Yours to Keep (7 page)

“Isn’t it weird?” Beth gave Kevin one of those wifely looks when he slipped Lily a fry, then looked back at Kevin. “I can’t imagine living with somebody I don’t know.”

“Yeah, it’s weird. Maybe being in the army helped. I’m used to living with whoever came along. And it’s not so bad. Cat’s a wicked good cook.”

“Takes so little to make a Kowalski man happy,” Beth mused.

Her husband smiled and leaned across the high chair to kiss her cheek, slipping the kid another fry. “I seem to recall winning your heart with my Jasper burgers.”

“Among other things. And when Lily has a bellyache later, you’re dealing with it.”

Sean turned his attention from the domestic bliss to his fish-and-chips basket. He was happy for his cousins—all paired off and doing the parent thing—but it wasn’t for him. Maybe in a few years when he’d found a place he wanted to stay in and a woman he wanted to stay there with. But for now, he wasn’t even looking.

When Lily decided she’d had enough of her high chair and started making her displeasure known rather loudly, Beth packed up all her baby debris and kissed her husband goodbye. “Good luck, Sean. I’ll see you Saturday.”

“So,” Kevin said when they were alone, “how are those sleeping arrangements going?”

“She’s still on the couch.”

“I think Josh took two nights for the pool. He’s out.”

Sean shook his head, a little disgusted by his youngest brother’s lack of faith in his self-control. “You’ll all be out when the month’s over. Out money, that is.”

He said it like he believed it, but it was shaky ground. Three nights of sleeping in the same room as Emma was playing hell on his sleep cycle. And when he’d dreamed of her last night—naked and hot for him, with her dark cloud of hair tickling his chest—and woken sweaty and hard and aching, not crossing that ten feet of bedroom had almost killed him.

Going to work tomorrow would be a good thing, he thought. Even though he’d be alone with her, a little physical labor would do his body good. Maybe if he tired himself out, he could sleep through the night without his dick trying to lead the way to her like some kind of damn dowsing rod.

“I’ve gotta get back to work,” Kevin said, breaking into thoughts he was better off not having anyway. “Your lunch is on the house today.”

“Thanks, man.” He stood and shook his cousin’s hand before polishing off the rest of his lunch.

On a whim, he took the scenic route to Joe and Keri’s house and, since both their vehicles were in the driveway, he pulled in and got out.

Keri answered the door, looking frazzled and not having the best hair day he’d ever seen. “Hi, Sean. I was just thinking, gee, I need more Kowalskis in my life right now.”

He laughed and stepped into the big foyer. “Baby acting up?”

“I thought the Kowalski men were royal pains in the ass, no offense, but you guys have nothing on the girls.”

“Joe writing?”

She blew out a sharp breath and put her hands on her hips. “No. Joe is
pretending
to write so I won’t dump Brianna in his lap, but he’s probably playing some stupid game.”

From the other room came a pissed-off howl that Sean hoped was their daughter and not a wild animal foraging for table scraps. “So he’s in his office?”

Keri nodded and waved a hand in that direction before making a growling sound and heading off to appease her daughter. Welcome to the jungle, he mused before heading to Joe’s office. He rapped twice on the door, then let himself in.

Joe looked up with a guilty start and Sean knew his wife had him all figured out. “She knows you’re only pretending to write so you don’t have to deal with the kid.”

“You know what
really
sucks? Everybody keeps saying to just wait ’til she’s older. Like it gets worse. How can it get worse?” Sean lifted his hands in a
don’t ask me
gesture. “For years I’ve been writing about boogeymen and the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. I had no idea there’s nothing scarier than a baby girl.”

Sean laughed. “She can’t be that bad. What does she weigh? Ten pounds?”

“Fifteen. But it’s fifteen pounds of foul temper and fouler smells. Trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Joe leaned back in his leather office chair and sighed. “Let’s talk about your life. She still on the couch?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Good. I said you’d last three weeks.”

Maybe, but Sean wouldn’t bet on it. Or he
shouldn’t
have bet on it, anyway. Especially a whole month. His balls ached just thinking about it. “You guys come up with a plan for the kids for Saturday yet?”

