Her Man Friday

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  He hesitated only a moment before asking, "Why is that, do you think?"

  "Because the way she's viewed and treated at home is infinitely more important—and holds infinitely more impact—than the way she's viewed and treated here. And at home, she simply isn't getting what she needs."

  Caroline paused as they approached Chloe's core classroom, then she opened the door for them to enter. On the other side was a standard issue classroom circa 1942, little changed from its original state, save the addition of a few computer terminals and Formica-topped tables that were at least twenty years old. The evening sunlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows opposite, in spite of their smudges and grime, tinting the room with gold and orange, colors that continued in the autumn-themed bulletin board on one wall. The chalkboard bore evidence of recent—and not quite thorough—erasure, and a few errant motes of dust danced and spun in the long sunbeams.

  "Oh, God," the billionaire murmured beside her before he strode quickly to the center of the room. "It's as if I never left."

  Startled by his remark, Caroline followed him in. But she stopped well short of where he stood himself. "What are you talking about?"

  But he didn't answer her right away. Instead, he closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath, holding it inside himself for a moment.

  "Mr. Kimball?" she urged him. "What is it?"

  "That smell," he finally said. "That smell of chalk and floor wax and dust. If I close my eyes, I can almost make myself believe that I'm in seventh grade again." His eyes snapped open. "Although now that I think about it, why on earth would I want to be in seventh grade again? I despised school."

  "Did you?" Caroline asked.

  Kimball turned to the big, silent man standing just outside the classroom, looking in. "Close the door on your way out, would you, Claudio?"

  Without a moment's hesitation, the man reached in and pulled the classroom door forward until it clicked shut, exactly as the billionaire had commanded. Only then did Schuyler Kimball turn to Caroline again.

  "Yes. I did. I loathed and detested every moment I had to spend in the hallowed halls of education."

  She studied him in silence for a moment, thinking that yes, a man like him would have doubtless had a very unsatisfying educational experience. When Schuyler Kimball was growing up, there had been few programs for gifted children that worked well, and even fewer teachers who tried to identify students who were light years ahead of the others. As a result, many children who should have been in accelerated learning programs were instead mis-identified as troublemakers, and even slow learners on occasion. Too many had gone without the guidance they should have received.

  And a child with a brain like Schuyler Kimball's, one that would have commanded constant—and very challenging—stimulation, would have probably been labeled difficult, at best. Mainly because he doubtless had been difficult as a child without the proper stimulation to keep him challenged or entertained. She could certainly believe that he'd not had an easy time of it at school.

  "I wish I had been your teacher," she said suddenly, as surprised to hear the admission as Kimball appeared to be.

  He arched his dark brows speculatively. "Do you, Mrs. Beecham?"

  She nodded, realizing it was true. "Yes, I do."

  He took a few steps toward her. "You doubtless would have handled me with kid gloves. Would have taken extra special care to coddle my big brain, is that it? Then you could have exploited it for all it was worth."

  She shook her head. "No, I would have been worse than a Marine Corps drill instructor, exercising your big brain with the most demanding mental calisthenics I could manage."

  She smiled warmly, feeling, for the first time since meeting him, as if she might actually be able to get along with him. Because for the first time, she began to understand what kind of person he was. Namely, a normal one. With normal feelings. And normal failings.

  She took a step toward him, then thought better of it. No need to get overly confident, after all. She still wasn't the kind of woman who could hold her own with a man like him. Nevertheless, she couldn't help adding teasingly, "Had I been your teacher, Mr. Kimball, you would have had no satisfaction from me."

  This time Kimball was the one to smile, but the warmth in his was of a completely different variety than the kind hers had held. Warmth, she echoed to herself derisively. Fire was more like it.

  Slowly, he covered the rest of the distance between them, until he stood in the perfect rectangle of light that tumbled through the window behind her. "Oh, I'd have had satisfaction, Mrs. Beecham," he said. "Eventually."

