Diane rolled dough between the palms of her hands and stopped to look at him. She smiled hesitantly. "Did you have a happy childhood, or a difficult one?"
He didn't even have to think twice. "It was happy. I had everything I needed. My mother loved me and I was always aware of that. But I did miss having a father."
"Did he pass away or leave?"
"Neither. He never existed." That always hurt a little to think about. He was an adult. He knew that to have any peace of mind one has to accept that your life is your life and you simply have to deal with how things are. But under it all was always the wish that, for a while at least, things could have been different. "Well, of course he existed or I wouldn't. But he was never part of my life, apparently never cared that he had a son."
Diane's eyes widened and softened. He mistook the look for pity for a moment, then realized it was just the empathy she felt for everyone.
"Do you know who he was?"
He nodded. "My mother was a bank teller, and he worked on a construction site across the street. Came in every Friday night to cash his check. They went out a couple of times, then the crew moved on to another job and she found herself pregnant with me. He never returned her calls."
"I'm sorry." She moved as though to touch his arm, then realizing her hands were covered in flour, artlessly rubbed her forearm against his upper arm in a gesture of sympathy. He felt it reach right inside him. She went back to forming balls out of cookie dough.
"It's all right," he said. "I think being limited to going to places we could walk to, or places that were on the bus line is what gave me wanderlust. The tight little circuit of my life as a child made me want broader horizons when I grew up. And that's served me well."
"Anna once told me that you leave for someplace different every year. That you work a local job to get enough money to take a trip. That's why you're working for her right now."
He nodded. She pointed to a cup of cloves and he handed it to her.
"Right. And it's quite a plum job. Anna wants to make sure every detail is recorded for your parents because the kids are apparently so pleased they've found each other. So we negotiated a generous flat fee. That, along with my advance on the book will help me stay in Noumea long enough to get every vital detail. I'll make enough money on the trip to support another trip, so my in between jobs may no longer be necessary. The publisher says if they're pleased with these photographs, I could be invited to do a whole series they're planning on tropical islands. It's every photographer's dream career."
"I'm happy for you," she said brightly. He wondered if he imagined a small and very subtle discordant sound in her voice.
She lined up the balls of dough on a cookie sheet and inserted a clove in the middle of each one. She reached again for the oven and he opened the door for her.
"Can you take a break from this to go out for lunch?" he asked. "Or shall we order out for something?"
"Don't you have other things to do?" She reached for the bowl of dough and formed another squadron of balls. Her momentum was remarkable.
"No." He reached for the phone book on a table at the edge of the kitchen. "What are you in the mood for? Chinese? Pizza? Ribs?"
"Working with sweet stuff always makes me long for something hot and spicy."
"Really." He leaned against the counter beside her. "I wonder if working with sweet stuff would do the same for me."
She turned to him laughing, thinking that he was offering to help, and ready to get him an apron. Then she saw the turbulent look in his eyes and realized the "sweet stuff" he talked about wasn't cookie dough. It was... her.
Completely distracted by being considered sweet stuff, she lost track of the hundreds of cookies yet unprepared, and forgot everything but the strong hand on her shoulder turning her to him, and the tender mouth opening over hers.
"Diane," he said in a whisper, the sound full of strong feeling.
Their lips had just made contact when the front door burst open. Diane and Jason drew apart in surprise.
Whitney hurried in, sobbing, her bulk making her awkward. She disappeared into a bedroom.
Tom and Claire stood in the open doorway, looking defeated.
"What happened?" Diane came to the edge of the dining room, floury hands held away from her.
Claire burst into tears. Tom put an arm around her shoulders and said grimly, "I think Whitney's changed her mind about giving up the babies."
CHAPTER FOUR
Diane couldn't help the plaintive thought. "Oh, God." She tore off her apron, wiped her hands on it, and went to draw her troubled brother and Claire inside.
She settled them on the sofa, then directed quietly, "Tell me what she said."
Claire dabbed at her nose with a tissue. "She seemed a little tense this morning," Tom said, "but she was joking with us on the way to my partner's office. Then, in the middle of his explanation about how she could pick the college of her choice - '' he stopped to expel a breath " - she just ran from the room in tears. Claire followed her to the ladies' room and they talked for a long time."
Claire nodded, tears still streaming down her face. "The worst part of all this," she said, gesturing with the crumpled tissue, "is that I understand her maternal feelings. When I had to put up Jordan for adoption, I suffered all the agonies of separation and guilt, so I know what she's going through."
Tom wrapped an arm around her and rubbed her shoulder.
"But as I struggled through the next few months," Claire continued, gaining some control, "I realized I'd have never made it with a baby. I think giving us her babies would be the right thing for her." She leaned into Tom and said, on the brink of losing her composure again, "We'd love them so much." Then she drew a ragged breath and sat up a little straighter. "We don't want to pressure her, of course, so tell her she's welcome to call us any time if she wants to talk about it."
Diane, sitting on the other side of Tom, patted his shoulder. "I'm sorry. Thanks for being so understanding. I know what this means to both of you. I'll try to talk to her. Do you want some coffee? A drink?"
