All of them? That was intensely sad. Children needed grandparents. Audrey brightened her voice. “Then, you’ll enjoy where we’re going today. I’ll bet my mom has cookies hidden somewhere. Would you like that?”
He nodded, and Audrey smiled. Her mom would be easy to convince. Her dad would take a certain amount of tact. And a phone call. It’d be best to warn them they were coming.
CHAPTER 4
Being alone in the car felt extremely odd, and the thought he was headed to the office, out-of-place. He’d used accumulated sick time before Beth’s passing and taken a leave of absence afterward. As a result, any knowledge of accounting practices had dimmed. He wasn’t even sure how much help he’d be today, but been unable to find a way out of, at least, showing up.
He had Audrey to watch over the kids. They’d reached a financial agreement over how and what to pay her. He’d taken the time to draw up a contract, all of that, to make things legal and above board. In his mind though, she’d shown him how much she was worth, and in little ways that didn’t strictly involve Jeff and June.
She gave him space to think again and provided an orderly way of doing things that made his life much more palatable. They’d had only one mishap, left unexplained, where she’d run off with August as if the little boy would dissolve. In thinking on it later, he’d decided that sight of her son standing, eager to use his pudgy legs, had made her fear the future. The fact she hadn’t encouraged him to crawl, much less walk, also pointed that way. Clearly, Audrey wasn’t as over her husband’s betrayal as she’d thought.
He hadn’t brought the subject up again. There was no point. But he worried, watching her bury herself in motherly tasks, that she’d taken on too much. There was a big difference between feeding one child and feeding three. Add in the cleaning and care of the household, and she never had one moment alone.
That was, again, her refusing to think about her ex-husband, though he suspected she did anyway in the glances she gave him sometimes … the same manner he often looked at her. It was as if they were each on the other side of a glass wall, their individual visions clouded by the partition.
Strangely, that feeling, reminded him of Beth. They’d had a mutual attraction from the start, but for the longest time, denied it in favor of political correctness. Late one night, buried beneath a pile of tax season accounting, they’d found themselves sharing a meal, a laugh, and at one point, a kiss. He’d lost his position at the firm after things went public, but he’d gained Beth, and that had been worth it.
Audrey wasn’t Beth, and he wasn’t an eager single male wooing the pretty girl who flirted with him across the desk. He was a widower, still in love with his wife, and confused about how to go forward. He sought the normalcy that Audrey provided. She fit their lives, her steady, gentle manner what he needed to survive day-to-day.
He found her attractive as a man. That, in itself, wasn’t wrong. He saw attractive women all the time and acknowledged it. But his vision of her nursing that first night continually returned in his head giving it strength.
How much of it, though, was his longing for Beth? It was too soon for him to feel anything. He should mourn his wife and think only of his children, not of satiating the ache in his heart in the arms of another woman. Yet, his mind sought numbness that his body didn’t accept, and the vision in front of him grew blurrier by the day.
“Bennett, it’s so good to see you, and thanks for coming in on such short notice.”
Bennett smiled at the woman speaking.
He and Julia hadn’t been particularly close in the past, so he saw her words for what they were … yet another preplanned offer of condolence. Not that she didn’t mean them, but the sentiment was more for propriety’s sake. She wasn’t alone either. No one else had directly said those words, yet all of them had worn them in their expression. He was now “poor Bennett.”
He hadn’t realized until facing it over and over again this morning how much he loathed it. Sitting home with his children, it’d been easy to want pity. Thinking on that though, what he’d really wanted was guidance, someone like Audrey to come in and take control. Because the pity of his work colleagues used to be respect, and he’d rather have that than all the cheap “nice words” they could come up with.
“How are the children?” Julia purred across the conference table.
Five of them had assembled in the room.
He tried to smile. “They’re fine … now. I had to hire someone.”
The other suits in the room perked up at that news, ears turned sharply in his direction.
“June cried all the time, couldn’t adjust to formula,” he rushed to explain. “The doctor suggested I bring someone in …” He halted mid-sentence. He’d spoken too much.
