Tequila And Tingles: Turtle Pine, Book 2 (4 page)

Chapter Four

Jason waged a war with himself the whole way back to his sister’s after locking up TPC. He could ask her about Beth, get the scoop and know what to do about the woman he couldn’t get off his mind. But doing so would drive him under the wrath of his sister’s squeals and excitement that he was talking to a girl. They might not have grown up talking to each other daily, but sure as shitting, when they did, she asked about his love life.

So how badly did he want to see Beth again? And just as importantly, how soon? Next lesson was Tuesday, and that was two long days away. Waiting would not guarantee talking to her either. She’d gotten out of there quick, fast and in a hurry today. She could redo that act again, and he’d be in the same spot again and have waited for nothing. He really did need to find out more about her and return her shoes. Also, maybe buy her dinner.

By the time his butt hit a kitchen chair and his sister sat across from him with a sandwich, his choice was made. “Do you know a Beth Quakes?”

His sister frowned. “Quakes? I don’t know of anybody named Quakes.”

Not possible. His sister knew everybody. “How do you not know her?”

“I’m not a phone book?”

“She has a little girl named Katie Quakes. She’s about four. Maybe five.”

Her brows pulled in and she studied her sandwich. “Who does she work for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did she just move here?”

“I don’t know.”

She put her lunch down and crossed her arms over her chest. “Why are you interested in knowing more about her if you don’t know anything about her?”

“I met her…” He couldn’t say last night or he’d tell on himself. “Earlier. Just wondering who she is. Her daughter is in my swim class and she’s really shy.” Now there was an idea. “Katie is shy. I wanted to talk to her mom to see if she had any ideas to get her daughter to trust me.”

Completely. Plausible.

Meredith just lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know anyone by Quakes. I know a Beth, but that’s Beth Revlin.”

“Is she married? This Beth Revlin?”

And there went his sister’s eyebrow. “What does that have to do with helping her daughter?”

“Nothing.” He cleared his throat. “I just noticed she wasn’t wearing a ring.”

“Well, the Beth I know is divorced. She has a daughter and a younger son. I don’t know their names though. I’ve only seen them a couple times, since neither have started school.”

“Any idea where to find her? To see if it’s the right Beth.”

“All I know is she works downtown somewhere. I’ve seen her dressed nice, but I’m not sure what she does. She’s a few years older than me, probably eight years older than you.”

He wouldn’t have thought her that much older than him. It just made her that much more interesting. “Thanks. That’s a start.” He pushed off from the table, even though he had nowhere to go. It was Sunday afternoon. Anything in town would be closed. His options were pretty well limited to TV, a shower to wash off the overwhelming rank of chlorine and then more TV.

“And hey, Jason?”

“Yeah?” He stopped halfway to his room.

“You almost had me with that daughter-is-shy thing you were trying. For the record, Beth Revlin is very sweet, she has a great family and her sister in-law owns a little bakery in town. Annie, her sister-in-law, is a serious romantic, so she’ll be happy to help you with Beth.”

Couldn’t say he hadn’t tried. Funny how he couldn’t say much about his sister, but she knew him forward and backward. “Thanks.”

“Don’t be surprised if Annie starts designing your wedding cake when you leave the bakery.”

Wait, what? Maybe Tuesday wasn’t that far off. Except it was forever off. He turned on his heel and headed for a walk instead of sitting for hours in his room. He needed to get a feel of Turtle Pine anyway, and he already had on his tennis shoes.

The sun seemed brighter than it had been ten minutes ago when he walked into his sister’s house. Already sweat gathered between his shoulder blades. He left his sister’s driveway and headed down the sidewalk, passing one house after another. He reached the corner and a guy ran toward him from the other end.

The runner stopped by him and stretched his legs. “New around here?”

And it starts.
“Yep. Thought I’d take a walk and get a feel of the place.”

“I’m Sean Hanes.”

“Jason Johnson.” They shook hands and Jason started across the walk. “I’ll let you get back to it.”

Sean kept stride with him. “I was done at the corner and was walking it off back to my house. I’ll give you the grand tour until we get there.”

“That much to see?”

Sean chuckled and draped his earbuds around his neck. “Oh, yeah. There’s even a fly or two on this street.”

Jason laughed. “Awesome.”

Sean gestured around. “There’s a couple neighborhoods in Turtle Pine. This one is closest to the school, so lots of kids tend to be out and about here. They walk to the school for the playground a lot in the summer.”

“Am I at risk for pickpockets?”

“Better not be. Word of warning though: don’t let any of them ever catch you with a pack of gum. They’ll clean you out.”

“Got it.”

“Are you visiting or staying?”

“Staying.” For now. “I’m the new manager at Turtle Pine Center.”

Sean pointed at him. “The Olympic swimmer.”

