CHAPTER 3
“You’re not going to wear that, are you?”
Halfway down the stairs, Kelly paused and turned slowly, suspiciously, to face her son, her eyes narrowing.
“What’s the matter with what I’m wearing, Jarod?”
“You look like—you look like someone’s mother,” he said unhappily.
“Jarod, I am someone’s mother.”
“Grandmother, then. Mom, you look like a nun.”
Kelly smiled vaguely and continued down the stairway. She didn’t look that prim, and she knew it. Her skirt was long and her blouse had a Chinese collar, but it was soft and silky in a teal blue that was becoming to her eyes and hair.
“Jarod, my outfit is fine,” she called lightly to him over her shoulder. “You’re determined to marry Sandra, and I don’t want to meet my prospective daughter-in-law looking like Bubbles La Tour.”
“Well, you don’t have to look like Sister Margaret-Mary, either!” Jarod protested.
“Get the car, dear,” Kelly said serenely.
He gave her one last exasperated glance, then gave up and went out to get the car. Kelly turned to the hallway mirror to give herself a quick once-over.
Was she dressed—too old? Maybe, but her height was such a drawback when she was trying to stand her ground, and she had to stand her ground—maturely—tonight.
She had her hair piled on top of her head, but it was soft, fine hair, and little wisps of it were spilling about her face already. Her heels were three inches high, but she still felt short. “That’s your fault, Jarod!” she said heatedly. It was impossible to feel tall when he towered over her.
He beeped the horn, and she gave herself a little shake. Face it, she told herself wryly, she wasn’t out to impress the young lovers with her age and wisdom. Marquette had mistaken her for a child at their first meeting, and she was vehemently determined to prove to that obnoxious individual that she was not—in the least—a child.
She smiled grimly, knowing full well that he wondered how old she really was. “I should tell him that I’m sixty,” she said. “And that Jarod was an accident late in life!”
The horn beeped again, and she shrugged and hurried out the door. Jarod watched her as she climbed in beside him, but she pretended not to notice. He was so anxious. Well, she wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. He was just going to have to be anxious for a while. After all, she was a nervous wreck.
Why was she so upset? she wondered. True, she had some definite opinions, and yes, a few things to say that she hoped were infinitely wise and just might help. But as to the situation, well…
There were worse things that could have happened. Jarod was alive and well. He hadn’t been in a terrible accident; he hadn’t gotten drunk and driven off a mountain. He wasn’t a dope addict.
He had just gotten a girl pregnant, and at least he still seemed to be in love with her. And she would probably turn out to be a decent young lady.
No, Kelly could handle the situation.
Marquette was the fly in the ointment. He simply rubbed her entirely the wrong way.
Kelly clinched her teeth and looked down at her hands. What difference did that make? It was Jarod’s life she had to worry about tonight. She had to meet Sandy, had to get to know Sandy, not her overbearing father.
Kelly roused herself enough to watch where they were going. They twisted and curved up the mountain until they came to a driveway overhung with foliage and seeming to lead nowhere.
It didn’t, of course. Kelly gasped at her first sight of the house. It seemed to rise naturally from the mountain, all granite and redwood and glass, immense and beautiful. From the driveway she could see the living room, with its walls of glass, and through that glass the stone fireplace, the warm earth tones of the Indian rugs and casual furniture.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Jarod demanded a little smugly.
Kelly turned on him. “I thought Marquette was some kind of historian. You didn’t tell me that he was well-off. And don’t you dare sound so smug. This doesn’t change anything.”
“Mom, you’re just so worried about money! We won’t starve. Don’t you see—”
“If you take a penny of his money, Jarod, I will be so disappointed in you that I’ll—I’ll scream.”
He laughed softly and reminded her, “You were going to give me money for college. A lot of parents do.”
“That’s different.”
“Mother—”
“Drop it, Jarod, and let’s go in before I change my mind!”
