Something scratched at his door, but he was too tired to open his eyes and see which twin had a problem. He was surprised it had taken this long for them to show up. They were as persistent and clingy as barnacles, and Lacey was such a little thing.
His door opened and someone entered. He pried his eyelids apart and saw Lacey with a wooden tray. “Can you sit up?” she asked.
“Did you tie them up? Set them adrift in my rowboat?”
“The boys? Nope, they’re napping.”
He was too sick to read expressions accurately, but he thought she looked tired—hell no, exhausted. She didn’t look happy, either.
Guilt sloshed through him. Last night he had decided to court Lacey like a bachelor without children. He had introduced her too quickly to the boys. He should have waited until she was madly in love with him—exactly the way he was in love with her. She needed time and space to fall in love, and she needed to be sure of him before the boys were introduced into the mixture.
Then this morning he had actually asked her to baby-sit. He’d begged! Yes, he’d been desperate. Yes, he’d been afraid that left alone with them and a fever of 103 he might fall asleep or make a bad decision. But he should have thought of something else. Now she’d been inoculated against the twins big time, and this particular vaccine was likely to keep her away for good.
“I brought you chicken soup, iced tea, Jell-O—” She looked up. “No fish in this batch.”
He tried to smile. “I’m too sick to eat.”
“Sure you are. Can you sit up?” She set the tray on the dresser and came over to help him into a sitting position. She fluffed his pillows and had him leaning back against them before he could protest.
“You’re going to get sick. Go away.”
“If I’m going to get it, I will. Heck, I kissed you last night, remember? You were probably teeming with germs, and besides, Deanna’s getting it, too. So I’m surrounded.”
“I can’t eat…a thing.”
“Of course not.” She pulled the sheet up to his chest, smoothing it as she did. All morning it had been a damp wad and now it felt like she’d just washed and ironed it. “I’m going to tilt the blinds, just a little. I know you don’t want bright light, but it’s so gloomy in here.”
She tilted them just enough that he felt his mood lift in response. His head wasn’t spinning anymore, which surprised him. Maybe he would live after all.
She returned with the tray, flipped open the short legs and set it over him. Then she perched on the bed beside him.
“I can’t eat—”
“A thing. I know, Matthew. But there’s nothing to eat on this tray. Just liquids and some Jell-O, which is practically a liquid. You can drink, can’t you?”
She had always called him Matthew when she wanted to make a point. He remembered that now, and he was warmed by it. Or maybe it was his fever spiking. He wasn’t sure. Whichever that feeling was, it wasn’t the least bit unpleasant.
“I’m going to feed you,” she said.
“Over my dead body!”
“We can arrange that,” she said sternly. “Look, I’ll tell you what. You show me you can hold a spoon, bring it to your mouth and empty it, and I’ll back off.”
He managed the steps in his head, but the moment he reached for the spoon to demonstrate them, he knew he might lose the battle.
She looked properly sympathetic. “You poor guy. All weak and shaky, huh?”
He managed a spoonful, then two. He set down the spoon and reached for the iced tea. She’d made it just the way he liked it. Sweet and lemony with lots of ice. “The boys?”
“Sound asleep.” She looked as if she was searching for something else to say about that.
“That bad, huh?”
“Have you had them tested, Matt?”
“Tested?” He searched his foggy brain. “Oh, like are they…rabid? Or hyperactive?”
“We know they’re hyperactive, Matt. Why would you bother having them tested for that? No, I meant tested, like in gifted.”
“Gifted?” He sputtered iced tea and had to reach for a napkin. “Gifted in causing trouble?”
“Again, there’s no question of that. It’s just a feeling I have. They’re reading already, you know, and that’s a sign—”
“Reading?”
She stared at him. “Don’t tell me you don’t know?”
He shook his head, and he was sorry he had. The room spun. For a moment he spun with it.
“Matt?”
“They…don’t read.”
“Okay.” She got up.
