Forever After (21 page)

He looked at her strangely and his tone was wary.  "What are you trying to tell me?"

"I need more than an affair.  I believe in traditional values--"

"You're the least traditional woman I've ever known!"  He crossed the room to stand in front of her.  "You're independent and you make sure everyone knows you can take care of yourself.  You knew how I felt from the beginning.  I told you no strings.  And you made damn sure you wouldn't get pregnant.  So don't sit there self-righteously and tell me you're traditional because I'm not buying it."

Didn't he know her at all?  Didn't he know how deep her love ran?  Tears caught in her throat and made her words bumpy.  "I'm trying to be honest with you.  At the beginning I thought anything would be enough because it was more than I had.  But it's not enough anymore.  You say you don't want strings or commitment.  I do.  I don't want to be a warm body in somebody's bed.  I don't want a relationship that has no future."

She looked straight into his eyes.  "I love you, Seth.  But I can't go on loving you without you loving me in return."

His eyes were dark, his voice angry.  "What do you want from me?  Do you want me to mouth words I don't mean?"

"No!  I want you to honestly look at our relationship.  I want you to tell me exactly what you feel."

The tension that had been wisping around them for weeks solidified between them.  Seth mowed his hand through his hair.  He couldn't tell her what he felt when he didn't know himself.  She was important to him; she filled his life with solace and fun and passion.  But to admit he might love her...  The concept was foreign to the solitary life he lived.  If he admitted he loved her, he'd have to admit he wasn't self-sufficient, that he needed her emotionally.  He couldn't do that.  Why couldn't she accept the passion they shared and leave it at that?

"You can't live on feelings, Darcy.  They're like dead leaves in the wind.  Here today, gone tomorrow.  You try to inspect them and they crumble."

Her voice was a whisper.  "If they crumble, they weren't substantial to begin with."

There was a long period of silence.  Seth didn't know what to say.  His cynicism about marriage felt like a cumbersome yoke.  Even if he wanted to slough it off, he couldn't.  It had been part of him for too long.

Darcy unlocked her gaze from his, pushed herself up, and collected two forgotten paper cups littering the coffee table.  "Why don't you take your presents out to your car?"

Her lack of emotion shook him.  Her expression was frozen as her fingers moved absently.  He couldn't deal with the hurt in her averted gaze.  Activity would help.  It had always worked in the past.  He stacked the few boxes neatly, placing the book on top, balancing the burden in his arms as he shoved his way out the door.

When he returned, Darcy was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher.  She asked quietly but with an undertone of forcefulness, "Are you taking the case in Philadelphia?"

Seth picked up the stray silverware on the counter and flipped it into its holder at the front of the dishwasher.  "I don't know.  I've talked to Gilbert twice on the phone and I'm getting mixed signals from him.  An uninterrupted meeting tomorrow afternoon should tell me what I need to know."

"When will you be back?"

Seth opened the cabinet and took out the box of detergent.  "Not until early Sunday evening.  I'm getting together with friends tomorrow night and I have a business lunch Sunday."  He filled both plastic pockets with the powder, closed the door, and flicked the switch.  He felt at home here, more at home than at his apartment.

One look at Darcy's rigid back as she washed out the sink made him wish his background had been different, hers too so she wouldn't want so much.  Maybe he could still convince her what they had was enough.

"I would have asked you to go along, but I'm going to be busy.  We wouldn't have had much time together."

"I understand."  She didn't turn around but took the dishcloth and wiped the fixtures as if nothing in the world was more important to do.  "I told Marsha I'd babysit Sunday.  She and Chuck are going to his parents' to talk about the wedding."

Darcy was hiding from him and he hated it.  He stepped behind her, pulling her back against him, interlocking his fingers at her waist.  Pushing aside her hair with his chin, his lips coasted along her neck.  She stiffened.  Hoping her resistance was momentary, and he could feel close to her despite their differences, he voyaged to her ear and worried her lobe with his tongue.

"Seth.  Don't."