He decided that she was serious. With a sigh he walked around the car to escort her out. Kelly already felt tense and miserable.
The front door opened before they could reach it. Marquette was standing there. Kelly hesitated on the path; only Jarod’s touch got her moving again.
Marquette looked…good.
Really good. He had on a light, casual jacket, a shirt open at the neck, and nicely tailored trousers. His hair had just been washed. She could tell, because it was still damp against his forehead. He smiled when she came nearer, a deep, inviting smile. She realized with a bit of a shock that he was handsome, very handsome, and that his smile was more than inviting—it was dangerous. With those dark eyes of his and the white slash of his smile against his bronzed, rugged features, he was alluring…and exciting!
“Jarod, Mrs. McGraw, come in. Mrs. McGraw, I assume that you’re quite anxious to meet Sandy.”
Yes, of course, she was anxious to meet Sandy. But shock had done cruel things to her, Kelly decided. Marquette took her hand in one of his big ones, and his scent, not so much aftershave as some kind of clean, woodsy soap, seemed to wash over her. She wanted to shriek, let go of my hand! And of course it was worse, because even in heels she still had to tilt her head back to meet his sardonic smile.
“Mom,” Jarod prodded her. “This is Sandy.”
Kelly didn’t know what she had been expecting. Maybe some sultry Mata Hari who had led her upstanding innocent son astray. A natural reaction, perhaps. But Sandy was, quite simply, beautiful, and far more innocent-looking than Kelly could ever have expected. She was dark, like her father, with beautiful, big dark eyes, and dark hair with a touch of red that made it one of the richest shades of auburn that Kelly had ever seen. She wore it long, with no concession to fad or fashion. She was tall, too. About five-foot-nine—a beautiful height against Jarod’s size, but—irritating!
The whole damn world suddenly seemed to be tall! Kelly felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland. Here she was, so tiny, with a bunch of normal-sized people, as if she had eaten something strange.
“Sandy, how do you do?”
She offered the words softly, and gave the girl her hand with a nice smile. How could you be so perfect? she thought in despair. You’ve ruined his life! He could have had his choices of colleges….
“Come in,” Marquette said. “We’re all here. Can I get you a drink?”
“No!” she said sharply. What did he think this was, a social occasion? Of course, she told herself, it was a social occasion; they were all trying to get to know each other, and she actually did want a drink.
“Ah, yes, thank you,” she murmured easily a moment later.
Unlike her, Dan Marquette seemed to be perfectly at ease, even amused. “Come into the kitchen with me, Mrs. McGraw.”
He didn’t wait for her reply, just started across the vast living room with the wonderful glass walls and inviting fireplace.
Sandy and Jarod were staring at each other, oblivious to the fact that anyone else was around. Kelly glanced at them uneasily, then followed Dan Marquette.
The kitchen, too, was beautifully contemporary. Cool light oak European cabinetry, a big butcher-block island, restaurant range, rows of gleaming copper pots, and a booth against another glass wall.
Kelly wandered over to the window. Something smelled wonderful, though she didn’t know what was cooking. Dan pulled glasses from the cabinets, then got ice from the freezer. Kelly could feel him watching her all the while.
“What will you have?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Wine. A wine spritzer or a cooler, something like that.”
He poured wine and soda over ice and offered her the glass, searching her eyes, his own amusement so evident that Kelly snapped at him. “I can’t begin to see what you find so funny.”
“You, Mrs. McGraw.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. You are appalled that we’ve left the children together. Alone.”
“Yes, I guess I am,” Kelly replied coolly.
“Aren’t you trying to close the barn with the horse long gone?”
“Are you trying to encourage outrageous behavior?”
“Not so outrageous. Natural, I believe.”
“Natural! You’re making them sound like salmon who will just automatically swim upstream—”
“Just how old are you, Mrs. McGraw?”
“What?” Kelly gasped in horror. She hadn’t been prepared for that attack—not at all. Of course, it had been bound to come.
