Temporary Father (Welcome To Honesty 1) (13 page)

“I told Mrs. Carleton I was taking her,” he said.

“Thank you.” His mother put her hand on Aidan’s shoulder, and “thank you” sounded like something Eli wasn’t supposed to hear.

Aidan covered her hand. No one had ever stared at her like that. Eli turned away and then remembered he’d been putting on his shoes.

“Let’s go,” Aidan said. “An orderly’s holding her for me, and he probably has other work to do.”

Eli ignored them, running ahead to the elevator. They barely made it before the doors slid shut. He would have gone downstairs without them.

“What’s going on?” Aidan asked. “Did I interrupt something?”

Yeah. His whole life. Not that he wanted his mom and dad back together any more. “No,” he said, and his mother said it at almost the same time.

When the elevator opened, he ran for the doors. Lucy must have smelled him coming. She started jumping and the orderly backed as far away as her leash would let him.

“She doesn’t hurt anyone.” He tore around the doors and grabbed her with a quick thanks. Laughing, Eli buried his face in his dog’s black coat.
But this time, when darkness covered him, he snapped his head up, breathing hard.

The dark scared him now.

A
IDAN CAUGHT
Beth’s arm as Eli bolted across the driveway to a park the hospital had built for its ambulatory patients. Lucy galloped at his side.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Me, his idiot father and he doesn’t want to go to camp.”

“There’s more.” She didn’t elaborate. He went on. “I’m being pushy again, but I looked up the camp online and I found some photos other kids took there. Do you think he’d like to see them?”

“I shouldn’t even let you talk to him. When are you leaving, Aidan?”

“Will you listen to me? I won’t let him down. As long as he needs me, he can count on me.”

“Why?”

“How can you ask? I helped him start breathing again. I watched him suffer for his dog as if he were her dad and she was his baby. I see him in pain, and I have to help. And he’s your son, Beth. How could I not care enough to be his friend?”

She eyed him too carefully, then took a deep breath. “I owe you everything so I’m trying to believe, but we’re people you met on a trip away from home. How long until some broken-winged company takes our place on your to-do list?”

“I’m tired of you dismissing me.” He didn’t reach
out to every woman and child he met. Yet, why set Eli’s recovery back, arguing with his mom in the parking lot? “I’ll get the pictures and meet you.”

Beth put her head down, but kept walking. The pavement’s heat seeped through the soles of his shoes as he watched her go.

A warning whispered. Don’t start thinking of this kid as a son with Beth waiting for him to run out of her and Eli’s lives.

He opened his car and took out the photos he’d printed that morning. By the time he caught up with the most difficult woman in his world and the boy who made him want to learn how to be a father, Eli was throwing a stick for Lucy. Beth had taken a vigilant seat on a bench.

“Eli,” he said, “I found pictures of The Falcon’s Nest. Other kids who’ve gone up there posted them on the Web.”

“Yeah?” He glanced over, but suddenly, he didn’t seem so happy to see Aidan.

“Don’t you want to take a look?” Beth asked.

He held out his hand. Aidan handed them over and then started to join Beth on the bench, but she stood as soon as he came near. “Can I see them, too?” she asked.

When she reached Eli, he shoved the pictures at her. “Lucy,” he said, “let’s get you some water.”

“Wait,” Beth said, “couldn’t we talk about the camp?”

“I know about it. Maria told me and you told me.
It’ll build my self-confidence. I’ll have school, and a psychologist will talk to me once a day—check on me—and I’ll climb mountains.”

“Not really mountains,” Beth said, and Aidan wished he could put his arms around her and promise everything would be all right.

“Look at the pictures,” he said instead. “The other children are having fun.”

Eli turned, quivering with rage. Relief flooded Aidan, its intensity surprising him. The boy had found his emotions. The only thing Madeline had ever felt was abandoned. Aidan hid his happiness even as Eli tried to skewer him on a glance rich with fury.

“Why don’t you go?” Eli asked. “Instead of helping my mom get rid of me—so you can be with her—why don’t you go?”

Lucy stood up and barked.

“It might be time I did that,” Aidan said.

Beth didn’t seem surprised. He wanted to explain. To tell her he was just getting out of Eli’s way, but how could he stay when Eli was looking for a weapon?

T
AKING HER CHILD
to the bus to meet the other campers was the hardest thing Beth had ever done. The previous afternoon, he’d come home from the hospital. They’d spent a silent shopping day, stocking up on his supplies. They’d shared a silent dinner, and then Beth had sat a silent vigil at her barely open bedroom door, listening for any sound.

The next morning, as she drooled on her shirt, with her head lodged in a corner between the wall and her bureau, Eli slept in. When he woke, she slammed her head into the dresser, pretended she hadn’t slept on the floor and joined him to grab an energy bar and some juice for breakfast.

