Fiona smiled across her kitchen table at him. For all the world he looked like a little boy hoping Santa wasn’t joking when he’d promised him a new bike. “No, it’s no problem. I’d love to have you stay here.”
“All this wasn’t what I had in mind when I dropped by,” he said, waving his hand toward the bedroom. “I just wanted to see how you were feeling.”
An impishness took hold of her. “And how did I feel?”
He reached across the salad and the plate of bread to take her hand. “Oh, lady, better be careful.” His voice was low, pulled tight with tension.
Some rare burst of courage had invaded her soul, though, and she just looked back at him, not afraid of taking a chance. “It’s good to see you again. I missed you.”
He let go of her hand and looked away as if about to say something painful. Her heart skipped a beat.
“I missed you, too,” he said.
“Was that so hard to say?”
He turned back to her, his eyes troubled. “This isn’t like me,” he said. “I don’t do relationships.”
“What’s there to do?”
“It’s just the whole idea of it. Of somebody leaning on me. What if I’m no good at it?”
She brought his hand back to her and held it tightly. “I’m not looking for anything,” she said. “I’m not expecting anything but a houseguest for a few days. Somebody that I can talk to and be totally honest with. Can’t we just relax and see where we go?”
“You’re too easy to get along with,” he grumbled. “Why can’t you be demanding?”
“Because I wouldn’t know what to demand. One minute, this thing scares the hell out of me. The next, I can’t believe how happy I am.”
“So what do we do now?”
She gave his hand a last squeeze, then let go. “Eat dinner.”
Chapter Ten
“I don’t know how you can be so cheerful in the morning,” Alex said as he poured a cup of coffee and stumbled toward the table. “It doesn’t feel natural.”
Fiona frowned at him as she poured herself more coffee. “You don’t look all that grumpy this morning, sir.”
He didn’t feel grumpy at all, if the truth be known. He felt like singing and laughing and generally acting like an idiot. But his natural caution kept it hidden. “Don’t you know that if you’re not careful, your system’ll jam in the mood you wake up in?”
“I’m cheerful when I wake up.”
“I know. That’s my point. If you aren’t careful, you could stay that way all day.”
She just laughed and brushed a light kiss on his forehead. “You should be used to my mornings. This isn’t your first exposure, you know.”
“I thought maybe those others were an aberration.” He sipped at his coffee, then discovered Fiona was looking worried. “Hey, it was a joke. I was just trying to be funny.”
She looked only slightly relieved and he sighed. “See, I told you I wasn’t good at relationships.”
“No, you’re lousy at jokes,” she said. “Want a bagel?”
“Sure.” He saw that she was taking it out of the freezer and he got up. He didn’t want her waiting on him. “I can fix it. Don’t you have to get ready for work?”
“That’s okay,” she said. “I just have to throw a few clothes on. My school isn’t all that far from here.”
He took the bagel from her hand and sliced it himself. “Yeah, but you might miss. Then one thing would lead to another and before you know it, you’ll be late.”
He looked up and found she was staring at him, not even blinking.
“You said you just had to throw a few clothes on. And I said that you might miss.”
Fiona still didn’t say anything.
Alex shook his head. “These kinds of things don’t work if you have to explain them.”
“Do you talk to your clients this way?” she asked. “How do you get any business?”
“I’ll have you know I’m in great demand.” He popped the bagel into the toaster.
She slid her arms around him from behind. “I’d better be more respectful, then.”
“You betcha.” He clasped his hands over hers, liking the feel of her near him. He could get used to this, used to the sense of belonging.
“Elvis,” Fiona said, pulling away. “Get down.”
Alex turned. The calico cat had jumped up on the table to sniff at his coffee. Fiona’s firm words bought her a glare while her second cat, Prissy, joined the first on the table.
“Looks like there’s going to be a power struggle here,” Alex said.
