by Arlene James
Intending to drop off the invitations and go, Anna stood shivering inside her cowboy boots, leggings and oversize, dark red sweater on the veranda of Chatam House at precisely five o’clock that afternoon. She rang the bell with her elbow, the box of invitations secure in her arms, her keys dangling from her teeth. The keys hit the deck when Reeves opened that yellow door.
She truly had not expected to see him, had counted on not doing so, in fact. Given what had happened between them the last time they’d met, she had figured he would be as wary of seeing her again as she was of meeting up with him. Yet, there he stood wearing a huge grin, along with comfortable jeans, athletic shoes and a long-sleeved rusty orange T-shirt.
“Oops,” he said. Bending, he swept up the keys and backed out of the doorway so she could enter. “Trade you,” he said, reaching for the box.
She pocketed the keys somewhat warily. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I’m trying to cut back on my hours a bit, spend a little more time with Gilli.”
“Ah. She must be pleased.”
“Not pleased enough to miss a fast-food dinner and playdate, I’m afraid. She’s with my stepmother and baby sister. My father had a business dinner, so it seemed like a good time to get the girls together. I’m just the drop-off and pickup service today.”
“That’s all right,” Anna told him. “At least you’re here to do it. That’s what matters, believe me.”
The sharp planes of his face softened. “I believe you.”
Suddenly her heartbeat doubled. Good sense told her that it was stupid to be here yearning for what she’d already accepted would never be hers. She should go. She’d done her job and done it well. The invitations had been delivered; she knew they were perfect, so the Chatams could have no complaint. No one in her right mind would keep opening the same wormy can, but here she was, just as helplessly dim-witted as she’d been way back at the beginning of high school. Lest she doubt it, when Reeves beckoned, she followed him.
He spoke to her over his shoulder as he led the way, not into the parlor but down the hallway to the right of the sweeping staircase, where she had never ventured. “The aunties are cracking the whip in the ballroom. They’ve set up something of a production line. I suspect they’ll have these in the mail within the hour.”
They walked past a sumptuously appointed library that would have made many small towns envious before they came to a small, closed door.
“What’s in there?” she asked, her curiosity temporarily overriding everything else.
“Music room,” he told her, walking on toward the nearest of two sets of broad pocket doors. “Sections of one wall slide apart so that it opens into the ballroom.”
Music rooms, cloakrooms, ballrooms…Despite the number of times she’d been in this house, it was hard to believe anyone lived this way. She suddenly felt as if she’d fallen down the rabbit hole.
Reeves turned right and disappeared. Anna followed, coming to an abrupt halt as the cavernous space beyond those pocket doors revealed itself. That rabbit hole turned out not to be far off the mark. It was like something right out of a fairy tale: marble and gilt and burnished oak with ceiling-to-floor windows draped in muted blue and yellow, crystal and a coffered ceiling overhead. Anna stared, unabashedly taking in every detail, while Reeves carried the box to a table set up at the near end of the room.
The exclamations of the aunties, as Reeves called them, and their “production line” pulled Anna’s attention back to the matter at hand.
“Oh, Anna Miranda, they’re wonderful!” Odelia gushed, hurrying across the floor to hug her. Fortunately, given the older woman’s penchant for big jewelry, fur dangled from her earlobes, big balls of white fluff that perfectly matched the cuffs and collar of her purple-and-white windowpane-check dress, not to mention the pompoms on her shoes, which looked suspiciously like white bedroom slippers. Anna grinned with delight.
“I’m so glad you’re pleased.”
Odelia linked arms with her and towed her across the room, where Hypatia was calling her babbling troops to order.
“Ladies, ladies. Your attention, please.” Her hands folded at her waist, Hypatia announced importantly, “Our graphic designer, Anna Burdett.”
A wave of delicate applause followed. Anna knew all but a couple of the faces around that table. She was surprised but relieved not to see her grandmother’s among them, even as she did the polite thing.
