A Man for Mom

by Gina Ferris Wilkins

  Frances smiled and kissed her granddaughter’s cheek. “I know, darling. But I happen to love cooking and baby-sitting for you and your children. You wouldn’t deprive me of those two pleasures while I’m here, would you?”

  It was impossible to come up with a response to that.

  As it turned out, Rachel didn’t require much baby-sitting during that week. Seth seemed perfectly content to hang around her house, playing video games with the children, Uno with Granny Fran, talking to Rachel over endless cups of coffee and slices of her grandmother’s pies and cakes. Rachel worried about the children’s growing fascination with him—not that she was surprised by it. If she couldn’t resist Seth, how could she expect two impressionable children to do so?

  She was still concerned that his interest in her would soon fade, that she was a novelty of sorts to him. He was so bright and vital and enthusiastic that she sometimes felt dull and boring next to him. But he never seemed to find her dull or boring. He always appeared interested in what she had to say, about her work, her plans, her thoughts, her tastes.

  He made it no secret that he was physically attracted to her. He touched her often, though always discreetly, and his eyes sent messages she couldn’t help but understand. Twice that week, he lingered after Frances and the children turned in for the night. He and Rachel sat on the sofa in the den, facing the glowing fireplace, talking in low voices. And when he began to kiss her, she didn’t resist.

  The first night, he pulled back after only a few long, thorough kisses, though he made it clear that he was doing so with great reluctance. After he left, Rachel prepared for bed in a pleasant daze, thinking that the man was certainly a boost to her woman’s ego.

  The kisses went a bit further the next time. Rachel kept telling herself that she would call an end to it soon, but it felt so nice to cuddle in front of the fire with a warm, sexy man who definitely knew how to kiss. And just what to do with those big, strong hands of his.

  Her body ached with long-denied needs, and her palms itched to feel sleek, pulsing skin beneath them. It had been so long. So very long...

  “Mama?”

  The sleepy voice from the doorway brought Rachel out of Seth’s arms as effectively as a gunshot. “What is it, Aaron?” she asked breathlessly, feeling her face flaming with embarrassment as she rapidly straightened her clothing.

  Knuckling his eyes, Aaron yawned, obviously only half-awake. “I’m thirsty.”

  “I’ll get you a glass of water,” she promised, nervously smoothing her hair.

  “I’d better be going,” Seth said, his voice rough. He, too, had stood, and was combing his tousled hair with his fingers. He looked at Rachel in mute apology, and she knew he was sharing responsibility for letting the caresses almost get out of hand.

  Her hand on Aaron’s thin little shoulder, Rachel nodded, biting her lip. Seth touched her cheek as he passed, saying good-night to her and to her son.

  Rachel gave Aaron his drink, then tucked him snugly back to bed. “Good night, sweetheart,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his soft cheek.

  “‘Night, Mama.” Aaron turned his face into his Mickey Mouse pillowcase and was asleep before she turned off the light.

  Rachel didn’t bother turning on the light in her bedroom. She walked slowly across the room and sat on the side of the empty bed, fully clothed, staring at nothing. Did Seth understand the implications of becoming involved with the mother of two small children? Could a single man possibly understand the heavy responsibilities those children represented? Could he accept that their needs would always be of primary consideration to her?

  They were so small, so vulnerable. So totally dependent on her, and her alone. Had she been selfish this past week, putting them at risk for heartache and disappointment because of her own foolish infatuation with Seth Fletcher?

  She groaned and buried her face in her hands. Her life had been so much easier before she’d met Seth. Busy, of course. Stressful, at times. Sometimes lonely. But safe. And now she found herself dreading the possibility of returning to that safety, if it meant no longer having Seth in her life.

  * * *

  If Seth had had second thoughts after Aaron’s untimely interruption, he certainly hid it well when he showed up at his usual time the next evening—just in time to eat. Rachel greeted him a bit awkwardly, but her reserve didn’t last through dinner. Throughout the meal, Seth teased with Paige and Aaron, flirted outrageously with both Rachel and Granny Fran, and kept the conversation brisk and light. If he was deliberately trying to put her at ease, he succeeded very well.

  The children excused themselves after dinner and went off to play, leaving the adults to linger over coffee. Frances entertained them with an amusing story about her son, Bill—Rachel’s father—and the big blue lizard he’d stashed in his pocket on laundry day.

  Seth laughed. “Now I know who Cody resembles in the family.”

  Frances smiled and nodded. “He’s very much like his father was as a young man. Bill was never predictable. I suppose that’s why he works so well with troubled young people at the health clinic in Saint Louis.”

  “How long has he worked there?”

  “Almost six years now, isn’t it, Rachel?”

  Rachel nodded. “Celia was just entering her senior year of high school, remember? She lived with Ray and me during that year so she could finish with her friends.”

  “That must have been difficult,” Seth commented. “A teenage girl living with her newlywed sister.”

  “I wasn’t quite a newlywed,” Rachel corrected. “We already had Paige by then. It was a bit stressful, suddenly becoming responsible for a teenager. But Celia was always well behaved and easy to get along with. In fact, she was a lot of help with Paige and the housework.”

