Belonging to Taylor (8 page)

"And her family," Trevor continued, rueful, "may be sane, but if so, it's only by the skin of their collective teeth."

Jason choked. Controlling himself beneath his brother's pained eye, he finally managed to speak. "You went back and saw them that next day, didn't you?"

"Yes. I got the hamster out from under the washer again and encouraged Jessie to compete at the piano. Dory sat in my lap, and they all won imaginary money from me at poker. Sara got lobsters for dinner—live lobsters, which Luke prepared— but two got away and it took ten minutes to find the second one."

Fascinated, Jason asked, "And Taylor?"

'Taylor?" Trevor cleared his throat. "Well, Taylor told me some things about her life, including the information that
she's worked in a different job every year since college. And sometimes a different country. A sheik followed her home from Saudi Arabia; a Frenchman followed her home from Paris; and an Englishman proposed to her in London."

"She told you that?"

"Only under duress, so to speak. Sara brought up the sheik; she likes me better than him, because of tents and things. Jamie compared the sheik favorably to the Frenchman, who yelled. And Taylor accidentally mentioned the Englishman."

"Did she offer an excuse for bringing home foreign men?" Jason asked solemnly.

"She likes making friends."

After a moment, Jason said carefully, "Don't bite my head off, but—uh—do you believe that
was
her reason?"

"Oh, yes. She's honest, you see. There isn't a doubt in my mind that Taylor hasn't had a serious relationship with a man in her life." Meditatively, he added, "She was waiting for me."

"Knowing you'd come along eventually?"

"Don't run away with the idea that she was waiting for Prince Charming," Trevor urged dryly. "It's just that she's psychic; she was always sure she'd know the right man when she met him."

"And you're the right man."

"So she says."

"Which is why you've spent the past few days carefully ignoring her existence?"

Trevor sighed, then said ruefully, "D'you know, I hadn't been in that house ten minutes before everyone assumed I belonged to Taylor? Luke said he wouldn't have organ music at the wedding. Jamie asked me innocently if I belonged to Taylor, and Dory
told
me I did after she touched my shoulder. As far as they're concerned, the wedding's only a formality." He stared at his brother. "D'you blame me for running?"

Before Jason could answer, the doorbell rang. Trevor went to answer it, remembering the pizza he'd ordered. But when he opened the door, he found a delivery man with an armful of something that definitely wasn't pizza.

'Trevor King?" the man queried, shifting his load to peer around it.

"Yes?"

A tremendous basket of long-stemmed red roses was thrust into Trevor's startled arms, and the delivery man said cheerfully, "These are for you; she must be crazy about you, pal!" Then he was gone.

Bemused, Trevor closed the door and carried the basket into the den, where he set it on the coffee table.

"There's a card," Jason offered gravely.

The card, opened, revealed a few lines Trevor recognized as a paraphrase from a work of George Bernard Shaw.

You believe it is your part to woo, to persuade, to prevail, to overcome, but you 're the pursued.

The card wasn't signed. But then, it hardly needed to be.

Trevor knew he was smiling but couldn't seem to stop himself. "Damn that little witch," he murmured, and felt no surprise when the words bore a closer resemblance to a caress than to a curse.

Chapter Five

Two days later, with only a weekend left of his vacation,
Trevor finally gave in and called Taylor. She answered the phone herself, and he wasted no time identifying himself; it was needless, he knew.

"Thank you for the flowers," he told her gravely.

"You're welcome," she said, equally solemn. "I hope you like roses."

"I like roses. I also liked the gardenias yesterday and the box of chocolates today. My entire apartment building is intrigued."

"Did I embarrass you?"

"Would it disturb you if I said yes?"

"Not particularly."

"I didn't think so."

Taylor laughed. "How does it feel to be pursued?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet." Trevor paused. "But my brother says he's in love with you."

"A man of obvious taste."

"No, just a radical sense of humor."

"Thanks a lot!"

Trevor laughed, but the sound held a sigh. 'Taylor, you are not making this easy for me."

"That's supposed to be the lady's line," she said blandly.

'Tell me about it!"

"Well, if you want to fight about it, why not come to dinner and we'll fight over the pasta. You love Italian food," she added enticingly.

Trevor told himself quite firmly that he accepted this guileless invitation only because he was convinced the days away from Taylor and her family had put things rigidly into perspective. He told himself he was utterly and completely convinced of that.

Jason would have laughed uproariously.

So Trevor, after five days in which to put "things" into
perspective, once again ventured a foray into Taylor's absurd family. He kept a close guard on himself, taking care to avoid being alone with Taylor for any length of time because he was determined to let nothing irrevocable happen between them.

He spent the better part of the weekend with the family, and even though he was ruefully aware that Taylor was amused by his guardedness, he couldn't help but enjoy himself.

He found himself giving Luke a hand with the gardening, listening to Jessie practicing the piano, reading to Dory, and helping Jamie groom the family poodle, Agamemnon. It became a ritual to help Taylor with the preparation of meals for the family. And Sara more than once requested his help in various bizarre chores he thought prudent not to question, such as looking all through the attic for an ancient pair of ballet slippers. And hunting through various closets for a hat with feathers. What she did with both his finds Trevor didn't dare ask, although he saw neither again.

Given the run of the house and the unshadowed trust of the family, Trevor grew far more comfortable than his self-preserving inner voice liked. Since no one displayed further evidence of ESP—even Taylor, if she read his thoughts, kept quiet about it—he was able to put from his mind the knowledge that this family was unusual in more than just behavior and personality. He was even beginning to understand them.

