Mr. Wrong (A Homespun Romance)

by Geeta Kakade

  Ignoring the sensation, Kate concentrated on the little boy in front of her, “Let me show you where to keep your lunch pail. It’s so nice and new. Who have you got on it? Big Bird? I love Sesame Street. The lunch pails go here on top of this shelf. See these baskets in the shelf? We call them cubbies. This red cubby’s yours. Your change of clothing and your book go in there. Along this wall we have hooks. This one is for your jacket but you don’t have to take it off now if you don’t want to.”

  Over the last few days, Brady had rejected all the reasons that had swept into his mind for seeing Katie. Away from her he had forced himself to face the fact that what he felt might just be a passing thing, something to do with the conjunction of the moon and the stars at that particular moment. It just wasn’t possible to feel that way about a complete stranger. He had wanted a breathing space just to test himself, to see if he still felt the same when he saw her again. So, he had kept away forcing himself to be patient while Karen and Ben visited Wee Folks’, compared it with other preschools in a ten mile radius and then decided to try it out and completed enrollment formalities.

  But when Katie had looked down at him just then, Brady had known he’d never test himself again where she was concerned. His heart seemed to double its size threatening to bound out of his body and roll under her feet. The feeling that they were parts of the same whole was uncannily there again, escalating with each second in her company and the usual musical accompaniment.

  The silvery voice was working it’s special magic on Cody as well. Brady could feel a loosening on the grip that held his hand already. She was more beautiful than ever this morning in that peach cotton jumpsuit she was wearing. The tiny brass buttons down the front seemed to be winking at Brady, issuing a sensational invitation, all their own. A quick scan had shown no sign of a ring on her left hand. So, Harold was still only a semi-finalist. Brady intended to eliminate the man’s chances altogether as soon as possible.

  What a stroke of luck that Ben and Karen had agreed preschool might be what Cody needed and liked what they’d seen of this one enough to start Cody here. Karen had brought Cody in last Tuesday for a couple of hours and had mentioned his teacher, a Miss Kate, hadn’t been there. His sister added, that twice a week she left early as she was taking classes at Cal Poly. Actually having Cody in Katie’s class was an unexpected stroke of luck.

  The little chap was staring at a huge plastic cube in the center of the room watching another child climb it and sit on top.

  “Your son?” the silvery voice sounded oddly husky.

  “No, my sister’s.”

  “I see.” Was it only his overheated imagination or was there a note of relief in the words?

  Cody had let go off his hand and taken a few steps forward.

  “Have you signed Cody in?” Kate asked, wondering why she was feeling out of her depth again. There was no mistaking the invitation in the gray eyes, this morning.

  Come. Drown in me.

  “Yes. Someone by the door showed me what to do.” His eyes tangled with hers and Kate couldn’t look away.

  “Good,” she said weakly giving in to the urge to babble, “There’s another book there for medicines in case he ever has to bring some medication to school.”

  Brady looked at her. Her nervousness, the slightly trembling hand that raked the tightly clustered curls, the eyes that flickered in her face trying to avoid the message in his, all told its own story, fanning the spark in the pit of his stomach to an all consuming flame.

  “Where are his parents?”

  Brady looked at her surprised at the question and then realized it was natural for her to wonder why they weren’t here on Cody’s first day.

  “Ben, my brother in law, is away on business. Karen, my sister, is expecting another baby and she’s having an awful time with morning sickness. She’ll pick him up at twelve.”

  Cody was climbing the cube.

  Kate watched the boy, leaving Brady free to watch her. Each auburn curl had a red highlight that seemed to emit a spark this morning. Her face was like a rose petal, soft and creamy, not clogged with make-up. That floral talc of hers drifted to him again, making him yearn for her.

  Yearn! He didn’t even know his vocabulary held that word until this minute.

  “Cody’ll be fine,” Kate said softly. “This is a good time for you to leave.”

  Before I throw myself into your arms and beg you to take me with you.

