by Sara Daniel
“I’ll never get a clear reading if I’m explaining. I can’t give the scents the attention they deserve,” Penelope said. “And they do deserve it. One spray of my perfume will stay fully potent for eighteen hours. Plus, it’s impervious to sweat.”
Caleb spread a blanket in the corner of the floor and laid Liam on it. He tended to get fussy quickly when left in that position. But that would give Penelope the opportunity to drop what she was doing and, with all the nurturing instincts of her sister, lift him in her arms and form a bond.
Penelope continued to ramble while he set up Liam’s area. “I take quality ingredients, mix them with others in different consistencies, and use my finely tuned olfactory nerves to detect differences. I also assess which scent best projects the personality and image the wearer is trying to achieve.”
Caleb curled Liam’s fingers around his rattle and walked back to Penelope. “What makes you different from the person trying on samples at the perfume counter?”
“My nose and my years of studying which scents are associated with certain characteristics.” She gestured behind her to a bookshelf stacked to overflowing with textbooks. “It’s not just my olfactory nerves that are so well tuned. It’s my ability to block out everything and concentrate on my creations.”
“We have an amazing amount in common. Our dedication to our work. The simplistic way people view our professions.” Much more than he and Olivia had in common. These were principles and foundations Caleb could build a friendship on.
The rattle slipped from Liam’s hand and fell down by his feet, just out of reach. He started whimpering. Penelope pulled out a couple jars of oils and a consulted a notebook, while Liam worked himself up into a full-fledged tantrum. Finally, Penelope looked up. “Aren’t you going to do something about him?”
“Would you mind getting him for me?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you, one of those chauvinistic guys who won’t touch a baby if there’s a woman in a three-mile radius?”
“Of course not. Liam is my son. I take full responsibility for him.” His plan had definitely backfired. He scooped up Liam and his rattle and walked back to the lab table with the now inconsolable baby. “Why don’t we take a break upstairs? I promise not to make you change any dirty diapers.”
She glanced at the red-faced, howling boy in his arms. “I need to finalize the combination of ingredients for an order. Maybe some other time.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Caleb tried not to let it sting to find himself so low on someone’s priority list.
He headed up the stairs. Liam’s cries escalated to a full-blown kicking, flailing tantrum. Damn. The kid had actually been cuddled on his shoulder when he’d gone down to see Penelope. But he wasn’t going to drift off into a contented sleep now.
Ethan and Olivia were on the sitting room couch. Ethan had draped his arm across the back cushion. His fingers were close enough to touch the ends of her hair. The wavy strands bobbed as she laughed, unfettered by her usual tacky clips.
Liam screamed and Olivia rose from the couch. “What’s the matter, little guy?”
“Could you make him a bottle?” Liam didn’t really need one and even if he did, Caleb knew where everything was to make one himself. But he needed a reason for her not to sit back down within touching range of Ethan.
She didn’t seem offended by the request. Instead, she eased Liam out of his arms and cradled him against her shoulder. “Come here, sweetie. Let’s see what we can find in the kitchen. We’ll give your daddy and uncle some peace and quiet.”
“You sure know how to kill the mood,” Ethan observed as she walked out.
He’d been the good guy all his life. Now for Liam, Olivia, Austin, and Ethan, he was the bad guy. He hadn’t asked them to shower him with adoration, but he didn’t deserve their scorn either. He knew all about men who came into a kid’s life, gave the kid hope, tore out his mother’s heart, and then left. He wasn’t one of them.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Caleb asked.
“Yes.” Ethan stretched out, kicking one foot onto the toes of the other. “I broke dates for tonight and tomorrow to come out here and try to salvage whatever’s left of The Forever Marriage’s reputation.”
“I appreciate your dedication, although I don’t see what you can do from here that you couldn’t have done by phone and email back home.”
The corners of Ethan’s mouth turned up. “You think I’m going to steal Olivia from you. You’re jealous.”