  Once again, just like that, the two of them were on entirely different wavelengths. Caroline couldn't quite keep herself from taking a step backward to preserve the distance she required between them. At least, she tried to take a step backward. But Schuyler Kimball reached out a hand and circled her left wrist with sure fingers, tugging her forward again.

  "Mr. Kimball," she began to object.

  But he lifted her hand and studied her fingers, then asked, "Where's Mr. Beecham? You call yourself 'Mrs.' but you're not wearing a wedding ring. Why is that?"

  Caroline dropped her gaze to both their hands and inhaled a shaky breath, hoping it might slow the rapid pulsing of her heart that had kicked in the moment he had touched her. But when she transferred her attention back to his face, her heart rate nearly tripled.

  Without breaking eye contact, she told him, "I don't wear my ring, because it's with my husband."

  "And where is your husband?" Kimball asked.

  "He's, um…" She swallowed hard and furrowed her brows in an effort to ward off the emotion she felt rising. "He, uh… I buried him almost a year ago."

  The billionaire's expression changed not one whit at her revelation. As always, he appeared to be bored by life in general and people in particular. But his voice was a little rough when he asked, "Your husband is dead?"

  For a moment, Caroline hesitated. Then, slowly and silently, she nodded.

  "You lost him?"

  "Yes," she managed to whisper.

  "You loved him?"

  "Yes."

  For a moment, Kimball said nothing, only gazed at her with that maddeningly bland expression. Finally, very quietly, he said, "I see."

  "No, Mr. Kimball, I doubt you do," Caroline replied just as quietly.

  She had hoped he would release her hand now, and that they could go back to the safer subject of Chloe's education. But Schuyler Kimball apparently wanted to keep things right where they were, because although he did indeed let go of her wrist, he opened his hand against hers, palm to palm, his fingertips extending above hers a good inch. Had she wanted to, Caroline could have pulled her hand away from his.

  But she didn't want to.

  It was the first time a man had touched her tenderly in almost a year. Although there had been touching that morning in Kimball's office—oh, had there been touching, she recalled with a shiver now—it had been rife with tension and uncertainty and demand. This time however, there was only gentleness. Softness. Solicitude.

  And it was almost more than she could bear.

  "What happened?" Kimball asked, not moving his hand from hers, not moving at all. He only continued to hold her gaze with his, and all she could do was try not to drown in the dark, dark depths of his blue, blue eyes.

  "His name was Harry," she said. "Harry Beecham. And he… he, ah…" She inhaled a deep, unsteady breath and released it slowly. "He… was wonderful." She cleared her throat with some difficulty before continuing. "He was a police officer, and he was killed in the line of duty. They called me one night—one morning—at three-twenty-two to tell me he'd been shot when he interrupted a robbery attempt. He, uh…" She swallowed again. "H-he was killed instantly. That was eleven months ago. A week after our tenth anniversary."

  Caroline had to consciously stop herself from releasing all the words that wanted to come after those, telling Kimball more than he wanted to know. Thoughts of
Harry were never far from the very front of her brain. She wanted to tell Schuyler Kimball that Harry had coached Little League, that they'd tried to have children, but had never had any success, that her husband had grown up in South Philly, that they'd vacationed every summer in Cape May, that more than anything else in the world, Harry had loved Clint Eastwood movies—the old ones by Sergio Leone—Killian's Red beer, "Cheers" reruns, and pizza with extra green peppers and black olives.

  Her thoughts and memories were a jumble of images and emotions she could never quite hold onto long enough. Harry had just been such a wonderful, regular guy. And even eleven months after losing him, Caroline didn't know what she was going to do without him.

  "You miss him," Kimball said, curling his fingers between hers until their hands were joined.

  Caroline closed her eyes and nodded, then mimicked his action, closing her fingers over his hand, too. It just felt so good, this simple human contact. There was nothing demanding, nothing complicated, nothing untoward in his gesture. And Caroline appreciated his mere closeness, his innocent touch, more than he could possibly know. It had just been so long since she had had anything like this. With anyone.

