Love & Rockets

by Maggie Wells

  They’d fallen into a routine of sorts. Friday nights were date nights, thanks to the generosity of Connie Cade. Harley was also aware of Jake’s relationship with Darla because he never missed a chance to razz him about his tardiness when he showed up at the Home Again house on Saturday a good two hours later than he used to. Tuesday nights, he showed up at their apartment with dinner in hand and an imaginary padlock on his pants. After they ate, he and Grace would get to work. No chit-chat. No flirting. And, to his ever-loving frustration, no hint of anything going on between the two of them. This was Grace’s time. Period. End of story.

  Sure, he and Darla communicated via text or phone call, but if he wanted to see her, he had to wait for Friday night, or go to The Pit. There, he could flirt, but not touch, which was almost as bad as nothing at all. The more time he spent with each of the Kennet women, the more he found himself craving more.

  He didn’t expect Darla to hire a marching band or tattoo his name on her forehead, but her ability to adhere to complete separation between her work, parenting, and sex lives was a little disconcerting. He’d never had a relationship he’d had to compartmentalize in any way. At least, not since the debacle with Courtney. And as much as he wished he could lock the memory of her away and nail a few boards over the hatch, he couldn’t shake the worry that niggled at him each time Darla stuffed him into his designated corner of her life.

  There was no point in missing someone he’d never met.

  “So, I’ve written the introduction and stuff,” Grace said, flipping through the pages of her notebook. “Should I describe how the magnets repelled now?”

  Repelled.

  He was tired of Darla pushing him away. Saturday mornings were torture. Friday nights weren’t nearly enough. There were things he wanted to know about her. Silly things. Basic things. Things a man who could map all seven of her ticklish spots should know.

  And Grace knew what was going on between them—to a reasonable extent. They were a secret, but not really a secret, which made the whole thing even weirder. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out the need to keep things so compartmentalized when the most important person in her world was perfectly aware they were dating.

  They never talked about it. At all. Darla said Gracie knew they liked spending time together and nothing more. When he tried to get her to expound on the subject, she clammed up. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to break the cone of silence. Not when everything seemed to be going so well.

  There was nothing to be gained in questioning the methods of the Kennet women. Particularly, if a guy had hopes of seeing a certain Kennet woman naked ever again. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t flat-out ask questions.

  “Yeah, I think we can start by talking a little about polar magnetism and go from there.”

  Grace pursed her lips and pressed her pencil to the paper. “Sometime I want to work on something about Geomagnetic Reversal.”

  Jake closed his eyes as his heart did a slow somersault.

  God, he loved this kid. Loved every minute he spent in her company. Even if he couldn’t spend those minutes making love to her mother. Or, as Darla preferred to term it, naughty nerd sex. He didn’t quibble over the semantics.

  But as fantastic as any naughtiness he might be having with her mother was, Grace was proving to be a marvel in her own right. He loved getting to know her better. Unlike Darla, she was frank and forthcoming, even though she was naturally more reserved. She was also thoughtful, perceptive, and definitely more content with quiet than her mother.

  But the dynamic duo shared the same razor-sharp wit and sometimes perverse sense of humor. Jake was also discovering he could exploit Grace’s amazing powers of concentration much the way his mother had managed his father for nearly forty years. Distraction and deflection were key, but the true power lay in the ability to drop the well-placed sneaky question.

  “That would be cool,” he said, more than happy to encourage her curiosity, and hoping to satisfy a little of his own. “I know a woman who has done some studies on the South Atlantic Anomaly. I’ll get some information and we can look it over.”

  The graphite tip of her pencil scraped across the paper at a steady pace and Jake smiled. True to form, Grace was utterly absorbed in the work at hand, making this the perfect time to strike.

  “What’s your mom’s middle name?”

  “Arnell,” she answered without missing a beat.

  Jake started a bit. He’d expected something like Jane or Jo, thinking he could pull the stern middle name thing with her Friday night if she got too sassy, spicy, or saucy with him. He didn’t know how well something like Arnell was going to work in the heat of the moment. “Arnell? Darla Arnell?”

  “Darlington,” Grace murmured, almost under her breath. She blinked in confusion as she lifted her head. “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  Tilting her head, she eyed him owlishly. “Did you know having access to a person’s middle name makes it easier for identity thieves to access a person’s accounts?”

  His mouth dropped open and his mind reeled. Was she imparting random bits of wisdom or accusing him of something? “I’m not going to steal your mom’s identity. I was only curious.”

  Grace flashed an impish smile and shrugged. “I know. They ran a story on identity theft on the news the other night. It was interesting.” Her smile faded and her forehead puckered. “Did you know they have a thing they can attach to gas pumps and things where you swipe your card?” She backed the information up with a small, solemn nod. “You have to check them carefully, and sometimes it’s hard to tell. You’re better off using a credit card if you have one. Most of those offer fraud protection.”

  He stared at her, at once bemused and beguiled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She tossed his gratitude and the topic off with a casual shrug and turned back to her paper.

  The pencil scratched its way across two more lines before he broke. “Her parents really named her Darlington?”

