Home Field Advantage (15 page)

The worst of it was, he was
right. But though it might be blackmail, she knew now how much more ruthless he
could have been.

*****

John insisted on taking the
kids grocery shopping Monday while Marian checked out the couple of new rentals
that had been listed in the Sunday paper.

"Are you sure?" she
asked dubiously, watching him buckle the herd into his car. "I can take
the kids. We could do the shopping on our way home."

Inside the car, Jesse
declared, "I want Rabbit!"

Rabbit's bedraggled face
popped furtively up from the front seat, then disappeared.

"Mine!" Jesse
bellowed.

"We're playing
peek-a-boo," Emma said. "See? There he is. Now he's hiding."

Jesse began to scream.

Marian and John said at the
same time, "Emma!"

"Oh, all right!" Sulkily,
she flung the stuffed animal at the red-faced two-year-old. "You're no
fun!"

"Are you absolutely
sure?" Marian repeated.

"I'll bribe 'em,"
he said blithely. "You can deal with the sugar buzz when you get home.
I'll go hide in the barn."

"If you're really
positive," she said. "John, thank you."

He just grinned, gave her the
thumbs up, and hopped in behind the wheel. "See ya."

Watching them disappear,
Marian felt peculiar. It wasn't very long ago that she'd longed for a day to
herself. Even a few hours! Now she had them, and instead of kicking up her
heels she felt rootless. Unsettled. Maybe she couldn't walk anymore without
twin weights hanging from her hands.

"I can't afford to get
spoiled," she told herself. The excitement of being able to get into the
car without fastening numerous seat belts and checking for essentials like
bottles, diapers, blankies, and rabbits was almost too much for her. She'd have
sworn even the car was lighter bouncing over a rut and onto the narrow country
road.

A mostly discouraging two
hours later, she returned to find John and the kids having macaroni and cheese
for lunch. She was grateful to be able to announce brightly, "I found a
place."

John's expression didn't
change one iota. Why she was watching to see what he thought, Marian didn't
know. Jesse and Anna ignored her announcement and continued squishing the
macaroni on their plates. Emma's was the only response.

"I don't want you to
go."

"I know, sweetie."
It felt so natural to hug her. "But you understand why we need our own
house, don't you?"

Emma pulled away and wouldn't
look at Marian. "I guess," she said flatly.

Marian leaned against the
counter and talked fast, trying to sound cheerful. "It's bigger than the
last one. And the backyard is fenced, so I don't have to do that. Don't you
miss Aja and Rhodo? And the cats? I'll bet they miss us."

Emma pushed her bowl away,
ignoring the spoon that clattered to the floor. "You could have had them
here," she said. "Daddy wouldn't have minded."

"Touche’," John murmured.

"We're imposing enough
as it is," Marian said briskly. "Your dad was nice enough to have us,
but adding four more animals would have been too much. And you know Crystal is
enjoying them." Even if her parents aren't, Marian thought. Perhaps it was
wrong of her, but she resented having to feel so hopelessly in debt to so many
people. She had always made it on her own. She could have managed, if she'd
had to. She refused to confront the scariness of the thought. It would be too
easy to be terrified about the future and about the next time her shaky props
were kicked out from under her.

Emma stayed sullen for the
rest of the day, making a point of rejecting any advances Marian made. The
twins stayed oblivious. Marian wasn't sure whether they were simply too young
to understand, indifferent about where they lived, or had ceased believing
her. Over the last couple of months she'd made several announcements. The only
one that had actually come true was losing their home—and the last-minute move
to Emma's house.

John didn't mention the
subject again until dinnertime. He disappeared out to the barn as he'd
promised and came in just before six o'clock, dirty, tired, and sweaty.

"Let me grab a quick
shower," he said, and vanished again.

"Emma, do you want to set
the table?" Marian called.

She wasn't surprised when the
response from the living room was no.

