What a Man's Gotta Do (12 page)

Except he was here, at the moment, and all those other people weren't.

And none of
that
explained this god-all drive to kiss the woman senseless.

And none of that explained why he was still sitting at her kitchen table, talking about going to get a fool Christmas tree and wanting to basically do whatever it took to relieve some of that tension she hauled around with her like the junk in her car.

He wondered when the last time was anybody had made slow, sweet love to this lady.

He wondered where he'd last seen his brain.

“Oh, God, yes, the Christmas tree,” she said on a long sigh.
From down the hall, he heard the bath water get turned on. “I know, I've got to figure out how to work it in, somehow…but when is a good question. And then there's the rest of the shopping to do and the presents to wrap…and I've got ten year-end statements to finish up and gross receipts taxes to file and…”

She stopped, pressing her lips together, like she'd already let more out than she was supposed to.

“When's the last time you did something just for yourself, Miss Mala?”

Her laugh was tired. “When I was twelve?”

Eddie frowned. “You've got family all around you. Why don't you let them take some of the burden?”

Before she could tell him to take a flying leap, Lucas came in, already in his pajamas, and crawled up onto her lap, managing to bump his foot on the table leg, which prompted great buckets of tears. Eddie's stomach knotted when he caught Mala's weary sigh. But then she threaded her arms around Lucas's waist from behind, holding him tight and shushing him until he stopped crying. When the storm had more or less passed, she nestled her cheek on top of his bristly hair, even though it was obvious that every bit of the tension had come right back to roost in her shoulders, the set to her mouth.

“What's in the cup?” the kid asked.

“Coffee.”

“C'n I have some?”

“Not tonight. You've already brushed your teeth. Hey, while Carrie's taking her bath, why don't you go watch one of your Pooh tapes, huh?”

The little boy snuggled closer to his mama. “It's all dark in there.”

“So turn on the hall light first. Which you can do from the kitchen door.”

Lucas shook his head.

“Hey, big guy,” Mala said softly, but firmly. “You can do this. Besides, Grateful'll go with you.” The pup scrambled up on his stubby legs at the sound of his name, only too eager to accept his new mission.

Lucas seemed to consider this for a minute, then finally slid off Mala's lap. He and the dog padded toward the door that led to the hallway, only to hesitate when he got there.

“I'm right here, honey,” Mala said. And finally, the kid flipped on the hall light switch, then cautiously crossed the threshhold into the Great Unknown. A few seconds later, the TV blared on. Mala glanced over at Eddie and swiped her hair behind her ear, then toyed with the handle of her mug. “My family does help out, to answer your earlier question. A lot,” she added, and he could hear the guilt in her voice. “They take the kids off my hands now and then, stuff like that.”

“So you can do what? Shackle yourself to your computer?”

Her gaze shot to his. “How would you know—”

“The light's always on in your office when I get off work. And nowhere else,” he added when she opened her mouth.

Her mouth clamped shut; color flooded her cheeks as she reached out to fiddle with the salt shaker. “I don't have much choice about that, Eddie. If I don't work, we don't eat.”

“And if you use yourself up, there won't be a mama around
to
feed them, will there?”

“Says the man who has no one to answer to but himself.”

Ignoring the sting of the justified barb, Eddie leaned foward and said softly, “I watched my mother literally work herself to death, dragging herself home every night, too exhausted to even eat.” Then, before she could go all sappy and sympathetic on him, he said, “Your folks don't even know about your panic attacks, do they?”

She froze. “What?”

“You nearly lost it tonight, Mala. I've worked around enough stressed-out folks to know the signs. And somehow, I doubt that was the first time.”

“That's ridiculous. I told you, I hadn't eaten—”

“You didn't faint, lady. You freaked out.”

Another one of those fake laughs fell from her lips. “Please, Eddie. I hardly
freaked out.
” She got up from the table, snatched up the mugs. “I'm telling you, it's nothing. And it's really none of your business.”

