It would have been hard to miss the appreciation in Ray’s eyes. “You look fantastic. You always do.”
Hayley smiled. She thought back to her horrendous appearance the day she’d had a migraine. “We both know that isn’t true, but thanks for saying it anyway.”
As if he’d read her mind, he amended his earlier statement. “Okay. You’re right. But on an average day, you’re gorgeous.”
“Okay, now you’re laying it on a little too thick. Let’s go. I’m starving.”
He reached for her hand again, and Hayley thought about pulling it away. They weren’t a couple. It wouldn’t do to let his family start thinking they were. But she left her hand in his.
Ken and Rick had vacated the patio during Ray’s absence. The grill no longer smoked, though the lingering scent of barbequed meat hung in the air. Ray opened the slider and let her step in ahead of him.
Kaylee and Lena were setting bowls of potato salad and coleslaw on the table, where a massive tray of ribs covered with foil already sat. There were thick slices of garlic bread in a napkin-lined basket along with a macaroni casserole covered with melted cheese as well as an array of condiments. Hayley sniffed appreciatively. Rick and Ken were on the couch watching baseball. Molly and Fletcher were playing Chutes and Ladders on the coffee table.
Once the greetings were completed, they sat down to eat. They’d set places for the kids at the coffee table. Fletcher seemed okay with that setup. Rick put in a My Little Pony DVD for them to watch.
Ray must have added a leaf to his dining table, because there was plenty of room for the six adults.
Food was passed and conversation started, most of which went over Hayley’s head since it was about friends and family she didn’t know. She didn’t care, though, because she was too busy enjoying the feast before her and absorbing the warmth of Ray’s family. Trey’s had been the same way. During every visit, the entire Christopher clan convened to share food and conversation. For a little while she let herself pretend it was her family too.
As the meal wound down, Ray pushed back a little from the table and casually draped his arm over the back of her chair. Hayley happened to glance Lena’s way at that moment and caught the slight raising of her eyebrows at the gesture.
Surreptitiously, she glanced at the others. Rick and Kaylee gave no indication they’d noticed anything out of the ordinary. But a look passed between Lena and Ken. Lena’s head tilted slightly in Ray’s direction as if to silently ask her husband, Did you see that?
Hayley thought about taking Lena aside later and telling her she had nothing to worry about. She wasn’t after Ray. They were neighbors. Friends. Maybe a little bit more than friends. But if she went on the defensive, that would probably make Lena even more suspicious of her motives. Probably better not to say anything.
When the meal ended, the guys made an effort to help clear the table until Kaylee shooed them away. Molly and Fletcher resumed their game of Chutes and Ladders, while the men sprawled in the living room and put the baseball game back on.
There was barely enough room in the small kitchen area for three people, so Hayley concentrated on straightening the table, putting away the unused utensils and shaking crumbs from the placemats.
“Hayley, you wouldn’t let me experiment on you, would you?” Kaylee asked as she scraped plates and loaded them into the dishwasher while Lena covered the leftovers and stowed them in the refrigerator. “I’m dying to try out a new line of color. If you’d let me do your highlights with it, I’ll throw in a cut for free.”
“Wow. That’d be great.” She’d let her hair go longer than usual, simply because getting it done wasn’t in her current hand-to-mouth budget.
“I’m usually closed on Mondays, but we could do it tomorrow night, if you want. After you’re off work.”
“Oh, uh, hmm. I’ll have Fletcher, though. I don’t have a sitter.” Nor could she afford one. That’s why Fletcher went everywhere with her.
“Rick,” Kaylee called over to him. “Do you mind watching Fletcher tomorrow night so I can do Hayley’s hair?”
“Fine by me.”
“Goodie,” Molly chimed in. “We can play dolls. And I got Mario Party for my birthday,” she informed Fletcher. “We can play it.”
Ray said something to Rick, but Hayley didn’t catch it. She was still marveling over the fact that she was going to get her hair done for free, and that Kaylee hadn’t had to stand on her head and repeat her question twice for Rick to respond.
“Thanks, Kaylee. Thank you, Rick,” she called to him.
