Blame it on Cupid (16 page)

“We have to try harder not to say words like bullshit. Because they'll slip out when you're with the wrong people. And besides that, I wish you'd try to believe I'm going to stay.”

“I do try to believe.”

But once Charlene had overheard Innes spill out Merry's past history of job-hopping and life-hopping, she'd added up one and three and decided it all meant that Merry wasn't going to stay around forever. Another week, no matter how hard Merry had tried, just wasn't enough time to prove to her otherwise.

It wasn't enough time for Merry to prove it to herself, either.

“Look,” Merry said, “you didn't tell me before that kids were calling you names in school.”

Charlie squinched up her nose. “It's school. Kids call each other names. That's what they do. It's not like I care what creeps call me.”

“Okay, but how about if we try to do something to show Mrs. Innes that you're doing okay?”

“Like what?”

“Like…” Merry thought. “Like how about having a sleepover?”

“You're saying I can have a bunch of friends over to spend the night?” Charlie asked in a clearly disbelieving tone.

“Sure, why not? You like the idea?”

“It's okay,” Charlie said. “How many can I have?”

“How many do you want?”

“Hmmm…Sandra…and Bo. Robin. Quinn. Jane. Hmm…”

“That's a good number. We can do it.”

Charlie said, “Maybe we should forget that dumb Valentine's dance, though.”

“Nope. We're doing that.”

“But you're going with Mr. Mackinnon, right?”

“Um…I know Jack said yes to that, but I don't know that that's an absolute positive, Charl.” An understatement, Merry thought. When it came down to it, there wasn't much she was absolutely positive of these days.

The more she got to know Charlie, the more she got the feeling, deep down in her gut, that there was something huge at stake here. Not just for Charlie but for her. There were things she could screw up and be okay. Things she could fail and move on from.

But she couldn't fail Charlie. Without failing something hugely fragile in herself.

Merry sensed,
knew,
the child still felt abandoned. Charlie was still closed off, not trusting, not taking any risks. She was just coasting. And though Merry had read a ton about kids and grief now, as far as she could tell, Charlie hadn't let it out yet. The loss was still balled up inside of her.

And although Merry had never lost a parent, being around Charlie made her increasingly aware that she had one particular loss still balled up inside of her, even after all these years.

For a woman who'd happily, willfully taken zillions of risks all her life, suddenly she found herself petrifyingly cautious. Not just afraid of making the wrong moves with Charlie…but with Jack.

Jack was raising his sons to be just like him. Adorable. But more than adorable, they were kind and good-hearted and just plain old-fashioned heroes. The kind of guys who watched out for a woman. Who let her be herself, yet still made her feel protected.

And right now, Merry had never felt less protected in her life from the war she really had to win…making a home for Charlie. And for making a place for herself. A place where she didn't have to run anymore—from life, from loss, or from herself.

I
T WAS DAYS LATER
when Merry heard the unexpected sound of laughter coming from the garage. She cracked open the back door, just far enough to see Jack's sons were the source of all the talking. The two of them were hovered over electronics and car parts with Charlie, all babbling on as if they'd shared a shot of joy juice.

When Merry closed the door, she gulped hard. It was the first time she'd seen Charlie happy since she got here. The boys could guy talk with her. Something Merry was distinctly aware she couldn't do, didn't do and—in this life—was probably never going to be able to do.

Still, she bopped back to the recipe taped to a cupboard door for “steak pinwheels with sun-dried tomato stuffing and rosemary mashed potatoes.”

Okay, okay, so maybe it was an excessively ambitious goal for a girl whose specialty was boxed mac and cheese, but Merry wasn't about to give up. So she didn't have the mechanical aptitude of a leaf. She could try other things to win Charlie over, to do the good guardian thing. Like make nutritious meals. Specifically delicious nutritious meals.

Hopefully, anyway.

She stirred the brew of broth and tomatoes and spices on the stove, still half listening to the kids. The boys sounded so like Jack. If she were Charlie's age, she'd have a serious case of hero worship of both of them. They were so good looking. So gentle with her. So adorable.

Not as adorable as their dad, but right now, Merry was well aware she couldn't imagine anyone more adorable than Jack. Only a man of incomparable courage and character strength would have offered to co-chaperone a sixth-grade dance—and of course she was going to let him off the hook. But that wasn't the point. He'd been so chivalrous to offer. Her heart was still full from their last encounter….

The cell phone rang just as she was reading the next set of instructions in the recipe. The steak had to be laid “flat on a clean work surface.” Then it had to be pounded “some.” The goal was to roll it into pinwheels, with the stuffing inside.

