A Baby by Easter (5 page)

Susannah wanted to cheer. He'd phrased it just right. Everyone got new clothes for the holidays. It was a natural decision, revealing no reflection on the ugly things now in Darla's wardrobe. Little by little they could be shifted out.

“Can Susannah get a party dress, too?”

Susannah blinked, then shook her head. “Oh, no, I don't—”

“Why not?” David smiled at Darla.

“I don't want a new dress,” Susannah protested. “With the baby, that is—” She blushed and avoided his stare. “I won't fit in anything for very long and—”

“There are such things as maternity dresses,” he said mildly. “Besides, you'll need something for Connie's Christmas party. It's quite a fancy affair. Tomorrow's Saturday. That's a good day for shopping. I'll pay you overtime.”

“No, you won't.” Distressed by the way this had turned on her, Susannah rose. “I'm sure the two of you will manage very well tomorrow.”

“Oh, no. You're not sticking me with a shopping trip on my own. We'll pick you up at ten. Right, Darla?” He grinned at his sister, who grinned right back.

“Right. I'm going to tell Mrs. Peters.” She rushed away, all arms and legs and excitement, exactly as a teenage girl would.

Susannah stared after her, amazed by the change. When she felt David watching her, she looked away
from the intensity of his gaze and walked toward the front door.

“We could start at Bayley's Store for Women,” he said, following her.

Her hand on the doorknob, Susannah froze. She turned and looked at him.

“For more of the same?” she asked.

“Point made.” He sighed. “Okay, you can pick the stores. But nothing too…”

Susannah couldn't help but roll her eyes. “David, could you just lighten up? Try to remember what it was like when you were her age. It wasn't that long ago,” she teased gently.

She thought she saw humor in those toffee-toned eyes, but before she could be sure, David blinked.

“Ten o'clock, remember. How much did you spend on the flowers?” He pulled out his wallet and handed her some money. “Will this cover it?”

“It's too much.” Susannah held out her hand, offering it back. But David shook his head.

“No, it isn't. I'm pretty sure you stopped somewhere along the way for a drink, didn't you? And something to eat?”

“How do you know that?” she asked. He grinned, his smile dazzling her. She was momentarily stunned by how great he looked when he smiled.

“Because I'm getting to know you.” He reached out and touched the corner of her mouth. “And because you have a little smear of chocolate right here.”

“Oh.” Her stomach shivered and it had nothing to do with the baby or morning sickness. “Right. Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow,” she said. “Bye.”

Susannah turned and literally fled from the man
whose touch had just sent warmth flooding through her. Her skin burned where he'd brushed his fingers.

She'd thought David stern and taciturn, but he'd surprised her. Maybe under all that lawyerly reserve and rule making, David Foster wasn't quite the ogre she'd thought.

 

David shifted uncomfortably on the dinky little chair someone had thought to provide for men stuck waiting while women tried on clothes. He'd like to leave, but he wanted to vet every outfit his sister tried on. So far, his decisions had not been popular with Susannah, who, by the way, seemed perfectly at home on her little perch.

“Uh, I don't think so,” he said, when Darla emerged in a swirling lime-green tank top and matching pants.

“Oh, why not?” Susannah asked. “Too much color?”

“No. The pants don't fit her properly. They're too short.” He didn't understand the droll look Darla and Susannah exchanged.

“It's a capri pant,” Susannah explained. “They're supposed to be that length. It's the fashion.”

“Oh.” Fashion. He felt like he was drowning.

“So?” Susannah nudged him with her elbow.

“Do you like it?” he asked his sister, studying her face.

“Yes.” At least she was definite. “Emmaline wears clothes like this at my school. She's pretty.”

“You look pretty, too,” he told her. And she did.

Contrary to David's expectations, Susannah's choices for his sister were not outlandish or edgy. Nor were they as expensive as the clothes he'd chosen. He was amazed at Susannah's patience as she taught Darla to choose the things that brought out her natural beauty. With each
outfit, as Darla caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she grew more graceful. More and more she was becoming the sister he remembered, leaving behind the mulish child he'd battled with for the last eight months.

