She left him to tumble the boys into the twin beds in Jorge’s room while she opened the wine. Jorge’s walls were lined with bookshelves housing an astonishing library for a six-year-old. Like Noah, he was a voracious reader. Reading, Legos, and building cities in Noah’s huge sandbox were obviously Jorge’s passions. But especially art.
Just like his beautiful, talented mother.
“Are these all your drawings?” Gideon asked Jorge. The walls were papered with them.
“Yeah,” Jorge said proudly.
“They’re good.” Really good, like something an adult would do.
“Thank you.” The boy beamed with pride.
“You’re both such talented guys,” he said. “You with your amazing Lego creations and sandbox buildings, Noah, and Jorge, with your paintings.”
“Didn’t you like my painting?” Noah asked.
“’Course I did, kiddo. I’m going to hang it on the wall in my office.” Though Gideon was out and about most of the day, he also had an office at Top Notch headquarters, which was peppered with pictures of Ari and Noah. If he happened to stare a little too long and often at the pictures Rosie was in—as one of Ari’s best friends, it was inevitable there should be plenty of Rosie photos—well, no one needed to know about that. Least of all the woman wanting to share a glass of wine with him in the living room. “In fact, I’ll put your painting right next to the Lego spaceship you built me,” he told Noah.
“You can have one of my drawings too, Gideon,” Jorge said, his voice hopeful.
“Wow, thanks. Everyone is going to want to work in my office.” He lowered his voice. “But now let’s get you both to bed.”
He gave them each kisses, pulled the covers up to their chins, then started the what-to-read negotiation.
They considered one of the Horrid Henry books by Francesca Simon, or one of the Boxcar Children books, but in the end Jorge and Noah agreed that the story they most wanted to read was one of the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne.
Revolutionary War on Wednesday was set in Colonial times, just as General George Washington was about to lead his army in a sneak attack.
Gideon sat on the edge of Noah’s bed, opened the book, and began to read aloud.
Noah leaned against his side, looking at the pictures. “Look at those funny clothes they’re wearing.”
“That’s how they dressed back then, during the Revolutionary War,” Gideon said.
Of course, Jorge had to scramble out of bed to see so that both boys were huddled on either side of Gideon.
“You were in a war, weren’t you, Uncle Gideon?” Noah gazed up at him with his innocent child’s eyes.
“Yes, I was. In Iraq, in the Middle East.”
“I know where that is,” Jorge said. “We had a really big map in our classroom last year when we were learning all about the continents and stuff.”
As Gideon continued to read aloud, the characters jumped from the magic tree house into the biting cold of a Pennsylvania December.
“Was it cold like that where you were?” Noah wanted to know.
“Nope. It was hot,” he said. “Really hot. And sandy. Dusty. The dirt seemed to get into everything.” He leaned close to say, “Even in your underpants.”
They giggled in unison.
“You get used to it.” He shrugged. “You can get used to anything.” In the end, he’d barely noticed the dust and the dirt. It was only when he came home, when he no longer had to wash the sand out of his clothes and his pores, that he noticed the difference again.
They got back to Annie and Jack in the story as the characters came upon a regiment of patriot soldiers in raggedy clothes, some even without boots on their feet, just rags.
“Did they give you boots, Gid, when you were over there?” Worry laced Jorge’s voice, as if he were afraid Gideon had been marching through hot sand in bare feet.
Gideon suppressed a smile. “Yeah, kiddo, we had boots. We had everything we needed to survive. You’d be amazed what you can fit in a pack. It was heavy, but your pack was your life preserver.” His gear had saved his life more than once.
“Can we see your pack?” Noah asked, excitement in his voice.
“I’d show it to you.” He shook his head. “But I don’t have it anymore.”
“Bummer,” they both said.
He moved them along in the story, to the troops on the banks of the Delaware.
“Did you have to push cannons like they did?” Jorge leaned back to look up at him.
Gideon laughed outright this time. “We had trucks to move artillery. And we had rifles instead of muskets. But we didn’t have to use them a whole lot. Mostly, we were on patrol or tower duty or helping out the villagers. And we had some good times back at base.”
It wasn’t until the words came out of his mouth that he realized what he’d said. Whenever he’d looked back, it had seemed as if every day had been a firefight, every day your life was on the line, every day another IED went off. But maybe his memory had played tricks. Because while he had always been on the edge, and his senses had been heightened—because, hell, everyone over there was armed—the reality was that a lot of the time, nothing had happened.
In fact, for the first time in a really long time, he remembered the pranks he and his buddy Zach had pulled on some of the other guys. He remembered card games and razzing his buddies in the little downtime they were actually given.
The boys and their questions made him think, for the first time in forever, about the good stuff, not just the bad.
