Mother Knows Best

by Barbara Bretton

  He was amazing, Gregory Stewart was -- amazing and dangerous. Whoever the man of her post-Labor Day dreams turned out to be, he had one heck of a tough act to follow.

  #

  Having Diana's nieces on board had Gregory a little unnerved but so far they'd contented themselves eating their chicken and rice and waving at every fishing boat that passed by. His nightmare of seeing them leap overboard in an attempt to swim to Connecticut hadn't come to pass but he doubted he'd breathe normally again until they were docked back at the marina.

  A breeze blew up off the Sound and ruffled Diana's blonde curls. Her lips curved in a gentle smile as she leaned back against the railing and closed her eyes.

  Maybe he wouldn't breathe normally again at all. Her white mini skirt rode up her thighs, exposing a long, beautifully length of tanned leg. She wore a cropped red shirt that barely met the waistband of her skirt and the swell of her full breasts were outlined by the soft terry fabric. Her feet were bare; the toenails painted a delicate, shimmering shade of pink. It didn't take a quantum leap of imagination to know how she would feel, naked and willing, in his arms.

  "If the girls weren't here, you'd be in a lot of trouble," he said, his voice low and lazy.

  "Lucky me." She opened her eyes and gave him a look through half-closed lids that had him struggling for self-control.

  Her breasts were pushing against the terry and the taut outlines of her nipples were plainly -- tantalizingly -- visible. He ached to feel their hardness against the palms of his hands.

  He cleared his throat; self-control was quick becoming an exercise in absurdity. "What would you say about taking a trip with me?"

  She was silent, watching him through those sleepy hazel eyes of hers.

  He moved toward her. He couldn't have stopped if he wanted to. Every muscle, every fiber, in his body was straining toward the inevitable. "I mean it, Diana. What would you say to -- "

  "Ah-choo!"

  Chapter Fourteen

  Diana jumped as if splashed with icy water as Gregory stopped a few feet away from her and looked around. "What was that?"

  "A sneeze, I think."

  "Yours?"

  "No. I thought it was yours."

  He shook his head. "Not mine." He started toward her again. "Maybe there's a ghost on board."

  "Ah-choo!"

  Another sneeze exploded and Diana reluctantly relinquished passion and went on red alert. "Oh, no!" She wheeled around in time to see Kath wipe her nose with her paper napkin.

  "Are they allergic to something?" Gregory asked.

  "Not that I know of." Jenny added her sneeze to that of her sister, and Diana's heart sank. "I can't believe this," she said, then pressed her lips to each small forehead. "They're burning up!" She turned to Gregory. "We have to -- "

  "Don't worry," he said, "I have it all under control."

  #

  As it turned out, Gregory Stewart was a man of his word. Before Diana had a chance to panic, he had them back at the marina and safely bundled into the station wagon. He made a call to Dave, whose brother was married to a pediatrician, and within two and a half hours the girls had been diagnosed, medicated, and tucked into bed for the night.

  Diana poured them each a cup of coffee and they strolled out onto the deck at Gull Cottage. "Not exactly what you had in mind, was it?"

  "Not exactly." Gregory leaned against the railing and took a sip of coffee. "I have to admit those two really had me shook up there. I'm glad they're okay."

  "You?" Diana's laugh was high and flavored with the sound of pure, unadulterated relief. "I'm surprised my hair didn't turn white by the time we got to the pediatrician's office."

  He reached over and took one of her curls between his large, tanned fingers and her stomach fluttered in a most disconcerting fashion. "How did your sister take the news?"

  "The way she takes all news about the kids: I felt like FDR announcing the bombing of Pearl Harbor."

  "You told her it was just a summer cold, didn't you?"

  "Three times," said Diana with a sigh. "I finally had to give her Dr. Marshall's phone number."

  "Dr. Marshall may consider getting a new number."

  Diana shot him a quelling look. "Maybe Dr. Marshall can convince Paula to stay in Monte Carlo where she belongs. Art wasn't having much luck."

  Gregory met her eyes. "They might come home?"

