by Raye Morgan
“Why is that?” He gazed challengingly into her eyes. “Tell me what bothers you about that?”
Her lower lip came out. “You know very well what it is,” she said in a low, grating voice. “It’s not really fair of you to make me say it. You know exactly what it is and you know there’s no cure for it.”
With that, she grabbed her map and slipped out of the car, heading for her little lonely house.
Cam sat for a long time, not moving, not reaching for the ignition, just staring at the moon. And then, finally, he headed home.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DIANA dreamed about Cam, about his kiss and how lovely it was to be in his arms. And then she woke up and there he was on her doorstep.
“Doughnuts,” he said, holding out a sack of them like a peace offering. “For your breakfast.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking the bag and closing the door right in front of him.
“Hey,” he protested, and she opened the door again, pretending to scowl at him.
“Too early,” she said. “You’re not even supposed to see me like this.”
“I’ll close my eyes,” he lied. “I came early because I didn’t want to be too late to take you to the doctor.”
She stared at him, and slowly, she opened the door wider for him to come in. Turning, she looked up at him. “I don’t need anyone to take me to the doctor,” she said stiffly.
“I’m not trying to horn in on your private business,” he assured her. “In fact, if you want me to, I’ll wait in the car. But I think you ought to have someone with you, just in case. And since the baby’s father isn’t around to help you, you can count on me. I’ll be around in case something happens, or whatever.”
You can count on me—the words echoed in her head. She knew he meant it, but she also knew he couldn’t promise anything of the sort. “Cam, I really don’t need help.”
He stared down into her wide eyes. “Yes, you do,” he said firmly. “Di, I know you can do this on your own. You’re very brave and you’ve tried your whole life to do everything on your own. I know you don’t actually, physically, need any help. You’re strong. You’ve done it all on your own forever.”
Reaching out, his hands slid into her hair, holding her face up toward him. “But everyone needs somebody. No one can chart his own course forever. I’m here now. I can help you. I can give you some support and be around in case you need a shoulder to lean on. You don’t have to be alone.”
To her horror, her eyes were filling with tears. She fought them back. The tears were a sign of weakness, and she couldn’t afford to show that side to anyone. But as she fought for control, he was kissing her lips, moving slowly, touching gently, giving comfort and affection and a sense of protection that left her defenses crumbling on the floor. She swayed toward him like a reed in the wind. He was so wonderful. How could she resist him? A part of her wanted to do whatever he said, anytime, anywhere. And that was exactly the part she had to fight against.
He pulled back to look at her, his gaze moving slowly over her face, a slight smile on his own.
“Please, Diana,” he said softly. “Let me be there for you. I’m not asking for anything else. Just let me be there.”
She was really crying now. Deep sobs were coming up from all her past pain, all her loneliness, and she was helpless in his arms. He pulled her up against his chest and stroked her hair. When she could finally speak again, she pulled back and looked at him. How was she going to make him understand?
“Cam, don’t you see? I can’t start to depend on you. If I do that…”
“I’m not asking for a long-term commitment and I’m not offering one,” he insisted, holding her loosely, looking down into her wet, sleepy face and loving it. “But I am here now. I can help you. You could use a friend. I want to be that friend. That’s all.”
She closed her eyes. Didn’t he understand how dangerous this was for her? Didn’t he see how much she loved him? She had to send him away. It was the only chance she had for strength and sanity.
She felt him move to the side and heard paper rustling and she slowly opened her eyes and then her mouth to tell him to go, but before she got a word out, he popped a piece of doughnut inside it.
“Let’s eat,” he said cheerfully, and his comical look made her laugh through her tears. She chewed on the delicious confection and laughed at his antics and somehow her resolutions got forgotten for the time being.
But she knew this wasn’t the end of the matter. She might let her guard down for now, but very soon, she would have to erect it again. She knew that from experience. So she would let him come with her to her doctor’s appointment and she would be with him for another day. And she would love doing it. But it couldn’t last and she couldn’t let herself be lulled into thinking that.
“If I were one to sing old Elvis songs,” Diana muttered to herself the next afternoon. “I’d be singing that ‘caught in a trap’ song right now.”
She was going to help Cam’s mother. She’d always known, deep down, that she would end up doing it. The mystery was why she’d tried to fight it for so long. A lot of needless Sturm und Drang, she supposed. She was a pushover in the end.
“You’re completely spineless, aren’t you?” she accused herself in the hallway mirror. “Shame on you!”
Mrs. Van Kirk had looked so pathetic lying back on her chaise lounge overlooking her rose garden, and she’d been so complimentary about Diana’s talents on all scores—and when you came right down to it, Diana liked her a lot. She felt sorry for her, wanted to help her have her silly parties, wanted to make her happy. So in the end, she agreed to take over all the planning for the event. She was to be totally in charge of it all.
So now she was enlisted to help find Cam a bride—what fun.
There was still the problem of how she would be paid. She’d assumed Cam was serious when he’d teased her about doing it for free, but he assured her she would be paid for her work—someday.
“How’s this?” he said. “You’ll have the first option on our future earnings.”
