Family for Keeps & Sadie's Hero

by Margaret Daley

In the hallway Tess turned toward him. “Where did you find him? What happened? How did—”

  Mac held up his hand. “Wait. Give me a chance to answer the first question.”

  Tess sighed. “Where was he?”

  Mac couldn’t take his gaze off the tiny frown that dulled her eyes and wrinkled her brow. He found himself wanting to smooth it away and make her laugh. Before he realized what he was doing, he raised his hand to her face and grazed his fingertips across her forehead as though that action would erase her concern.

  Her eyes widened, and two patches of red fired her cheeks. “Mr. MacPherson, where?” she asked in a breathless rush.

  “You look lovely when you blush.”

  Her brown eyes grew rounder, and she tried to step away, but the wall blocked her escape. Mac knew she was unnerved by the trapped look that appeared in her gaze. She doesn’t hide her feelings, he thought and liked that. Sheila hadn’t been able to, either. That comparison came out of nowhere and unnerved him.

  “The men’s restroom by the elevators,” he finally answered.

  “What happened?”

  He supported himself against the wall with one hand braced by her head to take some of the weight off the leg with the cast. He could smell her scent, theater makeup and lilacs. “It’s too long a story, and didn’t you say you had medications to give out? I’ll explain over dinner tonight.” One part of him was as surprised at his invitation as she looked. It was as though there was another man inside him. Hadn’t he decided he wasn’t ready to get involved with another woman? Sheila had only been gone three years. And yet, he sensed a fragile composure in Tess that drew him to her. He found he was having a hard time resisting her.

  “I don’t date.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t, either. How about seven tonight?”

  “I’m washing my hair. Sorry.”

  “Well, then, I suppose the story can wait until tomorrow night.” The clean aroma of her hair perfumed the air.

  “Nope. I have to scrub my bathrooms.” A spark of mischief lit her brown eyes.

  He laughed, leaning closer. “Then you tell me when.”

  Her head tilted to the side, she appeared deep in thought. A moment later she flashed him a sassy grin before ever so politely quipping, “How about we go out when pigs fly.”

  Chuckling, Mac watched her leave. He always liked a good challenge, and suddenly Miss Tess Morgan was daring him to discover the woman beneath the clown makeup and colorful uniform of a pediatric nurse. He limped toward the elevators. It was just as well she’d said no. He didn’t have time for a relationship. He had a daughter who needed him and a large family that depended on him. No, sir, he had no time for a woman even if she was an intriguing, beautiful, caring one.

  “Do you know who that is? Of course, you don’t, or you’d have never let him leave.” Delise pointed at the retreating figure of Peter MacPherson as he stepped onto the elevator. “He’s the Mack Truck. He used to play for the Denver Broncos as a running back until he retired several years ago. He’s a legend around here.” Delise felt her friend’s forehead. “Have you gone mad? Women would die to go out with him, but since his wife’s death he’s retreated from public life. From what I heard her death hit him quite hard. Left football. Started his own business, does something with a foundation and volunteers at a halfway house. Quite a family man, from everything I can gather about him. That’s so appealing.”

  Tess shook her head, trying not to feel empathy for Peter MacPherson because that emotion would lead to others she definitely wasn’t prepared to feel. “My, you could write his biography. Where in the world do you come up with all this?”

  Delise fluttered her hand in the air. “Oh, you know, magazines, newspaper stories. The usual places. The bottom line is that he’s one of the hottest items in Denver even if he doesn’t want to be.”

  “You make him sound like a piece of merchandise.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean. Or has your eyesight gone with your brains?”

  “They’re both intact, thank you very much. Now, don’t we have a job to do?” Tess walked to the counter and picked up her tray of medications.

  “Did he ask you out?”

  Tess realized she wouldn’t get any peace or work done until she satisfied her friend’s rabid curiosity. “Yes. And before you ask, I refused. Three times.”

  “I’m sure Dr. Smith can see you in emergency.”

