Unexpected Family (15 page)

Five rings. Wedding bands for both the bride and the groom. One-of-a-kind pieces.

Meredith Van Loan, a boutique owner in Santa Monica, would love these.
Too bad Meredith Van Loan wasn’t speaking to her after that mass-produced horseshoe necklace debacle.

“Lucy?”

She turned back to the bed and the cowboy sitting in pooled sheets. The moonlight filtering through the windows cast the muscles of his chest and arms in shadow, making him look as if he’d been dipped in silver.

She smiled at the thought. This was the way her brain used to work, everything was an extension of her work and her materials.

“You all right?” Jeremiah asked.

“I…I think I am. Or maybe I will be. I’m not sure yet.”

“You’ve lost me, Lucy.”

You found me,
she thought but didn’t say. Perhaps the argument could be made that all she’d really needed was a few weeks away from her work.

Away from that city I never loved and that never loved me.
Perhaps the argument could be made that she only really needed to be home again. Back where inspiration struck the first time.

But looking at the increasingly nervous cowboy on the bed she knew, in that secret heart of hers, that this man had somehow seen her back to herself. Like walking her to her front door after an absence.

I don’t love him,
she thought.
But I will. Soon.

She crossed the carpet to the foot of the bed and then, slowly, crawled up the messy sheets toward him. At her approach he grinned and leaned against the headboard, the muscles of his chest and stomach flexing and relaxing, standing in relief against his skin.

“You inspire me.”

“Me?”

She put a hand on his shoulder and it took very little pressure to get him to shift and roll over on his stomach. His back was split by the long surgical scar along his spine. He could have died. Lost the use of his legs.

“My scar?” He shot her a dubious look over his shoulder. “Inspired you?”

“All of you,” she said, and kissed his scar.
How do I bring you back to you?
she wondered.
How do I return you to your front door?

“Lucy,” he whispered, and rolled back over. He looked pained and she let the matter drop, kissing her way across his chest, the beautiful muscles covered in silken skin, sprinkled with curly hair.

She pushed the sheets away from his lap, revealing his erection, the long, dusky length of it. He hissed through his teeth and the air became oddly charged with all of the things she wanted to say to him.

How beautiful he was, and kind, and generous. How brave he was in the face of all he was up against, how courageous despite knowing he was failing in so
many ways.

But he wouldn’t want to hear it.

So, she curled herself against his legs and used her mouth in other ways.

Tenderly his fingers touched her face, as if learning her by touch as she sighed in pleasure.

“Come here,” he whispered, pulling her away from him, lifting her with just that touch against her cheek, up against his body. His other hand sank into her hair and for a moment, long and suspended, they just looked at each other. Right at each other and then, because she couldn’t contain herself, she smiled at him. She smiled and let him right into her heart.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

S
ANDRA
HEAVED
,
EVERY
MUSCLE
straining, her feet slipping on the rug, and she still wasn’t strong enough to shift the mattress.

This is why women needed husbands. To lift things.

She’d spent twenty-four hours hiding in her room and she was done with that. What this room needed was to be cleaned. Top to bottom. The cobwebs and the ghosts and the regrets—all needed to be swept out.

“Good Lord, Sandra, what are you doing?” Walter’s voice startled her and she dropped the mattress, which knocked over the bedside table with a loud crash.

I shouldn’t have left that door open,
she thought. She’d known he’d been prowling around her bedroom, could hear the shuffle and thump of his gait. Could feel him through the wood and stone—his concern. His…pity.

Walter rushed forward to set the table right and Sandra caught her breath, leaning against the footboard on her bed. She used to do this job no problem. Funny what a few extra years and a soft life in the city will take away from a woman.

Walter used his knee to push the mattress back onto the box spring as if it were made of air.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Leave,
she thought,
please leave. Go. I should never have said anything. I should have taken that secret to my grave. Just like A.J.

She turned to face him, ready to tell him to leave, but instead clapped a hand over her mouth.

Pink as a little pig, he was.

“You can laugh,” he grumbled. Wincing, he pressed his fingers to his sunburned face. “It’s funny as hell.”

“That’s what you get for spending so much time outside.”

“No, that’s what I get for having spent too much time inside. What are you trying to do here?” He pointed to the bed.

“Flip the mattress.”

“You should have asked for help.”

“I never needed help before. But I’ll ask Lucy to help me, you don’t need to do this.”

“I was…I was surprised to see your door open.”

“There’s only so long I can stay locked inside when there’s work to be done.” She grabbed the sheets on the floor at her feet and headed out of the room.

She wasn’t proud of herself but she was running from him, thinking he wouldn’t keep up, but he did.
That cane is an act,
she thought darkly.

“Sandra—”

He followed her all the way into the laundry room. She wondered if he’d ever been back here.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do, Walter.”

Without looking at what was in the washing machine she started shoving the sheets in, cramming them inside. She opened the door for the detergent and without measuring she dumped in the powder.

