Keast, Karen Read online

  Galveston.

  Salt-scented air. Honey-colored beaches. Mile after mile of seawall built to protect the city from mean-spirited storms. And in no place did it storm quite as it did in Galveston. London had dank, dark weather, with drizzly rain and smoky fog, but Galveston was queen of the downpour, king of the wroth wind. There was something symbolic about the timing of her return, Lindsey thought as the car sped across the causeway linking island to mainland. Something symbolic about the storm brewing in her heart. She could never remember feeling so tempest-tossed. No, that wasn't true. She could remember a time, eighteen months ago, when she'd felt more than tempest-tossed. She'd felt completely lost at sea. But then, she'd had the anchor of her parents. Now that anchor was being compromised.

  She glanced over at the man sitting beside her. When her eyes had first connected with his at the airport, she had felt a sense of profound relief. She had felt safe. Just the way she'd always felt safe with Walker. It would be so easy to lean on him now, when her heart was troubled over her parents. Was leaning on him something she wanted to do? Was leaning on him something she dared do? The truth was, she suspected, leaning on him was something she had little control over. It was just something she seemed to do instinctively. Looking back to a year and a half before, why hadn't she seen the emotional storm coming? Why hadn't she known from the beginning that events had been taken out of her control?

  "What do you mean you think we ought to postpone getting married?"

  The question had been asked by a confused, soon-to-be, as of the following day at 2:00 p.m., bridegroom. Lindsey could still remember the puzzled expression on Ken Larey's face... and how the expression had suddenly turned to a grin.

  "Oh, I get it. This is a joke, right? A little after-the-rehearsal-dinner humor. Come here, you little tease," the tall, handsome, as-sweet-as-a-teddy-bear guy had said.

  Her heart breaking, Lindsey had evaded his embrace by putting the sofa between them. Minutes before, they'd arrived back at Ken's apartment, which, as of the next day, would be their apartment. "I'm serious, Ken."

  He'd momentarily looked startled that his arms were empty—and that she was standing somewhere other than beside him. "You're serious about wanting to postpone the wedding?" Before she could answer, he smiled. "You've just got cold feet, sweetheart. That happens. It doesn't mean a thing. Tomorrow you'll feel—"

  "No, I won't. I mean, this is not a frivolous case of cold feet. I wish it were, but it isn't."

  A frown, a prelude to impatience, furrowed Ken's forehead. "Then what exactly is it?"

  "I... I don't know. I just think we should postpone the wedding. Until we're both sure."

  "I am sure, Lindsey. I thought you were, too."

  "I am. I mean, I was. I mean..." She had sighed, laid her hand on the back of the sofa and closed her eyes— closed her eyes to contain the tears.

  "The next thing I know," Ken had added, "you'll be telling me there's someone else." He'd made the remark as though it were the very last option to consider, for how could there be anyone else when the two of them had gone together for over a year and had been practically inseparable the whole time?

  Lindsey had said nothing.

  "There, uh, there isn't anyone else, is there?" This time, uncertainty underscored his voice.

  Still, Lindsey had said nothing.

  "Is there someone else?" Ken had asked point-blank.

  For as long as she lived, Lindsey would remember that question. She'd remember the verbalizing of something that she hadn't had the guts to put into words. Not even in some secret place in her heart. But to be fair to herself, the question had never occurred to her until earlier that very evening. Until the wedding rehearsal itself. When it did occur, as some errant feeling in her heart, she'd been terrified at the realization. Terrified, mortified, helplessly lost on the sea of new emotions, new emotions that she had no name for.

  She'd also always remember the tears that had slid from her closed eyes and down her cheeks, the hurt look on Ken Larey's face when she had opened her eyes, the voicing of the question that she knew he would inevitably ask.

  "Who?"

  She hadn't given him a name, though. Nor had she given it to anyone else. In fact, she'd told her parents— everyone, except Ken, to whom she felt she owed nothing short of honesty—that she'd simply, regrettably, had a change of heart and that she needed to get away for a while, to better sort through her feelings. A friend of a friend of a friend had found her a job out of the country. For that she would always be grateful.