“No, I’m not. However, I do think she deserves better than you.”
“Oh, so I’m not good enough, but you’re too good for her.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He was going to explain further but stopped when Olivia stuck her head back in the room. “I’m going to take Liam back to your room and try to settle him down. But I wanted to warn both of you that Austin has his birthday party here tomorrow afternoon with his entire kindergarten class. You’re welcome to hang around. Just make sure you’re prepared for chaos.”
“A few dozen five- and six-year-olds on a sugar high, bouncing off the walls, completely out of control? I definitely want to be part of it,” Ethan proclaimed. “Anything else I can say to increase my chances of sleeping in your bed tonight?”
Olivia laughed. “You are an outrageous flirt and I am not going to call your bluff.”
Caleb was relieved she was on to Ethan’s tricks. At the same time, he was envious of the camaraderie they’d established that excluded him. Even her relationship with his son mostly excluded him. “I’ll keep Liam in my room with me during the party,” he said.
She acknowledged him with a nod and disappeared down the hall with his son, leaving him to wonder if DNA mattered at all. Of everyone under this roof, she’d managed to create the most stable, nurturing environment. And she hadn’t needed a man’s help with any of it.
Liam needed a mother, one who would be there for him. Caleb intended to give him one. However, there was no reason that person needed to be Olivia. Plenty of women were nurturing and loved children. With a Forever marriage in place around them, Caleb would give Liam the perfect childhood he’d never had.
“Ethan, would you mind going downstairs to get Penelope? She promised to watch Austin blow out the candles.”
“No problem.” Leaving the hyperactive munchkins behind, he followed Olivia’s directions to the basement.
He was surprised the sister hadn’t shown her face already. In his experience, women thrived at these functions, turning themselves into amazingly efficient nurturing machines.
He knocked on the basement door. After a minute with no response, he opened the door and proceeded down the stairs. He’d learned from Olivia that Penelope made perfumes, but the smell he encountered was noxious. His eyes began to water and he realized the room was filled with smoke.
Orange and yellow flames shot into the air by the far wall. He ran down the remaining stairs. A fire extinguisher hung at the bottom. He grabbed it and ran through the smoke toward the flames. They were shooting out of a toaster. He pulled the plug from the outlet, then squeezed the handle on the extinguisher.
The fire dissipated and sputtered out. He blinked hard, checking through his stinging eyes for any recurrence of flames. Nothing. He slowly set down the extinguisher and took a deep breath. The foul air nearly choked him.
He wiped the corners of his eyes with his sweater sleeve and looked around for the arsonist. Olivia had bragged about her sister’s talents, but now he could see it was obviously sisterly devotion. This place was nothing more than a glorified high school chemistry lab. Today, the student’s experiment had gone terribly wrong.
A movement at a table off to the side caught his attention. A woman took a jar from the row of them lining the long, black surface. Her back was to him. A cloud of smoke hovered over her head. Apparently, the sorceress gene ran in the family.
He didn’t wait for her to cast her spell. A sorceress wouldn’t have fried hers
elf in a toaster fire. She’d nearly burned down her sister’s house and put the lives of the fifteen children and their parents in jeopardy. He marched across the room and grabbed her shoulder, whipping her around to face him. A spiral notebook flew to the floor.
She screeched and jumped. A test tube flew out of her hand and shattered at their feet, splashing God-knew-what on his Italian loafers. “You idiot, you wrecked my experiment. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Saving your life, for starters.” He’d come downstairs as a favor to her sweet, harried sister, not to play action hero for this ungrateful twerp.
“That tube held three hours of work. The combination of scents was nearly perfect, and it’s ruined.”
“Scent? Smell the air, sweetheart. It’s charred electrical wiring. No one’s going to pay you a penny to bottle it.” But he’d pay a mint for a solution to stop his eyes from burning.
She looked around frantically, although not in the direction of the toaster. “My notebook.”
