Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  “Give yourself a break, Kendra. It wasn’t a one-night stand.”

  “What would you call it? Not knowing who he was. Having only a name – not even his real name. Not speaking the same language. What possible outcome could a responsible person have expected? No matter what, I would have been asking how he took his coffee and –”

  Kendra bit off the rest of the sentence, concentrating on driving precisely the speed limit on the residential street to Far Hills Community Church.

  Ellyn stared at her for half a block. “I’m tempted to say the simple solution would be to make him fix his own coffee, but somehow I don’t think that’s what’s bothering you.”

  Kendra blurted out the truth. “I made love with him. I trusted him with my life. I got pregnant by him and had his child and I didn’t know the simplest things about him – his name or how he takes his coffee. What sort of person lets that happen?”

  One like her mother. One hoping for love so desperately she’d close her eyes to reality.

  “One who’s caught in a hurricane and thinks she could very well die!”

  Without answering that defense of her actions Kendra pulled into the church parking lot and found an empty space.

  “Besides,” Ellyn continued, “now you have an opportunity to get to know him, to find out all about each other. And you can take that as slow as you want – as slow as you need to.”

  “I’m going to find out all about him all right,” Kendra said grimly, “but not slowly.”

  “Good grief – you’re investigating him!”

  “You bet I am. I made phone calls after he left. I already found out some, and by tomorrow morning I should know a lot more.”

  Kendra turned off the engine and slid the keys into her jacket pocket. She reached for the door handle, but didn’t open it when she noticed how still Ellyn had gone.

  “You know, Kendra, I knew exactly how Dale took his coffee.” Ellyn faced the passenger window, muffling her voice. “I knew every job he’d held and every grade he’d made. I knew his favorite color and where he would hide Easter eggs, which way he’d vote and how long he took in the shower and when he’d lose his temper over bikes in the driveway. But...”

  Ellyn turned, and Kendra saw hurt and sorrow and confusion in her friend’s eyes, but also an acceptance that hadn’t been there even two months ago. “Sometimes something much more important than anything you can know with your brain is missing... and sometimes it’s there. Either way, there’s no explaining it away.”

  Ellyn leaned forward to make her point.

  “Don’t try to explain it away, Kendra. Certainly not yet. You found out this afternoon that the father of your child is alive, and he’s not the man he told you he was – that’s a lot to deal with. You’re relieved and angry and confused. Give yourself time. And in the meantime, talk to him – really talk to him.”

  “We talked –”

  “Right, about Taumaturgio,” Ellyn scoffed. “That’s a lot easier than talking about what happened between you – or what’s going to happen next. And I just bet you latched onto the topic.”

  “It’s the reason I went to Santa Estella in the first place,” she defended herself.

  “Right. To find a man who showed up against all odds – in an airplane, by the way – to help children in need of rescuing. Haven’t you ever wondered about that?”

  Ellyn obviously thought she was making a point, but she’d lost Kendra. “It’s a great story.”

  Ellyn stared at her a moment, then waved it off. “No matter why you went to Santa Estella, your great story is not the reason you dream about it now. It’s not the reason you dream about him. And I’ll bet you a new clothes dryer you didn’t talk to him about that!”

  Kendra shrugged as she opened the car door. “It doesn’t matter. After all, this isn’t about him. Or me. The important person in all this is Matthew.”

  Whose father hadn’t even touched him. And whose mother didn’t know whether to be relieved or heartbroken over that fact.

  * * *

  Marti had saved Kendra and Ellyn seats up front for the standing-room only turnout for the proposed child-care cooperative at the community church. With her usual no-nonsense authority, Fran Sinclair led the meeting in the basement room where the cooperative would be housed.

  Far Hills had experienced its own baby boomlet. The need for childcare formed a recurring topic in encounters Kendra had in the grocery store, working at the Far Hills Banner, or pumping gas, since the station owner was the harried father of twins.

  The only one who’d done anything about it was Fran Sinclair, an organizer from way back and, as step-mother of the late Dale Sinclair, now the step-grandmother of Ellyn’s kids. Fran supported Ellyn and the kids in a hundred ways. As Marti’s lifelong friend, she was also a frequent visitor to Far Hills Ranch.

  Kendra liked and respected Fran. She just couldn’t keep her mind on Fran’s words tonight.

  Kendra heard Fran’s logical, orderly setting out of rules for enrolling a child in the program, the basic fee structure, plus minimum hours of duty required, birth certificate and immunization records to bring, snack duty to sign up for. She heard it all – she didn’t absorb much.

  When a question was asked about the proposed after-school program to start in a few weeks, Kendra twisted around to look at the asker, hoping that would focus her attention.

  And there, against the back wall, leaned the dark-haired, broad-shouldered form of the man named Daniel Delligatti.

  He’d said he’d give her time to absorb his reappearance in her life. What right did he have to come here, throwing her even more off balance than she already was?

  She’d clamped her lips shut when she spotted him, but she must have made a sound, because Ellyn, on her left, asked, “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You don’t look like nothing.” Ellyn twisted farther around, then added a significant, surprised, “Oh!”

