Good Guy Heroes Boxed Set

by Julie Ortolon

  Even on the drive to Lake Forest, Paul knew his father hadn’t fully relaxed. That came only when he walked into his wife’s arms at the front door.

  After his father showered and had his hand bandaged, they sat in the kitchen while his mother fed them, and the three of them talked.

  Before his mother went up to bed, she laid her palm along his cheek as she used to do to console some childish hurt.

  “Mom …” He wanted to tell her …exactly what, he wasn’t sure.

  She shook her head slowly, wiping out the need for special words. “Everything will be all right, dear.” She might have been talking about his father’s condition or his business. But Paul didn’t think so. Her next words confirmed it. “Look into your heart, and then don’t be afraid to go after her. She loves you. And love can survive a lot of hurt.”

  The words were so soft, so unlike his mother’s usual breeziness, that Paul didn’t fully comprehend them until she had left the room.

  How did she know Bette had left? How had she fathomed his turmoil?

  The questions had barely formed when he realized his father had lingered. When their eyes met, his father spoke.

  “I know you always hated my joining the family firm, Paul. And you blamed your grandfather. But you shouldn’t. Your grandfather didn’t force me into anything - the firm, the position, the house. I’d never had those things, and I wanted them. So I made a choice - a choice, Paul. Nobody forced me. I still enjoy all those things.

  “That doesn’t mean I haven’t had regrets. There are a few things I wish I’d done differently.”

  Paul felt the full force of his father’s look, a communication as intangible yet as real as the silent connection of twilight games of catch two decades ago.

  “Maybe I let being the best lawyer I could be consume me, Paul. Maybe I wasn’t around enough, especially in those first years as head of the firm. Maybe I let the image and the externals get to me. Your mother and I … well, she forgave me a long time ago. Now, I hope you will.”

  “Forgive you? Dad, I -”

  “I wasn’t there for you like I should have been. It was better when Judi came along, but for you -”

  “Dad, you were always there when I needed you.”

  Paul knew the truth of the words as he said them.

  He might have wanted more of his father, but what kid didn’t? And what kid could be reasonable about it, could comprehend the incessant juggling of career, marriage, family and occasional privacy?

  He could understand his father’s need to be the best lawyer he could be. Hell, he’d inherited the same compulsion to give his clients the best.

  His father waved off his objection. “I did you a disservice, Paul, by not overtly stepping in between your grandfather and you.”

  “I did all right on my own with that fight.”

  A flash of understanding lit the past: He hadn’t fought alone.

  Why hadn’t he seen that before? Why hadn’t he recognized that, with no fanfare, his parents had withstood Walter Mulholland? It was so obvious now. If they hadn’t, he would have been sent to military school six times over during his adolescent rebellions. And he might have made speeches about not attending an Ivy League college, but who’d paid tuition at the school of his choice?

  His father shook his head even as he smiled dryly. “I didn’t mean stepping in to protect you from Walter running roughshod over you - I agree, you did a better job of that than anyone else ever could have done - but to prevent you from dismissing everything he believed in. Walter Mulholland wasn’t all right, but he wasn’t all wrong, either, son.”

  That night, lying in the bed he’d known as a twelve-year-old, Paul thought of those words and his own insights.

  The boy he’d been had so desperately fought his grandfather’s dictatorial ways that he’d boxed himself in.

  Even if he’d wanted to go to that Ivy League college, he never would have done so. Even if he’d wanted to be a lawyer, he never would have become one. His father’s words echoed in his ears. Walter Mulholland wasn’t all right, but he wasn’t all wrong, either.

  What an ass he’d been.

  But no more.

  What was it he’d accused Bette of doing? Trying to live up to every expectation of her dead grandfather? Wasn’t he equally as bad - spurning every expectation of his dead grandfather? Time to start weighing decisions against what he wanted.

  And what he wanted was Bette Wharton.

