Summer Kisses (17 page)

“He’s fine.”

“Wonderful,” she said before turning about and disappearing inside her apartment.

Derrick stood at the door for a moment, figuring she would reappear since she hadn’t bothered to say goodnight. When she failed to return right away, he quietly shut the door to his apartment and went to Jill’s door. Without knocking, he opened the door to her apartment and stuck his head inside. Her purse was on the floor and her wallet and keys made a haphazard trail around the corner. “Jill?”

The beat of his heart doubled in rhythm. Afraid somebody had been waiting for her inside and dragged her to one of the bedrooms, he headed that way. The door to her room was open and there she was wearing nothing but a pair of lacy thong underwear and matching bra.

Damn
. Shapely legs and curvy hips were going to make it difficult for him to look her in the eye next time they had a conversation.

“Oh, my God! What are you doing in here?” She reached for her clothes and held a shirt in front of her.

With his hands held out like a traffic cop, he backed away from the door. “Sorry. I just came over to see if you wanted to watch a movie with me. I saw the contents of your purse scattered across the floor and I thought you had been accosted.”

She shooed him away. “Why don’t you go back to your apartment and I’ll be right over to get Ryan.”

“What about the movie?”

“I don’t think so.”

He stayed in the hallway as he continued the conversation. “Ryan is asleep. He won’t be awake for hours. I’ll make popcorn and I have a bottle of chardonnay that I want to share with someone.”

“Just go, okay? I’ll be right there.”

“Great. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Seventeen minutes later, not that he was keeping track, Jill knocked on his open door.

He stood and gestured for her to come inside. “Welcome.”

She entered his apartment, but she wasn’t smiling. She swept past him, heading straight for the baby’s room. A few minutes later, she returned empty handed. “He’s so cute when he’s sleeping.”

He imagined Jill was probably cute while she slept, too. The pink sweat pants and loose, long-sleeved T-shirt didn’t do her curves justice now that he’d seen her in a thong and a push-up bra. All he had to do was shut his eyes to call forth the vision.

“What are you doing?”

He opened his eyes. “Nothing.”

“Your eyes were closed.”

“No they weren’t.” He pointed at the leather binder filled with DVDs, the binder he’d brought from his Malibu home. “Why don’t you pick a movie while I open up the bottle of wine and fix us some popcorn?”

She took off her sneakers and left them side by side at the door. Then she picked up the binder and brought it with her to the couch. She tucked her feet under her bottom and flipped through his DVD selection. “
Sin City, The Terminator, Pulp Fiction, Bourne Identity, Blade
…oh, this one is perfect.” She pulled out a DVD.

He handed her a glass of wine and set a bowl of microwave popcorn on the coffee table. Then he took the DVD she had selected to see what she had chosen. “
The Notebook
? How did that get in there?”

“It’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I’m so glad you suggested I come over.” She lifted her glass as if to say cheers and then took a sip of her wine.

Damn. She knew she had him right where she wanted him.

He slipped the DVD into the machine and hit the Play button, figuring one of his sisters must have stuck that particular movie into his collection. With wine glass in hand, he took a seat on the couch next to her. Jill’s gaze was directed at the coming attractions while his gaze fixated on her. Truthfully, he didn’t care what they watched. He liked how this night was playing out. Enjoying a quiet night with Jill, knowing his son was right down the hall, felt like coming home after a long journey on the road.

Strange, he thought, that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so content.

The next morning, when Jill opened the door to her apartment, Derrick took a step back so he could get a good look at her. “You look great.”

“Thank you.”

She was wearing a pair of white slacks, not as snug as the ones she wore on her date, and a cute little forest green sleeveless number that made her green eyes look even greener. Her hair was curly today. There was always something refreshing about seeing Jill, he realized. Yes, she had flawless skin and a cute turned-up nose, but it was more than that. There was something about the way her eyes lit up every time she looked at him that made it difficult for him to look away.

He looked down at his blue short-sleeved button-down shirt, the one his sisters had given him last Christmas. It wasn’t horrible, but he could have done better. If he’d known Jill was going to go all out, he might have taken a little more time getting dressed this morning.

“Howiewood!” Lexi said, hopping around Jill so that she could latch onto Derrick’s leg.

