“I certainly appreciate everyone coming in on such short notice for a meeting that wasn’t on your agenda,” Stan began. “But as I told each of you on the phone, it really couldn’t be avoided. Not if we want the foundation to be the recipient of a quarter of a million dollars.”
A collective gasp rose up around the table.
Stan laughed. “See? I told you this was a meeting worth having.”
“Wow. Seriously?”
“That’s incredible.”
Mark listened to the sentiments of his fellow volunteers, nodding along with each before adding his own. “That sure is going to open up a lot of possibilities for our clients.”
“That’s exactly right. And it’s why we needed to have this brief meeting. Now that the offer is there, we have to put our heads together and make sure we don’t let the money slip out of our grasp.” Stan plucked a pile of manila folders from the table in front of him and sent half down each side of the conference table. “That quarter of a million dollars will be the foundation’s, provided we meet one very specific and necessary condition stipulated by Jake Longfeld.”
Taking the top folder, Mark passed the remaining pile to his left. “Longfeld? As in Longfeld Motors?”
“One and the same,” Stan confirmed. “He’s been watching the work we’ve been doing the past few years, and felt it was time to throw one of his always-generous donations in our direction. And we’re grateful, of course. But there is this condition we need to find a way to meet.”
“Condition?” a woman on the other side of the table repeated.
“That’s right.” Stan waved his hand. “As you probably know, Jake Longfeld walks with a cane. The reason dates back to an injury he sustained in the armed services some thirty years ago. He’s gotten through life just fine in spite of his challenges, but he’s wise enough to know that’s not the case for everyone with a physical disability, particularly when that disability comes as a result of the kinds of diseases our foundation deals with on a regular basis.
“Which leads me to why we’re all here. If you’ll open your folders, you’ll find a copy of the letter Mr. Longfeld wrote to our foundation, detailing his wishes for his very generous donation. About halfway down the page, you’ll see that he wants this money to help two groups near and dear to his heart—those with disabilities, and small business owners.”
Mark skimmed the letter from top to bottom, nodding as he did. “So the entire donation doesn’t have to go to a small business owner with a disabling disease, just a portion?”
“Exactly,” Stan said. “We satisfy that stipulation and we’ll be able to help a lot of people.”
“Do we have any clients that fit that bill?” a field worker asked.
The president’s gaze settled on Mark. “Perhaps.” Leaning forward, he flipped through his folder until he came to a pink slip of paper, which he handed to Mark. “A call came in to the foundation for you today, Mark. From a woman named Emily Todd. Ms. Todd owns a small business on the outskirts of Winoka called Bucket List 101. I’m taking it she has physical limitations, if she reached out to us here?”
An image of the petite, pixieish blonde flashed in front of his eyes—the curve of her hips, the sinewy tease of her legs, the tantalizing rise of her breasts, the unforgettable twinkle of her large doelike eyes, the heartfelt smiles she solicited from Seth....
“Mark?”
The sound of his name snapped him back to the present—that and the fact that all eyes in the room were suddenly trained on him. “Uh…”
“Does this woman have physical limitations?” Stan pressed.
He forced himself to address the question, to abandon the image that had him loosening his collar and wishing for a cool glass of water. “At the moment, none that I can see. But with the nature of her disease, that will change.”
“Then perhaps we’ve just met our stipulation.”
Stan’s words took root. “Wait. Wait. Em—I mean, Miss Todd—isn’t a client of ours yet. She, um, well, let’s just say she’s still in quite a bit of denial about her situation.”
“Then I’m counting on you to help her through that stage and onto our client roll.” Stan closed his folder and rose to his feet, a triumphant smile making its way across his well-tanned face. “You do that and we can start divvying up the rest of the donation in a way that will enable us to do the most good.”
“But I can’t force her to seek help,” Mark protested.
“She called us, didn’t she?” Stan quipped, before adjourning the meeting until the following week. “That fact suggests that our Miss Todd is starting to move toward acceptance at a faster rate than you may have realized.”
* * *
HE LEANED HIS HEAD against the back of the couch and released a long sigh, his dilemma over what to do as worrisome as ever. Sure, there was a part of him that wanted nothing more than an excuse to drive out to Bucket List 101 again and see Emily. There was something about her spark, her spirit, that made him feel more alive than he had in months. But he couldn’t ignore the other part, either—the part that wanted to protect his son’s heart by keeping her at arm’s length.
“Don’t get close, don’t get hurt,” he mumbled under his breath.
It was a good motto. One that would keep him from ever seeing the kind of heart-wrenching ache he’d been unable to erase from Seth’s eyes during Sally’s illness.
His mind made up, Mark reached for his cell phone and the foundation’s volunteer list. Bob McKeon was aces. Clients seemed to really love his gentle, straightforward approach. And with any luck, Emily would feel the same way.
