So it isn’t just me,
Gia thought when she saw other people drawn to his easy manner, wit and charm.
And yet she was still jealous that other people got to be out there talking to him while she was in the kitchen....
* * *
Not only did Derek come to Gia’s barbecue and man the grill, he also stayed after everyone had left to help her clean up.
“You really don’t have to do this. You’ve done enough today and tonight,” she assured him, even though she was only too happy for his company and the help—in that order.
“Come on, I’ll rinse, you load the dishwasher,” he answered as they finished with the backyard and headed into the kitchen that was still a mess.
“Yard work, fixing lawnmowers, painting, barbecuing, cleaning up—so much for being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, huh?” she said as he went to the sink and began to rinse the dirty dishes, handing them to her.
“I told you, my grandmother was a farm girl and we had chores. One of the other things she stuck to was that every weeknight GiGi and all ten of us kids had to meet in the kitchen to fix dinner, then eat together, then clean up. We also changed our own sheets once a week, and made our own beds before we left for school every morning. The laundry was done for us and folded, but it was set on the end of our beds for us to put away—and I mean put away, not just toss on the floor. Or else! And as soon as we were of working age and wanted more money than our allowances provided, we got jobs—summer or weekend or after school—as long as we kept our grades up. That’s how I learned to be a grill man.”
“So you weren’t handed a Ferrari for your sixteenth birthday?” Gia said, thinking that Derek had been raised very differently from Elliot, and that while her ex hadn’t received a Ferrari when he turned sixteen, he had been gifted with a sports car.
“A Ferrari when I was sixteen? How cool would that have been!” Derek said with a laugh. “Except with a car like that I probably would have been in jail or dead by the time I was sixteen and three days.”
“You were not a good boy?” Gia asked as she accepted a platter from him.
“We all had our little scrapes,” he answered ambiguously. “But I did run with what my grandmother considered a
fast crowd,
and that got me into some trouble—usually the girls did anyway.”
“Uh-oh...” Gia said.
“Did I make it sound ominous? Because I’m not talking teenage pregnancy or anything. Just...you know...kid stuff....”
He didn’t seem to want to get into the details. But not only was Gia curious, she was also eager to shut down the growing attraction she was feeling toward him, and finding out he was like Elliot growing up might help.
So she said, “You had a gang of your friends pin down a girl you didn’t like in the second grade so you could beat her up? You spray-painted nasty graffiti on someone’s house and framed someone else for it and thought it was great that you got away with it while the other kid got sent to juvenile detention? You tortured some poor scrawny kid in school until the kid had a breakdown and you thought the breakdown was funny?” All things Elliot had done as a boy...which she’d learned after she’d married him.
Derek stopped midrinse to stare at her with a shocked expression. “Geez, no! I’m talking smashing pumpkins in the street on Halloween, or driving too fast, or punching a friend’s time card for him when he really left an hour early because
his
girlfriend had just told him she was pregnant. Or a couple of other things I got caught up in that I’m not proud of, but nothing like what you’re talking about. Who did all those things? You?”
Did he seem the tiniest bit intrigued by the possibility that she had?
“Me? No. I was never in any trouble.”
His expression seemed to say that was what he thought and he went back to rinsing dishes. “If I’d have done even one of those things you were talking about, my grandmother would have called me a hoodlum and she’d have lowered the boom! We didn’t have the kind of perks you think we had because we were Camdens, but we did have it impressed upon us over and over that because we were Camdens we had to set a good example. That we had to step up to the plate if there was a plate that needed stepping up to. That because we are who we are, we had to be even more above reproach than other kids. ‘Eyes are always on you as a Camden,’ GiGi would say.”
“And she wanted you to live down the bad reputation your family name already had...” Gia said, before it occurred to her that maybe she shouldn’t have.
But he didn’t take offense.
“There was some of that. Like I told you before, GiGi thought the negative things said about us were lies, but just the fact that there were negative things said meant she wanted us to prove they were wrong. None of us would have dared to do anything like what you were talking about. Not to mention that they’re really rotten and I don’t think that kind of thing was in any of our natures. I don’t know who you knew to even hear about stuff like that...”
Elliot Grant. Married him, didn’t really know him until it was too late....
But Gia didn’t say that. Instead she said, “But you
were
a hell-raiser—with the smashing pumpkins?”
“I suppose smashing Halloween pumpkins is raising hell, but it’s pretty normal ornery-boy hell-raising. I went to school, made good grades—”
“And got caught up in a couple of things you aren’t proud of, mostly with girls...”
