He agreed and they dug in. Finally, she tasted the food. It was worthy of whatever price tag they put on it.
“So what is the name of this band that’s moving into my garage? I never heard.”
“Wilder.”
“It suits you. So who’d you sell that last song to?”
He shrugged, “It just wound up as a back track. It’s not a single.”
“Sure, but who cut it?”
“Tim McGraw.”
She almost choked. He was one of the biggest names in country music. “The Tim McGraw?”
He nodded, looking a little embarrassed.
She wanted to yell at him. But she kept her voice as low as possible. “And you were going to quit!?”
Chapter 12
JD put Andie on hold for a little while that morning, while he called the two companies he was deciding between and told each of them that he wouldn’t be taking the job. Each offered him more money, and each time he winced, his fingers pressing against the bridge of his nose. Man, that hurt. He’d had to explain to both of them, that he wasn’t taking another job over their offer, he’d simply thought about it and decided not to take any job. After that, they wished him well and quit throwing money at him.
He wanted to laugh at that. He hadn’t really thought about it; he’d had it beaten into him. But when he turned and looked at Andie, playing quietly on the floor with her pink haired doll, she looked up at him expectantly. He grew six inches. He felt lighter.
He felt like he was doing the right thing now.
For a brief moment it occurred to him that Kelsey had just moved a little further out of reach. But he shoved it down deep somewhere and told himself it didn’t matter how far beyond him she was. Out of reach was out of reach, and further was probably better. That way he wouldn’t do something stupid like try.
Kelsey had her kids in day care today, and he needed to get back online and make some money. He hadn’t even checked his stocks yesterday, what with the interviews and the arguing with Kelsey. She was a formidable opponent. She’d argued him into altering his life, but he’d argued her into doing the same.
If only he could clear his head of the image of her, all sleep tousled, long bare legs draped off the side of the bed, no bra, bright blue ‘little devil’ undies. What made it worse was that it was fact, not some random image he had fabricated into fantasy. This was genuine Kelsey. He’d fled the room like his ass was in flames.
He punched some keys haphazardly, his fingers working from memory rather than thought. His stocks appeared on the screen in front of him. He turned his search to finding a new low penny stock to put the principle from last week’s windfall into.
Forcibly, he turned his attention away from long bare legs and caramel colored pig-tails and focused on what he knew. An hour later he had an order and a prayer in for one thousand shares.
The weather had cooled, so he took Andie out to lunch then to the park. He wasn’t up to making lunch. He wasn’t SuperDad, and he wouldn’t be anytime soon. One thing at a time. He had to get her trusting him, so he could keep her bathed and groomed. He didn’t want her kindergarten teacher calling CPS. In fact, he didn’t want them called at all now. They’d failed miserably at being the lifeline they had touted themselves to be. Now, they would only bring trouble. He had help. He had Kelsey.
He had one more day of summer.
Tomorrow he’d take all of them to the pool. Maybe Andie would let him teach her a little about how to swim. She flailed miserably, but if she made a few minor adjustments she’d be great.
Andie climbed the jungle gym like a monkey and made instant friends. Then she was playing with another, smaller kid and his sand pail, just digging like clams next to the swings.
Single mothers came and sat next to him and tried to start conversations. Looking around, he realized he was the only dad here, except for one guy across the park who looked way too granola. No wonder they were all hitting on him.
What had happened to him in the last three months? A year ago, if you had told him that, just by bringing a kid to the playground, women would be hanging all over him, he’d have kidnapped the nearest cute preschooler and hit the sandbox. But now he didn’t want anything to do with them. They seemed desperate, or lonely, or . . . he didn’t even know. But there was something wrong with each one of them.
“So, is that your little girl? What is she, five?”
He nodded, and pushed up half a smile at the edges of his lips. It was time to go home.
“She’s a cutie.”
“Yes, she is. Andie!” He yelled the last part, and somehow didn’t add, “Save me!” Instead he turned to the woman who had parked herself beside him. “It was nice to meet you, but I’m afraid it’s time for us to head out.”
A quick up and down revealed that the woman was an attractive blond, late twenties or early thirties, with a killer bod and gorgeous blue eyes, and absolutely no sex appeal. Now he understood why married couples had no sex. Being a parent just drained it out of you.
He made peanut butter sandwiches and opened a bag of carrot sticks for dinner. Andie dipped hers in ranch dressing, and after choking down two of them to show how good they were, he joined her and smothered his, too.
He had Kelsey drive them to the pool the next day. They were all safer in her mini-van anyway. He paid everyone’s way in, and Andie even let him show her a few strokes. She agreed to go into swim lessons the next summer. He’d had her for nine weeks. Yet he was making plans for next year. While it felt right, it still wasn’t second nature.
For three hours Kelsey distracted him with that two-piece suit she sometimes wore. Being attracted to her was a real bummer, but it would pass.
