Usually Mom would have given Dad a minatory look. She’d encouraged independence in their offspring more than he had. But now she trained a nearly identical gaze on Ethan. She, too, suspected he hadn’t been entirely honest about his reasons for being too busy for them.
“Uh...the swastika shit.” He flicked a glance at his mother. “Stuff.” Dad’s comments were few, but to the point. When Ethan felt the need to brainstorm, there was no one better.
“How are the knees?” he asked.
“My bionic knee is 100%.” As good a way as any of describing knee replacement. “Had a cortisone shot in the other right before I saw you last.” He didn’t like admitting he’d needed one. “They’re as good as they get.”
Maybe.
He looked down at his plate. Apparently he’d been eating without actually tasting his food. Too bad, since it had been a favorite of his. Mom made great pot roast.
Give it up, he decided. His parents knew him too well.
“I’m seeing someone, too,” he said abruptly, then winced. He really hadn’t meant to start this.
“No one you want us to meet?”
“We aren’t quite at that point.” He hesitated. “Her name’s Laura Vennetti. I knew her husband on the job.” He looked at his father. “You might remember. He left his service weapon out where his five-year-old son could get it.”
“And the boy shot and killed another kid,” his father said slowly.
Ethan nodded. “Matt Vennetti killed himself a couple of months later. We weren’t close enough friends for me to follow up with his widow. Turns out, nobody did. She’s been on her own. Really on her own. Matt’s family turned their backs on him and Laura and the boy, too. It’s actually Jake I encountered.” He told them about the gun show and his unease about a boy who clearly hadn’t dealt with his complicated feelings about the tragedy.
“Did you know this Laura back then?” his mother asked.
He shook his head. “First time I remember seeing her was the funeral.”
“So you’re dating now?”
“Kind of.” He grimaced. “It’s a little tough, with her a single mother. I don’t think Jake knows yet that his mother and I have...uh, started something. I’m still spending as much time as I can with him.”
His mother raised her eyebrows. “Be careful not to keep him in the dark too long. Especially if he’s already volatile.”
“You’re right. Laura and I are taking it slowly, that’s all. She’s come as a surprise to me.”
“Because you thought you’d vaccinated yourself against getting serious,” his father said sardonically.
Ethan grinned. “Something like that.” Sobering, he said, “You know Toomey is on wife number three now?” Chad Toomey was a fellow detective. “Cochran and his second wife just separated.” He listed four more cops with whom he worked closely. None had been able to manage a lasting marriage. And that didn’t include the others who let the job get to them to the point where they developed drinking or anger management problems that would put the finis on marriages. “The chances are grim. You know that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to lay myself out for that again.”
“Despite the fact that your own parents succeeded.” His mother sounded sad.
He met her eyes. “Sometimes exceptions prove the rule.”
“I didn’t raise you to be a cynic,” she said firmly.
His dad grinned.
“Tell us about her,” his mom invited.
Between bites, he did. When the pot roast was gone, apple pie appeared in front of him. Thinking how good it was, he had a minor revelation. “She’s a good cook, too.”
His father laughed. “That was one of my requirements.”
Mom whacked his shoulder without looking away from her son. “You’re both sexist pigs. Ethan is every bit as good a cook as Carla is. I made sure of that.”
So, okay. He could cook; he just didn’t, except on an occasional day off.
He shouldn’t have relaxed too soon. Joe Winter’s gaze speared him. “Would you have been interested in this woman if you hadn’t met her the way you did?”
He stiffened. “What’s that mean?”
“If she didn’t have problems? If she didn’t make you feel needed?”
Initially irked, Ethan made himself give the question some real thought. Dad was sharp. When he raised a point, Ethan made a practice of thinking it through.
Finally he said wryly, “You’ve got me there. But not for the reasons you’re thinking.”
Dad had leaned back in his chair, coffee cup in hand, and waited patiently. Mom had begun clearing the table, but stayed within earshot.
“What am I thinking?” Dad asked.
“That I have a white knight complex.”
“Actually,” his father said mildly, “what I was thinking is that you would have shied right away from a woman who was obvious marriage material if you’d seen that as an honorable alternative.”
Ethan gave a half laugh. Damn, Dad was good.
“Part right, mostly not,” he said. “If I’d met Laura some other way, I’d have asked her out without hesitation. In fact, I hesitated because of the past. Because she’d been the wife of a fellow cop. Because she needed my help with her troubled kid and I didn’t like the idea she might say yes to keep me around.”
His father nodded acknowledgment.
“Because she has a real problem with guns and anyone who carries one,” Ethan said more slowly.
The lines on his father’s forehead deepened a little. He knew what had gone wrong in his son’s first marriage.
“The problem with guns, I can see,” he said after a minute.
“Ya think?” Ethan grimaced. “I don’t wear it in her house, but that would have to change if we got to a living-together stage.”
“She must know that.”
“I suspect I’m way ahead of her in my thinking. She’s pretty focused on Jake. She’s scared for him.”
“Is she right to be?”
