On the other side of the large storefront gym, Lyssa and two other girls about her age practiced their routines on the balance beams. Her slender limbs moved with easy grace, muscles flexing in fluid motions. On top of her head, a glossy brown ponytail bobbed with each turn and jump.
“Couple years and you’re gonna need a shotgun to keep the boys away from those two.”
Startled, Del glanced at Tick, standing just inside the glass doors next to the bleachers. Damn, he moved quiet. Their father had moved the same way. His brother was in his investigator’s uniform of khakis and department polo shirt, and Del’s gaze skittered over the 10mm handgun at Tick’s waist. His stomach pitched, and he swallowed. “Yeah, I know.”
Not that he would ever have a shotgun in the house with his children, or any gun, period. Too much could happen.
Tick leaned an elbow on the top seat, his gaze on Anna, now kicking a pad held by her instructor. “Actually, Anna could probably fend them off on her own.”
Del chuckled. “Looks awful fierce, doesn’t she?”
“She is awful fierce. My understanding is that one of Beau Ingler’s boys told her karate was for sissies after church Wednesday night, and your little girl showed him different. Put his nose in the dirt and hurt his pride.” Tick glanced at the other end of the stands, where Blake sat working on his geometry homework, headphones covering his ears, head bobbing. “Have any more luck there?”
“No. His stubborn streak is showing.” He’d tried talking to the boy, once on the drive between the high school and middle school and again while the girls changed for classes. Blake’s responses had been no more than terse grunts and monosyllables.
“Gee. Wonder where he gets that from.” Wry humor lurked in Tick’s weary voice.
“Runs in the family. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Just got off duty. Knew the girls would be here, thought I’d run across you.”
“You found me.”
Tick pulled his cigarettes from his pocket and tilted his head toward the door. “Want to step outside?”
Del pushed to his feet and followed him. “I thought you quit.”
“I did.” On the sidewalk, Tick tapped out a cigarette and lit it. “For about a week. Listen, I thought you’d want a heads-up. We had some incidents last night—a stolen mailbox, toilet paper in the youth minister’s yard, petroleum jelly on the pay phones downtown, that sort of thing. Kid stuff. No leads, but…”
“Yeah.” Del cast a dark look through the window at the back of Blake’s head. “I’ll try to talk to him again. Anyway, he’s grounded until further notice, so even if he was involved, he won’t be in the foreseeable future.”
“How are you going to ensure that? What’s to keep him from sneaking out again?”
Because I told him not to and he wants to live. He swallowed the words. Tick’s even voice echoed the doubts that had circulated in Del’s mind since he’d laid down the restriction. He was in a damned-whatever-he-did situation—come down too hard and alienate the kid further, do too little and watch the kid sink. It didn’t help that these days he felt like a visitor in his son’s life.
He pushed his hair back from his forehead and shrugged. “I guess I’ll camp out on the couch at ho—” He cleared his throat. “…at Barbara’s for a few nights until he gets the message.”
One of Tick’s eyebrows angled upward, his expression one of supreme amusem*nt. “Does Barbara know that yet?”
“No.”
“Can I be around when you tell her?”
“No.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I’m glad you get so much amusem*nt out of my problems.” The words emerged on a snarl and Del cringed. Sweet Jesus help him, he sounded like Blake.
Tick stepped back, hands lifted in a gesture of surrender. “Sheesh, Del. I was kidding. Chill out, brother.”
“Do I make fun of your problems?”
Tick’s face closed, the polite mask of his law enforcement training slipping into place. “What problems?”
The ones that have you looking like a damn ghost. “According to Tori, you’re nursing a broken heart.”
“And Tori watches too many of those flippin’ old romance movies.”
“So you’re not pining for someone, huh?”
“No.” With a savage twist of his wrist, Tick flicked his cigarette butt into a nearby ash can. “I’m not pining for anyone. Listen, I’ve got to go, but if you need any help with Blake—”
“I can handle it.”
