A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel) (22 page)

The likelihood made Therese’s heart hurt.

Unless something came of this trial relationship.

“Am I a fool for wanting something to come of it?”

Of course there was no answer. The house was more than just quiet. It was empty. This was the way it would be if Abby and Jacob went to live elsewhere. She would come home to emptiness. She would wake up to it. She would have only her schedule to worry about, only her laundry to do, only her meals to prepare, only her messes to clean.

A few weeks ago, that had sounded like heaven. At this very moment, it felt like loneliness.

Sliding to her feet, she peeled the wrapper from an energy bar, took a big bite, then found her cell phone next to the coffeemaker. Like for most working women, Saturdays for Carly were usually catch-up days, when she cleaned house, ran errands, and took care of her yard. That might have changed since her engagement, but it couldn’t hurt to ask if she had a little time.

“Hey, sweetie, can you spare an hour for an old friend?” she asked when Carly answered on the third ring.

“Of course I can. Should I get comfy in the recliner with a cup of coffee or make an effort to be at least somewhat presentable so you won’t be embarrassed to be seen with me?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Therese automatically replied, then corrected herself. “I’d like some face-to-face time if Dane doesn’t mind. Want to take a walk with me?”

“A walk.” Carly said the words as if they were significant. Truthfully, they were. Everyone in the margarita club knew she could work for hours in her yard without a word of complaint, but her place of choice for walking was in a store. She insisted that was why she couldn’t lose the pounds she’d gained after Jeff’s death—that, and the sinful chocolate-covered caramels she ate for breakfast every day—but everyone else knew she’d needed the extra weight. Having a spouse in a combat zone was stressful. Some people ate to quiet their fear; some starved theirs.

“I’ll head your way. Meet on Cimarron?” Carly’s house was three blocks south and three blocks east of Therese’s.

“I’ll be there. Should I bring Mojos?” That was significant, too, offering to bring her Mags’ Mojos. Sharing her caramels with Dane, she joked, was how she’d known she’d fallen in love with him.

Therese laughed. “No, the situation’s not dire. I just need to talk to my bestie.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

Other than her after-dinner meander with Keegan on Tuesday, it had been too long since Therese had walked for the pure pleasure of it. Back in Montana, she’d never needed exercise. Her daily life had been active enough. Though Paul had loved to run, she hadn’t thought her body deserved that kind of punishment. Walking, though…they’d taken a lot of long strolls wherever they’d been. It had been their time to catch up on each other’s lives, to reconnect.

Every neighborhood in Tallgrass had sidewalks, a throwback to long-ago times when strolls had been more common. It took the caution out of walking—no need to deal with traffic except at intersections, no cause to watch her steps. She could let her mind wander, and it did.

Straight to Keegan. Again, Mariah had been more asleep than awake when they’d left the night before. Again, they’d come within an inch of kissing and, again, neither of them closed that inch. She had wanted to. He had wanted to. She’d seen it in his eyes. But when he’d taken the first step back, he gave her a smile filled with such knowing and promise and desire that she shivered even now at the memory of it.

Tomorrow,
he’d whispered before shifting Mariah to lie against his shoulder and heading to his car.

Tomorrow was here, and they were going on a picnic at Tall Grass Lake, maybe just the three of them, maybe all five. It would be nice to have a private picnic with him or a private dinner, but they were parents. Privacy was hard to come by.

She caught sight of Carly when they were still a block apart. She returned Carly’s big wave, then lengthened her stride until they came close enough to speak without yelling.

“Which way do you want to go?” Carly asked.

Therese glanced around. If they headed south, they would be on Main Street within minutes. East or west would take them back toward their respective homes, so she gestured to the north and they turned that way. “How’s Dane?”

“Perfect.” It was a word Carly used a lot, a concept that had given Dane some trouble. He’d taken the word on its surface and felt so
im
perfect with his amputated leg and his trouble adjusting to the loss. But Carly had known exactly what she was talking about. He truly was perfect to her.

“How are the kids?”

