“Nice job. Are you ready for trick-or-treating?” Paige tacked the picture to the fridge and returned to the coffee table to sit with Kaylie on the floor.
“Mmm-hmm. Do you think Mrs. Purcell will have caramel apples again this year?” Kaylie put a new dress on the doll next to her.
“We will have to wait and see. Sweetpea, do you like it when Alex comes around?” Paige helped her put the doll arms through the narrow sleeve openings, watching her face for any uncomfortable emotions. Kaylie seemed unfazed by the question.
“Alex is my swimming buddy.”
“Right. Alex likes you a lot.”
“Alex is funny. Like you, Mama.”
“I’m funny?” They finished with the doll and Kaylie admired the new dress.
“You smile a lot when Alex is here. Smiles are for funny things.”
Paige tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and hugged Kaylie to her side. She had been smiling more over the past couple of weeks. “I love you, Kay.”
Kaylie snuggled against her neck. “I love you, too, Mama. Can I play ‘Angry Birds’?”
“Sure, but just for a few minutes.” The clock read five forty-five and she checked the front door. She should get ready.
It only took a few minutes to secure her long hair in a bun, don the blue-and-black dress and saddle shoes. She put more blusher than normal on her cheeks and pulled the black foam wig over her head, still wondering where Alex might be.
She settled into her favorite wicker chair on the porch with her sketchbook and pencils, doodling.
Why was she so antsy? Things were going well. She felt warm and cozy when he texted her a picture or a funny thing that happened during the day. Or just wanted to say hi. Those were her favorite texts, the ones that had absolutely no reason. They just were. Like Alex. He could text her a “happy Monday” note and her day was made.
Even her mother’s usual haranguing didn’t bother her. Or maybe it was that Dot seemed to have given up on the backhanded compliments since that last blowup. She’d called twice, reminding Paige of gallery deadlines, but didn’t bring up Alex. Or his connection to Kaylie. She’d been...almost normal.
Maybe that was the cause of her discontent. Dot was never this laid-back about anything.
No, that wasn’t it.
The phone rang, and Dot’s number glowed on the readout. Paige sighed. “Think of the devil,” she muttered but picked up the call. “Hello, Mother.”
“Paige, sweetheart. I was just calling to remind you that if you want to send something in to the curator, the deadline for local artists is today. Halloween, of all days, can you imagine?”
Halloween. Maybe that was the source of her angst. She turned thirty today. Paige twisted her mouth to the side. No, thirty was a big number, but she wasn’t worried about gray hairs or sagging boobs. What was wrong with her?
“Paige, are you there?”
“I’m here, Mother. We talked about this. I have a lot on my plate with school, and there is a new project we’re planning for the spring—”
Dot cut her off. “Please. You know you could snap off a canvas that would thrill them, if you’d just try. I talked to the curator today and he said as long as you emailed him the plan for your painting, he would get it in the next showing.”
Paige gritted her teeth and held back the angry retort. Dot wasn’t turning over a new leaf. All her quietness over the past two weeks had been a buildup to this call. Paige should have known.
“He leaves at seven. You only have a little time left,” her mother continued. “Why don’t you go ahead and email your ideas? You know, I think a landscape around the Chain of Rocks bridge in St. Louis would be a great addition.”
Except the area didn’t interest Paige. Not that Dot would care.
“Did you need anything else, Mother?” Like to wish Paige a happy birthday? “I’m planning to take Kaylie trick-or-treating in a few minutes. We need to get ready.”
“No, I only wanted to remind you of the gallery deadline.”
The words were like a punch to Paige’s midsection. They shouldn’t have been, not really. Over the years her parents had forgotten more of Paige’s birthdays than they’d remembered. And she didn’t want to argue with her mother, not again. Not with Kaylie just inside the house. Not on her birthday.
“Don’t forget to email a picture of Kaylie’s costume. She’s a fairy princess again, right?”
Paige sighed. “No, Mother, she’s Snoopy this year. She didn’t want wings and a crown.”