“A nanny?” Julia asked. “That’s a good idea, but how does …” She pulled in a breath. “Oh.”
His face flamed, and he imagined he’d turned ten shades of red. Despite that, he tried to act calm. “You didn’t hear her, day in and day out, every breath. Audrey …”
“Audrey?” One of the others repeated her name.
Bennett swallowed. “We really should get to work. Don’t you think?”
He was grateful to have the subject dropped and relaxed enough, a couple hours later, to accept the offer of lunch. They’d be on a schedule. What would one more hour hurt? Besides, Audrey had suggested it, and she was right. He needed to do regular things.
Seated in the restaurant, a chicken sandwich in his grip, he was almost human and this day like how it used to be. Until his work colleague, Rick, leaned into his ear.
“So … this ‘Audrey’, she’s living with you?”
Bennett delayed a response. He and Rick had only had marginal contact with each other, yet what he knew of him was all positive. “She has to in order to care for the children. That’s why I hired her, to do what I’m incapable of.”
Rick lowered his voice. “She’s … nursing the baby?”
Again, Bennett didn’t immediately speak. “That’s what I’m incapable of,” he finally replied.
“That doesn’t feel odd?” Rick waved one hand outward. “Never mind. I’m being insensitive. We all just want you to get better.”
Get better? Like he’d been ill. Bennett took a bite of his sandwich, the flavor not as tasty as it once was. No offense to Rick, but any comments they’d made, good and bad, were extremely suspect, their condolences, merely gratitude he wasn’t there. Because what he’d done to her dad, he’d done to others … and often worse.
Audrey had said he wasn’t the same man anymore, and after today, he knew how true that statement was. At this point, he wasn’t even sure he could ever go back to nine-to-five within those building walls.
Audrey balanced August on one arm, while toting June’s car seat with the other. She set it down outside the door and raised her fist to knock. Jeff half-dragged the diaper bag down the walk, the weight of it almost as much as him. “You’re such a big help,” she said, making room for him to join her on the stoop.
Her first knock went unanswered, so she tried again. This time, the lock clicked and the painted surface gave a groan as the door swung inward. Her mom, dressed in khaki slacks and a floral print blouse, gazed out.
“Let me help you,” she said. She reached for August, then spotted Jeff and paused. “Well, what a big man you are to carry all that. Here, why don’t I take it, and you can come in out of this heat?”
Gratitude washed over her at her mom’s care. Taking hold of June’s car seat again, Audrey navigated her way indoors, through the foyer in her mom’s wake.
She inhaled deep, a smile on her lips. She’d promised Jeff cookies and could smell them in the air.
“What do you think …?” her mom asked, entering the tiny kitchen, barely twelve feet square. She bent over at the waist, more into Jeff’s view. “You think we’ll spoil our lunch if we eat dessert first?”
He shook his head.
“Me neither.” She patted the stool.
“Take a seat, and you can have one. Mr. Ferguson has already had two.”
Her dad’s lumbering gait rustled from the far doorway. “I’m coming for a third,” he called out. “You must be Jeff,” he said. “My name’s Dale, and that’s Everly. Kind of hard to say, I know, so you can call her Eve.”
Jeff stuffed the cookie in his mouth in response.
Her dad’s gaze lifted, meeting hers.
“Daddy …”
He continued forward, giving her a hearty hug. “I’m glad you came,” he mumbled in her ear.
She reversed to an arm’s length. “It was Bennett’s suggestion.”
Hearing Bennett’s name, sparks flared in his eyes briefly, replaced, seconds later, by the interest in both August and June. “There’s my grandson!” he declared. He grasped August’s curled fist in his own, then glanced downward. “And this young lady …”
Releasing August to her father, Audrey removed June from the seat. She faced her forward so her parents could see her tiny face.
“She’s a lovely child,” her mom said. “She seems content.”
