Sean's Reckoning (7 page)

Kevin took his can of pop and climbed onto a chair. “What have you been talking about?” he asked, clearly settling in.

“Grown-up stuff. Nothing that would interest you, kiddo,” Sean said, when Deanna remained completely mute, unable to think of a single response.

“Oh,” Kevin said again, a bored expression
crossing his face. Finally he asked, “Can I watch TV?”

Sean again glanced at Deanna. She nodded. “Just until dinner’s ready,” she told him. “You turn it off and come when we call, okay?”

Kevin looked at the unopened package of hamburger meat sitting on the counter and rolled his eyes. “It’s not like that’s gonna be anytime soon, is it?”

As soon as he’d left the kitchen, Sean looked at Deanna and grinned. “Scolded by a five-year-old,” he lamented. “How embarrassing is that?”

“Not as embarrassing as trying to explain what he almost walked in on,” she said. “I felt as if I were sixteen again and my father caught me making out on the front porch.”

He studied her with undisguised curiosity. “Did you get caught a lot?”

“Probably not nearly as much as you probably did,” she said.

“Nobody much cared what I did,” he said in a matter-of-fact way that said volumes about how much that still hurt.

Deanna avoided any hint of pity. “Not even the fathers of the girls you dated?”

A smile tugged at his lips, apparently at some nearly forgotten memory. “You have a point. They did care quite a lot, but I was a smooth operator. I almost never got caught kissing their precious daughters.”

“Lucky you.”

He winked. “Luck had nothing to do with it. I knew enough to steer clear of their front porches. I did all my kissing in the back seat of a car, blocks from home.”

Deanna felt a little thrill of excitement at the image
he’d created. She wouldn’t mind spending an evening in the back seat of a car with him. But given their age and experience, she doubted they’d be able to confine themselves to kissing.

“Don’t even go there,” Sean said.

“Where?” she asked innocently.

“I am not going to make out with you in the back seat of a car,” he said firmly, his eyes twinkling and his lips struggling to hold back a grin.

She frowned at the obvious teasing. “Who asked you to?”

“Come on. You know you want to. It’s written all over your face.”

She shook her head and regarded him with a stern expression. “Given what you’re telling me, I’m more amazed than ever that you made it to the age of twenty-nine without having at least a brush with fatherhood.”

Sean’s humor promptly died. “Ever heard of birth control?”

“Sure, but it’s not fail proof.”

“It is when I use it,” he said, his expression grim.

She should have found that reassuring, but for some reason all she felt was sorrow that a man with as much parenting potential as Sean was more terrified of becoming a father than he was of walking into a blazing building.

Sean thought things had been going just great until Deanna had started pushing him about being a father. Why she couldn’t see that he was a lousy candidate for such a role was beyond him. He liked kids. He got along with them. But that wasn’t enough to prove that he had what it took to nurture one the way a real dad
was supposed to do. Hell, he didn’t know the first thing about making that kind of lifelong commitment to another human being.

He pounded the hamburgers into patties with more force than necessary, scowling as he went over their conversation in his head. He’d been honest with her, but she hadn’t believed him. Like too many women Deanna apparently saw him the way she wanted him to be, not the way he was. The faith she apparently had in him was scary stuff, worse than any fire he’d ever faced.

When she’d gone into the living room to check on Kevin, he’d finally breathed a sigh of relief. He’d thrown open the window to get some air into a room that had suddenly gone claustrophobic.

A faint prickle of unease on the back of his neck told him she was back.

“You trying to tenderize that meat by pounding it to death?” she inquired lightly.

Sean stared at the hamburger patties that were less than a half inch high. “Just working in the seasonings,” he claimed, molding them back into balls before flattening them on the already hot skillet.

“What can I do to help?”

“Not a thing. I’ve already dished up the potato salad and coleslaw. We’ve got tomatoes, onions, ketchup and mustard. Anything else you need?”

“Buns?” she asked, glancing around.

“In the oven warming.”

“Sounds as if you have everything under control, then.”

“Kevin okay?”

