With a shudder, he turned the rocker around. There were some things he didn’t want to witness, and that was right at the top of his list.
For the next couple of hours he dozed on and off between brief visits from Kevin and Ethan, neither of whom seemed to have any idea what to talk about. Ethan settled on politics, while Kevin rather predictably picked football. His father was noticeably missing, but he didn’t let himself dwell on what the old man and his mother might be doing. He heard nothing from Jane.
It was close to dusk when his mother appeared. She was badly mussed, and the redness on her neck looked suspiciously like beard burn. A bit of dried leaf clung to her hair, just behind her ear, giving further evidence that she and the old man had been doing something more than collecting wildflowers out in those woods.
She gazed down at him, and her forehead creased with worry. “Are you hungry? Would you like me to bring you a plate of food?”
“Don’t do me any favors.” He knew he sounded surly, but he felt as if she had betrayed him.
“I’d invite you inside, but Annie won’t allow it.”
“You mean Jane won’t allow it.”
“You’ve hurt her, Cal. What do you expect her to do?”
“I expect her to come out here so we can talk.”
“So you can yell at her, you mean?”
Yelling was the last thing on his mind, and he started to tell her that only to find himself once again alone on the front porch. For someone who’d set out to protect his parents from his personal life, he’d made an unholy mess of it.
Night settled over the mountain, and failure twisted at his belly. He leaned forward and dropped his head into his hands. She wasn’t going to come out. How had he screwed things up so badly?
The screen door creaked on its hinges, and he looked up to see her. His boots dropped to the floor, and he straightened in the chair.
She had on the same thing she’d worn the day she’d left him: that buttery cotton dress with the big tan buttons down the front. This evening there was no headband in her hair. It fell helter-skelter around her beautiful face and looked just as it did when they’d finished making love.
She slipped her hands into the pockets. “Why are you doing this?”
He wanted to sweep her right off the porch and into the woods where he’d love her until she was the one with beard burn and dry leaves in her hair. “You’re not leaving, Jane. Not without giving us a chance to work this out.”
“We’ve had lots of chances, and we’ve blown every one.”
“You mean I have. I promise you I won’t blow the next one.”
He rose from the rocker and moved toward her. She took an instinctive step back against the railing. He forced himself not to go any closer. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t like being backed into a corner.
“I love you, Jane.”
If he’d expected his announcement to sweep her off her feet, he’d badly miscalculated. Instead of showing pleasure, her big, sad eyes seemed to swallow her face.
“You don’t love me, Cal. Don’t you see? This has turned into another game for you. Last night you finally realized that you were going to lose, but you’re a champion, and losing isn’t acceptable. Champions do whatever it takes to win, even saying things they don’t really mean.”
He stared at her, flabbergasted. She didn’t believe him! How could she think this was just about winning? “You’re wrong. That’s not it at all. I mean what I said.”
“Maybe right this second you do, but remember what happened after you saw me naked. The game was over, Cal, and you lost interest. This is the same way. If I agreed to take you back, you’d lose interest.”
“I didn’t lose interest after I saw you naked! Where did you get that crazy idea?” He realized he was yelling, and frustration made him want to yell even louder. Why was it so impossible for him to communicate like a normal person?
He swallowed hard and ignored the film of sweat that was breaking out on his forehead. “I love you, Jane, and once I make up my mind about something, it’s made up for good. We’re alike that way. Call off your watchdogs.”
“They’re not my watchdogs, they’re yours!” Agitation showed in her expression. “I’ve tried to get them to leave, but they won’t do it. They’ve got this idea that you need them. You! Ethan’s told me all the sentimental stories from your childhood, and Kevin has described every touchdown you’ve ever made or even thought about making. As if I care! Your father’s narrowed in on your academic accomplishments, which is the last thing I want to hear about!”
“I’ll bet my mother hasn’t been singing my praises.”
“For a while she concentrated on the good causes you support. Then she began to explain how she used to play hopscotch with you, but she started to cry and had to walk away, so I’m not sure what she was trying to tell me.”
“And Annie? What did she say?”
“That you’re a spawn of Satan, and I’m better off without you.”
“She did not.”
“Close enough.”
“Jane, I love you. I don’t want you to go.”
Her face twisted with pain. “Right now you love the challenge of me, but that’s not enough to build a life on.” She hugged herself and rubbed her arms. “These past few weeks have finally cleared the cobwebs from my brain. I don’t know what I was thinking of to believe we could have a lasting relationship. It can’t always be raging fights and knockdown arguments. You feed on that, but I need someone who’s going to be there for me after the challenge is gone.”
“For all your brains, you don’t understand anything!” God, he was yelling again. He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “Can’t you just take a chance that I mean exactly what I say?”
“It’s too important to take chances.”
“Listen to me, Jane. This isn’t about fights and challenges. I love you, and I want to stay married for the rest of our lives.”
She shook her head.
Pain cut through him. He was spilling his guts, but she wasn’t buying any of it. He couldn’t think of a single thing that would convince her.
She spoke softly. “I’m leaving tomorrow, even if I have to use the police to get me out. Good-bye, Cal.” She turned away and walked inside.
