by Susan Meier
Even if the kids were safe with Althea, that didn’t mean they were safe from Brice.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
* * *
Though they purchased a wreath and secured it in her trunk, Althea took the kids around town to visit a few more shops and scope out potential decorations they’d buy in the following weeks. Now that she’d talked Jack into decorating the house for Christmas, she wanted to see her options.
They had just walked out of the last shop, laughing as they ate ice cream, even though it was freezing out, when two policemen rushed them.
One policeman grabbed Jack and Teagan. The other backed her into the shop wall.
“Are you Althea Johnson?”
“Yes?”
Teagan began to cry. Jack tried to squirm out of the officer’s hold. “Let go of me.”
“And these children are Jack and Teagan Beaumont?”
“Yes.”
“We have a report that you took these kids from their home.”
“I’m their babysitter. We came to town to look for a coat and boots for me.” She motioned to her brand-new blue jacket and still shiny black boots. “Call their dad. He’ll tell you I’m their babysitter.”
“He’s the one who filed the report.”
Clark’s SUV slid to a stop in front of the sidewalk. He bounded out and raced over, grabbing Teagan from the officer and then pulling Jack under his arm protectively. “Are you guys okay?”
Jack looked at him as if he were crazy. “We were fine until you called the police on us.”
Teagan buried her face in her father’s neck. Clark’s expression hardened. “Teagan is not fine.”
“She was,” Jack insisted. “She was laughing.”
Standing on tiptoes to see over the policeman’s shoulder, Althea shouted, “She was. We were having fun.”
“You were supposed to be home!”
“We were on our way home to start Jack’s lessons. We had plenty of time. We just shifted our schedule.” She pointed at her jacket. “I needed a coat. And boots.” She held up her foot, displaying one of her new boots. “Remember?”
The policeman holding her back faced Clark. “So what’s going on here?”
“We were just shopping!” Jack spat. “But I get it! He doesn’t ever want us doing anything that might even remotely be fun.” He shrugged out from beneath his dad’s hold and headed for the SUV. “Take us home. Put us back in jail.”
Saddened for Jack, Althea swallowed, glanced at Clark, then pressed her lips together.
A mixture of horror and confusion played across Clark’s face. As if finally putting it all together in his head, he stepped back. “Oh, my God.”
He looked from Jack who stood beside his SUV to Teagan in his arms to Althea still backed up against the shop wall, and scrubbed his hand across his mouth. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry.”
The policeman released Althea. “So everything’s good?”
Althea forced a smile. She didn’t know whether to be angry with herself for not letting Clark know she was taking the kids shopping, annoyed with him for being so damned paranoid, or to feel sorry for him.
In the end, she decided to feel sorry for him. He’d lost his wife. He didn’t want to lose his kids, too. She got it. “Everything’s fine. Really. Let me get them home.”
* * *
The policeman looked to Clark for confirmation. He nodded. “I’m sorry. I panicked.” He nearly said, “Ever since my wife’s death I’ve been panicky,” but he knew that would only make him look like an idiot. God knew it made him feel like an idiot. So he said nothing.
The two policemen walked back to their car. Althea ambled over, looking warm and snuggly in her new blue coat and black mittens. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
He put his head back, closed his eyes. He’d just had her nabbed by the cops and she was asking him if he was okay? “I should be asking you that. I’m so sorry.” He opened his eyes and forced himself to look at her. “You have the right to use whatever schedule you want.” He sucked in a breath. “But I don’t like the kids going into town without me. I wish you had called me before you left the house.”
“You’re right. I should have called you.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “That’s my mistake. I never thought to call. But I should have.”
She put her hand on his arm consolingly. “Let’s go home.”
He couldn’t believe she wanted to go with him. Were he in her shoes, he’d probably quit. But when he pulled his SUV off Main Street and onto the mountain road, she was right behind him. When he drove onto his lane, her little red car was in his rearview mirror. When he got out, she got out.
They walked into the echoing foyer with Teagan asleep on his arm. A dull sound rang in his ears, making his head pound. He’d never been so mortified.
Or so confused. Jack thought they lived in a jail? Teagan had laughed with an outsider?
Althea said, “Why don’t you put her on her bed and I’ll make us all some cocoa.”
Jack sniffed with disdain. “I don’t want any cocoa.”
All the control he thought he had slipped through his fingers like melted snow. “Good. You can go into the den and take a look at today’s lesson.”
“Whatever.”
He watched Jack stalk away and knew he’d handled that badly, but his head hurt and his thoughts swam like fish in a bowl. How had he gotten to this place?
He slid his gaze to Althea. “I don’t need any cocoa.”
“Bourbon then?”
A surprised laugh escaped. “Actually, bourbon sounds really good right now. But I’ll be fine. You go work with Jack.”
She shook her head. “Jack needs a minute. Forcing him to set things up on the computer by himself will be a good way to occupy him and give him some space.”
