Love and War

by Peg Sutherland

  “Come on, Sandy,” Britt said. “I know it’s been an exhausting few days, but don’t leave me hanging like this.”

  Waving Drew’s hands off so she could think more coherently, Sandy began reviewing their successes at the show, which had ended a few short hours ago. Drew wouldn’t cooperate, of course. He kept up the gentle but insistent massage, which made it increasingly difficult for Sandy to keep her thoughts on business. He grinned lazily at her the whole time, because he knew precisely how hard it was for her to think about the restaurant chain they had signed and the upscale grocery-store conglomerate that wanted so much to carry Yes! Yogurt products that it had agreed to a very advantageous co-op ad campaign. Not to mention the two foreign markets that looked like a sure thing.

  As she recounted the litany of their successes—hers and Drew’s, together—Sandy came to realize she could now see the end of this exciting interlude with him. She could now sense the way her emotions would besiege her Monday morning, sitting across the conference table from him and knowing they had had their fling and it was over.

  The emptiness was devastating.

  But it was the only alternative. She knew that. She assumed he did, too. And she told herself to put the whole problem away for the moment. There would be plenty of time for emptiness and loneliness when they returned to Tyler.

  “What a time you’ve had!” Britt said when she had finished relating their success story. “My head is spinning!”

  If only Britt knew the rest of it, Sandy thought. She had left out the best parts. “Mmm,” she murmured, wondering when Drew’s hands had managed to inch above her knees without her noticing it. She noticed it now. “Mine, too.”

  “How about Drew?”

  “Hmm?” She shot up in the bed, abruptly pulling away from Drew’s touch, guilty at the mention of his name. “What about Drew?”

  He raised his eyebrows and crawled up beside her to listen, tucking his arms around her as he did so.

  “Did the two of you work okay together? I know it’s been tough for both of you, with all this stuff about your grandparents. I hated bailing out on you like that.”

  Relieved, Sandy said, “Oh, well, no problem. Yes, I’d say we made a pretty good team.” He kissed her neck, and Sandy felt the need to clarify her position. “At the food show.”

  He trailed the tip of his tongue along the pulse at the base of her throat. Sandy felt her grip slacken. He caught the phone for her, pressed it back into her hand. She looked into his face, which was always a mistake. Those silvery, expressive eyes made it so hard for her to think clearly, to behave the way she knew she should.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Britt, “what was that?”

  “What is going on there?”

  “Nothing. Nothing’s going on here.”

  Drew gave her a wicked smile and began to loosen the buttons on her silk shirt.

  “Are you sure?” Britt asked. “You sound distracted.”

  “I’m, ah, getting undressed.”

  Which apparently was true. Her shirt was now open and Drew was brushing soft kisses above her camisole.

  “Okay, I get the picture,” Britt said. “It’s late and you’re ready for bed. I’ll have to wait till you get back tomorrow for the whole story.”

  Tomorrow. Back to the real world. Sandy told herself not to even consider the plan that had begun to form in her head when she woke up early this morning, Drew’s sleeping form curled warmly against hers, his breath at the back of her neck. It wasn’t a possibility, she told herself firmly.

  “About tomorrow,” she said, recognizing that she was caving in even as she coached herself not to. She was turning out to be a spineless hedonist, at the mercy of her passions. “I was thinking. Since I’ve been working nonstop, and for half the weekend, maybe I’ll take a day in the city tomorrow. To relax, since it’s Sunday, after all. Would that be a problem?”

  “Of course not. That’s a good idea. What about Drew?”

  He was tugging the strap of her camisole off her shoulder, that’s what.

  “Drew? Well, uh, Drew. I think he needs to stay over, too. I think he wants to...I think there are people....” She struggled for a way to obscure the truth without telling an out-and-out lie to her friend. Drew, who had pulled back to enjoy her difficulty, grinned and provided no help whatsoever. “Drew probably wants to stay in bed all day.”

  He rolled back on the bed in silent laughter.

  “Oh. Well, we’ll see you two when you get back.”

  Sandy hung up with a sigh of relief.

  “Let me say it again. You are a genius,” Drew exclaimed, easing close again. The camisole fell away with his touch. “How did you know I wanted to stay in bed all day?”

  “That was just for Britt’s benefit,” she said, hearing the sounds in his throat as he uncovered her nipple and took it in his mouth. “Sight-seeing,” she breathed. “That’s what I had in mind.”

  “We’ll take a vote,” he said.

  The decision was unanimous.

  * * *

  RENEE SPRAWLED ON the living room rug and pretended to keep her attention on the video. But she lost track of the story. She was more interested in listening to her mother’s phone conversation with Sandy. Renee had hatched a plot of her own and couldn’t wait to find out if it had worked.

  “Well, that was a strange conversation,” Britt said, hanging up.

  “How’s that?” Jake asked.

  “Sandy sounded very distracted.”

  “She’s just tired. You know how those shows can be.”

  “I swear, it was more than that.”

