Unexpected

by Karen Tuft

  “Honestly, Mom, I didn’t realize I’d left my phone on silent. We were at the game, and then Kate wanted us to go with her to a party at this guy’s house—”

  Natalie felt her heart start to pound. “What guy?”

  “Just some guy Kate met at the mall. They’ve been texting each other a lot, and Kate has a thing for him. But when we got to his place, the party looked kind of, I don’t know. Wild or something. We weren’t there very long, I promise. We finally talked Kate into leaving, and then we went to Tess’s house to watch a movie and accidentally fell asleep.”

  Natalie studied her daughter’s face. Emma hadn’t lied to her before, but lately, between the strain of dealing with Wade, her friends, and high school in general, Emma had seemed distant. “It’s so not a good idea to go to a party at some strange boy’s house,” Natalie chided. “You know better than that. And you should have called me the minute you woke up.”

  “I know. I really am sorry, Mom.”

  “All right, then.” Natalie sighed. “Go to bed. There will be consequences for tonight, but we’ll discuss what they are in the morning.”

  “Okay. Good night, Mom. I love you,” Emma said. She gave Natalie a quick hug.

  “Good night. I love you too.”

  Natalie watched her daughter head back to her bedroom and shut the door before she flipped off the table light next to her and went to her own bedroom. She sighed with relief. It had been a long night. She hadn’t said anything to Em, but Natalie had been mere minutes away from calling Tess’s and Marie’s parents or even calling the police. Thankfully, Emma was home and safe and apparently no worse for wear. Natalie was sure she would have been able to tell if anything really bad had happened. She knew her daughter.

  Which was also why Natalie was also sure Emma hadn’t told her the entire truth about what she’d done that night.

  Chapter 14

  Ross stepped out of the shower and grabbed his towel. Five miles on the treadmill and an intense session on the Nautilus hadn’t dulled his edginess. So he’d run some more. And that was just this morning. After dropping Natalie off last night, he’d gone straight to the gym and worked out. And first thing this morning, after a sleepless night, he’d been right back at it. He rubbed a clear spot in the foggy mirror with his hand and stared at the haggard face staring back. He should shave. It would make him feel more in control.

  They’d hardly spoken a word to each other on the drive home. She’d been looking out the window, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. He’d had plenty of thoughts himself and hadn’t been disposed to share them with her. He’d been curious about what she was thinking but wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. So he hadn’t encouraged conversation, and she’d sat there like a stone. It hadn’t been a smart idea to invite her to the football game. He wished he could figure out her tactics. He was sure she had them, and he didn’t like not knowing what they were. He felt outstrategized.

  He grabbed his razor out of the drawer and started shaving. There were reams of documents sitting on his desk, waiting for his review this afternoon; he didn’t have time to waste being distracted by some little housekeeper. He sucked in his breath when he nicked his jaw and grabbed some tissue to stanch the blood. He could see her in his car, sitting with her hands folded in her lap, quiet. Then his mind flashed to seeing her do the wave with Lexie, radiant with happiness, their arms outstretched. He saw her dabbing chocolate from Lexie’s chin, stroking Lexie’s curls when she’d given her the fairy. He impatiently rubbed the remaining blobs of shaving cream from his face. She was an undereducated divorcee with practically grown kids. He didn’t want to see her at all. Especially not in his mind.

  He stalked through the bathroom door into his bedroom to get dressed.

  “Oh!”

  Startled out of his thoughts, he looked up to see a pink-faced Natalie frozen briefly in her tracks. Then she turned and retreated.

  “Stop.”

  Natalie paused, her hand on the door leading to the hall. She turned slowly and kept her gaze focused intently on some invisible spot on his rug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Uh-huh. Where would I normally be on a Saturday?” He could tell his voice sounded terse.

  “I don’t know. Where you are every other day. Not here. Not home.”

  “You didn’t hear water running?”