“Yeah, but it’s going to cost you.”

“Not a problem. I’ll just take it out of all the money I’m going to collect from you idiots at the end of the month.”

Joe grinned. “You keep telling yourself that, buddy.”

He was. With as much oomph as he could muster. And he’d probably keep telling himself that right up to the minute he got Emma naked.

“If I’d known we were just going to sit around and watch the plants grow today, I would have brought my book.”

Emma jerked her attention from the Columbine plants she’d been checking on and back to Sean. “Sorry. Zoned out for a minute. Did you get the weed blocker done?”

“Yeah. I don’t get why they want the pathway to the beach done in white stone. Don’t you usually walk back from the water barefoot?”

“Not this couple. It doesn’t matter how practical it is. All that matters is how it looks.”

“Whatever. It’s going to take the rest of the day to get all that stone down, so stop mentally tiptoeing through the tulips and let’s go.”

Emma wanted to tell him to shove his attitude up his ass because she was the boss, or at least flip him the bird behind his back, but she didn’t have the energy. Living a fake life was a lot more exhausting than she’d anticipated.

She didn’t even want to think about what it was like trying to sleep every night with her boxer-brief-clad roommate sprawled across the bed only ten feet away, so she thought about Gram instead. Gram who was, at that very moment, on her way into town. The town which had heard the rumors of her engagement, but never actually seen her fiancé.

If Gram returned from town still believing Emma and Sean were headed to the altar, it would be a miracle.

“You look beat,” Sean said, and she barely managed to restrain from whacking him with the shovel. He, of course, looked delicious with his muscles rippling and a light sheen of sweat making his tanned arms gleam as he shoveled stone.

“The couch is shorter than I thought. But I’m getting used to it.”

“There’s room in the bed.”

She forced herself to keep shoveling stone into the wheelbarrow. If she didn’t look at him, she didn’t have to see on his face whether or not he was serious. If he wasn’t, she might whack him with the shovel after all. If he was…

“That’s a bad idea.”

He laughed. “So is filling your wheelbarrow so full you can’t move it, but you did it anyway.”

“Crap.” She’d mounded the stone so high she’d have to dump half of it out to budge the damn thing.

“I’ll wheel it down for you.” He winked at her. “This time.”

Her mouth went a little dry when he stepped between the handles and hefted the wheelbarrow as though it was a sack of groceries, but she followed him down to the area he’d already prepped with weed-blocking fabric where she’d be spreading the first batch of white stone chips. And she managed to make most of the walk without ogling his backside.

“How have you managed to do this on your own for so long?” he asked once he’d set the wheelbarrow in place for her.

“I don’t usually fill the wheelbarrow all the way to the top.”

He pulled off his leather work gloves and shoved them into his back pocket. “I’m serious. This is…”

He let the sentence trail away and Emma rolled her eyes. “Not women’s work?”

“I was going to say it’s pretty demanding, physically.”

“It takes me a little longer than it would a man, but I chip away at it. And sometimes I’ll pay Joey and Danny to give me a hand.”

“So Mike and Lisa’s kids know you pretty well, then?”

“Yeah. If I didn’t have you today, I probably would have brought all four boys. Brian and Bobby can spread mulch and stone and they make a few bucks under the table. It usually takes me longer to fix what they did than to do it myself, but they get jealous if it’s only the older two all the time.”

“Do you think they can really handle a secret like this?”

Emma sighed and leaned on her shovel. “I don’t know. I hope so.”

It was a two-part plan, though shaky at best. Part one was to keep the kids away from Cat Shaw as much as possible. Part two of the plan was to make it a game. With prizes. Terry’s daughter, Stephanie, and Lisa’s four boys had been given the backstory and issued the challenge. All children who didn’t blow the secret would earn cash and video-game time at the end of the month, with hefty bonuses going to teens who helped coach the younger kids.

From what Sean said, it was surprising Mrs. Kowalski’s head hadn’t exploded, but she seemed reluctantly willing to comply. For now.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what your family’s doing for me,” she said, pulling her gloves back on. “I know they must think I’m crazy.”

“A little.” But he smiled, which kept her from focusing too much on his words. “But they’re trying.”

