Still they walked, until they reached a stand of trees. There, Matthew finally stopped, leaning back against a fat black walnut tree, his head resting against the bark. He wore no hat; his hair was damp, and his face had reddened with the cold, and his beautiful eyes were looking into hers.
She leaned back against an opposite tree and studied him, saying nothing. He had made her feel this way at the nightclub, and he was doing it now. Somehow just being with him gave her the feeling that there were only the two of them in the world. They were the only two who had really heard the seductive jazz, the only two who really took a walk together, the only two who really made love. Obviously, no one else had ever done these things. Poor world, she felt like saying.
She couldn’t imagine how this could be the same man she had known nine years ago. He had touched her life then, but never colored it. Whereas now…
“We’ve got to talk, Misha,” he said softly.
She nodded, starting to come toward him. “We have to talk,” she agreed. “Tell me what you were really supposed to be doing this afternoon?”
“Nothing that matters. Since Dad retired, I’ve taken on three new attorneys in the office. I’m thinking about hiring another. All I would have done this afternoon was sit in a chair with my feet up and read Field and Stream…”
So the Whitakers had been busy expanding, and Matthew was still working long hours…and he had nevertheless taken the time to come and see her. Lorna moved closer, pulling off her gloves and shoving them in her pockets. Finger by finger, she removed his then, before raising her arms to his shoulders. She had to go up on tiptoe to kiss him, irresistibly impelled to touch his cold cheeks, to rub her smooth, cold lips against his. They were both padded with clothes from the neck down, a chastity cushion teasingly forbidding them the kind of contact they both craved. A sudden swift breeze sent a light shower of snow cascading down onto their shoulders from the bare tree branches. It didn’t seem to matter. Lorna had never felt so warm.
Matthew stood very still, not responding to her kiss, though not drawing away. His eyes had darkened the moment she touched him. “I told my father I was seeing you.”
She stepped back abruptly, her troubled eyes seeking his, yet Matthew radiated no concern. It was something he wanted her to know, answering one of many questions for her before she had even asked it… Yet the subject no longer seemed of any interest to him. He reached out to cradle her throat with his palms, his thumbs caressing the cold, soft skin of her cheek. Gradually, his fingers pushed back her hat, letting her hair tumble to her shoulders, and suddenly his hands were lost in the luxuriant waves as he gathered her close. “Misha…” Her eyes closed as his mouth came down on hers.
The world obligingly decelerated to slow motion. The swift breeze slowed; a single snowflake lingered on her cheek. His lips warmed against hers; her fingers lazily memorized the texture of his hair. The leisurely intrusion of his tongue between her teeth was a sweet, searing invasion that lasted a very long time. Beneath the many layers of clothing she could feel her breasts gently swell, gradually tighten.
“Why is it so simple when I’m with you?” he whispered suddenly, his cheek grazing hers, his lips nuzzling in her hair. “You think I haven’t known other women over the years? I’ve loved, Misha. But not like this.”
Her lips met his again, all hunger, all sweetness. She thought fleetingly of his other women, and hoped there had been thousands. Millions. She hoped he had tried them all, every brilliant, beautiful woman who had ever existed, and that he had found none who made him ache as he did for her. All of her concentration was centered on inducing that darkened look in his eyes, on matching the increased pressure of his mouth. She heard the low, guttural sound in the back of his throat. She could taste that sound on her tongue, his wanting.
She drew back slowly, looking at him, unsmiling.
He bent down, picked up her hat and brushed the snow off it. Gradually, he fitted it on her head again, pushing her hair beneath it.
“You are,” she told him softly, “a very special man.”
His smile was lazy. He hooked an arm around her neck, and they started walking out of the arboretum. Matthew broke pace only long enough to brush a single kiss near her ear. “You know I chose a walk so I could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could keep my hands off you. Now look what happened…”
“It was your fault.”
They talked nonsense the entire way home. Lorna thought, If I breathe just right, if I don’t step on any sidewalk cracks, this isn’t going to end.
