“That’s what I kind of thought. See you back at the house,” she said, walking off with a bounce in her step and the dog by her side.
“Well,” Sunday murmured. “That was awkward.”
“She’s a teenager. They like to make people uncomfortable.”
“I meant the kiss.”
“Awkward is not the word I’d use for it.” He cupped her elbow, making sure to keep his grip light.
Because what he really wanted to do was take up where they’d left off when Heavenly had arrived—Sunday’s soft, pliant body pressed against his.
“No?”
“I’m pretty certain you know it’s not,” he replied. “But if you want me to use a few adjectives, incredible, life-changing, and not-even-close-to-enough come to mind.”
“I don’t think that last one is an adjective,” she said, and he thought he heard a smile in her voice.
“How about soul-searing? Mind-blowing?”
“A mistake?”
She said what he’d been thinking, but that didn’t mean he liked it. “That’s not an adjective either.”
She sighed.
“I know, but it was the only thing I could think of that didn’t make me want to . . .”
“Kiss me again?”
“Dang, Flynn. One kiss, and now you’re reading my mind?” She was trying to make light of it.
Which was what he should want but, like her description of the kiss as a mistake, it bothered him.
“What I’m doing is thinking that my brother has been gone for nearly a year, and that even when he was here, he was a piss-poor excuse for a spouse.”
She stiffened. “I told you. He was good to me.”
Stop! His brain shouted. Do not proceed.
But, of course, his mouth just kept moving. “Right. He bought you flowers from the same florist he used for his girlfriends. He spent thousands of dollars going on business trips that were really just for pleasure.”
“Don’t,” she said, and her voice was so small, her muscles so taut, it finally got through to him.
What he was doing.
Beating her over the head with the truth wasn’t going to make the kiss any more, or less, meaningful, and it sure as heck wasn’t going to make a relationship with her a possibility.
If they wanted each other, that was their decision to make, and it should have nothing to do with the past or with Matt.
“I’m sorry.” He ran his knuckles down Sunday’s cheek. A gentle caress followed by a gentler kiss. His lips touching hers for just long enough to let them both know how much he meant it.
“It was a mistake, Flynn,” she said, her voice gritty and hot. “I shouldn’t have thrown myself at you.”
“Is that what you call what you did?”
“What would you call it?”
“Taking what you wanted, giving what you could, allowing us both to see if the friendship we have could be more.”
“That’s a pretty way to say it, and a pretty way to see it, but when I wake up in the middle of the night remembering the feel of your lips on mine, I’m going to wonder why I didn’t just leave things be. I need to go back to the house. Clementine is waiting for me.”
He let her go, because there was nothing more to say.
Not tonight.
Maybe not ever.
But the line had already been crossed. He’d already done what he thought he never would—kissed a woman whom one of his brothers loved. It was a taboo they’d never discussed, because it was a betrayal none of them could have conceived of.
A good guy didn’t date his brother’s ex, steal his brother’s girlfriend, fall for his brother’s wife.
A good guy didn’t lust for someone who didn’t belong to him.
Flynn liked to think of himself as a good guy.
But he wanted Sunday in a way he couldn’t remember ever wanting another woman.
Which shouldn’t matter, because she wasn’t Matt’s wife, she was his widow. She didn’t belong to anyone but herself.
She’d been a kid when she’d married. One Flynn could honestly say he’d barely paid attention to. Aside from thinking that she and his brother were making a colossal mistake, thinking they’d be better off going to college, prepping for life, not getting hitched and settling down, he hadn’t spent a whole heck of a lot of time thinking about Sunday.
Until now. Now, he seemed to spend four out of every five minutes of his day thinking about her, wondering if she was doing okay, wishing he could make things easier on her.
She was becoming more than a project to him, more than a sister-in-law he had to convince to step back into her life.
And the more time he spent with her, the more time he wanted to spend. One horseback ride to the river wouldn’t be enough. Not two or three, either. He wanted to fly her and the kids to his ranch and let the kids drive his housekeeper crazy while he and Sunday explored the land.
