Читать книгу Father Most Blessed - Marta Perry - Страница 10

A lex hadn’t hired her, and maybe he wouldn’t. But she couldn’t just let things go. Paula pulled into the garage late that afternoon, aware of how pitiful her junker looked in the cavernous building. Aunt Maida was still groggy from the successful surgery, but she’d soon be well enough to demand a report. Paula had to be able to reassure her.

She walked quickly to the back door of the mansion. A small bicycle leaned against the laundry room door, reminding her of Jason and the matches. She should have told Alex, but their conversation had veered off in another direction entirely, and she hadn’t found the words. Maybe she still hadn’t.

Even the geranium on the kitchen window sill seemed to droop in Maida’s absence. Breakfast dishes, stacked in the sink, made it clear that when Alex said he’d fix breakfast for himself and Jason, he hadn’t considered cleaning up. She turned the water on. It wasn’t her job. Alex hadn’t hired her. But Maida’s kitchen had always been spotless, and she couldn’t leave it this way.

This was for Maida, she told herself, plunging her hands into hot, sudsy water. Not for Alex.

She’d been angry at Alex’s implications about the housekeeper position, but she’d been just as guilty of thinking Maida’s job less important than her own. Now it was the job she needed and wanted to fill—if only she could erase the memory of Alex’s kiss.

Enough. She concentrated on rubbing each piece of the sterling flatware. She’d come here to make up for the past by helping Jason through this difficult time. That was all.

She heard the door swing behind her and turned. Jason stood staring at her. For a moment he didn’t move. Then he came toward her slowly. He stopped a few feet away.

“I came to say I’m sorry.”

“Are you, Jason?” Was it regret or good manners that brought him here? Maybe it didn’t really matter. At least he was talking. That was better than silence.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” A quiver of apprehension crossed his face. “Did you tell my dad?”

“No.” She pulled out a chair at the pine kitchen table. “I think Maida has some lemonade in the refrigerator. Want a glass?”

He nodded a little stiffly. “That would be nice.”

He was like his father, in manner as well as in looks, she thought as she poured two glasses of lemonade. Same dark hair and eyes, same well-defined bone structure, same strict courtesy.

He didn’t have the stiff upper lip to his father’s degree of perfection, though. He watched her apprehensively as she sat down across from him.

“I don’t want to tell him.” The words surprised her. Surely she should—but if she did, she’d never get beyond the barrier Jason seemed to have erected against the world. “I think you should, though. It’s pretty serious stuff. You could have gotten hurt.”

“I won’t do it again.” Dark eyes pleaded with her. “Promise you won’t say anything. I won’t do it again, honest.”

She studied his expression. Even at seven or eight, a lot of kids had figured out how to tell adults what they wanted to hear, instead of the truth. But Jason seemed genuinely dismayed at the result of his actions.

She took a deep breath. Let me make the right decision. Please.

“Okay, Jason. If you promise you won’t do it again, I promise I won’t tell.”

His relieved smile was the first one she’d seen from him. Like his father, she thought again. A smile that rare made you want to forgive anything, just to see it.

Jason didn’t seem to have inherited any qualities from his mother. Did he miss her and wonder why she’d disappeared? Maybe by now he’d made peace with his loss.

She watched as he gulped the lemonade. Guilt seemed to have made him thirsty. Finally he set the glass down, looking at it, not at her.

“Is Maida really going to come back?”

The question startled her. “Sure she is. Why do you think she wouldn’t?”

“I heard Daddy talking.” He fixed her with an intent gaze. “He told me she just needed to rest a while, but I heard him tell somebody on the phone that she was in the hospital. Is she going to stay there?”

Never lie to a child; that was one of her bedrock beliefs as a teacher. If something was going to hurt, going to be unpleasant, a child had the same right as an adult to prepare for it.

“Only for a little while,” she said carefully, remembering Alex’s determination to shield his son. “She had to go into the hospital to have her hip fixed.”

His face clouded. “I don’t want her to stay there. Can’t Dr. Brett just give her some medicine?”

The bereft tone touched her. “I know you don’t want her to be away, but medicine won’t fix what’s wrong. She had to have an operation, and they gave her a brand-new joint. Now she has to stay at the hospital and do exercises until she’s better.”

“Like my dad does for his leg?”

“Sort of like that.” She seemed to see Alex again in the workout clothes he’d worn that morning, and her mouth went dry. “Then when she’s well, she’ll be able to come back.”

