by Arlene James
Now he was actually looking forward to it, thanks to sweet, aloof Chey Simmons.
Stopping at one end of the staircase in the wide, bisecting hall, he placed one hand on the graceful, curved banister and looked upward. Her concern for Janey had been as genuine as his own, though not for the same reasons, of course. He shook his head and began to climb the stairs toward his son’s room. Along the way, he allowed himself to feel the disappointment of diminished hope for Janey’s condition. The doctors had warned him not to put too much stock in what had happened, but he’d been there, and the impact of the moment remained with him still. It had occurred as they were moving her, when the medical personnel were putting her into the ambulance for the trip to Louisiana from Dallas. After more than two years of unknowing, unseeing, nearly immobile silence, she had opened her eyes, looked at the young man holding the door and said quite distinctly, “Hello.”
Brodie, who had just come out of the house, had stopped dead in his tracks. Then he had rushed to her side, but her eyes were rolling, as they often did, and she had not responded to his attempts to elicit further response. In that instant, she had seemed, sounded, perfectly lucid, but to his knowledge she had not been so since. He had so hoped, had prayed, that she was going to come back to herself and go about her life as they’d planned. He wanted that. He wanted Seth to have a real mother. He wanted her not to suffer. He wanted to be free of the unexpected, unbargained-for responsibility. And now, he wanted Chey Simmons. And he was determined to get some part of what he wanted.
As he moved toward Seth’s room, he made a mental note to call the new doctors again before getting back to work on his exercise equipment. They might not have anything to offer him, but at least it would keep his mind off Chey Simmons. For a while.
Chapter Three
She didn’t even glance away from the computer when her assistant Georges came into the office from the shop. “What is it now?”
“You have an important visitor,” he announced with a flourish, “and I took the liberty of bringing her back.”
Chey looked up with a practiced smile in place. Her mother moved gingerly through the doorway, the strap of her scuffed patent-leather purse clutched tightly in one gloved hand. Sighing inwardly at the sight of the small, warped, straw hat perched atop her mother’s usual coil of smoke-gray hair, Chey pushed back from the desk and got up to kiss the other woman’s cheek. It wasn’t the fact that her mother’s hat was decades out of fashion and that the sprig of honeysuckle which had been pinned to it was wilted and browning that pained Chey, but that she had purchased for the woman any number of stylish new hats which were never worn. As far as Louise Simmons was concerned, nice things were an unconscionable waste. It was as if she simply could not stop being the selfless mother who dared not dream of anything beyond the basics for her children and never of anything for herself. Chey wondered if her mother ever even thought of herself as anything other than just that, a mother. And while Chey was deeply grateful for, even in awe of, that kind of dedication, she had never wanted it for herself, precisely because it seemed so very limiting.
Louise allowed Chey to steer her to the lyre-backed chair in front of the French Provincial desk and sat down, drawing off her gloves. She laid them atop the little pie-crust table at her elbow and said chattily, “I once gave five dollars for a table just like that at a second-hand store. Do you remember that table, Mary?”
Chey pressed her pink, professionally manicured nails to one smooth, golden-blond temple and tamped down her impatience. “I do, but that old pie-crust table is not why you’re here, Mama. What’s going on?”
Louise went straight to the point. “Kay and Sylvester are wondering if you’re going to attend their little fais-dodo for Melanie’s graduation. I told her of course you would, but she said you said something about not being sure of your plans, but it’s only April, and that’s plenty of time to arrange your calendar, so I was sure it wouldn’t be a problem. Still, I thought I’d ask and have a little visit with you at the same time. We don’t see you often enough, you know.”
Chey sat down during this cheery speech and busied herself straightening the already neat desktop as a familiar sense of guilt stole over her. She would, of course, attend the graduation party. She wanted to. And yet, these family celebrations often left her unhappy and resentful.
“The term little fais-do-do is a contradiction in terms, Mama,” she said smoothly, “especially in this family.”
