Playing Dirty (13 page)

“Everything in moderation, right, Pork Chop?”

“Right!” Phoebe stretched her arms for a hug.
 

Mattie snuggled her daughter close and lifted her off the counter. Phoebe’s legs went around her waist and she hung on tight as Mattie swayed to the strains of Lady Antebellum’s latest hit playing on the iPod dock. “Did you sleep good?”

“Bestest ever,” Phoebe said. “You?”
 

Mattie twirled around with Phoebe. “Second bestest ever.”

Phoebe giggled, then asked. “What about you, Daddy? Did you sleep bestest ever?”

He stood with his back to the counter, hands resting on the countertop, ankles casually crossed. The smile on his face momentarily stole her breath. He looked happy. Happy to be home. Happy to be spending a morning making pancakes for his wife and daughter. “You bet I did,” he said, then he turned and opened the oven door to peer inside.
 

Mattie looked around him to the bacon sizzling on the broiler pan. “Give it another couple of minutes,” she told him when he reached for the pot holders. After giving Phoebe a quick kiss, she settled her on the stool at the kitchen island with a coloring book and tin of crayons.

Ford handed her a mug of coffee. “Half French vanilla, half hazelnut,” he said. “Sit. Breakfast is almost ready.”
Mattie grinned her thanks and took the mug from him, surprised he remembered how she took her coffee. “I see you found everything okay,” she said as she climbed onto the stool at the far end of the island.

“Phoebe helped.” He flipped the pancakes on the griddle, then turned to look at her. “I like what you’ve done to the place. It’s hard to remember what it looked like before.”

Once she’d come out of her depression and the fog had lifted, she’d been hit with an overwhelming need to make changes to the house. While there had been no mortgage to worry about, with the survivor’s benefits and her teacher’s salary, she’d been able to afford to take out a home improvement loan to make serious upgrades to the house. Along with the major renovations to the kitchen, dining and family rooms, she’d overhauled the bathrooms, ripped up carpet and had the hardwood floors refinished or replaced throughout the house. She hadn’t done any of the heavy lifting herself, but she’d painted and sanded and demoed. Because her sister had owned an antique store at the time, with Griffen’s help, they’d scoured estate sales and flea markets until she’d replaced most of the old, outdated furniture at rock bottom prices.
 

“I was, uh...a little obsessed,” she admitted. She’d started with the master bedroom, ditching the king-sized bed she’d shared with Ford for a smaller queen. What furniture she hadn’t swapped out, she repurposed, refinished or put in her sister’s shop on consignment. She’d brightened, lightened and added feminine touches formerly absent. But most importantly, she’d eradicated Ford’s presence from her bedroom. There were plenty of reminders of him throughout the rest of the house, but she’d needed to remove him from her bedroom as an essential part of her survival. It wasn’t that she’d stopped loving him, but the constant reminder of what she’d lost was just too much.

He carried his coffee to the island and took the seat nearest hers. “I’m glad you kept the house.”
 

“I didn’t have the heart to sell it.” Initially, she’d attempted to convince herself she’d kept it for Phoebe, that Ford’s childhood home was her daughter’s legacy, left to them when his mother had passed. But that hadn’t been the whole truth. It’d been
their
home, and she couldn’t bear to part with it.

For the most part, they’d initially kept the house their home base, the place they had come to between assignments, where they stayed when they returned to Hart each year for his month long period of leave. Later, those trips home hadn’t been as often as she would’ve liked. But when she’d come back to stay when Ford had been shipped out on his final mission during the end of her pregnancy, she’d had no inkling then that she’d end up living the remainder of her life in the house without him. Instead of being mired down by memories, making changes to the property had been a necessity, not just to maintain the value of the home, but to maintain her tenuous grip on an uncertain future as a widow and single mother.
 

The major renovations weren’t so much about erasing memories as it had been about making new ones. After taking another sip of coffee, he slipped off the stool and went back to the stove.
 