He wanted to return here and help her prune the orchards and plow the fields and ready the land for next year’s crop.
He wanted to hear her laugh a thousand times, and he wanted to be the one to make her do it.
That shouldn’t make him feel guilty.
But it did.
“Damn you, Matt,” he muttered, repeating the phrase he’d heard Sunday say three times while she was standing on the dock.
He could have sworn he heard his brother laugh in response.
Chapter Twelve
The funny thing about life was that it just kept going on. No matter a person’s struggles, no matter her heartache, no matter how tough things got, time marched forward. One day into the next. One season into the next.
Sunday was thinking about that as she packed lunches for the first day of school, the food spreadsheet Twila had made taped to the front of the fridge. A year ago, on this date, she’d been six weeks away from the car accident that had changed her life forever. She’d probably been puttering around in the kitchen, just like she was now. Putting together lunches. Albeit a lot more easily.
She frowned, glancing at the spreadsheet, two pretzel rods in her hand.
Moisey liked them.
Or was it Twila?
She walked to the fridge, stepping over Rembrandt on the way, and stared at the spreadsheet, trying to make sense of it. If a ten-year-old could create it, she should be able to read it.
But, of course, the words went from her eyes to her brain and right back out of her head. She’d look at the food that each child liked, walk to the counter, and forget.
Again.
“This shouldn’t be so hard,” she muttered, walking to Moisey’s pink lunch box and dropping the bagged pretzel rods into it.
“I’d be happy to do it for you, Sunday,” Rosie offered, her head bent over the morning edition of the Benevolence Times, as if she were paying more attention to it than the epic struggle going on in the kitchen.
“No. It’s okay. I’m fine,” Sunday lied.
Rosie looked up from the paper. Her salt-and-pepper hair was still in curlers, her housecoat pulled tight around her plump figure. She’d been hired before Sunday’s release from the rehab facility, and there was no doubt she’d been a godsend, cooking meals, corralling children, helping Sullivan’s wife, Rumer, with all the chores that went along with raising six children.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take over, dear?” Rosie asked, tapping her fingers restlessly on the tabletop. She’d have had all the lunches packed by now, the counter clean, breakfast on the table.
But Sunday had wanted to do this for herself and for the kids.
She still wanted to do it.
Herself.
Without anyone rushing in to save the day.
They were getting close to the wire, though, the timer on the microwave ticking down the minutes until Twila ushered her siblings downstairs. All of them dressed in the outfits she’d made them lay out the previous night.
Twila was like that.
A little mother hen.
Maybe
Sunday had known that before the accident. Maybe she hadn’t. She knew it now, though, and she was starting to accept that what she knew right in the moment she was living was enough.
“Everything is under control, Rosie,” Sunday lied, grabbing snack packs of cookies from the pantry and dropping one into each of the four lunch boxes and one into Heavenly’s lunch sack.
“She won’t eat those,” Rosie commented, lowering her gaze to the paper again. “Says they make her face break out.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure. So”—she ran back to the fridge, scanned it for Heavenly’s name—“cheese cubes.”
“In the fridge. Bottom shelf. Already in baggies. Thanks to Twila. That girl is quite an organizer. And”—Rosie waved toward a calendar that had been tacked to the wall next to the back door—“it seems to me, she’s going to be right on time. Marching down those steps, cracking the whip to get the crew going in about three minutes.”
“Right.” Sunday yanked open the fridge, pulled out a small bag of cheese cubes, and tossed them in the pink lunch box.
“The bag. Remember?” Rosie said.
“Right. Again.” She dropped the cheese in the bag.
Done.
With a minute to spare.
“’Course, they’ll be wanting breakfast. I made cinnamon rolls yesterday. You just toss a few on a plate and throw them in the microwave. I’ll put out the cereal bowls and milk. We’d better hurry, because the troops are on the move.”
