by Tina Leonard
“What are you doing?”
He pulled her tire swing back as far as he could. “Hang on, beautiful. I’m about to share my secret of serenity with you.”
He let go of the tire, and Sugar swung over the creek.
“Let go!” he called to her.
“No! Jake!” Sugar let out an impressive squeal.
He laughed and jumped on the other tire swing, running as fast as he could to guide the tire into a long loop over the creek. He released himself at the apex, falling into the cool, cleansing water.
A moment later, Sugar fell beside him, making an ungraceful splash and surprising him. “You did it!”
She came up for air, pushing water at him. “I had no choice. It was let go and cool off, or stay sweaty and hot.”
He grinned. “I thought you might see it my way. Now you feel the peace, don’t you?”
She nodded, pushing her red hair out of her eyes. “This is beautiful, Jake.”
“Yeah. It is.” He floated on his back, staring up at the tree canopy overhead. Sugar pushed him under, and he grabbed her ankle as she tried to escape her misdeed. “Oh no, you don’t. You play, you pay.”
Sugar laughed. “That sounds like something one of your guy friends would say. Larry, Curly or Moe.”
Jake pulled her to him, giving her a slight dunk just for fun, mainly to hear her squeal, with which she obliged him. She shocked him by coming up for air and launching herself at his back, sinking him.
Okay, he’d forgotten she’d spent time in the military. She could take care of herself.
“Hey,” he said, holding her against him as tight as he could so she couldn’t attack him again, “I think you lost your top, doll.”
She looked down, and he dunked her. This time Sugar jerked his shorts half off his butt, and he figured as badly as he wanted to reciprocate, it would not win him any prizes with Sugar.
Instead, he tugged her to him, kissing her the way he’d been dying to do for weeks—ever since she’d shown up at his house, sassing him and daring him to call bullshit on her attitude. He couldn’t get enough of her mouth—God, she was sweet—and when she wrapped her long legs around his waist, Jake was pretty sure he’d died and gone to hell.
Because that was where men like him went when they had bad intentions. “God, you’re fine,” he said, and she kissed him till he was breathless and she was gasping with heat. God, he wanted her right here and now, in his hidden sanctuary, but it wasn’t time. He couldn’t throw himself on the fire of his horniness, because she was the kind of girl who had to be romanced and respected.
He was going to be walking with three legs for the next week.
“Jake,” she said, and he heard the desire in her voice, and it killed him to kiss her one last time, then push her back under the water.
She shot out of the water as soon as he moved his hand, launching herself at his head, taking him down under the water, which was where he needed to be, cooling off and trying not to drown.
He took her in his arms and carried her to the bank, kissing her on the forehead, the nose, the lips, and then the crest of her breasts peeking above the white eyelet blouse that was plastered against her skin.
“I don’t feel as serene as I normally do,” he told her. “It’s usually more quiet and subdued here.”
She smiled at him, her hair a tangled red mop. “I’m going to bring Lucy and Maggie here one day.”
“Think you can get Maggie to go off the tire?”
“I do,” Sugar said. “She’d love it.”
He set her on the wooden bench and adjusted his shorts, trying to get comfortable, which was hard, because wood and cool water and sticking shorts were not a comfortable combination for a man who had the problem he had. “And Lucy?”
“Lucy could go either way. She’ll either love swinging, or she’ll think it’s dumb.”
He grinned and settled her into his lap. Sugar laid her head against his shoulder, and he stared up at the canopy.
This was peace.
It wouldn’t last long—but it felt great while it did.
Peace did not last forever, which Jake had always known. PC wasn’t a place where currents of calm and serenity remained for long.
“I need a place to stay permanently,” Kel announced when Jake opened his own front door.
Jake had just dropped Sugar off not twenty minutes ago; he was still wearing a goofy smile from being with her. “Kel, dude, you’ve got to fix the problem with Debbie. You love her; you love your kids.”
