Wait for Me (9 page)

She slid her hand between his arm and body. Instinctively he quickly took her fingers in his and held them tight.

“Max was a real character. He liked to watch football, baseball, horse racing, hockey, anything he could bet on. But I didn’t see any of the betting going on. All I saw was him taking the time to take me with him. I thought he was the best thing to come along since skateboards. He was loud and happy and he didn’t care how late he kept me out at night. Not like the old man. All he cared about was my getting my homework done and making sure Max got me home early so I’d get plenty of sleep. The few times he’d remember to show up at my soccer games or pick me up from football practice, I’d want to slither under the sod. He embarrassed me to death. The world’s oldest and most boring father, and he was all mine.”

“You were young, Oliver. All boys want Superman to be their dad,” she said, finally realizing that the contempt in his manner was not for his father but for himself.

“Max was Superman,” he told her. “He introduced me to the wild, wonderful world of women when I was fifteen. I’d look at him and then I’d look at me and then I’d look at my father and... I didn’t even try to hide my disgust for him after that,” he said, his shame heavy in his heart. “I was so blind.”

She couldn’t stand to watch him beating himself up for deeds long in the past.

“When did it all change?” she asked. “When did you fall in love with your father?”

Her wording jolted him. Technically, however, falling in love with his father and out of love with Max was pretty much what had happened. He smiled and sighed, his memory fast-forwarding to a more pleasant time.

“It started in my second year of college. I was prelaw at USC Berkeley. I could have stayed on campus, but I actually had more freedom staying at home. The old man had long since stopped trying to make any attempts at fathering me, and nobody else gave a damn what I did. I was out of control,” he said, having no trouble with the admission. “Fighting, drinking, sleeping around. I had money and freedom and a will of my own. A dangerous combination for a kid as stupid as I was.”

“For any kid, I would think,” she said, amazed at how hard he was being on himself. Times had changed and turned out for the best, but Oliver hadn’t put any of it into perspective yet.

“I was accused of cheating on my finals,” he announced. It sounded an awful lot like he’d been accused of murder. “They could have accused me of just about anything else in those days, and I probably would have been guilty, but... I never could bring myself to cheat—not on girls, or tests, or anything else. And for the first time in a very long time, I was scared. I’d had minor run-ins with the law that hadn’t scared me that much.”

“They could have expelled you, ruined your career,” she said, fully understanding the implications.

“So what if they did?” He laughed. “If I never worked a day in my life, I’d have had plenty of money, and I knew it. And when the old man died, I’d have had more.”

“Then why did you care? What difference would it have made? You could have gone to fifty other schools that were just as good, graduated, and gone on to law school. Why was going to USC so important?”

“It wasn’t.”

“Then what was it?”

“I couldn’t get anyone to believe that I hadn’t cheated. No one believed me. No one believed
in
me. I was like this invisible thing that no one could see or hear or take seriously. No one cared.”

“Except your father.”

He nodded. “I went to Max first, of course. By then I’d discovered he wasn’t the superman I’d believed him to be. He was forever playing around behind Elizabeth’s back, and every loan shark in town had his private number. But he knew stuff. He could wiggle out of anything. I’d seen him do it a hundred times over.”

“What did he tell you to do?”

“He told me to lie. He told me to tell them I didn’t do it, that they couldn’t prove I did it, and if they expelled me, I’d sue.”

“But...”

“I know.” He laughed again. “I was innocent. I told him I was. But even he didn’t believe me.”

“So you went to your father.”

He shook his head. “What could he do? He was a wimp, remember?”

“What did you do?”

“I demanded a review board hearing. I was going to defend myself—but I didn’t stand a chance. There wasn’t a professor at that school who was willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, or one I hadn’t insulted yet either, it seemed. There wasn’t even a glimmer of a second chance in the room when I walked in that day.”

“What happened?”

“I stated my case and they pretended to listen. They conferred for about half a second and came back to me with blood in the eyes. Then, just as they started to read me the riot act, the door in the back of the room opened. I’ll never forget it. Everyone turned to look and there was this little old man standing there, wearing a red bow tie and, holding in his hand this dumb hat he always wore. I thought I was going to sink through the floor. It even crossed my mind to pretend that I didn’t know who he was, but then he started talking, real soft the way he always did, so people had to stop breathing to hear what he was saying.”

