Judy Baer - Mending Her Heart

She certainly wasn’t Abigail. She was considerably more reserved, almost cool, and didn’t seem nearly as impressed as he’d hoped with the work they’d done. Some sort of affirmation would be nice—or was it reassurance he wanted? Now that Charley had come to live with him, he was determined to provide the child with the home he’d been missing. Will wanted nothing more than to put down roots for a few years in the guesthouse. This sad but beautiful woman held the reins now. Could he trust her to do the right thing? He didn’t want to believe she’d stand in his way or suggest he leave the guest cottage… Surely not!

“I also tore out part of the wall in this bedroom,” he said, more to fill the silence than anything.

Catherine poked her nose into the wrecked and dusty space. “Why on earth would you tear out the wall of my bedroom?” The furniture was covered with tarps.

“Originally this was the master bedroom.” Will stepped into the room and began gesticulating with his hands. “Back in those days, however, the master suite was often made up of two adjoining rooms with a door or even a dressing room between them. The larger of the two rooms was where the woman of the house slept and her husband slept next door in the smaller room.”

“No kidding? I didn’t know that.”

“We checked some diaries Abigail found and we think that was the arrangement Obadiah and his wife had. Abigail wants…wanted…me to put the door back in so it is like the suite it was.”

He scowled a little, which did nothing to harm his looks. “I don’t know why people thought that was such a good idea. What’s the use of being married if you live in separate spaces? That’s an idea I’m glad we improved on.”

Catherine left Will and hurried downstairs to gather her thoughts. The house, the mess, Abigail’s wishes and her own confusion made her head spin. At the bottom of the steps she nearly tripped over a small army of soldiers assembled on the hand-tied silk foyer rug.

“Be careful, lady,” a small voice piped. “You’re knocking down the rebel army!”

She avoided as many of the rebels as she could but came down hard on a miniature cannon, twisting her ankle. To catch herself, Catherine reached for the nearest thing available, a free-standing coatrack where one of Gram’s straw hats hung. It and Catherine both teetered for a moment before falling into an ungainly pile right on top of the entire defending militia.

Miniature sabers and rifles poked into Catherine like needles, and as she rolled away to escape them, she managed only to embed herself on the rebel camp. Some of these soldiers were metal instead of plastic, and she felt as if she were rolling around on a bed of prickly jacks, the kind she’d played with as a child. “Ouch!”

“Kaboom!” Charley roared happily. “And a meteorite from Planet Zeus landed on them all, crushing the rebellion and killing a whole bunch of dinosaurs besides. Double kaboom!”

Then a small face with brown eyes, rosy cheeks and a fringe of dark hair appeared over her. “Are you okay, lady? You made a great meteorite.” The cherubic-looking little boy frowned. “But I think you broke the rifles off a bunch of my men.”

Then he brightened. “They need to go to the…the….” He looked quizzically at Catherine.

“The infirmary?” she suggested, struggling to keep a straight face. This was one cute, huggable kid.

“Yeah, that’s it. The in-fur-mary.” He scooped up a handful of the injured and swept them into a basket. Making a passable sound as an ambulance siren, he raced out of the room.

Catherine turned to the sound of pounding footsteps on the stairs and soon it was Will’s concerned face that peered down at her. “Are you hurt?”

“Not so much that I have to go to the in-fur-mary,” she said, struggling to her feet.

Will reached out a hand to help her but turned his head toward the back of the house. “Charley, you get in here and apologize to Ms. Stanhope right now!”

Silence.

“If you don’t, these toy soldiers are going MIA, now,” Will ordered in a passable chief commander’s voice.

A squeak in the floor was the only sound of movement. Catherine got to her feet, wiped off a couple plastic soldiers that had imbedded themselves in the folds of her shirt, and waited.

Charley’s tousled head peeked around the corner of the dining-room door. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes danced despite the inevitable scolding that was about to come.

Catherine fought her urge to smile.

Will seemed to have no such trouble. He was fuming. “Please come over here and apologize. I told you not to set up camp where you’d be in the way.”

“I didn’t think anyone would mind now that Gram isn’t here,” the child said, looking repentant.

Gram? There he was again, referring to Abigail as his grandmother.

Charley scuffed the soles of his battered tennis shoes on the highly polished floor. “I’m sorry, lady. I didn’t mean to trip you. I’ll pick ’em up and take them outside.”

Will put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Charley, did you know that Ms. Stanhope owns this house now?”

The child’s eyes grew wide. “Gram gave it to you? You’re lucky…”

Catherine expected him to add “so now you much be rich” or some other childish leap of logic.

Instead he added, “…because you’re Gram’s real granddaughter. You’re not like me. I’m just her pretend grandson.” Longing filled his eyes.

Her heart melted in her chest at the child’s earnest statement. “Thank’s for reminding me of that. I had Abigail as my gram for a long time.” She reached out to touch the boy’s silken hair. “You’re a very sweet boy, Charley. Thank you.”

Will cleared his throat. “Charley, get this mess out of sight, will you? You can set up in the kitchen.” As Charley busied himself on the floor, Will took Catherine’s arm and led her into the sunroom off the main living room.

“Are you okay? Any puncture wounds from your battle with the soldiers?”

When she shook her head, he continued. “You’ll have to excuse Charley. He and Abigail really clicked when he came to live with me. He asked her if he could call her ‘Grandma,’ but she told him her favorite grandchild in the whole world called her ‘Gram’ and that he should, too. He has the same first name as her husband and she liked that. I hope you don’t mind.”

Mind? How could she mind an orphaned child, a child like she had been, seeking love?

“Charley came to me so eager for affection and Abigail liked having a child in the house. Frankly, Charley was fascinated with Abigail, and I took advantage of the fact. With his mother gone, Charley hasn’t had many women in his life and he adored her.”

“That’s fine, Will. He’s adorable. In fact he…” She’d almost said “looks a lot like you,” but stopped herself.

She didn’t even want to hint at the fact that Charley’s uncle was pretty adorable himself.

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