Kids by Christmas Page 10

  “Nope. Take your time.”

  Once more she hurried into the house, this time to brush her hair and capture it in a ponytail, add a little makeup she’d skipped this morning, and grab her purse and grocery list. She slipped on a jacket and went back out, locking the door behind her.

  Tom had closed his garage door and gotten back in the truck. Suzanne went around to the passenger side and climbed in. The interior, of course, was spotlessly clean. She’d have sworn it still had that new car smell, even though she knew he’d been driving this truck for at least two years.

  “What other errands did you have?” he asked.

  She buckled her seat belt. “Oh, I can skip them.”

  “It’s Sunday. I don’t have anywhere to be.”

  “Well, I thought about popping into a couple of secondhand stores I haven’t checked yet. I still need a desk for Sophia’s room. And who knows? I might find some other goodie.”

  “Sounds like fun,” he said agreeably, turning to look over his shoulder to back out of the driveway.

  Sidelong, Suzanne took in the way his shirt stretched across a powerful chest and arms. For an instant, her gaze slipped lower, to well-worn denim pulled taut over muscular thighs. Her belly cramped with awareness she was shocked to recognize as sexual. It had been so long since she’d felt that zing. It apparently didn’t take much to capture her attention: a lift to the grocery store and an invitation to share something like a burger or pizza.

  Deliberately looking straight ahead, she tried to dismiss the moment with humor. Hey, nobody could say she wasn’t a cheap date!

  Her inner alarm, she ignored.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “GET A LOAD OF THIS.” Tom shook his head. “I haven’t seen anything that ugly in a long time.”

  He’d stopped in front of a rustic, home-built entertainment center that was painted burnt-orange and lined with mirrors.

  “It shouts 1970,” Suzanne agreed, laughing. “Can’t you just see it with avocado-green shag carpet?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Still grinning, he wandered over to a tall bookcase.

  He kept an eye on her as Suzanne checked out the couple of desks for sale along with sagging sofas, battered, glass-topped coffee tables and folding metal chairs in the thrift store’s furniture section. One was made of white melamine that even from this distance he could see was splintered in several places. The other might have possibilities.

  “What do you think?” she asked, when he joined her.

  This was the third store they’d visited. So far, they’d found zilch.

  Tom crouched to open drawers and tip the desk so he could study the underside. Finally, he shook his head. “Lousy construction. We can do better.”

  “Apparently not today,” she said with a sigh.

  “You know, there’s a place up on Highway 99 I pass every day that looks promising. Why don’t we go see if it’s open?”

  “I’m game,” she said.

  On the drive up to 99, she smiled at him. “You’re either very good at hiding acute boredom, or else you have the soul of a treasure hunter.”

  “You mean, I’m a scrounger?” He grinned back at her. “I didn’t know I was, but, damn, I’m having fun. I keep expecting to turn up an eighteenth-century card table. Maybe a Morris chair made by Gustav Stickley.”

  A Morris chair? What he was really thinking was that maybe life with her would always be like this. Today, he felt reckless. He’d let himself feel the magnetic draw toward a woman he could—maybe did—love, children, a full, noisy, happy home. Everything he wanted, and everything that scared the crap out of him.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You know your antiques.”

  “Just something I like to read about. What about you?”

  “If I could afford them, I’d love to have antiques. Mostly, my house is furnished with whatever I can find at garage sales and secondhand stores. Unfortunately, they’re all mid-to late-twentieth century discards.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not such a bad thing. Anyway, that cherry dresser is a beauty.”

  “It looks like it really is an antique, don’t you think?”

  He agreed. “I was thinking 1880s or nineties.”

  “So now I have to worry about a ten-year-old kid damaging it.”

  Tom winced, earning a laugh from Suzanne.

  The store was situated on a crummy section of 99, sandwiched between a tattoo parlor and a tavern. The owner, apparently lacking any imagination or sense of the poetic, called it the Second Hand Store. But, dimly seen through dingy windows, the place seemed to be piled with furniture.