Tick nodded, a shadow of disbelief in his eyes. “I’ll see you, then.”
“Later.”
He watched his brother walk back to the dusty pickup he’d driven for almost ten years. Tick’s normally fluid gate seemed jerky, the whole line of his body tight with a deep tension. Worry nagged at Del’s gut. Maybe Tick wasn’t pining, but one thing was for sure—his health wasn’t up to par.
Inside, he nudged Blake’s shoulder. Blake looked up and pushed the headphones back. “Sir?”
Del gestured toward the empty practice area. Girls gathered near the exit, greeting mothers and giggling in small excited groups. “Where are your sisters?”
“Getting dressed.” Pulling the headphones back into place, Blake nodded toward the locker rooms.
Ten minutes later, with no sign of Lyssa and Anna, Del sighed and moved toward the locker area. How long could it take to change? It wasn’t like they had several outfits to choose from. He resisted the teasing nostalgia pulling at him again. Barbara’s penchant for changing clothes two or three times before deciding on an outfit had driven him crazy more than once. If he’d given Blake a gene for stubbornness, Barbara had passed the slow-dressing gene to their girls.
The locker room possessed open doorways, with a concrete block divider to prevent those outside from seeing into the dressing area. Del paused at the water fountain on the outside wall.
“Anna, you saw it.” Lyssa’s excited voice, as hushed as she ever got, carried to him. “They were going to kiss.”
His heart sputtered like a gas-deprived engine. Lord, he hadn’t even considered the idea that the girls had seen the near-kiss he’d shared with Barbara. And it sounded like not only had Lyssa seen it, but she was putting together fantasies of Mama and Daddy together again.
“Lys, come on.” Anna’s voice emerged muffled for a second, as if through a T-shirt being pulled over her head. “They’re getting a divorce. You know, not married anymore. Not in love anymore.”
“You don’t know that. Mama says all the time that Daddy still loves us. He could still love her, too.”
An icy arrow pierced his heart and he leaned against the wall, head bent. Mama said what all the time? Sweet Jesus, had he left his children that insecure, that Barbara had to assure them of his love?
That’s a dumb-ass question, you stupid son of a bitch. You left them. What are they supposed to believe?
“He doesn’t love her, Lys. Not that way.”
His head lifted. Not love Barbara? Of course he still loved her. He’d never stopped. He just hadn’t been able to stay once he realized the way she really felt about him. Hadn’t she told him what a mistake marrying him had been? She didn’t want or need him anymore, and he tried not to think about what he’d had and lost. The cold loneliness tightened his lungs.
“What if they fell in love again?” Eternal hope lingered in Lyssa’s voice.
“And what if Blake stops being a jerk? Get real, Lys.”
“It could happen.”
“It could, but it won’t. Daddy’s happy in Atlanta. He likes it.”
“He’d be happier with us,” Lyssa insisted, her testy tone invaded by a hint of Calvert stubbornness.
“Give it up! He doesn’t want to be with us. If he did, he’d be here. All the time.”
The words rained down like heavyweight punches. His stomach clenched as though the blows were physical. Eyes closed, he rested his head against the wall. His daughter, his baby, thought he
didn’t want her, didn’t love her mother, didn’t want any of them.
She couldn’t be more wrong. He wanted them all with a visceral hunger so deep he hurt. He wanted his life back.
What’s to keep him from sneaking out again?
If he did, he’d be here. All the time.
Then that’s what he’d do. He’d stay and begin winning back what he’d thrown away. He opened his eyes and stared across the gym at Blake, now reading a Steinbeck novel on the bleachers. Starting with keeping his son safe.
Maybe along the way, he could convince Barbara he wasn’t the worst mistake she’d ever made.
When she heard what he had in mind concerning Blake, though, she was going to throw a fit.
The girls tumbled out of the locker room, carrying gym bags and their backpacks. Anna didn’t meet his eyes; Lyssa stopped short and stared at him. “Daddy. How long—”
“I just walked over to find you.” He forced a smile, relieved when the tension drained from his daughter’s face. He draped an arm over her shoulder and hugged her to him. “Hungry?”
