Blame it on Cupid (30 page)

She hesitated. “I can totally understand that, Coop. But everyone makes mistakes. He wouldn't love you less or be less proud of you just because you made a mistake—”

“Maybe not. But if she isn't pregnant, Mer, he wouldn't have to know. I don't have to risk letting him down. And the thing is, he thinks…”

When Cooper hesitated, Merry said, “He thinks what?”

Those lean shoulders shrugged again. “Dad thinks I'm smart. That I've got good judgment. That I'm not a screwup like Kicker can be.” He fumbled. “I like it, Merry, that he doesn't think I'm a screwup, you know?”

“Aw, honey, you're
not.
This is just a human mistake. It's a big one, for sure, but it's something that happens to people.”

“Please don't tell him.
Please.
I swear I'll tell him right away if she ends up pregnant. But I want to be able to tell him what we're going to do, so that I can at least show him that I've taken responsibility and stuff. So please don't tell him now, Merry.
Please.
”

At that precise moment, she saw Jack and Kicker and Charlene all show up at the far end of the aisle. Her lungs felt strangled for air—or maybe that was guilt strangling her throat. Guilt at all this conspiring. Exhaustion from all this emotional turmoil. She was so darn miserable that the thrill factor at seeing Jack was practically eclipsed.

And that was it, she decided, for Best Buy. Other people loved the store, but for her, it was clearly a road to complete chaos. She was never coming here again if she could help it.

J
ACK COULD HARDLY WAIT
to get the boys buckled in the truck before asking, very casually, “So…what were you talking to Merry about, Coop? It looked as if you were having a really serious conversation.”

“We were.”

Jack waited but his son didn't say anything else. That was Coop. Mr. Talkative. The boys held their Best Buy loot, because the sky was spitting rain, and they didn't want to risk anything getting wet in the truck bed. As they pulled out of the lot and headed home, the spit turned into a messy deluge.

Better than snow, Jack told himself. By the end of February, anything was better than snow. But the roads were winter-cruddy and the downpour just smeared it all around, especially under the glare of night lights and blacktop.

“You can't tell me what was so serious?” Jack finally pushed.

“Sure. It really made me think, in fact,” Coop said slowly. He'd claimed the window seat, which meant they were both jammed between Kicker's shoulders—which was even more uncomfortable, because Kicker kept fiddling with the radio. Kicker in motion was all knees, elbows, shoulders and bones. More relevant, Jack couldn't see through Kicker to catch even one good look at Cooper's expression—assuming he could drop his attention from the road. Which he couldn't.

Coop said, “Merry really had it rough as a kid. She wasn't telling me. She was talking to Charl. It's just…I happened to overhear.”

“What happened to her? I've heard her talk about her dad. Seems like they're really close, talk on the phone all the time.” Jack thought, this is sick, probing his own son for information about his lover. Not that Merry was his lover exactly…

But, actually, that's exactly what she was.

His lover.

The word stuck in his mind in spangles and sequins, too bright and sassy and noticeable for him to be able to ignore and deny. She really was undeniably his lover. One chance encounter, a guy could call something else. But not two. And not two particularly when there was no end point in sight.

Of course she hadn't had a chance to tell him to take off. If one kid wasn't around, then three were. Even teenagers managed to sneak more free time than they had. Even so, Jack was well aware she could probably have found a way to corner him about those occasions if she wanted to. Instead, she'd neither asked him for anything or implied she wanted any kind of hold on him.

Since the sex had been great—okay, okay, beyond outstanding sex—and she hadn't expressed a single problem or question, Jack knew perfectly well he should be kissing the ground in gratitude. How lucky could a guy get? Except…somehow he seemed to be going around with a continual headache, a continual hard-on, and a continual feeling that his entire life was upside down and no one had gotten around to telling him yet.

Coop was drumming the radio beat on his knee. “I guess her mom jumped ship when she was just a little kid, like Charlene's age. She took off because of a big job promotion.”

Kicker suddenly looked at his brother. So did Jack, even though they weren't stopped at a light. Damn it, if that story didn't sound just like his ex-wife. What she'd done to the kids and him.

Cooper volunteered more, now that he had his brother's attention. “You should have heard her, talking to Charl. She was telling the kid she'd never take off on her. Like she knew how bad it felt to be abandoned. She said when her mom left, she felt like she was a throwaway.”

