Last Night's Kiss (24 page)

“Ah, the energy,” Vida said. “Remember when we were that enthusiastic?”

“I still am,” Rosa said.

“I know,” Vida said. “You’ll be leaving us in just a couple of weeks. I can’t believe the summer has gone by so fast.”

Rosa wasn’t looking at Adam, but she felt his body tighten. Unconsciously, she reached for his hand. Finding it, she squeezed it.

“How are the wedding plans coming?” Rosa changed the subject. She didn’t want to think about leaving tonight. She knew she had to go, but she could put off the inevitable for a few more days.

“Now that I’ve gotten over the stress, they’re going well.”

Vida had finally finished the design of her gown. It had taken her nearly a week. And her office took the brunt of her frustration. But after a while, she found the right lines and coupled them with pearl and lace accessories that she thought would enhance the dress and that special day. When Rosa saw the final design, she gasped at the perfection of it. Immediately she wanted to model it, but this one was for only one model.

“I’m so glad the gown is done. Hercules is going to make it for me. He’s given it a high priority since the ceremony is so close.”

“Hercules?” Adam repeated.

“He’s the greatest tailor in the world,” Vida said. “Designers vie for his services.”

“Come on, Vida, let’s dance.” Mike took his fiancée’s arm. “If I don’t stop her now, she’ll keep up the wedding talk all night.”

“I
will
not,” Vida objected, but she let Mike lead her to the dance floor.

Rosa sipped her wine. She and Adam strolled around the room, speaking to friends and watching the dancers on the floor, but neither made a move to join them. At the door to the main entry room of the library, they passed through it. They gravitated to the seats where they’d met before. She wondered if Adam remembered.

“You know you’re going to be missed in there,” Rosa said.

“Not as much as your absence will be noticed. All eyes were on you, not me.”

Rosa looked around the room. She loved the smell of books. Eventually, when she settled and stopped traveling so much, she planned to have a library full of books. “I’m glad I came to the Valley for the summer.”

“We are a colorful lot,” Adam acknowledged.

“You are,” she agreed, her attention coming back to where he stood.

“Small towns are great places to get to know people,” Adam said.

“True,” Rosa said. “Big towns are impersonal. You’d never meet anyone there.”

“You’re mocking me?”

Rosa sobered. “Of course I am. I know all my neighbors.”

“Yeah, but you’d be noticed no matter where you lived.”

“I live in New York. When are you going to accept that job in D.C.? You know you want it.”

“What did my father say to you?”

“When?”

“This morning, after breakfast, when the two of you were in the great room.”

Rosa had to think a moment. Then she remembered. “He said we were young people. That it was our time for making memories.”

“And you said you wished you’d made more memories with your mother.”

“You were listening.” She stared at him, her eyes opening wide at the realization.

“Only the end of the conversation. I came in just before Joel came running down the stairs.”

“What I said is true, but I thought about it after I left Bailey. I have a wealth of memories with my mother. I hadn’t thought about them in a while. We talked a lot while I was away on trips. My brother Dean insisted we use these video conference machines. Later we switched to the Internet. The talks we had probably made us better friends than if I’d been with her every day. I’m very fond of that time. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”

“You’re suggesting I get video equipment?”

“Not quite. You can use the Internet. This way you can see your father on the screen.”

“But I can’t keep him from doing things he’s not supposed to do from sixteen hundred miles away.”

“He’s not a child, Adam. And how good a job are you doing by being here? When he had the heart attack, you were only a few miles away, but you weren’t with him. You can’t always be with him.”

He weighed her words a second before answering, “I just want him around as long as possible.”

“Then you have to let him live.”

“Can we not talk about this now? There’s a party going on.”

Rosa looked down. “Of course, we can drop it.”

He spun her around as if to begin dancing, but at the last moment pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

“We should meet here and kiss like this every year,” he said, letting her know that he remembered the kiss they had shared almost on the very spot where they stood.

“A kind of
Same Time, Next Year
for this millennium?”

“Uh-huh.” He kissed her again.

“Does that mean we’ll both have somewhere to be returning from?”

He nodded. “I suppose it could.”

“Good,” she said. “Because I have a message for you.”

“You do?” The sexual innuendo was evident as he leaned toward her again.

Rosa placed her hand on his chest and stopped him. “It not that kind of message. And it might bring the same subject up again.”

“Oh?” His eyebrow went up.

