by Jen Doyle
“I don’t,” Lola said, visions of yellow-soaked newspaper strewn across her house. “I don’t like a puppy.” She sounded shrill and a bit hysterical.
Mrs. Jessup noticed from across the street, of course, her head coming up, eyes narrowing.
Perfect. Now Lola was going to add to her stellar reputation in the neighborhood: banshee mom who hates puppies.
“Is that a dog?” Silas gasped from behind her. “We’re getting a puppy?”
As the triplets came running, their four-year-old attention span letting in the word puppy through the barrier that kept out things like “clear your dishes off the table” and “do not stick your hand in your underwear.” Lola closed her eyes and bonked her head against the door. The dog, knowing this was its make-or-break moment, peeked out of Jack’s arms and whimpered.
Damn it. That was a freaking cute puppy.
Breathing in through her nose so her head did not explode, Lola stepped aside and let Jack in. He was wise enough not to meet her eyes.
The kids may have been as excited as the puppy was, and if she wasn’t careful, they were all going to have accidents at the same time and she’d be cleaning up after them for the rest of her given life. She pointed down the hallway. “Coats on,” she snapped. “Take the puppy outside.”
As the boys and the puppy yapped, Lola stood next to Jack. “I really feel the need to hurt you right now.”
“That’s not your way of saying thank you is it?” he asked, scratching his head in a way that indicated he realized he maybe should not have shown up at her door bearing a puppy.
She bit her lip as a reminder not to scream. “Nope.”
“Because sometimes pain is good. Like, you know, a bite here or there.”
The flame flaring up through her was rage, not desire. She refused to allow her body to betray her like that.
“But I’m feeling as if maybe that’s not the kind of hurt you mean.”
“Correct.”
And yet, damn him, several hours later she realized it was the single best afternoon she’d had since Dave had died. Or maybe since he’d left for his last deployment. She wasn’t going to examine it too closely.
By the end of the afternoon, Lola had clearly lost her mind because she was starting to feel like maybe having a puppy wouldn’t be the worst thing. When the boys asked, “Can we keep it?” it actually hurt her to shake her head and say, “It’s Jack’s puppy. Not ours.” She threw a glare in his direction just in case he was thinking about correcting her.
“But Jack lives at Mrs. Lansing’s hotel,” Silas said, because of course the whole town was now well-aware of that fact.
“Mrs. Lansing might not mind,” she said, without nearly enough conviction behind it.
“But Four doesn’t want to live at her hotel,” Silas said.
“Four?” Lola asked. Is that what he’d said? “The puppy’s name is Four?”
Silas rolled his eyes as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He pointed to the younger boys. “One, Two, Three...” Then he pointed to the puppy. “Four.”
“The boys have names,” Lola said, not even bothering to glare at Jack this time. It was understood by this point.
“Yeah,” Silas agreed. “But this is a lot easier.”
“And how would you like it if I called you One?” she asked, trying to ignore Jack as he came up next to her, puppy tucked under his arm. After three whole seconds, she gave in to petting it. It didn’t hurt that it gave her a chance to touch Jack, even if she was still a bit irritated. His chest was beautiful. The sound that rumbled through it when her hand dipped under his jacket even more so.
“That’s James’s name,” Silas said, pulling her attention back to her children. Where it should be.
“No,” Emmet said. “He’s One A.”
As Lola turned to Jack again only to receive an entirely innocent look in return, the conversation devolved into whether the letters were required or not.
“We are not keeping this puppy!” Lola finally said over the din.
“But Jack said we can,” was the universal reply.
At least Jack had the grace to say, “Jack may have been mistaken.”
Thank you. “Jack doesn’t live here. He does not get a say.”
“He could live here,” Silas pointed out. “Auntie Fitz moved out and now no one lives downstairs. Jack could.”
“Trust me,” Lola said, “Jack does not want to live in our basement.” She turned to him. “Does he?”
Jack cleared his throat, entirely flustered, something Lola was fairly certain she’d never see again. It was kind of adorable. Almost as adorable as the puppy. She looked down at the baby Golden Retriever and then back up at him. Nope. Jack was cuter.
“If Jack lived in our basement, Four could, too,” Silas said, taking advantage of the lack of response.
“True,” Jack answered, as if he were actually entertaining the idea.
“Then Jack could help drive us all around and you wouldn’t have to ask Uncle Deke and Aunt Jules all the time.” Silas spoke, as usual, but all four boys turned their eyes to her, pleading.
Jack was absolutely no help. Where was his protest? She turned to him again and one look made clear exactly how big of a disaster this would be. He smiled and shrugged and added, “I could even help with the laundry.”
A yelp escaped her.
Wonderful. She could hear the whispers at the HOA meeting now: Banshee mom who hates puppies and stashes a GQ sexpot major league pitcher in her basement for who knows what purposes. We always knew her morals were questionable.
“It could be like he was our babysitter,” Silas added. “Just like Auntie Fitz.”
Even better. The Iceman himself as her nanny. Ice Manny. She supposed it would help with his PR if nothing else.
She needed to say no. Emphatically.
