Kisses And Kids (Congratulations Series #1)

by Andrea Edwards

  “Yeah, I know, but rules are rules.” She paused to rub her nose with the back of her hand. “Anyway, Rulli already does and so does Miss Stewart. And they’re both real unhappy about the way things are going.”

  “Look.” Pat leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “I’m sorry about everything. But I can’t—”

  “I’m talking,” Angie pointed out.

  Man, oh, man. He could feel all the muscles stiffen up in his body. Angel might have been a bit mouthy, but for pure, all-around bossy, his kid had him beat, hands down. Pat stifled his inclination to pitch the kid out into the rain and leaned back to listen.

  “And on top of everything, you’re the meanest man I know.”

  “Thank you,” Pat replied stiffly. “I’ve always been a high achiever.”

  “Using big words all the time don’t change nothing.”

  Pat sighed. “Let me take you home, Angie.”

  “I bet you got picked on all the time when you were a little kid. That’s why you don’t live where you used to. You’re afraid that people will beat up on you.”

  “I’m not afraid of people beating up on me.”

  “You are, too. And the only reason you let people come to this big old house is so you can show off.”

  He considered pointing out that Trisha had brought her and Rulli over, that he hadn’t invited them at all. But he didn’t want to get childish. And most of all, he didn’t want to get into a conversation about Trisha.

  “Come on,” he said, standing up. “I’m taking you home. You must have homework to do.”

  “Well, I don’t care about your stupid old house. And I think your old pictures are dumb.”

  Oh, Lord, he thought as he stared into her little face. The kid was going to cry. Angie was about to do something that, Pat was willing to bet good money on, she hadn’t done in a long time.

  Damn. He wished Trisha were here. He couldn’t handle these emotional confrontations. He hadn’t been able to handle them when he was dealing with Angel, who was a guy. And he sure as hell couldn’t handle them when they involved a little girl. He stared off down the darkened hallway for a second and then dared a peek back at Angie.

  She was peeking back at him, no closer to tears than he was. Her glance darted away again, but not fast enough. Damn. She was playing another game. Yesterday’s was to be sweet and cute. Today’s must be to be sad and cute.

  He leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed on his chest. “Let’s cut out the games, Angie. We’ll deal much better with each other honestly.”

  She glared at him, obviously not pleased that he had seen through her. “How come you got to keep this house?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged, not about to voice his suspicions. “Maybe because I lived here with my grandmother.”

  “How come my father didn’t get to live here?”

  Pat turned away. “He didn’t want to.”

  “Yeah, right.” She didn’t believe him.

  “Damn it,” Pat snapped. “He didn’t. I asked him myself. A whole bunch of times. And he always said no.”

  “And that’s what me and Rulli would say, too,” she said. “Even if you asked a million times.”

  “I see.” Pat took a deep breath and softly cleared his throat. “Well, I agree with that. I think there are better places for you guys to be.”

  “Yeah, and you know why?”

  “We really should be getting you home.” Pat didn’t want to know her reasons. He was sure they would involve all his many flaws. “Let’s get your shoes and socks back on.”

  He started them moving slowly back down the hallway.

  “I know the stuff is wet,” Pat said. “But I don’t have anything your size to wear.”

  “We don’t want to live in this house ‘cause there ain’t no happy left in it.”

  Pat was picking up Angie’s sneakers and socks. He should have put them in the clothes dryer. Maybe he could still do it. Suddenly his mind caught up with her words.

  “There’s no happy in this house?”

  “That’s right.” She glared up at him, hands on her hips. “You ‘member all those happy people in the pictures you showed us?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, they’re all dead. And they took all the happy with them.”

  He stared at his little niece. So cocky. So know-it-all. What the hell did she know?

  But then he suddenly saw she did know it all. The happy was gone from this house. That had been the treasure his great-grandmother had talked about and it truly was all gone.

