~~~
Wednesday, April 4, 1973
Redemption, Pennsylvania
How could she refuse him again?
Abby Foster smoothed the figure-hugging skirt of her ebony cocktail dress while Robert opened the historic inn’s door. The floral scent from the lobby floated into the night with the melodic strains from the piano.
Nobody could say Rob wasn’t romantic or persistent. But three proposals inside a year were a bit much. She wished he’d take her for a fast-food burger, instead. Then she wouldn’t feel so guilty when she turned him down—again.
He slid her satin evening jacket off her shoulders and kissed the slope of her neck. “I love your dress. If you’ve gotten Mrs. Dalton’s to fit anything like you did yours—”
“Don’t get me started on Helen Dalton’s gown,” Abby muttered, letting Rob guide her into the elegant dining room. They waited for the host to check Rob’s name on the reservation list. “I have to let out every damn seam. I swear, if she gains another ounce, I’m going to have you wire her jaw shut so she can’t eat until after her son’s wedding.”
“So I take it you had a good day?” Rob teased, following the maitre d’ to a table near the rustic stone fireplace.
She hoisted her eyebrows in a you-must-be-joking arch.
“I’m sorry, Honey. As much as I’d love to help you out, it would be a clear case of malpractice—not to mention, I fitted Mrs. Dalton for a full set of dentures last year. So there’s nothing left to wire together.”
“Okay, I’ll just break them.” She chuckled. “To top it off, the babysitter canceled at the last minute.” Abby sank into the upholstered chair the maitre d’ pulled out and smiled her thanks as he laid the menus on the table and left. “I’m just glad my brother is on leave and could stay with the boys.”
“Not as glad as I am.” Rob rolled his eyes toward the restaurant’s beamed ceiling. “An evening with a couple of six-year-old chaperones isn’t my idea of a hot date.”
“Pleease.” She laughed, spreading the napkin in her lap. “Tommy and Royce are my virtue’s last line of defense.”
Robert’s clear hazel eyes searched her face. After several seconds, he apparently abandoned trying to come up with a diplomatic retort and blurted, “You’re a fraud, Abby.”
“Well, thank you.”
“I’m serious. That innocent Madonna façade you use to hold men at a distance is completely transparent. You think guys keep breaking up with you because you can’t give them their own children. That’s a load of bull.”
She raised her menu to hide the flush creeping up her neck. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t want a family.”
“No, but I want you as my wife and in my bed.”
She glanced around, thankful it was early and the nearby tables were still empty.
“If having more kids is that important to you,” he continued, “I might consider adoption. The only reason those other guys bailed was because you weren’t willing to get serious.”
“Get serious?” She sputtered softly. “Don’t you mean put out?”
He shoved her menu down so he could look her in the eye. “Not necessarily. But, yeah, sex probably would’ve helped. When a relationship’s going somewhere, a couple usually takes it into the bedroom.”
Apparently, at almost twenty-five she was still as big a dork as she’d been in high school when other girls were having sex and calling her a prude. She just couldn’t sleep with a guy unless she had strong feelings for him. And look where that had left her with Matt—pregnant and widowed at only eighteen.
Robert took her hand. “Why are you still dating me, Abby? And your excuse that I’m not interested in having a family, doesn’t fly. There’re plenty of single dads out there who already have children and would be happy to have you as their kids’ mother.”
She’d tried the whole Parents without Partners scene. Most single dads had at least a decade on her and were divorced—sometimes more than once. “There’s a good reason a lot of those men are alone. They’re deadbeats.”
“Not all of them. Sometimes I think the only reason you’re still dating me is because I haven’t tried to drag you into the bedroom to exorcise your husband’s ghost. And believe me, I’d do it if I didn’t think you’d end up hating me.”
“I’m sorry. I really do care for you, Rob.” At least as much as she was capable of caring for any man other than the one she’d loved and lost. Her real problem was she wanted Matt back.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it anymore, Honey. I’m not some horny teenager who can be satisfied with a little foreplay forever,” he told her, alluding to all the times she’d made out with him and stroked him until he burst so she could continue to delay the inevitable and lighten her guilt.
“I know that.” She squeezed his arm. “But I feel like I’m cheating on—”
“Your husband is gone,” Rob insisted. “It isn’t healthy to keep fantasizing he survived. I understand it helped you cope when you were eighteen. But enough’s enough. Operation Homecoming is over. The last of the POWs came home over a week ago. Please admit he’s dead and marry me.”
She knew in her heart Matt had most likely been killed. But she’d kept him alive, envisioning him at the dinner table with her and the boys and imagining him holding her at night. Everyone had insisted she was young and, in time, would forget Matt. However, after six years of reading his old letters and living with him in her imagination, her love had only grown deeper.
“But they think the North Vietnamese still have prisoners they aren’t admitting to.”
“The government declared your husband dead over six years ago.”
Matt’s chopper had gone down on a classified mission so the military had refused to reveal where he’d died. All they’d told her was Matt’s dog tags had been recovered from the crash site among the men’s charred remains.
Robert stabbed his fingers through his tawny hair. “What’s it going to take for you to accept he isn’t coming back?”
She stared down at her rings sparkling in the candlelight and caught her lip between her teeth. “I don’t know.”
