Smitten

Six

Jason was the first to reach the bike when it pulled into the driveway. "Oh man, this is so cool. I hope Noogie Newsomes watching from across the street. He thinks he's so hot because his brother got a scooter. Man, this baby could blast that stupid scooter right off the road."

Lizabeth could barely see her son through the bugs splattered on her Plexiglas visor. She carefully put one foot on the ground and tried to breathe. It was probably the first breath she'd had since leaving Matt's town house, she thought. She reached for the helmet and realized her hands were shaking. It had felt so fast. All wind and noise and power.

Matt cut the engine and felt the body go limp behind him. He turned to look over his shoulder and saw that Lizabeth's eyes were huge, her face ashen, her breathing coming in shallow gasps. He set the kickstand and slid off the bike, cursing himself for not checking on her sooner. He put his hands to her waist, pulled her to her feet, and removed her helmet. "You're all right. You're just hyperventilating. Take a deep breath." He massaged her shoulders and the base of her neck. "Try to relax."

Lizabeth nodded, unable to speak. She couldn't remember ever having been so terrified… and so exhilarated. She cupped her hands over her nose and mouth and made an effort to slow her breathing.

Matt gently stroked the wet ringlets away from her damp forehead. "Lizabeth," he said, "you have a ways to go before you get those fairy wings."

She patted his chest with her hand. "I'm sure you'll help me."

"I'm trying."

Jason had scrambled onto the bike. "Vrooom, vrooom, vrooom," he said. "I'm gonna get one of these when I grow up. I'm gonna start saving my money."

Lizabeth looked at her son and winced. She didn't want him aspiring to own a motorcycle. She didn't necessarily care if he went to an Ivy League college, and she certainly didn't want him to be as career-obsessed as Paul, but she did have minimum expectations for him. And she didn't consider a fixation with motorcycles to be a step in the right direction. She reluctantly admitted she had a problem. She'd fallen in love with a man who wasn't her idea of a perfect role model for her sons. He was fine as a friend of the family, but what sort of a father would he be, riding around on his motorcycle, getting lewd messages tattooed on his arm.

"C'mon, squirt," Matt said, tucking Jason under his arm. "Let's go inside and look in the oven so I can decide if I want to stay for supper."

Elsie stood on the porch steps. "What's all the racket about? Holy cow, is that a hog in the driveway?"

"It's Matt's," Jason said. "Isn't it awesome?"

"Yep," Elsie said. "It's awesome all right. Nothing like a hog to liven a place up."

Matt gave Elsie a kiss on the cheek. "Play your cards right, and I might take you for a ride after supper."

Lizabeth turned, took one last glance at the Harley, and gave an involuntary shiver. Yes sir, Lizabeth, she thought, you're in way over your head.

Lizabeth cracked her knuckles and resumed her pacing. The bedroom floor was cool under her bare feet, her white cotton gown with the little blue roses billowed around her legs as she walked, and her ears stayed alert for sounds drifting through her open window. It was two o'clock and overcast and the backyard seemed unusually dark. The outside lights hadn't been turned on, and there were no lights shining inside the Victorian house. Even the small night-lights had been extinguished. Elsie and Matt didn't want to scare the flasher off. "It's not fair," Lizabeth said. "It's two against one. And that poor flasher doesn't even have any clothes on." In her mind that gave him some sort of disadvantage, as if he couldn't think as well, or run as fast, because he was nude.

Elsie had dragged the rocking chair into the kitchen. She'd positioned it in front of the back door and left the door ajar so she could hear the slightest sound coming from the yard. She'd been sitting there, in the dark, for almost three hours and she was sound asleep. Her hands were folded, at rest on her stomach, her mouth had dropped open, and her head tilted crazily to one side. Matt sat at the kitchen table, his arms crossed in front of him on the table, his head resting on his arms. His eyelids drooped shut. His breathing was slow and regular. A short nap wouldn't hurt, he decided. He was a light sleeper. He would hear the flasher when he came into the yard.

