A Marriage-Minded Man

by Karen Templeton

  “Geez, where’d you come from?”

  “Just got in. Shopping,” she said, hefting a Macy’s bag. “Getting a jump on Christmas. The Albuquerque traffic sucks, though. I remember when you could get between any two points in the city in fifteen minutes or less. No more. Of course, that was twenty years ago. So…everything okay?” she prodded as Tess decided it wouldn’t be politic to mention that twenty years ago, she’d been a fifth grader.

  “Sure,” Tess said brightly, getting a glimpse of black suede and cashmere as she pinned the messages up on her cork board. “Just busy, lost in my own world.”

  Leaning one skinny hip on the front of Tess’s desk, Suze crossed her arms, swinging a foot shod in something spiky and expensive. “How’s the Coyote Trail place coming along?”

  “Nearly done. First open house is…wow. This Saturday.”

  “Well, good luck to you. I mean, God knows the agency could use the commission, but I’m not holding my breath.”

  “Gee, Suze—”

  “Oh, don’t take it personally. But in this market—”

  “Some people are still buying houses, amazingly enough. And even if it doesn’t sell, the Harrises can use it as a rental.”

  “Not the same as a sale, though.”

  “True,” Tess said on a sigh. “So we just have to think positive, right? Eli says we just have to know we’ve done everything we can and trust the outcome.”

  Tess wondered if Suze had any idea how crinkly the skin around her eyes got when she narrowed them like that. “Just a warning, girlfriend,” she said, sliding off the desk. “The man is an insatiable flirt. But he’s not real good at following through, if you know what I mean.”

  Took a second before Tess’s poor pooped brain sorted out the roughly half dozen inferences in those few sentences. Sliding right on past the more obvious ones, she said, “You went out with Eli?” And no, she didn’t even try to hide her incredulity. Imagining Mr. Laid Back with Miss Prissypants was so not working.

  “Ages ago,” Suze said with a flick of her wrist. “Thought I had a halfway decent chance, too, since I don’t have kids. You do know he categorically refuses to get involved with single mothers, right?”

  “So I gathered.”

  When Tess volunteered nothing more, it seemed to take Suze a second or two to regroup. “Every other woman who crosses his path, though,” she said, back on track,” is fair game. You might want to keep that in mind.”

  Not that this was news—on either count—but what was with the ridiculous, acid-reflux-esque spurt of jealousy? One quickly tamped when the logical side of Tess’s brain piped up and reminded her the man could flirt—and do anything else, to be honest—with whoever he damn well chose. Since, you know, nobody had any claim on anybody else, the occasionally shared, longing glance notwithstanding. Not to mention one memorable night’s shenanigans.

  To mention such things, however, would be mean. Not to mention tacky as hell.

  “Nothin’ goin’ on, Suze,” she whispered, hiking her purse back onto her shoulder, “but thanks for the tip. Well, I’m outta here—kids to fetch, dinner to hunt down.”

  “Lord, better you than me, is all I gotta say,” Suze said as she sashayed back to her desk. “How you manage all by yourself is beyond me.”

  Tess opened her mouth, only to think, Why?

  Minutes later, the kids once more under her jurisdiction, she pulled up in front of Garcia’s Supermarket, set off by itself out on the highway leading to town. Housed in what used to be somebody’s stuccoed, territorial-style ranch house, what the store lacked in selection or slickness it more than made up for in convenience.

  And right now, Tess was all about convenience.

  Her first-grader, however, was all about Thanksgiving, mutant construction-paper turkeys and all. “Miss Albright says,” he went on from his booster seat behind her, “it’s when families get together and say what they’re grateful for. Do you know what grateful means?”

  “Uh-huh,” Tess said wearily, hauling the baby out of her seat as Micky unlatched his own belt. “Do you?”

  “It’s when you’re glad about stuff.” Falling into step beside Tess as she carted the heavy, sleepy baby into the store, he added, “Miss Albright told us to make a list of all the stuff we were grateful for. Wanna hear?”

