A Kiss Remembered

by Sandra Brown

  Her eyes flashed open, her head snapped up, and the spiderwebs in her brain fell away. “What time is it?” she asked, glancing wildly at the wall clock. “Nine-forty. Good-bye, Mom, I’ll call you later. I’ve got to hurry. Oh, and thanks!”

  She threw down the telephone receiver and swept out of the room like a tornado, tearing off her robe as she ran across the living room.

  “I’m going after him. Something I should have done a long time ago,” she said to herself as she stepped into boots and pulled on a dress. Grant couldn’t have gotten that girl pregnant. “Besides that, he loves me. I know it.”

  She whirled into the bathroom to hastily apply her makeup. Luckily she had showered and washed her hair the night before.

  “I’ve loved him for ten years,” she said to the reflection in the mirror. “I should have gone to him directly after I graduated from high school and told him that. Gone straight to Washington to see him, or called him, or written him, but I didn’t. A nice girl doesn’t do things like that. She does what’s expected of her. She marries an acceptable man whether she loves him or not. She goes with the flow and never swims upstream.”

  She had always loved Grant, but had lacked the courage to claim that love. All her life she’d been afraid of creating the tiniest ripple. This time, if she had to, she was going to make a wave.

  “Young lady, you’d better have a very good reason for disrupting this meeting and barging your way in here,” the judge said sternly.

  “I do,” Shelley stated without timidity. She looked directly at Pru Zimmerman. “She’s lying. Mr. Chapman couldn’t possibly have fathered her baby, if indeed she’s pregnant.”

  After arriving at the courthouse, Shelley had discovered that the hearing was being held in the judge’s chambers. Apparently the parties were going to try to settle the suit out of court.

  Shelley had approached the court bailiff, handed him a note and insisted that she be allowed into the chambers as she had information pertinent to the lawsuit being reviewed. The bailiff was hesitant, but finally obliged her by taking the note inside.

  She’d heard Grant’s loud “No” of objection and the protests of Pru Zimmerman, but she’d been allowed to go in. Facing the querulous judge had caused her barely a qualm. Now that she had boldly made her statement, she felt a great sense of pride.

  For the first time since she had entered the judge’s chambers, Shelley looked at Grant. His eyes telegraphed his love to her. She almost sank to the floor with relief that he didn’t blame her for her temporary lack of trust.

  “Miss Zimmerman is undeniably pregnant,” the judge told her. “We have an affidavit to that effect from a reputable doctor, Mrs. Robins. On what do you base your statement?”

  She straightened her shoulders. “Mr. Chapman has shown on several occasions that he has no interest in this girl. Miss Zimmerman came to his house once while I was there and pushed her way inside. Mr. Chapman insisted that she leave immediately and not come back. At that time she promised to get even with him for his rejection of her. I think this is her means to do so.” She explained, too, about the time Pru had telephoned. “Mr. Chapman wasn’t happy over the call. He didn’t even want to talk to her.”

  “You’re drawing conclusions, but I’ll let that pass for now,” he said. “On these occasions when you were at Mr. Chapman’s house”—the judge cleared his throat—“were you there on a purely platonic basis?”

  There was a heavy silence in the room. “No.”

  The judge’s eyebrows shot upward. He then allowed a few ponderous moments to pass while he tapped a pencil against a stack of papers on his desk. He looked toward the table where Pru Zimmerman sat whispering with her attorney. Then his hawklike eyes slid to Grant.

  “Mr. Chapman, I’m not unfamiliar with that unfortunate matter in Washington. Whether you were blameless in that affair or not has no bearing on this. However, once a man is implicated in a scandal, he is vulnerable to false accusations. I remind you that you are still under oath. Have you ever had carnal knowledge of Miss Zimmerman?”

  “I have not.” His voice was low, vibrant, firm, indisputable.

  Pru Zimmerman squirmed in her chair when the judge pinned her with his stern eyes. “Well?”

  Her face and her composure collapsed at the same time. She covered her face with her hands. “My boyfriend left me. I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  The room was filled with confusion. While Pru’s attorney led her from the chambers, she begged both Grant and Shelley to forgive her for lying. Finally, the judge recited the legal jargon that would officially dismiss the case against Grant.

  When he was done, Grant lunged across the room, wrapped his hand around Shelley’s arm and drew her to a more private spot near the window. His hands cupped her face and lifted it up to meet the love burning in his eyes. “Why did you put yourself through that? The truth would have come out in only a few short minutes.”

  “I wanted you to know how explicitly I trust you. How much I love you. Forgive me for letting you down when you needed my faith the most.”

  He kissed her gently on the mouth. “I’ll admit I was mad as hell when I left your house, but I’ve had all week to think about it. One can’t really blame a bride for getting upset when her groom is slapped with a paternity suit on the day of the wedding.” He laughed, but it was a sad sound. “God, I’m sorry, Shelley. If we live to be a hundred years old, I’ll never be able to make that up to you.”

  “You already have. By loving me.”

  “But this may not be the last time something like this happens. As the judge said, my character and reputation will be suspect for a long time.”

  “I can handle anything as long as I know you love me.”

  “I do.” He clasped her to him as though he wanted to make her part of his body.

  “Grant, why didn’t you tell me you had called asking for me years ago?”

  He straightened to look down at her. “How did you know about that?”

  “Mother accidentally told me this morning. Why didn’t you tell me that at the beginning?”