A stone hit Lizabeth's window. It was a small stone, and the sound it made was so slight it was barely audible. Lizabeth felt her heart jump in her chest. She stood absolutely still, her hands pressed to her mouth, the pulse thumping in her throat. She didn't want anyone to get hurt. Not Matt, not Elsie, not the flasher. She moved to the window and was caught in the beam of the flashlight. Lord, why didn't he just stop. Why didn't he put his clothes on and take up bowling or something. It was almost as if he wanted to get caught. Lizabeth leaned into the window. "Get out of here!" she hissed in her loudest possible whisper.

"What?"

"Get out of here! There's a man in my kitchen who's going to break every bone in your body!"

Matt woke up at the sound of Lizabeth's voice. The kitchen was black as pitch, but Matt was out of his chair and across the room in three strides. The back door was half open and Matt saw the streak of light blink off. He reached for the door and slammed into the rocking chair, dumping Elsie onto the floor.

"What the devil's going on?" Elsie said, coming awake. "Don't anybody get near me. I know judo. I got Mace."

Matt turned the lights on, grabbed Elsie by the elbow, and pulled her to her feet.

Lizabeth came flying down the stairs. "What was that crash?"

"Land sakes, there he goes!" Elsie shouted. "Hey, you damn pervert, you're in trouble now! Matt's gonna break every bone in your naked body!"

The flasher ran across the yard, with Matt in pursuit. Matt dove at the man, catching him by the ankle, propelling them both facedown into the dirt. Ferguson bounded from the open kitchen door and pounced on Matt. The swearing was loud and creative while the dog snuffled into Matt's pockets and the flasher squirmed loose.

"Ferguson!" Lizabeth had him by the collar, but she couldn't get the dog off Matt. "Matt, do you have food in your pockets?"

"M amp;M's!" he grunted out.

Lizabeth turned the pockets inside out, spilling the candy onto the ground. She looked up in time to see the flasher jump on the Harley. The engine caught and the Harley roared out of the driveway.

"If that don't beat all," Elsie said. "That slimeball stole your bike. Well, he's not going to get away with this. I got my keys in my pocket. Ill run him down in my Caddy."

Lizabeth ran after her. "I don't think this is a good idea."

"Nonsense!' Elsie said, sliding behind the wheel. "I've been on these high-speed chases before. I know what I'm doing."

Matt jumped into the passenger side just as Elsie gunned the engine. Lizabeth and Ferguson climbed into the back and the Cadillac peeled out of the driveway and barreled down the road after the flasher.

Matt braced his arms against the dash. "Elsie, don't you think you're going a little fast? Maybe you should pull over and let me drive."

"No way," Elsie said. "Well lose him. Besides, I got perfect control over this car." The Cadillac took a corner on a skid and swayed from side to side before finding equilibrium.

"Need new shocks," Elsie shouted over the roar of the V-8 engine. "These ones got mushy on me."

"He's turning down High Street," Matt said.

Elsie grunted and jerked the wheel of the Cadillac. The car jumped the curb and cut across Elmo Nielson's front lawn. "Shortcut," Elsie said. "Won't hurt nothing. Elmo can't grow grass here anyway. Too much shade."

The Cadillac closed in on the flasher, and Lizabeth could see the man's tie flapping over his shoulder and the paper-bag mask rippling with the wind. Flashing lights reflected in the rearview mirror. "Omigod," Lizabeth said, "we've picked up a police cruiser."

The Harley turned into Vinnie Mazerelli's driveway and, without even so much as a backward glance, the flasher cut through Vinnie's yard and disappeared from view.

Elsie stomped on the brake. "Doggone!"

Lizabeth and Ferguson slid off the seat, and the black-and-white cruiser slammed into the back of the Cadillac.