It was even on the tip of her tongue, when Silas asked Jack, “Did you have a dog when you were a kid? My dad did. He always said we could get one when he got back. But then, well...”
The words alone were enough for her heart to skip a few beats as she turned to him. His stoic shrug even as his shoulders shook a little had her reeling. And then the final blow came when Jack, having clearly caught that as well, kneeled down in front of Silas. “I didn’t, actually. I always wanted one, but my parents weren’t really for it. They didn’t like anything messy.”
Like having a child? Lola wanted to say, her now non-beating heart breaking. She brought her hands up to her mouth before she said something she would regret—either about his parents or the puppy.
Silas’s eyes widened. He’d watched enough ESPN to know Jack’s background. “But you had a billion dollars when you were a kid.” With some facts slightly off, apparently. “And a really big house. Couldn’t you have even just one dog?” He scrunched his face up. “If my dad was still here and we had a big house like that, we’d probably all have puppies.”
Maybe if she hadn’t caught the flash of pain in Jack’s eyes as he ruffled Silas’s hair and stood up... Maybe if the look in his eyes hadn’t reverted to the Iceman gaze despite his smile... Or maybe if he hadn’t then said, “Yeah, your dad sounds pretty amazing. Your mom’s amazing, too, and it wasn’t fair of me to show up here with Four the way I did. I’m really sorry.”
If not for all that, maybe Lola wouldn’t have said, “How are you at making beds?” As heat rushed to Lola’s cheeks, she quickly added, “Or doing dishes?”
The boys started cheering as Jack took a step closer, bringing the puppy up between them in a way that felt like a deliberate barrier between them. “I am very good at a whole lot of things,” he said, his eyes dark and heated. Not in the normal good way. “But I didn’t mean to put you in this position. And I don’t want you to say yes because you feel sorry for me.
”
“I don’t feel sorry for you, Jack,” she said. It wasn’t a lie. She ached for him—for both the man he was now and the boy he’d been. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to give him a little bit of the joy he’d so clearly lacked as a child, yet somehow managed to bring about whenever he was in the presence of her own children. “And I like the positions you put me in.”
His eyes flared and then went even darker. Fighting the urge to take a few steps back, she moved in closer instead, refusing to accept the distance he was trying to put between them. She placed her hand over the puppy’s head, making sure her knuckles brushed up against Jack. “When do you want to move in?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Given how the whole puppy thing played out, Lola had no expectation of their new living situation working out. But after nearly two weeks of amazingly smooth sailing, it seemed everyone had settled into it. Jack had remained distant for the first few days, which Lola was fine with. Relieved, almost. As if he truly were just the nanny replacement and not the man she’d taken into her bed.
The boys were having none of that, however, and by day four Jack was back to his dangerous self, the man she was falling in love with. The only thing keeping her from losing her wits entirely was the knowledge that if she showed her true feelings in front of her boys, they’d start to think of him as a part of the family in a way that would hurt them all when Jack left. So she made sure that whenever the boys were around, all interactions between her and Jack were strictly platonic. She was pretty impressed with how well they’d been managing, in fact, with her boys none the wiser. Having it all—for a few more weeks, at least—was surprisingly easy to pull off.
She was so lulled into complacency that she didn’t see Silas’s end run until it was entirely too late.
It was two weeks after Thanksgiving, one of those nights when the whole gang had gathered to have dinner at Deacon’s. On nights like that, usually the grandparents and Fitz and Deke would play with the younger kids while Silas and Matty would stick with Jules’s older kids. When Jack was around he tended to stay on the end of the table with the adults, usually Nate, Wash and Jason. But tonight Silas, Matty and Geo had worked their way in, and they’d drawn Deke to their end of the table, too. With so many of them there, Lola decided it was safe to let two generations of testosterone stay together. And of course, given who was involved—she blamed Deke—the men decided to teach the boys poker.
They were betting peanuts and M&Ms and having a grand old time, when Lola heard Silas say, “I’ll raise you three blue M&Ms, plus, if I win, you have to start having dinner with us every night.”
Turning her head, she saw Silas talking to Jack, of course, and he was playing it frighteningly close to perfect.
Jack stared down at his cards, and, it seemed to Lola, very carefully not looking her way. They were in total agreement that he would not be eating dinner with her and the boys every night as it would give the wrong message entirely. He was not their replacement dad; he was not part of the family. Lola had made it explicitly clear he was there only until he left for spring training and Silas had made it equally clear he was unhappy with the approach. Being the head of the household, however, Lola had put her foot down. She hadn’t counted on her seven-year-old being such an exceptionally sneaky little devil.
“Buddy,” Jack said. “I can’t tell you how much I would love to have dinner with you every night, but I think that’s the kind of thing you need to run by your mom first.”
Not letting it go, Silas said, “I think my mom works really hard and if you were helpful it would really be a lot better.”
Jack’s eyebrows went up as he looked over at Lola.
“Silas, honey,” Lola said, making sure to keep all traces of admiration out of her voice. Yep. Only seven years old and he was already fearlessly working it. “We already talked about this. Jack is here to train with Uncle Nate. He can’t have dinner with us every night.”
