Home Again Read online

  “Yeah, well, I have a lot to do running Chandler Construction.”

  “We’ll get into that later,” Cedar said. “There will be times, Mr…Mark, when I’ll want to see you alone, sessions when I want to see you and Joey together and, of course, sessions with Joey on his own. I also do things a bit differently than most child psychologists.

  “I feel an office setting can be intimidating for my young clients, so I’ll come to your home, or go on an outing with Joey, perhaps join you and Joey for dinner at a pizza parlor. We’ll decide on those things further down the line.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Now about Joey’s appointments. To have you bring him here after you pick him up at day care isn’t workable. He’ll be tired, hungry…no, I need you to get him here three times a week right after school.”

  “Man,” Mark said, running one hand over the back of his neck. “Okay, yeah, I’ll figure something out.”

  “Good.” Cedar got to her feet holding the information form. “Let’s go look at the appointment book and set up some of those sessions.”

  “There’s one other thing I feel you should know,” Mark said, rising.

  “Yes?”

  “Joey hasn’t cried.”

  “What?”

  “He hasn’t cried through any of this.”

  “Are you certain of that?” Cedar said, joining him in front of her desk. “What about when he was at the neighbor’s while you were tending to the estate?”

  He shook his head. “Maggie, the neighbor, made a point of telling me that Joey didn’t want to talk about his parents, nor did he cry if she or her kids brought up the subject. He didn’t cry at the funeral, or when I brought him here or…no, Dr. Kennedy, Joey hasn’t cried.”

  “Cedar is fine. I like to keep things casual, but goodness, Joey must address his pain, let his emotions out instead of bottling them up. For a seven year old to not have cried when his very world was destroyed is saying a great deal about his mental state.”

  “You sound…I don’t know…like you really care about Joey and you haven’t even met him yet.”

  “He’s a child in crisis, Mark. Of course, I care.”

  “Do you have kids of your own?”

  “No,” Cedar said quietly. “I don’t. My clients are my family. Oh, and my very spoiled cat Oreo.”

  “You don’t have a husband or children, and you devote yourself to other people’s kids who are messed up. That’s admirable, but don’t you get lonely at times?”

  “Do you?” Cedar said, starting toward the office door.

  “Ah-ha,” Mark said, following her. “Now that was a slam-dunk shrinky-dink maneuver. You answered a question with a question.”

  “Of course,” Cedar said, laughing. “We’re taught that the very first week of classes in college.”

  “Whoa,” Mark said, as they entered the reception area. “I thought your smile was something else, but your laughter is…is…okay, I’m going for corny here. Your laughter is like wind chimes. Nice, very nice.”

  “Thank you,” Cedar mumbled, then glanced at her watch. “We’d better hurry. You fill out this form while I set up some appointments for Joey. You don’t want to be late picking him up at the day-care center. Do you cook dinner for Joey?”

  “Sort of. We eat a lot of scrambled eggs which is about it as far as my culinary skills go. We do the fast-food circuit and order in.”

  “Mmm,” Cedar said, shaking her head. “We’ll discuss that later, too.”

  Cedar scheduled appointments for Joey over the next two weeks while Mark filled out the form. She gave him a paper with the session dates and times, then offered him her hand.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “I’m looking forward to speaking with Joey.”

  Mark took her hand. “I appreciate your being willing to take him on.”

  Was that heat slithering up her arm and across her breasts? Cedar thought. Good heavens, it was. Mark’s hand was strong and callused, yet so gentle. His touch had caused a strange and disturbing feeling—

  “May I have my hand back now?” she said.

  “Oh. Sure,” Mark said, releasing her hand very slowly. “Thanks again…Cedar.”

  “You’re welcome…Mark.”

  When the door to the suite closed behind Mark Chandler, Cedar sank into Bethany’s chair, propped her elbows on the desk and pressed her hands to her warm cheeks.

  That man was dangerous. He radiated sensuality by merely entering a room with that loose-hipped walk of his. Add to that his height and build and chiseled features…gracious, he must have to beat off women with a stick.

