by Nora Roberts
And so is he, she thought with a sigh. “I wish the man would buy a clue. Because I’m not waiting much longer. I want both of you.”
When the phone rang, she snatched it from the cradle. “Hello. Ah.” Smiling now, she walked out of the room so as not to disturb Jack. “Davidov. What have I done to deserve a call from the master?”
Later, though she admitted it was foolish, Kate freshened her makeup and tidied her hair. It was the first time she would meet Brody’s parents. Since she intended for them to be her in-laws, she wanted to make a good impression.
Jack had wakened from his nap energized. This had called for some running around the backyard, a fierce battle with action figures and a race with miniature cars that had resulted in a satisfying wreck of major proportions.
They finished the entertainment off with a snack in the kitchen.
“My dad’s mad at me,” Jack confided over slices of apple and cheese.
“I don’t think so. I think he’s a little upset because he couldn’t give you what you wanted. Inside, parents want to give their children everything that would make them happy. But sometimes they can’t.”
She remembered throwing some impressive tantrums herself—snarls followed by sulks. And ending, she thought, like this in guilty unhappiness.
“Sometimes they can’t because it’s not the best thing, or the right thing just then. And sometimes because they just can’t. When your little boy cries and yells and stomps his feet, it makes you mad for a while. But it also hurts your heart.”
Jack lifted his face, all big eyes and trembling lips. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know. And I bet if you tell him you’re sorry, you’ll both feel better.”
“Did your dad ever yell at you?”
“Yes, he did. And it made me mad or unhappy. But after a while, I usually figured out I deserved it.”
“Did I deserve it?”
“Yes, I’m afraid you did. There was this one thing I always knew, even when I was mad or unhappy. I knew my dad loved me. You know that about your dad, too.”
“Yeah.” Jack nodded solemnly. “We’re a team.”
“You’re a great team.”
Jack turned his apple slices around, making pictures and patterns. She was pretty, he thought. And she was nice. She could play games and read stories. He even liked when she kissed him, and the way she laughed when he pretended not to like it. Dad liked to kiss her, too. He said he did, and he didn’t lie.
So she could maybe marry his dad—even though Dad said she wasn’t going to—and then she could be Dad’s wife and Jack’s mother. They’d all live together in the big house.
And maybe, sometime, they could all go to Disney World.
“What are you thinking about so hard, Handsome Jack?”
“I was wondering if—”
“Oops.” She smiled, rising as she heard the doorbell. “Hold that thought, okay? That must be your grandma.”
She gave Jack’s hair a quick rub and hurried out to answer. With her hand on the knob, she took a quick bracing breath. Silly to be nervous, she told herself. Then opened the door to Mr. and Mrs. O’Connell.
“Hi. It’s good to see you.” She stepped back in invitation. “Jack’s just in the kitchen, having a snack.”
“It’s good of you to watch him for Brody.” Mary O’Connell stepped inside, tried not to make her quick scan of the entrance too obvious. She’d fussed with her makeup, too—much to her husband’s disgust.
“I enjoy spending time with Jack. He’s great company. Please come on back. Have some coffee.”
“Don’t want to put you out,” Bob said. He’d been in the house plenty. When you fixed people’s toilets, you weren’t particularly impressed by their doodads and furniture.
“I’ve got a fresh pot. Please, come in—unless you’re in a hurry.”
“We’ve got to—”
Bob broke off as his wife gave him a subtle elbow nudge. “We’d love a cup of coffee. Thank you.”
“Brody’s going to be remodeling the kitchen for my mother,” Kate began as they walked back. “My parents love the work he’s done in the rest of the house.”
“He always was good with his hands,” Mary commented and gave her husband a quiet look when he folded his lips tight.
“He’s certainly transformed the old house I bought. Hey, Jack, look who I’ve got.”
“Hi!” Jack slurped his chocolate milk. “I’ve been playing with Kate.”
Like father like son, Bob thought sourly, but his heart lifted as it always did at the sight of Jack’s beaming face. “Where’d you get the chocolate cow, partner?”
“Oh, we keep her in the garden shed,” Kate said as she got out cups and saucers. “And milk her twice a day.”
“Kate’s got toys. Her mom has a whole store of toys. She said how on my birthday we can go there and I can pick one out.”
“Isn’t that nice?” Mary slid her gaze toward Kate, speculated. “How is your mother, Kate?”
“She’s fine, thanks.”
Mary approved of the way Kate set out the cups, the cream and sugar. Classy, but not fussy. And the ease with which she handed Jack a dishrag so he could wipe up a bit of spilled milk himself.
Good potential mother material, she decided. God knew her little lamb deserved one. As for potential wife material, well, she would see what she would see.
“Everyone’s talking about your ballet school,” she began, flushing slightly at her husband’s soft snort. “You must be excited.”
“I am. I’ve got several students lined up, and classes begin in just a few weeks. If you know anyone who might be interested, I’d appreciate it if you’d spread the word.”
“Shepherdstown’s some different from New York City,” Bob said as he reached for the sugar.
