Kitabı oku: «Four Reasons For Fatherhood»

Chapter One

Susan Turner watched the long silver limo pull up in front of the church as she walked down the steps carrying Ringo, the other three boys trailing behind her. The back door on the passenger side opened before the driver could come around to help.

A tall man in a beige raincoat stepped out onto the sidewalk. He frowned apparently at the sight of the small crowd leaving the church.

“Uncle Aaron!” John shouted. They were the first words except for “yes” or “no” the boy had spoken since Susan had sped across Princeton to care for him and his brothers.

The man opened his arms and bent down to scoop up the boy as he flew at him.

“Who’s that?” George asked. He was four.

“I Guess it’s Uncle Aaron,” six-year-old Paul replied sagely. “Come on!”

The two boys ran to the man. He lowered John to his feet to embrace the other two boys.

Susan tried not to be offended by their traitorous behaviour. She’d run to be with them the moment she’d received the news that their mother, Susan’s cousin, and their father had perished in a commuter-plane crash off Catalina Island.

Ringo, the fifteen-month-old in her arms, was grateful to be held, a source of security within the chaos his little life had become. George was warm and sweet, and Paul seemed to observe and analyze everything. But though the boys knew her well, they resisted her efforts to help them with their grief, because John, almost eight, the eldest and therefore the leader, was keeping his distance, unwilling to let anyone try to take his parents’ places.

Susan watched the man, who was down on one knee on the sidewalk drawing the boys into the circle of his arms as they talked. His hair was dark blond and a little rumpled from the blustery late March weather.

Hazel eyes focused on one boy after the other as he spoke earnestly to them. George on his raised knee, Paul leaning against him on one side and John on the other.

So, this was Dave’s brother, Susan thought. She’d never met him, but Becky had told her about her clever in-law with the multi-million-dollar computer-software company. “He’s a great guy, but when he’s working he’s all business, and when he’s playing he’s the quintessential playboy. He visits at Christmas every four or five years and calls occasionally, but he has very little time for domesticity.” Then Becky had smiled; Susan had been visiting shortly after John was born. “That’s why Dave and I would like to name you in our will as John’s guardian should—God forbid—anything happen to us.”

Susan had agreed without even stopping to consider, certain that nothing could happen to the robust young woman of twenty-one and her twenty-four-year-old husband.

But apparently God hadn’t forbidden, and eight years and three more children later, Susan was having to live up to her promise.

She was more than willing. Becky had been her childhood companion, and, after their parents had passed away, her only tie to family.

She couldn’t help, though, feeling resentful of the boys’ business-mogul/playboy uncle, who hadn’t bothered to get in touch until last night, four days after the accident. Who hadn’t even made it to New Jersey on time for his brother and sister-in-law’s memorial service today. And who now had the boys mesmerized like some London Fog-clad Svengali.

Then he got to his feet and bringing the boys with him, met Susan at the bottom of the steps.

He took Ringo from her and hugged him. The toddler allowed it, though he studied him a little warily.

“Hey, pal,” the man said, “I’m your uncle Aaron. I’m glad to see you got the Bradley good looks, too.” He pinched Ringo’s nose between his knuckles and the boy giggled.

Aaron Bradley’s gaze moved to Susan and rested on her a moment before he spoke, as though he thought he might analyze and understand her first.

It surprised her when she saw the slight shift in his eyes from open friendliness to cautious reserve. Had he been able to read her resentment?

He held Ringo in one arm and offered her his free hand. “You must be Susan,” he said closing his hand over hers. It was large and warm. “We spoke last night on the phone. I’m Aaron Bradley, Dave’s brother.”

She smiled politely. “Yes, I know,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry for yours.” He withdrew his hand and angled his chin toward the church. “I can’t believe I missed the memorial service.”

“Crisis at the office?” she asked. The question had been a little glib, and she saw in his eyes that he’d noted that.

“Fog in San Francisco, actually,” he replied after a moment, his voice quiet and controlled. “My connecting flight got socked in for a couple of hours.”

“Aaron,” a male voice called from behind Susan. “Hi. I’m sorry about Dave.”

Aaron’s grim features brightened into a smile as he extended his hand again. “Micah! How are you?”

