Forever Spring (16 page)

The combined scents of pumpkin, ginger and cinnamon tickled Karen’s nose as she poured the mixture into the pie shell. A soft smile curved her lips. Too bad the finished product didn’t taste as good as it smelled, she mused, sliding the pie onto the center rack in the oven. She was setting the oven timer when Charles sauntered into the kitchen.

“How do I look?” he asked, striking a pose for her.

Experiencing an eerie sense of deja vu, Karen turned to face him. His pose was much the same as Paul’s had been weeks before when he’d breezed into the kitchen after repairing the shutters. Swamped with a longing so intense she felt light-headed for an instant, Karen couldn’t speak or even breathe. There before her, in Charles’s stead, stood the one person she yearned to see. His aristocratic head was tilted at a quizzical angle, and his beautiful mouth curved teasingly. He was smiling at her, for her, only for her. Karen was forced to grasp the edge of the stove to steady herself, so great was the shaft of pain that sliced into her chest. In despair, she felt every minute of every aching hour she had lived through since driving away from Paul in that restaurant parking lot increasing her loneliness a hundred times over. Her heart, her mind, her body wept with need of him.

Paul.

“Karen?” Charles took a step toward her. “You look so strange. Are you all right?”

Karen blinked and began breathing again. “Yes, of course.” She managed a shaky smile to reassure him. “The heat from the oven,” she said, improvising. “It made me a little dizzy.”

Unconvinced, Charles arched a skeptical brow. “You’re pale. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I said I was.” Stepping around him, she walked to the sink to rinse the flour off her hands and run cold water over her thundering pulse. Frowning, she stared at the vein throbbing in her wrist. This was ridiculous! Rattled, she flinched when Charles laid a hand on her shoulder.

“I think you’d better sit down.” There was a hint of a command in his tone that abraded her nerves.

“I’m all right!”

Karen was suddenly impatient. She was a thirty-seven-year-old mother of two, mooning like a teenager over a man she’d known exactly three days! It had to stop. She could deal with her feelings of guilt over her moral lapse; she couldn’t handle a bad case of lovesickness.

Lovesickness? Everything inside Karen went still. Love? A tremor ran down her legs, leaving them weak. Love! Unsteady, quaking inside, she stumbled to a chair, unconsciously obeying Charles’s order. Her head whirling, she stared at the homey, domestic-looking clutter of sprinkled flour and baking utensils on the table.

She couldn’t be in love!

“Here, sip this.”

Karen started and frowned at the small glass Charles shoved into her hand. The pungent aroma of expensive bourbon filled her senses. Frowning, she glanced up at him.

“What’s this for?”

“You.” Charles’s expression was grim. “It’ll clear your head.”

It’ll take more than bourbon.
Karen smiled at the thought. Charles thought she was smiling at him, and he smiled back at her.

“Go on,” he urged. “Drink it.”

Why not? Raising the glass, she sipped and choked on the potent whiskey. Charles laughed. Karen tossed him a wry look.

“Better?”

“Much better,” she lied, taking another tiny sip. “My head’s clear now.” That much was true; Karen felt extremely clearheaded. She wasn’t particularly happy with the condition. Mental lucidity brought the truth crashing home.

She was in love with Paul Vanzant!

But acknowledging her emotional condition and living with it were two entirely different matters. She didn’t want to be in love with Paul; she didn’t want to be in love with anyone.

Standing, Karen began to clear the baking debris from the table. She didn’t have time to think about

Paul or about love. She had too much to do. It was the day before Thanksgiving. Her boys were due within the hour. Karen’s lips compressed. Her boys
and
her former in-laws were due within the hour, she corrected herself.

Damn! Why did life have to be so complicated? “You never did answer my question.”

Charles’s aggrieved tone drew Karen from her fruitless contemplation. Pausing in the act of wiping the flour from the tabletop, she angled her head to frown at him.

“What question was that?”

Standing, he again struck his male-model pose. “How do I look?”

Karen couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Charles’s self-absorption was beyond belief. She chose to laugh.

