Just a Kiss: The Bradfords, Book 5 (26 page)

“Someone has to do everything right every second for him, Eve.” Kevin turned away and paced to the window. “Or at least, someone should try.”

Her heart melted a little even as she worried.
Perfect
. There was that word again. Kevin was trying so hard to be perfect and he clearly expected everyone else to do the same. That was a sure way to set himself up for disappointment. Because no one was perfect and they all screwed up and broke other people’s hearts.

“Good intentions are great, Kevin,” she said carefully, “but give yourself a break. You’re going to make some mistakes.”

“Like tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“You think that pulling him away from the good time girls was the wrong thing to do?”

She quirked an eyebrow. “The good time girls?” She waited until he turned to face her. “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”

“Really? You think Lacey and Libby are good influences?”

She decided not to mention how much Drew knew about PMS. “I think they’re fun and clearly care about him.”

“Kids have fun on their own. They can’t help it,” Kevin said. “The adults around him are supposed to be the ones who are teaching him things and showing him a good example.”

“It was pizza and silly string,” Eve said, “it’s not like they were playing strip poker and holding up liquor stores.” She swallowed hard. What would he think about her influence on Drew if he knew all about her past? She was afraid she knew exactly what he would think.

“If they’d been playing strip poker, Drew would have won easily. Neither of them were wearing much to work with.”

She swallowed her first retort about him noticing so much about what Lacey and Libby had
not
been wearing. “Maybe instead of rules and dress codes, pizza and silly string would help him open up to you.”

Kevin’s frown deepened. “I’m not worried about that. As long as I’m taking care of him, he doesn’t have to like me.”

Uh-huh. Sure. Having Drew like him wasn’t important. “Right. As long as you follow all the rules, you can’t go wrong.”

This was not the Kevin she’d known in high school. He certainly hadn’t worried much about rules and what others thought of him.

“Right.” He didn’t look totally convinced. Thank God.

“But you are going to let him hang out with the girls next week?” she asked. “Even if it’s all marshmallow cream and fun?”

“I guess it’s too much to ask that they do Bible study instead,” he said wryly.

“That’s the only way to be a good influence?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light.

“Of course not. You think they might make blankets for the homeless?”

He was joking. Surely he was joking. He had to be joking. Or she was in deep trouble.

“Are
you
going to make blankets for the homeless with him?” she asked.

“It was an example. But yes, I’m going to do things with him that teach him things—how to be responsible, how to be giving, how to make a difference.”

“What kind of things are you going to do?”

That seemed to throw him off and he was clearly thinking fast. “I can take him to the Youth Center I volunteer at.”

“That would be great,” she agreed. “What else?”

“Maybe we’ll find a community service project here in town to help with.”

“Okay. Sure. That’s great too.”

“Maybe we’ll…find a stray dog and adopt him.”

Wow, he was clearly reaching. “Dogs are great. I think Drew would love to have a dog.”

“Yeah, great.” Kevin looked less than convinced.

That was exactly what he needed—something else to feel guilty about when he didn’t throw the stick far enough or didn’t get the thing’s favorite dog food.

She looked at him, seeing his frustration, his concern. “If we hadn’t been having sex while Drew was with Libby and Lacey would you be feeling this bad about it?”

“I wasn’t being completely responsible and available, was I?”

“He didn’t need you to be responsible or available. He was with them.”

“But if you hadn’t been lying naked next to me I would have at least asked where he was going and he wouldn’t have ended up over there in the first place.”

Ah. She straightened. “So, you’re actually upset with me because I didn’t ask where he was going to be.”

“It makes sense to ask that, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it does. But I also trusted Drew to know what was okay and what wasn’t.”

“He’s ten.”

“Why would he think it wasn’t okay to be with them? He
lives
with them, Kevin.”

“Not right now, he doesn’t,” he said stubbornly. “Heather needs them to help make her house payment. But I don’t. While he’s with me, he’ll be around good role models and learn… good things.”

Good things that he couldn’t even name. Great. “And there’s no way that Lacey and Libby can teach him anything good?”

“How to vote on
Dancing with the Stars
?” Kevin asked.

Eve propped a hand on her hip, amazed that Kevin Campbell could be such an ass. “Do
you
know how to vote on
Dancing with the Stars
?”

“No,” he frowned at her, “and my life is surprisingly happy and full anyway.”

“They were just having fun,” she tried again, “and fun
is
a good thing.”

“Well, everything he’s going to have for the next six months is going to come from someone he can really look up to!”

“You?” she asked.

“
Us.”

That probably should have made her happy. They were an
us
in Kevin’s mind. And she recognized that he was feeling inadequate. He wanted to be a positive role model to a kid who had yet to say three words to him, but who would talk and
laugh
with Lacey and Libby.

But she couldn’t pull out a lot of sympathy for him. He was judging Libby and Lacey based on a jar of marshmallow cream for God’s sake. That was hardly rational or fair. “You’re being ridiculous,” she told him. “You’re jealous of two girls that he’s been around so much that he knows about their PMS.”

“He knows about their
what
?” Kevin demanded.

Dammit.

“Did you say PMS?”

“So?” she shot back. “It’s a normal bodily function.”

