Just for Fun (29 page)

It hit him then that if
they
knew it was different, it was official—he was past the point of no return.

“She’s awesome.”

Dooley looked up to find Kevin handing him plates.

“You have a bigger mouth than I ever realized,” he said easily.

“They forced me,” Kevin said. “They threatened to duct tape me to a chair and make me watch porn if I didn’t tell them everything I knew.”

A few years ago the porn would have hardly been a threat. Kevin was as red-blooded and male as any of them. But once he’d found God he’d tried to clean up his act. Not that he would have
hated
the forced porn-watching, but he would have felt guilty.

“So you caved.” Not that Dooley minded. He liked that Morgan fit in with them and that they were accepting her. In fact, tonight made it all feel very real. And very good.

“Paybacks are a bitch, as they say,” Kevin told him.

He was right. Dooley deserved all of this. In fact, it could have been worse.

“I think Ben, Sam and Mac are all enjoying that fact a lot right now,” Kevin said.

Dooley glanced over at the table. The guys had Morgan laughing and blushing about something. But he wasn’t too worried. For one thing, Morgan James could more than handle herself. For another, the girls would intervene if the guys got too out of hand. Probably.

“She took her underwear off in the bowling alley?” Mac called over to Dooley. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of this?”

Dooley looked at Morgan, who seemed to be proud to have told them yet something else that amazed them.

“For the same reason we never did get the story about the pink fur wedge that showed up on your kitchen table once Sara moved in,” Dooley said.

“Careful with the Sara info,” Sam warned.

But the guys all nodded their understanding. It was because you didn’t talk that way about the woman you loved.

Damn if it didn’t feel good to admit he was in love with Morgan.

“Dooley?” Jessica called. “Could you bring Dani a beer? She hasn’t had anything to drink yet.”

“I’m good,” Danika said quickly. “I’m ready for dessert. Beer doesn’t go well with brownies.”

Jessica pinned her with a direct stare. “You’ve only been drinking water.”

“So?” Dani shifted on her seat.

“For days,” Jessica added. “What gives?”

The whole room was quiet. Dani looked at Sam who, even if his life depended on it, couldn’t keep a secret.

“She’s pregnant,” he announced with a flourish.

“I knew it,” Jessica said triumphant, coming out of her chair to hug her sister-in-law.

Sara bounced up as well, throwing her arms around her brother. “Yay!”

Congratulations continued and Dooley caught Morgan’s eye over Ben’s head.

It almost knocked him on his ass.

He wanted that. With her.

“Damn,” he breathed as the strength of the emotions hit him.

“Yeah.”

Kevin’s tone drew Dooley’s attention. He was smiling for their friends, but he looked a little sad. “What’s up?”

“I want that.”

Dooley looked back at Sam. His friend was beaming. The notorious playboy looked ecstatic about being a soon-to-be dad. “I want that too.”

“Morgan’s the one?” Kevin asked.

“I think so.” No, he
knew
so.

“Then you have to go for it.”

Dooley looked up at him again. “You’ll have it too someday.”

Kevin sighed and leaned back against the sink. “I don’t know. I think I had it and it got away.”

Dooley turned to look at him squarely. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“The girl in high school? You think she was your only chance?”

Kevin shrugged. “I have watched all of my best friends fall in love. I see them with their wives, now I see you with Morgan…” He sighed again. “I can’t imagine feeling that way about anybody else.”

Dooley didn’t know what to say. All he knew about this woman from Kevin’s past was it had been a long time ago and his pre-Christian lifestyle had been a part of the problem. He also suspected the girl had something to do with Kevin’s reformation, but Kevin didn’t talk about her much. Dooley didn’t even know her name.

“You ever think of finding her?” he asked.

But just as Kevin opened his mouth to reply, Sara shrieked, “
Really?”

Dooley turned.

Morgan was nodding. “Of course. I’d love to have you all. It will be a great party. I’ll put you all on the list.”

Sara grabbed her sister’s hand. “We have to go shopping!”

Dani groaned. “We do?”

“We can’t show up at the Britton in jeans and tennis shoes,” Sara admonished.

The Britton party? Dooley stared at Morgan. She’d invited them all to her anniversary bash?

She was a brave woman.

