Susan Floyd - Mr. Elliott Finds A Family

Beth Ann sighed and nodded, impatient to have him on his way. Then she opened the passenger side of the truck and helped Iris clamber in. When she had safely belted the older woman in, closed and locked the truck door, Beth Ann called as brightly as she could, “She’s fine. Not a scratch on her. I’ll get her home, clean her up and she’ll be as good as new.”

“Bethany Ann Bellamy?”

Her head snapped up in surprise at the formal use of her name, her eyes narrowing with dread as he came closer out of the fog. She was startled by his bearing and presence. She shouldn’t have been. Carrie always favored the austere type.

“Yes?” Beth Ann deliberately made her voice clipped, masking her recognition.

“Do you know me?” he asked.

With long easy strides, the man walked toward her, looking her over from head to toe. She returned his assessment with cool detachment. He was dressed impeccably. Buff-colored casual linen slacks, well-fit to his long legs, a button-down light green cotton shirt and fine brown leather jacket accentuated his lean, powerful frame. She looked down at his feet, not surprised by the expensive shoes. They matched the look of the vintage Jaguar. She could smell a rich, spicy cologne and swallowed hard as she met his compelling gray eyes, eyes the color of fog and just as chilly. She glanced at his left hand. He still wore his wedding band.

The best defense was a good offense.

“No,” she lied, badly at that, her voice trembling. “I have no idea who you are.”

Christian immediately stopped in his tracks when the woman glanced at him nervously, tightened her hold on the child and then looked furtively at the truck, ready to disappear into the fog. He studied the angles of her pixie face, her narrow chin, the damp brown, almost red, curls made unruly by the wet of the fog, searching for a resemblance to Caroline.

He found none.

While Caroline had been tall, nearly five-ten, with model-like proportions, the top of this woman’s curls would probably just brush the bottom of his chin. Maybe, if he stared at her hard enough, he could see some likeness around the nose and forehead. Her eyes were unfathomably dark, so dark that he couldn’t tell where her pupils ended and her irises began. So unlike Caroline’s sky-blue eyes. Maybe they shared the same nose. But, then again, maybe that was just the fog, his nerves or wishful thinking.

“Who are you?” Beth Ann repeated, her tone tough and uncompromising, even a shade rude for a woman so petite.

Christian cleared his throat. “Christian. Christian Elliott. Caroline’s husband.”

Beth Ann stared at Carrie’s husband, scanning his face. Her pulse thudded at the base of her throat. Even though she’d had a week to prepare for this meeting, she felt as if she were being choked and the shock made the back of her eyes water. For the briefest of seconds, she believed if she looked around this tall, remote man, she would see Carrie hiding in the car, laughing and saying her death was all just a big joke and Beth Ann shouldn’t take her so seriously and these past two years had only been a terrible dream. Her heart thumped against her chest in anticipation, as she shifted around, trying to peer through the fog at his car. But the Jag was empty.

She glanced up at the man, her bottom teeth plucking at her top lip, biting down hard to keep the tears back.

“You’re early,” she said, wincing at the roughness of her tone. Beth Ann put Bernie down, keeping a firm grip on a wiggling wrist as the toddler immediately tried to break free. Then Bernie looked up, way up, into the face of the handsome stranger and with a fit of shyness, turned away to clasp her arms tightly, very tightly, around Beth Ann’s knee almost buckling her leg as she buried her face in Beth Ann’s thigh. Beth Ann straightened herself and loosened Bernie’s squeeze as she smoothed back the little girl’s brown curls.

Christian stared at both of them, then surprisingly retreated two steps to put a more comfortable distance between them. He stared hard at Bernie, who ventured a peek and then dug her chubby cheeks deeper between Beth Ann’s legs.

“I didn’t know how long it would take to get here,” he said by way of explanation, then added, awkwardly, “Your directions were good. But the fog and all.”

Beth Ann blinked.

“Oh,” she said abruptly. “Well, come on. I have coffee ready.” She picked up Bernie again, who remained uncharacteristically silent, as if she sensed Beth Ann’s rising panic. Beth Ann turned to get into the truck.

A firm voice added behind her, “Carrie’s husband is always welcome at our house.”

Iris, the real Iris, had returned, her gray head poking out of the truck window, the confusion gone from her face, the authority back in her voice. She gave Beth Ann a matriarchal look of reproach. Beth Ann breathed a sigh of relief with Iris’s return to reality. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be that bad a visit.

“Yes,” she agreed quietly, finally remembering her manners as she shifted Bernie higher up her hip and opened the driver’s side door. She glanced at him, noting how out of place he looked standing in the middle of the road, the fog just beginning to clear around him. He belonged behind a teak desk in a penthouse office in San Diego, not on a dirt road in Mercy Springs with newly plowed fields surrounding him. “Carrie’s husband is always welcome at our home. Follow me. It’s just down the road.”

With Bernie strapped into her car seat, Beth Ann noticed her hand shook so badly she could barely put the key into the ignition. She felt a reassuring pat on her shoulder.

“All is well,” Iris said, her voice soothing and clear. “This is just what is supposed to be happening.”

Beth Ann gave her a watery glance and a half smile, wondering how many times Iris had said that to her, until it had almost become Beth Ann’s personal mantra. All is well. All is well. Beth Ann took a deep breath and tried to remember what peace felt like. All was well. But it wasn’t well. If it were, Bernie’s adoption would be signed and sealed and Christian Elliott wouldn’t be sitting twenty feet behind them in a car that cost twice her annual salary.

“He can’t have Bernie,” Beth Ann said tightly, as she started the engine.

“He doesn’t want Bernie. He wants Carrie,” Iris responded, her voice clear and unperturbed. And then she said, the focus in her eyes drifting away again, “I want to wear my diamond tiara today. I want you to put my hair up.”

Beth Ann glanced in the rearview mirror as she guided the truck onto the road. Christian Elliott was looking down, his thumb and forefingers pressed between the bridge of his nose and his eyes. Then he looked up and blinked rapidly before following her.

When Beth Ann turned into the driveway, Christian pulled in neatly beside her. Unhooking Bernie from the car seat first, she took the toddler and scrambled to get Iris who had opened the truck door. By the time she got around to the other side, another surprise. Christian, with a small formal bow, cordially offered his arm to assist Iris down, his large hand wrapped securely around Iris’s frail one, giving her complete support, catering to her as if she were a queen disembarking from a horse-drawn carriage rather than a faded pickup truck. He murmured something in her ear that made her laugh, her embarrassment miraculously forgotten.

They all trooped silently into the house, then across the living room and through a swinging door that led into the kitchen. Beth Ann immediately put Bernie down and said to Christian, taking advantage of another adult, “Do you mind watching her for a minute, while I go help Iris?” It was easier to watch Bernie when she was confined to a limited space.

Christian shook his dark head, his gray eyes unreadable. “Not at all.”