Needless to say, Harry wasn’t going home or anywhere else today or anytime soon.
“What’s your hurry?” she asked suspiciously.
“It’s a new workweek and I already missed a day yesterday because of weather.
“Where are you scheduled this week?”
“Springfield.”
“And what’s her name?”
“Don’t.”
“As in Dont Iluvhar? My, what an unusual name.”
“You know what I mean. My life outside this house is my own, totally separate from you. Don’t mix the two.”
“How can I not? You’re ready to walk out on me for whatever her name is. How can I not be jealous? How can I not be disturbed?”
“You knew when you met me that this is my lifestyle. You have no business interfering now.”
“I’m not interfering. I don’t even care.”
“Good. Then there’s not a problem.”
“Exactly. No problem. So why won’t you tell me her name?”
He heaved a big sigh. “Her name is Sybil.”
“Sounds cold, very off-putting. What does she look like?”
“She’s five feet, five inches, blonde hair, blue eyes, slim but with a curvy figure. Big boobs, I’m not sure they’re natural, but that’s okay. She works in the X-Ray department at the hospital, she’s single, no children, lives alone. Is that enough details?”
“How old is she?”
“I don’t … Old enough to know better. Twenty-two.”
“You’re kind of robbing the cradle, aren’t you? You’re thirty already.”
He snorted. “I knew you’d find something to criticize.”
“So if I got a boob job, would you be interested in me?”
He backed her into a corner, intimidating her with his height. “I’m already interested in you. You’re the one with the problem.”
“You came onto me like a steamroller. How can you blame me?”
“I can’t help it. The kids put me off my stride. I rushed it. They’re a major stumbling block.”
“That’s not fair. They were good yesterday while we were … upstairs.”
“True, except you weren’t in your bed last night when I paid a visit.”
She gasped. She’d assumed he wouldn’t be interested in her any more, not after the unpleasant … incident. “Tiffany had a nightmare.”
“Exactly my point.”
“You need to grow up. Kids require responsibilities from their parents or whoever takes care of them. It might not be romantic, but that’s what parenthood is all about—being there when they need you, nor necessarily when it’s convenient.”
“You don’t get my point. I’m not ‘into’ kids and responsibilities. I’ve managed to avoid those so far, and I intend to keep it that way.”
“Then why are you here? You sure don’t fit into my idea of the hero and father figure in my fantasy.”
“Really? Well, that’s good, because I’ll be outside, shoveling my way out of guaranteed disaster.”
“Well good,” she agreed. “I hope you freeze your selfish backside off while you’re at it.”
“Nothing on earth compares with the vindictive wrath of a woman scorned.”
“Isn’t that the other way around? Sybil, my ass.”
“I’m out of here.”
“Well, good.” Let him go out and freeze his ass off. “I wouldn’t want you to think I’m jealous because you have all these women that lure you back, come hell or high water. What do they have that I don’t have?”
“Maybe … loyalty or genuine caring. I’m an event for them each quarter, and they know how to make a man feel special.”
“That’s easy for them. They only have to deal with you a week each quarter. I pity them, pining for you the rest of the time.”
“That’s not the case. If I’m not there, as far as I know, they don’t grieve for me. They don’t worry about me or try to apply their principles to my behavior. They accept the person I am.”
“Go ahead, you can say it: While I try to change you.”
“I realize that you do it for what you think is my own good, but sometimes, I’d like to be me, forget the warts.”
“I’ll just tell the kids you had better things to do.”
“You can tell them I love them, and that I wish I could be with them tonight.”
“What a crock. Talk about loyalty and genuine caring.”
“You bother the hell out of me, lady.”
“Yeah, then why don’t you do something about it?
“Like what?”
“Stick around. Find out what a real relationship can be like. You don’t have to leave to prove a point, Harry, but I won’t beg. Never mind that I planned a special dinner. I planned to put the kids to bed early, make the evening special for both of us. But it doesn’t matter.”
“Well good.” He shrugged as if he had a choice.
Unfortunately for him, the roads were still closed.
“I’m going out to shovel. If I get the driveway done, I’ll start on the street and work my way to the county highway, just in case I want to go.”
Tara wasn’t beneath begging. “I need you four to have a nice, early supper.”
“Five,” Erica corrected. “Bunny wants to eat with us.”
“It’s a rule in this household, no animals at the supper table.”
“He doesn’t count. He’s not totally a bunny.”
“Fine, I don’t care, but I don’t want to step in bunny poop on my way to the dining room. That would ruin the romance real quick.”
“Romance … Really?” Kevin perked up. “With Harry?”
“I’ll never tell,” she told him, but who else but Harry was in the vicinity?
“Do you two have adequate protection?”
“Kevin! You’re not supposed to know about birth control at age six,” Tara told him.
“It’s never too early to learn. If we want to control world population, we need to start young.”
“I have more immediate goals, like erasing his extensive database of available females from his memory. Any ideas how I can achieve that?”
“Maybe you’re right. Sex has its appeal in certain situations.”
