Well, Conner observed, Keith was right—he was good with children, just not necessarily at the dining room table. Thankfully, he had Katie to back him up. When they started to squirm, when they picked up their mashed potatoes with their fingers or sloshed their milk because they were totally careless, Keith tried reasoning with them. “Andy, you’re going to spill.” “Mitch, you’ll make a mess if you do that.”
Katie, on the other hand, used her soft but firm voice to say, “Stop.” And they stopped.
Maybe Katie would cut Keith in on her secret weapon eventually. She knew how to make them behave most of the time because she could separate them. They were identical twins and didn’t like time apart. True, sometimes they wanted to separate, but that was up to them.
If they got in enough trouble with their mom, she would put them in separate rooms and talk to them one at a time. They would have time-out without being allowed to communicate verbally. Conner still wondered if maybe they did a little telepathic talking because they did seem to read each other’s minds.
Conner had never done a lot of disciplining where the boys were concerned, and when he did, his style was very different. His voice was louder, his expression much more fierce, and he was not above grabbing a twin and hauling him physically into time-out. Conner called time-out “the penalty box.”
Keith did pretty well for a newcomer. He liked them, that was the important thing. And he was very nice.
Conner learned that Keith had only recently paid off all his school loans and bought himself a larger home. He’d been in a small town house for a long time, paying bills and saving. At least he hadn’t been living with the mother and sister he was so close to. Now he had a fairly large four-bedroom home with a big yard in a good school district.
Why he mentioned the school district kind of stumped Conner until he thought about it and realized that Keith might be courting Katie and her sons. That’s what you did when you were dating a woman with children. Unless… He’s not weird or sick, is he? Conner had no idea how to check for something like that. He’d never even known a guy who—
He took a deep breath. He’d brave that discussion with Katie after the good dentist left. But despite his not very well-founded worry, he thought Keith was probably a good guy, just a guy with a very different lifestyle than Conner’s.
When the evening was beginning to wind down, when dessert was done and coffee cups were low and talk turned to work the next morning, Conner volunteered to put the boys in the shower and make sure they donned clean pajamas. It was a good forty-five minutes later when he left them in their bedroom and ventured down the hall toward the living room.
The house was so small, he could see Katie and Keith standing at the front door from the bedroom hallway. They faced each other, smiling, and talked softly. Katie looked up at Keith with somewhat adoring eyes; Keith put his hand on her shoulder again and gave that little squeeze. He leaned down, and Conner thought he was going to kiss her, but no. He said something, smiled and left.
Katie turned and saw him. “Well. Are you watching?” she asked with a slight, teasing smile.
“Yup. Though I wasn’t watching much.”
“Like I said, he’s being very proper. Want more coffee? Something else?”
He shook his head. “The boys are not quite in bed. They’re clean, and if they’re not tired, I’ll go knock ’em over the head.”
“I’ll go tell them lights out,” she said, heading for their bedroom. And once again, Mommy’s word carried weight because the light went off, the door was pulled almost closed, and it got pretty quiet in there. Just a little murmuring.
Katie sat on the couch, tired. She leaned back and pushed her hair away from her face, tucking the long strands behind her ear.
Conner was rooting around in the kitchen. “I’m having a beer. Can you choke down another glass of that fancy wine?”
“Did you like him?” she asked.
“I’m having a beer,” he repeated.
She sighed deeply. “Bring me wine.”
He popped the top on his beer and poured the wine, taking it into the little living room. He handed it to her. “I didn’t not like him.”
“Spit it out. What did you find wrong with him?”
“Nothing. Really, nothing,” Conner said. “What do you find right with him? He just doesn’t seem like your type.”
“He’s kind. Sensitive. Sweet. Good to the boys. Conscientious. Trustworthy. Dependable.”
“He could be all those things and have a little more backbone, I’m thinking,” Conner said.
“He has plenty of backbone!” she replied, a little heat in her voice. “He has a successful practice, is respected in the community, is a good family man….”
“Hey, don’t get mad. He’s not like the other men in your life. Not like Charlie was. Not like me or Dad.”
