Mr. Right Next Door

by Arlene James

  Her brother! “Oh, yeah,” Morgan said, pumping the other man’s hand enthusiastically now that he knew he wasn’t looking at the competition. “From Missouri, right?”

  “Springfield.”

  “Hey, it’s great to meet you. I had no idea you were coming to visit.”

  Troy finally took his hand back, saying, “We’re just stopping over for an hour or two.”

  “We?”

  “May and the kids and I. May, that’s my wife, her parents live in Texas, and the kids have a couple days out of school at the beginning of the week, so we thought, Why not drive down for a visit and stop by Denise’s on the way?”

  “Right. I see. Well, it’s nice to meet you.”

  “You, too.” Troy ducked his head and rubbed the toe of one shoe against the carpet, adding, “How, um, how long have you two known each other? You and my sister, I mean.”

  “Oh, since before she even moved in,” Morgan said, deliberately painting himself once more in his assigned role as boyfriend. This was getting to be a real habit, one that he had no inclination to break. Painted often enough, the portrait was bound to be taken for reality at some point, even by Denise.

  Troy literally beamed. “Really? That’s great!”

  “What’s great?” Denise said, rounding the foot of the stairs and coming across the foyer, Smithson in her arms. She stopped where she was when she saw Morgan. “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t know what to say other than the truth, though he’d expected a more private moment to press his advantage. “I, ah, just wanted to make sure we’re still on for tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “It’s Sunday. Pop will be expecting us,” he said pointedly.

  Color immediately suffused Denise’s face, anger sparking in her dark eyes. She opened her mouth, no doubt to denounce his heavy-handedness, then glanced at her brother and abruptly snapped her mouth shut again.

  Troy, who seemed completely unaware of the awkwardness, beamed on the whole room and happily announced, “That’s great! Sounds like...one big happy family!” He grinned at Denise. “Where’s May? I want her to meet Morgan. And the kids, too. Oh. Is everything okay up there?”

  Denise nodded wanly. “Yes, fine,” but as Troy moved to the foot of the stairs to call down his wife and children, she glared at Morgan, who surreptitiously shrugged his shoulders as if to say that he didn’t know what was eating her. Actually, he had a pretty good idea what was going on here. Like any normal, loving brother, Troy was worried about his sister being alone, and he assumed—perhaps he even sensed—that Morgan was more than just her landlord. Come to think of it, Troy probably didn’t even know that he was her landlord; so as far as he was concerned, Morgan had only one reason for being in Denise’s life. Morgan didn’t have to think too hard before deciding that it would be in his best interest not to enlighten anyone.

  A small, attractive woman with shoulder-length caramel blond hair came down the stairs flanked by two children, a boy and a girl of elementary-school age. Both had the same dark, sleek hair as their father and aunt. Troy herded them all into the living room, making introductions as they went. “This is May, my better half, and Cory—he’s nine. And Missy is six. May, this is Morgan—Uh, I’m sorry...”

  Morgan stepped forward to take May Jenkins’s small hand in his. “Holt. Morgan Holt.”

  She smiled uncertainly and looked to her husband for further explanation. Troy slipped his hands into his pants pockets and rocked back onto his heels, still grinning like an idiot. “Morgan is Denise’s, ah...”

  “Friend,” Morgan supplied easily, well aware that his tone implied much more than mere friendship, but then, why shouldn’t it?

  May gasped and her grip tightened. “That’s wonderful!” She abruptly switched her gaze to Denise. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Morgan released her hand and pretended to scratch his nose, head bowed to hide a grimace. This was the moment Denise would either choose to go along or denounce him as insane. She glared and sputtered and finally came out with, “W-well, it’s p-personal!”

  Morgan’s grimace transformed into a smile, but he figured he’d pressed his luck as far as was advisable. Stepping close to Denise, he said conversationally, “I don’t want to intrude.” He smiled at Denise, ignoring her very pointed glare. “I just wanted to remind you about tomorrow. Same time as usual?”

  She lifted a brow to let him know that he was going to pay for this later. “Two?”

