An Accidental Family (5 page)

A whole lot more.

W
ith the sunset, the last of Nadine’s guests crunched down her narrow gravel drive. As she’d thanked them for the birthday gifts and wished each one a safe trip home, Lamont sat in a rocker on her front porch, her sleeping granddaughter cuddled in his arms.

He couldn’t say exactly when Amy had crawled into his lap, toting a shaggy purple teddy bear. Lamont glanced down at her rosy cheeks and grinned. Long enough for his arm to go numb, anyway. The dull ache seemed small by comparison to the warmth swirling in his heart. It had been a long time since he’d held his own girls this way, and much as he loved what wonderful women they had become, he missed moments like these.

Amy’s steady, restful breaths soothed him. Heavy-lidded himself, Lamont leaned his head against the chair back and closed his eyes. When she sighed and snuggled closer, instinct made him press a soft kiss to her temple.

“If this isn’t a Norman Rockwell moment, I don’t know what is.”

Without opening his eyes, he slurred drowsily, “I’d rather it was a Maxwell House moment.”

“There’s bound to be some left in the coffeepot. Want me to pour you a cup?”

Lamont peered at Nadine through a slit in one eye. She’d pulled out her ponytail, and her golden hair now swung freely around her slender shoulders. Silhouetted by the porch light, he could see every womanly curve. Man, but she was a good-looking gal, even after a long day entertaining guests, their kids
and
their pets. “What time is it?”

“Time to fix you a nice hot cup of coffee.”

He wanted to tell her to sit with him, instead, but she’d already disappeared inside, like a wisp of smoke blown to the four corners by the spring breeze. Funny, he thought, how in the moment she’d stood there, close enough to touch, the very atmosphere had crackled with excitement. Odder still the knowledge that since she’d left, the air was quiet and still, reminding him of the hush following a thunderstorm. The comparison confused him, because he’d never felt anything but calm and comfortable in her presence. Lamont would have shrugged at the contrasts, if he wasn’t afraid of waking Amy.

Nadine put two big earthenware mugs on the red gingham-covered table between the rockers. “You’d better hope this little nap doesn’t keep her up all night, or you’ll have Julie to answer to.”

“If this li’l munchkin gives you any trouble, feel free to call,” he said, winking. “As you can see, I’m great with kids.”

Doing her best to hide a grin, Nadine crossed both arms over her chest. “You might be sorry you said that, at three o’clock in the morning.”

“Hey, I put in my share of sleepless nights back in the day.”

“I’m sure you did, what with four kids born one right after the other.”

Her expression softened as she tilted her head, and Lamont would have given ten bucks to know what was going on in that head of hers. He didn’t have time to figure it out, because Nadine moved closer and, bending at the waist, put her face mere inches from his.

Disappointment cloaked him like a cool fog when she gently lifted Amy from his arms.

“I’ll just get her tucked in,” Nadine whispered. “If you have to leave before I get back, I’ll understand.”

He hid his discouragement at her not-so-subtle hint behind a slanting grin. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. Your birthday present is still on the backseat of my pickup, and I’m not goin’ anywhere ’til I see you open it.”

“Well, you’re more than welcome to wait inside.” She glanced around the darkened yard, her gaze resting for an instant on paper cups and empty soda bottles. “It’s getting kinda chilly out here.”

When she stepped inside, Lamont grabbed the trash can she’d put on the porch earlier, and dragged it down the flagstone steps. If he knew Nadine, she’d be up there for half an hour or more, getting her sleepy-headed grandchild cleaned up and into pajamas, listening to her prayers, maybe telling her a bedtime story or two. More than enough time for him to get some of the party remnants cleaned up.

He tossed empty potato salad and cole slaw tins into the bag, then put what remained of the birthday cake on her kitchen counter. That done, he stacked her gifts on the living room sofa, placed her birthday cards on the
coffee table and, with nothing left to do, headed back to the porch. When he hit the foyer, the distant strains of a familiar lullaby wafted down the stairs, stopping him dead in his tracks.

He followed it up the steps to Amy’s room. Her voice was so lovely, soft and dulcet and the slightest bit husky. But then, he’d be hard-pressed to name something about her that
wasn’t
lovely.

Was she sitting on the edge of Amy’s mattress, he wondered, or in a stiff-backed chair next to the bed? When Lamont peered around the corner, it didn’t surprise him to see Nadine stretched out on the mattress with Amy nestled happily in the crook of her grandmom’s arm.

