Chapter 6
RAFE MADE SURE TO ARRIVE early to his mother’s house on Sunday so he could help with the food prep.
The guys had all decided to take their own cars anyway.
Ezreal almost hadn’t come to dinner because Ahri would be there.
Rafe had to assure him that he wouldn’t have to talk to her since they’d already been introduced at the ribbon cutting over a year ago.
As they so often did lately, Rafe’s thoughts drifted to Ahri.
How had a smart girl like her fallen for an idiot like Zed, who hadn’t seen what a gift he’d had?
Would she end up like her mother in Korea, alone and bitter, never allowing herself a chance at another relationship?
Or would Ahri fall into the trap he’d seen too often when girls always went for the same type of jerk?
He hoped once she got to know his mother and saw what a loving relationship should look like that Ahri would know there was something better for her.
Rafe gave himself a mental shake. Since when had he become invested in her future happiness? It was none of his business, and she had a brother to watch out for her.
When he drove up to the house, Lessa and Nik waited this time for the car to come to a stop before they ran off the porch.
Nik tried the clinging-to-the-leg thing, but Rafe picked him up instead.
Lessa took his other hand and skipped while they walked inside, chattering all the time about her day and how much she was looking forward to her next piano lesson.
He wondered if that would last very long, or if she’d soon resist the inevitable practicing that friends had griped about.
His family had never been able to afford lessons.
“Ma! Rafe is here,” Lessa called in a sing-song voice.
“In the kitchen.”
Lessa skipped back the way they’d come, probably to wait for the others to arrive. Nik wriggled from Rafe’s arms and ran to the corner and some toys he must have been playing with earlier.
Rafe found his mother working at the counter. He kissed her cheek.
“Alex is finishing some work upstairs.” She brushed aside a dark curl that had escaped her ponytail. “He’s already expanded the table and set it.”
“What can I do to help?’ Rafe asked.
“I need you to make the dessert,” she said. “Put on an apron.”
He chose one that didn’t have ruffles on it. “What’s on the menu?”
“I was going to have you make pecan pie, but I forgot I was out of pecans.”
Tying the apron around his waist, Rafe glanced at the counter where she’d put the ingredients and spotted the rolled oats.
“Hillbilly Pie it is.” Most of Rafe’s happiest childhood memories came from cooking in this kitchen beside his mother.
He hadn’t understood when he was little that the kitchen had been their refuge from his father.
The man hadn’t liked the room, maybe because he was afraid someone might ask him to help.
Because money had been tight, Rafe and his mother had experimented with recipes.
That reminded him that he needed to stock his kitchen at the complex, so he could do some cooking there too. Maybe after the push was over.
They worked in a comfortable silence for a while. It reminded him of what a good team they’d made as he was growing up. She’d been so young when she married, right out of high school. By the time she’d been his age, she’d had a six-year-old son and a disabled husband.
“This is fun,” he finally said. “I haven’t baked in forever.”
“You need to find a hobby, something that doesn’t have anything to do with your business. Sometimes you need to give it a break.” Francie tapped his nose with her finger. “Listen to your mama. I promise you’ll find the time away will make you more productive when you go back to work after.”
“’Cuz mama knows best,” he quoted.
“Dang right.” Alex came into the kitchen, swept his wife into his arms, and kissed her. When he started nuzzling her neck, she squealed.
“Behave yourself.” Francie gave him a playful smack on the arm, her cheeks flushed.
Rafe loved to watch how his stepfather treated her. His mother knew Alex treasured her, and it made her shine. Maybe that came from both having been married to such ugly people before.
Having met Alex’s sharp-tongued shrew of a first wife a couple of times, Rafe had decided that had been plenty. Victoria was all about money and prestige, the kind of person he’d vowed never to be like. She was so different from his mother.
When Rafe was growing up, Francie had always worked hard to create a loving home, but the “monster in the closet” in the form of his father had always been lurking in the background. The house had such a different feel to it now.
His mother put Alex to work chopping vegetables for a salad, and Rafe turned his attention back to the familiar motions of baking.
He had been working too hard. His thoughts drifted back to that night at The Gaming Den and how much he’d enjoyed himself.