  "I don't know." She hesitated. The touch of his fingers as they brushed against her neck was heavenly. "Maybe."

  He rested his coffee cup on the deck railing and drew closer. "Would they stay here with you?"

  "Who knows?" Her breath caught as he looped his other arm around her waist and pulled her toward him. "They might collect the girls and take them back to New Jersey."

  "Let's hear it for New Jersey."

  She grinned despite herself. "Of course, Art is paying the bills here at Gull Cottage. They'd be within their rights if they stayed awhile to enjoy the place."

  "There's no furniture inside," Gregory pointed out, then placed a kiss against the side of her throat. "What would Art think about that?"

  A rush of desire, curiously mingled with an odd feeling of contentment, flooded Diana. "Art is a man who loves his creature comforts. I don't think he'd care for it."

  "You realize if the twins weren't on the premises, I wouldn't be so easy to send away, don't you?"

  The flutter in her belly intensified. "I had suspected as much."

  "Should I call your sister and tell her to come and get her daughters?"

  "Gregory, I -- " Her words caught in her throat. Don't ask me because I don't know if I have the will power to refuse you anymore.

  His hands slid up over the curve of her waist, along her ribcage, then settled provocatively under the fullness of her breasts.

  "No," Diana finally whispered, against a rising tide of longing. "Not yet."

  He covered her mouth with his, in a kiss that was as demanding as it was tender. "I won't wait forever," he said when he pulled away from her. "Even if it means tossing you over my back and kidnapping you to the high seas."

  "Is that a warning?" she asked, trying to keep her voice light.

  "It's a promise." He kissed her again, branding her mouth with the shape and taste and texture of his. "When the month is over, I'm going to claim you."

  #

  Gregory meant every word he said to Diana at Gull Cottage that evening.

  And he had also meant all the words he had chosen not to say, words he'd never thought would be part of his emotional vocabulary again.

  She had done the impossible -- forced him out of his isolation and thrown him headlong back into the mainstream of life. Not only was he spending a great deal of time fantasizing about Diana, suddenly he found himself thinking things he'd given up on a long time ago. About a marriage that would be as much about friendship as it was about love. About a family of his own, although, admittedly, that was a longshot. About tossing her over his shoulder and hijacking her to the Caribbean where they could discover if this was the real thing -- or just a glorious facsimile.

  When the kids took ill tonight, he had been on the verge of asking Diana to toss caution to the four winds and join him on his excursion. The moment may not have been perfect, but the feelings were -- this deep certainty that it would work, that it was right.

  That the only thing that could make him feel whole and happy and hopeful for the future was knowing that Diana was there at the center of it.

  #

  Joey Marino looked up at Diana the next morning, his dark brown eyes wide with disappointment. "If they're sick, that means I've gotta go home, right?"

  Diana laughed and waved goodbye to Mary Ann as the woman maneuvered her Hyundai back down the curving driveway. "Oh, you're not going to get out of work that easily, Joseph," she said, closing the front door and leading him into the kitchen. "The girls may be under the weather, but that doesn't mean I don't have a lot of chores for you to do today." She narrowed her eyes and
looked at him, willing herself to not notice the frightening changes that seemed to be taking place on a daily basis. "That is, if you're in the mood?"

  "Sure," said Joey, sitting down at the card table and helping himself to a glass of milk and a blueberry muffin. "I'm eighteen dollars away from being able to get my catcher's mitt."

  "Quite the capitalist, are you? How about I toss in an extra buck if you'll watch TV with Boris this morning while I try to figure out how to work the modem on my computer?"

  "I know how to work a modem," said the twelve year old. "It's easy."

  Diana stared at the boy in disbelief. "The instruction book is bigger than both testaments of the Bible. I can barely figure out which cable to use." She grabbed the instruction book from the counter top and waved it in the air between them. "You need a Ph.D. in computer science to understand this blasted thing."

  "Can I see?" asked Joey.

  "Sure." Diana handed it to him. "I was going to offer it to Kath and Jenny as a high tech coloring book but reason got the better of me."

