The Surprise of His Life (12 page)

"Plus,
I've got all my Winnie the Pooh books," Lindsey said. "I think those
must have been the beginning of my love affair with bears."

Walker
took a swallow of his drink, then said, "Ten to one, you missed your teddy
bears more than anyone when you were in London."

"Oh,
I don't know. They're great to cuddle, but they don't cuddle back."

As
once before, for just a heartbeat, Walker had the feeling that there was more
to what Lindsey was saying than merely the words she'd spoken. The way she was
looking at him, so intensely her gaze burned, only corroborated this. But then,
she dropped her gaze to the wineglass, sipped the spritzer, and spoke so
normally that Walker thought, again as he had before, that he'd simply imagined
the whole thing.

"Have
you heard anything about the baby?"

"I
talked to Grace yesterday, and there's still no sign of Junior. The doctor says
any minute, though."

"That
must be exciting—waiting for your first child to be born."

Lindsey's
voice held a wistfulness that Walker couldn't help but hear. Neither could he
help but wonder what had happened to cause her to call off her wedding. If
plans had gone according to schedule, she'd now be a wife and possibly even a
mother. Inexplicably, he found the thought disturbing. Especially the part
about her being some man's—Ken Larey's—wife.

"Do
you remember when Adam was born?" Lindsey asked, thankfully breaking into
Walker's unsettling thoughts.

He
grinned. "Yeah. He was two and half weeks late. Phyllis was so
uncomfortable that she was about to jump out of her skin."

"Night
or day?" At Walker's inquiring look, Lindsey clarified. "Was he born
at night or during the day?"

Walker
grinned again. Was this becoming a habit? he wondered. If so, he could grow
accustomed to it. "Babies are never born during the day. They always come
at night. Usually after midnight."

"I
take it Adam was born after midnight."

"Three-oh-six."
Walker took a swallow of his drink, then said, "And I never slept through
the night again. At least not for a long while. There were diapers and feedings
and colic and nightmares and, then, just when I thought I had him out of my
hair, he got his driver's license, and I stayed up half the night listening for
the car."

I
stayed up half
the night. Not
we
stayed up half the night. Only in the last few months,
as she'd matured into a full-fledged adult, had Lindsey realized how difficult
it must have been for Walker to raise his child alone. The fine job he'd done
gave her a deeper appreciation of the man. It was just one more reason for her
to love him.

"Do,
uh, do you ever wish you could start over?" Lindsey asked as she stroked
the cool tulip-shaped wineglass. "I mean, do you ever wish you could have
another child?"

"Good
heavens, no!" Though he'd been undeniably emphatic, he realized that the
days of raising his son, the early days which he'd shared with his wife, were
probably the most enriching of his life. In those days, he hadn't felt empty.
In those days, he hadn't felt as if he were simply going through the motions of
living.

His
answer wasn't what Lindsey had wanted to hear, though it was pretty much what
she'd expected. Every woman knew, though, that a man could be made to change
his mind.

"I'm
too old to start over," she heard Walker say.

"You're
not too old."

"Besides,
all the women my age have already raised all of the babies they want."

Lindsey
smiled and said, as casually as though they were discussing the weather,
"What you need is a younger woman."

Walker
laughed, but the laugh was forced. He kept seeing the image of Dean and a
flame-haired young woman—a woman young enough to be his daughter. "Yeah,
well, I'm the last thing a young woman wants or needs."

"I
don't know. Could be you're selling yourself short."

The
sincere look she gave him made his heart skip a beat. It also made him change
the subject.

"So,
tell me about your job in London."

The
topic led quite naturally to her fill-in job at Gal-Tex and, even though they'd
vowed not to discuss work, they found themselves doing so.

"Does
that prospectus have to be ready Monday?" Lindsey asked. "I could do
it this weekend."

"Uh-uh.
It won't be needed until the end of next week. Besides, you don't need to spend
your weekend working."

"You
don't spend yours working?"

"That's
different."

"How?"

"I
own the company... at least half of it." Uncomfortable with the direction
of the conversation—he might have to confront the loneliness that forced him to
work late and weekend hours—he said, "I thought we agreed not to discuss
work."

"Fine.
Let's dance."

Her
request, so blandly, so bluntly given, caught Walker totally off guard. His
startled look said so.

Lindsey
laughed and leaned forward, as if speaking of a conspiracy. "I don't know
how to tell you this, but women have been liberated. They can now ask men to
dance."

"I
have heard of women's liberation, smart aleck. And I have no problem with women
asking me to dance."

"Then
what do you have a problem with?"

He
glanced around the room, indicating the occupied tables. The pianist, a blonde
chicly dressed in black chiffon, was playing and crooning a ballad about the
first time ever she'd seen her lover's face. "No one's dancing," Walker
pointed out.

"So?
There's a dance floor. See, right there by the piano."

"I
see, but—"

"But
what?"

"I
have two left feet."

"I'll
bet you don't."

"Trust
me, I do. I also have a bum knee."

"No
big deal. We'll slow dance." She pushed back her chair. "C'mon."

"Lindsey!"
he whispered, grabbing her hand to keep her seated. Her hand felt warm—just the
way it had the night she'd taken his hand in hers. He pulled his hand away,
uncertain why he was fighting the warmth, uncertain why he was fighting her offer
of a dance. He just felt he should. On the off chance that all of her was as
warm as her hand.

"You
need to loosen up, Walker. Live a little. How am I ever going to get you to run
off with me to Timbuktu if I can't even get you to the dance floor?" Rushing
ahead, she said, "Look, I'll make you a deal. If the pianist plays... oh,
I don't know, 'Misty,' let's say... yeah, 'Misty'... if the pianist plays
'Misty' next, we dance. If she doesn't, we don't. Fair enough?"