“You got a phone call tonight.”

His expression changed and he stood up straight. “Don’t tell me Ben called the house number again?”

“He did.”

Adam sighed. “What is the message?”

“Since you are going to Washington over Joel’s custody, he’d like to take you to dinner.”

“How does he know about Joel?”

“He didn’t say. But from what I’ve heard, Washington is like the Valley. It’s a place where there are no secrets.”

“You’re right about that. Ben doesn’t want to have dinner with me. He wants to try and convince me to return to the anchor’s chair.”

“Is there anything so wrong in that?” Rosa whispered. “You’d be—”

“Rosa, it’s my dad,” Adam interrupted.

“No, it’s not,” she stated. “Your dad has a condition, a potentially life-threatening condition, but look at him.” They glanced through the doorway. Bailey was dancing and laughing as if he were a teenager. “He’s living every day. Can you say the same?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “You’re using Bailey as a marker to hide behind. And now there’s Joel. You can use him as a shield, too.”

“I’m not hiding.”

“What is it you’re doing, then?”

Adam stared at her for a long moment. “I’m not hiding,” he said quietly.

“I don’t know why,” Rosa said. “But it all seems to have begun with Maureen’s death. You once told me you weren’t in love with her, but you were on your way to being in love. Maybe you were wrong and you really are in love with her.”

Rosa moved toward the door that would lead them back to the party. Adam stopped her with an arm going around her waist. He pulled her body back against his.

“I’m not in love with Maureen,” he told her. “I’m in love with you.”

Rosa didn’t have time to react. She didn’t know what she would have said, but the opportunity was taken away from her when Bailey spoke.

“Adam, what are you two doing over there?” Bailey stood several feet away. “I thought I’d get a dance with Rosa, but you seem to be monopolizing her.”

Rosa turned in Adam’s arms. Her face felt hot. Her heart hammered. Her hands didn’t seem to know where to go. The music in the background was only white noise to the whirling sound in her ears. Adam released her. “Go on, dance with him. We’ll talk later.”

But she didn’t. Her arms went around his neck and she stood on her toes to reach him. She kissed him, oblivious of everything except those three little words.

“I love you.”

The Mayflower Hotel was an old established building that sat in a fashionable part of Connecticut Avenue in the District of Columbia. Adam and Rosa arrived and checked in. He’d planned to make the trip alone, but when she offered to travel with him, he didn’t have the will to leave her behind.

Funny, Adam thought, he’d been to hundreds of functions at the Mayflower, but he’d never spent the night. His apartment wasn’t far from here. It was farther up on Sixteenth Street, within walking distance of the studio on M Street. He liked the District, loved the pace. Montana was quiet, slow moving, but the District hummed. He didn’t know how much he’d missed it in the last two years. Yet it only took him a second to remember the traffic, the streets, the crowds.

“I’m leaving now,” he called to Rosa. She came to the bathroom door, fresh from her shower. Adam felt a pull of arousal. He didn’t want to leave her. She’d always been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but that was when she’d applied the perfect makeup and wore the latest fashions. Standing in the doorway, free of any adornments except those rendered by nature, made her the most beautiful woman in the world. No magazine would refuse this fresh all-American-woman look. And he was sorry he had to leave.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

He did want her with him. He never wanted to be anywhere without her, but he shook his head. “I need to do this alone. And you have people to see, too.”

She nodded. Rosa had told him she was going to see Crawford first and then meet some friends for lunch. She came forward. His arms automatically opened for her. She smelled like soap, clean and fresh and ready for lovemaking. He kissed her quickly.

“I’ll see you when you get back,” she said.

Adam left then. He walked along Connecticut Avenue. The humidity was something else he’d forgotten about D.C., but it quickly reminded him that summer in the city was a humid undertaking. The attorney’s office wasn’t far away. He supposed that, like medical people, lawyers also took up residence in the same area. K Street NW was the place for law offices. All kinds of lawyers had offices there, everything from patents and governmental attorneys to criminal and family law. It was family law that interested Adam.

The proceedings took very little time and Adam left the offices with a much lighter step than the one he’d come in with. Lillian sat across the long mahogany table from him with her lawyer. Adam sat with his. Surprisingly she didn’t oppose the change in custody. Adam watched her. Something didn’t seem right about her, but she signed all the papers and he walked out of there with what Maureen had wanted. It had only taken two years for it to happen. And the report he had from Simon Thalberg had never been mentioned.

