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“Oh.” And because Riley didn’t know what else to say, he went with another “oh.”
Man, he was way out of the gossip loop. His sister, Anna, had told him about Claire’s grandmother dying two months ago but not about Claire being a mom. Better yet, Anna hadn’t said a word about who had made Claire a mom.
Probably Daniel Larson.
Except Ethan didn’t look a thing like Daniel. Ethan had dark brown hair more like the color of Riley’s own. Daniel could have passed for a Swedish male model with his blond hair and pale blue eyes. Maybe that meant Claire had met someone else. Someone who looked like him.
But Riley rethought that.
Of course it was Daniel. The kid just got his looks from some past ancestor with that coloring. Because Claire was with Daniel. Daniel had captured her heart and just about every other part of her their sophomore year in high school, and Claire had chosen him.
Over Riley.
It hadn’t been a particularly hard decision for her, either. And Riley knew that because she’d left her binder behind in chemistry class, and he had seen her list of why she should pick one over the other. Fifteen years later, Riley could remember that list in perfect detail.
Beneath Daniel’s name, Claire had written, “Cute, reliable, good listener, likes cats, no plans to move off and join the military.” Beneath Riley’s name, she’d written only one word.
“Hot.”
Hot had stroked his ego for a minute or two, but he definitely hadn’t stacked up against the cute, cat-loving Daniel. And while Daniel and Riley had once been close friends, it’d been nearly four years since Riley had seen him. That was plenty enough time to make a two-year-old.
Now Claire was a mother.
He supposed that was the norm seeing she was thirty-one, the same age as he was. People did that. They made babies. Stayed in one place for more than a year. Didn’t get shot at as a general rule. They had lives that Riley had always made sure to avoid.
Claire dodged Riley’s stare, looking at the plate of cookies instead. Then she huffed, put her hands on her hips. “Ethan, you took another one of those cookies, didn’t you? Where’d you hide it this time?”
“Logan’s bed,” Riley answered when Ethan didn’t say anything.
But, man, Riley wished he hadn’t ratted him out. The kid looked at him with wide-eyed bewilderment and betrayal. Ethan’s bottom lip even quivered. Riley felt as if he had violated a major man-pact.
“So, that’s what’s in your hair.” Claire plucked some crumbs from Riley’s head. “I’m sorry. Ethan knows he’s not allowed to have sweets without asking. He took at least two cookies last night when we were over here before you got home. He ate one, hid the other and now he’s taken another one.” She pointed her index finger at him. “No computer games for you today, young man.”
The kid’s look of betrayal intensified significantly.
“Sorry, buddy,” Riley said.
Claire put some toast on the table, poured Riley a glass of OJ from the fridge, topped off his coffee. She clearly hadn’t forgotten the waitressing skills she’d learned from her afternoon job at the Fork and Spoon Café in high school.
“Eat up, Ethan,” she told her boy. “We’ve got to get going soon. The next shift should be here any minute.”
Riley looked at her midbite. “Shift?”
Claire nodded, started washing the skillet she’d used to cook the eggs. “Misty Reagan and Trisha Weller. They’re coming to help you get dressed and then will fix your lunch.”
Both women were familiar to him. Intimately familiar. He’d had sex with only two girls in high school.
And it was those two.
“Misty’s divorced, no kids,” Claire went on. “That brings the total to nine divorced couples in town now in case you’re keeping count.”
He wasn’t, but divorce was a rare occurrence in Spring Hill—less than 1 percent of the marriages had failed. It was the cool springwater, some said. Most folks just fell in love, got hitched and stayed that way. Riley thought it didn’t have as much to do with the water as it did with lack of options. Little pond. Not many fish.
“Trisha never married. Oh, except for that time she married you, of course.” Another smile tugged at Claire’s mouth. This one didn’t so much light up the room as yank his chain.
“Trisha and I were six years old,” Riley said in his defense. “And she had brownies.”
That perked up Ethan. “Boun-knees.” Obviously, the kid had a serious sweet tooth, something else he had in common with Riley.
“Well, I guess a home-baked dessert is a good reason for marriage,” Claire remarked.
It sure seemed that way at the time. “It was Trisha’s version of put a ring on it. No marriage, no brownies.”
“And you did put a ring on it.” Claire dried the skillet, put it away and dropped the spatula in the dishwasher after she rinsed it. “I seem to remember something gold with a red stone in it.”