  Brady nodded reluctantly. Walking over to his nephew he said, “See you later, buddy. Mummy’s going to pick you up at twelve.”

  For an instant, it looked as if Cody might cling to him, but the little girl next to him chose that minute to ask, “Want to see the turtle?” and his nephew was diverted.

  Raising his hand to Katie, Brady left the room. He’d be stuck in commuter traffic for over an hour now, before he reached his office in Irvine and would be late for his first appointment of the day. But seeing Katie made it all worthwhile.

  On Wednesday, she found another message in the journal. “Call Cody’s Mom, Kate,” it urged, and she picked up her cell phone wondering what the little boy’s mother wanted to talk to her about.

  Cody had settled in very well and told her all about the baby in his Mommy’s stomach.

  “Miss Kate” Karen Webb said, “Thank you for returning my call. Cody just can’t stop talking about you. Both my husband and myself see a change in him though it’s only been two days. He’s more polite and actually insists on putting away his own things. He seems to set a great deal of store by what you say about tidying up and talking about what he wants instead of screaming for it. We’re so grateful.”

  “Thank you Mrs. Webb,” Kate said feeling a warm flush of praise at the other warms words seep through her.

  When Kate had started this job at the preschool she had been a little apprehensive, not quite sure how she would get on with very young children. Giving a weekly lesson at the college daycare was different from teaching a class full of three year olds on a regular basis, but she had taken to it like a bird to the air and wouldn’t change her job for any other now. This kind of feedback from a parent made it all the more worthwhile and satisfying.

  “Mrs. Kettle mentioned that you baby sit at weekends only but I was wondering if you would do me a favor.” Mrs. Webb went on, “I have an appointment at UCLA and given Los Angeles traffic we might not get back in time to pick him up. Everyone else is busy too. We were wondering if you could keep Cody for us till five, just this once. Mrs. Kettle said you have a class but it ends at three. We thought too long a day at the preschool might upset Cody. I hate to bother you like this, but I haven’t yet managed to find a babysitter he likes. If you can’t do it, that’s fine too.”

  Kate thought rapidly. She had a class from one to three on Wednesdays.

  "If he can nap in school,” she told Cody’s mother, "I can pick him up by three fifteen.”

  Mrs. Webb’s profuse thanks ringing in her ears, Karen went to her classroom.

  Wednesday afternoon she rushed back from her child development class to pick up Cody and stopped dead in the entry hall of Wee Folks. Brady was in the process of signing the little boy out.

  "Oh!” said Kate breathlessly, before she could stop herself, "I thought I was supposed to take Cody home with me.”

  "Mommy said I was to go with Miss Kate,” endorsed Cody, torn between the two of them. Uncle Brady was fun but Miss Kate was special too.

  "Really, that sister of mine!” Brady thought he did that part with just the right touch of rueful forgiveness. “Didn’t she let you know today that I could pick Cody up after all? You don’t think her condition is responsible for her absentmindedness do you?”

  His eyes reacquainted themselves with every bit of her, transmitting silent approval. Kate bit her lower lip and smiled uncertainly as a gush of nervousness swamped her system.

  "It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly, “I have a lot to do. I’ll see you tomorrow Cody.”

&n
bsp; “Wait, please. I can’t let you do this. You take Cody. As it happens I have a lot to do as well.”

  Kate hesitated, held by the eagerness in Cody’s upturned face. Brady turned to the door but didn’t go through it.

  “The only thing.....” He was getting so good at this he ought to think of getting himself a dramatic agent.

  “Yes?” prompted Kate.

  “I stopped off at the grocery store on the way here and got some ice cream and some chips. But,” he tried to look supremely noble, “It doesn’t matter. You go ahead. Unless.....”

  “Yes?” Kate knew she sounded like a parrot with a one word vocabulary but she didn’t care.

  “We could all go to the Park together.”

  “Yes, please,” said Cody.

  Kate looked at the dark eyes staring up at her, filled with earnest hopefulness, sighed and gave in.