“It certainly is.” Kate’s voice was smooth and easy—though she’d heard the snort. “I enjoyed living in New York, working there. Of course it helped considerably that I had family there as well. And I liked the traveling, seeing new places, having the opportunity to dance on the great stages. But this is home, and where I want to be. Do you think ballet is out of place here, Mr. O’Connell?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know anything about it.”
“It happens I do. And I think a good school of dance will do very well here. We’re a small town, of course,” she added, sipping her coffee. “But we’re also a college town. The university brings in a variety of people from a variety of places.”
“Can I have a cookie?”
“Please,” Jack’s grandmother added.
“Can I please have a cookie?”
Kate started to rise, then let out a gasp as she saw Brody through the glass on the back door. With a shake of her head, she walked over to open it. “You gave me such a jolt.”
“Sorry.” He was a little out of breath, more from excitement than the quick jog around the house. “I tried to call you,” he said, nodding in greeting to his parents. “To head you off. You must’ve been on the road.”
“Said we were coming to pick the boy up at three,” Bob said. “Got here at three.”
“Yeah, well. I had a little change of plans.” He looked at his son who sat with his eyes on his plate and his chin nearly on his chest. “Did you have a good time with Kate, Jack?”
Jack nodded his head, slowly looked up. His eyes were teary again. “I’m sorry I was bad. I’m sorry I hurt your heart.”
Brody crouched down, cupped Jack’s face. “I’m sorry I can’t take you to Disney World. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“You’re not mad at me anymore?”
“No, I’m not mad at you.”
The tears dried up. “Kate said you weren’t.”
“Kate was right.” He picked Jack out of the chair for a hug before setting him on his feet.
“Can I go back to work with you? I won’t be bad.”
“Well, you could, except I’m not going back to work today.”
“Man k
nocks off middle of the afternoon isn’t putting in a good day’s work.”
Brody glanced over at his father, nodded. “True enough. And a man who doesn’t take a few hours now and then to be with his son isn’t working hard enough at being a father.”
“You always had food in your belly,” Bob shot back as he shoved away from the table.
“You’re right. I want Jack to be able to say more than that about me. I’ve got something for you,” he added, cupping Jack’s chin as it had begun to wobble as it always did when Brody and his father exchanged words. “It isn’t Disney World, but I think you’ll like it even better than a ride on Space Mountain.”
“Is it a new action figure?” Thrilled he began tugging at Brody’s pockets.
“Nope.”
“A car? A truck?”
“You are way off, and it’s not in my pocket. It’s outside on the porch.”
“Can I see? Can I?” He was already running for the door, tugging the knob. And when he opened it, looked down, looked up again at his father, Brody had, in that wonderful moment of stupefied delight, everything that mattered.
“A puppy! A puppy!” Jack scooped up the black ball of fur that was trying to climb up his leg. “Is it mine? Can I keep him?”
“Looks like he wants to keep you,” Brody commented as the pup wriggled in ecstasy, yipping and bathing Jack’s face with his tongue.
“Look, Grandma, I got a puppy, and he’s mine. And his name is Mike. Just like I always wanted.”
“He sure is a pretty little thing. Oh, just look at those feet. Why he’ll be bigger than you before long. You have to be real good to him, Jack.”
“I will. I promise. Look, Kate. Look at Mike.”
“He’s great.” Unable to resist, she got down and was treated to some puppy kisses. “So soft. So sweet.” She turned her head, met Brody’s eyes. “Very, very sweet.”
“It’s a good thing for a boy to have a dog.” Still stinging from his son’s comment, Bob gestured. “But who’s going to tend to it when Jack’s in school all day and you’re working? Problem with you is you never think things through, just do what you want at the moment you want it, and don’t consider.”
“Bob.” Mortified, Mary reached up to pat her husband’s arm.
“I have a fenced yard,” Brody said carefully. “And I’ve worked on plenty of jobs where dogs were around. He’ll come with me till he’s old enough to be on his own.”
“You buy that dog for the boy, or to patch up your conscience because you can’t give him a holiday like his friends?”
“I don’t want to go to Disney World,” Jack said in a quavering voice. “I want to stay home with Dad and Mike.”
“Why don’t you take Mike outside, Jack?” Fixing a smile on her face, Kate walked to the door. “Puppies like to run around as much as boys do. And you need to get acquainted. Here, put on your jacket first.”
Brody held it in until Kate nudged the boy out the door.
“It’s none of your business if I get my son a dog, or why. But the fact is I had this one picked out from a litter three weeks ago for him, and was waiting until he was weaned. I was going to pick him up Sunday for Easter, but Jack needed a little cheering up today.”
“You’re not teaching him respect by giving him presents after he’s sassed you.”
“All you taught me was respect, and look where that got us.”
“Please.” Mary all but wrung her hands. “This isn’t the place.”
“Don’t you tell me where I can speak my mind,” Bob snapped. “My mistake was in not slapping you back harder and more often. You always did run your own way, as you pleased. Nothing but trouble, causing it and finding it and giving your mother heartache. Run off to the city before you’re dry behind the ears, and pissing your life away.”
“I didn’t run off to the city. I ran away from you.”
