by Judy Baer
That was not exactly what I had in mind. I need to keep my distance from the good doctor. I don’t want to get to know my dream dasher too well.
Then he added, “I insist.”
When a Bradshaw progeny says “jump,” I say “how high?”
He chose the restaurant well, a small mom-and-pop affair called Al and Bess’s Good Eats, which was tucked away in a strip mall and served the best chicken-wild-rice soup I’ve ever tasted. That’s saying a lot in Minnesota where wild rice is plentiful. It was after the normal lunch hour, and we were the only diners there other than an elderly couple who held hands and gazed into each other’s eyes like newlyweds.
“I didn’t know this place existed,” I admitted. “You’ve only been in town a short while. How did you discover it?”
“I visited the Twin Cities a lot as a child, remember? My grandfather always made a point of eating in small, independent restaurants. No eating in places that he can find in any shopping center across the country, that’s his policy.”
“Smart man,” I took a bite of a Reuben piled high with corned beef and dripping with dressing, just the way I like it.
For a moment I forgot who we were talking about, the Everett Bradshaw. I’d also overlooked for the briefest second who I was dining with—the illustrious grandson, heir to the Bradshaw throne.
“What are you staring at?” I demanded as I realized that he hadn’t taken his eyes off me since I’d tackled the giant sandwich.
“I like women who eat.”
“They don’t last long if they don’t.” I took another bite.
“My—Someone else I knew enjoyed food as much as you seem to.”
Someone as in who? As in wife? He didn’t elaborate.
Bess of “Al and Bess” fame approached our table. “Dessert, folks?” She did a double take and gaped at Clay. “Clay Reynolds, is that you? I haven’t seen you here in ages!”
“Hi, Bess, it is me. This is Molly Cassidy. We worked at the free clinic today.”
She turned to me. “Nicest family in the world, the Bradshaws. Absolutely the best. Dessert is on the house! What would you like? Truffle pie? Peach melba? My special bread pudding with cream?”
“I will never turn down your bread pudding, Bess. It was a highlight of my childhood.”
The older woman blushed. “Still as charming as ever, then.” She turned to me. “And you?”
“I’m pretty full. I usually eat dessert first to prevent this from happening but…”
“She’ll have the truffle pie. We’ll share.”
Bess nodded and scurried off.
“We’ll share, will we?”
“You know you want to. How else would you have been able to decide between the two?”
I hate it when he’s right.
Chapter Eighteen
I closed my eyes and allowed a spoonful of the creamy custard from Clay’s bread pudding to melt on my tongue. On a scale of one to ten, this was an eleven….
Clay’s voice broke into my food-induced reverie. “If you’d rather have the bread pudding than the truffle pie, I’ll trade.”
Clay, when he isn’t ruining my life, can be very charming.
Dreamily, I opened my eyes, savoring my taste bud bliss. “But it’s your favorite.” He didn’t speak. Instead he stood up and sauntered to the counter where Bess and Al were rolling silverware into paper napkins and securing them with paper bands. “Another bread pudding, please.”
“I’ll make this one bigger,” Bess assured him. She glanced at me and then back at him. She leaned forward and murmured, “I like a girl who eats.”
Of all my sterling qualities, my appetite is not the one for which I really want to be remembered. Then Clay brought to the table another serving of the warm bread pudding, flooded with caramel sauce and cream, and all my reservations fled.
At the moment I really didn’t care if my tomb-stone said:
She Loved Bread Pudding,
R.I.P.
With far too much amusement he watched me finish the pudding. That was nothing next to the look he wore when I downed the truffle pie, as well.
“Impressive,” he said, admiration in his voice.
He really does like women who eat.
He picked up the bill despite my protests. “Cheap date,” he said offhandedly as he handed Bess a fifty-dollar bill and waited for change.
My stomach did a traitorous, treacherous flip at the word date. Clay, on the other hand, seemed oblivious. Date and Dr. Reynolds? Inconceivable; surreal, at best. Yet here we were, walking back to his Mercedes, behaving as if we actually liked each other.
“Big plans for this afternoon?” Clay asked as we slid into his car and buckled our seat belts.
“Nothing special. My brother Hugh’s birthday is coming up. My mother and my sister Kelly, too. I also have some baby showers on the horizon. I thought I might go shopping.” I patted my purse. “I just got paid so now’s the time.”
“Seems to me you’re planning to spend your entire paycheck on others.” He turned his head to look at me. “Nothing for the hungry mouths at home to feed?”
“I bought dog food, yarn and art supplies last week. And bling for Geri’s hooves.”
“I’m sorry I asked. For some reason, I thought you’d say you’d paid the mortgage, put groceries in the cupboard and funded a 401(k). How foolish of me.”
“My brother Hugh says I manage my money like I live my life—by the seat of my pants.”
“And do you?”
I rolled down the window a crack. Just being in the same car with this man causes me to overheat.
“No, but don’t tell Hugh. He’s got this idea that I’m flighty as a hummingbird and as sensible as a pile of bricks. He’s wrong, of course, but he’s decided that I’m his burden to bear and I don’t want to disappoint him.”
