The Sweetheart Rules

by Shirley Jump

  Mike snorted. “Remember that time we had to extract four fishermen during a hurricane?”

  Luke nodded. “One of them panicked and tried to jump out of the helo. We had to restrain him just to get the other three on board. And avoid ditching into thirty-foot seas.”

  “That was a cakewalk compared to taking care of kids.” Mike leaned against the house and watched the girls, who had settled on the grass by the dogs. “Take my advice and stick to dogs.”

  Luke figured this wasn’t the time to tell Mike that he couldn’t wait to have a kid—heck, a half-dozen of them—with Olivia once they were married. “Your daughters are beautiful.”

  “So are Venus fly traps and sharks.” Mike chuckled. “Okay, yes, they are beautiful. But they hate me and blame me for their mother taking off, and the general miserableness of their lives.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Are they right?” Luke knew Mike well, and that meant he knew Mike’s faults. A true type A soldier. Strong, determined, focused. The kind of man you could depend on when the stakes were high and the chances of success as slim as a piece of paper. He did his job, and did it well, but kept his heart guarded and closed. Maybe it was a side effect of being in the military, because Luke used to be the same way; or maybe it was just that the two of them were cut from the same relationship-averse cloth.

  Mike leaned against the house and let his gaze travel over the girls, clinging together like two saplings in a storm, while Olivia tried to strike up a conversation about the dogs. “Yeah. They are. I screwed up as a dad, if you can even call me one, given how little time I spent with the kids. Now I’m trying like hell to straighten it out. But I only have a few weeks, and then they’re back at Jasmine’s. I’ll be back at Air Station Kodiak for God knows how long, and when I see the girls again, it’ll be like starting from scratch.” He took another sip of the beer and sighed. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this parenting thing.”

  “You could always transfer down here. Move closer to the girls. And your mom.”

  Mike scowled. “She doesn’t care if I live here or in Timbuktu. As for the girls, they’re counting down the days until they go back to their mother.”

  “And how’s that make you feel?”

  “Hey, if I want a Dr. Phil session, I’ll pay a shrink to hand me some scratchy tissues and lecture me about sharing my feelings. So do me a favor and—”

  Diana had exited the house, a pile of plates and napkins in her hands. Mike stopped mid-sentence and watched her cross to the table. Luke knew that look. He’d probably worn it himself the day he met Olivia.

  Any fool could see Mike was still hooked on the pretty veterinarian he had met while on leave last winter. Luke didn’t know the details of their relationship; only that Mike had seemed happier during the weeks they had dated than he’d ever been in the years Luke had known him. Then one day, Mike just up and left, before his leave was up, and returned to the base. He’d talked to Luke several times since then, and e-mailed regularly, but never once asked Luke how Diana was doing, as if Mike had forgotten her the minute he got on the plane—or wanted to pretend he had.

  Given the way Mike was staring at Diana right now, with that hungry hound dog look in his eyes, he hadn’t forgotten her. At all.

  Luke cleared his throat. “Gee, Mike, is there any particular reason you came back to Rescue Bay? As opposed to staying in Georgia with the girls? Or going to, I don’t know, Disney World?”

  Mike shrugged as if he weren’t still staring at Diana, and his body language weren’t screaming, Wish I was over there instead of here.

  “You had an empty house,” Mike said, with an air of indifference. “I needed a place to stay.”

  “Uh-huh. You know, there are these things called hotels. Available for temporary stays.”

  “Is that your way of telling me you don’t want me staying next door?” Mike fiddled with his beer, pretending he wasn’t watching Diana, but he might as well have glued his eyeballs to her slender frame.

  Diana, on the other end, hadn’t done so much as flick a glance in Mike’s direction. She joked with Olivia, set a fruit plate on the table, and generally acted as if the lieutenant didn’t exist.

  “Just my way of saying you wanted more than a vacation by the beach and a chance to catch up with me.” Luke tipped his beer in Diana’s direction. “As evidenced by your fascination with the sexy veterinarian. You know… she’s not seeing anyone right now. You should ask her to dinner or to go for a picnic on the beach. Or maybe a little stargazing from the backseat of your car.”

