by Shirley Jump
“Exactly. We’re older and wiser, which is why we shouldn’t do this.”
“Oh, please. You’re both just scared.”
“We’re not scared. Just...smart.”
Daniel glanced over his shoulder, then returned his gaze to Carolyn, his voice lower now. “Did you ever think that maybe the reason the two of you broke up had less to do with what you did or didn’t have in common and more to do with what you two didn’t talk about? You were only together for, what, three weeks? And I bet not a lot of talking happened in that time.”
“Well, no...” Carolyn’s voice trailed off and heat filled her cheeks. Then she realized Daniel might be right. That was where you got when you married a man you’d known for three weeks. You made a lot of assumptions and didn’t work with a lot of facts. Because they had, indeed, probably spent more time exploring each other’s bodies than minds.
She’d always thought they had broken up about her decision to put her career ahead of their marriage. Had she missed a piece of the puzzle? Given up too easily? “Why? What did he tell you about why we broke up?”
Daniel leaned back in the chair. “Not for me to say. You ask Nick, if you want to know. Seems to me, the real problem standing between you two is a lack of words.” Daniel chuckled. “What do you know? Two lawyers who are talking around the problem instead of talking it out.”
Bandit came skidding around the corner, panting, as if afraid he might have missed a little fetch while he was outside. A few seconds later Nick entered the room and sent a suspicious glance at his brother. “What were you two discussing?”
Daniel chuckled, then got to his feet and headed to the door. “See you on Thursday night, Nick?”
“Of course.”
“And should I tell Ma to set an extra place at the table?” Daniel gestured toward Carolyn. “You’ll make her year.”
Nick scowled. “You were leaving, weren’t you?”
They could still hear the sound of Daniel’s laughter, even after the door shut behind him.
“Clearly I’m not the only one with a determined matchmaker butting into my love life,” Carolyn said.
“He’s usually not this bad. I think he’s just trying to take advantage of his younger-brother irritability factor.” Nick’s gaze met hers, and for a second her heart seemed to stop. “I hope he wasn’t too hard on you.”
“No, not at all.” She considered asking Nick about what Daniel had told her, but then she heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Bobby was coming down. Deep conversations would have to wait.
Just as well. Because the answers might not be something she wanted to hear.
* * *
“Are you sure you’ve got this under control?”
Carolyn laughed. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m good at more than just practicing law.”
Nick raised a teasing brow, but Bobby stood on the sidelines of the living room, beaming with cheer. “Okay.”
Bobby had come downstairs, and instead of wanting breakfast right away, he’d asked immediately about the pirate books. Since the bookstores weren’t due to open for a couple more hours, Carolyn had suggested they instead organize a treasure hunt. She’d made the two guys wait inside for fifteen minutes while she set everything up in the backyard.
“Okay, I’m ready.” She handed Bobby a crudely drawn map on a slightly crumpled piece of paper. Bandit danced around Bobby’s feet, almost as excited as the boy. “Your map, sir.”
“Is it real?” His eyes were wide as he puzzled over the directions.
“The only way to know is to follow it.” Carolyn leaned down and pointed at the different drawings on the paper. “You have to watch for all these landmarks and take the exact number of steps to get to the treasures.”
“Treasures?”
“Yep. There’s more than one.” Carolyn grinned. “What’s a good treasure hunt with only one surprise at the end?”
Bobby beamed. “Can I start now?”
Carolyn opened her mouth to say yes, then glanced down at the dog, his tail waving wildly. “Wait. There’s one more thing you need.” She reached into the box of supplies she’d gathered from inside of Nick’s house earlier, and pulled out a bright-red bandanna. “You need a partner in crime.” Then she bent over, tied the bandanna around Bandit’s neck and gave the dog a pat.
