The Dream Unfolds

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Distracted, huh?” Gideon asked, pleased by the thought.

  “You could say that.” She took a step back. “How do I look?”

  He checked her over. “Spectacular. Great jeans skirt. Great sweater. Great legs. Is this a boy-girl party you’re going to?”

  She tossed a glance at the ceiling. “Of course! I am old enough for that, y’know.”

  He knew all too well. Where he’d grown up, fifteen-year-old girls did far more than go to parties. Instinct told him, though, that Jill wasn’t that way. Common sense told him that Chris wouldn’t have stood for it. “You’re gonna knock ’em dead,” he told her, feeling a pride he had no right to feel. “And your hair looks great, too.”

  “I’m not done with my hair.”

  “But it looks perfect.”

  “It looks blah,” she maintained, drawing up a thick side swath with two fingers. “I think I need a clasp or something. And some earrings. Mom—” she called, only to be interrupted when Chris approached.

  “No need to yell. I’m right here.” To Gideon she said apologetically, “They weren’t hot enough. They’ll be ready in a minute.”

  “I need something large and silver, Mom.”

  “For her hair and ears,” Gideon prompted in a soft voice to Chris, who was looking a bit helplessly at Jill.

  “The last time I lent you something silver,” she said, thinking of a bangle bracelet that she hadn’t seen in months, “I didn’t get it back. You can borrow something only if it’s returned in the morning.”

  “She’s so fussy,” Jill said to Gideon. Then she turned and went back up the stairs, leaving Gideon and Chris momentarily alone.

  Gideon started whispering again. “How long do you think she’ll stay up there?”

  “Five seconds,” Chris whispered back.

  Jill yelled down, “Can I wear the enamel hair clip you bought at the Vineyard last summer?”

  “I thought you wanted something silver,” Chris called back.

  “But the enamel one has earrings to match.”

  “It also,” Chris murmured for Gideon’s benefit, “cost an arm and a leg. She’s been wanting to wear that set since I bought it. I think she’s taking advantage of the company and the night.”

  “You can always tell her no,” Gideon suggested.

  Chris snorted softly, then called to Jill, “If you’re very, very, very careful.” She caught Gideon’s eye. “Don’t look at me that way.”

  “Are you always such a pushover?”

  “No. But we’re talking a hair clip and some earrings here. If she asked for a quart of gin, I’d say no. Same for cigarettes or dope, if I had either around the house, which I don’t. The way I see it, you have to pick and chose your battles.”

  Gideon considered that, then nodded. “Sounds right.” He shot a glance over her shoulder toward the stove. “Think your mushrooms are hot yet?”

  “It’s only been a minute since I last checked.”

  “Check again,” he said, and ushered her to the farthest reaches of the kitchen. Once there, he backed her to the counter, lowered his head and captured her lips in what would have been a deep, devouring kiss had not Jill’s call intruded.

  “Mom?”

  With a low groan, he wrenched his mouth away and stepped back.

  Chris felt she was spinning around, twisting at the end of a long, spiraling line. She was hot, dizzy and frustrated. It was a minute before she could steady herself to answer. “Yes?”

  “Where is the set?”

  Chris made a small sound and closed her eyes for a minute. Then, shaking her head, she sent Gideon an apologetic look and pushed off from the counter. Jill was at the top of the stairs.

  “Just tell me where it is,” she called down.

  But Chris didn’t remember exactly where it was. “I’m coming,” she said lightly. Once upstairs, it took several minutes of searching through drawers before she finally located the clip and earrings. She handed them over with a repeat of the warning, “You’ll be very, very, very careful.”

  “I will. See?” She held the earrings in her hand. “They’re perfect with what I’m wearing.”

  Chris knew that just about anything would go with a blue denim skirt. But Jill had a point. The swirls of blue-and-green enamel picked up the color of her sweater beautifully.

  Rubbing her hands together, she took a deep breath. “Okay. Are you all set now? Anything else you need?”