He didn't stop but smoothed his lips down her jawline.  When he was met by absolute stillness, he unlocked his fingers, straightened and stepped to the side.  He knew he could make her respond, but he didn't want to, not against her will.  A few times she had teased him by pretending indifference and he'd played the conqueror.  But that was a game.  This wasn't.

"Not in the mood?"

Darcy threw the dishcloth across the sink's divider.  "You're leaving early in the morning.  I'm going into the garage.  It's been a long week."

"Seven days, like all the others."

Finally, she turned around, then lifted her chin until she found his eyes.  "Seth, I'm feeling a mixture of emotions right now.  It wouldn't be fair to either of us..."

She worried about fair and meaningful and compassionate.  The confusion in her eyes lanced his heart.  He reached out and wrapped her in a cuddling hug.  "Will you be here Sunday evening?  I'll stop over after I get back."

"I'll be here."

Yes, she'd be here.  But that didn't mean she'd welcome him again into her life or her bed.  They both had decisions to make.  By Sunday.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The overcast September sky was the perfect backdrop for Darcy's emotions as she sloshed water over the hood of her car.  She'd only touched the tip of the iceberg with Seth Friday night.  It was more than a matter of him saying "I love you."  Much more.  His feelings were becoming abundantly clear.  Without stating it he was intimating they had no future, he'd never want more than what they had right now, and he wouldn't be happy in a small town.  She'd known all that from the beginning.  But foolishly she'd hoped--

Jenna's bicycle careened from the sidewalk into Darcy's driveway and screeched to a stop.  Darcy waved her large yellow sponge.  "Sure you don't want to help?  I'm sure your mom won't mind if you get wet."

"I don't feel like it."

Jenna's hair was tied in a stumpy ponytail.  Since she had started back to school a week ago, she'd bubbled over with news about her teacher, classmates, new subjects and activities.  Friday night she could hardly contain her happiness about Marsha and Chuck.  But today she was too quiet.

"What did you and your dad do yesterday?" Darcy asked.

Jenna turned the front wheel of her bike back and forth.  "We went to the movies."

Darcy reached across the nose of her car with long, sudsy swipes.  "Was it fun?"

"Yeah.  It was okay.  Then he took me for supper at McDonald's."

A noisy dilapidated mustang zoomed down the street.  Darcy involuntarily diagnosed two of its problems.  It needed a new fan belt and a new muffler.  As she moved to her windshield, she winked at Jenna.  "I bet I know what you had."

Dipping her sponge into the bucket of soapy water, she splashed it over the tinted glass.  Jenna remained quiet and scrubbed her sneakered toe on the macadam.

"What's the matter, honey?"

"I think Daddy's really unhappy.  Mom told him about her and Chuck before we left yesterday."

The water from the sponge dripped through Darcy's fingers as she held it out in front of her.  "Did he tell you he was upset?"

Jenna leaned over and picked up a stone on the ground.  "No.  He was real quiet and didn't smile much."

Marsha's news shouldn't have been an unexpected bomb.  Darcy could see Jenna was pulled in two directions.  She wanted to be happy for her mom, but she probably felt guilty because Brad was sad.  There was no easy solution.

"You could draw your dad a picture or make him a card to show you're thinking about him.  That might make him feel better."

Jenna's small face broke into a smile.  "Yeah.  He'd like that.  I could send it to him instead of waiting until next weekend.  Will you help me?  When you're done the car?  I'll help so it doesn't take you as long."

Darcy smiled.  "I have a new box of crayons you can use.  Why don't you rinse off the front of the car with the hose?  I'll be right back."  She had a special cleaner for the wheel rims. Once she went over those, they'd be done."

Darcy left Jenna happily sending streams of water over the hood of the car.  She hurried through the house, out to the shed in the backyard.  It only took her a few minutes to locate the cleaner lodged behind a can of paint and garden tools.  She admired the pink impatiens flanking the sidewalk that carved through her back yard as she made her way to the house.  Another few weeks and it would be fall.

