What the Single Dad Wants...

by Marie Ferrarella

  Ah, the mighty confirmed bachelor has fallen, Anastasia thought, well satisfied. She’d seen that look before, on the faces of the men who told her they were in love with her. “How should I know? Her work here is done.”

  That was exactly the answer he didn’t want to hear. “Then she’s not coming back?”

  As far as Anastasia was concerned, she was playing her part beautifully, seeing as how she was improvising her dialogue as she went along.

  In true motherly fashion, she put her hand to his cheek. “Darling, is there something wrong with your attention span? I just said I was ‘good as new.’ Isabelle’s accomplished what she came here to do. I’m sure she’ll be moving on to another assignment. She might even be starting right now,” Anastasia speculated.

  He was having a very hard time wrapping his head around this. “And she left here—for good—without saying goodbye?”

  “Well, she said it to me,” Anastasia informed him, as if she was the primary one who counted in this scheme of things. “But I suspect that was only because our paths crossed at the front door. I think she just wanted to slip quietly away without making a fuss.” She smiled. “You know how unassuming Isabelle can be when it comes to herself.”

  He knew. He also saw her leaving like that as something different than not wanting to “make a fuss.” He saw it as running out on him.

  Just as his ex-wife had.

  Except that back then, he knew why Jean had run out on him. She’d told him in no uncertain terms. She wasn’t cut out to be a mother and didn’t want to be tied down by either a baby or a husband.

  It was different with Isabelle. She was everything he wanted in a woman, in a life partner—or at least he thought she was everything he wanted.

  Now he didn’t know.

  What he didn’t want was someone who couldn’t be counted on. Someone who literally turned around and ran after all but pledging her heart to him.

  Or had he misread that, too?

  “What’s the matter, dear?” Anastasia asked, playing the concerned mother for all she was worth. “You look as if you’ve just lost your best friend.” Deliberately pretending that she was misinterpreting the reason for the look on his face, she crossed to him and took his chin in her hand. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ll be back to visit you and Victoria regularly. I promise.”

  He forced a smile to his lips, removed her hand and turned it so it was palm side down. In the fashion of gallantry of centuries gone by, he pressed a kiss to her hand.

  “I know you will, Mother.” He let her hand go and stepped back. “I’ll get out of your way so you can finish packing. Let me know when you want me to take the suitcase to the front door for you.”

  “Won’t be for a while yet, dear.”

  His mother’s voice followed him out into the hallway, but he hardly heard her.

  She was gone, he thought, numbly placing one foot in front of the other.

  Isabelle was gone.

  Gone, just like that.

  Without a word, without so much as a nod. Gone as if those nights they’d spent together hadn’t meant anything to her. As if their days together, the drives, that moment in the rain on the beach, hadn’t meant anything to her.

  Without his knowing exactly when, exactly how, Isabelle, with her lighter-than-air laugh and her quiet determination, had become embedded in his life, in his family. And then, just like that, like some Band-Aid being ripped off, she’d torn herself away and was gone.

  His mind spinning every which way at once, he thought of going out and finding her. Of shaking her and shouting at her for doing this to him.

  For lying like this to him without saying a single word.

  Damn it, he upbraided himself, clenching his fists at his side, how could he have been so hopelessly stupid to let himself get ensnared like this? How could he have been so—

  He had a book to work on, he told himself sternly. He had no time for any grieving, dramatic or otherwise. It was time to submerge himself in his work, the way he’d always been able to do before, and forget about everything else.

  Forget about lips the flavor of strawberries and eyes that seemed to shine whenever she looked at him. Forget about skin the texture of cream and a body—

  This wasn’t helping, Brandon berated himself. At this rate, he would talk himself into a state mental institution by evening.

  “Write, Slade. It’s what you do,” he ordered sternly as he marched into his office. “At least she didn’t take that away from you.”

  Brandon closed the door behind him and willed his mind to focus.