He laughed. “I don’t believe I said those two things together. But yes, as a matter of fact, the things I mostly got in trouble for were with girls.”
And those things were...?
Gia didn’t have the courage to ask that out loud, but she waited silently, hoping he would go on.
But he didn’t. Instead, he handed her the last of the dishes, looked around and said, “If you tell me what you use to wash off the counters, I’ll do that before I take off.”
So she wasn’t going to get to hear the dirt from his growing up years, and he was going to leave, too.
There was nothing good in any of that.
Still, she felt obliged to say, “You’ve done enough. I’m sure you want to get home. I’ll take care of the countertops.”
Confirming he was worn out, he rolled his broad shoulders, arching his spine until she heard it crack, and she got to see the outline of his pectorals behind the yellow T-shirt.
Gia felt her jaw drop a fraction of an inch before she closed her mouth and swallowed. But her eyes remained glued to him as he relaxed into his normal stance and said, “Yeah, I’m starting to feel today a little.”
Gia just wanted to feel him....
Those shoulders, those biceps, that chest...
She actually had to ball up her fists for a moment to fight the urge to reach across the open dishwasher door and touch him.
Then she forced her eyes away and closed the dishwasher, telling herself that she was tired and that it was bringing out weirdly primitive, primal man-woman stuff. It didn’t mean anything except that he was quite a specimen of masculinity and she was woman enough not to be immune to it.
“So the yard sale next week...” Her voice wasn’t as steady as it should have been, so she cleared her throat. “We can use all the donations we can get.”
“Yeah, everybody in the family is gathering things to send. But after seeing this place and the Bronsons’, I’m thinking that it would probably be better if I get the stuff over here Saturday morning right before your yard sale starts, because I don’t know where you would store it all.”
He was right—space was at a minimum.
“What we’ve collected so far is at the church,” Gia said. “The pastor is going to bring it over on Friday night so I can price it all. So far the weather is supposed to be good, and I’m counting on that because I figure I’ll keep everything under our paint tarps in the backyard until Saturday morning, then bring it out front.”
“Aah, that’s why you wanted to keep the paint tarps. Do you want me to bring everything over on Friday night, too?”
She did. But only so she could see him again a day sooner than she might otherwise.
Which was another urge she was determined to resist, so she said, “No, Saturday morning is fine....” Plus, if they happened to send anything more valuable than the bric-a-brac she had already accumulated, she didn’t want to worry about it being outside overnight. “I can price your things then.”
“I can help with that, and then I’ll stick around to help run the sale with you.”
“Okay...that would be nice....”
Better than nice—it suddenly made the yard sale something she was looking forward to for reasons other than the money it would raise for the Bronsons.
“But you don’t have to,” she added. “It doesn’t take the kind of manpower the yard work and the fixes today took. I figured I could just do it myself rather than ask anybody to give up another Saturday.”
“You and the minister?”
The church pastor had mentioned that he could help out. “Actually, I told him no, that just bringing the stuff over Friday night was all I needed. I didn’t really want it to be just the two of us all day next Saturday—he’s being kind of persistent with that going-out-with-him thing....”
And there wasn’t a single thought that went through her mind in regards to the minister that even resembled what had just gone through her mind over Derek. So even if she had been willing to start dating again, it wouldn’t be Pastor Brian.
Not that it would be Derek Camden, either. But still, she wished the minister would stop asking.
Derek smiled a small, knowing smile. “You sound surprised that he’s so determined....”
“I just don’t know why he won’t give up.”
“Really? You don’t know why?”
“No. He must have a quota to fill for new recruits.”
Derek laughed outright and furrowed his brow at her at the same time. “How long were you married?”
“Seven years.”
He nodded as if that explained something. “And losing sight of your own appeal is the result of being married for seven years to a guy who didn’t want to kiss you anymore....”
“I was speaking in generalities when I said that—I wasn’t talking about myself,” she claimed.
But it wasn’t true, and she could tell by Derek’s expression that he knew it.
He had the good grace not to push it, though.
He jammed his hands into his jean pockets and nodded his oh-so-handsome head in the direction of the front of her house. “I should take off—you’ve got to be beat, too.”
“I’ll walk out with you. I just realized I didn’t have time to bring in the mail today.”
They headed out through the archway that connected the kitchen to the living room and went to the front door.
Gia opened it and Derek held the screen door for her to go out onto the big porch with him.
“Where did you have to park?” she asked.
“A couple of doors down,” he said without taking his blue eyes off her. “But don’t worry about walking me out—I think I’ll be safe,” he joked.
