Only Forever

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I’m not even going to be here!” Vanessa wailed.

  “Where’s your Christmas spirit?” Rodney demanded, looking hurt.

  Vanessa had never been able to take a hard line with Rodney. Loving him was a lifetime habit. She shoved a hand through her hair. “Do you promise to take it down before we go home? The Wilsons want to move in the first week in January.”

  Rodney was mollified. “You have my word, Van. I’ll not only take it down, but I’ll vacuum up the pine needles and the stray tinsel.”

  Vanessa laughed. “Wild promises, those,” she said just as the doorbell rang.

  A delivery man was standing on the porch holding a massive pink poinsettia in a pot wrapped in gold foil and tied with a wide white ribbon. Vanessa accepted the plant, scrounged up a tip and tore open the card the moment she’d closed the door.

  “Let’s part friends,” it read. “Call me. Nick.”

  A hard, aching lump formed in Vanessa’s throat, and tears smarted in her eyes. Against her better judgment and without a word to Rodney, she stepped into the kitchen and dialed the familiar number.

  Nick’s secretary answered on the second ring.

  Vanessa introduced herself and was put through to him directly.

  “Thanks for the poinsettia,” she said.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” Nick replied.

  Vanessa hugged herself with one arm. Just the sound of his voice tied her in knots; she wondered what she was going to do without him. “Me, too,” she answered.

  “You’ve sold your house,” he said, evidently determined to keep the ball rolling.

  “I should have done it a long time ago.” Vanessa wondered what kind of talk show host she was going to make when she could hardly carry on an intelligent conversation with the man she loved more than life.

  “I guess you’ll want a small place when you get to San Francisco,” he ventured.

  So he knew she’d accepted the job there. Vanessa closed her eyes for a moment. “Probably,” she responded.

  “I’d like to see you before you leave.”

  Nick’s words shouldn’t have surprised Vanessa, but they did. It was a long time before she could speak.

  “I wonder if that’s such a good idea.” Her voice was faint and shaky. “We don’t seem to do very well on a one-to-one basis.”

  Nick gave a hollow chuckle. “There’s an obvious response to that remark, but I’ll let it pass out of chivalry.”

  Vanessa had to smile. “Is that what you call it?” she countered.

  “I hear you met my uncle last night.”

  She let out her breath. “Yes.”

  “He gave me a long, loud lecture about mistreating lovely ladies,” Nick went on.

  Vanessa laughed softly. “I suppose I looked pretty forlorn,” she confessed.

  “I’m sorry,” he responded, his voice a velvety caress.

  “Did Uncle Guido tell you to say that?” Vanessa teased.

  “Yes,” Nick answered. “As a matter of fact, that was part of my penance. Vanessa, will you spend the afternoon with me?”

  “I’ve got to pack and do some Christmas shopping—”

  “Please?” he persisted. And when Nick persisted, he was nearly irresistible.

  “There’s no point—”

  “I’m not going to pressure you, Van,” Nick broke in gently. “All I’m asking for is this afternoon, not the rest of your life.”

  It took Vanessa a long time to answer. She wished she had the courage to offer the rest of her life, but she didn’t. “Okay,” she said.

  Nick came to get her at noon, dressed casually in jeans, a turtleneck sweater and a leather jacket. There was a sad glow in his coffee-colored eyes as he took in Vanessa’s gray slacks and sweater.

  “Hi,” he said.

  Vanessa resisted an urge to hurl herself into his arms and beg him never to hurt her, never to betray or reject her. “Hi,” she answered.

  They went to Pike Place Market and walked through it, hand in hand, visiting the different shops and talking about everything but Vanessa’s new job and her impending move to California. They had lunch in a fish bar on the waterfront and then drove to a Christmas-tree lot well outside the heart of the city.

  Nick inspected tree after tree, consulting Vanessa about each one. She played a dangerous game in her heart, pretending that they would always be together at Christmas, selecting trees, stuffing stockings, putting dolls and tricycles out for little ones to find.