“How old are you, Mrs. McGraw? It’s a legitimate question, under the circumstances.”
“It’s none of your business!”
“Oh, but I think it is. You’re sitting there condemning the hell out of those kids, when you were apparently running around yourself at a very young age—”
“It’s none of your business!” Kelly repeated in fury. She slammed her glass down on the counter with such vehemence that it shattered, but she barely noticed. She stared at Marquette, then turned to leave.
He caught her arm, whirling her back around. “Stop it, Mrs. McGraw. You—”
“Let go of me! I knew this was a mistake. I’m leaving.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m not staying—”
“Oh, but you are! Aren’t you here for your son’s welfare?”
“I am—”
Kelly broke off and lifted her chin to stare at him. The insolence of this man! She looked from his face to his hand, hard upon her shoulder. She drew in a deep breath with all the dignity she could muster.
“Excuse me, Mr. Marquette. Would you mind…?”
He wasn’t offended. Nor did he release her. He simply grinned. “Dan.”
“What?”
“Mr. Marquette sounds awfully formal, under the circumstances. My name is Dan. And yours…?
“Mine is Mrs. McGraw, Mr. Marquette.”
He started to laugh. To her horror he touched her cheek, drawing a fine, quivering line along her face to her chin.
“You’re just a kid yourself, aren’t you?” he asked softly. “That makes this whole thing very hard.”
She stared at him, mesmerized, for a long second. At last she realized her position, so close to him that their bodies were almost touching, his hand on her shoulder, his other still lingering on her face. It was…intimate. And it was, she knew deep down inside herself somewhere…nice.
Nice!
That touch, so strong, so devastatingly male. His voice, hard and masculine. His scent, so clean, so male, as rugged as his mountain…
She wrenched away from him. “Mr. Marquette, I’m not a kid. I’m unhappy about this entire situation because it’s going to be very, very hard on those two children!”
He listened to her, then cocked his head and turned quickly away, and Kelly knew that he was amused again. He moved into the pantry and came back with a broom, and she saw that he meant to clean up the glass that she had shattered. She didn’t move to help him, but she didn’t move to leave again, either.
“No. Marquette, you don’t seem to understand.”
“I understand,” he said bluntly, stooping down to sweep up the broken glass. “I understand perfectly. They were attracted to each other. It happens at that age. They carried that attraction to its instinctive conclusion, and they just happened to get caught. Lady, if you don’t think I went crazy at first, you’ve missed the boat. But then, I’m starting to get that impression about you anyway. How the hell do you think I felt?”
“You’re a man—”
“Yeah, that’s exactly how I felt. Like a man—whose sweet, innocent daughter had been taken. That’s why I burst into your house the way I did. Instinct, Mrs. McGraw. I wanted to kill. Well, I was wrong. Your son is a nice kid. He and Sandy are really in love with each other. There was nothing sordid about what they did. They fell in love. And they’re still in love. I was afraid he was going to be some kind of love ’em and leave ’em jock, but—”
“Oh, you know the type well, huh?” Kelly jeered, interrupting. This wasn’t going well at all. She had wanted to be so mature, but she wasn’t handling things—he was!
“Nice strike, lady, nice strike. Why? Were you caught by that particular type? Did your father have to aim a shotgun at Mr. McGraw to get the two of you down the aisle?”
He paused in his clean-up effort and stared straight at her as he asked the question. Kelly was sorry she had broken her glass. She would have loved to dump the wine right over his head.
In fact, the urge was so strong that she decided to go for his glass. She reached for it in sudden frenzy.
But he was prepared. His arm shot out, and his fingers caught her wrist in a twisting, vise-like grip.
“What a temper. A few more years might cure it!” he warned her.
“Too bad nothing will ever cure you!” she retorted, pulling away from his grasp. As she did so, she slipped on the wet floor and fell to her knees. She winced sharply; she’d knelt on glass, and it had cut into her knee.