“He found the cartoon channel. What do you
think?” she asked wryly. “We don’t have cable at our place.”

“That’s probably a good thing. Kids spend too much time in front of TV or computers these days. They’re better off outside in the fresh air, getting plenty of exercise.” Even as the words left his mouth, he realized it was something he’d heard his foster father say on more than one occasion. Evan Forrester had obviously taught him more than Sean had realized.

“Amen to that,” Deanna said. “I only wish there were more places for them to play in our neighborhood. Some of the kids play in the street, but I refuse to let Kevin do that, and the nearest park’s too far away.”

“Ruby could bring him here in the afternoon. There’s plenty of room outside the building, and there are usually a bunch of kids out in front. I could introduce her and Kevin to some of the moms.”

“You wouldn’t mind doing that?”

“Why would I?”

“It might mean you’d be bumping into Kevin more. I’m sure it’s flattering to be idolized the way he idolizes you, but it can take a toll after a while. You might start to want your privacy back.”

“Dee, don’t worry about it,” he said, using the nickname he’d heard Ruby use. “Kevin’s a great kid. He’s not getting on my nerves. I like having him around. And it’s not as if I’m here all that much, anyway. If it’ll make you feel better, have Ruby call me before they come by, to make sure it’s not an inconvenience, but I can tell you right now that it won’t be.”

Deanna didn’t look totally convinced.

“Okay, what else is on your mind?” he asked.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea for him to start to count on you too much,” she admitted. “It’s not as if you’re always going to be available for him. Despite what you think now, you could eventually meet someone, get married, have your own family. Where would that leave Kevin?”

He carefully flipped a burger as he considered his response to that. “We’ve already discussed the likelihood that I’ll never get married, so that’s not an issue.” He met her gaze. “Dee, I’m not going to let him down. I’ll make it very clear that we’re just buddies. I won’t set up any false expectations.”

“That all sounds very reasonable to me, but I’m an adult, not a five-year-old boy who desperately wants a dad.”

Sean swallowed hard as her quietly spoken words hit home. Of course she was right to be worried. How many times as a boy had he watched with envy as his friends went off to do things with their dads? Evan Forrester had done things with him, but it had taken years before Sean had allowed himself to begin to count on his foster father really being there for him. If anything had happened to jerk the rug out from under his feet once he’d finally started to trust his foster father, it would have been devastating. Kevin had none of those defenses in place. The kid was still innocent enough to wear his heart on his sleeve.

“Would you prefer it if I steered clear of him completely?” he asked, feeling an odd sense of loss even before she replied. Though he spent time with a lot of kids, there was something about Kevin’s cocky self-assurance and his vulnerability that struck a chord with Sean. Maybe he saw himself in the boy.

Deanna stood there, clearly weighing her answer for
what seemed to be an eternity before she finally shook her head. “No, that’s not what I want, and I know it’s not what Kevin wants. I just don’t want him to get hurt.”

“Sometimes it’s not possible to protect the people we love from getting hurt,” Sean said. “But I’ll do my best not to hurt Kevin.”

“I know that, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” she said. “We wouldn’t even be here.”

Sean tucked a finger under her chin and forced her to meet his gaze, “I’m going to do my best not to hurt you, either.”

She shrugged as if her feelings were of no importance. “Yeah, well, like you said, you can’t always protect people from pain. It’s part of living.”

“You learned that lesson from your ex?”

“Among others,” she said tightly.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not really. The important thing is that I survived.” She met his gaze. “So did you.”

Long after Sean had walked Deanna and Kevin back home, her words lingered in his head. He doubted she realized the significance of what she’d said. She’d managed to remind him that for most of the past decade—no, even longer than that—Sean had not only survived, he’d worked hard to keep himself safe from being hurt.

But only today had he realized that he—very much like Deanna, whether she realized it or not—had also kept himself from really living.

“W
hat the devil is this?”

From her place at the reception desk Deanna heard the shout of the senior law partner in his office. She exchanged a glance with Ruby.

