Another Summer (23 page)

“I don’t care about my birthday, but the Fourth of July ranks right up there with Christmas. The only thing I read anymore is stuff for school, but I used to like King and McCaffery.” He smiled. “As for long skirts and boots, they’re okay, but short skirts and boots are better.”

“Movies?”

“Anything with Chris and nothing with subtitles.”

“He’s nice.” The next came harder. “I can’t remember if I thanked you for taking me to his party, but I should have.”

“You did. But it’s nice to hear it again.”

She glanced at the clock on the wall over the salad bar. “We should be going,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t want to push things with Cheryl.”

He stood and waited for her to come around the table. “How does your being here with her work? Is she a friend or what?”

“She’s one of the people who help run an after-school group where Deanna and Karen and I volunteer a couple of times a month. We look out for the kids who come by, organize games, things like that. We used to go there when we were kids, and now we all have sisters or brothers who do.”

“That will look good on your application.”

“What application?”

“To college.” He held up his hand to stop her before she could say anything.
“When
you decide to go.”

“They want to know things like that? I thought they just looked at grades.”

“We need to talk about this–for the future.
Should
you change your mind and decide you want to go to college.” He put his arm around her shoulder as they walked to the car.

He opened the door but she looked at him before she got in. “Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“Pushing me to go to college? Why do you care what I do? Another week and a half and I’m out of here and we never see each other again.”

“How do you know? Maybe Andrew will talk you into coming back next summer.”

Her first reaction was anger. He was doing it to her again, giving her something to dream about. But then she looked into his eyes and saw that he really cared.
He wanted her to come back.
Impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed him, quick and clean.

Stunned, it took him a second to respond. “Is that a yes, or a maybe?”

She smiled. “I don’t know.”

He put his hands on the sides of her head and brought her forward for another kiss. This time it was long and slow and deliberate. “That was my vote. Do I need to explain?”

She shook her head, for the moment not caring that she was traveling a road she’d sworn she would not take. She had ten days to enjoy the ride. If the destination was a broken heart, at least she would always have the memory of the journey.

  A
NDREW DIDN’T SEE
C
HERYL SITTING ON
his front step until he pulled into the driveway. She had on white shorts and a red tube top that set off her newly acquired tan and made her skin seem to glow. She had a bottle of wine in one hand and a bouquet of nasturtiums in the other. He parked his car and met her on the walkway. “I was hoping I got the message right.”

“It’s just you and me for two whole hours. Paul took the girls to town to do some shopping and to show them the campus.”

While he’d been invited to dinner twice and had joined Cheryl and the girls on the beach a couple of times, the two of them hadn’t had ten minutes alone the entire three weeks she’d been there. “Just two hours, huh?”

“I’m sorry. I really thought we’d have more time while I was here.”

He took her in his arms for a quick hug. “Me too.”

She looked up at him, “You’ve been wonderful about all this.”

“You really think so?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then I have to tell you, it’s worked out exactly as I’d planned.”

She laughed. “How clever you are to have arranged for me to bring the girls without my knowing you were involved.”

“I’m good. What can I say?”

“How about–come in, Cheryl, I have some fantastic cheese and crackers to go with that wine you brought.”

“That would be a lie, I’m down to my last can of beans and quart of milk, but I’m sure if we dig around long enough we’ll come up with something.”

They went inside. While Andrew changed out of his work clothes, Cheryl put the flowers in a vase and opened the wine. She stared out the kitchen window while she waited for Andrew, remembering the first night he’d brought her there. They’d come a long way since, rebuilding the shattered trust of their relationship brick by brick.

Seventeen years had changed him. He was more patient and slower to anger. He was still idealistic, but more tolerant of those who weren’t. At times a wanderlust still shone from his eyes, but now it was couched in a way that didn’t frighten her. When he talked about faraway places, he always talked about seeing them with her.

But he worked too hard. It was something he’d never talked about, and she wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t moved next door and seen for herself how many hours he put in each day. He left home at six in the morning and was gone most nights until eight or nine. If she asked him for dinner or mentioned she and the girls were staying home to spend time on the beach, he stayed home to be with her. Then, as often as not, she would see him leaving to go back to work later that night.

She’d asked him if he still sailed, and he’d told her that he hadn’t been out in over a year, that he’d rented the boat to a friend who had taken it to Hawaii. He no longer surfed or hiked or took off on his bike for the weeklong camping trips he’d taken for years along the coast. When she asked why, the answer was always the same. No time.

Why had he changed?

