“But what if she doesn’t still have the tooth?” Charlotte wondered.
Tristyn groaned inwardly. “Let’s deal with one issue at a time,” she suggested.
“I’m just saying—no one knows what the tooth fairy actually does with the teeth. And if she picked up a lot of teeth last night, how will she know which one to give back?”
Emily’s brow furrowed as she mulled over the dilemmas her sister presented.
“Let’s not borrow trouble,” Josh said to her.
Charlotte frowned. “What does that even mean?”
“It means that we should wait and see what happens tonight before we worry about all kinds of other possibilities.”
Emily apparently agreed with his philosophy, because her next question was, “Can we have s’mores now?”
Chapter Sixteen
Tristyn cleaned up the kitchen while Josh assembled a tower of kindling and wood and started the fire. When everything was ready, Tristyn sat with Hanna on her lap and let the little girl help her turn the stick with the marshmallow on the end. Both Charlotte and Emily insisted that they were big enough to do their own, so Josh let them, though he was seated between the two girls to keep a close eye on both of them.
Charlotte was very precise and methodical, and her marshmallows were always evenly toasted and golden brown. Emily was a little more impatient and held her stick closer to the flame to cook the marshmallow more quickly. As a result, hers were often dark on one side and uncooked on the other, but she didn’t seem to mind. By the time the older girls had each eaten two s’mores, Josh had consumed at least three, while Tristyn and Hanna had shared one—which was still more sugar than she thought the three-year-old should have right before bed.
And it was apparent that Josh’s youngest niece was ready for bed, so she lifted the sleepy girl into her arms and took her inside to get her washed up and changed into her pajamas. Hanna’s eyes were drifting shut even before Tristyn tucked her favorite teddy bear under her arm and pulled up the covers.
“You’re next, Emily,” Tristyn said, when she returned to the campfire. “It’s already past your bedtime.”
“Can I make one more? Please?” she asked.
“Me, too,” Charlotte implored.
Tristyn looked to Josh, who could hardly say no when he’d just put another marshmallow on his stick.
“If you have another one, you have to brush your teeth twice,” he told them.
Both girls nodded their agreement, already reaching into the bag for more marshmallows.
But Tristyn suspected they didn’t really want any more s’mores as much as they wanted to delay bedtime a little longer. A suspicion that was confirmed when she saw Charlotte’s attention had waned from her task, the marshmallow at the end of her stick hovering dangerously close to the fire.
“Charlotte, your marshmallow is smoking,” Tristyn said.
Before the girl could pull her stick away, the spongy sugar confection burst into flame.
“It’s on fire. It’s on fire,” Charlotte said. “What do I do?”
“Gently shake the stick to—”
Before Josh could finish issuing his instructions, his panicked niece jerked the stick so hard that the flaming marshmallow flew right off the end and landed on the back of Josh’s hand. He swore and shook his arm in an attempt to dislodge the marshmallow, but melted sugar was sticky and a fair amount of it remained on his skin. Tristyn instinctively dumped her glass of water onto his hand.
Charlotte looked up at him with wide eyes filled with horror and tears. “I’m so sorry, Uncle Josh.”
“S’okay,” he said, through gritted teeth.
Emily had dropped her stick, with the marshmallow still attached, to the ground, her request for one last s’more forgotten. Her eyes were worried, too, as she looked at her uncle, who was obviously in more pain than he wanted them to know.
“Go put some ice on that while I help the girls get ready for bed,” Tristyn suggested.
He nodded tersely.
“He didn’t stop, drop and roll,” Emily said worriedly.
She fought against the smile that wanted to curve her lips. “It was just the marshmallow that was on fire, not Uncle Josh.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Charlotte asked.
“His hand might be a little swollen and red for a while—and he’ll probably use it as an excuse to get out of doing dishes—but he’s going to be fine,” Tristyn assured her.
“I’ll do his dishes,” she immediately offered.
Tristyn brushed a hand over Charlotte’s hair. “It was an accident. There’s no need for you to do penance.”
Emily giggled. “She said dishes, not pens-itch.” Then she tilted her head, as if trying to figure something out. “What is pens-itch?”
This time, Tristyn let the smile come. “Penance,” she clarified. “It’s kind of like punishment you give to yourself—a way of showing that you’re sorry.”
“But I am sorry,” Charlotte said, her voice tearful.
“I know,” Tristyn agreed. “And Uncle Josh knows, too. So why don’t you go give him a hug, then get washed up and brush your teeth?”
* * *
After the girls were tucked into bed, she dug the first-aid kit out of the bathroom cabinet.
“How is it?” she asked Josh.
“It feels a lot better already,” he said, lifting the bag of ice away so that she could see for herself.
She winced when she saw the skin, angrily red and already blistered. “It doesn’t look like it feels too good.”
He made a fist, stretching the skin. “I just hope it doesn’t scar.”