  Well, she was on guard now against the potent Mr. Chandler. He wouldn’t fluster her again. She wouldn’t allow that to happen. She’d just be more alert than she usually was against men.

  The focus had to be Joey.

  Poor, sad, devastated little Joey, who really, really needed to cry.

  Chapter Two

  As Cedar entered her house, she realized she had thought about Mark Chandler and Joey during the entire drive home. That was understandable, she decided, because Mark had been the last client she’d seen that day.

  She’d read the form Mark had filled out and learned there were no other relatives on either side of Joey’s family. It was just the two of them, uncle and nephew, and that combination was definitely not going well at the moment.

  Cedar closed the door behind her and told herself to leave her two new clients, Mark and Joey, on the porch that swept across the front of the house.

  Over a year before she had purchased the old, two-story Victorian house. It had the charm and grace of a past era and she’d been captivated, imagining the marvelous stories the stately structure would tell if its walls could whisper.

  In the year since signing the mortgage papers the charm of her home had greatly diminished. Although it had passed the initial inspection and was declared to be in excellent condition, she had spent the past fourteen months tending to one repair after another.

  She was seriously considering selling the savings-draining house and buying something newer. However, since her reputation as a child psychologist was growing in Phoenix and more and more clients came under her care, there didn’t seem to be a spare moment in her schedule to explore the market for something else.

  Plus, the thought of packing and moving again was more than she could bear. For now she would stay put, but she had mental fingers crossed that the rash of repairs was at an end for a while.

  “Oreo, I’m home. Come do your I’m-so-glad-to-see-you thing.”

  A large, black-and-white cat strolled into the room, then wove around her legs, meowing loudly.

  Was this pathetic? Cedar thought. Was she becoming a classic spinster at thirty-two, coming home to a house that held nothing more than a fat cat to greet her?

  Don’t you get lonely at times?

  The words Mark Chandler had spoken suddenly echoed in Cedar’s mind and a shiver coursed through her. She reached down and picked up Oreo.

  “Hello, pretty girl,” Cedar said. “We’re a good team, aren’t we? We don’t need anyone else living here with us and, no, we don’t get lonely at times.”

  Oreo wiggled in Cedar’s arms, then jumped to the floor and ran toward the kitchen.

  “But the question remains,” Cedar said, pointing a finger in the air, “as to whether you love me for me, Ms. Oreo, or because I’m the one who feeds you? Do I want to know the answer to that? No, I do not.” She shook her head. “Isn’t this super? Now I’m talking to myself, for Pete’s sake.”

  Cedar went upstairs to change into soft, faded jeans and an equally worn Arizona State University sweatshirt. Returning to the main floor, she went into the kitchen, fed a complaining Oreo, then opened the refrigerator to see what might tempt her for dinner.

  Mark could only make scrambled eggs, she thought. Why were men so quick to decide that their gender made it acceptable to be helpless in the kitchen? It was no lon
ger politically correct to assume the attitude that cooking was woman’s work. Mark should buy a cookbook and prepare nourishing, well-balanced meals for growing Joey. Cooking, in fact, was something the pair could tackle together, use as a bonding tool. She’d have to speak to Mark about that and—

  “That’s it, Mark Chandler,” Cedar said aloud, as she took lettuce and a tomato from a shelf. “Go back to the front porch where I left you. Right now.”

  But Mark refused to budge.

  He seemed to hover while Cedar prepared her meal of pasta with spicy sauce, a tossed salad and two slices of garlic bread.

  He was at the table while Cedar consumed her dinner, then cleaned the kitchen. When she settled into her favorite easy chair that was big enough for two, he somehow managed to perch on the rounded arm of the chair.

  Cedar snatched up the book on the table next to the chair, turned on the light and opened the book to where she’d left off the night before. After reading three paragraphs and realizing she hadn’t understood one word, she snapped the book closed and frowned.

