The Perfect Mom

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He couldn’t imagine that Kathleen would accept an apology. He’d made love to her because he couldn’t help himself, because he’d been afraid. But she wouldn’t see it that way. She would think he used her own sexuality and attraction to him to humiliate her. “Gee. Didn’t mean to,” was unlikely to be adequate recompense. He owed her his head on a platter. But chances were, she’d dump it in the garbage and carry the sack right out to the street.

  The truth, Logan had realized, was that she had been momentarily dismayed to have him show up when her ex-husband was there. That was all. She hadn’t been thrilled to introduce him to Monroe. Maybe, if he had been “somebody”—a city councilman or a partner in a law firm or a television personality—she would have been happier about saying, See how much better than you I can do? Yeah, okay, that was petty. But who wouldn’t be, under those circumstances?

  Back to pride, he realized. Not just his, but hers.

  Of all people, he ought to understand. His, he had come to understand after long, sleepless nights, had been scalded because it was already sensitive. His mother had abandoned him. On some, unnamed level, he had expected Kathleen to do the same, to see what he had always known: that he wasn’t good enough for her. If his own mother hadn’t wanted him, who would?

  He did know better. But stuff had been simmering beneath the surface without his awareness. Maybe it had when he met and fell in love with Brynn, too, but nothing had ever happened to cause the simmer to become a full, rolling boil. Or maybe, because Brynn was a gentle, humble woman, pretty to him but nothing spectacular, she hadn’t triggered his deep-rooted sense of inadequacy. He didn’t know; never would. Because she’d been stolen from him in another way.

  But he had a suspicion that he had just been waiting for Kathleen to notice that he wasn’t worthy. All it had taken to scare the crap out of him was that one look in which he had read, Oh my God, why is he here?

  And, hey, it was better to reject her than to let her hurt him more, right?

  Logan trudged down the hall to his lonely bed. Right.

  Lying between cold sheets, his arms crossed under his head, the moonlight and the wind-swayed branches of the maple outside his bedroom casting uneasy patterns on the wall, Logan came to a decision.

  He owed her an apology.

  He didn’t expect anything in return. How could he, after seeing the expression on her face when she came out of the bathroom that night? But he had to say, “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

  Then, if she wanted to slap him, he’d turn the other cheek.

  He couldn’t figure how to get her alone. He wasn’t much of a writer, or he might have put his regrets on paper. No, that wouldn’t do, anyway. He wanted her to see his face, to know that he meant it.

  Morning wouldn’t be good, when she was rushing out the door to work. Coming home tired at six in the evening wasn’t any better.

  He finally decided to hope she went out to lunch. The next day, Logan drove over to the chiropractic office where she worked and sat in wait. She never emerged.

  Ditto the next day. She must bring a bag lunch. Her money was tight; maybe she always did.

  But he was, he thought wryly, a patient man, whatever his other failings. So he went back Thursday and parked on the street, where he could see the door leading to the parking lot.

  He’d been sitting there maybe ten minutes when she came out. His heart thudded.

  Logan straightened, then got out and walked toward her. “Kathleen.”

  She stopped, her back to him, then turned so slowly, he knew she was reluctant. “Logan?”

  He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Gruffly, he said, “I…wonder if we could talk for a minute.”

  She studied him for an agonizingly long moment, as if weighing the pros and cons. He gritted his teeth. What if she wouldn’t listen?

  “Okay,” she finally said, with a tired nod. “I was heading out for lunch.”

  “I can take you. Or we can buy drive-through.”

  Kathleen nodded again and followed him to his truck.

  I’m sorry rode his tongue, wanting to jump out, but he started the engine and put the pickup in gear. If he spoke now, she might listen, say, “Too little, too late,” and hop right back out. Away from here, she was a captive listener. Maybe he could make her understand.

  His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard, his knuckles ached.

  “Any place in particular?” he asked, trying real hard to sound casual.

