Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
“Mom!” Ethan’s voice cut through her slumber.
No, no, no. Kate didn’t want to wake up. Didn’t want to leave the dream she was having about Marley. But the shouting continued so she reluctantly opened her eyes, groaning when she saw it was only seven in the morning.
“What is it?” she croaked.
“I don’t know. Grandma’s here.”
His words were like a cold bucket of water being dumped all over her face. “Grandma?” she said back. “She can’t be here. She’s in Des Moines.”
“Nope.” Ethan shook his head, running out of the room to watch what was going on outside. “She and Grandpa are climbing out of a taxi,” he shouted from the landing.
Kate sat up quickly, the movement making her dizzy. What were her parents doing here? Her mom and stepdad never gave any notice they were coming. “Are they at the door yet?” she yelled at him. “Let them in and tell them I’ll be down in five minutes.”
“Okay!” Ethan shouted back.
It took her three minutes to pull on her clothes from yesterday, frantically yanking her fingers through her hair, and run down the stairs.
And sure enough, her mom and stepdad were there in the kitchen. Ethan was talking a mile a minute about something he did in class yesterday.
She’d padded down on bare feet so they couldn’t hear her coming. It gave Kate a moment to try to compose herself. Her mom looked her usual glamorous self. Full make up, hair perfectly coiffed despite the early hour. Her designer clothes cut to fit her slender body.
Carlton – her stepdad – was the one who saw her first. “Kate,” he said, giving her a big smile. “It’s so lovely to see you. Sorry for arriving so early.”
She took a deep breath. “What a lovely surprise. How did you get here so early?”
“We were at a thing in DC,” her mom told her, fluttering her hand like it was a usual thing, just dropping in on her daughter after. “A fundraiser for Carlton’s alma mater. Thought we’d come see you all before we head home.”
Washington DC wasn’t exactly ‘dropping in’ distance. “Did you take a taxi the whole way?” she asked them.
“No, silly. We took a helicopter.” Her mom said it like it was a normal occurrence.
“You came in a helicopter?” Ethan asked. “That’s so cool.”
“It messed with my hair,” her mom complained. Then she looked at Kate. “Have you been sick? You look pale.”
“She fainted last night,” Ethan blurted out before Kate could say anything.
A look of concern washed over her mom’s face. “What caused it? Have you seen the doctor?”
“She just forgot to eat. That’s what Marley said. I cut my hand and it was bleeding and then she knocked out.” Ethan held out his bandaged hand. “Look.”
“Marley? Do I know her?”
Of course that’s what her mom would latch onto. “Why don’t you go get dressed?” Kate said to Ethan. “Wake up Addy and James. Tell them Grandma and Grandpa are here.” She looked at Carlton. “Would you like some coffee?”
“I’d kill for it.” He gave her a big smile.
“Or am I getting confused with the girl at the library?” her mom continued, as though nobody else had spoken. “Sharon, is it?”
“Shana,” Kate murmured, shooing Ethan out of the room. She grabbed the water carafe to fill up the coffee machine. “We only have cereal for breakfast if you’re hungry.”
“No thank you.” Her mom smoothed her skirt. “I’m watching my weight.”
“You got any of those Fruit Loops?” Carlton asked.
“In the cupboard next to the sink.”
“You know they’re bad for you,” her mom chided. “You should be watching your weight, too.”
Carlton’s eyes met Kate’s. He rolled them and she smiled.
She liked him, she really did. He was good for her mom.
“So who’s Marley then?” her mom asked. She really wasn’t letting this go.
“Marley was Dad’s friend,” James said, walking into the kitchen in his pajamas. “Hi Grandma.” He kissed her cheek. “Hi Grandpa.”
“Marley’s a he?” her mom asked, turning to look at Kate.
“Yes.”
“Does he come around here a lot?” she asked.
Dear God, once this woman got an idea in her head she never let it go. Kate could feel her head start to pound.
“He just helps out sometimes. All the firefighters do.” Kate slid a pod into the coffee machine. “Did you know James has joined the junior firefighters?”
“You have?” Carlton asked, smiling. “That’s great.”
“It should be good for his college transcript,” Kate added, knowing what a hypocrite she was. But seriously, she needed to move her mom’s attention away from Marley.
“If I go,” James said.
“Of course you’ll go,” Carlton said, his spoon of Fruit Loops stopping mid-air. “College days were the happiest days of my life.” He looked over at Kate. “If you’re worried about the cost…”
“We’re not,” Kate said quickly. “James has a college fund.”
Her stepdad swallowed down a mouthful of cereal. “Come over here,” he said to James, patting the empty chair to his right. “Tell me all about the junior firefighters.”
Kate passed the first coffee to her mom. Black, no sugar, of course. “Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?” she asked her.
“No.” Her mom gave her a smile. “I’ll eat at lunch. We’ll take you out.”
