Some Kind of Wonderful

by Barbara Freethy

  "Sh-sh," he whispered.

  She struggled to catch her breath, to stop crying. "I'm sorry," she said with a small hiccup. "I don't know why I'm crying. I haven't cried in a long time, and now I can't seem to stop," she said with a sniff. "I'm as bad as Emily. You're surrounded by crying females."

  Normally, he would have shied away from her. He'd never had much patience with female dramatics, a leftover discomfort from the days spent with his weepy mother, but Caitlyn's sorrow was so deep, he felt only helplessness that he couldn't make it go away. There didn't seem to be any words he could offer, none that didn't sound trite and unsubstantial.

  Caitlyn pulled away from him with a self-conscious swipe across her wet cheeks. "I'm okay, you know. Seeing Brian again brought it all back, but I'm fine."

  "How did you get hurt so badly?"

  "We were skiing. Brian is a great skier. He loves the mountains, and we were on vacation in Sun Valley. He wanted to do this challenging run with one of the faculty members from UCSD. The professor's wife was going along and thought it would be fun for the four of us to ski together. I didn't want to hold Brian back."

  "He must have known you couldn't handle it."

  She shrugged. "I told him I could."

  "And he wanted to impress his friends more than he wanted to keep you safe."

  "I don't think he thought of it that way. Really. It was all just an accident. It wasn't his fault."

  "Right. So then you're lying in the hospital with a dozen broken bones and he tells you, Hey, honey I got a great job offer, so see you later."

  She frowned. "He didn't say it like that, and I told him to go, so I can hardly complain that he went, can I?"

  "But you didn't want him to leave."

  "I thought he'd argue, offer to stay," she admitted. "But I got what I asked for. End of story."

  Matt shook his head in disbelief. "You were injured. You weren't thinking clearly. What was his excuse?"

  "It was a fabulous opportunity."

  "More important than you?" The question slipped out before Matt had a chance to consider how badly it might hurt. When Caitlyn's face turned pale, he realized his mistake. "I'm sorry."

  She drew in a deep breath and let it out. "I don't really want to talk about this." She slipped off the boxing gloves and handed them back to Matt. "Thanks. That was fun."

  "Yeah, next time we have this much fun, I'll bring a bigger box of Kleenex."

  The smile broke across her face like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. "I probably should have just gone for the run, but my body still doesn't care much for jogging. Although being told at one point that I might not be able to walk without a limp made the joy of running a lot sweeter."

  "That was rough, what happened to you."

  "I survived. I was lucky."

  "Optimist, huh?"

  "Most of the time. You probably can't tell that by tonight, but I usually don't feel this sorry for myself."

  "No, you just pretend the bad stuff isn't there, don't you?"

  She made a face at him. "You're so smart. You have me completely figured out, don't you?"

  "I doubt that," he said dryly. "Figuring women out is not my forte."

  "That's what Brian said. He doesn't understand why women say go when they want you to stay, or say stay when they want you to go."

  "What did you tell him this time -- go or stay?"

  She didn't answer, her eyes somewhat guilty.

  "You told him to hit the road, right?" he persisted. "You didn't give him a second chance?"

  "Well, I did tell him to go, but--”

  Matt groaned. "I knew there was a but."

  "It's complicated, Matt."

  "You're making it complicated."

  "But," she repeated, "I don't think he believed me when I told him to go."

  "Should he?"

  "I don't know. I'm confused."

  "He left you when you were hurt. What's confusing?"

  "I loved him. I said I would marry him. I still have my wedding dress hanging in the closet. Don't I owe him at least some consideration?"

  "No, absolutely not."

  "It's not so black and white, Matt, not to me."

  Matt started as Emily's abrupt wail rang through the apartment, reminding him he had a more pressing problem to deal with than Caitlyn's love life. Which didn't concern him anyway. But he was still fighting the urge to shake some sense into her. From what he'd heard, Brian didn't deserve a second chance, and Caitlyn was being too soft. Although he had to admit her softness was one of the things he really liked about her.

