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“Of course she is. It’s just a matter of persistence.”
“We’ll talk about it later.” He went back to checking the mail, but inside, he was battling a rising anxiety. He didn’t want Meggie attempting anything dangerous or difficult. But why? Because Andrea was already in danger? That wouldn’t be fair to Meggie.
Christy finished gathering her stuff. “Well, I’m off.”
“Where is my daughter, by the way?”
“Asleep.”
He stopped sorting the mail and frowned. “Asleep? So early?”
“It’s only a short nap. I think part of the reason Meggie is cranky is because she doesn’t get enough sleep. I’m trying to get her to take a short nap at the same time every day. She watches her favorite TV show when we get home from speech therapy and then she drifts off. It’s working. I was thinking the two of you could have dinner together when she wakes up.”
“I see.” He quirked an eyebrow and, without thinking about what he was doing, looked her up and down.
She tugged at her patchwork broomstick skirt and fiddled with the drawstring of a hideous red georgette peasant blouse, then raised her chin.
“Before you go, would you mind telling me—” he tilted his head at the fish bowl “—what is that?”
Christy bent down to look at an orange fish swimming around in a small, cheap glass bowl. “I think it’s a man-eating shark, but I’m not sure.” She grinned.
Sam frowned.
“This is Mr. Charlie.” She peered into the side of the bowl, addressing the fish. “Say heh-woe to Sam, Mr. Char-wee.”
“I hope you don’t talk like that around Meggie.”
Christy straightened and faced him, looking puzzled. Her startled, defensive expression seemed to ask if she’d said something wrong.
“Meggie’s speech certainly isn’t going to improve if you use baby talk around her.”
Christy bent to address the fish again. “But Mr. Char-wee is a baby. Baby talk is the only wang-widge Mr. Char-wee understands.” She glanced up, this time with a slightly defiant gleam in her eye.
Sam Solomon didn’t favor her with even the hint of a smile. Meggie was his daughter, and though it was a small thing, this baby talk concerned him.
“Okay,” the woman sighed. “No more baby talk. Mr. Charlie—” she bent to speak to the side of the fishbowl again “—as of this moment, we shall speak nothing but proper Queen’s English in this household. Understood?”
Sam managed a wan smile. She was kind of cute. “Christy,” he said as he finished sorting the mail. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It’s nice that you bought Meggie a fish. And I also want you to know—” he tossed the last letter onto the table “—that I appreciate everything else you’ve done for my daughter these past three weeks. And you can do whatever you want with the house as long as it benefits Meggie.”
“I appreciate it that you appreciate it.” Christy smiled, but then her expression grew serious. “I enjoy my work.” She dug around in her bag for her keys.
“I can see that,” he conceded. She had done many small things to make Meggie’s life better. She certainly fed the child well. She deserved to hear a compliment. He rotated his head toward the kitchen. “Something smells good.”
“It’s my secret spaghetti sauce. The pasta is cooked and drained, dressed with a little olive oil. There’s a magic salad chilling in the fridge.”
“Magic salad?” Maybe he should have chosen something other than her culinary skills to compliment.
“I call it magic so that kids will eat it. Orange Jell-O with carrots and cottage cheese stirred in.” She smiled brightly again.
Carrots and cottage cheese? Sam eyed her and decided Christy Lane’s smile was almost reflexive. Why did she smile so much?
“And then,” she went on as if it mattered, “I fold in a little Dream Whip to disguise everything. That’s the—” she made quotation marks with her fingers “—magic part.”
Sam suppressed the urge to say, “I’ll pass.” He sensed that he’d probably come on a little too strong about the baby talk and he didn’t want to hurt this sweet young woman’s feelings again. He tilted his head at her. “Magic, huh? My mom used to call it orange-Jell-O-with-carrots-and-cottage-cheese salad. Guess that explains why I never ate the stuff. Maybe if she had called it magic, I would have scarfed it up.”
She smiled again, almost a laugh. A bit self-consciously, he thought. Unsure. Maybe she thought he was being sarcastic. He was actually trying to be nice. Had he become such a drudge that he’d forgotten how to just be nice? What was the matter with him, anyway? A mess a minute out at the Moonlight Grove site this week, that’s what was wrong with him.
Still, he couldn’t stand the idea of hurting this sunny young woman’s feelings, even unintentionally. She had been working so hard, making amazing progress with Meggie. And managing his household in unconventional ways he hadn’t counted on. He was astounded at the amount of food she’d managed to purchase with the money he’d given her. Pasta, beans, croutons, cereal, whole-wheat crackers. Three kinds of rice. Salmon, chicken, peanut butter. Flavored vinegars. Olive oil, canola oil, real butter. Tortillas and bagels. Fresh garlic, basil and cilantro. Yogurt and cheeses and fruit spreads and even a jar of carrot juice. The truly amazing thing was, Meggie apparently relished Christy’s simple cooking. Her color had improved and she looked less thin lately.
