Our Song

by Savannah Kade

  The three kids ran down the hallway, a parade of soft bare feet and chattering voices. “My Daddy plays real good! Wait ‘til you hear him.”

  Glancing back at him, Kelsey saw the flush on his face, she couldn’t hide the grin. It was good to know he could blush. “I’ll bet he does.”

  JD gathered them in a circle on the floor and pulled out his acoustic guitar, setting it across his lap. He gave it a strum, his gaze somewhere not in the world around him, and he began playing with the keys, slightly altering the sound. Kelsey didn’t hear a problem, but he kept at it until he was satisfied. JD didn’t notice Andie shushing the other two, explaining what he was doing. But Kelsey had seen.

  With a blink he entered reality again. “Okay, what are we singing?”

  No one volunteered.

  “Alright, then. I suffered through a darn lot of Dixie Chicks on the road, and now they’re in my head.”

  He hit a few chords before she recognized the piece. Kelsey never considered anyone but the Dixie Chicks singing their songs. In a measure she’d changed her mind. “Taking the Long Way” was all new with only a guitar and JD’s clear baritone.

  When he hit the bridge, he looked up at Kelsey, “I know you know this one. You own the CD.”

  Her nerves skittered. Her voice was passable at best, but she opened her mouth and gave it what she could. He smiled as he sang with her, the look changing everything on his face and encouraging her to go a little louder.

  Her heart fluttered in her chest, and the sweetest sound was his voice across her own. But it was over too soon, and JD was asking what else they wanted to hear.

  Andie jumped up and clapped, “Do the kisses song.”

  “The kisses song?” He smiled as he said it. While Kelsey was clueless, JD obviously knew what Andie was asking for.

  The guitar filled the room again and he started in, this time JD’s clear voice was accompanied by Andie’s sweet small one.

  Kelsey saw her own kids enjoying the song, and watching JD with a focus she hadn’t seen in them before. But even while she was watching she was listening. The rich sounds would linger long after JD left.

  JD and Andie put their faces close for the chorus.

  His eyes turned to hers as he sang about wanting a full house and a rock and roll band.

  Daniel requested “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” next, and JD had them all singing. Kelsey didn’t think she’d let go like this in forever. This was her family. And they were all smiling.

  They did three more songs, with at least one voice joining his each time, before Allie requested ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider’. Kelsey waited for ‘no’, but it didn’t happen. JD simply nodded and lifted the guitar out of his lap and reached back for the violin.

  Again, he mentally disappeared for a minute to tune the instrument, but when he looked up, he cued Allie to start singing. With a few bewildered blinks, she softly began. Inside of two notes, JD had pegged her key and was accompanying her. Allie sang it three times through, her eyes getting wider with each round.

  Kelsey wanted to stop time. Her kids were happy, truly happy. She now had the same size family as she’d had previously, but she was willing to admit that this one was better. Oh, God, Andrew forgive me. The weight that had been lifted from her when Andrew died became even lighter when JD stepped up to really share the load.

  He didn’t vacuum her living room, or do her laundry, but she had a sounding board that she trusted. She had someone to tell her that they saw she was doing her best.

  In the next minute, JD declared it to be past bedtime, and Braham’s Lullaby floated out from the bow as the last song of the evening.

  Chapter 26

  JD’s arm reached out to catch the cup as Allie set it, tottering, on the edge of the table. The lightning reflexes were only part of how he’d changed over the past four and half months. “Allie,” He handed her the milk, “Put it up the right way this time and pay attention.”

  Chastised, the small girl took the cup from his hands and, much more carefully this time, placed the milk on the table before using her fingertips to scoot it back. JD’s own fingers reached out and found Allie’s hair to ruffle. She smiled at him then ran off to play with her brother and Andie.

  The kitchen smelled fabulous, thanks to the pseudo-traditional turkey and ham he and Kelsey were baking. They’d argued that morning about how to prep the meat. Eventually, Kelsey had given in, letting him and Daniel stuff whole cloves of garlic ‘up the turkey’s butt’, as Daniel had put it.

