Cherish & Blessed

by Tere Michaels

  “Wow.” Shane’s gaze went to full adoration.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Evan ventured.

  “Kent and Miranda are taking a walk,” Elizabeth reported, ever the family busybody.

  “Cornelia is taking a little nap,” Blake added, smooth and nonplussed.

  “Ah.” Evan guessed that meant her decision to leave had been overruled or at least put on a delay. Which meant this wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot. “Well, I’m going to get dessert on the counter. Matt’s making coffee.”

  “I love him. He’s my favorite,” Helena muttered, dealing the cards counterclockwise.

  Katie looked intently at each card tossed her way, then up at his face with too-wise eyes. “Need any help?”

  “Matt and I have it.” Evan winked at her. “But maybe later.”

  “’Kay.” She went back to her hand, and the round soon began, leaving Evan a spectator. Once again he was overwhelmed with his love for his kids. They were growing up so fast, and yet he could see with such clarity their faces at each age, each stage of life.

  Matt rumbled in behind him, and the moment was broken. “Coffee in ten,” he said, pressing up against Evan’s back. They were still in that moment of closeness, not quite ready to stay away from each other.

  “Is there tea?” Shane peeked up from behind his fan of cards.

  “No, sorry. We’re out of hot water.”

  Evan elbowed Matt.

  “Be nice to my boyfriend,” Helena warned, taking a card from the deck.

  “I was just pretending to be Vic for a moment,” Matt said sweetly. He dropped a kiss on Evan’s cheek. “Next I’m going to be your mom.”

  Shane shivered dramatically, which earned him an elbow in the side of his own.

  The front door slamming caught everyone’s attention. Evan knew it was Miranda who stomped up the stairs afterward—he’d learned that very distinctive sound over the years.

  “Excuse—”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m going up,” Katie said. Her cards hit the table as she stood up, anger barely restrained in her expression. “My big sister and I need to have a little girl talk.”

  It was on the tip of Evan’s tongue to stop Katie, to handle it himself, but he reminded himself that Miranda was a young adult—and so was Katie.

  So Evan nodded.

  “Go get ’em,” Matt murmured.

  Katie shot him a grateful glance. “Save me pie,” she said, stalking out of the dining room with a determined set of her shoulders.

  “No promises!” Danny yelled before dropping his last card and winning the game.

  Evan distracted himself by taking the desserts out and laid them on the kitchen counter so as not to disrupt the game going on in the other room. It had reached a fever pitch, as only five points separated the top three players.

  “Lightning round!” Elizabeth squealed, and the faint sound of G-rated trash talk began.

  Matt set the coffee on the table and poured himself a large mug before surrendering the pot. “You think we should find the wayward members of our party?” he asked, leaning against the fridge.

  “No.”

  Matt laughed at his blunt honesty. “You going to tell me about what happened between you and Cornelia?”

  “Oh right. You missed that. Well, she hates guns, doesn’t seem to love cops all that much, and thinks I’m a bad parent raising a daughter with shitty values.” Evan rattled around in the silverware drawer, trying to remember if they had a cake-server thingy.

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s not getting any pie, that’s for sure.”

  A scream of victory went up in the other room. Elizabeth, clearly. A round of applause followed.

  “I won!” Elizabeth skipped into the kitchen, a bright smile on her face. She stopped next to Evan for a hug. “I won by twenty points!”

  “Impressive comeback.” Matt leaned over to give her a high five.

  “Shane is pretending to cry.” She snickered. “Helena said he was clearly broken and would need extra whipped cream on his pumpkin pie.”

  Matt snapped his fingers. “That’s what I forgot.”

  “No tea, no whipped cream, and he lost. What a terrible day.” Helena walked into the kitchen, a wry smile on her face.

  “You’ll have to make it up to him,” Matt said dryly over Elizabeth’s head—literally and figuratively.

  Helena fluttered her eyelashes at him.

  “Any sounds from upstairs?” Evan went into the fridge for the conciliatory cream.

  “No. But Kent came in a while ago. He seemed mostly okay.”