She heard him come up behind her and willed him to touch her. Lately she could think of little else. The forced separation had sharpened her longing for him until it had become a physical ache. All she had to do was think about him and her skin flushed.

As if reading her mind, he slipped his arms around her waist. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I love it here,” she said. “And I love being here with you.”

He turned her around and lifted her to sit on the tile counter. She parted her legs and he stepped between them, resting his hands on her bare thighs. “I talked to Eric this morning, and he said they aren’t going to get here in September after all. We can have the house if we want it. Now the only question is, can you get away for another week?”

She put her arms around his neck and moved closer. She felt his instant response and wrapped her legs around his waist. “I assume you mean alone?”

He nuzzled her neck, touching his tongue to the hollow at her collarbone. “Preferably.”

“What about you? I thought you were a speaker at some conference in Florida.”

“I’ll get out of it.” He moved higher, kissing her throat, behind her ear, then nipping at her earlobe. “I know a dozen growers who will take my place. All I have to do is ask.”

“Are you sure?” she breathed.

He stopped to look at her. “Oh, yes.”

Her heart drummed in her ears. She touched her tongue to her lips. “Me too.”

He kissed her then, slow and deep and with growing urgency. His lips were soft and hard in turn as he coaxed, then promised. His tongue swept her mouth, tasting and inviting. A deep moan of desire rumbled in his chest. To Cheryl it was a primitive call destroying order and propriety. She knew, she felt, she wanted only one thing–to feel him inside her. She moved against him, rocking her hips hard.

Andrew caught the edge of her top and swept it down to her waist. He took a nipple in his mouth and pulled until she arched her back and pushed against him, mutely asking him to take more. His hands moved to her inner thighs, his thumbs slipped under the hem of her shorts, exploring, seeking soft, wet folds.

She cried out when he succeeded. He stopped her cries with his mouth, his tongue mimicking the rhythm of his hands. She moved to give him freer access and he touched and stroked and lapped until he felt her nearing a peak, then grasped her legs and carried her into the bedroom.

Their clothes came off in an awkward rush, landing on tables and bed and the floor. When they were finally naked, Cheryl lay on the bed and opened herself to him. He joined her and was inside in a single thrust. The climax was explosive, building on the cries and moans and movements of the other until nothing would have convinced them that fireworks had not gone off in the bedroom.

Still, there was as much frustration at the end as there had been in the beginning. After seventeen years of mental longing and foreplay, once was not enough. A lifetime would not be enough.

Her hand on his chest, Cheryl pushed herself up to look at him. “I forgot how good you are–out of self-preservation, I think.” She smiled seductively. “Now, you do realize that there’s no going back.”

He put his hand on the nape of her neck and brought her down to him for a kiss. His voice husky, he said, “Anytime, anyplace.”

She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and groaned. “The girls are due back in half an hour.”

He grinned. “I would suggest you do something to wipe that look off your face if you don’t want them to know what we’ve been doing.”

“What look?”

“The satisfied one.”

“We could take a cold shower and pretend we’ve been swimming.”

He cupped her breast with his hand. “It’s going to take more than a cold shower, Cheryl.”

She moved out of his reach. “If you keep doing things like that it will.”

He sat up and tenderly touched her cheek. “I love you, Cheryl Cunningham.”

“I’ve waited a long time, not just to hear that, but to believe it. Tell me again.”

“I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Is that a proposal?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “Maybe it’s a good thing we can’t have children. Think how awkward it would be to tell them where we were and what we were doing when their father proposed.”

Some of the light left his eyes. He took her hand, turned it over, and pressed a kiss to her palm. “I’m sorry. You would have made a terrific mother.”

“And you a father.”

“We have each other,” he said. “That in itself is a miracle.”

“Can something be destiny and a miracle?”

“It can if you answer my question.”

For an instant she didn’t understand. Then she did, and she smiled. “Yes–I will marry you. This afternoon, tomorrow, next week. Pick a time and place, and I’ll be there.”

C
HERYL COULDN’T SLEEP
. S
HE ROLLED FROM
side to side until her nightgown was so twisted she had to get out of bed to straighten it. She, Deanna, and Karen were getting up early tomorrow to take Karen to a hairdresser they’d found in Santa Cruz. The platinum spikes were scheduled to be toned down to a sexy blond shade. Cheryl had no idea why Karen had decided to make the change. It wasn’t as if Santa Cruz didn’t have its share of people with in-your-face hair and the attitude that went with it. Besides, Karen had never worried about fitting in. At least she hadn’t before now.

Rolling to her back, Cheryl tried counting waves instead of sheep but couldn’t stop thinking about Andrew and how much she loved him, how happy she was, and how her life had gone from mere contentment to perfect.

