Kitabı oku: «Daddy To Be Determined», sayfa 3

Chapter Three

Ben dropped Vanessa off at Matthew Buckley School. Children streamed toward the building from all directions.

“I think you should ask her to stay for dinner,” Vanessa said as she leaned over to kiss him goodbye. “I think she’s very nice. It isn’t her fault that she couldn’t wake up and Grandma had to make her leave ’cause she’d promised her room to somebody else.”

All he needed at this point in his life, Ben thought, was a ditzy blonde with eyes like those of a silent-film star, all anguish and repentance. Life was hard, but you had to behave with some common sense and resist being splashed all over the news. Even if you were beautiful.

“You heard her, Van,” he replied. “She has to go home.”

“That’s ’cause she knows you don’t like her.”

“I don’t even know her.” He tried to plead innocence.

“You look at her the same way you look at us when we do something we’re not supposed to do.”

“But it doesn’t mean I don’t like you, does it?” he challenged. “It just means I want you to do the right thing.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know you like we do,” his daughter explained patiently. “She probably thinks you don’t like her.”

She was so much like her mother. “Will you please go to school?” He pinched her nose and unlocked her door. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, but grudgingly.

Roxie was silent all the way to the day care. He’d have probably gotten the same treatment from her before she got out of the car, except that Marianne came to open her door. She was tall and angular with a long dark braid and soft hazel eyes that devoured him every time she looked at him.

To his recollection, he’d never done anything to encourage her, but she’d either misinterpreted something he’d said or done, or she was simply determined to lust him into submission.

She leaned into the car as Roxie darted off to join her friends. “Good morning, Ben,” she said. With the children, she had a loud, high-pitched voice. With him, it dropped an octave and was little more than an intimate whisper.

“Good morning,” he replied, putting a briskness into the greeting so that she couldn’t misinterpret it.

“The Butlers and the Kaminskis think you’d be a wonderful addition to the board,” she said. “Are you sure I can’t persuade you to reconsider?”

The implication was in the subtle inflection. He kept his smile brisk, too. “Nope, sorry. Too much to do.”

Her expression became sympathetic. He mistrusted that almost as much as the direct come-on. “I know. Single fathers have such a tough road. Hopefully, the right woman will come along very soon.”

The right woman had gone, but he kept that to himself. “I’m pretty determined to go it alone. But thanks for your concern.”

She apparently hadn’t heard him. “She could be right under your nose,” she suggested.

Mercifully, his cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said, turning the key in the ignition, then picking up his phone and flipping it open. He backed out of the driveway as he answered, Marianne staring wistfully after him.

“Ben, it’s Mom.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“How’s Natalie this morning?”

“Fine. Having cereal. We’re coming by in a little bit to pick up her car.”

There was an aggravated sigh on the other end of the connection. “Ben Griffin, I swear. Life drops a beautiful woman right into your lap, and you send her packing.”

He shook his head at the road. “Life didn’t drop her, Mom, you did. And it’s not going to work, so cut it out, all right? You want anything from the bakery on my way to your place?”

“Don’t try to soft-soap me with promises of pastry,” she said with affronted dignity.

“Okay. I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.”

“Ben!”

“Yeah?”

“An apple fritter. A big one.”

“You got it.”

All right, Ben thought. He was the one in control. He had to fight every moment to maintain it, but right now, he was in charge.

OR SO HE THOUGHT.

When he walked into the house, the table was cleared and Natalie’s dishes were in the sink. But there was no sign of her. Her suitcase was where she’d placed it when she sat down to breakfast.

Maybe she was freshening up, he thought.

He was halfway to the coffeepot with his commuter mug when he heard a faint voice from the direction of the living room.

“Ben?” it called. “Is that you?”

He was touched by an unsettling foreboding. Was that Natalie?

He followed the sound, then stopped in his tracks at the sight of her lying on the carpet, propped up on an elbow, her face pale, her mouth tight. The two-by-four he’d brought up from the basement that morning to remind himself to fix the front porch railing had been flipped over and lay partially under her.

No, he thought firmly. This is not happening to me.

He dropped to his knees beside her and saw that her left ankle was purple and already several times its normal size.

“I think it’s just a sprain,” she said heavily. “But I can’t get up. If you can help me and just take me to my car…” Then she added mournfully, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see the lumber.”

It was his fault, but he wanted to blame her. “What were you doing in here, anyway?” he demanded.

