His Brown-Eyed Girl

by Liz Talley

  “Never mind,” the woman interrupted, hopping up with a graceful leap and dragging Sarah back to where she sat. “We don’t need that with our vacation coming up.”

  Addy snapped her mouth closed and looked down at Charlotte. “Well, guess you don’t have to bother making new friends.”

  Charlotte scooted closer to her and rested her head against Addy’s side. Addy curled an arm around the little girl, feeling her heart swell…and maybe something else move inside her.

  She suspected it might be the tick of her biological clock.

  Addy had never really given having children much thought, mainly because she hadn’t had a successful relationship of late. Sure, she spent time with nieces and nephews she adored, but she’d never truly thought about what it would be like to spend her Saturdays in the park with little Addys and little—she refused to imagine Lucases—frolicking about her.

  Did she even want to procreate?

  Kids were messy. They got things like stomach viruses, they crashed into greenhouses and sulked, fought and made ungodly messes. But they also snuggled up to you and made your heart feel full and your throat a little scratchy with emotion.

  What would her and Lucas’s children look like?

  Oh, dear Lord, Addy, don’t go there. Don’t you dare go there.

  Thankfully a woman in a black dress carrying a rolling trunk appeared. Behind her came the rest of what should be the puppet show. Addy said a silent thank you for being saved from her dangerous thoughts. “Look, Charlotte. Here comes the puppet show.”

  The little girl straightened, her eyes growing big.

  An hour later, Addy met Lucas in front of the science center. The boys each had changed into a new T-shirt with the space center logo, and Lucas waved a stuffed frog with a pink bow around its neck at Charlotte. “Look what Uncle Lucas found hopping inside.”

  Charlotte held little hands up to him. “Froggie.”

  Lucas gave her the stuffed animal, looking pleased with himself. Just as Charlotte took the frog, a raindrop splashed onto Addy’s cheek.

  “Uh-oh,” Chris said as several more big droplets landed on her shoulder and head.

  And then the bottom of the cloud fell out. The boys took off running for the overhang of the shopping area, hooting as they ran. Lucas scooped up Charlotte who screeched and wrapped her chubby arms around his neck. Addy calmly pulled her compact umbrella from her purse and opened it.

  “Prepared, are you?” Lucas said, his brown eyes happy and his broad shoulder speckled with dark spots of rain. He looked incredibly good in that straw cowboy hat.

  Addy positioned the umbrella over both their heads, unintentionally bringing them closer together. She could smell the sultry cologne he wore and the clean smell of baby shampoo. His eyes crinkled as they looked down at her. “I try.”

  The moment crackled…even with Charlotte clinging to his side like a monkey and with a silly green frog crushed between them.

  And there under her green umbrella in front of God and everybody, Lucas kissed her.

  And it was such a tender kiss of possibility that Addy felt it down to her toes…which were sort of getting wet. But who really cared about wet feet when a gorgeous man wrapped you in his arms and took your breath away?

  Not Addy.

  But apparently Charlotte did.

  Addy felt a little hand against her cheek and broke the kiss. Rain created timpani around them as Charlotte’s blue eyes met hers.

  “Uncle Wucas wants to kiss me now,” the little girl said, turning her face to Lucas.

  A small smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “I thought you were afraid I would eat you.”

  Charlotte shook her head and the hair bow nearly fell to the ground. “You won’t.”

  Lucas unwound his arm from Addy, cupped the child’s head and dropped a quick kiss upon Charlotte’s cheek before dropping another one on Addy’s. “Come on, girls. We better go find the boys.”

  The boys waited by the theater, clamoring to see the movie that would start in ten minutes. Well, Chris clamored. Michael just nodded his head in begrudging agreement, but Addy could tell the teen was having a decent time.

  “I want popcorn,” Chris demanded as Lucas purchased the tickets.

  “They don’t serve popcorn,” Michael said, pointing to the no-food-or-drink-allowed sign.

  “Man, I’m starving,” Chris groaned.

  Lucas dug a granola bar out of his back pocket, tearing it open and handing Chris half and holding out the other. “Who wants the other half?”

