“No to both,” Blythe said, squatting to pet the exuberant dog, dodging his kisses as she surreptitiously took in the entryway, what she could see of the living and dining rooms. It was weird, considering how often she’d schlepped the kids around, that she’d never actually been inside the house. Which, while reeking of tradition, was warm and tasteful and timeless, the colors and furnishings in perfect balance. She stood and turned to Candace, and the dog bounded back to his young master, skidding on the tile before regaining his footing on the Oriental carpet anchoring the formal dining room table. “At least, not yet for Jack. I want to see his room before I get his take on what he’d like in it.”
“Good idea. I’m sure Kym would have seen to the redo long before now, if...”
Candace paused, her lips pressed tight as she scanned the living room, the Wedgwood-green walls a soothing backdrop to the marble fireplace, the pair of white sofas facing each other on another Oriental rug. And yet, pops of a soft purple and a deep coral perfectly complemented the dusty green, keeping the room from being too staid. A room that hadn’t been used in a while, Blythe suspected.
“She had a very good eye,” Candace said. “Well, I think so. But then, I’m no designer.” She blushed. “As I’m sure Wes told you.”
Blythe smiled. “Good design is about surrounding yourself with whatever makes you happy. There are far fewer rules than you might think. As long as the home reflects the owners’ personalities, it’s good. And this is...” Her gaze swept the living room once more. “It’s lovely. Really.”
Candace beamed, clearly pleased that her obviously much-loved daughter-in-law had passed muster. “It is, isn’t it? And that was Kym—warm and embracing, but understated and conservative.” She paused. “She and Wes married so young, his father and I...well, we worried. That they didn’t know what they were getting into. Silly us,” she said with a little laugh, then gave her head a firm shake. “And listen to me, rambling on...” She headed toward the stairs, beckoning Blythe to follow.
“I understand Kym was a huge support to Wes when he ran for office,” Blythe said as they started up.
“Oh, my, yes,” Jack’s grandmother said, half pivoting as she trudged. “In fact, Kym gave Wes the push he needed to throw his hat in the ring.”
“Really? It wasn’t his idea?”
They reached the landing; Candace bustled to the second door on their right, holding it open for Blythe to pass through. “Yes, of course it was Weston’s idea—he’d been thinking about running for Congress for a long time. After all, he’d been on the town council for five years—” which Blythe hadn’t known “—but he kept putting off taking that next step. Said the timing wasn’t right, that Jack needed to be older. Kym, of course, bless her heart...”
As if realizing where her musings were leading her, Candace turned, tears shimmering in her eyes. “We do what we can,” she whispered, “and I know Wes does, but Jack...” She shook her head, as if realizing she’d crossed some boundary she shouldn’t have. Instead, she stood aside so Blythe could see the kid’s room in all its messy, outgrown glory. “And maybe this will help him find his footing again. Discover who he is now. Am I making any sense?”
“Absolutely,” Blythe said, wondering if her own grandmother—hell, her own mother—had been half as intuitive as this woman, then maybe things would have turned out differently for her. “Jack is very lucky to have you around.”
Candace’s brown eyes popped wide. “Well, aren’t you sweet?” Then she sighed. “Bill and I do our best, but we’re still poor substitutes for what he lost. Well. I’ll let you get to it. I’m in the kitchen if you need me.”
After Candace left, Blythe stood in the middle of the jumbled room, trying to get a feel for it. See what it said to her. A large space, she noticed approvingly. And light-filled. Or would be light-filled once the heavy curtains were axed. Honeycomb shades, she thought, to let in the light and yet give him privacy. The beige wall-to-wall carpeting looked in decent condition, but a couple of fun throw rugs would definitely liven things up. Ditch the little boy race car motifs, replace them with lots of high-tech accents. Something that wouldn’t embarrass him when he came home from college, she thought with a smile. An inviting study area in the far corner. Track lighting, maybe, to replace the sucky overhead—
“Bear!” she yelped, laughing, when the dog poked his nose in her bum. “What are you doing, you goofy mutt—?”
