Tom moved without haste, surveying the work. Tilting his head, he eyed it as if imagining the finished product…or, perhaps, picturing it through the eyes of the man who’d married his ex-wife.
“A few weeks behind schedule, but between Ed and Janey’s troubles and mine…” His broad shoulders rose and fell. “It worked out.”
“What do you do at a roundup—other than the obvious, rounding up animals?” She sensed his tension and wished there were some way to soften the impact of this upcoming meeting.
“Brand, inoculate, castrate.”
“Sounds charming.”
“And tasty.” He grinned at the face she made.
God, she liked his smile.
She made herself look away and saw Heather clamber to the top rail of the horse corral to scout for Val’s vehicle. Abby returned the little girl’s exuberant wave.
“Heather’s sure excited,” she said neutrally, knowing there was no easy way to get through this meeting. “The girls haven’t seen their stepfather since the funeral, right?”
Tom squatted near a stand of copper pipes thrust through the concrete like amputated fingers. “He calls about once a week.”
“Do you get the feeling Angel isn’t quite as enthusiastic about this visit?”
Tom lifted one shoulder. “Sometimes I don’t know what’s going on in her head. She keeps everything inside. Has she said anything to Donna?”
Abby shook her head. “I don’t know. The only thing she ever said to me was that her mother should never have left home that night in the first place.” Abby sighed, remembering the months after Billy died. “It’s natural to want someone to blame for what’s happened. Maybe she blames Val.”
He made a soft sound that made her ask, “Do you blame him?”
He looked away. When he answered, his voice was low and troubled. “No more than I blame myself.”
She knew that feeling, and she also knew better than to cover it up with empty platitudes. “Do you know anything more about the guy they arrested?”
Tom hunched over slightly, as if warding off a blow. “The girls are always around when Val calls, and I don’t know how much to tell them. What do you think?”
She wasn’t prepared for such a direct question. “Donna tells parents that as long as they’re open, children will ask what they need to know when they need to know it.”
“I just wish it was all behind us,” he said tersely. Rising abruptly, he turned and walked away.
Abby didn’t follow. She leaned against the wall of the house, letting the heat penetrate to the knot of tension between her shoulder blades. With her eyes closed she could almost picture the completed addition. The girls would begin painting and decorating, Tom would pretend to be overwhelmed. And where would Abby be? Back at college? Stuck in her same old rut at work? With Daniel? Alone?
“What about Val?”
Abby’s eyes flew open; her heart jolted. Tom stood opposite her, barely a foot away, intently studying her face. She couldn’t imagine how so large a man could move so quietly. “What?”
“What do we do about Val? Where does he fit in?”
Abby understood what he was asking. This wasn’t about territory or custody. Tom would do what was best for his daughters even if it meant welcoming his ex-wife’s second husband into his life. “I’d say play it by ear. Let the girls decide. Maybe he’ll be a kind of uncle, an old friend of the family who made them happy once upon a time, a fatherlike figure they can rely on when their real father doesn’t understand them.” His frown segued into a scowl. “Believe me, Tom, no father understands his daughters all the time.”
His scowl looked both fierce and endearing. She smiled to lighten the mood. “I speak from thirty years of experience, Tom.” She pushed off from her resting place and paced, her leather sandals making sandpaper sounds on the smooth concrete. “My folks were at my brother’s house for Memorial Day. Do you know what my dad said to me at the table in front of my teenage niece and nephew?”
Tom, who paced beside her, shook his head.
“He told me, ‘You know, Abby, women over thirty have a better chance of getting hit by a car than getting married.’ My poor sister-in-law nearly choked to death on a bite of blueberry pie.”
She detected a smile trying to worm its way onto his lips. “He loves you.”
“I know, but it was humiliating.” She fought her own smile, but it overpowered her self-righteous indignation. Laughing together, Tom looped his arm, companionably, across her shoulders. Where that friendly gesture might have led, she’d never know, because at that moment the dogs began barking. Val had arrived.
