Storybook Dad (Harlequin American Romance) (5 page)

The whole reason he’d gotten involved with the foundation was
to make up for his selfish behavior during Sally’s illness. To push Emily off on
Bob when she needed a friendly face and an encouraging word would dishonor the
vow he’d made to himself over his wife’s grave.

No. Mark wasn’t turning his back on people during difficult
times. At least, he’d never intended to be that way.

Closing the phone, he tossed it onto the coffee table, the
determination he’d once prided himself on prior to Sally’s illness and death
returning for the first time in entirely too long.

He
would talk to Emily.
He
would help her reach the next rung of the ladder,
by convincing her to accept assistance from the foundation. And he would do that
for her just as he would for any other potential client.

Because that’s what she was, what she
needed
to be.

For Seth’s own good.

Chapter Five

Emily was just wrapping up a class on outdoor survival
when Mark walked in, his tall, well-built form commanding attention and drawing
the heads of all three female students in his direction. A quick search of his
face and stance turned up nothing to indicate there was trouble at home. But
still, not to call? Something had to have come up.

In a flash, Mark was at her side, his hand on her arm, his
husky voice in her ear. “Are you okay?”

Feeling the questioning eyes of her students, she yanked free
of his grip, dropping her voice to a whisper. “What the hell do you think you’re
doing?”

He stepped back as if he’d been slapped. “You were in pain
again. I saw it in your eyes just now.”

“Pain? I wasn’t in any…” Her words trailed off as she put two
and two together, then turned to address the three women and four men who had
just taken the first of four classes designed to teach them how to survive in
the wild. “I want to thank all of you for such a fun and energetic class today.
Hopefully I answered all of your great questions and that you’re looking forward
to next week’s class as much as I am.”

A muted chorus of agreement rang out as all seven made their
way toward the door, several of them stopping to glance back first at Mark and
then Emily, the unease on their faces igniting her fury all over again.

When they were safely out of the room and down the hall, she
turned back to him. “How dare you make my students doubt my ability to run this
class!”

“Doubt your ability? Where on earth did you get—wait. Wait just
a minute. I didn’t do that,” he protested. “I just wanted to make sure you were
okay.”

“By making a production in front of them? About pain I wasn’t
having? Oh, okay.” She heard the sarcasm in her voice and forced her mouth
closed over the rest of her rant.

He stared at her and then broke left and began pacing around
the classroom. “But I saw the flash of pain in your eyes when I walked into the
room.”

She rested her hands on her hips. “That wasn’t pain. It was
worry
.”

He stopped midstep and met her eyes. “Okay. And I get that.
It’s why I’m here, actually.” He lifted his left hand to brandish some colorful
brochures featuring the same logo as the business card he’d given her two days
earlier. “We got your call at the foundation and we’re so glad that you’re
reconsidering the idea of accepting help from us. These pamphlets will give you
an idea of the kinds of things we can do to help—”

“You’re here because of the message I left on your voice
mail?”

“Yes.”

She brought her hands to her cheeks and worked to steady her
breathing, the meaning behind Mark’s statement becoming crystal clear. “I didn’t
call because I want some sort of help from your foundation,” she snapped.

His eyebrows rose. “Then why did you call?”

“Why did I call?” she echoed in a tone that was bordering on
shrill. “Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe I was
worried?
”

“About what?” he asked.

“Not what,
who
.” She kept her focus
firmly on his face as she filled in the blanks he was so obviously missing. “As
in worried about Seth. And you.”

“You were worried about Seth and me? But why?”

She considered turning her back on him and simply walking away,
but opted instead to have her say. “Maybe because I saw the way his face lit up
when we agreed on a time for our first rock-climbing adventure, which should
have had the two of you walking through that door yesterday morning.” Sure
enough, the color drained from his face as she continued, his genuine
cluelessness over his faux pas making her even angrier. “I know what kind of dad
you are. I’d be an idiot not to see that. So I think it’s fairly understandable
why I’d chalk up your no-show to something being wrong, instead of just you
blowing off a promise you made to your kid.”

Taking two steps backward, he sank into a chair and raked a
hand across his face. “And so you called the foundation to see if we were
okay?”

“It was the only number I had.”

