Margie glanced at her watch and hurried down the hall to check Emma’s room. She’d planned to change into something that didn’t emphasize how much weight she’d gained in the last two decades. Regrettably, as late as it was, the cotton candy pink shell and white skirt she’d worn to school would have to do. At least it was her best color. She tapped on the bedroom door and pushed it open. “Em, are you in here?”
Her daughter lay fast asleep on top of her white eyelet comforter, wearing the new sundress Margie had bought for her a few days ago. Sleeping had been her daughter’s preferred method of coping after Dan died. Was something new bothering her? This wasn’t the first time in the last few weeks she’d discovered Emma napping again.
Margie sank onto the edge of the twin bed and felt her child’s head. Emma’s eyes fluttered open.
“Don’t you feel well, Sweetie?”
“Sure.” She yawned. “I’m fine.”
“Oh, really? I caught you throwing out your favorite dinner the other night, your breakfast is at the bottom of the disposal again, and now you’re conked out before you’ve even had supper.”
“I’m just a little tired.” Emma stretched and sat up. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“You didn’t?” Margie wrinkled her brow. “That’s funny. I didn’t, either. Lately, have you noticed a strange scraping noise about midnight and again a little after five each morning?”
“N-No.” Emma gnawed on her lip. “I just couldn’t sleep.” Her gaze darted around the room as if she feared some sort of goblin would jump out of her closet at any moment.
What was her daughter’s problem? Margie was the one who had to face her past in just a few minutes. She drew in a deep breath to steady her nerves and patted her daughter’s leg. “Well, let’s go. You’ve been badgering me for days to meet this paragon, and we were supposed to be there ten minutes ago.”
“Mom, Mr. Manion is just as nice as Alex.”
On meeting Jake’s son the first time, she’d felt as if she’d had a visit from the Ghost of Past Mistakes. He looked just like Jake dipped in peroxide. But, in his defense, the boy fit every mother’s idea of the perfect date for her daughter. He got straight As while taking mostly AP courses and had impeccable manners. In fact, after getting to know Alex, she’d begun to wonder if maybe the glowing reports about Saint Jake might just be true.
Nevertheless, Margie couldn’t warm up to the kid. All Alex had to do was smile, and she found herself fighting an unreasonable animosity. Naturally, she felt terrible about her prejudice. The boy hadn’t done a thing. It was his old man she wanted to kick.
On the way out of the bedroom, she inspected her make-up in Emma’s mirror and smoothed her highlighted, chin-length hair.
“Would you relax, Mom? You look beautiful. If anyone should be nervo—” Emma bit her lower lip.
“What’re you nervous about?”
“Uhh....nothing really.” Emma dragged Margie out the door, her face as pale as if it were January instead of June. “I— uhh— I just want you to give Alex’s dad a chance. You act as if you’ve already decided not to like him.”
Once they were in the car, Margie squeezed her daughter’s hand and smiled. “I don’t care what you say. I’m making you an appointment with Doc Foster. I can’t remember the last time you ate a decent meal. And I don’t like your color at all.”
“I’m fine.” Emma’s eyes rolled. “I just haven’t been hungry. I think maybe I have a stomach bug or something.”
As they pulled into the Redemption Diner’s parking lot fifteen minutes later, Margie checked her watch again. Did she dare hope he’d given up on them and left?
“I really don’t see what the urgency is to meet this guy is all about. You’ve been dating Alex for over eight months. Now, all of a sudden, you can’t wait to introduce me to his father.”
Emma huffed as she shoved the passenger door open. “I just thought the two of you should finally get to know each other. You’ve probably passed each other in your cars a gazillion times this year on the way to school. You act as if you think Mr. Manion’s got herpes or something.”
No, something much worse. Sex appeal.
Margie climbed out of the car and shot a sideways look at her daughter over the Camry’s roof. “I hope you and Alex aren’t doing anything weird like trying to set us up.”
“Ewww.” Emma wrinkled her nose. “Now I really wanna puke. Why would I want you to date my boyfriend’s father? Besides,”— she shrugged—” don’t you still love Daddy?”
Margie slid her arm around her daughter as they crossed the parking lot. “I’ll always love your dad, Em. He gave me you.”
Now was not the time to mention, as soon as Emma moved out to transfer to a four-year school, Margie had every intention of pursuing a social life that included men. She had no desire to spend the rest of her life alone or to share her sexual peak with some battery-operated lover.
And, hoo-boy, had she been peaking since losing Dan. Every night her empty bed mocked her.
She clenched her fists to stop the trembling in her hands. Why was she so nervous? Jake was just a man. What happened between them had been nearly two decades ago.
Except nineteen years hadn’t seemed to diminish her visceral reaction to the big jerk. Every time she spoke to him on the phone, his deep velvety voice and sexy laugh never failed to make her stomach quiver, and she ended up blathering like an idiot.
Maybe she was simply afraid that, when she faced him and gazed into those magnetic silver eyes, she would have trouble remembering the word no.
~*~
Jake heaved a disgusted sigh as his son continued watching Brandy out of the corner of his eye, wearing a puzzling expression that leaned more toward loathing than lust. It seemed odd, seeing as the pretty cheerleader had been at the core of his tight circle of friends for the past three years. It was impossible to guess what his kid was thinking.
