Babysitter Bear

by Zoe Chant

  Dan laid a hand on her arm, very gently. She realized she was twisting the dish towel and made herself put it down.

  "Paula," he said, his voice just as gentle as the touch. "You don't have to pretend that you were never in a relationship before. He was part of your life. He gave you two beautiful children." He took a breath. "I'm not going to hide that I wish I could bash his face in for hurting you, but I don't want you to feel like you have to walk on eggshells around me. I'm not jealous of a man who left you years ago." He smiled a little. "Well, not that jealous. I mostly just wish I'd had that time with you instead."

  Paula was able to muster a smile herself. "Me too. But it was more that I left him. He—do you really want to talk about this?"

  "Only if you do. But there's no part of your life that I want you to have to hide," he said sincerely. "If you want to talk, I'll listen, and I won't judge you. What happened?"

  Paula blew out a breath and turned away. It was easier if she wasn't looking at him. Outside the windows it was getting dark. She used the window like a mirror and started twisting up her hair, which was starting to slip out of the messy bun she'd put it up in before leaving the house.

  "We started dating in college," she said. "I was fresh from Autumn Grove, off to see the world. I didn't know what I wanted to do with myself yet, so I was just getting a general arts degree—that I never finished, by the way. I quit when Austin came along."

  She pulled out some pins and held them in her mouth while she pinned up the rest of it, talking around them. Dan was a blur behind her in the window's reflection, but she could feel his body heat. He was like a wall at her back, offering warm and nonjudgmental support.

  "Terry was a business major. He was going into sales. Everything was so ... bright," she said bitterly, around the pins. "So hopeful. So exciting. We didn't have any money, but we shared a one-room apartment and lived on ramen and big dreams. When he graduated, he went to work for a major firm, and then went into business for himself. I worked with him, took night classes in accounting and did the office books. We still had to scrape to make ends meet, but it was idyllic. We didn't have much, but we had each other, and then baby Austin, and then Lissy. And yet ..."

  She frowned, looking at herself in the window's crude mirror as she held her twisted-together ponytail with one hand and slipped in the pins with the other.

  "There was always something," she said slowly. "Things between us that I didn't understand. We had fights. I always got the impression he was keeping things from me. Holding something back, even when things were good."

  "What was it?" Dan asked quietly.

  Paula shook her head. She spat a pin into her hand and stabbed it into her bun.

  "I don't know. I never did find out. That's the worst part, you know? I kept doubting myself and wondering if I was making it all up. But I wasn't wrong. He was weirdly evasive about his past, never took me to meet his parents. He said he was an orphan, but then sometimes he'd slip up and say something that made me think his parents might still be alive. There were late nights he couldn't account for, strange debits on our books. I went through all the possibilities from the likely to the completely insane, everything from a gambling addiction or mob debt, to witness protection, to Terry having a whole family hidden away somewhere, like you read about sometimes."

  "What happened?"

  Paula looked away from her face in the window, unable even to meet her own gaze, and instead looked down at her hands, clutched on the counter with a stray pin gripped in one of them.

  "I finally confronted him, after he disappeared for two days on what he told me was a business trip. Except it wasn't. None of it checked out. I begged him to tell me where he'd been and what he was hiding from me. And he—he finally broke a little. He stopped denying it and just told me he couldn't. And when I pushed him to at least tell me why, he changed it to telling me he wouldn't." Her mouth twisted. "And that was it. We separated a week later. I couldn't keep working with him at the business, not even knowing what he was using it for when it could be a mob front for all I knew.

  "I didn't have any work references besides Terry and my parents. I was working two minimum-wage jobs to try to pay rent on an apartment for me and the kids. Lissy was just a baby and Austin was only a few years older. There was no way I could give them a good life on what I could afford, even with child support from Terry. I did the only thing I could do, and moved back home to work at the diner."