“Not for long.” Fiona pushed away from him and put both cats on the floor. “Now, shoo. Scram. Beat it.” Grumbling, the feline duo stomped off toward the living room.
“Is that how you’re going to send me on my way in a few days?”
Fiona just laughed. “Only if you jump on the table one too many times.”
“I’ll try to behave.” He didn’t want to have her mad at him, didn’t want her to send him on his way. From being scared to try a relationship, he was finding it easier and easier to take.
The phone rang and Fiona hurried over to answer it. It was Mrs. Andrews. “That’s wonderful,” Fiona said to her, giving Alex a thumbs-up sign even as she spoke into the phone. “That’s great.”
He slowly let his breath out. It appeared that Kate was progressing nicely. Super.
A few more words were exchanged before Fiona bid Mrs. Andrews goodbye, then she flew into Alex’s arms.
“I take it Kate’s doing well,” Alex said.
Fiona looked up at him, her eyes glistening. “It’s too early to know for sure, but there haven’t been any signs of rejection yet.”
“That’s such good news.”
“The best.”
He felt a weight slide from his back, as if he, too, had been holding his breath for good news of Kate. His hold on Fiona tightened and his lips touched hers. He meant it to be just a soft touch, a quick little kiss to share her joy, but the pressure she returned was anything but. That fire in his groin wanted to take hold again; that blinding need to bury himself in her softness fought for control of his sanity.
Fiona just pulled away with a laugh. “Enough of that,” she said, and dashed off toward her bedroom.
Alex took a deep breath and went to the toaster. Would a cold bagel be the same as a cold shower? He somehow didn’t think so, but he spread it with the low-fat cottage cheese Fiona used—a strange combination but surprisingly tasty— and ate it. Then he cleaned up their breakfast dishes. This trip wasn’t exactly going as planned. Unless he was trying to cure his dreams of Fiona with an overdose.
“I’ll be home soon around four.”
Fiona had come out of the bedroom, dressed in peachcolored slacks and a flowery print blouse with splotches of peach in it. Alex hurried out of the kitchen to take her into his arms. She fit so perfectly there. She could stay there the rest of his life.
“Are you going to be back by then?” she asked.
“I should be,” he said. Considering he basically had nothing to do with his day, it shouldn’t be a problem.
But then the thought of being here waiting for her so ignited his heart, filled him with such a sense of belonging, that he wanted to give her something in return.
“Got any dragons you need slaying?” he asked. “In case I have some free time.”
“I don’t have any dragons.”
“Worried about Kate?”
“Not too much. Not that you could slay my worries even if I was.”
She was so damn self-sufficient. Did she need him for anything? “How about your parents?”
She stiffened, her muscles drawing out tight and taut. But this wasn’t what he wanted. He hadn’t wanted to awaken hurts. He’d wanted to pay her back for making him feel alive.
“I have to get going,” she said, pushing herself out of his arms and hurrying over to the kitchen counter where her purse and briefcase were.
Something
that still caused pain had to be a dragon. “You told me you were born in South Bend,” he said. “Did you live here all the time or did you move around a lot?”
“When Mom and Dad were alive, we lived out on the west side,” she said. “The only times we lived somewhere else was when we were in foster care. Then we lived for a time in Mishawaka and in Wakarusa. That was all before the Scotts took us in.”
Her body language said she didn’t want to talk about it, but how could he slay something if he couldn’t find it?
“If I remember right, your parents were going to Milwaukee to look for work?”
She nodded, locking up her briefcase.
“Did your father tend to bounce around different jobs?”
“No.” She put her purse strap over her shoulder and picked up her briefcase with her left hand. “That was one of the things that was so strange. He had worked at Bendix for years and years. It seemed like a good job that paid well with loads of benefits. And he must have had seniority.”
Alex’s wheels started spinning as he processed this new bit of data. He’d gotten the idea that Fiona’s father had been a blue-collar worker. In the mid-seventies such work was getting scarcer. He would have had to have a strong reason to leave a good job when a replacement would be hard to find.
