Archer's Angels (13 page)

“I don’t believe you. You’re telling me a fairy tale, Archer.”

He got his coffee out of the microwave when it dinged, and then held up a hand. “I am telling you the truth. The condom song was a deterrent in more ways than one. Hey, at that age, a guy is trying to summon a little courage around a girl. When you have to start thinking about your condom running off to London, you just freeze up.”

“So you never kissed Missy Tunstine.”

“I didn’t say that.” He gave her an eyebrow and maybe a bit of a smirk.

She sensed a challenge. “Well?”

“Luckily for me, Missy didn’t have hang-ups. She caught me at my locker and smooched me so fast my toes curled in their boots.”

Clove felt a momentary dislike for the brave and forward Missy. “And then?”

He shrugged. “And then when we turned fifteen, Mason put condoms in our Christmas stockings. It was all very straightforward as far as he was concerned. As
a single parent, his role was to make certain we didn’t get ourselves in trouble.”

Clove hesitated, trying to decide if she should concentrate on the trouble part—a heading she fell under—or the rest of the Missy story. Sighing, she said, “So back to my point, which you got me off of quite effectively, I am the evil villain in this story, Archer. I’ve been thinking about it, and I feel we need some time apart to sort this out.”

“No,” he said, “I’ve never been more sorted in my life.”

She shook her head, looking at his honest face and alarmed eyes. “You’re a good man, Archer.”

He set his mug down. “What you’ve done is give me the possibility of three children, Clove. I’m beside myself with joy.”

“But with me. If I hadn’t been playing the part of the brave and forward Missy, you would not have picked to spend your life with me. You would not have chosen me as the mother of your children. In fact, you would have probably gone off with a girl like Missy, into the sunset, a woman who made your toes curl in your boots and who understood life in Texas.”

“I see what you’re worried about,” Archer said, “but you have to understand I like my ladies a bit forward. I like the fact that you jumped me.”

“Well, I think that’s a bit strong—”

“There I was,” he said, his voice dreamy, “minding my own business, and here comes this little scaredy-cat girl, looking like she just got off the train from Lost and didn’t have a ticket to Found.”

“Archer!”

“And then she goes and gets dangerous on me, with a ’do and some makeup and heels, courtesy of the Never Lonely Cut-n-Gurls. I have to beat my brother off of her, practically, explaining to him that I got first dibs on the babe, even if she doesn’t look like scaredy-cat anymore.”

“I have never in my life been a scaredy-cat!”

He caught her by the hand, pulling her close. “You are scared of me, babe.”

Archer and Clove stared at each other for a moment. If he wasn’t so handsome, if he wasn’t such a tall, well-built specimen, if he wasn’t so manly, maybe she would actually believe that this man wanted her forever. But in the nerdy-girl stories she’d read, the woman had to stay beautiful to have her “revenge” by winning the man.

She was about to get very broad and misshapen. Slowly, she pulled her hand away from him. “I’m afraid,” she admitted.

“I know,” he said, “and I suspect it’s about all the wrong things.”

“I want to say, let’s start over…let’s see if you really like me, without the fact that I’m pregnant being part of it.” Her heart felt very sad as she said this. “And yet, the babies are the best part. A miracle.”

“That’s right,” Archer said. “And since I put them there, you should cut me some slack. I should be racking up points for good aim.”

She tried not to smile at him. “I can tell that you are the kind of man who moves his way through life by
making people feel better. A laugh and a smile are your emotional props.”

“Yeah, but I can be serious, too. I’m feeling pretty serious about you.”

They stood a foot away from each other, thinking about what was growing between them.

“And you know, I’m not just another pretty face,” he said, coaxing a smile from her.

“Another story?”

“Yes, and this one’s just as true as the one about the condom song.” He pulled his shirt off, pointing to a scar on his upper chest, opposite from his heart. “This is where my twin, Ranger, shot me with a BB gun at close range. It was an accident, but it hurt like a son of a gun and I went boots over ass into the pond. My brothers had to fish me out, and then they had to hold me down so I wouldn’t kill Ranger.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s a terrible story!”

“Yeah. I was lucky it wasn’t a rifle or something. Mr. Misfire got grounded for a week by Mason, and we got the lecture of our lives on how firearms were to be properly handled before we put someone’s eye out.”

“Oh, dear,” Clove said. “That tiny little scar does ugly you up a bit.”

