Judith McNaught - Remember When

"I haven't heard a word about this young man before tonight," her father said flatly. "What's he like?"

"Like? He's... well... he's different—from any of the other boys we know."

"Different how?" her father asked. "Different as in a rebel—a renegade— a malcontent?"

Diana considered that from the kitchen doorway, shifting the heavy bag into her right arm for better balance. "He's probably a renegade, but not in a bad way. He's..." She looked at them, and finally added, "... special. He's just special. I can't explain why or how, but I know he is. He's not like the other boys I've known. He seems much older, more worldly. He's—he's just not like any other boy," she finished lamely. She wiggled her hand in a cheerful wave, too eager to be on her way to notice the speculative looks on the faces she left behind. "Bye, everybody."

After several moments of silence, her father looked from his wife to his in-laws. "I happen to like the other boys she's known."

"This one is different," Gram echoed.

"Which is why I feel sure I won't like him."

"Robert," big wife soothed, "this is the first young man Diana has showed a particular interest in, and you're a little jealous. You acted the same way last year when Corey started talking about Spence all the time."

"I'm used to that now," he said, a little disgruntled. "I never thought in my wildest dreams her crush on Spence would last a month. It's lasted a year, and it's gotten worse, instead of better."

"She thinks she's in love with him," Mary Foster said wryly.

"She thought she was in love with him the night she met him. Now she's sure she wants to marry him. Have you looked in her bedroom lately? She's wallpapered her walls with his pictures. She's turned it into a shrine. The whole thing's ridiculous."

Grandpa Britton shared a little of his son-in-law's pique over being replaced in the girls' lives by other males. "Corey will get over it. It won't last. Girls don't fall in love when they're fourteen; they only think they're in love."

His wife picked up a pencil to put the finishing touches on a simple but elegant stencil design she was creating for a border along the top of the guest bathroom walls. "Henry, I fell in love with you when I was fourteen."

Robert Foster had lost the thread of the conversation. Staring toward the doorway where he'd last seen Diana, he said, "Was it just me, or did it look to anyone else like Diana was blushing when she talked about that stableboy?"

"College student," Mary corrected quietly; then she laid her hand over his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He relaxed and smiled sheepishly. "It's just that I have such big plans for the girls. I don't want them to get absorbed with boys and all that too early to realize what they'll miss if they get married too young."

"Don't make any plans for Corey," Gram said dryly. "She's already made her own. She wants to marry Spence, and she wants to become a famous photographer."

"Not, I hope, in that order," Robert said.

Gram ignored that. "As for Diana, I can see her becoming an interior designer, or maybe an architect, or maybe a writer. She has a lot of talent for all of those things, but she doesn't seem too eager to be any of them. I hate to see gifts like hers go to waste."

"Her real gift won't go to waste," he argued. When everyone looked expectantly at him, he said proudly, "She may have gotten her mother's artistic eye, but she has my brain. In time, she'll find her own ways of putting it to use. She's always been interested in business."

"Business is good," his wife said with a nod and a smile.

"Business is very good," Grandpa said.

The women looked at each other and both of them got up. "There's only a half hour of daylight left, Mom. I could use some advice about the table arrangements."

Mrs. Britton hesitated and looked at the men. "Are you both sure you don't want some fresh strawberries with yogurt topping for dessert?"

"I couldn't eat another bite," Mr. Foster said.

"Me, either," Henry Britton agreed, patting his stomach to indicate it was stuffed to capacity. "You're right about these all-natural, low-fat meals, Rosie. They're very satisfying once you get used to them. That broiled chicken hit the spot; it really did. You girls go ahead outdoors and do what you need to do."

The two men sat there in innocent silence, listening for the sound of the back door opening. The moment it closed behind their wives, they got up. Robert Foster headed straight for the freezer and took out French vanilla ice cream, while Henry Britton hurried to a lower cupboard and removed a Dutch apple pie that Glenna had bought at the bakery earlier and hidden there for them.

Henry cut into the deep-dish pie and glanced at his coconspirator. "Large piece or medium?" he asked his son-in-law.

"Large."

Henry cut two hefty pieces of the pie and laid them carefully on plates, while Robert dug the ice cream scoop deep into the container and came out with a heaping portion.

"One scoop or two, Hank?"

"Two," Henry said.

They glanced up at Glenna as she moved efficiently around the kitchen, tidying up. "You're a saint, Glenna."

"I'm a traitor."

"You have job security for as long as I live," Robert countered with a grin.

"Your wives would fire me if they knew what you two make me do."

"We'd hire you right back," Henry said, closing his eyes and savoring the sublime taste of forbidden sugar and fats. He looked at his son-in-law, whose expression of utter contentment matched his. "I thought Mary and Rose were never going to leave us alone in here tonight. I was afraid we'd have to wait until after they'd gone to sleep to raid the kitchen."

Outside on the lawn, Mary stood with her back to the kitchen window, discussing rearranging the tables for tomorrow night's party. "I think we should," Rose said. "I'll get Henry and Robert to help us."

"Not yet," Mary said dryly. "They haven't finished their dessert."

Rose plunked her hands indignantly on her hips. "What is it this time?"

"Dutch apple pie."

"We ought to fire that Glenna. Before Conchita retired, she kept Glenna out of the kitchen."

Mary sighed with resignation and shook her head. "Glenna's only following orders. Besides, they'd just hire her back. Except for the desserts they sneak, we've got them both on a sound low-fat diet, and I know Robert sticks with it at breakfast and lunch." She started to move the heavy table into position a little at a time, and Rose pitched in to help her. "His doctor told him yesterday that his cholesterol level was finally coming down," Mary added.

"What about his blood pressure?"

"Don't ask."

The riding ring was on a slight incline, thirty yards to the right of the stable. It was surrounded by a low, white fence and brightly lit now by huge, new mercury-vapor lights on high poles that shone almost as bright as daylight on the ring and simultaneously cast everything else into shadow.

From her vantage point just outside the stable, Diana watched Spence dismount and begin leading the handsome sorrel around the ring to cool him down. He said something to Corey that made her laugh as she walked along beside him, and Diana smiled with pleasure that Corey's evening was turning out so well.

Instead of having to share him with Doug and Barb Hayward and Doug's father plus one of Spence's innumerable and inevitable girlfriends, as Corey and Diana had expected, Corey had him entirely to herself. The Haywards had at the last minute remembered a relative's birthday party and were attending that, and Spence was by himself.

Diana's evening hadn't turned out badly, either. She'd had Cole entirely to herself. Managing to see him as often as she could without having it seem contrived had been the second hardest thing she'd ever done— second only to keeping her feelings for him a complete secret from him and everyone else.