He waved her thanks away. “No problem.”
Once the kitchen was clean, Kaylee put on a pot of coffee and cut into a pan of brownies. Lena added a scoop of vanilla ice cream to each plate. Hayley groaned. She was decidedly full and doubted she could do the dessert justice. “None for me. I’m too full. Although I know your brownies are delicious.”
Lena’s eyebrow went up. “Oh? I thought you two just met yesterday.”
“We did.”
Ray chose that moment to join them. “Kaylee sent some home with me a couple of weeks ago. And I was kind enough to share, Mom, like you taught me.” He winked at his mother.
“I see.” Her gaze moved between the two of them, as if trying to figure out the depth of their relationship.
“I’m going to wrap some up for you to take home, Hayley,” Kaylee informed her. “And you can share them with Ray if you’d like.” She grinned at Hayley and tilted her head in Lena’s direction, as if she were enjoying her mother-in-law’s confusion.
Chapter Thirteen
“What happened to you?” Ray greeted Roscoe the following morning outside the convenience store where they often met for coffee before heading out to a job site. “Nailgun to the ’nads?”
“Thanks for that,” Roscoe said glumly. His shoulders slumped, and his whole body sagged in defeat. His eyelids were red-rimmed and puffy.
“Somebody die?” Ray asked more gently, regretting his earlier teasing. Sometimes he forgot that Roscoe’s massive frame sheltered a sensitive and easily wounded heart.
Roscoe scrubbed his hands over his face as if he were trying to wipe away a bad memory. He leaned back against the side of the truck and stared at the toes of his boots. Ray nudged him to hand him the cup of coffee he’d purchased for him since it was his turn to buy.
Roscoe took the cup. He fiddled with the pop-up lid, but he didn’t drink any of it. He lifted his head. “Callie, and uh, Jasmine.” He stopped, as if he couldn’t go on.
Ray waited, sipping his own coffee until Roscoe was ready.
Roscoe cleared his throat and looked away, his gaze taking in the early morning traffic at the pumps and customers hurrying in and out of the store. “She walked in on us,” he finally said, his gaze coming back to Ray.
Ray had a mouthful of coffee and he sputtered, managing to land most of it on the ground as opposed to his clothes. “What!” He stared at Roscoe. “Jasmine walked in on you and Callie? In bed?”
Roscoe nodded, looking sadder and more upset, if that were possible.
“Oh man. How’d that happen?”
Roscoe lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “She has a key. Jasmine. Not Callie. Not yet, anyway. Maybe never.” He sniffed. “We wasn’t actually doing anything. I mean, you know—”
“Yeah,” Ray put in, hoping Roscoe wouldn’t launch into too many details.
“I hear Jasmine come in, looking for me, calling me, but before I can even move she’s there, opening the bedroom door. And it’s like, obvious, I mean, we’re in bed naked, even though we got the sheet over us before—”
“Got it,” Ray put in again, an all-too-clear picture forming in his head.
“And Jas, she like, stares at Callie like she hates her.” Roscoe sniffed again. “Turns out, Jas does hate her.”
“Oh, come on. Jas is upset because she caught you two—”
Roscoe shook her head. “Nope. That ain’t why. She already knew who Callie
was. And she already hated her.”
“What? How?”
Finally, Roscoe took a sip of his coffee. It seemed to soothe him. Ray had laced it with a ton of cream and three sugars, the way Roscoe liked it. He took a second sip. “You remember I told you last year Jas got in trouble with that friend of hers named Serena? Sneakin’ out of the house, cutting school. Serena got picked up for shoplifting and Jas was with her?”
“I remember.”
Roscoe often talked non-stop when they worked together. Ray had developed a filter for retaining the significant parts of Roscoe’s chatter and letting go of the minutiae. Ray had always had a soft spot for Jasmine. He’d hated that Roscoe and Sharla couldn’t stick it out together and Jasmine ended up shuffled between the two of them. He’d been dismayed to learn it sounded as if she’d picked up some bad habits and some equally bad influences at such a young age.
“That Serena, she was running wild. No supervision. Her mama doing drugs and I don’t know what else. The state stepped in. Put Serena in a group home.”
