When Love Walks In

I’d be crazy to turn him down, considering the way I feel, she thought. When he walks out of my life again after making up his mind about the future of Beckwith Tool and Die, it’ll probably be for good. We won’t have any further reason to see each other.

“Okay,” she agreed.

She could almost picture the curve of his mouth, the little grooves that bracketed it.

“Then it’s a date,” he said, making no attempt to hide the satisfaction he felt. “I’m counting on you to keep it, Cate. Don’t disappoint me.”

If he’d kept his vows to me when we were kids, we wouldn’t be strangers now, she thought. Instead, we’d be husband and wife—lovers of long standing with several additional children to our credit. The way things stand, he’ll never know that we share a bright and talented son who bears an uncanny resemblance to him.

“I’ll try not to,” she said, doing her best to keep the deep sadness she suddenly felt under wraps.

Danny hadn’t arrived by the time Cate slid into her place at one end of the committee table in the town library’s reception and circulation-desk area on Monday evening. The folding chairs several of the men on the committee had set out in rows were filling up fast. Before long it would be standing room only. But then, she’d expected the meeting to be packed. The future of Beckwith Tool and Die would affect a lot of lives and pocket-books.

Thank goodness Dad’s too upset and angry to show his face, she congratulated herself. If he came, I wouldn’t be able to exchange a word with Danny, let alone accompany him to Ryersville after the meeting. Afraid her father would change his mind and show up for the sole purpose of embarrassing her and making trouble for the man he hated, she kept glancing nervously at the double glass doors that led to the street. To her relief, Jack McDonough didn’t appear.

Neither did Danny. It was beginning to look as if he might be late.

Cate smiled when Brenda walked in, waved at her and took a seat. She didn’t expect her mother-in-law to attend the meeting. Beverly Anderson had phoned around suppertime to say that Russ was suffering from a bad cold and she thought it best to stay at home with him.

Though Cate knew most of the people who were arriving and nodded hello to some of them as they took their seats, all her real attention was focused on waiting for the dark-haired man who’d disappeared from her life seventeen years earlier. He might break his word to me, but he wouldn’t stand up the whole town, she reassured herself. He must be delayed for a good reason. Maybe it was pouring rain in Chicago and he couldn’t take off in a timely fashion. Or his meeting lasted longer than expected. She imagined him dashing out of the ground-floor lobby of some tall, concrete-and-glass building and hailing a cab to the city’s small, lakefront airport, urging the driver to “step on it” in the crush of rush-hour traffic.

Her newly acquired ability to visualize Danny in the setting where he lived and worked instead of trying to picture him in a vacuum was a luxury she’d never expected to possess. Each detail was precious. She’d spent the weekend and whatever quiet time she could snatch during her busy day of teaching English literature to indifferent teenagers wondering what his apartment was like. Or if he had a house in the suburbs. Trying to envision him in his office setting. With friends. At sporting events. Kicking back in one of his favorite hangouts.

She hoped they could leave together after the meeting without attracting too much attention. Of course, a handful of people were bound to stay on, hoping to put in a good word for themselves or the plant, emphasize its potential for growth and plead for its importance to the small Ohio town where Danny had grown up. They were bound to notice if she stayed, too, and then left with him. Somebody would resurrect the story of their teenage romance, and the inevitable gossip about them would spread, if it hadn’t already.

Yet she didn’t want to drive her own car to Ryersville and meet him there. For once, in almost two decades of missing him, she wanted to be a passenger while he drove, his “date,” in a sense, even if their relationship had to be fleeting.

Despite their limited interaction since his return to Beckwith—a brief phone conversation and a few ill-advised seconds spent pressed to the side of her house in each other’s arms—she’d fallen hard for him again. And she didn’t know what to do about it. Reason and her very real concern for the other people she cared about argued that renewing her relationship with him would never work.

Unfortunately, the alternative didn’t bear thinking about. Now that they’d made contact, she couldn’t bear to lose him again. Yet that was exactly what would happen, she guessed, once he’d resolved the Beckwith Tool and Die situation.

I can’t leave with him, in the unlikely event he asks me to, she thought. Keeping the secret of Brian’s parentage from him would mean living a lie. Yet she couldn’t tell him the truth without hurting the other people she loved. The trauma Brian would suffer if he found out Larry Anderson hadn’t been his real father was too painful to contemplate. She doubted he’d ever recover from it. Or find it in his heart to forgive her for her deception.