Magic, indeed.
“It was nice of you to cook for her again tonight. Thank you.”
CHRISTY WONDERED WHY Sam Solomon acted so amazed every time she prepared a little simple food for the evening meal. She only wanted Meggie to start eating something besides McDonald’s. It wasn’t as if she was trying to impress him. She doubted Sam Solomon had even noticed that his pantry was now well stocked.
In any case, for Christy, cooking was no trouble. Preparing a meal simply added more zest, more creativity, to her day. For her, it was as natural as breathing.
In her hand she had already singled out the key to her little Ford Contour. She clutched it between thumb and forefinger, staring down at it.
She glanced up and saw that he was frowning at her outfit again. Christy got the distinct impression that Sam Solomon did not approve of the way she dressed. She never discounted these intuitive vibes of hers. But who was Sam Solomon to judge? A man who lived in a cold black house? Sam Solomon had been an easygoing, fun guy in high school. What had happened to make him so dour?
He was still handsome. If anything, he had grown more handsome, more interesting, with the years. And every time Christy looked into Sam Solomon’s deep-blue eyes, she felt like biting her lip. But she didn’t. She stood there, smiling calmly like a good nanny.
He loosened his tie. “Can you stay a minute? I’ve been so busy the past few weeks that I haven’t had time to get to know you at all. I know it’s Friday night, and you’ve probably got plans.”
“Not really. In the summer, I usually try to go for a run before the sun goes down.”
“Then why don’t you stay for dinner? In fact, would you join me for a little glass of wine? We can discuss Meggie’s schedule.”
“Uh, sure.” Christy shrugged, surprised by his invitation.
As chance would have it, she didn’t have a date with Kyle tonight—her boyfriend was on duty—but she couldn’t imagine that a man as good-looking as Sam Solomon was content to sit here without a date on a Friday night. She supposed with Meggie around maybe he’d been forced to alter his lifestyle a bit.
He led the way into the kitchen and removed a bottle of red wine from a small wrought-iron—black, of course—wine rack. “This okay?” He held the label out for her inspection. It read pinot noir, which meant nothing to Christy.
She shrugged again. “I don’t drink much wine. Anything’s fine.”
“Have a seat.” He indicated a high black leather bar stool pushed up under the counter. He reached into a tall cabinet with glass doors and took out some crystal stemware.
She climbed onto the stool and slid her lumpy red calico bag off her shoulder and onto her lap, gripping the thing to her front. She told herself not to act nervous. He was only being nice to the baby-sitter who had worked so hard to make his busy, high-powered architect’s life a little easier these past weeks. It wasn’t like he was really interested in her as a person, or anything.
“So. How was your day today?” he asked as he drove the corkscrew into the cork with brisk, muscular twists.
Sheesh, Christy thought. He hadn’t bothered to ask that all week. And now, today of all days, he decides to ask how their day was. Of course, she could conceal the truth from him, gloss it over. But that wasn’t Christy’s style. She held firm to her policy that the parents of her charges deserved the truth about every detail of their children’s daily lives. The absolute truth, the good stuff and the bad stuff, the cute and the worrisome stuff. “Uh. Well, actually we had a little…an incident.”
“An incident?”
“Yeah. I took Meggie to an art showing—they had some cute black-and-white photographs of animals at the Philbrook—and…and she…well, she got upset and knocked over a small statue.”
Abruptly, he stopped twisting the corkscrew. His shoulders slumped. “Oh, no. What kind of statue? Was it damaged?”
“No.” Christy held up a palm in a gesture of peace. “No damage. It was a sturdy bronze.”
“Even so, that must have been difficult for you.”
“And for Meggie,” she reminded him.
“Yes. For Meggie. Of course. I’m sorry.” He sighed as his shoulders slumped even farther. “I seem to be saying I’m sorry a lot these days.”
She frowned. “Why’s that?”
“Long story. Things are behind schedule out at Moonlight Grove—my job site. And I haven’t been able to help Andrea at all. I dunno. I just feel like I’m—tell me about Meggie. What did the museum staff say?”
“Oh. They couldn’t see any damage. They even called a curator to look at it while we waited in a little office. Still, I felt we had to leave the premises right away. I didn’t want that security guard following Meggie around all day.”
He pulled the cork and poured some wine in each glass. “Did you explain to them that Meggie is special?”
