Long Time Coming (6 page)

David executed a back handspring and let out a Comanche yell. "Okay meet you back here. We gotta get the trophy."

Since he was the captain, he and the coach formally accepted the trophy from the officials in the center of the field. Standing close to Marnie, Law slid his arm across her shoulders and gave her neck a quick squeeze when David stepped forward to make the acceptance speech.

"I'd like to thank the school board and faculty who supported us through this season.

Student body you've all been great!" An enormous roar went up from the stands. He waited for it to die down. "I'd like to thank Coach. We couldn't have done it without him."

Another cheer of approval went up from parents and players alike. "I accept this trophy on behalf of every member of the team. Go, Tornadoes!" he shouted.

Law bent down and placed his mouth close to Marnie's ear. "He's eloquent too."

"Thank you."

Luckily the victory celebration going on around them kept him from seeing her tears.

Bearing the weight of his arm on her shoulders in addition to the love in her heart for him and his son, she had almost crumpled.

While gravitating toward the parking lot the three of them engaged in a heated debate over transportation to the pizza parlor. Marnie was defeated two to one. "Just like the game score," she said, conceding.

"Don't be a sore loser." Law was supremely pleased with the outcome of the vote and made no attempt to hide it.

She and David were led to a sporty four-wheel-drive vehicle. "How many sets of wheels have you got?" David shouted from the backseat of the convertible Land Rover once they were buckled in and under way.

"Only this and the Porsche."

"I'm sorry all the guys ganged up on you back there. They really lost their cool. They don't know how to act around somebody famous." He feigned a sophisticated annoyance that brought smiles to the lips of the adults. "Nobody could believe you came just to watch me play."

"I didn't mind signing a few autographs."

"They're usually clustered around Mom."

"They are not!" Marnie protested.

"Oh, yeah?" Law asked.

"You ought to hear 'em talking about her," David continued. They're all in love, or rather in lust, with her."

"David Hibbs, will you kindly refrain from—"

"You know they are, Mom." He addressed Law's face in the rearview mirror. "See, she's not as old as most of my friends' moms. And she's a lot better looking. She's not all uptight and cranky either, but really cool."

"Really?" Law commented dryly.

"Yeah, no foolin'." David pulled a frown. "I'm glad they like her, but one guy started shooting off his mouth and saying that he'd like to, uh, you know, get her naked and take her to bed. I had to punch him out."

"David!" Horrified, Marnie turned in her seat to gape at him. "You never told me that."

"Don't worry. He's scum, not one of my close friends." To Law's reflection he said, "Most of the time it's okay the way my friends carry on about her. They tease me about her being available." He chuckled. "I even had a senior ask me if it was okay if he invited her to the prom. I think he was only joking." He looked at Marnie. "He didn't really ask you, did he?"

"Certainly not."

He shrugged and addressed Law in the mirror again. "I guess it's okay if they flirt with her since she's not my real mom. She's really my aunt. My real mom died when I was four."

"What about your dad?"

Marnie swiveled in her seat again, this time to face Law. She glared a silent warning at him.

David, however, answered the question with aplomb. It was one he'd had to answer every time he made a new acquaintance. "I never knew who my dad was, but Mom said it didn't matter because I'm an individual and that where you're going is more important than where you come from." He pointed between their shoulders. "Up there, Law. On the right."

The din inside the restaurant was deafening. The harried manager paled when the rowdy Tornadoes stormed through, claiming tables. Orders were taken and sodas were dispensed as rapidly as possible. The team sat at one long table in the middle of the dining area while parents and fans in general, among them several groups of giggling girls, sat at surrounding tables.

Law and Marnie occupied one of the periphery. It gave them a modicum of privacy. "I guess I should feel honored."

Marnie blotted her mouth on the paper napkin and pushed her empty plate aside.

"Why, for getting invited to this victory celebration?"

"That and for getting to sit with the most popular girl."

"David exaggerates."

"I don't think so. I've been on the receiving end of some envious stares all night. What's with you and the coach?"

"Nothing. He's got a girlfriend."

"I don't think she was his first choice though." Marnie gave Law a reproving glance. Not put off by it, he leaned across the table and studied her in the wavering candlelight. "It's reassuring to know that the younger generation has good taste."

"Thanks. But that doesn't get you off the hook for baiting David on the way here. If you want information, ask me."

"Okay. How many have there been?"

"How many what?"

"Men."

"None of your business."

"No husband?"

"No."

"How come?"

"What possible interest could that be to you? I wouldn't dare ask how many women there've been in your life since I met you in Galveston."

"Too many to count."

"Precisely."