It should have ended when they got back to her place. Johnny and Brian arrived less than ten minutes later from their respective school buses, almost before Lorna had a chance to take off her coat. The boys concurred that it was absolutely essential that they build a snowman immediately. She agreed, supervising the chaos of gathering up mittens and hats and scarves, afraid to look at Matthew for fear she would see that his expression had changed with Johnny’s arrival.
But it hadn’t. He was chuckling, having somehow found the ingredients for hot chocolate while she was getting the kids ready to go out. When she finally closed the door on the boys, he was stirring the pot on the stove. “If I had that much energy, I’d patent it,” he remarked.
She grinned. “They’re exhausted after a full day in school. You should see them when they’re fresh.”
“I don’t wake up that fresh first thing in the morning.”
“Actually,” she said thoughtfully, “I’ll bet you do wake up fresh. Not as in wide awake, but as in hot-blooded and ready.”
“Misha.” He affected a schoolmaster’s scold, and then chuckled when she put both palms to her flaming cheeks.
“I don’t believe I said that,” she groaned.
The hot chocolate was steaming. She put two mugs next to him and he poured. “You’re going to Quebec with me the first of the year, right?”
“Pardon?”
“Quebec. Their winter carnival. Ice sculptures and the Château Frontenac and two weeks alone together. Can you work it?”
She closed her gaping mouth, and then opened it enough to take in a sip of scalding cocoa. Her still-freezing hands curled around the cup; she decided for a minute that the cold walk had actually addled her brain. Certainly on general principles she had always been opposed to exercise. Look what the walk had done for her. All her good sense had flown out the window; her heart was convinced they didn’t have a single problem to solve, and she could have sworn Matthew had just asked her to go on a two-week vacation with him.
“There’s more snow due tonight,” she said politely.
“Misha. I want you to come with me.”
She set down the cup. There was no point in spilling the contents all over the floor. Chocolate stains were terrible to clean up. Her mind went blank. She thought, I’m getting high blood pressure already. The thudding in her chest was definitely erratic. “Matthew. I…Johnny…”
She met his eyes and was instantly drawn into a dark whirlpool. Yet the warmth in his gaze didn’t quite match the sudden tension in his face, the tightness around his jaw. He leaned back against the counter, watching her. “What about Johnny?” he asked, very quietly.
“I’m not free to go away just anytime. I can’t leave him-”
He nodded. “I know that. And I’ll make arrangements for someone reliable to take care of him for a couple of weeks.” His eyes refused to release hers, as if he could hold her gaze and propel her emotions any way he wanted. “Of course your son’s important to you, Misha, but that’s just the point. Let’s make sure the two of us know what we’re doing before we bring anyone else into it.”
He was right, she thought. Rationally, she believed that, too-that the two of them needed time together before Johnny got involved, and before Richard, Sr., came into it for that matter. Two weeks alone together should tell both of them whether they were building a relationship on fantasy or reality. Her eyelashes fluttered down, and she picked up the cocoa cup a
gain. A sudden sensation of fullness in her throat made it difficult to swallow.
The doorbell rang; it was absolutely the last thing she wanted to hear. She got up from the kitchen chair, giving Matthew one last searching glance. She knew she was going to say yes. But she wished she could tell by looking at him if he wanted an affair or a future. She didn’t need a written declaration to know she would bring him more problems than she was worth in the long term. Johnny. The senior Whitaker. The past that infringed on both of them.
Once he was out of sight and she was striding down the hall, she changed her mind and decided she would have to say no to the trip. She knew that once he was near her again she would vacillate once more. You’re a Ping-Pong ball, she told herself disgustedly as she opened the door.
Stan Valicheck took one look at her violent scowl and raised his eyebrows. “Have I come at a bad time? I thought we said four.”
