Warm Hearts (13 page)

“We'll eat here.” He headed for the door. “I'll just run back to my place for some money.”

She reached for her purse. “I have money—”

“No way. Besides, you've got fresh clothes on. I want some and—” he paused to send a rueful glance at his toe, which was less swollen than purple “—a pair of sneakers.” At the threshold, he turned and looked back at her.
I could be gallant and go by myself, but I don't want to leave you alone. You might start thinking and have doubts about what we've done, and I don't want that. I need more time with you. We have to talk about where we go from here.
“Come with me?” he asked quietly.

Caroline broke into an open smile. She hadn't really wanted to let Brendan out of her sight so soon, and while she'd never have told him that, she was relieved by the invitation. Holding up a single finger, she ran toward the closet for a pair of sandals.

Moments later, they retraced the route Brendan had taken with such haste earlier that evening. By the time they'd reached his apartment, he'd grown sheepish.

“You'll have to excuse the mess.” He made an endearing and hurried—hence, futile—attempt to neaten the mail and newspapers that littered the peninsula jutting out by the door. “I wasn't expecting guests.”

“It's okay. I already know you're a slob.” Physically removing his hands from the mess, she shooed him away. “Go change. I'm starved.” She finished neatening the counter, then stood against it and watched while he tugged on a pair of khaki shorts, shimmied into a clean white polo shirt and laced on a new-looking pair of sneakers. Sitting on the bed, he stuck out his foot and said with pride, “I knew I was saving these for a purpose.” Then he stood and advanced on her with one hand low on his hip. “And how do you know I'm a slob?”

“I've seen the way you live, Brendan Carr.” She tried to be stern faced, but her eyes danced. “You leave clothes on the chair and magazines all over the coffee table, and you rarely make your bed.” She cast a glance at the sink. “I was right. Those
are
dirty dishes piled up.”

“You must use binoculars.”

She shook her head.

“It's really that bad?”

She nodded.

“I'll have to have the cleaning service more often.”

She laughed.

“You're enjoying this, aren't you?” he asked, feigning hurt, but when she nodded again, he grinned. “Let's get that food.” Throwing an arm around her shoulder, he guided her toward the door.

*   *   *

“Tell me more about your work,” Brendan said, dropping a denuded sparerib into the dish Caroline had set out for that purpose. “How long have you been a therapist?”

“Officially, for seven years. I got my degree at Duke and spent four years working in the Raleigh-Durham area before I came to Washington.”

“Why Washington?”

Wiping her greasy hands on a paper napkin, she reached for an egg roll. “I've always been intrigued by the capital. When I got wind of an established group looking for an additional member, I jumped at the chance. It's worked out well. My partners have their little quirks, but they're capable therapists and they gave me more than a fair start. Things have built to the point that my schedule is pretty full.”

“Hence the long hours doing reports at home each night?”

“Do
you
have binoculars?”

“Nope. Just a knack for putting two and two together. Hardly a weeknight goes by that you don't spend time at this table.”

“There never seem to be enough hours at the office.”

“But you do work late there some nights.” He was watching her plate as she tried to break into the egg roll with her chopsticks. “Why don't you just pick it up and take a bite?”

“Because this is where the challenge lies.”

“To hell with challenges.” He reached for his own egg roll, brought it straight to his mouth and devoured one-third of it in a single, neat bite. After he'd swallowed, he gave her a winsome smile. “That wasn't so bad, was it?”

“You have a bigger mouth than I do.”

“True,” he said, and continued to smile for a minute. She could match him quip for quip. He liked that in a woman.

“What?” she asked, simultaneously amused and bemused by his lingering smile.

He shook his head and forced himself to tone down the smile. “Nothing. We're getting off the subject of your work. When I think of family therapy, I picture an entire family sitting around a table yelling at each other with the therapist serving as referee.”

She chuckled. “Close. There's no table to sit around, but I do referee at times. Actually, my practice is broader than what you've described. I work with families who can't get along, couples who can't get along, kids who have self-image problems or problems coping with a divorce or a death, fathers who feel left out, single mothers…” She paused for a breath. “The list goes on and on.”

“Pretty heavy.”

“Sometimes.”

“Does it get you down?”

“Sometimes. Well, not so much the subject matter, because I'm one of those who believe that every cloud has a silver lining. What really gets to me is when I can't reach a client or when outside factors come into play that ruin the momentum of what I feel has been productive therapy.”

“Such as…?”

“When a parent gets tired of paying the bill. He sees a superficial improvement in his child's behavior and decides that, presto, the problem's gone. I'm not one to carry on therapy ad nauseam, but superficial changes are superficial. It's like taking penicillin for a strep infection; the symptoms disappear after the first few days, but if the patient doesn't continue to take the full ten days' worth or whatever, the deep-down germs live on.”

“When the problems recur, do you see the child again?”

“Once in a while. Usually I'm the scapegoat. The parent tells himself that I did a poor job and goes to another therapist. I've had clients who've already seen other therapists come to me with the same premise.”

“Do you take them on?”

“How can I not?”

“You're a softy.”

“My own words exactly,” she said with a grunt as she stabbed at the egg roll in frustration. Her delicate picking had done nothing but shred the wrapper. “My heart bleeds easily.” She raised the mangled piece of food with her fingers. “Too easily.” She bit into it as Brendan had done to his. She wasn't quite as neat; half of the stuffing fell to her plate. “Right about now,” she said, then waited until she'd swallowed what was in her mouth before continuing, “I'm feeling badly for Elliot.”

Brendan had felt it coming. Strangely, though, he didn't feel threatened. He did feel curious. “What does he mean to you?”

