Twice Upon a Roadtrip

by Shannon Stacey

  Her mother, on the other hand, didn’t look a bit amused. “Don’t you think you should get another job before you go running off?”

  “I’m not running off. It’s just a vacation.”

  “When the going gets tough, Jillian gets going…in the other direction,” her father muttered, then he chuckled.

  Why he chuckled was beyond Jill. Maybe it had been funny the first sixty thousand or so times he said it, but it got old sometime around her fourth grade year.

  At that moment her sister, Liz, and her tribe of heathens exploded through the back door. Shit. They must have gotten the exhaust fixed. Jill cursed herself for not hearing the beat-up minivan pull in the driveway—it was too late to run and hide.

  Three boys ranging from two to eight took off in the direction of the TV room, leaving in their wake one muddy sneaker, two coats, a baseball and one very sticky sippy cup. Her five-year-old niece stayed behind and yanked the hem of her dress up to her chin.

  “Lookie my panties, Auntie Jill.”

  Jill oohed and aahed over the pink and purple hearts until little Bethany took off after her brothers. Last time it had been little ruffled panties with “Saturday” embroidered across the butt. On a Tuesday. It was little wonder Bethany was Jill’s favorite.

  “What does her teacher think of Bethany showing off her underwear?” Jill asked Liz, who slumped into a kitchen chair.

  She shrugged. “It’s kindergarten. As long as the kids don’t pee in them, the teacher doesn’t care if they flash them around.”

  “I saw a T-shirt yesterday I wanted to buy for her. It said I’m too sexy for Barney on the front.”

  Liz snorted and took the coffee cup their mother handed her as if it was the fabled mead of Valhalla. “You better not. So…what’s up?”

  “She quit her job,” her mother answered before Jill’s brain had even processed the question.

  Liz shook her head mournfully. “You’ll be sorry.”

  Jill mouthed the words as she said them. She thought about making a fast break for the exit, but it wasn’t worth the effort. They knew where she lived.

  You’ll be sorry and I told you so were the basic staples of conversation for Martha Delaney and her older daughter. Her younger daughter didn’t need to use them, since they were usually aimed in her direction.

  Mom quickly brought Liz up to speed on the situation, which sounded far less reasonable in her mother’s tone of voice.

  “Vacation?” Liz asked in a voice that dripped disbelief. “To where?”

  Nowhere she had to fly to, unless she could come up with a much better plan for glue and feathers than Icarus. Her bank account didn’t reflect any of the frugality that had been her New Year’s resolution—for three years running.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Don’t you think you should get another job first?”

  Jill resisted the urge to stick out her tongue at her sister—barely. “If I get another job first I’ll have to work for months, maybe even a year, before I get vacation time.”

  “And you quit because somebody else got Mrs. Bright’s job?”

  “Yes, it’s about my dignity, thank you.”

  Her mother slapped a plate of cookies down on the table. “Unemployment is very dignified.”

  Dad shoved a cookie in his mouth just in time to stifle another chuckle. Jill ground her teeth and reminded herself that this was a man who thought Archie Bunker would have been the comedic genius of the century if only he’d burped a little more on television.

  A scream ripped through the small house and Jill’s brain like a banshee on crack.

  Liz didn’t even flinch. “Is there blood?” she shouted in a voice that would drown out Aerosmith’s woofers.

  Murmurs in the negative floated into the kitchen, so Liz shrugged and returned to her coffee.

  Not for the first time, Jill wished there was some way she could capture the essence of her niece and nephews and market it as birth control. She didn’t need the FDA to tell her it was effective.

  If Jill even thought her biological clock was winding up to tick, all she had to do was think about Liz to make it freeze up like a cheap computer. Her sister looked so…tired all the time.

  Not a second went by that she wasn’t running, fetching, feeding, washing, wiping or yelling. Jill never had any aspirations of greatness, but she sure as heck had aspirations of a life.

  “I can’t believe you got into a pissing match with the woman’s son. In the middle of the parking lot, no less. And you dented his car?”

  Her dad shook his head. “I told you you should have bought that yellow El Camino from Fred. No mistaking that sucker for anything else.”

  “Yeah, that would have solved all my problems,” Jill said, earning herself a don’t use that tone of voice with your father look from her mother.

  She shouldn’t have mentioned Ethan Cooper at all. She could have told them she quit right after she learned about the new children’s librarian. Instead she’d ranted about the entire episode, only leaving out the accelerated heart rate that wasn’t totally due to anger.

  The man was scrumptious. Arrogant and smug, but scrumptious nonetheless.

  “This is just like the time you left Poor Eddy at the altar,” Mom said.

  Jill groaned. The Delaney family didn’t subscribe to the water-under-the-bridge philosophy. Bygones were never bygone.

  “Absolutely,” Liz agreed. “If things get a little rough, get out of the way of the door.”

  “She’s always been that way,” Dad added. “When the going—”

  “I’m still in the room,” Jill shouted. “And it’s not the same thing. I wasn’t ready to get married, so I saved Eddy and myself from a life of misery.”

