“That sounds pretty cool.”
She nodded vigorously. “Really cool.”
“What color are you going to paint it?”
“Pink.”
“Uh-huh. Would that be Tickled Pink by any chance?” That would be appropriate, he thought, since it was what she so clearly was at the moment.
Lizzy giggled. “No, silly. Maiden Pink.”
“That was gonna be my next guess. You choose that color yourself, or did your aunt pick it out?”
“I picked it all by myself. Aunt Ronnie said we’d divide the, um…the…I forget the word.” Her brow furrowed in concentration. Then, just as quickly, it cleared. “Layber! She said we’d divide the layber—that my part would be picking the color and her part’d be paying for it. And that if she hadda paint, then I hadda paint, too.” The look on her face suggested she couldn’t think of anything more thrilling. “It’s gonna be really pretty—you can come see it when we’re done if you wanna.”
“I’d like that. So you like pink, huh?” He remembered her room last night with its pink and white bed-spread.
“Uh-huh. It’s my fave-rit.” She gave him another of her bashful smiles. “It’s a girl color.”
“Then that would be the color for you, all right, because you’re certainly all girl.”
Lizzy’s smile was nothing short of dazzling, and she looked at him all bright-eyed, as if he’d just uttered the most brilliant words she’d ever heard. “That’s what my daddy says!”
Then the back door opened on a whoosh of wind, and Coop didn’t have to turn around to know who was there.
Logic dictated only one person would walk into the house without first knocking, but logic wasn’t the instinct under which he was operating. Because he could be both stone deaf and blind, and still he’d know. His body seemed to possess an animal instinct that could almost scent Veronica the instant she came within range. Call it pheromones, call it musk—label it anything at all, but the reality was downright primal. One whiff and he was all primed to procreate. To go forth and multiply.
To propagate the earth with miniature Ronnies.
Jesus. He sat up in his seat. He had no idea where this shit was coming from, but if that wasn’t the spookiest damn notion to ever cross his mind, he didn’t know what was. He’d decided a long time ago that marriage wasn’t for him and had made it his mission in life not to carelessly populate the world with little Blackstocks. He hadn’t had unprotected sex since sweating out the consequences after Amy Sue Miller had given him his first taste of heaven on a slightly mildewed lounge pad in her father’s pool house when he was fifteen years old.
Lizzy pulled him out of his horror-struck paralysis when she all but danced with impatience and demanded, “Aunt Ronnie, where were you? I’ve been ready forever and ever.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I realized we only had one paint tray and went over to Mrs. M’s to see if she had one that we could borrow so we’d each have our own. That way we won’t have to slop paint back and forth.”
Coop hadn’t seen Veronica since they’d parted on less than cozy terms last night, and he waited to see how she’d handle the meeting. Being ignored entirely wasn’t one of the options that had occurred to him. But although she eyed the books on the table in front of him, she acted as if Coop himself were invisible.
Considering she’d merely had to walk into the room to have him sporting a hard-on a cat couldn’t scratch, he was in no mood to let that pass. He shoved back his chair, but then thought better of climbing to his feet. Lizzy was way too young for the type of anatomy lesson that would afford her. Tapping his pen in a rapid tattoo against his tablet, he gave Veronica a comprehensive once-over. “I need to talk to you.”
Still she refused to look at him. “It’ll have to wait,” she coolly informed his reference books. “Lizzy and I have a hot date with her bedroom.”
“Yeah? I’m good in the bedroom.” Visions that were a world removed from painting floated on the peripheries of his mind, and he cleared his throat. Still his voice was rough-edged when he said, “You can use me. Any way you want.”
That got her attention, and her eyes snapped up while hot color stained her cheeks. “What?”
“To help paint. I’m handy with a paintbrush, so give me a shirt like you did for Lizzy”—he ran his gaze over the one she had on—“and I’ll give you a hand painting Lizzy’s bedroom.”
Lizzy giggled. “You’re too big, silly. Aunt Ronnie’s shirts wouldn’t fit you.”