The phone rang again. She reached for it, but her mind was still trying to decipher the directions. The picture made it look so easy. Only she wasn't exactly sure what a pinwheel was, and what was she supposed to pound the steak with? Hire a hit man? Use her fist? Why was she supposed to hit the poor steak at all?

“Merry? It's me.”

“Me!”
She'd know Lucy's voice anywhere. They'd been best friends since grade school. Of course Lucy wasn't Lucy Fitzhenry anymore. She'd done the whole fairy-tale thing for real—married Nick Bernard of the Bernard Chocolate empire. But a pile of money hadn't changed her. Just hearing her voice made Merry's spirits lift. She settled in the nearest chair and propped her feet up on the counter. “God, you don't know how glad I am to talk to you.”

“They don't have phones in Virginia? You didn't think I was dying to hear how you were doing?”

“I'd have called. But I didn't want to bug you or Nick. You two are the same as newlyweds. And now you've got the baby. I just hated to call and risk waking either of you up.”

“Don't worry about that again. The only one who sleeps in a house with a baby is the baby. And that's whenever the adults can't possibly. It's a trick. It's not in the baby books, but it's still a trick all babies seem to know.”

Merry sat back for a bit to hear Lucy gush on about the little one. Sheesh, you could hear the glow in her voice. The love. “Aw, Luce, I'm so happy for you two.”

“Yeah, well. Now it's your turn. How on earth is it going?”

Who knew that she'd been holding so much back? But her perky smile slipped. And her eternal optimism suddenly hid under the refrigerator. “Maybe…not so good,” she admitted. And out it poured. Sitting in the rain at soccer practice. The painting session. The getting lost trying to find the post office. Charlie's physical appearance. The scary attorney. The scarier guardian
ad litem.
Her making seven dozen cookies last week for the PTO. The dance thing coming up.

She didn't
say
she was feeling inadequate and incompetent and insecure, but if her oldest closest friend couldn't pick up that she was rattled out of her mind, no one could.

Finally Lucy interrupted. “You're turning into a full-time-adult mom.”

“I'm sure trying.”

Silence for a moment. Merry could hear Lucy clinking ice cubes in a glass, moving around. Then. “You remember when you worked at that insurance company? That horrible guy who had you convinced you must be bipolar? Because you were happy all the time. And he said nobody could be that happy. It just wasn't normal.”

“Hey, do we need to bring that up ever again?”

“Not to tease you. I'm just trying to say, Mer, that you do everything whole hog. You always have. You don't put in a hundred percent. You put in five hundred percent. And now you're suddenly trying to turn into a suburban mom, five hundred percent.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing's wrong with it, you doofus. Except that it's all about the child. What about
you?
What about what you want, what you need?”

“What I want is for Charlie to be happy.”

“I understand that, Mer. But you haven't said a word about setting up your own life there. I mean, have you been out? Met some guys? Gone dancing anywhere? Shopping? I can't think of a spring you didn't sign up for at least three classes, even if you didn't get around to finishing any of them.”

“But I just got here. I haven't had time to think about myself. I'll get selfish again, honest.”

“It's not about selfish or unselfish. It's about exhausting yourself.”

“Whatever, Lucy. It'll be worth it if Charlie ends up okay. She's just been through a ton.”

“This is about your mother, isn't it?”

It was Merry's turn to fall silent. “It's about Charlie.”

“I know that. And I know we never talk about your mother. We always act like she never existed. But when you took this on, this whole guardianship thing, without even a second thought—”

“I gave it a ton of thought!”

“Still. It's not the same thing as taking a yoga class or first aid or whatever. You uprooted everything you ever knew to do this. I didn't think it was just about you, being impulsive. This wasn't even remotely a whim—”

“At all. No matter what anyone thinks.”

“And your heart's always been as big as the sky. But even so. The way your mother took off…the reasons your mother took off—”

“I'm not like my mother,” Merry blurted out. And immediately wanted to bite her tongue. She was too old to be still singing that same old mantra. It hadn't snuck out in years—and neither did that adolescent defensiveness in her tone.

“I know you're not.”

“I'd
never
desert a child.”

“I know you wouldn't.”

“I'd never put money or a lifestyle ahead of what a child needed. And for sure, for
damn
sure, I'd never abandon a kid. If it killed me.”

Darn it. When Merry finished the call, she felt itchy-frustrated. Normally talking with Lucy and Nick were a guaranteed day-lifter. Only this time the conversation had made her feel more isolated than ever, as if Virginia were on the other side of the world from everyone she could talk to. Darn it, she needed affirmation from
someone.
Anyone. Any how. She had a dad and sisters and friends who loved her, but it wasn't the same thing as having a live body close by—someone who could see what she was doing, see what she was up against, and help her know if she was on the right track with Charlie.