“If I didn’t love you so damn much, I would’ve given up on you a year ago. Marry me, please.”
How could she promise herself to Rob when she only wanted Matt? “I’m sorry I keep putting you off, but I just can’t sleep with you, feeling the—”
“I know. I’ve tried to understand, but I’m tired of waiting, Abby. Say yes, or I’ll have to move on.” Apparently, there was a limit to Rob’s patience.
She had to stop living in denial, or she would lose him. Struggling to swallow, she whispered, “Let me think about it until after dinner.”
While Rob ordered Maryland crab cakes and salads with champagne vinaigrette to start their meal, Abby’s mind wandered back to the evening her brother had brought Matt home during spring break.
She’d been carefully setting the dining room table, making sure the silverware lined up the proper distance from the plate and the edge of the table.
“Can I help?” an unfamiliar tenor asked.
Abby spun toward the doorway where a Greek God dressed as one of Hell’s Angels leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his chest. A cigarette butt hung from his lip, its smoke curling around his head like a hazy halo.
The chandelier accentuated the highlights in his short hazelnut hair, topping off over six-feet of muscles, the likes of which she hadn’t seen on a guy in....forever.
Okay, play it cool. Don’t let him see what a big dork you are. “I don’t know,” she croaked, trying to work up enough spit to speak coherently. “Can you?”
“Maybe. Sure you don’t want a ruler to double-check your precision?”
“Do you have one handy?”
He patted all of his pockets, then snapped his fingers and grinned. “Sorry, I’m fresh out of rulers. Although, my friends tell me I have a great eye for measurements.”
She held her breath while the appr
eciative glint flickering in his hot fudge gaze warmed her from head to toe.
“I’d say you have it all situated—perfectly. You must be Abby. I’m Matt Foster, a friend of your brother’s from ROTC.”
“Oh, another maniac with a death wish.”
He took her offered hand and held it, staring into her eyes while he stroked her palm, making her tremble. “Believe me, I enjoy breathing. When I graduated high school in ’62, Cuba and the Soviet Union were more of an issue than Vietnam.”
“That’s true,” she admitted, yanking her hand away. No one had expected the situation to escalate there.
“Ivy League schools aren’t cheap. Even though I had the grades to get into Princeton, they weren’t quite good enough to get a full ride.”
“So I guess you needed financial help as much as Pete did.”
“Yup. He’s the one who pointed out that, if we applied for ROTC scholarships, not only would Uncle Sam write checks to Princeton for us, the Army would also be forced to wait four years and would induct us as officers. We gambled the shooting would be over by now. I’ll be graduating with Pete in May, so you could say we lost.”
Wow. Matt looked young enough to be starting college instead of finishing.
“If nothing else, it’s a cheap way to see the world.”
Not to mention a dangerous way. Everyone knew the enemy always targeted officers first. She snatched the cigarette from his lips and stubbed it out in the glass ashtray on the sideboard.
“Sorry.” He dug a roll of mints out of his pocket. “Your brother said your mom wouldn’t care if I smoked in the house.”
Of course Pete would say that, seeing as he and their mother both puffed their way through a carton a week. “If you really like breathing, you’ll give those up. Or haven’t you heard they cause cancer?”
Darn. She winced inwardly, shaking her head to refuse the mint he offered her. Why had she done that? Now he really would think she was a doofus.
“Oh?” He peered down at the top of her head. “I thought they just stunted a person’s growth.”
“What we short people lack in height, we more than make up for with brains.”
Matt tipped her chin up, a mischievous twinkle glittering in his gaze. “If you’re so smart, why don’t you tell me what I’m wondering right now.”
“I may be intelligent, but I’m not a mind reader.”
“Sweetheart,”—he popped one of the mints into his mouth—“if you’re really as sharp as you claim, you’d know exactly what’s on my mind.”
This guy was no angel—fallen or otherwise. “Well....” She gulped. “I guess I’m not as smart as I thought. So if you’ve known Peter since high school, why hasn’t he brought you around before?
“Probably ‘cause he knew I’d hit on you.”
“Typical. My brother likes to forget I’ll be eighteen in June.”
“So maybe you are psychic. You just answered my question.” He stepped closer and took her hand in his, caressing the back of it with his thumb. “I was wondering whether you’re old enough to go out with me tomorrow night.” His gaze moved slowly over her face, an untamed longing flaring in his eyes. “I’ll take you for a spin on my Harley. We can do whatever you like. Maybe a movie?”
She didn’t want to admit he was out of her league, so her safest move would be to suggest something a guy would hate—like say, a musical to discourage him. “Umm, The Sound of Music is making a second run after winning Best Picture. I missed it last year, so I’d love to see that.”
He laughed. “I’ll be happy to take you, but I have no idea how you’re going to see the sound of music. Most people hear it.”
So much for discouraging him.
“Is it a date?” he asked. When she hemmed and hawed, hesitating, he coaxed softly, “Come on, what do you say?”
“I say, I’ll be asking for trouble if I go out with you.”
He leaned closer and gently threaded his fingers through her long hair. The mingled scents of his tangy aftershave and tobacco wafted around her like a seductive cloud. His mouth came within inches of hers, his warm, minty breath tickling her face and making her heart leap. “I know,” he whispered roughly, “but do it anyway.”