Disguised Blessing Read online

  “How in the world did you manage that?”

  “I told you the nurses would make her come around if you got out of there and let them do their work,” Tom said, looking to Rick for confirmation.

  “Sorry, I don’t agree.” Rick had a feeling they weren’t words Tom was used to hearing. “Lynda needs all the support she can get, even if she acts a little unappreciative at times.”

  His hair fell across his forehead, almost into his eyes, not exactly the professional image he tried to project when Tom was around. He reached up to comb it back with his fingers. If he didn’t get a haircut soon, he was going to have to glue it in place.

  Catherine stared at his arm. “I didn’t know…”

  He’d shown Lynda his scars to prove a point, one Catherine didn’t need. “It happened a long time ago,” he said. “And has nothing to do with what I do or why I’m here.”

  “Just part of the job, I suppose,” Tom said dis-missively.

  Rick wasn’t about to get into a pissing contest with Tom Adams. He didn’t like the man and hadn’t from the beginning, but Tom was an integral part of Lynda’s recovery. If Rick couldn’t neutralize his animosity, he couldn’t be an effective agent for Lynda or Catherine. “Not one we like to think about too much.”

  Catherine stood. “Gene is supposed to be here in a few minutes,” she said to Rick. “Would you mind intercepting him and telling him where we’ve gone?”

  “He doesn’t have to do that,” Tom interjected. “I’ll wait for Gene.”

  Normally Rick took whatever path necessary to steer clear of family dynamics. Perversely, this time he waded into the middle. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to catch up with Gene anyway.”

  Tom slipped his arm around Catherine in a blatantly possessive, if puzzling move. Rick almost laughed out loud.

  “I’m not clear what your job is around here, but it’s nice to know you’re available for things like this,” Tom said.

  Catherine folded into herself at Tom’s condescending statement. The look she gave Rick held a plea for understanding. “Will I see you later?”

  Rick pointedly ignored Tom. “I’ll try to stop by tonight—around dinner.” He’d check with Lynda’s doctor to clear bringing her the crab cakes and put in a standing order at the restaurant until she’d had her fill.

  “Thank you.” For a moment, her face lit up with a smile. Tom immediately turned her toward the elevator and she had to call over her shoulder, “For everything.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Rick shook his head and stuffed his hands in his pockets. What in the hell did a woman like Catherine see in a man like Tom? He’d known women who’d traded their souls for wealth and social position and were comfortable with the bargain. They were a type easily recognized. Nothing like Catherine. But then, what did he really know about her?

  “Rick—,” Gene called. “I was hoping we’d run into each other before I had to leave.”

  Rick shook Gene’s outstretched hand. “When are you taking off?”

  “My flight leaves in the morning. I tried to get out of going, but the board insists they want me there for the final round of negotiation.”

  “Catherine said you went into banking.”

  “Long way from engineering, huh?” Gene sat in Catherine’s vacated chair. “Like everyone else, I went where the jobs were. How about you?”

  “I was working in the state legislator’s office when I stopped by a firehouse to pick up a friend for a fishing trip. That one visit was all it took and I knew I’d found what I wanted to do.”

  “And you still like it?”

  Gene had phrased the question better than most, but Rick had been through the drill often enough with his old college buddies to know what he was really asking. How could someone who’d graduated with honors from USC be satisfied with a bluecollar job? Where was the mental challenge, the advancement? Bottom line: Where was the money?

  He’d stopped trying to explain what he loved about being a firefighter a long time ago. It was one of those things that if someone had to ask, there was no way he would understand the answer.

  “I love it,” Rick told him.

  “Wish I could say that about my job. There are some days all I can think about is finding a way to retire early.”

  Gene’s candid reply surprised Rick. “I take it you don’t get much time for fishing anymore.” In college he and Gene had been part of a group of guys that pooled their money two or three times a year to hire a boat to take them ocean fishing.

  “I golf now, but it’s for the business contacts, not for recreation.”

  “I have a buddy who runs a charter service out of Bodega Bay. I’ve never come home empty-handed when I’ve gone out with him. Give me a call when you get back and we’ll work something out.”

  “How do I get in touch with you?”

  He reached for his wallet and remembered he’d left it in the truck. “Catherine has my number.”

  Gene seemed confused. “I thought Tom told me she’d changed her mind about working with your organization.”

  “If she has, she hasn’t said anything to me about it. Which is odd, because I just arranged for her and Tom to attend a parents’ support meeting in Stockton next Wednesday. And she has an appointment to meet with the director of the association to see whether she wants Lynda to attend burn camp this summer.”

  “Burn camp?”

  “We bring in burned kids from all over the state for a week in the mountains. They get to be around other kids who have the same kinds of problems and face the same surgeries, but most of all they just get to be kids.”

  “I’m glad to hear she’s considering it for Lynda. I was worried she was going to try to handle this on her own the way she’s done with everything else since her divorce.” Gene’s expression changed from open to angry. “Have you met Jack yet?”

  “He was here and gone before I arrived.”

