She repeated, so softly, “Fine with it?”
“Yeah,” he lied some more. Why not? In this one case, a lie was the wisest choice. The best choice. “Just fine.”
“We do need to get along.…” She kissed the sleeping baby, smoothed a hand down the fine, dark curls on Sera’s head. “And I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch the last few days.”
“It’s all right.”
She gave him a look from under her lashes. Humor glinted in those big eyes. “So I have been a bitch, then?”
He asked, still whispering, “Why do I have the feeling that no matter how I answer that one, I’m in trouble?”
“You’re not in trouble,” she said. “You’re doing great. I appreciate all the things you do…around the house, at the store, with Johnny and Sera. You make things better for all of us. You make a difficult time a little bit easier.”
A glow started in the center of him and grew until he felt the shining warmth all through him. He was a sad case, all right. A little praise from her and suddenly the world was all sunshine and rainbows.
She held out her hand. “Friends?”
He took it and studiously ignored the thrill that skittered along the surface of his skin, the kindled heat below his belt. “Friends. Yes, I would like that very much.”
“I’m telling you, Angie, he hasn’t got a clue.”
Angie leaned closer across table of their favorite booth. “Oh, please. You should see your face every time you say his name. He has to see it.”
“No, he doesn’t. He hasn’t. We’re…friends now. Saturday night, at Charlene and Brand’s, we came to an understanding. Since then, for the last four days, we’ve been getting along just great. We’re on good terms now.”
“Friends.” Angie put a totally sarcastic spin on the word.
“You can just wipe that smirk off your face, Angela Marie. He has no intention of putting a move on me. He told me so Saturday night.”
“Hah. And on top of the way that you look at him, there’s also the way that he looks at you.…”
“It wouldn’t be right.”
“Why wouldn’t it, exactly?”
“You know why. I’m a widow.”
“Yeah, so? Widows remarry. They do that a lot.”
“Marriage?” Glory gaped. “Who said a word about marriage?”
“Okay, forget marriage for now.”
“Forget marriage, period. What are you talking about? I’m not marrying Bowie. And this isn’t seven years ago. He no longer has any interest in marrying me.”
“You keep saying that, as if you’re going to convince yourself. You’ve always loved him and he’s always loved you.”
“I loved my husband.”
“I know you did.”
“You just said…”
“Glory, you loved Matteo and you were a good wife to him. That doesn’t mean you don’t love Bowie, too—but in a different way, a way that scares you, a way that broke your heart once. Now, well, Bowie’s a changed man. He’s a good man, and he’s made a go of his life after just about everyone was sure there was no hope for him. Everybody sees that. Everybody but you. If you gave him a chance now, things would be different.”
“Uh-uh, you’re so wrong.”
“You seriously don’t see how much Bowie has changed?”
“I see it, yes. And I’m happy for him—happy for my son, too. Johnny needs his father. But you can stop talking about second chances. What Bowie and I had, that’s all in the past.”
Angie didn’t say anything. She sipped her iced tea and let her disbelieving expression do the talking for her.
Glory sent a quick glance around the diner. They’d met for lunch later than usual that day and the place was pretty much cleared out, which was good. There was no one nearby to hear a word they said. Still, she leaned close to her sister again and pitched her voice too low for anyone else to have the slightest chance of hearing. “Matteo’s been gone only six and a half months.”
“I know. It’s sad that you lost him. That Johnny lost him. That Sera will never know him. But the point is, he’s gone. He’s not coming back. Wearing sackcloth and ashes your whole life isn’t going to prove a thing to anyone. Except that maybe you and Aunt Stella have more in common than you like to admit.”
Glory gasped. “I do not believe you just said that. I am nothing like Aunt Stella.”
“Well, Glory, who’ll tell you the truth, if not me? You are acting a little like Aunt Stella, seriously. All self-righteous and gloomy.”
Glory drew her shoulders back. “I am not self-righteous.”
“Before you know it, you’ll start carrying a rosary around with you, praying to the holy virgin under your breath everywhere you go.”
“Why, you…” Glory reached across the table and smacked her sister on the hand.
“Ouch!” Angie cried. And then she started laughing.
Angie’s laughter was contagious. Glory started laughing, too. They collapsed in a fit of giggles, right there in the booth.
Eventually, when they got control of themselves again, Glory leaned close and said very low, “I don’t know why we’re talking about this. Even if Bowie was maybe still interested—which he is not—I just had a baby, for cryin’ out loud. I can’t be doing anything like that for weeks yet. And you know what? I’m glad I can’t. I’m glad Bowie and I can just try and get along, just maybe learn how to be friends and not get into any of that stuff that got us in trouble in the first place.”
Angie made a knowing sound. “Those weeks you are talking about will be gone before you know it. They’re almost half over now.”
“They are not.”