“Yeah,” Archer said, “and take a look at this.” He pulled his jeans down to the top of his underwear, where she could see a very shapely ridge of buns. Her throat dried out, and she stepped back.

“I’m looking,” she said, “and everything appears to be in its place.”

“But roll down the waistband a fraction.”

Was he daring her? She darted a glance at him. He was staring ahead, waiting.

With trembling fingers, she pulled the waistband of his boxers down. His skin was smooth and medium brown, as if he’d spent most of his life outdoors without a shirt on. “There’s nothing there,” she said.

“There’s a chicken-pox scar. I had one lingering, festering pox even after all the others were gone. My twin thought he was being funny and pounded it with a magazine. Mason then pounded his head.”

“Gross.”

“Brothers are gross. Don’t you see it?”

She let the waistband snap back. “No.” But he’d made her want to see more, and she had to resist temptation. Missy might have been a brave lockermate, but Clove had already thrown herself at him once.

“Huh.” Archer craned to look. “I guess it is gone. I have a scar along my collarbone from where—”

She turned away from him. “It’s not going to work, Archer. I will always see myself as the villain.”

He was silent for a moment. “Will it help if I told you I like bad girls?”

She shook her head.

“All right.” He passed her and put his hat on. “If I know one thing, it’s that a woman who’s made her mind up about something is fairly predictable. Like I said before, I don’t want to go hunting where there’s no game. Wise men pick the right spots for game if they want to eat.” He went to the front door. “You do what you have to do to feel better, Clove.”

And then he left.

She stared at the door, realizing that the pain in her chest was the price of her actions.

“I’
M SORRY
,” Lucy said two days later. She and Archer stood in the barn, where he was tossing hay into stalls. “My sister doesn’t know what she’s thinking right now. She’s been through a lot very quickly.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” He kept his face averted from Lucy. It was just too painful to think about Clove. Never in his life had he experienced the type of pain he was feeling now. It never left him.

“But I do,” Lucy said. “You know, I came here prepared not to like you. I felt that you’d taken advantage of my little sister. But then I met you, and I’ve spent time with your family, and you really are everything a family should be.”

“We have our faults.”

“I know. And so do we. That makes us who we are. But deep inside, this is a good family that’s done its best. And so have Clove and I. The thing is, she’s making decisions based on the past.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. She felt abandoned when our parents died. In her soul, she fully expects to be abandoned by everyone she loves. I’ve tried very hard to make certain she understood, when I married Robert, that she was part of our family. Of course, Robert’s decision to leave is abandonment. But it’s not her fault. Nor could she fix it.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” He stopped pitching to fix her with a glare.

“Because you need to know. This is not Clove not wanting you. It’s Clove not knowing how to get from one side to the other in a relationship.”

He put the fork against a stall door. “Some things can’t be fixed.”

“Not by people,” Lucy agreed. “Sometimes only by time.”

“I don’t have a lot of time,” Archer said. “Those are my children your sister is growing. My psyche tells me I should be a father to them. I should take care of their mother during her pregnancy. I should see their first steps. These are not difficult concepts.”

“No,” Lucy said with a sigh, “but the two of you started off running before you were ready to crawl. Relationships take time. And healing.”

“How much time are you suggesting she needs?” Archer asked.

“I can’t say that. I don’t know if it’s five minutes or five years.”

“Years!”

Lucy put her palm up. “Wait, Archer. I don’t have the answers. I’m only suggesting that my marital difficulties and separation are hard on her. You’ll probably be happier in the long term if you allow the dust to settle.”

He sat on an old chair in the barn, thinking. “It runs counter to everything I believe.”

“I know. You’re from a family of fixers. Clove tried to be a fixer, and it blew up in her face. Then when she was feeling guilty, you tried to give her a house.”

“That wasn’t the smartest move, but Mason’s pretty
obtuse when it comes to family matters. We’d just been through Last’s paternity suit. It all worked out, but the idea that one of the Jefferson children might not be part of the family really tore at him. Hence the overeager offer to put Clove in Mimi’s house.” He pulled at his jaw for a second. “To be honest, it was a bad idea all the way around.”

“Because you wouldn’t have wanted to live next door to your family?”

“No,” Archer said. “Because Last said it really hurt Mimi’s feelings that Mason wanted to buy her house and land.”