  “Nope. Thanks, Mom.”

  “If you’re using my perfume—” which happened often “—remember, a little goes a long way. You don’t want to hit the party smelling like a whorehouse.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll be downstairs. Come on down when you’re ready and have some hors d’oeuvres.”

  “If there are any left. Gideon looks hungry.”

  You should only know, Chris thought, then was grateful Jill didn’t. Too soon, she’d be into serious dating. Too soon, she would know about hunger, about the urges that drove men and women together at times that weren’t always the wisest. What Chris had done with Brant sixteen years before hadn’t been smart at all, though she’d never had cause to regret having Jill. She meant what she’d told Gideon, that she was happy with her life.

  Would she be happier with a man in the picture? She didn’t know. She did know that she was drawn to Gideon in an elemental way that refused to be ignored. She was older and wiser. Still, she was drawn. Even now, returning to the kitchen to find that he’d opened the wine and was filling two glasses, she felt a flare of excitement. For a split second, she was at the end of that truncated kiss again, spinning on a spiral of desire, feeling the frustration.

  “Is Jill all set?” he asked, handing her one of the glasses.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “To us, then,” he said, raising the other.

  Chris touched her glass to his, then took a sip. “Mmm. This is nice.” Focusing on the amber liquid, she whispered, “Sorry about before. The timing was unfortunate.”

  “Did I complain?” he whispered back, coming in close to her side. “It just lengthens the foreplay, that’s all.”

  Chris felt a soft shuddering inside. “Uh, maybe we ought to sit down.”

  “Maybe we ought to have something to eat.”

  “Right.” Setting her wine on the counter, she put on mitts and removed the tray of mushrooms from the oven. She arranged half of them on a dish that also held a wedge of cheese and some crackers, then put the rest back. “So they’ll stay warm.”

  Gideon carried the dish to the low glass table in front of the living room sofa. When Chris joined him there, he popped a mushroom into his mouth. “Whoa,” he drawled when it was gone, “that was worth two wasted batches.”

  Chris went red. “I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.”

  “Like my men weren’t that day at Crosslyn Rise?” he teased, because he couldn’t resist, and leaned close. “Was I the cause of your distraction?”

  She focused on his tie, which was silk and striped diagonally in blue, yellow and purple. “Of course not. I was thinking about work.”

  “I’m work, aren’t I?”

  “Not actively. Not yet.”

  “I got some half-rounds.”

  Her eyes flew to his, wide and pleased. “You did?”

  He nodded. “Above the French doors, like you wanted. Put them in last week.”

  “All those phone calls, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I wanted to surprise you.” His gaze fell to her mouth and stuck there. “Thought if I saved it for a special time, it might win me a kiss.” His voice was rough. “How about it?”

  Without a moment’s hesitancy, Chris reached up and put a soft kiss on his mouth. Then, because it had been so sweet and too short, she followed it with a second.

  “You smell good,” he whispered against her lips. “I’ll bet you smell like this all over.” When she caught in a small gasp, he sealed it in with the full pressure of his mouth, gi
ving her the kind of hard, hungry kiss he craved.

  Chris wanted the hardness and more. She opened to the sweep of his tongue, but he was barely done when he ended the kiss. She felt she was hanging in midair. “What’s wrong?”

  “Too fast,” he whispered, breathing heavily. “Too hot.” He shot a glance toward the stairs. “Too public.” Pulling away from her, he bent over, propping his elbows on his knees. The low sounds that escaped his throat as he tried to steady his breathing told her of his discomfort.

  Chris felt dismayed. In the moment when he’d kissed her, she’d forgotten that Jill was still upstairs. “I should have realized,” she whispered.

  “Not your fault alone. It takes two to tango.”

  It was a figure of speech, but she latched on to it as a diversion from desire. “Do you tango?”

  “Nope. Can’t dance much at all. But I make love real good.”

