He’d brought it earlier with all the other groceries. How scary that she hadn’t even noticed. As Michael intimated, her meal schedule must be a disaster. “Can’t have chocolate cake without milk,” was all he dared to say.
Twirling round she grabbed two plates and mismatched glasses from the cupboard. The tall one was plastic, bearing the likeness of Michael Jordan, the stout glass bore a picture of Wilma Flintstone. She filled them with milk and brought them to the table.
“Take your pick.”
Kyle sank the knife into the cake with practiced strokes and eased layered slices on two plates. “My heart is with Wilma, but I am thirsty. Guess I’ll go for Jordan.”
They settled in cozily at the small round table.
His mouth curved warmly. He reached out and touched some of the smaller auburn curls at her temple. “Never expected to celebrate the tail end of your birthday this way.”
“Mmm…” The feel of Kyle’s roughened fingertips on her face was exquisite. She leaned into his hand as her new kitten might.
But this couldn’t be the beginning of something. Kyle was here because Michael had hired him to nurture her. He was widowed a year, full of secrets and troubles, with a small girl to raise.
She shouldn’t dare to hope for anything.
But neither should he be running the pad of his thumb down her jawline with that dreamy expression. “So, I’ll
call you first thing tomorrow.”
“Really?” she sighed.
“Sure. About the wallpaper.”
“Oh. Right. Whatever you want. Whatever you say.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Gracie I know.”
She sighed in resignation. As if he knew her at all.
IT WAS NEARLY ONE O’CLOCK in the morning when Kyle rolled down Amelia Anderson’s sedate Golden Valley street of modest homes and aged trees. Reaching her Cape Cod home, he expertly pulled into her narrow driveway. He’d swung into this drive so many times during college, when Libby was alive and living here with her grandparents, that dodging the plank fencing against the neighbor’s property and parallel hedge siding Amelia’s yard had become a practiced art.
Kyle parked and shut off the engine, his thoughts turning to his late wife, who had felt trapped here as child under Amelia’s suffocating tutelage. How gladly he’d played the hero, coming to rescue her by night, arranging their elopement, whisking her off to a new independent life in Chicago.
Since then, he’d come to feel more like a thief than a hero. How naive he’d been—they’d both been—to consider only their feelings in the equation. There were many factors over the years that caused him to reflect, all the lonely holidays, the lack of any new long-term relationships. Many of the friends they’d made eventually moved on or had extended families of their own to focus on. Unlike his own dysfunctional parents who’d basically ignored him, Libby’s grandparents—if a bit possessive—had at least wanted her in the bosom of their family.
He emerged from the Jeep, happy enough with the state of the union. Dashing across the shadowed lawn he noted that light streamed through the bay window from the living room. Perhaps Amelia had fallen asleep in her chair again, television droning, a knitting project for Button askew in her lap.
He unlocked the front door and stepped over the threshold into the small living room. The scene was partially as he expected. Amelia was in her recliner all right, her long gray hair loose round her shoulders, dressed in her long terry cloth robe, feet up, skein of pale yellow yarn in her lap. But she proved wide-awake, knitting needles clicking madly upon half a dainty mitten. Kyle often teased her about knitting in July, guessing Button’s size six months into the colder weather, but Amelia assured him she knew these things.
“You’ve been gone a good long while.” She regarded him over the tops of her reading glasses. Her lips puckered in disapproval. Kyle sighed, hanging his zip sweatshirt in the small hallway closet. He knew she was trying to be less controlling, but it was an ongoing effort. Old habits were tough to break.
“Grace showed up before I could leave.” He moved closer, hovering over Amelia’s chair. “So we ate some cake and firmed up plans.” And then she kissed me, with the gusto of a barroom floozy and the sweetness of a prom queen. I felt dismay, shock and complete helplessness for a matter of about sixty seconds.
He could feel a blush rising from his neck. Hopefully, his suntan would disguise it a bit. Avoiding her survey he stretched his arms over his head and glanced around. To his alarm, there lay Button, dressed in her frilly cotton nightie, curled up in the window seat. “What the…” He stalked across the room.
“I would have carried her to her room myself…”
“You know better, Amelia.” He gave the old woman a worried backward glance.
“I do know the limitations of this old body. Did what I could under the circumstances, though. Covered her with a blanket, rested her head on a sofa pillow.”
Kyle scooped up the child in his muscled arms with ease and strode back to sit in the chair adjoining Amelia’s. “Why can’t she go to bed like other people?” he asked, perplexed.
Amelia shook her head. “She’s inconsistent on that score, it’s true.”
He sensed her hesitancy. “But?”
“Well, Kyle, you said you’d be back in an hour. She believed you. Decided to keep watch for your car.”
“Oh.” He gulped, reaching down to push black silken hair from Button’s cherub face. “Daddy is too blame, isn’t he?” With a sleepy moan Button twisted in his lap, sucking harder on her thumb.
“You are her everything,” Amelia chided. “And small children interpret things quite literally.”
He rubbed his mouth, sheepish. “Seems I slipped up.”
“Mothers have better radar for such things than fathers,” she granted. “You can’t hope to get every move right.”
Kyle sensed some disapproval in her voice that suggested he could’ve done better, but he kept on smiling.
“So, tell me, was the cake a success?” she asked in a kinder tone.
“Yes.” Kyle cuddled Button against his chest, sniffing her hair, which smelled faintly floral. “Grace appreciated it very much.”
Amelia adjusted her needles thoughtfully. “I remember the girl quite clearly, tagging along after you at the bistro. Bubbly, pretty. Curly reddish brown hair. Full of cheer and questions. Seemed crazy about you.”
She did? Kyle’s heavy black brows jumped.
Amelia didn’t acknowledge his reaction, if she noticed. “I never had much contact with the parents though. They came into the bistro a few times to get their son, Michael, gift certificates or to pick up the girl. Struck me as the cold fish type.”
“They are restrained,” Kyle admitted. He was deliberately careful in his wording. Victor and Ingrid had never treated him badly, but he had a sense that he didn’t quite make their grade. It was a vague feeling that didn’t warrant his resentment. Resentment took energy and he’d learned to reserve it only for extreme cases.
Her forehead furrowed as she inspected her stitching. “Don’t get me wrong about the Norths. I’m sure they’re decent. But you’d best keep in mind that the rich are different. Many of them have never felt the raw panic of facing mounting bills. It sets people apart, the yearning for more.”
The advice never stopped flowing. But he did have some recourse here, which he used gently. “We can be grateful to Michael for funding my