“Are you worried that a permanent mark will detract from your masculine beauty?”
“Of course not,” he replied. “Scars add character and intrigue—except when they’re caused by flaming marshmallow, which is not a story I’d ever want to share.”
She smiled as she opened the first aid box. “Let’s get you bandaged up so that we can reduce the likelihood of that being necessary.”
She applied some antibiotic cream to a square of sterile gauze, then gently set the gauze on his wound and wrapped it with medical tape.
“Aren’t you a regular Florence Nightingale,” he mused. “Any chance you have a nurse’s uniform tucked in your closet?”
“Is that one of your fantasies—to play disciplinary doctor and naughty nurse?”
“My only fantasies are about playing with you,” he told her.
“Well, right now you should go in and say good-night to the girls,” she suggested. “And reassure Charlotte that you’re not going to die.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t think I’m going to die,” he chided.
“She’s worried—and feeling guilty,” Tristyn told him. “And she probably won’t sleep until she sees for herself that you’re going to be okay.”
While he was doing that, she went back outside to put out the fire and retrieve the sticks that had been discarded.
“Everything okay?” she asked, when Josh came out of the girls’ bedroom.
He nodded, then sniffed. “You smell like smoke.”
“I put out the fire.”
“Thank you.” He lifted his uninjured hand to her mouth, rubbed his thumb gently over the bottom curve of her lip. “You scarfed some more chocolate, too, didn’t you?”
“Guilty,” she admitted, her tongue instinctively swiping over her lip where his finger had touched.
He lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers. “Mmm, you taste sweet.”
“That would be the chocolate and marshmallow.”
But he shook his head. “It’s you,” he insisted. “It’s always been you.”
Her heart swelled with hope and joy, until
her brain cautioned it not to read too much into a few simple words. Josh was a master at saying and doing all the right things to make a woman feel good. She refused to believe that his offhand remark meant anything more than that he was focused on her now, and for now, that would be enough.
“Is your hand really okay?” she asked instead.
“It would feel a lot better if it was on your naked skin.”
She smiled. “I think that can be arranged...after the tooth fairy puts Emily’s tooth back under her pillow.”
* * *
When that task had been completed, he took her to bed and proved that—even with an injury—his hands were capable of working magic. After, while their bodies were still joined together, she found herself thinking back on everything that had happened over the past several weeks, and she couldn’t help being impressed at how willingly and competently he’d handled almost anything that came up.
“You surprise me sometimes,” she said to him now.
“That’s what all the girls say.”
She narrowed her gaze. “Do you really want to remind me of ‘all the girls’ when my knee is positioned where it could jeopardize your future romantic pursuits?”
“Of course, the only girl who really matters is the one in my arms right now.”
“Nice save,” she told him.
He grinned and pressed his mouth to hers. “I do some of my best work under pressure.”
“Such as your suggestion to summon the tooth fairy with smoke signals?”
“And sometimes desperate men say stupid things,” he acknowledged.
“Aside from the fact that dropping a wet blanket over a fire is potentially much more dangerous than a flying, flaming marshmallow, you would have looked ridiculous.”
“Maybe,” he acknowledged.
“But you would have done it, anyway, for Emily, wouldn’t you?”
“Sure,” he agreed without hesitation.
“I’m starting to suspect that you might make a half-decent father someday,” she mused.
The hand that was stroking down her back faltered for the space of a single heartbeat. “Are you making an observation or offering to bear my children?” he asked.
“Just an observation,” she said immediately, emphatically.
“Well, that was certainly an unequivocal response,” he noted. “No worries about my ego inflating around you.”
“I didn’t mean to sound so horrified,” she told him. “I just meant to reassure you that I’m not looking for any kind of happily-ever-after with two kids and a dog and a white picket fence.”
“You don’t want what everyone else in your family has? What each of your sisters has?” he pressed.
“Well, sure. Someday,” she admitted.
“Just not with me.”
“I thought you would be relieved,” she said, wondering at the hint of anger—and maybe even hurt—in his tone. “We agreed that whatever happened between us when we were on the road this summer would end when we returned to Charisma.”
“You’re right,” he said, in that same clipped tone.
“So why are you acting all pissy because I’m abiding by the terms of our agreement?”
That was a good question—and not one that Josh had a ready answer for, so he opted for denial. “I’m not.”
Tristyn looked skeptical.
“Okay, maybe I was,” he acknowledged. “And I shouldn’t have been. Because you’re right—we have an agreement. And that agreement is for as much sex as often as possible, right?”
He didn’t wait for a response but crushed his mouth down on hers.
He was hurt and angry and punishing her for nothing more than being honest with him. Which he knew was irrational, and that knowledge only pissed him off more as his hands moved over her body, not coaxing a response but demanding it. He was trying to pick a fight, but Tristyn wasn’t interested in fighting back. She didn’t balk at the pressure of his mouth or the roughness of his hands, but responded willingly, even eagerly, with a passion that, even after more than two weeks together, never failed to take his breath away.
