Second Chance Dad

by Roxanne Rustand

  She beamed at him, so clearly proud of him for making progress that he suddenly felt a nearly irresistible desire to haul her into his arms for an embrace…and a chance to kiss her silly.

  She blinked, as if she’d just read his mind. “You’ve met our original goal for flexion,” she said hastily. “But you will get better yet. If you continue the set of exercises you have and keep up your walking program, you’ll be surprised at how much further you’ll come.”

  He bit back a smile. “True, I would like to go a little further. In a professional sense, of course.”

  A faint blush of roses crept into her cheeks as she reached into her duffel bag and pulled out a plastic container, peeled off the lid and handed it to him. “Now we’re going to concentrate more on your lower back pain and start working on dexterity and hand strength exercises. Have you worked with this stuff before?”

  “Play-Doh?”

  “Thera-Putty. It comes in different degrees of plasticity, and this one is the easiest to manipulate. For starters, I want you to knead it with your injured hand, work on squeezing it into a tight ball, and use both hands to pull it apart. It will improve your flexion and hand strength.” She pulled out a hardbound notebook with Journal embossed on the cover in gold script. “And, I want you to start writing, by hand. At least a page a day. It’s wonderful for improving your dexterity.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “A diary.”

  “A journal. Much more masculine, don’t you think? Whatever you want to write. I won’t read it, but I’ll want you to flip through the pages for me now and then, just so I can see you’ve kept at it, and to glance at the overall appearance. Though since you’re a doctor, I’m not sure about my usual legibility criteria.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said drily.

  “And with that, I guess it’s time for me to go.” She stilled. “It’s awfully quiet outside.”

  Josh listened, realizing that he’d become so aware of Sophie in the past hour that he hadn’t given the boy another thought. How had that happened?

  She hurried to the door and stepped out onto the porch. “Eli? Eli!”

  Josh followed her outside and whistled. “I don’t see Bear, either, but I’m sure they’re together.”

  The dog emerged from the long, low log building nestled back in the pines, along the edge of the clearing surrounding the cabin, his tail waving gaily. He came partway to the cabin, then spun around and disappeared back through the open door of the shed.

  “Oh, dear. I’m really sorry about this,” Sophie called over her shoulder as she hurried across the expanse of short, wiry grass and rock. “Eli should know better.”

  Woodworking equipment. Power tools. Axes and saws and metal gas cans. There were any number of things in that building that could spell trouble for a curious child. Josh had seen the tragic evidence in all too many cases brought into the hospital emergency departments where he’d worked.

  He reached the building and stepped into the cool, dark interior, then flipped on the light switch, afraid of what he might find.

  The silence inside was ominous.

  To the left were the stalls where his SUV and pickup were parked in the dark shadows. Ahead, were the long workbench and all of the tools he’d inherited from his grandfather but had rarely used. There was no one in sight.

  But to the right, a narrow apron of light spilled out onto the concrete from a partially open door leading into the storage area of the building.

  “Sophie?” He barely noticed the aching of his bum knee as he strode toward the door and opened it wide.

  The remains of his former life unfolded before him, in high stacks of unpacked moving boxes and plastic-wrapped furniture that filled most of the twenty-by-thirty space. His late wife’s baby grand, still cradled on its side in a mover’s crate. Her father’s old Wurlitzer jukebox, wrapped in swaths of mummylike plastic wrapping.

  The movers had unloaded it all here and he’d never even stepped inside. And now, the painful memories assailed him as he’d always known they would, at first in a trickle of snapshots, and then in a deluge—Julia’s laughter as they’d sat on that love seat. The argument they’d had over the massive oak buffet she’d paid far too much for at an auction. A flat cardboard box tipped against the wall—the crib he and Julia had bought the day they’d learned she was pregnant.

  A crib he’d never assembled.

  Shoving aside the past, he now heard the soft murmur of voices wafting from the far end of the shed. He edged sideways through the crowded room until he came to the end, where a single skylight bathed his late father’s battered, ancient Harley in a beam of soft light.