  “But my dad, he had lots of happy and he gave it to me and Rulli,” Angie went on with a smug little smile. “And we don’t hafta share any with you if we don’t want to.”

  “No, you don’t,” Pat said slowly.

  “If you want any, you’re gonna hafta stop being such a butthead,” she said. “You gotta stop thinking about only what you want and stop hurting people ‘cause you’re still afraid of getting beaten up.”

  “I’m not afraid,” he said, but his voice was weak and unconvincing, even to himself. Rulli and Angie did have happiness in their lives. In spite of all the troubles, they were happy.

  And in spite of all his successes, he wasn’t. Not really. The only happiness he’d had lately was what others had shared with him. Angie and Rulli and especially Trisha.

  But it was too late. He’d burned his bridges and there was no going back, even if he wanted to. And he suddenly wanted to.

  * * *

  Pat scooped up the mail from the foyer floor and tossed it, along with the newspaper, onto the kitchen table. He had no desire to look at any of it. Based on the way his week had gone, it would be all bills and bad news. The only good thing happening was that the wet rain of the past few days had turned to snow. It was miserable enough to match his mood.

  He pulled a cup from the cabinet, filled it with water and stuck it in the microwave to heat. His mother used to make him some kind of lemony tea when he had a cold and it had always tasted so good. He wished he had some of it now. Maybe it would take away that ache inside him.

  But then, it probably wasn’t the tea that held the cure. Lord knows, he’d tried to duplicate it often enough over the years and had always fallen short. It just didn’t work without loving hands tucking you into bed, without a loving heart to watch over you.

  Damn. Pat shook his head. He was getting maudlin. His eyes caught sight of the box he and Angel had hidden in the attic. Rather than wallow any longer in sentimentality, he flipped the box open. A framed photo of a six-year-old Angel lay on top. Pat picked it up.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had kids?” he asked the smiling first grader. “Did you really hate me that much?”

  The only answer was the buzzing from the microwave. His water was hot.

  Pat tossed a tea bag into the water, then, taking the mug and still holding the photo, went upstairs. He put both on his dresser before he emptied his pockets. He needed some exercise, he thought, as he tossed his shirt on his bed. Considering the weather, a run was probably foolhardy, but he could work out with his weights in the basement. He tossed his pants next to his shirt and pulled some shorts from a drawer. There was nothing like a good sweat to get the craziness from your body.

  Once dressed in his shorts and T-shirt, he reached for his tea, but the mug was hotter than he’d expected. He jerked his hand back. The cup wobbled, though, and hit Angel’s picture, knocking it over so that it fell off the dresser toward the floor.

  “Hell!” Pat cried and dived for the picture as if in saving it, he would be saving Angel.

  He was too slow. The photo landed before he could catch it, shattering the glass in the frame. Pat landed on his knees on the broken glass as the picture bounced once, then landed faceup. Angel was smil-ing at him.

  “Thanks a lot, bro,” Pat muttered as he gingerly eased to one side, away from the broken glass. His knees hurt. And no wonder; they were covered with scratches, stinging lit
tle stripes of blood. Swell.

  Moving slowly, he brushed the glass from his knees and was just starting to clean up the rest when the phone rang. “Now what?” he asked Angel. The kid just kept on grinning.

  Pat limped over to the phone. It was Rulli.

  “Pat, you gotta come over here,” he said. No preliminaries.

  “Where are you?” An icy fear took hold of Pat’s heart. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m at the club,” Rulli said.

  The boy’s voice wasn’t exactly panicky, but Pat’s fears doubled. “Is it Trisha?” he asked. “Has something happened to her?”

  “She sez she’s leaving.”

  Pat’s heart practically stopped. Trisha was going to quit? It wasn’t what he had feared, but it was still not good news. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Rulli said, then seemed to leave the phone a moment as there was muffled talking near him. “She’s crying all the time and she’s really sad.”

  “She’s what?”

  There was more muffled conversation at the other end before Rulli came back on. “You gotta come and stop her,” the boy said.

