by Delia Latham
“Honey, we’re baking cookies. A little flour on your face is part of the fun. Look at me.” She indicated the liberal dusting of flour on her apron, and swiped the back of one hand over her forehead. “I’m sure my face has a little something on it too, doesn’t it?”
Dalynn gave a slow nod. “You got some on your nose. You better clean up too.” Grabbing hold of Autumn’s hand, she tugged her into the hallway. “Come on.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Autumn knelt in front of the child and pulled her into her arms. “Dalynn, honey, you’re not in trouble. We’ll clean everything up—including ourselves—when we’re finished.”
“Oh. But Daddy won’t like—” She broke off and captured a trembling bottom lip between her teeth.
A light went on in Autumn’s head. Russ, always so precise about his tools and keeping things in place. She played back all the times she’d watched him wipe Dalynn’s chin while they ate, the way he picked up napkins and set salt and pepper precisely in the middle of the table. Dalynn’s perfect room. It all made sense.
Russ was obsessed with cleanliness and order.
“We’ll get it cleaned up before Daddy gets home, I promise. Come on, let’s go check on those cookies before they burn.”
In the kitchen, Autumn launched into another little comedy spiel while they cleaned up their mess and then themselves. In no time, Dalynn was enjoying herself again and wanted Autumn to play with her in her room.
“Can we play with the dolls?” Autumn asked, even as she removed a couple of them from their boxes.
“Oh. I…” Dalynn stopped. “That would be fun! But…”
“Everything will be all right. Daddy will understand that we want to have fun.” Autumn grinned.
They sat in the middle of the floor across from each other, each of them cuddling a baby, in the midst of a grand game of “mommy,” when a deep voice rumbled across the room.
“What are you—? Who took the dolls out of the boxes?”
Dalynn’s blue eyes widened. She swallowed hard and opened her mouth but not a sound came out.
Autumn winked at the child and ignored the trip-hammer pounding in her own chest. “Oh, yay!” She made sure her stage whisper reached the man in the doorway. “Daddy’s home.”
~*~
Russ hadn’t wanted to ask a favor of Autumn, but he’d needed someone to stay with Dalynn while he made a run into Pismo Beach for supplies. Normally, he would’ve taken her with him. Dalynn rarely whined, so when she’d done so about having to make the trip, Russ had opted not to force the issue. With no one else to call—and because Dalynn had begged—he’d let go of his pride and asked Autumn. Why had he thought she’d be a suitable sitter for his daughter?
Standing in Dalynn’s bedroom doorway, he bit down hard on his tongue in an attempt to abate the storm roiling in his soul. But the resulting pain only angered him further. He clenched his teeth. One…two…three…
“D—D—Daddy?”
The fear in that shaky little voice crushed him. He’d frightened his daughter, and for no better reason than that she’d played with her own toys.
Four…five… Now the anger he sought to tamp was directed at himself, but Dalynn and Autumn had no way of knowing that, and he still didn’t trust himself to speak without spewing.
Six…seven…
“Russ?” On her feet now, Autumn crossed the room toward him.
Eight-nine-ten. Ignoring the concern and confusion in her eyes, he executed a sharp one-eighty and strode down the hall toward his own room.
“Russ?” Her voice came from right behind him. Why couldn’t she just stay where she was? “What’s going on? Are you OK?”
He rushed into his room without looking back, slammed the door and leaned against it. His breath came in short, hard gusts, and his hands curled themselves into fists. He was furious at himself for his reaction to Dalynn actually enjoying her dolls. Why had he ever thought having them in her room—in the boxes, for crying out loud—would be enough for a little girl? What kind of idiotic father was he?
To make matters worse, he was furious at Autumn. Had she not been more mother to Dalynn than Linda had ever been…had she not dared to remove a couple of toys—toys that belonged to his daughter—from their specified places so his little girl could play with them….he wouldn’t have had to look into a mirror that showed him a reflection he didn’t want to see.