  *

  “AND OF COURSE, the party is tonight. Then, Friday we’ll go to the Thompsons for cocktails and dinner, but other than that, I really haven’t planned very much.”

  Aware of an expectant pause, Bette filled it, though her mother’s words hadn’t sunk in. “That’s fine, Mom.”

  “Is it? Well, with Ronald and Claire here, too, I just didn’t know how many plans to make. Especially with the children. It’s a long trip for the little ones for such a short time, and if there are too many things going on, it gets too much for them.”

  Her mother had already gone over the weekend plans twice before, once after picking up Bette at the airport on Wednesday and again yesterday. With her mother covering the same information as they sat on chaise longues in the waning sun while the rest of the family enjoyed a boat ride on the lake, Bette didn’t have to bother pulling her thoughts from what had occupied them since Tuesday night.

  Paul.

  She’d acted on impulse in his office. Without considering where it might lead or what its repercussions might be, she had said exactly how she felt - about him and what was happening between them.

  No, she’d only told him half of how she felt.

  Because she’d told him only about the pain. She hadn’t told him about the joy he’d brought her. And no matter how much he might hurt her, she could never deny the laughter and the loving he’d given her.

  “Would you like that, Bette?”

  “Sorry. What?”

  “A tennis lesson. I said I could set you up with a tennis lesson Saturday afternoon so you’d have something to do. We haven’t planned much for you this trip.”

  “No. Thanks, Mom, no tennis lesson. It’s all right.”

  “Is it? I know you like to have things structured. That’s another way you’ve taken after your grandfather. But down here, we’ve gotten into the habit of taking life easier. And, of course I knew you’d bring some work with.”

  Her mother’s words penetrated this time. “Really, Mom. It’s fine.”

  … Like to have things structured … knew you’d bring some work with …

  She had brought work, though she hadn’t taken it out of the suitcase. And she did like structure, though that didn’t mean twenty-four hours a day.

  Another way you’ve taken after your grandfather . Took after him or blindly emulated him? That was what Paul had accused her of.

  No time for fun, only time for work and advancement.

  “Oh, here they come!” Her mother headed down the path to meet the boat pulling up to the Whartons’ small boat house.

  She watched her mother and father, Ronald and Claire, and remembered her belief that she couldn’t possibly fall in love with Paul Monroe because she saw his faults too clearly. She’d been wrong. Her mother and sister-in-law weren’t blind to their men’s faults; love just focused beyond the faults. Reason gave way to something wiser.

  She hadn’t given that to Paul. She’d fought hope so hard that she hadn’t admitted there might be cause for it; Paul had changed in the past weeks. Had she?

  Her fears for the future had looked over her shoulder at every stage, never allowing her to open herself to him fully. Even telling him she loved him had carried the reminder of the future, and her fears for it. I love you, but I don’t want to. God, I don’t want to … someday I think - I hope - I’ll stop loving you. And then I’ll leave.

  Another thought had her sitting upright and swinging her feet to the patio.

  Fears for the future.

  Her grand
father had taught her to look to the future. Maybe she’d taken the lesson too much to heart, turning her back on the present, but with Paul she’d done something else. She’d forgotten that hope was also part of the future.

  She’d already started out of the chaise, when she heard her father’s shout.

  “Bette! C’mon down and we’ll take you out, too.”

  “No, thanks, Dad. You go ahead without me this trip. I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  His cell went to a recording. No answer at his office, then the please-leave-a-message routine. She didn’t. She checked her watch. Nearly five-thirty in Chicago. They were gone for the night.

  His message service picked up at his apartment. She hesitated, then hurried on before it cut her off. “Paul, it’s Bette. Please call me at my parents’.”

  Hanging up, she wondered if she should call back, tell him more, tell him … No, the things she had to tell him couldn’t be compressed between the beeps of a voice message.

  He’d brought so much into her life, the laughter, the passion, the companionship.

