Texas On My Mind

Well, she’d given him a bit of one, too. Sadly, just the sight of her could do that to him. Maybe she was the cure for flashbacks.

“No. Ethan’s not hurt,” Claire answered. “He broke his favorite car, that’s all.”

Sheez Louise, that was a lot of loud crying for a car, especially since there were about fifty others on the porch. But Riley soon saw why this particular one had caused tears. It was a vintage red Corvette. Even as a toy, it had plenty of sentimental value, and Ethan seemed to get that even though he was just a kid.

With a part sigh, part huff coming from her mouth, Claire stooped even lower so she could give Ethan a kiss on the cheek. No shorts for her today. Instead, she was wearing a denim skirt and a top. Barefoot. And with the way she was stooping, he could see her pink panties.

Trisha wasn’t the only one whose gaze wandered in the wrong direction.

Riley reacted all right. He felt that stirring behind his zipper. Felt his testosterone soar past normal levels.

He glanced around, mainly because he needed to get his attention off her underwear, and he pretended to look at the house. It was in serious need of a paint job, and the white picket fence needed repairs, but the place had always had good bones. However, something was missing.

“No cats?” Riley asked. There’d been at least a half dozen around when her grandmother was alive.

“Gran gave them away when she got sick.”

Too bad because Claire had always loved them, and apparently it’d been one of the tipping points for her choosing Daniel.

“Ix it, peas,” Ethan said, holding out the car to Riley.

It took Riley a moment to work out the translation: fix it, please. The car was in three pieces, and Riley took them with all the reverence that a vintage car like that deserved.

“You don’t need to trouble yourself,” Claire insisted. “Just sit down and relax. You look exhausted.”

Judging from the cardboard box and its contents scattered on the porch, she had been going through her grandmother’s things, and she pushed some of the items aside to make room for Riley.

“I can get Ethan another car like that the next time I go to the store,” she added.

But the fat tears rolling down Ethan’s cheeks let Riley know the kid didn’t want a new one. Riley eased down onto the porch next to him and tried to remember how he’d repaired his own toy cars after he’d given them a good bashing. After all, what else was a kid to do with toy cars other than create a perpetual stream of wrecks, increasing the gore of those wrecks with each new play session?

“Got any superglue?” Riley asked her.

Claire nodded, moved as if to go inside, but then stopped. “Really, you don’t have to do this.”

Riley couldn’t be positive, but he thought maybe this had something to do with his walking-wounded status. Something that automatically put his teeth on edge. “Just get the glue.”

Hard for his teeth to stay on edge though when she ran inside, leaving him alone with the kid. Ethan looked up at him. “Ix it?”

“I’ll sure try.” Riley glanced around at the other cars, but he soon spotted what had likely caused the damage. Several big-assed action figures. He wasn’t certain who or what they were supposed to be, but they looked like a mix of the Grim Reaper, Cyclops and Mick Jagger. With big-assed lips and wings.

“Here you go,” Claire said when she came racing back out.

Riley took the glue and tipped his head to the action figures. “Your idea?” Because they darn sure didn’t seem like something Claire would buy.

“No. Livvy, my business partner, is responsible. She took Ethan to the toy store for his second birthday and told him he could pick out anything he wanted. He wanted those. They’re supposed to be some kind of protectors of the universe.”

Riley nodded. “Good choice.”

Ethan grinned. The man-pact was back on, and the kid seemed to have forgiven him or at least forgotten about the hidden cookie caper.

“Why are you out here anyway?” Claire asked.

“Walking is part of my physical therapy.” Riley squirted the first dollop of glue to get the rear axle back in place. “I just saw Trisha by the antiques shop. She said Daniel’s got an office here in town.”

Riley wasn’t going to win any awards for being subtle, but he figured it wouldn’t take more than a minute or two for the car repairs, and then he wouldn’t have any reason to stay. Any good reason anyway.

“Yes, he does,” Claire answered.

Clearly not chatty today. Riley went in a slightly different direction. “I guess Daniel did that so he could see you. And Ethan.”

She didn’t huff, but that’s exactly what she looked as if she wanted to do. “You know how you don’t want to talk about your injury or the pain? Well, I don’t want to talk about Daniel. Deal?”