  Literally, Tom realized, as he and Suzanne entered to the tinkle of a bell on the door. Desks and dressers were stacked along the walls and throughout the warren of rooms. Prices were good, too, he saw after checking the first few pieces at random—higher than they were at Goodwill and Salvation Army, but dirt cheap compared to antique stores.

  The only hard part of getting a desk for Sophia’s room was deciding which one to buy. They bought a twin-size shelf-headboard, too, that he thought was solid maple under multiple coats of paint. The proprietor helped him load the two pieces in the bed of his pickup truck.

  Slamming the tailgate, Tom said, “I’m itching to get that paint off the headboard. Which room did you have it in mind for?”

  “I don’t know. It would be nice for either of the kids. Maybe Jack’s? He’s bound to have more toys and little stuff.” She waited while he unlocked the passenger side door. “Um…I didn’t mean to assume that you’d refinish these, too.”

  “I’m having a good time doing it. You’re giving me a good excuse.” To woodwork? he asked himself just a little sardonically. Or to see her?

  Her teeth worried her lower lip. “Can I say thank you again?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They agreed on Fred Meyer next because they could get both the paint he needed and their groceries there. He brought the half-used can of paint in with him. The dried drips down the side were perfect for matching.

  Tom and Suzanne both took carts, and she followed him to the paint department. She stood so close to him when he studied paint chips, he had to work not to be too conscious of the faint, fruity scent that came from her sleek dark hair. Raspberry?

  While they waited for their chosen paint to be mixed, she smiled at him. “This is so much fun. It’s like decorating a nursery, except my babies are exceptionally mature.”

  “And sleep through the night,” he agreed.

  Her chuckle was the prettiest sound he’d ever heard.

  Next stop was linens, where she hoped to find a laundry hamper for the kids to use. Tom wasn’t surprised to see her face light up at the sight of colorful towels and ceramic soap dispensers.

  “Ohh! I could redo the kids’ bathroom, too. It’s so boring now.” She stroked a nubby, bright red cotton bath mat, then slapped her own hand and put both back on the handle of the grocery cart. “No. Stop me. I have to finish what I’ve started first.”

  Taking his cue, Tom said, “Hampers. Looks like they’re on the back wall.”

  She picked out a round hamper along with two wicker wastebaskets, one for each bedroom, then added a simple white ceramic toothbrush holder.

  Giving him an apologetic look, she said, “Would you mind if we stop in the toy department before we tackle groceries? I’m still not done with my Christmas shopping.”

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed shopping so much. Did Suzanne have any idea how expressive her face was? Her face glowed with delight when she found what she wanted, dimmed when she didn’t. She nibbled on her lower lip while she debated over something, and giggled like a schoolgirl when he ventured a mild joke.

  Heck, for the pleasure of watching her, he’d have agreed to browse the cosmetics aisle.

  Oh, yeah. He was in trouble.

  “Don’t mind at all. I usually buy a couple of gifts for the Boeing Good Neighbors Christmas drive. They give them out to food bank families.
I think I have to have them in by Tuesday.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. I always donate a hand-knit throw to the Social Concerns Board at my church. They adopt several families and buy gifts for all the members.”

  When she selected a couple of boxes of LEGO, he followed suit. Tom tended to buy for boys, since the tags for girls always seemed to disappear first from the tree.

  Somehow he wasn’t surprised when Suzanne got sidetracked a couple more times on the way to the grocery section—once in books, where she chose a couple for Sophia, and once in Christmas decorations.

  Putting a box of lights in her cart, she had that glow again. “I’m going to go all out this year. It’ll be the best Christmas ever.”

  He hoped like hell those kids didn’t ruin her holiday. They seemed nice enough, but their mother had just died a few months ago and their dad had made plain that he didn’t give a crap about them. Seemed as if they couldn’t help being time bombs, set to go off whenever Suzanne felt safest.

  He wasn’t about to spoil her mood by issuing warnings, though. She was a smart woman; she knew taking on kids the ages of Jack and Sophia wasn’t going to be a cakewalk.

