Temporary Father (Welcome To Honesty 1)

by Anna Adams

  “Cunning of you to trick me.” She drank long and deep of her water. “I make mistakes, too, but Madeline’s on his mind, and Eli’s fragile. I can’t ask him to consider Aidan as—anything—only to have him leave.”

  Van considered his answer. Finally, he shrugged in surrender. “What are we doing for dinner?”

  “Wishing Mrs. Carleton lived here full time.” Beth opened the fridge. “She usually leaves something for me.” Sure enough, a plate of sandwiches nestled in plastic wrap. “I would marry her,” she said. “She thinks of everything and she wouldn’t know how to shade the truth if you gave her directions.”

  “You’re calling Aidan a liar? Not even his worst business adversaries accuse him of lying.”

  “I don’t mean that. I just can’t know how he really feels, and he acts as if Madeline still matters.” She braced her hands on her hips, no longer feeling strong, so she tried to look it. “I’m not hungry. I’m going to have a shower.”

  “I saw him loading his car when I got home. He’s started moving his things back to D.C.”

  Beth turned to the nearest window that overlooked the cottage. Breathing suddenly took all her energy. She had to will her feet to the floor, or she’d have run down the hill.

  And say what?

  “Don’t go. I love you. I don’t care that my son resents you. I’m not really afraid because I care this much about a man I’ve only known a month. I’m not positive you still love Madeline.”

  “Beth?” Van said, “You’re from different worlds. He’s always chased business. He has a tragic past that colors the way he looks at you and Eli. You’re happy in naive little Honesty, and he travels more than he’s home.”

  “See? You’ve thought of more reasons than I did.”

  He nodded. “But maybe you’re more distrustful of Aidan than you should be. I love Eli as if he were my own, but I can see he’ll learn to love Aidan because Aidan won’t let him down.”

  “You’re arguing for him now?”

  “I’m suggesting you don’t let him go without talking to him about what you really want.”

  “We’ve said it all. He’s building a home for people with trouble like Madeline’s. His therapist told him to do it for his health’s sake. And I think, instinctively, he wanted to build another little home here. Dragging Eli and me back from that tree with the broken branch signed the dotted line on his bill of good health.”

  “He told you that?”

  “He didn’t have to. He thrives on good works, and Eli and I needed a few.”

  “What if all your worst fears and mine are true, but he’s a nice guy, and he honestly cares for you and Eli?”

  “What if time goes by and he learns to live with what happened—while he’s living with Eli and me. He cares about us—fine, but one day, a woman walks into his office or bumps into him at the lodge—and he falls in love. Truly in love—she’s not a Band-Aid over the past.”

  “Have a little faith in yourself. You’re no one’s idea of a Band-Aid.”

  AIDAN HAD TWO THINGS to do on his last day in Honesty. First he had to thank Van for the cottage and second, he had to deliver a fishing pole he’d ordered for Eli.

  It sat beside his laptop case, but he kept circling it. He’d ordered it the first night he went to the lodge, coming home with that glittering lake on his mind. He’d seen himself and Eli fishing off the deck, as he’d done with his grandfather.

  Eli would prefer a skateboard. Aidan should toss the fishing pole or better yet, donate it to Goodwill. Maybe he’d ask Van to.

  Just as well Beth’s car wasn’t in the garage when he walked up to the house.

  Van came out. “They’re at the lodge.”

  “I came to say thanks.” Two months had passed since he’d come to Honesty. He could have gone home, back to work, at least a month ago. Instead, he’d kept returning to Honesty and the people he loved most.

  He wasn’t using Beth to bind his own wounds.

  “You’re welcome.” Van shook his hand. “Use it any time. Nice pole. Is that for Eli?”

  “Yeah, but I think he’d rather have a skateboard.”

  “I ordered that kit he wants,” Van said. “But he likes to fish, too. His pole burned in the fire.”

  “He had one?”

  “Living a few hundred feet from that lake? He learned to fish before he could walk.”

  “Would you give it to him? Tell him I’m sorry I missed him.”

