First Time, Forever, page 6
It wasn’t until he was halfway home, when Mr. Stinky Pants lived up to his name, that he remembered he’d completely forgotten to ask her the most important question.
But it remained unasked for several more days, because Evan was running flat out, torn between the demands of farming and single parenting. He was actually relieved she didn’t invite him in again, and not just because he was worried he’d be the most boring of company and go to sleep in his supper.
It was because she made him yearn for all the things he thought he was going to have when he and Dee had said “I do.” Made him want to believe again in those very things that had taken his heart and pressed it through a meat grinder.
He’d never had a family to speak of. His ma had died when he was young. His pa was tough as nails and about as tender. Evan had grown up farming this hard country. His childhood memories were of hard work, lousy food, his father silent and unbelievably stern. There were times when he had thought prison might be a step up. Prisoners had a few rights.
He’d mistaken what he found at rodeos and in bars, in fast cars and faster women, for freedom. He’d mistaken excitement for fulfillment.
And somehow when Dee had announced her pregnancy he had thought he was going to have all those things he’d never had: a houseful of warmth and laughter, kids chasing around, home-cooked meals, most of all, someone to love and to love him back. Those were the empty spaces that he had tried to fill in all the wrong places.
He should be older now, and wiser. And way more cynical.
Trying to become a better person—decent, good—didn’t mean he had to be stupid. He was smart enough to be wary of anyone who made him want to believe in dreams. And that was Kathleen Miles.
He was dropping Mac off after work, and practically burning out of there. A man could drown in the light that glowed in her dark eyes. Besides, Mac was keeping him filled in on the progress of her other admirers. Sookie had not driven around the block again. Jack Marty had come to call and had been politely turned away.
“Not even lemonade,” Mac said with satisfaction.
Mac was turning out to be a good kid. A hard worker, somebody he could trust Jesse with when he had to see to cattle or go out in the field. It occurred to Evan he was really going to miss him when the two weeks were over.
And probably miss catching the odd glimpse of her, too.
“See you tomorrow, Mac,” Evan called as the boy got out of his truck.
“Bye, Mac,” Jesse called frantically from his car seat in the back. “Bye.”
Mac turned around, hesitated. “Do you guys want to come in for a minute? Jesse might like some lemonade. Auntie Kathy makes it from scratch. Not like that powdered stuff you have.”
Evan saw Jesse trying frantically to get his own car seat buckle undone. And he saw Mac offering him something fragile.
Regardless of his feelings of wanting to stay away from all the sweet temptations of Kathleen Miles, he’d known from the beginning the boy needed something from him.
“Sure,” the white knight said. “Lemonade sounds great.”
Kathleen heard the truck turn off, and came around from the side of the house where she was cautiously digging up the garden, one eye ever watchful for lurking snakes.
Mac was jogging up the walk. “Evan and the kid are going to have lemonade with us, okay?” He looked so pleased, took the steps two at a time and moved by Kathleen in a pungent cloud.
Evan was bent over the back seat of his truck, extricating Jesse. He finally did, and set Jesse on the walk, took his hand and they came toward her together.
“Hi, Jesse,” she said, gently. “We’ve met before, but you were asleep. I’m Kathleen.”
The little boy tucked his head behind his father’s long leg, and peeked out at her warily. His eyes were not his father’s, but huge and brown.
“Jeez, is that stinky kid out there?” Mac growled from in the house.
She watched, amazed, as Jesse’s face dissolved into a smile. “Mac!” he cried, and squirmed out of his father’s grasp. Evan released him and Jesse ran on pudgy legs over to the screen door and pressed his face against it. “Mac?” he called. “Mac?”
Mac came to the door. “Oh, gee,” he said. “My first friend come to call on me. The only problem is he’s only two feet high.”
“Mac play me. Plea?”
Mac opened the door. “All right. You can come see my room only because I don’t happen to have anything better to do in this dumpy town.”
“Mac, you could always pull another shift at my place if life is too unbearably boring,” Evan said. His voice was calm, but there was just a hint of steel in it.
“No, thanks,” Mac said. “Come on, Jesse, but listen up. If you make stinky pants, that’s it for you. Out. Got it?”
Jesse nodded solemnly and marched in the door. It slapped shut behind him.
“Jesse adores Mac,” Evan said.
“I can’t imagine why,” Kathleen said.
“Sorry. I can’t, either.”
They both laughed softly.
“I noticed you’ve progressed from none-of-your-business,” she said. “That’s great.”
“Oh, that’s not the half of it. He invited me in for lemonade.”
“Seriously?”
“He promised homemade.” He smiled, and it was slow and sensuous, a smile that must have turned dozens of women to butter. Dozens. Her own mouth felt a little dry, though, of course, she had no intention of giving in to Evan Atkins’s considerable charm. After that night, nearly a week ago now, she knew she had to build a fortress around her own vulnerability when it came to him.
He had a ball cap in his hands and was turning it in circles. Was that an indication he was about to exercise that charm on her?
Maybe he was going to ask her out! A blush crept through her cheeks as if he actually had.
“How was work today, Kathleen?”
