AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We really do have to go,” Tiffany said. It wasn’t a lie. Mrs. Ellingsworth had been pressed into duty to watch Christina, and Tiffany wanted to take Stephen home and set down the rules.
“Then call me for lunch someday,” Katie replied.
“I will.” Tiffany didn’t know if she was ready to embrace this ready-made family, but one lunch wouldn’t matter. As Katie headed for the barn, Tiffany asked Stephen, “Didn’t you bring your skateboard?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll get it.” He jogged over to a shiny Dodge pickup, reached into the back and withdrew his wheels. “I, uh, got a ride out here from the wedding,” he explained when he rejoined them.
“You went to the ceremony?”
“Uh-huh.” He lifted a shoulder.
“Who gave you a lift out here?” She bristled, as she didn’t recognize the truck. She hoped he wasn’t foolish enough to ride with strangers.
?
??Trevor McBaine.”
One of Katie’s twin brothers. Part of the extended family. Perfect, she thought with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“He’s got a kickin’ truck.”
“That he has,” Tiffany said tightly. She didn’t know whether to throttle her son or hug him close and beg him not to pull any more stunts like this.
They climbed into J.D.’s Jeep and didn’t say a word all the way home. J.D. stared through the windshield as he drove, and Tiffany, rather than blast her boy, fiddled with the controls for the radio until she found a station that was clear.
The atmosphere inside the Jeep was tense, and the ride, only twenty minutes long, seemed to take forever. Before the truck had stopped completely in the driveway, Stephen had unbuckled his seat belt and was out the door and across the lawn. He slammed up the back steps, and Tiffany told herself to give him time to cool off. But she couldn’t. She was too angry herself.
J.D. cut the engine. Tiffany unclasped her seat belt and reached for the handle of her door, but J.D. caught hold of her shoulder, restraining her. “Give him time to think things over before you rip into him.”
“I think he needs to know what he put me through.”
“I know,” J.D. said with an exaggerated patience that made Tiffany’s blood boil. “I don’t have a doubt that you want to tell him exactly how you feel, but wait until you’ve both had time to think about it.”
Irritated, she retorted, “Is this the voice of experience talking?”
“It is.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “Since when did you become a parent?”
His nostrils flared and his eyes flashed. “I was talking from the kid’s point of view—a troubled kid. I’ve been there.”
“Forgive me for thinking like a mother, okay? But I think it’s more important to be a parent than a friend.” She jerked her arm away from him. “If I remember correctly you were the one who pointed out that I was having trouble with my son.”
“You are,” he agreed, his face set.
“Well, it’s my problem, okay? I’ll handle it how I see best.” Her eyes held his for a rapidly accelerating heartbeat. “It’s not your responsibility to step into Philip’s shoes, you know. It’s not your fault that he died.”
He eyed her for a second, and she felt as if the interior of the Jeep had shrunk, become far too intimate. “Funny,” he said in a soft voice. “That’s exactly what I was going to tell you.”
Her chest tightened, and she looked away. “Your parents blame me.”
He didn’t argue. “They’re having trouble with all of this.”
“Did your father send you down here to spy on me?” she asked—the question that had been on her mind from the moment she’d found him on her front porch springing to her lips.
“He was worried about the kids.”
“Was he?” Anger shot through her. “You know, Jay, of all the things I would have expected from you, it wouldn’t be that you’d end up as some kind of gopher...or...or what do they call spies these days? Moles? I can’t believe you’d come down here to be a mole, or whatever you want to call it, for your father.”