Bob’s head jerked back at that, as if he’d been slapped. He went pale. “Now you’re back, aren’t you? Scrambling to make do, shuffling the boy off to neighbors so you can make a living. Stirring up gossip ’cause you’re fooling around with women down the hall from where that boy sleeps, and teaching him to run wild as you did, and end up the same way.”
“Just one minute.” If her own temper hadn’t hazed her vision, Kate would have realized she was stepping between two men very near to coming to blows. “It so happens Brody isn’t fooling around with women, he’s fooling around with me. And though that is none of your business, the fooling around has never gone on when Jack’s asleep down the hall.
“And if you don’t know that Brody would cut his own arm off rather than do anything, anything to hurt that child, then you’re blind as well as stupid. You should be ashamed to speak to him as you did, to not have the guts to tell him you’re proud of what he’s making out of his life, and of the life he’s making for his son.”
“You’re wasting your breath,” Brody began, and she rounded on him.
“You shut up. You’ve plenty to answer for, too. You have no right to speak to your father as you did. No right whatsoever to show him disrespect. And in front of your own child. Don’t you see that it frightens and hurts Jack to watch the two of you claw at each other this way?”
She spun back, searing both of them with one hot look. “The pair of you haven’t got enough sense put together to equal the brains of a monkey. I’m going outside with Jack. As far as I’m concerned the two of you can pound each other into mush and be done with it.”
She wrenched open the door and sailed outside.
She was still simmering when Brody joined her a few minutes later. Saying nothing he watched Jack wrestle with the puppy and try to get Mike to chase a small red ball.
“I want to apologize for bringing that into your house.”
“My house has heard family arguments before, and I expect it will hear them again.”
“You were right about it being wrong for us to start on each other in front of Jack.” When she said nothing, he jammed his hands into his pockets. “Kate, that’s just the way it is between me and my father. The way it’s always been.”
“And because it’s been that way, it has to continue to be? If you can change one aspect of your life, Brody, you can change others. You just have to try harder.”
“We grate each other, that’s all. We’re better when we keep our distance. I don’t want Jack to feel that way about me. Maybe I overcompensate.”
“Stop it.” Impatient again, she turned to him. “Is that a happy, well-adjusted, healthy boy?”
“Yeah.” Brody had to smile as Jack filled the air with belly laughs as he rolled over the grass with the puppy climbing all over him.
“You know you’re a good father. It’s taken work, and effort, but for the most part it’s easy for you. Because you love him unconditionally. It’s a lot more work, a lot more effort, Brody, for you to be a good son. Because there are a lot of conditions on the love you have for your father, and his for you.”
“We don’t love each other.”
“Oh, you’re wrong. If you didn’t, you couldn’t hurt each other.”
Brody shrugged that off. She didn’t understand, he thought. How could she? “First time I’ve ever seen him shocked speechless. I don’t believe he’s ever had a woman rip into him that way. Me, I’m getting used to it.”
“Good. Now if you don’t want me ripping into you again anytime soon, you’ll apologize to your mother at the first opportunity. You embarrassed her.”
“Man, you’re strict. Mind if I play with my dog first?”
She arched a brow. “Whose dog?”
“Jack’s. But Jack and I, we’re—”
“A team,” she finished. “Yes, I know.”
Chapter Ten
Kate made her plans, bided her time. And chose her moment.
She knew it was calculated. But really, what was wrong with that? Timing, approach, method—they were essential to any plan. So if she’d waited for that particular moment o
n a Friday night when Jack was enjoying a night over at his grandparents and Brody was relaxed after a particularly intense bout of lovemaking, it was simply rational planning.
“I’ve got something for you.”
“Something else?” He was, as Jerry would have said, in the zone. “I get dinner, a bottle of wine and a night with a beautiful woman. I don’t think there is anything else.”
With a quiet laugh she slipped out of bed. “Oh, but there is.”
He watched her—always he enjoyed watching the way she moved. He’d come to the conclusion there was more to this ballet business than he’d once thought.
It gave him a great deal of pleasure to see her here, in his room. The room, he thought, he’d been squeezing in hours late at night to finish. He was doing, thank you God, a lot more than sleeping there now.
The walls were finished and painted a strong, deep blue. Kate favored strong colors. The woodwork, stripped down to its natural tone and glossily sealed, was a good accent.
He hoped to get to the floors soon. Curtains and that kind of thing would be dealt with eventually.
But for now he just liked seeing her in here. The dusky skin against the smooth blue walls, and the way the shimmer of light from the low fire danced in shadows.
She’d left her earrings on his dresser once. It had given him a hell of a jolt to see them there the next morning. They’d looked so…female, he remembered.
Yet he’d been foolishly disappointed when she’d removed them.
What that had to say about him, about things, he’d just have to figure out.
She put on his shirt against the light chill of the room and walked over to her purse.
“I’m going to buy you a half dozen flannel shirts,” Brody decided. “Just so I can see you walking around naked under them.”
“I’ll take them.” She sat back on the bed, and dropped an envelope on his bare chest. “And these are for you.”
“What?” Baffled, he sat up, tapped out the contents. The two airline tickets only increased his confusion. “What’s this?”
“Two tickets on the shuttle to New York. Next Friday. One for you, one for Jack.”