“If she understands that you returned to make up for that, to be a grandfather to her children, and the father she missed so much, she’ll come around.” Now he thought about the hardheaded, single-minded, demanding woman he knew, and prayed that the softhearted angel he sometimes saw in her would hold sway and understand her father’s regret.
“So...you know her pretty well?” Harry’s question had a new depth. “You...love her?”
Hunter shook his head and bit back a laugh. “Our relationship is complicated.”
“Loretta’s mentioned a little about it.” Harry leaned forward, arms stretched out on the table. “And about you. She told me before I even met you that you’ve been good for Sandy, that she’s been happier since you’ve been part of her life. Until lately. Your debts have become an issue, haven’t they? What if I gave you a small loan to get you out of debt so you two can...?”
Hunter pushed away from the table and stood. “Thanks, Harry. That’s very kind of you when you don’t really know me, and I appreciate the generosity with which you’ve made the offer, but I have to do this my way.”
Harry stood and offered his hand. “Well, it’s gratifying to learn you’re as stubborn as she is. Give her a run for her money.”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure she’ll find a way to blame me for this.”
“She doesn’t have to know that you know. And...” he turned to Loretta for confirmation “...we’re going to tell her right away.”
Loretta agreed.
“I’m glad. Well, I’d better go. And—off the subject—we have that nonprofits list firmed up.”
“Perfect. I’m eager to spread my good fortune around. Sure you don’t want just a little?” he asked as he opened the door for Hunter.
“Thanks, but I’m fine. You can give that much more to the Women’s Resource Center. Where’s your Lexus? I didn’t see it in the driveway.”
“In the garage. I didn’t want Sandy to notice a strange car in her mother’s driveway on the chance she drove by.”
“Right. Good luck.”
“Thanks. To you, too.”
Hunter drove back to the office, parked on the side street, and sat there in the silence, thinking through his visit with Sandy’s parents.
So much for Loretta having a mysterious affair or a dangerous abductor. Either of those possibilities would have been simpler to deal with than the return of the man who’d abandoned his family all those years ago but now seemed determined to right his wrong.
Hunter called his mother.
“What do you mean you can’t tell me what she told you?” she demanded. “You can’t keep an affair a secret forever. Did you see him?”
“All I can say is that it isn’t what you thought it was at all. And it’ll be explained soon. Until then, please don’t say anything to Sandy about having seen her mother out and about when she’s supposed to be sick.”
“Because she isn’t, is she?”
“No. I can assure you that Loretta is fine and you don’t have to worry.”
“But, Hunter. You can’t even give me a clue about what’s going on?”
“No. It’s none of our business, Mom. So please honor that. She’s fine.”
“And you’re sure we shouldn’t tell Sandy?”
“I’m positive. Sandy’s up to her eyeballs right now. Just be quiet about it. Like I said, it’ll all be revealed soon.”
“Okay. Revealed.” She repeated his word, savoring it. “So it is a mystery?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, you’d think the woman who discovered it should be let in on it.”
“Mom...”
“All right, all right. Will someone call me when it’s all revealed?”
“I’ll let you know myself.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Of course you will.”
“Okay, Mom. Love you. I’m going back to the office.”
* * *
SANDY TOOK THE GIRLS along on the trip to the yarn shop meeting in Warrenton. It was a way to keep her promise to Hunter without risking another moment like the one she’d experienced in the middle of her cart when she’d forgotten that he didn’t want her and remembered only how much she’d once wanted him.
She was over that now, of course, but her brain seemed to operate in some kind of loop that always brought her thoughts and her needs back to Hunter.
Zoey and Addie were thrilled to be in his company, and he accepted their presence with a grace she’d always appreciated in him. He welcomed them warmly, helped her put their seats in the back of his car, and popped in the Lion King CD he still kept in the console. The music kept the girls happy on the fifteen-minute drive.
He seemed softer, sweeter tonight, not his usually quick-tongued, witty self, eager to plant himself in the path of whatever suggestion she tried to make or point she tried to prove. His gaze turned on her several times during the drive with a compassion he didn’t always display. Was he finally beginning to see her point of view?
* * *
THE LADIES GOT TOGETHER in the basement of a church that smelled of incense and freshly baked goods. A lace-covered table on one side of the room was laden with several cakes, different kinds of cookies, a fragrant banana bread, a hot pot filled with coffee and a teakettle on a hot plate.
By the time they had been there five minutes Zoey had a cookie in each hand, and Addie had found a toy box in an adjoining room sometimes used for childcare. She had placed a rag doll upside down in the back of a large yellow plastic dump truck she rolled across the tile floor on her hands and knees.
Sandy caught Hunter’s eye as the dump truck collided with his ankle. He laughed. In conversation with two white-haired ladies, he swooped down to gather Addie up in his arms. Had Sandy done that, Addie would have kicked in protest, but the little girl settled comfortably against him.
