This Time for Keeps

by Rochelle Alers

  The door opened, his head popped up and he smiled when coming face-to-face with Nicole. She was dressed entirely in black: long-sleeved stretchy top with a pair of matching slacks and ballerina-type flats. The color made her petite frame look even slimmer while the clingy fabric flattered her soft curves.

  She opened the door wider. Light from an overhead pendant illuminated the entryway and Nicole’s bare face. “Please come in.”

  Fletcher walked into the entryway. A vase with a colorful bouquet of roses in shades ranging from blood red to pure white sat on the drop-leaf table. “I hope I’m not too early.”

  “I’m glad you’re early because it will give you time to hang out with Daniel and Luke before we sit down to eat. They’re watching television in the family room. And thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful.”

  Fletcher curbed the urge to lean over and kiss her cheek, remembering her warning about getting too close to her when the Belgian Malinois was present. “I wasn’t certain whether you’d like them.” He’d called the local florist and had them deliver a bouquet of flowers as a house gift.

  “I’m not ashamed to admit that I have a weakness for flowers and scented candles.”

  “Are you admitting that you’re a romantic?”

  She affected a mischievous grin. “No comment.”

  “Yeah, you are,” he countered, smiling. Knowing she was a romantic would make it easier for them to have an uncomplicated liaison. He already knew she wasn’t interested in a romantic entanglement and having her nephews as buffers was certain to make it easy for them to remain friends.

  Nicole leaned closer, but not so close to touch him as Othello watched their every motion. “I told Daniel and Luke you were into cars,” she whispered like a coconspirator, “so get ready for the inquisition. And, by the way, you can take off your jacket. Dinners here are very informal.”

  Fletcher shrugged out of the black jacket he had paired with matching slacks, set it on a straight-backed chair and then squared his shoulders. “I’m ready.” He followed Nicole through the living and dining rooms into a spacious area that doubled as the family room. A large wall-mounted television was tuned to a channel showing cartoons.

  “Daniel, Luke, we have company,” Nicole announced softly. The two boys popped up from a floral love seat. “I’d like to you to meet Mr. Fletcher. Fletcher, these are my nephews, Luke and Daniel.”

  The taller of the two approached Fletcher and held out his hand. “I’m Danny. And it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Fletcher.”

  Fletcher took the extended hand and shook it, all the while keeping a wary eye on Othello. “It’s just Fletcher. And it’s a pleasure to meet you, too, Danny.”

  Luke, who hadn’t been able to stop staring up at Fletcher, was suddenly propelled into action, offering his hand. “I’m Luke. Aunt Nikki said you have a lot of cars.”

  Fletcher nodded. “What she probably meant was that I work on a lot of cars.”

  Daniel pushed out his lower lip. “You don’t have a car?”

  “Oh, I have a car,” he admitted. “In fact, I have several cars.” Fletcher gave Nicole a barely perceptible wink after she’d picked up the remote device and turned off the television. “Let’s sit down and I’ll tell you all about them.” He walked over to the sofa and sat as the brothers flanked him. Othello lay down less than a foot away, his muzzle resting on both paws, watching him intently.

  Nicole returned to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on dinner, confident that Fletcher would keep her charges thoroughly entertained when talking about cars. She knew where the fascination had come from, because it had been the same with her brother. For as long as she could remember Reggie had had a Matchbox car collection. And like most boys she’d grown up with, he’d treated his first car, which for most boys his age were hoopties, like a top-of-the-line luxury vehicle.

  She was thirteen and her brother sixteen when she’d accompanied Reggie across town to Fletcher’s father’s garage to have him look at his 1986 Plymouth Reliant because it needed a new muffler.

  Although she and Fletcher had been the same age and attended the same school, she’d rarely spoken to him, but that day was the first time he’d openly acknowledged her by name. She’d been so awestruck that one of the cutest boys in middle school had spoken directly to her, all she could do was nod. It was later that night in her bedroom that she’d pounded the mattress so hard, chiding herself for reacting like a complete dunce when presented with the perfect opportunity to engage in a conversation with him. She was finally able to vent her frustration when detailing the event in her diary.

  Nicole had found herself mooning over Fletcher for years until they reached high school and she saw girls openly flirting to get him to notice them. Once he was selected to join the football team and became an athletic standout, her teenage crush had shattered completely when rumors circulated that he was sleeping with several of the cheerleaders. And knowing the girls were sleeping with him, along with some of the other boys on the team, made Fletcher abhorrent to Nicole. Even when they’d worked together on the senior committees, she’d related to him as a fellow student and nothing more. Fast-forward seventeen years and they were now different people at a different time in their lives.

  Fletcher had bought property and planned to spend the rest of his life in The Falls, while she had an expiration date on her tenure. What she had promised herself was to enjoy whatever time she and Fletcher had together during the interim. When she returned to Miami, it would be to pick up the pieces of her life and solidify her future.

