“Hi, sweetie, come on in!” Madison said, pulling away from Kyle.
Kyle stood. “Hi, munchkin.”
She glared at Kyle.
He hunkered down to her level. “Your mommy was having a nightmare.”
“Were you sleeping in here?” she asked him.
“I’m in the guest room down the hall.”
“No, you’re not. You’re right here.”
“I was sleeping in the guest room down the hall. Then your mommy had a nightmare.”
Carrie Anne glanced at Madison, then nodded gravely and looked back at Kyle. “She has a lot of awful dreams.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” Madison murmured.
Carrie Anne was still studying Kyle. “Are you going to marry Mommy?”
“Carrie Anne!” Madison gasped, stunned.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Mommy. He’s not really your brother,” Carrie Anne said. “That’s what Lindy told Daddy. Daddy’s worried because he said you were supposed to have your own little girl, Kyle, and he doesn’t want you thinking that you’re my daddy or anything like that. He told her that he liked you a lot, though, even if the only thing wrong with him was that he wasn’t you.”
Madison bounded out of bed, lifting her daughter up in her arms. “Carrie Anne, you know you’re not supposed to listen to grown-up conversations, and you should never repeat things that Daddy says. Remember how I told you earlier that I didn’t want to hear what Daddy and Lindy were talking about?”
Kyle rose, standing before her. He was trying to hide a very amused smile.
“I guess I should go back to the guest room.”
Carrie Anne nodded solemnly. “You can’t sleep in here unless you’re married.”
“I know that,” Kyle said. “And you know what? I like your daddy, and I did lose a little baby girl a long time ago, so it’s nice get to spend some time with you. I don’t think he minds that. I’ll ask him next time we talk.”
“Go ahead,” Madison murmured. “Because I’m going to kill him!”
“Who? Daddy?” Carrie Anne asked, concerned.
“No. I mean…You know what? I’m going to make some hot chocolate. How’s that?”
“I’ll start the water,” Kyle said. “And I’m going to want Kahlua in mine!”
He left the room. Madison set Carrie Anne down. “Now, you, young lady!”
Carrie Anne frowned, her little face puckering. “I’m sorry, Mommy, what did I do?”
“Oh…” Madison groaned softly. She hugged her daughter to her chest. “So, you think maybe Daddy plans on marrying Lindy?”
“Maybe.”
“You know, Daddy comes down here a lot. I bet he’s been getting to know her for a long time, making sure she’d be a good stepmother before he decided to introduce you to her.”
“Daddy would do that, wouldn’t he? Make sure that a stepmother would like me? Stepmothers can be really bad, you know. Like in ‘Snow White.’ And ‘Cinderella.”’
Madison laughed softly. “Daddy loves you more than anyone in the whole world. He would always think of you first. And so would I.”
“Then it’s okay.”
“What’s okay?”
“If Daddy marries Lindy. And if you marry Kyle.”
“Honey, you know, Kyle really lives near Washington. He’s here to work, but when he finishes, he—”
“Hey, water’s boiling! Where’s the powdered stuff?” Kyle called from the kitchen.
“I’ll show you!” Carrie Anne cried out, running from the bedroom to help him. With a sigh, Madison followed.
Carrie Anne chattered as they drank. She began by telling Kyle about her friends in kindergarten. Then she told him about the great movie he had missed.
And he was good with her. He listened. He didn’t pretend to listen, he really listened. When he asked her what she thought about the movie, he really wanted to hear answer.
Sipping her hot chocolate, listening, Madison was sorry again. His wife and child should have lived. He would have been a good father.
Finally she broke in. “Carrie Anne, you have to get some sleep.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
“Want to sleep with me?”
“No.”
She kissed her mother. Then she kissed Kyle. Madison walked her back to her bedroom. When Carrie Anne was tucked in, Madison went back to the kitchen, only to discover that. Kyle had returned to his own room. She did the same.
It was a very long night.
Saturday morning, Madison decided to get artistic with breakfast.