Kicker didn't comment, which was probably the first time in history he had nothing to say. Lights flashed in the pouring rain. Jack turned onto their street, and glimpsed Merry and Charlene just pulling in their drive, running into their house, hoods over their heads to protect themselves from the downpour.

Jack wanted to say something brilliant to the boys before they got in the house, because he knew how this would go. They had new CDs. They'd disappear under headphones the minute they got their jackets off. But temporarily, he was at a loss as to what to say.

He tried to never talk down about their mom. Couldn't see the point. Dianne was their mother, would always be their mother, and no matter what she'd done, they needed to get along with her through their lives. His making that harder just never made sense to Jack…but still. She'd basically walked out on all of them because of her job. It did suck.

Just like it sucked, what Merry's mother had done to her.

“Hey. You coming, Dad?”

Kicker was rapping on the window. Abruptly he realized the boys had immediately pelted outside when he'd parked in the drive, but he was still sitting there. “Sheesh,” Jack said. “Lost my mind for a second there.”

That was good for a minute of ribbing. But Jack thought, as he locked the door and peeled off his jacket in the back hall, that the lost-mind thing was a little too true.

When he'd started the conversation with the kids, he'd hoped to hear about the secret Cooper had trusted Merry with.

He hadn't found that out.

Instead, he'd uncovered something oddly deeper. How Merry had probably reached his quietest son. And why Coop so instinctively trusted her. Merry understood what Cooper had gone through, because both of them had mothers who'd chosen to spend time with their jobs over time with their kids.

Absently he opened the fridge, pulled out the orange juice, then somehow walked over to the kitchen window and forgot all about the O.J.

As a kid, he'd never remotely imagined a circumstance where his parents would abandon him. He'd had the best parents in the universe—or close enough. Naturally, they'd screwed him up. That's what parents did. But feeling wanted and loved and all that crap—he'd never doubted it for a second of his childhood.

Maybe that was why Dianne's defection had hit him so hard. All his life, he'd never doubted he was worth loving. And once they hooked up, he'd believed totally that he loved and was loved in their relationship. So when she'd taken off, just for a job, it was as if she'd diminished him to a forgettable dream. Not lovable. Not interesting, not sexy, not appealing, not anything—enough—to matter to her.

His gaze drilled on the kitchen in Merry's house. No lights on in there yet. But he wasn't really looking.

He just couldn't seem to stop the chug of thoughts and memories in his brain. Naturally, he had to fret the boys' response over his own. His first job was to parent them. Not wallow in his own problems.

But the longer Merry was in his life, it seemed the more that personal pot of soup got stirred. Stirred, boiled and bubbled over.

Two months ago, truth to tell, he'd been happy as a clam. Thought his life was damn good. Believed that his kids were thriving, he was thriving, everything was going A-okay.

Then Merry hit.

He'd heard about posttraumatic stress. But he'd never heard of a posttraumatic Cupid attack before. Did a guy recover from this? Could he?

His gaze suddenly narrowed.

The light in Merry's kitchen suddenly went on.

 

C
ARRYING A GLASS OF WINE
, an old blanket draped around her shoulders, Merry pushed open the glass doors to the backyard deck.

She left the door open a crack, so she'd hear if Charlene called her, and sank down on the steps. It had stopped raining an hour before, and the night was still damp and chilly, but still, a few minutes of sharp, fresh air was just what the doctor ordered.

Charlene had finally crashed extralate tonight. Before that, they'd hung out for ages in the kitchen. Merry made Boston Coolers—vanilla ice cream with Vernor's and cherries—and Charlene had suddenly poured out chitchat like she was a normal preteen talkaholic. She went on about some game she liked. Then about how lame the girls were in her English class. About math. About whether the cosmos could be full of dark galaxies.

En route, Charlene had set up the new phone, and while she'd programmed all that junk, Merry finagled her into talking about phone safety—like not picking up unless Charlene specifically recognized the number. She said everything she could think of to bait the hook. “I've been getting some crank calls, Charlie. That was especially the reason why I thought we should have a different phone. So I'm hoping this'll help, if neither of us pick up unless we recognize the phone number, okay?”

