A Forever Kind of Guy: The Braddock Brotherhood, Book 2 (30 page)

In his own way, Hayley thought, Ray was as wary as she was. Her tendency was to run for cover and keep everything inside. His was to get it out in the open.

She said what she’d wanted to say earlier. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“Tell me what you’re feeling. Right now.”

“Terrified.”

“Good. Me too. Why?”

“Because I’ll say something stupid. Or something you don’t want to hear. And you’ll walk out the door.”

“The only thing you could tell me that I
don’t
want to hear is that you
want
me to walk out the door.”

“I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I like having you here. I like you.”

“Well, that’s a start, I guess.”

“Okay. More than like you.”

The butterflies stopped beating their wings. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

“How much more?” Ray pushed.

“What? Like on a scale of one to ten?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“I don’t know. Maybe an…eight?”

“What do I have to do to get to a ten?”

“I don’t know. Give me some time?” Hayley kept her gaze locked on Ray’s. “And maybe do that thing you did the other night?”

Ray moved closer. “What thing?” He pushed her hair back and kissed her right below the ear. His teeth nipped her earlobe.

“Well, yeah, there was that. But there was this other thing…”

A few days later, Ray knocked at the sliding glass door then opened it when he spied Hayley in the kitchen. He stuck his head inside. “Hey, is Fletcher around? Can I borrow him for a minute?”

Earlier, Hayley had built a tent for Fletcher in the living room by draping sheets and blankets over the sofa and anchoring them on the coffee table. Fletcher had been dragging stuffed animals, books and trucks from his room to the tent for an hour. The moment he heard Ray’s voice, he scrambled out from beneath the sheet.

“I guess you have your answer.”

“Hey, buddy,” Ray greeted him. “I’ve got something for you.”

Fletcher followed Ray out the door. Hayley watched them traipse across the backyard, past the swing set to Ray’s shop. Fletcher reached up to take Ray’s hand.

Ray didn’t normally work on the weekends, but he’d been in his shop more than usual the past several days. Hayley wondered what it was he wanted to show Fletcher.

They gained the concrete pad in front of the overhead door and Ray let go of Fletcher’s hand. He disappeared into the shop while Fletcher waited outside. In seconds Ray returned carrying a rocking horse. He set it down near Fletcher and hunkered next to him and spoke to him, pointing at the horse.

Fletcher stepped forward, climbed on and started rocking. Even from this distance, Hayley could sense his delight. The horse was substantial and sturdily built. Fletcher could probably get a couple of years of use out of it. Knowing Ray’s penchant for fine craftsmanship, she had no doubt of its quality.

If Fletcher was adopted, no—
when
Fletcher was adopted, he could take the rocking horse to his new home. Perhaps there’d be other children there who would enjoy it as well. It’d be like a little piece of Ray going with him.

Hayley turned away from the window and went into the laundry room. She didn’t want to think about Ray, because that meant she’d have to think about how she felt about him. About them.

She pulled the dryer door open and stared at the pile of clean laundry.

What had she done? Had she gone and fallen in love with Ray? After all of her warnings to herself not to, had she done exactly that? She yanked a still-warm bath towel out of the dryer and clutched it to her like a security blanket as she slid to the floor with her back to the wall. Falling in love with Ray had not been part of the plan. What was she going to do? Come up with Plan B? She groaned at the thought. The ripple effect had been bad enough, but now she had this sort of sick feeling inside that history was about to repeat itself. That Ray would walk away from her the same way Trey had, and there she’d be, an even worse mess than before.

Ray isn’t Trey.

She knew that. Ray had pointed it out to her more than once. But she wasn’t sure her heart was ready to acknowledge the difference. Believing in forever twice seemed a bit of an oxymoron, didn’t it? Forever was supposed to last, well, forever. When it didn’t, then forever lost all meaning.

She didn’t doubt Ray’s belief in forever. Maybe because his wife had died rather than making a choice to leave him, it was easier for him to believe. He’d have stayed with her as he’d vowed to do on their wedding day.

Hayley had made the same vow to Trey. Then he’d shattered her belief in “until death do us part”.

