First Comes Love

by Heather Heyford

  “How far will he run?” asked Alex, watching Shay canter pell-mell down the overgrown meadow leading to the vineyards beyond.

  Chloé shrugged, unconcerned.

  Meanwhile, his arm was growing warm with Ella’s well-padded underpants molding around it, taking on its shape.

  “Go over and empty out that bag on the porch and bring it to me.”

  Thank God someone did as she was told.

  “Now, go in the house and bring me out a roll of toilet paper.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  Must he overemphasize everything he said to get results?

  Off Chloé trotted, while gingerly, Alex set Ella on her feet. He pointed at her and said, “Stay.” He waited a few seconds. When he realized she wasn’t likely to go far, he dipped a hand into the pool water to find it nicely warmed by the sun. Then he backed over to the house, turned on the spigot, and held his hand under the trickle of water. “Brace yourself, kiddo. This might be a little chilly, but better a few goose bumps than having to call a trauma response team for a biohazard clean-up of your bathroom.”

  Chloé bounced down the porch steps and held out the empty bag. “Here you go.”

  “Look away,” Alex warned her. “This ain’t going to be pretty.”

  Apparently ten-year-olds were in to gross, though. From the light in Chloé’s eyes, he might as well have given her an engraved invitation.

  “I’ve watched Mommy change Ella lots of times.”

  “Well, this might not be how Mommy does it. But it’ll get ’er done.

  “Come here, Ella.” He stripped her dress over her head, tossed it aside, and turned her around. With the water now flowing from the hose and the bag handy, he held his breath and hooked his thumbs in the elastic waistband of her padded pants.

  “She’s supposed to be lying down!” giggled Chloé.

  “I knew that.” He picked Ella up by her waist and gently lay her faceup on the grass.

  She looked up at him with a puzzled expression.

  Hopefully that little red mark on her forehead would fade by tomorrow and Kerry would never know the difference.

  And then, time stood still. Alex felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. Nobody would believe this—not that he would ever tell them. Or maybe he was on one of those hidden camera shows, and next week his fellow officers would be sitting around the briefing room watching him on TV, pointing at him and cracking up at his expense.

  “Here goes nothing.” He held his breath, turned his head askance, and squinted. Down came Ella’s disposable britches in a series of tugs, until they slipped off her feet and Alex whisked them into the bag.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Up you go.” He rose, and with his arm extended, he dangled Ella by her arm like a rag doll as far away from himself as possible while, with the other, he held his thumb over the hose, spraying her entire body in an up and down, sweeping motion.

  “Ahahahaha!” Chloé laughed, holding on to her sides to keep from falling over.

  “Now. How about a dip?” He sat the naked Ella down in the water and stood back. “Feel better? I know I do.” He sucked in a lungful of country air. “I can breathe again.”

  Ella had the vacant stare of a shock victim— until her palms smacked the surface of the water, splashing her face. Then she blinked and gazed up at Alex with eyes the frosty turquoise of sea glass, water droplets decorating her face, and a toothless grin, and his heart turned into that porridge the hipsters ate down at the coffee shop.

  “She caught him,” said Chloé, peering past Alex to the meadow. “Shay caught Hobo.”

  Alex followed Chloé’s gaze to where the mutt bounded toward them like an eager sled dog, his tongue hanging out, dragging Shay behind him at an awkward run.

  They were headed straight toward the baby pool.

  Alex threw up his hands and yelled, “Stop!”

  There was a great splash. Chloé clapped her own cheeks. “Hobo! Get out!”

  Ella blinked rapidly, her little hands waving in front of her droplet-spattered face like a tightrope walker balancing on a wire.

  “Hobo!” scolded Shay.

  Standing in the pool, Hobo cocked his head at Shay. Then at Chloé. Then, in his confusion, he licked Ella’s face.

  “Out you go, mutt.” Kneeling, Alex took hold of Hobo’s collar and led him out of the pool and into Shay’s waiting hands, but not before Hobo’s toenail sank into the side.