“Thank you. That’s very kind but not at all necessary.”
“It definitely is,” Reeves refuted, examining one of the invitations that the ladies were now eagerly removing from the box. “You’ve captured the spirit of the thing exactly, an excellent job.”
Anna was so nonplussed by his praise that she didn’t even manage a thank-you this time.
Hypatia waved a hand dismissively, ordering, “Now run along, the two of you. We have work to do.”
Winking, Reeves caught Anna’s hand in his, and she found herself once again being towed across that marble floor.
“I have something for you,” he told her, “something I think you’ll find interesting. I didn’t know what to do with it, at first. Then I hit on the idea of a database.”
Puzzled, Anna allowed herself to be swept back along the hall and into the library.
“Sit,” he directed, waving toward a pair of black leather armchairs positioned at slight angles to a most unusual rectangular table. Atop it lay an orange binder. “Relax,” he invited, moving to an oddly shaped cabinet standing against one wall. “Get comfortable.”
Anna did neither. She was too busy wondering how he could behave so casually. Didn’t he remember that he’d kissed her? To cover her agitation, she ran her hand over the glossy, coppery wood.
“I’ve never seen a table like this. What is it?” she asked, examining the unique diamond-shaped marquetry on the side and legs.
Reeves glanced back over his shoulder. “It’s a Henredon. We know that because it’s signed underneath. I believe the style is called Chinese Chippendale.”
Anna fought the urge to drop to all fours to check out that signature, not that she had any idea who Henredon might be. “What kind of wood?”
“Light red mahogany, I believe. Grandpa Hub was especially proud of that piece.”
“I can imagine.”
“What’ll you have?” he asked, opening the upper doors of the cabinet to reveal a beverage bar, complete with a small sink, a row of empty crystal decanters and a silver ice bucket, along with various sodas, bottled water, a box of powdered drinks and an electric teapot. “We’ve got tea, coffee, tea, apple cider, tea, cocoa and, of course, tea.” Tossing her a grin, he opened a lower door and took out a mug. “I’m going for the cider myself.” She watched him tear open a packet, dump the contents into the mug and pour in hot water. “There’s ice if you’d prefer a cold drink.”
“Uh.” She waved a hand. “Whatever. So long as it’s hot.”
“Okay, cider it is.”
He went through the process again, stirred both cups and carried them to the table. She winced when he set the steaming drinks on that lovely wood. He folded down into the chair facing hers, picked up one of the mugs and sat back to sip.
“Mmm, not bad.”
He looked at her over the rim of his mug, and Anna’s every nerve ending quivered. She snatched up the other mug and stuck her nose in it.
“Very nice. Uh, you…you said something about a database?”
“Mmm.” Leaning forward, he set aside the mug and reached for the binder on the table. “I ran across some interesting info recently, and I thought you might like to see it.”
“Info,” she parroted uncertainly.
“About the many applications of your particular expertise.”
“Expertise?” She shook her head, feeling particularly idiotic. “I don’t understand.”
He laid the folder in her lap, picked up his mug and leaned back. “I was surprised, frankly, by how many industries
and processes require graphic artists. Many are work-from-home positions.”
Anna stared at him uncomprehendingly for long seconds, until he dropped his gaze, saying tentatively, “You seem unhappy with your current employment. I thought this might help.”
It hit her then, like a sledgehammer to the back of the skull. He’d put this together, or had it put together, because of what she’d said about Dennis and her job. She got her mug back onto the table without spilling her drink and opened the binder.
Page after page after page of job descriptions, business perspectives, Web site addresses, even names and contacts, all for graphic artists. All for her. Something lurched and stretched inside of her, like a sleeper awakened from a long, unknowing slumber. It thrilled and terrified her all at the same time.
“Why?” was the only thing she could think to say.
