Her Man Friday (25 page)

"Yes, well, as you pointed out yourself, Mrs. Beecham, I'm not home very often." He lapsed into thoughtful silence for a moment. "I suppose I could pay someone to visit the school for me from time to time…"

"You're here now," she pointed out unnecessarily, ignoring his jibe. "Why don't the two of us take a walk, and I'll tell you a little bit about the school?"

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, clearly none too thrilled to have to undergo a tour. In spite of that, he said, "Wonderful. Maybe you can tell me where all my money is going. Because it certainly isn't going toward the upkeep of this place."

"No, it's not," she agreed readily, something that clearly surprised him. "Oh, don't worry—the building is perfectly safe. But we're not overly concerned with cosmetic perfection here, Mr. Kimball. Every nickel we can squeeze goes toward the edification of our students. And as expensive as you think the tuition is, I assure you, it's scarcely enough to cover costs. Education comes at a high price in these days of technological wonders. And an institution like ours can't afford to be left behind."

She extended her arm toward the door, indicating Mr. Kimball should precede her, but he only glanced back at her with an expression that said,
You've got to be kidding
.

Then he extended his own hand toward the door and said, "I never forget my manners, Mrs. Beecham. After you."

As if she believed
that
for even a second. In spite of his alleged courtesy, Caroline really didn't like the idea of walking ahead of Schuyler Kimball. Mainly because she knew he'd be back there ogling her. It wasn't any misguided sense of vanity or conceit that made her feel that way. Simply because Caroline didn't have any vanity or conceit. And even an eccentric like Kimball should be interested in something other than a too-rounded woman in an unattractive, colorless dress. But Schuyler Kimball was obviously the kind of man who went for anything in estrogen.

"When Chloe first came to Van Meter," she said as she exited the office and tried to pretend she didn't notice the
huge
man with the gun who stood up to shadow Mr. Kimball. She should have realized a man worth that much money would have a bodyguard… or pet gorilla." She seemed as if she would do fairly well. For the first week or two, she seemed to be a pretty enthusiastic student. But gradually, she seemed to lose interest, In school, in the few friends she'd made, in herself."

"And what, pray tell, Mrs. Beecham, would be your explanation for such a thing?"

Caroline ignored the petulance in his voice and decided to instead be heartened by the fact that he'd at least asked a question about Chloe. Maybe he wasn't quite so cold-hearted as she thought.

Maybe.

"I've thought about it a lot," she said, "and I'm inclined to believe that, when Chloe first came to Philadelphia from Las Vegas after her mother's death, she really did want to start her life anew. There's no doubt that she was terrified of the prospect of coming to live with you, Mr. Kimball—"

"
Me
?" he asked incredulously, his steps faltering as he did. With no small effort—and very little success—he tried to cover his gaffe. "Why would she be terrified of
me
?"

He seemed to be genuinely puzzled, Caroline marveled. Unbelievable. "Well, just a shot in the dark, Mr. Kimball, but maybe because she was leaving everything she knew, everything that was familiar—regardless of how dubious the comfort of those things might have been—and going to live with a man whom she'd never met before in her life, a man who had never once illustrated any desire to make her a part of his life."

"I didn't even know about Chloe until I was notified of her mother's death," Kimball told her, his voice edged with resentment. "How the hell could I have, when her mother never said a word to me about her?"

It was as close as he had come to admitting Chloe was his daughter, Caroline noted. And something in his tone when he spoke suggested that perhaps he wasn't quite as convinced of his nonpaternity as he let others believe.

"Regardless," she continued, softening her own tone when she did, "the girl was scared. Yet she seemed to be honestly willing to start over."

Kimball eyed her warily, but Caroline sensed he really was starting to take an interest in Chloe. "Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Because of some of the things she said to her friends and teachers—and to me—I sincerely believe she wanted to put her past behind her and use this opportunity to… reconstruct herself, if you will. I think she was hoping that you would acknowledge her as your daughter, and that by doing so, she might be able to claim an identity other than the one to which she'd been forced to mold herself, thanks to other people's perceptions of her. But no one here—no one in her family, at any rate—seemed willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. You viewed her from the start as a troubled, difficult adolescent girl who had little hope of changing, so that's what she decided she would be."