"That'll teach you to
ask," Marian said aloud to the empty kitchen. She felt sad, though,
because Emma had been eagerly helping her with housework whenever she would
allow it. She had suffered pangs from the way the eager gaze followed her, the
way the small hands imitated what she was doing. She had known the role Emma
was assigning her, and allowed it to happen. Marian had wanted to play mother.
Now she wondered if she had been fair to Emma.

At the dinner table, John
glanced at her. "Did you put a deposit down on the rental?"

Marian exhaled a silent sigh
at the reminder. She had been desperate enough to pay an even more outrageous
amount than the last landlady had demanded. She'd hesitated for only a bare
second before she remembered John's kisses—and knew she had to run away while
she still could.

"Yes," she said.
"The house is empty, too. I'm going to need to spend a few hours over
there cleaning, but then we can move in any time. You're probably already
sorry you offered to help us move, but I hope once more will do it. Whatever
day is convenient for you..."

"Any time," he said
brusquely, and began to eat without further comment. The meal was a silent one,
since neither Emma nor her father were speaking, and Marian felt too deflated
to make an effort.

The camaraderie of the last
few days was gone that evening. Marian tucked Anna and Jesse in, then went in
to Emma's bedroom to kiss her good night. Against the lace eyelet pillowcase,
her small face was stiff, and tonight her arms didn't come up for a hug. She
accepted Marian's kiss, then turned her face away.

Her stomach churning, Marian
slipped out. John stood at the bottom of the stairs when she started down.

"I'd better go watch
some game films," he said. "Will you be okay on your own?"

"Sure," she said
casually. "I'm in the middle of a book." But she was achingly aware
that this was one of her last evenings here; by Tuesday, he would help her
move, and then she would be a baby-sitter again and John a parent who was
friendly when he picked up his daughter. If he kept bringing Emma to her at
all. Sooner or later he would hire a housekeeper, some woman who was eager to
be his dependent. Then Emma would transfer her affections, as she should.

The image was unexpectedly
depressing.

Marian read on the plush
suede couch in the living room for an hour or two, then went upstairs to take a
long hot bath before bed. She hadn't seen John again and the house was quiet.
Drying off from the bath, she glanced at herself in the steamy mirror, to see
cheeks glowing and hair tumbling damply out of the knot she had fastened on top
of her head. Oh, well. No one would see her anyway. Wrapped in a quilted robe,
she stepped out of the bathroom almost into John's path.

The shock of his unexpected
appearance paralyzed Marian. Hers seemed to have the same effect on him. They
stared at each other. The recessed lighting in the hall had been dimmed and the
scene was dangerously intimate. John's face looked gaunt, shadowed beneath the
high cheekbones, and his eyes were dark. He wore jeans and a polo shirt open at
the collar to expose his brown throat, and his feet were bare. Marian's own
toes curled into the carpet and she struggled for a breath.

"Good...good
night," she managed, her voice little better than a whisper.

He didn't answer for a long
moment, in which something perilously close to exhilaration unfurled in her
chest. But it had no chance to spread its wings, for she saw the exact instant
that he collected himself. His mouth tightened and he nodded curtly.

"Good night." And
he continued down the hall, leaving Marian to flee to her own room.

She lay awake too long, restless
and angry at herself. She didn't want—couldn't afford!—a relationship with a
man as dominating as John McRae. She'd fought too hard to stand on her own feet
to knuckle under now and accept his charity. Even if he saw her as an equal, if
she could feel an equal, the price for those hours and days of joys would be
the loss of everything she had worked for—and heartbreak. He could hurt her so easily,
so casually. All she had to do was remember Mark's slow withdrawal after her
exultant announcement of her pregnancy, her confusion, his anger—and then,
horrifyingly, the day she came home to find him gone, leaving no more of
himself than a note on the kitchen table and the unborn children in her womb.

Never again, she thought, her
heart clenching. She would not risk that.

