Adding Up to Marriage (14 page)

She lowered the paper towel, gawking. “What makes you think there's more?”

“Call it a hunch, okay?” he said, figuring a little irritation in his voice might get the point across, that he cared.

And no, he had no idea where, if anywhere, he was going with that. The future would take care of itself, as the future had been doing forever. But right now the only thing that mattered was that Jewel Jasper knew he gave a damn about her.

That
somebody
did.

“But Mrs. M—”

“Is fine. The boys are fine. You're not. So you may as well start talking because I'm not going anywhere.”

 

Her heart knocking against her ribs, Jewel did the rabbit-in-the-hunter's-sights thing with Silas, having no earthly idea what the heck had just happened.

Until she came to her senses and realized,
Oh, right—that would be pity, got it,
except then Silas's eyes went all squinchy and suspicious behind his glasses as if he was reading her mind and didn't like what he saw, so she amended
pity
to
compassion,
which was only a higher-falutin way of saying
feeling sorry for.

Which obviously accounted for all that huggy stuff on his sofa.

Not to mention the kiss on her head.

Then she did a whole-body shiver which served to shake loose any inclination to read anything else into the hugs and the kiss, as Silas said, “So how did Keith find Aaron, anyway?”

Deep breath time. Letting him think she was slightly spacey was one thing, coming across as a complete wimp something else entirely.

“Apparently through that GPS thing on Aaron's phone. So he really had known where he was all the time.” Spying the still-cooling chocolate chip cookies she and the boys had baked earlier, she grabbed a spatula, slid a half dozen onto a plate and set it in front of Silas before taking one herself. “He said he'd half thought of ‘letting the boy rot'—his words—then changed his mind. What makes me sick, though, is that he obviously hadn't come because he was worried about Aaron, he was just mad. Mad that Aaron
had pulled one over on him, mad that
he'd
look like a loser who couldn't control his own son. Then…”

Shaking her head, she lowered the nibbled cookie to the bare counter, then dusted off her hands.

“Finish, Jewel. And I don't mean the cookie.”

Her breath felt like it was scraping her lungs. “When Aaron came in to get his things, Keith did, too. Only as far as the entryway, but when he saw me…he said some pretty nasty things.”

“Nasty…how?”

Jewel had already learned, the softer Silas's voice, the tighter rein he was trying to keep on his temper. And this was as soft as she'd ever heard it.

“For one thing, that I'd ‘stolen' Aaron from him when Keith and my mother were married, and that damned if he was gonna let it happen again. Then he said…” Her eyes filled; she refused to let them spill over. “That we can't talk to each other anymore.”

Her brows flew up when Silas let out a laugh. “And exactly how does Keith think he's going to enforce that? Unless he somehow makes sure the kid never has access to a phone or computer ever again—”

“Silas, you don't understand…” Jewel swallowed down the bile trying to rise in her throat. “Keith accused me of…of having an inappropriate relationship with his son.”

Never in her life had she seen a man look more shocked. And then, more furious. “When you were
children?
”

“Yeah.”

“Because, what? He'd crawl into bed with you when he was scared? That's demented, Jewel. That he would even think that, I mean. You…” He gave his head a hard shake like he was trying to dislodge the words from his skull, before meeting her gaze again. “It's a damn good thing I wasn't here, or I would've knocked the creep clear into next
week. You would
never
hurt a child! Or anybody else, for that matter.”

Jewel felt something inside her stretch. Hard. To the point of hurting. “Thank you, but…isn't that a leap of faith? I mean, you don't really know me.”

His gaze seared hers. “I know enough,” he said quietly, then banged his hand on the counter. “For God's sake—does the man have a screw loose? Did you tell him Aaron didn't even stay here last night?”

“Aaron did himself. Keith didn't believe him. Or chose not to. But he said if I knew what was good for me I'd never contact Aaron again.”

One side of Silas's mouth pulled up. “And if he's so all-fired convinced you're some kind of monster, why hasn't he said something before?”

Jewel felt her forehead pinch. “Because he has no proof?”

“Exactly. There's no there, there, honey. And unless Aaron corroborates his father's accusations—”

“True or not, if Keith made a stink it could cost me my career.” Jewel picked up her cookie, took a tiny bite, put it down again. No solace in still-warm chocolate chips this time. “I'm only grateful it didn't last long. Tad—”

“Will be fine.” The gentleness in Silas's voice nearly did her in. “He's a Garrett, remember? And anyway, it wasn't your fault.”

“Maybe not, but I've already been accused of screwing up one kid. Don't need any more traumas on my conscience, thank you.”