Therese shrugged. “They were both gone last night. Abby had a sleepover and Jacob stayed at Liam’s.”

“So you were alone all night. Was it as nice as you remember?”

They came to a chalk drawing on the sidewalk, pastel colors, lots of fuzzy circles, and both of them automatically moved into the grass to avoid stepping on it. When the concrete was beneath her feet again, she said, “Not exactly alone. I had company for dinner.” An oddly formal way to describe Keegan and Mariah, but it was better than just blurting that in the six days since she’d told Carly about him, she’d decided to get involved with him. To explore the possibilities.

To risk getting her heart broken.

Carly gave her a shrewd look. “Does this company have a name?”

“Keegan Logan. I told you about him.”

“The medic from Fort Polk who knew Paul in Afghanistan. The very handsome medic. I remember.” Carly tapped one finger against her lower lip as if pondering an unfathomable question. “Gee, he’s been in town about a week, hasn’t he? He didn’t go home after finding out Paul had passed? What could possibly be keeping him here?”

“I asked him that yesterday.”

“And did he say, ‘Why, you, of course’?”

“Sort of.” Therese’s face warmed when Carly did a double-take, her eyes dancing with delight. “I mean, he didn’t say ‘why’ or ‘of course,’ but he said ‘you.’ Me. He wants to see what—” She had to stop to take a breath, to fill lungs that had suddenly gone empty like an excited teenage girl with her first boyfriend. “What’s between us.”

As they stopped at the intersection to wait for three kids to race across on their bikes, Carly slugged her on the arm. “Aw, man, you’ve been holding out on me! Last I heard, you’d met the guy, talked for a few minutes, realized he was sexy and you were alive, and that was it. Now you’ve got something between you? Just how many times have you seen him since then?”

Therese started to do a mental count, then gave it up. “We’ve had dinner every night but Tuesday, and he was at Three Amigos then, and we went for a walk after you guys left.”

“He went to Three Amigos because he knew you’d be there? Oh, my gosh, Dane did the same thing! Therese, I can’t believe you haven’t been on the phone with me every night or hanging outside my classroom every single day, keeping me updated!” Carly stopped short in the middle of the street. “He hasn’t been staying the night, has he?”

“No, he hasn’t. And I haven’t said anything because…I hardly know him, Carly, but…I want to. Really well.” Therese sighed. “But there’s these little obstacles. He’s in the Army. He lives in another state. He has a two-year-old daughter whose mother pulled a Catherine with her, only Sabrina totally disappeared. Keegan’s got custody of her.”

Therese started walking again, and so did Carly, giving her a sidelong look. “This Army thing…you know it’s just an excuse.”

It took Therese a moment of scuffing her feet before she huffed out a sigh. “I know.” Being a soldier hadn’t killed Paul. He could have just as easily died in a car crash on his way to work, been in the line of fire when a wacko with a gun started shooting at the local grocery store, or simply gone to sleep and not woken up. The world wasn’t safe, and there were no guarantees. When it was time to die, it was time.

Things happen when they happen.
Keegan’s words from yesterday fell completely in line with her own beliefs. But sometimes it was easier to think that her husband—and Carly’s, Ilena’s, Jessy’s, all the margarita club’s husbands—had died because they were soldiers than to accept that God had planned from the beginning to cut their lives short.

“And the long-distance thing,” Carly went on. “You know it can work. Look at us. We probably spent more time waiting for Jeff and Paul to come back from somewhere than we did actually with them.”

“Yeah.” All those days, weeks, years. All those bittersweet good-byes and just plain sweet reunions.

“And as far as his daughter—she’s here in Tallgrass with him?”

Therese told her about his mother’s trip.

“Has he met Abby and Jacob?”

A nod.

“And he’s still coming around. Wow. I’m not sure you get to use his kid as an excuse if he’s willing to accept yours. No offense, but Abby takes a
lot
of acceptance.”

