She shared their happiness over Jaimie’s adoption. When they told her about it, she felt only a momentary pang of jealousy for the family who had taken the boy into their lives. She often thought about the child who had touched her heart that summer.
With Seth’s full endorsement, she continued as an absentee board member for Mountain View, making anonymous and sizable contributions to it. The checks were always drawn on an account Seth had in a New York bank and signed by his attorney. One, Kathleen specified, was to be used to build some tennis courts. For years, the Harrisons had wanted to add that sport to the summer curriculum. Kathleen tried to convince herself that her donations weren’t made as recompense for the dreadful way she had treated the couple who had loved her so much.
Seth knew of the Harrisons, but not the extent of Kathleen’s former relationship with them. She had never told him that she had been at Mountain View only weeks before coming to San Francisco. That subject was better avoided.
The stability and peace of mind she was feeling this afternoon had been hard to come by.
“Do you want to go under?” she asked Theron. “Huh? Hold your breath.” She sucked in her breath with an exaggerated motion, and then quickly pulled the small, sturdy body under the surface, only to bring it up again. Theron blinked his blue eyes and gasped for air, then crowed with laughter. He began bucking, indicating that he wanted to do it again.
Laughing, Kathleen said, “Hold your breath. Ready? Here we go.” She dunked him again, and this time there was no delayed reaction. When he came up, he was already slapping his hands on the surface of the water.
His laughter and her own hoots of praise for his brave accomplishment prevented her from hearing Seth’s van as it pulled into the driveway. Nor did she hear the sound of the hydraulic system lowering his chair to the ground, or the muffled voices as they came around the flagstone path toward the swimming pool.
“Kathleen! What’s going on? We could hear you all the way on the front drive.” Seth’s voice, as usual, was warm with happiness. Keeping her full attention on her wet, wiggling son, she called over her shoulder, “Come see what Theron can do. He’s very proud of himself.”
“You be careful with that boy, Kathleen,” George said from behind her. “He’s getting almost too big for you to handle.”
“He is at that,” she agreed. Theron was now even more excited with his ardent audience, and waved his chubby arms at them before Kathleen told him again to hold his breath and dunked him under.
Everyone applauded when he broke the surface and smiled, revealing almost a full set of shiny white baby teeth. “That’s enough for now,” Kathleen said, laughing. “I’m pooped!” She lifted Theron out of the pool onto the redwood deck and he toddled toward Seth. George leaned down and picked up the little boy, swatted him affectionately on the rump and sat him in Seth’s lap, disregarding the fact that his diaper was dripping wet.
Only when Kathleen turned around and walked up the mosaic tile steps out of the pool did she notice the other man standing quietly behind Seth’s chair. There was something vaguely—
My God!
“Kathleen, I’ve committed the cardinal sin usually attributed to inconsiderate husbands and brought someone home for dinner without giving you notice.”
Kathleen’s heart was pounding so loudly that she could barely hear Seth’s words as Erik stepped from behind the wheelchair. “This is Erik Gudjonsen. Erik, my wife, Kathleen.”
Her heart seemed to swell and then burst, showering the universe with infinitesimal fragments of herself. And as it did, her world disappeared and was replaced by a smaller one comprised only of her and the man in front of her. Standing so close. Close enough to see, to hear, to smell, to… touch.
No, she mustn’t touch him. If she did, she would die of the pleasure and the pain. But the decision was taken from her as Erik extended his hand. She watched that hand as it closed the distance between them. And then, almost in wonder at this miracle, she reached out and grasped it with her own, closing her fingers around it as though to verify that this was no dream, but actuality.
The gentle squeeze she received in return made it abundantly clear that he was real. Her eyes lifted from the studied attention she gave their clasping hands to his chest, over the firm, strong chin, past the sensuous mouth under that mustache which, even now, she fantasized about, along the slender, aristocratic nose, to his eyes, which bored into her.
There the exultant celebration in her breast was squelched. His eyes resembled pieces of blue ice, hard and unyielding beneath the shaggy, sun-bleached brows. Lying deep in their depths was a terrifying hostility.
“Mrs. Kirchoff,” he finally said in acknowledgment of Seth’s introduction. The world came back, righted itself and demanded that she behave according to custom.
“Mr. Gudjonsen.” Her voice sounded foreign to her ears, and she only hoped that no one else noticed. His voice was poignantly familiar—deep, husky, befitting his size.
Then Seth was speaking excitedly. “Kathleen, Erik and I have been corresponding for the last several months. We’re working on a project for the stores. I’ve wanted to keep it as a surprise for you. Now that Erik’s here, we’ll go over all the details after dinner.”
Her smile was stiff, contrived, and she felt dizzy and nauseated, fearful that she might disgrace herself by throwing up at any moment. After the initial astonishment of seeing Erik here in her own backyard, feminine vanity had set in. She was all too aware of the wet hair that clung to her shoulders. She hadn’t put on any makeup all day and was dripping wet, her apple-green maillot suit clinging to her shivering body.
“I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been planning, Seth. If you’ll excuse me now, I’m going to take Theron inside and clean him up before Alice gives him his dinner. I’ll meet you on the patio in an hour for cocktails.”
“Okay, but bring Theron back. I want Erik to see him when he’s more presentable.”
“He seems like quite a live wire,” Erik commented as he looked down at Theron for the first time.
“Yes, he is,” Seth said proudly. “You ought to see him try to negotiate the stairs. He’s fearless.”
With growing horror, Kathleen saw Erik peer down into Theron’s face. The boy looked up at him with reciprocal interest.
“I have to get him inside,” Kathleen said, and barged between Erik and Seth to pick up Theron. “Excuse me,” she said as she held the child and hurried toward the house.
She practically ran through the kitchen door and, when she was safe inside, leaned against the wall weakly.