A big dark-haired man in a cashmere coat came around Susan to shake hands with Aaron Bradley. “I’m good,” he said. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to see you, but when you weren’t in church, I was afraid something prevented you from coming.”

“I was just telling Susan that my flight was delayed by fog in San Francisco. Susan, I’d like you to meet Micah Steadwell, an old school friend of mine. Micah, this is Susan Turner, Dave’s wife’s cousin.”

Micah took her hand and brought it to his lips to plant a kiss on her knuckles. His courtly behavior was a surprise, but didn’t seem like an act. He was a man, she guessed, with a unique style.

“Hello Ms. Turner,” he said gravely. “I’m so sorry about your cousin.”

“Thank you, Mr. Steadwell,” she replied.

Micah turned to Aaron. “Are you taking the boys home with you?”

Aaron indicated Susan with a jut of his chin. “No, Dave and Becky wanted Susan to have custody.”

Micah nodded. “Of course. Well.” He clapped Aaron on the shoulder. “I own the Knight Club now, near the Princeton Shopping Center. I’d like you and Susan to come as my guests before you go home. I know you don’t feel like partying, but I’d love to treat you to dinner if you have time.”

Aaron shook his head apologetically. “Doesn’t look good. I’ll only be here a couple of days. But I appreciate that you came, Micah.”

“Sure.” Micah shook his hand again and handed him a business card. “We’ll have to stay in better touch. Mom and Ross said to say hello.”

Aaron nodded. “Give them my love.”

“Will do. Bye, Ms. Turner.”

As Micah left Aaron pointed behind him to the limousine, the liveried driver waiting by the rear passenger door. “Susan, let me take you and the boys home.”

She pointed to a man and woman standing off to one side, waiting. “Those are friends of Dave’s and Becky’s who drove us to the church. They’re waiting to—”

He handed Ringo back to her. “You get the boys into the limo and I’ll explain.”

He had covered the few steps to the waiting couple and was already smiling and shaking hands before she could protest. As large drops of rain began to fall, accompanied by a low rumble of thunder, she herded the other three boys toward the limo with her free hand.

The driver, a rotund older man with a cheerful expression, opened the door for them and held Ringo for her while she climbed inside. Then he handed the toddler in.

The boys were immediately pushing buttons opening and closing windows and the privacy panel, turning on the small television, discovering the wine decanter and glasses.

Since she’d arrived in their home, Susan had learned that a mother of four boys should be equipped with eight arms.

She was still trying to reclaim control when Aaron climbed into the limo and sat opposite her. He took the crystal stopper from Paul, replaced it in the decanter, closed the windows, turned off the overhead light, then found cartoons on the television.

The boys were instantly glued to it. Susan scrambled around to buckle seat belts. Aaron glanced at his watch. “Nearly noon,” he said. “Should we go to lunch?”

“Uh…” She had an instant image of the ordeal mealtime had been during the past few days. John ate nothing, Paul ate everything, George made designs with his food, and Ringo preferred to see his food on the floor. And while all this was going on, the boys harrassed each other mercilessly. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Socially, I mean.”

“We’ll go to a fast-food place,” he countered, “where they’re used to dealing with messy kids. And the kids might enjoy the playland thing, get to blow off some steam.”

That was true. “All right.” She glanced at his expensive raincoat. “But you might want to cover yourself in plastic. There’s food over everything when they’re finished eating.”

He shrugged off the warning. “Winston,” he called through the open privacy screen, “Find us a Burger Hut.”

“You got it, Mr. Bradley.”

The boys made a pretext of eating, but once they spotted the maze of wide plastic tubes through which other children chased each other, food was secondary to the desire to join them. Ringo, mercifully, had fallen asleep in Susan’s lap.

“Can we go now, Uncle Aaron?” John pleaded. The other two boys jumped up and down in anticipation.

Aaron deferred to Susan. It was a diplomatic gesture she could appreciate in sentiment, but considering the boys seemed suddenly to revolve in his orbit, it was an empty concession.

But she would have to deal with them when he was gone, so she took control. “Yes, you can, but no punching or kicking or you’ll have to come in. I’ll be able to watch you through the window.”

They nodded in unison, pushing and shoving each other before they even got to the door that led to the covered play area.

