The Surprise of His Life (17 page)

"I
know," she said softly as she stepped across the room and eased down
beside him. She was careful not to let her body touch his. "It takes some
getting used to."

He
pulled his head from his hands and glanced over at Lindsey. His look said that
he'd heard the subtlety of her remark, namely, that she'd obviously had some
time to consider the matter.

Lindsey
admitted nothing more, however. She wasn't certain that Walker was ready to
learn the depth of her feelings, nor how long she'd been nurturing them. She
didn't want him to have to deal with anything more than he was already having
to deal with. Frankly, he looked overwhelmed enough. "I'm not your
daughter," she did say with defiance. "No matter what our
relationship has been in the past, I'm not your daughter. Nor are you my
father."

"Not
in a biologic sense, of course, but—"

"I'm
not your daughter, period. You're not my father, period. It's that
simple."

Her
nearness making him feel things of a decidedly unfatherly nature, Walker rose
from the bed and stepped to the window, where he stared out into the black
night. A car, its headlights bright, eased down the quiet street. It crawled
past the house. Its presence reminded him, however, that it could have been
Bunny returning home. How could he explain this scene to her should she find
him in Lindsey's bedroom? The fact that he couldn't—at least not
easily—underscored the complexity of the situation.

"It's
not that simple," Walker said.

"It
is just that simple," Lindsey repeated.

He
turned around. "Lindsey, I'm twice your age."

She
laid down the teddy bear and stood. "Which is it? Are you worried about
the age difference or about my being your goddaughter?"

"Both,
dammit!"

"What's
the big deal about age?"

"Lindsey,
I'm old enough to be—"

She
groaned. "I know! I know! You're old enough to be my father!"

"Well,
I am!"

"So
what?"

"So
what? So doesn't that bother you?"

"No.
Not particularly. When you kissed me, your age was the last thing on my mind. I
was hoping that it was the last thing on yours."

Her
honesty disarmed him again, especially since the truth was that age, neither
his nor hers, had been the last thing on his mind minutes before. All that had
been on his mind had been the satin-softness of her lips, the honeyed sweetness
of her mouth. Walker closed his eyes and sighed.

Lindsey
saw her chance and pressed her advantage. Slowly, she walked toward him.
Without actually touching him, she stopped so near that she could feel the heat
of his body. Her voice was only a whisper when she said, "Tell me that you
were thinking about age when we kissed."

When
he felt her moving toward him, he opened his eyes. And watched as she closed
the distance to him. She stopped only a heartbeat away. A tantalizing heartbeat
away. Her perfume wafted about him, causing him to feel giddy. Or maybe it was
just her nearness... or maybe it was her eyes that had turned a smoky, hazy
blue.

"Was
that what you were thinking about?" Lindsey repeated, prepared to give him
no quarter.

No,
he
thought, the word thundering through him.

"Lindsey—"

"You
owe me an answer."

He
did. He knew he did. But to answer her truthfully meant another slight
alteration, an irrevocable alteration, of their relationship. He wasn't certain
he could stand many more.

"Lindsey—"

"Answer
me," she demanded.

"No!"
he spat. "I wasn't thinking of our age, but that isn't the point."

"What
we feel isn't the point?"

"No.
Just because you feel something doesn't make it right." He groaned
suddenly. "My God, I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe
we're having this discussion. I can't believe we..." He couldn't bring
himself to even verbalize what had just happened in the car. Instead, he
repeated, "I can't believe this is happening. Look," he added
quickly, as though he were desperate to wind up this discussion and go back to
the safe security of believing that all he'd been feeling ever since Lindsey
returned home had been nothing more than his overwrought imagination,
"forget this happened. We were both tired. We've both been under a lot of
stress. Just forget it happened. Find yourself someone your own age and...
and... and..." None of the and's that came to mind pleased him. In fact,
each displeased him. Mightily.

With
each word, Walker had backed farther and farther away from Lindsey and closer
and closer to the safety of the door. He now stood directly in front of it.

"I
don't want anyone else," Lindsey said. "I want you."

Walker
heaved another sigh, this one caught between frustration and exhilaration.
"Lindsey, you don't know what you're saying."

"Oh,
but I do. I know exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that I want you. I'm
attracted to you and I want everything that attraction entails. And,
furthermore, Walker Carr," she added, a sweetly wicked gleam in her
otherwise innocent eyes as she walked toward him, "I intend to have
you."

The
child had disappeared again, replaced by a sultry, sexy vamp. Walker groaned,
as though the vamp had clipped him at the back of the knees. He was falling,
falling, falling, but what a heavenly descent! The quick hands of sanity
snatched him back just in the nick of time. He mumbled something that vaguely
resembled "Good night," and fled.

On
the drive home, Lindsey's silken threat taunted and teased, teased and taunted
Walker, until he arrived home uncertain of which he feared more—that she would
pursue him exactly as she'd promised or that she'd take his advice and find
someone else. He groaned.

How
in hell was it possible for a grown man, a supposedly mature man, to make such
a mess of everything?

"I
swear I'd divorce your father if he wasn't already divorcing me!" Bunny
said the next morning in answer to Lindsey's question of how the evening had
gone.

Because
her mother still hadn't come in by midnight, the hour at which Lindsey had gone
to bed and, unbelievably, immediately fallen asleep, Lindsey had allowed her
hope to soar. Her mother's words now dashed that hope.

