“Or simply a coward. I was also so happy to finally have a mother, I didn’t want to do anything to disrupt the new family.”
“How old were you when your real mom died?”
“Three. Susan was seven. Mother left us with the housekeeper while she went to the supermarket. She collapsed in the store aisle. A brain aneurysm had burst. They said death was instantaneous.” After a moment’s pause, she added, “I hope so. Realizing that she was dying and leaving us without a mother would have been awful for her.”
“Do you remember her?”
“Sometimes I think I do,” she said wistfully, “but it might just be images formed from pictures of her and stories that Daddy told me. When I started school, being without a mother made me different from the other kids. I didn’t like that. I was thrilled when Daddy and Olivia married.”
“What about Susan?”
“She was more wary because she was older and could remember our mother. But to Olivia’s credit, she was tactful and patient with us. With Steven, too, who was suddenly no longer an only child, but the middle child having to share his mother with two stepsisters. As an adult I can appreciate how dicey the merger could have been. But there were no major upheavals.”
Dent’s family background suffered by comparison. He didn’t want to think about what he would have become if Gall hadn’t taken him under his wing. So to speak.
He resettled in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Miss Goody Two-Shoes goes to the barbecue.”
She winced. “Not in a new sundress, mind you, but a pair of white slacks that were too big in the seat, and a red top with straps that kept slipping off my knobby shoulders.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I didn’t have the most graceful adolescence.”
He smiled, recalling how awkward she’d been. “I remember one time Susan and I passed through the kitchen where you were sitting at the table doing homework. Susan called you a dork for being such a conscientious student. You told her to shut up. But she kept teasing you. You picked up a bag—”
“Of colored pencils. I was working on a map of Europe.”
“You hauled it back to throw at her, but you knocked over your glass of milk instead. You burst into tears and ran from the room.”
“I can’t believe you remember that.” She buried her face in her hands. “I was so humiliated.”
“Why? Susan deserved to be smacked for making fun of you. I thought you showed a lot of backbone by standing up to her.”
“But I flubbed it and spilled my milk instead. In front of you. That was the worst of it.”
“Because of the crush you had on me.”
Her face turned bright pink. “You knew?”
He raised one shoulder. “Sensed.”
“Oh, God. Now I’m really embarrassed. I didn’t think you knew I was alive.”
He’d known. But her adolescent crush on him hadn’t become noteworthy until that Memorial Day, and then it had taken on a significance that disturbed him even now.
But he wouldn’t go there. Not until she did.
Instead, he smiled. “What did you like about me?”
“You were so much older. Eighteen. You rode a motorcycle, flew airplanes, used bad words. You broke all the rules, and my parents called you reckless, rude, and undisciplined.”
“And they were right.”
She laughed lightly. “You were the dangerous bad boy. Every Goody Two-Shoes’s fantasy.”
“Oh yeah?” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “What do you think of me now?”
Instantly she sobered and held his stare for several seconds, then replied quietly, “I think you’re still dangerous.”
Quickly she scooted back her chair and began to clear the table. He watched her as she moved about the kitchen and noticed how nicely she was filling out the seat of her pants these days. She also filled out her soft, stretchy top. Not too much. Just enough.
Today she had worn her hair down. It was dark, thick, and glossy, and, whenever she moved, the longest strands grazed those not-too-much-just-enough breasts, and every time that happened, he felt a warm, pleasant tingle below his belt.