She knew, of course, exactly what he was talking about: when she’d discovered he hadn’t wanted to take her to the homecoming dance, that he’d had to be persuaded, she had paid him back by playing a trick on him. A rather mean—and rather effective—trick.
Preferring their current topic, she asked, “Why are you taking care of a baby? You said it’s not yours. Whose is it, then? How long are you taking care of it?” She wrinkled her nose. “I have to stop saying ‘it.’ Is the baby a boy or girl?”
Ethan smiled. “Still don’t want to discuss the great homecoming debacle, huh?” They walked a few more paces, following her skipping, giggling nieces. “I’m taking care of Cody—who is a boy—for someone close to me. I’d like it to keep it quiet for now. The media is a funny thing, Gemma. Journalists twist stories all the time to find a hook that will sell. I’d like to stay under the radar as long as I can.”
“Staying under the radar isn’t your usual MO, is it?” She winced. That sounded snarky. “I mean, the media’s been good to you, haven’t they?”
“I’ve made a good living off the media, and they’ve made a good living off of me. But this isn’t business. It’s personal.”
She nodded. “Your world is different from mine. So much larger. Thunder Ridge is a fishbowl. In Portland, I work at a private college and rent a mother-in-law unit a stone’s throw from campus. It can be claustrophobic at times. I thought a life like yours would be more expansive, freer. I didn’t realize it could get claustrophobic, too.”
Ethan stopped walking and turned toward her. “That is how it feels.” He nodded, almost to himself. “Sometimes when I’m in a crowd of people, there’s not enough air.”
“It’s over here! Come here!” Vivian and Violet were waving them to the Long River Room, where Elyse and Scott’s reception was being held tomorrow night.
A rare intimacy wove around Ethan and Gemma, real yet frail, like the sheerest of scarves.
“I’ll respect your privacy,” she said, meaning it, and wanting the delicate moment to last awhile longer.
“Thanks, Gemma.”
Vivian emerged from the ballroom, fists on her little-girl hips. “Are you coming?”
“Or not?” Violet mimicked her sister’s body language, though with less conviction.
Ethan relaxed enough to laugh. His eyes glinted again as he arched a brow at Gemma. “Shall we?”
“We’d better. It’s not wise to cross Vivian when she’s on a mission.”
Side by side, they walked to the ballroom, and Gemma realized she was in no hurry to get back to the rehearsal dinner. No hurry at all.
Ethan had been friends with Scott Carmichael and his bride-to-be since they were in their tweens. He thought it was great that they had stayed together and were getting married after all these years. Scott hadn’t even asked him to be his best man; it was simply a foregone conclusion, and Ethan had been happy to oblige. Recent events in his life, however, were turning this wedding weekend into one giant pain in his neck.
Elyse had already hinted that she’d traded on his name to get a friend of hers from college to cover the wedding for The Oregonian. Ethan didn’t come home to Thunder Ridge often, and when he did he valued his privacy, but he’d figured he could grin and bear Elyse’s desire for a taste of celebrity. That, however, was before the Department of Human Services had called to tell him he was about to become the guardian of one very tiny baby.
“This is where we’re going to dance!” Vivian pulled her sister to the large wood-floored square in the middle of the room. The girls began to spin, watching their skirts swirl around their legs. Cute.
“Come twirl with us, Auntie Gem,” Vivian invited. “It’s easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!”
“Twirl!” her sister echoed.
Ethan looked at Gemma. As long as he’d known her, she’d been serious, studious, responsible. Not exactly the twirling type. Smart in a way he could never be. He’d been at the Goulds’ once, hanging out with Scott and Elyse, when Gemma and a friend of hers were studying for an English exam. He’d barely known what she was talking about, but listening to the conversation, he’d felt a pang of envy and a yearning so deep he’d made some smart-ass comment to Scott just to cover his discomfort.
Having a friend like her would have been impractical. Impossible. They’d had zero in common. And then Elyse had convinced him to ask her to the homecoming dance. He’d been a sophomore, already making a name for himself on the football team, and she’d been a senior. Elyse had insisted that Gemma needed to attend at least one high school dance before she graduated. He remembered thinking how wrong Elyse was, how bored Gemma was bound to be, especially if a bonehead like him accompanied her.
“Are you going to twirl?” he asked now, nodding to the spinning twins. Gemma might not be interested in dancing, but her skirt was made for it. Sea-foam green with alternating sections of lace from the knees down, it flirted with her legs when she walked. Her silky top was deep purple, and on her very nice feet were coral-colored shoes with just a couple of straps. All those colors might have clashed on someone else. On Gemma, the outfit looked artsy. Joyful. Suddenly it occurred to him that her clothes had always been the least serious thing about her. “I like the way you dress.” He surprised them both by speaking the thought out loud.
“Thanks.” She blushed, her cheeks turning a deep pink.
Inexplicably not dizzy, the girls ran over and tugged on their aunt. “Come on!”
Gemma chewed the inside of her full lower lip.
A smile tugged at Ethan’s mouth. The women he knew had no problem dancing in public. They fed off the attention. Gemma, however, looked sweetly self-conscious.
Hoping to help her out, he bowed in his best impression of Prince Charming. “May I have this dance, Princess Professor?”
The girls giggled and clapped.
“I’m not a professor, yet. And there’s no music,” Gemma pointed out reasonably.
“You don’t hear anything, Professor?” He looked at the twins. They wore huge smiles, by which he concluded that small children were a lot easier to impress than tiny babies. Or maybe it was because they were female. He didn’t have a wide range of talents, but football and females? Yeah, he had that down. Tilting his head, he insisted, “I hear the castle musicians. Girls, can you hear it?”
“Yes!”
“It’s loud!”
“Then let the dancing begin.” As the twins resumed an energetic ballet, Ethan looked at Gemma. “We’ve danced before. I’m sure it’ll come back to us.”
At the reference to their single awkward dance at homecoming, Gemma narrowed her gaze. “You danced with me once. Then you spent the evening with a varsity cheerleader.”
Yee-ouch. He’d forgotten that part. The cheerleader hadn’t intimidated him at all. Wagging his head, he figured it was time for the apology he’d been too embarrassed or too egotistical to offer her back then. “I was a punk kid, Gemma. I didn’t think much beyond the moment. Or about other people’s feelings.”
He’d been too busy trying to protect his own. From the moment he’d arrived at Thunder Ridge High, Ethan had struggled to appear more confident than he’d felt. Actually, it was more accurate to say he’d been struggling since elementary school. His deficiencies had simply become more noticeable in high school.
Gemma