  Both Charlotte and Michael grabbed at it, but Michael pulled back and allowed his little sister to have it. Lucas set her down on her feet.

  “We’ll eat after the movie, okay?”

  All kids agreed and then sped off to look at the various machines offering to stamp their pennies into souvenirs.

  Lucas turned to her. “Chris is always starving so I, too, came prepared…just didn’t think about an umbrella. Am I doing okay so far?”

  “On being a good uncle? Or being a good date?”

  “Both?” he asked, tucking his hands into the front pockets of his Wranglers, looking atypical. This was a man who was rarely uncertain. A man who likely never worried about a performance report. That he cared so much made her like him all the more.

  He wasn’t merely some cowboy in a dark blue shirt offsetting his tanned skin, a hunk of manhood in a pair of tight jeans and boots. She flicked her gaze over him and was struck again at his sheer masculinity. Warmth bloomed inside her, a feeling that had a little something to do with cute kids and his success at being an uncle, and a lot to do with wrapping her legs around him.

  Damn biological clock.

  Nope, more like damn libido.

  “I’d say you’re shooting a thousand.”

  “You mean batting, right?” He stepped closer, his voice low, intimate, with just the right about of sexiness.

  “Whatever,” she whispered, studying his mouth. He had such nice lips. They probably needed to be kissed.

  “Uncle Lucas!” Chris shouted.

  “You know how in movies parents can never get it on because the kids are always knocking on the door or yelling about spiders in the kitchen?”

  “What movies do you watch?” she joked.

  “I know how they feel. And the really crappy part is neither one of us has kids. We should be pulling the covers over our heads right now and pretending the world away.”

  The image popping into her head made her body hum. Oh, to be under a set of soft sheets with him.

  Woo.

  Addy fanned herself and demanded her body take a chill pill. Pointing to where Chris and Michael stood, looking as if they might trade blows, she murmured, “One day. Maybe.”

  “Oh, you can bank on my getting you alone, Addy girl. We got unfinished business.” And then he turned and strode toward his brother’s children, who had emoted into a couple of wild dogs snarling next to an oblivious hopping bunny whose bow had finally fallen out.

  Addy scooped up the bow and glanced over at Lucas. “Fine. I’m making you keep that promise.”

  Lucas’s smile could have melted the ice caps. “Like I said, bank on it.”

  *

  LUCAS CARRIED a sleeping Charlotte out of the theater and watched as his nephews excitedly discussed the movie with Addy. Those three had been here during Hurricane Katrina, though Chris had been a toddler, and they had tales to accompany the educational movie that depicted life on the bayou and the catastrophic results of the storm on the coastline and wetlands. But to Addy and the boys, the effects were much more personal.

  Hours before Lucas had spent quality time with Michael and Chris, talking to them about their father’s once-upon-a-time dream of being an astronaut and sharing funny stories about their days of growing up in New Orleans.

  Funny how being home made the relationship with his estranged brother seem less tenuous. When he remembered the boys they’d been, nearly the same age difference betwee
n them as Chris and Michael, he didn’t remember the squabbling and resentment between them, he remembered dressing up as their favorite WWF wrestlers and reenacting matches on the trampoline or sun-streaked days of baseball in the empty lot across the street from their parents’ house. He remembered gelatos at Angelo Brocato’s and eating Tastee Donuts at the Mardi Gras parades. Plum Street Snoballs and swimming at the Metairie Country Club. Late nights playing Tetris and Christmas mornings eating King Cake and playing football in the yard in their jammies.

  All those memories soaked in bitterness for years…but yet the good ones still came to him with a golden haze, sweetened like sugary jam.

  He and Ben had loved one another, faced off against neighborhood bullies together, and grown up with love bestowed by a mother and father who both adored their boys.

  How had it come to the present state?

  Why had that betrayal seeped so deep inside him, especially when he could see fate had given them both what they needed in the long run? It was as if a boulder sat between them, and he had no clue how to move it.

  Maybe he couldn’t move it…maybe he needed to climb over it.

