Promise Me A Rainbow (35 page)

“It’s too cold out here,” he decided, looking at her now, his eyes searching hers. Once again he was taken by the irrevocable fact that what he felt for her was more than sexual attraction. He liked this woman. He liked the way she looked. He liked the person she was. It was the liking that made his need of her so intense. He kept her hand in his, as if he were afraid she’d run away if he didn’t.

“No, it’s all right,” she said. “It’s better out here.” She pulled her hand free.

“I’m sorry about Michael.”

He reached up to brush away a strand of hair that had whipped across her face, and she didn’t move away from him. He let his fingers linger for a moment on the softness of her cheek, and he felt like crying. He hadn’t slept well for days, and his trying to talk to Della last night had accomplished exactly nothing. She wouldn’t discuss her feelings with him, and she wouldn’t agree to a family meeting. He wasn’t about to be dictated to by a sixteen-year-old kid, and yet he didn’t know what to do about it.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Della?” Catherine asked.

“So you wouldn’t come out here looking like you’re looking now,” he answered.

“I don’t know what that means, Joe.”

“I don’t know what it means, either. Suppose you tell me. Why did you come out here?”

But she wasn’t answering his questions. She looked down the beach for a moment, then back at him. “You should have told me about Della.”

“Della is my problem, not yours. I’ll handle it.”

“It’s mine if I’m the reason she’s behaving the way she is. You should have told me.”

He hadn’t
wanted
to tell her. If he’d told her, he’d have had to say that a good part of the reason for Della’s behavior was that he’d rebuffed his sister-in-law, and his loyalty to Michael made him not want to say it. Michael
loved
his wife, untrustworthy woman that she was. “It’s not you . . . entirely. There are other things.”

“Your daughter ran away from home because she doesn’t want you to have anything to do with
me
, Joe.”

“I told you. It’s not your problem.”

“What about Fritz and Charlie?”

“What about them?”

“Joe, you have been a close, loving family. You care about each other. I don’t want it torn apart because of me. Look at Michael. People are already choosing sides. Fritz cried last night for nearly an hour—and she doesn’t cry very often, does she?”

Ah, God, he thought. He had been so frantic about Della that he’d only been marginally aware of Fritz’s distress. Again. He was some damn poor excuse for a father. He loved
all
his children, but the casual observer would never know it. It had become the pattern of his life that he could only deal with one crisis at a time.

“What did Fritz say?”

“She didn’t want me to tell you she’d cried. She didn’t want you to worry about it.”

He looked out to sea, trying to stay calm, trying to keep her here on this windy, cold beach as long as he could, because he suddenly thought that he wasn’t going to be able to be with her if he didn’t. “Well, you’re the expert in dealing with children. What do you think I should do?”

Her chin came up, and he realized immediately that he’d hurt her with that remark. He reached out to touch her, taking her by the hand again—surely she’d let him do that much. “Catherine, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Again she pulled her hand away. “That’s the difference between you and me, Joe. I don’t say things I don’t mean. I have to be very careful when I’m angry, because if I say it, I mean it. I can’t ever take it back. I’d better go.”

“Catherine, I don’t know what to do! Can’t you understand that?”

“Of course, I understand it.”

“I . . . care about you.”
I love you
, he’d almost said. It was too soon to tell her that, and from the determined look on her face now he was never going to be able to say it. “You’re important to me, and this whole thing is making me crazy. I wanted to talk to you—to see you. But I had to find Della.”

“Joe, this isn’t about your not seeing me. It’s about your not
telling
me you were having a real problem with Della because of me.”

He looked into her eyes. “I didn’t want to deal with it, okay? I had enough problems. I couldn’t take on another one.”

“I don’t want to be a problem to you.”

“You aren’t.”

“Joe, we’re going to have to do something.”

“Like what, for God’s sake? Like what!”

His eyes were still holding hers, and he knew what she was going to say. He braced himself to hear it.

“I think . . . we ought to stop seeing each other for a while.”

“And how long is ‘a while’?” he asked.

“Until things are better between you and Della.”

“Della is sixteen years old. For all I know, this is some teenage thing she’s going through—something that’s not going to get a damn bit better whether I stop seeing you or not.”

“But you won’t know if you don’t try it. Things aren’t going to get any better until you can sit down and talk to her. I don’t think you’re going to be able to do that as long as she knows you’re still seeing me.”

He knew that she was right, but damn it all, they were just beginning something here. It worried him that she was so willing to let it go.

“Tell me this one thing,” he said. “Is there someone else?”

She looked at him blankly. “Someone else?”

“Someone else! Some other guy—without the pain-in-the-butt kids—you want to see?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

Because I love you.

“Because I want to know. Because you keep offering me a way out. I told you before if you wanted me to take a hike, you could just say so.”