Another, more frivolous part of her wanted to impress Danny with how good she looked. Accordingly, she’d dressed up for the meeting. Though its cut was modest, the plum wool-jersey dress she’d worn to school that day clung lightly to her body, calling attention to its slender-but-shapely curves. Her favorite pearl necklace, a gift from Larry on their tenth anniversary, gleamed around her neck.

As the time for the meeting to begin drew closer, the remaining seats filled up. A dozen or so latecomers had taken up standing positions in the back and along the sides of the reception area. Finally, after several glances at the old-fashioned clock above the circulation desk, Beckwith’s mayor, Bud Harvey, who’d agreed to serve as committee chairman, called it to order.

“I want to thank everyone for coming,” he began in his somewhat plodding but friendly way. “We were hoping to have Mr. Daniel Finn, of Mercator Engineering, here to answer your questions about the future of Beckwith Tool and Die. Apparently, he’s been detained. I’m sure he’ll be with us momentarily. Maybe in the meantime we could spend a few minutes going over the various points we want to raise…”

Just then, one of the library’s double glass doors opened to admit another straggler. Danny walked in behind him. He was wearing a tweed sports jacket, indigo shirt and soft-looking tan chino trousers. He appeared somewhat tired, as if he’d had a long day. Cate could feel the color rise in her cheeks as their eyes met.

“Ah, Mr. Finn…glad you could make it,” Bud Harvey greeted him.

Danny smiled. “Sorry to be late. We ran into some fairly strong headwinds flying out of Chicago.…

Seconds later everyone was talking at once. Characterized by strong, if suppressed, emotions from the time its participants had settled in to wait, the meeting degenerated into chaos before Cate could catch the rest of what Danny was saying. As if with one accord, everyone got to their feet and pushed toward the back of the room. Their voices raised to a pitch that made it difficult to hear anything, they surrounded him, demanding information and posing a barrage of worried questions. Though Bud Harvey pounded his gavel repeatedly in an effort to restore order and recall them to their seats, he was unsuccessful. Clearly disgusted by the way the meeting had been hijacked, he gaveled the formal session to a close.

For his part Danny set about answering the questions that were thrust at him from every side. The way things are going, it’ll take several hours for him to satisfy everyone who wants to talk to him, Cate realized. I can’t hang around on the pretext that I might be needed later. It isn’t going to be that kind of meeting. Getting to her feet, she put on her coat and picked up her purse.

Her hope that Danny wouldn’t notice her departure was quickly dashed. “Wait for me,” he mouthed as she edged past the crowd of people surrounding him.

So this is how a butterfly feels when it’s caught in a net, she thought. “If I can,” she responded in like manner, inclining her head toward the building’s exterior.

A moment later she was outside, alone and unobserved in the cool night air. From her vantage point on the library steps, she could see Danny through the panes of the glass doors, doing his best to answer the barrage of questions he was receiving. Quite a few of the people who were pressuring him for answers and, above all, reassurance, were people he’d known as a teenager. Like her father, some of them had looked down on him, criticized his grandmother and his uncle as misfits. Now he held their futures in the palm of his hand. They were arguing, begging and pleading with him to keep the plant open for the sake of their town and their familiar way of life, their families and their livelihoods.

Mesmerized, she assessed his friendly, noncommittal way of responding to them. He’s probably telling them he hasn’t studied the situation adequately to give them any hard-and-fast answers, she thought. And I’m sure that’s the literal truth. Still, though she hated the way some of them had treated him in the past, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. It hurt having to watch them grovel.

Hanging around here isn’t going to work for me, she decided. I don’t want to be angry with Danny for flaunting the power life has granted him over old enemies, because he isn’t doing that. Instead, he’s being unbelievably gracious. It’s just that I don’t like seeing my friends and neighbors beg. Nor do I want to be caught waiting for my former lover when people start coming out the door.

She almost jumped when an elderly woman she knew slightly did just that.

“Hello, Mattie,” Cate said with some embarrassment.

“Well, Cate!” Seventy-seven-year-old Mattie Stoneking gave her a benevolent smile. “I thought you’d left, honey. Guess you just need a breath of fresh air. Could you possibly give me a ride home? My grandson had to work tonight. He has a second job, you know. Now that he and Carol are the parents of twins and she can’t work, finances are tight. I promised to come in his place. But it’s such a mad scene in there. Impossible to learn anything. My grandson’s not supposed to pick me up until ten o’clock. I thought maybe I’d walk home, since it’s only a couple of blocks. But my arthritis is acting up…”

Cate didn’t see how she could refuse her. “I’d be happy to give you a lift, Mattie,” she answered, accepting her fate. Relieved in a sense, though she was disheartened by the way the evening had turned out, she ushered the older woman to her car.

