domineering… Richard had not shown any of these traits before they were married, but now he had them all in abundance. She couldn’t even try to talk with him. And Ron Stone kept coming on to her.
He cornered her at every party. Every social gathering. He started calling her at home. Nothing she said or did put him off, and it got to the point where she wasn’t sleeping nights and was afraid to stay home during the day. She became nervous around Richard, telling white lies to explain why she wasn’t home when he called. They fought. He was trying so hard to do well; he wanted so much for both of them…but Lorna was lonely and frightened and floundering. She couldn’t simply tell Ron Stone to shove it, because Richard thought so much of him; she didn’t tell Richard about Ron, because she was afraid he wouldn’t believe her, because she didn’t want to seem naive, because she thought she should be able to handle it… She had a dozen reasons. And then one day Ron had evidently decided he was tired of the hunt and chase; Lorna was home in bed with a cold the day he moved in for the kill. A half hour after he arrived, Richard raced in unexpectedly to pick up a brief he’d forgotten. He found his wife just inside the front door dressed in a filmy nightgown, in what must have looked very much like a parting embrace after a morning tryst with a verbally creative Ron Stone…
End of story, Lorna thought wryly, and flicked open the drain. She stood up, wrapping a towel around herself as she stepped out of the tub. That single afternoon had caused such endless heartache when the solution had really been so simple: Buy an eight-gauge shotgun, the kind once used on elephants, and murder one Ron Stone.
She rubbed a towel over the mirror to wipe off the steam, and saw a pair of haunted gray eyes looking back at her. Ron Stone was not really to blame. She knew that. He was just a predator in a world of predators.
Guilt had haunted her for a long time. She was guilty of not telling Richard; she was guilty of walking a tightrope with Ron when she should have dealt honestly with the situation from the outset. Those were petty guilts, next to the real one-her guilt over a marriage gone wrong…
Lorna turned off the bathroom light, padded barefoot to her bedroom and slipped on a nightgown in the darkness. In just seconds, her head was on the pillow, but her eyes still blinked wide open in the night. That episode of her life was like a door that wouldn’t close, a bad dream that just refused to end. Richard hadn’t believed her version of the incident-her
Richard had been killed in a car accident when Johnny was a year and a half old. The divorce was final by then, but Matthew had sent a note to tell her of his brother’s death. During the divorce proceedings, Matthew had tried a dozen times to talk with her, but she’d shut him off every time. Perhaps she didn’t really want to tell him the story because in her heart she already knew there was no point in trying to salvage the marriage. Perhaps she didn’t want to tell him because, from the first time she met him, she knew she occupied a special, if tiny, niche in his life, and that mattered to her. She’d had his respect, his gentle teasing, his supportive caring…and now she was so ashamed.
It had taken her a long time to put her life back together. She had regained her self-respect, earned her independence. Self-sufficiency was her goal, and she achieved it. The toughest hurdle had been regaining her lost pride. Lorna vowed never again to let anyone get into a position to judge her without a trial; and love without trust…could never be love. She had been overwhelmed by bitterness against Richard-and his father-for judging her… She was not likely to forget the experience.
And Matthew was a Whitaker as well. She hadn’t forgotten that either. But Johnny had a right to know his father’s family… His isolation from the Whitakers had bothered her for a long time. Her son had a right to his last name, a right to the financial support the Whitakers could give him.
If Matthew had ever felt anything other than brotherly love for her, she hadn’t known it. She certainly hadn’t had any sexual feelings toward him. Matthew was terrifying; a successful, formidable, too-quiet man whom she had once taken ridiculous pleasure in getting to laugh. She knew he’d honestly wanted her marriage to succeed. He had never so much as laid his little finger on her in a sexual way…
So what happened today? she asked herself. She closed her eyes in the darkness. How on earth had it all happened? How had they ended up touching…kissing… Matthew’s last name alone should have precluded the kind of feelings Lorna had experienced tonight. The name Whitaker meant pain to Lorna. No trust. Men hung up on black-and-white truths, possessive, judgmental…
She’d been a fool to tell him he could call, Lorna decided wearily. She had only opened the door to more heartache. She’d just feel she was on trial all over again; there’d never be any trust. She’d never again sacrifice trust in a relationship, and she had to think of Johnny.
She did, right before sleep finally overcame her.
Chapter 4
“Johnny, you’ve got two choices,” Lorna called out, tapping her booted foot impatiently. “Either get the lead out of your feet or get grounded for the next ninety-seven years.”
The rapid pounding of boots was eventually followed by the entrance of her grinning son. “I don’t know why you bother to threaten me,” he said cheekily, pecking her affectionately on the chin as he headed outside ahead of her. “You know you aren’t really going to really do anything. Besides, we’re an hour earlier than you said.”
“Three-quarters of an hour now,” Lorna scolded as she hurried toward her Camaro.
“I told you school was going okay.”
“And I told you I wanted to see for myself,” she replied, turning the key in the ignition.
“You’ll be bored. It’s just for kids.” He paused and gave her a sidelong look. “Come to think of it, you’ll probably fit right in.”
“Thanks, urchin.”
The forty-minute drive to Johnny’s new private school took all of Lorna’s concentration; they stopped talking. A fresh layer of snow had fallen overnight, hiding an equally fresh layer of ice. Her car liked to skid, and the roads were giving it every opportunity.
Just less than an hour later the two walked down the silent corridors of the school. Not another soul was in sight at seven-thirty, but a beacon of light emanated from the farthest doorway. Johnny had been here only two weeks, yet each day Lorna had to fight with herself not to worry about how he was adjusting, not to show anxiety to her son, not to come on like an overprotective mother. When Mrs. Wright had called the night before, inviting Lorna to see how Johnny was functioning in the classroom, it was all Lorna could do to force herself to go to bed rather than pace the floor all night.
“Mrs. Whitaker?” The young blonde woman smiled, rising from a clutter of papers on the carpet when she saw Lorna and Johnny. “You two are early birds.” While Johnny was hanging up his coat, the teacher said simply, “I realize that you visited the classroom before you enrolled your son here. But I know Johnny a little better now, so I thought at this point I could give you a definite idea what we want to do together.”
Lorna nodded. “He’s doing all right?”
“He’s doing fine.”
The look of the classroom still surprised Lorna. Bright print curtains hung at the windows; carpeting warmed the floor; there was no blackboard. The school practiced Montessori methods, which meant that each student had an individually structured program based on his interests and abilities, regardless of his age. Under the teacher’s supervision, each student was allowed to work at his own pace; it had seemed ideal for an exceptional child like Johnny, and yet Lorna was concerned about discipline and socialization.
Certainly she had never seen a better-equipped classroom. A fourth-grader with a gift for languages was able to choose not only from among all the modern and even classical languages, but hieroglyphics as well. Geography included not only globes and standard texts, but also clay and water, materials with which the children constructed their own topographical maps. Two computers offered math challenges up to college-level statistics. All the materials and supplies were of high quality, plentiful and visually appealing.
The school was expensive far beyond what Lorna could have afforded had she not gone to Matthew, but it was the only school that suited Johnny’s unique abilities and personality. In public school, instead of taking pride in his