  All three of them snorted in long-practiced unison. Though Jill had given up on her dreams of finding secret adoption papers a long time ago, there were still times—like now—when she was certain the Delaney family had found her on the doorstep.

  Her parents and Liz were conservative, sensible people who worried and debated every side of an issue before making a decision. They even read the nutrition labels on cans. Jill took a more…unstructured approach to life.

  “Back to the issue that’s actually relevant,” she said firmly. “I’m going to take a vacation. I want to spend a little quiet time by myself and consider my options—decide what I want to do with my life.”

  To practice asking “Do you want fries with that”?

  “Where are you going?” Mom asked as she took the nearly empty plate of cookies out of Liz’s reach.

  Somewhere cheap was the only thing that came to mind, but she managed not to say it out loud. Fiscal responsibility was another dominant Delaney gene she’d missed out on.

  It wasn’t easy being a totally broke black sheep in a family of peroxide blondes.

  * * * * *

  “Is that you, Ethan? I’m in the kitchen.”

  He smiled and tossed his keys on the TV. Those were the same words his mother had said to him every time he walked in the door since his first day of kindergarten. Her kitchen was the center of Debra Cooper’s universe—even in her new condo.

  “It’s me.” He walked down the short hallway, then stopped short. “What on Earth are you doing?”

  His mother was standing on a chair, stretching to hang a bright yellow valance. One end of the curtain rod was up, the other end was still in her hand. How many times had she swatted his butt for standing on chairs? It was dangerous.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Her wink took the edge off the question.

  “Why didn’t you wait for me? You shouldn’t be climbing on chairs. You could fall. You could break a hip or something.”

  She hooked the rod on the bracket and hopped off the chair, landing on sure, Keds-clad feet. “I’m not ninety, Ethan. And I swear you worry more about my hips than my obstetrician did. I take my vitamins every day—the extra calcium ones. Which you know since you ask me about them every day
.”

  “I know, but—”

  “And you better not have any of those disgusting nutritional shakes in there,” she interrupted, pointing at the grocery bag he set on the table. “I’m not drinking any more of them.”

  “I’m just watching out for you, Mom. I don’t like you being alone.” Not for the first time, Ethan wished he had a few sisters. Preferably at least one with a spare bedroom. He hated her living by herself.

  “Do you really think your father did all this for me?”

  Ethan felt a small pang in his chest, just as he always did whenever he thought of his dad. He’d passed away a year ago and it wasn’t getting any easier.

  “He didn’t,” she answered for him. “I took care of the inside of the house and you. Everything else was his job. He didn’t hang my curtains and he certainly didn’t count my vitamins.”

  He knew that. But he also remembered his father clapping a hand on his shoulder and saying, “You’re the man of the house while I’m gone, son. Take care of your mother for me.”

  Those words had echoed through his mind as they laid his father to rest and he couldn’t shake them. Sure, he knew it was only something fathers said to sons to take the sting out of being left behind with their mothers. He knew his mother was still healthy and vibrant.

  And she was all he had left. She and the memories of his dad. He hadn’t been able to take care of his wife, or protect his business, but he wouldn’t let his father down.

  Ethan gripped her shoulders and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry. I just… I worry about you.”

  She smiled and patted his arm. “I have nosy neighbors and thin walls. And I’ve got my cordless phone and this surveillance collar of yours. I’m never truly alone.”

  Ethan laughed and started taking groceries out of the bag. “It’s not a surveillance collar. It’s a necklace. If you fall—”

  “And break a hip?”

  “—you can press the button on the pendant and the rescue squad will come. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  “I swear those were your first words. Beddah safe ven sowwy,” she said in a high baby voice.

  Nothing wrong with being cautious, he thought. It was a philosophy that served him well. Not with his ex-wife or vice cops, but other than that, it usually worked for him.

  “Mrs. Bright phoned while you were gone,” his mother told him. Ethan didn’t even blink—he was used to his mother changing subjects at will. “The children’s librarian called her and quit this afternoon.”

  A picture of the woman from the parking lot popped into his head. She hadn’t wasted any time, surprisingly. Somehow he hadn’t thought her that decisive.

  “I met the woman. You should be glad to be rid of her.”

  His mother pinned him with that maternal, lie-detecting look. “Did you have anything to do with her quitting?”

  “Of course not!” Ethan could feel the heat in his cheeks. He hated that. All his life he’d responded to any accusation with a guilty flush, even when he was innocent. If a polygraph technician ever so much as asked him his name he’d flunk for sure. “She thinks she should have been promoted instead of the library hiring you.”

  “That’s understandable. I’d feel the same way.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little too reasonable?”

  “Why? She was there four years and the only reason they hired me was my master’s degree. The state is trying to phase out trained-on-the-job librarians.”

  Ethan slammed the deli drawer shut and closed the fridge. “That doesn’t excuse her leaving you high and dry.”

  “It’s not personal, Ethan.” Content the curtains were straight, she returned the chair to its place. It knocked against the table and he winced.

  The year he was ten, Ethan and his father spent the entire summer refinishing the cherry monstrosity. It looked out of place in the tiny, bright kitchen, but he was glad she hadn’t left it behind.

