by Leanne Banks
Eli watched the truth sink in.
Fletch stared at him and took a big, shaky breath. His young face remained solemn. “I’m glad I didn’t make her sick, but I still wish she hadn’t died.”
Andie reached for Eli’s hand, and he spotted the tears falling heedlessly down her cheeks. Again, he drew comfort from her presence. “I’m sorry she died, too,” Eli murmured and held out his other hand to Fletch.
Fletch threw himself against Eli.
Closing his eyes to compose himself, Eli took a careful breath. “Let’s go inside now.”
“But won’t I make everybody get sick?”
Eli glanced at Andie and suffered again.
“Usually people only get chicken pox one time,” Andie explained. “Almost always, you can’t catch it a second time. I’ve already had it,” she said. “And I bet your dad has had chicken pox, too.”
“That’s right,” Eli said gruffly.
“What about Uncle Caleb and Uncle Ash?”
Eli smiled through his pain. “We all had it at the same time.”
Fletch gave a big sigh and snuggled against Eli. “Can I have some pie now?”
Andie gave a wry smile. “One of my promises.”
Eli stood and carried him home.
He dried off Fletch and changed him into fresh pajamas. Then the uncles gave Fletch a big welcome and regaled him with tales of their own bouts with chicken pox. After Fletch got his pie and everyone was reassured of his safety, Eli tucked his little boy into bed and came back downstairs.
While his brothers watched a video, Eli stood in the kitchen and stared into a shot glass of whiskey. He felt Andie behind him. He downed the glass. “Thanks for your help. I don’t know how long it would have taken me to find him.”
She didn’t touch him, but she stood close. “You would have found him.”
His lips twisted bitterly. “For the past four months, my little boy thought he had killed his mother.”
“He doesn’t now.”
“For four months,” he repeated, shaking his head. “Can you imagine how guilty he felt? I should have known. I should have done something.”
“Oh, Eli, you did everything you could.” He stiffened when she put her hand on his arm. “You can’t always know what’s going on in a child’s mind, especially at a time like this.”
Eli shook off her soft hand and sweet comfort. He didn’t deserve it. “I’m his father. It’s my job to know.”
“Eli,” Andie began.
“No.” He forced himself to look at her and lifted his hands. “I appreciate everything you’ve done, but we’d better call it a night.”
“I think,” she said quietly, “it would be better to talk about this.”
“I don’t.” Just the thought of talking about it turned his stomach. All Eli wanted to do was crawl into a cave. Through the thick haze of his guilt, he thought he saw a flicker of hurt in her eyes, but the expression passed so quickly he couldn’t be sure.
She knitted her fingers together. “I don’t want to leave you right now.”
He balled his fists in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. Too much defeat and confusion roiled inside him. He sucked in a painful breath and narrowed his eyes. “It’s best.”
Chapter Fifteen
Andie struggled to focus on the conversation at hand, but it was like swimming against the tide. Torn between hurt and anger that Eli had turned away from her instead of to her, she took out her energy on the weeds trying to choke the last of her Big Boy tomatoes. He had pursued her and caught her, and now it was almost as if he were pushing her away. It was enough to make her scream. As a matter of fact, she’d done just that after they’d finished another stilted conversation last night.
“I don’t see the attraction to this gardening stuff,” Samantha said as she stood over Andie. “Especially when there’s a perfectly good produce stand right down the street.”
Pushing aside her preoccupation with Eli, Andie turned her attention to Sam’s question and yanked out another weed. “It’s the idea of starting with a seed or a little plant and helping it grow, seeing it bear fruit.” Andie plucked a ripened tomato from the vine. “See?”
“Yeah,” Samantha said in a noncommittal tone. She had been trying to talk Andie into joining her for a movie. “It sounds a little like raising kids to me.”
Andie hadn’t thought of it that way, but she supposed Samantha had a point. “True. Speaking of kids, how’s your sister?”
“Better. She dumped her boyfriend, so she’s around to take care of her kids more now.” Samantha grinned. “I guess you could say I’m back in the saddle again.”
“Good for you.” Andie picked a few more of the ripe tomatoes and put them in her basket.
“You haven’t said much about your Viking explorer lately.”
Andie was more worried about Eli than she had admitted to anyone, worried and powerless to change the situation. “He’s still upset about what happened with Fletch.”
Samantha crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the maple tree. “So, he’s not calling you anymore?”
“I didn’t say that.” Andie turned on the sprinkler and quickly moved away. “He calls or sees me once a day.” They talked about nothing important for a few minutes, enough for her to know that he still felt guilty over Fletch and that he still cared about her. Enough to frustrate the dickens out of her. She brushed the dirt off her palms and picked up her basket to carry it inside. “Don’t get me started on Eli. I’m so confused I don’t know if I’m coming or going.”
