Читать книгу The Second Promise - Joan Kilby - Страница 8

MAEVE PARKED BENEATH the peppermint gum in the side yard of her cottage in the village of Mount Eliza, a half hour up the coast from Will’s place in Sorrento. The front door stood open in the vain hope of attracting a passing breeze, and her father’s worn work boots rested to one side of the mat.

Good. Art was home. She wanted to have a word with him about his moving back to a place of his own. He’d recovered from the mild heart attack he’d suffered last winter, and although she loved him and enjoyed his company, they both needed to get on with their own lives.

Maeve kicked off her boots and pushed through the screen door to enter the relative cool of the hallway. Wandin Cottage wasn’t as grand as some of the houses she worked at, but what did she or her father need with grandeur? He’d been a working man all his life and she preferred the outdoors to fancy decor.

She slung her hat on a hook, picked up the pile of letters on the hall table and walked down the narrow hallway to the kitchen, which lay at the back of the house.

Art stood at the stove, burly in a white T-shirt and brown work pants, with her frilly pink apron tied around his neck and waist. His hair had turned completely white after the heart attack, but his eyebrows were still black and bushy.

Maeve came up from behind and gave him a hug. “Hamburgers again. You know you don’t have to cook for me.”

“You can’t do a full day’s work, then come home and eat rabbit food,” he growled, flattening a sizzling patty with the back of his spatula. Then his habitual frown lightened into what for him passed as a smile. “Never thought I’d say it, but I like cooking for my daughter. It’s good having company over a meal.”

Maeve forced herself to return his smile, though her heart sank. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

“Sure, Maevie, love, but before I forget, Tony called. He wants to know if you ordered the paving blocks for the Cummings place.”

“Thanks. I’ll phone him back later.” Maeve got herself a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and leaned against the counter, sorting the junk mail from the bills, dropping the flyers straight into the recycling box. “I did a landscaping quote for your boss, Will Beaumont, this morning.”

Art flipped the burger and smashed down the other side. “You don’t say!”

“He’s got a beautiful place on the cliff at Sorrento. The garden’ll be a lot of work, but it has great potential.”

“After I was let go from my old job, not a soul wanted to hire a man in his fifties who’d had a heart attack. Will Beaumont did.” Art pointed his spatula at her. “You make sure you do a good job for him, you hear?”

“’Course I will, Art. He thinks pretty highly of you, too.” She grimaced at the size of her nursery bill and moved it to the bottom of the pile.

“Beaumont doesn’t waste time with a lot of manipulative bullshit about productivity and teamwork,” Art went on, stirring the onions frying alongside the hamburgers. “He respects a person’s ability to do a job and lets him get on with it.”

Maeve barely heard him. Tucked between the quarry bill and the phone bill was a small green envelope addressed in the strongly slanting handwriting she’d never thought she’d see again. Graham.

“And if something screws up he doesn’t hold it against you, just expects you to fix the problem,” Art rambled. “He doesn’t waste words, either. I can’t bear a man who rabbits on about nothing.”

That outrageous statement shook Maeve out of painful memories of her brief marriage and made her smile.

Art pointed his spatula at her. “He’d been a good ’un for you, Maevie.”

“Don’t think so,” she said, taking a sip of her water. “He’s in the market for a wife.”

Art turned off the heat under the frying pan. “All the more reason.”

“Dad, forget it. Please.” Her life might be an emotional desert, but at least she’d more or less recovered her equilibrium. For a whole year after Kristy’s death she’d barely functioned. No one but her friend Rose knew all she’d been through. She was not ready for another plunge into matrimony and motherhood. Probably she never would be.

“Okay, okay,” Art said. “These burgers are ready. Want to cut up some rolls?”

Glad of an excuse to set Graham’s unopened letter aside, Maeve sliced hamburger rolls and slid them under the griller to toast. “There’s something lurking under the surface with Will,” she said. “Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”

“Will Beaumont is the most straightforward bloke a man could hope to meet,” Art declared. He waggled his fingers at her. “I suppose you got one of your weird ‘feelings’ about him.”

Maeve turned away from the fridge, her arms loaded with bottles of condiments. “I just got a glimpse. Not enough to go on. He’s missing something. Something to do with love.”

Art snorted. “Will Beaumont missing out in love? I wouldn’t think so. You should see the way the girls on the production line follow him with their eyes when he walks by.”

“I’ll admit he’s got sex appeal, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with love,” Maeve said dryly. “However, I could be wrong. He’s a hard one to read.”