Elsie gave a disgusted sigh. "Wouldn't you think they could teach them cops how to drive?"

Matt rolled his eyes and got out of the car. "Howdy," he said to Officers Dooley and Schmidt.

Dooley nodded. "I don't suppose I have to ask who was driving the Cadillac."

"Don't suppose you do," Matt said.

"And I guess the naked guy slapping leather on the Harley was the flasher?"

"Yup."

Dooley shifted his attention to the squad car. The entire front end was smashed. Both headlights were broken, steam escaped from a cracked radiator, and the bumper was lying on the road. The Cadillac didn't have a scratch.

"You guys got a lot of nerve following so close," Elsie said. "Look here what you've done with the taxpayers' money." She patted the Cadillac's rear fender. "I tell you, they don't make cars like they used to. Next time you get yourselves a car, you get a real car. Like my Caddy here."

Dooley's left eye twitched. He put a finger to it and pressed his lips together. "It would probably be best if you took her home, now. I'd hate to be charged with police brutality," he said to Matt,

By the time they got home, the Harley had already been returned. It was parked in the driveway, key still in the ignition, just as Matt had left it.

"You see," Lizabeth said, "he isn't such a bad guy. He even brought your bike back."

The sun broke over the horizon with barely a whimper as Bob the Cat sat on the back stoop cleaning his front feet, pretending nonchalance while keeping an alert ear for the sound of familiar feet treading across the kitchen floor. It was six-thirty and Lizabeth felt raw-eyed from lack of sleep. She quietly crept down the stairs and smiled at the sight of Matt stretched out on the couch in a tangle of sheets. He was fully dressed and looked mildly uncomfortable. He slept on his back with his arm flung over his head, and even in the dim light of dawn the red stubble on his chin was distinctly visible. Lizabeth stood beside the couch and watched him. His breathing was even, like a child's, she thought. But that was where the similarity stopped. There was nothing childlike about the lean planes of his face or the fierce slash of blond eyebrow. His large frame dwarfed the couch and charged the room with virility and latent energy. She wondered if the latter was real or imagined. Her perspective was hardly impartial. She touched his shoulder. "Matt."

The thick, curly blond lashes fluttered open, and he stared at Lizabeth with unfocused eyes. 'I'm not in my bed," he said. "Am I in yours?"

"No. You're on my couch."

"Oh yeah. Now I remember. I was having this awful nightmare that I was chasing the flasher and Ferguson attacked me. And then the flasher stole my motorcycle because I stupidly left the key in the ignition. Then we went on this bizarre ride with Elsie…"

"It's all true."

He closed his eyes and groaned. "I'm going to kill myself. I'm a failure. I let a potbellied, out-of-shape pervert get away from me. You aren't going to tell the guys at work about this, are you?"

"Speaking of the guys at work… it's after six."

"Oh hell, I have a building inspector coming at seven." He swung his legs over the side of the couch and ran a hand through his hair. "I have a stack of forms to fill out before he arrives."

"Will they take long to fill out?"

"No. It's finding them that's going to be the problem." He shuffled into his shoes and swung an arm around her shoulders. "I'll give you a raise if you'll help me look for the forms."

Three hours later Lizabeth was still sifting through papers on Matt's desk. She'd found a half-eaten salami sub, a red wool sock, notice that the lease on his town house was due to expire, and a month-old unopened letter with the return address of J. Hallahan, Scranton, Pennsylvania, but she hadn't found the appropriate forms for the building Inspector. She pushed her chair back when Matt stomped down the basement stairs. "You need help," she said. "You're in big trouble with this paperwork."

He slouched in a battered oak captain's chair, stretching his long legs in front of him. "I know. Did you find the forms?"

She shook her head. "No. But they're going to evict you from your town house if you don't do something immediately. And I found this letter." She slid the white envelope from J. Hallahan across the top of the desk.

Matt looked at it and slid it back to her. "Throw it away."

"Aren't you going to open it?"