"And I suppose your teachers only reinforced that," Kimball surmised.

"Not at all," Caroline countered. "Our teachers are the best in the country, Mr. Kimball. We pay them well in the hopes that they'll stay on here at the school—that's part of where your money goes. In addition, however, we have a cooperative program here that invites considerable teacher participation. Despite our efforts with Chloe—and I assure you we have made efforts—she has slipped beyond our sphere of influence."

He hesitated only a moment before asking, "Why is that, do you think?"

"Because the way she's viewed and treated at home is infinitely more important—and holds infinitely more impact—than the way she's viewed and treated here. And at home, she simply isn't getting what she needs."

Caroline paused as they approached Chloe's core classroom, then she opened the door for them to enter. On the other side was a standard issue classroom circa 1942, little changed from its original state, save the addition of a few computer terminals and Formica-topped tables that were at least twenty years old. The evening sunlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows opposite, in spite of their smudges and grime, tinting the room with gold and orange, colors that continued in the autumn-themed bulletin board on one wall. The chalkboard bore evidence of recent—and not quite thorough—erasure, and a few errant motes of dust danced and spun in the long sunbeams.

"Oh, God," the billionaire murmured beside her before he strode quickly to the center of the room. "It's as if I never left."

Startled by his remark, Caroline followed him in. But she stopped well short of where he stood himself. "What are you talking about?"

But he didn't answer her right away. Instead, he closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath, holding it inside himself for a moment.

"Mr. Kimball?" she urged him. "What is it?"

"That smell," he finally said. "That smell of chalk and floor wax and dust. If I close my eyes, I can almost make myself believe that I'm in seventh grade again." His eyes snapped open. "Although now that I think about it, why on earth would I want to be in seventh grade again? I despised school."

"Did you?" Caroline asked.

Kimball turned to the big, silent man standing just outside the classroom, looking in. "Close the door on your way out, would you, Claudio?"

Without a moment's hesitation, the man reached in and pulled the classroom door forward until it clicked shut, exactly as the billionaire had commanded. Only then did Schuyler Kimball turn to Caroline again.

"Yes. I did. I loathed and detested every moment I had to spend in the hallowed halls of education."

She studied him in silence for a moment, thinking that yes, a man like him would have doubtless had a very unsatisfying educational experience. When Schuyler Kimball was growing up, there had been few programs for gifted children that worked well, and even fewer teachers who tried to identify students who were light years ahead of the others. As a result, many children who should have been in accelerated learning programs were instead mis-identified as troublemakers, and even slow learners on occasion. Too many had gone without the guidance they should have received.

And a child with a brain like Schuyler Kimball's, one that would have commanded constant—and very challenging—stimulation, would have probably been labeled difficult, at best. Mainly because he doubtless
had
been difficult as a child without the proper stimulation to keep him challenged or entertained. She could certainly believe that he'd not had an easy time of it at school.

"I wish I had been your teacher," she said suddenly, as surprised to hear the admission as Kimball appeared to be.

He arched his dark brows speculatively. "Do you, Mrs. Beecham?"

She nodded, realizing it was true. "Yes, I do."

He took a few steps toward her. "You doubtless would have handled me with kid gloves. Would have taken extra special care to coddle my big brain, is that it? Then you could have exploited it for all it was worth."

She shook her head. "No, I would have been worse than a Marine Corps drill instructor, exercising your big brain with the most demanding mental calisthenics I could manage."

She smiled warmly, feeling, for the first time since meeting him, as if she might actually be able to get along with him. Because for the first time, she began to understand what kind of person he was. Namely, a normal one. With normal feelings. And normal failings.

She took a step toward him, then thought better of it. No need to get overly confident, after all. She still wasn't the kind of woman who could hold her own with a man like him. Nevertheless, she couldn't help adding teasingly, "Had I been your teacher, Mr. Kimball, you would have had no satisfaction from me."