  “How are you going to get that home?” Vanessa wanted to know when Nick had at last settled on a seven-foot noble pine with a luscious scent.

  Nick looked puzzled by her question. With the help of the attendant, he bound the enormous tree to the top of his Corvette, and Vanessa held her breath the whole time.

  She couldn’t help comparing Nick’s apparent carefree attitude with Parker’s paranoia about his car’s paint job.

  The tree rode with them in the elevator, scratching their faces and shedding its perfume.

  “I didn’t get any shopping done,” Vanessa complained, once they’d dragged the tree inside Nick’s condominium and set it up in a waiting stand.

  He was dusting his hands together. “I need to get something for Gina,” he said. “Let’s hit the mall.”

  Vanessa did a lot more pretending that afternoon, but, like all fantasies, her time with Nick had to end. When he saw her to her door, he didn’t even try to kiss her.

  “You really didn’t pressure me,” she marveled as he turned to walk away.

  Nick looked back at her over one shoulder, his soul in his eyes. “When I make a promise,” he said, “it’s good forever.”

  Vanessa swallowed, thinking of promises that involved loving, honoring and cherishing. “W-will I see you again?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “That’s up to you,” he said. “The next move is yours.”

  With that Nick walked away without looking back.

  11

  Their grandparents’ Christmas tree was a muddle of color in the front window, and Rodney and Vanessa exchanged a look of delight as they pulled into the familiar driveway.

  John and Alice Bradshaw had heard the distinctive purr of the sports car’s motor and were huddled together on the front porch, waiting. Rodney and Vanessa raced up the walk to greet them with exuberant hugs.

  “It’s about time you got here,” John complained good-naturedly, and then he and Rodney went off to carry in the presents and suitcases that were jammed in the little car.

  Vanessa, in the meantime, was led into the kitchen by her spritely redheaded grandmother and divested of her coat and purse. The room was filled with the scents of Christmas—cinnamon, peppermint, a hint of evergreen from the boughs surrounding the striped candle at the center of the table.

  “I’m so glad to be home,” Vanessa said, and then, remarkably, she burst into tears.

  Alice made a clucking sound with her tongue and squired her granddaughter to a seat at the table. “Tell me all about it, sweetheart,” she said, patting Vanessa’s hand.

  Rodney and John had arrived with their arms full by then, and Alice had to go and open the door for them. Vanessa waited with her head down until her cousin and grandfather had passed diplomatically into the living room.

  “It’s Nick, isn’t it?” Alice persisted once they were alone again. She’d brewed a pot of tea, and she poured cupfuls for herself and Vanessa before sitting down.

  Vanessa had regained some control of herself. “He’s so unbelievably wonderful,” she sniffled, plucking a tissue from the little packet that was stuffed into a pocket of her sweater. She was getting to be a regular old maid, carrying on all the time and having to stave off bouts of weeping.

  Alice arched one finely shaped eyebrow. At sixty-seven she was still a lovely woman. Her green eyes were as bright and full of humor and love as ever, and her skin was flawless. She wore her rich auburn hair in a braided chignon and dressed in cotton shirtwaist dresses. Vanessa a
dored her.

  “That’s what you said about Parker,” the older woman remarked.

  Vanessa sighed. “I know,” she said. “That’s part of the problem—what happened with Parker, I mean.” She paused to pull in a deep, shaky breath and let it out again. “Nick used to be a professional football player.”

  Alice was apparently reserving judgment on that, for she took a sip of her tea and shrugged in a way that meant for Vanessa to continue.

  “He was a party animal, too,” Vanessa elaborated, thinking, for the first time, how thin her argument sounded. “Surrounded by women,” she added uncertainly.

  Alice didn’t look convinced. “Lots of men carry on like that when they’re younger,” she observed. “Parker probably won’t ever stop.”

  Vanessa sighed as memories flipped through her mind like rapidly turning pages in a scrap-book—Nick running backward in the park so that she could keep up, eating spaghetti at that café on the island, bringing the lightning inside while he loved her, tying a Christmas tree to the roof of his Corvette.