He kissed the top of Noah’s head, then Jorge’s, then read about Jack and Annie getting stuck in George Washington’s boat about to cross the Delaware. At last, when their questions stopped, he realized the boys’ eyelids were drooping.
He helped Jorge back into his own bed, kissed him one last time, then leaned over to cover up Noah. It wasn’t until he put the book back on the bookshelf that he noticed Rosie standing in the doorway, a wineglass in each hand.
“You’re a very compelling reader,” she said softly. And then, “You can take these out to the living room while I bestow a few kisses of my own.”
He had to work hard to push away his desperate longing for her to bestow kisses on him as he took both glasses, his fingers grazing hers, their bodies close in the confines of the short hallway, her scent making his knees weak.
The soft murmur of their voices drifted out to the small living room as he set the glasses on the coffee table. He decided to buy the book for his Kindle so he and Noah could keep reading, and it would be available for sleepovers. The story had been good for the boys. And honestly, it had been good for him. He’d never talked about what the war had been like. But answering the boys’ questions had made him rethink his experiences. Maybe that wasn’t so bad.
This morning, before their museum outing, he’d gone straight into the backyard and hadn’t had a chance to see much of the cottage. Now, he noted that the living room walls were covered with Jorge’s drawings, some of them framed, some of them tacked to the plaster.
But Jorge’s paintings weren’t the only ones hanging. Rosie’s were here too.
From what he’d seen on her easel at the museum today, he knew she had artistic ability. But now he realized just how deep her talent truly ran.
She worked in paint, acrylics, oils, a few watercolors. She favored faces and landscapes. There was a series done at a harbor he thought might be near Santa Cruz. There were paintings of Jorge and Noah, Ari and Matt, and their friend Chi. Rosie had also pushed her imagination with renderings of Jorge as a young man and Ari as an old woman. But it was a painting of a man watching a group of people laughing that really caught Gideon’s eye. Though the viewer couldn’t clearly see the man’s expression, he looked like a man on an island, one who had forgotten how to laugh, how to have fun.
It was almost as though she’d painted him.
Regardless of who Rosie’s subjects were, with every single painting, he could see the way she viewed life. The picture of old Ari wasn’t a depiction of decrepitude, but a woman who’d lived a long, interesting life and who had enjoyed every second of it. Her rendition of Jorge in manhood showed a young man with hope in his heart.
At last, the door to the boys’ room closed, and her footsteps fell in the hall. “I give them ten minutes of whispering and giggling, then they’ll both zonk out.” She plucked a wineglass off the coffee table, the one with the soft wisp of lipstick on the rim, then handed him the other, tapping her glass to his. She nodded toward the living room gallery. “Jorge’s paintings are great, aren’t they?”
“They are.” He was always so careful with his words around her, lest he say more than he intended. Like how much he wanted her. Or how he couldn’t stop thinking about her. But he needed her to know something. “You’ve got a tremendous amount of talent. Why are you an accountant instead of a full-time artist?”
She curled into the end of the sofa. “First, thank you. And second, I like numbers. Working as an accountant is how I can afford the things that Jorge and I both need to live in the Bay Area.”
He had great respect for everything Rosie had achieved—not only was she doing a great job of raising her son, she was also saving for Jorge’s art lessons and a trip to the Louvre. But Gideon already had plenty of money he would be more than happy to use in helping her out. He’d saved his re-up bonuses, he’d invested well, and he hadn’t spent much of anything while he drifted around the country working on jobsites. He’d been saving for Ari, hoping he’d find her one day. Only, by the time he’d found his sister, she hadn’t needed his money anymore. Even the wedding hadn’t put much of a dent in his savings.
He had way more than enough to pay for art lessons. And he could buy them plane tickets to Paris too. If only he could think of a way to offer without it coming across as charity, which it definitely wasn’t.
But his brain was so scrambled from a day spent looking at her, longing for her, breathing in her enticing scent, watching her laugh, that the best he could come up with was, “Seems to me that if you quit the accounting gig and painted, you’ve got a fortune here.” He gestured to her living room walls.
She shook her head. “Do you have any idea how many struggling artists are out there? Jorge needs the stability I can give him through a good, steady job. He’s my number one priority.”
Everything was about Jorge, and he saw all over again what an amazing mom she was. If the boys ran when they should have walked, or were about to make a bad decision, she didn’t scold, she corrected. She built up their fragile little-boy egos, never tore them down.
Exactly the way she hadn’t torn him down despite what she’d seen in his painting…and his complete loss of control when he’d been about to rip it up.
He’d always seen Rosie as invincible. But now he realized that she needed someone to build her up.