  He watched her look up, look at his bare chest, his face. She turned back to the door. “I’ll leave your dry cleaning hanging on the doorknob outside.”

  That’s when he noticed the hangers full of clothes clutched in her hand. It ought to have absolved her, but right now all he saw were years of chicken casseroles and cookies. Calculated entrapment. “Not good enough.”

  She turned and faced him. “I just got here. I didn’t know you were home. You usually aren’t during the day. Your laundry is supposed to be ready on Fridays, but it wasn’t this week.”

  “You didn’t mention it last night.”

  “I didn’t think to mention it. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “Yes,” he muttered to himself, “but you do intrude.” He saw her flinch as though she’d been slapped. She slipped through the door and quietly shut it.

  “Wait a minute.” Inwardly cursing himself, he started after her and felt his towel slip. He wouldn’t go chasing Natalie through his house wearing only a towel. It was demeaning; it felt too close to begging. He wouldn’t do it.

  He ought to apologize, except he shouldn’t need to apologize—she was the one who’d walked in on him. And when he’d seen her looking at his chest, he’d wanted to grab her by the arms and—this kind of thinking would not do.

  Ross stalked back into the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, and then grabbed his cell phone. He had a call to make, and now was the time to do it.

  A female voice answered after a couple of rings. “Ashley? Ross McConnell. We met at my mother’s—you do remember? Great. Listen, I know it’s late notice, but I wondered if you were free for dinner this evening. Super. How’s eight? Good. Eight o’clock it is. See you then.”

  * * *

  Natalie’d had better days, including ones with Wade that were so bad she’d previously vowed to block them from her mind.

  It was Tuesday, the day she was supposed to clean Mr. McConnell’s house. She’d had to leave Callie home in bed alone suffering from the stomach flu, she’d had an argument with Em about the too-revealing outfit she’d chosen to wear to school, and Natalie’s anthropology teacher had assigned the class a ten-page paper this morning as part of their upcoming final. She needed to register for next semester, and she still wasn’t sure what she was doing.

  Wade had made good on his promise to cut financial support for Ryan’s mission, so that meant she had a huge payment due a week from Sunday, larger now than she’d originally budgeted. Not to mention tuition for her as yet undetermined classes. Make that class—singular. Where all the money would come from, she didn’t know because she would be cleaning one house fewer after this week.

  And all she could think about was how badly she did not want to step foot on Mr. McConnell’s property today, not when she could tell she was falling for him and he’d flat out told her she was nothing but an intrusion.

  She’d done everything she could think of to avoid the inevitable. She’d checked in on Callie after anthropology class, balanced her checking account—of course, subtracting nothing from nothing didn’t take much time—and even done a little grocery shopping. A very little, due to the state of her finances. And despite the moths that had fluttered out of her wallet when she’d paid the cashier, she’d also called Esther Johnson to see if she was ready to take back her old cleaning job. The woman could have her “nice young man” back. But Mrs. Johnson hadn’t picked up, and Natalie had been forced to leave a message, which hadn’t been returned yet.

  And next week was Thanksgiving. It would be a Thanksgiving alone—the deal she’d made with Wade so Emma an
d Callie could help with the party. Along with all of the other frustration she was feeling for Ross, the McConnells’ party had cost her the holiday with her girls.

  Then, to top it all off, Mrs. McConnell had called and left a message on her machine, asking if Natalie would come over and get a few boxes of Christmas decorations, of all things. She’d said she was sure Ross didn’t have any decorations of his own and she wanted to be sure his house looked festive this year, since it was his first Christmas back home in so long. It had also been implied that Natalie would do the decorating.

  Natalie chalked the request up to being part of her final duties as Ross’s drudge. Besides, his mother didn’t know she would be slapping a formal letter of resignation on his kitchen table today, and Natalie hadn’t found the heart to inform her of that fact. But then, of course, considering her luck, it turned out that a “few boxes” ended up filling the trunk of her car and the passenger seats as well. Great.

