A Place Called Home (3 page)

Avery broke in. “What is he talking about, Wayne? Someone just say it.”

“I’m engaged myself,” Mitch said. He gave Wayne full marks for the poker face he maintained. It would be difficult facing him in five-card stud again. Mitch had no idea how very good he could be. “To Regina Sommers.”

“Congratulations.”

“Sommers Real Estate?”

Thea and her attorney spoke simultaneously. There was no mistaking her sincerity or his curiosity.

Mitch nodded, accepting Thea’s best wishes and answering Avery’s question. Under the table, Wayne had found his foot again and was grinding it with the heel of his shoe. “Yes, well, perhaps I should let Wayne conclude this.”

Wayne took the opening given to him but he did not remove his foot. “You’ll understand that our proposals were based on the fact that Mr. Baker is also marrying and has raised concerns about whether he can take full custody of the children at this time. It would unduly strain the marriage.”

Mitch felt the full impact of Thea’s darkening eyes on him. She was searching his face, her own a shade paler than it had been moments earlier. The color left in her cheeks owed everything to Clinique. “You don’t want the children?”

It was Wayne who responded. “Mr. Baker is quite willing to share custody. If you will review the proposals, you’ll see that they call for him to be a partner in raising Emilie, Case, and Grant.”

Avery was scanning the documents. “An unequal partner. He wants to be the part-time custodian. Second and fourth weekends. Every other Wednesday. Here’s a proposal that gives you each two weeks with the children.”

Thea’s eyes widened. “Mitch? You’re not serious about that one, are you? We don’t even live in the same school district. Their education would be completely disrupted.”

Mitch said nothing, finally willing to let Wayne speak for him. Easy to let the lawyer take over when what you felt like yourself was way down on the food chain.

“It’s merely one idea, Ms. Wyndham,” Wayne said. “The matter of school attendance does present some thorny problems.”

“Thorny problems?” Thea said, squaring off her shoulders. “It’s lunacy. Gabe and Kathy would never agree to something like that.”

It pained Wayne, but he took the hard line. “Gabe and Kathy don’t have to agree to it. They put it in your hands. Yours and Mitch’s. I don’t think it ever occurred to them that you would not want the children.”

Thea actually shrank back in her chair and Wayne almost felt sorry for her.

“Let’s not throw stones, shall we?” Avery said. He looked pointedly at Mitch. “People in glass houses, after all. Your client is not clamoring to take on the responsibilities of surrogate parenthood himself.”

Wayne opened his mouth to respond but Mitch cut him off. “Leave us,” he said without inflection. “You too, Mr. Childers. I want to talk to Ms. Wyndham alone.”

“I don’t think that’s—” Avery stopped when he saw Wayne getting to his feet. He looked at his client. “This isn’t a good idea, Ms. Wyndham. Mr. Strahern wouldn’t like—” He didn’t finish this time because he saw Thea’s resolve had been strengthened by the mention of her fiancé. Too late, Avery realized he had blundered by assuming she was in some way subservient to Joel Strahern. “Very well,” he said with an obvious show of reluctance. “But I insist that you do not come to any agreements without reviewing them with me.”

Thea offered no comment and Avery had to be satisfied with her silence, choosing to accept it as consent. He stood, gathering the papers in front of him, and followed Wayne out of the room.

“He hated that,” Mitch said after the door closed.

“Wayne is not entirely happy with you right now.”

Mitch shrugged. “He’ll give me hell and then we’ll go play some hoops. I’ll let him win and we’ll be back on an even keel.”

“No pissing contest, then.”

He gave a bark of laughter. “You saw today’s paper.”

“I saw it. I always look for your work. Your liberal bias is showing.”

Mitch looked down at himself. “Where?” He patted his chest with both hands searching for the offending bias.

“There,” she said dryly. “Your bleeding heart.”

His grin was brief and quirky. By the time Mitch dropped his hands to the arms of the chair it was gone. He studied her for a moment, taking in the things he hadn’t wanted to see earlier: the faintly swollen eyelids; the bleak expression; the skin that was stretched tautly over a beautifully sculpted face. “What are we going to do, Thea?”

“I don’t know.” There was hardly any sound in this admission, as if she could not bear to hear her own helplessness.

