Danielle Steel - Full circle

“I slept on the couch.”

“You're lying to me. Aren't you?”

“Goddammit, Tana! Don't accuse me of that! It isn't as easy as you think. We've been married for almost twenty years, Goddammit.… I can't just walk out on everything from one day to the next, and not when the girls are involved,” he looked at her mournfully and then walked slowly to where she sat. “Please…” There were tears in his eyes. “I love you, Tan … I just need a little time to work this out.…” She turned away from him and walked across the room, keeping her back to him.

“I've heard that before.” She wheeled to face him then, and there were tears in her eyes too. “My mother spent seventeen years listening to bullshit like that, Drew.”

“I'm not giving you bullshit, Tan. I just need time. This is very difficult for all of us.”

“Fine.” She picked up her bag and coat from a chair. “Then call me when you've recovered from it. I think I'd enjoy you more then.” But before she reached the door, he grabbed her arm.

“Don't do this to me. Please…”

“Why not? Eileen is in town. Just give her a call. She'll keep you company tonight.” Tana smiled at him sardonically to hide the hurt. “You can sleep on the couch … together, if you like.” She yanked open the door and he looked as though he were going to cry.

“I love you, Tan.” But as she heard the words, she wanted to sit down and cry. And suddenly she turned to him and her energy seemed to drain as she looked at him.

“Don't do this to me, Drew. It's not fair. You're not free … you have no right to…” But she had opened the door to her heart just wide enough for him to slip into it again. Wordlessly, he pulled her into his arms, and kissed her hard, and she felt everything inside her melt. And when he pulled away from her, she looked at him. “That doesn't solve anything.”

“No.” He sounded calmer now. “But time will. Just give me a chance. I swear to you, you won't regret it.” And then he said the words that frightened her most. “I want to marry you one day, Tan.” She wanted to tell him to stop, to move the film back to before he had said those words, but it didn't matter anyway, the girls came running in, laughing and shouting and ready to play with him and he looked over their heads at her and whispered two words to her, “please stay.” She hesitated. She knew she should go back, and she wanted to. She didn't belong here with them. He had just spent the night with the woman he was married to, and they had had Christmas with their two girls. Where did Tana belong in all this? And yet when she looked at him, she didn't want to leave. She wanted to be part of it, to be his, to belong to him and the girls, even if he never married her. She didn't really want that anyway. She just wanted to be with him, the way they had been since they first met, and slowly she put down her bag and coat and looked at him, and he smiled at her, and her insides turned to mush, and Julie hugged her around the waist while Elizabeth grinned at her.

“Where were you going, Tan?” Elizabeth was curious, she seemed fascinated by everything that Tana did and said.

“Nowhere.” She smiled at the pretty adolescent child. “Now, what would you girls like to do?” The two girls laughed and teased and Drew chased them around the room. She had never seen him as happy as this, and later that afternoon they went to the movies, and ate buckets of popcorn, then he took them to the La Brea Tar Pits, and to Perino's for dinner that night, and when they finally came home all four of them were ready to fall into bed. Julie fell asleep in Drew's arms, and Elizabeth made it into bed before falling asleep, too, and Tana and Drew sat in front of a fire in the living room, whispering, as he gently touched the golden hair he loved.

“I'm glad you stayed, sweetheart … I didn't want you to go.…”

“I'm glad I stayed too.” She smiled at him, feeling vulnerable and young, which didn't make sense for a woman her age, at least not to her. She imagined that she should be more mature than that by now, less sensitive. But she was more sensitive to him than she had ever been to any man. “Promise it won't happen again.…” Her voice drifted off and he looked at her with a tender smile.

“Baby, I promise you.”

The spring Tana and Drew shared was so idyllic it was almost like a fairy tale. Drew flew up roughly three times a week, she went to L.A. every weekend. They went to parties, sailed on the Bay, met each other's friends. She even introduced him to Harry and Ave, and the two men had gotten along splendidly. And Harry gave her the okay when he took her out to celebrate the following week.

“You know, kid, I think you finally did good for yourself.” She made a face and he laughed. “I mean it. I mean, look at the guys you used to drag around. Remember Yael McBee?”

“Harry!” She threw her napkin at him in the restaurant and they both laughed. “How can you compare Drew to him? Besides, I was twenty-five years old. I'm almost thirty-one now.”

“That's no excuse. You're no smarter than you used to be.”

“The hell I'm not. You just said yourself…”

“Never mind what I said, you jerk. Now, are you going to give me some peace of mind and marry the guy?”

“No.” She laughed, and she said it too fast, and Harry, looking at her, saw something he had never seen before. He had been looking for it for years, and suddenly there it was. He saw it as clearly as he saw the big green eyes, a kind of vulnerable, sheepish look she had never worn before for anyone.

“Holy shit, it's serious, isn't it, Tan? You're going to marry him, aren't you?”

“He hasn't asked.” She sounded so demure that he roared.

“My God, you will! Wait till I tell Ave!”

“Harry, calm down.” She patted his arm. “He isn't even divorced yet.” But it didn't worry her. She knew how hard he was working on it. He told her every week about his meetings with his lawyer, his conversations with Eileen to speed things up, and he was going East to see the girls for Easter week, and hopefully she'd sign the settlement papers then, if they were drawn up in time.

“He's working on it, isn't he?” Harry looked momentarily concerned, but he had to admit, he liked the guy. It was almost impossible not to like Drew Lands. He was easygoing, intelligent, and it was easy to see he was crazy about Tan.

“Of course he is.”

“Then relax, you'll be married six months from now, and nine months after that, you'll have a baby in your arms. Count on it.” He looked thrilled and Tana sat back and laughed at him.

“Boy, do you have a wild imagination, Winslow. In the first place, he hasn't asked me to marry him yet, at least not seriously. And in the second place, he's had a vasectomy.”

“So he'll have it reversed. Big deal. I know plenty of guys who've done that.” But it made him a little nervous thinking about it.

“Is that all you think about? Getting people pregnant?”

“No,” he smiled innocently, “just my wife.”

She laughed and they finished the meal, and they both went back to their offices. She had an enormous case coming up, probably the biggest of her career. There were three murder defendants involved in the most gruesome series of murders committed in the state in recent years, and there were three defense attorneys and two prosecutors and she was in charge of the case for the D.A. There was going to be a lot of press involved and she had to really know her stuff, which was why she wasn't going East with Drew when he went to see the girls over the Easter holiday. It was probably just as well she didn't anyway. Drew would be a nervous wreck getting the papers signed, and she had the case on her mind. It made more sense to stay home and do her work than to sit around in hotel rooms waiting for him.