Audrey read meaning between the lines and held pride in her mom’s remark. Coming here was a good idea. “She’s doing much better, sleeps more regularly already and doesn’t cry so much. I feel like I’ve gone back in time some, and taking care of August and Jeff make for more work. But it’s very fulfilling.”
Her dad made a garbled cough, his cheeks stained red. “Me and my boy need to have us a talk,” he said. “It’s been a week and feels like a year.”
“Dad …” Audrey ventured.
He glanced up.
“Why don’t you take Jeff and show him the swing?”
Jeff gazed at her wide-eyed, his lips smeared with melted chocolate chips. “Swing?”
Audrey nodded. “It was mine, long ago. You can play on it, but stay where my dad can see you.”
Excitement bursting from him, Jeff slid from the stool and dashed toward the back door. Her dad hesitated a moment, then gave another cough. “That’s right. Built it myself and have always thought it needed grandchildren on it.” Opening the door, he stepped outside in Jeff’s wake, his voice fading.
Audrey waited for the door to close before she spoke. “Thanks,” she said.
Her mom’s smile grew. “You’re welcome. We had a good talk. I reminded him it wasn’t the children’s fault for anything that happened in the past and told him he’d be eating and sleeping alone if he made so much as one negative peep.”
Audrey laughed beneath her breath. She had no doubt her mom would follow through either. “Still, thanks.”
Her mom wiped her hands on a dishtowel and walked closer. “Can I hold her?” she asked.
Audrey nodded and shifted June, gingerly, into her mother’s arms.
Her mother sighed. “It never gets old,” she said. “I held you and was so full of wonder that anything that perfect came from me. I held August and thought the same. What an amazing miracle he is. Now with this one … what lovely features …” Her mom paused. “Tell me. How are things really?”
Between she and Bennett. That’s what her mom wanted to know. But the answer was convoluted, his behavior and her reaction to him not all that clear cut. She became aware she’d hesitated to answer too long when her mom’s forehead wrinkled.
“They’re fine. He’s very nice. Mom, whatever happened between him and Dad, I hope you know he wouldn’t do that again.”
“He told you that?”
“Not in so many words, but …”
Her mom swayed left to right, bouncing, and June’s eyes slid closed. “Sweetheart, you don’t know this man. I can see the children need you, but Bennett Adams is …”
“Hurting,” Audrey supplied. “He’s hurting, and I know how slippery the ground is. You don’t have to tell me.”
Her mom exhaled. “I was going to say a very good-looking man. I met him once at one of those Christmas shindigs … met his wife as well.”
“You met Beth?”
Her mother nodded. “He was enamored of her, could hardly keep his hands to himself. She was expecting their son at the time, such a pretty woman. You’ve seen pictures?”
Audrey shook her head. No pictures. In fact, none anywhere. Odd.
“She was young, closer to your age,” her mom said.
He’d told her that, and she’d been surprised, though it explained why he’d gotten such a late start to his family.
“Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, except she was engaged at the time they met.”
Audrey started, her heart skipping a beat. “She was?”
Her mom nodded, “To the son of the CEO, Bob Massey. You can imagine the shake-up when she broke it off. She was six weeks pregnant with the boy.” Her mom jerked her chin toward the door.
Audrey’s knees wobbled, and she sank onto a stool. “I … didn’t know.” Would it have made any difference? Would she have been so eager to move in and take his children into her care given she had that knowledge?
“That’s why Dad hates him.” He and Bob Massey had always been close. In fact, she could remember dinners with his family more than once. Audrey gasped. “She was engaged to Peter?”
Her mom nodded.
Peter Massey she hadn’t known at all, except for a brief meeting at one of those same dinners. But she remembered a vague story about him breaking up with a girl because she’d cheated on him. With Bennett. Beth had left him for an older man; that had to have stung.
“Mr. Adams was encouraged to leave, which, I understand, he did without complaint, taking a lower rung job with their sister company, Cortex Accounting. He wasn’t there long when Beth found out she had cancer.” Her mom sighed. “I’m only telling you all that …”
So she’d watch herself. But watch herself for what? Guard against Bennett doing something like that again? Once ruthless and cutthroat, maybe even unrelenting, he’d never acted that way towards her. He barely had the will to do mundane jobs around the house, much less steal accounts … or women … from others. Her mom wouldn’t know that and would, necessarily, be concerned.
