Читать книгу Back to You - Lauren Dane - Страница 11

CHAPTER FIVE

ALL DAY VAUGHAN had managed not to comment on the way Ross had come and gone that morning. They hadn’t had much time alone anyway. His parents had arrived and had stayed at the house with Kensey and Stacey while Vaughan and Kelly had gone to pick Maddie up.

And then his mom and dad had stayed for several hours. Kelly had been friendly enough, though reserved, but everyone was tired and it was time for guests to go.

Yesterday Vaughan would have been considered a guest like that, too. But now he could step in and start showing Kelly he was serious about being around.

Finally, he got his dad alone and asked nicely for them to go. “I’ll bring Maddie by to see you guys when she’s better. Or you can come back later in the week. She needs it to be quiet now.”

His father smiled and clapped his shoulder. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you to step up for them. Before we go, take a walk with me.”

Vaughan and his father headed outside. “You have a tool kit here, or know where one is? I noticed this step is a little loose.” His dad pointed to the wooden swing set and climbing wall.

“Garage probably.”

Kelly, as it turned out, did have a pretty adequate set of tools so he and his dad were able to fix the step relatively easily.

“What are you doing here, son?” his father asked as they put the tools back.

“I want this.” Vaughan indicated the land, the house, all it represented. “I want it with them. With Kelly and our daughters.”

“How does she feel about that?”

“I haven’t said anything to her about the wanting-her-back part. Not yet. But I said I wanted to be around as Maddie recovered. I have felt like a visitor in my daughter’s life. It was Kelly who handled this whole thing. She made the decisions. She kept herself together the whole time. I had all of you. She had no one and she did it and pretty much took care of me, too. I should have been there for her to lean on. For the girls to lean on. But I wasn’t.”

The shame of it crawled over his skin.

“You were, but not in the way you could have been. Or should have been. You love them, they love you. So what did Kelly say when you told her you wanted to be around for Maddie as she recovered?”

His dad was clearly going to be blunt.

“She offered to let me stay in her guest room for a few weeks. She didn’t seem to take it seriously when I said I wanted to pitch in and help with the girls. But I’m going to prove her wrong.”

“That’s a good sign. What’s going to happen with the fiancé? I notice he wasn’t here today.”

“He came into the room right after she’d invited me to stay. He wasn’t pleased. They went upstairs for several minutes and then she led him outside to the garage. I heard her tell him to leave. I heard a bunch of stuff. She broke the engagement but hasn’t told me yet.” He didn’t need to tell his dad exactly what Ross had said about him. It was enough that Kelly had reacted the way she had.

“This is your second chance. It’s going to require every last bit of your attention, commitment and concentration and then three hundred percent more than that for you to be worthy of that. Don’t give up. I know you can do this,” his father said.

“I made mistakes. A lot of them.”

“You did. She did, too, I imagine.”

Vaughan shrugged. “We probably could have gotten through her mistakes. I crashed us into a ditch and walked away.”

Michael leaned back against the wall after they’d put the tools back. “I’ve learned a thing or two over my life. You can’t undo what you did. You can’t go back and erase it. That damage is done, boy. You made it. It hurts and it should. You fucked up.”

A bubble of inappropriate laughter snuck from Vaughan’s belly. Their dad was the calm one in the family. Fuck wasn’t a word he used very often.

“I did. God help me, I did.” Vaughan scrubbed his hands over his face. “I didn’t know what I had. I didn’t... I thought it would be easy to find it again someday. When I was ready. But it wasn’t easy because what I had was special and I don’t think I was ready to truly understand how special until now. And it might be too late, which sounds like some messed-up curse or something.”

“Being a man means standing up when you’ve done wrong. It’s not easy, but it’s what you do. For your children and the woman you’re trying to win back. We raised you right. All four of you boys have had your challenges, but your mother and I expect nothing less from you than success.”

“Thanks for the advice and for the ear.”

“I’m your dad. It’s my job and my privilege to help when I can. You know where I am the next time you need me.”

They went back inside where his mother had gathered their things and was ready to get back on the road to Hood River. His mom had been pretty cordial to Kelly, who continued to keep Sharon Hurley at arm’s length.

She didn’t come out with him when his parents left, but his mom thanked Kelly for letting them be around, and Kelly thanked them for coming over.

It was a small start. Something he could work with.

Stacey and Kensey came downstairs, Kensey’s hand tucked in Stacey’s before she dashed over to Vaughan. “I like it that you’re here!”

“Hey, darlin’, I like it, too.”

“I’m going to head home.” Stacey hugged Kelly. “Call me later to check in. If you need anything and I find out you didn’t ask me for it we’re going to rumble.”

Kensey giggled madly at that.

“I promise. Thank you for coming back.” Kelly hugged her friend one last time before she headed out and then it was just the four of them. Vaughan and his women.

“What’s next?” Vaughan asked.

“Kensey needs to finish her book report and I need to do laundry.”

“I have to go to school tomorrow? Maddie will be home and she’ll have Daddy all to herself and that’s not fair. I won’t miss anything important. Let me stay home, too.”

In the face of so much adorable he was hard-pressed to say no and he nearly relented, but Kelly knelt in front of their youngest. “We all have jobs in the family, remember? Right now your most important job is to go to school and train your brain. Your sister’s job is to get better first. Your dad and I need to do our jobs, which is taking care of you two. Everyone’s going to be all right, but we need to cooperate and do our jobs.”

Kensey nodded and hugged Kelly before she scampered off to finish her homework.

“Nicely done. I’m the baby, too. It’s hard sometimes.”

“She’s good at it, though.” Kelly’s smile belied the annoyance in her tone.

