His Ideal Match

“Believe it, sir. Your daughter and grandchildren will be fine.” He smiled. “I’m told that Carissa has strong computer skills, after all.”

“That she does,” Marshall agreed with a chuckle. “Not much business sense, though.”

“Dad!”

“But she’s a good mother and a fine daughter,” he added, “and she’s not hard on the eyes, either.”

“You slight her, sir,” Phillip said, just to rankle her. “She’s a rare beauty.”

Her back stiffened, then she relaxed again and swept through the narrow kitchen to the other bedroom. There couldn’t be another in the apartment, which meant that she probably shared it with all three of her children. Phillip realized just how blessed he was to have Chatam House as a haven in his time of trouble.

“I’m tired, brother,” Marshall said, sounding it. “Help me to bed.”

Chester rose and took his brother’s chair by the handles, saying, “Afterward, we’ll have a word of prayer together. Then I want you to eat.”

“I’d like that,” Marshall told him, seeming to shrink before Phillip’s eyes. “Prayer and Hilda’s good food. Nothing I’d like better. Goodbye, young man.” Not good-night but goodbye.

“Goodbye, sir.”

Phillip stood awkwardly for a moment before Carissa came back through the kitchen. “Walk me to my car?”

She didn’t want to. He knew it by the way she hesitated, but she couldn’t find a graceful way to decline. “All right.”

As they strolled along the inner courtyard, Phillip couldn’t help noting the buckling concrete of the sidewalk, the overgrown shrubbery, the disintegrating fence around the trash Dumpster and the flaking paint on the metal stairs at the corner of the building. There he paused and turned to face her, his hands tucked into his pockets.

“My aunts want to keep the children at Chatam House tonight. They can stay in the carriage house with Chester, Hilda and Carol. When your father is better tomorrow, you can pick them up and bring them home.”

Carissa took a deep breath. “Well,” she said, “that might work, except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“My father’s not going to be better,” she said softly.

Phillip couldn’t resist the urge to slide an arm across her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She slowly slipped out from beneath his embrace, saying, “I’d better go pack a bag for the kids.”

He was surprised that she’d given in so easily and wondered if she had done so just because she was anxious to get away from him. The thought pinched in a way he hadn’t expected, but he reminded himself that her father was gravely ill. And that he had given his word to a dying man.

He would keep his word. Whether Carissa Hopper liked it or not.

But obviously, Carissa Hopper was not the woman for him. Or rather, he was not the man for her.

She needed a solid, serious, responsible man, the kind his parents had always wanted him to be. But that wasn’t him, had never been Phillip Chatam. And never would be.

Chapter Three

Marshall Worth lapsed into a coma during the night and was transported to the hospital the next day. The children remained at Chatam House, but with Chester staying close by them, waiting for news. Phillip tried to make good on his promise to Mr. Worth and consulted his older brother, Asher, an attorney, on Carissa’s behalf. Asher promised to look into the possibility of government assistance for her and her children, then he invited Phillip—and his résumé—to lunch.

Phillip dutifully went along, though he knew what was coming. Sure enough, his brother had asked a friend with a local accounting firm if he had any openings. It made sense, after all. Phillip was good with numbers. He was good with bookkeeping. He was even good with money. It was the whole idea of being an accountant, someone else’s bean counter, in a nine-to-five job that made Phillip’s skin crawl. Before Asher could suggest that Phillip apply for a position, Phillip changed the subject to an article that he’d read while he’d sat in Asher’s office, waiting for Asher to finish a phone call.

The article had mentioned a new smartphone app that allowed its purchasers to “test drive” possible employment fields. According to the article, a new field of reality apps allowed people to follow a day in the life of a number of professions, be it a baker, a truck driver, a plumber or a diesel mechanic. The purchase price seemed steep to Phillip, but he supposed it was worth it if it prevented a person from spending the time and money to educate him or herself for a career he or she ultimately didn’t like.

Asher listened then unceremoniously informed him that Carissa made just enough money to make her ineligible for government assistance because she did not pay rent. If she could come up with the funds to get into an apartment of her own, then she could qualify for government assistance.

Phillip headed home to discuss the situation with Hilda and Chester, only to find the entire household in the front parlor with Carissa and her kids, all of whom openly wept. Tucker stood at his mother’s side, literally howling.

“What’s happened?” Phillip asked, already knowing.

Little Grace hopped down off her mother’s lap and ran toward him. Phillip instinctively reached down to take her up into his arms. She buried her damp face in the crook of his neck and sobbed. Tucker draped himself around his mother’s neck and continued bawling, while Nathan stood stoically, tears rolling unimpeded from beneath the lenses of his glasses.

Hypatia turned a sad face to him from her usual armchair, a teacup in her hand. As always, she could have stood in for the Queen of England, her silver hair styled into a sleek roll against the back of her head, her ubiquitous pearls worn with a tailored silk suit. “Marshall Worth has slipped from this world into Paradise,” she announced softly.

“Perfectly healed,” Kent added in a gentle voice, his arm about Odelia on the settee.

“A brand-new body,” Odelia whispered, encased in a cloud of blue chiffon.

“Without pain,” Magnolia offered, patting Nathan’s shoulder. She had come in without removing the yellow galoshes that she always wore when working in the gardens.

“That’s what we have to remember now,” Chester said in a tear-clogged voice, putting away a handkerchief.

“That’s our consolation,” Hilda agreed. She mopped her face with her apron, sniffed and all but wailed, “I should start dinner!” before trundling from the room. Carol followed.

Chester shook his head then said, “She isn’t thinking clearly,” and he went after her.

A collective sigh filled the air. A moment later, Nathan jerked away and ran from the room. Carissa calmly set Tucker onto his feet and, after a moment of uncertainty, looked to Phillip. He desperately wanted to open his arms and pull them both in, but he knew what she needed from him, so he lifted his hand to Tucker alone. The boy stumbled into his side and wrapped his arms around Phillip’s waist. Phillip awkwardly patted the boy’s back, and Carissa quietly went after her oldest son.

When he turned again to his aunts, they were staring as if he’d grown a second pair of arms. All but Odelia, who clasped her beringed hands beneath her double chin and, for some reason, smiled at him as if he’d hung the moon.

* * *

Carissa and the children stayed the night at Chatam House, not in the building out back where Chester and Hilda lived with Hilda’s sister, Carol, but in the main house, in a three-bedroom, three-bath suite upstairs that was bigger and far finer than her father’s old apartment. The Chatam sisters had suggested it, and Carissa had let herself be talked into it. Partly because she was too tired to argue, but mostly because she didn’t think the children ought to go back to the apartment so soon after their grandfather’s death. It seemed best to get through the next few days first.

Plucking at the black T-shirt that she’d tucked into the waist of her denim skirt, she sighed and asked, “Do you think this is all right to wear to the funeral home?”

“I think it’s fine,” Phillip told her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

She had twisted it into a bun low on her neck, but no matter what she did, wisps escaped. Someday she would have money for a decent haircut.

“Maybe I should tie a scarf around my hair.”

“No.” He curled a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up. “You look lovely just as you are.”

Despite the luxury of having had a room and a bed entirely to herself, she was too tired to scold herself for enjoying the compliment. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about the kids,” he told her. “I’ll sit right here in the suite with them until they wake. Then I’ll send them down to Hilda for breakfast.”

“I’ve laid out their clothes.”