Brian hadn’t returned home by the time she unlocked her own front door. Damn him! she thought, swearing in her irritation. He’s out past his curfew again, with his friends on the varsity football team. To her added distress, most of his friends had driver’s licenses.

After pacing restlessly for the better part of an hour, she’d just settled down in the kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate when the phone rang. About to reach for the receiver, she decided to let the answering machine pick up. I doubt it’s Brian, she thought. It’s totally out of character for him to call and alleviate my worries.

“Cate,” Danny’s voice said. “Are you there? Say hello.”

She remained mute, seated at her kitchen table.

He let several seconds pass. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked. “We had plans, remember? Are you afraid you might still have some tender feelings for me locked up in your heart?”

Another silence ensued. Sorely tempted to pick up the receiver and answer him despite a strong feeling that it would be a mistake, Cate held her tongue.

At last, he spoke again. “Look,” he said. “Maybe you’re not home. Maybe something came up. If so, I apologize for ragging on you. Call me on my cell phone when you get a chance. I’ll have it with me tonight, at the house. And tomorrow morning, at the plant…”

He repeated the number twice, giving her ample time to grab a pencil.

Though she didn’t return Danny’s phone call, they met again much sooner than she’d expected—the following afternoon at Clingers’ Market. She’d stopped by after school to pick up a few things for her larder. She was just reaching for a can of peaches in order to make cobbler for dessert that evening when he spoke her name in a low, sexy whisper.

Startled, she dropped the can. To her mortification, it rolled down the aisle and lodged under another shopper’s cart. Luckily, the woman pushing it wasn’t anyone Cate knew well, though she’d seen her around town occasionally.

“Sorry,” Cate apologized as Danny retrieved the can and handed it back to her.

The woman smiled. “No harm done.”

Seconds later she’d disappeared into another aisle. The store wasn’t crowded, and for the moment, at least, they were unobserved.

“How did you know I was here?” Cate said, aware the question had combative overtones.

Danny grinned. “I saw your car. You know…the one you were driving when you took off from the football field in such a hurry the other day.”

“Trust you to remember,” she returned peevishly.

He laughed outright. Moved a step closer to her so that they were standing just inches apart. She could smell his aftershave, his remembered skin scent. If only circumstances didn’t have to keep us apart, she thought.

“It’s like this, Cate,” he said, his voice quiet and uncompromising, yet as delicious to the woman in her who still loved him as honey from the comb. “Your reasons for leaving me in the lurch last night are ancient history as far as I’m concerned. What matters is that I want to see you. In other words, to date you. I don’t plan to take no for an answer.”

Sorry, Cate balked without putting her objection into words. It would be much too dangerous. Ultimately Brian and the Andersons would have to know the truth.

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” she said at last, starting to reach for another can of peaches and then dropping her hand, letting it rest on the handle of her shopping cart. “My life is settled. I have a demanding job, and I’m the widowed mother of an active teenager. At the moment that’s about as much as I can handle. Meanwhile, you have your life in Chicago…”

He doubted he’d be in the Windy City for long after finishing his work in Beckwith. But he wasn’t ready to tell her about his future options just yet. First, he wanted to see if she had any interest in spending some time with him. About to ask if they could go somewhere, anywhere at all, and talk, he dropped the notion when her son suddenly appeared.

“Brian! What are you doing here?” Cate asked in surprise.

“I saw your car in the parking lot.” He gave Danny a questioning look. “I was wondering if, um…”

As usual, Cate guessed, he hoped to bum a few dollars from her. And for once she was more than willing to give them to him—if it would shorten the amount of time he spent in Danny’s company. “I suppose you’re weak from a lack of junk food,” she quipped nervously, digging in her purse. “Well, I’m not the sort of mother to starve a growing boy.”

Brian pocketed the crumpled bills she handed him with obvious surprise that she’d been such an easy touch. “Thanks, Mom,” he muttered.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Danny asked.

It was the moment she’d dreaded since before Brian’s birth yet perversely had longed for with all her strength. Tears welled and she struggled to hold them back. I’m not sure I can handle this, she thought. The need to introduce my son to…to his fa-ther…without telling either of them about the relationship…is so poignant, so ironic I could choke. Yet, if she couldn’t manage it, they’d both demand to know the reason.

“Danny, this is my son, Brian,” she said, amazed at the calm, somewhat expressionless words that came out of her mouth. “Brian, this is Danny Finn, the man whose job it is to decide what will happen to the plant where Grandma Beverly and Grandpa Jack work. He grew up around here. We went to school together. He played basketball for Beckwith.”