He was lost in the recollection for a moment, then he smiled.

“He said he was ashamed to have to admit that I was his son, but nevertheless the fact was inescapable—that was the way he talked, like a Victorian throwback. He said that I had very little character, that I was irresponsible, spoiled, and selfish, but that, as was true of even the lowest of the lowly, I did have a redeeming quality.” He laughed heartily. “He had those profs sitting on the edge of their chairs, wondering what it was.”

“And...” she prompted, failing to see any humor.

“He told them that I was so greedy and self-serving that I always took whatever I wanted, that I didn’t know how to cheat because I’d never had to. And he knew for a fact that I never lied because I didn’t have enough self-respect to care what anyone thought of me. And, therefore—that’s what he said, “therefore”—I couldn’t have cheated on my exams because I wouldn’t bother to lie about it if I had. Then he proposed that they let me repeat the exam under close observation to prove that I knew the material.”

“And did you?”

“Yes, but I was so nervous, I wasn’t sure I’d remember any of it for the exam.”

“And did you talk to your father afterward?”

“I asked him why he did it, why he came to my defense.” He paused. “He said he did it for my mother. That what little goodness there was in me, was left there by her. And because he loved her, he would always love the goodness in me.”

“It doesn’t sound as if there was much there to love, Oliver.”

He chuckled. “There wasn’t. But after that I started seeing things differently. Not right away. But gradually. It bothered me that the only person in the world who believed in me, who believed there was at least one shred of good in me somewhere, was this shriveled-up old man who wrote poetry. It fascinated me. I wanted to know why. I wanted to know what it was in him that made him believe in me after all I’d done to him.”

“And did you ever find out?”

“Oh, sure. But it took me another ten years.”

“Ten years?”

“When he retired eight years ago and moved to Palm Springs—for the drier climate—he turned everything over to me. I’d changed some by then.” He chuckled. “I was still a crazy kid inside, but I worked hard at controlling it. I thought I was as straight as a wall. I wanted to be. I wanted... not to disappoint the old man. I didn’t want him to know how wrong he was about me. But that didn’t happen overnight, and trustees and board members have very long memories, and, well, my father was going to be a hard act for anyone to follow.”

“They all liked him.”

He nodded. “I worked for him for a while when I got out of school and was humbled every time I rediscovered the fact that his quiet thoughtfulness extended far beyond his poetry to a very cunning business mind. He was a genius. Very clever. Made a ton of money for the company and the foundation and never took any credit for it. It... hurt when the board and the trustees refused my nomination. I knew I wouldn’t ever be able to fill his shoes, but I’d been trying to emulate him some—his honesty, his respect and genuine concern for other people... his kindness, gentleness...”

“But everyone still thought you were a spoiled brat,” she concluded.

“Pretty much.”

“So, what happened?”

“He called a meeting. I was conveniently out of town at the time, but I’ve heard that he reminded everyone that it was he who had made them all rich, and that doing so had been a mere by-product of his true intent. He was Adrian Carey and he was the boss. He hadn’t been working for them all those years, and if they couldn’t accept the son that he trusted and loved and had been building the company for as a legacy of that love, then he’d tear it apart and sell it piece by piece before he died, and they all knew there wouldn’t be a damned thing they could do to stop him. It was the first time anyone had ever heard him yell or swear.”

Holly had goose bumps racing up her arms. She wanted him to start over at the beginning and tell the story again.

“I went running down to Palm Springs for his advice a lot those first few years,” he remembered good-naturedly. “And he never failed me. Never had failed me, really. He’d always been there, he just... well, it just took me a long time to get to know him.”

“And now you miss him.”

“Like an arm or a leg. I feel as if there’s a big chunk of me missing.”

“If your father could see that the good in you was left by your mother, then what honesty and intelligence and gentleness and kindness you have was left by him. And as long as you are all those things, then he isn’t really gone, is he?” she asked, almost as if she were talking to herself. She was even more speculative when she added, “Maybe that’s why people have children.”

