Ten
Cliff pulled his sports car into Diana’s driveway and turned off the engine. For a long moment he kept his hands on the steering wheel, his thoughts heavy. Maybe Diana had told him about this trip to Wichita, but if she had, he sure didn’t remember it. He’d reached a decision about himself and his relationship with Diana and her girls. The process had been painful, but now that he knew his mind, he wasn’t going to let a planned two-week vacation stand in his way.
Determined, he climbed out of his car, slammed the door and headed for the house.
Diana met him on the front porch, and once again Cliff was struck by her simple beauty. Her dark eyes with their long, thick lashes searched his face. Her lips were slightly parted, and a familiar ache tightened Cliff’s midsection. If everything blew up in his face today, if worse came to worse and he never saw Diana Collins again, he’d always remember her and her kisses. They’d haunt him.
“Hello, Cliff.”
Diana was amazed how cool and unemotional she sounded. She wasn’t feeling the least bit controlled. From the minute they’d finished their telephone conversation, she’d been pacing the upstairs, wandering from room to room in a mindless search for serenity. She’d never heard Cliff sound quite so serious. Now that he’d arrived, she noted that his piercing blue eyes revealed an unfamiliar intensity.
“Hello, Diana.”
She opened the screen door for him.
“Where are the girls?”
he asked once he was inside the house. He kept his hands in his pockets for fear he’d do something crazy, like reach for her and kiss her senseless. He’d been thinking about exactly that for four long days. Being with her only increased his need to taste her again.
“Joan and Katie are saying goodbye to all their friends in the neighborhood. You’d think we were going to be gone two years instead of two weeks.”
Actually, this time alone with Cliff had been Joan’s doing. Her elder daughter hadn’t been the least bit subtle about suggesting to Katie that perhaps they should take this opportunity to bid their friends a fond au revoir. Katie, however, had been far more interested in seeing Cliff. Diana estimated they’d have fifteen minutes at the most, before Katie blasted into the house.
Cliff jerked a hand out of his pocket and splayed his fingers through his hair. Now that he was here, he found he was tongue-tied. He’d practiced everything he wanted to say and now he didn’t know where to start.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thanks, I came to talk.”
That sounded good.
“Okay.”
Diana moved into the living room. Whatever was on Cliff’s mind was important. He hadn’t so much as cracked a smile. She imagined his behavior was similar when he stood in the courtroom before the jury box. Each move would be calculated, every word planned for the maximum effect.
Diana lowered herself into the overstuffed chair, and Cliff took a seat directly across from her on the sofa. He sat on the edge of the cushion, his elbows resting on his thighs, and clenched his hands into tight fists.
“How’s Katie?”
Diana’s smile came from her heart. “She’s doing great. After the first day she didn’t even need the pain medication.”
“And you?”
Without his having to explain, Diana understood. “Much better, I . . . I’m not exactly sure I know what happened that day in the hospital, but emotionally I crumbled into a thousand pieces. I was about as close to being a basket case as I can remember. I’ll always be grateful you were there for Katie and me.”
“Her accident taught us both several valuable lessons.”
“It did?”
Diana swallowed around the uncomfortable tightness in her throat. She hardly recognized the Cliff who sat across from her; he was so grim-faced and unreadable.
Cliff seemed unable to take his eyes off her. There was so much he longed to tell her, and he’d never felt more uncertain about how to express himself. Knowing she would be leaving for her parents’ had thrown him an unexpected curveball. He wished he could have taken her to an expensive restaurant and explained everything on neutral ground. Now he felt pressured to clear the air between them before she left for Wichita.
“Until Katie broke her arm,”
he went on to say, “I’d more or less decided, after our late-night conversation, that you were right and it was best for us not to see each other again.”
He sat stiffly, feeling ill at ease. “It didn’t take you long to see through me—I’m definitely not the marrying kind, and you knew it. You appealed to my baser instincts and I appealed to yours, but anything more than that between us was doomed. Am I right?”
Out of nervous agitation, Diana reached for the pillow with the cross-stitch pattern and fluffed it up in her lap. “Yes . . . I suppose so.”
