Reflections of Yesterday (23 page)

She was pleased at the color in Clay’s cheeks. “Another time, Dad.” She shared a conspiratorial smile with Glenn.

“We’ll catch her another day,” Glenn interjected.

“But I thought she’d want to come along today.” Clay pursed his lips like a discontented child who had been outwitted by his parents.

“I’ll join you another day,” Angie promised.

“But what are you going to do that’s so all-fired important that you can’t come with us?” Clay insisted.

Angie looked imploringly to Glenn, but was saved from answering by the doorbell.

Clay stood closest, and swung open the door. Angie couldn’t see who it was since Clay was blocking her view. But her father’s body language gave her all the clues she needed.

“Hello, Angie.” Simon stepped around her father and gave her a phony smile. His gaze went from Clay to Glenn. “I hope I’m not intruding on anything important,” he said.

Simon recognized immediately that by arriving unannounced to the apartment he’d done the wrong thing. The hurt and confused look in Angie’s eyes sliced into him. His gaze clashed with Glenn’s as he avoided looking toward Angie. Earlier, he’d tried her cell, but it had gone directly to voice mail. He was dying for the sight of her. For weeks he’d dreamed of taking her in his arms and loving her until they were both sated and exhausted. Every minute apart these past weeks had been torture. Yet Angie had gone back to the apartment without waiting to talk to him and that rankled.

“Simon,” Angie said, her dark eyes round and imploring. “What are you doing here? I thought …”

“Sneaking behind my back.” Clay’s pale face turned to his daughter with a hurt look that went far deeper than words. “You two were going to sneak behind my back.”

Glenn took the old man’s hand and lowered him into the cushioned chair. “Maybe this is the time for the three of you to sit down and talk things out.”

Angie’s bewildered gaze went from her father’s ashen features to the intent look marking Simon’s features. She stood defenseless between the two of them, knowing that she was about to be forced into taking sides. To one she was a puppet, pulled by the strings of guilt and duty. To the other, impatient in his way, she was a love long lost.

Clay crossed his arms over his chest and looked straight ahead with stony eyes. Anger and bitterness emanated from every pore. “There’s nothing left to say.”

“Dad, stop acting like a two-year-old,” Angie said, looking desperately to Simon. “Why did you come here now, like this? Couldn’t you have waited until Clay was well?”

“I believe I’ll leave this to the three of you to settle,” Glenn murmured, heading toward the door. “Good luck.”

Simon watched the other man’s departure with a sinking feeling. Glenn did indeed love Angie. Far beyond what Simon had suspected. He would like to hate the man, but discovered that he couldn’t. Instead, a grudging respect came, and he wondered if he could have been half as decent over this situation as Glenn. With that realization came another. Glenn wasn’t coming around Clay and Angie for his health. Obviously the man thought there was still a chance he
could win Angie. Glenn wasn’t a masochist, nor stupid. He was standing ready to pick up the pieces. And now, in his impatience, Simon had fallen directly into the other man’s hands.

“Simon, maybe it would be best if we sat down. We should be able to reach some kind of understanding.” Angie’s words helped clear the fog in his mind.

“All right.” He moved into the room and took a seat on the sofa. For the first time he studied Angie and was mildly shocked to see how tired and run-down she looked. The faint purple smudges under her eyes were artfully camouflaged with makeup. Her mouth drooped just enough for him to recognize that she was struggling with her composure. By forcing the issue today, he’d done nothing but increase the pressure on her. Silently, he cursed himself.

“I owe you an apology for showing up like this.” Simon directed his words to the stiff, motionless man who sat across from him.

Again Angie turned questioning, hurt eyes to Clay and Simon. She could see talking would do no good. “Then why did you?”

“I want to marry you, Angie. I’m tired of meeting in hotel rooms. We’re consenting adults. There shouldn’t be any reason in this world to keep us apart any longer, and if that means forcing Clay to accept certain truths, so be it.”

Clay gasped and his eyes narrowed into thin, accusing slits as they centered on his daughter. “So you’ve been giving yourself to him. Again.”