  “Me?” Pat said. “Why would she listen to me?”

  “‘Cause she won’t listen to us. She don’t listen to nobody anymore.”

  Pat thought of how lost the kids would be without her. How they’d miss all those little extra assurances of their worth that she gave each child there. How she’d be doing just what she said her father had done.

  “I’ll talk to her,” Pat assured him and got off the phone. She couldn’t leave. It might feel right now, but there’d come a day when she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.

  He grabbed his wallet and car keys, shoved his bare feet into some loafers and raced down the stairs. She should still be at the club, unless she’d already quit. No. Rulli would have known that.

  Pat sped through the fading light of late afternoon to the club. It was all his fault. Once again, he’d stepped into somebody’s life only to screw things up for them.

  * * *

  Trisha was zipping up her jacket as Angie came rushing over. “You aren’t leaving yet, are you?” the girl asked. She sounded almost worried.

  Trisha frowned at her. “I told you I was leaving about ten minutes ago. I’d be gone by now except that Douglas couldn’t find his coat.”

  “Yeah, but I ain’t hardly seen you all day,” Angie said. “You know. We ain’t had a chance to talk.”

  “About what?” Trisha asked.

  Angie just shrugged. “I don’t know. Girl stuff.”

  Trisha shook her head. Much as she cared for Angie, she wasn’t up to a “girl talk” today. “Can we do it another time?” she asked. “I’ve got an awful cold and I just want to get home.”

  “I guess,” Angie said as she walked along with Trisha. “Pat has a cold, too.”

  “Oh?” Trisha was concerned in spite of her best efforts not to be. “He’s not too sick, is he?”

  Angie made a face. “He didn’t seem sick to me at all. Just kind of whiny. You know how guys are when they’re even a little sick.”

  “‘Whiny’ doesn’t sound like Pat,” Trisha said.

  Angie stopped walking, a strange look on her face. “Maybe you should drop over to see him,” she said. “I could be wrong. I ain’t a doctor, you know. He could be real sick.”

  Trisha allowed the idea to tempt her for only a moment. She doubted that Pat was sick, but there was no doubt that he was out of her life. And had to stay there. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she told Angie. “He’s been taking care of himself for a long time now. He knows when he’s sick and needs a doctor.”

  Angie slid in front of her as if to keep her from leaving. “But you never know. He’s been acting real weird lately. He really needs somebody to look out for him.”

  “Well, that may be so, but it’s not me.” She stepped around Angie. “Now me and my cold are packing it in.”

  “Trisha!”

  They both turned at the sound of Pat’s voice. Her heart wanted to leap for joy, but it froze as she saw him. Though he had a jacket on, he was wearing shorts, no socks under his shoes and his knees were skinned. Plus, he was limping for the first few steps. Then he pulled off one shoe.

  “I stepped in somebody’s gum,” he said, waving the shoe in the air.

  “Oh, gross,” Angie cried and grabbed the shoe. “Here, let me clean it for you.”

  Before either of them could speak, Angie had grabbed the shoe and run off. Since when had she become Little Miss Helpful?

  “I have to talk to you,” Pat said, grabbing Trisha’s arm as if she might escape. “What’s this about your leaving?”

  His touch sent shivers of desire all through her and set her heart to racing. She wanted to throw herself into his arms. She wanted to make time go backward until it was before Halloween and her life still held laughter.

  Trisha pulled back her arm. “I have a cold,” she said stiffly. “I thought that an early evening was called for.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he snapped.

  But she didn’t care what he meant. Tears were starting to burn in her eyes. His eyes looked so tired and his mouth looked tense and weary. She wanted to take him in her arms and bring back the smile to his lips. It was time she got out of there. She pushed past him and hurried to the door.

  “Trisha!”

  He was following her and suddenly it seemed terribly vital that she get away. She just couldn’t talk to him again. She couldn’t have him close enough to touch and not be able to. She couldn’t have his arms close enough to hold her and know that they never would.