  The Park was a huge grassy oval in the center of Jacaranda Meadows, surrounded by a tree lined concrete path ideal for walking or jogging. It was interspersed with small exercise islands where a fitness enthusiast could stop, follow the instructions on the wooden stand and do a few stretching maneuvers that required the flexibility of a contortionist and the stamina of a Samurai.

  The picnic benches and playground equipment were at one end and Cody headed straight for them. At this time of day, the place was deserted. They sat down on a bench and had the chocolate dipped vanilla bars and the chips before Cody ran to the playground equipment a few feet away.

  Kate sent urgent, telepathic commands to the child to ask her to push him on the swings but apparently on a different wavelength, Cody headed for the small slide instead.

  Left with no other choice, Kate stared at the nutritional information on the back of the packet of chips as if her life depended on memorizing it, wondering why she felt as awkward as she had during adolescence.

  “How was your day?”

  “Fine, thanks. And yours?”

  He shrugged a reply and Katie thought wildly, “Don’t panic. There’s still the weather, the Government and inflation to discuss. Plenty there to last till five.”

  Brady had rolled his shirt sleeves up to above his elbows and the well toned curve of his forearms fascinated her. She wondered how someone who worked indoors could sport such an even tan. He must spend a lot of time catching the sun when he wasn’t working. Brady had a great physique, a rugged and interesting face not strictly pretty like Harold’s perfect features, but still very nicely put together. Kate liked his easygoing manner, the warmth of his smile. He was the kind of person you could be yourself with, say anything to. And she had never yet met anyone, not even Nan, whom she had felt like this with.

  All her life, Kate had been the kind of person who lived by the maxim, `If you have a secret, tell it to your saddle bow and ride on singing. Yet here she was, wanting to tell this man things she’d thought locked away forever. Allow him into the secret places of her mind. The shrill scolding of a jay as it chased a raven away from its nest brought Kate back to the present with a start.

  Why she was sitting here analyzing herself and Brady, Kate didn’t know. The man was a complete stranger and a few meetings hadn’t changed anything. Running her fingers through her hair, she dragged her eyes from his body, fastening them desperately on Cody.

  Brady tried to figure out what was going on under that riotous mass of curls. The green eyes, looking more aqua this morning because of that blue blouse she was wearing with her black jeans, had mirrored so many nuances of emotion in the last few minutes. He’d wondered, no, hoped, they had something to do with him.

  The spell this green-eyed witch had cast on him made it difficult to concentrate on anything else. The afternoon sun filtered through the new leaves of the jacaranda they were under and picked out the shiny streaks in the red hair making him wonder if she had a temper to match.

  He watched her with the children every morning when he took Cody to school, dawdling on the pretext that his nephew needed a few moments to adjust. She was a natural with children. He’d watched them run up to her, their faces alight when they saw her, listen to her with the same courtesy she extended to them, lean against her or climb on to her lap for a cuddle without her face depicting the slightest trace of annoyance that they were mussing her hair or clothes. His Katie was all woman. All his.

  She was becoming an obsession with him that made everything else he did seem empty. Yesterday, his secretary had searched the filing cabinet for half an hour for a file he’d had on his desk all the while and today his partner had to tell him about a case twice before he got the gist of it. For someone who never let his personal life interfere with his work and was a monument of efficiency he was setting a new record for absent-mindedness. Not that he cared. Katie had taken over his life now.

  He’d had the usual amount of girlfriends, an unusual amount of dates that ranged from the ultra sophisticate to brainless sex kittens. Once or twice, he’d thought it had been for real but his lack of inclination to proceed had soon told him otherwise. Brady had just concentrated on enjoying himself, something accomplished with the greatest of ease by a man in his position, with money to spare.

  His lifestyle had made that moment of revelation when he had seen Katie, known they belonged together all the more startling, but he hadn’t fought it. Not for one single moment. All he wanted now was Katie, marriage, children, the whole works.

