Chapter 1

It was a smoggy, overcast day, and that partially accounted for it being so quiet, though it was the beginning of Christmas vacation. Whatever the reason, Donna Howell was just glad that the day had been so quiet, and she hurried to switch off the lights in her classroom before the usual last minute gossip wandered in, keeping her from leaving on time. It happened often during the school term and ordinarily the attractive blonde teacher didn't mind in the least, as she wasn't happy about going home to an empty house. But this day she had good reason to get home early, as she was expecting a phone call from her daughter.

Before the last of the lights were turned off, the young teacher checked to be sure the list of instructions for the janitor were firmly attached to the bulletin board. Everything was in order, so she picked up her purse and coat, then walked to the door. After looking back at the small room, she closed the door and locked it from the outside. She glanced up and down the familiar, but now unusually quiet, corridor, then walked briskly out to her car, remembering that tomorrow she would be meeting her daughter and son for a much needed holiday.

"Good grief!" she exclaimed out loud to scold herself for having forgotten why she was in a hurry. Sheri was due to call in half an hour, and Donna knew her daughter would worry if she wasn't there to receive the call. Sheri had become so mature in the past few months that it was almost frightening. In fact, when both the children had arrived home for a weekend last month, she had been amazed at how grown up they had become since their last visit. They seemed more worldly wise; a look about them that she wasn't sure how to interpret, and in some ways, she had been even more conscious of the changes in her son.

Kevin was no longer her little boy, but instead he was a young man maturing rapidly. Yet there was still that special gleam in his eyes that made her feel proud, and as always she had a hard time keeping her emotions in check. He was her boy, and she would always want to hold and squeeze him, maybe even more than a mother should. In fact, she had even trembled when he had walked into the house, greeting her with an innocent childish kiss on the cheek.

Her immediate concern was for her daughter, however, as she had never really taken the time to discuss the things a mother should pass on to a daughter. After Sheri had announced that a boyfriend was coming to visit them during Christmas vacation, several times in the few days that followed that statement, Donna had wanted to call her daughter and talk about it. Yet she hadn't, and somehow she felt that Sheri was more aware of sexual matters than she.

It took fifteen minutes to drive from the school to her Pasadena home at a safe speed, and although she was in a hurry that evening, Donna drove at her usual pace. She knew that she would be there in plenty of time, yet she still felt apprehensive. As always, there was that little nag, that tiny feeling of guilt. It was her biggest regret in life that she didn't have more time to be a mother to her children, instead of their sole support.

Donna Howell, long ago, had decided that her children should have the best education possible within her means, and to her way of thinking this meant private schools. Her decision, influenced by the necessity to teach in order to support herself and her children, was also predicated on a belief that they would benefit from the close ties and relationships of a private school that would hopefully fill the gap left by her absence. This thinking, however, was far from what either Kevin or Sheri really needed, and while it was true that they both had developed intellectually, physically and socially in the private school environment, there was a glaring lack of parent-child love.

Donna Howell, in making her choice, had not only neglected her own personal life, but had inadvertently alienated her son and daughter from a family life of love and understanding they sorely needed. Now that Sheri was in college, it only compounded Donna's financial responsibilities, and on the rare occasions when they were together, she found that the gulf between them had perceptibly widened.

It had been Sheri who had first suggested the Christmas trip to Yosemite, and when Donna had eagerly agreed to the reuniting of the family, she had no way of knowing what had really precipitated her daughter's motives. Nor at the time could she have imagined what would actually happen--and happen in such a way that went far beyond the bounds of family unity the young mother envisioned.

It was only on rare occasions like this that Donna Howell questioned the way things went in her life, as she wholeheartedly believed her main function as a parent was to do whatever was required to provide for her children, a belief fostered by the problems she had had to face at a very young age. She had been the only child of a policeman, her mother having died shortly before Donna's tenth birthday, and although her father did everything possible to create opportunities for her betterment, she was left on her own shortly after she turned twenty when he was slain trying to avert a bank robbery. Donna had been a junior in college and dating Walter Howell at the time, but not until her father's tragic death did she attach any significance to Walter's romantic intentions. Shortly after graduation they were married and Donna divided her time between teaching and making a home for her husband, but with the birth of her daughter the following year, all of her attention was required at home. A year after Sheri was born they had their second child, Kevin, and Donna had pretty well settled down to being a mother and housewife, a life she was willing to accept. But then, when she was only twenty- two, tragedy struck again--her husband was the innocent victim of an automobile accident.

