“That’s right,” Jo agreed with a smile.
“Any chance I could talk you both into listening to some of the kids read while you wait? We never have enough volunteers, and so many of the students don’t have anyone at home who encourages their reading.”
Jo felt a moment of panic, quickly quelled. She had done plenty of preschool story-times in the library, and competently, too, she’d always felt. She could do this.
“I’ve done it lots of times,” Emma said, jumping up from where she’d sat cross-legged. “My sixth-grade class used to go once a week to help first-graders.”
“I’d be happy to,” Jo lied.
Thus they found themselves stationed at two back tables. An eager boy carrying a book came to Jo first. Whipping it open, he said, “I know how to read! Want to hear?”
“You bet,” she said.
He opened it, planted a finger under the first word, and began. “The…bbb…aa…ttt.” His face drew into a scowl as he listened in his head to the sounds, then cleared as he declared triumphantly, “Bat! The bat!”
Jo grinned. “Right!”
Okay, this was kind of fun, really.
“The bat and…the…ccc…”
It could also get old, she decided after half an hour of listening to six-year-olds torturously sound out words, but it was still satisfying and even exciting in those magical moments when they managed the feat of putting all the letters together.
She felt some relief when the teacher clapped her hands and called, “Five minutes, everyone! Time to put your work away.”
The little girl beside Jo whispered, “Thank you,” closed her book and slid off the chair. “I wish you’d come back,” she confided, before scooting back to her desk.
Jo felt a peculiar squeezing in her chest.
Emma plopped down on the first-grader-size chair, her knees poking up almost as high as her shoulders. “I don’t remember it being that hard to read.”
“Me, either,” Jo admitted. “But it must have been.”
Emma watched the kids bustle around gathering their backpacks and coats, setting their chairs on their desks and lining up at the door. “I kind of like doing that. Maybe I could come regularly.”
“Ginny would love that.”
Just then, her miniature housemate approached, her daypack slung over her shoulder and Pirate back in his cardboard carrier. “Teacher said I could leave before the bell, since I’m with you,” she said importantly.
“Cool,” Emma said. “I always liked having an excuse to beat the crowd.”
Obviously pleased by the moment, Ginny held her head high as they passed the line of students, thanked the teacher and exited into the still empty hall. They had almost reached the outside door when the bell rang and hordes stampeded toward them.
“Wow. Let’s get out of here,” Jo said, shoving the door open.
They made it outside in the nick of time. Within minutes, the playground and parking lot were a scene of chaos familiar from her own school days. A long line of yellow school buses waited, as did parents on foot and in cars. Walkers dawdled on the playground, sixth-grade girls murmured in trios and tried to look fifteen while the boys wrestled and whooped and the teachers and playground aides wielded whistles to induce order.
Jo shook her head, smiling reluctantly. “I should make Aunt Julia come and listen to first-graders read.”
The girls’ heads turned. “What?”
“Never mind. Let’s go home.”
Pirate rode on Ginny’s lap. Despite being the object of a group rescue, he seemed bent on becoming her cat. Tiny and puzzled by the irritating collar, he must have felt safest in her quiet presence.
Jo hadn’t been home long when Ryan called. “Hey,” he said. “Long time no see.”
She’d wondered why he hadn’t called or stopped by the evening before. It had irked her even to be aware of his absence. Couldn’t she get by for a couple of days without seeing him? Aunt Julia would be ashamed of her!
“Have you been busy?” she asked.
“Me? I came by Wednesday night. You weren’t home.” It wasn’t quite a question, as if he knew he didn’t have the right to ask this one.
She wouldn’t have minded if he had asked, Jo realized.
“I had dinner with my aunt Julia. She stopped over at SeaTac on her way to Fairbanks. We haven’t seen each other in months.”
“Ah.” He was quiet for a moment. “I got stuck having dinner with some clients last night.”
Relieved for reasons she preferred not to examine, Jo teased, “It was that bad? What did they serve, liver and onions?”