He closed his eyes momentarily, only to open them again with
obvious hesitation. “Oh, man. I’m sorry, Emily. I didn’t realize…”

Feeling her anger edge toward an unexplained sadness, she waved
his words aside. “Look, just tell me he’s okay. Beyond that, I don’t need or
want to hear anything else.”

Mark’s eyes stopped just shy of meeting hers. “He’s fine. We
just, um, had other things to do.”

“Other things to do,” she repeated, as if hearing the words out
of her own mouth would somehow take the sting out of them. It didn’t.

And it was her own fault. So they’d talked on a beach—big deal.
So they’d laughed together for hours over pizza—big deal. So Seth had seemed to
respond to her as strongly as she did to him—big deal. It had been one
evening—one measly two or three hours.

The fact that she’d given the encounter a second thought, let
alone allowed it to excite her while simultaneously meaning so little to the man
sitting in front of her, was embarrassing.

She turned toward the door. “Well, I’m sorry you drove all the
way out here just to inform me you had better things to do yesterday than show
up for a class
you
scheduled. Take care of yourself,
and say hi to Seth for me.”

“Emily, wait. It’s not what you think.”

She stopped. “And you know what I’m thinking now, too?”

“Yeah. That I’m an insensitive jerk.”

She opened her mouth, only to shut it without uttering a word.
Really, why argue the truth?

“But it’s not like that. Not in the way that you think,
anyway.” The legs of Mark’s chair scraped against the linoleum floor as he rose
to his feet and closed the gap between them. “I decided to refrain from coming
here with Seth yesterday because of him. Or, rather,
for
him, actually.”

“I don’t understand.” She dropped her hands to her hips again.
“Your son was beside himself with excitement at the pizza place just thinking
about learning how to climb. How could your decision not to show up be for
him?”

Mark shifted foot from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable with
their discussion. “I—I can’t allow him to hurt like he has this past year. Not
knowingly, anyway. To do so would make me a pretty crappy dad.”

“Teaching him how to rock climb would make you a crappy dad?”
she asked in confusion, just as some semblance of a reason hit home. “Is this
about safety? Because if it is, you have to believe I know what I’m doing.
Teaching these kinds of skills is my job, Mark. It’s how I make my living. He
would have been perfectly safe.”

An awkward and all-too-telling pause caught her by
surprise.

“Wait a minute. Please don’t tell me you doubt my ability
because I have MS?”

For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to answer, but in
the end he did, his words suddenly making it difficult for her to breathe. “It’s
not your ability in light of the MS that I’m worried about, Emily.”

“Then what?” she whispered.

“It’s the threat your condition wields over my son’s
heart.”

“Your son’s heart? What on earth are you talking about?”

She watched as Mark walked aimlessly around the room, clenching
and unclenching his hands. When he finally turned to face her, the pain in his
eyes was like a lightning bolt to her chest, swift and unmistakable. “Most
three-year-olds spend their days playing. Girls with their dolls, and boys with
their cars and trucks. When they grow tired of that, they retire to a couch to
watch their favorite show on TV, snacking on a hot-from-the-oven chocolate chip
cookie with a tall glass of cold milk and a straw. It’s the way it’s supposed to
be, you know?”

Without waiting for a response she was at a loss to provide, he
continued, his words, his tone, taking on the emotion evident on his face. “Seth
didn’t have that. Not beyond his first three years, anyway. No,
Seth’s
playtime was spent in medical offices and
hospital rooms. And instead of watching cartoon characters chasing each other
all over the television screen, he watched his mom grow sicker and sicker, and
sicker until she slipped from his life completely.”

Swallowing over the lump that grew in her throat, Emily took a
step forward. “Oh, Mark, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize just how awful it was
for the two of—”

He held up his hands, cutting her off. “I can’t take that
experience away from him. I can’t go back and airbrush out all his pain and
anguish, regardless of how much I wish I could. But what I
can
do is protect the rest of his childhood. Keep him from having to
go through something like that ever again.”

Suddenly the reason the pair had failed to show the day before
was as plain as the nose on her face. And she didn’t like it one bit.

“Wait, please. Are you telling me you didn’t want to bring him
here to
rock climb
with me because you’re afraid I’m
going to die on him like his mother did?”

