Zenith Fulfilled (Zenith Trilogy, #3)

by Davis, Leanne

  He looked down and found an old coffee jar with three cigarette butts in it. His. Had to be. He threw them out into her yard the last time he was there. And she must’ve picked them up, and put them in the jar. He smiled. Okay he didn’t think much about it. He was littering her yard and of course, she wouldn’t like it. So she provided the jar for him. Assuming what? That he’d return? Yet, here he was. He sat down on the front porch steps and found himself unlacing his riding boats, and peeling off his sticky socks before finally, and gratefully, stepping onto the cool, green grass.

  His relief lasted only a matter of seconds before he was pushed over and leapt upon by a hairy beast. Minnie. He forgot all about Rebecca’s bear-dog. Minnie contorted her body in various positions around him, nearly in ecstasy at seeing him. He wasn’t an animal person, and never had a pet. He didn’t know for sure what to do with the water-shaking, slobbering mass of wet hair and hot tongue. He gently put a hand towards the beast to see what she’d do. Nothing. Minnie rolled over onto her back and thumped her tail. Okay. He gathered it was canine speak for “pet me.” He leaned over and rubbed the dog’s white, hairy belly.

  By the time the dog released him from his ministrations, he found the older two girls watching him. Rebecca was, once again, lying on her towel. So much for doing their next information session quickly so he could get out of there. He started towards the girls. When he was closer to Rebecca, he stood over her, blocking the sunlight while waiting for her to explain what he was supposed to do next.

  “What are you doing?”

  He folded his arms over his chest in annoyance. He was aware of Kathy and Kayla watching him, while also eyeing their mother. Kathy looked confused; Kayla looked pissed. Kayla was old enough to know she didn’t like a strange guy coming over to see her mother. Kathy just didn’t know what to make of him.

  “I’m relaxing, Rob. It’s Saturday, nowhere to be, nothing really to do. Why not? Sit down.”

  “I don’t lounge in the grass, Rebecca.”

  “And I don’t ride motorcycles with men who have dozens of tattoos.”

  He tapped a finger on his arm. She was what? Punishing him? He showed her his life, so now she was showing him hers? He read the challenge in her eyes. It was the same as he gave her. She was just as much of a chicken to ride his motorcycle as he was to engage with her little girls.

  “You called and said we needed to work,” he reminded her.

  “You said you liked my first three chapters. So why not trust me, now that you know how I want to do this?”

  He contemplated her. Who did that? Who lay out in the sun, half-naked, looking up at the sky for no particular reason? As relaxed and contented as one of her kids. He finally sat down where she cleared a spot in the shade, which was several degrees cooler. It was actually pretty nice. A breeze moved the air just enough to cool his face. The yard was an equal mix of sun and shade, and so quiet, it felt to Rob like they were in a recording studio.

  “Hewwo, Wob.”

  Rob turned at the little voice speaking next to him. Sitting there for a few moments, he was trying to figure out what one did and how to relax in the grass. Next to him, Karlee sat up, blinking sleepily, her hair all messed up.

  “Hey Karlee. Have a nice nap?”

  “Uh-huh,” she muttered, crawling over towards him, then onto her mother’s lap. Rebecca sat up at hearing their voices. Karlee smiled at Rob again, so open, so beguiling, so innocent and trusting, he felt his heart flip over. What was it with this kid? Didn’t she notice the tattoos? The shaggy hair? Why did she look at him as if he were the neatest thing she’d seen since rock candy? She yawned some more, tucking her head against her mother’s chest, and peeking back at him. Smiling. She was always smiling.

  “Wanna thwim wif me, Wob?”

  “Swim with you?”

  Karlee was standing before him, her chubby legs squishing out of her swimsuit as she picked at her butt cheeks so freely, and so openly, Rob had to bite his lip to keep the grin at bay.

  Rob looked past Karlee towards the wading pool. No, the girl couldn’t mean for him to go in that?

  “Pweethe?” she asked. Then again, how could anyone refuse that? It would be like slapping the nose of a big-eyed puppy for no reason. He glanced at Rebecca for help, and she was smiling, although her eyes were laughing when she spotted his scowl.

