The Five Stages of Falling in Love (6 page)

Ben grinned at me and eyed the water bottle, “Is that for me?”

I thrust it out to him. “I thought you might be thirsty.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. Seriously. You saved me such a headache.”

He stared at me intently while he unscrewed the cap and took a healthy drink. I looked away, pretending to supervise the kids as they brought their toys into the garage. I could feel him watching me though and I wanted to squirm.

I didn’t know why it bothered me so much, but I was completely unnerved by him. Maybe it was because he was so completely male. He seemed to radiate with virility. His tanned legs were nothing but toned muscle behind athletic shorts and his forearms were just as cut and golden brown. His dark hair had been pushed back from his face and gave him this completely ruffled, reckless look. His cheeks had darkened from the sun and exertion and his full lips were now wet from the water.

He was unfairly gorgeous.

And that bothered me. I would have much preferred our new neighbor to be some stodgy old man that yelled at us to keep off his lawn.

Ben Tyler was the kind of beautiful that people openly stared at. And I didn’t want to be one of those people.

I didn’t think I was at risk of sending him the wrong signals, what with the dead husband and four children and all. But I didn’t want to act like a swooning teenager around him either.

I wasn’t usually intimidated by good looks. I didn’t know why I had to start now with him.

“Is there anything else I can do?” he asked after long moments of awkward silence.

My focus swung back to him. “What do you mean?”

“Around the house?”

“Around the house?” I repeated dumbly. “No, thanks. We’re, um, the mowing was great, thank you. But I can’t ask anymore of you.”

Dark eyebrows drew down over equally dark eyes and his usually-playful lips pressed into a frown. “You didn’t ask. I offered.”

“No, I know. I just… We’re headed in to eat some lunch. So, thanks anyway. Seriously, thank you. You saved me from a hectic day.”

“You already said that.” His mouth had reformed into that arrogant twist I couldn’t stand.

“Well, I mean it,” I snapped and then hated my tone. “I mean, thanks, Ben. Thank you.”

He chuckled at my flustered behavior. “Not used to accepting help?”

Not from perfect strangers that keep butting into my life when they should just stay out
. “One of my many flaws.” I flashed him a winning smile and herded the children towards the door. “We’ll see you later.”

“Have a good rest of the day, Liz,” he called after me. “And don’t forget my offer for the p-”

“
Shh
!” I spun around and held up a hand pleading for him to stop. “I remember, just…” I gestured at the little kids huddled around me. Blake had been mature enough to let the pool promise go, the rest of the kids would not be so forgetful. I wouldn’t hear the end of it for days. “I’m waiting until my sister has a day off. Then you can count on us knocking on your door.”

His eyes practically twinkled with amusement. “Emma, right?”

“Right.”

He put two fingers to his forehead and gave a little salute. “Have a good rest of the day, Neighbor.”

“You too… Neighbor.”

I didn’t wait for him to leave; I spun around and practically shoved my kids through the kitchen door that connected to the garage. I dropped
Jace
, careful to set him on his feet and then slammed the door behind me. I fell back against it and let out a long breath.

Ben Tyler was best taken in small doses. I hated the way he could unsettle me so completely without seeming to try or do anything other than talk to me. And everything about our interactions was so painfully awkward.

I doubted he would repeat his offer to mow the yard after that disaster. And that was okay with me. I didn’t need him filling in for Grady. I didn’t even need him to be a friend. I just needed not to be weird around him for once. And to run into him as little as possible.

God, I wished Grady was around to deal with him. Grady was so good with people; he would have easily made Ben feel welcome. And Ben seemed like the kind of guy Grady would have enjoyed being around.

Just one more reason to miss my husband.

The sadness and despair that came with that thought dumped on top of me as if I were standing underneath a waterfall of it. My knees buckled and I nearly collapsed.

“Mom, when are you going to make lunch?” Abby called from across the kitchen.

I forced my eyes open and pushed the tears back. I didn’t have time to meltdown right now. These sandwiches weren’t going to make themselves.
“Right now.
I’m going to start making it right now.”
 

