The last time she’d been introduced to a strange man he was the father of one of her second-grade pupils. Even as a parent, the poor man hadn’t been able to remember protocol in his shock at glimpsing her enormous breasts. His eyes had riveted on them even while he was shaking Theresa’s hand, and after that there’d been such awful tension between them the conference had been a disaster.
If she had carved a notch on her bedroom dresser every time that had happened down through the years, there’d be nothing before her now but a pile of wood chips. Now meeting the apprehensive eyes of the woman reflected in the mirror, Theresa quailed with all the familiar misgivings. Red hair and freckles! As if it wasn’t enough that she’d been cursed with these mountainous breasts, she’d landed hair the color of paprika and skin that refused to tan. Instead it broke out in brilliant orange heat spots, as if she had an incurable rash, each time the sun grazed her skin. And this hair—oh, how she hated it! Coarse, springy ringlets that clung to her scalp like a Brillo pad if cut short, or if allowed to grow long, developed untamable waves reminiscent of those disastrous messes fried onto women’s heads in the early days of the century before hot permanents had been perfected. Detesting it either way, she’d chosen a middle-of-the road length and as innocuous a style as she could manage, brushing it straight back from her face and clasping it at her nape with a wide barrette, below which the “tail” erupted like a ball of fire from a volcano.
And what about eyelashes? Didn’t every woman deserve to have eyelashes that could at least be seen? Theresa’s were the same hue as her hair—pale threads that made the rims of her eyelids look pink and sickly while framing eyes that were almost the identical color of her freckles, a pale tea-brown. She thought of the dark spiky lashes and the stunning green of Brian Scanlon’s eyes, and her own dropped to check her sweater once again, and tug it close together, as Theresa realized she could no longer avoid confronting him. She must return to the living room. And if he stared at her breasts with lascivious speculation she’d think of the strains of her favorite Chopin Nocturne, which always had a calming effect upon her.
Amy and Jeff were sitting on the davenport while Brian faced them from the seat of the piano bench. When Jeff caught sight of her, he thwacked the guitar strings dramatically, and let the chord reverberate in fanfare. “There she is!”
So much for slipping quietly into their midst.
Brian was no more than five feet away, still wearing his formal garrison cap. She was conscious of a wink of silver on the large eagle medallion centered above the black leather visor as his eyes swerved her way, directly on a level with the objects of Theresa’s despair. Her pale brown eyes met his of sea green. The certainty of what would happen next seemed to lodge in her throat like a pill taken without water.
Now!
she thought.
Now it will happen!
She steeled herself for the sickening embarrassment that was certain to follow.
But Brian Scanlon relaxedly stretched six feet of blue-clad anatomy to its feet and smiled into Theresa’s eyes, his own never wavering downward for even a fraction of a second or giving the impression that it even crossed his mind.
“Jeff’s been demonstrating the old Stella. She doesn’t sound too bad.”
Aren’t you going to gawk like everybody else?
She felt the blush begin to tint her face because he
hadn’t
looked, and to cover her fluster grabbed onto the first words that entered her mind.
“As usual, my brother thinks of nothing but music.” Theresa strove to keep her voice steady, for her heart was knocking crazily. “And here you sit with your hat and jacket still on. I’ll show you where you’ll sleep, since neither one of these two had the courtesy to do it.”
“I hope I’m not putting anybody out of their bed.”
“Not at all. We’re putting you on a hideaway bed in the family room downstairs. I just hope nobody puts you out of yours, because it’ll be in front of the
TV
and fireplace, and dad likes to stay up at least until after the ten o’clock news.”
He didn’t look! He didn’t look!
The exaltation pounded through her brain as Theresa led the way back through the kitchen to the basement door that opened into the room just behind the stove wall. Oddly enough, she seemed more aware of Brian Scanlon because of the fact that he’d assiduously remained polite and refrained from dropping his eyes. She took his guitar and he his duffel bag, and she led him downstairs into a large basement area with a set of sliding glass doors facing the rear yard. The room was paneled in warm pecan and carpeted in burnt orange that burst into a glow as Theresa switched on a table lap.