  Eli was standing next to it, his face filled with awe as he reverently wiped away the thick dust from the chrome handlebars.

  Sophie had her hand on his shoulder. She cast a guilty look at Josh. “I am so, so sorry. Eli should’ve known better than to trespass out here.”

  Josh felt his heart constrict.

  The Harley had been locked away in his garage back in Denver. Even there, he’d never looked at it, never touched it. He’d even forgotten that it might be in here, but the movers had been more than thorough about emptying out the garage and storage shed at the old house.

  After his dad’s fatal heart attack while riding it over a remote mountain pass, the vehicle had been no more than a painful reminder of the two days he’d lingered near death, too far off the sparsely traveled highway to be seen by passersby.

  Toni had hated just the sight of the bike after that. Josh hadn’t wanted it, either, yet he hadn’t been able to bring himself to sell his father’s prize possession.

  Sophie bit her lower lip, apparently reading his troubled expression. She gave Eli’s shoulder a squeeze. “Come on, honey. We need to leave.”

  He stubbornly clung to the cloth in his hand and shook off her grip. “It’s a 1965 Panhead, Mom. Electra Glide. Just like Dad’s. But this one is all original and his didn’t have the ball-tip levers and the one-piece shifter lever. I never saw one just like this. Not even in books.”

  Josh stared down at the boy, who couldn’t be more than eight years old. The child’s expression was in tense, as focused on the bike as if he’d come across the Holy Grail. Like a miniature talking encyclopedia, he rattled off a long series of engine specifications on the bike—which sounded right, though Josh didn’t have a clue.

  He slowly lifted his gaze to meet Sophie’s as realization dawned.

  She tipped her head in slight acknowledgment. “Eli is obsessed with motorcycles,” she said, her voice low. “He has been ever since his dad had an aneurysm and passed away a couple years ago. He reads books and magazines on them, nonstop.”

  There was more that she wasn’t saying, but in just the hour that Josh had known Eli, it was fairly apparent that the child was extremely bright, extremely focused and had astonishing verbal skills for his age, once he lit on a topic he loved. But he probably had some issues, as well.

  After all the kids Josh had seen in emergency room medicine, higher functioning autism had been his first guess. Now, he readjusted his casual diagnosis. Perhaps a mild form of Asperger’s?

  “I had no choice but to sell his dad’s Harley so I could finish school,” she added sadly. “But of course, I didn’t ever learn to ride it and never would’ve been brave enough to take Eli with me if I had. So it was the right thing to do.”

  Coming face-to-face with his past in this storage room had hit him like a punch to the solar plexus, but now Josh felt the tightness in his chest ease as he realized just how much Sophie was dealing with, every day.

  The loss of her husband.

  Raising a child alone—a child with special challenges.

  And probably, financial problems as she struggled to establish a career, support her small family and pay off her school debts.

  He felt like a total jerk.

  She’d practically had to plead with him to gain his cooperation with physical therapy because he’d been too wrappe
d up in himself to see anything beyond his own world of guilt and grief. And knowing Grace Dearborn, Sophie’s job had probably been on the line.

  He hauled his thoughts back to the present when Sophie grasped her son by the hand and gently tugged him toward the door despite his protests.

  The boy turned around to see the motorcycle one last time, then looked up at Josh with tears welling in his eyes. “I want to stay longer. Please? I promise I won’t touch it. I’ll be good.”

  “Dr. McLaren had the doors of his shed closed for a reason, Eli. You trespassed in here, and could have gotten into a lot of trouble. You could’ve been hurt. We have to go home.”

  “But—”

  “No, Eli.” She threw an apologetic glance over her shoulder. “I’ll be back as usual on Monday, and I promise you I’ll be alone. His grandparents usually watch him while I’m at work.”

  Feeling like a first-class heel for not being more welcoming, Josh started to call them back, then bit his tongue. Sophie was clearly making a point with her son, and an important one, about obeying her.

