Blueprints: A Novel (35 page)

“Yes, pills. ‘Humbled’ how?”

“Knowing you’re a gift I may not deserve. I want more kids.”

“So do I,” she said with fervor. Brad had always limited it, another
SLOW
sign she should have seen. “I want
lots.
”

“See, there’s another thing we share.” And it was like he was in her mind. “What happened with your fianc
é
?”

She returned her cheek to his chest. “He only wanted two kids.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Not in this bed.”

Gentle hands raised her head. His eyes were positively cerulean, earnest and clear. “I need to know, Jamie. My heart’s at stake here. Are you and he really over, or are you just taking a break?”

She wanted to be offended. But how to be that in the echo of
my heart’s at stake here
? Besides, he was only asking what any normal man would wonder. For all their talk about marriage and kids, they didn’t know each other.

Wanting to change that, she sat up and wrapped a corner of the sheet over her breasts. “For the record, Checker Chip, I would never,
never
have been with you if Brad and I weren’t completely done. It probably ended the day my father died, only I didn’t see the writing on the wall until I wanted you so much. I’m actually amazed Brad and I lasted as long as we did. At the first sign of trouble…” Her fingers exploded into the air from a fist.

“Is it a problem that he’s part of the business?”

“Only short-term. He’s leaving. We’ll hire another lawyer.” She considered. “His being with the company may actually have been why we got engaged. I mean, he’s a nice guy in every respect, but the office was watching. It became a game. Once we were dating, getting engaged was the next step.” She reflected. “I couldn’t get myself to plan a wedding. My mom thought I was afraid to commit because my parents’ marriage failed, but I think it was because I must have known deep down he wasn’t the one. We come from different places, Brad and I.”

“Maybe you and me, too,” Chip cautioned. “You’re a MacAfee.”

“Don’t keep saying that.”

“But it’s true. You’re out of my league.”

As often as she had seen, or imagined seeing, vulnerability in Brad, what she saw on Chip’s face rang true. There was nothing innocent and pure about Chip. She knew his past. But it didn’t make a bit of difference.

No. That was wrong. His past gave him depth, which made him more attractive to her.

Rocking forward on her knees, she pressed a hand to his mouth and whispered, “We are
so
in the same league. I feel connected to you like I’ve never felt to anyone else.” And completely comfortable, though he was sprawled naked on top of the sheets and she had her legs folded in a nonladylike way. When an inner stirring flared, she remembered the caution thing and sputtered a laugh.

“What?” he asked.

“All last night and today, I told myself to go slow. Like that was possible. What will Buddy say if he finds me here in the morning?”

“I don’t know. It’s never happened before. There’s no way I would have had a woman in here with Buddy around.”

Yet here Jamie was.

“Does that scare you?” he asked.

Scare.
Funny. Had Chip Kobik looked at her back in high school, she’d have run in the other direction.
Anything
about him would have scared her, from his size to his looks to his radiating sexual appeal. Now? The grown-up Jamie had her own confidence. She could see substance, brains, a caring teacher, a loving father. The grown-up Jamie had more deep-down, visceral faith in him than in any other man she’d known. He had been tested and was a better person for it. The grown-up Jamie wanted to stake her future on him.

“Scare me? Are you kidding? It makes my heart sing.”

He smiled and, reaching for her hand, wove his fingers through hers. “Heart sing, huh? I’m not telling the Bud-man that, but he’ll have to get used to having you guys here.” He was suddenly serious. “You okay with that?”

twenty

Caroline was in the garage shaping rosewood slats with a molder when Dean came from the house. She didn’t see him enter, she was that focused on the wood. It was only when Champ, who had been sleeping against the cool wall, roused to greet his master that she silenced the molder and raised her goggles.

Thanks to the dog, she shouldn’t have been startled to see Dean. But she was. Bare-chested, wearing jeans that were zipped but unsnapped, he looked like he had just rolled out of bed. Which he had. Which was still stunning to her.

“Will I ever get used to this?” she asked without asking.

