by Susan Floyd
He held Fluff out as a peace offering.
Bernie wasn’t impressed and clung to the gate, mutiny in her eyes. She ignored Fluff and resumed her climb.
“No,” Christian said in a firm gentle voice that came out of nowhere. He tried to be reasonable. “Your mom is busy now. Let me read you a book.”
Bernie turned a suspicious blue eyeball toward him. A two-second pause had Christian thinking he’d successfully negotiated a signature worthy agreement, until Bernie’s face screwed up, her button nose almost disappearing as her plump cheeks turned redder and redder with her indignation. Her cherry lips opened and the loudest screech that Christian had ever heard in his life came out of her tiny lungs. “Go away! No want book! Want— Arrgghh!”
As Christian shook his head to clear his ears, Bernie stopped scaling the baby gate and plopped on the floor, the stress of not getting what she wanted far too great for her two-year-old tolerance. “Arrgghh!”
“Bernie! Stop that!” Beth Ann barked from across the hall. The sound of her mother’s voice was enough to bring Bernie out of her tantrum and she looked at him with a resentful gaze. Then her bottom lip quivered and her baby blues pooled with tears the size of Arizona raindrops in the summer.
“I’m right here,” Beth Ann called, her voice so soothing Christian felt his own tension slip away from his spine. “I’ll be right with you, Bernie-Bern-Bern. Nana’s almost done.”
“Mommmmy!” The wail was heartbreaking, full of genuine emotion and distress. The tears spilled over and Bernie peered at Christian. At that moment she looked so much like Caroline that Christian’s heart stopped. He bent down, staring intently into her eyes, then picked her up to hold her at arm’s length so he could study her features more closely. Bernie was so startled by his movements she stared back at him, almost in awe. It took only a second for her to decide she was having none of this either. She started to thrash, madder now she was off the ground. He studied her face, the resemblance now gone, and wondered if he’d only imagined it.
“Thank you,” Beth Ann said quickly coming back, hopping over the baby gate, holding her arms out, almost snatching Bernie from him. “I’ll take her now.”
“Mommy!” Bernie uttered with relief and gave Christian a baleful glance as she clung to Beth Ann’s neck.
Christian was shaken. Why would he see Caroline in this child? Why?
CHAPTER TWO
BETH ANN CLASPED the small body next to hers, trying to calm the beating of her own heart. She knew the panic was caused by the image of Christian holding the squalling Bernie. In two months, Bernie’s adoption would be final, but he didn’t know that and he wasn’t going to know that. She willed her heart to stop pounding. She was getting upset about nothing. There was nothing in his behavior that indicated he even knew Bernie was Caroline’s. Beth Ann hugged Bernie tighter until the toddler protested with a wiggle and another indignant yelp. Beth Ann relaxed her hold and then said in an overly bright tone, “Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee? Tea?”
Christian continued to stare at Bernie. And then he shook his head, “No, no thank you.” After a pause, he asked, “How’s, uh, Iris?”
“Grans is fine. I’ve given her a sedative, which puts her right to sleep. She’s had a busy day. Been up since four.” Beth Ann glanced at the clock, surprised it was only nine. “This is about the time she takes a nap.”
“Iris is your, er?”
“Have a seat,” she offered while Bernie clung to her neck. Beth Ann winced and shifted Bernie’s grip to her shirt. With one hand, she poured herself a cup of coffee, carrying it well away from Bernie.
She watched as Christian looked around and then sat, but only after meticulously picking an Oatie-O off the seat.
Beth Ann smiled nervously, putting her hand out to take the piece of cereal from him, and apologized. “Sorry. Professional hazard. They’re probably stuck to the bottom of your shoe as well.”
To his credit, he didn’t look, but merely grazed the hollow of her palm with his fingertips as he deposited the Oatie-O in her hand, which she tossed away before settling herself across the kitchen table from him. She pushed the coffee out of Bernie’s reach, then leaned over to grab Fluff and put him in her daughter’s hands.
“You sure I can’t get you any?”
Christian shook his head.