His gaze met hers, and she read a challenge in it. “You didn’t come back. Not for a long time.”

It was like a blow to the heart. Jason was talking about when she’d been his nanny. Maybe, underneath the words, he was thinking about his mother, too.

She longed to put her hand over his where it lay on the table, but he was such a prickly child that she was afraid of making him withdraw. She prayed for the right words.

“I want you to listen, Jason, because I’m telling you the truth. Maida loves you. If she could have skipped the operation to stay with you, she would have. She’s going to come back, and in the meantime, you’ll be okay.”

“Are you going to stay?” His lips trembled. “Are you? I know I said I wanted you to go away, but I didn’t mean it. I want you to stay.”

Guilt gripped her throat in a vise so tight she couldn’t speak. She’d asked God to show her what to do. Was this His answer, in the voice of a troubled little boy?

She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure, Jason. But I’m going to talk to your daddy about it.”

“When?” Urgency filled his voice. “When?”

Somehow, whatever it took, she had to convince Alex to let her stay. She stood. “Right now.”

Alex had been trying to concentrate on work for the past half-hour, but all he could think about was how he’d manage the coming weeks. His business, his family, his home were too intertwined to separate.

He didn’t have any illusions that it would be easy to replace Maida. First of all, no one could really replace her. She was the closest thing to a mother Jason had.

Tension radiated down his spine. Jason had had enough losses in his young life. It was up to his father to protect him from any more.

It was also up to his father to provide for his future. If this deal with Dieter Industries didn’t go through, and soon, the Caine company would be on the verge of collapse. Their hand-crafted furniture would go the way of the lumber mills founded by his great-grandfather. Probably not even his private fortune could save it. Several hundred people would be out of work, thanks to Caine Industries’s failure.

He didn’t have the luxury of time. Dieter was sending someone over within weeks. Alex had to be ready, or they all lost.

He glanced up at the portrait of his father that hung over the library’s tile fireplace. Jonathan Caine stared sternly from the heavy gold frame, as if he mentally weighed and measured everyone he saw and found them wanting. He would no more understand the firm’s current crisis than he’d be able to admit that his mistakes had led to it.

His father’s stroke and death, coming when he heard the news of the crash, had seemed the knockout blow. But Alex had found out, once he took over, just how badly off the company was. And he’d realized there were still blows to come. He’d spent the past two years trying to solve the company’s problems, and he still didn’t know if he could succeed.

This was getting him nowhere. Alex walked to the floor-length window and looked down at the town—his town. He knew every inch of its steep narrow streets, folded into the cleft of the mountains. Sometimes he thought he knew every soul in town.

Caines had taken care of Bedford Creek since the first Caine, a railroad baron, had built his mansion on the hill in the decade after the Civil War. Bedford Creek had two economic bases: its scenic beauty and Caine Industries. If the corporation went under, how would the town survive? How would he?

The rap on the door was tentative. Then it came again, stronger this time. He crossed the room with impatient steps and opened the door.

“Paula.” That jolt to his solar plexus each time he saw her ought to be getting familiar by now. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t a good time.”

“This is important.”

What was one more disruption to his day? He wasn’t getting anything accomplished, anyway. He stepped back, gesturing her in.

“Is something wrong?”

She swung to face him. “Have you made a decision about hiring someone to replace my aunt?”

He motioned to a chair, but she shook her head, planting herself in the center of the oriental carpet and looking at him.

“Not yet,” he admitted. “Summer is tourist season in Bedford Creek. Everyone who wants a job is probably already working.”

He couldn’t deny the fact that Maida had been right about one thing. Paula could be the answer to his problems. But the uncomfortable ending to her previous stay, his own mixed feelings for her, made that impossible. He couldn’t seem to get past that.

“You have to have someone Jason can get along with.” She hesitated. “I couldn’t help thinking that he’s changed.”

He stiffened. “My son is fine.” Fine, he repeated silently.

“He seems to believe you’re disappointed in his school work.”

Her clear, candid gaze bored into him. “He misunderstood,” he said shortly. “Jason is very bright.” He glared at her, daring her to disagree.

“Yes, of course he is. But that doesn’t mean school is easy for him.”

“Paula, I don’t want to discuss my son with you. Jason is fine. Now, is there anything else?”

She looked at him for what felt like a long moment, and he couldn’t tell what was going on behind her usually expressive face. Then her eyes flickered.

“Just one thing. You should hire me to fill in until Maida is well again.”

