Blame it on Cupid

by Jennifer Greene

  “Aw, hell, Coop. That so sucks.” She’d have wrapped her arms around him, but even if the Mini allowed for that kind of acrobatic move, Kevin and Charlene abruptly bounded out of the fast food place, bearing bags and drinks.

  “Forget it. It doesn’t matter,” Cooper muttered, and then sunk back—as much as he could sink back in the tiny backseat—and stayed quiet the rest of the trip home.

  Or most of the way home.

  Even wasting almost an hour on dinner and messing around, the traffic around D.C. was still like a major blood clot, impossibly slow going. Being Friday night didn’t help. Still, after they finally left the city in the dust, Merry hoped they could zoom the rest of the way home.

  They were a short fifteen minutes from home when the car suddenly gave a little…lurch. And then the engine coughed.

  “It’s okay, baby, we’re all tired,” she told her car.

  The boys cracked up at her talking to the car. Charlene, used to it, just rolled her eyes. But they weren’t teasing with quite so much hilarity when the car suddenly just…quit. Right on the freeway. As they were driving. With a zillion and a half vehicles trying to run them down.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Merry sang out reassuringly. She managed to pull over to the shoulder, her heart beating louder than a freight train, her stomach pitching panic. “Nothing ever happens to the Mini Cooper. She just probably didn’t feel well for a second. She’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. Just relax, everybody….”

  The sun wasn’t going down as fast as it did midwinter, but by then, it was after seven. Dusk hazed the landscape. Car lights were turning on. The temperature was dropping faster than a stone, and when Merry climbed out of the car, the sudden snap of cold made her shiver.

  “Merry, what are you doing?” Charlie asked.

  “You stay inside!” She didn’t have a clue what she was doing, except that she didn’t want three kids outside with all the cars zooming by. She searched for some clear problem. The tires all looked fine. The car had a little road grime. There was no smoke or steam or anything horrendous that would give her a clue why the car was so unhappy. The baby had never given her a lick of trouble, so it wasn’t as if she had some past pattern to work with.

  She wasn’t panicking. She wasn’t going to freak out.

  Cooper and Kevin both started to climb out. “Please stay in. It’s not safe!” she insisted, but apparently they’d waited all they could stand.

  Kevin reached her first and put a big, friendly big-brother paw around her shoulder, as if he weren’t a zillion years younger than her. “Mer,” he said. “Do you have Triple A?”

  “I think so. I mean, I had it in Minnesota, so I still have it here, right?”

  The boys exchanged glances. “I’ll tell you what,” Cooper said. “Just give me your wallet, okay? We’ll find the card. And we’ll phone—”

  “Of course not,” she said. “I’m the adult. I’ll do it.” She pawed through her purse. Three lipsticks. Two lip glosses. Blush. Mascara. Kleenex. PMS pills. BC pills. Three nail files—one so old she should have thrown it away ages ago. A teeth cleaner. Two teeny perfume samples. A sample-size hand cream. A cleaner receipt…

  “Merry,” Kicker said, “Just give over the wallet, okay? We’re just going to look for the insurance stuff, like Triple A.”

  “Hey guys,” Charlene said from the front passenger window. “I think it’s just that we’re out of gas.”

  Merry whirled around. “I can’t be out of gas. I filled up two weeks ago. This car never needs gas.”

  But it seemed, when the key was put back in the lock and turned, that the gas gauge failed to budge off Empty.

  SINCE THE BOYS WERE with him, Jack hadn’t stopped once after work for a quick one with the guys. The neighborhood bar was no Cheers. It was just a corner dive with a big-screen TV that served a decent burger. Divorcees of both genders tended to pop in there for a quick drink and dinner, and because it was neighborhood, people could either walk home or get a ride if they needed one.

  Since the kids had called about catching dinner on the road, Jack hadn’t felt like cooking, and stopped in for a hamburger. The two-pounder had just been handed to him, still steaming and dripping cheese, when his cell phone rang.

