* * *
“So the town Tallgrass is one word, but the lake is two,” Keegan commented as Therese turned onto a blacktop road flanked by wooden signs carved with the lake’s name. It was past noon, the food he’d picked up from a downtown restaurant smelled almost as good as his mother’s cooking, and he was looking forward to his first picnic in more years than he could remember.
Anticipating a picnic. It was almost too juvenile. His buddies back home would be snickering and calling him names.
Though that would stop once they got a look at Therese.
“Yeah,” Abby said from the back. “No consistency.” She tossed her hair with a teenager’s disdain, a gesture that would have had a lot more impact with more hair and one that Mariah had been imitating the last few days.
There were a lot of things Mariah could learn from her half sister, but dramatic flair wasn’t one of them. Her nearly three-year-old tantrums could put Abby’s to shame. She’d had one just this morning after deciding she wanted to wear an outfit from the to-launder pile instead of the dresser. It had taken the threat of canceling the picnic to stop her, but ten minutes later she’d been all sweetness and smiles.
Women, he silently sighed, thinking of Mariah and Abby, Sabrina and his sisters. Then he gave Therese a sidelong look. He would bet she’d never thrown a tantrum in her life. Maybe it would help ease some of her stress if she did.
Maybe she would let him ease some of her stress.
Though at the moment, with her hair in a ponytail that blew in the breeze through the open windows and dark glasses hiding her eyes, she didn’t look tense at all. Add in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops decorated with sparkly gems and big yellow daisies that had made Mariah’s eyes light up greedily, she looked damn near carefree. Pretty. Hot.
Desire stirred way down low, and he was grateful for his own dark glasses that hid his eye-roll. It was the middle of the day, they had three kids with them, and they weren’t likely to get even two minutes of privacy.
But two minutes was a start.
Breaks in the heavy woods that lined the road showed occasional glimpses of the lake, until a tight curve and suddenly there it was: big, blue, rocky shores broken up by small beaches. The water level was lower than normal, he could see from the marks on the rocks, but that didn’t stop the boaters and fishermen from enjoying it.
“The southeast section of the lake butts up to the fort,” Therese said as she took another tight turn. “They have several areas out here for camping and picnicking.”
“You should have gotten a boat,” Jacob said from the third-row seat. The kid had earbuds in and was immersed in a video game, but he had a talent for tracking the conversation around him when he wanted to.
“And they have boats for rent,” Therese said with a glance in the rearview mirror, “but I didn’t think about seeing if they had any available. I started driving my dad’s two-ton truck when I was twelve and moved on to the tractor when I was thirteen, but I’ve never tried a boat.”
“You’re deprived. I used to take out my uncles’ fishing boats when I was way younger than Jacob,” Keegan teased. “You did have picnics up there in Montana, didn’t you?”
She gave him a dry look. “Sure. It was called a lunch break.”
“Toted out to the fields in a pail with a Mason jar full of cold water from the creek?”
His comment was rewarded with two snorts from the rear seats, followed by Mariah’s effort at one. It made her cough.
Therese pulled into a space beside an empty table, shut off the engine, then pushed her glasses up on her head to give him the full effect of her chastising look. “Yeah. Like you ate crawfish, danced to the fiddle on the bayou, went shoeless until you were full-grown, and called everyone cher.”
Keegan gave her his best offended look. “My mama bought us new shoes every August when school started. But the rest of it…” He shrugged.
“What are crawfish?” Abby asked, unfastening her seat belt before freeing Mariah from hers.
“Crawdads. Mudbugs.”
She shuddered. “You ate bugs? That’s disgusting. You’re not putting them in our dinner tomorrow, are you?”
Therese started to speak, but he beat her to it. “You don’t know what they are, so you won’t know whether you’re eating them. Just think of them as a low-calorie protein source.”
She jumped out with another shudder, lifted Mariah to the ground, and headed for the table nearby. As Jacob climbed out from the back, he grinned and gave Keegan a thumbs-up. “Mudbugs. Cool.”