  "Emily is awake," she said with a commiserating smile. "Do you want some help? After crying on your shoulder, I owe you." Caitlyn moved across the room, pausing at the bedroom door. "By the way, you're a good neighbor."

  "Yeah, good neighbor," he muttered as she went into the bedroom to rescue Emily. He wondered why he suddenly wanted to be so much more than a neighbor. Caitlyn wasn't his type. She was white lace and promises. He ought to have his head examined. Unfortunately, at the moment he was not thinking with his head.

  Chapter Six

  "Just think," Sarah muttered to herself as she hovered in a doorway on Seventh Street, just south of Market, in San Francisco's downtown business district. The Greyhound Bus Station was across the street. She could walk over and use her last twenty dollars to buy herself a ticket somewhere. But what if she couldn't get back to Emily? What then?

  Maybe Emily would be better off without her, the poor baby. She hadn't asked to be born into this mess, getting a horrible mother, an even worse father, and nothing much else. Sarah was completely overwhelmed by her situation. She sank to the ground, the weight of the world pushing on her shoulders. She was only twenty-two years old, but she felt like a hundred.

  "Hey, move along," a man told her as he came out the door of the tobacco shop behind her. "You're scaring away customers." He took a good look at her face, which she instinctively tried to hide behind a shield of hair. "Go on, now, find yourself somewhere else to sleep tonight. If you're here in the morning, you'll be sorry."

  She was already sorry, Sarah thought as she wearily stood up. Sorry she'd ever been born, sorry the monsters under her bed had turned out to be real, sorry she'd ever believed in a promise. And sorrier still that she'd brought a baby into her life. Maybe that's the way her mother had felt, like she had no way out, no chance of making it.

  The feeling that she was just like her mother scared Sarah to death. She didn't want to be that way, yet here she was alone, her baby left behind with Matt, a brother she hadn't seen in years. What had she done?

  The only thing she could do, she reminded herself. Seeing Matt's name in the newspaper had been a sign. She had wondered about him for years, dreamed of seeing him again, and then just like that, when she'd needed him the most, she'd seen his name in the paper. It had been easy to find his office, and when she'd gone to the library to look him up through the Internet, his phone number and address had popped right up. It was almost too easy -- as if someone had paved the way for her to find him.

  An angel maybe? The whimsical thought was ridiculous. There were no angels. A sudden breeze blew against her face; she shivered, and goose bumps slid down her arm. Maybe it was being back in San Francisco that made her feel like she wasn't alone. It was here in this city that she'd been loved, once, a long time ago. Coming back had been the right thing to do.

  But now what? What was she supposed to do now? Was seeing the Greyhound Bus Station a sign that she should leave Emily with Matt? And go where? Could she really abandon her baby? What kind of mother did that make her? One like her own mother? The maddening, horrifying refrain went around and around in her head. She tried to run away from it by walking more quickly, but it followed her through the darkening city streets.

  As she walked she wrapped her arms around her waist, trying instinctively to protect herself from the night and the rest of the world that couldn't get out of that night. She'd slept outside befo
re, hidden away in the shadows, praying for safety, but she hadn't been able to do that with Emily.

  She wondered for the thousandth time if Emily was all right, if Matt was loving her. She remembered how Matt had taken care of her before the fire. He was the only father she remembered.

  Her real father had died when she was only a few months old. Her mother had fallen apart after that, but Mattie had been so responsible, always worrying about her. He'd seemed old at the time, but now she realized how young he'd really been. It was her fault they'd been separated, another reason why she hadn't found the courage to talk to him. She still remembered the look on his face as they'd watched their apartment burn. In that moment he'd hated her.

  She'd always messed things up, but this -- this was the biggest mess of them all. There had to be a way out. She just had to find it. But she'd spent all day trying to get a job without any luck. No one wanted to hire a woman with a battered face, little education, and no job references. The familiar feeling of hopelessness enveloped her like a warm sweater that she couldn't bear to take off.

