Exclusively Yours

by Shannon Stacey

  Keri managed to stop laughing long enough to wipe the tears from her eyes. “I’ll never forget when your mom called my mom and from her reaction I thought somebody had died at your house. I still can’t believe you superglued them down.”

  It was probably at least another five minutes before they sobered enough to continue their conversation, and Terry could practically feel the tension melting away. That’s what she’d been missing in her life—a really good girlfriend who wasn’t related to her by blood or marriage.

  Not that Keri could really fit that role even if she wasn’t leaving soon, but she was a pretty decent temporary substitute.

  “You know,” Keri said when the last hiccup of laughter had passed, “he’s probably just going through some kind of midlife crisis.”

  “I’ve heard that theory. And I think it’s a cop-out, like PMS.”

  The fire was burning fully now, and Keri backed her chair up a few inches. “Let’s play a game. I read all the glossy women’s magazines, and I’m a total quiz whore. So tell me the five most frequent things you say to Steph.”

  She didn’t see where this was going, but she didn’t want to burst the camaraderie bubble. “Okay, let’s see. I love you. Have a great day. Take your shoes off. Is your homework done? And…sweet dreams.”

  “Now tell me the five most frequent things you said to your husband. And be honest.”

  All Terry had to do was close her eyes and picture Evan, and the words rolled off her tongue. “Take off your shoes. Did you take the garbage out? Dinner’s at five-thirty. The lawn needs to be mowed. And how hard is it to unroll a sock?”

  She dropped her face into her hands and sighed. “I wouldn’t want to be married to me either.”

  “Does he seem happier now? Is he seeing anybody?”

  “He doesn’t seem any happier when I talk to him, but I’ve been a little…bitchy. And if he was seeing anybody, I’d have heard about it. I think.”

  “You should go call him.”

  Terry laughed again. “I’ve barely said ten words to the man in three months and you think I should call him? Are you insane? What the hell would I say, even if he was home, which he’s not because he’s at work.”

  “Even better. When you get his machine just tell him you’ve been thinking about him and you miss him and you’d like to have coffee when you get home. Since he can’t call you back, the anticipation will build until he’s dying to see you.”

  “He left me, Keri. I don’t know how I’m supposed to forgive him for that.”

  “People sometimes hurt the ones they love trying to protect themselves from being hurt. Love means second chances sometimes.”

  “Like Joe’s giving you?”

  All traces of amusement vanished from Keri’s face. “My being here isn’t about second chances. It’s about doing my job and we happen to be enjoying one another’s company while I do.”

  “It really screwed him up when you left the first time.”

  “He told me. But it’s not going to happen this time because he knows up front I’m leaving.”

  But Terry wasn’t so sure. She could read her brother like nobody else, and he wasn’t just killing time. He was ready to forgive, forget, and pick up where they’d left off. To take a second chance and run with it. Well, dammit, if he could do it, so could she.

  “I’m going to call him.” She jumped out of her chair before she could change her mind. It wasn’t like Evan had been begging to come home. “But please don’t tell anybody.”

  “Cross my heart and get no pie.”

  Terry froze. “Oh, God, I haven’t heard that in years. I can’t believe you remember that.”

  “I remember how much your mother hated hearing hope to die so she didn’t let us have any strawberry rhubarb pie that night. That was worse than death and it rhymed, so it was good enough for us.”

  The moment of shared history cheered Terry as she walked to the campground store, careful to take the longer route so as not to be seen from the pool area. That was just asking to have requests for sodas, ice cream and candy bars shouted at her.

  After dropping quarters into the payphone, Terry punched in her husband’s new phone number and waited through four rings.

  “Hi, this is Evan.”

  “And Steph on the weekends!” her daughter chimed in.

  “Leave a message after the beep.”

  Beep.

  “Hi, it’s me. I…I just wanted to say I miss you.”

  Then she slammed down the receiver, heat burning up her neck into her face. What had she done?

