Free Blue Clouds by Patricia Rice Page B

Then his menacing eyes narrowed and his cutting voice ended her brief victory. “Chad is highly susceptible to pneumonia. Overexertion, overexcitement, and cold water on top of a chest cold will have him in the hospital. You’re a nurse, Miss Cochran. You should know better.”
    â€œIf he exercised more, his lungs wouldn’t be so weak,” she retorted. Knowing she was right in this didn’t quite ease her guilt. Yes, Chad should exercise. But she probably hadn’t chosen the best time or place. She did know better. She was just too wrapped up in making the child like her.
    Chad prevented any further reasonable confrontation. “I want to swim!” he screeched. “I want to swim! I want to swim!”
    His face contorted into the red rage of an infant, and his hands bunched into fists as he pounded the controls and sent his chair flying toward his father. Hitting the edge of the pavement, the chair tipped, propelling Chad outward. Seth leaped to his rescue, catching him just before he hit the ground. Oblivious to his near disaster, Chad pounded at his father’s shoulders, screaming at the top of his lungs. Deep-set eyes glared their rage at Pippa as Seth lifted his son and endured the pounding without a flinch.
    â€œYou have half an hour to pack and get out of here, Miss Cochran.”
    â€œYou and Chad have the rest of your lives to suffer, Mr. Wyatt,” she retorted. She had nothing to lose now. She might as well say everything that needed saying. “I’m a licensed professional. I’ve had ten years’ experience in nursing. I have seen children in wheelchairs. I have seen grown men in wheelchairs. They are not cripples. They do not need to be wrapped in cotton batting. They can swim, play basketball, enter races, do almost anything anyone else can do. Your treatment of him is the next best thing to child abuse.”
    She spun on her heel and stalked up the drive before he could lambaste her with any further tirades. If she had to surrender, she would do it with all flags flying.
    * * *
    Chad’s high-pitched shrieks of outrage reached renewed heights.
    Seth hung on to his twisting, squirming, screaming son while he watched Miss Cochran’s bewitchingly curved rear end clothed in spandex parade up his front stairs and into the house. She probably dripped a trail of water across Nana’s neatly polished floors, but his mind wasn’t focused on that any more than it was on his son’s screams or Pippa’s bathing suit. Only her last words had registered fully, and his thoughts gnawed on them furiously now. Child abuse. She had accused him of child abuse.
    â€œAnything else you need in town when I go in?” Doug asked dryly from behind him. “Or am I packing my bags, too?”
    The child in Seth’s arms wept openly now, clinging to his neck and sobbing as if his heart would break. She’d accused him of child abuse. He’d watched over Chad every single day of his life, hired the best tutors, bought the most-recommended educational toys, provided Chad with everything a child’s heart could desire. How could she possibly accuse him of child abuse?
    Seth wanted to wring someone’s neck. He didn’t know how else to react to the emotions raging through him. He needed to punch something, kick something, fire someone. Anything to release the frustration threatening to explode through his skin.
    He turned and glared at Doug. Doug had been his friend since college. As much of a friend as he’d ever had, anyway. He didn’t have real friends. They’d shared drinks together. Seth had helped Doug cheat so he could pass a course and stay on the team. Doug had given him free passes to the games. Seth had pulled Doug out of the gutter, cleaned him up, and given him a job after he’d lost his NFL position. Doug quit once a week. Seth fired him every day in between. They never talked about their problems. Men