“Mr. Hodges sounds like he’s on a real rampage,” Deanna said in a whisper. “I wonder what it’s about.”

Before they could even speculate, the intercom on her desk buzzed.

“Deanna, Mr. Hodges would like to see you,” Charlotte Wilson said, her tone somber. “Have Ruby cover the desk for you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Deanna said, her palms sweating. She gave Ruby a shaky smile. “Pray for me.”

“Don’t let the man bully you,” Ruby advised.

Stomach churning, Deanna walked down the corridor to the suite of offices belonging to Jordan Hodges. A glance at Charlotte’s face was not encouraging. The
secretary, who usually maintained a facade of icy reserve, looked as if she wanted to cry.

Deanna stepped inside the office and waited.

“Don’t just stand there. Come in and close the door,” her boss said, regarding her with a scowling expression.

She shut the door and crossed the room. “Is something wrong?”

“I’ll say something’s wrong,” he said, his expression grim. “I found these papers on my desk just now.” He waved an envelope in her direction. “They were supposed to be across town on the desk of opposing counsel. Care to explain why they’re not?”

Deanna stared at the envelope in confusion. True, it was her job to see that the outgoing mail went out each day, but she wasn’t the one who addressed it. “I have no idea. What does it say on the envelope?”

“The address label is quite clear,” he said, waving it under her nose.

She snagged a corner of the envelope and studied it. Sure enough, it was addressed to a lawyer in downtown Boston. “Sir, I know I’ve been a little frazzled lately, but if this envelope had come across my desk addressed like this, it would have gone out,” she said confidently. “It wouldn’t have gotten mixed up with the incoming mail.”

The color in Mr. Hodges’s face had finally begun to return to normal. He sank into his chair. “It’s not like you to make a mistake like this,” he agreed, studying her with concern. “You say you’ve been frazzled. Is something wrong I should know about? Your boy’s okay?”

She was surprised by the question. She rarely mentioned Kevin around the office. “Kevin’s fine.”

“Something else, then?”

Deanna hadn’t wanted to get into her personal problems at work. She never wanted her boss to think that she had so much going on that she couldn’t concentrate on her job. It was a sure way to get fired.

“It’s okay,” he encouraged her, pinning her with a steady gaze. “Just tell me.”

No wonder the man was considered a shark in court, Deanna thought. He was relentless and he managed to cross-examine a witness with that same look of compassion on his face that he had right now. She could almost believe that he really cared about what was going on in her life.

“I really don’t think there’s any need for me to burden you with my problems,” she said.

“Nonsense. Tell me,” he said even more emphatically.

“It’s just that there was this fire a couple of months ago,” she said hesitantly.

“A fire? Where?”

“My building.”

“How bad was it?”

“Pretty bad,” she admitted, then added with some reluctance, “We lost everything.”

Shock spread across his face. “Why on earth didn’t you say something?”

“We’ve been doing okay. We’re living with Ruby temporarily. I’ve been adding hours at Joey’s to try to get enough money so we can move into our own place. To be honest, it’s possible that it’s catching up with me.”

“You’re working a second job at Joey Talifero’s restaurant?” he asked, clearly shocked.

“Actually I have been for some time.”

He shook his head. “Well, one thing at a time. We’ll deal with your need to work a second job another time. As for the fire, why wasn’t I told about it? I assume you told Charlotte.”

“Actually, no.” Mr. Hodges’s executive secretary was the last person she would have shared her personal problems with. “I don’t like to bring my problems to work. I never want you to get the idea that this job doesn’t have my full attention.”

He regarded her with unmistakable dismay. “Deanna, how long have you been here now? Five years, isn’t it? Ever since your son was born.”

She nodded.

“And every single evaluation has given you high marks for being a responsible employee, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then why on earth would you be afraid to come to me when you lose your home? I think that qualifies as the kind of thing your boss ought to know. We could help you out, give you a loan, represent you if you want to sue the landlord.”

Deanna stared at him in astonishment. She had never considered asking him for free legal assistance. The kind of cases he normally handled involved hundreds of thousands of dollars, not what would amount to pocket change in his world. “You would do that?” she asked.

