No Ordinary Child

“Yes. Remember Brutus?” Gayle encouraged.

“Bootus?” Meggie repeated softly. She hiccuped innocently, then graced the hapless attendant with an angelic smile. The poor woman cautiously released Meggie’s hand, then wilted as if she wanted to slide down the wall of the tunnel to her backside. “You go with your grandma now,” she sighed, “okay, Meggie?”

“My nonnie,” Meggie corrected with an evil glare.

“Yes. Your nonnie. We’ll have fun the next time you fly with us.” The look on the flight attendant’s face said, Which I hope is never.

In a singsong voice, Meggie started chanting, “Boo-tus. Boo-tus. I gonna see Bootus.”

Gayle stood up and took Meggie’s free hand. “They did tell you that my granddaughter is mentally challenged, didn’t they?”

The attendant nodded, looking sheepish but exhausted. “Yes. Her mom gave us plenty of instructions. But they didn’t mention the t-e-m-p-e-r. I let her eat several doughnuts. She refused to touch any healthy snacks and it was a long flight. It was the only way to get some orange juice down her.”

Gayle smiled wanly and patted the woman’s arm. Sugar certainly didn’t help Meggie’s moods. “It’s okay. I’ll feed her some protein on the way home. She loves McDonald’s.”

With that, Meggie changed her chant to “IckDonald’s! IckDonald’s! I gonna go to IckDonald’s!” as she tugged on Gayle’s hand, dragging her petite grandmother down the exit ramp.

“Thank you!” Gayle called over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry she got upset,” the flight attendant called after them. “I did get her to take a two-hour nap during the flight.”

Great, Gayle thought, that means now she won’t fall asleep until after midnight. Not an auspicious beginning on her first night in her daddy’s house.

CHAPTER TWO

GAYLE SOLOMON WAS USED to answering distress calls from her youngest son. And since his pleas for help invariably involved her darling Meggie, she felt she had to heed them. She wanted to heed them.

She was used to coming into Sam’s house and making herself right at home—if one could make oneself at home in such a stark, cold atmosphere. And why her son favored so much black was an inconsistent mystery. Couldn’t the man at least get some green plants?

In his work Sam favored color, lots of it. Persian blue and misty mauve and hot tangerine. He restored Victorian houses in lavish colors, calling them “painted ladies.” The interiors he designed always felt rich, cozy and golden. But in his own home it was unrelenting black. Black, black and more black. Black leather couches. Black granite kitchen counters. Even a black shower curtain upstairs. Sam’s home looked as stripped and clinical as a dentist’s office.

Gayle sighed. What her son needed was a wife. Sometimes she wondered if Sam would ever really get his act together. He worked too much, for one thing. Tonight he looked exceptionally frazzled, exceptionally tired.

She watched him as he trudged down the open stairs into the kitchen, one loose-hipped step at a time, removing his tie.

Sam was an undeniably handsome man. Beautiful, in fact. Although that was a word she would never use aloud to describe any of her very masculine sons. The Solomon Sons. All gorgeous, but Sam had indeed been the most beautiful of all her children except, of course, for— She forced herself to smile up at Sam, focusing her love and attention on him.

Of all her sons, Sam was the most like her late husband, Edward, which had made the constant father and son friction all the more troubling and confusing. She watched as he ran his long fingers through his hair, a habit from childhood that, for Sam, could signal anything from frustration to shyness to happy excitement. The full head of curly white-blond hair from his childhood had deepened to a burnished gold with rich taupe undertones. He wore his hair in a casual lionlike mane, curling behind his ears, touching his collar, stubbornly raked straight back from his brow and temples, an occasional lock falling forward.

At thirty-one, he already had telltale sprigs of gray lacing his sideburns, though his body was still athletically honed and his face had only grown more handsome as he reached full manhood. His forehead was broad, his nose straight, his jaw square, and his deep-set dark blue eyes were as compelling as a midnight sky.

“She’s finally asleep.” He slumped when he got to the last step.

“Have you eaten?” Gayle asked.

“Only the finger food we served to the investors.”

“I’ll make you a sandwich,” Gayle said, turning toward his kitchen.

“I can make it myself,” he said as he followed her. “Mom? Do you remember that woman—the one the Barretts used for child care before their kids were old enough for school? You know, that older lady? The one you got to take care of Meggie a couple of times for me on Saturday nights? Mrs. Waddle?”

“Cloretta?”