Adam didn’t head back to the hotel. Rosa was out with her friends. He went down in the subway and got on one of the cars. He didn’t plan to go there, but when he came up he was in the Ayerst section of town. This was where Maureen had died. The place hadn’t changed much since that day. The ground was still dirty, the houses burned out or boarded up. Addicts hung out on the corners, some of them begging for loose change.

He walked around the house that Maureen had been photographing. He’d seen the tape that was in her camera the night she died. In two years, the place still looked the same, brick house, broken windows, cracked stairs. This was the dirty side of life. Adam knew it. He’d lived inside its walls, rubbed shoulders with it. And Maureen had given her life to it.

Why should he come back here? Why should he return to this life? To reporting it? To sitting behind a desk with a camera in his face, while people like Maureen gave their lives…for what?

“Adam.”

He turned quickly, hearing his name.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. He looked both ways, then grabbed Rosa’s arm and turned her back toward the subway.

She stopped him. “This is where Maureen died.”

“How did you know?”

“I looked up the story online. It wasn’t hard to find.”

“Why did you come here?”

“I knew you’d be here.”

“I’m not in love with her,” Adam said. “I don’t even know why I’m here. Only that I had to come. She was part of my life for a long time. I have her son to rear. We were friends, the best of friends. And I value that.”

“Adam, do you think I’m trying to take something away from you? That’s not why I’m here. I came because I thought you might need someone. I know you miss her. She died too soon.”

He hugged her. “I miss it, Rosa. I didn’t think I would, but I do. I miss the work, digging for the truth. And I feel like I’ve let a dear friend down.”

“You want to come back.”

He nodded. “But what about Dad?”

“Talk to him. I’m sure you’ll find out that both of you will be all right with your decision.”

“I will.”

They started for the subway again. “You said you’ll be rearing Joel. What happened at the lawyer’s office?”

“Maureen won.”

Vida’s office looked better than it did the last time Rosa saw it. There were no papers on the floor. It was as neat as its owner. Her huge desk faced the room, allowing the sunlight from a huge window and that of a skylight to shower the desk. She sat on a high stool working. Rosa paced about, holding a cup of coffee, looking at some of the designs that lay on various counters.

“How was the trip?” Vida asked.

“From what Adam said, Lillian had no objections. She signed the papers giving him custody. She has visitation rights for a week in the summer if both Joel and Adam approve.”

Vida looked up. “Gee, that was gracious of her.”

“Extremely,” Rosa said. “I believe Joel knows more than he’s saying and that if he does talk, she stands to lose more than she wants to. I doubt she’ll ever ask to exercise the visitation rights.”

“You don’t think he was abused, do you?”

Rosa shook her head. “Sexually, no. Adam specifically asked the doctor to check Joel thoroughly. He found nothing and Joel would have told Adam if anything like that had occurred.”

Vida sighed in relief. “That’s good. It’ll probably take him some time to get used to being here, but he’ll be fine.”

Rosa nodded. “He’s got a great support system. Bailey has him calling him grandfather and I can already see him fitting in.”

“You don’t sound like it’s a good thing,” Vida said. She turned away from the drawing on the desk and stared at Rosa. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Rosa sighed, and dropped into a comfortable chair opposite Vida’s drawing table.

“Does nothing come in the form of Adam Osborne?” she asked.

“Isn’t it always a man?” Rosa answered.

“I thought you and Adam were heading in the same direction as Mike and I.” Vida stated it.

“Nobody could be in that direction.” She smiled. “I think you two have carved out your own road.”

Vida smiled, too, only her face flushed. After a moment she said, “Tell me what’s happening.”

“Not much. I supposed I thought coming here for the summer would mean a lot of solitary enjoyment of the scenery, some horseback riding, visit with you and nothing more. I didn’t expect to become part of the community, getting involved in other people’s lives, and…”

“And falling in love.”

“And falling in love.”

“Rosa, falling in love isn’t a disaster. Most people think it’s great.”

“I know. Those people follow the straight line, though.”

“Love is not a straight line. Look at Mike and me. We’ve been dancing around each other for years.”

“But there are no obstacles between you. You’re a designer now and you’ll be pretty much in the same town for most of the year.”

Vida would only need to travel to fashion shows, design conferences, and corporate meetings if she decided to sell her designs exclusively. Mostly she could choose her own schedule.

