When Love Walks In

Flabbergasted, Cate had stared at her parents. “How did he find out…that I’m pregnant?” she’d demanded. “Did you tell him? Offer him money to take me off your hands?”

Susan McDonough had denied it with a violent shake of her head. “He overheard us talking about your…situation,” she’d insisted. “And volunteered. We were as surprised as you are. We’d never guessed he felt that way about you. It would resolve a lot of things.…”

Cate had cast a surreptitious glance at her father. “Better think it over, miss,” he’d warned. “The way I see it, you don’t have any other options.”

Stunned by Larry’s proposal and unable to imagine herself married to anyone but Danny, Cate had asked for a little time. To her astonishment her parents had granted it, provided she didn’t draw out the decision-making process too much. The following day, a Sunday, she’d borrowed her mother’s car without asking permission while her parents were at church and driven out to the Finn place, determined to find out whatever she could concerning Danny’s whereabouts. It had been then that Ned Finn had made his taunting remarks, then that Danny’s grandmother had snatched up a broom and chased her from the premises.

A few days later, at her parents’ urging, she’d accepted Larry’s proposal during an oddly formal meeting in the McDonough living room. Though she hadn’t known him well or even given him much thought, Larry had always seemed like a decent person to her—the kind of principled young man who would make some young woman a good husband. They’d been married shortly afterward, in a bare-bones ceremony at the Catholic rectory in Ryersville flanked by both sets of parents, and left immediately for Minneapolis.

Unaware of the true situation, their neighbors in the lower-middle-class neighborhood where they’d landed had befriended them. One of the men had helped Larry find a job and fix up their rental house. The women had rounded up baby clothes and dispensed advice on how to have a healthy pregnancy.

At its inception, Cate’s married life had been a quiet one. No one but she, Larry and her parents had known she was carrying another man’s baby. Or that their union hadn’t been consummated. Later, it had been, of course. Aware that eventually, intimacy would be part of the bargain, she’d submitted to Larry’s gentle lovemaking without complaint. And after a while it hadn’t felt so strange to her. To her surprise she’d even enjoyed the closeness it brought. But she’d never climaxed, never felt the sweet, self-annihilating pleasure Danny had taught her to crave.

The McDonoughs had insisted Cate and Larry mustn’t tell his parents they were expecting a child until a few months had passed. Similarly, they weren’t to send out birth notices until their baby was at least five or six months old. People could count and, if they wanted to move back to Beckwith someday without revealing their child’s true parentage, it was essential to falsify his or her age. That way, people wouldn’t talk. Should he ever return, it wouldn’t occur to Danny Finn to seek the child’s custody.

Larry had decided for the sake of keeping peace in the family, that they should comply with the McDonoughs’ wishes. And Cate had deferred to him, though she’d been uncomfortable about the subterfuge. For as long as she lived, she would never forget the embarrassment she’d felt over the Andersons’ exclamation about what a big boy Brian was for his age the first time they’d visited.

She and Larry had remained in the Minneapolis area until Brian was officially ten years old. At that juncture, recently diagnosed with leukemia, Larry had broached the subject of “going home.” He liked small-town life and wanted Brian to finish growing up near his parents, given the fact that he himself might not be around to help raise the boy to adulthood.

Loath to return to a place where memories of Danny might catch her by the throat, yet with a heart aching for her husband, Cate had allowed him to talk her into it. Though Brian’s height had caused some comment about a possible starring role on the local basketball team when he reached high school age, it wasn’t so far out of range that anyone guessed their secret.

By that time, Cate had long since finished high school and gone on to college, where she’d earned her baccalaureate degree in English and qualified for her teaching certificate. Beckwith High School had been only too happy to hire her. His health as yet only moderately compromised, Larry had taken a sedentary job as a police dispatcher.

No one had mentioned Danny to Cate. And Cate hadn’t asked about him. Pleased to be near Brenda again, she’d discouraged any mention of him in their private conversations. Settling back into a life she’d once hoped to escape, and doing her best to be a good wife to a man she liked a great deal but could never love the way she’d loved Danny, she’d focused on making a home for him and Brian. Helping him deal with his illness. The everyday routine of their life together.

