Unexpected Family (12 page)

He picked it up from the ground behind them and handed it to her. “You’re not…you’re not going back in there, are you?”

“No.” She took a deep breath and swung the purse up over her shoulder. “I know the taxi idea is ridiculous, Jeremiah. I know it’s not me, or what I do, but I don’t do the thing that made me me anymore and I…well…I guess I’m floundering.”

“You’re allowed to flounder, Lucy.”

She smiled into his face, cupping his cheek in her soft hand. “So are you, Jeremiah.”

“Well—” he took a deep breath “—I’d like to flounder with you again sometime.”

She laughed and the bird in the bushes finally gave up his roost, flying up into the night. “Me, too, Jeremiah, me, too.”

They walked, not quite hand in hand, but with their arms touching as if their skin was magnetized, and maybe it was, he thought.

“I’ll pick up Aaron on Tuesday,” she said.

“I thought you weren’t doing the taxi thing.”

Her fingers touched his face, glanced off his cheek, his lips. “It’s a favor,” she said. “For a friend.”

She got in the car and drove away and he watched until the red of her taillights disappeared into the distance.

Friend. He tasted the word, rolled it around on his tongue. It’s why he’d come to the bar tonight, why Dr. Gilman had sent him out of her office.

But she didn’t feel like any friend he’d ever had before. And it wasn’t because of what they’d done behind this bar. It was because in this new landscape he lived in now, he’d never had a friend. Maybe when life was hard, friendships came with some extra complexities. All his drinking buddies from the old life, they had faded away after the accident and he barely mourned them.

What could they possibly have in common?

Reese, the most stubborn of them, was still calling, but not with the same frequency after his visit up here.

Friend.

He didn’t know how to feel about it, so in the end he just left it alone, watching her car vanish until the heat she’d called to his skin, to his heart, turned cool, and then finally when he was numb again he got in his car and headed home.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
UESDAY
AFTERNOON
,
THE
SECOND
the car door closed behind Aaron he talked. He talked nonstop. About hockey. About school. Kids she’d never heard of. It was as if the boy’s cork had been stuck and she managed to get it free, just by putting him in her car.

The only word in edgewise she managed to get in was when she noticed a sign for McDonald’s and asked him if he wanted something to eat.

“I’ve got a sandwich,” he said. He pulled out a smooshed peanut-butter-and-jelly from his school bag and offered her some of it.

So charming, these Stone boys. She smiled and waved it off. “I’m fine.”

It took him a few minutes to eat and the silence that filled the car was slightly awkward. A little too aware.

“Is Ben actually working at your house?” he asked, scrunching up the sandwich’s plastic bag and shoving it in his book bag.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I don’t think he is.”

“He’s not exactly cooperative.”

Aaron laughed through his nose. “He’s making Uncle J. crazy.”

She put her elbow out her opened window, holding back the hair that wanted to fly in her face. “That is true.”

“Do you think he’ll leave?”

“Who? Ben?”

Aaron shook his head. “Uncle Jeremiah.”

She gaped at him for a moment. “Why…why would you say that?”

Aaron shrugged and looked away and Lucy felt her stomach bottom out. These boys and their pain was so endlessly surprising. So shocking.

“He doesn’t like it with us. He misses the rodeo. He…he misses his old life.”

She could say no, he doesn’t, but they both knew it was a lie. “Just because he misses his old life doesn’t mean he doesn’t like it with you guys.”

Aaron shot her a look that was far too old. “Ben is going to make him leave. I know it.”

“He’s your uncle—”

“So?”

“So, you’re family.”

“That doesn’t mean he’ll stay.”

“He loves you.”

Aaron’s lips twisted as if he were chewing on the inside of his cheek, and she knew, she could see it, that he didn’t believe that for a moment. Not one moment did this boy believe his uncle loved him.

Oh, Jeremiah, what are you doing with these boys?

“So tell me about this team you’re playing today. Are they good?”

“Best team in the league.”

“So, you’re gonna kill ’em, right?”

He grinned sideways at her and launched into his team’s entire defensive strategy. Twenty minutes went by. A half hour. She thought about planting a salsa garden like she’d read about, all the ingredients needed to make the dip. So practical.

She realized he was silent. Blinking at her as if he expected a response.

“You really like hockey, huh?” she asked.

He looked down at his thumb, rubbing at a worn spot on the shoulder strap of his backpack. “My dad taught me.”

His voice was gruff and he turned and looked out the window, hiding his face and grief.

She took the next exit off the highway and the community center was just to their left. She pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car.

“Here we are,” she said, and checked her watch. “Right on time.”

“Thanks,” Aaron said, his earnestness making her blush, making her painfully aware that she was doing for money what other women would do for free.

