Laurie Paige – The Housekeeper's Daughter (страница 8)

Drake met his father’s level gaze. “It could be. I think…actually, I’m sure it is. But she won’t say so,” he finished in frustration.

“Have you asked her to marry you?”

Drake smiled in irony. “We haven’t gotten that far.”

“I take it that you don’t want the marriage?” Joe questioned dryly.

Drake fought the storm of emotion that rushed through him. “I didn’t plan on having a wife and family. My life is uncertain at best.”

“And extremely dangerous the rest of the time,” Joe concluded. “Yet women and children do manage when husbands and fathers have tough jobs that take them away from home for long periods. It’s all in how the family handles it. Love makes a big difference.”

Drake knew his father was questioning his feelings for Maya. He stared out the window at the dark shadows cast by a tree swaying in the night wind. The darker shadows in his soul shifted painfully. Maya was like the sun. She was all the bright, good things in life, the things forever out of his reach.

“Dinner,” Inez called softly from the dining room.

Joe observed the flicker of emotion pass through his son’s eyes. Drake was a man, with a man’s needs. Sex was part of that, but so was love. A life without it was desolate indeed.

Suppressing a sigh, he rose and led the way into the dining room where the family was gathering for the evening meal. It should have been a joyous time of the day.

He sat at the head of the table, Drake at his left. River and Sophie, now married and expecting—his and Meredith’s first grandchild!—joined them. Their new house which River had designed and built himself, was a beauty, but Joe loved when they visited the main house.

Meredith entered, nodded graciously when the children greeted her, and took her place.

Glancing at Drake, Joe thought of young Teddy. He’d had an impulse to confide to his older son that the youngest Colton wasn’t his but he loved the boy as if he were.

That fact wasn’t something a man could tell his child. However Meredith had changed, she was still the mother of their children. That she adored Joe Junior and Teddy, Joe couldn’t deny.

A sadness reaching clear to the depths of his soul rolled over him. Drake was struggling to realize just what his relationship was with Maya, but Joe had had no doubts the first time he’d met Meredith. Neither had she. They had known they were in love from the first.

Where had it all gone?

Maya was relieved when she walked out of the doctor’s office. She and little Marissa were doing fine. Her wild ride hadn’t harmed the baby, thank goodness. She backed out of the busy parking lot next to the medical building and nearly ran over Peggy Honeywell who ran the bed-and-breakfast, Honeywell House, in Prosperino.

They grinned and waved at each other. When the coast was clear, Maya ran a few errands and drove carefully to the high school. She met Andy Martin in his classroom.

“How’s it going?” he greeted her cheerfully, his eyes sweeping over her blossoming figure as if to check her progress.

Just the way every person she met looked her over nowadays. She sometimes felt like a beached whale with a curious crowd milling around, trying to figure out what to do with her.

“Great,” she assured him. She got out some test papers. “Here are Johnny’s latest exams. I really appreciate your looking them over for me. He needs more help in math than I can spare him, I’m afraid.”

Andy studied the papers and made some notes in the margins beside the wrong answers. “Mm,” he said once in a while. “Ah, yes.”

Maya thought his comments sounded promising. The boy was smart, precocious in the way of many children who’d had to raise themselves, but he was sadly lacking in basic skills such as reading and arithmetic.

“Okay, I think I can come up with a program of study for him that will bring him up to par.” Andy squinted and gave her an assessing look.

“What?” she asked.

“How about I come out to the ranch Saturday morning? Could you fit that into your schedule? I’d like to work out some word problems, then check with you on his vocabulary level. We’ll see how well he does on reading comprehension when it relates to problem solving.”

“That would be perfect. Thanks, Andy. You have no idea what a load this is off my mind. I think Johnny has college potential, but he’s going to need extra help to get him up to speed.”

“No problem.” He checked his watch. “You feel like an early supper or maybe a snack?”

When she’d realized she was pregnant with Drake’s child, she’d broken off entirely with Andy, refusing even the most casual of meetings with him. When he’d learned of the child, he’d sought her out and offered marriage.

No questions asked.

Not like Drake, who apparently wanted to know exactly when she’d became pregnant and with whom. She would never forgive him for that, no matter how sorry she might feel for him because of his parents’ problems or his sad past.

“I think not.”

“I hear Drake Colton is back in town,” Andy murmured, a speculative note in his voice.

She stared at the chalkboard, unable to totally lie and unwilling to admit she’d been a fool. “Yes, he’s home for…for a vacation, I suppose.”

“Maya—”

She jumped to her feet—well, okay, it was more of a lunge—and smiled brightly. “I really have to go. The boys are on their own and probably ignoring their homework.”

Andy walked out to the car with her. He opened the door, then lightly clasped her arm. “I’ve been your friend for a long time. You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded unhappily. She’d never meant to hurt him.

“You can come to me at any time. To talk. To just get away. Whatever. Okay?”

“Thanks.” Impulsively she kissed his cheek, then quickly got in the car and left before she bawled like a motherless calf right there on the main street of town. That would start a buzz on the old grapevine!

Andy watched, his eyes filled with kindness and worry, until she’d turned the corner and was out of sight.

Maya sniffed, sighed and turned her mind to her duties at the Colton estate. She had a paper to finish, then she had to e-mail it to the professor. That was after she supervised the boys and got them to bed.

Heavens, but she was tired. And her back hurt. Also her feet. For a second, she wondered how she’d gotten into such a situation.

“By being stupid,” she muttered sarcastically. “By falling in love,” she added on a sadder note as she parked near the house and pushed herself wearily out of the car.

She went from one task to another for the next few hours, checking Joe’s and Teddy’s homework, helping her mother finish getting supper on the table, making sure the boys had their baths and were in bed at lights-out, then doing her own work. She saw Drake briefly in passing. He gave her a narrow-eyed scrutiny and barely spoke.

Okay, she could handle that, she assured herself as she slipped into a clean nightgown. After all, she’d handled that brief, shattering note—

A soft knock sounded on the door.

“Not tonight,” she called out.

Drake opened the door.

“I’m really going to have to remember to lock the door from now on,” she said in protest.

“Why? Are men lining up to get inside?”

She closed her eyes and spoke to the room at large. “Do I have to take these kinds of insults? No.” She glared at Drake. “Please get out before I scream bloody murder.”

He had the grace to look slightly remorseful. He paced the room, then took up his usual position straddling her desk chair. “I saw you in town today.”

She frowned. “So?”

He slapped his hand on the back of the chair. “Dammit, you were with another man, kissing him right out on the street. What gives?”

Maya stared blankly at Drake. “I haven’t the foggiest idea what you mean.”

“Are you with him?” When she continued to stare at him, he added, “Is it serious between you two?”

She realized who he meant. “Andy is my friend.”

“That was Andy Martin?” He frowned. “He’s changed.”

“Well, that’s because you probably haven’t seen him since high school. People do grow up. Some people,” she tossed in for good measure.

“Meaning I haven’t?” He laughed softly, cynically, at that ridiculous accusation.

The baby did a double flip, and Maya grimaced and pressed her side in discomfort. Would she ever make it to her due date? At this moment, she had her doubts.

“I’ll get the liniment,” Drake volunteered.

“No—”