“What earnings?” She knew he was working hard on setting things to rights, and she supposed there was income from the Van Kirk ranch to throw into the mix, plus some of his funds borrowed from his own business. But it all seemed like slim pickings so far.
He gave her a grand shrug. “We may just go in the black someday.”
She rolled her eyes. “Great. I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“Seriously, Di,” he said, catching hold of her shoulders to keep her from running off. “I’m going to make sure you get compensated. Just as soon as I’ve saved this house and have a little spare cash to take care of things like that.”
She looked up at him and barely kept herself from swooning. He looked so handsome, his blue eyes clear and earnest, rimmed with dark lashes that made them look huge, his dark hair falling over his forehead in a particularly enticing way. She could feel his affection for her shining through it all. He was hers—in a way—for the next fewdays, at any rate. Then, if his mother’s plans came to fruition, he would be some other woman’s. And Diana would be left with nothing but memories.
“Forget it,” she said, shaking her head, pushing away her dour thoughts. “I’m doing this for your mother. And that’s it.”
Of course, it turned out to be even more work than she’d thought it would be. There was so much to do. The event itself was to be called a Midsummer Garden Party to welcome Cam back to the foothills and from what they’d heard, it was already stirring interest all over the valley and environs far and wide.
“Everyone from the Five Families will be attending,” Mrs. Van Kirk told her matter-of-factly.
Diana knew who the Five Families were and it made her cringe a little. The Van Kirks were one of those five, though they might be clinging to that distinction by their fingernails at the moment, hanging by the thread of their past reputation. They were all descendants of five Kentucky miners who’d come here together
in the nineteenth century as forty-niners, discovered gold in these hills, settled the land and established the town of Gold Dust. They were the aristocracy of the area now, the movers and shakers of local affairs all through the valley, the main landowners and definitely the richest people around.
It was only natural that Cam’s mother wanted him to marry one of the young women from that group. Why not? Not only did they have the money, they had the background to rule the area. And Cam was a natural leader as far as that went. So here she was, working hard to help him take his rightful place—at the top of the social ladder and right beside some simpering debutante.
Well, maybe she wouldn’t be simpering. In all fairness, the women from the Five Families spent a lot of time doing charity activities and working on cleaning up the environment. But still, they were eligible to marry Cam and she wasn’t. So a little resentment didn’t seem so out of line, did it?
But she had to shove that aside and concentrate on the work at hand. Establishing a theme came first. They needed something that would allow them to make cheap, easy party dishes instead of the gourmet selections that had been the choice when the fancy chef was being engaged.
She gathered Cam and Janey together and the four of them brainstormed and what they finally came up with was a Hawaiian theme.
“Hawaiian?” Janey wailed. “That’s so retro.”
“Exactly the point,” Diana said. “That way we don’t have to spend money on fancy decor items. We can use flowers from both your gardens and my fields. We’ll string leis as party favors and have flowers to clip in the hair of ladies who want that. We’ll have rose petals floating in the pool.”
“But the food,” Janey moaned.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine—very colorful and much cheaper. Things like bowls of cut up fruit will serve two purposes—decorating as well as eating. And as for the more substantial items, I have a friend, Mahi Liama, who runs a Polynesian restaurant in Sacramento. I’m sure he’d do a lot of the food for us. Maybe some pit roasted pork and chicken long-rice and poi. The rest will be mostly finger food that we’re going to be fixing ahead and freezing and popping in the ovens at the last minute.”
Janey groaned. “What a drag. I like it when we hire the work out a lot better.”
Diana gave her a pasted on smile. “It’ll be great. Just you wait and see.”
The invitations came next. They couldn’t afford to have any printed up, so Diana scavenged up some lovely notepaper she found in the bottom drawer of a beautiful carved desk in the den and put Mrs. Van Kirk to work doing them by hand. That was something she could do sitting down and it turned out she had gorgeous penmanship.
“The trick is to make it look like we are taking advantage of your handwriting skills and creating something unique without letting on that it’s an economy measure,” she told the older woman.
“Shall I add a little Hawaiian looking flower, like this?” Mrs. Van Kirk suggested, proving to have drawing talent as well.
“Perfect,” Diana said, pleased as punch. “These will be so special, people will save them as keepsakes.”
Buoyed by all the praise, Mrs. Van Kirk got busy and had a dozen done by noon on the first day.
Diana conferred with Cam about the seating arrangements. It turned out that he had rummaged in the storage sheds and found at least twenty round tables and a huge group of wooden folding chair to go with them, supplies obviously used for parties years ago. They needed cleaning up and some repair, and probably a coat of spray paint, but it seemed doable and he was already on the job.
There was a large patio suitable for dancing. With a few potted plants arranged along the outer perimeter and a few trellises and arbors set up, it could look stunning. Diana was beginning to take heart. It looked like things were falling into place pretty easily. The whole family was involved, including a few cousins who stopped by occasionally, and despite the whining from some quarters, she generally thought that a good thing.
She was especially glad to find a way to get Janey to help out. Once she remembered that Cam’s sister had been quite a musician in her younger days, she knew exactly how she could use her talents.