Samantha followed her out of the late-afternoon sun and through the back door. “If he’s causing you this much grief, then why don’t you just dump him?”
Andie stopped midstride.
Her heart squeezed tight. She’d had her share of doubts during the past few days. She was afraid Eli would shut her out again, yet she could see that he was doing his best not to. She sensed it was his natural inclination to pull away when he was in crisis. Despite his natural inclination, he was trying to reach out to her. The fact that he was trying bound her to him.
Realization flooded her, and her doubts were squashed. “I don’t want to dump him. When he didn’t understand everything that was going on with me, he hung in there. I want to do the same for him.”
Samantha raised her eyebrows. “Sounds serious.”
“It is.” Serious enough to break her heart. She set the basket on the counter and washed her hands.
Sam sighed. “Sometimes love sucks.”
Andie chuckled, despite her worry.
“As much as it goes against my grain to encourage you, I think you should remember that your past life experience centers around French kings. A Viking explorer is a different animal.”
Wiping her hands dry, Andie looked at Sam in complete confusion. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sam gave another long-suffering sigh and leaned against the counter. “A Viking explorer requires a different approach.”
“Than a French king,” Andie concluded, wondering if she was going nuts, because Sam was starting to make sense.
“Exactly.”
“Sam, he’s really hurting. He holds himself completely responsible for Fletch’s mistaken belief that he made his mother die.”
“And part of the reason you love him is because he cares so much.”
Her heart felt bare and raw. “Yes. But it frustrates me that he keeps holding on to his guilt. It’s like he’s stuck in a dungeon.”
Sam nodded. “Which means you may have to help him get out. You may have to talk about Fletch even if he doesn’t want to. Sometimes you have to hit a man over the head with the truth.” She cocked her head to one side and thrust out her chin in characteristic defiance. “And if that doesn’t work, as my daddy says, ‘You might just have to kick a little.’”
Andie considered Sam’s advice, not the kicking part, the talking part. Mulling it over, she decided it was time for Eli to hear
another side to this story.
* * *
Eli opened the door to Andie at the same time Fletch yelled. “Da-ad, Brownie peed on the floor again.”
“I’ll be up in a minute,” he called. “Some things never change,” he muttered to himself. “Please come in. Mrs. G. left dinner for us.”
Andie smiled and he felt it clear to his gut. She wore a white sundress and smelled of apricots, and looking at her made him ache.
She kissed him full on the mouth. “I’ve missed you.
His heart swelled and his body responded. He wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said, an undertone of determination in her voice.
Eli absorbed a jab of wariness and braced himself. The last time a woman had said that to him, she’d told him she wanted a divorce. “Okay.” He hugged her tight, then released her. “Give me a minute or two. I’ve got to mop a puddle.” Then he escaped. He knew he wasn’t giving Andie what she wanted, and with a sickening sense of dread, he wondered how long she would hang on.
The past several days he’d been consumed with determining how he could have prevented Fletch’s suffering. Through it all, Andie’s words haunted him. You did everything you could. But it was difficult for Eli to accept that he couldn’t have protected his son from unnecessary pain. God, how he wanted to believe that he wasn’t a rotten father, that he wasn’t a failure because he hadn’t figured out the basis for Fletch’s fears sooner.
The sense that he’d caused irrevocable damage wouldn’t last forever, he told himself as he cleaned up the puddle. It couldn’t. Despite his chicken pox, Fletch was as happy as a clam. Eli would get past this. He had to. In the meantime, though, he didn’t want to lose Andie because of it. Determined to devote the evening to restoring his relationship with her, Eli joined Andie at the dinner table followed by Fletch.
Before he took two bites, the lab called. There was a problem with some missing data, and they needed him to come. Andie immediately offered to stay with Fletch.
Thwarted by the disruption, Eli grabbed his keys and swore under his breath. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Andie followed him to the foyer just as he was about to leave. “It shouldn’t take long,” he said. “If it gets late, you can call Mrs. G. or Mrs. Grandview.”
“Are you saying you don’t want me here when you get back?”
The uncertainty in her voice took him by surprise. “Hell, no. I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you.”
“Oh,” she said, comprehension dawning on her face. Her lips twitched, and a teasing light glinted in her eyes. “It seems to me you haven’t taken advantage of me nearly enough the past few days.”
Eli took a careful breath. Maybe things weren’t as bad as he’d thought. “Then I’ll definitely have to rectify that situation as soon as possible.” He kissed her thoroughly enough to bring a dazed expression to her eyes and a rush of heat to his own body. Reluctantly leaving, he spent the entire drive to the lab thinking about all she’d said the night Fletch had run away.
