“Mmm,” Jack agreed. “It’s all on a human scale. Seemed a pretty good place to raise a kid, which is why we moved here last year. Kat was getting old enough to want to roam. But Durango’s too big a city to let her run free without me worrying. Whereas up here, people may mind your business, but they also look out for each other. So Kat’s safe on her own, but…”
“But?” Abby prompted, studying his frown.
“But she’s on her own—not fitting in. Not that she was doing all that well in Durango, I suppose, but at least her playmates were used to her. She’d carved a niche from long association. But here in Trueheart where Kat’s the new kid on the block…” Jack finished his cone with a crunch, then wiped his big hands on his napkin. “Or maybe it’s just her age that’s the problem. It was okay for her to be a tomboy in fourth grade, but then this past year… And now here she’s headed into sixth.
“You look at her little schoolmates—they’re all teetering on the verge of puberty, doing their nails and their hair, practicing their girlie moves, dressing in ways that must scare the dickens out of their poor old dads. Gearing up to drive the boys wild.
“But Kat? She’s trying to join the football team. Except she’s not a guy, so she doesn’t fit in there, either. And the harder she tries for acceptance, the worse it gets. She tackled Sam Jarrett last fall—made a fool of him in front of his teammates and quite likely that was the root of this last fight. But sacking the quarterback doesn’t make her a hero. It makes her a freak, a misfit.
“She’s falling between two chairs, Abby, and it’s my fault.” Jack fingered one of the chains that supported her swing.
“Oh, come on, she’s not eleven yet. Kat’s got plenty of time to work it out.”
He scowled and shook his shaggy head. “She’s off on the wrong foot, and I’m not sure she’ll ever get it right again, at least not in Trueheart. Small towns are conservative and first impressions stick. I’m not much of a conformist myself but, dammit, I want my kid to fit in, at least to the extent that she has friends. She shouldn’t have to run off to sea or to the SEALs to find her own kind.”
“Of course not,” Abby agreed, trying not to smile.
“If a lion or a tiger were after her, I’d take him apart with my bare hands. But how do I protect my daughter from the snubs of a pack of sixth-grade girls? I can’t offer to deck them if they won’t invite Kat to their pajama parties.”
He was worrying too much, surely, but his love for his daughter and his desperation were…quite adorable.
“So…” Jack moved to stand in front of her and gripped both chains, looking down at her fiercely. “That’s where you come in.”
“Me?” Their knees were almost bumping and all of a sudden Abby felt…edgy. Trapped.
“I have a proposition for you.” Jack pushed absently on one chain as he pulled on the other, setting her swing oscillating gently back and forth.
Not that kind of proposition, Abby assured herself, but still, heat shimmered in her stomach. Or maybe that was heat coming off his big body, so close to hers. Their knees did brush, ever so slightly. “Y-you do?”
“Uh-huh.” He moved the chains again. “You need money, it seems like, and Kat needs girlie lessons. I want to hire you to teach her.”
“Jack!” Abby couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not. This fight was the last straw. I’ve been thinking it through all morning, and this is just what Kat needs. I’ve botched the job, Abby, hard as I’ve been trying. But I haven’t a clue how to dress her, how to help with her hair—never did, and it shows. She knows how to change the oil in a car or change a tire, yet she can’t cook anything but frozen pizza and scrambled eggs.”
“I’m hardly Betty Crocker myself.”
“But you know how to wiggle.”
“I don’t wiggle!”
“Well, whatever you call those moves. Look at your fingernails.”
Abby took a hand off the chain to frown at her nails. “What about them? No polish and I keep ’em filed short.”
Jack grinned. “But look at how you’re looking at ’em. No man would arch his fingers back like that. If he did, he’d have his guy epaulets ripped off his shoulders. I rest my case. You’re as girl as it gets.” And I like it, was the message his crinkled gray eyes were sending her.
