“Why don’t you ask Nate’s advice on all this?” Sherri asked. “He’s Adam’s mentor and it’s his responsibility to do what he can for him. Besides, Adam may find it easier to talk to a man.”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t talk to Adam, tell him how upset I am that he had friends in without my permission?” Gayle asked in disbelief.
Sherri shrugged. “I’m not a parent, so I can’t really say. But maybe you should get Nate to talk to Adam about boundaries.”
“You’re thinking about the day he arrived here angry and upset?”
Sherri nodded.
“You’re probably right. I’ll call Nate this afternoon before I leave for home.”
“I happen to know he’s on his way over here for his yearly checkup and blood work. Why don’t you speak to him after that?”
“Do you think he’d mind?”
“No, of course not. It’s his job.”
“If you say so,” Gayle said, feeling really anxious about how Nate would react. When had she become so concerned about Nate’s response to her worries about Adam? Up until now, she’d managed on her own. Maybe that was it. She didn’t feel nearly so alone now that Nate was in the picture.
She suddenly found herself torn between wanting to hide somewhere and wishing Nate would arrive. Was this how it felt to be attracted to someone? If that was the case, she had to be on her guard around him. She could not risk letting him see how she felt.
The first hour of work was agony as she waited for the call from Peggy, who had been happy to alert her to Nate’s arrival. Not physical pain, but a weird feeling that Nate would care how much this was affecting her as well as Adam. She bit her nail as she watched the phone, a habit she’d managed to break when she was fifteen.
When the phone rang, she grabbed it. “He’s here with two coffees. Shall I send him in?” Peggy asked.
“No. Tell him I’ll be right out.” She put down the phone and hurried out of the clinic.
He passed her a coffee as she approached. “One cream, no sugar. Am I right?”
She took the foam cup in her hand. “Someone must have told you. Sherri?”
“You got it.”
He looked slightly awkward, balancing his cane in one hand and his coffee in the other.
“Here, let me take that for you,” she said, motioning to his hot cup of coffee.
“You don’t have to wait on me,” he replied, a hint of defensiveness in his tone.
“I’m helping a friend, aren’t I?” she asked, looking up into his gray eyes fringed with enough lashes for two people.
“Okay. I’ll let you have your way with me,” he said, and there was a sweet undertone of sharing their own private moment when he spoke the words so close to her ear.
They headed to the patio outside the entrance, where there were several vacant benches under a large oak tree. The short walk was one of the nicest of her life. She could smell his sexy cologne, the clean scent of his cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up, displaying curly dark hair. They sat down side by side, and she passed him his coffee.
“Thank you for everything you did last night for my sister,” Nate said, his voice filled with warmth.
“Including my sudden disappearance?” she asked, both surprised and pleased at his compliment.
“It was a pretty emotional time for all of us.”
She saw the worry in his eyes. “I was glad to be there for her...for you.” She wanted to say something more, something that would ease his concern, but realized that words were not going to change the situation.
“Gayle, you’re a very special person. I hope you know that.”
Only once in her life had anyone ever said that to her—a teacher in her final year of high school just before she quit. She clung to Nate’s words of praise, her heart beating so hard in her throat she could barely breathe. To think she’d been afraid of this man only a few weeks ago. “Thank you” was all she could get out.
She longed to tell him the truth about her past, but now with his eyes on her face, his evident willingness to share his feelings with her, she had to face an unalterable fact. The truth could never be revealed. Admitting to this man, who had shown genuine caring for her, that she had been lying about her past would end his belief that she was a special person.
People who were special didn’t do what she’d done. Maybe on some bizarre TV reality show, but not in real life.
With his loss of faith in her would go any chance that they might care for each other enough to have a relationship—a love affair. A sob caught in her throat, and she was mortified. Had he heard it?
She glanced at him and was relieved to see that he seemed to be simply enjoying his coffee. But as her gaze moved over his face, she couldn’t hide from her feelings. She cared about him. She genuinely cared about this man sitting so close she could smell his aftershave. And she knew instinctively that he would never intentionally hurt her. She let the realization wash over her, the sensation of closeness, praying it would last.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She pulled her thoughts back to the present and the reality of her problems with Adam. “Nate, I need your advice.”
His smile was gentle, his attention focused only on her. “Sure. What’s up?”
“It seems that while I was out last night, Adam had...I think they were classmates of his...in the house.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
She picked at the plastic lid of her cup. “I haven’t asked him yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because...” She pushed the mass of curls off her face. “Because we were doing so well, Adam and I. He was behaving the way he used to, and I wanted to believe that everything would go back to normal. I’d asked Peggy to come over while I was out, but when I told Adam he got upset.”
Nate was watching her closely, creating a tiny cocoon of reassurance...if only for a few minutes.
