Finding Happily-Ever-After

by Marie Ferrarella

  It made her wonder why some people ever became parents at all. It wasn’t as if there were no birth control available, or, barring that, no adoption agencies eager to place healthy babies.

  Not wanting to press the issue, or possibly open up old wounds, she deliberately changed the subject and looked fleetingly over her shoulder at Joel. Apparently lost in thought, his expression was pensive.

  “You’ll like Dr. Nikki,” she assured him. “She’s one of my two very best friends, and she just loves kids.”

  Joel pressed his lips together grimly and barely nodded. His eyes were wide as he looked around, taking in the scenery. They were traveling down MacArthur Boulevard. The road ahead dipped down, allowing drivers to see the Pacific Ocean in the distance. It was a cloudless, sparkling morning and Catalina, looking like a whale sunning itself, was clearly visible.

  Jewel made a left into a parking lot. They had arrived.

  Unlike weekdays at this time, there were an infinite number of parking spaces for her to choose from. Only a handful of cars were in the lot, belonging to either physicians or dentists who kept Saturday hours and their patients.

  Getting out of the vehicle, Jewel opened the rear door on Joel’s side. “Ready?”

  Taking a deep breath, and then another when the first one didn’t seem to help, Joel nodded. He looked like someone about to walk to his own execution.

  “Ready,” he said in a voice that squeaked.

  Jewel pretended not to notice as she put her hand out to him. “Then let’s go and get this over with,” she said cheerfully.

  “Over with,” Joel echoed, nodding vigorously.

  Instead of walking abreast of them, Chris fell back and brought up the rear.

  She looked natural with his nephew, he thought. Maybe, if his ex-brother-in-law continued to be missing after, say, a month, some kind of an arrangement could be made with this woman to look after the boy. Given the way she got along with Joel, maybe she might even consider becoming his guardian. As he observed the two of them, it was obvious to him that Joel seemed to be a lot happier and more open around Jewel than around him.

  Which was fine, Chris silently argued as they got on the elevator. He could see why Joel liked her. She was effervescent, bubbly, while he…well, he was more like orange juice. Healthy, stable, but definitely not bubbly.

  Because there was no one else to get on or off, the elevator came to its destination almost a second after they’d gotten on.

  “Follow me,” Jewel said, and she led the way to the doctor’s office.

  Not much of a hardship there, Chris thought.

  Nikki opened the door herself when Jewel knocked. The honey-blonde looked from Jewel to the two people with her. She nodded a greeting at Chris, but her attention was focused on the small boy standing beside him.

  Nikki’s bright, electric smile materialized the moment she made eye contact with Joel. “This must be my new patient,” she said warmly. Placing one hand on his shoulder, she ushered him in. “I’ve heard good things about you, Joel.”

  “You have?” he asked incredulously, his eyes wide.

  “I have,” she confirmed. “Why don’t you and I and your uncle step into Exam Room 1 and we can get all this technical stuff out of the way. After that, if you’d like to ask me some questions, or just talk, I’m all yours.”

  “Can Jewel come, too?” Joel wanted to know. It was then that Nikki noticed the boy was still clutching on to Jewel’s hand tightly.

  “I think we might have enough room for her,” Nikki answered with a smile. “Let’s go in and find out.” Turning, she led the way through the empty waiting room to the door that admitted them into the exam area.

  “Your friend’s just like you,” Chris commented, lowering his head to Jewel’s ear as he walked behind all of them.

  Jewel was fairly certain that he didn’t realize it, but when he spoke just now, his breath feathered along the side of her neck. It instantly created a warm shiver up and down her spine, which took considerable effort to stifle. At least from being outwardly visible.

  Inwardly was a different matter. It spread its tentacles all through her, leaving no part of her unaffected.

  It had been a long while in between men, she thought. Though she told herself that all she was after was earthshaking, mind-blowing sex, down deep she knew she still had to feel something—respect, admiration, a more than passing attraction, something—for the men she went to bed with.

  For one reason or another, it had been a long time since she’d “felt” anything at all.

  That certainly wasn’t the case now.

  Jewel cleared her throat before responding. “I take that as a compliment,” she told Chris. The man would never know how much effort it took to sound so nonchalant and unaffected, she thought, quietly congratulating herself.

  “Well, you passed with flying colors,” Jewel told the boy some forty-five minutes later when the three of them were walking out of the eight-story building. “See, I told you that you would.”

  Glancing down at Joel, she saw the way the boy was looking at his left arm, the site of his inoculations. His expression seemed to indicate that he was deciding whether or not it hurt. He needed to be distracted. “I’ve got an idea,” she said suddenly. “Why don’t the three of us hit the ice cream parlor?” There were several outdoor places and shops geared toward confection and all the things that went with that. “My treat,” she added, slanting a glance toward Chris and hoping to disarm any protests before they formed.

  But Chris wasn’t ready to take her up on her offer so quickly, even though he realized he’d been battling a rather intense attraction to her for the past forty-five minutes.

  Or maybe because of it.

  “We’ve inconvenienced you enough,” he pointed out.