  The time away had worked its healing magic. Muddied waters had cleared. Feelings had fallen into place. A name for the feelings had been found. Or rather, she'd stopped fighting the name she'd known all along was the only name that applied. That name was love. She was in love. It was that simple.

  She Was uncertain when her heart had made the commitment, but she knew the exact moment when she had been forced to confront the fact that something was going on with her emotions. She had wondered countless times what would have happened if she hadn't chosen to flaunt custom. If she had let someone stand in for her at the rehearsal, as was tradition, if she'd let her maid of honor walk down the aisle in her place, would she now happily be Mrs. Kenneth Larey?

  "That's bad luck," Millie Moore, the petite maid of honor who was Lindsey's best friend and former college roommate, had said.

  Lindsey remembered saying that nothing even resembling bad luck could touch her the weekend of her wedding. Later, she would think that she had been wrong, though she couldn't really call what had happened bad luck. Maybe it had even been good luck—good luck with bad timing.

  "Besides," Lindsey had added, "we already have a stand-in, and one is enough to satisfy convention."

  With that, she had looped her arm through Walker's. Since her father had been delayed on a rig, he'd telephoned Walker at the last minute and had requested that his buddy, and Lindsey's godfather, take his place during the rehearsal.

  "Are you ready to give me away?" she had asked, smiling up at Walker.

  He had smiled back. And she had thought how very special his smile was, how it seemed to light up his whole face, how it always seemed to light up her heart. But then, Walker, like a bright night star, had always managed to light up her world.

  She literally could not recall a time when he was not part of her life. He'd been at her birth—or so she'd been told—and he'd been at every major event since. He'd taught her to water-ski, he'd pitched her balls at the same time he'd pitched balls to his son, he'd given her a teddy bear every Christmas since she'd begun collecting them, which had been somewhere around the age of ten. He'd been her pal, just the way Phyllis had been not only her godmother, but also her friend.

  When Phyllis had died so suddenly, at the time that Lindsey was an impressionable sixteen, Lindsey had been devastated. She'd also witnessed Walker's devastation. Which had been complete and total. While her friends had fantasized of teenage idols—Eddie Van Halen, Rod Stewart, Billy Joel—Lindsey had romanticized about one day finding a man who would love her with the same depth of feeling with which Walker had loved his wife. He became the ideal by which all other males were judged. Critically judged. That Ken Larey had measured up had been little short of a miracle. That miracle man, the best man at his side, had awaited Lindsey at the altar that eventful rehearsal night.

  "All right," Lindsey remembered the minister saying, "the maid of honor—come on, young lady," he'd said, motioning for Millie to start down the aisle "—will approach the altar." She had, pretending she was carrying a bouquet.

  "Nervous?" Walker had whispered to Lindsey.

  "A little," she'd whispered back.

  He had tightened his hold on her arm, just enough to reassure her. "Just remember that no one's ever died from repeating the marriage vows."

  Lindsey had smiled and she could have sworn that Walker had started to, as well. His smile never materialized, however. Instead, he'd turned deadly serious.

 
; "Look, I probably won't have time to say this tomorrow—you're going to have everything on your mind but me—so I want to say it now. I wish you all the happiness in the world, hon. You know that, don't you?"

  Lindsey had nodded. She did know that he wished her well. Just the way that she wished him well. She even wished that he could find someone to be happy with again, though the truth was that, out of the few women he'd dated over the years, none had really been worthy of him. At least in her humble opinion.

  "And, listen," Walker had added, a grin now slipping to his lips as he jerked his head in the direction of the front of the church, "if this Kenneth guy doesn't treat you right, you just let me know, you hear? And I'll kick his rear into the middle of next week."

  The image of a booted Ken sailing through time caused Lindsey to giggle. At the same time, Walker had leaned forward and brushed his lips against her cheek.

