by Anna Adams
She tried to smile, but it wouldn’t come. She glanced at Eli. “Do you mind cleaning up, honey?”
“Sure.” He started scooping up the paper plates and plastic cups they’d used. “Even I can do this without driving Mrs. Carleton crazy.”
As soon as the kitchen door shut behind him, Beth turned to Aidan. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Why pretend you want to know my son?”
“Pretend?” He pushed back from the table. “I want to know you both.”
She didn’t speak.
“Your rules,” he said.
“Rules?” She woke up then. “You’re not going to hurt Eli.”
“No.” He looked horrified. “What did your ex-husband do to you? As soon as I get close, you think I’m the kind of man he is?”
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“You forget what a small town this is, and the kind of resources I have. I know about Campbell Tully.”
She closed her eyes for a humiliated second. “I don’t think you’re like him, but I don’t want you to be Eli’s friend for a while and then disappear.”
“I won’t.”
“Why? He can’t get attached to another part-timer.”
Aidan leaned across the table, his elbow squeaking on the polished surface. “If I could walk away, I wouldn’t have told you what he said to Lucy. I am involved.”
“But will Eli have any say in deciding when you aren’t anymore?”
He came back before Aidan could answer. “I’ll go get the game. He can stay, can’t he, Mom? It’s not a school night.”
Beth stared from her son’s eager face to Aidan, frowning as if he resented her. Her need for control came from deep inside. She’d only managed to escape Campbell and his reckless debts and his refusal to be a parent because she’d taken control of her own life.
But she didn’t want to hurt her son by controlling the people he could talk to.
“Eli promised to teach me all about driving cars in a galaxy where gravity does not exist.” Aidan had softened his tone. “I just bought a new computer, and I may need a game, myself.”
Beth touched her son’s hair. He slid out from under her hand. “Sounds like fun,” she said. “How about if I watch you play?”
“I’ll bring my laptop down to the family room.” Eli disappeared, settling the matter.
“Please be careful,” Beth said without looking at Aidan.
“He’s a good kid. You don’t have to act like this.”
“I know.” She did know, really. It was just remembering that overheard phone call with Campbell and how dangerous it could be if Eli was unhappy right now. “We’d better watch him set up the game. He’s an impatient teacher.”
Aidan held the door to the hall for her. “I’m not good with games. I use the same software all the time for work.”
“You’ll get it. It’s easy,” Eli said.
“I’ll check the kitchen. Mrs. Carleton will be here in the morning.” Beth went and wiped down the counters, steeling herself to act normally.
She’d once been arrogant enough to believe living with Campbell hadn’t affected her opinion of other men. She’d been wrong.
When she went to the family room, she found her son and Aidan sitting in front of the soft, wide ottoman Van used as a coffee table. Eli had his joystick and he was dancing with it, driving his car in unknown star systems.
“Whoa,” he shouted. “That Taxwinian hit my fuel tanks or I’d have made it. You think you can do it, Aidan?”
“Maybe.” The man grinned and looked good enough to make real magazine models weep.
Beth avoided his dark gaze and curled up on the sofa across from them. Again, manners would have suggested she sit up, but lack of willpower defeated her. In a little while Eli’s victory shout woke her. She must have fallen asleep.
Despite all her worst fears, she liked having Aidan near. It was one night, but she glimpsed the blessed safety of sharing worry and watching her son have fun with a responsible male.
Her eyes drifted shut. She tried to open them. But eventually gave up, not knowing she had.
Later, she woke to feel something soft sliding across her arms. She lifted her head, but Aidan’s voice shushed, and Eli choked off a laugh. Aidan’s hand lingered on her shoulders, as he smoothed a soft, warm blanket around her. In a dream world this wasn’t only one night.
Eli whispered good-night. Without even meaning to, she’d left her son in someone else’s care.
“MRS. TULLY?”
Beth opened her eyes. Armed with a duster and disapproval, Mrs. Carleton loomed above her. Beth moved her hands and found she was on the sofa, swathed in a woven blanket. Morning had come. Sometime during the night, Eli and Aidan had left her.
“Mrs. Carleton?”
“Where’s your son?”
Beth sprang to her feet. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” she said and wondered why she was stopping to explain.
She ran through the house. She and Eli had both fallen asleep on couches before, but neither of them walked off and left the other. Eli had told her once that knowing she was in her bedroom at night made him feel everything was okay. He liked structure.
So what had happened?
He’d been happy last night. Had something changed?
Some message on his computer? Had something Aidan said upset Eli?
Too scared to call her own son, she pounded up the stairs and stopped at his open door. He’d made his bed.
Or he hadn’t slept in it.
“Eli?” Back downstairs she hustled.
“Mrs. Tully,” said the housekeeper, trying to stop her by the door. “Are you all right? Have you tried the cottage?”
The cottage? The words barely made sense.
She ran down the porch stairs and nearly fell as she leapt onto the gravel. “Eli.” She had to stop. Get a grip.
The sound of laughter stopped her in midstride on the driveway. It came again from the cottage, and she caught her breath as she tried to look calm.
