Long Time Coming (7 page)

Before she fell asleep, however, the permissive side of Marnie Hibbs fantasized about the things she would love to do with him.

Chapter 7

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W
hen she heard from him again, it was for a reason she least expected.

"I beg your pardon?" she said into the telephone receiver.

"Can you go or not?"

"Not."

"Why not?"

"For one thing, it's two o'clock in the afternoon. And you said this dinner is at—"

"Eight. It takes six hours to get ready?"

"I don't have anything to wear to an affair like that, Law. Why are you inviting me anyway? Surely you've got a little black book just bulging with names of congenial female companions."

"I'm calling you because it's your fault I don't have a date."

"
My
fault?"

"I've been distracted since I met David. I forgot about the damn dinner until somebody here in the office mentioned it a few minutes ago."

"I'm awfully sorry. You can skip it, you can take someone else, or you can go alone, but it's really not my problem that you're stuck without a date."

"It's practically required that I go, and I'll never hear the end of it from the guys around here if I show up without a date."

"Bad for your image?"

"Yes. So is the sudden appearance of a son I didn't know I had," he added in a quieter voice. He was calling her from his office at the space center. "I had the blood test and it matched David's. We need to talk, Marnie. Come with me tonight, please."

Gnawing on her lip, she glanced at the project she was under a deadline to finish by the end of the week. She caught her reflection in the mirror. Everything would require a major overhaul before she could possibly attend a black-tie dinner.

She cited those excuses to Law, then added bleakly, "And I've got to visit my mother this afternoon."

"You're a capable lady. I'll pick you up at eight-fifteen."

"I thought it started at eight?"

"You don't expect me to arrive on time, do you?"

* * *

"What do you think?" Marnie asked worriedly.

"You look sensational!" David exclaimed from behind her. Together they analyzed her image in the mirror on her closet door.

She turned to her right, then her left. "Is the dress too much?"

"Too much? It's almost too
little
."

"David," she cried anxiously, "you said before that it wasn't that low cut."

He laughed. "It's not. I was just kidding."

Between the hairdresser, where she got coiffed and manicured, and an uneventful visit to the rest home, she'd gone against her better judgment and stopped at an expensive dress shop. In rapid succession she had dismissed several formal dresses as being inappropriate for one reason or another.

She was beginning to lose heart, when she spotted this one. The bodice was electric-blue satin, strapless, and body-hugging. Beneath it was a short, sassy bubble skirt of black satin.

"Honey, if you don't walk out of here with that, I'm gonna cry," the owner of the shop had told her.

"Do you think it's too … too … fancy for me?"

"It's perfect! Truly."

When the saleswoman was required to ring up a sale for another customer, Marnie discreetly checked the price tag on the dress and almost exclaimed her distress out loud.

Giving herself one last, wistful glance in the three-way mirror, she went back into the dressing room and began unzipping it.

The saleswoman rejoined her. "MasterCard or Visa?"

"Neither, I'm afraid. I can't take it."

"Honey why not? It looks absolutely stunning on you."

"I can't afford it. I can't afford even to charge it," she replied, passing the dress to the woman and slipping her street clothes back on.

The saleswoman plucked a ball-point pen from behind her ear and made a slash through the price, scribbling something else. "There, does that make it more affordable?"

Marnie looked at the adjustment. "That's half price!"

"It just went on sale."

"But I can't let—"

"Listen, honey this merchandise was marked up a hundred percent anyway. Even at this price, I'll still make a profit. Just about everybody's bought their spring formals already. Besides, I don't have many customers who wear a size two. It was dumb of me to buy it in such a small size. I'm glad to sell it at any price."

So Marnie had purchased the dress and was now modeling it for her son before her escort arrived. She was as jittery as a girl on prom night.

"I just wish I had more, you know, up here," she said regretfully as her hand made a sweep across her chest.

"Really Mom, whether or not a girl has boobs isn't a big deal to guys anymore."

She met David's eyes in the mirror. "Now try repeating that with a straight face."

He was grinning sheepishly when the doorbell pealed. "Truly, Mom, you look great!" he shouted over his shoulder as he bounded out of the room and raced for the stairs.

She had loyal David's admiration, but what would Law, who was accustomed to escorting much younger, much curvier women, think of the uptight prude tonight?

He looked positively scrumptious. Better than Death by Chocolate, her favorite dessert.

He was wearing a military tuxedo. The epaulets enhanced his broad shoulders. The short white jacket hugged his narrow waist. And what the dark slacks did for his buns was as sinful as asking for extra almonds on Death by Chocolate.

He whistled as she came down the stairs. "Doesn't she look terrific?" David asked.

