“I don’t think so.”
“To going with me or that others would help?”
“To going.”
“Do you mind if I ask why?” He caught her gaze.
“That’s not my idea of a good time anymore.”
What had brought on that remark? He pushed his plate away. “Well, this is a first. A woman who doesn’t want to get dressed up and go to a party.”
“Not all women like that sort of stuff.”
“It’s just one night. Attending with me isn’t like going to the gallows.” He chuckled. “I promise.”
“It’s still no, thank you.” She pushed half of her leftover hot dog bun across the plate.
“Well, I guess you have other plans for the way you’re going to get the money for the house. I’m sorry, I need my car. However, I’ll make a donation to the cause.”
As if she was all of a sudden concerned about sounding rude, she said, “I do appreciate you trying to help. I’ll take you up on that.” She stood with plate in hand. “I guess I better get
the kids home to bed. They have school tomorrow.”
Mark also gathered his plate and joined her as she walked into the house. They found Allie and Jeremy on the couch, Gus snoring between them.
“I’ll write that check and help you get them loaded,” Mark said as he took her plate and walked into the kitchen. While there he wrote a check. When he returned, Laura Jo already had Allie in her arms. He scooped Jeremy up and followed her out of the house. They worked together to get each child in and secured.
Digging in his front pocket, he pulled out the check and handed it to Laura Jo.
Laura Jo read it. Her eyes widened. She looked at him. “Thank you. This is very generous.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Also thanks for giving Allie today. I don’t have much of a chance to do things like this for her.”
“I didn’t just do it for Allie.” They walked around to the driver’s door and Laura Jo opened it.
“I know Jeremy also had a good time.”
“What about you?”
“Me?’
“Yeah. I was hoping you had a nice day, too.”
“I did.”
She acted as if it was a foreign idea that he might be interested in her having a good time. “Good. Maybe we could do it again sometime. Just you and me.”
“I’ve already told you. We have nothing in common.”
“Nonsense. We have a lot in common. Our childhoods, medicine, parades and laughter. That’s more than most people have.” When she’d been teasing him about Gus there had been an easiness between them. He wanted to see if she was putting up the front he believed she was. To make her act on her attraction to him. He was tired of being dismissed by her. “I bet if you tried, you could find something you like about me. Maybe this could help.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. She only had time to gasp before his lips found hers. She didn’t react at first, which gave him time to taste her lips. Soft, warm and slightly parted. Then for the briefest of seconds she returned his kiss. His heart thumped against his ribs at the possibilities before her hands spread wide against his chest. She shoved him away, hard.
His hands fell to his sides.
“You had no right to do that,” she hissed.
“I can’t say that I’m sorry.”
She slid behind the steering wheel and before
she could close the door he said, “Goodnight, Laura Jo.”
“It’s more like goodbye.” She slammed the door.
Not a chance.
Mark watched her taillights disappear up his drive. They’d be seeing each other again if he had anything to say about it. She was the first woman he’d met who had him thinking about the possibilities of tomorrow, even when he shouldn’t.
It intrigued him that she put up such a fight not to have anything to do with him. That was except for the moments she’d melted in his arms. Could he get her to linger there long enough to forget whatever stood between them? Long enough to make her appreciate something they might both enjoy?
* * *
Laura Jo couldn’t remember the last time a man had kissed her, but it sure hadn’t been anything near as powerful as the brief one Mark had just given her. Her hands shook on the steering wheel. Why had he done it? Hadn’t she made it clear to him that she didn’t want to become involved with him? Had she been giving off a different signal?
It didn’t matter why. It couldn’t, wouldn’t happen again. There couldn’t be anything real between them anyway. When she did open up
again to a man she would know him well. She wanted someone settled, who wouldn’t leave town at any moment. Someone who cared nothing for being involved in Mobile society. From what she knew about Mark so far, he had none of those qualities.
The lights of the cars flickered across the water as she traveled over the low bay causeway back to Mobile.
