“Charlotte, that’s gross.” She’d gotten in two poops and one tattle. Banner day in her life. “Please don’t talk about that at the table.”
Charlotte giggled and covered her mouth with her hand like she just couldn’t help herself.
Michael’s lips turned up at the corners and he started to laugh. “I had a dog who used to eat rocks. Do you remember Henry, Natalie?”
“Of course.” Henry had been an extremely obnoxious beagle.
“Henry used to always have rocks in his poop.”
Charlotte fell sideways against Natalie like Michael had knocked her over with a funny bone.
“Your papa used to run over it with his lawn mower all the time.”
“Michael,” Natalie warned.
“One time the mower shot a rock into Nana’s garden and broke the head off a stupid gnome.”
Charlotte pushed herself up and her eyes got big. “Was Nana mad?”
“Yeah. She glued it back together. Never did find one of the eyes, though. I think she still has that busted-up gnome somewhere.”
“I wanna see it.”
“Maybe if you come over for Thanksgiving, I’ll show it to you.”
“Can we go, Mama?”
Natalie’s brows lowered. “I’ll think about it.”
“That always means no.” Charlotte sighed.
“I have a lot to make up for, Natalie.” He looked at the picture Charlotte had drawn, and Natalie knew what he was thinking. That should be him in the picture instead of Blake. If he’d made different choices, it would be him with Charlotte and Natalie. Then again, perhaps not. He’d been bored with her and had found someone else. He could say he was a changed man, maybe he even meant it, but he couldn’t change history. His or hers. And Charlotte was right, “I’ll think about it” always meant no.
The Cowboys and the Ravens cracked helmets on Ron Cooper’s big-screen television. Or maybe it was the Steelers and the Lions, or the Packers and the Raiders. Natalie didn’t know and couldn’t keep the football schedule straight. Mostly because she just didn’t care.
She placed knives and forks and linen napkins on the Coopers’ Thanksgiving dinner table. Growing up, she’d been a cheerleader, but she’d never been a sports fan.
So how had she ended up here today? Setting the table while Carla basted the turkey and Michael and Ron watched the game, everyone looking and acting like they were a happy family? How had this happened when she’d specifically said no last week at breakfast with Michael? She’d told him that she and Charlotte were going to stay home. Home in cozy pajamas pants and lamb slippers, but somehow she was in the Coopers’ dining room, wearing her brown sweater dress, T-strap pumps, and panty hose. She’d curled her hair and put on makeup, and all because for one weak moment, she’d felt selfish and hardhearted. For that one weak moment inside the Shore View Diner, she’d felt bad because Charlotte had drawn Blake instead of Michael and she’d told him that she’d think about Thanksgiving. Everyone knew that “I’ll think about it,” meant no. Just like “I’ll see” meant no, and “Maybe” meant “I can be nagged into it.”
Too bad no one had told Carla. She’d called the day after the Shore View to assign Natalie a Thanksgiving dish. Michael’s favorite cranberry Jell-O, of course. She and Charlotte had tried to make it in their rooster-shaped mold. It hadn’t set up quite right and ended up looking more like a bloody mess.
“I’m so glad you came today.” Carla hugged Natalie about the shoulders. “It’s so nice to have the family together.”
“Carla—” Natalie shook her head as she placed the last knife and fork on a cloth napkin. In the other room, Michael and Ron yelled at that game on TV, and for the first time since moving back to Truly, Natalie felt uncomfortable and out of place in the Coopers’ home. “I’m the ex-wife. Not part of the family anymore.”
“Sure you are.”
Carla and Ron had helped Natalie in more ways than she could even recall at the moment, but things were bound to change now. Michael was home. He was their son. Their loyalty would always be with him, and the reality was that she was not a part of their family. She wasn’t blood. She set down the last knife and turned to her former mother-in-law. “Carla, you and Ron have been such a huge help to me these past five years, and I want you to know that I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“We were happy to help.”
