Isn't it Romantic?

by Ronda Thompson

  “She’s changed. The day you came to teach me stickball, she became possessed.”

  “I think you mean obsessed,” Trey corrected softly.

  “No, I mean possessed.” Shelly peered through a small crack between the swinging doors. “Okay, she’s gone back upstairs for something. What I’m trying to tell you is, she’s become the mother from hell.”

  Trey opened his mouth to scold her for being disrespectful, then wondered if the mere mention of hell could cause him to detect a scorched odor. “Did Katrine burn something this morning?”

  Shelly nodded enthusiastically. “This morning, yesterday morning, every morning, noon and night since you left that day. Look over there.” She nodded toward the stove. “Your basic needs, salt, pepper, fire extinguisher. Now, what did you do to her?”

  The situation might have been laughable had Shelly not appeared genuinely upset. “I merely suggested she wasn’t doing her duty by you,” Trey explained. “I thought you should have grass instead of rocks.”

  “Oh.” Shelly calmed somewhat. “Well, you did good on that score. She promised me grass next summer. But you must have done more than that to turn her into … into … a mother!”

  “Contradictory to what you’ve obviously been raised to believe, she is the mother, Shelly, not you.” Trey helped himself to the phone. “The parent is supposed to take care of the child, not the other way around.”

  He watched her expression turn thoughtful as he dialed Charlie’s mobile number. Had Katrine actually taken his opinion into account? The thought pleased him. Maybe she wasn’t such a lost cause after all. Charlie’s static-laced voice recaptured his attention.

  “It’s Trey, if you want to collect on that favor I owe you, get over to Kat Summers’ house and give us a ride. No, I’m not joking.” He sighed with annoyance. “No, I’m not covered in anything. No, you shouldn’t bring binoculars, we’re going to the Galleria to skate.”

  The phone slammed into its cradle with more force than he intended. Shelly lifted a brow.

  “What was all that about?”

  “We’re supposed to have fun today.” Trey avoided an answer. “No shop talk.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “But about the other thing we were discussing, I see it differently than you. Mom and I compromise. She makes the money, I make sure she eats and takes halfway decent care of herself. She loses herself in her writing, and I go about my business. You’ve upset the whole balance. It’s not supposed to work this way.”

  “What?” he asked, confused.

  “You and Mom,” Shelly answered impatiently. “I don’t want you to change her, I want you to love her just the way she is, or was,” she amended. “The same as I do.”

  The declaration so stunned Trey, he could only stare back at Shelly with disbelief. “I—” he began, then felt at a loss as how to proceed. “Shelly,” he tried again. “I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. People don’t fall in love with each other because someone else wants them to. Your mother and I don’t know each other well, and what we do know about each other doesn’t look too promising for a serious relationship. I don’t think it would ever work out.”

  “Why?” she demanded, her brown eyes full of hurt. “Why can’t you love her?”

  Her small face turned up at him with injured inquiry tugged at something dormant inside of Trey. He felt her pain within the erratic beating of his heart. Bending down, he tried to soothe the first of many lessons for Shelly regarding the reality of love.

  “I’m flattered you want me to love your mother. Sometimes, I imagine children who’ve had a parent to themselves for a long time resent an intrusion.”

  “Do you have children?” Shelly suddenly thought to ask. “I mean, surely you’ve been married before. A hunk like you.”

  He smiled slightly over her compliment. “I’ve been married before, but no, I don’t have any children.” His own admission brought an empty feeling to his gut. As if he failed twice. “Your mother is very lucky.”

  Trey found his hand captured between two small hands. “I may not always be enough,” she whispered. “Someday I’ll be grown. I don’t want my mom to be alone. It’s horrible, being alone.”

  “It is.” He nodded, recalling coming home to an empty apartment after Linda left him. He realized it wasn’t only Katrine’s future Shelly should worry over. A child should have brothers and sisters to fight with, to tell on, to share secrets with then use as blackmail against each other. The fear in her voice spoke of knowing.

  “Your mother will find someone,” he assured her. “Katrine is a beautiful woman.”

