Temporary Father (Welcome To Honesty 1)

by Anna Adams

  Beth laughed, too. Unlike Jonathan Barr, he condescended kindly. “Eli and I will be over early.”

  “See you there. Maybe I’ll let Eli drop a load of cement.”

  “That’d make his day.”

  ON HER WAY HOME, Beth’s cell phone rang. With dread and hope, she read Brent’s office name and number on the screen as she pulled over. Brent himself answered her hello.

  “We have the tests,” he said. “I can put your mind at ease about physiological reasons for Eli’s problems, but we need to go the counseling route next. I have three names I can suggest. People in town, and I trust them.”

  “You’d take your child to them?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Too late, she remembered he and his wife had been trying to have children for several years. “I’m sorry, Brent….”

  “Don’t worry, Beth. It was a figure of speech. Let’s talk about Eli.”

  She dug for the small pencil and a piece of paper she’d started keeping in her pocket soon after she’d opened the lodge. The only way to keep track of guests’ favorites. “Can I have the names?”

  He read them off, along with phone numbers. “I think you and Eli should talk to all of them. See who fits best. Why don’t I let them know you’ll be calling?”

  “Thanks, Brent.”

  “I’m glad you brought him to me so early.”

  “Do you want to see him again?”

  “Not unless you think his physical health is being compromised. And of course, if he wants to talk…”

  “I may take you up on that. Let me see how he reacts to the idea of counseling.”

  “I’m always here. I’ve told the staff to put you through to me unless I’m in the middle of an emergency.”

  She’d made some bad choices in her life, but moving home to Honesty just before Eli was born hadn’t been one of them. “Thanks, Brent. You make me feel safer.”

  But only as long as they were talking. The second she hung up the phone, she became a single mother—panicking.

  THOUSANDS OF E-MAILS HAD stacked up while he’d been out. Aidan did a quick crap scan and deleted the chain mails, jokes and anything else that required a waste of his time.

  He’d have to do another cull later, but he started over at the beginning and tried to catch up on his business.

  God, it felt good. He made a mental note to reward Ron in IT with a big bonus.

  Working in the silent house took some getting used to. Instead of basking in efficient lighting, his laptop glowed in a cloudy afternoon that spread shadows across the dark wood floor and fat, plaid furniture.

  Instead of the whisper of voices and keyboards and the varied rings of cell phones up and down the halls, his only accompaniment was a grandfather clock, slowly ticking in the corner of the open dining room.

  After a while, he found himself staring at the screen, seeing nothing. Despite his need for work, he couldn’t seem to concentrate.

  That couldn’t be the heart attack. He glanced through the windows, twisting in the chair to see Van’s house. It was too early in the day for lights, but a faint glow issued from between curtains in an upstairs bedroom.

  No doubt Eli’s. Aidan stood. The garage doors were open and empty. Van had left his at the airport. Beth must be out. Mrs. Carleton would be with Eli.

  Still, he worried. He hardly knew the boy, but Eli mattered. He started for the door, but stopped himself. He was reacting to Madeline’s death, not to Eli’s behavior.

  And how many times would Beth let him butt into their lives? He was trying to persuade a woman incapable of asking for help that she could trust him. She could even imagine him walking out on a boy who needed a father figure.

  She refused to see he was trying to build a normal relationship with them both. Aidan pushed through the door and started for one of the walking trails instead of the house. He headed downhill with momentum that brought up his heart rate.

  Without warning, Beth bolted from behind a bush growing across the trail, straight into his arms.

  Even damp with sweat she was delicious to hold. He should have let go, but she stared at him, stunned, and he felt afraid.

  “What’s wrong?” Emptiness filled her eyes.

  “Nothing.” She put her hands on his shoulders. Her fingers clung so hard, she almost pinched him.

  “Beth, tell me. Is it Eli?” He didn’t mean to shake her, but at least she seemed to move after. Then he realized she’d slid her arms around him. “You’re hurt?” he asked, dreading the answer.

  “Something’s wrong with my son. Brent called with the results, and there’s no physical reason for his problems. He… It’s me—the divorce—not being able to rebuild the lodge right away.”

  “No, Beth.” He stroked her hair. Her face fit into the hollow of his throat. Her breath on his skin made him shudder, but this was not about sex. It was about caring for her. “You can’t blame Eli’s problems on anyone or anything. Who knows what made him depressed?”

  “I have to find out before something horrible happens to him, and he’s not going to want to help himself.”

  “He’s your son,” he said, kissing her temple because he needed the feel of her skin against his lips. “You shouldn’t be surprised he doesn’t want help.”

  “I’d beg for help for him.”

  The tears in her eyes belied the defiant tilt of her chin, the touch-me-not tension in her back.

  “I’ll help you.”

  That was like waving a red flag in front of her face. She tried to pull away, but he let her go only as far as his hand on her arm.

  “I’m not just talking because you’re upset,” he said. “Wise or crazy, inconvenient or not, I won’t walk away.”

  “I can’t believe you.”

  “I know.”

  “I want to.” Longing, sweet and clear in her eyes, spoke when she couldn’t, but he was strong enough to reach across her fear.

