Feels Like Family (14 page)

What about a father?
a nagging voice in her head demanded. Lots of kids did just fine without a father in their life, she argued with herself. She had. In fact, after seeing how her mom had struggled in one dead-end job after another to give her a decent life after her dad’s death, Helen had been driven to make sure she could always provide for herself and any family that might come along. That determination was what had gotten her into this fix in the first place. She hadn’t allowed herself to be sidetracked by anything that wouldn’t contribute to her financial security and success.

Satisfied with her logic, she stood up abruptly. “I need to be somewhere,” she told Maddie.

“But Dana Sue and Jeanette will be here any minute now,” Maddie said. “We were going to talk about expanding the spa.”

“Apologize for me,” Helen said. “We’ll make up for this next week.”

“But you’re the one who wanted to talk about opening a second spa,” Maddie protested, even as Helen put baby Cole back into her arms. “This meeting was your idea.”

“It can wait,” Helen said. “You, Dana Sue and Jeanette can bounce the idea around and let me know what you think.”

Maddie’s eyes narrowed. “Something tells me you’re about to do something impulsive. That’s never a good thing with you.”

“It’s not impulsive and I don’t need to talk about it. I’ve thought about it from every angle. I’ve probably analyzed it to death.” Okay, not the part about Erik, but maybe it was better not to overthink that. She might start to doubt the wisdom of her plan, and there was no time for doubts.

“Well, you know Dana Sue and I will support you, no matter what you do,” Maddie said, though her brow was creased with worry.

Helen hugged her. “I know, and you have no idea how much that means to me. Thank you for not telling me I’m crazy.”

Maddie grinned. “Did I say that?”

“No, but you heard me and you didn’t utter those words, so I’m taking that as a good sign.”

“Could I say anything that would stop you from doing whatever it is you’re about to do?” Maddie asked.

Helen shrugged. “Probably not.”

In fact, right this second, she couldn’t think of anything that could derail her plan. And somewhere between here and Sullivan’s she’d decide just how much of her plan to reveal to Erik and how much to keep to herself.

T
he sheet of fondant was ready to be draped over the top layer of the three-tiered wedding cake when Erik turned to Tess, who’d been watching him intently.

“You do it,” he said.

Her brown eyes widened in dismay. “I can’t,” she said, though she was clearly tempted.

“Of course you can. How many times have you practiced this?”

She shook her head and backed up a step. “But that was practice. This is the real thing. What if I ruin it?”

“You won’t,” he said confidently. “But if you do, it’s not the end of the world. We’ll do it over. Come on, Tess. You’ve practiced enough. You have to do it for real sometime.”

Just as she was about to drape the smooth sheet of icing over the cake, the door to the kitchen burst open and Helen breezed in. Startled, Tess dropped the icing on the floor, then looked at him with a chagrined expression.

“I’m sorry,” she said, gesturing toward the mess. “I told you I couldn’t do it.”

Erik sighed, regarding Helen with exasperation. “Did it ever occur to you to knock before charging in here at this hour?”

“No more than it occurred to you to ask me for a key to my house that time,” she retorted. She dangled a key from her finger. “My key to Sullivan’s. I’ve had it since Dana Sue opened.”

He shook his head. “Why didn’t I know that?”

“Because it’s not your restaurant?” she suggested sweetly.

“Whatever,” he muttered and bent down to help Tess, who was mopping up the remains of the fondant.

When he stood up, Helen was regarding him with a hint of uncertainty. “Is this really a bad time?”

He bit back a grin. “What do you think? You just scared poor Tess half to death and came close to ruining Jane Downing’s wedding cake.”

“Jane Downing is being married for the fourth time,” Helen said. “I’d say this marriage is as doomed as her cake. Not a big deal.” She turned to Tess. “I’m sorry for scaring you, though. I’m Helen Decatur, a friend of Dana Sue’s and, despite his snide attitude, a friend of Erik’s as well.”

“Helen is the attorney I told you about, Tess,” Erik added. “She said she’d help you with Diego’s situation.”

“Would you?” Tess asked as if not quite daring to hope.

“Absolutely. I would have been by to talk to you much sooner, but I had Karen’s kids and, to be honest, I was a little overwhelmed.”

Tess gave her a shy smile. “Children are a lot of work.”

“They are, indeed,” Helen said. “Why don’t we let Erik finish up that cake and you can tell me what’s happened with your husband?”

“Good idea,” Erik said, relieved to have time to remind himself why he should not be attracted to Helen and why he should not act on his very powerful desire to kiss her. He’d resolved not to act on his feelings until and unless she
came to him and made it clear she was interested in a no-strings relationship. When she’d walked through the doorway a minute ago, a part of him had immediately leaped to the conclusion that he was about to get the answer he’d been lying awake nights thinking about.

“Would you rather speak in private?” Helen asked Tess.

