Adding Up to Marriage

by Karen Templeton

  “I did not!”

  “Yes, you did,” she said patiently. “Because my imagination’s not that vivid. Not that it matters to me one way or the other.” Huffing a little, she dragged the king-size comforter off the dining table, only to have it swallow her whole as she tried to fold it, like she was wrestling a monster marshmallow. Finally she gave up and dumped it on the sofa. “But you don’t strike me as the sleeping-naked type.”

  “Could we please move on?”

  “You’re really cute when you blush. And it’s okay, really. Since I do, too.”

  “Do what?”

  “Sleep naked. You hungry?”

  Lord above, being in the same room with her was like riding the Tilt-A-Whirl at the fair. Over the dizziness, Silas watched her zip to the kitchen, ignoring—more or less—the way her butt twitched as she walked. Then he opened his mouth to say “no,” that all he wanted was for this night to be over, but then he realized, one, that his stomach felt like it was going to eat itself and, two, that the house smelled like an Italian restaurant.

  Against his better judgment, he let his gaze sweep what he could see of his kitchen from where he stood. As he feared, it made Armageddon look like a minor dustup. The sooner he got this chick out of his house, the better. Except—

  “Damn. I should’ve run you home before I put the boys to bed.”

  “Oh! That’s okay, I figured you’d get back late. So I called Patrice, asked her to come get me in a little while. We’ve got a couple clients to see early tomorrow out at Jemez, so I’ll probably crash at her house, since it’s halfway to the pueblo already.”

  The idea of this woman being responsible for bringing someone’s baby into the world made him shudder. But then, childbirth was a messy business, too, so he supposed she felt right at home. He looked at his kitchen again.

  “There’s actual food in there somewhere?”

  “Just something I tossed together out of whatever you had on hand,” she said, shoving aside…stuff to plunk a casserole dish onto the counter. “Go on, you sit—” she pointed at the formal dining table behind him “—I’ll warm some of this up and bring it right over. I see you’ve got beer—you want one?”

  He sat, becoming one with the chair. “Please.”

  A minute later she set a heaping dish of her concoction in front of him—pasta and tomato sauce and sausage and peppers and cheese and heaven knew what else. And you’ll eat it and love it, he thought, almost too hungry to care.

  “Huh,” he said, taking a second bite over the clatter of pans, water rushing into the sink. “This is really good.”

  “Thanks. Tell me if you want more, there’s plenty. You eat while I clean.”

  But once he’d taken the edge off his hunger, he felt weird sitting here while she was in there cleaning. So he got up and moved his plate and beer to the breakfast bar, climbing up on the stool.

  “Aw…didja get lonely?” she said with a little smile as she wiped down the island. A throwaway question, hardly meant to cause the pang it did. When he didn’t answer she tossed him another glance, then sashayed to the sink to rinse out the sponge. “So how’s your mom?”

  “Looks like she’ll be out of commission for a while,” Silas said around another mouthful of food. “She’s in a splint until the swelling goes down enough to put on a cast. It’ll definitely put a cramp in her style, that’s for sure. And mine. I’ll have to make other day-care arrangements.”

  “Well…” Jewel’s entire face scrunched in thought. “I’ve heard lots of good things about the Baptist preschool. And there’s that place out on the highway, in the old convenience store Thea Griego used to live in?”

  “With the big jungle mural across the front?”

  “Yep. I know the gal who runs it, she’s the real deal. Although they might be full up at the moment—”

  “It’s okay,” Silas said, almost irritably. “I’ll check around in the morning. So…what all went on in here while I was gone?”

  Jewel laughed. “What didn’t go on, is more like it. And I apologize for keeping them up so late, but they were having so much fun—well, me, too, but that’s something else again—I didn’t have the heart to play mean old babysitter and make them go to bed. Especially since I doubted they would’ve gone to sleep on time, anyway. They missed you,” she said with a little smile. “And they were so worried about their grandma. And no way was I gonna let them sit in front of the TV all night, no, sir.”

