A Place Called Home (47 page)

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Joel said. “Where did she get that idea?”

“Who knows? My guess would be it has something to with you not wanting to marry her.” Mitch watched Joel’s knuckles whiten as he gripped his Heineken. “But that’s just a guess.”

Joel grunted softly.

“I also hear you suggested that she not have the baby.”

He didn’t try to deny it. “It seemed like a reasonable solution until I heard it come out of my mouth.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s hard for girls to get over that, though. That kind of thing sticks. Especially since you followed up with the adoption suggestion.”

Joel’s gunmetal gray eyes narrowed and his chin jutted forward. “Goddammit, is there anything she
didn’t
tell you?”

“Probably not. She was pretty upset when she first talked to me. Things just kept falling out of her mouth. Then she showed me a house last Friday morning. She was doing okay for most of the tour but when we got to the room that had been used as a nursery ...” Mitch simply shook his head. “Well, you can use your imagination. What I didn’t know before, I learned on that round.”

“And she talked to Thea, too?”

“Yep. She had some insane idea that Thea should talk to you. If it turns out that I have to kick your butt, remember I saved it in the first place.”

Joel Strahern swore softly. He finished his beer and got the waitress’s attention to order two more. “You want one?” he asked Mitch.

Mitch chuckled. “Sure.”

“Three,” Joel called to the waitress. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Mitch’s look of surprise. “I’m kidding,” he said. Then he changed his order back to two. “I can get a cab back to the office, but I really need to drive home.”

The cold beers arrived quickly and the sandwiches came a few minutes later. Mitch pulled the toothpick out of one half of his Reuben and dropped it on his plate. He picked up the sandwich in two hands. “Thea thinks that maybe this isn’t about whether you love Gina. She says you do. She thinks it could be that you’re not sure what Gina feels for you.” Over the top of his dark rye bread, Mitch saw Joel Strahern flinch. On the money, he thought. Thea was on the money. “But that’s just her opinion.”

Joel pushed his plate a few inches away and picked up his beer. He tipped it back and drank, then he regarded Mitch frankly. “What would you do?”

Mitch shook his head. “No way I’m answering that.”

“All right. Then what do you think I should do?”

Mitch didn’t say anything immediately. He put his sandwich down, wiped his fingers on his napkin, and took a swallow of beer. “Is it your plan to ignore your child?”

“Hell, no.”

“I’m not talking about sending a monthly check, Joel. Gina doesn’t need your money anyway. I’m talking about spending time with your kid. Ball games. Dance lessons. Diapers. Whatever it takes.”

Joel’s jaw tightened and a muscle jumped in his cheek. “I don’t need lessons from you about raising children. You’ve been in charge of runny noses and bedtime stories for six months. I have grown kids. I have grandkids. I know something about what it takes.”

“Then maybe the question is: Do you have what it takes to do it again?”

“You mean do I want to?”

“No, that isn’t what I mean. Frankly, I don’t give a shit if you want to. Gina doesn’t want to be a single mother, but she’ll do it because the alternatives don’t work for her. You do it because it’s the right thing to do. Period.” He paused and when he spoke his voice was low and a little rough with emotion. “Then, if you’re damned lucky, you’ll find you want to.”

Joel stared at him. After a while he asked, “Is that what happened to you?”

“Pretty much. You have an advantage, Joel. Emilie, Case, and Grant weren’t mine.”

“But they are now?”

“Oh yeah. In every way that counts. I had a family transplant that took.”

“Thea?”

“I can’t speak for her, but yes, I’m guessing she feels the same way about them that I do.”

Joel set his beer down and turned the bottle slowly. “Are you going to marry her?”

“Not because of the kids.”

“No?”

“No. There’s only one reason I’m going to ask her to marry me—and only one reason I’m hoping she’ll say yes.”

“Let me guess,” Joel said, his mouth lifting in a wry twist. “It’s the same reason I should propose to Regina.”

“You said it.”

Joel’s cynical smile faded slowly. “I don’t know if it’s enough,” he said quietly. “I’m older than her parents. There will be talk. She doesn’t deserve to be subjected to that.”

“No, but you can’t control what other people will say. And shouldn’t she have some part of that decision? Anyway, do you really care what people think? You’ll be happy. So will she.” Mitch gave him a dead-on look, the kind that closed deals in Joel Strahern’s world. “Isn’t that the best revenge?”

