by Janet Dailey
“Luck McClure,” he needlessly identified himself. “Are you busy this Friday?”
“No.” She and her mother had tentatively talked about a shopping expedition into Cable, but that certainly could be postponed.
“I have a large favor to ask. I have some business I have to take care of on Friday, which means I’ll be gone most of the day and late into the evening. Toby asked if you would stay with him while I’m gone instead of the woman who usually sits with him.”
Swallowing her disappointment, Eve smoothly agreed, “I don’t mind in the least looking after Toby. What time would you like me to come?”
“I’d like to get an early start. Would eight o’clock be too early?” Luck asked.
“I can be there by eight.”
“Thanks. Toby will be glad to know you’re coming,” he said. “We’ll see you on Friday.”
“On Friday,” Eve repeated, and echoed his goodbye.
Toby would be glad she was coming, he’d said. Did that mean that Luck wouldn’t? Eve sighed wearily because she simply didn’t know.
ON FRIDAY morning her father dropped her off at the lake house a few minutes before eight. As she got out of the car, he leaned over to remind her, “If you need anything, you be sure to call us. Your mother or I can be over in a matter of minutes.”
“I will. Thanks, dad.” She waved to him and hurried toward the house.
Toby had obviously been watching for her because the front door opened before she reached it. He stood in the opening, a broad smile of welcome on his face.
“Hi, Eve.”
“Hello, Toby.” Her gaze went past him to the tall figure approaching the door as she entered.
The fluttering of her pulse signaled the heightening of her senses. Eve had never seen Luck in business clothes, and the dark suit and tie altered his appearance in a way that intensified the aura of male authority, dominating and powerful.
“Right on time.” He smiled in an absent fashion. “I left a phone number by the telephone. You can reach me there if you have an emergency.”
“Which I hope I won’t,” she replied, trying to respond with her usual naturalness.
After a glance of agreement, he laid a hand on Toby’s head. “Behave yourself. Otherwise Eve will make you stand in a corner.”
“No, she won’t.” Toby dipped his head to avoid the mussing of his father’s hand.
His smile held a trace of affection and indulgence toward his son when
Luck turned to Eve. “I shouldn’t be too late getting back tonight.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him. “Toby and I will be all right.”
“You know how to reach me if you need me,” Luck reminded her, and she tried not to be disappointed because the remark held no underlying meaning. It was a straightforward statement from a father to a sitter. “I have to be going,” he addressed both of them and smiled at his son. “See you later.”
“Tell granddad hi for me,” Toby instructed.
“I will,” Luck promised.
To get out the door, Luck had to walk past Eve. His arm inadvertently brushed against hers, sending a little quiver through her limbs. When she breathed in, she caught the musky scent of his male after-shave lotion, potently stimulating as the man who wore it. The essence of him seemed to linger even afer he’d walked out the door.
With Toby standing beside her on the threshold, Eve watched him walk to the car. She returned his wave when he reversed out of the driveway onto the road and felt a definite sensation of being part of the family — standing at the doorway with her “son” and waving goodbye to her “husband.”
Eve shook the thought away. It was that kind of dangerous thinking that would lead to heartbreak. It was definitely not wise. She was a baby-sitter — that’s all.
Fixing a bright smile on her mouth, she looked down at Toby. “What’s on the agenda this morning?”
He shrugged and tipped his head back to give her a bright-eyed look that reminded her a lot of his father. “I don’t know. Do you want to play catch?”
“Do you think we’ll break a window?” Eve teased.
“I hope not,” Toby declared with a grim look. “I had to spend half the money I was saving for a minibike to pay my share of the damage to your windshield. Dad paid for most of it ’cause it was mostly his fault for throwing the ball too high, but he wouldn’t have been playing if it hadn’t been for me. We share things.”
“Yes, I can see that,” she nodded, because the two seemed to have a remarkable relationship, unique to anything she’d come across in her meetings with parents at school.
“Do you want to play catch?” he repeated his suggestion.
“Sure,” Eve agreed, even though she didn’t feel obligated to entertain him. The idea of being active appealed to her. “Go get your ball and glove.”
“I’ll bring dad’s for you,” he offered. “Sometimes I throw it pretty hard — ” Toby warned “ — and it stings your hand when you catch it.”
The driveway seemed the safest place to play catch since there weren’t any windows in the line of fire. When Toby tired of that, they walked down by the lake, where he gave her lessons in the fine art of skipping stones on the lake’s surface.
At noon they returned to the lake cabin. “What would you like for lunch?” Eve asked as they entered through the kitchen door.
“A peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk is okay.” He didn’t sound enthused by his own suggestion.
“Is that what you usually have?” she asked.
“It’s easy,” Toby shrugged. “Dad and I aren’t much for cooking.”
“How about if I check the refrigerator and see if there’s anything else to eat?” Eve suggested, certain that Toby would like something more imaginative if she offered to fix it.
“Go ahead,” he agreed, then warned, “There’s not much in there except some frozen dinners in the freezer section of the icebox.”
When she opened the refrigerator door, she discovered Toby was right. The shelves were nearly bare, except for milk, eggs, bacon and a couple of jars of jam.
