Trouble in Paradise

Chapter 3

“No. try it like this, Mrs. Riffler.” Susan glanced wildly at the clock, then pasted on a calm, reassuring smile for her elderly customer. “The tension of the yarn is important. Just try it once more.”

“I swear it never seems to work for me like it does for you. Maybe if you’d do this little part for me…”

Susan ran a distracted hand through her thick, dark hair, but her smile never faltered. “Of course.”

It was past noon, and Griff was expecting her. He’d gone to fetch Tiger from his ex-wife for the weekend, and the three of them had a thousand things planned. She’d only stopped by the store to do an hour of bookkeeping-and found her assistant, Lanna, trying to keep the shop open even though she was running a temperature of 101 degrees. Susan sent Lanna home. It didn’t matter; the shop always closed at noon on Saturdays…except that Mrs. Riffler had never appreciated the significance of closing time.

Sunlight filtered in on the unicorn display in the front window. Susan had displayed images of the mythical creature in crewel, in wood and in pastels, all on easels designed to catch the customer’s eye. Beneath the three frames were whimsically jacketed books of myths and monster legends and fairy tales.

Susan had always had a strong love of books; she’d collected more books than dolls as a child and had worked in bookstores from the age of sixteen. Her father’s hobby was trading and swapping old editions which he’d passed on to her for her shop. During her last year in college, an uncle on her mother’s side had died and left her an unexpected inheritance. It was enough for a down payment on a corner building that contained a small apartment above a store, very close to the university. Up to that point, her dream of owning a bookstore had always been wishful thinking.

Reality was far different from the dream. Who would have thought one small bookshop could have had such an enormous overhead? Thank God for the bank’s friendly loan officer. Finally, the store was stocked, the image of her youthful dreams; but then she made a series of dreadful mistakes. Getting people to come into the store was no problem, but old editions brought browsers, not buyers. The college kids loved to haunt her back aisles, where they thumbed through her expensive reference materials until the pages were dog-eared. And that unique section of children’s literature she was so proud of brought in the little ones, all right, but books with crayon marks just didn’t sell. Desperate by then, Susan had branched out into crafts-needlepoint and crewel, crocheting and candlewick. She’d started giving craft classes herself. Susan would have sold kisses for a dollar apiece at that point, but actually what was required was much more careful buying of items that would bring in ready cash and encourage paying customers. Reference materials were now stocked behind the counter, and she’d started a used and new children’s section… There had certainly been some changes made.

A great deal of scrambling had been required over the past five years, but Susan was now close to paying the last debt on that corner lot, and she rented out the apartment above the shop to Lanna-a recent college graduate and a book fanatic like herself who had proved invaluable both as friend and worker. Every inch of the struggle had been satisfying, even the occasional prolonged visits by lonely widows like Mrs. Riffler. The older woman beamed at her, finally stuffing her half-done afghan into her huge bag. “I just knew you wouldn’t mind if I came down to have you show me the stitch again. You know, I used to go to that other craft shop on Fifth Street, but they never had the time…”

Susan locked up and whipped down the window shades.

“And I hear you just got married? I think it was Mrs. Wilding who told me. Just the thing, just the thing. I never could figure out, with you being so sweet and pretty…”

God in heaven. Susan bit the inside of her lip, not an easy thing to do when one was smiling, and resisted the urge to lift one foot and then the other impatiently. At last Mrs. Riffler ambled off in the opposite direction. Susan walked sedately to the corner, turned out of sight of the building and took off at a dead run for her car.

A little breeze was stirring on the tree-lined street, but the sun was beating down as if it were mid-July. This year autumn would be late; a long, hot summer was lingering in the warm days. Susan hustled into the driver’s seat of her Mazda and burrowed for the car keys in her purse at the same time as she hurriedly tried to roll down the windows. The little car was stifling.

Stabbing the key in the ignition, she caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror and snatched up her purse again. She looked terrible. There were circles under her eyes, her hair needed styling… They’d been working so hard on the house, and Griff had worked even harder than she had. It was at the fun point, though, really. The plaster dust and the painting debris were gone; now the name of the game was curtains and paintings and furnishings…at least for her. Griff was building storage cabinets in the basement; insulating; he’d insisted on a new furnace…

She brightened her cheeks with blusher and fluffed up her curls with a hairbrush. All that adrenaline pumping in her veins urged speed, yet still she took another second for a quick spray of perfume and a last glance in the mirror. Griff would notice what she looked like. He would also be extremely difficult to live with if she seemed the least bit tired. Rather like the domineering male counterpart of a mother hen.