“What obstacles are between you and Adam?”

“Space is going to be the first one. I’ll be somewhere in the world and he’ll be here. We both know how difficult it is to maintain a relationship long distance. Then there’s his family.”

“Bailey?”

“Bailey
and
Joel.”

“You object to Joel?”

“Of course not! He’s a precious little boy.”

“Then you object to Bailey.”

“No.”

“So how can his family be an obstacle?”

“This is where Adam’s energy is. He’s got to build a relationship with Joel. Even though they had one in the past, two years and lots of growing have separated them. Kids need attention.”

“Rosa, you sound like no woman every married a man with a father and a child.”

“He hasn’t asked me to marry him.”

“You could ask him.”

“It wouldn’t work. He’ll be here and I’ll be in New York or parts unknown. My first assignment when I leave here is in Finland. I’ll make a quick stop in New York to drop the things I have here and then I’m off for three weeks. After that it’s—”

“You can stop.” Vida raised her hands. “I know the routine. Have you thought of giving it up?”

“Modeling? It’s my job. I have contracts. I can’t give it up.”

“Sure you can. Maybe not immediately, but you haven’t mentioned anything that can’t be fixed.”

“Maybe I’m oversimplifying it, but I don’t see it working when I’m not in the same place he is. And he has a family to take care of.”

“Well, think about this. Is this how you want your life to be? Always on the road, never staying in one place long enough to get to know people? You’ve probably been in the Valley for a longer amount of time than you’ve been anywhere else except Texas.”

Rosa nodded.

“And you see what it’s like to have neighbors who care about you. How to put down roots.”

“I have roots.”

“But you have wanderlust, too. It’s what took you out of Texas and around the world.”

“You’d still be traveling, too, if it weren’t for the accident.”

“The accident was a wake-up call. At first I was angry, but Mike helped me realize that I had other talents, that I could still do many other things without having to be on a runway.”

“Vida, I am truly happy for you and Mike. And I can’t leave modeling until after your collection comes out.”

The computer and screen were back in the boxes. Rosa had called a delivery service and they were due any minute to pick up the boxes and ship them to her condo in New York. Her clothes were packed and she’d turned in the rental car. The only thing left was to say good-bye to Bailey, Adam, and Joel and go to the airport.

Vida and Mike were taking her this time. There was no mixup, no emergencies that took Mike away, no illness that prevented Vida from driving. Rosa looked around the room. She’d spent a lifetime in this house, even though she’d only been here for three short months. It felt as if she’d lived her entire life in this small space.

She could feel Adam here. They’d shared meals at the kitchen counter, spent evenings on the terrace, and made passionate love in the loft. She looked up, imagining Adam looking at her over the banister. Again she saw the design in it. She had planned to ask him what it was, but never got around to it. Now she was leaving. She’d return the keys to Liam Wilkerson on her way out of town.

The doorbell rang and Rosa quickly dispatched the packed boxes. Vida and Mike were due in an hour. It was time to see Adam for the last time.

Rosa didn’t often walk in the Valley. She’d ridden the horses or spun around in the Corvette, but today she was without both. Gathering the box with Maureen’s cameras, she set out for the Osborne Ranch.

“Rosa, come on in,” Medea said when Rosa appeared at her kitchen door. Medea pushed the screen open and let her pass.

Rosa set the camera box on the floor near the door. “I came to good-bye. My plane leaves in a few hours.”

Medea hugged her. “I heard you were leaving us, but I thought you’d be around for a little longer.”

The two women sat down at the big table where Rosa had shared several meals. “Work calls.”

“You’ll be back?” she asked.

“I feel at home here,” Rosa answered honestly.

“Good, whenever you need us, you just come on back. There’ll always be a hot meal…or a salad…waiting for you here.”

The two women laughed.

“Hey, I thought I heard your voice.” Bailey came in.

Rosa stood up and hugged him.

“All ready to go?”

She nodded. A sudden lump lodged in her throat and tears gathered in her eyes, but Rosa held them back.

“I’m sorry to see you leave. You made me remember some of the best times in my life. And that birthday present was the best ever. I thought you and Adam…” He stopped. “Well, I thought things would work out differently.”

“I thought so, too, but he has a lot to do and there’s Joel now to care for. I have things to do, too. So it’s all for the best.”

“Not to this ole man’s eyes.”

“Where are Joel and Adam?”