  “Beth.” He drew her arms around him. He was already kissing her when she linked her fingers behind him. The pressure of her palms in the small of his back cut his breath short.

  Wrong time. Wrong place. Definitely the wrong woman, considering she lived an hour and a half from him with a troubled son who made him desperate to work a miracle.

  But kissing Beth felt right. So right he had to pull her closer. He slid his hands into her hair, hungry for more. She tasted good. She opened her mouth. She might need no one, but she wanted him, and he had to prove he wasn’t a man who left.

  It wasn’t so much a kiss as a lesson in survival. He’d met the threat of death. He wasn’t sure he knew how to be even a figure of a father. But Beth made him forget everything except the most basic, desperate longing to be in her life.

  She broke away first, breathing harshly. His heart was trying to explode again, but in an entirely different, pleasurable way.

  “Is wanting me so wrong?” he asked.

  “Eli comes first.”

  “You think I can’t be good for him?” He held her hands in his, still at his back. “My father was always busy. I went alone to basketball games and Boy Scouts. Dad bought me a machine to pitch balls so I could learn to hit. He hired a tutor when I fell behind in history.”

  “Exactly what I don’t want for Eli.”

  At forty-two, he’d turned down offers and temptations, knowing better than to mix his life with anyone who needed time. Why did Beth and Eli give him glimpses of a different choice? “I believe I know how to be a father because I wanted one when I was Eli’s age.”

  “I must be out of my mind.” Beth wiped her mouth.

  “Getting rid of me won’t be as easy as wiping away a kiss.”

  “My son needs me. You need to think about your health and your business. For all I know, you’re helping us to appease your own guilt about your wife.”

  It was like being hit by one of those machine-pitched baseballs. She ran past him, and he let her go.

  He wanted her more than he wanted to go back to
work. And far from Eli’s demands putting him off, he worried about the kid, too.

  But was he jumping at a second chance to save someone? Could helping Eli make up for losing Madeline?

  Didn’t Beth deserve more?

  “ELI?”

  He froze and his starship got blasted all to hell. In his room, surrounded by pillows and a couple of manga, he’d been playing a game on the laptop. Comfortable for once in Uncle Van’s house.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  “Eli? Are you here?”

  His mother’s fear both pleased him and worried him. He was tired of talking and mad at her for wanting to know every thought in his head, but did she have to act so scared all the time?

  “What?”

  “Oh.” She sounded like he felt when his math teacher called off a test. “There you are. Can we talk a minute?”

  “Damn.” He hit Pause on the game. “Here I come.”

  Waiting at the bottom of the stairs, she looked different, prettier. Her eyes were softer.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  His mom was tough. She never acted like a girl, hardly wore makeup, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she rebuilt the lodge board by board with her bare hands.

  With her face red, she tried not to look at him. Then she did look, but turned away as if she couldn’t stand him seeing her.

  “Mom?”

  “I got the loan today.”

  “Wow.” He ran down the rest of the stairs and almost hugged her. Just in time to stop himself, he caught the banister and swung off it. “I’m glad.” Now that all the old house was gone, maybe he wouldn’t hate going there. It wouldn’t look a fire pit.

  “After they put the new foundation in, we’ll have the walls framed, and then the drywall goes on. After that, I’ll need help. You’re a heck of a painter.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” Painting might make up for what he’d done. He looked at a spot above her head. “When do you want me to start?”

  “Mr. Grove is going to pour the foundation tomorrow if the weather holds, and then we’ll start framing. Once the drywall is up, we can paint until we finish.”

  “I might be back at school.”

  “True, but wouldn’t it be great if we were back in the house by summer?”

  Her face looked funny again. “What else happened?”

  She looked too hard into his eyes. “Brent called.”

  Just like that, he felt all sweaty. “Do I have to go back?”

  “Not to him.” She changed again—looked like when she found out Dirk Taft was stealing his lunch money. She didn’t need armor like the guys in his video game. Swords would break when they hit her. “But he wants you to talk to some other people, and when we find someone you like, you can talk to her—or him—until you feel better.”

  “Don’t act like I’m a little kid.”

  “Sorry. I don’t know how to act about this.”

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone.” And tell he’d burned down their house? Nope.

  “I’m sorry. I want to be your friend and keep you happy, but in this case, I have to be your mother and annoy you. You have to talk to one of these people—or someone else if you don’t connect with anyone on this list.”

  And he was supposed to be happy? “You never make me do stuff I hate.” That wasn’t true. There was asparagus and a shower every night and “We can’t afford a new skateboard.”

  “I have to this time.”

  To keep from crying like a baby, he dug his fists into his eyes. As soon as he couldn’t see, his mother tried to hug him. He backed away. “Stop it.”

  “Eli, this is for your own good.”

  “You always say that. It’s a great excuse. You start thinking something about me and I have to go to the doctor.”

  “Yes,” she said, in a voice he didn’t know. “You do have to go, but maybe after you talk, they’ll say nothing’s wrong.”

  He put his fists back in his eyes. He felt a weight—like one of those cartoon guys who sensed a big piano was hanging over his head. Even he doubted one of Dr. Brent’s friends would say nothing was wrong.

