To the One I Love: That Old Familiar FeelingAn Older ManCaught by a Cowboy

by Emilie Richards

  “Where’s your brother?” he demanded.

  Roman looked as if “brother” was an unfamiliar concept. “Who?”

  “Where…is…Riley?”

  “Dunno.” Roman went back to his tower.

  Matt scoured the downstairs, running into Lacey once again. She was wandering the house, doorknob in her hand. “I’ll take you home in a minute,” he promised.

  “This is so much more exciting.”

  He didn’t have time to figure out if she was serious. He saw her head back to the kitchen. He imagined she was going to help Karen bail.

  He found Riley upstairs in his study. Matt always kept the door locked, but that hadn’t stopped his son. This doorknob, too, was missing.

  “Exactly what are you doing, Riley Cavanaugh,” Matt demanded.

  Riley turned around. His mouth, his whole chin, in fact, was bright red.

  Matt hoped the number of poison control was still in giant letters beside the refrigerator, along with the numbers of the hospital emergency room and the fire chief’s cell phone.

  “What were you eating?” he said, moving closer.

  “Jell-O,” Riley said. “Cherry.”

  Up close Matt saw sugary red crystals all over his son’s face. Relief filled him. “Out of the package?”

  “Uh-huh.” Riley had the grace to look guilty.

  “We have perfectly good Jell-O in the refrigerator. Wouldn’t Karen let you have some?”

  “It wasn’t for me. Only I had to taste it.”

  “Who was it for?”

  Riley moved to the side. Matt looked beyond him, at the tropical fish tank his parents had given him on his last birthday. The fish tank he’d been forced to hide behind closed doors, because the boys had felt sorry for the fish and tried to feed them anything they could eat themselves.

  The fish tank that was now bright red and coagulating.

  “Get the fish net,” he told Riley.

  “They like it, Dad!”

  “The fish net,” Matt said. “I’ll get a bucket.”

  One of the fish didn’t make the transition from solid back to liquid. Lacey found it in the ice water she poured for herself after she and Karen wrung the last suds from the mop.

  She was almost beyond panic now. What was one dead guppy compared to a bucket of fiddler crabs? “Riley,” she said quietly, “why is there a dead fish in my ice water?”

  “I’m trying to ’vive him.”

  She nodded. “Didn’t you realize I might swallow him?”

  “Only mean people swallow poor little fishes.”

  “Next time give me a warning, okay?” Her voice was calm. She was trying to be loving. Trying very, very hard.

  “S’your fault, anyway!”

  “Mine?” Lacey wished that Matt would come downstairs so she could leave. Karen had already deserted, but Matt was still cleaning Jell-O out of the tank.

  “Your fault Daddy went away and Karen came!”

  She refused to take responsibility for this. “That is no excuse for this kind of behavior,” she said, loving voice forgotten. “Your daddy needs time away, and you’re old enough to understand that, aren’t you?”

  For a moment he looked surprised at her tone. Then he narrowed his eyes. “You’re mean.”

  “And you are too smart to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “I don’t like you.”

  “And I don’t particularly like you right now, either. Nobody is ever going to like you unless you shape up fast, kiddo.”

  They stared at each other. Riley was openmouthed. Lacey’s own words rang in her ears, and she was appalled. What had she said? Wasn’t this just the kind of thing Geo had warned her about? She was cold-hearted and impatient. Her expectations were enormous, just like her parents’. What child could live up to them?

  There was clattering on the steps and Matt appeared. His forearms were tinted red right to the elbow. “I think the rest of them might make it. Where’s Karen?”

  “She left.” Lacey could see him digesting that. “I need to go home, too, Matt.”

  “We’ll take you. The boys can come. They’re up anyway. We’ll just all pile in the—”

  “No!” She lowered her voice. “I mean, of course I’m not going to make you drag them out. It’s late. I’ll walk. It’s not far and it’s a beautiful night. I’ll walk along the beach.”

