Читать книгу The Bewildered Wife - Vivian Leiber - Страница 9

“And then Brother Bear came up with a great idea,” Susan said. “He thought if they took a kitchen towel and made it into a sail, they could get across the big sherbet lake…”

“Daddy’s home,” Henry whispered.

“Daddy’s home?” Chelsea hissed.

“Daddy?” Baby Edward asked groggily, opening one eye and then closing it. He snuggled farther into Susan’s warm, soft bosom.

Wiley looked up from his sleep, arching one eyebrow in an imitation of alertness.

Dean Radcliffe climbed up the last landing up to the children’s wing and appeared at the doorway, a tall shadow backlit by the hall light.

“Oh, Daddy,” Henry said, poised between happiness and uncertainty about his father’s mood.

“You missed Susan’s birthday,” Chelsea said accusingly.

“Now, Chelsea,” Susan warned.

As Dean stood in the doorway, all Susan’s sensible thoughts about him being out of reach flew out the window.

She loved him—and could kick herself for loving him.

And he, she reminded herself sternly, barely noticed her. His mind, as always, was on his work.

His only concession to the lateness of the hour was that his burgundy silk tie was pulled a bare inch away from the white Oxford shirt collar. His suit was severely, but most expensively, cut. His eyelids were sooty but, though he had left the house at six that morning, his emerald eyes were as piercing and quick as if he had just awakened.

He raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture that Susan recognized as meaning his head ached.

It should—his days were long, his work was grueling and he came home every day to children who reminded him of the wife he lost. With their blond hair, their freckles, their blue eyes so much like the wife who had died so tragically, so prematurely.

Susan was sure he must have loved his wife very much and mourned her deeply.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Radcliffe,” Susan said, easing off of Chelsea’s bed while managing to hold Baby Edward in a comfortable sleeping position. “Children, give your father a kiss good-night. Then to bed. Henry, pick up your pillow—”

“No, it’s all right. I’m interrupting,” Dean said, raising his hand. “But I do want to talk to you in the study when you’ve put the children to bed.”

Chelsea and Henry fell back onto the comforter in a mixture of relief and disappointment.

“Goody gum drops, we get to finish the story,” Henry said.

“Daddy, I really do want to give you a goodnight kiss,” Chelsea said.

But Dean Radcliffe was already halfway down the hall to his study, followed by the ponderously slow but very loyal Wiley.

Ten minutes later, she went downstairs to the study with a tray piled high with two hot dogs, chips and the salad she had made earlier in the evening.

The steak was burnt beyond recognition and the baked potato shriveled like a piece of wadded-up paper. The martini pitcher was already washed, dried and put away in the bar armoire. Besides, she didn’t want to remind him of the promise he had made—and broken.

“Susan, please sit down,” Dean said as she came into the room. He looked at her with the wary but gracious expectancy he no doubt gave to all business associates, secretaries and clerks. “How kind of you to bring me dinner. I could have made something for myself.”

“Actually, I just made a little more of what I made the kids,” Susan said, conceding nothing about her hopes and dreams and efforts. She put the tray down on the only corner of the desk not covered with papers, and sat on the edge of one of the leather wing chairs opposite him. “You didn’t eat yet?”

“No, I guess I didn’t,” he said. “I was too busy working out the details on the Eastman Toy deal. There’s a lot of money riding on it.”

He reached for a hot dog.

“How is it you always guess correctly the nights I don’t have a business dinner and the ones when I’m able to come home in time for dinner?”

“Just intuition, I guess,” she said. She didn’t add that appearing at nine o’clock was hardly coming home in time for dinner.

She slipped Wiley a dog biscuit from her jeans pocket.

“I’m sorry about your birthday,” he said stiffly, clearly not very practiced in apologies.

“It’s all right,” Susan said, shrugging.

“I wanted to talk to you about the children,” Dean continued, showing his relief that she was understanding, that she knew her place in the household. “Tell me about how they’re doing.”

Susan swallowed the dryness in her mouth. She wondered if she was turning red—she did that when she was nervous. It was always this way with him, being around him. He made her excited and anxious and delighted all at the same time.

It was a crush. Just a stupid crush.

A crush she had rationalized and dissected and fought against so long and finally surrendered to so that it was now just a part of her personality, like her soft spot for children, weakness for chocolate and love of Audrey Hepburn movies.

Having a crush meant that whenever he was near, she noticed everything about him. Whether he was tired, whether he was sad. If he needed a haircut, if he was happy about some business deal.

She even noticed that he didn’t notice her.

