Adding Up to Marriage

by Karen Templeton

  Slipping into his jacket, Silas affectionately wondered, as he had many times before, how the multi-pierced, living graffiti display in front him had come from the same gene pool he did. But after a rocky few months a couple of years ago—during which Jesse had gotten his high school girlfriend pregnant, run off, returned and married her—the kid certainly appeared to have gotten his bald head on straight. He and Rach seemed to be doing okay, for one thing, and Jesse adored his baby girl. He’d also appointed himself the family’s marketing director, and was apparently doing a bang-up job of it. Even their dad had to admit that if it hadn’t been for Jesse’s putting the business on the Web, the recession might have clobbered them a lot more than it had.

  Silas smiled. “Couldn’t hurt, I suppose. But ask the others, see what they think.”

  Nodding, Jesse hunched forward, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “So how’s Jewel working out with the kids?”

  Depends on who you ask, Silas thought, suddenly weary. And mildly anxious. Because if it was one thing he’d learned over the past week, when it came to Jewel, expecting the unexpected was the norm.

  For her. Not him.

  Whether it was having to peel sticky construction paper bits off the dog’s feet—from a collage session with the boys that had reduced his kitchen to Lower Manhattan after the Yankees won the World Series—or hearing her shriek “Don’t eat that!” a moment before the green “Jell-O” reached his mouth, or getting out of his car the precise moment a water balloon exploded in his face to say his nice, orderly world had been shattered would be a gross understatement. However.

  The boys were totally in love with her, for one thing. They were also both out like lights by 8:00 p.m. No hundred and one “I’m thirsties” or “I gotta pees” or not-so-stealthy belly crawls down the hall an hour after Silas thought/hoped/prayed they were asleep.

  “Actually, it’s working out okay,” he said, even if he’d yet to sort out the weird combination of dread and anticipation that heralded his return home every evening.

  “Cool,” Jesse said, nodding. “So what’s she gonna use the wood for?”

  Silas froze. “Wood?”

  “Yeah.” More clicking, the intricate Native design on his brother’s forearm gyrating in sync. “She came in earlier, asked Noah if we had any scraps.”

  Tap, tap, clickity-clickclickclick.

  “And did he give them to her?”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. Loaded a whole bunch in his truck and took it over there.”

  “When was this?”

  “Dunno.” Clickity clickity click. “A couple hours ago?”

  Thinking This can’t be good, Silas strode to his own vehicle, shaving a good two minutes off his previous shop-to-house record. The wwwheeerrrrr of a power saw, the whack…whack…whackwhackwhack of a hammer, his boys’ war cries, reached from behind his house to slap him the moment he got out of his car.

  He would’ve gone through the side yard but for the UPS package by his front door; grumbling, he snatched it up and went inside, tossing it on the coffee table as he passed hand-troweled plaster walls graffitied with taped-on leaves and the aforementioned construction paper projects. With great effort, Doughboy lifted his massive head from his customary nap spot in a pool of sunshine by the patio door. Duuuude, make it stooooooop…

  “If only I could, boy,” Silas muttered, yanking back the door to find his brother—shirtless, even though it stopped being warm ten degrees ago—sawing planks on a makeshift sawhorse while up in the tree Jewel was happily hammering away, singing at the top of her lungs.

  “Hey, bro,” Noah yelled over, shoving his safety glasses up on his sweaty forehead, a look only he could pull off and look good. Correction: Only he, Eli and Jesse could pull off and look good. “Whaddya think so far?”

  “Of…?” Silas asked. Even though the hammering in the tree kinda gave him his first clue.

  At that, Jewel popped up like the little Disney critter she was, all smiles and exuberant waves. From six feet over the ground. The hard, rocky ground that could easily break small limbs.

  From the back of the yard the boys raced over, those small limbs churning and flapping like mad. “Uncle Noah an’ Jewel are building us a tree house!” they both yelled at once, and Silas equally apportioned his glare between his brother and his new nanny.

  “Boys, why don’t you go inside and get Popsicles?”