“I suppose you’ve got a point.” He reached for the unbuttoned plackets of his flannel shirt and began shrugging the garment off his shoulders. “I guess I could just take mine off instead, so it doesn’t get paint-splattered.”
“How very thoughtful of you, but keep your shirt on, and I do mean that literally.” Not a trace of sarcasm colored Veronica’s words, but the look in her eyes was anything but polite as she locked gazes with him. “Because, while the words to tell you exactly what I think of your generous offer fail me, Lizzy and I must decline. We planned this as a bonding afternoon for just us girls.”
“You can come see it when it’s all pretty, though,” Lizzy added. She grabbed Veronica’s hand, effectively breaking the stare-down her aunt was engaged in with Coop. “Come on,” she said insistently. “We gotta get started, ’kay?”
Veronica allowed Lizzy to tow her around the corner, and only when they were out of Coop’s orbit did she remember to breathe. She felt like knocking her head against the nearest wall. It was bad enough that she was all agog to know why he was reading those books that were on the table. But would this fascination with his body—his big, beautiful body—never cease? You shouldn’t have looked, she berated herself as she followed her niece up the stairs. If only you hadn’t looked at him.
But she had. When he’d said he was good in the bedroom and demanded that she use him in that insinuating voice, she hadn’t been able to resist. Too many images of the ways in which she could do just that had popped into her mind, and, darn it, a woman could only be so strong.
So she’d looked, and it had been every bit the mistake she’d feared it would be. He was so damn male that she invariably got a forbidden sort of thrill out of sneaking peeks at him. It reminded her of when she and Crystal used to sneak out early from their Sunday chores at the Tonk to gorge on candy at Swanson’s Sweet Shoppe—she’d known they were gonna get it in the end, but had been unable to resist despite the trouble it would bring down on their heads.
The Coop she was accustomed to seeing, though, was always so spic-and-span. She had never seen him looking anything but smooth-shaven and neatly dressed. And if she’d secretly found that devastating, it didn’t hold a candle to seeing him barefoot and sort of rumpled-looking in his blue jeans, a brown thermal-knit Henley with its sleeves shoved up his forearms, and an unbuttoned, cuffs-rolled-back, slate-and-tan flannel shirt whose unpressed state wasn’t even close to his usual spit-shined standards. Then there was the dot of mustard next to his full lower lip, and the dark stubble that shadowed his jaw.
She’d been so fiercely drawn she could have screamed. And that was before he’d offered to take his shirt off. Oh, dirty word—dirty, filthy, obscene word! She’d wanted to cup that bristly jaw in her hands, to straddle his lap and…
No! She hadn’t tossed and turned all night long simply to turn around and cave the first time she saw a pair of big naked feet…no matter how much they made Marissa’s words come back to haunt her. Was Cooper Blackstock proportional all over?
Stop that! Just stop it, Davis, and put him out of your mind right now.
She could do that.
She would do it, by God.
She threw herself into the Lizzy Project and, little by little, her enthusiasm became genuine. She and Lizzy painted up a storm, talking about Barbies and best friends and Harry Potter when they weren’t singing along with the radio. They finished the walls, then carefully stenciled rosebuds on the plain white dresser and generally had a fin
e time transforming the room from a starkly impersonal cubicle to a little-girl haven. When it was finished, they both stepped to the door-way to admire their work. “So, what do you think?” she asked, her gaze on a few of the pretties that Lizzy had selected from her’s mother’s collection.
“It’s bee-u-tee-ful. It’s even prettier than the room at my daddy’s house! I never wanna leave.”
Veronica’s stomach squeezed. Oh, man, what had she done? She had feared she would screw up this new parental role she’d taken on, but never had she dreamed she would do it so swiftly or so utterly.
She’d merely wanted to do something for Lizzy that would make her feel a little bit special. Well, the good news was, she seemed to have accomplished that. The bad news, though—and the thing she hadn’t even taken into consideration—was how her niece was going to feel when Veronica slapped the FOR SALE sign on the house. What would it do to Lizzy when her aunt told her to pack her things because they were leaving the house behind, including the room in which Veronica had just helped her become emotionally invested?