She felt her cheeks go pink under his unwavering gaze. But she didn’t need to feel like this—didn’t want to feel burdened with his awareness. The swing turned, their knees brushed, and a jolt of electricity shot up her thighs. “Whatever, Jack, but the point is, I’m—Sky and I—are leaving next week. I couldn’t turn Kat around in seven days if I wanted to. Which I don’t. She’s a sweetheart just the way she is.”
“She’s a sweetheart who wants to be a navy SEAL instead of a ballerina. But before she joins the SEALs to kick butt, she’ll need a bra. Should she be wearing one yet?”
“She’s flat as a board!”
“Yep, but I’m asking what the culture demands. Will the other girls make fun of her in gym class this fall, if she doesn’t have one of those what-d’you-call-’em, trainer bras, and if so, should it be white cotton or pink satin or what? Abby, you’ve gotta help me here! I’m drowning—my SEAL’s going down for the third time, whether she knows it or not. Look, I’ll double my offer.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “You haven’t offered anything yet!”
“Aha, now we’re talking. So…let’s discuss this.” Jack moved around behind her and caught the chains again. “What would it take?” He gave the swing a gentle push.
“We’re not negotiating, here. I’m leaving next week,” she insisted, glancing up and over her shoulder.
“If Whitey can work that fast. But even a week would be something.” He pushed her again.
“Jack…” He was just about irresistible, his smiling determination like a big wave, bumping her back toward a shore she was trying to escape.
Still, there was something tempting about being lifted off her feet, carried toward the beach in a tumbling rush. As a child she’d always loved the ocean, even when it had scared her. Abby pointed her toes as the swing carried her higher. She leaned back, holding on to the chains. “Tell me this, Jack. Say Kat did need a role model—not that I’m agreeing she needs to change for a minute… But could I ask, where’s her mother?” There was the logical solution, if a solution was needed.
“Ah…” He pushed her higher, once, twice. “Maura’s in San Francisco.”
“If Kat needs a role model, then couldn’t you—”
“I couldn’t.” He pushed her higher. “We couldn’t. Maura doesn’t want any part of her daughter, and hasn’t from the start. She left us when Kat was eleven months old and she never looked back. Kat and I were just a whim, an oops, something she tried in the midst of the Divorce Crazies. When the dust finally settled and her head cleared, there she was, looking at a couple of strangers, one of whom needed diapering.
“‘Like a bargain a woman grabs at a close-out sale,’ that’s how Maura put it to me once. Then she gets the dress home, tries it on again and wonders what in heaven’s name was she thinking when she bought it. Color’s all wrong and a silly style and it’s too tight in the hips.”
“She said that?”
“Sweet Maura had—has—a way with words. She’s in advertising, a copywriter. She could sell a car, or flay a man, in one sentence.”
Even so, to walk away from her own child? Abby could no more have left Skyler at eleven months than she could’ve flown to the moon. “I see…” she said slowly, although she didn’t. “But have you asked her lately if she—”
“Nope, and I don’t plan to. We’re on our own, which means it’s up to me to do right by my kid, which brings me back to you. A week’s worth of girlie lessons, Abby. How much?”
“Stop pushing, okay?”
“Sure.” He caught the chains as she swung down, took a few running steps backward, brought her gently to a halt.
&n
bsp; “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh. Well, I’m not pushing—I’m pleading. Just name a price and I’ll meet it.”
Still grasping the chains, he leaned directly over her, looking down so that she had to tip back her head to meet his gaze. Abby sighed. Yeah, you’re not pushing. “Well, first, I don’t agree that Kat needs anything. She’ll discover boys in her own time. You don’t need to push her, either. Second,” she emphasized as he scowled and started to object, “don’t you dare offer me money, when you saved Skyler’s life.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“I’m not and you know it. Plus you’ve helped us in dozens of ways this past week. I’m so deeply in your debt, I’ll never get out, but still—mmmph!”
He’d dropped a big hand over her mouth. “Hush.”
Gazing helplessly up at him, she was suddenly dizzy, the world a kaleidoscope of green leaves, blue sky, with Jack’s face at the center, like the sun blazing down upon her. The heat of his fingers was hot and seductive as sunshine.