“Well, of course we would,” he said with a hint of exasperation that she even had to ask. “What did you expect? As far as I’m concerned, every employee in this firm is like family. When anyone’s having a problem, I expect them to come to me
before
it interferes with their job performance.”

“Thank you. I’ll remember that in the future.”

“Forget the future. What about the here and now? What can I do?”

Deanna refused to ask for more money. He was already paying her a decent wage for the receptionist’s job she’d been doing. And she certainly didn’t want a loan she would have to struggle to pay back.

“Nothing, really. I’m handling everything.”

“Not if this mistake is an example of the way you’re handling things,” he chided, but more gently this time. “Who was at fault for the fire?”

“The fire inspector said it was the landlord,” she said. “But the landlord made it clear when I signed my lease that he wasn’t responsible for damages to anything in any of the apartments, that I needed to carry my own insurance.”

“Did you?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t afford it,” she admitted. “And we didn’t have that much. I didn’t realize until we lost everything how much it would cost to replace what little we did have.”

Mr. Hodges pulled out a legal pad and a pen. “What’s the landlord’s name?”

“Lawrence Wyatt.”

To her surprise her boss reacted with disgust. “Typical of Wyatt,” he muttered. “This isn’t the first time I’ve run across him. I’ll have a talk with him. I think I can promise you a settlement of some kind. Will that mean you can cut back on your hours at Joey’s, maybe start getting some sleep?”

“Yes.”

“See that it does,” he said sternly. “And, Deanna?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Next time there’s a crisis, don’t wait so long to come to me.”

“No, sir,” she said, exiting the office before the tears of gratitude stinging her eyes could fall.

Charlotte studied her worriedly. “Did he fire you?”

“No.”

“Thank heaven,” the secretary said fervently.

“I just can’t imagine what happened, though. I’m always so careful. I know how important papers like that are.”

“Mistakes happen to everyone,” Charlotte said.

It was such a rare attempt at reassurance that Deanna regarded her with sudden suspicion. “You never put that envelope on my desk, did you?”

Charlotte’s thin mouth remained clamped firmly shut, but the misery in her eyes was a dead giveaway.

“Never mind. I won’t say anything,” Deanna promised. “But you owe me, Charlotte.”

The woman finally sighed. “You’re right. I do. I wouldn’t have let him fire you, you know. I would have confessed if it had come to that.”

“But you were willing to let the mistake go on my record,” Deanna reminded her. “I won’t forget that.”

She turned and left the suite before Charlotte could respond. When Deanna reached the outer office, she was surprised to find Sean perched on the edge of the reception desk chatting with Ruby. They both regarded her with worry when they spotted her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Sean.

“I called him,” Ruby said. “Mr. Hodges never yells like that unless he’s ready to can somebody. I was afraid you were about to get fired, so I figured you’d need a big, broad shoulder to cry on. So, what happened in there?”

“He blew a gasket about a really stupid mistake, but then I explained about the fire and the extra hours at Joey’s, and instead of firing me, he’s going to talk to the landlord and try to wrangle a settlement for me. Actually, except for Charlotte’s role in it, it’s pretty amazing,” she said, still bemused by the whole turn of events.

“Charlotte?” Sean asked, looking confused.

“The snake who runs Mr. Hodges’s office,” Ruby said, then turned to Deanna. “What did she do?”

“Turns out she was the one who made the mistake I was getting blamed for.”

Ruby regarded her with indignation. “I hope you told Hodges,” she said.

Deanna shook her head. “No. I didn’t even realize what had really happened until after I’d left his office.”

“Why the heck didn’t you go right back in and tell the man the truth?” Sean demanded.

“Because it turned out okay. Charlotte won’t do anything like that again.”

“You’re too darned noble,” Ruby said.

“Actually, I’m not,” Deanna said with a grin. “Now I have something I can hold over her head for years to come. Having leverage over Charlotte is a very good thing.”

