Paradise County (35 page)

“Not much. I told you. Alex, aren’t you getting a little sick of pizza?”

Alex bristled. “I
like
pizza,” she said defiantly. Then a thought
occurred to her. “Wait a minute. I didn’t order pizza yet. I’m cooking chicken breasts with rice for dinner.” Her superior tone in no way reflected the sorry state of the chicken breasts that lay limply waiting for some kind of resuscitation on top of the stove.

“Yeah, I’ve heard about your adventures in cooking. Listen, I’ve made a roast with potatoes and carrots for supper. I’m getting ready to take it out of the oven. Why don’t you and Neely come down and join us for supper?”

At the picture his words conjured up, Alex’s stomach gave a little twitch. Was it hunger? she wondered with surprise. She’d been eating so little lately that not eating was getting to be the norm for her. Which, Alex realized, was maybe not a good thing.

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it!” Neely sang out from the den, where she was supposedly doing her homework while watching TV.

“At a guess I’d say there’s your pizza.” Joe’s voice was even drier than before. “Alex, come for supper. Please. Consider it a business meeting if you want to. I’ve got a couple of offers on some of the horses I need to talk to you about, anyway.”

“Really?”

Wearing the same bell-bottomed jeans and skintight orange T-shirt that she had worn to school, Neely walked into the room carrying a pizza box. She grimaced at Alex as she set the box down on the center counter.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m getting really, really sick of pizza,” Neely said.

“You
ordered it,” Alex retorted, not thinking to cover the mouthpiece.
“I
thought we’d have chicken breasts and rice.”

“Yeah, I saw your chicken breasts and rice. That’s when I ordered the pizza.”

Alex thought she heard a chuckle on the other end of the phone.

Thirty-one

A
re you laughing?” Alex demanded, talking into the mouthpiece again.

“No, ma’am. Absolutely not.”

“Is that Joe?” Neely lifted the lid of the pizza box. The scent of tomato sauce and garlic wafted toward Alex’s nose. She shuddered.

“Alex, come to supper.” Joe’s tone made it part request, part order.

Alex weakened. The idea of eating pizza again made her chicken breasts look almost good by comparison. And that, given the state of the chicken, was sad.

There was also the lure of seeing Joe… .

“Thank you, but no,” she said with dignity. They could always eat tuna-fish sandwiches.

“What does he want?” Neely asked, making gagging faces as she looked down at the cheese-topped pie.

“Alex, don’t be an idiot,” Joe said. His voice was crisp and oddly tender at the same time.

The undernote of tenderness did it.

“He wants us to eat dinner at his house,” she said to Neely.

“Yes!” Neely pumped her fist in the air.

“I heard that,” Joe said.

“All right.” Alex capitulated without any real regret. “We’ll be down in a few minutes. Thank you for the invitation.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and hung up.

“Thank goodness!” Neely slammed the lid back down on the pizza box, turned up her nose as if it were the smelliest garbage, carried it across the kitchen, lifted the lid, and dropped it into the trash can. “No more pizza!”

“Neely,” Alex gave her sister a beseeching look. “While we’re down there, please, pretty please, behave.”

Neely grinned at her. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not stupid. I’ll be a perfect little angel—as long as Daddy Studmuffin’s around. Eli says he can be pretty strict, and I don’t want to get Eli grounded or anything. Then what would I do for fun?”

As far as reassurances went, Alex had had better ones, but, she thought, in Neely’s case she’d better take what she could get.

Five minutes later, the Mercedes pulled into Joe’s driveway. It was only a little after six, but it was full dark outside. Alex and Neely got out, turning up their coat collars and ducking against a cold drizzle that had been falling steadily all day. Josh, in baggy jeans and a flannel shirt unbuttoned over a white T-shirt, opened the door to Alex’s knock.

“Eli’s supposed to go over to Heather’s later,” Josh said to Neely in a taunting undertone once they were inside. Alex, overhearing, felt a tingle of trepidation as she waited for her sister’s response.

“Am I supposed to care?” Neely asked as they all stepped from the dim hall into the bright welcoming light of the kitchen.

