Embarrassed heat washed up her neck. Was he thinking she’d misread the situation? That she considered it some kind of date?
“But now that you did,” he said, giving her another of his easy grins, “thanks.”
From their opposite corners of the short couch, they both slipped a wedge of lime into their golden brew. Then their gazes met, and with tacit agreement they held out the longneck bottles. It seemed a natural thing to do. But at the click of glass against glass, it suddenly felt datelike. Another wash of heat climbed up her neck, but Tess ignored it and forced herself to relax against the cushions. Try this out, she told herself. Your life could be like this. A romantic evening. A different man.
More of her tension dissipated as beer was sipped. Small talk was exchanged.
“I ran into your brother earlier today,” Teague said. “He didn’t look very happy to find me talking to Jane.”
“You know Jane?”
“Know all the pretty girls on the beach,” he said, tipping his bottle at Tess. “Always looking to end my bachelor status.”
“Right,” she scoffed. “You and all the other handsome firefighters are on the endless search for your better halves.”
He appeared to consider her remark seriously. “Can’t speak for everyone else, but I do know what I want.”
Tess could only feel envy. “What’s that?” Maybe I can co-opt your same wish.
“You…”
Her swallow of beer almost went down wrong.
“…or should I say, what you have.”
She coughed now, clearing her throat as well as clearing her mind of any unbidden image that might be trying to form. “And what do I have that you want?” she asked, trying for rueful. “A crying baby, a rebellious teen, two little boys that… Never mind, just don’t ask me about Cheetos.”
He laughed. “All of the above…except maybe not the Cheetos since I don’t know where that’s going. But I grew up in a very lonely house without brothers or sisters.”
She thought of the quiet little kid he’d been, trailing after Griffin and Gage.
“I want the whole big, messy family.”
“We’re that, all right,” Tess said with a wry smile. Child clutter was everywhere, from the pairs of rubber thongs jumbled by the front door to the action figures locked in mortal combat by the built-in bookshelves. Surely there was a lurking plastic block or two somewhere, ready to wield brutal pain on an unsuspecting sole.
Teague settled into the corner of the couch. He wore ancient jeans, a Hawaiian shirt he could have stolen from Griffin’s closet and leather flip-flops. He looked a little lazy and a lot male, and she felt another small ping of awareness below her breastbone. Heat gathered where her hairline met the nape of her neck.
His eyes on her, Teague took a slow pull from his beer, and his swallow moved along the tan column of his neck. He settled more comfortably on the cushions, and as he stretched out one long leg, the edge of his sandal met the side of Tess’s bare heel, the contact as light as a butterfly kiss.
She froze, her gaze dropping to the label of the beer she held, though her peripheral vision didn’t miss their tiny point of connection. Did he know they were touching? It wasn’t flesh-on-flesh or anything, but wouldn’t a normal person pull back from even that small invasion of personal space?
Maybe he didn’t notice.
Maybe he was asking a question with that near-nudge.
She’d given him the answer before, though, hadn’t she? That first day on the beach she’d explained she was the mother of four. Married.
But how true was the married thing? And wasn’t she more than a mother? She was supposed to be figuring that out. Tonight.
Now the heat at her nape traveled around and down, and she automatically pressed the cold beer bottle to the thin skin below her collarbone, bared by the stretchy yoga top. She glanced over at Teague, found him staring.
A sheepish grin curved his mouth. “I told you about that crush, right?”
Another opening. She wasn’t such a wife and mother that she didn’t know it. The woman in her recognized that she could make a move of her own right now, twitch a toe, find something flirtatious to say, and this moment could possibly turn into something different.
Could turn into someone different.
Tess opened her mouth—
—and heard Russ begin to cry. She was up so quickly she stepped on Teague’s foot. But the contact barely registered as she hurried in the direction of the hall. “He’s been fussy,” she said over her shoulder. “I think he may be getting another tooth.”
Her guest was rising from the couch. “I should go?” But then Russ squawked again, and Teague answered his own question. “I should go.”
She didn’t bother seeing him out. It took twenty minutes to soothe her baby. Humming under her breath, she held his head against her shoulder and rocked back and forth, standing outside the room he shared with Duncan and Oliver. Once he was down again, she pulled a lightweight throw over his sailboat-printed jammies and arranged his special blanket under one arm. He reflexively gathered it close to his chest.
David used to do that to her when they were in bed.
David hadn’t touched her in bed in months.
Back in the living room, she cleaned up the bottles and snack and then returned to her original place on the couch. She stared at the photo of the kids in front of her. Her foot twitched, remembering that brief connection with Teague. Maybe she should have asked him to stay. Start that new life with a bang.
The stupid pun made her groan.
Over her own low-throated sound she heard another knock on the door. Her heart lurched. He’d come back!
Tess couldn’t pretend she wasn’t home. She also couldn’t pretend that her pulse wasn’t racing at a chance for…another bite of the apple.
Oh, God, she was full of wordplay tonight.
And nerves.
Her palms were so wet, her hand slipped on the doorknob. When she opened it, her breath caught.