“Of course,” she answered quietly. Christy studied his movements, seeing it all so clearly. How it was, how it had always been, for Meggie’s parents. Every day, she imagined, they hoped for progress, or a least a little bit of normalcy, in the life of their little girl. But every day this is what they got. It was worse than two steps forward, one step back, because it was always one step back. As Meggie grew physically older but remained in her limited mental state, they were continually losing ground.
“Here.” He handed her a wineglass. Then he dragged the other bar stool around the bend of the counter and settled himself up on it with his muscular thighs spread wide, facing her. An undeniably masculine pose that stretched the fabric of his expensive wool trousers across his pelvis.
Christy turned squarely toward the bar and leaned forward so she wouldn’t be so aware of him. She clutched her bag tighter to her middle and took a tense sip of her wine.
Sam watched her for a moment, then said, “How long do you think she’ll sleep?” He jerked his head toward the stairs before sipping his wine.
“I don’t know. She needs a good nap, today of all days. All in all, it was—” Christy tasted her wine “—kind of a stressful day.”
“Yes, I imagine that kind of thing would wear her out.” He twirled the base of his wineglass on the counter. “Poor little Meggie.”
He looked so defeated that Christy felt driven by compassion, by a fierce protectiveness almost, to give him some tidbit of joy about his daughter to hold on to. “Some nice things happened today, too.”
“Oh?”
“After we left the museum, we went by your mom’s to pick up some more food for Brutus. Meggie perked right up when she saw him.”
Sam couldn’t believe his mother had given Christy Lane a key to her luxurious home only four days after he employed the woman. Then his mom had zipped off to Belize, leaving her beloved pet in Christy’s care, to boot.
“Meggie certainly loves that dog.” Christy smiled.
“She certainly does. Good old Brutus.” He eyed the spoiled dog, who answered Sam with a belligerent chuff.
Christy giggled, and Sam did smile then, warmly and genuinely, and Christy relaxed.
Outside, the sky was turning charcoal gray and the wind was kicking up, buffeting the tree branches outside the kitchen windows.
“It looks like it’s going to storm.” Sam clicked the power button on a small TV next to them on the kitchen counter and found the local weather.
Areas of the map around Tulsa were highlighted in bright orange, signaling a tornado watch.
“Is it coming this way?”
“Looks like it.” Sam tapped a finger over the greenish satellite images of clouds skittering over the screen. “Maybe you shouldn’t drive home just yet,” he reasoned. “Man!” He snapped his fingers. “I forgot to show you the safe room.”
“I found it when I was teaching Meggie how to play explore.”
“Explore?”
“A game that keeps kids occupied, and teaches them how to be curious about their surroundings.” Christy and Meggie had peeked inside the tiny area with a steel door and a reinforced ceiling next to the washer and dryer in a corner of the basement. There she found two plain wooden benches and some shelves that were well stocked: flashlights, bottled water, rain ponchos, a weather radio, warm clothes for Meggie. Sam Solomon was as prepared as any Boy Scout.
“Was that room already here when you bought this house?”
“No. I built it after the F-5 blew through O-K-C a few years back.” He jerked a thumb toward the southwest, where the killer tornado had cleared a path through central Oklahoma. “My firm went down to the city and did some of the restoration work.”
She frowned, remembering the pictures on TV and in the papers. “That must have been hard.”
“Seeing devastation like that makes a believer out of you. I installed a safe room before I moved into this house. Besides, I figure it’s my civic duty. No self-respecting architect would resell a house without a safe room. Bad example.” He grinned.
“Are you selling this house?” Maybe, she thought, that accounted for the barren feel of the place.
“I thought I was. My plan was to remodel one old home after another—living in each one while I did the work. Then sell, make a handsome profit, and repeat the process all over again.”
“But…” She supplied the word because he’d said it as though his plan was history.
“But now I’ve got to consider the possibility that…” He sipped his wine.
“That Meggie may be living with you permanently.”
“Yeah.” He winced.
Christie couldn’t decide if his discomfort was because he didn’t want to be a full-time dad or if he was thinking that Andrea might not survive. She hoped it was the latter.
“I suppose there’s always Meggie to consider.”
His eyes shadowed and he downed more wine. “Yes. Meggie.”
“You expect to have Meggie past the summer?”
“Who knows?” His expression grew darker, like the clouds outside. “The truth is, I don’t know how long I’ll have Meggie. Her mother’s pretty sick. It could…it could go badly for Andrea.”
“I understand. Mrs. Solomon—Gayle—told me a little bit about it. Poor Meggie. And poor…what did you say your ex-wife’s name is?”
“Andrea.”
“Poor Andrea.”
“Yes. Andrea’s illness still seems very surreal to me, you know?”
“Has she always been healthy?”
