The Daughter He Wanted (22 page)

“Employ a yard boy, do you?”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him and executed her best Deep South accent. “As any Southern woman with breeding would.”

Alex’s laugh was deep and rumbly and did funny things to the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck. Her skin seemed to prickle and she couldn’t resist leaning across the table.

“Tell me about your favorite place to hike.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “At the far end of St. Francois Park there is an overlook. You can climb to the top and it’s almost like you could touch the sky. I know full-on mountain ranges are a lot taller, but the county spreads out below with some of the old quarry hills glinting in the sun, tall grasses blowing. In the summer you can see the corn and wheat fields in the distance. Maybe catch a cloud of dust from a tractor. It’s so quiet that if a chipmunk moves in the trees you can hear it, and even if you go there alone, you’re surrounded by life.”

“That sounds lovely.” Paige twirled her glass by the stem. She was surrounded by her students all day and had Kaylie at home in the evening hours. She thanked her lucky stars to have a friend like Alison in her corner. Still, there were times she felt totally and utterly alone. Like she might be the only single twenty-nine-year-old in St. Francois County. “That picture you sent me, of the barn, is it near there?”

He shook his head. “It’s at the corner of the property so I don’t get there as often as I’d like. We stay on the main trails for the most part because those are the most trafficked areas.” He leaned in to the table. “And what is it you do? When you aren’t teaching art to ruffians in the public school system, I mean.”

Paige chuckled. Her mother hadn’t called her students ruffians but the implication was clear in every conversation at every lunch and dinner: Paige was wasting her time teaching art. She should be creating it. Dot couldn’t see that teaching her students was creating, and that painting for her daughter or friends was enough for Paige. The way Alex said it made the words okay. Like it was their joke and that he understood teaching art was the better use of her time. He got it.

“My mother is pretty transparent, isn’t she? She means well, but she’s just never understood that her dreams for me aren’t my dreams for myself. I always thought she’d come around. So far she hasn’t.” Sometimes Paige wondered if her mother ever would come around. If her father would ever be even a shadow of the TV dads she’d wished for growing up. She was too old for wishes but as the first star twinkled through the city lights, she considered wishing one more time.

She changed her mind and wished instead for another night like this one. Talking with Alex. Flirting a little. Getting to know him. Changing her life, once more, in a way that would bring her what she wanted: a family.

“It kind of sucks when our parents don’t live up to our expectations, doesn’t it?”

More than sucked, even for a woman who was about to turn thirty. “This is a date, though. Let’s not get all maudlin over my poor-little-rich-girl childhood.”

Alex was quiet for a moment, like he wanted to say something else. There was an emotion on his face that she couldn’t decipher and then it was gone.

“What is your dream? Other than teaching art and being one hell of a single mom?”

“I do juggle those hats well, don’t I?” Paige finished the wine and Alex topped her glass off once more. “I want to paint a mural. At the school, I think. Something that takes up an entire wall, and I want the kids to help. Kind of put their own stamp on the school.”

“Not fair, that’s a work-related dream.”

She lifted a shoulder. “What can I say? My work is my passion.”

“Is any of your reluctance to send something to that art guy a reflex against your mother’s dreams?”

“Not fair, we’re not talking about my parents, remember?”

“I’m not asking why your mother is so desperate to see one of your paintings at the St. Louis Museum of Art. I’m asking why you aren’t.”

“I didn’t say I don’t want that.” She did. A little corner of her heart wished she were good enough, not for her mother’s sake. For her own. Because when she painted she got lost in the moment, in the act of creating. Seeing other people get lost in her work would be...amazing, she decided.

“You didn’t say you do.”

Paige fiddled with the linen napkin in her lap for a moment. She straightened her shoulders and looked into Alex’s eyes. “Because I’m not good enough. And I don’t want some favor to my mother to be the reason people wonder why an average painting of a daisy is in a gallery filled with Monets and Baroccis.”

“I’m no critic, but it didn’t seem average to me.”