I can’t start over with Danny now, even if I’m still wild about him and Larry’s gone, Cate told herself miserably for the second time that evening. If I did, Danny would have to know the truth about Brian. And that might be more than Brian and Larry’s parents could accept. Somehow she’d have to make Danny understand that the past was past—not to be tampered with.

If only she could make herself believe it. The sensations that flooded her body as she relived his kisses didn’t help.

Chapter Three

Cate was in her neat yellow-and-white kitchen by 9:00 a.m. the following morning, pouring out glasses of orange juice and making blueberry pancakes for Brian, who was upstairs showering. As she worked, turning the pancakes on an electric griddle and transferring them to a warm, covered plate, snatches of an erotic dream she’d had just before waking drifted through her head.

Try as she would to dismiss them, the dream fragments wouldn’t leave her alone. Ultimately she gave in and let them come flooding back. In the dream she’d been lying naked beneath a breeze-scented top sheet and soft, old quilt in the small upstairs bedroom at her parents’ bungalow where she’d slept as a teenager. Though in real life Danny had never set foot in that house, he’d walked into the room as if he owned it. Without a word, but with a brazen look that had touched off ripples of longing in her deepest places, he’d stripped off his clothes and turned back the bedcovers.

Like her, he’d appeared in his present-day incarnation, as the vibrant, thirty-five-year-old man who’d kept his promise of “no hands” the night before, yet managed to leave her quivering with arousal. To feel him stroking her sleep-warmed flesh, if only in the ephemeral pleasure of a dream sequence—to imagine him caressing her, relearning every curve and hollow of her body as he kissed her senseless—had been to inhabit a deeply missed paradise where she suddenly longed to dwell.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d continued to crave his touch, the soul-satisfying intimacy they’d once shared. I’ve been like a zombie without him, she thought. A virtual sleepwalker, just going through the motions. Without Larry’s quiet affection and support, all she had was Brian, and she didn’t want to lean on him too much. Meanwhile, the sensuous woman in her was hurting.

If only I dared to let Danny make love to me, she yearned. He seems to want that, too. As she removed several pancakes from the griddle that had scorched as a result of her inattention and put them down the garbage disposal, she could feel her nipples tighten beneath her sweatshirt. Loving Danny would be like wetting her face with rain after trudging through a scorching desert. It would be manna to her starvation.

In her real, everyday life, with its demands and obligations, nothing even remotely similar to what she was imagining could be allowed to take place. Though her attraction to Danny was as powerful as ever, it was effectively trumped by her concern for Brian’s welfare and her deep unwillingness to hurt the Andersons.

She tensed when the phone rang. Danny? she wondered, excitement and anticipation prickling her skin as she reached for the receiver. Would he call here and risk getting Brian? The answer, of course, was that he would if he wanted to—unless she forbade him the privilege. Not knowing what he might propose if he were on the other end of the line was tying her stomach in knots.

“Hello?” she said, picking up the receiver, her tentative greeting in the form of a question.

The unexpected rasp of her father’s voice in her ear almost made her jump.

“I suppose you’ve heard your ex-lover’s back in town,” he said without preamble. It didn’t take much imagination to picture the scornful twist of his mouth.

She forced herself to speak in a neutral tone. “As a matter of fact, I have,” she answered. “Brenda told me.”

He grunted, acknowledging the truthfulness of her reply by not challenging it. “That’s right. I forgot. She works in quality control. Has he contacted you yet?”

Cate didn’t like to lie. Yet she knew the truth would provoke a storm of accusations. “I haven’t seen him,” she answered, telling herself it was accurate in a sense. It had been dark in her side yard the previous night. She’d barely glimpsed Danny even as she’d surrendered to the heat of his kisses.

“And when you do,” her father demanded harshly, “I trust you won’t give him the key to the candy store again. You’re a grown woman now, a mother with a teenage son who looks to you as a model for his behavior.”

Brian was her Achilles heel. And her father knew it. She would never willingly do anything to hurt him. Or, for that matter, her in-laws.

