He was the one to speak instead, calling to the girls, “Come on, munchkins. We need to get you cleaned up, so we can head out for Portland. Daddy’s got to go to work tomorrow.”
As usual, they had to take two cars, one of the drawbacks of their commuter marriage. Today, the girls rode with him. She followed his Lexus all the way to Portland. When he got too far ahead, he slowed; when she missed a light, he waited on the shoulder of the road. She pulled into his driveway right behind him and helped him unbuckle the girls from their car seats and carry them, both sound asleep, into the house that was now her home, too.
Although the subject had been on her mind, she still didn’t tell him while they put together a quick dinner and ate it, or even later when, without a second thought, she passed the spare bedroom that had once been hers and joined Adam in his spare, masculine bedroom dominated by a king-size bed.
In the master bathroom, she brushed her teeth at her own sink—this bathroom alone was bigger than her kitchen above the bookstore—and slipped on her nightgown. She came out to find Adam waiting, wearing only pajama bottoms that hung low on his hips. He drew her into his arms for a tender kiss that quickly became more intense.
“You won’t need this,” he murmured against her cheek, as his fingers gathered her nightgown at each hip preparatory to shimmying it over her head.
Purring like a contented cat, she hooked her thumbs inside the waistband of his pajamas. “Mmm. You won’t need these, either.”
He sucked on her earlobe, an oddly delicious sensation. “When the girls are grown—” he nipped instead, his low voice husky “—we’ll sleep naked. Let’s make a pact.”
A thrill swelled in her chest, out of proportion to his idle words. He must be happy with her, or he wouldn’t be thinking about such a distant future. Would he? Was it possible that he was starting to feel something special, too?
Lynn couldn’t have spoken to save her life. She only sighed and let her head fall back as his mouth moved softly along her throat, pausing to trace her collarbone, before continuing down to her breast.
Why couldn’t he love her? she asked a nameless somebody, in hope and defiance. Was it so impossible? Was she unlovable?
Pleasure shivered through her as he suckled her breast, stroked her hips with his large hands, cupped her bottom and lifted her up so that she cradled his erection and had to wrap her legs around his waist.
“I want you,” he growled, that hot light in his eyes.
Foolish words trembled on her tongue, but she swallowed them. She could not tell him. She couldn’t ruin everything.
“I’m all yours,” she whispered instead, and hoped he didn’t know how completely that was true.
ALMOST THE BEST PART of being married was having somebody to talk to. Lynn loved the evenings, after the girls had gone to bed. She and Adam invariably cleaned the kitchen together and then took herbal tea or coffee to the living room, where they read some of the time in companionable silence, but most often talked. “Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—Of cabbages—and kings,” to quote Lewis Carroll.
Not so far off, either. She and Adam hadn’t yet discussed sealing wax, but she thought they’d covered cabbages—she detested them, he loved even such horrors as corned beef and cabbage—and kings, in the form of royal weddings. They had taken the girls shoe shopping one day, and gone to a park overlooking the Columbia River where they could see huge freighters unloading cargo from foreign climes.
She had missed such conversation dreadfully. Lynn and her mother had been good friends. Until Adam, Lynn had never been able to talk to anyone the way she could to her mother. In college, she’d had friends and roommates, of course, but all of them were so busy with finals and labs and boyfriends, and really everyone at that age was so self-centered, she realized now, that nobody listened very well. Probably including her.
Brian was a natural storyteller, but the stories were all about himself. His prowess as a high school and college sports star, his adventures mountain climbing and skiing, his starring role in campus theater productions. She had been fascinated and awestruck and grateful that he wanted to be with her, but after the first year she began to notice that he wasn’t very interested in her dreams or successes, and he’d cut off her attempts to discuss politics or philosophy or a book she had read by reaching for the remote control or grabbing his jacket and saying casually over his shoulder, “I promised Cranston I’d whip his butt at one-on-one. You were just going to read or something anyway, weren’t you?” He always said it that way: just. You’re going to do something unimportant, dull.