The car engine seemed to feel it had done enough running all week. Susan generously gave it four more opportunities to change its mind. It ran for Griff, dammit. What was it he’d told her to do? Something about punching the thing or keeping her foot off the accelerator if it flooded. And when all else failed, swear. All right, then… Subjected to Griff’s colorful language, the engine promptly zoomed, and shortly after that Susan was zigzagging through traffic. Actually, she thought wryly, her Mazda was just smart enough to know Griff had threatened to buy her a new car.

Twenty minutes later, she jammed on the brakes in the driveway, only to discover Griff’s car wasn’t there. Impossible. The drive to Sheila’s and back couldn’t have taken an hour, and two hours had passed. Susan snatched up her purse, opened the car door and decided to just breathe for a minute and a half. Truthfully, she was grateful for these few moments. This was the first occasion when they would really have Tiger for any period of time since the wedding. Yes, those prenuptial outings had always gone well, but she hadn’t been Griff’s wife-or his children’s stepmother-then. Tiger-officially Charles Griff Roth Anderson-could well come up with a suddenly different reaction to her, once he realized she was here to stay.

Her toes hadn’t connected with the cement driveway before Griff’s Mercedes station wagon appeared beside her. She didn’t even need to see Griff’s face to know that something was wrong. He was not the kind of driver who lurched to a stop, nor did she miss the crisp thud of a slammed door, though Tiger bursting out of the car took all of her immediate attention.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said affectionately, and offered open arms.

Tiger swung into them. She wasn’t kidding herself that the hug meant anything yet-Tiger hugged stray dogs, too-but at least there was no hesitation in his warm, wriggling body as he grinned up at her. “Looks like a neat place. Any secret passages?”

She had been waiting for that one. “A dumb dumbwaiter.”

“A dumb dumbwaiter?” Tiger echoed, all instant fascination.

Susan chuckled. “I’ll show you, kid. And I can hardly wait till you see your room.”

He took off for the door, and Susan, still smiling, headed for Griff’s hug. He was ready for her, but his arms squeezed her so tightly that she glanced up. Those dark brown orbs were full of storm; not to mention the tension she could feel in his heartbeat, in the arms still wrapped around her shoulders. When she left that morning, he’d been in a wonderful mood. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“Nothing,” he said tersely.

She almost shivered. When his emotions were all leashed up, Griff could be a dauntingly formidable man.

“The door’s locked,” Tiger called back to them, clearly disappointed.

“I’ve got the key.” Susan glanced once more at Griff, then turned helplessly to his son.

Tiger was more than ready to claim all her attention. He had to explore the dumb-as-in-nonfunctional dumbwaiter immediately; then he raced through each room, opened drawers and abandoned them, tested lights… To Susan’s eyes, he was a beautiful child, all blond hair and big dark eyes like Griff. He was simply his father in miniature, carefree, mischievous form; how could anyone help loving him? His jeans were too short for him, and his old sweatshirt had the number twelve on it…as well as a hole in the shoulder. Obviously favorite old clothes, she thought affectionately as she raced up the stairs after him. In another year, he would doubtless be all gangling legs and arms.

“This is it? My room? The one I get all to myself?”

Laughing, Susan stood behind him. “Oh, Tiger, I could hardly wait for you to get here. We thought about doing up this room first thing, and then decided we’d wait for you. This afternoon, we want you to go with us and pick out exactly what you’d like. I thought maybe you’d prefer bunk beds and blue carpeting-you told me one time you liked blue. I don’t mean we’re going to drag you shopping all afternoon, just that we want you to show us the kind of thing you like…”

Griff stepped into the room behind them. Tiger glanced back at his father uncertainly, and Susan again felt the strange tension emanating from her husband. Her smile never faltering, she leaned back against Griff and dragged his arm around her waist. “No bed, Tiger. But we’ve got a sleeping bag for this time, or you can sleep on the couch downstairs, and by the time you come for the next weekend-”

“When he comes next time, we’ll have our kind of weekend,” Griff interjected flatly.

“Pardon?” Whatever was he talking about?

Tiger looked at his dad again and shrugged nervously. “Mom kind of gave me this list, Susan.” He dug a wrinkled piece of paper from his jeans pocket. “Like I don’t know. Mom said this is what we were supposed to do.”

