Love a Little Sideways (10 page)

He leaned through a tight corner and then came to a rise in the trail. Goosing the throttle, he enjoyed the brief sensation of all four wheels leaving the ground. Then his headlights were cutting through the trees as he leaned into a hard left turn.

When Evan’s taillights dropped in front of him, Drew slowed down for the waterbar, and then they were running hard again. They’d been out two hours and they’d already done more than twice the miles they’d done as a group earlier in the day.

By the time they slowed for the last bit of trail into the campground, Drew was tension-free and ready for a shower and a beer. Then he was going to sleep like a baby.

After pulling the ATV into the overflow site they were using for parking, Drew took a back path to his tent to gather his things. Luckily most of the other guys who’d been out had RVs with private showers, so it wasn’t a race.

Outside his tent, he pulled off his boots and sweatshirt. He debated on dropping his pants, too, since it was fairly dark, but the presence of a teen girl somewhere in the campground sent him inside. Trying to keep his filthy pants from brushing against anything, he gathered what he needed and shoved his feet into sandals for the walk.

Drew grimaced when he saw the light shining out from under every door along the front of the bathhouse. Between sweating and the dust on the trails, he felt as if dirt had been ground into every nook, cranny and pore of his body, and he was desperate for a shower.

Before he got there, though, a door opened and Sean—who’d been riding at the front so had beat him back to the campground—walked out, framed by a billow of steam. The guy’s skin was practically pink from the heat and scrubbing, and Drew silently vowed to kick his ass if he’d used all the hot water.

Sean waved to his wife, who was talking to a couple of the other women over by the clothesline they’d strung to cope with endless wet towels and then walked off toward his camper. Drew ducked into the steamy bathroom before anybody could beat him to it and bolted the door.

He’d stripped down and was about to turn on the shower when he saw the sticky note stuck to the frame of the still-foggy mirror.

After the baby goes to sleep
,
I’m going to
...

Drew slapped his hands over his eyes like a kid who’d seen his parents kissing. Obviously Sean had left that note for Emma, who he’d thought would be following after him. But she’d gotten sucked into a conversation and Drew was the recipient of the square yellow sexual promise instead.

Lucky him. Nothing like a written reminder he
wasn’t
having sex with anybody.

He turned the shower on lukewarm and spent a few minutes rinsing the surface grime off. Then he lathered his hair and scrubbed the hell out of his scalp to get rid of the sweat and grit his helmet seemed to grind in.

When it came to soaping his body, it was tempting to linger below the waist. Maybe just take the edge off his sexual frustration a bit. But it was weird, since there was a sex note from Sean to Emma a few feet away and, since he’d read it, it felt weird to now take matters into his own hand, so to speak.

Instead he cranked the knob over to cold and almost yelped when the water turned icy. He finished rinsing off and then leaned his head against the shower wall, letting the cold seep into his body.

Kissing Liz has been a stupid thing to do. He’d known it. She’d known it. But his wanting her was like a runaway train and, even though he knew the whole thing would derail on them, he was helpless to stop it. No matter how often he tried to apply the brakes, even if only mentally, they didn’t stick.

Once he’d dried off and dressed, he braced himself for a visit to the campfire. It would be burning low, with the kids either in bed or allowed some quiet electronics time, and the adults would be sitting around talking.

He took the sticky note with him when he left the bathroom. The Kowalskis didn’t really need that kind of reputation if one of the few campers not with them wandered in.

After dumping his stuff in his tent, he grabbed a beer and wandered down to the campfire. As he got near, he started scoping out which empty chair was best to sit in, and then he saw Liz. She was holding Johnny and the sight made him stop in his tracks.

An electrified cattle prod couldn’t have moved Drew from that spot. She cradled Sean and Emma’s son against her chest, singing to him in a soft voice. There wasn’t a Kowalski born who could carry a tune as a rule, but there was something about her singing to a sleepy baby that made it a beautiful sound.

It made his chest ache, the way Liz looked down at Johnny. He’d been waiting to be a dad his entire adult life and seeing the woman he was in some crazy, undefined not-quite-a-relationship with holding the infant made him feel as though his world was shifting. He wanted that—the visual in front of him—and he had to remind himself that not only was that not his baby, but Liz wasn’t even really his woman.

“Hey, Drew.” Sean was leaning back in a chair, waving him over.

Drew shook off the emotions threatening to show all over his face and walked over to take the empty chair to the left of Sean. Emma was on the other side.

Sean leaned close so he could whisper, “So, uh, you went in the bathroom after me?”