Toby watched her expression. “I told you,” he reminded her. “Dad fixes breakfast and sometimes cooks steaks on the grill. Otherwise we eat out or have frozen dinners. They’re pretty good, though.”
Eve found a package of cheese in the dairy drawer of the refrigerator. “Do you like grilled cheese sandwiches?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he nodded.
While the skillet was heating to grill them, Eve searched through the cupboards and found a lone can of condensed tomato soup. She diluted it with milk and added a dab of butter. When she set the lunch on the table, Toby consumed it with all the gusto of the growing boy that he was.
“Boy, that was good, Eve!” he declared, and leaned back in his chair to rub his full stomach. “You sure are a good cook.”
“Grilling a sandwich and opening a can of soup isn’t exactly cooking,” she smiled. “I was thinking that I might call my father and see if he would drive us to the store this afternoon and pick up some groceries. I’ll cook you a real dinner tonight. Would you like that?”
“You bet!”
Six
* * *
After a few inquiries Eve was able to discover some of Toby’s favorite dishes. Being a young boy, he had simple tastes. Dinner that evening consisted of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and some early sweet corn-on-the-cob. For dessert she fixed fresh strawberry shortcake with lots of whipped cream.
“I can’t ever remember eating food that good,” Toby insisted. “It was really delicious, Eve.”
“Why, thank you, sir.” With her hands full of dirty dishes to be carried to the sink, she gave him a mock curtsy.
“I’ll help wash the dishes,” he volunteered, and pushed away from the table. “Dad usually dries them,”
“You don’t need to help.” She had already learned while she was preparing the meal that Toby was accustomed to doing household c
hores. His sense of duty was commendable, but he was still very young and needed a break from it once in a while. “You can have the night off and I’ll do them.”
“Really?” He seemed stunned by her offer.
“Yes, really,” she laughed.
“I’ll stay and keep you company.” He dragged a chair over to the kitchen counter by the sink.
“I’d like that,” Eve said, and let the sink fill with water, squirting liquid soap into it.
Kneeling on the chair seat, Toby rested his arms on the counter and propped his chin on an upraised hand to watch her. “You know, it’d really be great to have a mother. It’s getting to be a hassle cleaning the house, washing dishes and all that stuff.”
“I can imagine.” She smiled faintly as she began washing the dishes and rinsing them under the running faucet, then setting them on the draining board to dry.
“I’d sure like to figure out how to find someone for dad to marry.” Toby sighed his frustration. “I thought about putting an ad in the paper, but dad really got upset when I mentioned it to him.”
Her initial pang of envy came from the knowledge that she coveted the role of Toby’s mother — and Luck’s wife. It wouldn’t take much encouragement to fall head over heels in love with Luck. She was already more than halfway there now.
But after the brief envy came amusement and sympathy for Luck’s plight. The idea of advertising for a wife had to have come as a shock to him.
“It would have been a little embarrasing for your father, Toby,” Eve murmured, the corners of her mouth deepening with the smile she tried to contain.
“Dad seemed to think that, too.” He grimaced in resignation to the decision. “I told dad that you’d make a good mother and he should marry you.”
“Toby, you didn’t!” She nearly dropped the dish in her hand, a warm pink flooding her cheeks.
“Yes, I did,” he assured her innocently. “What’s wrong with that? He likes you. I know he does. I saw him kiss you.”
Eve became very busy with the dishes, trying to hide her agitation and embarrassment with her work. “Just because you kiss someone doesn’t necessarily mean you want to marry them, Toby.”
“Yeah, that’s what dad said,” he admitted. She hated the curiosity that made her ask, “What else did your dad say when you suggested he should marry me?”
“Nothing. He told me the subject was closed and I wasn’t supposed to discuss it anymore, but we need someone around here to take care of us.” The comment revealed he hadn’t let go of the idea. “There’s too much work for a boy like me to do, and dad’s busy. Somewhere there’s a girl that dad will marry. I just gotta find her.”
“Toby McClure, I think you should leave that to your father,” Eve suggested.
“Yeah, but he isn’t trying to find anybody,” Toby protested. “I thought I’d have better luck.” Then he laughed. “I made a joke, didn’t I? Better luck for Luck.”
“Yes, you did.” Her smile widened into a grin.
“That’s my name, too, you know,” he declared, and settled his chin on his hand once more.
“No, I didn’t know that.” Her brown eyes widened in vague surprise. “I thought it was Toby — Tobias,” She corrected it from the shortened version.
“That’s my middle name,” Toby explained. “My real first name is Luck — like my dad’s. My mom insisted on naming me after him when I was born, but dad said it was too hard growing up with a name like that. He said I’d wind up getting called Little Luck, and he didn’t like the idea of being Big Luck. So they called me Toby instead.”
“I think that was probably best,” Eve agreed with the decision.
In her experience at the school, she’d seen how cruel children could be sometimes when one of the members had an unusual name. Sometimes they teased him unmercifully. As a rule children didn’t like being different. It wasn’t until later, when their sense of individuality surfaced, that they showed a desire for unique names.