He grabbed for her hand. “What makes you think…they do?”
“Roman—I think it was Roman—asked me what Kotex meant.”
He nearly shook his head again. “What?”
“After he went through my purse. He found, well, you know. And he wanted to know what the word meant. He’d sounded it out himself. And they read numbers. They can dial the phone.”
He didn’t ask her to explain that part. He was afraid to. “No. There’s…another explanation.”
“Okay. You do know they’re bilingual, don’t you?”
“What?”
“They speak Spanish, Matt? When they’re together and they don’t think anyone’s listening? You know that?”
“A few things they learned from Yelina. Just a word or two.”
“Or ten or twenty thousand.” She peered down at him. “I thought you spent a lot of time with them.”
“I do!”
She nodded. “They’re hiding stuff. They really are rascals, aren’t they?”
He looked for signs that she thought that was okay. He didn’t see one. “Rascals,” he agreed. His heart was sinking.
“Can you finish the tea?”
He figured she’d stay there if he did, so he sipped slowly. Amazingly he was actually feeling a little better.
She joined him on the bed again, and this time she placed her smooth, cool palm against his forehead. “Poor lamb, you’re as hot as a Florida sidewalk.”
“Not with your hand on my forehead.” He sighed.
“Where do you hurt?”
He hurt everywhere, but he was too much a man to tell her so. “My back, I guess. My shoulders.”
“Let me get you some more aspirin, then I’ll give you a back rub. Would you like that?”
Was there a breathing, heterosexual male who could say no to that question? Lacey’s hands on his blazing skin. Lacey’s soft, lovely hands.
She didn’t stay for his answer, which was a good thing because it would have come out on a rasp. She returned with a bottle of aspirin, another of lotion, and a cool washcloth.
“Lacey…I’m so sorry I used you as fallback, today. I just didn’t…know where else to turn.”
“I know.” She tapped two aspirin into his palm, then snapped the bottle shut.
“I…” He fell silent, not sure what to say.
“It wasn’t so bad,” she said. “They’re still alive. I’m still alive. Nothing that passed between us will leave scars.” Her eyes flicked to the back of her hand. His did, too, and he saw tooth prints. He knew better than to acknowledge them.
He tried a different tack. “We talked…about having kids. Do you remember?”
“Girls.” She took away his tray and set it on the dresser again. “Can you turn over? Need help?”
He managed with difficulty. Every cell in his body was behaving independently.
“I’m surprised you remember,” she said.
“What?”
“That we talked about having kids.”
“Three, and you didn’t say a thing about girls. You’re…making that up.”
“So, what else did I say?”
His answer was halted by the feel of a cool cloth on the back of his neck. In a moment it was followed by the whisper of lotion-saturated palms along his back. She had warmed the lotion in her hands first, and it felt absolutely blissful.
“I’ll tell you what you said.
” Lacey began to stroke her hands along his spine. “You said you were going to be an architect. You were worried about the environment, and you wanted to build beautiful, sensible housing for people, using solar and wind energy and recycled materials.”
“Still do.” His eyes were closed. He might be sick, but he couldn’t remember enjoying illness more. Not ever. “You remember. That’s…amazing.”
“Are you going back to school to finish that degree?”
“When I can.” He wondered, though, if he ever would. If the twins would calm down enough. If his father would be willing to temporarily take over the business again.
“I still dream…” He sighed.
“Dreams are good.” She began to apply more pressure. She seemed to know exactly what hurt and how to make it stop.
“You…you were going to stay home…with the kids.” He groaned with pleasure as she untied a knot in his back that felt as big as a fist. “Lacey…that feels like heaven.”
“Was I?” She pressed harder. “Stay at home? I guess I was. My parents wanted me to be a career woman, though. They had plans for me. Maybe staying home was supposed to be my rebellion. I suppose—”
“What?”
“Well, that I wanted to be more like Grammer than like Mom. Mom’s a good person, an effective politician. I’m proud of her….”