  It was just as well that they were gone.

  Josh had no business becoming involved in their lives. Even if he empathized with them, his relationship with Sophie was pure business and that’s where it needed to stay.

  And even if he’d felt a growing, simmering attraction to her, his heart had shattered long ago. He had nothing more to give.

  Leading anyone to believe differently—especially someone with a needy young boy who probably felt a desperate need for a connection to his late father—was wrong on every level.

  The boy had looked up at him with such longing, such adulation that there could only be heartbreak ahead, once Josh’s therapy was over and the connection was severed.

  He slowly paced through the crowded storage area, debating his next move. Should he call Grace Dearborn tomorrow and cancel the rest of his therapy appointments? He could explain that it was entirely his decision, and nothing to do with Sophie’s excellent care. Surely Grace would understand.

  And maybe it would be better for everyone if he did just that.

  He punched in the 411 code for directory service, then waited for the transfer to her number. After leaving a message on her voice mail, he snapped the phone shut.

  Done.

  And Sophie Alexander would probably thank him for it, too, when she learned on Monday that he was no longer on her schedule.

  So why did he suddenly feel so empty?

  He looked at the Harley, needing a distraction. Expecting a sense of sadness and loss to slip over him as it always did whenever he thought of his father’s lonely death. Remembering his own hurt, when his dad had brushed aside his eager questions and pleas for motorcycle rides around town.

  Instead, he felt…nothing.

  Maybe it was time to move on and let go of other things, too—like these remnants of a chapter of his life that was long over. But was it ever really possible to leave the past behind?

  Chapter Seven

  After a few cups of tea and a spirited discussion on Jane Eyre in the back meeting room of Beth’s Aspen Creek Bookstore, Sophie felt a sense of peace drift over her.

  She’d needed this quiet Saturday morning with her book club friends, after that difficult encounter at Josh McLaren’s yesterday afternoon, and the even more challenging evening at Gramps’s house.

  Overstimulated by his exciting find at Josh’s place, Eli had chattered a hundred miles an hour for the rest of the day. He’d begged to go back, unable to process the fact that since Josh McLaren wasn’t a relative or close family friend, he probably wasn’t exactly welcome nonstop.

  Gramps, on the other hand, had sat sullen and silent in his easy chair the entire time Sophie was there preparing his supper, because Margie and Dean had stopped by earlier and the three of them had ended up in yet another one of their arguments.

  Now, with Olivia and Keeley already gone on their separate Saturday errands, Sophie nabbed the latest issue of Living magazine and started for the front cash register. “Eli, I’m ready to leave,” she called out as she set her purse on the counter and pulled out a ten-dollar bill.

  Elana smiled as she counted back the change. “Maybe your boy can come to our house to play sometime. Cody told me he would like that.”

  “Really?” Such invitations were so few and far between that any such opportunities were precious. Sophie jotted her phone number and name on a piece of scratch paper and handed it over. “Eli would like that, too.”

  Hopefully he would, anyway.

  She turned back to go after him. “Come on, honey, we need to leave. My meeting is over.”

  The bells at the front door of the store jingled and someone came in on a gust of wind laden with a hint of approaching rain.

  Eli’s eyes opened wide with excitement as he came out of the children’s area with two books cradled in his arms. “Look, Mom! Look who’s here—it’s the Harley man!”

  Given McLaren’s cool reception yesterday, she could only imagine how delighted he was to see the two of them so soon. She pasted on a bright smile and turned to greet him, hoping that he wouldn’t ignore Eli or worse, rebuff him, because it took no guesswork to tell what Eli would be saying next.

  “Good morning,” she murmured.

  “Hey, there.” He shoved a hand through his damp, windswept hair and gave her a hesitant look, then he smiled at Eli. Maybe not with heartfelt enthusiasm, but he actually smiled. And for that, she could have hugged him.