She offered a smile, hoping that and the dim lighting would hide the pain she felt from her eyes. “And my paintings aren’t average to me, but I’m not foolish enough to think I’m on par with any of the masters. My mother, on the other hand, doesn’t care if I have the actual talent as long as she can lay some sort of claim to a piece of displayed art in a major museum. For a long time I played along with her game. Then I decided it was time to stop playing and go after what I really wanted.”

“And what is that?”

“A real life. With real friends. The kind of life that’s filled with memories as vivid as the clips they show on those sitcom flashback episodes. That’s my dream. You know, along with that mural at the school.”

Alex lifted his glass again. “To dreaming, then.”

Their dinners arrived and for a short while neither spoke as they enjoyed the meal. Finally Alex said, “Did you really compete for Miss Missouri in college?”

“Who—who told you that?”

“I had you investigated,” he joked.

“Alison told Tuck and Tuck told you.” Paige’s face burned. She was going to kill her friend. Friends didn’t have pillow talk about their friends with their boyfriends. But there was no going back and erasing that colossal mistake. “I did. And I played the water glasses as my talent.”

Alex choked on his drink. “You’re kidding, right?”

“It was that or paint something live and, well, that first day you saw what I’m like when I paint. I’d have killed my formal gown with splatters.”

“How do you play water glasses?”

Paige lined up the glasses on the table—two filled with wine and two filled with water, all at different levels—and pushed her finger around the rim. A low hum sounded from the fullest glass, and when she switched to the water glass with barely a sip left, the low hum changed to a higher octave.

Alex clapped softly. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Boring dinner party with Hank and Dot when I was nine. Mother grounded me for a week.”

“So you stopped?”

Paige shook her head. “I played them louder. Ended up being a four-week sentence.”

“I guess now I know where Kaylie gets her stubborn streak.”

“Yep, comes by it naturally,” Paige said proudly.

Alex signaled the waiter and paid the check but instead of getting into the truck, he took Paige’s hand and started toward the walk along the river. Fairy lights hung low from tree branches and spotlights on the Arch were bright in the night sky. Although the evening was warm, only a few other pedestrians walked with them. Alex led them up the stairs to the Arch, where they circled and then started back along the path to the restaurant. This time the silence didn’t bother Paige. She just enjoyed the sounds of the night and the nearness of Alex.

The last of the steamboats docked and Alex paused so they could watch the crew set the ropes and get the walkway ready for passengers. He pulled Paige to his side and they continued on to a quiet area filled with trees and a few park benches.

“I was thinking about Sunday and the weekly barbecue,” Paige said.

“I’m uninvited already?”

She poked him in the ribs as they walked. “I was thinking Tuck and Alison should have some alone time. My parents don’t know about all this yet, but they probably should. You know, they were distant and cold and they still want to run my life, but it isn’t fair to them. Not knowing about your relationship with Kaylie. So what if we make it an us-and-them thing, without the friend buffer?”

He took her hand in the darkness. “And what about my relationship with you?”

“That, too.” Her words were a whisper in the dark, beneath the tree branches with stars and fairy lights twinkling above them.

“I’d like that. If you’re sure?”

Paige nodded, glad he couldn’t see her face in the dark. Because she wasn’t ready, not really. There would never be a good time to tell her parents Kaylie had a father and the father was a park ranger. Alex and his job were great in Paige’s mind, but Hank and Dot were two completely different people. “Would you like to invite the Parkers? We might as well all start getting to know one another.”

The thought of meeting his former wife’s family made Paige’s stomach lurch, but it wasn’t like he didn’t have a past. This was one date, but she wanted another.

Alex was quiet for a long time before he spoke. “I don’t think that is a good idea,” he finally said and something painful stabbed at Paige’s heart. “I told them about Kaylie. It didn’t go well. I’m not sure they’re ready to actually meet her. Or you.”