With nine siblings, all married and all with families of their own, Chey sometimes felt like the lone member of a large tribe who just didn’t get it. They were all content to carry on in the time-honored traditions of their clan, marrying young and birthing babies with the same casual joy with which they might play the accordion or fiddle for an impromptu dance in the backyard. Only Chey had resisted the mold. Only Chey had other plans, dreams. Only Chey had remained determinedly single and childless, reserving her dedication for her career. Only Chey did not fit in.
“Kay says that the kids stay out all night long and get into trouble when left to themselves,” Louise went on, ignoring Chey’s comment. “She wants to keep Melanie well occupied with family that night. I thought she was over-doing it a bit, but Frank says she has the right of it, and—”
“Frank would know,” Chey said for her.
“Since his five have turned out so well,” Louise finished with satisfaction.
If by “well” one meant that they’d all gotten through high school before they’d started having babies, Chey mused silently. Only she and a few of her nieces and nephews had gone on to college.
“By the way,” Louise said, changing the subject. “Fay went for her ultrasound yesterday, and the doctor says it’s almost surely a girl. Isn’t that perfect? Now they’ll have one of each.”
“Any hope they’ll stop at one of each?” Chey asked acerbically.
Louise rolled her eyes in apparent exasperation. “For heaven’s sake, Mary Chey, most people like babies!”
“I like babies,” Chey said. “I just think the Simmons clan has enough. I mean, am I the only one who thinks that life is about more than making babies?”
Louise answered that with a deep sigh. “It’s about more than making money, too, you know.”
Chey rolled her eyes and spread her arms. “This isn’t about money, Mother. It’s about accomplishment and quality of life. It’s about doing something meaningful and being someone admirable.”
“It’s about you, dear,” Louise Simmons said softly. “You’ve accomplished a great deal professionally, and I’m very proud of you. But don’t you see that not everyone is fixated on their profession?”
“I’m not fixated, Mother,” Chey retorted defensively.
“You have no life apart from this business. You don’t even date,” Louise pointed out. “How will you ever meet a man if you don’t even date?”
An image of Brodie Todd flashed across her mind’s eye. She banished it immediately, snapping, “I don’t care about meeting men.”
“But don’t you grow tired of being alone, dear?” her mother asked, going on when Chey merely shrugged. “I know you don’t want children, and that’s fine. Parenthood isn’t for everyone, and goodness knows I’ve no reason to complain with thirty-one, almost thirty-two, grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren, but I do worry about you being alone.”
“Mom, I have just as much family as you do,” Chey pointed out.
“But you don’t have anyone of your own,” Louise said gently.
“You should talk. Daddy’s been gone for twenty years, and in all that time, you’ve never even looked at another man.”
“When you’ve had the best—” Louise began a familiar litany.
“I know that you loved him,” Chey interrupted, “and it just proves my point. That kind of love is very rare.”
“All your brothers and sisters are happily married,” Louise pointed out, “and here you are, thirty years old without even a steady boyfr
iend. A woman as pretty and bright as you ought to have a husband.”
“Mother, please, not now,” Chey pleaded impatiently.
Georges appeared just then, a sheet of paper in his hand. “Sugar, would you look at this invoice? I can’t make heads or tails of it, I swear.”
Louise subsided immediately, grasped the handle of her purse with both hands and looked down. “You have work to do,” she said softly, rising to her feet. “What shall I tell Kay and Sylvester, dear?”
Chey managed a smile. “Tell them I’ll be there, of course.”
Louise beamed. “Of course you will.” She reached across the desk and cupped Chey’s cheek in one worn hand. “Come for dinner soon, will you?”
Chey nodded, warmed despite her irritation. “Soon, Mama.” She placed her hand over her mother’s and hugged it briefly between her own palm and her cheek. She stood and smiled her mother through the door, then braced her hands flat against the desktop and bowed her head. “Thank you, Georges.”