“Now I’m afraid that he intentionally refused to have Peggy there because he was planning to have friends in while I was out,” she said. “He’s not allowed to have anyone on school nights unless he talks to me first.”
“How does that make you feel?”
She sighed. “That I can’t trust him.” She felt her eyes grow damp. “That if I say anything it will only drive him away.” That sneaking around had been a way of life with Harry.
No! Had she said the part about Harry out loud?
Nate took her hand in his, his heat warming her chilled fingers. Once again she wished she didn’t have to keep secrets from this man.
“Gayle, you’re going to have to talk to him about this. He needs boundaries. Everything in Adam’s life is changing at the moment. He’s still adjusting to being in a new town, seeking out new friends, trying to get good grades, disappointed at not making the basketball team. And now he’s done something he knows is against the rules you’ve set for him. He needs an opportunity to tell you what went on that evening.”
“And how do I do that?”
“When you go home today, give him a chance to talk. Make him understand you want to hear his side of the story.”
“And if he doesn’t talk? What then?”
“You bring it up in the gentlest way possible, but make sure he understands that you and he have to talk it out. You need to have house rules.”
“House rules? But we already do.”
“Not necessarily. If the two of you are to live happily together, there has to be rules on both sides. Have you ever talked about rules for you?”
She gave him a surprised look. “For me?”
“Well, I assume you’re not allowed to bring dates home for the night, unless it’s a serious relationship. You have to tell him where you’re going, when you’ll be back, right?”
“I suppose.”
“In other words, there are rules in your house. Some are yours and some are his, and some you share jointly. He’s broken one of the rules. You two need to talk.”
“You make it all sound so simple and straightforward.”
He placed his arm on the back of the bench behind her. “It can be, if both of you can talk openly about what’s bothering you. Adam has things he wants to talk to you about, and you have things you want to talk to him about. If it helps, both of you could make a list of what you need to discuss with each other, starting with the incident the other night.”
“I...I’m not sure.”
“Give it a try,” he said. “Remember that I’m here, and that I’ll be seeing Adam later this week.”
Gayle reluctantly went back into work. She really wanted to stay in the warm protectiveness of his arm for the rest of the day. The feeling made her wonder even more about his personal life. According to Sherri, he didn’t seem to have had a steady relationship since he’d returned to Eden Harbor, which was strange for a man as sexy and nice as Nate.
When the clinic day finished, she went home to find Adam sprawled in front of the television, asleep. She clicked it off, which didn’t wake her son, so she started preparations for dinner. She was about halfway through assembling a stuffed pork loin with root vegetables when he appeared at the kitchen door.
“What are you making, Mom?” he asked, yawning as he sat at the table.
“I’m doing a pork dish with veggies,” she said, opening the door to the oven and placing the roasting pan on the rack.
“Mom, I... We need to talk.”
She settled into the chair across from him, both thankful that he’d brought the subject up and anxious about how the conversation would turn out. She clasped her hands on the table. “Yes, about the other night. You didn’t tell me you were having friends over.”
“Peggy Anderson told you, didn’t she?” Adam asked, scowling.
“Were you having friends over?”
“Why was Peggy sneaking around here? She had no business coming over.”
“I couldn’t reach her, so she still thought she was supposed to stay with you.” Determined to follow Nate’s advice, Gayle took a deep, calming breath. “Please tell me you didn’t invite them.”
“No. They arrived on their own. They were about to leave when Peggy showed up.”
“Then why did you tell Peggy they were bringing schoolwork to you?”
Adam scrunched his face and sighed. “Because I knew she wouldn’t believe me if I told her they’d just dropped in.”
Gayle wanted to scold him for lying, to admonish him for fabricating a story just to stay out of trouble. But wasn’t that what she’d been doing all her life? “Adam, I believe you when you say they just dropped by, but who were they? Were they kids from your class?”
Adam ducked his head. “One of them was. The others were the guys I met...that night.”
“The night the police brought you home?”
He nodded.
“Oh, Adam. You can’t have anything to do with them. Promise me you won’t.”
He stared at her for a moment. “They didn’t mean to get me in trouble. They said it wouldn’t happen again. Mom...”
“No excuses. You cannot have anything more to do with them. The police officer said they were trouble and obviously they are. They came over here without calling first. And why didn’t you phone me when they arrived?”
“Mom! How would it look if I called you to tell you they were here? I’d be made fun of by every person in the high school.” He crooked his fingers into quotation marks. “‘This just in. Mama’s boy reported to his mom that his friends came to the door,’” he said, his voice rising with every word.
She was shocked at the anger in his tone, the harshness. This was not how she wanted this conversation to end. She had hoped to follow Nate’s advice and talk to her son about the house rules they needed to live by. But she’d lost her cool when she’d learned that Adam’s friends were the same ones who had gotten him into trouble with the police.