  After spending an entire half-hour crafting one spectacularly shitty paragraph, Joe saved the document and shut down his laptop.

  He hadn’t seen Keri in a while. Long enough, actually, that he was spending more time wondering what she was up to than wondering how his protagonist was supposed to deal with the fact a malevolent—and invisible—presence was trying to molest his wife.Almost as disturbing as the fact his protagonist was screwed because the author had no idea what he should do was spotting Terry and Keri sitting at a campfire, laughing like long-lost best friends. It was a little disconcerting because, unless they were rehashing childhood memories, the only thing they had in common was him. And they both had more than their fair share of amusing stories about him.

  Rather than risk walking into a matinee of his more embarrassing moments, he veered away from them, looking for company. Kevin’s ATV wasn’t parked on his site, so he’d probably hit the trails with whoever he could find to go with him. From the sounds of it, the juvenile horde was at the pool, so he made his way down there, skirting the campground to stay out of sight of the two women he really hoped were mending old broken fences.

  “Uncle Joe!” Bobby shouted, and Joe waved when they all turned to look. “Watch me!”

  He leaned against the chainlink fence—as long as he didn’t step inside the gate he wasn’t fair game—and watched his nephew dive to the bottom of the pool and retrieve one of the glowing sticks Mike was tossing in.

  “Awesome!” he yelled when Bobby surfaced, and the boy grinned before diving down again.

  “Thought you were working.” Mike walked over and leaned on the other side of the fence.

  “Head’s not in it right now.”

  “I can hear Terry and Keri laughing up there. Do I want to know what’s going on?”

  Joe shook his head. “I don’t know. I gave them a wide berth.”

  “Better than being at each other’s throats, I guess. You going in?”

  “I’m too lazy to change into my suit and then back again. You guys riding later?”

  Mike sighed. “Probably not. Lisa thinks it’s too hot for the boys to wear all the gear and shit. And I have to stick around or I’ll be spending the rest of the trip sleeping in the screenhouse again.”

  Joe laughed, attracting Lisa’s attention. She waved from the far end of the enclosure, where she was supervising the older boys’ trips down to the bottom of the deep end. He waved and she gave him a smile.

  “Get yourself in trouble again?”

  Mike bent over to gather the glow sticks the boys were tossing at his feet and chucked the whole bunch back into the pool. “Not again. More like a chronic still. You’ve got it good, man. You can do whatever the hell you want to.”

  That’s right. He could do whatever the hell he wanted. Because there was nobody to give a shit. Maybe Mike wasn’t free to hit the trails for a few hours, but he also had somebody else to talk to besides the mirror when he had a bad day. When he was worried or blue or had great news he was bursting to share.

  He could sleep sideways on his damn bed if he wanted, because there was nobody warm to curl up against. He could eat whatever he wanted, because there was nobody to share a meal with. He could leave the toilet seat up and his socks on the floor and crank the tunes as high as he wanted.

  “Yup,” he said, reaching over the fence to slap his brother on the shoulder. “I’ve got it good. I’m going to gr
ab some grub, then get back to work again.”

  In the store he found a couple of steamed hot dogs, a snack-sized bag of chips and his sister, who must have snuck down the other path while he was talking to Mike. She had a fistful of candy bars and was checking out the beer cooler. “Hey, sis.”

  She spun around as though he’d caught her in the act of shoplifting. “Joe! What are you doing here?”

  He lifted his hand, thinking the hot dogs spoke for themselves. “What’s wrong?”

  Color brightened her cheeks. “Nothing. Why?”

  “Chocolate and wine coolers? Who do you think you’re talking to here?”

  “It’s hot. I want a candy bar and a cold drink. Get off my back.”

  She was lying, of course. A chocolate bar and a drink most women outgrew in high school were her favorite stress-busters and she usually didn’t break them out unless she was really upset about something.

  “Heard you and Keri laughing a few minutes ago. What was so funny?”

  She shrugged and grabbed a four-pack out of the cooler before closing it with her hip. “Remember the nutcrackers?”

