Amanda Stuart Maxwell versus Dane Cameron Maxwell.
Closing her eyes, she rubbed her forehead, but the words still blazed starkly eloquent in her mind.
Amanda versus Dane
. How concise. How simplistic. How piercingly ironic. She wondered how Dane would feel when he received his copy of the papers, and then blocked the thoughts from her consciousness.
She would be late for dinner at Martha’s if she didn’t get moving. It was the first dinner invitation she’d accepted and she didn’t want to risk a good-natured scolding when she did arrive. With a quick, reassuring scan of her green button-front skirt and white blouse, she left the house to walk the half-mile or so that separated her from Martha’s.
Summer bloomed, hot and humid, along the path and Amanda filled her lungs with the stuffy heat. By the time she reached the carved, double doors of the house and lifted the ornate knocker, the heat had entered her cheeks and spiraled damply into the limp curls at her nape.
“Come in, come in.” Martha motioned Amanda into the air-conditioned hall and surveyed her with disapproval. “You look like you could be second cousin to a heat stroke. Go on in the front room and make yourself comfortable. I’ll get you something to drink.”
“Hello, Martha.” Amanda pointedly addressed the sturdy back bustling away in the direction of the kitchen, but Martha paid no heed. With a wry lift of her brow, Amanda did as she was bid and relaxed in the comforting coolness.
“Whatever possessed you to walk in the first place?” Martha entered the room at the same brisk pace and presented Amanda with a modified version of a mint julep.
Accepting the sun-brewed tea laced with cider and a sprig of mint, Amanda smiled a thank-you. She accepted the fussing in the same spirit, knowing that if she had chosen to drive, Martha would have scolded her for not getting enough exercise. Martha was a mother hen in search of a chick, and at the moment Amanda happened to be the chick closest at hand.
“Feel better?” Martha asked as she eased herself onto the edge of the Boston rocker.
“I feel fine,” Amanda stated firmly. “I felt fine when I arrived on your doorstep. It’s only a short walk, Martha, and it’s only a little humid outside. You worry too much.”
Her wrinkled cheeks creased with a smile. “I worry about you cooped up in that house with wallpaper samples and fabric scraps. You need to get out, Amanda. Meet people. Find out what’s going on in the world.”
Amanda swirled the glass in her hand until ice cubes clinked musically. She could feel a lecture hiding behind that bland smile; Martha was ever on the alert for her opportunity. “I do get out, Martha. I’m here. And I spent the entire day in Annapolis—meeting people. In fact I have a job beginning first thing in the morning.”
“A job? You mean you’re going to work?”
“I’m afraid so,” Amanda said with a teasing laugh. “No more goofing off for me and no more free interior decorating for you. Tomorrow I join the eight-to-five rank and file. Well, actually, it will be nine to three. I’ll be working for Susanna Williamson at her child-care center. Imagine me with a group of rowdy preschoolers! Lucky I took some college hours in early childhood education, wasn’t it?” Amanda stopped to sip at her drink, hoping Martha wouldn’t notice the breathy uncertainty in her voice, but knowing she couldn’t help but notice.
“Children?” The word came cautiously, accompanied by a watchful green gaze. “Is that the sort of work you want to do, Amanda?”
Straightforward, Amanda thought. No
“Do you think that’s wise?”
or
“Can you handle it?”
or
“How can you be around children every day and not be constantly remembering and regretting?”
None of the questions she had asked herself again and again.
Just a concerned look and a straightforward question. That was Martha’s way and Amanda knew she wouldn’t get by with a yes or no answer.
“I think it is,” Amanda said. “At first I wasn’t sure, but after I visited the center and looked around, I decided to give it a try.” She paused to glance away from the perceptive gaze. “I love children, Martha, and I can’t spend my entire life avoiding them just because I might feel uncomfortable at times.”
She didn’t attempt any further explanation. How could she explain? How could she tell anyone else the curious pleasure she had felt when she walked into the center today? No one else would understand her motives; her longing to love and enjoy the delights of children without risking her still tender emotions. Perhaps it was selfish, but surely no one could be hurt if she shared a moment of childish wonder or stole an innocent smile....
“What?” Amanda snapped to attention at the mention of the name.
