Читать книгу Mad For The Dad - Terry Essig, Terry Essig - Страница 10

Rachel continued to stare at him. “Excuse me?” she finally said while absently rubbing Todd’s little back. His body already felt half limp. Another minute or two and he’d be conked out cold.

“I said—”

“Shh, not so loud. He’s almost asleep.”

It was comical how quickly Daniel lowered his voice. Now she could barely hear him. “You know the old saying about God always opening a window when he closes a door?” he whispered.

Warily Rachel nodded.

“Well, when Sarah and Michael died, that was a heavy-duty door to get slammed in poor Todd’s face.” Daniel leaned against the nursery door frame and raked his hand through his hair. “I’m sure not the open window. I’m trying as hard as I can, but all I remember of parenting is that my dad used to play ball with me. Todd’s too little to throw a baseball let alone catch one. It was a disaster when I tried the other day. The ball kept going right through his legs.”

Rachel arched a brow at him in disbelief. He hadn’t really pitched a baseball ata toddler, had he?

Daniel continued, “The thing is, right before this all happened I’d just quit the accounting firm I’d been with since graduating from college. I was all set to go out on a limb and out on my own. Do you know how much work that entails? The time commitment? I’ve got to get this thing set up and going—make it viable or Todd and I are cooked geese. There’ll be no income. I want to save the insurance money for his college fund. Even if I could take a crash course in child raising and was instantly expert at it, I haven’t got the time to lavish on him the way he needs and deserves, do you understand what I mean? I can’t stick him in day-care now. For crying out loud, as far as he’s concerned both his parents just deserted him. What does he understand about death? So what am I supposed to do? I’m no Mr. Mom.”

Todd snored gently in her ear. Rachel slowly rose and walked quietly over to the crib. She eased the boy off her shoulder and laid him in his bed. She picked the blanket with the satin binding to lightly cover him and made sure he’d be able to feel that comforting edging against his cheek and hand while he slept. Daniel followed right behind as she crept from the room. He spoke his next words as softly as the rest, but he might as well have shouted, they jarred her so.

“If God’s trying to open a window for Todd, it sure as all heck ain’t me. I barely constitute a crack in the glass or a missing piece of weather stripping. So I have to ask myself, Where’s the open window?” Then he sort of studied her out of the corner of his eye.

Oh, no. Oh, no. The last time she’d let some fasttalking male open her window, it had been eighteen years before she’d managed to get it shut again, and even then it hadn’t been without a kick start from her supposed loving husband—the very one who’d insisted on opening the damn thing in the first place. Uh-uh. No way was she going to go through any of that again, although he was absolutely right about one thing, Rachel thought as she walked as quickly as possible back down the hallway. Daniel Van Scott was definitely cracked.

Daniel followed her closely. “Don’t you think it’s a little bit odd you picked that exact moment to look out your window? You could have just as easily been, I don’t know, in the kitchen or the bathroom. Even in the living room, for crying out loud, but with your back to the window. You fit into this equation somehow, I just know it.”

“No,” Rachel stated emphatically, knowing she needed to be firm here. She did not like the way this conversation was headed. She was done with being dutiful. It was now officially her turn to play in the sun. Being footloose and fancy-free was supposed to be one of the few advantages of the empty nest stage. “I hate to be the stereotypical female, but I was never much good at math. Especially quadratic equations. They always threw me for a loop.”

Daniel caught Rachel’s arm and halted her flight. He thought fast. “All right. Okay. You probably work and can’t help me out yourself. But you’ve got a real way with little kids. Maybe you know somebody else with your knack?”

Rachel stopped and looked up at him. Those blue eyes of his were killers, especially the way they appeared now, both serious and sincere. She was in big-time trouble here and she was just bright enough to know it. She was not about to disabuse him of his faulty notion that she worked. “Daniel, what is it that you want from me?”

“Help,” he stated simply. “Either yours or somebody you could recommend. I know I haven’t known you long, but somehow I feel like I can trust you. I’m dying here.”

