Unexpected Family (20 page)

Her tongue touched his lips and he groaned in surrender; everything he was—all the demons and the meager angels he carried in his soul—sighed in bliss. This was a moment he’d never allowed himself to dream about. But somehow it was exactly as he’d imagined.

He opened himself up to her, slipping his arm farther around her waist, bending her slightly backward so that he carried her sweet weight in his arms. She moaned and sighed against him, melting like butter in a pan.

There was no end point to this kiss—it could have lasted for another hundred years. He could have pulled the strength he needed from her, but he wanted to come to her better than he was at this moment. He wanted to come to her as a man on his own two feet.

Enough. Pulling away was awful, like stepping out from a warm house into the cold.

“Sandra.” He sighed, kissing her cheeks, her forehead. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, feeling her breathe against him.

“Why…why are you stopping?”

He stepped back, his fingers lingering on her waist, loath to give up what he felt under her shirt, the firm tension of her muscles, the softness of her skin.

“There’s something I have to do, Sandra,” he told her. “And I could talk to you, but I want to…” He didn’t know how to put it into words, this driving feeling to be better. To deserve what she would give him for no good reason. “I want to give you the reason to be with me. I want to be a man you can be proud of. A man I can be proud of.”

She didn’t lie and say she was proud of him, which he respected. It stung a bit, but he wanted honesty between them.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her lips moist from their kiss.

“You already have.” He bent to get his cane.

“You’re making me nervous,” she said. “You’re not drinking, are you?”

“I’m trying very hard not to,” he said, and leaned forward—delighting that he had the right, relishing that he had her permission—and kissed her again. It was a quick taste of her lips, the impression burning even after he’d pulled away.

He found himself smiling into her worried face. At his smile she threw her arms around his neck, surprising the hell out of him.

“You’re a good man,” she whispered. “Please don’t lose sight of that now.”

She stepped back and walked, head held high, back into the kitchen.
What a wonder it would be,
he thought,
to deserve that woman.

He shuffled the other way, into the den with the phone and the computer. After collapsing into the chair he leaned sideways to pull out his wallet and the slip of paper he’d tucked inside.

The paper was soft between his fingers. He read the words for the millionth time, and noted the time underlined twice at the bottom of the note. According to the clock on the far wall if he hurried he’d only be a little late. He grabbed the phone and took a deep breath before dialing.

“Hello?” Jack’s voice cut through the silence.

“Jack, it’s…” He realized with a spurt of the ridiculous that Jack might not recognize his voice over the phone. “It’s your dad.”

“So I gathered.” Jack chuckled. “What’s up?”

“Are you busy?”

“No. You okay?”

“I…could use a ride, son.”

There was a pause, long and careful, and Walter decided to answer the question before it was asked.

“There’s an AA meeting at the church tonight.”

“You want to go to that?”

Walter nodded and then realized he’d have to actually say the words.

“I need to, son. I can’t do this alone.”

* * *

“T
HEY
’
RE
OUT
,” L
UCY
SAID
, staring at Casey and Ben curled up on the coach.

“
Shrek 3
has that effect on kids,” Jeremiah said, unable to look up from her foot, which lay in his lap. He ran his knuckles across the sole and her toes curled.

By the time Shrek had found Fiona in the first movie, he’d given in to temptation and pulled her legs up into his lap and took off her boots one by one. Rolled her pink socks down her ankles and off her toes.

It had been hot, a delicious tease, and he knew she liked that. Liked sitting in the room with this family, while Jeremiah undressed the only part of her he could.

He’d made a joke about stinky feet and the boys had laughed, but he’d cupped his palm around her heel as if he were holding gold.

What are you doing, cowboy?
he asked himself.

“The third one’s not as good as the first two,” Lucy whispered.

He grinned, but there was something building in his chest. Something ugly and dangerous.

“I bet you never thought you’d have an opinion on the
Shrek
franchise.” He said it disdainfully, totally negating the fun they’d had. He was spoiling for a fight and she had to know it. But she stroked the sting out of every barb he sent her way, making it a joke.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve always liked fart jokes.”

