The Dream Unfolds Page 12

  “No, it’s sickening. Anybody feels me up, I want it to be you. So what do you say? Dinner here on New Year’s Eve? Nice and quiet and relaxed? I’ll bring some food if you want. Better still, give me a list and I’ll pick up groceries so we can make dinner together. Now that’s a good idea.”

  Chris had to admit that it was. She wasn’t a big one for public New Year’s Eves and had always spent hers quietly. The idea of being with Gideon for those few hours while Jill was at her party was appealing.

  “Okay,” she said.

  He broke out into a smile. Standing, he tugged her to her feet and wrapped an arm around her waist as he started for the door. “What time should I come? Four? Five?”

  “Try eight-thirty.” Jill’s party began at eight. That would give Chris time to come home, change, get things ready.

  “No way am I waiting around until eight-thirty, when everything closes at midafternoon. Five-thirty. I’ll come at five-thirty. Then I can talk with Jill before she leaves.”

  “Jill will be totally preoccupied with her hair.”

  “So I’ll be here to tell her how great it looks.”

  “Come at seven-thirty. You can go with me when I drive her to the party.”

  “Six. We can have appetizers early.”

  “Seven, and that’s the earliest, the absolute earliest you can come.”

  “Can I bring champagne?”

  “Wine. I like it better. And wear your fancy outfit. Is that the one you were wearing that day at the bank?” She wanted to see it again. Even through her nervousness his handsomeness that day had registered.

  “Yeah,” he protested, “but that defeats the purpose of staying in.”

  She shook her head and said softly, “It’s New Year’s Eve. If we’re having a nice dinner with wine, we have to dress the part. And don’t say I’ve already seen it, because I don’t work that way. You don’t have to wear something different every time you see me. I’m not that shallow.”

  “I didn’t say you were. But it’s me. My pride.”

  “Your pride is misplaced if you’re hung up on clothes. Wear the blazer and slacks.”

  “The blazer and slacks?”

  “Yes.”

  He sighed, gave her a squeeze and opened the door. “Okay. The blazer and slacks it is.” He inhaled a hearty breathful of the fast-falling winter’s night. “Wow, do I feel good.”

  Chris was surprised to realize that she did, too.

  * * *

  The feeling persisted. On the one hand, she could say it was the Christmas spirit. Her family always made the holiday a happy time. Deep down, though, she knew there were other reasons this year. Jill was happy. The business was going well. And Gideon had come on the scene.

  He didn’t let her forget that last fact. He called her every night, usually around ten, when he knew she’d be home, and though he never kept her on the phone for long—just wanted to see how her day had been or tell her something about his—the calls were sweet.

  Jill was aware of them. She was the one who sat by the phone doing her homework when the ring pierced the quiet night, or talking with a friend when the call-waiting clicked. Sometimes Chris took the call in the same room, sometimes in another room. Each time, Jill acknowledged it afterward.

  Not that Chris would have tried to hide anything. She knew that if she wanted Jill to be open and communicative with her, she had to be the same way right back. Their relationship had always been honest that way. And besides, there wasn’t anything to hide. Gideon liked her. So he was calling her.

  Of course, Jill wanted to know more. “Do you like him?” she asked, wandering down to the kitchen after one of the calls.

  In a burst of late-night energy, Chris was making wreath cookies, which required a minimum of brain and a modicum of brawn. She was vigorously stirring the butter and marshmallows that she’d unceremoniously dumped into a pot.

  “He’s nice,” she answered. “I didn’t expect him to be after what happened at the Rise that first day.” She’d told Jill about that when it happened, albeit more philosophically than she’d felt at the moment of confrontation. “So I’m surprised. But I still don’t know him very well.”

  “It sounds like he wants to change that.”

  “Uh-huh.” Chris felt the same shimmer of excitement she always felt when she anticipated seeing Gideon again.

  “Why isn’t he coming for Christmas?”