  Kendra faced forward. “What on earth is he doing here?”

  “This was the best he could do for night life in Far Hills?”

  Kendra glared at her friend.

  “Ellyn, that’s –”

  “Did you have a question, Kendra and Ellyn?” Fran asked from behind the lectern.

  Exchanging a look like first-graders caught talking in class, they muttered no in unison and remained quiet – and facing forward – for the rest of the meeting. As soon as people started filing out, however, Ellyn turned to the back of the room.

  “Still there,” she reported in a low voice. “Go talk to him.”

  “I’m not –”

  “I’ll wait in the car. Take your time.”

  Without waiting for a response, Ellyn corralled Marti and Fran, easing them toward the door along with the handful of people who’d lingered to ask Fran questions. They’d almost reached the door when Kendra saw Marti put on the brakes, her head turned toward where Daniel stood, in jeans and a blue plaid shirt.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  At Marti’s question, Fran craned around, but Ellyn took a firm hold of each woman’s arm and practically pushed the pair out the door.

  “He must have come to see Kendra. Come on.”

  Then she closed the door behind them, leaving Kendra alone in the room with Daniel.

  Kendra knew that wouldn’t last. The custodian would arrive soon to fold the chairs – if Marti didn’t show up first.

  Daniel hadn’t budged, arms folded over his broad chest, leaning against the wall. Only his eyes moved as she walked toward him.

  “You followed me? I didn’t know Taumaturgio indulged in spying.”

  He grinned, swift and short. “No, I didn’t follow you – this time. You and your friends talked about a meeting for a baby-sitting cooperative. A copy of the Far Hills Banner did the rest.”

  He’d listened very closely if he’d picked up all that.

  “Why bother?”

  “I have a son who’ll be coming here,
don’t I?”

  “Matthew will be coming, yes.”

  “There you go, Kendra.” He said it the way he used to – Paulo used to. She held off a flood of memories as he continued, “So, shouldn’t I know what it’s about? Shouldn’t I expect to be putting in my share of time, too?”

  She felt a jolt in her chest – surprise or fear?

  He meant to stick around long enough to get involved in that sort of commitment?

  “Fran doesn’t want people dropping in and out of the program.”

  “I heard.”

  “Why so interested now, Daniel?”

  “I’ve been interested from the moment I knew I had a child.”

  “Really?” she challenged him. “Then I would have thought you might have touched him, held him this afternoon.”

  Daniel didn’t look away from her, didn’t change his posture, but Kendra had a sudden impression of withdrawal. His strong bones appeared harsher, his dark eyes colder. And yet, for no reason she could fathom it made her think him more vulnerable

  In the unforgiving overhead light she noticed for the first time the jagged scar on his cheek from the wood fragment she’d removed from his flesh. She had to clench her hands to keep from tracing it with her fingertips, to assure herself it had healed.

  “Guys don’t have the same advantage women do – we’re not born knowing how to deal with kids.” From lightly mocking, his voice sank to almost a growl. “I don’t know how.”

  Jerked back from her thoughts, she stumbled out a “What?”

  He didn’t answer, as if he regretted his words.

  “You can’t be serious.” She studied his face, which gave away nothing. The same sort of expression she’d gotten from Paulo when he hadn’t understood – when he’d pretended to not understand – her English. “You hold him the way your father held you. Besides, you can’t tell me you’re not comfortable with kids – you of all people. All the tales I heard about Taumaturgio and children? How children loved him. How he could get children to trust him, so they weren’t frightened, even when he put them in an airplane and flew them far away where strangers with a strange language treated them in hospitals. This should be a snap after that.”

  “Those children had nothing.” The words came out in low, uneven spurts. “Food, clothing, the hope of health – Taumaturgio brought them those things. I understood those kids. But Matthew... he’s perfect. He’s strong and well-fed and clean and... loved. I can’t give him anything he needs. He has everything.”

  Her reaction came immediately and from somewhere deeper than thought.

  “He doesn’t have a father.”

  He looked at her, his dark eyes fierce, as if her words had pushed aside the doubts of a moment ago. “He does have a father. What he doesn’t have is a family. That’s what I want to give him. That’s what I want us to be.”

  “Visitation and –”

  “No. Not visitation.” He straightened away from the wall and took her hand in both of his. The motion brought him close enough that she felt the temperature around her rise and she drew in a scent her pulse recognized as his. Until this instant, she hadn’t realized she’d carried that scent with her these past three years, that it had lived in her memory or her senses or her heart.

  The deep murmur of his voice captured her attention.

  “Marry me, Kendra.”

  “Wh – What?”

  “Marry me.” He cupped her cheek with his palm. “We’ll be a family with our son.”

  He’d touched her this way during the hurricane. The gentle strokes of sensation against her skin. The comforting, stirring touch that had opened the flood of desire in her. At first the need to celebrate, to validate that they still lived. But even at the time she’d known the other times they’d made love could not be so readily defined or limited.

  There’d been something deeper, wider –

  No... Whatever had happened on Santa Estella had been with Paulo, a man who’d never existed. Daniel Delligatti, the man who stood before her now, was not the same man... even if her body reacted as if he were. She knew nothing about him.