The coffee was already made when she woke up, and when she tapped on Kyle’s door, she discovered that he was busy at his computer, which he’d plugged in on the desk near the window. “Sorry to interrupt. Thanks,” she said, and lifted her cup of coffee to him.
He nodded briefly, looking at her.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“It’s all right.”
“I’m going to make Carrie Anne breakfast. Want some?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll send Carrie Anne to tell you when it’s ready.”
She told herself that she didn’t need to impress him with her domestic skills—or lack of them. She wasn’t really a great cook, but the things she could prepare, she did well. She decided to make French toast, strawberries with hand-whipped cream, omelettes with peppers, mushrooms and onions, fresh juice…and in the end, she broke down and fried bacon. She loved bacon, though she almost never indulged.
Carrie Anne helped her set the table in the breakfast nook. It was a pretty spot at the rear of the kitchen, overlooking the screened-in pool and patio. She had invested in her house as her first big expenditure after her divorce, thinking a new home was the way for her to begin a new life. She still loved the house, even if it sometimes felt awfully big just for her, Carrie Anne and sometimes Peggy. A young couple with a baby had had the house custom-built before discovering the husband was being transferred to Toronto, and they had thought of all kinds of wonderful little details. The breakfast nook was one of them. It had a bay window that overlooked the bubbling spa end of the pool. It was pretty and peaceful.
“Wow!” Kyle said, arriving with Carrie Anne. He was in denim cutoffs, sandals and a black tank top decorated with the name of a popular rock band. A lock of his dark hair fell over his forehead, as if he’d been running his fingers through it while deep in thought. He absently repeated the gesture, looking at Carrie Anne, the breakfast table and Madison, behind the counter. “Carrie Anne, do you have breakfast like this every morning?” he asked seriously.
“Oh, no. I usually have Cheerios and Mommy eats stuff with raisins in it.”
Kyle smiled. “Well, then, this is special.”
“I’m feeling restless, I guess,” Madison murmured. She looked reproachfully at her daughter. “And we do cook on weekends. Always.”
“Always?” Kyle asked Carrie Anne.
She smiled happily and shrugged. They had become coconspirators.
“Sit down and eat and quit torturing me,” Madison advised. As she was pouring juice, the phone began to ring.
Carrie Anne ran to the counter, then stood by the phone. “Can I answer, Mommy, or should I let the machine get it?”
“Ah, so you usually do screen your calls,” Kyle murmured, helping himself to food.
“And you don’t?” Madison said, indicating that Carrie Anne should answer the phone.
“Hello?” Carrie Anne said into the receiver. She smiled right away and looked at Madison. “It’s Auntie Kaila. She wants us to come over. She says she knows Kyle is here, and she thinks he should quit working so hard and come over this afternoon to swim and have a barbecue. Uncle Dan is home, and he wants to cook. Can we, Mom, can we?”
Madison hesitated. “Kyle may need to work.”
“If I’m needed, they’ll call me. I put in a dozen hours yesterday. I wouldn’t mind an afternoon in the sun.”
“Mommy?” Carrie Anne said hopefu
lly.
“Sure. Tell her to give us time to eat, clean up and get some stuff together. What does she want us to bring?”
Carrie Anne turned studiously back to the phone. “Aunt Kaila, what do you want us to bring?”
She listened and turned back to Madison. “She said to bring ourselves.”
Madison laughed. “Tell her we’ll be along in a while.”
Carrie Anne did so, then hung up. She was so excited that she didn’t want to sit down and eat, but Madison warned her that they weren’t going anywhere until they’d all had breakfast.
Kyle was an extremely polite guest, complimenting Madison and Carrie Anne on every dish. When they were finished eating, he offered to help pick up.
Madison thanked him, then said, “You two go get ready. I can manage quicker by myself. Maybe you could get your bathing-suit bag together, Carrie Anne, then run with Kyle to pick up some sodas or beer and cookies or something.”
“Aunt Kaila said just to bring ourselves,” Carrie Anne reminded her.
