“Happy?” Jason said, standing in front of her, looking down at her with an odd expression on his face. He had a glass of champagne in his hand.
“Very,” she murmured, looking up at him boldly. Maybe it was the soft light in the room, all those reading table lamps, but he looked better than he ever had before.
“You aren’t a bit envious of Max stealing the show?”
“What a sense of humor you have,” she said, smiling. “I have given birth to the greatest artist this century has known. Let’s see my son top that one.”
Jason laughed, and, before he thought, said, “I have always loved you.”
“Me and every other female in this hemisphere,” she said before she could stop herself.
At that Jason threw his glass against the wall, where it shattered into thousands of tiny shards. In one strong swoop, he grabbed Amy to him, pulling her out of the chair and up into his arms. Then he kissed her hard. But the kiss soon softened, and the moment his tongue touched hers, Amy’s body went limp in surrender.
“So long,” she murmured. “It’s been so very, very long.”
Jason held her to him, caressing her back, his fingers entangled in her hair. “So long since me or since . . . him?”
“There is no ‘him,’ ” she said, her face pressed into his neck.
At that Jason pulled her away from him and held her at arm’s length. “There is no Arnie?”
“Only the man who owns the potato chip factory.”
It took Jason a moment to understand; then he pulled her back into his arms. “Me. I bought the factory and named it after my great uncle.”
“What about Doreen?” Amy wanted to say more, but she couldn’t think with Jason’s hands on her body.
Jason grabbed her with all the pent-up passion he’d been holding back and kissed her with all his body. “I love you, Amy,” he whispered against her lips. “I’ve loved you forever and will always love you. Doreen made up our engagement . . . she thought she was doing me a favor. I tried to explain.”
Amy’s sigh of relief said it all. She believed.
Jason pulled Amy even closer and looked deeply into her eyes. “Don’t go, Amy. Please don’t go away. Stay here with me forever.”
What could she say but yes? “Yes,” she whispered, “yes.”
After that there was no more breath for words as they tore at each other’s clothing, pulling and tearing, tugging, then giving great sighs of pleasure as each new bit of skin was exposed. When they were naked, they fell down on the mattress that Max had used for his afternoon naps, and when Jason entered her, Amy gasped in pleasure and disbelief—how could she ever have left this man? How could she—?
“Amy, Amy,” Jason kept whispering. “I love you. I love you.”
And all Amy could answer was, “Yes.”
It was an hour later when they lay still on the mattress, exhausted, their arms wrapped tightly about each other. “Tell me everything,” she said, sounding like her mother-in-law. “I want to know about all the women, about everything. What I see and what I feel coming from you are two different things. I want to understand, to know you, but I can’t. I need words,” she said.
At first Jason was reluctant to talk; after all, what man wants to tell a woman how much he needs her? But once Jason began to talk, he couldn’t stop. Loneliness is a great tongue loosener. And it hadn’t been until he’d met Amy and Max that he’d known how empty his life was.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and the words were from her heart. “I’m sorry for your pain.”
He told her how difficult it had been in Abernathy, how the townspeople had fought him. “I thought they’d be grateful, but they resented a New Yorker coming in here and trying to tell them what to do.”
“But you were born and raised here,” Amy said.
When Jason said nothing, she pulled away so she could look at him. “What is between you and this town? And your father?” she asked softly. “Not even Mildred would tell me what happened.”
It was a while before Jason spoke. “Sometimes a person has to face his worst fears, and . . .” He took a deep breath. “You know that my mother died when David was just a baby.”
“Yes. And I know that your father had to raise you two boys alone.”
“That’s his version of it,” Jason said angrily, then stopped himself. “My father didn’t have much time for kids, so after my mother died, he left us alone to fend for ourselves.”
“Ah. I guess that means he left you to take care of David by yourself.”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t think that’s what you’re angry at Abernathy about, is it?”
Again Jason took his time, as though he had to calm himself down before he could speak. “My mother was a saint. She had to be to be married to a cold bastard like my father. When she learned that she was dying, she told no one. She didn’t want to be a burden to anyone, so she went to the doctor alone, kept the news to herself, and we kept on living like nothing was wrong.”
As he paused, Amy could feel the tension in his body. “But one of the Abernathy gossips saw her in a café in a motel about thirty miles from here, then went home to spread the word that Mrs. Wilding was having an out-of-town affair.”
“And your father believed the gossip,” Amy said softly.
“Oh, yeah. He believed it so much that he got her back by jumping into bed with some hot little number from—” He cut himself off until he was calm again.
“I was the one who found out the truth. I cut school and hid in the backseat of my mother’s car. I was in the waiting room of the doctor’s when she came out. She made me promise not to tell my father. She said that life was to be lived, not mourned.”
“I would have liked to have met her,” Amy said.
“She was wonderful, but she got a raw deal.”
“She had two children who loved her, and it seems that her husband was mad about her.”
“What?!” Jason gasped.
“How did he take it when he found out that his wife was dying?”
“He never said a word about it, but after her death he locked himself in a room for three days. When he came out, he took on extra work so he was never home, and as far as I know, he’s never spoken her name again.”
“And you doubt that he loved her?”
For a moment, Amy held her breath. Maybe she’d gone too far. People liked to hold on to their beliefs and didn’t like to have them contradicted.