  “You rarely talk about your own family, Seth,” Frances commented innocently. “Are your parents still living?”

  The transformation was immediate and rather startling. Seth’s smile faded and his lively green eyes dulled. It was as though a cloud had passed over the sun. “Yes, they’re still living,” he said cordially enough, but without inflection. “They have a home in west Little Rock. My father’s an attorney, and my mother is principal of a public elementary school.”

  “How interesting. And do you have any brothers and sisters?” Frances asked, studying Seth’s face in a way that let Rachel know she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed his sudden distance.

  “An older sister. Linda. She’s an engineer in Dallas.”

  “A family of achievers, I take it,” Frances commented with a smile.

  Seth didn’t smile in return. He nodded and picked up his coffee cup. “That’s my family,” he said. “Real achievers.”

  “They must be proud of you,” Rachel said tentatively. “For starting your own law office at such a young age,” she added when he looked at her in question.

  He made a face. “My family and I aren’t what you’d call close, Rachel. As for my office—they’ve made no secret of their disappointment that I didn’t stay with the firm my great-grandfather founded in the early 1900s. I’m the first Fletcher in four generations to break away from the family business.”

  “Did you become an attorney just to please them, Seth?” Frances asked gently.

  “Yes,” he admitted. And then he shrugged. “But I like it well enough, especially now that I’m out on my own. I have no regrets.”

  Rachel wasn’t entirely sure she believed him. There were definitely regrets in his eyes. Whether they centered around his career choice or his estrangement from his family, she couldn’t have said.

  He changed the subject in a way that made it clear he didn’t want to talk about his family. He stayed for a while after dinner to watch some television with Rachel and the children, but he left early. Rachel wasn’t sure why. Because of what had happened the night before? Because he didn’t want to risk getting carried away again? Or because the personal conversation at dinner had made him uncomfortable? Was he pullin
g back? Or, she thought ruefully, was he only tired and she being unreasonably paranoid?

  This was all getting very complicated. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t already have enough to worry about!

  * * *

  It seemed that everything that could go wrong did on that Friday. The hydraulic pump she’d been worried about gave out, putting one truck out of commission for several days while it was replaced. The backup truck her driver was forced to use wasn’t in the best of shape, itself. Rachel could only hope it would hold up until the other truck was repaired. The routes had to be run regardless of her equipment problems, or customers would become dissatisfied and trash would pile up in violation of local sanitary codes.

  She was wading through a stack of bills in her office that afternoon when the telephone rang. “Rachel, it’s Carl,” a gruff voice said when she answered.

  She knew from his tone that the driver had bad news. And this wasn’t even the man driving the backup truck. “What’s wrong, Carl?”

  “I’ve had a little—uh—accident. Hit some overhead wires with the forks and I’ve made a hell of a mess. Dropped the container, snapped the wires, dented the Exxon station’s awning. I’m real sorry, Rachel. I don’t know what happened. You know I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “It’s all right, Carl. Accidents happen,” she said, rubbing her temple. “I’ll call the insurance company. I assume you’ve got an accident report?”

  “Yeah, I’m taking care of it. Mr. Handy is being pretty nice about it.” Handy was the owner of the service station, a longtime customer who was never late with his monthly payments, never had a complaint even when the drivers were delayed. Rachel regretted the inconvenience her driver had caused him, but was secretly relieved it hadn’t happened to one of the more difficult or demanding customers. There were several who would not have been so understanding.

  Her next call was to Dan McNeil. She quickly explained the problem to him. He promised to file the proper claims as soon as he received all the information. “Everything else going okay for you?” he asked, when they’d gotten that business out of the way.

  “Well enough,” she replied.

  “That’s good. Okay, you get this paperwork to me and I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Thank you,” she said, relieved that their longtime business relationship didn’t seem to be affected by their one mistaken attempt to turn it into more.

  Busy filing reports and calling repair shops and ordering parts and finally paying bills, Rachel couldn’t leave the office until late. She called her grandmother and explained that she was running late. She was grateful that Frances had been watching the children in the afternoons after school. Usually when something like this came up, Rachel had to go to the day-care center at the usual time, pick up the children and bring them back to the office with her, often with take-out dinners to keep them busy while Rachel worked. Paige and Aaron weren’t particularly fond of those overtime days, but they’d long since learned to entertain themselves at the office.

  It was almost seven by the time Rachel called it quits. She stacked papers on the reception desk for Martha, her bookkeeper, to take care of the next morning, did the best she could about cleaning her desk and locked the office door as she left. She hadn’t had a chance to get to the bank or post office, but she would take care of those errands first thing Monday morning.

  Another day, another dozen crises, she thought wearily, throwing her purse into her car. She was locking the heavy security gates when she suddenly had the eerie feeling that someone was watching her.

  Acting on instinct, she slid immediately into her car, then closed and locked the doors before glancing around. Her offices were located in an old section of town, with few businesses nearby and no residences in sight. The street was nearly deserted at this hour, and the sun was rapidly setting, leaving deep shadows between the circles of light from the widely spaced streetlamps. The only vehicle in sight was a rusty pickup parked at the curb a hundred or so yards away from her offices. Someone was sitting in the truck, which didn’t seem to be turned on.

