“But isn't Coppel's home office in Atlanta?”
“It is.” Now he was the one who couldn't sit still. Rising, he stared out her living room window into the darkness that had fallen. “And I'll have an office there, but the majority of my work is on the road. I've been home twice in six weeks.”
“Oh.”
She didn't seem upset by the news. Maybe he'd
misjudged her. Maybe he'd been worrying for no reason. Maybe nothing had changed, after all.
“That was one of the things Coppel wanted to speak with me about, the traveling.”
“One of the things?”
Michael turned around and faced her.
“Before he'd recommend me to the board, he wanted to be sure I had no personal responsibilitiesâno tiesâthat would suffer by my accepting the position.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I had none.”
She nodded, her eyes steady as she held his gaze. “Was that before or after I flew to Chicago?”
Before or after I asked you to give me a baby?
he translated.
“I'd just met with Coppel that day.”
“That's where you were when I called and your secretary said you were out of town.”
Michael nodded.
“So you already had the job?” She sounded confused.
Taking a deep breath, Michael shook his head. What did it matter?
Why
did it matter? He'd been asking himself the same questions for six weeks. And still had no answers. Except to know that... somehow... it did.
“The official offer came the following Friday.”
“The day you called to tell me you'd give me your baby.”
Michael nodded.
Â
HOPES SHE HADN'T even known she had began to slip away, leaving such a sadness in their wake that Susan's
entire body felt the impact. Feeling tired and heavy, she looked up at him.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Does it matter?” Defensiveness in every line of his body, Michael stood before her.
“Of course it does.” She tried not to sound hurt, but wasn't sure she succeeded. “Didn't it ever occur to you that I'd care about such a...a momentous step in your life, just like I've always cared, because I care about you?”
“Well, I...yeah...”
“Come on, Michael,” she said, standing up. She couldn't let him tower over her anymore. “This is big-time, a huge coup. The result of years and years of effort. And you didn't think I'd
care?
”
“Don't you get it, Susan?” He took a step closer. “What it means is that I've got no intentions, ever, of having any part in your baby's life. That I went into this knowing I'd already denied all responsibility for it. That I denied responsibility
knowing
I was going into this. For all intents and purposes, I'm not your baby's father.”
“Yeah.” She promised herself she wouldn't let the tears fall. Not in front of him. “I do realize that.”
“And?” Arms crossed at his chest, he challenged her.
“That was always the plan, Michael,” she reminded him. “You forget, I know you. The request was a strictly biological one. It was never for you to be my baby's father.”
She wanted so desperately for him to know she understood.
“I guess it's just damn lucky we aren't still married, huh?” He tried to joke, but she saw how much he was hating himself.
And hated herself for doing this to him.
“That's what these past weeks have been about, isn't it?” she asked him, taking a step toward him. “You've been beating yourself up for not wanting to be a father, haven't you?” That was as straightforward as she could be.
Staring at her, his eyes full of emotion, Michael was silent.
“You can't help needing other things from life, Michael,” she said softly. “You didn't ask to feel like you do. Nor have you ever made any secret of it.”
“Maybe not.”
“You're a good, honorable man.” She slid her arms around him. “A hardworking man. And fair. You've always been completely honest with me.”
Michael held himself stiffly, hands at his sides.
“What you did was wonderful, selfless, forgoing your own desires to give me what I needed.”
Pouring her heart into every word, Susan was determined to get through to him. “You're the best friend I've ever had....” She broke off as the tears that had been waiting to fall finally did.
His arms came around her slowly, pulling her against him. And for those brief moments, she felt strong enough to make it alone.
Â
CARLISLE LOOKED exactly the same, too. Other than the addition of a twenty-four-hour convenience store about five years back, nothing had changed there in
decades. He'd been born and raised in the downtrodden little town, as had his parents before him. And their parents before them.
Pushing his rental to the limit, he made the two-hour trip from Cincinnati in a little over an hour, arriving at his parents' home just before the end of the ten o'clock news. Any later and they'd have been in bed.
“Michael! Sam, look, it's Michael!” His mother came running down the porch steps in her slippers and robe, wrapping him in her hug. “Sam! Michael's come.”
“Yes, I see.” Michael's father came out of the house, as well, a bit more slowly, but with a grin as wide as his mother's. “Good to see you, son!”
