A Mother's Heart (15 page)

G
RANT FOCUSED
on his assistant, who was looking at him expectantly. Uh-oh. She’d probably asked him something. Come to think of it, she’d probably been talking for the last five minutes. He couldn’t remember a thing after, “Hey, good morning.”

“Susan, sorry. I was distracted by…” He glanced down at his bare desk. His computer was off. No help anywhere. “Other thoughts about…things.”

Susan clearly wasn’t pleased, but luckily, since he was her boss, she couldn’t tell him where to go, which he probably deserved. All morning he’d been absent mentally, brain stuck in a virtual loop, experiencing again the night of carnal pleasure that had weakened his body and strengthened his heart and mind.

“…because if you don’t, then I should—”

Uh-oh. What had she said this time? She was offering him some choice. Maybe about the brochures for—

“Knock knock.” The cheerful voice of Ann Baskins, a member of the university’s development office saved him. Before Maggie showed up he’d thought he and Ann would get involved eventually.

“Hi, Ann, come in.” He sent an apologetic look to Susan who all but rolled her eyes as she left the room.

“Hey, soldier, how’s the battle going?”

“Not bad.” He indicated the chair in front of his desk.

“I can’t sit. If I sit I’ll stay. I have to rush off to a meeting, but your door was open so, I thought I’d pop in.”

“Glad to see you.” She was a very attractive woman. Intelligent, extremely good at her job. Grew up in Princeton, went to Princeton and knew everyone around with money in the bank and how to get them to cough it up. Last time they’d been together for a drink, he’d felt the distinct burn of sexual attraction. Thank God he had the sense to follow his instinct and not show it.

“Looks like Mr. Juno is going to come through with a sizable gift in memory of his wife. I’ve been after the old buzzard for years.”

“Good hunting.” Today it seemed completely impossible he’d ever considered getting involved with her. He’d accused Maggie of changing, but maybe he’d let adult responsibilities push him too far from who he was, too. He and Ann had been dancing around each other for months. One look at Maggie and Grant played hooky at the office for the first time ever, got out of his activity rut with kayaking and bowling, and hadn’t waited more than two days to take their relationship to the next level. He’d had a few girlfriends in the last ten years and had no complaints in the bedroom. But with Maggie there was so much more.

“Grant?”

Uh-oh. He pulled himself back to the present. “Yeah. Hey.”

She looked at him curiously. “Where’d you go?”

“I…nowhere.”

“You had this look on your face…” She smiled. “Thinking about me, I hope.”

Had he said
uh-oh
enough times yet or was there room for one more? “Oh, well, actually work is sort of consuming at the moment…”

A perfectly plucked eyebrow rose. “You must really love your work.”

“Right.” He was busted. Better to be honest. “An old girlfriend is back in town and we’ve had something of a…reunion.”

“Gotcha.” She grinned lopsidedly. “Lucky girl.”

“I don’t know about that. But thanks.”

She looked as if she were going to say something else, then tapped the jamb of his door smartly and gave a wave before she left.

He hoped he hadn’t hurt their friendship or their good working relationship. His life had turned around so quickly. History was repeating itself, but he had enough to offer Maggie this time and no reason to let her go again.

Grant got up from his desk and moved to his window overlooking old Nassau Hall. An odd excitement had gripped him, making it impossible to sit still. Maggie could move back here, to be closer both to him and to Clara. If he could get past her fear, it was the perfect solution. Not only for himself, but for Clara, who deserved a chance to know her daughter. Most especially for Maggie, who needed out of the big city and her pressured job, and into the smaller-town feel of Princeton. Who needed what Clara could give her. And who needed what he could bring to her life.

Yes, he was jumping the gun. All had been roses and light when she left this morning, but emotions changed, and Maggie was off her home turf this week and vulnerable. Once she went back to Chicago, he could see her getting sucked back into the whirlwind of her life and not giving him and Clara serious consideration. Not because she wouldn’t want to, but because she’d be spending every second trying to keep up.

So…He watched undergraduates hurrying toward the Firestone Library, probably desperate to cram for upcoming exams.