He squeezed his eyes shut as despair washed through him. He was weak-kneed and aching, just as if he’d taken a career-ending hit. Except he wasn’t going to give up. Not ever.
As much as the idea of public declarations upset his sense of privacy, he couldn’t think of anything else to do but take his case to the people. Clenching his jaw, he followed her inside.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A nnie had her eyes glued to VH-1, where a Whitney Houston video mutely flickered. His parents sat on the couch holding hands and gazing at each other as if they were posing for a DeBeers anniversary ad. Ethan and Kevin had pulled kitchen chairs up to the gateleg table in the corner and were playing cards. All of them looked up at Cal as he walked in. Jane had already disappeared.
He felt foolish, but he knew that reaction came from pride, an emotion he couldn’t afford right now when he needed the entire team behind him. He struggled to compose himself. “Jane doesn’t think I’m serious about loving her.”
Ethan and Kevin regarded him over the top of their cards. His mother’s forehead creased. “Do you know that she likes to dance? Not those country and western line dances, but rock and roll.”
He didn’t exactly see how that was going to help him right now, but he filed it away.
“I’m sick of all this commotion!” Annie slapped the remote on the arm of her chair. “Jim Bonner, you go get Janie right this minute and make her come out. It’s time things got settled around here, so I can have some peace and quiet.”
“Yes, ma’am.” With a flicker of a smile at his wife, Jim rose from the couch and headed toward the spare bedroom.
Jane looked up from the suitcase she’d been packing and saw Jim standing in the door
way. “What’s wrong?”
“You have to come out in the living room now and face Cal.”
“I already faced him, and I don’t want to do it again.”
“You have to. Annie says.”
“No.”
One eyebrow shot up. “What did you say?”
“I said no?” Unfortunately, it came out as a question instead of a statement, but there was definitely something intimidating about this man and his raised eyebrow.
“Right now I’m the closest thing you’ve got to a father, and I’m telling you to get yourself out there!”
Bemused, she watched as he jabbed his hand in the general direction of the living room. She couldn’t help comparing the authoritarian look in his eyes with the way her own father had always regarded her, as if he were vaguely repulsed.
“No arguments. March!”
She thought about asking him if he intended to ground her if she disobeyed, but decided that wasn’t a good idea. “Jim, this isn’t going to work.”
He walked over and pulled her into his arms for a reassuring squeeze. “He needs to have his say. He deserves that.”
She rested her cheek against his shirt front. “He already had his say on the front porch a few minutes ago.”
“Apparently he didn’t finish.” He gently pushed her away and gave her a nudge toward the door. “Go on now. I’m right behind you.”
Cal looked even more dangerous in the living room than he’d looked on the porch, where the light had been dimmer. She noted his narrowed gunslinger’s eyes and cattle rustler’s expression. She wanted to believe that the three other men present would come to her rescue if he proved to be completely unreasonable, but she suspected that they were on his side.
Cal ignored her as she made her way to stand near the television, the farthest point in the room from the place he occupied near the kitchen door. As if she were invisible, he addressed the room’s other occupants.
“Here are the facts… I love Jane, and she loves me. I want to stay married, and she wants to stay married. All of you are standing in the way.” He fell silent.
Seconds ticked by. One after the other.
“That’s it?” Ethan finally asked.
Cal nodded.
Kevin tilted his head toward her. “Hey, Jane, he says we’re in the way. If we weren’t here, would you go off with him?”
“No.”
“Sorry, Bomber. You’ll have to think of something else.”
Cal glared at Kevin. “Will you get the hell out of here? This doesn’t have anything to do with you. I mean it, Tucker. I want you out of here. Now!”
Jane saw that Kevin was only prepared to defy Cal so far, and he’d reached his limit. But as he began to rise, Annie’s words forced him back in his seat. “He’s part of this, and he stays!”
Cal turned on her. “He’s not family!”
“He’s the future, Calvin, the same future that you don’t want to look at.”
Her words seemed to infuriate him. He reached into his pocket, drew out a set of keys, and fired them at Kevin, who came slowly to his feet as he caught them.
“Sorry, Mrs. Glide, but I just remembered a previous engagement.”
Jane rushed toward him, finally seeing a way out of this mess. “I’ll go with you.”
Everyone in the room seemed to stiffen.
“That,” Kevin said, “… is a really bad idea.”
“Sit down, Jane.” Jim spoke in his firm paternal voice. “It’s too late for you to get a plane out tonight, anyway, so you might as well hear Cal out. Kevin, thanks for your concern.”
Kevin nodded, shot Jane a sympathetic smile, gave Cal a worried look, and left.
She sank down into a chair near Annie’s. Cal stuck his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat, still addressing his family instead of her. “She thinks I only want her because she’s playing hard to get, and that once the challenge is gone, I won’t be interested. I told her that’s not true, but she doesn’t believe it.”
“You do like a challenge,” Lynn pointed out.
“Trust me… living with somebody who’s trying to discover the Theory of Everything is more than enough challenge. Do you have any idea what it’s like to see mathematical formulas scrawled on the front page of your newspaper first thing in the morning, or on the bottom of a grocery list when all you want to do is remember to buy beer? Or how about all over the lid of your cereal box before you even have your eyes open?”
