Mr. Wrong (A Homespun Romance) (10 page)

“I see.  Are you mad at me?”

She was quiet for a while, tracing the rim of her glass with one finger.  The decision not to marry Harold had been hers and hers alone.  Nothing could change the way she felt about him now.

“No, Brady.”

That was it.  If he wanted an elaboration he would have to wait till it snowed in Jacaranda Meadows.  But it was enough for Brady.

“Well, I’m not husband material but how about your priorities for friendship?  Are they any different?”

Kate stared at the man unable to believe what she was hearing.  Even to her ears she had sounded crude and grasping just now. 

Warmth flooded her body from the tips of her peach tinted toenails to the ends of each russet curl, “No,” she said softly afraid to speak louder, to break the spell.  Then again, “No.  My priorities for friendship are completely different.”

“So, we’re friends?”  He put his hand out to her.

“Friends,” Kate complied, wondering at the joy that engorged her system at the thought of not losing Brady completely.

Brady stood up.  “It’s late and I have to go but I want you to know something first.”  Solemnly the gray eyes watched her face.

“What?”  Her heart slammed against her ribs wondering what was coming next.  The fine print?

“Lady,” Brady’s gaze transmitted immense warmth while his mouth turned up at the corners, "You’ve just got yourself a lifetime forty percent discount in Bernie’s gifts and luggage.”

CHAPTER
5

His parents were sitting out on their redwood deck behind the house with Karen and Ben.

“Hi!” he said and they all heard the note of gladness in his voice as they replied.

“How are you sis?”

“Feeling better every day,” she said stretching her neck back to feel more of Ben’s hand where it lay against her neck.

“Getting Cody into preschool was the right thing to do,” avowed Brady.  “He’s a different kid these days.”

Karen looked at him and her eyes narrowed.

“Did the suggestion I send my baby to preschool have anything to do with a certain redheaded teacher?” she demanded.

“Of course, not,” said Brady hastily.  “It was for his own good.  And yours.”

“Tell me,” said Bernie Gallagher, suddenly leaning forward to enter the conversation, “does this redhead have the most amazing green eyes, a lovely figure and dimples?”

“The same,” said Karen confounded.  “Do you know her too Mom?”

“I think so,” Bernie said slowly remembering her son’s mood a few weeks earlier, the girl who had come into the store to pay the balance on the writing case, and what Karen was talking about.  One didn’t need a calculator to add it all up.  The end total could be very pleasant.  Very pleasant indeed.

“So, my son was sacrificed just so you could hit on his teacher,” said Karen. 

“Hey, hold on a minute!” Brady said.  “Isn’t Cody happy?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t it give you time to rest during the day and aren’t you both in an excellent mood during the hours you subsequently spend together?”

“Yes.”

“I rest my case,” said Brady disappearing into the house for a beer, the sound of laughter from the deck tugging a response from his lips.

Kate saw the navy blue car waiting outside before she saw Brady.  From within he leaned over to open the passenger door for her.

"I don’t want to get out,” he apologized.  "All those staring women make me nervous.”

Kate looked at the window and sighed.  Two teachers and a mother were at the window that faced the parking lot, their faces wearing identical expressions of avid nosiness.

“I thought you’d be used to women.  Don’t they all insist you serve them in the store?” Kate teased gently.

“That kind yes, this kind no,” said Brady frankly, enjoying the flash of her dimples.

A jacket and a tie were thrown over the back seat of the car and Kate’s eyes immediately noticed the fine texture of the material of his pants and the vest he wore over his blue shirt.  Did Brady wear three piece suits to work?

“Where would you like to eat?  Shall we get a sample of the Colonel’s chicken and go out to the Park with it?”

He was taking it for granted that she would eat with him and the gladness surging through her at the sight of him prevented her from saying otherwise.

It had been a hot day and now a slow breeze was stirring.  It would be nice in the Park but Kate shook her head and said, "No.  Remember that rain check?  Would you like to make good on it tonight?”

“You mean eat at your place?”  Brady looked surprised.  "Aren’t you tired after a day with a bunch of Dennis the Menaces?”

“They’re not like that at all,” Kate laughingly protested.  “As for cooking I don’t look on it as a job.  It helps me unwind.  I like it.”

“That’s strange.”

“Why?” demanded Kate.

“Most of my friend’s wives hate cooking.  They say women’s lib has freed them from being chained to domesticity.  Most of them insist on going out or their husbands helping with the cooking.”

“Women’s lib doesn’t mean one can’t cook and enjoy it still.  It just gives women the freedom to choose whether they want to cook or not.  I do.”

They were at the apartment.  Brady didn’t get out of the car.

“Would you mind if I come back in half an hour?  I have a few things to do.”

That way Katie needn’t feel overwhelmed by his presence.

She nodded, “Take your time.  Dinner will be ready by six thirty.”

Upstairs she placed the packet of shrimp she had bought for her birthday dinner under hot running water and set the table.  She made the salad in record time, glad she had included avocado in her grocery list that week and set rolls out on the baking tray ready to go into the oven later.  The chowder she had put in the crock pot that morning looked enticing and there was a bottle of white wine they could open.  The shrimp just needed a little while in the chowder to get done. 

Kate showered in record time passing over the shorts she usually slipped into for a brown and gold wrap around skirt and a beige peasant blouse.  Running a brush through her curly mop she stared at the flush on her cheeks.

"It’s all the rushing around,” she muttered to herself as she checked the stainless steel cutlery for spots.