“To thank you,” Reeves said, sounding earnest and fond. “You’ve been so kind to Gilli and the aunties. I know they can be demanding, time-consuming and—”
“No! Oh, no,” she cut in. “Gilli’s a delight, and your aunts, well, they’ve been utterly charming to work with.”
He smiled knowingly. “Charming is their stock-in-trade, as I’m sure you know. It’s how they get exactly what they want.”
“And you obviously learned at their knees,” she muttered, thinking better of it only when it was too late. As usual.
He opened his mouth as if to reply but then said not a word. Quickly she tucked the binder beneath her arm and rose, her cheeks heating. How blatant could she be, for pity’s sake?
“It’s very thoughtful of you to, er, think of me.” She edged away from the chair, babbling, “Sorry I have to run. Tell Gilli…” Her brain stuttering, she pasted on a fatuous smile and finished lamely with, “You know. And, um…Bye.”
He was still sitting there impersonating a cod when she turned her back and all but ran, that binder clutched to her chest. She knew that she was going to treasure the silly thing for the rest of her days simply because he had put it together for her.
“To thank you,” he’d said. For being kind, no less. For failing to live up to his worst expectations of the brat, more like.
Yes, she would treasure the folder and the effort that it represented, but that was it. Period. End of story. End of dream. End of foolishness. Gratitude, however well meant, would never be enough for her, and that’s all she could ever realistically expect from him. So this, then, was also the end of hope.
It was better that way, she decided, for hope invariably brought the pain of disappointment.
Chapter Nine
Charm! Reeves stared into the mug of cooling cider and looked for some element of truth in the undissolved powder that settled on the bottom of the cup. They must have different definitions of the term. First, he’d given her a hard time, followed by a meaningless box of chocolates and a thank-you card, for Valentine’s, no less. Then he’d given her a database of job prospects and a cup of powdered apple cider.
Yeah, he was smooth, all right.
Marissa had not found him charming, at least not once they’d wed. She had called him dull and cold and unimaginative, while explaining that she needed a “real” man to make her feel like a woman.
What did Anna need? he wondered. What did Anna want? He was pretty sure about one thing. She did not seem to look at his Chatam connections and see dollar signs.
He suspected that was the only reason Marissa had married him. She had been so disappointed to realize that he would likely never see a nickel of the Chatam millions. He suspected that his own mother had blown her inheritance ages ago, and even if she had not, he had three siblings in direct line for that money. As for the aunties, so far they had five nephews, seven nieces and seven greats of one gender or the other. He would be foolish in the extreme to count on inheriting anything from them. Why should he? He made a good living, but that hadn’t been enough for Marissa.
He sat there shaking his head and listening to the grandfather clock in the corner tick off the seconds until it was time to go after Gilli. Rising, he carried both barely touched mugs to the sink. Without a word to anyone, he got his brown leather jacket and went out to his car.
Little more than fifteen minutes later, he walked through the fast-food restaurant toward the indoor playground. He opened the glass door that segregated the children’s space from a restaurant full of strangers and walked into earsplitting chaos. Surveying the crowd of parents and children for his daughter, he spied instead the long auburn hair of his stepmother, Layla, his father’s third wife.
All of five years his senior, Layla had been his father’s legal secretary and was now the mother of his nearly four-year-old baby sister Myra, whom Reeves saw next. Myra wore a pink-and-white polka-dot bow in the sleek auburn hair that she had inherited from her mother. Her knit pantsuit matched the bow, as did the bows on her black Mary Janes. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a picture book. Beside her, in head-to-toe maroon suede, Layla just looked angry. It was only when Layla shook her finger in Gilli’s face that he finally found his daughter.
Gilli was sobbing. Her curly hair stuck out in a dozen places, as if she’d been pulled headfirst through the towering maze of crawling tubes. Bedraggled and dirty, she looked like a street urchin next to Myra. Sighing, Reeves made his way through the churning bodies and din to their table, arriving in time to hear Layla yell, “Never again!”
“Never again what?” he asked loudly.