  There was a pflop and, before their eyes, the pool began to melt.

  “He ruined it!” whined Chloé. “Hobo broke our pool!”

  Just in time, Alex stepped out of the way of the water rushing toward his shoes.

  He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I imagine he needs to be fed, too,” he said to no one in particular.

  “I’ll do it,” said Chloé, heading into the house, calling Hobo’s name.

  His head spun. One minute these kids were driving him crazy and the next they were surprising him with their sweet natures.

  The whole thing was a wonder.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  It was after ten p.m. when Kerry made it home. Inside the screen door, Hobo wagged his tail in greeting.

  No way would she have imposed on Alex Walker to watch the girls if she hadn’t been with him when the crisis struck. At least she knew he’d been thoroughly vetted. Not only that, if he messed up, not just she but her father would have his head on a post.

  The whole way home, she had steeled herself for mayhem. She imagined Alex would have one foot out the door, chomping at the bit to leave. Ella would be red-faced from bawling, Chloé would be begging her for the Calamine Lotion, and Shay would start in complaining about her lengthy absence. It would be an hour before she could fall into bed herself.

  Instead, she entered a quiet, dimly lit kitchen. This morning’s cereal bowls, which she’d left stacked in the sink, were drying upside down in the dish drainer, and the tea towels were neatly folded on their racks.

  “Girls?”

  She tiptoed into the living room to find Alex softly snoring on the couch with Ella sound asleep in his arms and Shay and Chloé in sleeping bags on the floor, eyes closed, hair still wound up in towels from their showers. The faint smell of shampoo lingered in the air. On the TV, Cinderella’s prince twirled her around the ballroom floor with the sound muted.

  For a second, she wondered if she was in the right house.

  She touched Chloé and Shay’s heads. “Go up to bed,” she whispered. “I’ll be up in a minute to tuck you in.”

  While they stumbled off, clutching their pillows to their chests, she gathered Ella into her arms and, with some difficulty, carried her upstairs, followed by Hobo, and lay her gently in her crib. My last baby, she thought, brushing Ella’s hair off her brow. For despite all her career success, her babies had brought her more joy than any legal triumph. After she whispered a quick prayer over her, Hobo circled and lay down on the rug.

  Kerry stopped by Shay and Chloé’s rooms before going back down the creaky stairs. She touched Alex’s shoulder and said, “I’m home. You can go.”

  When he woke to find his arms empty, he sat up in a panic.

  “It’s okay. Everyone’s in bed.”

  He sank back into the couch with his arm across his brow, his feet still on the floor. “What time is it?”

  “Going on eleven.”

  “There was a day when I’d be getting ready to go out clubbing at eleven.”

  She chuckled softly and fell onto the foot of the couch next to him. “Me too. You still can, if you want.”

  “Think I’ll pass.” He yawned and sat up, rubbing a hand over his head. “How’s your sister-in-law?”

  “They were able to save her eye, though they said she has more surgeries ahead of her.”

  “What happened exactly?”

  “It was one of those weird things. She was chasing the kids down a path through the woods su
rrounding the park when she ran into a tree branch.”

  “Oooh. Not good. The girls were concerned for her.”

  She winced. “They didn’t give you too much trouble, did they?”

  “Naw. No trouble at all.”

  “I was amazed to find Ella’s Pull-Ups still dry. Did she go potty?”

  “If by go potty, you mean did LeBron James somehow sneak past me and take a dump in her diaper, then yes.”

  Kerry’s head fell back in laughter.

  “What about Chloé? Did she have you put some Calamine on her poison ivy?”

  “She didn’t mention it.”

  “Hm. It has been a week since she got it. Maybe it’s almost better.

  “Thanks again for stepping up to the plate. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  Kerry had always had some kind of hold on Alex, but he’d never been able to pinpoint exactly what it was.

  Now, even after the long day she’d had, everything about her looked beautiful . . . the arch of her brow, the curve of her jaw, every fine line sweeping out from the corners of her eyes.