  “But we just had a snack,” Tad said, even as, with a stage-whispered “Ssh!” Ollie yanked his baby brother across the yard and into the house.

  Silence descended. As did Jewel, down the sturdy new ladder nailed into the mulberry’s trunk. Thumbs hooked into her jeans’ pockets underneath a neon pink hoodie, she walked over to Silas, Noah promptly joining her. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Pleased?” he practically bellowed. “A tree house? For cripes’ sake, Tad’s only four—”

  “But you said yourself—” ignore the tears, ignore the tears “—how great the mulberry was for a tree house!”

  “When on earth did I say that?”

  “The first day I sat for the kids! Remember? I mentioned how the tree was perfect, with those nice low branches, and you agreed!”

  “I was making idle conversation, for crying out loud! Not putting in an order!” To avoid the imminent waterworks, Silas turned on Noah. “And how in the hell did you get dragged into this?”

  “She asked me to help?” his brother said. “And what’s with the wadded boxers, anyway? We had a tree house—”

  “And both you and Eli broke your arms falling out of it!”

  Scratching his head, Noah gave a sheepish grin. “We didn’t so much fall as we sorta jumped. Although say one word to Dad and you’re dead meat—”

  “Not making me feel better.”

  “Bro. We were in middle school. And there were no safety rails. Not that that would’ve stopped us, probably—”

  “I’m sorry,” Jewel said in a small, defeated voice. “I thought…” She walked over to the picnic table and sank onto the bench, rubbing her arm. “I thought I was doing a good thing. Honestly. Especially when Noah got right on board—”

  “There was your first mistake,” Silas muttered.

  “Hey!” Noah said, and Jewel almost smiled. Then she sighed.

  “The boys are going to climb the tree, anyway, you know. At least now they’ll have a good, solid way to get up there. And a safe, secure place to be once up. See?” she said, pointing. “Safety rails.”

  “And we could put barbed wire around the top so they couldn’t climb over,” Noah said, backing up and laughing, his hands raised, at Silas’s incredulous expression. “Just kidding, geez! Lighten up, man.”

  Lighten up? As if. However…air rushed from his lungs. The tree’s very existence was an invitation to climb it. As well Silas knew, having climbed every vertical surface in the county when he was a boy. Not letting the guys have a tree house wasn’t going to forestall the inevitable, Silas’s druthers be damned.

  The boys barreled back outside, wielding their frozen treats like swords as their high-pitched yells once more filled the air.

  His heart.

  “Is it finished yet?” Ollie screeched, bouncing around like a water drop on a hot griddle.

  “Actually, honey…” Jewel started as Noah shot a hard look in Silas’s direction.

  “Actually, they were waiting for me to help,” Silas said, rolling up his sleeves, and he thought Jewel’s eyebrows were going to fly off her head.

  Even though the temperature rapidly dipped once the sun set, it took more than a little nip in the air, Jewel discovered, to dissuade a Garrett brother from grilling outside. Odd, how barely two hours earlier she’d thought the brothers would come to blows—at least verbal ones—and now here they were, trading good-natured barbs as Silas grilled hamburgers and Noah gave him endless grief about his skills. Or lack thereof.

  Then again, two hours ago she’d thought sure she was about to get canned. If not kicked o
ut of the state.

  Weird dude, that Silas.

  Wrapped in a throw from the sofa with both boys huddled in their jackets next to her at the picnic table, Jewel watched Weird Dude, the softly flickering light from the grill caressing his sculpted features and making her tummy flop around like a fish out of water.

  “Come and get it,” he yelled, and the boys scrambled off the bench and over to their daddy. Naturally, they begged to eat up in their brand-new tree house, never mind that they had no idea how they’d get their food up there. Leave it to Uncle Noah, natch, to come up with A Plan; a minute later there was nothing but the sound of giggles and scuffling…and the occasional deep chuckle from their uncle.

  Chuckling himself, Silas brought two plates over to the table, setting one in front of Jewel. “Cold?” he said in acknowledgment of her Indian Maiden getup.