Kel nodded. He’d sunk himself onto the leather sofa in Jake’s den, depressed. Seven bags of potato chips lay in empty desolation around him; an assortment of beer and soda cans littered the Kel landscape. “I do love Debbie. I just can’t please Debbie.” Kel sighed. “It’s a terrible thing when a man’s peck—”
“Kel,” Jake interrupted, “you can’t stay here.”
“I know. That’s what I said. I need a place to stay.”
Jake sighed. He was still damp, desperately wanted to change his clothes, felt his good mood from being with Sugar slipping away. All he wanted to do was replay his afternoon with Sugar and bask in the glow she gave him.
But he couldn’t desert his buddy in his time of need.
Jake sat on the sofa and looked at Kel. “What do you need me to do?”
Kel shook his head. “I need a place. Someplace where I can have my kids on whatever time the judge allots me once we go through the custodial phase.”
Jake blinked. “Is Debbie keeping the kids from you?”
“Well, she’s not exactly giving me fifty percent of their waking hours.”
He sounded miserable. “No dice on the counseling?”
“I mentioned it to Debbie again. She said to help myself.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded. “That’s what you have to do. Start counseling. It’ll look good to the judge.”
Kel’s eyes bugged. “How will that help my marriage?”
Jake didn’t know. He could barely help himself. “It may not. Maybe nothing ever will, Kel,” he said honestly. “But it may help you get your kids more than every other weekend if the judge thinks you’re trying to be reasonable and become a better man and father.”
“Am I a bad father? A bad man?” Kel asked, his voice breaking.
“Shit, Kel, you’re fine to me. But I don’t know what you’re like inside your own home. God knows we all came home with bugs from the wars, man.”
“I don’t have bugs,” Kel said. “I never touched another—”
“Tics. Mental bugs. PTSD.”
“Oh.” Kel shrugged. “I don’t know if I’ve got those, but if my dick doesn’t work, maybe I do. They say that part of the body is controlled by the mind. Although I don’t understand why Debbie’s stuff seems to work fine and mine’s weak as a day-old Slurpee.”
“God,” Jake groaned. “Pay attention here, Kel. Go to the doc; get a referral. Or talk to someone who likes their shrink. Or marriage counselor. Hell, I don’t know. Just do it, and maybe Debbie’ll think you’re trying to get whatever’s bugging you straightened out.”
“I don’t know.” Kel shook his head. “I think she’s dating someone. I heard she is.”
Jake’s blood chilled. This could be bad. He felt the glow of the afternoon with Sugar slipping away irreparably. “Who?”
Kel hunched down in further misery. “I was hoping you could find out. Then I realized it didn’t matter. It’s just going to cut my heart out.”
Jake sighed. “Look. We’ll find you a place to live.”
“Someplace I can live on what Bait and Burgers brings in for me.”
“Yeah.” That wasn’t going to be much. Bait and Burgers broke even and left some money for groceries, but it wasn’t enough to make two house payments on. “You can stay here until things clear up. Maybe Debbie’ll change her mind.”
“She won’t. The kids say she’ll never forgive me for getting horny for another woman.”
“There
is never going to be anything between you and Lucy,” Jake said. Probably there was never going to be anything between him and Sugar, either. But holding her in his arms and kissing her had made the craving that much stronger, that much hotter.
“Tell that to Debbie. As far as she’s concerned, Lucy and I are a hot item.”
“Why don’t you ask Lucy to tell Debbie that there’s nothing between the two of you? That she wouldn’t be caught dead in a bed with you?”
“Jeez. Have a heart.”
“That’s what Debbie needs to know. She needs to know that you’re a changed man, Kel,” Jake said reasonably.
“But I’m not. I still can’t get a hard—”
“Go see a doctor,” Jake snapped. “For God’s sake, did you ever stop to think that it might be you and not Debbie? Not Lucy?”
Kel’s jaw went slack. “Of course I thought that. Until I sat next to Lucy the other night, and the problem resolved itself. It was like hot steel ran through my pipes, and—”
“Kel, if you say one more word about your…problem, I will change my locks. I swear it.”