“Jesus, Eve.” Kevin pushed his hand through his hair. “He’s
ten
. He shouldn’t know a damned thing about PMS.”

Kevin had cursed—and a major one at that. Things were officially out of hand.

“Argh!” She stomped to the table and grabbed her purse. “I had no idea you were this judgmental.”

“Where are you going?” He started for her as she yanked the front door open.

“I’m leaving.”

“No, wait. What about Drew?”

She turned and planted a hand on her hip. “What about him? You’re here. You’re the great and amazing responsible influence.”

“He won’t talk to me.”

“Yeah, well, you better figure that out because you don’t want him hanging out with me anymore.”

Kevin frowned and stalked forward. “Of course I do. You’re wonderful with him.”

“If you don’t want him spending time with Libby and Lacey—two intelligent, fun and sweet girls—you
definitely
don’t want him with me.”

Kevin was really going to have to get over this idea of perfection if
he
wanted to hang out with her. Otherwise he was going to be really disappointed.

“Eve, I need you.”

He sounded so worried that she almost caved. Almost.

He did need her. And not only for help with Drew. She was surer of that every time they were together. He also needed to figure out that what he
thought
he needed, and what he
really
needed, weren’t exactly the same thing.

He needed her because no one else would ever love him as much as she did.

Even when he was being an ass.

“Yes, you do need me,” she said sweetly. “Isn’t irony a bitch?”

“What’s ironic about that?” Kevin asked, his eyebrows drawn together tightly.

“That you need me, but that you don’t want him around someone with an arrest record. Especially someone who was arrested as an accessory to a felony.”

He stared at her. “What?
You
?”

“That’s right. Me. The one you’re going to be really missing here in about ten seconds.”

She took a small bit of satisfaction in his look of shock before she turned and stomped down the front steps, the door slamming behind her.

Kevin yanked the door open and started after her, but she was already in her car. He stared after her until her car disappeared at the end of the block. Fuck. And he didn’t use that word mildly.

What the hell had just happened?

Eve had left, that’s what had happened. Angry.

And a felon?

What was that all about?

She’d said she had some wild years, some times her father had adamantly not approved of. But an arrest? For what?

He didn’t think going after her and demanding to know was the best move at the moment. That’s what he wanted to do though.

But Drew was here.

Dammit.

Kevin headed back into the house and stood at the bottom of the stairs staring up. Drew was up there and Kevin was here alone with him.

Did her trouble with the law matter? At the moment, not at all.

Sighing, he made himself ask the question seriously. Did it matter what she’d done in the past?

He thought about the woman he’d made love to and held as he slept. He thought about the woman who had rescheduled her life and reordered her priorities for him and his little brother, the woman who made Drew so obviously feel better—and who didn’t need silly string to do it. He thought about the woman who had faced the start of her adulthood and the last ten years without the family that had been her foundation. And he thought about that sweet girl who had looked up at him as she said “I do” all those years ago.

He’d seen his future in her eyes.

He’d known that those were the eyes he wanted to look into at the happiest moments—their child’s first day of school, his retirement, their fiftieth wedding anniversary—and the darkest moments—the illnesses, the hard financial times, the funerals—that would make up their life.

They’d missed happy and hard times already. She wasn’t there when he’d graduated as an Academic All American or when his knee rehab made him sweat and cuss and almost cry. He hadn’t been there for fourteen birthdays or when her grandmother died.

He wasn’t going to lose any more moments.

No matter what she’d done.

He trusted and wanted her sweetness, her intelligence, her humor, her sense of right and wrong. He’d always been able to count on that.

But that was a possible problem. She’d obviously done some things that weren’t
right
. Her rebellions and partying and all those things that had caused a rift with her father. And an arrest? Something that at least seemed not right in the eyes of the law.

This was getting complicated. And confusing. Definitely confusing.

He was in love with one version of Eve. But was it the real version?

He was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of footsteps upstairs. Drew was up there.

Sighing, he headed up. Drew had school tomorrow so he needed to get in bed.

Kevin knocked and then pushed the door open when there was no answer.

“Hey.”

Drew was already in bed. His pajamas were on and his hair brushed. Kevin figured he’d brushed his teeth too.

“You okay?” he asked.

Drew stared at the book in his lap.

“Eve had to go home. But she’ll be here tomorrow.” He hoped to hell she would be anyway. He had to head back to work at five-thirty.

Drew still said nothing.

Kevin moved farther into the room. He saw a thick book lying on the top of the dresser.

Children’s Bible Stories.
Eve must have brought it over.

Okay, this is what they were going to do. Kevin was going to read Bible stories to Drew at night. Whether the kid said a word or not.

He grabbed the book and moved to sit on the end of the bed. He supposed it was easiest to start at the beginning.

Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.

Or maybe not the beginning. He flipped a few pages.

Noah and the Ark.

Yep, that sounded better.

He had no idea if Drew was listening or not, but he read the story out loud anyway. Maybe something would soak in.

When he finished he glanced at his little brother. Drew was still staring at the page in front of him, but Kevin didn’t think he’d seen or heard the page turn while he had been reading.

“You know, I always wondered what they did about the woodpeckers,” he said. “Holes in the boat would’ve been a big problem.”