They stopped beside his truck, and he called the boys, instructing them to climb in back. Jacob and Noah obeyed. Caleb announced with a scowl that he was going with Gracie, and together they watched him climb into the Winchesters’ car.
“Any more arguments?”
Kelsey glanced at J.D. “I guess not.”
“Then get in the truck, please. And do me a favor.” Lowering his voice so the boys couldn’t hear, he said with a lascivious grin, “Pull your skirt up real high like you did last time.”
“I don’t think so.” Last time her skirt had fitted so snugly that she’d had no other choice. This time she gathered the long, full folds and climbed into the seat without revealing anything more than her ankles. She smiled smugly. “Shall we go, Dr. Grayson?”
J.D. sat cross-legged on the deck, his eyes closed, the sun warm on his skin. It was the middle of the afternoon, and there wasn’t a single sound that didn’t belong in his world. No televisions or stereos blaring, no cars driving past, no airplanes flying overhead. Just the birds, the wind, the water. The quiet of nature, along with the absence of man-made intrusions, soothed him, made him feel almost whole. He wasn’t there yet, might never be completely there, but he was better. He was making progress.
“What does J.D. stand for?”
For a moment he considered the voice. It should be an intrusion, unwelcome and out of place. But this voice didn’t feel as if it didn’t belong. Like the birds, the wind, and the water, it seemed a very part of this place. Natural. Right.
“Just Delightful,” he replied. His own voice felt natural too. For a long time it hadn’t. He’d looked in the mirror without recognizing his own face, heard his own voice and wondered whom it belonged to. For many long, difficult months, everything about him had seemed all wrong, especially the fact that he was alive. That had been the biggest wrong of all.
Beside him Kelsey snorted. “Puh-leeze. John David?”
“Just and Divine.”
“James Douglas?”
“Jaded Do-gooder.”
“Joshua Dylan? Jerry Dean?” A pause, then … “Are you?”
He’d never been corrupt or degenerate, but in the word’s second meaning … Fatigued, exhausted, worn out. Oh, yeah, he’d been that for a very long time.
Opening his eyes, he stretched out to face her and leaned on one elbow. “Are those your best guesses? What about Jasper Derwood? Jebediah Demetrius. Julius De-Witt.”
She was watching him with a look that said she was still stuck on Jaded Do-gooder, but she let herself be distracted. “I bet it’s something simple, like Jack Daniel.”
“Nope, but I once was acquainted with a Jack Daniel’s.” Ignoring the tension seeping through his muscles, he went on. “Would you believe my father’s name was Jay and my mother’s name was Dee?”
“Nope.”
“I didn’t think so. Where’d you get a name like Kelsey?”
“My mother thought it had a good Irish ring to it. I looked it up in a baby book once. It said it was Norse or Scandinavian, neither of which I am.”
“But you are Irish.”
She smiled faintly. “Kelsey Colleen Malone, only daughter of Patrick Ryan Malone and Mary Kathleen Malone and only sister of Sean Kieran Malone.”
“So tell me, Kelsey Colleen. How did a good Irish girl come to have her doubts about God?”
An uneasy look crept across her face, and her movements as she got to her feet and dusted her clothes were jerky. “It’s a long story, and you came here to work, not listen to long, sad stories.”
He gazed at her, from sneakers up mile-long legs to denim shorts, over a snug T-shirt advertising a 10K run, finally reaching her face, in shadow because the sun was at her back. “I generally get paid well to listen to sad stories,” he said quietly. “I’m offering to hear yours for free.”
“It’s not that sad. It’s not really anything at all except boring.” She started toward the house. “Come on. Break time’s over. Let’s get back to work.”
J.D. watched until he couldn’t see her anymore, then slowly got to his feet. They had come to work, just the two of them. Jacob and Noah had wanted to play with Josie and the Walker kids, Gracie had insisted on baking with the Winchester sisters, and Caleb had refused to leave the others for anything as insignificant as the work on this house. He was afraid someone else might exert some influence on them while he was gone, might in some small way start to usurp his position as the most important person in their lives. And he was right to be afraid, because it was happening, so slowly it was hardly noticeable but happening just the same.
He had expected Kelsey to back out too, but when he’d given her the opportunity, she hadn’t grabbed it. That fact pleased him more than he could say. They’d finished the last of the kitchen cabinets before taking their break and would be moving on to the cabinets in the office. No doubt she was in there, waiting, pretending their conversation hadn’t gotten the least bit serious. But that was all right. He knew how to coax people into talking when they didn’t want to. And if they absolutely refused, he also knew how to patiently wait until they were ready.
She was in the office, sitting on the unfinished window seat, work gloves on, feet tapping out a rhythm on the subfloor. When he walked in, she stood up, stretched, and moved to the nearest cabinet, helping him shift it into place.
“So you have a brother. Is he older or younger?”
“Younger.”
“Is he married? Does he have kids?”
“Married, no kids.”
“What about your folks? What do they do?”
“My father is a partner with his brothers in a little business their grandfather started. My mother oversees everyone else’s business.”
“Including yours?”
