by Arlene James
Kendra stared at him in wonder. “You’re really committed to this, aren’t you?”
“Damned straight,” he muttered, scooping up the contented infant. He cradled her against his shoulder, his long, powerful hand dwarfing her little round head with its thatch of silky black hair. “I promised my brother,” he said huskily. “I promised him that if anything happened, I’d take care of her, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Kendra sobered, the weight of grief suddenly descending again. She reached out and closed her hand upon his wrist, receiving a direct look so filled with pain that it cut her to the very heart. “It just doesn’t seem possible that he’s gone,” she said softly. “Nathan’s been around all my life. I can’t remember when we weren’t friends. Dad’s so broken up. He depended on Nathan, thought of him as a son. None of us is going to be the same now that he’s gone.”
Parker turned his arm beneath her hand and closed his fingers around her wrist, just as she had done his, and for a moment they were stronger simply because they touched, because they held on to one another. And then he looked down at the baby nuzzled against his shoulder. “She’s all I have,” he said. “All I have.”
And Kendra knew he was right. His father had skipped out on the family more than twenty years ago. His mother, his grandparents, an aunt and now his brother were dead. There was no other family, none but Darla, and if what he said was true, he stood to lose her, too.
But surely the Pendletons understood how important Darla was to Parker. Surely they would foster the relationship, welcome him into their home, for Darla’s sake if not his. Wouldn’t that be best? He couldn’t hope to care for an infant on his own. The Pendletons were experienced parents, offbeat maybe, but capable. Darla would be better off with them. Wouldn’t she?
Kendra looked at him, cradling that baby in his two big hands, and she shook her head. “I don’t know, Parker. A baby is an awfully big responsibility.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he asked, shifting his gaze to her. “The last twenty-four hours have been the toughest in my life, but...” He nestled a drowsy Darla in the curve of his arm. “I love her.” He looked up again, pinning Kendra with a determined stare. “And I promised her father, so whether you help me or not, I’m going to fight to keep her.”
“Parker, it’s not that I wouldn’t like to help, but marriage? That’s such a big step.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said quickly. “I wouldn’t hold you to it. I mean, it wouldn’t be forever. It’d be legal and all and as far as everyone else is concerned, it’d be the real thing, but we wouldn’t have to... That is, I wouldn’t expect...”
“Sex,” she supplied bluntly, wondering why she was so stung by his willingness to forgo that particular part of marriage with her.
He grinned and shook his head. “There. See? That’s why I want you. You’re so practical, so levelheaded. I can talk to you, be honest with you. We’ve never played games with one another, you and I. And I trust you. You don’t know what that means to me, Kendra, to know there’s still someone I can trust even though Nathan’s...gone.”
She sighed, well aware that the patented Sugarman charm had just been focused on her, full force. “Parker, this is a screwy idea.”
“No, it isn’t. Edward says that if I’m married they’ll have to give me Darla.”
“Edward!” she scoffed. “Why am I not surprised to find his handiwork here?”
“Edward’s a good lawyer,” Parker argued. “He explained it all to me. It’s in the will, see, but the state’s obligated to follow certain guidelines when it comes to children, and single men just happen to come after married child psychologists, no matter how weird they are. But if I were married, there’d be no contest because there would be no reason not to follow the last wishes of her parents. Look, Kendra, I have a reputation—”
“A well-deserved reputation,” she noted.
He inclined his head. “Granted, but that’s behind me now. My reputation became my past the moment this little girl became my future. Without her, I have neither. You have to help me, Kendra. Do it for Nathan if not for me or Darla. It’s what he wanted. You know it is.”
He was right. On many an occasion she’d heard Nathan and Candace disparage Sandra Pendleton and her notions of superior parenthood. What was more, she knew they’d both loved and in a way even admired Parker. She supposed that made him the logical choice. But no one ever seriously expects to need a guardian for their children. No one ever expects to die. Still, Nathan would have given it serious thought before he put it to paper. Oh, Nathan. Once again the despair of loss assailed her.
Grief was a strange thing. You could put it out of mind for whole minutes, and then suddenly it engulfed you, as relentless as the tide and as cold, as biting. If it was like that for her, what must it be like for Parker? She watched him gently rocking from side to side as his niece slept snuggled against his chest in the bend of his arm. He wasn’t even aware that he was doing it. It was that automatic thing she saw so often in parents who stood vigil over sick beds, the instinctive action of one who sought to comfort, to protect, to cosset.
Maybe he should have Nathan’s daughter. Maybe that miniature female clasped to his heart would be the one to save him from his own excess, to teach him to love. She would like to see that. Oh, yes, she would like to see that. What an extraordinary man he would be if that came to pass. But to marry him!
A chill swept down her spine. Marriage to Parker Sugarman, even a sham marriage, would be undeniably difficult. Just the idea of living with all that charm, looking at that sculpted face over breakfast, saying good-night to it... But no sex. He had promised no sex, and she had felt the first real stirrings of disappointment, the first tentacles of pain. There. That was the real problem. They were only friends, and he would never see her as anything else, while she could so easily see him as so much more. No. Marriage, especially a sham marriage, to Parker Sugarman would be an act of extreme folly on her part. Better to stay on the course she’d already chosen.
