by Lori Wilde
“We all are,” Patsy Cross said.
“Only one person at a time. You make up your minds who’s coming in.”
Richard looked at Garza. “I’m her father.”
“I saved her life.”
“Touché,” Richard said. “You go in first.”
“Age before beauty,” Garza suddenly conceded, and gestured toward the door. He took a seat in the waiting room beside the bakery woman.
Well, this was an unexpected turn of events. Richard wondered what Garza was trying to pull. Maybe he’s not trying to pull anything. Maybe he’s just trying to mend a rift. Ever think about that? No, because Richard wasn’t a rift mender. The idea was foreign to him. He believed in sticking to his guns, no matter what. He’d always been that way, but he’d gotten more entrenched after losing Angelica.
“It’s not a trick,” Gideon said. “I’m not the kind of guy who keeps a father from his child.”
Ah, so that was his game. Needling. Fine. As long as he knew where Garza was coming from.
Once he stepped through the door into the recovery room—these days they called it post anesthesia care unit—he felt a bit overwhelmed. Staff in scrubs scuttled to and fro. Ventilators made heavy breathing sounds like wet lungs sucking air. The place smelled of a strange gaseous odor and Betadine and something faintly singed. The patients were lined up in rows on gurneys, all hooked up to oxygen and IVs and monitors.
“Mrs. Marsh is over there, sir,” the nurse said, and indicated the second bed on the right.
He crept closer, feeling very out of place. The nurse pulled a curtain around him and Caitlyn to give them some privacy from the beehive of activity going on around them.
“Go ahead,” the nurse said. “Talk to her.” Then she disappeared on the other side of the curtain.
Caitlyn’s eyes were closed and Richard didn’t know how to start. He sidled closer, stared down at her pale face. Her left arm was swathed in bandages. Through a needle in her right arm, she was receiving a blood transfusion. She must have lost a lot of blood in order to need a transfusion. His heart stumbled again, the way it had when Hondo first told him she’d been taken into surgery.
“Caity?” he said tentatively. He hadn’t called her that in years. “It’s Daddy.” He hadn’t said that in years either.
Her eyelids fluttered open and she pinned him with blue-green eyes so much like her mother’s. “You’re here.”
“I am.”
“Did I die or something?”
“Almost.” He nodded.
“I was right,” she whispered.
“Right about what?”
“I figured I’d have to be on my deathbed for you to get over your mule-headed snit and come see me.”
“Oh, Caity,” he said, tears suddenly welling up in his foolish old eyes. He never cried. Why the hell was he crying? She was fine. She was going to pull through. She was okay. No need for tears. He was a judge. He did not cry.
“It’s okay, Dad. I’m going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
Dad. She’d called him Dad. Not Father. Not Judge as she’d taken to calling him after he’d banished Garza. Dad. He rubbed the knuckle of his index finger across the corner of his eye.
“I got these,” he said, and held out the purple flowers. “For you.”
“Purple hyacinth. They smell so sweet.”
Was that what they were called?
She broke into a beautiful smile. “Yes, Dad, yes, yes. I forgive you. You’re forgiven. All is forgiven. Thank you for having the courage to come here and bring me purple hyacinth.”
Richard startled. What? He hadn’t asked for her forgiveness. But she looked so happy he couldn’t backpedal now.
His daughter, however, was perceptive. “Oh,” she said, the light dimming in her eyes. “You didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“That giving someone purple hyacinth means I’m sorry, please forgive me.”
This flower gifting was complicated. Angelica used to know all that hidden flower meaning malarkey too.
“Of course I knew,” Richard bluffed, not wanting to admit the truth. That it was by pure quirk of fate he’d finally asked for his daughter’s forgiveness.
“I’m moving in with you,” Gideon announced as he helped Caitlyn get into her van later that same day.
“Excuse me?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
Caitlyn had just been dismissed from the hospital with a prescription for pain pills and antibiotics and instructions to take it easy and visit her family physician in a week. Amazing how soon they kicked you out of the hospital these days when you didn’t have any insurance, even though Gideon had paid her bill in full. She’d tried to argue with him, but he’d put his foot down on that as well. And even though she’d kept grumbling about repaying him, he could see the relief in her eyes knowing she didn’t have a big hospital bill looming over her head. It made him feel good to help.
“Whether you like it or not, I won’t take no for an answer. You’ll need help running the household, taking care of Danny.”
“Oh? And how many children have you taken care of?”
He didn’t tell her about the orphans he’d rescued. The kids he’d gotten to safety. It would sound like bragging and he didn’t expect praise for what he’d done. Shunned it, even.
Instead, he simply smiled, shrugged. “One little seven-and-a-half-year-old. How hard could it be?”
“You’ll see.”
“So you agree that it’s a good idea for you to have some help.”
She glanced at his arm and he just knew what she was thinking. How much help could a cripple be? The maimed leading the maimed.
His smile vanished and he felt blood rush to his head.
Caitlyn’s bandaged arm was propped on the console armrest. Her friend Emma had brought her some clean clothes to put on and told her not to worry about Danny, that she and her husband, Sam, would happily keep him overnight again, but Caitlyn wanted Danny home with her. That’s where they were headed now.
