Eleven
A week! It hadn’t even taken Diana a week to forget about him.
The minute she was out of Cliff’s sight, she’d started dating another man behind his back.
Outrage poured over him like burning oil, scalding his thoughts.
He should have learned from Becky that women weren’t to be trusted.
He’d been a fool to allow another woman, someone he’d thought he could trust, to do this to him a second time.
Pacing seemed to help, and Cliff did an abrupt about-face and marched to his living-room window with a step General Mac Arthur would have praised.
All along, Diana had probably planned and plotted this assault on his pride.
Look at how cleverly she’d manipulated him thus far! Why, she’d had him eating out of the palm of her hand! With his fists clenched tightly at his sides, Cliff turned away from the unseen panorama before him and stepped into his kitchen, opening the refrigerator.
He stared blankly at its contents, shook his head, wondered what he was doing there and closed the door.
Diana was ingenious, he’d grant her that much.
She had him right where she wanted him—lonely, miserable and wanting her.
From the minute he’d met her, he hadn’t been himself.
It was as though he were out of sync with his inner self while he mulled over what this young widow and her daughters were doing in his life.
He’d listened to her while she tore him apart, searched deep within himself and recognized the truth of what she’d said.
And all the while she’d waited patiently for him to return to her.
And he had.
Diana had been so confident that she hadn’t so much as tried to contact him. Not once.
Then this sweet, innocent widow had duped him into believing this two-week jaunt to Wichita was a vacation to visit her family.
She was visiting all right, but it wasn’t her family she’d been so eager to get home to see.
Oh, no, it was some old-time boyfriend she could hardly wait to date again.
While she’d been looking at Cliff with those wide, deceiving eyes of hers, she’d been scheming to hook up with this Danny whatever-his-name-was.
And another thing—some mother she turned out to be, leaving Joan and Katie this way.
Both girls had bubbled over with excitement, they’d been so happy to hear from him.
The poor kids were lonely.
And what children wouldn’t be, left in a strange house with people they hardly knew, while their mother was gallivanting around Wichita with another man?
Cliff knew one thing.
If Diana was painting the town, he wasn’t going to idly sit at home, pining away for her.
He was through keeping the TV Guide company, through missing Diana or even thinking about her.
In fact, he was finished with her entirely, he decided suddenly.
He didn’t need her, and it was all too obvious that she didn’t need him, either.
Fine.
She could have it her way.
In fact, she could have her old high-school boyfriend.
Being the noble man he was, Cliff determined that he would quietly bow out of the picture.
He’d even wish the two childhood sweethearts every happiness.
Now that he’d made a decision, Cliff took out his little black book and flipped through the pages.
The names and phone numbers of the women listed here would give Diana paranoia.
Grinning, he ran his finger down the first section and stopped at Missy’s phone number.
One look at Missy, and Diana would know she was out of the running.
Already he felt better.
The thought of Diana comparing herself to another one of his dates and falling short was comforting to his injured ego.
As he’d told himself a minute before, Cliff Howard didn’t need Diana Collins.
He reached for the phone and hit the first three digits of Missy’s number, then abruptly disconnected.
He wasn’t in the mood for Missy.
Not tonight.
Determined, he turned the page and smiled again when he saw Ingrid’s name.
The pretty blond Swede was another one Diana would turn green over.
This time, however, it wasn’t the voluptuous body that would pull the widow up short, although heaven knew Ingrid was stacked in all the right places.
No, Ingrid was a well-educated corporate attorney, in addition to being independently wealthy.
Cliff knew how much Diana would have loved to get her college degree.
Soothed by the thought, Cliff reached for the phone and punched out a long series of numbers, but he hung up before the first ring.
Diana wasn’t such a terrible mother.
Look at how she’d calmed Katie down in the middle of a thunderstorm.
The unexpected, unwanted thought caused him to frown.
Okay, so she hadn’t exactly left her daughters in the hands of strangers, but Joan and Katie hardly knew their grandparents.
It seemed to Cliff that Diana would want to spend her time with her mother and father.
He sagged against the back of the couch and let out his breath in a heated rush.
He didn’t want to be with Missy tonight, not Ingrid, either.