“Yeah!”
“Good.” He reached out to ruffle Anna’s hair, stopped, and touched her cheek instead. His chest tightened, squeezed by the same rush of love he’d felt when he’d first seen her, red and wrinkled and squalling. “Let’s surprise Mama. We’ll stop by the grocery store and have supper ready when she gets home.”
*
“Blake!” Lyssa’s shriek pierced the air. “Give me the phone!”
Annoyance curled through Del. Didn’t they ever let up? All the kids had done since they’d arrived home was bicker. Somehow, in the pressing silence of the tiny apartment in Atlanta, he’d forgotten that.
Del capped the steak seasoning and replaced it in the spice rack. He grabbed a dishtowel and wiped his hands on the way to the living room. “Okay, guys,” he called, “cut it out.”
Lyssa pounded on her brother’s door. “Daddy, he’s on restriction. He shouldn’t even have the phone.”
“And you shouldn’t be yelling in the house.” Del tossed the towel across his shoulder and walked down the hall. He rapped on Blake’s door. “Blake, open up, would you?”
The door jerked open, and Blake thrust the cordless phone at Lyssa. “Here. Happy?”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Now I am.”
“Brat.”
“Jerk.”
“Baby.”
“Rat face.”
“Enough.” Del plucked the phone out of her hand. “Have you finished your homework?”
“Daddy.” One hand on her hip, Lyssa pouted at him. He suppressed a chuckle; she looked like his baby sister Tori when she was put out with Tick’s over-protectiveness. “I have to call Lauren.”
“You have to do your homework.”
With an aggravated huff, Lyssa flounced into her room. The door closed with a harsh click. Blake made a motion to close his, but Del stopped the door with his hand. “Why don’t you come outside with me?”
Blake regarded him with suspicious eyes beneath lowered brows. “What for?”
“To spend some time together.”
“You mean, so you can question me some more.”
Struggling to hold on to his patience, Del blew out a long breath. “Blake. Get a ball and come on outside with me.”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and strode back to the kitchen. Juggling the platter of steaks and the grill tongs, he went outside. His small act of faith reaped its reward a moment later when Blake appeared on the deck, tossing a stained baseball in the air and catching it. Hiding a smile, Del checked the coals and laid the steaks on the grate. A hiss and the enticing smell of searing meat rose into the warm air.
He glanced toward the pool area, where Anna sat on a lounge, reading. He lifted a hand and Blake tossed him the ball. “Bet the pool is nice.”
Blake shrugged and bounded down the deck steps to the small patch of grass comprising the back yard. “Mama and the girls like it.”
“Yeah?” Del threw the ball, feeling the satisfying stretch in his biceps. He’d offered two or three times before to have a pool put in, and Barbara had always refused, saying it was one more thing she’d have to take care of. He couldn’t explain why her having this one installed right after he’d gone pricked so hard.
“Yeah. Mama does laps. She says it’s good exercise.”
“I’ll bet.” The ball smacked into Del’s hand, the bare skin of his palm stinging. Exercise hadn’t been his goal when he’d suggested they invest in a pool. Barbara’s college schedule had kept her from accompanying him to a sales conference, but the tropical pool at the resort hotel had inspired fantasies he still couldn’t shake. He smothered the images of droplets of water caressing the full curve of Barbara’s cleavage, their bodies moving together in a warm cradle of water.
Blake jumped to catch Del’s wild throw. He palmed the ball a couple of times, his stance falsely casual. “What were you and Uncle Tick talking about?”
So he hadn’t been as buried in geometry and Green Day as he’d appeared. “I was trying to get him to quit smoking. Hey, I gotta turn those steaks.”
Blake trailed him up the deck steps, rolling the ball off his elbow and attempting to catch it. “He say anything about me?”
“He asked about you.” Del paused, making a show of arranging the steaks. “He’s worried about you.”
