I suppose, as long as it doesnt put a crimp in my social life. When he saw that she was seriously concerned, he sobered. Sure, no prob. You know I always pop in to do my laundry, anyway. The bunkhouse didnt have a washer and dryer.
Ronnie rolled her eyes. I assume you refer to the bags of clothes you leave on the laundry room floor that get magically sorted, washed and folded for you.
Yeah, gotta love those laundry fairies. Grinning, he speared a bite of cold pasta.
Well, this laundry fairy is about to get her own mortgage payments, she snapped, so youre going to have to learn how to measure out detergent.
Devin blinked. HeyI didnt think you minded. I mean, you were doing yours and dads clothes so I figured it was no trouble to toss in one other persons. I wasnt trying to take advantage of you, Red.
Dont worry about it. She waved a hand, feeling shrewish. Just, now that Im moving out, things will have to change. Actually, her house didnt come with a washer and dryer, so maybe she could go to Dads house once a week andNo! She would save her quarters and use a Laundromat, or take pizza and a DVD to Lola Anns and do a couple of loads there.
Theyd snagged Dannys attention; he was peering at her intently. You okay, sis? You seem wound pretty tight.
No way was she sharing Lola Anns theory about why that might be.
Im excited about the move, but a little stressed, too, Ronnie said. It might be weird, not living in my room anymore.
Itll be an adjustment, he agreed. For Dad, too. Maybe we could get him a puppy for Easter or something.
Do you think She swallowed, thinking of their fathers increasingly forlorn moods. Has he ever considered dating?
Neither of her brothers replied, but they both looked pointedly at the single framed snapshot on Waynes desk.
Danny glanced back at Ronnie, his expression both poignant and proud. You look so much like her. As the oldest, hed had the most years with Sue, the most stored memories.
Ronnie laughed self-consciously. Oh, right. I can see her now, standing in the kitchen in shapeless coveralls with a grease smudge on her cheek.
Flour. Devin interjected. Id come home from school to the smell of something amazing baking, and shed have little smears of flour on her skin and apron. God, she made the house smell good.
Better than I ever did, Ronnie thought with an apologetic pang.
Silence fell over the little room, and Ronnie didnt know who was more discomfited by the thick undercurrent of sentimentthe guys, or her.
Danny cleared his throat. Guess who brought her car in while you were at lunch? Beth Gold. Seems her vehicle is suffering from phantom engine noises again.
Ronnie was grateful for the excuse to laugh. You mean those noises no one else has ever heard but which always seem to mysteriously reappear if she notices Dev working the shop?
I dont think its engine noises, Danny said solemnly. I think its lo-o-o-ve.
At this, Devin harrumphed. We went on two dates this summer. Two! She should let it go.
She cant, Danny said. Because shes in lo-o-o-ve.
Devin tossed a wadded-up napkin at his older brother, doing his part to dispel the earlier emotional tension. Does Kaitlyn know that when youre away from her good influence, you revert to a ten-year-old?
At least Ive learned how to be a grown-up part of the time. Just one of the benefits of life with a good woman, Danny said. Something you would discover if you settled down.
Theres the problem, Devin said. Why settle when I can get to know so many different beautiful women, each with her own delightful and unique personality?
Yeah, cause its really their personalities youre after, you hound.
Devin jerked his head meaningfully toward Ronnie, apparently wanting to spare her delicate sensibilities. Then he smiled, taking the opportunity to redirect Dannys brotherly concern. If you want someone in the family to find domestic bliss, you should stop badgering me and help Ronnie here.
Ronnie ground her teeth and grabbed some paperwork from the inbox on Dannys desk. I dont need help.
Sure you do, Devin said. How longs it been since you had a date?
My darling siblings run off my potential dates.
Thats not true! Devin protested. We just screen them carefully. To keep away those who arent good enough.
Danny nodded. The guys who wouldnt be right for you in the long run, the guys who are too stupid to know how to change their own oil, the guys who only have One Thing in mind.
You mean like Dev? she asked wryly.
Exactly! Devin flashed an unrepentant smile, then grimaced. God forbid you go out with anyone like me. If you did, wed have to kill him. You dont want Kaitlyn and Ashley reduced to visiting Danny in prison, do you?