  “Um…sure, sweetie.” She yanked free an ancient, wobbly grocery cart from the herd stuffed helter-skelter just inside the front door and lowered Julia into it, strapping her in. Kid let out a screech and lunged toward a display of crackers; in a single, practiced move, Tess grabbed a box of Ritz, ripped it open and handed one to her daughter. Please, God, let there be a chicken. Or at least a bag of nuggets—

  “I’m grateful for you, and Julia, and Aunt Flo—”

  Score! Two of the suckers lay on a bed of ice in the cooler case.

  “Hey, Miss Teresa,” Little Jose—in his fifties, at least, his father Big Jose yelling in Spanish to somebody on the phone in the back—said with a wide grin. Which, unfortunately, didn’t detract all that much from the smears of animal blood on his apron. “You want one of these beauties?”

  “—and Winnie and Aidan and Thea and all her dogs and—”

  “Both, actually. And would you mind cutting one of them into pieces? It’ll cook quicker that way.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Jose said, pulling the pallid birds from their chilly bed.

  “—an’ all my friends at school, and Eli.”

  Thwack! went the cleaver. Out of sight, thank God—

  “Eli?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Tess laughed. “You barely know him—how on earth did Eli make your list?”

  “Cause he said I looked like a zombie.”

  Of course.

  Thwack! Thwack!

  “—an’ Miss Albright said putting people on our list means we’re thinking good thoughts about them, which makes them feel good even if they don’t know we’re thinking about them. So are we having lots of people over for Thanksgiving? And a big turkey an’ stuff?”

  Nodding her thanks to Jose when he handed her the chickens, all snug in their white butcher paper cocoons, Tess steered the cart toward the refrigerator cases for milk and juice. “You don’t like turkey, remember?”

  “Then I’ll just have the pumpkin pie.” He started skipping beside her. “Are you gonna make it or buy it?”

  She was so gonna kill this teacher.

  “Honey…not everybody has a big Thanksgiving. Some people like to be alone. Or some smaller families just celebrate with each other.” She paused. “Like us.”

  “No party?”

  Tess frowned down at him. “Honey…we’ve never made a big deal about the holidays before. Why are you so hot about this now?”

  “’Cause it sounds like fun.”

  “Well, we can make our own fun, right? Just you and me and Julia?”

  Oh, God…spare her the puppy-dog eyes.

  “Tell you what…” Spying a can of pumpkin pie mix, Tess grabbed it and tossed it into her cart, hoping if God had seen fit to send her chickens, He’d also provide a frozen pie shell. Her eyes on her rapidly deflating son, she turned into what must have been the dining room in the original house, now lined with freezer cases. Thea had once lived in a converted convenience store; this was a house turned into a store. Ditch your preconceived notions, all ye who enter Tierra Rosa. Tess smiled for her little boy. “We can have your favorite thing for dinner, how’s that? Whatever you like—Omigosh!” she said when her cart rammed into someone else’s. “I’m so sorry—!”

  “Teresa?” Donna Garrett said. “What a hoot to run into you here! Literally!” Clogs clomped on the bare wood floor as Eli’s mother scooted around her own cart to pull Tess into a long, steady hug. “How are you, honey?”

  “Um, fine?” Tess mumbled into an ancient, slightly musty-smelling Peruvian poncho, only to find herself jerked back a second later, as, her hands on Tess’s shoulders, Eli’s mother backed up to take s
tock with warm brown eyes as sharp as her faded red hair—loosely caught up with assorted clips around her pretty, unlined face. “I can’t tell you how often I think about you. Especially this last little while.”

  The unexpected encounter, as well as Donna’s effusive and unfeigned warmth, clogged Tess’s throat. She’d always liked Eli’s mother, but more than that nobody knew how much she’d found the Garretts’ crazy, noisy house a refuge from the stony silence of her own. How much, in a way, she’d been almost angrier with Eli for ripping that away than himself. “I think about you, too,” she said, smiling.

  Smiling, Donna briefly cupped Tess’s cheek before glancing at the baby, who was staring at her, transfixed. “Oh, my goodness…isn’t she gorgeous! What’s her name?”

  “Julia.”

  “The Spanish pronunciation, how pretty. How old?”

  “Two last month.”