AARON STUDIED the young woman across the table from him as she shifted the child from the crook of her arm to lean against her breast. Where her silky black blouse plunged into a V neck, her skin was alabaster in contrast. Her eyes were dark and soft, with shadowy patches under them as though she was very tired. Her cheeks were pink, her lips the color of Chianti, and the whole berries-and-cream look of her was set off by thick dark hair that was caught back in a knot.

She didn’t like him. He’d sensed that the moment he stepped up to her at the church. He smiled privately at the realization that Dave and Becky had probably told her that he didn’t visit often enough, didn’t keep in close enough touch.

“When I expressed concern for the children last night on the phone,” he said without preamble, “you told me that Dave and Becky’s will makes you the children’s guardian.”

She met his eyes directly. “That’s right. I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

He suspected she added that as a concession to good manners.

He shook his head. “Not at all. I wish I was equipped to care for four children, but I’m really not. I travel a lot, I work long hours…” He laughed. “And my housekeeper swears.”

“A man?” she asked.

“No, a woman. Heart of gold, but a strong opinionated lady. Beebee likes to think she runs my life. And the lives of whoever comes in contact with me. Anyway, I know how much my brother loved his family. If he and Becky put the boys in your care, I know you have to be a model of motherhood.”

She made a scornful sound. “Hardly. But I have a house and a steady job and I made a promise to Becky.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a carpenter,” she replied.

He was sure he’d misheard her. “A carpenter. Like on a construction site?”

“Not anymore.” Ringo stirred and she patted his back until he resettled himself, his lips open in an oval like a little fish’s mouth. “Now I have a weekly-TV cable show for women on how to use tools, do small repairs, simplify difficult or heavy jobs. I’m sponsored by Legacy Tools on the Crafters’ Channel.”

He found that fascinating. He wasn’t much of a handyman himself. “Well, good for you. But that must take a lot of time. What’ll you do about the boys? Can you afford to hire help?”

She raised an eyebrow, her expression at once indignant and imperious. She opened her mouth to reply but he cut her off before she could.

“I wasn’t questioning your household management or your ability to care for them. I was just wondering if there was something I could do to help.”

“Thank you,” she said, “but I understand you’re pretty busy with your business and your…your…”

He might have helped her had he known what she was trying to say. Since he didn’t, he simply waited.

“Your…life-style,” she finally finished with a slightly aggressive tilt to her chin.

“My life-style,” he repeated trying to remember when he’d last had time to have one.

“You know,” she said looking a little uncomfortable, though she seemed determined to ignore such a feeling as she went on intrepidly, “Your parties. Your women. Your nude sunbathing with Mariah Havilland.”

He laughed. “Now, I wouldn’t have taken you for a subscriber to the Reporter. And if you were, I still wouldn’t have taken you for the kind of woman who’d stare at a grainy photo of a man’s backside to determine who it belonged to.”

“It was identified,” she said coolly, “in the caption.”

“So you saw the naked backside,” he said, “and then stopped to read the caption? I wonder if Dave and Becky knew you could be titillated by such things. And then I suppose you read the whole story.”

“No, I didn’t read—”

“That’s too bad,” he interrupted, beginning to enjoy this exchange, “because you’d have discovered that in the nature of their deceptive headlines and captions, it wasn’t my backside at all, but that of her personal trainer.” He grinned. “I was flattered, though, to have been mistaken for an athlete.”

She heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I was simply trying to turn down your offer of help because I know that your life isn’t…conducive to…”

He loved watching her struggle for the right words. It took the edge off her duchesslike demeanor and added a fluster that she hated and he found amusing.

“Yes?”

“To a wife,” she said a little loudly.

“But I wasn’t asking you to marry me,” he said seriously. “I was offering to—”

“I know that!” she said in a harsh whisper. She swallowed and said icily, “I mean that you’re too busy to father children.” Her eyes closed and color crept up her throat as she obviously realized how that comment could be taken.

He didn’t even have to say anything to win that one.

But she seemed determined to get it right. “I mean,” she said with great patience, “that your offer to help—however kindly meant—would only complicate your life.”

“I meant,” he corrected “that I’d like to help you financially, though, of course, I’d be available for whatever else the boys needed.”

“Don’t you live in Seattle?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s 3300 miles away.”

“I have a jet.”

“Of course you do.”

Okay. Now he was getting annoyed with her. “You seem to resent the fact that I’m successful.”

