As one hour slipped into two, Tucker watched Matt’s nervous attempts to appear calm, but his thoughts were on Kristina. She sat opposite him, her head bent as she leafed through the pages of a magazine, her hair drifting about her shoulders in a loose caress. Once, Tucker thought, she had been on the other side of these hospital walls. But there had been no one waiting and worrying for her, not even her great-aunt Maudie, who had been too frail to make the trip. No one had cared the way the three of them did for Jena.
Kristina had been alone. Suddenly the enormity of that fact wove through him, leaving his heart to throb a slow, heavy rhythm of comprehension. She had been only seventeen, just out of high school, physically and emotionally drained, and she had borne his child alone. He had a strange impulse to apologize to her, but he kept silent and waited for something to ease the tension.
When at last the phone in the waiting room rang and Matt hurried to meet his newborn son, Tucker stood and rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t know the worst part of having a baby would be the waiting. Do you suppose they’ll name him after me?”
Kris looked up and tried to smile. “I doubt it. You really didn’t do anything particularly heroic.”
Tender concern welled inside him at the tired expression in her eyes. “Would you consider the simple act of taking you home as something akin to heroism?”
“You could get a medal if you break the all-time return trip record. Probably we should wait for Matt, though. He’ll want to get back to Maple Ridge and tell the other Saradon siblings about their new brother.” She paused, and this time the smile seemed almost normal. “I might warn you that if you expect a quiet ride, you’re bound for disappointment. Matt will more than make up for what he didn’t say on the way here.”
“I can handle a proud father’s excitement if you can.”
They waited in agreeable quiet for several minutes. “Kristina,” Tucker said softly, “I wish I had been here with you when our — when Amber was born.”
A betraying quiver tugged at the corners of her lips. “So do I.”
He wanted to say more, to comfort her, but instead, he sank onto the chair again, clasped his hands, and waited for Matt’s return. It was difficult to wait, but Tucker decided it was fitting for him to be here, in this hospital with Kris.
Too late, yes, but very fitting.
Chapter Eleven
The trip home from the hospital was all Kris had predicted ... and more. Matt broke the all-time record for nonstop conversation on a single topic. He talked with all the excitement and enthusiasm of a new father who realizes that no one is actually listening but who doesn’t really care. Kris couldn’t restrain her sigh of relief when at last Matt stepped out of the car at his house and expressed — not for the first time — his eternal gratitude and the promise of a steak dinner reward as soon as Jena and the baby were home.
Tucker didn’t linger long enough to encourage any more discussion on the topic of the Saradon family. He said a hasty good-bye and abruptly drove away. As the last shadow of night closed around the Mercedes, a cautious awareness crept into the sudden quiet. Kris accepted the silence, knowing that it was composed of Tucker’s uncertainties as well as her own. It seemed impossible that less than twenty-four hours had passed since they’d made love in the shade of the oak tree. Her body trembled with the memory and the thought that she might never feel his touch again.
What was he thinking? she wondered. Were his thoughts on her, or were they focused on that distant summer? She turned the hem of her shirt-tail into a tight roll and then released it. Had Tucker noticed that she was wearing his shirt? Silly thought. It was so obviously his. How could he help noticing? She felt a little embarrassed at being caught in such a peculiarly feminine weakness. But when he’d left her, putting on the shirt he’d left behind had been the only comfort she could find.
And now he was back. What did it mean? Kris couldn’t begin to answer all the questions in her mind. She could only sit next to him and wish that the taut silence would end.
She was very good at wishing. There were times when it seemed as if she’d spent most of her life wishing for something she couldn’t have.
Tucker glanced at her, and Kristina offered a tentative smile, but it wasn’t returned, and the tension became a heavy ache in her lungs. She couldn’t halt the weary sigh that escaped her when Tucker drove up her driveway and stopped the Mercedes beside her house. Streaks of morning lightened the eastern sky and faded the glare of the porch light to a dim fluorescence.
The air was very still as Kristina stepped from the car and paused to listen to the quiet sounds of a new Sunday morning. She closed the door and waited, not knowing whether to hope Tucker would leave again without explanation or to wish that he would stay. When she heard his door open and close, she released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
As he walked to her side, Kris tried to think of a casual sentence to break the silence and knew it was wasted effort. She turned to him with the half-formed idea that her heart would know what to say. But the instant her eyes met his, her throat tightened with emotion, and when his lips tipped upward in a tender curve, she longed to walk straight into his arms.
“I didn’t expect to see you again, Tucker,” she whispered hoarsely. “Ever.”
He thrust his hands into the pockets of the jacket he wore and looked past her shoulder before letting his gaze slowly return. “When I left, I didn’t expect to come back. I’m not sure what I’m doing here now, but as I was driving away from Maple Ridge, all I could think about was what I had left behind, and I knew I had to talk to you.”