She felt disappointed. Really and truly disappointed, as if she had thought he was going to say, “Kathleen, let’s go grab a bite to eat together.”
Which she should say no to. After the other night when Evan had been here she had just felt so hopelessly confused, as if she didn’t know what was right or wrong for herself, let alone Mac. She had spent the whole week reviewing her choices in the past five years.
She had chosen Mac as her life. Without hesitating, with never a glance back. What she couldn’t believe was that she had spent five years waiting for Howard—a man who had resented every day of her sister’s illness, and who had been too self-centered to see Mac for the blessing that he was. Now, she was even beginning to be thankful that Howard’s Catholic upbringing had prevented them from ever being intimate together, even if that did make her just about the world’s oldest virgin.
Had it been a mistake to reject romance totally?
It did cause too much tumult; it took too much. Time and energy and devotion. Mac needed all she had to give. When he had first come to live with her he’d been afraid every time she went out the door, afraid she was never coming back.
What had been her options in the face of his fear? Hire a baby-sitter and go on a date? Or rent Star Wars one more time, make popcorn and cuddle on the couch with the one who needed her most?
Of course, Mac had changed a great deal since he was seven. He was a confident and independent boy who would survive if his aunt went for a bite to eat with his employer. She decided, right then and there, eating with Evan wouldn’t qualify as a date. They’d already done it once, after all.
But would it be opening the door to romance? And didn’t she need to make a conscious decision about that, not just fall into something?
She reminded herself, sternly, Evan had not asked her for dinner. What had he asked her?
“Work?” he reminded her, amused.
Work. How had he managed to pick the one thing she didn’t want to talk about? She sighed and picked a dead marigold stem from her flower box.
“I like the job, but…” She took a deep breath, and said it, “I don’t think Ma’s happy with me.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
She liked the way he said that. As if he knew she would always do her best, even though he hardly knew her. Still the facts were the facts. “No, it isn’t. There’s a man poking around. Ma keeps giving me these looks like she’s going to burst into tears.”
“I’m sure you’re misinterpreting it,” he said, and came slowly up the stairs. “Pa hasn’t been well. She’s probably worried about him.”
“I hope you’re right.”
He startled them both by reaching out and putting a gentle finger on the bridge of her nose between her eyes.
“There it goes again.”
She laughed. “Did your mom ever tell you your face would freeze like that? When you made faces growing up?”
He took his hand away, and she rubbed furiously at the furrow, until she noticed him looking away in the distance.
“Did I say something?”
He looked back at her. “I didn’t have a mom, Kathleen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She died when I was just a tyke, not much older than Jesse. I would have liked to have heard that, though. I guess I would have liked to have had a mom.”
He actually looked shy, and just a little embarrassed that he’d said it.
“I never used to worry so much,” she said, fighting the sudden impulse to touch his cheek tenderly, “but when Mac came along, I felt so responsible.”
“I know that one.”
“You would. How’s Jesse sleeping?”
“I tried to keep him up one day. He won.” Evan looked away again, and she got the distinct impression he wanted to ask her something, but he didn’t.
“You want to sit out here and have that lemonade?”
“Sure,” he said. “You’ve got a porch swing. I always wanted to sit on one.”
“You?”
“Why not me?”
“I don’t know. You don’t look like the porch-swing type.” Which should really be telling her something. Or maybe not. Howard had been the porch-swing type, exactly.
“What type do I look like?”
He looked like a man who wouldn’t be happy sitting still for long. A man who was strong, and physical and who moved. If you put him behind a desk for a day, he would probably go crazy.
“I don’t know,” she lied. She went and got the lemonade, and sat down beside him on the swing. It was very close. Her shoulder touched his.
It felt just the way she had known it would when she saw him without his shirt on. Hard. Warm. A shoulder a woman could lean against for a long, long time.
“How did Mac do today?” she asked. Okay. Here was the pathetic truth—she was a tragic spinster, and she liked the feel of his shoulder against hers. And she liked looking at him out the corner of her eye. Just looking. At the little crinkles around his eyes, and the way his muscles in his arms looked when he moved them even a little bit.
“He groused and bellyached, but a little less than yesterday. He’s actually a good worker. The funniest thing is how Jesse’s taken to him. He seems reluctantly touched by that.”
“They’re both boys without mothers.”
“Mac’s got you.”
“And Jesse has you.”
“He’d trade.”
“He would not.”
“For lemonade and spaghetti? In a second.”
Kathleen and Evan both laughed, but she felt acutely aware of something. Jesse had him. Mac had her. If they ever got together, those boys would have it all.
Got together. Ridiculous to even entertain such a notion. He was the type of man who would date the kinds of women she saw on the covers of magazines—beautiful, not in the least afraid to show off their belly buttons.
And she was the type of woman who didn’t date. Shouldn’t. Was allergic to romance.
But if she did, wouldn’t it be someone like Howard again, a basically boring guy, bald, computer literate, could recite his company’s mission statement by heart? She decided she’d rather remain a virgin forever.
“Do you know what a mission statement is?” she asked, by way of a test.
“Say again?”
