Temporary Father (Welcome To Honesty 1) (8 page)

Eli whispered good-night. Without even meaning to, she’d left her son in someone else’s care.

“M
RS
. T
ULLY
?”

Beth opened her eyes. Armed with a duster and disapproval, Mrs. Carleton loomed above her. Beth moved her hands and found she was on the sofa, swathed in a woven blanket. Morning had come. Sometime during the night, Eli and Aidan had left her.

“Mrs. Carleton?”

“Where’s your son?”

Beth sprang to her feet. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” she said and wondered why she was stopping to explain.

She ran through the house. She and Eli had both fallen asleep on couches before, but neither of them walked off and left the other. Eli had told her once that knowing she was in her bedroom at night made him feel everything was okay. He liked structure.

So what had happened?

He’d been happy last night. Had something changed?

Some message on his computer? Had something Aidan said upset Eli?

Too scared to call her own son, she pounded up the stairs and stopped at his open door. He’d made his bed.

Or he hadn’t slept in it.

“Eli?” Back downstairs she hustled.

“Mrs. Tully,” said the housekeeper, trying to stop her by the door. “Are you all right? Have you tried the cottage?”

The cottage? The words barely made sense.

She ran down the porch stairs and nearly fell as she leapt onto the gravel. “Eli.” She had to stop. Get a grip.

The sound of laughter stopped her in midstride on the driveway. It came again from the cottage, and she caught her breath as she tried to look calm.

Aidan and Eli were sitting in rockers on the porch. Lucy, at their feet, thumped her tail, but they didn’t notice. Eli took a portable video game player from Aidan’s outstretched hand. “You’re getting good. You’re better than my mom. She starts laughing because she drives too fast, and then she falls off the track.”

“Maybe she only plays to hang out with you.”

“You don’t know my mother. She looks like she thinks about nothing but mom stuff, and she pretends to be even tougher than she is, but she loves to win. She’ll beat you at anything.” Eli pointed to the screen. “You were going too fast, too.”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“You like her, don’t you?”

“Eli.” Beth cut in, not wanting to hear Aidan’s answer. Both man and boy raised their heads—with very different looks on their faces.

The warmth of awareness washed over Beth’s body. She liked being wanted. Last night had changed something between her small family and Aidan.

It scared her more because he’d chosen to bring dinner. He’d chosen to play with Eli. He’d tucked her in with a familiarity she wished could have been real.

He’d leave Honesty as soon as his doctors let him.

She turned to Eli. “You should have told me you were leaving the house.”

“You were asleep. We left you on the couch ’cause you were so tired, so I didn’t want to wake you up.” He grinned. “I’ll bet Mrs. Carleton didn’t like finding you this morning. We saw her drive up.”

“She wondered where you were.”

“I bet.” Eli looked at Aidan. “She’s my uncle’s scary housekeeper.”

“She was concerned I’d lost my son.”

“That’s not my fault. This is spring break, Mom. I’m taking a vacation at home this year.”

“So you keep saying.” At least he was cheerful. “Let’s get some breakfast. Mr. Nikolas is supposed to be taking care of himself, and I’m pretty sure his
medical team never advised him to spend a morning listening to you yell at your game.”

“He only yells when he wins,” Aidan said. “I’d yell, too. I never realized these things were so hard.”

“Can you believe he’s never played them?” Eli asked with a piteous look at his new friend.

“He didn’t get to where he is by burying his brain in a toy.” She should have run her fatherless-in-every-way-that-counted son straight home, but Beth was compelled to point out that a busy man could be as happy as one who worked equally hard at not having business at all.

Despite her elephantine subtlety, Eli stared as if she’d started spouting Latin.

“Come on,” she said. “You need food.”

“I had grapes.”

“I’m thinking yogurt and a banana? Maybe some oatmeal.”

“Are you serious?”

Good food had to be good for him. Healthy fuel would prepare him to face an unsettled world. Or so her grandmother would have suggested.

“Sleeping on a couch doesn’t make me sane in the morning. Let’s find a compromise.”

Eli stood and Aidan handed him his game. “You wanna come, Aidan? Did you eat yet?”

After a brief look at her, Aidan shook his head. “Can’t,” he said with real regret. “I have things to do around here now that my laptop’s working.”