  Evan didn’t say anything with Elizabeth in the room, but he added the boy to his list of people to talk to before he and his family roared away from this mess. “Honey, go get everyone, okay?”

  “Sure.” Elizabeth ducked out of the room.

  “I have to tell you, this was so much more exciting than getting grilled about my marital status in Florida,” Helena said, taking the two cans of nondairy heaven out of Evan’s hands. “Sincerely.”

  “When I talk to your stepfather on Monday, I’m going to mention you were looking at baby clothes online.”

  Her face crumpled into a scowl. “Lies.”

  Matt’s “Ha!” bounced off the walls.

  “Shane’s cute and rich. You should bag that sperm ASAP.”

  “Your boyfriend is a terrible human being.” She pointed the nozzles at Matt in a threatening manner.

  The kitchen suddenly filled with humans, the kids barely restraining themselves not to rush the table, the adults falling back and sniffing out the coffee. Matt put himself in charge of that, filling cups and directing people to milk and sugar.

  They were a well-oiled team, serving guests and making chitchat. Kent hovered on the edge of the group, not protesting when Matt handed him a coffee cup and Blake presented him with a huge plate of apple pie.

  Evan let himself relax for a moment, to enjoy the lack of tension in the room for a few seconds. He listened to the conversation—the teasing between Matt, Helena, and Shane; the detailed debate on ice cream versus whipped cream being held by the twins; Blake and Kent murmuring comforting words to each other in the corner. It was fun and the way he wanted this day to go for everyone.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said to Matt, who had landed by his side in search of more pecan pie.

  “Upstairs?” Matt’s face was a mask of concern.

  “Yeah.”

  Matt just nodded, mouthing an “I love you” before turning back to his conversation with their friends.

  Evan slipped upstairs, walking slowly through the rest of the house, feeling the quiet grow as he got farther away from the kitchen. He felt a heaviness descending, but he tried to hold the lighthearted togetherness of the kitchen in his heart for a little bit longer.

  At Katie’s door he paused, then listened against the wood. The quiet murmur of voices confirmed they were in there. He hesitated. Knocked.

  “Who is it?” Katie asked.

  “Dad.”

  A slight scuffle of noises and a second later, the door opened to reveal a tense Katie. Miranda was on the bed behind her, wringing her hands, a pile of tissues at her side. She looked miserable.

  “Can I come in?” Evan asked Katie. She turned and gave Miranda a glance.

  Who shrugged.

  “Thank you,” he said sincerely, following Katie inside, then shutting the door behind him. He lingered, back against the door, while Katie went back to her bed and sat beside her sister.

  “You okay?”

  Miranda shrugged again, gaze directed to her lap. “Kent’s probably breaking up with me,” she murmured, her voice full of tears.

  Evan counted to ten, breathing evenly. “I’m sorry. He seems like a nice guy,” he said, neutral as hell.

  She turned toward him at that.

  “A nice guy who didn’t deserve to come into this and be surprised,” he added. And thank God his paren
ting resources were in there somewhere, because Miranda dropped her head, clearly ashamed.

  “I didn’t lie to him,” she whispered, a last flare of defensiveness.

  “Leaving out vital information is still lying,” Katie said, irritated. “Embarrassing him and his parents with your behavior was just crappy.”

  Miranda gave her a tearful look. “You don’t understand—”

  “Yeah, I do. And I’m sick of you punishing Dad.”

  Miranda tensed. Her gaze went from Katie to Evan and back again. “I’m not punishing Dad!”

  “Yeah, you are. And Matt and me and the kids and those poor freaking people who drove here from Connecticut. It’s driving me crazy, Miranda, and you know what? I don’t want to be around you anymore.” Katie’s voice shook with emotion. She ducked her head, clearly fighting off tears. “You’re my big sister, and we know better than anyone how a person can be here one day and gone the next, and I still… I still don’t want to be around you. And that sucks.”

  Miranda’s defensiveness roared back to life. Evan watched her go ramrod straight, hands tightening into fists.

  “So I’ll leave, and then everyone will be happy. Right, Dad?” Miranda snapped. Fresh tears rolled down her face.