Jill winced. “Is that your bad leg she’s holding onto?”

“No worries,” he said as he patted the bouncy curls on Lexi’s head. “I took a couple of ibuprofen, and besides, the little squirt is a lightweight.”

Jill smiled again and this time a cute little dent appeared below her left eye, something he hadn’t noticed before.

Sandy came to the door next. She was holding Ryan in one arm and a large bag stuffed with baby bottles and diapers in the other. “Here’s your son,” Sandy said as she handed Ryan over to Jill. “Lexi,” she said, “go get your coloring books so Hollywood can keep his promise and color with you today.”

Lexi let go of his leg and ran back into the apartment.

“Are you sure your parents don’t mind Lexi and I coming along?” Sandy asked.

“Positive,” Derrick said. “Mom’s a big believer in ‘the more the merrier.’”

“Do you have extra diapers at your apartment?” Jill asked. “I was going to call you, but I didn’t have your number.”

He pointed inside Jill’s apartment. “I’ll go inside and write my number down for you.”

“You don’t have to do it now,” she said. “I can get it from you later.”

“I’ll do it now before I forget.”

“We have to wait for Lexi anyhow,” Sandy added.

He went to the kitchen where he knew he’d seen a pad of paper the last time he was here. While Jill and Sandy fussed over Ryan, he opened a couple of kitchen drawers until he found the paper. He also found a picture of Jill. She looked like a million bucks dressed in a long formal gown. Her hair was pulled up and lots of jewels glittered from her ears and neck. The guy next to her looked like a weasel, tall and reed thin with slicked back hair and big ears.

Lexi appeared out of nowhere and said, “That’s Tommy. He’s bad cuz he makes Jill cry a wot.”

“A
LLot
,” Derrick repeated with emphasis on the L sound as he bent down so he was eye level with the kid. “See how my tongue hits the back of my front teeth when I say a word that starts with ‘L.’ A
L
ot,” he said again so she could see. “A
L
ot. See? It’s easy.”

Lexi opened her mouth wide and put her tongue on the back of her teeth like he had done and said, “A Wot. A Wot. A Wot.” Then she smiled.

“Yeah, keep working on it kid.” Lexi was stealth, sneaking up on him like that. She was also very perceptive for a four-year old. He wiggled the picture and said, “Jill must like him a Lot if she keeps his picture around.”

Lexi shook her head.

If anyone knew what was going on around here, he was confident it was Lexi, and her head shaking told him Jill was through with ol’ Tommy Boy. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he was glad.

“She doesn’t wike him,” Lexi explained, “she WUVS him.”

Derrick dropped the picture back into the drawer, and then rifled around for a pen. “That’s too bad,” he said, and he meant it. “Jill deserves someone a Lot better than that weasel.”

“Do you make Jill cry?” Lexi asked.

“Never.”

Lexi’s eyes grew round. “Maybe you can WUV Jill and then she can fowget Tommy.”

He looked seriously at Lexi for a moment before he burst out laughing. Rubbing the top of her head, he said, “You’re a funny girl, a very funny girl.”

Forty-five minutes later, Derrick didn’t think Lexi was very funny anymore. If he had to listen to another round of “Old MacDonald” on his CD player, he was going to have to pull off at the next exit and call her and her mother a cab. He had hoped to have a conversation with Jill and Sandy on the ride to his parent’s pony farm—get to know Jill’s friend a little better before they all spent the day with his family. He could only hope his brothers and sisters would be on their best behavior, although the odds were against it. The law of attraction must be at work, he figured, because just as he thought of his family, the music shut off and the console rang.

He hit the On button and like magic his mother’s voice replaced
the moo moo here and the moo moo there, here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo moo
. He’d never been so relieved to hear his mother’s voice—that is, until she finished her first sentence.

“Hi, son. I wanted you to know I went to the store for the really good kind of anti-bacterial soap. I made everybody scrub up. Your sisters even gave us all manicures to make sure we’re all good to go. No horse manure smells inside or out. Do you think Jill will let us hold the baby if you tell her we all scrubbed clean?”

He glanced at Jill and noticed her blossoming cheeks. “No need for me to tell her, Mom. We’re on speaker phone.”

