Stopping at the kitchen, Bette brought out a pitcher of iced tea, two glasses and a plate of cookies, then led Grady to the big screened-in porch at the back of the house.
“The iced tea’s great, Bette.” He took a glass and sat at the round table where she was working on a project. Neatly stacked magazines flanked a yellow legal pad filled with notes. A pile of cutout magazine pictures sat to one side, with three cumbersome albums opposite him. “But the cookies—I just came from the Monroes’ . . .”
She smiled; they both knew her mother-in-law’s penchant for feeding anyone who walked in her door. “So you couldn’t possibly eat another thing.”
“What’re you working on?”
“Garden—” She pointed to one magazine stack, then gestured more broadly at the other stack, plus the pictures and albums. “And nursery. I’m getting that organized so I can show the workmen coming tomorrow exactly what we want for the colors and wallpaper.”
A smile pulled at his lips. “Leslie said you’d redecorate the room for the baby.”
Bette gave him a searching look. “She was right.”
Getting up got him away from that look. Pretending a great interest in the pottery candle holders and oil lamps gathered on the windowsills that opened into the house provided an excuse to keep moving.
“We were going to do it ourselves, but organizing’s about all I’m good for these days,” she said with a grimace at her cumbersome body. “Let me give you a word of advice, Grady. If they ever figure out a way for men to be pregnant, don’t plan to be eight months’ pregnant in July, not unless you can spend the time in Alaska. Anyway, Paul wanted to do the nursery by himself, but as many things as he’s good at, wallpapering isn’t one of them.”
Grady picked up an oil lamp, the pottery cool and smooth in his palm, his mind hundreds of miles to the east.
“We tried the powder room, and it was a disaster. He blames Michael. He says if Michael’s renovation on his Victorian down in Springfield had included wallpapering, he would have learned that along with paint stripping, plastering and painting . . . Grady? Grady.”
He snapped his attention back to the screened porch in Evanston, Illinois, and to Bette.
“Sorry. My mind wandered. I’ve got this big deal going. It’s been a long, complicated sale and the commission can make the financial year for us.” A slight exaggeration but a comfortable explanation of his inattention.
Not to Bette.
“You’ve had big deals before. You love them.”
“Yeah.” He grinned sheepishly. “Don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
“Offhand, I’d say you’re lonely.”
Caught off guard, his grin faltered and he tried to retrieve it. “Hard to be lonely in my life-style.” He let the grin go. “Remember the first time Paul brought you to meet Michael and me?” She nodded, a wealth of memories in her eyes. “I told him then that he was proving he was smarter than me because he saw the value of quality over quantity. And in you he’d definitely found quality.”
Her eyes misted. “Thank you, Grady.”
“Don’t cry on me, Bette.” His panic was mostly kidding, but not all. What did you do with an eight months’ pregnant, crying woman? “If Paul finds out I made you cry he’ll have my hide. Besides, you know how I feel about you."
“I know. But it’s nice to hear it. Everybody needs to hear the words,” she said with an emphasis that made him slightly uncomfortable. In contrast, the gentle tone of her next few words initially lulled him. “But tell me the truth, Grady, you stopped being satisfied with quantity quite some time ago, didn’t you?”
He tried to slough it off with a puzzled shake of his head “I don’t understand what you’re getting at, Bette.”
“Oh, I think you do.” Her bland response didn’t leave much room for denial. “Just remember, Grady, changing takes a lot of patience. Not just with yourself, but patience with your friends, it might take a while for everybody to catch up with you.”
“Now I’m sure I don’t understand.”
She tipped her head consideringly. “I remember that first night I met you and Michael, too. And I remember thinking that you have a knack for accepting people, Grady. As they are, right this moment. Not as they were, not as you’d like them to be. Not everyone is as good at that as you are. It takes them a while to catch up with a friend’s changes. But they will catch up. That’s all.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so.”
He left soon after. In the short drive home, he realized he didn’t dread the night in his solitary condo quite as much as he had when he’d left the office.
* * * *
Monday she wasn’t ready. Tuesday and Wednesday Tris was out of town. Thursday Leslie went to Tris’s office.
“Busy?”
“Not too busy to talk.”
“Good.” She closed the door, ignoring Tris’s questioning look, and sat on the low bookcase by the window, twisting her watch so she could see the time. If this did not go the way she wanted, she was not above creating an appointment to cut it short. But she would start by assuming it would go the way she wanted, which required being direct. Very direct.
“I don’t suppose for an instant that you’re not aware that Grady’s been taking me to some historic sites around the area.” Tris opened her mouth, but Leslie held up a forestalling hand, and she shut it. “If you didn't know it through Grady, I am absolutely positive the grapevine would tell you since he called here once or twice.”
So far, so good. Tone light; Tris listening.
“I told you from the first, Tris, that I am not one to fall for the Grady Roberts charm, even if he plied it. And I’ll tell you again. But—” She leaned forward and spoke each word with uncustomary precision. “If I did decide to fall, it would be my decision and my concern alone.”
