Mother. Oh, damn.
That
was a whole other can of nightcrawlers.
Get a grip, Kay. You can get married without involving her. You’re a big girl now.
If she went through with this, maybe Nate and she could do just something tiny and private. Personal. It wasn’t like she needed permission. There was always Vegas.
Vegas? She was actually thinking of doing this?
Are you nuts? And aren’t you the one who was never going to marry? As in never, ever, no matter what?
And you definitely can’t marry someone if you can’t even figure out if you should say yes or not.
“Coffee’s ready, babe. Up and at ’em.”
An hour later, they joined the group for a leisurely breakfast. Nate was relaxed and attentive, fixing her plate, fetching her refills on coffee.
“Your razor still lost, Nate?” Dave ribbed as he leaned back and scrubbed a hand over his own dark-bristled jaw. Friendly teasing sparked in his eyes. “Curls are sure cute, though.” He snorted and took a deep swallow of coffee.
Nate just grinned. “Remember that one college band you were in for a couple months? Glam rock, wasn’t it? I’ve still got the photo. Guyliner and all.”
“Shit! No way.” Dave sat straight.
“Yep, and I’m not afraid to post it.”
“Do and you are so dead, pal. I was only covering for Marshall after he cracked up his car.”
“Boys, boys, play nice.” JoAnn leaned over and patted Nate’s cheek. “Don’t you listen to Mr. Trouble over there. He’s just jealous. The beard’s sexy on you.” She winked at Kay.
The other guys piled in on the teasing. Groans, laughter, and loud conversation swirled on around Kay and the breakfast table.
Kay was relieved Nate hadn’t announced their “engagement” last night or this morning, and perversely, she wondered why not.
You could just ask him, you know
.
Not that she’d said anything either, except a desperate semi-denial that JoAnn didn’t believe.
She needed to straighten things out, before the whole mess snowballed any worse. Being honest last night, she’d hurt him.
So talk to him
.
But…she didn’t know how to talk to him or fix this without hurting him more.
Honestly, too much turmoil churned in Kay to be sure what she thought, or should do, other than their friendship meant too much to screw it up further than she had already. She wanted to bang her head on the table and shake some sense back into herself.
Finished eating, the men all stood and set to cleaning their plates.
Not done, but no longer hungry, Kay pushed back her chair.
Lloyd waved her off. “Sit, Kay, men’ll do breakfast KP. Ladies can do lunch. Cool?”
Nate kissed her blithely and gathered her plate and flatware.
The plan for that morning was easy: swim, fish, read, sleep in the sun or, as Nate, Lloyd and Dave were doing, poke around boat engines and talk the incomprehensible mechanic’s language of big boys with their toys. Kay buried her nose in a paperback from Nate’s bag.
R.J. and Olivia got into a bitter argument that just would not end, all tight low snapping voices and indistinct words that tied a knot into Kay’s stomach. They didn’t seem to care they had an audience.
Old sound bites of her childhood filled in the place of their words:
You’re always going off fishing. I didn’t want to come here. Should have just left you home. Yes, you should have. I don’t need all this bitching. Maybe if you paid attention to me I wouldn’t need to bitch. Maybe if you stopped hassling me, I’d want to.
Kay glanced longingly in the direction of her camp where peace and quiet and painting beckoned, but she hadn’t hung out with JoAnn in a year, and e-mails and telephone calls just weren’t the same as sitting back and chatting.
After an hour of the background bickering, R.J. stomped off with one last burst of angry words.
JoAnn sighed and shook her head. For a moment, she looked like she was going to comment on the spat, but then she just excused herself with a rueful smile. “The munchkin is bouncing on my bladder. Be right back.”
Kay returned her attention to Olivia smoking irritably at the far end of camp, staring out across the lake and ignoring her husband. He was readying to head out for fishing, which involved a good amount of stomping about, slamming lids, and general tantrum cursing. The moment R.J. took off, Olivia crushed out her cigarette and came down, filled her coffee cup and sat in the empty seat by Kay.
