by Arlene James
“You were?” Carissa said, her sharp gaze piercing Phillip.
He spread his hands. “So sue me. I wanted steak, and I don’t like eating alone.” He looked at his sister. “Will you talk to her, please?”
Dallas smiled at Carissa. “Look, I’d much rather take your children swimming than help you move your stuff. So, which is it? Do you listen to me whine and complain all afternoon, or do I get your kids out of this awful heat?”
Carissa gave in. “Thank you so much for taking the children swimming.”
Dallas beamed, and the children cheered. Phillip stepped forward to kiss his sister’s cheek.
“I’ll take Grace’s safety seat from the van, if that’s all right,” Dallas said brightly.
“Whatever you need,” Carissa said, handing over the key.
“Let’s go, bffn!” Grace cried, tugging on Dallas’s arm.
Carissa had forgotten that bffn thing. She shared a glance with Phillip, who shook his head and shrugged.
“What is that?” she asked Dallas, but the other woman just waved it away as she turned the children toward the front of the storage unit.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Be right back.”
Dallas and the children disappeared, chattering happily among themselves.
Carissa turned to Phillip. “You engineered this, didn’t you?”
He reached around for another box and stacked it. “Listen,” he said, “contrary to public opinion, I do understand pride. But you need to accept friendship.”
Carissa bit her lip and nodded.
“Besides,” he went on, “it’s way too hot for the kids out here.”
He was right, of course. “I know. So, thank you. Again. Now, let’s get to it.”
Chuckling, he went to work, pausing only to toss his sister a smile when she returned the van key to Carissa.
“Keep them out of everyone’s way, will you?” Carissa instructed urgently as the vibrant redhead again disappeared from sight.
“Don’t worry!” Dallas called.
“Relax,” Phillip counseled. “Dallas is great with children. She likes them, and they like her. I think even Nathan likes her.”
“Yes, well,” Carissa admitted, embarrassed. “It’s only men who I—” She swallowed what she’d been about to say, that it was only attractive men that Nathan disliked, men who could possibly replace his late father.
Phillip stopped what he was doing, a thoughtful expression on his too-handsome face, then continued working, all the while studiously avoiding her gaze. Carissa did likewise. Whatever the reason for his lack of employment, it wasn’t because he was afraid to work. Far from it.
She didn’t understand him. She didn’t even want to understand him. She didn’t want to get that close to him. But he definitely wasn’t the lazy bum she’d tried to convince herself he was. Not that it mattered. For whatever else he was, she knew this much about him:
Phillip Chatam was heartbreak waiting to happen.
Chapter Six
Before long, Phillip had all the boxes neatly stacked, and still a good deal of room remained inside the storage unit.
“I think we might just be able to get everything in here,” Carissa said. “Your share of the monthly rent ought to be minimal after this.”
“My share of the monthly rent is already zero,” Phillip told her. “I paid for six months in advance less than six weeks ago.”
“And you’re not going to let me pay you anything for my use of the space, are you?”
“Nope. What would be the point in that? It would just be sitting there empty if you weren’t using it.”
She threw up her hands, torn between gratitude and irritation. She was finding it increasingly difficult to be irritated with him, however.
“Why did you lease such a large unit, anyway?” she asked as they pulled down the roll-up door and Phillip replaced the padlock.
“I intended to start accumulating some things so I could set up housekeeping in my own place. I thought it would be easier to keep it here until I decided where I wanted to live than to cart it up to the attic at Chatam House. That’s why I didn’t just stash my climbing junk with the aunties to begin with.”
“You were serious about climbing mountains, then?”
“Yep. That was my last job.”
“I see. And you quit because?”
“I quit because after some friends of mine were killed in an accident, I no longer felt I could give the job my best efforts.”
“Of course. Makes sense.”
“It would make better sense if I’d had another job to go to.”
“Yeah, there is that. Speaking of which, I need to get this done so I can get back to mine.”
“Let’s go.”
She walked to her van and got inside. He followed her in the pickup truck back to the apartment, where she went through her father’s belongings, boxing up what could be put in storage, setting aside what needed to go to Chatam House and throwing away or stacking for donation everything else. Meanwhile, Phillip broke down the beds, emptied the bookshelves and started hauling out what was ready to go.
Hilda sent Chester over with lunch. Before returning to Chatam House, Chester helped Phillip move a load of furniture to the storage unit, told them to call when they were ready for dinner and reported that the children had napped after swimming and were looking forward to a botany lesson that Dallas had promised them.
“Botany?” Carissa asked as the door closed behind her uncle.
Phillip smiled. “That’s what we called it when we went tramping around with Aunt Mags as children. Dallas is going to show them all the shady, secret places on the estate where pirates bury treasure and enchanted princesses hide. The thing is, you have to learn the parts of the plants and their Latin names to hear the secrets.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
“It is. They’ll love it.”
“Better that than this,” Carissa said softly, glancing around at her father’s things.
