Exclusively Yours (14 page)

There was also the matter of them pulling their punches with her. Though they meant well, the other Kowalskis were more concerned about her feelings than with helping her see the issues in a clearer light. Good chance somebody who didn’t like her very much would be a little more honest.

But confide in Keri Daniels?

As luck would have it, a mere hour after deciding against sharing her personal life with her former best friend, she found herself alone with her.

It was hot, so Mike and Lisa had taken the kids, including Steph, to the pool. Joe was writing and Kevin had gone riding with a group of guys who’d arrived with a tent for the weekend. And her parents were in their RV, pretending to watch TV with their eyes closed.

By the time everybody had gone their separate ways and the clutter was cleared away, she and Keri were the only ones left.

“Did you ever get married?” she asked before she could change her mind or the other woman could come up with a good excuse to disappear.

Keri looked startled by the question, but she dropped into a camp chair. “No. I’ve been focused on my career, I guess.”

Terry lit a firestarter and threw a couple of logs in the pit before pulling her own chair close. It was a little warm for a daytime fire, but it gave them both something to look at. “I went the other way and focused a little too much on my family, I guess.”

“Is that what he said when he left?”

At least she got where Terry was heading with the conversation and didn’t make her spell it out. “I was too busy mother-henning him to death to be fun and spontaneous.”

Keri didn’t make any sympathetic
poor you
noises or cluck her tongue. She snorted. “Unless you guys skipped the dating and engagement phases and went right for the ‘til death do us part, he can’t claim he didn’t know what he was in for. You were born a mother hen.”

“I was not.”

“Remember the time you locked my Barbie in your bathroom so she couldn’t leave Malibu Ken for G.I. Joe?”

“G.I. Joe was too violent for her. And I never would have relented if Pop hadn’t had tacos for dinner.”

“Or the time you held up our entire class on the way to the playground because my shoe was untied.”

“You were clumsy and if you tripped, you were going to take us all down like dominoes.”

Keri threw back her head and laughed, and Terry surprised herself by joining in. It felt good.

“Or the battle of the Christmas nutcrackers,” Keri gasped between peals of laughter.

That had been extreme, even for her, Terry had to admit. Her mother had a staggering collection of wooden nutcracking soldiers she displayed all over the family room during the holiday season. If there was open shelf space on Thanksgiving Day, there was a nutcracker in it before the leftover turkey was gone. One year Terry got it into her head they should be arranged in a parade around the room by height. Soldiers were an orderly bunch, after all.

So had begun a two-week long battle between seven-year-old Terry and her mother. Terry would line them up. Ma would mess them up. Even the threat of being on Santa’s naughty list couldn’t sway Terry in her determination to keep the soldier nutcrackers in order.

Keri managed to stop laughing long enough to wipe the tears from her eyes. “I’ll never forget when your mom called my mom and from her reaction I thought somebody had died at your house. I
still
can’t believe you superglued them down.”

It was probably at least another five minutes before they sobered enough to continue their conversation, and Terry could practically feel the tension melting away. That’s what she’d been missing in her life—a really good girlfriend who wasn’t related to her by blood or marriage.

Not that Keri could really fit that role even if she wasn’t leaving soon, but she was a pretty decent temporary substitute.

“You know,” Keri said when the last hiccup of laughter had passed, “he’s probably just going through some kind of midlife crisis.”

“I’ve heard that theory. And I think it’s a cop-out, like PMS.”

The fire was burning fully now, and Keri backed her chair up a few inches. “Let’s play a game. I read all the glossy women’s magazines, and I’m a total quiz whore. So tell me the five most frequent things you say to Steph.”

She didn’t see where this was going, but she didn’t want to burst the camaraderie bubble. “Okay, let’s see. I love you. Have a great day. Take your shoes off. Is your homework done? And…sweet dreams.”

“Now tell me the five most frequent things you said to your husband. And be honest.”

All Terry had to do was close her eyes and picture Evan, and the words rolled off her tongue. “Take off your shoes. Did you take the garbage out? Dinner’s at five-thirty. The lawn needs to be mowed. And how hard is it to unroll a sock?”

She dropped her face into her hands and sighed. “I wouldn’t want to be married to me either.”

“Does he seem happier now? Is he seeing anybody?”

“He doesn’t seem any happier when I talk to him, but I’ve been a little…bitchy. And if he was seeing anybody, I’d have heard about it. I think.”

“You should go call him.”

Terry laughed again. “I’ve barely said ten words to the man in three months and you think I should call him? Are you insane? What the hell would I say, even if he was home, which he’s not because he’s at work.”

“Even better. When you get his machine just tell him you’ve been thinking about him and you miss him and you’d like to have coffee when you get home. Since he can’t call you back, the anticipation will build until he’s dying to see you.”

“He left me, Keri. I don’t know how I’m supposed to forgive him for that.”

“People sometimes hurt the ones they love trying to protect themselves from being hurt. Love means second chances sometimes.”

“Like Joe’s giving you?”

All traces of amusement vanished from Keri’s face. “My being here isn’t about second chances. It’s about doing my job and we happen to be enjoying one another’s company while I do.”

“It really screwed him up when you left the first time.”

“He told me. But it’s not going to happen this time because he knows up front I’m leaving.”

But Terry wasn’t so sure. She could read her brother like nobody else, and he wasn’t just killing time. He was ready to forgive, forget, and pick up where they’d left off. To take a second chance and run with it. Well, dammit, if he could do it, so could she.

“I’m going to call him.” She jumped out of her chair before she could change her mind. It wasn’t like Evan had been begging to come home. “But please don’t tell anybody.”

“Cross my heart and get no pie.”

