The Marine Makes His Match

by Victoria Pade

  “All dogs shake when they get wet,” she remarked as she wrapped the towel around the puppy, picked him up and set him on the top of the washing machine. Then she offered Sutter one end of the large bath towel to dry his shirt while she applied the other end to Jack, trying hard to focus on the dog alone.

  “I’d better go block the doggy door so he can’t get out and roll in the mud again,” Sutter said when he’d done all he could with his shirt.

  “Good idea,” Kinsey agreed. It would keep Jack contained and with Sutter gone she could take a few deep breaths and work on getting some control of herself.

  Minutes later, with Jack dried off, Kinsey called, “Is it safe?” before having it confirmed that the spaniel would not be able to get outside again.

  She set the damp pup on the floor and went into the kitchen where they both picked up where Sutter had left off in cleaning the dinner mess.

  “So why does the colonel call Sol army?” Kinsey asked.

  “That’s what he was drafted into out of high school,” Sutter explained. “The colonel tends to call anyone who served by whatever rank they achieved or branch they served in. I think that registers with her more than their names.”

  “Was he career?”

  “No, he served in Germany as an MP for some dignitaries, then did some time stateside and got out.”

  “Soo...because he’s not a marine, he isn’t good enough for your mom?” Kinsey ventured.

  Sutter made a face that said that was silly. “I didn’t say he isn’t good enough for her. He’s just...”

  “Not your dad?” Kinsey guessed when Sutter stalled.

  “My dad’s barely gone,” he said as if he seemed to be the only one in the house remembering that.

  “I know it seems soon. But for two people more than halfway through their seventies there’s not any time to lose if they happen to meet someone compatible—”

  “Who said they were compatible?”

  “Your mother said that tonight wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it might be,” Kinsey reminded. “And the clock is ticking for you, too, because you’re leaving and you want a lot of things in place for your mom before you go—that doesn’t fit with a long mourning period. Not that I think being friendly to Sol means she isn’t mourning your dad because I’m sure she is. But having people around will help her, you know?”

  “So you think hooking her up with the neighbor is the answer to everything.”

  “I think it might be one answer,” Kinsey admitted. “He’s nearby. She already knows him and is comfortable with him. And from things she said while I was helping her get ready for bed I think she’s a little flattered that he seems interested in her.”

  Sutter scowled.

  “Plus I think maybe Sol is lonely.”

  “He has eight kids—how lonely can he be with them all coming around? Eight kids—he’s probably just an old horndog coming after my mother!”

  Kinsey laughed again as she washed off the counters and Sutter finished loading the dishwasher. “In the marines, your mother had to have been one of very few women in a world of men. I’m sure she ran into more than her fair share of horndogs—”

  “She never cheated on my dad.”

  “So what makes you think she can’t hold her own with your next-door neighbor if he is a geriatric horndog?” Kinsey tried not to laugh as she said that.

  Sutter sighed resignedly. “Yeah, she’d shoot me if she thought I believed she couldn’t.”

  “Then why not just get out of the way and let whatever is going to happen, happen?”

  Apparently he had a mental image of what could happen happening because his expression turned horrified and this time Kinsey couldn’t keep from laughing before she advised, “Don’t think about that.”

  “You never had any problem having a stepfather with your mother?” he asked.

  “I was barely two when my mother married Hugh. He adopted me when I was four. I didn’t know the difference. He was just the dad of the household.”

  “But you call him Hugh rather than dad?”

  “Actually, we called him Gunny because—like the colonel—he preferred it. To other people we referred to him as our father, but yes, when we talked—or talk about him even now—we call him Hugh. I think that’s because my mother called him that when she talked to us about him. She never said your father.”

  “Isn’t that weird if he adopted you?”

  “I suppose. But that’s just the way it was. From what my mom told me before she died, Mitchum Camden was the love of her life and maybe that was her way of not letting go of him. She said that she loved Hugh—and I know she appreciated all he did for her, for us kids—but she admitted that she never loved him the way she did our real father.”

  “So you didn’t think of your adopted father as your real father,” Sutter surmised, leaning a hip against the counter’s edge.

  Kinsey rested back against the facing counter’s edge as she answered. “I thought of Hugh as my father...sort of. But I knew there was someone else who had actually fathered me—even if I didn’t know who he was.”

  “And how did that happen? I mean how did your mother keep the idea of your birth father alive without ever telling you who that birth father was?”

  Kinsey shrugged. “She just wouldn’t say. Every time any one of us asked, she said it was Hugh who kept a roof over our heads and food in our mouths. Hugh who cared for us like any father would, and it was disrespectful and ungrateful to talk about our real father—that’s all she’d say about it. And I think my brothers loved Hugh like a real father.”

  “But not you?”

  Another shrug. “I loved Hugh, but he and I were just never close. He was never unkind or unfair or neglectful, but I wasn’t interested in the military so I was just an afterthought. Someone for my mother to deal with while he trained the boys to be men and marines,” she said, deepening her voice to sound like Hugh’s on his perpetual catchphrase.