He smiled, then remembered the flat, rectangular package still sitting on his backseat. Tiptoeing down the steps, he headed for the driveway, hoping she’d like his gift. Something told him he’d never know for sure because, earlier, he’d watched her fawn over a gaudy clay refrigerator magnet the church organist had sculpted for her, seen her fuss over the sweater vest Marian the librarian had crocheted from pea green and purple angora.

Lamont sat in the rocker on her porch, the present in his lap. The coffee was cold now, but he sipped it anyway, enjoying every swallow because Nadine had made it for him. He felt at ease here, inhaling the aromas from her potted plants, looking out over the expanse of freshly mowed lawn, listening to crickets and night birds that filled the darkness with harmonious song. He could picture himself whiling away the evening hours with her, right here on this porch, chatting until it was time to turn in.

“I do believe this is the first time I’ve seen a tough cowboy with a pink bow on his belt.”

He looked down. The way the gift rested in his lap, it did appear that he’d worn a fancy ribbon in place of a belt buckle. Laughing, he sat up straighter as she settled into the rocker beside him. “It isn’t much,” he said, handing her the little box.

“You shouldn’t have, Lamont.”

“Sure, I should. Gal doesn’t turn thirty-five every day.”

“Flatterer,” she said, and carefully removed the ribbon. “Did you wrap this yourself?”

“Can’t you tell by the wrinkles and the tape hiding the rips?”

“I really hadn’t noticed,” she said, lifting the box top.

Nadine parted the tissue paper and peered inside. “A gift certificate?” Turning it over in one hand, she read, “Dinner for Two at Cowboy Joe’s, Best Steak House in Texas.” She bit her lower lip before meeting his eyes. “Lamont, you shouldn’t ha—”

“Sure, I should,” he said again. Shrugging, he added, “I just thought, well, I kinda hoped you’d use it to treat me to a steak dinner.” He grinned. “You know, to make up for canceling steak night.”

Nadine tucked the card back into its tissue-paper bed, replaced the lid, and sat the gift on the table beside Lamont’s half-empty coffee mug. “Thank you.”

Was she blushing? And why on earth was her lower lip trembling? And was that a tear glistening at the corner of her eye? Last thing he wanted to do was upset her. Presents were supposed to make people happy, not make them cry. “Nadine,” he said, reaching across
the space separating them, “it’s your gift. I was only kidding. Take anyone you please to dinner at Joe’s.”

Nadine patted his hand. “It’s a wonderful, thoughtful gift,” she interrupted, “and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather share it with than you.”

Did she mean it? He stared deep into her big blue eyes. Well, it sure looked like she’d meant it. So then, why the waterworks? Sighing, Lamont prayed for a sliver of knowledge to help him understand this remarkable woman.

“And thanks for cleaning up the yard. You didn’t have to do that, either.”

He shrugged again. “No big deal. Saves you having to do it tomorrow.”

She laughed. “Yeah, leaving me plenty of time to muck the stalls and shovel out the henhouse.”

Lamont turned her hand palm up, traced his thumb over well-worn calluses, like connect-the-dots. If she were his woman, he’d see to it that she never had to work so hard. She deserved to be pampered and spoiled, to have her every wish fulfilled.

Instinct propelled him forward, where he knelt beside her chair. Automatically, his arms slid around her waist, and he drew her close. “Happy birthday, darlin’. I hope you have at least a hundred more, each one happier than the last.”

Nadine bracketed his face with those hardworking little hands. “You’re a smooth talker, Lamont London,” she said, smiling softly, “but thanks for the well wishes, all the same.”

“Ah, Nadine,” he rasped, “you’re wrong. That wasn’t some practiced line. I meant every word.”

She studied his face for what seemed like an eternity,
analyzing his brow, his cheeks and chin, his mouth, as if trying to imprint it on her memory.

“You’d better cut that out,” he warned, his voice foggy with emotion.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

Her hands were still pressed to his cheeks, her eyes still boring deep into his when Julie called from the kitchen. “Mom, what do you want me to do with this leftover cake?”

“That girl has terrible timing,” he groaned, sitting on his heels.

“Just leave it there for now,” Nadine called out, as he returned to his rocker. “I’ll take care of it later.”