“Yeah. Think about it. It was two weeks on Monday since Sera was born. And today is already Wednesday.”
Glory did not want to think about it. “I know what day it is. Sheesh, rub it in, will you?”
“I’m only saying time flies, you know? And when the usual six weeks are over, then what will you do?”
“Oh, come on, I’m not some barnyard animal. I’ll exercise a little self-control.”
“Hah.”
“And anyway, by then, Bowie will probably be gone back to Santa Cruz.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.…”
Glory looked at Angie sharply. “What are you saying? Things are going well with him and Johnny. He’s not staying here forever.”
Angie blinked and glanced away.
Glory got a sinking feeling. “Okay, what do you know? You’d better tell me.”
In the stroller beside the booth, Sera let out a squeak and then a tiny gurgle.
Angie asked, “You want me to take her?”
“Don’t change the subject. What do you know?”
“Oh, crap. Brett is going to be so pissed at me. He told me not to say anything. He told me to stay out of it, that it was Bowie’s place to tell you.”
“Angie, tell me what?”
Angie let her shoulders sag and blew out a guilty breath. “Yesterday, when Bowie and Brett and Brand went to lunch at the Nugget together?”
“Yeah? What?”
“Bowie asked them to keep an eye out for a place here in town, a couple of acres with a house on it and room to build a workshop and an office for a new branch of his carpentry business.”
Stunned and more than a little angry, Glory whispered, “He’s moving back to town permanently?”
“Yep, that’s about the size of it.”
It’s his choice if he wants to live here in town again, Glory said to herself several times that day.
Also, the more she thought it over, the better it sounded. It would be better for Johnny if Bowie returned to the Flat to stay. And better for her, too, becau
se she wouldn’t have to send her son away for him to spend time with his father. Better for Chastity, who seemed so happy to have her youngest son nearby again.
It was better in just about every way.
Except one.
If he stayed, temptation stayed with him.
Because he did tempt her. Without even trying to. He behaved in a completely respectful way with her. He never said anything that might lead her to believe that he remembered what they’d once shared. He never sent her a single intimate or smoldering look.
And still, every day, every hour, every minute she was near him the old, sweet memories came back all the more clearly.
The way she had chased him.
Oh, yes, she had. Just shamelessly chased him. Back then, he’d seemed determined not to take her up on what she was offering him. She used to find reasons to walk in front of him, just get her hips to swaying, to try and give him some kind of an idea of what she was offering.
And she never wasted a single chance to get him talking. She’d asked him the silliest questions. Did he prefer white bread or wheat? (Wheat.) Which of his mother’s famous muffin recipes was his favorite? (Pumpkin.) Did he like the Cranberries? (The what?) She’d ended up explaining to him that the Cranberries were her favorite group. She even burned him a CD of their best songs. He’d said he really liked them and he played the CD she’d made for him over and over again until she teased him that he would wear it out.
And why in heaven’s name was she thinking about all that?
Now, lately, with him around constantly, in and out of her house, the past seemed so much closer, so much more real to her. It felt almost as though it had all happened yesterday.
The last week or so, at night when she would lie in bed in the dark, with Sera quiet at last—the time she should have been sleeping—she would recall acutely the feel of his mouth over hers. A perfect fit. And the scent of him, like the pines and the wind in the springtime, all green and fresh with new life.
She would feel all over again the sense of hope and promise she’d known back then, to be in love with Bowie Bravo and have a whole life of loving him ahead of her. She’d had no idea then that her love wouldn’t be enough for him, that he had some big-time demons and those demons would win out over her love every single time. She’d been too young and foolish to see that when she needed him to be strong for her, he would be drunk and disorderly and unable to hold a job.
Yes, he was different now. Better. Calmer. So much stronger. Apparently, her fears about the money he’d been sending for Johnny were unfounded. Those big checks were not ill-gotten gains after all. He’d made a success of his carpentry work.
Glory was glad for him, glad for Johnny, too.
But for the two of them as a couple, it was too late. They’d had their chance and blown it.
Yes, she still wanted him. A lot.
But desire wasn’t enough. Not when the love was gone.
“You okay, Glory?” Bowie asked her during dinner.
She faked a bright smile. “I’m fine.”
“You seem kind of…I don’t know. Like there’s something weighing on your mind.”
It made a tender spot within her, that he noticed. That he cared enough to ask her if something was wrong. But she knew that she needed to just blow it off, let it go. The whole point, after all, was not to get too close to him, not to go confiding her feelings to him, which would only open the door on all the things she kept telling herself were not going to happen between them.
So she shrugged and ate another bite of Swiss steak and gave no reply. He left it at that.
But later, after Johnny returned from his nightly visit to the workshop, after she tucked him in bed and checked on Sera, when she went downstairs for a last cup of tea in her quiet kitchen, she heard the back door open. She sat so still, her hands wrapped around the comforting warmth of her favorite mug, her heart bouncing wildly under her breastbone.