Eli looked disappointed, but he thumped down
the stairs, Lucy at his heels. Behind him, Aidan stood and braced one hand on the porch stanchion. “What goes on at the lodge today?”

“As long as the rain holds off, they’re pouring my foundation.” And she had to face Jonathan Barr, who acted as if he printed up the money himself.

She tugged Eli’s arm. “We’ll see you later, Aidan. Let me know if you need anything.”

There. She’d done Van’s bidding, too.

She didn’t look back. “Eli, you can’t run down the hill the second you wake up in the morning. Aidan’s a busy man.”

“He wanted to play, Mom.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to. I brought the game downstairs last night when we got tired of using the computer, but the batteries wore out. I found new ones this morning.”

“New ones?”

“In Uncle Van’s remote.”

She tried not to smile. “You shouldn’t raid Uncle Van’s things, either.”

“I like playing a game with someone else instead of by myself.”

“But Aidan has a job and he’s busy getting well.” And he might leave her boy, just as Eli’s father kept doing.

“He doesn’t mind, Mom.” Eli turned his game on again. “I can tell. I know when someone’s bored and doesn’t want me around.”

If she didn’t destroy Campbell Tully with her bare hands, she’d deserve canonization. Two deep breaths brought her voice under control. “He still has work to do. You can’t go over there without asking me. He won’t be here long, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The buttons clacked on his game and circus-type music pealed from the gizmo.

“Why don’t you and I play after breakfast?”

“You’re not very good, Mom.”

She must have looked scared again. Or maybe sad. He grabbed a corner of her shirt. “You could be better,” he said. “But you worry about me beating you and your hands don’t move fast enough.”

“Eli.” Might as well be blunt. He deserved honesty. “I’m going to tell you why I’m out of sorts this morning. I don’t want you to get attached to Aidan Nikolas and then have him leave.”

Eli moved away from her. “You can’t pick my friends, and you can’t run my life.”

H
E REFUSED TO TALK
after their brief, harsh exchange. Mrs. Carleton agreed to look after him while Beth kept her appointment at the bank.

Beth felt as if everyone in town was staring at her as she got out of her car. A few blocks away, the courthouse clock tolled the half hour. She’d arrived early.

She was eager. Mr. Barr’s assistant, Libby showed her in with a smile of greeting. The loan
officer had already fanned out her paperwork on the desk in front of him.

“Join me.” He waved at the captain’s chair across the scarred conference table. “Lib, a cup of coffee for Mrs. Tully. Sit down,” he said, patting the other side of the table as if she were still sixteen.

She almost said no, feeling too beholden and anxious, but the cup would give her something to do with her shaking hands. She sat, screaming a silent plea at every power in creation to get this over with. She needed so much more than the bank would give.

“Don’t be nervous, honey. We’ll finish this and the money will be yours.”

Not enough. Never enough. She’d end up borrowing from Van and being ashamed of herself, praying she wouldn’t shame Eli, too.

“I’m so glad you came to your senses.”

For a second, she imagined throwing the loan papers into the air between them. She couldn’t afford pride, so she swallowed her temper.

“Eli needs his home back,” she said, not caring what he thought. “So I’m settling for what I can get.”

He pushed the top paper across the desk. “Here’s what I can offer.”

She hid her dismay. Mr. Barr waited, expectant, ready for gratitude. “It could have been worse,” she said.

“See? I knew you’d think straight again. You were always a smart girl—”

He broke off so sharply it was as if she’d heard him add “until you slept with that no-good Campbell Tully.”

Going to the bank had become an exercise in humility. She didn’t like being called a girl or “honey.” She knew without being reminded what a blunder she’d made marrying Campbell, but Eli was no mistake. And she couldn’t tell Jonathan Barr off as he deserved if she wanted her house back.

“Where do I sign?”

“I’ve marked each line with red arrows.”

“Thanks.”

Lib came back with coffee that churned acid in Beth’s stomach before she even touched it. She searched the documents for red arrows and signed so fast no one would ever recognize her name.

“Shall I give you a certified check? Or I can transfer this amount into your account.”

It was easier to see him as some cruel loan shark rather than the bank’s reliable employee, but none of this was Mr. Barr’s fault—except for his chauvinistic attitude.

“You can deposit it.”

At last she turned the sheaf of papers toward him. He tapped their edges, arranging them and smiled as if he were Midas, gilding her in honest-to-God gold. “Just pay it back on time, and next time I’ll be able to give you better terms.”