Not Teague, but David. Her husband, David, carrying a carton, one of those portable file boxes. “I have something to show you,” he said.
She couldn’t help but compare him to her other visitor of the evening. Instead of being casually dressed, David appeared to have come straight from the office. His shirt was white, his slacks pale taupe, he wore the loafers she’d had resoled six weeks ago. She’d given him the paisley tie for his birthday. When everything had changed.
“Can I come in?”
She moved aside and watched, bemused, as he transferred the framed photograph to a corner of the coffee table, then removed file folders from the box. His long-fingered hands laid them on the flat surface, one after the other, until they were all on display. With a satisfied air, he stepped back.
Curiosity piqued, she came closer, trying to understand the point of his exhibit. It wasn’t immediately apparent, and he didn’t immediately offer up an explanation.
She glanced at his profile. He had a strong, masculine nose, and his lips were set in a serious line. There was a shadow of whiskers along his jaw that her fingers suddenly itched to stroke. His short hair was ruffled on top, and she knew he’d been forking his fingers through it, a gesture he made when he was in deep concentration or worried.
They stood without speaking, and she listened to him breathe, one of the dearest rhythms of her life. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as a heavy understanding settled over her. Familiar didn’t equal dull, she thought. New and different was not that big a draw.
At least not for her.
“What’s all this?” she finally asked, gesturing at the folders.
“I wanted you to look over our financials,” he said.
Her heart seized for a moment, then restarted at a dizzying pace. Look over their financials! That sounded like predivorce business. Though…maybe not. One of her friends had been given the divorce talk by her husband—but only after the bastard had siphoned off most of their accounts.
Dav
id wouldn’t do it like that, she assured herself. If she and David divorced, he would be excruciatingly fair.
If she and David divorced… There would be dates. A different man.
She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “I’m looking them over,” she said, her voice weary. “What about the financials should I be seeing?”
He took a seat on the sofa and tapped a finger on the front of each manila folder. “Statements for all our bank accounts. Your 401(k), my 401(k). College funds for the kids. Current mortgage statement. I had the house appraised yesterday and this is the report. We own the cars outright, but I have estimates for their value in this file. See? I’ve labeled it Big-Ticket Items.”
She stared at him. “What, no credit report?”
He slid out a folder from under another. “Right here.”
A few years back, new neighbors had moved in, and she and David had invited them to their New Year’s Eve party. The husband of the couple insisted on a midnight tradition: “Throw all the change in your pockets onto the street!” It was supposed to bring good fortune for the coming year, according to the man.
David had gone along with a smile.
Before breakfast the next morning, he’d re-collected every coin.
At least some things about him hadn’t changed—he was still careful about each penny. Looking into the face of the man she’d loved and married, while remembering that New Year’s, made her sure of something else that was unchanged as well.
Tess herself was still the same. I still love my husband, my life as his partner. My work as the mother of our children. That was what she wanted. The knowledge of it settled in her chest, a puzzle piece being reseated where it belonged. She could move away from the house she and David shared together, but that didn’t mean she could leave behind her love for him. The thoughts about dates and different men were passing fancies. A match flare compared to the steady light and heat that were her feelings for her husband.
She sighed and gestured to the table. “What’s all this mean, David?”
“It’s our net worth. What we’ve accumulated in the last almost fourteen years.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“You thought I didn’t want you. Of course I do. I’m showing you what we’ve done together. What we’ve built.” He huffed out an impatient breath. “I’m trying to convince you to come home. To stay.”
“Do you want me or my 401(k)?”
He looked at her as if she was speaking in Russ’s babbling baby language. “Both. They go together. Your plan is in your name.”
He refused to understand. Instead of talking to her about what was going on with him and why he’d altered, he was trotting out paperwork. Exhausted, she dropped into the armchair adjacent to the sofa. “I don’t know, David….”
He rose, his expression panicked. “What? Tess, don’t you get it? Don’t you see?”
“See what?”
He threw a hand in the direction of the files. “This is what I have to offer,” he said. “This is what is on the table.”
But instead of the columns of numbers and the neatly compiled accounting of what David thought summed up their worth—his worth—Tess only saw that photograph. Their four beautiful, beloved children. The family that he had somehow reduced to file folders and appraisal forms. Rising, she picked up the frame and held it with both hands so he could see.
“This is what’s on the table.” With tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, she stalked toward her bedroom. “This is what you have to find a way to value.”
He didn’t follow, and she didn’t expect him to. In her bedroom, she closed the door and leaned against it, holding her children’s picture against her heart. Was it any good knowing who you were and where you wanted to be in your life, she thought, if the person with whom you wanted to share that life wouldn’t share himself?
* * *
JANE WATCHED Griffin hand the sleeping baby to his sister. Then Tess glanced toward Duncan and Oliver, crashed on the couch at No. 9, their heads together and their bodies lax, like a pair of rag dolls put down for the day.
Following her gaze, Griffin sighed. “Fine, I’ll carry one next door.”
Jane raised her hand. “I’ll get the other.”
“I can do it,” Rebecca offered. “We left you with the s’mores mess.”