Four. Wednesday. About translating his mother’s story. “Of course you haven’t, Stan. I was waiting for you,” Lorna lied brightly, dredging up a smile of welcome as she encouraged him to come in. She took his coat and propelled him toward her office, wondering vaguely if she could lock Stan in there and then lock Matthew in the kitchen. Not likely.
“I’ll be back in two seconds,” she told Stan. “Just make yourself comfortable…” She gave him a warm smile as he eyed her flight out the door with eyebrows raised in bewilderment.
Lorna’s smile died when she left him. Pushing her hair back distractedly, she headed for the kitchen again, only to find another pair of raised eyebrows waiting for her there. “I have a client,” she said unhappily. “I’m sorry, Matthew, but I’d forgotten I made an appointment for four today. It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes…”
“I’ll keep an eye out for Johnny. There’s no problem, Misha.”
She agreed. There wasn’t any, or there shouldn’t be. Yet she felt a tugging anxiety that he would make something out of her client being a man. “I’ll make dinner after this, if you want to stay,” she said hesitantly.
“If you end up working a long time, I’ll take Johnny and go out for some fast food.”
“I won’t be long,” she insisted.
His eyes seared hers for a second, as if dissecting her strange tension. “Go talk to your client,” he advised finally.
So she did, closing the door to the office as she sat down at the desk across from Stan. It worked, closing the door. Her office and the manuscript and the brown-haired man with soft dark eyes in front of her honestly diverted her attention. She settled back, tried to relax, and once she began talking, the tensions dissolved like ice crystals in warm water.
Stan didn’t even know, she realized, what the manuscript was about. Fifteen minutes slid to twenty, then to a half hour. She had to explain the different kinds of translating problems she would encounter and the hesitation she felt in doing something of this nature. Anna would have to make the decision whether she wanted Lorna to deliver a word-for-word translation or render the story less literally but with the flavor and texture of the original. A too-free translation could destroy a manuscript, change its meaning and distort its tone, and yet word-for-word translations could do the same thing, because of the subtle nuances of language, the different idioms and mind-sets of separate cultures. “It wouldn’t matter, Stan, if this were going to be something just for you and your family. But I had no idea your mother was such a literate woman. I think she’s terrific. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. But if she wants to sell the story-”
“I don’t see that there’s any problem,” Stan said frankly. “Lorna, I trust you. There’s no question that my mother feels the same way.”
Lorna hesitated. “That’s kind of you, but you hardly know me.”
“We spent four hours with you last Saturday. I don’t consider myself a poor judge of character. And from everything you’ve been saying, I would guess you’ll be conscientious to a fault.”
She shook her head. “All I’m suggesting is that I give the manuscript to someone else-one of the professors at the U of M whom my father used to know-to get his advice. Then, if he agrees with what I think, I could bring that viewpoint back to your mother.”
The half hour became a full hour before Lorna eventually stood up. Despite the success of the conference, her nerves were on edge. On the one hand, Stan was a living ego boost. He had shown the slightest hesitation at her disheveled appearance, then he gave a faint smile as if he accepted her choice of working attire. He seemed to think that everything she said was fine. Yet to be so thoroughly accepted… Well, it was impossible to feel uncomfortable around him, but to some extent she felt a little irritated. A man of forty should not have such faith in a total stranger, and he’d worked awfully hard to give the impression that they were friends idly mulling over a problem together, rather than two people working out a business arrangement. Finally, Lorna opened the door and ushered him out of her office.
“All right, then,” Stan said easily. “You talk to your friend about the manuscript, and come to dinner on Saturday night.”
“That would be fine,” she agreed. Her smile radiated all the relief she felt at having coaxed him into a more professional judgment of her work. Her smile hovered, though, as she spotted Matthew and Johnny coming in the front door. Matthew was carrying a large, flat white box; the aroma of pizza wafted to Lorna’s nostrils. Matthew glanced up, his eyes stopping first on her, then on Stan, and the muscle in his cheek suddenly worked like a tiny little pulse.