  “The son of a bitch told Catherine that he had to leave town on business and I ran into him at the bank yesterday.”

  “Jack is Lynda’s father?” He assumed as much but had been wrong about that kind of thing too many times to take anything for granted.

  “Yeah—regrettably. He doesn’t deserve her any more than he deserved Catherine. Everything Jack does is for show. If Lynda were allowed flowers, he’d have every surface covered. He’ll spend money on her, but not time.”

  Gene looked at his watch. “Speaking of time, I should be spending what I have left with Lynda.” He stood. “I’ll be in touch about that fishing trip. Maybe we can get Catherine and Lynda to come along.”

  Rick noted he didn’t mention Tom and wondered whether it was a mental lapse or wishful thinking. He cleared the cups from the table, then went to the window to look at the Sacramento skyline, thinking that family dynamics were a lot like a city, filled with hidden surprises and dangerous alleys. At least cities came with maps. With Lynda and Catherine he was on his own.

  10

  “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” CATHERINE ASKED. “Of course I am,” Tom answered too quickly. “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “We’ve been in the car a half hour and you haven’t spoken except to say yes or no to my questions.”

  “I guess I’m all talked out. Or maybe I’m all listened out. I thought you said the meeting was only going to last an hour. Do you realize we were there over two?”

  How could she not have noticed the way Tom had looked at his watch every five minutes? “There were so many new people this time. They just wanted to make sure we felt comfortable with each other. That takes time.”

  “I have to be honest with you, Catherine. I’m not sure how many of these meetings I can sit through. When that woman started talking about how the doctors were going to attach her daughter’s new ears, it was everything I could do not to get up and walk out of there.”

  “I admit it was a little hard to hear, but—”

  “I don’t understand how subjecting ourselves
to this kind of thing is supposed to help Lynda. What she needs is to get out of the hospital and go shopping. It’s going to be damn hard to find something that will hide those awful suits she’s supposed to wear. What is listening to a horror story about some stupid woman who let her kid play with matches supposed to do for us?”

  “She didn’t let her son play with matches, Tom. He found them in a drawer.”

  “If she would have put them someplace where he couldn’t get his hands on them, she would still have her cute little boy, not some kid the doctors have to try to reconstruct into something that doesn’t scare all the other kids on the playground.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “And you can bet that’s exactly what that little boy is going to say to himself every day for the rest of his life.” He stiffened his arms and pressed himself back in the seat, his desire to be anywhere else, talking about anything else, as evident as the bugs hitting the windshield. “I’m sorry he was burned, and I’m sorry his mother has to deal with it, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear about it every month for the next year. I have better things, certainly more constructive things, to do with my time.” He relaxed his arms, but not his posture. “And so do you.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and gazed at the rows of grapevines that appeared to open and close like fans in the hands of a frenetic dancer as they passed outside her window. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. I know you were only trying to be helpful when you told Lynda that you would buy her new clothes, but—”

  “You should have seen her light up. I felt like Santa Claus on Christmas morning.”

  “Did you actually tell her that you were buying her new clothes so that she could hide her pressure suit?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “I spend all my time telling her she’s perfect the way she is and you take it all away by telling her you’ll pay for new clothes so she can hide.”

  “That’s a shitty thing to say, Catherine. You make it sound as if I’m ashamed of her.”

  “That’s the impression you give, Tom. You’re a wonderful man, generous to a fault, but sometimes you say things without thinking them through. We have to be careful where Lynda is concerned. She’s already made up her mind that she isn’t pretty anymore. We have to convince her that she’s wrong, not do things that will reinforce those feelings.”

  “Do you want me to lie to her?”

  The question took Catherine’s breath away, leaving her agape. “Don’t you see? That’s exactly what I mean. I know you don’t think Lynda’s burns make a difference, but you make it sound as if you do.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long time. “This is going to hurt you, and I’m sorry, but if you’re going to help Lynda, you have to face some facts about men and how they feel about women. Looks matter. If you tell her they don’t and get her to believe you, you’re setting her up to get hurt over and over again. Let’s say she does find some oddball who really doesn’t care. What kind of guy do you think he’ll be? Not anyone of her class, certainly. Personally, I think she deserves more.”

  “You can’t mean that.” He couldn’t. She searched her memory for the reasons she’d fallen in love with him, remembering his caring and tenderness, the way he’d accepted Lynda. Before Tom, the men she’d dated had made it plain they wanted nothing to do with being father to another man’s child.

  He’d admitted this was the first crisis he’d ever faced. Until now, his life had been as unextraordi-nary as white bread, his decisions free of emotion. She had no right to expect him to get it right the first time.

  “It isn’t just me; all men feel this way, whether they want to admit it or not. Think about it, Catherine. What man, or woman for that matter, wants to be seen with someone who draws attention to themselves because of their handicap? It might not be fair, it might not be right, but looks matter. If we can help Lynda hide what’s happened to her now, she’ll figure out the rest for herself when she’s older.”

  “Did seeing Rick’s scars change your mind about him?”

