"I am," Wesley said, taking one of the paper cups from her other hand and filling it with lemonade.
"Why don't you give that one to Dylan?" she suggested.
"It's fine. I can get my own." Dylan took the pitcher from Wesley and poured himself a cup. He drank it all in one long swallow, then wiped the edge of his mouth when he was done. "Very good. Not store-bought, I'll bet."
"Squeezed from our very own lemon tree."
"You could sell this, you know."
She laughed. "We do sell it, along with everything else we can think of."
He smiled back at her. "Right, I forgot. You live on a farm. You grow your own vegetables, too, don't you?"
"My grandmother has the touch with the vegetable garden. She's far more patient than I am."
"I can grow tomatoes," Wesley said proudly. "And pumpkins and watermelon and squash. Can you grow anything?" he asked Dylan.
"I grow buildings."
Wesley nodded. "I guess it's the same thing."
"In a way," Dylan agreed.
"How's it going?" Rachel asked as Wesley wandered away with his lemonade.
"Good. Just going over some of the basics today, making sure everything is where it should be." He grabbed his t-shirt off a nail and pulled it over his head. Rachel was both relieved and disappointed, then annoyed with herself for having any kind of reaction whatsoever.
"I hope Wesley hasn't been too much trouble."
"Not at all. He asks a lot of questions, but I like it. He's got an incredible mind. I bet he gets good grades."
"He used to. I'm not so sure what's going on now. In fact, I have a meeting with his teacher tomorrow. She said she had something important to discuss with me. I'm sure it's about Wesley's reluctance to admit Gary is dead." She glanced down the hall to make sure Wesley had moved far enough away not to hear her. "He keeps telling the other kids that Gary is coming back as soon as the house is finished,"
"He'll figure it out," Dylan said quietly. "That's the way of things, you know."
"You're speaking from experience."
"Reality always sinks in no matter how much you try to fight it."
"I suppose. So how did the poker game go last night?"
"They cleaned me out. Your grandfather is hard to read."
"I'm glad you went. He liked having you there. He was raving about you this morning."
"He liked taking my money, but I enjoyed it, too."
"Even though you didn't think you would."
He looked a little uncomfortable and she knew she'd hit the mark. "I admit it was more fun than I thought."
"So the country boys showed you a good time after all?"
"Poker is poker, no matter where it's played."
"But some things are better in the country, aren't they?"
He smiled. "Now, that sounds like a loaded question."
"Not at all."
"Yeah, right. Some things are definitely better in the country, but I'm not sure poker is one of them. I found needles of hay in my jeans last night. Your grandfather doesn't seem to believe in chairs."
Rachel cleared her throat, not wanting to think about Dylan's jeans. "Hay can be softer than a chair."
"Really?" He quirked an eyebrow. "Have you spent a lot of time rolling around in the hay?"
"Dylan!"
"Rachel!" he returned with a laugh. "It's a simple question."
"It's a personal question."
"Like you haven't asked some personal questions?"
"Okay, truce. We'll talk about something else."
"Fine. Did you call Gary's father back?"
"I did, but no one answered. I didn't find anything in the files I went through last night. I still have to go through the boxes you brought me from the apartment. I didn't have time to do any more searching today. Sundays are busy. Not that I'm complaining. We can use all the business we can get. At any rate, things have quieted down, and it's such a beautiful day, I thought …" She hesitated, what on earth was she thinking? She was about to invite Dylan on a picnic supper. She couldn't do that. Could she? He looked hot and sweaty, and he'd been working hard all day, not to mention entertaining her son.
"And?" he prodded. "You have something on your mind?"
"A picnic," she said, throwing caution to the wind. "With Wesley and me, if you want. We go to the creek, take off our shoes and wade up to our knees. Not that you have to do that. But if you want to come, you can." She tried to make it sound like she didn't care one way or the other.
"A picnic, huh?" He looked as indecisive as she felt. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Rachel?"