Once again her insistence that Brian behave in a mannerly fashion around adults paid off. “How do you do, sir?” he said politely, offering his hand. “If you played basketball, you must have known my dad.”

With equal courtesy Danny took it. “Glad to meet you, son,” he said, unknowingly driving a stake through Cate’s heart. “You’re right. I did know your father. He was a couple of years ahead of me in school. By the way, that was some touchdown you made on Saturday.”

Brian gave him a surprised look. “You were at the game?”

Danny nodded. “Where’d you learn to run like that?”

To Cate’s amazement, Brian flushed with pride. “We’ve got a pretty good coach,” he said modestly. “Sorry I can’t stay and talk, sir. But some of my friends are waiting outside.”

A moment later he was off in the direction of the chips and the soft-drink aisle.

“He’s a good-looking boy,” Danny said with a smile. “How old is he?”

“Fifteen.” Cate winced at perpetuating the falsehood she and Larry had begun at her father’s insistence. Of course, this was one of the moments it had been crafted for. Meanwhile she was painfully aware of Danny’s calculations.

“Your romance with his father happened pretty fast after me,” he said finally. “Too bad I didn’t leave that kind of imprint.”

It was Cate’s turn to blush. She could feel the heat of it creeping up into the roots of her hair and staining her cheeks. Incredibly, Danny was telling her he wished he’d impregnated her. Yet in real life he’d left her in the lurch without any thought that he might have given her a baby. She was keenly aware of the covert glances some of the store’s other patrons were casting in their direction.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think he’s mine,” Danny added. “He’s a little too young for that. Besides, if he had been mine, your father would have made you get rid of him before he had a chance to draw breath.”

He wanted to, Cate told him silently, furiously, wondering if she would get through their conversation without dying of pain and embarrassment. I wouldn’t let him. I phoned my parents’ pastor in Ryersville and begged him to intercede on my baby’s behalf.

“You must be very proud of Brian,” Danny added. “I wish I had a son like him. Unfortunately, I don’t have any children.” He paused, smiled, as if in an effort to dispel the disappointments life had dealt him. “Kids his age sure do favor some awful haircuts.”

Despite the added pain his remarks had caused, Cate couldn’t help smiling back at him. The moment she’d dreaded had come and gone, and she’d lived through it. “I figure if I don’t protest or give him too much flak about things like his hair and that earring, his protest gestures will run their course a lot more quickly,” she said. “Indifference seems to lower their shock value.”

Danny nodded. “You sound like a wise and loving mother.”

The compliment tugged at her heartstrings. “I hope I am,” she answered. “I try to be. Like most parents of teenagers, I need all the luck I can get. Since joining the varsity football team while he’s still a sophomore, he’s been running with a faster crowd. Most of his friends have driver’s licenses. I can’t help worrying.…”

Danny looked as if he wanted to take her in his arms. Invite her to nestle there. Vow to protect her against whatever danger threatened. Yet he left me when I most needed him, she thought. I’d be wise not to trust him now, even if I could.

“Well, it seems we’ve had our talk, after all,” she said. “I guess I’d better finish rounding up the rest of my groceries.”

Though he acquiesced, leaving her alone long enough to gather a bag of chips, a loaf of bread, some lunch meat and a six-pack of beer, Danny turned up beside her at the checkout counter. “We’re together,” he announced to the startled young woman behind the cash register, plunking down a hundred-dollar bill and his minimal purchases next to Cate’s.

“I can’t let you do this!” Cate protested, digging in her purse for the second time that afternoon.

“Too late…I already have,” Danny insisted. “C’mon…I’ll help you stash this stuff in your car.”

Outside the market he was as good as his word, neatly arranging her groceries in the cargo space of her little hatchback.

“I suppose I should thank you, even if you’re embarrassing me to death,” Cate said, aware several people were craning their necks.

In response, Danny meshed the fingers of his right hand with her left and slipped both hands into the patch pocket of her corduroy skirt. An intimate, almost erotic gesture, it made her resistance go weak.

Much as he reveled in the feeling of intimacy it gave him, a shadow crossed Danny’s face. For perhaps the millionth time he wondered why she’d never answered any of his letters. Or bought a bus ticket to Chicago with the money he’d sent. Had she adopted her parents’ view of him after the debacle they’d suffered at the Heart’s Desire Motel and later at the Clermont County Jail? If so, she no longer seemed to feel that way. Yet something was keeping the wall that had sprung up between them firmly in place.