"Not bad," Law drawled in a voice that made her exposed knees go weak and her exposed décolletage flutter.

"We'll be back around … when, Law?"

"Don't wait up," Law told David with a broad wink.

"I won't leave the porch light on either," he said.

"You will so!" Marnie sternly instructed. "Leave all the outdoor lights on and keep the doors locked. Don't answer the door unless—"

"Mom!" he said, rolling his eyes ceilingward. "I'm not a kid, you know."

"I know." She placed her hand on his arm and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "G'night."

"G'night, David." Law escorted Marnie out the door and down the walkway.

"Say, Law?"

"Yeah?" He stopped, turned. David motioned him back. They had a brief whispered exchange before David stepped back into the house and latched the door as he'd been told.

Law was grinning as he helped Marnie into the low seat of the Porsche. "What was that about?" she asked when he slid behind the wheel.

"Man talk."

"I want to know."

"No, you don't," he said, chuckling.

"Yes, I do."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

He pulled up at the stop sign at the end of their block and looked at her across the console. "He told me that if I wanted to take you to bed I had his permission. He promised not to punch me out."

* * *

"Go ahead, try it," Law was urging her to eat a raw oyster.

"They're repulsive. No thanks."

He tipped the shell to his lips and swallowed the slimy thing whole. She shuddered. He laughed. "They're good for you, supposed to increase your virility."

"That would be lost on me, since I'm not virile in the first place."

"I noticed that," he said, his eyes taking in the low-cut top of her dress.

Blushing, she tried to distract his fixed stare. "Better watch it. Suzette will get jealous."

"Who?"

Marnie nodded in the direction of the sultry voluptuous blonde. She was wearing a red leather mini-dress and decorating the arm of a recently divorced NASA administrator.

"Oh, her," Law remarked indifferently, bringing his head back around to Marnie. "She's just a groupie."

"I was talking with her earlier. She says you stood her up last week."

"That's right."

"Heartless jerk."

"It was your fault."

"Why are all your recent travails with women my fault?" she asked.

"I had a date with her the day I met David. I didn't feel much like going out that night."

"I see."

"You don't have to smile about it," he grumbled, noticing that her lips had curved upward. In fact, since picking her up, he had divided his attention between her mouth and her neckline in such a way as to make her stomach jumpy.

"It gives us peons enormous pleasure to watch the mighty topple," she teased. "How'd you get to know Suzette anyway?"

"We got acquainted while you and your buddies were talking about the A-3."

"You mean the A-4?"

"I mean the A-4. Suzette said … what exactly is an A-4?"

"A navy jet trainer. Sometimes I strap one on and take it out for a spin."

"You take a military plane out for a spin?" Having such gall was inconceivable to her.

"I've gotta keep my test-pilot skills well honed," he said defensively.

She studied him, her expression pensive. "Why do you love flying so much?"

They had tacitly selected this private spot on the deck overlooking a manmade canal as the place to nibble from their plates of hors d'oeuvres. The waterway was edged with azaleas in full bloom, making the bank look like a giant fuchsia caterpillar. A wisteria vine trailed along the railing of the deck, its lavender blooms dripping toward the water.

The night was balmy. While most of the guests milled through the rooms of their hosts'

spectacular home, laughing and chatting with one another over the music of a five-piece ensemble, Marnie and Law sat together on a bench outside.

"I love the exhilaration I feel up there. The higher I can go, and the faster, the more I love it."

"Is your mother still afraid for you?"

He cocked his head to one side. "How did you know that?"

"You referred to it in Galveston. I remember the day. It rained one afternoon, so we got up a game of Monopoly. Sharon lost interest and went to take a nap."

"Your mom and dad were napping too," he said. "We were by ourselves on that screened porch that overlooked the beach."

Marnie was pleased that he remembered. "You told me all about your plans to apply for the astronaut program after you'd served your stint in the regular navy. That's when you told me your mother was afraid for you to fly those fighter jets and test planes."

"Well, she still is. While I was on the space shuttle mission, Dad said he wanted to keep her sedated, but she stayed glued to the TV and radio."

"I can relate to that," Marnie said softly.

She had done virtually the same thing. During that week she had gotten very little work done and even less sleep. Sick with worry she had prowled the rooms of her house, her mind cruelly replaying the
Challenger
explosion. She remembered weeping with relief when Law landed the shuttle at Edwards Air Force Base, bringing the successful mission to an end.

"Mother is almost as afraid of space as she is that I'll never get married and have—" He broke off and glanced out over the water.

"Have children?"

His eyes swung back to Marnie. "The blood tests didn't prove that I'm David's father.