She couldn't have been asleep
for more than an hour when the sound of a crying child yanked her awake.
Disoriented, she realized the pitch of the voice wasn't quite right—not one of
the twins. Emma.

But by that time her mother's
instinct had her out of bed and halfway across the room. She slipped into the
hall and saw no sign that John had awakened yet. Emma's door stood open, the faint
glow of her nightlight showing around it.

"Emma, honey,"
Marian soothed, hurrying to the child's bed. She sat upright, huge sobs shaking
her. Marian switched on the bedside lamp and sat down, drawing Emma into a
comforting embrace. Her cheek against the five-year-old's soft hair, she hugged
and murmured and gently rubbed Emma's back.

The first coherent words out
of Emma's mouth were a wailed, "I don't want you to go!"

"Oh, sweetie."
Marian's arms tightened and her eyes prickled with unexpected tears. The
sadness she'd felt all day tore open, exposing something huge and desolate.
Guilt, because she had let Emma love her. Hurt of her own, because she had come
to love Emma.

"I missed Helen so
much," the little girl mumbled against her breasts, "but Daddy said
she couldn't come back and I knew she didn't want to come back..." A
hiccuping sob interrupted her. "And Daddy says he'll hire a new
housekeeper, but I don't want a new one! I want you! Why can't you stay? I'll
be good. I promise I'll be good. Even better than I was for Helen."

Marian's face was wet with
tears when she tilted Emma's chin up so she could look into the overflowing
brown eyes. "Helen didn't leave because you weren't good, Emma! You are a
wonderful, sensitive, funny child. Helen needed somebody of her own to love,
just like your daddy loves you. My leaving has nothing to do with you! You
could be a monster all day long and...and spill grape juice on the carpet and
stuff up the toilet and roller skate on the wood floors and color on the walls,
and I'd still like you! Oh, Emma, I'd give almost anything to stay."

A huge fat tear dripped off
her chin. "Then...then why?"

Marian stared down at Emma
and realized she didn't know the answer. Why was she so determined to leave?
Because she needed to prove something to herself? Because it hurt to pretend
something was true that wasn't?

Or were those only excuses,
designed to hide her biggest terror: that Emma's father would break her heart?

Whatever was the truth, they
were all selfish reasons. Anna and Jesse would be happier and safer here. Emma
needed her. And her own life would be easier. She wouldn't have to work from
six in the morning to ten at night. The possibility of losing even that fragile
security would no longer be lurking one step away.

All she would risk was her
heart. And what did that count for, compared to Emma's?

In a voice that cracked, she
said, "I guess I was afraid to love you." And your dad. I'm still
afraid to love your dad. "But I was wrong. If you still want me...if your
dad still wants me to stay, I will."

"You will?" Emma
said disbelievingly. "You really will?"

Marian hugged Emma hard. Her
smile trembled, but she said, "I really will."

"Thank you. Thank you,
thank you, thank you!"

"You're welcome,"
Marian whispered. Through a fresh sheen of tears she looked over Emma's head
and saw John, standing silently in the bedroom doorway. Her gaze locked to
his, and she realized he had heard every word.

Emma never realized her
father was there. The storm of tears had tired her, and she was now contented
enough to let Marian soothe her to sleep.

John disappeared from the
doorway, and Marian prayed that he had gone back to bed. She knew it was a
futile prayer, however. He would be waiting, and she was in no state to talk to
him. Her tears had dried, but her heart felt sore. She sat here on his
daughter's bed in a filmy nightgown that left her shoulders bare but for thin
straps, and, in the right light, hid very little else. Why hadn't she grabbed
her robe?

Finally, Emma's slow deep
breaths became childlike snuffles and snores, and Marian had no excuse to delay
any longer. She stepped out of Emma's room, easing the door shut behind her.
With a sense of inevitability, she saw John waiting, just as she had known he
would be. He wore only pajama bottoms, and even in the hall's dim light she
could see that his chest was sleek and muscled. Marian quit breathing when his
hungry gaze trapped her.