“YOU INVITED A stranger to my baby’s birthday party?” His sister-in-law was looking at him like he was insane.
“She’s not a stranger,” he said. “She used to babysit me.”
Tanner was standing in the living room doorway, and his head whipped around sharp, his gaze connecting with Calder’s. “So, that’s how you know her? That’s what you’re going with?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Really?” Calder was about ready to punch his brother in the face. “So, that’s why you’re inviting her to the barbecue? A little bit of nostalgia about when she used to babysit you?”
“She’s new back in town. I figured a little bit of a social gathering might be welcome. And I thought it would be nice if Chloe could show them the horses.”
“Them?” Tanner asked.
“Her girls,” Calder said.
“Girls?” His stepsister, Chloe, looked up from where she was sitting across from their other brother, Jackson.
“Lauren has two daughters,” he said. “And she’s having a little bit of a hard time with one of them. Ava ran away from home yesterday. I’m trying to help her out. I thought that she might enjoy coming here and seeing the horses. And judging by her reaction when I mentioned it, I was right.”
“I don’t mind taking them out riding,” Chloe said. “Although, it might have been nice if you would’ve asked first. I have a life, you know.”
Tanner snorted, pushing away from the wall and moving over to where Chloe sat. “No you don’t.”
“Tanner, don’t be such a relentless ass,” Chloe said.
“Yeah,” Jackson agreed. “It is tiresome. And relentless.”
“If you’re going to have a fistfight, please don’t do it in front of Lily. It’s her birthday. I would hate for one of her early formative memories to be her father and her uncle punching each other out.”
“She’s a Reid,” Tanner said. “I can’t promise that she won’t experience it at some point in her life.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “Sure. What was I thinking? That you guys might get civilized at some point.”
“Never,” Jackson said, grinning broadly.
“Maybe you can behave yourselves long enough to show Lauren and Ava and Grace a decent time,” Calder said.
“What exactly is going on with you and Lauren?” Jackson asked. “Because you don’t normally care about stability. Or, random women’s children.”
“I’ve been helping her get her house in order. What she’s been through... I can’t be neutral about it. I feel for her,” he said. “Her husband died a few years ago, and her daughters are having trouble adjusting to this move. I’ve been helping her out.”
“And you care about her,” Chloe said, looking at him intently.
It made him want to snap back at her that he knew full well she cared a hell of a lot more about Tanner than anyone in this room cared to acknowledge. But he wasn’t going to. He wasn’t going to let her make him petty.
“Yeah,” he said. “Is that so hard to believe? That I might be a decent guy some of the time?”
“Kind of,” Chloe said.
He looked over at his sister-in-law. “Do you think that, too?”
She looked at Lily, carefully avoiding his gaze. “Savannah,” he said. “You, too?”
“Well, I can honestly say that I haven’t seen you do all that much out of the goodness of your heart. Not that you aren’t decently good. I just mean... It’s not like you go around rampantly doing good works.”
“Well, thank you very much. Anyway. My guests are going to arrive soon,” he said. “So if you could all behave...”
He heard a knock at the door, and his stomach twisted.
He shot a look at Tanner, who was surveying him far too sharply. He ignored him and went to the door. Lauren was looking up at him with trepidation on her face, and Grace and Ava gazed at him shyly. He took his hat off and pressed it to his chest. “Ava,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again.” He looked down at Grace. “How are you, Grace?”
“Good,” she said, her expression serious. “I’m in sixth grade, but about to be in seventh.”
He nodded slowly. Grades were a very important thing when you were that age, if he remembered right. It was basically your whole identity. “Middle school, huh?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Are you excited to start a new school?”
“No,” she responded, not elaborating at all.
He laughed. “Fair enough. Why don’t you come in?”
The three of them traipsed inside, and Chloe stood up immediately. “Hi, I’m Chloe, Calder’s stepsister. I heard that you girls might want to come and see some horses?”
