“Why?”
She plucked the blackened sugar shell off the melted center, squishing it between her fingers before devouring it. She chewed for a moment, then swallowed. “Because I didn’t want to interfere with what was happening between you and Jack.”
“Then why’d you stay?”
The corners of her mouth curved. Barely. “Because it’s been about a million years since I just...played. And,” she said, stabbing another marshmallow, “having no idea when such an opportunity might come along again, it seemed silly to pass it up.”
His eyes on the marshmallow, Wes said softly, “It’s feels almost that long since I played, too.”
“I can imagine.”
Dangling the can between his knees, he watched the flames dance. “I remember as a kid being so impatient for childhood to be over. So I could do all the grown-up things that looked so cool. Now I wonder what I was thinking.”
This time, Blythe removed the marshmallow before the fire incinerated it. Plucked it off, popped it into her mouth.
“You know,” Wes said, “we have chocolate and graham crackers, too.”
“I know.” She nibbled goo off her fingers. “But why dilute the good stuff?” When Wes chuckled again, her eyes slid to his for a moment before she slumped forward, poking her empty stick into the ashes at the fire’s edge. “I know what you mean, about being impatient to grow up.” Listlessly, she prodded one ember until it exploded into a tiny shower of sparks. “But God knows I don’t miss my childhood. Even if I sometimes think I wouldn’t mind a redo.”
Aching for her, Wes sagged back into the chair again. “You’re going to make a terrific mom someday.”
She let out a harsh laugh. “Did you not hear what I said before—?”
“You love kids, Blythe. And you’re great with them.”
Another ember softly exploded. “Doesn’t mean I want the full-time responsibility.”
“I don’t believe you.” When her eyes swung to his, he shrugged. “I mean it. Not in the long term.”
She stopped torturing the stick, tossing it instead into the grass beside her. “Then let me put it this way—this self-confidence thing I have going? It’s all an act. Because inside I’m about as solid as...as a melted marshmallow. That doesn’t exactly make me an ideal candidate for motherhood.” Her gaze once more touched his. “Among other things, I’m pretty broken.”
“You really think that?”
She let out a quiet laugh then said, “I know it. I may seem to have it all together, but trust me—it’s all duct tape and mirrors.” A breath left her lungs. “I’m an illusion of my own creating, Wes. And you and Jack—you both deserve better than that.”
“In other words...you’re warning me off.”
Her shoulders hitched. “I’m not immune to picking up on things. Or to feeling them. So a heads-up seemed prudent.”
“And if I don’t heed your warning?”
“You don’t have a choice. Look,” she said quietly when he snorted, “you have no idea how badly my ego would like to run with this. I’ve never met anyone like you, and I’m not going to deny the chemistry here. Not to mention that I like you. And I’m already fond of Jack. More fond than I should be, given the circumstances. But I do know myself, at least well enough to know that your life...” She shook her head. “It would never be a good fit.”
He frowned. “Because of my career?”
“Partly, yes. I’ve... I...” Clearing her throat, she looked back at the fire. “I’d be a millstone around your neck, Wes. For many reasons. Not the least of which is my background. But more than that...being in a relationship is like a drug for me. One I far too easily become dependent on. And God knows I’ve had enough psychology courses to understand why, that I’m still looking for someone to give me what my parents didn’t. And as long as I’m tempted to look outside myself instead of within myself...” Her head wagged.
“So what you’re saying is,” Wes said, irritated far more than he had any right to be, “you’re going to keep everyone who might want inside with you at arm’s length?”
“That’s the plan, yep.”
“And that’s the biggest crock I think I’ve ever heard.” He smashed the now-empty can into the chair’s arm. “And trust me, I’ve heard some doozies.”
Finally she rose, dusting flecks of burned marshmallow off her overalls. “Would you rather I had run away? Run from the truth?”
“Just because you stayed doesn’t mean you’re not running.”
Her gaze swerved to his. And he suspected her flushed cheeks weren’t due solely to the firelight. “Oh, come on, Wes—we’re both hurting. So is Jack. Nobody’s in any position to form new attachments at this point—”
“And did it ever occur to you,” he said, shoving himself to his feet, “that maybe the only way any of us could move past the pain is to form new attachments? To move forward instead of cowering in some corner of the past?”
His vehemence took him as much by surprise as it obviously did Blythe.
“Wes...you’re not listening—”
“To which part? When you said we were all hurting? Not going to argue with you there. I mean, you obviously are. And, yes, I miss my wife, who was also my best friend for more than half my life. A friend who I know would bean me if she thought for one moment I was wallowing in my misery. Or her memory.”
Taking advantage of Blythe’s apparent paralysis, he stepped closer. “Or the part where you tossed your childhood indiscretions in my path, as if I’d give a damn about any of that? Or maybe you mean the part about your being afraid of letting anyone get too close?”
Her eyes bugged. “I d-didn’t say that.”
