Father to Be (14 page)

Oh, hell, they
were
ugly. There was no dress code for this job. She could find clothes that were both professional and pretty. Other women managed.

Grabbing her handbag and briefcase, she locked up and headed home. She wasn’t dressing to impress, she reminded herself as she traded plain and ugly for another summery dress. But if her office clothes were severe enough to put off a grown man, didn’t it stand to reason that they could have the same effect on young kids? The Brown kids already viewed her as someone to distrust. Anything that made her appear more approachable could only be good.

This time she left her panty hose behind and her hair down. There wasn’t much she could do with it anyway. She’d always wished for straight, sleek hair in some fabulously
rich shade, but she’d become resigned to long, unruly curls in brown—not blond-streaked brown or red-highlighted brown, but just plain brown.

It was five-twenty when she left the apartment. By five twenty-five she was pulling into J.D.’s driveway. The pleasures of small-town traffic, she acknowledged with a satisfied sigh.

At the top of the stairs she was lifting her hand to knock, when the door opened. Gracie and Noah gave her wide-eyed looks, then he croaked, “Caleb! The welfare lady’s here!”

Caleb and Jacob came around the corner from the kitchen, followed by J.D. He looked more relaxed than the last time she’d seen him, though she wasn’t sure that meant things were going better between him and Caleb. Judging from the boy’s glower, she’d say they weren’t—unless, of course, that glower was meant for her.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asked, gesturing toward Jacob’s quilt and Caleb’s ice chest.

It was J.D. who answered. “We’re having a picnic supper out at the house. I’ve got to get back to work, or it’ll never get done. I take it you’re here to make sure I’m not using the kids as slave labor or shackling them to their beds at night.”

“Are you?”

He stepped back and gestured down the hall. “Take a look.”

She opened the screen door, and all four kids silently moved aside to allow her entry. Dirty dishes were stacked on the kitchen counter, and toys and game pieces were strewn across the living room. A stack of kids’ books had fallen off the coffee table, and down the hall a pile of clothing had accumulated on the floor outside the laundry room. In the guest room the beds were made—sort of—with the spreads tossed carelessly across each bunk. New
clothes hung in the closet, and a few more toys and books helped fill the empty shelves.

Though the place was by no means slovenly, it was a change from the immaculate condition on her first visit, and she was happy to see it. It appeared the kids were gradually settling in. Instead of huddling together on the couch in front of the television, they were starting to act as if they lived there and weren’t merely visiting against their will.

Turning back to find them watching her, she smiled. “I can come back another time. I’m holding you up.”

The kids took her words as permission to go. They started out the door, then turned back when J.D. spoke. “You want to go with us?”

Her first impulse was to say no. Going on a picnic with them wasn’t her preferred method of inquiry. But what could it hurt? Weren’t the two primary purposes of her visit to make certain the children weren’t living in unfit conditions and to evaluate their interaction with their guardian? She already knew the living conditions were more than adequate, and she could study their interaction as well at the new house as she could here.

“What do you say, kids? Do you mind if I tag along?”

The younger three looked immediately to Caleb, who stared mutinously at the floor. After an awkward moment Gracie ventured a timid response. “I don’t mind.” A look from Caleb robbed her of her courage, though, and made her seek cover behind Noah, who was a head shorter and every bit as timid.

“Thank you, Gracie,” Kelsey said somberly. “I’d like to come.”

“You’ll have to take your car,” J.D. said as they filed outside and down the stairs. “My truck seats only five.”

“That’s not a problem. Jacob, why don’t you ride with me?”

Panic flared in the boy’s eyes, and he shot a look at his older brother, but Kelsey gave Caleb no chance to intervene. She slid her arm around Jacob’s shoulders and steered him to her car.

“I see you have new clothes,” she remarked as she followed J.D. At least, three of them did. Caleb’s clothes, she’d noticed, were old, faded, and ill-fitting.

“Uh-huh.”

“And some pretty neat shoes.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where did you get them?”

He fixed his gaze anxiously on the truck. “The—the man. He took us to the store and bought us stuff.”

She thought back to Tuesday night and how the Dalton kids had addressed J.D. “You mean Dr. J.D.?”

“Yeah. Him.”

“What do you think of him?”

“Caleb says he don’t like us so we don’t like him neither.”

Up ahead J.D. turned onto a paved secondary road. Kelsey slowed to follow, then glanced at Jacob again. “Everyone knows what Caleb thinks. I want to know what
you
think.”

“He—he’s—Caleb says he’s a liar.”

“Has he lied to you?”

He nodded vigorously.

“About what?”

The moment of animation faded, and he stared, bottom lip out, into the distance. “I don’t know. But Caleb says—”

“Jacob, don’t you have an opinion of your own? Isn’t there anything Caleb likes that you don’t like?”

As the road grew narrower, pavement gave way to gravel and ruts. He leaned as far forward as the seat belt would allow and watched the road, bracing himself well in advance
of each jarring bounce. “He likes school an’ I don’t. He likes zucchini. And living in our house all alone. And sleeping with a light on. Not that he’s scared,” he hastened to add. “He’s not scared of nothin’. He just likes being able to see when he wakes up in the middle of the night. We couldn’t at our house ’cause we didn’t have no ’lectricity.”

“And it’s all right with you that Caleb likes those things and you don’t. So don’t you think it would be all right if you liked something—or someone—Caleb didn’t? Like Dr. J.D.?”

“I s’pose. Ya know, he’s got good food. And a TV that gets more channels than I ever seen. Did you know you can watch baseball every day?”

“Do you like baseball?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What position do you play?”