  Her question took a second to register. “You mean the fireman?” He laughed. “Nothing could make me change my mind about him. I deal with his

  type all the time on construction sites. I know what to expect.”

  “How long have we known each other?” she wondered aloud.

  “What has that got to do with anything?”

  “I’m confused—how could we have been together all this time and know so little about each other?”

  “It’s a difference of opinion, Catherine, not world peace.”

  She was encouraged that he saw his view as opinion, not fact. Opinion was easier to work with. “We’ve come full circle. Now you see why I think it’s critical for us to go to these meetings, even if they do make us uncomfortable. It’s important to find out what other people have gone through with their kids and how they handled it, so we don’t make the same mistakes.”

  “I can see your mind is already made up. Since it doesn’t matter what I say or how I feel, there’s only one thing left for me to do—lay some ground rules. From now on, I won’t try to stop you from going to the meetings—just don’t ask me to go with you. And don’t talk to me about what went on when you get home. I don’t want to hear it,”

  She waited a long time before answering him. “This isn’t going to work, Tom.”

  He turned to her, unsure at first, and then with a look of utter relief. “Thank God. I’ve been thinking the same thing but didn’t want to be the one to bring it up—not with all you’ve been going through.”

  Her stomach did a slow, acid-filled roll that made her throat burn. He couldn’t be suggesting what she thought he was. She had to have heard him wrong. Her heart raced as she considered the possibility. Finally, carefully, she asked, “What are you saying?”

  “The same thing you are. I never understood that expression about it being an ill wind that blows no good until this happened. I hate to think that it took Lynda getting burned to make us see how basically different we are, but there it is. She’s saved us a lot of heartache down the road.”

  Pride, pure and self-protective, kept Catherine from telling him that she’d been talking about doing things together in their relationship, not dissolving it. But that pride couldn’t keep her from saying, “This is it then? The engagement is off? You have no interest in seeing me or Lynda again?”

  As if realizing he’d gone too far too fast, he began a new, slower dance. “All I’m saying is that we should give ourselves more time—back off a little. Give each other more space.”

  “I thought that term went out in the eighties.”

  “You see what I mean? You never would have talked to me like that before the accident.”

  She couldn’t deny it. “It’s the stress.” Why was she defending herself?

  “Stress doesn’t change you, it brings out who you really are.”

  She thought about his comment. “Do you honestly believe that?”

  “Yes, I do.” Attempting to offer her comfort, he put his hand on her thigh. He looked at her, this time long enough to see that he’d made a mistake. “Oh, my God. I got it wrong, didn’t I? You weren’t breaking up with me. I’m sorry, Catherine. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”

  She pushed his hand aside. “Your timing really stinks, Tom. How am I going to explain this to Lynda? She’s going to think it’s her fault.”

  The pained look disappeared. “Did you hear what you just said?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe that’s the real problem, Catherine. With you, Lynda always comes first. If you’d put me in that position once in a while, this might not have happened.”

  “Trade places with Lynda, Tom, and I’d be happy to put you first.” Her fingers wrapped around the door handle. She’d give a year’s salary to be in town and free to get out of the car instead of stuck with him on an isolated section of freeway with nothing
but farmland for miles on either side. She didn’t want him to see how much he’d hurt her…”If you’re right about stress bringing out someone’s true nature, then I guess that makes you a coward.”

  “Just because I don’t like hospitals doesn’t make me a coward.”

  “I’ve been so stupid. I made excuses for you. To everyone. So many times I actually started believing them myself.”

  “Go ahead, blame me if it makes you feel better. I can take it.”

  The words sounded rehearsed. “How long have you known you wanted out?”

  He shifted position. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because it’s important to me.” This was the man who had promised to love her forever, who listened to her hopes and dreams and vowed to make them come true. How could they have gone from that to this in less than six months? Was that the shelf life of his love?

  Still he hesitated.

  “Tell me.”

  “You won’t understand.”

  “What possible difference does that make?”

  “I want us to stay friends.”

  “Friends? This isn’t high school, Tom.”

  “There’s no way we can avoid running into each other. We go to the same parties, belong to the same club, know the same people.” His voice dropped to a pained whisper. “Why make this any more difficult than it has to be?”

  “I introduced you to those friends.” Tom was new to the area when they met, recently transferred from Southern California and in need of social and business contacts. “You were accepted at those parties because of me.”

  “Which is why I don’t want anyone to have to choose between us. They may have been your friends first, Catherine, but they get things from me now that you can’t give. I’m an important part of the business community now.”

  Could he really be threatening her? Did he honestly believe the friends who had stayed with her through her and Jack’s divorce would abandon her now? “You still haven’t answered me. How long have you known you wanted out?”

  “Since the doctors told us that Lynda was going to be permanently scarred.” Catherine started to say something. He held up his hand to stop her. “Don’t bother. I know how terrible that sounds. And don’t think I haven’t agonized over it. I’ve hardly been able to think of anything else since it happened. But I know myself and I know how I feel about being around handicapped people. They make me uncomfortable. Sooner or later Lynda would figure it out and it would only make things worse.”