A Forever Kind of Guy: The Braddock Brotherhood, Book 2 (19 page)

She’d pondered his earlier behavior throughout the day but she couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation for it. Perhaps he’d had a traumatic wallpaper incident in his childhood.

Since Fletcher had done such a good job helping her, she rewarded him with ice cream and a game of the now detested Candyland. Fletcher was addicted. Hayley was sick of it. But Fletch was such a good kid and so undemanding. She couldn’t tell him no. What she needed to do was find a few other games for a child his age to break up the monotony.

Pretty soon she’d have to figure out what to feed him for dinner. Tuna fish sounded good. Or maybe egg salad. When she remembered to set the timer, she rescued the eggs before the water boiled out of the pan and they burned.

Thank God they were almost to the end of the game. Hayley was antsy. She’d tried to simply let him win when he was ahead, but he insisted on drawing until he got the appropriate card to take his piece home.

A knock at the door was the perfect excuse to end the game, though, and Hayley was prepared to be especially grateful to whoever was on the other side.

When she opened the door, Ray held out an offering wrapped in plastic. Baffled, Hayley took it. She stepped back so Ray could come in. Fletcher ran to him and clutched his leg. Ray patted his shoulder. “Hey, buddy. Whatcha been doin’ today?”

Ray transferred his attention back to Hayley. “I caught some fish. Thought maybe you’d like it for dinner.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.” Hayley stared at the package. “Can I nuke it?”

“No, don’t do that. You’ll ruin it. You can bread it and fry it up or wrap it in foil and grill it.”

“I don’t have a grill.”

“Broil it, then.”

Hayley stared at him. She’d never quite got the hang of the broiler. “How do I bread it, exactly?”

“Want me to cook it for you?”

Hayley grinned at him. He didn’t seem mad or upset anymore. Maybe she should take up fishing. “Do you mind?”

“Nope.” He took the package back from her and went into the kitchen. “You got any flour or bread crumbs? Cornmeal’s good, too.”

After Fletcher went to sleep, Ray joined her on the porch, though he declined her offer of a beer. Hayley was used to drinking alone, and she had no intention of forgoing her glass of wine. She lit her candle and took a greedy gulp as soon as she sat down. She leaned her head back to stretch her neck muscles and stared up at the ceiling.

She loved her quiet time. Usually, the street itself was still, even in the summer, as darkness descended. Perrish either didn’t believe in or didn’t have a budget for streetlights except on the main drag. The only artificial light came from houses or the occasional yard light. The warm, humid air wrapped around them, but the screen kept most of the bugs at bay.

Even though her body always hummed with awareness whenever Ray was in close proximity, it dropped to controllable levels once she adjusted to his presence. She could sit next to him in companionable silence. Or she could start a conversation.

“I can’t believe you agreed to play Candyland with Fletcher again. You’re his hero.”

Ray answered with a soft chuckle.

“Seriously, I dread that game almost as much as reading
Green Eggs and Ham
. I know he loves it, but it’s
boring.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”

Hayley eyed him in silent disagreement and took another sip of wine.

“I like watching him,” Ray confessed. “The way he concentrates. He holds everything inside, but you can see in his eyes, or sometimes on his face when he’s excited or disappointed. Did you ever notice how he puts the card down in the stack after he’s played? He doesn’t like it if the pile gets messy.”

“You’re something, you know that?” Hayley asked him softly.

He swung his head her way in surprise. He shrugged, as if he didn’t quite believe her or didn’t know what she was talking about.

She sat forward and leaned toward him. “You’re exactly what Fletcher needs. He adores you. You get him, somehow, in a way no one else does, whether he talks or not.”

“I guess.”

“What was that about?” Hayley asked, sensing she was making Ray uncomfortable with her talk of Fletcher. “When you left this morning?”

“Oh. You noticed that, huh?”

“You looked…I don’t know. Upset because I was tearing down the wallpaper.”

“I was but not because of that.”

“Sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“Caroline picked out that wallpaper.”

Hayley made no comment. She could hardly criticize his dead wife’s decorating choices.

“Right after we bought this place. We were fixing it up, painting and stuff before we rented this side out. She got that wallpaper on sale.”

What a shock.