Luke, for all his softly hurried style of speech and all the
"chaff mixed in with the grain," as Taylor ruefully described it, possessed a brilliant mind and a cool composure in emergencies. Trevor discovered the latter when Dory fell from a tree in the backyard on Sunday morning. Everyone was anxious, though all were calm, and Luke was gently expert in examining the sprained ankle of his youngest daughter while she sat in Trevor's lap. Trevor had to remind himself that this man was a doctor with quite a few years of practice behind him. The brilliant mind was discovered while they weeded and pruned in the backyard, when several of Luke's low and somewhat hurried remarks and questions forced Trevor to dredge into memories of college courses just to hold his own with the man.

He also, more than once, caught a gleam of laughter in Luke's vivid but benign eyes, and slowly realized that Taylor had been right: Her father very consciously used absurdity to unwind. His was a very demanding profession, and a serious one; obviously, laughter was Luke's way of dealing with that. And since every member of his family lovingly played their ridiculous parts, it was an easy and natural thing for him to do.

As for Sara, Trevor discovered to his own wry satisfaction that his court-sharpened senses had not been at fault: She was
definitely
not as vague as she appeared and acted. He came unexpectedly into the den on Saturday afternoon to find her engrossed in a book. That in itself seemed unusual enough, because Sara rarely sat, obviously preferring to wander about in the yard or house with a vague and fleeting interest in just about everything. But it was the title of the book that caught Trevor's astonished eyes, and long moments passed before it sunk into his brain that she was reading philosophy.

Clearly feeling a startled stare—or, for all he knew, feeling it telepathically—she lifted her eyes to meet his. In her vivid gray eyes was the intelligence he'd seen only once before, and in back of that was a rueful smile.

"You went to college," he said firmly, as if she were going to argue with him.

"Between babies," she answered sedately.

Suspicious, he demanded, "Phi Beta Kappa?"

Her smile was as sweet and vague as ever, but the vividness didn't leave her eyes. She nodded. Marking her place in her book with one slender finger, she rose to her feet. "Do you
really think, Trevor," she said tranquilly, "that a stupid woman could have kept up with Luke all these years?"

"Not stupid," he protested.

"Just not all here?" She laughed softly at his bemusement. "It's so dull being just like everyone else," she murmured. "And so boring for the children. We laugh at ourselves, you know, and most families can't." Her eyes were blue again. "That hat with the feathers. So pretty on the wall. I'll have to find a place for it somewhere."

"Sara—" he managed as she was turning away.

"Yes, Trevor?"

He sighed. "Nothing."

Her eyes gleamed at him briefly. "It so often is." She wandered away.

Trevor could hardly help but laugh. He shook his head and left the room, still laughing.

Of the other members of the family, he also discovered a great deal. Dory, the pixie, was a stoic physically but timid in her emotions; she clung to him often in a way that gripped at his heart, but she was gruff in speech and tended to hide herself away from curious eyes if she was upset. She was obviously secure in her family's love but insecure in herself. She clearly considered Trevor a part of the family and treated him like an adored older brother. And she talked to him with vast seriousness, even confiding, as he was reading to her, why she hid in closets.

"I like the dark. It's quiet."

Touched, he said gently, "Is it loud everywhere else, Dory?"

She reflected gravely, those brilliant, solemn eyes meeting his directly. "Sometimes. In my head. Taylor says I'll learn to close the door in my head and not need a closet. Sometimes I can. But sometimes I can't, so I go into the closet."

"I'm sure Taylor's right," he said, inwardly uncertain.

A shy, fleeting smile crossed Dory's face. "You keep your door closed a lot," she observed. "Did you learn when you were little like me?"

Trevor thought he understood. "I'm different from the rest of you, honey. I don't have to close a door because I don't need one. I can't—
hear
things the way you can."

Peering intently at him, Dory laughed suddenly, an odd, gruff little laugh. "You don't know."

Puzzled, he asked, "Know what?"

But Dory said no more on the vague subject, just smiled at him with curious wisdom and requested that he finish the story.

Baffled, Trevor had the elusive feeling that he should have understood her—and hadn't somehow.

It was just one more puzzle piece fitting nowhere.

Jamie, that serene wraith, saw everything—like her mother—and possessed the most even temperament Trevor had ever known; she was neither uncaring nor controlled, but simply calm and serene. She was sweet and confiding, never bored or restless. She was the seamstress of the family, willingly putting aside something else to mend a tear or sew on a button. In looks, she was the feminine image of her father except for dreamy gray eyes, and she had something of his soft, hurried style of speech. And, emotionally, of all the daughters she seemed the closest to her father.

Talking to Trevor casually, she told him that Luke hoped the fifth Shannon child would be another girl.

"Does he?" Trevor asked with a smile, thinking how tranquil her Madonna-like serenity was.

"Oh yes. He says he's had so much fun with girls, and girl babies are so sweet."

"Doesn't he know if it'll be a girl?" Trevor asked curiously, having already discovered that each of the daughters was utterly matter-of-fact about their psychic abilities.

Jamie giggled suddenly. "He always guesses the sex of his patients' babies, but he never can with Mother's. He says she hides it from him. The rest of us are sure it's a girl, but Mother won't say, and she's the only one who really
knows."

Trevor recalled Taylor's remark about it being difficult to surprise a psychic. Another one of Sara's gently humorous games? he wondered.

With the Shannon family ... who knew?

Jessie, the moppet, was temperamental, moody; she fought her way through highs and lows with equal energy and boasted incredible determination in her slender, tomboyish form. His own love and understanding of music had made him something
of a demigod in Jessie's eyes, and she talked to him without any of the emotional emphasis she used with everyone else.