A moment or two slipped by before Silas went to the fridge for a carton of milk. He held it up, offering; when she nodded, he pulled two glasses out of the cupboard, poured milk into both, then handed her one. “I'm guessing,” he
said carefully as he returned to his seat, “you didn't see that side of Keith before?”

Yeah, there was that. Jewel took a bigger bite of cookie, washing it down with three large swallows of milk. At Silas's slight smile, she frowned. He pointed to her mouth. “Mustache.”

“Oh.” She grabbed the same wet towel from before and cleaned herself up, grateful for the break in the conversation to collect her thoughts. Not to mention tell her fluttering stomach to shut the bleep up.

“Didn't see it, or didn't want to?” she said at last, then shrugged. “He wasn't around all that much. But when he was…” The glass set on the counter, she skated her finger around and around the rim. “He was someone else for my mother to lean on instead of me. So I convinced myself I loved him. Only now…” She let out a pitiful little laugh. “Now I'm wondering if I'd confused love with gratitude. And if I was…then I guess I was living in as much of a dream world as my mother.”

“Oh, honey…” Silas walked over and pulled her close. And damned if she didn't settle right in like she belonged there, even if this was only a big brother kind of hug.

Which was probably why she totally didn't see the kiss coming. At all. Seriously, when Silas pulled back and smiled down at her she figured that's all it was going to be. A smile.

Um, no.

And, my, oh, my, did the man kiss like he knew what kissing was supposed to be all about, slow and sweet and tender, his hands carefully cradling her jaw, his lips incredibly soft. Firm. Perfect. And anybody who says that slow and sweet and tender can't get a girl's jets going needs their head examined, because Jewel was here to tell anybody
who cared to listen that after thirty seconds she was ready to rip her clothes off. Or his, didn't matter.

Except, of course, everybody's clothes stayed put because there were problems to solve and kids to be fetched and whatnot, so Silas let her go, returning to the plate of cookies with his glass of milk—

Hol-y mackerel.

“Um…Silas…?”

He put up one hand, looking a little sheepish. “Don't ask. Because I couldn't give you a coherent answer if I tried.”

Well, that explains a lot. Not.

“You can't seriously be attracted to me?”

His brows dipped. “You did not just say that.”

“Didn't want to
assume.
”

For a split second a smile played around his mouth. Then he said, “Did I offend you?”

“What? No—!”

“Good. Because I could've sworn you kissed me back.”

“You caught me off guard, I didn't have any choice.”

“So…I did offend you.”

“You
surprised
me, Silas. I kissed you back because you're a good kisser, and it was—”
incredible
“—nice, and it's been a long time since—”
anybody gave a damn
“—I locked lips with anybody, either. But—” she huffed out a breath “—but it was weird.”

“Weird?”

“Not icky weird, just…you-and-me weird. Not to mention situation…ally weird. I mean, really. Right?”

Please agree, please agree, please agree,
she inwardly begged, as the full impact of her reaction to that one little kiss whomped her upside the head, shoving her even closer to the same danged trap that'd snagged her mother umpteen million times.

Because you know what? Right now it was real tempting to let Silas take over, to walk back into that warm, solid embrace and never come out again. To not only let him take care of her, but—and here was the trap part—believe that it would actually last. Except, how many times had that little scenario worked for her mother? That's right—exactly zero. So what was the freaking point?

Fortunately, while she was trying to figure out a way to word this without sounding like a total nitwit, Silas quietly said, “Don't read more into it than what it was. It was just…one of those impulse things. Forget it ever happened, okay?”

It took Jewel a second or two to identify the odd, sharp pain in her midsection as letdown. When, you know, it should have been relief? “Of course!” she said, her eagerness sounding hideously lame even to her own ears. “Impulse, got it.” She gave him a thumb's up, then shoved her hands into her back pockets. “Friends?”

Silas gave her a curious look, then smiled. “Sure,” and Jewel grabbed the opportunity to swing the conversation back to a topic guaranteed to wipe the kiss from both their minds.

“For what it's worth, after what happened today I understand more than ever how you feel about the boys. I can't imagine how awful it must've been having their mom die in that car crash.”

Silas's gaze stroked hers for a long moment, before, his cookie finished, he brushed off his hands, then fisted his hand over his mouth before clearing his throat, as though weighing whether or not to say what he was thinking. “No, what was awful was having no earthly idea where they were for a solid week before that.”

Jewel's stomach turned. “What?”

Silas met her gaze. “I had primary custody. Amy had
them every other weekend.” He removed his glasses to rub his eyelids, looking ten years older when he put them back on. “Except one Sunday she didn't bring them back.”

“Oh, God, Silas…what a nightmare.”