  Chris kept stirring. “Because I didn’t invite him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s too new. Christmas is for people we’re really close to. Our family is special. If you’re not one of us, you have to earn a place at our table.” She’d been trying for a little dry wit. It went right past Jill.

  “But he’s alone. He’ll be sitting there in a lonely apartment all by himself. He probably doesn’t even have a tree.”

  Chris felt a moment’s unease, wondering just how thickly Gideon had poured it on. If there was one thing she wouldn’t abide, it was his using Jill to get to her. “Did he mention a lonely apartment?”

  “No, but he said he had no family.”

  “Okay, that’s true. But he doesn’t live in an apartment, to begin with. He lives in a house that he built himself—”

  “So he’s sitting in a lonely house.”

  “He is not. Jill, he has lots of friends. I’m sure he’s doing something with them.” She hadn’t asked, exactly, but she assumed that was the case. He was a really friendly guy, and he said he dated, he dated a lot. Chris didn’t believe that he’d left all of his holiday time free.

  Of course, he would have come for Christmas if she’d invited him, and he jumped at her first mention of New Year’s Eve, so apparently whatever plans he had weren’t etched in stone. She didn’t want to think a woman was involved, didn’t want to think he would break a date and disappoint someone. Better, she decided, to imagine that if he wasn’t with her, he’d be with a large group of friends.

  Maybe some of his workmen.

  Maybe his basketball teammates.

  She wondered what he wore on the court and how he looked.

  “Do you think you could like him?”

  Brought back from a small distance, Chris stirred the melting marshmallows with greater force. The roughness of the wooden spoon against the bottom of the pot told her that there was some sticking, apt punishment for a wandering mind. “I do like him. I told you that.”

  “Love him?”

  Though she couldn’t help but remember what Gideon had said about falling in love with her, Chris shook her head. “Too soon. Way too soon. Ask me that in another year or two.”

  “That’s not how love happens. It happens quickly.”

  “Says the authority. Sweetheart, I forgot to take out the food coloring. Can you get it for me? Green?”

  Jill took the small vial from the baking supply shelf and removed its lid. “How many drops?” She held it poised.

  “Start with four.”

  Jill squeezed. Chris stirred. Gradually the thick white stuff turned a faintly minty shade.

  “A little more, I think.”

  Jill squeezed, she stirred, but if she had hoped Jill would let the matter of love go, she was mistaken.

  “You loved my father when I was conceived.”

  “Uh-huh.” They had discussed that at length several years before, when Chris had sat down with Jill and explained what getting a period was about. Given the slightest encouragement, Jill had asked questions about making babies and making love. She knew who her father was, that he had left Massachusetts before her birth, that he was selling real estate in Arizona. At that time, she had wanted to know about Chris’s relationship with him.

  Chris had been forthright in telling her about feeling love and the specialness of the moment. She never wanted Jill to feel unwanted, though in essence Brant had made it clear that she was. His whole family had moved away—conveniently, a job transfer had come through for his father—and, to Chris’s knowled
ge, none of them had been back. Outside of family, few people knew who Jill’s father was.

  “But you’d only been dating him for two months.”

  “I was young. When you’re young, you’re more quickly taken with things like love. Another drop, maybe?”

  Jill added it, while Chris kept stirring.

  “Don’t you think it’s more romantic when it’s fast? I mean, I think what happened to you was really romantic. You saw each other in English, started doing homework together, fell in love and did it. Do you think he’s married now?”

  “Probably.”

  “Do you think he ever wonders about me?”

  Chris sent her an affectionate smile. “He must. You’re that strong a being.”

  “Think he ever wants to see me?”

  “I think he doesn’t dare.” She tried to keep it light. “Seeing you, he’ll realize all he’s missed. He’ll hate himself.”

  Jill frowned. “But what kind of parent isn’t curious about his own child?”

  Chris had asked herself that question dozens of times, and in many of those times she’d thought the lowliest things about Brant. But she’d vowed many years ago not to bad-mouth him in front of Jill. “The kind who may not be able to forgive himself for leaving you behind. He knows you exist. I imagine—” it was a wild guess, giving Brant a big benefit of the doubt “—that knowledge has been with him a lot.”

