Counting Stars (28 page)

Chapter Fifty

“No peeking.” Pete led Jane out the sliding glass door to the backyard. He stepped behind her, putting his hands over her eyes to ensure she didn’t see. “Now the way this game works is you have to
smell
your way to your present. Go.”

Jane put her hands on her hips and breathed in deeply. “This is impossible. Everything smells of lilac.”

“Yee-es,” Pete said.

Confused, Jane stayed where she was, her toe tapping on the cracked cement. “How am I supposed to find another scent over that?”

“Use your nose to follow the lilac,” he suggested. “Find where it’s strongest.”

“What good will that do if I’m supposed to—?” she broke off, twisting out of his grip to face him. Her eyes opened. “Did you—?”

He spun her back around, pointing to the three new bushes in the yard. “One for each baby, and a third for me—I realize I’m at least as much work as Mark and Madison.”

“They’re beautiful,” Jane exclaimed. She ran from the patio and went to examine the nearest plant. She leaned over, her face close as she inhaled the heady fragrance. “Where did you find such mature ones?”

Pete smiled. “In your little black book of landscaping. The people at Gearson Nursery were especially helpful when I told them who the lilacs were for.”

“Aren’t you sneaky!” She went to the other two plants, bending over to inhale their fragrance. “I love them. Absolutely love them,” she said, returning to Pete.

“I’m glad. I know tradition is cut roses, but I thought you’d like these better. He took her in his arms. “Happy Mother’s Day, Jane.”

* * *

Jay rose from the stool and put his guitar in its case. He was surprised to have been called into work today—it being Mother’s Day and all. Normally Sundays were slow, but maybe today sentiment had driven more men to the bar, hoping they could drown their sorrows in a beer or two. It wasn’t a half-bad idea.

As if she’d read his mind, Diedre, the bar attendant, sidled up to him, a drink in her hand. “Share a beer before we close up?”

She looked up through long lashes, and Jay studied her face with as much longing as he did the beer. She was pretty, and was he ever thirsty.

“No thanks,” he said, snapping the clips on his case. “I’ve got to study.”

“You always say that,” she whined, sliding her arm around his waist. Jay stiffened at her touch.

She took a sip from the glass in her hand. “What’s one little drink going to hurt?”

Plenty.
An ache—no, an urgent
need
—coursed through him. He looked down at her again. Her face tilted up to his—expectant, pleading, offering.

“I can’t,” he said, his voice not sounding as sure as he would have liked. Gently, he pried her fingers away and stepped from her embrace. “See you Tuesday.” He lifted his hand in a casual wave but did not look back.

“Jay?”

Against his better judgment, he paused in the doorway. “What?”

“She must really be something.”

“Huh?” He turned back and was troubled to see her eyes were glossy.

“That girl you love, she must really be something,” Diedre repeated.

Jay looked at her, unfairly making comparisons with Jane. “She is,” he said finally. He turned and headed out the door again. “She really, really is.”

Chapter Fifty-One

Jane returned the last of their dinner to the picnic basket and brushed the sand from her jeans. Scooting closer to Peter, she lay on the blanket and looked up at the stars. “This was supposed to be your Father’s Day surprise, but I didn’t want to wait that long.”

Pete leaned up on his elbow beside her. “I must say this is way better than the standard tie my boss gets every June. We’ll come out here again for Father’s Day. I’ll give you a quiz to see what you can remember.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jane said, sounding doubtful. “I never realized there were so many constellations.” She lifted her hand, pointing to the black sky and the thousands of tiny lights sprinkled across it. “Big Dipper. Little Dipper.”

“Everyone knows those,” Pete teased.

“Let me finish,” Jane ordered. “I was about to say ‘
or
more scientifically known as Ursa Major and Minor.’” She pointed her finger to the east. “And over there is Hercules. Big brawny guy that he is.”

“Not to be confused with Orion, farther west,” Pete said. “Go on.”

“Cassiopeia,” Jane continued. “Perseus.”

“Good,” Pete commended. He took her hand. “You skipped a few though.” Handing her the binoculars, he pointed to a smaller cluster of stars. “Name that one.”

“Long name or short?” Jane asked.

“Short. Just remember it’s small—so is the name.”

She frowned in concentration. “Lyra?”

“Excellent,” Pete said. “That deserves a kiss.” He leaned over her, placing a chaste kiss on her forehead.

“That’s all?” Jane complained. “Not much of a reward.”

“Name that one.” Pete took her hand, moving it across their line of vision. “Just southwest of Cassiopeia.”

Jane studied the six points for a full minute. “I give up,” she said at last.

“Camelopardalis,” Pete said. “You owe
me
a kiss now.”

Jane rolled to her side, facing him. “Of course. And for such a
long
name, I should think a long kiss is in order.” She leaned close, and Pete pulled her to him. After a few minutes, her hair came loose from its ponytail, and the blanket wrinkled, the sand encroaching on them. The stars were all but forgotten.

Beneath her touch she felt Pete’s heart beating as rapidly as hers. He deepened their kiss as his leg looped over hers, pulling their bodies together.