How could he get Maggie to stay? He didn’t know. But out of her one short week in Princeton, only four days remained, one of which was Sunday, the day she flew back.

He walked out to his assistant’s desk. “Susan. I’m taking tomorrow off.”

Susan’s jaw dropped. “Really?”

“Personal day. Would you let HR know?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” She was obviously trying to figure out where her suddenly irresponsible boss had gone so wrong.

He knew how. After his mom’s accident, he’d done everything to prove he could change, that he was mature and responsible, someone she could depend on. He’d gone to college, first at Trenton State, then transferred to Rutgers. He’d gotten a job in a graphic design firm in New York, then burned out on the city and moved back to Princeton, continuing to care for and support his mother even now that she no longer needed him to. Somehow in all of this he’d lost track of himself.

Which meant now that he needed Maggie as much as she needed him.

M
AGGIE LEANED HER HEAD
back in Grant’s car. Was it possible to swell up and burst from conflicted happiness? Because she felt as if she just might. The last two days had been perfect. More than perfect. Whatever ice had been broken between her and Clara had stayed broken. Clara had responded to her clean house by dressing with more care. Together they’d tackled the yard and even given poor Wobbles a bath. In the evenings before Grant showed up, they’d chatted in her backyard holding steaming mugs of tea. Clara was even consider
ing contacting an agent to show some of her work, though she insisted any profit should be donated to charity.

Maggie and Grant had spent blissful days together. Yesterday he’d taken her to Terhune Orchards, where he’d kissed her the first time their junior year. Back then, they’d visited in late fall with friends, a group of them enjoying being kids together away from their parents, feeding the ducks and geese corn available from coin-operated dispensers. The other kids had gotten cold and had gone inside the store for hot cider. She and Grant had stayed outside to dole out one more handful amid greedy honks and quacks.

Maggie remembered so clearly how hot he’d looked in ripped jeans and layered T-shirts and shirts under a frayed jacket. She’d felt so dull and uptight in her neat pants and top and classic hooded parka. She remembered that fierce, almost sexual longing to be the kind of girl who’d capture this wild rebel’s attention.

A particularly persistent goose had waddled towards her, and she’d backed away, giggling half in amusement, half in alarm. Grant had grabbed her by the arm with a melodramatic shout and dragged her away, running with her past the chicken coop, into the old barn and behind a tractor.

Maggie had been breathless from running and laughter, then suddenly found herself pressed against the wall. He’d stared at her, eyes full of such intensity she’d found out how much more breathless she could become.

“Maggie.” His voice had been a hoarse whisper. “What am I supposed to do about you?”

She still remembered her surprise, her disbelief and the burning sensual thrill that had run around her young body when he’d cut off her answer with their first kiss. The memory still turned her on.

After the Terhunes re-visit, he’d taken her to Ajihei, a
little basement restaurant on Chambers Street for the excellent sushi they’d missed the night he brought Conte’s pizza to her hotel room. After, they’d gone to the Princeton Shopping Center, and before she knew what was happening—okay, okay, she knew what was happening, but she still couldn’t believe at her age that she’d done it—they’d gotten naked again in the little park next to the parking lot.

Sometimes reliving old memories could be really,
really
fun.

Tonight they’d been to Acacia, a wonderful restaurant in the next town, Lawrenceville. She’d been having a fabulous time as always, but running through her happiness was the awful truth. She was going back to Chicago the next day. Most of their evening she’d kept the thought at bay and lived as if there were no tomorrow, but now, with dinner over…

Another painful goodbye for Maggie and Grant.

He turned onto The Great Road, heading north toward their old high school. He seemed unusually keyed up, which fired her up, too. Whatever he was planning, she knew she was going to like it. They’d been to PDS once before, the previous Thursday to take a tour of the new additions and another stroll down memory lane. This time he passed the main entrance to the school and turned onto the road to the skating rink, where he parked, the lone car in the lot.

The facility was lit outside, dark within. Sports fields flanked the building, including the softball field, which was where, on a chilly damp night like this the spring of their junior year, he’d first told her he loved her.