“Thanks for today...and tonight,” she said then. “And for bringing in the plumbers and electricians.... You were right to think of that, since there
were
frays in the wiring. And I didn’t know the toilet wasn’t flushing well—the Bronsons were thrilled when I told them that had been fixed.”
The elderly couple had arrived home in the middle of Gia’s barbecue and she’d gone over to greet them and show them all that had been done. She’d also invited them to the barbecue, but they’d been tired after their day out and had just sent their thanks for her to convey to everyone. Even to Derek for the extra help of the professionals he’d hired.
“Both crews said things were in pretty good repair otherwise, though.”
Gia nodded and once more had the fleeting thought that Derek might have something other than help up his sleeve, something that could ultimately benefit the Camdens.
But it
was
only a fleeting thought, because his gaze was still fixed on her and she wasn’t sure why. She couldn’t tell anything by the
way
he was looking at her, he just was. Closely. Intently. Smiling slightly.
Then his hands came to her upper arms as he leaned toward her and kissed her cheek—exactly the way a friend would.
But unlike with her friends, afterward he didn’t instantly let go of her arms. Instead he went back to looking at her, looking into her eyes this time. A long, lingering look...
Go ahead...kiss me again....
she heard herself say in her mind. And her chin tipped upward, too, because it wasn’t another kiss on the cheek that she wanted.
But then Derek just squeezed her arms a little and let her go, taking the wind completely out of her sails.
“I’ll be in touch,” he promised as he crossed her porch and went down the four steps to the sidewalk that led out to the curb.
And then he was gone before Gia realized she hadn’t said anything at all to bid him good-night.
She was just too busy responding to so many other things.
Like the feel of his big, strong hands on her arms, his fingers pressing into them, kneading them.
And that kiss...
Not the silly one on her cheek, but that other kiss that she’d so desperately wanted on her mouth that the yearning was still there.
In spite of everything...
Chapter Six
S
unday, Monday and Tuesday provided Gia with more than ample time to think about Derek, sternly reprimand herself for thinking about Derek and command herself to stop thinking about Derek. And she certainly needed to stop counting off the days that were taking her closer and closer to seeing him again.
Yet when she got a call from him on Wednesday, everything went out the window the very second she heard his voice on the other end of the line. Her pulse picked up speed and she was so happy she was nearly giddy.
And disgusted with herself for it.
Which had nothing to do with what Derek was saying, and so she also told herself to pay attention!
She realized he was telling her that he had a surprise for the Bronsons and he needed her help paving the way for them to accept it from him.
He wouldn’t tell her exactly what the surprise was, he just asked her if she could meet him at her house right after work.
Gia was disgusted with herself for telling him she would be home an hour later than she really would be in order to buy herself time to change clothes and fix her hair and makeup. But that was what she did.
Then she left work half an hour earlier than she should have in order to shower, too.
She scolded herself through the entire rush of preparations but was pleased with the end result: her hair was curly and clean; she’d applied fresh blush, mascara and lip gloss; and she was wearing her tightest jeans and a navy blue scoop-neck T-shirt over a tank top that she almost never put on because the straps were too long, exposing a hint more cleavage than she ordinarily wanted to show.
Ordinarily, but not today...
When Derek arrived, followed by a large Camden’s delivery truck, her curiosity made her forget about herself and her own demons, however, and she went outside to stand on her porch.
The delivery truck parked in front of Larry and Marion’s house, and Derek parked his sleek black sports car in front of her place.
She silently reprimanded herself yet again for not being able to take her eyes off him as he got out of the car. But she couldn’t help devouring the sight of him. He obviously hadn’t had the time to go home and change clothes because he was wearing an amazingly well-tailored tan suit over an off-white dress shirt with a brown tie. And his jaw bore a hint of scruff that was unbelievably sexy and actually made her glad he hadn’t spruced up.
Plus, when he came out of his car to stand in the lee of the open door, she got to watch him loosen the tie and slide it out from behind his collar, then open the collar button with big hands.
Next went the suit coat, which he folded in half before leaning back inside the car to drape it over the passenger seat. Then he straightened up again, unbuttoning his cuff buttons and rolling his sleeves to his elbows.
And the whole scene looked so hot to Gia that she thought he might as well have been on a stage with music playing in the background and women holding their breath waiting for him to take off more....
Well, maybe not
women,
just her....
“Hi.” He greeted her with enough enthusiasm in his voice to make her wonder if he was as thrilled to see her as she was to see him.
Not that she was allowing herself to admit to being thrilled to see him....
“Hi,” she answered, with some question to her tone as she nodded in the direction of the delivery truck. “
That’s
the surprise?”