  “Lacey, I can’t let you—”

  “No choice. You have no choice.” She couldn’t imagine another minute listening to the boys complain. Worse, she was afraid she would say something even meaner to them. Poor little guys. They didn’t need a stranger ruining their lives.

  She started toward the front door, and Matt caught up with her. “Look, I’m sorry it turned out this way. It’s not always like this.”

  “Isn’t it?” She reached the door and stared at it. “How did Karen leave, I wonder?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there’s no doorknob, so she couldn’t have left this way.”

  “Through the back?”

  “No, there’s a tower in front of the door, remember? And Roman’s guarding it with his life.” She was afraid that in a tussle with Roman she might lose. Lacey’s gaze snapped to the front of the house, where a window was wide-open. “Aha!” She marched for it, Matt trailing behind her.

  “No, look, you don’t have to crawl out my window. Let me fix the door. Or I’ll get Roman to take down the tower. Then we can drive you—”

  But she already had one leg slung over the window sill, her tiger-striped dress hiked all the way to her panty line. “See ya, Matt,” she said as she dropped to the porch. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “Lacey!”

  But she was already rushing down the steps. She did not look back.

  Chapter 4

  “You should have seen it,” Lacey told her sisters and grandmother over breakfast. First thing that morning Grammer had taken one look at Lacey’s long face and run right to the kitchen to cook a full-blown, death-defying cholesterol orgy.

  “It was that bad?” Deanna helped herself to another sausage patty. They went so well with the fried green tomatoes straight from Grammer’s garden.

  “It was World War III. For all I know these kids could be the government’s newest secret weapon. I’m not sure they’re human. Assassin robot kids. I’m convinced they never sleep.” Lacey started in on her third helping of scrambled eggs.

  “Sounds like they need some discipline,” Grammer said.

  “Discipline? They need West Point.” Lacey heard her own tone and sighed. She set her fork on the bright blue place mat. “Listen to me. They’re four years old. I remember when Marti was four. I rode herd on her like she was a prize calf at the old roundup. I have no patience with children.”

  “Ridiculous,” Deanna said, pouring Lacey another cup of coffee and setting it in front of her. “You were put in charge of Marti and me before you were old enough to be in charge of a goldfish—”

  “Please don’t mention fish.”

  “Deanna makes a good point,” Grammer said. She was always careful not to be openly critical of her son and daughter-in-law, but sometimes a smidgen of dismay seeped through. “Your parents had to be gone a lot, and you were such a trustworthy child they may just have put a tiny bit too much pressure on you to keep your sisters in line.”

  “I’m probably shot as a parent. Kids need love, and what do I know about that?”

  She looked up and saw three pairs of eyes staring blankly at her. “Well?” she demanded. “Geo saw right through me. He was sure I didn’t know how to be a good mom.”

  “Geo? You’re using Geo as your psychologist now?” Deanna poured heavy cream into her sisters’ coffee. “Is it hot in here? It feels like a furnace.”

  “It’s seventy-seven,” Grammer said. “Same as always. I hope you’re not coming down with something.”

  “You’re as loving as they come,” Marti told Lacey. “You’re just organ
ized about it. You can love people and still not be blind to their faults and needs.”

  Lacey was sure Marti was wrong. “I actually told one of the kids—Riley I think—that I didn’t like him very much. Can you imagine?”

  “Let me at him. I’ll tell him the same thing,” Deanna said.

  “Yeah, but I trained you!” Lacey said. “Looks like I ruined you, as well.”

  Everyone burst into laughter, and even Lacey smiled.

  The phone rang. No one got up for a moment, then Lacey, who needed the break, got to her feet. “Maybe it’s the mysterious love letter author. Maybe he has a mysterious love phone call for a follow up.”

  “Tape the call if he does,” Deanna said. “Get him to repeat it.” She sneezed, as if in emphasis.

  Lacey answered the phone in the kitchen. For a moment she wondered if she’d really been on to something, because the voice on the other end sounded disguised. Then, she realized it was Matt.

