Sunday dinners at Rhonda Spencer’s house were chaotic, but charmingly so, and Cal, unlike many single men his age who might begrudge mandatory time with their immediate family, looked forward to the occasion each week.
In a way, the Sunday dinners were like a trip back to his childhood, when their cares were fewer. Only now, his father, eight years dead, was out of the picture, which only made the dinners that much better.
Charles Calhoun Spencer! He could hear his mother’s voice in his brain, scolding him for indulging such an unkind thought. Ironically, one of the few times she tended to utter his full name was when Cal spoke ill of his namesake.
Without the drama that his father’s behavior brought into the mix for so many years, and with Cal and his siblings now past the sometimes tumultuous transition into adulthood, they’d all grown into good friends.
Despite the signature red hair that branded his sisters as Spencer women, the three couldn’t be more different.
Haven, twenty-eight, excelled in her role as family know-it-all and, taking after Rhonda, mother hen. Fiercely loyal not only to her mom and siblings, but also to her soft-spoken husband Dan and their twin daughters, Mary and Lulu, Haven was a brash, fiery, passionate force of nature. She was every stereotype about redheads, magnified times ten. As stubborn as Cal and twice as temperamental, he and his oldest little sister butted heads plenty of times growing up, but now as adults, he considered her to be one of his very best friends.
Next in line came twenty-six-year-old Willa, whose coolheaded calmness could only be the result of growing up in the shadow of her larger-than-life older siblings (that, and perhaps a stronger dose of their mother’s more peaceful DNA). Athletic and disciplined, Willa participated in lots of fitness competitions, including the Iron Woman, and that was actually how she’d met her long-distance partner of two years, Jane, who lived in New York. Their travel for competitions allowed them far more time together than their long-distance relationship did otherwise, and kept Willa away from more Sunday dinners than his mother would prefer. Her work as an occupational therapist in town gave her much satisfaction and, at least for now, kept her rooted in Bloomsburo.
Finally came the baby, Rosie, just two years out of college at twenty-four, and working as an assistant in the Disability Resource Center at a small liberal arts college several towns over. Even if she’d only been the baby of the family, Rosie, with her sweetness and quick humor, would have likely been doted on. But Rosie was also a fighter. An uncommonly early diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at twelve might have broken the spirit of someone with less resolve than Rosie, who viewed the disease as a challenge she’d never stop fighting. Usually accompanied by her high school sweetheart, Jack, the woman went after everything life had to offer, from music lessons to international travel to the occasional foray into stand-up comedy. Thankfully Rosie’s symptoms remained fairly mild and, miraculously, the non-stop checkups and alterations to her medications did little to dampen her bright disposition.
Cal wasn’t sure he admired anyone on earth more than Rosie.
Thinking of his sisters, his heart felt full as he walked up the brick steps to his mother’s quaint, Craftsman bungalow, his arms loaded with his contributions to the evening meal: a crockpot full of minestrone soup and two loaves of still-warm homemade bread.
The house was neither big nor fancy, but like all things associated with his mother, it emitted character and charm. The shingles were a pale teal color, and the windows were framed in cream and navy-blue trim. The house, accented with rambling vines and antique touches, hit that sweet spot between well-maintained and well-loved. Small details that might have otherwise looked tacky or shabby turned whimsical with Rhonda’s touch.
By the time he stepped onto the porch, Cal could already hear the familiar voices inside. Balancing the heavy basket he carried in one hand, he swung open the screen door and stepped into the chaos.
“He’s here!” two bright voices called, in almost perfect unison, as his nieces, Mary and Lulu, charged him before he’d even had a chance to set down his basket of food and the crock pot. Their little faces shined up at him in love and excitement, missing teeth and all. And damn if that wasn’t the best part of his entire weekend.
“Uncle Cal, Mommy said that the woman who moved into Grandma’s shed is very pretty,” Mary said, in that demanding, matter-of-fact way that sounded exactly like her mother Haven. Her big blue eyes, another gift from her mom, peered seriously into his, as if she were daring him to question her mom’s opinion.
He shot Haven a look of annoyance as she walked toward him and grabbed the food from his hands, but she merely shrugged innocently.
“What? I saw her from across the lawn the other day. It was just an observation.”
When had his sister gotten into cahoots with his mother?