Diana was the only woman who interested him, and had been the only one for weeks.
He had an understanding with Diana, unspoken, but not undefined.
They had something wonderful going—they wanted to test these feelings, explore this multifaceted attraction.
If she felt the need to date other men, then that was up to her.
For his part, he’d been living in the singles world for a long time; he didn’t need another woman in his arms to tell him what he already knew.
His gaze fell to the black book in his hands.
He riffled through the pages, stopping now and again at a name that brought back fond memories.
Yet there wasn’t anyone listed whom he’d like to wrap in his arms, no one he longed to kiss and love.
Given a magic wand and a bucketful of wishes, Cliff would have conjured up Diana Collins and only Diana Collins.
Widow.
Mother. And, he added painfully, heartbreaker.
Cliff must have dozed off watching television, because the next thing he was aware of was the phone.
Its piercing rings jolted him awake.
He straightened, rubbed his hand over his eyes, then reached for his cell.
“Hello.”
“Cliff, it’s Diana.”
The sound of her voice was enough to send the blood rushing through his veins. When he spoke, he attempted to hide the sarcasm behind banter. “So how was your hot date with Danny Heartthrob?”
“That’s what I called about. Listen, Cliff, I don’t know what the girls told you . . .”
“Quite a bit, if you must know.”
Again he made it sound as though the entire evening had been a joke to him.
“Are you mad?”
She sounded worried and uptight, but Cliff thought it was poetic justice. “Should I be?”
“No!”
“Then why all the concern?”
Diana hesitated, not liking the condescending note in his voice. “I thought, you know, that you might have gotten upset because . . . well, because I’d gone out to dinner with Danny.”
“Two nights in a row, according to Joan.”
“I swear I don’t even like him. He’s a dead bore, but my mother’s got this thing about my remarrying before I shrivel up and become an old woman. To hear her tell it, that’s likely to happen in the next six weeks. Time is running out.”
“Listen, if you want to see this Danny every night of your vacation, it’s fine with me.”
“It is?”
came Diana’s stunned response. “I . . . thought we had an understanding.”
Cliff felt shut out and hurt, but he wasn’t about to let her know that. Yes, they did have an agreement, but apparently it didn’t mean a whole lot to Diana. Obviously she considered herself free to date other men, when he still hadn’t recovered from the shock of not finding a single name in his black book that interested him. The only woman he wanted was Diana Collins, but unfortunately she was with another man.
“If you think I’m going to fly into a jealous rage, then you’ve got me figured all wrong. I’m just not the type,”
Cliff said, wondering exactly what this bozo Danny looked like. “The way I see it, you’re on vacation and you’re a big girl. You can do what you want.”
Diana pondered his tone more than his words. She’d been sick when Joan and Katie had told her Cliff had phoned. He wouldn’t understand that she’d gone out with Dan to appease her mother. These two dates had been part of a peacekeeping mission.
“You mean you’re honestly not angry?”
“Naw.”
“If the circumstances were reversed, I’m not sure I’d be as generous.”
She made an impatient, breathy sound, then burst out, “I know this is none of my business, but maybe you’re being understanding about this because you’ve been seeing someone . . . since I’ve been in Wichita?”
Cliff would have loved to let her think exactly that, but he wasn’t willing to lie outright. Misleading her, however, was an entirely different story.
“I’m sure there’s been ample opportunity,”
Diana added, feeling more miserable by the minute.
“Well, as a matter of fact . . .”
“Forget I asked that,”
she insisted. “If you’re going out with Bunnie or Bubbles or any of the other girls listed in your bachelor directory, I’d rather not know about it.”
“Do you doubt me?”
he asked, trying to sound casual. She had a lot of nerve. He was the one sitting home nights staring at the boob tube while she was flirting with everything in pants on the other side of the Rocky Mountains.
“It isn’t a matter of trust,”
Diana answered after a long moment.
“Then what is it?”
“I’m not sure.”
The frustration was enough to make her want to cry. “We had so little time together before I had to leave. I’d been looking forward to this trip for weeks and then I didn’t even want to go. There was so much I wanted to tell you, so much I wanted to say.”
A pulsating silence stretched between them.