Natalie swallowed. She didn’t want to ruin Thanksgiving, but she felt everything needed to be clear and out in the open. “A few months ago, Michael talked to me about getting back together.”
Carla smiled and placed candles in the center of the table. “He told me. Ron and I would be tickled if that happened.”
That was what Natalie was afraid of. “It’s not going to happen, Carla.”
“I know you don’t think so now, but—”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” she interrupted. “I don’t love Michael.”
Carla straightened and her smile fell. “Maybe not now, but you could fall in love again.”
Natalie shook her head. “No. It’s never going to happen.”
Carla blinked several times and her brown eyes filled with tears. “He’s changed. He’s sorry for what he did and he’s owning up to his mistakes.”
“I truly hope so.” Crap. She’d made Carla cry. On Thanksgiving. She tried to make it better. “Don’t you want Michael to find a woman who can love him like he deserves to be loved?” How had this happened? How had she become the bad guy? “That woman isn’t me.”
“But you haven’t even dated anyone for years.”
Had her holding out for the right man given the Coopers false hope? “I never wanted to bring a man into Charlotte’s life unless it was serious, but that doesn’t mean Michael and I are ever going to get back together. We’re not.”
Carla seemed to deflate right there in the dining room as if Natalie had stuck her with a pin. Tears ran down her cheeks and she mumbled something about a broken heart before she ran from the room.
“What . . . ?” Natalie just wanted to do the right thing. She just wanted this new chapter in everyone’s lives to start off on the right foot. In a good place, but she’d ruined Thanksgiving, instead. After that, everything that could go wrong, did. Carla burned the rolls, and the turkey was as dry as plywood. Charlotte rolled around in her chair and wouldn’t eat. She spilled her milk, then pulled her poufy dress over her head. “Saw-wee,” she said from beneath the big, puffy skirt.
“Sorry,” Natalie pronounced for her daughter, perhaps more sternly than usual. She cleaned up the mess, then pulled Charlotte into the kitchen to talk to her. Charlotte’s lip trembled, then she burst into tears. Great, who was Natalie going to make cry next?
She and Charlotte returned to the table while Ron and Michael kept the conversation light, as if they were just one big happy family. Across the table from Natalie, Carla fingered her knife with one hand and wiped at her eyes with the other. Okay, the finger-her-knife thing might be Natalie’s imagination.
“I bought that fairy movie for Charlotte. It’s Disney,” Carla said as she set her knife and fork on her plate and pushed it aside.
They weren’t offering to send it home. “Charlotte’s tired. We can watch it next time.”
“I wanna stay and watch the fairy movie, Mama.” Charlotte turned and looked at Natalie. “It’s my favorite. I’ll be weally good now. I promise.”
“Honey, I’m tired.” Natalie took a breath and let it out. A dull ache pressed in on her temples, and she’d rather be beaten over the head with Carla’s garden gnomes than spend one more second than was necessary with the Coopers. “We can watch it another time.”
“I’ll bring her home later,” Michael offered.
Natalie lifted her gaze to her former husband and looked into his brown eyes. He didn’t have a cheesy grin or a charming smile.
He simply looked at her, waiting for her response.
“Please, Mommy.”
“Okay,” she gave in because she wanted to go home so bad she feared she might be the next to cry. Besides, she could soak in the tub all by herself for a few hours without interruption. Or she could nap or watch what she wanted on TV or vacuum.
“She can spend the night,” Carla slipped in.
Before Natalie could say no, Charlotte jumped up from her chair. “Yea! I can watch the fairy movie two times. Or maybe five.” She pawed the air and shook her head. Then she took off, galloping from the dining room to the kitchen, running off her excitement.
“It’s too soon.” Natalie felt pressured and pushed and she didn’t like it.
“She spends the night here all the time,” Carla reminded her.
True. Charlotte had her own room at the Coopers’. She wanted to stay, and was Natalie saying no just because she felt pushed and manipulated? That wasn’t fair to Charlotte. “Okay,” she relented, but she wasn’t happy about it. She set her napkin on the table and stood. “I’ll help you with the dishes before I leave.”
