Cathryn

“I bet they’re great kids.”

“They are, if I do say so myself.” Cathryn began to grow uneasy under Tucker’s close regard. While she spoke, he gazed straight at her, his eyes unwavering. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone, especially a man, had listened to her so interestedly or watched her so intently, and for a moment she thought she understood something of Tucker Lang’s fabled appeal. “So, what about you, Tuck?” she asked, hoping to deflect his attention.

“Me?”

“Yes. What’ve you been up to?”

He dropped his foot, straightened to his full six-foot height and shifted his attention to the fog swirling over the meadow across the road. “Oh, just the same old same old.”

She had no idea what that meant. “I heard you’ve taken up car racing…?”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded rhythmically for several seconds as if that might take the place of further conversation.

“So, where are you living?”

He shuffled his feet and added a few more inches to the distance between them. “Alabama.”

“Really? I’ve never been to Alabama. I haven’t been anywhere, really. Except Florida. We went to Disney World with the kids two years ago. Best vacation we ever took.” Only vacation we ever took. “Ever been to Disney?”

Tucker pulled out his cigarettes again, stared at them a moment and then repocketed them. “Uh…no.”

She swallowed. “Anyone special in your life these days?”

He didn’t actually answer, just made a face as if to say, “Are you kidding?”

Cathryn knew a stone wall when she was hitting one, especially when that stone wall was so familiar. Tucker hadn’t liked personal questions when he was a boy either, particularly when they involved his life in New York. A couple of times she’d heard him lie about it, but mostly he’d just clammed up, holding the truth, and all the pain that went with it, tight inside him. Until one day when she was ten and couldn’t take it anymore and admitted to him that she knew his background, knew his mother was a hooker and a drug addict. She’d overheard her parents talking. And if he wanted to discuss it or cry or go for a fast walk like she did when she was angry, that was okay with her. She only wanted to help, and she wouldn’t tell anyone about it, honest. Tucker, being Tucker, hadn’t cried. But he had talked. A little. And he had walked. A lot. Damn fast, too.

What did he have bottled up inside him now? she wondered. Anything? Nothing? And whose business was it, anyway?

Even as Cathryn was still musing, Tucker glanced over his shoulder toward the funeral home and said, “Well, I’d better get back inside before someone sends out a search party.”

“Oh. Of course.” She clutched her purse in two hands and caught her lower lip in her teeth. “It was good seeing you again, Tuck.”

His grin returned, all confidence and male sass. “I know.”

Cathryn laughed. Some things never changed, and she was just as glad they didn’t.

TUCKER STOOD under the portico of the funeral home, puffing on a cigarette and feeling a sense of loss after Cathryn drove away. Not that he wanted to continue their conversation, especially considering the direction it had taken. Rather, his sense of loss rose solely from himself. Cathryn’s role had simply been to remind him of it, of the life he’d made a religion of avoiding until now. Married life. The life of a husband and parent, home-owner and mower of lawns, coach to Little Leaguers and reader of bedtime stories—the life of a responsible adult. “And look where that’s landed you,” he muttered in self-disgust.

Clamping his cigarette between his teeth, he brushed aside his jacket, unsnapped the leather pouch at his waist and lifted his cellular phone. He’d pressed in half of Jenny’s number before remembering she was out of range. Way out of range. Cursing around his cigarette, he returned the phone to its case and paced the portico like a caged bear.

He wished there was someone he could call. Normally, he disliked sharing his problems. After fending for himself most of his life, he was accustomed to handling crises on his own. But right about now, it might be nice to bounce ideas off another person.

He considered the guys he hung around with and dismissed them as quickly as they came to mind. How could he admit to the yahoos he called friends that at the ripe old age of thirty-five he’d gotten a woman pregnant? They’d never let him live it down and they’d certainly be no help. Jenny didn’t want to marry him. What was the problem, man? To them, the problem would be if she did want to get married.