  Renee imagined that Drew was bringing Sandy piles of long-stemmed roses at the very minute her mother had called. She’d seen that in a movie once and it had been so romantic.

  “And she said they’re going to stay over an extra day,” Britt continued.

  “Good. They’ve been on fast-forward for weeks. It’ll do them good.”

  Renee smiled. They would walk around the city and hold hands, take the elevator to the top of the Hancock Building to view the whole length of beautiful Michigan Avenue. Jake had taken the family there once. By the time Uncle Drew and Sandy came home, maybe he would have kissed her again and they would be in love. They would have a big wedding and lots of babies.

  If Drew and Sandy had babies, she wondered, would that make her an aunt? Aunt Renee? Maybe not.

  “But the two of them, Jake?” Britt sounded confused. “They barely get along. You know I never would have asked them to go together if it hadn’t been for that mix-up about Renee’s school program.”

  Renee compressed her lips, trying not to smile. Who would have thought it would work, pretending that her school program was a week earlier than it actually was, just to keep her mom and stepdad at home? Renee remembered how she had crossed her fingers, hoping that would mean Drew would have to go instead. And it had. Everything had worked perfectly. Her mom hadn’t even been mad when the “mistake” came out.

  “Be grateful they’re getting along,” Jake said.

  “Dream on,” Britt retorted.

  “Who knows,” Jake said, “maybe they’ll fall madly in love.”

  Her mother and stepfather both laughed at that. Renee only smiled.

  * * *

  THEY DIDN’T STAY in bed the entire day.

  They did get up late in the morning, bundle up and wander out into the city in search of breakfast or lunch. They ended up with chili cheese dogs and a walk through the Shedd Aquarium. They found a spot in Grant Park where they could get close enough to the lake to feel the spray from the waves pounding against the ice-shrouded break water, then they wandered through Drew’s old neighborhood, listened to the deafening rumble of elevated trains along the Loop.

  “See how wonderful citi
es are?” Sandy said as they walked, hand in hand, back down the bustling sidewalk toward their hotel.

  “To visit,” Drew conceded. “But if we lived here, we’d have to contend with the traffic and the noise and the pollution.”

  Sandy shrugged. It hardly mattered. They still had half a day together, stretching out before them like an eternity. She refused to have it spoiled by their differences.

  “And that’s why you’re in Tyler? Because it’s quiet and clean and small?”

  “Sort of. Actually, I’m there because I got fed up with the rat race.”

  “At work, you mean?”

  He nodded. “Do you know how many over-fifty men I saw my company ease out just because they could pay a younger person less? Do you know how many of the people I worked with swallowed ulcer medication by the truckload? I hated it. That’s not the way I wanted to live my life.”

  “That’s business. There’s no way around it.”

  “Sure there is. Look at Yes! Yogurt.”

  “But not many people are willing to sacrifice success to work for a small company like ours.”

  “I guess it depends on how you define success.”

  Sandy liked the earnestness in his eyes when he said that. “And how do you define success?”

  “Not by the number of deals I cut in a day or a week or a year.”

  “Then how?”

  “By how often I have time to stop at a kid’s lemonade stand. By the friends I have and how often I get to do something nice for them. By the numbers of old people and kids who smile when I walk into a room. By the kind of woman who wants to be my partner.”

  Sandy felt her heart swell in her chest as he spoke. He was right, of course. So many of the things that had seemed important to her right out of college weren’t important at all over the long haul.

  “Think about it,” Drew said, pulling her onto a bench. “Isn’t that why you’re back in Tyler, too? Because you decided that family was a better measure of a good life than money or power or prestige?”

  Part of her didn’t want to agree with him. Doing so seemed dangerous, threatened to pull them even closer together than they already were. And that was too large a risk. But she couldn’t deny what he’d said. Tyler was where she wanted to be. Even though she missed the big city and had always dreamed of getting to the top of the marketing ladder, she realized more every day how special Tyler was.

  Rather than admit that to Drew, she kissed him instead, right there on a bench in the middle of the city, where a dozen people waited for a bus.

  “Aren’t you tired?” she whispered.

  “Tired? As in back to bed for a while?”

  “You’ve worked so hard. You need your rest.”

  “You’re right. How about it, Sandy Murphy? Let’s spend the rest of our lives in bed together.”

  And she laughed, because he said it the way he said so many other things, offhanded and teasing, with that mischievous glint in his eye. At least, that was what she thought at the time. Later, she wondered if she had only heard it the way she wanted to hear it.

  * * *

  THEY RAN INTO the Tyler school superintendent in the lobby of the hotel as they were leaving the next morning. He was arriving for a convention and listened enthusiastically as they explained their successes on behalf of Yes! Yogurt. An explanation Sandy was more than eager to deliver, in order to dispel any suspicions.

  The familiar face, gazing at them with such unabashed curiosity, seemed to prick the bubble of happiness Sandy had held on to so tenaciously their last day in Chicago.

  They were heading home. It was over.

  Drew, as he threw their bags into his car, acted almost as if he didn’t realize that.

