Heart in the Field (27 page)

           
“You’re really into this cleaning up
the city stuff, aren’t you?”

           
“Because it’s damn
disgusting, Serena.
It’s ridiculous in these affluent times.”

           
Serena rose from her chair. “You’re
right. I feel the same way. Okay. We’ll go with my mother.”

           
“Sounds good,” Nick agreed. “We’ll
tidy up this stuff and then I have a dinner date.

           
Serena began to stack files. “Anyone
I know?”

           
“You sure do.
Don
and Barbara.”

           
Relief that it wasn’t a woman made
Serena let out a deep sigh, and Nick grinned.
“Gotcha.”

           
When her office was tidy, Nick left
and Serena got her personal belongings together to go home. Her relationship
with Nick hadn’t turned out to be quite as strained as she’d thought it might.
He was being amenable. It wasn’t what she really wanted but it would do. It was
a way of erecting a small fence between them. Then, when he left in the spring,
she would be free.

•

           
Nick picked up his parents at three
o’clock on Sunday to drive them to West Vale. They were decked out in their
best clothes: His father in a navy suit with a pencil thin pinstripe, his
mother in a blue coat over a charcoal wool dress. He felt they looked nice and
that he could be proud of them. Despite an invitation to his mother to sit in
front with him, his father had insisted she sit in the back with him. This
irritated Nick right from the start. He drove out of the city, wearing his suit
and sunglasses, feeling as if he were a taxi driver.

           
He didn’t feel great anyway. His
body already missed Serena’s. It had been a week since they had made love and
he wasn’t sure if he would ever make love to her again. This situation between
them, where they were friendly but not intimate, was becoming a strain on him.

           
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it,
Stephen,” his mother said.
“Such bright sunshine.
The
leaves will be beautiful this time of year.”

           
Don’t
talk to me or anything,
Nick thought,
cursing
Reeva
for forcing him into this situation. He
now understood the strain Serena had been through all her life with her mother.

           
“This is a very nice car,” his
father said.
“A Jaguar, Nick?”

           
“Yes.”

           
“Expensive,” Stephen murmured. “You
must make good money.”

           
“I’ve told you I do. That’s why I’ve
offered to help you.”

           
Silence greeted him. He almost
missed a red light and jammed on the brakes. The tires squealed.

           
His mother gasped. “Ooh. You scared
me.”

           
Nick peered at them through the rear
view mirror. “This is an unusual situation for us, but we’re going to be
joining another family for dinner tonight. I want it to go well.”

           
“Your mother only said she was
scared by your fast jerky stop,” his father said. “You don’t have to get
upset.”

           
Nick moved through the green light.
“I’m not upset. I just want things to go smoothly.”

           
His father coughed. “They will. You
can depend on us.”

           
His mother placed a gloved hand on
the back of the seat by his shoulder. “Nick. Are you serious with this girl?”

           
The gossip that worried
Reeva
wouldn’t reach his parents, but they might read
something between the lines today, so he decided to enlighten them. “We work
together, but we have gone out.
All right?”

           
His mother’s fingers worried the
upholstery and made his teeth go on edge. “Does that mean you might marry her?
I mean, she did come to invite us to meet her family. To me that’s serious. I
remember when Stephen proposed to me. We went to my parents and he asked
permission. Didn’t you?”

           
“That’s the way it was done in those
days,” his father said. “These days they just fall into bed with one another.
At least, that’s how it seems on TV.”

           
His mother patted the back of the
seat. “Serena seemed like a very nice girl.”

           
“She is.” Nick let out a breath.
What was Serena’s expression when things were going crazy? Hell! Damn!

           
Once on the highway, the powerful
car ate the miles. To Nick’s relief his parents remained silent. He turned on
the radio, realized it was a cutting edge alternative station, and pushed more
buttons until he found a classical music station that he was sure was more to
their taste.
Relax Nick,
he told himself.
This
will be over later this evening. Treat it like a trip to the dentist.

           
Gerry’s white Lincoln was parked to one side in Serena’s
driveway this time, so Nick slid the Jag in beside it and helped his parents
from the car. Serena, smiling to greet them, glided through the rose trellis.
Her hair was loose and tumbled around the shoulders of a black silk dress with
long sleeves, a scoop neck and a short skirt. On her feet were very high heeled
black suede sandals. Around her throat and in her ears diamonds flashed.

           
“So pleased you could make it,” she
said to his mother and father. “Pleased you could make it too, Nick.”

           
She was in a phony mood he didn’t
like. What he liked was Serena in a passionate mood. He wanted to touch her
body through the black silk and feel her flesh respond under his fingertips.
They were still together, forced by circumstances, but they’d lost touch. Last
weekend was fading into a fantastic memory that might never have been.

