One Perfect Spring

by Irene Hannon

  And this day was probably as good as any to share his story.

  A flutter of nerves took flight in his stomach. Too bad he’d eaten that brownie. But maybe by the time he fixed her faucet, his food—and his nerves—would settle down.

  Yet forty-five minutes later, after wrestling the lime-encrusted faucet off the sink, replacing the washer, and getting everything back in working order, his stomach didn’t feel any better.

  Nor did his nerves.

  “Mom says I have to go to bed, so I came in to say good night.”

  As Haley spoke over his shoulder, he dropped the flathead screwdriver back into his toolbox and turned. Despite his apprehension, her psychedelic-patterned hot pink and neon purple sleep shirt tickled him. No shortage of color in this little girl’s life. “Did you get a lot done on your homework?”

  She grimaced. “Some, but there’s a ton more for tomorrow.”

  “The skating and brownies were worth it, though, right?”

  Her face brightened. “Yeah. Well . . . I guess I’ll see you around.”

  “I hope so.” It all depended on how Claire felt after she heard his story.

  “Mom said to tell you she’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Okay.” He closed his toolbox but fumbled the catch.

  He checked out his fingers.

  They were shaking.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” At Haley’s whispered question, he looked over at her.

  “I guess so.”

  She crept closer. “I think Mom likes you a lot.”

  He tightened his fingers around the handle of the box. “Why do you think that?”

  The little girl grinned. “’Cause she’s in the bathroom putting on lipstick and combing her hair—again.”

  A confidence boost just when he needed one.

  Thank you, God.

  “That’s nice to know. So how do you feel about your mom liking me?”

  “It’s awesome! She’s a lot happier now. Sometimes she even sings while she’s cooking dinner. And she smiles a lot more than she used to. I like you a lot too—so it’s okay if you want to hang out with us even more.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Now you better get to bed or your mom will come looking for you.”

  “Yeah. Good night.”

  As she disappeared around the corner and down the hall, he took a slow, steadying breath. He could only hope Haley was right, that her mother liked him as much as she thought.

  Because Claire was a lovely, accomplished woman who could have her pick of men if she ever decided to get back into the dating game. Men who came from normal backgrounds and weren’t carrying around a lot of ancient excess baggage. She didn’t need to settle for a guy who was still lugging around a bunch of unresolved feelings.

  But he prayed she would—for one very simple reason.

  He was finding it harder and harder to think about a future that didn’t include a certain blonde-haired schoolteacher and her charming daughter.

  19

  Keith was stowing his tools when Claire returned to the kitchen, and he sent her a weary smile.

  Of course the man was tired.

  He’d taken a couple of hard falls while slipping and sliding around a skating rink for two hours, spent another forty-five minutes with his upper body wedged under her sink in a space designed for someone the size of a two-year-old, and given those impressive biceps a workout yanking at her stubborn faucet.

  The man was either a really good sport or a glutton for punishment.

  “Sorry about that.” She gestured to the sink. “It was a much bigger job than I expected.”

  “Yeah. A common problem with home repairs. That’s why I prefer to leave them to the experts. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, you might have to replace that faucet sooner than you’d like.”

  She sighed. “The story of my life. Thanks for the temporary patch job.”

  “Not a problem.” He propped a hip against the counter—and winced.

  She sent him a sympathetic look. “A souvenir of our ice skating outing, I take it.”

  “A very colorful one—but I’ll live.” He shifted his weight, transferring the pressure to a less-bruised part of his anatomy. “Is Haley settled for the night?”

  “Depends on how you define settled. She’s in bed—but I suspect she’s already got her latest Nancy Drew book propped under the covers and is reading by penlight. It’s hard to fault a child for liking books, though.”

  “True.”

  Silence fell between them—caused by something less benign than mere fatigue, if her instincts were accurate.

  Tension began to ping in her nerve endings.

  Shoving her hands into her pockets, she swallowed. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes.”

  That was a lie.

  Keith looked more stressed than tired now, the faint web of lines at the corners of his eyes signaling strain rather than weariness.

  Panic nipped at her composure.

  She was getting bad vibes.

  Very bad vibes.

  Balling her hands into fists, she tried for a nonchalant tone. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Water would be great.”

  She busied herself with the task, retrieving a glass from the cabinet, filling it with ice, twisting the tap.

  When she turned and handed it to him, he took a long swallow, then met her gaze. “Could we sit outside for a few minutes? I’d like to talk to you about something.”

  Her breath jammed in her lungs, and her stomach bottomed out.

  He was going to tell her he didn’t want to see her again.

  God, why would you bring this man into my life, then snatch him away right when I was beginning to believe he might be destined to be part of my future?

  The Almighty didn’t answer her silent, torn-from-the-heart question—and why should he? This was her fault. She’d dumped too much on Keith about her past too soon. She’d been too prickly, too demanding, too—

  “Claire?”

  She blinked, willing the pressure behind her eyes to dissipate. “Sure. We can talk. Let me grab a sweater.”

  If he was going to break things off, there was no sense delaying the inevitable.

