Tequila And Tingles: Turtle Pine, Book 2 (16 page)

At that, she finally looked him. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I want to leave Turtle Pine.” There. He voiced it. It was out there and couldn’t be taken back now. “I think I want to stay here. I’ve been house shopping the last few days.”

“For renting?”

“No. It doesn’t make much sense to spend the rest of my life renting.”

Her swallow was thick and audible. “No, financially speaking, it doesn’t make sense to do that.”

“It’s not just the jobs that are unappealing.” He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “It’s also leaving you, leaving the kids.” He tried to find some strong meaning or feeling or something to put behind his words that wouldn’t absolutely terrify her.

“Jason.”

“I know what you’re going to say.” He rubbed of the top of his head. How many times had he been through this with his bathroom mirror? “I know how you feel.” He laughed. “But it’s not just me. My sister, hell, your brothers—”

“My brothers?”

He nodded. “They’re saying what I keep thinking can’t be real.” He stroked over his face. “I’ve never done this sort of thing, so I’m just going to come out with it. I’m falling for you. Maybe I have fallen for you. And the kids.”

She tucked her hands under her thighs, but not fast enough. He saw her fingers trembling before they were hidden. “No.”

“Anytime I look at a job offer that would take me away from here, I picture your three faces. The idea of leaving makes me sick to my stomach. I get physically ill at the idea.”

“You don’t mean that.” Her breathing hitched. “Stop saying that. We’re just for fun.”

“You have to realize this is more than just fun between us, don’t you?”

She pulled her hands out to rub her arms. “Jason, I can’t do this. We can’t do this. I mean, you can’t seriously be thinking of changing your whole life around for me and my kids.”

“Why not? That’s all I can think about.”

She touched her forehead. “You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t settle on me.”

The pressure of his jaw clamping his mouth shut was likely to break his teeth. He forced his mouth to move. “I am not settling. Anybody who wants to be with you and considers themselves settling…” He decided not to finish that sentence.

“Jason, you’re a great guy and you will make a great dad one day, but don’t—”

“Don’t you dare tell me that I deserve better. Don’t you even start that.”

“I can’t do this. I’m not ready for this. I don’t want it and I won’t risk this with my kids.”

“Beth, I know it’s fast, and I’m not asking for everything right now, but I’m saying I want to stay and I want us to quit pretending we’re just fun.”

“I need to go.”

“Beth?”

She was already out of her seat, already moving away from him. She called her kids from the water and gathered them up. Katie stopped by him. “Are you coming home with us again?”

Before he could even get an answer out, Beth was doing it for him. “Not tonight, honey. Jason has a little bit of work to do.”

Katie hung her head and hugged herself in her towel.

Thickness filled the back of his throat. “I wish I could, but I’ve got some stuff to do here. I’ll see you soon.”

At that, she gave him a smile and jumped in his arms for a hug. Then she pulled away and walked out the door with Beth and possibly his heart.

The family he never knew he wanted was leaving without him.

Chapter Eighteen

Beth had done it again. Let her kids get close to a man who couldn’t come any closer. She was a terrible mom. What had she been thinking? Or not thinking, more like it. He’d just slipped in somehow.
Damn tequila
. He’d gotten in her life, gotten her kids to fall for him, and now her mom was making moony eyes while she stirred mashed potatoes.

Moony eyes and a big mom grin. “Katie said he was coming to lunch?”

Beth finished chopping carrots and threw them in the salad bowl. “She invited him, but I don’t think he can make it.”

She hadn’t figured how she was going to explain that one to Katie yet. Katie already knew something was wrong. She’d asked if Jason could come over last night and Beth hadn’t had a choice but to tell her baby no. Then she’d gotten to watch big, fat tears well up in her little girl’s eyes. Instead of being honest, she’d lied and said he had to work again, that he really wanted to come. That had pacified Katie’s tears, but not her sullen lip. She’d become that mom who lied to her kids about a man. Great example. Really great example she was setting.

Her mom arched her brows at her. “He can’t make it or you uninvited him?”

“Mom.”

“What?” She moved the bowl of potatoes to the other side of the counter, where they would eventually be taken to the table. “You don’t want me to say you ran off a guy who your kids and your brothers approve of?”

“They all liked Bill too, and look how that turned out.”

“He was their father. They were born liking him.” She popped a radish in her mouth. “Your brothers hated him.”

She dropped the bag of radishes. “What?”

“Your dad and I didn’t like him either.”

Beth’s arms fell limp at her side. “What?”

“I think Jane and Tina probably liked him okay. At least, I think they would have told you if they didn’t.”

Beth walked around to the other side of the counter and sank onto one of the barstools. “Dad and Peter and Cade? They didn’t like Bill?”

Her mom made that face where her brows mashed together. “I thought you knew.”

“I thought they were just being the clichéd protective family.”

“Oh, honey.” Her mom wiped her hands off. “They wanted you to be happy and you were. That’s what they cared about the most.”