ANGEL PLOPPED BACK DOWN on the lumpy sofa. She covered her face with a corduroy throw pillow that smelled faintly of her father, faintly of dust. Could a person smother oneself to death? she wondered. Probably not, some sort of self-protective system would kick in at the last minute, she decided. Too bad.
Her deep sigh warmed the space around her lips. She knew she couldn’t stay hidden forever. She wasn’t a silly kid like Heather who still couldn’t play hide-and-seek worth beans. Heather always hid in the last place Angel did. Talk about unoriginal.
Unfortunately, there were no good hiding places on the ranch that her father couldn’t find. Besides, Angel knew she was expected to help welcome Val to their home. Her dad had even invited Abby over to make it one big happy family.
Angel didn’t understand that move. Not that she had anything against Abby. Abby was a nice person who tried very hard not to make waves, kinda like Heather. It had been Angel’s idea to make Abby the driver to the Rainbows thing each week. It beat the hell out of listening to country music in her dad’s crappy old truck. Abby let them choose the music, although last time she brought a cool book on tape, Julie of the Wolves, that really made the trip fly.
Nope. Angel didn’t mind Abby’s presence, even today when Val was coming. She figured her dad needed a little extra reinforcement in case something ugly happened, like if Angel found the keys to Ed’s gun rack and shot Val.
“Damn,” Angel swore, scrunching her face to keep the tears back. She liked Val, maybe even loved him once, but if he hadn’t had a fight with her mother that night, Lesley would still be alive.
“SINCE WHEN does Santa Claus drive a sport utility vehicle?” Tom muttered, reaching into the cavernous opening for yet another box. Abby, who seemed to have affixed herself to his side since Val’s arrival, let out a small laugh.
“He is sort of a one-man Toys for Tots,” she said, her voice low, even though Val and Heather were thoroughly occupied on the lawn unpacking yet another crateful of goodies. Angel sat in a lawn chair, a small box of personal trinkets between her knees. She’d been unusually subdued today, and Tom was worried about her.
He was worried about a lot of things. “Where am I going to put all this cra…stuff?”
Dropping the box in place, Tom reversed positions and plopped his butt down on the threshold, inhaling a whiff of “new car” smell. Thirty grand. Minimum. Where did Val…? He put the thought aside, catching the speculative look on Abby’s face.
She saw too much, and cared too much, and, damn, he liked her.
“The barn?” she suggested, tacking on a smile that made him tuck his hands under his butt. “It’s the size of a small castle.”
Using the respite to stretch muscles taxed by all the lifting and carrying, she arched her back, massaging her neck with one hand. Nothing about her conservative shorts and neatly pressed blouse cried “sexy,” but the whole package—tousled hair, sun-kissed cheeks and radiant glow from pitching in where needed—made him ache to touch her.
The moment he’d seen her sitting with Heather, Tom realized how much he’d missed her—not that it came as any big surprise. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, he’d found himself thinking about her throughout the holiday weekend, alternately kicking himself for lacking the guts to invite her and congratulating himself on dodging a bullet.
He knew any kind
of emotional involvement was out of the question at this point in his life, but the temptation to see her had overridden common sense when he asked her to join them for Val’s visit.
A cursed weakness, his father would have called it. “We Butlers are accursed with two weaknesses, son,” his father once told him. “Pride and fancy. We pride ourselves on always fancying the wrong women.” Tom hadn’t believed him, even after Lesley, but now he was beginning to wonder.
“Lose the scowl,” she advised, turning back to the yawning mouth of the shiny black vehicle. “Here they come.”
“I’m not scowling.”
She peeked at him. “No, actually, that’s more of a ‘Meet me outside with your six-shooter’ look, isn’t it?” Her grin was too infectious to resist.
“What’s so funny?” Angel asked, squeezing between them.
“Your dad’s concerned about space since the addition won’t be done for a few more weeks. I volunteered to store the video games and computer at my house.”
“No way!” Angel started to pout until she caught Abby’s wink. “If anything, you can store Heather’s Barbies. She’s got like six million.”