  Nicole opened the oven and peered at the turkey. She’d called the local butcher and requested a small, fresh turkey. Fortunately, he’d had one on hand and, after leaving the office, she’d stopped by the supermarket to pick up the ingredients she needed for corn bread–sage stuffing. Once the turkey was done, she would finish it off with a fruity brown-sugar glaze. She had decided on side dishes of wilted garlic spinach and caramelized baby carrots rather than her nephews’ plea to make mac and cheese. It wasn’t easy cooking for children who eschewed vegetables, but Nicole tried, with much success, to introduce them to as many as she could.

  The digital thermometer inserted in the thigh of the turkey registered the temperature for doneness. She removed the Thermo-Clad roaster from the oven and set it on a trivet to allow the juices from the turkey to settle. She covered it with the glaze before she placed a pan of Parker House rolls in the oven. Since becoming a temporary guardian for her nephews, Nicole had developed a healthy respect for working mothers, who, in her eyes, were superwomen.

  “Do you need help with anything?”

  She turned to find that Fletcher had entered the kitchen without her hearing him. He had rolled back the cuffs on the untucked pale blue shirt. “After the turkey rests and I carve it, you can bring it into the dining room. Did you answer all their questions about cars?”

  “Most of them. They claim they want to help me restore the Studebaker.”

  Nicole gave him a skeptical look. “Do you think that’s wise?”

  “You’ll see when you bring them over to the house. Just make certain y’all wear something you won’t mind getting soiled with grease and oil.”

  “I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” she said.

  “I like your nephews. They’re very bright and inquisitive.”

  “I like them, too,” Nicole said in agreement. “Even though they may look a lot alike, they have very different personalities. You’ll discover Daniel is rather laid-back, while Luke is more outgoing and has a quick temper. Reggie always had to put him in time-out or ground him whenever he acted out.”

  Reggie making her an aunt was one of the milestones in her life; she’d told him as “Auntie Nikki” her sole focus was to spoil them. Once she was a civilian, she returned to The Falls to visit with them or driven up to take the boys back to Miami to reconnect with their
paternal grandparents. Before she’d become an aunt, Nicole hadn’t thought of herself as maternal, but now that she was a guardian for Daniel and Luke, she’d felt the pull of motherhood for the first time.

  She had been forthcoming when Fletcher had asked when she was going to become a mother. Nicole wanted to follow in the footsteps of her mother and find a man with whom she could fall in love, marry and share their children. At thirty-five, she knew her biological clock was ticking and, with each subsequent year, it would tick louder and faster, but she did remind herself that she had an option: adoption.

  However, her priority wasn’t a relationship, marriage or even motherhood. It was seeing to the physical and emotional well-being of her nephews until their father completed treatment. The most important thing on her agenda when she moved back to Miami was to secure another position with a law firm—a firm where she did not have to work fifty to sixty hours to make the billing quota.

  “Luke needs to be involved in a competitive sport like karate or judo,” Fletcher suggested. “It will build his confidence, instill discipline while allowing him to release some of his aggression.”

  “I could teach him Katame-waza, but I don’t think he would appreciate his aunt holding him down until he submits.”

  Fletcher’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You know Katame-waza?”

  “Yes. I’m a student of marital arts. It helps me to focus and release stress. I’d just begun kickboxing lessons before I came here.”

  “Forget what I said about throwing you up in the air like a beach ball.”

  Nicole flashed a wide grin. “Not to worry, Fletcher. You’re safe around me.”

  “That’s reassuring to know.” Fletcher sucked in an audible breath. “I smell bread.”

  “I put up dough last night for Parker House rolls.”

  “Hot damn,” Fletcher crooned, grinning from ear to ear. “I can’t believe we’re having Thanksgiving in August.”

  Nicole’s grin matched his. “I always believe in treating my guests to the best.”

  Fletcher’s smile vanished quickly. “Am I a guest or a friend, Nicole?”

  She gave him a direct stare. “You’re both. The first time you eat in my home, you’re a guest.”

  A sixth sense told Nicole that Fletcher wanted to be more than a friend. She’d been exposed to, and was always the minority when it came to men once she’d joined the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps, and she was more than aware when a man was interested in her for more than friendship. She’d had two serious relationships and, while neither had lasted more than a year, they had made her wary of the opposite sex.

  Nicole probably would have considered becoming a friend with benefits when it came to Fletcher if she wasn’t returning to Miami. She’d admitted to him that she was a romantic—one that always allowed her heart to overrule her head. Sleeping with Fletcher and having to leave him would negatively affect her emotionally. She shook her head as if to dismiss the notion of getting romantically involved with him.

  Chapter Five

  “I don’t see you for weeks and now that you’re here, I feel as if I’m talking to myself.”

  Fletcher had come over after the garage closed to have dinner with his parents. He’d helped his mother clean up the kitchen before they’d retreated to the family room to watch television with his father. Once Jesse retired for bed, Carla had suggested they sit on the back porch and relax in what had become an Austen family tradition.

