To Be a Dad (Harlequin Superromance) (7 page)

He pointed the truck in the direction of home, feeling a hundred percent better than he had in the mall. He just had to keep reminding himself
who
he was having a baby with. He couldn’t imagine a time when he wouldn’t want to be with Teressa. Well, okay he could. Like when she was mad at him or in an ornery mood. But generally, he really liked hanging out with her.

“When are you going to put on a fashion show for me?” She’d acted like a young, carefree girl in the mall, and it made him realize for all her responsibilities and grown-up ways, Teressa was still a young woman.

“Never.”

“Seriously?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. If I parade around in front of you in my new underwear, you’re going to get all hot and bothered.”

“I do know how to control myself.”

She looked at him from the corner of her eye, as if she was uncertain of herself, or of them. “We’re supposed to be taking things slow, remember?”

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “We will. I promise. I’m just yanking your chain.”

He settled in for the hour-long drive home as Teressa closed her eyes and nodded off to sleep. He usually hated driving home in the dark, but with Teressa beside him, it kind of felt cozy in the truck. And it hadn’t escaped his notice that he’d gone from extremely freaked out in the mall to having fun with her teasing him. When they were good together, they were really good.

Too bad there were so many obstacles in their way of having a normal relationship. Him being one of the bigger obstacles, he supposed. Although Teressa was a handful at times. And then, of course, there were the kids. His good mood dimmed, and he switched the radio to his favorite music station that played the golden oldies. The good old days. What had someone said to him once?
These are the good old days
. It was a strange way of looking at life, but he kind of liked the idea.

* * *

A
N
HOUR
LATER
, Teressa stretched and opened her eyes when Dusty pulled into Adam’s yard. She’d left her minivan at Adam and Sylvie’s because she had the car seat and Sarah’s booster seat, and it was easier if she drove Sarah and Brendon home.

She climbed down from the truck and turned to Dusty sitting behind the steering wheel. He looked exhausted. “You might as well go home. I’ll bring the kids. Don’t forget about the groceries.”

“Good enough.” He backed out only after Adam opened the door of his tiny house.

Teressa told Adam and Sylvie they’d bought groceries and things for the house, but kept shopping for lingerie to herself. She smiled as she gently snugged Brendon into his car seat. That was her and Dusty’s secret. She’d had no idea wearing sexy underwear would make her feel so...desirable.

She’d struggled half the way home from the city with a boatload of should-haves. She should have put that money toward the kids’ winter jackets. Should have resisted the sudden desire to indulge. Should have been satisfied with what she had. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d done something for herself, and it was suddenly important that she prove to herself that she was worth spending a few dollars on, too. Besides, what she’d spent tonight wasn’t even the price of one child’s jacket, let alone two.

She frowned when she pulled into the dark yard. Dusty still hadn’t repaired the outside light. Of course, they
had
gone to town right after work. She stared at the house, hoping Dusty would come out to help her.

With a resigned sigh, she woke Sarah and kept her by her side as she struggled to get Brendon out of his car seat. Once Brendon was asleep, he was down for the night. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes as she gathered forty pounds of dead weight and finally stood up with Brendon in her arms. What was wrong with her? She’d hauled half-asleep kids to the house hundreds of times before, and it had never made her feel weepy. Just because Dusty hadn’t come out to help didn’t mean she got to feel sorry for herself. He was probably busy putting the groceries away and hadn’t heard her pull up.

She staggered through the dark yard with the two children and finally made it inside the house. Bags of groceries covered the kitchen counter. “Dusty?”

When he didn’t answer she shepherded Sarah and Brendon into the bedroom and tucked them into Dusty’s big bed. What had happened to him?

She went back out to the kitchen and almost cried when she looked at the amount of groceries that needed to be put away. What had they been thinking to buy so much? She had no idea how she was going to pay for her and the kids’ share of all that food. On top of that, she’d splurged good money on lingerie. Although she had to admit, wearing the lilac lace set made her feel wonderful. It was such a fine line between putting the needs of others first and depriving yourself of the small things that gave you joy. She’d never been good at keeping a balance, mostly because Linda had always been looking over her shoulder.
Do you really need that new sweater when Sarah needs new gym shoes?
The truth was, sometimes she did, and this was one of those times.

A snore from the vicinity of the couch drew her into the living room. Dusty lay sprawled on the couch sound asleep. He was still wearing the clothes he’d worn that day. His thick eyelashes feathered against his cheeks. God, he looked beautiful. He had a full, generous bottom lip, and she licked her own lips remembering how soft it had felt against hers. The Carson chin reminded her how stubborn he could be at times, and those damned high cheekbones that she loved were part of the reason women always stole a second glance at him, along with his muscled shoulders and tight butt.

