Wounded Heroes Boxed Set Page 9

  "Hey, I know that guy!" Shane jerked on the door handle and shoved open his door as soon as Paul brought the truck to a halt. "He’s one of my dad’s old friends. We’ve got pictures of him in the living room."

  Great, Paul thought, slumping in his seat and wondering if there were any way for him to drive away without acknowledging Bonnie or her guest. He found a certain grim humor in the fact that the old friend—undoubtedly a self-righteous draft-card-burning radical in his prime—now wore his hair shorter than Paul did. His amusement faded, though, when he considered that the old friend was sitting comfortably at Bonnie’s side, on her porch, closer to her than she would ever allow Paul to be.

  Before he could figure out a way to make a discreet escape, Bonnie came charging across the lawn. "Were you hitch-hiking again?" she assailed her son.

  "Uh-uh," Shane said, shaking his head for emphasis. "I swear. I was just riding on Pond Road and Paul came along and gave me a ride."

  Bonnie glanced at Paul. He imagined she was searching for confirmation, but the minute her enchanting hazel eyes met his his body responded all over, tensing in desire and frustration and no small measure of anger.

  "It’s the truth," he said, aware that she suspected him of ulterior motives.

  "That’s Dad’s best friend, isn’t it?" Shane asked, pointing toward the man on the porch.

  "Yes, that’s Tom Schuyler. You can go say hello." She watched her son lope across the lawn to the porch, then turned back to Paul. He sensed more than suspicion in her gaze, more than resentment, but he couldn’t guess what it was. She opened her mouth and then closed it without speaking.

  Her silence made Paul even tenser. "I’ve got to go," he said abruptly. "You have company—I didn’t mean to barge in on you." He glanced past her toward the porch, where the man and the teenage boy were sizing each other up.

  Bonnie hesitated for an instant longer, then lowered her eyes. "I’ll get Shane’s bike," she mumbled, closing the passenger door and walking around to the back of the truck.

  As awkward as they felt in each other’s presence, Paul wasn’t going to let her hoist a dirty, heavy bicycle out of the truck, not when she was wearing an attractive skirt and blouse outfit, nylons and sandals and her neat cardigan sweater. After turning off the engine, he jogged to the rear of the truck. "Let me get it for you," he said, gently urging her aside.

  The feel of her shoulder under his palm provoked another surge of emotion inside him, arousal at war with resentment. He grabbed the bike by the crossbars and lifted it over the tail gate. Once the tires touched down Bonnie gripped the handlebars and held the bike upright.

  "I don’t suppose you’d care to stay for dinner," she said, her voice rising questioningly at the end.

  As invitations went, this one was hardly enthusiastic. It was also utterly unexpected. "While you and your husband’s best friend sit around the table reminiscing about the good old days? I’ll pass, thanks," he replied.

  "I didn’t invite him," she said, her voice quiet but oddly imploring.

  He peered at the man on the porch, who had apparently lost interest in Shane and was watching Bonnie. Paul wasn’t sure whether she meant that the man would be leaving, or that he would be staying even though he hadn’t been invited.

  Whatever her invitation meant, it was too complicated, too unfathomable. The man on her porch was as significant as the photographs on her mantel, as vital a part of who she was and what mattered to her. There was no room on her porch or her mantel for Paul. He didn’t belong here.

  "Thanks, anyway," he declined, faking a smile. He nodded at the man, waved to Shane, and got back into the truck.

  Backing down the driveway, he paused to scrutinize the birch tree he’d planted the previous weekend. Seeing that it occupied such a prominent place on Bonnie’s property heartened him. Not only had he managed to conquer Pond Road, but he’d also conquered Bonnie’s front yard. The tree was his. It would always be his, in some small way. He might not belong on her porch, but she would never be able to rid herself completely of him.

  Permitting himself a small, vindictive smile, he turned the wheel, shifted gear and drove off.

  ***

  "FRIEND OF YOURS?" Tom asked as Bonnie joined him on the porch.

  Shane had already disappeared inside. She leaned his bike against the porch railing before climbing up the steps. "Actually, he’s a friend of Shane’s," she said, then crossed to the screen door and hollered, "Please come back out here and put your bike in the garage!"