Because he’d asked them to, she thought. And she knew it wasn’t just a matter of asking them to. He’d probably had to fight for their cooperation, trying to convince them to go along with something he himself wasn’t sure about. Or hadn’t been sure about.

There had been another sticky note on her bathroom mirror that morning.
I think you’re doing the right thing.

It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to get her through one more day. And, assuming Gram didn’t come home from town demanding answers, another after that.

Cat took her time wandering down the main street of town, enjoying a perfect New England early summer day.

She had some old friends to look up and a few groceries and other things to buy, but for now she just walked. Walking helped clear her mind, a state she hadn’t achieved since arriving back in New Hampshire.

Something just wasn’t quite right about Emma and Sean’s relationship. She’d felt it in the airport and the feeling had only grown stronger after living under the same roof with them for a few days.

At first she’d tried to excuse away Emma’s reaction to Sean’s touches as the embarrassment a well-raised young woman would feel about public displays of affection in front of one’s grandmother. But really, it was so obvious to her they hadn’t been dating for the last year, never mind living together, that she wondered if she should be offended by their drastic underestimation of her intelligence.

What she couldn’t wrap her head around was the why of it.

A banner advertising a going-out-of-business sale caught her eye and she stopped on the sidewalk. Walker Hardware had been selling household, gardening, animal and building supplies since Isaiah Walker first hung out the sign in 1879, and Russell Walker had been the guy behind the counter since 1983 when his father had passed away. Actually, he’d been behind the counter helping his dad since he was barely tall enough to see over it, and she couldn’t imagine how hard losing the store would be for him.

He’d lost his wife about six years before. Flo Walker had a heart attack hanging out the laundry and she’d lain in the grass until she didn’t show up for knitting club. A friend had called the house and then Russell. He’d called out the rescue squad, but he’d beat them there only to find she was already gone. Cat had only had a passing acquaintance with Flo, who was originally from Connecticut, but she’d gone to school with Russell. They’d never been chummy, but they’d known each other their entire lives.

She walked up the wooden steps and smiled as the familiar bell jangled to announce her entrance. No annoying buzzers for Walker Hardware.

Russell was behind the counter, studying a newspaper through reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, but he looked up when the bell sounded. He took the glasses off as a smile warmed his face, which was still handsome under a full head of silvery hair.

“Cat! I heard you were coming home for a visit.” He rose to his feet and closed the newspaper with a snap. “Florida obviously agrees with you.”

He’d always been a charmer, but at sixty-five she thought she’d have built up an immunity. She was wrong. “Thank you, Russell. How have you been?”

He shrugged, waving a hand at the nearly empty shelves bearing red going-out-of-business discount signs. “I still have my health.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Bound to happen. Can’t compete with the big-box stores. People tried, of course. If they just needed a roll of tape or a fuse or a pair of garden shears, they’d come here. But times are tough and I can’t begrudge them wanting to save what money they have. Glad now I didn’t fight too hard when my daughter wanted to go off and be a vet instead of taking over the place.”

“What will you do?”

“The building’s for sale to help pay off some debt, so I’m on the waiting list for an apartment in senior housing.” He paused, sorrow shadowing his features. “A hundred and thirty-some odd years my family’s kept this place going and a couple months from now, I won’t have a pot to piss in.”

She didn’t know what to say. There really wasn’t much she
could
say. “Let me take you out to lunch. We’ll have something full of fat and cholesterol and sodium because why the hell not?”

The invitation took him by surprise, but he recovered quickly enough. “I had to let my part-timer go last year. I can’t leave.”

“What are they going to do if you take an hour for lunch? Take their business elsewhere?”

His laugh was rich and echoed through the barren store. “I guess you’re right about that. And I sure could use a smiling face right now.”

“Then stick a sign in the door, lock up and let’s go.”

They walked down to a café at the end of the street, which happened to be the only one in town, and snagged a table in a relatively quiet corner. They both ordered coffee and Russell got the fried-chicken special while Cat ordered a hash-and-cheese omelet.

“How’s Emma doing? I haven’t seen her in a few weeks, but you must be happy she’s finally heading toward the altar.”

