Adding Up to Marriage (9 page)

“Jewel. It's fine. Really.”

A funny little smile flitted around her mouth before she ducked her head. “Well, okay,” she said, slowly emptying the bag again. “If you're sure…” She held out one bottle. “Actually, you might like to try this yourself. It's this unisex stuff that works really great on dry skin. Lord, last winter my skin got so bad I thought I was gonna wake up one morning to find I'd shed it, like a snake.”

Silas had to chuckle. “I know what you mean.”

“Seriously, right?” she said, then motioned for him to step aside so she could return to the office.

Silas followed again, shoving his fingers in his pockets and leaning against the door jamb, watching her. Instead of, you know, going back to the living room or his room or the boys' room or anywhere where she wasn't. But no.

He nodded at the tiny tube TV on the floor next to the pelvis.

“I didn't think you could even find TVs like that any more.”

“You can't. I've had this since I was six or something, my first stepfather gave it to me for my birthday. But, oh!” She turned. “Do you have satellite?”

“Yes, but—”

“Oh, good. Since it won't work without a dish or one of those converter boxes. Boy, are those things a pain.”

“Jewel—we have a perfectly good flat screen in the living room which you're free to watch whenever you want.”

“Thank you, but it's probably best if I stay in here, out of y'all's way, as much as possible. I've got a lot of studying to do anyway, so…” She shoved her hair behind a very cute ear. With three earrings. “And also, I sometimes like to watch TV real late, when I come back from a delivery? To unwind? I'll keep the sound down real low, I promise you'll never hear it. In fact, I may even have some earplugs around here somewhere—”

At this, she started riffling through an overflowing box she'd dumped on his desk. “Oh, good, here they are! Oh, no, those are to my MP3 player. Well, I'll find them, I'm sure—”

“Jewel!”

The earplugs dangling from her fingers, she looked up. “What?”

Man, was this gal doing a number on his head, or what? It was like there were two Jewels: the one who still kept stuffed toys and the one who'd studied and annotated a thousand-page textbook. The one who'd taken care of his bloodied child without so much as a flinch, and the skittish one who clearly felt like an interloper, even to the point of worrying that he might hear her TV at night.

At this point he couldn't even begin to pin down his reaction to her, a jumble of sympathy and annoyance, dizziness and—God help him—attraction. Which made no earthly sense whatsoever, what with him being all about sanity and control and her being all about plastic pelvises and water balloons and Beanie Babies.

And yet.

“Relax,” Silas said, making himself smile. “You don't have to pretend you're not really here, okay? And if I gave you the impression you did…” He sucked in a breath. “I apologize.”

For several seconds she treated him to one of those unreadable looks, then nodded. “Okay. Would you like…I mean, if you don't feel I'm overstepping things…would it be okay if I cooked dinner for you and the boys? I mean, regularly. When I'm not on a call, that is.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “To say thanks for letting me stay here.”

“You don't have to do that—”

“No, really—you'd be doing me a favor! I love to cook but there's not much point in going all out when it's just me. And it looks like you've got pots and pans you've never even used.”

Silas waited for the pang to pass. “Then sure, knock yourself out. If that pork roast you made the other night is anything to go by, I'd be an idiot to say no.”

Then she smiled, knocking the breath clean out of him, the void instantly replaced with the Not Good Feeling that'd taken nearly two years to finally fade, and he heard himself say in a voice probably rougher than it needed to be, “The pots and pans were Amy's. Stuff she bought right before things went south, so she wasn't doing much cooking after that. She took it all when we split, of course, but then…”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I meant to sell it on
eBay or something, never got around to it. If there's anything you want, feel free to take it when you leave.”

Then he walked away, counting his lucky stars the memories had smacked away the suggestion on the tip of his tongue, that if she was amenable, he wouldn't mind at all having someone to watch a grownup movie with, from time to time.

Dodged that bullet, boy. And thank God for it.

“W
ho are these people again?”

Navigating the winding mountain road leading to the Blacks', Jewel smiled. Tad had asked the same question three times in the past hour.

