chapter NINE
RICHARD COULDN’T DECIDE if this was the most idiotic idea on the face of the earth, or a good one. As he rang the doorbell, Trevor waited a step behind him, sulky but seemingly resigned.
“I hope she doesn’t cook something weird,” he muttered. “Like Mom—”
Richard started to turn. Trev hardly ever mentioned his mother, and when he did he shut down fast, like he was now. But why was he mad at his father, too, if it was his mother who had enraged him in the first place?
The door opened, but it was Caitlyn standing there. “Come in.” She didn’t roll her eyes but might as well have. She didn’t even look at Trevor.
“Thank you,” Richard said, nodding. Watching her hang his and Trevor’s coats in the closet, he wondered how Molly had compelled her semiwilling compliance.
“Come on back to the kitchen,” Molly called.
There was a formal dining area, but she’d set the table in the nook attached to the kitchen. He guessed that’s where they ate all their meals, and he’d have done the same. It had the same warmth as the kitchen and was surrounded by glass.
Molly looked good. He’d discovered he really liked her when she got out of her take-me-seriously suits. Tonight was jeans and a snug sweater in a reddish-brown. She was definitely a generously proportioned woman, and made no attempt to hide it. He hoped she wasn’t one of those women who tried to starve her body into submission on a regular basis.
Richard sniffed cautiously, and relaxed when he recognized something Italian.
“Manicotti,” Molly told them. “I hope you like it. It’s a favorite of Cait’s and mine.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said heartily.
Trevor grunted.
“Cait, why don’t you help me dish up. Richard, I could open some wine if you’d like that....”
He shook his head. “I’m not much of a drinker. Water’s fine.”
Eventually they all settled around the table. He hadn’t sat down to a meal with a woman and two kids since the days before he walked in on Lexa with her lover. Trev was six years old then, which made it…eleven years ago. This felt more than bizarre.
Molly smiled at his son. “Trevor, I don’t think I even said hello. I hope this isn’t too awkward for you, given that our interactions haven’t always been positive.”
Trevor stared at her with obvious incredulity.
She cleared her throat. “Cait and I were talking today about Thanksgiving. Are you staying here with your dad?”
Trev’s gaze flicked to his father. “I guess.”
“You must miss your sister.”
“I talk to her,” he said after a minute.
“Maybe if I bought her a ticket she’d come up for Thanksgiving,” Richard heard himself say. “Hell, it’s next week, isn’t it? I should have thought of it sooner. I suggested Christmas, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave your mom alone.”
“Maybe,” Trevor mumbled.
Richard guessed it was his turn to plow some conversational ground, so to speak. Not his strength. “So, Caitlyn,” he ventured, “I hear you’re quite a dancer.” He winced inwardly at the avuncular tone, which was pretty well guaranteed not to go over well. “Is it ballet?”
She stared at him. Her mother shifted in her seat, which seemed to snap her out of her state of disbelief. “Um, I do ballet, but I do jazz and modern dance, too.”
“Even belly dance,” her mother said brightly.
“Really?” That was Trev. “Hey, cool. I didn’t know that. Do you ever perform?”
Richard gaped at his son, then closed his mouth. Had that been an involuntary exclamation of interest, or was Trevor actually making an effort?
“Um, yeah, sometimes,” Cait said. “I belong to a troupe, and we do dinner shows once in a while. You know that club in Everett? We’ve got a show there in December.” She shot her mother a spiteful look. “Mom doesn’t like them.”
“I never said that....”
“You didn’t have to,” her daughter shot back.
“I love the dancing. You know that.” Her conflict was apparent on her face. “It’s the part where you shimmy around with people giving you money that reminds me a little too much of strippers. When I saw that creep stick a dollar bill in your cleavage…”
“Some old guy?” asked Trevor.
“That was gross,” Cait admitted. “He had, like, gray hair and kind of a wobbly chin. And I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”
“Belly dancing is sexy,” Molly said. “The problem is, most of the troupe are older than Cait. In their twenties, at least.”
“Bathsira, our leader, is, I don’t know, thirty-five or something,” Cait contributed.
Molly’s age, Richard thought with amusement. He wondered if fifteen-year-old Cait had thought to equate a dance partner with her aging mother.