  “The lodge is on your way out of town.”

  “The last time I saw Eli he told me to leave.”

  “He’s better,” Van said. “Not well yet, but better. Give him a chance to apologize.”

  “He doesn’t have to.” Aidan set the fishing pole against the porch rail.

  Van picked it up. He tilted the box as if he were aiming a gun, making a big deal of reading the small print. “My sister’s been sad.”

  “She’ll be better when Eli is.”

  “That’s the funny thing. That trip up to the mountains helped Eli, but Beth looks as if her life has gone wrong. And usually she’s looking toward the cottage when I think that.”

  “She doesn’t believe me.”

  “She’ll kill me for doing this, but stop by the lodge. Talk to them.” Van held out the pole.

  Aidan hesitated. How many times had he run to her rescue like the nut she apparently thought he was? Shouldn’t he get out of her life and assume he’d learn to care for someone else?

  “If I loved a woman, I wouldn’t wait for everything to be right. I’d take action.”

  Aidan had just about had it with this family. Unless he was mistaken, Van had just called him a lazy coward, and Beth, whom he loved with everything that was best in him, assumed taking care of her was an act to ease his conscience, and that he really loved his former wife.

  He took the fishing pole, listing overnight delivery services in his head.

  “See you around,” he said. “Thanks again for everything.”

  “Maybe I went one piece of advice too far.” Van stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Have Beth call me if they’re not coming home for dinner. Mrs. Carleton hates cooking for three if she only has to feed one.”

  Aidan had no laugh to spare for a Mrs. Carleton joke. He walked down the hill, tossed the pole on top of his laptop in the car’s back seat and went back to lock the cottage door and drop the key in the letter box.

  Driving through Honesty, he was surprised by a feeling of wistfulness. The trees had filled out so that many of the shop roofs were hard to see.

  Trey Lockwood nodded at him, exiting the hardware store with a length of chain in his hands. A couple more of Beth’s friends nodded as Aidan drove by.

  He passed the park. The memory of Beth standing at the picket fence, and then lying beneath him in his bed later that night nearly choked him. Memories too sweet to be real. Need and passion too mutual and potent to ignore.

  He tried. How many times could he beg Beth to turn him down? He saw the lodge road and told himself to drive by. Drive on by.

  At the last minute, his hands turned the wheel. The car skidded into her lane. Swearing, he kept going. He didn’t know when to shut up and go home.

  He met Eli on the road. The boy, splattered with paint, was trying to ride a skateboard in the grass. It stuck so suddenly, he fell over.

  Aidan stopped and let down his window. Only Beth’s car sat in front of the house. Eli glanced back at it. Then he stood, dusting off his jeans.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  Still mad. “How’s Lucy?”

  “Fine. She’s in the woods, chasing things. She won’t get hurt here.” Where Aidan didn’t belong.

  “I have something for you.”

  Eli brightened. “Are you leaving?”

  “It’s more than time.” He’d hoped Eli might have been annoyed in the hospital because he didn’t want any guy around after Campbell, but treatment hadn’t changed anything. Aidan got out and opened the back do
or.

  Eli stayed where he was. Inwardly, Aidan sighed. No indignity too large. He carried the fishing rod into the grass. To his surprise, Eli’s mouth formed an O when he held out the pole.

  “That’s top of the line. I can’t take that.”

  “I ordered it before you were angry with me. My grandfather gave me one like it when I was your age.”

  “You fish?” Eli unbent.

  “When I get the chance.” Aidan offered the pole again. “Not often in the past few years.”

  “That’s how my mom would have to live if she liked you.”

  “What?”

  “She’d have to give up stuff she likes. Living here, canoeing on the lake. Friends, Uncle Van.”

  “I care about her, Eli.”

  “So did my dad.”

  That tore it. “I’m not like him. I’d never ask your mom to give up anything.” He got down to what he suspected Eli really feared. “Just like I’d never ask you to. I live in D.C. I’m just getting to know you and your mother, and I like you both. It doesn’t mean I’d ask you to move to Washington.”

