by Rachel Lee
All of a sudden, powerful arms wrapped around her from behind, hugging her close to a hard chest.
“Sorry I pried,” he said in that voice so deep she could feel its rumble against her back. “I had no idea.”
“How could you?” she answered, her own voice thin. Now she wanted to cry. Just a little kindness and she nearly tipped into tears. All these years, all the effort she’d spent to turn herself into a successful career woman and bury all the old scars, and here she was bleeding over her own kitchen sink.
This man had stripped her bare, and he hadn’t even intended to. Was she that fragile?
She gripped the edge of the sink, and words burst forth, powered by old pain. “Do you know what it’s like to look into your mother’s eyes and realize she hates you? That she hates everything about you, from the way you look to the way you act?”
“Good God,” he murmured. “Obviously I have no idea. But why would the woman hate you?”
“I don’t know.” She bit her lip until it hurt, trying to hold back unwanted tears. A festering wound had just ripped open, and while she’d thought it had healed long ago, apparently it hadn’t. “I just don’t know. I tried to be good, but I was never good enough. She could barely stand to be nice to me in front of other people.”
“And your da? Did he do nothing?”
“Not really. He was often a cipher, as if he just wanted to stay out of the way, then he died when I was seventeen. But there was no mistaking it, Blaine. I’m not making it up. I felt the weight of my mother’s disapproval constantly, and I heard the unending criticisms. If there was anything right about me, I never heard it.”
He squeezed her, holding her a little tighter. “And you eventually cut them off. She’s never tried to reach you?”
“Not once.” She unleashed a shaky sigh. “God, I sound so self-pitying. In truth, it was a relief to cut those ties. To never again feel obligated to call, only to hear the impatience in my mother’s voice because I was keeping her from something else. I kept hoping. I didn’t want to believe it, and then I had to.”
“Therapy?”
“Yeah. After Max. I realized my folks hadn’t been wrong—there was something about me that wasn’t right. Why else would I fall in with a guy who treated me like dirt? Then she asked me if he treated me differently than I’d been treated at home. It was like this big, black fog dissipated. All of a sudden I could see so clearly.”
* * *
Blaine continued to hold her from behind, awaiting any sign she wanted to be set free and keeping one ear cocked for sounds from Daphne. He hoped the girl didn’t wake just yet, because much as he wouldn’t mind holding her and making faces and sounds to draw a smile from her tiny face, he knew Diane needed this time.
Whatever pieces of herself she was assembling and reassembling after confiding in him, she deserved the time to do it.
And he needed some time to be just plain appalled and furious on her behalf. He was no spring chicken, and in the closely knit community back in Galway, he’d seen a share of terrible parents. They inflicted different kinds of ills on their children. Some had to be pried out of the pub at closing time. Some had carried physical discipline to the point of outright abuse. Sad fact was, not everyone was cut out to be a parent, and not everyone wanted a child even if they had one.
The question he’d never been able to answer was, if they didn’t want kids, why did they keep them? If Diane’s parents felt she was a major problem, why not give her up? As far as he knew, there was no law against saying you couldn’t be a parent. Usually that was better than the mistreatment that could come from resentment and hate.
No wonder Diane had bouts of uncertainty and wondered if she was properly caring for Daphne. She had no experience even from her own childhood. And apparently she’d been raised to believe she couldn’t do anything right.
Well, that was evidently a freaking lie. Her résumé was brilliant—she probably could have had her pick of jobs, but she had wanted to come here to have more control, to try out her own ideas. A worthy goal, one he believed she’d succeed at, unless she crippled herself with doubt.
He was half tempted to find out where her mother was hiding and go give her a piece of his mind. Not that it would do an ounce of good for Diane. But sometimes the man in him wished it could find satisfaction with a good, solid punch.
God, she felt so good in his arms. As if she had been fitted to him specially. But she stirred a little, and as much as he didn’t want to, he started to drop his arms.
She astonished him, turning around to lean into him. “Thank you,” she said.
She was thanking him? For what? A hug that he’d probably enjoyed more than she had?
“Sorry for venting like that,” she added.
“I wasn’t minding. Just wishing I might be able to do something useful.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, saying, “Blaine, a hug was the most useful thing in the world. It’s not like the past can be changed.”
“If someone figures out a way to change the past, we’ll all be in trouble.”
He felt her move until her cheek rested on his shoulder. “Sure about that?” she asked.
“Well, if everyone created a past that they liked, we’d be in a world of trouble, don’t you think? Nothing would mesh with anything else. Pure chaos.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Then she stirred again, and something like a small sound of humor escaped her. “You’re good for me. You make me laugh.”
“That’ll be a good thing, most times.”
But the moment had passed, and he felt her move again. She needed him to step back and she didn’t want to push him. At least that’s how he read it. He dropped his arms and took a step away. Then it occurred to him that he might have read her wrong, and that she might therefore read his movement wrong.
Life didn’t need to be terrible, did it?
Should he say something? He didn’t know, and he wasn’t a man accustomed to holding his tongue.