  “I guess she’s right about beauty not counting for much when it’s all said and done.” Shelly sighed. “She can’t seem to get a man no matter how good she looks.”

  “She told you that?” Trey asked, his tone skeptical. “The thing about beauty being only skin deep.”

  “Sure.” Shelly shrugged. “Judging by the one man who ever spent any time with us, I’ve got to say she believes it.”

  “He couldn’t have been all that bad?” Trey resented the hopeful note in his voice.

  “No,” Shelly admitted. “I was only six when he hung around here, but I remember he was hairy.” She shuddered delicately. “And he wasn’t funny like you.”

  “Maybe that’s why she stopped seeing him. Hairy and dull in the bargain.”

  Shelly laughed, a delightful sound, Trey thought. Nothing seemed as pure as a child’s laughter, a child’s honesty, or a child’s love.

  “Mom’s dull, too,” she informed him. “That’s why I didn’t want her to come with us today.”

  Katrine dull? The panicked motorcyclist? The country-twang-playing, get - him - in - a - fight - with - a - midget - then - leave - with - a - biker, Katrine? “Your mother might be many things, but boring isn’t one of them.”

  The lift of a perfectly arched brow indicated Shelly’s misgivings. “She doesn’t know how to have fun. I asked her to play with me once when I was seven. Being very immature at the time,” Shelly was quick to point out. “She tried, but she wasn’t good at it. I don’t think she knows how.”

  “Everyone knows how to play,” Trey argued. “I’m sure writers have a greater potential at playing pretend. Otherwise, they couldn’t make up stories about people they haven’t really met or places they haven’t seen. I guess it takes at least a degree of imagination to write a romance novel.”

  “Oh, she has a great imagination. It’s the real stuff she has trouble with. Wait and see. She won’t have fun, I promise.”

  “And I promise she will.” Trey got to his feet. “If there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s a challenge. I say your mother will laugh so hard her stomach will hurt and her eyes will water. Do you want me to show you how hard she’ll laugh?”

  Suddenly, he grabbed Shelly up, tucked her under his arm and began tickling. She squealed with delight.

  “Kindly get your hands off my daughter,” Katrine said from the doorway. “If the two of you weren’t making so much racket, you’d have heard the cabby blaring his horn in the drive.”

  Frozen in place, Shelly a dead weight beneath his arm, Trey watched Katrine wheel around and stomp from the kitchen. He gently lowered Shelly to the floor, noting the smug expression on the girl’s face.

  “Is she having fun yet?” she asked dryly.

  ———

  The question was repeated an hour later at the Galleria.

  “Well?” Shelly glanced toward her mother.

  From their place on the rink, Trey followed her gaze. Katrine sat at a table, sipping coffee and watching the skaters with obvious interest. An ‘observer’ he noted with annoyance. He assumed she’d want to skate, but she refused.

  “She’s certainly having a blast,” Shelly further goaded. “I haven’t seen her laugh this much since the hot water heater busted and flooded the whole downstairs.”

  “Smart mouth,” Trey mumbled. “She wears a seven and a half, right?”

  A
grin spread across Shelly’s lips. “Oh, I see. You think you’re going to force her to have fun. You can rent her skates, but you won’t get them on her feet. Forget it, she’s hopeless. Hey.” Shelly’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “How’d you know what size shoe she wears?”

  “Hay’s for horses,” Trey teased, ignoring the question. How many times had he picked up those sequined heels sitting on his dresser and thought about the woman they belonged to? Too many times to comfortably admit. He should have brought them back to her today.

  The shoes looked totally out of place in the masculine decor of his bedroom. And yet … they added a touch of femininity and rekindled a remembrance of perfume bottles, pantyhose and jewelry. The annoying clutter of inanimate objects that meant nothing, until they were missing.

  “Let’s get her skates,” he said abruptly, wanting to dismiss his thoughts before they settled on the day he found the clutter gone and only a note in its place. “I’ll strike a bargain with you. If I get your mom to skate, you have to try it without clinging to my arm. Deal?”