It was time Ronnie got to work on a car. Interlocking automotive systems made far more sense than her knucklehead brothers. Besides, she felt like taking something apart with her hands. But Danny calling her name in a soft voice stopped her in the doorway.
She looked over her shoulder with mild curiosity. Yes?
There isnt someonespecific youd like to date, is there? he asked. Someone like, well, Jason McDeere.
Jason McWho? She felt herself go white. Literally felt all the blood drain from her face in an almost audible whoosh.
Danny held her gaze. After we had dinner at Adams Ribs last week, Kaitlyn mentioned that you were watching Jason.
Darn her sister-in-laws keen powers of observation! I was just admiring what a good father he is to that little girl, Ronnie mumbled.
See? Devins posture relaxed. She was melting over the kid, not the guy. Her biological clocks probably in countdown mode.
She was going to clock the next person who used that phrase! Still, hard to argue without invalidating her own alibi.
But Kaitlyn said you were looking at McDeere the way I used to look at my old Thunderbird.
Devin shook his head. As much as I adore your wife, Danny-boy, I think shes off base. McDeeres a decent sort, but a high school English teacher? Not the most manly job, reading Lord Bryan and Edgar Allen Poe to kids all day.
Its Lord Byron, Ronnie snapped. And how is shaping the minds of todays youth and, by extension, the future of our country, somehow inferior to selling wiper fluid? Just because he doesnt spend his time belching or scratching or chasing skirts at Guthrie Hall like youJason McDeere is an intelligent, charming, good-looking man, and any woman in town would be lucky to have him.
Really good-looking, she added in a breathless afterthought, temporarily recalling those eyes and that smile instead of her audience: two brothers who were now gaping.
Well, Ill be, Devin said. Kaitlyn was right.
A slow smile spread across Dannys face. Ronnies in l-o-o-o-ve.
We may have to screen him, Devin said thoughtfully.
You stay away from Jason McDeere or I will bludgeon you unconscious with a crescent wrench! On the heels of that threat, Ronnie spun around and headed for the repair bays.
Her interfering, overprotective brothers knew about her attraction to Jason. What were the odds that they wouldnt mention it to her equally overprotective father? Ronnie groaned, inhaling the scent of gasoline and industrial cleaners. Was it too late to fake her own death, skip out of town and start a new life far from Joyous?
Her interfering, overprotective brothers knew about her attraction to Jason. What were the odds that they wouldnt mention it to her equally overprotective father? Ronnie groaned, inhaling the scent of gasoline and industrial cleaners. Was it too late to fake her own death, skip out of town and start a new life far from Joyous?
Preferably, a life without siblings.
Chapter Three
Wiseshine, Daddy!
Even from his nearly unconscious state, Jason was able to translate Emilys message of rise and shinea phrase hed made the mistake of using sometime in the past. Because she liked the sound of it, his nearly three-year-old daughter used it frequently, whether it was technically appropriate or not. It would be more appropriate now, for instance, if the sun were actually up.
He cracked one eye open. Morning, sweet pea. The digital clock on the nightstand said that it was 6:26 a.m. His little girl hadnt grasped the concept of sleeping in on the weekends and loved to bounce out of her toddler bed first thing Saturday.
At times like this, he really missed the retired crib, where shed been confined to playing with her stuffed animals until at least seven. Was it wrong to keep your kid behind bars so you could get an extra half hour of sleep?
Emily was struggling to hoist herself onto the double bed that dominated what had once been Sophie McDeeres guest room. The lavender wallpaper with its climbing vines of faded flowers had hung in here since his father was a boy.
Jason scooped his daughter up next to him and reached for the remote control nestled between the phone and the clock. While he hadnt bothered to bring the queen bed hed once shared with his ex-wife to Joyous, hed brought all the electronics, like the first-class stereo system, the DVD player and the large television that sat on the rose faux-marble top of a white wooden dresser.
Stifling a yawn, he smiled at his daughter. How about I find some cartoons? Maybe she wouldnt mind if he watched them from behind closed eyelids.
Kay. She snuggled closer, instantly agreeable as long as she got to be in his company.
