“And, yes,” Riley offered. “Amy was Brenda’s best friend in Iraq, as a matter of fact.”
“Well, now, isn’t that a wonder. Oh, the stories I bet you could tell.”
Dixie returned with Amy’s tea, and Ima repeated what Riley had just told her. That exchange took several minutes, during which Ima and a string of men coming from the banquet room in the rear made their way to the cash register.
In the sudden quiet around Amy’s booth, Riley looked after Ima as if surprised by something. Slowly he turned toward Amy.
“She’s right,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“Sorry.” He shook his head and smiled. “Hello. How are you?”
Amy chuckled and smiled. “I’m fine. Care to join me?”
“I’d like that. I’d planned to give you a call in the next day or so, to see how you’re doing.” He slid into the opposite seat of her booth.
How silly for her heart to race just because a man sat across from her. Amy refused to entertain the notion that her reaction was specific to this particular man. For Heaven’s sake, this was Brenda’s husband.
She took a sip of tea, then wiped her palms on her thighs. “I just ordered. Have you eaten?”
“Yeah.” He nodded toward the banquet room. “Back there. Monthly Chamber of Commerce lunch.”
“You’re a member?”
“My company is. Sinclair Construction.”
“I’m impressed.”
He chuckled. “Don’t be. All you have to do is pay dues to belong.”
Amy didn’t have a comeback for that. The small silence played on her nerves.
“I wanted to ask…” Riley began.
She’d been so deep in thought that his voice startled her and made her jump. “Oh—sorry. My mind wandered. You wanted to ask?”
“It was something Ima said, about stories.”
“What about them?”
“Could you? I mean, could you tell stories about Brenda in Iraq? Not about that last day, or bullets or bombs or any of the other terrifying things I’m sure you saw, but other things. What it was like to live in a foreign land. Maybe funny stuff my girls would enjoy hearing about their mother. Is there anything like that you can tell them?”
Amy puffed out her cheeks and exhaled. “Whew. That’s…”
“Too much?”
“No,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s a great idea. Brenda would love that you thought of it, and it would go along with, well, other elements of their Christmas gifts.”
“What other elements?”
She flashed him a smile. “Never mind that.”
“Spoilsport,” he muttered with half a smile. “Let’s not make this about Christmas, if you’ve got something similar going there.”
“What do you have in mind?”
He glanced at his watch and winced. “I’m a little short on time right now. If you’re serious about the stories, what about telling them to the girls, and I can videotape it so they can play it back whenever they want to?”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
“If you’re free this evening, you could come over and we can figure out the logistics.”
Amy’s pulse raced. “All right. What time do you want me?”
Something flared in his eyes, and she realized what she’d said.
“Uh, to show up,” she finished quickly, wondering if she’d read more into that look than had really been there.
Dixie arrived with a steaming plate of spaghetti. “Here you go. Enjoy.”
“Thanks, Dixie.”
When the waitress left, Riley said, “You’ve made some friends.”
“A few,” she acknowledged.
“Can you come for supper tonight? Around six?”
“Only if you let me help.”
“You can make the salad. I have all the ingredients.”
“Sounds like a deal.”
He left then, and Amy felt…deflated? Was that the right word to describe the empty feeling now that a great deal of warmth and enjoyment had just left the café?
Riley climbed into his pickup and swung by his office to pick up the plans for the Wilson job. He’d known Bob Wilson since second grade, and this was the man’s first new home. He’d entrusted his dream to Riley, who intended to make certain that trust was not misplaced. His crews were always good, but there was no substitute for a little firsthand oversight.
The plans were right where they were supposed to be. Everything in his office was, but that didn’t mean it didn’t look like a trash pit. He was an outstanding builder. He was not a great office manager. He’d had a so-so secretary until a couple of months ago, but when she got pregnant with her third child she decided to stay home. Since then he’d been making do.
He really should hire someone.
At least worrying about his office took his mind off Amy Galloway. Or it had, until how.
