Waking Up in Charleston

by Sherryl Woods

  “So, whatever happened to honesty?” she inquired tartly.

  “I totally advocate it,” he replied. “Except in cases when diplomacy’s called for.”

  “A pretty self-serving value system,” she said.

  Caleb laughed. “I can hardly deny it now, can I? Okay, kids, go get the cake and be very, very careful. It’s a thing of beauty. There’s shaved chocolate on top of the frosting.”

  “If it’s that precious, shouldn’t you get it yourself?” Amanda asked.

  He shook his head. “I trust them to be careful.”

  All three kids raced eagerly from the room. Left alone with Amanda, Caleb was suddenly at a loss. There was too little time to discuss any of the topics that really mattered and too much to sit there silently. Yet he couldn’t seem to make himself begin. Instead, he just looked at her, memorizing the way she looked with her cheeks flushed, her hair a bit mussed. It was the way he imagined she’d look after sex. He wondered if he’d ever have the chance to discover if he was right about that.

  “I should clear the table,” Amanda said, obviously feeling rattled under the intensity of his gaze.

  “Let me,” he said at once, realizing how just a little time and distance had changed things between them. There was an unfamiliar awkwardness that had never been there before.

  They bumped into each other reaching for the serving bowls in the center of the table. Both of them promptly jumped back as if they’d been singed. Or maybe he’d gotten it wrong and it wasn’t awkwardness on her part at all. Maybe her thoughts had been as steamy as his own.

  “This is crazy,” Caleb said, meeting her eyes. “We’re acting as if we’ve never been alone together before.”

  “I know. It’s ridiculous.” Her gaze never left his.

  “Amanda,” he began, ready to reach for her and pull her into his arms.

  Just then the kids burst through the back door, letting the screen door slap shut behind them. The moment of intimacy was lost to the pounding of feet and shrill clatter of excited voices.

  Amanda finally tore her gaze away. “Careful with the cake!” she called out to them. “Sit it on the counter. I’ll be right there to cut it.”

  “It’s totally awesome,” Larry announced gleefully.

  “And the icing is—” Jimmy began, only to be cut off, most likely by his brother.

  Amanda exchanged an amused look with Caleb. “There’ll be fingerprints in the frosting,” she warned him. “I hope that won’t ruin it for you.”

  “Not as long as they left some icing for me,” he replied.

  “You really are a go-with-the-flow man, aren’t you?” she said with evident admiration.

  “Considering the number of surprises life has in store, it seems like the sensible way to live,” he said.

  “You’d make a great father,” she told him. “Nothing would rattle you.”

  “Not true,” he said, only able to deal with one part of her comment. “Seeing the damage they did to the tree house certainly shook me up. There was a lot of anger behind that.”

  “I know.”

  “My fault, I assume.”

  “No, not entirely,” she said. “We both share the blame. Obviously neither of us realized how much they’d come to count on you.”

  “Any idea how we’re going to fix that?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, then regarded him earnestly. “But we do need to fix it, Caleb. I can’t watch my kids get attached to someone who’s going to disappear from their lives.”

  “I’m not going to disappear,” he assured her.

  “Then there have to be parameters they can understand,” she insisted.

  “Mom!” Larry shouted, interrupting. “We want cake.”

  “I suppose we’re going to have to table this till they’re in bed,” Amanda said.

  Caleb nodded. It was just as well. He had a hunch Amanda wasn’t anywhere near ready to hear the solution he had in mind—making himself a permanent fixture in their lives.

  Then, again, he acknowledged with regret, that was as much a fantasy as any of the other thoughts he’d had about her. For he knew he would never make that offer. While she could give him everything he’d ever dreamed of—a deep and abiding love and a family—he couldn’t give her something he’d heard her tell Dinah and Maggie she truly wanted. More kids. And explaining that to her would destroy whatever was left of his pride. Pride might be a sin and honesty was certainly something he prized, but in his own case, he was weak and willing to admit it.