Drew chuckled and slipped him the sticky note, which he’d folded into quarters. “Thanks for the offer, but you’re not my type. I also don’t have that body part.”

“I didn’t even see you. Emma was waiting to go in after me because she didn’t want both of us away from the baby at the same time, but she started talking.”

Drew laughed, then turned toward the conversation about tractors Leo and his dad were having because they were in the opposite direction of Liz and the baby and he wouldn’t be able to see them.

He saw them when it was time for bed, though, and he was stretched out on the air mattress with his eyes closed. He tried not to, but nothing else on the planet mattered enough to replace that image in his mind.

That’s what he wanted. Not some faceless woman whose most important trait was wanting to be the mother of his children. He wanted Liz. He could picture those kids now, with her blue eyes and their dark hair, running wild with their cousins playing games that involved no rules but always doom.

But even if he manned the hell up, looked Mitch in the eye and told him he was falling for his sister, his gut told him Liz wasn’t lying in her tent, imagining what their children would look like. She had bigger things in mind for her life, apparently.

And he knew what he wanted well enough to know a relationship with a woman who didn’t want kids would be, as the Kowalski kids would call it, a romance of doom.

Chapter Ten

A couple of days passed in an easy rhythm of laughter, riding, swimming and dodging projectile marshmallows, and Liz was glad she’d let Rose and Paige talk her into coming. Maybe Drew was being a pain in the ass, with his running hot and cold, but the total-immersion method of re-bonding with her family was a huge success.

Today it was quiet. Joe, Keri, Kevin and Beth had taken all of the kids out for pizza, which meant Mike and Lisa had disappeared someplace private. Uncle Leo, Aunt Mary, Rose and Andy were playing cards inside. A bunch of them, including Drew, had taken advantage of having no kids or older folks to go for a ride.

Liz had opted out. She hadn’t been sleeping well, thanks to Drew and her less-than-high-quality camping gear, and she just wanted to kick things down into a lower gear and relax. She read for a while, slowly working her way through the pile of books Hailey had chosen for her, but eventually she went looking for company.

After grabbing a water from the cooler, she joined Paige and Emma in the screen house on Mike and Lisa’s site. A shady, bug-free zone and the company of her sister-in-law and her cousin’s wife were just what she was in the mood for.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go riding,” Paige said when she’d zipped herself in with them.

“Just wasn’t in the mood.” While everybody else seemed impervious to it, the tension between her and Drew was as taut as an overstretched rubber band and she was enjoying the absence of it. “I’m sorry you can’t ride, though. Bad timing on the baby’s—”

She covered her mouth, a few seconds too late, but Paige just smiled. “Emma knows.”

“Oh, good. Maybe in the future, you shouldn’t tell me any secrets.” She watched Emma’s foot, gently rocking the baby carrier at her foot where Johnny was sleeping. “Were you drunk when you agreed to come camping with an infant, or are you just flat-out crazy?”

Emma laughed. “If we hadn’t taken over almost the whole campground, I’d be worried about him bothering other people. But I have most of the comforts of home and no shortage of people willing to help me take care of him.”

“I noticed playing pass the baby is a favorite family game. Although it’s a blessing they don’t call it pass the baby of doom.”

“I do have to be pretty firm if it gets out of hand. It makes him fussy and, oh good lord, the germs.” She smiled at her son through the netting. “But I’m going back to work soon and, even though Sean and I are coordinating our schedules so one of us is always with him, it’s nice to have this last bit of quiet family time. Or quiet-ish, anyway.”

Liz leaned forward to peek at Johnny. “I’ve noticed the kiddo can sleep through anything.”

“Self-preservation. If loud kids woke him up, he would have been a hot, twitchy mess by the time he was two weeks old.” She smiled down at her son. “And he may as well get used to the crazy now. Lily and Brianna will be a bit older, but he and Paige’s baby will be close in age. Kevin and Beth are trying for another. And Katie’s working her way around to being a mom soon, from what I’ve heard.”

That ticking biological clock Liz never paid a lot of attention to came to sudden, clanging life and she sat back in her chair. Maybe there’d been
too
much immersion-method bonding. Just because they were all having babies didn’t mean she had to.

Sure, she wanted kids someday. She had time. But having kids that would grow up as bonded and close as her siblings, cousins and Katie had would be fun. If only she was in a place in her life where having kids was really an option.

“So, Liz,” Paige said after they’d all watched Johnny sleep for a few minutes. “How do you like working at the diner? Be honest.”

“You’re my boss
and
married to my brother. But, luckily, I can honestly say I like it. Great staff, great food, busy enough without being crazy.”

