A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel) (20 page)

Sitting in the swing beside them, Keegan twisted the chain until he faced them. For a while he was mesmerized by the sight of Therese’s legs, muscles flexing as she pushed off, stretching straight out, lengthening as she strove for the highest bit of air she could reach, then pumping. The skin was tanned and smooth but for a scar on this calf, a bruise on that ankle, and he wondered how those muscles would feel stretching and tightening against him.

He was following that thought in his head, out of the park, and into her bedroom, imagining his hands exploring those legs, stroking from her slender ankles over her calves, tickling the backs of her knees, reaching her thighs and the barrier of her clothing and going still farther, discovering—

“Kee—you—Celly’s boy!” On Therese’s lap, Mariah looked torn between pleasure and frustration.

A knot formed in his gut at the realization that this child who was living with him, who was in his care for the foreseeable future, had no name to call him.

Satisfied she had his attention, she laid her cheek against Therese’s and beamed. “Look at us. We’re flying.”

But Therese had stopped pushing and pumping, and they were gradually coming to a stop, the swing twisting side to side before she planted her feet. Mariah frowned. “I want to fly more.”

“Over here.” Therese carried her to the end of the set, next to the steel poles, and deposited her in a kiddy seat, warned her to hold on, pulled her back, and let go.

He picked up their shoes and slowly followed them, leaning against a post.

“She doesn’t call you Daddy.”

He shook his head. He’d been adamant about that with Ercella. “Daddy” meant something. It was reserved for her real father.

“Is Celly your mother?”

“Ercella. Mariah can’t quite get the whole thing out.”

“So your daughter calls you ‘Celly’s boy’?”

His face grew hot, and he knew from past experience that his ears had turned candy-apple red. “She…she hasn’t been with us long. She never talked to me. She never liked me enough to say anything besides ‘no no no.’ I just never thought…”

Therese gave her a harder push, sending her high enough to make her squeal. “If you’re not going to let her call you Daddy or Father or Pop, you should at least teach her your name.”

He wondered if she would leave it at that, but in the next breath, she asked, “Why can’t she call you Daddy or Father or Pop?”

His ears were probably starting to glow by now. He scuffed one foot over the rubber. It would please his mother to know that he pretty much always told the truth, but that wasn’t an option here. If he said,
Because I’m not her father,
then Therese would have more questions, starting with,
Who is?

That was a conversation he didn’t want to have right now.

“I—I’m not comfortable with it,” he said lamely.

“When it involves a child, it’s not your comfort that counts.”

He could let Mariah call him Daddy, for a while at least. She’d never had a father figure in her life, and she was too young to understand the complexity of the title. It would just be another name to her, like Celly, Abby, or Jacob. And it wasn’t like her real father was going to return from the grave to protest.

But Keegan understood the complexity of it. Calling him Daddy might mean no more to her than calling him Manny, Caillou, or Sid, her favorite cartoon characters, but it would mean a whole world of things to him. It would mean losing something when she left.

“It’s not my business,” Therese went on, “so here’s my last comment. Whether she lives with you or your mother, whether she goes back to her own mother, she needs something to call you for those times when ‘hey, you’ and ‘Celly’s boy’ just don’t cut it.”

Keegan nodded. Of course she was right. Damned if he liked any of the options, though. His sisters’ kids called him Uncle Keegan. His grandmother called him Keifer. Everyone else used Keegan, Logan, or Sergeant. None of them felt right for Mariah, and Daddy wasn’t open for discussion.

After a couple minutes went by in silence, he deliberately changed the subject. “I tried to get her to swing on the kids’ swings, and all she’d say was no no no.”

“I heard.” Therese caught hold of the seat and bent close. “You want to go really high?”

Mariah bobbed her head.

“Okay, hold on.” She backed up, lifting the seat until she stood on tiptoe, then she gave a great shove. The motion pulled her shirt above her belly button, and the bend that ended her follow-through tugged her shorts tight over the curve of her butt.

