Good Guy Heroes Boxed Set

by Julie Ortolon

  “I must have been an early developer then, because I was twelve and a half.”

  “Twelve?” She cocked her head and her hair swung, exposing the side of her neck in a most distracting way. She pursed her lips - an even greater distraction - and said in ponderous tones, “A manifestation of sibling rivalry, perhaps, since you were displaced by your younger sister?”

  He shook his head, but more at his own thoughts than at her words. “Nah, I’d gone through that the year before. But I guess it was about being displaced in a way.”

  He shifted, and felt the rub of her elbow against his jacket. The sensation translating directly to a prickling along his skin.

  “What happened, Paul?”

  Her voice, quiet and soft, lured him.

  “We’d just moved. Across town but a world away to a kid. My grandfather had retired. Not because he wanted to kick back and relax or anything, but because the doctors gave an order he couldn’t refuse.” He fought stronger feelings with ironic humor. “Given the choice of dying or going to Palm Springs, he took Palm Springs. But that didn’t mean he gave up the reins. Not Walter Wilson Mulholland.”

  Not a man who’d spent his whole life dictating. Not a man whose only communication with his grandson had come in the form of orders. Sit erect. Take your elbows off the table. Straighten your shoulders. Wear a shirt and tie for dinner at my table.

  Not the man who bad talked in front of Paul as if he didn’t exist. The boy needs a haircut. The boy needs discipline. James, if you and Nancy won’t send him away to school, at least stop babying the boy.

  Paul propped his elbows on the table and picked up his wine glass, concentrating on its smooth, warm surface between his palms.

  “He named Dad head of the firm in his place and ordered us to move into the big house on the lake where Mom had been brought up. She didn’t want to go, either.”

  He remembered sitting on the stairs of the little suburban house he’d been born in, out of sight, listening to his parents.

  Jim, we have a home here.

  We’ll make a home there, honey.

  I don’t want to go back to that house, Jim. Don’t you see what’s happening?

  Shh, there’s nothing to cry about, honey. This is a great move up for us.

  “But Walter Mulholland said it was more appropriate for our new standing in the community. And nobody disobeyed him.” Certainly not James Monroe. “Big, dark furniture and drapes that looked petrified. The only noise was the hall clock. God, I hated it.”

  To cut the echo of his vehemence, he produced a deprecating grin.

  “I guess I missed our old place. The neighborhood, my friends.”

  In the tidy little house not far from the railroad tracks, his mother had baked cookies and helped him grow a tomato patch each summer. His father had taken the train into the city every day, and home every night.

  “We used to play baseball together, Dad and I. He’d been a pro. He had a tough time growing up. His folks were really poor, and baseball was his only real fun. He got through college on baseball scholarships and he started law school during off-seasons from the minors. He loves the game.”

  In the drawn-out twilights of summer, his father had coached the Little League team or they’d just thrown the ball back and forth, an endless pendulum connecting father and son. He could still feel the lung-bursting pride at his pals’ awe that James Monroe had been a pro baseball player, a gifted fielder who’d reached the highest level of minor leagues and come this close to being in the majors.

  Until he married Nancy Mulholland and went to work in Walter Mulholland’s law firm.

  “He still has his glove,” he told Bette, turning his wine glass around and around, “but when he took over the firm, he didn’t have time for that sort of thing anymore. And Mom was busy with Judi and the move and the new house. I was a little at loose ends. When Walter Mulholland returned for his version of a state visit late that summer, it all came to a head.”

  Paul eased the muscles in his shoulder. Light irony, that was the right tone.

  “Walter Wilson Mulholland never bought the theory about letting people ‘find themselves,’ ” he continued. “He knew what everyone should do with his life and how to achieve it - and he didn’t mince words saying so.”

  “That can be a sign of caring,” said Bette. “That someone wants only the best for the people he loves.”