  “I’m starving,” Chris said for the umpteenth time.

  “Okay, let’s load up and head for lunch,” Lucas said, balancing Charlotte on his shoulder so he could fetch Addy’s green umbrella and hand it to Michael. The skies had cleared and the sun made an appearance as they walked back to the truck. Lucas wound his free arm around Addy’s shoulders.

  “Are y’all like going out now?” Michael asked shaking the umbrella and casting a glance at them.

  “Maybe,” Lucas responded, sliding his eyes to her. She could see he had no better explanation. Neither did she. She didn’t really know what they were, but that was okay.

  “That’s cool,” Michael said, taking longer steps so he could catch up with his brother. He wrapped a congenial arm around Chris’s shoulders. Chris looked up and said something to Michael with a grin.

  “Aww, look,” Addy said, pointing at the boys. “They’re actually being—”

  But then Chris pulled out from under his brother’s arm as Michael threw a right jab at him. Chris immediately jumped on Michael’s back and tried put him in a headlock.

  Lucas snorted before jogging up to catch the back of Chris’s shirt and pulling him off. “Enough.”

  “He said I liked Addy and you was snakin’ me. He’s the one who likes Addy,” Chris said.

  “I don’t like Addy. I have a girlfriend,” Michael said.

  “Hey, you two,” Lucas released Chris. “Wait, you have a girlfriend?”

  His oldest nephew actually blushed. “Hannah Leachman.”

  Chris made a face. “Ooh, Michael and Hannah sitting in a tree—”

  Lucas snapped his fingers in front of Chris’s face. “Do you want lunch?”

  Chris turned stricken eyes on Lucas. “I’m starving to death.”

  “Then declare a truce and don’t touch each other for the rest of the day. Good behavior means you get fed.”

  Both boys muttered, “Fine.”

  “Bet they never used starvation as a method in any of those parenting magazines,” Addy said with a laugh.

  Lucas smiled. “Whatever it takes.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  AFTER A DAY of remembering the past, Lucas felt like looking toward his future.

  His future of a few more days…or a week…or maybe longer. Didn’t matter as long as it had Addy in it.

  When had he started to crave her with a hunger like no other?

  When she’d told him about that dirtbag who’d tried to hurt her? When she’d first kissed him? When she’d brought chilled ginger ale for his sick nephews? Or maybe it was her face framed in against that green umbrella?

  He wasn’t sure. All he knew was his life would seem far emptier without her in it. He had to make the days he had with her count.

  But would that be enough?

  The sun sank over the thick oaks off Carrollton as they polished off their gelatos and spumoni at Angelo Brocato’s Italian Ice Cream Parlor. Lazy fans whirled overhead and Charlotte’s head drooped like a wilted daisy very near her cup of frozen custard.

  “Today was fun, Uncle Lucas,” Chris said, still working on the huge cone he’d demanded. “I like knowing stuff about my dad when he was little.”

  “He was a lot like you,” Lucas commented, shoving the last bite of spumoni into his mouth. He’d waited too long to come home. Too long for some sugary piece of yesterday.

  “Who am I like?” Michael asked, not bothering to look up. He’d long ago finished his cookie and cocoa.

  “A little like me, and a little like your mother.”

  “You and my mom were boyfriend and girlfriend for a long time,” Michael said lifting dark eyes up to gaze at him. It was a question, not a statement.

  Addy frowned. “You dated Courtney? One of the kids said something like that, but I…” She didn’t finish her question and he understood why. It was a strange situation.

  “I grew up with Courtney. She’s a bit younger than I but she was in my grade because she started school in another state. We were best of friends. She was the pea to my carrot,” Lucas said, not wanting to talk about Courtney and the past. It seemed so long ago…almost like a dream at times. “You’re a lot like her, Michael. You hold things in and think you can handle everything life throws at you on your own.”

  “And you don’t?” Addy asked.