  What on earth was going on here? she thought. She’d had a date with a dentist a month ago and had forgotten he existed by the time he’d backed out of her driveway after bringing her home.

  Why was Mark Chandler, who was a client and automatically not eligible for anything other than professional meetings, consuming her thoughts and managing to have such an intense affect on her? His presence was so palpable, she felt as though she could reach out and actually touch him right there in her living room.

  Now there was an enticing image, Cedar mused. Touching Mark Chandler. She had a feeling the chest beneath that faded shirt was rock-solid, as were his arms and those long, long legs. His thick hair just called to feminine fingers to sift through it, then watch it glide back into place. His lips—

  “Aakk,” Cedar yelled, as Oreo jumped into the chair and startled her back to reality. “Oh, good grief, Oreo, you scared the bejeebers out of me. But I deserve it because I had no business thinking what I was and…Oreo, give it to me straight. Am I losing it?

  “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before and it’s disconcerting to say the least. I mean, really, Mark Chandler isn’t even my type, you know what I mean? I go for the suit-and-tie guys, not dust-covered construction…dudes. So why is Mark capable of consuming my brain and…”

  Oreo leaped over the arm of the chair and left the room.

  Cedar sighed. “That went well. This whole situation is so ridiculous, my own cat decided it wasn’t worth listening to.

  “Okay, I’m on my own. This is Thursday. I see Mark again on Monday when he brings Joey for his appointment. Between now and then I’ll get it together and knock off this nonsense. Yes, I will, because I am woman…in charge, in control.”

  Cedar opened the book to the proper page and began to read, extremely glad there wouldn’t be a test later on what she was supposedly comprehending.

  Mark straightened the blanket over a sleeping Joey, then left the toy-strewn bedroom. He wandered down the hall to the large living room and slouched into a well-worn chair he refused to have reupholstered. Picking up the remote from the end table, he clicked on the television, only to be greeted by canned laughter. He shut it off again.

  It had been another silent evening in the Chandler household, he thought dismally. No matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t get Joey to respond to his chatty questions with more than one-word answers. Joey had just stared at him with those big, dark and so damn sad eyes of his and Mark had finally given up and allowed the kid to finish his scrambled eggs in a silence that seemed to weigh a ton.

  “Ah, hell.” Mark dragged his hands down his face, then laced them on his chest.

  Mary had trusted him with her son, Mark thought dismally. He and Mary had been so close, and he missed her. At times he caught himself reaching for the phone to call her and hear her cheerful voice. She’d be devastated if she knew how unhappy Joey was in his new home with his Uncle Mark, and disappointed in her brother for being such a lousy father.

  “Ah, hell,” he said again.

  He’d spent more than one evening sitting here mentally beating himself up because he couldn’t break through the walls that sad little boy had built around himself. Well, now things were different. He’d taken a positive step toward getting help for Joey by seeing Cedar Kennedy.

  Cedar.

  He liked her name. It was unique and had a nice ring to it. And he liked her smile and her dynamite wind-chime laughter. Her hair was pretty, framing her delicate features with soft blond waves and… Why wasn’t a woman like that married? How stupid and blind were the men in Phoenix, for crying out loud?

  Maybe she hated men. Why would she hate men? Had she been badly hurt in the past by some jerk? That was a disturbing thought. He’d like to pop that guy right in the chops for…no, he was getting carried away here. He didn’t have a clue why Cedar Kennedy wasn’t married.

  Maybe she’d been too busy establishing her career, just as he had been, to become involved in a serious relationship. That made sense. He’d come right out and asked her if she ever got lonely and she’d thrown that question right back in his lap.

  Did he get lonely?

  What difference did that make anyway? He didn’t have enough hours in the day to do all that needed tending at Chandler Construction and now he had become an instant father of a little boy who was so miserable, it was enough to break a person’s heart.

  Well, come Monday, things were going to be different once he placed Joey in Cedar’s care. He’d do whatever Cedar recommended.

