Hot Buttered Yum (22 page)

“We’re not talking about me.” Ginger smirked at the two of
them.

“Have you seen him recently?” This came from Andie. She
leaned forward in her chair, though neither woman had turned loose of Roni’s
hands. “Is he still hot?”

The blush deepened, turning Ginger’s cheeks a deep crimson.
“He hasn’t been home in years. I have no idea what he looks like.”

“Ah,” Andie thunked back in her chair. “Too bad. I’ll bet
he’s still a catch.”

“I’ll bet he’s bald and fat,” Ginger grumbled. “And has a
nagging wife. Maybe an ex-wife or two, as well. Probably a houseful of unruly
kids.”

Not that she was bitter, apparently. Throughout their teens,
Carter had remained Ginger’s friend, but he’d never looked at her the way she’d
looked at him.

Andie turned her shrewd gaze back to Roni. “I hope you told
Charles he could rot at the bottom of the ocean while the crabs picked his
eyeballs out of his head.”

Roni nodded. “Pretty much. And you two were right. We’d
worked together as a couple, but he wasn’t it for me. Even before he turned
into a first-class jerk. We were simply comfortable together.”

That didn’t mean Lucas was it, either. But he was definitely
farther ahead in line than Charles had been.

“So what happened to Zoe?” Andie returned them to the story.

The muscles along Roni’s neck and shoulders tensed. She knew
the smile she tried to wear came across as heartbroken instead of happy, but it
was the best she could do. She was hollow inside. “I was out on tour when I
decided I wanted to adopt her. I called and talked to my lawyer, and we had a
plan in place. The minute I had a day to run back to town …” She choked on
a sob. “It was three years ago yesterday,” she whispered. “I headed straight to
the hospital to tell Zoe that I wanted her. That she would never be alone
again.”

Tears dripped off her face and landed on their clasped
hands. “She’d died six days earlier.” Pain crushed in her chest. Her voice grew
so quiet that Andie and Ginger practically leaned into her chair to hear. “I
should have been there,” Roni finished.

“Oh, honey.” Ginger was the first to move. She had Roni
wrapped up in her arms, and then Andie closed hers around both of them. Ginger
stroked Roni’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”

Andie pressed her cheek to Roni’s and Roni realized that Andie
was crying too.

Something else occurred to her as well.

This was the first time she’d really cried over losing Zoe.

She’d shut down. Quit functioning. But she hadn’t cried.

“Why didn’t you call us?” Ginger asked in a desperate plea.

Roni shook her head in the circle of her friends’ arms. “I
couldn’t.” She squeezed them tight. “I had two weeks of my tour to finish. Had
to be back onstage the next night. So I hopped a plane, and I tried to put it
out of my mind.”

“Oh baby,” Ginger soothed.

“I know,” Roni whispered. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you
two. You’re my best friends. You deserved to know what was going on in my
life.”

“You deserved to have us hold your hand through it, but
that’s not you, hon,” Andie added. “And that’s okay. You’ve always held
yourself in a little tighter than us. We knew you’d come to us when you were
ready.”

Roni nodded. “I just wish it hadn’t taken me so long. I went
back to New York after my tour, and Danny showed up a few days later. I hadn’t
gone home for Christmas, so he’d known something was wrong.” Roni sniffed. “I
told him everything. At that moment, I needed someone to know that I was
broken. That I wasn’t okay. He stayed for a few days, and then after he left …” Her neck lost the ability to hold her head up and she laid there, her head
lying against Ginger’s. “I didn’t leave my apartment for the next two months. I
didn’t answer the phone, or even open my blinds. I just sat there. Until I
couldn’t even stay there any longer.”

“And then you came here,” Andie stated.

Roni nodded. “And then I came here. I needed my girls. I
couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. I didn’t want to feel the pain again. But
I needed to be with you. And I needed to be away from there. The mere thought
of playing on a stage again made me see Zoe’s face. It reminded me that I hadn’t
been there for her. I’d let her die alone.”

“Oh sweetheart,” Ginger cooed. “Of course Zoe knew you loved
her. I’m sure she looked at those postcards every day. You gave her something
in those six months that she’d never had.”

“Maybe.” Roni wiped at her eyes. “But I’d failed her when it
mattered the most.”

She’d failed Zoe even worse than she’d just admitted to her
friends. But some things she had to keep to herself.

The three of them sat there, huddled together for several
more minutes as each of them shared Roni’s grief, until Roni finally made
herself confess as to what had brought this on.

“Lucas has a daughter.” She spoke into Ginger’s hair. Ginger
pulled back.

“What?” she asked.

“Lucas,” Roni repeated. “He has a daughter. Her name is Sophia
Grace. She goes by Gracie, and she’s four and a half. I accidentally met her
over a video chat the other day.”

Andie’s eyes went wide and round as she slowly sat back into
her chair.

“I talked to her,” Roni admitted. Her chest ached. “She
wants a dog. And to learn to play the piano.”

Discovering Gracie had knocked her out of her locked-down
life. It had made it impossible to keep Zoe contained in the back of her mind.

“And you didn’t run away?” Andie asked.

“I did.” Roni nodded. “But Lucas came after me.”

“Ooooh,” Ginger’s romantic tone was back. “That is so
sweet.”