Yet she couldn’t help remembering when she had first been introduced to the father and son, and Luck had explained the family tradition of his name. At the time she had wondered if there was a “little” Luck at home to carry it on. It was slightly amusing to discover it had been Toby all along.
After the dishes were done, she and Toby went into the front room and watched television for a while. At nine o’clock she suggested that it was time he took a bath and got ready for bed. He didn’t argue or try to persuade her to let him stay up until Luck came home.
Spanking clean from his bath, Toby trotted barefoot into the living room in his pajamas. He half flopped himself across the armrest of the chair where Eve was sitting.
“Are you going to tuck me into bed?” he asked.
“I sure am.” Eve smiled at the irresistible appeal of his look. Toby was just as capable of twisting her around his finger as his roguish father was.
Toby led the way to his room while Eve followed. He made a running leap at the bed, dived under the covers and was settled comfortably by the time Eve arrived at his bedside. A white pillowcase framed the mass of dark brown hair as a pair of bright blue eyes looked back at her.
She made a show of tucking the covers close to his sides while he kept his arms on top of them. Then she sat sideways on the edge of the mattress.
“You don’t have to read me a story or anything,” Toby said. “I’m too old for that.”
“Okay. Would you like me to leave the light on for a while?” Eve asked, referring to the small lamp burning on the bedside table. She already suspected he was “too old” for that, too.
“No.” There was a negative movement of his head against the pillow.
Her glance had already been drawn to the night table, where it was caught by the framed photograph of a beautiful blond-haired woman with sparkling green eyes. A vague pain splintered through Eve as she guessed the identity of the smiling face in the photograph.
“Is this a picture of your mother?” she asked Toby for confirmation, her throat hurting.
“Yes. Her name was Lisa.” Toby blithely passed on the information.
“She’s very beautiful,” Eve admitted, aware that Luck would never have called this woman a “brown mouse.” She was golden — all sunshine and springtime. Eve despised herself for the jealousy that was twisting inside her. But she didn’t have a prayer of ever competing with someone as beautiful as this girl — not even with her memory. It was utterly hopeless to think Luck would ever love her.
“Dad has a picture just like that in his room,” Toby informed her. “He talks to it a lot…although he hasn’t lately,” he added as an afterthought.
“I’m sure he loves her very much.” She tried to smile and conceal the awful aching inside. “It’s time you were going to sleep.”
“Will you kiss me good-night?” he asked with an unblinking look.
“Of course.” There was a tightness in her throat as Eve bent toward him and brushed his forehead with a kiss. She longed for the right to do that every night. She straightened, murmuring, “Have a nice night, Toby.”
“Good night, Eve.” With a contented look on his face, he snuggled deeper under the covers.
Her hand faltered as she reached past the framed photograph to turn out the light. Standing up, she moved silently out of the room. Bitter tears burned the back of her eyes. She regretted more than she ever had in her life that she had been born plain.
In the living room Eve turned down the volume on the television set and picked up a magazine lying on the coffee table. Curling up in the large armchair, she tried to force herself to read the articles it contained. The clock on the fireplace mantel ticked away the time.
IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT when Luck pulled into the driveway, much later than he had anticipated. Switching off the engine, he grabbed his briefcase and his suit jacket from the rear seat. The briefcase he carried in his hand as he climbed out of the car; the jacket he swung over his shoulder, held by the hook of a finger. His tie was
draped loosely around his neck, the top buttons of his shirt unfastened.
The tension of a long drive and the mental fatigue from a full day of business discussions cramped the muscles in his shoulders and neck. Weariness drew tired lines in his tough rakehell features.
As Luck walked to the front door of the cabin, he noticed the light burning in the window. The edges of his mouth lifted in a faint smile at the welcoming sight. When he opened the door, he heard the muted volume of the television set. There was a warm run of pleasure as he realized Eve must have waited up for him to come home.
Setting his briefcase down just inside the door, he walked into the living room and paused. Eve had fallen asleep in the big armchair, with a magazine in her lap. His smile lengthened at the sight of her curled up like a velvety brown mouse. Luck tossed his suit jacket onto the sofa along with his tie and walked over to turn off the television set.
Silence swirled through the room as he approached the chair where she was sleeping. He intended to wake her, but when he looked down at her, the tiredness seemed to fall away from him. In repose, her serene features reminded him of the gentle beauty of a madonna — or a sleeping beauty waiting to be wakened with a kiss. The latter was a tantalizing thought.
Leaning down, Luck placed his hands on either armrest of the armchair. He felt alive and whole, renewed by her presence. He lowered his mouth onto her lips, stimulated by their sweet softness. At the initial contact, they were unresponsive to the mobile pressure of his kiss. Then Luck felt her lips move against his. Raw emotions surged through him, an aching pressure building inside him.
Eve stirred with the beginnings of wakefulness and he pulled back, not straightening but continuing to lean over her. The desire was strong to pick her up and carry her into his bedroom where he could give rein to those feelings that swept him.
Her lashes slowly drifted open and he watched the dawning light of recognition flare in her brown, nearly black eyes. His blood was warmed by the pleasure at seeing him that ran wild in her look.