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Chapter Thirteen

“Wow.”

Aiden’s gasp of appreciation
that night made the head rush totally worth it. Cress nodded to him from the top bar of the playground, hair hanging toward the ground, knees locked around the thick metal pole. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Except that half the world can see your underwear.”

Cress turned, still suspended from the crossbar, and grinned at Alex’s approach. “Camisoles should not be considered underwear.”

“No?” His look said otherwise. One finger traced the
waistline of pale green knit tucked into hip-hugging capris. “T-shirts are underwear.”

She rocked
twice, thrust herself back up to the bar, righted herself and nodded, pretending the touch didn’t send her thoughts tumbling, scrambling any hope of coherent thought. “Yes.”

“Then, logically…”

“Okay, okay, but it’s not like a bra or something, Alex. For pity’s sake.”

“She said bra,” whispered Nick, eyes round.

“I told you she was naughty,” Aiden rejoined, his gaze knowing.

Cress hopped off the bar
and bent to their level. “It’s okay to talk about clothes, boys. Everybody wears them.”

“Boys don’t
wear those,” Aiden asserted, pointing in the general area of her chest. “Only girls.”

“He’s got you there,”
Alex noted. He grabbed up Nick in one arm and noogied Aiden with his free hand. “You guys need to get home. I have to feed Cress. I promised.”

“No ice cream?”

“Not tonight?”

Matching looks of surprise swept
Alex and Cress. Cress caved instantly. “Ice cream for supper is one of my favorites, boys.”

Nick brightened immediately. Aiden hesitated. “But you’re not supposed to eat ice cream for supper. Are you?”

Cress bent low. “Sometimes you have to eat ice cream for supper. Because it’s so good.”

“But not too often,”
Alex explained. He smiled at Cress, the warmth of his approval sheltering her.

“So don’t do it tomorrow.” Aiden
reasoned as he accepted her hand to cross the access road to the adjacent parking lot. “But tonight would be okay.”

“Exactly. Hey. How’s kindergarten going? Pretty sweet, huh?”

Aiden’s expression turned dour.

Cress sent
Alex a look of question. He shrugged confusion. She squatted again. “What’s up, Dude? I thought you’d love kindergarten. Give you a chance to show your stuff, being such a smart little man.”

He stared off a moment, his lower lip working, chin thrust out, eyes shadowed, then shrugged. “Sometimes the moms come to school.”

But not his.

Cress understood in a heartbeat. She nodded. “Dads can come to school too, can’t they?”

Aiden shrugged. “Usually it’s moms.”

Cress nodded, keeping her look wizened. “But it’s not like that’s a rule or something, right? That
only moms
can come to school. I know a lot of dads who love to visit, including yours. And the reason I know this is because my mom died when I was little. And when it was time for moms to come to school, I didn’t have one.”

“For real?” He stared at her as if reasoning the adult before him as a motherless child.

“Cross my heart. But sometimes my dad would come. And sometimes my Grandma or Grandpa. They knew it was different because my mom couldn’t be there, but they wanted me to know how much they loved me.”

Aiden stepped back, the thou
ght giving him pause. “My grandma could come sometimes, maybe. You think she would?”

“Kiddo, I know
she would.” Cress straightened and bestowed her wisest cop nod. “You check it out with your dad, but I know he loves to go to school. And your Grandma loves doing stuff with you guys. I bet we can work this out.”

The common sense of that declaration wasn’t lost on the five year old. He nodded, empowered. “Sure. That’s right.”

Alex grinned his appreciation to her and nodded Aiden’s way. “Cress is pretty smart. For a girl.”

She shot him a scathing look that he answered with a laughing kiss. “And she’s pretty.”

“And she can hang upside down,” offered Nick. “Just like the monkeys at the zoo.”

“Hey.”

Alex nudged her shoulder. “In his world, that’s a compliment.”

“I’m honored. I think.” Cress
labored to buckle Nick’s seat while Aiden snapped his harness into place with the expertise of a kid who’d done it for years. She laughed. “I need a self-help course to manage one of these contraptions and the five-year-old does it in four seconds flat without pinching his fingers. So unfair.”

“We’ll have to get you into practice.”

“For?” She tilted a look his way.

He met her gaze, eyes gentle, his expression warm, staking his claim. “Future car
seats.”

Her chest tightened at the words, the look, the thoughts of forever. “I—”

His grin disarmed her. “Just planting seeds, Detective. Nothing to get all cranked about.”

“
What if I want to get cranked?” She stepped away from the car, closed the back passenger door, and invaded his space. “What if the entire idea sounds wonderful beyond words?”

“Then I’d wonder if I just stepped into an alternative universe with a
pod-person Cress Dietrich look-alike who kinda-sorta likes me.”

She grinned. “Let’s not go overboard, Counselor.”

He touched his forehead to hers and then stepped back. “We wouldn’t want that.”

“Not here, anyway.”

The promise of overboard activity later in the evening encouraged a wink. “Think Gran will leave the front porch light off?”

Cress burst out laughing. “No
.”

“I was afraid of that.” He leaned across the top of the car, his grin contagious.

“Does she sleep sound?”

“Not when you want her to.”

“Doesn’t that figure?” He stood still, watching her, just smiling, until Aiden wondered what was taking so long.

Alex
climbed into his seat, bemused. “Sorry, kid.”

Thoughts of doing this with a different kid,
a little boy with Alex’s dark eyes and hints of copper in his hair…

Are you jumping fr
om the frying pan into the fire? Did you learn nothing from your last fiasco, Sweetums? What do you really know about this guy, other than he’s got the charm level hiked, he’s smart, good-looking, wears perfectly cut Armanis with the panache of Will Smith, and smells like the best thing going this side of  heaven?