"Probably not. Do you want to come anyway?"
Chapter Eleven
Dylan couldn't believe Rachel had invited him on a picnic or that he'd accepted. But a half hour later, he found himself a passenger in a rickety old farm truck with Rachel in the driver's seat and Wesley in between them. In the back of the truck was a golden retriever named Rusty and an enormous picnic basket. He had questioned the wisdom of allowing Rusty to guard the food, but Rachel had only laughed and told him there'd be plenty for all of them.
It wasn't really the food part he worried about; it was the all-of-them part that had his stomach rolling. This little picnic wasn't about the house or about Gary or about anything that had brought him north of the Golden Gate. He was losing his focus, and when he lost his focus, bad things happened. Just like the time nine years earlier, when he'd let himself think for a mere moment that Rachel was having second thoughts about marrying his best friend and that maybe he could slide in and change her mind...
Rachel cast him a sideways look. "I know the truck is kind of bumpy, but it handles the dirt road better than my minivan."
"It's fine."
"We're almost there."
"Are you going swimming with us?" Wesley asked.
He glanced down at his jeans. "I don't have my suit."
"You don't need a suit. Mommy and I go swimming even if we don't have suits."
The thought of Rachel romping nude in a stream did little to ease Dylan's discomfort.
"Wading -- we go wading," Rachel corrected her son, a flush creeping up her cheeks. "Not skinny-dipping."
"Too bad. That sounds kind of fun."
"Mommy went skinny-dipping once," Wesley said.
"Wesley, Dylan doesn't want to hear that story."
"Oh, I think I do."
"It was after midnight," Wesley began. "Mommy and her friends were supposed to come home right after the dance, but they stopped at Sullivan's Lake and took off all their clothes and went swimming. Mommy got grounded for a year. Aunt Carly said Sam Waterstone saw her --"
"Wesley!" Rachel interrupted. "Sam Waterstone did not see anything; I don't care what Aunt Carly told you. And I didn't get grounded for a year. It was for a month."
Dylan laughed at her chagrin. "You were a wild thing, weren't you?"
"I wasn't, and no one saw anything," she said defensively.
"Or so they told you. Who is Sam Waterstone -- an old boyfriend?"
"Just a local kid who took me to a dance. That's all."
"So you were a skinny-dipper -- interesting."
"It is not at all interesting, and it was one time. I didn't make a habit of it."
"You never did it again, not even with Gary?" Skinny- dipping certainly seemed like an activity that would have appealed to Gary.
"No. Gary didn't like to swim."
Gary didn't like to swim? Since when?
Dylan caught Rachel's gaze, but she gave a firm shake of her head, and he let the subject drop. A few minutes later, she pulled the truck over to a large tree and shut off the engine. As soon as they were out of the vehicle, Wesley and Rusty went running down the path toward the creek, leaving Dylan to carry the picnic basket and Rachel to carry the blanket.
"Gary loved to swim," he said when they were alone.
"He didn't have time on the weekends. There always seemed to be too much to squeeze into Saturday and Sunday. S
o I told Wesley his father didn't like to swim."
"Why not say he was too busy?"
"Because Wesley heard those words too many times. They started to mean something else, like 'I'm too busy to be with you.' It was easier to say Gary didn't like to swim."
He frowned, not liking what he was hearing. "Gary was too busy for his son? I don't understand."
Rachel's expression indicated she was sorry she'd brought it up. "The last few years Gary was only home on the weekends, and even then he was often catching up on work," she explained. "Like a lot of fathers, he didn't have extra time to play with Wesley. And they never really seemed to be on the same wavelength. Wesley's constant questions used to drive Gary crazy."
"He's a curious kid, but that's great."
"You've only been around him for a few days," she said. "I'm sure the constant questioning would get on your nerves, too."
"I don't think so," he said flatly. "I don't think Wesley gets on your nerves either. You have a great relationship."
"Well, it's been the two of us for a while now."
