Local Hero

by Nora Roberts

  She laughed, and even when he slipped his hand over hers, felt no embarrassment. “So you said before. They’re long, anyway. I was taller than my brother until he was out of high school. It infuriated him, and I had to live down the name Stretch.”

  “Mine was String.”

  “String?”

  “You know those pictures of the eighty-pound weakling? That was me.”

  Over the rim of her glass, Hester studied the way he filled out the suit jacket. “I don’t believe it.”

  “One day, if I’m drunk enough, I’ll show you pictures.”

  Mitch ordered in flawless French that had Hester staring. This was the comic book writer, she thought, who built snow forts and talked to his dog. Catching the look, Mitch lifted a brow. “I spent a couple of summers in Paris during high school.”

  “Oh.” It reminded her forcefully where he’d come from. “You said you didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Do your parents live in New York?”

  “No.” He broke off a hunk of crusty French bread. “My mother zips in from time to time to shop or go to the theater, and my father might come in occasionally on business, but New York isn’t their style. They still live most of the year in Newport, where I grew up.”

  “Oh, Newport. We drove through once when I was a kid. We’d always take these rambling car vacations in the summer.” She tucked her hair behind her ear in an unconscious gesture that gave him a tantalizing view of her throat. “I remember the houses, the enormous mansions with the pillars and flowers and ornamental trees. We even took pictures. It was hard to believe anyone really lived there.” Then she caught herself up abruptly and glanced over at Mitch’s amused face. “You did.”

  “It’s funny. I spent some time with binoculars watching the tourists in the summer. I might have homed in on your family.”

  “We were the ones in the station wagon with the suitcases strapped to the roof.”

  “Sure, I remember you.” He offered her a piece of bread. “I envied you a great deal.”

  “Really?” She paused with her butter knife in midair. “Why?”

  “Because you were going on vacation and eating hot dogs. You were staying in motels with soda machines outside the door and playing car bingo between cities.”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “I suppose that sums it up.”

  “I’m not pulling poor-little-rich boy,” he added when he saw the change in her eyes. “I’m just saying that having a big house isn’t necessarily better than having a station wagon.” He added more wine to her glass. “In any case, I finished my rebellious money-is-beneath-me stage a long time ago.”

  “I don’t know if I can believe that from someone who lets dust collect on his Louis Quinze.”

  “That’s not rebellion, that’s laziness.”

  “Not to mention sinful,” she put in. “It makes me itch for a polishing cloth and lemon oil.”

  “Any time you want to rub my mahogany, feel free.”

  She lifted a brow when he smiled at her. “So what did you do during your rebellious stage?”

  Her fingertips grazed his. It was one of the few times she’d touched him without coaxing. Mitch lifted his gaze from their hands to her face. “You really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll make a deal. One slightly abridged life story for another.”

  It wasn’t the wine that was making her reckless, Hester knew, but him. “All right. Yours first.”

  “We’ll start off by saying my parents wanted me to be an architect. It was the only practical and acceptable profession they could see me using my drawing abilities for. The stories I made up didn’t really appall them; they merely baffled them—so they were easily ignored. Straight out of high school, I decided to sacrifice my life to art.”

  Their appetizers were served. Mitch sighed approvingly over his escargots.

  “So you came to New York?”

  “No, New Orleans. At that time my money was still in trusts, though I doubt I would have used it, in any case. Since I refused to use my parents’ financial backing, New Orleans was as close to Paris as I could afford to get. God, I loved it. I starved, but I loved the city. Those dripping, steamy afternoons, the smell of the river. It was my first great adventure. Want one of these? They’re incredible.”

  “No, I—”

  “Come on, you’ll thank me.” He lifted his fork to her lips. Reluctantly, Hester parted them and accepted.

  “Oh.” The flavor streamed, warm and exotic, over her tongue. “It’s not what I expected.”

  “The best things usually aren’t.”

  She lifted her glass and wondered what Radley’s reaction would be when she told him she’d eaten a snail. “So what did you do in New Orleans?”

  “I set up an easel in Jackson Square and made my living sketching tourists and selling watercolors. For three years I lived in one room where I baked in the summer and froze in the winter and considered myself one lucky guy.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was a woman. I thought I was crazy about her and vice versa. She modeled for me when I was going through my Matisse period. You should have seen me then. My hair was about your length, and I wore it pulled back and fastened with a leather thong. I even had a gold earring in my left ear.”

  “You wore an earring?”

  “Don’t smirk, they’re very fashionable now. I was ahead of my time.” Appetizers were cleared away to make room for green salads. “Anyway, we were going to play house in my miserable little room. One night, when I’d had a little too much wine, I told her about my parents and how they’d never understood my artistic drive. She got absolutely furious.”

  “She was angry with your parents?”