“How would you do that?”
“Hugh’s a planner. He’s already resigned himself to never marrying, and he thinks I’m too hopeless to actually settle down. Someday he believes he’ll have to take me in as a charity case because I will end up a bag lady with a grocery cart full of knitted hats, paints and baby pictures.” I lowered my voice. “Don’t tell him I’ve got more money in the bank than he does. It would devastate his image of me.”
“Does your family try to be wacky or is it genetic?”
I dug in my purse for a piece of gum and handed him one. “Genetic, I think. If you were to come to the Cassidy bash my family is having, you’d understand.”
“What happens at these things?”
To my surprise, he sounded genuinely interested.
“My aunt Siobhan gives all of us the third-degree because she feels the need to know everything that’s happening in the family. My uncles tell stories, the rest play music too loudly and, unfortunately, sing. Everyone eats too much, the little kids play until they drop in their tracks and my siblings and cousins tease each other unmercifully. It’s just the usual family get-together.”
When we paused at the stoplight, Clay turned to look at me. “I’m beginning to believe that there is nothing ‘usual’ about you.” He paused and when he spoke again it was as if he were winching the words up one by one from the depths of a long-unused well. “Do you want some company while you’re shopping?”
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Shopping. Do you want company?” He sounded annoyed, as if he hadn’t wanted to say it twice.
“Why?” It wasn’t very polite but he’d blindsided me with the request.
“Noah’s birthday isn’t long off, either. I’d forgotten about it until you mentioned your own family birthdays, that’s all.”
How does anyone forget his child’s birthday?
“Of course. I’m particularly good at choosing gifts for six- and seven-year-old boys. My brother Caboose taught me that. Besides, Liam says my brain is permanently stuck somewhere between the ages of six and seven, anyway.”
“Noah will be delighted. He�
�s not always enamored with the gifts I give him.”
Why am I not surprised?
“What did you give him last year?”
“Clothing, a contribution to a 529 college savings plan, colored pencils and—”
“I’m dying of boredom just listening to you! Poor kid. I’ll bet he’s tried to forget his birthday, too.”
“You don’t have to insult me.” He didn’t appear terribly offended, however. Amused was more like it.
“What did you do for his party?”
“I took him out for dinner.”
“Where? Something kid-friendly, I hope.”
“A sushi bar. Noah likes sushi.”
“Barf, gag! What kind of father teaches a child to like sushi? A shark? He should have been at…” I rattled off a half dozen kid-friendly places.
“He also likes escargot and calamari,” Clay said defensively. “He was pleased.”
“Worse yet.” I turned in my seat so I could look directly at him. “I tell you what, I’ll let you go with me today, and I will give you expert advice on gifts for small boys. Deal?”
A plethora of emotions crossed his features at my suggestion: surprise, shock, horror and, oddly, relief.
“Maybe…”
“You can’t abuse the child with another birthday of sushi and contributions to a college fund. You need fun—bumper cars, games, pony rides, funny hats, balloons, face paint, you get the idea.”
“Face paint?” he echoed doubtfully.
“You’d better hurry. This may take all day.”
Clay’s medical knowledge must have crowded the entire concept of play and fun out of his brain. This was apparent from the moment we stepped into the Mall of America, the largest shopping mall in the entire world.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just look in the phone book for a couple specialty shops and…”
“The ‘specialty shops’ you frequent are called ‘banks.’ Feel free to contribute to the child’s college fund, but don’t call that and a sushi bar his birthday party.” I shook my head gloomily. “We have a lot of making up to do. Just tell me you’ve never given the child furniture or appliances for his birthday.”
Clay hesitated. “Does a new bed in the shape of a car count? Or an alarm clock?”
I groaned. It was worse than I thought, much, much worse.
Leading Clay Reynolds through the mall was a little like taking my mother on safari. He was a tourist in a land of strange and wonderful curiosities.
“Don’t you ever shop?” I asked as he stood in the middle of the bead store looking befuddled while I shopped for beads with which to make my sister a birthday present.
“A whole shop devoted to—” he picked up a lumpy brown bead “—whatever this is. What happened to the dime stores and grocery stores they had when I was a kid?”
“You’ve had your head in medical books much too long,” I informed him. “Do you actually go to the grocery store?”
He reddened a little. “I order online.”
“Clothing?”
“Same thing. I don’t have time to waste walking around stores.”
“It’s no wonder you’re the way you are,” I muttered under my breath.
Unfortunately, he heard me.
“What is that supposed to mean?” He put his hand on my arm and an unfamiliar sensation surged up my arm.
Shaken, I took a step backward, away from the source of my confusion. “I, uh, nothing.”
“The way I am in the hospital, you mean?” The playful expression disappeared from his eyes.
“Listen, Clay.” I hoped we were still on a first-name basis after my inopportune comment. “My suggestion is that what happens at the hospital stays at the hospital. This is about our families, not us. Okay?”
He was quiet for a long moment, allowing me plenty of time to mentally kick myself back and forth, up and down the long hallway. Lord, I’m sorry for being so self-centered. This isn’t all about me. He has feelings, too. Help me to respect his opinions whether they are mine or not.