  “You know, Britt’s always telling me I don’t have enough fun,” he said as they headed through the morning traffic in Chicago. “I never realized how right she was until we took the day off. I mean, I love my work. But yesterday was totally for fun. And I feel like a different person. Thanks for suggesting it.”

  Sandy smiled, feeling the strain as he took her hand in his and squeezed. One last touch, she thought, before they arrived back on home turf.

  Then, when they finally cleared the city and its endless suburbs, he insisted on talking about their successes at the food show. But the conversation didn’t focus on what a good team they had been, past tense, but rather on what the future held.

  “You know, these international clients are going to be a lot of fun for us,” he said. “Don’t you think? Between the two of us, we can take Europe by storm. What do you think, should we go over there sometime? Check out Venice or Vienna?”

  She thought his conversation sounded suspiciously as if he expected them to be much more than colleagues.

  “Maybe you and Jake should go,” she said.

  “Funny girl,” he replied.

  But now that they were coming closer to Tyler with each mile, his conversation grew increasingly disturbing. “You haven’t seen the house I’m building, have you? Maybe we’ll run over there tonight, after we get unpacked.”

  What was he talking about? How could he not understand what had to happen between them now? She didn’t want to see his house. Couldn’t bear the thought of seeing his house, actually. Because what had happened between them had to stop here. Could go no further. Surely he knew that.

  She thought desperately over everything that had been said between them these past four days. Surely she had been clear with him. But she couldn’t recall precisely what she had said. All she could remember clearly was how effortlessly she had gone into his arms, as if it were the only natural thing that had happened between them since the night they first met.

  Gin. Gran. Sandy repeated the names silently, a mantra to remind herself that this fling might have been a small mistake, but that anything else was a prescription for disaster.

  “Drew,” she said, spotting the Tyler town-limit sign. What if people were already suspicious? What had she been thinking, staying an extra day? “We need to talk.”

  “We will,” he said. “We will. Can you imagine what a ruckus we’ll stir up if we tell everybody we’re going to get married?”

  Her throat closed in fear. She could barely squeak out a response. “If we what?”

  “Okay. If was the wrong word. When. When we tell everybody we’re going to get married.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DREW HAD NEVER realized he was one of those men who speak a different language from the one women speak.

  Judging from all that had gone on these past few days since he returned from Chicago, he had no choice but to believe that must be his problem. How else to explain the fact that he had left Chicago one half of a couple in love and arrived in Tyler two hours later with the woman he loved not speaking to him?

  “I don’t get it,” he said to Jake for at least the fourth time since his return to the office.

  “Obviously.” That was his cousin’s idea of helpful input.

  Drew had finally, in desperation, taken Jake into his confidence, although it didn’t seem quite right to talk about such a delicate subject with Sandy’s boss. But, hey, how much more screwed up could he possibly make things?

  “You’re no help, cousin,” Drew snapped, aware that they were supposed to be going over the finances involved in stepping up production yet again, to meet the new contracts signed in Chicago. “You’re a happily married man. I expected better from you.”

  Jake shoved his pencil behind his ear, leaned back in his chair and put his feet on Drew’s desk. “Okay. Tell me again, what exactly was it you said that ticked her off?”

  “All I said was...” Drew tried to remember, but discovered that his precise words had somehow been lost in the fury that followed. “Something about how surprised everybody would be when we g
ot married.”

  “I see. And I assume this wasn’t the first time you had used the M word.”

  Frustration flooded him. “Since when is marriage ‘the M word’? I thought women liked to talk about getting married. I thought they were generally in favor of getting married.”

  Jake nodded his head and pursed his lips. “So this offhand mention was the first time you had brought up the topic?”

  “Yeah. In those exact words. So?”

  Jake shut his eyes and shook his head. “Such a bright guy, too. College educated. Capable of carrying his weight at work. Tell me exactly what happened next, Drew.”

  That request gave Drew no trouble whatsoever. The moments that followed his innocent comment would live in his memory forever. Like a victim of traumatic stress syndrome, he sometimes feared he would never again be able to drive across the Tyler town limit without reliving those moments.

  Her exact words had been “What did you say?”

  But it wasn’t so much what she had said as how she’d said it. Her tone implied that he had suggested she sell her soul to the devil in return for some mindless personal pleasure that would benefit no one but him.

  Instead of backing off and rephrasing the comment, Drew had disregarded the warning in her voice and repeated himself verbatim.

  To which Sandy had replied, “Where on earth did you get the idea this was leading toward...toward anything like that?”

  He could see now that Jake was absolutely right. She hadn’t even been able to utter the evil M word herself, for heaven’s sake.

  Drew had tried to explain himself, redeem himself, even throw himself at her mercy during the rest of the drive. Nothing worked. By the time he pulled up in front of her garage apartment and she yanked her garment bag out of his trunk, he knew of only one more thing to say. The one thing, he’d thought, that always saved the day in the man-woman arena.

  “But, Sandy, I love you,” he’d declared earnestly. “Isn’t that all that matters?”

  Apparently not.