“Russ?” The soft inquiry was accompanied by a brisk tap on his door. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Autumn. Thank you for helping out. You’ve given us enough of your time today. You can go on home now.” He grimaced. She didn’t deserve that kind of rudeness.
“I’m not going anywhere until I see your face. Take some time if you need it, then join Dalynn and me in the kitchen. I’ll throw something together for dinner.”
“Please don’t bother with—”
“See you downstairs, Russ.” Her voice floated back from down the hall. “Come on, Dalynn. Let’s put the dolls away for now, and go fix dinner for Daddy.”
Russ stood for a moment in the center of the room while the world spun in circles around him. Dinner? His appetite was gone, probably for good, right along with his ability to face the saucy beauty in his kitchen. How could he hold his head up around her after she’d witnessed him at his weakest?
But he couldn’t stay in his bedroom forever, and if he knew her even half as well as he thought he did, Autumn had meant what she’d said. She wouldn’t leave this house until she knew all was well. She certainly wouldn’t leave Dalynn in his care until she was assured of his daughter’s safety.
Might she really think he’d be a danger to Dalynn? The thought turned his heart and soul inside out. If his problem had reached a level that he even appeared likely to harm his daughter—although he knew without doubt that he would die before hurting her—then he had to get help.
13
Russ stood beneath the sharp, stinging spray from the shower head, hands braced against the wall, head bowed.
“Father, I thought I could handle this thing on my own, but I’ve finally hit bottom. I’m not sure what hurts worse…admitting I have a real problem, or knowing Autumn witnessed me losing control. She’s such an incredible woman. I’m not brave enough to open my heart to her on a personal level, but I don’t want her to think I’m a bad father to Dalynn. I need Your strength and guidance to get me through the rest of this evening without humiliating myself any further, without frightening Dalynn, and without making Autumn wish she’d never met me or my precious little girl. Please, God…go with me when I step out of my room. Give me peace and wisdom to handle the conversation I know I have to have downstairs. I ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
A measure of peace calmed his spirit. Within moments, he stood with one hand on his doorknob and hauled in a deep breath. “All right, Lord, here we go…just You and me.”
He opened the door and strode to the landing, where he stopped and closed his eyes, allowing the sound of female chatter and laughter to wash over him in a soothing wave. His child’s sweet tones mixed with the deeper, throatier ones of a beautiful, desirable, incredible woman. Sweet as honey from Heaven. Smiling, he opened his eyes and hurried downstairs.
“Hey, what’s up with all this noise?” He called out as he reached the bottom stair. After his outburst earlier, they deserved a bit of warning before he crashed into their world again. “Can’t you girls cook a meal without raising an uproar?”
A brief couple of seconds followed in which all sound stopped in the house.
Russ almost couldn’t breathe…as if he’d been sucked into some awful vacuum, where he’d never hear that sweet laughter or feel the warmth of love again.
Then a small body barreled into him with the force of a mini tornado, and he sucked in a welcome breath.
“Daddy! Daddy! Autumn fixted tacos and frenchie fries for dinner. Yummy, yummy, yummy! I’m hungry. Are you hungry? Huh?”
He swept her up into his arms
and showered her little face with kisses while she shrieked with laughter. Then he looked up. His heart took a flying leap and landed at the feet of a smiling creature with hair like a fall sunset and a smile like summer sunshine.
Autumn.
Her smile didn’t seem angry or piteous, and it didn’t lack respect. No, Autumn’s smile said “welcome home,” and in that moment, Russ knew he’d be happy coming home to that smile—and to her—for a mighty long time. “Hey.” He croaked out the single word, grinned, and cleared his throat to try again. “Did I hear something about tacos?”
~*~
After dinner and a shower, Autumn read Dalynn’s favorite bedtime story, while Russ cradled his daughter in his arms. Dalynn’s laughter at the various voices Autumn used for the characters was a balm to her troubled soul.