Sleeping well was a good sign. Unless he’d slept too well. Couldn’t that also be a sign of depression?

No wonder she was driving him crazy. They packed all his new gear, and she made him have lunch.

“Let’s load your stuff in the car,” she said after she washed the glasses from their meager meal.

The bus waited in the hospital parking lot. Children, both boys and girls, ranging in age from eight to eleven, stowed their things in the open storage bin. The kids said goodbye to their parents with varying degrees of reluctance. One little girl was crying so hard, Beth teared up.

Eli remained stoic until the last minute. He was on the bus before he turned and pushed his way past a kid who shoved him back as he tried to climb down.

“Bye, Mom.” He hugged her. “I’ll be all right. I’m not ever going to hurt myself again. I told Maria, but I want you to know, too.”

“How can you be sure?” she asked, her throat constricted.

“At the last minute, I changed my mind. I won’t ever forget that feeling. You can’t help thinking of me as a kid, but I’ll show you. Gotta go.”

He turned, but she pulled him back, picturing him leading a pack of troubled children up Everest. “You don’t have to show me anything.”

“I’m not going to fall off one of those hills.”

He knew her too well. “I’ll see you in two weeks,” she said, “as soon as I can visit.”

“Yeah.” He pulled his arm free. “I gotta go. The other kids are watching out the windows. What do you expect, a dance?”

Beth laughed. He laughed, too, looking a little startled. Then he ran to the bus, the last one to climb on. A woman wearing a Falcon’s Nest T-shirt followed him up the stairs, glancing back. She flashed Beth an
okay
sign just before the doors closed, and the bus started.

Beth squinted into the sunny sky and watched the bus weave through the parking lot. As it turned down the street, she shook her head.

Dangling off a mountain was supposed to make Eli well. Letting him go was pretty much the same therapy for her.

“W
OW
, J
OSH
.”
Dazed, Beth stared at the bones of her new home. Josh, the roofer, had started with his crew that day. She’d spent the afternoon distracting herself with errands she’d been putting off. After Eli had reached the camp, he’d sent her a text message to say they’d arrived. Suddenly she’d had to look at the lodge before she went back to Van’s. “It looks like a house again.”

“When were you here last?”

“Over a week ago, just before they started framing.”

“Yeah, I was sorry to hear about Eli.”

“Thanks.” In the warmth of spring, with a breeze caressing her face and the clear sky a theater of early evening beauty, Beth thought back to her son’s hospital bedside, and she didn’t trust herself to talk about it. “They framed the house in a week?”

“With a big crew, it goes fast.”

“How long will you all take?”

“Another two weeks, maybe. Depends on the weather.”

“Doesn’t it always?”

And that was all the conversation Beth could make. Her mind was on Eli and only Eli. Was he okay? Afraid on his own?

Relieved to be out of her reach?

“Don’t worry about a thing, Mrs. Tully. You’ll have this roof for another twenty, maybe thirty years.”

“Thanks, Josh.” She tried not to mind a kid probably six years younger than she calling her Mrs. Tully. “I’ll get out of your way. I guess you’re packing up to go home?”

“Yeah. I stayed a little longer than usual tonight. I meant to get an earlier start this morning, so I let the other guys go and did a little more.”

“Don’t get hurt.”

“Okay.”

Eli used that same tone to agree and shut her up all at the same time. Since she had no desire to eventually put her roofer on a bus out of town, she decided not to mother him in the absence of her son. “Talk to you later. You have my cell number if you need to reach me?”

“Sure.”

She pointed to the ladder lying on the ground beside him. “Do you need help?”

“I’m golden.”

“See you, then.” She headed back to her car. Home would be empty, unless Mrs. Carleton had found extra tasks. Van had returned to his business
meetings after the doctors assured them Eli would do best at camp.

She drove to the park in town and turned in to the same parking spot she’d used when Eli was a small child. He’d loved to come here and run through the fountain that squirted out of the cobbled labyrinth. After, he’d dry out while she’d pushed him on one of the chain swings.

“Higher, Mommy, higher.”

Another boy’s voice drew Beth to the picket fence that hugged the park and protected the children from running into the baseball fields or the busy street. The little guy kicked his feet into the air as his mom pushed him, chatting with her friend whose daughter was on the next swing.

Beth closed her hands on two pickets and leaned back, looking up at the sky. Only a trace of sunlight still veined the dark blue.

“Beth?”

She turned so fast she drove a splinter into her palm. “Aidan.” She turned up her hand and tried to pull out the sliver.

“Let me help you. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I can do it.”

“I know you can, but do you have to?”

She pulled back, ignoring his pointed question. “I should have called you before now.” They hadn’t seen him since Eli’d been so aggressive.