Rosie stood and was bustling around with purpose, plopping plastic bowls on the table, placing cereal boxes and a gallon of milk on the counter.
Sunday managed to find the cinnamon rolls and plop them on a plate before the sound of footsteps on the back stairs reached her ears. She punched in the cooking time and turned to the stairway just as Twila bounced into view.
“Mom! You’re awake!”
“Aren’t I always awake on your first day of school?”
“Well, every other year you have been, but this year is different.” Twila poured cereal into a bowl, grabbed a spoon, and sat at the table. She’d dressed in a flowered skirt and light blue T-shirt, her dark hair pulled back in a matching headband. She’d packed her things the night before, and her backpack was in the mudroom, sitting beside the back door.
Sunday knew because she’d almost tripped over it when she’d gone outside to get the paper. She’d been trying to start a routine that might work for the rest of the year.
Start the coffee, get the paper, pack the lunches.
Except she’d forgotten to start the coffee.
Rosie had done that.
And it had taken Sunday nearly an hour to pack the lunches.
But she wasn’t going to beat herself up over it.
Not like she had over the kiss.
She winced away from the thought, because the kiss had happened nearly a week ago, and it hadn’t been repeated.
She and Flynn saw each other every day. Most evenings they rode down to the river and watched the sun set. He hadn’t mentioned the supermoon or the dock, her tears or the kiss.
And she hadn’t either.
It was water under the bridge, and the way she saw things, not worth spending time dwelling on.
But, of course, she had been dwelling on it. Wondering what she’d been thinking. What he had. Why they’d embraced in the moonlight and were now pretending it hadn’t happened.
Although, she really shouldn’t be wondering that.
She knew Flynn was letting her lead the way.
And she knew if she brought it up, he’d be happy to discuss it, but she hadn’t.
“Mom!” Moisey hollered, barreling into the room, her hair styled in perfect glossy ringlets. Heavenly’s handiwork. So were the bright pink fingernails Moisey sported. “What are you doing awake already?”
“That seems to be the question of the hour, and I’ll give you the same answer I gave your sister: It’s the first day of school. I always see you off on the first day.”
“And every day afterward, dweebs,” Heavenly said as she walked into the kitchen, Oya on her hip.
She handed Sunday the baby. “I hope she does okay today. We’ve spent a lot of time together this summer. She might miss me.”
“I’ll make sure she’s happy,” Sunday assured her, kissing Oya’s chubby cheek.
The baby giggled.
“Okay. I mean, I know you’re her mom, but I’m her big sister, and I kind of feel like she needs me.”
“She does, but she’ll be fine while you’re gone,” Rosie said as she stepped in and took the baby from Sunday’s arms. “So don’t even worry. Not one bit. Your mom and I know how to handle things.”
Heavenly nodded, running a hand down her knee-length denim skirt in a nervous gesture that drew Sunday’s attention to the skirt. The shirt. The makeup-free face.
“Do I look okay, Sunday? I’m wondering if I should change,” the teen said. Maybe because she wasn’t wearing too-tight clothes that revealed more than they covered. Instead, she’d chosen a knee-length skirt and a fitted T-shirt, wedge heels, and a few silver bracelets. No black eyeliner. No blue lipstick. No brightly colored eye shadow. Her short hair was cut in a shaggy pixie style, her face free of makeup except for a sweep of light-pink lip gloss. She looked young and beautiful, friendly and approachable.
She looked like a girl who felt good about herself and about her place in the world.
“Heavenly, you’re beautiful,” Sunday said. “Don’t change a thing. I love your new style.”
“Well, it’s a new school year. I wanted to start it off as a new person, someone different than the girl who came to Benevolence a few years ago.”
“You should always be yourself,” Maddox shouted, racing into the room with a backpack over his shoulder and skidding to a stop next to Heavenly.
