by Gina Wilkins
“You’re cold and wet,” she told them with a firm shake of her head. “You can play in the snow again later, but for now you need to go inside and get warm.”
They stopped on the back stoop to stomp and brush off as much snow as possible. Renae had left a stack of towels just inside the kitchen, and they all made use of them as they stripped out of wet outer gear. Lucy was nowhere in sight, though a big pot of homemade chicken noodle soup sat on the stove, the burner turned low to keep it warm, and a covered pan of corn bread was on the counter.
Making sure they were both dry, Renae sent the kids to wash up for lunch. “It’s almost an hour after they usually eat,” she confided to Evan when the kids ran from the room. “I’m sure they’ve worked up an appetite.”
Sniffing the air appreciatively, Evan nodded. “They aren’t the only ones.”
Renae chuckled. “If that’s a hint, it isn’t necessary. Of course you’re welcome to—”
He looked around at her when her voice trailed off. “What’s wrong?”
She was staring down at a sheet of paper in her hand, her expression a mixture of frustration and distress. She looked up at him with eyes suddenly luminous with tears. “Why does she have to be so damned dramatic about everything?”
It wasn’t necessary for her to identify the “she” in question. Evan sighed. “What does it say?”
“Lucy’s moving out,” she said dully. “She said she has come to the realization that her grief and fear of being alone has caused her to hold me back from having my own life.”
Her breath caught. “She hopes we’ll be very happy and that we’ll let her see the children sometimes,” she added irritably. “Can you believe that?”
Hearing the pain behind Renae’s aggravation, he came to a decision. “Where is she?”
Renae folded the note and stuffed it in a high cabinet, presumably to keep the children from finding it. Maybe so she wouldn’t have to see it again herself.
“She’s gone next door to our neighbors’ house. She said she’ll stay in their guest bedroom until she finds a place of her own.”
Evan reached for his coat.
Renae pushed a hand through her hat-mussed hair. “Where are you going?”
“To bring her home,” he said, shrugging into the still-cold garment.
“Evan, maybe you should—”
He was already headed for the door. “Save me some soup.”
His left hand in his pocket, he stood on the porch next door a few minutes later, pushing the doorbell. Snow had started to fall again, more lightly now but steadily. Children still played in yards up and down the street and a variety of snow people and animals were in various stages of construction. Evan ignored the cheery winter wonderland, focusing instead on the door in front of him.
A white-haired woman in a rather garishly colored sweater and red stretch pants opened the door to him. “Yes?”
“I’m Evan Daugherty. I’m here to see Lucy Sanchez.” He figured she’d heard his name before, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know in what context.
“I’m Maxine Whelan, Lucy’s friend.” The woman eyed him appraisingly through her glasses. “I don’t know if she’ll want to see you. She’s a bit upset.”
“Would you mind asking her?” He thought of adding that he was prepared to stand outside in the cold until Lucy agreed, but somehow that didn’t seem like a very effective threat. Lucy was just as likely to let him freeze.
Lucy appeared behind her hostess. “I’ll see him, Maxine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Might as well get it over with,” Lucy said grimly.
Maxine and her sister Daisy left Lucy and Evan alone in a doily-and-knickknack-cluttered living room. Lucy sat on the couch, leaving Evan to perch uncomfortably on an undersized chair.
“Why are you here, Evan?” she challenged.
He gave her the same answer he’d used with Renae. “I came to bring you home.”
“That isn’t my home. It’s Renae’s and her children’s. I’ve just been living there with them.”
Though there was a stubborn set to her expression, she was obviously threatened by the changes occurring in her family, uncertain of her place. He needed to convince her that while change was inevitable, it did not always lead to upheaval.
“As I understand it, you’ve been a major part of making a home for them. Renae says she wouldn’t have been able to get by if it hadn’t been for you.”
“I’ll still help her out when she needs me,” Lucy conceded. “But it’s time for me to find another place to live so Renae can have a life of her own.”
“You’ve decided this because of me,” he said bluntly.
She twisted her fingers in her plump lap. “Well, yes, mostly. Renae should feel free to bring her, um, friends to her home for dinner. She and the children enjoy spending time with you, and since you and I are uncomfortable together, that makes it difficult for them. And if you and she... If Renae decides she would like to remarry in the future, it’s obvious I would have to move out anyway. I might as well go ahead and do so now.”
“Okay, let’s address that latter part first. Why, exactly, would you have to move out if Renae remarries? She enjoys having you in her home...the kids benefit from living under the same roof with a loving extended family—why do you think anyone would want to change what is working so well?”
She shot him a narrowed, openly suspicious look. “You’re saying if you, for example, were to marry Renae, you’d want me to live in the same house with you?”