“She hasn’t been so bad this week.” The words surprised Therese—not that she’d said them. She had defended Abby and made excuses for her for the better part of four years, but this time she actually meant them. “You should see her with Mariah. She’s so good. She seems to have a really soft spot for her.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Therese couldn’t blame Carly for sounding skeptical. She’d been on the receiving end of Abby’s scorn and drama-princess behavior ever since they’d met. “I think she relates to Mariah. Two girls abandoned by their mothers.”

“It’s good to know that Abby’s capable of compassion.”

Nudging a soccer ball sitting forlornly off the sidewalk and into the grass, Therese nodded. She’d been relieved by that discovery, too. How sad it was that this was truly the first sign of the quality she’d seen in Abby in over three years. Was Abby really so self-absorbed? God knows, she’d been in situations before that called for compassion. Had she simply never felt it? Hadn’t known how to show it?

So many months living together, and so much Therese didn’t know about Paul’s daughter.

And yet she was on the verge of giving up on her. Had, in some ways, given up on her the day Abby slapped her.

How different a person would Abby have been if she hadn’t had to face so much adversity so young? If Paul and Catherine had stayed happily married, if motherhood hadn’t lost its allure for Catherine, if Paul hadn’t died. Each one was a major trauma in itself. Dump all three on any preteen girl, and the results weren’t going to be pretty. Add in Abby’s natural flair for drama…

“Okay, you’re thinking hard thoughts and not cutting yourself any slack in them. I can tell by the lines between your eyes. You always scrunch up when you’re blaming yourself for something.”

They’d reached the end of the street, a cul-de-sac with houses on two sides and the empty lot in the middle turned into a tiny park. A red-white-and-blue sign designated it as the Private First Class Shan Walker Memorial. He and his wife had lived in the house on the left, and he’d been the first casualty in Iraq from Fort Murphy so many years ago. The town had built and dedicated the park a few months after his death, but his widow and children had long since moved on.

If they’d built a park to memorialize every soldier who’d died since, practically every block would have green space.

Without speaking, Therese and Carly both headed automatically toward the central pavilion, just big enough to shelter a picnic table from the sun. Therese sat on one bench. Carly took a seat on the table, feet resting on the bench.

“Have you made any decisions about the kids?”

Therese sighed. “It was nice last night, having Keegan over for dinner, no one but Mariah to interrupt us, and she’s very good at playing by herself. I woke up this morning thinking I finally had the house to myself. No bad moods, no grunting, no dagger-eyed glares, just doing what I want when I want. And you know what?”

“Instead of quiet and peaceful, it was lonely.”

Of course Carly knew that. She’d been waking up to an empty house for a long time before Dane. “I think I actually missed them, Carly. Even though Abby drives me crazy and my blood pressure spikes whenever she’s around, and sometimes when Jacob does his caveman imitation I just want to smack him on the back of the head. There was no one to cook breakfast for. No one to glare at me. No one whining about doing their chores.

“There was no one breathing in there but me.”

“But you weren’t being driven crazy and your blood pressure wasn’t spiking and you didn’t want to smack anyone.” Carly fingered her engagement ring. “You just spent five days without them. Didn’t the place feel lonely then?”

It hadn’t. Therese had spent part of that time meeting with people about giving up custody and the rest of it thinking about it, wanting to do it, hating to, giving herself headaches and stomachaches and pains around her heart.

“I knew they’d be back after the visit.”

“They’ll be back today. Their friends’ parents haven’t taken them to raise.”

“I know.” She seemed to be saying or thinking that a lot, when the reality on this particular subject was the total opposite. It was such a huge decision with such lasting impact—on the kids, on herself, on every aspect of their lives.

She didn’t know what to do about Abby and Jacob.

Y
ou can take off today if you want. I’ll handle things around here.”

Dalton looked up, a biscuit dripping butter and jelly halfway to his mouth. That was the second time in less than a month Noah had offered to step in for him—only the third in his whole lifetime. Not that the kid was lazy. He always helped out when he was home, but shouldering all the responsibility himself, even for just a day…

Something that felt like pride swelled inside Dalton. He’d done his share of helping raise Noah, especially after their parents had moved, but he’d never try to take credit for his being a good kid. People made their own decisions and sometimes forgot all their raising, like Dillon. But Dalton was proud of Noah.