“I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again, Lorna. Should we say seven, or would you rather make it earlier?” Stan was smiling, putting on his coat. Then he turned around as if he just realized there was someone else there. His eyes went first to Matthew and then back to Lorna.
“Stan, this is Matthew Whitaker. Matthew, Stan Valicheck. And this is Johnny.” Lorna rested her hands on her son’s shoulders.
Stan relaxed the moment he heard Matthew’s last name. Lorna could imagine the wheels turning in his head; visiting rights for estranged fathers were common in today’s society. Awkward, perhaps, but a different problem entirely than if he’d judged Matthew competition. He acknowledged Matthew with a nod, but didn’t hesitate to offer a hand to Johnny. “Your mother was telling me about you. And I was telling her that we have horses. I told her you’re welcome to come with her, if you think you’d like to see the stables.”
“Gee, I sure would,” Johnny breathed, his eyes sparkling as he silently questioned his mother.
“We may, sometime,” Lorna hedged.
“Well, fine, then.” Stan grabbed his coat and put his hand on the doorknob. “Seven on Saturday then, Lorna?”
“Yes.”
As the door closed, Lorna pasted a brilliant smile on her face, pretended Matthew’s eyes weren’t boring into hers in brooding silence and picked up the flat white box. “You brought pizza, you darlings! I haven’t been this hungry in an age. Thank you, Matthew!”
Chapter 8
Lorna took a small, delicate nibble of the pizza, failing to notice that a long strand of mozzarella cheese was still attached to the second pizza triangle on her plate. The gooey rope refused to break, just stretched on and on as Lorna tried to pull it free. It came loose finally, along with all the rest of the cheese on the slice. Not exactly a graceful business, eating pizza.
She swallowed and searched for a napkin. There was none. All of the napkins had been spoken for by Matthew and Johnny, both of whom were devouring their pizza slices without the slightest anxiety, while drawing diagrams of fission and fusion on their napkins. She got up and washed her hands at the sink, knowing she couldn’t eat another bite.
“Got a napkin, Mom?” Johnny asked absently.
He needed the napkin to draw a rocket on, for some unknown reason. Ah, fission.
Not Lorna’s forte. She leaned back against the counter drying her hands with a dish towel. Her stomach was doing cartwheels. Matthew sat there all cool and collect
ed…and every word of his conversation so far had been directed at Johnny.
Somewhere beneath a solid layer of nerves, anger was gradually building up in her…or was it fear? She knew he’d drawn the wrong conclusions about Stan. She just knew…
The doorbell rang. Lorna was heartily sick of the sound. Normally, no one rang the bell; Freda and Brian just walked in. Neither man nor boy looked up, and Lorna tossed the dish towel on the counter and stalked out of the kitchen. Never, she thought, never was she going to get close to another man who judged her without a trial, who became jealous and suspicious before he even gave trust a chance. He could at least have asked her…
You asked for it. You wanted to believe things that couldn’t be true. Matthew is still a Whitaker… Her head aching abominably, she pulled open the front door, and promptly frowned. “Mr. Baker?”
Her neighbor from across the street did not make a habit of calling. In fact, they were barely on speaking terms from the time a year ago when Lorna had called the police about a raucous party at Baker’s house. A little noise was fine to welcome in the New Year, but she’d been frightened; there’d been bottles thrown in the street, and the burly revelers had been knocking on doors at four in the morning.
“I’m here to talk about that brat of yours,” the man said angrily, and stepped in, furiously stomping the snow from his feet.
“I beg your pardon?” She stared at him, unconsciously taking a protective step back when he put both hands on his hips. A full head taller than she was, R. A. Baker had a belly to rival Santa’s, but nothing of the cheerful temperament. Brown hair bushed around his ears below a bald patch on his crown; mud-brown eyes were set close together in thick, sluggish features. Normally. At the moment, his face was florid with rage, and his eyes were almost obsidian.
“That damn kid of yours put a rock through the picture window in my living room!”
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