The Dream Unfolds

by Barbara Delinsky

  “She did?”

  He nodded. “When we were out shopping the other week. She said that you were a great mother, and that she hoped you’d have some children so you’d have someone to take care of when she went off to school.”

  Chris’s face fell. “Off to school. College.”

  “She is going.”

  “I know. It’s creeping up so fast.” Closing her eyes, she made a small, helpless sound. “Why do things have to change?” It was the question she’d been asking herself over and over again.

  Gideon had never pretended to be a philosopher. All he could do was to speak from the heart. “Because we grow. We move on to things that are even better. Hey, listen, I know it’s scary. Change always is. But just think—if Jill goes to see Brant and gets him out of her system, you won’t have to worry about that anymore. Then, if you and I get married and have a few kids who adore Jill so much that they raise holy hell when she goes off to college, you’ll have something else to think about besides an empty nest.”

  “Empty nest—hah. From the sounds of it, you’ve got the nest so full, there may not be room for any of us to breathe!”

  “Not to worry,” was his smug response. “I’m a builder. I’ll enlarge the nest.” He doubted it was the time or place, still he couldn’t resist pressing his point. “So, what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Having kids.”

  “What about my career?”

  “You’ll cut back a few hours. So will I. Between the two of us, we’ll handle things.” He paused, wanting to believe but afraid to. “Are you considering it?”

  “Not now. All I can do now is to get through this thing with Jill and Brant.”

  “You’ll get through it,” he said. Ducking his head, he kissed her on the lips. When she didn’t resist, he did it again, more persuasively this time, more deeply. Just as he felt the beginning of her response, he tore his mouth away. “Do you still blame me for Jill wanting to go?”

  Closing her eyes against his chin, Chris whispered, “How can I blame you for anything when you kiss me that way?”

  “Are you gonna shut me out again?”

  “You’ll only barge your way back in.”

  “How about dinner tonight?”

  “Goin’ for broke, hmm?”

  “Damn right.”

  She opened her eyes and slowly met his. “Okay, but I have to be home early. Jill will be back from her friend’s at nine, and I want to be there.”

  Understanding why, Gideon nodded.

  Chris studied his face, feature by handsome feature, for another minute before wrapping her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Gideon.”

  “For what?”

  “Being my friend.”

  “My pleasure.”

  She was silent for a minute, thinking about how very much she did love him and how, surprisingly, she was coming to depend on him. She hadn’t wanted that at all, but just then, she wasn’t sorry. Having someone to lean on was a luxury. Sure, she had her parents and brothers, but it wasn’t the same. Gideon was a man. Her man. Holding on to him, being held in return, was the nicest thing that had happened to her in two whole days.

  10

  Gideon would have liked to have been there when Chris made the call to Brant Conway. He knew the call was, in some respects, a pivotal point in her life, and he wanted to be part of it. But he also knew how worried she was about Jill. He could appreciate how sensitive a time it was for her. The last thing he wanted was to complicate things with his presence.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t keep in close contact by phone. He wanted to give Chris support, to show her that he could listen and comfort, even absorb her anger and frustration.

  Actually, there was far less anger and frustration than he expected. When she finally contacted Brant, then called to tell him about it, she was more tired than anything else.

  “It was so easy,” she said in a quiet voice, talking in the privacy of her bedroom after Jill had finally gone to sleep. “One call to Directory Assistance did it. He’s still living in Phoenix, still selling real estate.”

  Gideon wanted to know everything. “Who talked, you or Jill?”

  “Me,” Chris said emphatically. “Jill wanted to do it, but I put my foot down. Can you imagine what she’d have felt if he’d denied he was her father?”

  “Did he?”

  “I didn’t give him a chance. He was slightly stunned when I told him my name. He never expected to hear from me. So I had an advantage to start with, and I pressed it. I told him Jill was fifteen, that she looked just like him, and that she wanted to see him. I told him we’d be flying out during April vacation.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He stammered a little. Then he said that he had a wife and two little boys, and that Jill’s showing up out of nowhere would upset them.”

  “The bastard,” Gideon muttered.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So what’d you say?”

  “I wanted to tell him that he was the scum of the earth and the last person I wanted my daughter to see, but Jill was sitting right there beside me, hanging on my every word. So I just repeated what I’d said, that she wanted to see him. I made it sound as if we were coming whether he liked it or not. I suggested that we would stay in a hotel and that he could visit with her there.”

  “Did he agree?”

  “Reluctantly. He must have figured that he had no choice. We’d gotten his phone number. We could get his address. I doubt he wants us showing up at his house and surprising the wife and kids.”

  Gideon heard bitterness at the last. “Does it bother you—the idea that he has a family?”

  “I kind of figured he did,” Chris said. She didn’t have to think long about her feelings on that score. “I’m not personally bothered in the least. I wouldn’t want the creep if he was presented to me on a silver platter. What does bother me is that he’s given legitimacy to two other children, while denying it to Jill.”

  “She’s better off without him. You know that.”

  “I do.” Chris sighed. “I just wish she did.”

  “She will. Give her time.” His thoughts jumped ahead. “When will you go?”

