Mr. Elliott Finds a Family

by Susan Floyd

  “If you have any problems, any problems at all, just call and we’ll send a man out immediately.”

  “Thank you. I’ve got your number.”

  “I’m hoping you won’t have to use it.” The plumber grinned and then he tipped his hat. “Ma’am.”

  Then, it was quiet.

  The wind rustled the remaining box that Bernie sat in. The toddler was surprisingly quiet as she watched Christian and her mother. Beth Ann didn’t speak, and Christian stared at Beth Ann, hoping she wasn’t as angry as she appeared. He knew he should have consulted her. But he also knew that if he had asked, she would’ve refused. He didn’t know what had moved him to do what he just had. He simply wanted to give to Beth Ann in the same manner she gave to him.

  Hell. Most women would be delighted to find that all their old broken-down kitchen appliances had been replaced or that a brand new TV and dishwasher had come into the family. Most women would think he was the most wonderful man in the world. But not this one. Christian couldn’t suppress his disappointment at her cool reaction to his efforts.

  He also couldn’t control how aware he had become of her every movement, her every smell, the scent of her watercolors becoming more of an aphrodisiac than the most expensive perfume in Paris. He didn’t dare touch her, because that meant he would have to kiss her, but it didn’t keep him from sitting on the back steps after Iris and Bernie went to bed, hoping that she would sit close and talk to him. And she always did.

  Now, her natural friendliness had evaporated as she pulled her arms tightly across her breasts. Jeez. He had managed to bring them into the twenty-first century, and she didn’t look a bit appreciative. In fact, Beth Ann looked as if he had committed some cardinal sin of generosity. If espresso-brown eyes could spray bullets, he’d be dragging himself to the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds.

  Christian tried again. “I’m not sure I’m understanding what the problem is.”

  The bullets again. He fought the reflex to duck.

  “So I now have a television set, a satellite dish, a dishwasher and a garbage disposal.”

  Christian hesitated and then added sheepishly, “And a refrigerator, new gas range, a washer and dryer.”

  “Any new wallpaper?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. He didn’t exactly know what that meant, and it made him cautious. Christian Elliott rarely got caught with his pants down, but he was now thinking he didn’t know her well enough to negotiate this transaction. Perhaps he should have discussed this with her before making it happen. Then he wondered why he was defending his actions. It wasn’t as if he’d done something awful. Right? Except why didn’t she look at him adoringly, then, as if he had done something heroic, rather than just twisted the head off her pet canary?

  “I think all the new things are wonderful,” Iris said overbrightly.

  They both turned to look at her. He’d forgotten she was in the room.

  Iris continued, “I’m glad he got a television big enough so I could see the screen. Now I can watch old movies.”

  Christian could have kissed Iris, as Beth Ann’s face softened just a little. No bullets for Iris, but he knew he wasn’t in the clear yet.

  “Well, I guess it’ll be a little while before the satellite dish works,” she conceded. “We have a few more days before we let the real world in.”

  Christian shook his head again. “Well, no. Actually, it works now. They make it really easy.”

  “TV, TV, TV,” Bernie chanted.

  “I thought she could watch the children’s channel and I had them deliver a couple of videos, too. The show about some purple dinosaur—”

  Beth Ann couldn’t contain herself any longer. She couldn’t.

  “Can I talk to you in the kitchen please?” She gritted her teeth, unable to really express how she felt in front of Iris and Bernie.

  “Now, gee. Even though you ask so nice, I don’t think I want to,” Christian said warily, his silver eyes on her face. “Maybe later, when you don’t look like you’re seeking the death penalty.”

  Beth Ann would have laughed at his expression, as endearingly pleading as it was, if she weren’t so darned mad at him. She turned on her heel and marched into the kitchen, fully expecting him to follow.

  Behind her, she heard a heavy sigh and then his quiet footsteps.

  “I still don’t understand the problem,” he said, his voice carefully modulated.

  “I am not a client you need to negotiate with,” she spit out.