“And don’t be worried about me. It’s mom you have to watch out for,” Haven continued. “You’re in trouble about something. Don’t ask me what it is. I’m just excited for the entertainment it will add to our evening.”
She turned on her heel, delivering his food to the kitchen, and Cal redirected his attention to the sweet nieces before him.
“Well, is she pretty, Uncle Cal?” his other niece, Lulu, asked gently, her face half hidden behind her mess of curly red hair that belied the timidity she inherited from her dad. “Grandma said you’re the only other person who’s seen her.”
Something in Cal’s stomach seemed to flip flop. She’s damn beautiful, he thought, though he knew he’d rather starve than admit such a thing in this piranha’s den.
With his hands now free, Cal squatted down and scooped up a niece in each arm, amazed as always at how much they seemed to grow even between one Sunday and the next.
“All I know for sure is that is you two are the smartest, prettiest girls I’ve ever seen,” he said, crushing them in a double bear hug until they squealed in delight. When he finally released them, they were satisfied with the affection and abandoned their inquiry, running back to the heaping pile of toys on the living room floor.
Cal made his way across the family room and into the kitchen, waving at his brother-in-law, Dan, who happily sat at his usual post on the couch. He gladly watched his daughters if it meant he could mostly ignore the sister talk in the kitchen. Cal knew he wouldn’t be so lucky tonight. His three sisters were like lions, and they could not be still if there was fresh meat in the room. Needless to say his mother led the pack.
Jack, his youngest sister’s long-time boyfriend, had already made his way to the fridge and grabbed a beer for Cal. He was a good man.
“This is all your mom has to drink, though I’m afraid you may need something stronger tonight. They’re in rare form,” Jack suggested sympathetically to Cal as he handed him the bottle before excusing himself to join Dan in the living room, clearly escaping the line of fire.
Cal popped the cap off his beer and downed a third of it one draw, praying for resolve in the face of the nosy Spencer women.
“Well, is she?” asked his youngest sister, Rosie.
“Is she what?” Cal asked, feigning ignorance.
“As adorable as mom says she is?” Rosie continued with a sweet smile, a smile that usually wrapped everyone in the family around her finger. But not this time.
“She’s a work acquaintance. That’s irrelevant.”
“Notice how he didn’t actually answer the question,” chimed in Willa, glancing at her sisters with suspicion. “But it felt like a yes.”
He heard a pot slam on the counter behind him, making him jump.
“You wouldn’t all have to be playing these guessing games about Winnie if Cal hadn’t scared her off,” his mother said from behind him, uncharacteristically sharp. “She should be here tonight, but she refused my invitation and I believe your brother is to blame.”
Haven gave him an I-tried-to-warn-you look before Cal turned around and saw his mom’s face, twisted in disapproval.
Shit.
“What did I—” he started, but his mom quickly cut him off.
“Don’t you play innocent with me, Charles Spencer,” she began, walking over and jabbing a pointed finger into his chest. He could hear his sisters snickering behind him. His mother tended to dote on her only son, so the women enjoyed every glimpse of his occasional fall from grace. “If there is one thing I have tried to instill in you children it’s to be kind to other people, and I am getting the strong impression that you have not given this woman a warm reception.”
“Shame on you, Cal,” Haven said with exaggeration. Channeling the self-discipline he lacked when she used to bait him as a kid, he refused to give her the satisfaction of a response.
Cal opened his mouth to defend himself, but his mother filled the silence first.
“Now, how is it that a man so charming that he could sell wool sweaters at the equator can’t direct a little bit of his good-naturedness toward my new friend?”
“Ma, she’s not your friend. She’s your renter.”
Rhonda stepped back, her anger momentarily overshadowed by disbelief.
“You don’t get to tell me who I can and cannot be friends with. I handpicked Winnie out of dozens of applicants for that cottage because I liked her, Cal, and my every instinct suggested that she would be a positive addition to my life.”
He sighed.
“Can you imagine what it’s like to move so far away from the only world you’ve ever known? Not knowing anyone to call up and invite out to a movie? Not having anyone to share a meal with or have cook for you? No family around to—” she started, but her voice cracked, and along with it, Cal’s resolve cracked, too. He could fortify himself against his mother’s anger, but not her sadness.
He stepped forward and pulled his mother into his arms.
“No. I can’t imagine that. You’ve built too good of a life for us here. That’s why you can’t get rid of us. You spoil us.” He kissed the top of her hair and she squeezed his ribs.