“Besides, you have to admit,” she said, “the house was dated and needed upgrading.”

He added the pancakes to the small stack already on the platter, then placed them back in the warming oven. “I like it,” he said, opening the cabinet and counting out three plates.

She set her coffee aside and went to the silverware drawer for cutlery, then snagged placemats and napkins from another drawer. He handed off the plates to her and she arranged the place settings at the island.
 

Rhythm. Without thought or design, they were finding theirs again—just like they always had done.
 

“Mommy? Is Daddy going to church with us?”
 

Mattie’s gaze shot to Ford, who looked at her expectantly. He shrugged, silently leaving the decision to her.
 

Two weeks ago she’d married Trenton. So far as she knew, no one in town was aware Ford had returned. Yet. To the people of Hart, she was Ford’s widow who, after a proper period of mourning, had remarried a nice lawyer from Dallas. There would be stares, gossip, and questions she wasn’t prepared to answer.

“Not today, Pork Chop,” Mattie said. “Daddy just came home so we’re going to skip Mass and get ready to go to Granddaddy’s house later, okay?”

Phoebe gave her a stern look. “Father Monty won’t be happy. He’s gonna sa-cold you.”

“It’ll be okay. He won’t scold me too much.”

Phoebe shook her head. “I don’t know, Mommy. He’s not gonna like it.”

“Just this once,” Mattie reassured her daughter. “It’ll be okay.”

“Father Monty?” Ford asked.

“He came to Our Lady of Grace when Father James retired about three years ago,” she told him. She kept the fact that she credited Father Montgomery Davis in helping restore her faith after Ford’s death to herself. She’d essentially given up, on everything, her faith included. Deep down, she was still the youngest daughter of the town doctor, a girl from small town Texas. Come Sunday morning, her butt was in the pew regardless of what she’d believed. It was the Southern way—at least in Texas.

“He’s mean,” Phoebe told her father.

“He’s not,” Mattie said to Ford.

“Yes, he is, Mommy.” Phoebe looked at her father. “And he thinks baseball is dumb.”

“Phoebe, you don’t know that.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Yes, I do,” she insisted. “He said I watch too much baseball for a girl.”

Mattie rolled her eyes. “I really have no idea where she comes by her sense of drama.”

“And don’t talk when he’s talking, Daddy. He will call you names.”

Ford frowned. “What kind of priest calls little girls names?” He removed the platter from the warming oven.

“A mean one,” Phoebe said again.

“He didn’t call her names. Phoebe, don’t stretch the truth.”

“I’m not, Mommy,” she said. “He called me a pert ant.”

“He said you were impertinent,” Mattie corrected. “And that’s not name calling.”

“It’s still mean,” Phoebe said, then bent her head to concentrate on her coloring book.
 

Ford chuckled as he retrieved the bacon from the oven and transferred the slices to the platter. While he slid the last batch of pancakes from the griddle, Mattie went to the pantry for syrup and powdered sugar, then stopped at the fridge for butter.
 

“I’m starting to see what you meant,” Ford said with a wide grin when they met at the island.

“Don’t say you weren’t warned.” Mattie fixed up a pancake with butter and syrup for Phoebe, then cut it into small, bite-sized pieces. “It’s a good thing I’m close friends with the elementary school principal.”

“Anyone I know?”

“No. Her name’s Hannah Richards. She moved up here from Corpus Christi a couple of years back. Hanna is the one who hired me.”

Ford took the seat next to Phoebe. “I thought you taught high school.”

She nodded as she sat. “Hanna was initially hired as vice principal for the high school, then eventually took over on the elementary side this year.” She smiled. “It really pays to have friends in high places.”