A slow, lazy smile spread across his features. What a spectacular-looking man he is when he isn’t frowning, scowling or glaring at me. I hadn’t personally received the full measure of his charm until just now, and it was like a floodlight springing to life before my eyes.
“Okay.”
A sense of relief seeped through me. Thank you, Lord! Help me hold my tongue and banish a bitter spirit in me from now on.
I picked out enough beads to make necklaces for both my mother and my sister and towed Clay back into the mall.
“What shall we look for first for Noah’s birthday?”
“He’s outgrown most of his play clothes and somehow he keeps losing his socks—”
“You are not buying that child socks for his birthday.”
“Okay, Miss Mall Maven, what do you think I should buy?”
“How much can we spend?”
Clay looked startled, as if money were not even a consideration in the equation. Of course, with him it probably wasn’t. In a family like mine, however, we’d always had to consider the state of our piggy banks. We’d been happy, though. The box the refrigerator came in or a small table covered with bedsheets to make a tent could give us hours of pleasure.
“Why? What are you thinking of getting him?”
“How do you feel about a dirt bike?”
“Too dangerous.”
“A train set?”
“He has one.”
“A lawnmower?”
“Very funny.”
“I need to think,” I told him. “I’ve got to get into the mind of a six-year-old boy.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
I glanced around the hallway in which we were standing and felt the floor shudder as a roller coaster careened by in the amusement park. Of course. Is there any better way to get into the mind of a child than at an amusement park? Especially one with a carousel, a Ferris wheel and roller coasters.
“Come, I’ll show you.”
We were at the ticket booth before Clay realized what I was up to. “You aren’t going to get me on any of those things. I do not need to be inside Noah’s head to buy him a present.”
“How does he enjoy the presents you get him?”
“Just fine.”
“Does he jump up and down?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Squeal with delight?”
“That’s your pig, not my son, who squeals.”
“Then you haven’t given him the right present.” I slapped my credit card onto the counter to buy tickets. “Which ride do you want to go on first? The roller coaster or the Ax?”
Chapter Nineteen
Bad idea. Very bad idea. Very, very bad idea.
Serves me right, too. In my zealous enthusiasm to show Clay what fun was like, it slipped my mind that I am terrified of heights, dislike being dizzy and, because I am not a bat or an opossum, resist hanging upside down. I especially loathe dangling upside down and spinning head over heels while suspended ten stories off the ground. Unfortunately, I didn’t recall any of this until it was too late.
“Come on, Clay, it will be fun, I’m sure of it.” I tugged on his hand much like I imagined Noah might. This man needed some serious shaking up.
He tipped his head back to see the ten-story-high ride that looked like an enormous ax standing on end. At the bottom of the ax was a passenger platform onto which people were eagerly piling. Surely anything that creates that much enthusiasm can’t be all bad.
“Have you ridden on this thing?”
“No, but it’s time. I have a teeny-weeny fear of heights, but now is the time to face it.” I eyed him with disdain. “Unlike some people I know.”
“You are nuttier than peanut butter, Molly, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Cluck, cluck, bwack!” I took a page out of Lissy’s book when she was teasing Tony.
“And I’m not a chicken.” He looked at me with exasperation. �
�You do a lousy chicken imitation, by the way.”
“It takes one to know one.” I was having so much fun I forgot that I, too, have a coward’s gene in my DNA.
“Come on, then. At least I’ll be able to impress my son when I tell him I rode the Ax.” He glowered at me. “Since I’m such a lousy gift giver.”
I grinned triumphantly.
It wasn’t until I saw the size and nature of the restraints in the seats on the passenger platform that I began to second-guess the wisdom of this idea. There were forty people cheering and yelling “Let’s go!” while Clay and I stared at each other, the enormity of what we were doing only now crashing down upon us. But it was too late.
We were lifted into the air, and the passenger platform rose as the ax at the top fell in a sweeping motion to the floor of the park. The passenger platform paused at the top, allowing us a view of the amusement park from ten stories up. Then the platform spun upside down, and I was thrown against the restraints and we were catapulted toward the concrete floor below. The ride became a pendulum, swinging back and forth, back and forth and spinning in 360-degree arcs. The riders’ platform acted independently of the swinging ax, sometimes whirling us head over heels, creating rapid directional changes and unexpected forces.
And to make matters worse, some crazy person yelled, “Swing faster! Faster!” It took me a second to realize the demented person was sitting next to me. Clay was actually enjoying this!
I opened my mouth to protest, but the platform turned and I was hanging head down, looking at the concrete floor below. The protest turned into a cry for mercy as we twisted, flipped and turned, plunging toward the ground and then catapulting upward again.
My scream was lost on the air, trailing somewhere behind me like the jet stream of an airplane making white streaks across the sky.
When I finally opened one eye to see if I was dead or alive, Clay was staring down at me.
“Ride’s over.” He took me by the armpits and walked me like a puppeteer manipulating a marionette to a nearby bench. “Can you stay there without falling over?”
“I think so,” I whispered, a sailor who hasn’t lost her sea legs yet.
“Good. Don’t go anywhere.”