“By doing what the band director accused us of doing all along.” He pulled her to her feet. “Ignoring the rhythm and just going with our instincts.”
Laughter bubbled out of Jody as Callum drew her close. Small but lushly built, she flung her arms around his neck the way she used to in high school.
As they swayed together, ignoring the occasional flat blat of a trombone and the rousing beat suitable for a football halftime, Callum felt her breasts press into his chest. Through his shirt, he noticed the tips harden. Just like in the old days, his body sprang to full attention.
He buried his face in her hair and relished the fresh scent of hay. Let the pasta turn to goo and the salad wilt. He only had an appetite for the woman in his arms.
JODY HAD ALMOST FORGOTTEN how much fun Callum could be. He filled her house with a sense of magical adventure.
“This is better than a trip to Paris.” Quickly, she added, “Almost.”
“How would you know?” he murmured into her ear. “You’ve never been farther than Santa Fe.”
“You read my whole entry?”
“All two hundred and fifty words of it.”
“Tell me about France,” she said. “You’ve been there, haven’t you?”
“Several times.” Judging by the lilt in his voice, Callum had found something new and wonderful every time he’d visited. “The whole city comes alive from early morning until late at night. The streets smell like fresh-baked bread. In the sidewalk cafés, people debate issues as if they held the fate of the world in their hands.”
“I can’t wait!”
“After Paris, we should go to Rome,” he murmured, as if they were really planning to travel together. “We could dine beside the Spanish Steps and dance at a smoky little club I know. What else would you like to see? Venice? Sorrento? Perhaps Granada. There’s a beautiful city.”
He’d visited all those places, Jody thought dazedly. She could have gone with him if she’d accepted his offer five years ago to accompany him back to L.A. And, of course, if she hadn’t been pregnant. But even if he’d somehow managed to keep the magazine going while supporting a family, their relationship would never have lasted. Kids apparently didn’t mean much to Callum. He hadn’t even asked about hers.
Speaking of the boys, it was time they came in for dinner. Reluctantly, Jody separated from Callum. “I have to go get Ben and Jerry.”
“Great! I love ice cream.”
“No, my children.” From beyond the kitchen, she heard the side door slam. The boys still hadn’t learned to close a door quietly. “Oh, there they are.”
She hurried through the kitchen. In the hall, she found her two little guys wriggling out of their jackets. Despite traces of dirt on their jeans and shirts, both had shining clean faces and hands.
“Louise made us wash at the pump,” Ben said.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Jody took a deep breath. Her decision not to notify Callum about her pregnancy had seemed the best choice at the time for both of them. She’d had second thoughts, third thoughts and fourth thoughts as she watched the boys grow up without a father, but until last year their grandfather had done his best to fill that role.
She had no idea how Callum might react when he learned the truth. Had it even occurred to him on reading her essay that the boys might be his? If so, he’d given no indication of it since his arrival. But then, he hadn’t seen Benjamin and Jeremy yet.
It was too late to turn back now. At some level, she’d been hoping for, and dreading, this moment ever since she entered the contest.
Gathering her courage, Jody shepherded her sons into the kitchen. Callum stood in profile, draining the pasta into a colander.
Although he’d stopped the music, he was humming to himself and his hips swiveled as if he were dancing. Like the twins, he was never completely still except when sleeping. And not always then, as Jody had reason to know.
“Wow,” Ben said. “He looks like us.”
The tall man glanced up, his gaze riveted on the boys’ hair. Silver-blond, it was identical to his own.
A stubborn streak inside Jody urged her to deny the obvious. If she made up some plausible story about a long-vanished blond lover, she knew Callum would believe it because he trusted her. He would never discover how intrinsically his life had become interwoven with hers. Maybe, just maybe, she’d escape from this encounter with her self-control intact.
She couldn’t do it. Fibbing to nosy townspeople was one thing. Lying to the man she loved would be intolerable.
“Mine?” He mouthed the word as if unable to speak aloud.
Jody nodded. “Callum, meet Benjamin and Jeremy.” She pointed to each in turn. Since Ben preferred red shirts and Jerry’s favorite color was blue, he should have no trouble keeping them straight.
Callum stood there staring at them. For once, he’d lost his aplomb.
“Who’s he?” Jerry demanded. “Why is he wearing our hair?”
Approaching the newcomer, Ben reached up boldly. With a bemused smile, Callum bent so the boy could finger his stylish cut. “It feels soft,” the boy said.
Tentatively, Callum rested one palm atop the boy’s head. “So is yours.” He turned to Jody, his expression that of a man lost in a wilderness. A bright and shining wilderness, perhaps, but one with no known pathways. “What do we do now?” he asked.
“I’d suggest we eat dinner.” She waited tensely. Callum wasn’t the sort of man to explode at her in front of the boys. In fact, she couldn’t recall him ever losing his temper, although he did get a bit edgy sometimes. But he had every right to be angry.
Although four years ago she’d believed she was doing the right thing, she could see now that she’d been protecting herself as much as him. And it hadn’t been fair to the boys. The older they grew, the plainer that had become.
Callum pulled himself together. “I hope you guys like spaghetti,” he said.
“It’s my favorite!” When Ben grinned, he looked like an exact miniature of his father. His father. A lump formed in Jody’s throat.
“I like mine plain.” Jerry planted himself firmly next to Jody.
“How plain?”
“No sauce,” the boy said. “Just cheese.”
Galvanized into action, Callum transferred the pasta to a glazed bowl and poured the tomato sauce into a separate container. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll serve the sauce on the side and you can suit yourselves. Do they eat salad?”
“Surprisingly, yes.” Jody wasn’t sure how she’d been lucky enough to get children who liked vegetables. “As long as it has ranch dressing.”
They gathered around the table. Callum and the boys bowed their heads while Jody said a prayer, and she was pleased to see her sons minding their manners as they ate. That didn’t prevent a fair amount of tomato sauce from spattering across Ben’s shirt, but since it was already bound for the laundry, she didn’t care.
As the twins chattered about the new puppy, Callum stared from one boy to the other, wearing a puzzled half smile. Jody admired the way he’d kept his poise after being hit with a revelation that would have sent many men into either a towering rage or a mad scramble for the exit.
“Freddy asked Gladys whose car was in front of the house,” Ben said between mouthfuls of salad. “She told him Mommy had a handsome visitor.”
“Who’s Freddy?” Callum had mastered the art of twirling his pasta smoothly around his fork, while Jody’s spaghetti kept slipping off her utensils. Finally she gave up and chopped it into pieces.
“Freddy Fallon is our full-time assistant,” she answered. “He lives in the bunkhouse next to Gladys’s place, past the machine shop.” Because of the unpredictable hours and the distance from town, it was customary for full-time employees to live on the property. “He’s one of those fellows I mentioned in my essay.”