  "A friend of Shane’s, is he," Tom repeated, obviously unconvinced. He didn’t bother to wait for Bonnie to return to her chair before he resumed his own seat. "I’d say your taste has changed, love. A man like that, a good-looking rustic laborer—"

  "Get your mind out of the gutter, Tom," Bonnie snapped, her nerves frayed. "He’s an acquaintance of mine, and Shane is going to be working for him on weekends." She bit her lip to silence herself. She didn’t owe Tom Schuyler any explanations.

  "Shane’s grown up to be quite a young man," Tom remarked in a transparent effort to mollify her by praising her son. "I remember when he was just a little baby."

  Bonnie softened, her lips shaping a tender smile at the memory of Shane’s infancy. Before she could descend completely into sentimentality, her gangly adolescent son came bounding out of the house, nearly knocking her over as he sprang across the porch to get his bike. "Sorry about that, Mom," he said as he wheeled the bike across the lawn to the garage, leaving a track of flattened yellow grass in his wake. "What’s for supper?" he called over his shoulder from the driveway. "I’m starved."

  She hadn’t yet decided on what to fix for herself and Shane—but she had decided that she would be cooking only for two. Turning back to Tom, she offered an apologetic grin and said, "I’m afraid I can’t ask you to stay, Tom. It’s a school night, and..."

  He regarded her for a minute, then reluctantly took his cue and stood. "I guess I’ll be hitting the road, then. It was good seeing you, Bonnie."

  "Good seeing you, too," she said automatically. "And congratulations, again, on getting tenure."

  He shrugged, falsely modest. "So, you have no objections to my telling this McCoy fellow everything I know about Gary?"

  "Of course not. Be totally honest with him. I want his book to tell the truth."

  "If you say so."

  "And talk to Marcie, would you? Ask her to give me a call. I’m sure she has some important insights to contribute to the book."

  "I don’t doubt it." Tom extended his hand to Bonnie for a farewell shake, and when she took it he pulled her toward him and gave her an unwanted but relatively painless kiss on the cheek. "Take care, Bonnie. I’ll be in touch."

  "Drive safely."

  She watched Tom stroll down to the street, where a midnight-blue BMW was parked. He got in, revved the engine a few times, and drove away.

  Sagging against the railing, Bonnie shut her eyes. It was easy enough to rationalize her refusal to invite Tom to stay for dinner—he was as smug and presumptuous now as he’d been twenty years ago, when she’d first met him.

  Less easy was trying to figure out why she’d invited Paul.

  It didn’t matter why. He’d said no. He’d turned her down, just as she’d turned him down in the nursery. Now they were even, the score all tied up. No winners.

  The sound of Shane’s footsteps plodding toward the porch prompted Bonnie to open her eyes and straighten up. He vaulted up onto the porch and swung into the house. "Come on, Mom," he demanded. "I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat!"

  She caught the screen door before it closed and followed Shane inside. On her way to the kitchen, she glimpsed the mantel full of photos and hesitated. Tom hadn’t changed much at all, she realized as she lifted one of the pictures with him in it and studied it closely. His hair was shorter and his attire neater, but his smile and that begging-for-love look in his eyes were exactly the same. He’d been such a good friend to Gary, she really ought to vie
w him more kindly...but while Gary had trusted him, Bonnie had never been able to share his trust completely.

  Setting that photograph down, she lifted the one of her, Gary, and Shane as an infant. Tom was right about that, at least—Shane was turning into a young man. It was hard to believe he’d once been so small. It was almost as hard to believe that she and Gary had once been so deeply in love, so interdependent, so very much a part of each other’s lives. To this day, she was still shocked by the realization that, given how deeply in love they’d been, she had managed to survive without him.

  ***

  "YOU’RE LATE," she said.

  Gary closed the door and locked it, then set down his briefcase and loosened his tie. He looked exhausted—as well he should, since it was close to midnight and he’d only just arrived home from the seven o’clock lecture he’d given at Brown University. He dropped his coat on the back of a chair; Bonnie picked it up and hung it in the closet for him. Then he pulled off his shoes, tossed them onto the braided rug and collapsed on the couch.