For right now he pushed it aside by sheer physical exertion. He held Andie while she paddled around, reminding her to cup her hands, and showing her how to blow bubbles. He threw Daniel and Allie, who had no fear of going under water. Then again, they were both very capable swimmers. Allie let out wild shrieks each time he tossed her, and begged him to send her just a little further each time. It didn’t help that Kelsey laughed each time, and told them to enjoy it because she sure wasn’t strong enough to throw them like that. And, damn, was it a good workout. He figured dads really had no good excuse to turn to flab. Lifting thirty to fifty pounds at a shot was a great way to stay in shape.
No women came up and hit on him either. Although, that was probably because they thought he belonged to Kelsey. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Later, Kelsey said she thought the kids were worn out. JD was supremely grateful. He’d been worn out himself about half an hour ago, but hadn’t wanted to be the one to cop out on the last day of swimming.
They grilled hot dogs and hamburgers on Kelsey’s tiny Weber grill in her backyard to celebrate. As he polished off the last hotdog and crumpled his napkin on his paper plate, Kelsey told him to sit still, and ran inside.
Confused, he waited. She emerged a minute later holding a small box that looked like it had been wrapped in plate copper. The top had ‘JD’ etched into it.
She held it out to him. “Happy Birthday.”
As he accepted it she began gushing, about how it wasn’t a big party and she didn’t have a band to sing for him, but she hoped he enjoyed it.
“Stop.” He smiled at her, feeling the same warmth inside that he was sure showed on his face. He hadn’t expected this. “Quit making excuses; this is great.”
Turning the box over, he looked for a seam and found the copper folded over in the back. Slowly he peeled it away, to reveal a cardboard jewelry box. He eyed Kelsey suspiciously.
She smirked. “That’s just the box. I did not get you pearls.”
He popped it open to reveal a printed internet page. His mouth opened as he read. “You didn’t.”
“I hope you like it. You can go any day they’re open.” She paused. “Tomorrow, if you want. The kids and I decided to start a tradition last year, and we drive up into this spot in Kentucky and go
hiking, then we come home and pitch a tent in the backyard and sleep out. We have about three, really high-tech tents if you want to take one and go all day, then you can come back the next morning.”
He couldn’t believe what he was holding: a vacation of sorts. He hadn’t had a real vacation in almost four years. He’d spent every trip visiting his parents, or picking up TJ from Texas when he’d convinced his brother to come out and sing. “Wow. Thank you.”
Before he could think about it, he stood up and hugged her. She felt smaller in his arms than how he saw her. Her arms wrapped around his waist and she pressed the side of her face against his chest.
She was soft and warm and she fit him. The muscles in his arms threatened to tighten, and hold her just a little bit closer, a little bit longer. His brain made him let go before that happened, before things got awkward. “Why do you have so many tents?”
She shook her head. “Only Andrew knew. He kept buying them. He’d just come home with the latest gear. We have seven fishing poles. He used each of them exactly once. Most of them only in the back yard, practicing. So I couldn’t return them. He opened each of the tents and set them up and took them down. It was like he wanted to be a survivalist or something, like at some time he would need to know how to pitch a tent in under five minutes.”
She looked away, wistful for a minute. “I think when he was up, he was planning a vacation for when his meds stabilized and he was allowed to go camping.” She smiled a sad smile, and JD regretted asking her to bring up the old memories. One thing that was clear about Kelsey was that she had loved and accepted this sometimes violent, always unstable man. And that she still missed him with all her heart.
Maybe for his own benefit, he put voice to that. “You still miss him.”
She nodded, and he could see tears pooling at the bottom of her eyes, although she fought to not let them drop. “I always will.” Her voice was whisper soft, but then it gained strength as she found her way back to the topic of the many tents. “They packed up so small, I hauled them here, thinking I’d sell them in a yard sale, but I haven’t had one. I don’t know if I could sell that stuff. But you should take one, and a couple fishing poles and there’s even a campfire cooking set.”
It sounded like more than he could wish for, and he was sorely tempted. But he didn’t know how to accept a dead man’s dream.
Kelsey made him. “Andy wouldn’t have wanted it to go to waste. And neither do I. It’s part of why we decided to camp out for Labor Day. Please, borrow them.”
He agreed, and he was already making plans to phone TJ when he got back in his house.
He was simply stunned. Anderson Winslow Hewlitt had dropped into his life and left him with nothing but bad choices. That it was through absolutely no fault of her own only made the whole thing that much worse. He finally felt the tunnel didn’t go on forever, and there was light.
Kelsey let him sit, and she gathered the kids up, handing out old mayonnaise jars with holes punched in the lids. She suggested that they catch lightning bugs, and that she’d already seen two of them.
JD held up his cell phone asked, “Do you mind if I call TJ and see if he’s free tomorrow?”
TJ wasn’t, but an hour and ten lightning bugs later he called back and said he’d moved some things around and he’d make it. JD closed his phone and told Kelsey he’d take her up on the offer to take Andie hiking with them.
She told him what to pack for Andie, and he thanked her again before he left. Andie had one small hand tucked into his, and her other hand wrapped around her lightning bug jar, which she wanted to keep for a nightlight. JD inspected the holes to be sure the bugs couldn’t crawl out, before saying it was okay, and that she’d have to set them free before they left in the morning.
Chapter 13
JD leaned back into the swamp chair that he had found among the things laid out for him and TJ that morning. TJ was reclined in its twin.