“No, I don’t,” she retorted. “I resent the fact that you think you can solve all my problems with your genius touch or your money!”

SUSAN COULDN’T BELIEVE she’d said that aloud. He was staring at her in confusion.

She looked for the boys in the play area to avoid his eyes. She saw the kids crest the slide, then disappear down it in a laughing rush.

Aaron reached across the table to turn her face toward him when she continued to ignore him.

“Do you not want to take the boys?” he asked with a gentleness that surprised and unsettled her.

Guilt rose out of her chest to strangle her. She had to clear her throat to be able to reply. “I do want them! I do!”

“Because you promised Becky.”

“Because they need me, and because it’s the right thing to do! I’m just…a little…”

“Scared.”

“Yeah.” There was a certain relief in admitting it, even to him. Then she felt the weight of the trusting child in her arms and knew the three wild boys on the slide needed her, too, even though they didn’t understand that. So she pulled herself together. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t do just fine once I get the hang of it and the boys are enrolled in school and settled into a routine.”

She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, as though he’d found a chink in her armor. As though she wasn’t quite what he’d thought her to be and he was now concerned about his nephews.

She was about to assure him that the boys would be fine with her when the door from the play area flung open and John and Paul tumbled in. They rolled along the tile floor, punching and kicking at each other all the while.

“Paul gots a bleedy mouth!” George announced. He was dancing around his brothers like a referee at a wrestling match. “’Cause John kicked him in the face!”

Susan tried to sidle out of the booth with Ringo still asleep against her, but Aaron was already pulling the boys apart, holding them away from each other with a hand to each jacket front.

Aaron pointed John to the booth and held the wriggling screaming Paul to examine his mouth. He dabbed at it with a clean handkerchief.

“Looks like he knocked out a baby tooth,” Aaron said, lifting the boy into his arms. “I’ll take him into the men’s room to wash his mouth.”

Paul clung to his neck, crying pathetically.

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” John shouted after him. “I was coming down the slide after him and he stopped at the bottom and turned around. He got my foot in his face, but I didn’t kick him!” When Aaron and Paul disappeared into the men’s room, John turned to Susan and said imploringly, “I didn’t! It was an accident.”

“Yup,” George confirmed. “An assident.”

Susan dipped the end of a paper napkin in her cup of water and dabbed at a scratch under John’s eye. Her life, she thought, had become an “assident.”

AARON LISTENED to both sides of the dispute when they got home. Paul was finally willing to admit that it might have been an accident, but was most grieved by the missing tooth. “I don’t have a tooth to put under my pillow! That’s a whole dollar I don’t get!”

“That isn’t true.” Susan was suddenly inspired. “Didn’t you know that you can use the tooth of a comb when you lose the real tooth?”

John, Paul and George looked at each other then at Aaron.

“Is that true?” John asked skeptically.

“Absolutely,” Aaron replied. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a small black comb. “And I’ve got a comb right here. Pick out the tooth you like the best and we’ll put it under your pillow.”

Paul took the comb and frowned over it. “Do we have to wait for it to fall out?”

Aaron kept a straight face with difficulty. “No. I’ll snap it off for you.”

He indicated the one at the end, next to the rim. “That one. Then you can still use the comb.”

“Okay.” Aaron snapped off the tooth with the Leatherman tool in his pocket and handed it to Paul. “Got a handkerchief to put it in?”

“No.”

He dug into his pocket again and produced one with a silver monogram. “There you go.”

“All right!” George and John followed Paul upstairs to help with the ritual.

“That was a stroke of genius,” Aaron said to Susan, reaching down to lift Ringo, who’d walked around the table to him.

Susan flexed her stiff arms. “I’ve got a million of those gems tucked away for emergencies. So, you can take care of packing up and selling the house?”

“Sure.” He looked around the modest fifties-era tract home. It was from the togetherness period when rooms ran into one another without doors. The living room, dining room and kitchen were built around a brick fireplace. “You take anything you want. I’ll just close it up for a couple of months until I can come back, look through things and save some stuff for the kids and me. Then I’ll sell it.”

That sounded reasonable. She pointed to the two guitars hanging above the mantel. “Do you think I could have Becky’s guitar? When we were kids she used to con me into singing with her at family picnics, and I can remember swaying with her to the music of that guitar. I know, the kids should have it, but they’ll be with me, anyway.”