Shaking the hand Michael offered, he pulled his son in for a quick hug, too.
“Come on in,” Mary Kennedy said, yanking Michael by the hand. “Have you eaten? I've got meat loaf left over from dinner. Or I can mix up a batch of biscuits if you'd like.”
“It's okay, Mom, I'm not hungry.” Michael allowed himself to be led into the house, dropping his satchel by the door before he followed both his parents into the kitchen.
It seemed that every important event in the Kennedy family had happened right there in that kitchen. He and Susan had announced their engagement, sitting at this very table, with cups of hot chocolate between them, just about this same time of night. Only that evening they'd driven like bats out of hell from Cleveland State University, instead of from Cincinnati.
They'd announced their divorce here, too. The Sunday after they'd signed the papers that made it official. He'd wondered a time or two why they'd put off telling his parents for so long. Had he maybe hoped it wouldn't happen? That Susan would find a way to convince him a divorce wasn't necessary?
“Here, have some pie.” His mother dropped a plate completely covered with apple pie and vanilla ice cream in front of him. And another one in front of his father.
“Thanks, Mom, this looks great,” he said, suddenly more hungry than he'd thought. He'd always loved his mother's cooking.
Smiling, she bustled about the kitchen, probably fixing some hot chocolateâand pulling more bacon out of the freezer for breakfast, too, now that she knew Michael would be there.
“Something wrong, son?” his father asked quietly, calmly savoring his apple pie.
Astute as always.
Michael could have gotten away with this visit if it had been only his mother at home. While she was the best cook, the best friend, the best mother a kid could want, she wasn't...well, she wasn't what you'd call clever. Or discerning. And not just because she hadn't finished high school. She was just a little slow on the uptake, saw the world through the innocent eyes of a child, took everything at face value.
His father was another story. The man was brilliant.
And wasted in this two-bit town.
Mary, finishing in the kitchen, hurried out with a comment about clean sheets for Michael's bed.
“I was just in Cincinnati,” Michael finally answered
his father. “Couldn't get a flight out until tomorrow.”
“How's Susan?”
Yep, Dad was as bright as ever. “Good. Fine.” Michael took another forkful of pie. His father waited. “Busy.”
“Too busy to put you up for the night?”
Pushing his empty plate away, Michael glanced over at his dad. “Guess I just wanted a night at home.”
“That's fine, then.” Sam Kennedy pushed his plate away, too. Michael hadn't fooled him a bit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“W
HAT TIME'S your flight out?” Sam asked over an early breakfast Tuesday morning.
Michael tucked into the bacon and eggs and biscuits and gravy with relish. He'd slept well, was glad he'd come home. “No particular time,” he said between bites. “I thought I might hang around for a couple of hours, catch something early this afternoon.”
“Well, then, you'll have to come down to the station!” the older man said with a broad smile. “I'll show you around. We got a new air pump since you were here last.”
“Yes, your father's the boss now, you know, since Mr. Hanson retired.” Mary brought a bowl of fresh fruit to the table.
“Now, Mary, I'm doing the same work I've always done.”
“Well, maybe so, but...”
“Old man Hanson retired?” This was news to Michael. And he was usually filled in on every little change during his weekly calls home. They had to fill him in on the little ones; there usually weren't any big ones.
“Not really,” Sam said. “There just isn't enough
work for both of us anymore, so Hanson doesn't come in much.”
“Business has dropped that much?” Michael's father worked at the local service station, had done so since he'd married Michael's mother during his senior year of high school.
“What with that new self-serve station out by the highway, and all.” Sam shrugged.
“But you still have the mechanic's bay, and you're right here in town.”
“Oh, yeah.” Sam gestured with his fork. “We're still showing a profit. We're charging a buck per use for the new air pump,” he continued enthusiastically. “You should see the thing. It's computerized to check gauge and shut off automatically. You don't ever have to worry about filling your tires too much or too little.” Sam sounded like they'd just invented a cure for the common cold.
Michael felt the old familiar anger take root. His father could have been a scientist. He damn sure was smart enough to find a cure for the common cold. And here he was, forced to settle for amazement at a stupid air pump that had seen the light of day at normal gas stations at least three years ago.
“Pop, why won't you let me buy Hanson out, bring the station up to date so you
can
compete with the place out by the highway?”