“Dusty.” She shook his shoulder.

“Yeah?” He batted the air with his hand, as in
go away
.

“I need help with the groceries,” she whispered.

“I’ll get ’em tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s no good. We have to put them away tonight.”

He rolled on his side, turning his back to her. “Put ’em away, then.”

She sat back on her haunches and blinked away her tears when he started snoring again. She wasn’t being anal. You couldn’t leave meat and vegetables out all night, even if it was cool in the house. And mornings were crazy. Dusty was already gone when they got up, which left her alone with two children to get ready for the day. The groceries had to be put away tonight, and it looked as if she was on her own.

So what else was new? She struggled to her feet and returned to the kitchen and started stashing the food into cupboards and the refrigerator. She was tired and knew she was overreacting. The problem was she’d expected more. She had to be careful in the future not to set herself up for disappointment like she had tonight.

Dusty may be a great guy, fun and generous, and even considerate at times, but he had no idea how to act like an adult. And she really, really did not want another child to take care of. She needed more. She needed a
real
man.

She was stuck. Again. For years she’d had to live under her parents’ rule, and it looked as though the same thing was happening with Dusty. She could stay, as long as everything was done his way, on his time. She slammed the cupboard door shut. Would she ever own her own place, be her own person, have control over her own life? Ever?

Depending on Dusty was a bitter pill to swallow. In some ways it was much worse than living with her parents. Dusty was her contemporary, and her present living situation played right into the image of “poor Teressa.” Damn it. She’d worked hard for so many years so people would see her as successful, because if other people thought that, maybe she’d believe her life wasn’t a total failure. Sometimes it felt the harder she tried, the more success eluded her. Pride was such a bitch.

CHAPTER FIVE

E
ARLY
THE
NEXT
morning Dusty stopped in the middle of pouring his first cup of coffee when he noticed Teressa leaning against the kitchen door frame. She looked cute wearing her fuzzy pink bathrobe. He’d never thought of Teressa as cute before. He saw her as sleek and strong and...forget going down that road.

“Coffee?” He held up the pot.

“Please.” She slid into a chair at the table and pulled another chair closer to put her feet up on.

“You’re up early. Sorry if I woke you.”

She accepted the cup of coffee from him and took a sip. She closed her eyes, took another sip and put the mug down on the table. Dusty smiled to himself. She looked cuddly and still half-asleep.

“You didn’t wake me,” she said in a husky voice.

“Good.” He waited for her to say something else, but when she continued her routine of taking a sip, closing her eyes and taking another sip, he sat and turned his chair so he could look out the window that faced east. Nothing he liked better than watching the sun come up.

After a couple of minutes of silence, he relaxed and drank his coffee, watching the sun crest the horizon. The sky turned a clear blue with only a scattering of light clouds. It was going to be a good day on the water, weather-wise, anyway. So far it had been a good season for lobster, one of his best. It was almost time to haul his traps, but he thought he could push the season another couple of weeks if the weather held. He sure could use the extra coin.

When he finished his coffee, he packed his lunch, which consisted of left-over pizza from last night. Then he turned on one of the front burners on the stove and cracked two eggs into a frying pan.

“Need help?”

“Huh?” He’d almost forgotten Teressa was there. “Thanks. I’ve got it. I’ve been doing this routine for so long if someone tried to help, I’d screw it up. Want an egg? Toast?”

“Just coffee’s good for now. I’m always slow to wake up.”

“I didn’t know that about you.” If he had to guess, he’d have assumed Teressa was a jump-out-of-bed-and-get-going type of person. He liked to shuffle through the first hour of his day. It was nice that Teressa did, too.

He ate his breakfast, went off to the bathroom to finish getting cleaned up and returned to the kitchen. He smiled when he saw Teressa still sitting, her now empty coffee mug cradled to her chest.

“Want another coffee?” He grabbed his stainless steel travel mug and filled it.

“I do, but I won’t. I should probably cut out caffeine all together, but I allow myself one cup in the morning.”

He packed up all his stuff and dragged his jacket and boots on. “I’ve got to go.”

She nodded, a faint smile on her lips. “Be careful out there.”

“I always am. See ya.” He started out the door, but turned back and crossed the kitchen to where she sat and dropped a kiss on her mouth. “Sorry about not helping with the groceries last night. I passed out. Thanks for putting them away. See you tonight.”

Dusty didn’t feel the cold as keenly as he usually did first thing in the morning. He felt as if he had a little glow inside him, a warm spot like...contentment. It was nice, starting his day with Teressa, partly because for once there were no demands being made on either of them. If it were just him and Teressa, without kids and a baby on the way, living with her might really appeal to him. Somehow, they had to make time for the two of them.