  “I know that.”

  “This is my family, my house, my life. You can’t just come in here and change things because you can’t live without CNN.”

  “It’s not just that,” he said reasonably.

  “What is it?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”

  “Because I knew you’d refuse.”

  Beth Ann was at a loss for words. Of course, she would refuse. Any sane, reasonable person would refuse. Why she hardly knew the man. You know him well enough to leave your most precious possessions with him. She squelched that thought. It wasn’t as if she really was leaving Bernie and Iris in his care. She was on the premises at all times. She glanced at her kitchen. It looked old compared to the shiny newness of the appliances—top of the line, superexpensive appliances. She could barely stand it.

  Finally, she said flatly, “Take them back.”

  Christian’s eyes narrowed in response to her imperious tone. “That would be a dumb thing to do.” There was no mistaking the insult in his voice.

  She glanced at the appliances and secretly agreed with him. It would be a dumb thing to do, but she said instead, trying a different tactic, “We don’t need charity.”

  Christian’s handsome mouth tightened with annoyance. He waited so long to answer, Beth Ann actually thought he was counting backward from ten. When he spoke, his voice was even. “You want to know what started it?”

  Beth Ann refused to be intimidated and took a deep breath, crossing her arms, pressing them hard against her rib cage. “Okay. Sure,” she said shortly. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  She finally looked up at him surprised to find something that resembled finely tuned irritation in his smoky eyes. What in the world did he have to be angry about? It was her house he was disrupting.

  “Yes,” she said more calmly, and relaxed the death grip on her chest. “I really want to know.”

  “I was looking for a safe stove.”

  “A what?”

  “Well, you didn’t want to lock Iris in at night, but on the other hand, Iris and the stove just aren’t a good combination and sooner or later, you’d be standing outside in your see-through nightie while the firemen sprayed water over what they could salvage.”

  “You can see through my nightie?” Beth Ann looked away, her face flushing. Why hadn’t she realized he would have a good reason for his generosity? She hated the fact that Christian was right. There was going to come a time when she wouldn’t catch Iris trying to cook, when the house would go up in flames. And she hated him for pointing out to her that she’d better break down and buy a new nightgown.

  “And so?” Her voice sounded very cold, even to her.

  “And so,” he replied matching her tone for tone, “I knew there must be a stove out there that was smart. That you could lock or something. That would only work when you wanted it to. And I found it. They make them in Germany.”

  “This came from Germany?” Could it get even more ridiculous? Christian Elliott had ordered a smart stove from Germany.

  “It would’ve been here yesterday, but they had an airline delay,” Christian said, his voice tight.

  “Oh, an airline delay.” Her eyes wandered to the refrigerator. “Is that smart, too?”

  Christian nodded. “It’s a set, along with the dishwasher.”

  “So you bought me a smart kitchen.” She tried to smile. “Does it do the cooking, too?”

  Christian laughed shor
tly, but there was no humor in his tone, “No. You still have to do that.”

  “I suppose. So tell me what that stove does.” She really didn’t want to know, because then she would have to swallow her pride and be forced to acknowledge the extent of his thoughtfulness.

  “It’s gas, but it’s digitally wired. You need to punch in a code before it will start. You can change the code as often as you like. It keeps small children safe as well as older folk.” As he spoke, he leaned against the wall, his hands jammed into his pockets. If she didn’t know better, she would swear that beneath his placid facade lurked some seriously hurt feelings. The clipped tone of his voice confirmed what she thought. “That way, you don’t have to worry about Iris. She can get anything she wants from the fridge, but she can’t turn on the stove without your code.”

  Beth Ann sat down hard and put her face in her hands. He had every reason to have hurt feelings. She felt awful. Awful and embarrassed. After a long moment, she ventured to look at him through her fingers. “And the dishwasher, garbage disposal, washer, dryer, television and satellite?” She made a special effort to make her voice more curious than condemning.