  As she started for the coatrack by the back door, he snagged her arm.

  “Hey.”

  She paused, forcing herself to look back.

  “I’m not walking out, okay? I just want to tell you some stuff about my background.”

  It took a few seconds for her to shift gears. To realize that not only was he not leaving, he was laying the groundwork to move forward.

  He was thinking long-term.

  All at once, her legs felt as unsteady as they did on the rink after an extended absence from skating.

  She groped for the back of a kitchen chair. Hung on. “Sorry. The last time I had a c-conversation like this, the guy left. Forever.”

  “That’s not in my plans. The leaving part, that is.”

  Meaning he had hopes for forever?

  A tiny light began to shine in a long-dark corner of her heart.

  “The only problem is, after you hear my story and realize what a flawed guy I am, you may be the one who wants to leave.” His tone and expression were grim.

  The man was seriously worried she might turn tail and run based on what he was going to share with her.

  Her first instinct was to deny that. To tell him the mere fact he was willing to trust her with his secrets guaranteed she’d stick around.

  But she held back. Her days of blind faith were over—in terms of men, at least.

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen, Keith.” She tried to be honest, to encourage without making any guarantees. “I like you very much, and I’ve been hoping you’d get to the point where you’d trust me with your history. I didn’t feel secure about moving forward until you did. So your willingness to take that step means a lot.”

  “Let’s hope you feel the same way after I’m finish
ed.” He gestured toward the front porch. “Do you want to sit out there?”

  “I moved the chairs to a safe spot on the deck. You can smell the lilacs better back there.”

  After following her to the door, he reached over her shoulder to roll it back. “At least this is still holding up. I guess if I ever find myself looking for work, I could always become a handyman.”

  He sounded half serious.

  “I thought your job at McMillan was secure.” Under the dim glow of the dusk-to-dawn light, she led him in a crisscross path to the two folding chairs on the side of the deck, dodging decaying boards.

  “Is anything?” He tested his chair, then gingerly sat.

  She studied him. “That comment doesn’t quite fit the image I have of you as a very confident, take-charge, I’m-in-control kind of guy.”

  His mouth curved, but there was no humor in his demeanor. “Just goes to show how appearances can be deceiving, doesn’t it?” A breeze whispered past, and he cocked his head, sniffing. “Is that scent the lilacs you were talking about?”

  “Yes. The bush is bowed down under the weight of the flowers. My dad says my mother would have called this a lilac spring—a profusion of blooms after a long, cold winter.”

  “Nice analogy.” He took a sip of his water. “Bitter weather giving rise to lush growth.”

  “I thought the same thing.”

  “Except harsh conditions can also stunt growth.”

  Their backs were to the light and the night was dark, leaving his face in shadows. But based on his resigned tone, it was obvious that’s what he felt his background had done to him, despite all the evidence of his success.

  From Maureen’s house next door, quiet classical music drifted through the night, the melodic harmonies soothing. Calming.

  A welcome antidote to the tension on this side of the hedge.

  Thirty seconds ticked by. Forty-five. Sixty.

  Just when she began to wonder if he’d changed his mind, he spoke.

  “It’s hard to start. I’ve never told this story to anyone.”

  Anyone?

  Her heart missed a beat, and she had to fight a sudden urge to reach over and twine her fingers with his.

  “I feel honored.”

  “I hope you still do at the end.” He took a drink of water, his throat working as he swallowed. “My pre-adoption years weren’t pretty—and the truth is, I’d prefer not to talk about them. But in the past few weeks, it’s become clear to me that all the garbage I thought I’d thrown out is still polluting my life.”

  Garbage. Polluting.

  Strong words.

  “Sometimes it helps to talk through bad stuff. I felt better after I shared my past with you.”

  “You took a risk, though. What if I hadn’t hung around?”

  He had a point.

  “Keith.” Quashing her caution, she followed her heart and covered his hand with hers, praying for the right words. “Whatever happened to you as a child may have been traumatic, but at that age, you were a victim. How could I hold that against you?”

  “It’s the longer-term effects that concern me. The first three years of a child’s life are a critical development period, and I didn’t spend them in the best environment. They had a lasting effect on me.”

  “Do you actually have memories of that time?”

  “No. But I remember the cloud of fear and anxiety that always seemed to hang over my head. And I have a vague recollection of the incidents that occurred the day I was taken from my birth mother.”

  “Taken, as in her parental rights were terminated by the court?”

  “Yeah.” Without relinquishing her hand, he set the half-empty glass of water on the deck beside him.

  “What about your birth father?”

  “She never identified him—and I don’t know a whole lot about her, either. Just what the agency passed on to my adoptive parents. She’d had brushes with the law since she was a teenager, and ended up serving time for a drug-possession felony conviction after I was removed from her custody.”

  A rustling at the edge of the wooded common ground behind her house drew his attention, and he looked toward the back of the yard.

  “Probably deer.” She peered into the darkness, but they were difficult to spot at night.

  “Very high-strung animals. Easy to spook. Hard to approach.” He turned to her. “That might describe me too.”

