Susan Crosby - I'm Your Man

“I’m not gonna sleep,” he said, the words muffled by the stuffed tiger.

“That’s fine.”

“Papa will still be here when I get up, won’t he?”

“I don’t know what his plans are. But I’m sure he’ll say goodbye before he goes anywhere.” Like back to Seattle on the next available flight.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” He pulled the afghan up to his chin then. “Don’t shut the door.”

“I won’t shut it all the way.”

When she returned to the living room, she found Ted in her big chair and Daniel picking up the toys, putting them in their plastic containers.

“Thanks,” she said.

“He likes to start over. There’s something about creating a new city that appeals to him.”

“Maybe he’ll be a builder,” she said, taking a seat on the sofa, next to Ted’s chair. She was determined to stay calm.

“Maybe.” Daniel picked up his glass of water and sat down, too. He looked at Ted. “I don’t think I heard what you do for a living.”

“I’m a CPA and financial planner.”

“How did you two meet?”

“At work,” Maureen said. “I’m not sure if Jess told you about Carlos Martinez, my boss at Primero Publishing? He passed away suddenly five months ago, and his wife, Bernadette, stepped in as publisher. Ted’s been a friend of theirs for years. She asked him to take a look at the company finances.”

“Then I took a look at Maureen, too,” he said, smiling at her.

She smiled back. “He came along at a busy time, since we’d just started working on two new projects a couple of months before Carlos died. We’re trying to see them through, but it’s taking everything out of us.”

“She works very long hours,” Ted said, laying a hand on her shoulder, his fingers resting against her collarbone in a proprietary way, making Maureen uncomfortable. She’d never seen him possessive.

“It took me months,” he went on, “but I finally convinced her to take a vacation. We’re leaving two weeks from today.”

The implications of that statement reverberated through the room. They all knew Jess was supposed to be gone for six weeks.

Maureen was stuck. She needed to tell Ted that they would have to postpone their vacation, but she couldn’t do it in front of Daniel.

“Why are you here?” she asked Daniel, taking control of the discussion. “What did you hope to accomplish by just showing up?”

He dragged his hands down his face. “We had an argument.”

“You and Jess? About what?”

“About this harebrained scheme of hers to be on True Grit.”

Maureen might have agreed with him, but she wasn’t going to let him criticize her daughter. “My understanding is that she beat almost impossible odds to make it onto the program.” She and Riley had looked it up on the Internet that morning. “So many people apply, yet she was chosen. It’s a huge accomplishment.”

“I’m not denying that. I even had a hand in it, since I’m the one that got her training. She’s become quite an athlete.”

“I could tell. When I hugged her, I could tell. I would think you would be proud she got on the show.”

“Proud? What about her job?”

“She had a job?”

“You didn’t know?”

Maureen shook her head. “She never said. What was she doing?”

“She’s an assistant in my department at the university.”

“Since when?”

“Since Riley started kindergarten last year. She only works—worked—part-time, just while he’s in school. It was ideal. She would’ve been able to increase her hours as his school days got longer.”

“Would have?”

He nodded. “She’s supposed to be there now, for summer session. She quit.”

Why hadn’t Jess told her? How little she knew of her daughter’s life.

“So, you arranged the job for her?”

“Yeah. I stuck my neck out, too, since she didn’t have any experience, and there were other candidates more qualified. I thought it might get her interested in going to college. Her tuition would’ve been almost free.” He tunneled his fingers through his hair.

That soft, thick—Maureen caught herself. “She’s lived with you all these years and you don’t know what a dreamer Jess is?” she asked, not unkindly. “This is the big-fantasy kind of thing that Jess thrives on.”

Daniel leaned his arms on his thighs and turned his head to look at her. “I didn’t think she’d go through with it, in the end. She may be a dreamer, but she usually has little follow-through. I certainly never expected her to take off as she did. I was out of town. She left me a note.”

“And you hopped a plane without calling first? What if Jess hadn’t come here? What if I hadn’t been home?”

He frowned. “Where would you be? You’re always home.”

She really needed to get away more.

“Anyway,” Daniel went on, “Jess said in her note she was leaving Riley here, but I knew you probably couldn’t take much time off from work, and I’m off for the summer….”

“This works out perfectly,” Ted said, participating in the conversation for the first time. “We can figure out a way to keep the boy until we go on vacation, then he can go back to you for the remainder of the time.”

Daniel cheered up. “I could work with that—”

“No.” Maureen didn’t raise her voice. Her heart pounded in her ears. She could barely swallow. She felt both men focus on her, and for a moment she looked out the front window, not wanting to continue what was bound to be a hard conversation.

“No?” Ted repeated, shock in his tone. “Maureen, it’s the perfect solution. And obviously the boy loves being with his grandfather.”

Yes, he does. Way too much. “Jess left him with me. I’m sure she had her reasons.”