  "How did it go?" she asked, shutting the closet door and then crossing the room to him.

  "You want to know the truth?" He shoved his hair out of his eyes and sighed with exhaustion. "These are supposed to be bright kids, aware of what’s going on in the world. They treated me like I was a relic from prehistoric times. Their ignorance about what happened in this country just five and six years ago is frightening. The questions they asked—and didn’t ask—indicated that they believe everything’s just peachy, now that we’re out of Vietnam and Nixon’s out of the White House."

  "They’re young," Bonnie reminded him. "They’re in college to get an education. You should be glad they invite people like you to come and speak on campus. Obviously, they want to learn."

  "Given the choice, I’m sure half of them would have rather been at some bar getting drunk." Gary leaned back into the cushions and closed his eyes. "Any chance I can get a back rub out of you? I’m bushed."

  Bonnie pressed her lips together. Perhaps he’d just endured an hour-long drive late at night after delivering a lecture to a restless audience, but she’d had her own rough night. She sat next to him on the couch and leaned her head against his shoulder. "I’m not feeling too hot myself," she said apologetically.

  He opened his eyes and squinted at her. "You look awful."

  Simply hearing how lousy she looked made her feel worse. Her stomach clenched, and she rose on wobbly legs and headed back to the bathroom. Inside, she kneeled on the cold tile floor next to the toilet, praying for the feeling to pass but positioning herself to be prepared if it didn’t. Her stomach clenched again, and again. Her head throbbed.

  She had hoped that Gary would follow her. This was his baby as much as hers, yet she was the only one suffering. She wanted to sympathize with him over his disappointing evening, but she wanted him to sympathize with her, too. She’d been nauseous non-stop for three months. Didn’t she deserve a back rub?

  What was she thinking? The nausea would pass. According to the doctor, both she and the baby were in excellent health and progressing normally. Let Gary worry about making the world safe for his child; Bonnie could suffer her constant bouts of queasiness without complaint.

  Fatigued, she drew her knees up to her chest and leaned back so her shoulders rested against the wall. Beads of sweat formed across her forehead; her mouth tasted funny. She wanted this baby, she wanted it so much. There were things far worse than morning sickness.

  "Oh, there you are. I was wondering where you’d disappeared to," Gary said. Gradually her eyes came into focus on her husband, who loitered in the bathroom doorway. "Are you okay?"

  "I’m fine," she said weakly.

  "Did Tom call while I was out? He was supposed to have gotten word on whether our permit to demonstrate down at the naval base in New London next month was approved. We need to be there when they launch the new nuclear submarine"

  "He didn’t call."

  Gary shrugged. "I’ll try him in the morning." He gazed down at Bonnie, curled up on the cold tile floor. "Are you sure you’re all right?"

  "I’ll live."

  "I thought you were only supposed to get morning sickness in the morning."

  "You learn something new every day," she said wearily.

  "Well." He hovered in the doorway for a minute longer, then shrugged. "If there’s nothing I can do for you, I guess I’ll hit the sack. I’m really beat."

  Bonnie stared after him, her vision once again blurring. Who said there was nothing he could do for her? He could soak a washcloth in cold water and press it to her cheeks. He could cradle her in his arms. He could tell her that even though she looked awful she also looked radiant and sexy and he loved her.

  But maybe he couldn’t do those things for her. Not when nuclear submarines were still prowling the earth’s oceans, not when more and more Third-World nations developed nuclear capability, not when billions of dollars were spent by the military while half the world’s population went to bed hungry at night.

  Gary was absorbed in the big issues. Bonnie couldn’t expect him to be absorbed in her petty discomforts, too. She loved him and he loved her. And soon they would have a child. How could she ask for more?

  Chapter Six

  * * *

  THE STORM HIT without warning. Around two o’clock in the afternoon, during a vigorous discussion of Charlotte’s Web, the sky outside the windows of Bonnie’s classroom suddenly grew inky. A clap of thunder shook the building, and then the clouds opened up.

