That Thing You Do (Whispering Bay Romance Book 1) (Volume 1) (17 page)

“The bottom line is we’re responsible for getting the boys to soccer,” Zeke said, getting them back to the dilemma at hand.

“Really, guys, I think you two are making a bigger production of this than you need to,” Allie said.

“I think Allie’s right.
If she goes, then it will be fine if Claire drives,” Mimi said.

“It’s up to you,” Zeke said. “You’re the one who’s been supervising her driving.”

“Fine. Let’s give Claire a chance. And if after next week she hasn’t crashed the car, I say we let her go solo.”

“T
hanks, Aunt Allie,”
Claire said, getting behind the minivan’s wheel. “You’re the best.”

“Just drive safely.” Allie watched as her niece went through the routine of adjusting the mirrors.

Claire drove the short distance to Tom’s house perfectly. No speeding, no wobbling, no slamming on the brakes. Allie leaned back in her seat and relaxed. Mimi and Zeke were too overprotective.
If she ever had kids, she hoped she wouldn’t be as anal as her brother and sister-in-law.

Claire cruised the minivan up a paved driveway leading to a cream colored stucco house directly across from the beach. Allie had to admit to being curious about Tom’s place of residence. From the outside the house looked small, but cozy. Nice location. A perfect bachelor pad. She’d love an excuse to
take a look inside, but Henry was out the door the instant they pulled up.

A few seconds later, Tom emerged from the house. He walked over to the minivan and propped his arm on the car’s roof, then leaned his head in through the open window. His gaze quickly took everything in. “Hey, Cameron, how’s it going?”

“Doing good, Mr. Donalan,” Cameron answered from the back seat.

“You
boys have a good practice.” He glanced over at Claire, then back at Allie. “So, Claire’s driving, huh?”

Claire was busy messing with the car’s radio dials, clueless to their conversation.

“With my supervision, of course,” Allie said.

“Of course.” After a few seconds, he stepped back and tapped his hand on the car’s roof, as if giving the go ahead for take-off. “See you later,”
he said to his son. “Don’t forget, after practice you’re going to your mom’s tonight.”

“We’re dropping Cameron off at Lauren’s?” she asked.

“Is that a problem?”

“No, of course not. I just thought it was probably your night…you know, to have him over.” Allie didn’t know much about the way divorced couples split their child custody arrangements, but since they’d picked Henry up
at Tom’s Allie had naturally assumed Henry would be spending the night with his dad.

“I pick Henry up at school most afternoons while Lauren is at the shop. It gives me a chance to spend more time with him and it helps her out, too. But he doesn’t always stay over.”

The way Tom talked about his son made Allie pause. He sounded so…proud and protective. She had never found fatherhood
sexy. Until now.

“You could join us, you know, at soccer practice,” Allie blurted. “I plan to stay and watch.”

His face went blank. “Thanks, but I have something important to do.”

“Like what? A hot date?” she joked.

“Something like that.” Before Allie could respond, he told Claire to drive safely, then stepped away from the minivan, clicked open the door to his pickup truck
and got inside.

Claire backed the minivan down the driveway and they were off.

A hot date
? Argh! Why had she said that? And then of course, there was that evasive response of his.
Something like that.

Was he serious? Normally, she could tell when he was joking. At least, she used to be able to. He didn’t look like he was kidding around, but he did look taken aback by her invitation
to join them at soccer practice. Which meant he probably did have something important to do.

They drove the rest of the way to the soccer field without any incident, which was good, considering Allie was having a hard time concentrating on the road. So what if Tom had a date? Bully for him! He was a divorced man and Allie had made it abundantly clear after this morning’s kiss that she wasn’t
interested in a romantic relationship.

“Good job driving,” Allie said, ignoring how Claire parked the minivan halfway into the adjacent space. The boys ran toward the grass where the rest of the team was already warming up. Allie unloaded a couple of folding chairs from the back of the van and offered one to her niece.

“You’re really going to stay and watch?” Claire asked.

“Of
course I am.”

“I thought that was just a pretext.” Claire shrugged. “You know, to spend more time with Mr. Donalan.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Why
wouldn’t
you want to do that? It’s okay. Your secret is safe with me. So you have a crush on Henry’s dad. Big deal. He likes you, too, by the way.”

