by Olivia Dade
Rose’s hand on his arm somehow managed to heat his entire body, and her murmur tickled his ear in a shivery taunt. “Impressive acting skills, Krause. And if you’re worried about them paying for Bea’s meal, please remember that they have plenty of money. Besides, eating with people they like really does make them happy.”
When she removed her hand, his forearm continued to burn from the contact.
“Good night, Annette.” She hugged her former mother-in-law, surrounding the older woman’s slight frame with both arms. “Dinner was fantastic, as always. Thank you.” Then it was Alfred’s turn for an embrace. “Alfred, you need some work to become a master thespian. But I really appreciate dinner, and I really appreciate you both.”
The couple gazed at her, soft-eyed.
“We’ll call you later this week,” Annette promised. “Take care of yourself, Rosie.”
“Why don’t Martin and Bea walk you to your car?” Alfred suggested. “We need to visit the facilities before we leave.”
Rose cast them a skeptical glance, one Martin secretly seconded.
“You live two minutes from this restaurant,” she said.
Annette sagged where she stood. “When you get as old as us, dearest—”
Rose shook her head. “Never mind. We’re going.”
At the coat check, they reclaimed their late-winter gear. He helped Bea don her fleece jacket, and then held Rose’s sleek, quilted black coat open for her.
She stared at it, then at him. “Really?”
But at that point she apparently decided to take the same approach with him as she did with her former in-laws. Without further protest, she let him ease her into the coat and draw her silky hair from beneath its collar.
When his fingertips slid along her warm, soft nape, her chin tipped back, her eyes going half-lidded, and if his daughter hadn’t been standing three feet away, he honestly had no idea what he might have done next. Stroked her nape a second time. Kissed her.
Found out whether he could earn that look again. And again.
But instead, he held the door for his two favorite ladies in the world and walked beside them into the dim parking lot. After Bea settled in his Subaru, he tossed her the keys.
“Turn on the engine and get warm,” he told her. “I’ll be right back.”
For once, she didn’t offer any sass. “Sure thing. Take your time.”
Rose was already seated by the time he arrived, but he held her door for a moment. “I’m sorry. I hope we didn’t disrupt your entire evening.”
“No worries.” Under the car’s interior lights, her lashes cast lacy shadows beneath her eyes. “Dinner was fun. I hope Bea enjoyed it too. And like I said, please don’t think twice about letting Annette and Alfred pay for her.” She paused. “However, you should probably know that their performance tonight was just a warmup.”
At his alarmed look, she laughed. “Once Annette gets out her Swarovski-studded reading glasses and starts talking about whether she needs one of those adjustable beds and a walk-in bath, that’s when you know you’re really in deep shit.”
He could only imagine. “See you tomorrow at school?”
“Yeah.” She looked up at him, eyes suddenly serious. “Yeah, you will.”
After shutting her door, he watched her leave the lot.
Then he returned to Bea, hustling inside his car as quickly as possible. Funny how he hadn’t even felt the cold until just then.
“Did you enjoy your birthday dinner, sweet Bea?” He backed out of the parking space. “I hope you didn’t regret joining Ms. Owens and her family.”
She didn’t hesitate. “I had a great time. The food was amazing, and Annette and Alfred were hilarious.”
“And Ms. Owens?”
“I like her.” A simple, firm statement. “I’ve always liked her.”
He thought back to earlier in the evening. Discussions of truffle risotto. Black clothing. “Do you talk to her a lot?”
He didn’t disapprove, by any means. But like any teenager, Bea occasionally missed social cues, and he wanted to ensure she hadn’t made Rose uncomfortable or imposed on her.
Bea lifted a shoulder. “A couple times a week, maybe. Sometimes I see her in the hall, and we chat for a little while.”
“About which restaurants are most likely to bankrupt your college fund?”
“About a little of everything.” Bea paused for a moment, and then twisted toward him in an abrupt movement. “Even about you, the other day.”
Well, that was news to frighten any man. “All right.”
“I was complaining about how you always make me go to bed early so I get enough sleep, and I slipped up and called you Old Sobersides.” In his peripheral vision, he caught her grimace. “I’m sorry.”
He darted a quick, reassuring smile her way. “I told you not to worry about that.”
“I know. But I won’t do it again.” His daughter wiggled, settling herself more firmly in the seat. “Anyway, that’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is what she said.”
He wasn’t certain he wanted to know, but Bea was going to tell him one way or another. “What did she say?”
“She was really nice about it, but really serious too. She told me she didn’t understand the nickname. She said you had a great sense of humor and”—she crooked her fingers—“a sharp wit, and she thought it was hilarious to watch you say funny things with a straight face.”
That felt good. Better than good.
Maybe a bit too good, since he and Rose might not ever be anything more than colleagues and casual friends.
“That’s when it occurred to me.” Bea spread her hands. “You and Mom don’t have the same sense of humor. Like, at all. She likes slapsticky stuff, and you’re more into nerdy references and wordplay. That’s probably why she didn’t think you were funny, but you totally are. Ms. Owens is right.”
He didn’t know quite what to say to that. “Thank you?”