           
Serena kept up ahead with his
parents, and introduced them to
     
Gerry
and
Reeva
. Gerry wore a gray suit and
Reeva
was in winter white. She also flashed diamonds. Nick
watched his father look at
Reeva’s
long legs and saw
an expression in the old man’s eyes he’d never seen. His mother, he noticed,
began to fuss as they were all made to sit on the deck for a glass of wine or
beer. His mother accepted a small glass of red wine.
His
father beer.
Nick couldn’t recall ever seeing his parents drink before.
All Nick was ever offered when he visited them was tea.

           
Stephen raised his glass and smiled
at everyone. “I want to thank you for inviting us. We’re thoroughly enjoying
ourselves.”

           
“I hope you are,”
Reeva
told them. “We needed to meet with our son and
daughter going out together.”

           
Wishing things hadn’t gone this far,
Nick sipped his own beer.
    

           
When everyone discovered Nick and
Serena were no longer an item they were going to be disappointed.

           
They went on to chat about other
things, the garden, the leaves, the time of year, the weather. Nick realized
that Gerry and
Reeva
had no hang ups with Stephen and
Maria because they knew nothing of their past history. They were Nick’s folks
and that was that.

           
He rose to get himself another beer
and went into the house. Pascal slid in with him. “Serena,” Nick called.

           
She came from one of the rooms into
the sunroom. “How’s it going?”

           
“Fine.
I
figure if you don’t know someone’s history you can accept them at face value.
Once you know things about them, you have a depth of baggage you have to
overcome to see them differently.”

           
She fiddled with an earring. “That’s
heavy.”

           
He noticed, now he was alone with
her, that she didn’t look quite as composed as he’d first thought. Her face
seemed drawn and there were shadows beneath her eyes. “Are you okay?”

           
She gave him a dazzling smile. “I’m
great, Nick.”

           
He wanted to say something about
their relationship, but he didn’t want to mess up the day. “Mind if I have
another beer?”

           
“Help yourself.”

           
He went to the fridge and uncapped
the beer with the opener on the door. He drank from the bottle.

           
“Gerry’s the designated driver
tonight. He’ll take us over in the Lincoln.”

           
“Are you saying I’m drinking too
much?”

           
“No. I’m just watching you. And
you’ve guzzled three since you’ve been here. What happened on the way down?”

           
“Nothing.
It’s just that I’ve never, ever, and that’s the bloody truth, been out with
them like this since I’ve been an adult.”

           
“But you did when you were a kid?”

           
“Sometimes they’d take me over to
see my father’s brother, either by bus or car. He died and his wife moved to Vancouver.”

           
“What about your mother’s family?”

           
He clenched his fingers around the
bottle.
“Gone before I came into the picture.
She was
thirty-nine when she had me, you know.”

           
“I gathered that.” She rested her
hip against her table. “You know, I never figured you’d have all these
hang-ups.”

           
He gave her a narrow glance. He was
back to how it had been that night of Don’s soirée, when he had wanted her so
much. The fuse had been lit once again. “That should make us compatible.”

           
She rapped the table with her
fingers. “I’ve never said we’re not compatible.”

           
“Possibly not.
You just want to put me through hell.” He hadn’t meant to get into this.

           
“I’m not doing this intentionally.
If I’d had my way this weekend would never have been. But Mother does have a
point. I’m not the type to spend one weekend with a man and call it quits.
Especially—” She walked to the window ledge, where she straightened a couple of
pots of flowers.

           
Nick drained the rest of the bottle
and placed it on the table.
“Especially a man with a
reputation like mine.
Is that what you want to say?”

           
She didn’t turn around. He watched
the sunlight flicker over her gorgeous golden hair. His gaze roamed her hips
and long legs. His breathing quickened. He always felt so aroused with her. He
stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’ve told you that my reputation isn’t
quite what you think it is.”

           
She twisted on her heels. “Don’t try
and make this worse than it already is. I loved last weekend. I needed last
weekend. If that stupid critic hadn’t been there, I—”

           
“You’d still be with me, wouldn’t
you? You’re using that as an excuse, Serena, because you haven’t got the guts
to go beyond two days in bed.”

           
Her features were contorted as she
held in her feelings. “I think you’re right. If we go on, it’ll just be like
driving aimlessly without a map.”

           
“What’s your idea of a map in a
relationship?”

           
“Two people heading toward the same
destination.”

           
“You want to marry me. That’s not a
question. It’s a comment.” Nick tried to lighten the atmosphere.

           
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that
far ahead.”

           
“Well, then.” He let out a deep
sigh. “Serena. You and I will have to talk at length about this, because we’ve
got a lot of time left of the season.”

           
She rubbed her forehead. “Not
today.”

           
“No. Not today.”

           
He helped Serena on with a black
wool jacket and they went outside. His parents looked as if they were enjoying
themselves. He thought of them cooped up over the shop and he felt angry with
himself for not being able to persuade them to move into something more
amenable, angry at them for being so damn stubborn. Everyone was damn stubborn.
Including Serena.
He was sure she still wanted him in
the blazing way he still wanted her. He had broken her down once, he could do
it again. He just had to take his time and not rush her.