Heather, hand firmly tucked in her stepfather’s, was close enough to hear that comment and let out a cry. “That’s not fair.”
Tom rolled his eyes. “Time out. Abby was kidding. Since Val was nice enough to bring all this stuff, we’ll find a place for it. But, some of it will have to stay in boxes until the addition is finished. Otherwise, there won’t be room for us. So, pick out a few things that can fit in your room and we’ll put the rest in a safe place in the barn, temporarily.” He stressed the last word to short-circuit any tantrums.
To his surprise, both girls looked at Abby, then meekly sighed, “Okay.”
After the last box was unloaded, Tom offered Val a beer.
“Great,” Val said. “How ’bout you, Abby? Will you join us?”
Kneeling in the midst of what looked like a giant yard sale, she looked up, a fistful of Barbie-doll clothes in one hand, three of the long-tressed dolls in the other. So far, Heather hadn’t been able to narrow down her selection to less than ten dolls. “Sure. Thanks. It’s getting pretty warm,” she said with a smile.
Always the ladies’ man, Tom thought petulantly, before turning toward the house for the beers. What is it about that guy that pisses me off?
His designer clothes, for one thing, Tom thought. Angel, who seemed to be having a hard time giving her stepfather the time of day, practically gushed about Val’s navy knee-length shorts and yellow, white and navy blue polo shirt. Tom didn’t get it, but that didn’t surprise him. What did surprise him was his reaction to the abundance of boxes Val had brought. Tom knew ahead of time Val planned to bring the remainder of the girls’ clothes and possessions, but it shook him to the core to realize how much stuff his daughters owned—more than he’d ever thought of possessing. The rift between their two worlds seemed wider than the Grand Canyon. How can I possibly make this work?
Tom took three beers and two sodas from the refrigerator shelf and headed back outside, letting the screen door bounce closed behind him. Val sat at the weathered redwood picnic table, his back to Tom. His arms moved expressively, highlighting some story to Abby, who watched, rapt, directly across from him. Tom couldn’t quite stifle a surge of jealousy.
He handed each girl a soda then plunked two cans on the table before his guests. Abby eyed him, puzzled. He took a long swig of beer before sitting down beside Val—not his first choice, but the smart one.
“I was just telling Abby about the drive up. A maniac in a little red RX7 zipped in and out of traffic about ninety miles an hour. An accident waiting to happen. I expected to see it upside in the ditch, but a few miles down the road, the car was pulled over with two highway patrol units behind it and they had the driver in handcuffs.” He paused dramatically. “It was a kid. He couldn’t have been much older than Angel, sixteen max. Scary, isn’t it?”
“What scares me is the fact that the kid’s parents probably bought him that car,” Abby said, popping open the tab on her beer can. “A lot of parents think they can buy a kid’s love with things. But all the stuff in the world can’t replace a parent’s attention and discipline and love.”
Val sat back as though she’d hit him, and Abby suddenly looked stricken, apparently realizing how her words might be taken in light of all the toys and gifts strewn across the lawn.
“I…I didn’t mean you, Val. This is entirely different. These girls have been through something extraordinary, and what you’ve done is very generous and kind. I meant parents who abdicate the role of parenting and try to make up for it with…”
He waved off her explanation. “I know what you’re saying and I agree. I know a lot of people like that. Lesley used to give me a hard time about my gift giving, but the truth is I’m just a compulsive shopper.” He shrugged. “When I see something I think the girls would like, I buy it for them. I did the same with Lesley.
“After she passed away, I ran across three or four things I’d bought for her but hadn’t had a chance to give her. A sapphire ring in a platinum setting. She would have loved it.” His dark eyes misted and he looked away.
In the beginning, Tom had been prepared to hate the man Lesley married, but he could never quite manage it in light of Val’s earnest need to please. The man positively bent over backward to be nice to Tom.
“How have you been getting along?” Tom asked, surprised to find he actually cared. “Business okay?”