“I wish I knew.” Yes, Jake was angry, and obsessed with guns. But, from what Laura said, he was also a good student, and had had plenty of friends until the crap Uncle Tino had instigated went down at school. The friends seemed to be drifting back. Ron had appeared to be an upstanding kid to Ethan. Ethan’s instincts said Jake had things to work through but was basically a polite, good boy who loved his mother and enjoyed sports. “She’s putting him back in counseling.”
Mom had quietly resumed her seat to listen. Dad nodded.
“So can Laura take being married to a cop?” he asked, blunt as always.
“She’s been through it once. She didn’t walk out on Matt.” Not even when the worst happened. “Yeah,” he heard himself say. “I told her about Erin. She said the lousy hours are part of the job, and the job is part of the man. She topped that with saying, either you love someone, or you don’t.”
The creases in his father’s forehead smoothed. He lifted his cup in a salute. “Bring her to meet us.”
“Glad I have your approval,” Ethan said, not coming off as sardonic as he’d intended. He was close to his parents, the past month notwithstanding. Even to his sister, although with her finishing law school in Seattle and starting a family, too, they often had to resort to phone calls one or the other made out of the blue. His parents had wanted to love Erin, but he’d always known they felt some reservations.
My family would be good for Laura and Jake both, he thought.
Gettin’ ahead of yourself again, buddy.
He liked the view ahead, though.
“Can I help clean the kitchen?” he asked his mother, who gave a delicate snort.
“Don’t be silly. You think I didn’t notice the bags under your eyes? Shoo,” she said, flapping her hands. “You might even want to think about going home and getting a good night’s sleep.”
Laughing, he pushed back from the table, circled it and kissed her cheek. Her arms came around him in a hard, compulsive hug. “Love you, Mom,” he mu
rmured.
“Of course you do.” She let him go, smiling.
Dad walked Ethan out, but didn’t say a lot more. A back slap took the place of the hug, and “Thanks, Dad” replaced “I love you” but the actual meaning was understood by both parties.
Ethan felt pretty damn good about life as he drove home.
* * *
ETHAN STAYED ALMOST all day Sunday. Jake responded to his presence the way a flowering annual did to a dose of fertilizer and a stretch of sunny weather. Whatever had made him grumpy seemed to be forgotten.
Because a bunch of the guys from school had said they were going to be playing on the outdoor school court, after lunch Ethan and Jake decided to go down there, too. Although she’d have loved to watch, Laura cheerfully waved goodbye, changed into her grungiest clothes and took advantage of semi-decent weather to paint the back porch boards. As such jobs went, it was fun. She had to be careful where the porch met the house, but otherwise she could just slap the paint on. It went fast enough, and she was almost done when she heard their voices in the kitchen. As the slider opened, she turned in alarm.
“Don’t come outside!”
With his broad shoulders, Ethan filled the opening. “Wouldn’t think of it.” His smile was slow and sexy. “You might put me to work.”
Laura made a face at him. “Hard to do when you managed to go out the door right when I would have recruited you.”
The smile widened. “Yeah, don’t know how that happened.”
Jake peered past him. “Awesome, Mom. Except I see a spot you missed.” Scanning, he pointed out two or three more.
“Oh, gee. Thanks. I did plan a second coat. I’m going to do it first thing in the morning. I can afford to take a few hours of personal time.”
“You still have to do the railing, too,” her son reminded her.
“I’m well aware. It’s going to be a different color.”
“Oh. Cool. Like to match the trim around the windows?”
She smiled at him. “Exactly. Did you two have fun?”
They had. They waited until she finished and circled the house to come in through the garage, having put the lid on her paint can and wrapped her brush in a plastic bag. Then they told her with great enthusiasm about this pickup game they’d played, which was awesome—a current favorite word when Jake was high about something—because a couple of high school guys had come by, and when they saw Ethan they wanted to play, too.
Ethan’s enthusiasm, Laura saw, was tempered by amusement he gave away with crinkles beside his eyes. Fortunately, there was no sign Jake had noticed.
Since Laura had made lunch, he wanted to take them out to dinner. She went off to shower, returning to find the TV on and the two of them seemingly absorbed in a Mariner baseball game. What she ought to do was leave them to it and go pay bills, but she had this greedy desire to spend as much time as she could with Ethan.
Ethan and Jake were seated at opposite ends of the sofa. Seeing her, he shifted to the middle cushion and patted the one beside him. She settled down with a sigh, keeping her gaze on the TV but oblivious to what was happening. All her awareness was focused on Ethan. She’d have given almost anything to be able to snuggle against his side and feel his arm come around her. For him to kiss her.
He was so big, so male. With an apologetic glance at her, he stacked his enormous feet on her coffee table, an act that Jake immediately copied. The well-worn denim of Ethan’s jeans didn’t disguise the powerful muscles in those long legs. Below the short sleeves of his faded Portland State T-shirt, his forearms were tanned, strong and dusted with dark hairs. She fixed on his hands, both splayed on his thighs. As she watched, the one closest to her curled into a fist and, when she turned her head, it was to find him watching her. His eyes were knowing and heated with the glow that was becoming familiar to her.
Very casually, still holding her gaze, he lifted his left arm and laid it along the back of the sofa behind her shoulders. “Hope I’m not too ripe,” he said, in a rueful undertone.
