Remember When by Judith McNaught
“We can eat on our laps,” he said, ruling out the desk in his bedroom as an unsuitable locale.
“I’ll figure something else out,” she called, already turning the corner into the corridor.
While the chicken and vegetables were heating, Cole finished unpacking the groceries; then he filled his plate with the delicious leftovers and stepped into the main hall from the small kitchen.
“All set,” Diana said, straightening and reaching for the light switch. “But a little less light will make this look a whole lot better, believe me.” As she spoke, she turned off the bright corridor lights, and Cole was startled by the effect she’d achieved.
In less than ten minutes, Diana had turned three bales of hay and a piece of plywood into a lamplit table covered with a red, yellow, and orange beach towel from the trunk of her car and a makeshift L-shaped bench. In the center of the table, between two kerosene lamps, was an old stainless steel bowl filled with lush hibiscus leaves and its vivid orange blossoms. “This is very nice,” he said.
Diana dismissed that with a smiling shrug. “My mother and grandmother are convinced that atmosphere and presentation are seventy percent of what makes a meal taste good.”
“They’re probably right,” Cole said as he put his meal and a plate of cookies on the makeshift table and slid onto his bale of hay. The entire concept of “presentation” as it applied to dining was completely unknown to him. He had a great deal to learn about the hundreds of little niceties and refinements that went with being wealthy and successful, but he was more concerned right now with acquiring wealth than the social polish he’d need later to go with it. “I’m awed,” he added, stretching his long legs out beside the table. She sat down on the bale at his left.
“Why?” she asked, breaking off a small piece of cookie.
“Because you’re remarkable.” Cole hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but it was true. Among other things, she was very bright and very poised. She was soft-spoken and amazingly witty, but her wit was so subtle and her voice so softly musical that her sense of humor either caught him off-guard or almost slid by his notice. But what he liked most about Diana Foster was the democratic impartiality she showed to him, a lowly stable hand.
She spoke to him with a friendly interest that was genuine and yet devoid of any hint of flirtatiousness. In the years he’d worked for the Haywards, nearly all of Barbara’s teenage girlfriends had made some sort of romantic overture toward Cole, all of which he wisely and carefully dodged.
Their tactics were often blatant, usually transparent, and frequently amusing. What he found most irritating was that these wealthy, young femme fatales seemed to think they could attempt to seduce an “inferior being” without the slightest risk of repercussions. What they needed, in his opinion, was a sound spanking, though it was too late now for such parental discipline, even if their parents had been so inclined.
In this, as in everything else, Diana Foster was a delightful exception. She had been a constant surprise almost from their very first meeting, and now she surprised him more than ever before, because his honest compliment had made her shy and self-conscious. In what he knew was an attempt to avoid his scrutiny, she called out to one of the kittens she’d helped him deliver, and it bounded over to her.
“Just look how you’ve grown, Samantha!” she exclaimed as she scooped the tan cat into her arms and gave it a piece of cookie. A short black-and-white dog with long hair and no discernible link to any known pedigree on earth had been at her heels all evening, and she broke off a piece of cookie for him, too. “Sit up, Luke,” she ordered, and when the dog eagerly obeyed, she gave him his reward.
“How many dogs and cats of your own do you have?” Cole asked, watching her fingers lovingly stroke the dog’s matted fur as if it were sable instead of canine.
“We don’t have any of either.”
Cole was dumbfounded. When the litter of kittens was born, she’d fussed over them, played with them, and then managed to find homes for all but Samantha, whom she’d persuaded Cole to keep. Last winter, she’d appeared with a scroungy stray dog in her arms and managed to persuade him to keep that at the barn, too. “I’ll help you name him,” she’d volunteered while Cole was still arguing against keeping the animal. “How about calling him Luke?”
“He looks more like a Rover,” Cole had argued. “Or a Fleabag.”
“He’ll look like a Luke when he’s cleaned up.”
