In Deep

by Brenda Rothert

  “Good morning,” a feminine voice sang out. Mason looked over his shoulder just as Jess walked into the kitchen.

  She’d curled the ends of her long hair, put on makeup and dressed in jeans and a dark sweater. How she’d done it so quickly, I had no idea.

  “Morning,” Mason said.

  “Morning, Jess,” I said. “Breakfast is ready.”

  She turned toward the dining room, and then turned back to Mason.

  “Come on,” she said. “Sit with us.”

  “I’m waiting for April,” he said.

  She made a quick pouty face before walking into the dining room.

  “Surely you don’t like disappointing a lady,” I quipped in a low, teasing tone.

  “She’s a child. It creeps me out when she tries to flirt with me.”

  I gave him an appreciative glance. “It’s good to hear you have standards.”

  “Of course I do,” he said, a little defensiveness in his tone.

  “Well, based on your date at the wedding, I thought . . . willing was your main criteria.”

  His playful expression back. “What’s with all the hating on Marcie? If I didn’t already know how much you dislike me, I’d think you were jealous.”

  My cheeks burned as I shook my head. “Of what? You know, not every woman you meet wants to jump into bed with you.”

  He cocked his head and considered. “I did meet one several years ago who wasn’t interested. Damndest thing.”

  I matched his smile with one of my own. “Well, now you’ve met two, Romeo.”

  He moved just a hint closer to me. “Well, in addition to minors, I also don’t mess with women who are a lot younger than me.” He took a quick sip of coffee and spoke again. “I’m thirty, just to save you from making a comment about my age.”

  I opened my mouth, but closed it again. Sparring with him didn’t calm my nerves, anyway. It kind of just made me even more aware of how hot he was.

  “You’re not gonna skip out on me on Tuesday night, are you?” he asked.

  “Dance lessons?” I sighed. “I don’t think Ivy will allow me to skip out.”

  I added a finished pancake to my stack and reached for the batter. Mason took my spatula and set it on the counter.

  “You’ve made enough pancakes for a small army, April. Let’s go eat.”

  “I don’t . . . I kind of just snag a few bites while I’m cooking. I’m not really that hungry,” I said. “And, I’m making cookies when breakfast is over.”

  He turned off the burner and put his hand on my lower back, steering me toward the dining room. A tingling sensation fluttered in my stomach.

  “Sit with us,” he said, picking up the plate full of fresh pancakes.

  “I ate three pancakes, April,” Eric said when he saw me coming. “They’re really good.”

  “Well, thanks.” I surveyed the table. Mason was right; I’d made a lot of food. “I’m making cookies after breakfast if you guys want to pick some up later to take home.”

  “Can I help?” Eric asked, his eyes wide and hopeful. “I’m good at pouring stuff.”

  “I’d love your help, but . . .” I looked over at Mason. “Your uncle might have other plans for you guys.”

  “Please, Uncle Mason?” Eric begged.

  “Yeah, we can stay and help,” he said.

  He’d loaded his plate with pancakes, bacon and sausage, but was just sitting with his arms on the edge of the table.

  “Why aren’t you eating?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

  He shook his head. “Just waiting for you.”

  “You’re . . . waiting for me to start eating?”

  “I’m actually a gentleman, Ginger. Don’t act so surprised.”

  His gaze made my insides liquefy, but no one else needed to know that. “Did you just call me Ginger?”

  “To my Fred.”

  My heart melted onto the floor. This guy wasn’t just dangerous, he was lethal.

  “Who’s Fred?” Jordan asked.

  “Fred Astaire,” Mason said. “A famous dancer. April and I are dance partners.”

  “I wanna see you dance!” Eric cried.

  I barely got my bite of pancake swallowed before bursting out in laughter. “I’m definitely not ready for a public performance yet. What Fred didn’t mention is that I’m a terrible dancer.”

  “I’m a good dancer,” Jess cut in hopefully. “I could be your dance partner, Mason.”