Kel nodded. “Sorry. It’s just on my mind.”
“No shit.” Jake sighed. “Did you ever romance Debbie?”
“No. We started having kids right off the bat. We got married because of the kids.” A sad smile turned up his lips. “I love my kids.”
“And you love your wife.” Jake sighed. “Look, give yourself a deadline. You’ve got to win your wife back by X deadline. And then focus, man.”
“Like when?”
There was a lot happening at Christmastime. The holidays could make or break a relationship. The Hot Nuts’ lease was up at Christmas.
Sugar might leave right after Christmas.
Jake had to change that. “Tell yourself that you’re going to be back in your house by Christmas. Then work toward that like you’ve never worked before.”
Kel looked at him. “You really don’t think I have a shot with Lucy, do you?”
“Kel,” Jake said, his voice slow and steady so his friend could understand, “you have no more shot with Lucy than I have of turning into a woman. You have no shot with Lucy at all. The end of the world will come before you ever see the inside of Lucy Cassavechia’s short skirts.”
Kel blinked. “That’s kind of harsh, J.T.”
It was, maybe, but it was the truth. “I’m going to shower.”
“Thanks for everything, Jake,” Kel said.
“Buck up. It’s going to be all right. You’ve fought tougher battles,” Jake said, lying, because all that mattered in life was a man’s family. He ought to know. His mother had never been the same after his father had left. He knew better than to cross Sugar’s live-wire fence since she’d recently signed divorce papers—she lived for Lucy and Maggie. He didn’t dare screw up with her.
It would be too late by Christmas, Kel’s deadline of winning Debbie back. Sugar might not sign an extension on the lease, and then she’d be gone, and he’d be alone here in PC again.
Without Sugar, the only woman who managed to make him laugh, make him horny as hell. Make him alive again.
He set himself a deadline of winning her heart.
Deadlines are good. Hell, it might even save me from PC.
It was ten o’clock the next morning—Sugar had slept in a bit and then made herself a leisurely breakfast, giving herself plenty of time to smile over yesterday afternoon’s fun with Jake—when it hit her that she hadn’t heard her mother or her sister moving around the house.
This was not good. Maggie was a morning person, and Lucy had gotten in the habit of getting up early and taking long walks that usually lasted until afternoon. Sugar didn’t know exactly where her sister went, but she seemed so much happier these days that Sugar didn’t pry.
But the fact that neither one of them had come down to hang out in the kitchen, their standard hangout, was curious. Sugar went up the stairs to look around.
She opened Maggie’s door quietly, in case her mother wasn’t feeling well. There were days in the past when the breast cancer had tired her out; the treatments had taken their toll. “Mom?” she said softly.
When there was no answer, she opened the drapes.
Maggie’s bed hadn’t been slept in, except by Paris, who thumped her golden tail at her languidly. “If you’re going to be the patsy, you’re supposed to hide under the covers and convince me you’re Maggie. Some patsy you are.”
Sugar went to look for Lucy. “Lucy?” she said, opening the door to the Belle Watling room.
Lucy’s bed hadn’t been slept in.
Only Sugar’s bed had been slept in. She wished she’d slept in Jake’s bed—then told herself that was a foolhardy thought.
She dialed Lucy’s cell. “Where are you?” she demanded when Lucy answered.
“Out walking. I think I’ll stop by the library,” Lucy said.
“What’s with all this newfound health consciousness?” Sugar asked her sister.
“I like it. I feel great,” Lucy said. “You should try getting some exercise, Sugar. It’s very liberating.”
Sugar thought she detected some laughter in her sister’s voice. “Maggie’s bed hasn’t been slept in.”
“What do you mean, her bed hasn’t been slept in?”
“Just what I said. She hasn’t been home.”
“Call Granddaddy Longlegs.”
Sugar sighed. “And say what? Bring Mom home, or we’ll ground you?”
Lucy was silent for a moment. “This is not good. He’s up to no good.”