“As for Larry’s parents,” Jack McDonough added, with his uncanny talent for drawing a bead on her vulnerabilities, “they’d be mortified if you tarnished their son’s memory by having an affair with the man who’s going to close down Beckwith’s only industry and put Beverly Anderson—not to mention your own father—out of a job. You know, don’t you, that if you let passion rule and allow him to have his way with you, he’ll just dump you again? Maybe not with a baby in your belly this time. But most certainly with egg on your face.”

Briefly, Cate’s wish to tell her father what she thought of him, knew no bounds. Yet by now she was expert at swallowing the invective he continued to hurl in her direction. “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself, Dad?” she asked, her tone barely hinting at the sarcasm that had dripped in his. “I haven’t invited Danny to any sleepovers. Nor do I plan to do anything so rash. No one cares more about Brian’s welfare than I do. Not you, Mom or the Andersons, though they love him very much. I’d never do anything that could hurt him.”

“Are you insinuating we don’t love him?” he retorted.

Empty of talk, their telephone connection seemed to vibrate with hostility for a moment. With a sigh, Cate dismounted her high horse and did her best to placate her father. As always, eager to satisfy his morning hunger with a hearty breakfast, Brian would be breezing into the kitchen at any moment.

“Look, Dad,” she said. “I know this is a bad time for you. That if the plant shuts down, it’ll be like losing the hardware store all over again…”

“You’re damn right it will!” His voice broke, as if he’d abruptly found himself at the point of tears. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when Ben Overton called yesterday’s meeting and Danny Finn walked in, in the role of visiting executive from Mercator,” he added in a low voice.

“Did he say whether or not he’s going to keep the factory open?” Cate asked, hoping to steer the conversation toward the fate of Beckwith Tool and Die and away from Danny personally.

Her father grunted, recovering himself. “He mentioned something about taking stock. Seeing how the plant operates in its current incarnation.”

“That doesn’t sound as if he’s made his mind up yet.”

“Don’t you get it, girl?” Rage, gut-deep fear and a naked anguish poured from the receiver. “The Finn boy hates me,” her father said. “Maybe even more than I hate him. Whether or not he decides to keep the plant open, revamp and modernize it, he’ll fire me, sure. I’m just eight months short of the ten-year mark for receiving minimum retirement benefits. And I’m going to lose them. Thanks to the store going under ten years ago, through no fault of our own, your mother and I will have little more than a pittance to live on in our old age.…”

Cate got the impression that if she repelled any and all overtures from Danny, it would help him feel better somehow. She didn’t know how to answer him. Can this actually be happening? she wondered. Mom and Dad broke my heart when they pushed Danny out of my life, and now that deed has come back to haunt them. She tried to tell herself that surely the Danny she’d known wouldn’t have come back disposed to take his revenge out on them. Instead he’d be fair to them, despite past hurts.

Yet she was far from certain that would be the case. Danny’s treatment at her parents’ hands had been abominable, even in light of their rage at him for compromising their daughter. His abandonment of her—something she wouldn’t have thought possible until it had occurred—argued that, like Jack and Susan McDonough, he’d walked away from the Clermont County Sheriff’s Office that awful night in anger.

Brian chose that moment to saunter into the kitchen in impossibly baggy jeans, one of his oldest T-shirts and an oversize pullover sweater than had seen better days. His uncombed hair stood up in damp, dark-and-bleached-blond points. “Is breakfast ready?” he asked. “I wanna go over early and do some warm-ups.”

Cate pointed at the covered plate. “Help yourself, sweetheart. There’s warm syrup in that pan on the stove. And more orange juice in the pitcher. If you want, I can make you some hot chocolate.”

Her son shook his head. “Thanks. I don’t need it. Is that Gramps on the phone? Are he and Gram coming to the game?”

“Gramps” and “Gram” were Russ and Beverly Anderson. If he was feeling up to it, Bev brought Russ to Brian’s games in his wheelchair.

“No, it’s Grandpa Jack,” Cate said. “Want to talk to him?”

Brian shook his head. Grinned. “Not right now,” he said, digging into a stack of pancakes like a steam shovel. “I’m in a hurry.”

Her parents seldom attended school sporting events despite the fact that Brian had participated in them from the beginning of his freshman year. Cate’s mouth curved in a faint, ironic smile. It seemed Brian had their number, too. “Listen, Dad,” she said into the receiver. “I’ve got to go. I’m going to eat breakfast with Brian and take him over to school early so he can warm up. If you want, we can talk some more about this later. Try to come up with a way of handling it.”