He found it disconcerting to have a woman other than Brenda pop up in his mind every time he turned around. Especially when the woman doing the popping was Brenda’s best friend from the army. He couldn’t think of anything more inappropriate.
In his rational mind, he knew Brenda was dead. He wasn’t one of those people who tiptoed around and said she was gone or no longer with us or passed on or any of the other dozen or more euphemisms people used to avoid admitting that someone had died.
And now he felt drawn to the woman who’d brought him the truth of his wife’s death.
He knew there was nothing wrong with being interested in a woman, even this woman. He’d been alone more than a year now. To feel guilty was ridiculous. Yet guilty was exactly how he felt.
“Jackass,” he muttered to himself as he grabbed the Wilson plans and locked the door on his way out. It wasn’t as if he was going to jump her bones or anything. He was merely going to videotape her telling stories to his girls.
She danced around in his mind all afternoon until genuine anticipation built up inside him. So did his guilt.
After leaving the Wilson job site Riley drove to the Greens’ to pick up the girls. Regardless of the lifelong tension between Marva and him, Riley was the first to admit that she had been a godsend to him and his daughters since Brenda’s death. The Green house sat directly across the street from the elementary school, so the girls went there every afternoon and stayed until Riley picked them up. Cindy, whose pre-kindergarten let out at noon, spent the most time with her nana.
That was starting to show, too, and it concerned Riley. Cindy didn’t appear to have as strong a personality as Brenda had had at that age. Not that he remembered Brenda from pre-school, but he had strong memories of her in first grade, and by then she’d already been well on her way to understanding how to get her own way yet still honor her mother’s wishes.
Marva Green fancied herself a Southern belle, and had raised—or tried to raise—her daughter to be ultra feminine. In many ways Marva had succeeded. Brenda was forever draped in ruffles and lace, frills on everything, everything matching everything else, and those fat sausage curls bouncing down her back with every graceful move she made.
But Brenda had wanted to play softball and soccer, basketball and volleyball, and her favorite color was red. She’d had to fight Marva from the beginning for the right to play sports, because according to Marva, proper young ladies did not get dirty, nor did they partake of any activity that caused them to—oh, hideous thought!—perspire.
Brenda had learned the manners her mother insisted upon, and she had made sure she looked beautiful and remained mostly silent. Unless she wanted to do otherwise. On those occasions, she simply dressed as she pleased, smiled at her mother and went on her way.
It had always amazed him how Brenda could smile so cheerily in the face of her mother’s fiercest, scariest frown. The woman could be downright frightening, yet Brenda had never been afraid. She hadn’t enjoyed going against her mother’s wishes, but she never wanted to lose herself to Marva’s idea of femininity.
; Now Cindy was talking about ruffles and bows and frills, and Riley didn’t know how to tell if she really liked those things or if she was just trying to please her nana. Of course, Pammy and Jasmine liked pretty dresses, too, but they had never wanted to wear them every day the way Cindy suddenly did.
When he pulled up in the driveway, he played coward and honked his horn. A moment later the girls trailed out of the house, dragging overcoats and backpacks behind them. Marva called them all back to the porch for a goodbye kiss, then frowned at him as they traipsed to the truck.
Riley decided to take a page from Brenda’s book. He smiled at Marva and waved, as if he had no idea she disapproved. A gentleman always comes to the door to pick up a lady. Or in this case, three.
Instantly his pickup echoed with little-girl chatter. In the short trip home he learned every important thing that had happened that day at Tribute Elementary. The chattering and giggling, even the arguing, was music to his ears. Especially the squeals of delight when he told them Amy was coming to supper and afterward would tell them a story about their mother.
Brenda, thank you for sending Amy for the girls. They needed whatever pieces of their mother Amy could provide. Riley tried to tell them as much as he could, but Amy knew a part of Brenda that he didn’t. He was probably more eager to hear about it than the kids.
