Temporary Father

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“All right, Mom,” Eli said. “We’ll get you to the doc in no time, Lucy.”

“Eli, why don’t you get my phone out of my purse and call Dr. Patrick?”

Gently settling Lucy, he leaned forward, but her bag wasn’t there. “Where is it?”

She could see it—on the kitchen counter. “At home.”

“Mom, your driver’s license.”

Lucy whined, but more as she did when she couldn’t get comfortable on her bed. Beth glanced at her and then back at the road. “You worry too much for one so young, Eli.”

“So will the cops,” Aidan said.

“You’re flying, Mom.”

“They can join the parade. Lucy’s our girl.”

“Yeah.” Eli sat back with satisfaction and rubbed his dog’s side. She whimpered again and Beth pressed harder on the gas.

She glanced at Aidan. “If you’ve brought your wallet, you can drive us back.”

IN THE VET’S OFFICE, Eli paced awhile, and then Beth wrapped him in one arm and persuaded him to sit. Her fear for him spread around the room in a soft cloud of panic. She tried to be brave and self-sufficient, but her son was her weak spot, and she couldn’t hide it.

Aidan stared at his lap. At his hands. Neither vain nor overly modest, he knew he was a capable man. Normally strong as a horse, he wouldn’t think twice about taking charge of a last-gasp company or a knock-down, drag-out brawl in one of the pubs where nobody knew his name.

But he hadn’t been wise or strong enough to save his wife, and he was tired of fighting grief and guilt.

Eli’s distress was familiar to him. It was like looking into a film of his own past.

How many times would he live it all again? His heart still thudded with the disbelief he’d felt as they’d told him about Madeline. Finally, he’d seen the letter they’d pushed into his open palm.

He scrubbed at his hand with the other.

She’d tried so long to tell him she was in trouble, but his idea of help—doctors, meds for her undeniable depression—had all been useless. He’d loved her. He’d held her while she’d cried, and he’d kept repeating he loved her. She’d sworn he didn’t even want to be with her.

He’d begged her to come along when he’d traveled, but she’d refused to leave their house.

“Aidan?”

He looked up, his head as heavy as a wrecking ball. He shouldn’t like the sound of Beth’s voice so much. He hardly knew her, but he’d lost a woman who could fight no longer, and he couldn’t help being drawn to Beth’s inability to back down from a fight.

“Huh?” he said.

She glanced at the people around them. “Are you—” She stopped as she looked into Eli’s curious eyes, but she kept on, lowering her voice. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” He might have preferred she pretend nothing was wrong with him, but mattering to someone was good—even in a room full of strangers.

In the corner, an older man concentrated on his silent parrot in a cage on his lap. A woman who looked pretty pissed because their dog had gone before her solid, superior cat, sniffed.

“Fine,” Aidan said again.

Beth hugged her son. Eli endured her affection, but then shrugged out of her reach, sliding to the farthest edge of his steel-and-orange-vinyl chair.

Aidan read the boy’s mind. Keep your hands off me, but please make this stop hurting. Again, he made Aidan think of Madeline. She’d needed more affection than he could give unless he held her twenty-four hours a day. And even then…

Eli was desperate and blank all at the same time, need and aloofness that looked too familiar. He shifted his feet.

What was he thinking, really?

That Eli might be in trouble, the way Madeline had been? No one had to warn Aidan he was carrying a masochistic load of guilt, that he might be seeing phantoms. But what if he wasn’t wrong?

This family was raw. He couldn’t step aside when he saw someone else in trouble. He’d never intruded on anyone’s privacy. Too busy. Too smart. Far too comfortable with his own life.

Until Madeline had chosen to die.

He looked at Beth, needing to say her son reminded him of his wife. She walked to the plate-glass windows. A couple of cars whispered past, filled with people caught up in their own errands or pleasure, oblivious to life going on around them.

He loved the idea of oblivion now that he couldn’t get any.

Beth took a few circuits around the brick-lined waiting room, and then she sat, far from him and Eli. The lady’s cat, two seats away from Beth’s new spot, stared at her a second, but then turned, wobbling as it balanced its bulk on four tiny-in-comparison paws, to face the other direction.

Eli paced next, his sneakers squeaking on hard linoleum. He collapsed beside his mother. The cat tightened all its muscles.

“It’s my fault, Mom.”

“What?”

“Everything.” Like her, he ignored the people glancing his way or looking studiously everywhere else.

Beth had eyes only for him. “Lucy’s all right.”

As she tried to put her arm around him, he pushed away. “Mom.” He put “I’m not a baby” into her name. “I shouldn’t have left her outside.”

Beth leaned into him. “Lucy got hurt in her own fenced yard. She might not have been safe at our place. She might not have been safe inside if someone had shot toward the house.”