  “I don’t think you’re hard to approach.” She squeezed his fingers. “And if the rest is true, it sounds like you have a good excuse. Based on what I remember from my child psych classes, a lot of children who come from abusive backgrounds, whose emotional needs aren’t met, also turn out to be violent and disruptive and defiant. They tend to be impulsive and act based on instinct instead of reason. None of that describes you.”

  “I don’t have any recollection of being abused by my mother. The people she associated with—different story. The last druggie she hung around with in particular.”

  “Do you remember specifics?”

  “Mostly impressions of terror. He only hurt me once that I recall—the last night I was with my mom. From what my adoptive parents learned, he was getting his kicks heating the tines of a fork until they were superhot and burning patterns of parallel lines on my back. I have the scars as a souvenir.”

  A shudder rippled through her, and she fought back a wave of nausea.

  “Hey . . . it’s okay. There are only three or four, and they’ve faded to almost nothing.”

  No, it wasn’t okay. While scars might fade, the memory—and psychological damage—didn’t.

  “Considering all you went through, I can’t believe you turned out so normal.”

  He gave a brief, mirthless laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far. I struggled with anxiety and guilt and shame for years. I still have trouble trusting people—including myself. I’ve always had this sense that the floor’s about to drop out from under me.”

  “Did you ever get counseling?”

  “Yeah. My parents did all the right things. But even with the therapist, it was hard to talk about my past. And I had lots of problems with self-image, as many adopted kids do. We tend to feel unwanted and unworthy no matter how much love our adoptive parents give us.”

  “Because your birth mothers didn’t want you.” She didn’t need to dredge up more data from her child psych classes to understand that. It was common sense.

  “Yes. It’s hard to ever feel good enough, or worth loving, after your mother rejects you. All my life I’ve felt driven to prove myself, to show the world I have something to offer, that I’m worthy.” His voice rasped, and he picked up the glass of water. The melting ice clinked as he took a long swallow. “As you might have guessed, I’ve done a bunch of research on the topic. A lot of the emotions I’ve experienced are normal. In my case, though, the feeling of unworthiness has always been worse.”

  “Why?”

  Bowing his head, he drew a long, unsteady breath. “My birth mother tried to commit suicide. I was the only one with her at the time. It was like she couldn’t take being around me for one more minute.”

  As his revelation reverberated through the darkness, the ache in Claire’s heart deepened.

  “What happened?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “She rented a room at some fleabag motel, took an overdose, and almost died while I sat in the room watching a video until I fell asleep. The maid found me the next morning, trying to wake her up. That’s when I was taken away. Or so goes the story my adoptive parents got from the agency.”

  And here she’d thought she was the one bringing the heavy baggage to this relationship.

  But she’d been an adult when her trauma occurred, and she’d brought much of it on herself by ignoring the reservations she had about Brett and letting herself be swept away on a sea of romantic fantasies. At least her early years had been loving and happy, giving her a solid self-image that eventually reemerged from the ashes of her adult ordeal.

>   Keith, on the other hand, hadn’t had that nurturing foundation of love and stability, nor the all-important sense of safety and security, during his critical formative years. Given that kind of legacy, it was no wonder he still struggled.

  To make matters worse, the baggage that came with a normal adoption had been compounded by his mother’s attempted suicide—an act Keith viewed as the ultimate rejection. That might not be true, but Claire couldn’t argue with the fact that her need to escape whatever mess she was in appeared to have been stronger than her love for her son.

  She tried to think of some way to express how bad she felt for all he’d gone through. Came up blank.

  Instead, she scooted her chair closer and kept it simple, willing him to read what was in her heart. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too. And I’m also more unsettled than I’ve been in years. I thought I’d dealt with my issues. Then I met Maureen . . . and you . . . and everything changed. My birth mother was no college professor, but hearing Maureen’s story made me wonder about her background. What was her own upbringing like that she ended up taking drugs and having an illegitimate child? Why did she keep me for three years if she didn’t want me? And why did she abandon me in the end?”

  He set the glass back on the deck, covered their linked fingers with his free hand, and leaned close, his breath a warm whisper on her cheek.

  “As for you . . . from the moment we met, I knew you were special. I also knew I had to deal with the lingering questions about my background before things could get serious. You deserve a man who has the courage to dig into his past and try to resolve the issues that have been plaguing him for thirty years.”

  “But what can you do?”

  “I already did it—or took the first step. I signed up with the Missouri State Adoption registry. If my mother is still alive and happens to be looking for me, we’ll connect.”

  She frowned. “Given her history, the odds might not be in your favor.”

  “I know. I have no illusions about her. There’s a good chance she got back into drugs after she was released from prison. She might even be dead. But if she’s not . . . who knows? According to my parents, other than the burns on my back, I was in decent condition when the state took me. One of my only memories from those early years is sitting at a table drinking milk and eating oatmeal. I have a feeling I remember it because it was a daily ritual, which would suggest my mother did try to take care of me . . . for a while, anyway.” He exhaled and shook his head. “I have no idea what I’ll discover, but I can’t ignore the questions anymore.”