“You don’t owe me a thing, Abby.” His voice had dropped to a husky growl. “I was happy to help, glad to be of service. That’s all.”
“But—” she tried to say, her lips moving against rough, warm skin. She frowned and caught his wrist.
“No buts. You were doing me a favor, letting me play white knight. How often does a guy get to rescue somebody?” He allowed her to lift his hand away. “But now I need a favor. I need you to let me buy some lessons for my daughter.”
The second his hand moved aside, Abby shot out of the swing. She crossed her arms hard over her middle and stood, giving him nothing but the back of her head.
“Abby?” he said after a minute. “What’s wrong?”
Nothing. Everything! The warmth of his fingers on her face; the shape and strength of his wrist on her hand… A pulse strobing deep in her body. To hunger for a man’s touch again—this was something she’d never dreamed would happen, at least not for years and years and years! “N-not a thing. I’m just…thinking.” She stared down at the dust, clutching after her stampeding thoughts, and finally managed to say, “She doesn’t need femininity lessons. And I couldn’t possibly take your money.”
He came around the swing and loomed large beside her. “Then how about this? Could you teach her to cook a few dishes this week? Take her shopping a time or two for clothes?”
“Of course I could. I’d be happy to.”
“And if you won’t take my money, then why don’t I pay Whitey for your bus?”
Oh, he was good! She could just see him wheedling a jury. Cutting deals at the courtroom door. A lawyer who overpowered the opposition by charm or logic or guile—or sheer pigheaded refusal to take no for an answer. “You don’t need to do that.”
“All right, then look at it this way. We’ve known each other—what, four days? So maybe I’ve helped you out a tad, here and there, since you’ve been in town, though I’d call that a gross exaggeration. But if it makes you feel better, say you allow Kat to hang around with you for four days for free, then we’re square. After that, I start paying Whitey.”
“Do you ever quit?” She laughed, looking back at him.
“Sure…once I win.”
She threw up her hands at the sky. “Okay, okay, okay, I give! You can pay for three days of girlie lessons, after four days for free. Now can we go look for my cat?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HALF A DAY’S WORTH of hunting and postering the town failed to find the varmint. “But don’t worry,” Jack tried to console Abby as they headed home, “somebody’s bound to spot him.”
She sat chewing on her knuckle as she stared intently into the yards of the houses they passed. “Oh, God, I hope so. Skyler blames me enough already. He’ll never forgive me if we lose DC.”
“Blames you for what?”
She said over her shoulder, so low he could barely hear, “What doesn’t he blame me for? Divorcing his father. Dragging him west. The fact that Steven insisted I take full custody instead of half, at least for the next few years, since he’ll have his hands full with Chelsea and three babies.”
“Hardly seems fair.”
“Yep, but there it is.” She shrugged and turned forward and flashed him a brisk smile, visibly setting her sadness aside. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking. About Kat’s cooking lessons and how to set them up—without being obvious about their real purpose.”
“That’s the problem, yes.”
“Last night you were wondering how to punish her for the fight?”
He grimaced. “Right. I told her this morning that the verdict was ‘guilty,’ but she could help Sky hang his posters before I passed sentence.”
“Excellent. Well, considering that she cost you several hours, driving out to the Jarrett ranch, what if you sentenced her to make up your lost time? By cooking all your suppers for the week.”
“Frozen pizza seven nights in a row? Kat wouldn’t call that a punishment.”
“No, you stipulate real, made-from-scratch meals. And meantime, since I now have to pay for Skyler’s new glasses—he’s still broke from the last pair he lost—he gets the same sentence. He’s costing me money, which sooner or later I’ll have to replace by working. So he cooks for me.”
“The road to justice is sounding rougher and rougher. Can he cook?”
“A few dishes, but it’s time he widened his repertoire. I’ll do the menu planning, then they can help me shop. That is…if you’ve got time to drive us into Durango at some point this weekend?”
