To Wear His Ring

by Diana Palmer

  It was the perfect opportunity to tell him everything. They had more of a kinship than he had any idea of.

  The moment came. The moment went. With another small smile at her Chase stood.

  “I’d better get in there,” he said. “I’ll be picking him up in Fargo if we leave him alone too long.”

  Raising her brows in appreciation of the humor, Nettie stood and followed him into the kitchen. The ping-pong match between tell and don’t tell hadn’t lasted long, but residual tension curled in her stomach.

  Still working on the sandwich and chips, Colin was again immersed in one of Nettie’s books. He didn’t even glance up when his father walked in.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Chase opened the conversation with a well-restrained neutral tone, but only by a hair. “I thought you were right outside the house, playing. That’s where I expected you to be when I told you to play outside.” He paused. “When I realized you weren’t there and that your bike was gone, and I wasn’t sure how long…”

  Trying to be calm and rational was obviously too tall an order. Colin still hadn’t looked up, but Chase knelt by his son’s chair. In one swift movement, he gathered Colin in a hug as fierce as it was unexpected.

  “Don’t do that again! Don’t ever leave like that without telling me, okay?” All the emotions Chase said he couldn’t describe filled his voice as he held onto a child who was truly a small version of him. “You scared the cra—You scared me,” Chase breathed. “I thought something might have happened to you.”

  It was clearly their first hug; the moment seemed awkward and new.

  Colin sat stiffly at first, but the break in his father’s voice weakened his childish resolve not to care what Chase thought. Held against a man’s chest, tears sprang to his eyes and muffled his response. “Okay.”

  They remained there awhile and then released each other, Chase surreptitiously wiping his eyes before he pointed to the plate with Colin’s half-eaten snack. “That’s a good-looking sandwich,” he commented, trying to normalize the moment. “Are you enjoying it?”

  Colin nodded. “She makes good cookies, too.” He picked up one half of the sandwich and took an enthusiastic bite.

  “Cookies, too,” Chase murmured. He turned to Nettie. “Thanks. It seems cooking is not one of my inherent skills. I tried spaghetti last night. Canned sauce—how hard can that be?” He wagged his head. “It tasted like…”

  “Goop?” Nettie suggested when he had trouble finding an apt description. She lowered her voice as if slipping him the answer to a pop quiz. “You overcooked the pasta. Also, a little oil in the pot helps keep the noodles from sticking together.”

  Chase sent Colin a glare that was clearly playful. “Blabbermouth.” The little boy grinned. “We wind up eating a lot of baloney. I may be stunting his growth.”

  “He seems tall for his age. You’ve probably got a couple of inches to play with.” Nettie traded a smile with Chase and time hung, stealing her breath.

  It was Chase who broke the moment. “We’d better get out of your hair. Thanks for everything.” To his son, he instructed, “I’m sure Nettie has to get back to work. Tell her thank you for keeping you from starvation one more day and let’s get going.”

  “But I still gotta eat.” Colin protested, swinging his legs and pointing to the remaining half of his roast beef, turkey and cheese.

  “Grab it. You can eat in the car.”

  “Sure you can.” Fighting a wave of disappointment that they were leaving, Nettie wrapped Colin’s sandwich in a napkin. “There,” she said, handing it back to him, “that ought to keep the guts from leaking all over your father’s Porsche. Nothing sloppier than stacked sandwiches in sleek, shiny vehicles.” Colin giggled while Nettie segued from disappointment to a buzzing sense of urgency. Would she see them again? When did Chase plan to leave North Dakota? How inappropriate, stupid or out-and-out unwelcome would an invitation to dinner be?

  Before she had time to find out, Colin used his free hand to awkwardly scoop up the books he’d been perusing.

  “Can I take these to look at some more?” he asked Nettie.

  “Sure. Absolutely. I want you to keep them. They’re yours.”