“Yes. I need help. I admit it. Happy now?” she asked.
Was she just saying that to make him feel better? “You don’t like asking for help.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“So you get where I’m coming from.”
“It doesn’t mean you’re weak to ask for help,” he said.
“Just remind yourself of that from time to time.”
“Go ahead, give me a hard time, you’re not chasing me away.”
She cast a sideways glance at him. He pulled to a stop at a traffic light. “Was that weird about my father or what?”
“Unexpected.”
“He asked me to forgive him.”
“Really? That doesn’t sound like Judge Blackthorne.”
“Well, not in so many words, but he brought me purple hyacinth. If you give someone purple hyacinth, it means you’re asking for forgiveness.”
“You sure he knows that?”
Caitlyn grinned. “He does now.”
Gideon laughed. “I love to see you smile.”
“I love to hear you laugh. You don’t do it nearly often enough.”
They looked at each other.
“I think we have a mutual admiration society going here,” Caitlyn said.
Hell yes. He admired her something fierce. But was admiration enough? Could it span the chasm eight years apart from each other had created? This was their opportunity to find out. They’d be living in close quarters. Really getting to know each other all over again.
“Turn here. Emma and Sam’s house is the second one on the right.” Caitlyn pointed. “If you are going to move in—”
“I am,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.
“We need to get something straight.”
“What are the conditions?”
“You’ll be staying in the guest bedroom.”
“Well, I had assumed as much, but I didn’t realize you thought that I
thought otherwise,” he teased.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Does that sentence even make sense?”
“We can’t confuse Danny.”
“Right.”
“We need time to figure all this out.”
“So we’re in agreement. No sex.”
Gideon licked his lips, swallowed hard. He didn’t like making promises he wasn’t sure he could keep. “No sex.”
“Whew.” She let out a breath. “I’m glad we got that ironed out.”
“How are we going to explain what happened to Danny?” Gideon nodded at her arm. “And about me moving in?”
“We’ll just tell him the truth. That I got hurt while gardening, warn him off of sharp tools, and tell him you’re going to stay with us for a few days to help out until I’m feeling better.”
The truth. Good policy. He had a great deal of respect for the way she’d raised their son. He wanted to tell her that, but he didn’t know if he could get the words out without choking up. She had done a damn fine job with Danny. Kevin too.
Jealousy gnawed at him. He hated the pettiness that made him jealous of a dead man. It occurred to him then that Kevin might have been jealous of him. He’d been Caitlyn’s first love and a dead (or so everyone had thought) war hero. Had Kevin felt incidental? Damn emotions anyway. All they did was get a guy into trouble. That’s why he tamped them down, tried his best to ignore them.
“This it?” He nodded at the cute two-story house on the acre lot with a black and white Border collie sitting on the front porch. Caitlyn’s house was on the next block over.
“This is it.”
He stopped the van and Caitlyn started to get out, but Gideon put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Stay put. You’re still weak. I’ll go get him.”
“I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable. He’s only met you once.”
“Settle down, Mother Hen. He can see you from here. And besides, it’s about time he got to know me.”
A flush of pink colored her pale cheeks. “You’re right. I know. I’m just feeling a little shaky.”
A wallop of tender emotions sledgehammered him. Caitlyn didn’t even seem to know it, but she was one tough cookie. Gideon felt heat rise to his own face. He felt so precarious with her. He wanted her more than words could say, and yet he was afraid. Not because he was scared of her and the things she made him feel, but because he was scared of himself and the things he was incapable of.
Like living a normal life.
Quickly, before she could see the fear in his eyes, Gideon turned and walked up the cobblestone path to pick up the son who didn’t even know who he really was. Wondering just how on earth he was going to survive living in the same house with them.
Chapter Thirteen
Traditional meaning of yarrow—healing.
After making grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for their evening meal and insisting Caitlyn take a pain pill and get some rest, Gideon was at loose ends. Danny had hardly spoken to him. He was holed up in his room playing with his handheld video game device.
Gideon was not a man who could just lie around and watch television or surf the Internet. He liked to keep his body busy as well as his mind. He had to have something to do or go nuts.
“Danny?” He knocked on his son’s bedroom door. Son. The word still got to him every time it popped into his head.
There wasn’t an immediate answer. Gideon waited patiently, but just when he thought he was going to have to knock again, Danny opened the door and peeked out, his eyes leery, the dark cowlick sticking up at the back of his head.
“Yeah?” he asked.
Gideon remembered being that age, scared little kid trying his best not to show it. And like Danny, it had been just he and his mother. He knew the responsibility that fell on a boy’s shoulders when he had to assume the role of man of the house at a young age.
He also knew what it was like to find a strange man in your house and the resentment he’d felt when some guy tried to play daddy to him and tell him what to do.
There had been a revolving door of men as Linda looked for love in all the wrong places. Not that Caitlyn was in any way the same as his mother, but to a kid, an interloper was an interloper.
“Hi,” Gideon said, then felt dorky as hell for saying it.
