Summer Kisses (52 page)

Lucky was pretty sure she understood that. “Why don’t you go say hi to him?”

Slowly, Mandy turned her head to look at Lucky. “He doesn’t know I exist. And he only dates the plastics.”

“Plastics? Like plastic dolls?” Lucky had a mental image of him with a blowup doll. The things teenagers were into.

“No.” Mandy rolled her eyes. “Like the mean, popular girls who run the school.”

The ones who’d made fun of her.

“Oh, we had those too. Back in the Stone Age when I was in high school, we called them the blonde bitches or BBs for short.” Lucky looked around for “the plastics” but didn’t see anyone who fit the bill. “They don’t seem to be here now. Why don’t you go talk to him?”

Mandy’s eyes went huge. “Are you crazy? I can’t just walk over to him and start talking. He’d laugh in my face.”

“Then we’ll bring him to us.” Lucky leaned across the table and whispered. “Do I have your permission to do something semi-drastic that will definitely change your life for the better?”

Mandy looked a bit frightened. “Will it embarrass me?”

It was all Lucky could do to keep a straight face. “Maybe, but Marek will come over here and fall all over himself to meet you.”

“Um.” She looked at Marek, back to Lucky, and then back at Marek. “I don’t know.”

“Do you trust me?” Lucky hadn’t realized the weight of the question until after it had tumbled out of her mouth.

“Absolutely.” Mandy didn’t hesitate.

Mandy trusted her implicitly. The pinprick of love Lucky had felt as soon as she’d met Mandy grew. The weight of a mother’s love was absolute, violent, steady, unconditional, and eternal. She might not have given birth to Mandy, but she was her child, and the tie that bound them was stronger than blood. Adversity and circumstance might have forced them together, but they were now family by choice, which trumped blood every time.

“Oh God, I’m probably going to regret this, but … okay.” Mandy sat back and looked around as if the world were about to end.

Lucky scooted back from the table, walked to the tattooed and pierced woman working the Amy’s Ice Cream window, and slipped a twenty out of her back pocket. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, ma’am, but I didn’t want to say anything on account of you’re so nice, and I thought you might not want to be recognized.” Her nametag read “Janice.”

Lucky nodded. “Thank you, Janice. Very few people truly understand how important privacy is.” She stuffed the twenty into the tip jar, leaned in, and whispered, “I need a favor. My stepdaughter has a crush on a guy two stores down. She wants him to notice us but doesn’t want to walk over there. Think you could help me out?”

Janice winked. “I overheard. I take it he doesn’t know who she really is?”

“Nope, Ricky’s daughters have been kept out of the press, but that day is coming. Why not make it today and kill two birds with one stone?” Lucky wanted to shield the girls from danger, but Mandy was about to be featured on a reality TV show. Since fame was fleeting, she might as well get her fifteen minutes over with now.

Janice winked, and her brow piercing twitched. “I got this.”

Lucky returned her wink. “Thanks.”

She turned back to the table, popped her sunglasses on top of her head, and positioned herself so that her back was to South Congress. She gave a little nod to Janice and made a mental note to have Amy’s Ice Cream for the girls’ birthday party and to request Janice as the server.

Janice leaned out the window and yelled at full volume. “Oh my God! Is that Lucky Strickland and one of her stepdaughters?”

Lucky mouthed, “Perfect.”

The whole of South Congress stopped. Even the steady flow of traffic seemed to slow to a crawl.

Mandy’s eyes turned the size of dinner plates. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Why?” Lucky smiled. “I told you it would change your life.”

Mandy shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I thought we were an embarrassment to you. I didn’t think you liked having us around.”

It seemed they’d both been mistaken about a lot of things. Mandy hadn’t thought she was wanted, and Lucky hadn’t thought Mandy cared one way or the other. It was time one of them made a move.

Lucky reached across the table and took her hand. “You were wrong. I love having you and your sisters around more than anything else in the world.” It was true. These last few days had been the happiest of her life.

It was too soon to ask for anything permanent, but Lucky’s future was here, with Ricky’s daughters, making the life she should have had.