  Isabelle tried, she really, really tried to summon up her former enthusiasm. She needed it in order to do her work. She needed it so that she could find just the right way to motivate her clients.

  But try as she might, she just couldn’t seem to find it. It was as if every last drop of enthusiasm had evaporated on her. Along with her sense of humor, her energy and forget about her mind. That seemed to be long gone.

  At various times of the day and evening, she’d find herself suddenly “stuck.” Lost in a motion or a thought that went no further. She looked like an adult playing the old children’s game of “statue” where players would “freeze” in a position when the word was suddenly called out.

  Except that no one was calling out anything. It was just her. She seemed utterly unable to function properly. Not without her heart. And that was gone.

  It had been a week like this. A whole terrible, debilitating week.

  She had to snap out of it.

  Zoe had already said that one of the clients had complained about her. Well, not exactly complained, but they’d wanted to know if there was something “funny” about her because she was acting so very strangely, getting lost midsentence. Staring off into space.

  Of course, her present client, Bobby Johnson, a major league baseball player who was on the team’s disabled list because of a pulled hamstring, didn’t seem to mind her slipping into a trancelike state for a minute or so at a time. That was probably because he thought it had to do with him.

  Currently, Bobby was in one of the firm’s therapy rooms, expounding on how hard it was to live a normal life, surrounded by women who insisted on following him everywhere he went, even to the men’s room at the gym he frequented.

  “But I guess that all just goes with the territory,” he concluded with as phony a sigh as she’d ever heard. “That really feels good,” he commented, then suddenly he swiveled around on the padded table he’d been lying on. He pulled his towel around himself as he sat up, leaving it deliberately loose in order to serve as an unspoken invitation for her benefit, Isabelle’s couldn’t help thinking. “Hey, you doing anything after this?” Bobby asked. He didn’t wait for her to answer, but just assumed it would be what he wanted to hear. “Because if you’re not—”

  “She is.”

  Both she and the technically disabled infielder turned to look at the man walking into the room.

  Isabelle’s heart leaped into her throat, all but singing. “Brandon.”

  The baseball player was scowling as darkly as Isabelle was smiling. “Hey, this is my time with Izzy,” he declared indignantly. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Brandon Slade, the writer.” He added the last part when the seminaked man on the table stared at him as if he was beneath him.

  Bobby frowned, clearly at a disadvantage. “You write books?” Apparently replaying Brandon’s name through his head, he shook it. “Never heard of you.”

  Brandon’s less than genuine smile never faded. “Well, that makes us even, because I’ve never heard of you, either.”

  While he followed football and basketball fairly regularly, he’d never cared for the game deemed to be the great American pastime. In his opinion it moved much too slowly.

  Unable to take it a second longer, Isabelle interrupted the exchange. “Brandon, I’m working,” she pointed out unnecessarily. “What are you doing here?”

  He would ha
ve thought that was self-explanatory. This “invasion” was uncharacteristic of him, but then, so was what he was feeling.

  He’d given up pretending he didn’t care where Isabelle was or that she’d left without saying a word. Rather than just call where she worked, he’d come down to see her in person. He’d found Zoe in the front office, which had saved him the trouble of trying to charm information out of the receptionist. Isabelle, she’d told him, was here, in the back, working with a client.

  She’d then proceeded to surprise him by asking, “Do you need to see her right now?”

  He hadn’t even had to think about his answer. “More than you could ever know.”

  The woman had nodded, seeming to understand what he was going through. “Tell Isabelle I’m sending in another therapist. Go do what you have to do.” Her eyes had been shining as she’d added, “Good luck.”

  He could have hugged her. Digging into his pocket, he’d left a hundred-dollar bill on the desk. “In case the guy complains about the interruption.”

  And then he’d gone in search of the room.

  When his heart had accelerated at the sound of her voice, he’d known he hadn’t made a mistake coming here. They belonged together.