So she could have her dry mouth, could shake with the jitters, could feel her excitement, her face could have a bright crimson blush—and she never had to worry that he would embarrass her by even suspecting that he was the object of her adoration.

All he wanted was an update on the kids. All she wanted was the chance to be near him.

“Baby Edward pointed to the picture of a brachiosaurus in a book this morning and he could sort of say the name of it,” she reported. “And Chelsea won the second-grade calla tournament today. She’s very proud of her—”

“What’s calla?”

“It’s a board game. Uses numbers and counting. The second graders have been playing it.”

“Strategy?”

“Yes, it uses strategy. Sort of like checkers.”

“Good. Chelsea’s got a good head for scoping out the competition.”

Actually, Susan just thought Chelsea was a bright, sweet little girl who had played a lot of calla games with her friends.

“Henry’s teacher told me when I picked him up that he’s doing much better with sounding out blends. And he got invited to Michael’s house for a play date this afternoon.”

“Excellent. He must begin making those vital connections.”

“You mean friendships?”

“Yes, of course, friendships.”

As Susan continued the update of domestic events, she was amazed again at how, even as busy, as distant as he was, Dean Radcliffe knew every detail of his children’s life. He puzzled over Henry’s phonics problems, asked about whether Chelsea’s best friend, Martina, had recovered from chicken pox and reminded Susan that all three were due for their six-month dental visit.

On the other hand, maybe he was the kind of businessman who remembered the birthdays of his clients’ secretaries and sent gifts to trusted employees at Christmas.

He certainly was that way with the children.

“Susan, I’ll have my secretary get Edward a T-shirt with a brachiosaurus,” Dean said. “Sort of a congratulations-on-learning-your-dinosaurs gift.”

Susan nodded, although she didn’t like it when Dean counted on Mrs. Witherspoon to pick up things for the children. Maybe Dean should consider telling Baby Edward himself that he was proud—but it wasn’t her place to make suggestions.

“Will that be all?” she asked.

“No, one more thing,” Dean said, finishing up his hot dog. “I want that storytelling to stop.”

Susan flushed. She had thought that might be coming. They had had this conversation before. She gulped, hating to have done something contrary.

“I’m sorry. It’s just the kids were acting up tonight, didn’t want to go to bed,” she rationalized. “And they seem to like the story so much.”

“I don’t want their heads filled with fantasy,” Dean said, his voice suddenly icily determined. Susan shivered under the personal power this man had—if he treated his business adversaries this way then he certainly deserved his reputation for always getting his way—without ever having to raise his voice.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Radcliffe.”

“They need to face reality. Not be distracted by fiction,” he added. “Besides, the Eastman Bear Company is ripe for my purchase precisely because of the muddled thinking promoted by such dreaming.”

“But the children like it—hearing stories about the bears.”

“I would suggest you reading to them about history or science or animals,” he replied curtly in a way that left no doubt this was no mere suggestion, it was an order.

Susan bit back a retort.

He was so close, so close to connecting to these children, Susan thought. But then he couldn’t do it. He wanted to love them, did love them, but couldn’t get close enough to them to see that they were wonderful children and having a few moments of whimsy at the end of the day wouldn’t turn them into wimps or daydreamers. He was so close to being a real father to them, but he couldn’t do it. She knew the death of his wife had hurt him greatly. She wondered what kind of man he had been before the tragedy.

Because she loved him, she could forgive him the kind of man he was now.

And wish that someday he would change.

She stood up.

“It won’t happen again,” she said.

“Good. Oh, Susan, I nearly forgot,” he said, pulling a velvet box from under a pile of papers. “Your birthday.”

She approached the desk, swallowing back a sadness mingled with anticipation. She wished she hadn’t wanted his present, wished she didn’t care. She only knew she did. She approached the desk and he smiled—the same charming smile that had gotten him everything in life.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he answered and turned his attention to some paperwork in front of him. “And happy birthday. By the way, what’s that perfume you’re wearing? It’s very beautiful.”

He asked the question as if he were asking what time the trains ran, but still he asked it. Her breath caught. She looked into his emerald eyes as he waited for her answer. And for a moment, a scant moment, her heart soared as she knew he had noticed her, really noticed her.

She felt a rising heat in her body, confusing as it was enticing.

How could he do it? With just a look, just a word he could make her quiver.

She was nuts—he didn’t give her a thought other than in her capacity as nanny.

And yet he had just noticed her, had noticed her scent.

He noticed her as a woman.

Her heart soared and then fell flat with a thaddump! as her body heat made her scent blossom and even she could recognize its source.

“Cake,” she said blandly. “I smell like cake.”