Chapter Twenty-Nine

Friday. Her last full day as temporary nanny. All Audrey could think about was the kiss. Dennis wobbled and tasted like wine, and finally crushed her against him like a man possessed.

The kiss itself was fantastic, but she didn’t like the fact that he’d talked about his dead wife and then reached for Audrey. It unnerved her. She wanted to know that when Dennis kissed her, he did it with a clear head and a willing heart, not in helpless, wine-soaked remembrance of a lost relationship. She wasn’t a substitute wife, and she deserved a man who knew that.

And everything he’d told her about his wife–it was hard even to wrap her mind around the tragedy. And the guilt Dennis must carry. Suddenly, his demanding notes regarding Cole’s care took on new meaning. He wasn’t necessarily being hypercritical and micromanaging. He was dealing with his emotions over Katherine’s death by being extremely vigilant about their son.

It made sense, and it made her want to soothe and comfort him.

“We have to play a game now.” Cole ran up to Audrey with both hands hidden behind his back. “The find-the-baseball game.”

Ah. So it was a baseball he was holding behind his back.

“Cole, we really don’t have time for that now.”

“Too late. I already hid it. See?” He pulled his hands from behind his back and waved a silver trophy stand. Audrey recognized it instantly. It usually sat on the bookcase in Dennis’s office, front and center, with an autographed Ernie Banks ball on top. “Let’s play 2, Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub.” Audrey didn’t know much about baseball, but even she knew that Banks was a legend.

“Don’t even tell me you took your daddy’s special ball.”

Cole didn’t seem to notice her horrified tone. “I didn’t take it, Miss Turner. I hid it.”

“Where?”

“That’s not how the game works. You have to look.” Cole hopped down the hall. “I wonder where you’ll look first. Which room will be hot and which room will be cold?”

Audrey checked her watch. They really didn’t have time for this. In fifteen minutes, Dennis would be home from work, and Cole still needed a bath. But if she couldn’t find that baseball, no telling what Dennis’s reaction would be.

“Just get undressed while I look. Got it?”

“Okay.”

Audrey pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

“Cold!” Cole shouted.

She caught the door mid-swing and backed into the hallway.

“Shirt off!”

“Okay.” Cole fumbled with a button. Audrey darted around him on her way to the dining room.

“You’re getting warmer,” Cole sang.

“Give me a hint. Is it in the china cabinet?”

“Um, I’ll just tell you that it is either in the dining room or in the living room. That’s your hint.”

Audrey glanced through the glass doors on the hutch, but didn’t see the ball among the unused decanters and platters. She yanked open a drawer and found a single large photograph in a silver frame. Dennis’s face smiled at her, relaxed and happy in an expression Audrey couldn’t seem to get enough of. He wore a black dinner tuxedo and looked devilishly handsome, the crisp white shirt setting off his deeply tanned skin.

On his arm was a sleek, dark woman with the kind of poise that could only come from a combination of character and upbringing. She wore a simple white gown and held a cluster of calla lilies.

It was their wedding picture.

So that was Katherine. Audrey peered at the bride. Her eyes were dark, her limbs long and very thin. She was almost as tall as Dennis. The top of her smoothly coiffed head came even with his eyebrows. She was beautiful and neatly groomed, but not in a way that seemed out of the ordinary. She could have been that beautiful every day of her life, not just on her wedding day.

Audrey picked up the frame and found loose snap shots beneath it. Dennis with his arm around Katherine. Katherine in a white bikini on a webbed beach chair. In a silver evening gown. Under an ancient, spreading tree. There was even one of her, regal and cool, flanked by Dennis’s parents. In every snapshot, she was the model of elegance and femininity, fresh and poised and glowing.

Nothing at all like Audrey in her jelly-smeared twill and denim, with her silly jokes and awkward, unpredictable responses to him. Dennis couldn’t possibly want her, not after he’d had Katherine. It would be like switching from caviar to corn flakes. Impossible.

The memory of the kiss came back to her. He’d talked about Katherine, and then reached for her. But he still wanted Katherine. He had to. Nothing else made sense. He missed his beautiful, perfect wife and Audrey had just happened to be in the room. It meant nothing more than that.

“Find what you’re looking for?” Dennis’s voice behind her jerked her from her reverie. She hadn’t heard him come in. She dropped the frame and slammed the drawer shut.

“Your baseball. I’m looking for your baseball.” She dared a glance at him even though her face was ruddy with embarrassment. She looked away and missed the dimple pop out in his cheek.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve found you in my drawers.”

She groaned. If she could have, she would have evaporated like dew just to escape him. She would have melted into the floor like an ice cube on a hot plate. She would have turned into a dust bunny and hopped under the hutch. Anything to escape. Anything to end the moment. Anything to put some distance between her and those pictures of his amazing wife.

She pushed past him and darted for her tote bag in the hall. Her sweaty palm slipped on the doorknob. She had to get out of there. Escape. From him, from her muddled feelings. It was all too real, those pictures made it all too real, his story and then those pictures–she needed air. And space. Right now.

“Audrey, wait. It’s okay. Really.”

She heard him, but it was too late. Her heart hammered in her chest, and if she didn’t get away this instant, she didn’t know what she would do. Cry. Scream. Nothing good. Nothing that his perfect, gorgeous wife would have ever done.

“I have to go—goodbye—have to go now–ask Cole to tell you where he hid the baseball.” Through the door, she ran as fast as she could for the stairwell, not willing to wait for the elevator.