Chapter Six

The next day, Sunday, I had abandoned more plans to get fully showered and dressed and decided to focus on the inside of the house. I’d put on running shorts, an old t-shirt and threw my hair up into a ponytail. The kids and I had turned the radio station to oldies after breakfast and attacked the dishes. Well, I attacked the dishes; they danced around my legs and generally ran wild. Except for Blake, who had pulled out a tablet and sat quietly playing games. He watched the chaos in the kitchen with mild terror.

When the doorbell rang, all of us were stunned. I looked at the kids like they might know who would show up on a Sunday. They were just as clueless as me.

I dried my hands on a dish towel on the way to the door and prayed it wasn’t a vacuum salesman. I had no patience for a hard sell right now.

Through the cloudy glass panes, I saw that it was, in fact¸ worse than a vacuum salesman. It was my mother-in-law.

And brother-in-law.

Great.

I shoved my long bangs back from my eyes and opened the door to meet the steely gray eyes of Katherine Carlson.

Shouts of “Nana!” could be heard as the rumor that grandma was here passed through the kitchen and before I could even greet this woman, my children had pounced on her.

She bent low to scoop them all up in one giant hug. They buried their little faces in her neck and she closed her eyes, relishing the moment.

It was an odd picture for me. Since the first time I met her, Katherine had been an intimidating figure in my life. She was rarely anything but serious and loved her two children fiercely, so fiercely that at times it felt like I had disappointed her expectations for her oldest son’s spouse. Until Grady became sick, I had never seen her show any kind of emotion, good or bad. She was as
stoic
as they came.

Except with the children.

With them, she transformed into this very sweet woman that wore her affection on her sleeve. She had been that way with Grady too. She loved him deeply. His death had shattered her as profoundly as it had me.

She had already buried her husband. Grady’s dad passed away while Grady was in high school, the victim of a drunken driving incident. And now her oldest boy. This woman was a pillar of strength and control, but I couldn’t get past her icy demeanor long enough to form a real relationship with her.

At first, I had thought Grady’s death would bring the two of us closer together. We loved him the most in the entire world. Surely, we could bond over our mutual loss. But if anything, she’d pulled back even more.

And so we tolerated each other for the sake of the children, but that was it. If Grady and I hadn’t had children, I was positive Katherine and I would have parted ways permanently following the funeral.

The sight of her this morning did nothing but stress me out. Why hadn’t she at least called first to let us know she planned to stop by?

“Hi, Katherine,” I smiled down at her. “I wish you would have called first. My house is a mess right now.”

Her cool gaze floated over my disheveled living room and staircase piled with stacks of things that needed to be taken upstairs. “Don’t worry about that. We just wanted to stop by and see the kids.” She stood back up and moved into the house.

“Hi, Trevor,” I greeted Grady’s younger brother who clearly resembled his mother’s side of the family. His hair shone a honey brown and his eyes a somber blue. Grady was the spitting image of his late father from what I could tell from pictures. Trevor hadn’t inherited any of the red hair or freckles. But his face still reminded me of Grady. They made similar expressions and they both had this draw to them, this aura of something real and genuine. People had always been attracted to Grady. Trevor had that same charisma about him.

Only he was unforgivably less mature than Grady. He was twenty-nine now, without a serious girlfriend or kids. This apparently set him back light years from where Grady and I had been when we were that same age.

“Hey, Lizzy.”
He patted my cheek as he walked by and I tried not to shatter. Grady called me Lizzy and Trevor picked the nickname up from him. It nearly killed me to hear that endearment from someone so much like Grady but I didn’t have the strength to correct him.

I closed the front door and leaned against it. Katherine and Trevor followed the kids into the kitchen, but I couldn’t find the motivation. Since these people showed up three minutes ago, my emotions hadn’t stopped picking up speed. I felt wild. Out of control. I felt the fragile threads that held my sanity together pull and tear.

There had been progress last week. I had thought maybe I was finally pulling myself together. But just a few minutes with these people had undone every bit of headway.

