Angel's Peak (22 page)

“You?” Maureen asked.

Vivian nodded. “I don’t want her to think I need her to take care of me—not emotionally or in any other way. I have a full life and look forward to the next stage. I have a wonderful man in my life—I expect he’ll be around a very long time. We’ve been seeing each other the past year and both of us have had commitments that have kept us from moving forward—he’s a fairly new widower with two teenagers, and I’ve had my responsibilities to Francie and Rosie. But Carl and I have both known for quite a while that when our kids don’t need us quite as much, we’ll have more of each other.”

“Really?” Maureen said, intrigued. “A man?”

Vivian laughed. “A wonderful man. He was one of my bosses. A year after his wife’s death he invited me out to dinner, and that was all it took.”

Maureen leaned toward Vivian. “An office romance? I heard that was taboo!”

“Pah! We work together very well! I imagine we will for many years!”

“How amazing.”

“You’ll meet him sometime. In the meantime, my offer stands. If you want to stay close to Rosie, but give your boys some space, Rosie’s overnight room makes a perfectly useful guest room. You’re welcome to it.”

“But you obviously have a private life!”

Vivian just laughed. “Don’t let that get in your way! Especially in your wild imagination! Once you meet Carl, you’ll be completely at ease around him. He’s a physician—a wonderful, warm, loving man. Besides, we don’t have many pajama parties, Carl and I. As I said, he has teenagers at home!”

Maureen was thoughtful for a moment. “You’re very liberal in your thinking, aren’t you, Vivian?”

“I suppose I am,” Viv said. “And you’re quite the prude, aren’t you?”

“So I’m told,” Maureen said, somewhat grumpily.

Vivian laughed. “We should make an interesting and strange pair!”

Eleven

Once Rosie was tucked in, the lights were out and it was quiet, Sean and Franci sat on the living room sofa, a couple of glasses of wine on the coffee table. They talked quietly and the side of Sean she rarely saw was illuminated. Franci had wanted him to grow up, act like a family man, show responsibility. Then when he did, she wanted the old Sean back, fanciful and full of spontaneity. Seeing Sean act like an adult was a little scary.

She had to admit, when he got down to business, he was up to the job. His list of things that had to be done immediately was impressive. First he intended to visit the air force JAG and get a new will drafted so his daughter would be taken care of. He was going to transfer money out of his investments into a college trust for Rosie, a large enough stake so that even if Franci never contributed another dime, it would probably grow into enough. He had a hundred-thousand-dollar life-insurance policy in which his mother was beneficiary—all the Riordan boys did. They had not begun to help support their mother yet, but it looked as though the time was growing near. As often as these boys were involved in risky jobs, they had all agreed on individual policies so that each one would be holding up his end.

But Sean was going to immediately apply for an additional two hundred and fifty thousand, plus sign over his military death benefit to Rosie, with Franci as the executor, so that if the worst happened she and Rosie would be cared for.

“I’ll get those things taken care of right away,” he told her. “And I’ll spend the morning on the phone with MPC about assignments but, as you probably remember, that can take weeks. Now I have to ask you this—will you even consider going with me on assignment?”

“I don’t know,” she said wearily, uncertainly. She sipped her wine. “Sean, I’m so enmeshed in this place. I own a house and Rosie is settled. I don’t need that job at the college, but it’s good for me—it not only keeps me sharp, but I use their track for some running, and work out in the college weight room. And there’s my mom…”

“I know,” he said softly.

“She’s my best friend. And she moved up here with me to help take care of Rosie. They’re real close.”

“I know.” He leaned toward her. “Is there anyplace you’d be willing to go with me?”

“Huh?” she returned. “I don’t under—”

“There are U-2 assignments around the world, Fran. Accompanied tours. Alaska, England, Okinawa, the Philippines, the high desert in Southern California. I could probably sell my soul for a non-flying staff job in San Antonio at the Military Personnel Center or the Pentagon until Air Command and Staff materializes. It’s always hard to get back in the cockpit once you do that, but I’m willing to take that chance.” Then he shrugged. “I could skip any assignments that come with a time commitment, just get the three years I owe them out of the way, then do my best to get an airline job.”

She gave a huff of laughter. “Sean, the airlines are in the tank. They have such a deep pilot furlough list, none of them are hiring.”