This time Kimball was the one to smile, but the warmth in his was of a completely different variety than the kind hers had held.
Warmth
, she echoed to herself derisively.
Fire
was more like it.

Slowly, he covered the rest of the distance between them, until he stood in the perfect rectangle of light that tumbled through the window behind her. "Oh, I'd have had satisfaction, Mrs. Beecham," he said. "Eventually."

Once again, just like that, the two of them were on entirely different wavelengths. Caroline couldn't quite keep herself from taking a step backward to preserve the distance she required between them. At least, she
tried
to take a step backward. But Schuyler Kimball reached out a hand and circled her left wrist with sure fingers, tugging her forward again.

"Mr. Kimball," she began to object.

But he lifted her hand and studied her fingers, then asked, "Where's Mr. Beecham? You call yourself 'Mrs.' but you're not wearing a wedding ring. Why is that?"

Caroline dropped her gaze to both their hands and inhaled a shaky breath, hoping it might slow the rapid pulsing of her heart that had kicked in the moment he had touched her. But when she transferred her attention back to his face, her heart rate nearly tripled.

Without breaking eye contact, she told him, "I don't wear my ring, because it's with my husband."

"And where is your husband?" Kimball asked.

"He's, um…" She swallowed hard and furrowed her brows in an effort to ward off the emotion she felt rising. "He, uh… I buried him almost a year ago."

The billionaire's expression changed not one whit at her revelation. As always, he appeared to be bored by life in general and people in particular. But his voice was a little rough when he asked, "Your husband is dead?"

For a moment, Caroline hesitated. Then, slowly and silently, she nodded.

"You lost him?"

"Yes," she managed to whisper.

"You loved him?"

"Yes."

For a moment, Kimball said nothing, only gazed at her with that maddeningly bland expression. Finally, very quietly, he said, "I see."

"No, Mr. Kimball, I doubt you do," Caroline replied just as quietly.

She had hoped he would release her hand now, and that they could go back to the safer subject of Chloe's education. But Schuyler Kimball apparently wanted to keep things right where they were, because although he did indeed let go of her wrist, he opened his hand against hers, palm to palm, his fingertips extending above hers a good inch. Had she wanted to, Caroline could have pulled her hand away from his.

But she didn't want to.

It was the first time a man had touched her tenderly in almost a year. Although there had been touching that morning in Kimball's office—oh, had there been touching, she recalled with a shiver now—it had been rife with tension and uncertainty and demand. This time however, there was only gentleness. Softness. Solicitude.

And it was almost more than she could bear.

"What happened?" Kimball asked, not moving his hand from hers, not moving at all. He only continued to hold her gaze with his, and all she could do was try not to drown in the dark, dark depths of his blue, blue eyes.

"His name was Harry," she said. "Harry Beecham. And he… he, ah…" She inhaled a deep, unsteady breath and released it slowly. "He… was wonderful." She cleared her throat with some difficulty before continuing. "He was a police officer, and he was killed in the line of duty. They called me one night—one morning—at three-twenty-two to tell me he'd been shot when he interrupted a robbery attempt. He, uh…" She swallowed again. "H-he was killed instantly. That was eleven months ago. A week after our tenth anniversary."

Caroline had to consciously stop herself from releasing all the words that wanted to come after those, telling Kimball more than he wanted to know. Thoughts of Harry were never far from the very front of her brain. She wanted to tell Schuyler Kimball that Harry had coached Little League, that they'd tried to have children, but had never had any success, that her husband had grown up in South Philly, that they'd vacationed every summer in Cape May, that more than anything else in the world, Harry had loved Clint Eastwood movies—the old ones by Sergio Leone—Killian's Red beer, "Cheers" reruns, and pizza with extra green peppers and black olives.

Her thoughts and memories were a jumble of images and emotions she could never quite hold onto long enough. Harry had just been such a wonderful, regular guy. And even eleven months after losing him, Caroline didn't know what she was going to do without him.