“I know. But I don’t really need anything.”
“You may not need the gettin’,” Aunt Hattie said. “But the children need the givin’.”
Before Jack could reply the girls popped back into the room, carrying a plate of cookies between them.
“We got cookies.”
“We made them ourselves.”
“Mostly.”
“Aunt Hattie helped.”
“Those cookies were what you decided on,” Aunt Hattie replied. “That’s what matters.”
Cassie took one when they stopped proudly in front of her. “Peanut butter. My favorite.” She took a big bite. “And really good.”
“Thank you,” the twins said in perfect harmony and went on to offer the cookies to the others.
Cassie let her eyes wander back to Jack now that her heart was under control again. He was occupied with the girls and she was free to gaze at him all she wanted. Free to let her heart warm at the pride in his eyes, to wonder what it would be like to walk with her hand in his.
Free to realize it was time to go.
Cassie finished her cookie and got to her feet. “Well, I really need to be going,” she said. “I need to get to my dad’s by two to help Sam make the lasagna.”
“Aw, do you have to go?” Mary Louise moaned.
“We were gonna play badminton,” Mary Alice added.
“Cassie’s daddy would be sad if she didn’t come,” Jack said, getting to his feet.
“But we’re sad if she hasta go,” Mary Louise said.
“Maybe your daddy will take you over to the park for a while,” Aunt Hattie said.
The girls hesitated. “We were gonna help you.”
“With Daddy’s dinner.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” The woman pushed herself out of her chair. “You know I work better alone.”
“Can we go to the park, Daddy?”
Jack nodded. “If Aunt Hattie doesn’t need our help.”
“Go,” she said, making a shooing motion with her hands. “Just get out from underfoot.”
The girls looked at each other in their Sunday clothes. “We can’t play in dresses.”
“We gotta change.”
“That’ll be another three years now,” Jack groaned as the girls raced upstairs. He put his hand on Cassie’s back. “Gives me time to walk you to your truck.”
They started toward the door. Cassie was aware of Aunt Hattie following along after them, but more aware of Jack’s hand on the small of her back. And of how, if she leaned back just slightly, his arm would be around her.
“Always did work better alone,” Aunt Hattie said suddenly, her voice sharp. “That’s what happens if you aren’t careful. You work alone so long that you don’t think there’s any other way.”
Cassie turned and found the older woman’s eyes on her. Their gazes locked for just a moment, then Aunt Hattie hurried off down the hall. Cassie stared after her, until Jack nudged her.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
She shook her head and hurried outside. Was that what was happening to her? she asked herself, though. Did she want to be alone only because she’d been that way for so long?
“Wish your dad a Happy Father’s Day from us,” Jack was saying.
“Yeah. I will.” She shed her moody thoughts and smiled up at him. “Have fun at the park.”
“It’d be more fun if you were along,” he said. “Then maybe the girls wouldn’t gang up on me.”
“I see,” she answered with a laugh. “That’s what you want me for—for protection.”
“Oh, not hardly.” His voice had gotten hoarse as he slipped his arms around her. “I can think of a lot of better things that we could do together than protect me from my kids.”
She looked up into his eyes and felt his heat surround her, engulf her in a fire of desire all her own. The green yard all alive with summer disappeared. There was nothing but the two of them. Nothing but the hunger that was growing between them. Nothing but the touch of his hands on her back and the nearness of his embrace.
She met his lips as they came down to hers and a rush of light swept over her. Her mouth tasted his sweetness, and she knew a yearning that she’d never known. Life could be so perfect, so magical, if she would just let it. His lips on hers whispered all sorts of promises that only her heart could make sense of, but she just cuddled closer into his embrace.
“We’re ready!” two little voices sang out.
Jack let go of Cassie with a reluctance that matched her own. His smile was shaky as his eyes found hers. She smiled back, starting to believe that this might only be the beginning.
“Fiona and Alex’s wedding is next weekend,” she said. “Will you all come and protect me from my family’s matchmaking?”
“Gladly.” He kissed her lightly on her lips as if to seal his agreement.
“Would you believe I’m missing a softball game for this?” Cassie grumbled under her breath as the minister went over the instructions once more.
Jack just laughed, seeing through her gruff exterior. “You’d rather be here,” he said.
“Okay, so I’d rather be here,” she admitted reluctantly. “But enough’s enough. Does he think we’re idiots? We understood the first three times.”
“Maybe he wants tomorrow to be perfect.”
They were at Clements Woods for Fiona and Alex’s wedding rehearsal. A rather unusual setting for the wedding, but apparently the place had special meaning for Cassie and her sisters. From Cassie’s attitude, though, you would think it held only bad memories. She insisted on standing off to the side as if nothing here was touching her.
“Is the wedding going to be here because of you guys rescuing the swans?” he asked her.
She frowned at him. “How’d you know about that?”
“Your dad told me.”
“He tell you about the old lady too?”
“What old lady?”
Cassie sighed, looking like she’d been backed into a comer. “After we cut Juliet free, we met this old lady. She said something about us fighting for Juliet’s love, so some spirits would come back and fight for ours. It was dumb.”