“I could go in the cabin business with Luke,” he said. He reached toward her and ran a finger through that super-short hair at her temple. “You need time to think.”

She felt her eyes glisten with tears. “I wanted time for us to get to know each other again. So far so good,” she said. “But it’s only been a little over a week.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him and across his lap, holding her against him. “And it’s been good. Very good. Think as fast as you can, Franci.”

“Maybe the best thing for us to concentrate on is how we can be the best co-parents. We seem to do that pretty well. We both love Rosie.”

He put his lips against her neck. He licked his way up to her ear. “We’ll always be more than co-parents, and you know it.”

Sean and Franci made out on the couch until clothing got in the way, then by mutual consent they went to her bed. Sean was the one to close the door so Rosie wouldn’t find them and be traumatized; Franci was the one to supply condoms.

“I missed a condom once,” he murmured against her lips. “What a lucky break that was.”

“You wouldn’t have thought so at the time,” she pointed out.

“You were right about one thing, Franci—we’ve both changed a lot in the past few years and I’m for not going back.”

And then he went to work on her body in his own expert way. He kissed her ankles, sucked her toes, licked her inner thighs, worked her clitoris with his tongue. He pushed his thumb into her velvety softness while he licked at her core. He snaked the other hand up to her mouth to cover it so that her moans of ecstasy were muffled. When she claimed she couldn’t bear another orgasm, he was inside her, rocking her slowly and gently—excruciatingly slowly and gently. He pressed rhythmically against the deepest part of her and the build came upon her gradually, but when she tried to hurry him, to push him to move deeper, faster, he kept up that easy pace until she whimpered. Begged. “Please, Sean…Finish…” She dug her heels into the mattress and pushed back hard.

His chuckle was soft and low; his thrusts grew deep and powerful, and that was all it took. She broke apart from the inside, clenching against him, grabbing him to her, bathing him in hot liquid. And he said, “Ahhhh, baby. I love that sweet spot.” And he slammed into her, letting himself go in a low moan of pleasure.

He held her in the aftermath for a long time, the blanket drawn over them. She finally whispered, “You should go. You have a lot to do in the morning.”

“I’m staying tonight. Put on my T-shirt and I’ll sleep in my jeans in case someone’s wandering in the night. But I’m staying.”

“Your mother will know you spent the night with me…”

“I dare her to say one word to me,” he said. “I want to be with you.”

Franci wanted to argue, but not really. She pulled on his shirt as he told her to and enjoyed the scent of him. She was vaguely aware of Sean slipping into his jeans and she smiled to herself. She knew he liked to sleep in the nude and would be uncomfortable, but she appreciated his protection of Rosie’s innocence.

And when she woke hours later in the predawn, she found Rosie curled against his chest, sleeping between them, safe and content.

Francine cut out of school a little on the early side on Monday. Her classes were finished and she didn’t have any appointments, and she knew that Sean would be at the house with Rosie. Maureen would probably be there, too. She found herself anxious to hear about their day. Rosie was having a circus with a new daddy and grandma.

Franci had to hand it to Maureen; she was coming off very relaxed and accepting. If memory served, Franci knew her to be rather stiff in her morals—she did not, for example, approve of unmarried people having sex. For Sean and Franci, that ship had sailed long ago. And Maureen would notice that Sean had not gone back to Luke’s last night.

Franci had called Sean between her classes and asked, “Did your mother say anything about you spending the night?”

“Of course,” he said with a laugh. “She can’t keep her mouth shut about anything!”

“What did she say?”

“She asked me if I wasn’t complicating an already complicated situation. And I told her I wasn’t discussing it with her, so if she wanted to enjoy her time with Rosie she’d better drop it. And to my amazement, she did. Grandchildren, I discovered, provide amazing leverage.”

When Franci walked in the house a few hours later, she encountered one of the biggest messes she’d ever seen. Newspapers were spread over the island in the kitchen, covered with pumpkin guts. She could see the spills on the floor—seeds that had gotten away—and three pumpkins were in the middle of the carving process on the dining room table. One huge, one large and one small. The pumpkin family.

“Nuts,” Sean said. “You’re home early. We were going to surprise you. We’ve gotta have jack-o’-lanterns for Halloween!”

