Blame it on Cupid (19 page)

Only then came Quinn. And Quinn wasn't a girl, either.

And then came Tanguy, and Merry had expected someone of another culture, but damnation, she'd expected a girl from another culture. Not a four-foot miniature boy with his hair iced with mousse and a diamond in his eyebrow. Not that she had anything against tattoos or piercings. She didn't. But her opinion of body holes had changed since becoming a mom last month.

The last guest showed up five minutes later and took up the entire doorway. The name was Cyr.

Another boy. This one was wearing fatigues like Charlie's. He was blond, blue eyed, and carrying a suitcase big enough to survive in Europe for six months.

The next big question in her life, Merry thought, was whether to have a heart attack immediately or wait a half hour. Maybe it'd be easier to just get it over with….

 

J
ACK ALMOST NEVER GOT
the kids on a Friday night. Kicker invariably had a date and Cooper got something going with this guy friends. This time, though, Dianne had something she needed to do, so he'd picked up the boys. Coop just had a three-cavity trip to the dentist, so the only one whining too loud about the Friday confinement with Dad was Kicker.

He'd brought home soup for Coop, and Po'Boys for him and Kicker, rented some classic guy flicks. The three of them were settled in the dark living room, chilling with some good blood and guts when the phone rang.

Kicker—it was a knee-jerk reaction for him to gallop at the sound of a phone, any phone—bounded over the back of the couch to reach it.

“Considering it's the house land line, I'd think the call would be for me,” Jack said dryly. “Not like it's your cell.”

“I know, I know,” Kicker said, but he still smashed it to his ear as if hoping the latest female sex symbol in his class had located him here. Which, as far as Jack could tell, it might very well be. Girls seemed to find Kicker everywhere. They all sounded giggly and breathless.

Jack zoned back on the movie, kicking off his shoes. It had been a long work week. Good one, but he was more than ready for a weekend. Still…another minute passed and Kicker was still on the phone. Kicker could talk for hours that way, but something cocked Jack's parenting trigger, even though all he caught were bits and pieces of Kicker's side of the conversation. At least initially.

“Hey, it's okay. I could come right over, if you want. In fact, Cooper and I could both come over….”

Jack pushed up to a sitting position.

“…or my dad. We could make Dad come over….”

Jack stood up, quick as a spring.

“Naw, I don't blame you for having an edge on. So maybe it's cool, you know. But I totally get it, why you're freaked. You know what? Coop and I could just come over and—”

Jack shook his head at his son. Kicker motioned to the phone. Jack motioned to the phone, too. The sign language was exuberantly physical but didn't seem to communicate a damn thing to each other.

“Naw,” Kicker said, “I'm telling you, my dad wouldn't mind at all. In fact, he'll probably be the one to come over. That's what friends are for, you know? Calling when shit goes on. I mean, when stuff goes on. I didn't mean to say shit. I mean…”

Jack made a firm motion, clearly indicating—in sign or verbal language—to fork over the telephone. Now.

“Okay, Merry, one of us'll be over. Just detox until then, okay? Yeah, stay cool.” Finally Kicker hung up.

“What?” Jack demanded. The single word communicated enough. He didn't need a full sentence.

“It's Merry—”

“I realized that when you used her name,” Jack said wryly.

“You know, for a woman her age, she is so cute.”

“Skip the detail. Get to the grit, Kicker. Now.”

“She thinks she's got a big problem. I don't think she does, but anyway. The deal is, the squirt's having a sleepover. No sweat, right? Only it turns out there's a houseful of boys.”

“Boys?”

“Yeah. She thought they'd be all girls. And instead Charlene asked a bunch of guys in her class. One girl, I guess. But the rest guys. And maybe they're just eleven and twelve, but they're all set up to sleep on the living room floor together. She said she called a few parents. They already knew, didn't seem to care at all.”

“But…”

“Merry probably wouldn't have, either. She said. If it was up to her. But it's not that simple anymore now, because she suddenly turned into a mom. So now she thinks she's supposed to protect the squirt. I loved it, her asking my opinion. She actually listens, you know, Dad? God, she's so cute.”

“Would you skip the
cute,
Kicker! Fill in the rest of the blank—”

“She's upset. So I said I'd come sleep over. Me and Coop. Like no biggie, right? Nothing to walk next door. She has a tube, or we could take the belly telly. I think she's tight about nothing, but who cares? Easy enough to go help her.”

“Let's see,” Jack said. “You think it'd logically help her to have two more boys sleep over there?”

“Well, I did think there might be a little ironic problem there,” Kicker said ingeniously. “That's why I brought up your name. I knew you'd be willing to go over, be another parent helping her. It was never like it
had
to be Coop and me.”

Jack scowled at his son, feeling pressured and antsy. “It's not a good time for me to go anywhere. Cooper feels rotten—”

“That's not a headliner. But he's just gonna lay there and watch vids. And you don't mind going over—”

“What makes you think you know that?” Jack asked.

“Dad. You just pulled on your jacket.”

Damn kid. See a pretty face and that's it, out went the common sense, offering to do anything and everything without a second thought. And because Kicker had been hot to play White Knight, Jack was stuck tromping across the cold yard.

He thumped on her back door, but no one answered for obvious reasons. Music was playing so loud inside that there was an imminent threat of shattering glass.

He thumped again, then turned the knob and poked his head in. “Merry?”

