Wife by Design

Or was it that Darin needed to be needed? And if so, there was nothing wrong with that.

“And you can be there for her, as a friend,” Grant said gently. “We don’t lie to each other, right?”

“Right.”

“So as much as I want to tell you we’ll find a way to work this out, I can’t do that.”

“Can, too.” Darin’s chin stiffened, jutting out as he said, “You aren’t trying.”

“I’m not trying because I can’t get past the fact that I cannot possibly take care of Maddie, not like I take care of you.”

“I’ll take care of her.”

“What if she has female issues that she doesn’t understand or needs help with?” He was pulling at straws and he knew it, but he had to help Darin see, to nip this in the bud now before it flowered into a hellish mess.

“I know all about them. I was married before, remember?”

“She can’t stay alone all day. And she definitely can’t come with us on job sites.”

He had all he could handle with one handicapped family member. He couldn’t take on two. No matter how much he loved his brother.

Could he?

Was he actually considering this asinine idea?

No. He was not.

“We could take her to The Lemonade Stand in the morning and pick her up on our way home at night. I can give her half of my closet. My clothes don’t fill it up, anyway. And she can borrow my computer and watch my television and use my soap.”

“Who would budget your money?”

Darin looked over at him, frowning. “You, of course.”

“Maddie lives by lists. Who’d make out her lists?”

“Nuh-uh, Grant. Maddie doesn’t live by lists. Lynn does. Maddie just has to follow the list to watch Kara. At Maddie’s house there aren’t any lists.”

Darin had been to Maddie’s house? After all their careful supervision?

“When were you in her house?”

“I don’t know.” Darin shrugged. “One time.”

“Can you remember anything about the time?”

It was a question he regularly asked his brother because Darin had no sense of time beyond being able to count days on a calendar.

“No.”

“Did you have your stitches then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I looked at my leg.”

“What about your arm? Do you remember if you did anything with your left arm?”

Darin wrinkled his nose. His brow furrowed. And then his eyes opened wide. “Yes, I remember right now that I tried to hold the door open for her as we were leaving but my arm wouldn’t move and the door hit her and I was afraid she was going to cry, but she laughed instead. And later she told me that she hoped that therapy worked because it made her sad that I couldn’t use my arm. That’s when I first really wanted her to be my friend. When she looked at me like that and said that.”

All of which put Darin in Maddie’s home the first week they’d been at the Stand.

Before anyone was specifically keeping an eye on them.

“Have you been back since?”

“No.”

“You don’t… You guys don’t…”

“Don’t what, Grant?”

“Have you kissed Maddie?”

“A man doesn’t kiss and tell, Grant.”

“I’m your brother. It’s okay to tell me.”

Darin studied him, as though weighing his options. “Yes, I did kiss her. And she tasted good and we both liked it. A lot. And we want to get married. And I farted, too, and she laughed. And then she farted and I laughed. I want to live with her forever. It would make me very happy, Grant.”

“You do realize this is a huge decision, right?”

“Yes. And you don’t think I can make it, do you?” Darin’s gaze was clear for a moment. And then it clouded over.

“What I think is that it’s too big a decision for me to make tonight,” he told his brother.

“But you aren’t saying no.”

“I’m not saying yes, either.”

“But you aren’t saying no.”

He had to go to bed. Darin needed to go to bed, too. They were going diving in the morning.

“No, I’m not saying no.”