“I’ll be done in two hours,” he said. “If you…you know where to meet me?”

“Are you kidding me?” she asked. She grabbed her purse. “This is my first hockey game, mister. I didn’t drive all this way not to see it.”

“You’re going to watch?”

“Duh.”

He beamed at her. Radiant in his pleasure.

“Awesome,” he crowed, and barreled out of the car, into the sunlight.

Why was Aaron so much easier than Ben? she wondered. Maybe instead of trying to get Ben to work all she needed to do was lock him in a car and drive around until he broke.

She smiled as she climbed out of the car, walking across cracked pavement to a tiny, slightly run-down ice arena that she’d never even heard of before.

The ground dipped beneath her and she had one of those moments—slightly out of body—of not recognizing herself in this landscape. Dressed in her own clothes, her own skin, she felt like a stranger to herself.

Dropping a boy off at a hockey game, making him happy by going in to watch, talking about his grief. She was miles, literally hundreds of them, away from the life she thought she’d have. The life she thought she’d wanted more than anything.

And she wasn’t entirely sure that was a bad thing.

* * *

J
EREMIAH
TRIED
REALLY
HARD
not to seem like some kind of hovering parent, but in the end he just gave up and sat on the porch, waiting for Lucy and Aaron to come back from Beauregard.

The game was a big deal—Aaron’s team was up against their rival, and he felt really shitty that he couldn’t be there. He liked being at the games, Ben and Casey sitting beside him while they watched Aaron carve up the ice. It was one of the few times he felt like they were really a family.

Perhaps it was time to change some things around the ranch. Hire a full-time housekeeper—he’d been reluctant up until now, largely because Cynthia was helping out and he didn’t want another woman in the house making the boys upset. But he was missing too much of the important stuff, worrying about garbage and laundry.

But laced with his nerves and excitement to hear about Aaron’s game was the fact that Lucy was going to be here. He hadn’t seen her since Saturday night, but he’d been thinking about her nearly every other minute since then with a nearly fatiguing mixture of shame and excitement.

Honestly, it was like he was sixteen and he had the hots for the senior cheerleader. He’d put away his anxiety about growing too attached to her. She was leaving—it wasn’t even a question. If he could just keep that in mind, then they could have all the fun and trouble they wanted.

Finally headlights speared through the bruised twilight and he stood, the rocking chair banging into the backs of his knees.

“They’re back!” he yelled through the open screen door.

“Does that mean we can eat?” Casey asked.

The car stopped in front of the house and he stepped down off the porch just as the passenger door was thrown open.

“Well?” Jeremiah asked.

Aaron’s face said it all. He gleamed in victory. “We won, four to three in overtime.”

“Thatta boy!” he cried, pulling Aaron into his arms for a quick hard hug.

“He was great,” Lucy said, and he turned, meeting her eyes over the roof of her car.

“You watched?” he asked, stunned at the thought.

“Of course!” She smiled at Aaron, who blushed. “It was a great game. Aaron was the star.”

“Really?”

“Scored the winning goal,” Aaron said, trying to be cool about it.

Oh, kid,
Jeremiah thought,
you kill me. You really do.

“Well,” Jeremiah said, beaming at Aaron, messing up his hair. “This calls for a celebration.”

“I thought Casey ate all Grandma’s cake—”

“No. I was thinking pizza. In town.”

From inside the house Casey whooped and Aaron pulled his hockey bag from where it had been crammed in the Civic’s trunk.

“Sound good?” Jeremiah asked.

“Sounds great! You coming?” Aaron asked Lucy, his eyes alight.

“Ahhhh…” She glanced over at Jeremiah as if she, too, was aware of how every decision somehow changed the scales in their life.

It’s just fun, Stone. Just some simple fun.

“Please,” Jeremiah said. “It would be great to have you.”

She drummed her fingers against the roof of the car, her bracelets and rings making a tinkling music. “Okay.”

“Cool,” Aaron crowed, and walked off, leaving him in the twilight with Lucy.

“I haven’t been to the arcade in twenty years,” she said.

“It’s where I take all my dates.”

Her eyebrows popped. “Is this a date?”

“Hell, yes. Meat lover’s pizza and three half-size chaperones? This is top-shelf dating, Lucy. You better prepare yourself for some serious romance.”

“Oh, I’m prepared.” She tucked one leg back into the car, still watching him over the hood with her glittering eyes. “I’ll meet you there.”

* * *

W
HEN
L
UCY
CONSIDERED
having a fun affair with Jeremiah Stone the Pizza World and Arcade had not been a part of her vision. She sat at a table, waiting for Jeremiah and the boys, surrounded by neon lights and the bleeps and buzzers of video games.