“He's a friend. Nothing more. Tonight was a blessing in some ways. I've been tactfully trying to give him the hint for a while, but he hasn't caught on. At least now he knows. He's probably sitting in his apartment, feeling humiliated and very down on himself. Despite his bravado, he's a little weak in the ego department.”

“I pretty much guessed,” Brendan said through a dry half smile, “that his accusations were lopsided.”

She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Elliot did his best. He made up his mind about what he thought I wanted to do—”

“And you were too polite to argue.”

“Not too polite.…”

“Too good-hearted, then.”

“It's just so …
painful
to disappoint someone that way. His intentions were always good.”

“Will you call him?”

Fiddling with the chopsticks and the scraps of egg roll on her plate, she mulled over that possibility. “I think I have to. I'd like to tell him my feelings. It's overdue—I should have said something sooner—but if I can make him feel a little better about things, it'd help.”

“You don't think he'll be even more humiliated if you call?”

That hadn't occurred to her, or maybe it had and she'd ignored it. She had to admit to the possibility that, by calling Elliot, she'd be easing her own feelings of guilt far more than his sense of rejection. “Do you think so?” she asked cautiously. “You're a man. What would you want, if you were in Elliot's shoes?”

“That's hard to say.”

“Would you feel that I was rubbing salt in the wound?”

He forked in a mouthful of Moo Shu Beef and chewed pensively. “Probably. At least, at the time I would. Later I might realize that what you said made sense. 'Course, that would depend on what you did say.”

“That there isn't any future in our relationship, that it could linger for months but that that wouldn't be fair to either of us.”

Brendan nodded. “I could probably buy that if I were Elliot, but there's more that he'll want to hear.” The inflection of his voice suggested that she'd know what that was, which she did.

“He'll want an explanation for you and me,” she supplied with a smattering of guilt.

“Right.”

She took a deep breath. “Then I'll just have to repeat what we told him tonight.”

“A lot's happened since then.”

She dropped her gaze. “I know.”

“Are you sorry?”

Her eyes flew back to his. “No!” After a moment's pause, she asked softly, “Are you?”

He shook his head firmly and with finality.

That satisfied Caroline. Out of sheer curiosity, she asked, “Who is the pretty blond-haired woman I've seen at your place?”

Brendan answered in a similarly straightforward tone. It was as though they'd already agreed that the blonde was no threat, simply an incidental to be explained. “Jocelyn. We've dated some. It sounds as though my situation with her is very much the same as yours has been with Elliot.”

“She wants more, but you don't?”

“That's it.”

“She doesn't take hints.”

“Nope.”

“And you can't just tell her to get lost.”

“Right. She's new around here. A mutual friend back in Detroit told me she was coming and asked if I'd show her around. She's a very nice, very gentle lady. I've been trying to think of men to introduce her to, but the ones I know are either too young, too old, too married or too tough.”

“How about you give her Elliot's name?” Caroline suggested tongue-in-cheek.

He answered in the same mischievous vein. “How about you give him her name?”

“On second thought—”

“—we ought to wait a bit. It'd be pretty awkward breaking up and arranging a fix-up in the same breath.”

Caroline grinned broadly, then took a loud breath and sat back. “Well, now that we have that problem solved…”

“What about the other fellow who was here?” Brendan asked. “The one who stopped by last Sunday.”

Her grin faded into something less gentle and she set down the chopsticks. “That's Ben. We were together for a year, but it's over and done. He's been in Spain for six months. I guess he was hoping I'd fill the gap until he could find someone else.”

“But you won't.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Good.” He, too, sat back. They continued to regard each other in silence for a minute. Then he said, “Which brings us down to the nitty-gritty. Are we … a couple?”

She didn't have to give it much thought. Though their lovemaking played a role in her decision, it was far from the deciding factor. She felt comfortable with Brendan, but more than that, he excited her. There was so much in his eyes as they held hers now, so much in his expression, so much in his mind. She'd be a fool not to explore all those things. And Caroline Cooper was no fool.

6

“I'd like that
…”
Caroline began.

Brendan worried when her voice trailed off. “But…?”

“I'd like it more than anything. But there's something you ought to know. There have been times lately…” She frowned, struggling to verbalize her thoughts. “There have been times lately when I've felt … used.”

He nearly sighed in relief. For a split second, thoughts of a dire illness or a dark cloud from the past or even an impending move that would take her from Washington had flitted through his mind. “Used” he could deal with, once he knew what she meant.

“By men?” he asked.

“No, no. By … oh, Lord, by
everyone
.” Her eyes widened emphatically. “Maybe ‘used' is the wrong word. It sounds malicious, when there's never been malice intended.” She continued to struggle, finally eyeing him helplessly. “But I can't find a better word.”

“Just take it slow and tell me what you feel. There's, no rush. We have all night.”

His soothing tone was a help, and his eyes held all the patience in the world. Encouraged, she began to explain. “When you asked me how long I'd been a therapist, I answered in terms of ‘officially.' Do you remember?” He nodded. “Well, unofficially I've been one for nearly twenty years.”

“An eleven-year-old therapist?”

She acknowledged the absurdity of the claim with a feeble smile. “Actually, I was probably twelve or thirteen, but it all begins to blur from there. I had a good-sized group of friends, and we were all pretty close. Somehow I emerged as the confidante. They poured their hearts out to me, and I listened and soothed as best I could. My brother and sister—he's a year older, she's two years younger—did the same, and I don't remember when that began. I was the one in the middle, the one with a level head on her shoulders, the Rock of Gibraltar, the Wailing Wall, the Solomon. My brother is a bright guy but he's always been impulsive. He leaps before he looks, then falls apart when something goes wrong. My sister is every bit as bright, but she's always had a talent for biting off more than she could chew. Given that she's a perfectionist and that she can't always meet her own high standards, she ends up tense. It's always been my job to help her work through that tension.”