Umm, hello? Aren’t you recovering from the less-than-sweet attentions of your last power-hungry man? And if
Alex Westmore’s clothes, investments, office and land-holdings don’t scream ‘power-hungry’ in bold, bright letters, nothing does.

The insistent voice
nicked the bubble of Cress’s enthusiasm. Her conscience was right to advise caution. This was the same guy who engineered the dissolution of the family farm, her place of solace. The entire town had split feelings on Alex Westmore, some lauding his success, others seeing him as the downfall of the Midwest American farm. Funny, glib, and good-looking— but then so were the snake-oil salesmen who used to dog the Midwest. The product might be different but Alex Westmore made his living cashing in on other people’s sorrow. He held his cards close to his chest, and she’d tracked down a lot of bad guys who talked a good line, schmoozers to the max. She’d be foolish to forget that and she promised herself she’d never be fooled again.

Keep telling yourself that,
Cupcake, but when we end up in the emergency room again, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“No.”

“No?” Alex eased the car around the corner, flicked on his signal and pulled into a parking space down the road from Smithy’s Ice Cream Shop before turning her way, one brow raised in question. “No, what?”

S
he’d spoken out loud. Cress shook her head, befuddled, scrambling for words.

Alex’s eyes saw
too much, too soon. Something in his bearing said he’d wait her out, wait ‘til she was ready, much like Audra, but admitting she was less than the strong, decisive detective she pretended to be was an embarrassment she’d rather forget. Except she couldn’t because the knowledge hounded her, every single day.

He leaned over. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

Concern touched his eyes but a little smile softened his lips. “It’s just ice cream with a friend.”

“And someone else’s kids.”

“But they’re cute,” he supposed out loud.

“And getting anxious.” Cress sent a quick smile to Nick, his expression wondering what the delay was.

“We’ve got time, Cress.”

Did they? Should they even consider moving forward with this? Or should she run, hard and fast, leaving the tangled mess of relationships behind. Her father, her stepmother, Aunt Sylvie. Alex.

His name pressed the ‘pause’ button on running off.
His stance, his stature, the quiet manner he wore in church, as if life and love and faith meant something to him, something more than a casual appearance. That commitment drew her, piquing her interest, touching notes of music she hadn’t heard in a long time.

But then if this whole mixed up, crazy attraction to
Alex came to naught, she’d be stuck in Watkins Ridge, seeing him day after day, thrust from one untenable situation into another by her own doing.

Again.

Only something told her she couldn’t handle it with Alex, occupying the same little town, the same streets, the same two-screen movie complex she’d grown up with. Not knowing he was nearby and not hers for the asking. How crazy was that when they’d just crossed paths weeks before?

A thick finger rubbed the worry furrow from her brow. He leaned forward and followed the finger with a kiss to her forehead, his manner soothing and sexy all at once. But James
and her father had schmoozed her too many times for Cress not to be jaded. Men were not always what they seemed, and she couldn’t afford any more mistakes. Not physically, not mentally, and with God as her witness, not emotionally.

Alex
chucked her under the chin. “You’re thinking too much. Turn off the detective switch for the next couple of hours and let’s just have fun. Okay?”

He was right. She needed to trust, to hope, to calm the anger
burbling inside her, but she didn’t know how to get to
that
place,
that
Cress.

But for tonight she’d put all
of it on hold. She climbed out of the car and gave him a reassuring smile as she helped Nick release his buckle. “Fun it is, Counselor.”

“That’s my girl.”

The words comforted her. He was willing to ease into whatever this was, wherever it led them.

Simple gifts. Simple times. Simple moments to treasure.

Cress surprised him and took his hand as they headed into the crowded ice cream store. Post-practice crowds were a given at Smithy’s, but no one cared about the long wait. It gave the locals time to visit, compare plays and strategies from team to team, keep up on the latest news in Watkins Ridge.

With
Alex holding firm to her hand, Cress was pretty sure they were about to become today’s news flash. Oddly enough, she didn’t mind in the least.

*

“Whoa, boy, you’re dripping big time.” Alex rescued Nick’s cone, slurped around it, re-shaped the ice cream with his tongue and handed it back.

“What?” He met Cress’s skeeved-out look with one of surprise. “What’d I do?”

“You licked his ice cream?”

“It was dripping.”

“That’s why they make bowls, isn’t it? So little kids don’t drip and grown-ups don’t have to lick their soggy cones?”

He grinned. “Wasn’t soggy yet, but it will be. Bowl
s spoil the fun. Cones are a rite of passage. And it’s a baby cone, so he’ll be done with it any minute.”

“Spit-swapping with a three-year-old isn’t beguiling.”

“No?”

“Ugh.”

He leaned closer, until his lips touched her ear, feather light, the hint of chocolate marshmallow breath delightfully summer in the early days of fall. Whatever he was about to say got cut off as a big woman approached them, battle make-up in place right down to thick black eyeliner and dime-store mascara highlighting lavender frost cream eye shadow and pencil-thin brows.

Missy, the sea w
itch look-alike from the local police office. Great.

“You’ve got
Mac’s boys, I see.” She leaned in, offering a hefty view of overpowering cleavage untamed by her v-neck short-sleeved shirt, making Cress wonder what made her think that was in any way, shape or form attractive.

Maybe she couldn’t afford mirrors.

And had no friends.

Because
a friend would have told her just how bad the entire combination came off to the general public. Then Missy opened her mouth and Cress realized why she had no friends.