  “Freezing. You think we could move this inside? Noah’s with them,” she said when he glanced up at the tree. “They’re perfectly safe.”

  “Like you said,” he said with a half smile. “They’re with Noah. Tell you what—how ’bout I start a fire in the pit on the other side of the patio? Will that do?”

  When she nodded, he picked up both plates and headed across the yard, leaving her to shuffle along behind like a burrito with feet. A little later, seated on a cushioned patio chair and her limbs thawed, she finally found the guts to say what she hadn’t before.

  “I’m sorry. I really should have asked first. About the tree house.”

  Stretched out in a redwood chair a few feet away, Silas glanced over, took another bite of his burger. “Why? When you assumed you already had a go-ahead?”

  She exhaled. “I might’ve…stretched that part a bit.”

  “Ya think?” At least she heard a smile in his voice. “Jewel,” he said when she started to speak again, “I’m over it. Obviously. But, yes, you should have asked.” His eyes grazed hers. “Don’t assume. Please. Drives me bananas.”

  “Obviously,” she echoed. “I won’t do it again, I promise. Not consciously, anyway.”

  He laughed, the sound not as deep as his brother’s but richer, somehow. More…sincere, she thought. Then he got up to stir the piñon logs in the pit, making sparks fly. From across the yard, the boys’ laughter exploded from the tree the same way. Like sparks. Crouching in front of the pit, his back partially to her, Silas looked over for a moment then back at the fire.

  “The sad thing is,” he said, fiddling with the poker, “I probably would’ve built them the damn tree house myself. Eventually.”

  “Despite your mortal fear of broken limbs?”

  Another soft laugh preceded, “Apart from locking the kids in a padded room for the rest of their lives, there’s no way to prevent their getting hurt from time to time. Which I know,” he sighed out, then stood, facing her. “It wasn’t about keeping them safe as much as it was about keeping me safe. Or at least, me keeping control. You yanked the rug out from under me, Jewel, and I didn’t take it well.”

  “I—I know. And I’m sorry—”

  “Not your problem. And I mean that.”

  “Oh.” She bit off another chunk of her burger, although her insides were shaking so much—and not only from the cold, despite the fire—she doubted she could get it down.

  “So,” he said, sitting again. “You find someplace to stay yet?”

  He would bring that up. “’Fraid not.”

  “When you’re ready to move in then, let me know.”

  Jewel stared at his profile for what seemed like forever before saying, very quietly, “You sure?”

  “Not a bit.”

  She understood completely.

  He could deal with the videos, as long as she didn’t leave them out where the kids could load them and subsequently scar themselves for life. He could deal with the working model of a woman’s innards, as long as she kept it in the closet in “her” room—again, due to the potential-scarring-for-life thing. Hell, he could even deal with the three boxes of stuffed toys which she’d insisted she couldn’t leave behind in case, apparently, a typhoon struck while the roof was off and they got wet. Which, yes, required a Herculean effort on his part to swallow back a comment about grown women hauling around their Beanie Baby collection.

  The books, however, nearly killed him. Literally.

  “What the hell are these printed on?” Silas panted out, lugging in the deceptively small box. “Lead?”

  “Wuss,” Jewel said cheerfully, surveying the Beanie Baby-blitzed sofa. “And I saw that shudder.”

  “The boys don’t have that many stuffed toys,” he said, giving in to curiosity and prying out Varney’s Midwifery, which was only marginally smaller than the base of his platform bed. “You’ve actually read this? Ow!”

  She walked over to snatch the missile-ized puppy off the floor. “Open it.”

  He did. Highlighted passages everywhere. And scribbled, virtually illegible notes. “Huh.”

  “Yeah. Huh. I can’t take my licensing test until I’ve got more hands-on experience, but you better believe they will not be able to catch me on any of the technical stuff.”

  Silas watched as she rammed a drawer overflowing with her unmentionables back into the small, beat-up chest they’d hauled over from Eli’s house, still not fully at one with the idea of Jewel Jasper living in his house. She’d announced the morning after his offer that she was taking him up on it, right before she drove Ollie to school and without giving Silas a chance to back out. Which of course he wouldn’t have, since it did appear he was her only option. But knowing it was only temporary? Not all that comforting, actually.