“Yes,” Grace said.
“Sure,” Ava responded.
Chloe looked up at Lauren. “Is it okay with you?”
Lauren nodded. “It’s okay with me.”
With great excitement, the three of them hustled out of the house, heading toward the barn.
“She’s good with kids,” Calder said. “And even better with horses. They’re in good hands.”
Lauren smiled slightly. “You know, it didn’t occur to me that they wouldn’t be. I knew that if you were okay with that it was fine.”
He pressed his hand to his chest, mystified by the feeling of pressure there. “Good.”
“Hi,” Tanner said, extending his hand. “I’m Tanner. I’m not sure if we’ve ever formally met.”
“I don’t know either,” Lauren said. “But I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Jackson lifted a hand. “Jackson.”
“I’m Savannah,” Savannah said, taking a step forward. “Jackson’s wife. And this is our daughter, Lily.”
“The birthday girl,” Lauren said, smiling.
“Yes,” Savannah said. “She is.”
“Thank you for letting me come to the party,” Lauren said. “I hope we haven’t crashed anything.”
“No,” Tanner said. “We’re happy to have you.”
Lauren looked right standing there in his family home. Of course, if he were to marry her...
Yeah, that was about what he was thinking. Her and him, Ava and Grace. In the house that she had chosen.
His chest burned with a sense of rightness, a sense of conviction.
“I hope you’re hungry,” he said. “Because we have a whole bunch of burgers about to be finished.”
“Should I get the girls?”
“No,” he said. “Let them have fun. When they’re ready to eat I’ll fix them a plate. Take care of yourself first.”
Calder decided to assist Chloe in helping the girls ride. She paired up with Grace, while he stuck close to Ava, the horses plodding in an easy circle around the arena.
He’d been wanting to say something to Ava and he suspected it might be out of line, because Lauren certainly hadn’t said she wanted him around on a permanent basis. But something about Ava had made him think of himself as a kid.
And yes, she had a mother doing her best, which Calder hadn’t had. But still.
“You know,” he said, looking up as he watched her guide the horse gently. “You don’t have to fix your mom’s problems.”
She looked down at him. “I’ve never tried to do that.”
“I just wondered... I wondered if you wanted to run away because it felt a little heavy. And you didn’t know what to do. But you don’t have to do anything. You can just be a kid. Adults have their issues, and they have to work them out. You can’t do it for them. And your mom just loves you, she doesn’t...she doesn’t need anything from you, not like that.”
It was something he wished someone could have said to him. Something he wished could have been true.
Lauren loved her kids with everything. Their happiness was important to her.
His dad...
He didn’t think his dad had much cared about happiness.
“She’s not happy, though,” Ava said.
“I think time is the only thing that will fix that.”
“I thought maybe if she didn’t have to worry about me...”
“No, Ava. You’re not a burden, trust me. If I’ve learned one thing about your mom, you’re not a burden. You’re her world.”
Ava smiled, not a wide one. But something small and hopeful.
And Calder thought that just maybe he might have actually fixed something.
* * *
DINNER WAS WONDERFUL. Calder and his family were wonderful. Her girls had an amazing time with Chloe on the horses, and they were barely able to calm down enough to eat before they were begging to go outside again. Lauren hadn’t seen them that happy in... She couldn’t even remember.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d met someone she felt an instant friendship connection with, but Savannah was warm and funny. Easy to talk to. It made Lauren so very aware of the deficit of friends in her life over the past few years.
Being a single mom had made her shrink her life down to necessities, and she’d unintentionally cut out a lot of people who cared for her. Moving somewhere new certainly hadn’t helped.
She’d found the very idea of meeting friends daunting. But this wasn’t daunting. And really, the whole barbecue had been wonderful.
Calder had been great with the girls, handling everything with cheerful ease. She appreciated it, even though she shouldn’t. He’d helped Chloe teach the girls to ride, and he was so...