Since she was as testy as he was, it was best to let it drop. Besides, it really wasn’t his business, only idle curiosity as to why the kid looked more like Riley than any real kid of his probably would.

Best to move on to a different conversation thread. “How’s the box sorting going?”

The sigh that left her mouth was one of frustration. So, testy, nontalkative and frustrated. Oh, yeah, this was a good visit, but at least the car repairs were going well.

“I’m still looking for the letter Gran mentioned on the calendar. I have no idea what was in it or even if it was from her.”

Riley glanced at the stack of letters that’d been tied together with white ribbon. “It’s not one of those?”

Another sigh. Man, he was picking at scabs today. “No. Those are from various men,” Claire said, her forehead bunching up. “Gran was obviously, um, popular. It’s strange to learn she had so many things going on in her life that I never knew about.”

Apparently that was a pattern Claire was continuing to follow when it came to her son’s paternity. Riley frowned. He really needed to get his mind on something else. Heck, the memory of her pink panties flash was better than this.

“I brought down more boxes from the attic, and I’ve got at least twenty others to go through,” she went on. “Maybe I’ll find the letter in one of them.”

“Maybe she decided not to give it to you,” Riley suggested. “Or she could have lost it.”

He’d dropped in that last idea only because the first one sounded kind of sinister, as if the letter might be so god-awful that her grandmother had decided Claire shouldn’t see it after all.

“I think it might have been from my mother.” Claire didn’t look at him. She suddenly got very interested in picking at the nonexistent lint on her skirt. “Or my father.”

From her mother, yes, he could understand that. The woman had ditched Claire and then had died a while later. Not in a clean, it’s-your-time kind of way, either. She’d gotten drunk, thrown up and had choked to death on her own vomit. But Claire’s father was a different matter.

“Do you even know who your father is?” Riley asked.

She shook her head. Didn’t add anything else. Apparently, any talk involving fatherhood was off the table. In this case, that wasn’t a bad thing.

From what Riley had heard, her father had never been in her life and had left her mother before Claire was even born. That made the man lower than pig shit, and as a kid Riley had often thought about what it would be like to punch the idiot for doing that.

His own parents had disappeared from his life when he was a teenager, but that’s because they’d been killed by a drunk driver—an accident that Claire knew about all too well since she’d been in the vehicle.

And was the sole survivor.

Being in the backseat had saved her from dying in the head-on collision. The drunk driver had died on impact. His parents, shortly thereafter.

It had hardly been his parents’ choice to leave. And despite the fact he’d been planning to go out of state for college, Riley hadn’t left, either. He’d stayed at home with Logan to help raise his then fourteen-year-old sister and Lucky. Though Lucky had been Logan’s age, only younger by a few minutes, he had still required some raising.

Along with occasional bail money.

Heck, Lucky still required occasional bail money.

Riley had wanted nothing more than to get out of town fast and find his destiny, but instead he’d gone to college in nearby San Antonio to be closer to Anna until she turned eighteen and headed off to her own college choice. Logan had taken it a step further and even dropped out of the University of Texas to be home. It was just something family would do for family.

Unlike Claire’s scummy parents.

Riley added the last bit of glue to put the car’s hood back in place and blew on it so it would dry. It didn’t take long, and he examined his repair job before he handed it to Ethan. However, Ethan reached for it first and missed, and his hard little hand bashed right into Riley’s shoulder.

Riley bit back the thousand really bad curse words that bubbled up in this throat. The pain exploded in his head, and it was a good thing he was sitting, or it would have brought him to his knees.

“Sor-wee,” Ethan blurted out.

Riley wanted to lie and say it was okay. No sense making the kid feel bad for an accident, but he was having trouble gathering enough breath to speak. However, he did manage to utter a “shit.”

“Sugar,” Claire corrected. She scrambled toward him, and before Riley could stop her, she started unbuttoning his shirt. “Here, let me take a look.”

“Are you qualified to do that?” he grumbled.

“Sure. I’ve been looking all my life.”

Riley appreciated the smartass-ness, but he knew it wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. When Claire eased back the bandage on his shoulder, the color drained from her face. Every last rosy drop. He didn’t have to see the raw, angry gash to know that she was about to lose her lunch.

