Tall, Dark and Cranky

Rebecca met his glance quickly then continued on her way. His brief smile was heart-stopping. Both a good sign…and bad, she thought with dismay. She kept going, through the glass door, through Grant’s messy bedroom to the outer room, where she found Matthew waiting for her.

“How did it go?” Matthew asked eagerly, rising from his chair.

“All right, I suppose. He offered me the job.”

“That’s great!” Matthew smiled, and his blue eyes lit with pleasure. “When can you start?” he asked eagerly.

“Well, I haven’t accepted yet. I need some time to think it over. A day or two, at the most. Your brother told me I should call you with my answer.”

“Yes, call me with your answer as soon as you decide, Ms. Calloway. And if there are any questions, any questions at all—about the salary or living arrangements—please know I’ll do all I can to make the situation comfortable for you.”

Rebecca promised she would call as soon as she came to a decision, and Matthew showed her to the front door, where they said goodbye.

As Rebecca started up her car and drove down the long driveway toward the main road, she wondered why she hadn’t accepted on the spot. While she dithered, the Berringers might interview someone else and offer them the position. The salary they’d spoken of was very generous. As were the extras. It was a plum assignment, really. Except for one thing. The patient.

Grant Berringer hadn’t scared her. But her feelings and reactions to him certainly had.

Two

Although Rebecca had expected to deliberate over the job offer for at least a day or more, she could think of nothing else during the long drive back to the city. By the time she arrived at the front door to her apartment in a brownstone building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, she had more or less decided that she had no real choice at all. She felt compelled to accept, despite a niggling, intuitive warning that the job would be a hard one, perhaps the hardest she’d ever faced.

Yet each time she’d pondered turning it down, the vision of Grant Berringer’s dark, luminous eyes and bleak, haunted expression would rise before her, and she’d feel herself swaying again toward a positive answer.

Rebecca had faced some hard cases but prided herself on the fact that she had never failed to inspire her patients to work hard and heal. She had a solid reputation in her field—which was why Matthew Berringer had gotten in touch with her in the first place. Did she dare put that professional reputation on the line for a man she barely knew—and didn’t even necessarily like? If she failed with a well-known man like Grant Berringer—and joined the ranks of his rejected therapists—the word would soon get around. It might make it difficult to find another assignment.

Well then, she couldn’t fail, could she? Somehow, she had to break through the fortress he’d built around his wounded heart and soul. The injuries to his body were serious but irrelevant, Rebecca believed. It was the inner man who needed to recover. And once that began to happen, the rest would follow easily, as night follows day.

Rebecca quickly changed from her interview suit into comfortable, worn jeans and a striped T-shirt. With a tall cold drink in hand, she dialed Matthew Berringer. He sounded surprised to hear from her. But when she accepted the offer, he seemed so pleased and grateful, Rebecca felt she’d made the right choice, after all. She arranged to move into the Berringer mansion the following weekend, which was right after Nora’s last day of school.

Since her stay would be temporary, Matthew insisted on paying her moving expenses and any unexpected costs, such as rent on her apartment or storage for furniture. While Rebecca appreciated his consideration and concern, she had been asked to move out of her apartment at the end of the month to give way to the landlord’s brother. And as for items to put in storage, since her divorce, she and Nora had been traveling light, and Rebecca thought she could fit most of their belongings in the back of her Jeep Cherokee.

“Grant will be very pleased to hear the news,” Matthew said. “He was impressed by your meeting.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Rebecca replied, smiling. “The same way a bored cat is impressed with a particularly feisty mouse.”

“Well…that, too,” Matthew conceded with a laugh. “But I think he’s finally met a worthy adversary. My money is riding on you, Rebecca.”

Rebecca thanked him for the vote of confidence. They discussed the terms of her contract and ended the conversation on a cheerful note. The moment she hung up the phone, however, she felt a knot of dread in the pit of her stomach. Well, she’d accepted. The contract would arrive in a few days, and once she signed it, she was committed to the assignment.