Angie dropped her face to her hands, and again Simon realized that every time he opened his mouth, he was only making things worse for Angie.

“Is this the way I raised you, Daughter?” Clay asked in a choked voice that was barely above a whisper. “Your mama, God rest her soul, was a lady. I tried my hardest to raise you to be just like her. Until now, I didn’t realize how miserably I’ve failed.”

“It isn’t like that.” Angie moved from the sofa and took her father’s hands in her own. “I don’t know why Simon is doing this, but—”

“I’m doing this because we shouldn’t need to hide the fact we’re in love. From the time we were kids we belonged together. As long as I breathe, nothing’s going to stand in the way of our happiness.”

“Simon …” Angie ground out his name. “Don’t say anything more. You’re only making matters worse.” Could he be so blind as not to see what he was doing to her? She was Clay’s daughter, and although he was playing on his recent illness to keep her apart from Simon, that
wasn’t any reason to drive a wedge between her and her only relative.

Frustrated, Simon rolled to his feet and buried his hands in his pockets. “Listen, maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to show up like this. Maybe I should have been patient and played it cool. But for how much longer?”

“Only a few days. A week at the most,” Angie cried, not bothering to disguise her hurt.

“Just who are you trying to kid?” Simon asked, watching her closely. He hated to see her on her knees, groveling at her father’s feet. “Do you honestly believe that Clay’s going to let us find any happiness together? I can guarantee that there’ll always be another reason to prevent our marriage.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Angie, look at him. He’s never going to give his approval.”

Angie shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. “Yes, he will,” she cried. “In time.”

“I’m through waiting,” Simon said on a cold, sober note. “I want us to get married now.”

“It’ll only be a little while,” she pleaded.

Simon released a low moan of frustration. Angie was living in a dream world. “The doctor will gave Clay a clean bill of health soon, and immediately after that something else will magically appear to delay our marriage.”

“That’s pure conjecture.”

“That’s fact,” he shouted in return. “We’re adults. I’m through with living my life to satisfy parents. I want us to be married and I want it now. Are you with me or not?”

Angie hesitated, slid her eyes closed, and inhaled deeply. Here it was. She’d known from the minute Simon stepped in the doorway that it was coming. With everything that they’d shared, she would have thought he’d know not to do this. The impatient, frustrated man standing over her wasn’t the Simon she loved. This was a man driven to the limits of his patience, irrational and demanding.

“You can’t ask me to do this. Not now.”

Simon paused. “When?”

“I … I don’t know.”

In a blinding flash he knew that he was right. Angie was tied to her father and the bonds were far stronger than he’d realized. In pitting himself against the old man, Simon would lose the very thing he treasured most in life. He had to reach Clay.

Simon took a seat across from Angie’s father and swallowed down his pride. “Can we lay aside the hurts of the past? I love Angie, and I’ll spend every second of my life proving just how much. We want your blessing. We need it. Can you overlook everything that’s happened and give us your blessing?”

A full minute passed before Clay spoke. “No words could ever undo the embarrassment and pain your family caused mine.”

Simon realized that he should have known the old man would demand blood. “What is it you want, then?” He fought back the building anger, clenching his hands so tight that his fingers ached with the effort.

Clay didn’t respond.

“What do you want from me?” Simon repeated.

Silence.

“More money, is that it?”

“Simon,” Angie cried. “Don’t do this.”

“If you don’t want money, maybe I could—”

“All I want from you is to leave my Angie alone. You hear me, boy, leave my daughter alone.”

Simon expelled a ragged breath. “That’s the one thing I won’t do.”

“Dad.” Angie’s voice was so weak that Simon could barely hear her. “Simon and I need to talk.”

Clay grunted and crossed his arms. “I suppose you’re going to do your talking in that hotel room.”

Knowing it was useless, Simon stood and took Angie’s cold, limp hand in his. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t have to listen to that kind of garbage.”

Angie stared up at him, undecided, her look rotating from Simon to her father. “I … don’t think I should leave Dad like this. Not now.”

“Yes, you can,” he argued fiercely, shouting.