With the little one tucked in for the night, she followed Russ downstairs, where he started a small blaze in the fireplace. After that initial unsettling loss of control when he’d first arrived home, he had gone out of his way to make the rest of the evening relaxing and fun. Still, Autumn hadn’t forgotten that moment, watching the child’s face fall and those sweet blue eyes widen with something…not fear, exactly, but something close. “Russ. We need to talk.”
“I know.” He stood and held out a hand. “But, if you don’t mind, let’s watch the sun go down first. Join me?”
She took his hand, and he led her back up the stairs and onto a small balcony off the landing. He didn’t release her hand as they stepped to the rail, using it instead to tug her close to his side.
“The evenings can get a little cool.”
The vibration of his voice against her ear sent a zip of something powerful and exciting on a circuitous route through her entire body, and her lips parted on a tiny gasp when he slipped an arm around her waist.
“Should I get you a wrap?”
“N—no, I’m f—fine.” She wanted to kick herself for stuttering like a nervous teenager. Ceci would never be so gauche.
“Good.” Without removing his arm from her waist, he positioned himself behind her. Before she knew what was happening, she was tucked against his body, wrapped in a cocoon of pure Russ. He lifted one arm just long enough to point toward the horizon, where the sun—a large, red-orange ball—sank closer and closer to the ocean. “Don’t look away. Just when you think it’ll never really go down, it’s gone.”
Despite the hiccupping rhythm of her heartbeat, Autumn found herself relaxing against him. How could she feel so at home in this man’s arms? After all the years of strengthening her determination to never be drawn into the “game” of love, here she stood…watching the sunset in the arms of a man whose touch melted her every objection and made love seem like maybe not such a bad idea after all.
The sun sank and then simply disappeared behind the dark line where the Pacific met the heavens, leaving behind a lovely golden glow in the western sky. Autumn gasped, awed by the fantastic display of nature’s splendor. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she whispered.
“Neither have I.” Russ turned her to face him, and her breath caught yet again…for an entirely different reason. “Do you know how gorgeous you are?”
“Uhm…no?” She would have liked to offer a sultry, sexy smile, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate.
Russ chuckled. “Well, I’m not sure I can find adequate words to tell you, but trust me on this, Autumn—you’re gorgeous. Your hair is the exact shade of the sky just before the sun took a dive into the ocean.”
“No way. Russ, that was totally surreal. Thank you for bringing me up to watch the sunset with you.” She was rambling and she knew it, but her tongue would not be stilled. “I can’t imagine anything more…”
His lips curved into a lopsided smile. One finger touched her bottom lip, effectively accomplishing what she hadn’t been able to. “Shh.”
She nodded, watching him move his face closer to hers. Her eyes had to be at least the size of saucers—flying saucers, to be exact. Her mind dredged up a picture of a round-eyed, red-haired gremlin, and she couldn’t quite bite back the resulting giggle.
Russ chuckled. “Well, I was thinking about kissing you, but maybe now’s not the time. Did I do something funny?”
“No. Not funny. Not at all.” She grabbed a piece of his shirt in each hand. “Now’s the time.”
“Yeah? You sure?”
She rolled her eyes and released his shirt with one hand so she could slide it behind his neck and tug his face closer. “Are you?”
“Not even close,” he said, and then he touched his lips to hers, grazing them in a slow lip-dance that stole the air from her lungs and the strength from her legs. “Lord, have mercy, woman,” he muttered, and gathered her full into his arms to deepen the kiss.
When he pulled away a moment later, Autumn swayed against him. He held her until she stood on her own strength. Then, without a word, he led her back downstairs.
They sat on the rug in front of the fireplace and Russ handed her a glass of some sparkling beverage that tickled her lips and tasted like sweet grapes. Autumn’s head rested on his shoulder. With the world so right, she had to force herself to bring up the subject that had to be discussed. “Russ…”
“I know. We need to talk about what happened earlier.”
“I just need to know you’re all right. I don’t really understand what upset you so much.”
