Karina Bliss - What the Librarian Did

“The only time Dad ever hit me was when I told him I was pregnant,” she said. Rachel looked at her hands. “It was the only time Mom let him, although when the body blows started she intervened. I think that’s why I made contact after he died, but…” She glanced at Mark. “Did she show you the photo albums?”

He nodded.

Rachel went over to sit at the piano stool. “My father was influential in council, in the community, in our church… I don’t think there was a charity he wasn’t involved in. He never had any problem knowing exactly the right thing to do, the right way to dress and speak, the right opinions to have.” She grimaced. “Of course, he spent his life constantly disappointed in other, more fallible, people.”

She wasn’t seeing Mark anymore, seeing only the past.

“In our home everything revolved around Dad. He was a secret drinker, always brooding over some slight, real or imagined. It infuriated him when he wasn’t given the respect he deserved, and he’d take out his frustrations on my mother. The meal wasn’t hot enough, the house not clean enough, she was letting herself go…letting him down.”

Discordant notes echoed through the room; inadvertently, she’d leaned on the piano keys. Carefully Rachel closed the lid. “And my mother always agreed that it was her fault, always made excuses for him even when he’d hit her. Even now, when she’s finally free of him, he’s still a saint in her memory.”

She moved restlessly on the stool. “I couldn’t raise you on my own, but I couldn’t let them raise you, either. For a while I put my hopes in an open adoption, but I couldn’t trust Dad to leave you alone. So I canceled it.” Her words were coming out all wrong-bald and harsh-but if she gave way to emotion now, she wouldn’t finish what she had to say.

Rachel became aware that she was dusting the piano lid, over and over with the sleeve of her silk blouse, and stopped. “All I could give you was a future-parents who would raise you with stability, security and love. I’m sorry, but I can’t regret that.”

She’d promised five minutes. Rachel started to go.

“Devin said you wanted me to like you first and that’s why you delayed telling me,” Mark murmured.

Silly, so silly. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. He was looking down, kicking the toe of his sneaker against the floor. The lace was untied.

“My real dad wanted you to have an abortion?”

“Yes.” Rachel swallowed hard. “But I never considered it, not for a minute.” She looked to Devin for more unspoken support.

Mark bent down and tied his shoe. “Still,” he said gruffly, “three parents who wanted me isn’t so bad.”

Rachel smiled.

Her son lifted his face. There were tears in his eyes. “And I do like you,” he said.

Her own vision blurred.

IT TAKES AWHILE to believe that the person you started out thinking was all wrong for you is the one you’re meant to be with.

But he was a patient man, her friend, Devin Freedman.

“I’m not going to push this,” he’d said when they had a private moment on board the flight home. “But I’m not going away, either. I’m backing off until you get used to the idea that I love you. Because I’m damned if I’m doing the ‘panic and dump’ scenario you put the last two guys through. We’re friends until you decide you’re ready for more. And by more I mean love, marriage, kids-the whole shebang.”

“And if I can’t?” Because it wasn’t a matter of won’t any longer.

He’d simply smiled at her with all his lazy rock star arrogance. How could he be so confident? So sure of what he wanted? “Oh, and one more thing. Start something with me-a flirtation, anything that crosses the friendship boundary-and I’ll take it as a yes.” He’d leaned closer, so close Rachel felt his body heat, like a faint promise of a long, hot summer. “Because a kiss is not just a kiss, Heartbreaker, it’s a commitment.”

They all settled back into university life. Rachel met Mark’s parents, taking Devin with her and trying not to think about how much she needed him at her back. She fought for and won an increase in her departmental budget. She got to know her son-relishing the slow, natural growth of his affection. She resumed her Sunday lunches and said no to a tattoo-a present from Trixie on her thirty-fifth birthday. And she regained her equilibrium in a very different world.

A world with family in it, even if she hadn’t approved one of them yet.

She knew she was testing Devin; after all, the man had two failed marriages and a lot of wildness behind him. But over the next three months she came to trust his feelings. And hers.

And still she made him wait.

KATHERINE FREEDMAN MARRIED Matthew Bennett on a wet, blustery day at the end of June when the winter whitecaps caused more than one guest arriving by the Waiheke ferry to heave with the boat.

Standing beside Mark, watching Devin and Zander walk their mother to her groom’s side, Rachel’s stomach fluttered nervously. It was a small wedding, only fifty close friends and family, and today she intended to signify her readiness to move from the former into the latter.

Outside, a cold wind shook the bare grapevines in the fields surrounding the mud-brick restaurant. Inside, it was as snug as a hobbit’s burrow.

Tall tapers flickered in candelabras on two oak barrels by the arched window where they were to exchange vows. Tea candles lined the long tables, drawing the eye like landing lights on a runway. Overhead, fairy lights spiraled the rough-hewn beams.

A fire crackled in the stone hearth, roaring back at the weather every time a gust came down the chimney.

In a soft apricot suit, Katherine made a beautiful bride. Her sons had dressed to match the wedding party, in conventional dark suits, but to Rachel’s relief nothing could civilize Devin’s dramatic good looks. His hair would never play nice and the two brothers’ diamond cuff links, diamond ear studs and chunky rings threatened to out-bling the bride’s. Amid the cops that made up many of the groom’s guests, they looked like two elegant thugs waiting for the right moment to pull machine guns out of their guitar cases.

“…to have and to hold,” said Katherine, “to love and to cherish…”

Devin captured Rachel’s gaze. Normally the fire in his eyes was banked, though it always smoldered under the guise of friendship. Today it blazed.

But then she had dressed provocatively. Lifting her chin, she sent back a sweet, innocuous smile, reminding him who was in charge here. With her doubts settled, there was something fun, something dizzyingly, deliciously female in being the object of unrequited desire. In making Mr. Have-Any-Woman-He-Wanted wait.

His eyes glinted. Suddenly hot, Rachel undid some of the buttons of her 1950s Dior brocade swing coat, tempted to take it off.

The color of raspberries, patterned with gold starbursts, the matching sheath underneath had a deep V in the back, which closed to a large flat bow above the curve of her bottom.

“Sexy as hell,” Devin had said when he’d given it to her for her birthday. “But think of the coat like a matador’s cape. Only take it off if you want trouble.”

Okay, she’d deliberately stoked the fires by wearing this outfit today. But was she ready for this much Toro Bravo? She wavered.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” intoned the celebrant. The reflected light burnished the smiles of the guests and illuminated the glow of the bridal couple. Matthew kissed his bride with a tenderness that softened Devin’s expression. Taking a deep breath, Rachel reached for the last button.

As the applause and conversation restarted, Mark said beside her, “You next. Devin’s already asked me to be his best man.”