Judith McNaught - Remember When

Acknowledgements

This is the page where, traditionally, authors offer a few words of thanks to those people who have been rather helpful, or extremely tolerant, during the gestation of their novel. In the case of this novel, which has taken forever to write, there is not enough space on this page to properly thank even one of the following people for their enormous help, understanding, and support. I can only hope each of you will realize how important you were, and you are, to me...

To

Dr. John M. Lewis, protector of hearts;

Keith Spalding, always and ever the dearest of friends;

George Bohnenburger, provider of instant answers to complicated questions on boggling subjects;

Betty Mitchell, builder of dreams;

Bruce Monical, artist, adviser, and dearest friend;

Mark Strickler, most patient friend;

Jim Hime, who redefines the concepts of thoroughness and integrity.

And to

John and Whitney Shelley and Clay McNaught—for being my family and my friends.

Houston, 1979

"Diana, are you still awake? I'd like to talk to you."

Diana stopped in the act of turning off the lamp beside her bed and leaned back against the pillows. "Okay," she called.

"How's the jet lag, honey?" her father asked as he walked toward her bed. "Are you exhausted?" At forty-three, Robert Foster was a tall, broad-shouldered Houston oilman with prematurely gray hair who normally exuded self-assurance, but not tonight. Tonight, he looked distinctly uneasy, and Diana knew why. Although she was only fourteen, she wasn't silly enough to think he'd come there to talk about whether she had jet lag. He wanted to talk to her about her new stepmother and stepsister, whom she'd met for the first time this afternoon when she arrived home from a vacation in Europe with school friends. "I'm okay," she said.

"Diana—" he began; then he hesitated, sat down on the bed beside her, and took her hand in his. After a moment, he began again. "I know how strange it must have seemed to you to come home today and find out I'd remarried. Please believe that I would never have married Mary without giving you a chance to get to know each other if I hadn't been positive, absolutely positive, that the two of you will learn to love each other. You do like her, don't you?" he asked anxiously, searching her face. "You said you did—"

Diana nodded, but she didn't understand why he'd married someone he hardly knew and she'd never met until today. During the years since her mother died, he'd dated some really beautiful and very nice Houston women, but before things got too serious, he'd always introduced them to Diana and insisted the three of them spend time together. Now he'd actually married someone, but it was a lady she'd never set eyes on before. "Mary seems really nice," she said after a moment. "I just don't understand why you were in such a hurry."

He looked sheepish, but his answer was unquestionably heartfelt. "There will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans, and may even seem crazy to others. When that happens, you do it. Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else. Ignore logic, ignore the odds, ignore the complications, and just go for it."

"And that's what you did?"

He nodded. "I knew within hours of meeting Mary that she was just what I wanted for myself, and for you, and I knew when I met Corey that the four of us were going to be an exceptionally happy family. However, all my instincts warned me that if I gave Mary more than a little time to decide, she'd start thinking about all the obstacles and agonizing over them, and that in the end she'd turn me down."

Loyalty and common sense made that possibility seem entirely unlikely to Diana. Previous women had gone to absurd lengths to attract and hold her father's interest. "It seems to me that practically every woman you've taken out has wanted you."

"No, honey, most of them wanted what I could give them in the form of financial security and social acceptance. Only a few have truly wanted me."

"But are you sure that Mary truly wanted you?" Diana asked, thinking of his statement that Mary would have turned him down.

Her father grinned, his eyes warming with affection. "I'm completely sure she did, and she does."

"Then why would she have turned you down?"

His smile widened. "Because she's the opposite of mercenary and status conscious. Mary is very intelligent, but she and Corey have led a simple life in a tiny little town where no one is wealthy, not by Houston standards. She fell in love with me as quickly and deeply as I fell in love with her, and she agreed to marry me within a week, but when she realized what sort of life we live here, she started trying to back out.

"She was worried that Corey and she wouldn't fit in, that they'd make some sort of inexcusable social blunder and embarrass us. The longer she thought about it, the more convinced she became that she'd fail us."

He reached out and gently smoothed a lock of shining chestnut hair from Diana's cheek. "Just imagine—Mary was willing to toss away all the material things I can give her, all the things everyone else was so anxious to grab, because she didn't want to fail me as a wife or you as a mother. Those are the things that are important to her."

Diana had liked her new stepmother well enough when she met her today, but the tenderness in her father's eyes and the love in his voice when he talked of Mary carried an enormous amount of additional weight with Diana. "I like her a lot," she confessed.

A smile of relief dawned across his face. "I knew you would. She likes you, too. She said you're very sweet and very poised. She said you'd have had every right to get hysterical this afternoon when you walked in the front door and met a stepmother you'd never heard about before. And wait till you meet your new grandparents," he added enthusiastically.

"Corey said they're really neat," Diana replied, thinking back over all the information her thirteen-year-old stepsister had provided during their first day together.

"They are. They're good, honest, hardworking people who laugh a lot and love each other a lot. Corey's grandfather is an excellent gardener, an amateur inventor, and a skillful carpenter. Her grandmother is very artistic and very talented at handcrafts. Now," he said, looking a little tense again, "tell me what you think about Corey."

Diana was quiet for a moment, trying to put her feelings about her new stepsister into words; then she leaned forward, wrapped her arms around her knees, and smiled. "Well, she's different from the other girls I know. She's... friendly and honest, and she says what's on her mind. She hasn't been anywhere but Texas, and she doesn't try to act cool and sophisticated, but she's done lots of things I never have. Oh, and she thinks you're practically a king," Diana added with a grin.

"What a clever, discerning young lady!"

"Her own father ran out on her mom and her when Corey was just a baby," Diana said, sobered by the thought of such an unspeakable act by a parent.

"His stupidity and irresponsibility are my good luck, and I intend to make certain Mary and Corey feel lucky, too. Want to help me pull that off?" he asked, standing up and smiling at her.

Diana nodded. "You bet," she said.

"Just remember, Corey hasn't had a lot of the advantages you've had, so take it slow and teach her the ropes."

"Okay, I will."

"That's my girl." He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "You and Mary are going to be wonderful friends."