“Fake, and it fell apart after a few hours. Just like our fake marriage.”
That eyebrow of hers went to work again. “I think she’d like to make that marriage the real deal.”
Riley frowned. “Trisha said that?”
“Not with words, but she’s a lawyer in Austin and cleared her schedule for the next two weeks just so she could be here. I’d say she really, really wants to be here with you.”
Well, hell. Riley liked Trisha enough, but he hadn’t wanted anyone hanging around, including a woman who was looking for more than a plastic ring from a vending machine.
“Call them,” Riley insisted. “Tell them not to come, that I don’t need or want any help. I really just need to get some rest—that’s all. That’s why I told Della and Stella to take the week off.”
The words had hardly left his mouth when Riley heard the sound of car engines. Ethan raced to the window in the living room with Riley and Claire trailing along right behind him. Sure enough two cars had pulled into the circular driveway that fronted the house.
Wearing a short blue skirt and snug top, Misty got out first from a bright yellow Mustang, and she snagged two shopping bags off the passenger’s seat. She’d been a cheerleader in high school and still had some zip to her steps. Was still a looker, too, with her dark brown hair that she’d pulled up in a ponytail.
She might be trouble.
After all, she’d lost her virginity to Riley when she was seventeen after they’d dated for about four months. That tended to create a bond for women. Maybe Misty would be looking to bond again.
Then there was Trisha.
Riley had lost his virginity to her. And there’d been that wedding in first grade, possibly creating another problem with that whole bonding thing.
When Trisha stepped out of a silver BMW, she immediately looked up, her gaze snagging his in the window. She smiled. No chain yanking or “light up the room” smile, either. All Riley saw were lips and teeth, two things Trisha had used quite well on the night of his de-virgining.
“Oh, look,” Claire said. “Trisha brought you a plate of brownies.”
Yeah, she had.
And other things were familiar about Trisha, too. Like those curves that had stirred every man’s zipper in town. Now all those curves were hugged up in a devil-red dress. She still looked hungry, as if she were ready to gobble up something. And judging from the smile she gave Riley, she wanted him to be the gobblee.
Another time, another place, Riley might have considered a good gobbling. Or at least some innocent flirting. But there was that part about people seeing him in pain. Plus, there was always the threat of a flashback. No way did he want anyone around to witness that little treat.
“Come on, Ethan,” Claire said, scooping him up. “It’s time for us to go.”
“So soon?” Riley wanted to ask her to stay, but that would just sound wussy. His testosterone had already dropped enough for one day.
“So soon,” Claire verified. She waggled her fingers in a goodbye wave and headed for the door. “Enjoy those brownies.”
She probably would have just waltzed out, but Claire stopped in her tracks when their gazes met. She didn’t ask what was going on in his head, and the chain-yanking expression was gone.
Hell.
He hadn’t wanted her to see what was behind his eyes. Hadn’t wanted anyone to see it. But Riley was as certain as he was of his boot size that Claire knew.
“Finish your breakfast,” Claire instructed. Her voice was a little unsteady now. “I’ll deal with them. I can’t guarantee they won’t come back, but you’ll have a few hours at least. Is that enough time?”
Riley lied with a nod.
He used actual words for his next lie. “You don’t have to worry about me, Claire. Soon I’ll be as good as new.”
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_17d84a74-3f11-5c74-8d6d-b81f4971fb6b)
“PAY DOUGH!” ETHAN squealed when Claire held up the picture of the painting.
Claire checked to make sure she was showing him the right one. Yes, it was van Gogh’s Starry Night, but there was no Play-Doh on it.
“That’s really close, sweetie, and the artist’s name does sort of rhyme with Play-Doh,” Claire encouraged.
“Pay dough!” he repeated, speeding up the words a little.
She tried not to look disappointed. The directions on the “Making Your Toddler a Little Genius” packet had said to make this activity fun. Or rather FUN!!!! Claire only hoped that the creators of this product had raised at least one semigenius child and that they hadn’t just tossed some crap activities together to milk her out of her $89.95, plus shipping.
“Try again,” she prompted, waving the picture at Ethan to get his already wandering attention. “You got this right yesterday.” And, according to the rules, she wasn’t supposed to move on to the next picture until he’d gotten this one right three days in a row. They’d been working on it for two weeks now with no end in sight.