  “You are sweet,” he said unexpectedly, and kissed her hand. “No, she was angry with me. I was rich and hadn’t told her. I had piles of money and expected her to be satisfied with one filthy little room in the Quarter where she had to cook red beans and rice on a hot plate. The funny thing was she really cared for me when she’d thought I was poor, but when she found out I wasn’t and that I didn’t intend to use what was available to me—and, by association, to her—she was infuriated. We had one hell of a fight, where she let me know what she really thought of me and my work.”

  Hester could picture him, young, idealistic and struggling. “People say things they don’t mean when they’re angry.”

  He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “Yes, very sweet.” His hand remained on hers as he continued. “Anyway, she left and gave me the opportunity to take stock of myself. For three years I’d been living day to day, telling myself I was a great artist whose time was coming. The truth was I wasn’t a great artist. I was a clever one, but I’d never be a great one. So I left New Orleans for New York and commercial art. I was good. I worked fast tucked in my little cubicle and generally made the client happy—and I was miserable. But my credentials there got me a spot at Universal, originally as an inker, then as an artist. And then”—he lifted his glass in salute—“there was Zark. The rest is history.”

  “You’re happy.” She turned her hand under his so their palms met. “It shows. Not everyone is as content with themselves as you are, as at ease with himself and what he does.”

  “It took me awhile.”

  “And your parents? Have you reconciled with them?”

  “We came to the mutual understanding that we’d never understand each other. But we’re family. I have my stock portfolio, so they can tell their friends the comic book business is something that amuses me. Which is true enough.”

  Mitch ordered another bottle of champagne with the main course. “Now it’s your turn.”

  She smiled and let the delicate soufflé melt on her tongue. “Oh, I don’t have anything so exotic as an artist’s garret in New Orleans. I had a very average childhood with a very average family. Board games on Saturday nights, pot roast on Sundays. Dad had a good job, Mom stayed home and kept the house. We loved each other
very much but didn’t always get along. My sister was very outgoing, head cheerleader, that sort of thing. I was miserably shy.”

  “You’re still shy,” Mitch murmured as he wound his fingers around hers.

  “I didn’t think it showed.”

  “In a very appealing way. What about Rad’s father?” He felt her hand stiffen in his. “I’ve wanted to ask, Hester, but we don’t have to talk about it now if it upsets you.”

  She drew her hand from his to reach for her glass. The champagne was cold and crisp. “It was a long time ago. We met in high school. Radley looks a great deal like his father, so you can understand that he was very attractive. He was also just a little wild, and I found that magnetic.”

  She moved her shoulders a little, restlessly, but was determined to finish what she’d started. “I really was painfully shy and a bit withdrawn, so he seemed like something exciting to me, even a little larger than life. I fell desperately in love with him the first time he noticed me. It was as simple as that. In any case, we went together for two years and were married a few weeks after graduation. I wasn’t quite eighteen and was absolutely sure that marriage was going to be one adventure after another.”

  “And it wasn’t?” he asked when she paused.

  “For a while it was. We were young, so it never seemed terribly important that Allan moved from one job to another or quit altogether for weeks at a time. Once he sold the living room set that my parents had given us as a wedding present so that we could take a trip to Jamaica. It seemed impetuous and romantic, and at that time we didn’t have any responsibilities except to ourselves. Then I got pregnant.”

  She paused again and, looking back, remembered her own excitement and wonder and fear at the idea of carrying a child. “I was thrilled. Allan got a tremendous kick out of it and started buying strollers and high chairs on credit. Money was tight, but we were optimistic, even when I had to cut down to part-time work toward the end of my pregnancy and then take maternity leave after Radley was born. He was beautiful.” She laughed a little. “I know all mothers say that about their babies, but he was honestly the most beautiful, the most precious thing I’d ever seen. He changed my life. He didn’t change Allan’s.”

  She toyed with the stem of her glass and tried to work out in her mind what she hadn’t allowed herself to think about for a very long time. “I couldn’t understand it at the time, but Allan resented having the burden of responsibility. He hated it that we couldn’t just stroll out of the apartment and go to the movies or go dancing whenever we chose. He was still unbelievably reckless with money, and because of Rad I had to compensate.”

  “In other words,” Mitch said quietly, “you grew up.”

  “Yes.” It surprised her that he saw that so quickly, and it relieved her that he seemed to understand. “Allan wanted to go back to the way things were, but we weren’t children anymore. As I look back, I can see that he was jealous of Radley, but at the time I just wanted him to grow up, to be a father, to take charge. At twenty he was still the sixteen-year-old boy I’d known in high school, but I wasn’t the same girl. I was a mother. I’d gone back to work because I’d thought the extra income would ease some of the strain. One day I came home after picking Radley up at the sitter’s, and Allan was gone. He’d left a note saying he just couldn’t handle being tied down any longer.”

  “Did you know he was leaving?”

  “No, I honestly didn’t. In all probability it was done on impulse, the way Allan did most things. It would never have occurred to him that it was desertion, to him it would’ve meant moving on. He thought he was being fair by taking only half the money, but he left all the bills. I had to get another part-time job in the evenings. I hated that, leaving Rad with a sitter and not seeing him. That six months was the worst time of my life.”

