Valentine's Child (11 page)

It was inevitable, she told herself later, once everything was said and done. Like planets on a collision course, there was, in the end, nothing to do but let the explosion happen. It was their fate; written in the stars. So she waited for him and he eventually came.

His entourage came with him, a steady stream of fans and groupies and parents and teachers and administrators all wanting to tell J.J. how great he was. But he quickly eluded them and finally they were alone. He must’ve read her mind because they talked very little. She climbed into the passenger seat of his car, let him drive to a secluded lane that abutted Beckett property, made no protest as he held her hand and led her through the back gate and along a private path that approached the Beckett tree house from the rear. Silently, she followed him up the ladder to a clean, cozy room complete with a huge canvas hammock stretched from a post on one side to a metal ring screwed into the opposite wall, next to a real, paned window. Thick, wool plaid blankets were stacked in a pile, and he grabbed one and spread it over the hammock.

Sherry’s heart beat fast. She watched him light an oil hurricane lamp, tuck it onto a corner shelf and turn the wick low.

Shadows played on his face. He was all angles and serious intensity. He loomed over her, his palm caressing her face. She closed her eyes and a sigh escaped her lips. Finally, finally, the moment was here. The moment was right.

When he kissed her, there was passion heating beneath his searching lips and Sherry answered in kind. Looking back, she marveled at how quickly they’d fallen into a tangled heap on the softly swaying hammock. There’d been no laughter, just urgency.

Their lovemaking had been quick and glorious, her brief moment of pain lost beneath the wonder of it all. She could still see the burnished light moving on his shoulders, the muscles working so smoothly they appeared to be oiled, the curve of his hip, the power of his thighs. She could feel his hardness, his hands exploring her anxiously, his body pumping rhythmically. His groans of ecstasy were burned into her memory. And the taste of him — oh, God — his slightly salty flesh and sweet tongue were a delight she wanted to experience again and again.

Goose bumps broke out on her flesh at the memory. Lips trembling, she took another gulp of her mocha, heat rising in her cheeks. No wonder she never reflected. Not only was it painful, it was
embarrassing.
How long had it been since she’d really thought about J.J. like this? Had she ever?

Blinking, Sherry was stunned to realize that she hadn’t let herself think about J.J. Beckett since she’d run away from Oceantides. In all these years she’d never examined the reasons she and he had collided and crashed with the force of two freight trains. She focused on her pain, her anger, and her responsibility, but not once had she really let herself revel in those passionate moments in J.J.’s strong arms.

“Hell,” she muttered now, aware of her rapidly beating heart and uneven breathing. The man still had way too much power over her. And he didn’t even know it.

If she were smart, she would remember that her introduction to lovemaking had merely been all set up ahead of time. J.J. had clearly hung that hammock for one reason and one reason only. And if she were smarter yet, she would remember that she couldn’t have been his first guest there. But had she thought about that while J.J. pressed her willing flesh beneath his weight?

No. On that magical night her conscience slumbered and love blinded her. Blinded her and turned her deaf, as well. But not mute. Oh, no… she couldn’t be that lucky. No. Instead, Sherry Sterling spent those hours whispering over and over again how much she loved him, aware that he wasn’t repeating the pledge but unwilling to believe it was because he only wanted to score again — just like he’d been scoring all evening on the football field.

Rah, rah, rah.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Sherry wanted to groan aloud at how stupid she’d been. Summer had warned her; she’d warned herself. But no, no, no. Her own swelled head had gotten in her way. For a few weeks she’d actually believed J.J. Beckett loved her. Mr. Wonderful himself was in love with Sherry Sterling!

And then it happened. Just as Summer had predicted. After that night of wonder, love and passion J.J. Beckett cooled right off as if the whole scenario had been previously scripted. He said adios and good riddance. And Sherry Sterling, shattered fool that she was, begged him to take her back.

Sherry could scarcely look back on those wretched days following their hook up any more than she could remember the physical act itself. She’d blocked it out. Wounded, sick at heart, full of self-loathing and naked pain, she spun headlong into Tim Delaney’s waiting arms.