  Diana watched while Joey munched blueberry muffins and thumbed through the manual.

  "How many baud is your modem?"

  It was the kind of question that usually got a man's face slapped but, fortunately, this time Diana recognized it as computerese.

  "I don't know," she said, to Joey's amusement. "What's baud?"

  Joey barely managed to withhold a sigh of disbelief. "How fast your modem can transfer information between computers."

  "Oh." He told her how to track down the information in her equally-weighty computer manual and in a few moments she had the answer. "Twelve hundred," she said.

  Joey nodded as if he'd expected as much then ate a little more and read a little more. There must be a column in this, Diana thought as she watched him thumb through the pages. Certainly Mother could get a week's worth of material on computerese for the technically inept. Computers were as much a part of American life these days as VCR's and washing machines and --

  "Okay," said Joey with a big grin. "I know how to hook it up."

  Both the modem and her laptop computer were on the kitchen counter and within minutes Joey had the computer talking to the modem and the modem wired up to the telephone, ready to transmit her priceless prose straight to the computer at her agent's office. Not that her agent didn't trust Diana to make her deadline, but the good woman had made it clear she would feel much more secure if she at least saw a chapter or two of Mother's latest work-in-progress.

  "You're a genius, Joseph Marino," she declared when the boy had finished hooking everything up. "What on earth are they teaching kids at school these days -- quantum physics?"

  Joey shrugged his bony shoulders as if technical wizardry were an everyday miracle. "I learned this at the hospital."

  Some of Diana's high spirits flagged. "Quite a hospital," she said lightly. "I'm impressed. Were you rooming with a genius?"

  "They had classes," he said, digging the toe of his Nike into the joint between two of the sand-colored floor tiles. "To keep us busy, you know."

  "I think you deserve a raise."

  His cheeks reddened. "Nah. Maybe a milkshake, though."

  She lifted an eyebrow. "At nine in the morning?"

  "Yeah. Chocolate, with lots of syrup."

  "And whipped cream, I suppose."

  "A ton of it."

  "Your mother would shoot me, Joey."

  "No, she wouldn't. She wants me to gain weight. She thinks I'm too skinny."

  Diana was proud of the way she ignored the lump forming in her throat. "Okay, just this once. Computer geniuses deserve special treatment, I guess."

  "Aww-right!" Joey hoisted himself up onto the counter and sat there, legs dangling, while she busied herself putting together the chocolate milkshake. His legs were skinny as the rest of him, dotted with band-aids and bruises and the other assorted badges of honor coveted by twelve year old boys, and if she didn't know better, it would be easy to imagine him racing around the dunes, scrambling through the brush, tossing his body at the waves and laughing as they tossed him back on shore.

  "Are Kath and Jen real, real sick?" he asked as she scooped ice cream into the big Tupperware pitcher she was using as a makeshift, hand-operated blender.

  "No, honey. Just bad colds, that's all."

  He nodded, his legs swinging back and forth even faster. "Do they have to take a lot of medicines?"

  She shook her head and added the chocolate syrup. "Baby aspirin to bring the fever down."

  He thought about that for a moment as she poured milk into the pitcher then fastened the lid back on top. She raised the pitcher to shake the mixture up when he blurted out: "Do you think I'm going to die?"

  Only her two semesters of college drama classes kept her from dropping the whole mess to the floor in shock. "Wh-what makes you ask that, Joey?" she managed, praying her face didn't betray the panic she was feeling.

  "My mom thinks so," he stated. "I bet Gregory thinks so, too, but he won't talk about it. I wanted to know what you think."

  "Well," she said carefully, "we all die sooner or later."

  "That's not what I mean."

  "I know that." Her eyelids fluttered closed for an instant then she met his steady gaze. "I don't know enough about your condition to say, Joey." I do know I want you to grow up to be an old, old man with a wife and children and grandchildren all around you.

  "I think that's why Mom won't let me have one of Daisy's puppies," he confided as she poured the milkshake into a huge plastic cup. "I think she's afraid I'll die and there will be nobody to love him."