“And when I saw you in there, all of a sudden, I remembered the day we hung it. You were tearing it down, and I don’t know. I looked at all that wallpaper on the floor, and it was like pieces of my memories of her that weren’t worth anything anymore. Just a bunch of shredded paper.”

“Oh, Ray. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m over it now.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Hayley ventured another comment. “But that was some butt ugly wallpaper.”

“I know,” Ray agreed. “I always hated it.”

Chapter Seventeen

Whenever she could, Hayley picked up extra exercise classes to teach on the weekends. Fletcher was good about entertaining himself in the back of the room for the duration of a class, and she could easily keep an eye on him. Every little bit of extra money helped, so if other instructors were unavailable, Hayley took their classes.

She’d had two this Saturday morning, and after the second one, Pablo Estevez, the director of the Y, waylaid her.

“Do you have a minute?” he asked her when they met in the broad corridor that ran the length of the building. One end opened into the double gymnasium where youth basketball games were in progress that morning. The other led out to the swimming pool where a meet was underway. Between the two were the reception area, locker rooms and the workout facility. Saturdays were busy days at the Y.

“Sure,” Hayley answered him.

“I’ve got some ideas, sparked, as a matter of fact, by those cheerleading classes you taught.”

“You do?”

Pablo nodded. “I’m thinking some sort of fitness academy directed specifically at young girls. Dance, cheerleading, nutrition, that kind of thing. I’d like to meet with you sometime in the next couple of weeks to discuss it, see what you think.”

“Okay. Sure.” Surely Pablo knew more about the kind of program he had in mind than she did, but if he wanted to talk to her about it, she’d be happy to sit down with him.

“Great. I’ll be in touch.”

It was almost one o’clock when she arrived home with Fletcher. Outside it was hot and sticky, but inside the A/C hummed to keep the air at a comfortable seventy-eight degrees. In the kitchen, Hayley poured a glass of lemonade and began to make lunch for herself and Fletcher. But her attention was snagged by a construction project going on in the backyard.

Hayley stared at Ray and Roscoe, who were working together to build what looked like a smaller version of the same swingset the local park had on its playground. There were stacks of pressure-treated lumber in various sizes and lengths. A curved yellow slide lay wrapped in plastic nearby. There were more miscellaneous pieces sorted and scattered around the perimeter. Roscoe’s white pickup truck was parked close by with its tailgate down and its toolbox open.

Fletcher pressed his nose to the sliding glass door. When Hayley came to stand by him, he looked up at her. He switched his attention back to the construction project and slapped his hands against the glass. Another sound, something between a sigh and a grunt, escaped him. Hayley wondered if the occasional sounds he made could be considered progress, even though actual words never passed his lips. He had no problem making his wishes known even without the gift of speech.

She unlocked the door and the two of them stepped out. Ray had his shirt off, and Hayley had to remember to close her mouth to contain the extra salivation that sight caused.

All her brain seemed able to process was the vision he presented of chest and shoulder muscles, tanned skin and a sheen of perspiration. Army green cargo shorts rode below his waist, giving her a peek of the elastic band of his boxers. She had a sudden, vivid image of one of those caveman cartoons. She’d club Ray and take him back to her cavern and do with him as she wished.

Whoa, girl, get a grip
, she warned herself.
You will do no such thing.

“Hi there,” she managed as she approached. “This looks like quite a project.”

Roscoe, shirtless as well, but mostly covered by his trademark overalls, glanced at her and grinned. “You got that right. We decide to build a swing set, it ain’t gonna be any old swing set. Oh no, we got the top of the line, biggest badass—oops—” he glanced sheepishly in Fletcher’s direction, “—biggest, baddest swing set money can buy.”

“Quit whining and hold that crossbar still,” Ray admonished him. Ray went at the bolts with some kind of electrical tool that drove the bolts home in seconds. He stopped and wiped the sweat from his brow before turning to Hayley. “What do you think?”

Hayley gazed at the partially completed structure. Thick, solid wood posts were sunk in cement at various intervals. Surely the finished structure would be taller than she was. It already resembled the ones she’d seen in a few other backyards, complete with a fort and a circular slide.

“It seems…big,” she finished uncertainly.