“I still haven’t gotten another chair for the living room,” she remarked, taking an unexpected direction. “I hate seeing you sit on the floor.”
“I don’t mind it a bit. But tell me about that grand old recliner chair you have. It didn’t come with the house, did it?”
She shook her head, smiling faintly. “It was my father’s. Don’t ask me why, but I’m truly attached to it. Given my feelings about my parents, that seems odd.”
“Maybe not so odd. Maybe you have some good memories of it and just don’t recall them consciously.”
“It’s possible. I grew up feeling like I was some kind of problem for him, but he never hated me the way my mother did. Maybe he couldn’t stand up to her. I’ll never know.”
She wrapped her arms around herself as if chilled, and shook her head as if she wanted to brush something away. “The last time I went home was for my father’s funeral. His chair was out at the curb. That’s how fast my mother wanted to be rid of him. Anyway, I called someone to pick it up, and I’ve carried it around ever since. Don’t ask me why I can’t let go of it.”
“Maybe,” he said carefully, “you realize he was as much your mother’s victim as you were.”
Her head snapped up a bit. After a minute or so, she murmured, “You might be right.”
Then she glanced at him from the corner of one golden eye, a humorless smile curving the edge of her mouth. “Two women, sisters. MaryJo’s mom, who was an alcoholic until she died and had a daughter so mentally ill she may never escape the hospital. And then my mother. I don’t know if she drank much, especially after I left, but she was certainly pickling herself in some very ugly emotions. I wish I knew why. What did their parents do to them?”
He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. “Would it help to know?”
“Maybe we’re just full of bad genetic ma
terial.”
“Hey!” He didn’t like that, and he wasn’t going to stand here silently and allow her to lump herself into a heap with some disturbed people. She was clearly fine, clearly talented, clearly kind. What else but kindness could have caused her to take on the baby?
She looked at him again. “Is it cold in here?”
He switched his attention immediately and realized she was right. “Maybe. I’ll go find the thermostat. If the heater isn’t keeping up, I’ll check it for you.”
She shook her head a little. “You shouldn’t have to do that. I have a landlord who’s supposed to handle that stuff.”
“Sure, and how fast do ya think he’ll get here? You and the girl can’t spend the night cold.”
The thermostat wasn’t difficult to find in the short hallway that led to the small house’s two bedrooms. It wasn’t the newest device, but it was good enough to tell him the temperature was below where it was set and he didn’t hear a heater running.
“I’m going to the basement,” he called. “You stay with the daffodil, make sure she’s warm.”
The basement stairs were both narrow and steep, and creaky besides. He had to tip his head to avoid banging it on a rafter. At least there was a lightbulb that worked, though it cast little illumination when he pulled the string. Oh, look, there was an electric torch on the edge of the stairs. He wouldn’t have bet that it would work.
But much to his surprise, it did. The beam was yellow, indicating the need for some new batteries, but it would probably be fine for relighting a pilot light, assuming that was the problem.
Unfortunately, that was not the problem. Age and dust had clogged the combustion air intake. The gas valve was turned to the open position, but he quickly realized, after several attempts to light the pilot, that the safety feature was shutting everything down. No air, no pilot, no gas.
He sat back on his heels, gauging the situation. He couldn’t fix this tonight. Even the landlord, whoever he was, couldn’t fix this tonight. This was going to call for someone licensed to do the job. He didn’t want to risk a slipup by getting out of his own lane into someone else’s. Being an engineer didn’t mean he knew how to do everything. A simple fix to this, yeah. A teardown and rebuild, nah.
That left Diane and Daphne. No way could he leave them here. His own place wasn’t large and it was mostly designed to suit him, but he could fit all of them in there for a night or two.
He gave it one more try, using a piece of metal to tap on the air pipe, but it didn’t open up, and frankly if it had at this point, he wouldn’t trust it.
Some major repairs were needed.
He climbed the stairs again, making a note to tell Diane not to even try to descend them, at least when she was alone here. It would be easy to take a serious fall. He made a second note to get new batteries for the torch, because it likely didn’t have much more life in it.
He found Diane waiting near the top of the stair.
“No dice,” he said. “It needs some new parts. Your landlord is going to have to hire a heating specialist. Code and all that. You should call him now so he can get started on finding someone. In the meantime I’ll gather up things for you and Daphne.”
She had just started down the hall, probably to use the phone, but she stopped and looked back at him. “What have you been planning, Blaine Harrigan?”
He almost blinked. How was it she suddenly sounded like his mother? Well, not exactly, but she sounded Irish for sure. Then he saw a devil light in her eye and realized she was teasing.
“For that, woman, I’m going to take you to me own place so the two of you can keep warm until this heater gets fixed. Now go call that landlord of yours.”
Chapter Eight
Daphne, holding true to form, had no problem settling down for the night in the playpen that Blaine had brought along for her. It occupied most of the floor in his tiny living room, but Diane noticed he had an advantage: a sofa and a recliner-rocker that she instantly loved. She smiled up at him from its well-padded embrace.
“Let me guess. This is your favorite chair.”