The test tube disaster had smeared the ink into a blue puddle. She lifted the paper as carefully as an infant and then shook it violently. “I worked so hard on this, and now I can’t salvage any of it. Are you trying to destroy me?”
“Who cares about your stupid experiment? Fifteen innocent children almost became as charred as the toast you tried to flame the building with.”
She blinked behind her thick lab goggles. “It’s a toaster pastry. Blueberry. My lunch. What’d you do to it?”
Ethan dug his fingers into her shoulders but refrained from shaking her. He was angry enough he might actually hurt her. “Don’t you get it? You almost got fried. Flames were shooting out of your toaster. From now on, you should stick to eating Olivia’s scones.”
Her eyes narrowed. Were they blue too? With the smoke and her goggles and his damn blurry vision, he wasn’t sure. He did know it shouldn’t matter one bit. “Who are you?”
“Ethan Paden.” Under normal circumstances, he would have offered a handshake or melted her with a hand kiss, but social niceties escaped him at the moment. “Your nephew wants your presence for the ‘Happy Birthday’ song. Is your test tube more important than him?”
“Olivia could have called me and saved you the trip.”
“As if you’d notice a phone ringing when you didn’t notice a fire in the room.”
“I had my nose in the test tube,” she said, as if that explained everything. She turned away and picked up several jars from the table, carrying them to the refrigerator against the wall.
“Speaking of noticing, how come the smoke detector wasn’t going off?”
She pulled a hand broom and dustpan out of a cabinet. “I took the batteries out a while ago. The blaring noise distracts me while I work.”
The newly awakened fireman in him shuddered. “It’s supposed to distract you. That’s why those things save lives.”
“The lever on the toaster doesn’t always pop up when it’s supposed to and things get a little brown around the edges. It’s nothing to drop everything for.”
“It is when you have flames shooting out of your kitchen appliances. More than the edges of your lunch were brown and your blonde head would have been black before you noticed. You’re not stepping foot in this lab again until you have new batteries in your detectors and a lunch you can eat straight from the box without cooking it.”
“You don’t have the right to make that decision for me.”
Her defiance infuriated him. She should be weeping and apologetic and grateful. “The hell I don’t. I care about the lives of the people upstairs. They deserve a safer environment than one inhabited by an eccentric, pyromaniac scientist.”
Chapter 8
The day had been a success, although not the business and public relations coup Caleb was hoping for. No, this was a personal victory. He had spent four straight hours with Liam, most of them with Liam awake and the majority of those locked away in his room. Not once had Olivia stopped by with a bottle or to lend a hand in a diaper change or simply to calm Liam’s fussiness. Nope, Caleb had managed on his own. Now Liam’s fingers fisted in Caleb’s suit coat as he eased the sleeping baby down into the port-a-crib.
He tucked the blankets around Liam’s little body, switched on the monitor, and watched the innocent child sleep for a long time before he pulled himself away and wandered down to the hall. He ended up at the doorway to the sitting room. Ethan and Olivia were watching Austin play with an array of toys. Caleb’s stomach clenched as he stood outside the cozy scene. They looked like good friends and acted like a longtime married couple. They were at ease with each other. He couldn’t detect any sexual innuendos. Ethan was immersed in her world. They were applying the Forever steps flawlessly. His stomach churned.
He switched his attention to the boy at their center. He’d made strides with Liam today. It shouldn’t take much effort to turn Austin’s hatred into something more palatable.
Olivia looked up and met his gaze. He nearly got sidetracked by the lovely blue surprise staring at him. “Caleb, would you like some birthday cake?”
Something other than scones. This was a day full of big steps. “Sure. How did the party go?”
“Ask the big six-year-old yourself.” She smiled at her son and sidestepped Caleb, leaving the room.
He said Austin’s name, but the boy was so absorbed with his Legos he didn’t look up. If Caleb wanted a conversation, he had to initiate it and work to keep it going. He was determined to give it a shot. He repeated the boy’s name until Austin lifted his head and made eye contact. “How was your party?”
