Midnight Promises, page 5
She looked so hurt by his dismissive tone that he relented at once. And deep down he understood her point. “I’ll try to do better,” he promised. “I know that communication is almost as touchy a subject with you as finances. I shouldn’t have kept the whole gym thing from you, even to protect you from worry. And, believe me, I do get the money thing. I may not have lived through anything so drastic, but I saw for myself the toll it took on you.”
“Thank you. And, as I told you last night, Frances has promised to help us find more alone time. If we can manage these breakfasts occasionally, too, maybe things will get better.”
“Of course they will,” he said. He would see to it, because no one had ever mattered more to him than this woman who’d been through such terrible times when they’d met and now had blossomed into a formidable companion, lover and wife. She was his heart, and he’d do whatever it took to see that she always knew that. If only he could be sure it would ever be enough.
* * *
When Karen arrived at Sullivan’s, she found Dana Sue in a frenzy.
“What’s going on?” she asked at once. “Where’s Erik?”
“Sara Beth’s sick and Helen’s in court, so he has to stay home with Sara Beth,” she answered from inside their walk-in freezer. “I tried to reach Tina to see if she could come in early, because he’s taught her most of the dessert recipes by now, but she’s not available until this afternoon.”
She walked back into the kitchen, her cheeks pink from the icy freezer. “Can you believe there’s not even a stupid pie left in there? I guess we’re just going to have ice cream on the menu, at least for lunch.”
“What about brownies?” Karen asked. “Those are easy enough. You used to make them all the time until Erik got all territorial about desserts. If you can make those, I’ll get started on the specials. We’ll keep them simple for lunch. How about those ham-and-cheese panini Annie convinced you to put on the menu? Calling them glorified grilled-cheese sandwiches was pure genius. And maybe the walnut-and-cranberry chicken salad? I made that pot of navy bean soup yesterday, so it’s all set to go.”
Dana Sue sighed, her relief evident. “Thank you for bringing me back down to earth. I have no idea why I panicked there for a minute.”
“Because you’re addicted to that schedule you keep posted on your office wall,” Karen teased. “Deviations make you a little crazy.”
“Are you suggesting I’m a control freak?” Dana Sue asked, though her eyes were twinkling.
“I know you are,” Karen replied, just as Ronnie walked into the kitchen.
“I hear there’s a crisis,” he said, pausing to give his wife a thorough kiss. “You don’t look as crazed as you sounded on the phone. Are things better?”
“Definitely better,” Dana Sue said, “but it was Karen, not you, who made me sane.”
“Then you don’t need me to pitch in, after all?” Ronnie asked, looking relieved.
Dana Sue grinned. “Given that we don’t serve pancakes at Sullivan’s except for Sunday brunch and they’re your only specialty, I have no idea why I called you in the first place.”
“Because just the sight of me calms you down,” he suggested.
Dana Sue laughed. “Yes, I’m sure that’s it.”
“I could go over and sit with Sara Beth, if you really need Erik in here,” he offered. “I’ve got help at the hardware store till mid-afternoon.”
“No, we’re going to be fine. Karen came up with a plan.”
“Then I’ll go back and run my own business,” he said, winking at Karen. “Call if you sense she’s falling apart again.”
After he’d gone, Karen regarded Dana Sue with envy. “I love that he was willing to drop everything to run to your rescue.”
“Elliott would do the same for you,” Dana Sue insisted as she began to assemble the ingredients for the brownies. “How’d things go last night, by the way? Did you two work out your differences about the gym?”
“I’m not entirely reassured that we’re not getting in over our heads financially,” Karen said. “We’re not in the same place the rest of you are, so to me his share of the initial investment seems huge. When I said that, though, he got all defensive and implied I don’t have any faith in him.” She regarded Dana Sue in frustration. “It’s not that at all.”
“No, it’s your past history talking,” Dana Sue said. “I’m sure he gets that.”
“He says he does,” she said, then shrugged. “We’ll see. And I’m still not crazy about him not talking to me about it. He knows that, though, so I guess we’ll have to see if he leaves me out of the loop again.”
“I doubt he did it intentionally,” Dana Sue said. “Men just don’t think like we do. They like to work out all the details, consider all the angles, anticipate our objections, then present us with what they consider to be a foolproof fait accompli.”
“Are you okay with that?” Karen asked.
Dana Sue laughed. “Hardly. Control freak, remember? Only Helen has me beat on that front. And maybe Maddie.”
“But you and Ronnie found a way to work through that, right?”
“Ronnie and I have been together—and apart—and together again for a lot of years now. It has not been all smooth sailing, Karen. You know that.”
She paused while stirring the brownie batter, her expression sad. “When I found out about him cheating on me, even though he swore it was only once and a moment of total stupidity, I hated him. I didn’t trust him from here to the corner. I wanted him gone, and Helen, bless her heart, saw to it that he went. In retrospect that might not have been the best thing, especially for Annie.”
