The Surprise of His Life (23 page)

Yeah,
Walker thought, but said nothing. "I'll, uh, I'll talk to you later."

Walker
closed the door on his friend's muffled "All right" and leaned back.
His heart, the one that had stopped earlier, was now pounding a mile a minute,
and he'd broken out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the early-morning
heat. His legs felt rubbery and useless. Finally, on a deep sigh he pushed from
the door. He was midway in the room when the back door was once more flung
open.

"My
sunglasses!" Dean said, making a hurried dash for the cabinet. He had just
picked them up when the world came to an abrupt halt.

"Good
morn—Daddy!" Lindsey cried.

It
would have been hard to say, Walker thought, which of the two—Dean or
Lindsey—looked more startled. Each just stared at the other, as if neither
quite believed the other's presence. Walker understood their disbelief. He,
too, was bogged down in his own. Surely this wasn't really happening. Surely he
was only dreaming. Surely Lindsey couldn't have looked more seductive if she
had come into the kitchen totally nude.

She
wore one of his shirts, a pastel plaid shirt that he'd had on the day before.
The shirt draped her braless breasts in a way that was more than alluring, more
than suggestive. The garment then fell to just below her knees, which would
have provided adequate cover, had it not been sculpted on the sides, thereby
revealing a tantalizing glimpse of her thighs. Her bare feet and the fact that
her hair was pulled back in a ponytail once more emphasized her youth. It was a
youthfulness instantly negated, however, by the question that raced through
Walker's mind: Was she wearing the tiny scrap of lace she called panties?
Either way, whether she was or wasn't, played havoc with his masculine senses—even
under the harrowing circumstances.

"W-what
are you doing here?" Lindsey asked, breaking the silence that ominously
hovered over the room. Instinctively, she folded her arms across her chest. The
action only emphasized the bare state of her breasts.

"I
could ask you that same question," Dean said. When Lindsey made no reply,
he added, "Tell me that this isn't what it looks like."

Walker
recognized his friend's desperate tone. Dean didn't want to believe what he was
seeing and was pleading with them to give him a rational explanation. Forget
rational. He'd settle for any explanation. Dark rivers of regret flowed through
Walker at the pain he knew he and Lindsey were about to inflict. It was a pain
he never wanted to inflict. He tried to imagine the situation reversed. How
would he feel if Lindsey were his daughter and he'd found Dean and Lindsey
together? But he couldn't. In his wildest imaginings, he couldn't.

Suddenly,
Dean raked his fingers through his hair, comically laying the bald spot even more
bare. "For God's sake, what's going on here?"

Lindsey
looked over at Walker. Walker looked over at Lindsey. Something in her eyes
said that she didn't regret a single minute of what had happened between them.
That fact gave Walker courage.

"Dean,"
he said, hesitated, then added, "I swear to God I didn't see this
coming."

Dean
laughed harshly. "You seduce my daughter and you didn't see it
coming!"

"Now,
wait a minute," Lindsey said. "If anyone seduced anyone, I seduced
him. He didn't want to get involved. I was the one who pushed the issue."

"You
don't know what you're saying, honey," Dean said, clearly having trouble
seeing his daughter as a seductress. Walker suspected that any father would
have the same problem.

"It's
true," Lindsey said, looking over at Walker and smiling ruefully. "I
shamelessly pursued him. And I don't regret it," she added, transferring
her gaze to her father, "even if it means upsetting you."

At
her open admission that she didn't regret their loving, a knot formed in
Walker's throat. He realized that he wouldn't have been able to withstand it if
she had regretted their evening together. The few hours they had spent in each
other's arms had become a precious interlude in his life.

"I
don't regret it, either," Walker said softly, drawing Lindsey's eyes back
to him. The world compressed until it was only the two of them—only him, only
her, only the memories they shared. He wanted to take her in his arms. She
wanted it, too; he could see her need in her smoky-blue eyes. Reluctantly drawing
his gaze away, he once more found his friend. "I knew what I was doing. It
might have been Lindsey's idea originally, but I didn't resist too hard."