They passed back into a companionable silence, comfortable in their own thoughts, content to share time and space.

The space Oliver was sharing, however, was somehow broader, augmented in a way that had him breathing more deeply and curbing an urge to stretch his muscles. He felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest, or a dark cloud that had settled in his heart had suddenly dissipated. He recalled many forgotten memories of his father with gladness and knew not a single pang of guilt or pain.

“Know what I feel like doing?” he asked abruptly.

“Buying ice cream?” she asked hopefully, her eyes fixed on the Double Dip Cafe across the street from the park. There was an ice cream Christmas tree, with all fifty-six flavors, painted on the window.

“I wish you’d stop that. It makes me nervous as hell.”

“What?”

“You know what.”

She grinned. “Can I help it if I was thinking how romantic it would be if you were to buy me an ice cream cone to eat in the rain a week before Christmas?”

“Most women wouldn’t be thinking that was romantic,” he grumbled. “They’d be thinking I was trying to freeze them to death. And, Ms. Knowitall,
I
was actually thinking I’d like to get in out of the rain. This isn’t my idea of a romantic date.”

“It isn’t?” She looked surprised. “Are you telling me that you don’t think kissing in the rain is romantic?”

“We aren’t kissing.”

“We could be.”

He stopped walking and turned to her, holding his breath.

“Could we be?”

She smiled and gave him an all-things-are-possible look.

N
O ONE WOULD HAVE
guessed that he was trembling inside when he palmed her cheek in one big hand. No one would have guessed how often he’d relived their first kiss or how much he’d looked forward to the next. No one would have guessed that the drops of water he thumbed from her lips were as silky and warm as her skin or that her eyes could sparkle like gold dust. No one would have guessed that her hand could sear his skin through a coat and a sweater or how crippling it could be to watch her lips part in anticipation. No one would have guessed...

Oliver bent his head. He watched her pupils dilate as he came closer, and her eyes close as he brushed his lips against hers. Tender and tantalizing. He traced them with the tip of his tongue. Dewy fresh. Honey sweet. He nibbled on her lower lip. Supple and sensuous. He pulled her tight into his arms. It felt so right, so real. His jagged nerves snapped at the tiny sound in her throat when his mouth covered hers and he fed. Hungry, greedy, and possessive.

No one would have guessed...

She wrapped her arms about his neck and hung on tight. The earth had slipped from beneath her feet, and the cloudy skies grew dim and fanciful. There were stars and then clouds and then nothing at all. Nothing but the pounding of her heart and a clawing need. Her skin screamed for his touch; her muscles ached with restraint. Joints grew weak, and passion spread like water over glass.

Attack and surrender, her body played games and her senses were unreliable. She was strong and weak at once, starving but too feeble to eat.

They separated in a fog that was thicker and more profoundly mysterious than any misty cloud that had ever covered the Bay Area.

He stepped back, but didn’t release her. She was hardly breathing. Her soul wept with deprivation. She opened her eyes to see the wonder and the struggle in his eyes, and knew that they mirrored her own.

He smiled, thinking how strange it must look with the rain turning to steam all around them.

“Maybe we should try that ice cream after all,” he said.

She laughed. “Maybe they’ll let us roll in it.”

He had a sudden vision of the last two tattered shirts in his closet and couldn’t have cared less—he kissed her again for the sheer pleasure of it and knew a sudden and deep empathy for poor Barry Paulson.

“So, what exactly is your idea of a romantic date?” she asked, licking ice cream from the corner of her mouth with the tip of her tongue in a way that had him licking his own chops—but for a very different reason.

A romantic date... Dating was dating. The groundwork for sex. The mandatory price one paid for respectable sex, he supposed. But a romantic date? Certainly, sex would be an element to consider, but somehow he wanted romance to be more than that for Holly. More for him too. He wanted it to be sex without touching; a kiss in every glance; whispering secrets and sharing dreams without speaking... A romantic date wouldn’t be easy to arrange.