  His eyes grew round with pleasure. “Thanks!” Colin breathed with the kind of excitement she might have expected him to reserve for a Harry Potter item. He swung around to look at his father, awkwardly juggling the large books and his sandwich. “She wrote these!” he trumpeted, sharing his awe. “And she drew the pictures. By herself. I can draw by myself. But not as good as this yet.”

  Relieving his son of the books, Chase examined them carefully before looking up at Nettie. He wore a somber, largely unreadable expression. “Not only an artist,” he said. “A children’s book author.” He read from the inside back flap. “‘Gifted author and illustrator Annette Ecklund…’” Arching a brow, he questioned, “Pen name?”

  His eyes narrowed and Nettie saw a hint of censure, heard a note of betrayal in his otherwise painstakingly even voice.

  “Kind of,” she answered quietly, holding his gaze, knowing the time for hiding in the shadows—professionally or personally—was coming to an end. “I use it as a pseudonym now. Annette Ecklund was my married name.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chase lowered the book he’d been reading to his lap and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d read a kid’s book, or two, in one night. In one sitting. Three times each.

  Behind his broad-backed chair, a standing lamp cast an amber glow in Nick’s den. A grandfather clock logged the time, its heavy pendulum clicking with slow, even precision. Chase wanted to get up, open the glass door and rip the pendulum from its housing. He didn’t need a reminder of the time. This night was crawling by like an arthritic turtle.

  Not that the reading material on his lap wasn’t entertaining. On the contrary. Annette Ecklund’s illustrated stories easily held an adult’s attention. And she certainly knew how to tickle a child’s imagination.

  She certainly knew children.

  Flipping the top book over, Chase opened the back cover and looked again at the studio portrait above her bio. She was beautiful, as always, but thinner in the photo, with a smile that appeared less spontaneous than it did in person.

  Who are you? He demanded of the photo for the umpteenth time that evening, but it remained stubbornly mum. Like the woman.

  He could no longer believe she’d rejected him because she didn’t like kids. That excuse had been shot full of holes. And clearly there had been a time when she had wanted commitment in a relationship.

  Closing the back cover, Chase laid both books on the table beside his chair and reached for the cognac he’d poured earlier. There was only a little left and he downed it in a gulp, welcoming the fire that burned a path down the back of his throat and into his stomach. Whom had Nettie Owens married? What man had inspired a commitment from her? And what had happened to end that commitment?

  Chase’s craving to know more—a lot more—about Nettie’s marriage had been driving him crazy all evening. After leaving her today, he’d spent the rest of the afternoon trying once again to get acquainted with his son. They had, in fact, had a better time of it, with chatter flowing more easily than it had before. They’d gone marketing at a large grocery two towns over, and Chase had dropped any pretense that he knew what he was doing when it came to the feeding of a seven-year-old boy.

  Interestingly, with his defenses lowered, he and Colin had become partners in the search for “bachelor food.” Together they had decided that the cooking of chicken was a mystery but that steak was worth a shot. Potatoes were easier than rice, and when Chase saw the vast assortment of frozen spuds, he almost wept, choosing cheese and bacon-stuffed potatoes for himself and letting Colin dump bags of tater tots, french fries and hash browns into their basket. By the time he handed his plastic over to the cashier, he knew he was going to buy the biggest freezer he could find when they moved to his apartment in New
York.

  That is, if New York was where they wound up. At the moment, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure. About anything.

  In the past he had taken pains not to base his career choices on anybody’s interests but his own. Part of him—sometimes a big part—longed to continue in that vein. It was easy.

  But it wasn’t the best thing for his son.

  Checking the grandfather clock, Chase saw that it was almost 11:00 p.m. Colin had been in bed for two hours. Already, Chase understood that enforcing bedtime was as much an opportunity to exert a little parental power as it was a way to make sure that Colin got his rest. Unfortunately for Chase, the hours between 9:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., when he typically retired, stretched like miles of inhospitable desert.

