Yesterday's Embers (Clayburn Novels Book 3) Page 8

“Can I hold something for you?”

  She looked up at him, cheeks pink. “I know they’re in here.” She searched for another minute, finally turning her purse upside down into the waiting apron of her skirt. Her knees wobbled as she tried to balance and sift through the jumble.

  “Do you have another key somewhere?”

  “I can’t believe this.” She stuffed everything back in and stood to meet his eyes. “I must have left them in my other bag, when I changed purses.”

  “You’re one of the rare ducks in this town who actually lock their houses.”

  “I know. By order of the Valdez brothers.”

  “Wise men all,” he said. “You don’t have an extra key hidden somewhere?”

  She looked sheepish. “Sure. Two of them—in the house.”

  “Maybe the back door is unlocked?”

  “No. But I might be able to pry a window open in the back.” She stepped off the porch into the rain.

  “Well, I hope not.” He quickly unfolded his jacket again and tented it over her head, following her around the side of the house.

  She looked askance at him over her shoulder, rain dripping off her eyelashes and sliding down the bridge of her nose.

  “Listen, if you can pry a window open, think what some boogie man could do. If that’s the case, you don’t need to bother locking your doors anymore.”

  She grinned. “Good point. Don’t worry. I’ll get in somehow. You go on now. You’ve wasted enough time. Kayeleigh’s going to think you’ve abandoned her.”

  He waved her off and opened the gate to the backyard. “You don’t have a dog or anything, do you?”

  “Nope. A pussycat. She’s in the house, though.” She raised his jacket higher over her head. “You want back under here?”

  He turned his face to the sky. The rain had let up a little––or else he was so wet already he just didn’t feel it as much. “I’m fine.”

  She led the way around to the back of the house. “You might be able to get in a basement window if I didn’t––” Her words were cut off by a yelp, and before Doug could reach her, she went down hard in a flooded patch of grass.

  She scrambled to her knees and he offered her a hand up. “Are you okay?”

  She brushed at two muddy spots on the front of her skirt, her cheeks flaming again. “I’m such a klutz.”

  “You didn’t look like a klutz out on the dance floor tonight. Of course, you weren’t trying to dance on wet grass.” He tried too late to edit what had come out sounding like a pathetic pickup line. “You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

  She covered her eyes with one hand. “Only my pride. You really don’t have to do this. I can call one of my brothers to help. You’ve gone way beyond the call of duty.”

  He ignored her and took in the lay of the yard. For the first time he noticed the landscaping and shrubs. “Wow! You’ve got your own secret garden back here.”

  His comment seemed to please her. Even this early in the year, before anything was in bloom, it was obvious the garden would soon be an oasis. A narrow rock garden snaked along the border the fence created, and near the house a flagstone patio was flanked by a low waterfall and an elaborate hedge made up of rose arbors. He could imagine the transformation that would take place over the next few weeks as spring came to Clayburn. Kaye would have loved it. She’d been after him for two years to replace their rotting deck with flagstone.

  He let a wave of guilt roll off him and went to rattle a basement window near Mickey’s garage. He could break the glass, but that would be a last resort. Too bad he’d taken the toolbox out of his truck to make room for the kids’ bikes last time they stayed at Harriet’s.

  He went to inspect the back garage door. Maybe he could jimmy it. He checked the doorknob. It turned half a turn and the door swung open.

  Behind him, Mickey let out a little gasp. “How did you do that?”

  “Um…it wasn’t locked.”

  She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh good grief. I must have forgotten to lock it after I put Sasha in this morning. My cat…”

  She was saying something about her cat and he was listening, but all he could think about was how nice it had been to laugh and talk with her at the dance. How carefree and normal he’d felt being with her. He didn’t want to go home to the solitude that had been his constant companion in recent days.

  He felt himself grasping for a way to prolong their time together. An idea sparked. A thin warning followed, but he quickly dismissed it.

  Mickey pushed open the door and stepped into the dimly lit garage. He followed her inside. She turned to hand him his jacket, but instead of taking it, he grabbed her other hand. “Do you want to go to a movie with me? Tomorrow afternoon?”