  From him she was learning the value of now. With his impromptu reactions and the way he drew spontaneity from her, he’d taught her that today was as important as tomorrow. She could enjoy window decorations now and then without forfeiting the future.

  Or take an evening boat ride with her family while she prayed for the phone to ring. And hoped that enough todays would build a tomorrow.

  *

  FORTY-FIVE HOURS after finding his father, Paul stared at his reflection thrown back by the multiple layers of glass in the airplane’s window. He’d spent Thursday walking the beaches he’d known all his life, watching Lake Michigan’s brooding December power and doing some brooding of his own.

  The first answer came with a gust of cold wind that sliced through his clothes.

  Like a tactile memory, the cold stirred thoughts of Thanksgiving night and he heard Bette asking him, “What are your dreams, Paul?”

  He knew now.

  She was his dream. A life with her. It was what he’d wanted from the start and what he’d fought so hard against. Fought her, fought himself, because he was still fighting Walter Wilson Mulholland.

  He remembered his thoughts of earthquakes while he and Bette sat in Jan and Ed Robson’s living room and looked at each other across the tiny body of a baby.

  More like a heartquake, he thought now. Well, the rumbling and shuddering were over - at least as far as he was concerned.

  His world had shifted and rearranged itself into a new conformation. Into a landscape that had Bette at its center.

  He wanted to make plans now. Plans for children, for finding a house with a yard, enough room for some twilight games of catch. Plans for college educations, for old age. Plans for a life with Bette.

  In a few minutes they’d land at the Phoenix airport and he’d be at the Whartons’ house not long after. Then he would tell Bette the things he hadn’t told her Tuesday night. Then he could try to make her see what had happened since she’d left two days before.

  Paul Monroe had grown up.

  *

  UNCERTAINTY SOLIDIFIED INTO a sharp-edged rock in Bette’s stomach when she answered her parents’ door late Saturday afternoon and found Paul Monroe staring back at her.

  He hadn’t answered her twenty-four-hour-old message, but he’d come after her. What did that mean?

  “Paul.” She knew her lips formed the word, but she wasn’t sure if it had any sound.

  “Hi, Bette.” One corner of his mouth lifted, but it wasn’t much of a smile. “I had to see you.”

  “Who is it, Bette?” Her mother’s voice grew nearer as she came down the hall.

  Automatically, Bette opened the outer door to Paul, and stepped back to let him in.

  “Mother, this is Paul Monroe.” What else to say about him? My friend? Too small to be the truth. My lover? Only one part of the truth. The man I love? Too much the truth. “From Chicago.”

  “Oh. How nice to meet you.” Her mother glanced from one to the other of them. “It’s wonderful that you could pay Bette a surprise visit while she is with us. It’s a shame Bette’s father isn’t here right now to meet you also.”

  “I know it’s a surprise visit. I hope it’s not inconvenient, but I was, uh, I was hoping to take Bette out for dinner.”

  She didn’t think she could remember Paul ever stumbling over his words that way. It terrified her.

  “Bette, remember the Thompsons are expecting us at five-thirty for cocktails.” Mrs. Wharton looked from her daughter to this intense-looking young man, and put together a clue or two dropped over the past few weeks to arrive at a very satisfactory conclusion. A conclusion that involved one less guest at the Thompsons’ dinner party. “So the rest of us will be leaving as soon as the babysitter arrives, in about half an hour,” she finished smoothly.

  Bette read the message in her mother’s look, and thanked her silently.

  “So if we don’t see you before we leave,” continued her mother, turning to Paul, “I hope you enjoy your stay in Phoenix.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Wharton. I’m going to try.” Bette knew exactly when Paul turned to her mother and stretched out a hand, because the weight of his eyes left her for the first time. “I hope we’ll see each other again.”

  Bette heard the words, but refused to admit their possible meaning. They were too dangerous. They could elicit too many hopeful, soaring ideas of “what next” if she let them free.

