Kelton's Rules (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Nicholson, Peggy

  She jerked her hand, but he didn’t let go. “Says who?”

  “Says one who should know. Who learned the hard way. When Maura and I ran off to a wedding chapel in Vegas, she was in the midst of the Divorce Crazies. We hadn’t been married three months when she changed her mind. Decided maybe I wasn’t the love of her life after all, just one more stop along the way. By Month Four she was shagging another law associate in my firm. By Month Seven she’d made it to partner. By the end of Year One she’d made senior partner, without trying a single case.”

  Abby stopped pulling against his hold. Bit her lip. Looked at him, wide-eyed and troubled.

  “I’m sure she’d have kept on ‘finding herself’ till I’d thrown her out on her pretty ear, but by then Maura was three months’ pregnant. And she was getting to be a joke around my firm. I resigned to save myself further embarrassment—quit the year I would’ve made partner, which I’d been slaving toward for six hard years.

  “But it turned out the joke was on me. She left me with the baby when Kat was eleven months old—then ran off and married her gynecologist.”

  “Oh, Jack…” Abby’s fingers rose toward his chest, then fell away. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, no sorry about it. I got a dynamite kid and learned a life-long lesson. Don’t marry a woman in the midst of Divorce Crazies.

  “But as to messin’ around while she’s sorting herself out…” His eyebrows waggled in a comic leer.

  “Do you ever quit?”

  “Not when I want something. And what I want right now is a fling with you. A happy, sappy, sexy little fling.”

  She gave his shoulder a condescending pat, then pushed away. “It’s not what I need.”

  “Who’s talking need here? I’m talking want.”

  “I don’t want anything. You. Us.”

  Liar. “Give me five minutes—three—and I’ll change your mind.”

  Abby hugged herself and drifted backward, shaking her head. “No, thanks. And if you’re my friend? You’ll stop pushing.” She turned, walked off fast. Waved her hand in a wide, relieved greeting as she spotted the kids coming up the drive.

  Jack jammed his hands into his pockets and swore.

  THAT NIGHT Kat somehow managed to spill the pot of corn chowder she’d made all over the kitchen floor. So the families ate together in spite of Abby’s misgivings. Jack behaved like a gentleman, although she detected an ungentlemanly glint in his eye each time their eyes met. He’d made no promise to stop pushing.

  But he could want and want and want, and it would get him precisely nowhere. Abby had drawn the line at friendship, and though he might walk up to that line and gaze wistfully across, he wouldn’t step over. He might be a sex-crazed cad or, to be charitable, maybe he was just hopelessly male, thinking sex would cure whatever ailed a woman, but he was also…Jack. She could trust him to accept her no, even when he didn’t like it.

  That didn’t mean he wouldn’t do his darnedest to tempt her or to persuade her over to his side of the line. Lawyers thrived on argument. Abby would have to ignore him, or even better, change the topic.

  “Have you had Kat’s eyes checked lately?” she asked after supper. Kat had proposed that she walk down to the library to get a book on falcons, and miraculously, Sky had roused himself from his blues and decided to tag along. Since the sun had set, the adults had promptly concluded that they, too, could use a good read. So here they all were, sauntering two by two down the hill through the cricket-loud dusk.

  “She was twenty-twenty a year ago.” Jack’s hand dropped onto Abby’s far shoulder as she stumbled, then rode there, light and warm. “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. She seems rather…clumsy lately. Spilling that soup tonight, she could’ve been badly burned. I thought possibly her spatial vision is off? Or…” She turned toward him, which served to break the contact, good as it felt. “How would you test a kid for coordination?”

  “Take her to the nearest video arcade, where, believe me, she’d stomp us both, any game you choose from laser sabers to bop-the-dinosaur. I wouldn’t worry. Kat’s just going through a stage.”

  “But why now?”

  “Beats me. Maybe her feet have outgrown the rest of her again.”

  He was in one of his “what, me worry?” moods, so Abby gave up. “Speaking of feet, I promised you I’d take her shopping. I was thinking about tomorrow afternoon. I have a few errands of my own to run in the city, if you don’t mind my mooching your car again.”