  She sniffed, wiping her hand across her eyes, and then was startled by the feeling of Dan's arms closing around her. One was fully flesh and blood, the other plastic from halfway above the elbow, but they already felt like a comfortable haven that she never wanted to leave.

  "Paula," Dan said into her hair. "You have to know—not a single part of that is your fault, right?"

  "But there were so many signs," she said helplessly into his chest. "I should have seen it. I can't believe I didn't. It was like a whole checklist of warning signs that I never noticed because I—because I—"

  "Because you believed that your husband, the man you loved, the man you promised to honor and cherish, would never lie to you about anything important? Paula, that doesn't make you weak or gullible. It makes you a good person who was keeping up your end of the bargain that he broke."

  She gave a shuddering sob. No one had ever put it like that before. Her family had welcomed her back, but there had still been an implied sense of judgment that she had made mistakes.

  But they weren't MY mistakes, she thought, pressing her face into Dan's chest. Somehow it was just easy to believe him; all her attempts to beat up on herself fell apart against the rock of his belief in her. Because he was right, wasn't he? She had treated Terry as if he was as responsible and loving and dependable as a good husband should be. She didn't want to nag him or question the places he went or the things he spent money on. It had all come back to bite her in the end, but—

  But if I had it to do all over again, would I do it differently?

  Would she be suspicious of her husband's every purchase, check up on him, treat him like a pathological liar?

  No, she thought, and the realization was like a huge weight lifting off her. No, I'd do it all just the same. Well, maybe I'd tell college-age me not to marry the jerk—

  But no, even that would have meant Austin and Lissy would never have been born, and she wouldn't want that for anything in the world.

  I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not the one who fucked up. He did. And I'm not going to spend the rest of my life paying for his mistakes.

  She became aware that Dan was slowly and gently petting her hair. Her recently redone messy bun was probably getting wrecked again, but right now, that felt like the least important thing in the world.

  Finally she drew back and wiped her eyes. "Thank you," she said in a small voice.

  "Everybody needs a shoulder to cry on now and then." He leaned down a little, so that he could look her directly in the eyes; he really was tall. "Are you okay?"

  Paula nodded. Then, steadier, she said, "I haven't had a decent shoulder to cry on in a long time. You have a good one."

  She patted his shoulder, meaning it in a playful way, but somehow her thumb lingered around his collarbone, brushing across the soft skin of his neck. And it wasn't at all playful.

  His gaze into her eyes turned heated. When he leaned forward, she was already stretching up eagerly to meet his lips with hers.

  She had never experienced kisses like Dan's. It wasn't that he was somehow fantastically skilled at it; it was that his kisses lit her up like a bonfire. Every time their lips closed together, the world went away. There was nothing else on earth but Dan's soft lips moving on hers, his tongue teasing against her lips, his hand in her hair and her arms around his waist.

  When they finally broke apart, he said breathlessly, "Is it just me or is that really nice?"

  "I'm not sure if nice is the word I'd use," she said, running her hands lightly over his well-muscled back.
God, he felt good.

  "What word would you use?" he murmured, looking down into her eyes.

  "Fantastic. Wonderful. Amazing. Toe-curling."

  "Are they curled?" he asked teasingly, looking down at her sock feet. Since they'd all left their boots by the door, the whole family was sock-footed, her pink and black socks next to Dan's gray ones.

  "Yep, see?" She curled her toes.

  Dan laughed, and her whole body thrilled to the sound of it. When they were pressed this close, she could feel it vibrating through him.

  "You know," he said, "unless you want to stand in the kitchen all evening, we could go somewhere a little less ..."

  "Kitcheny?"

  "Yeah. That." He looked over his shoulder at a burst of childish laughter from the living room. "Unfortunately it looks like the living room couch is claimed, and I don't know how easy it's going to be to peel them off the game so we can watch a movie."

  "It's a big house." She hooked her fingers through his belt loops. "There must be somewhere else we could go."

  Dan grinned. "Ms. DeWitt, do you want to come back and see my room?"