Therese just shook her head. When they met at the back of the van to unload the food, she said, “Now she probably won’t eat the jambalaya.”
“Jacob and I can eat her share. Not that she appears to eat more than a few bites of anything.”
As Therese picked up a bag from the restaurant, she gave him a sidelong look, trying to be casual, and asked, “Will there really be crawfish in it?”
He hefted the ice chest, then deliberately bumped her. “Like I said, cher, think of it as protein.” He was pretty sure as he walked to the table that he wasn’t supposed to hear her murmur.
“We’re going to eat bugs. Oh, boy.”
Grinning, he set the ice chest on the concrete bench, then helped Jacob spread a plastic cloth over the table. They secured it at each end with rocks someone had stacked underneath the nearest tree, then Jacob wandered to the water’s edge where Abby crouched beside Mariah, watching as she pitched stones in and giggled at the splashes.
“Did the kids come willingly?” he asked as he helped Therese set out the food. When she’d called a few hours earlier to set a time, she hadn’t known whether either kid would be with her. She’d given them a choice, and it was usually to not spend time with her.
Even if she wanted to give them back to their mother, their behavior had to hurt.
“Actually, they did. Since we’re so close to the house, I told them they could stay home if they wanted, but when I got ready to leave, they were both ready, too.”
“Too bad we couldn’t have left Mariah with them and come alone. Or sent the three of them out and stayed home ourselves.”
She darted a look at him. “Gee, you, me, alone in the house. Whatever would we have done?”
“So obvious it’s not even worth a guess.”
For a moment he thought she was going to come back with something teasingly smug, but all she did was blush and gesture to the dishes spread across the table. “You did well.”
Changing the subject. That was all right. Soon enough they would manage some time alone. One way or another.
“You’re not the only Smurf around, you know. I don’t cook a lot since I live alone, but I know my way around restaurants and deli sections.” He’d chosen a chunk of barbecued bologna, a warm slab of ham, boiled shrimp, sweet pea and macaroni salads, and—even though they’d had them just a few nights before—baked beans and potato salad. How could they have a picnic without them?
The only thing left to unpack was the plastic tote she’d brought. He took a can of pop from the cooler and leaned against the tree while she laid out sturdy plastic plates that she could toss in the dishwasher just as easily as the trash. A heavy clay pot held disposable forks and spoons, and she’d brought a handful of real utensils—serving spoons, butter knives, and one wicked-looking butcher knife. A roughly made wooden contraption went in the center of the table, dispensing napkins while keeping the rest from blowing away.
“That is—”
“Jacob’s project from summer camp the first year we lived here.”
“—handy,” he finished, as if he hadn’t been about to say butt-ugly instead.
The smile she gave him, both knowing and appreciative, was worth the catch. “You want to call the kids, and we’ll eat.”
Pushing away from the tree, he went to stand beside her. “Abby, Jacob, Mariah, come and eat!”
Wincing at his shout, Therese shook her head. “I bet people used to call yo
u incorrigible when you were little.”
“Used to?” He grinned and thickened his Southern accent. “Honey, they still do.”
* * *
“Six o’clock is kind of early for a dinner date, isn’t it?”
Therese met Abby’s gaze in the dresser mirror as she chose a pair of shimmery gold dangles from the jewelry box. It was right here that things had fallen apart between them. Only their positions were reversed: Therese had been standing in the open doorway and Abby had been rummaging through the jewelry box. Therese had told her she couldn’t borrow her earrings, and Abby had reacted in anger, knocking everything off the dresser, breaking the jewelry box, scattering pieces over the carpet. She’d shoved Therese, then slapped her, and something inside Therese had broken.
That was the moment she’d decided she was done with Paul’s daughter.
Easier to say than to do.
“It’s not exactly a date,” Therese said as Abby came into the room. “It’s just friends having dinner.”