A disbelieving snort cut across the deck. “Sure he is.”
Del lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t believe that?”
“He’s too wrapped up in that department to worry about any of us. Besides, I heard Aunt Tori telling Grandma that she thought there was some woman who’d hurt him or something. He hasn’t been the same since he came home from Mississippi so maybe she’s right.” Blake bounced the ball off the floor with a hard thunk. “I ain’t never letting anyone get to me like that.”
Yeah, you will, kid. Just wait. All it’s gonna take is one look from the right woman. “Your Uncle Tick cares about you.”
“I’m not stupid.” Resentment darkened Blake’s tone. “I know that. But I also know we’re not his responsibilities.”
Well, that certainly put him in his place. Refusing to rise to the challenge, Del closed the grill lid. “Come on. You can help me nuke a couple of potatoes and throw together a salad, and we’ll talk about something else.”
His reluctance obvious, Blake followed him into the house. “I’m not telling you about last night.”
“Did I ask?”
“Not yet, but that’s what this is all about.”
“This?” Del paused in his search for a salad bowl and cutting board.
“You being here at all. Wanting to hang out with me.”
“I always want to hang out with you.” Del kept his voice even and chose his words carefully. “Yes, I drove down because of last night, and I’m not happy about what you did. But you know I always have time for you and I’m trying to understand what’s going on, son.”
“Nothing’s going on,” Blake mumbled. “You don’t have to stay.”
“Your mama and I will decide that.” From the refrigerator, Del pulled a head of lettuce and a variety of vegetables. He piled his finds on the counter next to the cutting board. “You want to get the potatoes going?”
Blake rolled his eyes, but did as asked. Del watched him, remembering the scene from the school hallway earlier that afternoon. “So how’s school going?”
“We’ve only got two weeks left.”
“Classes okay?”
“I guess.”
“Like your teachers?”
The microwave door slammed. Blake shrugged. “They’re okay.”
“Friends?”
The line of Blake’s body tightened. “Yeah.”
“Who are you hanging out with?” He did not want to hear the name Jamie Reese. Why did he just know that kid was going to end up being involved in whatever was going on with Blake?
“You said you weren’t going to a
sk about last night.”
“And I didn’t, did I?” He put aside the tomato he was chopping and laid the knife down. “Listen, Blake, whatever’s wrong, I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
And this conversation was getting them nowhere. Del picked up the knife once more and applied his frustration to a bell pepper.
“Can I go now?”
“Yeah.”
Alone in the kitchen, Del rubbed a hand over his eyes. Amazing how blind one could be. He’d been convinced he was still a good, albeit absent, father. A royal screw-up was what he was. There’d been nothing real about the time he’d spent with them over the past couple of months—no talking, no sharing beyond superficial likes and dislikes. He was losing his own children.
It wasn’t too late, though. He still had time, but it was fast running out. He could fix this.
He tossed the peppers and tomato on top of a bed of shredded lettuce. If it wasn’t too late with his kids, did the possibility exist that he still had a chance with Barbara? In the act of peeling a red onion, his hands stilled. The urgency behind that thought scared him. He wanted it too much.
He’d always wanted Barbara too much, more than she’d wanted him apparently.
He sliced into the onion with savage force. How the hell did he get around the fact that she resented him for getting her pregnant in the first place? That acrimony had to have been festering inside her for years, all the time they’d been together. Obviously, nothing he’d done to make up for the choices he’d cost her seemed to matter, and all her hidden hostility had boiled over during that last argument, when he’d finally sought something for himself.
No, he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in a Georgia July with Barbara.
But his kids were a different matter. He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth hurt. Hell if he’d lose them, too.
*
He’d parked in her spot. Corralling her irritation at the small annoyance, Barbara pulled the 4-Runner to the side of the driveway and shut off the engine. The lack of sleep was catching up to her. Tension lingered at the base of her neck and radiated up through her head, making her edgy and irritable. Knowing Del waited inside didn’t help, either.