And J.J. punched him out. After school. The night of the first playoff game. Tim punched back and they were both ejected from the team, effectively ending Oceantides High’s chances of winning. The result was a slaughter while rain poured down on the depressed Oceantides fans who watched their broken team struggle miserably and futilely against damning odds.

Everyone blamed Sherry. Sherry blamed herself. Except some part of her rejoiced. J.J. must love her, mustn’t he? she reasoned. He’d broken Tim’s nose for her. He’d gotten himself thrown off the team for her. That meant something, didn’t it? Well, didn’t it?

What it meant was J.J. wouldn’t speak to her and it was only Tim who still wanted to see her. Not J.J. Never J.J. And although Sherry ignored Tim and did her best to show J.J. that she still loved him — to the point of employing Summer and Roxanne to try and plead her case, to the point of trying to plead her case with Ryan and Matt herself — she only succeeded in driving him further away. She drove him straight to Caroline. To his own kind. To other people who lived “on the water” and away from riffraff like Sherry Sterling.

And that was the way the rest of the year went — except for Valentine’s Day, which she wasn’t going to think about because it didn’t matter anymore and it was too depressing anyway — until one night in late May when the rhododendrons were in bloom in a rainbow of pink and blood-red and lavender. The air was warm and heady with the smell of romance and J.J., for reasons she never fully understood, was waiting for her when she got off work at Bernie’s.

They stared at each other nakedly and something broke wide open. When he dragged her into his arms and kissed her through her tears it was Sherry whose heart and body betrayed her desire to rekindle their passion.

There was only one place on each of their minds: the tree house.

In the heat of their lovemaking, bathed by the warm light of the oil lamp, wrapped in each other’s embrace, Sherry forgot all her warnings to herself and let her heart speak.

“I love you,” she moaned. “Don’t leave me again.”

“Sherry …” he muttered, kissing her fervently. “What are you doing to me?”

“Don’t say anything. Please, don’t say anything …”

They made love as if they were starving for each other — his body pressed urgently to hers, her own writhing with need, loneliness and love. His mouth was hot with possession and her limbs melted beneath.

She should have demanded an answering vow of love and commitment. She should have been more careful. She should not have mistaken the ragged desire in his voice for something more.

Now, years later, Sherry drew a shuddering breath and pushed her empty cup aside. She covered her face with her hands, then raked her fingers through her hair, tugging on the ends to feel the pain, as if she needed to be reminded. Her mouth twisted in irony. How strange that it was she who’d ended up leaving him.

Because of that last night together.

The night their daughter Mandy was conceived.

VALENTINE’S CHILD — NANCY BUSH

Chapter Five

“Would you like anything else?”

The waitress gazed at Sherry and smiled, her eyebrows lifting in silent query.

“No, thanks. I’m fine.”

Wondering if that was Beachtime Coffee’s polite way of saying “Hit the road, we need the table,” Sherry made a show of picking up her purse and getting ready to leave. Then she realized there were more tables empty now, and with a weariness born of anxiety, she sank back down.

Mandy, Mandy, Mandy …

Here it was. The one issue she’d never resolved. Mandy. Her daughter. Hers and J.J.’s. The child she’d given up for adoption and who now wanted to know
both
her parents.

Feeling older than she should, Sherry reached into her purse and pulled out the photograph she’d received eight days earlier. The girl in the picture wore a green army jacket that hung to her knees, her hair was plaited in two dark brown braids, her blue eyes stared straight ahead, unforgiving and painfully familiar. She’d shifted her weight to one hip and at thirteen she was the epitome of disillusioned youth.

She reminded Sherry so much of J.J. Beckett her throat hurt. Especially now, when his attitude toward her was so angry and distant. Amanda Craig.
Mandy.
Their daughter. The cool little rebel who’d dropped into Sherry’s life unexpectedly, having used a private investigator to search her out, and then had baldly demanded that she get to meet her father.

