“Just you remember that curiosity killed the cat!”
Julie chuckled. “Clichés yet. Where’s your sense of originality?”
“Originality be damned. It’s the truth, and don’t you forget it.”
Darcie’s advice was probably right, Julie told herself. And it was definitely prudent. She’d enjoy her lunch and then go home, have a piece of chocolate and figure out how she was going to tactfully decline Caleb’s plea.
Julie frowned slightly as she remembered the determined jut of Caleb’s square chin. Maybe she’d have two pieces of chocolate.
Despite eating most of an eight-ounce box of truffles, by the following morning Julie still hadn’t been able to think of a light, witty way to tell Caleb she wasn’t going to help him.
Probably because she wasn’t a light, witty person, she decided as her cab came to a tire-shrieking stop in front of the address Caleb had given her. At least, not when it came to kids who needed her help. But this time would be different. This time she would say no and make it stick.
“Hey, lady.” The cabdriver broke into her thoughts. “This is the address you gave me.”
“Sorry.” Julie paid the man and climbed out, barely managing to get the door closed before the cab tore off down the street.
But Julie barely noticed. She was too busy studying Caleb’s house as she slowly walked up the redbrick sidewalk that curved across the velvety, green lawn. Darcie had said that Caleb Tarrington was rich. Very rich. And Darcie had sounded very sure of her facts. Yet his house certainly wasn’t ostentatious. The bottom story was built of a soft-gray limestone and the second story was white clapboard. The roof was a dark-gray slate punctuated by six attic dormers. Dark-green shutters outlined each of the oversize windows. The house looked like the comfortable, well-kept home of a professional, not the estate of a wealthy man.
Julie had no trouble imagining a child’s bicycle lying on the grass or a baby stroller on the front steps. Maybe Darcie had her facts wrong for once, Julie thought, and then dismissed her speculation as irrelevant. Caleb Tarrington’s financial status had nothing to do with her.
Julie nervously straightened her cream linen jacket, brushed the front of her blue silk shirt and then swallowed to ease the sudden dryness in her mouth before she rang the doorbell.
The door was jerked open before the melodious sound of the chimes had died away, and Julie found herself staring at the harassed features of a middle-aged woman.
“Yes?” the woman asked. Her eyes slipped to the bulging briefcase Julie held. “I never buy from door-to-door salesmen.”
“A wise policy, I’m sure.” Julie slipped into her best schoolteacher mode. “However, I am not here to sell you anything. I—”
“There you are.” Caleb’s voice came from behind the woman. It was threaded with some emotion that sounded suspiciously like desperation. He grabbed her arm as if he expected her to make a run for it, and pulled her into the house.
She’d been right, Julie thought distractedly. Caleb Tarrington did look every bit as good in casual clothes as he did in a suit. Maybe better. Definitely sexier. She studied his khaki pants and worn denim shirt with approval.
“You said ten o’clock and…” Julie used the excuse of checking the time to remove her arm from his grasp. For some reason, physical contact with Caleb Tarrington played havoc with her thought processes, and she needed to keep her wits about her.
“It’s exactly ten now,” she said.
Caleb grimaced. “Strange, I feel like it’s been years since I got up this morning. This is my housekeeper, Miss Vincent. Miss Vincent, this is Miss Raffet. She’s going to help Will get ready for school next fall.”
Julie opened her mouth to remind Caleb that she had only agreed to see what Will needed to learn, not supply that knowledge herself, but before she could get out a word, a small boy got up off the sofa and walked toward her.
“My mom she says that school stifles creativity,” he said. “I don’t want my creativity stifled.”
“I’d like to stifle more than his creativity!” Miss Vincent muttered darkly.
Julie blinked. For a child who’d only been here a day, Will seemed to have made quite an impression on the housekeeper.
Stepping farther into the house, Julie took a good look at Will. His thin frame held not even the promise of someday developing the muscles that shaped his father’s body. Although his slightly oversize nose and his bright blue eyes had clearly been fished out of the same gene pool that had produced Caleb. But the expression of misery in the boy’s eyes made Julie’s heart contract with pity.
Poor little kid. How could his mother have just given him to a man the child had never even met? Caleb’s son deserved better. Any kid deserved better.
“Miss Raffet teaches first grade at the school you’ll be going to in the fall.” Caleb tossed the conversation gambit into the growing silence.
“And I promise our school tries to keep the stifling to an absolute minimum.” Julie smiled at Will.
“My mom says that public-school teachers is incompetent!” Will eyed her challengingly. “My mom says they only teach there ’cause they can’t do nothing else. My mom says I can learn everything I need to know at home all by myself!”
“Your precious mother—” the housekeeper began hotly, only to be quickly cut off by Caleb.
“We won’t keep you anymore, Miss Vincent,” he said firmly.
“Yes, sir,” the woman muttered, and with a final, frustrated glare at Will, stomped out of the room.
Julie felt a sneaking sympathy for the housekeeper. Clearly, Will wasn’t going to be easy to deal with.
Although, Julie studied Will’s forlorn face, she didn’t think he was being intentionally rude. Six-year-olds rarely understood the full impact of their words. Nor did they tend to think before they spoke. They just came right out with what they were thinking. Or with what they’d heard, and in Will’s case, he seemed to have heard more than he should have.
“How about if we go out on the patio, Will?” Caleb used the bright tone adults reserve for kids when they haven’t the vaguest idea how to talk to them.
“No,” Will replied promptly.
“No, what?” Caleb stared at his son in surprise.
“No, thank you?” Will tried again.
“First lesson on surviving in the adult world, Will,” Julie said, “is to learn about rhetorical questions.”
“What’s a re…ret…one of them?” Will asked curiously.
“It’s a question that doesn’t expect an answer. Like, don’t you think it’s time to go to bed? Or I’m sure you want to eat your spinach? Your father wasn’t asking your consent for us to go to the patio. He was politely telling you to do it.”
“And polite is getting to be in short supply around here this morning,” Caleb said.
Julie looked at Caleb, her eyes lingering on his face. There was a line between his dark eyebrows, and she could clearly see the muscles knotted along his jawline. The brilliant glitter of his eyes seemed dimmed. He looked as if he’d had a bad night, followed by a worse morning. Maybe what Caleb needed was a few minutes away from his son. And her away from him. The second thought followed on the heels of the first. It would give her a chance to totally regain her teacher persona, which being around Caleb had ruffled.
“Will and I can…” she began.
“No,” Caleb flatly rejected the idea before she could even formulate it. “Will is my son, and I want to find out