  “SO WHAT ARE YOU going to do next?” Van asked over the phone that night.

  She balanced her elbow on the arm of his living room sofa. “I called and made appointments with all of them. We see one tomorrow, one the next day and the last one next Monday after Eli gets out of school.”

  “Will it work if Eli doesn’t want to go?”

  “I can’t lurk around the house, listening at his door, hoping he starts to feel better.”

  He didn’t say anything. She knew what he was thinking. Dragging Eli to a doctor wouldn’t do him any good unless he took part in getting well.

  “Did Brent have an idea what might be behind all this?”

  “No more than I do. The obvious things are plenty. He hasn’t enjoyed going to school here and that takes up most of his time. If he had more than a month left, I’d take him back to the old one.”

  “That wouldn’t have worked for either of you in morning traffic.”

  “I should have rented a house closer to the lodge.”

  “Are you kidding? Waste money when you’re trying to find more?” Van, calm and full of confidence, was just the prescription for her tonight. “Life keeps throwing obstacles at you, and you keep slugging away. Maybe this is when Eli learns to do that, too. Hey, wasn’t your appointment with Jonathan Barr today?”

  “I took the loan.” She gave him the figures. “It won’t be enough. I’m suddenly downsizing, but I guess I can build on later. They’re pouring the foundation tomorrow unless it rains.”

  “Maybe we could talk about going into business together and adding cottages. You’re land rich.”

  “Van.” She almost asked him why he wouldn’t tell her the truth about his own troubles. She stopped herself because she didn’t like when he harassed her for the truth.

  “I won’t give up on this idea,” he said. “I had plenty of time to think on the flight, and this would be a good investment.”

  “Are you serious?” An investment wasn’t the same as a handout. “Could you afford it?”

  “I’m serious, and I could find the money. The only problem I see is that we both like to take charge. Are you any good at compromise?”

  “Not according to Campbell or Eli, and I know you’re not.”

  “We’ll talk about it when I get home. Have you checked on Aidan?”

  Her throat tightened and her heart plummeted as she felt herself in his arms again. His kisses made her forget everything that mattered. She wanted only one more second of the closeness of his body against hers, his mouth drawing life from her, giving it back.

  Thank God Eli couldn’t be swept from her mind for long.

  “I see him.”

  “You sound funny.”

  She scrambled for an excuse. “Because you keep accusing me of trying to kill him. He’s fine. He also wanted to know about Eli, and I told him. He doesn’t need anything for the house.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  “Someone’s knocking at my door. I don’t know if it’s dinner showing up late, or my seven o’clock meeting.”

  “You’d better go.”

  “Let me know how Eli likes the doctors.”

  “Okay.”

  “And try to keep Mrs. Carleton from quitting.”

  “I try harder than you do. At least Eli and I pick up after ourselves.”

  “Because of guilt.”

  They hung up, laughing. She called Campbell to tell him what she was planning for their son. What a lucky night. She got his answering machine.

  According to Eli, his father had avoided her calls before, but that was okay with her. If he’d acted like nothing was wrong with Eli, she’d have lost her temper, and he’d never appreciated her swearing-like-a-stevedore side.

  She left the information and then dropped the phone on the cherry end table befor
e flopping her legs over the end of the couch.

  Then she heard the car. Starting and stopping. Despite dread almost gluing her to the chair, she ran for the garage.

  It was cold. And dark, except for the light in her car illuminating Eli, who had eyes only for the dashboard in front of him. Good God, surely he wasn’t trying to…

  Beth hit the garage door opener. “Come out of there.” Her own voice scared her. Harsh, a stranger’s, thick with terror and furious.

  Eli stared at her through the open driver’s window. As a little boy, he’d taken her keys or Campbell’s to “play drive” in the car. How many times had she and Campbell argued over the front seat of a car being an unsafe playhouse? Campbell had thought they should just hide their keys.

  Find some calm. Don’t make this worse.

  She gulped one breath after another of the musty air. Crossing that painted, pale gray floor she felt as if she were watching herself march to the car.

  She opened the door and then yanked Eli out. His shoulders felt fragile as balsa wood. She wanted to shake him and hug him so close he could never leave, and no one could get in to hurt him. And she needed to do it all at the same time. His dull eyes refused to focus on her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Thinking.”

  “You don’t think in a car with the engine on and the garage door shut.”

  He brought his hands up between them and shoved her away so that she staggered. “Let me go.” He might have been sleepwalking.

  She wanted to grab him again. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her own waist. If only someone could show her the right thing to do. “You could have killed yourself. Do I have to follow you around until we see that doctor in the morning?”

  Her accusation finally shattered the fog. She knew the second he recognized her, but the boy inside his eyes was a stranger. Her blood froze.

  “I’ll go,” he said.

  “Go where?” Was he threatening her in that terrifying monotone? He wanted to run away?

  “I need to feel normal, Mom. Nothing’s happened, but I feel sad and bad. I’m always sad and I’m usually angry, and I always feel a little afraid, deep down, like something bad’s about to happen. I’ll go to that doctor if he can make it stop.”