by Nancy Warren
He caught the guilty glance they exchanged. “Fine.”
Dropping kisses on their fiery curls, he said, “Wash your faces and come back downstairs.”
Considerably calmer now, he made the return journey to the kitchen. Melissa had settled her kids as well as dried her own tears. She glanced up guiltily when he entered. “How are they?”
“Drying off.”
“Matthew, take your sister into the den for a few minutes while I talk to Mr. O’Reilly. You can watch TV.” She gave them each a loving pat as they trotted out of the kitchen. The Theisen tear storm had apparently passed.
She waited until they were out of the room before speaking again, her face creased with worry. “I’m so sorry, Seth. I—”
“Anne of Green Gables. I heard.”
“I loved that book so much as a child. And since it’s about a spirited girl with red hair, I thought Laura might enjoy it. I didn’t think about how it begins, with Anne as a rejected orphan. I’ll put it away and find Laura something else to read.”
“No, wait. I know I read the book in school, but I’m a little fuzzy. Doesn’t she run around after some boy named Gilbert?”
Melissa said, “No. She doesn’t. Gilbert runs around after her, and she won’t have anything to do with him. He has to win her slowly, with a lot of hard work.” She sighed blissfully. “I loved that book.”
Sounded like a bunch of BS to him. “Why do you women always love to make men suffer?”
She rolled her eyes. “We’re entering dangerous territory. The point is, Anne overcomes all the obstacles in her life and finds love and happiness.”
Seth was nodding his head as though she’d helped him win an argument. “Then let’s let her finish reading the book. Life is tough. Laura’s already learned that.” He sighed and shifted his hips back against the kitchen counter. “She’s the older twin, you know, definitely the dominant personality.”
Melissa nodded vigorously, and he smiled a little. She’d figured them out pretty fast.
“She’s having more trouble than Jessie getting over her mother’s death. I’ve been trying to smooth her path, prevent her from being upset. And she pulls pranks like the brownie disaster.” He shrugged. “Maybe reading a book about somebody else who gets over a similar situation will help her.”
His stomach churned, recalling her plea to him not to die. “At least it brought out a fear she hasn’t talked about before.”
“That she’ll be orphaned?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. “I told them my sister Janice would look after them.” He shrugged his helplessness. “It’s the best I can promise.”
She nodded, a crease between her eyebrows. “She made me suddenly realize that if anything happens to me, my children will have nobody.” Her voice trailed away, and she turned quickly, moving with jerky steps toward the kitchen sink.
She paused there, leaning against the edge of the countertop. She appeared to be staring out the window, but Seth didn’t think she saw anything. Even though her shoulders didn’t move, he knew she was crying.
Before he knew what he was doing, he was gripping her shoulders and turning her to face him. He wanted to offer comfort, but what could he say? She was right. He’d seen this situation before. Unless she was very lucky, or her ex suffered a sudden attack of conscience, Stephen Theisen was as good as dead to Melissa and the children.
“Don’t you have any family?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m an only child. My mother’s dead and my father…” She gulped. “No. There’s no one.”
The raw pain and fear he saw connected with his own pain and fear. He couldn’t offer her any real consolation, but he could hold her while she cried, give her the temporary comfort of a shoulder to cry on. Gently but firmly he pulled her into the circle of his arms.
She tried to pull away, making little sounds of distress, but suddenly she gave in and clung to him.
Melissa fit into his arms perfectly, the top of her head nudging his chin. The bones of her back were slender and prominent beneath his hands. Her frame seemed too delicate for the strength of the sobs that shook her. Her hands gripped his shoulders and her tears soaked through his shirt.
But even through her terrible grief, he was aware of the woman’s body shuddering against him. His response to the feel of her shocked him. He felt every curve of her. Warmth radiated from her body where it pressed against his.
And the way she smelled. He’d forgotten how exciting all those fragrances were. The hair products that were scented like flowers. The powders and lotions so numerous that Claire’s side of the medicine cabinet overflowed into his half. Razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant. That’s all he needed. He used to tease Claire about renting a storage locker to keep all her junk in. Now he had lots of empty shelves. And he missed the little spills of makeup goo on the counter. But most of all, he missed the delicate, flowery scents.
He missed the taste of lipstick during a wet, hungry kiss. He missed the taste and touch and smell of a woman. And not just Claire. He was appalled to discover he was eager to sample the woman in his arms. At least his body was.
He’d meant to offer comfort. It was an effort of will to prevent his body from letting her know in no uncertain terms what her movements were doing to him. Grief was making her body rub against him in a way that was giving him all sorts of ideas he didn’t want to have.
Shifting his hips back slightly didn’t help. She clung closer, so far gone in her indulgence of tears she didn’t know what she was doing.
“Shh. It’s going to be okay,” he murmured over and over, stroking her hair as well as her back. Touching those silken curls was another big mistake.
A mental cold shower was in order. And fast. Down, Boy. Profit and loss figures from the yearly income statements. He tried to recall all the numbers from this morning’s meeting. The bank’s profits were up. The board of directors was pleased. Everyone was pleased.
He wouldn’t have even got to the meeting if it hadn’t been for Melissa.
