Once Around

by Barbara Bretton

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. It seemed to be taking her a hell of a long time to get to the front door. If he didn't hit the parkway soon; he wouldn't make it to Greenwich in time for the church service at noon.

  She turned once when she reached the porch and waved, then she opened the door and disappeared into the house.

  The relief he felt embarrassed him even though there was nobody there to see it.

  Twenty minutes later, he was on the turnpike headed north.

  Greenwich and Princeton had a lot in common. The similarities struck Spencer every time he made the trek up to the family home for one of his infrequent command performances. Both towns were verdant, both in landscape and in affluence. Both towns fancied themselves highbrow bastions of respectability. He could see only one discernible difference, other than the obvious geographical one: Princeton was built around intellectual pursuits; Greenwich revolved around financial ones.

  He'd always thought he'd live his life right there in the town where he'd grown up. The rest of his family had. Owen, Jr. would have set up shop there. Everyone knew it would have been a short and easy jump from partner in a local law firm to a run for the House. Owen's death had changed everything. His parents became keepers of the shrine. His sisters dedicated themselves to raising perfect children who would follow in Owen, Jr.'s giant footsteps. Their husbands were both ambitious men who understood the way the Mackenzie name opened doors that would remain locked before mere mortals.

  They were holding a memorial this afternoon to Owen, Jr. One in a never-ending series of elaborate homages designed to remind the rest of them that they could never live up to the things Owen, Jr. might have accomplished if he'd lived long enough. How the hell did you compete with smoke and mirrors and broken dreams? Damned if Spencer knew. But there he was, rolling toward the Greenwich exit, the second son on his way home for .a command performance.

  Sometimes Spencer felt like the kid in that old story, the one who shouted, "The emperor has no clothes." His whole damn family was so blinded by the past, so mired in what could have been that they couldn't see what they had. He'd tried to fill Owen's shoes, but his father made it clear that nobody could do that. Especially not his second son.

  So Spencer quit the family firm, packed up his condo, and moved south to Princeton, where the winters were a little milder and expectations were lower. Nobody at Steinberg, Corelli, and. Winterbourne expected more from him than billable hours. He didn't have to save the world. He didn't have to defend freedom of speech, women's rights, or the environment. All he had to do was sniff out couples in trouble and be there to catch the wife before she found another lawyer to defend her interests against her big bad husband.

  That was how he had met Molly. One dance at a party somewhere and he had a client. He might have had a woman if he'd pursued her, but something had held him back from taking the next step.

  One half mile to the Greenwich exit. He eased into the right-hand lane and reduced speed. Not that the Greenwich cops would give him a speeding ticket. The Mackenzies had a pass on things like that. A Mackenzie could do ninety in a thirty-miles-per-hour zone, and nobody would notice.

  He knew one thing a Mackenzie couldn't do. He couldn't bring home a pregnant, married, underemployed Irish-Jewish woman and call her his date. Two centuries of judgmental Mackenzies would rise up from their graves and beat him senseless. He'd thought about it. Any red-blooded man with the requisite percentage of testosterone would have thought about it. Most of them would have given it a shot.

  Not Spencer. The weight of disapproval easily spanned the distance between Greenwich and Princeton, and ,so he'd angled his interest from the personal back to the social. The professional always took care of itself.

  He doubted if Molly even noticed.

  I love you, Spencer.

  Jessy's words curled themselves around his ear as he made the left onto Water's Edge Road; which led to the Mackenzies' private drive.

  She'd said she loved him, and he'd said that he had to make it up to Greenwich by noon and would she like a ride back to Molly's place. She'd looked so damn vulnerable, with the sheet held against her breasts and her new shorter hair tumbling into those big sad eyes, that he'd considered making love to her again, but that would only have complicated things.

  She loved him, and he didn't love her back.

  Jessy would get used to it. Everybody did sooner or later.

  It was called real life.