Stony silence greeted her suggestion. Clearly, her father thought she was offering to intercede with Danny on his behalf and didn’t like the sound of it. “Don’t worry your head about us, miss,” he said brusquely after a moment. “Your mother and I will make it, even if he puts me out onto the street and ruins us financially. It’s you I’m worried about. He was trouble for you before, and he’ll be trouble for you again if you’re fool enough to let him get within a two-block radius.”

At the game Brian caught a twenty-five-yard pass and scored a crucial touchdown, putting Beckwith High in the lead with less than three minutes to go in the fourth quarter. The home crowd went crazy. Seated next to Brenda, Cate rocketed to her feet, screaming her approval. Her best friend did likewise. They were still waving pom-poms with Beckwith’s maroon-and-gold school colors and cheering for the lad who’d successfully kicked the extra point, when suddenly Cate spotted Danny.

He was standing below and to her right, near the sidelines, kibitzing with one of his former classmates who worked part-time for Beckwith High as an assistant coach. Tall, lean and dark-haired with an easy curve to his mouth, the kind of man movie cameras would love and any woman would adore, Danny was wearing faded jeans, running shoes and an expensive-looking tan parka. His hands were thrust into his pockets as if for warmth. Oh, my God, Cate thought, going hot and cold all over. When did he arrive? Has he seen me yet? I can’t bear to face him here, with the whole town watching!

As if he felt her gaze on him like a brush against his sleeve, Danny turned and glanced up, unerringly picking her out of the crowd. Briefly she thought she would lose her balance. He’s been watching me without my knowing it, she realized, steadying herself. Knowing this time, people will have noticed. And started to gossip. I’ve got to get out of here before I’m forced into a confrontation. Fortunately the game was almost over. Thanks to several bungled plays, Beckwith’s opponents didn’t have a chance.

“Brenda,” she told her friend hastily, breaking off visual contact with him, “I’ve got to leave. Now. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Hold on.” Clearly, the unaccustomed note of panic in Cate’s voice had caught Brenda’s attention. “Are you all right?” she asked, placing a hand on her friend’s arm.

Leaning closer, Cate whispered in Brenda’s ear. “It’s Danny. He’s here. Behind our team, standing next to Don Vandemore. I don’t want to run into him in front of all these people.”

To Cate’s chagrin, Brenda couldn’t stop herself from glancing in his direction. “You want me to drive Brian home?” she asked after a moment.

Cate shook her head. “Thanks. But no. He’s going out after the game with some of his teammates.…”

Just then, one of the opposing players fumbled, and everybody in the stands jumped to their feet. It looked as if Beckwith would get another chance at the ball in the closing seconds. Without another word to Brenda, Cate brushed past their neighbors as the officials conferred, and headed down the steps, keeping a perpendicular wall of bodies between her and Danny’s line of sight. By returning to the field early after dropping Brian off, she’d snagged a convenient parking place. In less than a minute she was behind the wheel of her hatchback, turning her key in the ignition.

She didn’t realize Danny had seen her leave until she was driving down the gravel track that led to the exit onto School Street and saw him in her rearview mirror. He was running after her, motioning for her to wait. Instead she pressed down on the gas pedal. It was only when she reached Beckwith’s somewhat diminished commercial area that she noticed she was almost out of fuel.

I doubt if he’s pursued me here, she thought, glancing into her rearview mirror and breathing what she told herself was a sigh of relief when his image wasn’t reflected there. It’s probably safe to stop at Miller’s and pump a few gallons. In the interest of composure and sanity, she didn’t stop to examine the regret she felt too closely.

Turning into the station-cum-garage where Danny had worked as a teenager, she pulled up to the gas pump and switched off the engine. She was about to lift the nozzle from its cradle preparatory to inserting it into her tank when a man’s hand grabbed it first. To her distress, it belonged to Dean Lawler, Brenda’s abusive soon-to-be-ex-husband. Unnoticed by her when she pulled in, his squad car was parked on the other side of the pumps. He was wearing his deputy’s uniform.

Didn’t he ever sleep?