A car swashed into the parking lot and a moment later an elderly couple got out. Strangers to Tuck, they nodded, lips pressed in sorrowful regret, as they walked by him, taking careful little steps, and entered the building. He sighed. Ah, yes—Walter. Automatically his lips pressed in matching regret. This wasn’t the time to be thinking of Jenny or impending fatherhood. It was time to mourn the generous man who, together with his patient wife, had rescued his sorry-ass life and changed him from a punk into…less of a punk. And for that, Tucker was truly sad. He wished he could’ve turned out better more quickly for them. He wished he hadn’t caused them so much trouble—all those calls from the principal and Charlie Slocum, Harmony’s now-retired chief of police. He wished he had finished high school here, not in some far-off GED program, so they could’ve watched him receive his diploma. He wished Walter had seen him race at least once, even if he was just on the stock-car circuit. He wished he’d bought Winnie a clothes dryer before she caught pneumonia from hanging out laundry. He wished…he wished Jenny would change her mind and marry him.

And with that his thoughts went over to the other side again. A barrel-deep moan rose from his chest. He’d been embroiled in this emotional tug-of-war for days, caught between his sadness over his uncle’s death and his angst over his love life. Pulled in two directions, he was doing neither justice.

Well, he was tired of it. It was clearly time to focus. Or at least do something about one or the other.

Tucker dropped his third cigarette into the trash receptacle and headed inside. Old man D’Autell was sitting in his office at the end of the center hall, changing a tape for the P.A. system. More harp diddling. Leaning in the doorway, Tucker asked, “Is there a phone somewhere in this building where I can make a private call?”

The long-faced mortician gazed at him with a wariness that slightly offended Tucker. As far as he could remember, D’Autell had never been the target of any of his boyhood pranks.

“Will it be long distance?”

“Yeah, but I’ll use my calling card.”

D’Autell cranked himself out of his chair, giving the phone a slight push in Tucker’s direction.

“Thanks,” he said as the old man walked by.

In place of “You’re welcome,” D’Autell grumbled, “Don’t touch anything.”

Tucker closed the door, went to the phone and punched in a Missouri number. Jenny answered on the third ring.

Hearing her voice, Tucker tried to summon up an image of the woman who was carrying his child and was disturbed when he couldn’t. He could see short auburn curls and grass-green eyes and a pointy chin. And freckles. Yes, there were definitely some freckles. But he wasn’t able to put all the parts together and see a cohesive whole.

“Hey, Jen,” he began, sitting down in the chair D’Autell had vacated. “It’s me, Tuck.”

“Oh.” Her voice sank, leaving no question how she felt about hearing from him.

“How’s it going, darlin’?”

“How’s it going? I just spent the morning puking my brains out. That’s how it’s going.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, you should be.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled again, wincing.

“So what do you want, Tuck?” Somehow she managed to sound both bored and impatient.

“Just to talk.”

She sighed heavily. He tried not to take offense.

“Are you coming over?” she asked. “Are you back in town?”

“No. No to both questions. I’m in Massachusetts. I had to fly home because of a death in the family.”

“Home?” Her surprise underscored how little they knew about each other. “You’re from Massachusetts?”

“Sort of. I was born in New York, but…” He felt himself closing the gates of communication. But if he and Jenny were meant to live the rest of their lives together, it was time to start sharing. “When I was thirteen, I came here to live with my grandfather’s brother Walter and his wife Winnie. Walter just passed away.”

“Oh.” Jenny’s uncertain exclamation betrayed an encouraging softening. “That’s too bad, Tuck.”

“Yeah, it is. He was a great old guy. Played a mean hand of whist.”

“What happened to your parents?”

He swallowed, faced with the question he’d had to answer all his life. “My father died in Vietnam when I was three, and when I was twelve my mother…was the victim of a drunk driving accident.”

“She died, too?”

Jenny was astounded and incredulous. As well she should be, he thought. It was an astounding, incredible story. A lie, actually. Not the part about his father dying in Nam; Tuck had worn the Silver Star posthumously bestowed on his father right until the day the clasp broke off. The part about his mother was a lie. He’d chickened out again. He couldn’t admit his mother had been sent to prison when he was twelve and had overdosed five years later.

“Anyway, I’m at the wake now, taking a break, and I had to call. You’ve been on my mind since last weekend.”

“Where in Massachusetts?” she asked, steering so sharply away from the subject, he could practically hear her tires screech.

He sighed. “Harmony. It’s a small island ten, twelve miles off the southeast coast. Not far from Martha’s Vineyard.”

“Harmony? Never heard of it.”