“How come you’re in here?”
Blythe whipped around, taken aback by Jack’s rigid stance, the glower on his face. What would soon be a handsome, swoon-worthy face, she had no doubt, his features already morphing into a facsimile of his father’s underneath the surfer-blond hair.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.” Then it hit her, that the radical attitude shift probably had nothing to do with her. “Your dad didn’t tell you he’d hired me to help you redecorate your room, did he?” The dog knocked his huge, gleaming head against her palm. Jack glared at the beast as though he’d betrayed him, then turned agitated green eyes to Blythe.
“So that’s what you two were talking about? That morning at breakfast? After I left?”
Blythe smiled. “Hatching our sinister plot—yes, we were.” Then she remembered. “Your grandmother said ‘the children.’ Is Quinn here, too?”
“Yeah. She thinks I went to the bathroom.” Jack looked around the room, then threw his school-uniformed self on the rumpled little-boy bed, an incongruous image if ever there was one. Then again, incongruity pretty much summed up kids that age, didn’t it? Too big to be coddled, not nearly old enough to handle the very grown-up issues that life far too often flung in their faces.
Sure, many kids had it far worse—something she’d told herself over and over at that age, when faced with all the crap she didn’t know how to handle, either. But she’d decided a long time ago that nobody got to decide whether somebody’s hurt was more or less valid than anyone else’s. Or that, given her own experience, there was a kid alive who could do or say anything that would shock her. Or keep her from being his or her champion, if necessary.
“What if I don’t want to change anything? I mean—” Jack grabbed a pillow and wadded it under his head “—what if I like it the way it is?”
Blythe’s brows lifted. “This wasn’t your idea?”
The boy was quiet for a moment, then suddenly sat up, slamming his sneakered feet onto the floor. “I mentioned it once, yeah. Like, a year ago. When I thought...” He shook his head, hard, then looked around. “I don’t want somebody coming in and changing it around just because. It’s my room, dammit.”
Blythe carefully shifted the pile of clothes on a nearby chair to sit on the edge. “Yes, it is,” she said, knowing how it felt to desperately want to hang on to what you knew, even if it hurt. “Which is why I wouldn’t dream of getting rid of anything you want to keep. That’s not my job—”
“You’re right, it’s not,” the boy shot back, more pain than anger sparking in his green eyes. “Because I thought—”
He slammed his arms across his chest, clamping his jaw shut in an obvious effort to keep a lid on his emotions. Again, Blythe reminded herself that this wasn’t about her.
“Because you wanted your father to help?”
After a moment, Jack nodded, and Blythe considered what to say next. “I’m not sure your dad knew where to begin,” she finally said. “So since this is what I do for a living, he asked me to get things going. That doesn’t mean he can’t still be part of it.”
Jack’s eyes shunted to hers. “He’ll probably be too busy.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about that?” Blythe said, smiling, then pushed through with, “And I promise, you can keep anything you want. Although you might want to think about updating a thing or two—” she pointed to the bed, which got a grunt “—maybe change the wall color?”
She glanced up. “Ditch the wallpaper border?”
The boy’s eyes followed hers. “I remember when Mom put that up there.”
“Yeah? How old were you?”
His mouth twisted. “Six.” Then he sighed. “I guess it is kinda little kid-ish.”
“Yeah. And judging from what a great job your mom did with the rest of the house, I’ll bet she would’ve changed things here by now, anyway.”
Silence bumped between them for a moment or two before he said, “She told me I could paint the walls brown, if I wanted. Before...before she died, I mean.”
“We can still do that,” Blythe said, aching for his sadness. “We can go to Home Depot, you can pick the color you see in your head—”
“Except I don’t want brown anymore.”