  “I told you, any time you want it. It’s just sitting there in the carport, getting fat and cantankerous. Needs exercise. And as for Kat, that would be terrific. Outfit her from head to toe if you like. I’ll stop by the bank in the morning and get you some cash.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WHEN ABBY FOLLOWED KAT into Jack’s office the next day, she walked a fine line between exuberance and exasperation.

  Maudie Harris had dropped by for coffee that morning and she’d loved what Abby had done with the kitchen. The landlady would be delighted to waive an additional two weeks’ rent in exchange for a repainted and redecorated living room. That was the good news.

  The bad news was that Skyler had pulled an unexpected snit when she’d insisted he couldn’t stay home alone. He slouched in the doorway behind her, the very picture of terminal boredom.

  Nothing to do but cheerfully ignore him. “So…” Abby turned slowly. Here was yet another side of Jack Kelton—the professional man. Two walls lined with legal books, a framed law degree from Stanford between the windows, a superb Turkish carpet on the floor, and Jack himself rising from a cluttered desk, looking even larger than usual in a beautifully tailored gray suit and—

  She looked at his big feet and laughed. “I know I’m out west when even the lawyers wear cowboy boots!” The fanciest of boots, some sort of lizard skin; they gave him an elegantly whimsical air. And there was something indescribably sexy about that burgundy silk tie, which made her want to grab it and pull his head down for a kiss. What’s got into you? she scolded herself. It must be his fling proposal of the previous afternoon that was giving her these ideas.

  “Well, shucks, ma’am. Today’s a court day.” His crinkled gray eyes swept from Abby to his daughter, who was busily feeding a tank of angelfish over in the conversation area of the office. They roved on to Skyler, glowering in his doorway. Jack’s shaggy brows twitched as he pulled out his wallet. “Will this cover the damages?” He handed her two hundred-dollar bills.

  “That’s way more than enough! We’re thinking small here.” Abby hadn’t explained her intentions to Kat, had simply asked the kids to come along on her errands. She hoped Jack would say nothing now.

  “Well, hold on to it. You can always bring me the change.” He’d drifted backward as he spoke, so that now he stood almost elbow to elbow with Sky. “Looks interesting.” He nodded at the library book Sky had brought along, an encyclopaedia of military aircraft.

  Sky shrugged and kicked the door frame.

  “If you’re more in a mood to read today than run errands with the ladies, you could always hang with the fish over there.” Jack nodded at his couch across the room. “I’ve got to walk over to the courthouse in a while. You can come along if you don’t have too much metal on you.”

  At that, Sky looked up from the floor. “Huh?”

  “Have to make it through the metal detectors. They need ’em to stop disgruntled plaintiffs from shooting the judge. Or their own lawyers.”

  Abby tried not to roll her eyes as Sky brightened visibly, shrugged again and allowed that he “Guessed that would be as boring as anything else.” He wandered over to the couch and flopped, nose buried in his book.

  They left him there as Jack escorted them to the exit. “How to charm the surly adolescent male,” she murmured admiringly, walking beside him while Kat darted ahead. “Offer him a chance at bloodshed and he’ll follow you anywhere.”

  “If he knew you meant to go shopping for clothes, he’d fall d
own and kiss my boots,” Jack murmured. “Oh, wait a minute!” He snapped his fingers. “Kat, I almost forgot.”

  Halfway down the stairs, she turned and scampered back up. “Da-ad, what? We’ve gotta go!”

  “Todd’s birthday is week after next. We need to put something in the mail. If you see anything today that you think he’d like—buy it, okay? Abby should have enough to cover it.”

  “’Kay.” Kat turned and trudged off down the staircase.

  “Todd?” Abby asked. Just like that, the spark of mischievous joy in Kat’s eyes had faded and blinked out.

  “Maura’s boy by her first marriage. Kat’s half brother. He’s just finished high school and joined the navy. Don’t worry if she doesn’t find anything. I was thinking the first three or four books of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin series would do. British naval battles and all. But it’s nicer if the idea comes from her. I try to keep them connected.”

  “All right,” Abby agreed. But does Kat want the connection?

