Then again, how much fun would the game be if it were easy?
Time to dust off those cojones, he thought, grinning, as he backed out of the parking space and headed for the church.
* * *
“Does this look clean enough?” Brooke asked after the church dinner, frowning at the kitchen’s island.
Sabrina smiled. Pretty much everyone else had gone home, but Cole had insisted he and the kids stay and help clean up. Brooke had eagerly volunteered for kitchen duty while Wes and Cole were still in the main hall, putting away long-unused tables and chairs.
“Does to me,” she said as she dried the industrial-sized pots and pans they’d used to make the spaghetti. “You ready to join the others?”
“In a sec. I need to use the bathroom first.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you by the stairs?”
“Deal.”
Seconds later Sabrina sank onto the last riser, releasing a weary but satisfied sigh as she watched Cole and Wes on the other side of the hall load folding chairs onto a rolling cart. On so many fronts, the event had been a huge success, from how it had brought the community more together than it had been in years, to how much money it’d raised. More than anyone could have imagined, according to Father Bill. Including one large, anonymous donation...as if Sabrina couldn’t figure out the donor’s identity. Especially since a brand-new, state-of-the-art computer had also magically appeared in the church office, she thought on a smile when Cole laughed at something Wes said, his eyes so full of love for the kid it made Sabrina’s heart hurt.
Hurt more, that is.
Because on a personal front, things were basically a mess. Bad enough that every time she saw Cole, she thought, Yes, please. Especially when she’d catch him looking at her and see the same thing in his eyes. Except she’d thought that before, hadn’t she, with other men? Nice men, good men, men she’d seen a future with.
Yeah.
And that wasn’t even taking into consideration Cole’s children, who were ripping her apart inside. Brooke...oh, God—dear, sweet Brooke, making Sabrina fall in love with her even though she knew she shouldn’t...and scowly, intense Wesley, every bit as sensitive as his father had been at that age, determined to guard his heart for the same reason his sister so eagerly gave hers.
And, boy, could Sabrina relate to both of them. Except in this case, it wasn’t only about protecting herself, it was about protecting two kids who didn’t need any more question marks in their lives. Or at least deserved a break from them.
She heard Brooke’s footsteps behind her before the girl came around to join her on the stairs, plunking her skinny little butt on the step above Sabrina’s.
“Sorry my brother’s being such a pain,” she said, and Sabrina was glad the girl couldn’t see her face.
“If it’s any consolation,” she said, “so were my brothers at that age. Well, except for maybe Ethan. The oldest. But then, the rest of us often wondered if he was an alien. One trying way too hard to be the perfect human.”
“Not something anybody can ever say about Wes, that’s for sure.” Then Brooke sighed. “Did Dad tell you about our weekend with Mom?”
“Only that you went. How was it?”
“It sucked. Like, seriously.”
Feeling as though her chest would cave in, Sabrina reached back to wrap her hand around Brooke’s. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
“I don’t get it. I mean, I know Wes and I were both—” she made air quotes “—‘accidents,’ but if Dad can deal with it, why can’t she?”
“What makes you think...?”
“Mom doesn’t exactly keep her voice down when she’s on the phone.”
Not my place to judge, not my place—
“Well,” Sabrina said gently, “to be honest, a lot of kids aren’t exactly planned.” She chuckled. “My baby sister was a huge surprise—”
“Yeah, and some surprises are good, and some aren’t,” she said, and Sabrina thought, Oh, dear God. “And it’s not like I don’t think Mom loves us. In her own way, I guess. But for sure not like Dad does. The way he looks at us, talks to us...there’s a difference, you know?” She huffed a sigh. “I can’t explain it. But we can feel it. Does that make any sense?”
“It makes perfect sense. Because that’s kind of the way it was with my parents. My birth parents, I mean. Matt and I always knew our mother loved us, but our father...” She shook her head. “Although that’s not a fair comparison, really, because my father...he wasn’t very nice.”