  Amanda came down the stairs slowly, the sound of Caleb’s voice drifting along behind her. He was reading a bedtime story to the boys after tucking Susie in. They’d clamored for him to read one more chapter of the latest Harry Potter book, so Amanda had made an excuse to leave them alone.

  She needed to gather her composure. Sitting there while Caleb read had filled her with memories. Good ones, for a change. Bobby had loved reading aloud to the kids until they fell asleep. It didn’t matter whether it was Goodnight Moon for the hundredth time or a chapter from Huckleberry Finn, he’d enjoyed bringing the stories to life and making the kids laugh sleepily before they drifted off. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was one of the last books they’d read together.

  Amanda had enjoyed those times as much as Bobby had. She’d felt safest and most in tune with her husband. If only Bobby had understood that those moments of simple pleasure meant far more to her than all the material things.

  Tonight, listening to Caleb, she’d felt those emotions stir again, felt that longing for a connection with another person, and that, she told herself, was dangerous.

  She was no longer able to maintain the illusion that Caleb was safe, either because of his profession or his gentlemanly demeanor. Too many times now, she’d seen the desire in his eyes, felt the simmering passion sparking between them. And too many nights, she’d stirred restlessly in her bed, thoughts and dreams of Caleb turning wickedly hot. She’d imagined his hands on her, not in comfort, but exploring, stroking and caressing until she remembered what it felt like to be a woman.

  Shaken yet again by those images, she retreated to the kitchen where she could no longer hear Caleb’s voice. The familiar, uncomplicated task of washing and drying the dishes kept her from thinking too much, wanting too much.

  Even so, she jumped when Caleb appeared suddenly and announced, “They’re all asleep.”

  She turned and smiled. “Thanks for reading to them. They miss having Bobby around to do that. I’m afraid I don’t have the same talent for drama when I’m reading.”

  “I think I enjoyed it as much as they did,” Caleb admitted.

  “Would you like another cup of coffee? More cake?”

  “Sure,” he said. “But I’ll get it. You sit. How about you? Can I get you anything?”

  “Nothing for me. The coffee and chocolate would keep me awake all night.” And only add to the nerves she was feeling now that they were alone with too many hard decisions to make, too many yearnings to ignore.

  Caleb poured himself a cup of coffee, cut another slice of cake, then joined her at the kitchen table.

  “I’m truly sorry I upset the kids,” he told her. “I had no idea my staying away would affect them like that.”

  “I didn’t realize it, either, at least not right away. When I figured it out, I tried to explain that you were a busy man with obligations to a lot of people, that they couldn’t expect you to be around all the time.”

  He looked oddly guilty. “But I had been making time with no problem at all,” he said. “And the truth is, I wasn’t that busy.”

  Amanda wasn’t all that shocked by his revelation. “Just avoiding me,” she guessed. “Are you ready to tell me why? What happened when you were here that Saturday to build the tree house? It goes back to that afternoon. I’m sure of it.”

  He regarded her with a troubled expression. “I know I owe you an explanation, especially now, but it’s just not something I can talk about.”


  “Not even to me?” she asked, not trying to hide her hurt.

  “It’s too painful,” he said. “It goes back to a time in my life I’ve worked very hard to forget.”

  “But you haven’t forgotten it at all, have you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then perhaps talking about it would help.”

  “Talking is a waste of time. It can’t be changed,” he said tersely.

  She regarded him with surprise. She’d had no idea there was anything in his past that might have been devastating. She’d seen only his compassionate, caring side and taken for granted that was all there was to him. Because he was good and decent and cared for everyone else, she’d assumed he’d gotten only kindness and compassion in return. Now it was evident to her that someone had hurt him deeply.

  “Now I’m the one who feels like an idiot,” she said. “I thought I knew all there was to know about you, and obviously I have no idea what went on in your life before you came to Charleston.”