  “Oh…how about that bakery near Spud’s on Green Lake? It’s almost warm enough to sit at a picnic table,” she said wryly.

  Well, it wasn’t raining, which was about all he could say for the day. Still, peonies and the first roses had replaced tulips in bloom, while late rhododendrons blazoned their glorious, gaudy colors. Despite the weather, summer was near.

  He managed to park half a block away, around the corner from the bakery. When he killed the engine, neither of them moved. A pair went by on Roller-blades, on their way to the paved trail that went around Green Lake, but Logan didn’t even turn his head.

  Looking straight ahead through the windshield, he said, “I was a son-of-a-bitch. Nothing I can say is adequate, but I wanted you to know how sorry I am. I…couldn’t not make love to you when I had the chance, but even then I knew how it would feel for you. You didn’t deserve that.”

  “No. But I hurt you, and I’m sorry for that.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hands, knotted on her lap. Her head was bent, and her voice was low and husky. “Was it making love?”

  “Yeah.” He sat quiet for a moment, working up the guts to bare his soul. “I don’t know what I wanted.” The words were wrenched from him. “For you to spit in that bastard’s eye and say, ‘See? This is a better man.’”

  “You are a better man.” Kathleen lifted her head, revealing blue eyes shimmering with tears. “That’s exactly what I should have done.”

  Her contrition ripped at his heart. “No! I didn’t have anything to do with you and Emma and him. It was a bad time. So what? I overreacted.”

  She sniffed, and the first tear rolled down her cheek. “But you’re right. For just a second, I saw you through his eyes. You aren’t rich. You don’t manipulate the stock market or people’s lives every day. You work with your hands. So you aren’t worthy, in Ian’s world. I hate his world!” she said passionately. “But I’ve spent so many years letting him and all our ‘friends’ dictate what I valued, for a second I let myself be sucked in again. I swear that’s all it was! And then you were gone, and I could hardly wait to get rid of him, so I could go apologize to you.”

  “Which I refused to hear.” Logan dared to touch her cheek, catching tears with his thumb.

  “I thought…you hated me,” she whispered.

  His chest seemed to be cracking open, baring his heart to her scalpel. Shaking his head, he said rawly, “I love you. I loved you then. And I was scared.”

  “Scared?” Kathleen raised drenched, puzzled eyes to his face.

  Still rubbing his knuckle over her satin soft cheek, he said, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

  She turned her head just slightly to nuzzle his hand. A shaft of pleasure pierced him, so sweet it hurt.

  He talked then, telling her what he had realized about the aftereffects of having his mother walk out on him when he was a child.

  “And then, you’d said enough things about your father to send up a flare for me. I could tell he was just a guy who’d finished high school, like me. Earned a living. You know? And in the back of my mind I kept wondering what you saw in me.”

  “You’re kind and sexy and smart.”

  Would he ever believe that’s how she really saw him? He hoped so.

  “I’m homely and ordinary.”

  “But didn’t you just tell me your self-esteem is lacking?” She smiled through her tears, looking as beautiful as he’d ever seen her. “Obviously you’re not capable of judging you
r own worth, Mr. Carr. If I say you’re sexy, you’re sexy. Got it?”

  “You’re sure?” he asked with sudden intensity.

  He didn’t care whether he was labeled “sexy.” Well…yeah, he did, when she was doing the labeling, but that wasn’t what he needed to know. He was asking for some kind of guarantee that he wasn’t just a whim for her. This past ten days had been hell. If he had her, and then lost her again… He didn’t know if he could take it.

  “Surer than I’ve been about anything in years,” Kathleen said, letting him gaze deep into her eyes. “Although I don’t know how you can love me, with everything you know about me.”

  She sounded as if she’d spent her life defrauding senior citizens or abusing small children. Logan gave a choked laugh. “You haven’t done anything so awful. In fact, what I see is a gutsy woman who gave up one hell of a lot to protect her child. These days, you’re pretty much working two jobs, but you still have time to care about the people you live with, and even me, amazingly enough. With the stress from Emma’s illness and her anger added to the mix, I don’t know how you’ve stood up.” Letting his tone become just a little playful, he concluded, “I’m thinking, Ms. Monroe, that you aren’t so good at judging your own self-worth, either.”