  Half sighing, half growling, he rose with his empty glass, deciding not to pour another. Prowling to the kitchen, working on the premise that a light snack might make him sleepy, he grabbed a box of the frozen toaster pastries Colin had suggested as a breakfast option—and which Chase had forgotten to freeze…oops. Well, they’d heat faster this way, he comforted himself, pulling two from the box.

  Nick’s ancient toaster took forever to spit anything out. Reaching into a bag of cream-filled wafer cookies that tasted like two pieces of cardboard stuck together with vanilla grout, Chase munched while he waited for his pastries, and then realized what he was doing. He was going to wind up in a diet group, learning how to make cottage cheese dip if he didn’t work out what to do with his nights—soon.

  Figuring at least one of the pastries had to be warm enough to eat, he reached into the toaster. He plucked gingerly, expecting the toaster to be reasonably warm, but apparently it worked faster and better than he’d originally assumed, and he burned his fingers.

  “Ow!” Pulling back and shaking his stinging hand, Chase stuck the two fingers in his mouth to cool them off. Anger made him more determined. He reached in again.

  “Ha, gotcha!” he crowed, extracting the rectangular Danish just as the doorbell rang. Startled, he whirled around, dropped his snack on the floor and swore.

  Who would be ringing Nick’s doorbell at this time of night? Taking an automatic step toward the living room before the latenight caller could awaken Colin, Chase brought his foot down directly on top of the fallen Danish. His bare foot. Hot raspberry filling squooshed out.

  “Ow! Sonova—”

  Hopping around, he swiped at the burning goo. A soft but insistent knock sounded at the door, and a split second later the toaster spit out the other pastry. Chase swore all the way around.

  Walking as much as he could on the side of his abused foot, he limped to the door and yanked it open, eager to vent an anger that had started long before he burned himself. He would begin by giving a piece of his mind to the person who dared to ring a doorbell at 11:00 p.m. out here in the middle of nowhereville, where decent people had gone to bed by now!

  Hand poised to knock, Nettie offered a tentative smile across the threshold.

  She looked as if she was arriving for afternoon tea, dressed in the same low-necked lavender sundress she’d worn the day they had first kissed. Fresh as a daisy—that’s how she looked, and it ticked him off royally, considering that she was one of the big reasons he hadn’t slept in several days…the main reason he was angry…the reason he’d decided to scarf toaster pastries at 11:00 p.m…the reason he’d stepped on hot raspberry goo.

  She widened her smile in greeting.

  Chase scowled harder.

  He was so damn glad to see her. Too glad. He wanted to grab her hand, pull her into the house, sit her down and talk to her about everything. Absolutely everything.

  Controlling himself, he leaned—lazily—against the doorjamb. “It’s late.”

  Undaunted by his rude excuse for a welcome, she nodded. “It is.”

  Chase waited, refusing to give an inch, refusing to feel guilty as her pretty fingers twined together.

  “Are you stopping by for eggs?” he baited, sounding like a snarly, sarcastic old coot. It took her only a moment to pick up on the reference.

  “No.” She shook her head and then sighed. “Although I was about to tell you that I was in the neighborhood, saw your lights on and thought, ‘well, might as well stop by.’” Nettie’s strawberry-glossed lips inched into a sheepish smile that was bound to make mincemeat of his self-control.

  “But that wouldn’t be the truth?”

  “Only the part about seeing your lights on. I wouldn’t have knocked otherwise.”

  “Hm.” The truth was he wanted her to knock anyway. He wanted her to knock if it was 3:00 a.m. and there wasn’t another soul awake or a single light burning for twenty miles. He wanted to tell her that if this were his home she wouldn’t have to knock at all. “So—”

  “Well—”

  They spoke at the same time. Chase tipped his head to her. “You first.” If she was here for any reason other than to throw herself into his arms and demand passionate lovemaking, he’d save himself a lot of frustration by letting her speak before his hopes or his imagination got the best of him.