He bent to rub Champ a greeting. Straightening, he approached her on bare feet, wrapped an arm around her chest, and gave her neck a smacking kiss.

She had to smile at the affection in the gesture. “Just wake up?”

“Pretty much.” He nuzzled her hair for a lingering minute before releasing her and moving around the table to admire a dozen more slats. “You’ve been busy.”

“Plantation shutters for multiple windows in six rooms makes for lots of work.”

“Boring?”

“You know it is. I’ve long since finished the control rods and frames, but I’ve been putting these off.” She ran her fingers over the newest slat. “Look at the veining here, Dean. The brown is so rich.”

“It is. You’ve always liked rosewood,” he remarked, then asked, “What time did you get up?”

“Five.”

“If I were to guess from how focused you were just now, I’d say you’re trying not to worry about Jamie. Ease up, sweetheart. It hasn’t even been a whole day since you two talked.”

“Well, I keep telling myself that,” Caroline said, adding the new slat to the pile, “but right now, her life is—how to even describe it?”

“Busy is fine.”

“Busy is inadequate,” she countered and, checking to see that everything electrical was turned off, went out the door. “Try new. Or changing daily. Or
precarious
.”

Closing the door, Dean fell into step beside her while Champ bounded ahead. “Why precarious?”

“Because she’s stressed, and when people are stressed, they sometimes do things they come to regret.”

“Precarious means dangerous, but you don’t regret her breaking up with Brad, which means you’re seeing danger in Kobik. He’s a good guy, Caro. I asked around.”

She stopped walking to looked up at him in horror. “You didn’t. Oh, Dean. If Jamie thinks I’m snooping behind her back—”

“—you’d only be doing what any other mother would do. But this wasn’t you, it was me, and I was subtle.”

She sputtered a laugh. Dean Brannick was good at many things, but subtlety wasn’t one.

“I
was,
” he insisted and, taking her elbow, got her moving again. “Some of our guys’ kids play hockey, and Kobik’s camp is starting soon. They were talking about it, so I stuck in a few innocent questions. These guys think Chip Kobik is a god.”

Of course they do,
she mused as they reached the stairs. “Because he was a professional athlete.”

“No. Because he’s so good with their kids.”

She considered that and sighed. “Given that Jamie has one now, that’s a good thing, but still, he was a party boy for a while. I don’t want her hurt.”

“She’s a big girl. And a sensible one. Besides, I don’t see you rushing to tell her what
you’ve
been up to.”

“I’m fifty-six. She’s twenty-nine.”

“Twenty-nine is adult.”

“Fifty-six is more so.”

“You’re grasping, Caro.” He opened the screen door. Champ scooted through. “Who was telling me that a mother raises her children to let them go?”

Caroline grunted as she went inside. She had told him that in a philosophical moment of self-restraint the night before.

“The same argument stands today, sweetheart. Don’t call her.”

“Fine for you to say. You aren’t the one trying to repair a relationship. So I’m giving her space now, but I’m worried she’ll think my not calling her is from lack of interest or, worse, anger, like I’m still blaming her for the
Gut It!
switch.”

“Are you?”

“Only when I think about it.” She opened a cabinet. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”

“Me,” he said sweetly, and her mood lightened, which was why she was pulling out pancake ingredients for a second day in a row. She had promised. And he had been very, very good.

“Are we arrogant?” she asked.

“Shouldn’t we be? Last night was pretty damned amazing.”

“Who
was
that in bed with you—”

“—she asks for the hundredth time.” He opened the fridge.

“I’m sorry. The whole of me remains a puzzle.” She was trying to settle on a self-image as safe as the one she had relied on for the past dozen years, but it seemed to change each day.

“Here’s a clue. Who used her tongue last night—”

“Dean.”

“Just asking.” He had a block of cheddar cheese and a slicing knife. “For the record, sweetheart, the answer is one hot lady who should be eating crow by now.”

“Gloating is not nice,” she chided but without true bite. The sex kept getting better. She still wasn’t ready for prime time, as in going naked in daylight or, more immediate to her needs, soaking her aching thighs in a hot bath while he looked on. But she was growing more confident. “Uh…”

He was feeding Champ her organic cheddar.