Apocalypse. The end of the world. Sherry’s shock, joy and heart-stopping thrill at meeting her own child were smashed by Mandy’s first cold words.

“So, you’re her,” she said in a peculiarly flat voice, as if she’d scrubbed all emotion from it — which she probably had. “You’re prettier than I expected. Younger, too.” When Sherry saw her standing beneath a flooding rain on her front porch, a black knit hat covering the top of her head, her braids dripping water, her mouth flat and unhappy, Sherry’s first though was, Whose miserable child is this? Her next: Holy God, she’s
J.J.’s!

“What… what …” Sherry stammered.

“Bet you hoped you’d never see me, huh?” A sardonic flick of a pair of unusually sensual lips. Blankly, Sherry recognized a trait of her own.
Her child, too!

“Don’t worry, I won’t stay long. I just wanted to meet you face-to-face.”

Distracted and shocked, Sherry had stared in disbelief, too poleaxed to do more than gape in wonder at the daughter she’d borne. Mandy was a far cry from the sweet little bundle of love Sherry had envisioned all these years, but she was still so incredibly beautiful. When Sherry’s phone began to ring persistently, she didn’t even hear it.

But Mandy did. “That’s probably my mom and dad,” she announced blithely. “Tom and Gina Craig. I’m Mandy, by the way. And you’re Sherry, aren’t you?” As Sherry’s knees trembled wildly, Mandy added pragmatically, “Better get the phone. They don’t know where I am.”

And that was Sherry’s introduction to her and J.J.’s child.

Now, setting down the photograph and smoothing it with slightly unsteady fingers, Sherry reminded herself that she was here on a mission. Mandy had crashed into her life, and her well-meaning adoptive parents, the Craigs, seemed to be almost as undone about it as Sherry. Clearly they’d fought their daughter’s demands to meet her birth mother; just as clearly, they’d lost the battle. Later, when they came to Sherry’s apartment, they eyed her with distrust and fear and a bit of empathy because Mandy was a handful, to say the least.

But before their arrival Mandy had already made an indelible impression on her mother. She’d stepped into Sherry’s life as if it were her right, which in a way, it was. But there was no cautiousness in Mandy, no need to tentatively pick her way through the minefield of emotion her sudden appearance had wrought on both the Craigs and Sherry. She simply didn’t give a damn.

A bit of Patrice Beckett there, too, Sherry thought with faint humor.

“You had to give me up because you were too young and he wouldn’t marry you,” Mandy said matter-of-factly as she entered Sherry’s apartment and dropped her duffel bag on the floor. “Isn’t that right?”

“I… was too young,” Sherry answered in a voice so distant she hardly recognized it as her own. Her head swam.
He wouldn’t marry you.
That was true, too.

“It’s okay.” Mandy looked around Sherry’s apartment, assessing. Sherry knew it wasn’t “okay,” but what was there, really, to say? Besides, her underpinnings had been knocked from beneath her and she couldn’t think.

“Do you have a picture of him?”

“Of… your father?” Sherry choked out.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so …”

Mandy’s blue eyes stared. “Not one picture?”

Her youth almost broke Sherry’s heart. Beneath all the trapping was a small girl who wanted to believe that Sherry and J.J.’s romance was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, something to be treasured and remembered and haunted by. Well, Sherry was certainly haunted, but not in the way Mandy hoped.

“I… have a yearbook,” Sherry had offered, wondering frantically where she’d put it. She hadn’t graduated with her class but she’d already paid the fees at the beginning of her senior year and her mother, in a rare moment of independence, had gone down to Oceantides High, picked it up and shipped it to Sherry.

Sherry had received the book with mixed emotion, running her fingers over the gilt-edged blue cover, afraid to turn the first page. She’d managed eventually to peruse it from cover to cover, but then she’d buried the book under boxes and boxes, stuffed away in some cobweb-gathering corner because she couldn’t bear all those pictures of J.J. Beckett.