  In that moment, a curious thing had happened. Looking back, with the supposed objectivity of hindsight, Lindsey realized that that hadn't been the first time he'd kissed her. Far from it. Always a demonstrative person, he'd never been stingy with expressing his feelings. No, his kissing her had not been new. It was her reaction to that kiss that had been totally foreign. And frightening.

  From out of literally nowhere had come the realization that she wondered what his lips would feel like pressed against hers. No, it was more than wondering. She actually longed for his kiss. A real kiss. A man-woman kiss. Not a well-wish kiss given by a godfather to his goddaughter on the eve of her wedding.

  The inappropriateness of her response had not escaped her. In fact, she'd been more than aware of its gravity. The man whom she'd pledged to marry was waiting for her at the altar, to rehearse the vows that would bind them together for the rest of their lives, and here she was wondering what another man's kiss would be like. And the man hadn't been just any ordinary man. He'd been her godfather. A man old enough to be her father!

  The revelation had upset Lindsey as nothing else in her life ever had.

  "Okay," the minister had stated, "now the 'Wedding March' will begin, and the bride and her father—" here he motioned for Lindsey and Walker "—will make their way to the front of the church."

  "Ready?" Walker had whispered.

  "Y-yes," Lindsey had stammered. Somehow she'd struggled through the remainder of the rehearsal. She'd struggled through the rehearsal dinner. She'd struggled through the difficult, and heartbreaking, talk with Ken. And then had begun the real struggle, the long months that it had taken her to sort through her feelings.

  "Lindsey?"

  But at least she was now armed with the truth....

  "Lindsey?"

  For whatever good that would do her.

  "Lindsey?"

  She glanced up as her name penetrated her consciousness. The car had stopped in front of her parents' home. Walker was watching her with a look that said he'd called her name before and had gotten no response.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I guess I was elsewhere."

  Even as she spoke, she couldn't keep her eyes, her hungry eyes, from feasting on him once again. Just the way she had at the airport. For the most part, his hair was still jet-black, but she thought that there were a few more gray hairs frosting the temples than the last time she'd seen him. He was still incredibly handsome, though, with piercing brown eyes that peered from beneath thick ebony lashes. His skin still shone gold from the sun, telling her that, while he might spend a lot of time in the office, he still managed his fair share of hot hours out on the rigs with her father. And his lips... well, they still haunted her with their masculine strength and sensual curves.

  What would he think if he knew why she'd called off her wedding? What would he think if he knew that she'd spent endless hours searching her soul for answers to the hardest questions she'd ever been forced to ask? What would he think if he knew that she still wondered what his lips would feel like on hers?

  Startled?

  Shocked?

  Appalled?

  Probably all of the above, though she had the hardest time dealing with the latter. Would he be appalled that the woman he thought of as his daughter thought of him as so much more? Could the truth easily destroy every good thing that they shared?

  Maybe.

  But she'd decided that it was a chance worth taking. She'd unquestionably come home at this point because of the marital problems her parents were having, but the truth was that she'd come home for another reason, as well. She'd come home because she had some unfinished business with the man sitting beside her.

  Chapter Two

  Home was just as Lindsey remembered it—a pretty cream-colored brick house with shutters the blue of a robin's egg. Her father's fishing boat stood in the driveway with a tarpaulin over it, while her mother's climbing roses, planted the year they'd moved into the house, nearly twenty years ago now, crept lazily up a lattice. The white wrought-iron lawn furniture, a small table and two chairs, rested beneath the drooping boughs of the aged oak tree in the front yard. The furniture needed a fresh coat of paint, a fact her mother pointed out to her father on a regular basis, though it never seemed to do much good. It was always something he'd take care of the next day, the next week, the next month.

  In contrast, however, the mowing of the grass was something that was never postponed. A passion with her father, he kept the yard immaculately cut and trimmed. Which was precisely how it looked now. It was as though he'd mowed it as per usual over the weekend, then had gotten up Monday morning and had calmly asked, over breakfast, for a divorce. Not for a separation, which seemed to Lindsey to be the logical intermediary step, but for a divorce. Final and irrevocable.