  Lowering her head, Nettie performed a quick mental recap of why the heck she was here. What had compelled her to put on a dress and makeup and to squirt mousse in her hair when normally she’d be in her jammies by now, preparing to watch “The Late Show”?

  This afternoon she’d told herself it simply wasn’t right to stand by, doing nothing while a man tried as hard as Chase to be a good father. It was heartless, yes, a veritable sin not to lend a hand. But she could have wandered by tomorrow morning, say sometime after sunup, to drop off a meat loaf or offer advice about children’s Tylenol versus Bayer.

  Right, so that question again: Why was she here on Nick’s doorstep, with Nick out of town, wearing a dress and makeup and a pair of Lilah’s high-heeled sandals at 11:00 p.m., staring at a man who was obviously still furious with her because she hadn’t had the guts to tell him the truth in the first place?

  I’m here because I don’t want him to be hurt and furious. I’m here because of the love and protectiveness and fear on his face when he hugged his son. I’m here because if he leaves and I never see him again except on cable news, I want him to know…I want him to know—

  Still with her head lowered, Nettie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again and said, “I want you to know, I…” Something caught her eye. “I want…What’s on your foot?”

  “You want what’s on my foot.”

  “I…no. What is on your foot? Is that blood?” She peered down, squinting in the dimly lit entry. “Oh, my goodness, it is. You’re bleeding!”

  Pushing him back, she crossed the threshold, half bent to look down.

  “I’m not bleeding.”

  “Yes. Look!” She pointed. “You must have stepped on something. Did you break a glass? Here, come sit down. We have to take care of it.”

  She propelled him backward into the living room, and Chase found her sincere concern so welcome he decided to wait just a minute before telling her the “blood” was raspberry jam.

  He plopped backward onto the couch, tracking, he was sure, raspberry goo all over Nick’s carpet. But it was worth it. He’d call a carpet cleaner tomorrow, but right now it was worth any expense or extra effort to feel the first gentle touch of her fingers on his bare skin. Even if it was only his foot.

  As she probed softly, Chase let his eyes drift closed for a moment. Just a moment. Did she have any idea how good it felt to be touched like this…ministered to…cared about? Did she know the simplest touch from her could make him feel weaker than a newborn colt…and more powerful than a tiger on the hunt?

  He stifled a groan as Nettie lifted his foot, holding the heel and ankle with one hand while she explored in tentative dabs. There was a considerable pause. “This is unusually sticky,” she said finally, referring to the red stains.

  Reluctantly, Chase opened his eyes. She was a glorious picture, her long hair spilling over her beautiful bosom as she knelt on
the floor by the sofa—holding his non-bleeding foot.

  “It’s not blood,” he said.

  She sat back. “What is it?”

  “Raspberry…stuff. I think. I mean, I think it’s raspberry. I haven’t tasted it yet.”

  “You haven’t tasted it. Yet. I see,” she murmured, pondering his foot a moment. “Is this anything like drinking champagne out of a woman’s slipper?”

  Chase grinned. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stay angry and he couldn’t remain aloof, not when every cell in his body was trying to convince him he was sixteen again.

  Leaning forward, he said, “This is nothing like drinking champagne from a woman’s slipper.” Rearing back a bit, he regretfully eased his ankle out of her hand to rest it on his opposite knee. “What a mess. I’d better get cleaned up.”

  He started to rise, but Nettie touched his knee. “Why don’t you sit tight for a minute? I’ll get something so you can wipe this off before you walk on it.”

  On behalf of Nick’s carpet, Chase accepted her offer. She disappeared briefly, returning quickly with a damp kitchen towel.

  “Here we go,” she said. He expected her to hand him the towel, but instead she knelt again and began to wipe off the stains as if the action were the most natural thing in the world, almost nonphysical.

  It certainly didn’t feel nonphysical, though, not to Chase. After her first automatic swipe, Nettie, too, seemed aware that no physical contact between them could be classified as platonic. Her swabs slowed to a crawl, which only made them more potent and torturous for Chase. He clamped a hand on her wrist.