“Oh, he looks so cool! Like a real pirate!” Bobby tugged on the cloth and gestured toward the map. “Come on, Bandit, we need to go find some treasure!” The dog yipped, and off the two of them went, heading for the first stop on the map, the elm tree at the back of the yard. Bobby stopped by the tree, then started measuring ten paces to the nearby shrub. Soon he was rewarded with the unearthing of a small yellow ball.
Nick sidled up beside Carolyn. “Wow. I’m impressed. How did you come up with all of this?”
“One thing I learned to do while I was at Aunt Greta’s was entertain myself.” Carolyn leaned back against the patio table and crossed her arms over her chest. “I reread those pirate books from my dad over and over again and used to come up with all kinds of imaginary stories. Then I’d hide things all over the house and make maps for myself to find them later.”
“I take it Aunt Greta never joined in?”
Carolyn chuckled. “No, definitely not. But...I think she supported me in her own way. I’d come home from school, and sometimes there’d be a little bag of toys. Small things, like jacks. Or crayons. And when I’d run out of drawing paper, there’d always be a new pad.” Carolyn turned to Nick. “And every month, for years, there was a new pirate book. She never talked about my father. Never talked about what happened, and she wasn’t the best parent. But those pirate books...” Carolyn smiled and a glimmer of tears showed in her eyes “—those pirate books made all of it bearable.”
“They told you she cared. At least a little.”
Carolyn nodded, mute.
Nick’s arm stole around her, and he drew her against his chest. She pressed her face to the soft cotton of his T-shirt and allowed a couple of tears to dampen the fabric before pulling away.
“Ah, enough of the past. There’s a pirate’s treasure out there,” she said. “And a pirate to attend to, who seems to want our assistance.” Bobby gave them a wave from his place by the swing. “Are you going to help me search, matey?” Carolyn put out her hand, a smile on her face, the fun Carolyn he knew and remembered firmly back in place.
He laughed, so damned glad to see this woman that right now he’d have followed her to the ends of the earth if she asked. “Aye, aye, captain.”
* * *
The doorbell rang in the middle of waffle making. Nick was cooking, Carolyn was threatening to get the fire extinguisher, Bobby was laughing and Bandit was running yipping circles around them all, hoping to get lucky with the rejected burnt attempts at breakfast.
To Nick, it felt exactly like a real family. Ever since Bobby had come downstairs and they’d started the pirate game, Nick had forgotten exactly why he’d thought it was a bad idea to get involved with Carolyn again. In the past hour he’d seen a side of her he hadn’t expected.
Heck, the whole last few days he’d seen other sides of her he hadn’t even realized she had. And he was longing for more.
More laughter to fill his house. More waffles—as awful as they had turned out. More treasure hunts in the backyard.
Suddenly he didn’t want to return to the way things had been before. He wanted only for it all to stay exactly the same as it was right now.
“At least Daniel didn’t just walk in this time,” Nick said. “How about we all go out for breakfast and give up on this?”
“I vote for that,” Carolyn said, thrusting a hand in the air. “Bobby?”
“Me too! If we can bring home a doggy bag for Bandit.”
“Of course.” Ni
ck chuckled, then left the kitchen, heading for the front door.
When Nick was gone, Carolyn started cleaning up the mess. Bobby slipped into place beside her, eager to help, scraping the remains into Bandit’s bowl, then helping her put the flour, butter and milk away. “I think it’s safe to say Nick isn’t the chef in the family,” Carolyn said to him, and Bobby laughed.
She froze. Had she just said those words? “In the family?” And why was she surprised? For a while there, they had felt like a family. A regular mother, father and child, sitting down for a breakfast on an ordinary day. She’d grown comfortable here, with Nick, with Bobby, and had, somewhere along the way, lost the severe, strict courthouse Carolyn, along with the pins that had held her hair in place. She’d relaxed. Had fun. Forgotten about the disasters that could be looming around the corner. And found, as Nick had said, that it wasn’t as hard as it looked.
It had been...wonderful.