Jason clasped his hands behind his back. “That’s me.” And talking about himself was the last thing he was up for. “What about you?”

“Car salesman.” Sean chuckled. “Save the jokes, I’ve heard them all.”

“Keep yours to yourself about me and my swimsuit and you’ve got a deal.”

“Done.” He chuckled again. “This means you’re staying with Meredith, right?”

“You know my sister?”

Sean glanced away. “Yeah. Through church. I see her every now and then too, since I live around the block.”

“Hopefully, I won’t have to bum off her for too long. After I get settled in town, I’ll probably find something else.”

Sean slowed as they came to a white house. “This is me.”

“Thanks for the walk.”

“I run here a couple times a week. You’re welcome to join me.”

“I’m not sure when I’ll be done at TPC every afternoon, but I’d be up for a run when I can.” And then he’d have something to keep him out of trouble and to keep his mind off Beth until Tuesday. Or that was the idea. It probably wasn’t likely to happen, but a man could dream.

And dream he did. All night about Beth. She also covered his daydreams as he drove, walked the halls and familiarized himself with TPC. Her laugh. Her smile. Her everything. He cleared his throat as he headed to the pool area for Tuesday’s swim lesson.

Seven kids lined the pool’s edge, waiting for him like last time. Three were in the water on the steps again. Parents were on the bleachers. All of them, at least, except for Beth, so where was she hiding?

Since she’d fled from him, he doubted he was high on her list of people to see. That wasn’t going to stop him. He did have her shoes to get back to her, after all. And he should probably clear the strained air between them. He was working with her daughter, would be seeing her frequently. They couldn’t continue like this.

He was easing in the water to get the lesson started when the bathroom door opened. There she was. Nice gray pants and a fitted white shirt that hugged her in all the best places. Her heels lightly ticked over the concrete as she made her way to the bleachers and found a spot on the end. Her eyes met his and heat struck through him.

With ten kids waiting and their parents staring, he turned and found them all looking at him. They tugged at their jackets and didn’t need to voice what they were thinking. He already knew. Like every other kid unafraid of the water, they wanted those jackets off.

When he started Sunday, he hadn’t been sure where to start. Over the last few days, when he hadn’t been dreaming about Beth, he’d pulled up research on what to teach the kids, how fast to go at this age, and hadn’t discovered very much. The first few lessons were all about getting the kids comfortable in the water. After that, it was all about getting them to love the water and want more of it.

He never remembered learning how to swim. He just knew he always could. His mom used to say he was born part fish and had loved the water from the moment he’d gotten in it. Jason couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t drawn to the water. Rivers, lakes, pools—even bathtubs. If it was water, Jason wanted a piece of it. There could not be a better person than him to teach someone how to fall in love with it. It was the biggest love he knew.

He got them all their boards again and set them out to swim across. After they kicked their way back and forth, complaints started. Laps weren’t fun. He glanced around the pool for ideas of a game. Being it was a Tuesday, it wasn’t that busy. The low diving board was empty and he asked who wanted to jump.

Ten little hands went up in an instant. The lifeguard watching over them moved to the chair by the board, and Jason directed them to it. Each one jumped. Their life jackets bobbed them right to the top, and excited screams and giggles echoed off the hard walls. Jason squatted at the edge, encouraging the kids to kick, kick, kick to the side, just like they had on the kickboards.

Two birds, one fun stone.

The hour ticked off to the end and he released them from the lesson. He turned and searched out Beth. She wouldn’t slip out so fast this time. Instead of finding her, he was cornered by other parents. He never saw her leave.

Chapter Five

Ha! Beth wanted to laugh all the way to the car, but Katie walked next to her. Her daughter had enough problems that there was no need to add a crazy mom to the list.

Even still.
Ha ha ha
: she let it rip through her head and smiled as she walked Katie across the parking lot. Two classes down, two times she’d managed to slip out without Jason getting the chance to corner her. Since he’d ended class and his gaze had immediately met hers, she was pretty sure talking to her was on the agenda.

That was a double nope to that nopety nope.

She’d worked hard at dodging him. She’d even gotten to class early and asked Megan to watch Katie in the pool while she hid in the bathroom. She might have synced her watch to the one over the pool and then waited until two minutes after the lesson was supposed to start before slipping back inside. Timing couldn’t have been better, as he’d been in the pool in full swing while she’d taken her seat to watch with smug satisfaction.

Smugness and maybe a little humiliation. Okay, a lot of humiliation. She’d hidden in a bathroom to avoid him. She didn’t know what he wanted and didn’t care to find out either. At least, she didn’t care just a whole lot. Did curiosity count as caring? She let Katie in the car and then climbed behind the wheel and resisted bashing her head on it. Again, mostly for Katie’s sake.

“I’m hungry.” Katie clipped her belt.