  She nodded but didn’t look up. “Darlington Arnell Kennet. I guess since she was an only child, they thought they’d better use all the family names.” Her pencil stopped moving as she paused to wrinkle her nose. “I don’t really like Grace Mary, but I guess it could have been a lot worse, huh?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  A long beat passed before she started to write again. Once she regained her momentum, he cocked his head and read as she wrote.

  “I think Grace Mary is a pretty name.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “Hm?” He frowned at the last line she’d written, but it didn’t make sense.

  “What’s your middle name?” Grace asked with exaggerated patience, bouncing the tip of her pencil off the wire binding of the notebook. “She’ll pump me for information later, and it would be so much faster if you give me a quick rundown.”

  Jake sat up straight in his chair. Now he understood why she’d written, “People in love don’t make good spies,” in the middle of her essay. Turning his stunned gaze on her, he found her wearing a smirk that was her mother’s made over.

  “Andrew. Jacob Andrew Dalton,” he said slowly. “Remind me to thank my parents.”

  She nodded. “You probably should. It’s a nice, easy name.” Heaving a sigh, Grace erased the bit about spies, then flipped to a fresh page of lined paper. “Favorite color?”

  “Blue,” he answered automatically.

  “Movie?”

  “The Right Stuff.”

  “Of course,” she said as she noted the title.

  “Book?”

  “Cosmos.”

  She sighed as if his admiration of Carl Sagan’s seminal work was somehow a personal disappointment to her.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” But Gracie’s pitying little head shake spoke volumes. “A little obvious.”

  “I’m not an overly com
plicated guy.”

  She turned to look him square in the eye. “Bands or musical groups?”

  He scowled at her in return. “I’d like to invoke the protection of my Fifth Amendment rights.”

  “Right. Pearl Jam and U2,” she said, turning back to her paper.

  “More like Nine Inch Nails and Korn,” he retorted.

  “I’m relieved you didn’t say Maroon 5 or something.”

  “I strike you as a big fan of pop music?”

  “For all I know, you might have stolen Mick Jagger’s moves, too.”

  He smirked. “You know who Mick Jagger is?”

  Grace rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the page in front of her, a flush turning her cheeks the color of spring roses. “I know a lot of things.”

  “Thank heavens for Wiki,” he teased. “It gives us everything we need.”

  Her head shot up and the blushed deepened. Dark eyes flashed with scorn. “I don’t get my information from Wikipedia.”

  “No?”

  Untamed dark hair flew as she gave her head a violent shake, then she returned her attention to the notebook. “Actually, I read an article in a magazine called Rolling Stone.”

  He nodded sagely, fighting back the urge to laugh. “Where better to get information on the lead singer of the Rolling Stones?”

  “What’s your favorite food?”

  The question came at him like a bullet, so he swallowed his laughter and gave the first answer that sprang to mind. “Ribs.”

  “Good thing Mom works at The Pit.”

  “It might be Kismet.”

  He’d been teasing, but something about his flippant remark struck Gracie.

  She looked up again. “Do you believe in that?”

  “What? Fate? Kismet?” he asked, cocking his head as he pondered her question. “I guess I do a little.”

  “Not very scientific. I mean, there’s no proof.” She stammered to a stop, clearly unable to find the words she wanted. “It’s not logical,” she concluded at last.

  Jake smiled. “And we’re not Vulcans.”

  The urge to touch her was almost unbearable. Nothing big. A pat on the hand, maybe brush that mass of dark hair back so he could see those startlingly incisive eyes. But he didn’t dare. This wasn’t his child to soothe and pet. And their time together was drawing to an end. No, better to keep a little distance between them. Even if he wished things were different.

  Sitting back in his chair, he laced his fingers together to keep from doing something stupid. “You know, Grace, whether people on either side of the table like to admit it, almost all hard sciences are based in faith.”

  She turned to look at him, those sober, serious eyes boring holes straight into his heart. “We don’t really go to church. Mom says most churches should be consolidated into a chain called the International House of Hypocrites.”

  He nodded as if digesting the glimpse into their inner workings. Well aware of the pseudo-piety Darla’s parents hid behind when they turned their young, pregnant daughter out of their house, Jake completely understood the reasoning behind her disdain for organized religion. But he wasn’t about to get into the details with her kid. Leaning in, he gave his head a slight shake.

  “I didn’t mean the religious kind of faith, per se. I mean the belief in your theory. Faith is what allows a true person of science to believe in possibilities.” He smiled at her. “Then we go looking for probabilities, and finally proof. But all science starts with having faith in what you think may be true. Sometimes, you’ll be disappointed. But sometimes you won’t.”

  He paused, distracted by a movement in the hallway. He caught a glimpse of Darla’s shadow lurking beyond the edge of the wall. She was eavesdropping on her daughter’s attempts at super-sleuthing. She wanted to know more about him than whatever she was hypothesizing in her mind. And if that didn’t make a man of faith and science smile, nothing would. “When you’re right about something, there’s nothing more thrilling.”

  He reached over, plucked the pencil from Grace’s hand, and pulled the notebook toward him. In neat block print he added: dogs, salt water, and the sound of a pneumatic nail gun to her list of his favorite things.

