Chapter 8
T he accidental meetup with Delilah was nothing. Obviously. He’d been walking, and she’d been walking, and they’d run into each other. It happened. In a small town like Cambria, Quinn ran into people he knew all the time. You stopped, you chatted, and then you went on your way.
Except now that he was back home, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her.
He wasn’t mooning over her or anything. She wasn’t the kind of woman he would moon over, even if he were inclined toward that sort of thing.
His usual woman was a solid nine on the one-to-ten scale, and Delilah was … well. She was too normal to even be on the scale in the first place. Too much like your next-door neighbor. Too much like somebody’s mom.
Hell, she was somebody’s mom.
And yet, right now if he had a chance to be with one of those nines or with Delilah, he would choose Delilah, hands down. She had those curves, for one thing. And that expressive face that told you whatever she was thinking. And that glossy hair. He loved her glossy hair.
And, damn it, none of this was useful. None of it was productive. Because there was no way he was going to date her, or sleep with her, or do anything with her except casual chat should he run into her again sometime.
Maybe what he needed was to spend some time with a nine to get his mind off of mom-next-door Delilah.
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a fine idea.
The plus side of running into Quinn at Fiscalini Ranch was that Delilah had enjoyed a lovely time talking to an adult—and an attractive one, at that.
The negative side was that the chance encounter had started the boys back on their obsession with Quinn.
“Can we have him take us on a hike? Or camping? Please?” Jesse begged. “Mom? Can we?”
“Please?” Gavin asked, talking around the thumb that was plugged into his mouth.
This was lunchtime on the day after their meetup at Fiscalini, and the boys were still going on about it. Even though Delilah had already said no. Repeatedly.
“Guys, eat your lunch.” She’d put out grilled cheese sandwiches and bowls of tomato soup, but both of the boys were too focused on badgering her to pay any attention to their food.
Jesse obediently took a bite of his sandwich, probably hoping she’d be more amenable to his demands if he were compliant. He still had a mouthful of grilled cheese when he started in again.
“It would be safer. I wouldn’t get hurt. You wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Jesse, honey, don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“But Mom—”
“Chew, swallow, then talk.” She’d repeated that refrain so many times she thought she should have it printed on a T-shirt.
He chewed, swallowed, and then, unfortunately for Delilah, began to talk again.
“We’d be doing him a favor,” Jesse said. “Because it’s his job, and he probably needs people to hire him, and he did us a favor, so it just makes sense.”
Gavin nodded his agreement.
“Guys …”
“Why not?” Jesse demanded. “Why can’t we?”
Delilah tried not to talk to her boys like they were kids. She tried to talk to them like they were people. Maybe it was time for some person-to-person straight talk.
She sat down across from them at the table and folded her hands on the tabletop.
“Do you know what I think?” she began. “I think you like Quinn so much because you both really miss your dad, and you want Quinn to be kind of like a substitute. Just for a little while, to make you feel better. And I’m not sure that helps anything. I’m not sure that’s going to solve anything for either of you.”
Gavin’s wide eyes pooled with tears. “When is Dad coming back?”
Delilah’s heart felt the tight squeeze of sympathy, and she blinked a few times to keep from crying herself. “Oh, honey. I don’t know. Maybe you can talk to him about it the next time he calls.”
Mitch hadn’t called for weeks, and that was yet another thing that made Delilah blind with fury. She pushed the anger down to someplace inside her where her children wouldn’t see it.
“He barely even calls,” Jesse said, as though reading her mind. “And when he does, it’s all, ‘How’s school going? How are your grades?’ And then he says he has to go.”
The anger in Jesse’s eyes mirrored her own rage at her ex. If she didn’t handle things right with Jesse, the anger in him might win. She couldn’t let that happen.
“Honey?” She waited until Jesse looked at her, and she reached out and took both of his hands in hers. “None of this is your fault, okay? Yours either, Gavin. I mean that. What happened between me and your dad was his fault and mine. None of it was yours.”
Taking part of the blame herself—the and mine of her statement—stung her, but she had to say it to avoid demonizing Mitch to the children who loved him. And it was probably true on some level, wasn’t it? Surely part of the failure of her marriage was her fault. Mitch certainly thought so. And sometimes, in her darker moments, Delilah thought so, too. She’d done something wrong, and she didn’t know what it was, so she hadn’t been able to fix it.
Which just might mean she was now and would always be unworthy of love.
She got up, went around to their side of the table, kissed both of her boys on their sweet, fragrant heads, and went into the bedroom so they wouldn’t see her lose her composure.
With all of that going on, Roxanne chose exactly the wrong time to call Delilah to nag her about Thanksgiving.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come? Mom and Dad really want to see you. And Grandma Joan’s been asking. You know she doesn’t have that many Thanksgivings left in her.”
“That’s low.” Delilah propped one fist on her hip, her cell phone to her ear. “Using Grandma Joan to manipulate me, that’s just …”
“Did it work?”
“No!”
Why couldn’t Roxanne understand that Delilah needed to be away from everything—including her family—for a while? Why couldn’t she get it?
“But I just don’t see why you wouldn’t want to be around your family right now,” Roxanne said. “I would think you’d want to surround yourself with people who love you and want the best for you.”
Delilah, who was standing on the back patio so the kids wouldn’t hear her conversation, tipped her head back and closed her eyes, willing herself to be patient with her sister. The waves crashing against the rocks below the house provided a soothing backdrop to the noise in her head. The day was clear, and the sky was a piercing blue.
“Look,” Delilah tried again. “I know everyone means well. But they pity me.”
“Oh, Delilah. That’s not—”
“They do. And that would be bad enough, but they’re also pushing an agenda. Mom wants me and the boys to move back home, and she’s got Dad on her side, and probably you and Grandma Joan, too. And I can’t. I can’t move into my old bedroom and pretend that isn’t a huge step backward. I can’t make decisions based on what my mom and dad want me to do. I have to decide what’s best for me and my kids. On my own. And I can’t do that if—”
“Okay. Okay. I get it.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
The fact that she had to keep having this conversation with various members of her family was putting Delilah under stress she didn’t need on top of everything else going on in her life. She was tempted to turn off her phone, screen all of her calls, and pretend she’d fallen off the earth.
She didn’t mean to take it all out on her sister, but she did.
“I don’t think you do get it!” she went on. “I think you pity me, too. I think you’re smug and superior because, hey, your life isn’t the one that’s been run through a shredder. Your life isn’t the one that’s turned out to be a lie. You’re not the one who’s homeless and directionless, and … and … and you’re not the one who doesn’t know who you even are anymore! And I just don’t need you or anyone else looking at me over the sweet potato casserole thinking, ‘Poor Delilah. She’s a total wreck.’ Because I know I’m a wreck! I already know! And I don’t need to hear it from you or Grandma Joan or anyone else! I won’t have it!”
At first, Roxanne was silent. Then she said, “Are you done?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel better now that you’ve gotten that out?”
“I … yes. I actually do.”
“Good. Then my work here is done.”
All at once, Delilah was flooded with guilt for the things she’d said. Roxanne wasn’t smug and superior. She was just trying to help.
“Rox?”
“ Hmm ?”
“I didn’t mean …”
“I know.”
“I just needed to vent, and I—”
“I know. But, Delilah?”
“What?”
“It’s really good sweet potato casserole, and you’ll be missing it.”
Delilah let out a laugh, and it felt good. It felt cleansing. “I love you, you know,” she told her sister.
“ Pffft . Of course I know that. Call me soon.” And then Roxanne hung up.