  Paula giggled. "I don't know, are you allowed to have girls in your room?"

  Dan winked at her. "I won't tell if you won't."

  They peeked in on the kids in the living room, who seemed thoroughly engrossed in their game, and then went quietly behind the stairs to the guest bedroom.

  "It's not very big," Dan said, sounding embarrassed, as he opened the door.

  It wasn't, but it was also somehow very him, even if it was obviously a room in someone else's house, full of someone else's things. It was very tidy, the bed made with military precision—which made sense, she supposed—and covered in a bright quilt. The walls were lined with bookshelves full of fat, tempting-looking paperbacks and discount-bin hardcovers, books that wanted to be taken down and read. There was a small chest-of-drawers and a cedar chest, which took up enough of the floor space that they had to make their way carefully around the furniture to the bed, which was the only place to sit.

  "This is cozy," Paula said. She planted her hands on the quilt, leaned her shoulder against Dan's, and tried not to think about how much more cozy it would be if they were both underneath the quilt ... naked ... but no, not with the kids right out in the living room. They had left the door open, as if to complete the illusion of innocent teenage dating.

  "Did you ever bring boys back to your room?" Dan asked. He was clearly on the exact same wavelength; it was getting to be a habit.

  "Of course I did. Door open and a three-foot distance at all times, at least according to my dad's rules." She grinned. "We broke that all the time, of course. But I never went past first base like that."

  "I never understood all of that anyway. First, second, third base, what's all of that mean anyway?"

  Paula feigned shock. "A sports metaphor you don't understand? Aren't they going to take your guy license away?"

  Dan laughed. "I understand baseball just fine. Mixing baseball with sex is just weird."

  He rolled his shoulder, grimacing. Paula, who had been slowly oozing back on the bed, sat up again.

  "Do you need to take it off?" she asked, looking at the straps over his shoulder. It did look uncomfortable to wear all day.

  Dan hesitated. "I usually take it off at the end of the day."

  "You can take it off around me. I don't mind. In fact ..." She gave him a warm smile, as encouraging as she knew how. "If you wouldn't mind me seeing, I would be interested in knowing how it goes on and off. But only if you don't mind."

  "I don't mind," he said quietly.

  He was only wearing a T-shirt, so the straps were exposed. Taking it off was simple and fast. He raised his arm and, with his other hand, pulled the entire thing off over his head, straps and arm and all, just like taking off a T-shirt. It slipped easily off the end of his stump, leaving the stump covered in a white cotton tube that resembled a sock.

  "Whoa," Paula said, impressed. "I thought it would be a lot more complicated."

  "Nah. Like I said, this is a really simple device. It's what I like about it." He hesitated again, but then she saw his face grow firmly resolved. He rolled down the socklike thing and slipped it off, exposing the soft, scar-laced end of the stump.

  "What's that for?" Paula asked. "Oh, it's to cushion it."

  "Yeah. Keeps it from chafing." He showed it to her, a plain white cotton tube. "They're called socks."

  "I was just thinking that it looked like one."

  "It's not exactly a sock like you'd put on your foot. But if you needed to, you could probably use one. It's pretty similar."

  "And that's it?"

  "That's it."

  He leaned over to lay the arm on top of the cedar chest, and draped the sock over the side.

  Paula lifted a hand. "Do you mind if I ..."

  She didn't finish, but he clearly knew what she was asking, and held out the stump.

  It wasn't unpleasant or even strange. His arm ended halfway between the elbow and shoulder. There was some scarring around the end, but when Paula laid a hand on the skin just above it, she found that it was smooth and normal. His shoulder on that side wasn't any less muscular than the other, although his biceps was a little less impressive.

  She ran her hand up his arm, slipping it under the sleeve of his T-shirt, reveling in the feeling of his skin against hers. Then she slid her hand down the arm, hesitating as she approached the scarred area. "Does it hurt?"

  "Not really." He was watching her hand, his head turned to the side to follow it with his gaze. "I rub lotion on it all the time. It's a little sensitive, but that's not a bad thing."