  “On weel hot dayth, Mommy goath naked in it wif uth.”

  This time, Rebecca’s eyes got big, and her mouth dropped opened as she hissed, “Karlee!”

  Rob grinned, turning his complete attention to Rebecca’s youngest child. “Really Karlee? Naked in that pool right there?”

  “Uh-huh. You know, when it’th hot.”

  “Is it hot enough today, Karlee?”

  He laughed outright when Rebecca smacked his shoulder. She was glaring furiously as she struggled to stand up, and reach her youngest daughter just to put a hand over Karlee’s mouth. “Don’t you dare answer that. She tells stories sometimes.”

  Kathy came closer, hearing the conversation. She’d been watching them, and was unsure if she should join them or not, but seemed to want to. “Karlee isn’t making that up. Remember that day last July, it was like… a hundred degrees?”

  “Oh my God! You guys, shush!” Rebecca’s eyes bugged out and she sucked on her lips in total embarrassment.

  Rob leaned back on his elbows, finally seeming relaxed. “So, girls, what else does your mother do on hot days around here?”

  “Once, she let us have an apple pie for dinner so she didn’t have to cook,” Kathy said.

  “Thee thwore at the printhipoo,” Karlee added.

  “I did not. I swore in the car to myself. And it was almost a hundred degrees! And it was only one time that I let you guys do that pie thing.”

  Rob laughed. She was funny. Rebecca. So different from what he first thought. Not so saintly. Not so prim and perfect. In fact, she seemed full of everything: life and fun. She didn’t seem the least bit hung up on appearing perfect to her daughters. They got to see their mother as she really was, and not always politically correct. And don’t forget, she liked to run around naked. That was an image to think about.

  She let her daughters hang around him and didn’t seem to mind them seeing the two of them together. She could have easily led him into the house, or asked him to sit on the porch while she worked on her book. Her daughters could have been kept busy, and away from him, but she didn’t. She invited him to join them.

  “What about the pooh, Wob?”

  There seemed no getting around it. Karlee was looking so hopefully at him.

  “I can’t go naked though, Karlee,” he said, his voice deadly serious. The grin he was trying to suppress kept pulling at his lips, until he met Rebecca’s eyes. Then he laughed.

  “Thath okay, Wob. You can wade in it. Wike Mommy youthwally duth.”

  He found himself being pulled up by the smallest hand he ever held. She kept her grasp until he was standing before her foot-deep pool. He bent down and rolled his jeans up. Karlee still didn’t let go. She kept holding his hand. Finally, she tugged him in. The water was sun-warmed, and felt good actually against the heat of his skin. He couldn’t believe he was standing in a child’s wading pool. Karlee walked him around it a few times, then finally let his hand go, before she came back, packing toys. She showed him them all, and insisted that he bend down and play with the little boat she liked to float around.

  It wasn’t long before Kathy came over. She stood for a while before she got in and sat down. She watched him and watched her sister, but finally, started to play with them.

  It was the strangest hour Rob ever spent in his whole life. He never played pretend before. He had to follow Karlee’s lead. She must have had a tone of different stories that she made up, as well as rules and requirements as to what he was to do and say. Kathy played along too. He was allowed to get out of the pool, but only if he watched them still. He didn’t know why they cared so much if he was there. But the
y did. Except Kayla. She pretended not to look at him from her towel where she kept her earphones on and ignored them.

  Finally, while playing with one another, they let him edge his way over towards their mother, who was now sitting on the porch steps and watching them.

  “Want something cold to drink?” she asked after they sat side-by-side together, and observed the two red-headed girls frolicking in the yard. Her knees were almost touching Rob’s, and their bare feet rested near each other.

  “Sure,” he said.

  She got up and went into the house, returning a few minutes later with two glasses filled with lemonade and ice. He followed her over to the porch swing to sit down.

  Suddenly quiet again, they drank their refreshments without a word. He didn’t get it. How two people with nothing in common, and totally opposite lifestyles and family values could sit so comfortably together. Why wasn’t it weirder between them?