The doorbell surprised him. He wasn’t ready. He’d wanted to clear her out of his mind before facing her again. Too late now.
“It’s Sergeant Amy,” Pammy called from the front hall.
He heard Amy answer, heard Jasmine and Cindy chime in. Laughter. Giggles.
Riley washed his hands at the kitchen sink, and, still drying them, sauntered to the front hall to greet their guest. “You made it. Great.”
“We’re making supper.” Pammy took Amy by the hand and led her to the kitchen. “But you don’t have to help, you can just watch, ’cause you’re company.”
Riley saw Amy open her mouth to protest and jumped in to clarify. “Oh, no,” he protested. “She has to help. I told her she had to if she wanted to eat. She can toss the salad while you three set the table.”
“But, Daddy, she’s company. Why are you making her work?”
“He’s teasing,” Amy said. “I made him promise to let me help so I wouldn’t feel like a freeloader. Do you know what a freeloader is?”
“A moocher,” Jasmine proclaimed.
Amy chuckled. “That’s right. And I didn’t want to be a moocher. If you guys are going to feed me, I want to help put the dinner together.”
And so she did. It got a little confusing with five people crowding into the kitchen, and even more so because Cindy wanted to help everybody, consequently hindering everyone.
He watched Amy as she tore the lettuce, diced tomatoes, cubed the three hard-boiled eggs he had set aside for the salad, all the while stepping this way and that to make room for or get out of the way of one or more of the girls. She seemed so natural around them.
“I never asked,” he said quietly. “Have you ever been married?”
“Who, me? No. Do you want the carrot grated or sliced?”
“Grated. Do you have any kids of your own?”
“No, no kids.”
At the dining-room table, an argument broke out between Pammy and Jasmine over who was in charge.
Riley rolled his eyes. “Want some?”
Amy laughed. “Are you kidding? You wouldn’t trade your girls for anything. You’re crazy about them. A blind man could see that.”
He chuckled. “I guess so. I guess I kinda like having them around.”
“Before I forget,” Amy said, “did you mean to invite the Greens to hear these stories you want me to tell?”
He didn’t answer right away. He wanted to give the illusion that he was at least considering the idea. “No,” he finally said. “Not this time.”
“Are you sure? You know they would love to hear anything to do with Brenda.”
“I know. But now and then I’d like the girls to have a piece of their mother that everybody else doesn’t have. Something that belongs just to them.”
She met his gaze for a long moment, then shrugged. “It’s your decision.”
“Yes, it is.”
Amy found this second supper with the Sinclairs as much fun and as laughter-filled as the first. Except for that one little cloud. She shouldn’t have opened her mouth about inviting the Greens for what the girls were calling Story Time. Riley was right, it wasn’t her business. She had crossed a line she hadn’t realized was so important to him.
She’d known from Brenda that her mother wasn’t Riley’s favorite woman, but she also knew that he relied on Marva Green for help with the girls.
But Amy had obviously hit a nerve earlier by asking about including his in-laws, or former in-laws, whatever they were. Riley had been all but ignoring her throughout supper by never looking her in the eye.
But they made it through the meal, and through the cleanup after, and gradually he seemed to thaw a little. Still, even standing next to him at the sink, she felt a distance that hadn’t been there before.
Okay, that was fair. They were nearly strangers. Their connection was his late wife. That had brought them closer at a speed faster than normal. Then she had presumed to suggest how to share memories of Brenda, as if she had a right.
The distance he put between them now, when she thought about it, seemed more appropriate than the emotional pull she had been feeling. She told herself to get comfortable with it, and her private pep talk felt as if it was working. By the time they finished cleaning up she felt at ease.
Or, she would have, if he hadn’t rolled his sleeves up and exposed his forearms while rinsing the dishes. They were the forearms, and hands, of a man who used them to earn his living.
Who knew the mere sight of a man’s forearms could be so arousing? They were strong and thick and tanned, with a dusting of dark hair that made her want to stroke it with her fingers.