  “But I’ll fall,” Shelly whined.

  “But I’ll fall,” he mimicked. “I thought Texas women cut their teeth on cactus. Of course you’ll fall, that’s how you learn.”

  “But, it’ll hurt.”

  “Of course it hurts, that’s what makes you try all the harder not to fall again.”

  “Does this conversation have a hidden proverb behind it?” Shelly questioned suspiciously.

  Trey nodded. “Yeah, I guess it does. If you don’t want bruises on your butt, learn to skate without falling down.”

  “Gosh, and you’re deep, too.”

  In response, he flashed her his best smile.

  Two women glancing back over their shoulders tripped over each other’s skates and hit the ice. Trey, avoiding the pile of feminine limbs, took a firm hold on Shelly’s arm and steered her toward the rental desk.

  Chapter 9

  “Creep,” Katrine muttered. Those dimples of his caused two women bodily harm and he just saunters off like nothing happened. He could have at least helped them up! And where does he get off having so much fun with my daughter? Who does he think he is? Tickling Shelly making her laugh while she gazes up at him with adoring eyes! She’s smitten. He’ll break her heart!

  Keeping an eye trained on the child abductor, Katrine saw them head toward the skate rental desk. Good, she thought, they were turning in their skates. She’d had all she could take! Shelly hadn’t acted like a child in what seemed ages. Katrine suddenly found herself wondering where the years had gone.

  Why hadn’t she thought to take Shelly ice-skating before? Why hadn’t she taken her to a rodeo, a state fair, any of those places denied her in her misguided youth?

  Because, like her, Shelly had never asked. Like her, Shelly obviously didn’t realize what she was missing. Not until he came along!

  “I’ve got to stop being such a hermit,” Katrine vowed softly, reaching for her purse. I’ve got to learn how to have fun so Shelly will enjoy spending time with me the way she seems to enjoy spending time with him.

  “Your turn.”

  Katrine glanced up and met the steely blue challenge in Trey’s eyes. Dangling from his fingers were a pair of skates. They appeared to be her size. “I–I—told you, I don’t know how to skate,” she stammered. “I thought we were leaving.”

  “What? And let you go home without joining in the fun? Shelly wants to see you skate.”

  “I don’t know how,” Katrine ground through her teeth.

  “Shelly wants to see you try.”

  “Forget it,” Shelly said softly. “I told you she wouldn’t.”

  The disappointment in her daughter’s voice touched an exposed nerve. “All right!” Katrine grumbled. “Give me the damn things!”

  “That’s the spirit,” Trey injected with enough fake aplomb to bring a smile to Shelly’s lips. “File that away as a memorable quote from your mother. ‘Give me the damn things!’”

  As Shelly broke into a full-fledged giggle, Katrine fought a smile traitorously finding its way to her face. The man was so annoyingly witty.

  “Ready to fly solo, Kid?” At Shelly’s nod, Trey took hold of her arm. “I’ll help you get started.”

  With a glance over his shoulder, he instructed Katrine, “Lace up, I’ll be back for you in a minute.”

  While slipping off her flats, Katrine watched her daughter’s slow descent into the crowded rink. Trey had been nothing but patient with Shelly all morning, allowing her to cling to him while they moved around the rink at a snail’s pace. It surprised her that he didn’t skate well, but seemed to be a beginner himself.

  She’d assumed, because of his athletic build and the natural grace with which he moved, anything requiring balance and strength would come easy. Anything that was, besides wrestling a woman in a vat of mud. She wondered what fate befell her red shoes. It had been childish to throw them at Trey.

  Down right stupid, she later realized, when she arrived home with her feet nearly frost bitten. Elmo had graciously offered her his socks. Katrine had declined.

  The giant turned out to be a gem. He proved nothing but gentlemanly, remaining in the drive until she made the safety of the house, but Katrine gave herself a good talking to the next morning. Her actions had been foolish. Anything could have happened to her. Why did she feel the need to so totally humiliate Trey that night, and why had she let him goad her into putting on a pair of ice skates? There was certainly no way she could balance herself on two thin steel blades, much less walk across ice.