Keegan’s mouth went a little dry. Man, if the guys back home knew what sights awaited in a park, there would be traffic jams at the gates of every one.

“Your mistake was that you asked her. Did you notice that I didn’t ask? I just put her in the swing.”

“Yeah, well, if I’d done that, she’d’ve kicked and screamed.”

“Considering she doesn’t even know your name…”

He scowled at her. “I thought you’d made your last comment on the subject.”

“Yeah, I fibbed.”

Mariah began squirming in the seat. “I want to slide now, Trace.”

Therese stopped the swing in one smooth movement and lifted her to the ground. The kid shot off as if her life depended on reaching the jungle gym and its big red slide in the next five seconds. If she noticed the prickle of the grass on her bare feet, she gave no sign of it.

He handed Therese’s shoes to her, and she brushed the soles of her feet primly before putting them on. As they started after Mariah, she said, “If you’d gone to City Park, you could have staked out a prime spot for the kick-off of the spring concert series this evening.”

“I know. I saw the sign. But what are the odds I would have seen you there?”

Her cheeks turned pink. “Pretty slim. Tonight is country music, and I’d rather hear fingernails on blackboards. Not that we have blackboards in the classroom anymore.”

“I figured a cowgirl—” At the sharp look she cut him, he rephrased. “A ranch girl from Montana would love country music.”

“Heard enough of it in Montana to last me a lifetime. So…” They walked through a gate in the brightly painted fence that surrounded the jungle gym, and she chose a bench with a good view of all the exits. “Were you going to come by the house when you finished here?”

“Already been there once. No one was home.”

She didn’t look at him, but the words made her smile, just the tiniest bit. She sat, ankles together, spine straight, hands folded in her lap. He sprawled a few feet away, close enough to smell the faint scent of flowers—perfume, shampoo, laundry soap, he didn’t know. Just something that smelled like her.

“I had to take Abby to her friend’s house. She actually listened to me when I said she couldn’t ride with the sixteen-year-old newly licensed sister.”

The comment hung between them for a while before he asked the obvious question. “Does she usually not listen?”

Therese’s sigh was softer than the breeze in the leaves. “Her ears are very sensitive to the sound of my voice. Something about it sends her on a rampage.”

“She’s a teenager. She lost her dad—”

She laid one gentle hand on his arm. “I know all the reasons. I’ve been excusing her behavior with them for more than three years.”

Keegan’s gaze went automatically to her hand. Like her toes, her fingernails were pink, but not the same electric, hot-summer-days shade. This pink was softer, paler, subtler, only a few shades off from white. Her fingers were long and strong—riding horses, chopping firewood—but still too delicate for the diamond ring on her fourth finger. He doubted she’d picked out the honking big stone. More likely, Matheson had bought it, thinking to impress both his bride-to-be and everyone who saw the ring. Something smaller that took its dazzle factor from the cut or color or intricate setting would better suit her.

What would persuade her to take off the chunky diamond?

More than he wanted to consider at the moment.

“When Paul told me Catherine was sending the children to live with us, I envisioned the perfect blended family,” she went on, withdrawing her hand though he could still feel the warmth of it against his skin. “We were going to be the exception to the rule. Love and sunshine and happy endings. Instead, we were the very stereotype I wanted to avoid: the daughter who hates her evil stepmother and the mother who just wants the spoiled brat out of her life.”

Keegan stilled as her words penetrated the haze her simple touch had stirred. The heat dissipated with a breath, and chill dread lodged somewhere in his chest as he slowly lifted his gaze to hers.

Her smile was faint and vulnerable and helpless. “Does that make me an awful person?”

H
ank Williams—the original, not the son—played in the background while Jessy curled into the chair fronting the desk in the living room, feet tucked into the seat, arms wrapped around her legs. The computer was on, a slideshow of her own photographs filling the screen. Chin resting on her knees, she watched them with a photographer’s eye, noting composition, color, contrast, ignoring the memories of when she’d taken each shot, where, whether she was alone, whether there was anything memorable about it.