Art slid the hamburgers onto a plate and brought them to the table. “He’s been under a lot of pressure lately, always in a meeting with the accountant. There are rumors going around that the company’s in trouble financially.”

“Really? He’s got a great big house and a Mercedes parked out front.” The memory of Will shoving papers into his briefcase—papers he didn’t want her to see—flashed through her mind.

Art sat at the head of the table and fixed his hamburger with “the lot”—bacon, onions, a slice of beetroot, cheese, mayo, tomato and lettuce; then he topped the whole quivering mass with a fried egg. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked, before opening his mouth wide and biting deep.

Maeve, who’d contented herself with lettuce and tomato, put her hamburger back on her plate and took a deep breath instead of a bite. “Do you ever miss having your own place?”

Art chewed and swallowed. “My word, no. That housing unit was as lonely as a monk’s cell, after your mother passed on.” He was about to take another bite, then lowered his burger and fixed her with his shrewd gaze. “Perhaps it’s you who miss having your place to yourself.”

Suddenly, she couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t inflict another loss on her father. “Of course not,” she said, laughing to prove the foolishness of such an idea. “It’s great having you here.”

He smiled tentatively. “Who else would you get to cook for you, eh?”

After dinner Art took himself off to the front veranda for his one smoke of the day. Maeve propped the green envelope on the windowsill in front of the sink, and ran hot water to build up a soapy froth. What did Graham want after all these years? The return address was care of the yacht harbor in Sydney, so she assumed he still had his sailboat.

After she’d stacked the last clean plate in the dish rack, she swept the floor and tidied the pantry. Then she sat at the table and attended to her bills, her checkbook at hand. At last, there was nothing for it but to read Graham’s letter. With trembling fingers she tore open the envelope:

Dear Maeve, I’ve been thinking of you a lot lately. I’m sailing for Fiji at the end of March. Before I go, I want to see you again. I’ll be in Mornington sometime in the next few weeks. Will call when I get in. Graham. P.S. Remember how we used to make love at sea under the stars?

Maeve’s hands dropped to her lap and the letter slipped through her motionless fingers to the floor. For a moment she did remember. Was there a part of her that still loved Graham? They’d had some good times before Kristy died. Some bad times, too, but that was part of marriage. If he was backtracking all this way just to see her, he must still care.

Did she?

WILL ARRIVED HOME from work late on Thursday evening to find Maeve’s ute in his driveway and Maeve sitting on the tailgate. Every red blood cell in his body went on alert. She’d cast off her shirt, and the scant black crop top left an expanse of taut brown skin above her cargo pants. Her dark hair was pulled into a long ponytail, which hung over her shoulder. In one hand she held a half-empty bottle of water and in the other a wide-brimmed hat, with which she fanned herself.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” he said, emerging from the Merc. “The production line broke down just as I was leaving, and I stayed until it was fixed.”

She hopped from the tailgate and brushed off the back of her pants. “It’s okay. I mowed the lawn while I waited.”

“Such enterprise.” Will opened his front door. “Come in. We’ll get a cold drink and you can grill me.”

Maeve kicked off her boots and stepped past him into the entry hall. He watched her gaze lift to the overhead skylight, then sweep up the curved staircase to the landing. There, round windows like portholes let in more light. Finally she peeked sideways to the lounge room, which glowed warmly in shades of cream, yellow and terra-cotta.

“I love your house,” she said, turning to him with a surprised smile. “I didn’t take it all in the last time I was here. It’s perfect.”

“Thanks.” The house was light and bright, reflecting the sun and the sea, with hardly a straight line or a sharp angle in the place. After he and Maree had split, he’d needed a place where he could feel positive about the future. A home he could grow into.

But as he led the way down the hall to the kitchen, Maeve amended her verdict. “Almost perfect. So far I haven’t seen a single plant.”

He glanced over his shoulder to see her eyes sparkling. “And you won’t. I always forget to water them, so now I don’t bother trying to grow any.” He opened a bar fridge in the family room, displaying a dozen types of specialty beer, plus several bottles of white wine and different types of water. “What’ll you have?”

“Something nonalcoholic with ice, thanks.”

Will made her a tonic and lime juice, then chose a Red Dog lager for himself, and they sat at the patio table. Maeve flipped her clipboard open and proceeded to question him on everything from his favorite color to his astrological sign. Her dark-brown eyes studied him with such intense concentration, she might have been trying to read the convolutions of his brain.