“But Snoopy is a boy’s costume. A boy dog. Surely you told her that.”
No, Paige hadn’t. Who cared if Snoopy was a boy dog? Her kid wanted to be Snoopy so Paige would let her be Snoopy. She closed her eyes and counted to five. Getting upset with her mother would spoil their evening with Alex and Paige was loathe to do that.
He deserved better than more Kenner family complaining. “She insisted Snoopy was the costume,” Paige said in a level voice.
Dot sighed. “Well, I still want a picture, I suppose. Don’t forget about emailing the curator. He’s waiting for you.”
Right. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I ask, darling. Your father just walked in the door, would you like to speak with him?”
“No, that’s okay. Tell him I said hello. Would you like to talk to Kaylie?”
She went in search of her daughter and found her playing “Angry Birds” on the iPad. Her completed drawing showed a little girl, a dog and a tall man. Paige smiled. No matter how messed up her own childhood, she had to admit she was raising a pretty cool kid.
Kaylie chattered about preschool for a few minutes with Dot, and Paige imagined the indulgent expression on her mother’s face. When Paige was a child, the indulgent expression meant Dot was distracted and not really listening. With Kaylie it meant she was taking in every word. Absorbing them, tucking them away so she could ask questions later.
Paige frowned. Now she was jealous of her daughter? She really had to get a grip on her emotions. A few minutes later Kaylie handed the phone back and returned her attention to the game. Paige gave her a five-minute warning before turning her attention to the phone.
“You will send something to the gallery tonight?”
She closed her eyes. She could lie, say yes and deal with it later. Or she could grow up and deal with it now. Including not letting what happened next cloud their evening with Alex.
“No, Mother, although I appreciate you talking me up to the curator, and reminding me about the opportunity. I have too much on my plate right now with school and Kaylie and—”
“And that man, I suppose.” Dot’s tone cooled immensely, not that it had been overly warm from the moment Paige said hello. “Paige, you cannot continue to allow men to run your life or shape your career.”
“I’m not, Mother. My career is my choice. Teaching makes me happy. Painting for Kaylie or the school makes me happy.” Alex makes me happy. She didn’t say those words aloud, thank goodness. “I wish you could be happy for me.”
Dot sighed, the sound more menacing than sad. “I wish you could see how much talent you’re wasting in a classroom when you could be painting landscapes around the world. You could be showing Kaylie that world—”
“She has school, Mother, and I’m not interested in painting the lost landscapes of France or Turkey.” Although she wouldn’t mind painting the barn on Alex’s parkland. She twisted her mouth to the side and walked into the living room to turn the empty canvas on its side. Just enough space.
“Please. Nannies and tutors would be better for Kaylie than that backwater town you live in.”
“Mother, stop. You lived in this ‘backwater’ town for fifteen years, remember?”
“And then we realized you needed more than reading, writing and arithmetic. Paige, you had an international education. You know the benefits of experiencing other cultures, learning new languages. It would be so good for her.”
Yes, she knew all about
being dropped in a foreign country, not knowing the language, not knowing a single soul.
“Mother, thank you.” Paige put a hard note into her voice. “Thank you for believing in my talent, but you have to accept that we have different dreams for me. I like living in a small town, I like teaching school and, yes, I like Alex. I have a good life and it’s exactly what I want. I’ll talk to you soon.” She hung up before Dot could say anything more. Set the phone back in its charger.
And realized she still held her sketch pad in her other hand.
She doodled her name with Alex’s across the page. She’d drawn a unicorn and a few hundred hearts. Sketched his hand holding hers in a corner.
The sound of his truck snapped Paige back to the present. She closed the book and put it under one of the couch cushions.
She loved Alex Ryan.
Tonight might be the perfect time to tell him.
* * *
ALEX’S PHONE BLEEPED and he glanced at the readout. Alison.
When will you have you-know-who out of the house?
Trick-or-treating starts at six, so anytime after. I’ll keep them on candy watch until at least seven. You have the cake?
She texted him a googly-eye-rolling smiley face.