“The hell you didn’t.” Wes rammed his hands in his shorts’ pockets, lowering his voice when he noticed Jack and the dog coming back out onto the deck. “So, yeah, I heard. And you know what? I’m not buying it. Any of it. Because let me tell you something—you can’t keep endlessly giving without accepting, too. One doesn’t really work without the other. Not well, at any rate.” He stepped closer and whispered. “Fear’s a bitch. And trust me, nobody knows that better than I do.”
For two, three seconds their gazes held, until Jack and Bear roared down the deck stairs and over to them. Then, as if startled out of a trance, Blythe stormed across the lawn and around the side of the house, not even bothering to say goodbye.
* * *
Jack watched Blythe take off, feeling like somebody’d tied his insides in knots. Or his brain. Or both. Especially when he caught the look on Dad’s face as he watched Blythe go. He hadn’t been able to hear what they were saying, but it sure looked like they were having a fight. Or at least “words,” as Grandma would say. She and Grandpa had “words” a lot, but since nobody stayed mad for very long, Jack had finally stopped worrying about it.
It was funny, but before his grandparents came to live with Dad and him, Jack never understood how you could get mad at somebody you liked. Now that he was older, though, he got it. Sort of. After all, he and Quinn made each other mad all the time, and they were still friends. Sometimes people just didn’t agree, no matter how well they got along.
Of course, sometimes people were idiots and said stupid stuff, but somehow he didn’t think that was what was going on here. Between Blythe and his dad, he meant. Because he was also beginning to realize that, actually, the more people liked each other, the more they did fight. Had words, whatever. Not that he’d ever heard Mom and Dad argue, but for all he knew they had, only he’d never heard them.
And at this rate his brain was going to melt and drip right out of his ears.
“Why’d Blythe leave?” he asked when he got close enough for Dad to hear him.
“She was tired,” Dad said, stooping to pat Bear, who’d flopped down at his feet. “And she wants to get an early s
tart on your room tomorrow. Want some s’mores?” He shifted to snatch the marshmallow bag off the ground. “There’s still enough heat in the fire—”
“Why were you fighting?”
Frowning, Dad looked up. “We weren’t—”
“Sure sounded like it.”
Dad handed him a stick and the bag, then sat on the wooden bench across from the two chairs. “I suppose it did,” he said, then sighed. “She said some things that I guess pushed me over the edge. Not because of what she said, but why she said it.”
“Huh?”
He waved Jack over, took the stick and bag from him and jabbed a marshmallow on the point, handed it back. Like Jack couldn’t do that himself, honestly. “I can’t go into details, partly because I don’t know them all and partly because it wouldn’t be right to do that without Blythe’s permission. But I gather there’ve been a lot of people in Blythe’s life who didn’t treat her very well. Who didn’t love her the way she should have been loved. And because of that, she’s...leery of letting people get too close.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Leery?”
“Yeah.”
“Afraid.”
Lowering his marshmallow toward the fire, Jack felt his forehead tighten. Blythe sure didn’t act like she was afraid. Of anything. But then, neither did Jack, not if he could help it. Even though the truth was he sometimes felt so scared, so alone—even when other people were around—he felt like his chest was going to cave in.
“But...she’s so nice.”
Well, she was. Maybe Jack didn’t want her to come between him and Dad, but that didn’t mean she was a bad person or anything.
His father gave him a funny look, then smiled. Sort of. “Which is exactly why I got mad.” When Jack frowned harder, Dad said, “Because it chaps my hide when I see good people cut themselves off from...from living a full life because they believe they don’t deserve it. Or they’re scared.”
The marshmallow went up in flames; Dad grabbed for the stick like Jack was some baby, even though he’d already jerked it toward him to blow out the fire. “So you like Blythe, huh?” Jack asked, deciding against telling his father he’d asked Blythe the same question about him. But it wouldn’t hurt to know what was going on. Where he stood.
The dog jumped up, barking at nothing. Dad watched him for a moment, then said, “Why wouldn’t I like her? As you said, she’s a nice lady—”
“And I’m not a little kid, okay?”
Dad didn’t say anything for a long time, which made the knots get tighter inside Jack’s stomach. Then his father clamped the back of his neck, rubbing it for a moment before letting it slap back on the bench’s arm. “And I need to remember that. You want the truth? Yes, I like her. In exactly the boy-girl way you mean. But there’s a very long road between thinking ‘This is someone I’d like to know better’ and thinking of her like—”
“Like you thought about Mom?”
Dad leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “Does it scare you, to think that someday I might want to get married again?”
“Cripes, Dad! Mom just died!”
“It’s been two years, Pup.”
Jack nearly flinched—his father hadn’t called him that in...God. Years. But if he thought that was going to change anything—
“You want to marry Blythe?”
“Let’s back up a couple hundred steps, okay?” his father said with a short laugh. “What I said was, I like her. And I’d like to get to know her better. It’s nothing I planned, or even thought about. Frankly, I’m pretty surprised, since, after your mother—”
“But she’s nothing like Mom!”