And when she bent her head to note his answers with green-stained fingers, Will studied her. Although she wore no makeup, her tanned skin was smooth and her vivid coloring a collection of contrasts: dark hair, white teeth, deep-red lips. Her mouth was wide and full, curling at the corners in a cupid’s bow. Her large eyes full of laughter a few minutes ago, were now serious.

“Do you have any siblings?” She brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek, drawing his attention to the translucent moonstones that studded her lobes.

After a moment of silence she glanced up expectantly, and he realized he’d forgotten the question.

“Siblings,” she repeated.

“Two sisters and a brother.”

Her gaze remained fixed on his. “What number child are you?”

“I’m the eldest.”

“Star sign?”

“Capricorn.”

She frowned down at her clipboard, muttering, “Capricorn and Libra—bad mix.”

“Who’s a Libran?”

She didn’t answer, and he smiled to see a blush creep into her cheeks. “Do you believe in astrology?” he asked.

“Not really.” Her gaze sharpened. “I mean, yes.”

Will drank from his beer. “‘Our fate lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.’ Or words to that effect. I feel I know you already, through your father.”

“Oh?” She put down her pen and eyed him warily.

“For instance, I know you like pancakes topped with fresh fruit for breakfast on Sunday morning. And that you use rainwater to wash your hair.” His fingers flexed as he found himself wondering if her hair was as smooth and soft as it appeared.

“What else did he say about me?”

Will racked his brain, and couldn’t think of anything she might object to. “Nothing personal. No deep dark secrets.”

Maeve appeared relieved, and his fascination with her grew. But this session was about him, and she hadn’t forgotten that. “So,” she said, going back to her clipboard, “who was next—your brother or a sister?”

“My sister Julie. But why? What does my childhood have to do with this garden?”

“You never know,” she replied, writing down his answer.

He leaned forward, trying unsuccessfully to read her handwriting upside down. “Are you licensed to practice psychiatry in this state?”

Her mouth twitched, but she ignored his question and went on. “Did you grow up in the city or the country?”

“I grew up here on the peninsula on a small mixed farm. When I was ten, we moved into the town of Mornington.” Will shifted in his chair, crossed one leg over his knee. “What about your family? Art mentioned he has a son overseas.”

“My brother, Bill, lives in New Mexico. He’s an astronomer.”

“Is he searching the galaxy for extraterrestrial life forms?” Will joked.

“Yes,” Maeve answered seriously. “Now, when you were on the farm you must have played outside a lot. Do you remember the feelings you associate with being outdoors at an early age?”

He was about to make a flippant remark, when he stopped and thought twice. Perhaps the smell of the freshly mown grass called forth memories, or maybe it was Maeve’s gentle prodding, but suddenly the past came back in a flash of vivid imagery. That time in his life before his father died. Before he’d had to grow up too quickly.

“Freedom,” he said at last. “I could go anywhere, do anything I liked, from dawn to dusk. My brother and sisters and I roamed the beaches and the paddocks for miles around. We weren’t restricted by time or place or fear of strangers. Freedom and security—they were what I felt. Two rare and precious commodities. But they’re gone from today’s world. You can’t get them back.”

“I can try,” she said.

He eyed her skeptically. “If you can create the illusion of childhood in a garden, I’ll believe you really are a magician.”

“The magic comes from within,” she said quietly. “You have it, too. Everyone does. You just need to find it.”

She paused to sip her drink, the melting ice cubes tinkling faintly as she lifted her glass. To Will, the curve of her throat seemed at that moment both unbearably vulnerable and unimaginably strong. Magic within? He didn’t think so. Not him.

She lowered her glass and repositioned her pen above the paper. “Did you have a special place you liked to go to as a child? A place that was yours and yours alone?”

“Why are you asking all these questions?” All of a sudden he felt vulnerable himself.

“I told you. I want to know you.” Her huge dark eyes were hypnotic; her smooth low voice was mesmerizing.

“There was a place,” he admitted slowly, “at the bottom of the garden where jasmine grew over the fence. The vines were wildly overgrown—they must have been at least six feet thick. Next to the fence I hollowed out a cubby for myself. On hot days it was cool and filled with green light. Perfumed by the jasmine.” He chuckled. “I would pretend I was an Arabian sheik living in my tent at an oasis. My golden retriever was my camel.” He threw her another skeptical glance. “Not the sort of landscaping you had in mind, I’m sure.”

“You’d be surprised.” She closed her clipboard. “I’ll just go take a few more measurements. I want to check out those lilacs by the brick wall.”