"It's nothing important."

Lizabeth leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk. "It's from a relative. Did you read the return address? It's from a J. Hallahan."

"I know who it's from."

"Ah-hah." She tapped her index finger on the envelope. It seemed to her that copulation carried some privileges-such as the right to be nosy. "So, who's this J. Hallahan?"

"He's my father."

Lizabeth's eyebrows shot up in silent question.

"It's a request for money, and I've already sent some. There's no reason to open the envelope. The letters are always the same." He should tell her about it, he thought, but he hated dragging all those skeletons out of the closet. He didn't want to seem pitiable in her eyes. And he didn't want to seem callous. And he knew if he told her he would appear to be both. When he was eighteen he'd literally run away from his past. In some ways he was still running. Always would be. He could see she was concerned about the contents of the letter, so he took it from her, opened it, and glanced over his father's almost unreadable scrawl. His mouth curved into the tight, crooked smile he reserved for those times when he managed to find some wry humor in distasteful situations. "No surprises here," he said, handing the letter to her so she could read it for herself. "Someday well sit down with a bottle of wine and tell each other all our grim family secrets. Fortunately, I haven't got the time to do it right now." He stood with his hands on his hips, his brows drawn together in a scowl. "Damn, I wish we could find those forms." His eyes swept over the desk, the file cabinets, the cases of cola stacked on the floor. A guilty smile spread across his face. "I remember! It was raining when I brought the forms back from the municipal building." He went to the open area behind the stairwell, picked up a pair of rubber boots caked with dried mud, and under the boots he found the forms. "I didn't want to get the floor dirty," he explained, wiping at the brown smudges.

Lizabeth bit her lower lip and considered Matthew Hallahan's husband potential. He was sensitive, sexy, and he had a decent Income, she decided-but he'd be hell to housebreak. She took the forms from him and smoothed them out on the desktop. "Want me to have a go at this?"

"That'd be great." He noticed the neat piles of papers on the desk. She'd cleaned up the dried splotches where he'd spilled coffee and chicken noodle soup, and she'd gotten the smear of roofing tar off the telephone. The salami sub had been removed from his out box, and had been replaced with a batch of stamped, unsealed envelopes.

Lizabeth gestured to the envelopes. "There were a few things I felt comfortable handling, but you'd better check everything just to make sure. I've tried to divide the rest up into categories. Bills, bids, contracts. I've filed the catalogs and advertisements."

She'd shut off the air-conditioning and opened the sliding patio door, letting the moist morning air pour into the basement. Her hair had begun to curl in ringlets that pressed against her temples and straggled over her forehead, and her face was alive with a sense of accomplishment. Matt watched her push the hair back from her face, and felt himself go breathless. Every movement she made excited him, every part of her seemed perfect, exquisite. He wanted to reach out and tangle his hand in her hair. He wanted to kiss the spot of downy-soft skin in front of her earlobe. He wanted to hear the little catch in her throat that meant passion had caught her by surprise, had overwhelmed her, had rushed through her like a flash fire. Another time, he told himself. He wasn't in the mood to start something he couldn't finish. Three hours of sleep had left him with a short fuse. He was trying to impress the lady with his compassion and sensitivity. So he struggled to keep up the casual attitude they normally fell into during work hours.

She was the sort of woman who always rose to a challenge, he thought. And she took pride in a job well done. He liked that in a person. He didn't have a bunch of fancy degrees behind his name, but he knew everything there was to know about building houses. He could figure out a mortgage payment faster than a calculator. And he knew about people. He knew talent when he saw it, and he knew he needed Lizabeth in the office almost as badly as he needed her in his life. "Lizabeth, you've just been promoted to General Office Manager. You're going to like this job. It pays twice as much as your old one."

"Can you afford to do that?"

Matt glanced down at the wrinkled forms on the desk. "I can't afford not to. I'm sinking. I build beautiful houses, but I'm an unorganized slob."