“Yeah,” he said flatly, then rubbed his palm along his jaw before folding his arms across his chest. “And since she was their mother the local police didn't seem to take it seriously. Far as they were concerned I was
overreacting,
that when she got tired of going it alone—or needed money—she'd show up, I should just sit tight.”

“That's outrageous. She'd kidnapped them!”

Another tight smile stretched across his face. “And yet,
I
was overreacting. Go figure.” He sighed. “Then about a week later, sheriff calls me. Amy'd skidded on some ice on a back road outside Farmington, slammed into a cement guard rail. She wasn't wearing her seat belt. Thank God the boys were.”

It took a moment. “They…the babies were in the car
with
her?”

“Yeah.”

On a soft moan, Jewel went to him, threading her arms around his ribs from behind and laying her cheek against his back. His heart beating steadily, reassuringly against her ear, he laid his hand over both of hers. And yeah, she knew she was slipping right back into dangerous territory, but them's the breaks.

“The boys…” His back expanded with his breath. “They'll always come first.”

Jewel released him, moving around to see his face, wanting so bad to cup her hands around that face, smooth away those worry lines, she could hardly stand it. Instead, she curled her fingers around his and squeezed.

“Of course they will,” she said softly, looking into those
sweet, steady eyes and feeling scarily like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. “Thank you for telling me.”

Nodding, he slid off the stool. “Guess I better go rescue them, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said, watching him go, thanking her lucky stars she'd had the good sense not to mistake rogue kisses and longing glances for something more than they were, because it was perfectly obvious Silas was no more in the market for a new Mrs. Garrett than he had been before. So, good news—she could tumble down that rabbit hole from now 'til Doomsday but she'd never hit bottom…because Silas wasn't gonna let her.

Yes, indeedy, no worries there.

Yay.

“Y
ou
told
her?” Noah said, setting another bundle of shingles on the conveyer belt to haul them onto Eli's roof, where the laughing, gabbing crew were divvying them out. “For two years,” he huffed, bending over to heft the next case, “you've refused to talk about what really happened.” The shingles thumped onto the belt; he reached for the next batch. “Never mind the hell we
all
went through when we realized Amy'd basically stolen the kids.”

At the disconcerting blend of curiosity and aggravation darkening his brother's eyes, Silas said, “You think I should've kept my mouth shut?”

That got a rough laugh. “Hell, no. About damn time you opened up to somebody about it. No, the question is—” another piercing glare “—why now? Or more specifically, why Jewel?”

For a hundred reasons that would only make sense to Silas. For five hundred more even he couldn't figure out.
However, to admit to his brother that he was falling for the woman, big-time would be the dumbest thing he'd ever done. Strike that: to admit to
Jewel
he was falling for her,
that
would be the dumbest thing he'd ever done. If not the dumbest thing any man in history had ever done.

Granted, when Jewel gave Silas the opening to talk about Amy and the boys a few days ago, all he'd seen—at first—was a way to show her how much he empathized with what she was going through with Aaron. However, reliving the experience had breathed new life into old objections, making him remember why, for so long, he'd been completely uninterested in “getting out there.” What was at stake if he did.

And that, in turn, had made him understand all too clearly the fear he'd seen in Jewel's eyes after that kiss.

“Dunno. Maybe because, after what had happened with her brother, I just thought…it would help.” His shoulders bumped. “No more to it than that. So…house will be all done by Monday, you said?”

“That's the plan,” Noah said after a telling pause, then gave Silas one of his no-good grins. “Because I know you cannot wait to get the woman out of your hair, right?”

Homeboy had no idea.

Hunched against the sudden stiff breeze rustling the last-gasp leaves, Silas walked back to his Explorer feeling as if he was trying to navigate a tiny sailboat in the middle of a raging typhoon at sea—desperately fighting to stay upright, to fend off the emotional storm raging inside him, around him, while Jewel was waaaay off on the shore, thanking her lucky stars she wasn't in the boat.

Oh, sure, she'd responded to that what-
was
-he-thinking? kiss. And quite nicely, too. No surprise there, considering her whole living-life-to-the-fullest bent. But she'd made it patently clear she wasn't looking for forever, and why, and
Silas wasn't so much of a fool as to think one kiss was going to magically undo a lifetime of insecurities. Unfortunately, that
this
woman should be the one to get to him in ways nobody else had been able to—okay, to be fair, what he hadn't allowed anybody else to do—was the
Why, God?
part of things. But her not knowing what she had, what she
was,
her blindness to her own strengths, just made him want to…to…

He sighed: to take care of her. The one thing she'd made plain she didn't want, because that was the one thing she didn't, or couldn't, trust. Not that she didn't deserve being done for the way she'd apparently done for others since she was a child. Nor was Silas defining “taking care” in terms of protecting her. Grown women didn't need protecting. But they did need, and had a right, to be supported. Cherished. Given the space and opportunity to be who and what they needed to be.