  “You’re kidding! Honestly, I lost a year in there somewhere…which makes this little guy…?”

  “Six,” Micky said.

  “Unbelievable.” Donna reached into the freezer case for a package of frozen peas. “You all ready for Thanksgiving?”

  “Mama said we can have anything I like,” Miguel put in, “since I hate turkey and nobody’s comin’ over.”

  “Micky, honestly—”

  Donna gave her a startled look. “You’re not spending Thanksgiving alone?”

  “Sweetie—would you please get a carton of orange juice out of the case over there?”

  “The one with the duck on it?”

  Tess gave him a thumbs-up, then turned back to Donna. “Mom and her husband are going on a cruise,” she said mildly. “And my aunt’s been invited to go with Winnie and Aidan to New York for the weekend. Aidan’s having his first show at a New York gallery. It’s opening the night after Thanksgiving. It seems everyone’s either going out of town or have family coming in, so…yeah, we’re just having a quiet day. I, um, thought we could get out the tree, start decorating it…”

  Miguel trooped back with the juice, carefully hefting it into the cart. Donna watched him for a moment before lifting bright eyes to Tess. “Why don’t you and the children come to our house for dinner?”

  “Um, I don’t think—”

  “Oh, I know you and Eli didn’t part on the most amicable of terms, but for heaven’s sake, honey—that was in high school. And besides, I gather you’re getting along okay now, working together on that house and everything—”

  “Is there gonna be pumpkin pie?” Miguel asked.

  “Oh my Lord, yes. With lots of whipped cream.”

  At the mention of whipped cream, her sugar baby looked up at her, pleading. Not that Tess couldn’t wield a can of Reddi-wip as well as the next person, but…

  She looked down into that eager, hopeful face, waited out the twinge, then turned back to Donna. “I don’t know. It could be…awkward.” Although not for the reason you think.

  “Only if you let it be,” Donna said gently, smiling for Julia, face plastered with crumbs as she boogied to the music from the Spanish-language station on the radio. “And don’t you want to make the holiday more festive for their sakes?”

  Festive. Right. Not high on her list. Even before things had gone sour between her and Enrique, he’d been home so seldom, and making a fuss even then had always seemed so…forced.

  “I just don’t want to impose,” she said, and Donna laughed again.

  “Spoken like somebody who’s never been to a Garrett Thanksgiving. Teresa, sweetheart, I’m serious—nothing would make me happier than to have you join us. If nothing else, to balance out all that testosterone!”

  Finally, Tess nodded. “Okay, fine,” she said, and Micky let out a whoop of joy, then wiggled his skinny little butt in a bizarre victory dance. Donna clapped her hands together and burst out laughing; Tess smiled. “What can I bring?”

  “Just yourselves, honey,” Donna said, leaning over to give Tess a quick hug. “See you around four, then?”

  “Four. Got it.”

  As the older woman steered her cart away, Micky said, “Guess we’ve got something else to be grateful for, huh?”

  Not exactly the word Tess had in mind.

  Chapter Nine

  “What do you mean, you invited Tess and the kids to Thanksgiving?” Phone clamped to his ear, Eli stopped stirring the bubbling pot of chili as Belly writhed around his ankles, being a nuisance. Cat had a real thing for chili. Except for the beans.

  “It was the Christian thing to do,” his mother said, and Eli groaned, once again wondering how his mother could seamlessly blend her heartfelt faith with her hippie roots. “And you can stop that groaning right now. We ran into each other at Garcia’s and I asked her what she was doing for the holiday, just making small talk, and she mentioned as how she and the children would be all by themselves and that just wasn’t right, Elijah. That precious little boy, especially—you should’ve seen his sweet little face light up. I can only imagine how rough it’s been on him, hardly ever seeing his daddy. And it can’t be easy on Tess, being on her own so much. Elijah? You still there?”

  He tossed a chunk of chilified hamburger at the cat, who scarfed it down, purring, then sat up like a prairie dog, begging for more. “This wouldn’t be you trying to fix me up, would it?”

  “Now what on earth put that idea into your head? Of course not. Since when have I ever interfered in you boys’ lives?”