  As children Fletcher and his siblings would gather on the porch to play board and/or video games while their parents watched their antics. It was what Carla called “quality family time.” The exception was during the school week because of homework. As they got older, even Fridays and Saturdays became the exception. But Sunday evenings were special and Fletcher had never tired of sitting on the porch with his family, catching up on what was going on in their lives.

  Stretching out his legs and crossing his feet at the ankles, Fletcher smiled at his mother. He always enjoyed sitting on the screened-in back porch and watching the sun set as he’d done as a child.

  Carla Murphy Austen had given up a career as a social worker when she’d married his father to become a stay-at-home mother after giving birth to three children barely eighteen months apart. One child was barely toilet trained before she’d had another one in diapers. She would celebrate her sixtieth birthday in December, yet could pass for a woman in her early fifties. Although she had begun graying in her midtwenties, Carla refused to dye her hair and the short curly strands were now a shimmering silver. The color was the perfect complement to her flawless brown complexion with its orange undertones.

  “I was being polite and didn’t want to interrupt you.” His mother had launched into a monologue about what was going on in the lives of her grandchildren, who, come winter, were going to take ice-skating lessons. She’d recently visited his sister in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Charlene and her husband taught English and American history respectively, at the University of Michigan.

  Twin dimples dotted Carla’s smooth cheeks when she pressed her lips together. “I don’t know why you think I don’t know when something is bothering my children after all these years. You become a mute, Charlene resorts to waterworks and Sean throws things. Now, tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “There’s nothing on my mind, Mom,” he lied smoothly.

  There was a lot on his mind and it all had to do with Nicole Campos. It had been nearly two weeks since he’d shared dinner at her house with her and her nephews; everything about that night lingered around the fringes of his memory when he least expected. Other than his own family, it was the first time he’d felt like part of a family unit where he had imagined Nicole as his wife and Danny and Luke their sons.

  Fletcher had had more than his share of women—a few he’d slept with and many more that were friends willing to spend hours talking, playing cards or watching sports. He still had to figure out what he wanted with Nicole.

  Whenever they were alone, he’d found her guarded, more a military officer than a civilian. However, when she was with her nephews, the transformation was startling. Her expression softened, as did her voice. She was quick to laugh at something they’d said, while he measured every word because he didn’t want to say something that would make her put up the invisible wall, treating him as if he did not exist as she’d done seventeen years before.

  “Are you sure, Fletcher? You look as if you’ve lost your best friend.”

  He forced a smile. “I’m sure.”

  There was another prolonged silence until Carla said, “Your father told me he noticed the change in you a couple of weeks ago. Are you in pain? Or are you experiencing PTSD?”

  “No to both questions.” When hospitalized he’d had a number of sessions with an army psychiatrist to talk about what he’d experienced when deployed. The only time he’d requested pain meds was post-op. Now, whenever he experienced discomfort, he elevated his leg, applied ice and then moist heat to the damaged limb.

  “If it’s not your leg, then it has to be something to do with the judge’s daughter. Jesse told me you spent a lot of time with her after her car broke down. I know you liked her when you were in high school. Should I assume your feelings for her haven’t changed?”

  “I didn’t know your husband was a gossiper.”

  “Jesse is not a gossiper,” Carla said defensively. “He just mentioned it to me in passing.”

  Fletcher wanted to tell his mother that his father talked too much, but knew she would defend her husband of nearly forty years to the death. “Does he tell you about every customer who comes into the garage to have their vehicle serviced?”

  Carla managed to look embarrassed when she averted her eyes. “No, but he thought it strange that after you arranged to have her car towed to the garage you didn’t come back until hours later.”

 
Fletcher knew if he didn’t tell his mother about his agreement with Nicole, she would find out soon enough once they were seen in public together. “I will be seeing Nicole off-and-on while she’s in The Falls taking caring of her nephews.”

  He related everything that had happened in the courtroom: Nicole’s compromise with her brother’s in-laws and his offer to stand in as a male role model for her nephews until their father’s return.

  “So, there’s nothing romantic going on between you and her?” Carla questioned.

  “No, Mom. Nikki and I were friends in high school and we’re still friends.”

  Carla rocked back and forth on the cushioned rocker. “Do you want more than friendship, son?”

  His mother was asking something he’d asked himself since coming face-to-face with Nicole again. Adolescent feelings had been replaced with adult emotions and the difference between the two was like night and day.

  As a high school student, Nicole was poised and seemingly much too sophisticated for someone that young and confident. She’d attended most of the school’s football, basketball and baseball home games though she’d refused to join the other students for the victory rallies.

  “It’s not about what I want, Mom. Nicole is only going to be in The Falls until the beginning of next year, and she’s already said she doesn’t plan to get involved with anyone during this time.”

  “You did not answer my question, son. Maybe I should’ve asked if you could possibly see Nicole as a potential wife. My mother always told me whenever I agreed to date a man, I should always view him as a potential husband. If not, then I shouldn’t waste my or his time.”