“I told you, sugar—they're a family with a brand-new baby I helped bring into the world a week ago. And you're coming with me because your daddy has to work, and Mrs. Maple's got a doctor's appointment herself.”

“Oh.” Silence. “I'm glad. Mrs. Maple smells funny.”

“Now, honey,” Jewel said, practically biting her lip off so she wouldn't laugh, “that's not nice.”

“S'true. And anyway it's not like I said it to her face or anything.”

Poor Mrs. Maple. Their eighty-year-old neighbor was sweet as she could be, willing to take the boys
anytime,
it was no bother at all, she'd told Jewel. Except even Jewel had been nearly knocked over by the BENGAY fumes.

Even so, Jewel had been frankly surprised that Silas had so readily agreed to her taking Tad along. Well, after assuring him she didn't have so much as a parking ticket on her record, that Winnie was cool with her bringing an extra, and her swearing on her grandmother's grave there'd be no glimpses of anything untoward. Although Silas didn't know Jewel wasn't including breasts in that definition, since Winnie might want to feed her baby during the course of the visit—

Ohmigosh, her thoughts were jumping around like a bunch of fleas this morning. Probably on account of her not getting a lot of sleep last night, which she'd finally decided had a lot less to do with the lumpy sofa bed mattress than it did Silas going all weird on her when she'd mentioned the new pots and pans. Okay,
more
weird—the man was a species all his own, that was for sure. But for heaven's sake—how the heck was she supposed to know a few pieces of Paula Deen cookware would set him off?

Honestly.

And here she'd figured on the Beanie Babies doing that all by themselves. Not to mention all those bottles of girly-stuff in his bathroom—

“I gotta pee.”

“We're almost there, sugar,” Jewel said, turning onto the Blacks' private road. “Can you see the house?”

“Wow. It's all shiny.”

What it was, was as sparkly as a big old diamond, the mid-morning sun flashing off all the glass walls and windows. Annabelle rushed them with barks of unbridled joy—
Company! This is the best day ever!
—sending the Blacks' housekeeper's small flock of chickens into a squawking frenzy.

Annabelle instantly commandeered Tad, much to his giggling delight, herding him over to Winnie's curious,
thumb-sucking toddler, which in turn provoked a low laugh from the porch—Winnie herself, in slender jeans and a tailored shirt, not looking in the least like she'd given birth a week before.

“Looks like there's not much point in me being here,” Jewel said as she climbed the dirt driveway toward the porch steps. The tall, easy-going blonde grinned.

“This one drains me dry in twenty minutes, then conks out for three hours. Unlike Seamus who was like a little barnacle for six months. Come on in,” she said, holding open the beveled-glass front door as Jewel trooped up the steps. “Aisling's asleep in Daddy's arms.”

“Tad, come on, sugar—”

“Oh, let 'em play. Annabelle won't let 'em out of her sight. Or the yard. Besides, we can keep an eye out ourselves from the living room window.”

“You sure? 'Cause Silas…he worries.”

“So I've heard. Although I don't suppose he's any worse than Aidan.” She chuckled. “Some of us are just better at hiding it. Trust me—when you have kids, you'll understand.”

Following Winnie inside, Jewel dumped her sweatercoat on the drum-like, pigskin
equipale
chair nearest the door. On the other side of the two-story room, Aidan sat staring at his brand-new baby girl, clearly awestruck. And sure, the look on his face made Jewel's insides go all mushy. Why wouldn't it? But every time people made comments like Winnie's, Jewel wondered…why? Survival of the species issues aside, why did people with kids assume reproducing was the only path to wholeness and fulfillment?

Obviously Jewel loved kids. And babies. And even teenagers—or at least one in particular. But for all sorts of reasons, it was by no means a given that she'd be a mama
herself one day. So it kinda bugged her, the idea that her life would be crap unless she did.

Never mind the way her insides melted when she took little Aisling from her daddy's permanently paint-stained hands, inhaling her sweet infant scent as she carried her upstairs to her parents' cathedral-ceilinged bedroom. By this time, boys and pooch had come back inside; she could hear Seamus's high-pitched chattering as they both tromped up the stairs. Moments later the dark-haired toddler was by the bed, giving his new sister close to the same awestruck look as his father. Then he took her tiny hand in his not-much-bigger one and gave it an emphatic shake.