“I get to decide if I spoil her, too.”
“I agree. I’ll encourage her to take you up on your next invitation, Ma.”
His mom’s blue eyes looked up into his, hope returned to them.
“You will?”
“I will,” he said, lowering his voice to continue. “But I don’t think it’s just me. I think she likes some privacy, too. And to set some boundaries. You need to be respectful of that.”
Back at the table, his sisters continued their earlier discussion.
“Well, even if Cal won’t fill you in on this mystery woman, I will,” Haven said. “I saw her, and she’s adorable.”
Cal groaned.
“Waves of auburn hair piled high,” Haven continued. “But she’s got that girl-next-door kind of vibe. More Katie Holmes than Mila Kunis. Big brown eyes and a gorgeously curvy figure.”
“For God’s sake,” he muttered, but no one listened. It suddenly dawned on him that he should have begged Winnie to attend the dinner. At least her presence would have forced his sisters to be on their best behavior.
“Is she home now? I wonder if I could sneak a peek,” Rosie said, standing and beginning to walk toward the back kitchen window that faced the yard separating his mother’s house from Winnie’s cottage.
“So that’s what it’s come to? Treating the woman like a zoo exhibit on display?” he asked incredulously.
“Pretty much,” Rosie smiled. He playfully pinched her arm as she walked by.
“Save yourself the trip. Her car’s not there, anyway,” he said before he could consider the consequences.
“Look at him, noticing that her car wasn’t there. It’s almost like he has some interest in the zoo exhibit as well,” Willa observed.
“That’s it. I’m off to play with my little nieces, the only civilized ones among you.” He killed his beer and walked to the fridge to grab a second, and his mom stopped him for a private moment, now that his sisters were lost in their own conversation.
“Sorry for pouncing on you the minute you walked into the kitchen,” she said regretfully as she gave him one more side hug, resting her head on his shoulder. “You’re a good man. I never doubt that.”
“I know, Ma,” he said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“Well, I want you to be happier, then. I like her a lot.”
He sighed, not because he disagreed with his mother, but because he agreed with her. He grabbed the beer, and made his way to the floor where his nieces were engaged in an intricate game of pretend.
Stretching out on the soft rug on his mother’s floor, he stacked blocks mindlessly as the girls played out some storyline about a princess who learns to fly. Tonight, though, he couldn’t get into their imaginative play.
His mother knew. Somehow she always knew the things he tried to hide. There was something different this time. There was something different about Winnie, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt it. Or really, if he’d ever felt it. He liked Winnie. He didn’t just want her, though that instinct was plenty strong. He genuinely liked her and it scared the hell out of him, because it would require him to have her best interests at heart.
And that was the crux of it. If her best interests motivated him, then he’d have to be sure that they did not become a couple. His mind flickered back to the night before, to the way Winnie shivered in the stands next to him. To the overwhelming urge to rub his hands up and down her soft, polka dot tights and ignite heat between the two of them. Of the way those random curls escaped the bobby pins that did little to control her dark, unruly hair, sending wispy locks down the side of her cheek. Along her neck. All the places he wanted to explore for himself.
But more than anything, he thought back to the way that two or three times throughout the evening, her eyes lingered absentmindedly on his mouth, as if she wanted to taste him as much as he wanted to taste her.
Though he knew it couldn’t move beyond harmless flirting, it suddenly occurred to him that flirting with Winnie was already far from harmless. And what was worse was that he didn’t have a damn clue what he was going to do about it.
~-~-~-~-~-~-
Winnie’s brain hurt, and she wanted to curl up in bed and read the latest Julia Quinn novel she just picked up from the library, but if she didn’t finish this blasted article for the paper tonight, her week would start off on the wrong foot.
It was nearly eleven on Sunday, yet there she sat at the small desk in the back corner of the cottage, working away on a story about the county planning and zoning commission meeting.
If it had been a plucky profile? An education story? A small business feature? No problem. She could have cranked the story out in less than an hour.
But the tedium of the county zoning commission meeting was the same reason the story wasn’t done yet. She’d started it that morning, avoided it most of the afternoon, went out on a picnic with Evie and her kids over dinner, and now it was reckoning time.
Her brain was a jumble of unfamiliar zoning jargon—land use tables and right-of-way easements and aquifer protection areas and homeowner covenants.