Danny just blinked at him.
Great way to win him over, Garza.
Gideon took a deep breath. “Your mom is sleeping and I wanted to work on the carousel animals, but they’re all over at the victory garden . . .” He almost told the boy that he had to come with him because Gideon wasn’t leaving Danny alone in the house while his mother was asleep and under the influence of pain pills, but he quickly realized that would not be an effective tactic. He thought about what would have motivated him at that age to help one of Linda’s boyfriends. “Could you give me a hand dragging a couple of the animals back over here?”
Danny raised his chin. “What’s in it for me?”
Ah, so he had a little mercenary on his hands. The kid took after him in more ways than just physical appearance. When he was Danny’s age he’d figured if he was going to have to put up with Linda’s men he might as well get paid for it. Gideon pulled five dollars from his wallet.
“Make it ten and you’ve got yourself a deal,” Danny said.
“You drive a hard bargain.” Gideon peeled off another five spot.
“And I want a ride on your motorcycle.”
“We’re taking the van. The carousel animals won’t fit on the motorcycle.”
Danny looked at him like he was a moron. “I know that. I meant later.”
“If your mother gives her permission, I’ll take you on the motorcycle,” he promised.
“She won’t give her permission.”
“How do you know?”
“She calls them death machines.”
“Let me work on her.”
“Really?” Danny gave him a genuine smile.
“Really.”
They went to the victory garden, took a couple of carousel horses from the shed. Several members of the garden club were there planting in the waning twilight. Gideon was relieved to see someone had cleaned up Caitlyn’s blood.
The garden club ladies made him stop and chat for a bit, asking about Caitlyn’s condition and raising speculations about who could have loaded the bear trap and planted it in their garden. They’d come to the consensus it had to be a contest competitor from a neighboring town, because they’d concluded that no one in Twilight was capable of such a thing.
Gideon shook his head at their insular innocence. How trusting they all were.
“Gideon,” Patsy said. “You tell Caitlyn not to worry about the shop. I’ll run it for her until she’s feeling better and we’ll all take turns taking her shifts in the victory garden.”
“That’s very nice of you, Mrs. Cross.”
“Here,” Dotty Mae said, and gave him a basket of small red flowers that grew in a thick clump. “This is yarrow. It’s good for healing and such a cheery color. I know it will lift her spirits.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re doing a fine job on the carousel by the way,” said another one of the women whom he didn’t know.
“I’m enjoying the work. And speaking of—” He gestured at the carousel horses waiting to be loaded into the van.
“Yes, sure. You have a good night and tell Caitlyn we’re all praying for her speedy recovery.”
Gideon thanked them again for their concern and rounded up Danny. His son—there was that magical word again—helped him load and unload the horses and carry them into the workshop that had once belonged to Kevin Marsh.
He rested one horse on a metal worktable, balanced the other between two sawhorses. Once upon a time he’d promised Caitlyn he would repair the carousel and restore her family heritage. He smiled, remembering how much joy that promise had brought her.
“I wish I could carve things,” Danny said, running a hand along one of th
e horses. “But my mom won’t let me have a pocketknife. She says I’ll cut myself.”
“She’s just being a good mom.”
“Yeah, but how will I ever know how to use a knife if she never lets me have one?”
“You do make a good point,” Gideon said.
“So you’ll talk to her for me?”
“About letting you have a knife?”
Danny nodded.
The urge to say yes to anything the kid asked was a strong one. He had so much to make up for, but he knew just giving in to Danny was not the best way to parent. So he didn’t answer, but instead patted the metal stool beside the worktable. “Hop up here and I’ll show you how to restore a carousel horse. And when we get to the part where we need to carve something, I’ll show you how to use my knife.”
“Really?” Danny’s eyes glowed.
The expression in his son’s eyes started a warm glow inside Gideon’s gut. “Sure.”
Danny scrambled up onto the stool. He was close enough for Gideon to smell him. It was a unique aroma, part Caitlyn, part Gideon, part Danny’s own bona fide scent.
Gideon reached over to the radio parked on the windowsill. “Let’s have some tunes. What kind of music do you listen to?”
“I like Toby Keith.”
“Country-and-western.”
“Uh-huh.”
Gideon fiddled with the dials, tuned in a country-and-western station. “Watching You,” a song about a father and son by Rodney Atkins, was playing. The timeliness of the tune squeezed his heart and brought home the fact he’d already missed so much. The loss hit him like a blow to the gut. He clenched his jaw, steeled himself against those soft emotions. He couldn’t tear up in front of the kid.
But Gideon made note of everything, wanting to hang on to this memory for all time. Danny had on faded blue jeans with a small hole in one knee and a red and blue striped T-shirt and grubby sneakers. He was a lean kid, almost but not quite skinny. His shoulders were fairly broad for a seven-and-a-half-year-old, but Gideon had no doubts he’d grow into them.
“Where do we start?” Danny asked.
“First comes the sanding,” Gideon said. “Do you know how to run a hand sander?”
Danny shook his head. “My dad said I shouldn’t ever touch his tools.”