Barefoot at Moonrise (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 2) (25 page)

She peered over Sally’s head, wondering where he was going with this.

“Nothing’s going to happen to the baby.”

Except this whole relationship, as backward and unusual as it was, had its foundation on a tiny little cluster of cells forming in her not-so-competent uterus right now. If that should end…

She closed her eyes and tunneled her fingers into Sally’s wiry black and tan fur and refused to think about it.

Chapter Nineteen

“Why are they called Kelly days?” Beth handed a clean scraper to Ken, after taking the half-dozen broken ceramic squares he’d ripped from the master bathroom’s tub wall.

He paused in the job to work a crick out of his back, plucking at the white T-shirt that clung to sweaty muscles. Automatically, after dumping the tiles in the discard bucket, she grabbed his water bottle and gave it to him, then returned to her comfy cross-legged position against the wall.

They worked like a well-oiled machine now.

“Thanks,” he said after taking a swig. “Lots of theories, but most people say they’re named after a Chicago mayor who wanted firefighters to have decent working hours. Not that the shift setup is anywhere normal.”

“You mean the twenty-four-hour days?” she asked, absently scratching Sally’s coarse hair, already used to having the chunky dog always pressed against her leg.

“They can be hell on family life,” he said, his tone gruff enough that she knew there was more to that comment. How to interpret his tone and looks was one of the many things she’d learned about him in the past few days, working next to him at her house all day and sleeping next to him at his at night, even the night when he was gone on a shift.

“But you have Sally,” she said.

“And she comes with me on every shift.” He gave a grin to the dog. “Don’t you, Chunker?”

She laughed and patted the fat dog. “Why did you get to keep her when she was left at the station? Did you win a bet or something?”

He snorted. “Everyone at the station has dogs, but they all want Labs and retrievers and, of course, the cliché Dalmatians. Nobody wanted a fat mix of a Yorkie and a—”

“Don’t say cow,” she said, pressing Sally’s pointy ears down. “It hurts her feelings.”

He paused and turned, the scraper poised in the air as he looked at her. “You’ve fallen for her,” he said simply.

“How can I not?”

“I’ll have to find out her secret formula and drink some of it.”

She smiled at him. “No secret. She’s a dear dog who loves to eat.”

“I love to eat.”

She reached over the side of the tub and poked him. “Scrape tile.”

He went back to work, the next tile popping off easily. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he murmured.

“We’re due for a good section,” she said, taking a drink of water.

“Like we hit on Tuesday.”

She glanced at the wall behind the sink and toilet, where the tiles had popped off like candies. “Tuesday was a good day.” And Tuesday night was even better.

He whacked at the next tile. “Every day this week has been good, Beth.”

The way he said it made her heart stumble a little, and she couldn’t argue. They
had
been good. They’d slipped easily into a natural rhythm, finishing the kitchen completely and moving in to tackle the master bath, the two most important parts of the renovation.

By mutual agreement, they let the past go—for the moment, anyway—talking about everything but his father or hers. The night he’d come over after she’d read the autopsy report, Beth had decided she cared too much about Ken to break his heart with the truth, even if it might have changed how he felt about her father. Once that decision had been made, their time together grew more blissful every hour.

“I’ve never had an easier demo,” she mused. “I haven’t lifted anything heavier than a hammer.”

“That’s the idea.”

“I could get used to watching you in sweaty T-shirts while you do my work. It’s a great way to make a living.”

He laughed. “Plus, you get to interview me.”

“I’m not interviewing you,” she said. “I’m getting to know you. And when you talk about the guys at the station catching a run and the crazy pranks you pull, you work better, did you know that?”

“Really,” he deadpanned.

“Yes, so my questions are actually a time-management system I’ve made up to keep you on track.”

A tile popped off and dropped into the tub, cracking.

“So that’s why I spent an hour this morning telling you about life on a Navy sub?”

“You finished that whole wall.” She admired the stripped-down shower wall, completely cleared of hundreds of ugly white square tiles and ancient grout. “And it was fascinating,” she added.

“But I’m not getting to know you,” he said, coming down off his crouched legs to sit in the tub for the next section.

“My life is dull as dirt. Besides, you’re working too hard to ask questions,” she said, while fighting the urge to scoot a little closer, just to, well, get closer. Ken was in her bathtub. Filthy, with grout under his nails and grime on his face and sweat dampening his neck.

And she never wanted to kiss anyone so much in her whole life.

“I can ask questions and not ruin my time.”

But could she answer them and not ruin her mood? “Okay, but I’m telling you, nothing in my life is that interesting.”

“I’m interested in knowing about your ex-husband.”

She snorted softly and gave him a look. “Well played and sneaky.”

“Why’d you marry him?”

“He was in the right place at the right time. Or wrong, I guess, depending on your perspective.”

“You must have seen something in him.”

She closed her eyes and conjured up an image of Justin. Not that tall, but lean and taut from long distance running. His hair was thinning, but he wore it well and he had a nice smile.

“He wasn’t a bad guy,” she said. “He just wasn’t
the
guy.”

He slid her a look, a little satisfaction and a little challenge in his eyes. Like she should know
the guy
because she was looking at him.

“Was the divorce awful?” he asked.

“It was…not fun. He’d met someone at work, but didn’t cheat on me.”

Ken’s brows rose a little, enough to convey a little skepticism.

“He didn’t,” she said. “He told me as the relationship became real and he didn’t want to have an affair. He wanted to have a…family. He admitted that convincing me to get my tubes tied was a mistake, but he wouldn’t consider adoption. He wanted his baby,
his
seed.”

“That had to hurt you.”