“God, Riley,” she said on a rise of breath. A breath that landed right against his neck.

Apparently, there was a semicure for blistering pain after all, and it was Claire’s breathing. Of course, it helped that her mouth was now plenty close to his. Close enough to kiss...if he’d been in any state to kiss her, that was.

He wasn’t.

Did that make the desire go away? Nope. Which meant this situation with Claire could turn out to be trouble.

“Sugar,” she said. And then she added other words. Fudge and divinity. Substitutions for the kid’s sake probably. “I didn’t know you were hurt this bad.”

Even though every movement throbbed like hell, Riley jerked his shirt back together and even managed to do some of the buttons. “We agreed not to talk about this, remember?”

“Yes.” Claire cleared her throat. “I’m not sure I can hear it anyway. It hurts too much to think about it.”

And he couldn’t take that look on her face. Pity. Something he divinity sure didn’t want.

“I’m all right,” he told Ethan. Riley forced a smile that possibly looked even creepier than his earlier one since the muscles in his face were stretched tight. “My shoulder just needed some fixing like your car, but it’s better now.”

No way did the kid believe that. No way could Riley take the time to convince him, either. Not with the pain still shooting through him. Plus, he felt a flashback coming on, and he didn’t want to have one of those in front of the kid.

Not in front of anybody.

He fished through his pocket, grabbed the new bottle of meds and downed a couple of them, somehow managing to get to his feet in the process. “Better go. These knock me out pretty fast.”

Still pale, still looking at him as if he were the most pitiful creature on earth, Claire stood. “You want me to drive you home? It’s nearly a half mile, and that’s too far for you to walk—”

“No, thanks.” Riley was already off the porch and into the yard when he heard the footsteps hurrying after him. Not Claire. But Ethan.

“Sor-wee,” Ethan repeated and he held up one of the winged action figures. He took Riley’s hand and put the toy in it. “For you.”

Well, that was far more touching than Riley had ever thought it would be. The kid had a good heart. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to give me your toy.”

But Riley was talking to himself because Ethan gave him a little wave and raced back toward the porch.

Riley felt a tug of a different kind. Something akin to the same feelings he’d had with his kid sister when he’d helped raise her. A stupid tug in this case because Ethan wasn’t his to raise.

Even if everyone in town thought he was.

Yeah, the whole situation with Claire was definitely trouble. So much so that even “Jingle Bells” might not work on this one.

CHAPTER FIVE

CLAIRE WISHED SHE could go back in time and stop her grandmother from purchasing a single roll of wallpaper. Or better yet, use that going-back-in-time superpower to stop wallpaper from ever being invented.

She held the steamer over the wallpaper, following the instructions to a tee. She waited, then scraped. Like the three million other steam, wait and scrape sequences, she didn’t get a lot for her efforts. A postage-stamp-size piece of the paper came off. Only to reveal another layer of wallpaper beneath that one.

There was enough of it to create a quarantine facility to contain an outbreak of Ebola.

That’s the way it had been for the bathroom and the kitchen. Layer after layer and layer. It was entirely possible there weren’t even any walls left, that the entire house was held together with varying colors of floral wallpaper—each layer seemingly more butt ugly and more steam resistant than the last one.

Steam, keep steaming, scrape.

She got off another piece and tried to hold on to the reminder that one day this would all look as if it weren’t stuck in the seventies. One day she’d be able to finish off the walls and the floors, and clear out the boxes so that she could see a sign she wanted to see.

For Sale.

Steam, keep steaming, scrape.

But on the scrape segment of this particular square inch of space, Claire heard something that had her climbing off the step ladder. It wasn’t Ethan, either, because she could see him. He was sitting nearby creating a toy-car postapocalyptic scene on the floor.

Claire stepped around Ethan and looked out the screen portion of the front door. She’d left the actual front door open to catch the semicool breeze.

Uh-oh.

This was an unholy alliance if ever Claire had seen one.

Livvy, Daniel and Trisha.

All three of them had just exited their vehicles and were strolling toward the front porch. Claire was sure there was a joke in there somewhere: a blond Realtor, a brunette lawyer and a redheaded wedding planner all walk into a house...