  “It could be you’re right,” she admitted.

  He wrapped his hand around her nape. Damn, he wanted to kiss her. He bent his head, then stopped a hairsbreadth from her mouth at the sound of laughter.

  A gaggle of women were window-shopping. He’d parked right in front of an antique store, with a gift shop next door and a Mexican restaurant beyond that. The damn sidewalk was as busy as Times Square. Nobody was staring at the two people sitting in the pickup truck, but he didn’t like knowing they could.

  He looked the other direction to see that the path around Green Lake was clogged with bicyclists, joggers, roller bladers and mothers pushing baby carriages. When the rain stopped, Seattleites burst from cover. You’d have thought it was seventy-five degrees out there.

  “I guess this isn’t the place,” he muttered, and straightened.

  Kathleen had looked around when he did. “Probably not. Um…my house should be empty. Until Emma gets home at two.”

  “Mine is closer.” He reached for the ignition, then paused. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “For you,” she said directly. “Not food.”

  Logan groaned, started the truck, and backed out of the parking slot without hitting anything. He might not have noticed. Just like he might have pushed some speed limits on the drive to his house.

  Halfway there, Kathleen said suddenly, “Are you sure?”

  He took a hand off the wheel to grasp hers. “I have never in my life felt about anyone what I do for you.”

  “But…”

  “I loved Brynn,” he tried to explain. “But it was different. More…expected. We met and dated and reached the point where it was time to get married. I guess it was a comfortable kind of love, not one that grabs you by the throat.”

  “Comfortable,” Kathleen mused, “sounds nice.”

  He did not feel comfortable right this minute. He wanted to pull over, drop to his knees, and take her right now. His zipper was biting into his erection. “Maybe we’ll end up old, staid and comfortable. You never know.”

  He rocketed into his driveway, waiting in frustration as the garage door inched up at the speed of an old lady shuffling across a busy intersection, then jerked forward and lurched to a stop in the garage.

  The moment he killed the engine and hit the button to close the garage door behind them, he turned to her. She untangled herself from the seat belt to fall into his arms. He kissed her, and kept kissing her until they both gasped for air.

  “Are we going to get upstairs this time?” he asked hoarsely.

  She blinked and looked around, as if just remembering where they were. “I…don’t know.”

  “Comfortable lovers don’t have sex in the garage.”

  “Oh.” A tiny smile curved her mouth. “Maybe I’m not ready to settle into comfortable yet, then.”

  The sound he made was born of primal satisfaction and sheer desperation. She loved him. He couldn’t believe it, or that she was here, arching her neck so that he could unbutton her white blouse. Miracles happened.

  Maybe this wasn’t the way to celebrate one, but he needed her too badly to care. She seemed to feel the same way, because she reached the last button on his flannel shirt at the same time as he pushed her blouse from her shoulders.

  “Pretty,” he said, in a voice that cracked like an adolescent’s. The catch to her bra was on the front. He flicked it and captured the silky weight of her breasts as the cups fell away.

  She seemed preoccupied with getting his shirt off. Logan paused long enough to cooperate.

  “Thank goodness this isn’t a bucket seat,” she whispered, as he moved over to where she’d been sitting and lifted her to ride on his lap.

  Kissing her breasts, he didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure he could. If he’d thought the drive was agony, how much worse was this, her skirt hiked to her hips and her knees on each side of his hips? But, damn it, she wore pantyhose! And how the hell was he going to get out of his jeans?

  Somehow they did manage, nothing playful about the struggle. They didn’t exchange another word. There were only groans and gasps and grunts. Not until she straddled him again and eased down did he find anything approaching relief.