Cole hadn’t been proof against those big green eyes of hers. Taking the dog by the scruff of its neck, he’d held it away from himself and gone in search of flea soap and a metal tub. Naturally, he’d assumed she’d already inflicted the maximum quota of homeless beasts on her own family.
He seized on that subject as a way of getting her over her sudden attack of shyness. “Kitten, didn’t anyone ever tell you that charity begins at home?” he asked dryly, using the nickname he’d teasingly begun calling her after she’d persuaded him to take in Luke and Samantha.
She put Samantha on the floor and picked up Luke, cradling him in her lap; then she shot Cole a quizzical glance. “What do you mean?”
“Why did I end up playing surrogate parent to that mangy waif of a dog, instead of you? I naturally assumed you had already done your fair share of providing a ‘home to the homeless’ before you turned to me.”
She curled one tanned leg beneath her and turned sideways, so that Luke and Sam could both enjoy her petting. “My father’s terribly allergic to dogs and cats. Otherwise,” she told the adoring dog, “I’d have taken you straight home with me! You could have slept in my bed . . .”
Lucky dog. The words drifted so softly through Cole’s mind that he didn’t notice at first what direction his thoughts had taken. He watched the lamplight dancing on the wall behind her, casting cheerful shadows to dispel the gloom. Diana had that same ability to brighten and beautify her surroundings simply by being there. She was going to be a very special woman someday . . . and also a very beautiful one, he decided.
She had hair the color of dark copper and the texture of heavy silk, and soft, dewy skin. Every time he had seen her during this past year, she seemed to have grown prettier, her skin fairer, her eyes greener. She was no more than five feet two inches tall, barely reaching his shoulder, but in yellow knit shorts and a matching V-neck top, she had the figure of a petite goddess, with long shapely legs, full breasts, and a tiny waist. She also had a way of looking at him that made him feel mesmerized by her eyes. His gaze slid from her russet eyelashes to the gentle swell of her breasts, pausing to contemplate the curve of her smooth cheek and the softness of her lips . . .
Realizing that he was inventorying the feminine assets of an innocent child, Cole diverted them both with a question, but he was furious with himself for what he’d been thinking . . . and wanting. “It’s ridiculous that you keep refusing to ride a horse!” he said brusquely. His voice made the dog, the cat, and the girl all look at him in consternation, but Cole was so angry at himself for thinking like a pervert that his tone remained harsh. “Don’t you have any guts?”
Diana couldn’t believe he was speaking to her like this. Simultaneously she felt the desire to cry and had the impulse to leap to her feet, put her hands on her waist, and demand an explanation. Instead of doing either, she gave him a long look and said quietly, “I’m not a coward, if that’s what you mean.”
“I didn’t mean that at all,” Cole said, feeling like a complete bastard. Inch for inch, Diana Foster was undoubtedly one of the most courageous, kind, independent females he’d ever known. “As a matter of fact, I cried my eyes out the first time I got thrown,” he lied to make her feel better.
“I didn’t cry,” Diana said, helplessly beguiled by the image of a little boy with dark, curly hair crying with his fists pressed to his eyes.
“You didn’t?” Cole teased.
“Nope, not me. Not when I broke my wrist and not while Dr. Paltrona was setting it.”
“Not even one tear?”
“Not even one.”
“Good for you,” he said.
“Not really.” She sighed. “I fainted instead.”
Cole threw back his head and burst out laughing; then he sobered and looked at her with an expression so tender that Diana’s heart began to hammer. “Don’t change,” he said huskily. “Stay just the way you are.”
Diana could hardly believe this night was actually happening, that he was really talking to her and looking at her this way. She didn’t know what had finally brought it on, but she didn’t want it to stop. Not yet. “Is it all right if I get a little taller?” she teased shakily.
She’d tipped her head back, gazing up at him in a way that unconsciously invited him to lower his mouth to her smiling lips, and Cole noticed it. “Yes, but don’t change anything else,” he said, trying to ignore her provocative pose. “Someday, some lucky guy will come along and realize what a rare treasure you are.”