She unfolded the piece of paper: four pairs of pants, three dress shirts, four play shirts, tennis shoes, socks, a winter coat, dress shoes… It didn’t take Einstein to figure out why Sheila had deliberately decked out Tiger in too-short jeans and a holey T-shirt. So much for favorite old clothes. And since Griff paid out more in child support in a month than Susan earned in a year at her store, she now knew exactly why Griff was barely controlling his temper.

Disappointment flooded through her for the day planned with Tiger that was not to be. Susan only had to glance once at the child to know she would follow through with Sheila’s plan and not with their own. Griff was clearly furious, and just as clearly anticipating ignoring his ex-wife’s wishes…but Susan was the one on the tightrope. Not for a lapful of diamonds would she cause friction between Tiger and his mother, nor would she confuse her role with Sheila’s. “Perhaps if we can get through the list, we could still-”

“Bugs,” Griff snapped succinctly.

“Bugs?” Susan echoed vaguely. Not really her favorite topic of conversation. And certainly a non sequitur. Whatever did bugs have to do with anything?

“For school,” Tiger volunteered. “I’ve got ten already. But if I can get another fifteen by Monday, I can put them in this science exhibit at school. Only I won’t have time to find them, because Aunt Lisa’s birthday party is tomorrow, and Mom’s picking me up tonight, because she said she wouldn’t have time to come after me tomorrow.”

“I see.” She saw. Sheila was violently opposed to Tiger spending any time with Susan and Griff.

She had agreed oh-so-sweetly to the consecutive weekends, no doubt all the while laying her plans for sabotage. It had been one thing for Sheila to dump the kids on Griff-an unmarried Griff-at her convenience. But Griff-and-Susan, who just might strike a family court judge as more suitable guardians for the children than Sheila, was another matter.

“You can’t even spend the night then, Tiger?” She had planned to make pancakes piled three high for breakfast, then maybe a romp in the park and an early Sunday afternoon movie. For that matter, Griff had been sure that Tiger would enjoy puttering around with the two of them in the house…

“I’m not supposed to, Susan,” Tiger said simply. Anxiety clouded his eyes as he waited uncertainly for her reaction, evidently having already gotten his dad’s.

Sheila’s manipulations weren’t his fault. Susan reached out to rumple Tiger’s hair. “Well, we’d better get going, kiddo. We’ve got a lot to do this afternoon,” she reassured him. Like shopping. And bug collecting. What on earth were they going to collect bugs in? They were still setting up the house and living out of boxes.

“I don’t think so,” Griff said ominously. “His mother is well aware that he has plenty of clothes. Less than two months ago-”

She felt Tiger tense up beneath her hand on his shoulder.

“So he goes through a lot of clothes,” Susan said swiftly.

“Tiger, you’re not going to tell me you outgrew everything-”

The boy looked lost. “I’ve got lots of clothes,” he agreed. “And I told Mom I didn’t even want a new pair of tennis shoes. But she said I had to have new stuff. Something about you having the money for the new house and everything.”

Susan stepped in front of her husband in an instinctive desire to stave off a tornado. “I got pretty attached to a pair of tennis shoes myself as a kid,” she said lightly, “but you’ll have to help me with the rest of the clothes, Tiger. I don’t know much about boys’ sizes. If you’ll hustle downstairs, we’ll be there in two seconds.”

Or three. As Tiger was clattering down the stairs two at a time, Susan looked at Griff. He’d turned stranger, her volatile but always considerate lover. His mouth was a slash of white, his eyes were ice cold, and he gave off tension like an aura. “That bitch,” he hissed.

The blood turned cold in her veins, racing up to her head. Griff in a temper, even though she knew it wasn’t directed at her…

When Griff saw her color change, he immediately backed off, shocked at that tiny flicker of fear in Susan’s eyes, more shocked that he could conceivably have evoked it. “Come here,” he suggested quietly.

She did, and he folded her close to his still pounding heart. Dammit, he was mad on her behalf. Sure, he could force the issue of his son staying for the weekend. And he damn well knew his son didn’t need new clothes. But the real fury came at the thought of Sheila’s deliberately causing a problem for Susan. He knew exactly how much the very vulnerable, very feminine woman in his arms had been looking forward to planning Tiger’s room with the boy, that it was a chance for the two of them to get to know each other…and that Susan was miserable at the thought of making any waves. He could put his foot down, all right, but Susan would suffer for it.

“Darling…”

Susan pulled free, looking up at him. “It doesn’t matter,” she insisted.