“A mission statement?”
“No. I mean I could guess, but you’d probably slap me.”
She laughed softly. He passed. And what did that mean? That she wasn’t going to remain a virgin forever, and that Evan Atkins figured into that equation? Dream on, girl.
“So, you going to tell me? All about mission statements? I hope it’s wicked.”
“It’s not, and no, I’m not going to tell you.”
“Kathleen, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
She could feel her heart beating inside her throat. He was going to ask her out. And she was going to have to decide whether to say yes or no. Two very small words. Why did it feel as if she was standing on a springboard, deciding whether to jump into deep, mysterious and unknown waters, possibly dangerous and shark-infested, or whether to back up to where she had always been safe and comfortable?
She hadn’t felt this ridiculously giddy since Mark Morrison had approached her the day before the senior prom.
“Uh, I was wondering—”
“Yes?” she asked breathlessly.
“I was wondering if you happen to know anything about potty-training?”
She stared at him. All right. So this was a pattern in her life. Because Mark Morrison hadn’t asked her to the prom, either. He’d asked for her science notes.
“Potty-training?” she sputtered.
“I can’t seem to get Jesse to get it. It’s the stinky pants issue.”
Despite her disappointment that this was about the farthest thing from her fantasy, she laughed. “Evan, you’re on your own. Mac came to live with me when he was seven. I’m afraid the hard stuff was already done.”
“How did he come to live with you?”
“My sister died. She had a rare form of cancer.”
“I’m terribly sorry.”
“Me, too. But at least I have Mac. He’s very like his mother in many ways. He looks like her. He laughs like her. She goes on.”
“Jesse takes after his Mom, too.”
“She must have been very beautiful.”
A pained look crossed his face. “She was. She was incredibly beautiful.”
“Mac said she was in a car accident?”
“Yeah.” He scuffed his toe. There was a great deal of pain here, and she had the sense not to probe it. She moved back to the other issue.
“Sorry, I can’t help with the toilet training. Is there a library nearby? I’m sure they would have a book—”
“I’ve got a book. Had a book. I left it somewhere. It wasn’t helping anyway. Make potty-training fun. Right.”
She laughed again. Why did he make her feel like this? So happy? So alive. In what possible way was potty-training more interesting than mission statements?
It just was. “Maybe that’s not such a bad idea, though. You know, I do remember when Violet took Mac off the bottle, she had a little party for him, with balloons and cake and ice cream. She told him they were celebrating that he wasn’t a baby anymore. And after, she put away the bottles and the crib, and that was it.”
“That was it?” Evan said hopefully.
“That was it. We had a great time.”
“I could do that.”
“Yes, you could.”
“Would you come? If I did it?”
“Pardon?”
“If I have a potty party for Jesse. Would you come? You and Mac?”
It wasn’t exactly the date she’d been hoping for, and yet somehow it appealed to her even more.
“Of course we’d come.”
“Come where?” Mac asked, slipping out the door. She noticed Jesse had a tight grip on his hand. In Jesse’s other fist was one of the Star Wars figurines Mac coveted. “I’m not giving it to him,” he said defensively, when he saw her looking at it. “I’m just lending it to him.”
“Mac lend Yoda,” Jesse confirmed solemnly, “to his fwend, Jess.”
“Thanks, Mac,” Evan said.
“You could show your gratitude by calling it even on the antenna,” Mac said hopefully.
“Dream on.”
Mac actually grinned.
“I’ll invite you to a party, though.”
“A party? What kind of party?” Mac asked suspiciously.
“A farewell party.”
“Really? For us, I hope.”
“Nope, for Jesse. He’s going to say farewell to his diapers and his soother.”
“A pawty for Jesse,” Jesse said, wide-eyed. “Pwesents?”
“Oh, sure,” Evan said. “Presents. Cake. Ice cream. The works. To celebrate you not being a baby anymore.”
“Yeah. I can’t be fwends with no baby,” Mac said.
“Awight,” Jesse said.
Kathleen laughed. “When and where?”
“Oh, God. My place. But I have to do something about it first.”
“You’re not kidding,” Mac said under his breath.
“Give me a couple of days.”
“That’s optimistic,” Mac said.
“So, Friday. I’ll give you instructions to my place. Maybe you could put away a few party things on my account at the Outpost. And a present. Mac, you want a break from shoveling?”
“Let me guess. I get to clean your house?”
“Easy work. You get to keep your shoes clean.”
“Whatever. You’re the boss.”
Kathleen heard the respect in Mac’s tone and marveled at it.
Evan glanced at his watch. “I have to go. Thanks for the lemonade, Kathleen.” He picked up Jesse and settled him on his shoulders and went down the walk.
“This idea is stupid, stupider, stupidest,” Mac told her, but tolerantly.
“How bad is his house?” Kathleen asked.
“You know, Auntie Kathy, it’s a guy house.”
“I’m not sure that I do know.”
“It means you don’t wash the dishes until you run out. And everything you eat comes out of the freezer or a can. It means the towels in the bathroom have hand prints on them. And when you drop something on the floor, you don’t wipe the spot off. It’s great.”