  “I hope so, too. If you’re not in any hurry for dinner, you should get Bette to show you around the area first. There’s a lovely view from the boathouse.”

  Her mother and Paul exchanged goodbyes, and somehow Bette found herself leading Paul down the twisting path to the boathouse tucked away privately by the water’s edge.

  Bette went directly to the railing and stared out at the water, darkening with night and undisturbed by any human traffic. The shadows under the roofed portion were deep, but she was fully aware of Paul standing behind her.

  “I had to see you -” He broke off, then started again. “There are more things that need to be said between us.” She felt him nearer.

  “I know, that’s why I called you yesterday.”

  “You called?” His voice was low.

  She twisted to see his face, but he was too close, and she saw only her own desire reflected there. She looked back to the water. “I left a message at your apartment.”

  “I haven’t been home.” His fingertips brushed her hair behind her ear, perhaps so he could see her profile more clearly. “I needed to talk to you, Bette. There’s something … Something happened Thursday. There was a fire.”

  The strain in his voice chilled her. Turning, she tried to read in his face what this fire had meant to him. He wasn’t injured, at least on the outside. But inside?

  “A fire?”

  “Dad’s building.”

  “Oh my God -”

  “No.” He gripped the arms she’d instinctively extended to him. “It’s all right, Bette. He’s fine. Nobody was seriously hurt. There’s a lot of damage, and it’ll be a mess for a while. For the firm. For Dad. But it’s not much compared to what could have happened.”

  His hands traveled up her arms and across her shoulders, finally coming to her throat. He spread his fingers under her hair to caress her nape while his thumbs stroked the line of her jaw. In the shadows, wavering with the water’s reflection, she saw his eyes just as surely caressing her lips.

  “I learned something from that fire, Bette. Afterward Dad talked about his life, and my grandfather, and I started to see - I’ve been wrong. Wrong and blind and stubborn. That’s why -” he dropped a kiss on her mouth as light and powerful as a laser’s beam “- why I came here.” Another kiss. “I had -” Another kiss “- to see you, to tell you …” Desire flared between them without lightening the shadows around them. “Oh, God, Bette. I need you.”

  He held her face between his palms and sank into
her mouth.

  She felt the need, the tension in him. She felt confused, uncertain - Why had he come? What had this fire meant to him? What was this change in him? But those were questions for the future, because beneath the confusion and uncertainty, she also felt the sure steady beat of her love for him.

  He needed her now. He wanted her now. Now was the moment she had. She’d take it, and she’d give it.

  Instinct led them to the wide cushioned seats that edged the back of the boathouse, because in the inky darkness they couldn’t see anything. Not even each other. But touch led them where their eyes could not, the way to ease the ache, the way to fill the needs, the way to love each other.

  And even in the dark, she could see the face of the man she made love with, the man she loved.

  She would always see his face. It was her fantasy, more powerful than any schoolgirl could imagine. Yet it also haunted her, because it lacked one element - the love, the deep, committed love of the man making love to her.

  “Bette?”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t want him to know she was crying.

  He had come after her, but why? He might have followed one of his impulses, the desire of the moment to see her, be with her, make love with her. Or he might have felt her speech in his office had been an ultimatum, designed to close him in, trap him, bind him. Tears would only add to that impression.

  “Bette, there’s something I have to ask you.”

  She held her silence like a shield, protecting him from her tears, protecting herself from his questions.

  No, not a shield, a restriction. She was doing what she’d sworn not to do, holding back from him out of fear.

  “Bette. Do you really love me?”

  The tears slipped loose.

  He’d just made it all very simple. She hadn’t planned it. It had just happened. But she did love him.

  “Yes. I really love you.”

  Her voice flowed with love, but also with the tears. He shifted, putting a palm under her chin to lift it and levering himself above her to try to look into her eyes.

  “Bette, don’t cry.” Paul’s hoarse plea made her cry more, and his fingers, gently rough, couldn’t stop the flow.