Marquette was instantly concerned, and he put his hand on her shoulder again.
“Just let me go. The glass—”
But he didn’t let her go. He stood, and she found herself swept up into his strong arms. Instinctively she wound her own arms around his neck for balance. He held her easily with one arm and touched the wound with his free hand. “Oh, damn. I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s deep.”
He set her down at the table and quickly reached into a cabinet for antiseptic and a bandage. He knelt down beside her again, touching her wound carefully.
“It’s nothing, really.”
“The stocking has to go,” he murmured, his hand on her leg. Kelly, crimson and mortified and certain that he meant to remove her stocking himself, leaped up, quickly finding her garter and releasing the offending garment. Marquette removed her shoe and began to slide the stocking down her leg.
It was just then that Jarod and Sandy made their appearance in the kitchen.
“Mother!” Jarod said.
“Dad…?” Sandy queried.
Kelly felt color flooding her entire body. She was sitting, Dan Marquette at her feet. Her stocking was in his hand, her bare leg resting over his knee. She wanted to die….
Dan didn’t seem to be upset in the least.
“Your mom’s glass broke,” he said smoothly, dropping the stocking and picking up the antiseptic. “She cut her knee.”
Kelly was sure that she could have heard a pin drop, but Dan Marquette was still undaunted. He daubed the antiseptic on her knee with straightforward attention, murmuring that it would be all right when she inhaled sharply at the stinging pain.
“Is it okay, Mom?” Jarod asked anxiously, moving over to her.
“Oh, yes, really, it’s not that bad. I, uh, I—”
“Sandy, do me a favor, please, will you?” Marquette asked his daughter. “Finish picking up that glass before someone else gets cut. Jarod, why don’t you make your mom another spritzer?”
Sandy obediently began to clean up the broken glass and spilled wine, while Jarod made Kelly a drink and brought it over to her. All she saw was that dark masculine head bent over her knee, and she was nearly overwhelmed by the impulse to run her fingers through that thick hair. They actually itched…her fingers itched. It would be so natural to touch him.
“There, that should do it.” Marquette looked up at her. He was smiling. A devilish smile, a fascinating smile. She returned his stare. Don’t! Don’t you do this to me, she insisted silently. You won’t get away with it, I’m not a kid, and I’m not about to fall for you, no matter how masculine and charming you think you are!
He merely shrugged, and his grin deepened. Then he rose.
“Jarod, the salad is in the refrigerator. Sandy, you check on the roast and the potatoes.”
Sandy laughed. “Hey, Dad! What’s your job here, huh?”
He laughed in return. “I’m going to help Mrs. McGraw hobble out to the table. That other shoe really needs to go, too.”
Kelly didn’t get a chance to protest. He was already slipping off her second shoe.
“How do you ever walk in these things, anyway?” he demanded.
“I manage fine,” Kelly retorted.
He grinned, offering her his hand.
“Her name is Kelly,” Jarod offered.
“Kelly,” Dan Marquette murmured, staring at her warmly. “Nice. Fitting. Irish…green.”
“Short,” Jarod teased.
“Jarod!” Kelly gave him a sharp warning. But Jarod didn’t notice it, or maybe he did, but felt that he was safe.
Kelly swallowed back another retort. She wanted to help these kids as badly as Marquette did, but really! They should have been responsible, and they should feel somewhat chastised this evening. Instead, they were having a good time—at her expense.
Marquette’s hand was out, though, and she had little choice but to accept it. He led her out—barefoot—to the dining room, a beautiful room, all in glass, like the living room, and simply decorated in an Oriental style. Kelly looked around while Jarod set out the salad—a really nice salad for a single man, she had to admit. Unless, of course, Sandy had made it. Sandy brought out hot rolls, while Jarod disappeared, then reappeared with sodas for the two of them. Finally everyone was seated.