  “What do you think I’m doing here?” he said in response to her question. Taking her hand, Brandon firmly pulled her toward the door. What he had to tell her had to be said without an audience. Opening the door, he looked at the ballplayer over his shoulder. “Game over, baseball boy. You’re cured,” he announced.

  For once Bobby Johnson was utterly speechless. They left him that way.

  She might not have had a word for Bobby, but she had plenty for Brandon. “Brandon! You can’t just interrupt a session like that.”

  “I’m not interrupting it,” he informed her, crossing the threshold with her in tow. “I’m ending it. Don’t worry, I paid for his session, so he can’t complain. Zoe’s getting another therapist to come in and take your place.” Looking back at the fuming baseball player, he called out, “Don’t worry. If you feel shortchanged, there’s another therapist on her way.” Facing Isabelle again, he said, “Let’s go.”

  Not wanting to cause a scene, she waited until she was outside the office—her sister was conveniently gone, and the receptionist looked at her wistfully as they passed by the front desk.

  Once the door had closed and they were out in the hall, she abruptly stopped walking and yanked back her hand.

  When he turned around to look at her, Brandon saw that she was furious.

  “You had no right to embarrass me like that,” Isabelle fumed.

  He’d never seen her angry before, and for a moment, he just took it in. And then, as in a poker game, he matched her. And raised her one.

  “If I embarrassed you, I’m sorry. But you had no right to just walk out on me, on us like that,” he amended, thinking of what Victoria would say once she returned from camp and heard what had happened. “Without so much as a damn word! Like I was just someone you’d passed on the street.”

  Don’t you know that you’d never be just like someone I’d pass on the street? That you were and are so very special to me? Too special, she underscored.

  Out loud, she merely said, “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

  “Well, by not saying anything, you did. You made a hell of a very big deal out of it,” he informed her, all but yelling into her face. He struggled to get the better of his anger. Shouting at her wasn’t going to bring her around.

  Isabelle couldn’t wrap her head around the logic of his words. “I just assumed you would have preferred it that way. Quietly,” she emphasized.

  His eyes were dark with suppressed anger. “What I would have ‘preferred,’” he informed her, “was a chance to talk to you.”

  She took a deep breath, telling herself that she wasn’t intoxicated by the very scent of him. That her heart wasn’t beating harder than a bongo drum, racing to a strange, exotic beat. That this rush was normal for someone in an argument.

  She ran the tip of her tongue along her very dry lips to moisten them. “Well, you’re here now. Talk.”

  He should just go. Ignore her. Not let her know that she’d succeeded in shredding him into teeny-tiny little slivers. That was the only way to save face. To save his pride.

  But the truth was, he didn’t give a damn about his pride. What he gave a damn about, now that he’d found her, was Isabelle.

  He struggled not to take hold of her shoulders, afraid he’d wind up hurting her by holding on too tightly. “Damn it, Isabelle. Was it all one-sided? All that time together, was I just there by myself? Fooling myself?”

  She was having trouble catching her breath, centering her thoughts. Trouble staying where she was instead of throwing herself into his arms and just holding on for as long as he’d let her. She’d missed him more than she had ever thought possible.

  Taking in a shaky breath, she tried to sound calm as she asked, “About?”

  “About us!” he shouted. “About you. About you caring.” He took a breath. “Damn it all to hell, Isabelle, you can’t just leave like that. I need you.”

  Isabelle shook her head. It sounded too good to be true. Or maybe she had just imagined she’d heard him say that. Ached for him to say that. “You need me?” she heard herself asking, praying that if this was a dream, a hallucination, she wouldn’t ever wake up.

  “That’s right, I need you,” he all but shouted, struggling to get his voice under control. “I need you very much.” His voice softened, and he smiled down into her face. “As does my mother and Victoria. Nothing’s going to be the same in the house until you decide to take pity on us—on me—and come back.”

  “Come back as what?” she asked. “Your mother doesn’t need a physical therapist. Anastasia’s going away on that cross-country tour. And Victoria’s still at camp—I talked to her yesterday,” she told him before he had a chance to question how she knew his daughter’s current location.