Her arm tingled where he touched it. Rachel knew it without a shadow of a doubt. That spark she felt was plain old sexual attraction, no getting around it. You’d have thought that by thirty-seven her body would have forgotten all about that special tingle. It was discouraging, downright undignified that it hadn’t. Imagine, at her age she was being suckered in by a pair of broad shoulders, blue eyes and a sob story that had absolutely nothing to do with her. If she didn’t get out of there, she’d do something stupid—like agreeing to do what he wanted whether it was in her own best interest or not. Shades of the past! This was ridiculous. It was mortifying. It was an insult to her intelligence. Hadn’t she learned anything over the past eighteen years? “Daniel, no one comes to mind off the top of my head, but I’ll think about it and call you if I come up with a name. But for now, I’ve got to get going. All those boxes aren’t going to unpack themselves, you know.” There was a hint of desperation in her voice and she hoped Daniel didn’t pick up on it.

He ran his hand up her arm and her arm broke out in goose pimples. Eighty degrees outside, and she had goose bumps, oh, puh-leeze!

“Rachel, don’t leave yet. Let me at least give you lunch. Come on, have a hot dog with me. It’s the least I can do.”

Rachel thought about those hot dogs with the bite marks she’d fixed for Todd. He was right. It was the very least he could do. “I don’t know—”

“Please?”

Oh well, what did she have at home? Low fat peanut butter and reduced sugar strawberry jam. Yummy. “Oh, all right.”

“Great! Good! Come on back to the kitchen.”

Daniel’s smile lit his face and Rachel knew without a doubt she’d just made a grave tactical error. She hadn’t agreed to anything other than lunch, darn it. Daniel’s problems were his. Rachel had enough of her own without borrowing more. She’d just have to keep telling herself that until she’d choked down her premasticated hot dog. Maybe she could still get out of there relatively unscathed.

Daniel steered her back into the kitchen and pulled out a chair at the round oak kitchen table. “Here. You sit down. I’ll handle this.”

Rachel refused to feel badly about letting him. For too many years she’d had meals waiting on the table and clean socks and underwear in her men’s drawers. For what? Her son had eagerly left for college without even a backward glance and shortly thereafter her husband had just plain left. Besides, anybody could boil a hot dog.

Even Daniel. Within a very few minutes he served her up a plate with not only the promised main course, but apple sauce and potato chips. Then he really went all out and dug the mustard and pickle relish out of the refrigerator as well. He poured her a glass of milk. Rachel couldn’t remember the last time she’d drunk milk. Oh well, at her age wasn’t osteoporosis just around the corner? Maybe the milk would hold it at bay a little while longer. Surprisingly Rachel enjoyed the meal. “This is good,” she told him, touched that he’d taken the trouble to find her a hot dog Todd hadn’t sampled in the store.

“Thank you.” Daniel said, and smiled at her praise.

His grin almost blinded her. Rachel quickly lowered her head and studied the mustard smear on her plate. So much for that conversational gambit. “Well, I guess I ought to—”

Daniel jumped up and grabbed the plates off the table, startling her. “No need to rush,” he said. He suddenly realized he was starving for a little adult conversation. How did young mothers do this all day every day? He glanced at the watch bound to his wrist. “Rachel, how long do you think Todd will be out?”

“What? Oh, if he’s anything like Mark, maybe two hours.”

“Two hours,” he repeated after her and his face assumed an expression similar to the one she wore when she came face-to-face with a piece of maple fudge with her name on it. “That’s fantastic, two whole hours. I can get a lot done in one hundred and twenty uninterrupted minutes. Let’s see, first I’ll dump in a load of laundry real quick like. Let’s say, oh, ten minutes for that, another fifteen for these dishes. That leaves—hey, I just might have enough time to get my computer and maybe even the printer set up before Todd rejoins the land of the living. I can’t do it when he’s up, you know. That kid is murder on floppy disks.”

She believed it. Rachel remembered this stage all too well. “I really should be going. I’ve got boxes of my own—”

“Oh, that’s right. I wish you could stick around. It would be nice to talk to another adult for a while.” Daniel shrugged philosophically. “But if you can’t, you can’t. I really appreciate everything you did do for me this afternoon, though, Rachel. I want to be sure you know that.”

Rachel had never realized it before, but evidently she really was a sucker for blue eyes. Ron had had blue eyes, but not like Daniel’s blue eyes. It would be very easy to make a fool of herself with this man. It would be no hardship at all to talk herself into spending the afternoon talking to Daniel while he set up his office. Heck, she’d probably even pitch in and help. When would she learn?