  #

  Molly was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing her second cup of decaf tea with milk, when she heard Jessy come in. She'd been sitting at that table ever since Rafe left, replaying everything that had happened that night and regretting most of it—the things she didn't do as much as the things she did.

  Twice she'd grabbed her car keys and started for the door, determined to throw caution .aside and herself at his feet, and twice she'd talked herself out of it. She didn't know the first thing about having an affair. She didn't know the first thing about sex, and she was glad she'd stopped things before he found out what a pathetic excuse for a woman she was. The women he knew were probably limber and inventive. She had the feeling they weren't pregnant with another man's child. She was quickly moving past voluptuous into cumbersome. Sometimes she didn't even recognize her own body in the mirror—the swollen breasts, the fecund belly, the naked, and vulnerable look in her eyes.

  She'd always looked confident and in control. Whatever she was feeling deep inside stayed there, hidden away where it belonged. Those days were gone. Her emotions were right there at the surface for everyone to see. Emotions she hadn't known she had.

  She wanted Rafe. She wanted to explore every beautiful muscle and hollow of his body. She wanted to curl up somewhere inside his brain and absorb his secrets. She wanted to learn the contour of his heart from the outside in.

  You had your chance last night, Molly. He would have worshipped you, and you pushed him away.

  Of course she'd pushed him away. What would he have thought of her when he saw how awkward and unsure she was when it came to making love? When he realized how little she'd learned during ten years of marriage to a man who didn't love her?

  Do you really think that would matter to him, Molly? Do you think he's looking for an acrobat or a lover?

  She buried her face in her hands. I don't know, she thought. Maybe he was looking for both. Maybe he'd found both with a thousand other women along the way. The thought of being measured and found wanting made her physically ill. Pushing him away was the smartest thing she could have done. Let him think it was because she was ashamed of her pregnant body. Let him think she was still in love with her husband. It didn't matter what he thought as long as he didn't know the truth: that she was afraid she'd disappoint him.

  "Molly?" Jessy's voice drifted toward her from the foyer.

  "I'm back here." She brushed her hair off her face and fixed a pleasant smile on her face. She was very good at creating a pleasing facade. She'd had many years of practice, starting when she was a little girl.

  "So tell me," she said when Jessy, still in her fancy dress, walked into the room. "Was it a boy or a girl?"

  Jessy looked at her, a puzzled expression on her face. "What?"

  "A boy or girl," Molly said. "You just spent the night at the hospital delivering a baby, didn't you? What was it?"

  Jessy's cheeks reddened, and her small face took on the classic deer-in-the-headlights look.

  "Oh, Jess," Molly whispered. She tried to dim the vivid images that came instantly to mind.

  The look on Jessy's face suddenly shifted into utter radiance. Molly thought her heart would break as she saw the glow in Jessy's dark eyes. Sometimes life made no sense at all.

  "You and Spencer?" she asked tentatively.

  Jessy didn't answer, but then again she didn't need to. The truth was written all over her face.

  Molly looked down at her cup of tea. That could be you, Molly. You could have been lying in Rafe's
arms right about now, glowing even brighter than the good doctor.

  "Well," she said, "how long has this been going on?" She tried to sound cheerful and nonjudgmental but was afraid she'd failed miserably.

  "Since last night," Jessy said. "Not that it's any of your business." Some of the glow faded with her words.

  "He's my lawyer," Molly said, feeling an unexpected burst of sympathy for the contentious young woman. She was going to get hurt. That was the one sure thing in this whole business, "You're my boarder. I feel responsible."

  "Don't," Jessy said. "You had nothing to do with this."

  "I brought you together."

  "No," Jessy said carefully, "you introduced us, but I'm the one who brought us together."

  Molly locked eyes with her across the table. "You made the first move?"

  "Somebody had to." Jessy considered her "Spencer wasn't about to, not with you in the same room." The words carried a sting that brought Molly up short.

  "There's nothing between us," she said. "We share some points of reference is all."