  Eli beamed. “I couldn’t find any books on your Harley, but I looked and looked. If Mom lets me Google on the internet tonight, I bet I can find lots and lots on it. If you want, I can print it all off and then—”

  Sophie rested a gentle, warning hand on his shoulder. “As you can see, my son was quite impressed yesterday. He hasn’t stopped talking about that motorcycle, but I promise that we won’t bother you.”

  Eli’s face fell, and at the aching look of longing and dashed hope in his eyes, an expression of guilt swept across Josh’s face.

  With good reason. What would it hurt, to let the boy come out to his cabin again? The child had every right to be grieving his own loss, just like Josh probably grieved for his own. Life hadn’t always been kind to either of them, that’s for sure.

  Josh seemed to consider his words carefully. “Eli, what you did was dangerous. You need to listen to your mom about not wandering away. There could be all sorts of dangerous equipment in a shed like mine, and there could be fragile or valuable things that should not be touched. But, I’m not angry about you going in there.”

  “You aren’t?”

  “Even though you shouldn’t have disobeyed your mom, I understand that you were curious. And in a way, I’m glad you found the motorcycle, because I hadn’t thought about it in a long, long time.”

  “Really?” From the rapt expression on Eli’s face, Josh had just been elevated to superhero status. “Are you gonna ride it?”

  “It’s far from being in that condition. But maybe I’ll start working on it.”

  “I could help.” Eli practically vibrated with growing excitement. “I helped my dad a lot. I held his screwdrivers and stuff, and I helped polish the chrome, and everything.”

  Sophie leaned down and gave him a hug. “Yes, you did. Once you turned five, he let you do all those things. But Dr. McLaren needs to work on his alone, so we shouldn’t bother him.”

  When she looked up and met Josh’s gaze, she found both regret and resignation warring in his expression—as if he needed to tell her something that he knew she wouldn’t like, but didn’t know how to tactfully begin.

  And then he sighed.

  “Eli, it would be okay if you came out with your mom sometimes,” Josh said slowly. “Maybe you could even help me with the Harley some afternoon, if it’s okay with her. I’m sure I could use some expert assistance.”

  “Really? Mom! Did you hear? He said we can help! Can we go now?”

  The joy on Eli�
�s face nearly took Sophie’s breath away. “Dr. McLaren is a busy man, honey. We’ll just have to see when he invites us. And we won’t want to wear out our welcome, either. Right?”

  Josh hesitated, and Sophie wondered if he’d just now realized the extent of the Pandora’s box he’d opened with that simple invitation.

  “I’m free this weekend,” he said. “Just tell me what works for you.”

  “Well…I have to help my grandfather this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow after church—say, early afternoon for an hour or so?”

  “I could go today,” Eli whispered urgently. “You could leave me there!”

  “Not such a good idea, pal. We can’t expect Dr. McLaren to be a babysitter. And if he gets tired or you get too rambunctious, it’s best that I’m there.”

  Eli looked stricken for a split second, then he turned back to Josh with an excited smile. “You could come to church with us! And then you could have dinner with Gramps and us, and then we could go fix your Harley!”

  At Josh’s abrupt, shuttered expression, Sophie knew her son had stumbled into very troubled waters. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse us for being a bit too impulsive. Is two o’clock Sunday all right?”

  He nodded. “There’s…also something I need to discuss with you, then.”

  Discuss with her? That didn’t sound good. “Then we’ll let you browse in peace here, and we’ll be on our way. Now, Eli.”

  For once, Eli didn’t argue, and he was subdued as she took him out to the car.

  “I made him mad,” Eli said somberly once they were both in her car and on the way home.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled. “No, sweetie. You were just excited—just like all little boys are at times. I’m sure he understands.”

  “I made Todd mad. And then he went away.”

  “It wasn’t about you, honey. Not at all. I just dated him for a little while and found that he wasn’t the right man for our family.”

  But Eli, hungry for a father, had become attached to him from the first time the three of them had gone on a picnic. And for months after Todd dropped from sight, Eli hadn’t stopped asking when the man was going to come back.