To his disappointment, since he’d hoped for some space so he could reclaim his composure, Tess declined.

“Erik knows what’s happened with Diego,” she told Helen. “I don’t mind if he hears us.”

Helen pulled two stools close together and climbed on one, which hiked her narrow skirt halfway up her thighs, giving Erik an intriguing glimpse of bare skin. He couldn’t seem to keep himself from following the curve of her leg down to her trim ankle and the latest pair of sexy heels she was wearing. The woman did love her shoes. He couldn’t recall ever seeing the same pair twice. He might not know much about designer shoes, but he did know quality. It was plain that habit cost her a fortune.

Apparently she caught the direction of his gaze, because she held one foot out. “Manolo Blahnik’s,” she said as if that would mean something to him.

He grinned at her. “They look good on you.” They were also very tough on his resolve. Those shoes were all about seduction.

“I thought so,” she agreed, then turned to Tess. “Erik says you had an attorney who billed you and never did any work. Is that true?”

Tess nodded. “Jimmy Bob West. He was the only attorney I knew.”

Erik saw Helen stiffen visibly. His determination to stay
far removed from the conversation failed him. “You know this attorney?” he asked.

“We’ve crossed paths a few times,” she said. “Jimmy Bob’s no saint, but I never thought he would sink that low. Tess, tell me exactly what he told you, how much he billed you and what he did.”

As Tess went through the sad tale, Helen took notes, her forehead creased in a frown. There was real anger in her eyes by the time Tess finished.

“You’ll have your money back by the end of the week,” she assured Tess. “One way or another.”

“But what about Diego? He is what matters,” Tess said. “I have all of his papers proving he is here legally. How do we get his deportation reversed?”

“I’ll take care of that, too,” Helen promised. “And if I bump up against too much bureaucracy, I know exactly who can untangle all the red tape. It may not happen overnight, Tess, but we will get your husband back here.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Tess said. “That would be like a miracle for me and my children.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “It is very late. I need to be home.” She regarded Erik worriedly. “I was no help to you tonight.”

“You’ll get your chance another time,” he assured her. “You’re good at this, Tess. It’s just a matter of practice.”

“I’m off tomorrow,” she said. “I think I will practice baking a very special birthday cake for my mother as a surprise. If it turns out well, I will bring you a picture.” She gave him a considering look. “We should create an album, you know. So people can see all the beautiful cakes you have made. We could have a Web site, too. My brother could create it. He’s majoring in Web site design and com
puter skills at junior college. There is nothing he can’t do.” Her face shone with pride.

Surprised that Tess had put so much thought into the business side of things, he nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a terrific idea, Tess. I’ll speak to Dana Sue about it. Have your brother give me a call, okay?”

“I will,” she said. “Thank you again, Ms. Decatur. I really appreciate what you’re doing for me.”

“I’m happy to do it, Tess,” Helen said. “Good night.”

After Tess had gone, Erik studied Helen. “You’re not just happy to help because you care about Tess and Diego, are you? It has something to do with this Jimmy Bob West.”

She grinned. “You’re very perceptive. I want to nail that sleazebag’s hide to the wall. What he did to her was unconscionable.”

“He’s not opposing counsel on some divorce you’re handling, by any chance?”

“He is, indeed. Our last encounter in the courtroom was just my first warning volley. Lawyers like Jimmy Bob give all of us a bad name.”

“Yet, you seem to take pride in being referred to as a barracuda,” Erik noted.

“A barracuda’s one thing. He’s a bottom-feeder, the lowest of the low, an unethical son of a gun.”

“In other words, you don’t like him.”

“I don’t have to like every attorney I cross paths with,” she said. “But I do prefer to respect them. I can hardly wait to have a little chat with Jimmy Bob as soon as I’ve done some research into this situation.”

Erik grinned. “Now that I’ve put you on the scent for blood, what actually brought you by here tonight? I assume you knew Dana Sue wasn’t here, since she told me she was
having a meeting with you and Maddie. Don’t tell me you skipped out on them just to see me.”

She looked vaguely chagrined that he knew about the meeting. “I left early,” she said, sounding oddly defensive. “It occurred to me it might be the perfect time for us to talk without being under Dana Sue’s watchful eye.”

“Interesting,” he said. Helen looked surprisingly ill at ease, he thought. “Something in particular on your mind?”

“Don’t get excited,” she said. “I just haven’t had a good sparring match lately.”

“Really? And that’s the only reason you came by? So we could match wits?”

“Something like that.”

He shook his head. “Not buying it, sugar. You had some other agenda. Come on. Spill it.”

To his astonishment, a burst of color flooded her cheeks. “You’re blushing,” he said, startled.

“I am not. It’s probably a hot flash.”