“Not seeing me again was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
Cliff challenged.
Regretfully Diana nodded. It was and it wasn’t. A relationship with Cliff showed such marvelous promise, and at the same time contained the coarse threads of tragedy. If the only threat had been her heart and her emotions, Diana might have risked it.
At least those had been her thoughts before the accident, when she’d seen how good Cliff had been with her girls. Joan and Katie were already involved.
“I see.”
Diana wasn’t sure he did. If he understood all this, then there wasn’t any reason for this urgent visit now. Suddenly she understood what he was getting at. Her cheeks flushed, and she stood, holding the decorator pillow to her stomach. “Cliff, I apologize.”
“You do?”
He was the one who wanted to ask her forgiveness.
“Yes. I had no idea Joan would contact you when Katie was hurt. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. I don’t know why she did it . . . but I’ve talked with her since and explained that she should never have made that call, and she promised she . . .”
Cliff stormed to his feet. “I’m not talking about that!”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
He lowered his voice, paused and ran his hand along the back of his neck a couple of times. “Listen, I’m doing a poor job of this.”
She stared at him in wide-eyed wonder, not knowing what to think.
“Sit down, would you?”
Diana lowered herself back into the chair.
Cliff paced the space in front of her as though she were a stubborn member of the jury and he were about to make the closing argument in an important trial. He couldn’t believe he was making such a mess of something this basic. Talking to Diana should have been a simple matter of explaining his change of heart, but once he arrived, he felt as nervous as a first-year member of a debate team.
Diana pressed her hands between her closed knees and studied Cliff as he moved back and forth in the small area in front of her chair. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that if he didn’t hurry, the girls would be back and then their peace would be shattered. With Katie doing cartwheels at the sight of him, there wouldn’t be a chance for a decent discussion.
Perhaps, Cliff decided, it would be best to start at the beginning. “Do you remember the night I came over after work and we sat and talked?”
Diana grinned and nodded. “As I recall, we did more kissing than talking.”
Cliff relaxed enough to share a smile with her, and when he spoke his eyes softened with the memory of how good the gentle lovemaking between them had been then. “It didn’t feel right to walk away from you that night.”
Diana’s gaze dropped to the carpet. It hadn’t felt right to her, either, but there was so much more at stake than her feelings or his.
“After I left you, I decided a romantic evening alone together in my condo would be just the thing to seal our fates. Do you remember?”
She wasn’t likely to forget. “Listen, Cliff, I don’t know what your point is, but . . .”
Cliff wasn’t entirely sure anymore, either. “I guess what I’m having such a difficult time telling you is that I don’t bed every woman I date.”
Diana was special, more than special. She had never been, and never would be, a number to him—someone he’d use to boost his ego. He wanted to explain that, and it just wasn’t coming out the way he’d planned.
“It’s none of my business how many women you’ve slept with.”
If he was going to make some grand confession, she wasn’t interested in hearing it.
“But this does involve you.”
She stood again, because it was impossible to remain seated. “Listen, Cliff, if you’re going to tell me you slept with that . . . that bimbo blonde then . . . don’t.”
“Bimbo blonde? Oh, you mean Marianne. You think I made love to her? Diana, you’ve got to be joking.”
“No, I’m not.”
The unexpected pain that tightened her chest made it almost impossible to talk evenly. The power Cliff Howard wielded to injure her heart was lethal. Diana had recognized that early in their relationship and had taken steps to protect herself. Yet here he was, stirring up unwelcome trauma.
“I didn’t sleep with her! Diana, I swear to you by all that I hold dear, I didn’t go to bed with Marianne.”
His words were little more than a hoarse whisper.
She walked across the room and looked out the window. Where were the girls when she could really use them? “That’s hardly my business.”
“I’m trying to make a point here.”
“If so, just do it,”
she said, and whirled around to face him, shoulders stiff. She was on the defensive now and growing more impatient by the minute.
“I want to apologize for . . .”
“That’s exactly what I thought,”
she flared, resisting the urge to place her hands over her ears to blot out his words. “And I don’t want to hear it . . . so you can save your breath.”