It was the truth, Lizabeth thought. He was a slob, and he was sinking. From what she'd seen this morning, bills were going unpaid through negligence, several bids had expired, and food poisoning had to be a constant danger. "Do I work the same hours?"

"You work whatever hours you want. If you can get the job done in three hours and want to go home, that's fine by me. Ill pay you for a full day anyway." And she would be rested by evening, he thought. He had plans for her evenings.

She was still working at five-thirty. "I'm almost done," she said, running her finger down a column of numbers. "I've made out tomorrow's payroll checks, and I think I've got your accounting system figured out. It's no wonder you couldn't run this office while you were building houses. Five years ago, when you and Frank went into business for yourselves, you were building one house at a time, and the paperwork was manageable. You're now building three houses on this site, and you have a fifteen-acre parcel of land seven miles south of here that you're having partially cleared for future development. You've expanded your business, but you haven't expanded your support staff. For starters, I think you need a professional accountant. And I think you need to upgrade your office equipment."

"I know. Frank and I had been talking about it, and then he broke his hip, and I didn't have time to look into any of that stuff. Maybe you could do it for me. Find us an accountant, and buy whatever you think we need." He closed the ledger she was studying. "Right now, we need to go home. You know how Elsie hates people being late for dinner. If I don't get you home by six she won't feed me."

Lizabeth stood and stretched and realized they'd driven to work on the Harley. That meant they were going to have to go home on the Harley. Unless she chickened out and walked. The thought prompted a small groan that was caught and squelched midway in her throat. She wasn't sure what the groan represented. Fear? Excitement? Embarrassment? She followed Matt up the stairs and said a silent prayer that a miracle would happen and they could sneak into her driveway without anyone noticing. If she was going to hyperventilate, she'd prefer to do it with some privacy.

"Lord, Lizabeth," Matt said, "you look like you're going to keel over, and you haven't even gotten on the bike yet." He massaged the back of her neck. "You have to relax."

"I'm relaxed," Lizabeth said.

"Honey, you're not breathing. Listen, we could walk. Or I could zip on home and come back for you in the truck." He felt her spine stiffen, felt determination push aside fear. She was a fighter. She wasn't a woman who gave in to weakness. Hawkins blood, Elsie would say. And she might be right. The thought brought a smile to his lips.

"What's so funny?"

"I was just thinking that you and Elsie are a lot alike."

"Omigod."

Ten minutes later they pulled into Lizabeth's driveway, and a silver Lincoln pulled up behind them. Matt and Lizabeth got off the bike, removed their helmets and watched Paul Kane emerge from his air-conditioned car. His hair was dark, peppered with gray at the temples. His features were classic all-American and as bland as white bread. He was wearing a gray pin-striped, summer-wool, custom-tailored suit, starched pinpoint oxford-cloth cotton shirt, burgundy silk foulard tie. The first expression to register on his face was surprise, quickly followed by undisguised disgust.

"My ex-husband," Lizabeth said.

Matt squinted at him. "It's eighty-five in the shade. How does he manage to look like that?"

"Paul Kane's pants wouldn't dare wrinkle."

So far Matt hadn't liked anything he'd heard about Paul Kane, and now that he saw him he liked him even less. He especially didn't like the way he was looking at Lizabeth. "Suppose I punch him in the nose."

"I don't think that's necessary. Seeing the mother of his children on the back of a motorcycle had to be the equivalent of a good punch in the gut."

Matt slid a protective arm around her shoulders. "Sorry he caught you rolling in on my Harley. Are you embarrassed?"

Lizabeth tipped her head back and laughed. "Are you kidding? This Harley has class! It's a hog. I never really appreciated it until I saw the look on Paul's face."

"He was horrified," Matt said.

"Mmmm," Lizabeth mused. "I probably looked like that the first time I saw your Harley sitting in your living room. But I'm better now," she added. "I can run across a board in the rain, and I can almost have fun on a motorcycle."

