Family Be Mine (10 page)

Sarah expelled a large breath upward, sending her bangs flying. “What my mother was trying to imply, and because you're bound to find out soon enough anyway, given this crowd—”

Everyone besides Hunt acted as if they didn't know what she was talking about.

She ignored them and addressed Hunt. “You see, I don't especially have a great track record with men, especially my ex-fiancé who only revealed on the day of our wedding that he was gay.”

“I'd say that's a bit of an understatement,” Julie said.

Sarah shot her a what-gives glance. “Thank you, my dearest friend.”

Hunt digested this news for a few moments. “Oh. So you're not gay?”

Sarah shook her head. “No. But even if I were gay, what difference would it make?”

“None.” Well, there were obvious differences from his perspective, but he was not going to elaborate. He felt an unexpected relief and a sudden burst of happiness. And confusion….

“Wait a minute. Why am I the one sounding defensive? If it doesn't make any difference if you're gay or straight, why does it matter what Zach's preferences are? That was your fiancé's name, right?”

Sarah waved him over, and he settled on the arm of the couch next to her.

She lowered her voice. “It has nothing to do with the fact that he's gay. All right, it does, because I thought he was in love with me, and it turns out he wasn't…well…not in the way he pretended to be. Essentially, he lied. He lied to me.” Sarah pressed her index finger to her heart.

“Sounds to me that he was lying to himself, living a lie,” he whispered back.

Sarah wrestled with his words. “Okay, maybe. I don't know. But that still doesn't condone his sneaking around. Or the fact that he was doing it with another guy on the day of our wedding.”

That admission had Hunt opening his mouth, speechless.

“I mean, what kind of cruel person does that?”

Hunt frowned and scratched the side of his neck. He opened his hand beseechingly. “Maybe someone who wanted to be caught? Because he knew he couldn't go on living a lie, but didn't have the courage or know how to tell you?”

Sarah threw up her hands. “Argh! You're so understanding! I can't stand it!” She didn't bother to keep her voice down. “Listen, I'm sure there's some truth in what you say, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that he hurt me. Hurt me by cheating on me, especially on a day that meant so much to my family.”

“And to you, as well?” Hunt prompted.

“And to me, as well,” Sarah repeated, but without the same vigor.

“So, why don't you take my help? Are you saying
I'm
the problem?” Hunt felt put out. He stood.

“I think it's more like she's the problem,” Julie interrupted. “Sarah's more than willing to help the whole world, but try and lend her a hand? Listen, Sarah, this is me, your friend
and
your obstetrician talking. Take the offer.” Julie nodded perfunctorily at Hunt. “If a better one appears on the horizon, fine, but for now, I don't think you have any choice.”

Hunt crossed his arms.

“Hey,” Julie began, “I'm sure you're a perfectly nice guy. Anyway, we all know your mother lives in town, and she would never let you behave like anything other than the perfect gentleman.”

“How nice that you live near your mother,” Penny said cheerfully.

“Why does that sound like a criticism of me?” Sarah said to no one in particular.

Julie patted her hand. “Get over it. We all feel that way about our mothers. We can't help it. When we have daughters, they'll feel the same way about us.” She raised her head to Hunt. “You appear to have your own issues to deal with at the moment. You think you can handle the pressure?”

“Pressure. You want pressure. Not only am I somehow signed up for a water aerobics class, I've now got myself going to a dog training class. What's opening my house up to an almost complete stranger got to compare with those two things?”

“Hardly a complete stranger. After all, you've seen her in a bikini,” Lena pointed out.

Hunt blinked, the image flashing before his eyes. “That's true.” He paused, recalling each notable detail. Then he shook his head and focused on the here and now.
“Whatever. So tell me—on top of those responsibilities, are there any other obligations that someone has yet to tell me about?”