“I fully intend to marry Renae, though I haven’t asked her yet,” he answered evenly, surprisingly calm considering he had just made that decision. “And it never occurred to me that you weren’t a part of the package. You are her mother, in every way that counts. Her children’s grandmother. They adore you. Maybe we could find a slightly larger house, but I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t be welcome in Renae’s home. I’ve promised her I will never ask her to choose between us, and I’ll keep that promise.”
Lucy seemed struck by much of what he’d said, but one sentence apparently stuck out to her. “You want to marry her?”
Maybe he should have mentioned that little detail to Renae first, but he answered honestly, “Yes.”
“Do you understand what you’re getting into? Her children will always come first with her. You’ll be expected to be a—” she stumbled, but continued doggedly “—a father to them. Your presence will be expected at school programs, sports meets, dance and piano recitals. You’ll be there when they’re sick. There will be tantrums and emergencies and fights, first dates and traumatic breakups, the expense of braces and clothing and college. Are you prepared for that?”
He swallowed, understandably nervous at the litany of responsibilities he would be taking on. “As prepared as I can be.”
“You’ll never be prepared for growing to love them and then losing them,” she whispered. “Whether it’s because they grow up and move away or...or something else….”
“No,” he admitted, pushing a hand through his hair. “I can’t imagine being prepared for that.”
They both sighed.
“As for whether you and I can be comfortable together,” Evan continued, “that’s something we can work on for the sake of the family.”
She looked down at her hands, trying to hide the tears that had started to leak from her eyes.
This must be the day for opening old wounds, he figured. But maybe that was the only way they were ever going to heal.
“I know you blame me for Jason’s death, Mrs. Sanchez,” he said brusquely. “I could argue that he made his own decisions and that it was only fate that let me get through that intersection ahead of him. I could tell you that I loved my friend, and that I would have given anything to trade places with him that day. But none of that would bring him back.”
Still looking down, she sniffled and wiped at her face with one hand. His heart twisting in response to her misery, Evan
pulled out the handkerchief his Southern mother had trained him to carry. “It’s clean,” he said, offering it to her.
Without meeting his eyes, she accepted the handkerchief and dried her cheeks, though moisture continued to leak from the corners of her eyes. “Renae said that seeing you, for me, is a painful reminder that Jason is no longer here.”
“I’m sure she’s right.”
“Yes. But she doesn’t blame you. She said the only person we should blame is Sam Abbott.”
“No. She doesn’t blame me.” Not anymore, anyway. “But she wasn’t Jason’s mother,” he added gently. “I can’t fault you for having resentments against me, Mrs. Sanchez. I just hope we can find a way to make peace now.”
Lucy drew an unsteady breath. “I suppose we can try.”
It was a tenuous truce, at best, but he would take what he could get. “Then come home, will you? The kids want to show you their snowman before Boomer knocks it down, and I’ve got a bowl of pretty delicious-looking soup waiting for me. I’d like to eat it before it gets cold.”
At the mention of the word home, she rose, though she still looked at him with a measure of misgiving. He figured it would be a while before he proved that she could trust him. With her daughter-in-law, with her grandchildren—and with her own future security.
“If we’re going to live together eventually, I guess you might as well call me Lucy,” she told him rather grudgingly.
He chuckled wryly. “Thank you.”
They turned together toward the doorway only to find themselves face-to-face with Renae, watching them both with tear-filled eyes.
Lucy gave a little gasp of surprise. “Where are the children?”
Renae straightened and swiped quickly at her face with the back of one hand. “Maxine and Daisy are with them. They sent me here, in case either of you needed backup. But you both seem to have been holding your own.”
“How long have you been standing there?” Evan asked with a slight wince.
She met his eyes with a smile that made his heart pound. “Long enough to know to expect a proposal.”
“And do you have an answer ready?” he asked huskily.
Her smile turned to a shaky laugh. Though the answer was in her eyes, she shook her head. “You’ll have to ask me before you find out. And as much as I love my mother-in-law, I’d just as soon we do that in private.”
“I’ll get my coat,” Lucy said, moving toward Renae. She patted Renae’s arm on the way past, a gesture that looked to Evan like a mixture of affection and apology.
Evan moved toward Renae, sliding a hand down the arm of her coat. “You could have let me know you were there.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt. Besides, I owed you an eavesdropping.”
He had to acknowledge the truth of that. “Maybe we should agree that neither of us will eavesdrop on the other in the future.”
She nodded. “I can agree to that.”
With some satisfaction, he took that as another acknowledgment that there would be a future between them.
Cupping a hand behind her head, he kissed her lingeringly, not really caring if Lucy or Daisy or Maxine or the whole darned neighborhood saw them.
Finally breaking off the kiss, he smiled down at her. “Let’s go home.”
Entwining her fingers with his, she turned toward the door with him. “I like the sound of that.”