"And,
furthermore, young lady," Bunny said, beating the pancake batter as though
it was what she had the grievance against, "I'm angry with you. You set
the whole evening up." Here Bunny slopped several tablespoons of batter
onto the griddle, puddling an irregularly shaped pancake that the woman
ordinarily wouldn't have even come close to settling for. "You set
me
up,"
Bunny added, creating a companion pancake vaguely in the shape of Texas.
"How could you do that to me, Lindsey?"

With
the death of hope had come the anger that Lindsey had experienced once before.
Her parents were obviously not inclined to cooperate. On a frustrated sigh,
Lindsey poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. "I was
hoping that you and Dad could work out your differences like two rational human
beings—"

"Rational?"
Bunny asked, tacking on a disgusted "humph" as she flipped the first
pancake. It landed in the squishy middle of the second, bonding the two cakes
like Siamese twins. "That's a word your father hasn't the vaguest concept
about these days." As though just thinking about it, she asked, "Did
you know he has a red sports car?" She didn't give her daughter time to
answer. "Which he drives like a sixteen-year-old showing off! My God, a
man of his age driving around like some sixteen-year-old, pimply-faced
kid!"

She
slapped the pancakes—one of which was still doughy because it hadn't been
turned—onto a plate and slapped the plate down in front of Lindsey.

"I
don't know who in heck he thinks he is, but if he thinks I'm going to sit
around pining for him while he's out making a fool of himself, then he's
mistaken.
Sadly
mistaken. Don's right. I have a life of my own, and it's
too short to waste it worrying about your father."

Lindsey
frowned. "Don? Who's Don?"

"The
man on the beach," Bunny answered, pushing the syrup, which was still in
the plastic container it came in, toward Lindsey.

Lindsey's
frown deepened. "What man on the beach?"

"The
man on the beach last night. When your father stormed out of the restaurant, I
drove down to the beach and walked. I ran into Don."

The
frown of perplexity turned to a frown of disbelief. "You spent the evening
with a beach bum?"

"He
was not a beach bum. He was a perfectly decent man on vacation here on the
island. He was just taking a walk... the way I was. Anyway, he's divorced
himself and said that no spouse is worth trying to hang on to if they don't
want to be held on to. I think his wife must have hurt him. Anyway, he said I
ought to get on with my life."

Lindsey
was speechless. Utterly speechless. "L-let me get this straight," she
said finally. "You won't seek professional counseling, but you'll take the
advice of a strange man on the beach?"

"It
wasn't me who nixed the idea of counseling. It was your father. But now that I
really think about it, I'm not interested in counseling. It's your father who
has the problem. Not me. Your father is scared to death of growing old. All I
want is to salvage my life—and grow old gracefully and peacefully."

"But—"

"Lindsey,
the best thing for you, for everyone, is to just stay out of this. I know it's
difficult, but there it is. There's nothing you can do."

"If
you and Dad would only talk—"

"I
tried. He won't. And that's that. Don says that if pride is all your father
left me, then it's pride that'll have to sustain me."

"That
sounds great, but— Hey, where are you going?" Lindsey asked when her
mother started from the kitchen.

Bunny
turned in the doorway. "To the paint store. I'm going to paint that lawn
furniture your father never had time for. And I want to get an early
start."

Lindsey
silently watched her mother go. A part of her—the mature woman part—applauded
her mother's quest for an independent life, while another part—the child of her
parents part—feared that independence, for it might drive yet a wider wedge
between her parents.

She
also felt an escalation of her anger. How dare her parents resist her efforts
to get them back together! Mostly, though, she just felt as flat and deflated
as the untouched pancakes—and all on a beautiful Saturday morning when she
should have been basking in the warm glow of the evening before.

She
and Walker had kissed. Really kissed. Like a man and a woman. And nothing
would, could, ever again be quite the same.

On
Monday, after seeing an article in the newspaper, Bunny decided to enroll in
college for the fall term, which was only a couple of weeks away. Going back to
school was something she'd always wanted to do and now, she'd told Lindsey, was
the perfect time to do so.

Lindsey
hadn't been able to argue the point, though once more she wished her mother
were at least still trying to talk to her father. She wasn't, however. She had
apparently taken the tack that enough was enough. If Dean wanted to talk to
her, he knew where to find her.

Curiously,
Lindsey began to suspect that her mother, with the actualization of a new
attitude, was getting her father's attention in a way she'd been unable to
heretofore. When Dean found out about the newly painted lawn furniture, he was
downright angry. Hadn't he told her that he'd take care of that? He was still
capable of taking care of his responsibilities, thank you very much! Bunny's
response to her husband had been a quiet so-was-she.

And
then, on Tuesday morning, Dean learned that his wife had enrolled in college.
College? He hadn't even known that it was something she wanted to do. Bunny
politely told him that there were obviously a lot of things that he didn't know
about her. Amused, Lindsey had watched the interplay. Though not amicably, they
were at least talking.

And
then came Wednesday morning, when Dean realized that Bunny had accepted a date
with somebody named Don.

"Don?
Who the hell is Don?"

When
Lindsey had casually announced moments before that her mother was going out,
she had gotten both Walker's and Dean's attention. Dean, who wore red slacks,
sunglasses and a multicolored braided bracelet, looked as though he'd been
poleaxed.

"Some
man she met on the beach," Lindsey said, rising from her desk and slowly
making her way to the filing cabinet.

She
sensed not only her father's gaze, but Walker's, as well. In fact, she'd sensed
Walker's subtle glances all week. Though he hadn't touched her in any way—he'd
comically gone out of his way not to—his look said that he'd like to. Lindsey
had done everything she could to drive him wild. She appreciated the struggle
he was engaged in. It was a struggle she intended for him to lose.