S
ARAH GAZED AROUND
the entrance of Hunt's ultra-modern home. “This isn't a house. It's more like the lobby of some boutique hotel. You know, Katarina mentioned that Ben's business partner had this amazing place, but I never expected this.” Hunt's house—
castle
was a more apt word, Sarah thought—was a postmodern gray-stone monolith. Three stories tall, it loomed on the edge of the university campus in stark contrast to the neighboring clapboard houses and the engineering school's sixties, blah brick building, which could easily have been mistaken for a box store.

The house had a massive double-door entryway with a broken pediment above. The ground floor windows were long narrow slits that looked perfect for pouring forth boiling oil on any passing horde.

Hunt, Sarah and Fred stood inside the entryway—“foyer” Hunt had called it. The dog strained on his leash, his nails scratching on the polished floors in a furious tattoo. A painting on the wall caught Sarah's eye. She shifted the KitchenAid mixer in her arms. “That's by someone famous, isn't it?” she said.

“Joan Miró.”

“Right.” Sarah nodded slowly. She was getting the feeling that she wasn't in rural Minnesota anymore.
“There was a show of his at the Museum of Modern Art. Katarina and I took the train in to see it.”

“Yes, I saw it, too. I think this one is better than a lot of the pieces they had hanging.” He cleared his throat. Fred yanked on his leash again. Hunt rested Sarah's duffel bag on the bottom rung of a suspended spiral staircase that seemed to float upward to some Busby Berkeley heaven. “Listen, I need to take him out for a short walk before I let him have the run of the house.”

“Sure, you wouldn't want him lifting his leg on anything like that.” With a shake of her head, she indicated a geode the size of a lunar landing module. “That could be a bitch to clean.”

“You're right. My cleaning lady would probably up and quit, and that would be a disaster.”

“I can imagine. How do you dust a geode, anyway?”

“Don't ask me. I don't even know how the washing machine runs.” Hunt pointed over his shoulder. “I'll be less than a minute. Why don't you just put down that…that…” He waggled his hand toward the mixer in her arms.

“Mixer. It's a mixer,” she explained.

“Right, whatever it is, it looks heavy. Just put it down for now. I still can't believe you insisted on bringing that but only a small duffel bag of clothes.”

“Well, I needed the essentials. And can you bring in the box with the kitchen supplies when you come back?”

“No problem,” he said over his shoulder. Fred had already pulled him out the front door. “Just take the elevator upstairs meanwhile. Fred always does. And
put your feet up.” The door closed behind him with a whisper and then a thud.

Sarah sank on a lower step of the cantilevered stairway and eased the mixer to the floor. She gazed down. “Marble,” she noted. “Great for baking.”

She lowered her chin to her cupped fingers and stared around the place. What was she doing in a house with priceless art and an elevator? She peered more closely at the stairs. “Nah, it can't possibly just lift up, can it?”

Then she noticed what looked like a futuristic light switch embedded in the bamboo paneling—so ecologically minded it practically screamed smugness. Though, Sarah had to admit, it did look pretty nice. Still, she wasn't game enough to press it and find out what would happen. With her luck she'd probably cause an alarm system to go off.

“But, you know,” she said out loud, her voice echoing in the elegant, deserted environment, “hasn't my life already set off an alarm system?”

And then the walls started to shake.

 

“I
THINK THIS ONE IS BETTER
than the ones they have hanging in the show,” Hunt mumbled to himself, repeating his earlier words. He watched Fred lift a leg on a privet hedge outside the engineering library. “Jeez, what a snooty thing to say.”

Somehow after Sarah had maneuvered herself into the low bucket passenger seat in the Porsche, and they'd wrangled Fred into the tiny back cavity of the 911, the full impact of what he'd just agreed to do finally sank in. He had agreed, or rather been railroaded, into living 24/7 with a voluptuous woman who was soon to give birth to another man's baby.

Not exactly what he would have predicted five years ago, let alone yesterday or even this morning.

Ever since college, Hunt had lived alone. On purpose. Oh, he was social enough, never at a loss for an invitation, date or an affair. Popularity was something that came easily to him. Just like the rest of his life.