“Uh oh.” Ray had a feeling he knew what was coming.
Roscoe drank some more coffee. “Uh huh. Callie be the one do the evaluation. She figured Serena would resist, so she brought along a couple of deputies. They had to drag Serena out and cart her off. Jasmine was there.”
Ray didn’t know what to say.
Roscoe went on. “As far as Jas is concerned, Callie’s the bad guy. She takes her friend away. Serena can’t help it her mama don’t look out for her. All Jas knows is her friend is gone and she blames Callie.”
“Can’t you explain? Did you try talking to Jas?”
“Oh, there be no talking to that girl. She darn near exploded right before our eyes. Went on a rant the likes of which you ain’t never seen and stormed out. I wasn’t exactly in any position to stop her. She figures I got a foot in the enemy camp now. She don’t want to talk to me.”
“She’ll come around,” Ray tried.
Roscoe gave him a baleful look. He drained the last of his coffee and crumpled the cup. “Let’s go.”
Driving to the job site gave Ray nothing but time to think. Roscoe tried hard to be a good father to his daughter, but the challenges that lurked around every corner never seemed to end. He hoped Jasmine wasn’t going to turn into one of those rebellious teenagers, acting out and getting in trouble. Becoming a juvenile delinquent. That’d break Roscoe’s heart.
On a parallel track, his thoughts turned to Hayley. He’d overheard the end of her conversation with Tara and Kaylee at the party. She’d started to say something about her own mother then stopped and mentioned her grandmother helping to raise her. She hadn’t said anything about a father being in the picture. He wondered about her family. She had no photos at her place. Nothing that would indicate she even had a family. The nightstand in Fletcher’s room held the only personal picture he’d seen, and it was of a young brunette holding a younger version of Fletcher. He assumed the woman was Steffie, Fletcher’s mother. There was a tension and uncertainty about her expression that made her smile appear forced. Fletcher gazed into the camera with the same serious concentration he often displayed now.
Hayley didn’t talk about any extended family. But there was a lot Hayley didn’t talk about, which both intrigued and annoyed him. He wanted to peel away those layers she covered herself with and find out what made her tick. What was she afraid of? What did she care about? What was important in her life?
Again came the thought that he’d find out. Little by little, as long as it took, he’d find a way to bring her out of hiding. He wasn’t going anywhere. And though she had plans to move to L.A., he knew all too well that even the best of plans could change when you least expected it, sometimes in a matter of seconds. Even though lately he’d been concentrating on getting through life day by day without thinking too far into the future, he had to admit he’d developed a sort of fuzzy plan of his own. Somehow he planned to persuade Hayley that it’d be a good idea if both she and Fletcher stayed here. With him.
Forever.
That evening, Ray appeared at Hayley’s door. He and Rick had worked out an arrangement between them that included Ray picking up Fletcher. The brothers would eat dinner and hang out with the kids at Rick’s house and then Ray would bring Fletcher home.
Hayley parked outside the small salon. It was a cute place, painted pink and turquoise with a matching sign that read “Kaylee’s Kuts.”
The inside was equally charming, painted in the same color scheme. The small counter held a coffeemaker and several mugs. The walls were hung with framed posters of models showing off sleek, new hairstyles.
Hayley changed into a smock in the tiny bathroom and seated herself in the chair.
Hayley’d had her hair done by some of the top stylists in the Jacksonville area, and although she’d wait to see the end result, she watched as Kaylee expertly wove the comb tip through her hair, creating strands to place on top of the foil before brushing it with the highlighting preparation and folding the foils neatly.
They chatted about everything and nothing. Kaylee didn’t pretend to be anything but what she was—a small-town girl with a big heart who was comfortable in her own skin and happy with the choices she’d made.
When they got to the topic of the Braddock clan, Hayley mentioned how nice it must be to be part of the family.
Kaylee agreed. “It is. I didn’t have much of one before I married Rick.”
“Me neither. Mostly, I was raised by my grandmother.”
Kaylee grinned at her. “Me too! Your mama didn’t take off with a chicken feed salesman, did she?”