“It does matter.”

She shook her head, making for the door. “Griff, the point is that we have time with him. What we do during that time isn’t all that important.” She hesitated and tried out a tentative smile. “Besides, I’ll buy a few things in the next size up, so this can’t happen again. And he can keep a few clothes here. Then he won’t have to pack when he comes for a weekend. It’ll be fine. Really.”

It wasn’t exactly fine. After fifteen minutes, Tiger had as much interest in shopping as in a dentist’s drill. Also, he liked only red shirts with alligators on them. The stores seemed to stock blue and brown shirts-and no alligators in Tiger’s size. His feet were hard to fit, and his conversation was blandly peppered with “Mom said…” Griff had come along to help, but Susan had banished him to the hardware section when she saw he was becoming impatient with Tiger, particularly on her account.

As soon as his father was out of sight, Tiger delivered a long dissertation about hamsters-when he wasn’t vaulting up and down escalators to the peril of fellow shoppers. Santa Claus couldn’t have talked him into accepting a new pair of tennis shoes; his old ones were like friends.

Griff caught up with them again. All discussions of small animals ceased. They sedately took the elevator, and Griff carried the scorned sneakers.

Tiger and Griff had worked themselves into a good humor by the time they got home; only Susan was distinctly wilted. She would have bargained with the devil for a cup of coffee at that point, but instead there were the bugs to worry about. Sheila was picking Tiger up at six. “Which leaves us two hours to find fifteen bugs. As in collect, catch, murder, pin and label?” She wanted to make sure she understood the assignment properly.

Griff gave her a look.

“Dispose of,” she amended, seeing that he seemed to find something strange in her use of the word murder. Hurriedly, she found a stack of empty margarine containers and started handing them out. “You men do the collecting, and I’ll arrange the bugs on the display board.”

“Susan, you don’t have to be involved in this,” Griff said firmly.

Well…she did, actually. Tiger was clearly enthralled with entering his science fair, and Sheila had just as clearly abdicated her responsibility in this area. Susan desperately wanted to find her own private little niche to share with Tiger. She knew nothing about ten-year-old boys. In the back of her mind, she’d figured on doses of love and gin rummy, and doses of love and his room, and doses of love and maybe checkers-but not bugs. Or having to force one disgusted little boy through two tedious hours of shopping. At least he was interested in the bugs-she’d have to take her chance where she found it.

She was heating a pot of water for coffee when the first margarine container arrived, via one small filthy hand. “Can you believe it? A stinkbug!” Tiger caroled enthusiastically.

“Aaah.”

How nice. She added two spoonfuls of instant coffee to her cup, and watched warily as the plastic container suddenly jumped a half inch off the counter. Clearly, the thing was alive. And she was the one who had volunteered to kill and pin it. Perhaps the coffee would fortify her.

With her chin cupped in her hands, Susan watched an incredibly rapid progression of insects arrive. Who would have thought that collecting them would be so easy? The backyard looked spotless. Clean, well kept. Yet in came long-horned beetles, short-horned beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, a lacewing, a stone fly and Tiger’s favorite, an assassin fly…

Assassin. Her job. By the time Susan had finished her coffee, she’d unearthed a square of plywood from the basement and meticulously printed out fifteen labels, all neatly attached to the board now. The opposite counter was a circus act of jumping margarine tubs. She was feeling distinctly sick to her stomach.

The back door flew open yet again, this time propelled by a much larger hand than Tiger’s. Susan lurched instantly to her feet. “How’s it going?” she asked cheerfully.

Griff watched her busily transferring all the bug containers to the kitchen table. Such busy-busy movements for his normally graceful Susan… His eyes swept over her supple lines in the soft mauve shirtwaist. Those butter-soft eyes were fluttering away from him, hands nervously rearranging her hair and her collar-in between trips back and forth to collect the bug containers.

He cleared his throat, setting yet another one on the table. “A bumblebee. God knows what one was doing in the yard this late in the season.”

“We needed a bee,” she said gravely. “I can’t tell you how worried I was that we weren’t going to have a bee.”

The chuckle came from deep in his throat, just before his hands snatched her up and swung her close to him. She smelled delicious. Susan always smelled delicious. At the moment, a wee bit like coffee and felt-marker ink, but beneath that he could easily detect the faint scent of the perfume she wore, and the undeniable Susan-fragrance of soft skin beneath that. His lips snuggled in at the side of her neck, just for one small bite-

Susan nipped back, wound her arms around his waist and looked up at him. “I want to talk to you.”