Angie pulled her fingers free of his grasp and shook her head, placing her hands over her ears to blot out any protest. “No.”

“All right,” Simon murmured. He had brought this on himself by coming to the apartment, forcing the issue. He was pressuring her to choose between a lifetime of love and
loyalty to her father and the reclaimed love she and Simon shared. She couldn’t choose one and not betray the other. The crazy part was that all he had ever wanted to do was love Angie and cherish her, protect her, give her his children, and love them with the same intensity with which he loved their mother. Instead he had set her up for more anguish. Very gently he placed his hands on her shoulders, cupping them. He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on her cheek, shocked at the chilled feel of her skin.

“You know where I’ll be,” he whispered. It could have been his imagination, but Simon thought he felt her stiffen as if to pull away. His heart plummeted to the very depths of hell. He was so close to losing her, and powerless to reach out to her now. Angie Robinson was the only woman he’d ever truly loved, and he had somehow managed to louse up their relationship … a second time.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she whispered in return.

For two hours Angie wrestled with her emotions. The more she thought about what Simon had done by coming to the apartment, the more upset she became. Maybe he was right. Maybe Clay would always find an excuse to keep them apart. But now wasn’t the time to catapult her into making a decision. For days she had eagerly anticipated being with Simon, looking upon his visit as a time for renewal and rejuvenation, mentally and physically. Their time together was to be a brief oasis in a life whose route had taken her deep into the arid, lifeless desert. In the past weeks, they’d both been taxed to the limit of their endurance with family pressures. They’d needed this time for their sanity.

Clay sat so motionless that for an instant Angie wondered if he’d stopped breathing. When Simon had gone she’d half expected her father to blast her with a fiery tirade of insults. In the past he’d done exactly that, knowing how much it hurt her. Instead his eyes revealed a deep, bitter pain that words wouldn’t easily erase. So they didn’t speak, but sat like strangers, yearning to reach out to each other and not knowing how.

When she could endure the agony no longer, Angie stood and reached for her purse.

“I … need to think,” she whispered. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“You’re going to him,” Clay said with cruel certainty.

Angie’s jaw sagged as she prepared to argue. Dejected, she closed her mouth. She hadn’t given thought to where she was going, only that she couldn’t tolerate another minute in the
tension-filled apartment.

“Don’t lie to me, girl. You’re going to him.”

Clay was right, that’s exactly where she was going. “I’ll be back” was all she said.

The ride across town took her through heavy traffic, giving her plenty of time to think. She loved Simon, had loved him nearly all her life. When she’d taken the money and left Groves Point, something keen and vital had died within her. For a long time she couldn’t look at men without experiencing a deep, harrowing pain. After a while, more for Clay’s sake than her own, she’d started dating again. If her date was tall, Angie decided she preferred someone shorter. If her date was quiet and introspective, she found him boring. If he was intelligent and opinionated, she wished for someone dull. After a while, Angie gave up dating completely. Until Glenn …

The front desk at the Hilton connected her with Simon, who gave her his room number. She marched across the lobby, her indignation building. She loved him, but she couldn’t allow him to pressure her this way.

She’d hardly had time to knock when the door was opened. “Thank goodness you came,” he whispered.

“Why?” The word barely made it through the tightness in her throat. “Why did you come to the apartment? Didn’t you stop to think what would happen?”

“Angie, listen—”

“No,” she cried, “you listen. I want to marry you. All I’m asking for is a little patience. My dad is lucky to be alive. I’m not prepared to do
anything
to endanger his health, and that includes upsetting him the way you did this afternoon. You … you may have blown everything. I can’t understand you.”

Simon pushed the hair off his brow. “I think I went a little crazy when I learned Glenn was coming around.”

She couldn’t believe that he could possibly be jealous of Glenn. “He’s been wonderful.” She said this to imply that Simon hadn’t been.

A grimness tightened his face. “Of course he has. Glenn loves you. Why else do you think he’s been hanging around?”

Angie struggled for a response. “Glenn came to apologize for that last scene … He saw the toll that nursing Dad was having on me and offered to give me a break.”

Simon heard this with a frown of distaste. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”