Emily.
Once again, the woman who’d captivated his son over a sand castle and a pepperoni pizza flashed before his eyes, causing him to pause, his finger on the keypad of his phone.
Emily was struggling on the first rung of a ladder he knew all too well. He’d seen it in her face when he talked to her about the foundation. He’d heard it in her voice when she’d brushed off his concern about the pain in her leg. And he’d sensed it in the unwavering determination that made her refuse help for even the simplest of things.
She needed a hand.
The kind of hand Seth had given Sally when Mark had been stuck on the same rung as Emily, ignoring reality because he’d thought it would be easier somehow.
But it wasn’t.
In fact, in many ways, lingering on that rung had made everything more painful in the end.
The whole reason he’d gotten involved with the foundation was to make up for his selfish behavior during Sally’s illness. To push Emily off on Bob when she needed a friendly face and an encouraging word would dishonor the vow he’d made to himself over his wife’s grave.
No. Mark wasn’t turning his back on people during difficult times. At least, he’d never intended to be that way.
Closing the phone, he tossed it onto the coffee table, the determination he’d once prided himself on prior to Sally’s illness and death returning for the first time in entirely too long.
He would talk to Emily. He would help her reach the next rung of the ladder, by convincing her to accept assistance from the foundation. And he would do that for her just as he would for any other potential client.
Because that’s what she was, what she needed to be.
For Seth’s own good.
Chapter Five
Emily was just wrapping up a class on outdoor survival when Mark walked in, his tall, w
ell-built form commanding attention and drawing the heads of all three female students in his direction. A quick search of his face and stance turned up nothing to indicate there was trouble at home. But still, not to call? Something had to have come up.
In a flash, Mark was at her side, his hand on her arm, his husky voice in her ear. “Are you okay?”
Feeling the questioning eyes of her students, she yanked free of his grip, dropping her voice to a whisper. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He stepped back as if he’d been slapped. “You were in pain again. I saw it in your eyes just now.”
“Pain? I wasn’t in any…” Her words trailed off as she put two and two together, then turned to address the three women and four men who had just taken the first of four classes designed to teach them how to survive in the wild. “I want to thank all of you for such a fun and energetic class today. Hopefully I answered all of your great questions and that you’re looking forward to next week’s class as much as I am.”
A muted chorus of agreement rang out as all seven made their way toward the door, several of them stopping to glance back first at Mark and then Emily, the unease on their faces igniting her fury all over again.
When they were safely out of the room and down the hall, she turned back to him. “How dare you make my students doubt my ability to run this class!”
“Doubt your ability? Where on earth did you get—wait. Wait just a minute. I didn’t do that,” he protested. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“By making a production in front of them? About pain I wasn’t having? Oh, okay.” She heard the sarcasm in her voice and forced her mouth closed over the rest of her rant.
He stared at her and then broke left and began pacing around the classroom. “But I saw the flash of pain in your eyes when I walked into the room.”
She rested her hands on her hips. “That wasn’t pain. It was worry.”
He stopped midstep and met her eyes. “Okay. And I get that. It’s why I’m here, actually.” He lifted his left hand to brandish some colorful brochures featuring the same logo as the business card he’d given her two days earlier. “We got your call at the foundation and we’re so glad that you’re reconsidering the idea of accepting help from us. These pamphlets will give you an idea of the kinds of things we can do to help—”
“You’re here because of the message I left on your voice mail?”
“Yes.”
She brought her hands to her cheeks and worked to steady her breathing, the meaning behind Mark’s statement becoming crystal clear. “I didn’t call because I want some sort of help from your foundation,” she snapped.
His eyebrows rose. “Then why did you call?”
“Why did I call?” she echoed in a tone that was bordering on shrill. “Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe I was worried?”
“About what?” he asked.
“Not what, who.” She kept her focus firmly on his face as she filled in the blanks he was so obviously missing. “As in worried about Seth. And you.”
“You were worried about Seth and me? But why?”
She considered turning her back on him and simply walking away, but opted instead to have her say. “Maybe because I saw the way his face lit up when we agreed on a time for our first rock-climbing adventure, which should have had the two of you walking through that door yesterday morning.” Sure enough, the color drained from his face as she continued, his genuine cluelessness over his faux pas making her even angrier. “I know what kind of dad you are. I’d be an idiot not to see that. So I think it’s fairly understandable why I’d chalk up your no-show to something being wrong, instead of just you blowing off a promise you made to your kid.”
Taking two steps backward, he sank into a chair and raked a hand across his face. “And so you called the foundation to see if we were okay?”
“It was the only number I had.”