He took Teagan to her room and lingered over removing her coat and boots. There wasn’t any part of him that wanted to confide in anyone, let alone Jack’s teacher—a woman he was actually attracted to. But, more than that, he was mortified that he’d panicked. And not just panicked. He’d panicked publicly. He’d called the police when his kids were happily strolling down Main Street.
Of course, he hadn’t known that.
Still, a sensible man would have at least looked in the obvious places—
But a man who’d been blindsided by his wife’s death and double blindsided by her infidelity jumped to all kinds of conclusions.
When he couldn’t delay any longer, he walked downstairs. Hoping Althea had gone to the den to be with Jack, he turned right, into the living room, and there she stood in front of the discreet bar housed in a black built-in beside a huge window. She held a short glass with two fingers of bourbon.
She handed it to him. “Is neat good?”
He smiled. “I don’t sully whiskey with frozen water.”
She laughed. “Have a seat.”
He lowered himself to the gray sofa. “You’re going to quit, aren’t you?”
She sat on one of the two white club chairs across from him. A glass-and-chrome coffee table sat on the gray, white and black printed rug that connected the small conversation group in the big living room.
“I’m not going to quit.”
“I sent the police after you.”
“You were afraid.”
He downed his drink, savoring the soothing warmth as it ran down his throat. He rose to get another. “Right.”
“I saw the look on your face. You were terrified.”
He grabbed the bourbon bottle and poured.
“You’d thought I’d taken your kids. There has to be a reason you were so suspicious.”
“I was angry with myself for leaving the kids with someone I really didn’t know.”
“Maybe. But something pushed you to the point that you panicked rather than check things out.”
He sighed. This time he sipped the whiskey. There was no way in hell he’d recount his private failures to a stranger. A stranger he’d wronged no less.
“All right. You don’t want to talk. I get it. But I also see your kids are in trouble emotionally and so are you.”
He snorted in disgust. “Are you saying we all need therapy?”
“I’m saying you need to give yourself a break and need to give your kids a break. You’re overorganized. Your kids seem to feel they need to be super quiet to please you.”
Heat of shame filled him. The day before, he’d noticed that he’d been taking advantage of Mrs. Alwine. Was it such a big stretch to consider that he’d forced his kids to overbehave?
He ambled back to his seat. She rose from hers. “I can understand that you don’t want the help of a stranger. I’m also not a therapist. But I have spent six years with kids Jack’s age. I know they sass. I know they experiment with cursing. I know they sulk and whine and roll their eyes and in general make the lives of adults miserable. And Jack does a few of those things, but not often. He’s too concerned with pleasing you.” She sucked in a breath. “You have an opportunity here. It’s four weeks before Christmas. Four weeks when you can decorate together, tell him stories about Christmases past with his mom. Watch old Christmas movies. Make snowmen. Sled ride.”
He raised his gaze to meet hers.
“The choice is yours. Use Christmas to turn your family into a family again. Or let this go on. Pretend Teagan’s not talking is shyness. Pretend Jack’s simmering silence is part of being a twelve-year-old. And six years from now when Jack leaves home without a word of why, and with no intention of ever coming back, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”
Jack’s angry comment about living in prison rumbled through his brain. He was failing as a father and though he was loathe to talk about any of this, he’d be a fool if he didn’t realize he was drowning.
He blew his breath out, rubbed his hand across his mouth and finally decided he had no choice. He didn’t want his kids to hate him or to be unhappy. But he also didn’t want them going into town, and if the way to keep them home was to tell their current babysitter the whole story then maybe that’s what he had to do.
“The day my wife died, I came home from work to find the house empty and cold.”
“So when you came here today and found we’d gone, the empty house scared you?”
“Not as much as having the kids go to town.” He scrubbed his hands across his mouth again. He hated this. Hated his misery. His humiliation. But he did not want his kids in town. “My wife had been having an affair. Apparently for at least a year. Brice Matthews, one of our employees, showed up at the funeral overcome with grief and sobbed over her coffin. He called me every name in the book for not letting her go—not giving her a divorce—when she’d never asked for a divorce.”
“Oh, my God.” Clearly shocked, she sat again. “I’m so sorry.”
“That’s why I don’t want the kids in town.”
“Because of gossip?” She shook her head. “It’s been three years. Trust me. You can stop worrying. People aren’t that interested in anybody’s life.”
“Everybody’s interested in Teagan’s.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Teagan’s? Jack’s the one old enough to understand—” Then her mouth dropped open. “Oh, God. Teagan was only a few months old when your wife died and your wife had been having an affair.”
“For a year before she died.”
“You think people wonder if she’s yours?”
“I don’t think. I know lots wonder whether or not she’s really mine.”
“They’ve told you this?”
“No. But a few days after Carol’s death, people started looking at Teagan oddly. If I’d go to the grocery store with her in a carrier, everybody peeked in to see her. Some people were more obvious than others. It took me a while, but I realized everybody thought she was Brice’s child and they were looking at her to see if there was a resemblance.”
