A Wife Worth Waiting For. Arlene James
with my father-in-law’s choice. But you mustn’t let us become a nuisance. Promise me that you won’t let us take unreasonable advantage of your time or generosity.”
Us. A happy glow spread through the reverend, at once oddly familiar and utterly foreign. He heard himself saying, “I promise, provided you’ll call me Bolton.”
She gave him that brilliant smile again. It forced him to gulp down a sudden lump in his throat.
“Of course,” she said, “and you must call me Clarice.” Then, getting to her feet, she held out her hand again. “Thank you, Bolton, for everything.”
He scrambled up and around the desk, grasping her fingertips. “Uh, about Trent…that is, your suggestions for activities of interest to…us, him…and me, that is.”
She laughed at him. It was a most companionable laugh, almost affectionate. “I’m sure you’ll do very well in that area all on your own. Why don’t we take a clue from Wallis in this instance? Why don’t I bring Trenton around for a short visit, and the two of you can decide how you want to begin. All right?”
He nodded, feeling patently ridiculous for having babbled so. “Fine. This evening perhaps? Or tomorrow morning. Whatever is most convenient.”
“We are completely at your disposal. Choose a time.”
He couldn’t think for the life of him. Finally he just snatched a time out of thin air. “Nine-thirty.”
She shook his hand. “Nine-thirty tomorrow morning it is.”
Tomorrow morning. Of course. Nine-thirty at night would hardly be the time to begin such a project. “Right,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound like the idiot he felt at the moment.
She smiled at him benignly. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Right. I mean, yes. Tomorrow, definitely.”
“At nine-thirty.”
“Ri—uh, uh-huh.” He was starting to sound like a broken record, for pity’s sake!
She gently extracted her hand from his and left, that smile upon her face.
Bolton sank down upon the corner of his desk, mind awhirl. Well. He felt as if he’d been hit between the eyes. She was not at all what he’d expected. This woman was no cipher, no colorless, defeated little wren. She was gentle, yes, and sensitive—even delicate—yet intelligence and determination had lit a bright spark of vivacity in her—and struck sparks off him. Oh, yes, sparks were flying everywhere. He laughed aloud, eager to see her again, to feel those sparks again, which he would do at nine-thirty the next morning. Suddenly he smacked himself in the forehead with the flat of his hand. Quickly he leaned across the desk and slapped the button on his intercom machine.
“Cora?”
“Yeah?”
“Do I have anything scheduled for nine-thirty tomorrow morning?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Nine-thirty tomorrow morning,” he repeated forcefully.
A lengthy silence followed, then, “Hey, Bolt, tomorrow’s Saturday.”
Saturday! He gaped, then he snapped off the machine and started to laugh. Saturday. Apparently his mind had gone out to lunch the moment Clarice Revere had walked through the door! Could it be, he wondered, that Wallis Revere, of all people, had actually introduced him, finally, to the woman his own beloved Carol had promised him existed. If so, that old saw about God working in mysterious ways had just proven a serious understatement. Why, the mind boggled. He shook his head. Wallis Revere. Miracles, apparently, did still happen.
He was waiting in the outer office when they arrived, long legs crossed at the ankles as he leaned against the corner of his secretary’s desk. He looked uncommonly handsome and surprisingly at ease in loafers, crisp white jeans and a sky blue polo shirt. His short, dark hair was combed casually to one side from a straight part, and his mouth was curved upward in a welcoming smile that deserved a like response. She could not deny the urge to give it to him, and so moments later found herself standing in the middle of the floor grinning like an idiot while his dark winged brows slowly lifted. The realization brought on a fit of giggles, which she stifled with less than complete success. Trenton, solemn little man that he was, stared up at her with undisguised curiosity. The look on his face said it all: his mother never giggled. Clarice cleared her throat and schooled her expression.
“Reverend Charles,” she said decorously.
Those winged brows pulled down into a frown. “I thought we had agreed on given names.”
And so they had. Whatever was wrong with her? “Yes, of course. Well then, Bolton, I believe you’ve met my son, Trent.”
“Indeed I have.” He straightened and stepped forward, bending slightly to offer his hand to the boy. “How are you this morning, Trent?”
Obediently, Trent shook hands. “Fine, sir, thank you.”
The reverend folded his arms thoughtfully. “You have excellent manners, young man. Do you think we could dispose of them in favor of something as mundane as, say, friendship?”
The boy merely stared at the tall, dark man before him, then, ever so slowly, he turned a questioning gaze up at his mother. Clarice smiled. Why not? Heaven knew her little boy seldomly had opportunity to be just that, a little boy. Why did she think this man could teach her son how to be a child? Trent turned his attention back to the reverend, his expression as inscrutable as usual, and slowly nodded.
Bolton Charles ruffled the boy’s hair. “Okay, now, buddy, here’s the deal. When it’s just you and me or maybe you and me and your mom, I’d like you to call me Bolton. That all right with you?”
Trent screwed up one eye and chewed one corner of his mouth in his typical expression of engrossing thought. Clarice smoothed a hand through his hair, repairing the damage done earlier and fixing this moment in her mind. He was such an endearing little boy. So bright, so beautiful, so determined to be all that he was expected to be—and with such conflicting expectations! Wallis wanted a carbon copy of the son he had lost, who in turn had been meant to be a carbon copy of himself, while she wanted only for her son to discover who and what he was. She was under no illusions about Wallis’s motives in setting up this arrangement between Bolton Charles and her son. His goal, ultimately, was to remove Trenton as much as possible from her influence. What Wallis failed to consider was that by bringing in Bolton to monopolize the boy’s time, he also removed his grandson from his own influence. She dropped her hands to her son’s narrow shoulders, prompting him to answer the reverend’s question. Obediently, Trenton complied.
“I think I’ll call you Bolt,” he announced firmly.
The reverend blinked, clearly taken aback, but then a hand came out to stroke his chin and a grin slowly stretched his mouth into a broad curve. “All right, if you like.”
Trenton shrugged, unconcerned. “I do,” he said ingenuously. “It fits you.”
“Does it now?”
“Mmm-hmm. ‘Sides, I like having my own names for people,” Trent admitted.
Bolton laughed. “All right. Bolt it is. Now suppose you tell me what you prefer to be called.”
The reply was immediate. “Trent.”
“Not Trenton?” the reverend asked, glancing at Clarice.
The boy tilted his head back and sent a look of his own up at his mother. Clarice’s heart seemed to expand to fill her entire chest as she recognized the love and trust shining in her son’s eyes. But there was more. In that look was also the desire to protect, and