Blaine laughed. “Depends on what I’m doing. If I need to stay awake, that is definitely not my favorite chair.”
He rented a place in a newish-looking apartment complex outside town that didn’t seem very full. The apartment itself was...an apartment. A small kitchen with a bar between it and the living room, trying to make a small area seem more spacious. Three doors opened off the living room, two bedrooms and a bath. Not an inch wasted for a hallway.
It was cozy, though, and over time Blaine had added some personal touches other than the furniture. A very happy-looking and bushy golden pothos hung in the corner near the wide window, the only window here. She watched as he pulled the curtains against the night. Navy blue. His furniture was dark green. An interesting color combination from a man, she thought. She liked it, though.
“I’ve only got the one bed,” he remarked, “but you’re welcome to it. Fresh sheets this morning. I can sleep on the sofa.”
“And I can sleep right here in your rocker. In fact, you may have to pull me out of it if you want it back.”
He laughed. “We’ll argue about that another time. I’m thinking about a hot drink, and we barely made a dent on that pizza. I’m going to heat a slice or two in the microwave. Would you like one?”
“The drink sounds good, but I don’t feel especially hungry. Thanks.”
Since the kitchen was only two steps away, around an open bar with cabinets overhead, he didn’t exactly go away. She watched him put a kettle on the stove and ignite the flame beneath it.
“I’m going to scald the pot first,” he remarked.
“Why?”
“Because once the pot is warm, the tea I make won’t get cold so fast.”
“Duh.”
He laughed. “Even with heat on in here, it’s feeling a tad cold. You want me to turn it up?”
“I’m fine and Daph is wearing her blanket sleeper.” She turned her attention to the playpen and wondered if she was overdoing the pink-and-white thing. Daph had some yellow and pale green onesies and shirts with tights, but right now she looked like a heap of pink and white inside her sleeper blanket and with her little knit cap on her soft, fuzzy head.
“I wonder when she starts growing hair,” she murmured.
“Everyone’s different, I think. Should I search it online?”
It was Diane’s turn to laugh. “It’s all such a mystery to me. I love the soft little blond fuzz on her head. Someone at the learning center said it was just baby fuzz and not even real hair.”
“I don’t know about that. None of my brothers or sisters lost whatever they had when they were born. All but one, Saphia, had a pretty thick head of it. She had peach fuzz for the longest time. Daphne, on the other hand, has some very fine blond hair. A bit more than fuzz, I think.”
Diane nodded, once again fixated on her daughter. Amazing how that little bundle of smiles and tears had become so central to her existence in such a short time. “The scar from her surgery is healing very well.”
“I noticed. I’m betting it won’t even show in a few months.”
The teakettle whistled, and Blaine poured some of the boiling water into a pretty teapot that looked as if it might be very old. “Is that teapot an antique?”
“Me gran’s. Mam insisted on sending it back with me after my last visit.”
“Any special reason?”
“When I was young, before I became a grand pain in the arse, I used to sit and play cards with Gran and we drank a whole lot of tea together. Fond memories of that pot. And fonder memories of taking me Gran to the cleaners, as they say.”
“What?” The word emerged on a surprised laugh.
“Gran taught me to play blackjack. I beat her, probably because I was a youthful cheat and could coun
t cards.”
Diane couldn’t help grinning. “You must have been a scamp.”
“So Mam said. Anyway, it’s not really cheating to count cards, although I hear they’d like you to believe so in Las Vegas. Numbers were always easy for me. They float around in my head the way words do for others, I suppose.”
He emptied the water from the pot, scooped in some loose tea, then refilled it with water. “Not long now.”
Wistfulness filled Diane. “So you had your grandmother around when you were a child?”
He looked up from placing the cover on the teapot and topping it with a knitted cozy. “Aye, I was lucky. I take it you weren’t?”
She shook her head. “I was just thinking how nice it must have been to play cards with your grandmother.”
“’Twas all that. She passed when I was eight.”
“And now you have her teapot.”
“That I do.”
After a bit, some timer seemed to go off in his head. He lifted the cozy from the pot, pulled two pretty cups close and began to pour the tea through a strainer into them.
“Ooh, I’ve never seen anyone do that except on TV.”
“I’m guessing public TV,” he joked. “Well, ya can use your teeth to strain it, but I’ve never been fond of that.”
She giggled. “I’m sure I wouldn’t, either.”
A short while later he’d placed a saucer and cup of milky tea on the small table beside her, then took a post on the end of the couch that was catty-corner to her with his own cup and a hot slice of pizza on a paper plate. In the middle of the open floor in her playpen, Daphne slept blissfully.
Calm, comfortable and oh so right. A dream, she reminded herself. One she had once longed for. One she thought she had found briefly with Max, but that had been her own delusion. Living an image that had never been there at all. Not for real.
But this was real. She owned no part of it—she was just passing through, a guest in Blaine’s life—but for the moment, she could dream.
Then a crazy thought passed through her mind. She could do more than dream. She could actually reach for it. It might come to nothing, especially since she and Blaine were coworkers...
