A Forever Kind of Guy: The Braddock Brotherhood, Book 2 (4 page)

He gently bumped his cart into hers. “Hey, buddy,” he said to Fletcher, making eye contact with the boy. Fletcher stared back at him. He flexed his grip on the stuffed animal a couple of times, almost like an acknowledgment of Ray’s greeting.

Hayley looked up. Their gazes crossed. And just like that, Ray felt as if he’d been hit with a one-two punch. His stomach clenched. His palms got sweaty. He’d felt exactly the same way at age thirteen when he was about to ask Megan Cole to the Valentine’s Day dance.

When Hayley didn’t say anything either, Ray didn’t feel too badly about not acknowledging her presence right away. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. That must be telling her something. The moment seemed to drag on, both of them standing there staring, a silent Fletcher caught in the middle.

“Excuse me.” An overweight, middle-aged woman elbowed her way past Hayley to get to the frozen French fries. She picked up three packages, added them to her already overflowing cart and waddled away.

Ray coughed. He seemed to do that a lot around Hayley. Maybe he was allergic to her. Maybe it would help him bring a few words up. They all seemed to be stuck in the back of his throat.

“Stocking up on pizza?”
Clever, clever line,
Ray congratulated himself.

Hayley showed him the box she still held. “Pizza? That’s for amateurs. I’m branching out. I’ve moved on to chicken pot pie.”

She set the box in her cart and straightened, waiting for him to hold up his end of the conversation. Was he always this awkward with women? Or was it only with her? It’d been such a long time since he’d tried, he couldn’t remember. Surely when he was younger he hadn’t had this much difficulty speaking to a member of the opposite sex.

“I see you found your way to the grocery store,” she went on when he did not. “Congratulations.” She gazed at the items he’d tossed haphazardly into his cart. Hot dogs and buns, condiments, Oreos and milk, potato chips. “Looks like you’ve got all the basic food groups there.” She grinned at him and Ray’s tongue tied itself into another knot. The same thing had happened when Megan Cole smiled at him.
Great,
Ray thought.
I’m almost thirty-three going on thirteen.

He gave himself a mental slap upside the head and dislodged his tongue from the roof of his mouth. His gaze flickered to his cart, which indicated he also had the appetite of a thirteen-year-old. “Yeah, well. I’ve still got to get some ice cream and Gummi Bears.”

Fletcher’s gaze shifted and he made a slight noise at the back of his throat. Ray could have sworn the kid’s ears perked up at the mention of Gummi Bears. “Hey, um, actually, my niece Molly is coming over tonight. She’s almost eight. We’re going to have dinner, watch a movie. Hang out, you know. I haven’t seen her in a while. You guys want to join us? She’s a cool kid. She’ll like Fletcher.”

Again Ray had the sense that Fletcher was straining toward him, though it didn’t appear as though he’d moved a muscle.

“I don’t know,” Hayley replied. “I kind of had my heart set on an over-baked chicken pot pie. I’m not sure a hot dog’s going to satisfy me.”

Ray stared at her hard, wondering if that was some kind of sexual play on words. Was she flirting with him? No. It was the same kind of dumb banter they’d started that night with the pizza. The kind of conversation they could both manage and be comfortable with. Nothing deep. Nothing meaningful. Ray shied away from the very possibility.

“How about a steak?”

“Steak?” she echoed.

“Baked potato. Salad. Bread.”

She licked her lips. “Dessert?”

“You can have your choice. Oreos or Gummi Bears.”

“Yum.”

“So is it a date?”

Hayley tensed. Her smile disappeared. “No. It’s neighbors eating food together with a couple of kids.” Her gaze challenged him. “Right?”

Wow. And he thought he had his defense mechanisms in place. Hayley threw hers out there for the world to see and made no bones about it. Heck, it was kind of refreshing, Ray supposed. He’d never have to wonder where he stood with her. She sent him a message loud and clear—he didn’t have a chance with her. And that was good, he reminded himself. Because he was in no condition to get involved in a relationship with a woman. Especially not someone like Hayley.

“Right. Neighbors. Kids. Food. Around six work for you?”

“Six is fine. What can I bring? Liquid refreshment? Salad?”

Ray relaxed. They were back at the starting gate no worse for wear. “Both?”