“But she wasn’t there for you.”
She didn’t protest. “It’s not the job. She’s just not maternal. What fantasies, huh? Imagine that I thought I’d be a good enough mother to spend all my time doing it.”
“You’d be…a great mother. What do you mean?” His voice rose so sharply it ended on a cough. A coughing spell, as a matter of fact. She had to wait for him to finish before she resumed the massage.
“You know, Matt…” Her voice caught. “For an old guy with two kids, you still look pretty good. There are a lot of muscles to unknot back here.”
“I don’t have to work out. Job and kids…keep me…” He managed to turn over and take her hands. “I must look like hell.”
“Not really.” She smiled. “I like that bristly look.”
“Lacey…” He wanted to say “give me a chance,” but it came out all wrong. “Give us a chance.” He winced at the “us.” His damned subconscious. It was sitting right on top of everything today, and he was too sick to stuff it back into place.
“You need some rest.” She didn’t pull her hands away, but she looked uneasy. “And it’s just about time for my replacement to come, isn’t it? Take this chance to sleep, okay?”
“I thought about you a lot over the years. Did you know that?”
She raised his hands to her lips and kissed first one, then the other. “I have to go.”
“And you thought about me,” he said, because he had seen the truth in her eyes.
“We were kids, Matt. Just kids.”
“And now one of us has kids.”
“And one of us isn’t very good with them.” She stood.
He was puzzled by the remark. There seemed to be so much behind it. But what could there be other than an observation about the twins’ lousy behavior?
“You just need to get to know them.” He could feel his eyelids drooping. “You just…need to get to know me.”
“I know you. I’d forgotten how well I do.”
His eyelids shut of their own accord. Nothing he could do would keep them open.
“I’d forgotten how much I love knowing you,” she said softly. Or he thought she’d said it. But he wasn’t sure, because by then he was drifting off to sleep again. And no matter how hard he tried, he could not summon the energy to call her back.
Chapter 5
Matt and “Skiff” O’Brien had been best friends since preschool. Skiff was a red-haired, broad-shouldered giant of six feet seven inches, happily married for ten years to petite, blond Gretchen, another preschool buddy. Skiff and Gretchen had an ever growing population of dogs and cats, but no kids, influenced, Matt was afraid, by too much contact with his sons.
Skiff owned and ran Colman Key Boats and Motors, and right now he was showing Matt his newest acquisition, a cabin cruiser christened Ida Lee.
“She’s a beaut,” Skiff said. “Just came in and hardly used. A retired fellow owned her. Florida and this boat were the dreams that got him through thirty years at a job he didn’t like.”
Matt was afraid to ask. “He died?”
“Nope. Missed Minnesota and the job, turns out. Says he’s going to consult for his old company and buy a canoe.”
Matt liked that ending better. “You been out in her yet?”
“For half an hour or so. Cuts through the water like a dream. All the finer things. Sleeps six with a private berth, fully equipped galley and enclosed head. You’ll like the elevated helm. Analog instrumentation, too. Guaranteed to impress a lady.”
Matt was afraid this particular lady was beyond impressing. “I’m more interested in a day trip tomorrow than a sale,” Matt warned. “I’m not really in the market right now. The boys are too young.”
At the mention of the twins Skiff paled, throwing a wide splatter of freckles into sharper relief. “You’re not taking them with you, are you? They’ll be shark bait before you’re out of the marina.”
“They swim better than you do. But no, I’m not taking them. I got a baby-sitter.”
“You did?” Skiff sounded amazed.
“Yeah, Gretchen.”
“Shoot, Matt. You know what they did last time she kept them for you.”
“Gretchen’s taking the dogs to a neighbor and locking the cats in your garage. The boys can’t play animal groomer without victims. Or scissors.”
“Hell, they were those blunt scissors, like kids use in kindergarten,” Skiff said in defense. “Gretchen thought they might like to cut out little pictures from magazines and paste them on construction paper.”
