by Arlene James
“That’s very good, Robbie. In fact, that’s perfect. Now the napkin…” She handed over the folded linen rectangle and lifted a brow skeptically as he moved to place it on the left side of the plate. Catching her hint, he quickly switched it to the other side and stroked it proudly with his hand.
“My turn,” Ryan declared, his fists clutching knife, fork and spoon. Robbie stuck out his tongue at his brother, but climbed down off the dining room chair. Laura relieved Ryan of his burden of flatware while he climbed up to take Robbie’s place. First she handed him the case knife, instructing, “Blade toward the plate, sweetie. That’s the curved part. That’s right. Now the spoon…”
Laura paused in the act of passing Ryan the spoon, catching the muted sound of now familiar steps. Adam stepped into view and leaned a shoulder negligently against the casing of the wide doorway. He had loosened his necktie and removed his coat and was in the process of rolling up his sleeves.
“Hello, family,” he said, his gaze flickering over Laura.
She felt her skin heat with remembered sensation.
“Hewwo, Daddy,” Ryan said. “Waura, gimme the ’poon!”
Laura snapped her attention back to the waiting child and abruptly thrust the spoon at him. He plunked it down on the wrong side of the plate and reached for the fork, which she mindlessly handed over.
“We’re learning to set the table,” Wendy announced proudly, a water tumbler clutched to her chest.
Laura heard the smile in Adam’s voice. “So I see. You’re doing it very well, too.”
“I got the most important job,” Wendy said.
“Uh-uh!” Robbie objected. “I put down the plates and the na’kins!”
“I do ’poons and forts and knives!” Ryan said importantly.
Adam laughed. It was a frightening sound, a happy sound. Laura extended a hand to Wendy. “We just need this one tumbler and… There! A perfect table.”
Wendy slipped away and ran to her father. “See, Daddy! A perfect table for Beverly’s perfect lamb chops. That’s what Laura says.”
Adam swung her up into his arms. “Lamb chops, yum!” He pretended to take a bite out of her cheek, much to her giggling delight, but even as she threw her chubby arms around his neck, his gaze strayed to Laura once more. She couldn’t help feeling that there was a purpose behind those golden eyes. He hugged Wendy and sat her down, then strode across the room and around the table to gather up the boys. One riding the crook of each arm, he kissed their foreheads before looking straight into each set of eyes. “So, have you guys been especially good for Laura today?”
Both boys nodded vigorously, but the knowing lift of Adam’s eyebrow robbed them of their initial enthusiasm. “That’s not what I heard,” he said to dead silence. “Officer Cooper told me you were giving Laura a hard time this morning, climbing out of your car seats, jumping around in the car. In fact, I was told that Laura was so flustered, she lost her driver’s license.” His gaze slid back to her, and she felt her breath catch.
That blasted police officer had actually checked up on her! Had he checked through police channels, as well? Oh, God, what might he have told Adam? Suddenly her heart was pounding so hard she felt faint. She didn’t even hear Adam ask his question the first time.
“Laura!”
She flinched. “What?”
“I asked if you’d found your license.”
She opened her mouth, but before she could decide what to say to avoid trouble, Wendy unwittingly shoved her right into it, neck-deep. “Laura didn’t lose her license, Daddy,” she said helpfully. “She hid it under the seat.”
Adam’s gaze turned incredulous. “Hid it?”
Laura felt her face drain of color, then surge with heat. “I…I… It was…”
Adam let the boys slide down to the floor and stepped forward, his hands gripping the back of a chair. “You hid it, Laura? You hid your license from the police?”
Laura felt perilously close to tears. “I—I was afraid.”
“Afraid? Why on earth—?”
“It’s expired!” she gasped in sudden inspiration. “I… I forgot, and—and I let it expire!”
“You let it expire.”