  “Lacey?” he croaked. “Can you hear…me?”

  “Matt, what’s wrong?”

  “Lacey, I’ve got the…flu. The worst flu I’ve had in years.”

  “Oh, you poor thing.” She gripped the telephone and remembered he had kissed her last night. She hoped the gin and tonic had been antiseptic enough. “Are you calling to warn me?”

  “No…”

  He coughed, sneezed, coughed again. She listened to the flu bug symphony with concern. “Did you call Dr. Frank?”

  “He said…it’s all over the island. Nothing to do…but rest.”

  “Then why are you on the phone. Go to bed.”

  “I…I can’t.”

  She had a terrible premonition. She thought about pretending they’d been disconnected and taking the phone off the hook. She thought about starting to cough, as if she were getting sick, as well. But she couldn’t do that, not to Matt.

  Not to Matt.

  “Let me guess,” she said glumly, “no one will come and take care of the kids today.”

  “I tried…everybody. Karen screens her calls and won’t answer. My folks are in Colorado for another month. The neighbors…went out of town.”

  She bet the neighbors had a sixth sense when it came to impending disaster. They had evacuated like this was the latest hurricane.

  “That leaves me, I guess,” she said.

  “Just until nap time. The wife…of one of my subcontractors will come then and stay until bedtime. But until—”

  “I get it. Until then you need me.” She paused. “They nap? They actually sleep, like real little boys?”

  “They are real…little boys.”

  She was glad he’d cleared up that much. “I’ll be there. Let me put on my armor and load my shotgun with Gummi Bears. But I’ll be there.”

  “I…owe you.”

  He did. She hung up the phone and wondered what prize would be grandiose enough. Maybe the deed to the Taj Mahal.

  She stared at the love letter on the fridge and wondered if fate had intervened again. Maybe this was her chance to try, once more, to fall in love with Matt’s kids. She could do it, couldn’t she? She wasn’t heartless. They were motherless little boys. They needed a woman’s loving touch. She had a loving touch, didn’t she?

  She had wanted children, or so she’d thought. Now was her chance to find out if Geo had been right about her after all.

  She marched into the Florida room. “I’m going to Matt’s. I’m going to take care of his kids this morning because he has the flu. Deanna, you’re probably getting it, judging by your symptoms. Stay in bed and drink lots of liquids today.”

  She turned to leave, but Marti stopped her. “You’re, um…going to be okay?”

  Lacey whirled to face them. “Of course. I’m going to be fine. They’re just children, right?” She paused. “But just in case, everybody turn on their cell phones. I want to be able to reach you any time and any place you go. Just in case.”

  At some point during the morning one of the twins—it wasn’t clear which one—decided to call the police and report “a mean lady taking care of us.” An hour later Gabe, whom Lacey had known for years, ambled up the walk just to check on things. Clearly he knew the walkway well and had used it often.

  “You taking care of the twins today?” he asked Lacey.

  “I have that…pleasure,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “You’re the mean lady?”

  “The absolutely meanest!”

  “Glad to hear it. Tell Marti and Deanna hi now, you hear? And tell that grandma of yours I’ll see her for bridge next Tuesday.”

  “I’ll be happy to.”

  He tipped his hat and strolled off to his patrol car. Lacey could hear him chuckling all the way.

  She’d had a twin in each hand when she answered the door, and they had been smart enough not to say a word to Gabe while she squeezed the back of both necks in warning. She waited until Gabe drove away before she released them.

  “Who made the call?” Her voice was quiet, even kind. “Which one of you reads well enough to punch in the numbers? Roman? Riley?”

  The boys looked at each other as if they had no idea what she was talking about. She collared Riley. “Riley, was it you?”

  “I’m not Riley.”

  “Oh, yes, you are.” She would not be dissuaded. The scars that helped identify them were fading, but they were still visible.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t call nobody.”

  “Anybody. You didn’t call anybody. You realize, don’t you, that if you’re not telling the truth, Roman could get in trouble for something you did?”