She’d been fourteen when she’d asked for a camera for Christmas. Already her life was unsettled, but something about looking at the world through a lens offered her solace. Distance. She’d taken the camera with her everywhere—still did most times, tucked inside oversized purses to accommodate it and the things a woman normally carried.

Few people saw her photos—pretty much only the friends who were comfortable enough to drop in on her. The margarita girls. Ilena had called them majestic and haunting. Jessy liked the descriptions. She liked that she could make someone feel something from seeing a scene the way she saw it.

The slide show progressed chronologically, now beginning what she jokingly called her Tallgrass period. Images of the murals, the buildings, the ranchland and woodlands and prairies all around. There were shots of horse heads—part of the mechanism of oil pump jacks—lighted and wreathed for Christmas, along with pictures of real horses grazing in green pastures. There was sunshine and snow and lightning streaking across a storm-darkened sky, trees whipped by the wind, even a tornado hovering above the ground.

With the exception of the margarita club, she rarely included people in her photographs. When she did, it was always from a perspective that revealed little, if anything, of their faces. Faces and emotions cluttered the shot.

Maybe that was because emotions cluttered her life.

A series of photos detailing the dignified transfer of Juan Gomez’s remains came on the screen: a sunny day, American flags whipping in the breeze, hundreds of people thronging the route, the Patriot Guard motorcyclists, the long line of police cars from the city, the county, and the highway patrol. A viewer could have mistaken it for a parade except for the sorrow that filled the very air.

She’d never shown the photos to Ilena. She hadn’t known her at the time, and once they’d met, at the third meeting of the Tuesday Night Margarita Club, it had never seemed appropriate to say, “I took pictures of the second or third saddest day of your life. Wanna see them?”

She did remember praying one of her rare prayers between shots.
God, give her the strength to get through this.

Who knew Jessy could be part of the answer to a prayer?

Her own saddest days were easy to list: worst, the day she’d gotten the casualty notification call. Second, the day Aaron’s body had arrived home for burial. Third, the day of the funeral. Fourth, practically every day since then.

Why hadn’t she loved him as much as he’d loved her? What was wrong with her? Was she damaged goods, as her father had claimed? Selfish and caring only about herself, as her mother said?

Her only comfort was that Aaron had never known. No one knew she’d planned to file for divorce. No one knew she’d been happier without him than she ever would have been with him.

The ring of her cell phone came during a lull in the music, startling a small jump out of her. Letting her feet slide to the floor, she pulled the phone from her pocket, drew a breath, and with the best show of fake cheer for the day said, “You’ve reached Jessy, who has nothing to do this Friday evening, so please have something fun to suggest.”

After a moment of silence, a laugh sounded over the line. “Do you always answer the phone like that?” It was Fia Thomas, the youngest of their group in years if not burdens.

“Only when I’m bored. Do you have something fun to suggest?”

“Not unless they’ve redefined the word. I—I have a favor to ask.”

Jessy’s brows arched. That was unusual. Fia was fierce in her independence. That was what happened when a girl pretty much raised herself. “Yes.”

“You haven’t even heard it.”

“I don’t need to hear it. Yes, I’ll do it. You know I love you more than my apartment.”

Fia laughed, as Jessy had intended. All the margarita girls knew her attachment to these four walls and the space they protected. “It’s nothing drastic. I just…I need a ride home.”

“Car trouble?”

“Um, no. The car’s fine.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just…I don’t think I should be driving.”

Every nerve in Jessy’s body went on alert. She’d never seen Fia drink a lot, and on recent Tuesdays, she’d hardly touched her margaritas. Granted, that didn’t mean she wasn’t drinking in private—how well Jessy knew that—but she figured one drinker could recognize a kindred spirit in another.

Drinker, she emphasized for her own benefit. Not drunk. Not alcoholic.