Rachel told herself she was simply in the middle of a major empty nest syndrome crisis in her own life. That’s why she wanted to adopt these two. Fill the nest back up. She was just a natural born caretaker, a nurturer.

Natural born masochist was more like it.

But no, she’d get through this thing on her own, without any placebos. It was simply a case of hardening her heart and walking out his front door. She’d already done more than any other woman who’d come across that scene she’d witnessed out on her front sidewalk would have—well, maybe not, considering Daniel’s shoulders and butt—but still, she’d done her corporal work of mercy. “You’re more than welcome,” she said. “But now I’ve really got to go.”

With that, Rachel made her escape. There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in her mind that it had been a close one, too.

Rachel spent her afternoon organizing her cupboards. She unpacked her silverware and placed it all neatly in a new silver separator she’d bought for the drawer closest to the sink drain board. Then she stacked the dishes in the cabinet up above the silverware and the pots and pans—what few she needed to cook for one— in the cabinet below the rangetop.

By the time she broke for dinner, Rachel was out in the hall and mostly done with unwrapping the new linens she’d bought for her fresh start in life. The linen closet looked good, she decided as she stepped back and examined it. Towels that actually coordinated not only with each other but the bathroom as well, sat folded in the same direction and in neat piles on the shelf in front of her. Combined with the sheets, blankets and pillows she’d bought, it looked like a well-done department store display, Rachel thought.

She took another step back. It appeared just the way she’d always wanted her old linen closet to look and the way it would have looked if she’d ever gotten any cooperation from her son and former husband. But no, they’d always rooted through her neat piles and then walked off, leaving the disaster behind them. Well, no more. This closet would win homemaking awards—only there was nobody left to make a home for. Again Rachel lectured herself. “Buck up. You can’t win any homemaking awards if there are people living in the house. It’s just one of life’s poorer jokes. Oh well, maybe Mark will come home for winter and spring break. Possibly even part of the summer. He can mess up the towels then.” She hoped so, but basically Rachel just had to recognize she was all alone now. That was simply the way it was. Her stack of towels would remain neat forevermore.

On that rather melancholy note, Rachel returned to her small kitchen and baked a frozen, premade chicken potpie and pulled a handful of salad out of a pretossed bag of greens.

She ate it all by herself with nothing but the radio for company. Rachel wondered what Daniel and Todd were eating for dinner. More hot dogs?

Rachel washed her plate and fork and set them on the drain board. Her days of needing a dishwasher were over, she mused as she contemplated the lonely utensils. The phone rang as she turned away from the sink.

“Mom? It’s me, Mark.”

Alarm bells rang in Rachel’s maternal mind. “Mark? What’s wrong?”

“Chill out, Mom. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to see what was going down on the maternal home front. You know, see how you were doing and stuff.”

Rachel barely controlled her snort of disbelief. Yeah, right. In other words, her best beloved son wanted something from her. “I’m fine, Mark, just fine. I spent the day organizing my new apartment and guess what?”

“What?”

“It’s been four whole hours since I put the silverware away and it’s all still in the right compartments! No teaspoons mixed in with the soup spoons, no forks stuck up so the drawer can’t close, no knives left with the cutting edge up. It’s like a miracle, Mark, an honest to God miracle.”

“Very funny, Mom. When the guys here ask about my parents, one of the first things I mention is my mother’s great sense of humor. Of course then I have to break it to them that you still use snail mail because you are, like, the most totally computer illiterate person I know and couldn’t use e-mail if your life depended on it. It wrecks the image, Mom, like totally destroys it.”

Rachel laughed. “You’ll be happy to know I’m thinking about taking a computer class.”

That surprised her son. “Really? What for?”

“So I can get a job. Gotta support myself now, you know. Dad only pays alimony for the next six months. After that I’m supposed to be back on my feet and self-supporting.”

Mark’s response sounded disconcerted, as though they’d strayed into territory he’d just as soon avoid. “Oh, yeah. Right. That, um, sucks. So, uh, what else is happening?”