Jeremiah laughed, he couldn’t help it. Lucy laughed, too, and then quickly clapped a hand over her mouth, peeking over the edge of the love seat to make sure she hadn’t woken the boys. They were still fast asleep, heads together on the same pillow in the middle of the couch.

“Is Aaron still on the phone?” she asked, and turned down the volume on the credits. Using his remote controls as if she’d been doing it for years. As though she had the authority. And she did—he’d handed it to her. Like he wanted to hand everything to her.

This shabby house, the three wounded boys, all his problems and worries—he just wanted to give them all to her.

Right,
he thought,
and she’s going to love that.

Upstairs the hum of Aaron’s voice was just audible.

“Good Lord,” he said, “it’s ten o‘clock.”

“Must be a girl.”

“Heaven help us.”

“Well, thank God you gave him that condom.”

“Yeah, it’s my phone bill I’m worried about now.”

She curled her foot into his hand and he reciprocated by running his fingers across the sensitive skin at her toes. Her breath caught in her chest and he liked that.

He liked everything.

“This was a good day,” she said.

“Was it?” He watched his dark fingers against the white of her skin.

End this,
he thought.
It’s going nowhere.

“What’s wrong?” She put the tips of her fingers on his shoulder.

Now that the boys were asleep and they were alone, it was as if the bell had been rung and the temper Jeremiah had been trying to control broke free of the gate. He could barely hang on.

“Why are you staying here?”

“Because we had fun—”

“No. Why are you staying at the ranch?”

He could see in her face she knew what he was asking. What he was really asking. She pulled her legs off his lap and curled into a ball at the end of the love seat. “Because it’s my home, Jeremiah. My family is there, and I want to be where they are.”

“Living in the same house as your mother? As Walter?”

“It’s not ideal, but it’s working for now.”

“And when it stops working?”

“I’ll move. An apartment in town, maybe the little house, I don’t know.”

“But your design—”

“I can do from anywhere, and frankly, I like doing it here.”

Slowly, he rose to his feet. He knew the burning question was in his eyes. She stood, too.
This brave, foolish woman.

“You’re here, Jeremiah. And I like you. I…like what we have.”

His laughter was bitter—it turned the air to sludge and she flinched.

“We have a hotel room—”

“Keep your voice down,” she hissed, finally getting angry. He liked that. He wanted the fight. “The boys—”

“Right. The boys. Tell me—do you think every day is like this? Lying around watching movies? Walking down by the creek? You think this is what it’s like?”

“No, of course not. I know—”

“Nothing. I haven’t slept through the night in two years. There’s more work than time. Ben’s practically failing school. Aaron’s hockey costs more than my truck. Casey sleeps with Annie’s old towel. Ben cries at night. We eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches half the time because I’m so damn tired I can’t be bothered to take food out of the freezer—”

“I want to help. I want to share all of that with you.”

“Why do you want this?” He gestured to the room, the house, the sleeping boys. “You could have anything. Choose anything. Why in the world are you choosing this? Why do you want to be stuck here?”

She stepped back. Once. Again. “I don’t feel stuck.”

He laughed, bitter and sharp. “Now, you don’t. A month from now, it’ll change and you’ll be gone because you can leave.”

The couch creaked and both of them turned to see Casey and Ben blinking up at them. They heard. Of course they heard. He’d been yelling.

A cold chill danced over his skull.

“Where are you stuck?” Casey asked, and then yawned so big his jaw nearly cracked.

“With us,” Ben said. His eyes returning to that old-man gaze he had so recently shed.

What… How do I make this right? How…?

Jeremiah looked at Lucy but she was as stricken and angry as the boys. “Ben,” Jeremiah said, stepping toward the boy in a panicked effort to repair the damage of what he’d just said. “It’s not like that—”

“Not like what?” Ben asked, standing. He wasn’t yelling, or sneering. It was as if the poison of his petulance was gone and now he stood there a survivor of the inner struggle that had nearly killed him.