Martha assumed a knowing frown. “I said what is Dane going to think?”
The odd tightening of her throat returned unexpectedly and Amanda swallowed hard to dislodge it. “I doubt that he’ll be interested enough to think anything.”
“Would you be interested if you heard that he’d sold out and was going to work for another architect?”
“What?” Amanda sat straighter in surprise. “Dane sold the firm? I don’t believe it!”
Folding her arms, Martha smiled and began to rock. “I didn’t say he sold the firm. I just asked if you’d be interested to know it if he did.”
Amanda sighed her impatience and tried not to admit it was also a sigh of relief. “You never give up, do you?”
“You didn’t answer me, Amanda.”
Lifting her palms in defeat, she capitulated. “All right, Martha. Yes, I’d be interested. But, then, so would dozens of other people.”
“You know what I meant.”
In a fluid rhythm of composure, Amanda set her tea glass on the table, crossed one knee over the other, and clasped her hands in her lap. “Let’s drop the subject.”
“Let’s not.” Martha leaned forward, her eyes bright with eagerness to countermand the blasé tone of her voice. “You need to talk about Dane sometime. You can’t go on jumping every time his name is mentioned.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
Agitated, Amanda stood and then wasn’t certain of what action to initiate next. It bothered her to know that Martha was right and it bothered her even more to realize that she was interested, insatiably so, in gleaning tidbits of information about Dane. On a breath of surrender Amanda sat back down. “How is he, Martha?”
“Working too hard,” came the crisp, almost accusing answer. “He calls most nights from the office. I suppose he’s spending a lot of time there.”
Amanda nodded. “The Reichmann account, I imagine. I know he was completing the scale models for that hotel chain. Just think, one day we’ll walk into a hotel in another country and recognize Dane as the architect. Won’t that be marvelous?”
“For some of us.”
“Martha, please. Just because Dane and I aren’t together anymore….” She had to stop and swallow again—hard. “I’ll always be very proud of him.”
Martha gave an audible sniff. “You once said you’d always love him.”
How could she answer that? “I know,” she said quietly. “I know.”
“Let’s eat.” Martha rolled to her feet and walked to the doorway with a cursory glance at Amanda. “We’re having Chinese tonight. Stringy vegetables with globs of rice and Lord only knows what else. I made the mistake of letting Mr. MacGregor buy a wok, and he’s starving me to death.
Amanda’s gaze followed her hostess from the room, but her mind was a little slow to catch up. The change of topic had been deliberate, of course. Martha was never subtle, but she had a way of making her point. With a shake of her head Amanda rose and started toward the dining room. Dane was in her thoughts now, as he hadn’t been before. His absence was an empty feeling that surrounded her and would almost certainly linger for the rest of the evening.
Martha. You couldn’t trust her for a minute.
As Amanda entered the room and seated herself, Martha smiled complacently. She waited a moment before bracing her hands on either side of her plate and challenging the burly man standing beside her. “All right, Mr. MacGregor, bring it on.”
“With chopsticks or without?” he asked with brusque amusement.
“Without, you sorry excuse for a cook!”
Not by the blink of an eye did he let Martha intimidate him as he turned to Amanda with a wide grin. “You’ll like supper, Amanda. I know you appreciate fine cuisine.”
Martha leaned close to rasp a whisper. “Don’t you dare encourage him. He’s unbearable as it is. I don’t know why I keep him around.”
That was something Amanda had often wondered herself. She lifted a finger to her lips to quell their tendency to smile and remembered the first time she’d met Mr. MacGregor. He had just been there one day, acting as chef, butler, gardener, and generally aggravating Martha. There had been no explanations, only a brief introduction, and after that he was simply a member of the household.
Even now Amanda had no idea if he had a first name other than Mister.
She liked him, liked the crusty way he talked and the faded blue of his eyes. And she liked the way he handled Martha. Amanda’s curiosity had pushed forth a dozen possible definitions of the relationship, but none of them seemed to fit. She remembered asking Dane what he thought.
“Well, if you want my opinion,” he’d replied with a slyly suspicious arching of his brow. “I suspect that Martha and MacGregor are living in sin.”
Amanda had gasped in shocked surprise. “You don’t mean—!”