She didn't need him. He knew what she'd volunteered for. Sleepovers were torture for parents, but primarily because they involved noise all night and a god-awful mess. In that age-eleven bracket, though, at least in their neighborhood, there was little worry about drinking or drugs or big-ticket trouble threats. He got it, though. Her fret was the boys and girls sleeping in the same room.

“Merry?” He stomped through the kitchen—although “waded” was probably the more accurate term. Overhead lights blazed on the carnage. Cans and paper plates overflowed from two bags of trash. Spilled pop made several puddles on the floor and counters. Open plates of brownies looked as if mad dogs had made a run on them.

“Mer—?” He sampled one as he tromped through, and then almost had to stop dead. Man. Maybe there were better foods than brownies, but offhand he couldn't think of any. And hers were nectar for the gods. “Melt in your mouth” didn't begin to cut it.

He whipped back to the counter just to sneak one more, and then, of course, couldn't talk straight. “Mryth?”

The body who barreled into him almost ousted his mouthful of brownie—which would have been a criminal loss. On the other hand—hell times three—she was beyond criminally appealing.

“Oh, Jack,” Merry said fervently, “I'm
so, so, so
glad you're here.”

Cripes, back when, even his dog hadn't been that glad to see him. No one had been. Besides which, she snared his damn heart, just looking at her—the wide eyes, all distraught. She was wearing a big old sweatshirt, so loose in the neck that the slim slope of one gorgeous shoulder peeked through. Her hair was all glossy and loose and tumbled all over the place. She belonged in bed. Right now. His bed. With him.

But then he remembered—he wasn't here for that. “Okay, just tell me what the deal is.”

“All the boys—I called their parents. One after the other. I just couldn't believe they wouldn't care their kids were sleeping over at a girl's house—”

“But they were okay with it.”

“Yes.”

“But you're not.”

“Damn straight I'm not!”

“Then just send 'em home, Mer.”

She peeled off his jacket, which could have been an aggressive seduction invitation—God knew, it made Wilbur rise at the speed of sound—but he suspected it was just that she was trying to keep him from leaving. “You don't understand. I can't let Charlene down. And the boys coming are really my fault.”

“Your fault how?”

“My fault because I should have asked her. But since I didn't, and since I okayed this, now I can't embarrass her in front of her friends. For Pete's sake, Jack, it's the first fun thing she's wanted to do since her dad died. She's as serious as a saint most of the time.”

“So they're likely good kids if they're her friends, because she's as straight as an arrow to start with…so maybe they're a little young to worry they're into orgies quite yet?”

“I played strip poker when I was eleven.”

So much for thinking about Charlene and her friends. “You did?”

“And the same year raided Mrs. Simpson's liquor cabinet. Got drunk in Bobby Smith's tree house. Damned near killed ourselves, falling out. We did that at ten.”

“You did?”

“And my girlfriends all got into this thing, worrying they were gay, how'd anybody know? So we had a sleepover, asked over Joey Meyers, who was two years older than us and the heartthrob of the eighth grade. We asked him to kiss us all so he could get a reaction.”

“God. Where were you when I was eleven? All I remember is camping in the woods with my parents.”

“What I did isn't the
point,
Jack. The point is that I thought I'd be great for her, great with her. Because I wouldn't be judgmental, it'd be easy for me to be understanding because I'm not that far from her age. I
know
kids do things. I know they survive them. I know they're stupid sometimes. So I could naturally be someone she could really talk to—”

He opened his mouth to sneak a word in, but should have known Merry hadn't worn down yet.

“Only now, I suddenly turned into a parent. Before this, I had no idea that being a parent could be this terrorizing. Especially because she's a girl. You
know
it's worse for a girl. Boys can't get pregnant.”

Jack peered around the corner, just trying to see where the bodies were stacked. As it happened, none of them appeared within listening range, even if they could hear over the movie and music. “Not that I've paid any attention, but I'm pretty sure she's a long way from being able to get pregnant, either. I mean, aren't you talking flat as a board—?”

“She's getting bumps! And besides, it's not that far down the pike when she could! And the one boy—the big one, the older one—he took off his shirt, said he was hot. What am I supposed to do? Walk out of the room? Leave them all alone in there?” She shook her head wildly. “I don't think so.”

“Okay, okay. But maybe we could ratchet the terror level down a couple of degrees, you think?”

“It
is
racheted down. Because you're here. In fact, just being able to talk to another parent, an adult…you…”

A couple bodies suddenly stumbled through the doorway—Charlene and a crony. Both of them had empty bowls and were clearly looking for a refill. Charlene beamed a smile when she saw him. “Hey, Mr. Mackinnon. How's it going?”

“Not bad. I hear a movie in there—”

“Yeah.” She named an action flick. “The first version. The good one.”

God knew what made him say it, but he offered, “A classic already.”

“Yeah, I think so, too. Although if they keep doing sequels, maybe they can come up to that level.”

The idiot in his head came out with more malarkey. “Mind if I watch for a minute?”

“'Course not.”

The kids disappeared. Merry looked at him.

“So we'll just go see the lay of the land, all right? Get an impression from some inside reconnaissance.”

She looked at him as if he were brilliant. Which, of course, he actually was—but his IQ wasn't usually what women found appealing about him—and that was wildly assuming they found him appealing to begin with.

As far as inside reconnaissance, though, he couldn't help but notice the changes she'd made in the house. Candles. A bunch of fresh flowers. And there were piles of fluffy rugs—the kind guys hated; all you ever did was trip on the darn things—but they were in rich reds and blues and greens.