Unless he had been let go. There were a lot of questions to be answered. And Alex didn’t think Fiona was going to answer any more.
“I left my spare key on the counter here in case you get back before me,” she said. “I thought we’d eat dinner out.”
“We don’t have to do that,” he said. “I’m a good cook.”
“I don’t do things because I have to. I do them because I want to.” She carried her bags to the door. “And I want to celebrate Kate’s progress.”
He didn’t let her get away that easily. Before she could open the door, he was there to kiss her goodbye. And then to kiss her good-morning. And have a good day. And have a nice lunch and a great afternoon. And finally, that he’d miss her.
Then she left and he was alone. Four o’clock was almost nine hours away. Or fifty-seven centuries, depending on how you looked at it.
He walked over to the window and watched as her car pulled out of the garage. He continued staring long after she disappeared around the corner. Fiona’s father’s name was Joe—Joseph Fogarty—and he’d worked for years at the Bendix plant here in South Bend. Probably in a union if he was a blue-collar worker. A place to start.
After a morning of searching through old newspapers, Alex found an article placing the accident in Witoka, Minnesota, and telling a few facts about each of her parents. Fiona’s mother had been born in South Bend, had graduated from Washington High School and had volunteered at the local hospital. Fiona’s father worked at Bendix and was a member of the machinists’ union. There was no mention of his relation to Horace Fogarty.
The afternoon was less productive. A fax of the accident report would be sent, but not today. Bendix—which was now a division of Allied Signal—wanted a written request for information that it would pass along to the union steward. The house where Fiona had lived with her parents no longer existed—that end of the block had been wrecked to enlarge a nearby church parking lot.
Alex knew that everything took time, but still he was discouraged when he drove back to Fiona’s apartment. He’d wanted to lay the slain carcass of her dragon at her feet. He’d wanted to mount its head on her wall and prove to her that he could take care of her. And what did he have? Nothing.
“Hi,” Fiona called as he came into the apartment. “Have a good day?”
She was right there, walking into his open arms and feeling so good and right and necessary in his embrace, that everything else fled.
“Sure,” he said as his lips came down to meet hers. “It was a great day.”
And getting better.
“So, Fiona, when are we going to meet this fella of yours?” Amy O’Brien asked.
Fiona dropped the pencil she’d been holding. It fell, clattering onto the desk and bouncing down to the floor with more noise than a ton of bricks. The fifth-grade teacher stood in the doorway, grinning at her.
“What?” The word came out as a squawk, like a chicken that had been grabbed from behind. Fiona cleared her throat once, then again. “What are you talking about?”
Her fellow teacher just shook her head and laughed. “When a woman’s floating up in the clouds the way you have for the past couple of days, it only means one thing.”
The blood rushed up across Fiona’s cheeks, spreading through her body like a fever and making her feel hot enough to broil steaks on her skin. She bent down to pick up her pencil, taking it slow and hoping that she would cool down before she had to answer. She had lots of things on her mind—missing Kate, worrying that the transplant would continue to work, wondering how and when to tell her family the truth. If she’d been distracted lately, Alex didn’t have to be the reason.
“Fiona,” Amy said, a rising sharpness entering her voice. “Have you fainted down there?”
“I was just getting my pencil.” Fiona straightened, holding her pencil up for her fellow teacher to see. “I didn’t want to lose it.”
“Oh, yeah,” Amy said with a snort. “Those number-two lead pencils are hard to come by.”
“So when do you want to get together to plan the class picnic?” Fiona tried changing the subject.
But the woman’s grin just wouldn’t go away. “So we’re not going to meet him.”
Fiona’s frown dissipated into wrinkles of annoyance as she began gathering up her papers. She would have liked to say, Meet whom? But Amy had been a teacher for too long. If the kids couldn’t fool her, Fiona would have no chance.