  He smiled to let her know that he was willing to pay whatever price she exacted. “Right. Two o’clock. Well, I’ll see you then.” He nodded at everyone in general, then bowed his head and pressed a quick kiss to Denise’s temple, intending to make his escape before her temper blew.

  But Troy and May were too delighted at the fact of his involvement in Denise’s life to let him go that easily. “No, stay for lunch,” Troy insisted, poking him playfully on the shoulder. “We’re just getting to know each other.”

  May added her support. “Denise has made a mountain of sandwiches, and we can always open another can of soup.”

  Smithson even joined in, suddenly leaping from Denise’s arms onto Morgan’s shoulder. The kids laughed and started trying to call the cat to them, while Smithson ignored them and batted at the light fixture hanging over Morgan’s head. Everyone laughed at that, even Denise, though the deeper expression in her eyes was one of irritation. Disappointment welled up inside him. She didn’t want him around even now. Looking down into her face, he said softly, “I’d better go.”

  The look in her eyes softened, warmed. “Stay if you want,” she said, somewhat less than graciously. As if that settled it, she switched her attention to the cat. “Come down from there, you opportunist, and leave that alone.”

  Smithson meowed as she plucked him off Morgan’s shoulder and dropped him on the floor. Quick as lightning, he streaked up the stairs. Missy darted after him, but her mother caught her about the shoulders and pulled her back. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’ve tormented that poor cat enough.”

  Missy crumpled her face and started to cry, despite a terse scolding from her father. Sensing that he could serve Denise and her family as well as himself, Morgan went down on one knee and took both her little hands in his. “Hey, you like dogs?”

  Missy’s face smoothed, and she nodded her head vigorously.

  “That’s great! You know why? Because my dog Reiver loves to play.”

  “Morgan, that’s like playing with an elephant!” Denise objected.

  “Aw, they’ll get along fine,” he assured her. “Reiver’s great with kids.” In an aside to Missy he said from the corner of his mouth. “It’s cats that he hates. But don’t worry,” he added to Denise, “I won’t leave them alone.”

  “Reiver and Missy or Reiver and Smithson?” Troy joked.

  “Both!”

  “Can I, Mom?” Missy begged, jumping up and down.

  May looked at Morgan, then at her husband and finally at Denise. “Oh, all right, but just until Aunt Denise and I get lunch ready.”

  “Me, too!” Cory said, and Troy laid a hand on top of the boy’s head.

  “We’ll all go meet this dog who loves to play.”

  “There’s plenty to go around,” Morgan joked, hopping to his feet and heading toward the door. He shot a look at Denise as the Jenkins kids grabbed coats and caps.

  “Twenty minutes,” she said sternly. “Tops.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Troy pushed open the door, and they all tumbled out onto the walk. “At least the sun’s out,” he heard May saying as he closed the door behind them.

  He glanced upward into the clear blue sky and grinned. The day was brighter than May knew. “Reiver! Here, boy!”

  The dog bounded off the porch and came to a sliding stop at Morgan’s feet. Intimidated by the sheer size of him, the kids clapped their hands but stayed back. Laughing, Morgan got down on all fours and made an idiot of himself. Saying, “Watch this,�
�� to the kids, he proceeded to pretend to be a dog himself, panting and barking, wagging his imaginary tail, whining and rolling onto his back, legs squirming. This was an old game, and Reiver matched his master’s antics to the letter, even to the tones of his bark and whine. But when Morgan got up to brush himself off, Reiver stayed on his back, begging for a tummy rub. At Morgan’s nod, the kids fell on the dog, giggling and laughing as they tried to rub Reiver without getting licked to within an inch of their lives.

