by Linda Seed
Daniel looked at Jackson sharply. “You’ve fantasized about Lacy?”
Jackson put up his hands in helpless surrender. “Not lately. Not since Kate. But, I’m only human.”
Daniel looked to the others for any indication that they might have been lusting after Lacy, so he’d know whether he needed to punch any of them in the face.
Ryan just shrugged. “You’re living the dream, man. Seems like kind of a shame not to enjoy it.”
Once Daniel and Lacy started seeing each other regularly, and once that became general knowledge around town, Daniel noticed an unsettling phenomenon.
The men he came in contact with were all treating him differently.
It seemed like these days he got treated one of two ways: either as some kind of folk hero, or as the asshole who had what everyone else wanted, thus ensuring that they, themselves, never would.
One morning as he walked into Jitters, he experienced both within the space of five minutes.
The bell on top of the front door was still jingling from his arrival when Bert Wexler, the guy who ran the hardware store down the street, walked past on his way out and clapped Daniel on the shoulder.
“Lacy Jordan, huh?” he said with a leer. “Nice job.” And then Bert went out the door with his coffee cup in his hand, making a kind of wolf-whistle sound.
Then, when Daniel got to the counter, Connor glared at him as though Daniel had bad-mouthed the guy’s sister. As far as he knew, Connor didn’t even have a sister.
“What do you want?” Connor said flatly, no friendly greeting, no chitchat about anybody’s day.
“Uh … large coffee.”
Connor grunted and rang him up.
“Dude. Everything okay?” Daniel asked him.
“It is for you, apparently.” Connor took Daniel’s money, slapped it into the register, slammed the drawer shut, and then threw Daniel’s receipt at him.
Daniel supposed he should be grateful it was just the receipt that had been thrown, and not the coffee.
Chapter Twenty-Two
An interesting thing happened when you started seeing someone right before the holidays, Daniel thought. Actually, it was a series of interesting things.
One, it was taken for granted that you would spend the holidays together. That was reasonable enough. Why wouldn’t you?
Two, since you were spending the holidays together, that necessarily meant that you’d be mingling with the other person’s family in a fairly intense way that involved food, distant relatives, and long-established rituals and traditions.
And three, the fact that you were mingling with the other person’s family and participating in their rituals and traditions led everyone to assume that you were just moments away from pulling a ring out of your pocket and having a flash mob propose to the tune of an Ed Sheeran song.
Daniel figured that was inevitable. People always wanted to know what would happen next. And if there were no answers—at least, not yet—then they’d invent their own.
Still, the whole thing made him feel a little bit twitchy when he showed up for Thanksgiving dinner with Lacy’s family.
He’d brought a bottle of wine and a pie. Because who didn’t like pie? But he hadn’t been in the door for two minutes before it became apparent that his pie—and his wine, for that matter—was irrelevant.
The Jordan house looked like it had been invaded by a crew of Thanksgiving elves who had not only loaded the place down with every type of pie, side dish, appetizer, and fall-themed cookie imaginable, but who also had buried the place in fall-leaf wreaths, crepe paper turkeys, and cardboard Pilgrims.
Having come from a small family, he stood inside the doorway and gaped at the sheer magnitude of it.
“Oh, pie!” Lacy said enthusiastically as she took his arm and pulled him toward the kitchen. “And chardonnay. We’ll need that. Cassie’s already hit the wine pretty hard. But don’t tell her I said that.”
As he entered the kitchen, it was readily apparent why the Jordans needed so much food, and so much wine. The kitchen was crammed with people. Parents. Sisters. Sisters’ boyfriends. Children. The brother was probably here somewhere, too, though Daniel couldn’t spot him among the various men who were here as the women’s other halves.
He looked for a place to set his pie and wine, but every possible counter surface was occupied with food, ingredients to make food, or crockery that would be used to serve food.
“Daniel!” Cassie greeted him enthusiastically, and took the items from his hands. He could see from the pink of her cheeks that Lacy had been right about the wine. “It’s good to see you!” she said. She leaned in conspiratorially and said, out of the corner of her mouth, “I was dreading spending the holidays with you know who.” She theatrically mouthed the word Brandon. “Thank God that’s over!”
From there, he greeted, was introduced to, shook hands with, or otherwise interacted with both of Lacy’s parents, three sisters, one brother, one brother-in-law, one sister’s boyfriend, three neighbors, and three kids.
Mostly, the greetings were warm and friendly, with one notable exception.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Nancy Jordan said, her hands on her hips, which were swathed in a turkey-themed apron. The words were amiable enough, but the tone said, Go screw yourself. Lacy had told him this might happen. Nancy had been thrilled by the idea of having a chiropractor as a son-in-law, and all that had been shot to hell. There would be no free spinal adjustments in her future, and it didn’t take much to see that she blamed Daniel.
“Everything smells great, Nancy,” he told her, in a lame bid to get into her good graces.
“Well, it should,” she snapped. “I would think I know how to put together a turkey dinner by now.”
With that, she turned her back to him and went to baste the bird.
