Vivian Leiber - The Bewildered Wife

A paradise littered with discarded towels, children’s clothes, toys and well-worn shoes.

A paradise guarded by Wiley.

A paradise ruled by bears.

Several times, Susan looked up to see the children’s collection of Eastman teddy bears aligned on the dresser top. And she continued the tale she had told the night before, which was really just a continuation of the story of the night before that.

In fact, the story she had created about the Eastman bears extended as far back as any of the Radcliffe children could remember—though, in fact, Susan had only started working for the family the year before. A year after their mother’s death.

Baby Edward’s head drooped to Susan’s shoulder. Henry squirmed, rolled around and finally found the perfect position. Chelsea closed her eyes.

I wish this were mine, Susan thought, letting herself be selfish for just one final second. And then she realized that she had already gotten her wish. They were here.

Maybe Dean Radcliffe wasn’t with them, but her crush on him was so excruciating that he’d just make her nervous.

No, in a life already beat down with reality’s harshness, Susan had a way of seeing the perfection in her day.

“And then Sister Bear walked all the way to the magic castle,” she continued, finding her place in the story.

Dean Radcliffe tossed his keys on the hallway console and leafed through the pile of envelopes. Junk mail, requests for money, invitations to flashy charitable events Nicole would have loved. Why couldn’t people just send money to help out their favorite charity—instead of requiring a black-tie event in return?

He pushed the mail to one side and walked through the darkened living room, carrying a cake box and a dozen roses.

Nicole was still in this house, though she had been dead for almost two years. He wondered if her death was what fueled his insatiable desire for work—never wanting to face the moment in the day when there as nothing left…but to come home. He raked his fingers through his blue-black hair and strode through the marbled hallway.

He paused as he reached the dining room. The crystal chandelier cast a faint golden glow on the remnants of a party—paper plates, noisemakers, half-eaten pieces of cake.

He shuddered.

Late again.

He really hadn’t wanted to be.

Susan seemed like a nice nanny—in fact, she was the only person who would stay.

So he should make an effort.

Had wanted to make an effort.

Had made an effort.

He had spent a good two or three minutes with his secretary, Mrs. Witherspoon, telling her he wanted a cake, a dozen roses and a present from the jewelers. And Mrs. Witherspoon, who had worked for him since he graduated college and had worked for his father before him since the Jurassic Age, had taken care of everything with her usual pursed-mouthed efficiency.

He put the cake box down at the head of the table and pulled the small blue velvet jewelry box from the inside pocket of his charcoal gray suit jacket. He opened the box and studied the simple, silverlinked bracelet with three charms—two were silhouettes with Henry and Edward engraved in bold, block letters and one silhouette had pigtails and was engraved with Chelsea’s name.

Simple. Nice. Festive.

But nothing a young woman could get the wrong idea about. A decidedly perfect nanny gift. Mrs. Witherspoon had done an excellent job.

Too bad he had missed the little party, but surely Susan couldn’t expect that he would leave the strategic planning meeting for the Eastman Toy Company takeover just for her birthday!

No woman could expect that of him, especially not a sensible nanny like Susan.

“And then Brother Bear came up with a great idea,” Susan said. “He thought if they took a kitchen towel and made it into a sail, they could get across the big sherbet lake…”

“Daddy’s home,” Henry whispered.

“Daddy’s home?” Chelsea hissed.

“Daddy?” Baby Edward asked groggily, opening one eye and then closing it. He snuggled farther into Susan’s warm, soft bosom.

Wiley looked up from his sleep, arching one eyebrow in an imitation of alertness.

Dean Radcliffe climbed up the last landing up to the children’s wing and appeared at the doorway, a tall shadow backlit by the hall light.

“Oh, Daddy,” Henry said, poised between happiness and uncertainty about his father’s mood.

“You missed Susan’s birthday,” Chelsea said accusingly.

“Now, Chelsea,” Susan warned.

As Dean stood in the doorway, all Susan’s sensible thoughts about him being out of reach flew out the window.

She loved him—and could kick herself for loving him.

And he, she reminded herself sternly, barely noticed her. His mind, as always, was on his work.

His only concession to the lateness of the hour was that his burgundy silk tie was pulled a bare inch away from the white Oxford shirt collar. His suit was severely, but most expensively, cut. His eyelids were sooty but, though he had left the house at six that morning, his emerald eyes were as piercing and quick as if he had just awakened.

He raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture that Susan recognized as meaning his head ached.

It should—his days were long, his work was grueling and he came home every day to children who reminded him of the wife he lost. With their blond hair, their freckles, their blue eyes so much like the wife who had died so tragically, so prematurely.

Susan was sure he must have loved his wife very much and mourned her deeply.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Radcliffe,” Susan said, easing off of Chelsea’s bed while managing to hold Baby Edward in a comfortable sleeping position. “Children, give your father a kiss good-night. Then to bed. Henry, pick up your pillow—”

“No, it’s all right. I’m interrupting,” Dean said, raising his hand. “But I do want to talk to you in the study when you’ve put the children to bed.”

Chelsea and Henry fell back onto the comforter in a mixture of relief and disappointment.

“Goody gum drops, we get to finish the story,” Henry said.

“Daddy, I really do want to give you a goodnight kiss,” Chelsea said.

But Dean Radcliffe was already halfway down the hall to his study, followed by the ponderously slow but very loyal Wiley.

Ten minutes later, she went downstairs to the study with a tray piled high with two hot dogs, chips and the salad she had made earlier in the evening.

The steak was burnt beyond recognition and the baked potato shriveled like a piece of wadded-up paper. The martini pitcher was already washed, dried and put away in the bar armoire. Besides, she didn’t want to remind him of the promise he had made—and broken.

“Susan, please sit down,” Dean said as she came into the room. He looked at her with the wary but gracious expectancy he no doubt gave to all business associates, secretaries and clerks. “How kind of you to bring me dinner. I could have made something for myself.”

“Actually, I just made a little more of what I made the kids,” Susan said, conceding nothing about her hopes and dreams and efforts. She put the tray down on the only corner of the desk not covered with papers, and sat on the edge of one of the leather wing chairs opposite him. “You didn’t eat yet?”

“No, I guess I didn’t,” he said. “I was too busy working out the details on the Eastman Toy deal. There’s a lot of money riding on it.”

He reached for a hot dog.

“How is it you always guess correctly the nights I don’t have a business dinner and the ones when I’m able to come home in time for dinner?”

“Just intuition, I guess,” she said. She didn’t add that appearing at nine o’clock was hardly coming home in time for dinner.