. Holly was resigned to the fact that, despite his earlier claims to love and want her, she was going to have this baby alone. And raise it alone.
The fates seemed to respect her secret grief, however, and even to aid her in holding up the front she maintained for Elaine and Madge and Toby. Everything went well; Holly’s agent accepted her decision to switch from sure-thing cookbooks to novels that might or might not sell, the newspaper was gracious, though they said their readers would miss her columns, and the department-store people didn’t give her any flak, either, beyond reminding her that her contract called for one more set of lessons to be taught.
Yes, everything was fine. Until the night Toby ran away.
* * *
David was developing a hatred for coffee. He scowled at his empty cup and set it in the sink, looking out over the lights of the city and despairing. Why was he beating the books, night after night, like some college kid? For what?
He sighed raggedly and ran one hand through his hair. For his sanity, that was for what, he admitted to himself. If he didn’t bury himself in classes by day and law books by night, he would go crazy. Perversely, he wondered what Holly was doing at that moment. What she was thinking and feeling.
Love for her clenched within David in a spasm so painful that it nearly bent him double. He had to leave her alone; he had to, no matter what the cost. A long talk with Holly’s assistant, Elaine Bateman, had convinced him of that. And yet it was the hardest thing he had ever had to do—his every instinct ran counter to this endless, agonizing waiting.
The doorbell rang and David’s heart lunged to the pit of his stomach and then swelled into his throat. Let it be her, he thought desperately as he strode to the door and reached for the knob.
Forcibly, David stopped just short of opening it, drew a deep breath and tried to compose himself. It was crucial to say the right thing, to do the right thing— The bell rang again, insistently, and David grinned as he turned the knob and pulled the door open.
Toby was standing before him, head down, jacket askew, his toy Cessna in one hand and the robot David had sent at Christmas in the other.
David scanned the hallway, puzzled, but saw no sign of Holly. Then, hiding the alarm he felt, he crouched to look into the little boy’s averted face. It was tear-stained and pink from the cold outside.
Toby looked at him then and David ached at the despair he saw in that small face; it seemed to crumple before his very eyes.
“Don’t you want to marry Mom and me?” the child wailed, flinging his arms around David’s neck, the plane and the robot thumping to the floor.
David held him and rose to his feet, too overcome to respond immediately. After a time, though, he cleared his throat and asked, “Does your mom know where you are, slugger?”
The small head shook against his shoulder.
David had already guessed the answer to that question, of course, but it made an opening. “I think we’d better call her and tell her you’re safe. Right now.”
“Okay,” sniffled Toby.
His shirt sodden with Toby’s tears, David ruffled the little boy’s hair and set him gently down on the sofa. This would be the first call he’d made to Holly in weeks, but his fingers didn’t hesitate over the buttons as they usually did.
She answered, frantic, on the first ring. “Toby?”
“He’s here with me,” David said gently. “And he’s all right.”
“Thank God!” Holly wept. “Oh, thank God! I thought—”
David had to close his eyes for a moment. For some damned, inexplicable reason, he felt like crying himself. He didn’t speak because he didn’t dare.
“When did he get there?” Holly demanded, sniffling. “What did he say?”
The little boy’s words echoed in David’s heart. Don’t you want to marry Mom and me?
“He hasn’t said anything much,” David lied gruffly, for Holly’s sake as well as his own. “How the devil do you suppose he got all the way down here by himself?”
Holly sighed; David could see her in his mind, her wonderful aquamarine eyes puffy, her hair tangled from repeated, nervous ruffling. “I shudder to think,” she said.
“Shall I bring him home or do you want to come and get him?” Either way, David despaired in silence, how am I going to be able to bear seeing you? Can that possibly be worse than not seeing you?
Holly’s answer surprised him. “C-could you keep him, just for tonight?”
David glanced back at Toby, who was watching him from the sofa, his lower lip jutting out in some kind of little-kid defiance. “Keep him?” he echoed, and Toby’s eyes widened.
“Evidently it was important to him to see you, David. Maybe you can find out what made him do this.”
“I’ll try,” David promised hoarsely, and then he said goodbye to Holly and turned back toward the child, folding his arms across his chest.
“Okay, slugger. What’s the deal? How did you get down here alone?”
Toby was scrambling out of his jacket, ready to stay for the duration, but there was a challenge in his eyes. “Everybody thinks I’m too little to do anything,” he complained. “Just like that dumb baby.”
Bingo, thought David, but he didn’t smile. He didn’t want Toby to think that running away in the middle of the night was clever.
“What dumb baby is this?” he asked.
“The one Mom’s going to have. She won’t want me anymore, that’s for sure.”
“Oh? And on what do you base that conclusion, counselor?”
