It had been six days since Bernie had moved in, and Jeremy was on the verge of going nuts. He’d offered her total isolation, which he assumed would have her flinging the door open in a few days and at least coming down for dinner. But she’d stuck to their arrangement like glue. She hadn’t poked her head out of that suite a single time, at least when he was home. As one day blended into the next, he wished he’d never offered her that deal in the first place. He’d discovered that there was nothing quite as excruciating as knowing she was in his house but not even being able to speak to her.
“Don’t bother fixing dinner for me tonight,” he told Mrs. Spencer when he got home from work. “I have a dinner meeting.”
“Yes, sir.” She pointed to a tray on the kitchen counter. “Miss Hogan’s dinner is right there. I was just getting ready to take it to her.” She paused. “Perhaps you’d like to instead?”
No. He wasn’t going to her. She was going to have to come to him. “Uh… no. Just carry on the way you have been.”
Mrs. Spencer wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “Actually, I think she’s getting a bit lonely in there all by herself.”
“You told me her mother has dropped by a few times.”
“Yes.”
“She’s perfectly free to have any guests she wants to.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Spencer said. “But perhaps it’s your face she’d rather see.”
Jeremy’s heart stuttered. “That’s unlikely. She’s staying here because it’s the practical thing to do, not because we intend to keep each other company.”
“She asked about you.”
Jeremy froze. “Oh?”
“Yes. She was interested in knowing if you were out of town.”
“Why would she ask that?”
“Perhaps because she expects a visit from you, and she’s searching for a reason why it hasn’t been forthcoming.”
A visit from him? That was the last thing Bernie would want. “I doubt that. She expects nothing from me.”
“Sometimes the most welcome events are the ones we don’t expect.”
“Not in this case.”
“Perhaps I could give her a message?”
“Mrs. Spencer,” Jeremy snapped. “This isn’t high school. I don’t need you to pass a note for me.”
She turned away. “Of course, Mr. Bridges.”
Jeremy blew out a breath, hating that he’d snapped at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”
“That’s quite all right. I clearly overstepped my bounds.”
“You didn’t overstep your bounds. I overreacted.”
Mrs. Spencer nodded. She picked up Bernie’s tray and walked out of the breakfast room, leaving Jeremy feeling more alone than ever.
Two hours later, Jeremy left Gallagher’s Steakhouse, his stomach full of steak and lobster and his head full of statistics he probably wouldn’t remember in the morning. Hell, he didn’t remember them now. He’d just spent the past hour and a half discussing demographics and pricing strategy with his senior vice president in charge of European sales and marketing, and he couldn’t have been more distracted from that conversation if a marching band had come through the room.
Phil fell in step beside him as they left the restaurant. Thank God he’d come along to absorb some of the information, or the meeting might have been a total bust.
“European sales look good,” Phil said. “We’re a little down in Germany, but with that shift in distribution, I think we can pull it back up.”
“Yeah. I’m sure we can.”
“What did you think about the numbers from Italy? They were way better than what I expected.”
“Uh-huh.”
Phil walked along silently for a moment more, then turned to him again. “How did you feel about that pink elephant wearing the tutu who took our dinner order?”
“It was—” Jeremy stopped short. “What?”
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said since we left the restaurant.”
“Wrong,” Jeremy said, walking again. “I heard the elephant thing.”
“You weren’t exactly on your game tonight. What’s up?”
“Nothing. I was just a little distracted.”
“Well, I hope you’re up for the strategy meeting tomorrow with the acquisitions team. I’ll have organizational charts and employee lists for you then.”
“Thanks.”
“Meant to ask you,” Phil said. “Are you planning to go to that donor appreciation event at Texas Southwestern? Every year at that thing Alexis spends the whole evening yammering with her sorority sisters. I just want to know if I’m going to have a drinking buddy.”
“It’s not for several weeks yet. Check with me later, will you?”
“Fine. But don’t you even consider not going.”
“Actually, I’m kind of afraid to go. Has Alexis forgiven me yet for what happened at the museum?”
“Hey, man. You know she loves you. She won’t stay mad.”
“Good.”
“Particularly since it was Bernie who diverted you from Madeline.”
“What? How did she know—” Jeremy stopped short. “Oh, yeah. Madeline knows who Bernie is because they both work at the museum.”
“And Madeline told Alexis. So are you and Bernie seeing each other after all?”
“No. It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?”
Jeremy stopped short, facing Phil. “You’re the nosiest son of a bitch I’ve ever known.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Jeremy sighed. “Okay. Bernie is living with me, but—”
“Living with you?”
“Will you listen? There was a small problem with her pregnancy, and she had to go on bed rest for a few weeks. It only made sense for her to stay at my house where Mrs. Spencer could take care of her. We’re not even seeing each other. She’s in a suite on the other side of the house.”