  Morgan got Troy into the game by snatching off Missy’s cap and tossing it to him. Reiver instantly came up and went after it. A spirited game of keep-away ensued, during which Reiver got the cap and teased Missy with it, giving her a chance to catch up before darting away. Morgan assured Troy that the cap wouldn’t be damaged, and Troy seemed to accept that without question. Meanwhile, much to the kids’ delight, Reiver played a spirited game, even jumping over Missy’s head at one point. Another time the wily dog dropped the cap on the ground, panting as if to say he’d had it, only to snatch it up again and bolt away when Cory made a grab for it. Finally, Morgan called the dog to him and ordered the cap’s release. Reiver complied, happily dropping it and his large body at Morgan’s feet to pant and lick anyone who came within tongue’s reach. Morgan briefly examined the cap, then passed it to Troy, who subjected it to a much more thorough examination. Shaking his head to indicate his amazement, he plunked the cap onto Missy’s head. Missy was too busy hugging Reiver to notice.

  The inevitable questions came then. What kind? How old? How was he trained? Can we get one, Dad? Ple-e-ease. Morgan was both proud and regretful to inform them that Reiver was one of a kind. He talked to the kids about the time and patience involved in bringing a dog up to such a level of camaraderie. Cory was particularly avid for details, and Morgan explained as carefully as he could what was involved in finding, training and caring for such an animal. Afterward, Cory very manfully asked his father to consider letting him get a dog for Christmas, going so far as to promise to give up an expensive computer game that he’d previously requested. A surprised Troy promised that they’d discuss the matter further with May at another time. It was Morgan who suggested smilingly that being on their best behavior wouldn’t hurt their case when they discussed the decision with their mother. From that moment on, they were the two best behaved, mannerly youngsters he’d ever met.

  Lunch came off much easier than Morgan had expected. The conversation was animated, the food simple but wholesome. Troy and May included him in everything without the slightest sign of awkwardness. Much time was given to describing the dog and his antics, but Morgan changed the subject when he realized that Denise seemed disturbed by it. If she never spoke directly to or about him, he supposed that was only to be expected and hoped the Jenkinses didn’t notice. They did not appear to. When May began clearing the table, saying that it was time they got on the road again, Morgan quickly excused himself in order to give the family time to say their goodbyes and spare himself the dressing-down he knew he deserved. After thanking Denise for the lunch, he shook hands once again with Troy and, to his surprise, got hugs from the kids. Cory even asked if it would be possible for Morgan to help with the dog he hoped to talk his mother into getting for him. Troy rescued Morgan from an awkward reply by saying that he was sure they’d be seeing one another again before long, and that was that. All in all, it had been a very productive day, to Morgan’s mind, at least.

  Denise was not sure whether to be grateful or resentful of Morgan Holt’s inclusion in her brother’s visit. His appearance had forestalled further comment and perhaps even an argument concerning what Troy saw as her “emotional isolation,” but Denise could not help thinking that another visit with Morgan to his father’s home was a high-and dangerous—price to pay for what could be at best a temporary reprieve. On the other hand, Troy and May were happier believing that Denise had a man in her life again, and Denise was not foolish enough to worry them unnecessarily.

  Nevertheless, she’d felt more than a twinge of guilt when Troy had taken her aside to say how very much he liked Morgan, and she could not quite fully suppress the thrill she’d felt when Troy had jokingly divulged that Morgan had seemed more than a little jealous before he’d realized that he was speaking to her brother. She was even disturbed—she hesitated to say envious—that Morgan’s great, hulking dog had been such a hit with the children when Smithson had done nothing but hiss and yowl and prove himself thoroughly unapproachable. Because her pet was unapproachable that didn’t mean that she was unapproachable, did it? Keeping her mouth shut and letting Troy think what he liked wasn’t the same as admitting that he was right to call her emotionally isolated. Was it?

  She pushed away such thoughts, but she didn’t cavil at keeping her appointment with Morgan for the next day. She was glad, afterward, that she hadn’t. Ben welcomed her with the same easy acceptance as before, but that day they did not go inside immediately and sit at the table. Instead, they went for a stroll, Ben pointing out features of interest with the knobby cane he used to support himself. He told amusing stories of Morgan’s childhood and talked with aching longing of his wife and parents. And yet, he was a happy man, content with his lot in life, attached spiritually and emotionally to the place of his birth and that of his children. Denise sensed no self-pity in him, and it was obvious that he loved wisely, deeply and with an uncommonly pragmatic maturity. Would not such a man produce just such a son?