Val shrugged. Physically, he was Tom’s match, but something about Val’s weight-lifter build seemed contrived, as if the muscles were for show only. He wore his thinning black hair slicked back from his high forehead and gathered in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. For the first time, Tom noticed a few strands of silver threading through it.
“It was touch-and-go for a while,” Val said soberly. “I honestly didn’t know if I’d be able to swing it. Les ran the daily show while I focused on marketing and promotions. She handled the books, contracts, employees, all that.
“Fortunately, Les’s assistant, Bridget, kept a lid on things until I could take over. I just promoted her to assistant manager.” Tom couldn’t interpret his smile, but something made him wonder if Val had a personal interest in the woman. It wouldn’t surprise him. Val didn’t strike Tom as the kind of man who could stand to be alone for long.
Abby leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. A modest pose, but from Tom’s angle a gap between buttons exposed a tantalizing wisp of lace. The view, combined with an occasional hint of floral perfume, made him miss her question.
“What did you say?” he asked.
Her well-defined eyebrows arched.
“She asked the name of my business,” Val answered, oblivious to Tom’s muddle. “Fitness West, One and Two. We carved a pretty nice little niche for ourselves, but I have to admit, most of it was Lesley. She had this ability to read what people wanted before they knew what they wanted.” He beamed with pride. “She introduced step aerobics before anyone else—even designed and marketed her own steps.”
Tom frowned. It always surprised him, and hurt a little, to find out things about Lesley he wouldn’t have dreamed possible. When she was his wife, she barely managed to balance the checkbook. How could he have been so blind to her capabilities and needs? No wonder he lost her.
“Dad?” Angel called from beneath the tree. “Can we keep the boom box?”
“It’s yours from last Christmas, remember?” Val answered before Tom could say anything.
A spear of pain twisted in Tom’s gut. He tried to keep it from showing, but the look of sympathy in Abby’s eyes told him he wasn’t successful.
“Oops,” Val said. “Sorry. Old habit, I guess.”
Tom shrugged. “No problem.”
He twisted on the redwood bench seat to see what Angel was talking about. The molded plastic box in her hands looked ominous, like something gang members would hoist aroun
d in the mall. “We’ll give it a try. But let’s put a limit on the number of records you bring in.”
“Records?” she exclaimed. “Nobody listens to records anymore.”
“Tapes, then.”
She rolled her eyes dramatically.
Tom looked to Abby for help.
“CDs,” she mouthed softly.
“Ten CDs apiece. And nothing with bad language.” He made his voice as stern as possible. He couldn’t save much face, but he’d try for a little.
With the girls bickering over CD titles, Tom asked Val, “Any news about the suspect in Lesley’s murder? What’s the district attorney doing?”
Val’s features hardened. “That bozo. I talked to my lawyer on Friday to see if we could sue for incompetence.”
Abby sat forward. “It’s a long frustrating process, Val, but it has to be done right or the defendant could walk.”
Tom wondered if her defense came from feelings for her boss.
“Well, believe me, if the slimeball walks, he won’t get far,” Val said, tersely.
Abby reached out with both hands and covered Val’s clenched fists. “Val, a terrible person took someone very special from you, but don’t give him anything else. If you let your need for revenge consume you, he’ll have taken your life, too.”
All of a sudden Val’s composure crumpled, tears welled up in his eyes and he dropped his head in his hands. “It’s my fault. He killed her but it’s my fault she was out there in the first place.” Tom looked toward his daughters. Heather had disappeared but Angel sat frozen, staring at her stepfather, a look of anguish on her face.
“Val—” Tom started, but Abby shook her head.
“It’s natural for survivors to blame themselves,” she said softly.
“No,” the anguished man cried. “You don’t understand. We had a fight. Les thought I was having an affair. She took the girls and left because she was too upset to be around me. She said she couldn’t bear to look at me.”
Tom felt his gut twist. A part of him wanted to grab Val on Lesley’s behalf and shake the truth out of him. A more rational part understood all too well the daily makeup of a marriage, its highs and lows. He and Lesley had had their share of fights.
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