“No problem. You know I never get to drive enough, not with working down the block and all the restaurants in walking distance. Where are you?”

“At the gym.” There was a hint of relief in Fia’s voice. “I’ll meet you out front.”

“I’ll be there in five.” Jessy hung up, shoved her feet into sandals, slung her purse over her shoulder, and headed downstairs. It was only a few feet to the alley, then halfway down the alley to the tiny parking lot behind the building where her car pretty much stayed.

Had Fia’s voice been a little slurred? Not really, but she had sounded…off. No way she was using drugs. She was a personal trainer, and she was in better shape than ninety percent of the soldiers on post whose lives depended on physical conditioning. She wouldn’t work so hard to get in such good shape only to put poison in her system.

She was coming down with something. Jessy was sure it was nothing more than that.

The gym was located on East Main, across from the main gate onto the fort. It was open twenty-four/seven, but Fia generally finished her day about seven except on Tuesdays. She really must be feeling bad to cancel her last couple appointments and call for a ride.

Even that thought didn’t prepare Jessy for the surprise when Fia walked out the door. It wasn’t just her limp; strains and sprains were part of the territory for her. It wasn’t the lines of pain etched around her eyes and mouth. There was an air about her of…Jessy didn’t even know how to describe it. Frailty. Wrongness.

Fia tossed her gym bag in the backseat before climbing into the front. “I really appreciate it.”

“What’s wrong, doll? You look like hell.”

With an unsteady smile, Fia brushed her off. “I have the queen bitch of all headaches. My mom used to call them sick headaches. I didn’t know what she meant until I had my own.”

“Nauseated, queasy, God-just-shoot-me-now.” Jessy nodded. She’d had more than a few of those, but hers were usually preceded by a night with too much booze. She waited until Fia was settled with her seat belt fastened, then pulled back onto Main.

Fia laid her head back, closed her eyes, and sighed.

“You want to go to the hospital? They should be able to give you a shot or a pill or something to stick where things shouldn’t be stuck and make you feel all better.”

“Nah. I just need to lie still in a dark room for a while. I’ll be fine.”

“Have you eaten anything?”

“Ugh. Not for a while. I’m pretty sure it would just come back up.”

She fell silent, and Jessy was fine with that. She did wonder, though, as she turned onto the street that wound through a business complex before reaching the apartment complex where Fia lived, why her friend had called her. Jessy wasn’t the first one to come to anyone’s mind, even her own, when they thought motherly, nurturing, caregiving.

Process of elimination. Carly was with Dane. Therese was waging yet another battle with the demon children. Ilena was visiting Juan’s family, and Lucy and Marti were probably out shopping for Lucy’s new oven.

And Jessy was fine with that, too. She loved her girls, but it was better for everyone if they didn’t count on her too much. Hell, she still didn’t know where she’d been or what she’d done Wednesday night. If she couldn’t even be responsible for herself, how could she ever be there for anyone else?

Therese had shocked Keegan with her admission about Abby. Oh, he’d assured her that saying she wanted to be free of Paul’s problem child didn’t make her a horrible person, but she’d seen the widening of his eyes. Had felt in the air the stillness that had spread through him so quickly.

She shouldn’t have told him. No one knew but the margarita club, LoLo, the JAG officer she’d spoken to, and the chaplain. She hadn’t even discussed it with her own pastor, because she hadn’t wanted anyone who saw Abby regularly to know. There was no reason to tell Keegan except that he was easy to talk to and he was in a similar situation with Mariah, and she…Well, she thought people who were more or less dating, even if it was temporary because one of them lived four hundred miles away, even if it was really just a practice relationship for when the real thing came along, should be honest about things.

Too late for regrets now, wasn’t it?

The growl of motors cut through the early evening quiet. Someone was mowing nearby. Someone else was using a weed trimmer. Barely audible over that was the mournful wail of the basset hound who lived a block over from her, along with the barks of a half dozen other dogs. Growing up, she’d always had dogs of her own, along with chickens, calves, and horses. They would teach her responsibility, her dad always said.