  “What are you? The happy-ending fairy?” Mike scowled and shifted so his back faced Diana and Olivia. “I am not here to date her—or anyone, for that matter.”

  Yeah, then why did the air simmer with unanswered questions? Time travel back six months, and it could have been Luke pretending he wasn’t fascinated by his new neighbor. Luke flipped the chicken and affected a disinterested tone. “You never told me what happened between you two.”

  “Nothing happened.”

  Luke arched a brow.

  “Okay, something happened. But it didn’t mean anything. We both knew that. You know me, not one for settling down. The Coast Guard owns me now, body and soul.” Mike sipped the beer and squinted into the sun, his face still wearing that mask of easy calm. Luke knew, as well as he knew himself, that beneath Mike’s placid exterior there was a veritable ocean of shit churning. Shit that Mike never shared, never talked about, because he wasn’t, as he’d said earlier, interested in Dr. Phil moments. Luke understood that, and respected the NO TRESPASSING signs. There’d been a time when Luke had had a few of those himself.

  “You did get married and have two kids,” Luke said. “You’re not a total commitment-phobe.”

  “Jasmine was a mistake. A huge mistake.” Mike’s gaze swiveled to his daughters, the two of them now sitting on the picnic table and talking to Diana while the dogs sat at their feet and watched the conversation. Jenny was smiling, her hands waving as fast as her mouth moved, telling a story that Ellie acted out in excited wriggles and giggles. Mike’s features softened. A smile played on his lips. “Well, maybe not entirely. My grandmother used to say that all mistakes come with hidden blessings. I’ve got two of those right there. Even if they drive me crazy and hate my guts half the time.”

  Mistakes and blessings. Luke knew all about those. If he hadn’t been in that accident and hadn’t moved back to Rescue Bay, he never would have met Olivia. Six months ago, he thought his life was over. Today, he saw that his life had a new direction, a renewed passion. “Your grandmother, like mine, was a wise woman. Very wise.”

  “Yeah, she was. Too bad I never got…” Mike cursed under his breath and went back to his beer. “Let’s drop the subject. Okay?”

  Another below-the-ocean topic. “Sure,” Luke said. “Chicken’s done. Let’s eat, and try to restrain our caveman tendencies around the ladies.”

  Mike grinned. “Might be hard to do. I’m still working on mastering utensils.”

  Luke loaded the meat onto a platter, and the two men ambled over to the table and joined the women. Mike sat diagonally across from Diana, clutching his beer and pretending not to watch her out of the corner of his eye. His girls scrambled onto the space beside Olivia, jostling for space near the dogs, who had positioned themselves below the table in prime scrap-retrieval position. Luke dropped onto the bench beside Mike and handed him the tongs. “Dig in, folks.”

  “Looks great, Luke.” Olivia smiled at him. “You’ve come a long way since the day we burned those steaks.”

  He chuckled. “I had a good reason.”

  “Yes, I’d say it was a good reason. A very good one.” She gave him a sassy smile, then reached for the potato salad.

  Mike listened to their banter and, for a second, envied Luke. His friend had it all—the American dream, right here in this little corner of Florida. If Mike had been a different man, he might have wanted the same. B
ut he’d never really been cut from the mold of a family man, although he’d made a halfhearted attempt at it when he’d married Jasmine. Within a few weeks, the bonds of matrimony had begun to chafe, hanging like thick chains on his neck. Mike cut his leave short, promised Jasmine he’d be back soon, and stayed away until Jenny’s birth. In the seven years of his marriage, he’d been home maybe a dozen times, mostly for long weekends. Even then, he’d been climbing the walls by day two and finding things to do instead of being the family man Jasmine wanted him to be.

  At first, their reunions had been like mini-honeymoons; then resentment bred in his absences, and Jasmine grew more and more angry and cold during his visits. Instead of trying harder, Mike had worked more and come home less. When the divorce papers arrived in Alaska, he’d been more relieved than surprised.

