Heather Graham (6 page)

Josh reappeared in the kitchen with Jake right behind him. Both boys were neatly dressed and actually color-coordinated. They ignored her completely and rushed to Brian, each outtalking the other to question him first. They were asking more pertinent questions than she had, Kim thought remorsefully.

“How did you get captured, Dad?”

“What was it really like?”

“We’ve studied Nam in school, you know.”

“How did you manage to get out?”

“We always knew you were a hero—”

“Jake,” Kim interrupted, amazed by the light way Brian managed to reply, granting the boys’ intelligence, but avoiding the true horror of the situation. “Watch this for a minute please. I want to run upstairs for a second.”

Jake moved unhappily to the stove, and Kim fled upstairs to the master bedroom, which had long ago become “hers” rather than “theirs”. She automatically picked up her brush from the dresser top and stared blankly into the mirror as she drew quick strokes through her hair. She was a mess: dusty, rumpled, no makeup. Hardly the girl he’d left behind…

Should she take a quick shower? Or was she making too much of his being here? Too much? She upbraided herself. A man had come back from the dead! How could anything be too much? She didn’t know, didn’t know anything. It was all too confusing. She didn’t know where they stood and exactly what Brian expected. They couldn’t just pick up where they had left off after twelve years. She was supposed to be moving into Keith’s house tomorrow. What a mess!

And a welcome home for Brian. His wife was going to live with another man. But was she still his wife?

She suddenly realized that she was white—as close to white as human flesh could be. She turned from the mirror and quickly shed her clothing. She gave herself only time for a fast rinse, dried herself hastily, and wrapped her towel around her as she dug into the huge walk-in closet.

She had to find something casual….He had come back, and she was worrying about clothing! She must still be in shock, but that wasn’t it. No matter what happened, one had to go about doing the little things because the little things were what kept people functioning, what kept people sane.

Her hand lit on a white terry sundress which she had just bought. It was perfect for after-swimming lazy nights, when they would sip wine out in the Gulf on a boat….

She had bought it with Keith in mind, as was only natural. A woman always bought clothing with the man she loved in mind, and she did love Keith. Not with the magic with which she had loved Brian, but she did love him. It was a love which had taken time, time Keith had given her gently.

She dressed quickly, realizing that dinner must by now be cooked if not half-burned.

Then it seemed to her just as absurd to be worrying about dinner as it had been to worry about her clothes. Boy, was she a mess, she thought as she left the bedroom.

She walked down the stairs as Brian and the twins carried the platters out to the table. He glanced up at her, and she knew he noticed how she had showered and changed, but he gave her no reaction. He lifted a bottle of Burgundy as she reached the landing. “I found this in the liquor cabinet. Think it’s a good year for Sloppy Joes?”

She nodded. “Fine,” she said huskily. “Josh, did you get the rolls?”

“On the table, Mom. And Jake and I have milk. Hey, Jake! Get the salad dressing.”

The boys automatically took their places. Jake said a fervent grace, sounding as if he might break into tears again as he added a special thank-you to God for giving him his father back to share the meal. Quite a change over his usual “Grace!”

Was she really here? she wondered seconds later. She still seemed to be the only one with nothing to say. Of course, it was normal that Jacob and Joshua stare at their father, afraid to let him out of their sight. It was normal that they ply him with question after question, questions that he maneuvered around carefully. He didn’t want to talk about the jungle. He told them about planes; he told them about Paris. He asked them about music and television and the movies. And all the time that he talked to them, she knew that he watched them, gloried in them. They were his sons, sons he hadn’t seen since they were infants, and he had a right to be awed, to be proud.
She
was very, very proud of them.

She also knew he watched her. What did he see? Was he disappointed? Did he still care?

She drained her wineglass, then paled as she realized Brian had been watching her more alertly than she realized. He was at her side, pouring her a second glass. She caught his eyes, and the memory that had been poignant nostalgia just hours earlier of his pouring her wine the night of their first lovemaking took on new meaning. But she wasn’t so impressionable anymore, and it didn’t matter. She could use the wine. It was all simply too ridiculous, eating Sloppy Joes like any normal family around the table, everyone talking normally, as if nothing had ever happened.

