More Than Friends (26 page)

She felt it now. She always felt it. Sam Pope was the

quintessentially magnetic male animal, where she was concerned.

"You don't have to work, you know," he said.

She shot him a dry look. "If I wasn't working through all this, I'd be a basket case."

"But if you're overwhelmed .. ."

"I'm not overwhelmed."

"You just said things were out of control."

"I said I had no control, meaning of a situation involving Leigh and Jon and Jana and J.D. that will be resolved any minute--" She broke off when the phone rang. "Don't answer that," she warned Sam, and reached for it herself. But one of the children beat her to it. "That will be J.D. wanting the girls home." She took napkins from the holder just as footsteps could be heard above.

"What's the problem?

"Jana is convinced J.D. is moving out. Do you know anything about it?"

"No."

"Leigh is convinced Teke and J.D. will end up divorced." With a look she asked Sam what he knew on that score.

But he answered, "I'm the last one J.D. would share his feelings with right now."

"Have you talked about it with Teke?"

"Come on, Annie. She wouldn't tell me. You're her friend."

"You're her lover."

"Was," he stated, "in the most remote sense of the word." Jon barged into the kitchen. "Mom, J.D. invited me--" He stopped when he saw Sam. More deliberately he directed himself her way. "He invited me to go with them for dinner. Do you mind?"

"Of course not."

"I mind," Sam said. "I was hoping the four of us could have dinner." Jon's jaw was set. He stared at Sam for a minute

before putting the burden on Annie. "Mom?"

"Go," she said softly. "Your being there may make things easier for Leigh and Jana."

Jon bolted back to get the others.

"What about us?" Sam asked.

The part of her that still wanted to punish ignored the hurt in his voice. "His being there will make it easier here, too." She piled everything on the plates. "He isn't a happy camper when you're around." When she turned to set the table, Sam took the plates from her hands and went there himself. She expected him to set the things down, turn back to her, and argue. Instead he started to set the table.

As she watched in surprise, the part of her that loved him cried. She knew how much his children meant to him, knew how much it hurt him when Jon looked at him the way he had. "Give him time, Sam." He nodded and went on setting the table. He put the forks on the wrong sides, but Annie didn't have the heart to tell him, and in the next instant Jon, Jana, and Leigh were cutting through the kitchen to the door. Annie got kisses in passing from all three, but they went out the door without a word.

Sam lunged for the door before it could slam. "Don't be late, Jon," he called. "It's a school night." He seemed so forlorn as he stood looking out that Annie might have actually gone to him if Zoe hadn't chosen that moment to wander in looking down at the mouth.

"Wasn't Jana able to help?" Annie asked.

Zoe shrugged. She leaned against the wall by the phone, but when it rang she made no move to answer it.

Annie picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

A soft woman's voice said, "I'd like to speak with Samuel Pope, please."

Annie didn't recognize the voice and was instantly wary. "Who's calling?"

"Teresa Heskowicz."

Annie didn't recognize the name, either. If Sam had mentioned it, she would have remembered. Possibly Sam had chosen not to mention it. With a sharp look she held the receiver his way.

He took it. "Yes?" He paused. "I'm that Samuel Pope." He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck as he listened. "I may be able to help, but you've reached me at a bad time. Perhaps we could talk tomorrow. Do you have my office number?"

A potential client, or so it sounded to Annie. Sam didn't look embarrassed, only annoyed to be disturbed, or so it seemed to Annie. So she hoped. Once upon a time she wouldn't have had a second thought when a female called her husband on the phone. She wished she could turn back the clock.

But she couldn't. And Zoe's eyes were still on the floor. "What's wrong, babe?" she asked, touching the girl's cheek.

"She might have asked me to dinner, too. I'd have gone."

"I have a feeling Jon invited himself. Besides, we want you here." Zoe inched her eyes up only enough to see that Sam had hung up the phone. She went to the table. "I'll finish this."

"Daddy's doing it."

"He's doing it wrong." She switched the forks.

"That side?" Sam asked contritely.

Zoe nodded.