The girl slid down to sit on the step beside Bree. “Like, he hurt you guys?”‘
“Not me. But my mother and Matt, yeah.”
“Wow. You’re right, Mom’s not that bad. But still. I don’t think we realized how different they were when we were little—probably because we were with Mom more. So I guess we thought that’s just how things were. Only then we overheard that phone call.”
“When was this?”
“Right before we asked to go live with Dad. It was like one of those games where you have to keep stacking blocks or whatever until it all falls down? Hearing Mom say that stuff...that was the last block. But...” The girl’s gaze touched Sabrina’s. “Don’t get me wrong, the way Mom is, it hurts me, too. That she, like, abandoned us. But I think it hurts Wes more.”
Dimly, Sabrina remembered conversations she and Cole had had at about that age, after they’d first met. How being around Sabrina and her close-knit family had made him realize how disconnected he’d felt from his parents. The kid was clearly her father’s child. Which certainly didn’t make Sabrina love her—and no doubt about it, she did love her—less.
“Have you said any of this to your dad?”
“Oh, yeah. Because he makes us talk about it.” Her mouth pulled to one side. “Whether we want to or not.”
“Still. It’s good, having someone who wants to listen.”
“I guess,” Brooke said, but with a little grin.
“So we’re all done here,” Cole said, coming up to them. Wes hung back slightly, his hands slugged into his shorts pockets, wearing the same mulish expression Sabrina had come to think of as normal. “Who’s up for ice cream?”
Sabrina wasn’t sure who was more surprised, she or Wes...whose face, when his gaze swung to his father, was so comical she nearly laughed out loud.
“At that place we passed after we parked?” Brooke said, popping to her feet.
“Why not?” Cole turned to Sabrina. “You in?”
“You mean...Antonio’s?”
“Yep.”
She hadn’t even thought of the old diner in years, where she and Kelly and Cole used to hang out when they got tired of fighting the crowds at Murphy’s. The burgers had been terrible, but the ice cream sundaes and milk shakes had been the stuff of dreams.
“Say yes,” Brooke said, her eyes bright as she grabbed Sabrina’s hand in both of hers. A little girl, still, inside what she’d come to realize was an old, wise soul. And Sabrina’s own soul ached in response.
Especially when she caught Cole’s gaze, brimming with memories. And more. Much, much more. The kind of more that might make some girls believe in fairy tales again—
Some girls. Not her.
Squelching a sigh, Sabrina dared a glance at Wes, whose gaze briefly touched hers before veering away. And it wasn’t that she didn’t understand his turmoil, probably more than he did. The confusion, the sense of betrayal... She got it. Even so, it was beginning to annoy the hell out of her, his refusal to believe she was no threat. He didn’t have to like her—especially since she wasn’t going to be a permanent part of their lives, a thought that pinched a lot more than she might have expected—but she did want him to feel he could trust her.
And that wasn’t going to happen if she bolted every time the kid got ticked off.
“Ice cream sounds great,” she said, and Brooke squealed out a “Yes!” as her brother sighed...
And Cole stood there grinning like a doofus.
A grin that made her melt faster than ice cream on a summer’s night.
* * *
They let the kids go ahead, the two of them talking quietly between themselves as they meandered along the darkening, uneven sidewalk. Built on the farthest edge of their old stomping grounds, All Saints anchored an older, mainly blue-collar area once inhabited by factory workers, service-sector types, those intrepid souls with the chutzpah to start their own businesses—the eateries and repair shops and dry cleaners that had at one time lined Main Street. Cole’s memories, from when he was a kid, were of a neighborhood that had become run-down and despondent, its dignity tattered. Now, however, new paint and siding gleamed on once-shabby houses, while postage-stamp yards that had gone to dirt boasted bright green grass and clumps of vibrant flowers, the occasional, optimistic sapling protectively tethered to the ground.