Griffin gave Jane a look. “Yeah. You stay here and clean up. Get ready.”
The look, the ominous note in his voice, tripped a shiver down her spine. Get ready for what? But Jane thought she knew, so she reined in her imagination and gathered up the marshmallow bag, the graham cracker box, the straightened wire clothes hangers and took them into the kitchen. Back by the dying fire in the living room, she found the last square of chocolate and popped it into her mouth.
She was licking a sweet trace from her thumb when Griffin stalked back inside. The door slammed behind him. His gaze snapped to her face, and she froze, her lips still sucking her flesh.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
With a slow movement, she released her finger and let her hand fall to her side. Her palm pressed against the cream-colored lace of the swingy shorts she wore with a tennis sweater she’d found one day thrown over a chair. She supposed it was Griffin’s—well, she knew it was, because the cotton cable-knit held his smell, that dry sage and lemon scent that was starting to pervade her dreams. If he had a problem with her co-opting his clothing, he’d kept it to himself.
“You don’t like s’mores?” she asked. “I think you had at least three.”
“I don’t like turning into my sister’s go-to babysitter,” he said. “Those kids should stay on their side of the fence.”
“It was one evening so your sister could visit with her girlfriend,” Jane said, waving away his complaint. “They’re your niece and nephews.”
“I’ve got enough to worry about,” he muttered. “Now, I’m talking to Rebecca’s history class with that crabby coot next door.”
Jane managed not to smile. “That was very kind of you to agree.”
“Have you ever tried saying no to a thirteen-year-old drama queen?”
Now she grinned and clasped her hands together, holding them over her heart. “Please, Uncle Griff,” she said in a theatrical tone. “If you don’t say yes I won’t pass the class. I won’t get into a good college. I’ll be forced into selling makeup at the MAC counter until I’m sixty-two when they’ll turn me out to the Estée Lauder pasture.” It had gone something like that.
“Plus,” he said darkly, “I’m never going to look at a Cheeto the same way again.”
“You’re just jealous of Duncan and Oliver’s new talent.” She dared to move closer and poked him in the ribs covered by the ragged T-shirt he wore with jeans. “Admit they’re adorable.”
He narrowed his eyes until they were mere slices of summer sky. “I know what you’re doing, Jane.”
“Then why did you bother asking me what it was?” Even though the fire was nearly out, her body seemed to heat up under the weight of his gaze. Her skin prickled against her clothes, and her scalp felt flushed. She took a few steps back. “There’s nothing wrong with some relaxation with family at the end of a long workday.”
He followed her. “Relaxation? Is that what you think I need?”
“Sure.” She gave a casual shrug, though there were flutters in her belly now, teasing and twirling. The way he was looking at her, the way he was stalking her, caused a fraying of her nerves. “Everyone does.” Though he’d not had another outburst after that night she’d found him on the floor in the dark, she was aware working on the memoir was wearing on him. By evening he was as tense as barbed wire strung between two posts.
“You too?”
She shrugged again. This wasn’t about her.
“Because you’re right, being cooped up all day with you is…hard on me, Jane.”
Her mouth went dry. He gave that word hard a distinct sexual edge. Clearing
her throat, she looked away. “I’m sorry, but you’ll remember it was you who insisted we collaborate. And I try to give you space. I don’t mean to be intrusive.”
“I know you don’t. But there you are, with your shoes. Every day, the shoes.”
Puzzled, she glanced down. They were flat thong sandals she’d bought at a flea market. On top, striped ribbon was folded into a flower, its center made up of multicolor, shiny beads. They were feminine and mostly sweet, nothing that should put that burning intensity in his eyes. As she looked up, that gaze seemed to trap her.
His voice softened. “And the mouth, Jane, the mouth is making me feel…”
“I thought you didn’t feel anything,” she whispered. It was what had appalled her that night in the office. It was what had motivated her to get the kids over this evening. Because of course he felt things. She didn’t know precisely how the self-delusion was serving him, but she did think he needed to find a way to connect with the emotions he’d walled off.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time,” he reminded her. “But that remaining one percent is all about you.”
Her shoulder blades clipped the edge of the aperture leading to the hallway. She’d been in retreat, she realized, but Griffin had kept pace. He was still as close as before, his breath hot on her temple, stirring her hair.
“I think we should relax my way, Jane.”
Now the flush spread across her body in one hot rush. His delicious smell surrounded her, his hard rangy body was tempting her from just inches away. She could rub herself against it again. Kiss him. Touch him. Mold herself to his long muscles and hair-roughened skin.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she told both of them.
“But we have so few days left to…relax together, Jane. How could this single time hurt?”
True, she thought hazily, though the logic felt a little wobbly. Then his big hand cupped her cheek and his thumb brushed across her mouth. She went wobbly and, just like that, knew it was the first caress of the night.
Because she was going to give in, of course. Maybe another woman would resist a man who said I don’t do serious with women, never have, but after her last romantic disaster she wasn’t in danger of going silly and emotional with another unavailable male. Been there, done that, got the trampled heart.
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