Daddy Next Door (Hometown Reunion)

by Ginger Chambers

  A sheet cake with the prerequisite toy bride and groom was brought to the table, and Raine’s hand and Gabe’s were positioned together on the knife. Somehow they managed to cut the first piece, then—mercifully—Maureen took over.

  Raine was smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. There were a number of people here she knew and a number of others she didn’t. One of the latter—a tall, well-built man with dark hair, dark eyes and ruggedly handsome features—caught her attention, mostly because he was watching her and Gabe so closely. He held an untouched bottle of water in his hand, and she had yet to see him smile.

  As people settled to eat their cake and chat in small groups, Gabe took Raine with him to meet the man, who’d kept apart. He was introduced as Richard Jensen.

  “Nice to meet you,” the man said as he and Raine touched hands.

  “Want some cake?” Gabe asked when he noticed his friend wasn’t holding a plate.

  “Naah. I’ll let the others fight over it.”

  “How long have they been planning this?” Gabe asked, indicating the party.

  “A couple of days. Maureen and Lynn did most of the work.”

  Gabe shook his head. “I suppose you knew about the other present, too.”

  “What other present?”

  “The trip to the Bahamas.”

  Slowly, almost begrudgingly, Richard smiled. “Oh, that.”

  “You knew!”

  “Couldn’t help knowing. The big debate in the station was whether to go in with that or get something on our own. You’re holding what we decided on.” He turned his dark gaze to Raine. “You like it?” he asked.

  Raine had the oddest feeling that he was asking her much more than that. It wouldn’t have surprised her at all if he added, You going to keep it? His alert gaze seemed to see a lot. Possibly more than she wanted anyone to know.

  She lifted her chin. “I think it’s beautiful,” she said.

  Suddenly the alarm bell rang, accompanied by a chorus of groans.

  “Wouldn’t you know it!” someone grumbled.

  But no one on duty slacked in their responsibility. Like a well-oiled machine, a small cluster of them responded to the call.

  Gabe had groaned along with everyone else. Then he yelled to one and all, “Thanks guys! This was great!” before he muttered regretfully to Raine, “Gotta go.”

  Raine nodded her understanding.

  “I wish I could have shown you around the station,” he said.

  “I’ll do it,” Richard Jensen volunteered, surprising both Raine and Gabe.

  As Raine circulated among those who remained, adding her own thanks to Gabe’s—in particular to Maureen and Lynn—she heard the powerful motor of the fire engine come to life, then the wail of its siren as it raced away.

  For a moment she wondered what it was like to ride the wind to the source of a fire, to match wits there with one of the most elemental forces in nature. Gabe was trained to do that. Yet he rarely talked about it.

  Richard moved silently into place at her side. “The chief said it’s okay if I show you around.”

  Raine nodded. The party was breaking up; it wouldn’t be impolite for her to leave. “Where to first?” she asked.

  “Since we’re up here, here. You know where the chief’s office is...” he said, starting off.

  For the next fifteen minutes Raine was shown the training room, the dayroom where the party had been held, then downstairs—the dorm where the fire fighters on duty slept at night, the secretary’s office and the high-ceilinged expanse where the fire engine and much of the equipment was housed.

  Raine looked around, puzzled. “Where’s the pole you slide down?” she asked. “Did I miss it?”

  Richard unbent enough to smile again. “We’ve never had a pole. We use the stairs.”

  Raine blinked. “But don’t all firehouses have poles? I mean, isn’t it required?”

  “Only on TV or in movies.”

  Raine smiled. “Oh.”

  “You’ll have to come back sometime and let Gabe show you the engine.”

  “Do you think it was a real fire they went to?” she asked. “Gabe says a lot of the calls you receive are false alarms.”

  “They won’t know till they get there.”

  She frowned. “It’s dangerous work, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So that part isn’t exaggerated in the media.”

  “No, they get that right.”

  Raine didn’t know whether he was being taciturn because that was the way he was or because he didn’t like her. She’d felt a distinct chill all during the tour. With no one about, she decided to meet his resistance head-on. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Richard?”

  His gaze never wavered. “I don’t know you.”

  “But you know Gabe. You and he are friends.”

  “Buddies,” Richard agreed.

  “Gabe’s my friend, too,” she claimed.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  Richard’s dark eyes narrowed. He was a few years older than Gabe and far more cynical, as if he’d seen more of the world and its harsher elements. “I don’t want to see him get hurt.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “You could do it, though.”

  “No—”

  He gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “Lady, you could hurt him just by breathing wrong.”

  “No,” Raine declared more vehemently. “I wouldn’t—”

  A group of fire fighters came straggling down the stairs to the engine area. They were laughing and talking, on their way outside.

  Maureen was among them. She veered over to Raine and handed her the silver bowl. “I thought I’d save you the trip back upstairs.”

  As Raine took the gift she was sure that Richard Jensen attributed a far more negative motive to her neglect than a simple desire to be unencumbered during the tour. “Thanks,” she said tightly. It was all she could say. If she tried to defend herself, she would only come off looking worse.