  “I’m so scared, Gramma,” Vanessa confessed, and her teacup rattled in its saucer as she set it down.

  “But you love him?”

  “More than my life,” Vanessa answered.

  “How about your fear? Is your love greater than that?”

  Vanessa bit her lip. “No one in the world has more power to hurt me than Nick DeAngelo does,” she said.

  “There are two sides to that coin,” Alice reminded her with a certain loving sternness in her voice. “No one else could make you happier, either—did you ever think of that? There are times in this life when we come to a crossroad, Vanessa, and we have to make a choice.”

  Vanessa looked down at her hands. “I’ve already made the choice,” she said, even though she’d told her grandparents about her decision to move to San Francisco soon after it was made.

  “Choices can be unmade. Vanessa, if Nick is a good man—and Rodney certainly seems to think he is—and you love him, then take the risk, for pity’s sake!”

  “What if he dies?” Vanessa whispered. “What if he decides he doesn’t love me anymore and runs off with another woman?”

  Alice looked exasperated. “What if you both live to be a hundred-and-four and die loving each other as much as you do today? You’re being silly, Vanessa—silly and cowardly.

  “Remember how it was when we’d go to the lake in the summertime when you were a little girl? You’d stand on the bank, dipping your toes in the water for an eternity while all your cousins were already swimming. By the time you finally took the plunge, the rest of us were ready to go home and you cried because you’d missed all the fun.”

  Vanessa smiled ruefully, recalling those incidents and others like them. She’d always been too cautious, except when she’d married Parker and that resounding failure had only made her more careful than ever before. “I am a bit of a coward, aren’t I?”

  “I don’t want you thinking badly of yourself,” Alice said firmly. “You’re not the most daring person I’ve ever known, but there’s something to be said for thinking things through and taking the slow and steady course, too.”

  “But I could be more of a risk taker,” Vanessa ventured.

  “Where this new man is concerned, I think you could,” Alice allowed, pouring herself a second cup of tea.

  That night, sleeping in her childhood bed in a room where cheerleading pom-poms and pictures of movie stars still graced the walls, Vanessa thought of the last time she’d seen Nick. The next move is yours, he’d said.

  In the morning, Vanessa awakened and went downstairs in her old chenille bathrobe to find her grandfather in the living room, building the fire in the Franklin stove. John’s blue eyes twinkled beneath bristly Santa Claus brows as he looked at her.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” he said. “You’re up early.”

  A thick Spokane snowfall was wafting past the windows that overlooked the street. Vanessa went to her grandfather and kissed his cheek. “So are you,” she pointed out. “But that’s nothing new, is it?”

  He closed the door of the stove, put the poker away and smiled at her. “We’re going to miss tuning in the shopping channel and seeing you there every day,” he said.

  Vanessa glanced at the clock and wondered if Nick was still in bed or out running through wet, dark streets. Then she slipped her arm through her grandfather’s and teased, “You were probably spending too much money trying to make me look good.”

  John laughed. “You don’t need any help to look good, button—you never did.” He paused, watching her with wise, gentle eyes. “And the way you keep looking at the clock makes me think maybe there’s somebody you want to call.”

  Vanessa swallowed. She’d been thinking all night, and she’d decided her grandmother was right. It was time she gritted her teeth and took a chance. “There is,” she confessed. “But I don’t think I’m ready to do it yet.”

  The old man shrugged. “No one can decide when the time is right but you,” he said, and he and Vanessa went into the kitchen where he poured fresh coffee for them both.

  “Did you ever wish you hadn’t married Gramma?” Vanessa asked, watching the snow through the window above the sink. It gave her a peaceful, secure feeling.

  “A thousand and one times,” John answered. “And I’m sure she wished she’d never laid eyes on me now and again, too.”

  Vanessa was staring at her grandfather in surprise, the lovely and mystical snow forgotten. “But you love each other!”