“Maybe we should only let Nick make cereal with milk,” Bobby was saying. “And peanut butter sandwiches. And—”
“Good morning.”
Carolyn stopped washing dishes and turned around. Jean stood in the kitchen, trailed by Nick, whose face held the downturn of disappointment. “Jean.”
“Hi, Carolyn.” Then she smiled and turned to Bobby. “Hi, Bobby. How’s it going?”
“Great. We’re making waffles. But they’re terrible. So Nick is taking us to a restaurant and letting them make the waffles.”
Jean laughed. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“Can I get you some coffee?” Carolyn asked, and as the words left her, she realized how much she had become at home in Nick’s house, if she was already playing hostess.
“No, I’m not staying. Actually, I came by to deliver some good news.” She bent down to Bobby’s level. “Your mom is home from the hospital. And she’s ready for you to come home, too.”
He popped out of the chair, eyes wide with excitement. “She is?”
Jean nodded, laughing. “Absolutely. And I’ve arranged for a home health aide for a few days so she doesn’t wear herself out. Plus there’ll be a visiting nurse stopping by to make sure she’s healthy and following doctor’s orders.”
“I can go home, right now, and see her?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let me get my stuff!” He started toward the stairs, then spun back. “Is that okay, Nick? Carolyn? I mean, I really wanted to get waffles, too, but she’s my mom and she’s been sick and I want to see her real bad.”
How could Carolyn feel one iota of disappointment at that face? But she did. She didn’t want him to leave, didn’t want this perfect bubble to burst.
All these years, she’d gone without a family, and now for a few days she’d had one, as oddly assembled as it had been. To lose it again, as quickly as she’d gained it—
Hurt.
But she knew she couldn’t be that selfish, not when Bobby was overjoyed at being reunited with his mother. She glanced over at Nick and saw he seemed to be working as hard as she was at holding a smile on his face.
“If it was my mom, Bobby,” Carolyn said, meaning the words and trying hard to force cheer into her voice, for Bobby’s sake, “I’d be rushing out the door, too. I’m so glad she’s better.”
He smiled. “Me, too.”
“Here, let me help you pack,” Nick said. The two of them went up the stairs, the little boy talking the whole way, his joy so clear it shone like the sun.
“Kids like him remind me of why I do this job,” Jean said. “It’s nice to see a happy ending once in a while.”
“Do you think his mother is going to make it?” Carolyn asked.
Jean nodded. “Her doctor told her as long as she takes care of herself, she should be fine. She’s young. She caught the cancer early. And she’s got a lot to live for.”
Carolyn cast a glance toward the stairs. “Yeah, she does.” She was sure Pauline knew just how much, especially after losing her husband. Caroline offered up a silent prayer that the days ahead would be filled with nothing but happiness for Bobby and Pauline. Then she went back to the dishes because her vision suddenly seemed awfully blurry. “I hope it all works out for him.”
“And what about you?” Jean asked. “How will the story end for you?”
“Me?” Carolyn loaded the dirty dishes into a sinkful of soapy water. “My story will just keep going on as it has. I’ll go back to work, go back to prosecuting cases. Putting bad guys in jail. Doing my part to change the world.”
“Have you ever considered you’re trying to change the world from the wrong end?”
Carolyn dried her hands and turned to face Jean. “What do you mean?”
“You were obviously great at this. Maybe,” Jean ventured, “if you became a social worker, you could change these children’s lives, before they grew up and became part of the criminal justice system.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think—”
“Just think about it,” Jean said. The telltale sound of little footsteps coming down the stairs echoed through the house, announcing Bobby’s return. “Together, you and Nick have a magic touch with children. And that kind of magic doesn’t come along every day.”
Bobby was leaving. This little fantasy world was coming to a close. Carolyn might have been able to fool herself into thinking she could have this world, that she could make this work, but she needed to get real. These past few days had been temporary. A vacation from reality. Nick hadn’t changed, hadn’t become Mr. Two-Point-Five-Kids overnight, and neither had she, even if part of her had flirted with the idea for a little while.