She shrugged. “But we found our way back to each other in the end. I knew when we were kids that he was the guy for me and even when I was the most furious, a part of me couldn’t stop loving him. I guess that’s what people mean when they talk about soul mates. Nothing really tears them apart, at least not for long.”
Karen nodded. “Is it possible to find your soul mate the second time around? I sure didn’t find him in Ray.”
“I think we all saw something special between you and Elliott right from the beginning,” Dana Sue said. “So, yeah, if I had to guess, I’d say he’s your soul mate. Doesn’t mean he’s perfect.” She gave Karen a pointed look. “Or that you are.”
Karen laughed. “Believe me, I get that. You know what’s amazing, though? Elliott seems to think I am.”
“Oh, boy!” Dana Sue said, laughing. “Then the man is definitely a keeper. Cut him all kinds of slack, you hear me.”
Karen heard what she was saying. She even knew Dana Sue was probably right. But she also knew if Elliott continued to leave her out of the important decision-making, especially if there were financial consequences involved, there was no way she’d be able to let it slide.
* * *
Elliott finished up with his last client of the day in late afternoon. He was anxious to pick the kids up from his mother’s, where they went after school, get them home and fed and then hang out and maybe have a nightcap with his wife. He already knew about the crisis at Sullivan’s, knew she’d be running late and would need something to unwind. After last night and their talk this morning, he’d resolved that instead of crashing as usual, he’d be there for her at the end of a long day. It was one more attempt to fix what was wrong between them.
When he arrived at his mother’s, though, he found his older sister sitting on the front stoop, her expression despondent as the kids—hers and his—ran around in the yard.
“Everything okay?” he asked Adelia, trying to gauge her mood.
“Fine.”
“Where’s Mama?”
“She went out, thank goodness. She was asking too many questions.” She said it with a pointed look at him.
“Ah, so no one’s supposed to notice that you look as if you just lost your best friend?” he suggested.
“Exactly.”
“That might go better for you if you managed to put a smile on your face,” he said lightly.
“Bite me,” she retorted. “Now that you’re here, I’ll take my kids and go.”
Frowning, he reached out and caught her hand. “Adelia, what’s wrong? Seriously.”
“Everything,” she retorted bitterly. “Seriously.”
Before he could pursue that, though, she called out to her children, loaded them into the car and drove away. Elliott stared after her. It wasn’t like Adelia to bite his head off. His other sisters might be moody from time to time, downright impossible at times, but Adelia had always had it together. She’d married Ernesto Hernandez right out of college, had their first child seven months later. The other three had come with barely ten months between them. He’d expected her to be worn out, but she seemed to glow with motherhood, at least until recently. Now she was starting to look every one of her thirtysomething years.
“Are we going home now?” Mack asked, sitting down beside him and interrupting his thoughts.
“We are,” Elliott said, getting to his feet, scooping up the seven-year-old and tossing him in the air until he giggled.
“Me, too,” Daisy pleaded, looking up at him with eyes as big as saucers and so much like her mother’s that it made him smile.
He grinned at her. “Young ladies don’t get tossed in the air,” he teased. “They’re sedate and quiet.”
“Not me,” she said impudently. “I’m going to be just like Selena.”
The reference to his oldest niece had him shuddering just a little. Selena, at twelve, was not only a tomboy on the verge of adolescence, but already showing a wild streak that was going to keep Adelia and Ernesto on their toes for some time to come.
“No,” he corrected. “You are going to be Daisy, your own unique, special person, little one. You do not need to copy anyone else.”
“But Selena’s really awesome,” Daisy protested. “She’s already got her first bra.”
Elliott might be able to handle the self-described cougars at the spa and their outrageous comments in relative stride, but he was pretty sure Daisy’s outspoken ways were going to be the death of him. “It’ll be a few years before you need to be thinking about bras, young lady.”
“But Selena says boys only like girls with big boobs,” she parroted, then regarded him with a perplexed expression. “What’s that mean, Elliott? Do you think she’s right?”
“It means Selena needs to get her priorities straight,” he said, resolving to mention just that to his sister. At the very least his niece needed to be more discreet in her conversations with Daisy, who was only nine, for heaven’s sake. She ought to be thinking about dolls, not boys and bras. He had a feeling that was only wishful thinking, unfortunately.
“Can we drive out to McDonald’s again tonight?” Mack pleaded, always eager to head for the fast-food place that had sprung up in the next town a few years back.
Elliott winced. He’d gotten into the bad habit of taking the kids there because it was easier than making a meal they both liked, even though he knew Karen hated them having fast food. It went against his code, as well, but sometimes best intentions got lost to expediency.
“Not tonight, buddy. We’re having spaghetti and salad.”
“But I hate salad,” Mack whined.
“And spaghetti will make me fat,” Daisy said. “Selena said so.”
“Selena doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Elliott said. “And you’ll like this salad, Mack. Your mom made it.”
Mack still didn’t look impressed, but he didn’t argue. And once they were home, he ate both the salad and the spaghetti as if he were starving. Daisy picked at both.
“May I be excused?” she asked eventually. “I have homework.”
“You can be excused, when you’ve finished your dinner,” Elliott said firmly.