* * * * *
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Chapter One
So this was what all the secrecy, giggling and whispers had been about.
Micah Muldare sat on the sofa, looking at the gift his sons had quite literally surprised him with. A gift he wasn’t expecting, commemorating a day that he’d never thought applied to him. He’d just unwrapped the gift and it was now sitting on the coffee table, a source of mystification, at least for him.
His boys, four-year-old Greg and five-year-old Gary, sat—or more accurately perched—on either side of him like energized bookends, unable to remain still for more than several seconds at a time. Blond, blue-eyed and small boned, his sons looked like little carbon copies of each other.
They looked like Ella.
Micah shut the thought away. It had been two years, but his heart still wasn’t ready for that kind of comparison.
Maybe someday, just not yet.
“Do you like it, Daddy?” Gary, the more animated of the two, asked eagerly. The boy was fairly beaming as he put the question to him. His bright blue eyes took in every tiny movement.
Micah eyed at the mug on the coffee table. “I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” Micah told his son. “Actually, I wasn’t expecting anything at all today.”
It was Mother’s Day. Granted he’d been doing double duty for the past two years, being both mother and father to his two sons, but he hadn’t expected any sort of acknowledgment from the boys on Mother’s Day. On Father’s Day, yes, but definitely not on this holiday.
The mug had been wrapped in what seemed like an entire roll of wrapping paper. Gary had proclaimed proudly that he had done most of the wrapping.
“But I put the tape on,” Greg was quick to tell him.
Micah praised their teamwork.
The mug had World’s Greatest Mom written on it in pink-and-yellow ceramic flowers. Looking at it now, Micah could only grin and shake his head. Well, at least their hearts were in the right place.
“Um, I think you guys are a little confused about the concept,” he confided.
Gary’s face scrunched up in apparent confusion. “What’s a con-cept?”
“It’s an idea, a way of—”
Micah abruptly stopped himself. As a reliability engineer who worked in the top secret missile defense systems department of Donovan Defense, a large national company, he had a tendency to get rather involved in his explanations. Given his sons’ tender ages, he decided that a brief and simple explanation was the best way to go.
So he tried again. “It’s a way of understanding something. The point is, I’m very touched, guys, but you do understand that I’m not your mom, right? I’m your dad.” He looked from Gary to Greg to see if they had any lingering questions or doubts.
“We know that,” Gary told him as if he thought it was silly to ever confuse the two roles. “But sometimes you do mom things,” he reminded his father.
“Yeah, like make cookies when I’m sick,” Greg piped up.
Which was more often than he was happy about, Micah couldn’t help thinking. Greg, smaller for his age than even Gary, was his little survivor. Born prematurely, his younger son had had a number of complicating conditions that had him in and out of hospitals until he was almost two years old.
Because of all the different medications he’d been forced to take, the little boy’s immune system was somewhat compromised. As an unfortunate by-product of that, Greg was more prone to getting sick than his brother.
And eve
ry time he did get sick, Micah watched him carefully, afraid the boy would come down with another bout of pneumonia. The last time, a year and a half ago, Greg had almost died. The thought haunted him for months.
Clearing his throat, Micah squared his shoulders. His late mother, Diane, had taught him to accept all gifts gracefully.
“Well, then, thank you very much,” he told his sons with a wide smile that was instantly mirrored by each of the boys.
“Aunt Sheila helped us,” Gary told him, knowing that he couldn’t accept all of the credit for the gift.
“Yeah, she drove us to the store,” Greg chimed in. “But me and Gary picked it out. And we used our own money, too,” he added as a postscript.
“‘Gary and I,’” Micah automatically corrected Greg.
The little boy shook his head so hard, his straight blond hair appeared airborne for a moment, flying to and fro about his head.
“No, not you, Daddy, me,” Greg insisted. “Me and Gary.”
There was time enough to correct his grammar when he was a little older, Micah thought fondly.
Out loud he marveled, “Imagine that,” for his sons’ benefit. A touch of melancholy drifted over him. “You two are growing up way too fast,” he told them. “Before you know it, you’re going to be getting married and starting families of your own.”
“Married?” Greg echoed, frowning as deeply as if his father had just told him that he was having liver for dinner for the next year.
“To a girl?” Gary asked incredulously, very obviously horrified by the mere suggestion that he be forced to marry a female. Everyone knew girls were icky—except for Aunt Sheila, of course, but she didn’t count.
“That’s more or less what I had in mind, yes,” Micah told his sons, doing his very best not to laugh at their facial expressions.
Covering his face, Gary declared, “Yuck!” with a great deal of feeling.
“Yeah,” Greg cried, mimicking his brother, “double yuck!”
Micah slipped an arm around each little boy’s very slim shoulders and pulled them to him. He would miss this when the boys were older, miss these moments when his sons made him feel as if he was the center of their universe.