Sandy ran quickly to rescue the toys but was intercepted by a large woman with a long gray braid, who introduced herself as Stella’s partner in Toads and Frogs, Glenda Barrows. She put an arm around a pretty teenager beside her with buzz-cut blond hair, jeans with holes in the knee and a red sweater off one shoulder.
“Sandy, this is Belinda, my granddaughter. Blin, this is Sandy Evans, a friend of Hunter’s, who is the son of my partner, Stella Bristol.”
The girl smiled and offered her hand. “Blin can keep an eye on the girls for you while we have our meeting,” Glenda said. “She does this for me during my evening classes. Helps her with her Family Dynamics class.”
“If you really don’t mind watching the girls, I’m sure it’ll make the meeting a lot easier for everyone.”
“I don’t mind.” Belinda went to collect Addie from Hunter, then held a hand out to Zoey, who put one cookie in her mouth so she could take the offered hand. They disappeared into the room with the toys. Hunter followed with the dump truck and the doll doing yoga.
“We’re so happy to have Hunter and Sandy with us,” Glenda said a few minutes later when they’d begun the meeting. She spoke to thirty or so women, who’d pulled folding chairs into a circle. They made up Glenda’s four needlework classes. “They’re chairing the Clothes Closet project that we donated many of our class projects to. They’ve come to say thank you.”
Glenda held a hand out to Hunter. He rose, looking uncomfortable, and smiled around the circle with a kind of shyness Sandy had never seen in him. Charmed, the ladies melted with affection.
“I can’t tell you,” he said with a sincerity that captured everyone’s attention, even Sandy’s, “how grateful we are to have such a strong and beautiful start to our collection of warm clothing. The hardest part has been resisting the impulse to take that beautiful blanket with the colorful squares for myself.”
A small, plump older woman with knitting needles stu
ck into a white bun at the back of her head blushed while everyone around her patted her on the shoulders.
“Was that your work?” Hunter asked with respect in his voice.
The woman’s blush deepened as she nodded.
“Well, it’s wonderful. Thank you for donating that to us when there must have been other, more...profitable things you could have done with it.”
She offered a shy “You’re welcome.”
He went on to mention that he was leaving tax deductible receipts that they could fill out themselves according to the IRS accepted remuneration schedule, which he’d brought along because he was an accountant and accountants had to think about those things. The ladies giggled. “Thank you from all those in need in the county and from the hearts of all of us working to ease their way.”
Sandy wondered why on earth he’d thought he needed her. The entire gathering was totally impressed and probably already planning to contribute more.
Hunter turned to Sandy. “This is Sandy Evans, who works on almost every fund-raising effort in Clatsop County. You saw that she’s a busy mom and runs Crazy for Coffee, the best coffee cart in three states, but she finds opportunities to give her time and effort anyway. Sandy?”
She got to her feet, smiling and wondering what on earth she could say. She couldn’t improve upon Hunter’s thanks, but she could certainly heap on more gratitude.
She told them how much everyone appreciated the effort and expertise that went into their donations and that everyone was humbled by their generosity. “You sent so many beautiful things. I’d like to invite all of you to come to the opening of our refitted Food Bank and Clothes Closet on the twenty-sixth of July. We’ll be sending out formal invitations, but we’d love it particularly if you could come. Thanks so much.”
The ladies applauded and Hunter nodded his approval. Then Glenda handed him a check. “This is from all our customers and all of us. Even in charitable work, a lot has to be paid for, so hopefully, this will help.”
The ladies swooned a little when Hunter hugged Glenda.
After they’d socialized and sampled the treats, Sandy and Hunter received hugs and good wishes for the Clothes Closet project and promises to come for the opening.
The two of them and the girls finally left with a foil-wrapped plate filled with goodies and a smaller one specifically for Stella. Sandy left payment for Belinda that Glenda tried to refuse. Sandy insisted she keep it.
“Belinda is nice!” Zoey said on a yawn as they drove home. “We can call her Blin, but we can’t call her Belly.”
Sandy could see that. She grinned at Hunter as they crossed the Youngs Bay Bridge to Astoria, the pink sunset yielding to darkening skies. A ship coming in over the bar had its lights on and looked majestic as it made its steady progress toward Astoria. “When I was a kid,” she said, “they used to call me Creepy Connolly.”
He glanced at her in surprise then turned back to the road. “No. I don’t believe that.”
“Yes. Well, I had this horrible hair. Or sometimes it was Red Rover.”
“I get the red because of your hair, but Rover?”
She laughed lightly. “Really? You don’t get the obvious rover/dog implication?”
“Oh,” he said, realizing he’d misinterpreted the term. “Frankly, my brain went to the Mars Rover rather than a dog’s name, so I didn’t get the connection. And I still don’t. I can’t imagine you weren’t beautiful even then.”
He spoke so sincerely, that she felt a sudden tenderness toward him.
“Well, I had a lot of attitude in those days. My father had left, my mom was in denial, or in hiding, or in some sort of escape fantasy of her own, and I was trying to be the adult and hold things together. I wasn’t always very nice to the kids who had normal families and grumbled about their petty problems. Hair that wouldn’t curl right, or a measly two-pound weight gain. I’ve been fighting an extra fifteen pounds since I became a teenager.”
