His heart softened. "Just a short game, then," he said, and warmth crept into his voice in spite of himself.
They set up the board on the card table that Kelly had prized so much, a cherry-wood antique. Aunt May hummed as she distributed the markers and the single die.
Derek studied Eve covertly as they took their places around the table. Her dark hair shone blue-black under the light from the lamp, and her fingers were so smooth as to look disjointed, like the fingers of a porcelain doll, until she moved her marker and proved that her fingers had joints after all. Derek sat close enough to her to sense a scent reminiscent of white violets. Surely white violets had a scent? Or if they didn't, this is what they would smell like, this heady sweetness that permeated her hair and filled his nostrils and tasted so good when he kissed her.
Kissed her. He had actually kissed her. It had been crazy to do that, crazy. It never should have happened.
Her low laugh at something Aunt May had said, something that wasn't all that funny, chimed with the timbre of English church bells.
It was his turn, and he tossed the die.
Eve's eyes sparkled as she asked him the question. "'What baseball player advised, "Avoid running at all times'?"
He had to stop and think. He wasn't with this game, not at all.
"Well," he said, because he had heard the quotation before. He couldn't for the life of him think of the appropriate answer.
"Do you give up, Derek?" Aunt May asked eagerly.
"I give up," he said.
"Satchel Paige," Eve said triumphantly, dropping the question-and-answer card in the back of the box. "Your turn, Aunt May."
Satchel Paige. Of course. Satchel Paige had been one of Derek's favorite philosophers and a great pitcher to boot.
What else had Satchel Paige said? Something like "Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you."
Yeah. The old fellow was right, and he hadn't been talking only about baseball.
Something was gaining on Derek, all right. Contentment, sitting here with Eve and Aunt May so cozy in the haven of his home, with the weather surging against the window in sheets of rain and rattles of wind, a chill November night pressing in upon them in all its fury. Contentment had settled on this house, and peace, and, yes, more than that. And it had come in the person of Eve Triopolous.
Was it disloyal to Kelly to feel pleasure in Eve's presence? His mind grappled with the thought, but as generous as Kelly had been, as loving, he knew she would have approved. She had loved Eve, Kelly had. She had chosen Eve, after all, to be the mother of their child until it could be safely born.
Whatever it was that was gaining on him, Derek thought in a flash of perception, it was something good.
"Your turn, Derek," Aunt May said again.
"Yes," he said, but he wasn't talking about Trivial Pursuit. He was talking about a pursuit that was, to him, anything at all but trivial.
At long last, a plan began to take shape in his mind.
Chapter 9
Snow seldom intruded into Charlotte's mild climate; when it did, it usually made its brief appearance in January or February. But by mid-December of this year, a few random flakes had already fluttered halfheartedly down from gray windswept skies.
Eve spent Christmas divided between Wrayville and Myers Park, between Aunt May's dainty Christmas cookies and Nell Baker's more robust homemade fruitcake, between the elegant beef Wellington that Louise served on Kelly's graceful Rosenthal china and the baked ham offered by Nell on her new ironstone dishes from K mart. The contrast of Christmas celebrated in the two households was striking in the extreme, but oddly enough, this Christmas satisfied Eve as no other.
To Eve's surprise, she found herself feeling enfolded and protected by each of her two separate families. Living in such close proximity, bound by their shared memories of Kelly, she had definitely grown to think of Derek and Aunt May as family.
"Maybe it will snow for Christmas," Derek remarked hopefully on Christmas morning after he had exclaimed over the soft blue sweater Eve had knitted for him and after Eve had thanked him for the cosmetic case he'd given her.
"Snow?" Aunt May snorted gently. "It's never snowed on Christmas, at least in my memory."
And it didn't snow on Christmas. But the next day, snowflakes stole softly down upon them in the night.
Eve awakened early the morning after Christmas and blinked her eyes against unaccustomed glare beaming onto her drawn draperies. When she parted the fabric at the window, the mantle of just-fallen snow glistened from garden and garage, from branch and fence post. The world was quiet and new, the sere buffs and browns of winter gracefully hidden by the sparkling white blanket that covered everything in sight.