  “Happy, no. Relieved, maybe.” Honesty slipped out as Evan walked over to the bed. “Because I don’t know how to talk to you anymore. No one does. You hate it here, you hate what our lives are, and I don’t know… I don’t know what to do about it.” He sat down heavily on the other side of the double bed.

  “Fine.” She shook with the force of her emotions.

  “No, it’s not fine.” Katie sounded exasperated. “It’s not. Why would it be fine for you to hate us so much?”

  “I don’t hate anyone!”

  “Then stop acting like it—”

  “Katie.” Evan touched her arm.

  “It’s not fair, and I’m sick of it,” she finished, crying openly.

  Her tears triggered Miranda, and both girls began to weep.

  It took him a second, but Evan maneuvered himself close to wrap an arm around each of them, leaning in the middle of the bed. “We all want better, right? That’s why we’re upset. Because we want things to be better,” he murmured, kissing each of their foreheads in turn.

  “You used to care about us!” Katie sobbed. “You took care of us when Mom died.”

  Miranda struggled against her father’s shoulder but didn’t pull away. “Of course I did. I had to. And then you replaced me with Matt, and everyone was happy again. Except me.”

  And no one cared, Evan supplied in his head. He tightened his hold on her shoulders. “Not true, sweetie, but I get that you felt that way, and I’m sorry. I really am. But you were never replaced.” He took a deep breath. “And neither was your mom.”

  And he knew that in a tiny way, that was a lie. He knew he relied on Matt the same way he had relied on Sherri—to take care of the house and the kids and to direct him away from the proverbial ledge on a regular basis. Someone to manage life when he forgot.

  But Matt couldn’t manage Miranda. It was Evan’s job. His failing.

  Miranda cried harder at the mention of her mother. Evan reminded himself, a bit shamefully, how he’d relied on Miranda in the early days, interrupting her grieving process to survive his own.

  Tears choked him.

  “God, Miranda, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry,” he whispered, burying a kiss in her hair.

  They sat like that for too long, until Evan’s arms and back and heart ached and throbbed. Katie pulled back first, uncurling herself from Evan’s embrace to look for the box of tissues. She found it on the floor as Miranda pushed closer to Evan, all but crawling into his lap.

  “Here, you’re disgusting,” Katie whispered, thrusting a handful of tissues at her.

  Miranda snorted.

  Evan didn’t relinquish Miranda from his arms while she wiped her face. He didn’t let go until she pulled away—just a little, just enough to sit up.

  “I love you, okay? And whatever things we have to work out, we will,” Evan promised as Katie pushed a tissue into his hand as well. “But maybe we can do that without hurting each other.”

  “I vote for that.” Katie curled up at his side again.

  Miranda nodded. “I have a lot of people to apologize to.”

  “Yeah.” Evan wiped his eyes. “But I think Kent and his parents need to hear them first and foremost.”

  She winced. “I can’t believe they didn’t leave.”

  “Me neither,” Evan muttered. “But the important thing is, there’s still a chance to explain yourself and say you’re sorry,” he said, louder this time. “And if Kent’s the right person for you to be dating”—he emphasized the last word—“then he’ll understand.”

  “We weren’t really going to get married,” she admitted. “It’s too soon.”

  “No duh.” Katie poked her in the side.

  “Talk to him. Without getting defensive.” Pot. Kettle. Evan.

  “She should probably have pie first.”

  “No, I don’t deserve pie,” Miranda said dramatically. “I don’t deserve anything.”

  Katie moaned. She reached behind her for a throw pillow, then socked Miranda in the head. “Shut up.”

  “No shut ups,” Evan said automatically, and the girls laughed. It was something Sherri had said all the time when they were little.

  “All right, let’s wash some faces, get downstairs, and try to show these people we’re capable of being… well, something close to normal.” He kissed each one in turn, squeezing them tightly.

  “Love you, Dad,” Katie said sweetly.

  “Love you too.”

  She got up, collecting all the damp tissues with a grumble. Miranda didn’t move, leaned against Evan’s side.