Mandy looked Lucky directly in the eye. “So you really like having us around?”

“I just announced that to the world.” Lucky sat on the edge of her chair. Now, it was time for Mandy to spill her feelings, and they could truly become a family.

Lucky waited … and waited … and waited.

“Cool.” Mandy nodded.

Lucky had forgotten the teenager’s gift for emotional multitasking with an economy of words.

She looked up at the group of boys headed their way. In fact, she turned her head left and then right. People were headed toward them from all sides. This was going to be a long afternoon.

“I kinda, you know, don’t mind living with you.” Mandy didn’t pull her hand away. “But I still get to be mad at you sometimes, and I don’t have to like you all the time.”

“Ditto, kiddo.” She cut her eyes to Marek. “He’s on his way.” Reluctantly, Lucky let go of Mandy’s hand and sat back leisurely. “People are going to ask for your autograph and talk to you like they know you. Just nod, smile, and sign. Trust me, it’s all you can do.”

“What should I say to him? I don’t know what to do.” Mandy was flustered.

Lucky squeezed her hand lightly and then let it go. “Act like you have no idea who he is and that you could care less.”

Mandy whispered. “But I don’t know how to do that whole flirting thing.”

“Just smile like you’re trying to remember where you’ve seen him before. If you start freaking too much, I’ll step in and take over. For now, lean back in your chair, pull your sunglasses down, pretend that you’re the most famous person in the world, and ignore the lesser humans who are about to fawn all over you … except elderly people and children. Always be kind to them. Being famous has a lot to do with attitude. Pretend you don’t care, and they will eat it up.” Lucky did exactly that.

Marek approached and stood at Mandy’s elbow. “Mandy, isn’t it? We have poetry together.”

She took a full thirty seconds before she peeled off her sunglasses and squinted up at him. “Are you sure? No, wait … you look familiar.”

Lucky pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. Mandy kept her cool, and Lucky could barely contain the pride. Raising a teenager wasn’t easy, but she was equal to the task.

“Is there anything left in Nordstroms?” Will loaded up his arms with shopping bags and several plastic hanging bags—those the city of Austin hadn’t been able to outlaw. He stood in the driveway balancing all of the paper shopping bags.

A muscle ticked in Lucky’s jaw. “I am so mad at you.”

Will looked behind him to make sure she was talking to him. It took a lot for Lucky to lose her temper, but when she did, it was well and gone.

“What were you thinking? Mandy had barely more than rags for clothes. I found her mending one of her mother’s old dresses for a school dance. And now that she has a date—”

“Date?” Will stopped and looked back at her. “With whom?”

Lucky propped her left fist on her hip. “A boy named Marek. It’s her first date, and we’re going to be nice to the little bastard, no matter what.”

Will’s eyes narrowed. “You have a plan.”

Lucky nodded. “Of course I do.”

Will slung an arm around her. “So … about things … you know, us?” He loved her and wanted to know how she felt but wasn’t sure how to bring up the subject, and it was way too soon. They’d had exactly one date and no sex.

“Don’t change the subject.” But she was doing just that.

She slammed the trunk on the car he now knew was named Stevie Nicks. “Worn-out clothes aren’t acceptable. I won’t have my girls doing without.” She clamped a hand over her mouth and leaned against the trunk. “I didn’t mean to say that. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She looked so lost and vulnerable.

He set the bags on the trunk and wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened and refused to accept the comfort he so badly wanted to give her. He wasn’t a quitter.

Gently, he rocked her back and forth. “He’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Here he was thinking of himself, when she was in pain.

It seemed that Will was still living in Ricky’s shadow.

“I know that…. Don’t you think I know that?” She relaxed into him. “I just…” She swallowed. “It was our house … our place. Everything in it reminds me of him. I want to hate him so much, but then I see those wonderful girls and think how much I’d love to have seen him with them.”

He combed his fingers through her hair. “I know.”

She wasn’t ready for the kind of relationship he wanted. He’d have to hold back… If his life had a theme, holding back would be it.

“He had a life without me … an entire life.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I wanted to feel mad, but all I feel is left out. A whole life without me.”