  He was supposed to see Merry tonight. Supposed to hear the big secret his son had confided in her. But the one thing he absolutely, positively had to do tonight was figure out how he’d hurt her feelings and find a way to make that right. Really right.

  He’d gotten a taste of losing her last night.

  All day, he’d tried to talk himself out of believing that his whole world had crashed in.

  So when the cell phone rang, he jumped, thinking just possibly it could be Merry. Instead, well…he never did get his hamburger. Or a drink. By the time he’d picked up a gas can and located them on the expressway, he was shaking his head at the motley group hovering outside the Mini Cooper. Charlene huddled against Merry’s side. His boys framed the girls on both sides like telephone poles, their arms around the girls’ shoulders, clearly trying to keep the females warm.

  But it was Merry his gaze honed on, like a bee lonesome for its honey. Her cheeks were shiny from the wind. She was wearing a pink jacket, her hair catching a hint of mahogany from the road lights.

  “Jack!” She broke free from the group cuddle the minute he pulled the truck up behind them. The night had become too dusky to read her expression, so he couldn’t tell if she’d been as miserable all night and day as he had. For darn sure, she was upset now, but it pretty obviously wasn’t about the two of them. “I told them I could walk to a gas station! You didn’t have to come!”

  “I told Mer we’d do it,” Cooper interrupted Merry.

  “Obviously we wouldn’t have let her walk off alone in the night, Dad,” Kicker interrupted Coop.

  “Man, did we have a good time at the Smithsonian,” Charlene informed him.

  “I told the kids I had Triple A. At least I think I do. And it couldn’t have been that far to an exit. I hated to bother you—”

  “I told her you wouldn’t mind, Dad,” Kicker interrupted her.

  “Yeah. We both told her to cool it, that it’d just be safer if you came with the gas, except—” Cooper interrupted his brother.

  “Except that I had to pee really bad,” Charlene told him, “and that kind of complicated things.”

  When Cooper got him aside for all of two seconds, he hissed, “Don’t say anything mean to Mer. She was really close to crying.”

  Like they thought he’d beat up on Merry? Ever in this life?

  Okay, okay, so possibly under normal circumstances he might have made a teeny comment about remembering to read the gas gauge. But not when she was standing there, looking wiped out and fragile and cold.

  He figured he’d try to make that up to her, though, too, when he caught up with her later…only “later” slowly became less and less of a possibility.

  Naturally, once everybody was finally home, they all split to their respective houses. In the kitchen, Jack honed straight for the breadbox for a hunk of a crust, anything to take the starvation edge off. Even dying of hunger, though, he had to give his sons some solid attaboys. “Looked to me like you took pretty good care of the girls.”

  “Well, yeah. She’d have been freaked if that happened when she was alone.” Kicker glanced at the clock. “Hey. I’m going out in an hour. I gotta get a shower.”

  “Where are you going and how’re you getting there?”

  Cooper answered automatically for his twin. “Girl. Her place. Taylor Reed—you know, you play poker with her dad. So it’s neighborhood, close enough for him to walk. They’re just going to hang, watch a movie, should be home before midnight.”

  “Sometimes I think you should let your brother answer for himself.”

  “You had twins. What can I say? It’s what we do.”

  Jack cuffed his son’s neck, well aware the kid had dark, wounded eyes tonight. “So you have plans, too?”


  “Not tonight. Although I’d like to hit a movie if you got time.”

  Jack only gulped once. All he wanted from life was to see Merry.

  But when a fifteen-year-old was willing to do something with a parent—particularly on a Friday night—Jack figured he’d damn well better jump. Especially because Coop had been so unhappy lately.

  “Check the paper. You pick the movie and the time. I just need to climb out of these work clothes and make a phone call, all right?”

  It was looking increasingly doubtful that he was ever going to get dinner, but that’s the way the cookie was crumbling tonight. He took the stairs two at a time, peeled off his work duds, yanked on old cords and an even older sweater. None of that took more than a minute or two.