  “Everyone has a history, Amanda,” he said, smiling ruefully.

  “And mine is pretty much out there for everyone to see,” she said. “I guess I took for granted that yours was simply more of the same generous acts that have endeared you to everyone at the church.”

  He grinned. “Oh, there were a few kind acts before I turned up here,” he conceded, “but believe me, there was more to my life. Not all the memories are good ones.”

  She studied him intently. It had been a long time since she’d pried into someone else’s life, especially a man’s. What sort of basic questions should she be asking?

  “Have you ever been married?” she asked when she realized that a man as amazing as Caleb surely had to have had a woman in his life at one time or another.

  Something that might have been pain flickered in his eyes, then was gone. “Yes,” he said. “I was divorced six months before I moved here.”

  She hid her surprise well, she thought, and refrained from prying into the reasons for the divorce. It was obviously a touchy subject.

  “Kids?” she asked instead.

  “No.” Again, that hint of pain, though this time he wasn’t able to hide it as quickly.

  “And you regret that,” she guessed. A man as great with children as Caleb was surely had wanted some of his own.

  “Amanda, let’s not get into this, okay?”

  There was enough misery in his expression to convince her to drop the subject for now, even though she had a hunch she was just scraping the surface of the real issue that stood between them. She moved on to more innocuous turf. “Did you always want to be a minister?”

  He regarded her with undisguised relief. “Not always,” he said. “There was a time when I wanted to be a firefighter and another summer when I was sure I was going to be a major league ballplayer.”

  “What happened?”

  “I realized that firefighting was dangerous,” he said, “and that there were other ways to save people.”

  “What about baseball?”

  “I crashed straight into reality on that one,” he said, another smile tugging at his lips. “Couldn’t hit worth a darn and my fielding left a lot to be desired.”

  “That pretty much rules out baseball, all right.”

  He took a sip of his coffee, studying her over the rim of the cup, then set it aside. “Okay, my turn to ask the questions.”

  Amanda frowned at him. “You know everything there is to know about my life.”

  “Not everything,” he said. “I don’t know what you were like as a little girl. I’m picturing curly hair and pink bows and patent-leather shoes.”

  Amanda laughed. “Not even close, especially about the bows. My father was basically inept in the hair department. And I rarely held still long enough for Jessie to do anything special with my hair.” It was the first time in ages she’d mentioned Big Max without rancor. “Besides, I was supposed to grow up and take over the world. Bows were too frilly. If they’d made power suits for six-year-old girls, I would have had an entire wardrobe of them. I did by the time I was seventeen.”

  “And then came Bobby,” Caleb guessed.

  She nodded, her lips curving at the memory of the way he’d blasted into her life on a motorcycle and captured her heart. “And then came Bobby,” she confirmed.

  “Did your father hate him from the beginning?”

  Though the question threatened the tender skin covering an old wound, Amanda thought back, then shook her head. “No, at first I think he regarded him as nothing more than a nuisance. He was convinced I’d tire of him and move on to someone more appropriate. Things didn’t get ugly till he realized that wasn’t going to happen.”

  “You fought?”

  “All the time.” She remembered the confrontations as if they’d been yesterday. Each one had carved another piece out of her heart. She’d been torn between two men she loved more than life itself. “Ironically, now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m not sure it was even Bobby he hated so much, but rather the destruction of all his dreams for me. He couldn’t imagine me doing everything he’d planned for me with a man like Bobby by my side, rather than some doctor or lawyer he’d handpicked for his son-in-law.”

  “Yet you defied him and married Bobby, anyway,” Caleb said.

  “The power of love,” she said glibly, as if that explained it all. It didn’t even begin to describe the emotions that had driven her to choose Bobby over Big Max. It was a choice she never should have had to make.

  “Was it love?” Caleb asked. “Or rebellion?”