  “Can I get you anything? Glass of wine . . . cup of coffee?”

  His body was reacting in unsettling ways, making him recall kissing her against her will in his driveway.

  “I should go.” He rose to his feet.

  “Don’t go. Not yet.”

  At the touch of her hand on his arm, he sat back down, elbows resting on spread knees.

  “Sitting with Indra all afternoon, her hand squeezing mine so tight I thought the bones might break, gave me lots of time to think. Life is so fragile, you know? You can wake up in the morning and look out at the leaves shimmering in the wind and see the faces of your loved ones, and the next thing you know—poof—it’s all gone, just like that. It reminded me of how lucky I am.”

  “I went to a funeral the other day,” he said.

  “Someone around here?”

  “I know what you’re thinking—that I haven’t been here long enough to make friends.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Couldn’t blame you. Tell you the truth, I’m not sure why I went, given the short time I’d known Curtis. That was his name. Curtis Wallace.”

  “Curtis Wallace died?”

  She sounded genuinely moved.

  “How?”

  “He . . . let’s just say his heart gave out.”

  “That’s such a shame,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “Curtis was closer to my brothers’ ages. I wonder if they know. I remember them saying what a fun guy he was back in school. Then, after his divorce, he just shut down and wouldn’t let anyone in.”

  Alex studied her, breasts gently rising and falling with each breath. Hard to believe she was the same imperious Kerry O’Hearn he thought he knew. After all these years, he finally saw her as a whole woman, not just the strong, competent side she presented in public but her soft, vulnerable side, too. Never could he have imagined that one day she would entrust him with her children, her most precious possessions, and that they’d be curled up next to each other on her couch in her dimly lit living room.

  He reached over and picked up a lock of her hair, rubbing it between his thumb and finger. “It’s like you said. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

  “Let’s start over,” he said quietly.

  She gazed up at him, her eyes sparkling in the lamplight. “Yes. Let’s.”

  She looked so fetching. So approachable.

  “Is it okay if I kiss you?”

  She smiled the smile he had thought of a thousand times since he’d first passed her in the hallway at Pioneer Courthouse. Only this time, it was for him and him alone.

  Then she nodded and they came together, and he did his best to obliterate that smile with his mouth.

  Following their disastrous first kisses, the careful consideration each gave the other was almost comical. But it wasn’t long before their breathing became urgent, her decorative throw pillows were flying through the air, and they were falling back together on her family-size couch, so wrapped up in each other they hardly knew where one ended and the other began.

  Alex’s palm was luxuriating in the soft flesh of her outer thigh beneath her skirt when a small voice came from the vicinity of the staircase.

  “Mommy? Where are you? My mosquito bites are itching.”

  He broke their kiss, his eyes looking down into Kerry’s round ones staring up at him.

  Getting caught in the act had never once crossed his mind. But then, except for his brief, disastrous marriage, he’d never shared his time . . . his home . . . his life. It had always just been him.

  “The Calamine’s in the bathroom cabinet, Chloé,” Kerry said calmly. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

  They lay perfectly still, listening to Chloé’s receding footfalls as their pounding hearts subsided.

  “Sorry.” Kerry made a wry face. “Comes with the territory.”

  Alex released his held breath, then braced his arms on either side of where she lay and put one foot on the floor. But before he stood up, he paused and gazed down at her face, surrounded by the halo of her hair spread across the cushion.

  God, he wanted her. It took everything he had not to scoop her into his arms and carry her up the stairs and ravage her, damn the consequences.

  But there was more to it than lust. Now that he’d walked in her shoes, he thought he might burst with a newfound respect and admiration. Upstairs, three little people—at times smelly, at times maddening, but always sweet—depended on her for their every need. For a magical moment in time she had entrusted him with that awesome responsibility.

  Only now that he was getting ready to leave did it occur to him that he was reluctant to give it up. He had an insane yet undeniable urge to shoulder some of that burden himself, in part to lessen her load but also for the richness it would give to his own empty life.