“It’s probably not the highest-paying job you’ve ever had.”

“It’s not, but it doesn’t need to be. Lauren’s only charging me enough rent to cover her costs on the house and it’s not like I have a fancy car payment.” They laughed, but then Liz got serious again. “And I
like
working there. I don’t wake up dreading the day and then spend the hours after my shift dreading the fact I have to get up and do it again the next day. Trust me, that matters.”

“It does,” Emma agreed. “I think we’ve all been there at some point.”

“Yeah, well, try being the underachiever of the family. Everybody owns their own damn businesses, except me. I wait tables.”

Paige held up a finger. “But you do it exceptionally well.”

“And it makes you happy,” Emma added.

All true, but she still felt as if she should want more. She wasn’t sure where the feeling came from. Maybe because she’d spent her adult life to date working to support a guy whose desire to be an artist came from an unwillingness to have an actual job rather than artistic drive. But now that she only had to want things for herself, she felt some pressure to want something. She just didn’t know what yet.

“Hey, did anybody tell you tonight’s dirty Scrabble night?” Emma asked.

“I’m almost afraid to ask what that means. Dirty, depending on the context, may or may not be more enjoyable than doom.”

“No doom. And only the grown-up women can play. And there’s alcohol. It’s basically a girls’ night out without going anywhere. Or so I’m told. Paige and I haven’t played it yet, either. They only play during their camping trips, I guess.”

“Do we lock the men in the bathhouse?”

Emma laughed. “No. I guess they have a men-only campfire far enough away so it’s like a guys’ night out. Only here.”

“What makes it dirty?”

“I guess it’s regular Scrabble, but you get a double word score if you wouldn’t say the word in front of the kids. And if it’s a word you wouldn’t say out loud, it’s a triple word score.”

“So the alcohol might make a difference,” Paige said.

“And whether or not Aunt Mary or Rosie play, too,” Liz added.

Emma nodded. “Anyway, start thinking up naughty sex words, ladies.”

Liz snorted. “I have three sex words. Not. Getting. Any.”

“You need to start dating,” Paige said. “Who do I know who’s single in Whitford? Oh, there’s Max Crawford. He’s a little odd and works out of his basement. It has its own security system and nobody knows what he does, so the popular theory is that he’s a serial killer.”

“Great. Give him my number.” Liz rolled her eyes.

“But he’s
smoking
hot.”

“But wait,” Emma said. “How would being a serial killer make him money?”

“Don’t poke logic holes in our gossip.”

“I don’t want to date Max Crawford the alleged serial killer,” Liz said.

“I mentioned the smoking-hot part, right? Just sex. You don’t have to go in the basement.” Both Liz and Emma gave her a raised eyebrow. “Okay, fine. Who else do I know...”

“I don’t really want to date anybody.”

“But you said yourself your only sex words are
not
,
getting
and
any.
Why don’t you want to start dating?”

Because I only want to date your husband-slash-my brother’s best friend and he seems to have a split personality when it comes to reciprocating that feeling.
“I just moved back. Let me get settled in before you start pimping me out to odd guys with locked basements.”

“He likes sports,” Paige added.

“Not going to happen.”

“Fine. There aren’t that many single men in Whitford, though, so if you see one you like, act fast.”

Oh, she’d seen one she liked, all right. And they’d both acted fast. Now, though, they seemed to be spinning their wheels, rocking back and forth but remaining stuck in the same rut.

The worst part was not being able to pour out her troubles and get advice. Certainly not from Mitch’s wife. And secret keeping wasn’t exactly a dominant Kowalski trait. So she kept her mouth shut and let the subject veer off in a different direction.

Inevitably, with a new mom and a soon-to-be mom, the conversation turned to baby stuff and Liz rested her head back against the chair and half listened. The others would be back anytime, so she was determined to enjoy the peace and quiet while she had it.

And, as with any game, she played to win, so she started building up a collection of naughty words in her head. She might not be having any sex, but that didn’t diminish her vocabulary in any way.

“There aren’t any hyphens in Scrabble, are there?” she asked, breaking into a debate on cloth versus disposable diapers.

Convenience versus bleach buckets were forgotten as they got down to the serious business of dirty Scrabble strategy.

* * *

This was what Drew had signed up for. A roaring campfire, a comfortable chair and a cold six-pack. The kids were in bed and the women were almost out of earshot, playing Scrabble. And it was one hell of a game, judging by the laughter echoing through the trees.

“I don’t remember Scrabble being that funny,” Drew said, popping the tab on beer number one.