Thea swiveled in her chair to face the door to her office. It swung open and she looked up expectantly. Mitch stood on the threshold. His features didn’t give anything away. Her eyes narrowed, looking for bruises.

“Nobody beat up anybody,” he said, stepping inside. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it. “Are you disappointed? I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“It was.” She paused for effect. “Mostly.”

“You know, I wish you had been clearer, because there was a moment that I really wanted to smash his face.”

“What happened?”

“The moment passed.” Mitch pushed away from the door and flopped on her sofa. “Are you working late?”

“Mi-itch.” Exasperation pressed Thea to make two syllables out of his name. “What happened?”

He shrugged. “We had a couple of Heinekens—a vastly underrated diplomatic beverage, by the way—and talked. I had a Reuben. He ordered the turkey club but didn’t eat much. We both had fries. Afterward, we shot darts.”

“You shot darts?!”

“Yeah, he’s pretty good, too. I won best two out three then I got the hell out of there before he made it three out of five. The man’s competitive.”

“You shot darts,” she said softly.

“Uh-huh. So, are you working late tonight? Don’t forget tomorrow’s the Fourth. You get a day off and there’s a parade and people throw candy at you from fire trucks. I mostly go after the Tootsie Rolls if there aren’t a lot of kids around me.”

“That’s very mature of you. Now tell me what Joel said. What’s he going to do?”

Mitch frowned. “How should I know? It wasn’t that kind of talk. I planted seeds and we’ll see what happens.”

“You ... planted ... seeds.”

“Yeah.” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Thea, the man’s sixty-one years old, and by the look of things, he’s done okay for himself. I wasn’t going to sit there and tell him what to do.” He stopped, thought about what he’d said to Joel, then added, “Well, not tell him much. It’s up to him and Gina.”

Thea pressed her lips together briefly as she considered. “Are you hopeful?”

“Let’s put it this way,” he said. “They were good seeds and the ground was fertile.”

Laughing, she got to her feet and dropped into his lap. “Farmer Baker,” she whispered, putting her arms around his neck, “you wanna plow the lower forty?”

Thea stood on the curb of Connaugh Creek’s Main Street and dodged candy missiles while Mitch made a surreptitious search of the street and sidewalk for midget Tootsie Rolls. There was a toddler giving him a lot of competition.

“She’s cramping my style,” he told Thea.

“You are a sick man. You really would take candy from a baby.”

“Look at her. She must be at least four and already she has no heart.”

Rolling her eyes, Thea moved so she was standing in front of him. She found his arms, brought them around her waist, and held them there. She leaned back against him. “Just keep you hands on this tootsie.”

Mitch nudged her hair with his chin. “Firecracker.”

“You better believe it.”

“Mmm,” Mitch murmured against her ear. Thea was wearing navy blue shorts and a white cotton top with silver-glitter stars. Her red hair was like a burst of fire in the sunlight, giving the impression the fuse had already been lit. Which it probably had. “Look. Here come the bicycles.”

Thea glanced down the street and tried to pick out Emilie and the twins in the sea of children pedaling their way. She caught sight of Case almost immediately. He was flanking the large group, coming up on their curbside. Like every other kid’s bike, his was decorated with crepe paper streamers woven in the spokes and around the handlebars. Red-and-blue streaks in his pale hair helped him stand out. In the event that wasn’t enough to catch the judges’ notice, Case had a horn he tooted whenever he was confident enough of his balance to take one hand off the plastic grip.

Emilie spotted Thea and Mitch before they saw her. She waved with both hands, showing off until she was certain she caught their eye, and for a little while after that. “Hands on the wheel!” Mitch yelled.

Emilie grabbed the handlebars so hard the bike wobbled and she almost took a spill.

“Okay, now you’ve embarrassed her,” Thea said. “Look at your parents. Do you see them embarrassing the kids?” Jennie and Bill were sitting in lawn chairs a few feet away. Jennie had just pulled her camera out and was yoo-hooing to get the children’s attention so she could take pictures. Bill was unwrapping a midget Tootsie Roll. “Never mind. It will scare you.”

Mitch laughed. “I know. Do I have some great genes, or what?”