  A hesitant smile painted her face. “Are you asking me on a date?”

  He grinned self-consciously. “I…guess I am. That’s sure what it sounds like, doesn’t it?”

  “Doug, are you sure…” Her smile faded and she pulled her hand away from his, thrusting his jacket at him. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  Did he dare tell her that he hadn’t really thought through the invitation he’d rattled off so easily? But no…he wasn’t sorry. He was glad he hadn’t had time to talk himself out of it. He wanted to see her again. “I had a good time tonight. And that’s not something I’ve been able to say very often lately. I…I’d like to see you again.”

  She bit her bottom lip and tossed her damp curls. She looked down, and he followed her line of vision to his hands, clutching his jacket. He could almost read her thoughts as she eyed his left hand—where his wedding band caught a glint from the single lightbulb overhead. But he ignored his better judgment that told him to back off and give her an out.

  She eyed him for a minute, then exhaled. “That new Disney movie is playing in Salina. We could take the kids.”

  He could have kissed her. But his better judgment won out. He backed toward the door. “We’ll pick you up at noon. Fine dining at Mickey D’s okay?”

  “Hey!” She tossed him a mock glare. “Don’t denigrate my name.”

  He held up both hands in defense. “Oh. I didn’t think about that. No harm intended, though. It’s more like honoring your name…at least my kids would think so.”

  “As long as you don’t mean Mickey V’s.”

  “Huh?”

  “V…Valdez…Mickey V. Get it? I am not cooking on our first date.”

  It felt so good to laugh again that he wanted to cry.

  Chapter 14

  Mickey changed out of her wet clothes and dried her hair. Belting a fluffy white bathrobe around her, she padded out to the kitchen and loaded the few coffee mugs and silverware that had collected in the sink into the dishwasher. She wiped off the counters in her cozy kitchen and watered the plants in the bay window behind the sink.

  Sasha jumped up on the counter beside her, purring in anticipation of Mickey’s touch. She stroked the silky calico’s fur. “You know you’re not supposed to be up on the counter, little princess.” She scooped the cat into her arms and carried her to the sofa. “What did you do all day, huh?”

  Sasha kneaded broad paws on Mickey’s knee, revving her feline motor.

  “I bet you didn’t have as much fun as I did.” Mickey felt like an idiot grinning at a cat who couldn’t understand a word she was saying. But she couldn’t seem to quit smiling. Weddings were usually pure torture for her, a colossal reminder of everything God had said no to over and over again for almost a decade now, ever since she’d brought the request for a husband before Him as a serious college grad dating a man who didn’t love her as much as she loved him. Jon Lundholm had kept her hanging onto the hope of a diamond for two years while he played the field at college. The handful of other guys she’d dated had been immature, cocky jocks interested in only one thing—a thing she wasn’t willing to give.

  Jon was a nice enough guy, but she’d been stupid enough to try to force him into the “perfect husband” mold she’d
patterned after her brothers. After he dumped her, she realized she couldn’t have wedged him inside that mold with a shoehorn. But love was blind and all that.

  The chorus of “This Will Be” ambled through her mind, shoving the gloomy thoughts out. She smiled to herself and hummed along. To think she’d almost skipped Jack and Vienne’s reception this afternoon. She shot up a prayer of thanks that she hadn’t. She’d had an absolute blast. And Doug DeVore was mostly the reason why. Scratch that. No mostly about it.

  If she closed her eyes, she could picture those blue eyes as he’d laughed down at her while they were dancing. He was a fine, fine dancer, too. And easy on the eyes, with skin bronzed by the sun and his hair bleached to the color of wheat.

  She’d never once thought of Doug in that way before today. Of course, until now she’d only known him as a married man—just another father of her daycare kids. She’d always been impressed with the kind of father he was, but seeing him at the dance with Kayeleigh as his date, she’d been charmed all over again. He was so sweet with the gangly almost-teenager. Mickey knew how much that had to mean for a girl who’d lost her mother at an age when mothers were crucial.