  “That’s no guarantee that two people are going to get along all the time, Vanessa,” her grandfather pointed out reasonably, leaning against the counter as he sipped his coffee. “Show me a marriage where neither party ever gets mad and yells, and I’ll show you a marriage where one or both partners just don’t give a damn.”

  Vanessa made swift calculations. Christmas was just three days away. Perhaps, if she were very lucky, she could get a plane back to Seattle, do what she she needed to do and be home in time for the festivities.

  She dived for the telephone book, flipped through until she found the number she needed and called a high-school friend who now worked as a travel agent.

  Rose was delighted to hear from Vanessa and confessed to buying an exercise machine during one of her segments on the Midas Network. There was not, however, an available seat on any of the planes leaving Spokane until after Christmas.

  Discouraged, Vanessa called the train station. The prospects were much more encouraging there, but when she hung up she saw her grandmother standing nearby, looking sad.

  “I’ll be back before Christmas, I promise,” Vanessa said.

  Alice was a woman who had made bravery a habit. She squared her shoulders. “Bring the football player back with you,” she ordered, tightening the belt on her bathrobe and then smoothing her hair with one hand.

  “I’ll try,” Vanessa promised. She took only her purse and coat, leaving her suitcase and gifts as a pledge that she would return.

  The train trip was slow—it took eight hours—but the journey gave Vanessa plenty of time to assemble her thoughts. It was six o’clock in the evening when she reached downtown Seattle, and catching a cab turned to be such a competitive pursuit that it might have become an Olympic event.

  Finally, however, she reached DeAngelo’s and hurried upstairs to Nick’s office, where he’d kissed her the night they met.

  A middle-aged secretary looked her over warily. “Ms. Lawrence?” she echoed after Vanessa introduced herself. “You’re Nicky’s friend?”

  Nicky. Vanessa bit back a smile and nodded. “Yes.”

  The secretary made a harrumph sound, as if to say “some friend,” and then announced, “He’s not here. Mr. DeAngelo is sick today.”

  Vanessa was alarmed. “Sick? What’s the matter with him?”

  A shrug was the only answer forthcoming, so Vanessa hastily excused herself and ran outside again. Cabs were still at a premium with so many last-m
inute shoppers in the downtown area, and it wasn’t far to Nick’s building. She hurried there on foot and was breathless when she fell against his doorbell.

  “Who is it?” yelled a thick voice from inside.

  Vanessa smiled. “It’s Mrs. Santa Claus. Let me in!”

  The door was wrenched open, and Nick stood in the chasm, wrapped in a blue terrycloth robe. He smelled of mentholated rub, and his hair stood up in ridges as though he’d run greasy fingers through it.

  Vanessa wrinkled her nose and stepped past him. “Your secretary tells me you’re sick,” she said.

  Nick sneezed loudly. “I’ve seen colds like this develop into pneumonia,” he said.

  Vanessa rolled her eyes, but let the remark pass. After slipping out of her coat and laying it across a chair, she started toward the kitchen. “What you need is some hot lemon juice and honey,” she said.

  Nick stopped her by grasping her arm in one hand and whirling her around to face him. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Inside she was trembling. She felt like a person standing on the edge of a cliff, about to pilot a hang glider for the first time. “You said the next move was mine. This is it, handsome.”

  His mouth dropped open. “You mean—”

  “I mean that I love you, Nick.”

  “Wait a second. You’ve said that before. What’s changed?”

  “My mind. I’m not going to San Francisco, Nick, and if you still want to marry me…”

  He gave a shout of joy, crushed her against him and whirled her around as though she weighed nothing at all. The scent of mentholated rub was nearly overpowering. “If? Baby, you just say when!”

  Vanessa made a face as he set her back on her feet. “You smell awful,” she said.

  “God, this is romantic,” Nick enthused, beaming. He sprinted off down the hall, and Vanessa set about finding lemon juice and honey.

  When Nick returned minutes later, he’d showered and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt with the number 58 imprinted on the front. His hair was still damp and tousled, and Vanessa combed it with her fingers, smiling at his miraculous recovery.