He’d fallen out of the raft once and his ribs had taken a beating on the rocks. He was the hero of the boat, because he’d only fallen out the one time. Even the guide had gone over twice. That was because the rafting company had thrown together three sets of two guys who didn’t know each other from Adam, but within three minutes they had all declared themselves real men and decided they were going down the roughest branch of the river.
JD wondered how his brother felt, both of them had put in more physical labor than they had planned. Thank God they had pitched the tent that morning as the guide suggested.
He looked over to TJ and decided to talk before his little brother fell asleep where he sat. “Can I tell you something?”
“You’re gay?”
Where the hell had that come from? “No!”
TJ chuckled. “You’re screwing your neighbor? Hence the fine camping equipment.”
“No.” JD sighed. TJ wasn’t going to let him get this out. “The fine camping equipment belonged to the much beloved dead husband.”
“Why not?”
“Why not what?” He frowned.
“Just because she’s still in love with the dead husband doesn’t mean she can’t have some fun.”
JD rolled his eyes. He only wished there was enough light for TJ to see how exasperated he was. But it wasn’t worth the effort to turn on the wicked halogen lamp, also included in this morning’s find. “Yes, it does mean that. And two, you don’t screw the babysitter.”
“Bummer.”
“TJ, seriously, I have to tell you something.”
“So, out with it man, I am about to fall asleep here.”
JD took a fortifying breath. There was no telling how TJ would react to this. “You know Mom and Dad are coming by in October. Well, I haven’t told them about Andie yet.”
TJ sighed. “Jesus.”
“I’m telling them this week. They’ll meet her when they get here. I really want them to be good grandparents. I need your help.”
“God, JD, that’s really asking a lot. You have a kid out of wedlock. You know how they frown on that. They’re going to have to admit that you were having sex, and a damn lot of this is going to come back at me. You know I’m Satan’s kid for following you out here.”
JD let a huge sigh take him over. Whether it was from sheer exhaustion or the topic, he wasn’t sure. “You can’t tell them what I’m about to tell you.”
“Of course. You know I don’t spill.”
JD knew his brother was eminently trustable, or he never would have opened his mouth, “The thing is, I didn’t have a kid out of wedlock.”
“I’d say there’s some serious evidence to the contrary, bud.”
“She isn’t mine.”
TJ sat up for that one. “I’m sorry?”
“Stephanie put my name on her birth certificate, so the state handed her off to me. I was too shocked to really think straight.”
TJ nodded, “I remember.”
“A week later when the paperwork showed up, I realized she was about ten, maybe eleven months younger than I had thought, and there was no way she could be mine.”
“Why didn’t you give her back?”
“There was no one to give her back to. Do you know what happens to pretty little girls in the foster system?”
“Oh . . . God.”
“Exactly.” Good, TJ seemed to be understanding.
“Why didn’t you find a family to adopt her? There had to be some other way. You don’t need a kid.”
“Believe me, I thought through every option. There wasn’t another way.”
“Jesus, Stephanie must have hated you.”
JD let that one pass. He preferred to believe Kelsey’s version, but he wasn’t sharing that with TJ.
TJ frowned, it was about the last thing JD could see in the almost non-existent light. “So why won’t you tell Mom? It might redeem you.”
“No way. I’m already going to need you to help steer her away from bad-mouthing Stephanie.”
“Why? Stephanie was all the things Mom i
s likely to say.”
“Yes, but she’s also Andie’s Mom, and Andie loves her, and she doesn’t need to hear it. She’s been through enough without her new Grandma looking down on her.”
TJ’s voice had turned to understanding. “Yeah, Mom will cut her just a little slack for being blood, but if she knew . . .”
He didn’t have to say the rest. JD knew what their mother would do. She’d rant and rave about sending her back to the state. About how JD was irresponsible enough without taking on a random kid to look after. And she’d do all of it within earshot of his five-year-old daughter. No wonder her two grown sons only visited on holidays. She had raised them Catholic, but had been about the worst Christian JD had ever seen.
“TJ, I need you to help me protect Andie from her.”
“You got it, big brother.” TJ stood and stretched. “Now if your magic girlfriend could just whip us up a studio, we’d be in business.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
TJ started to protest but JD had had enough. “And she’s giving us her garage. We can set up, and lock everything up there. And we can make all the noise we want from nine a.m. to two p.m. weekdays and whenever I can find a sitter for Andie on weekends.”
“Are you serious?”
JD nodded, standing to stretch, and maybe to be on even ground with his brother.
“And you aren’t sleeping with her?”
JD shook his head.
“Maybe you should ask her. I think she’s said ‘yes’ to everything else you wanted. Seriously, you should just ask.”
Tuesday morning was the weirdest morning in his life. He hadn’t been this keyed up when it had been his own first day at school. His heart beat faster, and he wondered what the other kids would be like. What the other parents would be like.
Andie was at the door with her thermal lunch bag in hand, telling him to hurry up. She had even let him brush her hair. Another point for Kelsey.
A knock at his door made him jump, but he knew it was Kelsey with her kids. She smiled calmly when he pulled the door open. “Nervous?”
Our Song Page 11