Toby squared his shoulders. At least he’d had supper before setting out on the crosstown journey—half of it was still on his striped T-shirt. “I’m not really hers, you know,” he said.
“Mmmm.”
“She’s really my aunt.”
“Right. You just call her ‘Mom’ to make her feel good, huh?”
Toby considered and seemed to find the idea magnanimous enough to claim. “Yeah.”
“She loves you, Toby. And no matter how many babies she has, that is never going to change.”
The uncertainty in Toby’s face was painful to see. “You really think so?”
“I really think so. Now, how did you get here?”
“You won’t believe it.”
“Indulge me,” David replied.
“I walked.”
“All the way from the South Hill?” David was horrified, though he did a creditable job of hiding it.
“All the way from the South Hill,” Toby confirmed proudly. But his grin faded away. “If Mom loves me so much, how come she said you could
keep me?”
“She just meant for tonight, slugger. She’s a smart lady—she figured that if you wanted to see me badly enough to run away, well, then she should let you see me.”
“Oh. Are you going to marry us? Mom and me and the baby?”
David reeled inwardly but again managed to recover. “I’d like that a lot, Toby, but sometimes things don’t go the way we want them to, no matter how hard we try. And right now, you’d better be thankful that I’m not married to your mom.”
“Why?” demanded Toby, a study in disbelief.
“Because I’d give you the worst spanking you’ve ever had in your whole life, that’s why. Running away is an ultra-dumb thing to do.”
Toby pondered this carefully, his face working as he weighed getting spanked against having David for a father. “I guess al-Qaeda could have got me,” he said after due consideration.
“What do you know about al-Qaeda?”
“I know they were after my dad.”
David went to the sofa and sat down beside Toby, making a big deal of stretching his legs and crossing his booted feet on the glass top of the coffee table. “They’re not going to bother you, Tobe,” he said after a long time.
Toby looked relieved. “Good. I thought they might think my dad told me a secret or something.”
David put one arm around the little boy and held him close. He could understand the depths of Holly’s feelings for this child, for he already loved Toby as if he were his own.
“Would you really have spanked me if I’d been your kid?” Toby asked when the silence grew too long for comfort.
“You’d better believe it,” David replied honestly. “There are certain things a guy just doesn’t do, and running away is one of them.”
Blue eyes the size of Frisbees looked up into David’s face. “I think I’d still like to be your kid anyway,” he said.
David laughed because if he hadn’t, he’d have cried.
“You’ll probably like the baby better’n me, just like Mom.”
“Neither of us will like the baby better than you, Toby.”
Toby snuggled close, beneath David’s arm. “Babies can’t fly Cessnas or nothin’,” he said derisively. And then he fell asleep.
David removed Toby’s shoes, slipped a pillow beneath his head and covered him with a down-filled quilt from one of the extra bedrooms. He tried to go back to his books—the Bar Exam was only weeks away—but try as he might, he couldn’t concentrate.
He kept losing himself in dreams that would probably never come true.
15
Elaine had been right in saying that what was needed was time, Holly reflected as she stepped onto the department-store escalator. She was munching on caramel-covered popcorn and peanuts—her third box that day—and she frowned as she emptied the last of it into the palm of one hand. The minute the morning sickness had passed away, the strange cravings had begun. And caramel corn wasn’t the only thing she felt compelled to gorge on, unfortunately. Sometimes she wanted smoked oysters rolled in peanut butter....
Holly made a face and then thumped the box against her hand so that the prize would fall out. It was in a white packet, whatever it was, and she tore the paper away as she strolled toward Cookware, where she would teach her last class.
It was an omen! The prize turned out to be an enormous ring with a plastic solitaire. Grinning, Holly tucked it into her pocket.
Tonight’s project was shawarma, and the members of her class were at their tables, sleeves rolled up. She scanned their faces as she did every night, hoping to see David among them and, paradoxically, hoping not to.
David had not called her or put in an appearance at her house since the morning he had brought Toby home. Even then, he’d only said that the little boy was worried about being shunted aside when the baby came. And the word baby had been like a barrier between them, impossible to surmount.
Holly was saddened as she dropped her caramel-corn box surreptitiously into a wastebasket and shrugged out of her coat. Determinedly, she smiled at her students. “Looks like everyone is ready to start.”
There were nods, grins and expressions of nervousness all around. And then they began.
It was just as the class was ending that David appeared, his hands wedged into the pockets of a Windbreaker emblazoned with the Gonzaga University logo, his eyes carefully avoiding Holly’s gaze.
She felt a shivering sort of exhilaration, followed by plunging doubts. Just because David was there, well, that didn’t mean that he was ready to make any sort of declaration or renew their relationship. He might even have come to say goodbye, having decided to return to Washington....