“She’s doing great. And Sean’s a very nice young man.” She took a sip of her coffee, considering. “Have you met him?”

Russell frowned for a few seconds, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think I have. I guess she keeps him pretty busy and when she shops, he usually heads down to the city so he can visit his family at the same time.”

“Have you heard of anybody meeting him?”

“That’s an odd question. You just said yourself he’s a nice young man, so he must exist.”

It did sound crazy, but she couldn’t let go of it. “Oh, he exists. But I don’t think he’s been dating my granddaughter for a year and a half, or living under the same roof for a year.”

He looked confused. “Why would they lie?”

“That’s the question I can’t answer.” She took another sip of her coffee. “But you can tell when two people are in love. And when they’ve…well, you know.”

His slow smile warmed his eyes, which were the same blue as his shirt. Funny how you could know a man sixty-odd years and never know what color his eyes were. “It’s been a while but, yes, I know.”

When Russell looked at her like that, she could remember so clearly how she’d felt during that headlong rush into love with her husband and how much she missed him. But sometimes she wondered if she was missing him so much as just missing having somebody, and she wondered if Russell ever felt the same way.

She smiled back at him, trying to think of something to say, but coming up empty. It had been a long time since she’d had a flirtatious conversation with a man.

That thought brought her up short. Was that what was going on? Was he flirting? Or was he simply being kind and she was latching on to it like it was the last lifeboat off her AARP-eligible sinking ship?

Thankfully, the waitress—who was a young woman Cat didn’t recognize—brought their meals and she was saved by digging into her forbidden feast.

“I don’t think I’ve had real fried chicken since I turned fifty and Flo dragged me in to have my cholesterol numbers checked,” Russell said.

“We’ve only got so many years left, so I intend to enjoy them. If I can’t have eggs and hash and cheese once in a while, I might as well lay down and start decomposing.”

“I like that about you.”

“But only once in a while,” she said again. “If you eat like this all the time, you won’t have enough life left to worry about it.”

Russell set down his fork to wipe his mouth, then took a sip of coffee. “I remember being at the store when I still needed a stool to reach the cash register, ringing up a customer. I knew from the time I could walk hardware would be my whole life and that, if Dani hadn’t been so stubborn, it would have been hers, too. But I’ve got to admit, there’s a little part of me that’s not sorry to see it go. And, sitting here with you smiling at me and a pile of fried chicken on my plate, I guess I’ve still got enough life left in me to try to enjoy myself.”

For the first time in her sixty-five years, Cat decided to be forward with a man. “You got enough life in you to take an old woman dancing?”

“Well, if I should come across any old women, I’ll have to give that some thought. But in the meantime, I’d like to dance with you.”

When she blushed like a schoolgirl, Cat supposed she should at least be grateful she didn’t giggle like one. “You’re a charmer, Russell Walker. I think I’ll have to keep an eye on you.”

He just grinned and bit into a big, greasy hunk of fried chicken.

Sean jogged past the mailbox, glancing at the daisies, and turned down Emma’s driveway. He’d have just enough time for a quick shower before Emma’s alarm went off and another day of crazy started.

When four in the morning rolled around and he’d spent more time tossing and turning than sleeping because his aching body was keeping him awake, he’d eased out of bed and snuck out of the house for a run. It worked in boot camp—crush disobedience and rebellion with grueling physical punishment. He wasn’t sure if the same principle would work on his dick, but it was worth a shot.

Slick with sweat and slightly winded, he crossed the porch and snuck back into the quiet house. After kicking his sneakers off, he went up the stairs—remembering just in time where the squeaky spot was— and let himself back into Emma’s room.
Their
room. She was still snoring, so he went into the bathroom and closed the door.

He ran the shower hot, washing the sweat away, and then slowly turned the dial toward cold until he was wide awake and his body was beaten into submission. Then he toweled as much of the water out of his hair as he could, dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist.

He had a mouthful of toothpaste when the door opened and Emma walked in, rubbing her face. She was carrying a bundle of clothes and squinting against the light—even though in her half-asleep state she still slapped her hand at the wall switch—and almost walked into him before she noticed his presence.