He saw her chin wobble. She looked away quickly as tears welled in her eyes, and Mitch was selfishly glad when she managed to blink them back. He remained quiet, suspecting that anything he might say right now would open the floodgates. Comforting Thea was not the reason he’d asked to be alone with her.

Her smile was both regretful and watery as her eyes darted around the room. “You’d think a lawyer’s office would have some tissues. They must get lots of hysterical clients.”

“Hmmm.”

She touched an index finger to the corner of each eye and quickly erased the last vestige of tears. Taking a short, steadying breath, she said, “I had no idea you were getting married. Gabe and Kathy never mentioned you were serious about someone.” When she saw his discomfort, she hastened to add, “Not that we talked about you. I mean, things just came up from time to time. Sometimes Emilie would ...” Thea just let her thought drift away.

“Yes?” Mitch prompted.

Thea shook her head. “Nothing.”

“All right. Let’s discuss our options.” Mitch leaned forward and placed his clasped hands on the table. He didn’t think his body language was particularly threatening, but he didn’t miss Thea sliding back in her chair. “Am I making you nervous?”

The directness of the question startled her. Her honesty startled her more. “Yes. As a matter of fact, you are.”

One of Mitch’s brows arched. “Really? What do you think I’m going to do?”

“I don’t know. That’s what’s making me nervous. I know you’re angry with me.”

Characterizing what he felt toward her as anger was so much less than it was. “Angry? I don’t know about that. Disappointed. Resentful. Frustrated. And now that you’re telling me you don’t want the children, I’m even a little afraid.” She actually blinked at this last admission. “If all that comes across as anger, then it does. I’m not apologizing for it.”

“I’m not asking you to. I just wanted to understand.”

“Well, now you do.”

“You think I should have been here.”

“I think you should have been able to be reached.” Mitch’s fingers threaded through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell someone where the hell you were going?”

“I did.” There was a faint shudder to her indrawn breath. “Gabe and Kathy knew.”

Mitch fell silent. Finally, “Aaah, hell.”

Closing her eyes for a moment, Thea nodded. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Hell.” She made another quick swipe at the corners of her eyes and gathered the fraying threads of her composure. “Gabe was my closest friend. Kathy became exactly what I’d imagine a sister might be. I know you think I’m failing them now by not taking their children, but—”

“Emilie, Case, and Grant.”

She frowned. “Yes, I know.”

“We have to stop talking about them collectively as the children,” he said. “It makes it impersonal somehow. This is very personal. You and I made promises to their parents and now we’re seriously discussing who is
not
going to take them. Don’t you feel the least bit ashamed?”

Thea flushed. Her fingers tightened on the arms of her chair. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m ashamed. Probably more deeply than you can comprehend. It changes nothing, though. It’s not that I’m not taking Em and Case and Grant because I don’t want to. I’m not taking them because I can’t.”

“Can’t? Because you’re getting married?”

That was the only reason Thea was prepared to discuss. “Yes. Isn’t it the same for you? What does ...” She paused, searching for the name of Mitch’s fiancée.

“Gina.”

“Thank you. What does Gina think about sharing this responsibility with you?”

There were a lot of ways Mitch could have answered that question. He could have come clean and admitted there were no serious wedding plans, at least on his part. He could have said Gina was too young herself to take on an instant family. He considered pointing out that Gina would do whatever he told her, but it sounded too caveman and he suspected Thea wouldn’t buy it. He might have explained that Gina just wanted to please him, but a vision of Thea laughing outright stopped him. He finally came up with “Gina and I haven’t discussed that eventuality.”

“You haven’t discussed—” She stopped, searching his face. “Oh, I see. You didn’t discuss it because you assumed I would take Emilie and the twins when I heard what happened.”

“Something like that.”

“Aren’t you the least bit ashamed?”

“That’s a fair description.”

His easy admission had the effect of deflating her. She took a deep breath and began again. “Look, Mitch, you and I don’t know each other very well. We had Gabe and Kathy in common. Later, the children. We’ve met, what? a half dozen times over the years?”

Ten. They’d met ten times. Mitch did not say this. Instead he shrugged and offered, “That sounds about right.”

“My point is that you don’t know nearly enough about me to assume that I would be a good mother.”