“Tremendously,” she admitted. “But now?” She gave him a wry smile and tapped her stomach. “It hurts a lot less.”

For a moment, he held her gaze, nothing but hope and satisfaction in his eyes, as if he were pleased to ease her pain.

“What about your divorce?” she asked.

“It was sad,” he said simply. So simply that it had far more impact than if he’d thrown down the scraper and called his ex a bitch and a shrew. “It wasn’t what I wanted.”

She shifted on the ground, settling in to ask a question she’d hadn’t had the nerve to pose yet. “So you loved her?”

“Of course I loved her.” He dug at a stubborn tile.

“Then what happened?”

He abandoned the tile and lowered the scraper. “She had big career ambitions and didn’t want a family. Renee spent an inordinate amount of time being the company superstar.”

Beth realized she’d never heard him use her first name. If he had to refer to the past, he’d say “my ex” or “former wife.” But now she had a name: Renee.

“What company did she work for?” Beth asked.

“That big hotel chain, Southern Hospitality,” he said. “She started in event planning, got promoted to sales, and wham, they had her on the fast track to management. In hotel management, every promotion means another move, which was hell on my career, but really good for hers. It’s not easy to get a job in a decent fire department, let alone move up the chain of command. I’d have been a lieutenant forever, moving to another town every two years.”

She frowned at him. “And that was enough to break up your marriage?” It sounded a little shallow and selfish to her, neither traits she associated with him.

“We had such different ideas of what our lives should look like,” he said, a sad note in his voice. “She was a workaholic, which didn’t have to ruin us, but she didn’t want kids. Didn’t want to be home at all.” He put the scraper down and looked at her. “I bought a house without her even seeing it, because she was on the road for something like thirty-nine consecutive days, so I bought a house for us. And about a year later, she got promoted to a job in Houston and, man, I didn’t want to leave that house or my station.”

“So you picked them over your wife?” She couldn’t stop a little horror from sneaking into her voice. The idea that he’d put a house and job ahead of a marriage didn’t seem like the Ken she’d gotten to know.

“No,” he said simply. “She basically told me to stay. She didn’t want the, uh…” He slid into a rueful smile. “Baggage.”

Beth didn’t know what to say, but she reached out and touched him.

His eyes grew darker, but warm with the unspoken promise that those kinds of problems and baggage wouldn’t happen to them. Could that be possible?

She so wanted to believe what she saw in his eyes that the message made her dizzy. She leaned forward, closer to him, their mouths inches from each other with the ceramic of the tub separating them.

She closed the space and gave in to the temptation to plant a light, easy kiss on his mouth. Instantly, he had a hand around her head, deepening the contact.

When the kiss ended, she kept her eyes closed. “You’re not baggage,” she whispered.

He eased back. “Unless you want to travel very, very light. Which you might.”

Slowly, she shook her head. “My traveling light days are over. I…” She swallowed hard. “
We
have a baby on the way.”

She got to her knees, and he did the same, both of them slipping into the next kiss. A now familiar warmth low in her belly forced her to lean into him, arching her back, inviting the next touch.

“Beth? You in here?”

They jerked apart at the voice, shocking both of them when they realized the man was in the hall.

“Landon?” She pushed up, shooting a look at Ken right before her stepbrother reached the bathroom door. “What are you doing here?”

“You should lock your front door, Beth. Anyone can walk right in.”

She closed her eyes, standing up. “You’re not the first to tell me that. Landon, this is Ken Cavanaugh. Ken, my stepbrother, Landon.”

Ken pushed up, wiping his hand on his smudged khaki shorts before extending it. “Nice to meet you.”

“Ken’s a friend who is helping me out with the house,” Beth explained.

While they shook hands, there was enough of a flicker of amusement or doubt in Landon’s eyes to make her think he suspected Ken was more than
a friend
. Oh God. A chill ran over her arms. Had he heard what she just said about a baby?

“So what brings you here?” she asked quickly.

“I was down in the neighborhood and thought I’d swing by to invite you to dinner on Saturday.”

She fought the urge to choke softly. A dinner invitation from the McDowells was rare, unless it was a holiday, and it would normally come as a phone call from Rebecca.

“What’s the occasion?”

“Just a family dinner. Bonding and all.”

Since when? She nodded, waiting for more information.

“We’ve got reservations at Junonia at Casa Blanca in Barefoot Bay,” Landon added. “Would you join us? Rebecca and I would like it.”

“Sure, thanks,” she said, trying not to sound like she was skeptical of the bizarre invitation.

“But you know Rebecca,” Landon said. “She likes things all traditional and balanced. RJ is bringing a date—”

“RJ is coming?” She couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “With Selina?”

“Yeah, he is. Shocked me by accepting the invitation, but I’m glad,” Landon said. “Dad and Josie are coming, too. Maybe you can bring a date so you don’t have to come alone.”

She turned to Ken in time to see his jaw tense and relax in a quick, silent reaction to the idea.

“It’s fine,” Beth said quickly. “Family dinners are so tedious, and talking business is—”

“I’ll go.”

She inched back, silenced.

“I’ll be there…” He swiped his stubble with a dirty hand, his gaze locked on Beth. “For you.”

The last two words folded her heart in half.

“Great,” Landon said. “Seven o’clock at Junonia.” He backed out of the bathroom. “I can see myself out.”

Beth finally looked at her stepbrother, recovering from the shock of what Ken had just agreed to do. “I’ll walk with you.” In the hall, Beth touched Landon’s arm. “Is there a real reason for this dinner?” she asked.

Landon managed to look a little put-upon. “We can’t have a family-bonding dinner?”