“Bathsira?” Trevor echoed. “Really? In West Fork?”
Cait’s chin came up. “That’s her stage name. Her real name is…it doesn’t matter. We all have stage names.”
“Yeah? What’s yours?”
“Mariam.”
“That’s pretty.” Trevor was eating with astonishing enthusiasm. He’d polished off his first serving of manicotti and even the green beans and was reaching for the serving dish.
“I thought so,” Cait said. “Here, do you want some more garlic bread?”
“Yeah, cool.”
Trevor coaxed Cait to tell them the stage names of some of the other dancers, then asked if she’d perform after dinner.
“No! You’d just make fun of me, or…” Her cheeks got pink.
“I wouldn’t,” Trevor claimed. He shoveled in a big mouthful of manicotti.
“The dancing really is beautiful,” Molly said. “And Cait’s won some local contests. Somehow her body flows.”
There was a moment of silence, during which they all undoubtedly thought about Cait Callahan’s body, and what it was up to right now. She ducked her head. “Geez, Mom.”
“Well, you’re good.”
Cait looked at Trevor. “You should try dance. Some pro athletes do it, you know.”
Trev snorted.
“Coach Bowman would give his right arm if Trevor would only play basketball,” Molly said.
Caitlyn turned her blue eyes on him. “You should, you know,” she said earnestly. “If you’re that good. Why aren’t you playing?”
Richard made a fist under the table and gave it a surreptitious punch. He avoided meeting Molly’s eyes.
Trevor looked down at his plate. “I’m still thinking about it.”
“Our team could use some help,” Molly said matter-of-factly.
He hunched his shoulders. “Even if I wanted to… It’s not fair,” he finished in a burst, “if Cait can’t keep dancing.”
When nobody said anything for a minute, Richard did. “I’m proud of you for thinking about that.” He cleared his throat then nodded toward the garlic bread. “Molly, would you mind handing that to me?”
She did, and he passed it on.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Cait said tentatively. She was looking at Trevor. “Really. It might be fun to watch you play.” She flushed. “If it wouldn’t embarrass you.”
He swallowed hastily. “You mean having you there? No! I mean, I’d like it if you’d come to games.” Now his cheeks had reddened, too, and he stole a look from his dad to her mom. “If I decide to play.”
“I hope you do,” Molly told him.
Richard had feared the forbidden topic would act as a clot in the conversation, but somehow it didn’t. Next thing he knew the kids were comparing teachers, with Molly throwing in an occasional dry comment or raised eyebrow that kept Trevor and Cait one step inside the lines. Richard himself stayed mostly silent, but inwardly he rejoiced. He hadn’t seen Trevor this animated since a year ago summer. Caitlyn really was a beauty when she smiled and teased. He could understand the fascination, because it was her mother he kept watching, although he hoped not too obviously.
Instead of her daughter’s delicacy, she had a lush, earth-mother thing going. Dark wings of brows, hair of that rich auburn, determined to curl whatever she did to it. A mouth that was wide and generous when she was relaxed. And that skin—damn, that skin. Cream, was all he could think.
Cait’s was different, more of a porcelain that went with her almost-blond hair and blue eyes. Molly’s begged to be touched, as his itching fingers attested. He’d give one hell of a lot to see her naked, with those plump breasts and luscious hips and long, long legs....
He tuned in to realize he’d missed something. Dessert, it turned out. Molly was asking who wanted their apple pie à la mode.
“You have to ask?” he said, and she flashed a grin at him.
He pushed back his chair. “Hey, I’ll give you a hand. Uh, do you have milk? Apple pie. How can I eat it without milk? Trev? Cait?”
They both voted yes.
In the kitchen, Richard murmured in Molly’s ear. “You’re a genius.”
Her smile was so close he could have kissed it. Wanted to know what it would feel like to kiss her when she was smiling.
Thank God she wasn’t looking at him. “Will you get the ice cream out of the freezer?” she asked, as she wielded the knife on a beautiful, obviously home-baked pie.
She let him dig out scoopfuls of ice cream to crown each slice of pie. Only when she handed him the first two plates to carry to the table did she murmur in turn, “I am, aren’t I?”
He was grinning when he set plates in front of Trevor and Cait. His son studied him with suspicion, but was easily distracted by food.