  “Did you fantasize about having a father you did mesh with? One who doted on you as daddy’s little girl and didn’t want to turn you into a marine?”

  “A little,” she admitted. “I did always wonder if my real father would have taken more notice of me, more of an interest in me. If we would have had father-daughter moments that never happened with Hugh.”

  “If you wouldn’t have just been an afterthought to him,” Sutter put in. “And now you know—or think you know—who your real father is and you think you can get an idea of how it was to be his daughter through Livi and Lindie?”

  “I just want to know what I can know,” Kinsey said.

  Sutter nodded slowly, watching her reflectively. “And how disappointed would you be to find out you aren’t Mitchum Camden’s daughter?”

  “I haven’t really thought about that because I know I am,” she said definitively. “It wasn’t just a fling between them—they were together for years.”

  “She had to have known he was married...”

  “She had a lot of guilt over that. Even decades later when she told me the whole story, it tore her apart. But she said she still couldn’t deny herself her times with him.”

  Sutter’s eyebrows arched but he didn’t seem to be judging her mother so much as conceding to the possibility of that kind of passion.

  “She knew it was wrong,” Kinsey went on. “I think that had something to do with her not telling us until the end. And she said she would never have done anything to break up Mitchum’s marriage. But when it came to him, she couldn’t help herself. It almost seemed kind of sad.”

  “Northbridge is a small town,” Sutter pointed out. “There wasn’t talk as you were growing up? No hints about who your father was?”

  “Sometimes... It was harder for Conor, he was nine by the time Mom married Hugh so he remembe
rs more about whispers and snubs and kids who weren’t allowed to come to our house. We all ran into some of that, but less than Conor did and we were too little to understand it all. I guess marrying Hugh made an honest woman out of my mother and when he adopted us that helped change things—although there were always some people who looked down on us. But no one ever said anything about a Camden being our father. We had no idea and now that I’ve thought about that, I think that the Camdens’ position as important people in Northbridge protected them and made the scandal all my mother’s while the Camdens got a pass.”

  “Yeah, I guess it might have actually been a little dangerous to cross a Camden of that generation.”

  “And then, like I said, Hugh came on the scene. He was a force to be reckoned with, so once he was around I’m sure anyone who didn’t mind their own business would have had him to face. I think, for the most part, after that, everyone—except the real moral sticklers—just let it go.”

  “And the secret of who fathered you all stayed hidden.”

  Yet another shrug from Kinsey.

  There didn’t seem to be any more to say on the subject so she changed it. “By the way, thanks for this morning,” she said, not having had the chance to express her gratitude before this. “It was great to spend that kind of time with Dylan and Derek. And Livi, too. It helped put us on the road to getting to know each other, maybe. I appreciate that you included me.”

  Again Sutter only nodded before he said, “And tomorrow there’s the Camden Sunday dinner.”

  “I got the colonel to agree to go,” Kinsey told him. The older woman had been dragging her heels about the event until the bedtime ritual when Kinsey had pointed out that since the colonel had ended up enjoying Sol’s company—she might also enjoy getting out and being around other people tomorrow night.

  “Really?” Sutter said. “She seemed so against the idea earlier.”

  “Maybe she had to see for herself that she feels better when her horizons are broadened a bit.”

  “And you think Sol did that tonight?”

  “I think she was in better spirits all the way around today just having a lot going on—and then enjoying Sol’s company tonight.”

  “Well, I guess I owe you thanks for that.”

  “Maybe we made some headway all the way around with our deal,” she said. Then she glanced at the clock and realized how late it had become. “I should get going... Unless your shoulder is bothering you and—”

  “I’m fine!” he said, cutting her off.

  “I’ll just look in on the colonel and go then,” Kinsey said, pushing off the counter’s edge.

  The colonel was asleep with the television on. Kinsey turned the TV off, then she left the colonel’s room, expecting when she reached the foot of the stairs to find Sutter.

  But he was nowhere to be seen.

  Since the front door was open, she glanced through the screen and discovered him outside, wielding a broom with his usable hand to brush leaves off her car.

  Grabbing her purse and the satchel with her medical supplies, she went out to meet him.

  “Don’t worry about that,” she said as she reached the sedan.

  “No reason you should have to deal with the fallout from the tree being trimmed,” he said, completing the chore as she unlocked her door.

  She didn’t get in, though, because he came to stand by her and asked, “So you’re sure you’re all right with tomorrow? I guess it qualifies as a split shift.”

  They’d discussed needing her to be there in the morning to get the colonel up and ready for the day. Then Kinsey would leave and return when Sutter and the colonel got back from the church service and their planned trip to visit the crypt where his father was interred.

  Kinsey crossed both arms on the top of her door frame, bracing herself on it. “Doing a split shift is no problem.”

  “And you think the colonel is up to everything tomorrow?”

  “Her doctor gave the okay and I think she knows her limits. If she gets too tired she’ll let you know and you can just bring her home. Plus she’s promised to nap when you get back.”