  “I loved my husband,” she said heatedly. “And I had no reason to rebel against my father. Until Bobby came into my life, he had been the most supportive father in the world. We weren’t like other parents and teenagers. It had always been just the two of us, so we were a team. I guess that was why I was so shocked when he refused to accept how good Bobby and I were together. I’d thought I could make him understand. Before Bobby came along, he’d always given me the courtesy of listening when we had disagreements. I couldn’t always change his mind, but at least he heard me out, and then we’d find a compromise.”

  “But this time nothing you said made any difference,” Caleb said.

  “Nothing. His mind was dead-set against the marriage, and that was that. Bobby and I went ahead and made our plans. Bobby paid for everything. All I asked of my father was that he give me away. Instead, he waited till the morning of the wedding to tell me he wouldn’t walk me down the aisle to ‘that man who’s going to ruin your life.’”

  “That must have hurt,” Caleb said, his gaze filled with understanding.

  “You have no idea,” Amanda said. The memory ached as if it had happened yesterday. “Even so, I think I could have gotten past that if he’d bent even a little as time went on. Bobby tried so hard to prove what a good husband he was. But when my father stood right in front of him and ripped up the picture of Jimmy, his first grandchild, I knew that he would never accept my choice or let me back into his life.”

  “Surely he’s mellowed by now,” Caleb suggested.

  “He hadn’t when I asked him for help after Bobby died,” she said, still bitter over the way he’d dismissed her then. It wasn’t just that he’d turned her down; it was the callous way he’d done it. “I went to him and groveled, not for myself, but for his grandchildren, and he turned me away. He couldn’t resist gloating, either. He told me I’d gotten what I deserved for not listening to him in the first place. My husband had died and my father thought I deserved it.”

  She shuddered at the memory. “Why are we talking about my father, anyway? He’s part of my past. I simply have to accept that.”

  Caleb gave her a chiding look. “Remember the Ten Commandments?”

  “Of course. I have picked up a few things taking the kids to church on Sundays.”

  “What about honoring your father and mother, then?”

  “I did,” she countered. “I respected my father more than anyone
on earth until the day he cut me out of his life.”

  “I don’t think God put any qualifiers or time limits on those Commandments,” Caleb said. “I’m pretty sure He meant them to last for the parent’s lifetime, even when that parent is seriously flawed.”

  Amanda clenched her fists at the thought that Caleb was judging her for doing what anyone else with an ounce of pride would have done in the same circumstances. Suddenly all the joy of the tranquil evening fled.

  “Why dredge this up now? Haven’t I told you repeatedly that I don’t want to talk about my father?” she said tightly. “Not now, not ever again.”

  Caleb’s lips curved slightly. “Maybe that’s exactly why you should, because it’s still so painful.”

  Thoroughly agitated, Amanda shoved her chair back and began to pace. Eventually she stopped in front of Caleb and scowled at him. “I don’t understand you. You refuse to discuss your past because it’s painful. Why should I? You know how I feel. You’ve seen the damage he did to me and my family. Why are you pushing so hard to get me to open up about him? I hate him,” she said fervently. “I think I have good reason. If you disagree, that’s not my problem. I’m just not as good a person as you are.”

  “We both know that’s not true. I certainly have my flaws, but you’re not an unforgiving woman, Amanda,” Caleb said mildly. “And hate requires an awful lot of energy. Something tells me there’s a part of you that would like to see things made right with him again.”

  “I’d like a million dollars and a BMW convertible, too,” she snapped. “It’s all out of reach. I’ve come to accept that.”

  Caleb gave her a disbelieving look. “Have you really?”

  “Yes, dammit! This subject is nonnegotiable, Caleb. I didn’t cut my father out of my life. He kicked me out of his, because he didn’t like my choice for a husband. It’s up to him to fix this, not me. Personally, I don’t see that ever happening. If you knew him, you’d get that. He’s too stubborn to ever change his mind.”

  “Couldn’t you be the bigger person and try one more time?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “It’s too late.”

  “Only if you let it be.”