  "Oh, I don't know," she said, pouring herself a glass of orange juice and praying she'd say the right thing. "Your mom has an awful lot to do these days. Maybe a puppy just seems like too much to handle right now."

  He shook his head. "I don't think that's the reason. I see the way she looks at me, real sad and angry -- the same way she looked at Grandpa before he died."

  "She loves you, Joey. It hurts her to see you feeling sick."

  "I told her it was the chemo," he said, not hesitating an instant over the word the way the adults around him so often did. "I know I'm getting better. It's just the medicine making me sick, that's all."

  "It can be pretty rough, can't it?" Diana commiserated, although God had seen fit to spare her firsthand knowledge.

  "Yeah," Joey said matter-of-factly, "but I know I'm gonna be okay. Just wait and see."

  "I will," she said, vowing to do exactly that. "I want you to show me exactly how okay you're gonna be."

  They shook hands on it and when Joey wasn't looking, Diana offered up a quick prayer that one day in the future he would do exactly that.

  #

  By the next evening the twins' temperatures were back down to a steady 98.6 and Diana allowed them to watch TV in the solarium with Boris and Iggy for company. Paula had called a record eight times the day before, but since late the previous night the phone had been blessedly quiet.

  Gregory had showed up at the door a little after six with ice cream for Kath and Jenny and a beautiful fresh fruit salad for Diana, in honor of the third -- and hopefully, last -- new start on her oft-postponed diet. "Help yourself," she'd said, flinging open the refrigerator to display a sinful array of casseroles, cakes, and pasta specialties she'd put together to double-check her recipes. "What you can't eat can go to Mary Ann and Joey and Dave and Peggy and anybody else you can think of."

  She had seriously underestimated Gregory's appetite, however, for by the time she popped a videocassette into the machine and settled down on the polished wood floor of the solarium to watch Lady and the Tramp with the twins, he had polished off more than half of the bounty and was making a gallant attempt toward setting a new world speed-eating record.

  The girls were ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the restaurant scene as Lady and Tramp shared a romantic spaghetti dinner and Diana was doing her best not to let Gregory know she was misty-eyed.

  "Disney was in
credible," Gregory said, reaching for another helping of cold meat loaf. "Look at the color separations, will you?"

  Diana nodded and prayed he wouldn't hear the sound of her sniffling.

  "I read somewhere that each movement required hundreds of drawings." He shook his head and took another bite of food. "Unbelievable."

  "Unbelievable," Diana managed. Unbelievable that a thirty-five year old woman would sit there blubbering over the love story between a cocker spaniel and a mutt....

  "What was that?"

  "I said, unbelievable."

  He turned to look at her. "You're crying."

  "No, I'm not."

  "Look at me."

  "So sue me." She ducked her head in embarrassment. "I'm a sucker for a love story."

  "I'd hate to see you during Gone with the Wind."

  She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and grinned up at him. "It's not a pretty sight."

  His smile did wonderful things to her equilibrium. "I'll be the judge of that." He put his plate down and leaned back on the floor. "Come closer."

  She hesitated then slid across the polished wood until she was right next to him. He draped his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him, conscious of the play of his taut muscles against her side and the faint scent of sun and soap that lingered with him always. The girls giggled as the celluloid dogs slurped their spaghetti and Ignatius cast them a baleful look as he moved his bulk to a position on the other side of the room.

  "Women and children first!" screeched Boris, hopping from perch to perch. "Abandon ship!"

  Gregory laughed out loud. "That's a new one. Where'd he get that from?"

  "I rented A Night to Remember," said Diana, cuddling against him as easily as if she'd been doing so for years. "He thinks this is the Titanic and Iggy's manning the lifeboats."

  "Between that and the song from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Laurence is in for a few surprises when he gets back."

  "Shh," said Diana. "Let's not talk about that." This wasn't the time to talk about endings, not when she felt as if her life was opening up before her like a glittering Christmas present waiting to be unwrapped. "August will be here soon enough."