He wadded the piece of paper in his beefy fist, not at all to her surprise. The invoice had never been written that Georges Phillips could not decipher. It was part of what made him so valuable to her.
Solidly middle-aged and decidedly rotund, he was an odd combination of flamboyance and distinguished style. At the moment he wore a vanilla white suit and matching silk ascot with a flame-red shirt on his stocky, yet graceful body. His thinning, dark blond hair was combed back ruthlessly, allowing the silver of his temples and winged brows to challenge his blunt nose and plump mouth for dominance of his round face. His physical appearance and droll manner of speaking always put Chey in mind of a slightly slimmer, fitter Alfred Hitchcock, albeit one given to sometimes absurd sartorial splendors. Unfortunately, he was as astute with people as with billing invoices.
“Don’t thank me,” he told her snippily. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it to spare that old dear’s feelings. She’s concerned about you.”
“Well, she has no reason to be,” Chey protested. “Why can’t she understand that I’m perfectly happy just as I am?”
“Perhaps because your lifestyle is completely foreign to her,” he suggested, “and just possibly because you aren’t as happy as you want everyone to think.”
“I am so!” Chey refuted hotly.
“Sugar, this is Georges you’re talking to. I know you better than you know yourself—and so does your mother, I suspect.”
“You wish,” Chey retorted sourly. “Just because you’ve been married countless times doesn’t mean that everyone has to trip down the aisle after you.”
“Four,” he corrected primly. “You have more fingers than that on each dainty hand, and don’t change the subject. Honestly, Chey, if you weren’t married to this business, you’d have a personal life like your mama wants. You’d have a man, a husband.”
“Maybe I should just marry you,” she retorted. “That would be good for business and get my family off my back, too.”
He made a face. “Not my style, darling. It’d be like marrying my sister.”
“Georges! Do you have a sister?” she teased, knowing perfectly well that he was one of three brothers.
“Don’t be cute. And if you want your family off your back, then find a man and fall in love!”
“You should know better than anyone that it’s not that easy,” she insisted.
“At least I try,” Georges said huffily, putting his round chin into the air.
“And you’ll keep on trying,” Chey said drolly.
“We’re not talking about me,” he said, pursing his cherry-red mouth.
“No, we’re talking about your boss,” Chey pointed out dryly, “the person who signs your paycheck.”
“The person who would be lost without me,” Georges added confidently.
He was right, darn him. She’d be lost without him as her assistant and friend, but he was wrong about the other. She had no intention of ever marrying. It would be unfair. Her career was much too important to her and left no room for the depth of dedication necessary for marriage and especially parenthood. Her family and friends didn’t understand that, however.
Chey sighed and slumped back in her chair. The position gave her a new perspective on the picture on her screen, and she immediately leaned forward again to tweak the placement of a certain element in the room design. For days now she had done little else but work on the Fair Havens project, and this was the final preliminary design.
“What do you think of this layout for the master suite?” she asked Georges, who walked around to lean over and study the computer screen.
“From a decorator’s perspective,” he finally said, “I love the claw-foot tub. From a man’s perspective, give me a real shower stall.”
“But the whole room is effectively a shower stall,” she explained. “It uses special waterproofing so curtains and stalls aren’t necessary.”
“He’s still standing in a bathtub to take a shower,” Georges pointed out. “I wouldn’t like it. Okay, so the shower stall is not a period piece, but we can make it look period.”
Chey sighed and reached for the mouse. “You’re right. Let’s try this.” She deleted the claw-foot tub and quickly inserted a partially sunken, built-in tub-and-shower combination of faux marble.
“Oh, that’s good,” Georges commented. “The faux marble keeps it lightweight for a second-story installation, and this particular design eliminates the need for curtains and doors. And it has the right look.”
A chime sounded, alerting them that someone had opened the front door. “I’ll go,” Georges said, turning away from the desk.