  As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he and Suzanne stuck together while they grocery shopped. His list was pretty limited. He realized what a rut he was in, seeing his cart through her eyes. There were two or three frozen entrées he rotated through every week, a steak for one night, frozen peas and corn, russet potatoes he liked to fry up, beer and soda, packages of cookies.

  In contrast, she bought mostly fresh ingredients, obviously with the intention of actually cooking. Fresh broccoli, cauliflower and green beans, salad makings and fruit. She bought whole-wheat flour, several cans of pumpkin, evaporated milk and raisins in the baking aisle.

  “I make great pumpkin bread,” she explained. “Plus I’m doing the pies for Christmas Day.”

  “Your brother going to be out for Christmas?” Tom asked. He’d met Gary Lindstrom when he’d visited this fall, and had been impressed with how hard Lindstrom worked to help out his sister. The gutters on her house had been damn near clogged until he’d cleaned them, and he’d built shelves and hung Peg-Boards in her garage, borrowing a ladder from Tom.

  She added a half gallon of non-fat milk to her cart. “Didn’t I tell you? He’s not only coming, but he’s getting married right after Christmas!”

  Her Didn’t I tell you sounded so chummy. Seemed she was forgetting that up until a couple of weeks ago, they had exchanged only the barest of courtesies. He knew about the kids and not much else. “Married?”

  “Did you meet my first caseworker?” She pursed her lips. “No, I guess you wouldn’t have had any reason to. Well, she and Gary fell in love.” She told him how they’d met the day Gary had arrived unexpectedly for the visit. “I may be lousy at marriage myself, but apparently I have talent as a matchmaker. Both my sister and my brother.”

  “There’s another story I haven’t heard.”

  She laughed. “Carrie married the private investigator I hired to find her and Gary. You’ve probably seen Mark when he’s been over. He does other P.I. stuff, but he specializes in adoption searches. Well, he found Carrie all right.”

  Tom grinned. “Okay, I’ll admit you do have a talent.”

  With exaggerated woe, she said, “Of course, I lost the chance to have Carrie live with me for a year while she went back to graduate school. She married Mark instead. And I lost my caseworker. So maybe I shouldn’t be too pleased with myself.”

  “But you gained a brother-and sister-in-law.”

  “That’s true. And I adore both.” She gave him a dazzling smile. “So, you’re one of those rare people who sees the cup as half-full.”

  He wouldn’t have called himself an optimist. On the other hand, he didn’t let himself get too depressed, either. “What about you?”

  He knew already—for someone who’d had as many crummy things happen to her as Suzanne Chauvin had, she still shone with faith and hope. Both had made her an easy mark for her scumbag of an ex. Somehow she’d convinced herself over and over again that he didn’t mean what he’d just said, that really he loved her.

  “I have setbacks,” she confessed, reaching for a box of cereal. “But I guess I do tend to believe, somewhere deep inside, that everything will work out for the best.”

  “And that everyone has good intentions?”

  She made a face at him. “You think I’m foolish, don’t you?”

  He shook his head. His voice became husky. “I think you’re an extraordinary woman.”

  Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed before she turned her face away. “Oh,” she said softly, then rallied. “That’s a nice thing to say. Thank you, Tom.”

  He cleared his throat. “You’re welcome.”

  After a moment, they started forward down the aisle again, Tom cursing himself. What in hell had gotten into him, to say something like that? He didn’t want to scare her off!

  After a minute, she asked, “What do you usually do for Christmas?”

  “Up until a couple of years ago, I went to a friend’s house. We were Rangers together. After I got out, he was stationed at Fort Lewis. His kids think I’m their uncle.”

  She smiled. “And you happily spoil them.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Her expression become serious again, even worried. “You said ‘up until a couple of years ago’? What happened?”

  “He was transferred to Fort Bragg.”

  They were in the checkout line when she said, “What about your parents? Are they alive?”

  “Only my father. He retired in Florida.”