Three hours later, Eli returned home. His brain felt like scrambled eggs, but he’d located the missing data on a computer disk. He stretched to relieve the kinks in his neck.
From upstairs he heard a soft humming sound. He followed the noise to Fletch’s room and pushed open the door. The light from the hall bathed the room in a soft glow. Andie was rocking his son in the rocking chair. Fletch’s head rested on her chest, his cheeks sleep-flushed, and his hair lovingly tousled by Andie’s fingers. She was humming a lullaby.
Eli’s heart squeezed tight. The sight filled up all the empty places inside him and healed his hurt.
She glanced up and met his gaze. “Hi,” she whispered.
Eli had the odd sensation of seeing all his tomorrows in her clear brown eyes. Swallowing over a thickness in his throat, he walked to her side and stroked his little boy’s cheek. “Out like a light,” he murmured.
“He had a bad dream,” she said softly. “But he’s better now. You want to put him to bed?”
Eli nodded, and Andie brushed a soft kiss on Fletch’s cheek before he tucked his son under the covers. He looked at Fletch for a moment, absorbing a fresh sense of completeness.
Taking Andie’s hand in both of his, he led her down the hallway to his bedroom. “What was the bad dream?”
She shrugged. “Something about cavity monsters. I told him to brush his teeth again, then rocked him for a while.”
Flicking on the lamp, Eli shook his head. “Cavity monsters.”
“Before he went to sleep, he told me not to worry.” She gently tugged his hand to make sure she had his attention. “You’d be back by morning.”
He met her gaze. “He really trusts me.”
She nodded. “He really does. I do, too. One of the reasons I love you,” she said, looking like a woman with a mission, “is because you’re such a good father to Fletch.”
Eli rubbed the back of his neck. “Right now, I’m not sure— “
Andie stopped his protest with another kiss, then pulled slightly away. “I want you to be sure. But for now, maybe you should just listen.”
Eli blinked. He felt as if she’d shifted from second gear to fourth and skipped third. “Listen?”
Her gaze earnest and intent, Andie nodded. “To the truth. The truth is Fletch is one happy, well-loved little boy. He’s crazy about his father.”
Torn between hope and an ebbing sense of failure, he sighed. He wondered how he’d lived his whole life without her. “Andie, I—”
She pressed her finger over his mouth. “Not finished. The truth is you’ve helped him adjust under incredibly difficult circumstances.”
“Maybe,” he conceded, “but—”
She gently pinched his lips closed. “The truth is, as soon as you found out about his mistaken belief that he’d caused his mother’s death, you immediately took care of it. Immediately,” she emphasized.
Eli stared at her, and his protests stalled like a rusted engine. His sweet Andie had turned into a bully, a wall breaker.
Her healing words seeped through a crack in his heart, soothing his private agony.
She bit her lip. “You once said you needed me to believe you,” she whispered. “Now I’m asking the same of you.”
Something broke free inside him. “I do,” Eli said and drew her closer. “I got stuck on the guilt, but you shook me loose. I don’t want to do without you anymore, Andie. Next door is too far away. Sometimes the next room is too far away. I love you so much it’s scary.” He felt her tremble and was amazed that she felt the same way about him.
“Is there any way,” he asked in a husky voice he couldn’t do a damn thing about, “I could talk you into marrying a guy the neighbors still call Dr. Frankenstein?”
“Yes.” She slipped her arms around his neck and met his gaze head-on with her honest brown eyes. “I don’t really understand it. You’re a genius and I’m not, but for some strange reason, we’re right—together.”
His heart full, he took her mouth in a kiss that gave and took, but mostly promised. He’d given her his heart and she would keep it safe, just as he would protect hers with his life. She was soft and sweet, and she was his.
He swept her into his arms and laid her on his big bed where she belonged. “I have another theory about why we should be together,” he told her as he lay beside her. “It involves genes.”
“Oh, really?”
Eli grinned at her skeptical tone and fingered one of the straps of her sundress. The pretty white garment would be history soon. “Really. I have a faulty gene, and faulty genes can cause a multitude of problems.”
She looked at him curiously, her lips twitching. “Is that so? And exactly what do I do for your faulty gene?”
“You have an enzyme that makes my faulty gene function properly.”
Her smile broadened, but her eyes grew soft as if she knew he was telling that he needed her
desperately. “Well, that’s amazing. And here I just thought I loved you.”
* * * * *
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8823-2
A Date with Dr. Frankenstein
Copyright © 1995 by Leanne Banks
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Letter to Reader
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four