“Understandable. It’s small. Not many people here during the winter. Last I heard, the count was around seven hundred.”

“You lived on an island with only seven hundred people?” She infused every word with sarcasm.

“Yep. Peel away the outer layers and I’m really just a small-town boy at heart.”

“Yeah, right.” Not the sharpest comeback, but she made her point.

Tucker massaged a place on his forehead where a headache was gathering force. “About the discussion we had last week…” he tried again. “It’s been bothering the hell out of me, Jen.”

“Which part? You asking me to marry you, or me turning you down?”

“The last part. I don’t regret asking you to marry me. I’ll never regret that. I meant it when I said I want to do right by you and the baby.”

She laughed a tinkling, cascading laugh, hitting every note and nuance of condescension along the way. “Tucker Lang, you wouldn’t know right if it smacked you square in the face.”

Tucker drummed his fingers on the desk in mounting frustration. “I know enough to feel responsible for my kid and to want it to have a good home life.”

“And what’s that, Tuck? You being gone three-quarters of the time? You saying good-night over the phone from some motel room half a world away?”

“No!” Inadvertently he thought of the kind of home Cathryn must have, how loved and secure her children must feel. That was what he meant.

“No? You’re planning on quitting racing then?”

Tuck swallowed with difficulty. “That isn’t fair. You know racing is how I make my living.”

“Tell that to our kid when he’s ten and doesn’t know you.”

Tucker regretted calling without having prepared. He wasn’t doing very well. When it came to playing for keeps, he didn’t know the lines. “I can cut back. I can do other things….”

“It wouldn’t matter.” Jenny sighed dismally. “You’re just not father material, Tuck. And you certainly aren’t cut out to be anyone’s husband.”

“What do you mean?” As if he didn’t know. Hadn’t they met at a party swarming with racing groupies and hadn’t he flirted with her and arranged to call her, even while his date for the evening stood less than ten feet away?

“Don’t get me wrong, Tuck. You’re a great guy and a lot of fun, but frankly, I don’t trust you from here to the front door.”

Her accusations stung. “I’d be different if we were married.”

She burst out laughing.

“I would,” he insisted, realizing how serious he was, how deep was his desire to claim his unborn child and raise it well, protect it, be a good father. “Jenny, please, you’ve got to give us a chance. I swear on my father’s grave I’ll be…”

“No, Tuck. I’m sure your intentions are good, but you know what they say about the road to Hell.”

Tucker pressed a tightly clenched fist against his forehead. After a long cleansing moment of silent swearing, he took a different tack. “But what’ll you do? How will you get along? And don’t tell me you intend to go on welfare because I won’t allow it.”

She huffed impatiently. “Listen, Tucker, I have to go. I have to be at the restaurant in half an hour.” She paused. “A heck of a place to work when you’re having morning sickness, huh?”

“You could quit if we—”

“No,” she interrupted. “Really, Tuck. Thanks anyway, but you’re simply not the type of guy I hoped to marry. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It just makes you, you. And as for the baby, to be blunt, I’d prefer raising it without you. You’d only confuse our child, here today, gone tomorrow. And as it got older—” she swallowed as if this was difficult for her, too “—I can’t imagine you being anything but a bad influence. In fact, I’d prefer you don’t even visit.”

“You can’t mean that. I’m the baby’s father.”

“No. You’re the guy I had unprotected sex with one night last November after one too many margaritas.”

“Don’t reduce it to that. We dated.”

“And I’ll remember those dates fondly, but now it’s time for me to go my way and you to go yours. It’s for the best.”

Tucker started to protest but heard a click, followed by the insulting buzz of disconnection. Anger bubbled inside him. He wanted to hurl the phone across the room. Instead, he quietly dropped the receiver into its cradle and fought back the tightening in his throat.

Of all the ironies. After a lifetime of wanderlust and womanizing, he’d finally decided to settle down, and the mother of his child didn’t want him. Far worse, she didn’t want him anywhere near his child. He supposed there was a strange justice in the situation. He was reaping his due rewards.

But, hell, he didn’t have to like it, he thought, surging out of the chair. He didn’t have to settle for it, either. Fathers had rights. He’d take legal steps, and when his offspring came into the world next August, he was going to be right there to say, “Hey, son or daughter, this is your old man looking at you.”

