Paternal Instincts

The sharp edge in her voice warned that this wasn’t a subject for conversation and he said no more. Returning to the car to retrieve his satchel, he noticed a lingering warmth on his hand. A curious effect from a woman who clearly had no interest in him other than as a day laborer to aid her in her project, he thought. Deciding that the sensation was due merely to an emotional reaction to being back here at the farm, he grabbed his bag and went inside.

Upstairs, he automatically headed for the room he’d once occupied. He’d expected to experience at least a twinge of melancholy. Instead a feeling of being where he belonged swept through him. Dropping his satchel on the floor, he found the bed linens and made up one of the two twin beds in the room. Not taking the time to do any unpacking, he stripped out of his shirt and hung it in the closet. Then he put on a T-shirt. He intended to go directly outside and begin working, but he couldn’t resist making a quick inspection of the rest of the house. He strode through the rooms he’d played and worked in when he was younger. The walls and ceilings had a fresh coat of paint and the woodwork and hardwood floors were polished and dustless. Clearly, Ms. Dugan had been working hard to restore the place.

Reminding himself that he was there to help, he went to the barn and found a ladder.

An hour later Roxy looked to the far end of the house. She’d had Eric start there and work toward her. He hadn’t taken a break and she was beginning to worry about him. She told herself that he was an adult and would know how to pace himself, but she didn’t buy this reasoning. Some men felt they had to push themselves to live up to their macho image. “How about stopping for something to eat and drink?” she called out. “I haven’t had any lunch yet. I started working as soon as I got home from church.”

Eric nodded and started down his ladder. He was in the kitchen washing his hands when she entered.

“You don’t have to keep up with me,” she said sternly. “I haven’t spent the past several years in a hospital.”

Eric grimaced self-consciously. He had been pushing himself, but then that was his nature. “I want to prove I can earn my keep.”

The grimace had produced two long dimples in his cheeks. He was a handsome man, Roxy admitted, experiencing an attraction she’d sworn never to feel again. Jerking her gaze away from him, she busied herself washing up. “You don’t need to prove it in a day.”

Eric caught the softened color in her eyes followed by the tightening of her jaw as she turned away. He recognized the behavior. She didn’t want to like him, at least not too quickly. Something had happened to her to teach her to distrust people, or maybe just men. He couldn’t be certain which. As she finished washing up and began taking sandwich makings out of the refrigerator, he noticed the tired lines in her face. “Looks like I’m not the only one who might be overworking myself.”

Roxy made no response to his observation. Instead she nodded toward the array. “Help yourself. Would you like lemonade or water to drink?”

“Lemonade,” he replied, then began making his sandwich.

Roxy nodded and forced her mind to remain on the food and the drinks. When her sandwich was ready and the drinks poured, she carried her lunch out onto the back porch and sat down in Maude’s rocking chair.

Respecting her silence, Eric, too, had said nothing more while he made his sandwich. Following her outside, he seated himself on the stoop, as he had when he was a kid, and leaned against one of the pillars supporting the porch roof. The sound of the rocker brought back memories… some good, some bad…but then, a real home was like that. Only fantasies could be perfect.

In her mind’s eye Roxy saw Jamie…slender, dark haired, a haunted expression on his face, sitting in the tire swing suspended from the branch of the old oak in the middle of the yard. “I’ve had trouble sleeping since they took Jamie away, so when I’m home, I work on repairing this house until I’m so exhausted all I can do is sleep.” Suddenly realizing she’d spoken aloud, she flushed and clamped her mouth shut.

Eric heard the love in her voice. “How often do you get to see him?”

“I don’t.” Hot tears again burned at the back of her eyes. “They won’t even tell me where he is. They say he won’t learn to relate to other people if he’s still attached to me. But he wouldn’t even relate to Maude…only me. I can’t stop picturing him sitting alone in a corner somewhere, frightened and feeling deserted.”

Her pain disturbed him. “Maybe he’s found another child to play with,” Eric suggested, trying to ease her mind.

