“He’s been staying with me for a few days while he sorts things out with Delia,” she said. “It’s temporary, I assure you.”
Mr. Proxly raised his eyebrows as they walked several steps in silence. She hoped he was a bit more accepting than Auntie about the whole living in sin thing.
“We’re not sleeping together,” she added. “He’s sleeping with my daughter’s bunny.”
Mr. Proxly’s eyebrows rose even higher, but his mouth twitched up in the corners.
“I wasn’t aware you had a daughter, my dear,” he said. His eyebrows retreated and he looked at her gently. “I assume you have a partner?”
“I don’t.” Robin was used to being judged for being a single mother, but she sensed only caring from the older gentleman as they entered the office building and waited together for the elevator. “Her father was long gone before she was born.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Raising a child alone is challenging role.”
Robin looked at her shoes. She swallowed, feeling tiredness creeping up her spine. She was fine as long as no one reminded her that she was alone. As long as she kept her loneliness on the periphery of her vision, she was fine. If she let it creep in on the kind words of a thoughtful person, it wrapped cold fingers around her strong backbone.
“I have Auntie,” she said.
“You do, indeed, have Auntie.”
She looked at him for a moment and then they both laughed.
“I believe your great aunt is a force unto herself.” He took her elbow as they entered the elevator.
“She is that.”
“Thank you for taking care of Hudson,” he said after a brief silence. “I have enjoyed Delia, but Mrs. Davies has counselled me that I may have only seen one side of her.”
“Mrs. Davies is a champion,” Robin said.
“I’m afraid Hudson has been operating under the assumption that he must fulfill everyone’s expectations of him,” Mr. Proxly said thoughtfully. There was a deep emotion running through his words, even though he spoke as if reading from a textbook. “Losing his mother was devastating for us both, but I fear he has been trying to atone for something...”
He paused as the elevator doors slid open and they walked out.
Robin put her hand on his arm.
“I think he wants your approval, Mr. Proxly, above all things.” She spoke to the emotion behind his words. She didn’t want to cross a line with this wonderfully reserved man, but she was never one to dodge the bullets. He asked. She was going to tell him. “You might think you’re protecting him, but it’s only strangling him. He isn’t a child.”
The image of his long legs sticking over the foot of Izzy’s bed flitted through her mind. As did the image of him coming out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist. He was definitely not a child.
Mr. Proxly was quiet, staring blindly at the frosted glass door in front of them with Proxly and Son etched into the pane.
“You are very perceptive, Ms. Brookes,” he said softly. “Mrs. Davies has been saying the same thing to me for some time now.”
He looked at the bouquet of flowers in his hand and smiled sadly.
“It is a difficult thing when your children grow up.”
“My daughter recently stuffed raisins up her nose and we spent several hours in the emergency room having them suctioned out of her nostrils.” Robin smiled as Mr. Proxly laughed. “I doubt having a thirty-year-old lawyer son can really be all that hard.”
“You do have a way of putting things into perspective. It must be the artist in you.”
It’s the realist in me.
She smiled and let him hold the door open for her.
Chapter 20
Robin opened the door to the apartment and knew immediately that it was empty. Ever since Izzy was born, she had developed a sixth sense that told her where her daughter was, just by the energy in the room. She could tell if Izzy was asleep or if she was hiding in the kitchen cupboard vibrating with hide-and-seek excitement. She knew, intuitively, that Izzy was not there and she should have been. Auntie had picked her up at daycare and had promised to drop her off with Hudson so that Robin could spend a few extra hours at Proxly and Son, painting the wall behind Mrs. Davies’ desk.
The soft blue paint was on her fingers and the leg of her work jeans.
She heaved her grocery bags onto the kitchen counter and dug her phone out of her purse to see if Hudson had texted her. He might have taken Izzy to the playground, or out for a walk. Nothing.