Claire shook her head. "We should probably go."
Diane walked them to the door. Claire stopped to give her a hug. "This is all really complicating your life, too, isn't it?"
Diane shrugged it off. "Life always feels complicated. And I suppose the more people you get into the equation, the worse it gets."
Tom leaned down to kiss Diane's cheek. "I'll be back to collect my cookies."
"Any time," she said.
Diane rested against the door for a moment after she closed it behind Tom and Claire. She'd suspected this morning that Whitney's concerns were more than a passing thought.
"Anything I can do?" Jason asked. He stood in the middle of the living room, shrugging into his jacket.
She looked into his concerned expression and longed for the kiss that had never quite happened. "Unless you have a degree in child psychology, I don't think so."
"Sorry. Then, much as I hate to, I should leave you and Whitney alone. I put my card with my phone and cell numbers on that bulletin board in your kitchen. If you need me, call. Otherwise, I'll see you tomorrow afternoon to decorate the hotel banquet room."
She walked him to the door. "I enjoyed hearing about your travels," she said, holding the door open for him. "Felt a little as though I finally got to take a trip."
"I enjoyed watching you bake." He put a hand to her cheek and rubbed a thumb over her cheekbone. Her body reacted as though she'd been intimately touched. "But we have to spend some time together that doesn't involve my camera and your rolling pin."
It was on the tip of her tongue to say, but you're going away in a few weeks, and I may never get to leave Austin, the way things are looking. But she suddenly didn't care about what was going to happen in two weeks or for the rest of her life.
Now seemed critically important. "I'd like that - if we can find the time. There are family events for you to photograph every day until Christmas."<
br />
"If I know you're willing," he said. "I'll find a way."
She looked into his eyes. "I'm willing."
He leaned down to kiss her gently. "Then, I'm invincible. I'll let you know the plan."
"Okay."
The elevator dinged to announce the doors opening on the fourth floor. He loped to catch them before they closed again, then leaned out the elevator to blow her a kiss.
She waved, then stepped back into the apartment, everything inside her fluttering with this new discovery. She was a sexual being.
She went to Whitney's room and found her pacing the floor, rubbing her swollen stomach and sobbing.
Diane drew her down onto the edge of the bed. "Whitney, try to calm down," she advised gently. "This isn't good for you or the twins. Can you tell me what happened?"
"Do they hate me?" Whitney asked between gulps for air. "I know they have to hate me!" She didn't have to explain who she was talking about.
"No, they don't," Diane assured her, rubbing between her shoulder blades. "Claire experienced this herself, remember? She understands what you're going through."
"I thought I could do it," Whitney wept. "I really did. I thought I could just be big and strong and know what was best for my babies and do it! Then the lawyer was explaining that they were going to pay for my college and for me to stay in the dorms and give me spending money so I wouldn't have to have a job and study, too, and - " she raised both hands helplessly " - I felt like I was selling my babies so that I could have an easy life!"
"Whitney." Diane held her as she collapsed into fresh sobs. "First of all, life is never easy. You would be very fortunate to have someone paying for your education, but how you use it and what you choose to make of yourself with it is entirely up to you and how hard you're willing to work. Tom and Claire aren't trying to buy your babies from you, they're just so grateful that you wanted them to raise them, that they were trying to do whatever they could to help you."
"I know," Whitney said tearfully. "I didn't mean they were trying to buy them, I just meant that I felt like I was selling them! And I feel them move and I hear their heartbeats when we go to the doctor's and...I don't know what to do! I feel like they're mine and I'll hate myself every single day if I don't keep them."
Diane tried to remain calm to keep Whitney calm.
"Sweetie, I'm not trying to tell you what to do, and usually the best way to decide what to do is by whether or not it feels right - not if it feels good, but if it feels right. But in this case, your maternal instincts are all entangled in the situation, so you have to think about not what feels right to Whitney, but what feels right to the mother of your twins."
"I know." Whitney turned to her eagerly. "I think it'd be great if I could go to college and keep the twins. I know Tom and Claire wouldn't be paying for it for me then, but I have good grades, and I have one more year of high school to go. Maybe I can get a scholarship." She dabbed at her eyes, then sat up and swallowed. "Maybe my aunt will let me stay with her with the twins until then, maybe I can get a scholarship and a job, and...maybe I'd do all right."
A hundred pitfalls to that theory lined up in Diane's mind but she couldn't give them voice at the moment and destroy Whitney's fragile hope. She tried to imagine herself at that age even thinking she could do what Whitney proposed, and couldn't summon up the picture. Their father had always been a moral force in their lives, though very busy. But Tom had always kept an eye on her boyfriends, Suzanne had always kept an eye on her, and there'd been enough love in her home that she hadn't had to try to find it in the arms of a football player. She knew just how fortunate she'd been.
But she did feel that she had to come down on the side of Whitney's aunt. "Bear in mind that you're asking a lot of your aunt. She's over sixty. It's hard to have one baby around when you're older, much less two."
"But I'd do everything! I would!"