  Jill thought about that, standing back while Chris dumped the premeasured cups of corn flakes into the pot with the melted marshmallows that were now a comfortable Christmas green. Finally Jill said, “Do you ever imagine that you might open the front door one day and find him there?”

  “No.” That was the last thing Chris wanted. She had no desire to see Brant, no desire to have Brant see Jill. Jill was hers. She felt vehemently about that. For Jill’s sake alone, she tempered her feelings. “He’s probably very involved with his own life. His family only lived here for three years. They were midwesterners to begin with. They have no ties here.”

  “That didn’t mean he couldn’t have married you if he loved you.”

  Chris had to work hard stirring the mess in the pot, but she appreciated the physical demand. It was a good outlet. “He had plans. He was going to college. He had a scholarship.”

  But Jill was insistent. “If he loved you, he could have married you.”

  Her petulance, far more than the words themselves, stopped Chris. Leaving the wooden spoon sticking straight up, she turned and took Jill’s face in her hands. “Then I guess he didn’t love me,” she said softly, “at least, not as much as I thought. And in that sense, it’s a good thing we didn’t get married. The marriage wouldn’t have been good. We’d have been unhappy together. And you would have suffered.” She paused. “Do you miss having a father so much?”

  “No. Not so much. You know that.” They’d talked about it before. “There are times when I wonder, that’s all. There are times when I think it would be nice to go places, just the three of us.”

  “So what would Gramma and Gramps do?” she teased. “And Alex? And the others?”

  Jill thought about that for a minute, gave a small smile of concession and shrugged, at which point Chris planted a kiss in the middle of her forehead. She was about to turn back to the pot when Jill said, “I still think you should have invited Gideon for Christmas dinner.”

  “Uh-oh. We’re on this again?”

  “It was just a thought.”

  “Well, here’s another one. I think that sticky stuff in the pot may have hardened. You gonna clean up the mess?”

  In a blink, Jill was the picture of innocence. “Me? I still have homework to do.” She slipped smoothly away and was up the stairs before Chris could think to scold. Not that she would have. All too soon, Jill would be slipping smoothly away to college, then beyond. Chris wasn’t about to scold away their time together, not when it was so dear.

  7

  Come New Year’s Eve, Chris wasn’t thinking of spending time with Jill, but spending time without her. Christmas with the family had been wonderfully fun and absorbing—her mother had loved the clay pot—but in the week that followed, in all the little in-between moments when her mind might have been on something else but wasn’t, Chris thought of Gideon. Each time, she felt a warm suffusion of desire.

  He continued to call every night, “just to make sure you don’t forget me,” he teased, which was a laugh. She couldn’t have forgotten him if she’d tried. He was like a string tied around her finger, a tightness around her insides, cinching deeply and pleasantly.

  Had anyone read her mind during that week, she would have been mortified, so carnal were her thoughts. Rather than picturing Gideon in his blazer and slacks, she pictured him in every state of undress imaginable. It didn’t help that she was haunted by glimpses of a sliver of skin, a whorl of dark hair and a belly button. When he called at night, she pictured him lying in bed wearing briefs, or nothing. She pictured his body, pictured the dark hair that would mat it, clustering more thickly at some places than others. She pictured him coming to her on New Year’s Eve, unbuttoning his shirt, removing it, opening his pants, removing them, baring himself to her, a man at the height of his virility and proud of it.

  At times, she wondered if there was something wrong with her, if she was so sex starved that anyone would do. But the courier, who stopped by the office several times that week and was very attractive, didn’t turn her on. Nor did her hairdresser, who was surprisingly straight. Nor did Anthony Haskell, who called several times wanting to see her and whom she turned down as gently as she could.