He sank to the chair again, dropping like a popped balloon. Bad choice, bringing in lawyers and demanding rights. That road led to bitterness, spite and fighting back. And maybe she’d win. He had to remember what he wanted—to be a vital, ongoing part of his child’s upbringing—and the best way to do that was to convince Jenny to marry him. And who knew, maybe he could. He’d convinced a lot of women to do a lot of things they’d never dreamed of doing before.

Tucker didn’t have a clue how he intended to accomplish this, but he would. He had to. For the first time in his life, he had something worth fighting for.

CHAPTER TWO

CHOCOLATES. A five-pound box of chocolates. This wasn’t the gift Cathryn expected from her husband. Staring at the plastic roses that adorned the red-satin cover, she felt her smile crumble.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Dylan said, setting the heart-shaped box on her dinner plate and hurrying to his place at the head of the table. He was the last member of the family to sit. He had tumbled into the house forty minutes later than promised and had still wanted to shower. The stroganoff noodles had congealed into a big sticky pasta ball, and the green beans almandine had gone limp. Not quite the perfection Cathryn had been aiming for.

“Th-thank you,” she replied with forced cheer. Maybe the earrings were coming later, during dessert, or after the kids went to bed. Sure. That was it. After the kids were asleep. Dylan had bought her a special gift and obviously meant to create a special moment when he gave it to her. The chocolates were just a front.

She opened the accompanying card and nodded with a knowing smile. It was a simple generic greeting, not the gorgeous card with the touching verse she’d found at the bottom of the file drawer. But, of course, that would come later, too.

“Thank you,” she said again. “It’s very pretty.” She gazed at her husband across the candlelit table. He seemed bemused, his eyes fixed on the centerpiece. “Dylan?”

His head jerked up. “Huh?”

She chuckled. Sometimes he was worse than the kids. “Thank you.”

“Oh.” He waved his hand dismissively. “My pleasure.”

“Can I have some?” Justin asked, eyeing the box lasciviously.

“Hey!” Bethany complained. “You’ve got your own chocolates.”

“So do you, and I bet you want some of Mom’s too.”

“Whoa!” Dylan called. “Bring it down a notch.”

Cathryn pulled her red linen napkin from a ring made from construction paper decorated with glittery stick-on hearts. Beth’s contribution to the table. “Of course all of you can have some of my candy. Tomorrow. Any more sugar today—beyond dessert, of course—and you’ll be swinging from the curtain rods.”

Cory apparently found this funny and laughed. Milk came snorting out his nose.

“Eeiuw. Gross.” Bethany scooted as far away from him as she could.

Cathryn gave her brood a glare of mock impatience. “All right, settle down. It’s time to give thanks.”

Bottoms wiggled on chairs, throats were cleared, and a semblance of order descended.

“Thanks” was a casual ritual at the McGrath house, an observance more conversational than prayerful. During thanks, they passed food, dug into meals, and sometimes strayed off subject. But Cathryn didn’t mind. It worked. She could see a sense of gratitude taking root in her children, a mindfulness of the small blessings in their lives. With such an attitude, they’d be able to find happiness anytime, anywhere, no matter what calamity befell them.

“I’m thankful I got a seventy-five on my math quiz today,” Justin said, the first to volunteer. With a sheepish grin he confessed, “I didn’t study.”

Dylan growled at him scoldingly.

Chewing a slice of cucumber, Bethany mumbled, “I’m grateful Jason Toomey stopped chasing me in the schoolyard.”

“Yes, we’re all grateful for that,” Cathryn agreed, as she passed the basket of rolls.

Cory pushed his glasses up his nose. “I’m thankful for all the cards I got today in school.”

Cathryn’s heart went out to her middle child—her Charlie Brown. Had he thought he wouldn’t get any?

“And I’m thankful for this table,” Dylan said. “The food, the flowers and decorations, everything. It’s wonderful, Cath. As usual.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Mom,” Justin said, and the other kids chimed in.

“Your turn, Mommy.” Beth was the only one who still called her Mommy.

Cathryn had been so busy listening to others, she hadn’t really thought about her own contribution. Off the top of her head she said, “I’m thankful that I have such a thankful family, even when I serve pasta that needs to be cut with a chain saw.”