“Hi.” Olivia took a tense swallow of coffee. A shy anxiousness filled her brown eyes in contrast to her cool and polished exterior.
“Hi.” Kay sipped her own coffee and smiled. Why did this totally feel like the first day at a new school?
After a long, awkward pause, Olivia smiled painfully. “So. How long have you been coming here, to this lake?”
“All my life, really. Since I was four.”
“I’m an East-Coast girl. This is like another world out here. How do you stand the heat?”
“I’ve always wondered how you folks deal with the humidity.”
Olivia flashed a wry grin. “We lie and say we love it.”
Kay couldn’t help laughing.
Olivia joined in, some of the nerves easing from her face. She leaned forward. “That’s a gorgeous ring you’re wearing. Very unique. May I look at it?”
Kay flushed, feeling all high school. She didn’t want to get married, but didn’t want to take off his ring. The sun finally had baked her brains into mush. That must be the reason. She slid his ring off and held it out to Olivia. Her eyes burned, and she blinked. Damn him for picking something so perfect. For being so irresistible when he was around. He was pure chocolate to her system, and she could never say no to chocolate.
So say yes.
Kay waited through the awkward quiet while Olivia looked over the ring. Olivia wore two gorgeous rings herself, diamonds in platinum, impressive flash. Mother would approve.
“Sweet. This is a beautiful piece of art.” As Olivia peeked inside the band, amusement brightened her face. “Very sweet.”
She held out the ring to Kay.
Before Kay could reclaim the ring, JoAnn joined them and plucked it from Olivia’s fingers. “I wanted to ooh and aah over this last night and never had the chance.” JoAnn sat beside Kay and examined the piece. She grinned at the inside of the band. “Hah, I thought so. That’s so Nate.”
Oh, no. Kay squirmed in her seat. What was so amusing there? He’d had something engraved? She hadn’t taken the ring off since he’d put it on her.
Patti and Margie plunked into the chairs opposite, and JoAnn handed the ring off to Margie. “Have you ever seen anything so pretty?”
“Oh, Kay, this is lovely!”
After Margie, Patti took her turn, and then returned the ring to Kay. “He done good.” She smiled and winked. “It’s perfect.”
Kay peeked. Just Nathan, a heart with an arrow through it, and Kay. Not so bad. Cute, but not mushy, and on her middle finger the ring could mean anything, right?
She closed her hand around the ring. It was off. As it should be without her yes.
The bite of pain in her palm snapped her back into the moment.
And with the weight of four women’s eyes and smiles nailing her with her own guilt, she had no option but to slide Nate’s ring back onto her finger.
****
Lloyd’s iPod shuffled, and a Simply Red song Nate hadn’t heard in a while poured from the little speakers. “Fairground.” Great song. Lloyd was humming along.
Nate glanced over to where Kay and the other women were sitting and chatting up a storm. Olivia was a beautiful woman, the camera would love her, and, JoAnn with her incredible glow, hell, yeah, he would definitely photograph her before the end of this vacation.
But Kay…everything about Kay made his heart and libido stand up and cheer.
Coming home
…
Nate sat back and wiped his hands on a rag. That was it. Every summer, when he was flying back to the States to see her, he felt like he was flying home. When he was with Kay, he was home.
Lloyd grinned and closed the engine cover. “She’ll purr like a kitten now.”
Nate laughed. With those engines, more like a full-grown lioness. He glanced over at his Morning Whisper. Give him the peace of the wind and sails snapping.
Okay, time to pump Lloyd on Kay’s past. Nate tossed the rag into the toolbox.
Lloyd, so, what’s the deal with Kay?
No. Better ease into it. “So how’s it feel being a dad-to-be?”
Lloyd grinned from ear to ear. “Scared spitless and happier than I’ve been in my entire life. You ready to be a godfather?”
Lloyd’s question stunned Nate. Was he?
