How like her mother to change the subject when the argument wasn’t going her way.
“I’m not answering any questions while you have a knife pointed at me.”
“And I’m not staying here if you’re going to abuse me.” She slammed the knife down on the counter.
“I thought you enjoyed pain. Or is that just what you claim in your writing because it sounds good?”
“Hello, ladies.” It was West, standing in the kitchen doorway.
He must have overheard part of their conversation, because he looked as if he was about to jump into shark- infested waters.
“Captain West Morgan, meet my mother, Anne Bishop,” Soleil said.
“Yes, Mom. West is an air force officer,” she said, lapsing into her chirpy fifties housewife voice again. “He bombs innocent civilians for a living.”
Her mother’s expression neutral, she looked from Soleil to West. “How nice,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving now. If you care to stop acting like a monster, you can reach me via my cell phone. I’m going to find a vacation rental for the rest of my time here.”
“You don’t want to stay here? But why?” Soleil, blinking innocently, hadn’t managed to infuse her voice with anything resembling sincerity.
Her mother began packing up her groceries again, furiously flinging heads of lettuce and sides of meat into her shopping bag.
West watched the whole scene, bewildered. Probably not sure if he should be offended at her description of his profession or relieved that he wasn’t in the line of fire at the moment.
Without planning to, Soleil had rescued him from her mother, she realized. And, she understood, too, she actually wanted to be the villain in her mother’s eyes, for reasons she didn’t quite understand.
“Ms. Bishop, I hope you’re not leaving on account of me,” West said, stepping into the room now, his voice sounding confident. “I remember reading your poetry in college. It’s an honor to meet you.”
He’d read her angry feminist poetry…at the air force academy?
Soleil didn’t believe him for a second, but she kept quiet. She took the kettle off the stove before it started whistling and poured the hot water into a cup with a lemon-ginger tea bag.
Her mother could never quite hide her pleasure at being recognized as a renowned poet. She smiled stiffly. “Why, thank you for saying that. I’m sorry you’ve walked in on Soleil and me at our worst.”
“The scene’s not much different at my father’s house, between me and him. I think it’s the holidays-this time of year makes everyone tense.”
Her mother’s posture changed a bit, went a little less stiff.
“Would anyone else like a cup of tea?” Soleil asked.
No one seemed to hear her. Anne was staring at West now as if she was seeing him for the first time.
“I’ve always said the holidays are the most miserable time of year. All the pressure to be happy and normal, to make everything perfect. It’s unnatural, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” West said.
“I’m going to leave you two lovebirds alone. I’ll be packing,” she said, sounding a lot less tense.
“You don’t have to leave, Mom.”
“This is one less way we have to pretend everything’s perfect, okay? We’ll both be a little saner if we have a bit of space.”
Her mother left the room, and Soleil felt stung that suddenly she was the only one being childish. At the same time, she owed West. He’d saved her and himself.
She mouthed the words
“I’ll have a cup of that tea,” he said. “Oh, and before I forget, my mom asked me to invite you and your mother to her Christmas party this coming Saturday night.”
“That’s sweet of her.”
“It’s from six to whenever. No gifts or anything-just show up. She lives at the Redwood Shores condominium complex on the north side of the lake. She’s in unit seven.”
“I think I can remember that.”
“I was thinking, um, I’d like to come by the farm some more, you know, to help out around here.”
“That’s not really necessary. I’ve got the routine down, for the most part.”
Except she hated getting up early and at this time of year tended to be slack about farm upkeep.
“How about cutting yourself a break? You run this place on your own, you’re almost six months pregnant and you’ve got an eager farmhand willing to help out for free.”
He had a point there.
“Okay, if you really want to help out…”
“I’ll come by in the morning then,” he said, probably trying to seal the deal before she changed her mind.
As she’d feared, she was being railroaded, but for some reason she wasn’t able to muster up the will to protest.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JULIA HAD TAKEN to avoiding her computer entirely. After her first date with Frank, she’d lost the nerve to respond to his calls or e-mails. She felt terrible about it, but she’d feel even worse if she were going on dates and falling in love while her ex-husband sat with mashed potatoes crusted on his face and no one allowed near to tell him he needed to wipe his mouth.
These were the kind of humiliating issues he faced on a day-to-day basis now. A once-great man-albeit an impossible one-reduced to childhood problems.
Okay, maybe she was crazy. Or maybe she was a coward. But Frank surely couldn’t have been as perfect as he seemed. She was simply saving herself the trouble of a big letdown later.
She was too old for romance anyway. That was a notion best reserved for the young and foolish.
But still…She felt terrible when she thought of Frank.
So, she stayed away from her computer and cringed when she checked her voice mail.
It was Julia’s night off from General duty while West stayed with his father. She was hosting her annual Christmas party in four more days, and some people would be RSVPing via e-mail, so she had to go online.
This year, she was in no mood to host, but it was a party she always threw, and people looked forward to it. She couldn’t let them down. Being with John again put her in a terrible mood, frankly. She could hardly stand herself the past few days.
She reluctantly sat at her desk and started scanning her in-box for responses, studiously trying not to look at the couple of messages from Frank Fiorelli, which she hadn’t even opened yet.
But curiosity finally got to her, and she clicked on the most recent one.
Dear Julia,
I’m sorry I haven’t heard from you. Regardless of whatever changed your mind about seeing me again, I want you to know I think you’re a lovely person. It was my pleasure to meet you, and I wish you a life filled with love and joy.
Yours,
Frank
Shame washed over her. She’d never ignored a letter in her life, and it nearly killed her to do so now. What was she to say?
Nothing made sense, and it all seemed like proof that she was too old to date. At her age, women were caring for their aging husbands, not having coffee-shop meet-ups with their online-dating buddies.
WEST CLOSED the gate on the goats, who were staring at him warily with their strange eyes through the four- rail fence. He bent to give Silas a rub, and the dog seemed to smile at him.