The minister seemed to feel they’d gotten enough instruction and dismissed them. After Alex reminded everyone to head for Adam’s house, Jack walked with Cassie through the shade toward the parking lot. Her story nagged at him—not because of the improbability of it, but because something about it felt so inevitable.
“So you don’t believe in spirits?” he asked.
She tugged lightly at a passing branch, pulling the leaves through her hand. “It’s just all so unbelievable. That there’s something out there that cares whether Fiona or Sam or I find true love. Or even that such a thing exists.”
“Well, Fiona looks like she found true love,” Jack observed. “Did any spirits come and fight for her?”
Cassie snorted. “No, they left Fiona to do all the fighting herself and that must have been a real sight from what Alex says—mousy little Fiona charging into this ritzy restaurant to tell Alex off.”
“Maybe she was possessed,” Jack suggested.
“Possessed?”
“You know. By spirits.”
Cassie just gave him a look and climbed into his minivan. “Don’t tell me you believe in that nonsense, too.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said lightly and concentrated on pulling out of the parking space. “I hope the girls won’t have been too much trouble.”
“They’ll be fine. Rosemary and Nancy have managed larger herds before.”
Jack just drove on to Cassie’s brother Adam’s house in silence. He wasn’t really worried about the twins. They generally behaved pretty well. It had been more of a straw to grasp at. Anything to avoid thinking about Cassie and her spirits.
Anything to avoid wondering why the whole idea didn’t scare him like it ought to. What was it he wanted these days? He used to think he just wanted to be left alone, to wander in and out of
light relationships like a kid playing hide-and-seek. He used to think that he was happy alone, that the kids and his work were enough. Now he felt as uncertain as a freshman at his first football practice. He pulled into Adam’s driveway behind Samantha and her father.
“I’m going to change my clothes,” Cassie said. “The kids should be around back if you want to check on them.”
“Anything I can do to help with dinner?”
“Convince Larry that steaks don’t have to be turned into ashes to be done.”
He watched her hurry off into the house with Sam and then wandered around to the backyard. The kids were all playing some game with a ball that looked like nothing he’d ever seen before. They were all playing enthusiastically, though, so he guessed the name of the game didn’t matter.
Just as putting a name to his relationship with Cassie probably didn’t matter. He should just relax and enjoy it.
“Your kids are great.”
Jack looked at the young red-haired woman who had come over to him.
“I’m Rosemary,” she said. “Adam’s wife.”
“I knew that,” Jack replied.
“Sure.”
“But I do appreciate the hint.”
“Missy loves having the twins around,” she went on. “She’s finally got someone close to her age.”
A group of young girls, including the twins and, he assumed, Missy, had broken away from the game and had suddenly charged an older boy. He ran away in good-natured terror.
“Do you roughhouse with your girls?” Rosemary asked. “Like you would if they were boys?”
“Naw.” Jack shook his head. “I don’t want to get hurt. I’ve got enough scars from my playing days. I don’t want to wind up a total wreck.”
Rosemary shook her head. “Cassie said you were really funny.”
“That’s cruel,” he told her.
“I mean humorous.” She frowned at him. “You know what I mean.”
Jack just grunted, still watching his girls. They really acted differently when Aunt Hattie wasn’t around. That was probably normal, seeing as how his aunt was the one who did most of the civilizing tasks.
“That’s good, you know.”
“Huh?” He’d stepped out of the conversation again.
“We were talking about your sense of humor.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jack replied. “You mean my good one.”
Rosemary laughed. “You can’t survive in this family without it.”
That should have scared him, should have made him feel claustrophobic. But it didn’t. It filled him with a comfortable sense of rightness.
“Say, Adam and I are taking a bunch of the kids down to my folks’ farm for the Fourth of July. Missy would love it if your girls could come with us.”
“That’s nice of you to offer,” Jack said. “But they really couldn’t—”
“It’s not a big deal,” Rosemary assured him. “They’d sleep in sleeping bags in the girls’ room, maybe get a few rides around the barnyard on old Billy, and catch lightning bugs in the evening.”
Jack started to shake his head and repeat his gratitude for the offer when his eyes stopped on the girls, whispering conspiratorially with Missy. They would love going to the farm. They would love the sense of family. Outside of him and Aunt Hattie, they didn’t have anybody else. To go someplace with a troop of make-believe cousins would be their idea of heaven.
“Hi,” Cassie said, coming up next to him and slipping an arm around his waist.
She’d changed into shorts and a bare-midriff blouse. The outfit was no doubt comfortable for her, given the pleasant evening breeze. But seeing as how it highlighted her smooth muscles, it didn’t relax him one teeny-tiny bit.
“Well.” Rosemary stood, grinning as if she could see his sudden preoccupation. “Guess I’d better get going.”
“Good idea,” Cassie said.
Rosemary stuck her tongue out at her sister-in-law. “I was going to take care of the desserts,” she said. “But it looks like you already have yours.”
“Oh, you’re so clever.” Cassie shook her head. “You’ve obviously been living with my brother too long.”
“You think about the Fourth,” Rosemary told Jack before getting on her way.