Pizza World had not changed one iota since her youth. Maybe the games had been updated, but the booths, the red candles, the pictures of the town’s early days—still the same. For some reason, that made her inexplicably happy. The whole world changed faster than she could get ahold of, but right here, it was the same. There was comfort in that. Comfort in knowing who she was here. Instead of trying to change to fit the world she lived in, she didn’t have to do anything to fit in here.

She just was.

It had been five long years since she just was. Since she wasn’t compelled to be more, to more people. The lights flickered and beeped around her and she thought of a wide, thick-collar necklace. Amber stones set in gold. The colors of California dust. She jerked, the Coke in her hand sloshing over her fingers. Before she even realized what she was doing she reached for her purse and the notebook she kept there, but then she remembered—there was no notebook.

That belonged to a different life.

She was so thrown by the inspiration, the creative thought, that she didn’t notice Jeremiah standing in front of her.

“Hey,” he said, “you all right?”

“Fine.” It took her a moment but finally she shook her head and smiled up at him. “Where are the boys?”

“I gave them each a roll of quarters and they scattered to the winds.” His long lean body draped over the chair across from her. So elegant and controlled, graceful even. His body was sculpted by work and life and he wore his power so easily. Her fingers twitched, her body purred.

He was gorgeous.

The teenage girl who’d brought her the Coke came back, blushing and tucking her hair behind her ears.

“Hey there,” Jeremiah said, grinning at the girl. “We’re gonna need a pitcher of Coke and two pizzas. Large.” He glanced sideways at Lucy. “You don’t want anything crazy on your pizza, do you?”

“Crazy? Like what?”

“Like vegetables?”

“Tomatoes are madness, aren’t they?”

“The Stone men don’t want vegetables touching their meat.” She snorted, but he wasn’t kidding. He had said it with a straight face.

“Go for it. It’s your party.”

“Meat Lover’s,” he told the server. “Extra sausage, extra ground beef.”

“Oh, my Lord.” She sighed, heavily appalled. “Add a side salad,” she told the server. “Ranch dressing on the side.”

The server nodded and walked away, joining her comrades behind the register who all whispered behind their hands while staring at Jeremiah.

“I remember being here when I was twelve years old and even then the servers stared at you from the counter. Nothing has changed.”

“If you clap your hands they’ll scatter like birds,” he said, turning toward her, his back to his audience.

“You think?”

He lifted his hands, clapped once and the girls split in four different directions. She howled with laughter.

“You should see what they do to Aaron. They practically stalk him.”

“I can imagine.”

“The first time we came here and I saw how the girls looked at him I freaked out, turned back home and gave him the talk.”

“The talk?”

“Straight up birds and bees.”

“How did that go?”

“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe because I’m his uncle and not his mom or dad, I don’t know. But he asked questions and I tried to be as honest as I could. Gave him a handful of condoms—”

“He’s eleven!”

“I know, but apparently kids are doing it in kindergarten these days!”

“Come on—”

“I’m barely exaggerating. He doesn’t look eleven and eleven-year-old girls don’t look eleven. And it’s not like I think he’s going to have sex tomorrow. I just…I just want him to be safe.” Jeremiah ran his hands through his hair, the black curls looping around his fingers like rings.

“You’re a good man,” she whispered.

Don’t,
she tried telling herself.
Do not fall for this man and his doubt and worry and heartbreaker’s grin.

But she worried that in so many ways it was too late. It would be so easy to fall for him; she worried it was already done. She’d fallen and didn’t even realize it.

“Because I gave an eleven-year-old condoms?”

“You care for those boys.”

He carefully organized the cutlery into a tidy square in front of him, not looking at her. “Then why won’t Ben talk to me?”

“Maybe he doesn’t know how you feel.”

He leaned back and stared at her as if she’d suggested he take off his clothes and dance on the pinball game. “They know. Of course they know. I’m there, aren’t I?”

She’d touched a nerve. A terrible nerve. But she couldn’t back down. Her investment in this family was too great. “Maybe they need to hear you say it.”

He was blank-faced and it was obvious that the thought had never occurred to him. So well-intentioned but so lost, she couldn’t resist him. She reached over for his hand, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles until he twisted his hand around and clutched her fingers. His fingers slid between hers and she felt the ripple and tremble across her skin, like a stone thrown into still waters. She was disturbed, restless at his touch.

“My parents—” He cleared his throat. “My parents were really private people. Annie, too. Ben comes by it honestly, all this silent brooding. Words…important words don’t come easy for us.”

Carefully, not wanting to startle him, or stop him talking, but unable to resist, she reached up and touched the hair falling over his forehead. The silky curl twined around her fingers into a ring.