The Daughter He Wanted (28 page)

Kaylie chattered about preschool for a few minutes with Dot, and Paige imagined the indulgent expression on her mother’s face. When Paige was a child, the indulgent expression meant Dot was distracted and not really listening. With Kaylie it meant she was taking in every word. Absorbing them, tucking them away so she could ask questions later.

Paige frowned. Now she was jealous of her daughter? She really had to get a grip on her emotions. A few minutes later Kaylie handed the phone back and returned her attention to the game. Paige gave her a five-minute warning before turning her attention to the phone.

“You will send something to the gallery tonight?”

She closed her eyes. She could lie, say yes and deal with it later. Or she could grow up and deal with it now. Including not letting what happened next cloud their evening with Alex.

“No, Mother, although I appreciate you talking me up to the curator, and reminding me about the opportunity. I have too much on my plate right now with school and Kaylie and—”

“And that man, I suppose.” Dot’s tone cooled immensely, not that it had been overly warm from the moment Paige said hello. “Paige, you cannot continue to allow men to run your life or shape your career.”

“I’m not, Mother. My career is my choice. Teaching makes me happy. Painting for Kaylie or the school makes me happy.”
Alex makes me happy.
She didn’t say those words aloud, thank goodness. “I wish you could be happy for me.”

Dot sighed, the sound more menacing than sad. “I wish you could see how much talent you’re wasting in a classroom when you could be painting landscapes around the world. You could be showing Kaylie that world—”

“She has school, Mother, and I’m not interested in painting the lost landscapes of France or Turkey.” Although she wouldn’t mind painting the barn on Alex’s parkland. She twisted her mouth to the side and walked into the living room to turn the empty canvas on its side. Just enough space.

“Please. Nannies and tutors would be better for Kaylie than that backwater town you live in.”

“Mother, stop. You lived in this ‘backwater’ town for fifteen years, remember?”

“And then we realized you needed more than reading, writing and arithmetic. Paige, you had an international education. You know the benefits of experiencing other cultures, learning new languages. It would be so good for her.”

Yes, she knew all about being dropped in a foreign country, not knowing the language, not knowing a single soul.

“Mother, thank you.” Paige put a hard note into her voice. “Thank you for believing in my talent, but you have to accept that we have different dreams for me. I like living in a small town, I like teaching school and, yes, I like Alex. I have a good life and it’s exactly what I want. I’ll talk to you soon.” She hung up before Dot could say anything more. Set the phone back in its charger.

And realized she still held her sketch pad in her other hand.

She doodled her name with Alex’s across the page. She’d drawn a unicorn and a few hundred hearts. Sketched his hand holding hers in a corner.

The sound of his truck snapped Paige back to the present. She closed the book and put it under one of the couch cushions.

She loved Alex Ryan.

Tonight might be the perfect time to tell him.

* * *

A
LEX’S PHONE BLEEPED
and he glanced at the readout. Alison.

When will you have you-know-who out of the house?

Trick-or-treating starts at six, so anytime after. I’ll keep them on candy watch until at least seven. You have the cake?

She texted him a googly-eye-rolling smiley face.

Of course I have it. You have mad cake-ordering skills. The house will be perfect by seven.

Thank you.

He pocketed the cell phone. He could have planned Paige’s surprise birthday party without Alison’s help, but he couldn’t have readied the house while still having his first trick-or-treat night with his daughter. And Paige deserved to be remembered on her birthday.

The clock on Sue’s stove clicked past five and Alex folded his hands together. He’d taken a half-day off work because Sue called that morning, asking him to help her move a few things from Deanna’s childhood room into the attic. A good sign, he thought, but then the moving of things was sidetracked by every piece of memorabilia Dee had collected during her teenage years.

“Can’t you stay? Just for one cup of coffee?” Sue’s faded blue eyes begged him to stay.

“I can’t, Sue,” he said, feeling like a heel because he couldn’t bear the thought of spending five more minutes inside this kitchen that now housed a few high school yearbooks, some cheerleading ribbons and various other paraphernalia. He didn’t have the words that Sue needed to hear. She studiously avoided talk of Kaylie or Paige, keeping the conversation focused on life precancer, and Alex was sick of it. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Why don’t we plan to have dinner next week?”