  “No... No! Marry you? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  It had to be his touch that had allowed even those fleeting thoughts, those memories of better-forgotten sensations to pass through her mind.

  She moved away from that heat and temptation. But stepping back resembled retreat. She pivoted and took a seat in the end chair. Her knees might have been a bit unsteady.

  “Do you remember the hurricane, Kendra? Do you remember when the roof collapsed?”

  Yes, she remembered. That was the danger.

  “We made a pledge, Kendra.”

  “A pledge?” She tried a laugh that rasped against her throat. “We didn’t make any pledge. We didn’t even speak the same language.”

  Without releasing her gaze, he advanced the two steps to her chair. He took her hand again and, before she could resist, he brought it to his chest, and opened it, so her palm absorbed the rhythm of his heart. Her pulse remembered that rhythm, adapting to it, amplifying it, until it drummed in her ears.

  “It’s a pledge I intend to keep, Kendra.”

  “That storm – that storm wasn’t real life.” She pulled her hand free, and he dropped his hands to his side, still standing in front of her. “That person wasn’t really me. Like being drunk or... being drugged. In an altered state. Not reality.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  Why should she sense danger in that quiet question? Why should those soft words make the hair on her arms stir?

  She defied him and her reaction.

  “Yes.”

  He tipped his head back, letting the light from the ceiling fixture stream down on him, highlighting his strong nose and sharp bones, dropping shadows into the lines around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes. Lines born of squinting into the sun, lines of laughing, lines of concentrating. On life and death.

  He nodded once, as if agreeing with his own thought, then slowly leveled his gaze on her. She didn’t shrink back. She sat there, solid and steady, ignoring the stirring of fine hairs not only on her arms but up the back of her neck.

  He leaned over her, close now but his face less readable because the angle of his head shadowed them both from the light. Closer. Ever closer, his hands resting on the back of her chair. Close enough that he could kiss her if he wanted, his lips brushing against hers or taking her mouth deeper, taking it completely, and she would have nowhere to go to evade him. Nowhere...

  “The storm drugged you?”

  How could such a question feel seductive? How could it fire images and sensations into her mind and body? She swallowed, but she stayed still.

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” His soft breath stirred the hair at her temple. His gaze locked with hers. “All over the world, people are drugged to make them give up a truth they would give up no other way. That is what the storm did to you, Kendra. To us.”

  He didn’t wait for a response, but straightened and pivoted away in one easy motion, his triumph complete. He’d outtalked her and outmaneuvered her and outreasoned her.

  Only as the sound of the door closing informed her he’d left did Kendra realize it had not been triumph she’d seen in his eyes.

  Not triumph at all, but pain.

  * * *

  The phone in his motel room rang, pulling Daniel from sleep to alertness before the first ring finished. Only one person he knew who’d be calling him here – Kendra.

  He’d pushed too hard, too fast last night. Acting, when waiting might have been wiser.

  He intended to give Matthew the family he deserved, but it had been much too soon to hit Kendra. He’d already seen how she’d retreated that afternoon – so what had he been thinking?

  Obvious answer: He wasn’t thinking.

  The phone rang a second time.

  If she was calling him – he checked the clock – before eight-thirty, maybe he hadn’t b
lundered after all.

  “Hello.”

  “Daniel? This is Robert. Your brother.”

  Robert invariably identified himself that way. Daniel wondered if Robert doubted Daniel would recognize his voice from one infrequent phone conversation to the next, or if Robert needed to remind himself of their relationship.

  “Hello, Robert. Everything okay?”

  Robert had been in college when his staid parents had adopted a nameless scrawny kid from the streets of South America. At first they’d tolerated each other for the sake of Robert Senior and Annette. Over the years of sporadic contact their suspicions had eased. More was unlikely.

  “Yes, yes, everything’s fine. I saw Mother and Father last week for dinner in Florida. Both appear to be enjoying excellent health. They told me you’d stopped over on your way back from Sa – um, after your latest assignment.”

  Now, that was interesting. Daniel had never mentioned where he’d been, so they couldn’t have told Robert about Santa Estella. He’d certainly never told Robert. Nor to his knowledge would Robert have any reason for knowing his assignment.

  Although... he’d wondered what Robert did in Washington. Robert Senior’s advances in the foreign service had been straightforward and public. Robert Junior operated in the shadows. Daniel had his suspicions, but no certain knowledge.

  For one thing, Robert had an uncanny knack for knowing how to contact Daniel even when the number of people who knew where he’d be could be counted on one hand.

  “Yeah, I hadn’t gotten loose for a visit in a while –” An understatement. During his years as Taumaturgio, trips back to the States had been sporadic and brief. “– so I stayed longer.”

  “Father mentioned that you’d received a number of phone calls while you were there.”

  “Yes.” Some from contacts working on Kendra’s whereabouts and some from his bosses.

  “I understand you’re taking a leave of absence.”

  “You didn’t hear that from Mother and Father.” Because he hadn’t told them.

  “No, no I didn’t.”