* * *

T
ERESSA
WATCHED
OVER
Sylvie’s shoulder as her friend added to the constantly changing mural that covered the back wall of the café. When Sylvie had first arrived home after living away for ten years, she’d painted a mural of the village to brighten up the café, which she’d transformed from a hole-in-the-wall into a place where people enjoyed spending time—and their money.

Teressa hadn’t had much say in the changes at the time because Pops still owned the café, but she’d been happy with them all the same. People often parked themselves on the comfy old couch or matching armchair and picked up a book from the stacks Sylvie had randomly piled around the restaurant. She’d even installed a couple of laptops with Wi-Fi, and a corner of books and toys for children. Sarah and Brendon often played there while waiting for her to finish for the day.

“How long do you think it’ll take Beanie to notice your newest addition?” She watched her friend magically transform the bare-bones sketch of Dusty’s house into a bright, light-filled home with a few strokes of her brush. Beanie, the local plumber, was the one who’d started the game of “what’s new in the mural.” Soon after completing the painting, Sylvie realized the Hacheys’ boat was missing from the local fishing wharf she’d drawn, and quietly added it so they didn’t feel offended. Since then, Sylvie had inadvertently become the village’s chronicler, and people spent a fair amount of time studying the mural.

Everyone in the village knew she and Sarah and Brendon had moved in with Dusty, but seeing them together in the mural somehow fixed it in people’s minds and made the move more real. Personally, Teressa thought Sylvie was being a little too hasty, but a strangely warm feeling threaded through her as she had an odd thought: If things were equal between her and Dusty, if she wasn’t homeless and pregnant, how would she feel about moving in with him? Excited?

“Never mind Beanie. I want to see Dusty’s face when he sees this. He’s always whining that his house doesn’t look very nice. Duh.” Sylvie grinned over her shoulder. “I told him I paint it as I sees it. I have to say, though, once he makes up his mind to do something, he gives it one hundred percent.”

Smiling to herself, Teressa pulled out a chair and sat. They’d decided to close the café at four starting in November as there were precious few visitors at this time of year and most of the locals preferred having supper at home with it turning dark out so early. Normally, she’d hurry home after work, but Carmen had stopped by the café earlier with Sarah and Brendon to ask if she could take them to the beach. The weather had turned unseasonably warm, and she thought they could hunt for sea glass. With the beach only half a block away, Teressa suggested bringing the children back to the café when they were finished.

She’d toyed with the idea of making supper for herself and the children at the café to avoid the chaos at Dusty’s house. In the past three days, they’d finished installing the flooring in the main part of the house. With Anita’s help, she’d cleared out one of the smaller bedrooms and set up the new bunk beds for the kids. She’d even managed to unpack some of their clothes and toys. Dusty had moved back into his bedroom at her insistence, and she now slept on the couch in the living room.

Dusty had offered that she could sleep in his bed, either alone or with him. He pointed out that it was a king-size bed, and they could both sleep comfortably without bumping into each other. Ha! As if they could share a bed and keep their hands off each other. The first morning, she’d crawled into his bed to catch a few more hours of sleep after he’d left for work, but the sheets still held his body heat and his scent, and the combination had...stimulated her hormones. What little sleep she’d managed to get had left her sweat-soaked and wanting.

The past two mornings she’d gotten up at the same time as he had and they’d shared an almost silent cup of coffee as they watched the sun come up, cracking open a brand-new day. It was the only time during the day that they could be together without anyone asking them for something. No carpenters, no children, no customers. She’d never seen the restful side of Dusty before, and it made her realize it was possible that sometimes she judged him too harshly. She didn’t know him as well as she’d thought, and she was pleasantly surprised to find herself enjoying discovering new things that she liked about her old friend.

Since the first morning, Dusty kissed her on his way out the door every morning with a “See you later.” Like, she supposed, a husband would kiss his wife. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about those brief kisses. Sometimes the memory made her smile, other times it made her wonder...who did he think he was? Her husband? But the thought wasn’t as irritating as it should have been.

“What are you thinking about?” Sylvie put her tube of paint on the table alongside her paintbrush. “You’ve got a goofy look on your face.”

“Nothing,” she snapped. She hated goofy. With relief, she spun round when the door of the café opened.

“Anita!” Geez, tone it down, Goofy Girl. She sounded as if she hadn’t seen Cal’s wife for ages. Anita had stopped by the café that morning on her way to town to ask if Teressa wanted her to pick up some paint chips while she was there.