Breathless, Jane suddenly pulled away.
What am I doing?
I haven’t
waited thirty years to ruin my future in one passionate night on the beach.
She lay back, knees bent, eyes half closed as she listened to the gentle lapping of the waves. Her toes edged off the blanket, curling into the sand.

Pete looked at her from the corner of his eye. “You okay?”

She shook her head. “No.” Above them thousands of stars twinkled brightly, reminding her of the vastness of eternity—an eternity she didn’t want to spend alone.

He reached down and took her hand, entwining their fingers. “Scared?” he guessed.

Terrified. Of myself. Of the path that led me to this moment
. “Yes,” she said simply.

“Me too,” Pete said.

Surprised, she turned to him. She doubted that at thirty-four he was inexperienced in these matters. He’d certainly taught her enough about kissing, and she imagined there was much more he would willingly share. “Why are
you
scared?”

He didn’t answer right away, but his fingers tightened around hers, warm and reassuring.

She knew he would always be the gentleman. If she wanted to stop, he would. Trouble was, more and more, she didn’t want to. When Pete held her, kissed her, put his hands on her face or shoulders or waist, the world outside ceased to exist. It was even difficult to think of Mark and Madison during those times. But Jane knew she had to—had to choose a course that would allow them both to continue caring for the twins. Was there such a course?

Would Peter eventually ask her to marry him? And if he asked, could she say yes?
Could I be happy?
He made her deliriously happy right now, but would it always be this way? Would their religious differences eventually cause problems? She imagined sitting alone in church with the twins as they grew older. Who would baptize them? Would they even want to be baptized, or would they choose to believe as their father did? Jane imagined herself at forty, fifty, sixty . . . alone at church. Alone for eternity.

Tears gathered behind her eyes and she turned away from Peter, not wanting him to see.

He said nothing more about being scared, but instead asked her a question. “Did you know my father died in ’Nam?”

“Yes.” Jane hoped her voice didn’t betray that she was on the verge of crying.

“He flew a helicopter there—he was a medic. Got the Purple Heart for his heroic efforts risking his life to rescue the injured, those left behind.”

“I didn’t know that,” Jane said, immensely grateful for the change of subject.

“Paul and I were just babies when he was shot down. It was April 1969. Witnesses saw his helicopter go down, but they never found his body.”

“Did anyone else survive?” Jane asked. “Did they find his helicopter?”

“No and yes,” Pete said. “He’d had one injured man on board, and the men who found him figured he’d died when they crashed—though his throat had been slit too—probably the Vietcong did it for extra measure.”

“But your dad . . .”

“Wasn’t with his chopper or anywhere else they searched. There was no sign of him. He just vanished. There are still about eighteen hundred MIAs from the Vietnam War, and my father is one of them.”

“That’s awful.” Jane sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. “I can’t imagine not knowing what happened to my father.”

“My mother couldn’t either, so for the first twelve years of my life, she simply pretended he was still coming back.” Pete leaned up on his elbows, looking out at the ocean. “Every Christmas she’d buy him a present—some of them are probably still up on a closet shelf somewhere at the house. And on his birthday, we always had pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy, and German chocolate cake for dessert.” Pete paused, and Jane glanced over at him.

“There was a movie a few years back,” she said. “With Cybil Shepherd. She’d lost her husband on their first anniversary, and for the next twenty years she still pretended he was around.”

Pete nodded. “That was my mom.”

“
Chances Are,
” Jane said with a sigh. She owned that movie—or had, anyway, until she’d destroyed half of her video collection during her breakdown after Paul’s funeral. “It’s a very sad, funny, romantic movie.”

“There wasn’t anything funny or romantic about my mom,” Pete said quietly.

“No. Of course not.” Jane sat silent for several minutes, watching as the waves lapped the shore. She looked at Peter again. “You said for the first
twelve
years of your life your mom was like that. What happened then?”

“We met Mary.” Pete picked up a handful of sand and let it drift through his fingers. “She showed up at our door one day the summer Paul and I were twelve.”

“Mary?” Jane asked, certain she’d missed something. “I’m confused.”

Pete’s fist closed around the pebble that was left in his hand. He looked at Jane. “Mary was a Vietnamese refugee. She was eleven years old . . . and she had a note from my father.”

Jane’s eyes grew wide. “What did the note say?”

Pete shrugged. “It’s been a long time, and I don’t remember all of it—but the gist was that if my mother was reading the note, then it meant my father hadn’t lived. He said he was sorry—that he’d gotten lonely and made some mistakes. He hoped she would forgive him and take care of Mary, that she was just a little girl and innocent of his sins.”

Jane’s hand covered her mouth. “Your poor mother. What did she do?”

“Fell apart.” Pete hurled the pebble toward the water, and it was lost in the foam. “She took one look at Mary, saw my father’s eyes, and closed the door. I remember she went to her room and stayed there the rest of the day. I was worried about her, so I slept on the floor outside her door all night. She cried for hours.” Pete’s brow creased. “I’ll never forget that sound.”