Damn. Ah, damn, damn, damn.
What had she been thinking? Had she actually believed that if she didn’t bring up the reality of their situation to her niece, it would somehow work itself out or simply go away on its own? She’d been living in a dream world, obviously.
Worse, she was still half immersed in denial, because she was too chickenhearted to tell Lizzy even now. She simply couldn’t bear to burst the child’s bubble while Lizzy was still all aglow over the day’s accomplishments.
So she did the next best thing. She called Marissa and uttered one heartfelt word. “Help.”
There was a second of silence. Then Marissa asked quietly, “How bad is it?”
“Oh, God.” A garbled laugh escaped Veronica. “As bad as it gets. I’ve really messed up this time.”
“I’ll be right over. Kids!” Veronica heard her yell. “Help me find my car keys. We’re going to—” The connection was severed.
Veronica replaced the receiver and stared out the front window, moodily watching a pop can blow down the center of a deserted Baker Street. Thank God it was Sunday. The bar was closed, a fact for which Veronica was exceedingly grateful, because she frankly didn’t think she could face having to go to the Tonk tonight. Not when she was all torn to pieces over being such a—
“You are not a lousy parent!” Marissa said a short while later. “You just didn’t give this aspect of it enough thought.”
The kids had gone upstairs to admire Lizzy’s bedroom, Cooper thankfully had either gone out or was up in his own room, and the two women were ensconced on either end of the living room couch. Veronica hugged her knees to her chest and dug her chin into her kneecap as she gazed at her friend. “Enough thought? I didn’t think, period! And I am an awful parent. I’ve never even bothered to sit down with Lizzy and talk to her about Crystal and Eddie.” She grasped a handful of her hair and yanked.
“Stop that. You’re stretching your eyelid, and it’s creeping me out.” Marissa leaned forward and pried Veronica’s fingers loose. “Jeeze Louise, you’re going to rip your hair out by the roots.”
“I should just rip it out by the roots. I knew she had to be hurting inside with all the awful stuff that’s happened in her life, but I took her lack of weeping and wailing at face value and just buried my head in the sand. Out of sight, out of mind, that’s my motto. God, Rissa, Lizzy’s only six years old, and still she’s ten times more mature than I am.”
“Not to mention a lot less melodramatic,” Marissa agreed dryly. She gave Veronica’s foot a poke. “Get over yourself! So you put off a difficult conversation longer than you should have—give her a week or so to revel in the room, then sit her down for a heart-to-heart. That’s the main rule of parenting, you know. When you screw up, you simply pick your moment, then do your best to rectify the problem. The only way you can completely mess up is if you stop trying.”
Veronica felt a spark of hope. “You’re right—I know you are. But I still dread telling Lizzy that we’ll be moving. She’s not going to be happy about leaving Dessa and Riley, never mind the only town she’s ever lived in.” She stared at her friend as she sorted through her thoughts. “Still, she’s eminently reasonable for a six-year-old, and there are definite advantages to the move. At least in Seattle everyone and their brother won’t know about her parents, so no one will give her a hard time at school. And she’s such a sweetheart I know she’ll make friends, but we could always come back here for the weekends until that happens, to make the transition easier. Maybe, too, if I tell her we’ll fix her an equally nice room at my place, it will alleviate some of the trauma.”
“Exactly. And it’s not as if you’ve sold anything yet, so you’re not talking about an immediate change. As far as her room goes, you can promise to duplicate this one exactly, if that’s what it takes. There’s no law, for instance, that says you can’t take that wonderful chest of drawers with you.” Marissa smiled gently. “Nice stenciling job, by the way.”
Veronica stared at her soberly. “Oh, God, Rissa, thank you.” They both knew she wasn’t talking about complimenting her stenciling abilities.
“You’re entirely welcome. Now I’m in need of your expertise. The decorations committee meeting is tomorrow, and Kody said that while we could probably keep the outside ice sculptures frozen long enough for them to remain recognizable the length of the Winter Festival, it would be too costly to attempt it indoors.”