Ray shrugged, as if her lack of enthusiasm didn’t bother him. “Yeah, well, I figure if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right.” He gazed down at Fletcher. “What do you think, Fletch? Pretty cool, huh? Or it will be when it’s finished.”

Fletcher stared. First at Ray, then at the wood skeleton. His eyes were huge. “Trust me. You’ll like it when it’s all done.”

“You’re doing this—building this—for Fletcher?”

“Sure.”

“But—but—it’s too much. It’s so big. It’s not like we’re going to be here forever,” Hayley blurted out.

Ray gave her an assessing look as if he didn’t quite believe her. “Yeah, well. I’ve got a niece who can use it. And another niece or nephew on the way. I expect they’ll stick around for a while.”

Whether he meant to or not, Ray’s words gave Hayley the sense that she’d been put in her place. Had she given him the wrong impression? That there was some kind of future for them? That she and Fletcher were going to be here permanently?

No. Surely not. She hadn’t done or said anything to make him believe that. If Ray was building such a scenario in his head, that’s the only place it existed.

“I got Fletcher something too. I hope it’s okay,” Ray said. He stepped away to reach into the passenger area of the truck and then returned. He showed it to Fletcher and Hayley. “It’s a tee ball set, with a sponge ball so you can play it inside. See? Just set the ball on top of the tee and swing.” His gaze caught Hayley’s. “I thought it’d be a nice break from Candyland. Besides, he needs to learn to play baseball. Won’t hurt to start now.”

Fletcher took the plastic-encased package from Ray and stared at it. “It’s fun, buddy. I’ll come over and play it with you later, okay?” Fletcher nodded enthusiastically then tilted his head back to look up at both of them.

“What do you say, Fletch?” Hayley asked.

Without letting go of the package, Fletcher hugged Ray, garbling something unintelligible and barely audible in the back of his throat. Ray patted his shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

“Can I get you guys some lemonade?” Perspiration beaded Hayley’s upper lip and trickled down the front of her sports bra. Though a mature maple tree provided shade, Ray and Roscoe couldn’t have picked a hotter day than today to put a swingset together.

“That’d be great. Thanks.”

Hayley went back inside and poured lemonade into two plastic cups filled with ice. She shouldn’t have let Ray kiss her that night.
Let him kiss her?
Ha! Like she’d done nothing but stand there with her mouth closed. Like she’d resisted him at all. Okay, she had. A little bit. At first. But then, oh, she didn’t know what had happened. He got to her. He got to her on so many levels, and now here he was adopting puppies, building swing sets and believing in forever.

“Nope,” she said aloud as she returned the pitcher of lemonade to the shelf in the refrigerator. “There’s no such thing as forever.” Whether Ray wanted to believe it or not.

The Fourth of July dawned with a glaring sun, and during the day temperatures soared once again into the nineties. By early evening, the heat had dissipated somewhat and the celebratory gathering at the county park in Jannings Point was well under way.

Ray had invited Hayley and Fletcher to join him for the cookout, which was like one big neighborhood tailgate party, and for the fireworks display after. Rick and his family were there, as was Molly’s friend Hannah and her parents, whom Hayley had met before. Roscoe came with Callie Maxwell and Jasmine, of course. There was obvious friction between Roscoe’s girlfriend and daughter, but Ray knew he wouldn’t miss this annual tradition. It looked like Roscoe and Callie had decided to ignore Jasmine’s sulkiness and enjoy the day.

There were lots of other people there that Ray knew. He’d lived in Perrish practically his whole life, and his business was there as well as Rick’s and Roscoe’s. Since they’d all graduated from Jannings Point High School, it stood to reason they had lots of acquaintances.

Things had started out well enough, although he was sure Hayley had been a bit taken aback to see her social worker in a social setting, though Callie had done what she could to put Hayley at ease. Ray introduced Hayley to some of the other people who stopped by their small enclave.

Molly and her friends took Fletcher under their wings, making him part of their group and generally fussing over him like mother hens.

The food was almost ready and Rick, Ray and Roscoe ambled toward the playground to retrieve the kids. “Hey, you guys, let’s go wash up so we can eat,” Rick called to them. Molly and two of her friends, Hannah and April, clambered down from the fort attached to the swingset. Fletcher, who’d been rocking back and forth on an oversized duck set on a huge, coiled spring, slid off and ran toward Ray.