“Eli, what do you think?” Jenny was asking doubtfully, pirouetting in front of her brother in an unflattering blue dress with a white lace Peter Pan collar.

Wearing jeans and a white football-style jersey that had
Rockets
written in script on the front, Eli was tossing salad in a clear glass bowl on the counter. He gave his sister a cursory glance. “Looks okay to me.”

“I don’t want to just look okay!” Jenny sounded on the verge of tears. “I want to look
hot.
Daddy, this dress isn’t right!”

“Told you it made you look like Little Orphan Annie,” Josh said, heading toward the refrigerator. Jenny’s lower lip quivered.

Alex had to admit that, with Jenny’s boyishly short hair and thin frame, the too-large, too prim dress was definitely orphanlike.

“Shut up, Josh!” Joe growled. He was stirring something in a skillet on the stove, attending to the conversation over his shoulder. He sent Alex a quick, welcoming grin before turning his attention to his daughter.

That grin warmed her clear to her toes. Her frostiness melted under its impact. After all, it was difficult to be cool to a man who had invited one for dinner.

“If you don’t like it we can take it back. No need to get bent out of shape here,” he said soothingly. Joe was wearing jeans and an ancient gray sweatshirt. He looked very tall, very handsome, and very at home in the kitchen as he deftly whisked a spoon through whatever he was cooking.

“It won’t do any good! You never get the right thing! Daddy, you don’t know anything about girls’ clothes!” Jenny sounded almost despairing. She stood in the center of the kitchen, her face woebegone, her hands clenched into fists by her side. “And I need it by tomorrow night!”

“Jesus Christ, Jen, you’re just going to be standing there in a big group singing.” Eli carried the bowl of salad to the table. “Nobody will even notice what you’re wearing.”

“Yes, they will! We’re going to have our picture made! And all the other girls will look hot, and I won’t!”

“Gingerbread, you always look beautiful,” Cary put in. Dressed in rumpled khakis and a blue oxford-cloth shirt, he was standing near the microwave, which pinged as he spoke. Opening the door, he withdrew a tray of rolls and headed toward the table.

“Oh, Grandpa!” Jenny threw him an exasperated look.

“Okay, let’s ask an expert,” Joe said. He picked up the skillet, and deftly poured its contents—brown gravy, Alex saw—into a gravy boat. “Alex, what do you think of Jenny’s dress?”

He headed toward the table with the steaming dish.

Alex hesitated. “Where are you going to wear it?” she asked Jenny directly, stalling for time.

“My choral group is going to be singing at the pep rally tomorrow night,” Jenny said, looking at Neely appealingly. “I have to wear a blue dress—all the girls do—but this one makes me look like a dork. I know it does!”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Neely said, before Alex could find a tactful way to say that maybe that particular dress was not overly flattering. Neely had been looking Jenny over critically ever since the conversation had started. “It does look pretty bad. You could do a lot better.”

Alex gave Neely a killer look as Jenny said to her father, “See!”

“It’s better to tell her the truth,” Neely said defensively to Alex in response to that look. “Otherwise she’ll go to this thing looking like a dork.”

“Alex?” Joe looked appealingly at Alex, who, with Neely’s warning in mind and Jenny’s beseeching eyes on her, felt obliged to tell the truth.

“She could do better, Joe,” she admitted.

The look Joe gave her said
traitor.

“Daddy, I told you!” Jenny sounded almost accusing. “You’re no good at picking out girls’ clothes! I need another dress!”

“We’ll take it back tomorrow,” Joe said, sounding harassed. “You can pick out whatever you like.”

“I don’t know what looks hot!” Jenny almost wailed.
“You’re
supposed to know! But you don’t, ’cause you’re a man!”

“How about if Neely and I take you shopping tomorrow, Jenny?” Alex interposed before Joe could say anything. “I need to get some things anyway. It’d be fun to shop for a dress for you. And Neely knows what’s hot, believe me.”

Joe looked slightly alarmed as his gaze shot to Neely. Alex had to grin.

“That’d be great!” Jenny said, shooting a look at Neely. Suddenly she sounded almost shy as she added, looking at Alex, “If it’s not too much trouble, that is.”