She nodded as though she’d expected that accusing question. “I was determined to walk to town so you wouldn’t have to drive me, so I came to look out the window to sort of orient myself. I’m sorry. I know I’ve just made everything worse. But if you can just get me to my car, I’ll be fine.”

“Right. Like I would do that.” He had no reason to bark at her, but it helped relieve the anger he felt that she couldn’t just walk out of his life this morning as he’d hoped. As he needed. And it was all his fault.

He slipped an arm between her propped elbow and her side, then one rather familiarly under her hips.

She wrapped her arms instinctively around his neck. “I can hop if you’ll give me a little support.”

He ignored her and brought himself to a standing position without losing her. He strode through the house and out to the van, though she had to open doors.

He put her in the middle seat in the back, so that he could prop up her foot. He handled it carefully, placing it on a pillow he kept for the girls. Then he looked up at her to ask if that was comfortable.

She looked pale and miserable.

His anger evaporated. “I’ll take you to the clinic to make sure you didn’t break anything.” He put a plaid blanket with a fleece lining over her. “Just lie quietly. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

She lay back with a groan. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I hate this.”

Yeah, me, too, he thought silently.

“I know you hate it, too,” she said for him. “I meant to be less trouble and ended up being more. I don’t seem to be able to make a right move lately.”

“I’ve had my share of those days,” he consoled her. “Just relax.”

She was quiet as he drove down the hill and headed up Beach Avenue toward the clinic.

“Was I…causing a scene last night at your mother’s?” she asked, her voice sounding stiff and choked.

He decided she could use a break. “No,” he replied. “She called me because you wouldn’t answer her knock, and she knew you hadn’t eaten. She was worried about you.”

“I was probably sleeping. I’ve had a difficult couple of weeks and I haven’t slept very well. Then I was taking pills and she gave me that toddy….”

“She had other guests coming in last night to whom she’d promised the room, so she had to…remove you.”

The silence was thick for a moment. He could hear her sorting through words for the right thing to say. Then she uttered a little sound of exasperation and blurted, “There’s just no subtle way to ask this.”

He couldn’t see her in the rearview mirror because she was lying down. He had the weirdest sensation that he was having a conversation with an invisible woman.

“Ask what?”

There was another heavy pause, then another abrupt question. “Did I say anything to you about…” She stopped as though it was just too hard, after all, then seemed to reconsider and began again. “Did I ask you if you’d been sent to impregnate me?”

He had to admire her willingness to confront an uncomfortable situation head-on.

“Yes, you did,” he answered. Then he decided he could give her another break. “Of course, I was confused, but after you passed out and my mother was packing up your things, we saw the newspaper. It explained some.”

Natalie groaned aloud, a muffled sound that suggested her hands were probably over her face. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m usually the epitome of decorum, but then I don’t usually drink. I guess that little bit of brandy made me more direct than it’s safe to be. I apologize if I offended you.”

He turned into the clinic parking lot. “I’m a builder who’s spent most of his time working in the company of other men. I’m not offendable.”

“But your girls are so sweet,” she said, a trace of self-loathing in her voice, “and I can tell by the way you are with them that you’re trying to provide a gentle, protective upbringing, and here I’m pushed into your life, trying to compromise you before I even know your name, then passing out cold.”

He parked in a spot near the door and hurried around to the passenger side. He slid the van door open and found her sitting up, her face blotchy, her eyes grim.

“I didn’t tell them that part,” he said with a reluctant grin. “And they just thought you were asleep.” He placed a knee on the edge of the floor and managed to lift her off the seat and out of the van.

“Well…I’m sorry.”

“You can stop saying that.” He bounced her once in his arms to firm his grip on her, then carried her inside. “If it’s anyone’s fault that you fell, it’s mine.”

“I’m not talking about falling.” She lowered her voice as they walked into the cool, quiet office. “I’m talking about…”

“You’re talking too much.” He whispered the last two words as a woman in a lab coat came out from an inner office.

She took one look at Natalie’s ankle and waved him back into one of only three examining rooms.

Dr. Greg Fortuna, a man about Ben’s age who’d given the girls their back-to-school inoculations, bustled into the room, frowning solicitously over Natalie’s injury.

He’d been in Dancer’s Beach less than a year, but he was well liked and respected. Ben had worked with him on a volunteer committee for the men’s mission and considered him a friend. Vanessa thought he looked like Antonio Sabato, Jr.

“Greg Fortuna,” he said, shaking Natalie’s hand. “Hi, Ben. Did you mow this poor woman down?”