  * * *

  RAINE REFUSED MAUREEN’S offer of a ride home. She would enjoy the walk, she insisted. But she didn’t. Because along the way she realized that it wasn’t she whom people were being nice to; it was Gabe. And possibly her mother. They were the ones whose roots still ran deep in the Tyler community. Raine was merely an extension of them. For her, personally, there was still suspicion.

  On the spur of the moment she stopped off at the grocery store at the town square. Up to now Gabe had been doing most of the cooking on his days off. Tomorrow she would cook. She would make him a special treat.

  She collected a cart and started to push it up and down the aisles, choosing ingredients. She’d remembered that when they were children, Gabe had loved her mother’s stuffed chicken. Some months back, after a telephone call home for pointers, Raine had prepared the meal for Joel. He’d eaten it politely but had not been impressed. Gabe would be; Raine was sure.

  She had just left the store when Ann Tully passed her on the sidewalk. Gabe had gone back over to the woman’s house later the day they’d met, to talk to her unruly son. When he’d come home hours later, he hadn’t been very communicative about the boy’s current trouble, only expressing hope that all would be well in the end.

  “Hello,” Raine said, attempting to be friendly.

  Ann Tully started. She’d obviously been deep in thought and hadn’t seen her. As recognition grew, her eyes hardened. “Oh, it’s you,” she said flatly.

  By now Raine wished she hadn’t spoken. “Yes. How are you?” She tried again to put warmth in her voice.

  “Do you really care?” Ann retorted.

  Raine maintained her smile with difficulty. “Well, I—”

&nb
sp; “Why did you have to come back?” Ann demanded harshly. “Why couldn’t you have just stayed where you were and let everyone here...” She stopped herself, glancing at the customers going in and out of the grocery store. In deference to them she lowered her voice. “Don’t think people haven’t guessed why you did it. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. People around here like Gabe. Respect him. They’re really upset at the idea of someone like you using him.”

  “Like me?” Raine echoed, bristling.

  “You get yourself pregnant by one of your fancy men in New York, then expect—”

  Raine’s arms tightened on her grocery bag. “What makes you think the baby isn’t Gabe’s?”

  “He’s too good a man to—”

  “Good men don’t have sex?” Raine challenged. “If he asked, you wouldn’t go to bed with him?”

  “What makes you think I haven’t already?” Ann retorted.

  For some reason the idea hurt. Raine had teased Gabe about his interest in other women. She’d wondered privately if he had a special girlfriend in Tyler or any of the surrounding towns. But the thought that it might be Ann Tully stung.

  “You don’t like that a bit, do you?” the woman continued, and even though she smiled, her face was no longer pretty. “Just think how I feel.” And with that she disappeared into the store.

  Raine slowly became aware that she was drawing curious looks. Elise Fairmont, the town’s head librarian, changed direction in order to come speak to her—undoubtedly to offer some warm wishes. But Raine couldn’t stand the idea of either more kindness or more reproach. All she wanted was the relative safety of home.

  She turned without speaking and hurried away.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SOMETHING WAS WRONG again and Gabe didn’t know what. From the time Raine had gotten up that morning she’d been quieter than usual, at first speaking only when answering a direct question, then later, speaking voluntarily but not often.

  Was she ill? he wondered. Or was it the pregnancy? Either way, he wished she’d talk about it. When he’d pressed, she’d snapped at him. And from that point on, he had tried to stay mostly out of the way, using yard work as an excuse.

  Yet all the time he was working outside, he worried about her. He’d give her another week, he decided, then he was going to see to it that she made an appointment with Hank Merton. It was important for an expectant mother to be under a doctor’s care.

  “Gabe, hello,” Marge called to him as she crossed through the hedge separating the yards. “You’re busy today. If George hadn’t needed to see a patient this afternoon, I’d have pestered him until he came out and joined you. Our yard will be put to shame!”

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” Gabe murmured, grinning.

  Marge put her hands on her hips and looked around. “Your dad would be pleased. He always was particular about his yard. Where is he now? Have you heard from him lately?”

  “When he called last week he was in South Dakota. Yesterday we got a postcard saying he’d crossed into Wyoming, on his way to Yellowstone Park. He could be there by now, I guess.”

  Marge tilted her head. “Still not planning to tell him yet?”

  “Not for a while. What good would it do?”

  “Not a lot, I suppose.” She sighed.

  Gabe’s smile broadened. “Did you hear what the guys at the station did? Threw us a surprise party yesterday and gave us a present.”

  Marge didn’t smile with him. “That was nice of them.”

  “Yeah,” Gabe said. He glanced at Marge, then away again. Sometimes he forgot. Sometimes he could let himself fantasize that the marriage was real and that all the hoopla surrounding it had a purpose and wasn’t just an exercise in futility.

  “Don’t let things get too out of hand, Gabe,” Marge said soberly. “If you do, it will only be harder at the end.”

  “I’m not doing anything, Marge.”

  Her gaze remained steady. “You know what I mean.”

  Gabe moved uncomfortably. Had Marge, like his father, guessed his secret?