“Oh, my,” Lucy said. “Does she like your brother?”

“There’s some history there. No one’s really sure what the history is, but it’s always there, threatening to bubble up and boil over.”

“I see.”

Archer sighed. “And now Mimi’s accepted the offer, but she told Last she thought Mason was a sap not to propose the deal himself.”

“Ah. Sounds unhappy.”

“And now Mason’s even more miserable. He knew that if Mimi said she was going, then she was, and there was nothing he could do about that. Clove just got caught in his misery.”

“Did Mimi want Mason to talk her out of moving?”

“I don’t know.” Archer stood, tossing more hay into the stalls. “Mason gets so worried about the Family Problem, as he calls it, that he gets tunnel vision. Family first, everybody else last.”

“That sounds like Clove,” Lucy murmured. “I’ve relied on her for that over the years.” She sat straight, looking at him. “You know, I have a part in this, too. I should have realized that Clove would take my marriage problems as hard as she did. I should have realized from her job choice alone that Clove was trying to maintain control over unpredictable circumstances. Always pushing the limits to prove she could rely upon herself. I haven’t been there for her as much as she’s been there for me,” she said sadly.

“Hey, it’s never too late,” Archer said. “You’re sitting here, aren’t you? Bending my ear?”

“Yes,” Lucy said, laughing.

“Well, then. You’re ‘there’ for her. She’s just got to settle down a bit and realize we’re all here for her.”

“It’s going to be the first time in her life she’s had that,” Lucy told him. “I’ve paid more attention to the farm than to Robert or Clove.”

“Well, then,” Archer said, “we’re all just worthless.”

Lucy smiled. “No, we’re not. We just need to get to know each other more.”

“I like you, Lucy from Australia,” Archer said honestly. “Even though I was pretty certain you were going to be a big burr under my saddle.”

“I like you, too, Archer from Texas, and if you don’t try to be too big of a fixer, my sister may come around once she gets through freaking out over the fact that she’s going to have three little bassinets in her house.”

“I really, really want to be in that house with her,” Archer said wistfully. “My boys are going to need me to teach them how to be men.”

Lucy looked down at her fingers for a second, and suddenly, Archer realized just how hard it was for her to be having this talk with him. “I’m sorry, Lucy, about…your family.”

“It’s life,” she said slowly. “At least I’ll have Clove’s babies to love.”

He blinked. If his plan for happiness worked out, Lucy would not have Clove’s babies nearby to cuddle and love every time her fingers yearned for soft baby skin. Her nephews would be on the other side of the world. “It’s chilly out here,” he said gruffly. “You’d best go inside and get warm.”

Lucy stood, nodding, pretending that he didn’t see her wiping away a tear. “Hey, I just came by to let you know we’re leaving tomorrow, in case you don’t come by the house.”

Archer dropped the pitchfork. “Tomorrow? Is that safe?”

“The doctor says it’ll be safer for her to travel now than later.”

He felt himself starting to shake. A wall of realization hit him like a giant tidal wave he couldn’t move away from, threatening to sweep him under and crush him. “I…is there no chance she’ll reconsider?”

Lucy shook her head. “For all the reasons we already discussed, this is what Clove feels she has to do.”

Archer stood, jamming his hands in his pockets. “I’m destroyed,” he said. “Brokenhearted. And for some reason, slightly jealous of you.”

She nodded. “I know. I would be of you if Clove was
staying here. I would be thrilled if she was comfortable enough to stay and make a home with you, but I would still be partially jealous of all you brothers getting to love my babies.”

“And still I think you’re awesome,” Archer said. “Clove is lucky to have you for a big sister. If you decide you want us to come over there and give Robert a good ol’ fashioned sense-whomping, just say the word and we’ll load up.”

Lucy smiled. “Thanks. Keep your passport updated. For now, I must admit to being the one who needed some sense-whomping. But Clove shouldn’t have to pay for my errors.”

Archer shrugged. “We all pay. It’s family legal tender, emotional when spent and harmful when saved.”

“Wow,” Lucy said. “You’re really deep. Did you ever think of becoming a writer?”

“Believe it or not,” Archer said, “my writing is what brought me to this place. Now I can only hope to write a decent ending.”

“Goodbye,” Lucy said. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Archer said, his heart sunk so low he didn’t think it would ever fill his chest again. “I can tell I’m going to need it.”