Second Time's the Charm

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Papa had aged twenty years in a five-year span.

  “I’m not suggesting you condone what he did, only that you move past it. I have.”

  It was the healthy thing to do. And exactly what she’d tell the family of a child as they helped the child get past a trauma.

  Although they changed the subject and focused on enjoying breakfast and easier topics from there on out, neither Papa nor Gayle seemed convinced by her assurances.

  As she drove home, with their looks of concern seared on her heart, she told herself that she wasn’t damaged, or in any way less whole because she chose to live life alone. Her goals did not include marriage. She’d made that mistake—trying to replace what she’d lost—after her parents were killed, and she knew that it was not the answer to living a joyful life.

  Finding a man was not critical to her.

  Loving and being loved, in whatever capacity, was her key to joy.

  As Shelter Valley loomed closer, she thought of the day ahead. She’d show everyone. She could enjoy her friendship with Jon Swartz and not hold back when it came to the things she did feel. She wanted to make love with him. In the worst way. If he needed a bit of intimate adult companionship, maybe she could help him out. And prove that she was as normal, as capable of interacting on an intimate level, as she thought she was.

  And afterward?

  There didn’t need to be one, did there? As long as she and Jon both knew, going in, that they were just doing each other a service. In the same way she was helping him with Abe and he was helping her with her house. Shelter Valley was a small town. Even after Abe was adjusted and didn’t need her anymore, she and Jon were bound to run into each other.

  Could she handle that if they had sex?

  Lillie didn’t know.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ABE SLEPT THE whole hour and fifteen minute drive to the Phoenix Children’s Museum. Jon had kept the boy active all morning so that the two-year-old would nod off in his car seat and thus be fully rested and ready to go when they got to their destination.

  Ten minutes inside the place and he knew that it didn’t matter if Abe had just woken from a ten-hour sleep—he wasn’t going to last long in the place. Bright colors were everywhere, hands-on exhibits, things to explore and climb on.

  “This is pretty spectacular,” he told Lillie as he took in their surroundings with Abe straddling his hip. Passing the gift shop off to the right of the entrance, they headed down the hall.

  “Doin’?” Abe’s voice sounded in Jon’s ear. He almost stumbled. Doing?

  “Did you hear that?” He turned to Lillie, who was looking where Abe was pointing his finger. He’d been working with Abe for over a week on the word and, out of the blue, there it was.

  Nodding, Lillie smiled, and told the boy about the exhibit. “We need to go up to the third floor,” she said, leading them back toward the elevator. “The exhibits up there are specifically designed for imaginative play for toddlers.”

  “You’ve been here before.”

  “Many times,” she told him. “First when I was taking my child development classes when I was an undergrad at Montford, then during my practicum and internships, and later, with various patients. The exhibits are geared to different levels of developmental appropriateness.”

  Where was their friend Lillie? This woman, spouting developmental appropriateness sounded like a health care professional.

  Which was why she was with him, he reminded himself.

  She’d been a bit distant on the drive, too, after giving him an initial, blood-warming smile when she’d climbed into the truck. But no more distant than he’d been, he acknowledged. They’d talked about Abe. And work—she’d been inordinately interested in the story about the cracked gas line from the day before and he’d been happy to give her a play-by-play, tacking on a crash course in jelly making to pass the time.

  They entered the elevator and rode silently up to the third floor.

  “Let’s take him to Ian’s Corner,” Lillie said as soon as they’d exited the elevator. “It’s just inside the pit stop exhibit.”

  A pit stop. Someplace to sit and get their bearings. He liked the sound of that. “What’s Ian’s Corner?” he asked.

  “You’ll see, Abe will love it.”

  “Doin’?” the boy asked again, pointing to an area filled with long noodles suspended from the ceiling. Oh, man. Abe could get knocked over. Or lost. And if he panicked in there...

  “That’s Noodle Forest,” Lillie said. “Do you want to go to Noodle Forest?”

  Before Jon could express his doubts, Abe said, “No!” quite clearly, wrapping his hands around Jon’s neck.

  With a smile for the boy, Lillie rubbed the top of Abe’s small hand and moved on. Jon’s gut tensed. He felt as if he’d just failed some professional child-rearing test. He needed to quit being so overprotective. If Abe fell, he’d stand back up. If he screamed, he’d stop eventually.

  As soon as they entered Ian’s Corner, Abe was pushing his feet against Jon’s thigh. “Down, down!” he said.

  His second new word that week.

  With trepidation, Jon put the boy on the ground and watched as he tripped over himself on his way to a toddler-size car shaped like a tube of toothpaste. Abe was wearing a bright yellow shirt and Jon’s gaze remained glued to the color.

  “He loves the plastic-wheeled scooter in the playroom at Little Spirits,” Lillie said as she stood next to Jon, watching Abe climb aboard the car.

  Without taking his eye off his son, Jon figured out what had just happened. “You were going to make sure I put him down, huh?” He grinned.

  Because she’d been right. And she cared.