  Dinner dishes scraped and rinsed, she pushed down the dishwasher door and pulled out the bottom rack. “So we made cookies—they’re on that dish over there if you want some—” she nodded toward a foil-covered plate at the end of the bar “—and read a bunch of books—I made Ollie read a couple to me, he sounds like he could use the practice—and then we played about a million games of Snakes and Ladders, and then we played Secret City.”

  “Which called for wholesale destruction of my living room.”

  She straightened, shoving a piece of hair off her forehead with her wrist. Even with her glasses, he could see the knot between her brows. “Kids learn by playing, Silas. By using their imaginations. Okay, so maybe we sorta went overboard—I’m sorry about your living room. But I put it all back together, didn’t I? And the boys had fun. Isn’t that kinda the whole point of being a kid?”

  Life’s not all about having fun, he wanted to say, except even he knew how stuffy and ridiculous it would have sounded. And of course he wanted the kids to have fun, but…

  But, what? Yeah, that’s right—no answer, huh?

  His dinner finished, Silas reached for the foil-covered plate. Catching a whiff of the peanut butter cookies lurking underneath, he smiled. Despite himself.

  “You might want to put peanut butter on your list,” Jewel said, her back to him as she continued cleaning. “I got carried away with that, too.”

  Silas bit into one, sighing at the taste of childhood, of innocence against his tongue, and felt like a heel. “Where’d you get the flour?”

  “One of your neighbors. Which reminds me, you owe Mrs. Maple two cups of flour. And an egg.”

  Silas hesitated, hoping she’d turn around. She didn’t. “These are delicious, too.”

  She shrugged. Silas sighed.

  “Jewel, it’s been a long day and I’m ready to drop, but that’s still no excuse for me acting like I did when I came home. Especially considering you basically saved my butt. You not only survived my kids for—” he squinted at the microwave clock “—nearly six hours, you obviously took excellent care of them. Not to mention going above and beyond with dinner and the cookies. So I apologize for acting like a bozo.”

  Finally she looked at him. “You didn’t—”

  “I did.”

  A smile teased her mouth. “Okay, maybe a little.”

  Silas smiled, then ground the heel of his hand into his slightly aching temple. “This single fatherhood business,” he said, dropping his hand, “it’s not for sissies. I remember what my brothers and I were like when we were kids and it gives me the willies, to think those two carry my genes.”

  “You mean you weren’t always this…this…”

  “Uptight?”

  She lifted her hands. Whatever.

  “No,” he said on a soft laugh. “But I’ve gotten so used to who I am now, I guess I’ve forgotten what it’s like to drape cloths over the dining room table and pretend it’s a fort. Used to make my mother batty. Especially the time we used her best lace tablecloth.”

  “I bet,” Jewel said, giving the now-bare kitchen table one final swipe. “Speaking of mothers…do the boys ever see theirs?”

  The unexpected question made his breath hitch in his chest. “She died in a car crash when the boys were very little,” he said quietly. “Not long after our divorce.”

  “Ohmigosh…” Spinning around, Jewel pressed her hand to her mouth, then lowered it. “How awful,” she whispered. “Do they even remember her?”

  “Ollie does, a little. At l
east he thinks he does. But Tad was still a baby.”

  “Oh. That accounts for…”

  Silas tensed. “For what?”

  “Why you’re so protective of them,” she said gently. “And no, that’s not a criticism, anybody in your position would be.” She leaned across the counter and touched his wrist, only to remove it almost before it registered. “You’re obviously a really good dad, Silas. But man—” her eyes twinkled “—you’d be a pain in the butt to live with. There,” she said, surveying the much cleaner kitchen, a big smile on her face. “All fixed. Although I have to say my own place—well, Eli’s, I suppose—never looks half this good. Suzy Homemaker, I’m not.”

  Somehow, he wasn’t surprised. “I never could understand how people could live in clutter. Noah and Eli shared a room when we were teenagers—I think my mother was ready to call the HazMat team at one point.”