“For the night at my condominium,”
Cliff continued, undaunted. “I set up that seduction scene because we both felt the magic, and I wanted you.”
He lowered his voice to an enticing whisper of remembered desire. “Heaven knows I wanted you.” And nothing had changed.
Now it was Diana’s turn to pace, and she did so with all the energy of a raw recruit eager to please his sergeant. She stopped when she realized how ridiculous she must look and slapped her hands against the sides of her thighs. “Just what is your point?”
For a minute Cliff had forgotten. “When you walked out on me that night, I can’t remember ever being angrier with anyone in my life. I figured if you were into denial, then fine, but I was noble enough to be honest about my feelings.”
“I wonder if there’s a Pulitzer Prize for that,”
she murmured sarcastically, and wrapped her arms around her waist.
Cliff ignored her derision. “Later I had a change of heart and decided I could be forgiving, considering the circumstances. I gave you ample time to come to me, and when you didn’t, I was forced to swallow my pride and bridge the uneasiness between us. You may be impressed to know that I don’t do that sort of thing often.”
A snicker slipped from Diana’s clogged throat. She tightened her grip on her waist. The longer he spoke, the more uncertain she was as to how to take Cliff. He was being sarcastic, but it seemed to be at his expense and not hers.
“That night you lowered the boom and told me a few truths,”
Cliff continued. “Basically, let it be known that you weren’t interested in falling into bed with me because of some mystical, magical feeling between us. You also took it upon yourself to point out a couple of minor flaws in my personality. As I recall, shortly afterward I was left to lick my wounds.”
A smile cracked the tight line of Diana’s mouth. “Was I really so merciless?”
“Wanna see the scars?”
“I didn’t mean to be so ruthless,”
she said tenderly, filled with regret for having injured his pride, although she’d known the nature of their talk would be painful for him.
“The truth hurts—isn’t that how the saying goes?”
Diana nodded.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking since that night.”
Only a few feet separated them, and he raised his hands as though to reach for her and bring her close to him. Reluctantly he dropped his fists to his side and took a step in the opposite direction.
“And?”
Diana pressed.
“And I think we may have something, Diana. Something far more valuable than magic. Something I’m not likely ever to find again. I don’t want to lose you. I realize I may have ruined everything by trying to rush you into bed with me, and I apologize for that. I’d like a second chance with you, although I probably don’t deserve one.”
His eyes softened and caressed her with such tenderness that Diana stopped breathing until her lungs ached. When she spoke, the words rushed out on the tail end of a raspy sigh. “I think . . . that could be arranged.”
“Whatever it is between us is potent—you’ll have to agree to that.”
Diana couldn’t deny the obvious.
“I know you have your doubts and I honestly can’t blame you. But if you agree to letting me see you again, I promise to do things differently. I’m not going to pressure you into lovemaking—you have my word on that.”
“I’ve made my share of mistakes, too, and I think it would only be fair if I came up with a few promises of my own.”
He looked at her as though he hadn’t had a clue as to what she was talking about.
“I have no intention of rushing you into making a commitment. And the word love will be stricken from my vocabulary.”
Feeling almost giddy with relief, she smiled warmly.
Cliff smiled in return. “I wonder if we could seal this bargain with a kiss.”
“I think that would be more than appropriate.”
Cliff had reached for her even before she’d finished speaking. He needed to hold her again and savor her softness pressing against him. She was halfway into his arms, when the front door burst open.
“Cliff!”
Katie leaped into the living room with all the energy of a hydroelectric dam. Her pigtails were swinging, her eyes aglow. “I didn’t think you’d ever get here. You forgot to sign my cast, and I saved you a space, but it’s getting dirty.”
Joan followed shortly after Katie. “Hi, Cliff,”
she said nonchalantly. She tossed her mother an apologetic look.
Cliff pulled a pen from inside his suit pocket and knelt in front of Katie.
“What took you so long?”
Katie demanded as Cliff started penning his message on her cast.
“I don’t know, buttercup,”
he answered, looking up to Diana and smiling.