A smile in his voice, he protested, “Hey, I like liver and onions!”
“No!” She wrinkled her nose. “Really?”
“Afraid so.”
Jo sat sideways in an easy chair and hung her legs over the arm. “I always knew there was something strange about you.”
“I’ll bet you haven’t tried ’em. Why don’t I make them for dinner tonight…”
“You do that,” she said. “Just be sure to air out your house before you invite anyone over.”
He laughed. “Okay. I can take a hint. How does Thai sound to you?”
They agreed he’d pick her up at six, and they would consider a movie later. Tonight was Helen’s turn to cook, and Jo wandered down to the kitchen.
“Hi,” she said. “I wanted to let you know I won’t be here for dinner.”
Helen turned from the sink. “Ryan?”
“Mm.”
“Thank you for doing that for Ginny today.” Carrying a can of cola, Helen joined Jo at the table. Popping the top, she said, “I need a caffeine boost before I put dinner on. Thankfully today’s Friday.”
“You look tired.” Jo studied her. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be taking sleeping pills?”
“Then I’d really be dragging. No. What if Ginny needed me during the night? Or I got addicted to them?” She shook her head firmly. “I just have to…wait it out. Normal sleep will come eventually.” Under her breath, she added, “I hope.”
Jo got herself a can of pop. “I had fun taking Pirate today. I really didn’t mind.”
“Moving here was the best decision I’ve made yet on my own,” Helen said unexpectedly. “You and Kathleen and Emma have been lifesavers.”
Jo felt a pang of guilt for her unhappiness when she’d discovered she would be living with a six-year-old. Thoughts didn’t count, she told herself, only actions, and she’d been nice to Ginny. Hadn’t she?
“I had qualms about moving in with a bunch of strangers,” she admitted, “but I’m glad I did, too. It makes me realize how lonely living by myself was.”
Helen nodded eagerly. “That’s it exactly! Friends call and ask how you’re doing or want to have lunch once in a while, but they aren’t there when you’re running late in the morning and can’t find something, or are too tired to cook dinner, or whatever. Emma has been so good to Ginny, and now you, too.”
More guilt warred with Jo’s pleasure. “It wasn’t that big a deal, just a couple of hours.”
“But I couldn’t do it.” Helen’s face twisted. “I don’t see how I’m ever going to be able to do things like that. And Ginny needs me to.” She stood up quickly and turned her back. Voice muffled, she said, “I should start dinner.”
“Helen…”
Facing the refrigerator and not turning around, Helen shook her head hard. “I know I’m not the only single parent. Kids are adaptable, and we’ll be fine. I just wanted you to know that I’m grateful.”
“Any time.” Jo bit her lip. “Can I help now? Ryan isn’t picking me up until six.”
Wiping her cheeks, Helen turned at last. Her eyes were still damp, but her expression defied Jo to comment. “Really? Would you mind starting the hamburger frying while I run up and change? I’m making stroganoff.”
“No problem.”
She’d cut up and added the onions and garlic before Helen came back in jeans and a sweatshirt
, her face scrubbed clean and her auburn hair pulled back in that severe—and unflattering—ponytail.
“Thank you!” she said, reaching for the spatula. “I should take your next turn cooking….”
“Don’t be silly.” Jo caught sight of the clock. “I’d better go change.”
“Yes.” Helen’s grin made her look about sixteen. “You had.”
“That bad?”
Upstairs, Jo discovered it was that bad. Her jeans had acquired a mysterious gray spot on the rump that she decided, on examination, might be rubber cement. Possibly a permanent fixture. She’d spattered hamburger grease on her T-shirt, her hair stuck out every which way and her mascara had run. Making a face at her image in the mirror, she decided she should be grateful Ryan hadn’t been loitering here this afternoon.
They ate at a small Thai place on University Avenue, where Ryan asked about her family. “This Aunt Julia. Are you close?”
Jo found herself talking more openly about her childhood than she ever remembered doing with anyone but Boyce.