Mark’s glance at the floor was all the answer she needed.

“First of all, a quick fact check. I have multiple sclerosis.
And while MS can be a debilitating disease, the likelihood that it’s going to
kill me is slim to none. Will it shorten my life? Maybe, but only by about five
percent.
Five percent
. The chance I’ll die being run
over by a bus in downtown Winoka is probably higher than that.”

Slowly he lifted his head. “But—”

“And second, Seth barely knows me. I mean, c’mon, you really
think a few hours at a pizza parlor and a few more spent learning to climb rocks
would leave him so enamored with me that he’d be seriously impacted by some
unexpected decline in my health? Because I certainly don’t—”

“Didn’t you see how taken he was with you at the pizza place?
How he hung on every word out of your mouth? How he tried to endear you to him
with the best knock-knock jokes making the rounds of his summer preschool
program? Didn’t you see how he looked at you with such awe and genuine
happiness? Because
I
did, and it took my breath
away.”

At her quiet gasp, Mark continued, his voice growing raspier by
the second. “But that wasn’t all. I also felt his fear when he asked about your
illness on the way home that night. It was…
crushing
.”

She blinked at the tears that threatened to cut paths down her
cheeks. “He was afraid? Of me?”

“He was afraid
for
you. And trust
me when I say that kind of fear is worse, far worse.” Mark tipped his head back
and looked up at the ceiling, the nature of the conversation, coupled with the
countless memories it surely dragged to the surface, sapping him of physical
energy. “I don’t care how perfect that smile of his was the other night when he
looked at you. It’s not worth watching him hurt the way he did with his mom. Not
for me, anyway.”

* * *

I
T
WAS
QUICK
. Fleeting, even. But he’d seen it as surely as if a chorus of
angels had underscored its presence.

Emily was taken by Seth, too.

The knowledge made Mark pause and search for a softer, easier
way to get his feelings across. But before he could utter another word, the
moment was gone.

“So why show up now if you didn’t have the guts to call and
tell me all of this yesterday morning? Surely you could have popped your
precious pamphlets in the mail and saved yourself the trip.”

He looked down at the brochures he’d forgotten he had, and held
them out to her once again. “Because I—I wanted to talk to you. To see if I
could convince you to let the Folks Helping Folks Foundation help you through
this difficult time.”

“There is no difficult time,” she said through clenched teeth
before sweeping her hands toward her body. “Look at me. Do you really think I’m
having a difficult time?”

“Maybe not now, but down the road—maybe. Probably. But that’s
why I’m here. That’s why I’m trying to tell you about the foundation. We can
equip your house and your office with the things you might need later, like a
wheelchair ramp or a special tub for your bathroom that will protect you from
slipping.” Realizing she wasn’t going to take the brochures, he dropped them
onto the nearest desk. “In fact, the foundation stands to get a very large
donation if we can find a local business owner who can benefit from our work.
And since this—” he spread his arms and gestured around the room “—is your
business, we thought maybe—”

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh. I get it now.”

He rushed to soothe away any misunderstanding. “Wait. It’s not
like that. You know I wanted to help you the other day, long before I knew a
thing about this donation.”

“Right. Only now it’s even more important to pressure me into
something I don’t want because my…my
disease
helps
you and your precious foundation put a checkmark in some stupid little box.” She
pivoted and paced across the room, stopping when she reached the far wall. “I’m
fine, Mark. Just fine. Find someone else to help you tick off your boxes.”

“But you have a debilitating disease. You said so
yourself.”

For the briefest of moments he actually thought she was going
to come back and smack him. Instead, she raised her hand and beckoned to
him.

Scooping up the brochures, he followed her from the classroom
and down the same corridor as two days earlier. When he reached her office, he
stepped inside.

She grabbed an overstuffed album from a nearby shelf and
slammed it onto her desk. With a flick of her wrist, she snapped back the cover
to reveal page upon page of news clippings and pictures highlighting her many
outdoor skills. “Can you climb a tree that looks like that?” she asked, pointing
at a photo of her near the top of a blue spruce. “And how about this?” She
turned to the next page. “Can you scale the side of a mountain, Mark?”