“Oh, my God—Kody!” Veronica’s back straightened. “I entirely forgot about that—did you two have wild monkey sex after you left the bar last night?” She immediately flapped her hand. “What am I thinking—of course you did. Was he good? Are you seeing him again?”
“Yes; God, yes; and yes—although we didn’t make concrete plans for the last one.”
“I don’t suppose you’d consider a few details for that ‘God, yes’ part, would you?” Veronica cocked an eyebrow, then grinned when Marissa remained closemouthed. “No? Okay, but you gotta know I’m jealous. Have the kids met him yet?”
“No. He left this morning before they got home. It was hard to let him go, but that was the only way it could be handled. Men who sleep over have hardly been a part of my landscape, and I frankly don’t intend Kody to be the guy to break that tradition—at least not when my kids sleep at home.” The grin she shot Veronica punched her dimples deep into her cheeks. “Which means you’re probably going to be seeing a lot more of Dessa and Riley come the weekends.”
“You know they’re always welcome.”
“Bless you, my child, I do know that. And if I’m going to start dating again, the kids will obviously have to meet him. But I have to put some thought into how I introduce him into their lives. Maybe a movie or a pizza out—something casual, at any rate, that they won’t attach too much importance to if things don’t pan out. Until then I appreciate it more than I can say that you’re willing to help me have a love life.”
“Yeah, well, I’m happy one of us is getting lucky.” Veronica opened her mouth to share her own early-morning misadventure, but Marissa’s bawdy laugh made her decide not to dilute her friend’s pleasure. She’d tell her later.
“You’re an excellent friend,” Marissa said. “Speaking of which, what am I going to do about the decorations if ice sculptures indoors are out of the question?”
“Well, you know, I’ve actually been thinking about that, and I think I’ve got an even better idea.”
“Oooh, I like the sound of that. Let’s hear it.”
“Winter trees. The drama of stark branches and those little white fairy lights is very striking, and between the size of the trees and the shadows the lights cast, they hide a multitude of sins, which is always a consideration in old buildings like the ones on the fairgrounds. Now, I haven’t had time to research the costs, and I’m not sure if you can buy artificial trees that aren’t all leafed out—they weren’t available back when I did this. But depending on the bu
dget, your committee could easily make the trees themselves out of wire and papier mâché, or they could probably hire it done at a fairly reasonable cost. Too bad we’re a little pressed for time, or you could sponsor a contest for high school and college students, which would result in them doing most of the work for you.” She grinned, then shrugged. “I suppose you could always buy real trees at a nursery and then either donate them for a beautification project after the festival or raffle them off, or both. But that would probably get a little spendy, because you’d have to buy reasonably mature trees. Besides, the beauty of fake ones is that you can use them again and again, and change the look by the way you decorate them. You might even be able to defray the cost by renting them out to other organizations for their affairs—they can be that effective.” She discovered her friend staring at her, mouth agape, and felt her spirits take a dip. “You hate the idea.”
“Are you kidding? I love the idea. I’m just amazed, is all. How on earth do you come up with this stuff?”
“Hey, I was an auction coordinator for umpteen years before I started my business.” Since Marissa already knew that, Veronica shrugged it off as unimportant, but her friend’s praise gave her a warm glow. “That often meant I had a low budget to work with, depending on which organization had hired me at the time, and you know what they say—necessity is the mother of invention. I used the tree idea years ago for a private school’s building fund auction, which is why I can’t give you an up-to-the minute cost analysis. But I can tell you from experience that it paid for itself in the long run, because the trees got so much attention that the school ended up renting them out to other organizations. Look, let’s grab a tablet and make as complete a proposal as we can with what information we have available. We’ll include a couple of oversized ice sculptures for outside the exhibition hall doors, because they really are very effective. That should at least give us a starting place for your committee.”
“Oh, God, I love this.” Marissa jumped up and headed for the kitchen, pausing only long enough to flash Veronica a huge smile. “Thanks, chickie. I’ll give you credit at the meeting tomorrow, I promise.”
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