Mr. Wrong (A Homespun Romance) (9 page)

Brady persuaded her to try the duckling a la orange with peas and cauliflower and as he was obviously familiar with the house specialties Kate was content to leave the ordering of their meal to him.  The menu, fortunately for her peace of mind held no prices.  It would be no use reasoning with Brady once he made up his mind anyway so Kate did just as he asked and relaxed.

All through dinner, her awareness of the man opposite mounted.  Brady was the perfect gentleman, anticipating her every need before she voiced it, keeping the conversation light, asking her about the preschool, genuinely enjoying the stories she related.  He was drawing her out and soon, thought Kate, he’d know as much as she did about herself, whereas the only thing she could add to her scanty string of facts about Brady was that he had spent most, if not all, of his tax returns on her today.

They were lingering over their Pavlova when Kate said, "Tell me about your parents Brady.  What does your father do?”

A strange shadow crossed Brady’s face almost as if he was embarrassed and then he said, “He was in business.  He’s retired now.  Spends a lot of time with Cody and grows roses.”

“And your mother?”

“She works part time, says it’s the only way to keep young and refrain from driving my Dad crazy.”

“Brady...” he loved the way she said his name, the silvery notes making it sound special.

“Yes, Katie?”

“You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to,” she took a sip of water as if it would help ease the words out, “but do your parents love each other?”

“Very much.”  There was nothing he could be more sure of.

“Oh.”  Just that.  Nothing else.

“They met when my Mum was eighteen,” Brady said, aware of Katie’s need to know more.  “She had just been taken on as a salesgirl in his father’s store and was very nervous because her supervisor was a real martinet type.  Mum muddled through her first day and then she was told to take a couple of boxes to the manager’s office before she went home.  She went there, shaking in her shoes, sure she was going to be told not to return.  My Dad took one look at her scared face and it was love at first sight for both of them, though it took them quite a while to acknowledge how they felt about each other.  They were married six months later and have lived happily ever after since.”

“Do they ever fight?”

“Often, because Mum says making up is so much fun.  But even when they argue they never lose their basic respect for each other, that caring.  They’ve been married thirty five years and my Mum still lights up like a hundred watt bulb when my dad comes into the room.”

“I see.”

A small silence followed and Brady could almost hear the wheels turn in Katie’s brain as she assimilated what she’d just heard.

“Have you ever been in love Brady?” 

‘Kathryn McArthur!  What’s wrong with you?  The man invites you to dinner and you put him through the third degree’.  But she wanted answers tonight to this unease nibbling at her insides, wanted to know more about love.

“Many times, Katie,” his eyes held her above the flicker of the candle on their table.  “I’ve been in love many times but I haven’t loved till now.”

Their gazes locked and she couldn’t look away.

Suddenly the air around them became charged, oppressive.  Kate found breathing hard.  It was as if her throat was closing up, emotion clawing it with a thousand murderous fingers, making her want to cry, to run away, to scream at him to stop this insidious assault on her senses. 

No, Brady, no.  Don’t say it.  I don’t want to hear it.  Today hasn’t really changed anything.

“Please, can we go now?” 

Fire on the mountain.  Run Kate run.

“Of course,” he stood up immediately, picking up his credit card from the table and following her out to the car.

They said nothing for a while and slowly Katie began to breathe again.

“How’s Harold?”  Brady’s question took her by surprise. 

Why talk about Harold now?

“Fine.” 

The word came out tinged with defiance and a subtle warning that Brady chose not to heed.

“Has he proposed yet?”

“Yes.” 

Brady gripped the wheel as if it were Harold’s neck.

“And?”

Kate couldn’t believe it.  “What do you mean and...?” she demanded.

“Did you tell him you can’t marry him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not sure, yet, what I want to do.”

“You are, you know,” the quietness of Brady’s voice was more deadly than if he had yelled at her.  “Listen to yourself Katie, to your heart.  Don’t rush into something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

`My heart,’ Kate thought bitterly, `that fool organ that’s supposed to concentrate on pumping blood.  If I listened to it I’d be in bed with you by now, Brady, and in a worse mess than I can cope with.  No, thank you.  I’m listening to my brain, that’s what I’m doing.'

The silence seemed to demand an answer and Kate said stubbornly, “Harold’s very nice.”

“What about love Katie?  Do you love Harold?”

“I don’t know much about love Brady, except that it’s a temporary aberration that doesn’t last.  Money does.”  Could this be her, Kate McArthur talking?  She had really outdone herself this time.

“Don’t knock what you’ve never tried Katie,” the command winged softly through the night, “Love makes life worthwhile.”

Angered by the insidious pull of her senses to lean towards the voice, let it overcome her fears, wipe out her beliefs, Kate stiffened angrily, “It’s easy for you to say that, Brady.  You’ve never been cold or hungry, never had to live on charity or in fear.  You have been surrounded by love all your life.  It’s natural you should set such store by it.  I don’t.  I want security, the knowledge that I will never have to be poor again and I can love the man who gives me that.  We are from different worlds, Brady.  Just stick to yours in the future.  Leave me alone.”

Getting out of the parked car she closed the door with more force than necessary and then leaned through the window she had lowered when he had stopped in front of the house.  “Good night and thank you for dinner.”

Brady sat there for a long time after she left him.  When he finally put the car in motion it was with a pleased grin on his face. 

“Very, very satisfactory,” he told himself, unrepentant he had introduced Harold into their conversation.

Katie would make a beautiful June bride. 