  "Right," said Jessy with a sigh, "and he never noticed the way you look."

  "I have no idea what he has or hasn't noticed about me, Jessy. I'm telling you the truth from my perspective."

  "I guess you wouldn't know," Jessy said, as much to herself as to Molly. "You probably wouldn't notice one more man falling at your feet."

  "Like my husband?"

  Jessy's cheeks reddened. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way."

  "I think you did," Molly said, "and that's okay. We might as well put our cards on the table."

  "Cards?" Jessy sat down opposite her. "I don't care if your husband walked out on you. You're still the one who was dealt the winning hand."

  "You're amazing. Do you think that because I look a certain way I don't have feelings?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "No, you didn't, but you imply it every single time you talk to me."

  "I think you're reading too much into this, Molly."

  "And I don't think you're half as smart as you think you are, Jessy. Getting dumped hurts. Having your husband walk out on you hurts like hell. Being alone and pregnant—" She stopped, and once again the two women locked eyes. "I'm sorry. This time I'm the one who wasn't thinking."

  "There's a lot of that going around." Jessy fiddled with the top of the sugar bowl. "You're right about what you said before. I'd pretty much decided you'd been given a pass in life."

  "Some pass." Molly resisted the urge to pull the sugar bowl away. "I wouldn't wish my predicament on—" She started to laugh. "I wouldn't wish it on my husband."

  Jessy's serious expression began to lighten. "Who better than your husband?" she tossed back. "I'd say he deserves it.'

  "You're right," said Molly. "He does deserve it. That and nine months of morning sickness."

  "I never had morning sickness," Jessy said. "Not once. I was healthy as a horse."

  It was hard to imagine the slender woman great with child. Molly's imagination couldn't quite bring the image to life. "Is that how you ended up an OB?"

  "That and Jo Ellen."

  "Jo Ellen?"

  "My mama. She had plans for me."

  "What about your own plans? Didn't they matter?"

  "If you knew Jo Ellen you wouldn't ask that."

  "It must be nice to have a mother who cared enough about you to plan your future," Molly said. "Mine only cared where her next husband was coming from."

  "That's not how I pictured you." Jessy rested her elbows on the table and settled her chin in her hands. "I imagined you as the princess with doting parents."

  "Not quite," Molly said, feeling the pinch of old hurts. "My parents loved each other and hated each other, and I was the go-between for all of it. Sometimes they'd look at me as if they couldn't quite remember if I was their daughter or the kid from next door."

  "My mama made all my decisions from the time I took my first breath," Jessy said. "The only decision I ever made on my own was to get pregnant."

  "You mean it wasn't a mistake?"

  "No," Jessy said in a soft voice. "The only mistake was giving her up."

  Molly glanced down at her own belly. "I can't even imagine that."

  "Me neither," Jessy said, "but Jo Ellen had plans for me, and a baby wasn't one of them."

  Molly tried to imagine how it felt to be young and poor and pregnant, with a mother who was determined to make your decisions for you.

  "At least you had someone who cared what happened to you."

  "All I wanted was the space to make my own mistakes.''

  Molly stifled a sigh.. All she'd ever wanted was someone to hold her when she did make mistakes.

  They were quiet. while Jessy made herself a cup of tea then sat down again.

  "So you're telling me that you made the first move with Spencer," Molly said after Jessy added sugar and milk to her cup.

  "Yes," Jessy said, peering at her over the lip. "Why is it I have the feeling you never made the first move in your life?"

  The baby kicked hard, and Molly absently rubbed her belly with her left hand. "You're right," she said. "I never have made the first move." Even if she had the guts, she wouldn't know where to start.

  "Beautiful women never do," Jessy said without bitterness. "That's for the rest of us."

  "I was brought up to believe the man made the first move."

  "So was I, darlin'," Jessy said, "and I'd still be waiting for my first date if I hadn't decided to chart my own course."

  "I don't want to hurt you," Molly said, "but I don't think Spencer's the marrying kind."