“What was that all about?” Cassie asked.
“She invited the girls to go to her parents’ farm over the Fourth of July.”
“Really? They’ll have a great time. Her parents are just wonderful. They love having the kids there.”
Jack looked away from her assumption that he had accepted the offer. “I feel strange about letting them go,” he said. “It’s not like we’re part of the family or anything.”
She laughed and tightened her hold on his waist. “What is this—your macho Merrill pride again?” she teased. “You don’t know my family very well yet. They just love to share stuff. If you ask Rosemary and Adam, they’ll tell you that you’d be doing them a favor by letting the twins go, that Missy would have somebody to play with.”
“I just don’t like to impose on anybody.”
She sighed and leaned even closer, letting her tongue flick into his ear. “If they go to the farm, we could go away for the holiday, too.”
He gripped her waist even harder. “I’ll give you three years to stop that, lady.”
“And if I don’t?”
He pulled her to himself and kissed her. But not long. In fact, he was just getting started when it dawned on him that it was getting very noisy nearby. He looked up to see a gang of kids hooting and hollering at them. Some were rolling around on the ground, whiie others made gagging sounds.
“Can I kill them?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” Cassie told him. “I think the parents prefer to do that kind of thing themselves.”
“Hey, kids!” Cassie’s father shouted. “Time to eat.”
The screaming horde charged past their grandfather toward the food tables. His sweet little girls, pushing and shoving, were in the midst of them all.
“Where would we go?” he asked, his eyes still on the girls.
“How about one of the little towns along Lake Michigan?” Cassie suggested. “There are some great bed-and-breakfasts along the coast.”
“You think we could still get reservations? The Fourth’s less than two weeks away.”
“Dad’s joined some innkeepers’ association. I’ll see if he can find us something.”
The idea of a weekend away with Cassie was more than tempting. It was proving irresistible. Just the two of them. No schedules. No dogs. No worries.
“Do you, Fiona, take Alex as your lawfully wedded husband? In sickness and in—”
Cassie’s eyes were on Fiona, facing Alex in the dappled sunshine of the clearing. Behind them, garlands of roses had been draped on the lower branches of the trees to form a canopy over her and Alex and the minister. Fiona was the proverbial bride— so happy that she radiated like the summer sun.
Cassie looked away suddenly, blinking back a stinging behind her eyes, and stared out over the lake. She was happy for Fiona and Alex; she really was. But she was also scared. Somewhere deep inside she was so scared that she would never be as happy as Fiona was today. That she would never find someone she could tell everything and anything to and know that she would still be loved. That all her big talk of not wanting to be close to anyone ever again was just that—big talk.
Taking a deep breath, Cassie looked around at the crowd gathered in the woods. Everyone they cared about was here. Dad was looking so proud and happy that you would think he was going to burst, although he had to be wishing Mom was still here to share in the day. But in a way, she was. Fiona was wearing the same dress that Mom had worn when she’d married Dad. And so much of what she and Fiona and Sam were now, was due to her raising.
Cassie’s gaze misted over and she saw their first mother and dad as they had looked in their wedding picture. Fiona looked so much like their birth mother and Alex somehow looked like the
ir father—all eager and proud and happy. They had been so in love then. That love had to have grown stronger until it was big enough to include them all. It had to have.
“Do you, Alex, take Fiona—”
Cassie awoke from her thoughts to see Romeo and Juliet swim into sight, coming around a finger on the east side of the lake. Cassie’s smile grew. The two swans would bring good fortune with them. She felt a peace, a sweet certainty wash over her, and brought her gaze back to the crowd.
Jack was off to one side with a twin in each arm, holding them up so that they could see what was happening. The girls looked enthralled. Jack’s expression was harder to read. But then his eyes met hers and she felt his tenderness surround her like velvet, turning her brain to mush and setting her heart racing.
Even from a distance, even without words, he made her feel cared for. Made her feel warm and safe and secure. She could relax with him. She could be grumpy or tired or loving and he was understanding. They were friends. Equals.
Lovers, a little voice reminded her, and she felt her cheeks warm at the memory.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
Cassie awoke from her thoughts and joined the others in cheering and clapping. Arm in arm, Fiona and Alex walked through the crowd. It was a good thing they’d opted for an outdoor ceremony. The way the brothers were carrying on, they probably would have brought the roof down if they’d been inside a church. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling almost weak from all the emotion in the air, then followed along with Sam.
Cassie watched as their father wished Fiona and Alex well. They looked so in love. Cassie thought of all the hard times she’d given Fiona when they were kids and was glad her sister had finally found real happiness.
“I hope you guys are really happy,” Cassie said, when it was her turn to hug them. “You both deserve the best.”
“Maybe it’ll be your turn next,” Fiona replied with a glance that Cassie assumed was in Jack’s direction.
Cassie’s voice faltered slightly, but she tried not to let it show. “Oh, don’t hold your breath,” she said. “That dress would look terrible on me.”
“It would look perfect on you,” Fiona corrected, ever the older sister. “Stop putting yourself down.”
A Father's Gift Page 17