Even as she relaxed her pose, she stopped another imminent protest by talking on. “But that’s not an issue. The issue is that I saw you and Grady when you ran into each other here last week, Tris. It made me want to cry. And then it made me want to knock your heads together. First you for being so cool to him, then him for pretending it didn’t hurt him and then both of you together.” She looked at her friend. “Don’t do that to him, Tm.”
“I’m just looking out for you,” Tris said stiffly.
“I know, but I can look out for myself.”
“I’ve known Grady a long time and I know—”
“Yes, which is exactly the problem.” Tris looked skeptical, but she let Leslie continue. “I’ve been thinking about this awhile. Before you all got together again last summer for Paul and Bette’s wedding, you didn’t see Michael for who he really was, but only as a buddy. When you did open your eyes to him last August, you fell in love with him. I think you’ve been nearly as blind about Grady. For a long time you saw him as a hero. You long ago outgrew that, and last year you had a chance to accept him for who he really is, flaws and all—the flaws you’d never allowed yourself to see in your hero.”
“You see flaws in him?” Tris asked s1owly, as if not quite believing it.
“Of course I do.” She also saw strength that no one else—including Grady himself—gave him credit for. “But it seems like that’s all you’re seeing in him. Grady is your friend. Don’t judge him so harshly. Don’t cut him out of your life. He needs your friendship.”
The regret and a bit of guilt in Tris’s eyes both relieved Leslie and made her sad. Without her, neither Grady nor Tris would have anything to feel bad about.
“I just don’t want you to be hurt.”
“I know you don’t.” She couldn’t add the words to assure Tris that she wouldn’t be hurt. “But in the process, you’re hurting Grady. Nobody wants that.”
Leslie sat utterly still, letting Tris study her for signs of unhappiness. She wasn’t unhappy, not really, because she’d accepted her life a long time ago. So there could be no signs to see. Could there?
Tris hesitated so lo
ng that when she finally spoke, Leslie let out a silent sigh of relief.
“Leslie, you’ve always been there for me. Right from the start, when you let me—no, you made me—talk my way through the aftermath of that foolish marriage I made right out of school. And with Michael . . . Well, I don't know what would have happened if you hadn’t thrown us together during that snowstorm. I don’t know if I would have had the nerve to confront him otherwise—”
“You wouldn’t have.”
Tris made a face, but kept on. “And I don't know if I would have recognized some of the things you spotted about our relationship.”
“Now, that you would have done—eventually.”
“But you’ve never let me help you. You’re my friend. I love you. I want to be here for you, too. Won’t you let me?”
Fighting the urge to lean on that offered shoulder, Leslie dredged up a humorous drawl, though she didn’t feel the least amused. “But that’s just the point. There’s no need. Besides, that’s not the way it works. You can’t reverse the roles. Bless your heart, I’m the older-woman confidante. I’m supposed to provide the comforting shoulder and the guiding word. I’m way past the point of needing them myself.”
She exited before Tris could make the protest Leslie saw forming on her lips.
Reaching her own office, she softly closed the door, then leaned against the wall, eyes closed, trying to hold onto the reality of what she had to give to the world, the only role left to her.
Please don’t take that away, too.
Chapter Nine
“I’d hoped Tris and Michael could join us, but they’re in Illinois,” Leslie said for the third time.
Grady looked at the woman sitting on the far side of the quilt, repacking leftovers into a hamper for the second time. Of the thousands of people blanketing the Capitol’s west lawn, she had to be the most uncomfortable, and the most determinedly cheerful.
Ever since he’d arrived at her apartment this afternoon she’d talked almost nonstop. Not once—as they took the Metro to the Capitol, joined the stream of holiday-making humanity, found an open spot in the grass and consumed their picnic of fried chicken, potato salad and fruit—did she let the topic slip any closer to the intimacy they’d experienced at Tanner’s Inn and where it might lead them than Kansas was to a mountain.
“I know. They’re in Springfield.”
“How do you know that?”
"Tris called. Said she and Michael were going to be in Springfield for the Fourth and asked if I’d like to join them.”
“She did?” Leslie smiled, and for the first time he thought she really meant it. “That’s great.”
“I told her I was spending the Fourth with you.”’
“Oh.” Now she looked concerned and tried to hide it.
“It’s all right, Leslie. She didn’t break my sword over her knee or anything. No firing squad at dawn. She just said okay, and they'd see me next time we were both in the same place. It seems we’re back to buddies as usual.”
“That’s good.”
He waited for her to look up, but straightening a corner of the quilt took a lot of attention.
What the hell, he might as well bring it out in the open. He knew she must’ve talked to Tris, but he’d like to hear it from her.
“In fact, I was going to ask you about—”
“Oh, look, the concert’s going to start.”
The orchestra was merely beginning its warm-up, but Leslie seemed determined to hear every note. Around them talk and laughter hummed, but she turned her face to the stage in rapt attention, and turned her shoulder on him.
He lounged on his side, propping his head in one hand. Beyond the hamper she’d placed between them, she sat very straight. Either she’d received a recent lecture on posture or she was tense about something. Or someone.
Bits and pieces of this afternoon came together with what he knew of her, and congealed in a lump in his gut.