“Mama!” Rosie shouted excitedly. Then pointing, she said, “Daddy, Mommy, Rosie!”

“Were you going to surprise me with the cleanup?” she asked hopefully.

“Of course,” he said. “Maybe you should just go to your room and read or something until I have a chance to get things under control.”

“I’ll go change and then come and help,” she said. Briefcase in hand, she went to her bedroom and within five seconds she was immediately back in the dining room. “There appears to be a large duffel bag in my bedroom.”

“I’m moving in for a while, unless you throw me out. My mom is at Luke’s for the evening. She and I will spend tomorrow afternoon with Rosie while you’re in Redding at work. I thought I’d take babysitting duty while you do your twenty-four-hour shift. If that’s okay with you. Wednesday morning, while Rosie’s at preschool and day care, I’m driving my mom to the airport. She’s going home to get some things done around her condo so she can come right back. I guess the plants are dying, and the bills need to be paid. On the way over here this afternoon, after picking up my things at Luke’s, I scoped out the pumpkin patch and bought new pajamas.” He grinned at her. “I thought you might be annoyed we didn’t invite you along, so I took lots of pictures.”

“Weren’t you going to ask?” she said.

“About the pumpkin patch?” he returned.

“About the pajamas,” she stressed.

He straightened and his expression was serious. “I was going to beg. I have four weeks of leave, if they don’t call me in early. Can you put up with me? If I’m neat?”

Her heart swelled, but she was afraid to let it show. He’d always been neat. In fact, he was a little on the fussy side. Things he valued had to be perfectly maintained—his home, his car, his man toys. Put up with him?

“We’ve never actually done this before, you know,” she pointed out to him. “We’ve never really lived together.”

The look in his eyes was tender. “We should have.”

Rosie was a princess for Halloween, big surprise. There was a battle about wearing the plastic high heels without socks, and Sean was relieved when Franci handled that war without getting him involved. She let Sean take Rosie around the neighborhood for candy while she stayed home to hand it out to the goblins who came to her door. And then the tussle over how much candy Rosie could eat was handled again by Franci.

Franci thought she’d won the battle. Rosie was allowed two and a half pieces of candy, followed by bath and bed. The combination of the cold weather, the trek around the neighborhood and the excitement of the whole thing wore her out and Rosie crashed by seven-thirty. However, she sprang awake and was ready to party at 2:00 a.m. She was suddenly standing right beside Sean, wearing her princess dress. “Daddy?” she asked. “Are you still on bacation?”

“What are you doing up? And in your fancy dress?”

“I dunno,” she answered with a shrug. “Can we twick or tweet again?”

“It’s two in the morning, Rose. Everyone is in bed. Everyone but you.”

“The candy,” Franci moaned. “A sugar charge, then a sugar drop-off, and then a recharge.” She lifted up on an elbow and looked down at Sean. “Your turn, Daddy. You’re on bacation.”

Franci was a little surprised by how much relief she felt when Maureen left town; she hadn’t realized that Sean’s mother made her tense. Once it was back to just the three of them, life seemed calmer. Simpler and easier. When Franci worked, Sean was in charge; when Franci was home, Vivian didn’t interfere, but left them to what passed for family life. It wasn’t as though she and Sean had made concrete plans, though they couldn’t until Sean had some idea what was next for him with the air force. They were still rolling along, one day at a time. They did a lot of talking about the possibilities, but so much was up in the air until Sean had some idea what his next assignment would be.

They hadn’t said the I love you’s yet, at least not in the clear light of day. She’d heard him whisper it in the dark of night when he thought she was asleep. But everything they talked about had them moving forward as a team as best they could under such uncertain circumstances.

Franci decided that when Maureen came back to town, which she was planning to do fairly soon, she would make the time to have a private conversation with her, make sure they were on the same page, so their relationship could be as smooth and tension free as possible—for all their sakes.

One thing that she had to deal with immediately, however, was T.J. She hadn’t spoken to him in more than a week—ever since that last call he’d made to her cell phone while she was working in Redding. She could almost feel the trouble brewing like a storm cloud—he had stopped calling and she had made no effort to get in touch with him. It was a standoff. She had to put it to rest. Even if she and Sean didn’t go one step further in their relationship, she’d never again spend time with T.J.