Not only had she been there all day with the twins and fed them healthy food, but she’d convinced Laura to read a work of literature instead of watching TV. No other babysitter had ever bothered.
A wet sniffle coming from the direction of his right shoulder called his attention back to the matter at hand. The sobs seemed to have ended as quickly as they had begun. She didn’t raise her head, though. Instead, her hand reached out behind her, fingers splayed, bouncing along the countertop, searching.
Puzzled, he let his gaze scan the counter, but he didn’t think it was the pot scrubber or the dish detergent she was after.
The hand suddenly clenched and pulled back. “I’m out of tissues,” she mumbled into his chest.
Seth smiled into her hair, dug into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, which he placed into her hand.
With a muffled “thanks” she kept her head lowered while she wiped her eyes and nose. Only then did she raise her head and look at him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered.
“Feel better?”
Her face flushed. “A little. Mostly, I feel stupid.”
Stepping back, he shot her a smile he hoped was brotherly. “Crying is supposed to be therapeutic.”
“I’ve never found it good for much except sore eyes. I try to be a doer, not a crier,” she said on a hiccup.
“And how are you doing?”
A frown appeared. “I found out I’m not the only person whose spouse ever went AWOL. I have an appointment with a legal aid clinic for women. If I could find Stephen…” She glanced up quickly. “I made an evening appointment so I’ll be here for the girls, of course.”
Seth tried to look positive, but it was tough. He’d seen a few of these cases at the bank. Everybody hated them. He didn’t think Stephen Theisen planned to keep paying child support for children he no longer saw and mortgage payments on a home he no longer inhabite
d.
If Melissa’s hunch was correct and he was in Eastern Europe, things didn’t look good.
The sooner Melissa realized she was on her own, the better. But he was too tired and too smart to tell her that. She’d find out soon enough.
She blew her nose once more, then started to hand the soggy handkerchief back, only to stop with an embarrassed, “Oh! Why don’t I wash this and return it.”
He would have taken it, but he could see she was uncomfortable and with a shrug said, “Sure, thanks. No starch.”
She grinned at his lame humor and tucked the hanky in her own pocket. “Would you like some chicken stew?”
Homemade stew. He’d been smelling it in the air since he walked in. It reminded him of his own mother’s kitchen. Melissa’s food smelled like a warm hug at the end of a tough day. If it was anything like the soup she’d brought over last night… But he paid Melissa to look after his kids, not him. “No thanks, I had a big lunch,” he lied.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asked while they both tried to pretend they hadn’t heard his stomach growl in hunger.
“Yes, I’ll get the girls. Oh, and here.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out the check he’d written. “A week’s pay, plus time and a half for the overtime tonight. I don’t think I’ll be late again this week, but if I am I’ll add that to next week’s check. Is that acceptable?”
She flushed slightly as she took the folded paper in her hand. She didn’t open it but stared at it with her head bowed. “You know, I used to babysit for people all the time. Working moms, neighbors with dentist appointments. I’ve never taken money. If we’d met under different circumstances, I would have been happy to look after your girls. I wouldn’t have charged you.”
That urge to comfort was back again. He smiled down at the top of her blond head. “Working for money is nothing to be ashamed of, Melissa. Welcome back to the real world.”
Her head jerked up. He was surprised it wasn’t anger, but amazement in her face. “You’re right. I’ve been living in a dream world. I was like one of those TV women from the sixties, Mrs. Cleaver, maybe. I just wanted to stay home with my kids, that’s all.”
“Mrs. Cleaver always scared the pants off me when I was a kid. That hair never moved. Did you ever notice that? And she had that smile that looked like it wouldn’t budge even if she was force-feeding you the peas on your plate.” A shudder of memory went through him.
Her expression lightened even more. Now, if he could get a smile on her face before he left.
“But Mrs. Partridge, there was a cool mom. Although I’m not sure I’d have wanted my mom in my rock ’n roll band. Still, she was pretty sexy.”
“She was a single mother, too. And she sure made it look a lot easier than it is.”
“Hah, she wasn’t as bad as Mrs. Brady, tossing two single families together like it was as easy as baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.”
“No. I imagine that’s a very difficult thing to do.” Melissa was blushing slightly, and then it hit him what she was thinking. Good God, she couldn’t be thinking…
Hard to tell. She’d dropped her head and started fiddling with the check again.
“Hey, Red!” he bellowed up the stairs, “Time to go.”
The bustle of sticking the girls in their coats, collecting their belongings and saying their goodbyes got him out of the door without having any more intimate conversation involving the Brady Bunch. He hoped she didn’t think he’d been hinting. He didn’t want a desperate woman getting any ideas about him.
Any more than he wanted to have any ideas about her.
The Brady Bunch. Get real.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SETH BANGED THE PROUDLY shining lion’s head, wondering how often Melissa polished him, and when she found the time. She was one remarkable woman. He couldn’t believe his luck.
They were into their third month of the new babysitting arrangement, and so far, things were going so well that his stomach had almost stopped eating away at itself.
The twins were happier than they’d been since their mother had died. They were doing better at school, acting more like little girls than hellions—most of the time.