She frowned. She trusted Hudson, didn’t she? She began unpacking the groceries. He seemed to be totally reliable and dependable with Izzy, and she adored him. Robin couldn’t imagine anything happening while Hudson was in charge.
What if Auntie hadn’t picked her up?
Robin began pacing, leaving a tub of ice cream on the counter as her brain began to run through the possible mishaps that could have led to Izzy not being safely at home. What if Auntie had car trouble? Or Izzy was sick? She grabbed her phone again, beginning to text Auntie when she heard a thump from over her head.
She froze, listening intently. There it was again. A thump, a step and—a giggle.
Coming from her studio in the attic.
She groaned. She never let Izzy into her studio, there were simply too many delightful messes she could make with the paints and fabrics. Too many expensive messes. She walked out of the kitchen to see the attic door open, the hook at the top of the door hanging uselessly from its latch.
Hudson had taken Izzy into her studio.
No one, ever, went into her studio.
She fought a wave of panic. She was over-reacting. Hudson had seen some of her work, of course. Her landscapes and architectural drawings. The artwork that she presented to the world and tried to sell at the small gallery in town. But no one saw her personal work. Her passionate, expressive paintings she worked on when Izzy was asleep, late at night as she let her pent-up emotions and fears loose on the canvas.
Hudson is in my studio.
She heard the deep murmur of his voice as he laughed with Izzy, and the little girl’s giggles and tiny footsteps.
Why was she angry?
Part of her wanted to show him her work, wanted to part the curtain and let him in to see who she really was. But an even bigger part knew that sharing that much of yourself only opened you up to disappointment. He had invaded her personal space, without asking, and now he would judge her by the wild disarray of her most personal artwork.
She climbed the stairs slowly.
They didn’t see her as she got to the top. The attic was one big room, with slanted ceilings and a sky light. There was a window at each end, casting the late afternoon sun in bold streaks against the faded wood-slat floor. It was her favorite room in the apartment, and the reason she had rented it even though it was small for the two of them.
It suddenly seemed even more crowded with Hudson making himself at home in her life.
Izzy sat on a large sheet of paper in the middle of the floor. She was in bare feet, and there was paint everywhere. It looked like she was doing a giant finger-painting, using her entire body.
Robin paused at the top of the stairs, watching her daughter wipe paint in bold streaks across the page, getting on her knees and crawling so she could reach every corner. She had paint on the soles of her feet, in her hair, on the legs of her pants. She looked completely, blissfully happy.
She sighed. Hudson sat on a stool by the window, smiling as her eyes met his. His blonde hair was aglow in the sunlight from the window, and he also was liberally daubed with paint from head to toe.
Very expensive paint.
“Those paints cost more money than I earned today.” Her voice was so like an old crone she had to clear her throat before she continued. “But I suppose you didn’t think of that before you decided to trespass?”
“Mumma!” Izzy cried, leaping to her feet and sliding across the wet paper, leaving a rainbow
smear in her wake. “I’se painting! Look, I made a unicorn, and a watermelon. And this is you!”
Izzy grabbed Robin’s hand and dragged her across the floor.
“This is Mumma.” Izzy pointed at a brightly colored blob on the edge of the paper. “And this is Dot.”
Robin looked at a round smudge of green paint beside the blob that was her. It appeared to have a tail.
“It’s beautiful Iz.” And it was. She scanned the painting with a critical artist’s eye, delighted in the wild meanderings of color and shape. She should do this with Izzy more often, but she simply couldn’t afford it.
Hudson remained on his stool, looking uncomfortable. “Robin, I didn’t think—”
“No kidding.” She waved at the tubes of paint scattered on the floor. “It’s not one of your strengths, is it? Thinking?”
He grimaced, looking at his hands.
“I asked Izzy what was behind the door and she told me it was the painting room. I didn’t think there would be any harm in letting her play.”
Robin rubbed her hand over her jaw, swallowing a sharp retort.