“Yes, and… Well, I hadn’t thought about it in weeks and weeks.” She gulped. “Then, this morning, wh-when I saw those flashing lights in the rearview mirror, I—I panicked. I…well, I was already upset, you understand. The boys… Anyway, Ryan had fallen and was crying like he could be hurt, and suddenly all I could think to do was stuff my wallet under the seat. It—it wasn’t very smart, I know, but at the time… And it turned out okay, after all.”
“Yes,” Adam mused, his gaze turning inward, “it turned out okay.”
Laura bit her lip, assailed by guilt and regret. Oh, if only Wendy hadn’t seen her stash that wallet! How could she have been so stupid and careless? Why hadn’t she just thrown the damned thing away a long time ago? If Adam should ever find out that she’d lied to him, he’d be so hurt, so angry, so disappointed in her. She couldn’t bear to think of it.
“Well,” he said suddenly, “you’ll have to get it renewed, of course.” He smiled wanly. “Can’t have you driving the kids around without a proper license, can we?”
She shook her head, her gaze carefully averted. “I’ll take care of it,” she lied smoothly, and he nodded.
“See that you do.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry you had to be bothered with this.”
“No bother,” he murmured, idly switching a misplaced spoon from one side of the plate to another. “He, um… Officer Cooper, he didn’t…get out of line or anything, did he?”
The question was so unexpected that she had to think about it. “No. No, he was very polite and helpful.” She folded her arms and glanced around her. “He certainly put these characters in their places.”
Adam nodded blandly. “Good.” He shook a finger at the three little faces. “Let that be the end of the shenanigans in the car, or the police will be the least of your worries. Got it?”
Ryan and Robbie nodded solemnly, while Wendy, confident in her role as the lesser culprit, said brightly, “Yes, Daddy.”
Adam smiled. “Fine.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now when do we eat?”
Laura closed her eyes in a moment of intense relief, then reinforced her smile. “I’ll ask Beverly,” she said, slipping away. She didn’t see the way Adam’s gaze followed her from the room, or the hand that came up to skim his head in frustration.
Adam rolled onto his side and sighed, resisting the impulse to open his eyes. He really needed to get some sleep tonight. How long had it been, he wondered, since he’d slept the whole night through without waking to thoughts of Laura…Laura and her lies? She had lied to him; he had no doubt of it. She had lied to him, and he had let her. And he would go on letting her, for to call her hand might well mean ending the situation as it existed. He had known today that he wasn’t ready to do that. In fact, when that brash young policeman stood in front of his desk today, grinning from ear to ear after ostensibly checking Miss Beaumont’s story, Adam had wanted nothing so much as to knock those smiling teeth down handsome Officer Cooper’s mouth. It had taken all the control developed by his years in the military to keep his seat and answer Cooper’s questions smoothly. Yes, Laura Beaumont was employed as nanny to his children. She undoubtedly did possess a drivers’ license. No, he could think of no reason why she might not have wanted to turn her license over to the proper authorities. Yes, it was very likely that she had simply forgotten her wallet in her rush to get Wendy to school on time.
Only she hadn’t. “Laura didn’t lose her license, Daddy. She hid it under the seat.” “I was afraid.” Afraid.
“What are you afraid of, Laura?” he whispered to the dark. He wished he knew. He wished he knew what Laura feared, instead of what he feared. He feared that he’d never find a business at which he could excel, a career with which he’d be happy, a life for himself. He feared that he was neve
r again going to be content or easy, that he’d never know another night of peace, that he’d lie awake night after night wondering what might have been if Laura Beaumont had loved him. He feared whatever Laura feared, as well as her ambitions and whatever, whoever, she loved. He feared Officer Cooper, and every man who might win Laura’s heart.
Somehow he’d known from the beginning why Cooper had really come into his office that afternoon. He’d waited, some part of his mind mechanically filing away Cooper’s every word, gesture and expression, while another part of him dreaded what was to come. It hadn’t taken Cooper long to get to the point.
“I figured she was on the level,” he’d said, “working for you. Stands to reason that anyone working for the Fortunes has been checked out.”