Jarod glanced at Dan Marquette and his mother, then mouthed out a quick grace. Then, being Jarod—a healthy and still-growing young man—he commented on how delicious the food was. Kelly found herself echoing the sentiment, then asking Dan whether he or Sandy had done the cooking.
“Neither,” he responded. “Reeves is the cook.”
“Reeves had been with us all my life,” Sandy explained to Kelly. “What is he, Dad? Sort of a gentleman’s gentleman, I suppose. After all these years he’s still very proper and very British. He’s great. He’s the best ‘mum’ any girl ever had.” Sandy waved a hand in the air. “Dad and I are chaotic at best, but everything runs smoothly because of Reeves.”
Kelly watched Sandy, smiling. It was so ridiculous! Here they were carrying on this polite and normal conversation, and the long-haired, innocent little beauty sitting across from her was pregnant with her grandchild!
Kelly heard herself ask Sandy where Reeves was, and Sandy explained that he had his own room at the back of the house.
“He needs a certain independence,” she explained.
“I think we’re all done with our salad,” Dan murmured. Sandy and Jarod jumped to their feet together and collected the plates.
As if everything had been choreographed, Kelly thought. And it had been. It felt like “them” against “her.”
The kids disappeared into the kitchen. Kelly felt Dan Marquette staring at her, and she looked over at him inquiringly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“Wrong?” She sipped her spritzer, then sat back in her chair and laughed. “Wrong?” She had to be careful; her voice was threatening to rise hysterically. “What could be wrong? Those two are children, with no apparent sense of right or wrong or responsibility, and they’re going to have a child. Unless—”
“Unless?” Marquette said sharply. He was smiling, but his dark eyes wee narrowed as he leaned closer to her. “Unless? What are you suggesting, Mrs. McGraw? That Sandra have an abortion?”
His blunt suggestion made her color again, and Kelly had to inhale slowly in order to reply. She was too furious at his assumption to even bother setting him straight.
“I’m thinking of your daughter more than I’m thinking of my son,” she said flatly. “Both their lives will have to change, but trust me, it’s the woman who has the child. Sandy will bear the brunt of whatever comes.”
He leaned back again, watching her, idly running his fingers down his glass. Kelly found herself watching those fingers and trembling inside.
“I think you’re missing the main point here, Kelly. These two know what they’re going to do. We can be their friends or their enemies, but we can’t change their minds.”
Sandy came back into the dining room with a smile on her face that quickly faded when she saw the way that the adults were looking at each other.
Jarod sailed back in carrying a huge platter of parsleyed potatoes and broccoli in cheese sauce. His smile faded, too.
Kelly looked down at her plate when Dan stood up to carve the roast. She found herself becoming vaguely aware that he had started using her first name when he asked for her plate and piled it high with food.
They all sat down to eat in silence. Kelly felt that since she had caused the discomfort, she ought to alleviate it. But all she could think of saying was, “Everything is really delicious.”
“Thank you,” Marquette said stiffly.
“Mrs. McGraw, your glass is empty,” Sandy said softly. “Can I fix you another drink?”
Kelly sat back, smiling at the girl who would soon be her daughter-in-law. “Are you trying to ply me with liquor? Ask Jarod—my tongue just gets sharper.”
Sandy flushed and laughed, and Jarod assured her that they were going to hear from his mother one way or another that evening, anyway. Dan Marquette stood up, excused himself and disappeared with both glasses. He returned with them refilled, and Kelly suddenly felt more comfortable, though she couldn’t have said why. She stared at Sandy bluntly.
“Sandy, I’ll start off with the tough stuff. I admit that I’m deeply disappointed in both of you. You seem like a lovely young lady, but what you did was—”
“Mother,” Jarod interrupted uncomfortably. “Come on! We’re seniors. Everyone—”
“Everyone?” Kelly murmured, watching them both. “‘Everyone’ isn’t expecting a child, and ‘everyone’—”
“All right,” Jarod interjected. “What do you want, Mom? A blow-by-blow description of how we let it happen?”