Rage kept her silent. She might not choose to deal with him next time, but rebuilding the lodge
meant she had to take the loan and the check in silence. “Thanks, Mr. Barr.”

Somehow, he’d managed to signal Libby. In a few minutes she came in with a receipt showing that the money had been deposited in Beth’s account.

“Here you go, Beth. I’m glad to see you getting on your feet again.”

She took the receipt for a loan that would actually get her as far as her knees. “Thank you” went through her mind, but she’d never know if she managed to utter the words.

She stopped at one of the high, glass-topped tables in the lobby and wrote another check, to Sam Grove’s company.

With any luck, he’d be able to send out a crew this afternoon or tomorrow. Sam had promised they’d pour the foundation over the weekend at the latest. That was the kind of new start she needed.

S
AM WORKED
at the edge of town from a Quonset hut set in the middle of a gravel yard. She negotiated a path through the heavy equipment and found him in the office—tall, running a harried hand through his dark brown hair, answering a phone and talking to one of his men all at the same time.

He waved her inside. When her turn came for his attention, he shut the door. “I wish I could lock this,” he said. “Silence. Don’t you love the sound?”

“I’ve had more than my fair share.” She pulled the check out of her back pocket and unfolded it. “I have the money.”

He took the check without looking at it and dropped it into the drawer of a gray metal desk he then locked. “I think I can get a guy over to your place in the morning. If we pour the foundation in less time than I estimated, I’ll cut you a break on the cost.”

“Thanks, Sam. I won’t pretend every penny doesn’t matter.”

“Like with everyone. I hear you and the guys in
your neighborhood made short work of the last of your debris yesterday.”

“Yeah. Thanks to them, we finished way ahead of schedule.”

“Gary and Jim suggested I should pour the foundation for free.”

“No.” Her sharp tone made him draw up his eyebrows. “I should jump at the chance, but I don’t want charity.” She looked down, twisting her hands together. Sam had also known her since kindergarten. She didn’t have to tell him why she cared so much.

“Campbell Tully was an idiot back then and he must lose more brain cells every day. Believe me, there was a time when I thought you and Van acted too good for all of us and you needed a lesson in real life. But Campbell Tully—I wouldn’t leave my dog in his care.”

“He wasn’t always—”

“Beth, most guys can’t be the captain of the school football team for the rest of their lives. Usually, they grow out of the disappointment.”

“You’re right. Maybe I was as naive as everyone says, but I only want him to be a good father to our son now.”

She’d never been this honest with Van. Suddenly, between Aidan, Mr. Barr and her old friends, she was offering an oral journal on her private life, one entry at a time, all over town.

“Campbell has nothing to do with this, Sam. I’ll meet you out at the lodge tomorrow?”

“We should be there about the time the sun comes up. I’d like to finish in one day.”

“Only a magician could extract Eli from his bed at that hour. I may be a little later—unless you need me?”

“We’ll just about manage.” He barely hid a laugh.

Beth laughed, too. Unlike Jonathan Barr, he condescended kindly. “Eli and I will be over early.”

“See you there. Maybe I’ll let Eli drop a load of cement.”

“That’d make his day.”

O
N HER WAY HOME
, Beth’s cell phone rang. With dread and hope, she read Brent’s office name and number on the screen as she pulled over. Brent himself answered her hello.

“We have the tests,” he said. “I can put your mind at ease about physiological reasons for Eli’s problems, but we need to go the counseling route next. I have three names I can suggest. People in town, and I trust them.”

“You’d take your child to them?”

“Absolutely.”

Too late, she remembered he and his wife had been trying to have children for several years. “I’m sorry, Brent….”

“Don’t worry, Beth. It was a figure of speech. Let’s talk about Eli.”

She dug for the small pencil and a piece of paper she’d started keeping in her pocket soon after she’d
opened the lodge. The only way to keep track of guests’ favorites. “Can I have the names?”

He read them off, along with phone numbers. “I think you and Eli should talk to all of them. See who fits best. Why don’t I let them know you’ll be calling?”

“Thanks, Brent.”

“I’m glad you brought him to me so early.”

“Do you want to see him again?”

“Not unless you think his physical health is being compromised. And of course, if he wants to talk…”

“I may take you up on that. Let me see how he reacts to the idea of counseling.”