  “I know why you’re doing it,” she continued. “To help Raine. But you have to protect yourself. You’re the one who’s going to be living here afterward. Raine...Raine will be back in New York.”

  Gabe breathed a little easier. She hadn’t guessed.

  “I’m not trying to be overly harsh on her,” Marge continued. “You know me better than that. I love my daughter more than life itself. But I care for you, too, Gabe. And I don’t want—”

  He stopped her. “I’m a big boy, Marge. I can take care of myself.”

  A strange look passed over Marge’s face—almost a dawning suspicion—then she shook her head and glanced toward his house. “Is Raine at home?”

  “She’s there,” he said. “Only she’s a little touchy at the moment.”

  “I’ll take care,” Marge promised and went to the door.

  * * *

  RAINE STRAIGHTENED FROM closing the oven. Gabe hadn’t been inside for more than an hour and she’d had time to make the stuffing, insert it in the bird and do most of the cleaning up. He had no idea that she was preparing their evening meal.

  The familiar series of taps sounded on the back door and Raine went to answer it.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said, trying to sound chipper.

  Her mother sniffed the air. “Do I smell sage?” she asked.

  “You certainly do. I’m making stuffed chicken. I just put it in to bake.”

  “Gabe says you’re out of sorts.”

  “I was...but I’m better now.”

  “Anything in particular the cause?” Marge made herself at home by sitting at the table.

  “No,” she claimed as she went to finish with the washing up, but she knew her mother wasn’t deceived.

  “Now why don’t I believe that?” Marge murmured.

  “Would you and George like to come over for dinner tonight?” Raine asked. “We’re going to have plenty.”

  “It’s our bridge night. Raine, I can tell when something is wrong.”

  Raine positioned the last bowl in the drying rack, then turned to face her mother. “What did you come over here for, Mom?” she asked.

  “To see you. Do I have to have a special reason?”

  “No.”

  “Then?”

  Raine sighed. “I’m perfectly all right, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m fine, the baby’s fine—”

  “What you need,” her mother interrupted, “is a good, old-fashioned shopping trip. Nothing like it to pick up the spirits. Not for maternity things...you don’t need them yet. But some new clothes that will be comfortable over the next couple of months. What do you say?”

  “Now? I can’t—”

  “How about tomorrow? Say one o’clock? We never managed to have many shopping trips together when you were growing up, did we? I was always so busy at the diner. You had to do almost everything for yourself.”

  “It made me independent.”

  “Maybe too independent.”

  “One o’clock sounds great,” Raine confirmed.

  Marge smiled, the first real smile Raine had seen her give since she’d come into the house. “I fought George tooth and nail about giving up control of the diner. But he kept telling me that life is so precious we shouldn’t waste it. We’re both relatively young. There’re so many things we can do...and he was right. Now we have the best of both worlds—him with a few private patients, me going in to the diner only when I want. It’s wonderful! And it’s especially wonderful when you and I can... I wish you wouldn’t go back to New York, Raine.” The confession spilled out. “It’s so far away, and with the baby...”

  Raine’s eyelids fluttered.

  Her mother rushed on, as if an idea had ju
st occurred to her and she was pulling it together as she spoke. “You could find something to do here. Maeve Kellaway, Cecil’s niece, moved to California, and since she’s gone, there’s been no one to teach dancing to the little kids. You could do that. Tyler’s had a baby boom in the past few years. You’d have plenty of work!”

  “What about Gabe?” Raine asked.

  “What about him?” her mother replied, but Raine could tell from the way she said it that she was fully aware of the difficulty. Finally she sighed deeply and muttered, “And I just warned him to be careful.”

  Raine frowned. “You warned him? What about?”

  “About letting things get too far out of hand...about expectations exceeding reality.”

  “Whose expectations?”

  Marge waved a hand. “Everyone in town! I knew about the collection for the trip, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t say ‘no, don’t.’ And the talk. It’s dying down a bit now, I think, but not in some quarters. But then in those quarters, it will never die down. They’ll be talking about it for years to come. Especially if you and Gabe separate.”

  “And I’ll be judged the villainess,” Raine murmured. “Appropriate.”

  “No. It’s not appropriate. You aren’t bad.”

  “Some people think I am. Ann Tully told me yesterday that I shouldn’t have come back to Tyler. And Richard Jensen—”

  “Gabe’s good friend? He was nasty to you?”

  “No, just protective of Gabe. Like a lot of people.”

  Her mother sat back. “I wish I knew what to tell you.”

  “You can’t tell me anything, Mom. I’m the one who made the decision. Except...”

  “Except what?” Marge prompted.

  Raine made a show of straightening the salt and pepper shakers in their wire tray. “Are Gabe and Ann Tully seeing each other? I mean...were they?”

  “As boyfriend and girlfriend? Or rather, woman friend in this case. She’s thirty-eight. I know that for a fact.”

  Raine nodded.

  Her mother’s forehead puckered. “I don’t believe so. I’ve never heard anyone say anything. But then, I’ve been away from the diner so much lately. Is that something you’ve heard?”