Even their room was marginally tidier. He’d caught them making their beds without being reminded on one memorable occasion.
Melissa was making her mortgage payments. Her daycare included another child around Alice’s age, who was usually gone when he came to pick up the twins, and she seemed fairly busy with the landscaping. Thank God. He would not have wanted to foreclose on this woman’s house. Of course, she was treading perilously close to the financial edge, but she knew it and she was doing everything she could to make things work. He admired her.
It wasn’t Melissa who opened the door, as he’d expected, but Jessie, looking both important and mysterious. Always a bad combination in his experience.
“Hi, Dad.” She opened the door wider, and he stepped into the hall. It was the first time anyone but Melissa had opened the door to him. His stomach clenched.
“Hi, Red. Where’s Mrs. Theisen?”
“She’s on the phone. She’s been on for ages.”
His stomach sank. How long had the twins been unsupervised? “Oh. And what have you been doing?”
Jessie swept her gaze in all directions like a cartoon spy before whispering, “We’re having a secret meeting.”
“What about?” Secrets, in his experience, usually turned out to be unpleasant surprises for parents.
His daughter put her finger to her lips and motioned him upstairs.
He relaxed a bit, knowing she wouldn’t invite him to join the secret unless it was something she thought he would approve of. Which narrowed the possibilities from life-threatening to merely dangerous. Until he remembered the time the girls had invited him to watch their play, Mary Poppins, with his golf umbrella as the featured prop. Laura was practically out of their bedroom window, preparing to jump, when he’d lunged across the room and grabbed her ankles. Melissa’s second-floor windows were even higher than his. He increased his pace to a run, heading toward the sound of children’s voices hissing in exaggerated whispers.
With a sigh of relief, he saw nobody was on the roof or doing anything more death defying than hanging their heads over the bed. They looked a little red in the face, the row of four all regarding him upside down.
“Hi,” he said.
“Shh!” they all hissed fiercely.
“This is a secret meeting, Dad. You gotta promise not to tell Melissa,” Laura ordered him.
“Why are you all upside-down?”
“It’s our secret signal.”
“Well, I’m happy to join the meeting, but I can’t do it upside-down.”
“Well, since you are kind of old…if you promise not to tell, I guess it would be okay,” Laura decided.
“I can’t promise not to tell unless you give me a hint what this is about.”
“Dad, you’re so lame,” his oldest informed him. “It’s Melissa’s birthday on Friday, and we’re planning her surprise party.”
A wave of relief rolled over him, as well as pride that they were planning something nice for Melissa. “I guess I can keep that secret. What do you have planned so far?”
“Spray streamers that come in a can.” Laura held up a hand and stuck one finger in the air. Without the extra hand to give her balance her head tilted alarmingly, but she didn’t seem to notice any discomfort.
“They spray out like a bunch of different-colored worms all over the place,” Matthew added.
Seth imagined how thrilled Melissa would be when she found her pristine house covered in canned confetti, and he shuddered.
“We’re all pitching in some allowance and buying chips and pop and stuff,” Laura stuck another finger in the air. “Can you drive us to the store on Thursday night?”
“Sure.”
“And me and Jessie are going to bake a cake.” When she jutted her upside-down chin at him in her usual defiant mo
de, she nearly toppled over and had to stick her other hand on the ground to rebalance.
Visions of bicarb brownies and a barfing birthday girl danced through Seth’s head. The twins had come so far since the brownie disaster, but he sure as hell didn’t trust their baking skills yet. “How ’bout I buy the cake?” he tried.
In unison Laura, Jessie, and Alice, who’d managed to get herself upside-down alongside the others, shook their heads. His stomach started to burn.
A cake.
They wanted to bake a cake, and they had no mother to help them. And yet he could read in their sparkling, upturned eyes how important this was. “Tell you what,” he heard himself say. “We’ll make it together.”
Yips of joy greeted his announcement. “No mixes, Dad. She never uses them. It has to be from scratch.”
Hell, how hard could baking a cake be, anyway? He had a shelf full of cookbooks. And he could always call Janice if things got too scary.
“And you have to get Melissa out of the house so we can decorate and stuff,” Laura said.
If they really thought a three-year-old could keep a secret, he wasn’t going to spoil the fun. “How am I going to get her out of the house with you guys all here?” he wanted to know. “And who’s going to look after you?”
“Auntie Janice could watch us. And, um, you could tell Melissa you want her to go with you to the parent-teacher interview.” Was it his imagination, or had his daughter’s face just gone an even deeper red?
He rubbed his stomach. “What parent-teacher interview?”
“There’s a note in my backpack,” Laura mumbled.
“What have you been doing now?” He felt his good mood crash like the stock market on Black Monday.
“Nothing. That teacher’s so mean. She picks on me all the time. It’s because we don’t have a mom,” she said in a wheedling tone he didn’t believe for a second. “Please take Melissa with you on the interview. She can tell Mrs. Picky that we’re always good here.”
“Your teacher’s name is Mrs. Picard. Maybe she wouldn’t be so mean if you showed her some respect.”
“Well, anyhow, she wants to see you on Friday after school. If you take Melissa with you, we can decorate while you’re gone.”