“Now, hold on a minute,” Daniel said. “Jess and I had an argument. She’s not used to being denied anything, and so she decided to get back at me by bringing Riley here. It’s not as if she doesn’t trust me with him.”

“How do I know that? The only thing I know for sure is that she wanted me to have Riley for the time she’s gone. The whole time. Period.”

“We need to talk about this,” Ted said with a telling glance at Daniel.

Daniel, obviously realizing that Ted was his ally in his cause, offered to go for a walk.

“Don’t you have a plane to catch or something?” Maureen asked, annoyed that the men were ganging up on her.

“I bought a one-way ticket.”

“Of course you did,” she muttered. “Fine. Go for a walk. Or go into my backyard.” Or go to hell.

He stood. “How much time should I give you?”

“Fifteen minutes?” Ted said when Maureen clammed up. “If you turn right when you leave the house and walk a few blocks, you’ll hit Cortland Avenue. That’s the commercial district. You’ll find a couple of places to get something to eat, if you want.”

“Thanks.” Then he was gone, and the air was filled with unspoken accusations.

Maureen didn’t trust herself to say the right thing. Angry, she pushed herself up and went to the front window, spotting Daniel as he made his way up the street, that jaunty walk of his annoying her even more.

“I don’t appreciate your interference,” she said to Ted, her back to him.

“Interference? This situation involves me, too. Why shouldn’t I be allowed my opinions?”

“Opinions are one thing. Decisions without discussion are another.”

“What do you mean?”

She faced him, crossed her arms. “You decided what would happen. I wasn’t given a say in the matter.” And it made her look weak in Daniel’s eyes, she thought. She couldn’t afford any sign of weakness or Daniel would pounce on it in some way, maybe even enlist Riley in his cause. Riley would probably like nothing better than to go back with Daniel. That thought hurt. “Your plan isn’t going to work for me, Ted.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning we need to postpone the vacation.”

Silence descended, deafening and tense.

He came close to her. “Postponing is the same as canceling, and you know it. It took me weeks to convince you to take this trip. If anything happens to interfere with it, we’ll never go.”

“Even without Riley it’s a horrible time for me to be gone, and you know that. Everything at work is tenuous. I’ve got a shot to be vice president. If I leave, I could very well be saying goodbye to that opportunity.”

“Bernadette gave her enthusiastic approval for you to go.”

“What else could she say? You’re not there every day, under the gun. I know what’s going on, and I know it’s going to be hard for them without me.”

“You’re not indispensable. And it’s only two weeks.”

She heard the underlying anger in his voice, his frustration with her. She understood it, but it didn’t change the fact she had the opportunity to really connect with her grandson for the first time—and by default, reconnect with her daughter. To Maureen, it wasn’t even a decision.

“A postponement, Ted. That’s all. I need to do this. I need to have this time with Riley. And Jess did leave him with me. She certainly wouldn’t want me to pawn him off on someone else. I’m sorry. I know it’s horrible of me to ask you to change plans on such short notice, but I can’t do anything else. I need you to understand that.”

His whole body seemed to sigh. “We’ll probably have penalties to pay for changing our reservations—if we can even get changes. That’ll put us into August. You do realize that Europe goes on vacation in August, right? It could change a lot of our plans.”

“The Louvre will still be there, right? And the Eiffel Tower?” She slipped her arms around him. “And the Venice canals? The Tower of London?”

“I get your point.” He kissed her, but not with much depth or warmth. “I spent a lot of time researching the right hotels and the most efficient train schedules and the best restaurants.”

“We’ll find a bed to sleep in and trains to ride and places to eat.” She wasn’t going to back down, so she hoped that he would. If he didn’t, she didn’t know what she would do.

She remembered his excitement when he gave her his house key. Was she willing to give up all that it represented for this brief time with Riley? She’d been alone all her adult life, having a few relationships that never got anywhere near marriage and having a permanent partner for the rest of her life. Ted was a real possibility for that changing. But if she had to make a choice…There was no choice.

“All right,” Ted said after a long, tense silence. “I’ll rearrange the trip. Jess will be back toward the end of July, right? We’ll allow an extra week, in case something else comes up. We’ll leave on your birthday, August fourth. Okay?”

Her fortieth. She would be celebrating a new beginning to her life as she marked that auspicious birthday—a new relationship with her daughter and grandson, a solid, steady relationship with a man and, hopefully, a new job with loads of responsibility and a nice pay raise.

Turning forty looked to be a banner year.

“Thank you, Ted,” she said, relaxing against him. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

“Sweetheart, I see how much it means or I wouldn’t be doing it. Just don’t let it take over your life completely, okay? I need attention, too.”

He was right about that. He’d been so patient about her long work weeks that left her exhausted and edgy. “I’ll try to do better,” she said. “I don’t mean to ignore you.”

“I know you don’t.” He released her. “You’re going to need a sitter or day care or something.”