"I'm going out," Eve declared after a hurried breakfast with Derek and Aunt May.
"But it's not snowing out," Aunt May insisted loudly. "That was last night, dear."
"Eve said she was going out, Aunt May," Derek said, drawing his eyebrows together at the sight of Eve arranging her down jacket over her bulky form. "And Eve, I don't think you should."
"Nonsense," she said briskly. "I love the snow. We've seen precious little of it the last couple of years. Just a walk in the snow and I'll be back in, safe and sound." She smiled at Derek reassuringly.
"Well, if you insist," Aunt May said doubtfully. "I'll ask Louise to put on a pot of hot cocoa. Nothing like hot cocoa to warm a person, I always say." She wobbled toward the kitchen on impossibly high red heels, a holdover from Christmas Day.
"No one's shoveled the walks. They may be icy. I don't even know where our snow shovel is. Be sensible." Derek stood up the way he always did when he wanted to exert his authority in this household of women.
He'd been so thoughtful lately that Eve hated to deny him anything. But she would find the outside so invigorating; it would feel so healthful. Aunt May kept secretly nudging up the thermostat so that the temperature in the house was hot to the point of stuffiness.
"Why don't you come outside with me?" Eve invited on the spur of the moment. "It's a mere four inches of snow. Hardly a threat for me or for anyone else. Come on, Derek; it will be fun." She fairly glowed with well-being.
Derek looked distinctly uncomfortable. He ran a finger under the collar of his shirt, a new flannel one he had bought recently and which was so casual that he still felt out of place when he wore it.
"Me? Out in the snow? Why?" He looked so puzzled that Eve almost laughed.
"To feel it. To scuff your feet in it. To throw it, for heaven's sake, Derek. Haven't you ever thrown a snowball?"
He thought for a moment. "Well, not since I was a child. Snow is for kids."
"Derek, Derek." She laughed, tugging his jacket from a nearby coat tree. She tossed it at him, and he caught it with a startled look. "Come on. You're going to throw a snowball. You're going to make a snow angel."
Reluctantly, he slid his arms into the sleeves of the jacket.
"What's a snow angel?" He looked so genuinely perplexed beneath that well-groomed thatch of hair that Eve laughed again.
"I know you're a Southern boy, Derek, but you must know what a snow angel is. I grew up around here, too, and I've made whole flocks of them."
She pulled him out the back door and down the wide steps. He held her hand tightly in case she slipped on the icy bricks. "Are you sure you're able to do this?"
This time her laughter echoed off the rooftop and tinkled like bells in the crystalline air. She took a few giant steps, and snow crunched beneath her boots. She left dark footsteps in her wake, and dead sprigs of grass popped up in the middle of them. She inhaled the freshness of the crisp, sweet air and flung her arms out wide, spinning in place with the glory of this beautiful winter morning.
She bent, graceful in spite of her clumsy contours, and scooped up a handful of powdery snow. She tossed it at Derek.
And he, because she looked so young and so carefree and so beautiful that he could hardly stand to look at her, hid his feelings by tos
sing a handful of snow at her. And then they were yelling and laughing and chortling into a veritable blizzard that they stirred up themselves, until Derek yelled, "Uncle, or whatever it is I'm supposed to holler when I give up!"
"Oh, Derek," Eve gasped. "If you only knew how you look. Like a little boy all lit up with happiness." His hair fell boyishly over his forehead, and his expression reflected a lightheartedness she had never noticed before.
"I've suddenly remembered how to build a snowman," he announced to Eve's delight. His smile spread wider and shone bright as the sun.
"Let's!" Eve said. "We'll build one where Aunt May can watch us from the window in the breakfast room!"
But Derek's idea of a snowman was not simply ordinary balls of snow rolled to graduated sizes and stacked one on top of the other. Derek's version was an elaborate snow sculpture.
They worked together to stack the snow as high as a man, and then Eve stood back and offered sprightly commentary while Derek molded it with his hands so that it had legs, feet and gently curved arms bowed gracefully over its stomach.