"But that's not the case with you, is it? I'll bet the number of men who've made it to your bed could be counted on one hand."

That stung her ego. "Why do you say that?"

"Because having David around would cramp a romantic relationship. Am I right?"

"You couldn't be more wrong," she said in the same steely voice with which she'd told him off several nights earlier. "A romantic relationship might cramp my life with David.

Rest assured Colonel Kincaid, that your son has been reared in a moral climate."

"I haven't conceded yet that he's my son."

"Oh," she said, taken aback. "I assumed that since you came to the game, made an effort to see David again, that you were positive."

"Before I proceed—"

"Proceed?" she asked, panicked. "Proceed to do what?"

"I don't even know yet. First I've got to be certain I fathered him. You can understand that can't you?"

"You've got nothing to go on except my word for it and his remarkable resemblance to you."

"I understand there's a blood test," Law said slowly. "It can't prove paternity, but it can be decisive in eliminating some possibilities."

"I've heard of it."

"I want David and me to have it. I want to eliminate any doubt."

"You feel that's necessary?"

"Yes, Marnie, I do. For my own peace of mind."

Marnie sighed and said, "I can't very well stop you, can I?"

"Will you cooperate?"

She thought a moment before answering. "David had to have a physical before the soccer season began. They took blood then. His records will be on file."

"I'll handle it. Who do I contact?"

She wrote down the name of the clinic where David had recently had a sports physical and handed the slip of paper to Law just as David joined them.

He dropped to his knees beside their table and began to beat on it like a bongo drum.

"I'm ready to leave whenever you are. I've wiped out everybody on the video games.

They've banished me because they all owe me money."

Law laughed indulgently and helped Marnie from her chair. She tried unsuccessfully to divide their tab; Law sternly refused. They left under a hail of cheers for the team captain who had saved the day for the Tornadoes, and they cheered his heroic guest.

Within minutes they were on the freeway. "Hey Law, you missed the turnoff to the stadium," David pointed out from the back seat.

"But not the turnoff to my house."

Chapter 6

«^
»

"
Y
our house?" Marnie asked.

"I thought you might like to take a swim and cool off."

"You mean it, Law? You've got a pool? Mom, he's got a pool."

"It's getting late."

"It's not a school night. Please?"

Since Law had control of the car, the choice wasn't left to her, but she was unenthusiastic over the idea of going to his house. She didn't want David getting too chummy with the celebrity who had waltzed into his life and who would in all probability waltz right out again when the novelty of having a son wore off.

And if Law's sense of responsibility made him feel obligated to claim David, how could her old house, which desperately needed new plumbing, possibly compete with a gorgeous modern home with a swimming pool in the backyard and an aquarium in the dining room wall?

The aquarium was just one of the thousand things David labeled "Cool!" as he moved from one room to another. The golden Labrador snarled at Marnie but took to David instantly and trotted along beside him, wagging her tail and licking his knees.

"Is this a totally awesome house or what?" he exclaimed when he stepped out onto the deck to admire the landscaped pool area.

"Dive in," Law told him. "But take the cleats off first, please."

David hastily stripped to his briefs and dove in without a second's hesitation. "Good form," Law observed.

"Ten summers of lessons at the Y," Marnie said.

"Does he excel at everything he tries?"

"Yes." She gave Law a sidelong glance. "And he didn't get that overachiever's drive from his mother."

They watched as David lapped the pool several times before stopping to rest. Venus stayed even with him, racing up and down the deck, barking excitedly. When he came up for air, she licked his face.

"The dog loves me." Laughing, he dodged her fervent affection.

"She hasn't been exercised today. Why don't you take her for a walk?" Law suggested.

"A red Ferrari lives two blocks down to the south. It's usually parked out front this time of night."

David heaved himself out of the pool and accepted a towel and Venus's leash from Law, who was holding both out to him. "Come on, girl. Be back in a minute, folks."

The boy and his newly devoted companion went through the privacy fence gate. It slapped closed behind them. "I think Venus would run off with him tonight if he asked her," Law remarked. "The unfaithful hussy."

"He's always wanted a dog."

"Why hasn't he ever had one?" His brows met in a frown above the bridge of his nose.

"Mother. Pets make her nervous. I haven't had time to look into getting one since she went to the nursing home."

Law pondered that a minute, then nodded toward a cabana on the far side of the pool.

"The little girls' changing room is through there. You'll find an assortment of suits in the closet, but I'm not sure I'll have anything small enough to fit you."

"I don't want a suit."

He took a step closer. His voice deepened. His grin turned suggestive. "That's an even better idea."