She took a deep breath, forcing back the awful feeling that life was repeating itself, only this time her son was the victim of bullies who didn’t care what their behavior did to him. Harry had hadn’t cared what havoc his behavior had created for her, the lies she’d had to tell the police, just like the lies Adam felt he had to tell the other night. She feared where this might lead, and she was powerless to stop it. If Adam continued to be involved with these boys who were already known to the police as troublemakers... “Adam you have to promise not to see or talk to them again.”
Adam got up and left the table. The next thing she heard was the loud blaring of the TV in the den.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GAYLE HADN’T SLEPT for the past three nights, and when she finally did fall into an exhausted sleep she dreamed that Harry was with her, yelling words at her she couldn’t understand. She woke up frightened and lonely. She hadn’t dreamed of her ex-husband in years. It had to have something to do with the past few days.
Nate had taken Adam out bowling last night, but neither said a word when they returned. Adam was back to being sullen and unresponsive with her, and she blamed herself. She shouldn’t have let her own fears destroy the chance for them to talk about what had happened the night those boys had come to the house.
Why didn’t being a parent come with a foolproof set of instructions? Why couldn’t she simply check the index of some book, or go online and find the answer to the question “How do I discourage or stop my child from hanging out with the kids who are trouble?”
Being a parent was easily the hardest job in the world, in her opinion.
She arrived at the clinic with a headache that none of the usual remedies could ease. And if that wasn’t enough, they had a full day ahead with the two neurologists here from Bangor and then an afternoon arthritic clinic.
The phone was ringing when she got to her desk, and she scooped it up mostly to stop the noise. It was the lab telling her that the blood work for the afternoon clinic wouldn’t be available until noontime, meaning that she’d have to skip her lunch if she was to get the results on each chart before the doctor arrived.
She had pulled the charts for both clinics with the neurology ones in a neat pile on her desk, ready to go. Anna was one of those patients. It was Sherri’s day off, but she was going to the neurologist’s appointment with Anna.
The clinic nurse, Carolyn Sinclair, approached the desk. “I’ll take the charts and put the first patients in their rooms.”
Gayle handed the pile to her. “If you don’t mind, I need to go to the cafeteria for something to eat. I won’t get a break later and my head is hurting. Must be my empty stomach.”
“Sure. I’ll listen for the phone. Besides, Sherri ought to be here any minute. In a pinch she can man the phones.”
Gayle was about to leave her desk when the door opened. Nate walked in, looking so handsome in his blue cotton shirt open at the neck, his dark hair framing his face. She felt all warm and excited at the sight of him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to keep the exhilaration from her voice.
“I couldn’t stay away. I’m hoping Anna’s appointment goes okay.” He hesitated. “I rearranged my schedule so I could be here.”
She hadn’t known he was coming. Yet she wasn’t that surprised, given how he’d behaved at Anna’s house the other night. His kindness toward his sister was so sweet. What she wouldn’t give to have a brother like that. Having a family like Nate’s would be everything she could wish for. “That’s really nice. I’m on my way to get some coffee to try to cure my headache. Want to join me?”
“Lead the way,” he said, pivoting on his feet with the support of his cane.
The cafe
teria was only a short distance down the corridor from the clinic. She adjusted her stride ever so slightly to keep pace with him. She caught him looking at her, a hint of a smile on his handsome features. It felt so good to walk beside him.
The cafeteria space was painted in bright orange and yellow with turquoise chairs and tables.
“What would you like?” she asked. “I’m buying this time.”
They both got a coffee with cream, and she decided on a cranberry muffin. Joining him at the table, she slid into the chair across from him. Something had changed between them since the night at Anna’s house. It wasn’t just that they had shared a special moment; it was as if they were now on the same team. No. It felt more as if they had some sort of connection beyond a casual one. Whatever it was, she would enjoy it while she could.
Nate sipped his coffee, watching her in a way that made her wish she could sit here with him forever. Searching for a topic of conversation that would distract his thoughts away from Anna’s appointment, she said, “My neighbor needs a lesson in trimming his hedge. He started last evening, and when I glanced over this morning the hedge was two feet shorter, and looked like a green roller coaster.”
His smile spurred her on. “He should have gotten someone to help him. His wife didn’t look any too pleased when I saw her this morning. Come to think of it, that’s the first time I’ve seen her out and about before seven o’clock since I moved in.”
He chuckled. Her heart rose in her chest at the sound. She had managed to ease his worry, and it felt wonderful.
But a minute later the wariness was back in his eyes. “This won’t be an easy appointment for Anna, will it?” she said.
* * *
SOMETHING ABOUT THE way she flushed a little as her eyes held his made Nate feel good. Real good. Despite the mass of curls floating around her shoulders, she never once flicked her hair away. He used to believe that when a woman constantly played with her hair she was nervous. But he’d seen so many women do it he’d become suspicious that it was a silly affectation to attract attention.
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