Rebecca shoved worrisome thoughts aside and began making a list of all she had to do in the next week to prepare for the move. She looked up to see that it was time to pick up Nora at school, a task that was performed by a sitter while Rebecca was working. But Rebecca liked to meet her daughter whenever she was able.

Nora greeted her with a giant hug. They walked down the tree-lined street toward home hand in hand while Nora chatted happily about her adventures of the day. With the school year coming to a close, the teachers were clearly growing weary, and the children were getting wilder every day. Rebecca was barely able to interrupt Nora’s conversation long enough to offer her some ice cream at a favorite shop. They sat at the counter and each ordered their usual flavor, strawberry for Rebecca and Rocky Road for Nora. Once Nora had settled down, Rebecca told her about her new job and explained that they’d be moving to the patient’s house for the summer.

“You mean, like when we stay at Grammy’s, in the guest room?” Nora asked, sounding puzzled.

Rebecca had to smile at the comparison. Her mother lived in a lovely old Victorian house on the Connecticut shore, the house where Rebecca had been raised along with two sisters. But the entire home would fit quite neatly into the space of the Berringers’ east wing, she thought.

“Not quite like Grammy’s guest room. We’ll have our own private apartment, about the size of the apartment we have now. But it will be part of the Berringers’ house,” Rebecca explained. “Their house is very large. The kind you call a mansion.”

Nora’s lovely little face was still puckered in a frown. “Oh, you mean sort of like a castle?”

“Well…not exactly. But a little like a castle, I guess,” Rebecca conceded, taking a spoonful of ice cream. There was a genuine, fire-breathing dragon on the premises, she reflected.

Nora seemed satisfied by that answer and excited to be living at the beach. Rebecca realized she would have to enroll Nora in a day camp or some type of summer program so her daughter would be occupied during working hours, but Rebecca was sure she would easily find something suitable.

“I think Eloise will love living in a castle,” Nora said. “Maybe she’ll learn how to swim.”

Oh, dear, the cat, Rebecca thought. She’d almost forgotten about Eloise. But the cat, who had been with Nora since she was only two, couldn’t be left behind. She’d have to tell Matthew Berringer about Eloise, of course, and hope he didn’t mind.

“Cats don’t like water much, Nora,” Rebecca reminded her. “But I’m sure she won’t complain about seafood dinners.”

Nora laughed. As they walked home, Rebecca felt relieved that her daughter had taken the news of their sudden move so easily. Some other children would have been upset about the unexpected change. But Nora had always had an easy temperament, even as a baby. She’d always taken changes in stride, too. Even the breakup of their little family. Nora had only been four years old when Rebecca’s husband had asked for a divorce, claiming he’d fallen madly in love with a co-worker.

Rebecca had been crushed by the betrayal, but not truly surprised. In the years since Nora’s arrival, it seemed that she and her husband, Jack, had been growing increasingly distant and they spent little time together as a couple—except to argue about money, or Jack’s late nights out with his pals, or all the day-to-day problems in every married life. But while Rebecca had noticed the change in their relationship and wondered how to rekindle their romantic spark, she’d never imagined that Jack had found someone else. She’d never once considered being unfaithful to him. No matter what.

They had been sweethearts since high school, and his disloyalty was a great blow to her. Still, for Nora’s sake, Rebecca had offered to forgive and forget, if Jack was willing to end his affair and try to work on their marriage. She was even willing to recognize that she had played some part in his seeking passion elsewhere.

But Jack had claimed it was too late and any efforts in that direction would be useless. He also claimed that he loved her…but not the way a man should love his wife. Maybe they’d married too young, or simply knew each other too long and too well. While it all sounded like the typical excuses of an unfaithful spouse, Rebecca knew there was some truth to his words. Maybe she had always been too devoted to Jack, her love and loyalty too easily won. His great romance hadn’t held together very long, but that, too, was predictable, Rebecca realized.