Shaking his head, Jake muttered under his breath, “The idiot sold out his whole damn future for a quick tumble.”
Alex’s gaze snapped to Jake’s, his face suffused with color. “It wasn’t like that, Dad. I love Em.”
Damn. Had that actually come out of his mouth? “Alex.” Jake lifted his hands in apology. “I’m really sorry. I never should’ve said something like that.” At least not out loud. “It helps a lot if you love each other.”
“Well, we do.” His son waved his hand over his head, and a moment later, the tiny girl he’d been dating appeared next to their table.
Emma’s long, dark hair and gray eyes made her look very much like what he’d imagined Maggie’s and his daughter might have. Jake had never stopped wondering what sex their baby had been. In fact, he’d been so bitter and devastated over the loss of his child, he’d convinced Roxanne to skip the birth control on their honeymoon.
Alex stood and bent to hug Emma, then stepped back to let her slide into the booth before he sank next to her and slung his arm around her.
She glanced between them, wearing a tremulous smile. “Did you tell him?”
Squeezing her to his side, Alex gently pressed his lips to her forehead and murmured, “I told you I would, didn’t I? Everything’s gonna be okay, Angel. Where’s your mom?”
“She stopped off at the ladies’ room on the way in.” Emma turned to Jake. “I guess you’re really disappointed in us, huh, Mr. M?” she asked, uncertainty quivering in her voice.
Reaching across the table, Jake patted her delicate hand and smiled. “Disappointed is a good word, Emma.”
His nervous jack-in-the-box son sprang out of his seat with a constipated clown’s grin pasted on his face.
Jake rose and turned to greet the petite blonde gliding toward their booth. She was even hotter than the picture her sultry voice had painted in his imagination. The woman couldn’t be much past her early thirties. Way too young to be Emma’s mom.
As Mrs. Bradford approached the table, he stared down into a pair of familiar sky blue eyes.
His smile dropped.
This had to be just another one of his dreams.
Nausea churned in his stomach like the ocean’s surf right before a storm as he breathed out almost soundlessly, “Maggie.”
~*~
Margie gawked up at the doused-with-ice-water expression on Jake’s face and grabbed the back of the booth to stop the room from spinning. The grainy pictures in local newspapers hadn’t done him justice. The silver sprinkled through his hair simply intensified his metallic gaze.
If only she’d had time to put a curling iron to her hair. And lose fifteen pounds. She really needed to get some new outfits that didn’t fit as if they’d shrunk in the laundry.
Alex held his hand out toward her. “Mrs. B, I’d like you to meet my father, Jake. Dad, Emma’s mom, Margie Bradford.”
Jake glowered at her, his eyes blazing with....contempt?
How could he possibly be angry when he was the one who’d rejected her? If anything, he should be grateful for what she’d done for him. She glared right back and stiffened at the confusion on the kids’ faces.
The last thing she wanted to do was explain how Jake and she were acquainted. With any luck, he wouldn’t want them to know about their past any more than she did. Maybe he was just ticked off she hadn’t told him who she was before this.
Margie swallowed back her anxiety and pasted on a superficial smile. She’d be damned if she’d let him see he’d rattled her. “How do you do, Mr. Manion. It’s nice to finally meet.”
His mouth tightened as he shook her extended hand, murmuring under his breath, “So you want to play this like strangers, huh, Rosebud?”
Jake’s gaze ping-ponged between Emma and Alex and the color instantly drained from his face. “Please, God, no.” He grabbed Margie’s arm. “I think we’d better check out the dessert case.”
“Dad, would you sit down?”
Ignoring his son, Jake dragged Margie to the front of the diner and snapped, “Maggie, please tell me she isn’t mine.”
His use of the nickname he’d given her when they’d first met chilled her like a frigid shower. Back then it had made her feel special and cherished. Now the name served as a painful reminder of the stupid girl she used to be, Jake's heartless betrayal, and of the baby she would never hold. Not in this life anyway.
“What’re you talking about?” She frowned and rubbed the sore spot where his fingers had dug into her arm. The revulsion on his face made him look as if he might heave on her at any moment, cuing her in to the horrific thing he was suggesting. “Ugh— no! How could you even think—”
“Thank God.” His shoulders slumped, and a breath of relief rushed out of him. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me who you were when we spoke on the phone. You must’ve been laughing your ass off all these months.”
“Hardly. Believe me, I nearly choked when I found out you were Emma’s teacher.” Literally. “And when your son asked her out….”
He closed his eyes, shaking his head. “This is too strange to be real.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, it’s no mere coincidence. My conniving cousin set me up by convincing me to take the job here.”
“It figures Barbara would be involved. We can discuss tarring and feathering her later.”
“What I can’t believe is our kids fell for each other.” She glanced back at them seated in the booth, wearing matching wrinkles in their foreheads. “What were the odds of that?”
“Actually, pretty good if you think about it. Emma reminds me a lot of you, and Alex is so much a chip off the old block it’s scary. Why wouldn’t the chemistry between them be just as dynamic?”
“I suppose.”
He prodded her back toward the table. “Let’s go. The kids probably think I’ve misplaced a few of my marbles.”
“They’re not the only ones.”
“You think this is weird?” He snorted. “Stick around for the second act.”
Read more of A Little Bit if Déjà Vu
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
EPILOGUE
The Great Bedroom War Page 29