He closed his eyes momentarily, only to open them again with obvious hesitation. “Oh, man. I’m sorry, Emily. I didn’t realize…”
Feeling her anger edge toward an unexplained sadness, she waved his words aside. “Look, just tell me he’s okay. Beyond that, I don’t need or want to hear anything else.”
Mark’s eyes stopped just shy of meeting hers. “He’s fine. We just, um, had other things to do.”
“Other things to do,” she repeated, as if hearing the words out of her own mouth would somehow take the sting out of them. It didn’t.
And it was her own fault. So they’d talked on a beach—big deal. So they’d laughed together for hours over pizza—big deal. So Seth had seemed to respond to her as strongly as she did to him—big deal. It had been one evening—one measly two or three hours.
The fact that she’d given the encounter a second thought, let alone allowed it to excite her while simultaneously meaning so little to the man sitting in front of her, was embarrassing.
She turned toward the door. “Well, I’m sorry you drove all the way out here just to inform me you had better things to do yesterday than show up for a class you scheduled. Take care of yourself, and say hi to Seth for me.”
“Emily, wait. It’s not what you think.”
She stopped. “And you know what I’m thinking now, too?”
“Yeah. That I’m an insensitive jerk.”
She opened her mouth, only to shut it without uttering a word. Really, why argue the truth?
“But it’s not like that. Not in the way that you think, anyway.” The legs of Mark’s chair scraped against the linoleum floor as he rose to his feet and closed the gap between them. “I decided to refrain from coming here with Seth yesterday because of him. Or, rather, for him, actually.”
“I don’t understand.” She dropped her hands to her hips again. “Your son was beside himself with excitement at the pizza place just thinking about learning how to climb. How could your decision not to show up be for him?”
Mark shifted foot from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable with their discussion. “I—I can’t allow him to hurt like he has this past year. Not knowingly, anyway. To do so would make me a pretty crappy dad.”
“Teaching him how to rock climb would make you a crappy dad?” she asked in confusion, just as some semblance of a reason hit home. “Is this about safety? Because if it is, you have to believe I know what I’m doing. Teaching these kinds of skills is my job, Mark. It’s how I make my living. He would have been perfectly safe.”
An awkward and all-too-telling pause caught her by surprise.
“Wait a minute. Please don’t tell me you doubt my ability because I have MS?”
For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to answer, but in the end he did, his words suddenly making it difficult for her to breathe. “It’s not your ability in light of the MS that I’m worried about, Emily.”
“Then what?” she whispered.
“It’s the threat your condition wields over my son’s heart.”
“Your son’s heart? What on earth are you talking about?”
She watched as Mark walked aimlessly around the room, clenching and unclenching his hands. When he finally turned to face her, the pain in his eyes was like a lightning bolt to her chest, swift and unmistakable. “Most three-year-olds spend their days playing. Girls with their dolls, and boys with their cars and trucks. When they grow tired of that, they retire to a couch to watch their favorite show on TV, snacking on a hot-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookie with a tall glass of cold milk
and a straw. It’s the way it’s supposed to be, you know?”
Without waiting for a response she was at a loss to provide, he continued, his words, his tone, taking on the emotion evident on his face. “Seth didn’t have that. Not beyond his first three years, anyway. No, Seth’s playtime was spent in medical offices and hospital rooms. And instead of watching cartoon characters chasing each other all over the television screen, he watched his mom grow sicker and sicker, and sicker until she slipped from his life completely.”
Swallowing over the lump that grew in her throat, Emily took a step forward. “Oh, Mark, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize just how awful it was for the two of—”
He held up his hands, cutting her off. “I can’t take that experience away from him. I can’t go back and airbrush out all his pain and anguish, regardless of how much I wish I could. But what I can do is protect the rest of his childhood. Keep him from having to go through something like that ever again.”
Suddenly the reason the pair had failed to show the day before was as plain as the nose on her face. And she didn’t like it one bit.
“Wait, please. Are you telling me you didn’t want to bring him here to rock climb with me because you’re afraid I’m going to die on him like his mother did?”
Mark’s glance at the floor was all the answer she needed.
“First of all, a quick fact check. I have multiple sclerosis. And while MS can be a debilitating disease, the likelihood that it’s going to kill me is slim to none. Will it shorten my life? Maybe, but only by about five percent. Five percent. The chance I’ll die being run over by a bus in downtown Winoka is probably higher than that.”
Slowly he lifted his head. “But—”
“And second, Seth barely knows me. I mean, c’mon, you really think a few hours at a pizza parlor and a few more spent learning to climb rocks would leave him so enamored with me that he’d be seriously impacted by some unexpected decline in my health? Because I certainly don’t—”
Storybook Dad (Harlequin American Romance) Page 5