He took a bite of biscuit, not like the thick flaky ones his mom made but a decent substitution considering it came from a can, and gave the offer some thought. His first impulse was to say not only no, but hell no. The last time he’d had a free day, he’d gone into town, had too much to drink, ended up in bed with Jessy Lawrence, and couldn’t get it—or her—out of his mind.

But not working didn’t have to mean having a drink, seeing anyone, or even leaving the ranch. He could watch a game on TV. Read a book. Hike through the woods with Oz, the dog he’d finally named. Lie on the couch and be too lazy to do more than roll over once in a while. Little things. Nothing things. Things he hadn’t taken time to do in more years than he could remember.

“Why the offer?” he asked.

“’Cause you look like hell. An old man needs a break every now and then.”

“Yeah, this old man can still kick your ass.”

Noah laughed. “You never kicked my ass. The physical stuff was all between you and Dillon. Mom would have kicked
your
ass if you’d laid a hand on me.”

Dalton’s nerves went tight the way they always did at the mention or thought of their brother, but not as bad as usual. Most times Dillon came up in conversation, Dalton lost his appetite or his patience and turned stone-faced. This time he was still for a moment, then he stuffed the rest of the biscuit in his mouth. “You always were a mama’s boy.”

“I had to be. You guys pestered me all the time, and all Dad ever said was, ‘Don’t let ’em catch you, son.’” Noah did a credible imitation of their father’s deeper voice. “Hell, I spent half my life running and hiding from you two.”

Dalton didn’t remember it quite that way. Yeah, they’d been obnoxious big brothers, but they’d also done a lot of stuff with Noah, not to him. Besides, he’d been an obnoxious little brother. He’d deserved some of the tricks and teasing he’d gotten.

Rising from the table, Noah folded the last two slices of bacon to fit inside a biscuit, gulped the rest of his coffee, and headed toward the door. “I’ll see you later. And you’re welcome for the day off.”

“You’re welcome for the college education,” Dalton retorted before the door shut.

He dredged another piece of biscuit through the yolk of his eggs-over-easy, looked at it, then offered it to the dog. Oz took it delicately, dropped it into his food dish across the room, then settled down to eat it at his leisure.

Dalton cleared the dishes from the table, rinsed and loaded them in the dishwasher, and wondered what to do with this gift of a free day. The first thing he ruled out was visiting Sandra’s grave. Sometimes the visits helped—actually made him feel a little…Not better. He would never feel better about her final choice. But going there, brightening the plot with the yellow flowers she’d loved, maintained some sort of connection.

But since meeting Jessy there weeks ago, the visits made him think of her, too. As if he wasn’t already uncomfortable enough inside those gates.

The time he’d spent with Jessy Thursday evening at Bubba’s had been odd. He was still harboring a lot of resentment, and he guessed she sensed it even though he tried to be civil, because she’d been unsettled the whole time. She hadn’t said much and had looked as if she’d rather be anywhere else and with anyone else in the world.

But if that was the case, why had she come over in the first place? Why had she asked if she could sit with him?

About the time he’d finished his burger, she’d mumbled something about getting home, grabbed her purse, and left. A couple of guys had called to her on the way out, one of them even blocking her way, but she’d just detoured around him as smooth as if she’d done it a hundred times and gone on out the door.

Shaking his head to clear her from it—yeah, what were the odds of that?—he wiped down the dining table, then glanced at the dog. “Well, Oz, what do you want to do?”

The mutt held his gaze a long time before blinking, then trotted into the living room. A moment later came the sound of nails on leather, then a whoosh as he settled himself in the recliner. Dalton knew from a week’s experience that the dog’s eyes were already closed and in a minute or two, he’d be snoring.

Sounded like a good idea for him, too.