Propping her elbows on the table, she said, “I was seven when Mom died. I wish I remembered her better than I do. I should. I was old enough. It’s weird. Even Boyce, who’s three years younger than I am, will pop up with things sometimes that I just don’t remember.”
Ryan listened, his eyes intent. “Maybe forgetting was your way of dealing with the trauma of losing her.”
“Maybe. But Aunt Julia—who’s Mom’s sister—makes it sound as if my mother regretted marrying and having children. So maybe there’s more that I’m blocking out.”
“Regretted?” Ryan frowned. “I don’t know anything about your father, so maybe their marriage stank. But I can’t imagine how she could regret having you.”
Jo gave him a brief, wistful smile. “Thank you. But you see, she was a singer. A hybrid between folk and country, according to Aunt Julia. Sort of like Mary Chapin Carpenter. Really talented. Then she fell in love—” Jo made a face “—had kids and quit. I actually don’t remember her singing at all, even around the house.”
But then, she thought for the first time, she’d blocked out a great deal. Maybe this was one of the things her childhood self had chosen to forget for reasons she couldn’t conceive.
“This Aunt Julia.” Ryan was still frowning. “Do you believe her? Are you sure she doesn’t want to think her sister was unhappy?”
Because he had so exactly echoed her own disloyal reflection, Jo had to scowl back at him. “Why would she lie to me? She loves me!”
“Maybe she disapproved of your dad. Maybe she was jealous.” He shrugged. “She might not be lying. She might just have skewed the way she remembers things.”
“No!” The idea upset Jo, making her tone pugnacious. “That’s ridiculous! Aunt Julia says Mom loved us. She just regretted sacrificing her career. Who wouldn’t?”
He stared her down. “A woman who’d made the choice knowingly.”
“People are famous for making foolish choices when they first fall in love,” she said defiantly. “Thus the American divorce rate.”
“What’s your dad say about all this?”
Jo looked away. “He doesn’t say. We’re not close.”
“You’ve never asked him?”
“No.” Jo toyed with her food, still unable to meet those penetrating gray eyes. “I guess I didn’t want to hear the answer. Assuming he would have told me.” She jerked her shoulders. “Assuming he even knows whether my mother was happy or miserable. I think he was the kind of husband who came home from work, expected dinner to be on the table, then planted himself in front of the TV. Your All-American husband.”
“I could resent that,” Ryan said mildly.
“You could,” Jo admitted.
He chose not to make an issue out of it. “What kind of father was he?”
“Joyless, stern.” Her moue was designed to hide the pain that still stabbed, however dully. “He put food on the table, came to parent-teacher meetings, gave us warnings if we made too much noise. Sometimes he’d be watching TV or reading the paper, and when one of us interrupted he’d look up with this irritated, disconnected expression, as if he didn’t know who we were.” Jo moved her shoulders to indicate indifference that she couldn’t quite feel. “He didn’t enjoy having children.”
The compassion in Ryan’s eyes was a balm. “Do you still see him?”
“Oh, I’m a dutiful daughter.” She gave a sharp laugh. “I send birthday and Christmas cards, call every so often. I haven’t actually seen him in three or four years.” Three years, three months and…oh, ten days, give or take a few. She’d felt compelled to drive by the house, saw his car in front and stopped on a little-understood impulse. He’d come to the door, looking as if he barely recognized her. After he’d apparently reminded himself that she was someone he should know, he’d been…pleasant. The familiar hurt and resentment had kept her from going back again, although she knew Boyce, less determined to hold grudges, had seen their father at least once a year.
“You know,” she said, relieved to have an excuse and wishing now that she hadn’t started talking about her family, “we’d better get going or we’ll miss the movie.”
Ryan glanced at his watch, then reached for his wallet. “You’re right.”
The French film was a romance. Jo was always conscious of Ryan, but not usually self-conscious. Sitting in the dark theater, upper arm bumping his, she was. Painfully so.