Phoebe finished her breakfast in record time, then scampered off to her room to play with her dolls, while she and Ford lingered over coffee. She did her best to answer his questions. She explained the story behind Griffen and Jed and the crazy circumstances surrounding their relationship. She told him of her dad’s decision to semi-retire and the young doctor from Seattle he’d hired to eventually take over his practice, and how she and Griffen suspected her dad had been seeing someone whom he’d yet to introduce to his daughters. She told him how she’d graduated from culinary school, but had decided to stick with teaching because the hours in restaurant work weren’t conducive to raising a child on her own.
 

She finished off her coffee. “A lot of life happened in the past five years.”

Ford settled his hand over hers. “I’m sorry. I never should’ve left you.”

She looked at him, into that piercing blue gaze she’d have given anything to see one last time. Her own filled with tears. “No, you shouldn’t have.” Her voice caught. “Losing you nearly killed me,” she admitted to him. “I can’t go through something like that again.”

He laced their fingers together and brought their joined hands to his lips. “You won’t,” he said, kissing her fingers. “I promise you. You won’t have to.”

She wanted to believe him. She really did. But as she pulled her hand from his, she knew that wasn’t his promise to make.
 

Eight

AS IF THE past five years of his life hadn’t been spent living in sheer hell, Ford found the mundane task of driving, oddly satisfying. He pulled Mattie’s red Ford Edge into her dad’s driveway and parked it next to Jed’s Escalade. He killed the engine as he looked over at Mattie, who frowned down at her cell phone. “Something wrong?”

“Nope.” She shook her head, her sleek ponytail swaying with the movement. “Nada.”

“Are you sure? You look upset.” His gaze zeroed in on Mattie’s tanned legs. The urge to smooth his hand over her thighs had him tightening his hold on the steering wheel. “Maybe you should’ve cancelled, considering you just came home—”
 

From your fucking honeymoon
.
 

Anger and jealousy clawed at him. He looked to her slender legs again. Avery had touched her, but had he discovered what turned her on, or how she loved it when—

He quickly dispelled the image of his wife in the arms of another man and fought hard against the resentment building up each time his mind wandered down a path better left untraveled. While he understood on a logical level why she’d moved on and married the bastard, he couldn’t help wonder if he’d ever move past the jealousy. “You only returned from Europe yesterday.”

She slipped her phone into the skirt pocket of her sundress and looked at him, worry banked in her gaze. “It’s fine,” she said.

Bullshit. None of this was fine. The fact that she obviously didn’t want to tell him about her concerns, not only annoyed him, but fed the green-eyed monster lurking inside him. Had she trusted Avery? What secrets had she shared with the man that he’d never learn?
 

He slid his hand over hers and reined in his impatience. “Something is bothering you. Talk to me.”

She shook her head again. When she looked at him, a smile curved her lips. “Really,” she said, “It’s nothing. Just a text from Griffen saying she’d given Dad a head’s up.”

“And you would’ve preferred to tell him yourself.” He slid the key from the ignition. “That’s understandable.”

Mattie nodded as she unhooked her seatbelt, then went to help Phoebe out of the car while he opened the lift gate for the items she’d prepped for tonight’s dinner. Sweat immediately beaded his forehead and he swiped it away with the sleeve of his blue golf shirt before reaching into the back end of the Edge for the supplies. He’d become so accustomed to the hot, arid climate of the Middle Eastern region that the sweltering Texas heat, with its blazing temperatures and thick, heavy humidity was cloying, almost claustrophobic, in comparison.

“Wait for me,” Mattie called to Phoebe who took off like a shot for the house anyway. She reached in beside him for a couple of the lighter bags, then waited for him to take the rest. “I can’t keep up with her,” she said. “She’s fearless. Like you.”

He wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say. “I’m sorry,” he offered, because it was all he had.

She gave him a tentative smile. “You don’t have to do that, you know?”

“Do what?”

“Keep apologizing for being alive.”

“Sorry.”

She laughed and he couldn’t help grinning, enjoying the way her eyes softened when she looked at him. The jealousy and irritation momentarily slipped away. His gaze fell to her lips and the urge to kiss her hit him hard.