Of course I have it. You have mad cake-ordering skills. The house will be perfect by seven.
Thank you.
He pocketed the cell phone. He could have planned Paige’s surprise birthday party without Alison’s help, but he couldn’t have readied the house while still having his first trick-or-treat night with his daughter. And Paige deserved to be remembered on her birthday.
The clock on Sue’s stove clicked past five and Alex folded his hands together. He’d taken a half-day off work because Sue called that morning, asking him to help her move a few things from Deanna’s childhood room into the attic. A good sign, he thought, but then the moving of things was sidetracked by every piece of memorabilia Dee had collected during her teenage years.
“Can’t you stay? Just for one cup of coffee?” Sue’s faded blue eyes begged him to stay.
“I can’t, Sue,” he said, feeling like a heel because he couldn’t bear the thought of spending five more minutes inside this kitchen that now housed a few high school yearbooks, some cheerleading ribbons and various other paraphernalia. He didn’t have the words that Sue needed to hear. She studiously avoided talk of Kaylie or Paige, keeping the conversation focused on life precancer, and Alex was sick of it. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Why don’t we plan to have dinner next week?”
She dabbed the corner of her eye with a tissue and nodded. “I guess I’ll have to accept that you have other priorities now.” Her voice cracked on the last words.
“I’ll call you to set it up,” Alex said before he could think twice about coffee and holding Sue’s hand until she felt better. Before he could say his priorities were the same as they had always been: family, work, fun. It was just that his family included more people now.
“When you’re here, it’s like nothing has changed.”
Okay, he had to suggest it. “I think you need to talk to someone. Someone other than me or John or your friends.” He felt like the worst kind of son as he said the words. Sue had been fragile since Dee’s death, but over the past few weeks her depression had become a breathing thing that changed her from the woman he knew.
Sue scraped her chair across the tile floor and stood. Stalked to the sink to rinse out her coffee mug. “I’ve lost my daughter.”
“But we’re still here. John. Me. Dee is gone and she isn’t coming back,” he said, echoing Tuck’s words to him from a few days before. “We are still here.”
She put her hands on the counter and rocked. “Go on, whatever your plans are you go ahead. I do not need mental help.” She choked out the words.
“Sue—”
She cut him off. “No, go, Alex. You obviously have something more important than your family to deal with tonight. Just go.” She whispered the last words, her shoulders shaking.
Alex started to reach across the space between them but let his hands drop. Because he couldn’t soothe Sue’s pain, not this time.
Paige and Kaylie had given him a glimpse of life and he was damned if he’d put that light out. Not even for Dee’s mother.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AT SIX O’CLOCK on the nose Alex’s truck pulled to a stop before Paige’s house. Her heart skipped a beat when he jumped from the cab with the cellophane-wrapped Charlie Brown costume in his hands. She shook herself, mentally wiping the goofy grin she knew was on her face off before she opened the door.
“Sorry, I got held up. Two minutes and we’ll be in sugar-heaven.” He rushed by her and into the powder room but was back in a heartbeat. “You look amazing. I don’t think Lucy van Pelt had legs like yours.” He kissed her, a quick, hot press of lips. “And I’m positive she never kissed Charlie like this.”
“I don’t know. That psychiatrist couch had to be good for something.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Do you have one of those around here?”
Paige pushed him toward the powder room. “Two minutes. I don’t think I can hold Kaylie back any longer.”
As if on cue, Kaylie hurried into the hallway with her bucket on her arm. “Is it time yet?”
Alex whirled around, grinning at the little girl. “Sorry, Snoopy, we’ll head out in two minutes.”
She giggled. “I’m not Snoopy, I’m Kaylie.”
He pushed the costume head back, examining Kaylie’s face in the small opening. “So you are.”
Paige distracted Kaylie with setting up the candy bowl and sign reading “Please take one” for the neighborhood kids while Alex changed, and then they started down the street. She shot a glance in his direction. Even in the skullcap that made him look as bald as Charlie Brown, Alex drew her attention. Made her tummy flutter and her knees go weak. The man was a menace in the best possible way, she decided, and then made one more decision: just for tonight, as her birthday present to herself, she wasn’t going to worry about loving him. She wouldn’t think about his past or hers. She would enjoy this moment with all her heart.