  He tried not to squirm, but it happened anyway. The day had been light, full of laughter and excitement. They’d gone to City Park and played Wiffle ball and then gone on to the Mardi Gras Museum downtown…even though there had been one in Kenner. And that was after they’d stuffed themselves on Deanie’s Seafood in Bucktown a stone’s throw from Lake Pontchartrain. He didn’t want to trip back into the hurt of the past. “Sure. I’m a dude. We hold on to stuff, and in my case, I have things I’ve held on to for longer than I should have.”

  “Like hating my dad?” Chris asked.

  “I don’t—” Lucas snapped his mouth shut and shook his head. “I don’t hate your father. He’s my brother and brothers always love each other. That’s something you two should think about.”

  “But Dad stole Mom from you. I hear things and I know you left New Orleans because of them getting together.” Michael’s eyes glinted with something Lucas couldn’t define. Maybe he also knew Courtney getting pregnant with him also played a role.

  “Is that why you left law school?” Addy asked softly.

  “You know what? I don’t want to have this conversation right now,” he said, scooting back the old-fashioned iron parlor chair, dragging it across the floor with a loud squeak. “Charlotte’s worn-out and I am, too.”

  Three pair of eyes stared at him, but they didn’t move.

  “Do you hate us, too?” Michael asked, his eyes now fearless, almost accusing. Obviously the kid wanted the truth.

  Lucas paused. “Do you think I hate you?”

  The boy shook his head. “No, if you did you would have left us with that crackhead DeeAnn.”

  Lucas sucked in air, feeling like the world pressed in on him. “Right. I don’t hate anyone, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some things between your father and I. Things you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Michael says Dad is dead,” Chris said, his brown eyes welling with tears. “That’s not true, is it? We’re kind of scared.”

  Michael’s spoon clattered on the table but he didn’t say anything.

  “Your father isn’t dead. And he’s not going to die.”

  “His leg got blown off,” Michael said, his voice quiet in the chattering cacophony of the busy restaurant. “I heard Mom tell Grammy and Grampy weeks ago. She was crying and said he was in Germany and then told them about the operations he would have.”

  Chris turned terror-stricken eyes on his brother. “His leg got blowed up?”

  “Wait a sec, guys,” Lucas said, holding up his hands
and waving them before scooting his chair back toward the table. He glanced over at Addy who cradled her cappuccino in both hands, her deep eyes brimming with concern. “Let’s take a deep breath and I’ll explain some things to you, okay?”

  Both Chris and Michael swallowed, their eyes glued to him, as they nodded simultaneously.

  Lucas glanced over at Addy. “I’m about to piss Courtney off with this, so you vouch for me when she tries to shank me.”

  Addy bit her lower lip before saying, “I don’t know what Courtney’s intentions are, but I think easing your nephews’ fears trumps any promises made, and for what it’s worth, as a senior counselor in my victim’s therapy group, I can say honesty is a good policy when facing fear.”

  Lucas nodded and looked back at his nephews. “Your mother is a good woman, and when she was in high school her parents were killed.”

  “We already know that,” Michael said.

  “Yes, but I was there with her when it happened, and a lot of false hope and promises were given to her by doctors and nurses…and none of those promises came true. They told your mother that her mother would live and get better. She didn’t. Having hope yanked away really hurt your mother, so she truly thinks she’s doing the right thing by protecting of you.”

  “Our dad…is he?” Chris started, his lower lip trembling with emotion. “I don’t want my daddy to die.”

  “He’s not,” Lucas said, stretching out a hand and patting Chris’s. “They thought your father was fine and moved him from Germany back to the U.S., but he grew sick when he got to Virginia. An infection developed from some wounds he received in his stomach and he didn’t respond to the doctor’s treatments. For a while, it looked bad.”

  “But now it doesn’t?” Michael asked.

  Lucas shook his head. “He’s doing much better and they found the right combination of medicines to fight the infection. He’s growing stronger every day and your mother thinks that after he’s fitted with a prosthetic, they will clear him to come home to finish his recovery.”

  “What’s a prosetic?”

  “Prosthetic,” Michael corrected, tapping on the glass tabletop. “It’s a fake leg. You’ve seen runners with them. Remember?”