“You’re not even speaking to her? Isn’t that kind of weird?”
Yes, it was weird. And Jeremy was still kicking himself for his brilliant plan that turned out not to be so brilliant after all. “It doesn’t matter, because there’s nothing going on between us, just as I’ve been saying.”
Jeremy started toward his car again.
“Okay,” Phil said with a shrug. “If you say so.”
“I say so.” Max opened the door for Jeremy, and he slid into the backseat. “See you at the meeting in the morning.”
“I’ll be there,” Phil said.
As Phil walked away, Jeremy tried to remember if his friend had always been this intrusive, or if Alexis was rubbing off on him. Jeremy wasn’t used to his friends’ getting in the middle of his personal business. But frankly, that was because up to now he’d had very little personal business for anyone to get in the middle of.
He had received the invitation for the donor appreciation event at Texas Southwestern, but he hadn’t been all that interested in going. His primary goal in attending events like that one—picking up women—just didn’t interest him anymore. And he knew why.
Ever since Bernie had shown up in his office that day and announced she was pregnant, his interest in other women had all but vanished. He just couldn’t stop thinking about her. During dinner at the restaurant, all he did was imagine her having dinner. In her room. By herself. Not even thinking about him.
She had asked Mrs. Spencer if he was out of town. Did she want to know because she wanted to see him? Or did she want to know because if he was out of town, she could relax, knowing she wouldn’t see him?
Jeremy closed his eyes with frustration. He’d told Mrs. Spencer to stop with the high school behavior, and here he was speculating about every thought Bernie was having, like some stupid kid with a crush trying to figure out how to get a girl’s attention.
A few minutes later, Max drove into his motor court. With a mumbled, “Good night, sir,” he got into his own car and left. Jeremy headed for his kitchen door. But before he could stick his key in the lock, the door opened, and his heart practically leaped out of his chest
Bernie?
She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, but her hair was mussed, as if she hadn’t even bothered to run a brush through it, and she looked more than a little distressed.
“Bernie?” he said. “What are you doing?”
“I have to run an errand.”
“Run an errand? You’re not even supposed to be out of bed.”
“I’ll only be a little while.”
“No. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I have to.”
She started to walk through the doorway, but Jeremy stepped in front of her.
“Damn it,” Bernie said, “will you let me go?”
“Not until you tell me where you’re going.”
“I have to go now!”
“Absolutely not. You’re not going—” All at once, he realized there were tears in her eyes. “Bernie? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Please. Will you just let me go?”
“Whoa, now. Wait a minute. Is it something with the babies?”
“No. The babies are fine.”
“Then what? Tell me.”
“It’s—” She exhaled, closing her eyes. “It’s my mother.”
“What happened?”
“She called me. She’s at the grocery store. The one she goes to all the time. She told me…”
“What?”
Bernie closed her eyes. “That she doesn’t remember how to get home.”
Jeremy blinked with confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“I tried to get somebody else to help. But my friend Teresa doesn’t answer. My aunt is out of town. My grandmother’s driver’s license expired two weeks ago and she hasn’t gotten another one. I wouldn’t trust my cousin Billy to do anything. And I knew Max was with you.”
“Wait a minute. Hold on. What do you mean she doesn’t know how to get home?”
“She’s been forgetting,” Bernie said. “Even more lately. But it’s never been anything like this. And in a few months… a year… oh, God. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
For several more seconds, Jeremy just stared at her, trying to understand. And when he finally did, the realization nearly knocked him senseless.
“Alzheimer’s?”
Bernie took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded.
He closed his eyes for a moment, absorbing that, then opened them again. “Is she in immediate danger? Maybe we should call the police.”
“No! If the police came, it would scare her to death. She’s in her car, so I told her just to stay put, that I’d be there in a minute. She was worried about me getting out of bed, but what was I supposed to do?”
“Where is the grocery store?”
“At Park and Greystone.”
“Call your mother back. Tell her who I am and that I’m coming to pick her up.”
“No. She doesn’t know you. She’s going to be embarrassed. I’m the one who needs to go.”
“No. You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“And you shouldn’t be leaving this house without a bodyguard.”
“Here’s a little secret, Bernie. Every once in a while I slip out by myself no matter what my board of directors says.”
“Maybe I should just call Max now that he’s free. I’m sure he’ll—”
“No.”
Jeremy spoke sharply. Too sharply. But the instant he imagined Max doing this instead of him, for some reason his irritation level shot through the roof.
“I can take care of this,” he told Bernie, speaking more quietly. “Just tell me what kind of car she drives.”
“A 2006 Camry. Silver.”
He grabbed his phone from his pocket. “Her address?”
Bernie told him, and he punched it into his phone.
“What’s her first name?”