  “Oh, jeez.” What a holiday season that had been. “Should we grab something for her?”

  “I’m going to get a couple more things and then go hang out with Steph. Watch some chick flicks or something.”

  Joe raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press. Terry’s no television rule was one of the founding tenets of the annual Kowalski family camping trip. Only Mother Nature trumped that rule and only because the four boys were a bit much when confined by bad weather.

  “I’ll probably go find Keri, then,” he told her, showing the cashier what he’d picked out so it could go on the tab. “Catch you later.”

  He didn’t have to look too hard for Keri. She was walking toward him wearing her black bathing suit with the pretty wrap-around thing over it. The knot of fabric holding it on accentuated the swinging of her hips, like a pocketwatch that sucked him in and stole his free will.

  “Hey, babe,” he managed to say when she got close enough. “Wanna hot dog?”

  “Nope. I’m going to cool off and hang with the kids for a while.”

  “Voluntarily?”

  God, her smile made his balls ache. “Yes, voluntarily. Are you going back to work?”

  “Uh, yeah,” he said, because what else was he going to say? No, I’m going to dip my blue balls into the icy cold water and try to keep my hands off you in front of the children.

  “Have fun,” she told him as she walked by him and through the pool gate.

  Yup. A fun-filled afternoon of staring at the blinking cursor, trying not to think about the way that swimsuit made her legs go on forever. Or how those legs would feel wrapped around his waist.

  It was a hot, slow walk back to the cabin.

  “That’s Dad’s truck!”

  Terry didn’t look up from the book she was reading. “I’m sure it looks like it, but it’s not.”“Well, Dad’s driving it.”

  That certainly got her attention. She turned her head just in time to see Evan throw his truck in park and get out. His four-wheeler was in the back of the pickup, camping gear bungee-corded to its racks.

  She’d only called him four hours ago, for chrissake.

  “Hello, ladies,” her maybe almost-ex-husband said.

  Evan wasn’t as tall as her brothers and there was no doubt he’d been well-fed going into middle age, but she didn’t find him any less attractive than she had the day they’d met. His dirty blond hair was getting a little shaggy and she couldn’t help but wonder if he even knew the name of the barber shop where she’d always scheduled his appointments.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to sound disinterested and failing by a mile.

  “I missed you, too.” He winked at her, then turned to their daughter. “And I couldn’t miss my weekend time with Stephie.”

  Funny how missing one weekend had been okay with him before she’d made that stupid call. Terry didn’t know what to say. How could he just show up with no warning after what he’d done?

  “I’m on site four,” he continued. “Your brothers can all get a good laugh watching me try to put up my tent. Unless you’re going to help me.”

  “I’m sure it came with instructions,” she snapped. How dare he put her in this position just because she’d been stupid enough to confess her feelings to his answering machine in a misguided, Keri-fueled moment?

  “You gonna help me?” he asked their daughter, who absolutely beamed. Funny how an almost teenage girl who couldn’t plug an RV cord into an electrical outlet was suddenly the Bob Villa of tents.

  Twenty minutes later, Terry’s palms bore red crescent fingernail marks. They were doing it wrong. They hadn’t stretched it out enough before pegging the corners, plus Steph didn’t drive the pegs in nearly far enough. And how the hell did they expect to get any of it right when they’d let the directions blow into a cluster of blackberry bushes?

  Not her problem. The man would rather be alone than be married to her? They’d see how much he liked being alone when his tent collapsed on him in the middle of the night and he couldn’t find the zipper.

  When two arms came around her shoulders from behind, she knew it was Joe and leaned back against his chest as he asked, “What’s going on here?”

  “Keri Daniels is going on here.”

  “Evan came to see Keri?”

  “No. Your girlfriend talked me into calling his answering machine while he was at work and telling him I miss him.” Dumbest idea ever.

  “This is a good thing, then. You called. He came.”

  She snorted. “He said he didn’t want to miss his weekend with Steph.”