“I fell over a two-by-four,” Natalie explained.

“Oh. You working with Ben?”

“No, this was in his living room,” she replied. Then she seemed to doubt the wisdom of admitting that—as though thinking that Ben expected discretion—and she turned to him, looking stricken.

He wondered absently what her life had been like that she second-guessed every word and every move. It was clear from what she’d said and from the newspaper article that the last two weeks had been difficult, but this self-doubt seemed to be of long standing.

“She’s visiting from Philadelphia,” Ben said. “She stayed at Mom’s, then Mom ran out of room, so the girls invited her to stay overnight with us.”

Natalie looked grateful for the slightly fictitious intervention.

“Looks like just a sprain,” Greg said, “but we’ll x-ray it to be sure. Just sit tight, Natalie, and we’ll wheel you right into the lab.” He turned to Ben, uncertain of their relationship despite his careful explanation. “You coming?”

Ben picked up a copy of Popular Mechanics from a small table in the corner. “I’ll wait right here.”

“Good enough.”

Ben was just getting into an article about winterizing outdoor pipes when his cell phone rang.

“Bijou Development,” he answered, tapping his pockets for a pen.

“Henrietta Caldwell said she saw you carrying a woman into the van!” his mother said, not bothering with a greeting. “Is Natalie Browning still asleep?”

Henrietta Caldwell lived across the road and was one of his mother’s church cronies. He suspected she’d reported on him before.

“And how did Mrs. Caldwell happen to observe this?” he asked, closing the magazine.

“It was perfectly innocent,” his mother replied defensively. “Her husband has this telescope set up in the attic….”

“Yeah. And there are so many stars out at eight-thirty in the morning.”

There was a huff of dismay, then a testy, “Are you going to tell me if she’s all right or not?”

“She’s going to be fine,” he replied, tossing the magazine back on the table, knowing his momentary respite from the women in his life was over. “But she did fall in the living room and sprain her ankle. At least Greg thinks it’s just a sprain.”

“Are you at the clinic?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Mom…”

“Breakfast is over and all my guests have scattered. I’ll be right there.”

She hung up without giving him another chance to protest.

She arrived before Greg returned with Natalie from the lab. Lulu was wearing fuchsia and looked as though she belonged on the cover of some fashion magazine for senior women.

“If you were any kind of gentleman,” she accused, taking the doctor’s chair from behind the small desk and rolling it beside his, “you’d have caught her before she fell.”

“I was taking the girls to school,” he replied calmly, determined not to let her exasperate him. She usually did it so successfully.

“Did she trip?”

“Over a two-by-four.”

“You couldn’t have bought a house that was already fixed?”

“I’m a builder, Mom. Fixing houses and buildings or putting them up is what I do.”

“And now you’ve probably broken the leg of the woman God dropped in your lap.”

“It’s sprained, not broken,” he said evenly. “And you dropped her, not God. Not the fates. You.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because it just happened. I rushed her right over here, but I’d have called you when I got home.”

“With a little warning I could have brought a casserole.”

“For what? To use as a poultice? Greg’s taking good care of her.”

She gave him a lethal look. “So that you don’t have to cook tonight. You’ll have enough on your hands with an invalid.”

He’d opened his mouth to repeat that it was probably just a sprain and that the invalid was very determined to go home when Greg wheeled Natalie back into the examining room. On Natalie’s left leg was a fat Ace bandage wrapped under her foot and around her leg. On top of it was an ice pack.

“Always pays to be sure,” Greg said. “It’s just a sprain. She should stay off it for a couple of days. The thing to remember is RICE.”

Ben blinked at him. “Pardon me?”

“RICE,” Greg repeated, ticking the items off on his fingers. “Rest. Ice. Compression—that’s the bandage. Elevation. Keep it up.”

Ben nodded. “Got you.”

To someone else, Natalie might have looked cheerful and in control, but Ben knew what it was like to feel one thing and project another for the comfort of those around you. Under the facade, she was on the brink of tears.

“Don’t worry,” she said to him, with a smiling glance at his mother. “I’m sure I can find someone to drive me to the airport.”

Greg frowned. “I think it’ll be tough negotiating the airport with that ankle if you’re traveling alone. There are wheelchairs, but what about stowing your carry-ons, up and down the aisle to the rest room? It’s not as though Portland to Philadelphia is a one-hour flight. People in wheelchairs usually travel with someone to handle the details. If your trip can wait a few days, I think that would be advisable.”