“Can we go to the diner?” Ethan asked, running back in.
Her mom wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think so, sweetheart. I prefer somewhere with tablecloths.”
“How long are they staying?” Shana asked later when Kate called, sounding somewhere between amused and appalled. Kate’s mom was taking a nap in the guest room. Carlton and the boys were watching a movie. Addy was playing with LEGOs in the kitchen, so Kate had taken the opportunity to call her friend to vent.
She was already pulling her hair out. Her mom had made at least ten comments about that same hair needing a cut and Kate’s skin needing better moisturizer, because ‘nobody likes crepey necks’. Not to mention her pointed remarks about how the house needed a man in it to do all the odd jobs. She hadn’t asked about Marley again, but it was only a matter of time before she circled back to that conversation.
Her mom was a bloodhound. She could smell a single man from a fifty-mile distance.
“Apparently they’re staying until next weekend,” Kate said, her voice thin.
“For the whole week? Sheesh, you’re gonna need a vacation after that.”
“I know.” As soon as she’d seen the suitcases in the hallway she’d known this wasn’t just a quick stop. According to her mom, Carlton had some business in Charleston later in the week, so they’d decided to make Hartson’s Creek their base. Of course Ethan and Addy had been delighted that their grandparents were staying.
James had looked a little more resigned.
“That’s not the worst of it,” Kate told her friend. “The worst part was that Marley’s truck was still outside when they arrived.”
“What? Why? Was he there? Oh, my God did you two…” Shana sounded like she was a second away from combusting. “Why wasn’t this the first topic of conversation? Parents, schmarents. I need the Marley gossip.”
“It’s not as exciting as you’re thinking.” Okay, that wasn’t strictly true. But she knew Shana’s mind. A truck staying over meant a man staying over. “He had a glass of wine and walked home. Said he’d pick it up this morning.”
“So what happened when he did?”
“I messaged him and asked him to sneak it away.” And she felt terrible about that. She really did. She owed him an explanation. Sure, she could have introduced him to her mom and he’d see it for himself, but she didn’t want to scare him away.
Not more than she already had.
“Why would you tell him to sneak around outside?” Shana asked. “Are you sure you two aren’t doing it?”
“We’re not doing that , no.” She took a deep breath. “We might have been kissing a lot, though.”
“What kind of kissing?” Shana sounded excited.
“The kind that involves lips.”
That made her friend laugh. “Stop this. Come on, I need more.”
“There is no more. That’s it,” Kate told her.
“Damn, that’s a shame. Oh, by the way, did I tell you about the guy who messaged me last week?”
“Was this the one you went on a date with last night?”
“Oh god no, a different one. This was a guy from Winterville. Where we went last summer.”
“I remember.”
“Well, apparently he’s a huge Christmas fan. So much so that he likes to dress his little Saint Nick up in a red robe and send pictures.”
“His little Saint Nick ?” Kate repeated. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Oh yeah. Had a little red hat with a white cotton ball too.”
“STOP!” Kate was giggling now. Was this what the world was coming to? Dick pics dressed as Santa.
“That’s not all,” Shana continued. “He started asking me about my Mary Christmas. I’ve never blocked a guy quicker in my life. How am I going to binge watch Hallmark Christmas movies without thinking of him now? So I need the details, lady. Give me all of them. Unless he likes to dress his pecker up…”
“Eww. He doesn’t.”
“So you’ve seen his pecker! Gotcha.” Shana sounded ecstatic. “It’s big, isn’t it? Oh my god, no Little Saint Nick there.”
“If you mention Little Saint Nick again I’m hanging up,” Kate warned. “And no, I haven’t seen it.”
“Have you felt it?”
“Possibly.” Her cheeks pinked at the memory of him pushing against her. How damn thick he felt. She let out a soft breath.
“Yass! I need to know everything now. I promise not to interrupt. The last thing I knew he was babysitting while you were dating another guy. What happened?”
The truth was, Kate did need to talk to somebody about this. Keeping it buried was making her feel panicky. She quickly filled her friend in, and by some minor miracle, Shana managed not to interrupt until Kate finished talking.
Then, of course, she exploded.
“Dude! Oh my God. You’re kissing. You’re making him hard. And he loads the dishwasher. You need to get a ring on it and fast.”
“Don’t.” Kate shook her head. “You sound like my mom again.”
“Does she know about Marley?”
“No. But she’s found every bit of chipped paint and dented dry wall in the house. She’s making a honey-do-list for any man that comes in shouting distance. So I’d prefer she doesn’t know about him, thank you very much.”
“I bet he’d do it. And if you asked him nicely, he’d probably take his shirt off for you to watch while he did.”
Kate let out a low breath, the memory of his chest against her fingers making her body heat up. Damn, he was hard everywhere. All those ripples and dips. She wriggled her fingers.