  “Sounds like Noah and me would get along great, then,” she said, and he glared at her, which got another shrug. “Driving myself nuts trying to keep a place clean when it’ll only get messy again simply isn’t a big priority. And it’s not like I’ve got the kind of wardrobe that needs padded hangers. Or any hangers, for that matter. I’m not dirty,” she said to his appalled expression, “but I’m the only one living there. Nobody comes to visit much, so if the mess doesn’t bother me, who cares?”

  Silas’s eyes narrowed slightly. Did she even hear the loneliness weighing down her words? A loneliness he might not have even noticed if his own hadn’t been all up in his face that night, whispering insane ideas in his ear, like…like maybe they could use their respective loneliness to their mutual advantage—

  The idea caught him so short he actually had to grab the edge of the counter. Fortunately, Jewel had bopped back into the living room to continue straightening, so she missed it. Whew.

  Silas swiveled unsteadily on the stool to watch her righting pictures, putting lamps back, as it struck him how little he actually knew about her. Except for whatever floated in Tierra Rosa’s ether, like a free-for-all wireless signal. “You have any family nearby?”

  “My mother’s in Albuquerque, but we don’t see each other much. Haven’t seen my dad in years. Or my stepdads, for that matter.”

  “Stepdads?”

  “Dos,” she said holding up two fingers. “One’s in Denver, the other’s in Montana. Or Wyoming. I forget which. Both remarried. No, wait, the one in Denver is divorced again. I think. Can’t keep track, don’t really care.”

  Although she still periodically flashed smiles in his direction as she talked, her “chipper” was definitely fading fast. So when she bent over to gather the boys’ cars—affording Silas a nice, long look at a rather appealing backside, actually—he said, “Forget it, if the boys dragged all that stuff out here, they can clean it up tomorrow before school. Besides, you’re obviously exhausted.”

  She straightened, stretching out the muscles in her back. “And it won’t drive you insane in the meantime?”

  “Yes. But that’s my problem, not yours.”

  Laughing, Jewel dumped the cars she’d already picked up, a moment before headlight beams streaked through the frosted glass insets alongside the front door. She went to gather her jacket and purse—both somewhat long in the tooth, Silas noticed—and it occurred to him she probably wasn’t exactly raking it in, doing what she did. Not that he was, either, but the ends tended to overlap more than not. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket, digging out several bills.

  “Here,” he said, laying the cash on the counter. “This is for you.”

  She turned, frowning at the money as if it was foreign currency, before aiming the frown at Silas. “Excuse me?”

  “For watching the kids. Cooking my dinner.” When she stood there, gawking at him, he added, “If nothing else, consider it hazard pay.”

  Her face went bright red. “Ohmigosh! I was just helping out! Being a good neighbor! I c-can’t.”

  She said, eying the money like it was a candy bar and she’d given up chocolate for Lent.

  “And I’m sure you don’t want to make me feel bad, like I took advantage of you. Please, Jewel. Take the money.”

  Her gaze flicked from the money to him, then back to the money. “You sure? I mean…maybe we could come to some sort of other arrangement.” When his brows lifted, she said, “Like you helping me with my taxes or something.”

  Which, since he doubted she had pension plans and investments and the like to sort through, would probably take him ten minutes. Tops. He got up, scooped the bills off the counter and walked over to her, pressing the money into her palm, and her hand was warm and soft and strong all at once and he liked the feel of it in his way too much. Sad. “Doing your taxes is a given. Now get out of here before Patrice wakes the entire town with her horn honking.”

  For a long moment, their gazes tangled. Damned if he didn’t like that way too much, too. Which was even sadder. “You’re nuts, you know that?” she said with a little smile, stuffing the cash in her pocket. Then she yanked open his front door and fled.

  No kidding, he thought, locking the door behind her, closing his eyes for a moment to embrace the peace left in her wake before yielding to the temptation to eat another cookie.

  Or two.

  Why Jewel’d resisted letting Silas pay her, she had no idea. Wasn’t like she couldn’t use it. In fact, she could squeeze two weeks’ worth of groceries out of forty bucks. If she was careful. Especially since a lot of Patrice’s clients paid in produce and homemade canned goods, and Patrice shared.

