Valentine's Child Page 8

  But who? How?

  The answer dropped his lunch tray on her table with a clatter. “Oops,” he said, grinning like a stooge. Tim Delaney wasn’t bad looking, was a great athlete and hailed from the wealthier side of Oceantides’ tracks, but he was a zero in the charm department and Sherry suspected there was a Vacant sign glowing somewhere inside his head. Still… .

  It was child’s play — frightening, really — how little she had to do to win Tim’s attention: a small compliment here, an attentive look there, an expression of admiration when Tim waxed on about how great he was on the football field. Sherry found it so easy, in fact, that she tried out her tactics on other members of the male gender and soon she was surrounded by admirers who stumbled over themselves for the merest sign of her approval.

  In the space of a few weeks her popularity quotient rocketed to the heavens. Not only did the guys talk about how great-looking she was, they crowed about how much she liked them and how Sherry Sterling was halfway to being their girlfriend.

  And J.J. Beckett glowered in silence while the Oceantides High girls turned stony and bitter. Except Summer and Summer’s friend, Roxanne. They alone understood what was going on because they thought in larger terms. And they liked Sherry and were willing to open the door to friendship — the best by-product of all.

  It was a magical fall, made better by J.J.’s change of attitude. Gone was the cocky boy who charmed with the ease of long practice. In his place was a young man unsure of himself, whose discomfiture around Sherry, and contained fury directed at her admirers, made him seem all the more desirable and finally, attainable, to her. It was sometime during those heady weeks that she realized she would make love to him. It was like an epiphany. He wanted her — he really wanted her — and she wanted him right back. How silly that they’d had to play this game to realize it, but better to play the game than never to understand the prize to be won.

  Football season dragged on. J.J. spent all his extra time — which wasn’t much — around Sherry. But she caught him driving by her house and although he’d quit stopping in to talk to her at Bernie’s, on weekends he hung around outside the pizza parlor’s parking lot, talking with a bunch of his friends and hers.

  Roxanne and Summer adopted Sherry and would separate themselves from the pack to come and update her. It was as if they were double agents delivering top-secret coded messages.

  “Notice the way he looks out of the corner of his eye you. He’s watching, all right,” Roxanne would mumble, her head bent over Bernie’s menu as if she didn’t already know every item by heart.

  Summer said, “Yeah, and he’s not that good at it. He wants you to think he’s talking to Kathy and Caroline, but they’re just there for show.”

  “You think so?” Sherry asked, hoping it was true, needing to hear it again and again.

  “Oh, yeah. You’re playing it right. God, I love it that you’ve got J.J. Beckett!”

  “I don’t have him,” Sherry reminded Summer quickly.

  “He’s never been like this with anybody else.”

  “We barely see each other.”

  “That’s because the plan is working,” Summer assured her.

  Roxanne snorted. “Besides, you can just tell he’s into you by the way he acts.”

  “She’s right. We’ve got a lot of body language going on.” Summer slid a glance outside Bernie’s glass doors to where the group was standing around. J.J. half turned to look, then pretended oblivion.

  Roxanne and Summer both eyed Sherry with “I told you so” looks on their faces. Sherry smiled, pleased. They were right. It was working. Except before the plan she and J.J. had been closer. Now they’d taken ten steps backward. When would they make that giant leap forward?

  “The guy’s had,” Summer assured her one night while Ryan, J.J. and Matt hung around joking with each other, shooting looks the girls’ way.

  “I hope so.” Sherry’s gaze followed J.J.’s broad shoulders.

  “Have I been wrong yet?”

  “No …”

  But Sherry’s doubts remained, hanging just outside of reach. Even when J.J. plugged a quarter into Bernie’s jukebox and The Four Seasons belted out, “Sherry, Sherry baby …” Sherry still couldn’t believe he loved her like she loved him. She’d blown off Tim Delaney long ago and pretty much ignored all the rest of the guys’ attention, but J.J. had kept his distance and things weren’t the same as they’d been at the beginning of school.

  October melted into November and finally it was the end of football season. The senior boys’ last game neared and Sherry and J.J. were still at the same stalemate. Oh, they’d started going out together again, but there was no more hand-holding, no more soft kisses and touches, no more passionate touching.

  Because she wasn’t naturally manipulative, Sherry suffered serious second thoughts about this plan to attract other male attention in an effort to make J.J. see how desirable she was. All she wanted was to be with him, and she was tired of pretending that she wanted to play the field. It was a dumb game with even dumber consequences.

  She was through with it.

  The date of the last regular–season game she debated what to do. There were posters and an assembly and cheerleaders jumping around. Everyone was in a frenzy because this one game would determine whether the team would make it playoffs.

  Sherry still believed football was a moronic sport made for Neanderthals. Except she couldn’t quite shake the image of J.J. in his uniform–formfitting black pants, blue and gold jersey stretched over muscles and pads. Arm cocked back for a spinning pass. Even she wasn’t immune to that.

  And since she wanted to be with J.J. if that meant going to the game and rah-rah-rahing with the rest of the fans, so be it. She was tired of walking by and giving him a quick smile of interest only to flirt with some other guy. It wasn’t her style. And as time passed, she determined it wasn’t even necessary.

  So she went to the game and cheered the team on and was slightly ashamed of herself for falling into the fever of it. Every completed pass between J.J. and Tim brought a scream of excitement from her throat. She was hoarse by the end of the game and was swept along with the crowd when they made a long line to welcome their conquering heroes.

  J.J. was nearly crushed to death by bear hugs from his own linemen. They lifted him up and down and pounded on their chests and howled like wolves, heads thrown back in victory. J.J. just grinned, even when they doused his head with Gatorade and water.

  Briefly, his eyes met Sherry’s. Briefly, a flicker of understanding passed between them. A spark of acknowledgment. A promise. Confused but excited, Sherry waited on the track that surrounded the football field for all the congratulatory nonsense to end and for J.J. to come to her.

  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.