  “You’re right,” he answered honestly. “My mother doesn’t need a physical therapist. What she needs is a daughter-in-law.” His eyes took her prisoner. “Any suggestions? Know anyone open to taking on that position?”

  Again, Isabelle stared at him, this time utterly dumb-founded. She couldn’t have heard him right—could she?

  The ensuing silence throbbed in his ears like a thunderous heartbeat. It was far from a comfortable silence. “Look, I get it. You’re scared. Well, I’m scared, too. We can be scared together,” he proposed. “And tell each other that there’s nothing to be scared about. Your father might have played around on your mother—”

  Her eyes widened as she stared at him, stunned. “I never told you that.”

  “No, you didn’t trust me enough to let me in on that,” he conceded.

  She didn’t understand. “Then how—?”

  “Zoe told me. Nice woman, your sister,” he said with approval. “I like her.”

  How could her sister have betrayed her like this? Made things known about her without asking first? “Don’t get used to her. She’s on borrowed time.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re unconventional, Isabelle, I’ll give you that. I guess it’s one of the things I love about you.”

  The all-important phrase echoed in her head. “One of the things you lo—” She blinked, stunned beyond words. “You love me?”

  “Hell, yes, I love you. What do you think we’re talking about?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know. You lost me when you said you liked my sister.”

  “I like your sister,” he repeated patiently. “But I love you.” He took in a deep breath. Waiting. Praying. “You have anything to say to me?”

  Adrenaline raced through her like a gathering lightning storm. She was utterly surprised that she was still standing. “You’re crazy.”

  He laughed, waving the words aside. “Okay, anything to say to me other than that?”

  She couldn’t stop smiling. Her face refuse
d to relax. “Maybe I love you, too.”

  He eyed her. “Maybe?” It was going to be all right, he thought. She needed to take baby steps, and he was all right with that. As long as the steps ultimately led to him.

  She felt as if her heart was bursting. As if what she had always secretly wanted was suddenly being granted after all this time. “All right, all right, all right. Yes, I love you. Satisfied?” she cried.

  “Getting there. Now, about that vacancy that I mentioned. You know, the one for a daughter-in-law for my mother—”

  There went her heart again. “Then you are saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “I am if you think I’m proposing.” Right on cue, Isabelle’s mouth dropped opened. “I thought you deserved an unconventional proposal.” His eyes were already making love to her—asking her to give him the answer he needed to hear. “But if you don’t like that one, I can rewrite it until I find one that you do like.” Opening his jacket, he reached into his pocket for a small scratch pad and his pen.

  She put her hand on top of Brandon’s, stopping him before he got carried away. “There’s no point in rewriting it. Why don’t you just ask me?”

  Was that all it took? Just asking her? “Because I didn’t think it would be that simple. In a world of plain butterscotch pudding, you’re custard cream.”

  That had to be the strangest compliment she’d ever received. But it was definitely a compliment, and she loved it.

  Loved him.

  Isabelle couldn’t help wondering what she was letting herself in for. And part of her could hardly wait to find out.

  “Ask me,” she coaxed in a soft whisper.

  God but he loved her. Even so, he couldn’t resist teasing her. “To be my physical therapist?”

  Isabelle was beginning to catch on to the way his mind worked. She shook her head. “Ask me the other thing.”

  He stopped teasing and grew very serious. “Isabelle Sinclair, will you marry—?”

  “Yes,” she cried before he had all the words out. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  Throwing her arms around his neck, she knew she’d just given him the right answer. It was the right thing to do. The only thing she wanted to do with all her heart. Brandon wasn’t like her father. He wasn’t going to disappoint her. Wasn’t going to break her heart as her father had broken her mother’s. She was betting her own on it, but she’d always been a safe better, and this, she was certain, was definitely a sure thing. And now that she’d finally gotten out of her own way, she saw that clearly.