  “I’ll let you get to it,” he said.

  “See you Thursday when I come to pick up Shay,” she said as she walked him to the door.

  Before he left, he kissed her one more time, sliding his hand under her shirt and rubbing her lower back. “Want to take the girls for tacos afterward?”

  She smiled. “That would be nice.”

  * * *

  Several days later, Alex followed Kerry and her brood to a taqueria on Main where the grown-ups ordered at the counter and the kids piled into a table topped with red plastic.

  “I have a question for you,” said Chloé with a frown, setting down her half-finished flauta and licking her fingers. “How come you were with Mom when she showed up at the hospital the other day when Aunt Indra hurt her eye?”

  Alex’s burrito stopped in midair, halfway to his mouth. He thought he was home free after the close call on the couch, later that same night. His thoughts flew back to the way Kerry had looked and felt in his arms. It had been years since he’d wanted a woman so much. Thank God for bug bites. That was the only thing that had stopped him.

  It wasn’t that simple. Kerry wasn’t just Kerry. She was a package deal. She came with awesome responsibilities—responsibilities Alex had vowed he never wanted.

  “I’ll let your mother answer that.”

  “That’s easy,” replied Kerry. “Coach Walker is interested in wine. Naturally, he wanted to meet Uncle Hank, and I told him I would introduce them. That’s where we were when Uncle Ry called me—at the Sweet Spot.”

  Her acting was Oscar-worthy. But then, come to think of it, the courtroom was a lot like a stage, wasn’t it?

  “Oh.” Chloé raised a brow, cocked her head as if that made perfect sense, and picked up her flauta again.

  But as Shay studied Alex and Kerry, realization dawned on her face.

  Shay had begun to morph before Alex’s eyes, her legs lengthening like a colt’s, her face narrowing. These days it seemed like every time he turned around she was brushing her hair or checking out her appearance in her phone screen. Ther
e would be no fooling her for long.

  The food was mostly gone, the table strewn with wadded-up napkins and remnants of tortilla. Kerry pulled a pack of wet wipes from her seemingly bottomless bag and began wiping Ella’s hands and face. “Why don’t you girls go back to the restroom and wash your hands before we leave?” she said to Shay.

  “Well played,” said Alex, watching Chloé follow Shay down a hallway.

  “All week, I’ve been debating bringing this up. It’s so soon. We have no idea where this—whatever it is we’re doing—is going. But . . .” She whipped her head around to make sure the girls were out of earshot. “I have to put my kids first.”

  “Whatever it is, just say it.”

  It might feel soon to her, but he’d been riveted by her for ages.

  Ella began to whine.

  “Sorry, baby. Are you tired of sitting? Here.” Kerry set her on her feet, and she toddled over and planted her palms against the glass door, in the path of customers coming and going.

  “Ella . . .” Kerry sighed heavily and began to rise to fetch her.

  “Sit down. I’ll get her,” said Alex. In one giant stride, he caught Ella by the waist and swooped her into the air, making her giggle, before bringing her back to the table, sitting her on his knee, and giving her his car keys to play with.

  Kerry glanced toward the ladies’ room. “They’ll be out in a sec.”

  When had he become so highly attuned to her slightest sign of discomfort? Even more absurd, why did he feel the urgent need to fix whatever it was that needed fixing?

  “I’m past the age where dating is a game to me, Alex. This is real life. As real as it gets. I can’t let Shay and Chloé get attached to another man and then . . .”

  The restroom door swung open and Shay and Chloé emerged, arguing whether the color of the stalls was rose or magenta.

  Alex made a decision. “I don’t know where this is going either. But I promise you, I won’t let anyone get hurt.”

  They exited the restaurant, and Alex watched them pile into Kerry’s car. He bid Kerry a chaste farewell, then held up a hand in response to all the fluttering waves good-bye coming out of the car windows as he watched her pull into traffic.