  "This was sex," Jessy said, "not love. I know the difference."

  Do you? Molly wondered.

  Did anybody?

  Chapter Fifteen

  The candles were burning in the windows of the main house when Rafe got home early Sunday evening. The candles only appeared in the windows when Miriam was home and, last he heard, Miriam was still in Florida. She was the closest thing to family he had, and he missed her company. She'd come into his life at its lowest ebb and given him both shelter and friendship. That was more than anyone had ever done for him, and he loved her for it.

  He parked the truck then let himself in the back door of the main house. He wasn't exactly looking for trouble, but his senses were on alert.

  "Miriam?" he called out as he walked through the empty kitchen. "Are you here?"

  "Good Lord!" Ginny, the occasional housekeeper, appeared in the back hallway. "Least you could do is ring the bell before you come barging in."

  He and Ginny had, at best, an adversarial relationship, which grew more adversarial the longer Miriam stayed away. Ginny had made it clear she considered Rafe a threat to her livelihood, and nothing he could say or do had changed her mind.

  "I saw the lights," he said. "Since when are you here on Sunday nights?"

  "Miss Miriam is coming home. She called me this morning when she couldn't get you on the phone."

  "When?" he asked. Something didn't feel right about this. Miriam had claimed she was settled now in Florida and would only return north in an emergency.

  ''I didn't ask."

  "Where was she calling from?"

  "If you've got so many questions, why don't you stay home and answer your phone?"

  Arguing with Ginny was a lost cause. She'd seen him as a threat from the beginning, and that wasn't about to change. He whistled for Jinx then headed across the backyard to the carriage house. Ginny must have gotten it wrong. Miriam wouldn't come back north in October:

  The first thing he did when he got inside was reach for the phone. He punched the speed dial number then waited as the phone in Florida began to ring.

  "Cantwell residence. Leila speaking."

  "Leila, it's Rafe. Let me speak to Miriam, please."

  "I believe Ms. Miriam is asleep," the nurse said. "May I take a message?"

  "I need to talk with her."

  "I can't go waking her up. Doct
or's orders. She's resting for the, trip north."

  "That's what I'm calling about, Leila. What's with that trip anyway?"

  He could hear Leila breathing on the other end of the line, but she didn't say a word.

  "Leila?"

  "I'm here."

  "You're not going to answer me, are you?"

  "Good thinking. Anything you want to know, you'll have to ask Ms. Miriam."

  "Is something wrong?"

  "It's not for me to say."

  "She's doing fine, isn't she?"

  "She's ninety years old," Leila said. "There's a limit on how fine she can be."

  He managed to get a little bit of travel information out of the woman and was about to hang up when a familiar hello broke into their conversation.

  "Hang up, you silly woman," Miriam said. "I'm not dead yet."

  He laughed despite himself. That statement was pure Miriam Cantwell. "So what's with the trip to New Jersey?" he asked.

  "A woman can't come home without everyone asking questions?"

  "A Florida woman doesn't come home to New Jersey this time of year, Mir. We both know. it. What gives?"

  "I'm coming home," she said simply. "That's all you need to know."

  The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and saluted. His mother used to say it meant someone was walking over his grave. "Why don't I fly down and we'll talk about it?"

  "By the time you got a flight, son, I'd be on my way."

  "I can't change your mind?"

  "Not even you, Rafael."

  "Nobody calls me Rafael but you."

  "It's your name, isn't it?" she demanded.

  "Even I forget that sometimes."

  "Then it's a good thing I'm coming home to remind you."

  The next sound he heard was the dial tone in his ear. Once again, Miriam Cantwell managed to get the last word. He'd have to wait until she arrived to find out why she was coming there in the first place.

  Jinx settled herself on one of the kitchen chairs while he opened a can of cat food and upended it in her bowl. He yawned, thought about opening a can of something for himself, then decided to hell with it. He'd been awake thirty-six hours, and fatigue was finally catching up with him.