“So the town Tallgrass is one word, but the lake is two,” Keegan commented as Therese turned onto a blacktop road flanked by wooden signs carved with the lake’s name. It was past noon, the food he’d picked up from a downtown restaurant smelled almost as good as his mother’s cooking, and he was looking forward to his first picnic in more years than he could remember.

Anticipating a picnic. It was almost too juvenile. His buddies back home would be snickering and calling him names.

Though that would stop once they got a look at Therese.

“Yeah,” Abby said from the back. “No consistency.” She tossed her hair with a teenager’s disdain, a gesture that would have had a lot more impact with more hair and one that Mariah had been imitating the last few days.

There were a lot of things Mariah could learn from her half sister, but dramatic flair wasn’t one of them. Her nearly three-year-old tantrums could put Abby’s to shame. She’d had one just this morning after deciding she wanted to wear an outfit from the to-launder pile instead of the dresser. It had taken the threat of canceling the picnic to stop her, but ten minutes later she’d been all sweetness and smiles.

Women,
he silently sighed, thinking of Mariah and Abby, Sabrina and his sisters. Then he gave Therese a sidelong look. He would bet she’d never thrown a tantrum in her life. Maybe it would help ease some of her stress if she did.

Maybe she would let him ease some of her stress.

Though at the moment, with her hair in a ponytail that blew in the breeze through the open windows and dark glasses hiding her eyes, she didn’t look tense at all. Add in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops decorated with sparkly gems and big yellow daisies that had made Mariah’s eyes light up greedily, she looked damn near carefree. Pretty. Hot.

Desire stirred way down low, and he was grateful for his own dark glasses that hid his eye-roll. It was the middle of the day, they had three kids with them, and they weren’t likely to get even two minutes of privacy.

But two minutes was a start.

Breaks in the heavy woods that lined the road showed occasional glimpses of the lake, until a tight curve and suddenly there it was: big, blue, rocky shores broken up by small beaches. The water level was lower than normal, he could see from the marks on the rocks, but that didn’t stop the boaters and fishermen from enjoying it.

“The southeast section of the lake butts up to the fort,” Therese said as she took another tight turn. “They have several areas out here for camping and picnicking.”

“You should have gotten a boat,” Jacob said from the third-row seat. The kid had earbuds in and was immersed in a video game, but he had a talent for tracking the conversation around him when he wanted to.

“And they have boats for rent,” Therese said with a glance in the rearview mirror, “but I didn’t think about seeing if they had any available. I started driving my dad’s two-ton truck when I was twelve and moved on to the tractor when I was thirteen, but I’ve never tried a boat.”

“You’re deprived. I used to take out my uncles’ fishing boats when I was way younger than Jacob,” Keegan teased. “You did have picnics up there in Montana, didn’t you?”

She gave him a dry look. “Sure. It was called a lunch break.”

“Toted out to the fields in a pail with a Mason jar full of cold water from the creek?”

His comment was rewarded with two snorts from the rear seats, followed by Mariah’s effort at one. It made her cough.

Therese pulled into a space beside an empty table, shut off the engine, then pushed her glasses up on her head to give him the full effect of her chastising look. “Yeah. Like you ate crawfish, danced to the fiddle on the bayou, went shoeless until you were full-grown, and called everyone
cher.
”

Keegan gave her his best offended look. “My mama bought us new shoes every August when school started. But the rest of it…” He shrugged.

“What are crawfish?” Abby asked, unfastening her seat belt before freeing Mariah from hers.

“Crawdads. Mudbugs.”

She shuddered. “You ate bugs? That’s disgusting. You’re not putting them in our dinner tomorrow, are you?”

Therese started to speak, but he beat her to it. “You don’t know what they are, so you won’t know whether you’re eating them. Just think of them as a low-calorie protein source.”

She jumped out with another shudder, lifted Mariah to the ground, and headed for the table nearby. As Jacob climbed out from the back, he grinned and gave Keegan a thumbs-up. “Mudbugs. Cool.”