Rachel understood her son’s reluctance to be caught up in adult problems. She thought back over her day. Really, only one item of import stuck in her mind. “I met a guy,” she reported. “He’s going to try to raise his little nephew all by himself. He crashed his nephew’s little red wagon right in front of my new place. The little boy was crying and groceries were everywhere. I had to go out and save them. Todd—that’s the child—is a little pistol, but Daniel—that’s the guy—seemed real nice. Sincere, but in over his head, if you know what I mean.”

“A guy with a wagon? Sounds like a dork.”

“He’s not a dork!” God, no. Daniel Van Scott was anything but dorky. Oh, man, here it was hours later and Rachel got the shivers just thinking about him. She was going to give herself high blood pressure if she didn’t watch out. End up on medication like her mother, for crying out loud. “He just tripped, that’s all.”

“Like I said, sounds like a dork.”

“Well, he’s not.” Not by a long shot. “Now, what’s new with you, Mark? Your classes going okay? You’re studying enough? Are you meeting any nice girls?” Ones that still go to church?

Her son’s voice came back sounding entirely too casual for a mother’s peace of mind. “Yeah, I’ve met a few. Most of them are sorority tools, if you know what I mean, but this one’s pretty cool. She’s vegetarian. I had no idea meat was so totally bad for you and the environment, too. I’m never eating it again, man.”

Oh, God. “Mark, how will you get enough protein in your diet? How will you—”

“Chill out, Mom. I’ll be fine. But what I need is one of those small refrigerators for my room. You know, so I can keep yogurt and stuff like that on hand.”

Rachel walked into her living room with the cordless phone and sank into the sofa. She tucked her feet up underneath herself. “So go get one.”

“Mooom.”

Her son’s disembodied voice came back at her and she had no trouble imagining the despairing look on his face.

“They’re expensive, you know? I’d need like, eighty or ninety dollars put into my checking account. Think you could do that for me?”

Ah, they’d reached the crux of the phone call. Money. She’d been warned about this from friends with older children. “Mark, you had three hundred dollars when your father and I dropped you off at school just a very short time ago.”

“Yeah, but I bought this totally awesome game for my computer and I had to have a good bike for getting around campus ‘cuz nobody uses the campus bus, so I turned in the pass you guys bought me and spent the cash on a bike helmet, you’ll be glad to know. And I bought this unbelievable mountain bike. It was on sale and everything, so how could I go wrong?”

Rachel put her hand over her eyes and collapsed back into the sofa. “You’ve already gone through all your money? Mark, that should have lasted you a couple of months!”

“How was I supposed to know something else would come up that I’d need?” Mark asked, his logic clear, at least in his own mind. “I mean, you should see the graphics on this computer game I got. It was going to be my entertainment for the semester. But now, with this girl and all, she’ll probably want to go to the movies and stuff. And I really need that refrigerator—actually, a small microwave would be cool, too. A lot of the guys here have them. And at least I’m better than my roommate. He never takes his girlfriend anywhere! All they do is fool around. One of these nights that top bunk is going to crash right down on top of me—probably kill me.”

Rachel just about collapsed. “Your roommate and his girlfriend are…doing that while you’re in the room?” she squeaked. Oh, God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Mark paused in his spiel, evidently aware he may have gone too far. “Well, yeah, but it’s no big deal,” he quickly assured his mother. “I mean, you probably can’t remember back to when you were interested in sex, but it’s pretty normal for my age group, you know.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God. She should have had a talk with Mark before he’d left for school. She should have bought him some condoms, made sure they’d gotten into his suitcase. She’d gotten pregnant with Mark on prom night, her senior year in high school. It had been her first foray into the mysterious world of male-female—looking back on it, boy-girl—sex stuff. It had changed the direction of her entire life and Mark was only a few months past that point in his life. He needed at least another three or four years before he took a chance like that. It could change your life completely. Rachel knew.

She’d given Mark an eleven-thirty curfew on his prom night. Ron had smirked, but Rachel had been unwilling to take any chances. Was Mark making up for lost opportunities now?

And her son didn’t think she remembered the pull of sexual feelings? All she had to do was think about the rush she’d gotten just looking at Daniel Van Scott this afternoon and Rachel knew she wasn’t dead yet. Not by a long shot.

Mark cleared his throat. “Uh, Mom, you still there?”