  His eyes widened with alarm, almost imperceptibly. “I’ve already got one. And she’s better than she’s letting on.”

  “How many times did I step on your feet?”

  He shrugged, but I caught the twinkle in his eyes. “I didn’t really notice. We just need more practice is all.”

  Erica joined us at the table and she inhaled sharply when she heard the talk about dancing. She smiled. “You guys should dance in the ballroom upstairs. That would be so romantic.”

  A sharp female voice cut in. “You know what’s not romantic? Calling your boyfriend in the middle of the night and a girl answers the phone. Not fucking romantic at all.”

  Taylor was stomping into the room the only way she knew how—dramatically.

  “Hey, young ears in the room,” I said, meeting her gaze.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “But why? Why do I bother with him?”

  Erica arched her brows and gave me a look that said she knew where this was going. She gathered her dishes and got up from the table.

  “He’s such a liar,” Taylor huffed, flopping into the chair Erica had vacated. “He said he wanted to marry me.”

  Mason met my eyes sympathetically for a second before looking at Jordan and Eric. “Boys, let’s go finish that sidewalk. Clear your dishes and put them on the kitchen counter.”

  Once they were gone, I was left with Jess and Taylor.

  “Okay, so what’s going on, Taylor?” I asked. “Something with your boyfriend?”

  “Yeah. It’s Colton. He’s not just my boyfriend, he’s my fiancé.”

  “And he’s the baby’s father?”

  She gave me an indignant glare. “Of course he is.”

  “And what’s going on with him?”

  “He’s pissed that I won’t move in with him. But he’s got two roommates and they’re up playing video games and smoking pot half the night. I can never get a decent nights sleep over there. And now I’m worried that he’s seeing someone else.”

  I forced myself not to ask her why she even wanted to be with this guy. Grieves House was a safe haven, and I wanted the girls here to feel loved and accepted and not judged.

  “Have you talked with him about what will happen after the baby’s born?” I asked.

  Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. I mean, we kind of have, but . . . another girl answered his phone last night. He keeps it on his bedside table. He said it was a mistake.”

  “What was? The girl or her answering his phone?”

  “I couldn’t tell. He was still half-asleep . . . or drunk. He’ll call me this afternoon when he wakes up. And if I ask him about it, he’ll be really pissed. But don’t I have a right to ask?”

  A familiar feeling of dread and regret swept through me. How many times had I had conversations just like this with my younger sister?

  “Why would you want to be with someone like that?” Jess asked. “It sounds like you’re afraid of him.”

  Taylor wrapped her arms around herself. “You don’t know anything about him.”

  “I’m sorry, Taylor,” I said. “You’re in a tough spot. Maybe you should take a break from the phone. Why don’t you bake cookies with me and then we can watch a movie.”

  She arched her brows and shook her head emphatically. “Colton gets really pissed if I don’t answer my phone. I think I’ll just go back to bed for a little while. I’m kinda tired.”

  “Want some breakfast?”

  “No thanks. Maybe I’ll have some of those cookies later, though.”

  Ta
ylor slid out of her chair and went back upstairs. Jess and I cleared the table and then loaded the dishwasher with the breakfast dishes. Jess went to get ready for work, and with the dishwasher humming in the background; I started setting out the cookie ingredients.

  I was reading through my recipe for monster cookies when Mason, Jordan and Eric came in the kitchen, all red-faced from the cold and with big smiles on their faces.

  I couldn’t fight the pang of longing that struck me when I looked at them. A sexy man and two kids walking into my kitchen felt very good. Too bad he was a player. Even though I was surrounded by people who felt like family here at Grieves House, my status was still very much single. Unmarried. Alone. In that brief moment I wished it were otherwise.

  “Let’s bake some cookies,” I said to the boys. “Just wash your hands and put on an apron.”

  “Aprons are for girls,” Jordan said, sounding disgusted.

  “Are not,” I said, affronted. “They’re for cooks, and cooks can be boys or girls.”