Therese just shook her head. When they met at the back of the van to unload the food, she said, “Now she probably won’t eat the jambalaya.”

“Jacob and I can eat her share. Not that she appears to eat more than a few bites of anything.”

As Therese picked up a bag from the restaurant, she gave him a sidelong look, trying to be casual, and asked, “Will there really be crawfish in it?”

He hefted the ice chest, then deliberately bumped her. “Like I said,
cher,
think of it as protein.” He was pretty sure as he walked to the table that he wasn’t supposed to hear her murmur.

“We’re going to eat bugs. Oh, boy.”

Grinning, he set the ice chest on the concrete bench, then helped Jacob spread a plastic cloth over the table. They secured it at each end with rocks someone had stacked underneath the nearest tree, then Jacob wandered to the water’s edge where Abby crouched beside Mariah, watching as she pitched stones in and giggled at the splashes.

“Did the kids come willingly?” he asked as he helped Therese set out the food. When she’d called a few hours earlier to set a time, she hadn’t known whether either kid would be with her. She’d given them a choice, and it was usually to not spend time with her.

Even if she wanted to give them back to their mother, their behavior had to hurt.

“Actually, they did. Since we’re so close to the house, I told them they could stay home if they wanted, but when I got ready to leave, they were both ready, too.”

“Too bad we couldn’t have left Mariah with them and come alone. Or sent the three of them out and stayed home ourselves.”

She darted a look at him. “Gee, you, me, alone in the house. Whatever would we have done?”

“So obvious it’s not even worth a guess.”

For a moment he thought she was going to come back with something teasingly smug, but all she did was blush and gesture to the dishes spread across the table. “You did well.”

Changing the subject. That was all right. Soon enough they would manage some time alone. One way or another.

“You’re not the only Smurf around, you know. I don’t cook a lot since I live alone, but I know my way around restaurants and deli sections.” He’d chosen a chunk of barbecued bologna, a warm slab of ham, boiled shrimp, sweet pea and macaroni salads, and—even though they’d had them just a few nights before—baked beans and potato salad. How could they have a picnic without them?

The only thing left to unpack was the plastic tote she’d brought. He took a can of pop from the cooler and leaned against the tree while she laid out sturdy plastic plates that she could toss in the dishwasher just as easily as the trash. A heavy clay pot held disposable forks and spoons, and she’d brought a handful of real utensils—serving spoons, butter knives, and one wicked-looking butcher knife. A roughly made wooden contraption went in the center of the table, dispensing napkins while keeping the rest from blowing away.

“That is—”

“Jacob’s project from summer camp the first year we lived here.”

“—handy,” he finished, as if he hadn’t been about to say
butt-ugly
instead.

The smile she gave him, both knowing and appreciative, was worth the catch. “You want to call the kids, and we’ll eat.”

Pushing away from the tree, he went to stand beside her. “Abby, Jacob, Mariah, come and eat!”

Wincing at his shout, Therese shook her head. “I bet people used to call you incorrigible when you were little.”

“Used to?” He grinned and thickened his Southern accent. “Honey, they still do.”

“Six o’clock is kind of early for a dinner date, isn’t it?”

Therese met Abby’s gaze in the dresser mirror as she chose a pair of shimmery gold dangles from the jewelry box. It was right here that things had fallen apart between them. Only their positions were reversed: Therese had been standing in the open doorway and Abby had been rummaging through the jewelry box. Therese had told her she couldn’t borrow her earrings, and Abby had reacted in anger, knocking everything off the dresser, breaking the jewelry box, scattering pieces over the carpet. She’d shoved Therese, then slapped her, and something inside Therese had broken.

That was the moment she’d decided she was done with Paul’s daughter.

Easier to say than to do.

“It’s not exactly a date,” Therese said as Abby came into the room. “It’s just friends having dinner.”

“A man friend and a woman friend.” The girl stopped beside the bed, and in the mirror Therese saw her gaze slide to the photograph of Paul on the nightstand. “I don’t want a stepfather.”