He winced at that. If she was having hot flashes, he definitely didn’t want to know about it. Wasn’t she a little young for them, though? He tried to recall what he’d read about menopause during his EMT training, but since most of his courses had focused on emergency medicine, not much came to mind.

He did like the fact that he’d somehow managed to throw her off-kilter. He decided to keep her there.

“It’s okay to admit you came by because you couldn’t go another second without seeing me,” he said. “You don’t have to be embarrassed because you find me irresistible.”

She leveled an indignant look directly into his eyes, then glanced away. “This was a mistake.”

“What was a mistake?”

“Thinking I could spend more than fifteen minutes with you without wanting to strangle you.”

He bit back a grin. “We spent a whole night together not that long ago and I don’t recall you wanting to strangle me then.”

“Did you miss my reaction to the fact that you conned Dana Sue into giving you my key?”

“Oh, that,” he said dismissively. “You weren’t really upset about it.”

“Yes, I was.”

“But you got over it,” he countered. “You just made a big deal out of it because you thought you should.”

She scowled. “I made a big deal out of it because what you did was sneaky and underhanded.”

Suddenly, the color that had remained in her cheeks washed right out, leaving her complexion pale. “I need to go,” she said, grabbing her purse and heading for the door.

Erik stepped in front of her, worried by her pallor. “Are you okay? You’re not feeling sick, are you?”

“No. I, um, I just remembered something I have to do.”

He recognized tap dancing when he heard it. “Something to do?” he echoed doubtfully. “At this hour?”

“Yes. I should have done it hours ago.” She pushed past him. “I’ll see you.”

He stared after her. What was up with that? One minute she was the same old feisty Helen, the next she was taking off like a scared rabbit. It was evident from the way she’d avoided meeting his gaze that she’d been lying through her teeth. And the only thing she had to do was get away from him.

He shrugged off his confusion. It was just one more reminder that she was way too complex and complicated for
him. If he ever did break down and let another woman into his life, he wanted one who was serene and easy to read. Helen was anything but.

So why couldn’t he get her out of his mind?

Well, that had certainly been a disaster, Helen thought as she drove away from Sullivan’s. The moment she’d accused Erik of being sneaky and underhanded over a key, of all things, it had struck her that what she was planning was a thousand times worse. And yet, now that the idea of having him father her child had taken hold, she couldn’t seem to abandon it.

At home she went through her bedtime routine by rote, missing the chaos Daisy and Mack’s presence produced underfoot. She reached for the phone to call them, but a glance at the clock told her it was too late.

In bed she made mental lists of all the pros and cons of involving Erik in her plan to have a child of her own. The positives outweighed the negatives, or maybe she’d only weighted it that way so she could go through with it. In the end, though, she would have the child she desperately wanted. Wasn’t that the only thing that mattered?

But what about what Erik wants?
a nagging voice countered. He couldn’t have made it any clearer that he didn’t want children. After wrestling with that very hard truth for most of the night and the next day, she managed to convince herself that he’d be okay once he knew she didn’t expect anything from him. In the meantime, she’d just have to find some way to live with the guilt of knowing she was deceiving him about the real reason she was initiating an affair with him.

Exhausted and cranky after a couple of sleepless
nights and countless frustrating calls to deal with immigration bureaucracy in an attempt to resolve Diego’s immigration status, she left home on Wednesday morning and headed straight for Jimmy Bob’s office. She was in the perfect mood to take him to task over what he’d done to Tess.

The law offices of West & Davis were located in Serenity’s newest business complex, a cluster of single-story, pale-pink brick buildings with black shutters. It had been built a few years ago by a partnership of several of the town’s professionals as a tax write-off. Maddie’s ex-husband was one of the partners. Bill Townsend’s suite of offices for his pediatrics practice dominated one entire building. West & Davis occupied another. The third building housed the more modest suites of a dentist, an accountant and a local developer. One of the growing real estate companies had just taken over the entire fourth building.

It was early enough that the parking lot was mostly empty. Helen immediately spotted Jimmy Bob’s shiny new BMW convertible parked in front of his office. The spaces most likely used by his staff were still empty, as was his partner’s assigned space, which meant she could raise a real ruckus with Jimmy Bob without fear of being overheard.

Briefcase in hand, she strolled inside and walked straight into his office without bothering to knock. Jimmy Bob’s gaze shot up and alarm flared in his eyes before he carefully covered it with a phony smile.

“Helen, good to see you. Did we have an appointment this morning?”

“No. I was hoping you could spare a few minutes before your day gets too crazy.”

“Well, of course I can. Have a seat. You want some cof
fee? Made it myself from a special blend I order online. Have to say it’s the best in town.”

“Then by all means,” she said. “I’d love a cup.”

He poured it for her, then went behind his imposing desk in a tactic that was meant to intimidate. “This is about the Holliday case, I imagine. Is Caroline ready to settle?”