His fingers touched her arm and she dropped the soap, spilling it all over the floor.

“Good Lord, Walter, look—” Frantic tears were burning behind her eyes as she knelt to gather the granules in her hands, but he stopped her, his hands cupping her elbows and forcing her to stay upright.

“Forget what I said,” she whispered. “Please.”

“I can’t.”

“A.J. would never forgive me for this—”

“A.J. is dead, Sandra,” he whispered. Carefully, as if she were a glass sculpture he was setting up on a table, he moved his hands away as if he were afraid she would
wobble and crash.

But Sandra Alatore never wobbled, or at least she never did before the other day when she told Walter about A.J. And now she felt as if she were always off balance.

“I don’t know if what you said is true and I don’t really know if I care. It doesn’t change how I felt about A.J. Doesn’t change who he was for me.”

Her eyes flew to his, surprised to hear him say that. She wished she could be that forgiving. That accepting.

“But I care about you and how…how that must have been for you.”

“A.J. was a good man, a good father. I was blessed in many ways.” She tried to get out of the laundry room but he shifted sideways and stopped her.

“Sandra, you don’t have to pretend to me.” A sad, sweet smile split his craggy and dark face. Lifting it somewhere toward handsome. “I know better than anyone what it’s like to be in a bad marriage.”

“It wasn’t bad. It just—”

“It wasn’t what you wanted.”

Oh, sweet Lord,
it was so hard to say the words. It was one thing to think them, but to let them leave her lips, it felt like nothing would be the same.

She nodded, a coward.

“Do the girls know?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“I don’t want to change the way they think of their dad.”

“That’s…noble.”

“It’s necessary.” His poor face was as red as a taillight and she did not want to talk about this anymore. “Do you want some aloe? For your face?”

He winced. “Would it help?”

“Yes. Come, I have some in the kitchen.”

She felt him at her back as she walked through the dim, silent house. Suddenly she was all too aware of how alone they were. The ranch was empty. Jack and Mia weren’t even at the little cottage. It was just them for miles.

Stop,
she chided herself,
you are thinking like a teenager.

But it didn’t stop her skin from burning where he touched her. It didn’t stop her from asking questions she had no business asking.

Who is this man? Why do I feel this way for him?

The Walter that emerged from his room weeks ago was a different Walter than the man she’d endured for so long. He was older, yes, in many ways, his body more frail. But his eyes—for the first time, his eyes were young. Lit with a fire she’d never seen. Never even dreamed of seeing. And he was smiling. Not a lot, but some.

And a sunburn? Why was that so endearing on a man as tough and as hard as Walter? Why did that make her heart twist and her stomach hatch butterflies?

That kiss on her wrist a week ago. Why did that still ache? Why could she still feel the scrape of his beard against her skin? The dry press of his lips.

In the kitchen, she used her scissors to snip off a piece of aloe from the plant on the windowsill and she turned to hand it to him but he stood on the other end of the kitchen counter.

“Here.” She held the aloe out across the white counter but he just stared at her.

“I’m worried about you,” he said.

She laughed. “Worried? About me?” Her voice cracked on the last word. People didn’t worry about her. She worried about everyone else and she didn’t know what to do with the weight of his concern.

“I would think your worry plate is about full,” she said as she put the aloe down on the counter. After a moment, as if waiting for her touch to wear off, he lifted it up but then put it back down.

Wouldn’t it be something to have the right to pick up the aloe and spread it across his face? To have such casual care between them. She’d never had that. A.J. hadn’t been one for touching. He was a man who took care of himself.

“I’m going to make some tea—would you like some?” There was comfort in turning toward the stove and putting on the kettle. Familiar things. Familiar work. In a landscape that was growing increasingly unfamiliar.

He laughed low in his throat. “No, thank you.”

“You want a drink?”

“Of course I want a drink. I’m always going to want a drink.”

“But…don’t you feel better not drinking?”

He put his hands down, pressing the pad of his thumb against the hard sharp point of the aloe plant.

Stop that,
she wanted to say,
you’ll hurt yourself.

She swallowed, wondering if she was overstepping her bounds. Hell, she knew she was overstepping her bounds, but who they were and what they were to each other was in flux. “What about that AA meeting down at the Presbyterian church?”

“I’m not going to an AA meeting.” That was the Walter she knew. Gruff and closed off.

“You should have someone to talk to.”

He looked at her for a long moment and she felt as if the barriers she’d put between herself and the world were melting. Barriers she’d put up years ago to keep people from looking too closely at her marriage. To keep people from looking too closely at her.

“You could talk to me,” she said.

“You know a lot about drinking?”

No,
she thought,
but I know a lot about lying. A lot about regret. A lot about wanting something more.

“I’m sorry.” He sighed, rubbing his hand over his face and then wincing. She smiled at him. He was a bear with a hurt face. “I’m not…I’m not one for talking.”