Adam enjoyed reading as much as she did. Lynn was flattered when she discovered him reading a book she’d mentioned loving. Since then, he had read several based on her recommendations. He didn’t always feel about them the same way she did, which she didn’t mind. They’d had some rousing arguments.
The television was rarely on here, she’d discovered. The girls watched a couple of favorite shows and, naturally, Rose had a huge collection of videos mostly bought by Grandma McCloskey, but Adam limited how much Rose could watch a day, as Lynn had always done with Shelly. He religiously watched the news, primarily because world events had such a bearing on the next day’s stock market. A revolution in some tiny country half a world away would impact the U.S. economy because a raw material for manufacturing came from there. She was impressed by Adam’s instant grasp of the import of such news. Obscure political events took on meaning for her, too. She found that she read the newspapers and watched the television news with more interest now.
Only occasionally did she bump against a closed gate beyond which she wasn’t welcome. A very few topics brought stinging reminders that their closeness was illusion.
Tonight, for example, Lynn curled her legs under her at one end of the sofa and said, “I forgot to tell you that your mother called today.”
Adam laid down his book willingly. “What did she want?”
“Nothing special. I think she just wanted to chat.” Lynn frowned, trying to remember. “She didn’t leave a message.”
“What did you ‘chat’ about?” He looked unwillingly fascinated. “I didn’t know my mother knew how.”
“Oh, she has an opening in a San Francisco art gallery next weekend. She asked if I’d like to come over and use her potter’s wheel and kiln.” As explanation, Lynn added, “I’d told her I took a couple of years of ceramics in college. I loved using a wheel.”
“Ah.” He sounded amused and a little bitter. “The way to her heart.”
“Did you learn?”
“She tried,” Adam said shortly.
“Did you?”
“Probably not.” He laughed without much humor. “I felt about her studio like most kids do about a baby brother. It was my competitor for her attention, and it always won.” This smile, though crooked, became more relaxed, more genuine. “Besides, I have not a grain of artistic ability. I made the ugliest damn pots you’ve ever seen.”
“It’s odd that we were both only children. I felt a little more secure than you did, though.”
“Were you lonely?” He looked as if he really wanted to know.
“No.” Why hadn’t she been? “We were such good friends. Mom didn’t seem lonely, so how could I be?” Lynn had never told this to anyone, but now she admitted, “I was terribly shocked when Mom got married. It made me wonder—oh, this sounds terrible…”
Adam finished for her, “You wondered if she’d ever really been as happy as you thought she was.”
“Yes.” Lynn made a face. “I suppose everyone grows up and looks at their parents and one day realizes maybe they weren’t quite who you thought they were. If that isn’t too muddled a sentence.”
“Clear as Perrier,” Adam assured her with a grin. “Except ‘everyone’ doesn’t have to reevaluate a parent, because some of us knew ours. Mine are just who I concluded they were.”
“Are they?”
He went still. “What’s that mean?”
“Concerned,” he repeated flatly.
“Some people aren’t very demonstrative.”
He gave a short, hard laugh. “My mother is not demonstrative.”
“You think she doesn’t love you?” But he was so quick to hug Rose, to smooth away a tear or tickle her into laughter! He couldn’t possibly have learned that from books!
“I think she feels an obligation.”
“Well, I think you’re wrong,” Lynn said stoutly. “She was definitely suspicious of me.” She thought for a moment. “I guess that’s natural since she knows why we got married.”
“Then she doesn’t have any reason to worry about you breaking my heart, does she?”
“No.” She spoke quietly, not letting him see that he had hurt her. “You’re right. Maybe I misunderstood.”
Say, You could break my heart, she begged him without words, her gaze lowered to the pale amber of her cinnamon apple tea. Say…
Gentler, his voice broke her pitiful thoughts. “You’re not unhappy, are you?”
“Me?” Lynn made herself look up with wide eyes, as if astonished at the question. “Why would I be unhappy?” Because I love you, and you don’t love me, she answered her own question.