But they proved that I
could
be." In an even softer voice he added, "I believe I am."

"You are. Sharon was a virgin."

"Are you sure?" His brow was beetled with intensity and the need to be positive.

"Oh, yes," Marnie answered, giving a sad little laugh. "She confided everything to me. If she'd had a lover before you, I would have known about it. She thought it was neat that her first lover was an older man with so much prior experience."

"I don't remember her very well," he confessed. "She's just this vague blur in my memory. Good body. Long blond hair. An easy lay." He studied Marnie's face in the flickering light reflecting off the water. "I remember more about you than about Sharon."

"I find that very hard to believe, Law."

"It's the truth. We talked quite a lot, didn't we?"

"You talked. I listened."

He shook his head and laughed with chagrin. "I guess I was pretty full of myself."

"And I was in awe. I was nothing but a scrawny kid who tagged along and was sent away whenever you and Sharon wanted to make out. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, remember?"

His grin was slow in coming and lazy when it got there. His eyes lowered to the tops of her breasts which made small half moons above her neckline. "This is Miss Goody-Two-Shoes' coming out party. Literally."

Flustered, she nodded toward the lighted rooms. "They're calling everyone inside for dinner." Raising his left arm, she consulted his wristwatch. "And it's about time too.

Ten-thirty! That's not dinnertime. That's bedtime."

He rotated his hand so that his palm slid against hers and he clasped her fingers warmly. His other arm slipped around her waist. "That can be arranged."

She took a breath that caused the half moons to quaver. "Be serious, Law."

"I'm dead serious. Men always remember the ones that got away, you know. I'm just dying to find out what makes Miss Goody-Two-Shoes so damned good."

Marnie didn't want to be thinking about anything except Law when he was holding her this close. But her conscientious mind wouldn't let her enjoy his embrace. It was dwelling on the results of the blood tests and Law's softly spoken confirmation that David was his.

"Will you tell your parents that they have a grandchild?" She felt the sudden tensing in his muscles. And though his smile was still in place, it no longer looked natural.

"I don't know."

"Knowing that David is yours, what are you going to do, Law?"

He withdrew his arms and stood, offering her a hand up. "You're right, they're calling everybody in for dinner. We'd better not keep them waiting."

As he ushered her through the terrace doors, he leaned over and whispered, "I'll say this for you, Marnie, you know how to deflate what had promised to be good, hard arousal."

Chapter 8

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H
e rang her doorbell at eleven o' clock the following day. She was surprised to see him.

The night before, his attitude toward her had been tense and guarded from the moment they're joined the party after their conversation outside on the deck.

When he walked her to her front door, he had told her a terse good-night and given her a perfunctory kiss that indicated he was glad to see a conclusion to the evening. That's why this visit was so unexpected.

"Are you busy?" he asked through the screen door.

"I'm working."

She smelled like acrylic paint and looked like the dickens. Her salon hairdo hadn't survived the night. Her hair was back to the loose, short curls that carelessly surrounded her small head. The formal dress had been zipped into a garment bag and hung in the cedar closet. This morning she had dressed in a pair of shorts and a shirt that were far from glamorous. Both had been relegated to her work-clothes drawer last summer. They were smeared with paint. She was barefoot.

"May I come in?"

She hesitated for only a second, then unlatched the screen door and pushed it open.

"Why aren't you at work?" she asked as they moved down the hallway toward the back of the house.

He dropped into one of the wicker chairs and peeled off his sunglasses. "I was, but a simulator we were working with developed a glitch. We weren't doing anything except standing around telling dirty jokes and waiting for the technicians to find the bug, which they finally announced would probably take until sometime tomorrow. So I took the rest of the day off. What's that?" He pointed his sunglasses at the painting she was working on.

"The cover for a jewelry store catalog. Like it?" She held it up for his inspection. It was a painting of a giant lotus blossom set against a black background. In the center of the milky petals was a cache of glittering gems.

"Different."

"How diplomatic," she said dryly. "I'm glad the ad agency has already approved my sketch or I'd be worried." He smiled wanly, as though he weren't really listening. "Is something on your mind, Law?"

"Lunch."

"Lunch?"

"Let me take you to lunch," he said abruptly.

"No! I'm a mess."

"You look fine."

"Forget it. I'm not going out looking like this."

"Okay, then we'll lunch in. What have you got?"

Before she could say another word, he was disappearing through the doorway into the kitchen. By the time she reached it, he was bent at the waist, taking inventory of the refrigerator.

She crossed the room and rudely pushed the refrigerator door shut. "You didn't come here to eat."

He leaned back against the refrigerator and gazed up at the ceiling. "You're right. I didn't."

"So why are you here?"