“I guess he did,” Jason said at last. “But I wish he’d loved us more. Sometimes I got sick of being my kid brother’s mother and father. Sometimes I wanted to . . . to play football like the other kids.”
Amy didn’t say anything, but she could see the pattern in Jason’s life. His father had taught him that making money was everything and that if you worked enough, you could block out pain and loneliness and all sorts of unpleasant emotions.
She snuggled against him, her flesh touching his, and she could feel that he was beginning to become aroused again. But he held back. “And what of your life? You seem to have done well.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she had done very well, that she’d gone off and made herself a fortune, that she didn’t need any man. But the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth. It was time to tell the truth.
She took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart. “Yes, I’ve done well, but at first I was afraid that Max and I would starve,” she said at last. “I did a very stupid thing when I ran away.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded. “I would have helped. I would have—”
“Pride. I’ve always had too much pride. When I found out what Billy really was, I should have left him, but I couldn’t bear to hear people saying that I gave up just because I found some flaws in the man.”
“Flaws?” he said in astonishment.
Turning on her side, Amy put her hand on his face. “My marriage to Billy was awful,” she said. “I was miserable. I ha
ted the drinking and the drugs, but I also hated that he was weak, and that he could sacrifice everything just so he could feel good.”
“When you met him—” Jason said softly.
“He was in one of his sober periods. But I should have known. He made all sorts of remarks that later I remembered and knew that they had been clues to what and who he was. And when you came along, you seemed so perfect, but then I found out that you, like Billy, had a secret life, and I couldn’t handle it. I ran. I just picked up my son and ran as fast and as far as I could. Can you understand that?”
“Yes,” he said as he ran his hand up her bare arm. “It makes sense. You’re here now and—”
“But it was so awful! I was so frightened and alone and—”
Jason turned her in his arms until her face was buried in his shoulder. “Shh, it’s all over now. I’m going to take care of you and Max, and—”
“But everyone will think I’ve married you for your money. They’ll say that I learned my lesson with Billy, so this time I went after a man with money.”
Jason smiled into her hair. “I think it’s more likely they’ll say that I went after you. Did Mildred tell you that I had private detectives looking for you for over a year? They could find nothing. Yet all the time Mildred knew where you were.” There was a touch of bitterness in his voice.
“But she didn’t. She just found us a few months ago, and that was by accident.”
Jason pulled away to look at her. “How did she find you?”
“She bought Max some Christmas presents because she said that she never gave up hope of seeing him again, and one of them was a children’s book. She saw my photo in the back of a book I had illustrated.”
“That simple,” Jason said, then smiled as he remembered all the agony he’d gone through with the private detectives. “And what is your pen name?”
“My real name is Amelia Rudkin. Using Billy’s name was just a courtesy to him, but I never bothered to change it legally. I was listed in the New York phone directory. I guess I never gave up hope that you would look for me and find me.”
Jason tightened his arms around her. “I’m glad it happened. If you hadn’t run away, I would have continued as I was. I’m sure I would have kept on working without stop just to prove to you that I could support you and—”
“But why would you need to prove anything to me?”
“Because you’re the woman I love, the only one I’ve ever loved.”
Turning, she looked at him. “But if Mildred is to be believed, the people of Abernathy have given you such a hard time that by all rights you should want the first plane out of here.”
“I agree. They are an ungrateful, complaining lot, but, on the other hand, they treat me as a person. Mr. William, who owns the hardware store, told me that I’d always been hardheaded and I hadn’t changed. Maybe it was that I was at last surrounded by people who weren’t toadies that kept me here. If I raised an eyebrow at my employees in New York, they backtracked and said what they thought I wanted to hear. But here . . .” He smiled.
“Here they tell you what they think of you,” Amy finished for him.
“Yes. Mildred told me day after day that I was the reason you’d left. She said that David and I had played such a nasty trick that any woman in her right mind—”
“Don’t hint that I was in my right mind, to run off with a baby and no way to support him.”
“Ah,” Jason said, smiling, “but it’s all come out in the end. At last Max will have a father. If you’ll have me, that is.”
“I’ll take you if you want us,” Amy said softly. “But I . . .”
“What?”
“Today has been a revelation to me, for today I’ve found out that my two-and-a-half-year-old son is not only a better painter than I am, he’s smarter than I am. I’m afraid that I’m like so many other people and I couldn’t see you for your money. But Max always saw what was inside you.”
“Real smart kid,” Jason said, making Amy laugh. “You think you’d like to have more of them?”
At that, Amy groaned. “Morning sickness, exhaustion, and, oh, no, not breast-feeding again!” When she saw Jason’s face, she laughed. “Yes, of course I’d like to have more of them. Half a dozen at least. Think they’ll have gray hair?”
But before Jason could answer, they were hit by a solid projectile that landed smack on Jason.
“What in—” he began as he tried to sort out arms and legs that seemed to be everywhere.
“You little devil,” Amy said, laughing as she started to tickle her son. “You made Doreen bring you back, didn’t you?”
For a moment Jason was a bit horrified at the thought of what the child might have seen and heard, and he was also shocked at the lack of privacy. Little did he know that such adult things were gone forever.
But he didn’t have time to contemplate his fate and the blessings of it because Max stood up and shot himself forward. Amy knew what was coming and protected her face with her arms, but Jason caught the full weight of the boy on his face.
“Monkeys!” Max squealed, then started bouncing on his new father’s stomach.
The Blessing Page 22