Nate glanced at her but didn’t say anything to contradict her, thank goodness. Hell, as far as she knew that was where Jack went every night. The boys weren’t the only ones she was trying to protect from getting too attached after all. Under no circumstances would she ask him what he did every day, although she did have a sneaking suspicion Mrs. Lansing was feeding him at least a few nights a week—and had possibly looped him into her Bridge group.
With a smile, Jack looked back down at his cards. “You know what would be an even better way to sweeten the pot?” He took a card from the right side of his hand and moved it to the left. “You do know Nate has a plane, right?”
Nate’s head came up. He looked at Jack and then at Silas and smiled as he looked back down at his cards.
“Yes,” Silas said, his eyes riveted to Jack.
Lola’s were, too, truth be told. If she were close enough, she would have kicked him under the table.
“And you know where Nate goes all the time?” Jack moved the card back to the right side of his hand and shifted another next to it.
“Chicago?” Silas answered, so excited he started to drop his hand where everyone could see. Deke pushed it back up.
“Chicago.” Jack drummed his fingers on the table. Never looking up, he said, “I bet if you asked him nicely, Nate would let you throw in a special trip to Chicago instead of me having dinner with you every night. I mean, a private plane is about a billion times better than dinner, right?”
Lola was going to kill him. They seriously needed to have a talk about boundaries. Especially two weeks before Christmas when there was no end of things to get done.
Except she couldn’t take her eyes off Silas. He’d become a whole new kid these last few weeks. Even though Jack had been exactly as careful as Lola had asked him to be, there was no denying he and Silas had formed the most unexpected of connections. Silas would go out with Jack for Four’s walk every night while Lola was putting the younger boys to bed. And she’d just the other night realized they ended each walk by hanging out in the backyard—pitching. Only snowballs so far, but still.
Deke was the best uncle ever. He’d been Silas’s Little League coach for two years now and happily stepped in whenever a father figure was required. But his life had always been elsewhere, whereas Jack seemed perfectly content for his to be here.
Temporarily, Lola reminded herself.
But it was already going to be hard for Silas. So although she refused to back down on the dinner thing—her heart wasn’t strong enough to fall into a rhythm like that without going in too many Dave-related directions—she also didn’t have it in her to put a damper on wherever this was going, especially as Silas began nearly vibrating with excitement.
Mimicking Jack, Silas looked down at his cards and switched one from one side to the other. But his voice was a little shaky as he looked back up and said, “Uncle Nate?”
“Well, geez,” Nate answered, fiddling with his own cards. “I suppose that would be okay. But it doesn’t seem fair to have one measly plane ride instead of a whole bunch of dinners. Unless...” He looked at his cards, looked at the face cards that were already up, and then shifted his cards around again before looking up at Silas. “You know who has an apartment on the forty-eighth floor of his building and a private chef who will make you anything you want?”
Lola had to bite her lip in order not to start sobbing right here in front of everyone as a look of pure joy came over Silas’s face. These last few Christmases had been...difficult. The year Dave died Silas had been only four and so sure Santa would bring his dad back. The second year he’d tried again, thinking the first time had been too soon for Santa to pull his act together. By the third year he hadn’t asked for anything. What kid that age didn’t have a Christmas list? When she’d pushed he’d shrugged and said it didn’t matter. He figured Santa just didn’t think he was a good enough kid.
“Anything?”
Silas whispered, turning to Jack.
“Well, he does make you eat your vegetables.”
“I like vegetables,” Silas answered, practically jumping up and down in his chair by this point.
“Then there you go,” Jack said, looking up at Silas. “Plane ride, plus dinner to order on the forty-eighth floor? I’d say it doesn’t get better than that.”
But Silas wasn’t done. He was a negotiator through and through; he unfortunately got that from Lola. “It would be better if we could go to see where you play baseball, too.”
Except, Jack no longer had a team he played for. As far as Lola knew, even though Nate had agreed to work with him during these few months, Sam, Nate’s boss, hadn’t yet agreed to sign him. “Sila—”
“Totally better,” Nate said, cutting Lola off as he shifted forward in his chair. “So we’re raising by three blue M&Ms, plus the pot includes a plane ride to Chicago, dinner with a personal chef on the forty-eighth floor and a trip to Watchmen Field. Let’s see what you’ve got.” He lay his cards down. “Pair of Kings.”
Deke threw his cards in facedown. “Nothing,” he said, even though Lola had most definitely seen a flush of some kind.
Since everyone else had folded before the last round, it was just down to Jack and Silas. Jack showed his hand. Pair of eights.
Silas could no longer contain himself. He shrieked and jumped up as he threw his cards on the table. “Three tens! Three tens!” He threw his arms around Matty. “We’re going to Chicago!”
A little unsure, Matty looked at Nate. “Me, too?”
Sitting back in his chair with a big grin on his face, Nate nodded. “Sure. And Geo, too, if he wants.”
That stopped Silas as he turned to Jack. “Can my mom come?”
Jack looked up at her, his eyes dark as he smiled. “I’m counting on it.”
* * *
“You are one ballsy son of a bitch,” Lola said when she got out of the car at the Inspiration airport—also known as Nate Hawkins’s personal airstrip.