  She fled out the door and into the wet snow. The ground wasn’t frozen yet, but there was an inch or so of snow on the parking lot. Enough to make it slippery. She slowed a teeny bit, then stopped. Pat had parked his car behind hers, blocking her exit. Damn him.

  “Trisha!”

  The wet flakes were hitting her face and melting like tears to run down her cheeks. She headed toward the shops along Olive Street. Pat caught up with her in the playground.

  “Trisha, for God’s sake, slow down.”

  He had her arm, so she had to stop. She turned to discover he was running after her with his one foot bare.

  “What do you want?” she asked wearily, sinking against the swing set. It was cold and miserable outside. She just wanted to go home.

  “Is it true you’re leaving here?”

  It hurt so to be this close to him. She wanted nothing more than to be in his arms and know their protection. Yet that was one thing they didn’t offer her. Maybe the cold was a good thing. Maybe it would make her numb.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You can’t leave,” he said. “You won’t be happy someplace else. You’ll feel you’re just like your father.”

  Oh, he was talking about that kind of leaving. But she wasn’t. Where had he gotten the idea she was?

  He shifted his feet and ducked his head into the neck of his jacket. “The thing I fear the most is becoming an alcoholic like my father. Letting the disappointments push me into drowning my sorrows and trying to forget. Deep down, you have to fear you could be like your father.”

  The snow wasn’t melting here on the playground, but piling up so that her shoes were starting to get covered.

  “You must be freezing,” she said. “Let’s go back inside.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until this is settled.” He stomped his feet again, then stepped back, climbing onto the bottom bracket of the swing-set frame to keep his feet out of the snow.

  She was starting to get annoyed with his officiousness. “Who are you to tell me what to do, anyway?”

  He just stared at her for the longest time, then turned to gaze at the playground around them as he rubbed his knees. “I’m a male with skinned knees on a playground,” he said.

  If her heart had been cold before, it was frozen now. Frozen with horror. He couldn’t be the one she’d been wa
iting for, not with his refusal to love. She wanted someone she could depend on, someone who would always be there.

  But then she saw him—really saw him—standing there in the snow with his ridiculous skinned knees. With the snow dusting his hair and his one bare foot. Yet his eyes didn’t show the cold or the wet or the miserableness of the night, just concern for her.

  Her heart was ready to burst with love.

  Love! She did love him. For his concern, for his pain and guilt, for himself. Oh, Lord, Lord. For all her careful tiptoeing around relationships, she had gone and done the very thing she’d been running from. She’d fallen in love with a fool who came running out in the snow barefoot—

  A smile began to creep out onto her face and a tiny bit of warmth began to melt her fears. “You’re barefoot in the snow. Does that mean I’m the woman you’ve been waiting for?”

  It was his turn to go from fear to awakening. She saw the shock pass through his eyes, the realization take hold and then the struggle to overcome so many years of being alone. Love was before him if he only had the courage to take it.

  She took a step forward and held a hand out to him. He took it. His clasp was strong, almost crushing.

  “I love you,” he said, his voice holding the wonder of sudden discovery. “Here I thought it was the flu.”

  “Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat and couldn’t think straight?” she asked, and laughed when he nodded. The snow was magical now, the coming darkness their private shelter from prying eyes.

  “This is scary,” he said. “Half of our past conversations have come back to haunt us.”

  “Or push us together,” she said.

  But a cloud came to shadow his eyes. “It’s not all a perfect ending though,” he said. “There’s still the kids. And what Angel said to me.”

  She just shook her head and clasped his hands ever tighter in hers. “We’re standing in the snow, in the dark, next to a swing set, and a grand piano falls out of the sky on our heads and makes us see we love each other,” she said. “If that kind of magic is around, anything is possible.”

  “Not going back to undo Angel’s anger.”

  She glanced down at his knees. “How’d you do that?”