And if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up proposing to her before he’d known her for a whole month.

Finally, it was time for the guys to get started for work. The kitchen was cleaned up in record time and leftovers packed up.

“Oh, hey, I brought this for you,” Mac said, handing what looked like a magazine to Morgan.

She looked at the front. “
Cosmo
?”

“I marked the article for you,” Mac said.

She opened to where the sticky note stuck out. “Top Ten Best Sex Positions,” she read out loud.

“Dooley likes number four.”

“The Couch Canoodle?” she asked.

“Okay, time to go.” Dooley clapped his hands together. “It’s been great. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

Laughing Mac started for the door.

“But hey, we haven’t gone over the anti-ogling rules,” Sam protested as Dooley tried to herd them toward the exit.

“Ogle her all you want,” Dooley told him. “As long as you’re on your way
out
as you do it.”

The next night, Morgan waited patiently on the porch of Doug’s house. It was long past time he would be at work so she knew he wasn’t home, but she couldn’t seem to stop cooking. The tuna casserole and lasagna had gotten her hooked. Now she wanted to see what the consensus was about her baking.

Senior and Doug’s sister and niece would be here now. Surely they would give her an opinion on her brownies.

Finally she heard footsteps near the door. A moment later it swung open to reveal a woman who was most certainly Doug’s sister, Lisa. Who looked like she’d drug herself to the door.

“Hi.” Lisa leaned against the door and tried to smile. “You must be Morgan.”

“Yes,” Morgan said with surprise. “How’d you know?”

“Not too many gorgeous redheads showing up on this porch.” She leaned forward to open the screen door. “Doug isn’t here, but Dad would love to see you.”

“I know he’s at work. I don’t want to butt in on your family time. I just brought some brownies.”

“Oh, god.” Lisa jerked back, spun and ran down the hallway.

Morgan stared after her. Um…

She wandered into the living room. Senior was sitting with a little girl on his lap. She was reading to him. But neither of them looked so good either.

“Hi.” Senior gave her a big smile. “Sick,” he said pointing at Kaitlyn.

“How about you?” Morgan asked, setting the brownies on the table next to the couch. He looked pale.

“Yep,” he said with a sigh.

“Oh, no.” She went over to them. Kaitlyn’s forehead was hot and her cheeks flushed. “What’s wrong?”

“Me and Mommy are throwing up,” Kaitlyn said. “Grandpa’s tummy hurts too.”

Morgan looked up at Senior. “Honey, how about we get you comfy on the couch? We can let Grandpa rest.”

Senior smiled but shook his head. It didn’t matter to him. He was willing to risk a few germs to cuddle his granddaughter.

“This makes us both feel better,” Kaitlyn said.

Morgan smiled. “I can understand that.” Purely on impulse she leaned in and kissed Senior’s temple. “Let me see if I can find some stuff to make you feel better.”

Lisa came out of the bathroom as Morgan headed for the kitchen. “I know we’ve never met,” Morgan said. “But you look terrible.”

Lisa gave her a weak smile. “That makes sense. I feel terrible.”

“How can I help?”

“You should go,” Lisa said. “Before you get it. I feel bad enough exposing Dad, but I had to come over. Jeni’s kids have a thing tonight and we all agreed the kids’ activities were important.” She leaned against the wall as if she was having trouble keeping herself up. “We made a pact.”

“A pact?” Morgan asked.

“Me and Jeni and Doug. Doug especially made us promise. We would do normal parent stuff. We wouldn’t keep the kids out of sports or not volunteer on committees and stuff just because we needed to be here. We agreed to make it work. But Tim’s out of town and Lance and Kevin and Doug are working…” She trailed off, covering her stomach with her hand and closing her eyes for a moment.

“I know you could call Doug. The guys would cover him,” Morgan said. She knew Doug had no idea his sister and niece were sick or he’d be here.

“He does so much already,” Lisa said, shaking his head. “He does
everything
. Thank God he doesn’t have anyone…” She trailed off, looking sheepish. “I’m sorry. That was…totally inappropriate.”

Morgan felt her chest tighten. Doug didn’t have anyone who needed him as much as his dad and sisters did. He didn’t have a wife and kids. Because of that his sisters and their families could do what they wanted and needed to do. “It’s okay,” she assured Lisa. “No offense.”