So the irony was that space was the one thing, if not the only thing, he could give her that wouldn't freak her out. Which left him no choice but to step aside and let her get on with it.

Even if it killed him.

 

“So,” Noah said through Jewel's cell phone as she navigated Winnie Black's steep driveway through a bobbing cloud of chickens, “house will be all finished by this afternoon. You can move back anytime.”

She stopped, idly petting Annabelle, who'd sauntered over to herd her the rest of the way up the hill. A frigid mountain breeze teased the lightweight scarf loosely draped over her short jacket, her thighs through her dark tights. Maybe the denim miniskirt hadn't been such a bright idea. “Wow. Already?”

Noah chuckled. “I would've figured that news would
have you jumping for joy. I
lived
with my brother, remember. Biggest pain in the butt in four states.”

“Oh, he's not that bad,” Jewel said, her seventy percent off cowboy boots loudly clunking against the already weathered wood when she reached the porch.

“Yeah, well, I'm guessing he doesn't torment you like he did us.”

Wouldn't be too sure about that,
Jewel thought, finally ringing the doorbell. “Well. Thanks. It will be good to sleep in my own bed again,” she said, but her heart wasn't really in it.

But then, what did her heart know?

“Hey. Everything all right?”

A good guy, that Noah. And a good friend, despite his player rep. Donna and Gene Garrett had done a knockout job with all their boys. She briefly thought of Aaron, who'd sent her a miserable, clandestine e-mail on his school computer that morning, pointlessly wishing—

“Enough,” Jewel said, hugging one arm to her stomach and shivering. “Worrying about my brother, though.”

“Yeah, Si told me about Aaron. That sucks. How's he getting on?”

She sighed. “Not well. His step-mom-to-be's not exactly his best friend, and his father…” Another shiver tracked up her spine. “Just not a good situation all 'round. And the worst of it is…I can't even send him cookies or anything because I'm not supposed to be communicating with him!”

“So give our mom his address, let her send cookies. There's ways around this crap, Jewel. Always.”

“I know, but…it would be nice not to have to sneak, like we're outlaws or something.”

“Si said you're really worried about him.”

Jewel twisted back around, facing the view of the valley sweeping away from the porch, an impressionistic blur of
dusty golds and browns and greens through her waterlogged eyes. Si said this, Si said that…every day, he asked about Aaron, his genuine concern shredding her heart, her common sense. Her resolve. Thank God she'd be out of the house soon, before she did something stupid.

More
stupid, anyway.

“Worried sick,” she finally said. “He got such a raw deal, Noah, it breaks my heart…oh, here's Winnie. Catch you later.”

For the next half hour, Jewel somehow managed to immerse herself in the only part of her life that wasn't making her loopy, after which Winnie insisted on giving her a cup of tea in the Blacks' large, homey kitchen while Robbie let Seamus climb all over him in the nearby den and tiny Aisling slept peacefully in her swing, oblivious to all the goings-on.

“First off,” Winnie said, sliding a check across the table along with a cup of English breakfast tea, “we wanted to give you this.”

Jewel glanced at the check for half Patrice's fee, only to frown when she noticed Winnie had made it out to Jewel by mistake. She handed it back. “I'm guessing you're not getting a whole lot of sleep, you need to make this out to Patrice, not me.”

“Already paid Patrice,” Winnie said, easing herself into the chair opposite, her long fingers cradling her own cup of tea. “That's for you. And not one word from you, Miss Thing. We can afford it and I know how little you gals make. Besides, you deserve it. We gave Patty a hefty tip, too, if that puts your mind at ease.”

Blinking, Jewel stared at the check. “I don't know what to say.”

“How about ‘thank you'?” Winnie said, and Jewel nearly spewed tea through her nose. Then she got up to
give Winnie a big hug, before sitting again and picking up her purse off the floor beside her chair, glancing at the check one last time before tucking it inside.

“Thank you. And bless you. Now that Eli's house is fixed up, I suppose he'll be wanting to sell it. So the money'll help me get a place of my own….”

And why on earth that should get her all down in the dumps, Jewel had no idea. Especially since she should be over the moon about the unexpected windfall….

“Okay, what's up, cutie?” Winnie said, bringing Jewel's eyes to her bright blue ones. “You are definitely not your normal, perky self. Or is sleep deprivation making me hallucinate?”

