Lost and Found Groom by McLinn, Patricia (most difficult books to read .TXT) 📗

to work out the logistics of daily life to her satisfaction. She saw no reason not to take advantage of Daniel’s presence in Far Hills to free up more of her time to work on the special section. He’d said he wanted to be involved in Matthew’s life. He’d said he didn’t mind filling in for her shifts at the babysitting co-op. So why shouldn’t she let him? Especially since it was in the midst of all the other kids and adults at the co-op. Daniel wouldn’t be anyone special to Matthew.

She wasn’t avoiding Daniel–no matter what Ellyn said.

It simply worked out better that he was with Matthew while she was working.

So for the past two weeks she’d seen him mostly in passing, when she dropped off Matthew and picked him up at the co-op.

The times they had overlapped, she’d observed what Ellyn and Fran never tired of telling her–how much more comfortable he was becoming with Matthew.

“If he’d relax a little more, he could be a natural,” the usually down-to-earth Fran raved.

That was going a bit far, to Kendra’s mind. But she would acknowledge Matthew had taken to him, even mastering a version of Dan’l in his first recognition that Luke was not a synonym for man.

She remembered her own first awkward hours, days and weeks trying to cope with the terror of having absolute responsibility for every need and wish of this scrap of humanity whom she loved more than she’d thought possible.

It should have been that hard for Daniel.

She rolled onto her other side.

Not that she didn’t want him to be comfortable with Matthew. But he was the one who’d said he didn’t know how. Who’d brought up that he’d had no parents until the Delligattis adopted him, and that they were older and set in their ways.

One day when they’d stood in the church basement watching Matthew play with another little boy, she’d tried to find out more about his relationship with the Delligattis.

“How about your parents? Do you get along with them now?”

He’d frowned, but answered readily enough. “Yeah, I get along with them.”

“See them much?”

“They’re retired, living in Florida. I see them when I can.”

“Do you love them?”

“They’ve been very good to me,” he’d said stiffly.

“But you’re not willing to say you love them?”

“What’s this about, Kendra?”

“I’m trying to get a feel for your relationships with your family. I think that could be important for Matthew–for how you deal with Matthew, don’t you?”

“Are you complaining about how I deal with Matthew?”

“No, but your parents are the only grandparents Matthew has–it’s natural for me to wonder about your relationship with them.”

“I suppose,” he granted, but then he’d changed the subject.

And she’d let him. Because her mention of his parents as grandparents to Matthew had reminded her that the sort of Norman Rockwell image those words conjured up would never happen.

Daniel was a pilot, a pilot with a government job with an unnamed agency that took him far away for unpredictable stretches of time–when he wasn’t spending years at a time masquerading as a masked crusader and various supporting characters.

Once he left Far Hills and returned to his “regular’ job, he would drop out of their lives. Oh, she supposed that for a while, there’d be occasional visits, probably cards and calls. But over time–long or short–he’d fade away from their landscape. As so many men her mother had hoped would be her next great love had done.

The chance of the Delligattis ever entering the small orbit of the life she and Matthew lived here in Far Hills, especially long enough to function like grandparents, was slim.

She simply had to get through these months while Daniel played at being father. She had to protect Matthew from getting overly attached and she had to keep her own head on straight. Then, eventually, everything would return to normal.

Normal. Just like today.

Time to get up. Time to get Matthew ready for another day. Time to get ready for work herself, then drive them into town–Matthew to the co-op and her to the Banner.

Time.

She swung her legs out of bed and sat up.

Only in the shower, scrubbing a body that seemed to tingle from caresses that occurred only in her dream–or maybe her memory–did she realize that this time the dream had not ended with her turning around to find Paulo gone, then shouting his name into an echoing silence.

This time the dream had ended while they were still wrapped in the fragile safety of their shelter and each other, as she’d whispered Daniel.

*

It was that kind of day.

First, she’d risked dressing Matthew before feeding him breakfast. Naturally, he had a particularly far-flung meal, requiring a complete change of clothes.

Then she decided she had time for a final sip of her nearly cold coffee–and spilled it down the front of her navy slacks.

She changed into a red skirt in record speed, but had to put on stockings now instead of socks, and switch from her navy loafers to black flats. Then she exchanged the baby blue blouse she’d started in for a white blouse, which was when she noticed a run in her stockings. So they were running late.

She dropped Matthew off at the co-op with barely a wave to Fran Sinclair and a kiss to the top of her son’s dark head.

Daniel looked up from building a mountain out of blocks with some of the kids, but she pretended not to notice him.

After this morning’s dream it seemed safer.

Not until she arrived at her desk at the Banner did she realize she had the tote with the boxes of animal crackers for her share of the day’s snacks and not the tote with her notes for the special section.

That’s why she was back at the church basement within twenty minutes of having left it.

As she opened the door, she heard her son’s voice raised in his favorite chant: “No! No! No!”

Daniel was crouched down, eye to eye with the face so like his own, while a blonde-haired boy named