The involvement he’d given tonight was more than Robert had given ever as a father. And it twisted her in knots. Because she wasn’t supposed to want Calder for any of that.
But seeing him with the girls it was hard not to.
When they were finished, she joined in with Savannah, clearing the table and getting things prepared for the big birthday cake moment.
“You don’t have to help,” Savannah said.
“It’s fine,” Lauren said. “I don’t mind. I actually like cooking. I’ve been displaced for so long now I haven’t gotten a chance to do anything.”
“I like cooking, too,” she said. “And I love being here. Throwing this birthday party is... I couldn’t imagine that I would be here eight months ago.”
“What do you mean?” She could sense the intensity of the emotion radiating off the other woman, but she didn’t know why. She racked her brain to think if Calder had told her anything about his sister-in-law.
“Did Calder not tell you? Jackson and I are only newly married. Lily isn’t my biological daughter. Jackson hired me to be his nanny. And... It was just kind of...”
“Perfect,” she said.
She didn’t know why that word occurred to her. Except the way that Savannah looked right now echoed something inside her. The feeling of a key turning in a lock. Putting everything into place. Securing it.
“Yes.” Savannah smiled. “I came out of a pretty rough divorce. Wanted to start a new life here.”
Savannah’s story was going a little bit too close to Lauren’s own personal scar tissue.
“And you did,” Lauren said.
“I did. And I got more than I bargained for. But, in a good way.”
Lauren swallowed hard. “I’m not sure how you balance out...”
She stopped talking. The woman was about to serve cake for her daughter’s first birthday party. She didn’t need to offer Lauren a counseling session. Anyway, it wasn’t like they even knew each other. But then, Lauren didn’t really have any friends, not here.
“How did I balance out what?” Savannah asked, her tone kind.
“Your need to be safe and not make the same mistake again, with... You know how it is. You meet somebody new and you have... Feelings. And you’ve been down that road before. Where you had feelings. More feelings than sense.”
“I think...” Savannah began slowly. “I think you just have to trust that everything you’ve been through has taught you something. That you can never look at life, a friend, a man the same way that you would have years ago. Because you weren’t the same person.”
Lauren nodded slowly. “Part of me wants to believe that... That things could be different.”
“Calder?”
Lauren tried to force a smile. “He’s great,” she said. “He’s really great.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I’m worried that I am,” she said. “That the girls and I might be. I mean, for him. He’s so young and I just don’t know why he’d ever want to take all this on long term.”
Savannah looked at her. “Why don’t you ask him how he feels about that? I think his take on it will be more important than mine could be.”
“I’m worried he’ll say one thing but it won’t actually be what he wants.” She sighed. She felt like such an ass saying that. Like Calder didn’t know his mind. She was sure in many ways he did. She was also sure men didn’t always know what they actually wanted.
“Why is that?”
“I have some experience with men thinking they’re up to a certain amount of responsibility but actually wanting nothing to do with it,” she said, perturbed by the bitter edge in her voice.
“I have some experience with that, too. At a certain point, you have to trust yourself. More than that... You have to learn to trust another person again.”
Well, that was impossible. It was just impossible. There was no way in hell she could do that.
The vehemence and certainty of her own internal response shocked her.
But what she knew was that she’d made choices. Flawed ones. That her judgment had been bad and if she was in a bad situation now, well...
She ruminated on that through the whole dessert. She tried not to fixate on how happy Grace and Ava looked at the table, cooing over baby Lily, enjoying their cake.
Chloe was their brand-new hero, a woman who was great with horses and had a fantastic sense of humor. Ava kept looking at Calder like he was a superhero. Captain America and Thor rolled into one.
It wounded Lauren a little bit that she couldn’t be their hero, but she also understood the attraction to Chloe. She was young, and pretty, and a badass.
And Lauren didn’t feel like any of those things.
When Calder looked at her, she did. He made her feel... Well, he made her feel a little bit too much.