  “Maybe.” He conceded the point. It didn’t apply to Walter Muholland. “But with him it was more force of habit. He was born and bred to be a despot.” He saw a quick frown pleat Bette’s brows. Sympathy? Or disapproval? Not liking either possibility, he forged on. “When he started diagramming my life, I didn’t care for the grand design, so I ran away, complete with bedroll, clean underwear and seven dollars and thirty-four cents.”

  Two decades later he remembered dinner that night - a formal meal with several strangers joining them at the big, polished table. He could hear the stern, upright old man proclaiming that he’d decided that Paul would become a litigator.

  He could hear the deep, determined voice of his mother’s father detailing exactly where Paul would fit into the firm’s roster fifteen years in the future. And each step of his life over the next two decades. The right prep school. The right university. The right law school. The right marriage. The right family. The right address. All selected by Walter Wilson Mulholland.

  Paul had never liked his grandfather. That night he’d started hating him.

  He’d slipped out of the house while the guests had after-dinner drinks. He’d headed for the old neighborhood. He couldn’t remember now which friend he’d intended to go to, but he’d ended up in front of his old house, standing in the cold, chilled rain that can bring a preview of fall to an Illinois summer and realizing his home belonged to another family.

  “Dad found me around midnight.”

  His father’s arms had hugged him so tightly it hurt, but it had been a good hurt. Even as he spoke now he could feel again his father’s jacket shoulder under his cheek, smell his after-shave. His father’s hands had been shaking slightly as they tightened a blanket around Paul’s damp shoulders.

  “I thought he would skin me alive. Instead, he talked.”

  Then and now he’d have preferred being skinned alive. He could still hear the words.

  Paul, what in the world got into you to run away?

  I’m not going to do what that old man tells me, even if he is my grandfather.

  Your grandfather is providing you opportunities most boys never have, never even dream of. An education, a profession, a position in life.

  I don’t want them. I don’t want anything he’d give me.

  You can’t say that, yet. You’re only a boy. You can’t know what you’ll want when you grow -.

  He made us move. Mom didn’t want to move. I heard her.

  He thought it best. Your mother’s always had these things, so she doesn’t know what it means to be without -

  And he made you take that big job.

  No. No, he didn’t make me. I wanted that, Paul.

  “He said that when I grew up, I’d understand. That being an adult meant making choices, and that meant leaving some things behind.”

  Someday, when you’re married and have children of your own, you’ll understand, Paul.

  He didn’t have to grow up to understand. He’d understood then. His father had made a choice to follow Walter Mulholland’s rules, and what he’d left behind were twilight games of catch.

  He couldn’t blame his father; he’d been poor a long time and now he had a chance for money and position, not only for himself but for his family. But he could blame Walter Mulholland.

  He blinked away memories and looked at Bette. Her eyes were wide and solemn, with another emotion deep in them that he couldn’t read. The flicker of the candles’ flames added mystery. His heartbeat accelerated as if in reaction to some tremendous danger.

  He picked up his glass and tilted the cool, c
lear liquid into his mouth. It didn’t completely ease the dryness. “That’s when I realized I didn’t want to be a grownup. I preferred to stay a kid.”

  When she blinked, he felt as if he’d been cut off from a source of warmth and light. Her left hand rested on the table between them, the fingers long and pale against the forest-green cloth. He wanted to cover it with his own, to give the connection between them a physical expression.

  She lowered her eyelashes a second time, and he sensed withdrawal. Maybe his own.

  He quirked a grin at her, manufacturing the mischief. “Especially those next few weeks. Mom was terrific. I even got her to let me play hooky from school the first week and go to a Cubs’ game.”

  “Scare them to death, then weasel special treatment out of them? What a fiend.” Bette made a tsking sound. “It sounds as if you have a wonderful family.”

  He met her deep blue eyes again, and saw recognition there. He considered his family ties - Mom, Dad, Judi, Tris, other cousins, aunts and uncles. Not perfect, and sometimes the ties chafed, but … “I do.”