“Here’s what you do,” she told her. “I’ve called the high school. They have a small jazz combo, a pianist and a couple of different choral groups. I think one’s a cappella. Hopefully they can do some low-key Hawaiian tunes. Their music director says they need the experience in playing in front of audiences, so I think we could get them really cheap and they could trade off, one group playing during the opening cocktails, another during the meal, another for the dancing, etc. You go talk to them and see what you can arrange. You’ll be in charge of picking out the music. It’s all yours.”
“You know what?” Janey said, actually interested for once. “Adam, the man I’ve been dating, has a teenage son who does that Djaying thing at dance clubs to make a little extra money. Maybe he would help out.”
“That would be great.” She made a face as she had a thought. “Just make sure you have right of approval on everything he’s going to play first. We don’t want any of the raunchy stuff some of the kids like these days.”
“Indeed,” Janey said, drawing herself up. “Wouldn’t fit the Van Kirk image.”
Diana grinned at her. “You got it.”
And for the first time in memory, Janey smiled back.
They had been working on party plans for three days when Diana got a present she wasn’t expecting—and wasn’t too sure she wanted. She was out in the garden cutting back a rosebush in order to encourage a few blooms that looked about to break out, when she noticed a strange sound coming from the toolshed. It sounded as though an animal had been locked in by mistake.
Rising with a sigh, she went to the door and opened it. Inside she found a small caramel-colored ball of fluffy fur. The puppy looked up at her and wriggled happily.
“Well, who are you, you little cutie?” she said.
Kneeling down beside him, she pulled out the tag tied around his neck. “Hi,” the tag said. “I’m Billy and I belong to Diana and Mia Collins, only they don’t know it yet.”
“What?”
She rose, staring down at the dog as Cam came into the shed.
“What do you think?” he asked, a smile in his voice if not on his face.
She whirled to meet him.
“You did this,” she said accusingly.
He put a hand over his heart. “Guilty as charged.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “A friend of mine had a whole litter of these cute little guys. I picked out the best one for you.”
She frowned, feeling frazzled. “Cam, I can’t take care of a puppy.”
“Sure you can. I’ll help you.”
She sputtered, outraged that he would take it upon himself to do this to her. He looked at her earnestly.
“Di, calm down,” he said. “You know very well you need a dog. This little fellow is going to grow up to be a good watchdog. He’ll be there to protect you and the baby when…well, when I can’t.”
She understood the theory behind the gift. She just wasn’t sure she appreciated the motives.
“Cam,” she said stubbornly, “if I decided I needed a dog, I could get one for myself. And right now, I don’t need a dog.”
He didn’t budge an inch, either. “You need the protection. Living alone like you do, out there in the sticks, it’s too dangerous.” He gave her a trace of his lopsided grin. “You never know what sort of madman might show up drunk on your pier in the middle of the night.”
She turned away. So that was it. The dog was supposed to take his place. Was he just trying to ease his guilt over the fact that he was not going to be there for her when she needed him in the very near future? She could never have him, but she could have his dog. How thoughtful of him. She was tempted to turn on her heel and leave him here with his bogus little animal.
But she looked down and saw a pair of huge brown eyes staring up at her, a little tail wagging hopefully, a to
ngue lolling, and she fell in puppy love.
“What am I going to do with you?” she asked the pup.
Billy barked. It was a cute bark. An endearing bark. And it cemented the future for Billy. He was going home with her. There was no doubt about that. Still, there were problems and concerns attached to this gift.
She frowned, biting her lip and thinking over the logistics of the situation. “But I’m over here all day. I can’t just leave him alone at the lake, not at this age.”
“I agree,” Cam said. “That’s why I rigged up a dog run alongside the shed. You can have him here with you in the daytime. He’ll go home with you at night.”
Cam had thought of everything. She looked at him, loving him and resenting him at the same time. Slowly she shook her head. “I don’t know what my little black kitten is going to think of this,” she said.
“They’re both young. They should be able to adjust to each other quickly.”
She looked up at Cam. A few weeks before she hadn’t had anything. Now she had a baby and she had a kitten and she had a dog. The only thing she still lacked was a man of her own. But you couldn’t have everything, could you?
She shook her head, looking at him, loving him. He shrugged, his arms wide, all innocence. And she laughed softly, then walked over and gave him a hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered, eyes shining.
He dropped a kiss on her lips, a soft kiss, barely a gesture of affection, and turned to leave before she could say any more.
It was at the beginning of her second week of work on the party that Diana came face-to-face with Cam’s grandfather for the first time. She’d been working hard on all aspects of the preparations and she’d gone into the house to get out of the sun and found herself in the cool library with its tall ceilings and glass-fronted bookcases. It felt so good, she lowered herself into a huge leather chair and leaned back, closing her eyes.
At times like this she was getting used to communing silently with baby Mia, giving her words of encouragement, teaching her about what life was going to be like once she emerged from her protected cave and came into the real world. She knew the baby couldn’t really hear her thoughts, but she also knew that something was communicated through an emotional connection that was getting stronger every day. Hopefully it was the love.