  Rachel shivered at the knowledge that the man in the truck probably had been watching her. She told herself that he must not mean her any harm, or he would have approached her while she was out of the car and vulnerable. Still, she kept her hands tight on the wheel, foot heavy on the accelerator as she passed him, her face averted. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want him to think she was giving him any notice or encouragement, though she’d memorized a description of the vehicle and as much as she’d been able to see of the license tag.

  She let out a gusty breath of relief when the truck made no move to follow her as she drove away.

  He’d probably been waiting for someone, she told herself as her rapid pulse began to slow. Maybe taking a cigarette break or having an illegal beer. She really was getting paranoid lately to think that he’d been there because of her.

  But maybe she wouldn’t stay so late at the office alone for a while.

  Seth was waiting with her family when she finally arrived home. She was tired and frazzled and her head ached dully, but she managed a smile of greeting and hugs for the children. “I’m sorry I’m so late,” she told them as a group. “It’s been a rough day.”

  “We told Seth you do this all the time,” Paige announced with a wave of her hand. “I’m sure glad Granny Fran’s here so we didn’t have to eat takeout at the office tonight.”

  Rachel almost winced. Paige’s breezy explanation made their usual schedule sound worse than it was. “I don’t work late that often, Paige,” she protested.

  “It seems like you do,” Aaron piped in, to Rachel’s exasperation. “That’s why we keep toys at Mama’s office,” he added for Seth, who wasn’t smiling. “So we’ll have something to do there while she works.”

  “Why don’t you two wash up for dinner,” Frances suggested hastily, glancing from Seth to Rachel. “I’ll put the final touches on dinner.” She turned to hurry out of the room behind the children.

  Rachel had the oddest urge to apologize to Seth for being so late. She bit the words back. Why should she apologize? He hadn’t even been formally invited to join them for dinner tonight. It had simply become accepted somehow that he would be there. As for her work—it was a demanding, time-consuming job at times, and she couldn’t promise she wouldn’t work late again. Nor should she have to.

  “Problems at work?” Seth asked when Rachel didn’t immediately speak.

  “A few. Most of it is taken care of already.” She had no intention of telling him about her momentary fright outside the gates of her building. He’d probably overreact. She tucked her purse under her arm. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to change before dinner. I’ll be right back.”

  He caught her arm as she passed him. “Rachel?”

  “Yes, Seth?”

  He started to say something, stopped, then sighed and shook his head. “You work too hard.”

  “I have responsibilities,” she reminded him, refusing to be softened by the concern in his eyes.

  A faint frown creased his brow. He muttered something as she left the room. She thought it was, “I’m beginning to hate that word.”

  She didn’t linger to find out exactly what he’d said.

  * * *

  Frances insisted that Rachel and Seth go out one last night while she was in town, leaving her to watch the children. Seth picked Rachel up early Saturday evening and they made the fifty-mile drive into Little Rock. Seth had made reservations at the local dinner theater. The food was rather bland, served buffet-style—not nearly as good as Granny Fran’s cooking, they agreed. But the service staff was friendly and the play was excellent—funny and fast paced, well acted and produced. Rachel enjoyed it thoroughly.

  It was late when the play let out, but they were in no hurry. They’d warned Frances that they probably wouldn’t get in until the wee hours. Still, Rachel was rather surprised when Seth didn’t immediatel
y take the freeway back toward Percy. Instead, he drove into a section of town she didn’t immediately recognize. The road curved and climbed, leading them into high, wooded hills lined with nice homes and apartment buildings. “Is this where you grew up?” she asked, thinking that was the reason Seth had brought her into this part of town.

  “Not exactly, though I did spend a lot of time in this area as a teenager.”

  They drove up a hill so steep, the car engine whined in protest. Seth downshifted with the casual ease of familiarity. When they reached the top, he turned right onto a paved road that led to a fenced lookout point. One other vehicle was already there, a battered Honda Civic parked at the far end of the lot. Seth pulled into a parking space at the opposite end and turned off the headlights. “This is what I wanted you to see,” he said.

  Rachel smiled and looked over the edge of the mountain. The Arkansas River was directly beneath them, gleaming like black satin, looking deceptively calm and tranquil for a river with such a dangerous reputation for swiftness and deadly undercurrents. On the other side of the river were more hills, dotted with hundreds of lights—white, red, flickering neon. Above everything, the sky spread clear and dark, the stars barely visible through the glow of the city. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  Seth reached out and turned on the radio, tuning in a soft-rock station, leaving the volume low. “I used to bring my dates here when I was a kid.”

  Rachel fought a smile. “I’m sure you did.”

  He yawned elaborately and slipped an arm around her shoulders.

  Her smile deepened. “Very smooth.”

  He grinned. “I’m glad you think so.”

  She settled into the curve of his arm—at least, as much as possible with the console between them. “What did you do after you got your arm around them?”

  “Anything they’d let me get away with,” he admitted. “Which,” he added ruefully, “usually wasn’t much.”

  She wasn’t sure she believed that one. She was more inclined to suspect that Seth had always had a way of charming anyone into just about anything he wanted.