  “It’s too late to back out.”

  Tilting her head, Katrine encountered his amused expression. “I suppose I’m committed,” she agreed. “What do I do first’?”

  “Sling that saddle bag you carry over your shoulder and stand up.”

  The strap of her purse settled over her head. Katrine rose on wobbly knees. Her ankles immediately threatened to fold.

  “Give me your hands,” Trey ordered. The warmth of his fingers slid along the outside of her outstretched hands, securing a firm clasp. “I’ll take you around nice and slow.”

  It wasn’t that she trusted him, not after the ‘date’. It was more a case of having the option removed once they stepped onto the ice. Her feet immediately went out from under her. “Whoa!” She frantically clutched his arm.

  “You’re too stiff,” Trey warned. “I won’t let you fall. Try to relax.”

  She took a steadying breath and willed her body to comply. Often, when a new book idea or a particularly brilliant plot twist concerning a work in progress left her too excited to sleep, she tried to mentally dissolve her bones in an effort to calm down. She blotted out the noise of the rink, imagining every muscle in her limbs beginning to loosen. Her next conscious thought was the realization she was falling.

  The air left her lungs in a whoosh of surprise as her rear end met the ice. Trey landed beside her. He appeared to be as surprised as she. “I didn’t say turn into a rag doll! What happened?”

  “I fell!” Katrine shouted back at him. “You told me to relax!”

  “There’s a vast difference between relaxation and a dead faint! Next time you fall, let go of me before you do it!”

  “Hey, did you guys fall down?” Shelly slid ungracefully toward them. Her feet refused to stop and she tripped over Trey’s outstretched legs.

  He caught her, breaking her fall as a curse left his tight-stretched lips. “You two are an accident waiting to happen. I suggest we move before we cause a collision.”

  “How do you suggest we do that?” Katrine quipped with irritation.

  “It’s relatively simple,” Trey returned in the same vein. “Roll over onto your knees, then get to your feet.”

  “A demonstration would be nice,” Katrine decided.

  Trey sighed, quickly doing as requested before helping Shelly up. Once he rescued Katrine, her feet went in opposite directions.

  “Keep your legs together.”
He placed his arms around her waist. It dawned on him, while her body fit perfectly into the curve of his, that he’d never given a woman that particular advice before.

  “Now what?” Katrine questioned.

  “I’ll do all the work, just lean back and enjoy it.” He smiled, admitting he’d probably given that instruction a time or two.

  “My knees keep wanting to spread,” Katrine complained.

  His smile widened. “I suppose it’s a natural response.”

  “What are you grinning at?” Shelly demanded beside them.

  A guilty flood of heat surfaced in his face. “Nothing,” he mumbled. “Let’s go.”

  Shortly thereafter, Trey became uncomfortably aware of Katrine’s bottom pressed intimately against him. The clean scent of her hair stirred his senses, the feel of her in his arms drove him crazy. This was a mistake. He tried to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. I’m not responding to her, he told himself. His feet weren’t listening. Trey tripped.

  “Ouch,” Katrine yelped at the jarring feel of her knees hitting the ice. A softer yelp followed when Trey landed on top of her. She was on her hands and knees, and judging from the position of his arms along side hers, and his breath on her cheek, they didn’t make a pretty picture.

  “My gosh,” Shelly ground in embarrassment, doing some odd thing with her feet to stop. “Hurry and get up before someone turns a water hose on you two.”

  “Shelly!” Katrine squawked.

  The man indecently sprawled on top of her merely laughed. He struggled to his feet then helped Katrine up.

  “Don’t encourage her,” she warned, managing an amazing turn to face him.

  His gaze widened slightly over her accomplishment. “That was pretty good.”

  “Don’t change the subject.” Katrine cast a warning glance toward her daughter. “Shelly, the remark you just made was extremely crude. Suggesting we looked like a couple of dogs—well, where did you get such a comparison?”

  “School,” both Trey and Shelly answered flatly.