No matter what Lucy said, this wasn't about her mother. It
wasn't.
It was about the here and now.

The instant she clicked off the receiver, unfortunately she came smack-dab against an immediate here-and-now crisis. Smoke billowed from the pot on the stove.

Charlie walked in, her hands and a cheek shiny with grease. “Whew. What stinks in here?”

Merry thought, my life? Could I just do one thing right?

But she said cheerfully, “You lucked out. I screwed up a big fancy dinner with a lot of vegetables, so now you get mac and cheese.”

“Thank you so much,” Charlie said fervently.

 

J
ACK APPROACHED THE GROCERY
store the same way he'd walk into a dark alley at midnight, wary, alert, head down, moving fast.

It was one of those behemoth-sized stores. Had a decent hardware section. Pretty good sporting goods and books. And yeah, of course it had food. It was just…there were so many aisles. So much
shopping.
How was a guy supposed to feel safe?

He grabbed a cart and started out at a fast jog—all the better to get this over with before a panic attack set in. Produce first. The boys couldn't get enough fresh fruit, and that aisle had a lot of stuff he didn't have to cook besides. His mind kept straying to Cooper, because he knew damn well there was something going on with Coop. What, he wasn't sure. But something had the kid distracted and over-quiet for the last couple weeks.

When he spun into the aisle with the oranges and apples, though, he forgot his son. Both sons. And any other rational connection to reality.

Until that moment, he didn't realize how intently he'd made a study of Merry's behind, but facts were facts. He'd have recognized that particular enticing fanny anywhere. She was facing away from him. The waistband on her yoga pants revealed just a hint of the tattoo he had yet to make out, and above that she wore a double layer of long-sleeved tees. She'd thrown her jacket in her grocery cart. The view from behind was as damn close to delectable as anything that was conceivably edible in the store—and then some.

Although that wasn't, Jack told himself sternly, what made him stop.

His neighbor was talking to her. Robert was the one the poker group called Boner whenever the guys were alone together, a natural nickname for a guy who turned on for anything female at the speed of light. There was nothing wrong with Robert exactly. He was a good poker pal. It was just Jack immediately noticed how he'd pushed his cart in a way that blocked Merry's ability to move. He saw Robert's posture. The cocked leg. The bullshit boyish smile.

“I've been wondering how you were doing, knocking around alone in that big house.”

“I've got Charlie. I'm not alone. But we're doing just great…”

Jack heard the innocuous dialogue, but he still braced. Boner had been married forever, golfed like it was a religion, had two kids and a wife who brayed when she laughed. But he was a cheater. Jack knew it the way guys just knew that about other guys, didn't need discussion.

He didn't care. Boner's business was Boner's business. And God knew, he didn't need any more involvement in Merry's life. The more he was around her, the more they seemed to “accidentally” touch…but Jack hadn't bought those accidental excuses since he was sixteen.

Nobody touched by accident. A magnet was pulling them together. The same old sexual magnet that always got a guy in trouble—but darn it, this wasn't the normal dig of testosterone. This was more like a plunge into a testosterone lake, unignorable, deep, submerging him in thoughts of her. All of which told him the obvious—he should spin around his grocery cart and gallop in the other direction. It's not as if he feared Boner would try to pull off anything in the middle of a grocery store. It's not as if were worried about her at all.

He didn't worry about anyone but himself and his kids anymore.

But he did accidentally keep listening to the conversation.

“So…Susie sends you to do the grocery shopping?”

There, Jack applauded her. Bring the wife into the conversation. See? She didn't need any help handling a rover.

“Naw,” Boner said. “She was under the weather. That time of the month.”

Jack mentally winced. Too much information. Inappropriate information. Merry seemed to instinctively back up her cart another step or two. “How're the kids?”

“Same old, same old. Saw you at the kids' volleyball game.”

“Yeah, your Samantha did terrific.” Jack watched Merry amble back another step, at the same pace Boner was pushing his cart forward. She'd already backed up past the tomatoes. Past the cucumbers and colored peppers.

“She's a trooper, all right. You know…you ever have a leaky faucet or that kind of problem, you know who to call, don't you?”

“Yes. You offered before. Thanks again.”

“That Charlene. Can't be easy taking her on out of the blue. She's a different kind of girl, especially since her dad died. You think she's missing a man's influence?”

“I think—” Merry backed up another distance. Cripes, she was about to skid right into the rutabagas. “I just think it's a hard thing she's going through.”