  It had been a real stroke of luck that he had called his mother last night and she had mentioned Karen’s plans for Cody today. Being here had meant rescheduling his last two clients but it was worth it. He had left Irvine directly after lunch, as eager as an alcoholic for his first drink of the day. He wanted to establish with Katie that they belonged together. Only then would he know peace again.

  “May I have some chips please?” Cody clambered on to the bench, kneeling beside his uncle while Kate held the packet out to him.

  “My house is over there,” Cody pointed beyond a small rising to the right, “Three people live in it.” Carefully he held up three fingers. “Mummy, Daddy and Cody. But soon there are going to be four.” He concentrated on his fingers again, trying to get four to cooperate and stand up straight.

  “You’re going to be the big brother then, aren’t you Cody?” The little fellow nodded and Kate went on, “I bet you’re going to be a real help to your Mommy once the baby comes. Babies can’t do much so she’ll be depending on you. You’re going to be pretty busy.”

  Cody stared at her, considering her words, his head angled like a robin’s watching a fat, juicy worm, before he said, “Yup!”

  There was no denying the inordinate amount of satisfaction in his tone and Kate’s eyes met Brady’s above Cody’s head in a spontaneous smile. Something combusted in Brady’s eyes and she hastily looked away, hoping she had imagined the fiery sparks in the black pupils.

  “Want to go on the swing?” offered Kate not willing to risk sitting alone with him another minute.

  Cody nodded and Brady stood up quickly, “I’ll push him. Come on buddy.”

  Kate watched them, her mind galloping off to dwell on licentious thoughts. Brady, pushing a small girl on the swing, her black braids swinging behind her. His daughter. Theirs.

  Kate sprang up as if she had just seen a deadly, black widow spider. She carried the things they had used to the trash barrel in the distance, forcing her mind back to Harold. But her mind wouldn’t cooperate. Bucking away like a headstrong mustang, it insisted on returning to its original train of thought.

  Kate decided to walk the perimeter of the park. Anything was better than sitting here at the mercy of her tormenting imagination.

  For someone who had her future all mapped out she felt terribly insecure. This thing with Brady, Kate acknowledged, was purely a physical infatuation. The kind she had been warned about, the kind that ruined lives. It had taken her by storm because she hadn’t thought she would ever feel this way about a man. What price, her low sex drive now? In the last fortnight her
mind had precipitated more scenes with Brady than she had thought herself capable of. Kate quickened her pace in an attempt to leave her thoughts behind.

  At quarter to five Brady and Cody came to her.

  “I’ve got to go now,” the former said.

  Kate was surprised. He’d given the impression he planned to stay with Cody till his parents returned and she had just begun to formulate excuses for slipping away herself.

  “I forgot I have to pick up some dry cleaning and then meet someone tonight for dinner,” he explained.

  “A woman,” Kate thought immediately and tried to picture the kind of person Brady dated.

  She didn’t know anything about Brady except for the fact he worked in a store, was Cody’s uncle and could turn a woman’s insides to papier mache with a look. Where did he live? Did he have a regular girlfriend? Did she live with him?

  “I’ll take Cody home then,” Kate said coolly, disliking the unbridled gallop her wayward mind had broken into, “His Mom left a key with me. It’s getting kind of cool here.”

  Brady wondered what had induced the cold front to move into Katie’s voice but he didn’t question it, merely dropped them off in the school parking lot.

  She watched the blue car till it was out of sight, wondering at her tremendous sense of loss.

  “Ridiculous rubbish!” Kate told herself angrily as she put Cody into the car seat his mother had dropped off earlier that day. “Stop acting like a frog in the rain when he’s around. Get a hold on yourself before it’s too late.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Friday evenings always found Kate wrung out and this one was no exception. She was looking forward to a long soak in her bathtub, dinner, some television and then bed. This was her free weekend and everything else she had to do could wait till tomorrow.

  Emerging from the preschool Kate stopped dead, her heart gunning at a terrific tempo.

  Brady straightened up from the wall grinning at her as he said, “Hi!” in that warm special way of his.