  “I love you too,” she murmured, ducking her head.

  Evan stroked her hair. Katie went into the bathroom that bridged her and Elizabeth’s rooms, leaving them alone.

  “I love you so much, Miranda. So, so much. And I haven’t been a very good dad in the past few years. That’s on me.”

  “I haven’t been a great daughter.”

  “Maybe we’ve both made mistakes.” He took a deep breath, then tipped her head up so they were looking each other in the eye. “I won’t choose, Miranda. And I don’t say that to be mean or hurt your feelings. But Matt going away wouldn’t change anything. Mom would still be gone, and we’d still miss her every day.”

  The tears welled up again. “I know. I really do. And I don’t hate Matt.” Miranda’s lip quivered. “I really don’t, Daddy.”

  “I know.”

  She sniffled. “You know if you brought a nice lady home, I’d be a bitch to her too, right?”

  A rough laugh escaped Evan’s throat.

  Chapter 13

  THEY DESCENDED the stairs to find everyone sprawled in the living room, the turkey coma replaced by a sugar one. Matt raised his eyebrows as Evan gave him a hopefully reassuring smile, ushering the girls into the kitchen.

  “Too much to hope there’s still dessert?”

  “I restarted the coffee pot and hid a pumpkin pie in the back of the fridge.” Matt reached out. Evan took his hand, a brief touch, and then he was moving again.

  “Thanks.” He looked around and noticed Cornelia was still missing from the group. “Hey, Kent, would you like more coffee?”

  The non sequitur couldn’t have been more obvious, but no one blinked. Kent gave a nervous twitch, but he stood up, sharing a quick wordless exchange with his father.

  “Yes, sir, thanks,” he said, falling in behind Evan as he walked into the kitchen.

  The girls were pouring cups of coffee and slicing pie as he and Kent walked in. Miranda did a double take when she saw her boyfriend.

  “There are some jackets by the back door. Why don’t you two take your coffees out onto the deck?” he suggested, smiling at his daughter.

  Miranda just nodded. She turned back to make a
second cup for Kent while Katie walked around the kitchen, whistling in the most obvious way possible. She did the themes from Jaws and Psycho before Evan cleared his throat.

  Kent and Miranda, shyly looking at each other, left the kitchen with their coffees, wearing ill-fitting sweat jackets from the hooks in the corner. Evan flicked on the back light and looked briefly at the sweethearts standing next to each other.

  “Do me a favor: elope when you’re forty.” Evan sighed as he walked over to Katie.

  “Deal.”

  Evan cleaned the kitchen one more time. He estimated every single dish, cup, and piece of cutlery in the house had been used and washed at least twice. Their guests drifted in and out, and he let the peaceful chatter soothe him.

  Every few minutes he checked the back deck to make sure Kent and Miranda were still there, that they were talking and not throwing chairs at each other. He wasn’t sure what he wanted the outcome to be: them surviving this, or him not having to deal with Miranda and a serious boyfriend.

  The squeak of the door caught his attention. Evan smiled at the pair as they walked in, pink cheeked and chattering but holding hands and looking far more like two kids in love than they had since he opened the door that afternoon.

  “So, you two need anything?” he asked, gesturing around the spotless kitchen. “Please say only a glass of water.”

  Kent laughed nervously. “I’m fine, thank you, sir. Mr. Cerelli.” He looked at Miranda, then back at Evan. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior today.”

  Evan held up his hand to stop the kid, but he wasn’t having it.

  “No, I have no excuse for storming around and leaving the table like that. It’s not how I usually am. In fact, I’m pretty sure my parents are going to ground me at some point, and I’m probably not going to stop them.” He sighed, and Evan smothered a chuckle.

  “I think we can all agree first impressions were crap today.” Evan glanced at his daughter, who looked faintly mortified.

  Good.

  “Yes.” Kent nodded enthusiastically. “But hopefully second ones are better.”

  Evan gave this wisp of a kid a good once-over and then lifted his chin. Kent demonstrated some backbone, and he’d apparently readily accepted Miranda’s apology. It was a start. “Absolutely.”