She got to her feet, held her hand out to him. When he gave his to her, Lamont looked at their entwined fingers, thinking how terrific it would be if their lives could overlap this way. Standing, he kissed her work-worn knuckles. Oh, how he cared for this woman, probably more than was good for either one of them right now. But too late for second guesses.

Not knowing what to say next, he let her lead him down the flagstone walk toward his pickup. She stepped back and waved as he slid behind the wheel and, as he drove off, he could see in the rearview mirror that she’d returned to the porch, where she stood on the top step, watching.

Lord,
he prayed,
if she doesn’t feel the same way, get me outta this before it’s too late.

The porch swing moved slowly, propelled by one well-worn boot heel. Lamont stared past the hip-high stone wall surrounding the terrace, beyond the row of long-spent daffodils and tulips that ringed the granite
patio, hands wrapped around a cool brown bottle of root beer. A nippy late-spring wind rustled tree leaves and carried the scent of newly sprouting cow corn.

Lamont remembered how Rose had insisted that these maple trees would die, planted just beyond the porch. But knowing how much she loved reading in the shade, he’d mixed fertilizer and peat into the sandy Texas soil and made a point of getting up sooner than usual every day to water the spindly saplings, how he’d knocked off work a few minutes early to drench them again each evening. His efforts had paid off, because the trees had grown tall and sturdy, reminding him of how he’d often come in from the pastures and found her reclining in her favorite chaise, poring over a paperback novel or woolgathering about one thing or another.

Soon, her precious roses would bloom, as they had every spring since her death. He’d teased her dozens of times for doubting the maples could survive, because her prickly shrubs produced thousands of colorful blooms in the same hard-packed earth. “I didn’t do it with smoke and mirrors,” she’d say. “Hard work and sweat is the only way to earn blue ribbons!” Every spring, Lamont secretly hoped they hadn’t survived the winter, because he sure as shootin’ didn’t need the constant reminder of her. But despite harsh weather and neglect, they came back, gorgeous and determined to stay alive.

Their natural stubbornness reminded him of Nadine, who had outlasted life’s hard knocks without looking any the worse for wear. Taking a deep breath, Lamont frowned and shook his head. He hadn’t felt this rattle-brained since that day when he first saw Rose in Amarillo. He’d been a cocky young buck back then, so the notions whirling in his head and the feelings pounding
in his veins hadn’t surprised him. But now? At his age? What fifty-five-year-old man gets double-quick heartbeats looking at a grandmother?

“Sure doesn’t look like any gran’ma I ever saw,” he told Obnoxious. Sure, there were a few laugh lines on her pretty face, a hint of gray at her temples, but these things only made her more all the more beautiful, because they were confirmation of a life fully and well lived.

His gaze went beyond his fields, to her ranch. He leaned slightly to get a better view. Funny, but he’d never noticed before that the light from her house was visible all the way over here.

The thin-necked bottle slid from his hand and landed with a foaming, spattering
thud
between his boots as he leaped to his feet. The glow wasn’t steady and calm, like the subtle halo of table lamps and porch lights. Rather, it ebbed and waned, brightened and dimmed.

Like fire?

Lamont didn’t bother to lock the back door. Didn’t stop to wonder whether Obnoxious would follow. Grabbing his keys as he raced toward the pickup, he prayed that the golden ring of light was a brush fire. Because if the luster on the inky horizon was fire at her place, it had to be one hungry blaze to be visible from miles away.

Thankfully, he’d left his cell phone on the passenger seat. Grabbing it, he dialed 911. When the efficient, no-nonsense voice came on the line, Lamont barked out Nadine’s name and address. “Better get a-move on,” he growled. “Looks bad, real bad.”

Lamont haphazardly tossed the phone aside and floored the gas pedal. If a Texas Ranger or a state trooper pulled him over, so much the better. The cop
could provide a police escort, radio the fire department for more backup—

The breath caught in his throat as he finished the thought: and an ambulance.

Lamont tried to concentrate on the road, but the nearer he got, the more intensely the night sky above Nadine’s house glowed. Her house was clearly on fire, as evidenced by the cherry-red and icy blue flames that licked the coal-black Heavens.

He found himself wishing, as he bulleted up her driveway, that it had been the barn ablaze—any outbuilding—instead of the house she’d spent decades turning into a home. A spray of gravel spewed out behind him as he stomped on the brake. He leaped from the cab without bothering to slam the door. “Nadine!” he yelled, tearing across the lawn. “Nadine!”