The blow was awesome, but it was a clean break and irrevocable. As painful as it had been to face the truth, her loving feelings for Jack had withered and grown cold soon after she’d learned about his deception. In fact, in the passing years, she’d come to see him differently. It wasn’t just bitterness, either, she knew. While they were married, she’d accepted and overlooked his immaturity and self-centered tendencies. But now she saw him objectively and often felt relieved that she didn’t have to put up with his inconsiderate behavior anymore.

Except that Nora often did, which inevitably made Rebecca livid. Jack had never been a very consistent father, sometimes showering Nora with the attention and affection she deserved and sometimes ignoring her existence completely. His sales job kept him on the road a lot, and even when he was in town, he often forgot plans and special dates he’d made with Nora. Rebecca was left to make excuses and soothe Nora’s hurt feelings…and to give their daughter a double share of love and attention. It was at those times especially that Rebecca wondered why she’d ever put up with him all those years.

Rebecca had swiftly regained her pride in the years since her divorce, yet she’d never found the courage to have a real relationship again. She’d dated a bit, even met a few men she genuinely liked. But nothing ever went too far, and Rebecca knew that the fault was hers alone. She never let her fledgling relationships progress very far and always found some reason to bail out before things grew serious.

It was fear, plain and simple. She didn’t need a therapist or self-help guru to diagnose her problem. Logically she knew all men weren’t faithless, but emotionally, she just didn’t trust the opposite sex any longer. Besides, she’d found that earning a living and taking care of Nora required her full attention and effort. Though she was occasionally lonely and from time to time imagined a perfect romance that could magically sweep away her fears, Rebecca was largely content with her life and always put off the idea of dating for some future time in her life.

When Nora was older, she told herself, or when her professional life was less demanding of her time and energy. She knew these reasons were all thin excuses, convenient shields. But she allowed herself the pretense and fended off friends and relations—mostly her two sisters—who never grew tired of trying to fix her up with dates.

At least by living at the Berringers’ for the summer she’d be out of that loop, Rebecca reflected, and the relative isolation would give her the perfect excuse to neglect her love life, or lack thereof.

The week passed quickly and the morning soon arrived for Rebecca and Nora to drive to Bridgehampton in Rebecca’s aged and overloaded car. She’d hired two college students with a van to move her furniture and many of the boxes.

All in all, she didn’t have much to show in the way of worldly goods, which was more or less the way she preferred it. Rebecca had never been impressed by wealth or the privilege and power it commanded. Her ex-husband had often accused her of what he called reverse snobbery, and though she was sure she wasn’t usually judgmental, she sometimes thought she did have an automatic bias against rich people. Matthew Berringer, however, had impressed her favorably, and for all his money, she had found him quite down-to-earth. As for her new patient, Rebecca thought as she turned down the long drive that led to the mansion, well…any snobbery Grant Berringer possessed was the least of her problems right now.

“Wow…we’re going to live in there?” Nora asked with a gasp.

Rebecca had to laugh at her reaction. “That’s right.”

“It does look like a castle…practically,” Nora conceded.

“It’s as close as we’ll ever get, honey,” Rebecca replied. As if to underscore her advice, Eloise, in her cat carrier, released a long, plaintive yowl.

As soon as Rebecca and Nora arrived, Matthew sent down some of the house staff to help, and the car and van were unpacked in no time flat. Rebecca felt a bit disoriented by the moving-day confusion, especially since Nora insisted on opening various boxes, looking for favorite toys and other belongings she feared Rebecca had left behind. Rebecca had hoped to put their things away in an orderly fashion, but soon the place was topsy-turvy.

In the midst of the confusion, the phone rang, and Rebecca was greeted by Grant’s deep, commanding voice.

“So, you’ve finally arrived. When did you plan on seeing your patient…next week, perhaps?” he asked in a cranky tone.