“I never played.” Predicting her next question, he shrugged. “The kids at school never let me play, and we never had no money for a ball and bat of our own. But I know about it. My teacher—once she got me a book from the library, and I read the whole thing. And I seen some games on TV every day this week. And I know all the rules. Ask me somethin’.”

Kelsey was still stuck on his careless comment that the kids at school had refused to let him play their games. She needed a moment to think of a question. “How many outs in an inning?”

Jacob gave a disbelieving shake of his head. “That’s an easy one. Three. And there’s nine innings. Don’t you know any questions harder than that?”

“Sorry, Jacob. I’m not a big baseball fan myself.” She hesitated, then suggested, “Maybe you should ask Dr. J.D. about signing you up to play this summer.” She figured
J.D. would agree, but that wasn’t the point. Getting Jacob to ask something of him was.

But a glance at the boy’s face didn’t make the prospects look good. He didn’t consider the possibility for even a moment, but shook his head. “He’d just say no. ’Sides, no one would want me on their team. I never even throwed a ball before.”

“I bet Dr. J.D.’s thrown more than a few. He would probably be happy to give you some pointers.”

Shaking his head again, Jacob settled back in his seat as they turned onto an even narrower lane that ended abruptly in a clearing with a nearly finished house. “Wow. Look at that.”

The house was perfectly suited to its setting. The logs that created sturdy walls, the fieldstone that supported their weight and lent shape to the fireplace, the wood planks of the wraparound porch, and the cedar shakes that covered the roof—all of it came from the land and worked to blend right back into it. Tall windows supported the illusion, allowing a person to stand in front and look right through the house to the forest and mountains in back.

She parked beside the truck, climbed out, and walked to the far edge of the clearing to get a better look. The position afforded her a better view of the house as well as its owner, who walked to the back of the truck, lifted the window, lowered the tailgate, and began pulling out supplies. Of its own will her gaze shifted from beautiful house to snug-fitting jeans, from tall, arched windows to broad shoulders, from the serene welcome of
home
to the faintly dangerous aura of
man
.

Wow, indeed.

Chapter Six
 

A
fter looking too long, though not nearly long enough, Kelsey joined J.D. at his truck. “You have great taste.”

“I know.” His tone was smug, his grin friendly. “But thanks for noticing.”

“You did all this yourself?”

“Hey, I’m good, but even I’m not
that
good. I cleared the site and gathered most of the stone, but I had help with everything else. I’m doing all the finish work inside myself.”

Why? she wondered as he instructed the kids to help unload food and tools from the truck. Why would a very successful, top-dollar psychiatrist spend what must have been months doing hard physical work that any laborer with a strong back could have done? In her business she’d met a lot of doctors, and she’d never known one who would even consider such a job. Giving up a lucrative practice was surprise enough, but cutting down trees? Hauling rock?
Why?

When he looked at her, she realized she’d spoken the last word aloud. She shrugged. “You have to admit it would probably surprise the hell out of your colleagues back in Chicago or your classmates at Harvard.”

“Probably.”

“So why did you do it? Why
are
you doing it? Why not just hire someone to handle it for you?”

His shrug appeared every bit as casual as her own had been. But she sensed a layer of tension underneath. “I need the exercise.”

“You run miles every day.” She’d caught a glimpse of him during her runs both the previous morning and that morning. She’d even been a bit disappointed that he hadn’t changed his route to join her. No,
not
disappointed. Just curious why he hadn’t.

“I like working with my hands.”

“You’re a doctor. Become a surgeon.”

“Too much stress in surgery. If I make a mistake here, I redo it or I live with a crooked cabinet or a door that sticks. Make a mistake in the OR, and someone could die.” He shrugged again. This time the casualness was more real. “Take that stuff around back,” he called to the kids. “We’ll eat on the deck.”

The deck was multileveled and stretched completely across the back of the house. There was a stone barbecue at one end, a rough-hewn table at the other, and built-in benches all around. Kelsey helped Noah and Gracie spread the quilt while J.D. laid out the food on the table.

She was hungry, she realized as her stomach growled. If she’d gone home, she would have eaten a microwave dinner in front of the television without much appetite. This, even though it was business, was so much more appealing. There were turkey sandwiches on homemade wheat bread, potato salad, chopped veggies and dip, and huge oatmeal raisin cookies for dessert.

The kids took their plates to the quilt. Kelsey sat on the bench across the table from J.D. “Jacob says you have good food. He’s right.”

“I can’t take credit for this. All I provided was the soda. The Winchester sisters had the rest waiting when I picked up the kids after work. Besides”—with a glance toward the kids, he lowered his voice—“Jacob’s definition of good food is anything that’s plentiful. They’re collecting a stash in their closet.”

Kelsey didn’t find that unusual. Kids who’d gone hungry had a tendency to squirrel away food in the hope of preventing a recurrence. She’d known foster parents who’d found food hidden in dresser drawers and underneath bedclothes. The well-meaning parents removed the food when they found it. The smart ones left it. Sooner or later the kids would realize that there would always be enough, and they would quit hoarding it.

But it still broke her heart every time she heard about it.

“Other than that, how’s it going?”

“The younger kids are adjusting. They’re particularly good with those three elderly baby-sitters you were opposed to. Of course, Mrs. Larrabee and the Winchesters are particularly good with kids.”

She ignored his reminder of her objection. “What about Caleb?”

“He watches over the kids or keeps to himself during the day. When we get home, he checks the mail for a letter from his father, doesn’t find one, and sulks the rest of the evening. Any luck in locating some relatives?”

“I stopped by Sheriff Ingles’s office this afternoon. About all they know is that the Browns moved around quite a bit before settling here. If either Ezra or Lilah Brown is working now, it’s not being reported under their social security numbers, which means they could be taking
payment in cash, using a different identity, or not working at all.”