  But that was another thought she did not want to think, and it was laughably easy to put such troubling notions aside there on the mountaintop. This place offered peace, and she fully understood Morgan’s quiet assertion that he would never change a thing about it, that it would always serve to “center” him. She knew that in saying this he was making an unspoken promise to his father, and Ben knew it as well. Such closeness between the two men produced a melancholy in Denise that she did not fully understand. Yet she knew that at one time she had shared a measure of such closeness with members of her own family. Oddly, though, neither the reluctantly accepted knowledge nor the melancholy it produced truly disturbed the otherworldly peace that she found here.

  Her mind became a comfortable blank. The silence that fell over the cab of the truck as she and Morgan made the journey home felt appropriate and safe. So she was as surprised as Morgan when she heard herself blurting out a very personal question.

  “Do you ever wish you had more children?” It was something she’d wondered before. In fact, the question of children and whether or not to have more had kept her from developing an interest in a second marriage. To her, having another child would be merely an attempt to replace Jeremy, and nothing and no one could ever do that. It wouldn’t be fair for her to have another child. It wouldn’t be fair for her to make a commitment to a man who wanted children with her.

  Morgan sent her a clearly bemused look, then set himself to thinking over his answer. “No, not really. I wouldn’t have minded more, but Radley’s everything I could hope for, and I certainly wouldn’t want to start fresh now. Why do you ask?”

  She shrugged to buy herself time to come up with a safe answer, finally saying, “I don’t know. You seemed to get on so well with my brother’s kids.”

  “I like kids,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I feel an overwhelming need to father them all.”

  “I used to like kids,” she said quietly.

  “Until you lost your own,” he supplied gently. “I can understand that. It must be an especially excruciating kind of torture to see your brother’s happy, healthy children running around making havoc that Jeremy will never make again.”

  Suddenly Denise was sobbing, doubled over with the pain of a loss so great that it truly felt unbearable. She didn’t realize that Morgan had pulled the truck off the narrow road until she felt his arms come around her.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry. I only wanted to let you know that I understand.”

  She shook her head. “You used his name,” she said. “No o
ne ever uses his name anymore. It’s like he never was. He’s gone, so they forget him. But I can’t! I won’t!”

  “And you shouldn’t,” Morgan told her, rocking her gently. “You should treasure every delightful memory, every instant of his life. Don’t forget a moment of it, not the good, not the bad.”

  Denise felt as if someone had hit her between the eyes with a hammer. The good, the delightful. Dear God, when was the last time she remembered anything but the pain? One thought of Jeremy and she saw his coffin, heard the doctor saying that he was gone, blood spattered on the pavement, squealing tires, his crumpled little body, vacant eyes. What had happened to the times when he had patted her cheeks, first with tiny hands and then with surprisingly strong and capable ones, and said that he loved her? What had happened to the indecipherable drawings for the bestest mommy in the world, the giggling fits, the Halloween costumes, the Christmas mornings? How could she forget tiny die-cast cars and superhero comics and tape-recorded animal sounds and bubbles floating on the afternoon air? Shouldn’t she remember birthday parties and the circus and baths and bedtime stories?

  She closed her eyes and memories flooded her. She gasped, remembering the day Jeremy’s grandfather had proudly presented him a handmade slingshot, the window that was almost immediately broken, Jeremy sitting in the corner in his grandfather’s lap, while she and her mother tried not to laugh at the pair of them as they waited out their punishment. When was the last time she’d told her own father that she loved him or giggled when her mother rolled her eyes at something silly he’d said? They must miss, just as she did, the feel of Jeremy’s arms wound tightly around their necks, the weight of his little body as he slept on their laps. She heard herself saying, “He loved bubble gum.”

  Morgan chuckled. “So did Rad. Man, he used to blow bubbles the size of his head, and then they’d burst and I’d have to peel it off his face, out of his eyebrows, even.”