  Doug had seemed so different tonight. Even though things were a little awkward at first with Wren practically pushing them together, they’d ended up having a great time dancing together. It was fun joking and talking out on the dance floor with him. Not just talking about his kids either, but real conversation, getting to know each other better than they ever had.

  Doug was doing well by his kids. He was exactly the kind of man she wanted to find someday. It bothered her a little—okay, a lot—that he still wore his wedding ring. A recent widower with five kids was not exactly on that list she’d given God for the man of her dreams.

  She rubbed her hands together, remembering the warm urgency of Doug’s hand on hers when he’d invited her to go to Salina with him tomorrow. Somehow she didn’t think he’d planned to do that. A warning light went on—again—somewhere in the back of her brain. Maybe she’d been wrong to say yes. She did the math and it shocked her a little to realize that it hadn’t even been four months since Kaye died.

  A knot twisted in the pit of her stomach when she thought of what her brothers would say if they found out she was going with Doug tomorrow. Well, she wasn’t stupid. And she wasn’t naive enough to discount that Doug had a lot of grieving left to do. Years’ worth probably.

  But it wasn’t like they were talking about getting married here. Surely it couldn’t hurt anything to go to a movie with a friend. It wasn’t like it was a date. After all, they were taking the kids.

  Except that had been her idea. And Doug had called it a date. But that was only after she’d made the suggestion. What else was he going to say after she was so coy with him?

  She looked out the kitchen window toward the north end of town. The rain had stopped, but the night sky was inky. She couldn’t see beyond the trailing verbena that hung under the porch eaves. Maybe Doug was regretting his invitation by now.

  Sighing, she closed the curtains. It was too late to back out now. She’d go with him and the kids tomorrow. McDonald’s and a movie. And they’d probably have a great time. Tomorrow would be about being a friend to Doug and an encouragement to his kids. Nothing more.

  It was too soon for anything else—if “anything else” was even a future possibility. And she doubted it was from Doug’s perspective. He was lonely. That was all.

  A veil of melancholy settled over her. Why couldn’t the men she was attracted to ever be available? Was that too much to ask?

  Doug squirmed in the pew and folded the bulletin in half and then into quarters. If he was nervous yesterday, before the wedding, he was in full panic mode now. What in the world had he been thinking when he asked Miss Mickey on a date? Good grief. Suddenly he couldn’t even think of her outside of the name his kids called her by?

  Twisting his wedding ring, he shifted in the pew again. He might technically be a widower, but he couldn’t have felt more married if Kaye were sitting here beside him. So why did he have a date this afternoon?

  He’d watched grieving people do stupid things before and wondered what they were thinking. Well, now he knew. They weren’t thinking. Last night, he’d been caught up in the relief of the moment—a chance to smile and forget for a few hours about the tragedy that had cut him down.

  Kayeleigh had moped the rest of the night over having to leave the dance early, but despite her efforts to ruin the evening, he’d gone to bed last night excited about the plans for this afternoon.

  But the minute he’d come awake this morning, he’d begun to second-guess himself. Well, it was too late to back out now.

  When the pastor spoke the benediction, he quickly herded the kids out to the foyer. He sent Kayeleigh to pick up Harley in the nursery and hurried the rest of the kids out to the car. His purposeful stride apparently worked. At least no one tried to stop him to offer condolences. Maybe he’d finally reached some magical point in the mourning period where people felt they’d said enough.

  Good. Though he knew they were well-meaning, he’d grown a little weary of being the object of the town’s sympathy.

  He’d asked Harriet to keep Harley again this afternoon. He and Kaye had learned the hard way that a two-year-old was impossible to keep quiet in a movie theater. Even if the film was geared toward kids, Harley would rather make friends with the people in the row behind them. Or, like their last disastrous trip to the movies with her, see how much popcorn she could toss into the pouffy hair of the woman in front of them. The memory made him smile…and caused a fresh wave of longing for the way things used to be.