Ethan studied the picture and grinned. “Money!”
Claire was certain she didn’t contain her disappointment that time. “No. Not Monet.” That’d been last month’s lesson.
She snagged one of his toy vehicles. A van. And she held it up with the painting while trying to make a running/going motion with her index and middle fingers. Her nails nearly tore a hole in one of the star blobs. Evidently, $89.95 wasn’t enough to buy higher-quality paper, and her example was obviously too abstract.
“Ri-wee!” Ethan squealed with more excitement than money or Play-Doh.
Frowning, Claire put aside the picture and the van. “No, not Riley.” Or rather Ri-wee. “Why don’t we work on this later? You can go ahead and play.”
You would have thought she’d just announced he could have an entire toy store and unlimited chocolate-chip cookies for life. Ethan scooted across the floor and went back to his cars. The auto crashes started immediately.
“Ri-wee!” he repeated like some kind of tribal shout with each new collision.
Even though he didn’t have the pronunciation down pat, Claire knew her son was only repeating what he’d heard her mumble for the past two days—Riley. For some reason, Riley’s name kept popping into her head and then continued to randomly pop out of her mouth.
And there was no good reason for it.
A few bad reasons, though.
Riley was an attractive man. Still hot. No denying that. He was also very much hands-off since he wouldn’t be around for long, as usual. Maybe her brain would figure that out soon enough and stop sending these ridiculous impulses to the rest of her body.
Claire stayed on the floor next to Ethan but grabbed her laptop from the sofa. Since she had struck out in creating a baby genius, she might as well get some work done, and she downloaded the last photo she needed to edit. When she finished, it would almost be bittersweet because it was also the last of her work in the queue.
More photo shoots would follow. They always did. But it was best if she didn’t have any free time on her hands right now.
Of course, she could fill that free time, easily, by sorting through more of her gran’s things. However, that was more bitter than sweet, and it was also the main reason she kept procrastinating. And overeating. She’d put on six pounds since the sorting had started. Soon, she’d either have to pay for therapy or Weight Watchers.
Her phone buzzed, and Claire saw Livvy Larimer’s name on the screen. Her best friend and co-owner of their business, Dearly Beloved.
“Well?” Livvy started.
No greeting. Which meant she expected Claire to dish up something exciting. And the dishing up that Livvy wanted was about Riley. Best just to give her a summary and hope it didn’t lead to too many other questions.
“Riley finally made it home day before yesterday after his flight was delayed. I fixed him breakfast, and I came back to Gran’s to get some work done on the Herrington-Anderson engagement photos.” An engagement that Livvy knew all about because she was the wedding planner for the event.
“That’s it?” Livvy asked.
Here come the questions. But Claire made Livvy work for the answers. “What else were you expecting?”
“Fudging details. Specifically, fudging you did with Riley.”
Fudging was the compromise they’d worked out instead of using the F word, one of Livvy’s many favorites. They also used sugar for shit and bubble gum for blow job, something that came up surprisingly often in her conversations with Livvy.
They were still working on one for asshole.
Ethan’s little ears picked up on anything Claire didn’t want him to hear while selectively shutting out van Gogh, and since Livvy cursed like a meth dealer in an R-rated movie, they’d resorted to acceptable substitutions.
“No fudging,” Claire explained. She was finally able to keep a straight face when she said it. “I only fixed Riley breakfast and ran interference from some unwanted visitors.”
Livvy made a yeah-right sound. “And you’ve fawned over him for the past decade.”
“Fawned over? What the heck does that even mean? Is that a new compromise word?”
“Yes, it means you dream of fudging and bubblegumming Riley.”
Claire huffed. “Does any woman actually dream of bubblegumming a man? I don’t. It’s more of something that just sort of evolves during foreplay.”
“Foreplay,” Ethan said with perfect clarity. Great, they needed a compromise word for that now.
“Sugar yeah, you dreamed of fudging him,” Livvy went on. “You pointed out his pictures in your high school yearbook. You’ve talked about him. And then there’s Ethan—”
“Riley and I were friends in high school. Friends,” Claire emphasized.
“You can fawn over friends. And fudge them, too. I’ve seen pictures of Riley, and he’d make a great fudge.”
“Riley has never fudged me.” Claire paused. “He’s hurt, Livvy.”