“You really don’t know how good you are, do you?” He sat beside her, because he didn’t want to stand over her as though he were lecturing. Except that sitting close beside her on the love seat, the scent of her hair was a million times more intoxicating than the wine. It made things happen inside him. It made need rise up. The desire to touch, to kiss, to hold. Impossible things. He had to concentrate on her art, nothing else. “Have you asked Ari to show your work to Charlie and Sebastian?” They were both artists. They’d know which galleries to point her toward.
Rosie moved restlessly on the couch, uncurling her legs, turning, tucking them beneath her again. “No. Ari’s as practical as I am. She knows that accounting is the way to pay the bills.”
Rosie never made excuses. But this sure sounded like one. He wondered how he could get hold of one of her paintings. He could take it to Daniel, who could show it to Charlie and Sebastian. Surely, they would make her understand how amazing she was.
But even as he thought it, he knew he couldn’t go behind her back like that. Just as he couldn’t give her the money to pay for Jorge’s art lessons. Rosie had done a great job leading her own life—she didn’t need a screw-up like him stepping in with advice and handouts.
“Speaking of being amazing,” she said softly, “the painting you did today was so emotional, so heartrending. It really moved me.”
Every muscle in his body went rigid. Every bone felt like it might crack.
In an instant, he was right back there in the museum, slashing paint on the paper like a madman. Then he was back further still—in Iraq. Caught in the fire and pain. He saw the faces of his men. He saw death.
He saw Karmen one last time.
And that strange sense of ease he’d felt talking to the boys and answering their questions while they read a book? It collapsed under the weight of that haunting memory.
“I’ve got to go.” He almost spilled the wine trying to get the glass onto the table.
She leaned forward, reaching out. “But—”
He didn’t give her a chance to finish. Or to touch him. “It’s late.”
Too late for him to be with someone as sweet and wonderful as Rosie. Not after everything he’d seen. After everything he’d done.
He was almost out the door when she spoke again. “Are we still on for trampolines tomorrow?”
He’d almost forgotten they’d promised the boys another outing. He couldn’t bail on Noah or Jorge. “We’re still on.”
* * *
Rosie hated the way Gideon had gone, so abruptly, his expression so dark and tormented. And yet…
He’d taught the boys how to play hopscotch. He’d relaxed at dinner. He’d played for hours. He’d smiled. He’d laughed. He’d come out of his shell. He’d kissed the boys good night. He’d read to them. He’d complimented her artwork.
Then Rosie had become complacent, thinking this meant that the incident at the museum had blown over, that they could talk about it now. Thinking that since the boys could get through to him with their simple questions over a story, maybe she could get through to him too. Thinking about how close they’d become yesterday at the wedding when they’d danced, when they’d shared dinner, when they’d twirled around the dance floor with the boys, when she thought she’d no longer have to tiptoe around him like everyone else, even the Mavericks.
So she’d stopped giving him room…and pushed.
He hadn’t clammed up with the boys as he told them a bit about what life in a war zone had been like. And maybe that’s exactly what Gideon needed, just simple questions from curious boys. Where he didn’t feel he was being forced to confront his past.
The only good thing about his leaving was that he’d been gone by the time the phone rang. At least then she didn’t have to explain about the two previous calls. Or how frightened she was by this third one tonight.
The calls came from a blocked number, a breather on the other end of the line. That was all, then she’d hung up. They could be nothing. There wasn’t a single thing that pointed to it being Jorge’s birth father. Not after all this time, when she hadn’t heard from him since the day he told her that having a kid wasn’t in his life plan.
But she couldn’t shake that feeling. Couldn’t pretend she didn’t hear the soft whisper of her name in all that breathing. Couldn’t help being afraid that if Jorge’s father had resurfaced, it couldn’t be for anything good. She would much prefer an obscene phone call.
Rosie hadn’t even told Ari and Chi about the calls, not with the wedding so close. Ruining Ari’s perfect day and honeymoon with worry was out of the question.
And if Gideon found out, she could only imagine how he’d react. Gideon was a protector. Like all the Mavericks. He would have freaked.
Just the way she was freaking.
She’d been keeping tabs on Archibald Findley, of course. Just a few searches on the Internet every couple of months. So she knew where he was.
When he got married, she was actually relieved at the proof that he had completely moved on with his life and would now be creating a family with someone else. But that relief had evaporated a month ago when she’d found that TV interview, the one where Archie and his perfect trophy wife had told the interviewer about their heart-wrenching experience with infertility.
Rosie hugged her knees to her chest, sipped her wine. Told herself, yet again, that she and Jorge were safe here. That Archie wouldn’t find them. That he wouldn’t even try to find them. That he wouldn’t bother, not after he’d kicked her out of his life when she told him she was pregnant.
But she couldn’t ignore the phone calls. Just as she couldn’t ignore the fact that his wife couldn’t give him a child.
While Rosie could.
And had.