"I'll
just bet," Dean said with a sneer.

Like
a beast of a dog, the remark bit Walker, making him bleed from the heart.
"I don't deserve that."

"The
hell you don't! You seduce my daughter—"

"I
told you, he didn't seduce me!"

"Okay,
maybe I do deserve it! Hell, I don't know! I've wrestled with this until I
don't know anything anymore."

"You
sure knew enough to know how to take advantage of Lindsey! How could you do
this to me and her mother? We trusted you." The pain of betrayal was
obvious.

"I
told you he didn't take advantage of me."

Neither
man seemed to be listening to her, "I know," Walker said. "I
haven't taken any of this lightly. Believe me. I haven't forgotten my
friendship with the two of you. I'm just asking you to cut me some slack. The
way I'd cut you some. Just give me some time to try to explain—"

"Explain,
hell! What's there to explain?"

"Plenty,
if you'll just—"

"Will
you two stop it?" Lindsey screamed. Into the sudden silence, Lindsey said,
"Will you two just stop it?"

Walker
let out a long weary sigh as he dragged his hand across his face. Dean held his
ground, his position somewhere between hurt and anger. Lindsey tilted her chin
a fraction in defiance.

"How
dare you barge in here," she said to her father, "and start making
accusations and assumptions. Especially since that's what you've been so eager
to chastise me about ever since I got home. You've made it more than clear that
I have no right to judge you. And now here you are judging me. And
Walker."

"It's
different," Dean protested.

"It's
not different. And, furthermore, I resent your implication that what's gone on
between Walker and me is dirty. It isn't. I'm in love with him. I have been for
a long while. Walker's the reason I didn't marry Ken."

"My
God, this has been going on for a year and a half?"

Lindsey
gave a sigh of total exasperation. "Daddy, will you use some common sense?
I've been in England. I needed some time to sort out my feelings. I haven't
taken this lightly, either. This isn't some wild weekend fling. And you can't
blame Walker. He had no idea of my feelings until I returned home."

Dean
shook his head. "I don't believe this. You're in love with the man who's
practically been a father to you. My God, he
is
your godfather."

"Yes,
I'm in love with him," Lindsey said calmly, impressing Walker with her
serenity, her maturity.

Dean
turned to Walker, who was leaning back against the cabinet as though he needed
some support. "And what about you? Are you in love with her?"

"Daddy,
that's none of your business—"

"That's
all right, Lindsey," Walker said, fully aware that she was trying to keep
him from being put on a spot.

He
hadn't said he loved her. Not once during the night. In fact, she'd halted him
from making any comment after her declaration of love. It was obvious that
she'd wanted to give him time. He had needed to give himself that, too. At
least, he'd thought he had. But now, when the question was put so bluntly, the
answer seemed as obvious as the rain striking the windowpanes.

"Yes,"
he said as he looked Dean square in the eyes, "I love your daughter. I
don't know when it happened. A week ago, last night, a minute ago—I don't know
when. I only know that it did. I only know that standing here now, I can
honestly say I love her." He glanced up, his eyes finding Lindsey's. Even
as he watched, hers glazed with tears. "I know, babe. My timing's
lousy."

They
stared—each at the other. Walker could see her visibly controlling her tears.
He could see her lips trembling with her unsteady breath. He could
feel
her
love. God, he wanted her in his arms! He wanted her beneath him! He just wanted
her!

Into
this emotional warmth, Dean dropped the cool comment, "My God, Walker,
have you gone absolutely crazy? She's young enough to be your daughter!"

Slowly,
Lindsey turned toward her father. A regal coolness, like a frosty mantle,
settled about her. "Let me understand you. It's all right to have an
affair with a younger woman, but it's not all right to fall in love with
one?"

"I
never said it was all right to have an affair—"

"I
came by your apartment last night. You weren't alone."