“Ugh.” She went to track her brothers down for answers. Answers to questions she’d been asking herself for months, since the day that damn woman had taken pity on her and picked up the phone. How had she missed what sort of man Bill was when her brothers had seen it? What had they seen? What had they figured out and known while she had been so clueless?

She went out the back door and stopped her marching short. Kent was on Peter’s shoulders. Cade stood in front of them, watching Katie shoot cans. Hunkered down in the grass next to Katie with a cricket gun of his own and popping off cans was Jason.

Another shot fired and Katie’s fist pumped up in the air. “Ha!”

Jason dropped his head and shook it. “You beat me again.”

Katie jumped up and danced. “I won! I won! You lost! I won!”

Chuckles from the men started Beth walking again. “What are we doing?”

Jason turned, his eyes widened and he stood, brushing the front of him off. “Katie was showing me how to shoot.”

She tucked hair behind her ear. “I see that.”

He handed the gun off to Peter. “You wanted to play the winner. Good luck.”

Cade laughed.

Beth gestured to the side with a tip of her head. “Can we talk?”

He nodded. “I have a few minutes.”

A few minutes? “Got somewhere to be?”

“Yeah. Peter called dibs to play the winner between Cade and Katie. I promised Kent he could sit on my shoulders.”

“Oh.” Fine. Right to the point then. “What are you doing here?”

“I promised Katie I’d come.”

“That’s it?”

He sighed, crossed his arms over his chest. “How many times are we going to do this dance? Get whatever is bugging you off your chest so you’ll feel better and enjoy the day.”

What was it with him? Why did he keep coming around? “I don’t get you.”

“I’ve been nothing but honest with you from the start. You keep waiting on me to pull something out of my sleeve, but I don’t have anything.”

“I…” She shifted side to side and cleared her throat. There was a lot she wanted to say to him. A lot of really good things with a lot of really important points. She couldn’t seem to phrase them. “I have to go help Mom.”

“Okay.” He moved so fast that a kiss was left on her cheek before she knew what had happened. “Katie already asked me to sit next to her. And then Kent wanted to also. Sit across from us?”

She didn’t have any more words. She could only swallow. Not that they could talk more, because Kent appeared and tugged on his arm. In a fluid motion, Jason hefted him up and sat him on his shoulders and returned to the action.

Cade pushed on her shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

She blinked off the sight of Jason playing with her kids, hanging with her brothers and looking like he belonged among them more than her ex-husband ever had. “Why didn’t you like Bill?”

His brows lifted. “He was a shithead.”

She rolled her eyes. “But how did you know? Mom said you and Peter and Dad—that none of y’all liked him.”

Cade simply nodded. “He was a shithead.”

“How?” She grabbed him by the arm. “How did you know?” A trembling started from somewhere deep and went right for her lips and stung her eyes. “Y’all saw what he was and I didn’t.”

He let out a breath and looked across the yard, his gaze stuck on Jason and Peter playing with the kids. He pointed at them. “There. Bill wouldn’t have gone anywhere near there with your kids. He would have been on his computer or something.”

“We didn’t have kids then.”

“You had us. I can’t count the number of times we played in the yard when he was here. I don’t remember a single time he joined us. We’ve been playing ball with Jason a couple times a week for over a month now. Bill never helped Dad with anything, and I don’t even remember if he ever so much as took his plate to the kitchen to help Mom. He was self-absorbed.”

She watched Jason bounce Kent. He cheered when Katie knocked a can down and all over looked like he was having a good time. Like he couldn’t get enough of this. All she could do was stare and question his sanity versus her good fortune for finding someone who was head over heels for her kids. “He wants to stay in town.”

“Good.”

She shook her head. “I think I called him insane.”

“And he’s still here. Bill would have left.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and tried puzzling out the mystery of Jason Johnson. Maybe there wasn’t a mystery to puzzle. Maybe he was really insane. “He told me he’s staying in Turtle Pine because he can’t leave us. He’s been house hunting.”

Cade’s cop brow kicked up. She’d seen him give that look to kids before asking them to blow in a little tube. “And that’s when you broke up with him?”

Had they broken up? They probably should if they hadn’t already. It was the right thing to do. He’d come today, but she wasn’t making any promises on what they were. Jason didn’t know what he was getting himself into. What if he woke up one day, hating where he was, and left too?

Cade adjusted his stance. “I think you’re the insane one.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Giggles went through the air and he pointed at her kids rolling in the grass with Jason. “Look at them. He is crazy about Katie and Kent.”

Like that meant something. “So was Bill, and look where that got me.”

“Was he really though?” Cade studied her. “How often was he with the kids at home? Did he play with them a lot? Act happy to see them?”

“He was the same as Dad was with us. Just busy a lot.”

Cade sighed. “Dad may not have been at every parent-teacher conference and basketball game, but he always asked us about our day and how we were doing. I wasn’t here two minutes and Jason asked how my ankle was because I turned it over last time we played ball. Bill didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. How many times did Bill ask you about your day?”

She didn’t have an answer for that.

The next hour passed in a blur as she helped her mom in the kitchen and got everything around the table. Now here she was, her plate half-eaten and shoved away as she watched her daughter hang celery out of her teeth to pretend to be a walrus for Jason.