  Hell, bad enough it took a good hour after she left the house for her scent to fade, for him to hug his boys and not smell her on their clothes. Now he was doomed to live in a Jewel-scented fog for a full week. Maybe two. As long as he was in the house, anyway.

  Not that he would be all that much, what with her—and her herd of toys—taking over his office. Except at night.

  Nights were going to be a problem—

  “I’m guessing we’ll have to share the bath?”

  —as were mornings. Although she probably didn’t have a whole lot of girl stuff to clutter the sink with. Didn’t seem the type, somehow.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Great!” She shoved Doughboy away from rooting around inside a tote bag large enough for Silas and his three brothers to sleep in, hefted it into her arms and lugged it out of the room.

  Because he could, Silas followed her down the hall, standing at the bathroom door as he watched her unload the contents of the bag onto the sink. And the back of the toilet. And the rack in the tub. Which had previously held a single bottle of Head & Shoulders.

  Yet another preconceived notion shot to hell. Although he now understood why she smelled so good.

  “That’s a lot of…stuff.”

  “Yeah, Mama feels duty bound to try every new product that comes on the market, only then she doesn’t like nine-tenths of what she buys so she passes it on to me.” She paused, carefully arranging a row of lotions on the back of the sink, then shrugged. “Every so often these random packages of jilted beauty aids arrive. Like Dillard’s in a box.”

  “But you couldn’t possibly use it all, either?”

  Bright smile. “You’d be surprised. Of course, not all at the same time. But some days you want to smell like flowers, others like spice. Or almonds. You know how it is.”

  “Um, no, actually.”

  “Oh. I guess not, huh?” She giggled.

  Gah.

  Then her hands landed on her hips as she surveyed the array. “It really is a bit much, isn’t it? You know what? Why don’t I just take this…and this…and these—” she grabbed the tote, then plucked and scooped and snatched about half the bottles and jars into it “—back to the room, it’s not like I need them all—”

  “No, no…it’s okay. You’re a…guest.”

  She turned, all big of eye behind her glasses.
“You’re sure? I mean, I don’t want you to feel like I’m taking over or anything—”

  “Jewel. It’s fine. Really.”

  A funny little smile flitted around her mouth before she ducked her head. “Well, okay,” she said, slowly emptying the bag again. “If you’re sure…” She held out one bottle. “Actually, you might like to try this yourself. It’s this unisex stuff that works really great on dry skin. Lord, last winter my skin got so bad I thought I was gonna wake up one morning to find I’d shed it, like a snake.”

  Silas had to chuckle. “I know what you mean.”

  “Seriously, right?” she said, then motioned for him to step aside so she could return to the office.

  Silas followed again, shoving his fingers in his pockets and leaning against the door jamb, watching her. Instead of, you know, going back to the living room or his room or the boys’ room or anywhere where she wasn’t. But no.

  He nodded at the tiny tube TV on the floor next to the pelvis.

  “I didn’t think you could even find TVs like that any more.”

  “You can’t. I’ve had this since I was six or something, my first stepfather gave it to me for my birthday. But, oh!” She turned. “Do you have satellite?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Oh, good. Since it won’t work without a dish or one of those converter boxes. Boy, are those things a pain.”

  “Jewel—we have a perfectly good flat screen in the living room which you’re free to watch whenever you want.”

  “Thank you, but it’s probably best if I stay in here, out of y’all’s way, as much as possible. I’ve got a lot of studying to do anyway, so…” She shoved her hair behind a very cute ear. With three earrings. “And also, I sometimes like to watch TV real late, when I come back from a delivery? To unwind? I’ll keep the sound down real low, I promise you’ll never hear it. In fact, I may even have some earplugs around here somewhere—”

  At this, she started riffling through an overflowing box she’d dumped on his desk. “Oh, good, here they are! Oh, no, those are to my MP3 player. Well, I’ll find them, I’m sure—”