“Try again,” she prompted, waving the picture at Ethan to get his already wandering attention. “You got this right yesterday.” And, according to the rules, she wasn’t supposed to move on to the next picture until he’d gotten this one right three days in a row. They’d been working on it for two weeks now with no end in sight.
Ethan studied the picture and grinned. “Money!”
Claire was certain she didn’t contain her disappointment that time. “No. Not Monet.” That’d been last month’s lesson.
She snagged one of his toy vehicles. A van. And she held it up with the painting while trying to make a running/going motion with her index and middle fingers. Her nails nearly tore a hole in one of the star blobs. Evidently, $89.95 wasn’t enough to buy higher-quality paper, and her example was obviously too abstract.
“Ri-wee!” Ethan squealed with more excitement than money or Play-Doh.
Frowning, Claire put aside the picture and the van. “No, not Riley.” Or rather Ri-wee. “Why don’t we work on this later? You can go ahead and play.”
You would have thought she’d just announced he could have an entire toy store and unlimited chocolate-chip cookies for life. Ethan scooted across the floor and went back to his cars. The auto crashes started immediately.
“Ri-wee!” he repeated like some kind of tribal shout with each new collision.
Even though he didn’t have the pronunciation down pat, Claire knew her son was only repeating what he’d heard her mumble for the past two days—Riley. For some reason, Riley’s name kept popping into her head and then continued to randomly pop out of her mouth.
And there was no good reason for it.
A few bad reasons, though.
Riley was an attractive man. Still hot. No denying that. He was also very much hands-off since he wouldn’t be around for long, as usual. Maybe her brain would figure that out soon enough and stop sending these ridiculous impulses to the rest of her body.
Claire stayed on the floor next to Ethan but grabbed her laptop from the sofa. Since she had struck out in creating a baby genius, she might as well get some work done, and she downloaded the last photo she needed to edit. When she finished, it would almost be bittersweet because it was also the last of her work in the queue.
More photo shoots would follow. They always did. But it was best if she didn’t have any free time on her hands right now.
Of course, she could fill that free time, easily, by sorting through more of her gran’s things. However, that was more bitter than sweet, and it was also the main reason she kept procrastinating. And overeating. She’d put on six pounds since the sorting had started. Soon, she’d either have to pay for therapy or Weight Watchers.
Her phone buzzed, and Claire saw Livvy Larimer’s name on the screen. Her best friend and co-owner of their business, Dearly Beloved.
“Well?” Livvy started.
No greeting. Which meant she expected Claire to dish up something exciting. And the dishing up that Livvy wanted was about Riley. Best just to give her a summary and hope it didn’t lead to too many other questions.
“Riley finally made it home day before yesterday after his flight was delayed. I fixed him breakfast, and I came back to Gran’s to get some work done on the Herrington-Anderson engagement photos.” An engagement that Livvy knew all about because she was the wedding planner for the event.
“That’s it?” Livvy asked.
Here come the questions. But Claire made Livvy work for the answers. “What else were you expecting?”
“Fudging details. Specifically, fudging you did with Riley.”
Fudging was the compromise they’d worked out instead of using the F word, one of Livvy’s many favorites. They also used sugar for shit and bubble gum for blow job, something that came up surprisingly often in her conversations with Livvy.
They were still working on one for asshole.
Ethan’s little ears picked up on anything Claire didn’t want him to hear while selectively shutting out van Gogh, and since Livvy cursed like a meth dealer in an R-rated movie, they’d resorted to acceptable substitutions.
“No fudging,” Claire explained. She was finally able to keep a straight face when she said it. “I only fixed Riley breakfast and ran interference from some unwanted visitors.”
Livvy made a yeah-right sound. “And you’ve fawned over him for the past decade.”
“Fawned over? What the heck does that even mean? Is that a new compromise word?”
“Yes, it means you dream of fudging and bubblegumming Riley.”
Claire huffed. “Does any woman actually dream of bubblegumming a man? I don’t. It’s more of something that just sort of evolves during foreplay.”
“Foreplay,” Ethan said with perfect clarity. Great, they needed a compromise word for that now.
“Sugar yeah, you dreamed of fudging him,” Livvy went on. “You pointed out his pictures in your high school yearbook. You’ve talked about him. And then there’s Ethan—”
“Riley and I were friends in high school. Friends,” Claire emphasized.
“You can fawn over friends. And fudge them, too. I’ve seen pictures of Riley, and he’d make a great fudge.”
“Riley has never fudged me.” Claire paused. “He’s hurt, Livvy.”
That reminder flicked away the annoyance she was feeling about Livvy’s interrogation. But Claire replaced the flicked-away emotion with one she’d been trying to keep out of her head.
Worry.
“Is it bad?” Livvy asked.
“Maybe.” Probably, Claire silently amended.
“God, I just can’t imagine doing what he does. Ever googled Combat Rescue Officer and looked at some of those pictures?”
Once. It had been enough.
Livvy made a shuddering sound. “And to think, he’s been doing that job for a long time.”
Nine years. Since he graduated from college and joined the Air Force. Riley had been on six deployments, and even though Claire didn’t know the exact locations, she was betting there’d been plenty of other times when he could have been wounded or killed.
Ethan grumbled something, clearly not pleased about his car-bashing game. Claire glanced over to make sure all was well. It wasn’t. One of the cars had broken. Again. Thank heavens it wasn’t one of his favorites so his reaction was mild. The Terrible Twos wasn’t just a cliché when it came to her baby boy. He often aimed high to live up to that particular label.
She needed to find a toddler genius kit to help her with that.
“You think Riley’s got PTSD or something?” Livvy went on.
This was even less comfortable than the fudge question. “If he does, I’m sure there’s help for that at the base in San Antonio. From what he told his sister, he’ll be starting physical therapy there soon.”
The military would patch him up, both physically and mentally if needed, and Riley would go right back out there on deployment again. To someplace dangerous. Because that’s what he did. What he’d always wanted since middle school.
“You haven’t asked me about the hot date,” Livvy said a moment later.
“Date-date, or are we talking fruit now?” And Claire was serious. Livvy had a thing for trying new foods and men. Lots of men.