Self-consciously, she scooped four heaping teaspoons of sugar into her mug along with a generous splash of milk, left over from Bernie’s cereal. She caught him staring and grimaced. “I use it for the drug it is. I like the smell but hate the taste.” After a minute, she added, “Iris is Carrie’s grandmother.”
His elegantly arched eyebrow raised. “Caroline’s grandmother? Not yours?”
Beth Ann shook her head and looked outside with a small laugh. Iris was Carrie’s grandmother, Bernie was Carrie’s daughter and here she was sitting in her kitchen talking to Carrie’s husband, suddenly feeling responsible for all three of them.
“No, not mine,” she said softly. “We were half sisters. We had the same mother, different fathers. Iris is Carrie’s father’s mother.” Smiling, she asked, “So, what can we do for you?” Beth Ann tried to make her voice neutral, but it came out more chirpy than she intended. “It must be important if you couldn’t talk about it over the phone.” She tightened her hold on Bernie.
“Do you know what DirectTech is?” he finally asked, his tone slightly patronizing.
“It’s a software company,” Beth Ann replied. Her head was beginning to pound. She took a sip of coffee, and Bernie wriggled to get down. Beth Ann let her slip to the floor, where she immediately clambered to get up again.
“A software company we acquired eight years ago—”
“We?”
“My family’s business.”
Beth Ann looked at him warily and asked, “What exactly is your family’s business?”
“We acquire things.”
“Venture capitalists?”
He shrugged. “If you want to call it that. We invest in companies—or buy them—build them up, then sell them when the timing’s right.”
“Do you keep anything?”
“Some things. We have a couple of resort hotels that we’ve held for two generations.”
“Oh.” Beth Ann glanced down, suddenly noticing how grubby and rough her hands looked. Just yesterday she had tried a new painting technique she’d read about in Watercolor magazine and hadn’t been able to get the stains out from under her fingernails. She pushed her hands under the table and surveyed the kitchen, noticing its shabby appearance, and was thankful she had taken yesterday afternoon to clean the house from top to bottom. At least Bernie’s fingerprints weren’t prominently displayed on the door of the faded avocado-green refrigerator. She then looked up at Christian completely at a loss for something else to say.
The silence stretched between them. Christian stared at the two people across the table from him. Beth Ann stirred her coffee, tasted it and added another two scoops of sugar. She gave him a half smile before her gaze danced away. She kissed the top of Bernie’s unruly curls and then took another sip. He felt slightly uncomfortable, as if he were the cause of her silence. What was he supposed to do but tell her the truth? Why suddenly, sitting in this kitchen, did he feel a deep sense of embarrassment about what his family owned? His eyes followed her gaze, as she now stared at an old china cabinet stuffed full of paper, cards and envelopes. Lots and lots of mail. Much of it unopened, he realized.
He cleared his throat. “I was asking whether or not you were familiar with DirectTech.”
“Oh, yes.” She turned attentively toward him.
“It’s worth quite a bit these days.”
“And tomorrow it could be worth nothing,” Beth Ann replied.
Christian smiled and said politely, “That’s possible, but not likely. We don’t generally acquire duds.”
“So what does this have to do with me?”
He paused, wondering if she ever read her mail.
He glanced back over to the cabinet. Apparently not. Then he said, “I’d like that coffee now.”
Beth Ann put Bernie down and headed to the coffeepot. Bernie followed, frowning at him as she went. He gave her a tentative smile. She scowled.
Beth Ann handed him a mug of coffee and then pushed the sugar in his direction. She gestured to the old refrigerator. “There’s milk in the fridge.”
Christian nodded his thanks and said, “I take it black.”
“After you drink that, you might want to reconsider,” she advised and sat down. She looked impatiently at the clock.
“Expecting someone?” he inquired.
“What?” Beth Ann asked, her cheeks flushing.
“You keep looking at the clock.”
Beth Ann turned away guiltily. She was wishing with all the power in her that Glenn would sprout wings and appear on her doorstep. Then she shook herself. Why couldn’t she face Carrie’s husband by herself? Why did she need reinforcements? He seemed to be a perfectly reasonable man. She should just let him say his piece. After all, he had to be in Napa for an important meeting. She perked up at the idea. Wouldn’t Glenn be impressed if she handled this on her own?