* * *
HUNTER HADN’T KNOWN that about her. He was aware of a little discord between her and her mother, but there was some between his mother and his sister also. He thought what they all experienced was a natural mother-daughter antagonism. As far as the fifteen pounds she worried about, they seemed to him elegantly distributed.
He focused on the traffic roundabout on the Astoria side of the bridge. He knew it well, but some other driver was always getting confused about which turn to make and ending up in oncoming traffic.
“I’m sorry,” he said, glancing in his rearview mirror. Both girls were sound asleep. “That must have been difficult for you. I mean, I knew your father left, but I didn’t realize you had to step up for your mother.”
“She came around pretty quickly.” Sandy sat forward and sighed. “And she’s been so much help to me since I bought the coffee cart.”
Right. He was reminded of his visit to her mother because of his own mother’s fears, and hadn’t detected any suggestion in Sandy that she thought her mother might not really be sick.
“How is she?” he pumped gently.
“I call her every day. She doesn’t want me to go see her or take her anything because she’s afraid the girls or I will get sick, too. She says she’s feeling better and might be well by Monday.”
“That’s good.”
She pointed out the window as they passed Crazy for Coffee. “There’s the cart.” It was dark except for the neon closed sign and a light over the door at the top of the portable stairs.
“I’m considering stringing lights to outline it,” she said, looking over her shoulder as they drove on. “What do you think?”
“Who’s going to do it for you?”
“I can do it. Bobbie’s going to help me.”
“Do you have a ladder that tall?”
He could sense her instinctive impatience. “Hunter, you changed the lightbulb in my garage using my ladder. That ceiling is no taller than my cart. You always manufacture problems.”
“I don’t manufacture them, but figuring out where problems could appear when you attack a project is only good sense. So, now we know you’re prepared.”
“I already knew I was prepared. You just presume I’m reckless and will forget things.”
“Not at all. I was merely trying to help.”
She sighed heavily. “I don’t want to fight. It’s been a lovely evening.”
“You don’t want to fight? Maybe I should rush you to urgent care.”
* * *
SHE BACKHANDED HIM in the gut. Oddly, it was a pleasurable experience. He laughed and caught her hand. “Just teasing. And slugging the driver while the vehicle is in motion is not a great idea. I think it’s even illegal.”
“Then pull over so I can do it without breaking the law.”
He surprised himself by easing into a McDonald’s parking lot. The front of the lot near the restaurant was parked up, but this end was empty, except for two motorcycles in the slot next to them. He switched off the motor, undid his seat belt and reached down to free hers.
He had no idea what he was doing. He wanted this—he didn’t want this. He might not understand himself, but he was clear about one thing: he wanted Sandy, hardheadedness and all. He didn’t care about the confusion he felt. He didn’t have to comprehend what was going on between them, he just had to have some...contact.
He faced her, the girls still fast asleep in the back.
“Yeah?” he challenged. “So, we’re stopped. What was it you wanted to do to me that might get you arrested?”
Her eyes shone in the shadowy interior of the car, wariness visible in them. She was as surprised as he was that he was acting on her playful remark.
“I’ll have to keep that to myself,” she said softly. “We’ve finally found a way to be in the same town and not kill each other...�
��
“That’s not entirely accurate. You just punched me in the gut.”
“You as much as called me argumentative. You had it coming.”
“I think,” he replied, the air around them alive with their unresolved issues, which didn’t seem to matter right now, “that you just wanted an excuse to touch me.”
Something changed in her eyes. The wariness vanished and a sudden bright resolve replaced it. “What if I did? Could you handle more of it?”
“Try it and let’s see.”
It took her forever to make the move. He’d even begun to think she’d changed her mind, when finally she lifted her hand to his face.
He steeled himself against reacting, as he remembered how her hardheaded determination to have things her way had eroded happy memories of all the times they’d been casually affectionate in the months they’d spent together.
Yet tonight, he was seeing another side to her. Even that resolve in her eyes seemed not about control. Her thumb ran lightly over his jaw, his chin. Then her index finger explored his bottom lip. The air left his lungs in a rush. She leaned forward to plant a kiss there. Her lips were a millimeter from his, his parted and waiting for her—
“Mommy!” Addie stirred fussily.
Sandy started and put a hand back between the seats to her daughter. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’re almost home.”
Her mouth was still just a hairsbreadth from his.
He closed the tiny distance and kissed her soundly, one hand cupping the back of her head to keep her near, the other hand entangled in her silky hair. Her lips were cool and pliant. She moved her hands to his shoulders and held on, as though she needed support. He kissed her again, taking his time, feeling a lively passion in her response.
When she drew back, a small smile played on her lips.
Now Zoey was awake and noticing the McDonald’s sign. “I want a strawberry sundae!” she said, her voice clear despite her having just awoken.
Love Me Forever Page 11