  “Something like that.” He didn’t even have to look at her to get turned on. The saucy tone to her voice was enough.

  Going from the toothpaste car to a pickle car, Abe pretended to drive it for a bit and then ran to a real motorcycle, demanding, “Up.”

  “Let me take a picture of you two,” Jon said, taking his phone out of its holster as Lillie stood holding on to Abe on the other side of the motorcycle. Jon snapped several shots with the camera on his phone, knowing that one of them was going to be his new screen saver at home.

  Next, Abe wanted to launch a race car down a track and watch its progress. At one point, Abe held up his hand like a traffic cop to get another little boy to stop his car. He was using his words, interacting with other kids, and laughing so hard he farted.

  That was his boy—just putting it all out there. Healthy, well adjusted and apparently a future NASCAR driver.

  The day was good. Great. And through it all, Lillie was right beside him, cheering Abe on, intervening when necessary, playing with him, watching over him as though he was her own son.

  * * *

  THEY TALKED ABOUT the day, reliving Abe’s breakthroughs all the way home.

  “All those people and not one tantrum,” Jon said again as they neared Shelter Valley. Since it was at least the fifth time she’d heard the comment, Lillie just smiled.

  They’d only stayed in the museum for a couple of hours, but she agreed that Abe had done well. Of course, they’d both been standing over him nonstop the entire time. But they’d made certain that his focus had remained on his activities first and them second.

  The day could have been perfect—except that several times she’d seen Abe give that hand signal. The stop sign. Holding his hand straight up and out as a way to tell someone to stop. Something kids did. Adults, too.

  And when added to the rest of the behaviors and anxieties Abe had exhibited since she’d started watching him—his fear of crowds, panicking for seemingly no reason...

  “Have you had Abe’s hearing checked?” she asked Jon as they approached her neighborhood. It was Sunday afternoon and people w
ere out and about. Caro waved at them from the sidewalk as they drove by.

  Lillie waved back.

  “Of course, he’s had all of his checks,” Jon said. “Passed with flying colors in every way. You know my landlord, Caroline?”

  Abe’s hearing was fine. He wasn’t Braydon. He wasn’t hers at all. And there was nothing wrong with him.

  “Caroline Strickland?” she asked.

  “Yeah, she just waved to you.”

  “She waved to us,” Lillie said, “but yes, she’s a friend of mine.” She told him about her early-morning bike rides with Caro, leaving out the part about how they met—the medical emergency that had brought Caro to the clinic with a traumatized child.

  She told him that Caro knew about her new doors and faucets.

  He nodded.

  It was all very casual and friendly and nice. And Lillie was on edge. They were almost at her house. He’d drop her off, say good-night, take his son home to bed and get on with the rest of his life.

  She should leave it at that.

  She’d just proved that she was in over her head with the Swartz men with her irrational concerns over Abe’s well-being. Her overreaction to his simple hand movements. He’d been acting normal and she was seeing hearing loss. Imagining that Abe’s panic was due to not being able to hear. Fearing that the little boy was going deaf.

  There was no way she could pretend to herself that Jon and Abe were simply a job to her. She cared deeply about all of her patients, but her feelings toward Jon and Abe were...personal.

  And when it got personal, she feared the worst. Because she’d lived through the worst and couldn’t go through it a second time.

  Stopping the truck in her driveway, Jon shut off the engine and turned to her. “Caroline knows that I’m helping at your house. What else did you tell her?”

  “Nothing about Abe’s issues, if that’s what you’re wondering. I don’t―”

  “I wasn’t worried about that,” Jon interrupted. “I meant about our...friendship. Won’t she find it odd that we’re in the car together on a Sunday afternoon?”

  She hadn’t thought about that. Or cared. Nodding, she said, “I’ll tell her that...”

  She couldn’t think. Not with his arm on the back of the seat so close to touching her.

  “Just tell her you were working. You have my permission to mention Abe’s crowd issue if you want to. If that’s what this is about.”

  He’d given her the easy way out. Take it. Take it. Take it.

  “It’s not.”

  Frowning, Jon glanced at his son still asleep in the backseat and said, “Look, Lillie, you have no worries where I’m concerned. I know I screwed up the other night, but you don’t have to worry that it’s going to happen again.”

  He was so close. And his distance was driving her to craziness. “I think part of what worries me is that it might not.”

  His breathing seemed to stop. And she turned hot. And then cold. She’d make a mistake.

  “Are you coming on to me?” The question was soft, intimate.

  There was a two-year-old sleeping a couple of feet away. One she couldn’t take any further into her heart.

  “No.” Was she? “At least I don’t think I am. I’m just... The other night, you said we both acknowledged...” For someone whose entire life was dedicated to finding the right words to soothe people she was failing miserably. “But I really don’t want anything more than friendship.”

  She couldn’t take on Jon’s son. Not as her own. She’d smother him. Worry herself sick over every little hiccup. Or hand signal.

  She honestly did not want to marry again. Ever.

  “I’d like to tell Caroline that we’re friends. If she asks. Which I know she will.”