He kissed her forehead but let her continue.

“We built this house with nine bedrooms so that every one of our kids could have their own room and then some. We were going to fill this house with life and love, but it never happened. Years of trying, waiting, fertility drugs, and finally learning that it would never happen. Cancer was just the final blow in a marriage full of cheap shots.”

“I didn’t know about the fertility drugs.” He hugged her tighter. She had wanted children so badly.

If only he could take her hurt away, but it was impossible to fight demons that were long since dead.

“Remember the Christmas when I threw all of your mother’s Home Shopping Network figurines into the lake and threatened to toss her in too if she didn’t shut up? That was the fertility drugs … well, mostly.”

He nodded. “One of the more memorable Christmases. I hated those damn figurines. I never understood why she had to bring them with her to Texas from Arizona every year for Christmas.”

“Because they were her only friends. Remember, she had names for all of them and talked about how they always cheated at bridge?”

“I told myself it was the vodka talking, but if I’m being honest, I know it was because she was crazy.” He continued to rock her. “The worst one was that girl with the shepherd’s crook and the lazy eye.”

Lucky laughed. “It wasn’t a lazy eye; the eye fell out, and she glued it back in upside down.”

“That makes much more sense.”

“The house reminds me of all the things I did wrong … all the things I could have done better. All those years I rattled around in it, alone for the most part, waiting to bring life into it, and now it’s brimming with life, and I want to belong so badly.”

“You do.” Will dropped his arms and stepped back to look her in the eye. “The girls are hungry for attention, and you’re hungry to give it. Why not?”

“I don’t want them to feel awkward.” Lucky sounded hopeless. “And the clothes, I’m not trying to buy them off…. I’ve been there too … with tattered clothes, trying to fix the holes and hoping no one notices.”

He stroked her back…. So she’d been made fun of. He’d thought as much, but she never talked about it. More than anything, he wanted to make it right … go back in time and maim anyone who’d laughed at her.

“Rosie wasn’t the best mother.” Will took a deep breath. “The girls need you. I need you. It’s okay if you need us a little bit too.”

She made them a family. Before she’d come, they’d been four people sharing a house. She was the one who brought them together; she was the one who made everyday life special. She was the glue that held them together.

Lucky stepped out of his embrace, her face screwed up, ready to argue, and she opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Recognition dawned. “I do need you and them. It hurts to think that one day, y’all might not want or need me around.” She stared down at her hands. “If you get tired of me, please have the decency to tell me. I need honesty in all things.”

The vulnerability in her eyes made him want to get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness on behalf of everyone who’d ever hurt her. “I would lay down my life before hurting you again. I’m not Ricky. I have nothing to hide. You can ask me anything.”

“Was he … um”—she cleared her throat again—“a good father?”

It was always about Ricky. The man had died well over a year ago, but he was still here.

“He loved them and enjoyed playing with them, but he sucked at discipline, didn’t want to hurt their feelings—they ran all over him.” Will had loved his brother, but it was past time for him to stay dead.

She smiled. “He never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings but always ended up doing just that.”

“Yes, ma’am, that was my dear brother.” He tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but it didn’t work. He hadn’t wanted to hurt his wife’s feelings, so he’d kept having babies with his mistress. What a great guy.

Will was doing his best to start something new, but Lucky couldn’t forget the old.

“Did … I mean, was he at their births?”

“Do you really want to know? It doesn’t matter now.” He wanted to talk about the future, not live in the past.

“It matters to me.” She nodded. “I want to know.”

“Remember those spa weeks he used to send you and Betts and Charlie on?” Will had promised her honesty, but he hated to hurt her.

“Wait. He sent me several times a year.” She looked around. “Are there more children?”

“If there are, I don’t know about them.” His dear brother had packed his wife away so he could have the run of the house. And yet he’d gotten the girl and apparently still had her.

“Between being on the road and sending me on the road … that’s how he did it.” She glanced at the house. “Did he ever have women here?”

Will had promised her the truth—no matter how ugly. “Yes.”

Lucky took another deep breath. “Lots?”