The Surprise of His Life (2 page)

"What
goes through someone's thought processes to make him want a divorce after
almost twenty-five years of marriage?"

Walker
could tell that Lindsey expected him to have some enlightened insight into
another man's thinking. He didn't, though. He hadn't the least notion why Dean
had asked for a divorce. He hadn't the least notion how, or why, a good
marriage had soured. "I don't know, hon," he replied. "I just
don't know."

"Mother
thinks he's having a mid-life crisis," Lindsey said, obviously hoping that
Walker would agree.

"That's
possible."

"She
thinks that he thinks he's getting old."

Walker
could relate to that. At forty-seven, he definitely had days—mornings
mostly—when he felt older than old. On those occasions, he felt as though he'd
been ridden hard and put up wet. On those occasions his bum knee throbbed with
pain. He'd shattered the kneecap during his less-than-illustrious pro football
career, the career that had lasted half a season or until an ugly, mean
defensive back had decided to pulverize him. Yeah, he knew what it was like to
feel old. And in a way that surpassed the physical reality.

He'd
been increasingly feeling his age ever since his wife's death almost eight
years before. It had been so unexpected—a bout with a virus that doctors hadn't
even been able to identify. Before he'd known what was happening, Phyllis was
dead... and he'd been left to finish raising their son, who was a year older
than Lindsey. All in all, the death had diminished him in some way he couldn't
explain, but could feel deep in his heart. It was as though the flame of life
still burned within him, but it was no longer bright. Instead, it only
simmered, sending him through the motions of living without any real interest.
God only knew he'd never have made it without Dean and Bunny Ellison!

For
that matter, Dean and Bunny had been a part of his life for as far back as he
could remember. He and Dean had been friends for forever. They'd gone to the
same Galveston high school, where both had played football, then on to the same
college, where they had repeated their football performance. Following that,
both had served in Vietnam. Afterward, Dean had started an offshore oil
company, while he'd played out his shortlived football career. After his knee
injury, Dean had hired him on and, ultimately, had made him an equal partner in
the business. They worked well together, with him being primarily in charge of
the Galveston office, while Dean, who'd long had his pilot's license, assumed responsibility
for the offshore operations. Somewhere along the way—when he had been
twenty-two to be precise, Dean within a year of him—each had married. The wives
had rounded out a perfect foursome. They'd seen each other through thick and
thin—through the birth of the Carrs' son, through the birth of the Ellisons'
daughter, through the heartbreak of Phyllis Carr's death.

"What
do you think?"

Walker
glanced up, at the same time angling the air-conditioning vent away from his
achy knee.

"Do
you think it could be this mid-life crisis thing?" Lindsey asked, now
bluntly seeking his opinion.

Walker
repeated what he'd said before. "That's possible." At Lindsey's
crestfallen look—she'd wanted him to wholeheartedly support her mother's
theory—he added, "Lindsey, just give him a little time and a little space.
Sometimes they're all a man needs to get his perspective back."

Lindsey
started to say something, then decided against it. Instead, she eased back into
the corner of the car, clutching the teddy bear to her. For the first time
since he'd seen her deplaning, Walker thought she looked youthful. Vulnerably
youthful. He longed to ease her pain, but he just didn't have the power. Any
more than he'd had the power to ease his own eight years before. Any more than
he had the power to ease his own now.

"How's
Adam?" Lindsey asked.

The
mention of his son, who lived and worked in Houston, brought a smile to
Walker's lips. "He's gonna be a new papa any day now."

Lindsey
smiled. "Is he about to freak out?"

"Actually,
I think it's Grace about to freak out. Adam calls her a dozen times a day and
watches her like a prison guard every minute he's home. The other night she got
up to go to the bathroom and Adam was dressed when she came out—dressed and
hollering that he couldn't find the car keys, which turns out were in his hand.
Oh, and his jeans were on wrong side out."

Lindsey
laughed. The sound reminded Walker of something pretty and lyrical. "I
know he'll want to see you before you go back," he said.

"I,
uh, I may not be going back."

The
news took Walker totally by surprise. The look he gave her said so.

She
shrugged. "I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do," she explained.
"Technically, I've just taken a leave of absence—vacation time I had
coming, plus my accumulated sick days. I'm to let them know later what I
decide."

"But
I thought you liked your job." Following the breakup of her engagement,
she'd taken a secretarial job at a London-based American company. Walker knew,
via her mother, that Lindsey not only enjoyed the work, but also enjoyed being
in England.

"Oh,
I do. It's a great job, I work for nice people, but—" she shrugged again
"—it may be time for a change."

"What
would you do?"

"Go
to Paris, maybe. Or Hong Kong. Maybe even Timbuktu." Lindsey smiled, her
pink-glossed lips curving upward. "Who knows, I might even stay in
Galveston for awhile."

A
troubling thought occurred to Walker. "Lindsey, you're not staying because
of what's going on between your parents, are you? Because I know they wouldn't
want—"

"That
isn't the reason I'd be staying," she interjected. The lips that had been
smiling straightened into a serious line.

Walker
waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't. She just allowed her gaze to hold
his—one second, two seconds, just a little longer than was normally expected.
Walker had the same odd feeling he'd experienced at the airport, the one that
said he was missing some point.

Suddenly
Lindsey smiled, shattering the odd feeling, leaving only a comfortable normalcy
in its place. "Who knows? Maybe I won't stay, after all. Want to run off
to Timbuktu with me?"

Run
off to Timbuktu? The strange thing was, Walker reflected, there were times,
particularly of late, when running off, starting over, doing something totally
frivolous, even foolish, had its appeal. Maybe there was something to this
mid-life crisis thing. Maybe the crazies did set in somewhere between
yesterday's dreams and today's realization that dreams were for the young.
Maybe the same thing, only magnified, had happened to his friend.