  The hurt feelings seemingly buried, Christian grinned at her, his even teeth flashing, his tone wry. “I was on a roll. If you really hate the television, we can get you a smaller one. But I do think it would be good for Iris. You know how much she loves looking at her old family photos. Letting her watch old movies may help keep her mind agile. Might help keep her focused. I know that’s what you want.”

  Beth Ann nodded and replied faintly, “Yes. That’s what I want.” She shot a quick look at him. “May I ask how much this all cost?”

  Christian shrugged, his eyes shuttered. “You can ask, but I won’t tell you.”

  “I’ll try to pay you back.” She looked away, tears of stress filling her eyes. “Maybe if I sell a couple of paintings, I can give you a down payment.”

  “No,” Christian said impatiently, his lips tight. “It’s not about the money.”

  Beth Ann gave a weak laugh. “Not for you maybe.”

  Christian crossed the space between them, and leaned toward her, his face close. She could smell the mint on his breath. “Listen to me. Bernie is my wife’s daughter, not to mention, a very wealthy young lady. If you want to pay me back, we’ll take it out of next year’s dividends.”

  Beth Ann shook her head. “That won’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Bernie’s not going to have DirectTech. I’m going to refuse it no matter what you say.”

  “And what if I won’t let you?” His voice was dangerously calm.

  “Then I’ll sign it over to a good cause. If you don’t want it back, then some charity’s going to love you.”

  “It’s not your company to sign away,” he said decisively. “It’s Bernie’s.”

  Beth Ann didn’t know if she should be insulted or pleased he cared so much about Bernie. Either way she could barely speak, her mind was so full of what was happening at that moment. For a lack of anything better to say, she asked, plain and baldly, her voice a lot sharper than she intended, “Why do you even care?”

  Christian couldn’t answer her question. Why did he care? If he had stayed with his original travel plans, he’d be sitting in an isolated chalet, sipping the finest wine in the world. He wouldn’t be standing in a well-worn kitchen fighting with one of the most obstinate women he had ever met in his life. He also wouldn’t be trying to cajole a two-year-old to eat her applesauce or fixing an octogenarian a special egg, sunny-side up.

  He’d be alone.

  Just like he’d been all his life, even when he was married to Caroline. He cared because for the first time in his very privileged life, he wasn’t treated as if he was privileged. It was as if Beth Ann didn’t realize he was a man of enormous wealth. Or maybe she didn’t care. Which was why, when he displayed such wealth, even in an act of generosity, she was outraged, insulted or something he couldn’t even put a finger on.

  Usually she treated him like an ordinary person and obviously, his money meant nothing to someone who hadn’t started with much. He felt a twinge of guilt. Was that what all those appliances were about? Was he trying to buy her acceptance under the guise of giving her something she desperately needed? He stopped the self-analysis. She needed the appliances. She needed a new roof and real air-conditioning instead of an antique swamp cooler that wasn’t going to make it through the rest of the summer.

  He stared at Beth Ann who stared back at him, her full mouth tight with her disapproval and Christian just wanted to shake some sense into her, his frustration with her stubbornness at accepting help in any form even if it was hers to begin with at an all-time high. But somewhere beneath that frustration was a deep sense that never in his whole life had he ever met a woman like Beth Ann, someone so totally unimpressed with his wealth that he had to measure up as a person in order to be let into her private circle.

  That was why he cared. But he couldn’t tell her that. He said instead, “I just wanted to make your life a little easier.”

  “Why?”

  Christian laughed. “I’ve taken care of Bernie for nearly three weeks now and, no offense, but she’s frankly, er, challenging. I can’t imagine the sacrifices you’ve made to raise her. No wonder your painting has suffered. Why wouldn’t I want to help make your job easier?”

  “Who said anything about sacrifice?” Her voice hard, Beth Ann looked ready to do battle and Christian had no idea what had triggered the change in her. “Or that my art has suffered. How would you know that?”