“I can’t get over how much the girls have grown,”
Joyce Shaffer, Diana’s mother, said with an expressive sigh, alternately glancing between Joan and Katie.
“It’s been a year, Mom.”
The long flight from Seattle to Wichita had left the girls and Diana exhausted. Joan and Katie had fallen asleep ten minutes after they arrived at Diana’s family home. Diana longed to join her daughters, but her parents were understandably excited and wanted to chat. Diana and her mother gathered around the kitchen table, nibbling on chocolate chip cookies, drinking tall glasses of milk and talking.
“Poor Katie,”
her mother went on to say sympathetically. “Is her arm still hurting?”
“It itches more than anything.”
Burt Shaffer pulled up a chair and joined the two women. “Who’s this Cliff fellow the girls were telling me about?”
Diana hesitated, not exactly sure how to explain her relationship with Cliff. She didn’t want to lead her family into thinking she was about to remarry, nor did she wish to explain that she and Cliff had reached a still untested understanding.
“Cliff and I have dated a few times.”
That was the best explanation she could come up with on such short notice. She should have been prepared for this. The minute the girls had stepped off the plane, Katie had shown her grandparents where Cliff had signed her cast and told the detailed story of how he’d let her ride in his car on the way home from the hospital. First Katie, then Joan, had spoken nonstop for a full five minutes, extolling his myriad virtues, until Diana had thought she’d scream at them both to cut it out.
“So you’ve only dated him a few times.”
Her father nodded once, giving away none of his feelings. “The girls certainly seem to have taken a liking to him. What about you, rosebud? Do you think as highly of this Cliff fellow as Joan and Katie seem to?”
“Now really, Burt,”
her mother cut in. “Don’t go quizzing poor Diana about the men in her life the minute she walks in the door. Diana, dear, did I tell you Danny Helleberg recently moved back to town?”
Diana and Danny had gone to high school together a million years ago. Although they’d been in the same class, Diana had barely known him. “No . . .”
“I talked to his mother the other day in the grocery store and I told her you were flying out for a visit. She says Danny would love to see you again.”
“That would be nice.”
Not really, but Diana didn’t want to disappoint her mother.
“I’m glad you think so, honey, because he phoned and I told him to call again in the morning.”
“That’d be great.”
Her smile was weak at best. She had hardly said more than a handful of words to Danny Helleberg the entire time they were in school together. Recounting the memory of their high-school days should take all of five minutes. It was the only thing they had in common.
“His wife left him for another man. I did tell you that, didn’t I? The poor boy was beside himself.”
“Yes, Mom, I think you did mention Danny’s marital problems.”
She tried unsuccessfully to swallow a yawn, gave up the effort and planted her hand over her mouth, hoping her parents got the hint.
They didn’t.
“Danny and his wife are divorced now.”
Diana did her best to try to look interested. It was the same way every visit—her parents seemed to think it was their duty to supply her with another husband. Every summer a variety of men were paraded before her while Diana struggled to appear grateful.
“Tell us about Cliff,”
her dad prompted.
Diana’s fingers tightened around her milk glass. “There really isn’t much to tell. We’ve only gone out a few times.”
“What’s his family like?”
her mother wanted to know, looking as though she already disapproved. If Diana was going to remarry, it was her mother’s opinion that the man should be from Wichita. Then Diana wouldn’t have any more excuses to remain in Seattle.
“Really, Mom, I don’t have any idea—I haven’t met his parents.”
“I see.”
Her mother exchanged a look with her father that Diana recognized all too well.
“Cliff’s an attorney,”
she added hurriedly, hoping that would impress her parents.
“That’s nice, dear.”
But her mother didn’t seem overly swayed by the information. “We just hope you aren’t serious about this young man.”
“Why?”
Diana asked, surprised.
Her mother looked more amazed than Diana. “Why, because Danny Helleberg is back in town. You know how well his mother and I get along.”
Diana felt like grinding her teeth. “Right, Mom.”