Ruby grinned. “Then I suggest you start by telling her you’re taking the afternoon off and that she’s going to cover for you. Then the three of us are going to pick up Kevin and go celebrate.”

Deanna glanced at Sean to see how he was taking Ruby’s attempt to plan his afternoon. He winked at her.

“Sounds like a plan to me. I don’t go back on duty
till midnight.” He glanced pointedly at Ruby. “Neither does Hank.”

Ruby frowned at that. “So?”

“Just thought you might be interested.”

“Oh, go on and call him, if you want to,” Ruby told Sean grudgingly.

Deanna didn’t think Ruby ought to get off the hook so easily. As Sean reached for the phone, she stopped him. “Why don’t you make that call, Ruby? I’ll go and speak to Charlotte.”

“But—”

Deanna cut off the protest. “If I can go in there and face down dragon lady, you can call Hank.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, go. I’ll call,” Ruby grumbled.

She was still on the phone with Hank when Deanna came back. “How are they doing?” she asked Sean in a whisper.

He chuckled. “The subject of the celebration hasn’t actually come up yet. Those two are doing a dance that defies explanation. I’m almost tempted to yank the phone out of her hand and tell the poor guy why she really called.”

“She’d never forgive you,” Deanna said.

“But Hank would be forever grateful. I like to shift the balance of power in our partnership arrangement from time to time.”

Deanna groaned. “You men and your macho games. I thought the two of you were friends.”

“We are. That’s how we stay that way,” he explained in a way that almost made it sound like a perfectly rational way to live.

“Whatever,” Deanna said. “Thanks for coming over here when Ruby called. You didn’t have to.”

He laughed. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d heard her on the phone. I expected you to emerge from that office bloodied and defeated.”

“But I notice you didn’t rush in to save me,” she said.

“Only because when I got here and heard the whole story, I got a somewhat different picture of the crisis unfolding.” He reached in his pocket and withdrew a package of tissues. “I ran out and got these.”

“Anticipating my weeping, were you?” she inquired, amused by his attempt at preparedness. “A lot of men would have run at the prospect.”

He shrugged. “Not me. I’m a sensitive kind of guy.”

“You say that as if it’s a joke, but you are, you know.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew about my plan to go in and pound your boss for making you cry in the first place.”

She bit back a smile. “When were you going to do that?”

“As soon as I gave you the tissues and turned you over to Ruby.”

Deanna laughed. “I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.”

“I know. I can see that.”

“But I appreciate your willingness to step in, just the same.”

He seemed suddenly uncomfortable with her praise. “Don’t turn me into some kind of hero. All I did was show up.”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “That’s quite a lot for a man who claims to know nothing about sticking it out through tough times.”

“Dee—”

“Hey, you guys,” Ruby interrupted. “Are we going to hang around here all afternoon or are we going to celebrate?”

Deanna met Sean’s gaze and held it. “I think we have quite a few reasons to celebrate, don’t you?”

For a minute she thought he might prolong the argument, but eventually he shrugged. “Whatever you say. Who am I to argue with a woman who managed to emerge from battle unscathed?”

Satisfied, Deanna turned to Ruby. “Is Hank joining us?”

Ruby shrugged. “Beats me. He was still grumbling a lot of nonsense about being awakened out of a sound sleep for no good reason when I hung up on him.”

“But you did tell him where we’d be, right?” Deanna persisted.

“How could I?” Ruby asked reasonably. “I don’t know where we’re going to be.”

Deanna sighed.

“I’ll call and give him a heads-up when we get there,” Sean said.

“Whatever,” Ruby said, setting off down the street at a brisk pace that left Deanna and Sean trailing behind.

They stared after her, then exchanged an exasperated look.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on between those two?” Deanna asked.

“Not me,” Sean said.

“Well, he’s your friend,” she said irritably.

“And she’s yours. Do you get it?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Why do I think that getting in the middle of it is a very bad idea?” Sean asked.

“Because you’re an intelligent man,” Deanna said. “But you’re going to call Hank, anyway, right?”

Sean nodded. “If only to get a firsthand look at the fireworks.”