  After a dismal morning of job hunting, she'd spent the afternoon in Union Square, listening to a sidewalk street musician sing the blues, wondering why she couldn't just get up and go somewhere. But it always came back to where. She'd almost chosen the liquor store. She'd stood outside of it for almost ten minutes, looking at that pure gold liquid in the window, remembering how it had felt sliding down her throat, making all the bad things disappear.

  Oh, how she'd wanted a drink, and how afraid she'd been that one drink would lead to a bottle, and she'd never have to be sober again. It was a tempting thought. She'd spent most of her teenage years in just such a place. Emily had straightened her out. When Sarah had found out she was pregnant, she'd quit drinking, and she hadn't had a drop since. But now she really wanted a drink, wanted it so bad she could almost taste it.

  No! Taking a deep breath, Sarah reminded herself to think clearly, think about Emily. But she was scared. It was getting late, and the people on the streets could be dangerous. She wondered about a shelter. Maybe if she could sleep, she could decide what to do next. But where was a shelter? She had no idea.

  She walked and walked and walked, losing track of the streets, not even sure where she was going until she saw the steeple of the church. It was the sign that had called to her the night before. As a child she'd seen that steeple out of their fourth-floor apartment, just two blocks away. Every Sunday she'd heard the bells ring and the angels sing, and they'd given her hope. But last night, while sleeping in the church, she hadn't felt any hope, nor had she seen any angels, so why had she come back again?

  They'd probably reported the broken window. It wouldn't be easy to get back inside. Everything would be locked up tight. Still, Sarah lingered on the corner, wondering why she couldn't seem to move away. An old woman came around the corner at the far end of the church wearing a large straw hat on her head despite the rising moon and darkening twilight. She held a watering can in one hand, but instead of walking toward the strip of flowers that graced the walkway, she came toward the sidewalk, dousing the weeds that grew along the curb with water.

  Sarah watched her in fascination. There was something about the woman that seemed familiar, and a memory tugged in the back of her mind. She found herself moving forward, but the woman walked away from her, crossing the street to the other side, muttering something to herself as she went.

  Sarah shivered as a cool evening breeze seemed to blow through her. She turned to leave and saw him standing there, watching her.

  Startled, she wondered for a split second if Gary had come after her. Then she realized the face belonged to the man she had met in the church earlier, a man with blue-gray eyes that reminded her of the sky just after sunset.

  "Hello, Sarah," the man said quietly. "I was hoping you'd come back."

  "I -- I didn't."

  "And yet you're here."

  Sarah silently kicked herself for being so dumb. Why couldn't she think of the right thing to say at the right time?

  "You remember me, don't you?" he continued. "I'm Jonathan Mitchell, the minister here."

  "You don't look like a reverend," she said, taking note of his casual gray slacks and dark sweater. In fact, not only did he not dress like a man of the cloth, his features were too pretty, with his wavy brown hair and long, thick eyelashes that any woman would have killed for.

  "What's a minister supposed to look like?"

  "Old."

  He smiled. "I'll get there one of these days, probably sooner than I'd like. Are you hungry, Sarah?"

  "How do you know my name?"

  "You told me earlier."

  And he remembered? Gary hadn't remembered her name the first few times she'd slept with him.

  "You made quite an impression," he told her.

  "Did you call the cops?"

  "No."

  She stared at him uncertainly. She wanted to believe him, but he had to be lying. She'd broken into the church, caused damage. Why wouldn't he call the cops? "I have to go," she said abruptly.

  "Don't."

  "But--”

  "My housekeeper makes a wonderful beef stew. There's more than I can eat. I hate to see anything go to waste."

  She wondered if he was referring to her. Because there was an expression on his face, a worry in his eyes, and it scared her to think that she wanted to trust him. No one worried about her. He must have an ulterior motive. Most people did.

  "Do you get points for how many homeless people you get off the street each night?" she asked brashly, a tiny spark of her old street courage coming back to her.