  Riley wrinkled his freckled nose. “I’m Roman.”

  “And I’m the Wicked Witch of the West. Do you really want to fool with me?”

  He stepped back, or tried to. “I’m gonna tell Daddy.”

  “Your Daddy is sick. Do you really want to bother him?”

  To his credit, the boy considered, then shook his head. “Can I have a Popsicle?”

  “What are the chances?” she said. “You need sugar and artificial coloring like you need a triplet.” She loosened her hold on him and let him scurry away. “I’m making lunch,” she called as they fled. “Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.”

  “Yum!” Riley shrieked. Or at least she was pretty sure he was Riley.

  As she made peanut butter sandwiches and cut up celery and carrot sticks to go with them she mentally designed a new house for Matt. The perfect house would have no walls, so that the twins couldn’t hide. There would be security cameras everywhere, and intercoms and speed dial for every emergency department within a hundred miles. There would be bars on the windows, and the steel doors would be a foot thick. Three dead bolts each.

  Once lunch was on the table she went to look for the boys. She found them playing George Washington. The top half of the ficus tree gracing a family room corner was now on the floor. The budding young presidents had used a dull bread knife to fell it.

  “That must have been a lot of work, gentlemen,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

  Their eyes lit simultaneously. “Starved!” Roman—at least she thought it was Roman—shouted.

  “Good. And you’ll enjoy lunch even more by the time you clean up the mess you made here.”

  “I’m not cleaning,” Riley said.

  “No? Then you’re not eating,” she said calmly.

  “It’s my house!”

  “So it is.” She waited.

  “That means it’s our food,” Roman explained.

  “I understood the connection,” she said.

  “That means we can eat if we want.”

  “Sure, if you can get past me and into the kitchen and fix sandwiches in between being dragged out one million times.”

  They looked at each other, as if to determine the odds.

  “Not good,” she said. “Your chances are not good. You have a better chance of getting lunch if you clean up the tree and drag it outside, sweep up the dirt on the floor, wash your hand
s and behave like gentlemen at the table.”

  “No!” they shouted in one voice.

  “Tough cookies, then.” Before they could foment more rebellion, she took a twin’s arm in each hand and dragging them along with her, took the stairs.

  She was panting by the time they arrived in the boys’ bedroom, but she had managed it admirably. No one was bruised, her fingerprints were not embedded in their soft flesh, and the tooth marks on her hand—Riley’s or Roman’s, she wasn’t sure which—weren’t bleeding. If she was lucky she wouldn’t need a tetanus shot.

  Inside their bedroom she closed the door and stood with her back against it. “Now hear this,” she said. “You can scream, and you can beg, but you aren’t leaving this room until you’ve had naps. Once you wake up again and clean up the mess downstairs, lunch will be waiting for you. In the meantime, I’m standing right here, and my eyes are as good as any sharpshooter’s.”

  She expected and got the requisite attempts at a jailbreak. But they were four years old and she was not. The third attempt lacked energy. The fourth was downright wimpy.

  When she finally dragged herself out of the room half an hour later, one twin was snuffling in his sleep and the other had succumbed to the sandman with his thumb in his mouth and an old baby quilt tucked against his cheek.

  She took her maternal temperature, hoping for some sign she was moved by their chubby little bodies in repose.

  She could find no signs of it at all.

  Matt never got sick, so he supposed he had ignored the warning signs. He’d been achy yesterday, a little stuffy in the head, but he had taken something the druggist recommended for allergies and gone about his business.

  And if he was honest, hadn’t he attributed some of his symptoms to Lacey? Faster pulse, a dizzy feeling, something sparking in the pit of his stomach? He still wasn’t sure that part wasn’t her.

  Now he was dying. He was absolutely sure he was, and he wondered who would take the boys once he succumbed. He could see his own parents and Jill’s batting them back and forth like twin ping-pong balls. Poor little guys, he was the only thing that stood between them and the orphanage. He’d seen Oliver. He knew what was in store.