Loving Mr. July (12 page)

He entered her cheery kitchen and sniffed
appreciatively. They evidently were eating Italian food tonight. Oh
happy day.

His mother had redone her kitchen a few years
ago, combining what used to be their old family room with the
awkward galley kitchen her 70’s ranch house had been built with.
How she’d managed to feed two always hungry teenage boys all those
years with the tiny space she’d had was beyond him. Now the room
was one big cheerful space sporting the white tile his mother loved
for its easy cleaning, a variety of work surfaces to accommodate
her love of baking as well as cooking, a big island with an extra
oven and dishwasher for the tons of entertaining she loved to do,
and bright splashes of her favorite color of cherry red.

A massive farm table near the French doors
was already set for dinner with colorful plates. Although his
mother had a formal dining room, they rarely used it. Everyone
preferred the casual, happy place that was the new kitchen.

His mother was singing along to the Elvis
Presley tune blaring out of the built-in speakers, while she
stirred something in a pot on the massive eight-burner stove. He
winced a little. Perhaps she was getting a bit deaf, seemed like
she had the sound up a little more each time he came by.

He snuck behind her, reached around to
envelope her in a bear hug, planting a noisy kiss on her cheek
while he did.

“Oh my gosh, Kurt.” Her hand fluttered up to
her throat. “You shouldn’t creep up on me like that. Some day I’m
likely to have a heart attack.”

“Maybe if you played the music a little
softer, you could actually hear someone banging around in the
house,” Kurt chided her gently. “I wasn’t exactly quiet coming
in.”

It was a little creepy, he had to admit to
himself that she had never failed to identify him when he did sneak
up on her like that. And as he’d seen Blake do the same thing, it
wasn’t as if that’s how she knew. Mothers. They seemed to always
have a six sense about everything.

Marjorie set the spoon aside, dialed down the
music, and turned around to give him a quick hug.

Even though she was a good foot shorter than
him now, her hugs always made him feel like he was a young boy
again. The familiar warmth, the quick grasp accompanied with a few
back pats.

He felt a rush of affection for her. “I love
you, Mom. We were and are the luckiest kids in the world to have
had you and Dad as parents.”

Marjorie looked up in surprise, making him
realize he hadn’t voiced the words often enough. Had he ever said
how much he appreciated her?

She patted him on the cheek. “And I love you,
Sweetie Pie. And I love you.” She bustled over to the refrigerator
and retrieved a couple of beers. “You’re early, and I’m about done
in here. Let’s go out to the deck and enjoy the outside for a
bit.”

Kurt accepted the beers she handed him,
twisted off both tops and carried them out to the large
glass-topped table on the deck overlooking the pool. His mother had
removed the diving board he, Blake and their friends used to do
cannonballs off of when she’d had the decking redone and the pool
resurfaced, but otherwise, it was the same kidney-shaped pool he’d
spent hours in as a kid.

He glanced over the huge expanse of backyard.
His parents had bought the property back when San Diego had been a
sleepy military town. Now the land was worth a fortune, because
they had bought into an area, Rancho Sante Fe, which had become
known for it’s moneyed estates. Many of the ranch homes of his
boyhood friends had been razed, with massive mansions taking their
place.

Even when his father’s financial successes
would have allowed them to do the same thing, his parents had kept
the low-slung ranch house relatively unchanged. It was only in
recent years that his mother had done some redecorating and
updating. While he knew she had used top quality materials, the
house retained the easy familiarity and comfort of his youth. There
was nothing ostentatious here. And he loved it.

Marjorie set a bowl of warmed tortilla chips
on the table, along with a bowl of her famous barn-burner salsa.
She sat down with a sigh and took a long drink of her beer,
straight from the bottle. He grinned. His mother was one of a kind.
She cooked in a sweater set and pearls, with a large old-fashioned
apron covering her ‘good’ clothes, but didn’t see the need to
‘fuss’ with a glass.

He dug a chip into the salsa, eating with
gusto. The photo shoot was over. Plus, he’d lost even more weight
on his trip to Asia, and almost looked gaunt now. He was probably
ten pounds underweight now—plenty of reason to enjoy his mother’s
fine cooking.

“So I understand you’re a pinup now.”
Marjorie glanced over at him, gave him a wink.