“How can something be ‘nothing' and ‘none of my business' at the same time?”

She didn't answer. So, Eddie, whose good sense had clearly left the building, went on as she trooped over to the sink, “Something's sure as hell got you good and shook up. Now if you don't want to confide in me, fine. You're right—it's none of my business. But you better damn sight confide in somebody, and soon, before you really fall apart.”

She turned, the mugs still clutched in her white-knuckled hands. “I'm not—”

“Mala—I've been there. I know what it's like, letting life smack you around instead of taking charge of it. And I'm thinking that's what's changed about you—you used to be on top of things. I could tell that much, even from a distance. It's part of what fascinated me about you. Made me respect you. Especially seeing as how, at that point in my life, I was anything but on top of things. Now you look like all these obligations of yours are about to take you down for the last time.”

Something like fear flashed in her eyes, like she'd caught a glimpse of a monster she hadn't realized had gotten loose from its cage. But he saw her rein it in, stuff it back wherever she kept it from causing any trouble. She even tried a smile.

“Now you sound like my mother.”

“Then maybe you should listen to her.”

Her eyes blazed. “Excuse me, but where the
hell
do you get off giving out advice about how other people should run their lives?”

“I don't know. I've never done it before and I sure as hell don't know why I'm doing it now. But I also know what it's like to deny there's anything wrong. To convince yourself you're okay, everything's okay, because the alternative's too damned scary to contemplate.”

Her mouth compressed into a thin, flat line before she whipped back around, clunking the mugs onto the counter.

“Dammit to hell, Mala…what is wrong with you—?”

“Nothing! There is nothing…wrong…with…
me,
” she said in a savage whisper.

“Mama!” came from down the hall. “C'n I get out of the tub?”

He saw her spine get all board-straight as she marshalled that inner strength that kept mothers going no matter what. “Sure, honey. I'll be right there.” But when she turned around, tears glittered in her eyes. “Thanks for putting up the lights. But you need to go now.”

He covered the space between her and the table in three strides, yanked on his jacket. It made no sense, him getting mad when he'd been the one butting in. It made even less sense, that he should give a damn to begin with.

But God help him, he did.

“
I'm
not your problem, darlin',” he said, making good and sure he had her undivided attention. “And whatever your problem
is,
it's not going to leave when I do.”

 

Lucas had crashed practically the instant his head hit the pillow. Carrie, however, was still wired at nine o'clock, much to Mala's chagrin. Her brains felt as if they were boiling; all she wanted was to sit in the dark, to be quiet, to think. Not listen to a child prattling on at forty miles an hour. But Mama-duty came first. Mama-duty always came first. And then there was work, and her family, and the car and the house and…

When
was
the last time she'd done something, just for herself?

Guilt tore at her for even daring to think such a thing. She loved being a mother. She loved being
these
kids' mother, even if she sometimes wondered if she'd live to see their teen years, she thought with a wry smile. But sometimes, she just got so tired….

“Mama?”

She jerked herself out of her reverie and looked down at Carrie, frowning up at her from her Little Mermaid figured pillow. For a child who was otherwise as practical as an old lady, Carrie was heavily into fantasy characters—mermaids and fairies and unicorns and the like, splashed all over her pink-walled room.

“What's wrong?” the child said, her brow crumpled. “You look all sad.”

Mala pushed back the Raggedy Ann curls off her daughter's forehead. “Just pooped, sweetie, that's all.”

“You and Eddie had a fight, didn't you?”

Mala's hand stilled. “What are you talking about?”

“When I was in the bathtub. I heard you.”

Oh, Lord. “No, Carrie. We didn't have a fight. Exactly. Just a…disagreement.” She got up from the bed, picked the day's clothes off the floor and tossed them in the laundry basket in the closet, then put the books they'd been reading back on the bookshelf over Carrie's little white desk. In other words, stalling. “Grown-ups do that, sometimes.”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, Nana Bev and Pop sure do. Lots.”