She gave a heavy sigh. He could tell she was now doing what she’d said earlier—being careful what she said when she was mad because she’d never take it back.

“I don’t know why you’ve asked me that. The only thing I can think is
you’re
the one who wants to end it—”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Catherine.”

“Do you or don’t you!”

“No, damn it!”

“Then why did you ask me something like that? You know about Jonathan . . .”

He looked away from her. He wasn’t sure himself why he’d asked. Yes, he was. He was going to say it. “I don’t know how much you care about me. I don’t know
if
you care about me. If you do, I want to know it’s going to be worth what it might cost me.”

“Della, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“There’s no way to know that, is there?” she said quietly.

“I guess not. So, is that it, then? We just forget the whole thing?”

“For now, yes.”

He stood staring at her. God, she was so damn calm! Well, he wasn’t, and he had to get away. He turned abruptly and walked back toward the building site, leaving her there. He didn’t make it half way up the bank.

Tell her!

He wanted to tell her so bad. He’d lied when he’d said he didn’t know if she cared about him. He did know. He could feel it. She cared, and she cared a lot, and it was crazy that neither of them could
say
anything.

She stood looking at him, her arms folded over her breasts. She took a step toward him, and he slid back down the bank. His arms went around her, and he didn’t care that the entire crew of D’Amaro Brothers Construction could see them. She clung to him, and he couldn’t hold her tight enough. This was it, the end, and they both knew it.

“We’re going to have to do it, aren’t we?” he said, his voice bitter, resigned. “We’re going to have to let go of everything.”

She leaned back to look at him. “It’ll be . . . easier.”

He nearly laughed. “There is no ‘easier’ in this, Catherine. Whatever we do is going to be bad for somebody.”

“You know I’m right.”

“Yeah. I know you’re right. My obligation is to my kid. Yours is to yourself, so you don’t get dragged around again like you did with Jonathan. But knowing doesn’t help me one bit.”
What if I love you? What if I love you, Catherine?

“Joe—”

“No. The hell with it, Catherine. When you’re right, you’re right. God knows I’m worn out with being caught in the middle. I’ll walk you back to your car.”

He didn’t try to take her by the hand again. He let her struggle up the dune in her red shoes, because he knew he couldn’t touch her. He’d lose it if he touched her.

“I guess this ends Fritz’s visits to the gnomes,” he said when they reached her car.

“No. She can still come.”

“How do you think I’m going to stand that!” he exploded.

“You stood it well enough last night,” she said, and he gave a sharp exhalation of breath.

So he had. Only last night they were technically still seeing each other, still together. Last night he’d wanted to spare her feelings and his extremely taxed ability to cope. Now he’d have her on the fringes of his life, and he’d have to pretend to himself and everybody else that she wasn’t there. He didn’t know if he could do it—even for Della.

He opened the car door for her, and he said nothing. Not good-bye, good luck, I’ll call you. Nothing. She looked into his eyes for a brief moment that was nearly his undoing. He wanted to tell her that there was some other way—there had to be. But he stood and watched her leave, until she was ready to pull the car onto the street. Then he gave a loud, two-finger whistle to make her stop.

She did, rolling down the window and waiting for him to get there.

“One more thing,” he said, and he leaned down, his hands resting on the edge of the window so he could see her face. “Don’t . . . give up on us yet. If we’ve got something worth all this aggravation, I don’t want you to give up—” He stopped, looking down at the ground and then back at her. “Because I won’t. I want you to take care of yourself, okay?”

She gave him a sad smile. “Okay.”

“Promise me. I’m not going to see you for a while. I’m not going to sneak around so my kid won’t catch me with you. I’m going to work on this like you said—but I need you to promise.”

She hesitated, and he thought she wasn’t going to say it.

“I promise,” she said finally, looking into his eyes.

He nodded, then gave her a quick kiss on her forehead and walked away.

Michael was no longer looking
for missing folders when he went back into the trailer. He was waiting.

“You set her straight?” he asked her immediately.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means, did you set her straight. Did you tell her she can’t be coming between you and your children?”

“She hasn’t been doing that, Michael.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s why Della’s at
my
house.”

“Della is at your house because—”

He bit down on it. He wasn’t going to cause more trouble for the family than he already had—even if it killed him.

“Catherine didn’t know anything about Della’s leaving until last night,” he said, making a supreme effort to be reasonable. Somebody had to understand what was going on. Somebody had to be on his side. “She came here to set
me
straight. She said that I couldn’t settle things with Della until I could sit down and talk with her—and I couldn’t do that as long as Della thought I was seeing her. Catherine called it off, Michael. Not me.”

Michael shrugged. “So maybe it’s for the best, Joey.”