Alex realized that Jenny was in awe of Neely, and supposed that seen through the younger girl’s eyes Neely was the ultimate in cool.

“It’ll be fun,” Neely said. Jenny beamed, Alex smiled at Neely and Jenny both, and Joe looked relieved.

“Thank you, ladies,” he said to Alex and Neely. “You’ve averted a crisis. Jen, run and change, and let’s eat.”

When Jenny returned, they all sat down. It was Jenny’s turn to say grace, which she did very nicely. Food was passed around the table family style, and Alex was surprised to find herself eating almost hungrily. She sat on Joe’s right hand, with Neely across the table and Josh beside her, and she felt totally at ease. Tonight being with Joe felt like being with an old friend, someone whom she had known all of her life—but with a difference. His eyes met hers, he smiled at her, his hands brushed hers as he passed the food, and she felt each smile, each glance, each touch, as a tingle of pure electricity. Looking at him, at his dark, handsome face, at his sea-blue eyes and crooked smile, she asked herself again, what was it about this man?

Conversation was general, ranging from the offers Joe had received on the horses (half a million each for two mares in foal to Storm Cat) to Jenny’s science project (she was training mice to navigate a maze) to the unfairness of the algebra teacher (Eli and Neely, while not in the same class, had the same teacher, and both had done poorly on the previous day’s pop quiz) to Josh’s prospects for being asked to the upcoming freshman MORP (prom backwards; held right before Christmas, and girls had to ask the boys), which he gloomily rated as not good.

“If you’d start talking to a few of the girls in your class, one of them would probably ask you,” Eli advised between mouthfuls of his meal. “Girls aren’t going to ask somebody who doesn’t even talk to them.”

“Don’t you talk to girls, Josh?” Jenny asked curiously. “Why not?”

“He’s shy,” Eli said.

Josh turned red to his ears. “’Cause girls are stupid,” he said to Jenny after shooting a quick, glowering look at Eli. “Especially fifth graders.”

“Girls are not stupid!” Jenny and Neely fired back simultaneously, acknowledging each other’s contribution with a quick, high-five-like exchange of glances. Then Jenny added, bristling. “Especially not fifth graders!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Okay, guys,” Joe intervened. “That’s enough. Josh, Grandpa said you helped him out with Victory Dance today. What’d you think of him?”

“He’s really fast,” Josh said, with more enthusiasm than Alex had yet heard from him. “He’s pretty skinny, though. Grandpa says some of the greatest racehorses are like that.”

“We’ll make a horseman out of that boy,” Cary said to Joe from his place at the foot of the table. “He’s got a good feel for it.”

Josh barely smiled, but his face shone with pride.

“By the way, Joe, this food is really good,” Alex said. “I’m impressed.”

His eyes twinkled at her. “I hear that you’ve been trying to cook.”

“Trying’s right. Know what the title of the cookbook she bought is?
Cooking for Dummies.
I’d say that pretty much sums it up,” Neely chimed in with a chortle, earning a killer glare from her sister and a round of guffaws from everyone else.

“You going to the pep rally tomorrow night, Grandpa?” Jenny asked.

“Sure am, Gingerbread,” Cary said cheerfully. “Think I’d miss hearing you sing? Not a chance.”

“Yeah, he’s even got a date,” Josh said, and snickered. “With Mrs. Shelley.”

“Mrs. Shelley?” Neely sounded horrified.

Eli nodded glumly. “Yup. The guidance counselor. Can you believe it?”

“What a bummer,” Neely commiserated. Eli and Josh nodded in unison.

“If they do anything wrong, Mrs. Shelley tells on them,” Cary said to Alex with a grin. “Keeps them on the straight and narrow.”

“I don’t see why you can’t find some other woman to date, Grandpa,” Josh said grumpily. He looked at Neely. “She even tells him our grades before
we
get them. Then he tells Dad, and it’s all over.”

“Only if you have bad grades,” Joe said smoothly. “Try making the honor roll and experience the difference.”

After supper was over, Joe insisted on driving them home in the Mercedes.