  She found Kat waiting by the car, as downcast and sullen as Skyler had been all morning. And thank you, Jack. Revising her game plan, Abby decided to start with the neutral chores. Given time, perhaps Kat’s mood would rebound. Because to pull off any sort of image change, she’d need Kat at her most playful and adventurous.

  Kat tagged gloomily along to the hardware store while Abby chose the paint for the living room. At her suggestion, they picked up sample cards of colors for Kat, in case she decided to repaint and stencil her bedroom as she’d been discussing all week. But today her enthusiasm for the project had vanished.

  Todd. This all started with Todd, Abby reminded herself. “So what next?” she said briskly. “Lunch?”

  Kat scuffed her tennis shoes. “I’m not hungry.”

  Kat was in the blackest of moods when she wouldn’t eat. “Ooo-kay.” Forget bras. One needed a sense of the absurd to buy one’s first bra and Kat’s had gone south.

  “I need some fishing line for my falcon trap,” she growled after a moment.

  So they found a sporting goods store, where they bought the heaviest nylon line available, then a hat of Kat’s choosing. Hardly the height of femininity, it could have topped the head of the most intrepid jungle explorer. Abby was beginning to regret her cockiness in assuring Jack she could affect a change. Come back next year—or the year after, she told herself. Whenever the estrogen tide set in. And really, she was catching Jack’s panic and she shouldn’t. Kat had all the time in the world. Relax and enjoy. That was all they should be doing today, widening Kat’s scope of pleasures.

  The best way was to celebrate her own. Passing a case of fly fishing gear, Abby stopped short. “Oh, wow!”

  Kat bumped her elbow. “It’s just fishing lures. Dad ties ’em sometimes, when he’s not building.”

  “They’re gorgeous! What jewelry they’d make! Look at those Black Ghosts. If I was a trout, I’d gobble those up.” She glanced up as a salesman appeared behind the counter. “Could I please see that card of lures? Mind if I take it over to the mirror?”

  She held a Yellow Marabou Streamer up to one of her ears, and something made with parrot feathers to the other, then preened, ignoring Kat’s incredulous smirk. “Which do you like?”

  “You’ll hook your ears!”

  “No, I won’t. I’ll glue a bead over each barb. And I’ll have to find some ear wires. But which do you prefer?”

  They decided on a set of Green Damsel flies for Abby. Then she chose a red-and-gold confection of pheasant feathers with a silver tinsel stripe and held it up to Kat’s ear. “I thought so. With your coloring, this would be stunning.”

  “It would?” Kat stood very still—then scowled. “That’s just stupid girl stuff, jewelry and feathers.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. All kinds of people wear bright stuff for all kinds of reasons. Think of American Indians: I suppose it was the guys who wore the eagle-feather bonnets. All this gear is just to make you feel brave. War paint. Lipstick. Pirates with gold rings in their ears. Not much difference.” Abby tilted her head to study the girl. “You know, I’ve been wanting to do a portrait of you for your father, a sort of thank-you gift. I was picturing you as a desert princess, with a falcon on her shoulder. How would that be?”

  Kat’s eyes widened. “I’d have to catch him first.”

  Abby shook her head. “That’s the best part of being an artist. I can imagine him for you, show you just what he’d look like. I was thinking a sparrow hawk, with those wonderful spotted wings and you wearing a burnoose like a Bedouin?”

  Kat giggled. “You’re crazy, Abby.”

  “Ha! You haven’t begun to see crazy.”

  They left the sporting goods store with twenty dollars’ worth of fishing lures and a much improved attitude. Abby grinned to herself. Poor Jack. No doubt he was sitting at his desk about now, smugly patting himself on the back for solving the Kat Problem. He’s probably picturing us all girlish shrieks and giggles—up to our ears in silk stockings and lace bustiers and push-up bras right now! Instead of trout line and fishing lures and pith helmets.

  “The next stop is for ice cream,” she declared. No girl could pass through the arcane rites of American womanhood till she’d developed a wholesome respect for chocolate and carbohydrates.