“When you arrived,” Lulu said, “you told me you didn’t have to be back to work for a month, that you were waiting for your cousin to return from a trip and intended to spend a little time with her. And didn’t you hear what the doctor said? RICE!”

Natalie studied Lulu uncertainly.

“Natalie, this is my mother, Louise Griffin,” Ben explained. “She runs the B-and-B.”

“Of course.” Natalie smiled apologetically. “I’m so sorry I was a problem.”

His mother shook her head. “You weren’t. I’d just promised the room and I couldn’t wake you up. So, you don’t have to go home, do you?”

Ben didn’t understand why he could read Natalie’s mind so clearly, but he could. She wasn’t at all like him, and yet he seemed to relate to her in some way he didn’t understand.

She felt cornered by her situation. She’d been cornered one time too many and was determined that it wasn’t going to happen again. But she had no idea how to fight it.

“You’ll stay with us,” he said, getting to his feet, reaching for her jacket on the simple wire rack in the corner, “at least until you can move around more comfortably.”

He’d learned from his daughters that when he wanted cooperation, he never posed a question, but always made a statement. “You will…” always got much better results than “Do you want to…?”

He turned to Greg for corroboration.

“A much more sensible plan,” he praised. “And it’s going to hurt for a few days.” He handed Ben a prescription. “One every eight hours or as needed. If there’s any problem, call me.”

Lulu took the prescription from him. “I’ll pick it up while you take her home.”

Natalie looked as though she’d have happily had the leg removed rather than return with Ben.

Without giving her time to think, he thanked Greg, then scooped her up again and left the office.

She borrowed his cell phone on the way home and tried her cousin’s number.

He stopped at a light and she handed the phone back, her eyes miserable. She’d gotten no answer.

“You’re sure there’s not a motel or a boarding-house?” she pleaded.

He shook his head as he placed the phone on the console between them. “It’ll be all right. The girls will be thrilled. Remember how badly they wanted you to stay for dinner? Imagine how happy they’ll be when you tell them you’re staying for a couple of days.”

“But you’re not happy.”

“Is that important?”

She dropped her head against the rest and closed her eyes. “If you’re willing to extend your hospitality, I guess it isn’t. But I hate it when people don’t like me. I’m a people pleaser by nature, you know? I get lots of positive mail on my job, but I’ll worry about that one viewer who thinks I’m stiff or unappealing.”

“I don’t think you’re unappealing,” he said, wanting her to feel less distress without letting her think he was looking forward to the next few days. He wasn’t. For reasons he couldn’t explain, it hurt almost physically to look at her.

They were almost home when she asked quietly, “Are you widowed or divorced?”

“My wife died of a stroke a year and a half ago,” he said. It hurt to say the words, just as it always did. But he made himself tell the whole story. “She was a decorator working on one of the new homes on the cove. She’d complained of a headache that morning. I gave her a neck rub, then went off to work. She took the girls to school, went to the job and collapsed there in the middle of the morning. She was gone when the ambulance arrived.”

He slowed to turn onto his street, and saw that she was staring at him, her eyes brimming with his pain as well as hers.

“How did you go on?”

“Reluctantly at first,” he admitted. “We’d been friends since high school, so I lost my best buddy as well as my wife. Then Vanessa couldn’t stop crying, and Roxie wouldn’t stop asking where Julie was, so I knew I had to take control of her death before it controlled me, and therefore, them. So I had to make it clear to Roxie that she wasn’t coming back, make sure Vanessa understood that it was hideous, but it wasn’t the end of the world, then I somehow had to believe it myself.”

He turned into the driveway, braked and turned off the motor. They sat in silence for a moment.

“And do you?” she asked.

“When I’m strong,” he replied candidly. “But when everything’s going wrong, or the girls are cranky, or the house is quiet on a Sunday morning, I feel as though I’ve died, too.”

“I didn’t know her,” Natalie said, “but judging by how wonderful your girls are and how much you love her, I imagine she’d hate knowing you feel that way.”

He nodded. “That’s why I keep trying.”

He climbed out of the van and walked around to open her door. He tried not to think about how many times he was going to have to take her in his arms over the next few days. She was soft and fragrant and had a tendency to wrap her arms around him in a trusting way that unsettled him.

He had a building to restore, a house to remodel, a recalcitrant mother to keep happy and two daughters to raise.

He didn’t need a beautiful single woman in his life, prodding his libido awake and forcing him to deal with whether or not he was ready to close Julie away.

Then…why had he invited Natalie to stay with him?