  Although, she mused when her mentor dropped her off back at Eli’s after their appointment the next morning, and she picked up the mail and there was the utilities bill sneering at her, unfortunately the gas company wasn’t keen on being paid in put-by peaches, no matter how tasty they were. And she’d’ve still been okay if she hadn’t broken her tooth last month and had had to get it capped.

  She wasn’t a total lamebrain, she’d socked away as much of her nurse’s salary as she could, knowing she wouldn’t make squat while she was doing her midwife apprenticeship. She’d had a cushion. Only the cushion turned out to be a lot thinner than she’d thought.

  At least Eli was letting her stay rent-free in his house until he was ready to sell it. Otherwise she honestly didn’t know what she’d do, she thought as she dug her checkbook out of her vintage Coach bag—a thrift shop score from five years ago—and flipped open the register. But alas, the Money Fairy hadn’t made a stealth deposit in the middle of the night.

  Shutting her eyes against the bright fall sun, Jewel stuffed the checkbook back in her purse, so distracted and disgusted and discombobulated she didn’t even notice Noah standing on her roof until he called her name. She looked up, shielding her eyes, deciding she’d really be in a bad mood if the sight of all those muscles in a black T-shirt wasn’t cheering her up. “Thought you said you’d send somebody over?”

  “Lost the coin toss. So where’s this leak again?”

  “Right in the middle of the living room. And it only happens when the rain comes from the south.”

  Noah vanished and Jewel went inside, moping, listening to Noah’s work boots stomp-stomp-stomping overhead. Then back. Then the sound of the metal extension ladder creaking as he climbed back down. A minute later, he knocked at the open door. Sitting at the small dining table in the kitchen, her head in her hands, Jewel looked up from the electric bill and its cousins, trying not to feel like a Grade A loser.

  “Found the problem,” Noah said. “It’s not supposed to rain for the rest of the week, so I’ll get back to patch it up in the next day or so. Although…” He dug his fingers into the back of his neck, shaking his head. “Problem?”

  “Yeah. Every time I come over to fix something, I find another issue.” He crossed his arms. “I doubt even Eli realizes how much work the place needs. If he wants to sell it for more than two bucks, at least.”

  Jewel frowned. “I’m not in any danger of the roof caving
in while I sleep or anything, am I?”

  “You might want to make sure your bed’s under the support beam…just kidding,” he said as she sagged back in the chair. “Um…you okay?”

  This said in the manner of someone facing a potential bomb. Jewel almost smiled. “Other than feeling like this house? I’m fine.” She wriggled her mouth back and forth a moment, then said, “Y’all wouldn’t need some secretarial work done or anything, would you?” At his silence, she looked over. “What?”

  “Jewel? I don’t want to be mean or anything…but you really need to give this up.”

  “Give what up?”

  “You’re sweet and all, but I’m not…interested.”

  A laugh popped out of her mouth, only to almost immediately turn to tears. Much to her profound annoyance.

  “Ah, hell, honey…I tried to let you down as easy as I knew how—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Noah,” she said, grabbing a napkin off the table and honking into it, “I got that message loud and clear some time ago, okay? I’m not asking if you’ve got work to get closer to you, I’m asking because I’m broke.”

  Cautiously, Noah came farther into the house. “Really?”

  “God’s honest truth,” she said on a harsh breath that released a flood of words. “The thing is, it’s not like I didn’t know going in how tight things were gonna be for a while until I got my license. And even then delivering babies is never gonna make me rich. And basically I’m okay with that—as long as there are thrift shops and beans and corn-bread, I’m good. Only I didn’t count on breaking a tooth on a piece of hard candy, and the dentist is threatening to send the bill to collections even though I’m paying him what I can, and if I don’t find a way to make some extra cash I might have to give up on being a midwife altogether. Bad enough my mother thinks it’s a cockamamie idea. Oh, Noah—I can’t fail, I just can’t!”

  She blew her nose again, then took off her glasses to wipe the lenses. “Sorry. Sometimes my emotions kinda get the best of me. What?” she said when Noah kept looking at her funny.