“Mommy, I’m thirsty!” Lucy called from the kitchen.

I closed my eyes and let a lonely tear slip. Brushing it away, I squared my shoulders and pushed the rest of my emotion back. They wouldn’t stay forever. I could survive this.

I joined the rest of the family in the kitchen and went to work getting drinks for everyone. Katherine sat at the small art table with the kids that I kept near the paneled windows. Trevor slid onto a bar stool and looked down at his hands.

His hair was tidier than usual and he wore something besides a t-shirt. The polo look was new for him. But so were the wrinkles around his eyes and the bags underneath them.

His pain hit me hard, like a punch in the gut. I loved Trevor like a brother, and he had lost someone he loved too. Unlike his mother, I could bridge the gap between us with shared grief.

Grady was my life, but he was also the sun that shone in his brother’s life. Grady had been the one to pull Trevor out of trouble and stand up for him whenever someone doubted Trevor’s worth. Grady had been Trevor’s constant champion. He had believed in his little brother like no one else could or would.

He had believed in Trevor so much, that in his will, he had left Trevor his construction company.

Despite my concerns.

Despite my objections.

I received a paycheck from Trevor as if I were a partner, but Carlson Custom Construction was now Trevor’s sole and permanent responsibility.

“How’s business?” I asked while handing him a glass of iced tea.

He took it without looking at me. “Fine,” he mumbled. “It’s fine.”

A sick nervousness fizzled through me. It wasn’t just that I depended on the business doing well to feed my kids, but this company was Grady’s baby. If Trevor allowed this business to fail, I would never forgive him.

I opened my mouth to ask him what exactly “fine” meant, but he spoke before I could get the words out. “I don’t know how he did it, Lizzy.” He finally lifted his dark blue eyes to meet mine. I sucked in a breath and forced myself not to look away. The lost look in his expression hurt my heart. My chin trembled and I started crying before I could talk myself out of it.

“Don’t know how he did what,
Trev
?”

Tears shone in his eyes, causing them to brighten. “I don’t know how he balanced everything. I don’t know how he knew
what was the right decision to make all of the time
and which projects to take or not take. It’s too much.”

Trevor had worked for Grady since he graduated from high school and Grady had always treated him like his second in command. When Grady got sick and couldn’t manage the day-to-day business or even when he got really sick and stopped being a part of the company completely, Trevor had stepped in and managed everything.

When Grady was alive, Trevor hadn’t had a problem coping with the responsibility.

But in the last few months, I had watched Trevor’s downward spiral and I knew the company suffered because of it. I hoped that this was just grief inhibiting him from being a smart businessman, but it could also be his lack of leadership abilities and his poor insight.

Grady had a natural knack for running a successful business. By now, I was fully convinced that Trevor hadn’t inherited any of it.

There was a very real possibility that Trevor was going to run my husband’s legacy into the ground.

I stepped up to the counter and wiped the tears away with the heels of my hand. I leaned on my elbows so I could look him in the eyes and he could see how serious I was.

“Yes, you do,
Trev
. You know exactly how he did it and what you need to do too. You worked at his side for a decade.”

“Lizzy, it’s-”

“Trevor, listen to me. Maybe the truth is
,
you don’t know what
you
should do. Could that be it?”

He broke my gaze and ran his hands over his face. “Yeah, maybe.”

“But you know what Grady would do. Just do that. Until you figure it out for yourself, just do what Grady would do.”

He continued to rub the back of his hand over his mouth but some of the desolation in his somber
        
expression ebbed away. “Okay, yeah. I can do that. I could maybe do that.”

I stood back up and tried to relax. Panic mingled with frustration and heavy doses of heartache swirled through me. I wanted my husband’s business to succeed. I needed it to. I needed something of Grady’s to live on, even while he didn’t. But I was helpless. The business was Trevor’s and I would do an even worse job than he ever could. It wasn’t even an option for me to consider running the business.