Hope for the future planted in what had been there all along—
“So Father Bill tells me,” Bree said quietly beside him, “an ‘anonymous’ donor gave the church a nice chunk of change towards the roof repair.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mmm-hmm. Along with a fancy-schmancy new computer for the office.” Her eyes slid to his. “I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you?”
“Can’t say that I do,” he said, chuckling at her soft groan. Then she sighed.
“You’re a good man, Cole Rayburn.”
“I never said—”
“Why?”
“Why do I think the past is worth preserving?”
A beat passed before she said, “Sure.”
He answered very carefully. Not to mention deliberately. “It isn’t always, of course. Sometimes it really is best to gut the whole thing and start over. Especially if it no longer serves a viable purpose. But if it does...” He glanced at her as they walked. “As long as the foundation’s solid, anything can be restored. Rebuilt, even.”
He saw her forehead knot for a moment before she said, very softly, “So what’s Wes into? Sports? Cars? Video games, I assume?” Not what he expected. When he frowned down at her, she chuckled. “Hoping to avoid conversational dead space if we’re gonna be stuck in a booth together.”
Cole’s heart knocked against his rib cage. Was this in response to what he’d said? Or simply Bree being Bree? In any case, she was showing more interest in Wes’s preferences than his mother had, ever... Who for the past however many years had asked Cole what she should get the kids for their birthdays and Christmas. And she’d lived with them, for God’s sake.
“Basketball,” he said, and she nodded.
“Right—”
“And filmmaking.”
“Really?”
“Huge Spielberg fan. Has been since he was...ten?”
“Good Lord. He’s more of a nerd than you were. You must be so proud.”
Cole laughed. “He makes these quirky little videos with his phone...blows my mind. And here we are...”
“Wow,” Bree said, as they all pushed through the glass door, ringing the overhead bell. “And I thought your parents’ place was stuck in time.”
The woman spoke the truth. Antonio’s hadn’t changed a whole lot in twenty years, although Cole was guessing the fake leather booths had been reupholstered at least once since then. And the menu prices were higher. But damned if Connie, the same waitress who used to serve them as kids, didn’t take their orders, her hair just as black, her bosom just as...bosomy. And her Jersey-inflected voice every bit as smoke-snarled as Cole remembered.
She barked out their orders toward the guy behind the counter—shakes for him and Sabrina, sundaes for the kids—then looked back, dark eyes narrowed under penciled-on brows. “You look familiar,” she said to Sabrina. “You been here before?”
“Years ago,” she said, smiling. “When we were teenagers. We used to come in with a tall redhead?”
“Yeah, yeah...I remember now. Knew I wasn’t imagining things. You’re as cute as ever, doll. I mean that.” Then her gaze swung to Cole. “But holy cow...you, I wouldn’t’ve recognized. And I mean that in a good way,” she said with a throaty chuckle as she laid a hand on his shoulder. “So these are your kids, huh? Not that I’m surprised. I could’ve told you then, you two would end up together—”
“No!” Cole said before Wes blew a gasket. “I mean, yes, they’re my kids—”
“But not mine,” Sabrina said with a glance at Wes before smiling up at Connie again. “I happened to be in town, and we ran into each other. Coincidence,” she said with a shrug. “That’s all.”
“Huh,” Connie said, squinting once more. Although that might’ve been the false eyelashes. “Well, whatever—it’s good to see you guys again. And we’ll get that order right out to you.”
Coincidence, Cole thought, as he watched Sabrina watching Brooke, Sabrina’s mouth curved in a soft smile as his daughter prattled on about the dance class she was taking twice a week. Funny how the term had come to mean a random occurrence, something that happened purely by chance, when its root didn’t necessarily have the same connotation.
Because was Bree’s reappearance in his life really only random? Or did some higher intelligence have a hand in aligning events and circumstances to bring them together?
Intriguing thought, that.