“How do, beebee?”

Seated on the edge of the bed, Winnie laughed. “Do you remember her name?”

The little boy's forehead puckered before he lifted wide blue eyes to his mother. “Aising?”

“Close enough,” Winnie said, her wheat-colored hair sliding across her shoulders as she bent her head to her son's. Smiling, Jewel duly checked out the tiny, perfect girl, her big, slate blue eyes focused on Jewel's face as she kept up a soft conversation with the infant. In the midst of rediapering her, Jewel's phone rang.

“I'd better take this,” she said, handing the gurgling infant back to her mother and walking out onto the open hall overlooking the light-flooded living room below. Amazingly, she hadn't heard from her mother in nearly a week, which gave her hope this wouldn't be one of “those” calls.

“Hey, Mama—what's up?”

“You busy, baby?”

“Out on an appointment, so I can't talk long—”

“Oh. Well. I'm headed up that way, sugar, so I thought
it might be fun to have lunch in Santa Fe, maybe take in a few galleries—”

“Mama?” Jewel said gently, never mind the not-so-tiny prickle of annoyance at the base of her skull. “Remember how I said I'm not free to go play whenever the mood strikes? Not that it doesn't sound like fun—” actually, the whole Santa Fe art scene was lost on her, but that was beside the point “—but I'm busy for the rest of the day. You go on ahead, though, enjoy yourself, okay?”

“I see,” Mama said in her Hurt Voice. “You know, sometimes I get the distinct feeling you're trying to avoid me. I don't even have your real address! Just some silly old PO box number.”

“I am not trying to avoid you,” Jewel said, even though that's exactly what she was doing. “And everybody has a PO box up here, it's a real small town. But I really do need to go now. I'll talk to you later.”

Maybe.

Soon after, her appointment finished and her charge gathered, Jewel headed back to town feeling far too unsettled for her liking—a feeling that only intensified as she drove past Eli's torn-up house, then on to Silas's, both places where she was only living temporarily, until—

Until when? Or, more to the point, until
what?

Good question.

Yeah, apparently a nomadic childhood—as her mother got bored, got divorced, got remarried—combined with people moving in and out of her life like the tide had taken far more of a toll than she'd realized. No wonder she'd learned early on not to become attached to either person or place, because nothing lasted. Well, except her mother, who held the dubious distinction of being both the sole constant in Jewel's life as well as the cause of all that ebbing and flowing, she mused as she turned onto Silas's street.

Only to nearly have a heart attack when she saw Mama's Lexus coming down the street from the opposite direction.

 

Standing at the counter while he made himself a sandwich—Doughboy keeping a sharp lookout in case food met floor—Silas saw the sleek sedan glide up to the curb as Jewel pulled into the driveway. Saw, too, the trim, extremely attractive woman emerge from the gleaming, pearl-colored car and make her way on impossibly high-heeled boots toward Jewel, now out of her SUV and looking more miffed than he'd ever seen her.

He couldn't hear their conversation through the double-paned windows, but their body language spoke volumes—much wild gesticulating on the other woman's part, much head shaking and folded arms on Jewel's. Finally, tossing her hands in the air, Jewel went around to spring Tad; fingering his curls, she pointed toward the house.

Not that he expected to get much out of a four-year-old, but it was better than wandering into the fray himself.

“Who's that?” Silas asked mildly when Tad crashed through the front door.

“Jewel's mama. She's pretty. Whatcha eatin'?”

“Tuna sandwich. Want one?”

“Yeah. Please.”

Silas grabbed a plate, keeping one eye on the scene outside his window. “Go wash your hands.”

“They're not dirty,” Tad said, shoving them close enough to get a good whiff of dog. “See?”

“Now, Tadpole.”