  Tess sighed heavily. “Not every woman in this world is man crazy like you.”

  “Okay. I grant you maybe a visit to the shrink isn’t necessary. Are you just playing hard to get? That might work, Tess. In fact, that’s a brilliant idea. Be mysterious. Act uninterested. Keep him guessing.” Delise snapped her fingers as she rattled off her advice.

  “Whether I like it or not, I’m an open book. And I am not interested in that man.” As Tess spoke, she tried to force conviction into her voice, but it lacked the ring of truth.

  Tess didn’t wait to hear her friend’s response. She took her tray and entered the first room. If she was lucky, which she was beginning to doubt, Delise would tire of the subject of Peter MacPherson, and Tess could finish her shift without thinking again about that man.

  But it wasn’t Delise’s questions that caused Tess to dwell on Peter MacPherson. She saw a boy with a cast on his leg, and she instantly thought about Mac and his gentle touch as he had replaced her clown nose. She saw an orderly who was over six feet tall, and she thought about Mac towering over her. And when she visited Johnny, he forced her again to think about the man.

  “I would never have been found if it hadn’t been for that man,” Johnny declared as he twisted the white top sheet into a mangled ball of cotton.

  “You’re lucky he did.”

  “Why? I hate this place. I hate it!”

  Tess swallowed the lump in her throat. “Hopefully you won’t be here much longer.”

  “Then I’ll just have to go live with some dumb old stranger.”

  “Mrs. Hocks is trying to locate your relatives.” Tess hoped Johnny’s case manager would find someone to take him in.

  Johnny turned away from her onto his side and stared out the window, his shoulders hunched. “I don’t have nobody.”

  Those words knifed through her, mirroring her feelings. She didn’t have anybody, either, but that was the way she wanted it. Johnny needed a family. He needed love. Suddenly she was afraid he would pull another stunt like today. “You aren’t going to try to run away again, are you?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Johnny?” Tess moved to the other side of the bed and looked at the small child. His eyes were closed. She wasn’t sure if he was asleep or faking it. It didn’t make any difference, because if Johnny didn’t want to talk, he didn’t. Quietly she left his room, drained from the child’s brief emotional outburst, from the day’s events and especially from not trying to think about Peter MacPherson. He occupied her mind, threatening the fragile defenses she’d finally erected around her heart.

  Chapter Two

  A film of sweat covered Mac’s body as he struggled to finish his leg exercises. Ten was all he could do with his mended leg. The soreness bore deep into him as he got up and limped to another machine. Absently he did arm curls as he mentally tried to psych himself up. It was only a matter of time before his left leg would be as good as new.

  Three sharp raps at the door drew his attention. “Yes?”

  His housekeeper stuck her head into the room. “Your sister is here.”

  “Which one?” Mac finished his last arm curl and put the weight on the rack.

  “Casey.”

  “Does she have that troubled look on her face?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Tell her I’ll be there after my shower. Fix her breakfast. She’s way too thin.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Nina said as she closed the door to the exercise room.

  Fifteen minutes later Mac hadn’t stepped one foot into the kitchen when C
asey started in. “You wouldn’t believe the fight Mom and I had. All because I don’t want to start college in the fall. You’ve got to talk to her, Mac. Tell her I’m an adult now and capable of making my own decisions.”

  “Do you think I might have some breakfast first? Say hello to my daughter.”

  Mac scooped up Amy and whirled her around. The three-year-old giggled. When he started to put her in her booster chair, she said, “Do it again. Please, Daddy.”

  Not able to resist such a plea, he swung her around and around until he became dizzy. “Enough. I’m gonna be seasick, and we are landlocked, young lady.” He settled his daughter in her chair and sat next to her, preparing himself for his sister’s onslaught.

  Casey gulped down half of her orange juice. “I don’t want to go to college. Mom will listen to you.”

  While he watched Amy finish stuffing a piece of toast in her mouth, Mac took a bite of his omelette. “Why don’t you want to go?”