"I keep thinking about what you asked me last night. What am I going to do about David?"

Marnie felt that squeezing little pressure around her heart that she experienced each time she thought about what action Law might take regarding David.

Softly, almost fearfully, she asked, "Have you decided?"

"No," he answered, bringing his eyes down to her level. "Not yet. Before I do anything about the future, I've got to catch up on the past."

She shook her head, puzzled. "I don't understand."

"I like what I see now. By all appearances, he's a super kid, all a father could hope for in a son. I'd like to know how he got that way. God, I've missed so much. There are sixteen years of life that I know absolutely nothing about except that he couldn't have a dog because pets made his grandmother nervous and that he took swimming lessons at the Y."

His expression was bleak and full of appeal. "Tell me how it was, Marnie. Stuff me with information."

She glanced toward her work area, which beckoned, but reasoned that she could burn the midnight oil if necessary to get the piece finished under her deadline.

"Come with me." She led him from the kitchen into the living room, where she kept photo albums chock full of snapshots of David.

Her emotions were mixed. Difficult as it was to admit, she admired Law for taking an interest in David. He could have gotten furious when he learned of David's existence.

Even after acknowledging that it was possible he had fathered him, he could have shrugged him off as a biological fluke as most men who dated girls named Suzette would have.

But then, Law Kincaid was a higher caliber man than most. He had earned a congressional appointment to the Naval Academy. His life had been studded with achievements and honors. He had the integrity to support his record of successes.

His strong character made her love him that much more, but it also made him her enemy. Anonymous threatening letters notwithstanding, he wasn't a man who would blithely turn his back on a teenage son. It had been Marnie's selfish wish that that's what he would do.

Until he revealed what, if any his plans for the future were, she was blindly feeling her way through the situation. For the time being, cooperating with him was the best strategy.

She sat down cross-legged on the floor and pulled a large picture album onto her lap.

Law dropped down beside her. She opened the cover of the album and smoothed her hand over the certificate pasted to the first page.

"His official footprints, done soon after he was born."

Law's eyes lit up. "So tiny!"

"Not the size elevens they are now," she said, laughing. "They look so sweet here, but whenever I clear out his dirty clothes hamper, his gym socks don't smell so sweet. It amazes me now to think that I once nibbled on his toes."

On the next page were pictures of the day the Hibbs family had brought David home from the hospital. Law studied a photograph of Sharon holding her new son. "She doesn't look overjoyed with him."

"She'd just given birth," Marnie remarked charitably. "She wasn't feeling too well."

He stripped away her sugar coating. "She didn't really want him, did she?"

"Well, she—"

"Marnie."

"No, she didn't," she confessed around a deep breath.

"Since you thwarted her abortion plans, why didn't she give him up for adoption?"

"That was her second suggestion, but my parents opposed the idea."

"Why?"

"I think Dad wanted to make a point, teach the moral lesson that one must be held accountable for his or her mistakes."

"One reaps what he sows. I didn't know anybody still adhered to that belief."

"Dad did. He wanted Sharon to learn it the hard way."

"I believe you and they suffered as much if not more than she."

"Dad's ministry was over as soon as word got around that his unmarried daughter was pregnant. Whatever influence he had over the souls of his congregation had been nullified."

"Did that make him resent David?"

"Of course not. David wasn't the transgression, only the product of it. Mom and Dad loved David and were very affectionate toward him. He wouldn't be as well adjusted as he is if they hadn't been."

"How did your dad earn a living after that?" he asked as he turned the pages of the album, studying each picture of David at some length.

"He went to work for a publisher of religious books."

"And died of a heart attack."

"Hmm. Mother took it hard. Especially since his death came so close on the heels of Sharon's accident."

"What happened, Marnie?"

"I told you. An accident. A car wreck, to be specific."

He placed his finger beneath her chin and turned her face toward his. They were sitting very close, their shoulders touching. Her knee was resting on his thigh. She suddenly became aware of that, though she didn't remember how it had gotten there.

"Be
more
specific."

"It doesn't matter now. David doesn't remember," she said evasively.

"I'm waiting."

She closed her eyes and whispered, "She was drunk. Her car crossed the center stripe and hit another car head on. There were two people in it. All three of them were killed on impact."

He swore liberally, out of anger and regret. Intuitively Marnie realized what he was thinking, and consolingly laid her hand on his thigh.

"It wasn't your fault, Law. You never even knew that she got pregnant. Don't start blaming yourself for deserting a girl you got in trouble. Sharon got herself in trouble, and if it hadn't been with you, it would have been with someone else.

