Games of the Heart (23 page)

“Oh, he’ll be late. They always are.”

“Mike won’t.”

“He will. They always are. The hotter, the later. Hunter was always at least half an hour late for every date. No other man would I put up with that but because Hunter was pretty and Little Hunter was big
and
pretty and Big Hunter knows how to use him, I put up with it.”

I didn’t need for Jerra to start waxing poetic about “Little Hunter”. I knew all about “Little Hunter” and Big Hunter’s Olympic-class skills using “him”. If she started, she could go on for hours. I knew this because she’d done it. Often.

Instead, I skirted that topic and informed her, “He was never late for a date with Debbie.”

And I knew
this
because, back in the day, I paid close attention.

“Euw, that’s just weird,” Jerra mumbled.

“It was twenty-five years ago.”

“No, I mean that he’d date
Debbie.
”

I was with her on that one.

“Back then, she didn’t dress like a scary lesbian and have one of those blue tooth thingie-ma-bobbies surgically attached to her ear,” I explained. I knew Jerra knew what I was talking about since Debbie had been down to my house in Texas (once), Jerra met her and it didn’t go well. Not the visit and not Debbie’s meeting with Jerra. Then again, this was Debbie. She’d rub the Pope the wrong way even if he was in a great mood. “She was actually really pretty.”

“Beauty comes from within, sister,” she reminded me.

She was right about that too.

“Right, then he was a teenage boy, she was really pretty and she put out,” I told her.

“That explains it,” she murmured.

“Can I go now?” I asked.

“Only if you promise a first thing in the morning phone call explaining the reconciliation
and
details about the meet the kids dinner.”

“Done,” I agreed.

She said nothing.

“Jerra, I have to go.”

“Are you sure about this, baby?” she whispered and I pulled in a soft breath.

Then I let it go.

Then I said softly, “He’s been unhappy for eighteen years, a bad marriage, babe.
Really
bad. And last night he told me I’d made him happy for the first time in those years. Truly happy without it being fucked up. He had issues. He took those out on me. He regrets it. And he apologized and explained them. So, yes, I’m sure about this.”

“Okay,” she said softly back.

“Now can I go?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“Love you, honey,” I whispered.

“Love you too and miss you already.”

“I miss you too, Jerra, babe. Later.”

“Yeah, later.”

I touched the screen and sighed.

Then I bent and pulled on my other boot.

Mike, having been married to a designer label whore of the worst variety, knew to phone me to give me the all important information that tonight was casual. We were going to The Station. Not the police one, the semi-nice restaurant that had popped up in one of the semi-nice shopping areas that popped up at the north end of town in the years after I’d been gone from The ‘Burg. I’d been there once before. The food was excellent. The dress code was jeans.

So I had on a pair that were in the middle of my Jeans Fade Spectrum, a spectrum that was wide considering I owned a lot of jeans. Not nearly white with lots of fraying bits. Not dark either.

I added a slash neck cream top that had a hem that smoothed over my hips and very long sleeves that had a small opening in the seam that hooked over my thumb. Over that I wore a drop belt made of a wide expanse of fawn suede that had a big, round silver buckle that hung low on my hipbone. I added a bunch of silver over the shirt at my wrists as well as at my neck and ears. I did subtle makeup and earlier that day I’d changed my finger and toenail color to a dusky, near sheer pink. I left my hair long at the back but pulled a hank of it away just at my forehead and pinned it about an inch back with little bobby pins painted cream, rose and brown. And last, I’d spritzed on perfume.

I got up, went to the mirror over the dresser and surveyed myself.

I was ready to meet Mike’s kids.

“They’re here!” Rhonda shouted sounding as ecstatic as she had that morning.

Okay, no. I wasn’t ready to meet Mike’s kids.

But I had no choice.

I pulled in a deep breath and exited the guest room telling myself kids liked me. Finley and Kirby liked me and they were Mike’s kids’ ages. And Hunter and Jerra’s kids liked me and they were six and eight. So there. Kids of all ages liked me. Mike’s kids would like me too.

Shit.

I started to walk down the stairs and saw Rhonda had the door open and Mike and his kids were coming through. Kirby was standing in the big front foyer. And Finley, my hot boy, cucumber cool older nephew, was leaning a shoulder against the double-wide pocket doors that led to the living room.

Finley was killing me. Like his brother, he got his mother’s coloring, dark hair, blue eyes (though Kirb’s eyes were dark brown, like mine and Darrin’s). But he got his father’s everything else, tall, built, strong. The expressions on his face, the way he held his body, the way he moved were all his Dad.

But I wasn’t thinking about that.

I wasn’t thinking about anything, not even Mike’s kids, both of whom looked directly up the stairs at me coming down them.

No, my eyes were glued to the handsome blond man in the foyer as I walked down the stairs of my childhood home to go out on a date with Mike Haines.

I’d wanted this was a ferocity that was consuming when I was an adolescent girl. I’d seen my sister do this time and again and I coveted it so much, seeing her do it was like a form of torture. I’d daydreamed of it day after day and night after night before falling asleep.

And now, thirty-eight years old with my dead brother’s family and Mike’s kids by another woman looking on, I was doing it.

And even with that time and our audience, finally having it, it was no less beautiful than I expected it to be.

Because Mike was standing there wearing jeans as only Mike could wear them and that fabulous brown leather jacket. His gentle, warm, dark brown eyes were tipped up at me with a gentle, warm look on his face saying he liked what he saw. Not only that, we had an audience and I knew they’d melted away and I was the only person Mike could see.

“Hey,” I said when I had one step to go.