“I doubt Lassiter is doing anything Maggie doesn’t want done.” Sugar was slightly uncomfortable with the fact that her mother had a boyfriend, a more serious relationship than she herself had, apparently. “I need to go.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing,” Sugar said, surprised. “There’s nothing to do. If she’s with Lassiter, good for her. I wasn’t thinking about Lassiter when I saw her bed was empty.”
“I don’t trust him,” Lucy said darkly.
“It doesn’t matter. Mom can decide for herself whether or not he can be trusted. Are you going to be home for dinner?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Probably not.”
“Okay. Good to know.” Sugar hung up, looking around the big kitchen and the cold stove where no nuts were being toasted to golden-brandy-colored goodness. This was not the way it was supposed to be. They were supposed to be getting closer as a family, sharing a journey together, a Hallmark card come to life.
Something they’d never had before.
It was beginning to feel more like a bad mission where things blew up unexpectedly, beyond repair. Sugar wanted to hold on to the dream.
She called Paris down from Maggie’s bed. “C’mon, girl. Let’s go pay a call on Jake.”
Kel Underwood came to sit with Sugar as she took a place on the outdoor patio. Paris made herself comfortable underneath a shady oak tree where Sugar could keep an eye on her. Sugar ordered a glass of tea and waited for Jake to make his way over to her.
“Hi,” Kel said.
“Hi, Kel,” Sugar said. “It’s busy in here today.”
“I know. That’s good.” He glanced around at the diners on the patio enjoying hamburgers and lemonade. “I’ve been hoping to talk to you, Sugar.”
“All right.” She smiled. “Go ahead.”
He glanced around her. “I’m getting a divorce.”
The smile slipped from Sugar’s face. “Kel, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. I am too.” He rubbed a hand at the back of his neck. “Debbie and I have been married a long time. We’ve got kids, you know. Bonds.”
Sugar smiled. “I know. I’ve heard you talk about your family.”
He nodded. “I think my wife has a new guy.”
“Are you sure?”
He shrugged. “Hard to keep anything quiet in Pecan Creek.”
She could believe that. “I hope things work out for you.”
/>
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jake studying them closely. He didn’t work his way over to the table, so she wondered if he’d known Kel wanted to talk to her about his problem.
“It’s because of Lucy.”
Sugar blinked. “Lucy, my sister?”
“Yeah. Debbie thinks I have a thing for Lucy.”
She swallowed. “Do you?”
“I mean, no different from any other guy in this town, maybe,” Kel said, clearly embarrassed. “She’s hot.”
“Yeah, but—” Sugar wasn’t certain what to say. Lucy had never mentioned Kel in a romantic way. She knew Lucy too well; she would never date a married man with children. “That’s the reason your wife wants a divorce?”
“Pretty much,” Kel said, “without going into more detail.”
“Oh.” Sugar stirred her tea. “I don’t know what to say, Kel.”
“Yeah, I know. Jake didn’t, either. Well, he said a lot, but he’s not a woman. He doesn’t know anything about getting a wife back.”
“I’m not a good person to talk to about that. I’m divorced myself.” And there was not one thing Ramon could have done to get me back.
Kel drummed the table. “I’d rather Lucy didn’t know. She may hear it from somebody eventually, and I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable around me.”
“I understand.” Sugar pondered Kel’s dilemma. She knew her sister too well, and if Debbie ever decided to take her grievance to Lucy, there could be a major bitch-slap involved. Lucy would not take kindly to anyone accusing her of luring their husband. “Maybe you need to tell Debbie that you do not and never did have a thing for Lucy.”
“She won’t believe me,” he said, miserable.
Sugar shook her head, disbelieving. Small-town life could be tangled. “I’m going to have to tell Lucy, Kel. It’s not fair for her not to know that your wife suspects her of ruining her marriage.”
“Okay.” He looked completely destroyed. “I’m sorry, Sugar. I’ve been having some problems, and—”
“It’s all right.” Sugar sighed. “There’s got to be a way to work this out. We all have to live in Pecan Creek together, so it would be good if everyone understood that nobody is having an affair around here.”