As it so often did, the fact that he was all she had weighed heavily on his shoulders. Sometimes he worried that Emily was more clingy than other kids her age, but who could blame her? Her own mother, after months of an extreme postpartum depression, had shoved a crying baby into Jasons arms one day and walked out, never to return. More recently, Gran-Gran had, as Emily solemnly put it, gone to live in the sky. It was entirely possible Em would grow up with a few abandonment issues. Hell, after the way his marriage ended, he had abandonment issues.
Hed been fully aware of Isobels depression and escalating panic that she wasnt cut out for motherhood, but hed been trying his damnedest to help her through it, to solidify them as a family. Hed failed.
He refused to do so again. Well make it work, kiddo. I swear Ill do everything I can to be a good father. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, breathing in the grape smell of her no-tears childrens shampoo. God, life should be like that. He should be able to protect this trusting little person curled into his side, be able to guarantee that everything would always come up smelling sweet, with limited tangles or tears.
For this morning, at least, she was coping better than him. While he spent twenty minutes worrying about all the ways he might potentially screw up as a parent, his daughter laughedthat unabashed, full-bodied sound that had taken him by surprise when she was a babyat the antics of an animated rabbit and duck on the TV screen. Afterward, he made them a modest but healthy breakfast of cereal and strawberries.
You get to see Zoë today, he reminded her as he buckled her into her booster seat at the table.
The Spencers across the street had a four-year-old daughter. Emily had always loved having the older girl over or even playing in the Spencers yard when Jason stayed in view. It was only in the past couple of weeks that shed consented to being in Mrs. Spencers care without Jason there; even then, he kept his cell phone within reach in case Em suddenly and vehemently changed her mind, the way children her age could. While people often referenced the terrible twos, hed only seen real tantrums from Emily in the past month, and Wanda Spencer agreed that the worst trouble she ever had with Zoë was the transition from two to about four months after she turned three. Emilys third birthday would fall just after Easter this year.
Today, Wanda was taking the two girls to see a new G-rated movie at King Cinema that was garnering rave reviews from parents. The outing would give Jason a chance to run by the hardware store and pick up his latest batch of supplies. Though he knew more about elements of myth than he did wiring ceiling fans, modernizing this house meant something special to him. His dad had been in the military, and the family had relocated from base to base throughout Jasons childhood with Grans place serving as a touchstone, a nostalgic constant. During the winter theyd lived in Alaska, Jasons mom had vowed that while shed dutifully follow her husband all over the world during his career, once he retired, they were moving somewhere very, very warm. They now resided in Phoenix. With her only child out west and her husband passing away several years ago, Sophie McDeere hadnt had much help keeping up with repairs on this place.
Until hed returned to his lifelong refuge during the divorce proceedings, Jason hadnt realized how much the house had suffered from neglect. Hed made it his unspoken mission to respectfully refurbish Grans place and, in the process, build a wonderful home for Emily. Of course, while he was learning as much as he could through various instruction manuals and painstaking trial, he didnt have a knack for design. If he let Emily have input, shed probably insist on pink for everything from the sofa cushions to the carpet. There were some projects that neededmore of a womans touch.
Sighing, he loaded their breakfast dishes into the washer, thinking about the magazine-perfect house hed left behind. Isobel, always flawlessly put together, had had a natural talent for design. While pregnant, shed decorated a baby nursery that looked like something out of a fairy tale. But no amount of unicorn switch plates or fanciful wall murals could make up for what Emily had lost.
Pushing aside thoughts of the past and his occasional demons of self-doubt, he helped his daughter get dressed and read her a few of her favorite picture books. Though he was unquestionably biased, he thought she had a great vocabulary for her age, which he attributed to the stories they shared. Afterward, they played in the yard until it was time to walk her over to the Spencers.
He took Emilys hand as they climbed the four steps to the spacious front porch, where one of Zoës dolls sat in the glider-swing. Are you excited about the movie, sweet pea?
She nodded and said something about princesses, which he understood was a major selling point to the female preschool demographic. Emily was rarely without the tiara that had been part of the Halloween costume Gran put together for her. But despite his daughters eagerness for the princess film, he noticed her glance nervously his way when Wanda Spencer opened the screen door. Would Em fuss when he left? During the week when he went to work, she stayed home with a mother of two who had her days free while her own sons were in school. Emily still cried about half the time when he left, and it continued to break his heart. Hed hoped shed be better adjusted to her daytime caregiver, Miss Nina, by now.