“I’m always here. I’ve told the staff to put you through to me unless I’m in the middle of an emergency.”

She’d made some bad choices in her life, but moving home to Honesty just before Eli was born hadn’t been one of them. “Thanks, Brent. You make me feel safer.”

But only as long as they were talking. The second she hung up the phone, she became a single mother—panicking.

T
HOUSANDS OF E-MAILS HAD
stacked up while he’d been out. Aidan did a quick crap scan and deleted the chain mails, jokes and anything else that required a waste of his time.

He’d have to do another cull later, but he started over at the beginning and tried to catch up on his business.

God, it felt good. He made a mental note to reward Ron in IT with a big bonus.

Working in the silent house took some getting used to. Instead of basking in efficient lighting, his laptop glowed in a cloudy afternoon that spread shadows across the dark wood floor and fat, plaid furniture.

Instead of the whisper of voices and keyboards and the varied rings of cell phones up and down the halls, his only accompaniment was a grandfather clock, slowly ticking in the corner of the open dining room.

After a while, he found himself staring at the screen, seeing nothing. Despite his need for work, he couldn’t seem to concentrate.

That couldn’t be the heart attack. He glanced through the windows, twisting in the chair to see Van’s house. It was too early in the day for lights, but a faint glow issued from between curtains in an upstairs bedroom.

No doubt Eli’s. Aidan stood. The garage doors were open and empty. Van had left his at the airport. Beth must be out. Mrs. Carleton would be with Eli.

Still, he worried. He hardly knew the boy, but Eli mattered. He started for the door, but stopped himself. He was reacting to Madeline’s death, not to Eli’s behavior.

And how many times would Beth let him butt into their lives? He was trying to persuade a woman
incapable of asking for help that she could trust him. She could even imagine him walking out on a boy who needed a father figure.

She refused to see he was trying to build a normal relationship with them both. Aidan pushed through the door and started for one of the walking trails instead of the house. He headed downhill with momentum that brought up his heart rate.

Without warning, Beth bolted from behind a bush growing across the trail, straight into his arms.

Even damp with sweat she was delicious to hold. He should have let go, but she stared at him, stunned, and he felt afraid.

“What’s wrong?” Emptiness filled her eyes.

“Nothing.” She put her hands on his shoulders. Her fingers clung so hard, she almost pinched him.

“Beth, tell me. Is it Eli?” He didn’t mean to shake her, but at least she seemed to move after. Then he realized she’d slid her arms around him. “You’re hurt?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“Something’s wrong with my son. Brent called with the results, and there’s no physical reason for his problems. He… It’s me—the divorce—not being able to rebuild the lodge right away.”

“No, Beth.” He stroked her hair. Her face fit into the hollow of his throat. Her breath on his skin made him shudder, but this was not about sex. It was about caring for her. “You can’t blame Eli’s problems on anyone or anything. Who knows what made him depressed?”

“I have to find out before something horrible happens to him, and he’s not going to want to help himself.”

“He’s your son,” he said, kissing her temple because he needed the feel of her skin against his lips. “You shouldn’t be surprised he doesn’t want help.”

“I’d beg for help for him.”

The tears in her eyes belied the defiant tilt of her chin, the touch-me-not tension in her back.

“I’ll help you.”

That was like waving a red flag in front of her face. She tried to pull away, but he let her go only as far as his hand on her arm.

“I’m not just talking because you’re upset,” he said. “Wise or crazy, inconvenient or not, I won’t walk away.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“I know.”

“I want to.” Longing, sweet and clear in her eyes, spoke when she couldn’t, but he was strong enough to reach across her fear.

“Beth.” He drew her arms around him. He was already kissing her when she linked her fingers behind him. The pressure of her palms in the small of his back cut his breath short.

Wrong time. Wrong place. Definitely the wrong woman, considering she lived an hour and a half from him with a troubled son who made him desperate to work a miracle.

But kissing Beth felt right. So right he had to pull her closer. He slid his hands into her hair, hungry for more. She tasted good. She opened her mouth. She might need no one, but she wanted him, and he had to prove he wasn’t a man who left.

It wasn’t so much a kiss as a lesson in survival. He’d met the threat of death. He wasn’t sure he knew how to be even a figure of a father. But Beth made him forget everything except the most basic, desperate longing to be in her life.

She broke away first, breathing harshly. His heart was trying to explode again, but in an entirely different, pleasurable way.