  She pulled into his driveway. First things first. She marched to the door, punched in the security code, and tentatively opened the door. She listened carefully. No footsteps. No running water.

  Fine. Good. She could get those boxes out of her car and store them in his basement. She would bet money he never went down there, so in storing the boxes there for the time being, she wouldn’t intrude on him. It took her awhile to lug all of them out of her car and down the stairs; when she was done, she was filthy and sweating, and she hadn’t even started cleaning his house yet. She looked at her watch. Wiping sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, she decided if she hurried and watched out for speed traps, she could go home to get her cleaning supplies—she hadn’t had room for them in the car before—and get his house done before he got there. He was only getting minimal service today, anyway, she thought begrudgingly.

  When she ran in the door at home, a grim Emma greeted her.

  A grim Emma still wearing that awful outfit.

  “Dad called,” she said.

  Oh, wonderful. Natalie waited for Emma to continue.

  “He wasn’t very happy when he found out Callie was sick and you weren’t here with her.”

  “Callie’s thirteen, not three. Although, maybe I should have called him so he could come sit with her while I worked to keep a roof over our heads.” She regretted the words the minute she said them, but watching tears form instantly in Emma’s eyes made it that much worse. “I’m sorry, honey, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  But the tears she’d mistaken as a reaction to her comment were really tears of frustration and anger. “Why does he get so mad at you working,” Emma cried, “when he doesn’t even send you money anymore? I know he doesn’t because I heard what he said to you. He’s always on our case. I hate it! I hate him!” On a huge sob, Emma bounded out of the room.

  Natalie heard the bedroom door slam shut.

  She started down the hallway toward Emma’s room, sighed heavily, and knocked on the door. “Emma?” She could hear crying. “Em, honey? Do you want to talk?”

  She heard a muffled no through the door and more sobs. Natalie’s thoughtless comment had opened the floodgates. She felt horrible. “Em, I need to go to Mr. McConnell’s house. You rest and check in on Callie, and we’ll talk when I get back, okay?”

  Discouraged, she turned down the hall and retrieved her cleaning tools. She needed to talk to Emma and make sure she was okay, but they were both too upset; having a little time to calm down would be good for both of them. Besides, if she didn’t get Mr. McConnell’s house clean today, she wasn’t sure when she’d be able to do it. And there was no way she was going to set herself up for a lecture on her failures and incompetence from him. She’d had more than enough of that from Wade, even after all these years.

  When Natalie got back to Ross’s house, she worked like a wild woman, vacuuming, dusting, and doing cursory work in the bathroom. Ross would have to wait a week for the deluxe—and final—cleaning treatment there. She glanced at her watch. Six thirty. Thankfully the man was a workaholic. It would be a close one, but she just might make it out of there before he showed up.

  She was stowing the broom and dustpan when she thought she heard a car approach. Growling to herself, she quickly gathered her tools and headed toward the front door. If she was lucky—although lucky definitely wasn’t the word of the day—he would take a few minutes in the garage and she could make a clear getaway.

  But instead of it being Ross, the doorbell rang. When Natalie opened the door, there stood a beautiful, tall woman in a designer suit, with short, stylish brown hair and a startled look in her eyes.

  “Oh! Hello. I’m here to see Ross.” She glanced curiously at Natalie first, then over Natalie’s shoulder. “Is he here?”

  Despite her best efforts at denial, Natalie felt a sick twisting in her stomach. She discovered with horrible clarity that she was not only jealous of this woman, but she had also been quickly dismissed as a rival. Not that she was a rival; she was an intrusion, she reminded herself. Ross had certainly made that point clear enough.

  “No, he’s not at the moment. Is he expecting you?” Natalie asked, relieved that her voice was steady.

  The woman smiled. “Yes. We agreed to meet here.” She looked over Natalie’s shoulder again. “His home is lovely.”