“I doubt it. He won’t talk. He prefers to keep to himself and there’s a haunted look on his face that makes other children nervous. They tend to avoid him.” She hadn’t had anyone to talk to since Maude’s death, and she needed to talk. “When he was six, he saw his father, in a drunken jealous rage, kill his mother and then himself. The father’s jealousy was because he thought Jamie wasn’t really his son. Jamie’s maternal grandmother took him in, but she didn’t honestly want him. No one wanted him. She saw his father in him and his father’s family blamed him for the deaths. He withdrew into himself. According to the grandmother, he stopped speaking the night of the murder-suicide and to everyone’s knowledge, he hasn’t spoken since. About a year after the tragedy the grandmother heard about Maude’s place and brought him out here. She refused to even come in. She stood on the porch and handed Maude a handwritten note giving Maude complete guardianship over the boy, then she told Maude that if Maude didn’t want to keep him, she could turn him over to the authorities because she was tired of taking care of him.”

Eric recalled his own childhood before he’d been brought to Maude’s farm. “It’s tough growing up unwanted.”

“It’s always tough being unwanted no matter what age you are.” Roxy clamped her mouth shut. She’d assured herself a million times that she was over the pain. Obviously, she’d been lying to herself. But her private hell was her own and would remain her own.

“Sounds like you’ve had some experience,” Eric noted.

“Life is full of experiences. As Maude used to say, the trick is to learn from them and move on.” Uncomfortable with the path this conversation had taken, Roxy said, “It’s time to eat and then get to work.”

The bitter edge in her voice confirmed Eric’s assessment that something had happened to Ms. Dugan that had scarred her deeply. But the hard set of her jaw let him know that whatever it was, she wasn’t going to talk about it.

Later, back on his ladder, he wondered what her story was. None of my business is what it is. He was here to do some thinking about his own life, not stick his nose into someone else’s, especially when that someone didn’t want it there.

Chapter Three (#ulink_365c7061-a7cf-5258-b7aa-109d428d58ea)

Eric switched off the lamp on the table beside his bed and lay on his back staring into the dark. Although he was supposed to be settled in for the night, he was still dressed in his jeans, T-shirt and socks. His hostess’s image was strong in his mind. She’d told him to call her Roxy and the name fit. Living with her was a lot like living with a block of granite. He’d been at the farm for four days. It had been a Sunday when he arrived. Beginning on Monday, Roxy went into town to work each day. She’d be gone from six-thirty to three-thirty or four. When she arrived home, she’d prepare dinner. While it was cooking, she’d inspect the work he’d done that day. Then they’d eat and work on the house until dark. After that, they’d have a snack and go to bed.

She was like a robot that went about its business on its own and expected others to behave in the same fashion. Even during mealtimes she rarely talked. It appeared that she’d told him all she was willing to relate to him on Sunday and had little else to say. She wasn’t unfriendly. But she made it clear by her actions and her body language that she didn’t want to be his friend, either. It was as if she’d constructed a barrier around herself and he was not allowed past it.

Since Sunday, everything he’d discovered about her was from observation and tidbits she felt necessary to tell him. So far, he knew she worked at the local grocery store as a cashier, that she’d come to the farm about five years earlier and that she did have family in Philadelphia.

The part about the family he’d learned because of a series of phone calls on Tuesday night. From what he’d heard of the conversation with her first caller, he’d realized she was talking to her mother. He’d gathered that the woman wanted Roxy to sell the farm and move back home or get a house or apartment nearer her parents. The firm set of his hostess’s jaw had told him that her mother was wasting her breath.

A few minutes later the phone had rung again. This time the caller had been her grandmother. Since she’d addressed the caller only as Grandmama, he didn’t know if it was her paternal or maternal grandparent, but he guessed it was better than a fifty-fifty chance it was her maternal grandparent, since they spoke of her mother’s call.

Again Roxy had held firm to her determination to remain on the farm and he’d begun to wonder why. If she sold the place, she could buy something smaller but in much better condition and probably have a little cash left over. Surely a more financially stable position would aid her in getting the boy back. Then his question had been answered.

“Even if the social services people insist on keeping us apart, someday he’ll come looking for me and I want to be here,” she’d said. Her jaw had hardened even more, and he’d had the feeling she was holding back a flood of tears. “I know he’ll come.”