“Come on,” Amy pleaded. “We just want to eyeball him. We’re not going to bruise the merchandise in any way.”
“I’ll make up the notices to send home with the kids. Last year a couple of them got the date mixed up and wore picnic clothes on the wrong day.”
“He’s not married, is he?”
“No.” Fiona’s mouth quickly closed, but it was too late. The denial had been made. And in denying she’d confirmed Amy’s question that there was indeed a man in her life. “No, he’s not married,” she added.
“So why the secrecy?” Amy asked.
“There’s no secrecy,” Fiona denied. “We just haven’t been seeing each other all that long. And he’s not even from around here. So it could be over tomorrow, for all I know.” Although the mere thought of that made her heart pause.
She had to be honest, though. Alex had already been here three days. That was how long he’d said he was staying. It literally could be over tomorrow.
“I guess we’ll just have to come peek in your windows,” Amy said.
That damn pencil hit the floor again. Fiona stared in bewilderment at her friend and co-worker.
“Luther Benjamin lives just a block up from you,” Amy noted. “He’s got to be tall enough to look in your windows without a ladder.” Amy flashed a triumphant smile before going on her way.
“Boy.” Fiona bent down and retrieved her pencil again, throwing it into her drawer. The joys of living in a small town where everyone knew your business. “Anybody who comes peeking in my window is going to get their head knocked off.”
She stuffed a stack of math exams into her briefcase, then let her feet dance her out to the parking lot. Although Kate was constantly in her thoughts, Fiona knew Alex was the reason she found herself smiling so often, that she couldn’t wait each day to get home. It wasn’t like she loved Kate any less; it was just that it was time to let go again.
She told herself she had to be careful, though. Not to hold on to Alex all the more tightly because of loosening her hold on Kate. She told herself not to count on anything; she and Alex were just seeing where things would take them. Nobody was making any promises. But it was impossible not to fly from the car to the apartment.
“Hello,” she called as she opened he
r door. “I’m home.”
Elvis gave his usual “So what?” yowl while Prissy bounded over to greet her. Otherwise the apartment felt empty. Her words echoed through the rooms as if it was an abandoned mine shaft. Fiona could feel her stomach tighten up as she put her bags down on the kitchen counter.
There was a note on the bulletin board by the phone. Alex would return by five at the latest.
“Shoot, guys.” She bent down and picked up the demanding little female. “Now what are we going to do?”
Prissy’s purr said “Scratch me,” which Fiona did. She walked to the window, carrying the cat and scratching as she went.
It would be at least another hour before Alex was home. What should she do in the meantime? Correct those papers she’d brought with her? Naw, it was too nice a day to stay inside. Maybe it was time to pay a visit.
“I’m going out for a while, Prissy.” Fiona put the cat on the floor. “Take care of your sister, Elvis.”
Both cats grumbled their protests at being left again, but Fiona skipped into her bedroom for a pair of sneakers, grabbed some bread crusts from the freezer, and then bounded out the door.
Within minutes she was at Clements Woods. She followed the familiar roads to the parking lot near the lake, then hurried down the path. It had been a few weeks since she’d been here. The last time had been when Alex had come to find her about Kate. How her life had changed since then!
Soon after she got to the lake, the birds glided gracefully toward her. She threw pieces of bread out into the water. “Remember when I came here a few weeks ago? Well, I went to Chicago to help my daughter. She was really sick, but it looks like she’ll be okay now.”
Fiona took a deep breath, then tossed a few more pieces of bread onto the water. “You know that guy that was here with me last time? Well, he’s back again. Came all the way from Chicago to see me.” She frowned. “Well, actually, I guess he’s got some client out here, so it’s not just to see me.”
Juliet gave her a look that she probably gave all her little daughter swans when they were mooning about some new boy swan that had come around.
“It’s not like that,” Fiona protested. “He cares about me. I can tell. And I care about him.”
On Mother's Day (Great Expectations #1) Page 17