With a shake of his head, Sam added to his son's frustration. “You do enough, boy, sending the money you do. I didn't raise you to live off you.”
“Butâ”
. “No more.” Sam spoke firmly, holding Michael's eyes with the gaze that had always been able to take
Michael down a notch or two. “I support your mother and myself just fine, and that's the end of it.”
And the money Michael sent was banked for his mother's wish fund or treats for the grandchildren. Once, out of sheer necessity, it had bought a new hot water heater.
Sam slathered some homemade jam on a biscuit. “You see that new sign that went up on Rutherford?”
“Don't think so.” Michael tried to remember. “It was dark when I came through.”
“It's right pretty,” Sam told him, grinning proudly, as though the rest of the conversation had never taken place. “The Dairy Bar put it up hoping to get some highway traffic this summer. They got a picture of Main Street during the Strawberry Festival last summer. Your mom thinks we're in it.”
“We are in it,” Mary said, coming to the table with a pot of coffee. “We was standing by the stoplight when they took it. I remember clearly because I thought the flash was the light changing and then we could cross the street, but it wasn't, it was the camera going off.”
Sam gave his wife an affectionate smile. “Yes, well...” He sipped his coffee. “It's a pretty sign.”
“How are the twins, Mom?” Michael asked as his mother finally landed in her seat long enough to take a bite of her breakfast.
“Fine.” Mary smiled. “Those babies sure keep them busy, you know.”
Yeah. Michael knew. His sisters, almost twenty years his junior, had both married right out of high school, and started families immediately.
“And Bob got a promotion down at the shoe factory,” Sam interjected.
“He did?” In midchew, Michael stared at his father. His brother had advanced?
“He's crew manager now.”
“No kidding! What's it pay?”
“Oh.” Sam helped himself to more eggs from the platter in the middle of the table. “There wasn't a pay raise. Not yet anyway.” He added more bacon to his plate. “They're waiting to see how he does first.”
Nodding, Michael finished his own breakfast and sat back. Only a year younger than Michael, his brother took after their mother.
“Bobbie Jayne got a part in a musical at school,” Mary said.
“Oh, yeah?” Bob's ten-year-old daughter, on the other hand, took after Sam's side of the family. She was smart as a whip and an outgoing delight. Michael figured she'd be great on stage. “Which musical?”
“I'm not sure,” Mary said, frowning, “but we're all going to see her. She gets free tickets for the whole family.”
“I'm sure she can get one for youâand for Susan, tooâif you want. You just say the word,” Sam offered.
“When is it?”
“Sometime before school's out.”
Would Susan be showing by then? “Let me know when, and I'll check my schedule,” he said. He really would like to see it. Sometimes Bobbie Jayne reminded him of himself at that age, always looking for bigger things than Carlisle had ever seen.
“Oh, jeez, it's twenty after seven,” Sam said, jumping up. “I gotta run or I'll be late.”
“The station doesn't open until eight, does it?” Michael asked.
“No, but Fred Hanson likes me there by seven-thirty in case we have early customers.”
“He drives by the station every morning to make sure your father's there,” Mary added.
“He does?”
Sam covered his embarrassment with a laugh. “Yeah, but it's no big deal. He's been doing it since I went to work for his dad forty years ago.”
Acid burning in his stomach, Michael watched his father hurry out. Fred Hanson had been ahead of his father by two years in school. Yet that hadn't stopped Sam Kennedy from beating the older man out of a first-place win at the state-wide school science fair during Fred's senior year.
The win had cost Fred a scholarship. One that went to waste when Sam had to marry his pregnant girlfriend instead of attending college.
And Sam Kennedy had spent the rest of his life settling. Because once you had children, if you were a good person, a worthy parent, your own needs didn't matter anymore. Your primary purpose then became to meet the needs of the lives you'd created.
Sam and Mary spent every waking moment doing just that.
Â
“SUSAN, Joe Burniker called....”
Jumping, scaring Annie, whose head she'd been resting her hand on, Susan smiled guiltily at her secretary. This was the third time in as many days that
Jill had caught her daydreaming. She'd known about the baby for a whole week, and the shock still hadn't worn off.
“I'm sorry, what was that?” she asked, sitting up at her desk. She grabbed a pen, trying to look like she belonged there.
“Are you okay?” Jill was frowning.
“Fine. Who'd you say called?”