  “Although your younger sister …” Bette gave an exaggerated shudder. “That poor soul.”

  He knew she was skirting away from the serious turn their conversation had taken, and gladly cooperated. Spilling all this was not his usual style, not his style at all.

  He snorted in disbelief. “Judi, a poor soul? Not on your life.” Then suspicion narrowed his eyes. “Why would you say that?”

  “To have you as an older brother,” she said promptly. “I have an older brother myself, and I know what instruments of teasing torture they can be, but you -” She shivered again. “It must have been a nightmare for the poor girl.”

  “Hey!”

  She laughed, and he let the sound, low and rippling, wash over him. That sound could become addictive. That, and the look in her eyes, as if she were surprised he’d drawn the amusement out of her, and perhaps secretly pleased, too.

  “So, tell me about your family,” he invited, sliding his right hand over her left. He did it on impulse, a casual gesture that somehow didn’t feel casual. Her skin was soft and warm against his. “I bet you’re the oldest of twelve, responsible for all the little ‘uns since you were barely able to toddle yourself. No, wait. That’s right, you said you have an older brother. So you must be the oldest girl. And you grew up in the country, and spent summers at the local swimming hole.”

  She shook her head with another laugh.

  “Not even close. I grew up in the decidedly un-country atmosphere of the near western suburbs - mostly Oak Park. I’m the younger of two, and mildly coddled. My parents worked hard enough to take early retirement a couple years ago and move permanently to Arizona where they’d had a house for years. And they still worry about their little girl being ‘all alone.’ “

  Paul looked at her, and felt a twinge of protectiveness. He could sympathize with her parents. For all her self-reliance, he didn’t like the idea of Bette Wharton being without a strong shoulder to rely on - a friend, a partner.

  Then it occurred to him that she might already have that, and the possibility brought a twist to his stomach that came too fast and too strong to pretend it was anything but jealousy. God. That wasn’t reasonable. What did he care whether she had someone or not? He certainly wasn’t auditioning for the role of strong shoulder in anyone’s life.

  He sat back, sliding his fingers away from hers under the pretext of placing his napkin on the table.

  Bette, too, straightened and moved away. Although the warmth of his touch still lingered on her skin, it didn’t take a body language expert to read goodnight.

  She made a show of checking her watch.

  “This has been lovely, Paul. Thank you. I hope you have an opportunity to check those files, and give me a call in the morning.” She gathered her purse, flashed him a smile and prepared to slide out of the booth.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  If he hadn’t said it with such blank astonishment, she would have been irked by the Neanderthal implication.

  “Home. It’s late.”

  “Fine. I’m driving you.”

  “That isn’t necessary. I can catch a cab to the train station and the line goes right near my house.” That was true; the commuter railroad line ran no more than five blocks from her home in her western suburb, though the nearest station was a couple miles from the house she rented. She’d have to try to rouse a cab, not always an easy task at night in the suburbs.

  “I bet roads go right near your house, too. I’m driving you.”

  Protests did no good. Not even when she logically pointed out that since he’d said he lived north of the city, along the lake in Evanston, and she lived west, it would be a long drive home for him. By the time he’d wrangled with Ardith over whether or not he would pay for their meal, then they’d said their goodnights, found a cab and reached the lot where he’d parked his car, she’d about given up.

  He held open the car door for her, then went around to the driver’s side. Clicking home the seat belt and starting the car with smooth efficiency, he remained silent. She knew little about cars, but this one struck her as sleekly unpretentious. It seemed old enough to be well broken in and new enough to boast all the amenities.

  “Paul -”

  He slanted her a quick, quelling look. “I’m driving you home.”

  A flicker of irritation made her grimace at him. “I intended to ask if you wanted to know where I live.”