“Nobody did.” He lifted his hand and angled his thumb toward his mouth and bit down.

The world pitched. Madeline had done the same thing, how many times a day? She’d chewed the skin on the sides of her thumb until it bled. Then she’d start on the other thumb. Aidan’s stomach muscles clenched.

“Eli.” A force beyond his control dragged the kid’s name out of him.

Eli and Beth started and stared as one. This was not the time. Everyone else in the waiting room eyed him.

He looked at Beth’s soft face, her lovely half smile that invited him to say what was troubling him.

What jerk would have ever left a woman who could be scared half out of her wits for her child and their dog and yet spare warmth for a stranger who’d just yelled at her son in a vet’s waiting room?

He licked dry lips. “Lucy was running in the woods. You had nothing to do with her getting hurt.”

Beth’s eyes softened even more in a silent thank-you. Eli frowned, and then went on as if Aidan hadn’t spoken.

“You know those kids around Uncle Van’s house, Mom. They don’t have a curfew. They drive their ATVs all over the place. Do you know how many beer cans I’ve found in the woods? They drink ’em and then they shoot at the cans. They ran out of beer so they shot Lucy.”

“No.” Beth threw Aidan a distraught look. “Lucy’d hate it if you dragged her into the house every time you came in.”

“She’ll hate bleeding to death, too. And what about brain damage?”

“She won’t have that.” Aidan sat on Eli’s other side. “And she won’t bleed to death. The doctor said a couple of butterflies would fix her up.”

Beth looked as miserable as Eli. “Sweetie, let’s stick to troubles that make sense. We’ll post more signs around Uncle Van’s property, but you can’t control his neighbors. I’m sorry we had to move across town and you’re missing your own friends. I’d be glad to pick them up if you ask them to visit.”

“The guys who live where Uncle Van does are snobs. They think they have the right to do anything. It doesn’t matter if they kill someone’s dog.”

“Call your old friends.” A hint of tears choked her voice. “It can’t be that bad. We’ve been there two months, and no one’s blasted anybody before.”

“You don’t get it.”

“I do,” she said, but her son shook his head, and Beth’s bigger concern seemed to be calming him down.

“I’m glad you never let me have a gun after all,” Eli said.

Beth glanced self-consciously at Aidan. “Fire-arms have been a bone of contention.” She patted Eli’s knee, but then linked her hands in her lap. “I was trying to keep you from getting hurt like Lucy.”

“It’s worse to be the one who didn’t get shot.”

Aidan stretched his nerveless legs in front of him and hoped the kid would never have any idea how true that was.

“Tell me about it,” Beth said.

Eli crossed the room again.

“I don’t know what I’m saying wrong.”

Aidan held still in case she was talking to herself. He fought an urge to push her hair behind her ear so he could see her averted face.

“That lodge,” he said. “Did your husband die in the fire?”

“No.” Her glance at Eli was a warning.

“You lost everything?” Had the boy started the fire? Was there something about her ex-husband that shamed her? She looked at Eli, and he stared back. Neither said anything that explained the pointed silence.

“We’re starting over literally from scratch,” Beth said. Her eyes skated over her son. “But I’m grateful it was just stuff and not people.”

Aidan waited. Then, “When will you be up and running?”

“We’re having some prob—as soon as I can.”

He cracked his knuckles, a nervous habit he’d conquered in sixth grade. “They’ll bring Lucy back any second.”

“That would help.” Beth turned toward the treatment rooms, and her elusive scent floated toward him. She made him uncomfortably aware—starting the moment she’d burst out of her brother’s hedge.

He’d climbed into her car this afternoon as if he were the only man on earth who could carry an injured animal. He wanted to be with her, in case he could help. That was what he told himself as he found he couldn’t look away.

Even the shape of her lips intrigued him. Part wary smile, part frown. The curve of her throat, marred only by a thudding pulse made him want her and want to protect her all at the same time. He never went for a woman on an attraction-at-first-sight basis.

“Good God,” he said under his breath, facing what he’d avoided with all his so-called will. Guilt had nearly killed him, but he wanted Beth because life ran strong and dauntless in her desirable body. Just what he needed.

“Lucy!”

Eli’s happy shout startled everyone. The vet led her out by her leash. Underneath a couple of butterfly bandages, someone had shaved the short black fur on her forehead.

Eli slid into Lucy on his knees. She grumbled, but let him nuzzle her head with his. Beth was already beside her son, and they didn’t need Aidan.

“Look, Mom. She is all right.” Eli quizzed the vet with a parental glance. “She is, isn’t she?”

“Fine.” The doctor ruffled Eli’s hair. “I’ll ask Chief Berger to send a few patrols by your uncle’s house. Maybe put a little fear into anyone who might be shooting in the woods. Since so many animals started turning up hurt, even using a pellet gun is illegal within city limits.”