Having him cheerfully predict that another man would win her heart was enough to douse Diana’s happy glow. She straightened and put the dog down, but she bore Cole no ill will for his impersonal attitude, and she was genuinely interested in his opinion. “What if I don’t feel that way about him?”
“You will.”
“It hasn’t happened yet. I’m the only girl I know of who isn’t madly in love with someone and convinced he’s the one I want to marry.” Lifting her hand, she began counting off her friends on her fingers. “Corey is in love with Spencer—Haley is in love with Peter Mitchell—Denise is in love with Doug Hayward—Missy is in love with Michael Murchison—” With a disgusted wave of her hand, she finished, “I could go on and on forever.”
She sounded so despondent that Cole felt obliged to cheer her up before he could let the topic drop. “Come on, there must be at least one other girl your age with enough sense to look beyond the moment toward the future.” Although Cole privately regarded Barbara Hayward as an airhead, Diana hadn’t mentioned her name, so he seized on her as a possible illustration of his point. “How about Barb? Who is she hoping to marry?”
Diana rolled her eyes in disgust. “Harrison Ford.”
“That figures,” Cole said dryly.
“And then there’s you,” Diana continued, provoked into bringing up Valerie, even though she knew it would distract him completely from herself.
“What about me?”
He looked so bewildered that Diana’s heart soared with hope. During their many talks over the last two years, she’d heard all about the beautiful blond from Jeffersonville who went to school at UCLA. She knew they exchanged letters and phone calls several times a month and that he managed to see her occasionally, usually during summer vacations when she was home. “I was referring to Valerie.”
“Oh.” He nodded with emphasis, but that was uninformative enough to spur Diana’s curiosity and hope even higher. “Have you heard from her lately?”
“I saw her a few weeks ago during spring break.”
Diana had a vivid and unwanted picture of Cole and Valerie making wild, passionate love together in some scenic glade beneath a starlit sky. Somehow a primitive outdoor setting seemed better suited to his rugged good looks. In a moment of weakness Diana had requested a copy of the UCLA yearbook through Houston’s main library. From it, she’d discovered that Valerie was not only active in her sorority, she seemed to be dating the captain of the college’s soccer team. Besides that, she was tall and beautiful, as well as older and undoubtedly more worldly than Diana. She had the face and eyes of a Nordic princess and a smile straight out of a toothpaste ad. Diana had to make an effort not to hate her. In fact, the only thing Valerie didn’t have was good grades. That at least was something Diana had in common with Cole. He had a 3.9 grade-point average and so did Diana. “How were Valerie’s grades at the end of the semester?” she asked, descending to petty competitiveness and hating herself for it.
“She’s on scholastic probation.”
“That’s too bad,” Diana murmured. “Does that mean she’ll have to go to summer school and you won’t be able to see her when you go home?”
“I don’t go home unless it’s to see her,” Cole said.
Diana had assumed as much. Although she knew relatively little about his life before he came to Houston, she’d managed to discover that he was from a town in Texas called Kingdom City and he had no family except a great-uncle and a cousin who was five years older than he. She’d soon learned that any attempt to pry deeper into the details of his past gained her little beyond an offhand answer or a premature end to the camaraderie she treasured.
As he lifted his Coke to his mouth, Diana watched the golden lamplight flicker on the tanned column of his neck and gild the hard contours of his square chin and firm jaw, but the flame was too feeble to pierce the midnight darkness of his thick hair.
She hoped Valerie appreciated Cole’s loyalty and devotion; she hoped his girlfriend wasn’t going to try to make him into a tame, well-groomed Labrador retriever instead of the panther he resembled. There was something about the girl with the toothpaste smile that made her look all wrong for Cole. It was wrong to covet, but Diana just couldn’t help it!
Beside her, Cole lowered his soft drink can an inch and warily studied the ferocious, possessive scowl on Diana’s face. “By any chance, am I drinking your Coke?” he asked.