“She is. It’s hard to say no to her.”

“I want them to be resourceful and independent. Those things will serve them far better than big eyes.”

“True. And it’s good to teach them their brains are more important than their looks.”

Kelly shrugged. “Also an important life lesson. I was going to give you a set of keys, but the locksmith is going to be here in about twenty minutes to change all the locks. We’ll get you a set then.”

He put a hand on her arm. “Is everything all right?”

“It’s fine. I might as well tell you that I broke my engagement with Ross today.”

“Did he hurt you or scare you?” Vaughan was the least punch happy of his brothers but the need to hurt someone to defend Kelly surged through him.

“Oh, no. Not like that.” She shook her head firmly. “He’s unhappy. He gave me my keys back, but I thought it would be easier if I stopped wondering if he had another set and just changed the locks.”

Vaughan didn’t think it sounded easier at all. But if that’s what she needed to have happen, it would. And he’d be extra sure to keep an eye out for Ross.

“Was it about me? You breaking the engagement I mean,” Vaughan asked her.

“It was about him and me.”

He wanted to say more, but Kensey was just around the corner so it wasn’t the time. “All right. Well, I’ve got some stuff to put away in the guest room. Maybe tonight after dinner you could go over the schedule with me. I meant it when I said I wanted to help. I’m trying to be a better dad.”

“We’ll talk about it later. Settle in. I’ll get you the network password. If you need a space to work, there’s a desk in the guest room, and my office has a printer in it if you need one.”

He nodded as she spoke and followed her as she showed him where everything was before telling him to make himself at home and disappearing into the laundry room.

Alone, he headed to the guest room and began to unpack his things.

“Hi, Daddy!” Kensey bounded into the room and hopped onto the bed. “I can’t believe you’re going to be my neighbor! You have your own bathroom, though. That’s good because now Maddie takes too much time in there so when I have to pee Mom lets me use hers if I’m upstairs.”

Vaughan let the steady stream of talk from his youngest smooth around him, tucking him in. She never told a story without a great deal of dramatic emphasis that he found himself at turns charmed and exhausted by.

“Will you walk me to the bus tomorrow? Mom usually walks us both but you never have. I would like for the other girls to see what my dad looks like. You already made my teacher last year ask about you all the time.”

He wrestled back a smile. “That so?”

“I finished my book report. Want to see it and make sure my penmanship is nice?”

He opened his arms and she leaped into them as he hugged her tight, kissing the top of her head before he set her on her feet.

* * *

“WE WATCHED MOVIES and read books and she napped a few times. Maddie can’t eat solids, but she’s awake and lonely. Would it be cool with you if we all ate together up in her room?” Vaughan stood very close to Kelly and she felt like a horrible person because this morning she was going to marry someone else but right then, Vaughan looked so good her hormones did a slow roll. Like onto their back, belly and all the good parts exposed.

“That’s a great idea. I’d considered bringing her down here, but keeping her in bed is better. Kensey, can you get the trays out? I made shrimp pasta salad for you.”

Kensey pumped her fist with a shouted “yes!” as she brought out the trays they used when they had snacks in the family room and watched movies together.

Kelly put some warm chicken broth in one of her to-go coffee cups and slid a lid on. “She can have broth, they said. I had some in the freezer. I hope you like shrimp pasta salad. I should have asked. If you don’t, there are still leftovers from yesterday in the fridge.”

“Shrimp pasta salad sounds great.” Vaughan’s agreeable smile was handsome and she realized this had been the longest it had been just the four of them in her house. No Hurleys. No Ross or Stacey. Just Kelly, Vaughan and their daughters.

A long time ago she’d dreamed of normal moments like this one. And she’d given up on them. Or so she’d thought.

Hope was a tiny ember in her belly. Fear lived there, too. Because he’d broken her heart. That had sucked and it had taken a long time to get over. But hope wasn’t backing down and Kelly thought maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to let it stay as long as she kept her expectations low.

Right?

Kelly instructed Kensey and Vaughan as they loaded their dinner up on the trays and headed up to Maddie’s room.

“We should listen to music, Momma,” Maddie murmured sleepily. Kelly pressed a hand to her belly for a moment, attempting to massage away the bittersweet ache.

Maddie had been calling Kelly “Mom” for a year or so by that point. Every once in a while when she got sick or was upset or tired she’d revert to the days where she’d hug Kelly’s neck and let Momma fix everything with kisses and a cup of hot chocolate.

Kelly pulled her phone from a pocket. “What do you want to hear?”

“Star Is Born!” Kensey chimed in.

“Yes. Guess which one I want.”

They’d watched the edited-for-television version of A Star Is Born with Kristofferson and Streisand at least three times that winter and spring so the soundtrack had become a favorite around the house.

“I think I might know.” Kelly connected to the wireless system in the house and found the song. She went to her knees to kiss Maddie’s forehead before settling on the floor again.

As the piano began Vaughan grinned. “‘Everything.’ I love this song.”

Maddie sang along softly. Normally she could belt this one out but as the kid had just been sliced open the day before yesterday, Kelly thought it could be excused.

Kensey joined in and Vaughan came along, harmonizing, and Kelly sat back, watching these incredibly talented creatures, singing together because they were all born for such things. And because they all had that basic joy they took into most situations.

She was still smiling as she turned off the light in Kensey’s room after tucking her into bed. Maddie was fast asleep already. Vaughan stood a few feet away at the top of the stairs.

“She’s waiting for you to come in to kiss her good-night,” Kelly said on her way past.

“Awesome.” He headed down the hall, a smile he wore just for his youngest daughter on his face.