  She moaned, picturing that with far too great an ease. In desperation, she reached for the dish of mushrooms. “Here. Have another. And tell me what else is happening at the Rise.”

  With a slightly shaky but nonetheless deep breath, Gideon straightened. He ate another mushroom, then a third. “These are really good.” He glanced back toward the kitchen. “And something else smells good.” He frowned, trying to identify it.

  “Rock Cornish Hens,” she said. “It’s the orange sauce that you smell.” But she wasn’t feeling at all hungry for that. “Tell me about the Rise,” she repeated. She needed to think of something settling.

  Gideon understood and agreed. He really hadn’t intended to start things off hot and heavy. It had just happened. For both of them. But the civil thing was to talk and visit and eat first.

  Casually crossing an ankle over his knee as he would have done if he’d been with the guys, he began to talk. He told Chris about the progress his crew had made, the few problems they’d run into, the solutions they’d found, that they’d moved inside. The diversion worked. When Jill joined them some fifteen minutes later, they were involved in a discussion of staircase options.

  “You look great, honey,” Chris told her with a smile.

  “Better than great,” Gideon added. “Those poor guys won’t be able to keep their hands off you.”

  Chris shot him a dirty look. “They’d better.” To Jill, she said, “One swift kick you know where.”

  Jill seemed embarrassed. She glanced at Gideon before sitting close to Chris and saying quietly, “My hair looks awful.”

  “Your hair looks great.”

  “I should have had it cut.”

  “If you had, you’d be tugging at the ends to make it longer.”

  “It never curls the way I want. I’ve been fiddling with it for an hour, and it’s still twisting the wrong way.”

  “You’re the only one who knows that. To everyone else, me included, it looks great.”

  “You’re just saying that because you’re my mother.”

  “I’m not your mother,” Gideon said, “and I say it, too.”

  Jill eyed him warily. “You’d say anything to please Mom.”

  “No way,” he argued. “If you’d been down sooner, you’d have heard me telling her that she could grovel all night if she wanted, but I was not putting in winding staircases at Crosslyn Rise.”

  “This man,” Chris told Jill, “is a cheapskate. There’s a huge winding staircase in the mansion. It would be perfect to have smaller versions in the condos. Don’t you think so?”

  Jill crinkled her nose. “Winding staircases are good for long, sweeping dresses, but modern people don’t wear them.”

  “That’s right,” Gideon chimed in. “They spend their money on skylights and Jacuzzis and Sub-Zero refrigerators instead. Face it, Chris, you’re outvoted.”

  But Chris shook her head. “I still think they’d be great, and I’m the decorator.”

  “Well, I’m the builder, and I say they’re too expensive. We can’t fit them into the budget. That’s all there is to it.”

  “You won’t even try?”

  “We’re talking ten grand per staircase! I just can’t do it.”

  Chris sensed that she could argue until she was blue in the face and she wouldn’t get anywhere. She arched a brow Jill’s way. “So much for trying to please me.”

  Jill’s gaze bounced from Chris to Gideon and back. “Did I cause that fight?”

  “Of course not—”

  “It wasn’t a fight—”

  “You both look pretty ticked off.”

  “I’m not ticked off—”

  “I never get ticked off—”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be talking work on New Year’s Eve.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Yeah, well—”

  Jill looked at her watch. “Hey, can we leave now?”

  “Have something to eat first,” Chris told her, escaping into the role of mother with ease.

  “They’ll have food at the party.”

  “Uh-huh. Pizza, but not for a few hours, I’d wager.”

  “They’ll have munchies,” Jill argued, and rose to get her coat. “We’re picking up Jenny and Laura on the way, so they can put their stuff right in the car.” She grew hesitant, again looking back and forth. “Uh, whose car?”

  “My Bronco,” Gideon said, “if that’s okay with you. And it’s fine about the stuff. We’ll bring it in when we get back here.”