  “I’m wearing one,” Mason said, grabbing a pink-checkered apron from the pile.

  “Nice choice,” I said, meeting his eyes just long enough for my heart to reach full speed.

  Why didn’t he have at least one deficiency that I could criticize? It had been so much easier when I could latch onto his comment about me being a “mousy librarian,” but since then he’d been anything but the jerk I’d pegged him for. Apart from that, it was hard to find fault with a guy who was well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, thick dark hair and a short, well-groomed beard. Even his smile was damn near perfect. If he was cross-eyed, or had bad teeth, I could focus all my attention on that one thing. But there was nothing. Unless he had a very small penis. Given his size, though, I doubted it.

  “You like the view?” he asked, his voice loaded with satisfaction.

  “What view?” I scoffed, knowing my burning cheeks were giving me away.

  “Yeah, what view?” Eric asked, his nose wrinkled in confusion.

  “My arm muscles,” Mason said. “She was checking them out.”

  He grinned at me and put the apron on. I tried not to smile back, but it was hopeless. He was a charmer and, for just a moment, I let myself be charmed.

  Jordan sat down on a stool and looked at me hopefully.

  “Can I pour?” he asked.

  “I want to,” Eric cut in. “I’m good at pouring.”

  “Not as good as me.” Jordan met my eyes imploringly. “I used to pour for my mom when she couldn’t do it.”

  He cast his gaze down at the dough in the bowl, and I detected something unexpected. Sadness.

  I gave Mason a confused glance and he mouthed the word ‘alcoholic’. A wave of sorrow hit me hard as I realized what Jordan was saying. When his mom was too drunk to pour anymore, she’d asked him to do it. That poor boy. I wanted to wrap him up in a hug.

  “I’ve got enough pouring for both of you,” I said, running a hand over Jordan’s dark hair.

  We mixed and measured and stirred, and I hoped the boys were forgetting their troubles, if only for a little bit. I knew what it was like to have parents that disappointed you. And as hard as I tried to forget it, it still followed me around today.

  It wasn’t a coincidence that I thrived on being a mother figure to kids who needed one. I’d had an absentee mother and I knew what that was like. Life was loaded with irony and the search for redemption, and sometimes we needed to find forgiveness for other people’s actions as much as our own.

  And for me, today, redemption came in the form of baking with two little boys whose smiles melted me sure as the chocolate chips in the cookies we were making.

  I WAS EMOTIONALLY DETACHED when it came to women, and even though my brothers often called me on this, my family was another story. They meant everything to me. Seeing my nephews look at April like she hung the moon was almost enough to choke me up.

  The boys were going through a rough time. Kim had left town after the divorce was final, not even telling Kyle where she was going. And Kyle buried himself in work more than ever. Work was probably a welcome distraction after the implosion of his marriage, but that left Jordan and Eric more alone than ever.

  My parents were looking after them most of the time but that was no long-term solution. I’d offered to take the boys this weekend because my parents were going to a wedding in Iowa and Kyle was on-call for seventy-two hours. My plan for a weekend of video games, pizza and guy time seemed like it was just what the boys needed. But as I watched Jordan and Eric gazing adoringly at April, awaiting her next instruction, lighting up every time she praised them, I realized that this was what they needed. Kim had been absent or disinterested for a long time before the marriage ended and this must have affected the boys. April had a mother’s touch, whether she had kids of her own or not.

  “Perfect,” she said to Eric as he stirred ingredients together in a big bowl. “Jordan, I think you should taste test those M&Ms before we add them to the batter.”

  Watching her nurture my nephews was sexy as hell. This was a new one for me. I’d never had the sort of relationship with a woman that allowed me to see how she was anywhere except the bedroom. Unless I counted Daphne, since she had a little brother. But that had been, what, nine years ago? And she hadn’t wanted much to do with him—at least when she was with me. That wasn’t surprising, really, since she was so young and so damned self-centered.