Anita was beautiful. Period. She looked and dressed like a model, and she made Teressa feel like the country bumpkin she was. Not that Anita did it intentionally—she was bred-in-the-bone class. Cal was a pretty cool guy, but Teressa still wondered what Anita was doing with him after two years of being together.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you wear jeans before,” Teressa observed. “Why does everything look so good on you? What’s your secret?”

* * *

A
NITA
FINGERED
THE
ironed crease down the front of her jeans. Cal had had a fit the first time and only time she’d ironed his jeans. Apparently it just wasn’t done. But she couldn’t not iron her own pair. Wearing jeans was one of her pathetic attempts at trying to fit in. She probably looked as stiff wearing them as the fabric felt against her legs.

“No secret that I’m aware of,” she said. “But I think I have the body type that a lot of clothes are designed for these days. That helps, I suppose.”

Sylvie spared her a smile before dabbling yellow paint on her mural. Her sister-in-law was turning on the lights in Dusty’s house, just as she had in her depiction of Adam’s house a few months ago. Anita watched, fascinated. The small paintbrush looked like an extension of Sylvie’s hand.

What would it be like to be so amazingly skilled at something? Not only did both Sylvie and Teressa excel at what they did, they exuded a confidence that made Anita want to emulate them. She was turning thirty in a few weeks, and she wasn’t good at anything, except hosting formal dinner parties and looking decorative while keeping her mouth shut so she wouldn’t embarrass her father. Thank God Cal had come into her life when he had. He’d shown her she didn’t have to live in that box if she didn’t want to, and she didn’t.

“Wonder what your old man would say if he saw you now,” Teressa said.

“Teressa!” Sylvie reprimanded.

Teressa glared at Sylvie. “It burns my ass the way her father didn’t attend his only daughter’s wedding.” She turned her glare on Anita. “You’ve been living here for two years, and he hasn’t once come to see you. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you, but I don’t think people should tiptoe around about what a crappy father he is. Sorry,” she added again.

Anita blushed, amazed to realize she was embarrassed for her father, the man who practically wrote the book on etiquette. Teressa wasn’t saying anything she herself hadn’t thought a hundred times before, but no one had ever stated it so honestly, not even Cal. She waited to feel resentment toward Teressa, but was surprised to find relief. She liked that Teressa cared enough about her to get mad.

Having grown up with a succession of housekeepers when she was on vacation from the expensive boarding schools her father insisted she attend, she didn’t have many people in her life who cared about her. There had always been paid professionals to attend to her needs, but never anyone who cared just because. Until Cal. And now his family and friends.

“It’s probably better he doesn’t visit,” Anita assured her. “He can be very critical.” When she’d turned eighteen and begged to go to university, she discovered what a formidable opponent her father could be. He agreed to pay her fees at a local university, if she stayed home and acted as his hostess, a role she’d been groomed to fill. She didn’t qualify for a student loan because her father made too much money. Not trained for any work beyond a minimum-wage job, she took the coward’s way out and agreed to her father’s terms. She wasn’t strong like Teressa and Sylvie who knew what they wanted and stood their ground. But she wanted to be.

Sylvie studied her. “Your mom’s dead, right?”

“Yes.” Until recently, Sylvie had lived in Toronto, and she and her sister-in-law hadn’t had much opportunity to become acquainted.

“Mine, too. I imagine Cal told you about that. How did yours die?”

Anita swallowed the lump that always blocked her throat when people asked her about her mother. According to her father, Anita had killed her mother.

“She died giving birth to me.”

Sylvie rubbed her hand over Anita’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“How sad,” Teressa said. “Are you and Cal planning to have kids?”

She avoided their interested stares. “He wants to wait.”
Forever.
She needed to prove to him that she was strong enough to have children, both physically and emotionally.

“I planned to pick out a few paint chips for you to look at when I was in town today, but opted to bring the full charts. I thought it might be more fun that way.” She handed the file folder to Teressa, who slid it on the table beside her and stood.
Please drop the baby talk.
Her heart broke every time she thought of the beautiful babies she and Cal might never have.

“First you’ve got to test drive a piece of coffee cake I made from a new recipe. I used maple syrup instead of sugar, and I’m not sure of the texture,” Teressa said.

Resigned, Anita sat at the table as Teressa disappeared into the kitchen. Anita had lost a lot of weight after the miscarriage, and although she’d gained back a few pounds, it felt as if the entire village was conspiring to fatten her up. Once she realized their concern, she’d made a concentrated effort to gain a few pounds because she didn’t want to worry anyone. She didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, but Teressa was an excellent cook, and the cake was sure to taste delicious.