“No need.” Carla stood, too, suddenly cheerful, and practically ushered Natalie out the door. Probably out of fear that Natalie would change her mind.
“Have her call me tonight before she goes to bed,” Natalie said as she buttoned her peacoat and grabbed her black purse.
“Of course.”
She kissed Charlotte good-bye, and Michael walked her out to her car. The heels of her pumps sank into the inch of snow on the Coopers’ sidewalk. Michael took her arm. It was the gesture of a gentleman. Something he would do for any woman, but she wasn’t just any woman. There had been a time when his touch would have made her feel secure. Another when it would have sent little tingles up her arm. Today she just felt uncomfortable.
“Sorry I ruined your mother’s Thanksgiving and made her cry,” she said as they walked to the driver’s side door of her Subaru.
“What was that all about?” Michael wasn’t wearing a coat, just his blue dress shirt and navy slacks. A chilly breeze ruffled his sleeves and short hair and gave color to his cheeks. He looked good. Handsome as the boy she’d dated and man she’d married.
“She was holding out hope that you and I would get back together. I told her it wasn’t going to happen.”
He dropped his hand and shoved it in the pocket of his pants. “That’s probably my fault. She knows I want my family back.”
“We’re not family, Michael.” She pointed to him and then herself. “I’m not married to you. You left me for a foreign bank account and a younger woman. Why am I the only one who seems to remember?”
He looked down at his shoes and his brows furrowed. “I remember, Natalie. I remember what I did. To you and my family and people who trusted me with their money.” He shook his head. “I could tell you why I did it, but right now isn’t a good time.”
She didn’t think there was ever going to be a good time. “You told me you left because I was boring.”
He looked up. “I don’t remember that.”
“I do.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “You weren’t boring. It really didn’t have anything to do with you. It was me.”
“Didn’t have anything to do with me?” Was he serious? “It sure felt like it had something to do with me.”
“I meant it wasn’t your fault. I lost the principles and values my parents instilled in me. I lost myself and I lost you.” He hunched his shoulders against the cold. “I lost a lot.”
She’d lost a lot, too.
“Are you ever going to be able to forgive me?”
She shrugged inside her wool coat. He hadn’t said much beyond he was sorry, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to say more. She wasn’t sure there was anything he could say for her to forgive him for the unforgivable. “If you’d left just me, I probably could forgive you. I’m not a perfect person. I’ve certainly made mistakes, but you left Charlotte. You left your baby and you were never coming back.” She blinked back the sting in her eyes. “I love that child so much my heart can’t hold it all. Every time I look at her, my love gets bigger. She is everything to me. Everything, and you left like she was nothing. I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that.”
“She wasn’t real to me then.” He took a step forward and put his hands on her arms. “That’s not an excuse. We tried so hard for so long to have her. By the time you got pregnant, my life was headed down a whole different path.” His hands squeezed her arms, and he shook his head. “I think we forgot how to be together. We forgot how easy it was between us. We forgot that we’d loved each other since the tenth grade.”
She hadn’t forgotten how to be with him. She hadn’t been unhappy. She’d been too caught up with her infertility treatments and trying to have their baby to think about being unhappy. “I’ve wondered if it wasn’t too much for you. I’ve often wondered if, while I was so wrapped up in trying to have a baby, you were unhappy and I didn’t notice.” Not that anything excused what he’d done, and she’d stopped second-guessing herself years ago.
“You were always so easy to be with.” He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. “I’ve missed you, Nat.”
For a few seconds she let him hold her. While a cold breeze rattled the tops of the pines, she let herself feel the weight of his arms and his cheek against her temple. It felt strange. Like someone she should know but didn’t. She didn’t love him. She didn’t hate him. She just wanted to go home.
She pushed out of his embrace. “Don’t, Michael.”
“I love you and want you back.”