  “But eventually… And then, when you got tired of us, there we’d be, stuck.”

  “I don’t get tired easy,” Aidan said. “And I know how much you like being with your friends. I don’t think I’m more important than you.”

  “My dad does. Is he so different from other guys?”

  “He’s different from me.”

  Eli stared at him, torn between taking up for his father, and the sad truth he’d so recently learned. Finally, he took the fishing pole. “Thanks. My mom may make me give it back.”

  “I’ll tell her I want you to have it.”

  “Eli?”

  Aidan looked toward the house, happy at the sound of Beth’s voice.

  “How much do you like her?” Eli asked.

  “This is a funny conversation to have with a young man your age.” Eli stopped looking young. The old man who’d looked out of his eyes during that first week came back. “I love her,” Aidan said.

  Eli froze.

  “It’s the truth,” Aidan said, “and it’s what I’m going to tell your mother. I want you to be my family.”

  He turned his head and shaded his eyes against the sun. Beth looked back, also beneath the shade of her hand. Aidan started up the hill.

  Beth came down to meet him, as if she didn’t want him in the house taking shape behind her. “Where’s Eli going?”

  “I brought him a fishing rod.” As they watched he walked down to the dock. Without looking back.

  “What did you say to him? Is he upset?”

  “I told him I love you.”

  “What?” He might have suggested she leap off that dock.

  “Not what you wanted to hear?” he asked.

  “Why would you—”

  “Someone suggested I take action.” He took her hand. “Do you want to go inside?”

  “I don’t ever want to remember you inside my house.”

  “Because I matter to you,” he said. “I’m in the same sad shape where you two are concerned. Only I’m willing to take the chance. I believe we can love each other and no one will get hurt.”

  “I’m not worried about—”

  “You are,” he said, realizing it had to be true even as he spoke. “I thought you were the bravest woman I knew because you could laugh even when things went bad. I went out of my way to show you how I felt. I had to be a stalker or a man in love. But you used to believe Campbell, who lied to you, so you’d rather think I’m a nut trying to heal my former wife.”

  “That’s almost too much sweet talk, Aidan. Notice, I can stand it if you say my ex’s name.”

  “Why don’t we stop talking?” He put his arms around her, forgetting Eli, forgetting fear, knowing only that being with Beth made him live again.

  “Eli…” she said.

  “Better get used to seeing you in my arms.” He kissed her, gently at first, when he wanted to roll over her defenses.

  She held on to his arms and tried to lean back, but her lips softened. She slanted her mouth against his, reaching for his shoulders, pulling closer.

  “Wait. What about Madeline? Are you sure this isn’t—”

  “Talking about my first wife with you makes me feel odd.” He stepped back, wiping his mouth. “I love you more, need you more and I won’t give up. I tried to love her. I can’t stop loving you.”

  “What if you get tired of me? I’m no judge of men.”

  “What is it with you and Eli? I won’t get tired of you.”

  “What about him? He could get sick again. He’s not entirely better yet.”

  “We’d get him help again. He’d be my son, too.” He looked toward the lake, where Eli was wrestling with the pieces of his new fishing pole. “I’d be proud to call him my son.”

  “But Campbell—”

  “Is a waste of breath. I want to love you and your son. And all I ask is that you take me on, too.”

  “I want more children,” she said.

  “Keep throwing obstacles at me,” he said. “I’d be happy if we had to build the house all the way to the lake to fit us all in.”

  “Is it this easy? Talking about our differences and finding common ground?”

  “No,” he said. “We can talk forever, but you and Eli have to take a leap of faith. I did that the night Eli lived. You can’t wait for someone to nearly die because I’ll be really pissed if any one of us is in that much danger again.”

  “I have to be certain.”

  “No one gets to be as sure as you want to be,” he said. “You have to decide.”

  She grabbed a loop of her wavy hair and tugged.

  “You’re weighing the pros and cons,” he said. “I wish I could laugh.”

  He started down the hill, a city boy who might tumble ass over teakettle with the next step. Maybe she was giving him a lucky out.