This was a considerate class. Each and every student cleaned up his or her own mess, leaving nothing for Holly to do but sneak the occasional glance at David, who was leaning against a refrigerator door, his arms folded, his navy blue eyes touching upon everything except Holly herself.
She smiled as the last goodbyes were said and her students departed, certificates in hand. And then she was alone. With David.
“Time to take the bull by the horns, kid,” she told herself, drawing on all her courage as she plunged a hand into her coat pocket. Win, lose or draw, there could be no more guesswork and no more emotional sparring. If David Goddard wasn’t going to declare himself, then Holly would state her own case and see what happened.
“Hello,” she said, walking over to him and stopping within touching distance.
David gave her a wry look. Obviously he wasn’t going to make this easy.
“Thank you for taking such good care of Toby that night,” she said hoarsely. She was clenching her fingers so tightly that the small object she held dug into her palm.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Holly sighed and rolled her eyes. Now or never, she thought, drawing a deep breath that dizzied her. And then she extended her hand, the plastic ring lying in her palm.
“Will you marry me, David?” she choked out.
He looked as though she had flung a shawarma on him. His face contorted for a moment and he no longer leaned so indolently against the door of that display-floor refrigerator. No, David stood erect now, Secret-Service alert. His throat worked, but he said nothing.
Holly wanted to die. “You haven’t mentioned getting married lately, so I thought I’d bring it up,” she said lamely.
Suddenly, so suddenly that Holly jumped, David pulled her against his hard chest, that chest she had so missed the scent and feel and strength of, and he laughed. His hands touched her shoulders briefly and then entwined themselves in her hair, mussing it.
“God, Holly, how I love you,” he muttered.
“Does that mean you’re going to accept my proposal?” she asked softly, searching his face with wide, cautious eyes.
“How could I refuse?” he asked gruffly, his breath warm against her face, his eyes meeting hers with a direct sort of tenderness that made her shiver with the love of him, the need of him. “Holly, are you sure? Have you thought about this?”
“Yes. To the detriment, I might add, of everything I was supposed to be thinking about instead.”
“What made you decide?”
“I didn’t need to decide because I already knew. I just needed to know I knew.”
David rolled his eyes—they were shining with laughter—and then he kissed her. Salespeople and customers were probably looking on, but Holly didn’t care. She kissed him back.
She was breathless, moments later, as she caught his hand in hers and tried to wedge the caramel-corn diamond onto his finger. It didn’t fit, of course, but David accommodatingly wore it on his pinkie.
“I wonder if accepting an expensive gift like this,” David teased, “obligates me to submit to lewd and improper demands.”
Holly laughed. “You bet it does,” she answered. “Your place or mine, handsome?”
“What about Toby?” he asked, so seriously that Holly’s already fathomless love deepened with a painful jolt.
“Toby is spending the night with a friend.”
A grin broke over David’s wonderful, magnificent face. “You planned this!”
Holly laughed. “Do you really have a hot tub in your bedroom?” she asked. “Rumor has it that you do.”
His hand fitted itself to the small of her back and Holly found herself being propelled through Cookware and onto the down escalator. “Rumor is entirely correct,” he answered. “All the same, I think you should confirm it with your own eyes.”
* * *
The hot tub made a lulling, bubbling sound in the semi-darkness, filling the room with a tropical sort of heat. Holly luxuriated in contentment as David’s hands slowly divested her of her clothes, pausing now and then to stroke and caress whatever prize he had just uncovered.
“I love you,” he said, bending his head to one breast and circling the instantly responsive nipple with the tip of his tongue.
Holly groaned and then, somehow, found the strength to push him away. “Oh, no, you don’t, fella. You’re not going to stand there in all your clothes and make me crazy.”
A compliant sort, David was soon standing there without his clothes. And making her crazy.
She went to stand beside the hot tub, looking down into its churning depths. Then David was behind her, drawing her back against him, running his hands from her waist to her breasts. He seemed to be weighing them in his palms, and Holly moaned and let her head fall back against his shoulder as his thumbs coaxed her nipples to a new level of response.
When Holly thought she could bear no more of that, when she was sure she would have to turn to him and demand that he take her, he retraced his path, lingering at her hips for a delicious moment and then knitting his fingers together over her abdomen.
His teeth caught at her earlobe and she quivered against the sinewy length of him, the hair on his chest tickling her naked back. “I want this to last forever,” he breathed and again she trembled. “Cold?” he queried as an afterthought.
“Hardly,” Holly managed to say.
A Proposal for Christmas: State SecretsThe Five Days of Christmas Page 19