“Are you ready, Robin?” he asked, opening the door for her. Cole shoved his hands in his pocket and stepped back so Robin could climb into the passenger seat. She winked at Cole, mouthed the words do it, then said, “Have a good week at school, Cole!”
Jake shut the door, gave Cole an affectionate hug. “Be good and mind your grandma.” He walked around the front of the truck to the driver’s side. “See you,” Robin called as Jake turned the ignition, and noticed as they drove away how Cole just stood there, watching them leave. A person couldn’t see that kid standing there without feeling something, and Robin’s heart winged out to Cole so fast that she couldn’t snatch it back.
At her house, they opened a bottle of wine (finally!), had a glass in the backyard on the wide, thickly padded loungers (her latest impulsive purchase), and gazed up at the stars. It reminded Robin of a time in the long distant past when she and her sisters would lie with their mother on a quilt in the backyard and look up at the stars. You know why the stars are there? her mother would ask. To show you how high you can dream.
Maybe she hadn’t dreamed high enough. Maybe she had been so busy pretending to dream that she hadn’t let herself actually reach for the stars.
“You know what I’m thinking?” Jake asked after a while, taking her hand.
She shifted her gaze to him, saw his lopsided grin. “That this wine would taste better in bed?” she asked, grinning, too.
He laughed, brought her hand to his mouth, and kissed her knuckles. “That’s what I like about you—you can read a man’s mind.”
“Oh please—like there’s anything to read,” she quipped and let Jake drag her across the loungers onto his lap so he could kiss her passionately.
They made wild, buzz-induced monkey love, right there under the stars, finding fulfillment at the same moment, blissfully drifting into sweet oblivion in one another’s arms. After a while, Robin stirred, buttoned her blouse, and woke Jake. They sleepily stumbled inside; Robin went in search of the wine bottle while Jake fell into bed. She returned with saltines and cheese in a can.
“Excuse me for a minute, I need to step outside and see if the world has actually stopped spinning,” Jake exclaimed, pointing to the cheese substitute.
“I’m branching out! And it was the only thing they had at the convenience store the other night when I got back from Burdette.” She put the tray between them, sat cross-legged, facing him, and sipped her wine as Jake squeezed a mountain of processed cheese onto a saltine and popped it into his mouth.
“Your family is nice,” she remarked.
He frowned dubiously at that.
“But I don’t think your mom particularly likes me.”
Now Jake smiled. “She likes you. She’s just hard to get to know.”
Yeah, well, Robin hadn’t gotten to the age of thirty-four without developing a woman’s intuition about some things. Knowing when someone flat-out didn’t like her was one of them, and she vigorously shook her head. “It’s more than that. She thinks I’m messing with you.”
Jake helped himself to another cracker, sans cheese, and munched thoughtfully. “Maybe. That’s because she doesn’t think I’m smart enough to know if I am being used. I don’t know if you noticed, but my mom doesn’t think too highly of me.”
“You’re kidding!” Robin exclaimed, genuinely surprised. “How could she not be totally proud of you? How could anyone not think you are the most capable man in the world? Jeez, if I had a son like you, I’d be prancing all over Houston!”
With a grateful smile, Jake reached up to tenderly stroke Robin’s cheek. “You can be a real sweetheart, in spite of all appearances to the contrary.”
“I’m serious.”
Jake chuckled at her earnestness. “I’ll let you in on a secret—my mom has never thought I measured up. I’ve never been able to do much of anything to please her. I pursued baseball and I was wasting my time. I started college and I was too old. I try to take Cole to live with me, and I am irresponsible. Honestly? Sometimes, the things she says—I think she believes I abandoned her like my dad did. And my Uncle Dan tells me I look a lot like the old man did at my age.”
That piqued Robin’s curiosity; she watched Jake take another cracker and pop it into his mouth. “Do you know where he is?”
“Dad?” He snorted derisively. “Haven’t heard from him since he ran off, more than twenty years ago. He’s probably dead. I’m sure Vickie will eventually get around to telling you the whole ugly story, but that . . . it’s what’s wrong with Mom. It colors everything.”
“What do you mean?”