Brian watched her hair light up as she paused above the lamp, then scanned the room, which contained a country pine coffee table, a cushioned davenport and pillowed rockers in the Colonial style. A fireplace was flanked by a television set, and at the end of the room where Brian stood, a thick-legged kitchen set of glossy pine was centered before the sliding glass door.
“Mmm ... I like this room. Very homey.” His eyes came back to settle upon Theresa as he spoke.
He seemed the type who’d prefer art deco or chrome and glass, but an appreciative reaction riffled through Theresa, for her mother had largely let her choose the colors and textures of the furnishings when they’d redecorated two years ago. It wasn’t her own house, but it gave Theresa a taste of home planning, making her eager for the day when she could exercise her own tastes throughout an entire house.
Brian noted her tightly crossed arms beneath the baby blue sweater and the nervousness that was absent only while her sister and brother were close by.
“I’m sorry it has no closet, but you can hang your things up here.” She opened a door leading to an unfinished portion of the basement where the laundry facilities were housed.
He crossed toward her, and she stepped well back as he popped his head around the laundry-room doorway, one foot off the floor behind him. There was a rolling laundry rack with empty hangers tinging in the air currents from the opening of the door. “There’s no bath down here, but feel free to use the upstairs tub or shower any time you want.”
When he turned to her, his eyes again rested directly on hers as he noted, “It sures beats the BOQ on base, especially at Christmas time.” She was conscious of how crisp and correctly knotted his formal navy blue tie was, how smoothly the dark blue military “blouse” contoured his chest and shoulders over the paler blue of his shirt, of how flattering the square-set cap was to the equally square-cut lines of his jaw.
“BOQ?” she questioned.
“Bachelor’s Officers’ Quarters.”
“Oh.” She waited for his eyes to rove downward, but they didn’t. Instead, he began freeing the four silver buttons bearing the eagle-and-shield U.S. Air Force insignia, turning his back on her and taking a stroll around the room while freeing the “blouse” and shrugging out of it. He slipped his hat off the back of his head with a slow, relaxed movement, and she saw his hair for the first time. It was a rich chestnut color, trimmed—according to military regulations—far too short for her taste, and bearing a ridge across the back from the band of his cap. He turned toward Theresa again, and she noted that around his face the chestnut hair held the suggestion of waves, but was cut too short to allow them free rein. It would be much more attractive an inch and a half longer, she decided.
“It feels good to get out of these things.’’
“Oh, here! Let me hang them up.”
“Just the blouse—I mean the jacket. We get in trouble if we hang up our caps.”
As she came forward to take his jacket, he extended his cap, too, and its inner band was still warm from his head. As she scuttled away around the laundry-room doorway again, that warmth seemed to singe her palm. When she tipped the cap upside down to lay it on the rack above the clothes bar, a spicy scent of some hair preparation found its way to her nostrils. It seemed to cling to the jacket, too, as she threaded its shoulders over a hanger and hooked it on the rack.
When she returned to the family room, Brian was standing in front of the sliding glass doors with his hands in his trousers pockets, feet widespread, gazing out at the snowy yard where twilight was falling. For a long moment Theresa studied the back of his sky blue shirt where three crisp laundry creases gave him that clean-cut appearance of a model on a recruiting poster. The creases rose up out of the belted waistline of his trousers but disappeared across his shoulders where the blue fabric stretched taut as the head of a drum.
She crossed the room silently and flipped on an outside spotlight that flooded her father’s bird feeder. Brian started at the snap of the light, glancing aside at her as she crossed her arms beneath the sweater and joined him at the wide window, studying the scene beyond.
“Every winter dad tries to entice cardinals, but so far this year we haven’t had any. This is his favorite spot in the house. He brings his coffee down here in the mornings and sits at the table with his binoculars close at hand. He spends hours here.”
“I can see why.” Scanlon’s eyes moved once more to the view outside where sparrows, caught in the beam of light that lit the snow to glimmering crystals, twittered and searched for fallen seed at the base of the feeder pole. The far edge of the property was delineated by a line of evergreens that appeared almost black in the waning light. Their limbs were laden with white. Suddenly a blue jay darted from them, squawking in the crass, impertinent note of superiority only a blue jay can muster, scattering the sparrows as he landed among them, then cocking his head and disdaining the seeds he jealously guarded.
