Caitlin's Choice (8 page)

“I don’t give a damn who hears me. Take a look at your own behavior this evening. I guess it was too much to expect that you be courteous to a guest. The word doesn’t exist in your vocabulary.” He threw his napkin on the table and shoved his chair back. Completely disgusted, he stormed away. His mother’s call halted him at the door.

“What?” he snapped.

“You haven’t forgotten about the Forsyth’s’ bridge party tonight, have you?”

“I can’t make it.”

“You realize it is unspeakably rude to cancel at the last minute.”

“You’re going to preach to me about rude behavior?”

He strode back to the table and glared at his mother and sister. Neither showed even a spark of remorse. “If you think your behavior will make me reconsider the living arrangements, you’re right. But Caitlin and Tyler won’t be leaving.”
He kept his voice low, but there was no mistaking the warning.

FIVE

Andrew slumped down in the leather chair in his study without bothering to turn on a lamp. The darkness suited his present frame of mind. His family, who supposedly loved him, cared more about the balance of power than they did about him. Caitlin, who had every reason to hate him, worried about whether he put salt on his food when he was under orders to avoid it. How had his family deteriorated into this gathering of strangers?

His mother had become a nasty, bitter woman. And Leslie! She lived her life from the bottom of a gin bottle. At twenty-one, she looked older than Caitlin’s twenty-eight years. Not that he had won any awards in the decency department himself. Until last year, when his treatment of Caitlin had given him a wake-up call, he had been no better.

“Andrew?” The voice was barely a whisper, with a hint of concern. That eliminated anyone in his family.

“Come in, Caitlin.”

She entered the darkened room slowly. A diaper bag hung from one shoulder, and she held a portable carrier. The light from the hall allowed a glimpse of her delicate features.

“I guess this is a bad time?”

“No. What did you need?”

“Where is the car you leased for me?” She shifted her weight between her feet, and he could tell that she was uncomfortable accepting anything that came from him.

“In the garage. The keys are in it. Why?”

“I need a few things from the store.”

He clicked on the desk lamp. “I’ll drive you.”

She shook her head. “It’s not necessary. But you can watch Tyler.”

His anger dissolved in a wave of shock. “What?”

She placed the carrier on the desk. Tyler was intently studying an assortment of brightly colored plastic keys that dangled from the crossbar.

“You can’t leave,” Andrew muttered desperately, grabbing her arm.

“You did say I was free to come and go as I please, right?”

She picked through the bag on her shoulder, then handed Andrew a bottle of water. He released her arm and absently took the bottle. “Yes, but . . .”

She dropped a clean diaper and a box of baby wipes on the desk. “And you did say the point of my being here was so you could spend time with Tyler, right?”

“Well, yes, but . . . wait a second . . .”

With a casual shrug, she backed herself toward the door. “You have a water bottle. If he cries, give him the water. If he’s bored, entertain him. If he wets the diaper, change him.”

“You can’t do this right now. It’s been a bad day.”

Caitlin gave a little chuckle. “Do you think it’s been a picnic for me?”

“No. But what do I do with him?”

“Read him the newspaper. Take him for a swim. Hold him, talk to him. Whatever you want. I’m going out.”

“Don’t do this to your son.”

“If you truly can’
t handle him, you have two live-in staff members in the house. Ask one for help.”

And with that, Caitlin left him alone with Tyler. He knew what she was doing. She thought that if he saw how much work was involved, he might think Tyler wasn’t worth the effort. Well, he hadn’t built a multimillion-dollar corporation by backing away from a challenge.

“We’ll show her, sport.”

He turned his attention to his son, who was oblivious to his mother’s desertion. Jiggling the keys kept Tyler entertained for all of five minutes before he began to twist and writhe in the seat. When he started to cry, Andrew tried giving him the water, but Tyler turned his head from side to side and cried louder. Finally he took the baby, carrier and all, into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong with him, Sally?” he asked the housekeeper.

“I think he wants to be held, sir.”

“Right.” But somehow the simple act of removing his child from the seat was beyond him. He pulled and tugged, but Tyler seemed to be caught or entangled in something. As his cries grew ever louder and more grating, Andrew cursed Caitlin with every swear word he knew. Damn her. He would die before he would admit that he couldn’t handle Tyler.

Sally pursed her lips together tightly. When he looked up, she turned her head away and coughed. The servants were laughing at him. Could things get any worse?

“Okay. What am I doing wrong?”

“Excuse me, sir, but it does h
elp if you remove the seatbelt first. It’s just under the little blanket there.”

“I knew that.”

“I’m sure you did, sir.”

Luckily he didn’t pay the staff to lie to him. They weren’t very good at it.

Once he got Tyler out of the seat, Andrew had no trouble handling the baby. He took his son for a stroll around the grounds and even for a dip in the heated swimming pool. For the first time in years, he felt completely relaxed and at peace.

Caitlin thought he would get so wound up that he would relent and let her leave. He showed her.

Or did he?

He couldn’t imagine that she would use Tyler to punish him, even for spite. That wasn’t her style. She must have known all along that being with the baby would relax him and lower his blood pressure.

As the last of the sun dipped below the horizon, he got out of the pool and wrapped Tyler in a plush towel. The house they returned to was hushed and peaceful. His mother and sister had gone out and the staff had retired. He had hoped his mother might show enough interest to take a look at his son, but even her attitude didn’t bother him right now. Nothing mattered but Tyler.