It wouldn't last, of course. Darla had a long way to go. But she was learning, and Susannah had lasted much longer than any of Darla's other caregivers.

“You should be proud. She's a very beautiful woman,” Susannah murmured.

Woman? His sister?

David did a double take at the girl in the red dress now preening in the mirror. But Susannah was right. Darla looked more like a young woman than a girl. She was growing up and he'd have to face all that implied.

“I want Susannah to try on this dress.” Darla held out a garment of swirling patterns in deep, rich green. “It has room for the baby,” she said.

“It's very beautiful, Darla, and I appreciate you thinking of me,” Susannah said quietly. “But I can't try it on. It's too expensive.”

“I want you to. It's a present.” Darla the woman disappeared, and the petulant girl returned, face turning red when Susannah continued to shake her head. “Davy, buy it,” she insisted, thrusting the hanger at her brother.

“Darla, I can't accept it.” Susannah was firm but insistent. “Please put it back on the rack.”

“No. It's your dress.” Darla was working herself up into a snit.

David rose, preparing to leave.

“Sit down please, David. We're not finished yet.” Susannah never even looked at him, but her firm tone and calm manner left him in no doubt as to who was in charge.

David sat.

“Put the dress back, please, Darla. Then we need to look at shoes.” Susannah blandly continued to survey the list in her hand.

Darla was still angry but now she looked confused.

“I want you to have a new dress, too,” she said, her voice quieter as she stood in front of Susannah.

“I know you do, sweetie. And it's very kind of you, but this shopping day is for you. When I decide to get a new dress, I promise you and I will go shopping for it. But not today.” She paused, studied the girl. “Okay?”

Darla's internal battle was written all over her face. But Susannah's calm tone and manner won. Darla returned the dress to the rack, changed back into her own clothes and calmly waited while the sales clerk totaled her purchases.

David handed over his credit card in total bemusement. How did Susannah do it?

“Can we have lunch before we start shoe shopping?” he asked as they stored the many packages in his vehicle. “I'm starving.”

“That's because you didn't eat a good breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. More than half of North Americans skip breakfast.” Darla told him, stuffing her last package into the trunk.

“Half?” Susannah sputtered.

David looked at her. She was trying to hide her laughter.

“Yes, half,” Darla insisted.

“Then I guess I'm one of those statistics,” Susannah told her. “I'm starving, too. And your stomach is growling.” She giggled out loud and soon Darla was giggling with her.

Shaking his head, David led them to a restaurant and left Susannah to deal with Darla's insistence on chocolate
cake while he scoured the menu for himself. He'd forgotten how nice it was to relax over a meal.

Susannah didn't insist Darla choose anything, he discovered. She commented on the results of certain choices, and then left the decision totally up to Darla, who glanced at him for approval.

“You decide,” David said quietly.

And she did, visibly gaining confidence as she discarded the chocolate cake in favor of another choice.

“I don't like soup,” she told the server. “It's messy. Can I have something else?”

They settled on a salad to go with her cheeseburger and fries. Usually David ordered something she could munch on right away, but Darla seemed perfectly content to talk as they waited for their food. After a moment she excused herself and went to wash her hands.

“How do you do it?” David asked Susannah the moment his sister was out of hearing range. “She hasn't tantrumed with you once, though I thought we'd have one in the store.”

“I did, too,” Susannah confessed with a grin. “And if she had, I would have sat there and waited it out.”

“Really?” He couldn't imagine sitting through one of Darla's tantrums.

“It's a behavior she's learned, David. She needs time to unlearn it.” She shrugged. “If we make her responsible for her actions, she'll soon realize that the results she gets are determined by her. I want her to learn independence.”

“We had a big argument about her bedtime last night,” he admitted. “She thinks she should stay up longer. Maybe she should,” he admitted. “I guess I still think of her as a little kid.”