Thinking about and fretting over Mark was a waste of time. Laura Jo fingered the check he had given her. It was literally a raindrop in a pond to what she needed. She had to find some way to raise the money needed to buy the house. There was also Allie to see about and her job to keep. Mark Clayborn hadn’t been hers years ago and he wasn’t hers now.
Mark, she’d already learned, was a man with a strong sense of who he was. If she let him into her life he might try to control it, like her father and Phil had. She needed a partner, a father for Allie, someone sturdy and dependable. Until that happened it was her job to make decisions about her life and Allie’s. She would never again depend on a man or let him dictate to her.
Marsha was there to greet her when she pulled into the parking area of the apartment complex. She had to have been watching for them. Knowing Marsha, she’d want details of
the afternoon and evening. When Laura Jo had called her earlier to inform her that they would be staying a little longer at Mark’s for supper, her speculative tone had made Laura Jo feel like she needed to justify her decision.
She’d told Marsha, “Don’t get any ideas. There’s nothing going on here.”
“Okay, if you say so.” Marsha hadn’t sounded convinced before she’d hung up.
Allie and Jeremy woke when she parked. They got out of the car, talking a mile a minute about the parade and Gus. Marsha grinned over their heads at Laura Jo. “Come in and tell me all about your visit to Dr. Clayborn’s,” Marsha said, as if to the children but Laura Jo had no doubt she meant her.
“There’s not much to tell and the kids have school tomorrow.” Laura Jo locked her car.
“I know they have school tomorrow but you can come in for a few minutes.”
Laura Jo straightened. Marsha wouldn’t let it go until she’d heard every detail but Laura Jo wouldn’t be telling her about the kiss. The one that had shaken something awake in her. It wouldn’t happen again, even if there was an occasion, which there wouldn’t be. She doubted that her path and Mark’s would cross again. They didn’t even live on the same side of the bay.
Allie and Jeremy ran ahead on the way to
Marsha’s apartment. She and Marsha followed more slowly.
A few minutes later, Marsha set a glass of iced tea in front of Laura Jo and said, “Okay, spill.”
“Mark let the kids dress up Gus, his dog.”
“So you’re on a first-name basis with the good doc now?”
Laura Jo rolled her eyes. It was starting. “He asked me to call him Mark and it seemed foolish not to.”
Marsha nodded in a thoughtful way, as if she didn’t believe her friend’s reasoning. “So what else did you do?”
“We went to the parade. Mark walked with the kids while I watched.” She chuckled.
“What’s that laugh for?”
“I was just thinking of the look on Mark’s face when he showed up pulling a wagon with the kids and the dog in it he’d bought off a boy.”
Marsha gave her a long look. “That sounds interesting.”
“It was.” Laura Jo launched into the story, her smile growing as she told it.
She ended up laughing and Marsha joined her.
“So you went back to his place?”
“I wish you’d stop saying ‘so’ like that and acting as if it was a date. The only reason I
agreed to go was because Allie wanted to dress up the dog and be in the parade so badly.”
“So…”
Laura Jo glared at her.
“You didn’t enjoy yourself at all?” Marsha continued without paying Laura Jo any attention.
“I don’t even like the guy.”
“This is the most you’ve had to do with a man since I’ve known you. I think you might be a little more interested in him than you want to admit.”
“I think you’re wrong.” Laura Jo was going to see to it that it was the truth. “There’s one more thing and I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but he did ask me to the krewe dance.”
“And you said no.” Marsha said the words as a statement of a fact.
“I did. For more than one reason.”
Marsha turned serious. “We could use his contacts.”
“I’ve already told you that I’m not going to do that. What if I saw my parents and they found out I was there, asking for money. I couldn’t face them like that.”
“Even at the cost of losing the house? Laura Jo, you’ve been gone so long I can’t imagine that your parents would see it as crawling back.”
“You don’t know my father. It would be his
chance to tell me ‘I told you so.’ I lived though that once. Not again.”
Marsha didn’t know that Laura Jo hadn’t spoken to her parents since before Allie’s birth.
“So I guess we’ll put all our hope in that grant coming through.”
Laura Jo took a sip of her tea then said, “Yes, that and a moneybags willing to help us out.”