How can you do it, Brian?
she screamed silently.
Your life, all those years, and you don’t speak about them, you don’t lash out, you don’t say anything about it at all. You just sit there, listening gravely when a son you haven’t seen in almost twelve years tells you how great the Bay City Rollers are….

Dinner was finally over. “Thank you,” Brian said, laying his napkin upon the table. His voice was strange yet soft. Strange was understandable. Eating dinner with his sons must be very strange for him. “That was really nice. You’ve learned how to cook,” he said teasingly.

Kim shrugged. “We manage. I’m afraid I’m never going to be the Galloping Gourmet.”

“She makes a great turkey, Dad!” Josh offered.

It sounded as if her son were trying to sell her good points. She wanted to tell both the kids to shut up. He was their father, but she had known him for years before their existence. Whatever happened now was between her and Brian. She couldn’t allow the boys to influence her, and she definitely didn’t want them apologizing for her!

What was the matter with her? she wondered. She had to think of what this night meant to Jake and Josh! They had never had a father; he had been a dead hero to them. Now that their father was with them, how could she begrudge her own sons such happiness? She didn’t begrudge it; she was merely lost and spinning….

“How about a cup of coffee?” Brian asked.

At those simply spoken words time suddenly rolled back. She saw an image too clearly. A simple question had been voiced, just as it had been asked all those years ago when Brian interrupted her while she was working on an essay for her photography course on the use of infrared. Because he jarred her concentration, she had snapped at him to make his own damn coffee. Astounded and angry at her response, he had reminded her of their agreement that neither school nor work would come before their marriage, that she was his wife first, last, and forever, regardless of her ambition. She then had taunted him, telling him maybe he should trade her in for a new model, and in response he had picked her up and carried her over his shoulder into the kitchen. Still holding her, he had made her fill the kettle, all the while instructing her on how to make coffee. Overcome by the silliness of what they were doing, she had stopped pummeling him and then was in his arms, and he was kissing her. She’d murmured that she had to finish her essay, and he’d silenced her, saying he would type it for her. Then they had made love on the kitchen floor while the kettle whistled away….

“Kim? Are you there? I didn’t mean to put you in a mental retreat.”

“Uh, coffee…sure, I’ll put some on. I can brew it—”

“Instant will be fine.”

“No, I’ll, uh, make a pot and join you.”

Her fingers shook as she measured coffee into the CorningWare electric pot. They had to talk, so she could understand him and tell him what had happened to her through the years. They were going to have to decide where they would go from here, what they would do.

She froze with her hand on the plug as the doorbell rang.

Keith! Why hadn’t she called him, explained she was in the middle of a problem? Problem, oh hell, Brian would really love that description of his return, but why was she thinking this when she had better answer the damn door?

She streaked out of the kitchen, but too late. Jake had already answered the clanging summons.

“Hiya, kid.” Keith swept by Jake and caught her in his arms as she charged toward the door, delivering a quick kiss to her lips. “I’ve got a buyer for you, Kim! Isn’t that great! A family man transferred here from Jacksonville! He’s ready to buy the place at your price, sight unseen!”

“Keith.” She tried to struggle from his arms, but he was already releasing her, keeping his hand on her waist. His brown eyes were curiously on the man at the table.

Brian was rising. She could see despite the indigo mirror reflection of his eyes that he had assessed the situation, and she was sure he was both, contemptuous and angry, knowing instinctively that Keith was her lover.

She was both angry and frightened. There was that dangerous quality to him now. How dare he condemn her? It had been twelve years. The days when a wife threw herself on top of a husband’s funeral pyre were long past.

She nervously extricated herself from Keith’s hold, trying nonchalantly to place herself between Keith and Brian.

“Uh, Brian, I’d like you to meet Keith Norman. Keith, this is Brian Trent.”