She finished her last sentence in a lurch and a breathless rush and Jack cocked his head, pretending to consider. She really hated to ask favors, didn’t she? Made him wonder what kind of selfish rat her ex had been.
On the other hand, he’d lost half a day already. I want to spend time with you, Abby, but my fantasy doesn’t take place in a grocery store. “I’d be happy to, but the problem is, I have to get this house I’m building skinned in and roofed before the snow flies, and weekends are prime building time.”
“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry! I never should’ve let you waste this—”
“You didn’t and it wasn’t wasted.” This morning had been productive—and how. He’d finally realized, somewhere around the swing set, that Divorce Crazies or no, Abby and he were meant to be. No ifs, buts or maybes about it.
Not that he’d forgotten Kelton’s Rule One and Rule Two—far from it! He hadn’t the slightest wish to remarry and even if he had, the last woman he’d choose would be Abby, still trapped in the spin cycle of a painful divorce. I may be crazed, but I’m not crazy.
But if Jack refused to break his own commandments, still the second clause of Rule Two allowed for some judicious bending in extreme circumstances. Like this one: have a hot, short, sexy affair with her if you must. Be her Transition Man between her last cad and her next husband. Teach her how to smile again—then Run for your life!
And in this case, he wouldn’t even have to run. Abby would be hitting the road as soon as her bus was drivable.
But in the meantime. Oh, sweet Abby, in the meantime…
But Abby wasn’t ready to hear his plans yet. “So now I’ve got to get to work,” he told her. On both fronts. “If I lent you my winter car, the Subaru, do you think you and the kids could handle the shopping? Your ankle’s not bothering you too much?”
“No, it’s much better, thanks, but I can’t take your car.”
“Why not? Just don’t let Sky behind the wheel. Which reminds me, speaking of meting out justice, what did you do to him for wrecking your bus?”
“Nothing,” Abby admitted. “We’re on such shaky ground already, I thought—”
“Big mistake. Actions ought to have consequences, at least that’s what my old man always said.” He smiled to himself, remembering some of his and his older brother’s escapades in their teen years, and the consequences they’d reaped.
“I suppose,” Abby murmured, although she didn’t sound convinced.
<
br /> Jack opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again. He wanted to kiss her dizzy, not tell her how to parent. He swung the Jeep into her drive and spotted Kat and Sky slumped on the front steps. “And there’s the posse.” Looking glum and catless.
AFTER HE’D GIVEN his daughter her sentence—received with thunderous indignation and a pout that didn’t do much for her prizefighter mug—Jack presented Abby with the keys to the Subaru, then drove off to the building site.
As always, he stopped the Jeep at the foot of the drive to gaze up the slope, picturing his completed work rising from its foundation. A passive solar house built to his brother’s design—simple, roomy, full of character. It would have a nice deep porch on this side to overlook the valley, three bedrooms, one of which he’d use for his office, and a two-car garage. Absently, Jack patted the Jeep’s wheel.
Basement with full headroom for his workshop. A story and a half in height, with the master bedroom above, where it would have a view of the mountains to the north that he’d insisted upon, no matter how Drew had protested that a sensible house ought to crouch below the ridge, sheltered from the winter winds.
Jack would rather install an extra six inches of insulation on the windward side and pay for triple-pane windows for his bedroom, whatever their cost, than live without that panorama. He meant to place his bed facing north, so the first thing he saw when he woke…
A vision of Abby intruded, all smiling and drowsy, rosy as the mountains with the sunrise touching their peaks… Get a grip, Kelton! You’ve got a house to build. He stepped on the gas.
JACK SPENT THE AFTERNOON in blissful preparation for Sunday, when he’d frame the first wall. This stage of construction was always exciting, as the actual outline of the structure started to rise, providing bones for his imagination to fill in. Don’t get too excited, he warned himself. Today was the day to measure twice—then twice again—so that tomorrow he could cut once with speed and precision.
Kelton's Rules (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 10