“What’s inside is. Come on down and see,” he urged, inclining his head toward the truck.
Gia went down the steps from her front porch and met him at the curb where he was waiting for her. By the time they reached the back of the delivery truck, the driver and another man had opened the rear hatch.
“I saw how old everything the Bronsons own is and I want to update them some,” Derek explained. “There’s a new TV—”
An enormous state-of-the-art flat screen.
“—a new couch, two recliners to replace the ones with the holes in them, and that—” he pointed to the contents on the right side of the truck “—that’s an adjustable bed with a memory-foam mattress. I’m impressed with the way you have their bed rigged, but it just seemed like this might be another solution....”
A better, far more refined one. But Gia appreciated his diplomacy in not saying that.
“Will they take it all? Coming from me?” Derek asked then.
There was no doubt that the Bronsons were desperately in need of what he was offering. The stuffing was coming out of all of their furniture. Their very dated television—the only entertainment they had—was small and the picture was getting dimmer and dimmer, telling Gia that it was going to go out any minute. And the new bed was bound to make sleeping more comfortable and restful for them.
But while Larry and Marion had thawed slightly toward Derek by the time the yard work and home improvements were finished, they’d made it clear since then that their bad feelings toward the Camdens had not dissolved.
“I don’t know,” Gia answered honestly.
“Will they take it if we say you used some of the money you’ve raised to buy it all for them at cost?”
Gia couldn’t take credit for something she hadn’t done. Plus, she’d kept the Bronsons up-to-date on what she’d collected and how she was trying to stretch the money to meet expenses. They would know that she couldn’t spend it on this.
“I can’t say that, but let me talk to them. Will you wait out here?”
“As long as it takes,” he said.
Gia turned and took a deep breath as she went up the Bronsons’ sidewalk to their house.
The elderly couple was standing at their picture window surveying what was going on outside, and when she spotted them she smiled and waved. All the while, she was trying to decide the best tack to take on this. She couldn’t use the Camdens-helping-her-help-them angle, so she decided as she went in to argue that the Camdens owed them all this.
“What’s going on out there?” Larry asked when she went inside.
Gia explained the situation and then listened to their instant objections before she began her attempt to persuade them.
It took a lot, but she finally got them to agree to accept the gifts. They sat on the porch while she went in to take the bedding off their bed while Derek and his men removed the old TV and furniture and replaced them with the new.
The Bronsons’ eyes were wide as they watched the men set up the TV and the top-of-the-line furniture, and got even wider as they looked over the pamphlet that told them all the functions of their new bed.
By the time the delivery men left, Larry and Marion were like two awestruck children on Christmas morning—so much so that they even relaxed their attitude toward Derek and thanked him—though not profusely.
But then they took it a step further and insisted that Derek and Gia stay for supper.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that,” Derek said, the invitation clearly taking him by surprise. “Why not let me take us all out?” he suggested, with an imploring glance at Gia that asked for her support.
She could tell just by looking at him that he was concerned about taking food from people who had so little to share. But she also knew the Bronsons, and that if they realized what he was thinking, it would embarrass them. So she said, “You’d be sorry to miss Marion’s soup and salad and homemade bread....”
“All the vegetables are from Gia’s garden,” Marion added, bragging about Gia. “Every bit of the salad and all but the little bit of meat I use in the broth for the soup came straight from her backyard.”
“And Marion makes the noodles,” Larry chimed in. “No restaurant soup can compare to that!”
“It does sound delicious...” Derek said, still looking uncertain. “If you’re sure...”
“Sure, sure,” Larry said.
“We just eat in the kitchen. Nothing fancy,” Marion said, leading the way into that part of the house.
The meal was less awkward than Gia had feared. Derek heaped praise on Marion’s cooking, which not only delighted the white-haired woman but opened the door to Larry doing some bragging of his own about the other dishes his wife made.
Derek was good about keeping the conversation light and airy, steering clear of anything that might go back too far in history and remind the Bronsons of the past ugliness between them and his family. He didn’t try too hard. He just chatted and drew them out and allowed them to get comfortable with having a Camden in their kitchen with them.
“Gia, take some of the soup and a slice of bread for your lunch tomorrow,” Marion decreed when they were finished eating.
“I would, but we’re going out for lunch tomorrow—three of my coworkers have birthdays this week. So you guys keep it and have it for your lunch. And we’re going to the Tuscan Grill—I know you like their salmon, so don’t cook tomorrow night, Marion, and I’ll bring you takeout from there.”
“Oh, that’s a treat! And we like the salmon best chilled, so it’ll be cooled off by the time you get it home,” Marion said.