  He’d just turned off the bedroom light when he hesitated. If he phoned Merry from downstairs, Coop would easily overhear, so he picked up the bedroom receiver by the window and dialed from there.

  Her phone rang twice. Then suddenly the light popped in a bedroom upstairs and Jack froze.

  It wasn’t bedtime. And she normally slept in that downstairs spare room, he knew. So he just didn’t expect to see her upstairs. Without clothes.

  Well. She was wearing a towel.

  “Hello,” she said breathlessly…which she undoubtedly was, if she’d just chased out of a shower to get the phone.

  Maybe Charlene had just climbed in the downstairs shower. Maybe Merry just wanted to use the upstairs shower for some reason. Who knew? It was just hugely taxing on his heart rate…to see her wet tumble of dark hair. To see the charcoal towel wrapped less than tightly over her breasts, less than modestly over the sweet curve of her fanny.

  “Hello?” Merry repeated, this time with tension in her voice.

  He got a grip. “Merry, it’s just me, Jack.” Hell, his hesitation had made her worry it was the damn woman caller, the mom threat. He could have kicked himself. “We were going to try and talk tonight, but nothing seems to be working out here. So I just thought—”

  “Yeah, I’m glad you called.” The minute she recognized his voice, he saw her shoulders sink in relief.

  His window was dirty. He couldn’t remember giving a damn in his entire lifetime about dirty windows, only now, when he desperately wanted to see across the yard, when he wanted a crystal-clear view through his window and hers…parts were blurry. She turned around, started walking as she talked. The towel slipped another notch. Her wet hair seemed to leave beads of diamonds on her bare back.

  “About Cooper, Jack…”

  He caught his breath. He didn’t know whether there was a chair or bed by that window, but she suddenly sat down. Almost that quickly she started drying her hair with the towel…which mean she was no longer wearing the towel. Which meant she was sitting there stark naked. The window sill blocked far too much of his view. But he could still see her bare shoulders, the hollow at the base of her neck.

  Her voice had turned velvet. “I know, Jack, that you want me to tell you Cooper’s secret. But I’ve turned this around in my heart every which way. I trust you. I’d trust you with my life. But your son asked me to trust him, too. I can’t seem to find a way to make this right both ways. So…I do want to tell you. The part that I think you want to know as a parent. But for the details, I’d rather leave that for Cooper to share or not.”

  She fell silent, as if waiting for him to respond to this. And he wanted to. He wanted to focus solely on his son.

  But he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. It wasn’t knowing she was bare that had his throat going so dry. It wasn’t lust. And yeah, of course, lust was an issue. For God’s sake, she was gorgeous.

  And that’s what he’d been telling himself for a while now. That her gorgeousness was the pull. The eternal lust thing. A man was always going to respond to a beautiful woman. And when the woman wanted him and expressly indicated a desire to get naked with him—come on. That lust thing naturally quadrupled.

  It’s just…he felt the lust thing right now. Only it wasn’t causing the yank on his damned heart. It wasn’t causing the bluesy song thickening his pulse. It wasn’t causing the reason he couldn’t move, couldn’t break his gaze from the look of her, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

  It was a single drop of moisture, sliding from the back of her hair, down her shoulder, down her arm.

  It was the gesture she made with her hand…the fingers in the air, even though no one was there. Her talking with her hands, those slim soft hands. The towel gone. Her hair still wet.

  It was feeling how richly he’d fallen in love with her, how much his world had new colors and textures because of her. It was discovering how painfully lonesome he’d been, without even knowing it all these years, because it was her he’d been lonesome for. No one else.

  “Jack…what he talked to me about…the part you need to know…is that this girl broke his heart. She really hurt him, in just about every way a girl can hurt a guy. And I know he’s just fifteen. That there’s always someone who’s going to be our first heartache. But he’s not like Kevin, you know? Kicker has more…resilience. Cooper really opened his heart to this girl.”