  “You want me to go over there and kick his ass?”

  Joe could always make her laugh. “That tent’s doing a good enough job already.”

  His arms tightened around her and he rested his chin on her shoulder. “Don’t freeze him out this weekend, Terry. I know he hurt you, but from a man’s point of view, his coming up here is pretty huge.”

  They watched as Kevin and Mike approached site number four, both of them chuckling and shaking their heads while Terry fumed. Now they’d take over the operation and Evan would be spared the humiliation of calling for help at two in the morning.

  “Cut ’em some slack,” Joe said, probably feeling the tension in her shoulders. “He was our family for thirteen years, too. You’re our sister, but he’s our friend. It’s not fair of you to expect us to give him the cold shoulder when he’s right here, smack dab in the middle of things.”

  “How do you expect me to deal with all this?”

  “Talk to him. Seriously, his being here means there’s a chance you can work this out.”

  “Gee, did Ma write that script for you?”

  “Strangely enough, the people who love you all feel pretty much the same about this. Wonder why that is.”

  “Because you’re all pains in my ass.”

  Joe gave her another squeeze, then let her go. “Let him see what you’re feeling, sis. Let him know you’re hurt.”

  She had no intention of going crying to Evan. He was the one who’d left. And she wasn’t about to let him know it was destroying her inside.

  Chapter Eleven

  “How much does she hate me right now?” Keri whispered to Joe, who was helping her wrap potatoes in tin foil for baking in the campfire coals.

  “I wouldn’t pull up behind her in any mud puddles for a while.”“How was I supposed to know he’d drive all the way up here? The plan was for him to have to wait for her to come home, so he’d be practically drooling with anticipation by the time he got to see her. Instead, she’s foaming at the mouth.”

  “She’ll get over it.” When she laughed, he rolled his eyes. “Okay, she can hold a grudge. But, trust me, this is the best thing that’s happened to her in three months. She just doesn’t realize it yet.”

  “You’re not done with those potatoes yet?” Mary s
natched the roll of aluminum foil away from Joe. “You go help your father. You two are gabbing more than you’re working and we’ll be having baked potatoes for midnight snack at this rate.”

  Since neither of them was eager to argue with a woman wielding a roll of heavy duty aluminum foil, Joe shrugged and went off to find Leo, and Keri poked holes in the potatoes with a fork a little bit faster.

  “I hear Evan being here is all your fault.” She tore off a square of foil to wrap around the potato Keri handed her.

  How was it her fault? “That seems to be the rumor.”

  “Good. I don’t know how you did it, but it’s good that he’s here. Maybe that will prove to Theresa they can talk this out and put it all behind them.”

  “All I did was tell her she should call him and tell him she missed him. The driving up here and surprising her part was all him.”

  And Terry was not happy about it. She was currently sitting in the shade stripping the hell out of fresh ears of corn. Husk was flying and everybody was giving her space. A lot of space.

  “Talking it out would require her actually talking to him,” Keri pointed out.

  Mary shrugged. “She will. Later, when it’s quiet and the entire family isn’t hanging around.”

  If Keri stepped a little to the left, she could see across the campground to site four, where Evan and Stephanie were involved in their own dinner preparations. But while the Kowalskis were going for an all-out barbecue feast, the Porters were roasting hot dogs over the fire with sticks.

  She was jealous. Slaving away over dinner wasn’t her idea of a vacation and the fact that she was doing it outside didn’t make it a grand adventure. It just made it harder to wash her hands.

  “I’d like to see everybody settled,” Mary continued. “Theresa and Evan. You and Joe.”

  “Umm…” Flustered, she dropped the potato and it rolled, which at least gave her the opportunity to crawl under the picnic table and fish it out, giving her a few seconds to think.

  What, exactly, did Joe’s mother think she was doing there? She knew he’d told his family she was there to write an article about him and that he’d left out the charming blackmail aspect of the story. But there was no mistaking Mary’s intent—she’d paired them off as couples. Terry and Evan. She and Joe.