  “A week from Monday. We’ll come back Wednesday. That leaves Tuesday to see Brant.”

  Gideon remembered the trips he’d made to see his mother, when he’d flown west, visited and flown home. Years later, he wished he’d taken greater advantage of the cross-country flight. “What about seeing the Southwest? I hear it’s beautiful. Maybe you could kind of make it a treat for Jill. I mean, since you’re going so far—”

  “I thought of doing that, and one part of me would like to. The other part doesn’t think it would be so good.”

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons.” She really had thought it out. “First, I don’t want her directly associating Brant with that part of the country. I’d rather she see it at a separate time.”

  “The second reason?”

  “You,” Chris said softly. “I’d rather not be away from here so long.”

  Gideon swore. “Damn it, Chris, how can you say something like that on the phone, when I can’t hold you or kiss you or love you?” The mere thought of doing all that made his body tighten.

  “You asked.”

  “Right.” And since she was in an answering mode, he went for it all. “You do love me, don’t you?”

  She sighed. “Yes, Gideon, I do love you.”

  “Since when?”

  “I don’t know since when. I knew I was in trouble way back at the beginning when you bothered me so much. You kept zinging me with these little darts. I think they had some kind of potion on them.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When?”

  “Someday.”

  “‘Someday’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I have to get this business with Jill straightened out first.”

  Gide
on’s mind started working fast. “Okay. This is April. The trip’s comin’ right up. Can we plan on a wedding in May?”

  “We can’t plan on anything. We’ll have to take it day by day.”

  “But you will marry me?” He was so desperate for it he’d even wear a tux if she asked. “Marry me, Chris?”

  “Yes.” And she knew she would. With his enthusiasm, his sense of humor, adventure and compassion, his gentleness and his fire, he had become a vital part of her life. “I do love you,” she said, knowing he wanted to hear the words again, knowing he deserved them.

  “Ahh.” He let out his breath and grinned. “You’ve just made me a very happy man, Christine Gillette. Horny, but happy.”

  * * *

  Both feelings persisted through the next day, which was Saturday. The first was remedied that night, in the coziness of Chris’s bed, while Jill was at a movie with friends. The second just grew.

  Sunday night, though, Chris phoned him in a state of restrained panic. Her sentences were short and fast, her voice higher than usual. “Brant called a little while ago. Jill answered the phone. I was in the bath. You won’t believe what he did, Gideon! I still can’t believe it myself! He is such a snake,” she hissed, “such a snake!”

  “Shh.” His heart was pounding, but he said, “Take it slow, honey. Tell me.”

  “Instead of waiting until I could get to the phone, he talked directly to her. He said that his parents want her to stay with them. Her. Not me. Just her. He said that I shouldn’t even bother coming out, that he would meet the plane himself and then deliver Jill to her grandparents.” She nearly choked on the words. “Her grandparents. Well, at least he acknowledges that she’s his, but to call those people her grandparents when they haven’t given any more of a damn than he has all these years—”

  “Chris, shh, Chris. Maybe they didn’t know.”

  She was trembling, though whether from anger or fear she didn’t know. “That’s beside the point. They don’t have any right to her. He doesn’t have any right to her. She’s mine. He should have made his plans through me.” She caught in a livid breath. “Can you believe the audacity of the man to go over my head that way?”

  “You’ll tell him no.”

  “That’s what I told Jill, and she got really upset. She said that he sounded nice, that she was old enough to travel alone, and that that was what she’d been planning to do in the first place.” Her voice dropped to a desperate whisper. Though she had her door shut, she didn’t want to take the chance that Jill might hear. “But how can I let her, Gideon? How can I let her fly all that way alone, then face a man who—for all I know—is strange or sadistic? It’s been more than fifteen years since I’ve seen him. We were kids ourselves. I have no idea what kind of person he’s become.”

  “Did you know his parents?”

  “I met them once or twice, but that was all.” She could barely picture what they looked like. “What should I do, Gideon? This is my baby.”

  Gideon was silent for a bit. She wanted his opinion, but he was still a fledgling, as parents went. Talk about trial by fire …

  “Have you run this by your parents?”

  “Not yet. I want to know what you think.”

  “I think,” he said slowly, “that you need more information before you can make any kind of judgment.”

  “Sure, I do,” she returned facetiously. “I need a complete dossier on the man, but there’s no way I can get that without hiring an investigator, and I refuse to do that! I shouldn’t have to pay the money, and we don’t have the time.”

  “I have a friend in Phoenix,” Gideon reminded her. “He’s a builder there. If he hasn’t run across Conway himself, he’s bound to know people who have. Let me call him. He may be able to tell us something about what kind of person he is.”

  “What kind of person is your friend?”

  “A trustworthy one.”

  Chris wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She agreed to let Gideon do it and was grateful for his offer. Late the next day, he called with the information his friend had provided.

  “According to Paul, Brant Conway has made a good name for himself. He’s successful in his field, has some dough, lives in a nice house in Scottsdale. He isn’t exactly a fixture in high society but he’s respected and liked. His parents live in Scottsdale, too. They all do well for themselves.”