“Mind if I tag along?” Will said, rising. Then, through the open sliding doors came the sound of the door chimes.

“Saved by the bell—again.” Her mouth hinted at a smile, then she strode off across the lawn.

Will went to open the front door and found Ida, his oldest friend and practically his best mate, on the doorstep. With her auburn hair and creamy complexion, Ida would have been a knockout if not for the burn scars that marred the right side of her face, puckering the skin from the outer corner of her eye all the way down to her chin.

“Hi, Will. You’re not busy, are you?” she asked, stepping past him into the entry hall.

“No.” Even after all these years, Will never saw the scars without experiencing a stab of guilt.

Today Ida looked slighter than usual in a slim gray skirt and white fitted blouse.

“Good, because I need to talk.”

“Of course. Come through to the patio.”

They stopped in the kitchen to get Will another beer and to pour Ida a glass of chardonnay.

“Can I have some mineral water with that?” she asked, rummaging in Will’s pantry for pretzels. “I’ve been feeling a little queasy all week. Must have a tummy bug.”

Will handed her the wine spritzer. “What’s up?”

“Wait till we’re sitting.” Carrying her glass and the bag of pretzels, Ida led the way out the sliding glass doors to the patio table. When they were seated, she took a sip of her drink, put her glass down and looked Will straight in the eye. “I’ve decided to have a child.”

Will choked on his beer. “What?”

“I said, I’m going to have a child. On my own.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Ida waved a pretzel at him. “I didn’t mention it until now because I was afraid you’d try to talk me out of the idea before I’d even made up my mind. But I’ve thought long and hard and I’m very sure this is what I want. Now it’s just a question of finding someone to donate sperm.”

“But on your own! Don’t you want to get married someday?”

“Who’d marry me?”

“Come on, Ida,” Will chided. “You’re smart, successful, beautiful—”

“Stop it, Will. I might have been beautiful once,” she conceded, touching her forefinger to the fine ridges of scar tissue on her cheek. “Since this happened…forget it.”

Will fell silent, gnawed by guilt. Her scars, caused by burns from a deep-fat fryer in the fast-food joint where they’d both worked as university students, were his fault. She’d been standing over the fryer when he’d come along, on his way to the back room with his lunch. He’d stepped in a spot of grease, slipped, and his drink had flown into the fryer. He’d gone down, escaping the spray of boiling fat. Ida had caught it in the face. Thanks to her generous, forgiving nature, she’d never held the accident against him.

“Okay, so you’ll never make it in the movies, but you do all right, don’t you? I mean, your law practice is thriving, you own your house outright, you drive a brand-new BMW—” He broke off, wondering whether he was trying to convince himself or her.

“In terms of material success, yes, I’m doing fine. But it’s not enough anymore. What I want is a family.”

“I can understand that. I’d like a family, too. I’ve been thinking it’s time I settled down.”

“There you go. I’m thirty-seven, Will. It’s time to face facts. Maybe somewhere on this ever-shrinking Earth is a man who would love me for who I am, but I can’t wait forever to meet him.”

Will traced a path through the condensation on his glass. If only he could have fallen in love with her. But he’d known Ida since they were children, long before the fryer incident and the scarring. He loved her like a brother; the right chemistry just wasn’t there. “You’ll meet someone. Thirty-seven isn’t old.”

Ida snorted. “My biological clock has turned into a time bomb. If it weren’t physiologically unlikely, I’d swear I was getting hot flashes just thinking about my next birthday.”

“What about that guy from San Diego—Rick, wasn’t it? The one who was here setting up the Melbourne outlet for Borders bookstore. He seemed nice.”

“He’s gone back to the States,” Ida said with the dismissive gesture Will had come to associate with her covering up some hurt. “He wasn’t serious.”

“You always downplay any feelings a guy might have for you.” Will had thought the relationship was serious, at least on Ida’s part. He’d liked Rick, but if Rick had hurt her, Will wanted to shake him till his brain rattled. Ida hated anyone feeling sorry for her, though, even him, so he just nodded and sipped his beer.

A rustle in the bushes next to the brick wall caught his attention. Maeve emerged on the lawn. Despite the shimmering heat, she looked cool as a spring flower in her loose white shirt. Unaware of his scrutiny, she was making notes on her clipboard, head bent, wisps of shining dark hair falling over her high cheekbones. Then the warm breeze ruffled the page, and she glanced up. Seeing him watching her, she smiled.