“Your work is outstanding, Robin.” Hudson climbed off the stool and stood beside her easel. The canvas was a vivid figure in a rainbow of color and texture. It was wild and unrestrained, with marks of brushes, fingers and spatula creating a living, breathing evocation of life. “Why have you never shown me these?”
“I haven’t shown anyone.” She threw a sheet over the easel, covering the vivid painting.
“Why? They’re... breathtaking.” He gestured at the walls where a dozen canvases leaned, all painted in a similar style. He moved closer, peering at each one thoughtfully. It felt like ants were crawling up her legs, but she didn’t have enough sheets to cover them all, and it was too late anyway.
“They tell a story, don’t they?” he said.
Her heart froze mid-beat. “How can you tell?” she whispered.
He turned to her, his eyes soft and warm. He smiled gently, his full lips curving up slightly as he considered her.
“It’s like a journey,” he said, reaching out and taking her hand. She stood stiffly beside him as he lifted her hand like clay in his own. He gently kneaded her fingers and a tiny knot loosened deep within her. “This one is the beginning.”
He pulled her over to a painting of a naked woman, the belly smoothly distended in pregnancy, the back arched, hair wildly swirling across the canvas. It was bold and fearless, brilliant daubs of color and fabric and lace melded together to create an image that seemed to move off the canvas. She remembered her tears when she had finished it. The rush of spent emotion that went into each and every painting.
“And then this one.” He pulled her to the next canvas, this one an abstraction with the same multimedia techniques interwoven on the surface. “I’m not sure about it... it might be two mountains with a river between them, or it might be an explosion of some kind?”
He looked at the painting, continually rubbing her fingers until she wanted to crawl onto his lap and let his hands roam all over her body.
“It’s birth,” she said, barely above a whisper.
“Of course, it is!” He pulled back and looked at her, his face awake with wonder. “You’re amazing. Why are these not in every gallery between here and New York city?”
She tugged her hand out of his grip, the familiar twist of fear returning to her stomach as he continued to move from canvas to canvas.
“It’s just stuff I do for myself.” She began picking up paint tubes and placing them back where they belonged. “No one would understand it, much less pay money for it.”
“I understand it,” he said. “Every one of these painting is you, heart and soul in paint and fabric. What are you hiding from?”
“None of your business, Mr. Fancy Pants.” She tried to smile but the corners of her mouth dragged down against her will. “And my studio is off limits from now on.”
He stood there in his bare feet with paint over his toes, the cuffs of his designer trousers daubed in yellow and red. She glanced around at her expensive paints, the unrestrained exuberance of Izzy’s artwork, and her paint-speckled daughter, grinning like it was Christmas morning.
“Izzy, what are you holding?” She crouched to see what Izzy had on her lap, wrapped in a paint cloth.
“It’s Dot!” Izzy folded back a corner of the cloth to reveal the tiny bald head of Delia’s purse dog. “Hudson says we’se gonna keep her ‘cause she’s too big to flush.”
Robin turned wide eyes to Hudson, who shrugged.
“Actually, it was Delia who wanted to flush her, I’m just the canine rescue unit,” he said. “Apparently I get custody of Dot, because her new beau has a pitbull.”
“Are you serious?” Robin said. “You think that creature is going to live in my home? It’s like a rat with a bad hairdo.”
“She actually, um...” He grinned again. “She’s been here all along. She just easy to hide.”
Izzy put the tiny dog down on the paper and it immediately trotted toward Robin, it’s spaghetti-noodle tail wagging wildly. Tiny multicolored dog footprints followed in its wake.
“Nice touch,” Robin said. Dot stood against Robin’s ankle, her tongue lolling. “You know I should be furious with you, right?”
So why do I just want to kiss you?
She looked at him, his goofy smile, his too-long curls and his apologetic shrug dissolving her annoyance.
Why is it so impossible to be mad at this man?