“Gabe chose you. Kathy agreed. They must have thought you could do the job.”

“Oh, be serious. They never really thought they wouldn’t be around to raise their own children.”

“I disagree. If they had only asked us to be godparents, I would say you were right. But they made a point of setting things in motion for us to be legal guardians. I think they did give it thought. A lot of thought. They hoped it would never happen, but they planned carefully for just the opposite.”

“Then what about you? Following your logic, they must have thought you’d be a good father. Who’s to say you shouldn’t have the children in your custody full-time? Why do you think it has to be me?”

“Because you’re the girl.”

She blinked. “You didn’t just say that, did you? I probably misheard you.”

Mitch proposed his alternate theory. “Because I’m the boy?”

Thea actually smiled. “I’m going to do you a favor and pretend you don’t walk dragging your knuckles. See if you can follow this.” Her smile faded as she began presenting her points. “I work twelve-hour days downtown. That’s if things are going smoothly. You, on the other hand, have the option of working out of your home and have done that on and off for the last five years. I currently live in Fox Chapel. You live in Connaugh Creek. When I get married Joel and I will be living in one of his condo properties on the North Shore.”

“The stadium or the ballpark?”

Thea’s lush mouth tightened briefly. It was enough to keep her from taking the bait. “When you get married you’ll still live in Connaugh Creek.”

“Gina is Sommers Real Estate, remember? We could live anywhere. Even the North Shore.”

“You’ll live in Connaugh Creek,” she said. “Your family. Friends. Everyone is right here. Why would you want to live anywhere else?”

“A good question. Maybe you and Joel could get a home here. I could talk to Gina’s dad.”

Thea kept going. “If the children are with me they’d have to change schools, make new friends. What about their activities? T-ball. Dance. Swimming. I’m not even certain Joel and I will have a yard. They’ve just lost their parents. Another upheaval can’t be good for them. With you, they can stay where things are familiar. You saw them regularly. I didn’t. I
couldn’t
.”

“And why was that?” he asked. “It’s not as if you lived on the other side of the planet. You’re an hour away. Maybe less.”

Because you were always hanging around.
“Are you taking me to task? Because Gabe and Kathy never did.”

Mitch knew he did not want to pursue that. Waving her comment brusquely aside, he pushed his chair back and got to his feet. Increasingly restless, he found himself wishing there was room enough to pace. He walked over to the polished credenza that almost filled the back wall and parted a double stack of accordion folders so he could hitch his hip between them. He stretched out one leg for balance and support. Crossing his arms in front of him, his posture not so much defensive as it was contained, he regarded Thea frankly. “What about this other load of ...
stuff
... that Childers was proposing? It’s one thing that you don’t want the kids living with you, but not even having them on weekends? I don’t understand. How can you not want to see them during summer vacation or on holidays?”

“I never said I didn’t want to see them. In fact, I said I would visit them.”

“Jesus, Thea. Maybe you don’t want to get that close. Are you and Joel afraid they have cooties? I’ll send them with a certificate that proves they were deloused.”

“Stop it!” She swiped at the strands of hair that had slipped past her ear to brush her cheek. The diamond on her left hand flashed with the movement. “I’m not like that.”

“Like what?”

“Insensitive. Cruel.”

“Yeah? I didn’t used to think so but I’m getting to know you better.”

Reeling, Thea forced herself not to show it. She was rather proud when she could respond with a certain steadiness. “I want to see Emilie and the twins. Don’t ever doubt that.”

“But on your terms.”

She hesitated. “I suppose so.” Thea watched Mitch shake his head slowly, something like distaste curling his lip. Distaste might be softening it a bit. More likely it was disgust. She decided she may as well move into the area of complete dislike. “I’m willing to pay child support. Education. Activities. Medical. Whatever they need.”

“Fuck you.”

Thea’s mouth went dry. She could feel a flush stealing up past the scooped neckline of her little black dress by Chanel. Closing the short-waisted jacket wouldn’t help. The heat was rising fast, warming the pendant at her throat, climbing to her cheeks and finally making her scalp tingle. Her cropped hair, light and feathery and already a deeply tinted red, threatened to combust. “I see why you chose cartooning,” she said evenly. “Words are clearly not your forte.”