  Even a fleeting thought of Daphne made my muscles clench with anger. She was the reason I’d sworn off relationships and, even after nearly a decade, the hard feelings were still there.

  “Uncle Mason?”

  I shook my head to clear it. “Hmm?”

  “Open your mouth.”

  Eric was about to toss an M&M into my mouth. I backed up a step and opened my mouth, bending and swooping to the side to catch the blue candy as it flew through the air.

  The boys and April laughed as I caught several more, only missing one.

  I sat back and watched as they baked a batch of monster cookies. The boys devoured several as soon as they came out of the oven.

  “Uncle Mason, can we go sledding now?” Jordan asked, chewing his third cookie.

  “Yeah. You guys want to go to the park?”

  “Can April come?” Eric asked, his brown eyes shining hopefully.

  “Of course. I mean, if she wants to.”

  April grinned. “I haven’t been sledding in years.”

  Both boys started in about all the reasons she should come with us.

  “It’ll be fun!”

  “You can ride with me.”

  “We can have races!”

  “Please, April.”

  “Okay,” she said, biting into a cookie. “Let’s go sledding.”

  The Lovely Memorial Park was the most popular place in town for sledding, and we joined a couple dozen other people already at the hills that were slick with tracks. Later we walked about a half-mile further into the park to find a hill we could have to ourselves.

  We sledded for more than two hours and had a snowball fight, only leaving when our feet were numb from the cold. The boys were completely smitten with April. I was grateful she’d taken the time to make them feel so special, but I didn’t know how to thank her.

  “Let’s go make hot chocolate at your house,” Jordan said to me when we’d all piled back into the old pickup truck I kept for snowy winter days.

  “Sure,” I said. “And we can get some dry clothes, too.”

  I glanced over at April. “You want to come? I can loan you some dry drawstring pants and a sweatshirt.”

  Say yes, I thought as she considered. I’m dying to see you in my clothes.

  “I should go home,” she said. “I’ve got lots of laundry to do, and I have to run to the grocery store, too.”

  I headed for Grieves House, not letting my disappointment show. After all, I’d get to see her again on Tuesday. And I’d have her all to myself. Mostly. I didn’t count the res
t of Miss Dee Dee’s students because when I was dancing with April, it didn’t feel like there was anyone else in the room.

  It didn’t matter if she stepped on my feet or teased the shit out of me, as long as she was there. For that hour, I could almost imagine I had a chance with her.

  WHEN I WOKE UP Tuesday morning I hadn’t even pushed the covers aside when I smiled as I remembered what was happening tonight. Dance lessons.

  So Mason was a player who had none of the qualities I wanted in a man. He was still tall, dark and sexy. The thought of spending an hour in his arms was enough to make me do a little dance as soon as I got out of bed.

  He’d really surprised me on Saturday. His nephews adored him, and the feeling was obviously mutual. With their parents’ recent divorce, they had to be hurting inside. Mason had helped them have fun and just be kids for a day.

  I made bacon, eggs and toast for the girls and saw them all off to school. Then I baked two loaves of banana bread and did some laundry. The girls were supposed to do their own, but if they left it in the laundry room, I always did it. They had a lot on their plates between school and their pregnancies. They all somehow managed to work part-time, too. I could often see the exhaustion on their faces.

  A basket of freshly folded laundry was my way of reminding them that I cared, just like the baking and cooking I did. I loved being a mother figure to these girls.

  But I was a worried mother figure when it came to Taylor. She’d been having phone and text fights with her boyfriend that left her in tears several times a day. Nothing any of us said seemed to get through to her.

  Dance lessons were a nice break from working and worrying. When Mason took my hand in his and led me in the waltz, I relaxed into the rhythm.

  “Thanks for Saturday,” he said.

  “You don’t need to thank me. I had fun.”

  “Yeah?” He gave me a boyish smile that made me warm all over.

  “Yeah. I love kids.”

  “Oh.” Did I detect a note of disappointment in his voice?