“Yeah. I wonder if she’s available now?”

Gayle turned to him with a look of horror. “You aren’t considering Cloretta Waddle as a possible full-time caretaker for Meggie?”

“Why not? Bob Barrett always talked about how efficient she was. He said she was clean. Sensible. I think he even told me the woman used to be a nurse.”

“That woman used to be a Panzer tank,” Gayle practically shouted, “and just because she’s strapped an apron around her middle that doesn’t mean she can take care of my grandchild on a daily basis!”

“Shh. You’ll wake Meggie.”

“Sorry. But you listen—” Gayle hissed, grabbing Sam’s arm and hauling him around the corner into the kitchen as if he were still five years old. She flipped on every last one of the recessed lights. Sam knew his mother hated his dark, sleek kitchen. But he liked the shimmering stainless steel, the professional chef-style gas stove, the massive nickel fixtures.

Gayle whirled to face him. “Cloretta Waddle ran the Barrett household like an absolute drill sergeant. You cannot possibly be serious about bringing her into your home.”

Gayle watched as Sam rammed his fingers through his thick blond hair again. His frustration level was definitely peaking. Putting Meggie to bed could try anyone’s patience, but it was this whole situation that was killing him. In the twenty-four hours since he’d found out Andrea was ill, he’d probably repeated that gesture so often that it was a miracle he wasn’t bald.

He flipped off several of the lights, then jerked open his massive side-by-side—black, naturally—built-in refrigerator and started pulling out shaved ham, cheese, mustard. “As I recall, Bob Barrett told me that Mrs. Waddle is a licensed practical nurse who is trained to care for children.”

“Trained to care for children is one thing. Doing it kindly is quite another.”

He turned to his mother, his rugged features, highlighted by the cold light from the refrigerator, looking older than his years. “Mom, look. I can’t exactly be picky here. Meggie is upstairs right now—” he pointed at the kitchen stairs “—and just getting her tucked in wore me out. I have got to have somebody here—tomorrow. The investors are in town. Men like Mr. Yoshida do not understand the concept of a family crisis, and they do not like to be ignored.”

Gayle’s heart clutched at the worry and sadness etched in her son’s face. He had withstood so much. Lord, when will it end? “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I will keep Meggie tomorrow.”

“And what about the next day? And the next? Andrea is going to be sick for a long time and you can’t stay away from your work forever. Now, let’s think. How can we find out if this Cloretta Waddle is still around Tulsa?”

Gayle took the sandwich things from him and placed them on the center island. “We simply must find a better solution.” She tried to keep her tone from sounding overbearing, but she knew how her son tended to act in a crisis. Just like his father. Efficient to the point of ruthlessness. And sometimes that efficiency vanquished things of greater importance—like Meggie’s contentment and happiness, for example. Putting Meggie in the hands of Cloretta Waddle would be like putting a wild bunny rabbit in the hands of an ape. “Sam, that woman is not an appropriate match for a sensitive child like Meggie.”

“Then exactly what do you suggest?”

“I told you, I will keep Meggie myself.” She found a knife in a militarily neat utensil drawer.

Sam sighed. They had tried this arrangement before on one of Meggie’s summer visits. His mother had raised four rowdy sons almost single-handedly while his father had been off building his legal dynasty. Sam, being the youngest of the Solomon sons, felt the most strongly that his mother deserved some peace and quiet—or at least the luxury of pursuing her own interests for once in her life. It bugged him that he was the one who seemed to call on her for help the most often. His brothers and their wives were all too involved in their high-powered careers to help with Meggie. His mom seemed like the only one in the family who had time for Meggie and her problems. Yet, every time Gayle took over with Meggie, Sam ended fighting a roaring case of the guilts.

“Mom, are you telling me that you are going to drive across town to my house at the crack of dawn every weekday, then haul Meggie around to school and her therapy and her various activities in your minivan?”

“Absolutely.” Gayle calmly spread mustard on two slices of bread.

Sam threw up his hands, then planted them on his belt. “And then I suppose you’ll go home and somehow find the energy to pursue your photography, which, I’d like to remind you, is going rather well these days.”

“Oh, poo.” Gayle flapped her palm at him. “Let’s be honest. My photography is merely a hobby.”

“You’ve been winning awards, selling some stuff at art fairs. And what about your trip to Belize?”

“My photography is not going so well that I’d turn my helpless granddaughter over to a battle-ax like Cloretta Waddle.”