“No problem. I’m good with lettuce and liquids. We’ll be there. Tell Ray goodbye, Fletch.” Hayley wheeled her cart past him and he watched her go, anticipating the evening ahead, which looked like a date and felt like a date.

But was definitely not a date.

Hayley changed clothes three times before she stopped herself from trying on yet another outfit. She stood before the mirror and gave herself the sternest look she could muster.

You are not going to date Ray Braddock. You’re not going to date anyone. You’ve got too much on your plate as it is.

She began ticking a list off on her fingers, as if she were giving a high-schooler guidance counseling.

“First of all, you’re not exactly stable. Financially. Psychologically. Emotionally.

“Then there’s Fletcher,” she told her reflection. “He needs you right now. You’ve got the Child Welfare Department breathing down your neck. You promised you’d do your best by him and that’s a promise you’ll keep. Even if your best isn’t good enough.

“Third, what about all those plans you had with Paige? Move to L.A. and work at a real job. A career. Finish school. Get your degree. Forget Trey and create a whole new life. What happened to that?”

Hayley stared at her reflection, her stern expression dissolving. She sat on the end of the bed feeling like an utter failure. Her marriage had crashed and burned. She had custody of Fletcher for the time being, but she knew she was hardly a fit mother for him. She’d managed to turn Fletcher’s father into her arch enemy. Even though he was currently behind bars, if she kept Fletcher permanently, Carlos had promised he would make her regret it. He’d make her pay for trying to help Steffie, for interfering in his life. Carlos wouldn’t care if his son—or anyone else, for that matter—got caught in the crossfire.

She was a thirty-year-old college drop-out currently employed by the local YMCA, barely surviving on the pay she earned as a part-time aerobics instructor, weight-room attendant, and all-around gopher.

For months the only thing that had kept her going was the knowledge that one day soon she’d be on a plane to start a new life far from Jacksonville and Trey and heartbreak. Social services would find a suitable family for Fletcher, and he’d have a permanent home and a stable life with people who loved him. In L.A., she had Paige and Lonny, and she’d make new friends and have a new job. Maybe, someday, once she left the past behind, she might even be happy again.

Which was why she couldn’t let Ray get to her. Even if everything inside her strained toward him, she had to keep herself in check. She couldn’t encourage him. She could maybe, and this was a big maybe, be a friendly neighbor. But anything beyond that was simply out of the question.

She sighed and stood, certain the talking to she’d given herself had reinforced the chunk of rock encasing her heart. “I’ll be fine,” she reassured her reflection.

She turned to the door to find Fletcher watching her. She wondered how long he’d been there. One thing she knew—there was nothing wrong with his hearing.

“Hey, Fletch.” She came toward him and held him close to her without bending down. As a rule, Fletcher didn’t like constrictive affection. He would allow her to sit near him, to put an arm around him, or like now, to move close to him and pat his back or touch the top of his head. But he squirmed if he was hugged or held too tightly. Maybe, like her, he was afraid of letting anybody get too close. Maybe he was afraid to trust.

“You ready to go?”

He followed her to the kitchen, where she removed a six-pack of beer, a bottle of white zin and a bowl of salad from the refrigerator. She gave Fletcher the beer to carry, and off they went to have dinner with the next-door neighbor.

The door swung open immediately after their knock. A young girl with dark hair and dark eyes stepped back to let them in. “You must be Molly. I’m Hayley. This is Fletcher.”

“Hi.” Molly studied them for a moment before she closed the door.

The sliding glass door at the back of the living area opened, and Ray stepped inside and came toward them. “Hi guys.” He smelled like smoke, and he looked divine in black cargo shorts and a black polo shirt. He was barefoot, Hayley noticed. He had long, lean feet and well-shaped toes. “Here, let me take those.” He relieved Fletcher of the six-pack and Hayley of the wine bottle. “Come on in.”

“You want to play?” Molly said to Fletcher. Without waiting for an answer, she led Fletcher to the coffee table where a game of Candyland was already set up. “You can be red,” she told him. An animated movie played on the nearby television, the volume turned fairly low.

Hayley watched the two children for a moment, seeing how Molly was instructing Fletcher to draw a card, explaining how to move his piece along the board. Fletcher watched Molly carefully. He listened and absorbed, but as usual, did not speak.