“Some women are romantics.” His tone was odd.
She would have sworn she wasn’t one of them. She had never intended to remarry; she was incapable of the depth of passion and commitment a man would want in a wife.
She was an idiot, Lynn thought, and fully deserved the fix she’d gotten herself into.
“Not me,” she claimed, and took a calm sip of her tea.
She felt his gaze resting on her and would have given almost anything to know what he was thinking. But for some peculiar reason her emotions seemed close to the surface. If she had met his eyes just then, she might not have been able to keep her secrets.
And she must. She must! She was so lucky, had so much, she wouldn’t be foolish enough to let herself ache for the little that Adam couldn’t give her.
“Did I tell you what Rose said today?” she asked with a smile so bright it felt brittle.
Without moving a muscle, Adam relaxed. Lynn sensed it with every fiber of her being. He had feared she would ask him something he couldn’t answer, or didn’t want to answer. Like, Can I break your heart? Or even, Are you happy?
Instead she was deliberately reminding him of what they had in common: their children.
He laughed in the right places at her story, told one of his own, then commented on the book he was reading. The evening was ordinary, pleasant; outwardly both were comfortable.
After turning off the lights and going upstairs, they even made love. No, Lynn reminded herself, tears burning her eyes as she lay sprawled atop him in the aftermath, her face hidden against his chest, not love, they had sex.
There was a difference, and she had been pretending there wasn’t. A mistake she would try very hard not to make in the future.
Adam rolled, settling her against him, and she sighed and turned away as if already half-asleep.
They could be content, even happy, without both being deeply, passionately in love. And so she reminded herself again: enjoy what you have, be grateful for Shelly and Rose’s sake, and don’t grieve for what you can’t have.
Hot tears, falling silently, wet her pillowcase.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“COFFEE, SIR?” The waiter accepted Adam’s nod and refilled his cup. “Our cheesecake is excellent.”
Adam skipped the dessert; Lynn decided to indulge. The three partners in Adam’s firm were having dinner with their wives at a Portland restaurant. This was throwing Lynn in with a vengeance. She had never met these friends and colleagues, and both they and their wives had known Jennifer.
Now, amid general chatter as the others debated dessert, she touched Adam’s thigh and murmured, “I’m going to the rest room. Will you ask if they have herbal tea? I forgot.”
“Anything but peppermint.” He knew her tastes.
When she rose, Jillian, another of the wives, stood as well. “I’ll join you.”
As Jillian passed Adam to follow Lynn, she leaned down and murmured in his ear, “I like her. You’re a lucky guy.”
Erica, sitting on Adam’s other side, had overheard. With the other two women wending their way between tables toward the back of the elegant restaurant, she said, “I’m so glad this marriage has worked out for you, Adam. Ron told me the circumstances, I hope you don’t mind. It sounded like a prescription for disaster, and instead the two of you are a pair of lovebirds!”
Lovebirds? Adam thought incredulously. Where the hell had she gotten that idea?
“You do look happy,” agreed her husband, who had been Adam’s best friend since university days. Ron Chainey was the only one here who’d met Lynn, as he’d been the best man at the wedding. “You’ve been keeping Lynn tucked away.” His grin was wicked. “Now we know why.”
Erica, a buxom redhead who was unapologetically plump, patted his hand. “I’m so glad, after Jennifer, that you’ve found someone.”
“He always was a lucky son of a gun.” Ron aimed a mock punch at his shoulder.
When Adam failed to volunteer details about his married life, conversation drifted again. Eugene Warren, the third partner in their brokerage, wanted to complain about his clients’ demands for Internet stocks, an old refrain.
“HiTech is the latest.” He rubbed the top of his head, already balding though he was only in his mid-thirties. “The P/E stinks!”
The price to earning ratio, a standard for judging whether a stock was overvalued, was lousy for most Internet stocks. Amazon.com stock sold for as much as companies with solid earnings, even though the Internet book mart still wasn’t posting a profit.
“You know that’s true of all Internet stocks,” Ron said mildly.