Chey nodded absently, muttering, “Thanks. I want to get this faxed over to Fair Havens.”
She manipulated the computer mouse and clicked. The expensive, photo-quality printer spooled up and began to spit out a black-and-white, computer-generated sketch. The ink wasn’t even dry before Chey spun her chair and loaded the first sketch into the fax machine. She had added Brodie Todd’s fax number to her computerized telephone book days earlier, and she called it up now. The fax machine was dialing even as the printer was spitting out the second sketch. Unfortunately, before the printer finished disgorging sketches, the fax machine reported that no connection could be negotiated with the dial-up number.
Drat. She would just have to take the drawings over herself then. After quickly making copies, she stuffed them into a folder, grabbed her briefcase and swept from the room. Georges was showing a unique brass-and-wrought-iron chandelier to an off-the-street customer, probably a tourist.
“I have to go to Fair Havens,” she announced, moving swiftly to the door. “Won’t be long. I’m just going to drop off the preliminary designs.”
Georges nodded and focused again on the customer. Chey walked out onto the banquette, or sidewalk, and turned left, then left again into the narrow, tunnel-like passage that led to her courtyard and tiny garage. It was only a few hundred square feet walled off from the rest of the old city block, but it was her own personal haven away from the world. She often sat here in the evenings, nursing a glass of wine, the scent of honeysuckle so thick that the sounds of the old city seemed to float on it. But she hadn’t done so lately and, she admitted, probably would not anytime soon. She tended to immerse herself in every project, and the bigger the project, the deeper that immersion. With Fair Havens, she couldn’t even see sky.
She opened the garage door and let herself into the driver’s seat of the car. Moments later she eased the car through the passage and paused level with the banquette until a break in traffic allowed her to pull out onto the narrow street. A quarter-hour later, she turned the small coupe onto the Fair Havens drive, marveling at the newly restored view from the street. Gone were the scrubby undergrowth and wild vines that had hidden a six-foot-tall, black wrought-iron fence, not to mention the house, from the view of passersby. The grounds were immaculately groomed, and the massive birdbath in the circle in front of the house had been restored to a balanced,
upright position. A stone bench and three marble garden angels of different sizes and styles had been added. Even with the exterior of the house still in a sorry state, the effect was simply stunning.
Suddenly, she was uncertain that her designs were up to the challenge. Perhaps she should return to the office and take another look at what she’d done, think it all through a little better. Yet, even as she considered the notion, she knew that her designs were not the root of her sudden reluctance to march up those steps and ring that loud brass bell. Her heart was racing for another, entirely different reason. Brodie Todd.
He unnerved her, intrigued her, disturbed her in ways she just hadn’t expected. It was humbling to be so intensely physically aware of someone. She’d been telling herself for days now that the man could not be as wildly attractive as she remembered, and even if he were, the man was not for her. He was a client, and she never got involved with clients. It was unprofessional. Besides, the man had divorced his comatose wife! And he was a father.
Closing her eyes, she told herself sternly that it wasn’t Todd as much as the job. She hadn’t had a challenge like this in far too long, but it was a challenge to which she could, would, rise. She put the car in Park, shut off the engine and got out, grabbing her briefcase from the passenger seat. She couldn’t deny an alarming quiver in the pit of her belly as she climbed those steps, however, and when the door opened, her self-lies died abruptly and ignominiously.
Her mouth dried up at the very sight of him, standing there in crisply pleated, pale linen slacks and a loose, deep blue silk shirt that made his darkly lashed eyes glow like sapphires. The top three buttons of the collarless shirt were undone and the long sleeves were rolled up, exposing a small portion of smooth, bronze chest and strongly corded forearms. His smile flashed warmly.
“Hello.”
She found it difficult to be pleasant simply because she so desperately wanted to be. “Your fax is not receiving,” she said, embarrassed that her voice sounded breathless rather than brisk.