Cleaning up after them, worrying about them, doctoring their ills, and handling their middle-of-the-night feedings would prepare her for motherhood, her mother said with a smirk.

A herd of the most recalcitrant calves that ever lived had nothing on Abby.

Oh, how Abby would loathe being compared to bovine babies.

Because conversation had lagged in the past half hour since her revelation, she picked a subject that came to mind from time to time, only to be pushed away by something more important. “Why are you still in Tallgrass?”

Keegan was leaning forward now, elbows resting on his knees, hands loosely clasped and dangling. He looked just as relaxed as he had earlier when he’d sprawled bonelessly on the bench, pre-giving-up-Abby bomb. He tilted his head to look at her, but the grin she’d come to expect wasn’t there. “I’m pretty sure the Chamber of Commerce thinks it’s a destination in and of itself.”

“Yeah, they get paid to think that. It’s been nearly a week since you came to talk to Paul. He’s gone, but you’re still here. Why?” She had asked him once before, and his answer had been simple.
I’m on leave. I’m just taking things as they come
. But there were so many different places to see, especially now that he had Mariah. He could go to Tulsa or Oklahoma City, with their zoos and children’s museums and family activities. He could go to Arizona and be near his brother during his recuperation, or stop off in Dallas with its big-city fun things to do.

He watched Mariah for a moment, but that was a delaying tactic. The girl wasn’t timid by any means, but neither was she adventurous. She didn’t get stuck in the twisty slide, afraid to let go, or try to climb to the ground on top of it instead of inside it. She wasn’t huddling on the rope bridge, too scared to run to the secure end, or testing a hypothesis that she could fly if she just got to the highest point of the playground and leaped.

Finally Keegan shifted his gaze to Therese, and the faintest hint of that charming grin appeared. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

She shook her head.

“You. You’re the reason I’m still here.”

It took a moment for his meaning to sink in. Still, cautiously, she clarified, “Because the children who can stop Mariah’s tears as easily as turning off a faucet live with me?”

He shook his head.

“Because you might decide that talking to me is the next best thing to talking to Paul?”

“No.” Something unidentifiable flashed through his eyes.

The sensation curling through her was sweet, warm, pleasurable, and it reminded her of how much she’d loved Paul, how long he’d been gone, and how alive she still was. It made her feel not like a widow, a stepmother, an anxious mass of sorrows and indecision, but like a woman, and she hadn’t felt like a woman in such a long time.

“Because my ribs are better than yours?” she teased.

He took the opportunity to slide his gaze from her face: over her breasts, her rib cage, her hips, and all the way down her legs to her ridiculously painted toes. By the time he met her eyes again, the warmth had turned to heat, simmering just beneath the surface of her skin, and it seemed to reach out to him, adding a touch of crimson to his cheeks and neck.

“Honey, your everything is better,” he said, sounding as if he needed to clear his throat.

Wow. For a moment, that was all she could hear in the rushing that filled her ears and her head. The man she’d thought would make a great practice boyfriend was actually interested in that, too.
Wow.

At least, in the boyfriend part. She didn’t know his feelings on the temporary nature that seemed inevitable to her. Time to find out, right?

“You live in another state,” she pointed out.

“I know. But I can be here at least another week, and I can probably extend it a week beyond that.”

But even after a few more weeks, he would still go home to Louisiana. It wasn’t as if he could decide to move to Tallgrass to give their relationship its best chance. The Army got final say on where he lived.

“Planes and highways travel both ways,” he added.

She pressed the palms of her hands together between her knees and felt the bite of her engagement diamond against her flesh. “You’re a soldier.”

She didn’t need to say more. He acknowledged it with a nod. “Until the end of my enlistment. Then I can stay a soldier, or I can go back to being a firefighter or a paramedic. I can do whatever I want, Therese. I’m not bound to any particular job.”