But she couldn’t quite come up with a punch line that would ease the sudden knot in her stomach.

Claire had known Livvy was on her way because Livvy had called to say she’d be there sometime that afternoon. But the other two certainly hadn’t given her a heads-up. Too bad or she would have been somewhere else. Anywhere else.

If Claire had still been in third grade, such wimpiness would have earned her the chicken-dookie label, but it was a label she would proudly bear if she could have just delayed this meeting with Daniel.

Thankfully, Livvy had brought wine with her.

Claire put her steamer and scraper aside, opened the screen door and steeled herself for this visit.

Livvy went ahead of the other two, teetering up the limestone walk on sparkly silver heels so thin she could have picked her teeth with them. They matched her sparkly silver pants and top stretched around her latest boob job. Like with her husbands, Livvy liked to trade up in bra sizes every couple of years.

Claire wasn’t sure exactly what Livvy’s natural hair color was. That, too, had changed frequently over the past eight years since they’d bought Dearly Beloved together. Today it was I Love Lucy red with threads of acid green and was piled on top of her head like a volcanic eruption.

Somehow, Livvy made it all work.

“Vee!” Ethan squealed, and he rushed out to greet Livvy. She scooped him up, spun him around and made piggy snorting sounds while she kissed his neck.

Ethan laughed like a loon, and Claire lapsed into a smile despite that abdominal knot. Yes, Livvy always made it work not just with her son and hair but also with everything else. Livvy created magic.

“I’ve got something for my favorite boy,” Livvy announced. She set him back down on the porch and plucked a silver toy car from her cleavage.

Another squeal from Ethan. Another laugh. God, he was such an easy kid to please. Despite the car stash he already had on the porch and in the house, he obviously thought this one was special.

“And this is for you, Claire. I stopped at the grocery store for this.” Livvy held up a bottle of wine, the sweet, cheap stuff they both favored. She gathered Claire into her arms, smacked a kiss on her cheek and added in a whisper, “These two saw me in town, and I wasn’t able to shake them.”

Of course, Livvy didn’t actually whisper it softly enough for Daniel and Trisha not to hear her. Which was probably Livvy’s intent all along. She played a little passive-aggressive with people she didn’t like.

“Claire,” Trisha said, obviously taking Livvy’s cue and hugged Claire, too. She looked as if she were about to head off to a photo shoot for Chanel number whatever. Smelled like it, too. “We came to check on you. To make sure you weren’t wallowing in your grief.”

“No wallowing,” Claire assured her, sounding as genuine in her response as Trisha had been with the comment.

No genuineness whatsoever.

Daniel stayed back, waiting his turn, and when Trisha stepped away, he moved in for his own hug. “Good to see you, baby,” he said in a real whisper, and he went in for a kiss. Not a cheek smacker like Livvy, but the real thing.

Claire felt her muscles go stiff. Felt that knot in her stomach tighten. Nerves, she assured herself. Not repulsion.

Daniel stepped back, taking in everything with a sweeping glance. Her shorts and top. Bare feet. Ethan’s car menagerie. The boxes she’d been sorting through. The bits of wallpaper stuck to her hair and face.

“I thought you’d be further along in clearing out this stuff,” he commented.

Daniel started a lot of sentences with those three words, including the contraction—I thought you’d. Anything that came after that would almost certainly be a drawled dressing-down that he would then punctuate with a smile.

Right on cue, he smiled.

Livvy wasn’t the only one who liked to play the passive-aggressive game.

“I’m making progress,” she assured him though it didn’t look like it at the moment.

This latest round of boxes was mostly paper—more calendars, magazines and old bills. Claire had put some rocks and terracotta pots with dead plants on top of the various piles to keep the wind from blowing anything away.

“Did you find the letter?” Livvy asked. She had plopped herself down on the porch with Ethan and the cars and didn’t seem to notice the way her question snagged Trisha’s and Daniel’s attention.

“What letter?” the pair asked in unison.

Claire had to shrug. “It was just something Gran mentioned on a calendar. But she never gave me a letter.” She waited to see if either of them knew anything about it, but Trisha had moved on to checking her phone and Daniel was more interested in observing her half-up, half-down ponytail.