“Then you can choose something else,” Blythe said, feeling like she was playing table tennis. “This is your project. I’m only here to make it happen. We can even go shopping together, so you can pick out your new bed and bedding, new accessories, whatever you want. Here,” she said, digging in her bag for her tablet and a tape measure. “Let’s take some measurements.”
Another glare. “Now?”
“No pressure,” Blythe said, still digging. Not looking at the boy. “But I’m here, so I might as well.” She held out the tape measure. “So we’re all ready to go when you are.”
Several beats passed before Jack pushed himself off the bed and took the heavy silver measure, weighing it in his hand for a moment like he was half considering chucking it through the window. “What if I want to make the walls four different colors?” he asked, challenging, holding one end of the measure as Blythe stretched out the tape.
“Why not?” she said evenly, glancing over in time to see a smile—complete with baby dimples, God help the women in his future—creep across his cheeks.
They were nearly finished when Candace reappeared, Quinn tagging behind her, the child’s wild red hair an absolute affront to her own white polo and khakis, like Jack’s. The dog, who’d been dozing in the puddle of light on the carpet, jumped to his feet and wriggle-bounded over to Quinn, as though he hadn’t seen her in years.
“We thought the earth had swallowed you up, jeez,” Quinn said, then realized Blythe was there. “Blythe! What are you—? Holy cannoli—are you going to do Jack’s room?”
Blythe smiled. “We’re talking about it.”
“Well, talk harder, because—” her expression mildly horrified, she checked out the space “—it is way past time this place got a face-lift. I’ve never said anything before, but dude. Seriously—that bed?”
Blythe held her breath. And squelched a laugh. Honestly, except for the red hair, the kid was her mother’s clone. Except then Blythe saw the indulgent smile stretch across Jack’s face and realized she had nothing to worry about.
Although Mel might. Down what could be far too short a road.
As if reading Blythe’s mind, Candace sighed. “Quinn’s been so good for Jack,” she said in a low voice. “We absolutely love her. But we do not let them come up here by themselves. I know how young kids start...experimenting these days. Can’t be too careful.”
Although, come to think of it, Quinn had vehemently informed them all not long ago that she’d slug any boy who dared tried to pull any of “that funny business.” Probably something to do with now knowing that her mother had gotten pregnant at sixteen, an event that had complicated Mel’s life no end. Granted, Blythe imagined that Quinn’s attitude toward “funny business” would change sooner rather than later, but maybe the road wouldn’t be so short, after all.
“With Bear as a chaperone?” she said as the dog wedged between the two of them with a sappy doggy grin on his face. “I think you’re good.”
To her credit, Candace chuckled. “You may have a point. Listen, would you like to stay for dinner? Quinn’s here quite often, anyway, when her mom’s on duty at the inn and Ryder’s on call. Makes it feel more like a family,” she whispered. “Instead of the poor boy being stuck with his grandparents night after night.”
“Oh. I’d planned on driving back to the city tonight. And I wouldn’t want to put you out—”
“Don’t be silly, it’s just pot roast, there’s plenty. Unless—” Horror streaked across her laugh-lined face. “You’re one of those vegetarians or vegans or something?”
Blythe laughed. “Not me. I love pot roast.”
“Then it’s settled. And this way you wouldn’t have to worry about finding dinner so late when you got back, right?”
“Please, Blythe?” Quinn said from the other side of the room. Winsome grin and all. Yes, it irked Blythe that she and April hadn’t even known the child existed until a few months ago, that she’d missed all those years when she could have played the doting “auntie,” but since she was more comfortable with older kids, anyway, she supposed it was for the best. “Then you could drive me back to Mom’s and Ryder’s afterward so the Phillipses wouldn’t have to.”
“Now, honey,” Candace said, “you know that’s no bother—”
“I’d be delighted to stay,” Blythe said. “Thank you.” Because as long as Wes wasn’t part of the picture, what could it hurt? “What can I do to help?”
“Not a blessed thing. Dinner’s all done, and the kids set the table. Come on, children—chore time!”