“It was fun. I’m glad you missed it.” He buried his head in his Legos again.
It shouldn’t matter if the kid liked him or not, but Caleb understood his situation too well. He was hurting from the divorce. If Caleb could teach Olivia the proper way to apply Forever, he could help Austin achieve the peace and stability he craved and give him a happy childhood before his issues followed him into adulthood and repeated the cycle with another generation of children.
Caleb crouched in front of Austin. “Don’t blame yourself because your dad couldn’t make it.”
“He called this morning to wish me happy birthday. He was the first person to say it to me. And he’s going to take me skiing next weekend, just him and me.”
“That’s great,” Caleb said weakly, trying to hide his fury with Olivia. She’d put her kid through too much. Now she was allowing him to believe promises no one intended to fulfill.
Austin looked at Ethan. “Maybe you could take care of my mom when I’m gone.”
Caleb cringed at the responsibility this little boy was carrying. He’d done the same thing as child and eventually it festered into resentment and shaped his entire adulthood.
Ethan, apparently, saw no problem with perpetuating the problem. “You want to ask someone you really trust for a big job like that.”
“You’d have to look after Aunt Penelope, too,” Austin said.
“Penelope definitely needs looking after,” Ethan agreed.
“What are you guys planning?” Olivia asked, returning to the room. She handed Caleb a large piece of cake and a glass of milk. Her fingers brushed his wrist, sending his pulse pounding. Straight down his body, every pulse point leapt to life. Clearly, his physical wants were not in tune with the wants of his mind and soul.
“A sledding outing,” Austin announced. “We’ve hardly gone this year. You and me and him.” He looked at Ethan.
“It’s nearly dinnertime. I can take you tomorrow afternoon.” Olivia said the words innocently enough. But then her gaze connected with Caleb’s and his body instantly reinterpreted the meaning. Take me. Now. Tomorrow. Anytime.
“Mr. Paden too?” Austin asked eagerly.
Ethan shrugged. “Why not? I don’t have anything better to do.”
The cake stuck in Caleb’s throat as reality trumped his oversexed hormones. Ethan would soon move on to the next woman. Soon after, Olivia would rep
lace him with another man. Caleb didn’t have to wonder about the revolving door’s effect on Austin. He’d lived it. He knew.
He had the power to stop it from happening to Liam, though. All he needed was to embark on a Forever marriage.
“I have the descriptions ‘unpredictable’ and ‘chaotic’ for your mother.” Penelope stood next to one of her black tables with her pen poised over her hideous questionnaire. “Anything you want to add?”
“No, that should be enough.” More than enough. Caleb wanted a session on making scented liquid, not a chance to become a therapy patient.
“Would she prefer something sexy, or will she wear this perfume in an office setting?”
His mother again. She’d cancelled his sixth birthday party to go on a date. The child in him was still sitting on the closed toilet seat crying as she drenched herself in perfume and explained how a new daddy was the best birthday present she could give him. He’d hated Ralph from that moment on. “Sexy,” he said. “She’ll probably wear it for a one-night stand.”
“Old people do that?” Penelope’s look of wide-eyed naïveté made him cringe. “I thought it was a hormone thing people grew out of.”
“Most do.” Unfortunately, he doubted his mother was one of them. Olivia’s hormonal urges seemed plenty healthy, as well. His body was aching for a one-night stand with her.
“But not everyone,” Penelope mused. “Bryce will probably still be a cheating prick at ninety-seven.”
For a moment the name meant nothing to Caleb. Then it rocked his world. “Olivia’s ex?”
“A different snow bunny every night.” Penelope scanned the questionnaire again and began pulling jars out of cabinets. “Studies have associated different scents with certain behavioral characteristics. I’m going to match your mother’s qualities to these ingredients.”
She continued to prattle on. Caleb was sure her explanation was riveting, but he didn’t hear a word. He couldn’t stop thinking about Penelope’s revelation and the implications for Olivia and her marriage.