“You know, hon, I feel for you when you finally grow up. You’ll be so blasé about love and romance by then, there won’t be any excitement left for a couple in love. Who knows if couples will still fall in love? Maybe they’ll simply be matched, and that would be a tragedy.”
As always, Kevin had a comeback. “Or maybe by then, we’ll discover a system to identify compatible couples and eliminate divorce and separation.”
“As in reverting to the old system of the forties and fifties before divorce came into vogue?”
“Interesting theory,” he allowed.
“Do you know if poor Harry is still in the whirlpool after all that shoveling?”
“I think he fell asleep in there.”
“If I asked you to take him a glass of wine, would you promise not to taste it?”
“I can’t promise.”
“Hmmm. I guess I better deliver the wine myself. Can you all try to be good while I take a glass to him?”
“Depends on what’s for dessert.”
“Make-Your-Own-Dessert-But-Don’t-Make-A-Mess.”
“There is no such dessert,” Erica said.
“There is in this household,” Tara said. “Emergency only, okay? Oh, by the way, it’s permissible to interrupt us—in an emergency. We won’t be doing anything that would embarrass you, except maybe kissing … if he ever forgives me.”
“Is Harry leaving us?” Tiffany asked.
“Can we afford to lose him?” Kimmy asked.
“We can’t lose Harry,” Erica agreed.
Their concern swelled within her heart. She didn’t want to lose Harry either, and she’d do everything in her power to keep him here—short of going against her principles. She didn’t want to involve the kids, though. That would be
blackmail.
“Let’s not over-analyze this situation, guys. And let’s not get too attached to Harry. As soon as conditions improve, he’ll return to his normal life. I’d like to say he’ll fit us into some part of his life, but I can’t guarantee that. Most likely, if the roads are clear tomorrow, Harry will be long gone. We don’t fit into his lifestyle, but even without him, we’ll survive.”
“Why would he leave us?” Erica asked.
“His normal life may be too busy to fit us in.”
Tiffany sniffed. “How can he not love us?”
“He does love us, in his own way. Sometimes guys just can’t recognize it, or admit it. So we just have to enjoy the time he’s here. He was fun, wasn’t he?”
The children sat listlessly, each attempting to accept this lesson in human behavior in their own way. Tara regretted opening the discussion to begin with, but it was never too early to learn the way of the world.
Harry finally emerged from the hot tub when he felt more like a jellyfish than a sponge. He’d enjoyed the exercise of shoveling today. He seldom did physical work any more since he’d finished the basement in his mother’s house. Occasionally, one or both of his sisters would have a project going on a weekend while he was home—usually if one did, the other was close behind, and outdid it bigger and better than her sister.
He threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and made his way downstairs to see what happened to Tara. She’d promised to join him in the spa as soon as she fed the kids.
He followed the sound of voices to the eat-in kitchen, but hesitated before entering. Tara and the children were talking about him, and it sounded like she was teaching them a life’s lesson in the process.
“Let’s not over-analyze this situation, guys. And let’s not get too attached to Harry. As soon as conditions improve, he’ll return to his normal life. I’d like to say he’ll fit us into some part of his life, but I can’t guarantee that. Most likely, if the roads are clear tomorrow, Harry will be long gone. We don’t fit into his lifestyle, but even without him, we’ll survive.”
“Why would he leave us?” Erica asked.
“His normal life may be too busy to fit us in.”
Tiffany sniffed. “How can he not love us?”
“He does love us, in his own way. Sometimes guys just can’t recognize it, or admit it. So we just have to hope for the best.”
He felt like a heel, mostly because she was right on. Tomorrow when the roads opened, Valentine’s Day be damned, he’d leave her and her family with promises to keep in touch—and maybe he would for a while, as long as it was convenient.
Not that he didn’t care about Tara and her brood of four, but he had a carefully-crafted schedule that was established and worked well. Sure Tara was tempting, but she’d never integrate into his lifestyle. As lovely and sexy as she was, she’d never fit his requirements.
Without revealing his presence, he turned on his heel and headed back upstairs. He’d wait for Tara to find him there, not letting her know that he ever ventured out of the comfort of the watery retreat.
“Are you a raisin yet?” she asked when she entered the master suite’s spa.
“I’m just about ripe,” Harry answered.
“You kill me. You never show physical exercise, or any response to anything. Anyone else would look pecker-pink, and you sit there as nonchalant as a James Bond character.”
“I watched a lot of James Bond movies growing up. I may have had it rubbed into me.”
“He was always flitting from one woman to another, too.”
“Maybe we should watch some of his movies together. Might give you some ideas. You can practice on me anytime.”
Harry felt like a heel knowing he wouldn’t be around tomorrow to provide the unparalleled sex that she desired. Surely if he promised he might be back someday, she’d welcome him into her bed before he left.
Eight
Harry tried, he really did expend every effort to make Valentine’s Eve special. Tara had fed the fearsome foursome, plus the dog and rabbit ahead of time, so he assumed she’d be relaxed and attentive over dinner. Yet she seemed distracted throughout their meal.