  Kelsey stood, hip propped against the counter, steaming asparagus on the stove, and baking yams with marshmallows and refusing his help. She had on a sweet, striped apron that read ‘never trust a skinny chef’. Clearly intended for someone larger, it took on an evil tone wrapped around Kelsey’s slim shape. He smiled from his vantage point at the table. He could see the kids playing in the living room from where he sat, and he could watch Kelse, checking things and stirring things, and making his house smell better. Look better, too.

  She came over to him and pulled a cucumber stick off the plate in the center of the table. She’d intended it to keep the kids from getting too hungry or cranky before the meal was served, but they’d both been nibbling at it, too. It was just another Kelsey flourish.

  Her skirt swished around her knees as she sat next to him and crossed one ankle over the other. It didn’t help him that she was wearing what looked to him like red, heeled, dancing shoes, with a thin strap holding each to her ankle. Her sweater sleeves were pushed up, and a few wisps of her hair had mutinied in the heat, escaping the twist at the back of her head.

  He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table, as she picked up another cucumber stick. “You look amazing.”

  She blushed sweetly, but just kept nibbling.

  “Seriously,” he continued, “you look too nice.”

  She ignored him.

  “Kelse, my brother will likely be coming in jeans. Craig just got a new tattoo, and he’s wanting to show it off. If Donna Reed meets them at the door, they’ll flee.” He flung out what he hoped was the deciding factor. “Then we’ll have no bread.”

  She still looked at him with a frown. “I don’t look like Donna Reed at all.”

  “Okay,” He pointed to the apron, “I’ll concede to Donna Reed meets A-Touch-of-Evil, which is definitely better, but . . .” with his hand he gestured up and down her outfit.

  “It’s Thanksgiving. You dress up!”

  “Says who?”

  She was silent for a moment. “They do.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” Here he was picking another argument, and not really sure why he’d done it.

  “The great and infamous ‘they’. ‘They’ say a lot of things.” She smiled and chomped the end of the cucumber in punctuation.

  “They have no jurisdiction here.” He stood up, towering over her, “You need to loosen up, let your hair down . . . literally.”

  Before she could stop him, his hands came up and pulled out the clip holding it all in place.

  Her hands fluttered as she reached up too late to do anything about it. Only after a minute did she utter, “Hey!”

  He handed her the hair clip with a flourish worthy of a butler, but the look on her face wasn’t decipherable. “What was that for?”

  “Only what I said.” But what he thought was that she looked sexier with her hair in waves from having just been undone. And for a moment it was too intimate, seeing her like that. Parts of him tightened, and deep down something loosened. He spoke to cover what was swirling inside him. “Don’t want you scaring away the guests.”

  “Thanks.” It was wry, and she got up to attach the hair clip to her purse so she wouldn’t lose it. Then she ran her fingers through her hair to undo the tumbled look, which greatly disappointed JD until the doorbell rang. He’d hear no end of it if Craig and TJ walked in and found Kelsey looking tumbled.

  As it was, when he answered the door, TJ hung back on the porch and asked him if he�
�d solved his ‘problem’ yet.

  “No.” JD worked at squelching that thought right away. He couldn’t live with TJ riding herd on him. “The real problem is that it’s unsolvable. So stop asking.”

  “Oh, brother,” TJ offered up a pat on the shoulder that made JD afraid his younger brother was going to try to sell him snake oil, “Nothing is unsolvable.”

  “You’re right,” He whispered harshly. “I’ll just chain her in the basement and keep her as my sex slave.”

  TJ mused that one for a minute, until JD literally knocked him upside the head. “Clean your brain out.”

  JD didn’t wait for a response, just turned and went back into the bright kitchen to see Craig handing Kelsey a bakery bag of rolls, and Kelsey graciously taking them from him as though he had threshed the wheat and milled the flour himself.

  Craig wasn’t one for basking in praise, spoken or unspoken, and he turned it around, gesturing to Kelsey, “What’s with the Mrs. Cleaver get-up?”

