She almost jumped when an elderly woman she knew slightly did just that.
“Hello, Mattie,” Cate said with some embarrassment.
“Well, Cate!” Seventy-seven-year-old Mattie Stoneking gave her a benevolent smile. “I thought you’d left, honey. Guess you just need a breath of fresh air. Could you possibly give me a ride home? My grandson had to work tonight. He has a second job, you know. Now that he and Carol are the parents of twins and she can’t work, finances are tight. I promised to come in his place. But it’s such a mad scene in there. Impossible to learn anything. My grandson’s not supposed to pick me up until ten o’clock. I thought maybe I’d walk home, since it’s only a couple of blocks. But my arthritis is acting up…”
Cate didn’t see how she could refuse her. “I’d be happy to give you a lift, Mattie,” she answered, accepting her fate. Relieved in a sense, though she was disheartened by the way the evening had turned out, she ushered the older woman to her car.
Brian hadn’t returned home by the time she unlocked her own front door. Damn him! she thought, swearing in her irritation. He’s out past his curfew again, with his friends on the varsity football team. To her added distress, most of his friends had driver’s licenses.
After pacing restlessly for the better part of an hour, she’d just settled down in the kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate when the phone rang. About to reach for the receiver, she decided to let the answering machine pick up. I doubt it’s Brian, she thought. It’s totally out of character for him to call and alleviate my worries.
“Cate,” Danny’s voice said. “Are you there? Say hello.”
She remained mute, seated at her kitchen table.
He let several seconds pass. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked. “We had plans, remember? Are you afraid you might still have some tender feelings for me locked up in your heart?”
Another silence ensued. Sorely tempted to pick up the receiver and answer him despite a strong feeling that it would be a mistake, Cate held her tongue.
At last, he spoke again. “Look,” he said. “Maybe you’re not home. Maybe something came up. If so, I apologize for ragging on you. Call me on my cell phone when you get a chance. I’ll have it with me tonight, at the house. And tomorrow morning, at the plant…”
He repeated the number twice, giving her ample time to grab a pencil.
Though she didn’t return Danny’s phone call, they met again much sooner than she’d expected—the following afternoon at Clingers’ Market. She’d stopped by after school to pick up a few things for her larder. She was just reaching for a can of peaches in order to make cobbler for dessert that evening when he spoke her name in a low, sexy whisper.
Startled, she dropped the can. To her mortification, it rolled down the aisle and lodged under another shopper’s cart. Luckily, the woman pushing it wasn’t anyone Cate knew well, though she’d seen her around town occasionally.
“Sorry,” Cate apologized as Danny retrieved the can and handed it back to her.
The woman smiled. “No harm done.”
Seconds later she’d disappeared into another aisle. The store wasn’t crowded, and for the moment, at least, they were unobserved.
“How did you know I was here?” Cate said, aware the question had combative overtones.
Danny grinned. “I saw your car. You know…the one you were driving when you took off from the football field in such a hurry the other day.”
“Trust you to remember,” she returned peevishly.
He laughed outright. Moved a step closer to her so that they were standing just inches apart. She could smell his aftershave, his remembered skin scent. If only circumstances didn’t have to keep us apart, she thought.
“It’s like this, Cate,” he said, his voice quiet and uncompromising, yet as delicious to the woman in her who still loved him as honey from the comb. “Your reasons for leaving me in the lurch last night are ancient history as far as I’m concerned. What matters is that I want to see you. In other words, to date you. I don’t plan to take no for an answer.”
Sorry, Cate balked without putting her objection into words. It would be much too dangerous. Ultimately Brian and the Andersons would have to know the truth.
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” she said at last, starting to reach for another can of peaches and then dropping her hand, letting it rest on the handle of her shopping cart. “My life is settled. I have a demanding job, and I’m the widowed mother of an active teenager. At the moment that’s about as much as I can handle. Meanwhile, you have your life in Chicago…”
He doubted he’d be in the Windy City for long after finishing his work in Beckwith. But he wasn’t ready to tell her about his future options just yet. First, he wanted to see if she had any interest in spending some time with him. About to ask if they could go somewhere, anywhere at all, and talk, he dropped the notion when her son suddenly appeared.
“Brian! What are you doing here?” Cate asked in surprise.
“I saw your car in the parking lot.” He gave Danny a questioning look. “I was wondering if, um…”
As usual, Cate guessed, he hoped to bum a few dollars from her. And for once she was more than willing to give them to him—if it would shorten the amount of time he spent in Danny’s company. “I suppose you’re weak from a lack of junk food,” she quipped nervously, digging in her purse. “Well, I’m not the sort of mother to starve a growing boy.”
Brian pocketed the crumpled bills she handed him with obvious surprise that she’d been such an easy touch. “Thanks, Mom,” he muttered.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Danny asked.
It was the moment she’d dreaded since before Brian’s birth yet perversely had longed for with all her strength. Tears welled and she struggled to hold them back. I’m not sure I can handle this, she thought. The need to introduce my son to…to his fa-ther…without telling either of them about the relationship…is so poignant, so ironic I could choke. Yet, if she couldn’t manage it, they’d both demand to know the reason.
“Danny, this is my son, Brian,” she said, amazed at the calm, somewhat expressionless words that came out of her mouth. “Brian, this is Danny Finn, the man whose job it is to decide what will happen to the plant where Grandma Beverly and Grandpa Jack work. He grew up around here. We went to school together. He played basketball for Beckwith.”
Once again her insistence that Brian behave in a mannerly fashion around adults paid off. “How do you do, sir?” he said politely, offering his hand. “If you played basketball, you must have known my dad.”
With equal courtesy Danny took it. “Glad to meet you, son,” he said, unknowingly driving a stake through Cate’s heart. “You’re right. I did know your father. He was a couple of years ahead of me in school. By the way, that was some touchdown you made on Saturday.”
Brian gave him a surprised look. “You were at the game?”
Danny nodded. “Where’d you learn to run like that?”
To Cate’s amazement, Brian flushed with pride. “We’ve got a pretty good coach,” he said modestly. “Sorry I can’t stay and talk, sir. But some of my friends are waiting outside.”
A moment later he was off in the direction of the chips and the soft-drink aisle.
“He’s a good-looking boy,” Danny said with a smile. “How old is he?”
“Fifteen.” Cate winced at perpetuating the falsehood she and Larry had begun at her father’s insistence.