Hayley folded the last towel and slammed the dryer door with more force than necessary. She hated the way her thoughts seemed to go round and round without ever reaching a satisfying conclusion. “Maybe I need therapy,” she muttered to herself as she went back to the kitchen.

She gazed across the yard to Ray’s shop, and the breath caught in her throat. Fletcher was no longer riding the horse. Ray sat next to him, and Fletcher’s hand was cupped close to Ray’s ear. Was Fletcher
talking
? To Ray?

Hayley stared, hardly aware that her hand had come up to press against her chest, that her mouth had fallen open in surprise. She thought she saw Ray nod. Fletcher dropped his hand, and Ray said something to him. Then Fletcher nodded.

What in the world was going on? And how long had it been going on? Had Fletcher begun to talk to Ray, and Ray hadn’t bothered to tell her? If so, how was she supposed to trust him? Why would he keep something like that from her?

Hand in hand, they started back to the duplex. Hayley took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself, warning herself to act normally. Ray slid the door open and they stepped inside.

Ray looked delighted with himself. He grinned at Hayley. She made herself smile back, hoping he wouldn’t notice the suspicion in her gaze.

“A rocking horse, huh?” She switched her attention to Fletcher. “I bet you liked that.”

Fletcher nodded. He glanced back at Ray.

“I’ll bring it over here later, if that’s all right with you,” Ray said to Hayley.

“Sure.”

“And I was thinking maybe you guys would like to go out to dinner tonight? How about Aurelio’s?”

Aurelio’s was an Italian restaurant in Jannings Point. Hayley had never been there. “Sure.”

“Okay. I’m going to go shower and change. I’ll be back.” He ruffled Fletcher’s hair and gave Hayley a smile.

She watched him step through the sliding door and head back to his side of the duplex before she returned her attention to Fletcher. “Let’s go get cleaned up, Fletch.” She steered him in the direction of the bathroom. “Would you like spaghetti for dinner? Or maybe a pizza that hasn’t been frozen and burnt?”

All through dinner, Hayley found herself watching Ray and Fletcher, looking for signs of secret communication. They behaved as they always did, however, with Fletcher not saying a word and Ray talking to him anyway.

The table was covered with white butcher paper, and the waitress had left two crayons for Fletcher after she’d introduced herself and written her own name on one corner for them.

Hayley tried to remember the last time she’d been out for dinner in a real restaurant. It had been a long time. Aurelio’s was fairly crowded on a Sunday night, but the service and the food were good. She wasn’t sure Fletcher knew quite what to make of it. It occurred to her maybe he’d never been in a restaurant in his young life. But when his food came, a version of spaghetti with pasta easily manageable for a child, he dug in.

At least she didn’t have to worry about public tantrums with Fletcher, she reminded herself, when a father at a nearby table escorted one of his children outside before the decibel level reached ear-shattering proportions.

Fletcher stared after the two.

“Don’t get any ideas, Fletch,” Ray told him. “That’s not the way to behave in public.”

“Luckily, we don’t have to worry about that,” Hayley chimed in.

“Yeah, well. You never know,” Ray replied.

What was that supposed to mean, Hayley wondered. That Fletcher might open his mouth and start talking at any moment? That maybe he already had, but only in Ray’s presence?

By the time Fletcher fell asleep, Hayley had about had it. She came out of Fletcher’s room and stood directly in front of the television where Ray had tuned in ESPN.

“Hey, I’m missing the highlights.” He leaned to one side to see around her.

Hayley snatched up the remote control and turned the TV off.

“Hey,” Ray objected. “What’d you do that for?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him. “Because we need to talk.”

“Uh oh.” He stood and took the two steps he needed in order to wrap his arms around her. He took the remote control away from her and tossed it onto the sofa. “How about if we talk later?” He pushed her hair back and nuzzled her neck. Hayley felt his touch all the way down her body. Already he knew where her most sensitive spots were and exactly what to do with them. His lips lingered right below and behind her ear, and her eyes rolled back in her head followed by a deliciously dizzy sensation that promised more pleasure to come.

He kissed her. Oh God, she loved the way he kissed, the way he held her head in his hands, his fingers sliding into her hair, as if she was the most precious thing he’d ever touched. She kissed back until she realized what he was doing. The same thing Trey always did. The same thing she’d tried to do to him. Use sex to avoid a conversation.