"And you're not just talking about since the funeral, are you?" He could see the discomfort in her eyes, the guilt, as if she didn't want to say one bad thing about Gary. He understood her loyalty, but he didn't understand Gary's distance from his son. That didn't make sense. Gary had always longed for his own father's love. It seemed strange that he wouldn't have doted on Wesley, his only son. And what about that "only"? Why hadn't they had more children?
"I'm not criticizing Gary," Rachel added quickly.
"Maybe you should be. A father should spend time with his son. We both know what it's like to feel rejected by one of our parents."
"It was more complicated than that. I shouldn't have said anything."
He studied her a moment, seeing the guilt in her eyes. "You don't have to pretend with me, Rachel. No man is perfect. No marriage is perfect."
Her eyes watered a little, but she blinked the moisture away. "I know. At any rate, I appreciate your letting Wesley work with you today. It meant a lot to him. He has my grandfather, but I think he feels closer to his dad when he's with you. He knows you were friends with his dad, and you're the same age. It feels right to him."
"Is that the way you feel?" he asked, not sure he liked being a stand-in for Gary.
She hesitated, and then shook her head. "No, I don't feel closer to Gary when you're with me. If you want to know the truth, I feel like he's even farther away. And that seems wrong. I don't want to be disloyal to my husband."
"You haven't been."
She stared back at him. "Not yet, but there's something between us, Dylan. There always has been."
He sucked in a quick, sharp breath, surprised at her blunt words. "Do you want me to leave?" A part of him wanted her to say yes, because then he'd have to go. And maybe that would be better for all of them.
Instead, she countered with, "Do you want to go?"
He thought for a moment. "No. I want to finish your house, and I want to help you find out what happened to Gary. But I don't want to make things more difficult for you. So it's your call."
She drew in a deep breath and let it out. "I'd like you to stay – at least for the time being. Then we'll see." Turning away, she spread out the blanket. "Let's set up the picnic."
He set the basket down and began unpacking it while Rachel talked about the creek and the flowers and the weather. On the surface the tension between them eased, but underneath it was still simmering. And he didn't know what the hell he was going to do about it.
* * *
Two hours later, Dylan lay back on the blanket. The sun was going down, turning the sky into a dusky blue. There were only a few wispy clouds overhead, but even those seemed to be disappearing into the night. He felt full, sated and more relaxed than he'd been in weeks. It probably had something to do with going barefoot in a creek, with the blades of grass pushing up between his toes, and throwing a Frisbee to an eight-year-old and a dog.
It was the most fun he'd had in years. And they'd laughed a lot, more than he would have expected. Rachel had a whole slew of jokes that Wesley had prodded her into telling, obviously a favorite ritual between them, since Wesley often jumped in with the punch line before Rachel could get the words out.
Wesley had begged him for new jokes, but in searching his mind for something appropriate, he realized that he didn't know any jokes he could tell to an eight-year-old. He realized, too, that he hadn't spent much time laughing in the past few years. Nor had he spent much time arm wrestling, trying to catch butterflies with a net or watching the way a woman smiled with genuine pleasure.
This was family, he thought. The kind of family he'd always wanted. The kind of family Gary had gotten. But had he cherished this family? Dylan had always believed he had, but he wasn't sure anymore. Some of the things Rachel had let slip about Gary's work schedule, his time away, his lack of attention to his son – to her, made him wonder if Gary had been happy in his marriage, in his life.
Had Gary grown tired of this low-pressure, low-tech life? Had he wanted out when he'd always thought he'd wanted in?
"You're doing it again," Rachel accused, interrupting his thoughts. She stretched out on her side, her head propped up on one elbow, facing him.
"Doing what?"
"Thinking. Your brows get pointed and your lips get tight."
"They do not," he said, but he could feel his eyebrows drawing in.
She smiled. "It's okay. You're entitled to think, although we might have burned out all your brain cells with silliness. Wesley hasn't been this happy in a long time." Her gaze drifted over to her son, who was back to throwing the Frisbee to Rusty. "I hope he'll have more of these sweet moments in life than sad ones, you know?"