With a dramatic sigh, the little boy trooped to the kitchen sink, climbing up on his Elmo footstool to wash. “Jewel said a bad word when she saw her mama's car. But real soft, so I don't think she knows I heard her.” He banged down the
faucet and jumped off the stool, knocking it over. “I think they're coming inside.”

As indeed they were. Jewel entered first, her gaze reeking with apology, her mother following and talking nonstop—until she laid eyes on Silas, at which point her face lit up. “Oh, my,” she said, gliding across the kitchen, her hand outstretched, her long, honey-colored hair billowing behind her. “And aren't you the handsome young man?” she said with an eerily familiar giggle. “I'm Kathryn, Jewel's mama. Silas, isn't it? It's
so
nice of you to take her in while her place is being fixed up.”

Her
place? Silas shot Jewel a look; she gave him a short, pleading headshake. As in, he was guessing Mama wasn't exactly up to speed on certain aspects of her daughter's situation.

Since no way in hell was he getting anywhere near that one, Silas turned back to Kathryn, her expertly applied makeup emphasizing high cheekbones and deep-set gray eyes underneath windblown bangs. “Only glad I could help,” he said, earning him another, more flirtatious giggle. She had to be in her forties, at least, but she barely seemed older than her daughter. Not only because of the way she was dressed—jeans a little too tight, the frilly blouse's neckline a little too low—but because of the hyper vibes she gave off.

Fingers tipped with fake, square-edged nails briefly touched Silas's arm as Kathryn lowered her voice. “For the life of me I cannot understand why on earth she wants to be a
midwife.
I keep telling her—what man's gonna want to marry somebody who leaves the house at all hours to go deliver babies?”

When Kathryn turned to Jewel—oh, did she remember her daughter was standing right there?—Silas looked over, embarrassed as hell for her. But Jewel stood with her
thumbs hooked in her jeans' belt loops, a slight smile curving her lips as though her mother's words had no power whatsoever to hurt her. Even if the cherry-red blotches on her cheeks gave the lie to that little subterfuge.

“Although,” Kathryn went on, oblivious, “I don't know why I worry, I imagine you'll get over it soon enough. Just like when you did that play in high school, and decided you wanted to be an actress. Or that band you were in for, what? A month? One thing about you, you never stuck with any of your crazy ideas long enough for me to get overly concerned. By the way—I ran into Justin the other day, did I tell you? I'd bet you anything you could get him back like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. Then, to Silas, “She was engaged to this absolutely
lovely
young man, his daddy owns one of the biggest ski resorts in Taos, she would've been set for
life.
But was that good enough for her? No.”

“Mama?” Jewel said softly, the slight shake in her voice making Silas's skin prickle. “Not the time or place—”

“Well, when
is
the time, since I can't even remember when we last spent five minutes together? My goodness, I've never even seen where you live!” Kathryn's attention immediately flitted away, her fingers constantly toying with the delicate gold chain at her neck as she clicked across the tiled floor to peer into the great room. “My goodness, isn't this just the
sweetest
place! I just love these old adobes, they've got such a sense of
history,
don't you think? Did your wife do the decorating?” She turned, giving Silas a quick head-to-toe. “Or…did you?”

Hotheaded, Silas was not. In fact, when taunted as a kid he'd been far more inclined to either walk away or stare the tormentor down rather than get physical. Yet here was this scrap of a woman getting under his skin so bad it was everything he could do not to bodily remove her from his house. “I'm not married, Mrs. Jasper—”

“Oh, honey, I haven't been Mrs. Jasper in more than twenty years. I'm back to my maiden name now—DuBois—it's just easier that way. And it's okay, honey, I
understand.
” This said with a wink.

“For heaven's sake, Mama—!”

“I'm a widower, Ms. DuBois. Although we were already divorced. So I'm never sure which it is, actually.”

“That must be
so
hard on your little boy,” Jewel's mother said with a smile for Tad, who'd come back into the kitchen and seemed understandably leery about taking his seat at the table. Like a moth with ADD, Kathryn was in constant motion, her nearly incessant speech frequently punctuated with that nervous, high-pitched giggle. Which Silas now realized was
nothing
like Jewel's.