He shook his head and then touched his lips to the top of her head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Dalynn.”
“Then what…?”
“I’ve always had a tendency toward being overly neat. Wanting everything to be in order, like the old saying, ‘a place for everything, and everything in its place.’ But it was just a preference, never a problem, until Linda left. Then it just…it ballooned. I couldn’t stand things being out of order—not where they were supposed to be, not—”
“Not in control.” Autumn said, her voice low and quiet. “I think I understand. Do you…do you mind telling me about Linda?”
“Linda.” Bitterness tinged his voice, but he didn’t hesitate. “When I met her, I thought she was the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth.”
A stab of jealousy shafted through Autumn. She quelled it an instant later, shivering at the almost audible sound of Miss Angie’s voice in her mind. “Love is not jealous.”
Russ didn’t seem to notice her little moment. “We dated in college, got married, and I brought her here, where I’ve always lived. I’d had a business here since right after high school, and Cambria’s always been home for me. But not for Linda. She hated it from the first. Cambria was never enough for her. She wanted bright lights and a big city. Fortune, fame and all the rest of the hype that goes with it.”
Pausing, he took a drink from his wine glass and said nothing for at least half a minute. Autumn waited, sensing his need to think through what needed to be said. At last, he heaved a resigned sigh and continued.
“She became pregnant pretty quickly after we got married, and I hoped being a mother would settle her, change her mind about what she wanted. It didn’t. She tried, I have to give her that, just not hard enough. When Dalynn was almost four, she walked out. Just packed up her clothes and left. Didn’t ask for anything, didn’t leave anything—except Dalynn, thank God.” His voice roughened, and he cleared his throat. “I think I would’ve lost my mind if she’d taken our daughter.”
“I’m sorry, Russ.” Autumn snuggled closer, and then reached up to cup one hand on his face. “That must’ve been so hard.”
“It was…yes, it was hard. Not because I was so crazy in love—that illusion was gone a long time before Linda was, but the dream was hard to give up. I believe in marriage. I believe that what God joins together should be together forever. I was willing to give whatever I had to give to make our marriage real, to make it right, for us and for Dalynn.” He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was flat. “But one person can’t make a marriage. It takes two peo
ple becoming one. Linda and I, we were always two people, never even remotely close to becoming one.”
“Oh, Russ.” Autumn blinked back tears. “How could she not know what she had?”
“Well, she was who she was.” He heaved a sigh. “And her decision was completely out of my control. I couldn’t make her change her mind, couldn’t make things right, couldn’t do anything to change the situation. That’s when…”
“That’s when you started obsessing over order and control.” Autumn’s college major had been psychiatry. She’d been certain she wanted a life of dissecting people’s psyches, getting into what made them tick, putting them back together when they broke—as if she could fix people like her father fixed broken timepieces. But she’d discovered she didn’t deal well with human sickness and sadness.
She’d switched to botany. Plants responded to the right kind of care in a way people did not. Sick and dying leaves and flowers most often could be healed with the right treatment and a gentle touch. But here in Cambria, she’d begun to believe that maybe something...or Someone…could fix broken people.
“Yes. That’s when my natural inclination to keep things in order became not just a preference, but an absolute must. And no matter how many times I count to ten or bite my tongue or turn and walk out of a room, I can’t seem to shake that gnawing sense of doom when things are not neat and orderly.” Russ’s arm tightened around her shoulder. “I understand if you don’t want to get involved. I’ve clearly got a problem—”
“Russ.” She broke in, not willing to hear the self-contempt in his voice. “You suffered a severe blow to your pride and your confidence. It’s understandable that you’d react by trying to control the things you have some say over. The trick is to find that line between order and obsession. There are mental exercises that can make a huge difference. If you’ll let me, I can help.”
He narrowed his gaze and hiked a dark brow. “When did you become a doctor?”
She grimaced. “That’s actually what I went to college for. I changed my major at the last possible moment.”