And Caitlin. Caitlin, who looked at him with such anger and hurt, then treated him with such caring.

“So tell me, Ty. How do I get through to your mama?”

He lay Tyler down on the sofa and stripped off the soggy diaper.

“You don’t know either? Here, sit on this.” Andrew lifted Tyler’s legs and centered him on the fresh diaper. “I saw Three Men and a Baby, sport. I know how to change a diaper. But let’s keep that between us. There’s no reason your mother has to know about any of this. She’d have me doing this every day as penance.”

“Have you doing what?”

Andrew jerked his head up. Caitlin was leaning against the wall observing him with a grin.

“How long have you been there?” he asked.

“I just got back. I would have been back sooner, but I couldn’t find one person who could direct me to the nearest Value Mart.”

Andrew swallowed a laugh. The first person she asked probably wanted to have her arrested for breach of decorum. Ramapo Heights did have the most snobs per capita in the country. “That doesn’t surprise me. Ask for directions to Tiffany’s and you would have had more luck. What did you buy?”

“It may have escaped your notice, but Tyler doesn’t have any clothes. They were packed in the back of the car you returned to the leasing company.”

“Sorry. I’ll pay you back.”

“Forget it. I called and asked the company to send the boxes back.”

She shrugged and held up the bag. “I just bought an outfit in case you have company, although I got the impression that your mother has no interest in showing off her grandson.”

He lifted Tyler into his arms. “Does that bother you?”

“What bothers me is that Tyler won’t have a relationship with any of his grandparents. What a shame. He’ll be missing so much ...”Her voice cracked. “I’ll be back for him in a minute.”

She turned and sprinted down the hall.

Obviously, she missed her family very much. Perhaps if he tried to bring them together, she would warm up to him. Of course, he had no idea how to find her family. Andrew’s mind started racing. Here was something he knew how to do: set an objective, do research, and mount an attack. He certainly had nothing to lose by trying.

* * * *

When Caitlin returned to the living room, she found Andrew stretched out on the sofa with Tyler lying comfortably on his bare chest. Andrew rubbed his hand in circles over his son’s back, winning a gurgling sigh of appreciation. She sat in the chair across from them and watched enviously. Did babies know instinctively who their parents were, she wondered. Tyler had taken to Andrew instantly.

But then, so had she, Caitlin reminded herself, and look where that got her.

“I think he likes me,” Andrew whispered warily, as if the admission might break some invisible spell.

“If you were rubbing my back, I’d like you, too,” she said without thinking.

Andrew laughed. “Is that a fact? I’ll keep that in mind for when I’m done here.”

“Don’t be so literal.”

“Caitlin, I know you’re a bit angry with me right now . . .”

“A bit?” she repeated, mocking his flair for understatement. “That doesn’t come close to what I’m feeling toward you.”

“Then what was this evening about?” he challenged.

She shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He sat up, snuggling Tyler in his strong arms. “Yes, you do. You didn’t leave Tyler with me to punish me. You knew I was hanging by a thread and you also knew that having to entertain Tyler would take my mind off my problems.”

“You’re crediting me with amazing insight.”

“Why won’t you admit you care? You agreed to come live with me when you knew very well I never could have won a case in court”

She twisted her fingers together in her lap. “That’s not the point. I didn’t have enough money to fight you.”

“A first-year law student could have won that case. Unless you have a secret past as a felon, of course.”

She didn’t meet his grin with one of her own.

“So what about it Caitlin? You didn’t really think that even the most liberal judge would have taken an infant away from his mother?”

“What’s the difference? Tyler is entitled to have his father, if that’s what you choose to be for him. I’ll save some money. When this is over, I can find a small house for us. But not around here.”

He clenched his jaw. “What does that mean?”

“A lot of rich ladies would have to drape their bodies in my fabrics before I could afford a house in this town.”

“Oh,” he muttered on an exhale. “This is nothing. You should have seen the house I grew up in. That neighborhood was filthy rich. This one is only slightly dirty.”

Although his tone was light, she heard an underlying trace of resentment. She had never known anyone to complain about being rich.

“Where was that?”

“Outside of Dallas.”

“Dallas?” She hadn’t detected a hint of a Texas accent in any of the family. “What happened to that house?”

A flicker of emotion flashed in his eyes, or perhaps the light was playing tricks on her. She couldn’t be sure. “My brother managed to lose it, along with most of the family inheritance.”

“Erik?” she squeaked out.

“No, my older brother, Garret.”

Caitlin couldn’t hide her surprise. No one had mentioned another brother. Of course, her own family denied her existence, too.  “I didn’t realize you had an older brother.”

His eyes were hooded in sadness. “He died about four years ago in a car accident. He’d read somewhere that an Italian sports car could go two hundred miles an hour, and he decided to test it out.”

“I’m sorry.”

Andrew shook his head. “He died the way he lived. Too fast, too drunk, and taking stupid chances.”

“Did he gamble? Is that what happened to the money?”

“In a manner of speaking. I was over twenty-one when my father passed away, so I received my inheritance and started my company. Garret was the trustee of Erik and Leslie’s shares.”

The baby began to squirm in his arms, and Andrew forced himself to relax, but his eyes still shone with resentment.

“He got involved with a conniving little con artist. She steered him into a sure thing investment deal that went bust. There was damned little left after his death. She made a fortune in kickbacks while my family had little more than the house left, which was too big and expensive to run.”

Caitlin’s body went numb. She knew she could never tell him the truth about her past. He would never believe her.