Maintaining a lasting relationship was another thing, and he didn't mean getting together with his old Grantham University roommates for reunions each year. That type of camaraderie came easily to him. All it required was a good memory for names, a relatively quick wit and freely flowing alcohol.

As far as he could tell, the only true friend he had was Ben. And while he trusted him without reserve, and the two had weathered good times and bad, he couldn't really say they were close. He was more than happy to listen to Ben bare his soul, but the probability of him sitting down for a heart-to-heart about his inner angst was just about nil. About as likely as him having children.

And he wasn't even referring to the possibility of shooting blanks after going through chemo. That was one of the upsides of his treatment, his oncologist had explained to him. No, as any self-respecting psychiatrist could have told him—not that he would ever see one—his reluctance to commit to anything resembling a long-term relationship with a woman stemmed back to his childhood.
Well, duh,
Hunt would have replied.

Others, and even he, laughed at his overbearing mother who gave singular meaning to the term
doyenne
.
Diva
didn't even come close. But he was no mamma's boy, not even close. Other people buckled under Iris's iron will and did what she “recommended.” Hunt, by
contrast, just listened to her thinly veiled orders, and then turned around and did just what he pleased.

Besides, the real source of his personal hang-ups wasn't his mother.

It was his father.

It was a secret Hunt kept to himself, not out of deference to the hallowed memory of his late father, but to preserve the life his mother had created for herself and, as a consequence, him. As Hunt knew only too well, Iris's insistence on total and absolute control was nothing more than a defense mechanism born out of a marriage that had left her powerless and unloved.

Hunt's solution was different. Besides the irrepressible urge to banter, Hunt made sure to distance himself from intimacy. On second thought, the banter accomplished that, as well.

So was it any surprise now that intimacy had been forced upon him—even without an emotional, romantic component—he found himself pushing back? Hunt looked down and realized that Fred had finally stopped anointing the bushes and was busy chewing on the plastic covering of a bicycle lock. It might be a losing endeavor, but he seemed to be enjoying the process.

Maybe that was the tack he should take with his new roommate. Quit trying to fight it and just enjoy whatever small benefits that came from being a good Samaritan.

Anyway, it wasn't as if they were required to form a close personal bond. He would merely be her driver. She could just text him when she needed a lift, and he could come and get her. If he had to wait around at all, he could read the paper, or better yet, use the time to decide how he was going to “improve society.” Along
those lines, he was beginning to view these chauffeur duties as a kind of community activism, a volunteer job. As the saying went, charity begins at home, and what better charitable project than opening up his own home?

In the meantime, seeing as she said she wasn't interested in getting into a personal relationship, he could start practicing his social skills again, with no risk of commitment.

Hunt smiled. He liked that idea. Liked it very much. He could practice all his usual wiles, knowing that nothing would ever come of it, but at the same time reaping long-term benefits—a sound investment strategy if ever there was one. Then at the end of these few remaining weeks, he would wish her well with her new baby, even give her a generous and thoughtful gift. He could even imagine visiting the two of them every once in a while, maybe playing with the baby. Not that Hunt had the faintest idea what one did with a newborn baby, but he was sure with online research he'd be just as equipped as the next person. After all, once upon a time, everything had always proved easy to him. And it was time to recapture that same feeling.

“Come, Fred. Let's move the car off the street and park it in the garage,” Hunt said, feeling a renewed spring to his step. He even whistled a few off-key bars of Brahms's
Academic Festival Overture
.

Hunt beeped his Porsche unlocked and Fred hopped in front. He started the ignition and hung an illegal right turn into the one-way alley that provided access to the garage. He activated the remote and an industrial-strength, high-tech steel door rumbled open.

Hunt edged the car into the narrow space, then looked
across at the dog. “Come, Fred. Maybe if you're lucky she'll let you lick a beater when she uses that mixer to make a cake.”