  “Inconvenienced?” she echoed incredulously. “Seeing Joel is never an inconvenience,” she told him, her eyes on the boy. “And when you add ice cream to that, well, there’s just nothing better.”

  “You like ice cream?” Joel asked, surprised. Pleased.

  “Like it?” she echoed. “Ice cream’s my biggest weak ness.” Jewel grinned. “Never met a flavor I didn’t like.”

  For his part, Joel looked as if he’d just fallen in love. “Really?”

  Jewel traced an X over her breast and then held up her hand as if she were taking a solemn oath. “Absolutely.”

  It was only after the fact that she noticed that Chris was looking at the area where she’d traced the X. She felt herself growing warm despite the chill in the October air. Because of the medical complex’s close proximity to the ocean, there was always a breeze.

  “And after we get our cones, we can take a walk on the beach,” she said. She was fairly certain that Joel hadn’t done any of these aimless things, things that should have been part of a Southern California boy’s life at this stage.

  “Beach?” Chris questioned as if she had just said they were going somewhere halfway around the world.

  Possibly there were two people who’d had deprived childhoods, she amended. “Yes, beach. You know, water, sand, the occasional seagull flying by making screeching noises.”

  He had things to do and research to catch up on. This would just be idling time away. Yet something kept him from saying that. Instead, he asked, “Aren’t we keeping you from something?”

  She took his tone to mean he was afraid she was on the clock. “I’m not charging you for this,” she told him.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he replied. Things were beginning to feel even more jumbled than they already were. Edges that had been so sharp before he’d found himself rushing to Blair Memorial were now dull and blurred. “It’s just that we’ve taken up too much of your time.”

  Jewel looked at him for a long moment, wondering what kind of things were going on in his head. She hadn’t said anything to indicate that she felt put out or taxed by any of this. She could only assume that he was using it as a cover.

  “I’l
l let you know when it’s too much,” she promised as they all climbed into the car. Jewel twisted around in her seat, looking at the boy sitting behind her. “Right now, I have this huge craving for an ice cream cone. How about you, Joel?” she wanted to know.

  Joel pushed the metal tongue of his seat belt into the slot. “Yes, please,” he replied.

  That was all she wanted to hear. Jewel started up her vehicle. “Never could pass up sweet talk like that,” she told her passengers with a grin.

  To her surprise, Chris put his hand on the steering wheel, preventing her from pulling out of the parking space. She looked at the man quizzically, waiting.

  “Only on one condition,” he told her. His expression looked pretty somber.

  “And that is?”

  “I get to pay.”

  Her mouth curved then. She’d been prepared for something far more serious than a tug-of-war over the check.

  “You’re on,” she answered.

  “On what?” Joel wanted to know, confused.

  On very shaky ground, apparently, Chris silently answered as the woman in the driver’s seat said, “It’s just an expression, honey. It means I’m taking him up on his suggestion.”

  “Oh.”

  Joel’s curiosity might have been sated, but his was just taking hold, Chris thought as he stole another glance at the woman on his left. He had a feeling this was just the beginning.

  The question remained—of what?

  Chapter Seven

  “None for me,” Chris demurred when they walked into the small, old-fashioned ice cream parlor that backed up onto the beach.

  Possibly because it was still early, the shop was only filled with sunshine. The six tables were all empty.

  Taking out his wallet, Chris pulled out a twenty and, reaching around Jewel, he placed it on the stainless-steel counter just in front of her. “But you go ahead and order anything you want.”

  Jewel turned around to look at him. The whole point of coming here was to get ice cream cones. For all of them. “When was the last time you had an ice cream cone?”

  He didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “I can’t remember.”

  Jewel frowned. “Now that’s just plain wrong,” she told him. “I know you’re not lactose intolerant because I saw you eat two slices of Theresa’s cheesecake after the service.” Theresa’s cheesecakes were twice as rich as anything available on the open market. “If you can eat that, you can eat any dairy product.” She turned back to the teenager behind the counter. “He’ll have two scoops of rocky road, please.”

  In compliance, the teenager pushed two teeming scoops of rocky road onto a sugar cone. He carefully handed the creation to Jewel who in turn passed the cone on to Chris.

  “Enjoy.”

  It wasn’t a suggestion, it was a direct order.

  Looking down at Joel, Jewel smiled encouragingly. “Okay, your turn. What’ll you have?”

  He thought for a moment. “Can I have two different kinds of scoops?”

  “Absolutely,” she guaranteed enthusiastically. “Even three different kinds of scoops if you want,” she told him with a wink. “But you have to promise to eat really fast so the ice cream doesn’t melt all over you.”

  “Two’s enough,” he answered her with the solemnity of a seasoned diplomat. “What’s your favorite?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Mint chocolate chip.”

  Joel said nothing, he just nodded. Standing up on his toes, he looked down into the various vats of ice cream. Confronted with over twenty flavors, Jewel assumed it was going to take the little boy some time to make up his mind. Instead, he made his choice quickly—one scoop each of mint chocolate chip and rocky road, a mixture of her choice and what she’d picked for Chris.

  Jewel couldn’t help wondering how much of that was because Joel liked the flavors and how much represented his desire to bond with both of them.

  No doubt about it, he was a very complicated little boy.