  Except what had she meant by saying they’d talk later about his lack of cooking skills? Hey, eggs were good for a kid and there was nothing wrong with hamburgers and pizza.

  Cedar. He was definitely looking forward to seeing her again on Monday. She was, he hoped, the solution to Joey’s unhappiness, and he was eager to get this show on the road. His anticipation didn’t really have anything to do with Cedar the woman, no matter how attractive she was. Or how her smile lit up her face, or her laughter.

  “Enough,” Mark said, pressing the remote to bring the television to life. “Watch the news, Chandler, and quit thinking.”

  “I suppose you want me to give up my baby for adoption just like everyone else. Well, I won’t. I don’t care what you say, I won’t.”

  Cedar looked at the sullen fifteen year old who sat opposite her desk. “I didn’t suggest that at all,” she said gently. “I simply asked how you planned to provide for your child, Cindy.”

  “I’ll manage,” Cindy said, then began to nibble on one of her fingernails.

  “How do you feel about the baby’s father leaving town when you told him you were pregnant?”

  “I don’t need him,” Cindy said, dropping her hand to her rounded stomach. “I made a mistake by thinking he loved me, but it’s no big deal. He’d be a crummy father anyway.”

  “But you’re not making a mistake by insisting that you can manage to raise a child on your own, without a high-school education?” Cedar said.

  “No. I’ll get a job. I can wait tables, or whatever. Waitresses make good tips if they’re nice to the customers. And I’ll get a cute little apartment and fix it up really nice. I’ve done a lot of babysitting, you know, so I can take care of my baby just fine. It’s not as though I haven’t thought this through. I know what I’m doing.”

  Cedar nodded. “Okay. I’m going to give you an assignment I’d like you to complete before we meet again next Monday.”

  “Oh, bogus,” Cindy said, rolling her eyes heavenward. “What is it?”

  “I want you to look in the newspaper for apartments, then enquire about how much money you’ll need to move into a place of your own…such as first and last month’s rent, security deposit, the whole nine yards. Then I want you to find out what waitress jobs are paying these days. Also, call several day-care centers and ask about their rates.

  “You do that much, then we’ll work toge
ther to figure out the additional cost of diapers, formula, utilities, transportation and on the list goes. Now, before you start to argue with me about this, remember you signed a contract stating that you would cooperate with me one hundred percent.”

  “Yeah, right, okay,” Cindy mumbled.

  “Good. I’m sure your foster mother is in the waiting room because our time is up,” Cedar said, getting to her feet. “I’ll see you in a week. We’ll meet here again, then in the future let’s consider getting together in a park or a cozy café.”

  “Whatever,” Cindy said, then rose and stomped across the office, closing the door behind her with a resounding thud.

  “Oh, Cindy,” Cedar said, sinking back into her chair. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I’m going to burst your bubble.”

  Cedar opened Cindy Swanson’s file and wrote notes from the session with the pregnant teenager.

  Cindy’s divorced mother had four younger children at home. When Cindy had announced that she was pregnant, the mother couldn’t deal with it. She’d called Child Protective Services and had Cindy placed in foster care. CPS had then made arrangements for Cindy to become one of Cedar’s clients. Beyond the many cases the social service organization had directed to her, she also got referrals from schools and private physicians…like the one who had recommended her to Mark Chandler.

  Mark Chandler, who was no doubt sitting in the waiting room right now with Joey.

  Mark Chandler, who hadn’t strayed far from her thoughts the entire weekend, the rotten bum.

  Cedar placed Cindy’s file in the out basket for Bethany to file, then reached in another basket for Joey’s file and placed it on her desk. She stood, tugged on the hem of the navy blazer she wore with a red blouse over winter-white slacks, then walked slowly across the room. She drew a steadying breath before opening the door.

  Cedar felt, and tried to ignore the immediate increased tempo of her heart as she looked at Mark sitting on a sofa against the far wall. When she shifted her gaze to the small boy next to him, her heart did a funny little two-step.