  “A nail gun?” Grace asked, peering over his arm as he wrote.

  He flipped the page back to the draft of her essay, then slid the notebook back. “I pretend it’s a photon gun.”

  Grace giggled as she reclaimed her pencil as well. “Nerd.”

  “Takes one to know one, kid.”

  ****

  Friday evening, they didn’t even bother with dinner before falling into bed. Seemed like a good idea at the time. And despite the loud growl of displeasure from his stomach, Jake remained convinced. Still, keeping up with Darla physically and mentally was lots and lots of work. A man needed to keep his strength up. But he wasn’t inclined to move. Not when he could lie there running his hand down the silky curve of her upper arm as she snuggled into him. Her breasts pillowed against his side. She slipped one leg over his. Graceful fingers rumpled the hair on his chest, then smoothed the trail leading down to his crotch. His stomach gurgled again and Darla snickered softly before pressing a consoling kiss to his chest.

  “Poor guy. You need fuel.” She settled into the crook of his arm, clearly not overly concerned about his needs. “I should have brought you some ribs. I think Bubba had a half-rack left when we closed.”

  “I find that hard to believe.” And he was serious. Usually, Bubba’s ribs were long gone if you didn’t get to The Pit before the noon rush ended.

  She shrugged. “Happens once in a blue moon.”

  Jake gave his growling stomach an absent rub. “Makes a fella want to cry.”

  “If it makes you feel better, I think they were going to use them to make tacos.”

  He frowned. “I love tacos, but something about using Bubba’s ribs to make them seems a little sacrilegious.”

  “Zelda Jo is a complete heretic.”

  With the mere mention of Zelda Jo, another piece of the Darlington Arnell Kennet puzzle snapped into place. He lifted his head, tucking his chin to his chest as he peered down at her. “Betty Boop.”

  Darla groaned and tried to roll away, but he caught her and hauled her back, laughing with the joy of his discovery. “For the longest time, I thought she was calling you ‘Bootsie’ and I couldn’t figure out why. But it’s not. It’s ‘Boopsie’, isn’t it?”

  “I hear you read nerd books and listen to Broadway musicals.”

  “Broadway musicals?” he asked, his laughter fading into a scoff. “Hardly.”

  “Something about Kismet?”

  She was baiting him with information gleaned from the conversation she eavesdropped on a few nights before. This time, he put a little space between them and gave her a drop-jawed, pointed glare he hoped conveyed his disbelief. “Were you listening to my conversation with Gracie?”

  “The one where you confessed your love of all things Adam Levine? Yes.”

  He dropped back onto the pillow with a relieved whoosh. “Obviously, you were listening in on someone else’s conversation. Do you have a different guy come over to tutor your kid every night?”

  “Tutor,” she repeated with a derisive snort. “You’re supposed to be some kind of a mentor or something, but as far as I can see, you’re purely decorative.”

  He smiled as he turned to look at her. “I think I’ve proven I have my uses.”

  She rewarded him with a lazy grin and another one of those maddening strokes that came too close to hitting him in the right spot. His stomach roared this time and she laughed out loud. Giving his tummy a consoling pat, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “We’re not going to get a moment’s peace, are we?”

  “A man has needs, Darlington,” he explained with exaggerated patience.

  Her eyebrows winged upward and she murmured, “So she’s a double agent,” almost to herself.

&n
bsp; “As long as we don’t put her in the middle, we’ll be okay. Plus, I think she kind of likes being the one with the information,” he mused. Now they’d drilled a hole through the invisible barrier she’d erected between his relationship with her and his interaction with her daughter, and he wanted to test the waters. “Grace said there was some kind of cornbread cook-off going on at Harley’s mom’s tonight,” he said, hoping to drop the line into the conversation with minimal splash.

  “Food on the brain.”

  With a too-bright smile that screamed avoidance, Darla rolled off the edge of the bed and began to sort through the discarded clothing littering the floor of his otherwise spotless bedroom. She came up with his shirt, and he sucked in a sharp breath as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. Bits and pieces of information began to filter through the blood pounding in his ears. She wasn’t going to bolt. Darla in nothing but his shirt. Leftover pot roast in the fridge. Maybe they could fool around in the kitchen a little bit.

  She fastened two buttons on the shirt, then turned back to give his ankle an encouraging pat. “Come on, Hungry Jake. Let’s put something in your belly before it turns on itself.”

  She was out the bedroom door before his feet hit hardwood. Grabbing his boxer briefs from the flotsam on the floor, he hurried after her without bothering to pull them on. “I don’t have much. Some eggs. Some leftovers. We could order a pizza or something. Otherwise, I think there’s some macaroni and cheese in the cabinet.”

  He rounded the corner to find her bent in front of the open door of the fridge, the plastic container his mother had left in a cooler on his doorstep clutched in her hand. She lifted the lid and gave the contents a delicate sniff before raising an enquiring eyebrow. Leaning against the doorframe, he took a moment to step into his briefs before answering.

  “Pot roast. My mother left a bag of leftovers yesterday.”

  “Left it?”

  “I came home and there was a cooler parked in front of my door.” And a note. One laced with a hefty dose of mom guilt.