“I think you’ve been watching too much cable T.V.”

Claire made a
face that made Allie feel like she was a hundred years old. “I’m not a child, Aunt Allie. And by the way, he wasn’t going on some hot date.”

Allie narrowed her eyes at her niece. “I thought you were messing with the radio.”

“That doesn’t mean my ears have fallen off.”

There was something semi-pathetic about talking to one’s niece concerning your love life. But Allie couldn’t
seem to help herself. “Okay, Miss-Sixteen-Going-On-Thirty, how do you know he wasn’t going on a date?”

“Because he was wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt, and a guy like him doesn’t wear that on a date.”

“Oh? What does a guy like
him
wear on a date?”

“Hot guy stuff.” Claire batted her eyelashes. “Nicer jeans, black turtleneck, and cowboy boots.” She was describing what Tom had
worn last night for their senior center slumber party. Which had certainly
not
been a date.

Allie tried to shrug it off. “Maybe he was taking some poor girl…fishing or something. Let’s change the subject, please.”

“Whatever you say.” Claire moistened her lips. “I was thinking of driving by my friend Jordan’s house. She only lives two blocks away.”

“Not a good idea. I think we
pretty much promised your parents I’d supervise your driving tonight.”

“Parents!” Claire said with a conspiratorial smile. “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

“Yeah, well, I think my brother would pretty much have my head if I disobeyed his orders.”

“Dad can be pretty intense,” Claire agreed. “Okay, so you can watch me drive to Jordan’s house and then you can drive
back here to the soccer field. Just pick me up on the way back home.”

“No can do, kiddo. My license is suspended. You know that.”

“You’re kidding, right? It’s like three blocks away. What’s going to happen in three blocks?”

“I thought you said it was two blocks.”

“Two blocks, three blocks. What does it matter? It’s not like you’re going to be on a major road or anything.
The most that can happen is you might hit a squirrel. Big deal.”

“Aw, don’t say that. I love squirrels.”

But Claire didn’t smile. Instead, she rolled her eyes.

Allie had seen her niece pull the eye roll plenty of times, but never with her.

Claire was right. Three blocks didn’t sound like a big deal, but Allie was in a precarious situation with her license. If anything happened
(and with Allie’s luck lately,
something
would happen), she’d never be able to talk her way out of this one with Zeke. “Sorry, hon, but I can’t chance it. I don’t want to put your dad in a bad position.”

 “Then you don’t mind if I walk there, do you?” She placed her hands on her hips. That’s when Allie noticed Claire had on the short skirt from the other morning. The one Mimi had banned
her from wearing to school. How had Claire gotten out of the house without anyone noticing? How hadn’t Allie herself noticed? Probably because she’d been too busy noticing what Tom had and hadn’t been doing.

“Just how far away is this house?”

Claire sighed the sigh of the long suffering. “Forget it. I’ll call Jordan. She’ll come pick me up.”

That sounded reasonable enough. Despite
Claire’s teenage attitude, she was trying to compromise, so Allie should, too. Kids respected that. “Are you sure that’s okay with your mom and dad?”

“Sure, it’s cool.”

“I’ll just check with them first.” Allie took out her cell phone and dialed Mimi but it went directly to voice mail. Next, she called her brother but he didn’t pick up either. “That’s weird. Maybe they’re at a movie
and had to silence their phones.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” Claire squeezed her cell phone out of the back pocket of the tight little skirt (a magician’s trick if ever Allie saw one) and made a short call. “Jordan’s picking me up,” she informed Allie. “We’re cool now, right?”

Allie thought about it a second. Claire was right. What could it hurt for
her to visit her friend? And it wasn’t as if Allie hadn’t tried to get in touch with Mimi and Zeke. They’d placed her in charge of the kids and it was up to Allie to use her own common sense.

“Sure, it’s fine.” She set up her chair to watch the practice, which turned out to be a scrimmage. Cameron dribbled the ball, zigzagging around his opponents. Henry, who was playing goalie, was no slouch
either. He blocked the ball every time it came near him, except the one time Cameron managed to score a goal.