Adam had had to look away. Why hadn’t he checked her out? he’d asked himself. But he’d already known the answer to that. He hadn’t checked because he hadn’t wanted to know if she wasn’t who she said she was, what she seemed to be.
The officer had gone on. “Fact is, it’s the situation I want to check out. Frankly, I take it as a matter of honor not to step on another man’s toes where his woman’s concerned. So I decided to come on over here and just be sure….”
Adam hadn’t helped him. He hadn’t said what any honest, self-respecting man in his position would have said at that point, that Laura was her own woman, free as a bird, unattached, available. He’d just lifted his chin and waited, his heart beating slow and steady, but hard enough to shake his body with every slam. Officer Cooper had cleared his throat and lost a little of his bravado.
“I mean, her being such a beautiful woman and all… And I remembered that you’re single…” Adam’s continued silence had obviously frustrated him, for he’d gone on to firmly point out the obvious. “She lives in your house.”
Adam had smiled then. “Yes.”
The satisfaction he’d felt, the relief just in knowing that she lived in the same house with him, that she’d be there when he got home in the evenings, when he woke in the mornings, was enough to tell him that his feelings had gone beyond mere physical attraction and gratitude. But for how long? The end of the semester? The end of summer? Or until some man like Officer Cooper turned her head? Adam had looked then at the tall, well-made young man before him, handsome by anyone’s standards, confident, healthy, and he’d made up his mind that he was not going to stand idly by, tongue-tied, while such a man stepped between him and Laura. He had cleared his throat and put out his hand.
“Thank you,” he’d said as the younger man took his hand, confusion apparent on his face. “You’re a rarity these days, Officer Cooper,” Adam had told him. “Most men would have pressed the lady for a date, even if they’d known another man was involved with her.”
He’d felt sorry for the officer after that because of the way his face had fallen. “Then you and she are…”
Adam had taken his hand back then. He’d felt sorry for the young man, but he wasn’t an idiot. “She is, as you say, a very beautiful woman,” he’d pointed out, “and my children adore her. She’s made an enormous difference in our household, I assure you. We’d be lost without her.”
Officer Cooper was looking at the floor, his disappointment palpable. “Yes, well…” he said, “as for the children… They were giving her a pretty hard time this morning. The little boys had climbed out of their seats and were acting up. That made her weave slightly in her lane of traffic, and that’s what prompted me to pull her over. She said she’d left her wallet behind in the rush to get the little girl to school.”
Adam had nodded. “They can be quite a handful. Since their mother died a year and a half ago, I’ve had some trouble finding my way with them, but Laura’s changed all that. Together we’re getting a handle on it. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You can be sure that I’ll deal with the matter.”
But he hadn’t. Not really. He’d spoken to the boys about their misbehavior in the car only as a way to bring up the matter—and Officer Raymond Cooper—with Laura. He’d wanted to gauge her reaction to the young, handsome officer, and instead he’d gotten lost in the look of pure terror that lurked just beyond a too-bright smile and a too-level gaze. What was she afraid of? Even if her license had expired, why would she hide it, rather than simply face the issue head-on? It wasn’t as if it were a truly criminal offense. No, it just didn’t make sense. It didn’t add up. In fact, now that he thought about it, nothing that he knew about her, little as it was, added up. He had questions about her, questions with answers that he feared. Wouldn’t it be better to get it out in the open? Whatever it was, they could deal with it then. Yes, head-on, that was the only way to deal with a problem like this.
He threw back the covers and slid into the fleece pants that he kept beside the bed, then reached for his bathrobe, simultaneously stuffing his feet into corduroy house shoes. He slapped the robe together and knotted the belt as he strode across the floor. And then he was standing at Laura’s door, his fist poised, his heart pounding like a steam engine at full tilt, and he could only think, What if? What if the truth drove them even farther apart? What if she chose to leave them, rather than face it? What if he couldn’t bear it, what if he couldn’t accept whatever it was? What if she hated him for forcing it out into the open? He unclenched his hand and laid his forehead against the cool painted wood of her door, wanting Laura Beaumont more than he could remember ever wanting anyone or anything.