Aidan and Eli were sitting in rockers on the porch. Lucy, at their feet, thumped her tail, but they didn’t notice. Eli took a portable video game player from Aidan’s outstretched hand. “You’re getting good. You’re better than my mom. She starts laughing because she drives too fast, and then she falls off the track.”
“Maybe she only plays to hang out with you.”
“You don’t know my mother. She looks like she thinks about nothing but mom stuff, and she pretends to be even tougher than she is, but she loves to win. She’ll beat you at anything.” Eli pointed to the screen. “You were going too fast, too.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“You like her, don’t you?”
“Eli.” Beth cut in, not wanting to hear Aidan’s answer. Both man and boy raised their heads—with very different looks on their faces.
The warmth of awareness washed over Beth’s body. She liked being wanted. Last night had changed something between her small family and Aidan.
It scared her more because he’d chosen to bring dinner. He’d chosen to play with Eli. He’d tucked her in with a familiarity she wished could have been real.
He’d leave Honesty as soon as his doctors let him.
She turned to Eli. “You should have told me you were leaving the house.”
“You were asleep. We left you on the couch ’cause you were so tired, so I didn’t want to wake you up.” He grinned. “I’ll bet Mrs. Carleton didn’t like finding you this morning. We saw her drive up.”
“She wondered where you were.”
“I bet.” Eli looked at Aidan. “She’s my uncle’s scary housekeeper.”
“She was concerned I’d lost my son.”
“That’s not my fault. This is spring break, Mom. I’m taking a vacation at home this year.”
“So you keep saying.” At least he was cheerful. “Let’s get some breakfast. Mr. Nikolas is supposed to be takin
g care of himself, and I’m pretty sure his medical team never advised him to spend a morning listening to you yell at your game.”
“He only yells when he wins,” Aidan said. “I’d yell, too. I never realized these things were so hard.”
“Can you believe he’s never played them?” Eli asked with a piteous look at his new friend.
“He didn’t get to where he is by burying his brain in a toy.” She should have run her fatherless-in-every-way-that-counted son straight home, but Beth was compelled to point out that a busy man could be as happy as one who worked equally hard at not having business at all.
Despite her elephantine subtlety, Eli stared as if she’d started spouting Latin.
“Come on,” she said. “You need food.”
“I had grapes.”
“I’m thinking yogurt and a banana? Maybe some oatmeal.”
“Are you serious?”
Good food had to be good for him. Healthy fuel would prepare him to face an unsettled world. Or so her grandmother would have suggested.
“Sleeping on a couch doesn’t make me sane in the morning. Let’s find a compromise.”
Eli stood and Aidan handed him his game. “You wanna come, Aidan? Did you eat yet?”
After a brief look at her, Aidan shook his head. “Can’t,” he said with real regret. “I have things to do around here now that my laptop’s working.”
Eli looked disappointed, but he thumped down the stairs, Lucy at his heels. Behind him, Aidan stood and braced one hand on the porch stanchion. “What goes on at the lodge today?”
“As long as the rain holds off, they’re pouring my foundation.” And she had to face Jonathan Barr, who acted as if he printed up the money himself.
She tugged Eli’s arm. “We’ll see you later, Aidan. Let me know if you need anything.”
There. She’d done Van’s bidding, too.
She didn’t look back. “Eli, you can’t run down the hill the second you wake up in the morning. Aidan’s a busy man.”
“He wanted to play, Mom.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to. I brought the game downstairs last night when we got tired of using the computer, but the batteries wore out. I found new ones this morning.”
“New ones?”
“In Uncle Van’s remote.”
She tried not to smile. “You shouldn’t raid Uncle Van’s things, either.”
“I like playing a game with someone else instead of by myself.”
“But Aidan has a job and he’s busy getting well.” And he might leave her boy, just as Eli’s father kept doing.
“He doesn’t mind, Mom.” Eli turned his game on again. “I can tell. I know when someone’s bored and doesn’t want me around.”
If she didn’t destroy Campbell Tully with her bare hands, she’d deserve canonization. Two deep breaths brought her voice under control. “He still has work to do. You can’t go over there without asking me. He won’t be here long, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The buttons clacked on his game and circus-type music pealed from the gizmo.
“Why don’t you and I play after breakfast?”
“You’re not very good, Mom.”
She must have looked scared again. Or maybe sad. He grabbed a corner of her shirt. “You could be better,” he said. “But you worry about me beating you and your hands don’t move fast enough.”
“Eli.” Might as well be blunt. He deserved honesty. “I’m going to tell you why I’m out of sorts this morning. I don’t want you to get attached to Aidan Nikolas and then have him leave.”
Eli moved away from her. “You can’t pick my friends, and you can’t run my life.”
HE REFUSED TO TALK after their brief, harsh exchange. Mrs. Carleton agreed to look after him while Beth kept her appointment at the bank.
Beth felt as if everyone in town was staring at her as she got out of her car. A few blocks away, the courthouse clock tolled the half hour. She’d arrived early.
She was eager. Mr. Barr’s assistant, Libby showed her in with a smile of greeting. The loan officer had already fanned out her paperwork on the desk in front of him.