“Hey,” he replied then his arm came out my way as an invitation and I took it. I moved into its curve, it wrapped around my waist and my arm returned the gesture.

This, too, came naturally.

I was at his side, my neck twisted, my head tipped back to see his neck twisted and his head tipped down.

“You look good,” he muttered.

“Thanks, you do too,” I muttered back and his mouth twitched.

Then he turned his head, I followed suit and I finally took in his kids.

I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I wasn’t about his boy Jonas. Jonas looked a lot like Mike. He wasn’t the spitting image but he had his father’s coloring and his build. In fact, he was only maybe an inch shorter than Mike. And he had a lot of Mike in his face.

I was surprised about his girl Clarisse. She had Mike’s coloring but either she looked like her mother (which would be disappointing since Audrey, in my head, looked like a she-demon with horns, fangs, acid green eyes and matted hair) or she was all Clarisse.

She was out-and-out beautiful. So much so I’d never seen a girl her age that striking.

“Dusty, this is my son, Jonas. He likes to be called No,” Mike started to introduce, I pulled my eyes from the beautiful Clarisse and looked up at No who was offering a hand to me.

I took it, squeezed and smiled up at him. “Hey, No. Cool to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” he replied, grinning an easy but lazy grin that I was certain the high school girls all creamed their pants over. Then he let my hand go, looked to his sister and declared, “Told you Dad would nail a hot babe.”

Clarisse’s eyes got big and her face flushed in a way that was so becoming I felt the desire to find a camera immediately and capture it on film. Then daggers formed in her eyes as she glared at her brother. I wasn’t certain what this meant. I was certain the daggers were imaginary because her brother wasn’t felled instantly.

At the same time I heard Rhonda gasp and Kirby and Finley chuckle.

Mike just said in a warning low, “No.”

He was using that word in two ways and No’s playful gaze went unrepentantly to his Dad then to me.

I winked at him.

His easy, lazy grin turned into a bright, easy, lazy smile.

Yeah, the high school girls creamed their pants for this kid. Totally.

“Right, that’s No and this is my daughter, Clarisse,” Mike carried on.

I stopped looking at No and turned my gaze to Clarisse.

“Hey, honey,” I said softly and put my hand out.

She looked at it then at me, took my hand and murmured, “Hey.”

I squeezed her hand and said right out, “I’m into your Dad so you gotta know I want you to like me but I’m not blowing sunshine when I say you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

Mike’s arm got tight around my waist. Clarisse’s hand spasmed in mine as her cheeks again got pink, her eyes got round and not in a pissed off way and her perfect, full lips parted endearingly.

Finally, she visibly and audibly forced out an, “Uh…thanks.”

“Just saying it like it is,” I told her.

Her chin dipped slightly and she looked at me under her lashes, watchful but bashful and it was then I figured, even at fourteen, nearly fifteen, that girl made the high school boys cream
their
jeans.

If Clarisse didn’t fly right off the rails and become a goth or get a fake ID and a tramp stamp, Mike was just about to enter approximately five years of his life that would include a world of hurt. And this hurt didn’t mean wondering where he went wrong but lamenting that he went very right including the fact he passed on excellent genes.

I dropped her hand and Mike shifted us.

Then he spoke but not to me or his kids, to Rhonda.

“Brought the kids in so they didn’t have to sit out in the cold while we had a chat. Dusty and I need to talk to you and the boys about something quickly before we go.”

I’d forgotten about this. That was how freaked out I was about meeting Mike’s kids. But when he’d phoned me to tell me where we were going for dinner, he’d also told me when he showed he wanted a minute to talk not only to Rhonda but to Fin and Kirb about Debbie.

Weirdly, I did not think of this as Mike horning in on family business. It could be because he’d been around so long, in our lives, Darrin talking about him, Debbie dating him, him meaning what he meant to me, that he kind of felt like he already was family. It could be that after Fin told me what was going down with my bitchface sister and Rhonda not snapping out of it, for the first time in a long time I felt overwhelmed. And Mike not just taking my back but ready, willing and able to wade in to help me shoulder the burden took some of that weight off me. Better, he wasn’t going to delay and I knew this the instant he slid my phone from my fingers last night when bitchface Debbie had the audacity to call me. And then, he didn’t even know what was going on.

“Can we talk in the living room?” Mike asked and I looked to Rhonda to see she looked confused. I looked to Kirby to see he was looking at his brother. And then I looked to Finley to see, not surprisingly, he had his eyes glued to Clarisse.

That was when I looked to my boots and grinned.

“Of course,” Rhonda said softly then moved toward the living room.

Finley shifted, following his Mom. Kirby moved after them. With his free arm, Mike swept it around as an indication to his kids to precede us.

Finally, Mike moved us that way and I looked up at him. The farmhouse was not small, the rooms big and stuffed with years of family accumulated, well…
stuff
. But still, I didn’t want anyone overhearing anything I had to say. Like payback for Mike helping me take care of my family was going to take a variety of forms he would enjoy.

So I communicated this with my face.

Mike didn’t miss it, his eyes dropped to my mouth, his arm tensed around me and the tip of his tongue came out to wet his full, lower lip.

It was hot.

“Little Dusty” spasmed.

We hit the room and I pulled my shit together. Rhonda was seated on the couch. Kirby was sitting next to her. Finley standing by the arm, strong, tall, keeping his feet, the new man of the family. No and Clarisse were huddled to the side, probably uncomfortable, not knowing what was going on and never having been to the house, not sure of what to do or how to behave.

Mike didn’t delay.

Eyes on Fin, he asked, “Do you still have your mother and brother’s phones?”

“Yes, sir,” Fin answered immediately.

“You talk to them about why?” Mike went on.