“Of course. What good Irish mother doesn’t try to run her children’s lives?” As she moved, a strand of hair fell away from the band that secured her ponytail. He thought about working it back into place, then about removing the band and letting it all fall free—long, heavy, wildly curling around her shoulders, his hands, his body.
He cleared his throat, but it did nothing to clear the image from his mind or the sudden heat from his body. Giving the cabinet an overzealous push, he smashed his finger between it and the wall and muttered a curse, then forced his attention back to the conversation. “What does your mother think of your moving here?”
“She thinks I’ve moved to the other side of the world.” Her level gaze settled on him as he examined his already-swelling finger. “I bet when you did your surgical rotation, you cut yourself with your own scalpel, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t,” he retorted, but didn’t allow her to change the subject. “She’s not so wrong, is she? Bethlehem and New York City are in two different universes.”
“They’re not so different.”
“Hey, don’t forget, I came here from Chicago. I know the differences firsthand. What do you miss most so far?”
She tilted her head to one side to consider. “My favorite bookstore. I used to go to this wonderful huge store that spread over three floors and had every book I’d ever wanted and a coffee bar that sold the most delicious frozen cappuccino, and there were big comfy chairs for reading and dozens of aisles for browsing. What about you? What do you miss most about Chicago?”
He didn’t need even a second to consider it. The things he missed most were people, people he had loved. People to whom he’d had obligations and duties, whom he had failed so thoroughly. People who were now lost to him forever. “I’m over missing anything,” he said, feeling guilty for the lie. “In the beginning I think I missed the restaurants most. I like Greek food and sushi and Thai. Trying to get those now gives new meaning to going out for dinner.” Deliberately he turned the conversation back to her. “What was your mother’s problem with you moving here?”
“She likes having the family nearby. I’m probably the first one in three generations to move farther than an hour away. Most of my rel
atives live within five miles of each other. They like being close enough to have Sunday dinners and go to church together. The men work on each other’s cars and watch the big games on TV, and the women give each other advice, visit every day, and take turns baby-sitting all the kids.” She smiled faintly. “That’s Mom’s biggest fear, I think. That I’ll fall in love, get married, and raise her grandbabies out here, where she won’t be able to spoil them every day.”
Now, that was a powerful image—Kelsey, in love, pregnant, surrounded by sassy little girls with curly brown hair and hazel eyes. But that was all that formed. There was no lucky man in the picture. Whoever he might be, J.D. hoped he stayed away long enough to give him a chance with her first. It wouldn’t take long, because whatever she needed, he couldn’t give. Carol Ann and Trey were the proof. All he was good for these days was affairs—short, sweet, and, in the end, unsatisfying, because for so long he’d had so much more.
Until he’d destroyed it.
“Why did you describe yourself as a jaded do-gooder?”
He scowled at her as he began shimming the cabinet to level it. “It was a joke, Kelsey. You know, humor?”
“Is that why you left Chicago?”
“I told you why I left Chicago.” The scowl was starting to feel more real as he screwed the braces into the studs.
“Yeah, I know, small-town living, neighbors, slower pace, less traffic. Were you burned out? Is that why you left?”
He’d been burned out for so long that the ashes were cold. He’d had no heat, no passion, no life, and very little reason for living. In the end he’d lost even that.
Getting to his feet, he set the drill down, then faced her. “Who’s asking?”
“I don’t under—”
He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed her entire person. “Friend or social worker?”
It took her a while to answer, and he wasn’t sure he could trust the answer when she gave it. “Friend.”
He held her gaze for a long time, wondering how well Kelsey, attractive woman and, yes, friend, could separate from Ms. Malone, dedicated social worker. Not very, he suspected. Anything Kelsey learned, Ms. Malone would use. For that reason he redirected the conversation. “Friend? Really? I’m flattered.”
“Against my better judgment,” she said dryly.
“I knew you couldn’t resist my charm.”
“Is that what you call it?”
When he started past her to get the next unit, she stopped him with a hand on his arm. His skin was damp with sweat, gritty with dust, but that didn’t lessen the impact of her touch. It didn’t stop his throat from going dry, his temperature from climbing higher, or his voice from turning thick and husky. “What do you say we shoot for something beyond friendship?”
She very delicately removed her hand, as if she’d grabbed hold of danger and was now trying to retreat without losing her fingers. “We can’t— You know—” The breath she took was audible, strengthening. “Funny.”
“Actually …” J.D. drew his own noisy breath. “I haven’t been more serious in a long time.” Two years, three months, two weeks, and four days.
She moved away, all the way across the room, and stared out the window. “Why don’t we back up a bit and pretend these last few minutes of conversation never happened? I won’t ask you about Chicago, and you won’t ask me—”
“For more than you want to give?”
Slowly, she faced him. “For more than I can give.”
Interesting distinction, and a bit of an ego stroke to ease the— What exactly was it he felt? Disappointment? Regret? Loss?
He went back to work, but after installing enough cabinets to accommodate everything he owned twice over, the job was pretty routine. It left him plenty of time to think, to wonder about that distinction, to try to identify that emotion.