“Me too.” Just not for food. For someone tall, lean, sexy as hell? Her throat tightened. She’d take a combo meal with that and, yes, she’d like a shake with the fries too. She loosened her overly tight grip on the wheel. “What’ll it be?”

“Cookies?”

Beth laughed. It was hard to argue with cookies for a late lunch, but she was a grown, responsible adult. One who didn’t engage in one-night stands and do things like hide in bathrooms to avoid talking to boys. So much for being a grownup, but she had this supper thing down. This she could be a grownup about and nail it. “I’m thinking not a good idea.”

“Can we got to Aunt Annie’s and have a sandwich and a cookie?”

“Now you’ve got a good idea.” Healthy sandwich for Katie and one for Kent to go. Plus a dozen or so cookies snuck out for Beth. She could only be so much of an adult.

Good plan, Beth. Good plan.

She pulled in the lot and followed Katie in the side door of the bakery.

Katie dropped her towel and ran through the room. “Aunt Annie!”

Annie turned from the counter and put her arm out, the universal sign to stop immediately. “Hot stuff.”

Katie stopped as she’d been taught. “What ya got?”

Annie tweaked Katie’s nose. “Honey wheat bread.”

Katie’s nose wrinkled. “That’s it?”

Annie leaned back and set the bread aside and shut the oven. “What kind of baker would I be if that was all I had?”

Katie giggled. “Not a very good one.”

Annie’s fisted hands landed on her hips. “Someone looks like they’ve been swimming without me.”

Katie just giggled some more.

“We started swim lessons.” Beth dropped her keys on the side table. “And now I have a hungry girl hoping for a sandwich.”

Annie looked up. “It’s a good thing I’ve got hot bread then. How about a grilled cheese?”

Katie beamed at her. “Can I have ham on it?”

“Ham? You are hungry. Hot ham and cheese it is.” Annie looked to Beth again. “What about you?”

Cookies. All the cookies in the store. And probably the cupcake stock too. No sense in risking the cookies not being enough. Actually, no need to swipe Annie’s stock. Save that for people coming in. Beth would be happy just to take a bowl of the dough. That’d do her just fine.

Katie turned her big blue eyes up to her. “Get a sandwich like me.”

Oh, those eyes. Beth sighed. “Sounds good.” She held out her daughter’s swim bag. “Why don’t you change out of those wet clothes?”

“How come I don’t change at the pool?”

Because that could leave me open for potential cornering by Jason.
Not an appropriate answer. “I thought you’d be hungry. Now you can change while Annie cooks and be able to eat faster.”

That satisfied her daughter enough, but it didn’t look to cover Annie, since Annie was just holding the knife over the bread and wasn’t cutting it. She didn’t make a move until Katie disappeared into the bathroom. “Who you hiding from at the pool?”

Beth eased on the chair. Her secrets were locked up tighter than a safe. Nobody was getting them out. Fort Knox up in here. “Nobody.”

“Uh-huh. You looked like you could use more than a sandwich when you walked in, and then Katie told on you for not letting her change at the pool. That means her wet bottom on your cloth seats.” Annie pointed at her with the tip of the knife. “Spill your secrets.”

Beth just laughed and leaned on the table. Still not telling. Not that she was worried Annie would go blabbing her secrets. The woman was married to Beth’s youngest brother. Not like he’d want to hear about his big sister getting wasted and waking up the next morning in bed with a man and not remembering how she got there. “It’s nothing. Really.”

Annie lifted a brow, all the while smiling. “Fine, keep your secrets. I’ll get them out of you with cookies soon enough.”

Beth laughed and Katie came bouncing back through. Wet hair was still slicked against her head, but the strands had at least quit dripping. And her clothes were dry. And Beth needed to remember to set Katie’s booster seat out to air tonight before it stunk up the inside of her car.

Annie dropped her questions, but not her curious glances over Katie’s head as they ate, collected one for Kent and then got desserts to go.

Beth headed across town to her mom’s to pick up Kent. Her pity party for later that evening was safely tucked in her purse in the form of chocolate, sugar and whatever else it took to make two dozen cookies. Katie’s head was already starting to bob and her eyelids were falling. “No sleeping yet.”

Katie groaned. “I’m tired.”

“You still need a bath. You can’t go to bed smelling like a pool.”

Katie turned her head away, hiding her face against the side of her car seat.

“Katie.” Beth scrambled for something to say in an attempt to keep her daughter awake. “Are you ready for school to start?”

“You already asked me that.”

“I haven’t asked you today.”

There was another groan from the girl. “No. I want to stay at Nana’s. It’s not fair that Kent gets to stay.”

Beth sighed. School had sounded fun and exciting until Katie had realized Kent would stay with Nana every day. A year ago, Katie would have been excited for school, for new friends, and for dance lessons to start. They would have gotten excited together about back-to-school shopping.