“A man friend and a woman friend.” The girl stopped beside the bed, and in the mirror Therese saw her gaze slide to the photograph of Paul on the nightstand. “I don’t want a stepfather.”
Of course she didn’t. Therese had been as sure of that as she was that the sun rose in the east, but hearing it aloud in such unequivocal terms made her gut clench. She swallowed hard and forced her hands to steady so she could slide first one wire, then the other, into her earlobes. “Keegan and I are a long, long way from getting married.”
“But you’re thinking about it.”
Another swallow. Lord, she couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. If anything developed between her and Keegan—between her and any man—she wanted it to come so naturally that it was a done deal before Abby even had a chance to realize what was happening. “Any time you invest yourself in a relationship, you have to open yourself to the possibilities, or what’s the point?”
“God, that sounds so Dr. Phil.” Abby plopped onto the bed hard enough to bounce. “My mom has relationships all the time, but she swears she’s never getting married again.”
Her mom had affairs, and she hadn’t waited until divorcing Paul to start. But Abby didn’t need to know that, not now, not ever. “Most relationships don’t lead to marriage. Most people you date turn out to be just that—people you date, then say good-bye to. That’s probably the case with Keegan and me.”
Abby snorted. Oh, how Therese hated snorts. “Yeah, right. You spend more time with him than you do with anyone else, even Carly. And he doesn’t even live here. What are you going to do when he goes home? Sell the house and move to Louisiana? Gross.”
After spraying on perfume, Therese hesitantly sat at the foot of the bed. “If I fall in love with and marry someone whose job requires moving, yes, I’ll sell the house and move with him. That’s what I did with your father.”
“And Jacob and me don’t even have a choice. You’d ruin our whole lives so that you could be happy. Why do you have to be so selfish?” Abby’s lower lip quivered, and tears glistened in her eyes. She insisted she was grown up and tried so hard to make it true, but in that moment she reminded Therese of no one so much as little Mariah.
“Abby…” Therese forced down a sigh. She sighed so often that she was starting to hate them as much as she did snorts and grunts. “If your father hadn’t died, we would have already moved from Tallgrass. Moves are part of Army life. I know it would be hard for you and Jacob. It would be hard for me, too, leaving my friends and my job and this house. But it’s part of what we do.”
She waited for Abby’s outburst, but when the girl spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper, full of heartache. “I didn’t ask to be born into a stupid Army family.”
At that moment, Therese wanted more than anything in the world to wrap her arms around Paul’s daughter, to hold her close and ease her fears and make certain she knew that someone cared, someone wanted her to be happy, someone loved her. But she knew too well what would happen: Abby would stiffen, jerk away, be angry that she’d dared touch her, and deep down inside, it would hurt.
“I know you didn’t.” Sweetie. She should end the sentence with that. She called kids at school sweetie and honey and babe all the time. She’d called Mariah sweetie the first time she’d ever spoken to her. Abby was so much more than a student or a friend’s daughter, yet Therese couldn’t remember the last time she’d called this child who lived with her an endearment, if ever.
The doorbell pealed downstairs, and Therese’s glance slid to the clock. Keegan was right on time, expecting to leave Mariah there in Abby and Jacob’s care, expecting dinner for two, adult conversation, and so much more. Therese, who wore her sexiest lingerie beneath her summer dress, had shared those expectations, but she dismissed them as she rose from the bed and summoned a smile. “Why don’t we all go out to dinner tonight?”
Abby considered it a moment, then sniffed as she stood up. “I’d rather have pizza. Besides, I promised Mariah we’d watch every Shrek movie ever made.”
“You’re sure you’ll be okay with her?”
Now a hint of the old Abby returned, with a roll of her eyes and a toss of her hair. “She’s nearly three, and she adores me, and Nicole’s mom is down the street. Why wouldn’t we be okay?”
“Therese!” Jacob yelled, Mariah’s slightly softer, “Trace!” echoing his. An instant later, she added, “Abby, where are you?”