Vince, with two bottles of cold beer in his hands, appeared at Daniel’s side and thrust one of the bottles into his hand. “I figure you’re gonna need this,” Vince said. “You want to come on into my study and take a look at something?”
Vince’s study was upstairs and down the hall, sandwiched between a large, messy bathroom and a bedroom that had been repurposed as a sewing room. The study had dark wood paneling, a large window that let in the afternoon light, and a big oak desk that was scattered with papers. In the corner was a drafting table with a tilted top.
Vince gestured for Daniel to follow him behind the desk. Then he unrolled a large sheet of paper and spread it out on the desk.
“These are just sketches,” Vince told him as Daniel looked over Vince’s shoulder. “Once you settle on a design, I’ll do up the plans on the computer. See here?” He pointed with a big, meaty finger at one part of the drawing. “This is what we talked about. Here’s the new room you wanted, and the loft. Plus, it wouldn’t take much to expand the size of the kitchen. Bring it out here and here”—he pointed—“and you get five more feet of usable space.” It was the same design they’d talked about at the Old Stone Station, but more detailed, and with a few refinements.
“Wow.” Daniel looked at the sketches with interest. “That’s great. Really great. It’s just what I had in mind.”
“Now, before you get attached to that,” Vince said, reaching for another rolled sheet of paper, “I want you to have a look at this.”
He opened up another sketch, this one of a much more extensive renovation. Not only did this drawing add square footage to the house’s basic footprint, it also added an entire second floor.
“See? With this plan, you get a study downstairs, plus the bigger kitchen, and you get bedrooms and a full bath upstairs. The budget for this one’s a lot bigger, obviously, but it’s something to think about.”
“But …” Daniel said.
Vince clapped him on the shoulder. “The way things are going, I figure you might need a couple-three more bedrooms.”
Daniel started to say something, then closed his mouth. He looked at the beer in his hand and wondered if there was
any Scotch in the house.
By the time Daniel left that evening with a couple of Tupperware containers full of leftovers, he found himself feeling irritable and, more than that, misunderstood.
Didn’t Vince realize that he and Lacy had only been seeing each other for a few weeks? Didn’t Nancy realize that he wasn’t to blame for Lacy and Brandon’s breakup? And didn’t Lacy’s sisters realize that just because he showed up for Thanksgiving, it didn’t mean he was ready to sweep Lacy off her feet and join the family?
“So, how did your talk with my dad go?” Lacy asked in the car on the way to Daniel’s place, after the cleanup was done and the football was watched and they were finally able to get free and get out of there.
At first, Daniel thought she was asking about the part where Vince had obliquely suggested that he should impregnate Lacy and move her in with him. Of course that’s what Daniel thought; he seemed to keep rerunning the conversation over and over in his mind.
But Lacy couldn’t be referring to that, could she?
“Huh?” he said.
“Didn’t he talk to you about your renovations?” Lacy asked. She was holding the leftovers on her lap as they drove down Highway 1. “He said he had some sketches to show you.”
“Ah. Yeah, yeah. He had … a couple of different versions.” He didn’t tell her that one of the versions was designed to accommodate their multiple children. Though, he supposed it was possible that she already knew. And that idea made him feel ganged up on, as though there was some kind of conspiracy to direct his life in ways that were beyond his control.
“So? Are you going to do it?” She asked the question guilelessly, her face open and innocent and so beautiful it made his soul ache.
“I don’t know.” He focused his gaze on the road, so he wouldn’t have to look at her. Because if he did, if he looked, then he would say yes to everything: to the house, and the couple-three bedrooms, and the flash mob, and the Ed Sheeran song. “I think I’m maybe gonna hold off for a little bit.”
“But why? I thought it was what you wanted.”
Daniel turned off of the highway and headed onto the road that led to his house. What was he supposed to say? It was what he wanted. In so many ways, it was exactly what he wanted, but it was all happening so fast. There was no time to think. He just needed to think.
“I just don’t see why I have to rush into something,” he said irritably as he pulled up in front of his house. “Does everything have to happen so fast? Does everything have to change right this second? Why can’t I have some time to breathe? Why can’t I just … think?”
He turned off the ignition, put on the parking break, and looked over at Lacy, who was staring at him with more than a small level of concern. That was when he realized that they’d each been talking about entirely different things, and that Lacy had no idea what the hell he was going on about.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He forced his shoulders down from where they’d been hunched around his ears. “Ah … yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that today was a little … intense.” He reached over, put a hand on Lacy’s shoulder, leaned in, and kissed her. The kiss made the tension drain out of him like bathwater from a tub.
“I know my family can be a lot to handle,” she said sympathetically. “But we have pie.” She held up one of the Tupperware containers hopefully.
“I like pie,” he said.
“And after the pie,” she said, leaning in closer to purr into his ear, “I have some ideas for what we can do with the extra whipped cream.”
Oh, Jesus.
He swallowed audibly.
Had he thought that he needed time to breathe? Breathing was probably overrated anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They had decided that Rose’s baby shower wouldn’t be a female-only event. Instead, it would be a big, mixed-gender party with all of the trappings of a traditional shower—including the stupid games Rose was so looking forward to—but also with the music, beer, and barbecue more common to a regular get-together.