Allie couldn’t help but cheer, which garnered her a few friendly smiles from the other adults present. After about fifteen minutes, a red Mustang convertible driven by a girl who appeared to be Claire’s age, pulled into the parking lot. Claire practically flew into the front seat.
Allie stood to go talk to the girls but before she could get to the car they were already halfway down the block.

Claire turned and waved goodbye. “See you in about an hour!” she cried cheerfully, all evidence of her prior sulking gone.
Teenagers
. Allie shook her head. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d been one herself.

The rest of the practice went by quickly. Daylight Savings
Time was still in effect but even that wasn’t enough to keep it from getting dark by eight-thirty. The coach blew a whistle, signaling the end of the scrimmage. He spoke to the boys, going over a few points, then dismissed them. The boys all grabbed a water bottle from a cooler and soon everyone had taken off, leaving Cameron, Henry, and Allie the only ones on the field.

“Where’s Claire?”
Cameron asked.

Allie glanced at her watch. “She went to her friend Jordan’s house but she promised she’d be back by now.” She dialed Claire’s number but there was no answer. Allie texted her and waited for a return message. “Do you know Jordan’s number by any chance?” she asked her nephew.

“Jordan who? I don’t any of Claire’s friends with that name.”

Henry pulled out a smart
phone from his backpack and he and Cameron entertained themselves by playing Tetris. Allie began to pace the parking lot.

Fifteen minutes went by and it was now completely dark. Why hadn’t she gotten Jordan’s last name?  She felt like the ditzy spinster aunt who was easily bamboozled. She hated calling Mimi and Zeke but there was no choice. She dialed both their numbers, but once again,
neither of them answered.

“I must be in a dead zone.” Allie shook her phone. What that would do, she didn’t know, but it felt like a good substitute for Claire right about now.

“My cell phone works fine,” Henry said. “I just called my friend Pete to check on our math homework.”

“I’m hungry,” Cameron said.

“Again? Didn’t you eat less than four hours ago?”

“That was
first dinner. I eat light whenever I have soccer practice then I eat again when I get home.”

“Me, too,” Henry chimed in.

“Oh. Well, maybe there are some snacks in the van.”

There were no snacks, but the key was still in the ignition. All this time they’d been on the soccer field the minivan was sitting in the parking lot just waiting for someone to come along and steal it. Not
that Whispering Bay was any sort of crime hub, but still. Claire had been in such a rush to leave that she’d foolishly left behind the keys. Why hadn’t Allie thought to ask her for them?

Allie was torn between being angry at herself, angry at Claire, and worried sick that something had happened to her. Maybe this Jordan had gotten in a car accident. Or maybe they hadn’t even gone to Jordan’s
house at all.  

A vision of Claire in her tight little skirt smoking pot, shooting up drugs, and having unprotected sex with the sleaziest boy in the high school (who even now was giving her an STD) flashed through Allie’s brain in a panoramic nightmare.

Oh God
. She was too young to be a great aunt. Or dead. Because Zeke was surely going to kill her when he discovered that she’d lost
his daughter.

It was a miracle Mimi’s hair wasn’t entirely gray.

There was no choice. She was going to have to find Claire.
Now
. She wasn’t supposed to drive, but this was an emergency.

She’d just cruise around the adjoining neighborhoods, very slowly, going at least five miles under the speed limit. There was no way she could get in trouble if she didn’t call any attention to
herself.

“Boys, buckle up your seatbelts and be on the lookout for a red Mustang parked somewhere nearby.” Allie clutched the steering wheel and glanced at the dashboard clock. It was almost nine p.m. It had been over two hours since Claire had taken off. When she found her, Allie was going to wring her neck. Or throw her over her lap and spank her. Or grab her and hug the hell out of her.
Probably all three.

Cameron and Henry each manned a window and Allie began to slowly drive up and down the streets. Within a few minutes, she was certain she spotted Jordan’s car but after pulling into the driveway of a modest red brick ranch, Allie could see that it wasn’t a Mustang after all, but some foreign model. The front door to the house opened and a man poked his head out, probably
to see what the heck a strange car was doing in his driveway.