“She’s gonna live in our room,” Izzy said. “I gots a box for her, and she can sleep with Bunny so she won’t be lonely.”
“Great.” Robin patted the tiny head. “My life just keeps getting better.”
“Mine sure does.” Hudson grinned.
“Mine sure does too!” Izzy giggled and wiped a purple hand down her cheek.
Chapter 21
“When I was a little girl, I had a fantasy about a boy who would come and fall in love with me.” Robin twirled the wine in her glass as little bits of cork spun in the eddy. “I always had to be hurt though, for him to show up. I would imagine that I had fallen over a cliff, or been burned by a dragon, and this boy would scoop me up in his arms and save me.”
“Sounds a bit dire,” Hudson said. They sat companionably in the tiny living room, an empty pizza box between them on the floor. Izzy was tucked in bed and they hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights as the sun set through the big windows. He reached over and flicked on a lamp. Robin smiled in the warm glow. “Most boys I knew when I was kid would probably have just left you where you were so they could go play baseball.”
Robin laughed. “I know. I’m not sure where it came from, but I really liked that little daydream. I would imagine all kinds of horrible ways I could get into trouble so this young Prince Charming would rescue me. It’s weird because I also was incredibly brave in these fantasies. I mean, you don’t get burned by a dragon unless you’re confronting the dragon, right?”
This was strange for him, sharing thoughts and memories with a woman, after dark, with wine. It was almost like a date, except the woman in question was wrapped in a fuzzy blanket covered with unicorns and he was wearing boxer shorts with beer logos on them and a faded t-shirt that read ‘Drunk chicks think I’m hot’.
And her daughter was sleeping in her bed, so that he could sleep in her tiny cot with the pink sheets. Not exactly romance central.
“Maybe you have some kind of deeply ingrained victim schtick,” Hudson said.
“I doubt it,” she said. “I think I just really liked the idea of doing daring things, and then having a partner to put on the bandages after.”
“Why are you still single?” Hudson asked. She shrugged.
“Have you met my life?” she asked. “A wild three-year-old with a penchant for banana pancakes and a crazy Great Aunt who shows up unannounced at any hour of the day or night?”
Robin took a sip of wine. Auntie had shown up just as the pizza was delive
red, bringing a jumbo box of tissues and a toilet plunger she got on sale at Walmart. Luckily, she seemed discomfited by Hudson’s boxers and she had only stayed for fifteen minutes, after insisting on demonstrating proper toilet plunger use in the bathroom.
“I don’t think Auntie has seen a man in boxers for several decades.” Hudson grinned.
“Let’s say, never,” she giggled.
“You think she likes a briefs man better?”
“Probably commando,” Robin said, straight-faced. “She’s pretty wild that way.”
They both dissolved in laughter.
“You’re single now,” Robin said as they caught their breath. “Or are you? Have you actually discussed things with Delia?”
“Things?” He stuffed the last bite of pizza into his mouth.
“Oh, you know, nothing serious.” She flipped her hand at him. “Just your condo and belongings and whether or not she’s going to go after alimony. No biggie.”
He groaned.
“I’m hoping she just goes away,” he said.
“Like herpes?”
“Like a bad dream.”
“I don’t think gold-digger ex-fiancées see themselves as figments of the imagination. My bet is that she’s coming after you, hook line and sinker.”
He sighed. “Do you really think that the son of Bernard Proxly...” He sat up and adopted the stance of his father when he sat behind his desk. He even managed to move his eyebrows like his father. “Of Proxly and Son Legal Services, would engage in an extra-marital liaison without the extenuating precautions of a legally binding agreement regarding the distribution of assets at the termination of such relationship? Hmmm?”
She giggled. He was very good.
“You should have been a stand-up,” she said.
“It was either a lawyer or a mime.” He pretended to be trapped inside a box.
“So, you have a pre-nup with the nightmare fiancée?”
Love by Design: A Heartswell Harbour Romance Page 10