"That's not a snowman," Eve said, puckering her forehead in consternation. "It's a snow woman. And a pregnant one at that."
Derek stepped back and judiciously regarded his creation. "You're right! But it was a subconscious creation."
He patted the belly of the figure into a more rounded form. Eve watched his gloved fingers, so strong and sure as they lingered upon the shape, and suddenly she felt so embarrassed that she had to turn away.
"Be back in a minute," he tossed back over his shoulder as he galloped toward the house, and he appeared a short time later with a fluffy organdy-draped hat in his hands. He tilted it to the side of the figure's head, stepped back and squinted his eyes critically, then produced a black lace scarf from his pocket and wound it around the snow woman's neck, leaving the ends to flutter in the slight breeze.
"And she needs a nose," he said, embellishing the face with a red radish. With a flourish, he produced two chocolate bonbons. "Eyes, donated to the cause by Aunt May."
From the window, Aunt May waved her smiling approval.
"Isn't our snow woman gorgeous?" he asked Eve with a twinkle.
"Derek, you've outdone yourself."
"I'm more than ready for Louise's cocoa. But first you're going to teach me how to make snow angels." Derek grinned at her, more carefree than she'd ever seen him. He seemed to have shed completely the veneer of sophistication and perfection.
"We have to find the right patch of snow," she said, unthinkingly grasping his hand in hers. She led him to a likely spot. "And then lie down in it." Which Eve awkwardly proceeded to do, flat on her back. Inside her, the baby battled for a position at this new angle.
"Do I have to lie down, too?" Derek looked as if it would hurt to shed his last invisible shred of dignity.
Eve didn't laugh, though she wanted to. "Sure," she told him. "Right next to me."
He did, albeit reluctantly.
"And then," she said, demonstrating vigorously, "you move your arms up and down."
He sat up straight, frowning down at her. "Good heavens," he muttered. "How ridiculous."
"Well, maybe," Eve admitted, pumping her arms harder than ever. "But this makes the angel's wings." With one last dubious look at Eve's face, framed so cunningly against the snow by the red knit cap she wore, Derek lay down again.
Derek waved his arms up and down in the snow.
"Like this? Am I getting the technique right?"
"Well, you don't have to do it so hard. You're throwing snow clear over to that dogwood tree."
Derek slowed down.
"Now what?" he asked, stopping and turning his head to look at her. Locks of hair had escaped her cap, enclosing her face in parentheses.
"We do the same thing with our legs." Eve concentrated on moving her legs. That was a little harder, especially since her abdominal muscles seemed to have migrated northward.
"When are we finished?" Derek asked as though begging for mercy.
"Stand up carefully, you don't want to mess it up."
Derek loomed over her, hands on hips, looking askance. "It's not bad for my first snow angel."
Eve lay on her back, admiring the shape of his head against the brilliant blue sky. "You mean you'll make more sometime?"
"Every time it snows," he said soberly.
Eve snickered. "You've openly cavorted, Derek. Do you realize that?"
Derek pretended to look horrified. "I'll never live it down if they find out at the office."
"Your employees probably think you were born wearing a suit."
"Yup. And a pair of wing tips."
Their laughter swooped upward and out, startling a blackbird on the telephone wire. The bird winged across the sky, air bound. Eve lay in the snow, earthbound.
"Derek, I can't get up. Help me, please."
"What's wrong? Is anything wrong?"
His anxiety was touching, almost comical.
"What I mean is, I can't get up without rolling over onto my side, because I can't sit up from this position, and if I rolled over on my side, I'd mess up a perfect angel. Just give me your hand, please."
Derek reached down for her, she placed both mittened hands inside his gloved ones, and he lifted her neatly to her feet. He stood so close that there was scarcely any space between them. She was enfolded in his misty breath.
"I'm sorry," she said by way of unnecessary explanation. "I just couldn't get up." His lips were full and slightly parted, and they slowly drifted down toward hers.