  Before he could say anything, she turned to JD, who had paused in the doorway. “I hate you.” And she brushed past him out the door.

  Not knowing what else to do, he turned to Craig, “What the hell did you say to her?”

  He shrugged, “We brought rolls? It really seemed directed at you.”

  When JD looked out beyond the back steps, she had already disappeared. She hadn’t seemed all that mad. He hoped she’d be back in a few minutes.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was getting worried. “Craig, I think you really offended her.”

  “That was at you. What did you say?”

  His head hung down of its own accord. “That she looked like Donna Reed.”

  TJ turned to Craig, the jury deliberating, “Well, that’s a crime.”

  It wasn’t a crime. She’d looked beautiful, just overdressed. He shouldn’t have said anything. He leaned back against the counter, looking at the food, bubbling without Kelsey there to play chef. He checked his watch, if she wasn’t back in five minutes he’d call her. He’d grovel. Maybe he should just go over and fetch her back.

  He planned out what he should say.

  Four minutes later he had most of his speech prepared, and he was putting on the finishing touches while he waited for the seconds to tick off. She had thirteen to go when the back door swung open, letting in a blast of chill air and Kelsey in a long coat.

  She had darkened her eyeliner and her lipstick, her hair was fuller and curling around her face. She peeled the coat and dropped it across the back of a chair, but it wasn’t the coat that had their attention.

  She was in a very short skirt, with black fishnet stockings hugging mile-long legs all the way down into some wicked black leather heels. Her shirt was long-sleeved, but laced all the way up the front with a black leather thong. She’d tightened the laces until they looked like they’d give way at any moment.

  “Happy now?” She stared them all down, then went over to the stove to check the asparagus. She found it lacking and put it back over the heat. She checked the oven, and JD doubted she was aware she’d let them see that her legs went all the way up.

  His hand reached out and covered TJ’s eyes. His own tongue had difficulty staying in his mouth.

  She stood back upright and fixed each of them with a hard stare. “Well?”

  TJ was having difficulty not laughing, and she gave him a dirty look until he explained. “Oh, I’m not laughing at you, you look stellar. I’m laughing at him.” He pointed to JD. “I don’t think you could have come up with a more fitting revenge.”

  Kelsey looked like she was about to question what his brother had just said, when she was sidetracked by Craig. He had the balls to walk a full circle around her, checking out the goods, and JD felt his blood pressure rise with each look Craig gave her.

  “Kelsey,” Craig’s voice was smooth. “I didn’t know you had it in you. You look like you belong sprawled across the hood of a very expensive sports car.”

  JD waited for her to blow.

  But she smiled, a sweet smile that was out of place with the rest of the get-up. “Since I was going for full-on ‘slut,’ I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It was meant as one.” Craig grinned back and left the room to commandeer the video games from the kids.

  Allie came racing into the room just then, her arm extended, holding her dolly out for her mother to see. She pulled up short. “Mommy, you changed.”

  Kelsey nodded, “And I did it to suit the whim of a man. I hope you don’t ever make the same mistake.”

  “Okay.” Allie looked at her weird, then turned away, the dolly forgotten.

  JD simply put his head into his hands and tried to remember how to breathe.

  TJ laughed a low whisper into his ear. “Oh, you are so fucked.”

  JD thought his brother was most likely right. He toyed with the idea of pulling her aside somewhere and telling her, either screw my brains out or stop tormenting me. But he didn’t think that would go over very well.

  Half an hour later she declared it time to set the table, and made them get out the table cloth she had brought. Even though she no longer looked like Donna Reed she wanted everything set to look as though Mrs. Reed had been there.

  They all ate dinner with the kids alternately picking at things and wolfing them down. JD ate quite a bit considering his eyes never saw his food. He was working so hard at not looking down Kelsey’s shirt. Craig didn’t bother trying to hide it, and that earned him a few dirty looks from JD. Surprisingly, Kelsey didn’t seem to mind, and that started a deep seed of fear growing. Craig wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t.

  After they finished with the main course food, TJ hauled out chocolate ice cream for the kids.