  “I was afraid you might think I was grandstanding. Or you might have thought I was clinging to the past and not seeing you as the woman you are now. Once I knew how you felt about me, I hesitated to tell you. You were bitter enough about your marriage. I didn’t want you lamenting over things that might have been.”

  “I’ll always regret the years we wasted apart, regret that I didn’t let you know what I felt once I was old enough to realize it wasn’t merely idol worship.”

  “Let’s not waste any more time,” he whispered, raking his lips across hers.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Judge?” he called to the man who was straightening his desk. The judge looked up, surprised to see them now that everyone else had left. “Would you do us a favor? Would you marry us?”

  “You don’t look like any banker I’ve ever seen,” Grant drawled from the door of the bathroom as she stepped out of the shower.

  “And you just love telling me that,” she said, flicking her fingers close to his face and sprinkling it with water.

  He took the towel out of her hand and tossed it on the floor. “Let’s just say I’ve never had a lech for a loan officer before. I’ve never had the urge to do this.” He covered her breast with his hand and rotated the palm over the puckering nipple. “Nor have I ever seen a banker carrying a sweet little bundle like this.” His other hand smoothed over the gentle swelling of her abdomen.

  “It’s not so little anymore,” she said against the warm masculine skin of his throat.

  “Do they make maternity clothes in conservative gray pinstripes?”

  “I hate conservative gray pinstripes as much as you do. No one has complained about my maternity clothes. It gives my women customers confidence to see a woman combining a career and motherhood.”

  Four months of pregnancy had made little difference in her body except for the obviously
healthy growth of the infant and the fullness of her breasts, both of which delighted the expectant father. Grant’s hands explored her abdomen each day, measuring the progress of their child.

  “I love him already,” he said, kissing the still supple skin of her abdomen. “But not quite as much as I love his mother,” he whispered, straightening up far enough to kiss the deep cleft between her breasts.

  “Even after three years of marriage?”

  “Has it been that long?” His mind wasn’t on the conversation. He was lazily testing the texture of her nipple against his tongue.

  She purred and slipped her hand past the waistband of his trousers. “Yes, and I’m still fighting coeds off you.”

  “Naw,” he scoffed with what breath was left him.

  “Oh yes. They can be hot-blooded, too. I know what it’s like to sit in a classroom and lust after the teacher.”

  “You do?”

  “Um-huh.”

  After her graduation, they had moved from Cedar-wood to Tulsa where she had secured a prestigious position in a bank. Grant had begun teaching at a noted state college and within two years had become chairman of the political-science and prelaw department. He was still as ruggedly handsome as ever, trim and athletic. The additional silver in his hair only heightened his attractiveness.

  For their first Christmas together, she’d given him a pipe and a tweed jacket with suede patches on the elbows. He’d looked up from the unwrapped present with ill-disguised disappointment. “No professor should be without them,” she’d said teasingly. On December 26 he’d exchanged them for a leather battle jacket and a tight pair of jeans. Grudgingly, she had admitted that they were an improvement over her selections, but she glared at every woman on campus who dared to appreciate his sex appeal overtly.

  Now and then fragmented accounts of the Lancaster scandal would surface, but the details of it grew dim in public memory. Grant was admired for what he was now. The shadowy past had little influence on the respect he presently commanded. Indeed, he’d been asked to consider running for the state legislature.

  “Do you want to?” Shelley had asked in delight when he’d informed her of the political-party committee that had approached him.

  “I wouldn’t be opposed to becoming involved on a local or even a state level. Maybe if we inject some integrity into state politics, some of the muck I saw in Washington will clear up.”

  He was still considering it and she had made it clear that whatever his decision, she was behind him all the way. Her life was full to overflowing. The years with Daryl, who they had read was already divorced from his second wife, might never have been. Her life had begun the day Grant Chapman had invited her for coffee after his political-science class. Or rather, the day he had kissed her the first time when she was still in high school. Those dismal years in between had almost been erased from her memory.

  Now, as he held her, all the love she had for him went into her ardent caress. “Shelley,” he gasped. “Since you’re not behaving at all like a reserved banker should, I’m going to have to unzip my pants.”

  “Why don’t you just take them off,” she suggested with a sultry voice and a lascivious wink. Their hands competed over whose could move the fastest, until he was as naked as she.

  “Got any more good ideas?” he asked in her ear as he slid his hand between her slender thighs.

  “Um-huh,” she hummed. She touched him again, rubbing him against her own body.

  He sighed her name as he lifted her and carried her into the bedroom. Laying her gently on the bed, he came down beside her, facing her. She nuzzled her face against the crinkly dark hair on his chest. Her mouth moved seductively. Daintily she caressed him with her tongue.

  “Shelley, you’re … yes … sweet… .”

  She lifted her head for the glory of his deep, plundering kiss. As ever, it robbed her of breath, of reason. The cords of her body began to vibrate like the strings of a finely tuned harp. She closed her lips around his tongue as it roamed her mouth, tasting her, gathering her essence and making it his.

  His hands cupped her breasts, lifting them and pressing them together. He lowered his head and praised the new dusky color of the sensitive nipples.

  “Grant, love me,” she beseeched him as he joined their two bodies into one.

  Embedded deep inside her, he rocked them toward the sublime. “This is the way I first made love to you,” he said. “Remember, Shelley?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said against his mouth as she felt herself slipping into the velvet oblivion. “I remember.”