“You look like you just stepped off the cover of
GQ,”
she said, controlling an urge to roll her eyes. “Very chic,” she added, sighing inwardly as he preened visibly, not unlike a strutting peacock. “Very man-about-townish.’ ’

In all honesty, Karen had to admit that Charles did, in fact, present an elegant picture of the man on the go relaxing at home for the holiday. His choice of a blue-on-blue silk shirt complemented the hand-tailored gray slacks. His cheeks gleamed with a freshly shaved sheen. His shampooed hair looked squeaky clean. His perfect teeth glistened white in contrast to his sunlamp-tanned skin. All in all, he made Karen feel unkempt and grubby by comparison.

“I think I’ll take a shower.” Tossing the dishcloth into the sink, Karen headed for the hallway.

“What about dinner?”

“What about it?” Karen paused in the doorway to slant a challenging look at him.

Charles glanced around the untidy kitchen. “You haven’t started it.” His frown said more than words. “You do realize that my parents and the boys will be here any time now?”

How could she not realize it? Karen wondered when he persisted in reminding her of it. She hesitated, amazed at her unusual willingness to desert a messy kitchen. Then she shrugged. Realizing that it would keep, she dashed into the hallway.

“I’ll get everything together after I’ve had my shower,” she called to him as she started up the stairs. “Meanwhile, you can load the dishwasher and start a fresh pot of coffee.”

“Me?”

Karen paused at the top of the stairs, arrested by the note of shock in Charles’s tone. His obvious amazement should not have surprised her. Charles had been spoiled all his life, first by his doting mother and then by his equally doting wife. Karen felt positive that every one of his girlfriends, past and present, had continued the tradition of catering to his every murmured whim. No wonder the man had been shocked at being told to load the dishwasher and prepare coffee.

“Never mind, Charles,” she called to him. “I’ll take care of it when I get back down.” Shoulders drooping, she headed for her bedroom, deciding the chances of the relaxed, happy holiday she had envisioned were slim to none.

What kind of holiday celebration would Paul be having?

The thought crept into Karen’s unguarded mind, stilling her fingers on her shirt button. A sigh of longing ruffled the quiet of her room.

Paul.

A rush of hot moisture drew a film over Karen’s eyes. Then she blinked rapidly and shook her head. She had to stop this! It was not only ridiculous, it was impossible. For a moment out of time, she had stepped beyond the norm to engage in a blazing, thoroughly satisfying love affair. An affair, moreover, that had had precious little to do with love. Now her life was back to its normal, dull routine. The affair was over; her lover was gone. That was that.

Her lecture to herself over, Karen finished undressing and stepped into the shower. The gush of water from the shower drowned out the sound of her whispered plea.

Dear God! I can’t be in love with him!

“I had no idea you were such an excellent cook, Patricia.” Paul raised his glass in a salute to his daughter-in-law. “My compliments. I’m grateful to you and Peter for insisting I share your Thanksgiving Day meal.”

“Thank you, Paul.” A delighted smile enhancing her beautiful, aristocratic face, Patricia inclined her head in acceptance of his praise. Then she shattered the elegant illusion by aiming an impish grin at her husband. “Dare we tell your father that you assisted in preparing the meal, darling?”

Peter Vanzant’s thin lips eased into a smile of supreme male satisfaction. “We may,” he murmured, raising his glass to his mouth to acknowledge his father’s toast to Patricia. “But. please don’t expect a gasp of surprise from Dad.” Peter’s smile slashed into a grin. “He wields a mean hand at the stove, himself.”

“Really!” Patricia actually gaped at her father-in-law.

“I manage.” Comfortable in the company of the two younger people, Paul relaxed in the dining room chair.

Peter laughed softly. “He manages very well,” he observed in a dry tone. “But I agree, love.” His tone had softened to a caress. “The meal was an artistic achievement.”

“Give yourself a pat on the back, as well, love.” Patricia tilted her glass in a toast to her husband.

Love.
Paul controlled an urge to close his eyes—and his ears. He had heard the endearment countless times since his arrival at his son’s home several hours earlier. Sipping his wine, Paul gazed at his son and daughter-in-law over the rim of the glass. Peter and Patricia were so obviously in love, and they didn’t hesitate to voice the affection they felt for one another. The result of that love was the tiny, beautiful child napping in a cradle in the. corner of the dining room.