"C'mon,
I'll bet you know a dozen guys who'd have their bags packed in a New York
minute and be on a plane with you to Timbuktu...or anywhere else, for that
matter."

"That's
the problem. There're too many. I can't decide. Why, only last week Prince
Charles begged for the chance to accompany me, but I told him that he just
couldn't do that to the princess. I finally made him see that Jolly Ole England
needed him and that he just couldn't go around shirking his royal
responsibilities."

Walker
grinned. "How noble of you."

"Yeah,
I thought so, and me not even a countryman."

Walker's
grin grew, then faded. "There's no one special?"

Lindsey's
smile stayed in place, but a cloud of some emotion—regret?—streaked across her
gray-blue eyes. "Let's just put it this way. I'll be going to Timbuktu
alone. That is, if I can't talk you into going." On the heels of that,
without even the slightest pause, suggesting that if she didn't blurt it out,
she wouldn't be able to say it at all, she asked, "Is there another
woman?"

The
question needed no clarification. Walker knew she was talking about her father.

"To
my knowledge, no."

"Would
you tell me if there was?"

Walker
pondered the question. It was a tough one. He had loyalties binding him to all
three members of the Ellison family. What would he do if Dean had confided in
him personally, privately?

"I
don't know," Walker answered honestly. "But I can tell you in all
honesty that Dean hasn't mentioned another woman to me." Of course, he
hadn't forewarned him about the divorce, either, which maybe meant that Dean
was sensitively aware of just how caught in the middle he was.

Relief
of the most profound nature washed across Lindsey. Walker could actually see
her muscles relaxing, could actually hear her silent "Thank God."
Like a vase that had been emptied of all negativity, he saw her filling up with
a new optimism.

"Well,
then," she said, "I'm just going to have to talk some sense into
Dad."

"Lindsey..."
Walker hesitated, searching for just the right way to phrase what he felt he
had to say. He decided that there was no easy way, no right way. "Lindsey,
hon, what goes on between a man and a woman is personal. It's not the kind of
thing that a third party, even someone who loves them, can mediate. It's not
the kind of hurt that another party can heal."

"I
know," Lindsey said, "but it won't hurt to talk to Dad, will
it?"

"Of
course not, but—"

"I'll
just talk to him and, if it helps, it helps. If it doesn't, it doesn't."

Despite
his warning, despite her statement to the contrary, Walker sensed that Lindsey
thought she could "fix" her parents' broken marriage. He recognized
her attitude for what it was—the optimism, even the cocky naïveté, of youth. He
sighed silently, wishing he could loan her some of his maturity. But he
couldn't. Maturity was something that was earned, oftentimes hard earned. All
he could do was offer her a shoulder to cry on if things didn't work out the
way she wanted.

Galveston.

Salt-scented
air. Honey-colored beaches. Mile after mile of seawall built to protect the
city from mean-spirited storms. And in no place did it storm quite as it did in
Galveston. London had dank, dark weather, with drizzly rain and smoky fog, but
Galveston was queen of the downpour, king of the wroth wind. There was
something symbolic about the timing of her return, Lindsey thought as the car
sped across the causeway linking island to mainland. Something symbolic about
the storm brewing in her heart. She could never remember feeling so
tempest-tossed. No, that wasn't true. She could remember a time, eighteen
months ago, when she'd felt more than tempest-tossed. She'd felt completely
lost at sea. But then, she'd had the anchor of her parents. Now that anchor was
being compromised.

She
glanced over at the man sitting beside her. When her eyes had first connected
with his at the airport, she had felt a sense of profound relief. She had felt
safe. Just the way she'd always felt safe with Walker. It would be so easy to
lean on him now, when her heart was troubled over her parents. Was leaning on
him something she wanted to do? Was leaning on him something she dared do? The
truth was, she suspected, leaning on him was something she had little control
over. It was just something she seemed to do instinctively. Looking back to a
year and a half before, why hadn't she seen the emotional storm coming? Why
hadn't she known from the beginning that events had been taken out of her
control?

"What
do you mean you think we ought to postpone getting married?"

The
question had been asked by a confused, soon-to-be, as of the following day at
2:00 p.m., bridegroom. Lindsey could still remember the puzzled expression on
Ken Larey's face... and how the expression had suddenly turned to a grin.

"Oh,
I get it. This is a joke, right? A little after-the-rehearsal-dinner humor.
Come here, you little tease," the tall, handsome, as-sweet-as-a-teddy-bear
guy had said.

Her
heart breaking, Lindsey had evaded his embrace by putting the sofa between
them. Minutes before, they'd arrived back at Ken's apartment, which, as of the
next day, would be
their
apartment. "I'm serious, Ken."

He'd
momentarily looked startled that his arms were empty—and that she was standing
somewhere other than beside him. "You're serious about wanting to postpone
the wedding?" Before she could answer, he smiled. "You've just got
cold feet, sweetheart. That happens. It doesn't mean a thing. Tomorrow you'll
feel—"

"No,
I won't. I mean, this is not a frivolous case of cold feet. I wish it were, but
it isn't."

A
frown, a prelude to impatience, furrowed Ken's forehead. "Then what
exactly is it?"

"I...
I don't know. I just think we should postpone the wedding. Until we're both
sure."

"I
am
sure, Lindsey. I thought you were, too."

"I
am. I mean, I was. I mean..." She had sighed, laid her hand on the back of
the sofa and closed her eyes— closed her eyes to contain the tears.

"The
next thing I know," Ken had added, "you'll be telling me there's
someone else." He'd made the remark as though it were the very last option
to consider, for how could there be anyone else when the two of them had gone
together for over a year and had been practically inseparable the whole time?