And the answer was absolutely. “I’d be honored. Completely. I’m real happy for you two.” His brain took a
whoa
moment remembering Lloyd, the kid he’d known since first grade, and Lloyd now about to be a dad. Whoa indeed.
“We’d kinda resigned ourselves to it not happening. ’Cause of…you know.” He shrugged. “Then Curly Mackin had good luck adopting. I think I told you about that?”
“Yeah. Curly sent me pictures. Cute little girl.”
“Sooo, we started looking into that. On the quiet, not wanting to get hopes up, you know? Then bam, before we hardly finished filling out the first forms, we’re expecting the munchkin, nine years to the day Jo walked into my office looking like a drowned kitten and demanded I hire her. Best damn decision I made in my life.” He laughed, with a dark fire in his pale blue eyes he’d never had pre-JoAnn. “Coulda done without the stalked and nearly getting killed part, but since she never has to worry about that fucker Reeves ever again, it’s all good.”
Not much Nate could say in reply except a silent, heartfelt,
Thank you, God.
“Lloyd, you’ve known Kay for a while now, right?”
“Ever since I met JoAnn. So, yeah, nine years, you know that. What’s up?” Lloyd nailed him with a raised brow and dead serious don’t-say-anything-stupid look.
“I was wondering. She doesn’t talk much about her family.”
Lloyd studied Nate and shrugged. “Never met them. Her mom is in New York or South Carolina or something. Moves a lot. Her dad’s in Chicago. Her sister lives with her ass-wipe husband in Virginia.”
“They don’t get along?”
Lloyd took a long breath and glanced over at JoAnn. He exhaled slowly. “Well, I’ll put it this way: Kay’s happier in Tucson.”
So not good. At all. “Anything I should know?” His skin prickled with worry. Needing to know didn’t mean he wanted to know.
Lloyd nailed him with a long weighing look that made Nate feel about six and busted by his dad. “Have you asked Kay?”
“You know she keeps things close. I thought you might know a thing or two through JoAnn. Give me a heads-up in case I need one.”
“You’ve known her six years, pal. Why don’t you just ask her?”
Nate choked back his frustrated laugh. Because he’d known her for six years and had conveniently ignored anything could ever be wrong. “I just don’t want to put my foot in it.”
“Well, you will, ’cause we’re guys. We automatically put our foot in it. If you’ve already inserted foot, well, you have my sympathies. Apologies and flowers help. Some, anyway. Groveling’s also a useful skill.”
Nate chuckled and glanced over to Kay, just in time to see her smile at something Olivia said. Oh, Lord, please, he wanted to see that beautiful smile every day for the rest of his life. If it took groveling, well, he was ready to hit the sand with both knees. She made him nuts, but damn, he’d found his home.
“Hey, lover boy.” Lloyd’s mocking voice broke through his reverie.
He dragged his attention back to Lloyd.
Lloyd shook his head, grinning broadly. “Got it bad, huh?”
He considered tossing Lloyd’s ass over the rail. Might as well be honest. “Oh, yeah.”
“Then why are you sitting here yacking with me?” Lloyd lobbed his rag at Nate. “Go talk to Kay.”
“I could use some coffee.” Nate tossed the rag to join the other in the toolbox and hopped over the side into the cool, shallow water. Time to grow a pair. If Lloyd could face down a psycho, he should be able to manage a simple relationship discussion with the woman he loved.
He felt every eye pinning him as he waded out of the lake toward the women. Kay smiled.
God, please, yes, let me work this out
. “Hey, how’s things? Still coffee left? Or should I make more?”
“Half a pot, I think,” Olivia answered.
JoAnn fixed him with a challenging stare and smile. “So, Kay and Nate, have you set a date?” She spoke loudly enough that several male heads snapped around with shocked eyes. “And by the way, I totally approve of the ring.”
Oh, crap.
No one looked more shocked than Kay.
Oh, crap. Oh, crap. His heart slammed into a double-time march. He didn’t need coffee anymore.
“Set a date? You’re getting married? Congratulations!” Olivia said.