“Mommy! I think I swallowed a LEGO head!” Addy shouted from the kitchen.
Kate winced because her kids were a walking ER visit right now. “I’ve got to go.”
“Okay, but we need to meet for coffee. Soon.”
“I’ll see you at church tomorrow. And at the diner after.”
“I meant alone. Where people aren’t listening.” Shana was almost certainly rolling her eyes right now.
“It’s a deal. Now I really have to go. I may need to do the Heimlich maneuver on my kid.”
“So,” Marley’s mom said, as he lay on his back on her cool kitchen floor, his hands tightening up the U bend under the sink. “I heard you spent the night at Kate Connelly’s last night.”
He lifted his head and bashed it on the underside of the cabinet. “Shit.” He winced. So that’s why she’d called him over to check the pipe for her earring, which she swore must have fallen off when she was washing the dishes.
And with his dad away for the weekend it had come down to him to sort it out.
“I didn’t spend the night anywhere but my own bed,” he grunted, touching his brow. “Not that it’s anybody’s business.”
“But your truck was at her house all night.”
Jesus Christ. Why hadn’t he moved to a larger city when he had the chance? He got to his knees, wiping his hands on the towel his mom passed to him. “Are you sure you lost that earring here?”
She gave him a smile. “It might have been in the bathroom sink.”
He shook his head. “I’m not unscrewing that U bend too. I’ll buy you another damn earring.”
“Or it may be in my jewelry box. I probably should have looked there first.” Her smile was wider now, and damn if he wasn’t smiling too. His mom was terrible at lying. She didn’t have a devious bone in her body.
Or at least he hadn’t thought she did. Until now.
“There’s nothing going on,” he told her, because he needed to nip the rumors in the bud before they started. For Kate’s sake. “She’s a friend. I like her kids. That’s it.”
His mom caught his eye. Thank God he was a better liar than she was. “Oh. I just wondered…”
“You don’t need to wonder. If there’s any news I want you to know about my love life, I’ll tell you.” He lifted a brow. “When I’m ready.”
“I’ve seen how you look at her.”
He tipped his head to the side. “How do I look at her?”
“Like you used to look at Ariel when you were a little kid and insisted on watching it every night.”
“I never watched The Little Mermaid . That was Pres.”
“It was?” She frowned. “Well, you two are identical. So it’s the same expression, anyway.”
Marley started to laugh. “Mom, I don’t look at Kate like that. Yes, I like her. She’s a good woman who’s been dealt a really shitty hand.”
“And Paul was your friend.”
His chest felt tight. “Yes, he was.”
“I guess that means you’re watching over her for him.”
He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to think about that. He couldn’t. His need for Kate overrode any misgivings he had about her being his friend’s widow.
His mom walked over to the refrigerator. “Want a beer?”
“I’m on call. I’ll take a coffee, though.”
She nodded and busied herself grabbing a bag of beans and pouring them into the grinder. She made her coffee fresh. He liked that about her. He liked a lot about his mom. She was a kind woman. She loved her family fiercely.
Just as she switched the machine on to brew, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He’d sent Kate a message as he was getting in his truck to drive to his mom’s place.
How’s the plumbing going? BTW, thank you for moving the truck like a stealth ninja. Today has NOT turned out how I planned at all. – Kate
His mom still had her back to him. He frowned, because he didn’t like that she was having a less than stellar day.
What’s up? Need me to come over and bash some heads together? – Marley
A moment later she replied.
Just the usual mayhem. My parents arrived unannounced. Addy thought she’d swallowed a LEGO head. Turned out it was in her glass of juice. I have NO IDEA why she had the thing in her mouth. She’s six, not six months. Anyway, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m not ghosting you on purpose. I miss you. – Kate
Fuck, that sent a little dart of pleasure through him. She missed him. Well, he missed the fuck out of her.
I need to see you again. – Marley.
There it was. Laying it on the line. Last night felt…interrupted. The unfinished business between them was piling up.
I need to see you too. But my parents are staying here for a week. I have no idea when I’ll get some alone time. – Kate
Well, damn.
Can you sneak out? I’ll take you to the bar and we can underage drink. – Marley
Haha. We’ll have to make a date for when they leave. – Kate
Can I at least call you tonight? What time do you go to bed? – Marley
Eleven, usually. – Kate.
I’ll call after that. Wear something pretty. – Marley
Why? What are you planning to do to me? – Kate
Wait and see. – Marley
“There you go,” his mom said, holding out the cup. “Who were you messaging with?”
“Just Pres.” He slid his phone into his back pocket and took the coffee from her. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” His mom was smiling at him. “By the way, Pres dropped his phone in the driveway this morning. Cassie messaged me to say it was shattered.”
Busted. But he didn’t care.
Because he was still smiling like a damn loon.