Escape with Me
Page 16
“But opposites attract,” Lana finished for him.
“Exactly,” said Ten. He patted the couch’s cushion on his right side, and Lana moved to sit closer.
“Listen, sweetie, my mother is here for one reason and one reason alone, to check you out.”
“But you got shot in the line of duty,” Lana said, believing that was the reason his parents had shown up. To reassure themselves their son was all right.
“No, they knew I was in no danger of dying from a shoulder wound. My dad was a policeman for thirty years after he got out of the army. He’s been shot before. I’m just warning you so you’ll know. Portia Isles is cagey.”
“A woman acquires certain skills after parenting ten kids,” Lana said knowingly.
* * *
“Lana, that meal was delicious,” Portia said a few evenings later after dinner while she and Lana cleaned the kitchen. “Where’d you learn to cook? Ten told me you lost your mother when you were eight.”
“My dad taught me,” Lana said, smiling at the thought of her first cooking lesson—pancakes. “He learned from his mom and dad who were both great cooks.”
“Ah, yes, I’ve read your father’s books. How is he?”
“He’s great, he recently told me he’s in love and is going to get married after being a widower for nearly twenty-five years.”
“Now that’s something,” Portia exclaimed. “What’s she like, the woman he fell in love with?”
Lana laughed shortly. “She’s kind and loves people. She was my high school English teacher. I was wary in the beginning, but she won me over.”
“Because you love your father and you think she’s good for him,” Portia rightly guessed.
Lana nodded. “Yes. He’s been alone a lot of years. He was so devoted to my mother, but he deserves happiness, especially in his golden years. With Ellen there with him, I won’t have to worry about him as much.”
“But you never stop worrying about the people you love,” Portia told her sagely.
“I, for example, worry about each of my children. Whether they’re making the right choices in life, their health, and everything else my mind can come up with to worry about.
“Sometimes I wish I could turn off the worry switch and simply be content that no matter what they do, it’s meant to be and I can’t control it, anyway, so why worry?”
“Yet, you worry,” Lana said, smiling at her.
Portia sighed, and hung the dish towel she’d been using to dry the dishes over the bar on the door of the oven. Lana noticed that wasn’t where Ten put his dish towels to dry. There was a bar on the inside of the cabinet door under the sink. She was really starting to pay attention to his habits.
“Yes, I worry too much about them. Even though, they don’t want me worrying about them and warn that it only raises my blood pressure.”
“They don’t understand that you thrive on worrying about them,” Lana said, shocking Portia.
Portia smiled at her with a look of awe in her dark eyes. “Is that sick, or what?”
“No, it’s not sick,” Lana denied. “It’s a habit you’ve practiced for so long, it’s as effortless as breathing. But, sick? I don’t think so.”
“It is a sick practice when I traveled all the way from Danville just to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. My husband didn’t want to come, but he wouldn’t let me travel all this way on my own, either. So that’s why he’s here, too.”
“Has Ten told you that he loves me?” Lana asked curiously.
“Of course, he did,” Portia confirmed, “and that scared the hell out of me. Ten’s never said that about any other woman. I had to meet you. But I told myself if I liked you upon first sight, I was going to go with the feeling and not try to dislike you simply because it appears that due to your background you’re not suitable for Ten.”
That hurt. In spite of Lana having no expectation of being liked by Ten’s parents it hurt that his mother had already formed an opinion of her character without having met her. “You mean because of my former marriage.”
Portia looked genuinely regretful. “Yes, Lana, and it’s not because your ex-husband turned out to be a con artist. It’s because of how your marriage might have affected you. Will your heart harden and not be able to love, really love, someone else because of how you were treated by your first husband?” She sighed. “I know a little about recovering from a betrayal. I was not an innocent little virgin when I married Ben. I’d been married before. To a man who would go off and stay away for weeks, chasing other women, then come home to me and expect everything to be as he left it. After I got rid of him, it took me a while to allow Ben—who was perfect for me, but I couldn’t see it—into my hard, hard heart.” She grinned suddenly. “I admit I went a little overboard with the kids after learning I could love Ben. After the eighth pregnancy, Ten’s birth, I told Ben, ‘You’ve got to nip it in the bud!’”
