Cara Colter (6 page)
Authors: A Bride Worth Waiting For
So why did she hear herself asking, “What kind of motorbike do you have now?”
His face suffused with a light that the girlfriend had not given it. “It’s a 1964 Harley panhead.”
“An old bike?”
“Who would want a new one? All you do is ride them. I’m completely stripping and restoring this one. It used to be a police bike. Look. I’ve got a picture of it.”
He dug through his wallet, leaving a heap of credit cards and business cards on her table. No picture of the girlfriend, she noted, as she took the photo of the motorcycle from him.
The bike was a thing of beauty with its black paint and shining chrome. She noticed it was a single seater.
His someone that he was seeing did not go riding with him. She handed him back the picture and watched him try to squeeze everything back into his wallet.
Really, her coffee was done and so was his. It was time to bid him a polite farewell. Really, it was.
But her garden felt so good again. The sun out, and the flowers blooming in profusion, the birds singing, his quiet voice weaving around her, making her feel the way she used to feel Safe and happy, and like all was well with the world.
“And what about your dad, Adam? How is he?”
“He remarried shortly after I talked him into moving out east with me.”
“Really? That’s wonderful.” How fondly she remembered the tall, handsome man who had been Adam’s father. Adam had gotten his looks from him, and his build. But his father’s nature had been quiet, almost shy.
“I remember your dad seeming sad,” she said softly.
“He loved my mom. I thought he’d never stop missing her. Sometimes raising a kid on his own just seemed too much for him. Especially a wild one.”
“You never talked about your mom. I mean you said she had died, but that was all.”
“I guess I never really stopped missing her either.”
She glanced at him with surprise. Sadness had not seemed to be a part of Adam Reed, ever. But maybe sadness was where that wildness had stemmed from. It occurred to her, with more surprise, that there were things she did not know about Adam. Depths she had not explored.
And never would, she told herself firmly.
“So your dad’s happy? He must be retired by now.”
Adam laughed. “He married Hanna Oldsmith.”
She shook her head. The name meant nothing to her.
“Old money. One of the richest women in Ontario. Possibly in Canada.”
Somehow that picture did not seem at all ludicrous, because Adam’s father had always had a quality much like Adam’s. Dignity, despite his shyness, a way he carried himself that had belied the grease embedded in his hands. “Did you introduce them?”
“No. He worked on her cars. You know my dad. Not the least impressed with her money. That was a first for her. She chased him relentlessly. I don’t know why he ran so hard from his own happiness. Anyway, I got a postcard from them last week. They’re driving a reconditioned Packard across North America. ”
“I always liked your dad. He was so sweet and selfeffacing. I’m glad he’s happy.”
“Me, too. Look, should we go?”
“Go?” she asked suspiciously. “Go where?”
“For a bike ride.”
“Motorbike?” she asked with surprise.
“Bicycle. Or as close as I could come, given the shape you’re in.”
“Adam, are you going through a second childhood, or what? You seem to want to do all these strange things. In-line skating, bike riding—”
“Kite flying,” he suggested smoothly.
“Anyway, you know I can’t.”
“If you could, would you?”
She smiled. A safe question. If she could, yes, she’d ride bikes with him. And probably fly kites with him. And go to the moon with him.
But she couldn’t. “If I could, I would,” she said, feeling perfectly safe in her reply. She didn’t like the light that leapt glistening to life in his eyes. Had she just walked into a trap?
“Victoria? Are you here?”
“It’s Mom,” she told him and then called, “Out back.”
Her mother came through the back door, and paused when she saw Adam. “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—” and then she stopped and stared at him. And then her lip trembled and her eyes actually sparkled with tears.
Her mother had always loved Adam as if he was her very own son.
“Adam,” she said softly, her voice breaking. And then she smiled a smile that would have put the sun to shame.
A smile that forgave him all the years he had not come, Tory thought indignantly.
“Lord, what a man you’ve become.”
Trust her mother to
say
it.
say
it.
“Come here.”
He got up obediently. He towered over her mother now, and tolerated her inspection, and then he took her in his arms, picked her right up off her feet and swung her around until she was laughing breathlessly, like a young girl.
“Do you still make the best chocolate chip cookies in all of Calgary?” he asked her putting her away from him and looking at her with pleasure.
“So my grandchildren tell me. Tell me everything. If you’re married and have children. What you’re doing here, how long you’re staying—” she stopped midsentence. “Oh, I can’t stay. I have an appointment. Never mind. I’ll cancel.”
“Mom,” Tory said imploringly.
Her mother looked at her, and then back at Adam, and then smiled. “Of course I won’t cancel! Why you two must have so much catching up to do!”
Tory stared at her mother in horror. She had not been hinting they wanted to be left alone, only that the interrogation should stop!
“Adam, will you be here tomorrow night?”
Tory watched out of the corner of her eye and felt something in her relax when he said he would.
“Come have dinner with us? Please? Oh, Frank will be so thrilled. You wouldn’t mind if I asked the Mitchells, too, would you? I know they’d be over the moon to see you.”
The Mitchells—Mark’s parents. She saw him hesitate, and then he smiled and said yes, he’d like that very much.
“Oh, Tory, you come too,” her mother said casually, as an afterthought. “I do have to go. I just stopped to give you that begonia. It’s got to go in quick. By the way, what is that thing parked out front?”
“What thing?” Tory asked.
“That thing belongs to me,” Adam said.
“What thing?” Tory asked again.