“Parker, I sympathize with you, really I do, but I’ve made a commitment to help bring medical relief to the most stricken parts of Africa.”
“But you can still go to Africa,” he argued. “Africa will still be there in a year...a few months. Six months! Give me six months, Kendra. They’ll understand. Things happen. People get married every day. Tragedy brings people together. It magnifies feelings. You’re friends one day, spouses the next! That’s all they have to know. Then in a few months you’re divorced—or annulled—and you want to take your mind off your own troubles, pick up with your life. You go to Africa, after all. What could be more plausible? And when you go, it will be with the knowledge that you and you alone made fulfillment of Nathan’s last wish a possibility. Think about it, Kendra. Don’t say no now. Just think about it. Please.”
She opened her mouth to tell him to forget it, but she just couldn’t. She looked at him there with that baby clasped to his chest, his day-old beard and his tired, reddened eyes, and she just couldn’t refuse him. She put a hand in her long, thick, rusty brown hair and closed her eyes. They were hazel, with so much yellow in them that sometimes they were almost golden, times like now, when emotions were in conflict, when doubts assailed from every side. She moaned, feeling trapped, feeling threatened, feeling uncertain. Finally she opened her eyes.
“I’ll think about it,” she said flatly, and the light of hope fairly beamed in his smile.
“I knew you wouldn’t let us down,” he said, putting back his head in a gesture of relief.
“I only said I’d think about it,” she cautioned him, but his smile stayed.
“Thank you. Oh, Kendra, thank you. I know you’ll want to help us once you think it through. It makes such splendid sense, really. I wouldn’t dream of doing this with anyone but a good, dear friend, and when I think of good, dear friends, I think of you, just as Nathan did.”
She rolled her eyes. “Doing it a bit too brown, Par
ker.”
“Not at all! I mean it. We are friends, aren’t we?”
“Well, of course we’re friends, but that’s hardly a basis for marriage.”
“But it is! It’s a far better basis for marriage than love or passion.”
“Oh, really?”
“Sure. Of course. Love’s a much too volatile emotion for the kind of intimacy marriage means. Why, nobody in their right minds would try to live together if they were in love! And passion, well, that’s just a fleeting, shallow, physical thing. Half the marriages in this world begin in passion and end in acrimony! No, really. I wouldn’t consider marriage with anyone but a very good friend. And when you get right down to it, Kendra, you’re about the only real friend I’ve got. Well, the only real friend of the right gender, anyway.”
She folded her arms. “Right, and if I believe that, you’ve got a bridge you want me to consider buying.”
“Scout’s honor,” he said, holding up two fingers.
“You were never a scout.”
He hung his head as if wounded. “All right,” he admitted, lifting it again, “I was never a scout, and I do know a lot of women. I just don’t know any—except you—whom I trust enough to marry and help me raise this little girl, even for six short months. Now that’s the God’s honest truth.”
She couldn’t find it within herself to disbelieve him, foolish as that was, but still she resisted him. Her sense of self-preservation was finely honed, and she had no doubt at all that Parker Sugarman could be a serious threat if she allowed him even a small measure of influence over her heart. No doubt at all. In fact, she’d have to be certifiably insane to marry such a man, whatever the motive. He was a wanton womanizer, a sexual athlete of professional caliber, a party animal, a completely self-centered male. Well, maybe not completely self-centered. He had been very good to Nathan, both big brother and father figure, and despite his life-style, Nathan had turned out all right. Nathan had turned out fine, actually. Maybe Parker could do the same for Nathan’s daughter, and maybe Darla could return the favor in a way that Nathan had not been able to.
But she’d be a fool to count on that. She’d be a fool to count on anything but trouble with Parker Sugarman. And yet she couldn’t tell him to forget this crazy scheme of a sham marriage. She couldn’t tell him yes, and she couldn’t tell him no; so she told him nothing at all. She just sat and watched him watch the sleeping infant that he held so very carefully, as if not only her life but his depended on keeping her safe and comfortable. Oh, Lord, was she really starting to consider this insanity?
He looked up suddenly then, a strange intensity in his brown eyes. “Will you come with me tomorrow to the service? Will you ride with me? I mean, Edward will be there, but I need someone who will hold my hand, someone to help me say goodbye.”
The funeral. God, she hated funerals, and this one promised to be a real torment, but she couldn’t skip it. She would never do that, but she had intended to attend with her father—and Kate. Kate would be going, of course. So why did Dan need her? Might as well make herself useful to someone.
She clapped a hand over Parker’s shoulder. “Sure, I’ll go with you. That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”
He turned his head, lifted his shoulder and pressed his lips to her fingers. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” he said.
She swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and managed a slight smile, but inside she was quaking. Something told her she ought to be running fast toward Africa, but instead she was sitting on the floor looking at the last man in the world she ought to marry—and wondering what that kiss might have been like if they weren’t just friends.
Chapter Four
The long black limo swung off Walnut Hill Lane and glided past the country club. Parker took Kendra’s hand in his and managed a smile, despite the weight of exhaustion on his haggard features.
