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Three
Adam used a piece of toast to wipe up the last of the egg on his plate, popped it into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and followed it with a mouthful of coffee, his pleasure evident. He touched his mouth with his napkin, then laid it on the table in the large, welcoming kitchen, where he sat with Laura.
“Tell me again why these are low-cholesterol eggs?”
Laura balanced her chin on an upturned palm, smiling. “It’s really very simple. Say you want to scramble a dozen eggs. You just whisk up nine egg whites and three whole eggs, add a drop or two of food coloring, heat a nonstick pan, put the eggs in and stir them around. It makes enough for us and the kids.”
“You put something else in these,” he accused teasingly.
She inclined her head. “You can add almost anything to them. I used some of the leftover mashed potatoes from last night—any are okay, as long as they’re already cooked—and some fat-free cheese I found in the refrigerator. It’s a real high-protein, low-fat, low-cholesterol breakfast, especially with toast and a little apple butter—which isn’t butter at all, actually.”
“So that’s how you keep that marvelous figure,” he said, eyes crinkling at the edges with his grin.
Laura felt heat sweep upward from her chest. For Pete’s sake! What was wrong with her? She’d been told that she had a nice figure before—but not by him. Dismayed at her own reaction to a simple compliment, she quickly averted her gaze. “Th-thank you. Uh, now, if you would stop by the grocer’s today and pick up some turkey bacon, we could have that, too.”
He wiped his mouth with his napkin and tossed it on the table, then got to his feet, shaking his head and reaching into his back pocket. “Not today. Sorry. But the roads are clear, so you might as well go and take the kids.” He opened his wallet and extracted a bill, which he thrust at her. “Get whatever you need.”
“Oh, no, it’s not…” Mechanically she glanced at that bill, and then she stared. “A hundred dollars! For turkey bacon?”
“For whatever you need,” he said, laying the bill beside her plate.
She looked up at him with her mouth hanging open. “You can’t go around handing out hundred-dollar bills like that!”
His mouth twitched and his eyebrows rose. “Oh? And why not?”
“It’s too much money!”
He shrugged. “So you have some left over for the next time you need something.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need anything, and if I did, I wouldn’t let you pay for it.”
“No? Okay, then use it for things the family needs, like turkey bacon.”
Laura gulped. “I don’t know if I should.”
He put his foot up on the seat of his chair and leaned over it, his arm crossed over his knee. “What’s the matter, Laura?” he asked lightly. “Can’t I trust you with cash? Is money some kind of great temptation for you?”
She knew then that it was a kind of test. He was willing to pay a hundred dollars to find out whether she was honest or not. In other words, he didn’t trust her, and that hurt more than it should have.
“I’ll give you an accounting,” she said softly, picking up the bill and folding it until it fit snugly in her palm.
He neither moved nor spoke for a long moment, and Laura kept her gaze stubbornly averted, not wanting him to see the sheen of disappointment in her eyes. Well, what had she expected? This whole thing had been an impulsive move on his part, and he would understandably regret that, given time to think about it. She shouldn’t be so bothered by it. She hadn’t been trusted by very many people in her life—and she knew better than to trust anyone else, especially with the truth. If he knew about her…
He took his foot down from the chair and straightened. “Look, you have to go into town anyway. Wendy’s school starts at nine, and I need to be in the office before then. Do you know where it is? The school, I mean.”
“Yeah, I think so. Anyway, I can find it. St. Cloud’s a pretty small town, after all.”
“Right. You can use the station wagon. We keep the boys’ car seats in it. I prefer to drive the truck, anyway. It’s four-wheel-drive.”
“Fine.” Laura nodded without looking up.
“You can drive, can’t you?” he asked, his voice teasingly light, and yet she knew he had reason for concern.
“Certainly. I had driver’s training in high school, and I’ve never had an accident or ticket of any kind.”
“How old are you, Laura?” he asked gently, surprising her into looking up and blurting the truth.
“Twenty-two.”
He smiled apologetically. “I knew you were young.”
She bit her lip, but she couldn’t keep from asking, “How old are you?”
He laughed, his eyes sparkling fondly. “Thirty-one.”
“That’s not exactly ancient.”
“No, it isn’t. To hear my father tell it, I’m practically a teenager still.”
She heard the faint tone of bitterness. There was definitely trouble there, and she hated fighting or discord of any kind, especially between family members. She remembered what she’d overheard the night before, and it occurred to her that she might owe Adam an apology. “Um, about last night… I wasn’t eavesdropping on your argument with your father. I was just coming down the hall, and I couldn’t help hearing.”
“Yeah, well, as to that,” he said lightly, withdrawing eye contact, “we always wind up shouting, and your timing was excellent. Thanks. You didn’t have to step in.”
“I didn’t mean to, actually,” she admitted. “I’m afraid I did it without thinking. I hate conflict, just hate it.”
“Well, conflict’s about all there is between me and Jake,” he said.
That was so sad to hear that the awfulness of it nearly choked her. She closed her eyes and whispered, “I never knew my father.”
