Father to Be (20 page)

“She thinks I’ve moved to the other side of the world.” Her level gaze settled on him as he examined his already-swelling finger. “I bet when you did your surgical rotation, you cut yourself with your own scalpel, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t,” he retorted, but didn’t allow her to change the subject. “She’s not so wrong, is she? Bethlehem and New York City are in two different universes.”

“They’re not so different.”

“Hey, don’t forget, I came here from Chicago. I know the differences firsthand. What do you miss most so far?”

She tilted her head to one side to consider. “My favorite
bookstore. I used to go to this wonderful huge store that spread over three floors and had every book I’d ever wanted and a coffee bar that sold the most delicious frozen cappuccino, and there were big comfy chairs for reading and dozens of aisles for browsing. What about you? What do you miss most about Chicago?”

He didn’t need even a second to consider it. The things he missed most were people, people he had loved. People to whom he’d had obligations and duties, whom he had failed so thoroughly. People who were now lost to him forever. “I’m over missing anything,” he said, feeling guilty for the lie. “In the beginning I think I missed the restaurants most. I like Greek food and sushi and Thai. Trying to get those now gives new meaning to going out for dinner.” Deliberately he turned the conversation back to her. “What was your mother’s problem with you moving here?”

“She likes having the family nearby. I’m probably the first one in three generations to move farther than an hour away. Most of my relatives live within five miles of each other. They like being close enough to have Sunday dinners and go to church together. The men work on each other’s cars and watch the big games on TV, and the women give each other advice, visit every day, and take turns baby-sitting all the kids.” She smiled faintly. “That’s Mom’s biggest fear, I think. That I’ll fall in love, get married, and raise her grandbabies out here, where she won’t be able to spoil them every day.”

Now, that was a powerful image—Kelsey, in love, pregnant, surrounded by sassy little girls with curly brown hair and hazel eyes. But that was all that formed. There was no lucky man in the picture. Whoever he might be, J.D. hoped he stayed away long enough to give
him
a chance with her first. It wouldn’t take long, because whatever she needed, he couldn’t give. Carol Ann and Trey were the
proof. All he was good for these days was affairs—short, sweet, and, in the end, unsatisfying, because for so long he’d had so much more.

Until he’d destroyed it.

“Why did you describe yourself as a jaded do-gooder?”

He scowled at her as he began shimming the cabinet to level it. “It was a joke, Kelsey. You know, humor?”

“Is that why you left Chicago?”

“I told you why I left Chicago.” The scowl was starting to feel more real as he screwed the braces into the studs.

“Yeah, I know, small-town living, neighbors, slower pace, less traffic. Were you burned out? Is that why you left?”

He’d been burned out for so long that the ashes were cold. He’d had no heat, no passion, no life, and very little reason for living. In the end he’d lost even that.

Getting to his feet, he set the drill down, then faced her. “Who’s asking?”

“I don’t under—”

He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed her entire person. “Friend or social worker?”

It took her a while to answer, and he wasn’t sure he could trust the answer when she gave it. “Friend.”

He held her gaze for a long time, wondering how well Kelsey, attractive woman and, yes, friend, could separate from Ms. Malone, dedicated social worker. Not very, he suspected. Anything Kelsey learned, Ms. Malone would use. For that reason he redirected the conversation. “Friend? Really? I’m flattered.”

“Against my better judgment,” she said dryly.

“I knew you couldn’t resist my charm.”

“Is that what you call it?”

When he started past her to get the next unit, she stopped him with a hand on his arm. His skin was damp with sweat, gritty with dust, but that didn’t lessen the
impact of her touch. It didn’t stop his throat from going dry, his temperature from climbing higher, or his voice from turning thick and husky. “What do you say we shoot for something beyond friendship?”

She very delicately removed her hand, as if she’d grabbed hold of danger and was now trying to retreat without losing her fingers. “We can’t— You know—” The breath she took was audible, strengthening. “Funny.”

“Actually …” J.D. drew his own noisy breath. “I haven’t been more serious in a long time.” Two years, three months, two weeks, and four days.

She moved away, all the way across the room, and stared out the window. “Why don’t we back up a bit and pretend these last few minutes of conversation never happened? I won’t ask you about Chicago, and you won’t ask me—”

“For more than you want to give?”

Slowly, she faced him. “For more than I
can
give.”

Interesting distinction, and a bit of an ego stroke to ease the— What exactly was it he felt? Disappointment? Regret? Loss?

He went back to work, but after installing enough cabinets to accommodate everything he owned twice over, the job was pretty routine. It left him plenty of time to think, to wonder about that distinction, to try to identify that emotion.

For dealing with others’ emotions every day in his work, he’d become pretty detached from his own. For so long he’d been dead inside. Even now, compared to the man he’d been ten years before, he was an emotional cripple. He’d learned to function, to act normally, to make jokes and make friends while keeping everyone—keeping life—at a safe distance. As fond as he was of his neighbors, as much as he genuinely loved some of them, not one had slipped inside the defenses he used to keep himself intact.

The Browns were the first kids who’d threatened to breach those defenses. Kelsey was the first woman.

But with the Browns, he felt threatened. With Kelsey, he just felt tempted. Because he knew nothing riskier than an affair would come of it? Because when it came down to letting her in—if she ever wanted in—his carefully reconstructed instincts for self-preservation would save him?

Or was it possible that instead of part of the destruction, she could be part of the healing?

It was a seductive thought—that one day he might be healed, healthy, and whole, the man he used to be, capable of great good, great feeling, wholehearted commitment. And that Kelsey could be part of the process or the reward at the end … That could be the most seductive thought of all.