  She carefully ran her hand over the end. It was actually very soft. The skin puckered slightly when the muscles of his arm flexed.

  "Do you mind ..." She hesitated, feeling her way around the question she wanted to ask. "I was wondering—"

  "What happened to me?"

  Paula nodded. "Only if you don't mind talking about it. I don't want to push you into anything."

  "You told me about your ex. I could tell that was hard for you." He turned to meet her eyes, his gaze steady and serious. "And honestly, this isn't actually that bad for me to talk about. I kinda got used to it, talking to shrinks at the VA."

  "It happened in the military?"

  He nodded. "On deployment. It's really not that much of a story. I mean, it's not a huge exciting thing, nothing like you might be thinking. It wasn't in combat. It was more of a dumb accident."

  "You really don't need to tell me unless you want to."

  "I don't mind," he said gently. He reached around and brushed a curl out of her eyes. "It was a vehicle crash. Just an ordinary thing, like might have happened on a wet road here in the States. The vehicle in front of me in the convoy had to stop suddenly, and I rammed a Humvee up his ass—er, rear-ended him, that is. It shouldn't have done more than shake me up, but the road was really bad, and when the guy behind me hit me too, the Humvee ran its two side tires up on a pile of rubble and flipped. I was trapped in the wreckage."

  His voice had gone tight. She smoothed a hand over his shoulder and chest, ran it up the back of his neck.

  "Was anyone else hurt?" she asked quietly.

  "Nah, just me. Some bruises for the other guys, that's all. But my arm was crushed. It took them hours to cut me out, and then it was straight to the hospital, and ..." He drew a shaky breath. "Yeah. So there's my big damn hero combat story."

  Paula kissed the corner of his mouth lightly. She could tell he was underplaying it, that the story was more painful for him than he wanted to talk about. But she was honored that he felt comfortable enough to tell her.

  "You could tell people that you were hurt saving a bunch of kids," she said. "No, orphans. And kittens. Orphans with kittens."

  Dan laughed quietly. There was a hitch in the middle of it, but it sounded sincere.

  She snuggled closer to him. "No, seriously, I think you were brave. Knowing
you, I bet you did everything you could to avoid that accident and make sure no one else got hurt. Sometimes things like that just happen to people."

  Dan didn't answer immediately, but she could feel him playing with her hair, stroking his hand through the curls. After a moment he said, "You know, a lot more vets are wounded like that than in actual combat. Just dumb accidents. The kind of thing that you get when you have a whole lot of people running around on no sleep, especially when half of them are 19-year-old kids."

  "How old were you then?" she asked.

  "Early thirties. Practically a geezer by military standards. I was a supply specialist."

  "That sounds important."

  "Well, if you ask anyone in my department, it's obviously the most important job you can have. After all, how far is anyone going to get without food, boots, or functional vehicles?"

  "Right?"

  Dan laughed, and for a while they just lay on the bed, cuddled and kissed, and swapped stories. He told her tall tales about the military that she genuinely couldn't tell if he was making up or at least exaggerating for effect, although he swore up and down they were true, like the guy who used to go out every time he could get off post to prospect for precious gemstones, and ended up filling his entire shipping allowance back to the States with what basically amounted to worthless gravel. ("Though he claimed it was uncut diamonds," Dan said.)

  She talked about the diner, about serially nonpaying customers and the old guys who came in every Saturday morning and played checkers for hours at a corner table.

  His presence was intoxicating, but the open door acted as a restraining influence. (Damn it, she thought, Dad was right.) They could keep track of the kids just by listening to the noise from the living room. She would have loved to rip his clothes off; just inhaling the scent of his skin made her dizzy. But there was also something special about taking it slow, learning about each other's lives as they learned each other's bodies. Between stories, they kissed, slow languid necking that sent her right back to those heady teenage days, when the world of dating was brand new and every gentle touch felt like a revelation.