“Yes.” Dane had frowned in mocking sobriety. “I suspect they are carrying on right in this very house. And you know what else, Amanda?”
“What?” She had practically fallen off her chair waiting for him to continue.
“It’s none of our business.”
Of course, it hadn’t been then and it wasn’t now. There had never been an iota of evidence to support the idea. But there had been none to discredit the possibility either. And she did wonder....
She let her lips tip up at the corners and wished Dane were here to speculate with her again.
“See, Amanda? What did I tell you?” Martha gave a disparaging look at the food being placed on the table. “It’s a miracle that I haven’t gotten sick eating all this health food.”
“You’re never sick, Martha.” Amanda thought the food looked appetizing and smelled even better. “It must be all those vitamins you take.”
“Vitamins?” Martha grumbled as she ladled extremely healthy portions onto her own and Amanda’s plates. “It’s good, clean living. That’s what it is.”
Amanda couldn’t resist the laughter that welled in her throat and her gaze automatically crossed the table to share.
Loneliness closed around her like a cold December day. Dane should be there and he wasn’t. She should be looking into brown eyes spiced with laughter and she was staring at an empty chair.
Oh, Dane.
Her heart twisted with missing him.
Dinner passed in a superficial haze of conversation. Martha talked about something, but Amanda didn’t really pay much attention. She supposed she made the proper responses, smiled at the right times, but her mind was caught in a tide of memories that ebbed and flowed through her consciousness. A reminder of Dane called to her from every corner of the room and superseded Martha’s words to plunge deep into the past and reminisce.
Images bathed in the perspective of time; glimpses of moments, indistinct in their importance except for the quiet pleasure they evoked. Dane, captured in a heartbeat, for her own private portfolio. How strange that she had fought these memories, chased them from her whenever they appeared. Yet now, unexpectedly, to the accompaniment of a mundane conversation, she welcomed that which she had forbidden herself to recall.
She felt warmed by her thoughts of Dane and curiously comforted by the admission that she missed him. Even when she followed Martha into the front room again and resumed her place on the sofa, Amanda let the memories drift at will.
Was it a good sign? Was her heart finally accepting the past, both painful and sweet? Would there be times, like now, when she could wrap herself in memories and not be afraid?
She sipped at the coffee Martha had so thoughtfully provided and was grateful for the companionable silence. Perhaps she was entering a new phase of healing. Perhaps this was a natural progression of emotion. Perhaps one day she really would feel whole again.
“You’re very quiet tonight.” Martha set the rocker into a gentle, mesmerizing motion. “Would you like to tell me where your thoughts have been all evening?”
Amanda let her lips slant in a fleeting confession. “I’m sorry. I suppose I haven’t been very good company, have I?”
“The nice thing about family is that you don’t have to pretend. I may not be your blood kin, Amanda, but we’re family just the same. The first time I saw Dane when he was just a tow-headed, obstinate little boy, I knew he belonged to me in a special way. And I knew when he brought you to meet me that you belonged too. Children of my heart, Amanda. That’s how I feel about you and Dane.” Martha curved thick fingers around the arms of the rocker and pinched her mouth tightly over her emotions. “I hurt for you,” she said after a moment. “For both of you.”
The bittersweet reminiscing slipped from her grasp and Amanda faced numbing reality again. “I know, Martha. I just don’t know what to say, except that I believe the hard part is over. From now on it’s just a matter of adjustment.”
“Adjustment.” Martha repeated the word with a shake of her head. Her green eyes assessed Amanda and looked away as if to conceal her skepticism. “Do you still love him, Amanda?”
Amanda’s hand jerked slightly and coffee sloshed to the edge of the cup and splashed onto her skirt. In a sort of panicky indecision she grabbed a napkin and dabbed at the stain, but her efforts were as futile as her wish to escape an answer to the question.
Slowly she laid the napkin aside and raised uncertain blue eyes to Martha. “I don’t know how to answer that,” she said. “How can I deny something that has been a part of me for so long? How can I say I don’t love him anymore when something inside me aches with the very thought of him? We shared some exquisite moments, a thousand intimate details of life. We had a son.” She closed her eyes against the memory and released her emotion on a sigh. “Yes, I still love Dane. But, Martha, I just don’t have the
will
to love him anymore.”