“So talk.” Communication was terribly important in a marriage. His hands swept down the supple slope of her back to her waist, communicating terribly important things. Delicate color rose in her cheeks, delighting him. She was getting all the right messages. Tiger could do his own damn bug collecting.

“About hamsters.”

He drew back, eyebrows arched. “Hamsters?”

“Tiger wants one so badly, and Sheila doesn’t want to be bothered.”

“One of the few things in life I agree with my ex-wife on.”

“Hmm.” Her fingers chased up a wandering trail until both her arms were loosely hooked around his neck. He smelled as fresh as the autumn breeze outside, all woodsy and male. “It would be something he could have here. Special for him. That his mother couldn’t possibly resent. And if it’s so important to him…”

“Darling.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Hamsters smell like the pits, are a great deal of work and mess with little return-and my son, hard though this may be for you to believe, will survive without one. Now a dog-”

“Would be nice. But he wants a hamster.”

“Have you ever had a hamster?”

She shook her head. “Cats and fish.”

“We’ll get a cat, then. You’ve already got the fish.”

He extricated himself from her reluctantly, seeing Tiger approaching from the window over the sink. His son inevitably came through a door as if he lived in constant fear that the knob wouldn’t work. The effort was usually a crash-through, as noisy and clumsy as possible. Tiger’s brilliant smile inevitably made up for that.

“Can you believe it? I’ve got three more. How many we got now, Susan?”

Susan viewed the table impassively. “Thirteen.”

“Well, come on, Dad, we’re nearly done.”

Griff’s sigh reverberated through the kitchen as he turned and followed his son. “Susan?”

She looked up from dolefully regarding the collection. Her smile, by contrast, was remarkably brilliant. “I was just about to start killing them,” she said happily.

“Susan-”

“You just go right ahead.”

“A drop of alcohol. It’s a quick, painless death,” Griff said wryly. “And if it’s really bothering you-”

“Of course it isn’t!” she said indignantly. What did he think she was, some kind of sissy?

“And Susan, no hamsters.”

“Hmm.”

They didn’t seem to have any rubbing alcohol. Vaguely, Susan remembered throwing out half a bottle when she’d packed up the things from her apartment, but no amount of poking through the medicine cabinets revealed one now. Glancing out the window, she saw Griff in the far corner of the yard, laughing at something Tiger said, and guiltily pulled his bottle of Chivas Regal off the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard.

It was alcohol, she defended herself. She sat down at the kitchen table, rearranged her skirt, smiled for her own benefit and, with the first drop of scotch, dosed a simple housefly. Having willingly swatted thousands of them in her lifetime, she decided that the fly would be the easiest to deal with. After a minute, she carefully peeled the lid open just a little, to find the fly still groggily winging around. Her stomach turned over. She dosed the insect with three more drops, and opened a second container.

A dreadful acrid smell assailed her. The stinkbug. She’d thought Tiger was joking. She jammed that lid on again and checked out the grasshopper, who looked distinctly innocent, harmless and deserving of life.

She jammed that lid on, too, and checked the fly again. Murmuring a short eulogy, she gingerly lifted the tiny corpse with tweezers, transferred it to the mounting board, jabbed it with a pin and swallowed hard against her revulsion. This was ridiculous. They were only bugs, dammit. She was no shrinking violet, and had certainly swatted her share of mosquitoes every summer.

All too soon, Tiger would probably be bringing home snakes. This was nothing. So where was her sense of humor?

But Susan knew what was really bothering her, and it wasn’t the bugs. A few painful realities were stabbing at her consciousness. Feelings of inadequacy haunted her. Whatever had made her think she was equipped to deal with a ten-year-old boy who had dropped into her life out of the blue? She knew nothing of his interests, so why had she blithely assumed she could easily occupy a special little niche in his life? Yet that’s what she wanted, not to be a mother to him, but to be someone who was special in another way, someone who really cared, someone he could grow to count on…

She already loved Tiger, but this was their first one-to-one encounter, and she really didn’t understand the monumental importance of red shirts with alligators. Usually so composed, she had quickly lost patience when Tiger was vaulting up and down the escalators in the stores, and as for the squirmy, germ-ridden bugs in her spotless kitchen…

We do tend to overreact on occasion, Susan told herself wryly, and picked up the bottle of Chivas. At least the bugs were going out in style.