"Don't apologize to me for your condition," he said fiercely, an unnamed emotion gleaming behind his eyes. "Ever."
If she hadn't broken away in confusion, they would have gone on standing there, and he might have kissed her. But she said, with an attempt at gaiety, "I'm ready to go in and see what Aunt May has to say about our handiwork," and she walked rapidly away over the snow.
What if he had kissed her again? She remembered very well that time in the living room—how soft his lips had felt against hers, how warm. How delicious they had tasted....
"Hang Aunt May," Derek mumbled under his breath, but she couldn't hear him, and after he said it, he was ashamed of himself and glad Eve hadn't heard.
Eve had reached the middle of the steps, and unwilling for this time with her to end, he said suddenly, "My mother used to make snow ice cream."
Eve half turned, a gently curving smile upon her lips. "Oh, mine did, too."
"Could you remember the recipe?"
"I think so."
He smiled, pleased that he had thought of this one more thing they could do together. "I'll bring in the snow," he said, heading for the garage and a space of snow that was unsullied by their antics.
"I'll help—" Eve said eagerly, swiveling around, and then it happened.
Her feet flew out from under her on a patch of snow-covered ice, she grabbed wildly for the handrail and missed, and she thumped down all five steps before landing in a wildly skewed position at the bottom of the stairs.
Derek was unable to reach her in time to do anything. His heart flew to his throat. Suddenly the blue sky, the glistening snow, the joy in his heart—all were gone and only Eve was left. Eve, sprawling in the snow and lying so still that he dared not breathe.
It took less than two seconds for him to reach her. He fell to his knees, his arms around her without thought and his eyes wildly searching the pale face beneath the red knit cap. He brushed snow from her cheek; it melted and left a wet trail that might have been traced by tears.
"Is she all right?" cried Aunt May, who had come running awkwardly outside on her high heels. "Is she hurt?" Aunt May hugged herself against the cold.
Eve's eyes fluttered open. "I'm fine," she said breathlessly, aware only of Derek's panicked face in her field of vision. "Just a little shaken up."
"I thought you were unconscious," Derek said unsteadily.
"No, just had the wind knocked out of me. Whew!" she said, pus
hing him away. "Let me up."
He held her gingerly by the elbows once she was safely on her feet. "I should never have left you on those stairs alone. I knew they might be icy."
"It's okay," she insisted. "It could have happened whether you were with me or not."
"I should never have left you," he repeated. "Never."
Eve took the stairs one step at a time, pausing for a moment on each, with Derek holding on to her the whole time as though she would break if he let go.
"I won't have you feeling guilty," she murmured softly, with a meaningful look that was not meant for Aunt May to see.
But Derek did feel guilty, overwhelmingly so, and even though he relinquished Eve to Aunt May's fussing ministrations and Louise's anxious queries, he continued to watch her with concern as they unwrapped her from her coat and brought her a towel to dry her face. Pregnant women weren't supposed to fall down flights of stairs, and she'd had a pretty hard fall.
"Are you sure you feel all right? Do you want me to call Dr. Perry?" he kept asking even when Eve was ensconced on the couch with a heating pad for her feet and a mug of cocoa steaming color into her cheeks. "Are you sure you don't feel any pains?"
"I'm as strong as a horse," she reassured him. "And after all, I landed on a pretty well padded portion of my anatomy. Except for a few black-and-blue marks, I'm going to be fine. Really."
"I'm calling the doctor," he said, "just to be on the safe side."
When Derek had Dr. Perry on the line, he asked to speak with Eve, who answered the doctor's questions briefly and then hung up.
"What did he say?" Derek demanded.
"He said not to fall down stairs again," Eve told him demurely.
"Eve—"
"He said to watch for warning signs, but I feel okay. I'll stop by his office tomorrow and have him make sure everything is all right."
"Eve, can I get you anything?" Aunt May hovered so close that she gave Eve claustrophobia.
"No, and I believe it's time for Love of Hope. You don't want to miss it. Today's the day the hockey player's dachshund digs Susan out of the cave she's been hiding in since October."
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