  Yes, Lindsey thought as she opened the car door, everything looked the same. In reality, though, nothing was, and she experienced a reaction she hadn't experienced since hearing of the divorce. She felt anger. Anger at her parents for what they were doing to her. How dare they threaten the stability of her world! Even as the dark emotion crushed her heart, she realized how self-centered she was being. Because of that, because Walker was standing before her, waiting for her to get out of the car, she brushed the thought away.

  "Ready?" he asked.

  "Yeah," she said, pushing from the seat. The heat immediately assailed her, making the long-sleeved white cotton blouse she wore more than uncomfortable. Then again, maybe she was uncomfortable because of what she knew lay ahead of her.

  "I'll get your suitcases," Walker called over his shoulder as he headed for the rear of the car.

  "Thanks," Lindsey answered, starting for the house. She saw her mother peek from a window, and in seconds the front door was thrown wide.

  If the house was just as Lindsey remembered, her mother was not. Her short blond hair, every strand of which was always impeccably in place, looked mussed, as though it had not been seriously combed in a while, or as if restless fingers had wreaked havoc with any recent attempt. She, likewise, wore no makeup. For a woman who wore makeup even when sick, Lindsey thought the absence of it now more than telling. As were her eyes. Normally, they were wide and blue and clear, the fun-filled eyes of someone who had taught her daughter to love life. Now, however, they just looked tired, dull, as though they had cried a seaful of tears.

  Lindsey's heart split in two.

  Wordlessly, the two women embraced in the middle of the yard. Lindsey could feel her mother clinging to her in something just short of desperation, as though Lindsey had arrived in time to loan her some much-needed strength. But then, as though it were she who had to be strong for her daughter, Bunny Ellison smiled. The smile, however, looked totally incongruous with her weary face.

  "Let me look at you," Bunny said, giving Lindsey a quick once-over. Though the women had talked frequently, at least once a week, it was the first time they'd been together since Lindsey had left for London. "You look wonderful," Bunny announced. "Doesn't she look wonderful, Walker?"

  A suitcase in each hand, Walker had just come abreast of the
women. He glanced over at Lindsey and winked. "Oh, I don't know. I was thinking she'd gone over to England and gotten herself uglied up."

  Lindsey grinned. So did her mother. The latter's smile was small, but genuine. Again, the action hurt Lindsey's heart, simply because smiling had once come so naturally to her mother. Lindsey's guess was that smiles had been few and far between of late. They were likely to become even more scarce.

  "And what would you know about ugly?" Bunny teased. She and Walker were always teasing. "Except other than what you see in the bathroom mirror every morning?"

  Walker laughed. Lindsey wondered just what he did look like in the mornings. She knew with a dead certainty, the kind you'd stake your life on, that it was nowhere near ugly. In fact, she'd put her money on be-still-my-heart sexy. The kind of sexy that spelled a scratchy stubble of beard, the kind of sexy that spelled bare chest covered in dark spirals of hair, the kind of sexy that—

  The sound of Walker's voice brought her back to reality, and reality was that they were standing in the quiet, cool den of her parents' home.

  "Where do you want these?" he asked. The question was directed toward Bunny and referred to the luggage he still carried.

  "You can put them in our ro—" Bunny stopped. Pain streaked across her face. "You can put them in my room." At the surprised look that Lindsey gave her mother, Bunny added, raking her fingers through her hair, "I, uh, I've been sleeping on the sofa in the den." What she didn't say, but what was implied, was that there were too many memories in the bedroom she'd shared with her husband.

  Lindsey had known that her father had asked for a divorce; she even understood, at least theoretically, what that entailed. She shouldn't have been surprised to discover that he'd moved out of the house. And truly, a part of her wasn't. Another part of her, however, had obviously, for defensive purposes, denied that possibility. Or, at least, had conveniently overlooked it. The fact could no longer be overlooked. The fact also hurt. Deeply.