Cliff leaned back on his leather couch and stretched out his legs in front of him, crossing his ankles. Diana’s first email had arrived. Already adrenaline was pumping through him. Four days. She’d been gone only four days, and he missed her more than he thought it was possible to miss another human being. He thought about their last minutes together while he’d driven her and the girls to the airport. Diana had lingered as long as she could, seeking to delay their parting. So much had remained unsaid between them. She’d wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. The memory of that single, ardent kiss still had the power to triple his pulse rate. It was the type of kiss men remember as they go into battle. A kiss meant to forge time and distance. She’d looked as dazed as he felt. Without saying anything more, she’d turned and left him, rushing into the airport with Joan and Katie at her side. Cliff had remained at the airport drop-off point far longer than necessary, wishing she were back in his arms. Two weeks, he’d thought. That shouldn’t be so long, but the way the time was dragging, each minute seemed longer than the one before. Two weeks was an eternity.
He grinned as he read over the first few lines that told him about Joan and Katie and how Katie had told her parents about him before Diana had had the opportunity to mention his name. The smile faded when he read how her parents were pressuring her to move to Wichita so they could look after her properly. He sighed audibly as he scrolled down to the second page. Diana assured him this was an old argument and that she had no intention of leaving Seattle. She loved her parents, but being close to them would slowly, surely, drive her crazy. Cliff agreed with that. He loved his family, but they had the same effect upon him.
Cliff continued reading. Diana told him she regretted the impulsive kiss at the airport. Now all she could think about was getting back to Seattle and seeing him again. Nothing had ever been that good—not even their first kiss at the marina under the starlight.
Cliff agreed.
If she experienced half the emotion he had over that kiss, she’d call her family vacation short and hurry back to him. All he could think about was Diana coming home and his holding her again.
He left the computer and went into the kitchen to fix himself something for dinner. Five minutes later he returned, pausing over the last few words she’d written about the kiss.
On impulse he reached for the phone. If he didn’t hear her voice, he’d be the one to slowly, surely, go crazy. Getting her parents’ number wasn’t a problem, and he quickly punched it out, checking his watch and figuring out the time difference.
“Hello.”
Cliff would have staked his life savings that Joan would answer. He was right.
“Hi, Joan.”
“Cliff! How are you?”
“Fine.”
Okay, so that was a minor exaggeration; he would be once he talked to Joan’s mother.
“We went to Sedgwick County Zoo today. It was great. I saw a green snake and a black-necked swan.”
She paused, and Cliff heard muffled arguing.
“Joan,”
Cliff called after a long pause, “are you there?”
“Yes, Cliff,”
she said a bit breathlessly. “It seems my darling younger sister wants to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
Briefly Cliff wondered if he’d end up speaking to everyone in the entire household before he was able to talk to Diana.
“Hi, Cliff,”
Katie shouted. “I told Grandma and Grandpa all about you, and Grandpa says he’s going to take me fishing here in Wichita.”
“That sounds like fun. Where’s your mother?”
“There was a bad storm the other night and there was lightning and thunder, and I woke up scared and Mom came in and told me there was music in the storm. Did you know that? And guess what? She was right. I went back to sleep, and in the morning I could still remember the funny kind of drums that played.”
Cliff was impressed at Diana’s genius. “I’m glad you’re not afraid of thunder anymore.”
Once again Cliff heard muffled words and then silence. “Katie? Is someone on the phone?”
“Hello, Cliff.”
Joan again. “Listen, sweetheart, could I speak to your mother?”
“I’m afraid that poses something of a problem,”
Joan whispered huskily into the receiver, as though she’d cupped her hand over it.
“It does?”
“Yes. You see, she isn’t here at the moment.”
“What time do you expect her back?”
“Late. Real late.”
“How late?”
“She didn’t get in until after midnight last night.”
Cliff grinned. “I suppose she’s seeing a lot of her old high-school friends.”
“Especially one old friend. A boyfriend,”
Joan said heavily.
“Oh?”
“Yes, his name is Danny Helleberg.
He’s not nearly as good-looking as you, but Grandma told me that looks aren’t everything.
Grandma insists that Danny will make an excellent stepdad.
Katie and I aren’t sure. Out of all the men Mother’s been dating—including the man with references—we vote for you.”