Layla turned on him, her otherwise attractive face twisted into a disapproving mask. She thrust a perfectly manicured finger at Gilli. “That child is incorrigible! She attacked Myra!”
Gilli wailed even louder. Standing there in the midst of the madness, Reeves felt as if his head would explode, but for once he was going to give Gilli the benefit of the doubt. Seizing each of the girls by a hand, he turned and hauled them through the crowd and out the door, leaving Layla to gather their things and follow as she saw fit. The instant the din of the playroom dimmed behind them, Gilli’s sobs waned, too. She was mostly gasping and shuddering by the time he found a quiet corner booth and parked her and Myra on opposite sides of it.
“What’s this about?” he asked as Layla came huffing up behind him. He went down on his haunches, keeping his voice low. “Gilli, I want you to tell me why you hit Myra.”
Gilli’s head came up, and she wailed, “Myra pull my hair!”
Reeves turned to his baby sister, whose chin now rested on her chest, and asked, “Myra, why did you pull Gilli’s hair?”
Myra looked up, her dark eyes sparkling with tears. After a moment, she whispered, “Gilli wins. Ever time we race, she always wins.”
Reeves knew instantly what had happened. They were racing around the climbing structure to see who could get on the ladder next, and Gilli had been in the lead. “Did you grab her hair on purpose?” To her credit, Myra nodded glumly. “So you yanked her hair and Gilli punched you in retaliation,” he clarified, making sure Layla heard every word.
“I didn’t see that,” Layla said crisply. “I just saw Gilli hit Myra.”
Reeves heart wrung. How many times had he just assumed that Gilli was the lone culprit? He cleared his throat and calmly went on.
“So you’re both to blame, which means that you have something to say to each other, doesn’t it?”
Myra sank a little lower on the bench before muttering, “I’m sorry I pulled your hair, Gilli.”
Gilli straightened and wiped at her glimmering eyes, leaving dirty smears on her face. “Sorry, too.”
“All right,” Reeves said, smiling, “I think we’re done here. Time to go.”
He twisted up and out of the booth, reaching for Gilli’s coat. As she slid to the floor, he shook out the coat then began helping her into it. Gilli looked up at him, gratitude shining in her eyes, and her little hand crept into his. Pride swelled in him.
Turning to his stepmother, he quietly said, “Next time, get the full story.” She nodded
curtly, her gaze averted. “Say goodbye, girls,” he instructed.
They exchanged waves and overly cheery “byes.”
Reeves squeezed Gilli’s hand, and together they walked out to the car. As he was lifting her into her seat, he thought he ought to clarify a few things while he was still in her good graces.
“Gilli,” he said, “no matter what someone else does to you, it’s not okay to hit or pull hair. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“I expect you and Myra to behave better next time. Understand?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Good. Let’s get you buckled in.”
“No!”
Shocked by her sudden vehemence, he opened his mouth to scold, but she threw her arms around his neck and squeezed tight, whispering, “Love you, Daddy.”
Gulping, he wrapped his long arms around her. “I love you, too, sugar.” Drawing back, he cupped her face in his big hands and studied it. What he saw took his breath away. “You’re a happier girl now, aren’t you, my Gilli?”
She nodded. He wasn’t sure she really understood the question, but she was eager to give him whatever answer he wanted, and that was more than answer enough.
“I’m a happier daddy, too,” he told her, bending to kiss her forehead.
She grinned just as if she knew that she was the reason, and of course she was, but it wasn’t just her.
He knew who got the credit for this unexpected turn of events. First, God Almighty, Who had commanded the honeybees to drive them out of their house, and second, the aunties with their calm, charming, interfering faith and the warm sanctuary of Chatam House. And finally, Anna.
So much for which to be thankful. So many reasons to praise his Lord.
“Sweet Jesus,” he whispered, standing beside his car there in the cold parking lot, his happy child safely buckled inside. “Sweet, sweet Jesus. Thank You.”