  “Okay, now what?” Chris asked once they each had their cones and he had collected his change.

  Jewel thought she saw a hint of amusement in his eyes. Good, the man wasn’t as wooden as he would have liked her to believe. “Now we eat our ice cream cones as we walk.”

  “At the same time?” Chris deadpanned, holding the door open for her and Joel.

  Definitely amusement, she decided, walking out. “That’s the general idea, but the ultimate choice is yours,” she quipped. “Oh, and you might try enjoying yourself,” she added.

  “I don’t need an ice cream cone to enjoy myself,” he told her.

  “No, but it doesn’t hurt,” she said, taking an appreciative lick of the top scoop on her own cone. Ordinarily, she didn’t lick her ice cream, she took bites of it until it was gone. It disappeared faster that way, but she also got to enjoy it more quickly.

  Jewel slanted a look at him as they proceeded down a short, sloped alleyway between two weathered bungalows, making their way to the beach just beyond. The sky, so bright and blue just a short while ago, was now overcast, hovering like a gauzy shroud over the horizon.

  “I’ll bite,” she finally said. “What do you need to enjoy yourself?”

  There was no hesitation. The world of science had been his haven for as long as he could remember. “Understanding a new concept that I never understood before.”

  It took her a second to make sense of what Chris was telling her. “You’re talking about physics, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “Science is very pure and its frontier is really endless. There’s always something new to learn, to understand.”

  She could appreciate getting wrapped up in the pursuit of knowledge—but not to the exclusion of everything else.

  “But while it might keep you up at night,” she pointed out cheerfully, “it won’t keep you warm.”

  He didn’t see where she was going with this. “That was never a requirement.”

  She moved her shoulders in a vague shrug. “Maybe it should be,” she countered. Before he could say anything in response, she turned her attention to Joel. They’d ignored the boy long enough, and while he didn’t seem to mind, she minded for him. “Well, we’re one step closer to getting you registered for school, Joel. Are you excited?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he emulated her earlier movement and made his thin shoulders rise and fall in a careless shrug.

  “Maybe a little afraid?” she guessed. The look on his face as he raised his eyes to hers told Jewel she was closer to the truth than the little boy really wanted to admit.

  He was deeper than children his age, she thought, but then, most children his age hadn’t had to be a parent to one of their parents.

  “It’s okay to be afraid,” she told him.

  He stopped walking and looked up at her in surprise. “It is?”

  “Uh-huh.” She kept walking and Joel fell into step beside her on her right while Chris continued walking on her left. “As long as you don’t let that fear make you hide from things,” she qualified. “You’ve got to stand up to your fears and show them who’s boss.”

  “What fears have you stood up to?” Chris asked, curious.

  She hadn’t expected him to interject a question. “Fear of failure.”

  She aroused his curiosity. People usually didn’t. He found that interesting. “And have you? Failed?” he added.

  “Nope, not yet,” she answered brightly. Her shoe came in contact with something in the sand and she glanced down to see what it was. “Oh, look, Joel. A seashell.” Jewel stooped to pick it up. It was small and, unlike so many other shells, it was in one piece, although heavily encrusted with sand. She blew on the shell to loosen some of the sand and then held it out to the boy. “If you hold it up to your ear, you can hear the ocean.”

  Instead of placing the shell to his ear to see if he could indeed hear the ocean, Joel turned and pointed toward the waves that were ebbing and flowing against the shore. “But the ocean is right there.”
>
  She pressed her lips together in order not to laugh. “When you take the seashell home,” she told him, “you can still hear the ocean.” There was a skeptical expression on the boy’s face when he looked down at the shell. “I think,” she said to Chris, lowering her voice as they resumed walking, “I have more to find than just Joel’s father.”

  He wasn’t following her. “Oh?”

  “There’s a missing childhood that needs to be restored,” she told him, watching Joel as the boy walked a few steps ahead of them, at the moment engrossed in the way the waves were hugging the shore.

  Chris didn’t understand her concern. “There’s nothing wrong with being serious.”

  “Once in a while, no,” she agreed. “But all the time? He’s five years old, Chris. At five, he shouldn’t be analyzing statements for accuracy. He should be running around, playing games he made up and laughing.”

  Chris looked over toward his nephew. There were pictures of him in an old family album stored on his bookcase at home that could easily have been photographs of Joel. Moreover, he could relate to the way the boy behaved.

  “My guess,” he speculated, “is that he hasn’t had a whole lot to laugh about.”

  Chris was probably right, she thought. “Well, then, he needs to be given something to laugh about.” Jewel looked at him pointedly.

  Oh, no. He was too busy to take on another responsibility. This was only temporary. “Talking to the wrong person,” Chris replied. He finished the last of his cone. “He’s just staying with me until you locate his father.”

  She suppressed the urge to tell him that Joel was his blood and that he should help him, not regard him as a hot potato to be passed to whomever was there to take him. Instead, she told him, “Time is relative. A lot can be accomplished in a short amount if you do it right.” She wasn’t making an impression, she thought. “Ever see The Lost Weekend? Ray Milland plays an alcoholic who got stone cold sober in a forty-eight-hour period.”