Chapter Fourteen
Summer
“Good morning!” Rue opened the front door wide as our first guests arrived. She and I had been running around like crazies for the previous three hours making sure everything was perfect. I was kind of nervous and stood back from the door, trying to muster my best “hostess” smile. Rue said this family was from Manhattan and I was sick to my stomach as soon as I considered that I might have crossed paths with them at one of Daddy’s parties, or yachting events, or—God forbid—an eventing show. I’d spent my fair share of time in Manhattan…
The mother appeared a bit rigid as she walked into the house, but I watched Rue work her magic and the tension and overwhelming need to be perfect melted off the woman as Rue pulled her into an embrace. The woman’s arms fluttered at her sides, then she lifted them to Rue’s waist. I know, I wanted to tell her. It’s like the tractor beam-pull of an alien mothership. The sooner you give over to it, the better life will be.
Rue let her go and she straightened, then introduced us to her equally uptight family. “I’m Marlene and these are my children. The tall one here is Gracie. She’s headed into seventh grade next year and she helps me keep us all organized.” Her hand moved to the shoulder of Gracie’s younger sister, also equally beautiful in an almost porcelain doll like way. “Caitlyn is a year younger, and is working toward playing tennis at Wimbledon, and Sara is next and is our artist. She’s ten. And these two...” She squeezed the two boys at her sides. “These are my twins, Max and Marcus.”
As to the kids’ ages, I quickly did the math in my head; twelve, eleven, ten and two six-year-olds. Wow. My mother couldn’t even handle one kid, and Marlene had five of them—three that were barely a year apart.
The kids were magazine cover perfect and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and ruffle their hair, just to remind them they were kids. And maybe there was some part of me that wanted to reach deep inside myself and ruffle my own hair. Because I was these kids. I’d been raised exactly the same way—to be sophisticated with impeccable manners. Now, as I stood here in my mostly clean boots, starchless shirt and broken-in jeans, I realized what I’d been missing and what these kids were missing. Fun.
Well, if I had anything to do with it, these kids wouldn’t wake up one day, twenty years later, and realize they’d wasted their lives away. I smiled and stepped forward to introduce myself to Marlene. “Welcome, I’m Summer.”
“Thank you.” She straightened her shirt and smoothed an invisible wrinkle off her son’s shoulder. “It’s just us,” she started, as if thinking I was wondering why there was only six of them. I wasn’t. “Their father won’t be joining us.” Her face fell but she quickly recovered. “He had something come up at work.”
Don’t they always? I just smiled and nodded. “That’s no problem. We have lots of fun things planned for you.” I glanced over the children’s heads at Rue, who was standing there all content like a mother hen as she told Tom to go tend to their luggage.
My gaze clashed with his and I abruptly turned away, feeling heat spreading across my cheeks. I hadn’t heard him come into the room and I wasn’t sure why I was so surprised to see him. “Let me give you a tour of the house. Then you can relax in your rooms and we’ll take the rest of your day at your pace,” I said.
Marlene let out a tiny sigh. “That sounds wonderful. I think the children will be hungry in about an hour. Is it possible to have an early lunch? We’ve been traveling all day.”
“Of course,” Rue piped up. “I’ll set out some snacks, and you just let me know when you’re ready and I’ll get you all fed.”
There was something about this family that reminded me of my own. Well, except that they were nice to each other. But the way they talked, the look of them... it made me nostalgic, homesick even. But the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous I realized it was because I’d never really had a home. Not in the loving family sense. I’d had my dad. He’d been my home.
I took the boys’ hands and turned away from the door. We quickly toured the house and they seemed equally interested in the cowboy look of the place but at the same time, they seemed nervous about all the dust. Yep, these kids needed a makeover and then some. They needed to learn what it meant to be kids and that meant they needed to learn how to get dirty.
The kids started exploring their rooms once we reached them, picking up everything with an examining eye. As I watched the boys, Tom came around the corner with their suitcases. “Mom goes in that room there.” I pointed to her door. “And the kids, here.”
Tom nodded and dropped off the suitcases. As he walked behind me, his fingertips brushed my spine and he whispered, “I was really looking forward to lunch.” I wasn’t sure if he was still making fun of the horrible dinner I’d made and the fact that we’d joked about leftovers for lunch but I had a feeling he wasn’t. He’d seemed earnest in the way he’d said it—like he was looking forward to seeing me.
By the time I got my bearings straight and caught my breath, he was gone, off to grab cows with Brady.
While the kids unpacked and changed, I wandered the small hallway, reliving the feeling of Tom’s touch like a complete fangirl. The twins burst out of their room, followed by the girls. They were all in matching cowboy outfits and they looked a lot more like kids. It was a look that suited them.
“You guys ready?” I asked with a big smile as I tried to wrestle images of Tom out of my head. But, damn, there was something about that man that made it tough.