  Her eyes darkened a moment; then she shook her head and pushed it all back into the past. “After a while I’d straightened things out enough to quit the second job. About that time, Allan called. It was the first I’d heard from him since he’d left. He was very amiable, as if we’d been nothing more than passing acquaintances. He told me he was heading up to Alaska to work. After he hung up, I called a lawyer and got a very simple divorce.”

  “It must have been difficult for you.” Difficult? he thought—he couldn’t even imagine what kind of hell it had been. “You could have gone home to your parents.”

  “No. I was angry for a long, long time. The anger made me determined to stay right here in New York and make it work for me and Radley. By the time the anger had died down, I was making it work.”

  “He’s never come back to see Rad?”

  “No, never.”

  “His loss.” He cupped her chin, then leaned over to kiss her lightly. “His very great loss.”

  She found it easy to lift a hand to his cheek. “The same can be said about that woman in New Orleans.”

  “Thanks.” He nibbled her lips again, enjoying the faint hint of champagne. “Dessert?”

  “Hmmm?”

  He felt a wild thrill of triumph at her soft, distracted sigh. “Let’s skip it.” Moving back only slightly, he signaled the waiter for the check, then handed Hester the last of the champagne. “I think we should walk awhile.”

  The air was biting, almost as exhilarating as the wine. Yet the wine warmed her, making her feel as though she could walk for miles without feeling the wind. She didn’t object to Mitch’s arm around her shoulders or to the fact that he set the direction. She didn’t care where they walked as long as the feelings that stirred inside her didn’t fade.

  She knew what it was like to fall in love—to be in love. Time slowed down. Everything around you went quickly, but not in a blur. Colors were brighter, sounds sharper, and even in midwinter you could smell flowers. She had been there once before, had felt this intensely once before, but had thought she would never find that place again. Even as a part of her mind struggled to remind her that this couldn’t be love—or certainly shouldn’t be—she simply ignored it. Tonight she was just a woman.

  There were skaters at Rockefeller Center, swirling around and around the ice as the music flowed. Hester watched them, tucked in the warmth of Mitch’s arms. His cheek rested on her hair, and she could feel the strong, steady rhythm of his heart.

  “Sometimes I bring Rad here on Sundays to skate or just to watch like this. It seems different tonight.” She turned her head, and her lips were barely a whisper from his. “Everything seems different tonight.”

  If she looked at him like that again, Mitch knew he’d break his vow to give her enough time to clear her head and would bundle her into the nearest cab so that he could have her home and in bed before the look broke. Calling on willpower, he shifted her so he could brush his lips over her temple. “Things look different at night, especially after champagne.” He relaxed again, her head against his shoulder. “It’s a nice difference. Not necessarily steeped in reality, but nice. You can get enough reality from nine to five.”

  “Not you.” Unaware of the tug-of-war she was causing inside him, she turned in his arms. “You make fantasies from nine to five, or whatever hours you choose.”

  “You should hear the one I’m making up now.” He drew another deep breath. “Let’s walk some more, and you can tell me about one of yours.”

  “A fantasy?” Her stride matched his easily. “Mine isn’t nearly as earthshaking as yours, I imagine. It’s just a house.”

  “A house.” He walked toward the park, hoping they’d both be a little steadier on their feet by the time they reached home. “What kind of house?”

  “A country house, one of those big old farmhouses with shutters at the windows and porches all around. Lots of windows so you could look at the woods—there would have to be woods. Inside there would be high ceilings and big fireplaces. Outside would be a garden with wisteria climbing on a trellis.” She felt the sting of winter on her cheeks, but could almost smell the summer.

  “You’d be able to hear
the bees hum in it all summer long. There’d be a big yard for Radley, and he could have a dog. I’d have a swing on the porch so I could sit outside in the evening and watch him catch lightning bugs in a jar.” She laughed and let her head rest on his shoulder. “I told you it wasn’t earthshaking.”

  “I like it.” He liked it so well he could picture it, white shuttered and hip roofed, with a barn off in the distance. “But you need a stream so Rad could fish.”

  She closed her eyes a moment, then shook her head. “As much as I love him, I don’t think I could bait a hook. Build a tree house maybe, or throw a curveball, but no worms.”

  “You throw a curveball?”

  She tilted her head and smiled. “Right in the strike zone. I helped coach Little League last year.”

  “The woman’s full of surprises. You wear shorts in the dugout?”

  “You’re obsessed with my legs.”

  “For a start.”

  He steered her into their building and toward the elevators. “I haven’t had an evening like this in a very long time.”

  “Neither have I.”

  She drew back far enough to study him as they began the ride to her floor. “I’ve wondered about that, about the fact that you don’t seem to be involved with anyone.”

  He touched her chin with his fingertip. “Aren’t I?”

  She heard the warning signal but wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. “I mean, I haven’t noticed you dating or spending any time with women.”