  He nodded, knowing everything she was telling him. “And you also got her the go-ahead for her nightcap?”

  “I did.”

  “It won you points, that’s for sure—she likes her brandy before bed.”

  “Since it doesn’t conflict with any of her meds and wasn’t connected to her heart attack, why not? If you can’t do what you like at seventy-six, when can you?”

  He smiled a small, relaxed smile that made him all the more appealing.

  So appealing...

  Why did he have to be so appealing?

  “I’m glad—we’re both glad—you allow for a little wiggle room,” he said then. “That you go with the flow and don’t pass judgments. We appreciate it.”

  “I’m here to help, to make things better, not worse.”

  “Still... You’re nice to have around.”

  “Even if I invite possibly horny neighbors to dinner?” she goaded.

  His smile stretched into a grin. “Yeah, even then,” he said with a sigh. He tilted his head slightly to one side as something seemed to occur to him. “I’ll bet your mom was pretty, wasn’t she? Because look at you... Too pretty for Mitchum Camden to ignore.”

  So he was getting more accustomed to the idea that Mitchum Camden might be her biological father.

  And he thought she was pretty...

  Kinsey didn’t want to feel as good as she did about that.

  Neither of them said anything for a moment as Sutter seemed lost in studying her.

  And when his gaze lingered particularly long on her mouth, Kinsey wondered if he was thinking about kissing her.

  After all, she was thinking about him kissing her. And about kissing him back...

  He took a step nearer, near enough that he wouldn’t have needed to do more than bend forward a little for their lips to meet. Near enough that she thought he might.

  And did she rear back to give the no signal?

  She should have. But she didn’t.

  Instead, he was the one who ended the moment by straightening up so tall and stiff that any notion of kissing was dismissed.

  He cleared his throat, lifted the broom to tuck under his arm and said, “Get home safe and rest up—tomorrow you get full-on Camdens.”

  Kinsey swallowed and told herself she’d probably been imagining the almost-kiss.

  “’Night,” she said.

  He closed her door when she was behind the wheel and then stood almost at attention as she started her engine and drove out of his driveway.

  Thinking as she did that it was better that he hadn’t kissed her. That there was no place for that.

  Thinking, too, that it was a good thing that Sutter was staying on top of his end of the deal with the workout that morning and the Camden Sunday dinner the next night.

  Because what she wasn’t keeping on top of was asking him questions or learning anything about the Camdens when she was with him—one of the main reasons she’d taken this job.

  And she wasn’t keeping on top of it because when she was with him, she couldn’t seem to think about anything beyond him.

  Chapter Five

  “There you are.”

  The mere sound of Sutter’s voice washed over Kinsey exactly when she needed it.

  She, Sutter and the colonel were at the Camden family home on Sunday night, where they’d been for the last three and a half hours. Kinsey was standing alone in front of a hallway wall of framed photographs of the Camden family that she’d passed on her way to the bathroom.

  She hadn’t been able to resist stopping to look. But the display had had an effect on her that she hadn’t expected.

 
Sutter came up beside her to face the wall, too, as if they were at an art gallery. But when he joined her she went from looking at the display to drinking in the sight of him. It seemed like he got better looking every day. The dress code for the Camden Sunday dinner was casual, but no jeans. Kinsey had laboriously chosen a dark gray turtleneck sweater dress with an A-line skirt that ended two inches above her black stiletto-heel boots—all chosen more with Sutter in mind again than with the Camdens.

  What Sutter was wearing was more laid-back—navy blue slacks and a white dress shirt with a navy windowpane check. But clothes just loved that body of his and, sling or no sling, he looked polished and crisp and just plain great.

  “The colonel tells me she’s ready to go,” he informed her. “I think we’d better cut this short and get her home.”

  “I thought she looked like she was crashing. I was going to ask if she wanted to leave when I got back. She did a lot today,” Kinsey agreed before nodding in the direction of the photos and saying, “You’re in some of these.”

  “Yeah. Only as a kid, though—the more recent photos are in the den. How’d you recognize me in these?” he asked.

  “The dimple,” she said simply. That adorable dimple in his chin that had just been cute when he was a boy.

  “And what about you?” he asked, his voice lowered considerably despite the fact that they were alone and too far from the living room to be overheard. “Are you seeing shadows of yourself? Your brothers?”

  “My brothers for sure,” she said quietly. She’d recognized a resemblance in the boyhood photographs of Dane, Dylan, Derek and Lang. There were a few of those early snapshots that could have been pictures of her brothers. And even now she thought that there were some similarities in more than the blue eyes they all shared.

  “It’s a full wall...” Sutter observed in a way that seemed pointed.

  “It is,” Kinsey agreed even more quietly.

  “Are you standing here thinking that you and your brothers should be up there, too?”

  Sadly that wasn’t at all what she was thinking.

  “More like how it’s all so complete and there really isn’t room for us. A place for us... I’ve been trying to figure out where in all of this we could fit in.”