Paula’s heart pounded in her ears. She hadn’t intended to blurt it out like that. She’d thought she’d lead up to it, present her arguments rationally. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem able to think in any sensible manner when she was around Alex.

That in itself was a good reason to run the other direction. “You didn’t come back, not for a long time.” Jason’s plaintive voice echoed in her mind. No, she couldn’t let him down. He needed someone, and she was the one he wanted right now.

Alex wasn’t answering, and that fact jacked up her tension level. He was probably trying to find a polite way to tell her he’d rather hire anyone else but her.

He walked to the other side of the long library table he used as a desk. It was littered with papers, and supported an elaborate computer system. Maybe he wanted to put some space between them, or maybe he was emphasizing the fact that this was his office, his house, his decision.

But there, beyond him, was the window seat where she’d curled up as a child. There, on the lowest shelf, were the storybooks she’d read. She had a place here, too.

He looked at her, a frown sending three vertical lines between his dark brows. “Are you sure this is something you want to do?”

She took a breath. At least he hadn’t started with “no.” Maybe he was willing to consider it. “Jason knows me, and Aunt Maida would feel better. I’m sure she’d call me five times a day from the hospital if the doctor would let her, just to be sure everything is all right.”

“That’s not what I asked.” His gaze probed beneath the surface. “How do you feel about it, Paula?”

How did she feel about it? Mixed emotions—that was probably the best way to describe it. But Alex didn’t need to know that. “I want the job. I think I can do it, although I don’t have much experience.” She remembered Aunt Maida’s concerns, and plunged on. “I know you have some important entertaining coming up in the next month. If you’re worried about that…”

What could she say? She couldn’t claim expertise she didn’t have. She’d never put on a fancy party in her life, and she didn’t think her usual brand of entertaining was what Alex was used to. He’d probably never ordered in pizza for guests.

“I’m not.” He glanced toward the portrait above the mantel, then away. “It’s important, of course, but I’ll hire a caterer for that, in any event. Maida’s job would be to oversee the staff.”

It sounded like a breeze compared to the elaborate cooking she’d been imagining. If someone else was doing the work, she ought to be able to manage a simple dinner party. “I think I could do that.”

His gaze assessed her, and she stiffened. Maybe she hadn’t lived all her life in a mansion, but she was smart enough to work her way through college. How hard could this be in comparison?

“Actually, that’s not my concern at the moment.” He looked impossibly remote, as if he viewed her through the wrong end of a telescope. “I want to know how you feel about working for me again, after what happened the last time you were here.”

It was like a blow to the stomach, rocking her back on her heels. She hadn’t dreamed he’d refer to it, had assumed he’d ignore what he probably saw as an unpleasant episode. Or that he’d forgotten it.

“That’s all in the past,” she said with as much firmness as she could manage. “You apologized. You said we’d pretend it never happened.” He’d done a very good job of that, as she knew only too well. The humiliation she’d felt when he’d said those words brought a stinging wave of color to her cheeks. “Why are you bringing it up now?”

“Because I don’t want it hanging between us,” he said. “I don’t want you to spend your time here worrying that I’ll make the same mistake again.”

A mistake, that’s what it was to him. A moment of weakness when the moonlight had tricked him into a brief, romantic gesture he later regretted. Well, he was never going to know it meant any more than that to her.

“Please, forget about it.” She forced herself to keep her voice steady and unconcerned. “I already have.”

She had, of course. For nearly two years she’d forgotten it entirely. Maybe she’d have been better off if she’d never remembered. But just a week ago, the memory had popped out from behind the locked door in her mind. The doctors couldn’t explain why. They’d said she could remember any time, or never.

She swallowed hard. What else might be hiding there? She still didn’t remember anything about those moments when the plane went down. Would she suddenly find herself reliving every painful second of the crash?

“Good.” He was briskly businesslike. “In that case, we can start with a clean slate between us. If you’re really willing to take on this position, it seems to be the best solution for everyone.”

She tried to smile. Position was a fancy word for it. She was about to become an employee in his house. And she’d have to do it without ever letting him know how she felt about him.

“The best solution for everyone,” she echoed. “We couldn’t ask for better than that.”

She had to find a way to keep her relationship with Alex businesslike—pleasant, but businesslike. She was just another employee to him, and as far as she was concerned, this was just another job. It was no different than if she’d been filing paperwork in someone’s office.

Well, maybe a little different. If she were filing papers, she wouldn’t be working for someone who tied her heart in knots.