He pulled away from the door, feeling as if he’d just averted catastrophe, and returned to his room, where he slid off his robe, kicked off his shoes and climbed into bed, fleece pants and all. It was a long time before he could sleep, a long time, but when he did, it was with the thought that Laura would be there in the morning—for now.
Eight
Adam leaned back in his black leather desk chair and rubbed his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand while the right cradled the telephone receiver against his ear. He yawned silently, nodding his head at the comment his sister had made until he had recovered enough to speak.
“Yeah, I know. I talked to Mom yesterday. She’s worried that Rocky’s upset because the family hasn’t formally welcomed Luke, but she’s wary about getting everyone together, for Dad’s sake.”
“Well, you can hardly blame her,” Caroline replied in her smooth voice. “Nathaniel’s trying to stage a coup because of this stock business. I keep telling everyone that we should be less concerned with questioning Dad and more concerned with what Monica’s intentions are now that she has the stock, but I honestly don’t know what Mike and Kyle and Kristina are thinking right now.”
“I don’t imagine they know what to think any more than the rest of us do,” Adam said absently.
Caroline’s reaction was predictable. “Adam! You know Dad never does anything that isn’t in the best interests of the Fortune companies. I’ll admit that his reticence about his reasons is puzzling, but ultimately you have to trust his judgment and intentions.”
Adam shook his head. “No one’s arguing the point, little sister. Dad and I may not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, I may even take violent exception on one or two issues, but his dedication to the family business has never been in question. I might like him a little better if it were.”
“Adam!”
“Yes, I know, sacrilege from your viewpoint.”
“It may surprise you to know, Adam, that until recently your dedication to the military was looking very Jake-like.”
Adam smiled humorlessly. “As a matter of fact, someone else has pointed out that very thing to me.”
“Really? Who?”
Adam’s voice softened of its own volition. “In a manner of speaking, Kate.”
A moment of bittersweet silence followed. Then Caroline cleared her throat. “I assume that you’re referring to the legacy.”
“Mmm-hmm…”
“I never quite understood why she left you a pair of photo albums,” Caroline hinted.
Adam smiled to himself. “She was very wise, that’s why. Actually, someone else figured it out before I did.”
“Oh?”
“And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”
“That someone else wouldn’t be tall and slender, carry herself like a dancer and have long blond hair, would she?” Caroline asked teasingly.
Adam frowned. “Who told you about Laura?”
Caroline laughed. “Dad was very complimentary.”
Of course. “And just what did he say?” Did that sound too concerned, too proprietary?
“That the new nanny was cut from a very different cloth than her predecessors,” Caroline told him. “For what it’s worth, he approves.”
A sarcastic retort was right on the tip of his tongue, but for some reason, Adam swallowed it, choosing to change the subject instead. “How’s Nick and baby Kate?”
Caroline’s chuckle told him that she knew exactly what he was doing and that she was going to allow it. “Nick’s working hard and Kate’s napping.”
“And you?”
“Oh, I’m fine, Adam. Never better.”
“Motherhood obviously agrees with you,” Adam noted softly.
“Yes.”
The wealth of well-being and happiness in that one word made Adam’s throat close up on him, and suddenly he was assailed with a fierce longing for things he could not even identify. For a moment, he had a hard time following Caroline’s continued speech.
“Just Dad,” she was saying. “Well, and Monica. That’s one reason I called you, brother mine. You’re more detached than I am. Your viewpoint is bound to be more objective. What do you think Monica’s after?”
Adam rubbed a hand over his face, trying to marshal his scattered thoughts. “Well…maybe she just wants a piece of the pie. She was the Fortune Cosmetics spokeswoman for so long, maybe she feels she’s entitled.”