“They’re making sex words,” Mike said. “They get extra points or whatever if nobody will say them out loud. But I don’t think we’re supposed to know that’s what they’re doing.”

Drew couldn’t help glancing over, wondering what sex words Liz might be spelling. She was as cutthroat as the rest of her family when it came to competition so, judging by the furrow between her eyebrows, she wasn’t coming up with anything too raunchy. If she was winning, her face would show it.

He’d be happy to educate her on all manner of things people didn’t say aloud outside of the bedroom.

“Speaking of sex, Drew,” Mitch began, and Drew’s entire body tensed. “When are you going to jump back into the dating pool?”

He forced himself to relax into his chair, taking a long swig of his beer. “The divorce has only been final six months, Kowalski. There’s no rush.”

“Six months is a long time to go without dirty Scrabble fodder, if you know what I mean. Hell, almost a year actually, since you split last August.”

There were two ways this conversation was going to go. One, he’d nod and have to take a bunch of crap about his drought. Or, two, he’d confess there hadn’t been an eleven-month drought and subject himself to a lot of questions about who in Whitford’s very small dating pool he’d been swimming with. Questions he couldn’t—or wouldn’t, rather—answer.

He could practically feel Ryan’s stare boring a hole through him, as if the guy was trying to psychically remind him of their conversation at the picnic area. “Job keeps me busy.”

Mitch laughed. “You’re the chief of police in a town with crime statistics that don’t even make a slice of pie, never mind a whole pie chart. I should sign you up for one of those online dating services.”

“If you do that, I’ll arrest you for impersonating a police officer.”

Joe looked up from the cooler, where he was fishing through the beer cans to find a soda. “Is it technically impersonating a police officer if he’s pretending to be you personally rather than professionally?”

Drew held out his hands so Joe could toss him another beer while he was in the cooler, then he set it next to him. He’d probably need it soon. “Semantics are for juries. They can figure that out after he’s been cuffed, fingerprinted and had his name in the paper.”

A burst of squeals and shocked exclamations from the women drew their attention, and then they heard Rosie’s voice above the others. “Elizabeth Sarah Kowalski!”

“Whoa,” Evan said in a low voice. “How bad does a word have to be to get you middle-named during dirty Scrabble?”

Drew’s brain scrambled as guesses started running through his mind. Then he had to shift in his chair because he still had on his jeans instead of his baggy sleep pants and things were getting uncomfortable below the waist.

“Leave it to Liz,” Mitch said, shaking his head.

“Usually Aunt Mary stays in her camper while they play,” Kevin said. “Rose must have talked her into playing. Or being a spectator, at least.”

“Makes for a lot more words they won’t say out loud,” Evan said. “More points.”

Josh chuckled. “I’ve heard your wife’s good at dirty Scrabble.”

“Hey.” Joe shook his head. “His wife is our sister, so we don’t want to hear how many dirty words she knows.”

“Sisters and sex is off-limits,” Mitch agreed. “Nobody wants that.”

Sure Ryan would be staring at him again, Drew stared down at his beer and prayed for a subject change. Sports. Weather. Best bathroom cleaner for hard water stains. Literally anything else.

“Did you see what Mike did out on the trail today?” Ryan asked, and Drew let out a slow, relieved breath. “Out by the moose pond?”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Mike said.

“I saw him in my mirror for a second,” Josh said. “He looked sideways, but by the time I was going to stop and go back, he was behind me again.”

“I hit a rut the wrong way and it threw me. That’s all.”

“Took a detour through the woods,” Ryan added. “It was probably funnier if you heard him screaming the whole way.”

The chagrin on Mike’s face made them all laugh, and Drew relaxed as that story segued into another and then another after that. He even told one himself, about the ATV rider he’d busted for riding into Whitford in his underwear. The guy had gotten muddy and, rather than make a mess in the diner, he’d stripped down to his boxers and used a bungee cord to strap the ball of dirty clothes to his rack. Since he was drunk as well as almost naked, it had made perfect sense to him at the time. Less so when he’d sobered up and had to call his wife.

It was several hours before they let the fire burn down and called it a night. Drew tossed his empties into the bag with the others, then looked around to make sure there were no others. “Since I have to go by it anyway, I’ll dump these in the recycling barrel.”

“Hey.” Mitch draped his arm over Drew’s shoulders. “I’m glad you came. We don’t get to spend enough time together.”

“I’m having a good time.” Mostly. But he’d enjoyed tonight. It had been too long since he and Mitch had just kicked back and talked, other than the night Mallory had left and Drew went looking for a shoulder.