  “Wait.”

  He stopped.

  She ran down the hill, grabbing him so hard he almost fell and dragged her with him. “I’m scared of a lot of things, but most of all, I’m scared of losing you.”

  She looped her arm around his neck and this time she kissed him, opening his mouth with hers, taking him back to the thick, silent moments of need in his bedroom. She pushed her hand to his cheek.

  “You’re mine,” she said. “I’ll risk everything, but I won’t let you go if you stay now. You’re stuck with us forever, and when things go wrong, you’ll just have to fight with me until everything’s right again.”

  “That’s life, Beth. That’s how two people who love each other live together.”

  “Forever,” she said again, as if he didn’t want it.

  “I guess you two do like each other.” Bound up in fishing line, Eli looked like a piece of living string art.

  What had he seen? What had he heard? “I meant everything.” Aidan pulled Beth against his side. “You’re both my future if you’ll have me.”

  “Do you mind us being together?” Beth asked. “Did you dislike Aidan or are you reluctant to have any guy give us more grief?”

  “Like Dad.” Eli straightened, and the fishing line glittered in bright sunlight. “I won’t put up with that, Aidan.”

  “Then you’ll have to put up with the best life I can give you.”

  “You’ll have to try, too, Eli,” Beth said. “None of us compromises easily.”

  “Way to make love sound like work, Mom.” Eli whistled for Lucy and started back to the lake, yanking at fishing cord that tightened around various body parts. “I don’t know why you two even care what a kid thinks anyway.”

  “Are you okay?” Aidan called.

  “Yeah, I’m okay with it.” Lucy bolted out of the trees and ran him down. They rolled down the hill, boy and dog and fishing wire a single package.

  Aidan and Beth ran to sort them out—holding hands, so that when they fell, too, they rolled into Eli and Lucy and formed a laughing ball of string and loving fam
ily.

  EPILOGUE

  “I’M JUST SAYING we could have made a crapload of money during a four-day holiday, Mom.”

  Up to her elbows in turkey and the hope of producing an edible dinner, Beth turned to her son. “While I’m always interested in a ‘crapload’ of anything,” she said, “being just the three of us for our first Thanksgiving mattered more to Aidan and me.”

  “Uncle Van’s coming.”

  “He’s family, too.”

  “All right. We have bills to pay, but I guess you guys are running the show.”

  “Yes, we are.” And thank goodness it was all right with him. She and Aidan were a little happier every time he handed over control and adult worries about their home to the real grown-ups.

  “I’m going to see if Jeff’s outside. I called about a half hour ago and his mom was making him peel yams.” He hurried down the hall.

  “Hey—can moms do that? I have some yams.”

  “See ya later.” The closet door opened. Something thudded into a wall, and then something else scraped the still-new paint job. “It’s okay. I’ll clean it up,” Eli said. “Bye.”

  The front door opened and then slammed shut.

  Beth laughed out loud. Sometimes a woman had to love life. Then she caught a glimpse of the dressing, which seemed to expand every time she turned her back on it. How did that whole pile of revolting stuff get inside the turkey and cook? Aidan and his big talk of loving a traditional meal.

  “Need an extra pair of hands?”

  The turkey slipped into the sink. “I thought you were testing office connections,” Beth said. Aidan’s new home office sat closer to the lake. Every time she visited and stared out his wall of windows onto the water, she was tempted to displace him.

  “It’s all working. I thought you might like some help.” He leaned over her shoulder, but drew back. “Are you sure that’s—”

  “As good as a dinner reservation? No.” She plunged her hands in again. “If you could wash up and steady this bird…”

  “You plan to feed this to our family?”

  “If Eli didn’t look too closely, and you don’t tell Van how it looks right now. Think of it as practice for when your parents come at Christmas.” She spooned some of the stuffing in and caught the turkey before it slipped again. Then she caught his smirk. “Don’t go all moral on me. It’s your duty, Aidan.” She lifted her face for his kiss. He laughed as he took advantage of her busy hands and her defenseless body.