For dealing with others’ emotions every day in his work, he’d become pretty detached from his own. For so long he’d been dead inside. Even now, compared to the man he’d been ten years before, he was an emotional cripple. He’d learned to function, to act normally, to make jokes and make friends while keeping everyone—keeping life—at a safe distance. As fond as he was of his neighbors, as much as he genuinely loved some of them, not one had slipped inside the defenses he used to keep himself intact.
The Browns were the first kids who’d threatened to breach those defenses. Kelsey was the first woman.
But with the Browns, he felt threatened. With Kelsey, he just felt tempted. Because he knew nothing riskier than an affair would come of it? Because when it came down to letting her in—if she ever wanted in—his carefully reconstructed instincts for self-preservation would save him?
Or was it possible that instead of part of the destruction, she could be part of the healing?
It was a seductive thought—that one day he might be healed, healthy, and whole, the man he used to be, capable of great good, great feeling, wholehearted commitment. And that Kelsey could be part of the process or the reward at the end … That could be the most seductive thought of all.
Or she could be none of that, nothing more than she was at this moment. A friend. She could be as totally unavailable to him as she seemed to think, which could be another reason he was tempted by her, he admitted. It was easier to resist temptation that had a snowball’s chance in hell of coming to fruition.
So why was she unavailable? Why was a relationship with him not more than she wanted to give, but more than she could?
The first choice was obvious. She was in love with someone else. Why not? She was a beautiful woman, and few beautiful women made it to their mid-thirties without at least one serious relationship. It was hard to imagine the fool who would leave her or let her go, but he knew men like that existed. Hell, he was a man like that. Hadn’t he lost Carol Ann?
Using his best nonjudgmental, soothing psychiatrist voice, he asked, “Have you ever been married?”
Her look was wary. So was her voice. “No.”
“Ever been in love?”
“Once.” She lifted the corner of the cabinet so he could shim it, then drew her shirt-sleeve across her forehead to dry the sweat. “I was twelve. He sat across from me in social studies. His family moved over Thanksgiving break and I never saw him again. It broke my heart.”
“What about later? Once you were out of braces and pigtails? There must have been someone.”
A faint flush tinged her cheeks, and she hedged when she answered. “I don’t exactly meet a lot of great guys in my line of work. Fathers losing custody of their children. Foster fathers, usually married, taking custody of those children. Cops, lawyers, mental health professionals.” Her tone put the last bunch in the same group with the first.
J.D. tilted his head to study her. Obviously, there was something she wasn’t telling him, someone she wasn’t willing to discuss at the moment. He considered pressing the issue, then decided it could be done later. Just then he let her direct him off on a tangent designed to keep her secret. “You don’t like cops and lawyers?”
“I like some of them just fine, but I wouldn’t want to date any of them.”
“Why not?”
“Because of what I do, and what they do.”
“That doesn’t have to be a negative. A cop, lawyer, or therapist would have some insight into your work and vice versa. It could make things easier, give you common ground to build on.”
“You would advise two people in difficult professions to try to build a relationship based on their similar difficulties?” She snorted. “It’s a good thing you didn’t go into marriage counseling, Dr. Grayson. You would have failed.”
“I certainly failed at my own.”
The words came out a low murmur and hung in the air between them. He hadn’t intended to voice the thought aloud, hadn’t intended ever to tell her anything more about his marriage than she already knew, which was more than anyone else in Bethlehem knew. Other than a few unimportant facts—that he’d been a prominent psychiatr
ist in Chicago and that his degrees were from Boston University and Harvard—his past was a secret from everyone else in town. His successes and failures were private, and he meant to keep them that way.
“What happened?” Her voice was as nonjudgmental and soothing as his best, the voice in which she might question an abused child or counsel a grieving parent. It reminded him that some aspects of her job weren’t very different from his. She knew how to coax people into talking and how to wait patiently if they weren’t ready.
In this case she needed the patience of Job, because he would never be ready to fully, truthfully, unflinchingly answer her simple question.
He faced her, the distance between them about two arm’s lengths. If she reached out, and so did he, they could touch. They could connect, maybe just for a while, maybe for always. Or they could stand there, arms at their sides, and never take that risk.
“We’re friends, right?” he asked, his tone curiously brittle. “We’ve established that.”
She nodded.
“And you don’t want, won’t let yourself want more than that, right?”
This time her nod was slower, less sure.
“Then what happened with my marriage is none of your business. It’s very personal, and I don’t discuss very personal business with just friends. All right?”
If she took offense at his bluntness, she hid it. But there was no denying the chill that settled over the room, though whether it came from him or her, he couldn’t say. It took away his pleasure in the day, turned work that he had always enjoyed into a chore that he no longer wanted to do. Grimly, he unplugged the drill, then started closing the windows.
“We’ve done enough here,” he said shortly. “We’d better get back to town.”
For a moment she looked as if she might protest, and he wanted her to, wanted her to say something, anything, that he might respond to, that might get them back on comfortable footing. She didn’t though. She simply nodded once, then walked out. A moment later he heard the front door close. A moment after that came the thud of the truck’s door.
Father to Be Page 15