She dabbed the corner of her eye with a tissue and nodded. “I guess I’ll have to accept that you have other priorities now.” Her voice cracked on the last words.

“I’ll call you to set it up,” Alex said before he could think twice about coffee and holding Sue’s hand until she felt better. Before he could say his priorities were the same as they had always been: family, work, fun. It was just that his family included more people now.

“When you’re here, it’s like nothing has changed.”

Okay, he had to suggest it. “I think you need to talk to someone. Someone other than me or John or your friends.” He felt like the worst kind of son as he said the words. Sue had been fragile since Dee’s death, but over the past few weeks her depression had become a breathing thing that changed her from the woman he knew.

Sue scraped her chair across the tile floor and stood. Stalked to the sink to rinse out her coffee mug. “I’ve lost my daughter.”

“But we’re still here. John. Me. Dee is gone and she isn’t coming back,” he said, echoing Tuck’s words to him from a few days before. “We are still here.”

She put her hands on the counter and rocked. “Go on, whatever your plans are you go ahead. I do not need mental help.” She choked out the words.

“Sue—”

She cut him off. “No, go, Alex. You obviously have something more important than your family to deal with tonight. Just go.” She whispered the last words, her shoulders shaking.

Alex started to reach across the space between them but let his hands drop. Because he couldn’t soothe Sue’s pain, not this time.

Paige and Kaylie had given him a glimpse of life and he was damned if he’d put that light out. Not even for Dee’s mother.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A
T SIX O’CLOCK
on the nose Alex’s truck pulled to a stop before Paige’s house. Her heart skipped a beat when he jumped from the cab with the cellophane-wrapped Charlie Brown costume in his hands. She shook herself, mentally wiping the goofy grin she knew was on her face off before she opened the door.

“Sorry, I got held up. Two minutes and we’ll be in sugar-heaven.” He rushed by her and into the powder room but was back in a heartbeat. “You look amazing. I don’t think Lucy van Pelt had legs like yours.” He kissed her, a quick, hot press of lips. “And I’m positive she never kissed Charlie like this.”

“I don’t know. That psychiatrist couch had to be good for something.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Do you have one of those around here?”

Paige pushed him toward the powder room. “Two minutes. I don’t think I can hold Kaylie back any longer.”

As if on cue, Kaylie hurried into the hallway with her bucket on her arm. “Is it time yet?”

Alex whirled around, grinning at the little girl. “Sorry, Snoopy, we’ll head out in two minutes.”

She giggled. “I’m not Snoopy, I’m Kaylie.”

He pushed the costume head back, examining Kaylie’s face in the small opening. “So you are.”

Paige distracted Kaylie with setting up the candy bowl and sign reading “Please take one” for the neighborhood kids while Alex changed, and then they started down the street. She shot a glance in his direction. Even in the skullcap that made him look as bald as Charlie Brown, Alex drew her attention. Made her tummy flutter and her knees go weak. The man was a menace in the best possible way, she decided, and then made one more decision: just for tonight, as her birthday present to herself, she wasn’t going to worry about loving him. She wouldn’t think about his past or hers. She would enjoy this moment with all her heart.

Paige snapped pictures as Kaylie skipped up driveways and sidewalks, telling the adults she could do this on her own. Love clogged her throat as she watched her little girl, who had been too afraid to go near any of the houses even though she knew everyone in the neighborhood just last year, sing the Halloween chant and come running back with more and more candy.

Mrs. Purcell, dressed in a black witch’s robe with a pointy hat on her head, handed out caramel apples. She offered Paige a finger wave and a wink when she saw Alex making the rounds with them. Paige tried not to feel too optimistic that her elderly neighbor seemingly approved of her choice in men, but nosy and curmudgeonly or not, Mrs. Purcell was a good judge of character.

By six-thirty Kaylie was slowing down, and Paige had emptied her bucket once already. They’d made it around half the neighborhood.

“I think she’s had it. And we’ve definitely gotten enough candy for three families,” Paige said.

Kaylie disagreed—loudly. “I haven’t gotten to Brie’s house yet. I wanna keep going.”