Warren stuck like a tick to his grievances. “They’re going to crash one of these days. A company like Amazon.com or HiTech has no real assets. Hell, a few phones and a warehouse are all that’s behind the fancy graphics. What are we valuing?”
“Potential?” Adam suggested.
“All in the eye of the beholder. The projections are pie in the sky! If it looks too good to be true, it is. You know that. Let’s have a little healthy cynicism here, can we?”
Desserts arrived, and Ron picked up his fork. “Gene, we’ve talked about this before. We can’t use the same standards for judging these companies. They represent something completely new, a different way of making money. They’re breaking ground. Sure, prices will probably shake out at some point. But in the foreseeable future? I don’t think so. HiTech has a great website, they’re delivering the product fast, and customers are flocking to them. I think their market will grow.”
Gene Warren continued, his thesis something to the effect that shopping on the Internet was a novelty. People would get tired of waiting for their computers to load web pages, tired of having to return items that didn’t look anything like they did in the tiny grainy picture on the computer screen.
Waiting for his wife to return, Adam couldn’t keep his mind on an old discussion about business. He hadn’t seen Lynn in a dress more than a time or two. She was beautiful tonight, in a simple teal-colored sheath of rough silk. That glorious hair was anchored in a French roll on the back of her head, the tiny runaway tendrils appearing intentional.
When she’d twirled for his approval, she’d smiled impishly. “This dress is courtesy of your credit card, I must warn you.”
“It’s stunning.” Her legs went on forever. No, not forever, as her deliciously rounded bottom suggested. “You’re stunning,” he amended, probably sounding as dazed as he felt. “Worth every penny, and a hell of a lot more.”
“Why, thank you.”
She sounded the tiniest bit breathless, which made h
im wonder whether it was so obvious that he would have liked to whip that zipper back down and strip the simple little dress right off. Or maybe just hitch it up to her waist…
Damn. Sitting here at the table, he was hardening at the idea. Whatever else you could say about their marriage, the sex was good. Better than good. Incredible. No wonder they looked happy.
They were happy. He was reasonably sure she felt the same.
Eugene Warren’s axiom echoed in his ears. If it looks too good to be true, it is.
Damn Eugene Warren and his perennially pessimistic outlook, Adam thought in irritation. Just because life was good didn’t mean something had to go wrong. His arrangement with Lynn was giving them both what they wanted. How could that go sour?
Sure, you’re getting what you want, an inner voice jeered. You’re getting everything: a willing, passionate sexual partner, both daughters, all the trappings of a happy marriage. In return you’re giving…what?
Knowing he was being defensive, still he fired back, The same. Lynn wasn’t suffering here.
He wasn’t the only one who thought she was happy. Even these old friends had a similar impression. He and Lynn had everything going for them. The only part of a conventional marriage they’d skipped were the words I love you, and neither he nor Lynn needed them.
Deep in his brooding, he didn’t hear her footsteps. She was already pulling out her chair and saying, “Ooh. Look at that cheesecake,” when he caught her scent. Adam stood and pushed in the chair after she’d sat.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and began talking to Jillian across the table. Something about an art fair for children that was being held at a school.
“Face painting,” Jillian was saying, “you know the girls would love that! Oh, and there’s always sand art and finger painting for the little ones, and origami. And swirl art!” She laughed. “Now, there’s a mess to clean up! But the kids have a great time. Do bring Shelly and Rose.”
Adam wanted to kiss Lynn’s neck, right where those tiny wisps of auburn hair curled like miniature tumbleweeds. She had incredible skin, milky pale with just a hint of peach, like the redhead she wasn’t quite. He’d pull out the pins securing her hair one at a time, until the thick mass of curls tumbled into his hands and over her bare shoulders. Slither that silk sheath down her slender arms, exposing the lacy bra he’d caught a glimpse of as he zipped up the dress for her. Why, he wondered idly, was undressing a woman such a turn-on, even when a man knew what he’d find under the silk?
Whose Baby? Page 20