"It's certainly something to think about," Diane said reasonably. "And it's not as though you're having the twins tomorrow. You have a little time to decide what to do."
"Aunt Joyce is at my cousin's for a couple of days, but she's supposed to be back to sign the closing papers on the house on the twenty-third. We're supposed to get together and talk about my moving in. I'll ask her how she'd feel about it."
Whitney prayed that Aunt Joyce had a generous heart.
The doorbell rang and Diane left Whitney to wash her face while she answered it. It was a delivery boy from a nearby Chinese restaurant with Mongolian beef and Kung Pao chicken.
"Oh!" Diane exclaimed and went to look for her purse, thinking Jason had placed their order for lunch before realizing that he would have to leave.
"It's paid for, ma'am!" the boy called after her, holding the bag out to her. "Mr. Morris orders from us all the time, except that we usually deliver it to his darkroom. He charged it to his account and told me to tell you to enjoy it."
Diane took the bag and thanked the boy, still digging in her purse for a tip.
"He charged the tip, too," he said. "Have a good day, ma'am."
Diane carried the bag into the kitchen, the spicy aroma of Szechuan cuisine mingling pleasantly with the ingredients in the cookies. This was like a metaphor for her life, she thought, opening the bag with anticipation. The scent of cookies was her life so far. The introduction of the spice that made every sense come alive with anticipation was Jason's arrival into that life.
CHAPTER FIVE
By the middle of the following afternoon, Diane had twelve hundred cookies, plus or minus a few, stored in tins and under foil, covering every surface in the kitchen and several in other parts of the house. She delivered Tom's promised half dozen to his office. He greeted her with determined good cheer and poured her a cup of coffee.
"I'm working on Whitney," she promised him, sipping at the strong brew. "I'm sure given time to think things through, she'll come to the right decision. This is interesting stuff," she added, indicating her cup. "Whose idea was it to add charcoal?"
He scolded her with an arched eyebrow. "Coffee should have substance."
"Yes, but not texture." She took another sip and pretended to chew. "Does this come with dental floss?"
He shook his head at her, his expression mournful. "Could you please be nice to me? My life's a little chaotic at the moment."
"How's Claire?"
"Stoic but miserable."
"This isn't going to come between you, is it?" she asked gently. "I know how desperately she wants a family."
He shook his head. "No. We're pretty solid. But I hate to see her unhappy. And I was kind of looking forward to the prospect of a baby in each arm. But we understand Whitney's dilemma. That's part of what makes it so difficult. It'd be easier if we could rant and rave, but love's more complicated than that. Speaking of which..." He seemed to come out of his own problems with a sigh to focus on her. "Jason Morris certainly seems to consider you his favorite subject."
"I like him, too," she admitted. Tom had always been a good confidant, even if his accomplishments made her feel inadequate. "But he's leaving in a couple of weeks and I'm...not."
"You could."
"How?"
"Whitney'll be moving in with her aunt soon. You can buy yourself out of your contract at school."
"To what purpose?"
"I heard him ask you to meet him in Noumea. You're always planning trips that end up taking a back seat to your responsibilities. Maybe it's time to put yourself first. I like him. Suzanne likes him. She had him take a family portrait of Doug and her and the triplets."
Diane put her half-empty coffee cup aside. "I didn't know that."
"She said he was really good with the triplets. Managed to get each of their little personalities to emerge." He leaned slightly forward, forearms on his desk, and looked into her face. "He even seems to be doing something for yours. You look like someone's lit a candle inside you. Are you in love, sis?"
She stood abruptly. "This coffee's obviously corroding your brain
," she said, turning to frown into his grinning face as he walked her to the door. "We've been on each other's nerves since the day I met him, and while we're learning to coexist, we're still too different for anything to ever come of this. And love is definitely not in the picture."
He reached around her to open his office door. "You must be looking at a different picture."
She stepped into the outer office, determined to change the subject. "Are you coming to help me hang maps for the reception?"
"We'll be there. What time?" "I'll call you."
Tom caught her arm as she would have walked away and wrapped her in a hug. "Thanks for the cookies," he said.
She hugged back. "You're welcome. I'd say thanks for the coffee, but it's already dissolved my molars."
He gave her a playful shove toward the elevators. "Be gone, devil child," he laughed.
Diane was shocked to find Jason sitting in the lobby of Tom's office building. He held a dozen red roses wrapped in glittering cellophane in one arm, and a box of what appeared to be chocolates in the other. She stared at him in astonishment when he stood and came to her.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"Courting you," he replied seriously. "How did you know I was here?" "Whitney told me."
"But - " she indicated the flowers and candy " - I don't understand."
"This is how courtships are conducted," he said, as though surprised she didn't know. "Haven't you ever been courted?"
"Once by a boy in college," she replied as he handed her the flowers, then took her arm and led her toward the double glass doors. "He gave me a subscription to Atlantic Monthly."
"Ah. An intellectual. They don't make the best romantics, you know."
"It didn't last very long."
"The relationship or the subscription?''
"Neither. His check bounced, and we had a falling out over politics. I'm a screaming liberal. He wasn't."
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