“This is awesome,” he exclaimed, after his first bite.
“I baked it,” Cait said shyly, earning a look of pure admiration from him.
“Really? My sister won’t bake at all because she’s always on a diet.”
Richard hadn’t known that. One more thing he didn’t know. “Why?” he asked. “Has she put on weight?”
Trevor shook his head. “She looks okay to me. She says she’d be fat if she wasn’t careful.”
Cait set down her fork.
“She’s not athletic,” he told her. “And she doesn’t dance or anything like you do. You’d be too skinny if you ate nothing more than a few green leaves like she does.”
Trevor could be accused of sensitivity. Did I raise a good kid after all? Reality check. Yeah, maybe not me. Maybe Alexa.
Richard backtracked. “Green leaves?”
“Don’t freak, Dad.”
“Is she starving herself?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes she pigs out.”
“Tell me she’s not bulimic.”
His son stared at him. “How do you know about things like that?”
“I read the paper. I watch TV.”
“No, she’s not bulimic. She doesn’t, like, stick her finger down her throat or anything.” He frowned. “At least, I don’t think so. She just worries every time she has something like pizza and eats nothing but salad the next day.”
Richard sat back, less than reassured. “Are there many girls at the high school with eating disorders?” he asked Molly.
“I don’t always know,” she said. “I’m aware of a couple.”
“There’s more than that,” Cait contributed. “Mostly they’re not that bad.”
“Will you tell me if they get that bad?”
Cait flicked a glance at Trevor. “Maybe. Probably. I mean, if I think they’re killing themselves.”
Her mother sighed. “Okay.”
Cait had only finished half her dessert when she set down her fork. “You want the rest?” she said, seeing Trevor’s avid gaze.
“Really? You’re done?”
Assured that she was, he inhaled it.
“You want to go upstairs?” Cait asked.
Richard could imagine how Molly felt about that. By all means, let the two close themselves in the girl’s bedroom. But she only looked at him. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
He helped her clear the table, then while she was filling two mugs nodded toward the ceiling. “You don’t mind?”
“Barn door? Anyway, I think the last thing they’re going to do with us in the house is have wild sex. So no. I don’t mind.”
“They were both on their best behavior. I wonder why.”
They headed toward the living room by unspoken agreement. “I issued a few threats. How about you?”
“Maybe one or two.”
She took one end of the sofa, him the other. He’d rather have sat in the middle, right next to her, but was as aware of his son and her daughter upstairs as Trev and Cait no doubt were of their parents down here.
“I don’t know if this accomplished anything.” She frowned toward the fireplace. “I don’t know what I thought it would accomplish.”
“An easing of tension,” Richard suggested. “And I think it worked.”
The lines on her forehead smoothed and her pretty, dove-gray eyes met his. “Maybe. I wonder what they’re talking about.”
“Better we don’t know.”
Molly wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t it awful when you suspect your own child, who not that long ago worshipped and adored you, now makes fun of you behind your back?”
His mouth curved. “I doubt if Trev makes fun of me. I’m going to guess anything he has to say is more obscene than that.”
She made another face. “In fairness, it’s hard for Cait. Imagine when you were in high school if your mother had been the vice principal.”
“That would have sucked,” he said with a laugh. “But Cait, she seems to have been a good kid, so it can’t have bothered her too much. And it hasn’t hurt her popularity any, has it?”
“Maybe in certain circles.” Molly sipped her coffee, which he’d been amused to see she seemed to like with plenty of cream and sugar both. Maybe it said something that he liked it bitter, her sweet.
“But not the circles you’d want her in, anyway.”
“No,” she allowed, then smiled at him. “Have I thanked you for being so nice, and after I wasn’t at first?”
“We didn’t hit it off that first meeting,” Richard conceded. Except he’d felt the first twinges of lust, angry as he was.
“No. Or the first phone call, either.”
He remembered back. Cast-iron bitch. He’d been so sure.
“I wanted you to tell me what to do,” he said. “I didn’t have the slightest idea. I still don’t.”
She listened willingly when he told his fear that it was too late for him to become a full-time parent.
“Did you ever think of, I don’t know, contesting custody, or asking for alternate years, or…?” Molly asked, expression compassionate.