Paige snapped pictures as Kaylie skipped up driveways and sidewalks, telling the adults she could do this on her own. Love clogged her throat as she watched her little girl, who had been too afraid to go near any of the houses even though she knew everyone in the neighborhood just last year, sing the Halloween chant and come running back with more and more candy.
Mrs. Purcell, dressed in a black witch’s robe with a pointy hat on her head, handed out caramel apples. She offered Paige a finger wave and a wink when she saw Alex making the rounds with them. Paige tried not to feel too optimistic that her elderly neighbor seemingly approved of her choice in men, but nosy and curmudgeonly or not, Mrs. Purcell was a good judge of character.
By six-thirty Kaylie was slowing down, and Paige had emptied her bucket once already. They’d made it around half the neighborhood.
“I think she’s had it. And we’ve definitely gotten enough candy for three families,” Paige said.
Kaylie disagreed—loudly. “I haven’t gotten to Brie’s house yet. I wanna keep going.”
“I definitely think that is enough, young lady,” Paige said, cringing when she sounded more like Dot than herself. She shook the plastic bag filled with candy and then Kaylie’s bucket. “We have enough candy here to last ’til Christmas.”
Kaylie batted her hazel eyes at Paige. “Please?”
Alex joined in, complete with batting eyelashes. “Yeah, pleeeze?” He drew out the word.
Paige laughed. “You two are incorrigible. Fine, we continue on. But I’m not carrying you.”
Kaylie was already off, scampering across the next neighbor’s yard in search of goodies. She got a pencil with Snoopy on it and crowed. Just after seven, they turned the corner to Paige’s house and she blinked. At least ten cars sat along the normally quiet street as the sun sank lower in the west.
“W
hat is going on?”
“They must be coming in from all over the county,” Alex said quickly. “Good thing we got started on time.” He took Kaylie’s hand and started walking again. Paige couldn’t put her finger on it but something was off about this. There were cars, but where were the people?
She hurried to catch up with Alex and Kaylie, who were talking about the merits of Lemonheads versus SweeTarts—SweeTarts were winning but mostly because Kaylie kept using the “because I said so” defense. Paige smiled. Maybe it was time to come up with another reason besides that for when Kaylie didn’t want to follow the rules.
“I’ll replenish the candy bowl for any latecomers. Why don’t you two go on around back? We’ll build a fire and finish off the night in style,” Alex suggested.
Paige didn’t want this night to end. Not when it had been such a crappy afternoon. Not when she had decided not to let said crappy afternoon kill her birthday.
Kaylie pulled Alex’s hand and when he bent down, whispered something in his ear. He shot a quick glance at Paige, a smile she couldn’t quite decipher on his full lips. Nodding, he said, “Yeah, it’s time,” and Kaylie squealed as she jumped up and down. Before Paige could ask what was going on, Kaylie grabbed her hand and began pulling her around the house to the backyard.
“Fire pit! Fire pit! I get to stay up for the fire pit!” she chanted all the way through the side yard. Together they rounded the corner and Paige stopped dead in her tracks.
Fairy lights blinked throughout her trees and along the rails of her deck, casting a comforting glow in the dusky evening. A few Chinese lanterns glowed from low-hanging branches and Tiki torches lit the paving stones leading from the trampoline in the yard to the large wooden deck.
“Happy birthday, Mama,” Kaylie screeched, pulling Paige forward as Alison, Tuck and a host of her friends yelled, “Surprise!” from the deck. They tossed streamers into the trees as they yelled and they broke into the Happy Birthday song as Alex came through the sliding glass door. There were two Dorothys, a Scarecrow and a few witches and superhero costumes, as well. Alison and Tuck were dressed as Rhett and Scarlett from Gone With the Wind.
The Daughter He Wanted Page 22