"I didn't mean that."

"You've been skinny-dipping before. I remember."

"You remember wrong if you're referring to the night you and Sharon swam naked in the Gulf."

"Ah, that's right. You wouldn't take off your suit. Both of us tried to get you to go along, but you wouldn't."

"You could have been charged with corrupting the morals of a minor."

"You didn't give me a chance to corrupt yours. You started crying and ran home. Why?"

She shook her head dumbly mesmerized by the way the moonlight turned the top of his head silver. It looked exactly as it had that night on the Galveston beach when Sharon had called her a chicken and threatened her with strangulation if she told their parents what she was up to.

Law, a smidgen more tolerant, had wheedled, "Come on, squirt. It won't hurt.

Lightning's not going to strike you."

She had desperately wanted to join him in the warm salt water but was too self-conscious of her juvenile body and too afraid of getting caught.

"Why didn't you skinny-dip with me that night? Were you afraid of me?"

"No," she exclaimed on a whisper.

"Why'd you cry Marnie? Were you embarrassed?"

"I cried because I was mad."

"Mad? At me?"

"At you. At Sharon. I hated you for being able to treat it so casually when I couldn't.

Mostly I was mad at myself. I wanted to join in so much, you see, but lacked the courage."

The pupils of his eyes contracted a fraction. "Now's your chance to make up for that missed opportunity."

"I still lack the courage."

"I don't." He worked off his athletic shoes and peeled off his socks. The polo shirt was whipped over his head in one fluid motion. It brushed her bare legs on its way down to the deck.

"Law?"

"Hmm?" He unsnapped his shorts.

Marnie's eyes hungrily roved over his chest. The triangle of blond fuzz that had been growing in its center when he was twenty-two had thickened and fanned out to cover it all. The color had ripened to a golden brown. It swirled and whorled over the hard, curved muscles and around his nipples, giving credence to the brainstorm of an entrepreneur who had recently proposed to market a Law Kincaid beefcake poster.

His idea was to have a bare-chested Law wearing a mock space suit opened down the front to his navel. He would pose Law in front of a rocket, a none-too-subtle symbol. It would sell millions, he had promised. There wouldn't be a need for tax dollars to finance future NASA space probes. The coffers would be full of money from the pocketbooks of slavering women.

NASA had been horrified, of course. They hadn't honored the preposterous idea with an official comment. The media had had fun with the story for several days before it died a natural death.

But now Marnie, damp-palmed, dry-mouthed and weak-kneed, thought the guy's idea had merit.

Law dropped his running shorts and kicked them aside, then hooked his thumbs into the elastic waistband of his underwear. Instinctively Marnie extended her hand to deter his. When she made contact with warm skin, she snatched it back.

"I cannot let David find me swimming naked in your pool, Law," she said. This is a ridiculous, childish game. Stop it."

"Then stop being such a spoilsport and go get into a suit."

Blue eyes challenged gray. Gray might have held out longer if blue hadn't raised his brows inquiringly and hooked his thumbs back into his briefs. Blue won.

Marnie turned and marched stiffly to the door of the cabana and soundly closed it behind her. Three swimsuits and ten minutes later she emerged wearing a black maillot.

The material was stretchy enough to conform to her slight figure, even though the suit was a size too large.

Confidently she walked to the board bounced up and down to test its spring then executed a fine dive. When she surfaced, he was applauding as he floated on his back toward the side of the pool, kicking his feet to keep himself afloat.

"Very good."

"Thanks."

She swam toward the ladder and was halfway up it when his hand closed around her ankle. Tugging on it, he pulled her back into the water and pressed her backward against the tile wall.

When his legs drifted against hers, she sucked in a sharp breath. "Law, you're—"

"Um-huh. I like swimming naked. It feels good."

"And that's the creed you abide by isn't it? If it feels good, do it."

"And your creed is if it feels good, it must be sinful." He sipped a drop of water off her earlobe and glanced her neck with his lips. "For once Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, why don't you just relax and go with the flow? Take a chance. Do something daring, something—"

She gave both his shoulders a shove that pushed him away and created a huge splash.

"That's why you're doing this, isn't it?" she demanded angrily. "Because it's exciting, challenging,
daring
. Having a teenage boy walk in on his mother and a naked man in a swimming pool must be a thrill you haven't experienced yet."

She reached for the guard rail of the ladder and once again was almost up before he hauled her back into the water, but not as gently as before.

This time his hands slipped into the notches of her armpits. The heels of his palms pressed against the sides of her breasts, making them swell above the top of her suit. He noticed. And noticed, too, the enticing thrust of her nipples against the wet fabric plastered to them. He held her close enough to insure that she felt him, hard and ready against her middle.