“Oh, hello, Jill.”

“Hello, Mrs. Baylor.”

“Please, call me Helen. I hope I didn’t say anything that might offend you in any way. I just wanted—”

“Mom,” Derrick interrupted. “We’ll be there in five.” He shut the Off button just in time to hear the pig oinking here and there and everywhere. He was about to sing along when Jill reached over and shut off the music. He glanced in the rearview mirror in time to see Sandy cross her arms and raise both brows for good measure.

Jill huffed. “You told your mother they couldn’t hold Ryan because they didn’t have clean enough hands?”

“I didn’t put it exactly like that. Don’t forget, they live and work on a pony farm.”

“Ponies!” Lexi shouted loud enough to make Derrick’s ear drums hurt.

Jill released a long sigh.

“I told Mom and Dad that you didn’t want them to make a big deal about your visit—you know—no signs, no balloons, no fanfare,” Derrick said. “I also told them you didn’t feel comfortable passing Ryan around—you know—like a football.”

She groaned.

Sandy continued to glare at him via the rearview mirror, eyes narrowed, lips tight.

Lexi laughed and said, “Howiewood called Tommy Boy a whistle,” Lexi said with glee in her voice, making Derrick realize the apple truly didn’t fall far from the tree.

Jill frowned. “Tommy Boy?”

“Thomas,” he said.

“A whistle?” Sandy asked.

“A weasel, not a whistle,” Derrick corrected.

Jill snorted. “Oh, that’s much better.”

Sandy laughed.

The sound startled Derrick because even though he knew Sandy was slowly softening toward him, despite the occasional dagger eyes and before his mom ruined everything, he still hadn’t thought Sandy was capable of laughing.

Sandy looked into the rearview mirror and wrinkled her nose. “What are you looking at?”

“Just checking to see if you’re laughing at my expense.”

She laughed some more. “Definitely.”

“It’s not funny,” Jill told Sandy. “Tommy Boy—I mean, Tommy—I mean Thomas— is not a weasel.”

“But he makes you cry,” Lexi said, her voice much too serious for a four-year old.

“Not any longer,” Jill said.

“Howiewood said he would never make you cry. I think he wikes you.”

Although he kept his eyes on the road, he figured Jill was looking his way—probably trying to figure out what his problem was. Sandy had already made it clear that he was a dead man if he ever hurt Jill. At least they were no longer focused on what Mom had said about his entire family sterilizing their hands before they got there. No matter how he looked at it, there was no getting around the fact that this was going to be a long day.

It wasn’t long before Derrick parked the car on the curb outside his parent’s ranch house. The first sign he might be in bigger trouble than he already was came in the form of an assortment of foil, Mylar, and latex balloons—in every shape, size, and color. The second sign was an actual sign—a ten-by-three foot expanse of white paper hanging over his parents’ front door with big red letters that spelled out, “Welcome, Jill and Ryan!”

He figured Jill hadn’t noticed since she had already climbed out of the car and was busy fiddling with the buckles and belts on the child seat. When she was finished, she kissed Ryan on the tip of his nose and then handed Ryan to him.

As he held Ryan in his arms, he gazed upon his son for a long moment, almost as if he was looking at him for the first time. It hit him like a bolt of lightning. His son was here to meet his parents for the first time. Why that particular thought would make him feel as if a multitude of moth wings were flittering around inside his gut, making him feel all woozy and emotional, he didn’t want to know. He’d never been big on emotions. He didn’t do woozy and emotional, and he certainly didn’t see any reason to start now. Swallowing the knot lodged in his throat, he blinked a couple of times to get control of himself.

Jill collected Ryan’s things and then looked at him. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“We never should have brought him here.”

She smiled. “You’re the one who was worried about clean hands. Don’t worry,” she said, “your secret is safe with me. And stop worrying about Ryan. He’ll be fine.”

Derrick grabbed her arm, stopping Jill from heading for the house. Sandy was already chasing Lexi across the yard. “I’ve wanted to tell you all morning how much I enjoyed last night.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I’ve seen better movies, but never with better company.”

That cute little dent of hers appeared again…until she frowned. “What is wrong with you? You look as if you’re about to take the death march.”