“I do have a friend coming,” Beth Ann admitted cautiously. “But you were telling me about DirectTech.”
“It’s hers.”
The words were spoken so softly Beth Ann didn’t think she heard him correctly. Beth Ann noticed him staring intently at Bernie who scowled back at him. As Bernie tried to climb onto her lap, her sharp elbows dug into Beth Ann’s thigh. “Ow. Uh, excuse me?” Beth Ann asked as she helped Bernie up.
“It’s hers.” He jerked his head toward Bernie.
“Bern’s?” She sucked in a deep breath. “What do you mean DirectTech is Bernie’s? You must mean you’ve brought Bernie the software. Well, thank you very much.” She flashed what she hoped was a friendly smile. “We certainly appreciate it and we’ll save it for when she’s keyboard literate.”
“Not the software,” he said, his voice abrupt. He took a sip of coffee and grimaced. “The company. It’s hers.”
“No.”
“Well, yes. Don’t you read your mail?”
“Yes, I read my mail.”
“Didn’t you get something from my attorney for Bernadette?”
Beth Ann searched her memory, and then remembered the fat envelope. “Bernie got something from a lawyer,” Beth Ann corrected him, her face growing hot from his scrutiny. “But I thought it was a hoax. Bernie’s much too young to receive mail. I tossed it.” She was lying. It was actually in a safe pile along with Bernie’s legal papers. She’d planned to have the lawyer handling Bernie’s adoption look over the document the next time she saw her.
“Do you always toss documents worth several million dollars?”
“Routinely,” Beth Ann said blithely, wondering if there was a way to buy more time. She didn’t need his involvement right now. She changed the subject and asked, “So why are you here? I’m sure it isn’t just to remind me to read my mail.”
“Call it idle curiosity,” he replied, his voice almost amused.
“About?”
“About Caroline’s other life.”
Other life. Beth Ann swallowed hard and cursed Carrie for putting her in such a position. Bernie had inherited a fortune. She glanced out the window surprised to see the old oak tree. The fog must have lifted.
When was it, exactly, that her life had become so complicated?
In college, free and single, working on her Masters of Fine Arts, all she’d had to worry about was the soft blur of colors and trying to control, cajole really, the wet medium to fit the impressions in her head. Too much wet and mold grew on the paper. Too little, not enough blur. She spent hours, chasing the elusive values of light that plagued her even in her sleep, especially as she tried to infuse some spark of life into a painting already long dead, flat and mottled from her vain attempts at repair. There was a time, just before a depressed and pregnant Carrie arrived, when Beth Ann had had the promise of a lucrative career in art.
But not today.
The offers had waned because first she couldn’t deliver her paintings on time and later because there was nothing new even to deliver. Between Bernie and Iris, she just couldn’t maintain the momentum she needed to paint, to finish what she had already started.
Beth Ann had gone from painting six hours a day to six hours a week to six hours a month. And then she’d stopped painting altogether when Bernie came down with the croup and was in the hospital for five days. Beth Ann had frantically tried to call Carrie, but she was nowhere to be found. The hospital bills wiped out both her and Iris’s savings and Beth Ann had been forced to take out a mortgage on Iris’s long-paid-for house to pay the balance of the bill and to get herself and Bernie insurance. At least, Iris had Medicare. Between Iris’s social security and university pension, the residuals still dribbling in from Beth Ann’s sporadic sales and the drawing and painting classes she taught for the city’s parks and recreation program, they were doing okay. Not great, but okay. Okay enough that Beth Ann could stay home most of the time.
Bernie wriggled impatiently on her lap. Beth Ann stared at the man sitting across from her and took another sip of coffee. Finally, she said, “What do you mean by Carrie’s other life?”