Annie took salad makings from the refrigerator and was closing the door when Zoe was there. In a low voice she said, "Jana's seeing Danny Stocklan."

"Seeing?"

"Dating. Saturday night."

"That's okay," Annie said. "You can be with the other kids without her."

Zoe sucked in a corner of her mouth in a way that said she wouldn't do that.

"Why not?" Annie asked softly.

Zoe shrugged.

"Why not?" Annie coaxed.

"They want Jana, not me. She's the life of the party, not me. I just go along because she's there."

"That's not true, honey," Annie said, wanting to cry. "They like you."

Zoe began chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"Why don't the three of us go to a movie Saturday night?" Sam asked. Zoe shook her head.

"Then to dinner. Or bowling." When Zoe shook her head again, he said,

"We could go to the observation deck at the airport and watch the planes taking off."

Annie remembered Zoe loving that as a child. But she wasn't interested now.

Sam kept trying. "We could go to the mall and play with the dogs at Paul's Puppy Palace." When that suggestion prompted yet another head shake, he said, "I could put you under my coat and smuggle you into an adult movie."

Annie had to smile at that one, it was so typically Sam--and so thoroughly bogus--but Zoe didn't smile.

So, gently, he said, "I'm open to other suggestions."

"I'll stay home," she told Annie, and whirled around and left the room, but not soon enough to hide the tears in her eyes.

"Oh, dear," Annie whispered, and set down the salad makings. She couldn't bear it when Zoe was upset this way. She was such a gentle child, such a

vulnerable child. Annie identified with her so strongly. Sam reached the door first, but Annie slipped past him in the hall. At the base of the stairs, she turned and put a staying palm on his chest.

"It'll be better if I go."

"Because she's angry at me?"

"Because she needs a woman."

"I used to be able to help."

"Okay, because she's angry at you. Time, Sam. They both need time."

"How much time?" He raked a hand through his hair. "I can't stand this, Annie. I want to talk with them, and I want to talk with you. I want to start repairing things, only no one will let me. When does the anger start to fade? How long does it take?"

She tried to take her hand back, but it was reluctant to leave his chest. So she left it there a little longer, just as long as it took for her eyes to tell him--to beg him--to be patient.

"I love you," he whispered with such a look of longing that she nearly forgot who she was, where she was, why she was there, and what all had happened to their lives of late.

But she didn't forget. She couldn't. Taking a shuddering breath, she turned and went on up to Zoe.

Grady was armed when he went to the rehabilitation center to see Michael. "These are for you," he said, pulling a tin from the bag he carried.

"Saltines?" Michael asked warily.

Grady opened the tin and tipped it to display the Ring-Ding cakes inside. "No one'll steal a saltine, so they're safer in here." Michael gave a small grin. "What else is in the bag?" With a little less confidence, Grady pulled out a battered old baseball hat. "It's my good-luck charm," he said. "Found it caught on my fence post when I first went back to Gullen after I got out of prison. Don't know whose it was." He straightened the visor enough so that Michael could see an A with a halo around it. "I was never an Angels' fan, not living in Maine, but I figured it stood for a new life, so I put it on my head. I came to think it was keeping me out of trouble." He looked for a place to put it, finally hooked it on the back-most of the beams that formed a therapeutic apparatus over the bed.

"Not there," Michael said. "On my head." Grady put the hat there, feeling warmed from top to bottom. Then he reached into the bag again and, more surreptitiously this time, took out a heaping handful of bubble gum packs and slid them into the bed stand drawer where Michael might reach them.

"I saw that," Teke said.

"They're for him," Grady told her. "This is for you." He pulled out the last of his gifts, a plastic bag filled with scraps and remnants, different-colored pieces of twine, and wire and fabric. "They're the best of my jobs. It's like my personal signature, stealing a souvenir." To Michael he said, "Your mom used to make the prettiest things with scraps like that. I thought she might like something to do with her hands while you're with the therapist."

Michael didn't look impressed, and what had seemed such a good idea to Grady back in the carriage house suddenly lost some of its sparkle. This Teke wasn't the penniless girl he had known in Gullen. She was married to money. She wouldn't be excited by a bag of scraps, regardless of how many

years they had been in the collecting.

