The Mother Of His Child

With a snap like a pellet, the first raindrop hit the awning. “Gonna have a little storm,” the woman said affably. “But that’s April for you. ’Bout as dependable as a kid on rollerblades.”

The rain now sounded like a machine-gun attack. “Maybe it won’t last long,” Marnie offered.

“On again, off again, been like that the past few days. There you are, miss, that’s two dollars.”

Marnie paid, grabbed a wad of paper napkins and took a hefty bite from the mocha fudge. To give herself courage, she was wearing her new denim overalls with a turquoise turtleneck and matching turquoise flats. The sweater emphasized the unusual color of her eyes, which were also turquoise, rather like an ocean shoal on a summer’s day. Her earrings, big gold hoops, were almost hidden by a tumble of bright chestnut curls. The wind caught in her hair, tossing it around her head, and hurriedly she stepped back under the awning.

Although the rain showed no signs of abating, now that she was this close, Marnie craved action even if it was only to see the house. She said to the attendant, “Can you direct me to Moseley Street?”

“Sure thing. Go right through town to where the road forks. The left turn’s Moseley. Wow—hear that thunder?”

“Thanks,” Marnie said, lifting her face to the sky. All nature’s excesses tended to exhilarate rather than frighten her. In a surge of optimism, she thought, I’ll see where my daughter lives, I’ll find out she has the best of parents, and I’ll go home with my mind at rest. Knowing she’s loved and happy.

Peace. Closure of a kind. She was long overdue for both.

She took another big hunk out of the ice cream and plunged out into the rain, her shoes slapping on the wet pavement. Raindrops stung her face, almost as if they were hail, her sweater sticking wetly to her skin. Head down, she raced for her car. Luckily, she hadn’t bothered to lock it.

A dark green Cherokee was parked next to it. As she lunged for the door handle of her own car, a man suddenly appeared from behind the Cherokee, traveling fast, his head bent against the rain. Marnie yelped a warning, stopping in her tracks. The man looked up, but his momentum carried him forward so that he drove her hard against the driver’s door. He was a big man. Her ice cream inscribed a neat arc in the air and plopped onto the hood of the Cherokee, leaving her holding the empty cone. Runnels of pink and brown splattered the shiny green paint, along with walnuts and little chunks of bright red maraschino cherries.

Marnie began to laugh, gurgles of infectious laughter that made twin dimples appear in her cheeks. “Oh, no,” she gasped, “cherries on the Cherokee. I am sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going and…” She broke off, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

The man still had her jammed against the door of her car. Water was dripping onto his forehead from his black hair, which was cut short and had a tendency to curl. His eyes were blue, so dark a blue as to be almost gray, and deep set. Like a quarry, Marnie thought, a slate quarry. His nose was crooked and his cheekbones wide-spaced: details that gave his face character. For he was—and she had decided this in the merest instant—the most attractive man she’d ever seen.

Attractive? He gave a whole new dimension to that word. Drop-dead gorgeous would be more like it.

He also seemed to have been struck dumb. His silence gave her time to feel through her clothing his lean muscularity and to appreciate his height—several inches taller than her five foot nine. He looked, she realized belatedly, as though he’d had a severe shock; nor had he, even momentarily, laughed at the ludicrous sight of her airborne ice cream. Suddenly frightened, she shoved against him and repeated, “What’s the matter?”

Slowly, he straightened to his full height, his gaze glued to her face. She could feel her cheeks flush from more than her headlong run through the rain. In a hoarse voice, he demanded, “Who are you?”

It wasn’t the response she’d expected. Distant lightning flickered across his face, shadowing the lines of strain around his mouth. He was pale under his tan and his eyes were blank: as though he’d been shaken to his foundations. Into the silence between lightning and thunder, Marnie countered, “What do you mean, who am I?”

He ran his fingers through his wet hair, disarranging it still more. “Exactly what I say. I want to know your name and I want to know what you’re doing here.”

“Look,” she said forcefully, “I’m sorry we bumped into each other and I’m sorry I got ice cream on your nice new car. But I’ve got enough napkins here to clean up four cars, and you bumped into me just as much as I bumped into—”

“Just answer the question.”

Thunder rumbled melodramatically overhead. Marnie’s eyes darted around her. No one else in sight. All the sensible people were indoors waiting for the rain to end. Which was precisely where she ought to be. “I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” she retorted. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“I’ve got to know who you are!”

Exasperated, Marnie announced, “I’m not in the habit of telling strange men my name—especially ones as big and dangerous-looking as you.”

“Dangerous?” he repeated blankly.

“You’re darn right.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Listen, can we start over? And in the meantime, why don’t we get in my car? You’re getting soaked.”