“Thank you for coming by Dad’s to pick me up,” she said. “I turned in my apartment key this morning.”
He shook his head. “I should be thanking you—for finding me a babysitter.”
She shrugged. “We were lucky. Cheryl’s aunt just happened to be free.”
“Well, she was a godsend. I was at my wit’s end. I never realized how difficult it would be to find a competent sitter for a single afternoon. I can’t imagine what I’m in for when I start looking for full-time help.”
“It can’t be easy.”
“I’m afraid that’s an understatement. I’ve already called a couple of agencies. I think it would be best to have someone come to the house, don’t you? I’d hate to haul an infant out every morning.”
Kendra smiled benignly. “Millions of parents do it every morning,” she pointed out gently. “If I’m not mistaken, Candace and Nathan did it several times a week, too.”
Parker sighed. “I remember them saying that they couldn’t afford in-house help. If I’d realized what that meant then, I’d have paid for it myself. Thankfully, I can afford it.”
“You couldn’t have known,” she assured him, but he merely stared out the window, silent.
Kendra realized that they were driving past the memorial park and cemetery, where two small, dark green canopies had been erected side by side on the plots Parker had chosen and paid for with a personal check. He turned his head away casually as they drove by, but his hand tightened on Kendra’s, the knuckles on both their hands turning white with the pressure. Just south of Northwest Highway, the pressure lightened. The limo made an abrupt turn to the west, then two blocks later glided to a stop.
Parker took a deep breath as the funeral director hurried forward to open the door. He looked at Kendra and smiled weakly, his hand sliding under her elbow.
“Here we go.”
Kendra nodded and slid from the opulent car onto the sidewalk, straightening the drape of the simple black wrap skirt she wore with a black silk T-shirt and a yellow, white and black plaid jacket with black velvet lapels. She had pulled her dark hair into a chignon at the nape of her neck and wore a small black pillbox hat with a wisp of veil upon her forehead. Sheer black stockings and black velvet pumps with two-inch heels completed her outfit. The overall effect was neat but soft with a touch of primness. She had no idea how sexy that made her or how many male eyes slid over her compact five-foot-six-inch frame. Parker got out and stood next to her, his fingers finding and mingling with hers.
Several people surged toward them simultaneously. Walt and Dennis were in the forefront, but Edward and the Randles were right behind them. A number of arms surrounded and slid off them. Condolences were murmured. Parker’s hand clutched hers tightly as he nodded acknowledgments and whispered replies. Finally, the funeral director stepped forward and stated in that silky voice peculiar to those in his profession, that all was in place and it was time to enter the church. Parker nodded and tugged at Kendra’s hand. They started forward in tandem. The crowd milling about on the church lawn turned en masse and started up the steps leading to the sanctuary. Edward fell in on Kendra’s other side, his large, bulky form familiar and oddly comforting considering how assiduously she had avoided him in recent months.
“You look good,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, as if fearing it might be crude to compliment someone at a funeral.
She tried but failed to manage a smile. “Thanks.”
They had reached the bottom step of the impressive porticoed church front. Parker slipped his hand from hers and laid it against the small of her back. Sensing his need for comfort and support, she slipped an arm about his waist. He responded by moving his arm to her shoulders, his hand clasping her upper arm possessively. Edward slid a speculative look their way, and this time she managed a slight, dismissive smile. He frowned beneath the thick curve of his mustache, then rubbed a hand over his face as if to physically erase it, and targeted his gaze on the movement of his feet.
They were perhaps halfway up the steps when the minibus tore around the corner and screeched to a stop in the center of the
street directly in front of the church. Parker, Kendra, Edward and three or four others automatically glanced backward to see what the hubbub was about as Pendletons of every shape and size spewed from the vehicle into the street. The children, in Sunday clothes, scrambled noisily to the sidewalk, where the littlest one fell, scraping various parts of her skin. Sandra Pendleton was right behind her, but she neither stooped to inspect the damage nor slowed her stride.
“The lesson,” she said smoothly to the bawling child, “is that haste can be dangerous.”
Only at the foot of the steps did she halt to await the girl’s slow, painful progress. Meanwhile, the girl’s siblings clambered up the steps past the knot of gape-mouthed mourners and spilled noisily into the church. Mother and daughter began the ascent. A second later, Heath Pendleton trotted up behind them, having managed to park the van.
“What’s going on?” he asked his wife, his voice containing obvious concern.
“A typical exercise in endurance,” came the reply. “She’s well ahead of the norm here, no doubt due partly to sibling example. Nevertheless, such perseverance is quite remarkable at her age. Obviously we ought to be encouraging her toward more physical endeavor. I’ll have a devil of a time finding flash cards depicting females involved in physical occupations, but it can’t be helped.”
Heath Pendleton nodded his head in understanding, then glanced down at his daughter. “Want me to carry her?” he asked his wife.
Sandra shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t want to rob her of achievement.”
“Achievement!” Kendra gritted involuntarily, and Parker instantly tightened his hold on her arm. It was precisely then that the Pendletons drew alongside their group and, led by Sandra, halted.