Connie brought them their treats. The kids dug into their sundaes, and Bree plunked her straw into her chocolate shake, her cheeks sinking in as she sucked up her first, long pull. Cole tried not to notice—or at least, react—but then her eyes practically rolled back in her head, and he thought...things he had no right to be thinking in public. Especially sitting with his kids.
“You know,” she said to the table at large, “of all the milk shakes I’ve had in my life—which must number in the thousands by now—this is still one of the best.”
“I could’ve told you that, doll,” Connie said from two tables over. “But thanks.”
Bree gave the waitress a thumbs-up, then said, “So Pop and I got into this argument about what’s the best Spielberg movie.” Beside him, Cole felt Wes jerk to attention. “He says Schindler’s List. But I kind of have a soft spot for Close Encounters.”
“What about Jurassic Park?”
Bree grinned at the boy. “I watched that so much I wore out the tape.”
“The...tape?”
She sighed. “And now I feel about a thousand years old. But the first time was in the movie theater, with Mom and Pop and everybody else. Including this dude,” she said, pointing at Cole. “We were—” her brow puckered “—thirteen? It was shortly after we met. Anyway, he was at the house, and we were going, so he got dragged along with the herd.”
“So it wasn’t, like, a date?”
“Again. Thirteen. And there was a crowd. There also might’ve been, as I recall, some clandestine popcorn throwing.”
“And thank you for putting ideas into my children’s heads,” Cole said, and Brooke giggled.
“Hey. You started it.”
“I did not!”
“Oh, yes you did! Kelly was sitting between us, and you were trying to get my attention—it was right before the tyrannosaurus got the dude sitting on the john, and I was frozen—so you tossed popcorn at my head. And I was furious because you got grease in my hair!”
By this time the kids were laughing so hard they couldn’t even eat their ice cream. Including Mr. Grumpy. “Oh, and like you didn’t throw it back,” Cole said, grinning. Grateful. “And then a piece went down the front of Kelly’s top, and she shrieked, and everybody around us got mad, and your father made us change seats so we weren’t next to each other.”
Sab
rina grinned. “God, we were awful.”
“Don’t listen to her, guys,” Cole muttered, which only got them laughing harder.
“Yeah. Good times,” Bree said softly, wistfully, and Cole wanted to kiss her so badly his mouth actually tingled.
Wanted her so badly everything else tingled. Because that thing he’d said, at the wedding? About never letting anyone else get to him like she had when they were kids?
Anyone else, maybe. This woman, however...
Afterward, they walked back to their cars, parked on opposite sides of the church parking lot. It was full dark by now, the evening humidity like a soft cloak. A sweetly pungent breeze swept up from the river, laced with the sounds of crickets, the distant thrum of highway traffic, the kids’ good-natured arguing as they again walked ahead of them.
“That was fun,” he said, and Bree chuckled.
“Yeah. It was. Thanks for asking me.”
She stumbled slightly, bumping into him. He caught her, then slipped his hand around hers.
And this time, she didn’t even try to pull away.
* * *
She’d forgotten how lovely it felt to hold hands. The giddiness the simple touch provoked, starting low in her stomach before shunting with breakneck speed through the rest of her body, making every skin cell hum with anticipation. And yet, oddly, also wrapping her in a deep calm, that she was safe—
“They’ll see,” she said.
“No, they won’t. Too dark.”
—a realization that should have kicked the calm into the next state, boy. Except it felt too good to fight.
Friends. That’s all...
Chad hadn’t liked to hold hands. Not in public, anyway. Not even after they’d slept together. Not that they’d ever discussed it, but her guess was that he saw hand-holding as juvenile. Undignified. Never mind the ancient couples they’d see toddling down the city streets, unashamed to display their affection to all and sundry—
So the jerk wasn’t right for you. Moving on...
Yeah. About that.
Really, she should let go of Cole’s hand. Giddiness and such aside. Because she did like it and it did make her feel calm and cared about, all of which were so wrong for her right now.
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