He grimaced. “Yeah. I was okay until Lexa got married and announced they were moving to California. I might have made a stink, except I was in the National Guard and half expecting to get sent to Iraq.”
Her eyes widened. “Did you?”
“Yeah. Year-long tour.” He looked away from her. “Twice.”
He didn’t know what she saw on his face, but her voice dropped to a whisper. “Oh, Richard.”
“There wasn’t any way I could have had the kids.” He kept his gaze fixed on the framed photos and pair of unusual candlesticks atop the fireplace mantel. “I didn’t come home in great shape, either. Especially after the second tour.”
“You were injured?”
“Not on the outside. I was one of the lucky ones.” He spared her a glance but didn’t let himself drown in her sympathy. “It was a year or more before I could sleep through the night after coming home, though.” He shuddered slightly, hoped she hadn’t noticed. “I had flashbacks. I was angry. Jumpy.”
“PTSD.”
“I don’t know. If so, I’d say most returning vets are coming home with it.” He shrugged. “I got better. But God knows I wasn’t in any shape to be a single parent.”
Miraculously, she was the one who scooted a cushion closer to him and laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
His fingers curled into fists, the only way he could keep himself from touching her. From driving those same fingers into the dark fire of her hair.
“Are you still National Guard?”
He shook his head. “I got out. Barring something that pulls me back.”
“I had no idea.”
“Why would you?” That sounded unfriendly, and he didn’t mean it that way. “We didn’t know each other.” He frowned. “Why didn’t we? West Fork isn’t that big a town.”
“Cait and I have only been here three years. We lived on the east side before I got offered this job. Cait wasn’t thrilled.” A quick, wry grin pulled at her mouth. “She consented to the move once we determined the dance school here was acceptable.”
He found himself looking at her, maybe having some trouble tracking her words. “Molly,” he said, huskily.
Her lips parted. They stared at each other.
And then, goddamn it, came the sound of a door opening upstairs, voices, the clatter of footsteps, and the moment shattered. Cheeks pink, Molly whisked herself back to her end of the sofa and snatched up her coffee cup. Groaning inwardly, Richard drained his coffee and lifted his eyebrows at his son, who had taken the last three steps or so with one leap and thud. Cait had stopped three-quarters of the way down, her hand on the rail.
“You ready to go?”
“Sure,” his son said.
Molly hustled to the closet and handed out their parkas. “Thank you for coming. I enjoyed having you.”
“We enjoyed dinner,” Richard said.
“It was good,” Trevor agreed. He zipped up his parka. “Thank you, Ms. Callahan.”
“You’re very welcome, Trevor.” She smiled impartially at them. Richard thought her eyes were a little shy when they met his. “And Richard.”
He’d have given damn near anything to kiss her good-night. He would already have kissed her, if his son didn’t have such terrible timing. Maybe it was just as well. Trevor needed to come first, and the Callahans, mother and daughter, could do him some serious damage.
Trevor and he were in the truck, Richard ready to turn the key in the ignition, when Trev spoke. “I don’t think she’s going to get an abortion.”
His head snapped around. “What?”
“I told her I’d marry her if that’s what she wants.”
Richard heard the defiance and the misery, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “Are you crazy?”
“So the truth comes out,” his son said disagreeably. “You didn’t want to marry Mom.”
Richard didn’t swear much, but this would have been the moment if he hadn’t gritted his teeth hard. How in hell was he supposed to handle this?
Trevor turned away to look out the side window. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” Richard said grimly. “And the answer is, no. I didn’t want to marry your mother. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to grow up. I wanted to do something else with my life, not go to work for my father. None of that means I didn’t love your mother.” He thought a white lie was justified under the circumstances. “Or that I didn’t want you once I realized you were a possibility.” He wrapped both hands around the steering wheel. “Can’t you understand that?”
Trev’s chin dropped to his chest. “Yeah.” His voice came out thick. His breath rushed in and out. “I’m scared that’s what she’ll want.”
“Son.” Eyes burning, Richard pulled his boy into a rough embrace. “I doubt that’ll happen. She’s fifteen. That’s not what her mother’ll want. But…” His own breathing shuddered. “I’m behind you, okay? Whatever you need.”
He’d have sworn he felt tears on his neck. They stayed that way a long time in the dark.