“Oh, say, I’m sorry.” He sat down again. “It’s not that we don’t care about each other, Jake and I,” he said after a pause. “It’s just… I don’t know, maybe we’re too much alike. The big thing is, though, he got pushed into the family business, when what he really wanted to do was be a doctor. He was firstborn, and it was like this huge family-responsibility thing, you know? I don’t think he even tried to fight it, and I’ve seen what it’s done to him. Well, I made up my mind a long time ago that it wasn’t going to happen to me, even if I am firstborn of the firstborn, and he just can’t accept that.”
“I see. It’s just a shame that you can’t avoid the issue or something.”
Adam chuckled. “Avoid the issue with Jake Fortune? That’ll be the day.”
Laura bit her lip. “It’s none of my business, anyway. I have this thing about family, that’s all. You know how it is, when you don’t have something that everyone else does, it seems like the most important thing in the world to have.”
Adam nodded. “My grandmother was like that. She was raised in an orphanage back before the Second World War.”
“They don’t call them orphanages anymore,” Laura said slowly. “They call them group homes or halfway houses, but they’re still the last stop for a kid with no one and no place to go to.”
Adam seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “Isn’t there any family?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Both of my parents were only children. My grandparents were already gone when I was born. My dad died in some kind of farming accident when I was just a baby, and my mother…” She was surprised how difficult it was to broach the subject. “Well, we never knew if she took too many pills by accident or on purpose. Anyway, I was five then.”
“Wendy’s age,” Adam mused solemnly.
“Just about.”
“And you went to one of those group homes?” he asked.
“Not at first.” She sighed. “I was shuttled around from one foster home to another for so long I’ve forgotten how many there were. I lived in a group home during my early teens, then I applied at this Catholic boarding school for state wards, and I was accepted, because my grades were pretty good, and that’s where I actually met Sister Agnes.”
“She was special to you,” Adam surmised.
“Yes, she was.”
“So do you still keep in touch?” he asked.
Pain clouded her eyes. “Sister Agnes died when I was a senior. She was very old, and—” She broke off, then said, too briskly, “Well, I’d better check on the kids.”
“Oh. Yeah, and I better get going.” He got up again, saying, “I’ve got research to do.”
She wanted to ask what kind of research, but she didn’t. They’d talked long enough, and she’d already told him more than she intended to. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d mentioned her mother’s death to anyone. She didn’t like to think about it, because the truth was that, despite all the counseling and the self-help books and Sister Agnes’s thoughtful instruction, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she had mattered so little that her own mother had checked out without a second thought. She got up and followed Adam into the den to find the kids lolling in front of the morning cartoons in their pajamas.
“I’m going, kids,” Adam announced, reaching for the briefcase he’d left on the coffee table earlier. “Be good for Laura. See you later.” They didn’t so much as glance in his direction, but he seemed to find nothing amiss as he turned away. “There’s a card with my office number pinned next to the telephone in the kitchen,” he told Laura, “and my mobile phone number’s written on the back of it in case of emergencies.”
“We’ll be fine,” Laura assured him.
He nodded briskly. “Be careful on the roads.”
“I promise.”
“See you for dinner.” He walked away with a wave of his hand.
Laura watched him move into the hallway, then studied the kids sprawled on the floor in front of the television. Shouldn’t there be goodbye kisses and words of affection between a parent and children taking their leave of one another? If she was lucky enough to have children of her own someday, she’d never leave them without hugs and kisses and reassuring words, not even for a single day. It bothered her that this family seemed to take one another so much for granted. Something wasn’t right about it. She walked over to the sofa and sat down, close to where Wendy lay against it. “Dad’s gone,” she said lightly.
Wendy shrugged. “He’s always gone.” Something in the way she said it made a chill of unease sweep over Laura. Well, it wasn’t any of her business. And yet… She shook her head, got up again and walked into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “I’m going to clean up after breakfast, kids, then we have to get dressed and take Wendy to school. That means the TV has to be shut off.”
There were whines and grumbles about that, but they ceased as soon as she left the room. Laura smiled to herself. The Fortune children weren’t ones to waste their energy complaining when no one was around to pay attention. The thought that followed, however, was one to give even the most formidable nanny pause. No, the Fortune kids wouldn’t waste energy complaining; they’d much rather be dreaming up mischief.
Laura sighed. Ten minutes late already, and she didn’t even have them in the car yet! As if reading her thoughts, Ryan wiggled out of her grasp at the last instant, bounced off the edge of the bench seat, shoved her aside, kicking her shin in the process, and ran shouting gleefully down the drive. Two pairs of nylon stockings, the thick black leggings that she wore over them, a pair of wool socks and the tops of her tall insulated boots cushioned the blow, but Laura groaned and laid her forehead against the edge of the car door anyway. Robbie giggled inside the car, alerting Laura to his own escape from his car seat, but it was Wendy at whom she leveled her gaze after he shoved by her and ran to join his brother. Sitting backward in the front seat, her hand clapped over her own grinning mouth, she was the picture of innocence, but Laura knew better.
“I’ll have to write you a note for being late, Wendy,” she said apologetically. “Do you want to know what it’s going to say? It’s going to say that you and your brothers misbehaved so badly that I couldn’t do my job. I guess I’m not a very good nanny, after all.”