Mala didn't think she'd equate her parents' fine-honed fussing at each other with what had just transpired between Eddie and her, but no way was she going there. “Yes, they do,” she said, sitting heavily on the edge of Carrie's bed again. “And it doesn't really mean anything, does it?”

Then Carrie gave her one of those wise-woman looks Mala had come to dread. “Eddie's nice, Mama. But he's
so
not right for you.”

Mala did well to get out, “Oh?”

“Yeah. I mean, first off, you get all nervous around him. And secondly, he told us he's not going to be around after Galen has her baby.” She shrugged, all nonchalance. “So what would be the point of liking him?”

The “nervous” part of that comment would have to wait a minute, but she could at least deal with the other. So Eddie had warned off her kids, too, huh? Smart man. Still, she heard the wistfulness in her daughter's voice, knew the one thing she'd most dreaded had apparently come to pass: Carrie, at least—and she suspected Lucas as well—had already become attached to the gentle, crazy buttinski who lived upstairs.

Not that she blamed them.

“You can like someone who's only in your life temporarily, you know.” Mala thought—hard—for a moment, then said, “Remember last summer, when you took care of the kinder
garten guinea pig? You loved him, didn't you?” Carrie nodded. “But you also knew you'd have to give him up when school started again, right?”

Carrie crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Mama… Eddie's not a guinea pig.”

Mala managed a laugh. “True. But the principle's the same.” She messed with Carrie's covers for a second, then said carefully, “Lots of people come and go in our lives, honey. That's just the way life is. That doesn't mean we can't just…enjoy his company while he's here.”

After a moment, Carrie sighed. “Yeah. I guess. But I know I'm gonna miss him when he's gone.”

“Well, that's not for at least three months yet, so if I were you, I wouldn't worry my pretty little head about it. Okay?”

Instead of answering, Carrie flung out her arms, silently asking for a hug which Mala gladly gave. And in answer to the child's unasked question, Mala leaned back and whispered, “You've got a lot of people who love you who aren't going anywhere, like me and Nana Bev and Pop-Pop, and Uncle Steve and Aunt Sophie…you hear me?”

After a moment, a little smile tilted the child's lips. “Yeah, Mama. I hear you.”

“Good. Now go to sleep before I keel over on top of you.”

Carrie giggled and gave her one last kiss, then flopped over on her side. Like her brother, she was out before Mala clicked off the bedside lamp.

Then she peeked into Lucas's night-light illuminated room—there was absolutely no convincing him that monsters didn't lurk in every shadow—her thoughts tumbling all over each other as she watched the tiny boy snooze, one arm strangling Mr. Boffin, a disreputable teddy bear he'd had since he was two, and his wadded up beebee. And any other night, she would have continued down the hall toward her office to cram in another couple hours work, maybe, before she called it a night.

Except tonight, all she could hear were Eddie's words pinging around in her decrepit brain.

As well as his footsteps overhead.

Oh, yeah, Carrie…he makes me nervous.
Only that's not exactly the word she'd use. And while she stood there, staring at one of her many responsibilities, the tumbling thoughts began to untangle themselves and settle down, all neatly laid out so she could actually she what she had. Let's see…there was Eddie's advice that she should take charge of her life, do something just for her…and then there was hers to Carrie, that enjoyment-while-he-was-here business…

And when you added those together, what did you get?

Trouble, my friends, right here in Spruce Lake.

Not to mention the fact that she was furious with him for sticking in his nose where it didn't belong.

Again.

The pup click-clicked over the bare floor to her, then sat down and pricked up his ears, as if to say, “Well? You gonna follow through on this or what?”

Great. Now she was having telepathic conversations with a dog.

Then, gathering in her brain like storm clouds, a million previously ungelled thoughts about her and Scott and their marriage suddenly coalesced. For three years, her accountant brain had been trying to analyze what had gone wrong with her marriage, but she could never make the figures add up.