Music flowed around him as the day’s light and heat faded. Familiar, upbeat songs. A famous conductor and well-known singers invited everyone to join in, a national sing-along on the front porch of the nation’s Capitol.
Leslie sang, he didn’t.
Even the stirring marches that had an elderly couple to their left tapping the arms of their lawn chairs and the trio of kids in front of them marching in place didn’t lift his spirits.
By the time the concert reached its rousing finale with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture—complete with cannon shots as a fitting segue into the fireworks—he’d resolved to get this out in the open. Whatever “this” might be.
“Leslie—” The first rocket tore through the air with an anticipatory crackle. Boom! Color exploded with the sound, followed by a wave of “ooohs.” He tried again. “Leslie—”
“Oh, isn’t that beautiful.” Since the color had faded, she had to be enthusing about the residue of the first firecracker or a faint track of the next one’s ascent.
“Leslie—” Another explosion swallowed his words.
“I love the ones that go from green to red like that,” she said before he could try again.
He waited for the next one to go off, then spoke quickly, trying to avoid interruption from a firecracker or her enthusiasm. “I thought we’d try a trip to Charlottesville again next weekend. I could meet—”
Bang! A rocket exploded in a circle of dazzling white. As it began to evaporate, it let off more blasts of light and noise. Bammedy—bam! — bam! — bam!
She winced, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the sound or his proposal.
“I hear Monticello’s beautiful, Leslie. I’d like to see it with you.”
“Next weekend? I‘m afraid that’s not a good time for me.” She spoke around another eruption of noise that presaged a shower of blue and yellow.
The polite distance of her tone iced his heart.
“The weekend after, then.”
“I’m afraid—”
He fought down the words that would accuse her of being exactly that—afraid. Instead he rapped out, “The one after that.”
“I don’t want to make plans for any out-of-town trips right now.” She sounded so damned reasonable he wanted to shake her. Why was she doing this?
Well, he could fight reason with reason. He hardly noticed the red, white and blue streams across the sky.
“Fine. We’ll try closer-in places. I hear Annapolis—”
“No.” The word had an edge; at least he’d rattled her. But she must have heard the edge, too, and he could see her retreating from its revelation. She gave a little laugh. “Let’s just enjoy the fireworks for now.”
With the timing of a perfect accomplice, another flare went out, trailing colored sparks before it burst into a rainbowed chrysanthemum against the inky blue sky.
“Oh, look at that, isn’t that beautiful?”
He said nothing, following the smoke of a spent firework drifting into a forgotten part of the sky while people anticipated the next explosion.
Up in smoke.
He didn’t like the sound of that. He wasn’t accustomed to it, and he didn’t intend to get accustomed to it, damn it.
He was unaware of speaking the last two words aloud until Leslie flicked him a look before raising her face to the sky again.
The look couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds, but it was amazing how much you could absorb in a snap of the fingers. He’d seen her determination. But he’d also seen concern for him, and a true and real fear. Leslie Craig was scared. Of being hurt, of getting involved, of caring too much? Maybe one, maybe all. But he knew for certain she feared him—being hurt by him, getting involved with him, caring too much for him.
In Chicago he’d been undecided how to proceed. Whether to pursue the chemistry between them when doing that might put their friendship at risk. But she’d left him no choice. She intended to withdraw from his life entirely. For fear of the chemistry, she wouldn’t even leave him the friendship. So he had nothing
to lose.
And the possible gains? He couldn’t afford to think of that right now.
* * * *
The deep breath she took to say good-night, to take the next step in sending him away forever, left a silence he filled forcefully.
“I’m coming up, and I’m coming in."
His hand under her elbow started her on the stairs.
Maybe it was just as well. In the privacy of her apartment she could make it a clean break tonight, finish it right now, instead of drawing it out.
Inside, she dropped her quilt and sweater on the bench and started past him to add lights to the dim lamp she’d left burning. He gripped her wrist, stopping her cold.
“Quit stalling, Leslie.”
“I’m not stalling. I’m just—”
“Yeah. I know what you're just, and I know what you’ve been working up to all night. But before you say it, I want to know why. And not all that crap about being older or having nothing in common or wanting to be only friends. Because we’ve been friends these past weeks, and that doesn’t change this.”
Still gripping only her wrist, he angled his head to take her mouth. Adjusting to meet his lips more fully was the most natural thing in the world. As natural as it was to collaborate when he changed the angle. As natural as it was to part her lips when his tongue tested them. As natural as it was to meet and match the rhythm of his tongue’s thrust and retreat.
He released her mouth and her wrist without moving back. She didn’t move away; she couldn't. Not with those blue eyes declaring the same message as the harsh, uneven sounds of their breathing.
“You can’t deny this, Leslie. You might want to, but you can’t. You’re too honest.”
His eyes remained on hers as he drew nearer, and nearer still, until she couldn’t possibly deny the message in his eyes. She could back away from it or she could accept it, but she couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist.
Slowly, as if against a great force, she lifted her hands to his arms. Then, gaining strength from the contact, she slid her hands to his shoulders, across their breadth to his neck.
Her eyes drifted closed. The sound of his breathing, the feel of his pulse under her palm were her anchors in the dark world.
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