Grady had left me with my hands tied behind my back. I couldn’t do anything except watch Trevor crash and burn. I couldn’t even give him worthwhile advice because I didn’t know anything about construction!

If only Grady were here. He could fix this mess.

No, that’s not true. He would never have let us get to this point. He wouldn’t have needed to fix anything.

“It’ll be okay, Liz. I’ll figure it out.”

“Grady left you in charge because he believed in you, Trevor. Of course, you’ll figure it out.” Katherine’s voice cut through the kitchen like a knife. Her words seemed to rally her son, but they had the opposite effect on me.

“Can I get you something to drink, Katherine?” I forced the conversation to move on. I didn’t want to talk about the failing business anymore. I wanted to pretend it wasn’t a problem or I had a feeling I would not make it through a pleasant visit with my in-laws.

“No, thank you.” She stood up from the kid table and walked over to the island. “The kids look good, Liz. Healthy.”

She made it sound like there was a possibility they might not look good or healthy. “Thanks.”

“Have the… how are they… are they still adjusting?”

I took a step back, surprised by her question. It was just so… so uncalled for. I glanced around at the kids to see if they understood what she meant. By the way Blake refused to look at me and his cheeks heated to a rosy red, I knew he got her meaning.

I swallowed down resentment and frustration and managed to clip out a response. “They’re doing okay, Katherine. Thank you for asking.”

“I know how hard it is for them, Liz. I had two young men when Thomas passed. They don’t always know how to manage grief when they’re this young. They can lash out or misbehave while they try to come to grips with their world changing.”

My thoughts immediately flashed to Abby and her behavior lately. I knew that was why she misbehaved and acted out, but I didn’t feel like sharing that with Katherine. This was just one more thing we should have managed to bond over, but couldn’t seem to move past our personality differences.

Trevor saved me from trying to come up with a response, “Aw, Mom, we weren’t so bad!”

She gave him an indulgent smile. “You, Trevor William, were the worst. And your niece is turning out just like you. I’m worried for her mother.” She set her hand on Abby’s head affectionately and every one of her features softened.

“Who, me?” Abby asked with a sly smile.

“Yes, you. Your Uncle Trevor is nothing but trouble. I’d stay away from him if I were you.”

“No way!” Abby squealed and then attacked her uncle. The little kids followed suit and soon Trevor had all four kids hanging off his arms and legs. He made monster sounds and dragged them into the living room where they could wrestle.

There was a lot about Trevor that frustrated me, but I couldn’t deny that he was a good uncle. The kids loved him. And he managed to wear out some of their constant energy.

“He misses Grady so much,” Katherine said softly after they’d disappeared from our sight.

I kept my eyes focused on the doorway when I said, “Me too.”

A cold hand landed on my bare forearm. “It will get easier.”

I tried to give her a confident smile, but it wobbled. The truth was I didn’t want it to get better. I didn’t want to stop missing Grady. I didn’t want this pain to recede because that would mean I would be over this. Over him.

And I never wanted to be.

He was the great love of my life and I was terrified to forget one small detail about him. Even now the touch of his rough hands and the sweet scent of his skin were only sensory memories. I couldn’t capture those intangible things in pictures or on video.

And that
terrified
me.

Noticing my struggle not to lose it, Katherine lowered her voice. “It will, Liz. You’ll learn to breathe again. You’ll learn to live again.”

The tears started falling, but she didn’t offer a hug or more encouraging words. She’d said enough. And I was still trying to decide if she’d helped or hurt me more. I wiped them away again, thankful that I hadn’t bothered with makeup this morning.

“I’d like to have the kids for a sleepover next weekend if that works for you? I was thinking I could pick up
Jace
and Lucy from your house before school gets out and then we’d swing over and grab the older kids before we went back to my house. Trevor is going to stay with me to help manage them.”

“They would love that, Katherine.”

She smiled at me. “Good. You can have a bit of a break and I get to spoil them rotten.”

I found myself smiling too. This was the easiest it had been between us in as long as I could remember. The sounds of squealing children and roaring filled the house.