“Let me do it for you, Cate,” he said, flashing her the kind of smile that bordered on a leer. “A pretty woman like you shouldn’t have to pump her own gas. You need a man in your life to perform that kind of service.”

It won’t ever be you, Cate retorted silently. I despise the kind of “help” you stand for. If dating you is my only option, I’ll gladly remain a wallflower.

Even before his breakup with Brenda, Dean had ogled Cate at every opportunity. It wouldn’t be long, she guessed, before she’d be the unwilling recipient of a proposition from him. Not to mention the object of his resentment when she turned it down. It occurred to her that she might have done better to remain at the stadium and take her chances with the inevitable gossip that would occur if her friends and neighbors saw her talking to Danny. Then again, in light of their concern about the plant and the chance that they’d mob him with questions about its future once the game was over, she might have managed to avoid speaking to him altogether.

Meanwhile, Dean was asking her how much gas she wanted.

“I’d rather pump my own, if you don’t mind,” she said.

As expected, he didn’t relinquish the nozzle. His offensive grin broadened to a full-fledged smirk.

“My treat,” he insisted grandly. “Shall I fill ’er up?”

The unspoken symbolism of the nozzle and the gas tank wasn’t lost on her. She wanted to slap his face. “Suit yourself,” she answered. “I’m going inside to use the rest room.”

By the time she emerged, he’d already paid. Meanwhile, circumstances had let her off the hook. He’d received a radio call from his dispatcher about a minor accident on Route 32.

“I’d like to stay and chat, but I’ve gotta go,” he said, taking his place behind the wheel of his squad car with obvious reluctance.

Aware she should thank him, she did so with reluctance.

“Don’t mention it,” he reassured her. “If you want, you can cook me a meal sometime. Know what, Cate? You look better every day. Unlike Brenda, you haven’t put on a pound since high school. When I’m shed of her, you and me are going to rock and roll.”

He was off with his roof lights flashing and his siren going, filled to the brim with self-importance before she could frame a retort.

“Not if we both live to be a hundred,” she told him silently.

The phone was ringing as she walked in her front door. Brenda, I suppose, she thought, racing to answer it.

“Hello?” she said a trifle breathlessly.

It was Danny. “Cate?” he asked. “Got a minute to talk?”

Her heart hammering against her rib cage, she answered in the affirmative.

She could feel him relax a little. “I was hoping to catch up with you at the game,” he said. “We really should exchange a few words. Find out how life’s been treating each other.”

To her relief, he didn’t take her to task for avoiding him. “All right,” she agreed, suddenly willing to do what he asked. She wondered if he planned to come over. It would be better if he didn’t. The sight of his car parked in her driveway would set tongues to wagging—and send her father’s blood pressure through the roof if he happened to spot it there. Yet she couldn’t think of anyplace else to suggest.

“Unfortunately, I have to fly back to Chicago to prepare for a Monday-morning board meeting,” he said, letting her off the hook. “So it can’t be today. I’ve chartered a small plane for convenience’s sake. I’ll be taking off from Ryersville Municipal later this afternoon. I should be able to make it back in plenty of time for Monday evening’s get-together. Meigs Field, Chicago’s lakefront general-aviation airport, is just a five-minute taxi ride from my office if the traffic isn’t too heavy.”

Overwhelmed by the fact that they were having an actual conversation and he was giving her a glimpse of his life, the way people did when they were connected in some way, Cate didn’t immediately catch the drift of what he was saying. “Monday evening’s get-together?” she echoed in a puzzled voice.

“The Save Our Jobs, Save Our Town meeting. I agreed to attend and answer questions from the townspeople. I was told you were on the committee.”

In fact, she was. She’d promised to take notes. Feeling like an idiot for being so focused on him that she couldn’t think straight, she confirmed his impression and explained what her role would be.

“Well, then,” he said, sounding a little more relaxed, “we can spend some time together afterward. Drive over to Ryersville for a beer if you want. It would give us a little more privacy.”

Apparently he didn’t relish the prospect of everyone in Beckwith looking over their shoulders any more than she did. Or a run-in with her father. Meanwhile, the warmth in his voice was giving her goose bumps.

“Okay?” he prodded when she didn’t answer him.