“It’s ten-thirty here,”
Cliff said at last, checking his watch and figuring the time difference. It was past midnight there. “Did you just get in?”
“About twenty minutes ago.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“No.”
Naturally she’d tell him that, and just as naturally he believed her, because it hurt too much for him to think otherwise.
“I will admit that I was a little bit jealous when I first talked to Joan.”
He didn’t like telling her that much; it went against his pride. But letting her know his feelings would help.
Diana relaxed and closed her eyes.
“But it wasn’t anything I couldn’t work out myself,”
he added magnanimously. “I didn’t like it one bit, if you’re looking for the truth, but beyond anything else, I trust you.”
The line went quiet for a moment. “Oh, Cliff, I’ve been so worried.”
“Worried,”
he repeated, realizing Diana was close to tears. “Whatever for?”
“After what happened with you and . . . Becky, I had this terrible feeling that you’d think I was . . . I don’t know, cheating on you.”
“You haven’t even cheated with me yet.”
Her soft laugh was like a refreshing sea mist on a hot, humid afternoon. Cliff savored the sweet musical cadence of her voice.
It struck him then, struck him hard.
He was in love with Diana. No wonder he’d reacted like a lunatic when Joan had told him her mother was out with an old high-school flame. He’d been a blind fool not to acknowledge his feelings before now. He’d been attracted to her physically almost from the first, and the pull had been so strong that sharing a bed with her had been the only thing on his mind. Her reaction to that idea had left him reeling for days. She wanted more, demanded more. At the time he hadn’t learned that the physical response she evoked in him only skimmed the surface of his feelings for her.
“I can’t tell you how boring tonight was,”
Diana went on. “Dan doesn’t like women who wear Levi’s. Can you believe that, in this day and age? I spent the entire evening listening to his likes and dislikes, and I’m telling you—”
“Diana,”
Cliff interrupted her.
“Yes?”
The need to say it burned on his tongue, but he held back. A man didn’t tell a woman he loved her over the phone. “Nothing.”
The line went completely silent for a moment. “I’m not seeing him again. I made that perfectly clear to Dan tonight.”
She could deal with her mother’s disappointment more readily than she could handle another date with a fuddy-duddy thirty-year-old.
“Don’t let me stand in your way,”
Cliff returned almost flippantly. He was still shaking with the realization that he loved Diana. When a man cared this deeply for a woman, he shouldn’t need those kinds of reassurances.
Suddenly angry, Diana frowned at the receiver. “That’s a rotten thing to say.”
“What is?”
“Oh, don’t play stupid with me, Cliff Howard. I hadn’t planned on seeing Dan again, but since you have no objection, then fine.”
He could feel the heat of her anger a thousand miles away. Her words were hurled at him with the vehemence of a hand grenade. “What’s made you so mad?”
“You. Do I honestly mean so little to you?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“That . . . that last statement of yours about my dating Dan, as though you couldn’t care less and . . .”
“I couldn’t care less,”
he echoed, and feigned a yawn.
“Fine, then.”
Cliff couldn’t so much as hear her breathe. It was as though they’d been caught up in a vacuum, both struggling to find an escape, but discovering they were trapped.
She’d do it, too. Diana would go out with this clown again just to spite him. Women! He’d made a major concession on her behalf, and she didn’t have the good sense to appreciate it. “Okay, you want me to say don’t go out with Dan . . . then I’m saying it.”
It was exactly what Diana had needed to hear five minutes before. Unfortunately his admission had come too late. “You’ve got no claim on me. I can see anyone I please, and you . . .”
“The hell I don’t have a claim on you.”
“The hell you do!”
“I love you,”
he shouted. “That must give me some rights.”
“You don’t need to shout it at me!”
“How else am I supposed to get you to listen?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
If she had felt like crying before, it was nothing compared to what she was experiencing now. “You honestly love me?”
Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“What’s wrong now?”
True, he hadn’t planned on telling her like this, but he expected some kind of reaction from her. What he’d honestly hoped she’d do was to burst into tears and tell him she’d been crazy about him from that first night when he’d repaired her sink.
“Why did you tell me something like this when I’m a thousand miles away?”