  Or maybe not, because this was a different kind of agony. Sweeter, but she was so tight around him he thought he might die from the pleasure. Kathleen set the pace; he couldn’t do much but buck his hips to meet her and let her carry them both down the road to heaven.

  Spent, he let his head fall back. Kathleen collapsed against him and his arms wrapped around her as if he’d never let her go. He didn’t want to. Moving held no appeal, even if her hair tickled his mouth and his butt was sticking to the vinyl seat.

  She was the one to make some small, I-might-go-somewhere movements.

  “You have to get back to work,” he said in alarm.

  Kathleen lifted her head to reveal eyes of a smoky blue and a soft, satisfied mouth. “Don’t you?”

  He thought. They gazed at each other.

  “Nah,” he said. “I’ll call.”

  “Me, too. I’m always reliable.”

  “Okay. What say we go upstairs now?” Logan suggested.

  “Um…” She looked around and came up with panty hose, probably ripped to tatters by his inexpert treatment.

  “Forget the clothes.” Although, she would need them later. “Grab ’em,” he decided.

  Clutching their clothes, they dashed upstairs. “Damn, I didn’t know the cement was so cold!” he exclaimed.

  They laughed like teenagers when they tumbled into his bed. “Hope the neighbors weren’t glancing in the front window,” Logan said, and Kathleen giggled as if she didn’t care.

  They made love again, then remembered to take turns phoning their respective workplaces to claim personal emergencies.

  When she hung up the phone, Logan propped his head on one hand. “Were they upset?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I think I’ve been in such a bad mood the past week and a half, they’re glad I’m not going to be there.”

  “Me?” His ego could use the boost. “Emma?”

  “A little of both.” Her smile glowed. “I don’t deserve to be so happy.”

  “You’re wandering into that self-esteem thing again,” Logan warned.

  “Oh, dear. Okay. I didn’t expect to be so happy. I didn’t think I ever could be.”

  “Something’s happened with Emma,” he guessed. Maybe he should have been wounded to realize that he alone wasn’t responsible for her joy, but, strangely, he wasn’t. He really liked her skinny, pretty, sad daughter.

  Kathleen lay down on her stomach, her chin on her crossed arms. He loved the sight of her hair tangled around her face and over her shoulders, her long slim back, the deliciou
s curve of her rump, her changing expressions as she talked.

  She told him about her decision to offer Emma the choice of staying with her or living with her brother Ryan, and about the awful scene that had erupted when Emma overheard her discussing the possibility with Ryan and Jo.

  “I should have talked to her first, but I guess I didn’t want to raise her hopes if Ryan and Jo weren’t willing. Anyway, she was so hurt, it scared me. I didn’t think she’d ever believe how much I love her. We were both scared. It brought things in the open that we should have said before. I think maybe we’ll be okay.”

  He stroked her back, feeling the ripple of reaction as her muscles quivered beneath his hand. “Is she going to be okay with us?”

  “Are you kidding? She chewed me out for being so stupid as to lose you.”

  “Really?” Ridiculous to be so pleased. But, hey. It was nice to know he had a fan. Especially since, if he had his way, this particular one would be his stepdaughter.

  He went still inside. He’d said, I love you. He’d been thinking wedding rings and ever after.

  What if she wasn’t?

  Kathleen had a cozy living arrangement now. She wasn’t that long out of her marriage. Now she had her own house, good friends to share it with, a budding business. Sure, Jo was marrying and moving out. Which only meant that Ginny, going on second grade, would have her own bedroom. Where did he fit in?

  “Are you listening?” She poked him right in the breast bone.

  Logan jumped. “What?”

  “You weren’t!” She was trying to look indignant, but failing, her laughing eyes giving her away. “I could tell!”

  “I’m sorry. I was thinking.” This wasn’t how he’d ever imagined proposing to a woman. You did that by candlelight. Dressed. He should keep his mouth shut. “Will you marry me?”

  Her eyes widened; the pupils expanded. It was her turn to go still. “Marry you?”

  A sick knot formed in his belly. “I love you.”