The movie had been her idea, although she hadn’t realized quite what it was about. She’d thought it was a drama with the usual quirky French flair. Now Ryan must be thinking she’d suggested it as a hint.
The movie ended at last with Jo shell-shocked. Ryan kept a hand on her back as they made their way up the aisle and out through the lobby into the damp, cold night. His touch burned through her sweater.
“Well,” he said, and she heard the amusement underlying his matter-of-factness, “that was interesting.”
She gave a laugh that sounded false, even to her own ears. “I know how to pick ’em, don’t I?”
His grin was wicked. “You sure do.”
She punched his arm. “I thought the couple in front of us would never stop kissing.”
Under the street lamp, she couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to her that his eyes darkened when he said, “I was tempted to imitate them.”
She had to clear her throat. “Were you really?”
A group of students almost enveloped them in their laughing circle.
Ryan’s gaze didn’t waver from her face. “Yeah.” He took her hand. “Let’s go to the car.”
Unfortunately, they were parked five or six blocks away, a curse of city living. After a couple of blocks of silence, they reached his pickup truck, parked on a dark side street.
He faced her and said, “I want to kiss you.”
“Oh.”
Brilliant, she chided herself, feeling the flush of embarrassment in her cheeks. Way to flirt.
Cheeks now flaming hot, which thankfully he couldn’t see, Jo said in a small voice, “I was beginning to think you didn’t, um, want me as a girlfriend.”
She felt him jerk.
“What?”
“If you’d like to be just friends…” she began.
His head bent so fast she didn’t see it coming, his mouth capturing hers.
He lifted his head, and she said, “I guess that answers that question.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS, Jo was blissfully, absurdly happy. As much fun as tiling the bathroom had been, she’d turned down Ryan’s offer of a job. Instead, she was working part-time in the university undergraduate library. When she wasn’t there or in class, it seemed she was with Ryan. Evenings, he either hung out at the old Ravenna neighborhood house or she was at his. More often the latter. She was embarrassed at how often she’d switched her night for cooking or opted out of dinners Kathleen or Helen had made.
She had only one cloud on her horizon. We
ll, two, both connected to Thanksgiving.
The day after the awful French film, Ryan had mentioned casually, but with delight, that his kids would be with him for Thanksgiving. He and Jo were on their way to his place, groceries in the back. They intended to make a southwestern-style bean and rice wrap.
“They’ll be here for the whole week.” Behind the wheel of his pickup, he reached out for her hand and squeezed. “I expected to have them for Christmas, but not for Thanksgiving, too. Wendy’s new husband apparently planned a romantic getaway for them.”
Obviously, any romantic activities she and Ryan might have indulged in that week would be on hold.
“You’ve really missed them, haven’t you?” she said diplomatically. What was one week?
“Yeah, I can’t believe they’re coming. I talked to them a couple of nights ago. It was almost like old times.”
He fell silent, his expression suddenly brooding. His hand left hers and gripped the steering wheel.
Jo had an attack of guilt, because she never encouraged him to talk about his children. She knew why, of course; she was pretending they didn’t exist, even though she knew how much he loved them.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Talking to them has gotten hard. I don’t know what to say, what to ask about. I mean, I know Tyler plays soccer, but except for some videos I’ve never seen a game. I don’t know how good he is, I don’t know the boys on the team, who they play. So I say, ‘How was the game?’ and he says, ‘Fine.’ Maybe, if I’m lucky, he tells me he scored a goal.”
“Didn’t you say they moved just this past June?”
“Five months is a long time in their lives.” Stopped at a red light, he grimaced. “Oh, it’s not as bad as I’m making out. It just scares me, when things get stilted. I imagine the years going by with us having less and less to say to each other, and me calling less often. Maybe them coming to visit me only because it’s court-ordered and their mom marches them onto the plane.”
“Oh, Ryan.” Seeing the unhappiness on his face, she had to swallow a lump in her throat. She reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “You’re too good a father for that. I’ll bet they can hardly wait to come.”
Built to Last (Harlequin Heartwarming) Page 9