When Bernie squirmed more and slid to the ground, Beth Ann used the opportunity to put some distance between herself and the piercing gray stare. She went to the ancient dryer tucked in the corner of the kitchen and rifled through the clean laundry, looking for clothes for Bernie. Half a kitchen away, she could now safely ask, “Why do you want to know about Carrie’s other life? Don’t you think that it’s a little late now?”
The second question slipped out before she could stop it.
She was surprised at how bitter she sounded and she suppressed a feeling of guilt, ashamed she’d allowed her anger to show. She pulled out a small T-shirt and frowned at the hole under the sleeve and the brown splotch she couldn’t get out. She looked for something newer and matching and swallowed hard when she realized she had neither. Bernie’s clothes were mostly hand-me-downs supplied by Elena Marquez, the dairy farmer’s wife. With a quiet sigh, she quickly assembled a small outfit for Bernie, a faded green monster-truck T-shirt and a pair of loose blue toddler sweats, pants that Bernie could easily pull on and off. She returned to the kitchen table, avoiding the gaze of the almost oppressively silent man sitting there. She focused her attention on the little girl, well aware that his silver eyes were fixed on Bernie’s faded blue striped socks and palm-size tennis shoes.
“Nana?” Bernie asked as Beth Ann stripped off the toddler’s pajamas, tugging the top over her head. She pulled on Bernie’s little T-shirt, glancing up and flushing when she met Christian’s pale eyes, withdrawn and shuttered close. She felt a chill run down her spine. How could Carrie have ever married a man whose humorless expression bored into a person, as if he was dissecting every part of her?
“Nana’s napping now,” Beth Ann replied making her voice as even as she could. “Give me your arms.” Bernie’s arms came up immediately.
She finally addressed Christian. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“She looks like a boy,” Christian said suddenly.
Beth Ann’s back stiffened.
“Dressed like that, I mean,” he added.
“My friend has three boys and the clothes were perfectly good,” Beth Ann replied, not able to control the defensiveness in her voice.
Christian stayed quiet, but his eyes followed her every move.
Beth Ann caught Bernie between her legs. “Give me a foot,” she instructed and Bernie put her foot into the pant leg. “Other foot.”
“I pull up!” Bernie insisted.
“Yes, you pull up your pants, just like you do after you go poop,” Beth Ann agreed and watched Bernie’s chubby hands fight for coordination as she grasped the elastic and tugged with such toddler might that the waist ended u
p at her armpits. Beth Ann fixed them, pulling out Bernie’s self-inflicted wedgie, paying more attention to the smaller details of Bernie’s attire than she normally would. With a small pat on Bernie’s behind, Beth Ann opened up the baby gate and sent her off to get her hairbrush.
Christian forced himself to relax, mentally surveying the layout of the small bungalow. The house went back a lot further than he thought, the hall cutting the house in half lengthwise. Bernie’s room was near the back—he could hear the direction of her footsteps. The grandmother was directly across the hall from the kitchen. So by elimination, that made Beth Ann’s room the one up front across from the living room. Which had been Caroline’s room?
After he and Caroline had gotten married, he’d wanted to find a place of their own, but Caroline had quickly fallen in love with Bella Grande along with the well-trained staff. Declaring he was absolutely crazy to want to live anywhere else, she’d halfheartedly toured the homes he’d arranged for her to see, then convinced him that his parents’ estate was the best place for them to settle. Perhaps an early sign that their marriage was disintegrating.
Now, he caught a small glimpse of the reason behind Caroline’s driving need to reside at Bella Grande. She denied her ordinary beginnings and used him to reinvent herself to the point of obliterating her family, her sister, her grandmother. First it was the mansion, then it was the cruises. When two-week holidays had turned into three-month or five-month journeys, he’d known Caroline had stumbled upon a life-style.
When she’d return home, she’d always declare she wasn’t going to travel again, that she was sick of the crowd, of the food. But after about three weeks, he saw the brochures, found the tickets on her dresser, felt her restlessness. He’d responded by working harder, ridding himself of the fanciful notions of children gleefully screaming on the vast lawns of his parents’ estate, adjusting to the fact that when Caroline was in town, her cruising friends would slobber over him because of his family’s name.