  So long.

  "Yes," she said softly, barely able to form the word. "I miss him."

  "You're lonely," Kimball added, more quietly than before.

  "Yes. I am." When she opened her eyes, two fat tears tumbled down her cheeks, but she knew any effort to stop them would be pointless. She blinked, and he came into focus, and she realized there was something in his eyes, too. Not tears, but something else. Something that told her he understood. "I'm surprised, Mr. Kimball, that you seem to know so much about something like that. I would have guessed…"

  He expelled a rueful chuckle, cutting her off, but with the knuckled index finger of his free hand, he lightly brushed her tears away. "Looking at you," he said, "is like looking in a mirror. Mrs. Beecham… Caroline," he amended, "you and I, I'm afraid, are two of a kind."

  "No," she said quickly. "No, that's not true at all. You're…"

  "What?"

  She shook her head, able to say only, "You're different. From me, I mean." And from Harry Beecham, too. "We're not two of a kind at all."

  "Isolation is isolation," he said, smiling sadly as he cupped her cheek in his hand. "Whether it's self-inflicted or not is immaterial. It's still…"

  "What?" she asked when he left the observation incomplete.

  "Unpleasant," he finished with profound understatement.

  Caroline, too, lifted her hand, thinking she would move his away, but her traitorous fingers closed over his wrist and stayed there. Another tear streaked down her cheek, and he nudged it away with the pad of his thumb. Beneath her own thumb, she felt his pulse quicken, and she realized he was as confused and uncertain about all this as she was.

  And then she remembered that their reason for being there wasn't because she was lonely. Or because he was lonely. Or because they were trying to define what, exactly, was going on between the two of them, anyway. There was nothing going on between the two of them. It was that simple.

  The reason they were there was because a young girl needed something more in her life to get her back on track. Caroline reminded herself that she was an educator, first and foremost, and in forgetting that, she had let one of her students down.

  "Chloe," she said quietly. "We were talking about Chloe."

  As if the name were an incantation, that single word broke the odd spell that had descended, and Caroline managed to release Kimball's wrist and hand and take a step away. When she did, whatever strange illusion had appeared in his eyes vanished, and his features reverted to the expressionlessness she'd grown accustomed to seeing.

  For a moment, she wondered if maybe she had just imagined the entire encounter, if maybe she had read something into their conversation that hadn't been there at all. Then she recalled the gentleness of his fingers against her face, and the tenderness of his palm against hers. She remembered how lonely and confused he had looked himself. And she realized she had imagined none of it.

  Maybe he was right, she thought. Maybe they really were two of a kind. But that was no reason they had to have any more to do with each other than was absolutely necessary. No reason to rush off on a pointless pursuit.

  "Chloe," she said again. "We need to talk more about her, Mr. Kimball."

  For a moment, she thought he would refuse, then, with clear reluctance, he nodded. "Fine," he said, sounding very, very tired. "We'll talk about Chloe. But please," he added, "at least call me Schuyler. So few people outside my family do."

  It was a bad idea, Caroline thought. But if it would help get him to talk about his daughter, she'd do it. "Fine. Schuyler," she said, surprised to realize that his name wasn't so difficult to say at all, even more surprised to discover that she liked the way it felt on her tongue. "If you'd like to come back to my office, I have several suggestions for how we might go about helping Chloe."

  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  The afternoon following that profoundly erotic, but not quite satisfying, grope in Schuyler Kimball's pantry found Leo battling no small army of anxiety as he prepared for Lily Rigby's arrival at his front door. He'd left Kimball's estate early in the day—still having discovered jack about what he needed to discover—just so he could come home and get the place ready for Lily Rigby. But as he looked around, feeling strangely helpless, he wondered if he could possibly ever be ready for something like that.