  It’s not as if he wasn’t listening. He was. It’s not as if his son didn’t matter to him. He was going down in minutes to be with Coop, and somehow before or after that movie he’d start some kind of conversation about women and hurts and love. Maybe he liked conversations like that on a par with brussels sprouts, but he’d still do it.

  He was the dad. There was no one else to pass that kind of buck to.

  But that was a minute or two from now. And right now it was still this minute. And in the dark room, his eyes hopelessly locked on her, all he could think of was how in God’s name had this happened? At his age? To fall this thick, this deep, this hopelessly crazy in love?

  “Jack? Are you there? You haven’t said a word.”

  “I’m here. I—” Abruptly she realized that she’d turned toward the window. And even though she couldn’t see him—at least he couldn’t imagine how she could see in his dark room—she not only faced his bedroom window but had put her palm, flat, on the glass pane. As if wanting to connect with him. As if wanting, in any way, to touch him.

  It wasn’t him. It was some madman. A sentimental mad man. A sentimental immature madman who’d lost any sense he’d ever had. Who seemed to be reaching out, and laying his palm, flat, against his glass pane.

  He meant to verbally answer her. Tried to answer her. Only somehow he couldn’t get any volume out of his voice.

  “You need to just…be kind. Take it seriously, okay? I don’t care how young he is. He’s so miserable. It hurts…to love the wrong person…to love someone who lets you down. It doesn’t matter how old you are.”

  He tried to speak again, but he wasn’t sure who she was talking about. Coop? Him?

  Her?

  Life? Hell, probably everybody ended up loving someone who let them down…but his response had been to put up emotional walls. How come Merry hadn’t? How come she was still so giving and generous and open?

  How had he not seen that before?

  “Um, Jack? Are we done with this conversation?”

  The hell they were, he thought. Only right then, he couldn’t get a single word to come out of his mouth. Not that made any sense.

  “Okay,” Merry said suddenly. Her hand print disappeared from the window. She turned around completely, so her back was to him. “I understand what’s going on here,” she said quietly. “It was about the other night. When you couldn’t answer the question about whether you trusted me—”

  “Merry—” Finally, he found his voice, only to have her swiftly, immediately interrupt him.

  “It’s all right. I put you on the spot, and I’m sorry. There’s no reason you should trust me, Jack. We’ve been having an unexpected little…fling. It’s been warm and fun, lots of affection involved, some need, some chemistry. But it’s not as if we were in over our heads, right? You didn’t think I was tak
ing it seriously, did you?”

  He cleared his throat, tried, “Merry, I really didn’t—”

  He heard a short, soft bubble of a laugh. “I’m the original free bird. I never wanted to be nailed down—to anything or anyone. Ever. So if you were even remotely worried about that kind of thing, put your mind at rest. And right now—just go take care of Coop, okay?”

  She clicked off the phone and flicked off the lamp.

  He clicked off his phone, too. But he stood there longer, staring across the yard at her dark window, because she hadn’t moved. She was still sitting there, her back to him, motionless.

  And he thought, for God’s sake, why the Sam Hill do I have the feeling that I hurt her again? When it was her darn fault for not giving me the chance to talk to begin with?

  But Jack knew, gut deep, that it was damn well time he opened his mouth and found the right words to say to Merry. Fast.

  Or he’d lose her before he even had a chance to win her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WHEN A WOMAN’S LIFE was falling apart, when people who mattered to her were troubled, when nothing had gone right for four solid days and she was exhausted, don’t you think fate could kick in a little break? Just one? Just a little one?

  When the doorbell rang midmorning on Monday and Merry saw June Innes on the doorstep, she opened the door with a smile, but what she wanted to do was crawl under a chair and cry.

  “I believe I told you that I would be making impromptu visits.”

  “Yes, I know you did,” Merry said cheerfully and stepped aside so the guardian ad litem could come in. Mrs. Innes’s expression rivaled the friendliness of a Gila monster. She was wearing a skirt in a scaly green, a polyester blouse with a pointy collar, and her hair was curled so tight it could have auditioned as springs.