Grant pulled in front of them just then for an Uncle Sam hat adjustment. Thea refitted it on his head so it wouldn’t fall over his eyes while Jennie took more pictures than a paparazzo. “Careful,” she said, and gave him a push off. “Love you.”

“Aunt Thea!” Grant ducked his head, the hat fell forward, and he had to adjust it again. His legs churned on the pedals so he could catch up with his brother.

“Now who’s the embarrassing one?” Mitch whispered. He opened his arms again to allow Thea to step back in his embrace.

“Sssh,” she hushed him, dashing away the tears that had suddenly filled her eyes. “I’m having a moment.”

Mitch let her.

The parade ended thirty-five minutes later with fire trucks and emergency vehicles representative of the nearby municipalities bringing up the rear. It was an impressive display of community and volunteerism and wholly fitting of the spirit of the Fourth.

Thea and Mitch caught up with the children on their walk from Main Street to the park. They all wandered the grounds eating hot dogs and homemade pie and listening to a brass band play show tunes and Sousa marches in the gazebo. There was a double-header All Stars ball game in the afternoon. Case and Grant were up first with the younger players, then their Little League heroes took the field. Afterward Thea and Jennie went to the pool to watch the kids swim while Mitch played in a cornhole tournament with his father.

“Do you think there are perfect days?” Thea asked Mitch as they were walking back to his house. The children were riding ahead on their bicycles, weaving in and out of each other in a spontaneously choreographed pattern.

“I never thought about it,” Mitch said. “You think today is one of those days?”

“Uh-huh.”

Mitch found her hand and slipped his fingers through hers. “There’s still burgers on the grill and fireworks to come.”

She smiled, dropping her head to his shoulder for a moment. “It just keeps getting better.”

They had a backyard cookout. Mitch’s sister and brother-in-law joined them, along with Jennie and Bill. Emilie was allowed to invite a friend to keep the squabbling with the twins to a minimum. There was more food than they could possibly eat, sustained laughter throughout the preparation and cleanup, and some prickly exchanges when politics came up front and center. At dusk the children were finally allowed to have their sparklers. They paraded around the yard, air writing with wands of light and alternating between playing Star Wars and Harry Potter.

When it was time to return to the park to watch the fireworks, Mitch managed to get Thea to hang back with him while the others went on ahead.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “We won’t be able to find them if we don’t catch up.”

“They won’t get lost.”

“I’m not worried about—” Thea looked at Mitch suspiciously. “What
is
going on.”

“Nothing. I swear.” He took her hand and guided her toward the curb so they could cross the street. “Come on.”

“The park’s the other way, Mitch. Everyone else is—”

“The best fireworks view is this way.”

“But—”

He started across the street, pulling her with him. “Trust me.”

She did. They walked counter to the direction of the park for three blocks, dodging people and cars going the other way. It did seem odd to Thea that no one else appeared to know about what Mitch called the “best fireworks view.” Apparently it was also the best-kept secret in town.

The cross street signs read Elm and Orchard when Mitch turned Thea off the sidewalk and onto the private walkway of a large Victorian style home on the corner. The wide lemonade porch wrapped around two sides of the house. White gingerbread accented the eaves and gables. The trim on the porch was also white and the house was painted pale yellow. The home was situated so charmingly on the wide corner lot that a white picket fence would have been overkill.

“Who lives here?” asked Thea.

“No one right now.” Mitch easily overcame her slight resistance and pulled her up the steps to the porch. He released her at the front door and searched his pocket for a key. “I got the key from Gina. Sommers Realty has the listing.”

“This is the house she showed you last week?”

“Uh-huh. After months of dragging me out of town to look at homes in places with names like Woodfield Glen Timber Crest Estates—which have no trees, by the way—she finally heard me when I told her that wasn’t where I wanted to live.”

“So she found this place? Amazing.”

“I know. She says she did it by thinking of the last place she’d ever want to live.”

Thea chuckled. “Well, there you go.” She stepped inside when Mitch opened the door for her. He reached behind her and flipped a switch, flooding the foyer with light. The entrance hall was wide with hardwood floors, white wainscoting, and a staircase that curved gently to the second floor. She allowed Mitch to take her hand again and lead her through the downstairs, one room flowing into another: living room, dining room, kitchen and family room, pantry and laundry.