  The car rolled up to a red light at a deserted intersection, and he turned to her. She could see the amusement back in his eyes. “Sorry. Maybe I jumped to a conclusion. It was just that the previous twenty-three sentences you’d started all ended with junk about taking a train. Obviously, a totally unwarranted assumption on my part this time.”

  “Totally unwarranted,” she agreed. As the light turned green and he eased the car forward, she saw his smile in profile and tried to ignore an answering twitch of her lips.

  “So now that I’ve apologized, are you going to tell me where you live, or do you want me to start picking spots at random?”

  “That could be an interesting experiment.”

  He nodded. “Although I do know it’s west, so that trims out a third of the Chicago suburbs. And with the hint that it’s near a commuter railroad, that eliminates about a third of that third. So, I figure it shouldn’t take more than a month or so to find the right one.”

  She gave in to the laughter bubbling up in her. “I live in Elmhurst. Take the Eisenhower Expressway. A month’s too long on the road for me.”

  “It would be a long time between showers, but it would give me a chance to get to know you.”

  Meeting his look for a moment, she thought his eyes held a glint not entirely deviltry or reflected streetlights. She looked away, and they drove in silence until they reached the expressway and headed west.

  “Tell me more about your family,” he said. “How about your older brother? Where is he?”

  “Married, two children, living in Minneapolis.”

  “So you’re an aunt!”

  “Two times an aunt. Ron and Claire have a two-year-old son, Ron, Jr., and they just had a little girl, Abby, last month.”

  He sighed. “I wish my sister was old enough to have kids. Or maybe I should say old enough to have kids without making Mom and Dad crazy. I’ve always wanted to be an uncle.”

  “An uncle? Why?”

  “It seems like the perfect setup. Uncles - and aunts - have all the fun without the responsibilities. You don’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations of the perfect parent. No diaper changing, no worrying about childhood diseases, no sweating out death-defying escapades, no grounding them because they stayed out too late, no wondering if the roads’ll ever be safe again with a sixteen-year-old maniac on the streets, no birds-and-bees talks, no college tuition.”

  “Sounds to me as if you’re speaking from firsthand experience.”

  He quirked an
eyebrow - questioning, but primed to share her amusement.

  “As if you’re remembering your own youth,” she explained.

  The expectant look became a full-blown laugh. “I hadn’t realized it, but you’re right. The idea of having a kid like me would scare anybody. Lord, when I think of the things Grady and I got into, it’s amazing we made it to twenty - and without being the death of our parents.”

  “Just you and Grady? Was Michael the responsible one?”

  “Probably. I didn’t meet Michael until college. But, yeah, I’d guess he was the responsible type even as a kid. Steady. Not like Grady and me.”

  As she gave him directions off the expressway, a twinge drew Bette’s eyebrows into a frown, but she didn’t have time to consider it, because he had another question.

  “How about your friends?”

  She hesitated. “I, uh, I haven’t been very good about keeping up with my friends. There’s one girl from high school, Melody, who always checks in when she comes through the area. And my assistant, Darla, has been a wonderful friend to me.”

  She broke off to give him further instructions on where to turn. She could have let the topic drop there, but she felt the need to explain. She refused to use the word justify even in her own mind.

  “You know how it is when you get into college and get immersed in your classes and studying.” She thought back to some of his stories tonight; maybe he didn’t know. “Setting up a business is like that. It doesn’t leave time for anything else. It takes twenty-five hours a day just to get it off the ground. To make it really fly, you have to be totally dedicated to that, and that alone.”

  He glanced at her as he made the turn into her street.

  “What’s the use of having your own business if you let it run you?” he asked. “The whole idea is to not have a boss looking over your shoulder, telling you what to do and when to do it. Work’s fine, but there are other things in life. Ambition can take over.”

  She bristled a little at the implied criticism, but at the same time she wondered if anyone could really be that offhand and still make a go of a business. Experience had taught her the demands of a successful business. And she had done sufficient homework on Paul Monroe to know his business was successful … even if her research had left out exactly what he did. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.