Concealing a sigh, Paul gazed down at the table and saw another, smaller one set in a windowed alcove off a large, old-fashioned kitchen. Unbidden, his inner gaze skimmed off the edge of the imaginary tabletop to the carpeted floor beneath. His heartbeat accelerating inside his chest, Paul could
see
Karen, her eyes cloudy with passion, her moist lips parted, her arms held out in invitation to him... to
himl
“...Dad?”

The sound of Peter’s voice shattered the illusion. Swallowing a groan, Paul glanced up, a faint, self-mocking smile on his lips. “I’m sorry, I was preoccupied. What did you say?”

A tiny frown line drew Peter’s dark brows together. “I asked if you’d care for dessert.”

“No.” Paul offered Patricia an apologetic smile. “I couldn’t possibly eat another bite.”

Patricia’s nod was gracious. “Perhaps later.”

“I—” Paul paused. In that instant, the decision was made. It was not his usual way. Paul rarely made a decision without careful consideration of all the possibilities involved. But this particular decision felt exactly right for him; he would go with it. “I’m afraid I won’t be here later. I have something I must do.” “Surely you’re not going home to work, Dad?” Peter exclaimed, scowling at the very idea of his father working on a holiday, forgetting that he had done so himself many times in his pre-Patricia days.

Paul raised a hand, palm out in the age-old sign asking for peace. “No, Peter, I am not going home to work.” His lips twitched in amused anticipation of Peter’s reaction to his next statement. “I’m going home to pack.” Peter didn’t disappoint him.

“Pack!” Peter’s voice was rough with astonishment.

“Pack?” Patricia merely sounded confused.

“As in clothes into suitcases,” Peter explained dryly.

“But where are you going?” The question came simultaneously from Paul’s host and hostess. Peter answered his own query before his father had a chance to respond. “Are you flying to Texas to see Nicole?” “No.” Paul smiled and shook his head. “I spoke to both Nicole and J.B. this morning, and they are fine.” He hesitated only a moment before asking quietly, “Peter, do you remember our conversation the other evening?”

“How could I forget?” Peter grimaced. “As I recall, the conversation was pretty much one-sided— mine. You refused to respond in any way.”

“Yes, well—” Paul shrugged “—you must admit, your line of questioning was rather personal.”

“What is this all about?” Patricia glanced from her husband to her father-in-law. “What conversation? When?”

Paul was content to stare at Peter until the younger man answered his wife. “I stopped by the house to see Dad after my meeting the other night,” he explained tersely. “We had a discussion.”

Patricia gave a long-suffering sigh but asked patiently, “A discussion about what?”

Paul continued to stare at Peter; Peter’s angular features tightened.

“I’m waiting.”

Paul nearly lost control and smiled. Peter sighed in exasperation and defeat.

“I asked Dad if his lady friend was pretty and, er, if he was in love with her.”

“Peter, you didn’t!” Patricia was visibly appalled at her mate’s lack of both manners and tact. “Your father’s personal affairs are none of your business!”

Her cheeks bloomed with color, and she cast a stricken glance at Paul. “No pun intended!”

Vastly amused by this rare glimpse of his son being chastised by his wife, Paul chuckled. Peter winced. Patricia narrowed her eyes and gave her father-in-law a glittering look.

“Are you in love with some lucky lady?” “Patricia!” Peter barked.

Giving up, Paul threw back his head and roared with laughter, unable to remember when he’d enjoyed the company of his family quite so thoroughly. If only Nicole and her husband were here, the day would be just about perfect, he thought as his laughter subsided. Just about, he corrected himself, envisioning the face that haunted his every waking hour.

“I’m sorry, Paul.” Patricia’s contrite tone drew Paul from his own thoughts. “I have no right—”

He cut her off gently. “Yes, you do. You have the right granted by affection and concern.” Paul gazed at the son of his body and the daughter of his heart. Then he smiled. “I don’t know if I’m in love. That’s the reason I’m going home to pack. I must see her, talk to her.” His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “She probably regards me as something of an old fool.” “You are not old!” Patricia protested indignantly. “And far from a fool,” Peter observed dryly. He studied Paul intently for a moment. Then an understanding, blatantly male grin revealed his hard white teeth. “Age hasn’t a damn thing to do with it, Dad.
If
you love her.”

Feeling oddly rejuvenated by their approval and support, Paul slid his chair back and stood up. “That’s what I intend to find out.”