When the birthday party was over, he walked her back to the truck, and he took her hand as they walked behind the girls.
She almost pulled away, but he stopped her with that steady hold and level gaze of his.
“Tonight was good,” he said.
“It was.”
“I’d love to have you out again,” he said.
Those words made her ache everywhere.
“The house is getting inspected tomorrow,” she said, moving to interrupt him, because it seemed easier than actually talking to him. Than getting into any kind of talk of the future.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “Do you want me to come out?”
She shook her head. “It should be fine. Depending on how long it takes to get all the paperwork submitted... Well, we should have a close date.”
“Congratulations,” he said.
The girls turned, and he dropped her hand. It made her feel good to know that he realized that she wasn’t ready for them to see. She might not ever be.
“I’m proud of you,” he said.
She tried to laugh that off. “That’s a weird thing to say.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t know if anyone had said it to you for a while. And they should. They should, Lauren, because you’re doing a hell of a job here. You really are. You’re doing a hell of a job with these girls. With your life.”
She ducked her head. “Thank you.”
She noticed Ava watching her, and she took a step away from him.
“I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know how everything goes.”
“Good,” he said.
“I’m not ever going to be able to repay you for this,” she said.
“I don’t want you to repay me,” he said. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I was really happy tonight.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.”
She wanted to kiss him, but she knew that would be stupid. So she didn’t. She kept her distance and simply stuffed her hands in her pockets, nodding and walking backward to the truck.
When she got in and started the engine, Ava turned to her. “Is he your boyfriend?”
Lauren stiffened. “I... No,” she said.
“Do you like him?”
She flashed back to their naked, sweaty moments from the night before. She cleared her throat. “Of course I like him. He’s been helping out a lot...”
“She means do you like him,” Grace said.
She didn’t know what to say. She was all for this new talking-and-being-honest thing, except she didn’t know what to tell them about this. That sometimes you could like a man—a whole lot—and there was still just no way to work it out. Anyway, she had no idea what they would think about something like that. She was their mom, not a woman. Besides, even if they did acknowledge that she was a woman, they probably wouldn’t realize that women as old as her still had crushes and got fluttery and wanted a boy to like them back.
“I don’t think there’s any room in my life to like someone,” Lauren said as she turned out onto the highway.
“Why not?” Ava asked.
Her daughter’s question surprised her. “Wouldn’t it bother you if I did?”
Ava said nothing for a moment. “Their ranch is really nice.”
“It is,” Lauren agreed.
“And he’s nice. He helped you work on the house. I don’t remember Dad—” She looked away. Then she took a shuddering breath and looked back at Lauren. “I don’t remember Dad ever helping you with anything. Not housework, nothing. He seems to like to help you.”
“He likes helping,” she said. “It’s who he is.”
“Well, if you were going to be with someone it would have to be someone like that. It would have to be someone who made you happy.”
“Would that make him our stepdad?”
“No,” Ava said, matter-of-factly. “Only if she married him.”
“That wouldn’t bother you?” Lauren asked.
“I don’t know if it would bother me with him,” Ava said. She lifted a shoulder. “He talks to me like I’m a person and not a kid. And he didn’t get in the way when you came and picked me up yesterday. He seems like he wouldn’t be too annoying.”
“Well,” Lauren said. “I guess that’s the highest compliment that can possibly be paid.”
“It’s a pretty high compliment.”
“I don’t want to rush into anything. And I think I’ve put you both through quite enough change as it is. I don’t think you need me dating on top of it.”
“He does make you smile,” Grace said. “I like it best when you smile.”
Lauren didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything for the rest of the drive home. Her girls were apparently completely fine with Calder. And there was still a fluttery, panicked feeling in her chest. In fact, if anything it had increased. So apparently they were fine with her dating. They were fine with him.
And the question was, if Ava and Grace were okay with it...?
There were no more excuses except the ones that lived inside herself.