“I thought you’d have called me by now,” he said. The smile came just as the now was slipping from his mouth.

The mess on her porch actually came in handy. “I’ve been busy.”

He made a sound that could have meant anything and picked up the folder beneath the pot holding a dead spider plant.

“How’s Ethan doing with the Little Genius kits?” Since Daniel had been the one to recommend them, he clearly had an interest in them.

Claire made a so-so motion with her hand.

“Maybe I can give it a try. Sometimes boys respond better to a man’s voice.”

She would have liked to challenge that, but Daniel did do a lot of reading about child development. More than she did.

Daniel took the picture on top, van Gogh’s Starry Night, and he held it up. “Ethan?” Of course, he had to repeat it because Ethan was bashing his new car into the old ones. By the time he’d said Ethan’s name four times, Daniel’s voice was more of a bark.

“Remember the FUN! part of this,” Claire mumbled to herself.

Ethan finally realized he was being summoned and looked at the picture. “Money!” he yelled.

“He means Monet,” Claire translated.

“No.” Daniel drew that out a few syllables, probably not nearly as frustrated with Ethan as he was with not proving the point about that whole male-voice thing. “Try again.”

“Riley!” Ethan shouted. And no Ri-wee, either. This was very, very clear.

Trisha and Daniel turned to her so fast that Claire heard necks pop. “Riley’s been working with him on these?” Daniel’s question sounded a lot like a jealous accusation.

Which it probably was.

“Of course not,” Claire answered. “Riley’s recovering from his injury. He doesn’t have time to play with Ethan.”

Daniel looked at her as if he expected her nose to start growing. But it wasn’t a lie. It’d been three days since Riley’s visit, and he certainly hadn’t played with Ethan then. Riley had fixed Ethan’s car and then left looking as if he was about to collapse from the pain.

“Give me that.” Livvy craned her long, lithe body up enough to snatch the picture from Daniel. She didn’t even have to say Ethan’s name to get his attention. “Okay, see this.” She held up the toy van.

Claire nearly confessed that she’d already tried that, but she decided to watch and see how this played out.

Livvy tugged off one of her shoes, wiggled her toes and put the van right next to all that wiggling.

“Van Gogh!” Ethan squealed.

Claire laughed.

But Daniel huffed. “How does that help him, giving him a clue like that?”

“Seriously? It helped because he got it right.” Livvy put her shoe back on, plucked another car from her cleavage—a candy-apple-red Mustang—and gave it to Ethan. “Here’s your prize for guessing right.” That brought on more squeals of delight, more giggling.

More huffing from Daniel.

And a bitchy look from Trisha. “What else do you have in there?” Trisha tipped her head to Livvy’s boobs.

“A picnic basket.” Livvy stood and patted Trisha’s arm, and Claire could almost feel the condescension coming. Livvy looked at Trisha’s breasts, which were impressively sized but looked more like fried eggs when compared with Livvy’s. “Maybe you can try growth cream on them or something. Then you’ll have a place for a Lunchable or maybe just some Goldfish crackers.”

Time for some interference since Trisha was no doubt gearing up her bitchy-response generator. Claire looped her arm around Livvy’s waist. “Livvy and I will get some iced tea.”

Trisha must have taken that as a call to arms because she followed them, leaving Daniel and Ethan on the porch.

“Are you falling for Riley again?” Trisha asked the moment they were out of Daniel’s earshot.

Claire kept moving toward the kitchen. “That’s an are-you-still-beating-your-wife question. Because you’re assuming I’ve fallen for Riley before.”

Claire had, but that wouldn’t help her win this argument, and if she started losing too much ground, Livvy would step in and try to win the argument for her. It could turn into a catfight. Not an actual one, but there’d be some name-calling and shouting. Something that Claire didn’t want Ethan to hear.

“Riley won’t be as good with Ethan as Daniel,” Trisha added as if it were gospel.

And, of course, if Riley was indeed with Ethan and her, then he wouldn’t be with Trisha. That’s really what this was all about, but Trisha skittered out of there before Claire could remind her of that. Trisha probably hurried so she could tell Daniel he needed to watch his back, that he had some competition.