  He forced his mind to shift gears and concentrated on getting everybody buckled into the Suburban. Nowadays, Kayeleigh sat up front with him and the twins shared the back seat, while Landon rode with Harley in the middle bench. He’d have to warn Kayeleigh that she’d be giving up her seat today.

  He hadn’t told the kids yet that Mickey was going with them. He hadn’t wanted to answer a bunch of questions. But now that they were minutes from picking her up, he pictured himself answering hard questions in front of her.

  Not a pleasant prospect.

  As soon as they pulled out of the parking lot, he plunged in. “Listen, guys, as soon as we drop Harley off at Grandma’s, we’re going to go pick up Miss Valdez—Miss Mickey—and she’s going with us to the movie.”

  In his rearview mirror the twins exchanged wide-eyed looks and started bouncing on the seats. They clapped and squealed, “Miss Mickey! Miss Mickey!”

  “Why’s she going with us?” He barely heard Landon’s low voice over the twins’ noise.

  “I invited her. Thought she’d enjoy…the movie.” He met Landon’s skeptical expression in the mirror and turned to Kayeleigh, hoping for support. “Won’t that be fun?”

  She leveled a suspicious glare at him. “You have a date with Miss Valdez?” She wrinkled her nose and dangled the question before him like it was one of Harley’s dirty diapers.

  He shook his head and glued his eyes to the street. “It’s not a date exactly.” But what if Mickey referred to it as that? “We just thought it would be fun to do something together today.”

  Kayeleigh twisted in her seat, suddenly allies with her brother. “Dad danced with Miss Valdez half the night last night at the wedding.”

  “Gross!”

  “Cut it out you two. And be nice to Mick— Miss Valdez. I mean it.”

  “You’re taking her to McDonald’s? Oh, that’s real cool.” Kayeleigh rolled her eyes in full, sassy-preteen mode—a mood she wore quite regularly lately.

  He tried for levity, using a term he’d heard Kayeleigh toss out. “It’s not like it’s a hot date or anything.”

  “Daddy, please. Stop talking about it. I don’t even want to think about it.” Kayeleigh shuddered.

  This was going to be tougher than he thought.

  He made the kids stay in the car while he took Harley in to H
arriet’s. Kaye’s mother was still in her church clothes. He set Harley on the floor and she toddled over to the basket of toys Harriet kept by the sofa.

  Handing Harriet the diaper bag, he backed toward the door. “She’ll probably take a long nap this afternoon. We should be back by six or seven at the latest.” He patted his pocket. “Call my cell if you need me.”

  “We’ll be fine.” Harriet spoke in clipped tones and avoided his eyes. If he hadn’t had such a warm conversation with her when he picked up the kids last night, he would have thought she was mad at him.

  “Is everything all right? I-I hope I’m not taking advantage of your offer to keep the kids. If I am—”

  “I’ll tell you what you’re taking advantage of.” Kaye’s mother straightened to her full five-foot-nine height and looked him in the eye. “My daughter’s reputation.”

  Uh-oh. This couldn’t be good. “What are you talking about, Harriet?”

  Harriet’s moods had always kept their lives interesting, but she was beyond moody right now. Propping her hands on her hips, she let him have it with both barrels. “Rumors are flying all over town about you and that Valdez girl at the reception last night.”

  He steeled himself for the worst. “Exactly what kind of rumors?”

  “Did you take her to the dance?”

  “No, Harriet. I took Kayeleigh. I took my daughter to the dance.”

  “But you danced with Mickey Valdez.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I did.” His defenses shot up, but he worked to keep his voice even. “I wasn’t aware it was a crime to dance with a friend.”

  “Well, from what I’ve been hearing, you two were”—her face flushed crimson and she looked away—“you were all over each other.”

  “What? Who in the Sam Hill did you hear that from?” This was crazy. But then, he shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d grown up with the rumor mills of small-town life.

  “I heard it from everybody, that’s who.” Harriet’s voice rose. “The phone’s been ringing off the hook ever since I got home from church this morning.”