Maybe, maybe not. This could all be some kind of strange out-of-body type experience. She wasn’t really having this bizarre phone conversation with her own, carefully raised son. “Mark, I’m afraid you’re going to have to talk to your father,” Rachel heard herself say. “Going through all your spending money in a little over a week was a choice you made. I guess as far as I’m concerned, my feeling is now you have to live with that decision. Either that or get a part-time job. At any rate, it’s something you’ll have to deal with.

“By the way, I found some of your old Tonka trucks when I was packing. I couldn’t help keeping them when your dad and I cleaned out the old house. I was thinking I’d give them to that little boy I was telling you about. He’s the perfect age for them.”

“What? You’re giving away my Tonkas? Not on your life. I still want those. That kid’ll just have to get his own toy trucks. Those are mine.”

Rachel shook her head and tried to organize her thoughts. Her collegiate, urbane son who talked about sex ever so casually refused to be parted from his toy trucks. Life was strange. Her son was strange. Heck, in all probability, she was strange. “Mark, I’m hanging up now. Let me know if you have any luck with your dad and call me again some time. But just to talk, you know? It would be nice to hear from you when you didn’t necessarily need something from me.”

Rachel hung up the phone after a series of motherly admonishments about studying hard and making sure he kept his new bicycle tethered with a lock through the bike’s frame, not just the tire. She thought about broaching safe sex, but Mark cut her off, which, when the phone call was all done, left her pacing the living room.

“Now I know how my own mother felt,” she muttered to the walls as she circled the room. “This is like a nightmare and he hasn’t even gotten anybody pregnant yet!” Maybe she should go out in the morning and by a box of condoms. Send them to him, just in case.

For some reason, condom shopping brought to mind Daniel and the idea hit that maybe she could confiscate a few out of the box before she sent it and keep them for herself.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rachel immediately chastised herself. “The poor man’s got his hands full without having to deal with your midlife sexual identity crisis as well.” Again she circled the room, gesturing with big sweeping movements of her hands as she lectured. “Besides, didn’t you learn anything from your experience with Ron? For crying out loud, the man talks you into bed—well, actually the grass in that corner of the football field under the scoreboard, but that’s just details— gets you pregnant, graciously marries you so you can work your fingers, hands, heck, your arms to the bone putting him through school and then the jerk sticks around barely long enough to get the kid out the door, before clearing out himself so fast I’m surprised he didn’t get something vital caught in the door when it swung shut after Mark.” Rachel paused and thought about that. “Actually it’s kind of too bad he didn’t.”

She shook her hand in the air. “Anyway, whatever, the point is, I thought we’d made our marriage work. Yes, it had gotten off to a rough start, but I thought we’d worked through all that and made it. What a fool I was. I don’t want Mark to have to get married, have this carry on to the second generation. And certainly, certainly I couldn’t live through it a second time myself.”

And Daniel Van Scott was simply too attractive for her peace of mind. Right then and there, Rachel made a vow to keep her distance. There was some kind of very odd, no doubt, chemical attraction at play here. She hadn’t felt it, well, in eighteen years, and she’d at least managed to convince herself it had been true love rather than adolescent hormones back then. She no longer wore the blinders of youth, and in a way, it hurt.

No, there was no point in making a fool of herself a second time.

Rachel slept, but not well. In the morning, she cooked a single egg and matched it up with a solitary piece of toast. She washed the one plate she’d dirtied, then took herself out for a walk to explore her new neighborhood. There was a small park a block and a half up. Rachel could see a bank of stores another block after that.

Rachel glanced at the park once more and thought. The sun was shining, the few clouds in the sky were on the run, and although it was September now, summer was still in the air. She walked up to the stores and bought a paperback novel at the drugstore and a foam cup of take-out coffee at the corner restaurant. Carting both items back to the park, Rachel made herself comfortable on a green wooden bench. Most of the toddlers surrounding her were happily playing and provided a pleasant white noise while she basked in the warm sun and read her book.

“Hey, what’s this, another day off? Or do you work nights?”

Rachel instantly knew who had settled on the bench next to her. That low-timbred voice had played a major part in her restlessness last night. “Hi, Daniel,” she said. “I assumed you’d be spending the morning getting your office set up.”