They got out into the cool air, Maggie hardly daring to breathe in the reverent quiet. Her instincts were telling her this wasn’t going to be a moment for giggling and
arm-punching reminiscences. Mist showed around the rink lights in white cloudy halos. The thunk of their doors closing was loud in the silence. Grant took her hand and led her purposefully to the field behind the rink. Softball. Home plate.

“Familiar spot?”

“Yes.” So much of her time with him she remembered in so much detail so many years later. He’d been wearing a black T-shirt bearing the picture of a wavy distorted skull, ripped black jeans and untied black high-top sneakers, his dark hair in its usual curly disarray. She’d driven to the rink in her parents’ Mercedes and waited here. At the agreed-on time, he’d come out of the woods to meet her, as if he were a runaway who lived there. His eye had been swelling from a fight with some kid, and he’d been breathing hard, trying not to show his pain and upset.

He’d said her name with desperation that had made her want to wrap herself around him and carry him into her safe and sheltered world. And then he’d said the words, no preamble, no warning,
I love you.
And she, brimming with joy, but struck stupid coming from a family where those words were never spoken, had managed only painful awkward silence, then a mumbled
me, too.

“Your eye looks better tonight.”

“It should by now.” He took her hands, facing her with the same runaway-sheltering woods behind him. “I wanted to bring you back here, but it didn’t feel right before.”

“Oh?” Her jolt of adrenaline rivaled the one she felt that night, but this time there was an element of panic. “What changed?”

“I realized something I probably should have known.”

“What’s…” Her voice jammed; she had to clear her throat and try again. “What’s that?”

“I love you, Maggie. Again. Still. Doesn’t matter which.”

Air rushed into her open mouth and exited in a long, “Ohhh.”

Then again that joy mixed with the awful awkward silence she knew she had to break but couldn’t. She loved him. She’d never stopped. But something kept the words she’d never spoken clutched in her throat.

“I want you to think about us together moving forward.”

“Yes. Yes, I will. I mean, yes, I want that.”

His hands relaxed. She hadn’t realized how hard he was gripping her fingers until blood started flowing again unimpeded. “I could move to Chicago.”

“Wow.” Her heart gave a leap of joy and more panic. Grant in Chicago!

“But there’s another solution that is much better for everyone.”

“What’s that?” She didn’t realize her fingers were pulling away from his until he tightened his grasp again.

“You move here. Back home. Be with Clara, your mother. Be with me. You can move into my house, there’s plenty of room. Or get your own place if that’s too much too fast.”

Oh my. This was so wonderful…and so typical. Based on one week of perfect fantasy reunion, he wanted her to change her life completely. Move here, move in.

“Maggie, let’s finally take the time to find out what’s between us and how far we can take it. You must know it’s the right thing to do.”

Her heart chilled; she pulled her fingers away. “This is too much, too soon, Grant.”

“No fear, Maggie. Cut loose.”

“No.” She backed up a step. “This isn’t getting naked
in the park. You’re asking me to make a major change after only a few days together.”

“Right.” He put his hands on his hips, dropped his head, an exact replica of his sullen younger self. “I just want this so much.”

“It sounds…so great. Really. But this week has been a vacation, Grant. A fantasy. I mean it’s been amazing, seeing you again and meeting Clara. And yes, I’ve learned a lesson about me and my life which I will take back with me, but I still need to figure out who I am, where I came from, where I want to go.”

“Why can’t you do that here?”

She looked around as if someone might be there to tell her how he could be so dense. “Because you’re talking about a huge uprooting. I’d have to quit my job—”

“Which makes you miserable.”

“Which I love and am good at. I’d have to give up my apartment—”

“Which is lonely and cold. And too neat.”

“Which is an excellent investment.”

“Investment!” He gave her the you-must-be-crazy look that had always surfaced along with their deep differences. “This is your life you’re talking about. Your sanity. Your heart.”

“I know. I don’t mean to sound—”

“Like your parents.”

She laughed bitterly, gestured and let her hands slap back onto her thighs. “Like my parents. But making important decisions on a whim like this…it’s crazy.”