The
expression on Lindsey's face, the spark in her slate-gray eyes, was one of
utter playfulness. Once more Walker was reminded of how alive Lindsey was. Of
how alluringly alive she was. Of how irresistibly alive she was. Leaning back
in his chair, he heard himself assume the same playful posture.

"Let
me get this straight," he drawled. "If the next song the pianist
plays is 'Misty,' we dance. If it's not, we don't."

"Right.
Deal?"

Walker
considered all the songs—the hundreds, the thousands, the tens of
thousands—that the pianist had to choose from. What were the chances of her
playing one specific song? Walker gave a half grin, the sign of a man confident
of his win because the deck was stacked in his favor. "You've got yourself
a deal."

"Good,"
Lindsey replied, pushing her chair back farther and rising. "Excuse me a
moment. I'll be right back." With that, she crossed to the pianist, bent
and whispered something, then started back toward the table. The triumphant
look she wore said that Walker had been had.

Despite
his loss—which curiously he also viewed as a win—he had to admire her style.
"You, uh, you wouldn't call that cheating, would you?"

"Not
in the least. I'd call it guaranteeing that I get what I want." She held
out her hand. "Time to pay off."

The
beginning strains of "Misty" spilled from the piano and filled the
silence.

In
a single gulp, Walker downed what was left of his drink. Something told him
that he was going to need what fortification he could get. Standing, he placed
his hand in hers—dammit, why was her hand always so warm?—and, following as she
led, walked to the dance floor. It was he, however, who stopped, turned her and
pulled her into his arms. After all, a deal was a deal, right?

He
took Lindsey by surprise. She'd known that he'd have to take her in his arms,
but she'd expected to be the one to make the move. She might even have to force
the issue. His assertiveness startled her, pleased her and left her wholly
breathless. She'd been in his arms before-countless times when she'd been
growing up—but she'd never been in his arms after she'd realized her love for
him. Except for that moment at the airport, which was marked primarily by its
brevity. Now, however, she was in his arms in earnest... and for the duration
of a song. What was that? Two minutes? Three minutes? Could she force the brief
time to make up for all the lonely nights she'd lain awake wondering what it
would feel like to be held by him?

"See,"
she said, hoping that she didn't sound as breathless as she felt, "you
don't have two left feet."

Her
eyes were on his, and he could never remember seeing anything that looked more
beautiful. The blue of a peaceful ocean shone through, a shimmering blue shaded
with silver. The look, almost translucent, was one of serenity. The thought
crossed Walker's mind that maybe that, serenity, was what was missing from his
life. Maybe he was blaming emptiness, and more recently, lack of laughter, when
the truth was that he lacked serenity in his soul.

"That
may be open to debate," he responded to her comment about his feet.

"How's
the knee?" she asked.

"Fine,"
he said. His knee hurt. Like hell. But suddenly the pain seemed unimportant,
even irrelevant.

The
pianist sang softly, of not knowing one's right foot from one's left, one's hat
from one's glove, because one was too misty and too much in love. Walker
realized that he was about as confused as the person in the song, for suddenly,
slowly, he seemed to have stepped into a surreal world. A world he could never
remember inhabiting before. A world composed of nothing but sensation. He was
keenly aware of the small of Lindsey's back, the slight concave where his hand
rested; he was painfully aware of her palm merged with his; he was
bewilderingry aware of the occasional brush of her thighs against his. He was
also aware of wondering if people were watching them and, if so, did they think
them father and daughter? Or, worse, did they think him an old fool? On this
last score, Walker told himself that he was just ultrasensitive because of
Dean's affair.

Lindsey,
too, was inundated with feelings. The hair at the nape of Walker's neck felt
soft and silky beneath her hand, while the hand that held hers felt solid and
strong and big. And then there was the brush of his thighs against
hers—intimate, yet not intimate, socially proper, yet bringing to mind things
forbidden on a public dance floor.

The
song continued, the pianist singing that a thousand violins begin to play when
her lover takes her hand.

Hand.
Her hand. It still felt incredibly warm. Baby warm. Womanly warm. Father. He
didn't feel like her father. Not in the least. In fact, the way she felt in his
arms was decidedly alarming. Primarily because it might be worth risking
feeling like an old fool just to feel this alive.

Alive.
He made her feel alive. Wonderfully alive. So many times she'd wondered if what
she was feeling was right. Was there something wrong in what she felt for this
man? This she'd pondered, questioned, worried about to the nth degree. She'd
decided, though, even before returning home, that what she was feeling had to
be right, simply because it felt right. If she'd needed that fact corroborated,
the feel of his arms did so. In spades.

Acting
on pure instinct, Lindsey sighed and, slipping her hand from his, slid it along
the back of his neck to join her other hand. At the same time, her cheek
nestled against his, while she eased her body one step, two steps closer. The
pose was unquestionably that of a lover's pose.

Lover.

The
thought struck Walker. She felt like a lover in his arms—her fingers gently
kneading the back of his neck, her cheek flush with his cheek, her body swaying
softly, sensuously against, and into, his. It struck him like a bolt out of the
blue that he liked the lover's feel of her. God help him, he liked it!

Abruptly,
he stopped. So did Lindsey. So did the music. As the last dying notes of the
song echoed throughout the room, Lindsey pulled back until her gaze found
Walker's. A lazy, hazy sultriness danced in her eyes. For one crazy moment,
Walker could almost believe that Lindsey was feeling the same thing he was. In
the next instant, however, reality snatched him by the collar. The moment
wasn't crazy. He was. He had to be to think that Lindsey would ever entertain
anything but daughterly feelings for him. As for himself, he was appalled at
his unfatherly feelings. For the love of heaven, he cried silently, what was
happening to him?