Gah. Rural legalese was not her forte. But luckily an alert from her phone provided one more distraction from the world’s least interesting article.
When the bright, tinkly chat notification sound went off, she’d expected Evie’s number to pop up, especially given that she and Bree were on a communication hiatus, and no one else in town used her cell phone. Well, except for Betty Jean.
So when she picked up the phone and saw the alert that read “New text from Cal the Great” she dropped her phone as if it would burn her.
It clunked on the desk and she stood up.
Fear and excitement went rounds in her stomach as she debated whether or not to look at the text. Who knew what it might contain?
Of course it’d be work related. There’d be no other reason for him to contact her. So she should probably just wait and read it tomorrow.
Oh, to hell with it. There was no way she could wait until tomorrow.
She sat down, picked up her phone, swiped through and opened up her text inbox.
Is it past your bedtime, Briggs?
She grinned. And then groaned. Lord, this could be trouble. Her fingers typed a quick reply.
Not even close. Working on a county commissioner story.
Those three little dots popped up instantly, letting her know he was responding this very second. The flickering circles seemed to synchronize with the nervous swirls in her stomach.
A night owl then, huh?
Guilty. You?
Also guilty.
She froze, suddenly unsure what to type. Relief flooded her veins when those ‘typing’ dots popped up once more. She waited with bated breath to find out his real intention behind the text conversation.
Wanna meet sometime this week to talk about Bloomsburo Days and the special section?
Winnie couldn’t help but smile. His mother must have laid on the guilt at Sunday dinner (an event she’d mostly been able to forget given her outing with Evie’s crew.) Why else would he suddenly be playing nice?
That’d be really helpful. Will your translator Danny M. be joining us? ;)
Oh, sheesh. That was a premature emoji. Too flirty.
Nope, one on one. But I’m sure he’ll miss you. #heartbreaker
Winnie had to snicker.
Poor guy. Let him down easily for me, will you? When works for you?
She pulled out her planner, excited, but she sighed after opening it, realizing just how booked she already was for the week. She really could use an intern of her own. She might have to talk to the publisher about the possibility of hiring a few more reporters.
Tomorrow afternoon work? he typed.
Nope. Tuesday morning?
Tuesday’s no good for me. At an all-day conference. What’s Wednesday like?
Meetings at 10, noon and 2. Thursday’s just as bad. Friday?
You’re a hard woman to pin down.
Focus, Winnie. Focus on this very professional situation, not on that big bed behind you that would be so nice to get pinned down on. He wrote again.
Could do Friday at 3. That’s about the only time.
No can do. :( Will be putting the weekend issue together.
Dang.
Dang,she repeated.
Do super journalists take dinner breaks?
I try to. Not always successful though.
Dinner meeting? Wednesday?
BadIdeaBadIdeaBadIdea, her brain warned. Too much like a date. She’d only just recovered from the effect Cal’s proximity had on her at Friday night’s football game.
And yet, she really needed more information on Bloomsburo Days to get this special section rolling. If it took until next weekend to have a less intimidating daytime meeting, she’d be that much farther behind.
She looked at her calendar. It could work. And it would be one more evening that she didn’t have to resort to dinner-in-a-cup by herself in her tiny kitchen.
She started to reply, then deleted it. Started again, then erased it once more. Displaying more clairvoyance than Winnie was comfortable with, Cal wrote once more.
It’s just a work meeting, Briggs, not a trick. Haven’t forgotten your stance on men.
She laughed, feeling more at ease thanks to his humor.
That sounds great. Thanks for reaching out. Where should we meet? You’re the local guy. I only know Dewey’s.
Dewey’s is good, but you should branch out. Heard of Cafe Gioia? Midway between here and Broadsville.
Nope, but I’m not picky.
A hidden gem—excellent food.
She almost wrote ‘It’s a date!’ Thankfully she caught herself in time. Because if there was one thing she’d have to remind herself 523 times between now and Wednesday evening, it was that her upcoming dinner with Cal was 100-percent not a date.
See you then.
Night, Briggs.
She had a feeling that the anxiety and excitement she felt swirling in her stomach would be with her for much of the next three days, but it wasn’t all bad. Already she found herself with an unexpected boost of adrenaline to help wrap up her godforsaken zoning story, and that could only be interpreted as a gift.