  "Are you homeless?"

  "No. I live in one of those mansions up on the hill."

  "Then I guess I'll have to look elsewhere for my points," he said with a dry smile.

  "I'm fine, you know. And I don't believe in God, so if you think you're going to save me or have me be born again, you can forget about it."

  "It's already forgotten. Look, Sarah, I'd like to help you. I think you've been hurt and maybe you could use a friend."

  "What do you get out of it?"

  "Maybe I could use a friend, too."

  His kind words stole the toughness away and reminded her of how tired she was and how much she really did need a friend. But could she trust him? He was a stranger. He might still call the cops. Then what would she do? They'd find out she was a terrible mother and take her baby away the way they'd taken her away from Mattie.

  "I can't." She turned blindly away, the tears already filling her eyes.

  He caught her by the arm and held on, a strong, masculine grip that hurt her already bruised skin. He must have seen the pain in her eyes, because he immediately let go. "There's a shelter three blocks from here. The Samaritan House on Fourteenth and Stringer. They won't ask you any questions, and you'll have a safe place to sleep."

  She nodded, trying not to break down in front of him.

  "I want to help you, Sarah."

  "Why? I'm nobody to you."

  "But you're somebody to someone. Aren't you?"

  Sarah thought of Emily and the tears streamed down her cheeks as she shook her head. "Not anymore."

  "I don't want you to go," Jonathan said, surprising her with the intensity in his voice.

  She looked into his eyes and saw more than a minister; she saw a man. Is this what he wanted, then? Her body in exchange for his help? She couldn't even imagine why he would want her body. She hadn't washed in a couple of days. She looked like a poster girl for abused women. Not that a man necessarily needed a pretty face; a female body would often do.

  "It's not like that," he said. "I won't hurt you."

  "I've heard that before."

  "Come back tomorrow. Just to talk. Maybe I can help. Maybe you'll be able to trust me more in the daylight."

  She wanted to say yes, for as she looked at the church, at the familiar steeple, she felt a tiny glimmer of hope. Maybe it was a sign after all.


  * * *

  It was almost eleven, long past the time to go home, but Caitlyn couldn't make herself get up and go. The couch was comfortable, the baby was asleep, and the man... well, Matt was something else, stirring her senses in a way that made her want more -- more of everything: his husky voice, his male scent, his wry smile. She'd never been so aware of a man, but here in his apartment with so little furniture, so little of anything but him and her, she felt an intimacy that was completely at odds with their relationship.

  Their friendship was barely twenty-four hours old, if you could even call it a friendship, more of a chance relationship based on circumstances beyond their control. If Emily hadn't arrived, Caitlyn had no doubt that Matt would have stayed forever on his side of the hallway, and she would have done the same. But Emily had come. And so had Matt, a man she couldn't quite figure out.

  The little he'd told her of his background had colored him as dark, rough, edgy, intense. Yet with Emily he was tender, kind, patient. She wondered which was the real Matt Winters. And she couldn't help speculating how he would be with a woman he was interested in. Would he be passionate and impulsive or slow and deliberate?

  Caitlyn felt an uncomfortable uneasiness run through her as she watched Matt clear up the remains of their pizza. His blue jeans fit him like a glove, outlining his strong, fit body. He had a great ass, she thought, suppressing a small giggle at the trail her thoughts were taking, a trail she wouldn't mind taking with her hands. Okay, enough, she told herself firmly, setting her wine glass down on the coffee table in front of her. She had to get a grip. She had no business ogling Matt's buns or any other part of his anatomy.

  "More wine?" Matt walked over with the bottle of red he'd opened up for her earlier that evening.

  "Did I drink all that?" she asked with a frown as he poured the last few ounces into her glass.

  "Looks that way," he said with a smile.

  "If I finish that, I'll be asleep."

  "Well, it is that time of the night."

  "You don't look tired," she observed.

  "I'm a night owl, and I'm also a little wired with my new houseguest."