Since Jewel thought of Winnie more as a friend than a client, it wasn't as if she took offense at the woman's prying. But her emotions about Aaron and Silas and, well, all of it were so close to the surface. And the last thing she wanted was to sound like She Who Must Not Be Emulated.

So she smiled and said, “It's nothing” before the pity demons could get a foothold, and then the baby woke up squawking for her lunch and Jewel mumbled something about having another appointment anyway, which was a big fat lie but a chicken's gotta do what a chicken's gotta do.
Bawk, bawk.

So she got outta there by the hair of her chinny-chin-chin—or feathers, whatever—even though she was still kinda shaky when she ducked into the town's tiny supermarket to pick up something to cook for dinner. Where she neatly dodged Silas's sister-in-law Tess with her two kids and pregnant glow, partly because all this happiness stuff was wearing on a person, partly because Winnie and Tess were best buds and she could hear the conversation now:

“Got any idea what's up with Jewel?”

“Not really, but I've got my theories…”

Because in a small town people always had theories, even if they were based on air. Then Tess would say something to Eli, probably, who'd undoubtedly blab everything to Silas, since the four brothers were tight as ticks. So, the
bawk-bawk-bawking
about to split her head in two, Jewel grabbed some pork chops and elbow macaroni, swiped her card through the self-serve dealie and got the heck out of there, picked up Ollie from school and Tad from Mrs. Maple's, grateful the day was warm enough to send them out back to play in the tree house. Not because she didn't want them underfoot, but because Ollie had rushed into her arms when she came to get him, reminding her so much of Aaron when she used to pick him up from school she ached.

Except no sooner had she plunked the pork chops into a casserole dish with a mess of stuff she found in the pantry than the weather did a one-eighty, a sharp wind blowing in a herd of ugly, angry clouds to smother the sun and sending a pair of panting, shivering little boys back inside.

“S'cold,” Tad said, diving for the sofa and wrapping his arms around a snoring, comatose Doughboy, who didn't even flinch.

“C'n we have hot chocolate?” Ollie said, only to roll his eyes practically up underneath his bangs when Jewel raised her brows at him. “
May
we have hot chocolate?”

“Only half a cup, 'cause it's too close to dinner—”

“Daddy!” the boys yelled in unison, rushing him, and the dog slid off the sofa with an ungainly thump and wriggle-waddled over to join the joyous reunion, and Silas—his arms full of smelly children and even smellier dog—lifted his eyes to Jewel's and smiled, all honey-I'm-home and whatnot…and the goodness and loneliness and not-even-gonna-try-to-hide-it desire she saw there flat out stole her
breath, making her ache all the more. And in a way totally inappropriate with children in the room.

Jewel was stronger than the ache. She knew that. Knew, too, she could resist the reciprocal longing in Silas's eyes. Knew it, because she'd done it before, when opportunity alone hadn't seemed like a good enough reason to get naked with somebody.

Except the longer he held her gaze, the sweeter and hotter his became and the louder the little imp in her head sniggered, urging her to…to…

Do something for herself, for once.

Not that anybody said anything—couldn't, anyway, with kids in the room. But she guessed Silas was thinking the same thing, that after two years of putting the boys first he yearned to do something for himself, too.

Oh, this was bad. Very, very bad.

Especially when he peeled off kids and pooch and said, “Go play, okay?” and they did and he came into the kitchen, leaned against the counter and quietly said, “What's wrong?” Except not in that irritated tone of voice most people did when what they really meant was “Would you please get over whatever this is so things can get back to normal?” but as if he honest to God wanted to make it better. Or at least try.

Not that she was about to confess about all the aching, no sirree. Pride and all that. And in any case the moment he asked she realized the crazies in her head had as much to do with her stepbrother as they did Silas. That, she could talk about.

So she told him about the stealth e-mail, then said, “Oh, God, Silas—he's so unhappy it breaks my heart. Keith won't let him hang with his friends at all, or even get rides home with them from school. Then when he's home, he's pretty much confined to his room because he and his dad's
fiancée don't get along at all, but Keith disabled his wireless access on his computer so he can't even talk to his friends online. He has his phone, but Keith is keeping real close tabs on all his calls and texts. It's horrible,” she pushed past the lump in her throat. “He's acting like, like a prison guard, not a father! And I'm not supposed to be crying!”

“Says who?” Silas said, folding her into his arms, resting his chin atop her head. “Because you think it's a sign of weakness?” When she nodded against his shirt, he chuckled. “Bull. My mom's one of the toughest gals I know, she cries at the drop of a hat. So you go right ahead and let it out, not gonna bother me—”