Blythe and the dog followed the intoxicating pot roast scent—and Candace—downstairs and into the kitchen, an open-concept marvel in off-whites and light pine cabinets opening up to the family room that, like the rest of the house, managed to be classy and unpretentious at the same time. Wes’s father, Bill, was watching the news on the big-screen TV, but he stood when the women trooped through, heartily shaking Blythe’s hand, his grin as infectious as his wife’s.
Not to mention his son’s.
And despite the sadness still tingeing everyone’s eyes, the trying-too-hard-to-make-everything-normal-for-the-kid’s-sake vibes, envy still zinged through her. Because at least they were here for each other, they were trying. In fact, she guessed Wes’s parents had put their own lives on hold to take care of their grandson, a sacrifice she sure as heck hadn’t witnessed firsthand. So she briefly mourned this family dynamic she’d never had—and doubted she ever would—even as she decided to content herself with stealing a sliver of a life that wasn’t hers. Living vicariously was better than not living at all, she supposed.
However, they’d no sooner settled at the round pine table in the kitchen’s bay window when the dog lurched to his feet and took off, followed by Jack yelling, “Dad! You said you wouldn’t be home until tomorrow,” as he streaked from the room.
Good thing she’d donned her big girl panties this morning, that’s all she had to say.
* * *
“...and Blythe’s here, she came to talk about redoing my room, and it’s going to be awesome, I get to pick out all the new stuff and she said I can keep whatever I don’t want to get rid of! Cool, huh?”
Whoa. Dumping his briefcase on his office desk, Wes couldn’t decide which was messing with his head more, his son’s sounding like an excited six-year-old, or—
“Blythe’s here?”
“Yeah.” Jack frowned. “She said you arranged it.”
The appointment, yes. Her staying for dinner, no. Although, knowing his mother, why was he surprised?
What he definitely was, was dead on his feet. And for sure he didn’t know how he felt about seeing, in his kitchen, the woman whose honesty and craziness and soul-searing gaze had haunted his thoughts and dreams for the past six weeks.
And there she was, stuck at the one seat at the table without easy egress, the only woman in the world who could look radiant in gray. She also looked a bit deer-in-headlighty, which in another life he might have found amusing.
Then his mother—glowing, as usual—
popped up from the table and bustled toward the cooktop. “Isn’t this a nice surprise!” she said, ladling pot roast and veggies onto a plate and bustling back. And a surprise it was, an impetuous decision made two hours ago when he realized the thought of spending the night in his office, which he usually did without complaint, made him want to blow his brains out. He wanted to see his family. His son. Now.
Blythe, however—
She lifted one hand and did a finger wiggle. She might have been blushing. Hard to tell in the candlelight. “Hi.”
Loosening his tie, Wes took his seat across the table from her, leaning back slightly when his mother set a plate of food in front of him. Bravely, he met Blythe’s gaze. Felt the zing. “Hi,” he said, thinking, Damn.
Nope, six weeks of not seeing her hadn’t done a blessed thing to dampen his...ardor. This was so not good. Because he was so not ready for...ardor. Or anything else. Although he was grateful to see that some of the terror had abated in those blue eyes that, yep, were still doing the same number on his...head that they’d done that morning in the restaurant.
He was attracted to the woman. Very attracted. Attracted in that way that makes men do dumb things. Especially men dumb enough to think staying busy was a good way to avoid, you know. Living.
“Your mother invited me to stay for dinner,” she said as Wes dug into his food, praying the nourishment would revive him enough to plow through the lengthy bill being discussed on the floor the next day.
“So I see,” he said, except he could barely hear himself because Jack was yakking away a mile a minute in his ear.
Wait. Jack yakking a mile a minute?
Forking in a bite of moist, tender beef—his mother did make a mean pot roast—he looked over at his son. Who seemed, if not happy, at least captivated by something that wasn’t a video game. Huh.
Just go with it, he thought, returning his gaze to Blythe.
The Marriage Campaign Page 4