A momentary frown creased his forehead. “I really like this town, Kris, and the people. Helping Jena and Matt tonight made me realize how important it is to be involved with other people, to be part of a community. For such a long time I’ve been totally involved with my career, letting every other area in my life slide into second place ... until you came along. How did you happen to walk into that courtroom on the very day I needed you, Kris? At any other time I might have been too busy with professional demands to recognize the bond that existed between us even on that first day. I could so easily have missed falling in love with you again.”
“How did you happen to be at the University of Missouri football game on the very day I was looking for someone to love?” She lifted her shoulders in a transient shrug. “I can’t explain it, Tucker. There just are so many things I simply have no answer for. I think I went to the courtroom to see you because I was searching for a link to my daughter. My love for her is woven into my love for you. But then everything I care about is somehow woven into the way I feel about you.”
His gaze turned to the sunrise, and Kristina felt his doubts, his uncertainties as if they were her own. “I never wanted to hurt you, Tucker. Please believe that.”
“Have you told me everything?” he asked after a while. “Is there anything else about the past that you feel I should be told?”
“No, you know the worst.”
“And the best.” His gaze came back to hers. “I love you. Now, will you marry me?”
Her breath caught and then winged to her lips in soft, sweet surprise. “Tucker, I — yes. Yes, if you’re sure...?”
He pulled her into his arms and cradled his palm against her cheek. “I’ve never been more sure of anything, Kristina. You are my future. Maple Ridge is home to me. I want to belong here, to be a part of the community, to have a voice in shaping its growth. I want to share my life with you. I would like to have a family — children who are planned and anticipated and welcomed.”
His lips caressed the corners of her mouth, his hand slipped into the silky texture of her hair, and Kris thought she would drown in the wonder of his touch. “I love you,” she murmured, “but I never dared hope. I believed you’d hate me forever once you knew the truth.”
“I learned a lot tonight, Kris.” He raised his head to look solemnly into her eyes. “I thought at first that I could ne
ver forgive you for giving our child to strangers, but I realized while we were waiting at the hospital that it wasn’t a question of forgiveness. For a few minutes tonight I saw how it must have been for you. Jena had Matt’s love and support; she had friends and family waiting to share her excitement.
“You were alone, Kris, separated from everything and everyone you cared about. I can only imagine how terrible that must have been for you, how very difficult it must have been to bear a child under those circumstances. It seems so pointless to say I wish I might have shared that time with you, but I do wish....”
His voice faltered into longings that Kristina understood only too well. “I know, Tucker. I’ve lived with those same wishes for a lot of years. After a while it stops hurting quite so much.”
“I know you did what you felt was best for our child, Kris, even though I’m just beginning to realize what that decision meant to you. You sacrificed your peace of mind for the belief that an adoptive family could give her a loving welcome and the secure future that you couldn’t provide. I can’t honestly say I think you made the right decision, but then I don’t know that it was the wrong one either. I guess the doubts and the regrets will linger for the rest of our lives, Kris, but at least we’ll face them together.”
“Maybe someday she’ll find us, Tucker. That isn’t impossible, you know.” Kris traced a comforting finger along his eyebrow and down his cheek to his mouth.
He kissed the tip of her finger with warm promise. “We can wish for that. And in the meantime, we’re going to be happy. That isn’t impossible either, you know.”
The smile came straight from her heart, and Tucker shared it for an endlessly sweet moment before he met her lips in an oh-so-tender kiss. The doubts, the uncertainties, and the regrets might always be a part of their relationship, she realized, but only a part. The secrets and the shadows of her love for him were gone forever. She could face anything as long as Tucker was there to share it with her.
Sunrise christened the morning with bright color as Kris surrendered the past and the future, fantasy and reality, into her lover’s capable hands. And in exchange she captured the present—the incredible miracle of now—for herself and for Tucker.
She heard the muffled ringing, felt the vibration of her cell phone in her pocket, and felt a pleasurable sense of homecoming. “The Maple Ridge grapevine is right on schedule,” she said happily. “That will be Ruth calling to tell us about the addition to the Saradon household.”
“Then she’ll be the first one to be invited to our wedding. Do you think she’ll be surprised?”
“If I know Ruth ... and I do ... she’ll be the first one to congratulate herself on doing a great job of matchmaking. But to us she’ll say that it’s about time we had the good sense to realize what the rest of the town has known for weeks.”
Tucker pulled Kristina closer. “Maybe we should let Ruth and the rest of the town speculate a little longer. What do you think?”
“I think you have better sense than even I gave you credit for.”
He kissed her again, lingering as their love warmed the caress to desire. “I love you, Kristina DuMont. Will you spend this Sunday with me?”
“This Sunday ... and all the other days of my life.”
As they walked hand in hand up the porch steps and into the house, the phone continued to vibrate in her pocket. Without a second’s compunction, she pulled it out, turned it off and tossed it onto the sofa cushions, leaving it — and the residents of Maple Ridge — to dangle, while she began the day ... and the rest of her life ... with Tucker.
Copyright © 1985 by Karen Whittenburg
Originally published by Dell (0440120497)
Electronically published in 2012 by Belgrave House
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
http://www.BelgraveHouse.com
Electronic sales: [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
A Distant Summer Page 14