  “I want to go, but not this fall. I need some time to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’m not like you, Mac. Everything in a neat little box.”

  He took his napkin and wiped his daughter’s jelly-smeared face, then bent and kissed her nose. “Pumpkin, you’re as good as new.”

  Amy jumped down from the chair and threw her arms around Mac’s neck, kissing him on the cheek, then doing the same to Casey. “’Bye, Aunt Casey.”

  Amy raced out of the kitchen. A minute later he heard the television. He glanced at his watch and realized her favorite show was on. He liked to watch it with her, but he needed to appease his sister or he would never be free.

  “Casey, you think my life is in a neat little box?”

  “Sure. You always know what you want and go after it. If it hadn’t been for your determination, none of us MacPhersons would have had a chance at college. I just want my chance a year later than the others.” Casey reached across the table and took Mac’s hand. “Please talk to her. I don’t want her mad at me, especially since Dad’s death.”

  Mac felt the familiar emptiness at the mention of their father’s death. He had not only been Mac’s father, but his best friend, as well. Facing two deaths in the past three years had been very difficult, and without God’s love and guidance Mac wasn’t sure he would have made it. He thanked the Lord every day for being in his life, his salvation when life overwhelmed him.

  Casey squeezed his hand. “Please, Mac.”

  He focused on his sister, pushing the pain of his father’s and wife’s deaths to the background. “Casey, it’s your decision. I’ll have a talk with Mom.”

  She hugged him, a wide grin on her face. “Great! I knew I could count on you. The best time to talk to Mom is tonight at dinner. You’re coming, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t miss Steve’s birthday.”

  “You’re the greatest! I’ll let myself out. You just sit and finish your breakfast. ’Bye, Nina.”

  When Casey breezed out of the kitchen, Mac shook his head. He never had a moment’s rest with his family. One child, three brothers and two sisters kept him hopping.

  As his housekeeper poured his coffee, she said, “I know it’s none of my business—”

  “But you’re going to make it your business anyway.”

  Nina ignored his interruption and continued. “Ever since you fell off that roof at the halfway house, you’ve been shut up here, working in that office of yours. You only go out to volunteer at the halfway house. You haven’t gone out socially much in the past couple of months, not even to do things with your family. Now that the cast is off, get out. Enjoy life. Stop trying to do everything for everyone else. Do something for yourself. That’s the way your father and Sheila would have wanted it.”

  “Whoa! Since when did you become Dear Abby?”

  “Since I’ve been watching you draw in on yourself after Sheila’s death. I think you used the accident to avoid seeing people socially, except family. I know how hard your father’s death was on you, especially on top of the accident.”

  Mac scooted back his chair and stood. “I appreciate your concern, Nina, and I’ll think about your advice. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to enjoy some time with my daughter, then I have a date at the hospital.”

  “A date at the hospital?”

  “With a ten-year-old boy. So get that gleam out of your eye.”

  “Think about what I said,” Nina called as he left the kitchen.

  In other words, get a life, Mac thought as he sat next to Amy in the den. Until yesterday, when he had been drawn to Tess crying in the waiting room, nothing much had touched him. It was as if the numbness was slowly fading, leaving in its wake a prickly awareness of one tiny woman.

  There was absolutely no way Tess could sneak up on the children in the rec room with her oversize shoes announcing her approach from a mile away. But when she stepped into the room, ready to go into her clown routine, every child’s head was bent over one piece of paper, and Peter MacPherson was in the middle of the group, drawing something on the sheet.

  Is he a closet artist? Tess wondered, and moved into the room. Every child was looking at the paper and listening intently to what Mac was saying. Maybe Mac was a budding Rembrandt.

  “Really!” one girl said in awe.

  “Yeah. Here, let me show you what I mean. Brandon, you stand over there….” Mac’s words died in his throat as he straightened and looked into Tess’s eyes.