Terry froze. “Oh, God, I haven’t heard that in
years
. I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I remember how much your mother hated hearing
hope to die
so she didn’t let us have any strawberry rhubarb pie that night. That was worse than death and it rhymed, so it was good enough for us.”

The moment of shared history cheered Terry as she walked to the campground store, careful to take the longer route so as not to be seen from the pool area. That was just asking to have requests for sodas, ice cream and candy bars shouted at her.

After dropping quarters into the payphone, Terry punched in her husband’s new phone number and waited through four rings.

“Hi, this is Evan.”

“And Steph on the weekends!” her daughter chimed in.

“Leave a message after the beep.”

Beep.

“Hi, it’s me. I…I just wanted to say I miss you.”

Then she slammed down the receiver, heat burning up her neck into her face. What had she done?

Almost as disturbing as the fact his protagonist was screwed because the author had no idea what he should do was spotting Terry and Keri sitting at a campfire, laughing like long-lost best friends. It was a little disconcerting because, unless they were rehashing childhood memories, the only thing they had in common was him. And they both had more than their fair share of amusing stories about him.

Rather than risk walking into a matinee of his more embarrassing moments, he veered away from them, looking for company. Kevin’s ATV wasn’t parked on his site, so he’d probably hit the trails with whoever he could find to go with him. From the sounds of it, the juvenile horde was at the pool, so he made his way down there, skirting the campground to stay out of sight of the two women he really hoped were mending old broken fences.

“Uncle Joe!” Bobby shouted, and Joe waved when they all turned to look. “Watch me!”

He leaned against the chainlink fence—as long as he didn’t step inside the gate he wasn’t fair game—and watched his nephew dive to the bottom of the pool and retrieve one of the glowing sticks Mike was tossing in.

“Awesome!” he yelled when Bobby surfaced, and the boy grinned before diving down again.

“Thought you were working.” Mike walked over and leaned on the other side of the fence.

“Head’s not in it right now.”

“I can hear Terry and Keri laughing up there. Do I want to know what’s going on?”

Joe shook his head. “I don’t know. I gave them a wide berth.”

“Better than being at each other’s throats, I guess. You going in?”

“I’m too lazy to change into my suit and then back again. You guys riding later?”

Mike sighed. “Probably not. Lisa thinks it’s too hot for the boys to wear all the gear and shit. And I have to stick around or I’ll be spending the rest of the trip sleeping in the screenhouse again.”

Joe laughed, attracting Lisa’s attention. She waved from the far end of the enclosure, where she was supervising the older boys’ trips down to the bottom of the deep end. He waved and she gave him a smile.

“Get yourself in trouble again?”

Mike bent over to gather the glow sticks the boys were tossing at his feet and chucked the whole bunch back into the pool. “Not again. More like a chronic
still
. You’ve got it good, man. You can do whatever the hell you want to.”

That’s right. He
could
do whatever the hell he wanted. Because there was nobody to give a shit. Maybe Mike wasn’t free to hit the trails for a few hours, but he also had somebody else to talk to besides the mirror when he had a bad day. When he was worried or blue or had great news he was bursting to share.

He could sleep sideways on his damn bed if he wanted, because there was nobody warm to curl up against. He could eat whatever he wanted, because there was nobody to share a meal with. He could leave the toilet seat up and his socks on the floor and crank the tunes as high as he wanted.

“Yup,” he said, reaching over the fence to slap his brother on the shoulder. “I’ve got it good. I’m going to grab some grub, then get back to work again.”

In the store he found a couple of steamed hot dogs, a snack-sized bag of chips and his sister, who must have snuck down the other path while he was talking to Mike. She had a fistful of candy bars and was checking out the beer cooler. “Hey, sis.”

She spun around as though he’d caught her in the act of shoplifting. “Joe! What are you doing here?”

He lifted his hand, thinking the hot dogs spoke for themselves. “What’s wrong?”

Color brightened her cheeks. “Nothing. Why?”

“Chocolate and wine coolers? Who do you think you’re talking to here?”

“It’s hot. I want a candy bar and a cold drink. Get off my back.”

She was lying, of course. A chocolate bar and a drink most women outgrew in high school were her favorite stress-busters and she usually didn’t break them out unless she was really upset about something.

“Heard you and Keri laughing a few minutes ago. What was so funny?”

She shrugged and grabbed a four-pack out of the cooler before closing it with her hip. “Remember the nutcrackers?”

“Oh, jeez.” What a holiday season that had been. “Should we grab something for her?”

“I’m going to get a couple more things and then go hang out with Steph. Watch some chick flicks or something.”

Joe raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press. Terry’s
no television
rule was one of the founding tenets of the annual Kowalski family camping trip. Only Mother Nature trumped that rule and only because the four boys were a bit much when confined by bad weather.

“I’ll probably go find Keri, then,” he told her, showing the cashier what he’d picked out so it could go on the tab. “Catch you later.”

He didn’t have to look too hard for Keri. She was walking toward him wearing her black bathing suit with the pretty wrap-around thing over it. The knot of fabric holding it on accentuated the swinging of her hips, like a pocketwatch that sucked him in and stole his free will.

“Hey, babe,” he managed to say when she got close enough. “Wanna hot dog?”

“Nope. I’m going to cool off and hang with the kids for a while.”

“Voluntarily?”

God, her smile made his balls ache. “Yes, voluntarily. Are you going back to work?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, because what else was he going to say?
No, I’m going to dip my blue balls into the icy cold water and try to keep my hands off you in front of the children.

“Have fun,” she told him as she walked by him and through the pool gate.

Yup. A fun-filled afternoon of staring at the blinking cursor, trying not to think about the way that swimsuit made her legs go on forever. Or how those legs would feel wrapped around his waist.

It was a hot, slow walk back to the cabin.