“Jarod!”
“Well, Mom, we weren’t planning what happened the first time!”
“You were careless and irresponsible!” Kelly retorted, her son’s attitude pushing her temper higher. “And now you act like you’re being Mr. Magnanimous, Jarod! Sandy is going to do the majority of the paying—have you really thought about that? Sandy, have you thought about it? I can’t change your minds, can’t make you do anything, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the ‘right’ thing really is. But, Sandy, you have options. You don’t have to have this baby—and neither your father, Jarod or I has the right to make you!”
Sandy had gone ashen. Marquette looked as if he were about to explode and Jarod seemed ready to strangle his mother, but Kelly kept going. This was for Sandy, between the two of them as women, and she didn’t feel that either Jarod or Dan had the right to interrupt her until she was done.
“Or you could have the baby and give it up for adoption.”
“Oh, my God!” Sandy whispered, close to tears.
Marquette’s chair slid back along the floor, but Kelly ignored the sound and leaned closer to the girl.
“I wouldn’t want that, Sandy. That baby is my grandchild. To be honest, what I want is for you and Jarod to marry each other. It’s just that it’s going to be hard, Sandy. Miserably hard. I want you and Jarod to see that; I want you both to see your options, and then, Sandy, once you two make your decision, I swear that I’ll back you and help you in any way that I can. If I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry.”
There was silence, complete silence. Then Sandy burst into tears and stood up to race from the room. Jarod hopped to his feet, cast Kelly a cold stare and raced after her.
From somewhere Kelly heard a clock chime. Dan Marquette was still, dead still, but Kelly couldn’t look at him.
She heard him rise, and heard him walk over to the window. Felt him when he turned to watch her in silence once again.
“What? What!” Kelly shrieked at last. “Are you going to rip into me for hurting your daughter? Get it over with. Go ahead. Everything that I said was important and—”
“Yes, it was.”
“What?”
Startled, Kelly stared at him. He was smiling at her. “It is going to be hard, and it is important that they think about what they’re doing.”
“Oh…”
He came back to the table and sat down next to her. Kelly instantly felt as if the temperature in the room had risen by ten degrees. He wasn’t touching her, he wasn’t even very close, but she could feel him. Could feel his smile, feel those dark eyes.
“You don’t want to talk to me, Kelly McGraw, but I’d have to be blind not to know that you were ridiculously young when you had Jarod. How old are you now? Thirty-five?”
“Forty-five!” Kelly lied quickly.
He only laughed again. “Thirty-six? Thirty-four? Things went badly for you—I’m sorry. But you should know that things that start off well can go badly, too. Sandy was planned, Kelly. Her mother and I met in college; we got married right after graduation. Sandy was born a year after our wedding day. Perfect planning. Or so I thought. Well, her mother left when Sandy was five days old. So much for planning. I think that Jarod loves Sandy—and I know that she loves him. Yes, it’s going to be hard. Let’s help them make it, shall we?”
She turned slowly to stare at him. At the dark eyes gazing so intently into her own. At that smile. That charming, masculine, diabolical smile.
His hand was stretched toward her. He wanted her to take it.
Kelly stared from his hand to his eyes, and then back to his hand again.
“We still haven’t gotten anywhere here,” she murmured. “They have to finish their senior year. Sandy is going to get more and more pregnant—”
“Pregnant is pregnant,” Marquette interrupted dryly. “She can’t get any more pregnant than she already is. She can just get closer to giving birth.”
“That’s what I mean! We have to decide how to—how to handle this!”
Kelly looked at him, suddenly wide-eyed with confusion. There really was so much to do! A wedding, a place to live, college, and on and on…
“It will go much better,” Marquette murmured, “if you and I are friends. Don’t you think?”
His hand closed over hers, and Kelly stared at it. She felt his power, his warmth.
No, she thought. No, no, no…
She realized that she was afraid to be his friend. He would demand a great deal of a…friend.