  “That’s fine.”

  But that wasn’t all she wanted.

  “You do realize how a small town works, don’t you?”

  “I’ve never lived in one—at least, not long enough to become part of the gossip mill, but I’ve heard about them. From what I understand, Shelter Valley is a pretty tight-knit community.”

  “That’s right.”

  He studied her and she could see something going on in his eyes.

  “What?”

  “I was told, I’m not saying by who, that you’re in pretty tight with a lot of folks here.”

  “They’re like family to me.” Where was this leading? Her heart racing, libido pounding at her core, Lillie admonished herself for behaving like a teenager. Jon was just a man.

  “I was...warned.”

  “Warned off?” It was her turn to frown. Who would want her to not be friends with Jon? And why?

  “No.” The shake of his head was easy, as was the hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth. “Just warned that if I hurt you, I’d best leave town before anyone got wind of it.”

  “Oh.” She was hot again. “They watch out for me.”

  In the five years she’d been in Shelter Valley, she’d never done anything worthy of the gossip mill. She liked it that way.

  “I got that.”

  “I’m just surprised...other than at the day care, I didn’t think we’d been seen together.” She thought back over the past couple of weeks, and added, “I told Bonnie and Caro what a great job you did on my French doors....”

  “I... Just someone who knew I’d been to your house mentioned that I should be careful not to...toy...with you.”

  The care with which he chose his words was endearing. And maddening, too.

  “Toy with me?”

  “I think I got the go-ahead to see you, just not to break your heart.”

  Oh, well, then. “No worries there. My heart’s not available for breaking.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “I know yours isn’t, either,” Lillie assured him quickly, lest he think she considered her feelings more important than his—or that she was only looking out for herself. “I fully realize that Abraham has your whole heart right now.”

  Right now. Why had she tacked on the qualifier? Like, maybe, sometime in the distant future, he might be available to her?

  Because, sometime in the future, she might want that?

  She didn’t want that—and couldn’t lead him to believe she did. “Look, I’m making a mess of this whole thing. Let’s just agree to tread carefully, shall we?”

  “Of course.”

  Jon nodded. Stared at her lips as though he wanted to kiss them, and then started his truck.

  Taking the cue, Lillie leaned over, planted a lightning-quick peck on his cheek and ran up to her door without looking back.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ALL THOSE CROWDS and not one tantrum. New words every day. Abraham was on track and as normal as any other two-year-old. They weren’t going to need Lillie’s help much longer.

  But they needed her.

  Jon sat in class on Monday, stared at photos of art in places he’d probably never see, talked to Mark about chemical compounds, figured out a calculus problem before the professor had it solved on the screen—and daydreamed about Lillie Henderson.

  She thought her heart was inaccessible. He knew better. He could feel it every single time she was anywhere near Abe.

  And even if she’d never love Jon, it was pretty clear she liked him. A lot.

  He could settle for that.

  At work that afternoon, he heard about yet another break-in. Closer to town. At the home of another woman living on her own. She wasn’t home when it happened. But more stuff had been taken from her house than the previous homes. The word was that the sheriff was on a mission to find the guy responsible. He had a posse of volunteers 24/7 helping him now, and anyone walking alone at night was subject to suspicion.

  Which meant J
on wouldn’t be doing any walking at all, except from his truck to wherever he was going. And he had to dispose of some of his tools—the ones he’d used to remove Lillie’s sliding glass door—no matter how much of a waste it was. He couldn’t afford to come under suspicion. If they arrested him, Abe would be put in foster care, at least until he could prove his innocence. And he’d have to drop out of school, which would mean he’d not only lose the scholarship, he’d have to pay back the thousands of dollars he’d already spent.

  Sweating, and working himself up to panic mode, Jon reminded himself he’d done nothing wrong.

  This time.

  But if he was the sheriff, and he knew about Jon’s past, he’d suspect himself.

  He had to find out more about what was going on. If they were going to be pulling people’s records, it might be time to grab his packed duffel and head out.

  They’d have to leave Lillie.

  He had a life here.

  But he’d have no life if he was arrested.

  And there was Clara...always the threat of Clara...in the background.

  “Addy has an in with the sheriff,” Jon said to Mark as they shared a late lunch perched on the rocks outside the plant. “Have you guys heard anything about this guy doing all the break-ins? Do they have anything to go on yet?”

  “Just that he wears a size-ten shoe. And they figure from the indention of the footprint in the dirt that he weighs about 180. They also think he’s a student at Montford,” he said.

  Jon’s sandwich stuck in his throat.

  “Why do they think that?”

  “They found a token from the cafeteria on the ground outside one of the homes that they suspect fell out of his pocket.”

  The tokens were given as change when students used dining passes. Jon had a bowl full of them on his dresser at home. He didn’t eat at campus much because of Abe, but a dining hall pass came with his scholarship and he used it for the occasional lunch when he was on campus. And he sometimes used it to pick up fruit and packaged items, like microwavable macaroni and cheese, that he could bring home.