  Two of Bonnie’s students shrieked, scared by the brilliant flashes of lightning and the ensuing cracks of thunder. Several raced to the windows to gape at the slashing rain. Scott Fiore, the class cut-up, began reciting the old saw everyone in Massachusetts knew by heart: "If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it’ll change."

  It didn’t change, though. As Bonnie made her sluggish way home two hours later, the rain continued to cascade out of the unnaturally dark sky in torrents, flooding her windshield at a faster rate than her wipers could clear it. Cars moved at a crawl; water gathered in the gutters, streamed down hills and pooled into deep puddles. Pond Road was more pond than road.

  At least Shane would be home, she consoled herself as she inched along the treacherous road. He would be home, and once she joined him there she’d make them some soup, and they’d ride out this storm as they’d ridden out so many others in their lives.

  She was enormously relieved when her driveway came into view. She coasted up it, got drenched in the time it took to climb out of the car and open the garage, and pulled in. After sprinting across the lawn to the porch, she shook the excess moisture out of her hair and peeled off her soggy cardigan. Stepping into the house, she shouted, "Shane? I’m home!"

  Silence.

  She darted to the foot of the stairs. "Shane?" she called.

  Nothing.

  Back in the kitchen, she read the wall clock. His school day ended fifteen minutes before hers, and she usually stayed on at the school an extra hour or more, attending to administrative chores. Even if he’d taken the bus, he should have been home by now.

  Stay calm , she ordered herself. It was just a windy rain, that was all. Shane could take care of himself. He was probably on his way home right now, or wisely sitting out the storm somewhere nice and dry.

  The telephone rang. Hoping that it wasn’t bad news, Bonnie answered it. "Hello?"

  "Bonnie? It’s Janet Molson." Matt’s mother. "I just wanted to let you know that Shane’s here."

  "Thank God!" Bonnie let out a long sigh. She really shouldn’t worry so much about Shane; he wasn’t a little boy anymore. "Thanks for calling me," she said. "I was beginning to wonder where he might be."

  "The boys actually rode their bikes over here in the storm. Can you believe it? They could have left their bikes at school and taken the bus here, but Matt says school buses are for dweebs."

  Bonnie laughed faintly. "They must have gotten soaked,"
she said.

  "They’re drying off. Shane’s wearing some old sweats of Matt’s. They think this storm’s a gas. They want to build a fire in the fireplace."

  "A fire? It’s almost summer!" Bonnie shook her head and laughed again. Raindrops spattered from the wet ends of her hair, and she tore a square of paper towel from the roll attached to the wall and wiped it along the dripping strands.

  "They’re in the spirit," Janet reported. "I’ve already microwaved some cocoa for them."

  Bonnie glanced at the clock again. "Listen, Janet, would you mind terribly if I wait a little bit before picking up Shane? I’m hoping the rain might let up in a while."

  "Don’t worry about it. I was thinking, why doesn’t he just stay here overnight? Becky’s spending the night at a girlfriend’s house, so we’re down one kid. Shane’s more than welcome to stay."

  "That’s very kind of you," Bonnie said. "But what about school tomorrow? He hasn’t got a change of clothing."

  "When was the last time our sons changed their clothes?" Janet said with a long-suffering laugh. "I’m running his and Matt’s clothes through the dryer right now. And he can borrow some clean underwear from Matt tomorrow morning. Really, Bonnie, it’s no trouble. Anyway, this storm’s supposed to last well into the night."

  "No kidding?"

  "That’s what they said on channel four. We’re getting the tail end of that freak tornado system that tore through Ohio a couple of days ago. There’s no need for you to go out in this weather. Relax. Take the night off."

  "Thanks." Bonnie slumped against the counter and tossed aside the soggy paper towel. "I appreciate it."

  "No problem. To tell the truth, Shane’s a lot easier to deal with than Becky. I’ll take a fourteen-year-old boy over a twelve-year-old girl any day."

  "Shame, shame," Bonnie teased. "You were a twelve-year-old girl yourself, Janet."

  "And I was horrible. My mother warned me I’d get my payback someday. Oops—the dryer’s buzzing. Gotta run."