“No, she’s not. And you’re determined not to let me finish what I was saying, aren’t you? Come here,” he said, patting the empty space on the bench beside him. Jack didn’t want to go. But he did, too. And when he did, and Dad pulled him close the way he used to do when Jack was little, he had to admit it felt good. Not that he’d ever let anybody else see it, but whatever. “It really doesn’t matter what I think,” Dad said over Jack’s head, “or how I feel, if Blythe’s not open to the idea. And since she’s made it very clear she’s not...” Jack felt Dad shrug again. “There’s no point fretting about something that’s probably not going to happen.”
“Probably?”
“Very probably.” He paused, then said, “I can fix what I broke. Or at least give it my best shot. But I’m not sure I can fix what somebody else broke. Besides—” he gave Jack’s shoulders a squeeze “—between you and my work...it’s all moot.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Not worth thinking about.”
But Jack could tell Dad was still thinking about it—about Blythe. Hard, too. Because that’s how he was. In fact, now that Jack thought about it, his dad was all about fixing things, wasn’t he? Stuff around the house, people’s problems, whatever. In fact, hadn’t Dad said that’s why he’d run for Congress?
And now that Jack thought about it, maybe he was kind of like that, too. It’s why he liked puzzles. Even the really hard ones. Slipping from underneath Dad’s arm, he squatted in front of the fire, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. Bear came up to him and slurped his cheek, almost knocking Jack on his butt before he ran off again, disappearing into the darkness, and Jack felt his forehead crunch as he looked out where the dog had gone.
No, this was definitely worth thinking about. Because no matter what Dad said, Jack knew he wouldn’t let this thing with Blythe go until he’d figured it out. He also knew Mom had been Dad’s only girlfriend, before they got married. So that he was even interested in Blythe...this was huge.
Dad’s cell phone rang. Behind him, Jack heard his father answer, felt him touch Jack’s shoulder before walking back toward the house. Work stuff, probably. Jack twisted partway around, watching, thinking if things did somehow work out between Dad and Blythe, he’d probably never see him.
A thought that made him want to throw up.
Chapter Seven
As a child, Blythe thought as she watched the delivery duo assemble the new platform bed/desk combo that had eventually won out over a mattress on the floor, she’d only truly felt safe when she was in control. Or at least believed she was. Until, eventually, it dawned on her that no matter what she did, good or bad, it didn’t make a lick of difference. That the acting out hadn’t been about being in control at all. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Because the harder she vied for attention, the more she’d actually ceded that control to someone else.
A lesson she didn’t fully “get” until after her divorce, when she finally realized that being a good person and remaining single were not mutually exclusive concepts. That she could like people, even want to help them, without expecting anything in return. A philosophy she still believed to be true. And, for her, eminently workable. So why, pray, had that last conversation with Wes left her so shaken?
He wasn’t around today, thank God. Neither was Jack, since Wes had taken the kid with him to Annapolis, both to chat up his constituency and to tour the Naval Academy. A deliberate move, apparently, since when she’d arrived that morning Wes’s mother had expressed surprise at the sudden change in plans. So either the man was giving her space, or she’d finally pissed him off.
One could only hope.
“All done,” the delivery guy said, his grin bright in a dark, slightly sweaty face. “That work for you where we put it? ’Cause we can shift it some if you want—”
“No, no...it’s perfect. Here,” she said, grabbing her purse and digging out twenties for the each of the two men. But the first one shook his head.
“We’re not supposed to accept tips, ma’am—”
“You got kids?”
“Uh, yes, ma’am. We both do.”
“Then use it to buy som
ething for them, or take them to the movies or whatever.”
After an exchanged glance, the guys grinned and took the money. “Then thank you. You have a nice day, now. And you have any problems, you call the store, ask for Elton, you hear?”
“I’ll be sure to do that. Thanks again. It looks great.”
The men lumbered off, leaving Blythe alone in the room. She’d opened the windows to let in the breeze off the inlet; a few more photographs to hang on what she’d dubbed the “gallery” wall, and she was done. She prayed Jack liked it. Or at least found some peace here.
“Oh...” His grandmother stood in the doorway, her hand pressed to her cheek. “Doesn’t this look wonderful?”
“Thanks. Come take a look around.”
Candace stepped inside, eyes alight. “It’s perfect. In fact, it looks like something his mother would have done.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Blythe said, kicking aside the ridiculous ping of annoyance about someone she’d never met. And never would. Well, unless there really was an afterlife. Although considering the plethora of souls that had to be drifting around up there, or wherever, by now, what were the odds she’d run into that one? So not a big worry, that.
Then she started slightly when Wes’s mother pulled her into her arms, gave her a quick hug, then set her apart, her hands curled around Blythe’s puny biceps. “I watched the three of you last night from the kitchen window, playing with the dog. It’s been a long time since I heard either Wes or Jack laugh like that. So thank you for that, too.”
Blythe blushed. “I hardly had anything to do with—”
“Maybe a lot more than you might think. Or want to believe?”
Then, with another squeeze, Candace bustled off, leaving Blythe to gawk after her. On the one hand, she supposed the woman’s assumption—that what she’d witnessed was somehow Blythe’s doing—was flattering, in a way, considering her obvious affection for her dead daughter-in-law. On the other, however...
The Marriage Campaign Page 10