She looked into his eyes and told him the truth. For his sake and hers and Charlotte’s. “I don’t love you, Michael.” She hurt him and took no pleasure in the pain crossing the brown eyes she’d once loved beyond anything. “I don’t think you love me. I think I’m easy to be with, like you said.”
“Don’t tell me I don’t love you, Natalie. I spent a lot of time in prison getting my head straight.” He sniffed and dropped his hands. “Do you love him? That big guy who picks up dog poop?”
Blake? Did she love Blake? She looked down at her shoes and dug her car keys out of her coat pocket. Her feet were freezing.
“Do you?”
She was very afraid that she did, but the last person she wanted to talk about it with was her ex-husband. Especially since Blake did not feel the same for her. “Go in the house, Michael. It’s freezing out here and my feet are numb.”
“Do you love him, Nat?”
She also knew Michael. If she didn’t answer the second time, he’d fill in the blanks. She looked up. “Yes.”
He closed his eyes and she was afraid he was going to cry. First Carla, then Charlotte, and now Michael. She was batting a thousand today.
“I’ll bring Charlotte home tomorrow.” He opened her car door for her, and his dark lashes looked suspiciously wet and the color in his cheeks a little too bright. “I’ll call first.”
“Happy Thanksgiving,” she said as if it wasn’t too late. She climbed in her car, and Michael shut the door. It wasn’t her fault everyone was crying, she told herself as she turned the ignition. Charlotte was five and cried at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t her fault Carla and Michael cried. She didn’t love Michael, and that was Michael’s fault and not hers. There had been a time when he had been her everything. A time when she would have done anything for him. He’d been her lover and best friend, and she would have happily spent the rest of her life loving him. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t love him now.
She put the car in reverse and looked behind her. If it wasn’t her fault, then why did she feel so bad?
Chapter Twelve
I took the mutt.
Natalie reached for the paper towel stuck to her refrigerator with a cupcake magnet. The bold, blocky wo
rds had been written with the pink marker sitting on the counter. She guessed this meant Blake was back in town. She’d never seen his handwriting, but it had to be he. Either that, or someone else had walked into her house and kidnapped the dog. After the day she’d had, she wouldn’t be surprised if she found a ransom note and a lock of Sparky’s fur.
Natalie shrugged out of her coat and tossed it on the kitchen counter. She was tired. Emotionally drained and on the verge of a panic attack. The day had started with a disastrous Jell-O mold, had escalated to Natalie making everyone cry, and had peaked with being railroaded into letting Charlotte spend the night.
The smart thing to do would be to get in the bathtub and relax. Yeah, that would be the smart thing she should do, but that wasn’t what she wanted to do. She stared at the note in her hand and felt a funny little glow in her chest. It grew bigger and bigger, and she took a deep breath around it. She’d only had this feeling one other time in her life. With the man she’d left crying in his mom’s driveway, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d find herself drawing hearts on the paper towel and circling Blake’s house on her bike.
When I get back, Blake had told her, we’re going to knock bellies and make wild monkey love.
Natalie bit her bottom lip and set the note on the counter. Then he’d kissed her in front of Michael and Lilah, Ted and his cat Diva. Lilah thought that meant something. Natalie didn’t know what it meant. When it came to Blake, she didn’t know what anything he did meant. Why had he taken Sparky when she wasn’t here? Why hadn’t he waited until she got home? Did he want to avoid her?
I want kisses that lead to long, lazy days in bed. The memory of his seducer’s voice brought with it the memory of his touch, on her face and belly and between her legs. Warm, liquid memories that made her stomach turn warm and her thighs liquid.
Had he left the note on her refrigerator hoping she would see it and walk the short distance to his house? He wouldn’t know that she didn’t have Charlotte. She glanced at the clock on the stove. It was five-thirty. Would he return Sparky after Charlotte’s bedtime, thinking he could spend the night getting her sheets hot and her skin sticky?
What I Love About You (Truly, Idaho) Page 16