  They didn’t have much to say to each other. Never had. Tom hadn’t once heard his father express grief after losing first his daughter, then his wife. Career Army, Roger Stefanec had always been a hard man, closed-in and stern. Although he sometimes regretted having done so, Tom had followed in his father’s footsteps when he’d enlisted, but he ran regular self-evaluations to be sure he wasn’t becoming like his father in any other way.

  Tom helped Suzanne unload her groceries onto the checkout conveyor, then started on his while the clerk rang up her purchases. She in turn waited while he paid for his, and they went out to the pickup together. He’d brought a cooler with a couple of ice packs for their frozen food, so they wouldn’t have to hurry home. Then they decided on Pagliacci’s for pizza.

  Once there, they wrangled like old friends over what to have on the pizza, filled their glasses with soda and found a booth. It was early, and this being Sunday the place wasn’t busy.

  “Okay,” Suzanne said. “I’ve known you for—what? Five years—and I have no idea what you do for a living.”

  His mouth quirked. “I think we’ve known each other for more like two or three weeks.”

  “Okay, two or three weeks. Here you know all my deep, dark secrets, and I don’t know beans about you.”

  “I work at Boeing. I’m a lead in planning.”

  Even after he explained, she didn’t completely understand what he actually did. Only that somehow planners transformed engineering design into doable procedures.

  “Means sitting at a desk all day, but the money is good and there’s enough variety to keep me interested.” He shrugged. “Don’t know what else I can tell you.”

  Their number was called, and he went to the counter to get the pizza, returning with it and a pair of plates.

  Suzanne reached for a piece. “Yum.”

  For a minute they concentrated on dishing up, with him trying to pretend he didn’t find the sight of her curling a strand of cheese around her finger and then nibbling it off erotic as hell.

  After eating with apparent gusto for a few minutes, she asked, “Would you have stayed as career Army if you hadn’t gotten hurt?”

  “I don’t know. I was starting to feel like I was getting too old for Special Ops. That’s a young man’s game. Maybe I was getting disillusioned, or just tired of not staying in one place.
So in one way, I was glad of an excuse to get out.”

  She nodded seriously, her dark eyes grave and sympathetic. The better he knew her, the more beautiful she’d become to him. He didn’t just see the perfect curve of her mouth, the delicacy of her cheekbones and jaw, the dark wing of brows and how smooth and white her skin was. Now he also saw the shyness in her gaze, her sweetness and the worry she tried to hide.

  Was there any chance when she looked at him she saw anything but a nice guy who’d be a great friend? Tom’s gut twisted every time he thought of some other lucky son of a gun persuading her to trust and love him.

  Why couldn’t it be him?

  He realized suddenly that he was staring and that her cheeks were turning pink. A woman in her thirties who still blushed. There was something old-fashioned about Suzanne Chauvin, and maybe that was what attracted him most of all. Maintaining her dignity counted with her, not something you could say about many people these days.

  “I’m sorry.” He picked up another slice of pizza. “What did you ask me?”

  “I was wondering whether you joined right out of high school.”

  “I got in a couple of years at a community college first. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and since my dad was Army, joining seemed logical. I guess it was the easiest path.”

  “Has anybody ever called boot camp easy?”

  “Physically, no, but that wasn’t an issue for me. I’ve always been strong.” He frowned, trying to figure how best to explain. “It’s the part where you hand over all decision making to someone else that’s easy. I always felt like it was a cop-out for me.”

  “You’re being hard on yourself. A flunky at IBM doesn’t make decisions, either. Or a law-school graduate at a big firm. They scramble to do what they’re told. What’s any different about the Army?”

  “You’ve got a point there,” he admitted. “I guess I’ve always been a little disappointed in myself for not resisting the pressure to join up. I always said I wouldn’t.” He gave a grunt of humor. “Mostly to rile my old man, I suspect. But I’d look off the base and see a whole big world out there different from what I knew. I wanted my life to be different. But then I actually got out there and I felt lost, so I went running home to Mama, so to speak.”