“Joe Burniker, and it's okay if you don't want to tell me, but I'd like you to know that I'm here if you need to talk,” her secretary said in a rush. They were the most personal words she'd ever said to Susan.
Susan put down the pen. Arm folded across her chest, she met her secretary's eye. “I'm pregnant.”
“Oh.” Jill's expression filled with consternationâand embarrassment. “I'm sorry,” she said, looking anywhere but at Susan.
“I'm not.” Susan grinned.
That got Jill's attention. “You're not?” She stared at Susan.
“Nope, I planned the whole thing.”
“But you're not, I meanâ” Jill broke off.
“Married?” Susan helped her out.
“Well.” Jill glanced down. “Yeah.”
Taking pity on her secretary, Susan pulled herself together. “I'll be a good mother, Jill,” she said, sounding far more controlled than she felt.
Jill's gaze shot up, her eyes locking with Susan's. “I never thought any differently.”
“It's perfectly acceptable for single women to adopt babies these days,” Susan said, preparing to repeat herself several more times as her associates
discovered her condition. “I just chose to have my own, instead.”
“Then you're not planning to marry the father?” Jill asked.
“No.” But she couldn't leave it at that, couldn't have them thinking she'd been foolish enough to get knocked up by someone who'd deserted her. “In fact,” she added, “I chose him deliberately because I knew he
wouldn't
want to marry me. I don't want to share this child.”
So what if the words were only half-true? No one but Susan was ever going to know that.
Â
EVERY DECISION Laura Sinclair madeâwhich included forcing Seth Carmichael out of her lifeâwas with her kids in mind. She'd made a huge mistake staying with their father when it was obvious his abuse wasn't going to stop. But since she'd been freed from that tyranny, she'd never once broken her vow to put the kids first. Always.
She just wasn't sure of the best way to handle her current dilemma. Which was worseâthe physical problem posed by the bees swarming their house or the potential emotional problem if she called the only person she could think of to ask for help?
Her long blond hair hanging loose, she stood outside her little house on the second Saturday in April, arms wrapped around her middle, staring at the dirt that made up an excuse for a yard. She'd just come home from dropping the kids at a birthday partyâone neither had been eager to attendâto find her kitchen infested with bees. The buzzing had been like something from an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
And there was no money, anywhere, to pay for a pest control company to get rid of them.
But, perhaps, if she was lucky, she could still see to the kids' physical safety without jeopardizing their fragile emotions. She studied the holes in the toes of her tennis shoes for a second, glanced at the Pooh bear hanging limply across her stomach on a T-shirt worn and stretched from too many washings. But at least it was wrinkle-free, tucked into her jeans, and clean. And loose enough to hide the extra weight she'd lost. Either way, it would have to do.
Mind made up, she marched next door, explained about the army of bees keeping her from her phone and asked the crochety old couple if she could use theirs. And coughed up the quarter they charged her.
She needed a man's help and there was only one man in the world Laura trusted. The one who'd walked out of her house the previous fall and hadn't been back since.
“Seth, it's Laura.” She hoped she didn't sound as breathless as she felt.
“Is everything okay?” Grinning at the fact that he hadn't even said hello after all these months, Laura tried not to cry, too. She'd missed him so much.
“Yes and no,” she said now, aware of the older couple listening to her every word. “We're all fine. It's just that I've got bees in my kitchen and I don't know how to get rid of them.”
“How many bees?”
“I don't know.” She couldn't stop smiling, couldn't believe she was really talking to him. Couldn't cry in front of her neighbors. “Too many to count. Hundreds, maybe.”
“I'm on my way.” He hung up before she could assure him that a trip out wasn't necessary, all she really needed was some instruction. Tell her to buy some leather gloves, let her know what can of poison would do the trick. Give her the name of a beekeeper friend.
But if she was honest with herself, she'd have to admit that he could have stayed on that phone for an hour and she wouldn't have asked him not to come. She was a strong woman, just not that strong.
Hurrying next door to wait for him, she promised herself he'd be gone before the kids got home.
Armed with a motorcycle helmet, boots, rubber gloves that reached past his elbows and a can of Raid, Seth stepped out of his Bronco half an hour later and strode past her toward the back door that led to her kitchen.
“Are you sure you should go in there?” Laura asked, worried about him.
“Somebody has to.” His voice was muffled by the face plate on the helmet. “I'll be fine.”