“He’s hungry,” Dean reasoned. “You can’t begrudge him this after making him sleep in the garage.”

“He upsets my cats.”

“I upset your cats.”

“Only Master. He has this alpha thing.”

Snorting at that, Dean leaned down to scrub Champ’s ears and told the dog, “Caro really does love you. She’s just between a rock and a very hard cat.” Leaving the dog, he came up behind Caroline as she put the skillet on the stove. Sliding his arms around her waist, he put his chin on the top of her head with a quiet intimacy that had her melting.

In a flashback moment, she remembered what Annie had said about being touched. She had been right. There was something about a man’s hand moving over your skin that was special. Had she not missed this? Perhaps never had it with Roy, or simply been without for so long that it was new now? Or did age enhance the appreciation of little things, like a hand on an arm or fingers on a cheek?

Again she wondered how she could have been so close to Dean all these years and never wanted this.
Again
she wondered who she was.

A high bark came from the parlor, followed by a feline snarl.

“Champ!” Dean hollered. “Get back here!”

The dog came running. Freeing one arm, Dean pointed him to a spot by the door. With a shamefaced look, he slunk there and sat.

“At least he obeys,” Caroline observed.

“More than Master ever will.”

“Master is a cat.” As far as she was concerned, that said it all. “Do you want pancakes?”

“Absolutely.”

She could not cook with him plastered to her. There were some things that begged for space. “Then back off and let me cook.”

He did. But his mind must have been hard at work the whole time she was making breakfast, because they were no sooner finished eating firsts under the watchful eye of her grandmother’s smug-seeming lace than he said, “Marry me.”

She nearly choked on her tea. Pressing her chest, she shot the lace a frown and caught her breath. “Where did
that
come from?”

“The heart.”

Breath left her again. He couldn’t have given a better answer. Still,
marriage
? “My
God,
Dean. How can you even
think
that word so soon?”

“Twelve years is too soon?”

“You know what I mean. Being friends is different from being lovers. That’s a sea change.”

“Not a sea change. An evolution. It’s been brewing. Sex was the clincher. If we weren’t compatible in bed, it wouldn’t have been any good.”

“Sex was a
test
?”

“Not for you,” he said with a self-conscious look. “For me. I needed to know I could satisfy you in bed.”

Put that way, as if the potential deficiency were in him and not her, she was more touched than she could say. Dean was taking responsibility for making her happy. Roy had
never
done that. “But why marriage?”

“Why not?”

“Uhhh, take the little thing about marriage being forever, with both of us having failed once, and what about love?”

“I’ve loved you forever. And you love me.”

She might have argued that there was love and there was LOVE, though in truth, since they’d had sex, since he had been so caring of her in bed, since physical intimacy had deepened the emotional intimacy that had always hovered, the lines had blurred. “But why get married?”

“I want to know you’re mine.”

“I am yours.”

“I want the
world
to know it.” He scratched the back of his head, dropped his hand, and scowled. “Call me a throwback, even a Neanderthal, but it’s how I am.”

Caroline actually understood. She had grown up with a similar mindset, assuming that marriage was what women wanted in part to let the world know they were loved and taken care of.

But times had changed. Marriage didn’t have to protect women. In this new world, Caroline could protect herself. She was single and proud.

At least, she had been proud until the hosting issue cropped up. She thought about the age issue through breakfast. Later, buttoning a blouse over her bra while Dean showered, she went into the bathroom and, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the water, tried to explain. “Here’s where I’m hung up. We don’t need marriage. We’re not having kids, and we’re both financially independent. We don’t need a piece of paper tying us together. And a wedding—flowers and fanfare? I can’t picture it.”

When he turned off the shower and drew back the curtain, she passed a towel through the steam. The towel was pink, like her sheets, but it was plush.

He began drying himself. “It doesn’t have to be fancy. We can go off, just the two of us, and get married at a little inn. Lots of them have elopement packages.”

She drew back in alarm. “How do you know?”