It was Jeremiah’s turn to be sweating and shaking.

This isn’t about Lucy, he realized. Not at all. This was about Jeremiah never understanding why someone would willingly choose this life when he’d had it thrust upon him.

“You never wanted to be here,” Ben said. “We all know it.”

“That’s not true.” Jeremiah scrambled for words but everything sounded like lies and he couldn’t breathe. Not in the presence of the grown-up pain on Ben’s face. “I do want to be here.”

“You wouldn’t choose us.”

“Every day I choose you,” Jeremiah insisted. “Every day I stay.”

“You don’t make it feel like a choice, Uncle J.” Ben helped Casey to his feet, but the little boy tripped over the blanket and Jeremiah leaned forward to steady him. But Ben was already there to do it. He led Casey up the steps.

“You should just leave.”

Ben was giving Jeremiah permission, calm and cool, as if he had no heart in it anymore. And then they were gone, up the stairs, and Jeremiah stood there, chest heaving, shoulders slumped.

Defeated.

* * *

L
UCY
SAT
BACK
DOWN
on the couch and grabbed her socks. Her anger on behalf of those boys making her clumsy.

“I’ve made a mess,” Jeremiah whispered.

“It’s a bit worse than a mess,” she said, stomping into her boots. “Those boys don’t deserve your resentment.”

“You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t wake up every morning—” his hands clutched at his shirt
“—wishing I felt differently?”

She gaped at him, shocked to hear him say it so boldly. She’d had her suspicions, sure, but this was real. “Maybe you
should
leave,” she said.

“Yeah, and what will happen to the boys?”

“There are a lot of people who would step up, it’s that kind of community.”

Immediately, he shook his head. “I’m not leaving my boys to be raised by some other family.”

My
boys
—that was a first.

“Do you love them?”

“Of course I love them,” he snapped, as if offended she would ask.

“Well, they don’t seem to know that, Jeremiah. You could probably start fixing this disaster by telling them that.” She grabbed her purse, swinging it over her shoulder.

In the far reaches of her mind she knew the pain that was coming her way. It was building force and steam. It had been a mistake to come here.

“You’ve got a good life here, Jeremiah. And what’s going to ruin it isn’t this place, or the boys—it’s you. Figure this shit out before you put those boys through any more pain.”

She walked toward the dark foyer, her boots clicking hard against the stone floor, each step the sound of something breaking.

He touched her shoulder and she whirled away, out of reach.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Back home.”

“What…?” The poor man looked so lost, so alone, and she almost took pity on him, but he had some work to do, work that didn’t involve her. “I want to ask if you’ll come back, but it sounds ridiculous. I don’t know why you’d want to come back to this mess.”

“I…I like you. A lot. I like your boys and your mess. And I want to be a part of it. But you have some work to do. And more important, just like those boys, I want to feel chosen.”

She left him standing there, in the foyer of his family home, lost and without a map. The pain was starting to settle in her chest, her arms were heavy, tears burned behind her eyes, but she kept walking. She got into her car and left Jeremiah behind her, hoping, hoping with all of her heart, that he would figure out how to come to terms with his own heart.

* * *

J
EREMIAH
STOOD
OUTSIDE
Aaron’s door, his forehead pressed to the wood. The boys were all in there, talking. He could hear the muffled exchange, but no specific words.

He was trying to figure out what to say, how to make this all right, or if not make it right, make it forgotten, but he didn’t know how. There was no work he could make them all do. No punishment. He had nothing left. No actions to pull them from the wreckage.

Tell them you love them.
Lucy’s voice rang in his ear, like the scent of her perfume lingered in his house. The ghost of Lucy was going to haunt him for a long time.

Until, anyway, he figured out what she meant about feeling chosen.

Tell them you love them.
He’d start there.

He knocked and after a long silent moment Aaron finally turned the knob and opened the door a crack. He could see Ben and Casey sitting on Aaron’s bed. Casey could barely keep his head up, but Ben sat there clear-eyed.