“That’s awful.” She shook her head again, as if marveling at the stupidity of some people. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that.” He sniffed a laugh. “And I appreciate the sentiment. But you certainly weren’t at fault.”
“I know. But on behalf of crappy, unfair things that happen everywhere, I feel somebody has to say they’re sorry.”
He laughed again. His chest loosened. The knot in his stomach unwound.
Their gazes met and he smiled. “Thanks.”
“On behalf of crappy things everywhere, you’re welcome.”
“No. I meant thanks for listening.” He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “You’re the first person I’ve told this story to.” And he didn’t feel god-awful. He felt calm, almost normal. “Anyway, that’s why I don’t want the kids to go into town. I don’t want Teagan subjected to scrutiny or Jack to hear things about his mom he’s too young to understand.”
“Got it.” She rose, smiled briefly. “Jack’s probably got the computer up and running by now.”
With that she left the room, and he flopped back on the sleek gray sofa, looking at the gorgeously appointed living room in the house so well designed “perfect” was too small of a term to use to describe it. In the end, the “perfect” house had meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.
His wife had cheated. Her affair had started before Teagan was conceived. And if Brice Matthews ever figured that out, he might lose Teagan long before he lost Jack.
He sipped his bourbon and closed his eyes. His life was a mess and though he appreciated Althea’s suggestion about decorating, he didn’t think decorating for Christmas was going to change that.
But at least he knew Althea would keep the kids home now.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I THINK I have a problem.”
Even though she’d closed the den door, Althea walked down the hall, away from the room, so the kids couldn’t hear her as she talked with her sister, Missy.
After her discussion with Clark, she’d tried to imagine what it would be like to lose a spouse, a wife he’d obviously believed loved him, discover she’d been unfaithful, and have poor, innocent Teagan’s parentage called into question by the town gossips. The humiliation would be off the charts. But couple that with grief? She couldn’t fathom the pain of that.
Her heart ached for him, but there was nothing she could do about any of that. She could, however, help him with Jack. And that’s why she’d called her sister. A woman raising triplets who’d stood up to their dad and made a real life for herself out of nothing, Missy would know what to do.
“Did your car break?”
Althea winced. “Not that lucky. I got to Clark Beaumont’s house early and he hired me immediately because his housekeeper has pneumonia.”
“You’re a housekeeper?”
“I’m just sort of helping out.”
“Oh, Althea!”
“I’m fine. It’s all fine.”
Missy sighed. “No, it’s not fine. You called me because you have a problem.”
She grimaced. “Okay. Let me put it this way. It’s fine that I got here early. I don’t mind straightening up after breakfast and making sandwiches and opening a can of soup for lunch.”
“But?”
“But the kids’ mom was killed in an automobile accident three years ago. Teagan is only about three. Which means her mom died when she was an infant.”
“Oh, that’s awful.”
She wanted to tell Missy that that was only half the Teagan story, but though Clark hadn’t sworn her to secrecy she didn’t feel right revealing intimate details of his life. S
o she stuck with the relevant facts.
“And Teagan doesn’t speak. Well, she does. But she doesn’t talk out loud. She tugs on her dad’s or her brother’s sleeve and whispers in their ears. They have to convey the message.”
“Oh. Poor sweet thing.”
“Clark thinks she’s just shy.”
“At that age, she could be.”
“Yeah. I’m kind of waiting that out. The real problem is Jack. I’m here because Jack failed last semester.”
“I know. Emily told me.”
“Well, I don’t think he failed because he’s dumb or lazy or even because of mourning his mom, but because Clark is overprotective. He doesn’t like the kids going into town because of gossip. He’s got lots of money and a dead wife and two kids and he thinks everybody’s curious about them.” She grimaced at the sketchy explanation, but it was the best she could do without invading Clark’s privacy.
“And you think Jack’s failing is a cry for help?”
“If what he said yesterday when Clark sent the police after us is true, I think it’s a cry for freedom.”
“He sent the police after you?”
She winced. “It all made sense at the time. I had taken the kids shopping without telling him. When he called and couldn’t get us, he panicked.”
“Althea, you’ve got a little girl who doesn’t talk, a twelve-year-old who is rebelling and a paranoid boss who sent the police after you. Are you sure you want to get involved in this?”
“I have to get involved in this. If one person had paid a little attention to us, just one teacher or doctor or neighbor, we might not have spent every damned Saturday night in a closet praying Dad wouldn’t kill Mom.”
“Yeah.” Missy sighed with understanding. “Okay. I get it.”
Althea’s shoulders sagged with relief. She knew her sister would understand that she couldn’t abandon these kids. “So what do I say? How can I get Clark to understand that he can’t protect Jack forever? That the poor kid just wants a little freedom? Maybe some friends?”
“Well, you could try explaining that kids are pretty resilient and even if the town is curious about them, once Jack’s been in school awhile he’ll be old news.”