  He wasn’t made for staying in one place, any more than a shark was. As soon as Jasmine got back to Georgia, Mike was going to return the girls, make sure his ex was set up in a proper home for the kids, and then hurry back to the only home he really loved—the Coast Guard. That was where he fit best, living on the edge of the world, battling the Bering Sea and Death with nothing more than his wits, a tin can with rotors, and a few of America’s finest.

  Then why did he keep glancing at Diana and wishing like hell she’d look back? Why was he still thinking about what Luke had said about Diana not seeing anyone right now? And why was he dumb enough to hope that maybe she’d worn a dress today because she knew he would be here?

  Olivia passed the bowl of salad to Mike. “I don’t know if you have anything lined up already, but I saw there’s a great art camp for kids starting up soon. Might be something the girls would like to do.”

  Jenny’s attention perked. “Art? Like painting and drawing?”

  “Yup. I know the woman who’s teaching it. Some of her watercolors are hanging in one of the gift shops on the boardwalk. If you want to go see them, I’d be glad take you sometime.”

  “I like coloring,” Ellie said. “And drawing horsies. ’Cept I make my horsies blue because I think blue horsies are prettier than brown horsies.”

  Mike drizzled some dressing on his salad, then reached for the barbecue sauce. “Sounds like a winner all around. When’s it start? Tomorrow, by any chance?”

  Olivia laughed. “No, no. Not until after the Fourth. But it runs the entire month of July.”

  “Can we do it?” Ellie asked. “Please? I wanna draw horsies and color them. Lots of horsies. Do you think the lady will let me color them blue?”

  Mike shook his head. “No can do, El. You two will be back at your mom’s house by then.”

  “Your leave is up that soon?” Luke said.

  Mike nodded. “Back on base by the third of July. I’ll be freezing my butt off in Alaska and missing the beach.”

  More than the beach, a part of him whispered. Just like he’d missed her the last time he’d gone back to Kodiak. Diana Tuttle had been in his mind every day since then, even if he wanted to pretend otherwise.

  “Honey, aren’t you eating?” Diana said to Jenny.

  For the first time, Mike noticed his eldest daughter’s empty plate. All the dishes had made the rounds of the table, and Jenny hadn’t taken so much as a strawberry. “I’m not hungry.” Jenny crossed her arms over her chest.

  Oh, crap. Here it came again. The mule digging in her heels. “Jenny, you promised me—”

  “I don’t care. I’m not hungry. I want to go home. Can I go home?”

  “Me too,” Ellie said, pushing her plate, filled with a handful of strawberries and nothing else, to the side. “I wanna go home and watch SpongeBob. He’s funny.”

  “Girls, we’re not leaving. Now eat.”

  Jenny crossed her arms tighter. “Dude, you can’t make me eat if I’m not hungry.”

  “Me too.” Ellie mocked her sister’s movement and stuck out her lower lip. “I wanna go home.”

  “Eat, girls.” Mike waved at them, his voice stern, low. He hoped like hell that Diana, who seemed to have an easy touch with his girls, would pipe in with something to smooth the waters, but she just watched him. He wanted to tell her he had all the parenting skills of an earthworm, but instead he resorted to what he knew best. Military style. “Eat. That’s an order.”

  Luke made a sound that was half laugh, half choke. “An order, huh, Napoleon?”

  “Shut up.” Mike elbowed him, then turned back to the girls. “Go on now, eat.”

  “No.” Jenny glared. Tightened her arms.

  “No,” Ellie echoed.

  The women and Luke stared at Mike, waiting for him to do something with his kids. The dogs waited at the end of the table, tails swishing, calling dibs on anything Ellie didn’t want.

  Luke leaned over to him. “Uh, maybe if you—”

  “I got this.” Last thing Mike wanted was for Luke, who had no kids and therefore no room to preach, to show him how to parent. Mike was the parent, for God’s sake. Okay, a crappy parent, but he at least had the title on his life resume. “Eat, girls. Please.”

  There. That took it from order to request.

  “I don’t wanna eat. I wanna draw horsies!” Ellie burst into tears. Great big honking sobbing tears. Jenny wrapped an arm around her little sister and shot Mike the evil look-what-you-did-now eye.

  Then he put it together. Why the conversation had derailed so fast, the girls’ good moods evaporating in an instant. Where you go, I go. I promise.

