easily understood. But could be quite easily upset.
A sudden loud noise could...
The girl’s expectant look caught at her. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, adding, “Thank you.”
Then when a shadow of something...stronger than disappointment—sorrow, maybe?—crossed Kelsey’s face, she added, “If your dad is willing, I’ll make sure you get to spend some time with him. Even if it’s not during taping.”
And had another expression to deal with. The dad’s. Which was when she realized she’d kind of proposed a personal get-together between her and Dawson and Kelsey and her father. Off set. As though she was hitting on him.
Or something...
“He’s... Dawson wouldn’t... He doesn’t take to new people unless I’m right there with him,” she tried to explain and felt like she was blubbering. Making the distressing situation worse. “If I brought him here, he wouldn’t spend time with you. Not unless he already knew you. Or I was right there with you.”
There were so many other reasons she couldn’t bring her son to the tapings. She’d never get any cooking done. Not with all the unfamiliar sights and sounds that would distract her son. Not with tiny kitchen space being shared by other contestants. Dawson wouldn’t be able to amuse himself at her feet as he did at home.
“And it wouldn’t be fair to you to leave you alone with him until you understood a little bit about being around him...”
“But if I spent time with him first, then I could? I mean, like, I could help you out maybe during the tapings or something?”
For some reason it was important to the girl. Whose father was an opponent.
“I don’t plan to have him on the set, except for the promo family times...”
“But for those...”
“Let’s do this...” Dr. Burke Carter took a step forward and placed a protective arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “Why don’t we make a plan to introduce Dawson to Kelsey this next week and then go from there?”
He was agreeable? What was with these two? They seemed so nice. But Dillon had told her she was too gullible. Too trusting. That it was her fault she was all alone and struggling financially. Because she was too nice. She let people use her.
Kelsey’s gaze was turned on her again. Expectant. Alight.
“I’m so busy...” she said. Dillon was not right. Her situation was not her fault. At least, not because of any wrongdoing. Other than...she’d married too young. Chosen the wrong man.
She noticed several things at once. The drop of Kelsey’s gaze. The droop of her shoulders. The concerned glance from her father. And the resolution in Dr. Carter’s gaze as he looked at Janie.
“We don’t want to intrude,” he said, and she breathed easier, knowing that he was going to let her off the hook. “But if there’s any time we could meet up, maybe if you ever take him to the park or something, or we could somehow join in an activity that wouldn’t require you to give up any time...”
He was a doctor. He must know at least some of the challenges she faced on a daily basis.
She needed to ask him why he was doing this. Why he was pushing.
He glanced at Kelsey, who was watching her again.
It had to do with the girl. Obviously. If she was going to get any information, it would have to be parent to parent.
“I...” Technically what they were asking wasn’t necessarily onerous.
“He’s, like, famous now and I just want to meet him...”
The girl seemed curiously vulnerable. She was at that age...
And Janie had to beat Kelsey’s father in the competition of her life. An opponent far better qualified for the task before them.
“We’re at home all day tomorrow.” Even as she said the words, she regretted them. And didn’t, at the same time. Kelsey’s reaching out to her seemed like...something. Surely not just to find a way to sabotage her so her father could have one less opponent in the competition.
A thirteen-year-old girl with a doctor father could hardly need the money and prestige that came from winning. Besides, the money would go to her father, not to her.
Janie had campaign calls to make. Hundreds of them. Because she hadn’t squeezed them in during the week that had just passed.
“If you’d like to stop by around three...?”
Dawson would be just up from his nap. At his best.
“We don’t need to intrude on your home,” Burke Carter said, frowning. “We could meet for burgers or something.”
A vision of her son with pieces of hamburger smeared all over his face, of the drool that would be on his chin from a tongue with low muscle tone that didn’t always stay in his mouth, brought about another vision. The disgust on the face of a fellow diner at a local restaurant.
“Dawson would do much better if you visited him at home,” she said. Adamant on this detail.
“Can we, Dad?” Kelsey turned to look up at him.
And before Dr. Burke Carter said a word, Janie knew, just by the expression on his face as he looked at his daughter, that she and Dawson were going to be entertaining them. When she didn’t have enough minutes in the day to get her calls done.
Dillon’s voice, telling her that she’d been a sap again, blared through her brain.
* * *
BURKE COULDN’T BELIEVE his good luck. Kelsey was showing interest in something besides his cooking. The show she’d set her sights—and emotional health—on him winning wasn’t her sole focus.
At least for the moment.
She’d always had a thing for kids. And he had to admit the Thanksgiving episode of Family Secrets had stayed in his memory bank because of the Young woman’s kid. As, purportedly, it had with much of America.
But who’d have thought Kelsey would take initiative to actually meet the boy? These days, anyway.
Maybe when Lil had still been alive, he could have seen it happening. Kelsey had always been one to champion the underdog. To try to fix the broken. Like her friend at dance whose parents wouldn’t take her to the doctor for her sore knee.
“Oh, and don’t forget your per diem.” His daughter turned back to the woman who’d just given them directions to her home.
Right. The reason they’d approached her to begin with.
“We’re given an average of the travel allotment offered to out-of-town contestants as well as meal per diem,” Burke added.
“We are?” The consternation on Janie Young’s face gave him a sudden desire to kiss her. Just...he had no idea why. And was uncomfortable with having even had the thought.
“We are,” he said, naming the weekly figure. “Payable at the beginning of each week that we’re on the show.”
“Which is today,” Kelsey added.
“Thank you.” The smile that spread across her face struck him. Not in any particular way. For any particular reason.
It just struck him.
And he knew he’d been hit.
A complication he most definitely did not need.
JANIE WASN’T EVEN out of bed on Sunday before Dawson put a DVD cover on her face.
“Eee, eee, eee,” he grunted in his husky voice.