“Join me.” He waved at the captain’s chair across the scarred conference table. “Lib, a cup of coffee for Mrs. Tully. Sit down,” he said, patting the other side of the table as if she were still sixteen.
She almost said no, feeling too beholden and anxious, but the cup would give her something to do with her shaking hands. She sat, screaming a silent plea at every power in creation to get this over with. She needed so much more than the bank would give.
“Don’t be nervous, honey. We’ll finish this and the money will be yours.”
Not enough. Never enough. She’d end up borrowing from Van and being ashamed of herself, praying she wouldn’t shame Eli, too.
“I’m so glad you came to your senses.”
For a second, she imagined throwing the loan papers into the air between them. She couldn’t afford pride, so she swallowed her temper.
“Eli needs his home back,” she said, not caring what he thought. “So I’m settling for what I can get.”
He pushed the top paper across the desk. “Here’s what I can offer.”
She hid her dismay. Mr. Barr waited, expectant, ready for gratitude. “It could have been worse,” she said.
“See? I knew you’d think straight again. You were always a smart girl—”
He broke off so sharply it was as if she’d heard him add “until you slept with that no-good Campbell Tully.”
Going to the bank had become an exercise in humility. She didn’t like being called a girl or “honey.” She knew without being reminded what a blunder she’d made marrying Campbell, but Eli was no mistake. And she couldn’t tell Jonathan Barr off as he deserved if she wanted her house back.
“Where do I sign?”
“I’ve marked each line with red arrows.”
“Thanks.”
Lib came back with coffee that churned acid in Beth’s stomach before she even touched it. She searched the documents for red arrows and signed so fast no one would ever recognize her name.
“Shall I give you a certified check? Or I can transfer this amount into your account.”
It was easier to see him as some cruel loan shark rather than the bank’s reliable employee, but none of this was Mr. Barr’s fault—except for his chauvinistic attitude.
“You can deposit it.”
At last she turned the sheaf of papers toward him. He tapped their edges, arranging them and smiled as if he were Midas, gilding her in honest-to-God gold. “Just pay it back on time, and next time I’ll be able to give you better terms.”
Rage kept her silent. She might not choose to deal with him next time, but rebuilding the lodge meant she had to take the loan and the check in silence. “Thanks, Mr. Barr.”
Somehow, he’d managed to signal Libby. In a few minutes she came in with a receipt showing that the money had been deposited in Beth’s account.
“Here you go, Beth. I’m glad to see you getting on your feet again.”
She took the receipt for a loan that would actually get her as far as her knees. “Thank you” went through her mind, but she’d never know if she managed to utter the words.
She stopped at one of the high, glass-topped tables in the lobby and wrote another check, to Sam Grove’s company.
With any luck, he’d be able to send out a crew this afternoon or tomorrow. Sam had promised they’d pour the foundation over the weekend at the latest. That was the kind of new start she needed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SAM WORKED at the edge of town from a Quonset hut set in the middle of a gravel yard. She negotiated a path through the heavy equipment and found him in the office—tall, running a harried hand through his dark brown hair, answering a phone and talking to one of his men all at the same time.
He waved her inside. When her turn came for his attention, he shut the door. “
I wish I could lock this,” he said. “Silence. Don’t you love the sound?”
“I’ve had more than my fair share.” She pulled the check out of her back pocket and unfolded it. “I have the money.”
He took the check without looking at it and dropped it into the drawer of a gray metal desk he then locked. “I think I can get a guy over to your place in the morning. If we pour the foundation in less time than I estimated, I’ll cut you a break on the cost.”
“Thanks, Sam. I won’t pretend every penny doesn’t matter.”
“Like with everyone. I hear you and the guys in your neighborhood made short work of the last of your debris yesterday.”
“Yeah. Thanks to them, we finished way ahead of schedule.”
“Gary and Jim suggested I should pour the foundation for free.”
“No.” Her sharp tone made him draw up his eyebrows. “I should jump at the chance, but I don’t want charity.” She looked down, twisting her hands together. Sam had also known her since kindergarten. She didn’t have to tell him why she cared so much.
“Campbell Tully was an idiot back then and he must lose more brain cells every day. Believe me, there was a time when I thought you and Van acted too good for all of us and you needed a lesson in real life. But Campbell Tully—I wouldn’t leave my dog in his care.”
“He wasn’t always—”
“Beth, most guys can’t be the captain of the school football team for the rest of their lives. Usually, they grow out of the disappointment.”
“You’re right. Maybe I was as naive as everyone says, but I only want him to be a good father to our son now.”
She’d never been this honest with Van. Suddenly, between Aidan, Mr. Barr and her old friends, she was offering an oral journal on her private life, one entry at a time, all over town.
“Campbell has nothing to do with this, Sam. I’ll meet you out at the lodge tomorrow?”
“We should be there about the time the sun comes up. I’d like to finish in one day.”
“Only a magician could extract Eli from his bed at that hour. I may be a little later—unless you need me?”
“We’ll just about manage.” He barely hid a laugh.