  Chris had mixed feelings about that. She was pleased for Jill, not so pleased for herself. If the report had come back in any way negative, she might have been able to cancel the trip. It looked as though she didn’t have any grounds for that.

  “And your friend is reliable?” she asked.

  “’Fraid so,” Gideon answered.

  She paused. “Do you think I should let her go?”

  “I think that if you don’t, Jill may resent it. The fact is that if she wants to go, she’ll go anyway, whether it’s now or later. It would be awful if your refusal put a wedge between you. I think you have to trust that you’ve raised her the right way, and that she’ll be able to take care of herself and know to call if there’s any problem.”

  That was pretty much what Chris’s parents had said when she’d talked it over with them that morning. She had wanted to argue then, just as she wanted to argue now, but she knew that they were all right. Jill wasn’t a small child. She would be met at the airport and cared for by her grandparents, who possibly felt far more for her than Brant. Most importantly, Jill had a sane head on her shoulders. If something went wrong, she would know to get herself to the nearest phone.

  * * *

  Heart in her mouth, Chris saw Jill off for Phoenix on the Monday of her school vacation. Brant had suggested that she stay until Friday—another suggestion that Chris resented but that she was helpless to deny.

  She did deny Gideon the chance of going to the airport. “My folks want to drive us. Any more people and it’ll be a major production.” But he was on the phone with her as soon as she returned to the office, and when she got home that night, he was waiting with his overnight bag in the bedroom.

  Deliberately that first night, he didn’t make love to her. Sex wasn’t the reason he’d come. He was there to be with her, to hold her, to talk through her unease and help her pass the time until she heard from Jill.

  Jill called late Monday night to say that the flight was fine, that Brant’s parents’ house was pretty and that Brant had been nice. Chris would have been reassured if she felt that Jill had been making the call in private. She could tell from the conversation, though, that Jill wasn’t alone.

  “Do you think she’s hiding something?” Chris asked Gideon fearfully the minute they’d hung up.

  Gideon had no way of knowing that, but he felt he had a handle on Jill. “Your daughter is no wilting violet. If there’s something she wanted to tell you but couldn’t, she’ll find another time to call.”

  “What if they won’t let her?”

  “She’ll find a way.” Taking her in his arms, he hugged her tightly. “Chris, don’t expect the worst. You have no reason to believe that Brant’s parents are anything but lovely people just discovering a very beautiful granddaughter. Jill sounded well. She’s doing fine.”

  The call that came from Phoenix Tuesday night was like the first, sweet and correct. This one held news on the weather, which was warm, the desert, which was in bloom, and her grandparents’ swimming pool, which was “radical.”

  “See?” Gideon said when they hung up the phone this time. “She’s being treated very well.” He said it as much for Chris’s benefit as for his own. Living with Chris, being part of her daily life, anticipating what it would be like when they married, he was approaching things from a new angle. He missed Jill. In truth, though he kept telling himself there was no cause, he was worried, too. “If they took her on a Jeep tour of the desert, they’re obviously making an effort to show her the sights.”

  “Brant’s parents are,” Chris conceded reluctantly. “She doesn’t say much
about Brant.”

  “Maybe that’s just as well. If she’s seen him, her curiosity is satisfied. If there’s going to be any kind of continuing relationship, let it be with his parents.”

  Chris couldn’t imagine going through the hell of that kind of visit several times a year, but she knew Gideon was right. Grandparents were often kinder than parents. She supposed, if she was looking to the positive, she should be grateful they were there.

  Clinging to that thought, she calmed herself some, enough so that she didn’t fall apart when Jill called on Wednesday night sounding like she wanted to cry.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” she said softly. She could recognize throat-tight talk when she heard it, particularly in the daughter she knew so well.

  After an agonizing minute, Jill said, “I miss you.”

  Tears came to Chris’s eyes. “Oh, sweetheart, sweetheart, I miss you, too.” She clutched Gideon’s hand, wishing Jill had one as strong to hold. “Aren’t you having a good time?”

  Jill’s voice fell to a murmur. “It’s okay. But they’re strangers. I don’t think they knew I existed at all until he told them, after you called. They don’t know what to do with me.” Her murmur caught. “I wish you were here. You were right. We should have both come. We could have stayed at a hotel. Then it wouldn’t have been so awkward.”

  Chris swallowed her tears. “Day after tomorrow you’ll be home.”

  “I wish I was now.”

  “Hang in there, sweetheart. We’ll be at the airport Friday to pick you up.”

  “Gideon, too?”

  “Yeah. He misses you.”

  “Mom?”

  “What?”

  The murmur dropped to a whisper. “I’m glad you didn’t marry Brant. Gideon’s so much better.”

  “Oh, honey.” Pressing her hands to her lips, Chris looked at Gideon through a pool of tears.

  “What?” he whispered. He’d about had it with sitting still, trying to catch the gist of the conversation from Chris’s short words and now her tears. Clearly Jill was upset. He wanted to snatch the phone away and talk to her himself, only he didn’t know how appropriate it was. Chris might think he was butting in where he didn’t belong, and though he knew he belonged there, he didn’t know if Chris saw that yet.