“Eleanor.”
Jeremy nodded and slid his phone back into his pocket. He took Bernie gently by the shoulders. “Then get back in bed, okay? You take care of the babies. I’ll take care of your mother.”
She ducked her head and nodded, and when she lifted it again, a single word formed silently on her lips. Thanks.
Jeremy waited until Bernie was back in the house and he heard her lock the door. Then he got into his car, and ten minutes later he pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, looking up and down the aisles for a silver Camry. It was nearly dark, and the halogen lights of the parking lot cast a garish glow. As he turned down the last aisle, he felt a twinge of foreboding. What if Eleanor had tried to drive home after all? If she had, he couldn’t imagine where she might—
There.
When he finally spotted the Camry, he pulled into a space two cars away and got out. He saw Eleanor in the driver’s seat. He knocked softly. When she turned around and smiled weakly, he opened her car door and knelt beside her.
“Hi, Eleanor,” he said.
“Are you Mr. Bridges?” she said, her voice a little shaky.
“Jeremy. Bernie mentioned you need a ride home. Is that right?”
“Yes. I’m afraid so.” She laughed nervously. “This is so embarrassing. I can’t imagine why I’m having such a problem tonight. I guess that happens sometimes when you get old, doesn’t it?
“It happens sometimes even when you’re young,” Jeremy said.
“I shouldn’t have panicked and called Bernadette. In fact, I think I know how to get home now, but she told me to stay put until you got here.”
“I’m glad you did,” Jeremy said. “It’s late. Why don’t you hop into my car? I’ll have you home in a jiffy.”
“But my car—”
“I’ll send somebody for it tomorrow. It’ll be back in your driveway by the time you wake up in the morning.”
He took her hand and helped her out of the car, shutting and locking the door behind her. He escorted her to his car. He checked his phone for directions and headed toward Eleanor’s house. She sat in the seat beside him, looking very much like the grandmother she was getting ready to be. She wore a flowered shirt over polyester pants and tiny pearl earrings. She’d pulled a tissue out of her pants pocket and spent most of the way home twisting it into a knot.
A few minutes later, he pulled up to a tidy brick house with a thick St. Augustine lawn and beds full of holly bushes, all of it resting beneath the canopy of a huge oak tree. As Jeremy escorted her to the front porch, the rhythmic chirp of crickets sounded through the dusky evening.
“I shouldn’t have called Bernadette tonight,” Eleanor said as they stepped up onto the porch. “She needs to be resting. But I just…” She shrugged weakly. “I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“You did the right thing. And then Bernie did the right thing by asking me to come.” He smiled. “All’s well that ends well.”
Eleanor nodded, her face looking strained and tired beneath the weak glow of the porch light. “Thank you for helping me, Jeremy.”
“No problem.”
Jeremy turned to leave, but she touched his arm. “Before you go, may I talk to you for just a moment?”
“Yes?”
She took a deep, shaky breath. “By now it should be obvious to you why I had such trouble remembering tonight.”
“Yes,” he said gently. “Bernie told me.”
“Bernadette swears there’s nothing between you two. That there never will be, which means that your interest in her situation may just begin and end with the babies. And that’s wonderful. The babies will need a good father. But where Bernadette is concerned…”
“What?”
“She’s always been so independent. She’ll tell you she doesn’t need help, and she usually doesn’t, but caring for two babies is something even she’s going to find difficult. Taking care of me only adds to her burden, but she’ll do it, because that’s the kind of daughter she is.” She pulled another tissue from the pocket of her pants and twisted it between her fingers. “I was just hoping that maybe… while she’s taking care of me…”
“Yes?”
“You’ll do what you can to take care of her.”
Looking into Eleanor’s eyes, he could see how desperately she wanted to protect her child, even as the tables had turned and any power she had to do that was slowly slipping away from her.
“Of course,” Jeremy said.
“I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but she is the mother of your children, and—”
“Eleanor. Please believe me. You never have to worry about that.”
She nodded, dabbing the corners of her eyes with the tissue. “Are you a churchgoing man, Jeremy?”
“No, ma’am. I’m afraid not.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ve known plenty of good men who’ve never set foot inside a church. And I can tell—you’re a good man.”
For a moment, he found himself feeling sorry for her, because the truth was that he wasn’t a good man. He was a wealthy man. A successful man. But good? Not in the way she thought. If she knew the way he conducted his business sometimes, she’d be shocked. If she knew his history with women, she’d swear he was going to hell. If she knew the carnal thoughts he’d been having lately about her daughter, she’d probably slap him right across the face.
Good?
No. He was here now simply because it was the logical thing to do. Bernie needed to stay in bed, so he went. And there was nothing else to it.
“Eleanor?”
“Yes, Jeremy?”