“Hi!” He had showered too and changed into shorts and a tee shirt, open at the neck, inviting her touch.

`Friends,' Kate told herself fiercely, `don’t think of friends that way.'

Kate looked at the small potted plant in his hand.  Prickly pear.

“For me?”

Ridiculous to feel this pleased about a cactus in a two inch pot.

“For you.”

It reminds me of you Katie.  Prickly on the outside but with a tender succulent center that could save a man’s life.  That she guessed at part of his thoughts  was very evident by the sudden trembling of her hands as they held the base of the pot, her refusal to meet his eyes.

“Thanks Brady.”

The answer was barely audible, flung at him over her shoulder as she set the plant down and began spooning the seafood chowder out of the crockpot.

“It isn’t anything fancy,” she told him, thinking of Harold’s penchant for gourmet food.

“It’s looks wonderful,” he said quietly and the words reassured her more than a speech would have.  “Did you know that I would turn up at the school?”

Mentally they were so attuned, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she said yes, but she negated the thought with a swift shake of the head.

“How come you have so much food ready?”  Had Harold stood her up?  Was this meal supposed to have been for him?  A shrimp enlarged in Brady’s throat till it blocked his esophagus.

“No,” Kate said pausing with her spoon half way to her mouth.  ”I made the salad now to stretch the meal.  As for the chowder I always cook enough for two meals and freeze half.  That way on the nights I have school or I’m too tired to cook it’s there for me.”

“I see.”  He remembered their first meeting and Katie telling her that she was normally very organized.

“Katie, has Harold ever had dinner here?”

“No,” she looked at him surprised.

Harold had usually stopped by to pick her up for a date and that had been all.  She had never invited him over for a meal knowing he would hate to sit at a card table and eat the plain food that was all she knew how to fix. She had never even asked him to come in after a date, aware of some of the wrestling matches girls her age had with their friends on these occasions.  Harold, too, had been content with a goodnight kiss in the car.  But now, contrarily, it bothered Kate that he had never wanted to spend time with her here.

“Katie?”

“Hmm?”

“Have you ever thought of changing your job?”

Kate looked across her little table, surprised, “No. Why?”

“A friend of mine is looking for someone intelligent, attractive, with good people skills for his front office.  It’s a receptionist type of job, greeting people, making appointments, some light filing, that kind of thing.”

Good people skills?  Intelligent?  Her?  Kate couldn’t say a word.

“The pay’s really good and you’d have a good benefit package,” said Brady persuasively.

If money was all that mattered she would jump at the job.

Kate rose, removed their salad plates, brought the soup to the table before she said, “Thanks, but no thanks, Brady.  I like working with children too much to want to change.”

Too good a tactician to comment further he concentrated on his creamy chowder.

“Brady,” they were half way through it when she spoke again.

“Yes?”

“Do you like your work?”

“Very much.” 

“Don’t you want to do anything else with your life?”

“Nope.”

The cheerfulness of his tone irritated her.  The man was intelligent enough to do anything he chose to.  Why was he content to earn minimum wage?

A voice floated through her head.  Her mother telling her about her father’s job, when he’d had one.  `He didn’t make much.  Just enough to get by and he was always happy with that.  Never wanted to do anything else.’

Was that how it was with Brady?  Was he content just making enough to get by?  Looking at his clothes and his car, Katie didn’t think he could save a dime out of his salary or that the fact bothered him in the slightest.  The original Grasshopper Green, not mere kin, Kate thought sadly.

“Cal Poly offers classes in almost everything.  The tuition is really reasonable.....”

“Stop it Kathryn,” The cold incisiveness of his voice, the way he used her full name, flooded her face with color, but she stuck to her guns.

“You said we’re friends Brady.  Well, I can’t stand by and see you throwing your life away when there’s so much you could do.”

“Kathryn,” his eyes had darkened to the color of polished onyx, “friends accept you for what you are.”

“Friends,” she flung at him, Zooloretto" tell you the truth about yourself.”

“That being,” he said, "that
you want me to turn my hand to improving myself?  What you really mean is improving my salary don’t you?  Why?  So that some money grubbing bitch will marry me for what I have, not what I am?”

“Maybe,” she wasn’t going to back down having come this far, “security is an important factor in anyone’s life.”

“My love will be all the security my woman needs,” he said and a pulse exploded into a tango in Kate’s throat.  “If she wants money she can go out and earn it herself, buy her own security.  Just as you can.  You don’t need to marry a Harold to be secure Katie.  With a little careful planning, you can achieve all the security you desire, but no matter what you do, you can’t buy love, remember that.”

“Love will last longer on the secure foundation that money provides,” Kate said stubbornly.

He stared at her for so long she wondered if he could hear the bang of her heart as it clamored to speak for itself, decry the unfeeling words tripping off her tongue like hurtful hailstones in a storm. 

“You’ve locked yourself into a room without windows haven’t you Katie?  You don’t want to give yourself a chance to try love, do you?  You’re poorer now, with your tunnel vision than you’ve ever been in your life.  Well, just don’t try to convert me again, do you hear?”

Brady’s voice had risen to a shout and Kate’s heart suddenly picked up an old rhythm of fear as her mind lifted the curtain she tried to keep drawn over her past and slipped back into the past. 

There was another man shouting in the room and soon he would fling something or get up and slap her mother.  Kate whimpered.

“Katie?” his outstretched arm seemed like a blow and she lifted her hand to ward it off, cowering behind it.