“Is wanting me so wrong?” he asked.

“Eli comes first.”

“You think I can’t be good for him?” He held her hands in his, still at his back. “My father was always busy. I went alone to basketball games and Boy Scouts. Dad bought me a machine to pitch balls so I could learn to hit. He hired a tutor when I fell behind in history.”

“Exactly what I don’t want for Eli.”

At forty-two, he’d turned down offers and temptations, knowing better than to mix his life with anyone who needed time. Why did Beth and Eli give him glimpses of a different choice? “I believe I know how to be a father because I wanted one when I was Eli’s age.”

“I must be out of my mind.” Beth wiped her mouth.

“Getting rid of me won’t be as easy as wiping away a kiss.”

“My son needs me. You need to think about your health and your business. For all I know, you’re helping us to appease your own guilt about your wife.”

It was like being hit by one of those machine-pitched baseballs. She ran past him, and he let her go.

He wanted her more than he wanted to go back to work. And far from Eli’s demands putting him off, he worried about the kid, too.

But
was
he jumping at a second chance to save someone? Could helping Eli make up for losing Madeline?

Didn’t Beth deserve more?

“E
LI
?”

He froze and his starship got blasted all to hell. In his room, surrounded by pillows and a couple of manga, he’d been playing a game on the laptop. Comfortable for once in Uncle Van’s house.

“Damn,” he muttered.

“Eli? Are you here?”

His mother’s fear both pleased him and worried him. He was tired of talking and mad at her for wanting to know every thought in his head, but did she have to act so scared all the time?

“What?”

“Oh.” She sounded like he felt when his math
teacher called off a test. “There you are. Can we talk a minute?”

“Damn.” He hit Pause on the game. “Here I come.”

Waiting at the bottom of the stairs, she looked different, prettier. Her eyes were softer.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

His mom was tough. She never acted like a girl, hardly wore makeup, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she rebuilt the lodge board by board with her bare hands.

With her face red, she tried not to look at him. Then she did look, but turned away as if she couldn’t stand him seeing her.

“Mom?”

“I got the loan today.”

“Wow.” He ran down the rest of the stairs and almost hugged her. Just in time to stop himself, he caught the banister and swung off it. “I’m glad.” Now that all the old house was gone, maybe he wouldn’t hate going there. It wouldn’t look a fire pit.

“After they put the new foundation in, we’ll have the walls framed, and then the drywall goes on. After that, I’ll need help. You’re a heck of a painter.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Painting might make up for what he’d done. He looked at a spot above her head. “When do you want me to start?”

“Mr. Grove is going to pour the foundation tomorrow if the weather holds, and then we’ll start
framing. Once the drywall is up, we can paint until we finish.”

“I might be back at school.”

“True, but wouldn’t it be great if we were back in the house by summer?”

Her face looked funny again. “What else happened?”

She looked too hard into his eyes. “Brent called.”

Just like that, he felt all sweaty. “Do I have to go back?”

“Not to him.” She changed again—looked like when she found out Dirk Taft was stealing his lunch money. She didn’t need armor like the guys in his video game. Swords would break when they hit her. “But he wants you to talk to some other people, and when we find someone you like, you can talk to her—or him—until you feel better.”

“Don’t act like I’m a little kid.”

“Sorry. I don’t know how to act about this.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone.” And tell he’d burned down their house? Nope.

“I’m sorry. I want to be your friend and keep you happy, but in this case, I have to be your mother and annoy you. You have to talk to one of these people—or someone else if you don’t connect with anyone on this list.”

And he was supposed to be happy? “You never make me do stuff I hate.” That wasn’t true. There was asparagus and a shower
every
night and “We can’t afford a new skateboard.”

“I have to this time.”

To keep from crying like a baby, he dug his fists into his eyes. As soon as he couldn’t see, his mother tried to hug him. He backed away. “Stop it.”

“Eli, this is for your own good.”

“You always say that. It’s a great excuse. You start thinking something about me and I have to go to the doctor.”

“Yes,” she said, in a voice he didn’t know. “You do have to go, but maybe after you talk, they’ll say nothing’s wrong.”

He put his fists back in his eyes. He felt a weight—like one of those cartoon guys who sensed a big piano was hanging over his head. Even he doubted one of Dr. Brent’s friends would say nothing was wrong.