'In that case—' he picked up the wine and topped off both their glasses, '—let me offer a little Dutch courage.'
She hadn't expected him to stay after the meal was over. Certainly hadn't been prepared for him to wind things around so that he was sitting beside her son at the kitchen table, poring over the problems in an open arithmetic book.
She served him coffee as he translated the problems into baseball statistics. And why, Savannah wondered, as her son leaped at the ploy and ran with it, hadn't she thought of that?
Because, she admitted, figures terrified her. Schooling terrified her. The knowledge that her son would one day soon go beyond what she had learned was both thrilling and shaming.
Not even Bryan knew about the nights she stayed up late, long after he slept, and studied his books, determined that she would be able to give help whenever he asked her for it.
'So, you divide the total score by the number of times at bat,' Jared suggested, adjusting his horn-rims in a way that made Savannah's libido hitch.
'Yeah, yeah!' The lights of knowledge were bursting in Bryan's head. 'This is cool.' With his tongue caught between his teeth, he wrote the numbers carefully, almost reverently. After all, they were ball players now. 'Check this out, Mom.'
When she did, laboriously going over the steps of the problem, her smile bloomed. 'Good job.' She brushed a kiss over Bryan's tousled hair. 'Both of you.'
'How come I didn't get a kiss?' Jared wanted to know.
She obliged him, chastely enough, but Bryan still made gagging noises. 'Man, do you have to do that at the dinner table?'
'Close your eyes,' Jared suggested, and kissed Savannah again.
'I'm out of here.' Bryan shut his book with a snap.
'Out of here, and into the tub,' Savannah finished.
'Aw, come on.' He looked beseechingly at Jared.
'Actually,' Jared began, 'I believe my client is entitled to a short recess.'
'Oh, really?' But Savannah's dry comment was drowned out by Bryan's whoop of delight.
'Yeah, a recess. Like an hour's TV.'
'With the court's indulgence.' Jared shot Bryan a warning look, laid a hand on his shoulder. 'What my client means is, thirty minutes of recreational television viewing is appropriate after serving his previous sentence and taking steps toward rehabilitation. After which he will, voluntarily and without incident, accept the court's decision.'
Savannah hissed a breath through her teeth. 'Lights out at nine-thirty,' she muttered.
'All right!' Bryan pumped his fist in the air. 'You should have gone for the hour,' he told Jared.
'This was your best deal. Trust me, I'm your lawyer.'
A grin split Bryan's face. 'Cool. Thanks, Mr. MacKade. 'Night, Mom.'
'Very fast, fancy talking,' Savannah said under her breath as her son dashed upstairs to the little portable in her bedroom.
'I couldn't help myself.' Feeling a little sheepish, Jared tucked his hands in his pockets. 'He reminded me of what it was like to be a nine-year-old boy and desperate for another hour. Are you going to hold me in contempt?'
She sighed, picked up the empty coffee cups, took them to the sink. 'No. It was nice of you to stand up for him. Besides, he'd have wrangled the half hour out of me anyway.'
'He deserved it.' Jared grinned when she glanced over her shoulder. 'So do I. After all, we slogged straight through that math assignment.'
'You want thirty minutes of—what was it, recreational television viewing?'
'No.' He took his glasses off, slipped them into the pocket of his shirt. 'I want you to walk in the woods with me.' When her brow creased and she glanced toward the stairs, Jared took her hand. 'We won't go far. Hey, Bry!' he called out. 'Your mom and I are going for a walk.'
'Cool,' came the absent, obviously uninterested answer. Jared took her denim jacket from a hook by the kitchen door. 'It gets chilly after sundown.'
'Just to the woods,' she insisted as she shrugged into the jacket. From there, she could hear Bryan if he called her.
'Just to the woods,' Jared agreed, and closed his hand over hers. 'Do you get lonely out here during the day, by yourself?'
'No. I like being by myself.' She walked outside with him, where the air had a faint snap and the sky was so clear the stars almost hurt the eyes. 'I like the quiet.'
They went down the uneven steps that had been hacked into the bank, then across the narrow lane to where the woods began with shadows.
'I kissed my first girl in here.'
The just-greening trees opened to welcome them in. 'Did you?'
'Yep. Cousin Joanie.'
'Cousin?'
'Third cousin,' Jared elaborated. 'On my mother's side. She had long golden curls, eyes the color of the sky in June, and my heart. I was eleven.'
Comfortable with shadows and starlight, she laughed. 'A late bloomer.'
'She was twelve.'
'So, you liked older women.'
'Now that you mention it, that might have been part of the attraction. I lured her into the woods one balmy summer evening, when the sun was going down red behind the mountain and the whippoorwills were starting to call.'
'Very romantic.'
'It was an epiphany. I drew together all my sweaty courage and kissed her near the first bend in the creek, when the air was full of summer twilight and the smell of honeysuckle.'
'That's very sweet.'
'It would have been,' he mused, 'if my brothers hadn't followed us and hidden to watch. They screamed like banshees, Cousin Joanie went tearing back to the farm. Of course, my brothers ragged on me for weeks after, so I had to take on each of them to save my honor. Devin broke my finger, and I lost interest in Cousin Joanie.'
'That's sweet, too. The rites of passage.'
'I've learned a few things since then, about kissing pretty girls in the woods.'
When he turned her into his arms and his mouth moved over hers, she had to admit he was right. He'd learned quite a number of things.
'Where is cousin Joanie now?'
'In a nice split-level in the 'burbs of Virginia, with three kids and a part-time job selling real estate.' With a sigh, he pressed his curved lips to Savannah's brow. 'She still has those gold curls and summer eyes.'
'One more ghost in the MacKade woods.' She looked back through the trees. She could see the lights she'd left on in her cabin. Her son was safe there. 'Tell me about the others.'
'The two corporals are the most famous. One wore blue, the other gray. During the Battle of Antietam, they were separated from their companies.'
He slipped an arm over her shoulders so that they walked companionably, their strides matched. 'They came upon each other here, in the woods, two boys barely old enough to shave. In fear, or duty, or maybe both, they attacked each other. Each one was badly wounded, each one crawled off in a different direction. One to the farm.'
'Your farm?'
'Hmmm... A Union soldier, torn open by the enemy's bayonet. My great-grandfather, no friend of the North, found him by the smokehouse. The story is that he saw his own son, who he'd lost at Bull Run, in that dying boy, so he carried him into the house. They did what they could for him, but it was too late. He died the next day and, afraid of reprisals, they buried him in one of the fields, in an unmarked grave.'
'So he's lost,' Savannah murmured. 'And haunts the woods because he can't find his way home.'