“Hey, Todd, no pushing. That other little boy was on the horsey first. You’ll have to wait your turn.” Daniel yawned and draped his arms along the bench back.

The tips of his fingers were very close to touching Rachel’s shoulders and she’d never been more aware of a man. Not even when she’d been sixteen.

“I got up early,” Daniel admitted, more pleased than he was comfortable with to find Rachel in the park. “Worked for a couple of hours before the champ woke up. I found a playpen in the back of his closet and set it up in the study. He played pretty happily in there for a little while, too. I figured we both deserved a break before lunch. I’ll get more done during his nap. Did you see that kid hit Todd? Where’s his mother? Why isn’t she watching that monster more closely?”

“Todd took his truck.”

“Oh, well, uh, Todd,” Daniel called out, “give the little boy’s toy back. I guess next time I better bring a couple of our own sand toys for him, huh?”

Rachel shrugged more casually than she was feeling. “You seem to be getting the feeling for this pretty quickly. It sounds like you managed just fine this morning.

Daniel stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle. He gave an expansive, contented sigh. “Yeah. I even had a couple of inquiries already from former clients who knew I was going out on my own.” He gave Rachel a sidelong glance. He must have been more harried than he’d thought yesterday. This woman was positively beautiful. And he hadn’t noticed? He was slipping, definitely slipping. But she was here now and so was he. He—

“Really? That’s terrific.”

“Yeah, I just wish I could get my system up a bit faster so I could get some estimates out to people, but it’ll probably take a few more days. No, Todd, keep your shoes on. There might be broken glass or sharp stones in the grass.” After that admonishment, Daniel turned his head and studied Rachel through narrowed eyes. Whoa. Nice eyes. Big and a gorgeous warm brown. “You on vacation?”

Rachel cleared her throat. “Well, actually I’m sort of between positions at the moment, I guess you could say.” Was she ever.

Daniel perked up at that. Maybe persistence could pay off? “Yeah? Well, I haven’t had time to get an ad into the paper, let alone have anyone answer it. I know you said you didn’t want to take a job baby-sitting Todd full time, but what about a kind of temporary thing? You know, help me out until I can get somebody else. When you can, of course. It doesn’t have to be forty hours a week or anything. I’d appreciate whatever help I can get. Like this afternoon, if you’re not busy I could pay you to get my filing cabinets set up while I try to hook up my new printer. I wasn’t able to get to it yesterday.”

He looked at her so hopefully, and once the full force of those sky blue eyes was turned on her, Rachel knew she was lost. She’d probably agree to sell her own grandmother if Daniel asked her to. She took a sip of her coffee and burnt the roof of her mouth. Great. Just terrific. Well, might as well get this over with. “I might come down after lunch. For a couple of hours during Todd’s nap” she cautiously allowed. Cautious? Hah! Rachel began to despair whether she knew the meaning of the word.

Daniel was no fool. He cemented the deal quickly, before she had any opportunity to change her mind. “Great!” Then, evidently afraid to let her out of his sight, he hastened to offer, “You could eat lunch with us, if you wanted. I was going to make grilled cheeses.”

Oh, no. Rachel was determined to limit her exposure to Todd’s sunny smiles and cute toddler ways. Right now, she was bent on damage control and would eat low fat peanut butter and reduced sugar strawberry jam if it killed her. Rachel stood and tossed her foam cup into a nearby dark green metal trash barrel. “Thanks for the offer, but I have a few things to do before I come down.” Like sit down and weep for a while over her own stupidity. “I’ll be down around one o’clock or so.”

Daniel stood, too, unable to believe his good fortune. This was one fine-looking woman and she obviously had a tender heart. She was going to take pity on him. Daniel, the former lady killer, was both humble and grateful. Also extremely attracted to Rachel, although he knew enough to sit on that. He wasn’t about to do anything stupid and scare her off. ‘One o’clock. I really appreciate this, Rachel.” He snapped his fingers. “Todd will be down by then, so don’t ring the doorbell, just knock, okay? Or better yet, I’ll leave it unlocked and you can just come right in.”

“Sure, fine,” Rachel said and waved to Todd as she went to leave the park. But it wasn’t fine, not really. Entering a home without knocking bespoke a certain intimacy Rachel would really like to avoid, especially since she seemed so bent on self-destruction.