“And then she said how much she’d wished for a dad like you when she was my age. Someone to tell her she was working too hard and that she needed to get enough sleep.”
Again, more information he desperately wanted, but coming from the wrong mouth.
“Ms. Owens hasn’t told me about her parents, and I doubt she’s told anyone else either,” he said as gently as he could. “I would keep anything she says about them in confidence. Even with me.”
Bea thought that over for a minute. “Good point.”
He and Sabrina really had raised a good kid, even in the midst of their own disconnection.
“The last thing she said was that all her students thought their parents were unfair and annoying sometimes. But not all of them had dads who cared enough to make sure their daughters got enough sleep. Which was her roundabout way of telling me to appreciate you,” Bea said. “And after that, I told her exactly what I’m about to tell you. I do appreciate you. You’re a great dad, and I love you, and I don’t tell you that enough.”
How did Rose manage to twist his heart even when she was miles away?
And how was he going to survive dropping Bea off at college?
“I love you too.” He cleared his throat. Then cleared his throat again. “You’re the best daughter I can imagine having.” Another hard blink, and he kept his tone as neutral as possible. “Then again, my imagination isn’t very good.”
She smacked his arm. “Enough with the”—more air quotes—“sharp wit, Dad. I have one more thing to say.”
If he didn’t survive it, he hoped Bea could get herself home safely.
“I told you before, and I’ll tell you again: Ms. Owens likes you. I mean, likes you, likes you.” She poked him. “I don’t know why you haven’t asked her out yet, but you need to stop messing around. Before some other guy figures out she’s awesome and snatches her up.”
How much could he say without violating Rose’s privacy?
“Ms. Owens isn’t always the easiest person to understand.” He sele
cted each word with care. “Sometimes it can be hard to know what she wants.”
Bea made a sort of unimpressed grunt. “Doesn’t seem that hard to me. Then again, you’re a dude.”
“I am.” He turned into their driveway. “I am a dude.”
“But I have faith you can overcome your dudeness.” As soon as he turned off the engine, she hopped out of the door. “Crack her like a walnut, Dad.”
She thumped the hood in demonstration of said cracking.
His daughter seemed to understand his intentions toward Rose already, but he supposed it couldn’t hurt to make them clear.
“I’m not sure cracking her like a walnut is the most romantic simile I’ve ever heard.” He shut the door behind him with a decisive thud. “But I’m certainly going to try.”
With a wide grin, his daughter hummed a few bars of the Nutcracker Suite.
Such a smartass.
Emphasis on the smart.
Eleven
Rose held out until five minutes before the first bell.
Then, before she let herself think too hard about it, she rushed down the hall to the social studies office to see whether Martin had arrived yet.
Just because he hadn’t visited her classroom early in the morning for the first time in months didn’t mean something had gone wrong. That he was out sick with a terrible illness, alone and feverish and delirious. Or that he’d crashed his car on his way to work and was even now lying unconscious and bleeding in some awful emergency room.
Or that he’d simply grown tired of her company. Given up on her once and for all.
She flung open the social studies office door. No Martin.
Another dash back to her classroom, as her gathering students watched her with startled confusion. When she peered out her window, she didn’t see his Subaru in his usual spot. So with two minutes to spare before she needed to start teaching, she rushed to Keisha’s room.
The department chair, standing in the doorway to greet her own students, reared back in surprise at the sight of Rose jogging toward her. “Ms. Owens, what on earth is the matter?”
Damn, running in heels sucked. Rose was panting and possibly even a bit sweaty, which would usually dismay her. But this morning, she had more important issues to consider.
“Is Martin okay?” she gasped out. “I can’t find him.”
Keisha’s eyebrows rose. “He’s having back issues. He’s out today and maybe the rest of the week.”
Thank God.
Although…oh, he must be in terrible pain not to come to school, given the circumstances.
“But…” Rose leaned forward, bracing her hands on her thighs. “But the AP test is coming up in a couple weeks, and I know he’s trying to review as much as he can beforehand. A random sub won’t be able to help much with that. Martin must be horrified.”
“Be that as it may, he’s in no condition to come to school, so we called a sub.” Keisha glanced at the clock on the wall. “There really aren’t a lot of other options.”
Shit. Rose needed to go. Now.
“His AP classes are during my planning periods. I’ll take them. The sub can get everything else.” She hobbled toward the door. “Please e-mail me his substitute lesson plans if you can.”
Keisha’s eyebrows essentially disappeared into her hairline. “I will.”
True to her word, Rose’s supervisor had sent the lesson plans before second period began. So after approximately fifteen minutes of prep—conducted while she had her kids work independently on a review packet for the state standardized test, also coming soon—she stood in front of the AP World History class, introduced herself, and did her best to channel Martin. Then conducted more of her own classes before taking over his other AP class for seventh period.
All told, during the day, she had a twenty-five minute break for lunch. That was it.
By the time the last bell rang, she could barely move. But instead of staying at school to grade and plan, and instead of driving home to stare blankly at a wall for a few hours, she flipped through the staff directory and programmed a new address into her phone’s GPS.
Martin’s home.
She locked her classroom door two minutes after the students left, ran to the parking lot in hopes of beating the buses—because once they started pulling out, no one was going anywhere for a loooong time—climbed into her car, and started the engine.