Jane watched him with concern. She was touched he was sharing so much of his past with her, but she wasn’t quite certain why he’d chosen
this
particular time to tell her about his parents. She sensed there was something he wanted her to understand—but what?

Peter continued. “When I came home from baseball the next afternoon, all the pictures of my father were gone—every last one.” He paused, as if recalling something else. “She never mentioned him again, and if we did . . . well, it was bad. Once, I asked for a German chocolate cake for my birthday, and it sent her to bed, crying, for two straight days.”

“Oh, Peter.” Jane reached out and touched his arm. He didn’t respond to her touch, and after a minute had passed, she asked, “What happened to Mary?”

“After my mother had gone to her room, I went out front. Mary was still sitting there on the step. She couldn’t speak any English, but the escort from the refugee organization did. I had to explain that we couldn’t keep Mary as they had hoped.”

Jane looked at Pete with new admiration. “And you were only twelve when all of this happened?”

He nodded.

She rested her chin on her knees and stared at the water again. Something clicked as she suddenly remembered a conversation she’d had with Paul shortly after they met.

“Peter, Paul, and
Mary
?”

“Yep,” Pete said without emotion. “My parents got engaged after one of their concerts. They thought that would be the perfect family. Two boys first, then a little girl—”

“Named Mary,” Jane finished.

“Yeah.” Pete picked up another rock and hurled it toward the water. “We should go now. Your mom will be tired.” He rose from the blanket and extended a hand to Jane, pulling her up. They stood facing each other.

“That was quite a story,” she said. “Why did you share it with me?”

Pete shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at the stars. “Before I was twelve, I always wanted to be like my father. I dreamed of flying a helicopter into Vietnam and finding him—alive. Then, when Mary came, when I saw how my father had broken my mother’s heart—I didn’t want to be like him at all.”

Jane touched his sleeve. “But you
do
fly a helicopter—in strange and dangerous places all over the planet.”

The corner of Pete’s mouth lifted. “That sounds like something Paul would have said.”

Jane looked down at her toes buried in the sand. “Guilty,” she confessed.

Pete lifted her chin and planted a swift kiss on her lips. “You’re both right, that’s what I do, though it has more to do with other things than with my father.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Reserve paid for school, and later, when I had an opportunity to get out of the military, well it just didn’t seem right. Anyway, that’s a story for another day. What I told you tonight, about my dad, was about something else entirely—about you being scared—of me.”

Jane took his hands. “I’m not scared of you.”

“No?” Pete’s eyebrows rose. “What was that all about, then?” He nodded his head toward the crumpled blanket.

“Okay, maybe a little,” she admitted. “But I’m also scared of myself. You make me feel . . . You make me forget anything else exists but the two of us.”

A genuine smile lit his face at her confession, but sadness quickly swept it away.

“You don’t need to be scared of either of us,” Pete assured her. “I decided long ago that I would never be like my dad. I’d never hurt any woman the way he hurt my mom. And there’s only one way I can be sure of that.” He pulled Jane close, turning her to face away from him. They stood silent, his chin resting on her hair, his arms wrapped around her as they watched the surf.

It wasn’t that he was embarrassed or ashamed by his choice—his virtue—but he was afraid to see Jane’s reaction.

“I decided long ago that I would wait until I married . . .” His voice trailed off, leaving her to draw the obvious conclusion. “There have been times when I’ve wished I
hadn’t
made that decision, but then I’ve thought of my mother—the pain my father caused—and I always remember that I would never want to hurt a woman like that. Especially one that I love.”

He waited, felt Jane catch her breath, and was grateful he couldn’t see her face. He knew, in this day and age, that the announcement he’d just made was something akin to declaring insanity—or sexual dysfunction at the least.

“You’re thirty-four years old, Peter,” she said at last. “And you’re telling me you’ve never—
ever
slept with a woman before?”

“At fifth-grade camp I snuck into the girls’ cabin and stayed there all night. Does that count?”

She shook her head. “Afraid not.”

He heard the tremor in her voice and turned her to him. “Jane, it’s nothing to cry about. I promise you, I’m normal. Everything works—and I’m attracted to women—you ought to have figured that out by now.”

“I wasn’t worried—” The first tear rolled down her face.

He pulled her close, pressing her to his chest. He couldn’t understand why she was so upset, unless . . .

“Oh, hey, you don’t have to feel guilty.” He rushed on. “You had no reason to feel as I did—to make the same choice. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done.”
Liar,
his conscience roared. “I only wanted you to know that I’ll never cross that line, that I—ouch!” He stepped back, shocked that she’d pushed him away so violently.

“What is it that you think
I’ve
done?” she demanded.

Pete shrugged. “Well you’re thirty years old, you’re gorgeous—”

Jane laughed, then her eyes narrowed. “Go ahead and dig yourself deeper.”

Pete scowled and moved forward, capturing her arms. “You
are
beautiful,” he said. “And I’d be a fool if I thought I could be the first guy to have touched you.”

Jane stomped her foot on top of his. “Well you are!” Her eyes brimmed with more unshed tears. “The most I’ve ever done was linger too long on that blanket with you tonight.”