Dean
Ellison turned a sickly shade of green. That was quickly eclipsed by a red
anger. "How dare you spy on me!"

Quicker
than lightning, all the bottled-up anger exploding within her, Lindsey reached
out and slapped her father. "How dare you cheat on my mother!" she
raged.

Walker
saw stunned disbelief cross Dean's face. He saw, too, that Lindsey had startled
herself as much as she'd startled her father. This was evinced by her hand,
which flew immediately to her mouth. The hand trembled. Instant contrition
jumped into her eyes, though no words of apology filled the silence. That was
filled only with the echo of her slap. Slowly, suddenly, Dean shoved on his
sunglasses and started for the door. He said not a single word.

Neither
did Walker.

Or
Lindsey.

He
simply took her in his arms and held her until her trembling stopped.

Walker
loved
her.

That
fact alone got Lindsey through the next twenty-four hours. Walker insisted that
they tell her mother about them. Lindsey concurred but, after her father's response,
was worried sick at what her mother's reaction would be. In the end, Bunny was
shocked, but not unresponsive. She asked them to give her a little time to adjust
to the idea. After Walker left, having given Lindsey a slow kiss at the door,
Bunny asked her daughter what she and her father had fought about.

"What
do you mean?" Lindsey had asked, even more uncomfortable, if that were
possible, with this new turn in the conversation. So uncomfortable was she that
she stood and walked about the den of her parents' home. She tried to sound
nonchalant as she looked here and there at objects that had been familiar since
childhood—the small teacup and saucer that had belonged to her maternal
grandmother, a cut-crystal vase that had held a fieldful of flowers over the
years, a gilt-framed picture of the three of them, she, her mother and her
father, smiling.

"I
just heard rumblings that you and your father had words."

Lindsey
looked away from the photo. Her father's happy face, the one she'd slapped,
mocked her. "He wasn't altogether happy with the news about me and
Walker." Lindsey laughed brittlely. "Actually, that's putting it
mildly."

"Was
that all you fought about?"

"Give
or take," Lindsey said, hedging.

Bunny,
each strand of hair once more in place, her makeup impeccably applied, hesitated
only slightly before saying, "Did you fight about the fact that your
father's having an affair?"

It
had been Lindsey's turn to be shocked, a fact revealed by the widening of her
eyes. "You know?"

Nodding
her head, Bunny said simply, softly, "Yes."

"But
how?"

"A
woman just knows. Oh, not that I didn't turn a blind eye in the beginning. I
did. But I couldn't run from the fact forever. It hit me hard. I kept thinking
that if I'd just done something differently, your father wouldn't have needed
another woman." Bunny smiled, a sad curving of her mouth. "If I'd
just combed my hair one more time, if I'd just worn a prettier dress, if I'd
just served homemade rolls more often."

"That's
absurd—"

"Of
course it is. And Don helped me to see that. Your father has a problem,
Lindsey. He's scared to death at the idea of growing older. I don't know why.
He probably doesn't know, either. He just is. But the truth is that I have a
problem, too. One of self-image. I've allowed myself to be your father's
shadow. I don't want that anymore. I want to find out who Bunny Ellison is.
That goal in mind, I've decided to get some counseling."

Lindsey
made the mental note that, should she ever meet this illusive Don, she owed him
a thank-you. "That's good, Mom. Real good."

"And
a divorce, if that's what your father wants. But," she added, "if he
comes to his senses, I'm at least willing to talk to him about a future."
She smiled. "He's acted like a jerk, but I'm still in love with him. At
least that much I know for sure about Bunny Ellison."

The
women had parted on a hug—not a mother-daughter hug, but a woman-to-woman hug,
which silently said that women, all down through the ages, had been the
preservers of relationships. It said, too, that, although Bunny would need time
to come to terms with Lindsey and Walker's relationship, she was at least
willing to make the effort, that she, as a woman, respected the heart's choice
of a mate. However atypical, however imprudent that choice might be.