  He didn't worry that the place offered any incriminating evidence of what he currently did for a living—namely, lying, sneaking around, and misrepresenting himself to a beautiful, luscious woman who may or may not have something to hide herself. In fact, his turn-of-the-century Chestnut Hill townhouse looked better than it had looked in some time. Maybe, he thought, it looked a little too good. A lowly bookkeeper for Kimball Technologies, Inc. probably wouldn't pull in enough in salary to live in Chestnut Hill, let alone have acquired all the electronic wonders that made a single man's life worth living, the way Leo had. Like that state-of-the-art sound system in the corner and that satellite TV system front and center. And the earth-toned leather furnishings and contemporary patterned rugs—not to mention a few pieces of original artwork—were probably also beyond the income of a working stiff like Leonard Freiberger.

  Leo was even worried about what he was wearing. What he was wearing, for God's sake. He still couldn't believe he'd been reduced to standing in front of his closet, wondering what Miss Rigby would be wearing, concerned about giving off the wrong impression. Would they be staying in, or going out? If they went out, would they go someplace casual, or formal? If they stayed in, just how casual would the situation be? Jeez, next he'd be subscribing to Seventeen magazine and reading articles with titles like "Cool Ways to Hang with Your Hottie" or "Fashion UGHS!" Ultimately, he'd donned a pair of charcoal gray corduroys and a wine-colored sweater. There. Let her deduce whatever she wanted from that. At least he'd found some clean underwear.

  For a moment, Leo wondered if he could pawn himself off as the laboring black sheep of a wealthy family. Then he remembered he'd already told Lily Rigby that he came from a long line of oystermen on Chesapeake Bay. Hmmm… Maybe he could tell her he'd just been kidding about that. Rich families were always eccentric that way, weren't they? Lying and sneaking around and misrepresenting themselves? Hell, he'd fit right in.

  He sighed heavily. He'd worry about explanations when Miss Rigby called for them. His best hope for the moment was that she would be as uncertain and confused about what was supposed to happen tonight as he was, and wouldn't even notice that his home was way beyond the means of a lowly bookkeeper.

  And while he was on the subject, he thought further, just what was supposed to happen tonight?

  What the hell had he been thinking to let Lily Rigby come over to his place? Leo wondered, not for the first time since yesterday afternoon—or even the hundredth time, for that matter. Obviously he
hadn't been thinking. Not with his brain, anyway. His brain, after all, had a superior intellect that caused him to think and reason before acting. The rest of his body parts, however, weren't so favorably endowed. Well, one part was pretty favorably endowed. Just not with any amount of smarts, that's all.

  A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts, a good hour too early for it to be Lily Rigby. When he opened the door and saw Eddie Dolan standing on the other side, Leo was amazed to realize that he'd completely forgotten about calling the guy two weeks before. Man, this whole Kimball thing had him way too preoccupied. What was worse, though, was that he wasn't preoccupied with this whole Kimball thing.

  "About damned time you got back to me," he chastised the other man anyway. No need to let Eddie think Leo was falling down on the job. "Just what the hell took you so long?"

  Eddie pushed past him, unconcerned, a fat file folder tucked under one arm. "Hey, I ain't even gettin' paid for this," he reminded Leo. "You're lucky I took the time out of my busy schedule to bother."

  Leo closed the door behind the other man with a dry chuckle. "So, is your schedule busy lately with a blonde, a brunette, or a redhead?" he asked.

  Eddie wiggled his eyebrows playfully. "All of the above."

  Leo laughed harder. That was Eddie. The consummate ladies' man. Which was actually kind of surprising, because he wasn't the usual stereotype. Oh, he wasn't a bad-looking sort, in a dark, brooding kind of way. But Eddie wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, either. Sure, he had a knack for ferreting out all kinds of information about people, but when it came to disseminating that information, well… Eddie was much better cast as a hunter/gatherer than as the village wise man.

  And then, of course, there was that tendency of his to commit crimes like distortion, fraud, and petty theft. Which, Leo couldn't help but note, wasn't that far a cry from lying, sneaking around, and misrepresenting oneself.