She was so open and warm and giving, and as her hands moved over him, stroking and soothing, his own touch gentled. Because this was Tristyn. The most beautiful, sweet and loving woman he’d ever known. She was the kind of woman a man might think about settling down with, if he was a settling kind of man. Which Josh wasn’t.
He should be glad she’d reminded him of that before he did something stupid—like fall in love with her.
* * *
Order was restored in Emily’s world when she awakened the following morning and discovered that the tooth fairy had, in fact, returned sometime during the night and put her tooth back under the pillow. A few hours later, they were on their way to the track. The number 722 car experienced some engine problems that held it back early in the race, and Ren finished twenty-second in the field.
When they got back to the RV, they started to pack up in anticipation of the journey back to North Carolina. A two-week break in the race schedule meant that they would be able to spend a chunk of time in Charisma before they had to focus on the next race in Tennessee.
Tristyn had plotted out all their driving routes, noting food options and rest stops available along the way, but she generally didn’t pay too much attention to anything but the scenery while Josh was driving. She trusted that he could follow the directions given to him by his GPS, until she watched him drive past the turn she’d expected him to take.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“We’re making a slight detour,” he told her.
“Why?”
“Because I have a surprise for the girls.”
“What kind of surprise?” Charlotte asked, proving that though she usually had a book in front of her face, she was listening to every word of their conversation in the front seat.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” he pointed out.
Which meant that he wouldn’t be able to tell Tristyn, either, without potentially ruining the surprise.
“I like s’prises,” Emily said—awake because the children’s Dramamine didn’t seem to have the same sedative effect on her as even a child dose of the adult medication.
“S’prise!” Hanna agreed.
Another half an hour passed before they arrived at their destination—thirty minutes during which all three girls, excited about the unknown surprise, entertained the adults with an unending chorus of “Are we there yet?”
There, when they did arrive, turned out to be Hersheypark.
The girls were speechless when they discovered what their uncle had planned—for all of about three seconds. Then the questions started, their words rushing over one another: “How long can we stay?”
“Where’s the biggest roller coaster?”
“I has to go potty.”
They stayed three days, and it turned out that Emily—who couldn’t ride in the backseat of a car without feeling sick—loved the roller coasters. The bigger the better. Charlotte seemed a little more apprehensive, but she had too much competitive spirit to let herself be outdone by her younger sister. Tristyn and Josh traded off between the older girls and the thrill rides and Hanna and the family-rated attractions.
At the beginning of the summer, if anyone had dared to suggest that Josh would choose to spend three days at an amusement park with his young nieces, Tristyn would have laughed out loud. It was amazing how five weeks on the road with him and the girls had made her see him differently—want to see him differently.
“This was a wonderful surprise,” she said, as they exited the gates after their last day at the park, the girls each carrying a bag filled with souvenirs and treats. Well, Charlotte and Emily were carrying theirs, Tristyn was carrying Hanna’s
, and Josh was carrying Hanna—who had protested, after three days of running on excitement supplemented by candy, that her legs couldn’t possibly walk another step—on his shoulders.
“They’ve been pretty good sports about being dragged around from racetrack to racetrack, so I thought they deserved a break from that routine.”
“You definitely delivered,” she told him. “No doubt these last few days are going to be the highlight of their summer.”
He nudged her shoulder as they headed toward the RV parked in the adjacent campground. “What’s been the highlight of yours?”
She knew what he wanted to hear, and the truth was, every day with Josh had been a highlight surpassed only by every night he’d shared her bed. “Actually, I’m not sure mine has happened yet, but I’ve got a bottle of chocolate syrup in this bag that has definite potential.”
He lifted his brows. “Chocolate syrup?”
She smiled at him then. “I didn’t buy it as a topping for ice cream.”
* * *
The closer they got to Charisma, the more excited and apprehensive Tristyn was. She had missed her family while she was away, but returning to North Carolina meant returning to the real world—and in the real world, she and Josh were colleagues and friends, not lovers. Josh seemed to have mixed feelings about their return, too, though neither of them seemed inclined to talk about what was going to happen next.
They’d made an early start that morning, and the girls—still tired out from three days of excitement at the park—had quickly fallen asleep again when they were on the road. It was only when they’d crossed the border into North Carolina that Josh remarked, “I’m finally going to be back in my own place tonight, but I’m still not going to get to sleep in a real bed.”
“I don’t think you have any cause for complaint. You’ve spent a lot of time in a real bed over the past two-and-a-half weeks.”
“I have absolutely no complaints about the time I spent in that bed,” he assured her. “But very little of it was sleeping.”
“It’s not my fault you’re insatiable.”
“But you’re the one who kicked me out whenever I started to fall asleep.”
The Last Single Garrett Page 17