“We couldn’t do without this girl here,” Larry confided in Derek. “She’s always thinking about us.”
“I can see that,” Derek said.
Gia was uncomfortable having the attention focused on her all of a sudden, so she said to Marion, “Why don’t we get these dishes done and then I’ll help you make your new bed?”
“And why don’t you let me show you how to operate the television, Mr. Bronson?” Derek suggested.
“Larry—he’s Larry,” Marion said. Then it seemed as if the words—and her own friendly overtone—surprised her, because she stopped short before she added a bit haltingly, “And I’m just Marion.”
Gia waited to see if Larry would go along with the olive branch his wife had just extended. His eyes met Marion’s and he smiled an understanding smile, reaching a hand over to pat hers where it rested on the table before he said to Derek, “Yep, you’d better show me what to do—tonight is the start of the new season of Marion’s dancing show and she’d hate to miss that if I can’t figure out how to turn the thing on.”
* * *
Daylight was only beginning to wane when Gia and Derek left the Bronsons to enjoy their comfy new furniture and watch their vastly improved television.
It was a beautiful September night, and when they reached the curb in front of the Bronsons’ house, rather than turning to the left where Gia’s house was and where his car was parked, Derek angled his head to the right and said, “How about a walk down to Bonnie Brae for ice cream?”
Gia smiled at him. “I knew you didn’t have a big, late lunch,” she said, referring to the excuse he’d used for why he was eating sparingly of the soup, salad and bread. “You’re still hungry.”
“I felt so guilty taking food from them,” he confessed. “I was afraid that whatever I ate meant they had less to eat tomorrow or the next day.”
Guilt. That wasn’t something she’d ever seen in Elliot.
“But sometimes they have to give a little back,” she said. “It makes them feel less...needy. Sometimes you have to take what they offer, the same way you want them to take what you’re offering.”
“You take what they offer and then make up stories about going out to lunch the next day so you can bring them takeout to replace what you ate tonight?”
“You don’t know that I’m not going out for lunch tomorrow,” Gia challenged.
But he just looked at her as if he could see right through her, smiling a small smile that said yes, he did know it. “Let me buy you ice cream—you didn’t eat any more than I did.”
There was no question that she should say no. But when she opened her mouth, “I never turn down ice cream” came out, and they headed toward the creamery walking side by side.
“Do you do as much for your own family as you do for the Bronsons?” Derek asked her then.
“I would if I had a family to do for,” she answered.
“Oh, that’s right—I think you told me that. That the Bronsons have become family for you, that you don’t have any family of your own, right?”
“I might have a father out there somewhere, but he left my mother and me when I was seven and no one ever heard from him again, so I don’t really know if he’s still living or not.”
“He just took off?”
“Just took off,” she confirmed. “He’d been telling my mother how he’d made a mistake to get married and have a kid, that it had shown him that he wanted a different life than that. My mother tried to make it work, tried to figure out how he could have what he wanted and us, too, but the truth was that he just didn’t want us. One day he went to work and never came home. When she looked for him, she found out he hadn’t gone to work at all. He’d used the day to empty their bank account, clear out every other asset they had, cash his last paycheck and leave town—”
“Without so much as saying goodbye?” Derek asked in amazement.
“Without a word.”
“And that was it? You never heard from him again? Not a card or a letter or a phone call?”
“Nothing. He’d talked about traveling, about not wanting to live in Colorado anymore, so my mom didn’t have a doubt that he’d left the state, but beyond that...” Gia shrugged. It had all happened so long ago that the wounds she’d nursed through childhood had healed. “I have no idea what happened to him.”
“Ever thought of looking for him?”
She shook her head. “When I was a kid I had fantasies—he’d come home, say what a mistake he’d made and we’d all live happily ever after. But when I grew out of those... No, I wouldn’t look for him. I can understand people who are adopted and hope that they’ll find their biological parents and learn that the reason they were given up was just because there was no other way, that it was what was best for them or it wouldn’t have been done. But for me... My father spent seven years with me and then...” Okay, maybe there were still some old wounds, because her voice cracked unexpectedly.
She cleared her throat. “He made it pretty clear that he didn’t want anything to do with me. It wasn’t even a matter of him divorcing my mom, He could have made sure he was still in my life in some way—even long-distance. But he wanted out and he got out. And he didn’t leave us a thing, so he obviously didn’t care what happened to us—not whether we had a roof over our heads or food to eat or clothes on our backs. That only says bad things about him as a human being, as a man. Why would I go looking for someone like that?”