“I understood. How is he?”

“I don’t know.” She pulled out the splinter and
blamed her swelling heart on the almost-nothing-pain. “He’s gone to camp. He was allowed to text me when he arrived, so all I know is that he’s there.”

“What if he didn’t have a cell?”

“He’d get to call on one of their pay phones.” She pressed her hands together to ease the sting and whipped up a smile. “Maybe I should have tossed his cell into the lake on the way over here.”

He grinned. God, the man was beautiful. And he’d been kind. He deserved better than her and Eli’s testy mistrust. He couldn’t help that she’d grown used to turning to him when she was afraid.

“What is it, Beth? Why are you so sad?”

Around them the night flowed into town, and the children laughed and regret reached delicate fingers to make her shiver. “I’m sorry I can’t know you better.”

All the lines in his face sobered. “I’ve never said you couldn’t.”

“You’re leaving. You were the perfect choice for Eli’s father figure until he thought I was starting to care for you. Now he doesn’t want you around. Even if I believed in you or me or the future, how could I make his problems worse?”

“I’m not going anywhere, and whatever Eli thinks about you and me together, we’ll deal with it.”

“Be serious, Aidan. I believe you’d never hurt Eli or me on purpose, and I don’t think you’re lying, but you are making promises you can’t keep.”

He grabbed one of the pickets. His eyes were on
the swing sets, but he didn’t seem to see anything until he faced her again. “What do you know that I don’t, Beth? Why are you so determined not to get involved?”

“I’m scared for my son. And for me.”

“It’s too late. We started mattering to each other the second you ran through that hedge.”

“Forget that living in a town like this would bore you out of your wits, and I won’t move Eli. Ever. You have a business that needs you in D.C.” She shook her head, so that her hair flew into her eyes as she started walking toward her car. “What am I even talking about? None of this matters because you and I are an impossibility.”

“That’s not a word.” He came up behind her. “I can’t promise forever, but neither can you. We have to see what comes next.”

“What comes next for me is getting my son well.” Her car felt too far away. She walked fast, swatting at grass that tickled her ankles, but then she stopped so abruptly he bumped into her. Splaying her hands on his chest, she pushed away and wondered if she’d ever forget the beat of his heart against her palm. “I’m not sure I thanked you.”

“You have,” he said, “and you never needed to.”

“I have to balance accounts between us.”

“Eli told me once that you try to pretend you’re not as nice as you are. He says you do it for protection.”

“He was wrong.”

A
IDAN TRIED TO LET HER GO
. He stopped where she left him and let her open her car door before he yelled, “Hey!” All around them, people turned. People who knew Beth and would talk about the crazy man yelling at her in the park.

Too bad.

He ran to her. She met him, waving her hands in a slow-down gesture.

“Are you allowed to run?”

“I told you I’m not going to die, Beth.”

“Well, don’t.”

“Let me talk to you. You’re afraid—just like your son. I know how that feels, but there’s more to survival than taking the next breath.”

“Not now. Maybe not ever if Eli doesn’t want you around.”

“M
RS
. C
ARLETON
?” Beth set her keys and purse on the kitchen counter. Mrs. Carleton didn’t answer.

What a day of firsts. For her soul’s sake, she needed to take care of her son, but she’d sent him away to strangers. At the lodge, she’d found the framing up and the roof started. She should be happier, but it only mattered because it was Eli’s home.

She’d run like a frightened sheep from the one man she might be able to love. And she wasn’t absolutely sure why. He’d given her no reason to believe him a liar. She just couldn’t make herself accept he was telling the truth, and she wouldn’t risk upsetting Eli.

And now, she wished Mrs. Carleton were still here. She would have reminded Beth that her duty lay in this house, not in the cottage down the hill.

Beth flipped open her cell phone and called Van.

“I’m sorry, but I have to hurry. What’s up?”

“Not enough to keep you on the phone. I’m lonely. Eli’s gone and I can’t talk to him for two weeks.”

“They can’t stop you.”

“I agreed when I let him go to the camp.”

“Maybe you both need the break.”

Way to parrot Maria Keaton. “I won’t keep you.” Or beg him to talk her out of doing anything crazy tonight—like knocking on the cottage door.

“Thanks for letting me know where Eli is. Call back later if you want to talk, okay?”

Later might be too late. “Okay, Van.” She hung up and considered calling Campbell, but her heart froze. He didn’t deserve it. If he wanted information, he could work for it. She’d made it too easy for him to neglect their son. She was always in the middle, trying to build a relationship between them.

She stuffed the phone back in her pocket in case Eli somehow called.

Maybe a bite to eat?

The kitchen was clean. Beth missed Eli’s laughter, the way he tempted Lucy with a bite of bacon or a sliver of fish.