His careful footsteps approached, coming toward her along the short hall that led past the laundry room and the downstairs bath. And then he was there. He paused in the doorway and then came forward, into the kitchen with her. She watched him come closer. He wore the same flannel shirt and faded jeans he’d been wearing earlier. She thought that he was probably the best-looking man she’d ever known, with those blue, blue eyes and that knife blade of a nose that was only a little bit crooked from being broken more than once. There was also that fine cleft in his chin that all the Bravo boys had. The broad shoulders, lean hips and powerful arms didn’t hurt any, either.
He pulled out the chair across from her and sat. “Got a minute?”
She raised her mug, took a slow sip. “Sure.” Her voice betrayed none of her inner turmoil. At least she could be grateful for that.
“Johnny’s hand seems pretty well healed.”
Brett had taken the stitches out the day before—and was that why he’d sought her out tonight? To talk about Johnny’s hand? “Yeah. Kids tend to heal up pretty quick.”
Bowie shifted in the chair, leaning back, sticking a hand in his pocket. He pulled something out, laid it on the table between them.
She smiled when she saw what it was. “Your old Swiss Army knife.” The red handle was worn from years of use, the white-cross logo rubbed away to not much more than a pale shadow against the red.
“My uncle Clovis gave it to me…”
“For Christmas, the year you were seven,” she finished for him around the sudden thickness in her throat.
His eyes held hers. “You remember.” She said nothing. It seemed wiser not to speak. Clovis was Chastity’s brother. He was also Brand’s mostly retired partner in Cook and Bravo, Attorneys at Law. Their office was across from the courthouse, on the same street as the clinic. “Uncle Clovis never taught me how to use it, though.” He turned his hands over, stared at his long, scarred fingers, his calloused palms. “Cut the hell out of myself more than once, learning how. I always wished I had a dad, you know? A real dad who lived with us and taught me things like how to use a pocketknife.”
She got his drift then. “You want to give that knife to Johnny.”
“I do.” Suddenly, he was so very formal-sounding. “And to teach him how to use it. With your permission.”
“He’s only six.”
“Seven in May.”
She couldn’t help it. She chuckled. “You sound like him. ‘I’m six and a half, Mom.’” She imitated Johnny’s insistent tone.
“Well, he is. And I notice he does fine with a steak knife. Plus, I don’t think it’s a good idea to protect kids from everything that might possibly hurt them. A kid needs a chance to work with tools, to learn to master them.”
It just so happened she agreed with him. “You’ll teach him to use it and drive him to the clinic the next time he cuts himself bad enough to need stitches?”
A slow smile curved the mouth that had once fit against hers so perfectly. “My plan is for there not to be a next time.”
“Bowie, you’re a parent now. You need to get used to the concept that there is always a next time. Sometimes I think kids were put on this earth to mess with each and every one of our well-thought-out plans.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“You get what?”
“Yeah, I’ll take him to the clinic if he needs stitches again.”
“All right, then. We have a deal.”
“And I want to teach him to whittle, too—not with a pocketknife. For whittling, he’ll use a fixed blade.”
“Oh, I can’t wait.”
“A little heavy on the irony, aren’t you, Glory?”
“Just take your time about it, please. Teach him right.”
“I will, I promise you. I’m also thinking he should have a dog.”
He scratched his sculpted cheek. “Angie?”
“This is how it works. You tell your brother, he tells his wife, and there’s a very good chance that my sister is going to tell me.”
He folded his hands on the tabletop and stared at them for a moment or two. “I guess I should have figured that.”
“Guess you should have.”
“I did plan to tell you.”
“When?”
“Tonight, right now—given that I managed to work up the nerve.”
She looked into her mug and thought about getting up and brewing a second cup. But in the end, she pushed the mug away and stayed in her seat.
He spoke again, softly. “I was kind of scared that you would be mad about my moving back here.”
She tipped her head to the side and studied his face. He looked hopeful, she thought. That maybe this time she wouldn’t jump all over him? Probably. “I was a little angry at first. But then I thought it over. It’s best for Johnny if you move back to town.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” He pushed back his chair.
She knew he was leaving and she hated how much she wished that he wouldn’t. But then he only went to the counter, got down a glass, filled it with water from the tap and came back to settle into the chair across from her again.
He drank half the water, set it down on the tabletop, turned the glass in a slow circle. “I was surprised when I heard that you’d come back to town.”
“You mean five years ago?”
“Yeah. First I got the news that you’d taken Johnny and moved to New York City to work for B.J. as a nanny.” B.J. was his brother Buck’s wife. “I heard you were taking online classes, too, to get a college degree.”
“Who did you hear all that from?”
33 The Return of Bowie Bravo Page 11