She’d reached the pathetic stage where she loved the smell of his sweat. It aroused her. Feeling his warmth so close aroused her. Looking at his big long-fingered hands—one now dangling so close it was almost touching her—aroused her.
When his fingers lightly brushed her upper arm, she jerked, and then saw the corner of his mouth curl.
“What?” Gaping at the TV, Jake half rose to his feet, then sank back down. “That’s such crap. He was safe!” He turned to Ethan. “You saw it.”
Laura certainly hadn’t, even if she was ostensibly watching.
“Looked safe to me, too,” Ethan agreed, then flicked a half grin at her that told her, no, he hadn’t been paying any more attention than she had.
Blocked from her son’s sight by Ethan’s big body, his fingers started playing with her. Sliding up beneath the cap sleeve of her knit shirt to stroke her collarbone. Squeezing her upper arm. Skating along the sensitive skin of her neck, making her shiver.
He twined a lock of hair around one finger, tugging gently, then smoothed it behind her ear, after which he traced the outline of her ear. She couldn’t do anything but sit there, frozen, hoping she was hiding the tiny shivers, that her bra was doing its job and her nipples weren’t too obviously poking out.
To all appearances, Jake missed the byplay, enjoying the game, coaxing Ethan into talking about players and the Mariners’—probably nonexistent—chances of making the play-offs.
Just before the game ended, Ethan very casually removed his arm, using the chance to trail his fingertips across the back of her neck, then leaned forward and reached for the remote on the coffee table.
“How’s pizza sound?” he asked. “I made reservations at Apizza Scholls, just in case.”
Jake cheered. Laura was so turned on by that time food was the last thing on her mind, but said, “We love it.”
“I figure I can kick your butt at some video games,” Ethan told Jake as he rose to his feet and stretched, his hands touching the ceiling. Laura got an up close and personal view of his partial erection, nicely cupped by denim.
She stood and brushed that erection with her hip not-quite-accidentally as she said, “Let me grab my purse. Who’s driving?”
His expression was pained but amused, too. “Me.”
“Control freak.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed, straight-faced.
If Matt had had his way, she’d have never gotten behind the wheel of a car. When they went somewhere together or as a family, she’d had zero chance of driving. So, okay, Ethan did have something in common with Matt besides the job. Which, come to think of it, shouldn’t come as a surprise. Cops might come in a variety of configurations, but “laid-back” probably wasn’t one of them.
And...Ethan had an innate sense of confidence that contrasted with what she had eventually realized was a smidgeon of swagger in her husband that hid some insecurities. She blamed Mama Vennetti for those. She’d had a gift for tiny pinpricks that smarted. Laura would put Ethan, however, up against Mama any day.
She joined in the video games at Apizza Scholls, enjoying the experience of trouncing Jake, who was stunned, and Ethan, who flexed his fingers and said with determination, “Rematch.” The humor in his eyes told her she’d been right about his ego, though; it could stand up to losing to a woman.
When he beat her the second time they played, she just smiled and said, “Had to let you win to regain your sense of masculine prowess.”
Jake hooted.
They all agreed on a plain pie with ricotta, garlic and fresh basil added. Ethan ordered a second one. “It’ll give me dinner for a couple of nights.”
“But...aren’t you having dinner with us Tuesday?” Jake sounded momentarily bewildered.
Ethan’s eyes, heavy-lidded, met Laura’s. “I haven’t been invited yet.”
She smiled at him. “Consider yourself invited.”
“And I accept,” he said in a low, husky voice.
“Wow,
it’s the last class,” Jake exclaimed, apparently unaware of anything going on beneath the surface.
Thank goodness, Laura thought. What was she doing, flirting in front of her eleven-year-old son?
Having more fun than she’d had in years?
Well, yeah.
Ethan declined to come in when he pulled into their driveway. Jake had ridden in front with Ethan on the way to the restaurant; on the way home, Laura had claimed the front seat. Now, impatient that she didn’t move fast enough, Jake reached over her shoulder and snatched the keys out of her hand. Apparently there was something he wanted to watch on TV, and she wasn’t about to object although she did call after him, “Did you finish your homework?”
“Duh,” he said over his shoulder, and then raced away.
Neither adult moved until he disappeared inside. Then Ethan groaned and reached for her. “I had a lot of fun today, but, damn, I want to be alone with you.”
“Ditto.” She pressed an openmouthed kiss to his throat.
That spurred him to grip the back of her head, tilting it up so he could devour her mouth. Nope, this was not a laid-back man, not right now anyway. He wanted her, and if they hadn’t been sitting in the driveway not far from a streetlight, if her son hadn’t been liable to pop out of the house to find out why Mom hadn’t followed him, if the steering wheel didn’t keep Ethan from dragging her onto his lap, she thought things might have gotten really serious. His tongue wasn’t playing, it was thrusting in a mimicry of what he really wanted to be doing to her, and the hand that wasn’t positioning her to suit him was kneading her breast. That hand felt so good, she arched to push herself at him, which had him growling—she thought—and finally wrenching his mouth from hers.
Panting, he rested his forehead against hers. “We can’t do this,” he said hoarsely.
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