She broke the kiss. “Hey, no fair. I want to ask you something.”

“Ask away,” Ray replied. He held her close and swayed slightly with her in his arms.

“Stop it. I can’t think when you do that.”

He didn’t let go and he didn’t stop. “That’s the idea.”

“Ray.” She pushed against him until he released her.

“What?” He still held her hands and his eyes looked dreamy. Bedroom eyes.

“Is Fletcher talking? To you?”

His expression changed subtly, sharpened a bit. “No. Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’? I saw him today when he was with you, after he got off the rocking horse. It looked like he was whispering in your ear.”

Ray sighed. He tugged on her hand and led her back to the sofa. “I was going to tell you, but it didn’t seem like there was anything to tell.”

Hayley frowned. “Well, is he talking to you or isn’t he?”

Ray shook his head. “It’s hard to describe. He’s only done it a couple of times.”

“Done
what
?”

“He sort of mouths words into my ear. It’s not even a whisper, exactly. It’s like he’s talking, but no sound comes out. His lips are moving, but he doesn’t actually speak.”

“But today…you acted like you knew what he said…or I guess…what he didn’t say.”

“Yeah, well, I think I do. I pretend I do. I mean, come on, Hayley, he’s four years old. It’s not hard to figure out what’s going through his head after he got a ride on a rocking horse which he clearly enjoyed.”

“What do you think he was saying? Or not saying.”

Ray shrugged. “That he liked it. That it was fun. Something along those lines.”

Hayley thought for a moment about what Ray had told her. There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. She climbed into his lap, straddling him. She leaned forward so she could kiss him in the same place he’d kissed her earlier, then she sank her teeth gently into his earlobe. “You know what?” she whispered. “You’re good at communicating without words.”

A knock at the door a few moments later halted what was becoming quite an interesting prelude to the rest of the evening.

“Who’s that?” Ray whispered. He withdrew his hands from underneath Hayley’s shirt and stared over her shoulder at the door.

“I don’t know.” She got off his lap and peeked out the sidelight. She sighed, rested her forehead against the door for a second before she unlocked and opened it, blocking access with her body. “What do you want?” Hayley asked the woman on the other side.

“Well, goshdarnit, Hayley. Is that any way to greet your own mother?”

Hayley stared at the woman who’d given birth to her and felt little other than pity. Her mother’s hair, as usual, was brittle and dry from too many hits from the bleach bottle. She wore a V-necked top that showed too much of her middle-aged cleavage, snug leggings that ended just below the knee, and wedge-heeled flip-flops, her version of high heels. Somehow her mother still managed to exude a sort of downtrodden sensuality that a certain kind of man would find appealing. She looked years older than she was, which Hayley blamed on too many cigarettes, an excess of booze and drugs, and a lifetime of involvement with unsuitable men. She gazed beyond the screened porch into the darkness to see the glow of a cigarette. She could barely make out a pickup truck and some guy leaning up against it. Some things never changed.

“What do you want?” Hayley repeated, even though she knew the answer. Vaguely, she wondered how her mother had found her. She hadn’t seen or heard from her in over two years.

“Well now, honey, what makes you think I want anything at all? I’ve come to visit my little girl is all.” Her voice had developed the raspy hoarseness of a long-time smoker.

“I can’t help you,” Hayley said, deciding there and then that she’d never smoke another cigarette.

Her mother gave a withering glance at the surroundings, the small screen porch with the cheap lawn chairs, the small-town neighborhood itself. “You sure have come down in the world, huh, girl? You’re just like your mama. Don’t know when you’ve got it good and can’t hang onto a man.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Hayley choked out, everything inside her hoping it was true.

“Everything okay?” She felt Ray’s hand on her shoulder.

“It’s fine.”

“Oh, well, I see you got another one on the line.” Hayley’s mother grinned as she peered up at what she could see of Ray. “Don’t let no grass grow under your feet, that’s what I always say.” She cackled, showing an area where she was missing a tooth. She started to cough. Digging into the huge purse she had slung over her shoulder, she extracted an extra-long filter cigarette and lit it with a pink disposable lighter.