Pennsylvania autumns were a sight to behold.  She and Seth could rive up to Caledonia...  She stopped short.  If Seth wasn't in Philadelphia.  If he wanted more than a bed partner.  The buzzing doubts wouldn't quit.

As Darcy walked under the trellis around the side of the house to see whether her rose bushes had any buds, she heard Jenna's voice.  It was high-pitched.  Strange.  Darcy spied Brad's car parked at her curb and she quickened her steps.  Jenna and Brad were in the driveway.  Brad's hands were clamping Jenna's shoulders and she was attempting to break away.

When Jenna spotted Darcy, she cried, "He wouldn't let me say good-bye to you.  He wants me to go with him, but I said I had to ask you."

Needle points of chilling fear pricked Darcy's limbs.  She advanced toward the pair, attempting to remain calm.  In an even tone she said, "Let her go, Brad."

He looked at Darcy as if she were a stranger.  "No.  She's my daughter.  I want her with me."

Brad was much taller than Darcy and obviously stronger.  If he decided to haul Jenna to his car, neither of them could do much to stop him.  The street was quiet.  No one else was outside.  Screaming would accomplish nothing.

She controlled the stability of her voice with intense effort.  "She was with you yesterday and she will be again next weekend."

His answer was rough and argumentative.  "I want her to come with me now.  For a couple of days.  Just her and me."

Darcy extended her hand as a signal to Jenna to stop squirming, then looked toward his red station wagon.  She could see a few cartons through the side window.  "It's not just for a couple of days, is it?"

When Brad loosened his grip slightly now that Jenna was quieter, she broke away and ran to Darcy.  "I won't go with him, Darcy.  I won't.  Not without telling Mommy."

"Marsha doesn't know you're here, does she, Brad?"  Darcy hooked her arm around Jenna and held her protectively.

Brad stared at Darcy, then Jenna, then back at Darcy.  He sounded forlorn, lost.  "I want to be more than a visitor.  Taking her to the park, a movie, the zoo--it's not enough.  I'm her father."

Brad was impulsive, immature, lacking in self-restraint.  But he was reasonable.  "Brad, where were you going to go?  Do you even know?  Do you realize the pain you'd be putting Marsha through?"

"What about my pain?"  He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and stepped closer.  "If Marsha marries Porter, I'll never see Jenna.  He'll take my place.  What if they decide to move away from here?  What am I supposed to do?"

Somehow Darcy had to get through to him, to make him understand Jenna had to come first.  "What's best for you isn't necessarily what's best for Jenna.  Did you try to do this because of your love for Jenna or to try and get back at Marsha?  Think about it, Brad.  If you take Jenna away from her mother, will she ever be able to love you?  To trust you?  Are you ready and capable to take full responsibility for her?  She has to go to school.  How were you going to enroll her anywhere without records?  Who would stay with her when you're not home?  When she's sick?  What kind of job could you get if you're on the run?"

Jenna gazed at her father and asked innocently, "Daddy, weren't you going to bring me back?"

Brad's eyes filled with tears and his hands flailed in front of him helplessly.  "Jenna, I love you.  I want you with me."

Jenna shook her head.  "I won't leave Mommy.  And if you make me go with you, I won't stay.  I know your speed-dial number for mommy.  I'll call her and tell her to come for me."

Darcy had never been more proud of the eight-year-old.  "Jenna's an intelligent little girl.  She wouldn't let you hide her away somewhere.  She'd do whatever she could to get back home and she'd end up hating you.  Is that what you want?"

Brad's face crumpled in defeat.  "No.  No, that's not what I want.  I want a normal life.  I want Marsha and my child."  His eyes met Darcy's.  "But I can't have that, can I?  It's over.  And I don't have anything."

She saw his pain and hopelessness.  Tears stung her eyes as she swallowed hard.  "You have Jenna.  You are her father.  She loves you.  But you have to handle that love carefully.  And you have to tell Marsha how you feel.  I'm sure if you want to see Jenna more, she'll let you.  If you're reasonable, she will be too.  Look, I can call her right now and you two can talk.  Please, Brad."