  Then he’d gone and reminded them all that his promise had a thirty-day expiration date. Shit. Apparently there were new levels of crappy parenting yet to be reached. “Girls, I—”

  Ellie sobbed louder, muffling Mike’s voice. Olivia got to her feet. “Uh, I left dessert on the counter. I think I forgot to—”

  “Let me help you,” Luke said, scrambling to his feet. The two of them headed into the house. Fast.

  Mike would have done the same, if he weren’t the parent, and expected to do something about this… mess. There was no teddy bear to buy a quick peace, and the situation was disintegrating quickly into a temper tantrum. The chicken wafted tempting smells under his nose, but damned if he was going to get time to eat now. Plus, this wasn’t the time or place to explain the complexities of leave and how that impacted his promise. Better to get the girls focused on eating. That’d keep them from focusing on a conversation he didn’t want to have. “Girls, you need to eat now. I’m telling you—”

  Diana reached out and touched his hand, a light, feathery touch, but it stopped him in his tracks. “Let me try.”

  He dropped back onto the bench. Thank God. Maybe Diana, the one with experience here, had some kind of magic word that he didn’t know. The entire day had been an exercise in frustration, from the messes to the tantrums and now to the eating protest. “Be my guest. Please.”

  Diana turned to Jenny. “Adult parties stink, don’t they?”

  Jenny nodded. Ellie kept crying, but turned down the volume, one ear cocked in Diana’s direction.

  “I remember sitting through them when I was a little girl. Boring.” She mocked a yawn, then grinned at the girls. “Listen, while you have to suffer around all us grown-ups while we talk about super boring stuff, why don’t we make it fun?”

  “Fun?” Jenny said.

  “Yup.” Diana thought a second. “Every time you hear one of us say the word…”

  “Work,” Jenny supplied.

  “Work,” Diana agreed. “Then you and Ellie get to have a Hershey’s Kiss. I happen to know where my sister hides them.”

  “Candy?” Ellie perked up, the tears gone. “I want candy!”

  “Me too. But there’s one rule at this house. You have to eat healthy food before you can have dessert. Healthy food like chicken and—”

  “Strawberries!” Ellie piped up. “I gots strawberries!”

  Diana laughed. “That’s fabulous, Ellie. Add a little chicken and maybe some potato salad and we’ll call it even. You, too, Jenny.”

  Je
nny looked at her plate, her lips twisted into indecision.

  “Besides, I think I heard your tummy rumbling,” Diana whispered into Jenny’s ear. “That way, you get that healthy stuff out of the way so you can have the Kisses. To the victor go the spoils.”

  “What’s that mean?” Jenny asked.

  Diana reached for the chicken and put a small piece on Jenny’s plate, then grabbed the potato salad and dished up some of that while she talked. “Well, it means the winner gets all the good stuff. Like in a battle. With a bad guy, not your sister.” She gave Jenny a wink.

  Jenny smiled. “Yeah, I get that.”

  Diana slid Ellie’s plate over and put some potato salad and chicken on it. Before she gave it back, she stripped the drumstick meat from the bone and cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces, something Mike hadn’t even thought to do, and arranged the berries in a little smiley face with a strawberry nose. Ellie giggled, the plucked the strawberry nose up first, plopping it into her mouth with a victorious grin.

  When the girls started in on their food, Mike caught Diana’s gaze. “Thanks.”

  She shrugged. “It was nothing.”

  “For you, maybe. Not so much for me.” He grinned. “I’m still a rookie at this.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it. That’s the thing about kids. They’re sink or swim. Instant education.”

  Lord help him, the word education had him thinking down a whole other path, one that had nothing to do with kids at all. One that spiraled him back six months in the past, after a whirlwind couple of weeks of stolen kisses and racy flirtations, peaking when he’d crushed Diana to the wall of her bedroom and she’d turned that pert little chin up toward his and dared him to expand her carnal knowledge. Never had anyone made the words teach me seem so sexy. In the end, she’d been the one who’d surprised him with her inventiveness and intuitive knowledge of what made him go weak in the knees.