Kara Lennox – Good Husband Material (страница 2)
His smile widened. “The boys are great. Sean’s going into his senior year—plays football and guitar. He has a girlfriend, too, which scares the hell out of me.”
“Afraid he’ll run off and get married?” Which was exactly what Josh and Natalie had done, right after high school graduation.
“Yeah. Or he’ll get the girl pregnant. They’re already, you know…sexual.”
“Your son tells you?”
“I pried it out of him. Wanted to make sure he was being responsible about it.”
Natalie knew she would soon have those same kinds of worries. Her daughter, Mary, had turned sixteen just last month. She’d told Natalie she was still a virgin, and Natalie believed her. They were very close, and Mary knew Natalie would support her fully and love her unconditionally no matter what she did. But these days, Mary was looking more and more grown-up, and she seemed to be constantly on the phone with boys.
It was only a matter of time.
“So what about your younger son? Doug, right?”
He arched one eyebrow at her in surprise.
“Hey, I read our alumni newsletter.”
“Ah. Doug is great. He’s the serious one—a little bit more like me when I was that age. Kind of shy, but he has lots of friends. And he’s a brainiac—straight A’s.”
“I bet they’re both handsome.”
“They take after their mother. Blond hair, blue eyes. And very handsome, even if I do say so myself.” He paused. “You have a daughter, I hear.”
From Melissa, no doubt. Natalie was sure Josh didn’t approve of her decision to adopt without a husband. She smiled, ready to prove to him that she’d done an excellent job raising her daughter alone. “Yes. Mary’s sixteen and perfect in every way.”
“That’s motherly love for you. No teenager is perfect.”
“Well, maybe not perfect. But she’s my joy. Never gives me any trouble.”
“My kids are great, too, but they keep me in a constant state of terror.”
“There is that,” Natalie conceded. “I guess I do worry about Mary, though she’s never given me any real reason to.”
“You wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t worry.”
Well, that exhausted the subject of children. “Your parents? They doing okay?” Josh’s parents, who’d owned the Camden National Bank, had sold the bank and moved to a posh retirement community in Galveston a few years earlier. They’d never been overly fond of Natalie, but she still felt obliged to ask after them.
“They’re great. They live right by the beach, and my father plays golf every day. I was sorry to hear about your mom. I wanted to come to the funeral but…”
“I know. Melissa said you were worried about making me uncomfortable. The flowers you sent were beautiful, and I very much appreciated the donation you made in her name to the American Cancer Society.”
“Your mom was always really cool.”
Unlike his parents, who were tense and controlling. If his father played golf, he was probably competitive as hell.
“Do you love being a lawyer?” she asked. Nice and safe.
“I like it a lot, though I still have to work too many hours. Makes being a single parent something of a challenge.”
“I know what you mean.”
“You’re still doing the nurse thing?”
“Loving every minute of it.”
“Hey, if I were in the hospital, I’d want you as my nurse.”
Good Lord, he was flirting with her. “You’re a little old.”
“What?”
“I’m a pediatric nurse. I work in the neonatal unit, so all of my patients are newborns.”
Josh smiled again, a little sadly. “I can definitely see you doing that.”
Of course he could. From the time she could walk and talk, she’d been fascinated with babies. How many times had Josh been forced to stand around while she oohed and aahed over some baby she’d spotted at the mall? She’d volunteered to take care of babies at the church nursery and she’d babysat every chance she got, looking forward to the day when she could hold her very own newborn in her arms.
Only that day never came. She’d thrown away her birth control pills the day she’d gotten married, with Josh’s full blessing. Though they had no money and no plans, they knew they wanted kids.
But the pregnancy never happened.
They saw a fertility doctor. The problem was Natalie’s—she had under-functioning ovaries. If she ovulated at all, it had been extremely erratic. They’d tried fertility drugs, which hadn’t worked, and they simply hadn’t had the money to pursue the next step, which would have been in vitro fertilization.
The constant efforts, continual worries and monthly disappointments when pregnancy tests came up negative combined to put stress on a marriage already overburdened with money problems. They’d both been going to college and holding down various jobs, all while navigating around the strident disapproval of Josh’s parents, who’d been horrified by the sudden marriage of their only son.
Natalie hadn’t been willing to give up. She was going to get a baby, no matter what it took. She’d wanted to adopt, and she’d been ready to put them on a list, figuring that by the time a baby became available they would have the money for all the legal fees. But Josh drew the line. He’d wanted to raise his own child, and had insisted that they keep trying, pretending that some miracle was just around the corner.
In hindsight, she understood his hesitation. But at the time, she’d thought he was being narrow-minded.
Her attention was jerked back to the present when the lights dropped down low and the band switched gears to a slow song.
“Maybe we should sit this one out,” Natalie said nervously.
But Josh didn’t look nervous at all. “Aw, come on, Nat, lighten up. It’s a twenty-fifth class reunion. Comes along once in a lifetime. You’re supposed to get a little bit crazy.”
“Who says?” But she didn’t object when he put his arms around her and pulled her closer. They did a slow glide around the dance floor, passing Melissa and her husband, Beau. Melissa grinned and winked at Natalie. Little did she know the revenge Natalie was planning even now.
By the end of the song, Natalie had relaxed to the point she was resting her head on Josh’s shoulder and thinking about things she shouldn’t. It had been a very long time since she’d been intimate with a man. Years, in fact. There’d been a couple of boyfriends after her divorce, but every time a relationship seemed as if it might take a turn for the serious, Natalie had ended it. She hadn’t been able to bear the thought of falling in love with a man, then telling him she couldn’t have children.
Then she’d adopted one-year-old Mary. After that, she simply hadn’t had time for any other relationships—if anyone had wanted to be with her, which they hadn’t. It wasn’t a myth, that most men viewed single moms as if they had leprosy. But she hadn’t cared. Raising a daughter was completely fulfilling—she hadn’t needed a man in her life, hadn’t even missed having one.
Or maybe she had.
She’d forgotten how good Josh smelled. “Oh, my God.”
“What?”
“You’re wearing Stetson aftershave.”
“I might be.” She heard the grin in his voice.
It was one of the first gifts she’d ever given him, a bottle of Stetson. The smell had seemed incredibly macho to her back when she was seventeen. He’d worn it for her, and it had been a couple of years before he’d been brave enough to tell her he didn’t really like aftershave, that he preferred to smell simply like soap.
Yet he’d worn it tonight. “Is it that same bottle?”
“The old bottle turned to turpentine some years ago. I went out and bought a new one.”
“But you don’t like aftershave.”
“Sure I do.”
No, he most certainly didn’t. His decision to stop wearing it had hurt her feelings, so she darn well remembered it. “Let’s go get something cold to drink.”
On the way back to their table, Bobby Salazar stepped into their path. He stared at them drunkenly. “Thought you two got divorced.”
Josh slapped the other man’s shoulder. “Hey, Bobby. Thought you got sober.”
It took Bobby a moment to process the comment. “Heh, good one.” Then he grinned and staggered off.
“I’m sure we’re confusing a number of people,” Natalie said as they reached their table.
“Yeah, but we won’t see them again for another twenty or so years, so do we care?”
She shrugged. “Not really.”
“I’ll go get us a couple more beers.”