“Not on your life.”

“You’re reading me all wrong,” he said, making an obvious effort to speak more normally. “I’m not trying to abduct you or harm you in any way—that’s the last thing on my mind. But I’ve got to talk to you and we’re both getting wetter by the moment. Here, I’ll give you my car keys, then you’ll know we’re not going anywhere.”

He fished in the pocket of his faded cords and produced a key ring, then passed it to her. Marnie took it automatically, although she was careful not to touch him. The keys were warm from his body. “I’d rather get wet, thank you very much,” she said. “No way am I getting in the vehicle of a total stranger. What do you think I am, nuts?”

For the first time, something like a smile loosened the taut lines of his face. “If I didn’t feel as though I’ve just had the rug pulled right out from under me, I might even see this as funny,” he said. “I’m an entirely respectable citizen of Burnham who’s never once in the past fifteen years been seen as remotely dangerous. Not even around university administrators, who are enough to make a saint contemplate homicide. Although, when I think about it, there might be a few gun-toting guerrillas in Third-World countries who’d agree with you.”

Guerrillas? With guns? And he was trying to reassure her? She said tartly, “Respectable citizen? Huh.” In one quick glance, she took in the impressive width of his shoulders and the depth of his rib cage. “You’d look right at home having a showdown with a bunch of thugs.”

“I assure you, I lead a blameless life,” he said, a gleam of self-mockery in his slate blue eyes.

The lightning was a hard flash this time, much closer; Marnie’s overalls were, by now, clinging clammily to her legs. She added, “Anyway, you could have another set of keys in your other pocket.”

His smile grew wider and definitely more convincing. Yikes, Marnie thought, you shouldn’t be allowed out, mister. The woman isn’t born who could resist that smile. And she watched as he turned out both pockets and patted the pockets on his shirt to show they were empty. It was a blue shirt, now molded by the rain to his flat belly. “Please,” he said.

A raindrop trickled down the shallow cleft in his chin; he could have done with a shave, which added to his general air of unreliability.

Wondering if she was being a complete idiot, Marnie unlocked the passenger door of the Cherokee and pushed the button to unlock all the other doors. A peal of thunder battered its way noisily across the parking lot. As she gave him one last suspicious scrutiny, he yelled, “Aren’t you afraid of lightning storms?”

“No. It’s large, angry men I’m afraid of,” she yelled back. Then she climbed in the Cherokee, putting the keys in her pocket and waiting for him to get in. On the drive to Burnham, when she’d tried to imagine what might happen today, her wildest fantasies couldn’t have come up with this scenario.

As he opened his door, he said, “I thought all women were scared of thunder.”

“That’s a huge generalization. I love thunderstorms, hurricanes and blizzards. Shut the door, you’re letting the rain in.”

He climbed in, slammed the door and turned toward her in his seat, raking her features almost as though he’d never seen a woman before; the smile had vanished. In a voice charged with suppressed emotion, he said, “What’s your name, where are you from and what are you here for?”

“Why do you want to know all that?”

He hesitated perceptibly. “You…remind me of someone.”

As her brain, finally, swung into action, Marnie’s heart began to beat with sick, heavy strokes. There was only one reason why she should resemble someone he knew…wasn’t there? Clenching her fists against her wet dungarees, feeling more afraid than she’d ever been in her life, she took a giant step into the unknown. “Do I remind you of a twelve-year-old girl who lives in this town?” she croaked.

CHAPTER TWO

THE man’s mouth thinned. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking the questions. For God’s sake, tell me who you are!”

“My name’s Marnie Carstairs. I live in Faulkner Beach—fifty miles down the coast.” Although his eyes were as hard as stones, giving as little away, Marnie forced herself to take a second momentous step. “Is your name Calvin Huntingdon?”

In a ferocious whisper, he demanded, “How do you know who I am?”

She sagged back against the seat. He was Calvin Huntingdon. This was the man who’d lived with her child for nearly thirteen years. This was the man her daughter would call father. Her daughter existed. Lived right here in Burnham.

Tears flooded Marnie’s eyes. She fought them back, she who had fought back so much emotion in her thirty years. Swallowing hard, staring at the rain that was streaming down the windshield, she asked her third question in the same tight voice. “Did you adopt a baby girl nearly thirteen years ago? She was born on the twenty-second of June.”

His breath hissed through his teeth. As Marnie’s eyes flickered over his features, she saw that once again he looked thoroughly dangerous. “How did you get my name?” he grated. “Adoption papers can only be accessed by the child, and only then as an adult.”

“Does it matter?” she asked tonelessly. “It was by chance, that’s all. Pure chance.”