“I’m coming,” Abby called back. She looked at Therese as if she didn’t know what else to say, shrugged, and left the room.
After picking up a delicate sweater that matched her dress, Therese checked her image in the mirror once more, noting the heightened color in her cheeks, a side effect of the knot in her gut. She closed her eyes a moment, whispered a silent prayer for guidance and strength, then headed downstairs.
They were gathered in the foyer, Mariah with a pink-and-purple pack strapped to her back. She would bring DVDs, she’d said excitedly on the way back from the lake, and clothes and pajamas. Just in case.
Keegan looked up when Therese was halfway down the stairs, and appreciation darkened his eyes, sending a shiver of warmth through her. He wore jeans, faded and snug, and a rich blue shirt, the color somewhere between navy and turquoise. The cuffs were rolled back a few times, exposing his muscular forearms, and the tail was untucked. He was incredibly handsome in a charming, incorrigible sort of way.
His smile formed slowly, and her stomach flip-flopped. She was glad she’d chosen the dress with its swaths of pastel colors and fitted cut and hem that was almost too short, that she’d taken extra time with the curling iron to put waves in her hair, that she’d picked the pretty, skimpy bra and panties of pale green satin and lace that left little to the imagination.
Not that she imagined Keegan would actually pay attention to them in the process of removing them.
Hoping no one noticed the huskiness in her voice, she started to repeat the instructions to the kids. Abby stared at the ceiling as if bored, and Jacob interrupted when she paused for breath.
“We got it the first three times, Therese. Keep the doors locked, eat the pizza Keegan brought, watch out for the cookie monster”—he pointed to Mariah, and she beamed—“and call you if we need to. Right?”
She breathed. “Right. And no company. No—”
“Blah blah. Good-bye.” Abby took Mariah’s hand. “Come on, let’s see what kind of pizza your dad brought.”
Predictably Jacob followed them down the hall to the kitchen. Nearer, Keegan chuckled, handed her purse to her from the hall table, then steered her to the door. “Okay, Mom. Can we go now?”
“Abby and Jacob have never babysat before—”
“They’ll be fine.”
“I know.” Mariah did adore Abby and would do whatever she said, and Abby obviously adored her right back. Jacob was always responsible, and she was only worrying about them because it kept her from thinking too much about herself and the step she wa
s going to take tonight and the man she was going to take it with.
A step she wanted to take. A man she wanted. More than she’d let herself admit.
On the short drive downtown, Keegan asked her to choose a restaurant, and she opted for Luca’s, the best Italian place in Tallgrass. They had to park nearly two blocks away, but the air was still warm and it was too early in the evening for the heels that showed her legs to such advantage to pinch.
Keegan didn’t open the car door for her—she’d always felt foolish sitting inside as if helpless—but when he met her on the sidewalk, he took her left hand, twining his fingers with hers. It put the tiniest bit of pressure on her wedding and engagement rings, making them bite just the littlest bit, and for the first time since Paul had put them there, she wondered if it was time to remove them.
The bittersweet thought made her breath catch and a small lump form in her throat.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Therese.”
Her breath caught again, the lump growing. “Thank you. And you’re a sweet-talker and a charmer like your daddy.”
“Thank you,” he retorted smugly. “There’s one big difference between us, though: I understand the importance of commitment.”
She understood his message. He wasn’t taking anything that happened here lightly. He really wanted to see what this thing between them could become. He really thought their getting together might be fated.
Was he destined to break her heart, too?
Things happen when they happen. You take advantage or you don’t.
She had enough regrets for things that had happened. She didn’t want regrets for things she’d never given a chance.
“Abby seemed upset,” he commented as they crossed the street. “Is everything okay?”
Therese marveled that he’d even noticed. So many people wouldn’t have felt the faint tension radiating from the girl or seen the tiny signs of distress on her face. Catherine wouldn’t have. Paul wouldn’t have. “Not upset so much as concerned.”
“About you and me?”
A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel) Page 22