Wendy blinked, putting all that together. “Well, when I’m very late, Godiva just always says I might as well not even go, and she lets me stay home…to help with the boys.”
Laura seemed to consider that. “Hmm…well, I did promise your father that I’d do some shopping this morning. If—if I could just get the boys into the car…” It was pretty sneaky, but she figured a dose of her own medicine was just what Miss Wendy needed at this point.
Convinced that she’d won, Wendy opened her car door and awkwardly climbed down to the garage floor. She walked to the edge of the drive, put her chubby fists to her hips, stomped a foot and bawled, “Cut it out, you guys, and get back in the car!”
The little miscreants actually stopped in their tracks and looked at their sister, their faces a study in puzzled surprise. Wendy smiled the smile of the supremely victorious. “Get in the car,” she said again. “Laura’s taking us shopping.”
The boys looked at each other, then at Wendy, before breaking out in whoops that froze on the cold morning air. Making sounds like screeching tires, they tore up the drive and practically knocked Laura down getting inside. With a wealth of other sound effects, they both climbed into their seats and waited to be buckled in. Laura obliged, her lips pursed against a secretive smile.
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up in front of Wendy’s school. Wendy turned a mutinous face on Laura, but Laura shook her head. “I never said you didn’t have to go to school,” she pointed out.
Wendy’s bottom lip poked out. “You t-tricked me,” she accused.
“Yes, I did,” Laura admitted smoothly. “It feels bad when somebody you trust, somebody you care about, tricks you, doesn’t it?”
Wendy merely narrowed her eyes.
“I know you put the boys up to misbehaving this morning,” Laura told her softly, “so you’d be late for school, so late you wouldn’t even have to go, but that won’t work with me, Wendy. All it does is make my heart hurt because it’s so disappointed that you would try to trick me and make my job so difficult.”
Wendy abruptly burst into sobs. “I just wanted to stay home with you and the boys!”
Laura nodded in understanding. “Yes, I know, but it’s not good for you to miss school, Wendy. My job is to take care of you and your brothers. How can I look your father in the eye and tell him that he can trust me to take care of you if I don’t see to it that you do what is best for you? How can I even call myself your friend if I let you do things that are going to hurt you in the long run?”
“I don’t knooow!” Wendy wailed.
“Well, I do know,” Laura said evenly. “That’s what makes me the adult here, Wendy. That’s why I make the decisions. Well, some of them. Your father makes most of them. The point is, school is important, and even if you aren’t big enough to know that, you still have to go. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let you stay home any time you felt like it, and if I can’t do this job the way I should, well, then I’ll just have to find something else to do. Now I’m going to make you a promise.”
“A promise?” Wendy echoed, wiping her eyes. “What kind of promise?”
“We’ll do something fun this afternoon when you get home,” Laura said. “Something special.”
“Something special?” Wendy repeated. “Like what?”
“Well… How about if we make a snowman in the front yard? No, wait! A snow castle! We’ll build a snow castle in the front yard! How would that be?”
“A castle? Really?”
“Sure, why not? As long as it’s dry out and we bundle up real warm, we can build anything we want in the snow!”
“Okay!” Wendy said, smiling. “Oh, boy! Godiva wouldn’t ever let us play in the snow! She said we’d catch new money and die!”
Laura laughed. “We won’t let anybody catch pneumonia, I promise. Now, you’d better go inside. Can you find your room by yourself?”
Wendy nodded eagerly. “Uh-huh.” She opened her door. Laura leaned over and released her belt. “Bye!” Wendy said, swiveling in her seat to get her feet outside.
Laura suddenly thought of that sterile leave-taking between Adam and his children earlier that morning, and she found that she couldn’t let Wendy go without some gesture of affection. “Wait!” Wendy turned back, and Laura wrapped her arms around the girl’s small body. She gave Wendy a brief hug and kissed her silky temple. “Bye, sweetheart. See you later.”
Wendy’s golden eyes glowed happily. “Don’t do no other job, Laura,” she whispered. “Stay with us.”
Hot tears pricked Laura’s eyes. She wanted to promise this little girl forever, but she knew that it wasn’t in her power to do so. Sooner or later, she’d have to go. If Doyal should find her here… She shuddered at the thought of what he could do to this already troubled family. She couldn’t let that happen, and going away before he found her was the only way she could protect them. But she couldn’t tell this little girl that. She couldn’t tell anyone. She smiled and brushed the rusty brown hair from Wendy’s eyes. “We’ll see. Go on now.”
Wendy wiggled out of the car, grabbed her backpack from the floorboards, then slammed the door. Without looking back, she ran up the walk and into the building. A pleasant-looking woman in a heavy skirt and sweater stepped outside to wave Laura on. Laura eased the car away from the curb. How long? she wondered. How long before she had to leave them all?
Laura crawled on her hands and knees through the narrow opening, scrunched her body into the tiny space left over by the other three occupying the small chamber and smiled broadly.
“It’s warmer than I’d have thought.”
Wendy giggled. “Snow isn’t warm!”
“No, of course it isn’t, but a snow castle is…sort of.”
“Oh, I love my snow castle!” Wendy sighed.