“She is in some ways.” Susannah sipped her lemonade.
“Why don't you let her choose a time on the condition that she has to get up in the morning when her alarm clock rings without your help? Make her responsible.”

“Good idea.” He sipped his coffee. “I can't believe you learned all this caring for the elderly.”

“Some of it,” she admitted. “But most of what I know about behavior, I learned in our foster home. And I took some university classes for a semester. They helped. I'm going to take some more. I want to get a degree in psychology.”

He was intrigued by her. More than a boss should be.

“The bathroom is really pretty,” Darla told them as she slipped back into her seat. “Lots of red.”

Their food arrived and conversation became sporadic. David dug into his steak, then paused to notice that Susannah picked certain items off her plate and set them aside but eagerly bit into a sour pickle.

“So it's true what they say about pregnancies and pickles,” he teased.

She flushed a rich ruby flood of color that tinted her skin from the V neckline of her sweater to the roots of her hair. Finally she nodded.

“It's true. For me anyway.”

“I don't like pickles,” Darla said. “You can have mine, Susannah.”

“Thank you.” Susannah laid the pickles on one slice of toast, then spread peanut butter on the other. She put them together, cut the whole thing in half and then took a bite.

“That's lunch?”

She blushed again when she caught him staring at her. “It's very good. You should try it.”

“I'll take your word for it.” Then it dawned on him. “Some foods bother you.”

“Mostly the smell of some foods,” she murmured, eyeing his steak with her nose turned up. She returned to munching contentedly on her sandwich.

“Connie said you'd seen the doctor I researched. She says everything is okay.” It sounded like he was prying, he realized—which he was.

“I'm fine,” she said. She set down her sandwich and stared at him. “The baby is fine. I'm very healthy. There's nothing to worry about.”

“There's always something to worry about,” he muttered, pushing away his plate.

“Why?” Susannah dabbed absently at a dribble of pickle juice and waited for an answer. “I thought Connie told me you believe in God.”

“I do.”

“People who believe in God usually talk about the faith they have in Him to lead them,” she mused, perking up when a dessert cart arrived at the table next to theirs. “What are you worried about?”

“A new study says ninety percent of the things people worry about will never happen,” Darla chimed in.

Susannah tucked her chin against her neck but not fast enough to hide her grin. David was beginning to wish he'd never said a word about worry, so he grabbed at their server's suggestions for dessert and bought everyone a huge piece of key lime pie. With the meal finished, he begged off shoe shopping and agreed to meet the two women in a little courtyard area outside. Better to trust Susannah than sit through another round of fashion dos and don'ts.

He was enjoying a well-creamed cup of coffee and working out a schedule of Darla's activities on his
BlackBerry when Susannah arrived lugging several bags, visibly weary. He took them from her and insisted she sit down.

“Where's Darla?” he asked, searching the area behind her.

“She's coming. She met a friend and they're buying an ice cream cone. Her friend's mother will meet us here shortly.” Susannah chose a seat in a shady spot where she could study the dangling seed pods of a desert willow. “You were working,” she said. “Don't let me bother you.”

“No bother.” He stuffed the device in his pocket. “I just got an email about Darla's after-school soccer group. I guess I forgot to reregister her.”

“Does she have to go?” Susannah asked.

“She loves soccer.” He frowned. “Doesn't she?”

“Yes.” Susannah didn't meet his stare. “But there are so many more things she wants to try.”

“Such as?” He could feel the tension crawling across his shoulders. What was wrong with the status quo? Why did she have to change everything?

“Did you know she wants to do pottery again?”

“I know she liked it before. But it's not very active and Darla needs to keep her muscles toned. Soccer is good for that,” he explained.

“Swimming is better.”

David tensed. Why was she always so eager to push him?

“I'm not comfortable with her swimming. At least not without me present,” he said, waving when Darla emerged from the store. “For now I think we'll stick to the activities she knows.”