But Bill had left and everything had changed. Beth was going to hate it later that evening, but she just didn’t have it in her to keep pretending excitement she didn’t feel. Her daughter was growing up, and not in ways Beth had planned.

She parked at her mom’s and twisted around to ask Katie if she wanted to go in, but her daughter’s head was already tipped over, mouth open and heavy breaths going in and out of her. Attempt failed. She left the car running and slipped out to collect Kent to get her kids home and ready to start the whole day all over again. Her dad was at the door as she came up to it.

“Hey, sweetheart.” He left a familiar and warm kiss on her forehead. “Where’s Katie?”

“Fell asleep in the car.”

“Oh. I had something to show her.”

She glanced back at the car. Katie’s head still lolled over to the side so far it put a crick in Beth’s neck just by looking. “I can go get her.”

“I can do it tomorrow. Can you let the kids stay longer tomorrow if I’m not home yet when you get here?”

Let her kids hang out longer with her parents and give her a break after work before she picked them up to continue the wonders of single motherhood? Yeah, she could swing that. Hey, maybe she could even go to the grocery store by herself. Now that was a luxury she hadn’t enjoyed in forever. “As long as Mom doesn’t mind.”

Her dad patted her back. “She doesn’t. She wants me to give it to Katie.”

“What exactly is this thing you have for her?”

“Her first pocketknife.”

God. “Dad.”

He pointed at her. “Don’t start. She’s at the age when I gave Peter and Cade theirs.”

Beth started to argue that Katie was a sweet little girl, that Beth hadn’t gotten knives and guns growing up. But it was no use. Katie had been on a fast track to follow her mother’s footsteps into dance and gym until the sorry excuse making up half her DNA dropped them a year ago and changed everything. She’d turned her nose up at pink and glitter and clung to the camo and mud boots her uncles had bought her. “All right.”

“Don’t worry.” Her dad lifted the kids’ play bag. “It’s filed down. Probably can’t even cut a banana with it.”

Yeah right. Probably more likely she’d be able to slice the peel off an apple, something Beth’s brothers would teach her daughter soon. Beth added that to a mental list of things to discuss later. “Thanks.”

Her mom came around the corner with Kent on her hip. “All bathed and fed.”

Beth could have sunk in a chair with the relief that went over her shoulders. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Your dad brought home an early supper from Jaspers. Kent ate some of my cheeseburger and then got ketchup all over his face, so we just had us a quick bath.”

“Now hopefully this one will fall asleep as easy as Katie did in the car.”

“No sleep!” Kent announced.

Her dad laughed. “Good luck with that.”

She collected Kent and headed home. There was always hope her boy would change his mind on the car ride. It didn’t happen. Katie woke up cranky as ever as they parked in the garage. Kent persisted that sleep was a useless commodity, as usual. Beth managed to get Kent in bed with a movie while Katie fought her every step of the way through a bath and combing her hair. By the time Katie got into bed, she’d gone from cranky to full-blown awake due to her short power nap in the car.

Beth rested against the wall between the two bedrooms and tipped her head back. She just didn’t even care anymore, so long as they were quiet. She leaned in her daughter’s room. “You want to watch a movie with Kent?”

Katie jumped up, and the two were quickly settled in with a movie. Beth left the hall light on and escaped to the kitchen with the box of cookies from Annie and prayers the two would fall asleep before the opening act.

Blessed silence drifted through the house. She settled on a bar stool with her box and found about a dozen extra cookies than what she’d asked for. Beautiful best-in-the-world-ever sister-in-law. The quiet was only occasionally interrupted with giggles from her kids. The still house drew attention to the pile of laundry she could see through the doorway off the kitchen. She should have tossed a load of laundry in the wash once Katie was out of the bath. Clean underwear was a good thing.

Beth pulled the cookies closer. Laundry could wait. Time to celebrate another day of single motherhood and fooling her kids into thinking that one parent was all a kid ever needed. Another day to go tomorrow. A new day with the added bonus of pretending a certain blond god had never entered her life. She munched two more cookies down and then imagined him on the stool next to her, taking half her cookies.

It was equally tempting and infuriating.

They’d had one night that had meant nothing and now she was imagining him in her life? Ridiculous. The reason she couldn’t get him out of her mind was probably because her subconscious knew just how darn well he’d fit into her night life, and the little bastard holding the door to her memory bank was an evil tease.

She picked through the cookies. Time fantasizing about a guy too young for her wasn’t in the plans. She wasn’t supposed to be sitting alone at a table like this one. Her husband was supposed to be here with her. They were supposed to take turns checking on the kids. Beth should have been attempting the knots in Katie’s tangled hair before her husband swept in to take the girl.

Suddenly, the cookies made her sick, and she left the stool for laundry and a snap back to reality.