“I definitely think that is enough, young lady,” Paige said, cringing when she sounded more like Dot than herself. She shook the plastic bag filled with candy and then Kaylie’s bucket. “We have enough candy here to last ’til Christmas.”

Kaylie batted her hazel eyes at Paige. “Please?”

Alex joined in, complete with batting eyelashes. “Yeah,
pleeeze
?” He drew out the word.

Paige laughed. “You two are incorrigible. Fine, we continue on. But I’m not carrying you.”

Kaylie was already off, scampering across the next neighbor’s yard in search of goodies. She got a pencil with Snoopy on it and crowed. Just after seven, they turned the corner to Paige’s house and she blinked. At least ten cars sat along the normally quiet street as the sun sank lower in the west.

“What is going on?”

“They must be coming in from all over the county,” Alex said quickly. “Good thing we got started on time.” He took Kaylie’s hand and started walking again. Paige couldn’t put her finger on it but something was off about this. There were cars, but where were the people?

She hurried to catch up with Alex and Kaylie, who were talking about the merits of Lemonheads versus SweeTarts—SweeTarts were winning but mostly because Kaylie kept using the “because I said so” defense. Paige smiled. Maybe it was time to come up with another reason besides that for when Kaylie didn’t want to follow the rules.

“I’ll replenish the candy bowl for any latecomers. Why don’t you two go on around back? We’ll build a fire and finish off the night in style,” Alex suggested.

Paige didn’t want this night to end. Not when it had been such a crappy afternoon. Not when she had decided not to let said crappy afternoon kill her birthday.

Kaylie pulled Alex’s hand and when he bent down, whispered something in his ear. He shot a quick glance at Paige, a smile she couldn’t quite decipher on his full lips. Nodding, he said, “Yeah, it’s time,” and Kaylie squealed as she jumped up and down. Before Paige could ask what was going on, Kaylie grabbed her hand and began pulling her around the house to the backyard.

“Fire pit! Fire pit! I get to stay up for the fire pit!” she chanted all the way through the side yard. Together they rounded the corner and Paige stopped dead in her tracks.

Fairy lights blinked throughout her trees and along the rails of her deck, casting a comforting glow in the dusky evening. A few Chinese lanterns glowed from low-hanging branches and Tiki torches lit the paving stones leading from the trampoline in the yard to the large wooden deck.

“Happy birthday, Mama,” Kaylie screeched, pulling Paige forward as Alison, Tuck and a host of her friends yelled, “Surprise!” from the deck. They tossed streamers into the trees as they yelled and they broke into the Happy Birthday song as Alex came through the sliding glass door. There were two Dorothys, a Scarecrow and a few witches and superhero costumes, as well. Alison and Tuck were dressed as Rhett and Scarlett from
Gone With the Wind
.

Paige put her hand to her heart to keep it from pounding through her ribs. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes and she swiped at them to keep the tears from falling.

Scratch that crappy afternoon. Scratch everything. This was the best thirtieth birthday she could have asked for.

Alex pulled a long-handled lighter from his back pocket and began lighting candles on the cake as the group started in on a second verse. Paige noticed Mrs. Purcell and a few other neighborhood ladies on the porch singing loudly and off-key, and then Alex motioned her to join them.

Kaylie bounded up the steps ahead of Paige but didn’t swipe at the icing like she normally would have. She turned, beaming, and said proudly, “I didn’t spoil the surprise, Mama.”

“No, baby, you made the surprise perfect,” Paige managed as the singing died down.

“Make a wish! Make a wish!” Kaylie ordered from her perch beside the small table set up with more of the colorful streamers and a hot-pink plastic cloth that read, “Thirty But Still Flirty.”

Alex smiled across the shimmering cake, decorated with splashes of her favorite purples, blues and greens, and it was as if the moment stretched out until just the two of them were there. Alex watching her, Paige watching him and the cake between them.

Paige squeezed her eyes closed. Squinted through one eyelid at the man across the table from her and then made her wish. Everyone clapped and Alison appeared with a knife to cut the cake while their friend Hannah took drink orders and the neighborhood ladies took up position in the most comfortable of Paige’s wicker deck chairs.