Kurt groaned. “Don’t remind me. And you can
blame Blake. He roped me into it.”

Marjorie laughed. “Oh he told me all about
it. Got red when he did too.”

Kurt smiled at that. His brother’s tendency
to blush when he got embarrassed was legendary. “Good. I hope you
made him squirm.”

Although he knew his mother loved both of her
sons equally, Blake had always taken more after his quiet father,
while he had his mother’s sense of fun and outgoing personality. It
made for a unique relationship.

“Oh, he picked his timing well.” Marjorie
brushed her windblown hair out of her eyes. “He waited until he
came here with Sharon and after they had told me about her
pregnancy to let me know you were going to be a big part of the
foundation fundraiser.”

“Clever.”

Marjorie nodded. “It was only after they left
that I remembered about the beefcake calendar.”

“Beefcake calendar! Geez, Mom.” Kurt looked
away, squirming a bit in his chair. He and his mom had a good
relationship, but this was a little awkward.

“I saw the pictures, by the way.”

Kurt groaned. “Okay, this is getting a little
weird.”

“Oh relax,” Marjorie said, her eyes
twinkling. “I spent most of the time looking at all the other
months. Some nice looking young men in there. Got me a little hot
and bothered, until I realized I was probably just having a hot
flash.”

Kurt covered his ears, muttering, “I don’t
want to hear this.”

Marjorie let out a chuckle. She reached over
to pull his hands from his head. “I’ll just say one thing. Whoever
it was you were looking at, or thinking about? I want to meet her.
I think she’s going to be my next daughter-in-law. I’ve never seen
you look like that at anyone.”

Kurt turned to look at his mother,
speechless.

She got up, leaned down, took his face in her
hands and planted a kiss on his cheek. She looked at him for a long
moment, then patted his face. “A mother knows these things.”

Kurt watched her walk back into the kitchen
to check on the food, his thoughts whirling. His mother was eerily
prescient at times. Always had been. But marriage? And to Cynthia?
He leaned back in the deck chair, stared up at the clouds moving
slowly overhead.

He hadn’t been able to get that kiss out of
his mind, no matter how he tried. And he had to admit to himself,
he just plain missed her. Their time together after her breakdown
in his house and before the studio shoot had been easy, fun. Yet he
still wasn’t certain how she felt about him, and the kiss had just
confused him more.

He suddenly realized the anger he had been
feeling stemmed from fear. For the first time, someone had gotten
under his skin. And wasn’t it ironic that the one time that
happened, it wasn’t someone who was obviously willing to be in a
relationship with him? Must be karma, he had to laugh at himself.
Well, Dad always did say you got to take risks to get rewards, he
reminded himself. It was time to take matters into his own
hands.

~ ~ ~

Cynthia rang the doorbell with some
trepidation. It was going to be hard to hide her feelings when all
of the people present now knew her pretty well. But she would get
through this, for Sharon’s sake if nothing else.

She smoothed her new jean skirt over her
hips, and adjusted the belt cinching the waist of her teal cotton
peasant blouse. She was wearing a belt! Who would have imagined
that, just a couple of months ago? At her height, she would never
be thin, but she knew she had never looked better.

The door swung open to reveal Kurt—a rather
surprised-looking Kurt. So he hadn’t been told she was going to be
there. Great.

“You going to let me in?” Cynthia asked, when
Kurt didn’t move or say a word.

“I uh…of course, I’m sorry,” Kurt finally
answered, swinging the door open wider. “I wasn’t expecting
you.”

“I can see that.” Cynthia walked over the
threshold, waiting while Kurt shut the door behind her. “And I
wouldn’t have come to your family affair, seeing as I’m not family,
but Sharon insisted.”

Kurt came closer, took the flowers she held
in her hands to lighten her load, and bent over to kiss her cheek.
“I’m glad. And you look amazing.”

Cynthia put her hand to her cheek where he’d
kissed it for a second before she realized what she was doing and
quickly brought it down. “Uh, yes, well, thank you.” Geez, why
could the guy scramble her brain circuits so fast?

He had a slight smile on his face, and a
gleam in his eye that she didn’t fully understand. So when he put a
hand on the small of her back to nudge her in the direction of
where the others already were seated, she just meekly moved in that
direction.