"The only reason I'm doing this," he said through clenched teeth, "is because I got my hands on you once today. All I've thought about since then is getting them on you again."

He lowered his eyes to her lips. They were wet with swimming pool water and the nervous, reflexive action of her own tongue. Her lipstick had worn off. Marnie couldn't know how sexy that looked to him.

"If I'd had as much sense seventeen years ago as I do now," he added on a growl, "I'd have ripped off your suit and dragged you into the surf with me that night on the beach.

Maybe if I had helped you to overcome your inhibitions, if I'd acquainted you with a male body, you would have become a sensuous woman instead of the dried-up, uptight prude you are!"

* * *

Marnie stared at her face in the mirror over her dressing table. It had recently marked its thirtieth year but was still as smooth and wrinkle-free as a teenager's. The only feature that lent it maturity were the eyes. From the day she was born they had viewed the world solemnly.

Or so it seemed.

That's why Law thought she was a prude. She'd always had that effect on people.

Through childhood and young adulthood she'd been ridiculed for being so straight, so dull, so serious.

Did anyone actually think she liked having an overactive conscience? She didn't. It was boring. She hadn't enjoyed being the party pooper all her life. But someone had had to be.

And since Sharon was the hell-raiser in the family it had fallen to Marnie to be the chaperone.

Sighing, she switched out the lamp, moved toward her solitary bed, and shrugged off her robe. Lightly her hands skimmed over her nightgown. Her body was narrow and lean.

Voluptuous
would never apply.

Sharon, who had matured early, had started turning men's heads by the time she was twelve, much to their parents' consternation.

In her kinder moments, which had been few and far between, Sharon had promised her despairing younger sister that if she were only patient, she would eventually have cleavage and rounded, womanly hips.

With a rueful smile Marnie slid between the sheets. Those long-anticipated curves had never developed. She'd stopped expecting them years before.

She knew she had a certain allure. Even if her eyes didn't dance and twinkle flirtatiously they were large and ringed with thick, dark lashes. The shape of her mouth seemed to be particularly attractive to some men.

The sculptor she had posed for – wouldn't Colonel Kincaid be shocked to know that while an art student at the university she had posed nude for a sculptor – had found her mouth intriguing and sexy.

That's what had first aroused him that afternoon when he had left his work, crossed the studio, and, with damp clay still clinging to his fingers, brushed them across her mouth.

To her dismay and mortification, her nipples had tightened.

Encouraged, the artist had taken the caress further. He kissed her lips and fondled her small, pointed breasts. She responded. The sculptor had a rather elevated ego and would have been crushed to know that his touch in itself hadn't elicited that sensual response from her body.

It was the memory of Law, laughing at her on the beach as his straight white teeth demolished the peak of a Sno-Kone before it dissolved in the sun. They'd bought the Sno-Kones to toast their sand castle, which had taken a half day to erect.

"Hey squirt, that Sno-Kones done a dye job on your lips."

His fingers had been gritty with sand as he dragged them across her syrup-stained lips; and young Marnie Hibbs had experienced sexual desire for the first time in her life.

She hadn't even known how to label that warm, delicious, flowering sensation in her lower body. She hadn't attributed the sudden projection of her nipples against her swimsuit to Law's touch. Only later had she understood what had happened to her that afternoon.

The artist accidentally conjured up that memory. Marnie closed her eyes and pretended that it was Law Kincaid who was kissing her, caressing her, lowering her to a grubby mattress under the eaves of a loft studio and taking her virginity.

Eventually however, she had opened her eyes. It wasn't Law lying beside her, but a man she barely knew, a man with clay on his fingers and a smug grin on his face. She never went back to his studio, even though every penny she could earn had counted. She had often wondered who the artist had gotten to pose so he could finish the piece.

She didn't have the natural resources to entice a man, especially a sybarite like Law Kincaid. But he would be surprised to know about the yearning turbulence that lay just below her puritanical facade.

His accusation that she was a prude had stung, not because it was true, but because it was so untrue. If David hadn't returned then, if Law hadn't left the pool and hastily stepped into his discarded shorts, she might have proved to him just how sensuous she was.

"No, I wouldn't," she admitted in the dark, not knowing whether to congratulate herself for being strong or reproving herself for being such a coward.

Since she had rebuffed him, she would probably never hear from him again. That would be best for everyone involved. The idea of having a son had probably appealed to him only because he had thought it was a package deal that came complete with an available female.

Let him deal with the problem of the anonymous letters himself. She wanted to have nothing more to do with him.