She closed the gap between the two men and extended her hand. "Nice to see you again, Paul." He gave her the required hand squeeze and cast a glance at the house. He withheld comment, but the glance was enough. Five years ago she would have been devastated by that dismissal, Lizabeth thought. Today she found it amusing, maybe even satisfying. Her house didn't measure up to Paul Kane's standards and to her that seemed to be a step in the right direction. Paul Kane was a snob, a stuffed shirt, a shallow person. And to quote Elsie, he was a horse's behind.

"Seems to be a family-oriented neighborhood," Paul said. "I imagine you feel comfortable here."

"It's perfect," Lizabeth said. "The boys have lots of friends. They can walk to school, and I can walk to work."

Concern flicked across Kane's brow. "What sort of job do you have that you can walk to work?"

His mouth tightened. "You're not a domestic, are you?"

"No," Lizabeth said, "I'm a carpenter. Actually, I suppose I'm not a carpenter anymore. I just got a promotion."

"Wonderful. What were you promoted to? Back-hoe driver?"

"Office manager," Lizabeth said, enjoying the moment, knowing Paul wouldn't think any more of office manager than backhoe driver. "And this is my boss. Matt Hallahan."

The two men measured each other. When it became obvious neither was going to observe the usual amenity of a polite handshake, Lizabeth took over. "Elsie will be serving dinner in a few minutes." She turned to Paul. "Would you like to join us? It will give you a chance to say hello to the boys."

Color suddenly stained his cheeks. "Elsie's here? Crazy Elsie Hawkins? The woman who talks to pigeons?"

Lizabeth smiled. This was getting better and better. "Elsie's spending the summer with us. I needed a baby-sitter for Billy and Jason."

"I suppose Lizzie Borden was your first choice."

"Very funny," Lizabeth said. "I'm going to tell Elsie you said that, and she'll make you eat pork-chop fat."

Elsie met them on the front porch. "You come all the way up from Virginia just so you could mooch a pork chop?" she said to Paul.

Paul made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. "Nice to see you again, Elsie."

"He wants something," Elsie said to Lizabeth when they were alone in the kitchen. "The man's a taker. Never could understand why you married him. The first time I laid eyes on him I thought he was a pig's patoot."

Lizabeth took the buttermilk biscuits from the oven and dumped them into a basket lined with a white linen napkin. She and the boys had lived alone for over a year now, and Paul had called only a handful of times. He'd sent their Christmas presents UPS and completely missed Jason's birthday. Lizabeth had to agree with Elsie. There was no possibility that this was simply a friendly visit. She filled a big bowl with mashed potatoes that had been warming on the stove and filled another bowl with steamed green beans. She took the pork chops and cooked apple rings from the oven and arranged them on a ceramic platter. Ferguson quietly inched his way up behind her and grabbed a pork chop.

"Damn dog!" Elsie shouted, smacking Ferguson on the top of his head with her wooden spoon. Ferguson opened his mouth in surprise, and the pork chop fell onto the linoleum floor. Elsie picked the pork chop up and brushed it off. "It's okay," she said, carefully setting it apart from the others. "We’ll give it to Paul."

Matt might have cheered up some over dinner if he'd known Paul was eating dog drool. As it was he was having a difficult time dealing with the emotions Paul Kane triggered in him. He was overwhelmed with protective instincts and powerless to act on them. His anger simmered as he watched two of the most gregarious children he'd ever met turn excruciatingly shy. Jason and Billy hadn't mumbled more than three words throughout the entire meal. They kept their eyes on their plates, fiddling with their meat and pushing their beans into their mashed potatoes. Matt understood the sudden personality shift. He knew what it was like to be ignored by your father. And he knew all the manifestations of rejection: denial, animosity, self-doubt. People like Paul Kane didn't deserve to have terrific kids like Billy and Jason, and Billy and Jason didn't deserve to have a father like Paul Kane. Matt almost felt sorry for Kane. The man had to be a total imbecile to have let Lizabeth, Jason, and Billy walk out of his life. A mistake he didn't intend to make, Matt thought. He wanted to give them all the love he'd never received. All the support. All the understanding. He wanted to teach the boys to paddle a canoe, and he wanted to buy them ice-cream cones on hot summer nights, and he wanted to be there when they split their lips trying to do wheelies on their dirt bikes.