  And yes, she was dead serious. “Sorry,” Eli said. “Just checking. So. Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to spring it on you, then have you go acting all weird and whatnot. And wear something nice, for heaven’s sake, instead of coming here looking like you just worked for three days straight.”

  “Mom—”

  But she was gone.

  Feeling like fireworks were exploding inside his skull, Eli slopped chili into a large bowl for himself and a small one for the cat—hold the onions—then placed both on the table and dropped into his chair. Belly heaved her fat self up onto the table, gave him a questioning Mrrrk? and started chowing down. Eli, however, sagged back in his chair, poking his spoon in the lumpy concoction and feeling like some outside force was shoving him around his own life. And no, he didn’t mean his when-have-I-ever-interfered? mother, although she wasn’t helping matters.

  For a moment he watched the cat, happily inhaling her snack—stoking up for the next six-hour nap—almost envying her simple, unfettered life. Except he wasn’t a cat and sleeping twenty hours out of twenty-four had never been a life goal. Except maybe when he was fifteen. What he was, was a thirty-year-old man who needed to take back his life. Or at least make a concerted effort to stop letting his hormones lead him around by the nose.

  He released a dry laugh. And there was the crux of it, wasn’t it? That it wasn’t his mother annoying him, it was his own mixed up feelings about Tess, and her kids, and how what he was feeling more strongly every day made no sense, given the impossibility of the situation. That here he’d been counting his blessings that the job was nearly over and they wouldn’t have to see each other every day because, frankly, he wasn’t sure how much longer he was gonna be able to keep up the pretense of…whatever it was he was pretending.

  Not that he’d skip Thanksgiving, tempting as it was. Last thing he wanted was to hurt his mother’s feelings on her favorite day of the year. Or do anything that would get tongues to wagging.

  “So,” he said to the cat, now cleaning her whiskers in front of him, “guess all I can do is suck it up and go. And stay out of Tess’s way.” The cat stopped, tongue sticking out, looking at him slightly cross-eyed, as if to say, Who? “The little brunette who was here the other night?”

  The cat reared back, her ears flat, then shot off the table.

  Eli had no idea what to make of that, but something told him it wasn’t good.

  Like it wasn’t crazy enough when the regular family was all together. Add in both of Eli’s grandmothers, three of the
ir friends from the retirement home, some chick Noah had started dating, like, five minutes ago and a few random people from church Eli didn’t even know and insanity didn’t even come close to describing it.

  And his mother was in seventh heaven.

  “Eli!” she yelled from the living room, where she stood counting the folding chairs already set up along the white tableclothed, end-to-end banquet tables, all borrowed from church. “Bring in three more chairs from the garage, your father didn’t set enough.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dad said. “There’s us, the grandmas, and the extras…that comes to sixteen, right?”

  “I might have asked a couple more people,” his mother mumbled, trundling into the kitchen as Dad yelled after her, “Why don’t you just invite the whole damn town to begin with, save some of us the wear and tear on our nerves?”

  “Wasn’t me invited the Larsons,” Mama yelled right back. “Or that poor Mr. Wright, bless his heart…”

  Chuckling despite an almost suffocating trepidation, Eli retrieved the three chairs and carted them to the living room—the dining room not being nearly large enough to accommodate the masses—wedging them alongside their companions as Mama scurried back out with two baskets of rolls, the last-minute panic attack having officially settled in. Her heart was in the right place, but her nerves weren’t exactly there with it. Or her hair, huge pieces of it floating around her flushed face.

  “Damn, Mom—you seriously need to chill.”

  “Don’t tell your mother to chill!” she said, swatting him with a potholder. “And don’t swear on Thanksgiving! Oh! Somebody get the door!”

  Might as well be him. Eli crossed to the front door and swung it open to the gaggle of strangers standing on their porch, all brimming with holiday cheer despite a thick layer of clouds that had brought on an early dusk. A light snow had begun to fall, the flakes glittering in the beams from the streetlamps and security lamp on the guy’s garage across the street. No Tess, he noted, as anxious as his mother as he let them all in. Then he saw her SUV pull in behind the last car parked on the street, and his heart started whispering that everything he’d told his mother—and himself—had been for naught.