Donna, already twice hardened by fate, rebounded quickly from the shock, knowing full well that she had two young children to support, and the only avenue open to her was teaching. During the next few years, she had many male admirers, one of whom even asked her to marry him, but she became completely absorbed in the task of supporting her children, and in the process neglected her own personal life. She told herself that she would never marry again and risk the chance of losing another husband, but the truth was that although her short lived marriage had produced two offspring, she had been young and naive and unable to cope with the sexual requirements that went with it.

To her way of thinking, dating exposed her to risks that she couldn't afford to take, especially if it meant taking her time away from earning income for herself and the children. Yet, her startling good looks attracted many men, and she was constantly put in the position of finding excuses to spurn offers of dates. At first she used her children as an excuse, but later, when they were older and away at school, she fooled herself into believing that male companions would only be after her small, but hard earned savings. And, next to the children, teaching was her life. Yet there were times when she had feelings she didn't want to recognize.

Late at night when she was lying in bed, unable to sleep, tingling little flames of sexual desire would creep forth to dance enticingly over her long-denied body; her loins would begin to throb with a burning consciousness that dominated her mind, making her want to touch herself everywhere, to be covered with the hard muscular body of a man. Sometimes, in a dreamlike state, she would answer the demanding fires, stroking and probing between her thighs with hungrily searching fingers. But what always remained was a constant gnawing hunger, a desire for a close, intimate relationship, and she had to force herself to put it out of her mind. The security that she had worked for so diligently, the years of teaching, none of it was to be wasted away for some brief moment of weakness. Over and over again, she told herself there would be time for personal pleasures when her children were educated and grown to adults, able to stand on their own, and when they were home from private school, and now college for Sheri, she was constantly worried that she wouldn't have enough time to spend with them.

Turning off the street to the long driveway that led to the house, Donna slowed down, then finally stopped the car. She shut off the engine and sat quite still for several minutes, realizing that she had been day-dreaming, driving automatically. Of late, when her thoughts had dwelt for too long on the opposite sex, she discovered that a warm moisture quite unexpectedly dampened the narrow crotchband of her panties, and as she got out of the car, she found that such was the case now. Self-consciously she walked up the path, her mind in search of the cause for the effect between her thighs. This state of affairs--her reminiscings of her long departed husband, her son, and her daughter's unseen, undescribed boyfriend--perplexed her, but when she finally had the front door open, the insistent ring of the telephone brought her back to reality.

"Hello?"

"Mom?"

"Yes, dear."

"You okay? You sound sort of funny."

"I... I'm fine. Just a little tired. I was finishing up some paper work at school and I just got home."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure."

"Okay. Everything's set here. Kevin will be here any minute. He's going to spend the night here at the apartment, and we'll be leaving about noon tomorrow. We'll meet you at the Ahwahnee as planned. Okay?"

There was no answer for a minute.

"Mom?"

"... Sheri... There's something I want to talk to you about."

"What's wrong, Mom?"

"It's... it's about... Ward."

"Oh, mom! Don't be silly. He's really very nice. You'll like him."

"I..."

"We can talk about it tomorrow. I've got to go now. Kevin's due any second. See you tomorrow. Bye."

The line clicked dead with finality, but Donna Howell held the phone to her ear for several seconds longer. Finally, the unspoken questions still choking in her throat, she replaced the receiver in its cradle.

She stood quite still for a long minute, then finally with a shrug, she headed for her bedroom and the unfinished packing. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow I've got to talk to her.

Kevin Howell gave the address to the taxi driver, then sank gratefully into the security of the cab's seat cushions. He looked upon the busy, late afternoon streets of San Diego with apprehension, his thoughts of that day more than a little bewildering; first the bus ride from Riverside that had seemed unending, then the arrival in this strange city, and now the cab ride itself.

At sixteen Kevin was nearing physical maturity, but having lived a rather cloistered life, he was not fully prepared to cope with adult decisions and adult anxieties in a suddenly adult world. His six-foot frame, still youthfully slender, was the only feature that did not bear a startling resemblance to his mother and seventeen year old sister; a resemblance that bore very little likeness to the man in the old and wrinkled photograph in his wallet. In the past there had been many times when Kevin removed that photograph and studied it intently, but of late this practice had all but disappeared. It was the only picture he possessed of a father he had never known, and along with the fragments of the past passed on by his mother, it had ceased to hold much sentimental value for him. Yet, he did not discard it. Nor did he fail to inquire on the rare occasions his mother mentioned his father. The fact that these occasions were rare was not a deliberate attempt on Donna Howell's part to suppress any knowledge about her long-dead husband, but stemmed more realistically from the absence of Kevin and his sister Sheri from their Pasadena home.