A thump overhead startled her. Then paws clicked along the hallway and down the stairs.

“Lucy?”

The dog whined as she came. Beth poured food into her bowl and gave her fresh water. Lucy sat, not eating.

“I didn’t want him to go,” Beth said. “And defending myself to you may be ridiculous.” She reached for the leash. “Want to go for a walk?”

If Eli asked, their easygoing dog slipped into a frenzy. Tonight, Lucy slid to the floor and rested her nose on her paws.

“Okay,” Beth said. “I’ll go by myself. And don’t you be wishing those kids with the pellet guns on me.”

She shut the door and wandered down the driveway. Like Eli, she couldn’t help searching Aidan’s porch in the hope he’d be there. He was.

She stopped, and stopped breathing, too.

He stood. “I hoped you’d come.”

“I’m walking. Lucy refused to come, so I’m walking alone.”

“You could walk with me.”

And she could opt to believe neither of them meant anything deeper than the words they were mouthing.

“No,” she said.

“Come in, Beth.”

“I can’t.”

“It’s easy. You walk up the path, climb the steps and I’ll take your hands and pull you the rest of the way.”

“That’s not easy. I know what lies at the end of this path.”

“It could be happiness.”

“I haven’t been that lucky.”

“Beth.” His disappointment seduced her more than his invitation. “One of the things I like best about you is your inability to give in when life smacks you around.”

“Aww, that’s nice. Most people say I’m too hardheaded.”

“Then come to me and find out if there really is safety in numbers.”

She didn’t want to go in, and she didn’t want to leave. If only Van would call back now. “I could pretend I don’t know what’s happening.”

He shook his head. “Not you.”

“You get to the heart of a deal.”

Twisting his mouth, he shrugged.

“What kind of woman am I, wanting to be with you when I can only think of my son?”

“You’re a woman whose son lived, despite his best efforts. You’re one of the luckiest women on earth, but you’re human. You love your son and your mind is filled with him, but your body wants a connection and comfort.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Aidan’s laugh was as sexy as the casual stride that brought him down the steps. “You want me.” He stopped in front of her, and she felt his need to touch her. When she thought she might scream if he didn’t, he pointed one long finger and pushed her hair over her shoulder. He leaned closer and breathed in.
“From the moment I met you, I’ve loved your scent, but it makes me hungry for you.”

A sound, deep in her throat, vaguely shamed her. His husky voice worked like foreplay. The man sounded as if he cared. She must have felt that early in her marriage—before her marriage, maybe—but the care of a good man had been sadly lacking in her life.

“I’m not asking you to forget Eli. We’ll talk about him later, but for now, think of you and me,” Aidan said. “Feel how good it is to touch me because I don’t want to let you go. Is it good, Beth?” His lips brushed her throat, up and down, up and down, back and forth. Feather-soft, his touch left her longing. She slid her hands over his shoulders and held on.

“This can’t be right.”

“It feels right.”

She shook her head. He pushed her hair out of his way again, with his nose, as his mouth chased gooseflesh across her skin.

“Does the camp have your cell number?”

Her shivers punctuated every word he spoke against her. “Yes.”

“Could you do anything for Eli if you went and sat outside the gates?”

“He’s my baby. He needs me.”

“He’s not a baby.” Aidan closed his hands around her waist and forced her to meet his eyes. “He may be young in years, but that’s all.”

“Which makes this worse. I let him down.”

“The people are trained to offer the help he’ll need.”

“What if he thinks I don’t love him?”

Aidan didn’t answer, but his eyes seemed to grow moist. He shook his head as if he were choking. She tightened her fingers on his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said, remembering too late that Madeline had chosen to die because she’d never believed Aidan loved her. “I’m so sorry.”

He looked into her eyes, his grief as deep and troubled as her own. Maybe he was right. For one night, couldn’t they stop thinking? Couldn’t she be with this man who made her remember she was a woman and alive?

She eased his head down until their mouths met and clung. He opened his lips. She sank against him, fumbling in the darkness of need, of not knowing how to help him, of never having been with any man except Campbell, and feeling sure she must have lost all her good sense.

He slid his hands down her back again. She warmed and weakened, and she clung to him. He hugged back. They were two bodies, yearning for more than a glimpse of closeness that neither had felt before.

“Come inside?” he asked again.

“If I don’t, we’re going to put on a show for those neighbor kids.”

“Surely they have bedtimes.”

“Aidan, it’s now or never. We can’t talk about
boys or curfews. If I remember Eli threw you off the hospital grounds, I’ll never be able to—”

He kissed her, backing toward the porch. Beth went along, tripped once and steadied herself with his strength. He let her go when they reached the steps, and she ran up them beside him.