"He will. You'll make sure of it. Even if you have to dig up some more dirty jokes."
"They were not dirty," she said her cheeks warming with color. "They were all rated PG."
He rolled on to his side, propping his own head up on one elbow. They were face-to-face now, closer than was wise, but neither one of them pulled back.
"I like how you do that."
"What?" she asked, a nervous, edgy note in her voice.
"Blush like an innocent girl."
"It's a family trait. Even Carly turns red at the least provocation. And my grandfather can still make my grandmother blush with just a smile."
"A knowing smile, I'll bet. They seem very much in love."
"They are. They've been together fifty years."
"That's amazing."
"Yes," she said quietly. "What are we doing, Dylan?"
"Talking?" He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. He saw a leap of something in her eyes. His heart wanted to call it desire. His head knew better than to call it that. But there was something between them, something unspoken, untried, something better left alone, no doubt.
"Mommy!" Wesley squealed. "Rusty got all wet."
Rachel sat up and Dylan followed. They looked at Rusty, who sat in the middle of the stream, the Frisbee in his mouth.
"I guess he needed a bath," she called. "Come on back now, Wes. We need to pack up and get home. You have school tomorrow."
"I haven't heard those words in a long time," Dylan muttered.
"We lead different lives," Rachel said as she began to put away their things. "But you already knew that."
"Yeah, I knew that." He grabbed her wrist. "The line is back, isn't it?"
"It never went away."
"I think it did -- for a few hours anyway."
"I can't be on my guard all the time."
"I don't want you to be on your guard with me."
"I can't help it. I don't know what to do about you, Dylan," she whispered. "You make me feel things I don't want to feel. You always have." She pulled her arm away and got to her feet. "Rusty, come here, boy," she called.
And as Rachel surrounded herself with a barking dog and a chattering kid, he knew that she'd just put on an ar
mor he couldn't possibly penetrate. Nor did he know if he even wanted to get closer. She might not know what to do about him, but he had even fewer ideas on what to do about her. He'd spent the last decade trying to forget the one kiss they'd shared, trying to think of her only as his best friend's wife, and it had worked – until now.
* * *
Carly stared at the open drawers in the filing cabinet, the pile of papers on the desk and the boxes on the floor. An uneasy feeling made her stomach turn over. Rachel was looking for something. Had she found it? But if she had, she would have said something to someone. Maybe she should tell her more of what she knew. But if she did that, she'd have to tell Rachel how she'd gotten the information. She couldn't do that. Rachel wouldn't understand.
Only Gary had understood. And Gary had understood because he was more like her than he was like Rachel, yet Rachel couldn't see that.
She didn't want to be the one to tell her that either. In fact, she regretted telling her about the phone calls from the mysterious Laura. But she'd wanted Rachel to stop shutting her out. Judging by the chaos in the study, she'd opened a door that couldn't be closed again.
Speaking of doors, the front door of the house slammed, and Carly heard Rachel tell Wesley to go upstairs and wash up. Then her footsteps came down the hallway, pausing in front of the door to the study. She turned around, feeling somewhat nervous as Rachel entered the room.
"Oh, you're here," Rachel said. "I can explain all this."
"Did you find something?"
Rachel hesitated. "Some phone numbers I didn't recognize.
She wondered if one of those numbers belonged to Laura. It still bothered her that Gary hadn't told her who Laura was. She'd thought they were close friends, confidants. But on the subject of Laura he had been silent, unusual for him, which had made his behavior even more disturbing.
Rachel sat down behind the desk. "What a mess. I have to get a better filing system."
Carly perched on the edge of the desk. She picked up a phone bill upon which Rachel had circled several numbers in red. "Did you call any of these?"
"One," Rachel admitted.
"And?" Carly prodded when Rachel didn't continue.
Love Will Find a Way Page 14