  Andie and Daniel over-indulged in the ice cream, excusing themselves to go moan in the living room. Only Allie stayed to shovel away a full two pieces of pumpkin pie. And Kelsey rested her chin on her cradled fingers. She looked pleasantly tired, which ate at his heart. He was sending Andie home with her, because the guys were all due at the studio parking lot at four a.m. to catch the bus.

  “Well, that was good.” Kelsey’s red lips curved into a sated smile, and for a moment he could imagine that it wasn’t due to the food.

  The guys were all leaned back in their chairs, happily stuffed. Craig moaned. “That was great. It was way better than anything we’re going to eat in the next eight days.”

  “Mommy, may I be excused?”

  Kelsey smiled at her daughter and the clean plate in front of her. “First wipe your face, pumpkin.”

  TJ helped out, and Allie raced off to the living room, somehow not stumbling like a drunken sailor from all the sugar she’d consumed.

  Kelsey planted her palms on the table and pushed herself up to standing, again most likely unaware that the move pushed her cleavage even higher to strain at the laces of her shirt. She began clearing the dishes, leaning across the table in a housewifely gesture that was innocent in itself, but yet again gave glimpses right down the front of that amazing, god-awful shirt.

  JD couldn’t stand up. Craig, of course, did, popping right out of his seat to offer to help clear. For this he was bestowed with the sweetest of smiles. TJ laughed again in JD’s ear before he left to go keep an eye on the kids.

  Yes, it was all going to hell in the pretty little hand basket Kelsey had hauled her stuff over in.

  Craig helped to load the dishwasher, and for the briefest moment JD remembered the scene with his mother, and Kelsey’s words that musicians are sexy as hell. Was Craig?

  With a grunt and a shove, he pushed himself away from the table and wandered into the living room to nurse his ire. TJ was blasting aliens from a version of the old Atari Space Invaders game, but when he finished he looked up at JD, sprawled in the corner of the couch. “Don’t worry, he’s not into her in any way other than to torment you.”

  Only the kids showed any sign of life, and later they bounced upstairs as the guys turned on the recorded football game fro
m earlier. Craig and TJ eventually drifted off to their apartment, leaving him alone with Kelsey. TJ had insinuated that it was JD’s job to say something to her tonight. But what that might be, he didn’t know.

  She stayed in the middle of the couch, neither coming closer nor scooting away. Lying there, she looked sweet and mussed, and dressed for sex, and he couldn’t remember when he’d wanted her more.

  JD had fantasized about her. Looking at her now, he wondered who hadn’t. But it had been from a distance, and now, she was right beside him. What if he leaned over and just fitted his mouth to hers? He could blame it on the outfit, but it came from somewhere so much deeper inside than that.

  Later, when the game finished, he used the last of his strength to haul himself up off the sofa and offer her a hand. She accepted and threw her weight against him, finding her footing on those long heels and longer legs. “We need to round up the kids.” With a great breath in she yelled up the stairs, “Kids, it’ll be time to go in twenty minutes.”

  A couple of “Okay, Mom”s came from the landing, as Kelsey turned to him, “Sorry, I couldn’t gather the strength to walk over there.”

  “That’s all right.” He yawned and stretched and attempted to reclaim some of his energy.

  Ten minutes later she had the leftover food packed and ready to go. The only things that waited until morning were his guitars.

  “Okay kids!” The three of them tromped down the stairs in a line, marveling at the dark beyond the windows, finally believing Kelsey that it was bedtime. It was incongruous seeing those words come out of her pouty mouth. She looked nothing like the mother of this brood.

  When she was ready to leave, she couldn’t carry everything. Food containers were stacked on the counter, Andie’s bag waited by the door, her own things—dishes, the table cloth and napkins—were in the basket with the pale green bow.

  She couldn’t leave it, it needed to be washed, she’d forget where she’d left it. She protested in a far more practical manner than her outfit suggested.

  JD grabbed Andie’s bag, slinging it over his shoulder, and grabbed the stack of food containers. “Let’s go.”