They ate lunch bit by bit over the course of the afternoon as they worked. More than once, Carissa found herself reduced to tears. She also found Phillip right beside her, ready to distract or comfort her. One time, he had a fresh tissue to offer; another time, he handed her a glass of cool water. Sometimes, he would only pat her silently on the shoulder or squeeze her fingers. Once, he sat down next to her on the floor, held out a container of strawberries that Hilda had sent and bumped his shoulder against hers until she laughed and began to eat. When she came across a stack of greeting cards from her and her sister that their dad had saved over the years, Phillip listened as she complained bitterly about her sister, Lyla. Then Phillip held Carissa as she wept because she knew that Lyla’s absence and long silence must have hurt their dad.
“He’s beyond that now,” Phillip reminded her. “Perhaps he even understands it.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Phillip admitted, “but I’ve always heard that whatever we need to be happy is in Heaven, so if your father needs that...”
She pulled away, drying her eyes on a paper napkin. “It occurs to me that I haven’t read my Bible as much as I ought to.”
“Hmm. That makes two of us.”
“I’m not sure I really know where to start,” Carissa admitted.
“Me, either,” Phillip said, “but I know who does.”
“Your aunts.” Smiling, he nodded.
“It’s something to think about. But first...” Phillip waved a hand, indicating the apartment.
Sighing, Carissa turned back to her task.
They wound up skipping dinner. It wasn’t planned. They just kept pushing to finish, and by the time they had emptied the apartment, it was past nine o’clock. They loaded her van with the items t
hat she wanted to keep with her and drove them over to Chatam House, where Chester promised to unload them. Then, exhausted, dirty and famished, they grabbed burgers and fries on their last trip to the storage unit and ate them while sitting on the tailgate of the truck with the door lifted on the unit and the inside light on.
“Pathetic, isn’t it?” she remarked after scarfing down half her burger.
“What?”
She jerked her head at the packed unit. “My father and I together couldn’t even fill one storage unit with our belongings.”
“What about me?” Phillip said. “Most of what I have in there is climbing gear that I’ll probably never use again. The sum total of my worldly goods is a car, some clothes, two sets of bed linens, a box of dishes, a few books, the aforementioned climbing gear and...” He fished his cell phone from a pocket. “This. I travel light.”
“You don’t have three children to provide for, entertain and try to make comfortable.”
“And it’s a good thing. Right now, I can’t provide for, entertain or make myself comfortable.”
“You’re doing as well as I am.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not. At least you have a family, and you’ve done a good job. You sure try hard.”
She couldn’t help being pleased by his praise. “Thanks, but it was lots easier before Tom died. Oh, don’t get me wrong. He was no businessman. Frankly, he didn’t always work as hard as I wished he would or take problems as seriously as he should have, but he always made me feel that everything would work out and...when you come right down to it, two are better than one.”
Phillip nodded his understanding and asked, “How did you meet him?”
“He was my high school sweetheart. We married as soon as I graduated, while he was still in college. I worked to put him through, and as soon as he got a good-paying job, we started our family. I was twenty-three when Nathan was born, and I didn’t think life could get any better. Turned out I was right. Tom started his own business while I was pregnant with Tucker, and the money got tight right away. Oh, it was still great, but I worried. I wanted a girl, though, and Tom was a more-the-merrier kind of guy, so we had another baby.” Carissa misted up, remembering. “Grace was so perfect, a sweet little doll. Tom just held her and cooed at her for hours on end. And she has no memory of him. None. After Tom died, Nathan picked her up and wouldn’t put her down. I had to make him let go of her so she would sleep.”
“He tried to step into his father’s shoes at the very beginning, then.”
“Yes.”
“How old was he?”
“Five and a half.”
Phillip blew out a breath, taking that in fully. She waited patiently until Phillip spoke again.
“Do you mind if I ask exactly how Tom died?”
She had expected the question. Eventually, it always came to this. “Tom was a self-trained mechanic. He was doing a side job to pick up extra money, helping a friend restore an old vehicle. It fell on him while he was working beneath it. We figure he accidentally kicked one of the jacks holding it up.”
“I see.”
“Couldn’t have happened at a worse time,” she went on numbly. “The business was faltering. He’d borrowed against the equity in the house, cashed in his life insurance, emptied the 401(k). I did my best to carry on.” She shook her head. “I worked other jobs, too, but eventually I lost it all.”
Phillip jumped off the back of the truck. “I’m amazed you held out so long! In this economy, I can’t believe you could find a job that pays enough to feed your children, let alone house them.”
“I do have some skill,” she muttered.
“I have some skill,” he retorted. “You have pure grit.” He clapped a hand to the back of his neck, admitting, “You make me ashamed of myself.”
“What?”
“I have three degrees. Did you know that?”
“What?” she repeated stupidly, uncertain where he was going with this.
“I have three degrees!” he all but shouted. “And do you know why I don’t have a job?”
“No.”
“Because I don’t want one, that’s why, not a normal, nine-to-five kind of job, anyway. I can’t bear to be bored, you see. I want the new, the exciting, the different. Why else would I climb mountains?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I never thought about it.”