  Chris hadn’t known they were picking up the two other girls and sensed that it had been a last-minute deal. She wondered if it had anything to do with Gideon being there, or more specifically, with the fact that Chris was seeing him. None of Jill’s friends had ever seen Chris with a man. Maybe Jill wanted her friends to know that her mother was human.

  Oh, she was human, all right, human and female. Once in the truck, sitting in the front seat with Gideon, she was as keenly aware of him as she’d been back in the house. Each move he made seemed to register. Fortunately, he kept up a steady conversation with Jill, asking about the party, who was going, who of those going she was closest to. That led into a fast discussion about school, what she was taking, what she liked best and worst. By the time they reached Jenny’s house, Chris had picked up several tidbits even she hadn’t known.

  Jill and Jenny talked softly in back from there. They were soon joined by Laura, who directed Gideon the short distance from her house to the one where the party was being held. When they arrived, and Jenny and Laura climbed out, Jill hung back for a minute.

  “So, you guys are going back home for dinner?”

  “Uh-huh,” Chris said.

  “You’re not going out to a movie or anything later?”

  Chris gave her cheek a reassuring touch. “We’ll be home. If there’s any problem, just call and we’ll be right here. Otherwise, we’ll be back to pick you up at twelve-thirty.” She kissed her. “Have a super time, honey.”

  “You, too, Mom,” Jill said softly, then raised her voice. “You, too, Gideon.”

  “Thanks, Jill. Have fun. We’ll be back.”

  With the slam of the door, she was gone. She glanced back once on the way to join her friends, then disappeared with them into the house.

  “Was that nervousness?” Gideon asked as he shifted into gear and started off.

  “I’m not sure. I think so. She’s so grown-up in some ways, then in others…”

  He knew just what she meant. Jill was physically mature. She was personable and poised. But the look in her eye from time to time told the truth. “She’s only fifteen. That’s pretty young.”

  “Sometimes I forget. We’re such good friends.”

  “She’s a really nice girl.” He reached for Chris’s hand, needing her warmth. “Even if she did interrupt what was promising to be one of the best kisses of my life.”

  Chris closed her fingers around his, but she didn’t say a word. Left hanging, of course, was the fact that they could resume that kiss the minute they got home without worry of interruption.

  “Wha
t are your parents doing tonight?” he asked a drop too casually. He was thinking of interruptions, too, but it seemed crass to let on. Hadn’t he decided that they should talk and eat first?

  “They’re having dinner with friends. There’s a local group that’s been spending their New Year’s Eves together for years. It used to be Mom and Dad would make a point to be home before midnight to be with us—Jill and me and anyone else who was home—but everyone’s out this year.”

  “Except you,” he said softly.

  “Except me.” She held more tightly to his hand. When he gave a tug, she slid closer to him.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked. He supposed it was a form of talk, though it was getting right to the point.

  She studied his face. Muted in the dark, his expression was strangely dear. “A little.”

  He drove quietly for a time before saying, “Does it help to know I am, too?”

  “You? Buy why?”

  “Because you’re special. I want to make things good for you.”

  A light tremor shimmered through her insides. Swallowing, she said, “I think you could do that with your eyes closed.”

  “I don’t want them closed. There’s too much to see.”

  Like frames of a movie, the images that had haunted her flicked one after another through her mind. “Uh, Gideon?” she whispered. “I think there’s something you should know.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re a virgin.”

  “I’m not, but—”

  “You’ve had a baby, Chris.”

  “I know that,” she said quickly, quietly, putting her cheek against his arm, “but the sum total of my experience with a man took place in the back seat of a ’72 Chevy.”

  He was amused by that. “The back seat, eh?”

  “It was dark. I didn’t see much.”

  “I never did it in a car.” Most everywhere else when he’d been younger, but never in a car. He’d gotten too big too fast. “What was it like?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “But I want to know.” He flattened her hand on his thigh and held it there. “Wouldn’t I have to be kind of crunched up?”

  “Gideon—”