“Gretchen hasn’t been around little boys a lot, has she?”
The two fell silent.
“She’ll be fine,” Matt said at last. “She’s taking them to the park, then the Wednesday kiddy matinee at the movies. What can happen?”
Skiff was clearly afraid to answer. “Go ahead and take the cruiser out. You might like her well enough to take a chance and buy her. And she’s the best deal I’ve had in months.”
“The thing is, I really need to get Lacey away from the key. Without my boys. We had this place we used to go when we were kids. I just thought if I took her there again….” Matt shook his head. “And I need an excuse, so I’m going to tell her I’m taking the cruiser out for a test and need her advice. She can never refuse to help if she’s needed.”
“Sounds kind of devious.”
The two men looked at each other and burst into laughter. “Yeah,” Matt said. “It does, doesn’t it? Desperate measures.”
Lacey knew better than to see Matt again. What was the point? Sure, she thought about him every time she let her disciplined mind drift. Sure, she dreamt about him, fantasized making love to him, even imagined herself as his wife. But all that was a waste of time. She might be falling back in love with the guy—had she ever fallen out of love with him?—but she was too down to earth to believe that love was in anybody’s best interests. Matt was a package deal, and this particular package was clearly marked Return To Sender.
So why had she said yes to a day together out on the Gulf? She was a sucker for the water, just the way she was a sucker for the man. Some of their best times had been spent sailing or cruising in a variety of boats. Picnics, fishing, looking for shells, and all those other moments that she didn’t want to think about. Intimate, tender moments when teenage hormones peaked and spilled over.
She was a complete idiot. But the man claimed he needed her. How could she say no? The drawbridge was on the fritz again, and he didn’t want to get stuck at a jobsite on the mainland, so he was taking the day off. How often did that happen? How could she refuse to help him?
“Is that a new cover-up
?” Grammer asked, as Lacey paced the hallway one more time while she waited for Matt to pick her up for the trip to the marina. “Royal-blue flatters you, darling. Let’s see the suit.”
Lacey hesitated. “It’s new. It’s a little, well… It’s little.”
“Maybe you’d better stay covered then. My reaction might scare you into a one-piece. And we can’t have that.”
“I’ll be back in time for supper. We could go out.”
“No, I’ve already got a chicken in the pot. I thought I’d make chicken and dumplings. Deanna’s been asking for it. Should help her throat.”
“Yum.” Lacey heard a car slow and stop in front of the house. “Well, that should be Matt. Wish me luck.”
“I don’t know what to wish for, darling. Just have a good time.”
Lacey slung her beach bag over a shoulder and took the porch steps at a trot, her bright yellow flip-flops flapping wildly. Oddly enough the For Sale sign that an unsmiling Darby had anchored with chains to Grammer’s favorite magnolia tree had vanished overnight. Lacey suspected it was at repose under Deanna’s sickbed, along with Big John’s best wire cutters.
It was Matt at the curb, and a smile curled, then froze in place when she saw who else was waiting.
Matt got out and came around the passenger’s side. “Let me explain.”
She stared at the two identical little faces in booster car seats. “You’re going to drug them and leave them in the car while we take the boat out? I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“No, I—”
“Oh, I know. We’re taking them to the sitter’s.” Her smile unfroze. “Of course. That’s it, right?”
“Not exactly.”
She was running out of explanations. “You’re going to leave them on the side of the road with a sign that says I Make Mischief For Food?’”
“Gretchen, you remember Gretchen, don’t you? Skiff’s wife? They both say hi, by the way, and want to get together with us one night. Anyway, Gretchen has the same flu I had. Crazy coincidence, I know, but there it is.”
She didn’t have to ask the obvious. Nobody else on the island was crazy enough to agree to a whole day with the twins. “Let’s just cancel,” she said brightly and turned to go back into the house.
To the One I Love: That Old Familiar FeelingAn Older ManCaught by a Cowboy Page 7