"She was a rebel from the day she realized that Dad was a minister and therefore exemplary behavior was expected of her. She resented that and in retaliation flaunted her misdeeds. She was the source of constant disharmony within our family. Her conduct made our parents very unhappy. And though it broke their hearts, I doubt they were even surprised when she got pregnant."

"Why didn't they contact me or my parents?"

"Sharon told them she didn't know who the father was. She boasted that she'd been sleeping with lots of men. I saw no point in naming you. There were already too many lives affected, why should yours have been ruined too?"

"After David was born," she continued, "Sharon refused to go back to high school, saying it was dopey and she was done with all that. Dad insisted that if she didn't return to school, she had to get a job, but she was unskilled and uninterested and kept getting fired."

"What about men?"

"She attracted them, naturally. Motherhood had only ripened her figure," Marnie studied her hands, clenching and unclenching her fingers. "Unfortunately they were the wrong kind of men. My parents grieved to see her squandering her life, but their efforts to control her were ineffectual. Sometimes she'd go out and not come back for days."

"She didn't give a damn about David, did she?"

"No," Marnie said with a sad shake of her head. "She didn't give a damn about anything except creating chaos."

"What does he know about me?"

"Nothing!" she answered in alarm.

"I mean about his father in general. He's a bright boy. Surely he asked."

"Almost as early as he could talk. Just as he told you the other night, we explained that his father couldn't marry his mother. That it was impossible."

"Didn't he pester you for at least a name?"

"We told him that giving him that was impossible too."

"He didn't demand to know why?"

"We kept the reasons vague and emphasized that he'd be smothered in so much love he wouldn't miss having a father."

"Did he buy that?"

"Probably not. But eventually he accepted it."

"He didn't have much choice, did he?" Law's lips formed a thin, bitter line. "He didn't have a father. And not much of a mother. Who took care of him while Sharon was out carousing?"

"We, my folks and I, shared that privilege."

He gave her a long, steady stare before continuing to turn the pages of the album.

"Uh-huh," he said after several minutes. "
You
took care of him, didn't you?"

"I told you, we—"

"Don't make excuses for them," he said harshly. "Look at these pictures. You and David in the park on a picnic. You and David on a merry-go-round, flying a kite, playing with a Frisbee, at Astroworld. Is this his first bicycle?"

"Christmas morning, when he was five," she said, smiling down at the group of photographs. They featured a younger version of David wearing Smurf pajamas and pushing a shiny bicycle through a sea of wrapping paper.

"I wanted to leave the training wheels on, but he insisted that I take them off. He wanted to learn to ride it without them."

Law did some swift calculations. "That was the Christmas I spent in the Philippines.

Some buddies and I were feeling blue about not being home for Christmas. We went into the nearest town and got plastered.

"And while I was stumbling around under banyan trees looking for a place to puke up cheap vodka, my five-year-old son was half a world away learning how to ride a bike without the training wheels." He rubbed his fingertips over one of the photographs.

"Tough little cuss."

"And stubborn. And impatient with himself," Marnie said. "He always wants to do things right the first time and gets extremely upset if he doesn't. But he sticks with it. He had mastered the bike by the middle of that afternoon."

"Yeah? Really?" Law asked, smiling proudly.

There was a close-up picture of David snarling at the camera, showing where two front teeth were missing, and a somber David all dressed up, with his hair evenly parted, a Bible under his arm. "The day he was baptized," Marnie told his father.

"He went to Sunday school?"

"He still does. He's president of the youth group at our church." She turned another page. "That was his first Little League team. The Pirates."

"What position does he play?"

"Anything in the infield, but baseball's his least favorite sport. Not physical enough, he says."

"It's my least favorite too."

"And these are all his class pictures in chronological order. I didn't know it was picture day until after the fact," she said with asperity as she pointed at one of the photos. "He'd forgotten to bring home the note. I could have killed him for wearing that tacky T-shirt to have his picture taken."

"Oops, one slid out." Law leaned over and picked up the loose photograph. "Must belong on the baptism page. David's all dressed up. But that looks like a judge, not a minister."

"It is a judge. That's the day—"

Law looked at her curiously when she suddenly broke off. "The day what?"

"Nothing."

"What?" He clasped her hands together on the open album so she couldn't busy them to deliberately distract him. "The day what?"

It was impossible for her to look him straight in the eye. "The day the court granted me legal custody of him."

The resulting stillness was broken only by the sound of their breathing. Finally Law said, "You make it sound like that was quite a feat."

"It took several years. I had applied right after Sharon died."

"But you were only eighteen then, weren't you?" She nodded. He blew out a gust of air and muttered a series of blue words. "You reared my son, didn't you? Almost single-handedly. You did what your slut of a sister—"