She wasn’t offended. But she did feel like she wanted to do
something
.

“How much help does he need?” she asked, gesturing toward their dad. He couldn’t hear them as Kaitlyn was reading to him again.

“Just with getting up and down, to be safe. He doesn’t need to be lifted or anything, just steadied. He used to do more by himself but he had a couple of falls last year. One was bad and he broke his hip. Since then we all want someone here with him when he’s in and out of the wheelchair.” Lisa lifted her hand and pushed her hair back from her forehead, looking exhausted. “He needs help opening his pill bottles. If he gets sick, he’ll obviously need more help. But that’s the thing. He doesn’t need someone constantly, but he needs someone often enough that he can’t be alone for too long at once. Mostly because he’ll try to do too much.”

“I’ll stay.” Morgan heard herself say it before she thought about it, but of course, it made sense. “You need to go home. In fact, let me drive you and Kaitlyn. You shouldn’t even do that. We can swing by somewhere and get some ginger ale and crackers, we’ll get you tucked in and then I’ll come back here. I was hoping for a card game or something tonight anyway.”

She hadn’t been able to make it for dinner because of a meeting with a bride and her mother for an upcoming wedding reception. They hadn’t been able to meet until they had gotten off of work themselves. She’d missed being here with Doug and his family more than she could believe and the idea of not seeing any of them was too depressing.

Lisa shook her head. “I couldn’t ask you to do that.” She closed her eyes again, then spun and bolted for the bathroom.

Morgan smiled in spite of Lisa’s obvious misery. She didn’t think Lisa would argue too hard when she came back out.

Twenty minutes later, she had Lisa and Kaitlyn tucked in on the couch at their house, ginger ale and saltines on the coffee table and Disney’s
Beauty and the Beast
in the DVD player. “Here’s my cell number,” she told Lisa, laying the note next to Lisa’s phone. “Call me for anything. It’s not a big deal.”

Lisa smiled up at her. “I can see why Doug likes you.”

Morgan paused. Doug himself had told her he loved her, but hearing his sister—not his rowdy, give-him-a-hard-time-constantly friends—tell her he liked her seemed to grab her heart. “You can?” she asked.

“Obviously you’re like him. You jump in and help out however you need to. You’ve never even met us before and you’re taking care of us.”

Morgan liked that idea. She’d never met someone like Doug. Someone who was so willing to do whatever it took to be sure the people he cared about were taken care of. She wanted to be like that. She cared about these people who were important to him.

“It’s my pleasure,” she said honestly.

“Call if you have any questions about things with Dad,” Lisa said, sleepily.

“We’ll manage,” Morgan said as Kaitlyn snuggled in closer to her mom and Lisa’s eyes slid shut.

A lump formed in her throat at the sight.

She wanted this.

All of this. All of them. She wanted to be a part of this complicated, extended family Doug had around him.

“See you,” she whispered as she let herself out of the house.

The minute she was in the door at Doug’s, Senior was gesturing.

“They’re fine,” she said. “Asleep on the couch.”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

She took his hand. “No problem. How are you?”

He lifted his hand and wiggled it back and forth.

“So, so?” she clarified. “Okay, I brought ginger ale for you too.”

She got him settled in the recliner with a blanket and a big yellow bowl in case he needed to throw up. Then she curled up on the couch across from him. “What did you do for a living before you retired?” she asked him.

“Ho…ho…” Senior struggled to form the word. Often he would get hung up on certain syllables or sounds. He waved a hand, dismissing that, then reached for the pen and pad next to his chair. He scribbled something, then held it up for her.

“Hotel?” she read. She looked at him. “You worked in a hotel.”

“M…mine,” he managed, pointing at himself.

“Yours?” She thought about that. “The hotel was yours?”

He slowly put up ten fingers.

“Ten? You had ten hotels?” she asked. How had Doug not mentioned this? How did she not know? What had happened? She sat up straighter on the couch.

Senior shook his head and held up six more fingers.

“Sixteen?”

He shook his head and scribbled on the paper.

“You had
sixty
hotels?” she asked, reading the number. “How many now?”

He closed his hand into a fist and shook his head. “Gone.”