“Did you hurt your knee, honey?” her mother asked, noticing the ice pack.
“Yes. What thing?”
“How did you do that? It’s hard to hurt your knee making flower arrangements.”
She glared at her mother for letting Adam know, not very subtly, that her daughter didn’t have a life. Her mother knew darn well she could fall down the steps as easily as anyone else.
“I went in-line skating,” she said defiantly.
“In-line what?”
“Skating.”
“Skating,” her mother said with pleasure. She shot a look to Adam. “Did you have anything to do with this?”
“Well, yes ma’am, I did.”
“Uhm,” she said, somehow managing to load that noncommital word with lots of satisfaction. She glanced at her watch, gave a quick and unconvincing cry of dismay and, with a quick wave, left them.
“She didn’t give a fig about my knee,” Tory said, glaring after her. “And what have you got in front of my house. Some kind of disreputable bike?”
“Yeah. But not my normal kind. A pedal bike. Kind of like a bicycle built for two, only this one is for one person with good legs and one person with a bum leg.”
“What are you up to?”
He sighed. “Tory, I don’t even know anymore. Just come for a damn bike ride with me, okay?”
“Well, since you put it so nicely,” she agreed. And found she wanted to. A lot.
He helped her up. They left the ice in the sink. She saw the ricksha and burst out laughing.
“Adam, have you lost your mind?”
“That would explain it as well as anything else. Madam, your chariot awaits you.”
“All right. But no whinnying. Absolutely not. If you whinny, I’ll throw myself under the tires. I swear I will.”
“No whinnying,” he promised solemnly.
He helped her down the walk to the ricksha. It looked as if it was going to be a great deal of work to pedal this thing.
She noticed her neighbor’s new drapes, and decided they weren’t as bad as she had originally thought they were. Her neighbor seemed to be peering out from them now. She waved jauntily and climbed into the carriage part of the ricksha.
Her plan for the day had been not to get any further enmeshed with him, she reminded herself. To set boundaries. To send him packing.
She settled herself back and watched as he climbed onto the bike. How long had it been since she went into a day with no plan at all? When had she become this person who had to compulsively control every second of every day? She suddenly felt deliciously free.
“Want to hear the horn?” he called.
“Why not?”
It sounded just like a donkey braying. She wondered if it was possible to die from laughing. She hoped so.
Her mother, he thought, as he pulled out onto the road, was a beautiful woman. She looked exactly how Tory was going to look in maturity. Really, it was something a man could look forward to.
He had never thought of Kathleen’s mother in terms of what Kathleen would someday be. Why was that?
The ricksha felt like it weighed precisely the same as a baby elephant. He glanced back at Tory. She was smiling. She waved at some open-mouthed children riding on their tricycles on the sidewalk.
“Race you,” she called to them.
They took up the challenge, racing along the sidewalk beside him. He beat them by a hair to the end of their block. Actually, the ricksha weighed more like a mama elephant than a baby one.
“Blow the horn for them,” she called.
He blew the donkey bray for the children who howled with delight. He glanced back at Tory. She looked delighted, too, her face relaxed, glowing.
He pulled off her block and onto Memorial Drive, looking for a chance to cross to the bike path. A horn blared at him. He blared his back. The driver shook his fist, and Tory waved.
He wasn’t sure he could get the ricksha across the grass to the bike path even if he did manage to get across all four lanes of traffic and the boulevard. He decided to block one lane of westbound traffic instead. He got quite thick-skinned about the horns blaring. He was glad the road was relatively flat. A hill would finish him.
Some teenage boys slowed down their sports car and were flirting with Tory, which backed up traffic behind them.
Didn’t she know she was much too old for them? Didn’t they know?
But the look on her face right now was without age. She looked like a little leprechaun, her curls wild, her nose freckled, her wonderful eyes dancing with life and laughter. It was exactly the look that had always made Tory a big hit with the guys, not that she’d ever seemed to notice, content with Mark’s company, and Adam’s.
Elephant nothing. The ricksha felt as if he was pulling a 747 behind him.
“Move on,” he yelled at the guys. If they called him Gramps, he wasn’t going to be responsible for what happened next.
They laughed and yelled a few more good natured remarks at Tory, which made him see red, and then drove on, a stream of cars moving by with them.
Tory smiled and waved at a yellow bus full of schoolchildren that thundered by.
“Wave, Adam,” she called.
“Can’t,” he panted.
How had he gotten himself into this? It was unbelievable. A man of his stature pulling a ricksha. Not just a ricksha, but the world’s heaviest ricksha.
He’d gone about three blocks. Had Mark’s letter stipulated how long a bike ride?
He glanced back at her again. Damn, if it wasn’t worth it. She looked the way she used to look. After their baseball team won a game. After a banana split. After she aced an exam. After she threw rocks at that dog that attacked her, and hit him square between the eyes, making him run away yipping.
The siren wailed once, nearly in his ear, and he glanced swiftly to his left to see the squad car pulling along beside him, the red and blue lights flashing.
He glanced at his passenger in the rearview mirror that was stuck to his right handlebar. Now she was bent over double laughing.
Adam stopped. Gratefully. He hoped this was going to take a while. So he could catch his breath.
The policeman got out, young and full of himself. Adam would have made mincemeat of him in court, but suddenly all that mattered was that Tory was happy. It occurred to him that this was Mark’s thing, and he would try and do it Mark’s way. With calm and courtesy.
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