Charlene not only didn't object, she was all about it. Only nothing Merry said seemed to coax Charlene to confess about the call from her mother—or whoever the woman had been.

Now, Merry thought, she should have pressed harder.

Or maybe she should try pressing harder in the morning.

She took a long, slow sip of wine, feeling both tired and wired by the traumatic day. The chilly dampness was hardly warm, but the sky was a glossy black and the whole night shiny, the rain leaving the leaves and grass looking fresh-polished and glistening. The air had a sweet, ripe scent, redolent of green growing things and the promise of spring. The moon was struggling to push past clouds and take center stage.

It was a night for fairy tales, and just like in the best ones, the hero suddenly showed up, walking through the mist, tall and dangerous and handsome. Her heart tripped even before he opened his mouth.

“Aha. I see you've already got a glass.” Jack raised an open bottle and two glasses, indicating that he'd not only brought his sexy self, but goodies. Even better, he plunked down on the step beside her, close enough that she could feel the heat coming off his body. Feel the heat coming off his gaze. “I thought you'd need me to bring the wine. Last I knew, you didn't want to drink anything near the kid.”

“Yeah, but that was before. Back in that first couple weeks, when I was determined to be the perfect role model.”

“And now?” He leaned over, clearly recognized her glass was empty, and poured some nice, warm, red stuff from his bottle. For damn sure, he bought better wine than she did.

“Now I know it's impossible to be a perfect role model. Besides which, I have a ton to do tomorrow. Which means somehow I have to get some sleep. And I was hoping the wine would help.”

“Hasn't been the easiest last couple of days, has it?”

When he leaned back, she did, too. The whole world seemed easier with him beside her. No problem seemed as big. No worry as insurmountable. The sky even seemed softer, brighter, silkier. And if all that was silly fairy-tale allusions, the stuff she wanted to share with him was sharply real and had always been real. “Ah, Jack. This raising a kid business is really hard. Three months ago, my toughest problem was whether to wear kicky shoes or clunky heels out on a Friday night. Now…well, now I have to laugh.”

“Laugh at what?”

“Just at all the crazy stereotypes I had before.” She took another sip, then leaned back her head, letting her hair fall away from her face, floating free in that rich, soft breeze. “I was so positive suburbia was about the matron set, as far as women. That was so off. Maybe most of them are in the PTA, but they're playing soccer, not cleaning their ovens. Volunteering for causes right and left, not sitting home lolling in front of soap operas. They do play golf. Which is unfortunate.”

“Ah. Not your game?”

“Let's just say that my favorite sport is trying on shoes. Which, you may not be aware, can be extremely aggressive.” They were both leaning back on their elbows, close enough to kiss, she thought. But he hadn't kissed her. For all she knew, he hadn't thought about it. Yet somehow on this rain-drenched night after this impossibly traumatic day, all she could think about was kissing him. Or being kissed.

And he shot her a teasing grin for her “favorite sport” comment. “Are those an example of your shoe-shopping prowess?” He motioned toward her pink bunny slippers. Paired with old yoga pants and an old sweatshirt and an ugly gray blanket, she figured she looked as appealing as a bedraggled cat—which, come to think of it, might be why he hadn't kissed her.

“Well, yes, actually. These slippers were a present to myself for surviving last month. God. Who knew living in the suburbs was so complicated? I had to find out about blue books and titles. How to deal with insurance over the storm damage. Lawn care. Taxes. How a furnace works…or at least, what happens if you don't call up and order fuel before your tank is empty. Who on earth knew there was even a tank! What?”

He wiped a hand over his face.

“What?” she repeated. “You keep giving me a look—”

“Yeah. Because you're doing the fluffy thing.” He checked her glass again, noted it was only a sip down, and leaned back. “You can do it well. Act like you're a dingbat who just flew in from ditz land. But it's a little too late for that with me, Mer.”

“Hey. I
am
from ditz land.”

“No,” he said. “You're not.”

Whew. It was unnerving…that kind of perception and insight coming from a guy—at least from a guy she loved. So she bumbled into a talk-fest to cover up. When it came down to it, she really had a ton to tell him—what happened that day with the lawyer, what she'd told Charlene about her own past, why she'd bought the new phone, but that she hadn't pressed Charlene about the phone call—so Jack didn't need to worry she'd broken his confidence.