Her chin dropped. “But he’s so kind. Sweet.”
“Seems to be,” Conner said. “But, Katie, what’s with that hand on the shoulder? Is that the extent of his physical…you know…”
“He’s been up front about that. He doesn’t want to get physical with an employee. Even though he really likes me.”
“He said that?” Conner asked.
“He said that.”
Conner whistled.
“Oh, stop it! I know he’s not like other men I’ve been attracted to, but…” And then, inexplicably, she began to cry. She lowered her face into her hands, and soft, quiet sobs came from her.
Conner moved closer to her, slipping an arm around her shoulders. “Aw, honey. What’s the matter?”
“What’s taking him so long?” she asked. She lifted her face and peered at her brother. “All I want is a kiss! Well, okay, that’s not all I want, but we have to start somewhere.” She leaned against Conner and wiped her cheeks.
He stroked her pretty hair. “He’s safe, is that it?”
“Partly,” she said. “Or maybe mostly.”
“Is that the way to go?”
“Well, jeez, Danny…I mean Conner. At least he isn’t going off to war!”
“There are lots of guys who aren’t quite as…quiet and refined who aren’t going off to war.”
“There is nothing wrong with quiet and refined!”
“You know what I mean. It just doesn’t look like he’s going to ring a lot of bells, if you get my drift.”
“Yeah, I know. I thought about this a lot. The kind of guys I’m used to, the kind I’ve always been attracted to, men like my father and brother, are risk takers. Been there, done that. I’m ready to play it a little safe. I don’t want to keep losing husbands—I don’t want my boys to keep losing fathers.”
“But, Katie, honey, I’m not a risk taker,” he argued.
She laughed outright. “Yes, you are. An ordinary guy would run for his life after being threatened after seeing a murder, but not you! You’re going to take the stand, look him in the eye and convict him! You risk your life to do that!”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I’m taking every possible precaution.”
“I want a quiet life,” she said. Her eyes grew sad; she shook her head in frustration. “I want my kids to have a good education, a safe upbringing, a stable environment….”
“And good teeth,” he said with a laugh.
She wiped her tears and laughed, too. “And good teeth.”
“He’s…like…perfectly normal. Right?”
“Just because he loves kids doesn’t make him a pedophile,” she said.
“But you don’t take that for granted, right? You got your eye on that, right?” Conner asked, because he couldn’t not ask.
She lifted her head off his shoulder and with her blue eyes in slits, peered up at him. “Like white on rice.”
He let go a big laugh and squeezed her tight. “Katie, Katie.” This was what people didn’t get about her because she appeared so docile. She was a lioness. A dragon. Because she stepped and talked softly, people sometimes took her for a pushover. Not Katie. No way she was letting her boys near an “iffy” guy.
“You’ve had your eye on him,” Conner said.
“Every second. Every. Second. I swear, I won’t stop watching, but he just plain loves kids. He wants to have some of his own. He feels like he put it off too long, and he hopes it’s not too late.”
“Don’t get into this for the wrong reasons, Katie,” Conner said. “I can respect safe, but he also has to ring all your bells.” He ran a knuckle down her jawline. “I saw how you were with Charlie. Just try to get lit up by the right guy because, seriously, I’m getting old!”
“Isn’t Leslie kind of safe?”
He burst out laughing. “No!” he said. “No-ho-ho!” he emphasized. “She’s got some of her own crap. Not quite as dramatic as mine. She has a weird ex who wants to be her best friend even though he’s remarried and has a pregnant wife. And her parents, who are actually awesome people, are pretty eccentric. But safe? Oh, man—so not safe. She blows my mind. Falling in love with her is huge.” He tilted Katie’s face up to his. “If she dumps me or otherwise hurts me, I’m a guaranteed wreck. Leslie is a big risk for me. That make you feel better?”
She looked at him and shook her head. “No. I don’t want to do that. I don’t feel like taking chances.”
“Then tell me, honey. Tell me what he does for you….”