“You’ve got a moneybag in Mark Clayborn.”
“Oh, I forgot to show you this.” Laura Jo pulled the check Mark had given her out of her pocket.”
Marsha whistled. “Very generous. He must really like you.”
“No. It was more like I made him feel guilty.”
“Whatever you did, at least this will help. We just need to get others to be so kind.”
“Now I’m not only indebted to him for giving Allie a wonderful afternoon but for helping with the shelter.”
“You don’t like that, do you, Ms. I-Can-Do-It-Myself?”
“No, I don’t. We have nothing in common. He and I don’t want the same things out of life anymore.”
“Oh, and you know that by spending one afternoon with him?” Marsha picked up both of their glasses and placed them in the sink. “You do know that people with money also care
about their families, love them, want the best for them?”
All of what Laura’s Jo’s father had said to her just before he’d told her that Phil was no good. Had her father felt the same way about her as she did about Allie? Worry that something bad might happen to her? Worry over her happiness?
“Well, it’s time for me to get Allie home.”
As Laura Jo and Allie made their way to the front door Marsha said, “We’ve got to find that money for the shelter. There are worse things in life to have to do than dress up and go out with a handsome man to a dance.”
“What handsome man, Mama?”
“No one, honey. Aunt Marsha is just trying to be funny.”
Mark was handsome. But what Laura Jo was more concerned about was the way his kiss had made her feel. Had made her wish for more.
* * *
Mark came out of a deep sleep at the ringing of his cell phone.
What time was it? He checked his bedside clock. 3:00 a.m. This was never good news. Had something happened to his father?
Mark snatched up the phone. “Hello.”
“Mark, its Laura Jo.”
The relief that he felt that the call wasn’t about
his father was immediately replaced with concern for her.
“I’m sorry to call…”
He was wide awake now, heart throbbing. “Are you all right? Allie?”
“Yes. Yes. We’re fine. It’s a child staying at the shelter. The mother has no insurance and is afraid of doctors. I think the child needs to be seen. Fever, sweating, not eating and lethargic. The mother won’t agree to go to the hospital. Will you come?”
“Sure, but will she let me examine the child if I do?”
“I’ll convince her that it’s necessary before you get here. If she wants to stay at the shelter then she’ll have to let you.”
“Give me directions.”
Laura Jo gave him an address in a less-than-desirable area of the city.
“I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
“Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate this.”
The longest part of the trip was traveling the two-lane road between his house and the interstate. Even at this early hour it took him more time than he would have liked. Finally, he reached the four-lane, where he could speed across the two-mile causeway that bisected the bay.
The child must really be worrying Laura Jo
or she would never have called him. She’d made it clear she didn’t plan to see him again when she’d left his house. He’d thought of nothing but their kiss for the rest of the evening. To hear her voice on the other end of the phone had been a surprise. The child’s symptoms didn’t sound all that unusual but with a small person it wasn’t always straightforward.
He drove through the tunnel that went under Mobile River and came up on Governor Street. There were no crowds now, only large oaks and barriers lining the main street. A number of miles down the street he made a left and not long after that he pulled up in front of what looked like a building that had been a business at one time. The glass windows were painted black and there were dark curtains over the door window. One lone light burned above it. It looked nothing like a place for pregnant woman or children. He could clearly see why they needed a house to move to.
Laura Jo’s car was parked near the door and he took the slot next to hers. Picking up his cell phone, he pressed Return. Seconds later, Laura Jo’s voice came on the line. “I’m outside.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Mark stood at the door for only seconds before the dead bolt clicked back and Laura Jo’s face came into view.
After making sure it was him, she opened the door wider. “I appreciate you coming.”
He entered and she locked the door behind him. The room he was in resembled a living room with its couches and chairs spread out. There was one small TV in the corner. At least it looked more welcoming from the inside than it did from the outside.
“Anna’s family’s room is down this way.” Laura Jo, dressed in jeans, T-shirt and tennis shoes, led him down a hall toward the back of the building, passing what he guessed had once been offices. Were families living in nothing more than ten-by-ten rooms?