He kept hold of her hand, but Paige sensed a distance between them, brought on by whatever was happening with his in-laws. She didn’t like that their pain or whatever it was was pushing against Alex. A hot ribbon of anger streaked through her when she thought of them not liking Kaylie solely based on the fact that Paige, and not their daughter, was her mother. That was quickly followed by icy coldness at the thought of Kaylie dying and some other woman trying to take her place in the far distant future. Paige swallowed.

“Then we should give them more time. I’ll call my parents, but we’ll wait for the full-on family introductions.”

Whether they were still dating in a few months or not, she would always be Kaylie’s mom. He would always be Kaylie’s dad. Whatever was starting between them seemed solid and she wanted to test the boundaries, but not at the risk of causing Alex more pain. If he wasn’t comfortable inviting the Parkers to lunch she would wait.

She was used to waiting.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“
D
O YOU HAVE
those pictures?” Sue’s voice was quiet over the phone. It was Thursday morning and Alex was hiking along Mooner’s Hollow again, taking advantage of another Indian summer day because surely there weren’t many left. Cold winds would begin pouring in, dropping the temperatures. There would be an ice storm, maybe two, and then a few light snowfalls before spring thawed the ground and he was able to get back out onto the trails. Maybe he could convince Paige to bring Kaylie out, before it got too cold.

Maybe they could come out, just the two of them, for a picnic.

He’d been daydreaming about Paige. Again. Thinking about kissing her under the trees last night. Thanking whatever lucky star shined down on him that she didn’t push when he said he didn’t want John and Sue to come to the barbecue. Keeping her separate from his past, or the past away from her, had seemed like a simple thing in theory. One little test of the decision, though, and he got antsy.

“Alex?” His mother-in-law’s voice brought him back to reality. “Do you have the pictures you mentioned the other day?”

Pictures, pictures. Attic. The remembrance book for John. That picture of Dee on the lake as the cover. In the attic were two boxes of scrapbooked pictures and several Dee never got around to putting into books.

“In the attic. Do you have any idea which pictures you’d like?”

“How could I know that when I haven’t seen them?” This time her voice held acid and crackled over the line. This was the Sue he remembered. The Sue who took no prisoners, had plans and didn’t take guff from anyone. Not that he was throwing guff; he thought she would have an idea which pictures she wanted. She’d helped with the books, after all.

Not that he would risk getting her more upset by pointing that out.

“I meant types,” he tried as cover. “Casual, portraits. I can go up in the attic tonight and pick some out.”

Sue sighed over the line, the sound long and mournful. “I hoped you wouldn’t mind if I came over. If that wouldn’t be too much bother.”

Alex tilted his head left and then right, as if that might relieve some of the tension pouring over him. Sue wanted to come over and it likely had nothing to do with the pictures. If he knew his mother-in-law this visit would be about walking down memory lane. Making sure he was still...what? In mourning? God, was him spending a single Saturday away from the Parker farm such a big deal? He wiped his hand over his brow and then pulled the black ball cap from his back pocket. Looked into the distance.

It was Thursday. He had no plans. There was no chance Paige would show up at his home unannounced. They weren’t at that point of their relationship. He could invite Sue and John over for a quick dinner, and while John watched
Thursday Night Football
Sue and Alex could look at a few pictures in the attic.

Only he didn’t want to do that, not really. Not tonight. Not when he was working so hard to make this work with Paige. It felt like a betrayal of sorts. He was thirty-two years old and he wanted a life again.

“I can see I’ve overstepped,” Sue said, her voice brittle. Angry. Maybe a little bit scared. “I thought you meant it when you said this new part of your life wouldn’t take you away from us.”

Damn it, now he’d upset her even more because the fear outweighed the anger as Sue spoke. It was the fear that got to him.
Separate boxes, remember?
Paige was in Bonne Terre. The Parkers just outside Farmington. He was the middle ground, in Park Hills. Simple enough to invite them over for dinner, and do the family thing. Then he would call Paige tomorrow and set something up with her.

He could balance it. Balance the past and the present. Neither had to disrupt the future he wanted to build.

* * *

P
AIGE SETTLED AGAINST
the sofa and read Alex’s text.

Should I bring anything?