She wore the dark skirt and the blouson top for her date with Harold, defiantly clasping huge gold hoops in her ears remembering Mrs. J’s comment that the latest craze for large chunky jewelry was barbaric.  Willfully she laced her feet into the black leather thongs she liked to wear recalling the other unnecessary remark that only closed shoes were really dressy. 

She had made one serious mistake in her friendship with Harold, Kate admitted to herself.  She had tried to conform to his ideals and his mother’s, never bothering to think that under everything she might have some of her own.

Staring at herself in the mirror, she wondered if the concealer she had bought really did anything for the shadows that had cultivated under her eyes since Saturday.

Unable to explain the unrest that had seized her since then, Kate had run through the conversation she’d had with Brady umpteen times.  He had no right to barge into her life like this, unsettling her with his talk of love.  All Kate knew about it was what her mother had told her.  Love was just a word a man used to have his way with you.  It got you into a whole heap of trouble and where they had lived, there had been plenty of those living heaps to drive home her mother’s words.  Some couples had even got as far as the altar, been happy enough but as soon as the babies came love had headed for the nearest exit, leaving behind a tale of sordid suffering.

  Often when she had accompanied her mother to the Department of Social Services, Kate had seen these women with a passel of children looking as if they’d packed two lifetimes into the first eighteen years of their life.  Sometimes it had been the men who got left with the kids but that had been rare. It was always the women who came off worst in these cases. No, Kate couldn’t afford an experiment with the stuff called love.  If she messed up now it would take more than all the King’s horses and all the King’s men to put her back together again.

She had watched Karen when the other woman had come to pick up her son.  Cody’s Mom certainly seemed happy enough but wasn’t that because her husband provided her with that security that Kate had always considered of paramount importance?  Cody’s Dad had come in  yesterday and the look in his eyes as he had hugged his son and put an arm around his wife’s shoulders  had twisted something deep inside Kate.  To find love and security must be better than winning the jackpot.

But her heart was determined to have a say in the matter as well.  What if what Brady said was true?  Was love what made life worthwhile?  Could it last, becoming more precious with each passing year like his parents had, endowing users with a special coupon for happiness?  Could love alone be enough?

The more she dwelt on Brady, the harder it became to bear in mind the reasons for her plan. 

All week she had felt sick with longing for a taste of him, the touch of his hands on her flesh, the feel of his mouth against hers as they both slaked a voracious fire within.  Everything else seemed a mockery.

And so the struggle between her head and her heart went on.

Harold took his rejection well though the curl of his mouth and the look in his eyes told her she was the worst kind of fool.

“I see,” was all he said. 

No recriminations about leading him on, no pleading to consider again, nothing.  Kate wondered if he wasn’t taking it a shade too well.  The next instant, she told herself not to be a dog in the manger.  Harold had never protested undying love.  Maybe, he was just as capable of making an impersonal choice as she was. 

When Harold dropped her off at her apartment, Kate changed into an old pair of jeans, a tee-shirt and sneakers.  She would go for a long walk and exhaust herself.  She didn’t want to lie awake thinking tonight.

As Kate circled the block, the enormity of what she had done sunk in.  The
Harold’s of this world didn’t exactly grow on trees.  By refusing him she had thrown away her key to Securityland.  It was all very well to tell herself that she might like the next rich person who came along enough to marry him.  Where was the guarantee that the person in question would want to marry her?

Katie stopped walking.  It wasn’t too late to call Harold and apologize, tell him she had been too nervous to think straight.  He would understand, forgive her magnanimously, take her in his arms....

An odd sensation in her stomach and the distinct heavy sliminess of castor oil impregnated her taste buds and Kate shook her head, helpless with the repulsion that gripped her at the thought. 

No, there was no going back, only forward.

Brady straightened away from the wall as he heard Katie’s footsteps on the stairs.  He noted the sadness that stamped her features, the tiredness in her bearing a moment before she became aware of him.

`Hi.”  The surprise in her voice, mingled with the soft glow of welcome on her face, had Brady longing for the feel of her in his arms.

He responded cautiously, searching her face for signs of returning anger as she remembered their last parting, but found none.

“Come in,” she invited.  "I’ve got some iced tea in the refrigerator.  Or would you like some coffee instead?”

Brady followed her into the room and stopped.  On the wall between the two armchairs was a framed poster.  A clown with tears in his eyes.  Brady’s heart slid into a drumroll.

Katie must have noticed him staring at it because she said, “I got that at the mall on Sunday.”

It had appealed to her so strongly she hadn’t been able to resist buying it.  The story of her life seemed to be portrayed in that picture.

“It’s very expressive.” 

It tells me more about you than a million words would.  Katie mine, if only there was something I could do to take the pain away.

Kate turned away to get the iced tea out and Brady strolled over to an armchair.  The last week had been busy and he hadn’t been to Jacaranda Meadows since Katie’s birthday.  Besides, he’d wanted to let her anger abate.  His Dad always said talking to an angry woman was like waving a red rag at a Spanish bull to cool it off.

When she brought the tea to him and sat down, he said, “Seen Harold lately?”

“Tonight.” 

“And?”

“I’m not going to marry him.”

The drumroll magnified a thousand fold.

“Katie I....”

“Don’t say it Brady,” the staccato words vibrated with anger.  “The fact that I’m not going to marry Harold doesn’t mean anything else has changed.  My priorities for marriage are still the same.  Money, security, affection.  In that order.”

Don’t rush her now, or you’ll lose everything, Brady.  Easy man easy.