“Of course. Take it home with you when you go.” He glanced down at Ringo and smoothed his tiny cowlick. “This little guy’s a cuddler. He walks pretty well, but he certainly seems to prefer lap sitting.”

“I guess even babies get upset when things change, and being held is comforting.”

Aaron nodded. “True. I’ve had moments like that.”

“Yes. So have I.”

Aaron thought he caught a wistful hitch in her voice. He was just beginning to really understand what she was taking on here. “Are you seeing someone?” he asked wondering what this new responsibility might do to a relationship.

“No.” She got up and pushed in her chair. “I meet a lot of men in my line of work, but they’re confused by a woman who can use power tools and carry a four-by-four. And generally, men are uncomfortable with women who confuse them.” She made a rueful face. “At least, I think that’s why I have trouble with relationships. Or it could be I’m just funny-looking or hard to get along with.”

“Well, you’re not funny-looking,” he said.

“Thanks.” She laughed lightly and came around the table to relieve Aaron of Ringo. “I’ve got to get some of the boys’ things packed. I’ll take—”

Ringo began screeching and clutched Aaron’s ears.

Susan stepped back in surprise.

“Whoa! Ouch!” Aaron tried to pry the boy’s fingers off him, but Ringo only screamed louder. “Okay. Let’s change approach,” he shouted at Susan over the protesting screams. “Why don’t I help you pack and bring him along?”

She looked hurt. “I don’t understand. He’s always liked me.”

Aaron rolled his eyes in false modesty. “Oh, I have this irresistible charisma. Sometimes it’s a terrible burden. You’re powerless against it, so don’t try to fight it. If we were going to be in each other’s company long enough, soon you’d be holding on to my ears and screaming, too.”

Her hurt feelings fled as she laughed at that suggestive remark. “A carpenter and computer…” She’d been about to say “nerd,” but Aaron Bradley was as far from a nerd as any man she’d ever met. “Genius?” she finally finished. “I don’t think so.”

He looked surprised. “Why not?”

“We have nothing in common.” She led the way to the stairs and he followed.

“Having things in common is overrated. It pretty much rules out surprises.”

“But surprises can be bad, as well as good.”

“True. But you wouldn’t rule out the good ones to save yourself from the bad ones, would you?”

She thought about that at the top of the stairs while waiting for him. Ringo had wriggled to get down and Aaron was now helping him climb one laborious step at a time.

“If you’re so philosophical about relationships,” she asked, “why aren’t you in one?”

“Takes a lot of time and energy from business,” he said with a frankness she appreciated even as it horrified her. “And I haven’t found anyone who’d make me want to do that.”

“But…” She watched him supporting Ringo’s valiant struggles up the steps and found it paradoxical.

“Do you want your life to be just about business? I mean, I know you have an active social life, but if it’s all just superficial, is there any satisfaction in that? Any fulfillment?”

At the second step from the top he lifted Ringo by his hands and deposited him on the landing. Ringo giggled triumphantly.

“I get those from my work,” he insisted.

She looked up at him in disbelief. “But they’re not the same.

“Fulfillment from success tells you that you’re good at what you do. Personal fulfillment tells you that you have value whatever you do.”

“How do you know that?” he challenged with a grin. “You said you didn’t have a relationship.”

“I’ve observed others. Dave and Becky, for instance.”

He nodded a little grimly. “Yeah, well, Dave and Becky were pretty unique. And I’ll only believe you when you can tell me that from firsthand experience.”

“Susan!” A loud desperate scream came from the direction of John’s and Paul’s room.

Susan ran the short distance to find that someone had opened all the drawers in the highboy dresser, and it was tilting forward, threatening to fall onto the boys, who pushed hard against it.

She shot both hands out to help just as a toy dump truck on the top slid off and hit her in the head.

She struggled to maintain her balance while seeing stars.

“Got it.” Aaron pushed the top two drawers closed and held them while giving the dresser a solid shove that righted it again. John pushed the other drawers closed.

“Wow!” the boy said excitedly. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

“Hey!” Paul held up the truck. The scoop had snapped off. “Susan’s head broke your truck!”

“What did the truck do to you?” Aaron pulled her hand away from the top of her head and a trickle of blood fell onto her forehead and the skin in the V of her blouse.