  Half an hour later, floating on a cloud of whipped cream and fudge sauce, they sailed out of the ice-cream parlor and simply strolled, window-shopping and idly chatting. So this is what it would be like to have a daughter, Abby mused. To have an ally in your pocket. Someone with whom you shared instant rapport. Much as she loved Skyler, she often had to struggle to comprehend his moods and needs. While Kat was as clear to her as a mountain stream.

  They came to a consignment store and Abby stopped abruptly. “Oh, I love antique clothes!”

  In short order, she’d picked out a two-dollar costume jewelry necklace that could be cannibalized for its glass beads; she’d use them to complete their earrings. Also some simple brass clip-on studs, from which to dangle Kat’s fish lure finery, since her ears weren’t pierced.

  Abby turned next to the belt rack. “Would you look at this!” She held up a small beaded leather belt, imitation Zuni work, but charming all the same with its geometric patterns in turquoise and corals and creams. “Now this would work for my portrait of you. It’s very desert-looking, isn’t it? Try it on,” she suggested casually, then turned back to the rack.

  “Oh, and this is nice!” An embossed concho belt from the fifties, also made for the tourist trade and definitely not silver, but still very pretty. She threaded it through the loops of her own dark blue slacks, then turned to inspect Kat. “Oh, yes!”

  Hooking her thumbs in the beaded belt, Kat gave an offhanded shrug.

  Abby intended to draw a close view of Kat, probably from the shoulders up. But for now, she’d found the back door into Kat’s wardrobe. “That’s perfect for your Bedouin costume. And once we’re done, you could always use it for blue jeans.” Kat’s favorite attire. “And I’m going to splurge and get this concho belt.” It took two to make a shopping spree.

  “Now we need to find you a burnoose.” Pulling Kat over to a rack of accessories, Abby chose an Indian silk scarf in luscious stripes of ruby and scarlet and purple, spangled with gold thread. Standing behind Kat at the mirror, she draped it over her shoulders and around her head and throat to create a soft hood. When Kat made a doubtful face, she added quickly, “These colors would go well with a sparrow hawk, wouldn’t they?”

  Instant smile.

  You are so easy, lovey. She had a sudden urge to stoop and kiss the top of Kat’s head. But better not. Not today.

  So when? wondered a small ironic voice in her mind. Two weeks, and the bus would be ready. She and Sky would have no excuse left to stay in Trueheart and every sane reason to go. Her happiness wavered. Her smile wobbled.

  Live in the now, not later, she reminded herself and rallied. “This scarf is gorgeous.” Kat was gorgeous, but she would be
courting a tomboy backlash to say so. Today’s task was much more modest. Simply to instill the notion that Kat could enjoy lovely, sensual things without betraying her own fierce sense of self.

  “And feel how soft it is.” Abby brushed the sheer silk along Kat’s cheek. “Nice? Now let’s look at this gold one.” She whisked the scarf away and substituted another. “This one would complement the russets and blacks on the sparrow hawk’s wings. And imagine this mustardy-gold in the foreground, if I made the background a deep Prussian blue. As if you and your falcon were up on a mountainside, near sundown.”

  Abby tipped her head, considering. Maybe here was a topic for another children’s book? Like butterflies spreading their wings to the sun, pictures unfolded in her mind. “I think I’d better get you both of these scarves, then decide which one works best for your portrait later on.”

  IT HADN’T TURNED OUT to be such a boring day after all, Sky admitted to himself as he and Jack walked back to his office. They’d gone out to lunch with Jack’s friend, Mr. Fielding, the lawyer Sky and his mom had met at the grocery store. The men had treated him just like one of the guys. They’d talked about cars and skiing and going fishing, and a case of Mr. Fielding’s, where he was defending a man accused of stealing some cows. A real-live cattle rustler!

  Then he’d gone to court with Jack—Sky still called him Mr. Kelton, but he thought of him as Jack—and watched while he asked the judge for something called a restraining order. “Why was that man so mad?” he asked now. “He was really yelling.”

  “Mmm.” Jack frowned. “That was the tail end of a divorce case, kiddo. Mr. Murphy and his wife—my client—split up. But he’s been bothering her since then. Scaring her, which of course he shouldn’t. So I asked the judge to tell him he couldn’t go near her or her family. And the judge did. Finally.”