Then promptly turned it off again.
Bea was probably helping to take care of him after school. Or maybe his ex-wife or his buddies or someone else from the department. Martin wasn’t like Rose. He didn’t isolate himself.
He didn’t need her.
Of course he didn’t need her.
Then again, he’d lived in Marysburg less than a year. He hated to bother people. As far as she knew, he didn’t go get coffee with any of the other teachers. And Bea spent every other week at her mother’s home.
Fuck it, Rose was going.
Once she pulled into his driveway, a glaring omission in her half-assed plan occurred to her. If his back was too painful for him to attend school, how the hell was he supposed to answer the door?
Bea. Bea could help.
She pulled up the girl’s number—at some point during their dinner at Milano, Bea had given it to her “just in case”—and called.
“Uh, Ms. Owens?” Bea sounded confused. “I’m just down the hall at Ms. Albright’s AP Lit study session, like we talked about yesterday. Why are you calling me?”
Damn. She’d forgotten. And she hated to interrupt a study session, especially one led by Candy Albright. The ringleader of the Frankenstein Is Not the Monster Initiative never forgot, never forgave, and doled out vengeance the likes of which Bianca and the girls’ softball team couldn’t even imagine.
Didn’t matter. Candy could plot Rose’s death later.
“Are you staying with your father right now?” No point checking her reflection in the rearview. A disaster didn’t magically repair itself when you stared at it. “Because he was out today with back issues, and Ms. Williams said he might not return this week.”
“Hold on.” Rustling, and the sound of a door creaking open, then closed. “I had no idea he stayed home today, Ms. Owens. I’m with Mom this week, and Dad sounded fine on the phone last night. I just figured we hadn’t crossed paths today by chance.”
The girl’s words began to trip over each other. “I’d get over there now, but this study session counts as extra credit, and my grade is right on the edge between an A and a B. Mom and I had plans for tonight, but maybe I could—”
“Honey.” When Bea kept talking, her voice getting higher and higher with stress, Rose repeated herself. “Honey. It’s okay. I’ll take care of your dad. I’m at your house now. My main question is: How do I get in?”
Once Bea had shared the location of their extra key—if Martin insisted on using a fake rock, he really needed to buy a more convincing specimen—she told Rose a little more about how her father’s back issues usually manifested themselves.
“Sometimes when he wakes up, he instinctively tenses, and it makes things a million times worse. You should definitely just go in, instead of calling ahead or ringing the doorbell. And if he tries to tell you he’s fine and you can leave, don’t listen. He’s a great nurse but a terrible patient.” Bea paused, her tone changing in a way Rose couldn’t quite define. “Also, I’m not sure I should tell you this, but…”
“What?” Rose wanted all the information she could get. “What, Bea?”
The girl immediately gave in. “Sometimes he needs stuff in the middle of the night. He gets sooo thirsty, Ms. Owens, and he has to take his muscle relaxants and ibuprofen at certain times. Is there any way you can stay there tonight? It would really ease my mind.”
Rose winced. All night?
“I know that’s a lot to ask. You don’t have to,” Bea said, her voice growing forlorn. “He’ll probably be fine all alone. Or I guess I can tell my mom she can’t see me tonight, even
though she’s made all those special plans.”
What kind of monster could ignore such a sincere plea? “No, no. I’ll do it.”
“You promise?”
Bea sounded oddly excited. Or maybe that was relief?
“I promise,” Rose said.
After ending the call, she walked up the front steps of the small, tidy home and let herself in, even though it went against all of her privacy-obsessed instincts.
At the sound of the door shutting, Martin called out from somewhere in the house, “Bea, I’m fine, and you need to be at your study session. Go back before Ms. Albright puts a hit out on you. And another on me for distracting you from your studies.”
She slipped off her heels just inside the door, loath to damage his gleaming hardwood floors, and followed the sound of his voice.
“Not Bea,” she called back.
Utter silence.
She passed an eat-in kitchen. Bea’s messy bedroom. A gray-and-white bathroom.
Still no response.
The poor man was probably too dazed from pain and drugs to understand what was happening. “That said, Candy may still put a hit out on you and your daughter. Not to mention me, for interrupting Bea’s study session.” She knocked on a half-open door, the last one at the end of the hall, forcing herself not to look inside. “Are you decent in there?”
“I guess.” He sounded befuddled. “Rose? Is that you?”
“It’s me. Unless the robotics team has gotten really, really sophisticated. May I come in?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yeah.”
Poking her head around the edge of the door, she braced herself for whatever currently awaited her within his bedroom. “See? Not a robot.”
Her introductory eyeful of Martin in his natural habitat was definitely memorable.
He blinked at her with hazy blue eyes as he lay flat on the bed, strands of his brown hair flopping over his forehead in boyish disarray. But the bare chest above his white sheet, the expanse of lean muscles dusted by more dark hair, was anything but childish.
As when she’d first seen him in that suit at Milano, her lungs just gave up and devoted themselves entirely to worshipping his handsomeness. Which was inconvenient, because she could use some air in a world turned suddenly hypoxic.