  Instantly a finely honed tension streaked through her as the heat of his gaze sealed the breath in her lungs. No matter how much she fought it, she couldn’t deny the fact that this man heightened her awareness of how alone she was in this world, but that wasn’t how she had planned it all those years ago when she had dreamed of her future. She had wanted a husband and a large family.

  The girl who had been in awe came over to Tess. “Do you know who he is?”

  “Yes, someone told me he used to play football for Denver,” Tess said without thinking, her gaze still connected to his smoldering one. Oh, why in the world did she have to admit that she had been talking about him with someone?

  “I strongly suspect, guys, this clown here doesn’t appreciate the finer points of football.” His statement was accompanied by a wickedly charming grin as he threw her to the wolves.

  “You don’t?” the oldest boy asked, his doubts about her sanity evident in his tone of voice.

  Tess narrowed her gaze on Mac, wishing him bodily harm. “Tell you the truth, I’ve never been to a game.”

  “That’s un-American!”

  “You’re joking!”

  “Yeah, she has to be. Everyone has seen a football game.”

  Would a group of kids attack a clown for not having been to a game? Tess looked from one face to another and seriously thought about her chances of escaping in shoes four sizes too big. They’d tackle me at the door, she decided.

  “I’m not into sports,” Tess offered in the way of an explanation. It went over like water on a grease fire. “I’ve been out of the country for the past few years, and in high school I preferred to study on Friday nights,” she added, aware that her explanations were bombing faster than bad jokes in a comedy act.

  Her gaze fastened onto Mac’s, and she wanted to lynch him. Crossing his arms over his massive chest, he was watching her and enjoying every minute of her discomfort with a huge grin on his face.

  “I think she just needs someone to explain the finer points of the game to her,” Mac finally said as all the children tried to tell her what she was missing at the same time. “I’ll be glad to offer my services, say, over dinner tonight.”

  “Yeah, that’s a great idea,” several of the children said at once.

  “Everyone should know about football,” the oldest boy added.

  Tess was speechless. Her refusal stuck in her throat.

  “Come on. Say yes to him,” the girl said.

  Mac smiled an infuriating smile as he strode to her, leaned toward her and wh
ispered, “Unless you’re one of those people who judge something without knowing anything about it.”

  She stepped quickly away as if his breath had scorched her neck while struggling to control the shivering sensations spreading down her body. “I’m not!”

  His smile broadened. “Then prove it. Have dinner with me. We’ll be eating with a whole crowd of people, so you won’t even be alone with me.”

  Tess swung her gaze from Mac to the children, all eagerly awaiting her answer. There really wouldn’t be any harm in one dinner with him. He was the complete opposite of what she would be attracted to in a man, so she was perfectly safe. Wasn’t she?

  She looked him straight in the eye. “Fine.”

  He chuckled and whispered for her ears only, “It looks like a pig has just taken flight.”

  She smiled sweetly at him. “I’m sure anything is possible where you’re involved.”

  “Is that sarcasm I hear in your voice?”

  “Me? Never!”

  His eyes twinkled. “It’s interesting how you like to hide behind either a nurse’s uniform or white makeup. Why is that?”

  Tess felt the gazes of the children on them and sidestepped toward the door. “Would you all excuse us for a moment?”

  “You want to speak to me—alone?”

  Tess took a deep, calming breath and said through clenched teeth, “Yes, please.”

  “Kids, we’ll be back in a moment.”

  Out in the hall Tess leaned toward him and lowered her voice, conscious of the children in the room not three feet away. “Why are you here?” Don’t you know I’m trying to avoid you? You aren’t making that easy for me.

  “I thought it was obvious. I’m visiting the children.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought that was obvious, too. To spread a little joy and happiness, the same as you.”

  When he said “the same as you,” Tess felt an instant bond with the man that she wanted to deny. She would have to endure their date that evening, but she didn’t want to be around him anymore than was necessary. “Well, since you’re spreading all that joy and happiness, I’ll get back to my nursing duties.” She started away.