  He answered as honestly as he could, hoping she would appreciate his straightforwardness, “All I have to do is look at you.” And he realized it was true. All he had to do was see her to know that the activity of her mind, seeing, thinking, painting had revived parts of herself that had been dormant for the past two years. He could see that as clearly as if she had told him. Her art was the only thing she refused to talk about.

  “Is that so?” Her voice was mildly curious, very low. “What makes you say that?”

  Christian shrugged, though he knew he had to tread carefully. “I see someone who’s afraid of taking the risks needed to paint. Someone who gets so much reward from being ‘mommy’ that she’s forgotten she’s anything else.”

  Beth Ann’s face turned bright red at the points of her cheeks and it took Christian a second to realize she was not embarrassed or impressed by his insight, but very, very, angry. However, nothing could have prepared him for the bitterness of her words.

  “So why couldn’t you do that with Carrie?” Her words were blunt and flat.

  Christian felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. He stared at her, not imagining so few words could stun him speechless. Her words hurt, not because of her tone, but because of the truth behind them. She had a valid question. Why couldn’t he have done that with Caroline? Maybe if he had been able to read her as well as he could read Beth Ann, Caroline wouldn’t have felt the need to go to all those parties, those cruises. Maybe she wouldn’t be dead. In the past eighteen months, he had spent a lot of time wondering what he had done wrong.

  He realized, in his short time here, that Caroline had been a hard person to know. Although outwardly more vivacious than Beth Ann, she’d been much more closed, more secretive. After seven years of marriage, he still hadn’t been able to tell what she was thinking, what made her tick, except to come to some abstract conclusion that money and lots of it somehow soothed whatever demons chased her. Beth Ann on the other hand was as open as a book. After three weeks, Christian felt as if he could breathe for her, he was so in tune with her needs.

  But obviously, she wasn’t looking for anyone to breathe for her, or help lighten her load, or even share her load. She liked having those burdens all to herself, squarely on top of her slender shoulders. Knowing that didn’t help. So Christian did what he had been trained to do all his life—even though he knew it frustrated the hell out of the peop
le he did it to—rather than engage in battle, he walked away.

  Beth Ann watched his silent departure and felt awful. And lonely. She hadn’t meant to say what she’d said. It had just come out. She tried to make herself feel better by rationalizing that if he had talked to her first rather than played King Midas, they could have come to some reasonable compromise. I knew you’d refuse. She got up and studied the gas range.

  “If you’re so smart, why didn’t you stop me before I said anything?” she asked it. She flipped through the owner’s manual and then put it down, actually uncomfortable with the fact that she had crossed the line. She had broken their implicit agreement and had used his evening confidences against him. She knew he felt enormous guilt for not paying enough attention to Carrie and that was clearly not the case with her. He paid too much attention, knew her needs too well and that was scary as hell. Beth Ann took a deep breath. The frozen look on Christian’s face was deeply, deeply troubling. She wandered over to the refrigerator, perfectly fit into the space allocated for it, vaguely aware that he must have had it special ordered. Her chest was tight, partly from shame and partly from— She couldn’t possibly love him. Could she? Of course not. He was her sister’s husband and a billionaire. Beth Ann sighed. When this babysitting job was done and over, he’d go to his chalet in the wine country and they’d never see him again. Or maybe he’d just drop them off an appliance every Christmas.

  It was as if dumping DirectTech on them could ease his responsibility to Carrie and to Bernie. She ran the garbage disposal, and took a deep breath. She didn’t like it one bit that he had replaced every appliance in her house, but she couldn’t fault his motives. She opened the dishwasher, surprised at all the space. She spotted a few empty cups and put them in, just to test it out. She looked around the kitchen. She did need new wallpaper now—the new appliances made it look drab and faded. Exactly the way she felt, drab and faded.

  She nodded, a brief flash of insight as to how Carrie must have felt when she’d been confined to this house for the duration of her pregnancy. She’d probably stared at the wallpaper and the old appliances and wished she were in a place where things were new and shiny.