It might have technically been a business trip but having Ahri there had made it fun. He needed to play more.
He was just putting the Hillbilly Pie into the oven when Lessa squealed out on the porch.
Someone else had arrived. Rafe washed his hands and removed the apron.
He peeked around the corner into the living room.
Ezreal had Nik clinging to his leg, while Lessa was talking up a storm.
Ez really liked kids. It was too bad he had such a hard time around unfamiliar people.
Wearing a silly grin, he let the children guide him to their toys.
“I sure like him,” his mother said from beside Rafe. She handed him some linen napkins to fold. “I have Ahri’s room all ready for her. I thought she’d come with you.”
“Kayn wanted to bring her. I think he feels guilty she’s leaving already.”
“But it’s only for a couple of weeks,” Alex said, still chopping.
“That’s what she told him.” Rafe put another folded napkin in the stack. “I think it’s good for them to spend some time together. He’s got a solid head that she needs right now.”
“You’re sure keeping an eye on her. Is she devastated by the breakup?” Francie asked softly.
“Not from what she said.” Rafe paused, thinking of his mother’s first comment.
He had been paying extra attention to how Ahri was doing.
Was it presumptuous of him to assume he understood her?
“Let me rephrase that. Ahri said things hadn’t been good between them for a while, and that she’d been thinking of leaving him.
The only surprise was that Zed initiated the split. ”
“I imagine there’s bound to be emotional pain there,” his mother said.
“Recognizing that a relationship is dying isn’t quite the same thing as when it actually dies.
I’ll try to be sensitive. It may do her good to talk, but it may also be better for her to have silence as she works through her feelings. ”
“You’re the best person I know to be her sounding board if she wants one.” Alex shot his wife a tender look.
The sound of car engines and tires on gravel announced the arrival of two vehicles. Kayn and Darius must have driven up at the same time. Rafe put the last napkin under a fork. Glancing in the mirror, he checked how he looked. He didn’t want to see Ahri again with any flour on his nose.
That was when he spotted his mother watching him in the reflection, her mouth curved in a soft smile.
Embarrassed, Rafe straightened his shirt and strode from the kitchen.
The guys came to most Sunday dinners, and he didn’t usually greet them when they got there, but he wanted to see how Ahri was doing.
Was this pull to her a sign that he was turning into his mother, who had an eye for suffering people? She had a way of offering comfort and understanding. He’d always called it her “mothering instinct.” He wasn’t sure the title was a good fit for himself.
Ahri stared at the beautiful old home. The green roof made her think of Anne of Green Gables.
She was already in love with the place. With the green lawns and walkway lined with flowers, it had a welcoming feel to it.
The wide porch that surrounded it held an eclectic assortment of rocking chairs that seemed to call to her.
“This way.” Kayn pointed to the house and headed to it.
Unlike her brother who left her to follow, Rafe would have guided her with his hand on her back.
Ahri pushed away the random thought. She shouldn’t be thinking about things like that while she was still married to Zed.
She’d done some research. In North Carolina, they had to be separated a year before they could divorce.
If she returned to Arizona, she could get one in sixty days, but that was only after he was served.
Bill still had nothing on Zed’s location.
Ahri paused on the porch and ran a hand over the red fabric of a rocking chair’s cushion. The sound of many voices, laughing and talking at once, came from inside. Since everyone knew each other so well, she felt like an outsider.
She sat in the chair and started rocking, inhaling the lovely smell of lilacs. Someone—Rafe’s mother, maybe—had put some cut ones in a vase on the little table to the side. This would be a great place to detox from the ugliness that had been her life the last year. Peaceful.
To her left, the screen door opened.
“Not ready to come inside yet?” Rafe asked.
Ahri glanced up at him, expecting pity in his expression but finding understanding instead. She waved at the chair on the other side of the flowers, and he moved to it.
She didn’t say anything and neither did he. Rafe Davis was turning out to be a comfortable person to be around.
“You grew up here?” Ahri finally asked.
“Yes. It looks a lot better now. We were barely able to keep the tax collectors away. Ma and Alex have put a lot of money and labor into fixing it up.”
“It’s lovely.”
“Hey, what are you two doing out here?” Kayn opened the screen door. “Aren’t you coming inside?”