“But—”
“You know the rules,” he said. “Mack, do you have homework?”
“Just spelling and math. I did it at Grandma Cruz’s house.”
Elliott had his doubts. “Could I see it, please?”
To his surprise, the math problems were completed and correct. He ran through the spelling words with Mack, who got every one of them right.
“Those were easy,” Daisy said snidely.
“Were not,” Mack said, clearly ready for a fight.
“Enough,” Elliott said, interceding. “Mack, go grab a shower and then you can watch TV for an hour before bed.” He looked at Daisy’s plate, then nodded. “Good job. Finish your homework and then you can take your bath and head for bed.”
“I want to wait up for Mom,” she protested.
“We’ll see,” Elliott told her. “Now, scoot.”
Only after they were both gone did he breathe a sigh of relief. He’d adored Daisy and Mack from the moment he’d gotten involved with Karen, but being a stepfather was still a challenge. Their personalities had already been well-formed when he’d come into their lives, and he still wavered between stern disciplinarian and outsider.
He’d mentioned adopting them early on, but Karen had seemed oddly resistant to the idea, so he’d let it go. He supposed it didn’t really matter, as long as both children knew he loved them as if they were his own. And after some initial hesitation, his mother had welcomed them into her life as full-fledged grandchildren to be enveloped in hugs and fed an endless supply of chocolate chip cookies. His nieces and nephews treated them as cousins. It sometimes seemed he was the only one who felt uncertain about his role in their lives.
Just when he was starting to fret about that yet again, Daisy emerged from her room, walked into the kitchen and threw her arms around him in the kind of impulsive gesture that was increasingly rare now that she was growing up.
“I love you,” she whispered against his chest. “I wish you were my dad.”
Holding her close, Elliott felt his eyes sting with tears. “I am your dad in every way that matters, little one. You can always count on me.”
She gazed up at him with those big eyes of hers. “Will you come to the father-daughter dance at school with me? I wasn’t going to go, because I don’t even know where my dad is, but if you’d come, it would be okay.”
He saw the surprising hint of fear in her eyes and knew she’d wondered if she was overstepping somehow, yet more evidence that even after all this time, their roles weren’t so clearly defined.
“I’d be honored,” he assured her, deeply touched by the invitation.
“Do you think it will be okay with Mom?”
The question gave him pause. He could only assume Karen would be fine with it. Surely she wouldn’t want Daisy to feel left out on such an important occasion.
“I’ll talk it over with her,” he promised. “When is this dance?”
“Next Friday,” Daisy told him. “I have to get a ticket tomorrow.”
“How much do you need?”
“Just ten dollars.”
Elliott gave her the money, then promised, “I’ll speak to your mother tonight.” He studied her expression. “Is that why you wanted to wait up? Did you want to speak to her about this first?”
She nodded. “Sometime she gets sad when I ask about things like this, like she feels bad that she’s disappointed me.” She regarded him earnestly. “But she didn’t. It’s not her fault Daddy went away. And besides, she found you.”
“The next best thing, huh?” he said, a wry note in his voice she probably didn’t understand.
“Not the next best,” she replied, then added adamantly, “The very best.”
And with that, Daisy captured yet another piece of his heart forever.
Four
Despite his best intentions, Elliott fell asleep on the sofa before Karen got home from work. In the morning, both he and Karen overslept, and in the ensuing rush to get Daisy and Mack off to school, he never did have a chance to talk to her about Daisy’s school dance. After that, it slipped his mind.
It was two days later, again over a rushed breakfast, when Daisy was the one who mentioned it to her mother.
“I’m going to need a new dress for the dance, Mom,” she said.
Karen regarded her with a perplexed expression. “What dance?”
“The father-daughter dance next Friday.” Daisy turned an accusing look on Elliott. “Didn’t you tell her?”
“Sorry. I forgot,” he admitted, chagrined by the omission. “Your mom and I will talk about it after I drop you and Mack off at school, okay?”
Daisy gave him a panicked look. “But we’re going, right? You promised. I already bought the ticket.”
“We’re going,” he assured her, avoiding Karen’s gaze as he said it.
As soon as he’d driven the kids to school, he returned home to find Karen waiting for him at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in hand and a frown on her face. It was obvious she was ticked off...again.
“Please don’t make too much of this,” he said. “Daisy told me about the dance a couple of nights ago. She was so afraid she wouldn’t be able to go, but I said I’d take her. We both intended to discuss it with you first, but I fell asleep. You didn’t wake me when you came in and I just forgot.”
She sighed. “I see.”
It was evident she was still upset. What he couldn’t be sure about was why. Was it the fact he hadn’t discussed it with her or because he was overstepping by agreeing to go? Too many conversations these days seemed to be minefields for which he held no map.
“Okay, Karen, I can tell you’re not happy about this,” he began. “Does it bother you that I agreed to go to a father-daughter dance with Daisy? Was I out of line to agree?”
She shook her head at once. “Of course not. What bothers me, once again, is that you didn’t mention it to me.”