Or she could be none of that, nothing more than she was at this moment. A friend. She could be as totally unavailable to him as she seemed to think, which could be another reason he was tempted by her, he admitted. It was easier to resist temptation that had a snowball’s chance in hell of coming to fruition.

So why was she unavailable? Why was a relationship with him not more than she
wanted
to give, but more than she
could
?

The first choice was obvious. She was in love with someone else. Why not? She was a beautiful woman, and few beautiful women made it to their mid-thirties without at least one serious relationship. It was hard to imagine the fool who would leave her or let her go, but he knew men like that existed. Hell, he
was
a man like that. Hadn’t he lost Carol Ann?

Using his best nonjudgmental, soothing psychiatrist voice, he asked, “Have you ever been married?”

Her look was wary. So was her voice. “No.”

“Ever been in love?”

“Once.” She lifted the corner of the cabinet so he could shim it, then drew her shirt-sleeve across her forehead to dry the sweat. “I was twelve. He sat across from me in social studies. His family moved over Thanksgiving break and I never saw him again. It broke my heart.”

“What about later? Once you were out of braces and pigtails? There must have been someone.”

A faint flush tinged her cheeks, and she hedged when she answered. “I don’t exactly meet a lot of great guys in my line of work. Fathers losing custody of their children. Foster fathers, usually married, taking custody of those children. Cops, lawyers, mental health professionals.” Her tone put the last bunch in the same group with the first.

J.D. tilted his head to study her. Obviously, there was something she wasn’t telling him, someone she wasn’t willing to discuss at the moment. He considered pressing the issue, then decided it could be done later. Just then he let her direct him off on a tangent designed to keep her secret. “You don’t like cops and lawyers?”

“I like some of them just fine, but I wouldn’t want to date any of them.”

“Why not?”

“Because of what I do, and what they do.”

“That doesn’t have to be a negative. A cop, lawyer, or therapist would have some insight into your work and vice versa. It could make things easier, give you common ground to build on.”

“You would advise two people in difficult professions to try to build a relationship based on their similar difficulties?” She snorted. “It’s a good thing you didn’t go into marriage counseling, Dr. Grayson. You would have failed.”

“I certainly failed at my own.”

The words came out a low murmur and hung in the air between them. He hadn’t intended to voice the thought
aloud, hadn’t intended ever to tell her anything more about his marriage than she already knew, which was more than anyone else in Bethlehem knew. Other than a few unimportant facts—that he’d been a prominent psychiatrist in Chicago and that his degrees were from Boston University and Harvard—his past was a secret from everyone else in town. His successes and failures were private, and he meant to keep them that way.

“What happened?” Her voice was as nonjudgmental and soothing as his best, the voice in which she might question an abused child or counsel a grieving parent. It reminded him that some aspects of her job weren’t very different from his. She knew how to coax people into talking and how to wait patiently if they weren’t ready.

In this case she needed the patience of Job, because he would never be ready to fully, truthfully, unflinchingly answer her simple question.

He faced her, the distance between them about two arm’s lengths. If she reached out, and so did he, they could touch. They could connect, maybe just for a while, maybe for always. Or they could stand there, arms at their sides, and never take that risk.

“We’re friends, right?” he asked, his tone curiously brittle. “We’ve established that.”

She nodded.

“And you don’t want, won’t let yourself want more than that, right?”

This time her nod was slower, less sure.

“Then what happened with my marriage is none of your business. It’s very personal, and I don’t discuss very personal business with just friends. All right?”

If she took offense at his bluntness, she hid it. But there was no denying the chill that settled over the room, though whether it came from him or her, he couldn’t say. It took away his pleasure in the day, turned work that he
had always enjoyed into a chore that he no longer wanted to do. Grimly, he unplugged the drill, then started closing the windows.

“We’ve done enough here,” he said shortly. “We’d better get back to town.”

For a moment she looked as if she might protest, and he wanted her to, wanted her to say something, anything, that he might respond to, that might get them back on comfortable footing. She didn’t though. She simply nodded once, then walked out. A moment later he heard the front door close. A moment after that came the thud of the truck’s door.

He finished closing the kitchen windows, then stepped onto the deck. The sunlight, the wind, and the sounds of the water encouraged him to stand still, to close his eyes and breathe deeply. There had been long periods when he’d forgotten to breathe, when he’d been too rushed, too distressed, too driven. It was amazing what the simple act could accomplish, how it could release the tension and ease the anxiety. He should try it more often, especially when Kelsey was around.

Or maybe he should just make sure she wasn’t around.

His responding smile was thin and humorless. He knew himself better than any man ever should. Soul-searching, for him, was one of the greater hazards of the psychiatric profession. He would be kidding himself if he thought there was any chance he would keep his distance from Kelsey, and he’d made a point of not kidding himself—for the last few years, at least. Down that path lay danger.

Kelsey waited in the truck, seat belt on, fingers tapping impatiently against the glass. Down that path lay danger too, he acknowledged with a grin.

But some dangers a man just had to face.

Chapter Eight
 

“I
’ve never seen him dressed nice before. You know, he’s really kinda cute.”

Alanna was spending her Sunday afternoon on the front steps of her house with her best friend beside her. They were supposed to be talking about the slumber party they were having the next weekend, but she’d spent most of her time watching Caleb, across the street in Miss Corinna’s front yard. Now she finally looked away from him and gave Susan Walker what she hoped was a good imitation of what Miss Agatha called her chastening look. “How a person dresses doesn’t have anything to do with whether he’s cute.”