She took a breath. “He makes me feel comfortable. Cherished in an everyday way. Seriously. There are times at the office or over lunch away from the office when he talks about simple things like riding bikes with the boys through the park, and he’ll remark on how they will absolutely stop at the end of the sidewalk and wait for me before crossing the street. He’ll tell me how much he admires the job I’ve done with them, a mother alone without a husband. He sees that Mitch and Andy are secure, that they don’t act out like a lot of little kids…. He has said, a number of times, that I’m exactly the kind of woman he’d want to raise his children, and he says, ‘If you take that to mean hope relationship grows, you’re right.’ Sometimes he’ll ask my opinion about something minor to me but major to him—like whether to seed or sod that new yard of his, like whether to texture and paint walls or look at wallpaper…. I know, that doesn’t seem like anything, but it just feels so normal. And God, Conner…I just want to feel normal.”
Conner patted her arm affectionately. “We’ve always been able to talk very openly, very honestly, haven’t we, Katie?” She nodded. “Then let me say something that’s kind of hard to say to my little sister. It sounds like you’re choosing a roommate, not a husband. You like him more for what he doesn’t do for you than for what he does. He doesn’t make you feel too much.”
“Oh, you’re wrong,” she insisted. “I could really tear his clothes off. The big question is—does he want to tear my clothes off? Because if he can be the gentleman in the light of day and a wild man when the lights go out, he’s absolutely what I want. I’m not stupid—I’m not going to get hooked up with a guy who doesn’t have any passion.”
“You have to promise me that,” Conner said.
“I promise, of course. But if he has all the traits I mentioned—the kindness and the gentleness and also passion, then he’s exactly what I want. Exactly. This isn’t the frontier—I don’t need some macho man who’s going to protect me from the grizzly. I need a dependable, loving, caring man who will come home from work every night.”
Conner heard it, but he didn’t believe it. That might be what Katie thought she needed—the comfortable old shoe. But it would leave her hungry and a little empty.
His baby sister was afraid to fall in love, love like she’d had with Charlie—hot, irrepressible, sizzling love that left her flushed and breathless. Because when you had that kind of love and lost it, the pain was just terrible.
But he said, “You’ll do the right thing, Katie. Just be sure to ask all the right questions of yourself before you get in too deep.”
“Of myself?”
“Yes,” Conner said. “Questions like, can you be happy with almost everything, or do you have to have it all? Because it’s hard to be honest about that.”
Leslie found the warm weather and lengthening of the days to be such a comfort, especially as she was missing Conner. When she got home from work, there was still enough daylight for her to enjoy the front porch. And if neighbors happened to walk by, she gave them a wave, sometimes they even stopped to chat for a while. Mrs. Hutchkins was an energetic walker; Mrs. Clemens was slow but earnest.
Nora walked over with her kids, and while Berry played on the grass with her little talking box that made all the animal sounds, Nora sat in the chair beside Leslie to give Fay her bottle.
“Let me,” Leslie said, reaching for the baby.
“Sure. She’s a cuddle bug, that one is.” Then she gave Berry a little nod. “And that one is so independent, sometimes it worries me.”
“Why?” Leslie asked. “She seems happy.”
“I think she is, at least most of the time. I had such a completely dysfunctional relationship with her father, I wonder if she’s scarred for life. Emotionally. At least he wasn’t around all that much, but still… I’m working through some of that now. Pastor Kincaid is a wonderful counselor.”
“Is he?”
“Truly,” Nora said. “I’m not a religious person at all, and when Mel Sheridan suggested I talk to him, I was very reluctant. I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to unburden my sorry soul to a minister.” Then she laughed a little. “One of the first things I learned about him is that he was a counselor before he was a minister.”
“Do you mind if I ask? How old are you, Nora?”
“Twenty-three. Only twenty-three. Going on forty.”
“Sounds like you’ve lived a lot.”
“Fast,” she said. “You look pretty comfortable with that baby,” she said with a smile.
“I wanted children,” Leslie confided. “I was married for eight years, divorced at thirty-one, and I wanted children. But my husband wasn’t interested in having kids and I let it go.” She shook her head and frowned. “I let a lot of things I wanted go. Now I’m trying to figure out why I’d do that.”