Will froze, glass to his lips, as the oddest sensation stole over him, a kind of warmth in his midsection. A smile curved his lips as their gazes held, and the warmth expanded throughout his body, transporting him to a state of unexpected well-being.

“Who’s that?” Ida asked.

“Huh? Oh, that’s Maeve. She’s a landscape gardener, and the daughter of my foreman at the factory. She’s got some sensational ideas for the garden.”

“She’s lovely. If you’re looking to settle down, you don’t need to look farther than your own backyard.”

“I asked her out and she refused,” Will said with a frown. “No reason. Just refused.”

“Maybe she was having a bad day.”

“Maybe.”

Maeve disappeared behind the Monterey Bay fig, and Will turned back to Ida. “I understand your wanting a child, but do you really have to do it on your own?”

Ida’s chin lifted. “What’s wrong with that?”

Will shoved both hands through his hair. “For starters, a child needs a mother and a father. I realize it doesn’t always work out that way and I’d never judge anyone whose marriage breaks up, but, damn it, you have to try.”

Ida leaned forward, her hazel eyes shimmering. “I have tried, Will. What do you think I’ve been doing for the past fifteen years—playing hard to get?”

“But think of the child. It’s not fair to deliberately deprive a kid of having a father.” No one understood better than he what growing up without a father was like.

Ida’s mouth pulled tight. “Life isn’t fair. Is it fair for me to remain childless when I want so badly to have a baby?”

“No, but…”

She got up and strode across the deck to lean against the post, arms tightly crossed. “I was hoping for your moral support. If that’s not possible, at least spare me your condemnation.”

Will rose and put his arms around her, and felt her lean into him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t try to talk you out of this crazy idea.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her wet cheeks with the heel of her hand. “My emotions are all over the place lately. I know what I want is selfish, but I’m feeling desperate. I hate that. It’s so pathetic.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Will said soothingly, and stroked her back. “You’re not selfish or pathetic. It’s just that you deserve more. Your baby deserves more. I thought you were waiting for Mr. Right to come along.”

She managed a ragged laugh. “Mr. Right must have taken a wrong turn. Or maybe he saw me first. I’ve given up, Will. I’ve tried so hard for so long. Plastic surgery can only do so much. My appearance is as good as it’s ever going to get. The only dates I’ve had since my accident have been with friends or co-workers who feel sorry for me.”

“And Rick,” he reminded her. “But I don’t believe he or anyone else went out with you because they felt sorry for you.”

With an impatient sigh, she pushed away from Will and paced back to her seat. “I thought Rick was different, yet when his time was up here in Melbourne, he just left.”

“Have you heard from him at all?”

“He phoned once, but I could tell it was just a duty call. I’m not prepared to wait around any longer on the off chance I might meet someone else. If I’m going to have a child, I want it to be soon.”

Will was silent a moment, struggling to accept what she was saying. He came back to his seat, prepared to be a help, not a hindrance. “Okay, you’re serious. Let’s take it from there. What about the father? Who will it be? Are you planning to tell him?”

“I don’t have an arrangement with anyone yet.” She gazed down at her hands with an oddly shy smile. “Although I do have a candidate in mind.”

Will relaxed a little and leaned back against his chair. At least, she wasn’t planning on a series of one-night stands with anonymous lovers.

“And, of course, I’ll tell him,” Ida went on. “It wouldn’t be fair not to. He could have as much or as little contact as he wished. My only stipulation would be that if he opted to take on the fatherhood thing, he be prepared to stick with it. For the child’s sake.”

“I hope whoever you’re thinking of is good enough for you. He’d have to be a pretty special guy.”

Ida glanced up at him. “Oh, he’s special, all right.”

Will gazed at her determined, tear-stained face.

She gazed right back at him.

Light dawned. “You mean me?”

“Would you? I hate the idea of using a sperm bank and having a complete stranger father my baby.”

“I—I’m incredibly flattered. I just don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think.”

“You don’t have to make up your mind right away. I know it’s a lot to spring on someone. But would you at least contemplate it? Please?”

His gut reaction was to decline, but for Ida he would consider the proposal. “Sure. I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you.” She checked her watch and sighed. “I’d better go. I’ve got so much work to catch up on.”

Will walked her out to her car. Ida opened her door and paused to search his face worriedly. “Will, whatever you decide it’s okay. I don’t want anything to hurt our friendship.”

“Nothing will hurt our friendship.” He still felt a little stunned as he leaned down to kiss her lightly on the lips. He wanted to be a father, but this wasn’t the way he’d expected it to happen. What was the point of having children if you weren’t part of a family?