“I wasn’t sure if I should come with Jeff. I felt a little like I was horning in, you know?”
His hands were still buried in his trousers pockets, but she felt his eyes turn her way and hoped she wouldn’t blush while attempting to lie convincingly. “Don’t be silly, you’re not horning in.”
“Any stranger in the house at this time of the year is like a fifth wheel. I know that, but I couldn’t resist Jeff’s invitation when I thought about spending two weeks with nothing to do but stare at the bare walls of the quarters and talk to myself.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. Why, mother didn’t hesitate a minute when Jeff called and suggested bringing you home. Besides, we’ve all heard so much about you in Jeff’s letters, you hardly seem like a stranger. As a matter of fact, I believe
one
of us had a tiny bit of a crush on you even before you stepped out of the car in the driveway.”
He laughed good-naturedly and shook his head at the floor as if slightly embarrassed, then rocked back on his heels. “It’s a good thing she isn’t six years older. She’s going to be a real knockout at twenty.”
“Yes, I know. Everybody says so.”
Brian heard no note of rancor in Theresa’s words, only a warm, sisterly pride. And he need not lower his eyes to her chest to see that as she spoke, her forearms unconsciously guarded her breasts more closely.
Thanks for warning me, Brubaker,
he thought, recalling all that Jeff had told him about his sister.
But apparently Jeff told his family as much about my background as he told me about them,
he thought, as Theresa went on in a sympathetic note.
“Jeff told us about your mother. I’m sorry. It must have been terrible to get the news about the plane crash.”
He studied the snow again and shrugged. “In a way it was, in a way it wasn’t. We were never close after my dad died, and once she’d remarried, we didn’t get along at all. Her second husband thought I was a drug addict because I played rock music, and he didn’t waste any more time on me than was absolutely necessary.”
She evaluated her own family, so warm, supportive, so full of love, and resisted the urge to lay a comforting hand on Brian’s arm. She felt guilty for the many times she’d wished Jeff wouldn’t bring him home. It had been thoroughly selfish, she chided herself, guarding her family’s Christmas from outsiders just as the jay guarded the seeds he didn’t want to eat.
This time when she said the words, Theresa found they were utterly sincere. “We’re glad to have you here, Brian.”
Chapter Two
“THEY’RE HOME!”
shouted Jeff overhead, then he stuck his head around the basement doorway and ordered, “Hey, you two, get up here!”
As an outside observer, Brian couldn’t help envying Jeff Brubaker his family, for the greeting his friend received in the arms of his mother and father was an emotional display of honest love. Margaret Brubaker was hiking her rotund body out of the deep bucket seat of the low-slung Celica when Jeff swooped down on her. The grocery bag in her arms was unceremoniously dropped onto the snowy driveway in favor of hugs and kisses interspersed with tears, hellos and general exuberance while Willard Brubaker came around the car and took his turn—albeit with far fewer tears than his wife, but there was an undeniable glitter in his eye as he backed off and assessed Jeff.
“Good to have you home, son.”
“I’ll say it is,” put in his mother, then the trio shared an enormous three-way hug. Margaret stepped back, crushing a loaf of bread. “Land! Would you look at what I’ve done with these groceries. Willard, help me pick ’em up.”
Jeff waylaid them both. “Forget the groceries for now. I’ll come back and get ’em in a minute. Come and meet Brian.” With an arm around each of his parents’ shoulders, Jeff shepherded them into the kitchen where Brian waited with the two girls. “These are the two who had the courage to have a kid like me—my mom and dad. And this is Brian Scanlon.”
Willard Brubaker pumped Brian’s hand. “Glad to have you with us, Brian.”
Margaret’s greeting was, “So this is Jeff’s Brian.”
“I’m afraid so, for all of two weeks. I really appreciate your invitation, Mrs. Brubaker.”
“There are two things we have to get settled right now,” Margaret stated without prelude, pointing an accusatory finger. “The first is that you don’t call me Mrs. Brubaker, like I’m some commanding officer. Call me Margaret. And the other is ... you don’t smoke pot, do you?”