The magic Jean had thought she’d seen between Carolyn and Nick was really all an illusion. And the sooner Carolyn accepted that, the better.
* * *
Empty.
The house seemed emptier than ever before. Nick stood in the kitchen, at a loss. He could go into the office—but he’d already taken the day off. He could call Daniel, but the thought of suffering through a golf game—and his brother’s questioning—was too much.
Or he could go to Carolyn.
But she had run out of here, practically on Bobby’s heels, pleading a heavy workload even though she’d already taken the day off. He’d known it had been much more than that. She was avoiding him. Avoiding being alone with him. Because whenever they were alone, all those unanswered questions from the past came bubbling to the surface.
He had what he wanted—his life back to the way it used to be. No one expecting anything of him. No one to be responsible to or for. He should be happy. Instead, a strange sense of loss kept invading his thoughts.
Bandit started barking and darted out of the kitchen. A second later the barks stopped and Bandit returned, sliding under the table for a ball. Daniel brought up the rear. “Don’t you ever answer your door? Or is Bandit the new butler?”
“You’re awfully determined to get a golf partner today.”
“No, I gave up on the golf game. I came by to borrow your jet skis. I’m heading to the lake with a few of the guys.”
“Sure.” Nick waved a hand in the direction of the garage. “Keys are on the hook.”
“Whoa. You’re just letting me take them? No questions asked? And no, ‘Can I come to the party, too?’”
“I’m not in the mood for a party.”
“Not in the mood for a party? You? Since when?”
Nick scowled. “Don’t you have a lake waiting for you? And probably a date, too?”
A knowing grin spread across Daniel’s face. “This is about Carolyn, isn’t it? Speaking of which, where is she? And the kid?”
“The kid has a name—Bobby.”
Daniel’s grin only widened, which sparked Nick’s temper even more.
“Bobby’s mother came home from the hospital, so he went back to
his own house. And Carolyn went to work. As usual.”
Daniel let out a low whistle. “So she left you.”
“She didn’t leave me. She went to work.”
“Uh-huh.” Daniel swung one of the kitchen chairs around and sat down, draping his arms over the back. “So, are you just going to stay here and be the grumpy dwarf or are you going to go make things right with her this time?”
Nick crossed to the coffeepot and poured himself and Daniel each a mug, then sat down at the table. “There isn’t anything to make right.”
“I don’t understand why not. Just this morning you were doing the happy family thing. And doing it pretty well from what I could see.”
“It was an illusion,” Nick said. “Like the card tricks I did when I was a kid. We pretended we believed it for a little while, and it seemed real. But it wasn’t. Now we both go back to our lives.”
“Oh, and such great lives they were, too.” Daniel rolled his eyes. “For the oldest one in the family, you can be pretty stupid.”
“What was wrong with my life?”
“What was so good about it?” Daniel countered. “You live in this big empty house all by yourself. Like you want to get married again, have a family, but you’re afraid to go after what you want.”
Nick scowled and got to his feet. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
Daniel just sipped at his coffee, silent.
His brother was good at that. Playing the silent card, waiting for Nick to fill the gap in conversation. Nick refused to play that game, refused to give Daniel the satisfaction. “Do you want some lunch?”
“Not especially.” Daniel leaned back, stretched, patient as the Cheshire cat.
“Well, I do.” He didn’t—it was still too early for another meal—but Nick needed the distraction. He opened the fridge, the door practically bouncing off its hinges, pulling out ham, cheese, mustard. He grabbed a loaf of bread and slapped together a sandwich but didn’t eat it. He tossed the butter knife into the sink and turned around. “I screwed up with Carolyn before. What if I do it again? I married her for all the wrong reasons, didn’t think about what I was doing, then didn’t take the whole thing seriously enough and lost her. What kind of idiot does that make me?”