Jason shook his head. “Hold on. You don’t have this quite right.” He grabbed the celery, readjusted the bits and leaned back with a nod. “Now you’re ready.”

Her daughter proceeded to slap her hands and bark. Lord. She couldn’t do this. Whatever this was, she couldn’t do it. This pretending to be something together. Pretending to sit here and think this was normal while Jason played games with Kent to get him to eat his potatoes. Something that was actually working.

She grabbed all the dishes she could carry. “I’ll start washing up.”

Jason lifted his plate. “I’ll help.”

She stopped. That was not part of her plan. She plastered a friendly smile in place. “That’s okay.”

Her mom lifted her glass. “Beth, honey, if someone wants to help with the dishes, never disagree.”

Beth bit back what was on the tip of her tongue. It was her mom, after all. “Yes, ma’am.”

She carried her plates to the kitchen and turned on the hot water. Jason was on her heels and raked the last of the food off the plates into the garbage disposal.

He stacked the plates as he rinsed them. “Lunch was nice.”

“Yes.”

“Your mom cooks like this every Sunday?”

“Unless she’s sick.” She loaded the rinsed plates into the dishwasher. “Are you helping with dishes in hopes to get another invite?”

A light chuckle escaped him. “That may be one reason.”

“And the other?”

“To give you a chance to finish getting whatever off your chest so you’ll enjoy the rest of the day. I’m afraid you’re going to pop on me.”

“I’m not going to pop.”

“I hope not. I happen to like you the way you are.” He dried his hands and leaned on the counter next to her. “Why do you find it so hard to believe that I like you?”

“What?” That was the most absurd thing.

“You think I can’t like you. Why?”

“That’s a stupid thing to say.”

“Even more stupid for you to believe it.”

“I don’t.” She breathed out and couldn’t look at him, so she leaned against the counter next to him. “All right, fine. We’ll play your game so we can be done with this. What happens when you stop liking me and you’re done? When you get tired of me, what then?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never just stopped liking someone before.”

She pulled a towel through her fingers. “Yeah, well, I’ve been the one who was quit being liked one day and it sucks. Ever since he left, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong with me.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in against his side. “There’s nothing wrong with you. It was him, not you.”

If only it were that easy to believe. She had looked in the mirror countless times, trying to force herself into believing that. “That’s the logical thing to say, right? But at the end of the day, I remember that we were happy as far as I knew. And he wasn’t. I had no idea. I can’t get the question out of my head of what I did wrong and where did I miss that he was miserable? I never had a chance to work on my marriage. It was over that fast.”

“You did nothing wrong. It may take a long time, but one day you’ll see that.”

“Every time I look at you, I ask myself over and over how can I keep you? What can I do to make sure I don’t run you off like I ran him off? What am I going to tell my kids when that day comes? And I don’t know the answer to that. And until I know the answer, I’m afraid to try and…”

“To give a real relationship a chance?”

Weight was heavy on her shoulders. Fine, he wanted some honesty, here they go. “I’m afraid to try to keep you.”

He turned and faced her, leaned over and pinned her between his arms against the counter. “I refuse to believe one day he just stopped loving you and stopped liking you. I think he hid it as he fell out of love with you because he’s a fucking coward and couldn’t get his shit together to be honest with you. I think with two young children in the house, you never had a chance to see the signs.” Hair fell forward around her eyes and he pushed it back. “I also think he was an idiot for falling out of love with you. I’m not even sure how that’s possible. I also think there is a hell of a lot more wrong with him besides being a coward, because I can’t begin to understand how he can leave his kids behind. There’s a lot about him I don’t know, but I know for a fact that there is nothing wrong with you.”

Words were on the way to tell him how wrong he was, but they stopped in her throat. How had they gotten to this? It seemed like yesterday she was taking shots to dull that voice in the back of her head, and now he stood over her, feeling warm and safe and comforting, and that nagging voice wasn’t so nagging any longer. She wished she could figure out how this was so strong between them, because she could probably breathe better if she knew.

What was it about them that clicked so well? If she knew that answer, she would know what to hold on to so she would never lose it.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then her cheek. “The kids are calling for me.”

The
kids. Not
her
kids. The kids. She nodded and his warmth was gone.

“Well.” Her sister-in-law Jane walked in. “Someone looks flushed.”

Annie was behind Jane with leftovers from the table. “If he had me pinned to the kitchen sink, I would be flushed too.”

Beth licked her lips and rubbed her arms. “I wasn’t pinned.”

Annie laughed. “You were pinned and pretty close to ripping clothes off. I’m dying to know what he was whispering.”

Jane snickered. “I bet it was something like, ‘I want you naked so I can press my hot swimmer body against yours’.”

Tension eased and Beth laughed. “Stop. That is not what he said.”

“Still true though.” Jane lifted a shoulder and cleared her throat. “And next time Katie can’t make swim lessons, I volunteer to take her. Tina was mighty impressed by his, erm…swimsuit.”