Diana snapped out of her fanciful dreams and quickly shook her head. It was time to leave . . . long past time to leave, because tonight her common sense, her logic and self-control weren’t operating very well. “I’ll help you clear all this away,” she said, already standing up and gathering plates and silverware.
“I have to study for finals,” he said as he blew out the two lamps and picked up the bowl of orange hibiscus, “but I have enough time for a hand of pinochle before you go.”
He flipped on the bright corridor lights as he made that offer, and the harsh light banished the last traces of her romantic fantasies. She’d taught him pinochle and hearts last year, during one of those rare and wonderful afternoons when Corey came to help exercise the horses, as she loved to do, and no one else was around. All that was over now, Diana realized. It had to end because she suddenly realized that she was no longer able to keep her fantasies about him in their proper place. They were getting completely out of control. Tonight, if he’d kissed her, she’d have ignored all the dangers and let him. Let him? If he’d given her just a little bit more encouragement, she would have kissed him! Somehow, during the last few weeks, she’d begun to truly risk her whole heart on him, and that made the stakes much too big for a sensible girl who already knew that the odds against her were so high she couldn’t possibly win.
“You’re too good now,” she said with a bright smile over her shoulder.
“Not for a cardshark like you, I’m not.”
“I really do have to go.”
“I understand.” He sounded a little disappointed, and Diana fought against the temptation to stay awhile longer. She was still wavering when he turned and disappeared into his room. By the time he emerged to walk her out to her car, she’d put the dishes in the sink and her friendly, impersonal facade firmly in place. She was congratulating herself for resisting the temptation to stay as he reached out with his right hand to open her car door. “By the way—” he said as she turned to him to say good night, “I heard some of the girls talking about the sweet sixteen party your parents threw for you a couple weeks ago.”
Diana was too preoccupied with the inexplicable smile hovering at the corner of his mouth to say anything intelligent. “It was my sixteenth birthday.”
“I know,” he said with a sudden grin at her flustered answer. “And where I come from it’s customary to give a girl something special on her sixteenth birthday—”
A kiss! He was going to kiss her, Diana realized, and all her defenses and fears collapsed beneath the weight of her joy and nervous anticipation. She dropped her gaze from his gleaming silver eyes to his sensual mout
“A present!” he exclaimed triumphantly as he took his left hand from behind his back. Diana’s eyes snapped open, and she clutched the car door for balance as she stared in mortified surprise at his outstretched hand. In it was a large, oddly shaped item that he’d obviously wrapped himself in a sheet of newspaper and tied with what looked like a shoelace. Seemingly oblivious to her inner turmoil, he held it closer. “Go ahead, open it.”
Diana recovered her manners, gave him an overbright smile, and pulled on the end of the broken white shoelace.
“It isn’t much,” he warned, sounding suddenly uncertain.
The paper fell away to reveal a stuffed toy—a life-size white cat with a pink tongue, green eyes, and a tag around its neck that said, “My name is Pinkerton.”
“You’ve probably had dozens of really exotic stuffed animals,” he added uneasily when she didn’t immediately react. “In fact, you’re probably too old for stuffed animals, period.”
He was right on both counts, but none of that mattered to Diana. To save money, he did without all sorts of things, including good food, but he’d actually gone out and gotten her a present. Speechless, she lifted the ordinary, inexpensive toy from his hands as carefully as if it were priceless porcelain; then she held it in front of her to admire it.
Cole looked at the toy and realized how cheap it would look to someone like her. “It’s just something I picked up—a token—” he began defensively. He broke off in surprise as Diana shook her head to silence him, then clutched the stuffed animal to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around it.
“Thank you, Cole,” she whispered, laying her cheek against its furry head. Smiling, she lifted her glowing gaze to his. “Thank you,” she said again.
You’re welcome, Cole thought, but the incredible warmth of her reaction seemed to have momentarily melted his ability to speak and his ability to think. In silence he closed the car door after she’d settled into her seat, and in silence he watched her taillights vanish around a curve in the long drive that wound through the trees and along the side of the house.