It took Lana a beat or two to figure out to what Portia was referring.
“Oh, you mean he got a vasectomy!”
“Yes, dear, he had to nip that thing in the bud,” Portia confirmed.
Lana looked Portia in the eyes. She really liked this woman. She was the type of woman she imagined her mother was, honest and unafraid to tell it like it was. “It seems you’ve made a trip for nothing,” she said softly, and smiled with tears in her eyes. “Because I love Ten. I love him with my whole heart. Not holding anything back because I’ve had enough falsehood in my life. I want the unadulterated truth now. And I know I’ll get it from Ten. I love him and I know I’ll always love him, through good times and bad times. I’m tougher than I look, Mrs. Isles.”
Portia Isles had tears in her eyes, too. She held her arms open and hugged Lana. “That’s good because life can be tough. We women have to be tougher than life to get through it with our sense of humor intact.”
* * *
The next day Lana was sad to see Portia and Ben depart for the airport, once again declaring their independence by not allowing her to drive them.
She and Ten stood in the doorway of his apartment, waving goodbye. Momentarily, Ten shut the door and they went back inside. “They love you,” he said with confidence.
“I love them, too,” she said truthfully.
“Then you wouldn’t mind having them for in-laws?” asked Ten, watching her so intently that Lana felt naked under his scrutiny, vulnerable and completely taken aback by his question. “In-laws?” she asked dumbly.
“That’s what they’d be if you married me,” he said reasonably.
“Are you sure you want to marry a woman who quite possibly can’t have children?” she asked, nervously. “I’m thirty-two. Maybe my eggs have dried up by now. You’d be the shame of the Isles family what with how virile the men are and how fertile the women are.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Ten said with a smirk.
Laughing, Lana answered his question with a resounding, “Yes, yes, I’ll marry you.”
She was careful not to hurt his shoulder when she kissed him.
Epilogue
Six months later they were married at her father’s house in the Outer Banks. They’d chosen that location because most of her friends were there, and Ten’s family wouldn’t have as long a trip since the majority of them lived in neighboring Virginia.
Ten became the special-agent-in-charge of the San Francisco office. Lana continued to work as an interior designer. And nearly a year after they were married they welcomed Tennison Jr. into the world.
Three years after they were wed they were visiting Aaron and Ellen at their house. Lana and her dad sat on the back deck observing Ten and two-year-old Ten Jr. playing Frisbee on the beach with Bowser. Ellen was inside working on her first novel. With encouragement from Aaron, she was turning her love of reading into a writi
ng career just as he’d done many years ago.
It was a beautiful summer day. Lana looked out at her husband and son with a contented smile on her face. Her dad, though, frowned. “When are you going to cut that boy’s hair? He looks like a girl.”
Lana laughed. She’d let Ten Jr.’s hair, which was thick and curly like his father’s, but reddish-brown like hers, grow down his back. She loved his hair. “He does not!” she disagreed. “And I don’t want you saying that around him.”
“I’d never do that,” Aaron was quick to say. He smiled at the sight his grandson made. He was big for his age, and strong. He would probably one day surpass his father in height.
“What are you hoping for this time?” he asked his daughter who had a noticeable baby bump.
Lana put her hand over her belly. “I don’t have to hope, I know we’re having twins.”
“Boys, or girls?” asked Aaron.
“Girls,” Lana said.
“Ten and Ten and a half will be outnumbered by females,” Aaron said. “Ten will want to try for another boy.”
Lana sighed. “That’s what I get for marrying a tenth son. And don’t think I don’t know you’re just trying to wangle another grandchild out of me.”
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460310250
ESCAPE WITH ME
Copyright © by Janice Sims
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