“Because I couldn’t hold it inside any longer. Are you going to keep me in suspense here? Don’t you think you should let me know what you feel toward me?”
“You already know.”
“Maybe, but I’d still like to hear you say it.”
“I love you, too.”
The words were low and seductive, rusty and warm.
“How much longer are you going to be gone?”
he asked, having difficulty finding his voice.
“Too long.”
Cliff couldn’t have agreed with her more.
“Will Cliff be at the airport?”
Joan wanted to know, returning the flight magazine to the pocket in the seat in front of her.
“Yeah, Mom, will he?”
Katie asked, tugging on Diana’s sleeve.
Diana nodded. “He said he would.”
The Boeing 737 was circling Sea-Tac airport before making its final approach for landing.
Joan and Katie had been far less impressed with flying on the return trip from Wichita, and Diana felt mentally and physically drained after coming up with twenty different ways to keep the pair entertained.
Cliff had promised he’d be waiting in the airport when they landed.
Although Diana was dying for a glimpse of him, she almost wished she had time to take a shower and properly touch up her makeup before their reunion.
She felt haggard, and it wasn’t entirely due to the long flight.
Diana had made the mistake of admitting to her parents that she was in love with Cliff.
She’d been honest in the hope that her mother would understand why she didn’t want to date anyone else while she was in Wichita.
Instead the announcement had been followed by a grueling question-and-answer session.
Her mother and father had demanded to know everything they could about Cliff and his intentions toward her and the girls.
Diana couldn’t reassure them since she didn’t know herself.
Instead of being pleased for Diana, her parents seemed all the more concerned. Consequently, her last week in Wichita had been strained and uneasy for everyone except the girls.
“You talked to him lots.”
“Who?”
Diana blinked, trying to listen to Katie.
Her younger daughter gave her a look that told Diana she was losing it. “Cliff, of course. Every time I turned around, you two were on the phone.”
“We spoke a grand total of six times.”
“But for hours.”
“Yeah,”
Joan piped in. “The first week we were there, you hardly mentioned his name. In fact, you got mad at Katie for telling Grandma and Grandpa about him and then the second week you hogged the phone, talking to him every minute of the day.”
“I did not hog the phone!”
“Someone could have been trying to get through to me, you know,”
Joan said defensively.
“Who?”
“I . . . don’t know, but someone, maybe a boy.”
“Is Cliff going to marry you?”
Katie asked. “I think I’d like it if he did.”
Oh, no, not the girls, too. First her parents wanted to know his intentions, and now Joan and Katie. It was too much. “I have no idea what’s going to happen between Cliff and me,”
Diana answered forcefully. It was little wonder that Cliff hated the word commitment—she was beginning to have the same reaction herself.
“I, for one, think it would be fabulous to have a father who looks like Cliff,”
Joan said, tilting her head in a thoughtful pose.
“Speaking of rock stars,”
Diana said pointedly, her gaze narrowing on her elder daughter, “did you really tell the boy who carried out Grandma’s groceries that we’re a distant relation to Phil Collins?”
Joan’s bemused gaze slid to the other side of the plane. “Well, I’m sure we must be related one way or another. Just how many Collinses could there be? It is a small world, Mother, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
The plane landed on the runway with hardly more than a timid bounce, then the taxi to the receiving gate took an additional ten minutes.
By the time the 737 had pulled to a stop and passengers were starting to disembark, Diana’s nerves were frayed.
The girls were right; she had talked to Cliff nearly every night.
But now that they were home, she was skittish and self-conscious.
She wished she’d done something glamorous with her hair before they’d left Wichita, but at the time, she’d been so eager to get on the plane and back to Seattle that she hadn’t planned ahead.
Joan and Katie tugged at her arms, urging her to hurry as they briskly walked down the narrow jetway.
It seemed as if everyone was hurried toward baggage claim, and although Diana didn’t readily see Cliff, she knew he was there.
“Diana.”
She’d just made it past the first large group crowding around the carousel.
“Over here.”
Before Diana could think, Joan and Katie had left her side and hurled themselves at Cliff as though they’d just spent the past ten years in boarding school.