The conviction in her voice had apparently convinced her grandmother that she could not be dissuaded, because there had been no further discussion of her selling the farm.

His mind returned to the present as the sound of a door being quietly opened caught his attention. It was followed by softly padded footfalls coming his way. They paused outside his door, then turned toward the stairs and grew faint as they descended to the first floor.

Each night he’d been here, his hostess had followed this same routine. In about half an hour or so, she’d return to her room and settle in for the night. The first couple of nights he’d been too tired to really think about her actions. Only the many years when his life had depended on him always being aware of his surroundings so that, even when asleep, he would wake instantly to any sounds of movement had caused him to wake enough to realize she’d risen. But he’d sensed no danger and, assuming she was a worrier and merely double-checking to make certain all the doors were locked, he’d gone back to sleep.

Last night, however, when they’d come upstairs, he’d made a point of mentioning that they were securely locked in. Still, about half an hour after they’d retired, she’d gotten up and gone downstairs. That was when he’d asked himself why she stopped by his door and listened for a moment as if to reassure herself that he was asleep. If she was merely checking the locks, what difference would it make if he was awake or asleep?

All day that question had bothered him. He’d told himself that what she did on her nightly rounds didn’t matter. But in spite of the distance she was obviously determined to keep between them, he found himself more and more intrigued by Roxy Dugan. He wanted to know more about her. Curiosity could be a dangerous thing where this woman was concerned, he’d warned himself. Her attachment to the boy Jamie continued to make a strong impression on him. He could begin to feel a commitment he didn’t want to feel. He was a loner and he planned to stay that way. But he hadn’t heeded his warning, and tonight he would have his answer to what she was up to.

Slipping out of bed, he made his way quietly downstairs. There was light coming from the small room that had been Maude’s private parlor. Remaining in the shadows, he looked inside. The light was being provided by a small lamp on a round table in a corner of the room. Roxy was seated at the table shuffling a deck of oversize cards. As she laid them out and began to turn them over, surprise registered on Eric’s face.

“I would never have pictured you as the fortune-teller type,” he said, emerging from his hiding place.

Roxy’s gaze jerked to him. His skin had taken on a healthy glow and the T-shirt showed off the strength building in his arms and shoulders. Embers long dead within her began to glow with life. Allowing herself to feel any attraction to him was only going to lead to pain, she warned herself curtly. Aloud she said frostily, “I thought you were asleep.”

“I got thirsty,” he lied, not wanting her to guess he’d been spying on her. At the moment she looked a great deal like a Gypsy, he thought, continuing into the room. Her face was cast in shadows, causing her brown eyes to appear nearly ebony. Her long tresses fell freely down around her shoulders and onto her back in a carefree, feminine array and, with a bit of imagination, her loose-fitting cotton robe could pass for a fortune-teller’s gown. The effect was very appealing.

“The kitchen is down the hall to your left,” she said, fighting a bout of embarrassment. She preferred to keep this part of her life very private. Most people, she knew, thought Tarot-card reading was a foolish superstition.

Eric ignored the dismissal in her voice, his attention caught by the artistry of the cards. “Those look as if they were hand drawn.”

“They were,” she admitted stiffly. “My greatgrandmother made them for me.”

Eric grinned. “So she was the Gypsy.”

“She was a hardworking farmer’s wife,” Roxy corrected curtly. Again dismissal entered her voice. “I thought you said you were thirsty.”

Again Eric ignored her unspoken demand that he go away. This was a side of his hostess he’d never expected, and his curiosity was whetted. Not wanting to offend her further, he hid his skepticism behind a mask of interest. “Are you any good at doing readings?”

Roxy expected to see cynical amusement in his eyes. It wasn’t there. Still, she wasn’t ready to believe he had any real respect for the reading of the cards. She judged his nature to be too conservative for that. Guessing that he was merely being polite, she said, “I don’t do readings for other people. They expect the cards to tell them too much.”

Eric was intrigued. She honestly believed in the cards. “But you read them for yourself. What do they tell you?”

“They warn me if my path is following a dangerous course and they give me signposts that will guide me in the right direction.”