  Natalie realized she was stuck. She couldn’t ask the woman to remain outside if Ross was expecting her, and she couldn’t leave the woman alone in Ross’s home either. “I’m sure he’ll be here shortly, then. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

  She lugged her equipment and his laundry to her car and popped the trunk. The woman shut the front door. Come on, hurry, she thought as she dumped his laundry bag in the trunk and hoisted the tank vacuum to do the same with it. He was certain to be here any minute, and the last thing she wanted was for him to see her wrestling a vacuum hose and then going inside to greet Ms. Perfect Professional.

  She slammed the trunk and fumbled with the lock on her car door. She needed a few seconds to sit and collect herself before returning to play hostess to Ross’s attractive guest. It wasn’t as if the woman was going to snatch the family heirlooms and make a run for it. She yanked the car door open, and as she prepared to climb in, a large hand grabbed the top of the door, holding it open. She froze.

  “Hello.”

  It was Ross.

  Of course it was. That was the way her luck was running today, wasn’t it?

  She stared at his hand.

  Had she detected a trace of humor in his voice? Funny, she herself didn’t feel very humorous right at the moment. Guilt, embarrassment, anger—those she felt. And the beginning burn of tears. She would not look at him. Wade had told her countless times that her tears were merely a show of weakness and a pointless waste of time. She couldn’t let Ross see them.

  “Listen, about last Saturday—”

  “You have a guest waiting in your house for you, Mr. McConnell. And I have a sick daughter at home. So, if you’ll excuse me.” She didn’t know where she’d found the voice to speak, shaky as it was.

  “Natalie—”

  Now she did look at him. She lifted her chin and willed the tears welling up not to fall. His brows instantly furrowed.

  “Callie is waiting for me. And your guest is waiting for you,” she repeated.

  She looked deliberately at his hand on the door and then back at him. He didn’t move it; he put his other hand on the top of her car, boxing her in. He studied her face for a long time, and to her utter surprise and relief, she was able to hold his look with only a few rapid blinks to fend off the threatening tears. Finally, he glanced at the house and back at her. He nodded, turned, and strode away.

  Natalie choked on a sob as she cranked the ignition and threw the car into gear. She had made it only a few blocks away before the tears streaming down her face made it impossible to drive. She pulled to the curb, buried her head in her hands, and wept.

  * * *

  Natalie looked up when t
he doorbell rang. Tori opened the door and poked her head in. “Nat? It’s me.”

  Natalie waved her in as she set a cup of soda and a few crackers on the end table next to a white-faced Callie, who was tucked snugly in a blanket on the living room sofa. Natalie crouched down and stroked her hair back from her forehead. The Price Is Right announcer told the next contestant to “come on down.”

  “Can I get you anything else, Cal?” she asked.

  “Not right now. Thanks, Mom. Hi, Tori.”

  Natalie rose to her feet.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Tori said. “I hope you didn’t catch this nasty thing from Sarah when you two hung out last week. She was sick all weekend.”

  Callie just sighed and blinked at the TV. A contestant was jumping up and down, having been told she had a chance to win a new car.

  Natalie motioned to Tori to follow her into the kitchen so they could leave Callie in peace.

  “I’m surprised you actually took a day off,” Tori said. “Isn’t Callie usually pretty good about staying home when she’s sick?” She glanced back into the living room. “Is she that sick?”

  “Wade found out I was gone working yesterday with Cal home by herself. He’s always looking for leverage, you know. Ways to make me look like a terrible parent. He really laid into Emma about it yesterday. I decided I had better play it safe and stay home today. Not that I can afford it.” She dropped bread into the toaster and grabbed jam and butter from the fridge. She was wound tighter than a top. “Have you eaten, Tor?”

  “Yes. I’ll join you in a slice of toast though.”

  Natalie broke a couple of eggs into a frying pan, resisting the urge to throw them against the wall instead. “Today, you are going to help me decide what I want to be when I grow up.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. You are.” Natalie scrambled the living daylights out of the eggs in the pan.