And his hands. Wide-palmed, with long, deft fingers. Making her wonder what they would feel like against her flesh.
Mercy. If she didn’t get her mind off sex she was going to spontaneously combust right there in his kitchen. She turned away from him and saw three little girls carrying the last of the dishes from the table and reminded herself that she was here for them. Not to jump their daddy’s bones.
When the cleanup was over, Riley announced that he wanted to tape the storytelling in the girls’ bedroom.
“Yea!” The girls cheered and bounced up and down.
Then little Cindy grabbed Amy’s hand and tugged her toward the hall. “C’mon, Sergeant Amy, I’ll take you. You’ll like it. Daddy even made us clean it before you came.”
“That was lucky,” Jasmine claimed.
Amy chuckled. “I bet it wasn’t that messy to start with.”
“You’d be wrong,” Riley said. “It looked like a giant laundry and toy dump.”
“Oh, Daddy.” Pammy wrinkled her nose.
“Oh, Pammy.” Riley brushed his finger across the tip of said nose as he mimicked her giggly tone.
The girls shared the large front corner bedroom. Somehow, three twin-sized beds and three small dressers fitted, leaving ample room for toys and space to play with them. Sheer pink-and-white ruffled curtains covered the two windows, but there any unity in color and style ended.
Cindy tugged her through the door. “This is my bed.” She raced across to the bed farthest from the door and bounced her little rear on its pink-flowered quilt with a pink-and-white ruffled pillow sham and matching dust ruffle. A little girl’s fairy-tale bed.
In the far corner, near the foot of Cindy’s bed, sat an old wooden rocker.
“That’s Jasmine’s bed, the yellow one in the middle,” Cindy said. “’Cause she’s the middle sister, and the blue bed by the closet is Pammy’s. She likes blue. A lot.”
“She does, huh?”
“Oh, yes,” Cindy asserted. “You’re gonna tell us a st
ory?”
“I thought I would, if you want.”
“Sit here.” Cindy patted the smooth oak seat of the rocker. “It’s our story chair.”
Amy had a sudden picture of Brenda sitting in this very chair, holding one of these beautiful darlings to her breast to nurse. Another followed, of Riley holding a crying baby in the middle of the night while Brenda slept down the hall. The chair took on sacred proportions in her mind. She looked to Riley, wondering if she had the right to even touch that chair.
He, of course, looked oblivious to the emotions suddenly swamping her. “Go ahead, have a seat. I want to set the video camera up over here. Girls, you can sit on the end of the bed, or on the floor in front of Amy.”
“Do we get to be in the video, too?” Jasmine asked.
“Of course,” he said, as if no other way would do. “What is a video without my three best girls?”
Pammy blinked up at him. “Blank tape?”
“Oh, a smartypants,” he said darkly.
“Not me,” Pammy denied.
Jasmine crawled onto the foot of Cindy’s bed and sat crosslegged while Riley set up a tripod between Pammy and Jasmine’s beds for his camera.
Pammy nudged Jasmine. “Move over.”
Jasmine moved over and Pammy joined her.
“Hey,” Cindy cried. “You guys got my bed.”
“Sit on the floor,” Pammy said.
Cindy looked as if her oldest sister had suggested she sit in the middle of the train tracks with the train on the way.
Before the outrage on that pretty little face could erupt, Amy sat in the rocker and took Cindy’s hand. “Would you like to sit on my lap?”
Cindy’s entire face lit up. “Can I? Can I?” Without waiting for a yes or no, she climbed onto Amy’s lap and beamed up at her with a bright-eyed smile. “Like this?”
Amy felt a thick lump emerge in her throat. Without thinking, she slipped one arm around the girl’s back. “Exactly like this.”
“That’s good.” Riley leaned down and looked through the camera lens. “Just like that. Is everybody comfortable?”
“Yes,” they all said.
Riley and His Girls (Mills & Boon Vintage Cherish) (Mills & Boon Cherish) Page 4