So he mumbled to her, "You were baking cookies for the people at the hospital. I thought you might make earrings for the nurses here. Dumb idea, I guess." He started to put the scraps back in his bag.

"Wait." She studied the scraps, looking torn. Then, with the tiniest shadow of smile, she held out her hand.

Grady's heart flipped in his chest. He passed her the bag of scraps, wishing they were diamonds, she was so pretty. For all the imagining he'd done, all the wondering about what she looked like twenty two years later, she filled his highest expectations. She always had. He took a breath, forcing his eyes from Teke to Michael. "Are they treating you okay here?"

"I guess," Michael answered less enthusiastically now.

"No?"

"The exercises stink."

"That's okay, as long as they help."

"I want to go home."

Grady sought Teke's guidance, but she looked as helpless as he felt.

"When do they say you can?"

"They say it depends on how hard I try, and I do try, but it doesn't help."

His discouragement cut into Grady, a sharp reminder that it was Grady's truck that had caused the damage. He struggled to be positive. "You haven't been at it for long."

"Nothing's working."

"Then you'll have to try harder. Especially if you're going to wear my hat."

"My dad won't like the hat," Michael said.

Grady had figured as much. He had also figured that he had given the boy his hat as much out of

defiance as fondness. Thanks to J.D." the police stopped by several times a week to let Grady know they hadn't forgotten he was there. That defiance kept Grady from offering to take back the hat. "Tell your dad it's your good-luck hat and that you do better when you're wearing it. But if he's going to believe it, you do have to do better when you're wearing it."

"How old is your little girl?" Michael asked. Grady drew back. He shot a look at Teke, but she didn't seem to be any more aware of where the question had come from than he was. "Six," he answered cautiously.

"What's her name?"

He paused. "Shelley."

"Where does she live?"

He took a breath. "With her mom in California, last I heard."

"Don't you keep in touch?"

Grady frowned at his boots. "Her mom doesn't want that, and she has custody."

"Why does she?"

Grady met Michael's gaze. "Because the judge thought a little girl needed her mother more than her father, especially since her father is a convicted murderer."

Michael was silent then. Grady was beginning to think he was leaving the subject behind--and happily so, it was a painful one for him, when the boy asked, "Does that bother you?"

"Yeah, it bothers me. It bothers me a whole lot."

"Is that why you keep coming to see me? Because you miss her?"

"No."

"Because you feel guilty about what happened?"

"Sure, I feel guilty. But it's not the only reason I'm here."

"If you're here to see my mother, I don't want you coming." Teke rose from her chair. Grady stayed her with a hand. "Why not?" he asked quietly. If there was one thing he had learned from the prison counselor, it was to talk out his anger. Michael clearly had anger. Unless it was understood and channeled, he wouldn't have a chance in hell of running down a basketball court again.

"Because she isn't worth it," he cried, sounding wounded and not a minute older than thirteen. "She cheated on my father." Grady nodded. "She told me. She told me right in front of you, and she also said it was a mistake and she felt awful about it. So are you going to hold it against her forever? Me, I can't do that. I need people to forgive me. I killed a man. I took his life. He's dead and gone because I hit him too hard. In my book, that's worsen spending one afternoon with the wrong person."

Michael turned his head away and closed his eyes. In a voice that was suddenly younger than thirteen and much more vulnerable, he asked, "So are you here to see her, or me?"

"You," Grady grunted, "though don't ask me why. At least she's a fighter. Her life fell to pieces, but she went on to make something of it. You gonna do that?"

"But I can't move my legs," the small voice said.

"You can move them. You just can't move them right. So you'll have to learn how again."

"What if I can't?" Michael asked, on the verge of sudden tears.

"Hey," Grady said gently, and before he knew what he planned, he was sitting beside Michael, lifting him, holding him close. "You can learn how to walk again," he said while the boy cried quietly against his chest, "you sure as hell can. God knows you got enough people waiting here to help, and that's a head start, boy. It's more'n some people have. You can learn to walk again. You just have to make up your mind to do it."