Keith’s mouth gaped open. “Brian Trent? But, uh—”

Brian was walking forward. She could no longer read anything from his eyes. To her surprise he extended his hand toward Keith. “Hi, Keith. Yes, I’m supposed to be dead. Just had a ridiculously hard time proving I’m not.”

Keith automatically shook the hand offered him, too stunned to speak. Brian withdrew his hand. He was smiling, and the smile was pleasant. But despite it, despite the low timbre of his voice, Kim was painfully aware that he was taut with tension, that he was controlling himself so smoothly with superhuman effort. Brian. Always so strong. Some things were innate; they never changed.

But she had changed, and she hadn’t had the chance to tell him that she loved this man and that she didn’t know what the hell to do now. She hadn’t told him that she didn’t know if she could still love him, as if love was only a memory, as if she could live as they had before.

She tried to breathe more easily. Twelve years had certainly wrought changes with him, too. Maybe she was no longer legally his wife, and he had other plans for himself. She would have to find out, and soon.

It was Brian who broke the frozen moment. “Hey, Jake, Joshua, why don’t you show me your room? And all those posters you were telling me about? I think your mother needs a few minutes to speak with Mr. Norman alone.”

The boys moved slowly and silently to obey. They both were eyeing Keith—Keith! The same man they had been encouraging her to marry—as if he had become a two-headed snake.

She and Keith both remained immobile, watching as the boys preceded Brian up the stairs.

Halfway up Brian stopped and turned politely. “By the way, Mr. Norman,
my
house is no longer for sale.
My
wife and I will have to take many things into consideration before making such a move.”

She was still frozen, but she felt as if a shaft of fire had streaked through her when the indigo tempest of his eyes briefly pierced hers. She was so cold yet terribly hot, burned. Of course. Brian was the sun. The sun was always hot. Too much sun always left one burned….

He nonchalantly started back up the stairway.

There was no longer anything to find out. She knew exactly what Brian wanted, exactly what he expected. But what did she want? Oh, dear God in heaven, what did she want?

She had changed, and he couldn’t walk in after twelve years and expect things to be the same. But that was exactly what he was doing.

A
MAZEMENT REMAINED IN KEITH’S
dark eyes as he turned to her. He looked like a man who had seen a ghost. Kim felt ridiculously like laughing. He had seen a ghost.

He finally started to stutter. “I don’t—I don’t get it. I’ve been to the cemetery with you and the boys. How in the hell—I’ve seen it, Kim! I’ve seen the damn military plaque.”

She sounded absurdly calm, maybe because Keith sounded hysterical. “I don’t really understand exactly what happened yet myself, Keith. It seems someone else is buried there. The identification was taken from his Air Force tags, you know.”

“But where—”

“Would you like to sit down and have some coffee, Keith?”

“No,” he muttered, “I’d like a drink.”

He followed her into the kitchen, and his arms slipped around her as she bent to the liquor cabinet. She stiffened and then relaxed. Keith loved her; they were planning on living together, eventually marrying. She loved him. She had spent time with him. She knew him, from the salty cutoffs he always wore to the thick texture of his dark hair. She knew how his dark eyes danced, how his lips felt against hers. He was comfortable, and their relationship was relaxed—and Brian was upstairs. Brian, who had just claimed his home and his wife…

“Scotch. A good one,” Keith murmured.

“I know,” Kim said softly. She slipped out of his arms, wondering why she should feel like the Scarlet Woman for accepting the touch she had been accepting for two years. Keith was the real world, at least her real world. And he loved her.

Keith didn’t notice her withdrawal. He started pacing the kitchen floor with his sandals grating on the tile. “He can’t really have any ties on you. You’ll move in with me, just as planned. He can have his house—I’m sure you’ve got some right, to it, too! We’ll both just have to buckle down and work—”

Kim had been shaking her head. “Keith, wait a minute. I have to make a few changes in plans! The man just came back from an extraordinary experience. Half his life was stolen, Keith, in the service of his country!”

“We all know Nam was a waste—”

“Keith!” She was suddenly furious. “Whether it was a waste, a loss, or the most foolish mistake we ever made,
he
was there! Because of the law, because he was sent—”