Everyone laughed and then settled into serious eating, and it was a while before Cathryn thought about the earrings again. Almost simultaneously she thought about having another child. The two ideas had become entwined. She and Dylan didn’t need another child. Neither did the overpopulated planet, which was Dylan’s strongest argument.

But maybe another child needed them.

Of course! They could adopt. She’d propose the idea tonight. How could Dylan object?

That night before going to bed, Cathryn showered, donned her prettiest nightgown and spritzed on Dylan’s favorite perfume. But when she waltzed into the bedroom, her husband was sprawled across three-quarters of the bed, already asleep. Swallowing her disappointment, she reasoned that falling asleep had been unintentional and surely he’d appreciate being roused.

She sat on the bed and gave Dylan’s shoulder a gentle shake. Nothing. She bounced and jiggled the mattress, which earned her a dull moan. She turned on the radio and flicked the light, but the only response that elicited was a mumbled, “For Crissake, Cath, knock it off,” before Dylan dropped deep into sleep once again.

With dismay pressing heavily on her, Cathryn slipped into bed and pulled the blankets to her chin. Where were her earrings? she implored the enshrouding darkness. Where was her mushy card? And what about the talk she’d hoped to have about another baby—to say nothing of the lovemaking she’d anticipated all week long?

Maybe tomorrow, she thought, sighing downheartedly. Putting off the surprise until the day after Valentine’s would be odd, but obviously Dylan had his reasons.

But the next day dawned, and Cathryn got the kids off to school, and she and Dylan attended Walter Lang’s funeral, and the likelihood of his presenting her with a belated Valentine gift grew more and more remote. During brunch at the Lang house afterward, she overheard him saying that as soon as he got home, he planned to change out of his suit and go scope out a new project.

Maybe tonight, Cathryn thought, struggling to keep her optimism buoyant. Maybe tonight…

Several guests had already left and Cathryn was helping Sarah round up used plates and coffee cups, when the front door opened and someone new arrived, a thirty-something blonde whom Cathryn recognized only vaguely. She certainly wasn’t a permanent resident of Harmony. After exchanging a few words with Sarah, the newcomer approached Tucker, who happened to be talking with Dylan.

The woman was sleek, graceful and attractive in a wealthy sort of way. She’d given her coat to Sarah at the door, and now stood before the two men in a cowl-necked, black, angora knit dress that made an absolute drama of her rich blond hair, peaches-and-cream complexion and turquoise eyes. It didn’t exactly detract from her figure, either. Cathryn felt like a frump in comparison, dressed in her high-collared Victorian blouse, gray cardigan and calf-length challis skirt.

For some irrational reason, she also felt she was needed at her husband’s side.

The woman extended her hand to Tucker. “Mr. Lang,” she said, her tone as soft and smooth as the angora that enveloped her, “I was unable to attend your uncle’s funeral, but I couldn’t let the day go by without coming over to offer my sympathy.”

“Thank you,” Tucker replied, one eyebrow arched and betraying the fact that he had no idea who she was.

“Zoe Anderson,” she said, introducing herself. “I have a summer home out on Sandy Point, and for the past three years I’ve trusted no one but Walter with my Land Rover. He was a marvelous mechanic. Marvelous. I’ll miss him terribly.”

Tucker’s eyebrow lifted higher. “You’re a cottager?”

“Yes. From New York.”

“What are you doing on Harmony at this time of year?”

She laughed musically. “The island has its charms, even in winter. In fact, lately I find myself spending as much time here during the off-seasons as I do during the summer.” Unexpectedly she turned her smile on Dylan. “Of course, this man knows all about that. Don’t you, Mr. McGrath?”

Cathryn glanced sharply at her husband. His face was flushed and he was widening his eyes at the woman. Cathryn was well acquainted with the expression, but didn’t understand it in its present context.

“Dylan is my landscape architect,” Zoe Anderson continued, her quick survey of Cathryn leaving her feeling invisible.

Cathryn glanced at her husband again. “Landscape architect?” she questioned him. Just when she’d adjusted to his upgrade from a simple landscaper to a landscape designer… he was changing what he called himself again?

Dylan shrugged self-consciously, avoiding her eyes.