  “How come you let me near them?” he asked finally. “You seem like you’d be more careful, or an overprotective kind of mother. Why allow someone like me to be around them?”

  “I am… careful and overprotective. But you’re good with them. You’ve been nice, when they’re not frightening you.”

  “I’m not frightened of them.”

  She laughed. “Rob, they scare you more than any bad-ass biker gang could. You’d be more comfortable, and much more sure of yourself being surrounded by knife-wielding muggers, than you are when encircled by those three little girls.”

  “I’m just not used to kids.”

  She was quiet for awhile, watching the children playing. “They’re not used to strange men.”

  He glanced at her sharply. “What? You want me to hang out with them?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think it harms anything. I live so far from everyone, no one ever comes here regularly.”

  Rob took a long cold drink. And her solution was him? He couldn’t think of a worse person for the position. She glanced at him and seemed to read something in his face.

  “Relax. Really. Just relax. I don’t mean anything by it. It’s no deeper than that. We’re writing this book together, and you’re around me to do that. What harm is there in the small amount of time you’re around me, if they see you? You don’t have to do anything, or be anything different than whatever you are or want to be.”

  “I just don’t see how I could be a good influence on little girls.”

  “You don’t have to be. Just be an influence. I’m right here, and I see everything you’re doing. And yeah, I have to admit I think it’s a good thing.”

  “Your oldest doesn’t agree with you. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you?”

  Rebecca set her drink down, pulling her knees up again, her feet on the swing, rocking it as she moved. “Karlee doesn’t remember much of Doug. Not really. So it’s easy for her to not think about him. Kathy, as you can see, doesn’t know what to think. Or how to act. She wants to treat you with the same abandon her little sister does, but she hasn’t missed her older sister’s reluctance to get to know you. So she’s a bit slower to join. And Kayla? She’s old enough to remember everything and she’s angry at me. And Doug. Why should she give you the time of day? You’re nothing to her. What she fears most is you becoming something to me.”

  “Why would you want her to sit around worrying about that?”

  “Because it’s not going to happen; that’s why. And I think she should see it’s not the end of the world if a man who isn’t part of our family hangs around me, and her sisters and her.”

  “You invited me here on purpose then?”

  She nodded and smiled. “Truthfully? Yes.”

  “So you already knew how each one would react. Didn’t you worry how I’d react?”

  “Like I said, I figured out during that first meeting that you’re terrified of them. So no, I didn’t worry.”

  “Don’t you date?”

  She shook her head, and her curls bobbed. “No. There was a brief flirtation with another single dad who belongs to the PTA at school.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing. He invited me to dinner and we took his blue mini-van instead of my red one. It was like watching paint dry, just trying to think of something to say that went beyond our kids. But the girls didn’t have a clue it was even a date.”

  “So where is he? Their dad, I mean?” Rob finally asked after stretching his legs out, and clearing his throat.

  “Not here.”

  “Yeah, I caught that. You want to know my entire messed-up history and intend to publish it and tell everyone about it. You can answer me that.”

  Rebecca stared harder into her yard as a kind of sadness descended over her features. “He’s in Japan.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me right. He always traveled a lot for business. On his last trip, he called and said he wasn’t coming back home here. He needed... I don’t know what he needs. Space. A new life. Whatever; it means he’s not here with us.”

  Rob shook his head in disbelief. “But why leave the kids? I know about marriages going south. I know about wanting another life. But his kids?”

  “He hasn’t seen them in two years.”

  “It must be hell on them,” Rob said, nodding towards the three little girls in various positions on the lawn. Two playing, and one pretending not to like playing.

  “It was. It is.”

  “How did you tell them?”

  “I told them the truth in the kindest way I could. About Daddy needing time because he was upset. How it didn’t have anything to do with them, blah, blah, blah. The usual, how Daddy still loves them, even if he isn’t here.”

  “You must hate him for putting you in that position, for not being here and facing them himself.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you not know if you hate a man who would do that to you and those kids there?”

  Rebecca glanced at him. “Because, as you should know, good men can do bad things sometimes.”

  Rob got the meaning. “I never ran out on three kids.”