“Something wrong?” he asked her.
“Everything’s wonderful. The food was good, the music you chose is exceptional. Even the kids and animals went to bed on time, and without one protest. Do you realize how unusual that is?”
“You’re good with the kids.” He smiled, remembering the excuses they’d come up with in order to delay their bedtime, checking the plants, brushing the dog, finding a snack for the rabbit.
“They’re good with me, too. A lot of it is simply respect for one another and their feelings, don’t you think?”
“You sound like a teacher.”
“Ouch! That sounds like an accusation.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. My memories of high school aren’t all bad.”
As for the bad ones, he’d buried the worst of them.
“Maybe you forgot, I was a teacher until I started writing. I guess once a teacher, always a teacher. I had to give it up when I sold the young adult series. I don’t have time to teach and write seriously.”
He refilled the champagne in her glass. “Where do you fit ‘you’ in there?”
“Someday, I’ll figure it out. For now, I’m grateful for what I have. I can’t wait for the first book in the series to come out. My life will change, I know. I dread going on tour. It sounds glamorous, but I’ve heard so many horror stories. I don’t travel well, you see. I tend to get tired and need a nap; otherwise I get really grouchy. Can’t treat fans that way.”
“So get a manager.”
“Are you volunteering?”
“I can’t get away that long.” For just a flash of time, he saw himself doing just that.
Being on tour could be fun and exciting, but it would mess up his whole system. Maybe for just one quarter, he could consider the position. Nah, what was he thinking? That would only give Tara false hope of a future together. “Will you take the children along?”
She shook her head. “They might enjoy going to a local book signing occasionally, but it would put too much stress on everyone concerned to travel with children. A special event on occasion is another story, maybe a signing at a school depending on the location, but from what I hear, the book signing circuit is no life for a child.”
“Do you think that’s fair to them?”
“I don’t why that would be a consideration. Naturally, if they need me to help out, I’ll do whatever I can.”
Harry pushed back from the table, unable to contain his agitation. “I’ll get another bottle of champagne.”
He paced back and forth in the kitchen, even considered going outside to cool off, but it was bitter cold out there and it wouldn’t change anything.
“What’s wrong, Harry?” she asked when he returned.
He blew out a long sigh. “How can a mother choose her career over her family?”
“There’s not always a choice. What’s the problem?”
He swirled the liquid in his glass, as if the bubbles would provide an answer. “I thought you were different, that kids and family came first, the way I remember my family when I was growing up.”
“I should have realized you’d be a male chauvinist to match your women of the week mentality. Not every family has such an ideal existence.”
He frowned. “There was never an ‘ideal existence.’ We were a normal family. There were arguments, mostly my two sisters bickering, but they were minor spats.”
“All families bicker. It’s part of living together. You should hear me and my brothers.”
A flash of memory blindsided him. Loud voices … his parents arguing in the kitchen, their anger carrying through the wall to his bedroom directly behind the kitchen. He grabbed his forehead to ward off the memories. It didn’t work.
“What is it, Harry?” Tara asked with gentle concern.
His mother’s bitter words came back,
‘You get rid of that woman, or I’ll leave you. We don’t have money for new school shoes for the kids and here you are, out drinking and carousing with that woman every night! I won’t stand for it anymore, I tell you. You’ll never see your children again.’
“All these years, I’ve blocked the memory out of my mind. My dad was having an affair. She was with him when he crashed the car.”
“Did she … survive?”
He shook his head. “They covered the affair up, said my dad offered to give her a ride home because she’d had too much to drink. She was divorced.”
“I’m sorry.” She patted his hand.
“I don’t know how my mother made it through all that. The bar closed at two a.m. and they crashed around four, so there was no excuse for them being together that late. It was unreal—all the rumors and juicy tidbits. I was a sophomore in high school and all the girls teased me, ‘Are you a lover like your dad?’”
“How cruel. I’m sorry. It must have been horrible for you.”
“Yeah, it was. I got wild for a while, skipping school, drinking every night, drag racing. I was only fifteen, didn’t even have a license. That whole year, I think I had a death wish.”
“You had nobody to turn to?”
“I probably could have; I chose not to. My mother ended up crying every time she tried to talk to me, my sisters washed their hands of me, their friends wanted to date me. Did you ever hear of James Dean?”
“Sure. He was a movie star. ‘Rebel without a Cause.’ He died in a car crash in real life. You look a little like him.”
“Oh. The girls sure liked him, even though he was dead. They said I reminded them of him.”
“So what happened? How did you turn yourself around?”
He shook his head, not sure he wanted to continue the conversation but knowing he’d have to give her enough to satisfy her curiosity. “We got a new police chief in town. I don’t know why, I think he had the hots for my mother, but he took an interest in me. He kept stopping by the house, trying to interest me in sports and activities around the neighborhood.”
“And…”
“And nothing. I just gradually turned around.”
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