“Carrie Anne—” Madison began.
“We don’t want to be empty-handed, now, do we?” Kyle inquired. “I don’t know your uncle Dan that well yet. I’ve got to make a good impression, huh?”
“Sure. I’ll show you the right kind of cookies.”
“For Uncle Dan?” Kyle asked.
“For Justin, Shelley and baby Anthony,” Carrie Anne said gravely.
“If we’re going to impress Uncle Dan, get him some Guinness,” Madison advised.
“Gotcha,” Kyle said.
While they were gone, Madison quickly cleaned up and dressed in her bathing suit, throwing shorts and a T-shirt over it. She was slipping into her sandals when the phone rang, and she hurried to pick it up, thinking it might be Kaila, asking them to get ice or something else on the way.
“Hello?” she said, hopping into one shoe.
“Madison.” It was Darryl.
“Hey! I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” she warned him good-naturedly.
“Ouch. Don’t talk about bones. I ran into your father and Jassy having dinner last night in the Grove. Naturally she gave me the lowdown on these corpses that keep turning up.”
“Hmm. I guess she can’t help it.”
“So? What’s the bone?”
“First, why did you call? What’s on your mind?”
“A friend. Named Lindy. It’s getting kind of serious, and I wanted to bring her tomorrow night, but it’s Roger’s show—your family’s affair, in a way—and I wanted to make sure it would be okay.”
She smiled, looking at the receiver, feeling a welling-up of affection for Darryl. She never should have married him, but still, she was glad she had. They both had Carrie Anne, and she had a good friend.
“Darryl, we’ve been divorced for nearly three years! Of course you can bring Lindy. I’ve heard all about her.”
“You have?” He sounded surprised.
She sighed softly. “Darryl, that’s my bone. You two weren’t very discreet. Carrie Anne repeated all kinds of things you two were saying.”
He was silent for a minute. “Oh?”
“Kyle likes you, too,” she teased.
Darryl groaned softly. “So what’s the story with him?” he asked. “I mean, you’re right, we have been divorced a long time, but, well, we’ve both been so careful around Carrie Anne….”
“Darryl, don’t worry. And actually…I don’t know the story with Kyle. He’s obsessed with the idea that I might be in danger, so he’s staying here.”
“That’s all?”
“He’s sleeping in the guest room,” Madison assured him.
“Umm.”
“What does that mean? Darryl, I wouldn’t—”
“I’m not accusing you of lying, Madison. I’ll just never forget the night you had that dream…or his wife’s funeral, or the way you were after. You’ve always had some kind of a tie to him, Madison. I don’t know exactly what. But it’s not going to go away.”
“He’ll go away again,” she said dryly. “He works in D.C.”
“So do I—supposedly. Though it looks like I’m being transferred down here. Permanently.”
“Oh, Darryl! I’m so glad.”
“Really?”
“Of course!”
“Anyway, you’ll get to meet Lindy, and I hope you’ll like her. She’s cute as a button. A redhead.”
“So I heard.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Madison laughed softly. “I take it you’ve been seeing her longer than Carrie Anne knows?”
“Yeah. I met her almost a year ago, when I was down here for Carrie Anne’s birthday party. I’ve been seeing her when I’m down…and she’s come up to see me a few times, too.”
“Good. I want your next marriage to be a success.”
“Thanks. I’m grateful my first marriage left me with such a good friend.”
“So am I. We’ll see you at Roger’s shindig, then. Can’t wait to meet your girl.”
“Good. Hey, Madison?”
“Hmm?”
“Are divorces supposed to be this good?”
“I try not to question my blessings in life,” she told him.
“I’m a blessing?”
“You bet.”
“Love you, kid. And, hey…”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let your pride get in the way of being happy, Madison. You married me because he hurt you. He didn’t mean to. Take care.”
He hung up. Madison slowly replaced the receiver. She was still staring at it when Kyle and Carrie Anne came back in.
“Anything important?” Kyle asked.