  She didn’t remember ever feeling quite so alive in quite as feminine a way as she did with the approach of New Year’s Eve. Like an alarm that kept going off every few minutes, the buzz of arousal in the pit of her stomach had her counting the minutes until Gideon arrived.

  Seven, she had told him. Fortunately, she was ready early, because when the bell rang at six-forty-five, she had no doubt who it was. Pulling the door open, she sent him a chiding look.

  He shrugged. “I left extra time in case there was traffic, but there wasn’t.”

  How could she get angry when the mere sight of him took her breath away? He was wearing a topcoat with the collar up against the cold, and between the lapels she caught sight of his blazer and slacks, but he looked far more handsome than he had that day at the bank. No doubt, she decided, it had to do with the ruddy hue on his cheeks.

  That hue bemused her. “You look like you’ve been out in the cold.” But he’d been in a heated car.

  “Had the windows open,” he said, not taking his eyes from her. She looked bright, almost glowing, sophisticated, but young and fresh. He decided that the young part had to do with her hair. Rather than pinning it in its usual knot, she’d left it down. It was shiny and smooth, swept from a side part, its blunt-cut ends dancing on her shoulders. “It was the only way I could keep my mind on the road.”

  She didn’t have to ask where his mind would have been otherwise. The hunger in his eyes answered that quite well. It made her glad that she’d splurged on a new dress, though the splurging hadn’t been painful. Contrary to Gideon, she loved to shop. She kept herself on a budget, but she’d been due for a treat. His appreciation made the effort more than worth it.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  She blushed. “Of course. I’m sorry. Here, let me take that.” She reached for the grocery bag he held in one arm. They had agreed that he would bring fresh French bread and some kind of dessert, since there was a bakery not far from his house. But he held tight to the bag and, instead, handed her the two bottles of wine that he was grasping by the neck with the fingers of one hand. She peered suspiciously at the bag, which seemed filled and heavy. “What’s in there?”

  “I got carried away,” he confessed, thinking about sweets for the sweet and other trite expressions, but loath to voice them lest she think him a jerk. Elbowing the door shut behind him, he headed for the kitchen. H
e set the bag on the counter, relieved her of the wine and stood it beside the bag, then gave her a slow up and down.

  “You look great,” he said in an understatement that he hoped his appreciative tone would correct.

  Her temperature was up ten degrees, making her words breathy and warm. “Thanks. You, too.” Feeling a dire urge to touch him, she laced her fingers together in the area of her lap. “Please, take your coat off.” When he’d done so, she hung it in the closet, then turned to find him directly behind her.

  “Where’s Jill?” he whispered.

  “Upstairs,” she whispered back.

  “Does she know I’m here?”

  “She must have heard the bell.”

  “Do we have time for a kiss?”

  “If it’s a quick one.”

  “I don’t know if I can make it quick. I’ve been dreaming about it for more than ten days.” His whisper was growing progressively rough. He felt desperately in need. “What I had in mind was something slow and deep and wet—”

  “Hey, you guys,” came Jill’s full voice from halfway down the stairs. She trotted down the rest, her steps muted by the carpet. “What’re you whispering about?”

  Chris felt she’d been caught in the act of doing something naughty. It was a minute before she could compose herself enough to realize that she hadn’t—and that even if she had, she was the mother and had that right. “Gideon was saying things that definitely shouldn’t be heard by tender ears such as yours,” she drawled, and made for the kitchen. “Do me a favor, sweetie? Keep him company while I get these hors d’oeuvres?”

  Gideon put his hands into the pockets of his blazer and angled them forward to hide his arousal from Jill. “Can I help?” he called after Chris. To Jill, he said, “You may think I’m one of those helpless males, but believe me, I’m not. I’m a very handy man to have around the house. I know how to crack eggs, whip cream and brew coffee.”

  “We could’ve used you around here earlier,” Jill said. “Mom ruined two batches of stuffed mushrooms before she finally got one that was edible. They’re supposed to be her specialty. So she thought she knew the ingredients by heart, only she blew it. That was the first time. The second time she burned the meat.”