  “Ethan.” His mom laid her hand on his arm and he blinked a few times before smiling at her.

  “I was thinking about when Dad and I refinished this table for you. I miss him.”

  “So do I, sweetie. I swear my feet get cold at night just from missing him. You need to date more.”

  Ethan shook his head. That was quite a leap, even for her.

  “There must be some nice young ladies in this town,” she continued.

  He hadn’t met any nice young ladies yet. Only a blonde, not-so-nice young basket case. His lips twitched as he thought of the way her hair kept falling across her eyes, and his hand clenched at the memory of wanting to sweep it away for her.

  Then his cock twitched at the memory of her sweet ass presented to him while she picked up her groceries. On paper her height and weight probably listed as average, but there was nothing average about how they added up to Jillian Delaney.

  Her legs were long enough to really wrap around his waist. And when she’d bent over and her shirt lifted, the little bumblebee tattoo at the small of her back had damn near driven him mad.

  Ethan had to step sideways to stand behind a chair, hiding his erection. He needed to get a grip.

  But, damn, she’d been hot. Tousled blonde hair, blue eyes and hips made for holding on to. She was a damn fine package except for that matter of her not being on the same planet with sanity.

  Hooking up with a frazzled iceberg was something his half-sunk ship of a life didn’t need. His priorities were simple—mother first, his own life next. The sexy blonde was on her own.

  “After you’re settled in and comfortable in your job,” he said. “Then I’ll go back to Connecticut and see about selling the house. At some point I’ll figure out what I’m going to do after that.”

  “Good. In the meantime, I thought it might be nice for us to take a little trip before I have to start at the library.”

  Ethan looked down at her too-innocent face. His mother hated to travel and she absolutely refused to fly. Images of a tacky singles cruise flashed through his mind. “What did you do?”

  “I joined the senior center today and signed us both up for the Spring Fling bus tour. We’re going to Orlando!”

  Chapter Two

  Ethan laid his head back against the bus seat, closed his eyes and tried to breathe through his mouth.

  He wasn’t going to let his mother forget this trip for a good long time. She owed him big-time, but he couldn’t think of anything worth being stuck on this damn bus for.

  He inhaled for a weary sigh and instantly regretted it. A wave of smells he could only partially identify assaulted his sinuses. Mothballs. At least a dozen different brands of drugstore perfume. Menthol. Stale cigarette smoke. Arthritis cream. It was going to be a very long trip.

  “God help me, what did I do to deserve this?”

  He knew that voice. Ethan’s eyes flew open and he stared at the woman staring right back at him.

  Jill… That was her name. He’d found himself thinking about her at odd times during the week since the parking lot incident and more than once he’d awakened with her face on his mind and a raging hard-on.

  This was the last place he’d ever expected to see her.

  His dick tried to stand up and wave hello even as his mind registered the potential awkwardness of Jill and his mother sharing a bus. Plus he’d dreamed up some particularly hot fantasies starring her, and he wasn’t sure he could look her in the eye without blushing. It was like an awkward morning after without the night before.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  Ethan shook his head, wondering if his mother would notice if he crawled across her lap and jumped out the emergency exit window. “I’m taking my mother on this trip. What are you doing here?”

  She narrowed her eyes, her cheeks rosy. “I’m taking a vacation,” she mumbled.

  Ethan threw back his head and laughed out loud, attracting the attention of almost every person on the bus. Jill’s cheeks flushed deep strawberry. He watched her look around
for any empty seat besides the one across the aisle from him.

  “This is your big plan?” he scoffed. “The senior center’s bus trip to Florida?”

  “Shut up,” Jill hissed.

  “I didn’t realize when you said you wanted to see the world, you meant Disney World.”

  Her blue eyes—almost the color of her well-worn jeans—shifted to him, then away again. “I volunteer at the center, not that it’s any of your business. There was room for me and it sounded like fun. How did you get around the seniors-only rule?”

  “My mother convinced them to make an exception because she’s new to the community. She can be very persuasive.” The fact that he was even on this bus illustrated what an understatement that was.

  The stubborn mother in question shifted next to him and leaned forward. “Are you going to introduce me to the young lady?”

  Lord, I know it’s spring, but a freak blizzard would be good right now. Anything to get him off this bus. “No. She’s moving on.”

  “Ethan Ulysses Cooper, there’s no excuse for being rude!”

  He heard Jill snicker and looked up in time to see her mouth Ulysses? He shot her a black look and clenched his mouth shut. The next time he fantasized about her they were going to play bondage games so he could put a gag on her.

  Jill was jostled from behind by a man in red plaid shorts and black knee-high socks. “Sit down, missy.”

  Ethan smiled at her indignant expression, but it faded when she sat across the aisle from him. “It’s a big bus, sunshine.”

  “And it looks full back there,” she snapped back. “I’m not about to fight my way back up to the front.”

  “Who is that, Ethan?” his mother insisted.

  “I’ll tell you later,” he muttered.

  Some vacation this was turning out to be. It had sounded okay at first. A nice trip to Orlando with his mom before she settled into her new job and he went back to Connecticut.