The deciding factor was that Will didn’t want to be left out, which all of the women thought was completely adorable.
They had worried that the weather might not work out for barbecue, given the date in December. But Mother Nature was cooperative, and the temperatures hovered in the low seventies with clear blue skies.
The party was held at Ryan and Gen’s house on the Delaney Ranch, because the rest of them had places that were too small for the number of guests Rose had in mind.
By the time Daniel rolled up in his SUV at two p.m. on that Saturday, the Porter-Delaney house was filled with Rose and Will’s friends, Rose’s mother, Gen and Ryan’s family, Will’s parents, various customers from De-Vine who had wheedled invitations, neighbors of the ranch, and just about everyone else in town who’d heard about the party and wanted to be included.
People were milling about on the big front porch, music was wafting out of doors and windows that had been left open, and Jackson was manning a big barbecue in the front yard, supervising a selection of steaks, chicken pieces, burgers, and brats.
Daniel was a little late. That was partly because he’d finally hired a new assistant, and the two of them had spent the morning working on the piece for the hotel in Los Angeles. But it was also because Lacy had called him when he was on his way and asked him to stop by the winery in Harmony to pick up a case of wine that the owner—who knew Rose well through her work at De-Vine—was contributing to the party as a gift.
He got the carton of wine bottles out of the back of the SUV and had hefted it into his arms when Lacy came out to greet him.
“Hey, you made it,” she said with pleasure as she leaned past the bulk of the box to kiss him.
She looked lovely, her cheeks flushed with happiness. She was wearing her usual jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, with no makeup, or at least none that Daniel could see. That meant that this impossible abundance of beauty was pure Lacy. Something in him relaxed when he saw her; some element of stress or annoyance, some unsettled thing in his chest, released and tamed itself with a sigh at her touch.
“I’ve got the wine,” he said, unnecessarily.
“Great! Come on, let’s take it inside.”
He followed her up the porch steps and into the big house, nodding his greetings to people as he went. He hadn’t put the box down yet when Rose came to meet him, grinning with infectious joy.
“Thanks for doing that,” she said, gesturing toward the box of wine. “Just put it in the kitchen. Look how many people showed up! This is going to be so much fun. God, it’s a nice day, right? I wasn’t sure how the weather would turn out, but it’s great. Jackson’s making brats. I love brats!”
Daniel had to grin at Rose’s bubbly enthusiasm. In honor of her baby’s gender, she had dyed her hair a cotton-candy pink. Somewhere, she’d managed to find a Ramones maternity T-shirt, and she was wearing it with black leggings and motorcycle boots. The piercings in her eyebrow and her nose glinted in the overhead lights.
Once he’d had a chance to put down the box, Daniel enveloped Rose in a hug. “You look great,” he told her when he’d let her go. “Not long now, huh?”
“Just a few more weeks,” she said. “God, I can’t wait. I know I’m going to be cranky and sleep-deprived and all covered in poop and baby vomit, but I can’t wait to meet her.” She rubbed her round belly with love.
Daniel, who’d heard about the Baby Name Derby from Will, asked whether anyone had won yet.
“Will won.” For some reason, Rose was beaming as she told him.
“So, the name’s Harper, then?” Daniel asked.
“Nope.” Rose bounced on her toes. “That was his shower gift to me. He won the derby, but he gave me the naming rights anyway. She’s going to be Poppy Wren Bachman.” Rose was grinning so hard that Daniel couldn’t help but laugh.
“A flower for you, a bird for him,” he remarked. Will was an evolutionary biologist who had done his d
octoral research on a species of bird common to the Cambria area.
“Isn’t it perfect?” she said.
“It’s great. I’m happy for you,” Daniel said, meaning it.
Lacy had to rush off to get some of the games ready, so Daniel mingled among the crowd, greeting his friends, introducing himself to people he didn’t already know.
He grabbed a beer from the kitchen, popped the top, and went out to where the barbecue was set up to say hello to Jackson.
Jackson was manning the grill with typical Jackson-like intensity, turning meat and applying sauce with a basting brush, and Will’s father—a guy in his sixties with a balding head, a paunch, and studious-looking glasses that looked just like Will’s—was ferrying platters of raw meat from the kitchen to Jackson for grilling.
“Hey,” Jackson said, greeting him with a glance up from the grill. “You finally made it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel said. “I’d have been here earlier, but I had to go back for the wine.”
A group of kids that included Ryan’s nephews and Lacy’s nieces ran around on the lawn, playing some kind of game with rules that were incomprehensible to Daniel. Something involving a stick, an invisible line, a particular method of jumping on one foot, and a cape fashioned out of a dinner napkin.
Even without understanding the rules, Daniel would have put his money on the girls’ team, hands down.
“Nice grill,” Daniel remarked, gesturing toward the gleaming stainless steel behemoth that looked big enough to hold the parts of not just one chicken, but flocks of them. “This Ryan’s?”
“Nah. I brought it from the restaurant in my truck.”
Daniel’s eyebrows rose. “You do outdoor grilling at Neptune?”