“Of course not,” he retorted. “Why would you? You’re too busy doing what you have to do. Me, I’ve always done just what I’ve wanted to do.” He shook his head and pointed at the stuff in the bed of the truck. “Let’s finish this. I want a shower and a shave and a cool bed, and in case you haven’t noticed, I usually get what I want.”
Carissa could have pointed out that he’d worked hard for no reason other than kindness that day, but she sensed that nothing she could say would be welcome at that moment. Besides, she was trying not to get too close to him. Wasn’t she?
Confused, she threw away the trash from their meal and went to work. Later, she would think about what he’d said. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it would be safer not to think about it. Now, if only she could somehow stop.
* * *
Her strength amazed him. Phillip thought about all that she’d told him, and somewhere along the way, he faced an ugly fact about himself: what she’d been through would have broken him. To have a spouse die because of a foolish accident, then to be left in debt with nothing to fall back on while trying to care for three young children? It boggled his mind. He couldn’t imagine how she’d managed to hold on as long as she had. Marshall had said that she was a poor businesswoman, but what else could she have done? Maybe her father thought she should have cut her losses sooner. All Phillip knew was that he was done moping and drifting and waiting for something to happen.
His parents were right. He’d been irresponsible, self-indulgent, immature. He’d played at life, and he didn’t know how to stop. The deaths of his friends should have shaken some sense into him, but while he felt sick about what had happened, it hadn’t changed anything for him, not like Tom Hopper’s loss had impacted Carissa and her children. Tom Hopper was responsible for Carissa’s situation. He’d left her in a terrible mess. Yet, she spoke of him with such...love.
The sound of it in her voice turned Phillip inside out, and that worried him. In an odd way, it also gave him a feeling of hope and purpose. The whole thing was a conundrum that kept him arguing with himself as they unloaded the truck one last time then climbed into the cab for the drive back to Chatam House.
Exhausted, Carissa dropped off to sleep almost immediately. Relieved, Phillip let her snooze. His thoughts were uncomfortable enough without those big, deep blue eyes asking silent questions of him.
Her old van sat in front of the great mansion when they arrived. It looked broken and tired, much like the lady herself at the moment. She slumped on the bench seat across from Phillip.
Dallas’s little coupe was parked in front of the rusty old van, which told Phillip that his sister was as good as her word. He would owe her big-time for this one, and he didn’t mind a bit. However, all he wanted was to put an end to this interminable day.
He parked the truck behind Carissa’s van, released his seat belt to slide over and reached out to gently shake Carissa by the shoulder. She let out a soft little snore that pulled a smile from him. Did the woman have to be so endearing? Even her fits of temper made him want to hug her.
“Time to wake up, sleepyhead.”
She shifted toward him, mumbling, “Mmm, five more minutes.”
He released her seat belt and slid an arm across her shoulders to steady her, saying with a chuckle, “It’s not morning yet, silly girl.”
She sighed deeply. “Oh, good. I’m too tired.”
To his surprise, she snuggled close, knocking the clip
out of her hair. It tumbled down in a twisted rope far longer than he’d realized it would be. He lifted a hand to touch its silky softness, and she slid her arms around his neck.
“Mmm,” she whispered, “I’ve missed this.”
Phillip froze, fearing that she was dreaming of her husband, but when she lifted her chin and kissed him, he felt utterly powerless to resist her.
“Carissa?” he asked against her lips.
Her lashes fluttered, and for an instant, her gaze seemed to lock with his. Then her lids shuttered down again, and she stretched upward, propelling herself into the kiss. Phillip folded her close and kissed her as he’d wanted to for some time, if he was to be honest with himself.
Oh, she was sweet, a perfect fit in his arms. He’d known it would be this way, of course. From the moment he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d known, deep down, that this woman would fit into his arms, into his heart, as no one ever had.
He still couldn’t figure out how she could ever fit into his life or vice versa. What on earth would he do with a woman like her, let alone her kids? He was less suitable husband and father material than the man who had left her in this fix. But that didn’t keep him from kissing her as if she belonged to him.
Realizing belatedly that his heavy beard must be scratching her delicate skin, that he probably smelled like a goat, that he hadn’t told her how beautiful she was, or how unworthy he felt to be holding her like this, he began preparing himself to pull back. First, he mentally put together an apology for taking advantage of her. She had been sleeping and no doubt dreaming of her late husband. He shouldn’t have kissed her back. If she hadn’t reached for him, looking so sweet, with her sleepy eyes and soft smile...
Suddenly, she shoved away, gasping, an expression of horror on her face.
“Oh, no!”
He’d waited too long. If he’d had to kiss her, why hadn’t he called a halt to it a little earlier?
“It’s not your fault,” he began, but she’d already yanked open the door and run out of the truck. “Carissa, please.”
He jumped out and followed her up the walkway, across the porch and through the front door, which she’d left wide open. By the time Phillip got inside, she’d torn past two of the aunties, Hypatia and Magnolia, and was literally sprinting up the staircase.