“I never wrote on your cereal box!” Jane bolted out of the chair.
“You sure as heck did! Right across the lid of my Lucky Charms.”
“You’re making this up. He’s making it up! I admit I sometimes doodle a bit, but—” She broke off as she remembered a morning several weeks ago when a cereal box had been the only thing available. Resuming her seat, she spoke stiffly. “That sort of thing constitutes an irritation, not a challenge.”
“For your information, Professor, sometimes I can be talking right to you, and without any warning, you’re gone.” He splayed his hands on his hips and stalked toward her. “Physically you’re standing right there in front of me, but your brain has taken off into hyperspace.”
She shot up her chin. “An irritation, not a challenge.”
“I’m going to kill her.” Gritting his teeth, he slumped down onto the couch next to his parents and glanced over at his brother. “You see what I’m up against?”
“On the other hand,” Ethan said, “she looks real good naked.”
“Ethan!” Mortified, Jane turned to Lynn. “It’s not the way it sounds. It was an accident.”
Lynn’s eyes widened. “A strange accident.”
“You’re getting off the subject,” Annie said. “Personally, I believe Calvin. If he says he loves you, Janie Bonner, he means it.”
“I believe him, too,” Lynn said.
“Me, too,” Jim offered.
Ethan remained silent.
Jane looked toward him as if he were her lifeline.
He regarded her with a hint of apology. “I’m sorry, Jane, but there isn’t even any question about this.”
She had let herself entertain the fantasy that they were her family, looking out for her best interests, but now that the chips were down, blood called out only to blood. They weren’t the ones who’d wake up every morning wondering if this would be the day her husband was going to lose interest in her.
“You’re all wasting your breath.” Cal leaned forward, resting his lower arms on his knees and speaking in a hard flat voice. “Bottom line is, she’s a scientist, and scientists require proof. That’s what you want, isn’t it, Jane? You want me to prove my feelings to you, just like you prove those equations you scribble all over the house.”
“Love doesn’t work that way,” Lynn pointed out.
“She won’t accept that, Mom. Jane needs something tangible to stick in her equations. And you know why that is? Because nobody’s ever really loved her before, and she doesn’t believe it can happen now.”
She drew back in the chair as if he’d struck her. There was a ringing in her ears, a searing sensation inside her head.
Cal shot to his feet. “You want proof of the way I feel? Okay, I’m going to give it to you.” In three quick steps he was looming over her. Without warning, he swept her into his arms and carried her toward the door.
“Stop it, Cal! Put me down.”
Lynn jumped to her feet. “Cal, this isn’t a good idea.”
“I’ve done it your way,” he shot back. “Now I’m doing it mine.” He kicked the front door open and carried her outside.
“You can’t settle this with sex,” Jane hissed. She gathered her anger around her as a shield to protect her broken heart. Why didn’t he understand he couldn’t use strong-arm tactics to solve something this complex? He was ripping her apart, and he didn’t even seem to be aware of it.
“Who said anything about sex? Or is that wishful thinking?”
She sputtered with
outrage as he bore her off the front porch and began walking toward the road. Although she wasn’t close to being petite, he acted as if she weighed hardly anything. His breathing remained normal, his arms steady, even as he carried her down the road toward three cars that blocked the way.
He lowered her to the ground in front of his Jeep, pulled a batch of keys from his pocket, and threw several sets on the hood. Then he steered her toward his father’s Blazer, which blocked the other two cars. “Get in.”
“Cal, this is just postponing the inevitable.”
He pushed her inside and shut the door.
She turned her head to the window. If she wasn’t careful, he would wear her down, and she would agree to stay with him. That would be disastrous. Better to endure the pain now than have to go through it again when he realized he’d made a mistake.
The Professor needs something tangible to stick in her equations. And you know why that is? Because nobody’s ever really loved her before, and she doesn’t believe it can happen now.
She rejected Cal’s words. This was his problem, not hers. She wasn’t so lacking in self-esteem that she would throw away love that was honestly offered. Maybe it was true that no one had ever really loved her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t ready to grab it when the real thing came along.
Did it?
Cal turned out onto the highway, interrupting the painful path of her thoughts. “I appreciate the fact that you didn’t air all our dirty linen in front of my family.”
“I can’t imagine there’s even a piece of underwear elastic they haven’t seen.”
“It’s okay, Jane. I won’t snap your head off if you bring up the subject. I know I’ve done that before, but it won’t happen again. It doesn’t take a lot of insight to know that you see me as pretty aimless right now, and I appreciate the fact that you didn’t hit me with that in front of my family.”
“Aimless?”
“Just because I don’t know what I’m going to do when I stop playing ball doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of you. I know you might think that, but everything will change as soon as I get things figured out. I just need a little more time to sort through my options, that’s all.”
She stared at him, flabbergasted. This was the first time he’d acknowledged that he wouldn’t be playing football forever. But what did that have to do with her feelings toward him? Not for a moment had she regarded his lack of plans for the future as a roadblock.