He crouched to receive their bear hugs and nearly toppled when he looked up and smiled at Diana.
“Welcome home,”
he said, straightening. Lightly he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and brushed his lips over hers. He paused to inhale the fragrance of spring that was hers alone and briefly closed his eyes in gratitude for her and the girls’ safe return.
“Do you want to see my suntan?”
Joan asked.
“Sure.”
Cliff was so glad to have them back that he would have agreed to anything.
“I got another Pooh bear from Grandma.”
Cliff grinned down on Katie, and would have willingly given her a whole warehouse full of her favorite bear. Oh yes, it was good to have them back.
“What about you?”
Cliff asked, slipping his arm around Diana’s waist. “Is there anything you want to show me?”
“Maybe.”
“Later?”
“Later,”
she agreed with a soft smile.
They weren’t back in the house five minutes before Joan and Katie were out the door, eager to let their friends know everything about Wichita.
Cliff had just finished delivering the last suitcase to Katie’s bedroom. He paused at the top of the stairs and waited for Diana to meet him.
“If I don’t get to properly kiss you soon, I’m going to go crazy.”
He held his arms out to her. “Come here, woman.”
Without hesitation, Diana walked into his arms as though she’d always belonged there. It didn’t matter to her that the front door was wide open, or that the girls were likely to burst in at any minute. All that concerned her was Cliff.
His hands knotted at the base of her spine as his gaze drifted hungrily over hers. “Did you see any more of Danny-boy?”
“You know I didn’t.”
“Good, because I was insanely jealous.”
His mouth found hers in an expression of fiery need, and he poured everything he’d learned about himself into the kiss.
Everything he’d learned about what was right for them.
Nothing had gone according to schedule while Diana was away.
Every second, every minute of their separation had only heightened his need to have her back.
Again and again he kissed her, needing her and showing her how much.
His lips branded her and cherished her, and his tongue dipped into the secret warmth of her mouth.
Fire streaked through Diana’s veins, and a delicious throbbing ache spread through every part of her body.
The Boeing aircraft had landed in Seattle, she had even carried her suitcases into the house, but she hadn’t been home until exactly this minute.
The realization of how much Cliff had come to mean to her in such a short time was both powerful and frightening.
She slid her arms around him, needing the reassurance of his closeness.
Her hands traced his back, slowly playing over his ribs and the taper of his spine.
She savored the feel of this man who held her and loved her and needed her as much as she needed him.
Diana’s breathing became raspy when Cliff’s mouth moved from her lips to the side of her neck.
She trembled and snuggled closer in his embrace.
“Welcome home, Diana.”
His own breathing was shaky.
“If I go to the grocery store, to the dentist, to the bank, anywhere, promise you’ll greet me this way when I return.”
“I promise.”
His grip on her shoulders relaxed, but he didn’t release her. Not yet.
“Oh, I nearly forgot.”
She broke away and hurried into her bedroom. “I brought you something.”
Cliff followed her inside. “You did?”
Already Diana had tossed her suitcase on top of the mattress and was sorting through a stack of neatly folded clothes for the T-shirt.
“Diana?”
“It’s right here. Just hold on a minute.”
“Listen, I know this is soon and everything . . .”
“It’s blue—the same color as your eyes.”
When she’d first seen the T-shirt, her heart had almost broken, she’d missed him so much.
Cliff buried his hands in his pockets. This wasn’t exactly how he planned to do this, but he’d done a lot of thinking while Diana had been away and seeing her again proved everything he thought to question. “Diana . . .”
“It’s here. I know it is.”
She paused and twisted around. “I may have tucked it in Joan’s suitcase.”
Determined to find it, she hurried into her daughter’s bedroom, paused and whirled around. “I’m sorry, Cliff, what were you saying?”
“Nothing.”
He felt like a fool.
“Okay.”
Diana went back and started rooting through the suitcase. The shirt was perfect for Cliff, and she was eager to give it to him.
“Actually, I had some time to mull over our relationship while you were away, and I was thinking that maybe we should get married.”
At last Diana found the shirt, lifted it out and turned to face him, her eyes wide with triumph. The excitement drained from her as quickly as water through a sieve.
“What was it you just said?”