She tried to get a hold of her thoughts. Kurt
seemed happy to see her. But he hadn’t talked to her in three
weeks. What the heck was going on?

Marjorie bustled over the minute she saw
Cynthia, giving her a warm hug. “Cynthia, I’m so happy you’ve come,
dear. And aren’t those flowers lovely? Thank you!” She managed to
take the flowers from Kurt, wrap her arm around Cynthia’s shoulders
and propel her along toward the kitchen table.

What was it with these Rentons? Cynthia had
to laugh to herself. Didn’t they think she could get where she
needed to be on her own? She had to admit, Marjorie Renton made her
feel very welcome, but at the same time, she was essentially
herding her along to the kitchen as if she was a sheep. It was
almost as if they expected her to change her mind and leave. Not
that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. She wasn’t that
transparent, was she?

Sharon jumped up to give her a hug. “I’m so
glad you’re here. Blake and I have been wanting to celebrate with
our families ever since the news was confirmed. But we had to wait
for Kurt to come back from Asia.”

Kurt put up his hands. “Hey, wasn’t like I
wanted to spend three weeks over there. Blame your husband. He’s
the CEO.”

Cynthia turned to Kurt. “You’ve been in Asia
all this time?”

“Left the day we did the photo shoot.” Kurt
stared intently at her. “I thought I’d told you that?”

Cynthia just shook her head, her thoughts
spinning.

“Was a hell of a trip too,” Blake said, then
turned to his frowning mother. “Sorry. Heck of a trip?” He tried to
look contrite.

“Sorry Mom, but that is about the best way to
describe it.” Kurt grabbed his beer and took a swig. “Got food
poisoning the first night. One of the companies we visited wanted
us to experience some culture and took us through the night market.
I should have known better than to buy food off one of those carts.
Especially since it didn’t exactly have a long line of locals
waiting to buy.”

“That’s why you look so skinny.” Marjorie
shook her spoon at him.

“Well, that’s also partly Cynthia’s fault.”
Kurt turned to her, his eyes glinting. “She’d been working me hard
to get me ready for that photo shoot. Said she didn’t want me to
have a pot belly.”

“What?” Cynthia looked at Kurt in surprise.
“I did not—”

“And she put me on this hideous diet,” Kurt
continued as if she hadn’t said a word. “I’ve never eaten so much
dry chicken and fish and bland steamed vegetables in my life.”

Sharon’s eyebrows rose. “Cynthia cooked for
you? And it was bad? I don’t believe it. She’s a gourmet. I used to
beg her to invite me over for dinner.”

Cynthia squirmed in her seat, not wanting to
look directly at Sharon. Sharon knew about her plan to cook bad
food intentionally. Surely she hadn’t forgotten. She peered a
little closer. Sharon’s nose was twitching a little, a telltale
sign that she was pulling someone’s leg. Sharon was up to
something.

“Is that so?” Kurt turned to Cynthia, his
eyebrows raised.

Cynthia tried valiantly to keep a straight
face, but at Marjorie’s chuckle, she lost it. She started
giggling.

“You laugh now.” Kurt’s face took on an
aggrieved look. “My staff was starting to think I had mental
issues, I was so cranky all the time.”

“So that’s why you were such a butthead,”
Blake said, grinning.

“Blake, really.” Marjorie’s chastisement lost
a bit of its bite when she started laughing. She walked over and
put her hands on Kurt’s shoulders. “Poor dear. You must have done
something to make Cynthia upset. She’s a fabulous cook. And I mean
better than some of those big name chefs at those fancy places you
insist on taking me to. I should know. I’ve been the beneficiary of
some of her meals during the foundation planning sessions.”

“Who me?” Kurt put a hand to his chest and
gave them a wide-eyed look. “I was coerced into posing for a
calendar as if I was a piece of meat. And all I asked for was
Cynthia’s company for a few workouts.”

Cynthia snorted. “All you asked—”

“So I’m thinking Cynthia owes me one now,”
Kurt continued right over her protests. “And I’ve decided that
she’s going to accompany me to all the foundation events leading up
to the big night. She’ll be my date.”

“What?” Cynthia spluttered. “Don’t you think
I’ve—” She stopped when she received a hard kick under the table
from Sharon. She looked over at her in surprise. What the heck?