His mouth opened, his eyes widened, and he shook his head. “But new and different look good on you. Me and Milo are going to have to get the baseball bats to beat all the boys away. Milo!” he yelled. “Bring the bats.”
“No bats!” Sunday said, and Maddox frowned.
“Never mind,” he hollered, “bring the hockey sticks instead.”
“What for?” Milo entered the room, dragging his backpack behind him.
“Heavenly needs protection.”
“I don’t need protection. I need to make sure I don’t miss the bus. There’s an honor’s choir breakfast this morning, and I was invited. I don’t want to miss out because one of my siblings was running behind, and I had to wait for him. Eat.” She pointed at the boys, and both dropped into chairs and poured cereal for themselves.
“We’re all going to be ready, but you should have gotten up earlier,” Moisey said, her mouth filled with food.
“That’s gross. Swallow before you talk,” Twila said.
And Sunday could feel a headache starting to pound behind her eyes. She’d forgotten how exhausting the early-morning routine was.
“Why should I have to get up earlier? We all ride the same bus.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have to feed and water the horses,” Moisey pointed out, shoveling in another mouthful of cereal.
“Dang!” Heavenly said, and she sounded so much like Flynn, Sunday smiled. “I was so busy worrying about what I was going to wear, I forgot all about that. You’re right. I should have gotten up earlier.”
“I’ll take care of it for you, sweetheart,” Sunday offered, but Heavenly shook her head.
“It’s my chore. My responsibility. A person who doesn’t take those things seriously isn’t going to get far in life.”
“You really do sound like your uncle,” Sunday murmured, and Heavenly shot her a sly smile.
“I bet you two are going to have fun today,” she said as she kicked off her wedge heels and shoved her feet into boots that she kept beside the back door.
“I don’t know about Flynn, but I’m planning to do some laundry,” Sunday responded. “There’s not a whole lot of fun to be had there.”
“No, you’re not doing laundry. You’re going to town to taste a new chocolate ganache Mr. Lamont is making for Clementine’s wedding. She was going to do it, but she and Uncle Porter have to go to Spokane to shop for his tux. Remember?” Heavenly said.
Sunday thought she might. Vaguely.
“I . . . guess I do.”
“If you don’t, look at your calendar. I wrote it in for you. Ten o’clock. Maybe you guys can grab breakfast at the diner beforehand.” She grinned and dashed outside.
The next few minutes passed in a blur. Kids eating. Kids spilling. Kids chatting and bickering and grabbing lunch boxes and backpacks. At some point during the chaos, Heavenly reappeared, kicked off the hay-flecked boots, and slid into the heels.
“Oh my gosh!” she panted. “We are going to miss the bus, if we don’t get out of here right now!”
“I’ve been trying to tell everyone that,” Twila agreed, kissing Sunday’s cheek. “Have a good day, Mom. And don’t eat too much chocolate. You’ll get a stomachache. Oh. And bring an umbrella when you go out. It’s supposed to storm today.”
She skipped outside.
The other kids followed, offering hugs and kisses and words of advice until, finally, the kitchen was quiet except for the sound of Oya babbling happily as she tried to feed herself cereal from a bowl Rosie had set on the high chair tray.
“Well,” Rosie said, grabbing dirty bowls from the table and putting them in the sink. “That went very well. Don’t you think?”
“I can’t remember how it usually goes, so I have nothing to compare it to.”
“In that case, it went exceptionally well,” Rosie said, pouring two cups of coffee and handing one to her.
“I’ve been thinking about things,” she continued in a tone of voice that made Sunday’s heart sink.
“Have you?”
“Yes. Thinking about how this is your house, and I tend to do things my way. The cleaning, the cooking, the packing lunches. All the things that the woman of the house should decide about. I’m sure you had a routine before the accident. I’m sure I’ve messed it up something awful.” She spooned three scoops of sugar into her coffee and stirred. “My sister has a nice room at her place. Even has a bathroom attached to it. She said I could stay with her after I’ve outstayed my welcome here.”
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