The evening was growing painful for Lizabeth as well. The earlier joy at shocking her ex-husband had turned to despair as she watched her sons struggle through the meal. She'd forgotten how tongue-tied they became when they were with their dad. She shouldn't have invited him to dinner, but she'd honestly hoped for a warm reunion. Actually, Paul wasn't behaving badly, she thought. He was being the perfect politician, making innocuous dinner conversation, smiling at the appropriate moments, easing around Elsie's occasional barbs. It was the sort of performance that had first piqued her interest in him. He could be gracious and charming when he wanted, and fool that she was, she had married him, not realizing that the interest in others was feigned and the kindness self-serving. Paul Kane was an entirely selfish man.

Billy and Jason Kane knew all this. And it didn't matter. He was their dad, and they waited like street urchins, silently begging for crumbs of affection and acceptance.

"Well, what have you accomplished this summer?" Paul asked Jason.

Jason looked at his father with wide eyes. At age eight he still had a soft, baby's mouth. The mouth opened, but no words emerged. He blinked once and held tightly to his fork. "Nothin.” he finally whispered.

"Surely you've done something?"

"No sir."

Paul Kane looked pleased. "I think you’ll find the next two weeks a nice change of pace then. For the next two weeks you’ll have lots of interesting things to do."

Lizabeth leaned forward slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"Surely you haven't forgotten. These are my two weeks with the boys. It was very clearly spelled out in the divorce agreement."

Panic prickled at the nape of Lizabeth's neck and expanded in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. "But you've never called! You've never mentioned it. You've never shown any desire to spend time with them…"

"I've been busy," Paul said, a sly little cat's smile playing over his face.

Billy coolly stared at his father. "What will we do with you?"

"You'll come live in my house, of course. I've made arrangements for you to have tennis and swim lessons at the club."

"I guess that would be okay," Billy said. "It's just for two weeks, isn't it?"

Jason bit into his lower lip. "Can I bring my bear?"

Paul looked to Lizabeth. "His bear?".

"You remember, the fuzzy brown teddy bear he takes to bed. Woobie."

"You won't be needing Woobie," Paul said to Jason. "You'll have better things to occupy your mind."

Jason pressed his lips together and scowled. "I'm not going without Woobie."

Paul shot Lizabeth a look that said his suspicions had been confirmed. She was a total failure as a mother.

"Of course you can take Woobie," Elsie said. "And I'll take care of him for you when you go off to them fancy tennis lessons."

Kane raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"Don't worry about it," Elsie said. "I'm not charging Lizabeth anything for being nursemaid and I won't charge you neither."

"I don't need a nursemaid…"

"Of course you need a nursemaid. An eight-year-old needs constant supervision. You gonna watch him twenty-four hours a day so he don't nail your shoes to the floor? And more than that, you're not taking these kids out of the house without me. I agreed to take care of them for the summer and that's what I aim to do."

"Suppose I refuse to take you."

Elsie narrowed her eyes. "Then I get in my Caddy, and I drive to that ritzy house you got in Virginia, and I sit on the lawn until the police come to take me away. I imagine that'll be pretty newsworthy. If I sit on that lawn long enough I might make Good Morning America."

Kane considered it for a moment. "I suppose a live-in baby-sitter wouldn't be a bad idea."

Elsie plunked a fresh-baked apple pie on the table. "You help yourself to some pie, and I'll get us all packed up."