“Darryl is bringing Lindy to your dad’s opening tomorrow. We’ll get to meet her.”
“She’s nice, Mommy. Honest,” Carrie Anne said.
“I’m sure she is,” Madison agreed. “Go get your stuff, honey.”
“I left the beer, Cokes and cookies in the car,” Kyle said as Carrie Anne raced off.
“I’m all set,” she told him, picking up her coffee cup, the last dish, to set it in the sink.
“You all right with that?”
“With what?” she asked, turning to him.
He was wearing his shades again. And he smelled like aftershave. A nice, subtle scent.
“With Darryl bringing Lindy.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, you were married. And it’s hard to see what could have gone wrong between you.”
“It didn’t work.”
“Was it me?” he asked.
“Kyle Montgomery, you do have an ego!” she protested. She wished he wasn’t standing quite so close. “Let’s get going, shall we?”
He nodded.
“Another man?”
“Let’s go.”
“Another woman?”
She slammed a palm against his chest, pushing him. “Let’s go!”
Carrie Anne chatted all the way to Kaila’s, making sure that Kyle had a good picture of all three of her cousins.
Madison just smiled.
An hour later she was really glad she had gone to her sister’s. It seemed the farthest they had gotten from the dark shadow hovering over their lives for a long time. Dan was in a good mood, showing off for the kids, twirling his barbecue fork in the air and making wild slicing motions in the air as he turned the burgers. Later Madison helped Kaila wrap the leftover food and put it away, and she was glad to see that her sister seemed happy—and in love with her husband again.
“It’s been a better week, huh?” Madison asked her.
Kaila smiled, shrugging, looking down at the dish she was rinsing. “A great week. Dan had a day off. He took over the chores…. We talked.”
“Good. I know he loves you. He gets just as frustrated, you know. Being a lawyer is tough, time-consuming. It’s hard for anyone to balance work and family these days.”
“I just feel so guilty, and so scared….”
“Guil
ty, why?” Madison asked, frowning. “Kaila, you didn’t—”
“No, no! I didn’t go off and have an affair or anything.”
“Then…?”
“I…I nothing!” she said quickly. “The thought, you know. You don’t want to sin in thought, word or deed, right? My thoughts were pretty wicked, for a while.”
“Kaila! Did you actually have someone in mind?”
Her sister looked at her for what seemed like a long time.
“Kaila?”
“I—”
“Hey, sweetheart!” Dan called, coming into the kitchen. He flashed Madison a smile as he slipped his arms around his wife. “Chicken fights!”
“Chicken fights?” Kaila asked him.
Dan nodded. “You and me against Madison and Kyle. The kids are asking—no, demanding!—to be entertained!”
“They’re like the old Romans, demanding Christian sacrifices in the arena. Send in the gladiators, bring on the lions!” Kyle said, walking in behind Dan. They looked like best buddies, in similar boxer-style bathing suits and sunglasses, Guinnesses in hand. Dan was light, Kyle dark, but they were both fit and bronzed. Between them, Madison thought, they could make one great ad for men’s swimwear.
“Madison?” Kaila said.
“Uh…sure.”
“Come on, Kaila,” Dan said. “We’ve got to be the lions. We must prevail. We can’t humiliate ourselves in front of our children.”
“Well, now, I’m pretty good at chicken fights,” Kyle advised Dan and Kaila solemnly.
“And I could always beat the shit out of Kaila,” Madison warned Dan.
“Whoa, that’s a challenge if I ever heard one!” Kaila cried.
Ten minutes later, she and Kaila were laughing hysterically, because no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t drag one another off the men’s shoulders and into the pool. The kids were shrieking with laughter.
“Kaila, don’t squirm so much!” Dan protested. “You’re pulling out all the hair on my head. And I may be losing it already, you know?”
“Madison, let her go. You’ve got your sister’s knee in my nose!” Kyle groaned.
“I’m going to beat her! I’m going to beat her!” Kaila cried, pulling with all her might on Madison’s hands.
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