  “No. I didn’t mean that. I meant it’s complicated. There were reasons he left me. Reasons he can’t deal with his life.”

  Rob wondered what reasons could justify leaving Rebecca and her girls. He didn’t see one valid enough reason, but she didn’t seem inclined to tell him why. She also didn’t seem as angry as he imagined someone in her position should have been.

  “He calls them still.”

  Rob sat up straight. He didn’t know about that particular piece of information. That she was still in contact with her gone, but not forgotten, husband.

  “And you? Does he call you?”

  “Sometimes,” she said, as she suddenly got up. “I think I should start dinner. Do you mind keeping an eye on them out here?”

  Rob sat for a while, watching the little girls playing. It wasn’t long before they had him out playing again and running around with a ball being kicked back and forth. That got Kayla to get up and join in, though she scowled at Rob as if he made her join them against her will.

  He learned that Kathy was in second grade. Kayla was in fifth, and Karlee was in pre-school. He learned all their teacher’s names, and the younger two were a wealth of useless information on their favorite friends. They talked on and on. All the while, Karlee never managed to kick the ball, but caught it and ran off before throwing it randomly. The other two kept the ball kicking easily.

  It wasn’t long before Rob heard Rebecca shouting that dinner was ready. He followed the small herd of three girls as they ran around the house to the back, where the patio table was all set. Their backyard was large and landscaped, with distant trees, assuring privacy and a natural view. It was like a private park. The patio table was covered with a large, magenta umbrella and the table was set with cheerful plastic plates and dishes. Mouth-watering hamburgers sat in the center, with buns and condiments nicely presented beside it all. There were cold salads in big b
owls and Rebecca kept going in and out the French doors to the kitchen and coming back with last minute items.

  “Wob, thit here.”

  Rob stopped at the edge of the patio. Karlee was smiling up at him with delight in her sunny face. God, she was cute with the smear of dirt that trailed over her face after playing in the mud she created with the hose. Her baby voice was enough to make anyone smile, no matter what she was saying.

  “Sure,” he said sitting beside her.

  Rebecca seemed in no rush about having him there for dinner, and in no hurry to continue her story or glean more information. She seemed casual, as though she liked having him there. Rob didn’t know how he felt about it, or them, when Rebecca sat down across from him, smiling.

  The meal was pleasant in a way Rob never experienced. The girls talked constantly, flipping topics, interrupting each other, getting mad at each other, and giggling happily with each other. The air was warm, the yard peaceful, the setting beautiful in the woods, with the girls’ red hair shining brightly under the fading sun. Rebecca also shone under the sun. He was watching her like he never did before. Everything she did fascinated him. The way she choreographed their lives was like a juggling act. She could scoop up all the plates, and smile and talk, following each conversation as she attended to their multiple needs at once. All the while, Rob watched her, feeling helplessly entranced at the way her mouth turned up, and her eyes sparkled when she laughed, and how her red hair turned to burnt gold whenever it caught an errant ray of sun. He noticed how clear and open her facial expressions were, how her freckles enhanced her pretty face. The overall warmth and laughter she had seemed to radiate from her just as the sun reflected through her red hair.

  He wasn’t sure of his thoughts or why he could not stop noticing Rebecca. He kept gritting his teeth and mentally chanting in his brain that she was Nick Lassiter’s sister, and the mother to three little girls. She wasn’t even remotely near the radar that someone like he, Rob Williams, could look at the way that he was doing now. Let alone feeling such an attraction towards.

  Then there was baby Karlee, who engaged him constantly. She giggled and smiled at him. She told him thousands of little stories and “you know what, Wob?” ad nauseum, but the thing he found most shocking was that none of it annoyed him. He found all of them fascinating. The differences he saw in a ten to a seven to a three-year-old was like a study of childhood. He liked listening to them and found them not only funny, but sweet and wonderful. Their take on the world, through eyes of innocence and joy was something Rob never experienced before. He couldn’t remember ever being a child like these three were. He didn’t remember ever being as happy as this family was together. And their happiness became intoxicating, engaging, and practically contagious.