“What we do for men, huh?” Nora asked.
“Are you divorced, Nora?”
“Never married,” she said with a shake of her head. “I met this handsome, badass baseball player when I was nineteen and got pregnant not once but twice. He brought me up here and dumped me—Fay was only a few weeks old when he left. He had this idea he was going to get into the marijuana business, but he was too unreliable for even that and he took off. He left me right before this whole town was buried in the biggest snowstorm and the wind was blowing under my door! He took everything—the truck, even the refrigerator. I was scared to death and had no idea what I was going to do, and now? Now I feel like I should write him a thank-you note or something! Got my girls in a nice little town where I don’t have to be afraid of all the things I was afraid of before.”
“My God, how did you get by?”
“On the generosity of new friends who didn’t owe me a thing. Your boss sent someone over to my house to seal the doors and windows against the cold. Preacher’s wife brought over clothes and blankets and even an ice cooler for me to keep my milk and stuff. Adie told Pastor she thought I could use a Christmas food basket. It just spiraled from there. When the snow started to melt, Mel Sheridan gave me a part-time job in the clinic—she said I could bring my kids as long as I could manage them—that’s what she had to do when hers came along.” She reached over and gave her baby’s fat foot a squeeze. “I owe everything to the people in this town. I really don’t know what I would have done!”
“Where are you from?” Leslie asked.
“Berkeley. I lived there from the time I was ten—left three years ago when I was pregnant with Berry. Where are you from?” she asked.
“Grants Pass, Oregon. My boss, Paul Haggerty, worked there with his father and brothers for years, then came down here to open another arm of their construction company. I came down to work for him. Mainly to get away from my ex-husband.”
“He’s abusive?”
Leslie’s brows shot up. “Not at all!” she said too quickly. Then she realized why Nora might have made that assumption. “Let me rephrase that. No, Greg is not abusive in the usual sense of the word. He’s self-centered and egotistical and manipulative, but in the nicest possible way. He wants us to be best friends—even though he remarried right away and his new wife is pregnant. I just want him to go away!” She pulled the sweet little bundle closer. “I take it yours was…abusive?”
“He’s an addict. He was a minor league ballplayer when I met him. He had big dreams of the major league, but he tinkered with drugs. I tinkered, too—I have to own that. But I got pregnant and stopped the second I suspected. But Chad indulged. He got caught, of course, and was dropped from the league. Then he really bottomed out and pretty much took me down with him.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No idea. Hopefully gone back to the Berkeley or Oakland area where he had all his old drug connections. I just need to never see him again. But you—you have a new man in your life,” she said.
“Conner,” Leslie confirmed. “He’s away—attending to some family business. It’s giving him a chance to visit his sister and nephews. He’s enjoying that a lot—he’s very close to them.”
“When will he be back?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but hopefully in a week or so. Maybe two weeks. He hasn’t seen his sister in a long time. But I talk to him every day.” She snuggled Fay a little closer. “You’re right about this one—a real snuggle bug.”
“I had no crib for her, so I barely put her down. The three of us sleep together, all cozy.”
“That sounds kind of wonderful,” Leslie said.
“Isn’t it amazing how some of your biggest blunders can end up being the best thing that ever happened to you?” Nora asked. And she gazed lovingly at little Berry, who sat on the grass between the flower beds, picking at the grass and making sounds that seemed to be a two-year-old’s version of singing.
“I have an idea,” Leslie said. “How would you and the girls like to ride into Fortuna on Saturday? Just wander around, maybe do a little shopping? Go to the big park?”
“That’s so sweet, but I don’t have car seats. Pastor Kincaid keeps his eye open for some to be donated to the church for one of their rummage sales. He says when and if that happens, he’ll snag them for me. Until then…”
“Well then, I think we should see if either Martha or Adie or both of them can babysit for a few hours,” Leslie suggested. “It might be good for you to have a break, get out of town for a while.”
“Maybe I could leave the girls with one of them during their nap time. I’ll ask…if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” Leslie said. “Not only would I enjoy the company, it would give you something fun to do. Let me know if you can rope those ladies into sitting for a while!”