“Really?” she mocked.

He flashed one of his rare smiles at her and it felt like finding twenty dollars on the sidewalk—unexpected and lucky.

“There’s a lot of shit I have to deal with, Sandra, years of things I’ve pushed away and ignored and let fester, and drinking made that easier. Made all the mistakes I made go away and now, sober, well, I suppose I need to deal with it.”

“Jack.” It wasn’t a question. The cool distance between him and his son was obvious to everyone at the ranch.

Walter nodded, his lips thin. “We’re better than we were, but…there’s still work to do.”

“There is always work to do. In every relationship.”

“Says the woman whose children adore her.”

She smiled at that. “They are good girls.”

“They are.”

His rusty praise warmed her and the moment unfolded around them, a flower in bloom. She looked up only to find his shrewd gaze waiting for her, full of hundreds of things he’d never said, but she knew, anyway.

He desires me,
she thought.
Loves me.
Awareness crept in on cat’s paws and it thrilled and worried her.

She wanted to touch him and from the way his eyes blazed with fear, like an animal being backed into a corner, he knew how she felt.

“What…what do you want from me?” he asked.

You,
she thought.
To feel something besides doubt again. To feel…wanted.

“When are you going home, Sandra?” he asked, and she jerked at the question as if poked by a knife. “Don’t look at me like that, you said you would leave when I was sober. I’m sober. You need to go on home.”

“You’re sober, but you’re not well, Walter.”

“A sunburn isn’t going to kill me.”

“Your ankle…”

“Better every day.” He pushed himself away from the counter. He didn’t have his cane and he didn’t look like a man who needed it.

She felt suddenly bereft, not just because he was leaving, but because she was so alone. And had been for so, so long. She’d raised her girls to be independent and they were, but where did that leave her? Where did she belong if she wasn’t needed anywhere?

“Where’s home?” she said aloud—she hadn’t meant to, but now that she had she felt a certain righteousness in that question. “Where do I belong?”

When he looked at her, she felt the way he loved her. The way he’d always loved her. Vicki had seen it, she’d seen it. Only A.J., blinded by his faith and self-loathing, had missed it.

A.J., her nonhusband. The father of her children, the head of her family. But not her husband. Not really.

Alone,
she thought,
alone for so long.

She stepped around the counter and Walter took a deep breath. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice thick, and her body awoke to its power. Her power. She was still beautiful. And he was a man. More of a man every day.

“You don’t want me to leave,” she whispered.

“Don’t, Sandra. You can stay if you want, but don’t do this—”

She stopped in front of him. His chest touched hers with every breath and he looked so terribly pained she reached up for his cheek, but he caught her hand, crushing her fingers in his grip.

“I’m sorry Lucy sold your condo,” he said, and she froze—from the inside she went totally numb. Lucy sold the condo? “And you can stay here if you want, but don’t do this to me. I beg you.”

He squeezed her fingers once and then dropped them before turning and walking out.

Shaking, she sat down at the empty dining room table, while the kettle whistled a warning.

* * *

T
HANK
YOU
, L
UCY
A
LATORE
,
Jeremiah thought as he walked into his house feeling like a new man. Whistling even. A swagger in his step.

The house was dark, quiet, and he suspected Ben was asleep. Casey had a sleepover and Aaron was at an overnight hockey tournament, under the eagle eye of Kathy Owens.

Maybe Cynthia had bunked down in Aaron’s room, since Jeremiah was home so late. He glanced at his watch and winced. Two hours later than usual, but not yet midnight. Lucy had more than understood when he told her he had to leave.

“I’d better get back, too,” she’d said, shimmying into her skinny jeans. “My sister is worried about my intentions toward you.”

“She thinks you’re going to use me for sex?” he asked. “Because I really don’t have a problem with that.”

She’d hummed, but changed the subject, and after dropping her off at the Rocky M, he’d driven home wondering if Lucy was beginning to feel like things were more than just casual between them.

That wedding band thing had been weird.

His stomach growled and he was reminded that they’d never gotten to the dinner part of their date. He smiled at the thought and headed into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich and saw the floodlights on off the back porch, illuminating the entire backyard.

Strange,
he thought, and then about jumped out of his skin when something knocked on the sliding glass door.

It was Cynthia, wrapped up in a quilt sitting out on the deck. He tugged open the door and stepped outside.

“What—?”

“Look.”

The light flooded the far back of the lawn where the old garden had been. Nothing but weeds since Annie died, but not even that now. Someone had pulled up everything.

“Ben’s been working out there all night,” Cynthia whispered.

“Is he cleaning it up?” he asked, squinting into the shadows for a glimpse of the boy. But then he heard the lawn mower start. “What the hell is he doing?” He stepped for the stairs but Cynthia stopped him. Her wide sad eyes damp behind her glasses.