“It’s not an issue,” Audrey replied. “You said he loved his wife, and I agree. He does. I’m there to take care of his children while he figures out how to move on.”
Her mom said nothing, but wore unease on her brow. She strolled to the back door and looked out through the glass, her back to Audrey, June sleeping in her grasp. “He’s not Cale,” she said. “He didn’t run out on his wife or his children, and you’re sleeping within the same walls.”
Meaning, her own mindset came into play, and she’d seen that already. She’d panicked over August. She’d thought of Bennett in ways she shouldn’t, and if she was being truthful, he’d stared at her the same. A tingle in her gut spread downward. Audrey willed it away, but couldn’t quite remove the sensation entirely.
“I sleep connected to the baby’s room. Really, Mom, I’m chained to that rocking chair, and that has nothing to do with Cale, who need I remind you, hasn’t sent his last two child support checks.”
“You’ve made my point,” her mom replied, glancing behind, “but I won’t harp on it. I hardly expect you to walk away.” She faced the door again and laughed. “You should see your father and that precious boy. Two like souls, I’d say.”
Curious, Audrey rose and strolled up behind her mom. She smiled at the happy scene, her dad laughing, August balanced on his arm, Jeff sailing high on the swing. His eyes shone bright, joy on his face.
“Like souls, for sure,” she said. “I’m glad to see it.”
“We went swinging an’ had hamburgers …”
Bennett was hard pressed to keep up with the speed of Jeff’s words. He’d not heard him speak so much … ever really. Though, thinking of that, a memory surfaced – Jeff chattering to Beth, much of it incomprehensible, and her, with laughter aimed at him, interpreting the words.
He heard her voice as clear as if she’d been in the room and shook with it.
“Daddy?” Jeff paused. “You okay?”
Bennett worked up a weak smile. “Fine, son. I’m glad you had such a good time. Maybe you can go back sometime soon.”
Audrey leaned into his view. Taking Jeff by the shoulders, she steered him toward the stairs. “I think it’s time for you to take your bath, little man. Bedtime is in an hour.”
“Aww …”
Bennett watched the pair of them go and lay back on the couch, his feet propped on the opposite arm.
He’d gotten home to find the house empty, though Audrey called to ask if they could stay longer since Jeff was having such a good time. He’d consented, of course, but roamed around the empty structure, disoriented. He’d ended up in the garage, of all places, staring at neglected tools and projects started with enthusiasm before Beth became sick, only to be set aside. Permanently.
Where had that energy gone? The interest in doing something, thinking of something, that didn’t involve Beth or the kids?
Water gurgled through the pipes in the wall, and seconds later, he heard Audrey’s muffled voice.
Beth, Beth used to do that, help Jeff clean up. She’d come out afterward, soaked to the skin, her eyes alight, cheeks flushed with heat, and he’d count the minutes until their son was asleep and they could be alone.
That’d stopped the worse she grew. Soon, it was him and Jeff, with silence in the other room. Then him and Jeff and June with no Beth at all.
Audrey’s laughter trickled down the stairs, and drawn by it, Bennett rose. He paced himself going up, his heartbeat pounding in his chest, his palms damp, breath coming in puffs. Outside the door, he paused, laying one hand flat against the surface. He tapped it open and peeked inside.
Jeff slung water at Audrey, his eyes bright, hair flattened to his skull. Audrey, with a laugh, splashed him back. Her shirt was plastered to her skin, her bra line clear through the fabric. Her hair sprung this way and that in complete disarray. He traced a line of suds down her neck to where it melted into her collar, and the image morphed in his head to another one. Beth bent over the bathtub scrubbing the porcelain and him creeping up from behind.
Words From The Heart (Spring-Summer Romance Book 2) Page 4