“Is this house where Bernie was raised?”
Eleanor smiled. “Yes. Her father and I bought it right before she was born.” She paused with a gentle sigh. “He’s gone now. But I still have such lovely memories.”
For an awkward moment, Jeremy had to turn away. He couldn’t look into her eyes and see the pain she must be feeling. It was one thing for her husband to be taken from her. But to know that the memories of him would eventually disappear as well? How in the world did she stand it?
And how in the world was Bernie going to bear watching it happen?
Jeremy said good night, and Eleanor went inside. He started to walk toward his car, only to stop and stand on the porch for a moment to watch what was going on around him. Two doors down, a couple of kids were chasing each other around the yard, a shaggy brown mutt nipping at their heels. Across the street, an old lady was watering her petunias. A young couple passed by pushing a stroller. Fireflies hovered lazily in the dusk, blinking on and off.
All at once, Jeremy felt an unaccustomed tightness in his throat. Did Bernie have any idea how lucky she’d been?
As a child, all he’d known were nasty landlords, cracked concrete, and walls full of graffiti, along with the dismal hopelessness of old people and the angry defiance of young ones. Even now, even when he had everything in life he could ever have hoped for, he still wondered sometimes if people could look into his eyes and see a shadow of what he used to be.
Just then he heard the sound of a car engine running rough, punctuated by an annoying clatter. He turned to see a tired old Chevy Malibu pulling to the curb in front of Eleanor’s house. Its missing passenger window was covered with cardboard and duct tape, its muffler nearly dragging the ground. The man who got out was in his early thirties, scruffy, poorly dressed, and in dire need of a haircut. He zeroed in on Jeremy’s Mercedes in the driveway.
“Hey, man,” he said, as he walked across the lawn toward Jeremy. “Is that your car?”
Jeremy stepped off the porch, then stopped and held his ground. “Yes,” he said warily. “It’s mine.”
“Wow,” the man said with a grin. “Nice. Who are you?”
Jeremy didn’t like the looks of this guy. Why was he loitering around Eleanor’s house? “I’m Jeremy Bridges,” he said. “And you are…?”
Recognition lit the guy’s face. “Jeremy Bridges! You’re Bernie’s baby daddy!”
“Uh… yeah.”
“I’m Billy. Bernie’s cousin. So what are you doing at Aunt Eleanor’s house?”
Jeremy still didn’t like this guy. Not one little bit. “She had a little problem when she was out, so I gave her a ride home.”
“Oh,” Billy said. “I’m staying with her for a little while. Just while I’m between jobs. You know.”
When Billy didn’t bother asking what Eleanor’s problem was, Jeremy knew right away that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. And Jeremy sensed that his being “between jobs” was a fairly permanent state for him.
“You’re one of those computer inventor dudes, right?” Billy said. “Like that Gates guy? No wonder you can afford a great car like that.” He shook his head with awe. “Man, oh, man, I bet you’ve been with some really hot women. If I had a car like that, I’d be boinking hot babes every day of the week.”
That statement told Jeremy that Billy likely had an ongoing problem with women, and it had nothing to do with the car he drove.
“I read the blog at Dallas After Dark sometimes,” Billy went on. “They talk about shit goin’ on around Dallas at all the hot clubs and stuff. I swear I saw a picture of you at one of those once with a supermodel. Can’t remember her name. Something from one of those really cold places where everything’s spelled funny. Tall blond chick in a long black dress. Was that you?”
Jeremy had dated more than one Scandinavian supermodel, and he’d gone to clubs, but other than that, he didn’t have a clue what Billy was talking about. “Yeah,” he said. “That was me.”
“Whoa! I knew it!” He shook his head, a big grin on his face. “Man, you’re living the life.”
What an idiot.
Now Jeremy remembered. Hadn’t Bernie mentioned her cousin Billy? Said she wouldn’t trust him to help with anything?
Smart woman.
“I’m going to be living the life myself one of these days,” Billy said. “As soon as the right opportunity comes along. But you know, my problem right now is cash flow. Hard to get anything going with no walking-around money.” A calculating expression came over his face. “So you’ve got the big bucks, right?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t suppose… you know. That you could you help me out a little?”
“Help you out?”
“A loan.”
“Nope.”
“Oh, come on, man! You got all kinds of money, and you’re practically family. Surely you can loan me a few bucks just to tide me over.”
Jeremy was astonished. Did this guy have any shame at all?
“I don’t lend money,” Jeremy said. “But I do give advice.”
“Yeah?”
“If you want money, earn it. Good night, Billy.”
With that, Jeremy turned and walked to his car, leaving Billy standing in the driveway practically snarling with frustration. Jeremy couldn’t imagine under what circumstances Eleanor would even think about putting a roof over that little deadbeat’s head, but he intended to find out.