Hayley laughed. “No. She had—still has actually—problems. I guess you’d call her an unfit mother.”
“Oh, too bad. My Granny Daisy, though. She was the best.”
“My grandmother was good to me too. And my aunt helped out a lot. She moved to Australia with her partner after my grandmother died. Still, it’s not the same as having a real family.”
“I suppose not.” She smiled at Hayley in the mirror. “But look at us. We turned out okay, didn’t we?”
It wasn’t the kind of question that needed an answer, but silently Hayley wondered, Did we? Did I? Why did she feel so unprepared to be on her own, then? So unsure of herself? Especially where Fletcher was concerned. And why did she continue to have this nagging feeling that Fletcher deserved more than the kind of life she’d had? Why shouldn’t he have two parents instead of a struggling single mother with no parenting skills whatsoever? More than anything she wanted to give him the kind of childhood she used to long for.
“I don’t know who I fell in love with first—Rick or Molly. Almost from the moment I walked into Rick’s house, I felt like I belonged there. Like I found the family I’d been looking for without knowing I was looking.” Kaylee shook her head. “Of course, it took Rick a little longer to figure it out. Sometimes you don’t realize what you’ve got until you think you’ve lost it.”
They continued to chat, and before long Hayley felt comfortable enough to ask Kaylee about her mother-in-law. “When we were leaving Molly’s party, she told me if I hurt Ray I’d have to deal with her.”
Kaylee paused, scissors and comb in hand. A grin spread across her face. She laughed. It took her a little while to get herself under control. She giggled some more and shook her head at Hayley in the mirror. “Sorry. Sorry about that. Lena said exactly the same thing to me right after our wedding. Warning me, I suppose, that if I hurt Rick, she’d be gunning for me. She must think you and Ray are serious about each other.”
“But we’re not!” Hayley cried. “We’re friends. We hang out, but that’s pretty much it.” Almost.
“You don’t have to get defensive with me,” Kaylee informed her as she combed through her hair. “But, honey, I’ve seen the way Ray looks at you. He’s what Grandma Daisy would call ‘smitten’.” She grinned.
“Yeah, well, once smitten, twice shy,” Hayley grumbled.
Kayl
ee laughed. “Doesn’t matter. I see you two circling each other like a couple of wary porcupines, quills up, defending your territory. Nobody wants to get hurt, so you’re being very careful.” She pointed her comb at Hayley’s mirrored reflection. “But eventually, even wary porcupines make some concessions. That’s how come there’s still porcupines.”
Kaylee’s metaphor made Hayley smile. Kaylee might be an unsophisticated country girl but she was wise in the ways of the heart.
While at the salon, Hayley missed a call from her friend Andre. After Fletcher went to sleep, she decided to forgo her usual glass of wine and cigarette and took a big glass of ice water out to the porch and called him back.
“How’s my girl?” he said the moment he picked up, his Louisiana-accented baritone seeming to fill up the empty places inside her.
“God, I miss you,” she replied. She’d spent a lot of time with Andre the past year and a half, even sort of lived with him for a while. He’d been there for her in ways no one else had, and she loved him for it.
“Well, guess what, darlin’? You’re in luck, then, cuz I’m inviting myself for a visit.”
“You are! When?”
“Next weekend. That work for you?”
“Oh, Andre. I’ll make it work. I can’t wait to see you.”
“Me too. So what’s been going on?”
The change in Andre’s tone was subtle, but Hayley knew him well. She’d tell him almost everything anyway, but she wanted to tease him a little first. He and Paige had probably already talked. “Not much. What’s going on with you?”
“Uh, uh, uh. We’re talking about you. Spill.”
“You talked to Paige, huh?”
“Of course. Somebody got to watch out for you.”
“I’m a big girl, Andre. I can take care of myself.”
A long silence followed that statement when Andre made no comment to the contrary. Hayley gave in and amended it. “Okay. Okay. I’m learning to take care of myself.”
“And Fletcher,” Andre added. “How is he?”
“Quiet. But he’s fine.”
A Forever Kind of Guy: The Braddock Brotherhood, Book 2 Page 12