Ray touched her arm and heat radiated through her. He set a full wineglass in front of her and opened a beer, leaned back against the counter and took a sip. His gaze moved from Hayley to the kids and back again. “They’ll be fine. I told Molly about Fletcher.”

Hayley took a tentative sip of her wine. “What did you tell her?”

“That I’ve never heard him speak, but other than that, he seems like a pretty normal kid.”

“Does he?” Hayley glanced Fletcher’s way again. He seemed to be getting the hang of the game. He drew cards and moved his game piece by himself now.

“She asked why he doesn’t talk, and I told her I didn’t know.”

Hayley looked at Ray. He’d crossed his arms over his chest, his beer held in one hand. He looked relaxed and not all that curious about Fletcher.

“He’s, um, he’s not my child,” Hayley told him in a low voice. She took another sip of wine. Her nerves were humming, which might be due to Ray’s close proximity and her reaction to him in spite of all her best efforts to ignore the effect he had on her. She felt reckless, like if she didn’t stop herself in time, she’d tell him every detail of her life, lay all the ugliness out there before him and see what he thought of her then.

“Yeah. I sort of got that impression.”

Hayley looked to see if there was meanness behind his comment, but she didn’t find any. Ray was merely stating a fact.

Still it stung a little. “I know. I’m not any better as a mother than I am at rescuing pizza from the oven before it burns.” She took a bigger sip of wine. She had a feeling she was going to need more than one glass to get through this evening.

“Hey, I didn’t mean anything like that. Damn.” He ran a hand through his hair and turned to the counter behind him. He took a swig from his beer bottle and set it down to flip the steaks he had marinating on a plate.

Hayley stared into her wineglass. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little sensitive about my maternal skills. It doesn’t come naturally to me. Not every woman’s cut out for it, you know?”

“I guess not,” Ray muttered.

Great, Hayley
, she congratulated herself.
You’re not in the door five minutes and you’re already off on the wrong foot.
She stepped closer to him and touched his shoulder. “Hey,” she said softly. “Can we start over?”

When he turned his head, his gaze met hers. “We seem to do that a lot, don’t we?”

She dropped her hand, far too aware of the contact. She tried for a smile and thought she made it. “You know what they say. Practice makes perfect.”

She picked up her wineglass and held it up to him. “How about a toast?” He picked up his bottle of beer. “To a friendly, neighborly evening.”

“To a friendly, neighborly evening,” he agreed. The glass clinked. They both breathed a sigh of relief.

While Ray tended to the grill, Hayley managed to get the potatoes into the microwave and push what she hoped were the appropriate buttons. Last time she’d attempted to microwave a potato, it had exploded. She poked her head out the sliding door to double-check with Ray about the time, and he gave his approval.

“Good, then I can relax,” she told herself. She topped off her wine and thought about joining Ray outside. But that meant she’d be alone with him, and that, she had decided, wasn’t a good idea. Better to hang out with Fletcher and Molly until dinner was ready.

Ray had already set his dining table, which looked like a work of art in oak. It was polished to a glossy sheen, and the chairs had beautiful carved backs. The rest of Ray’s furniture looked to be of good quality and barely used. A microfiber sectional sofa in a neutral shade of beige was arranged before the television set housed in an entertainment center that looked like it had been designed for the space. It was the same oak, Hayley realized, as she wandered the room, with the same carving on the cabinet doors. She ran her hand over it, impressed by the craftsmanship.

The shelves held a collection of paperback fiction, CDs, DVDs and a few knicknacks. Behind a stack of CD cases she noticed a picture frame. Carefully, she edged it forward, moving the CDs aside.

Well, that figures
, she thought. The picture was a head shot of a slightly younger Ray, maybe five or six years ago, and a woman with pretty, delicate features and wispy, strawberry-blonde hair. She was posed behind him, her arms draped around his shoulders. His hands grasped her wrists. She had a chunky diamond ring on her left ring finger, and his sported a plain gold wedding band. The ex, no doubt.

Hayley put the picture back where she’d found it, thinking at least she and Ray had something in common. In the photograph, the two of them looked happy and in love. Once upon a time, she and Trey had posed together for similar pictures. She took a gulp of wine, hoping it would banish her bitter thoughts.