She’d wondered if Andrew’s surgery would make a difference when they made love, but had been hesitant to ask. Then she’d forgotten all about it until afterward, when it was a moot point. The memory brought a flush of pleasure and a yearning so intense she caught her breath until it passed. Crazy thoughts went through her mind, the kind she’d had when she was nineteen and new to the intense physical response even thoughts of making love with Andrew brought. As she had then, she imagined herself sneaking out of the house to be with him, only this time it was to keep from being caught by three eighteen-year-olds instead of her parents. She calculated how long she would be gone if she went to his house, what they would do while she was there, how she would get back without being seen. A teenager’s game. One she never would have believed she could indulge in again.

That afternoon, while they’d waited for the girls to come home, they’d made plans for the week she would come back in September, the places they would go, the people she would meet, the friends they would entertain as a couple. She smiled to herself. There would be no friends or entertaining. That would come later. For now all they needed was each other. They had seventeen years to make up.

Cheryl tucked her hands under her head and thought about how hard it was going to be to tell her family that she and Andrew were back together. She would have to do it in stages to give them time to get used to the idea. Then she would spring the news that she and Andrew were going to get married. Maybe they could make the announcement at Christmas if she brought Andrew to Thanksgiving dinner and–

Something,
someone
was on the deck. She sat up and turned her ear in that direction. A low metal-on-metal sound came next. The sliding glass door.

Grabbing her bathrobe, Cheryl put it on and silently crossed the bedroom. She quietly turned the doorknob and stepped into the hall. Swallowing the knot of fear stuck in her throat, she made her way toward the living room. She was about to peer around the corner when she heard the sounds of someone softly crying.

Convinced it was one of the girls, she listened for another minute, trying to decide if she should give whoever it was her privacy or offer a shoulder. The crying continued. Cheryl finally gave in to her first instinct and went to see what was wrong.

She found Deanna on the floor by the back door, leaning against the glass, her hands covering her face. Cheryl crossed the room and sat on the floor next to her. She touched her hair and Deanna came into Cheryl’s arms. Her tears turned to deep, heart-wrenching sobs.

There was nothing pretty or genteel about Deanna’s grief. Cheryl held her and rocked her and waited. For now it was enough to give comfort.

Time passed. Cheryl had no idea how much, only that she couldn’t put off talking to Deanna any longer. Whatever had put her in this state had to be dealt with.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“I can’t …”

“Why?”

“Because.” It was a child’s answer.

Cheryl waited. “That’s not good enough, Deanna.”

“You’ll be disappointed in me.” The sob that followed was almost a wail.

Cheryl leaned back to reach for the box of tissues on the end table. She handed the box to Deanna. “Whatever it is, we’ll find a way to deal with it.”

“There isn’t anything you can do. There isn’t anything anyone can do.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“Does whatever’s bothering you have something to do with the weight you’ve gained?”

Deanna glanced up from blowing her nose. She looked as if she were about to burst into tears again. “Who told you?” “No one. It was a guess.”

“You guessed I was pregnant?”

Somehow Cheryl managed to catch herself before the shock showed on her face. “No,” she said carefully. “I thought it was something else.”

Realizing her mistake, Deanna started crying again. “Now you hate me.”

Mentally trying to deal with the news, Cheryl scrambled for the right words. “You know I would never do that, so let’s not go down that road.”

“You’re mad at me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then you’re disappointed.”

“I’m not going to play that game with you either.” She stood and held out her hand to help Deanna to her feet. “I could use a cup of tea. You look like you could, too.”

They went into the kitchen, where Cheryl put Deanna in a chair at the table. She took her time making the tea, giving them both an opportunity to think about what would come next. Seated across from each other, Cheryl dunking her tea bag and Deanna swirling hers by the string, Cheryl took a deep breath and began. “Who have you told about this?”

“Maria and Karen.”

“No one else?”

“Paul knows.”

Cheryl waited for the pieces to form a whole. “You didn’t go shopping or to see the campus today.” She’d thought it strange none of them came back with anything. “Where did you go?”

“To the doctor.”

“First things first. Is everything okay?”

She nodded. “They did some tests, but I won’t know about those until next week.”

“What did the doctor say?”

Her lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. “It’s a girl.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Cheryl said gently. “I know you’re concerned about the baby, but right now you’re the one I’m worried about.”

Deanna looked at her. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “I thought about having an abortion, but I couldn’t do it. And now it’s too late.” She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t have this baby. How will I take care of her? I can’t even take care of myself.”