Roni chuckled. Mental exhaustion made the sound come out
sad. “He showed up here. I tried to kick him out, but instead I ended up doing him
in the shower.
After
he convinced me that there might be something more to
this than just sex. He likes that I enjoy life even though I seem to have my
fair share of hang-ups. He accused me of having this big house because I wanted
to fill it with kids. And he claims that I look at him like I want him to hold
me. Oh,” she paused, but knew she had to put the last thing out there too. “And
he thinks that I miss playing the piano professionally.”

“Do you?” Both of them asked.

Roni nodded.

“I have
got
to meet this guy,” Andie murmured.

Roni rolled her eyes sarcastically. “He’s just like any
other guy.”

But he wasn’t. He wasn’t at all like any other guy.

“He’s dreamy.” Ginger picked up her drink. “And he has these
abs,” she said. She turned up the glass and drained it. “I had naughty dreams
about those abs the other night.”

“Oh my God,” Roni groaned.

Ginger shrugged. “Sorry. It’s been a while.”

The two of them laughed while Andie just stared at Roni.

“He pushed you for more.” She pointed out. “He didn’t take
your crap and walk away, even when you told him it was over. No one has ever done
that to you.”

Ginger nodded in agreement, her eyes growing sober. “She’s
right.”

“
Ever
,” Andie reinforced.

Roni reached for her glass, but it was empty. Before she
could get up for a refill, Ginger ran to get the champagne and orange juice
from the fridge. While she was gone, Roni thought about what Andie had said. No
one had ever done that to her.

She’d dated a few guys after her dad had died, but none of
the relationships had felt right. When she’d suggested they see other people,
not a one of them had protested. Then there had been Charles. He’d made her
choose.

And no one since she’d moved to the island had ever come
close to meaning more. They’d been good times. They’d been fun guys. But if they
hadn’t figured out on their own that it was just a fling, Roni had soon made that
clear.

Until Lucas.

She looked at her friends now. “Why is he different?” she
asked.

It still scared her to death.

Ginger smiled in the dreamy way they were all used to. “Because
he’s special.”

Andie shot her a look and shook her head, and then turned to
Roni. “Because he has abs that you might want to keep around for a while?” She winked
before growing serious and topping off her own drink with the juice. “And
because it sounds like he sees who you really are.”

Roni tapped the pad of her finger against the tines of her
fork. “I’m not sure I know who I really am anymore.”

“You’ll figure it out.” Ginger patted her hand. “And when
you take wrong turns, we’ll be here to shove you back on the right path.
Assuming he doesn’t do it first.”

Roni knew that they would.

She reached out and wrapped an arm around both of them,
pulling them all in close so they practically huddled around the table. “Thank
you for being here for me,” she said sincerely. “I suspect I’m going to need
you again before this is over.”

Andie nodded her head. “Me too,” she mumbled.

Roni laughed. “You have great faith in me, huh?” she teased.

“I mean …
I’m
going to need you both too. But … I’m not sure I should talk about it.”

Ginger and Roni whipped their heads around. “What’s wrong?”
they asked.

Andie looked pained. “I’m nervous to tell you. Not after
what you just told us.”

Roni turned loose of her friend and studied the serious
expression on her face. “Whatever it is, there’s never a better time than when
we’re together, right? Tell us.”

Ginger nodded and reached over to clasp Andie’s hand. “Tell
us.”

Andie eyed Roni another few seconds and then picked up her
glass and grimaced. She held it over the table between the three of them. “There’s
no champagne in my mimosa.”

Neither of them got it for a moment, and then they simultaneously
squealed. A lingering bout of sadness washed over Roni for what she didn’t have
in her life, but she was so happy for her friend. They pulled Andie to her feet,
and the hugs began again.

“When are you due?” Roni asked. She peered down at Andie’s
smooth stomach, wanting to reach out and touch it. “And I’m so glad that you
told us.”

Andie flattened a hand over herself. “Seven months,” she
said. “I just found out yesterday. I haven’t even told Mark yet.”

Tears came from all three of them, and Ginger once again smiled
in her gooey, romantic way. “We’re going to be aunties!”

Tuesday morning in Lucas’s hotel room held the soft click of
computer keys. No television, no sound of water from the shower, no slight
breathing noises from his bed. Roni had risen when he had. She’d tugged on a
pair of jeans and a T-shirt. And then she’d headed out the door, almost before
he could sit down at his laptop.

Lucas logged onto his company’s server, checked in all the
files he’d been working on, then typed up an e-mail to his boss. He’d met the
deadline. He was finished.

Now he was officially on vacation.

He hit send.

Then he dropped his head to the seat back and stared out the
window to the blue sky.

He was careening down the hill toward love and he wasn’t
sure if Roni was following along in his tracks or not. They’d spent a lot of
time together the last few days, and both of them seemed to enjoy it. In fact,
other than the hours between five a.m. and when they saw each other at the
convention center, they spent all their free time together.

The morning hours were their own, though. She played the
piano and went for a run, while he put in a few hours of work and got in a
workout. But after they finished with the competition for the evening, they came
together and either made their way back to the hotel or to her house. Last
night they’d ended up here.

And he’d almost begged her not to get out of his bed and
leave so early.

Time was running out. He needed longer than five more days.

No. He shook his head. What he needed was to figure out how
to bring up the idea of Roni going home with him to Dallas. He wanted her to meet
Gracie.

A knock sounded on his door and he shot a look at the
digital clock sitting on the end table. It was barely seven. His pulse spiked
as he thought about Roni coming back. Maybe she’d been reluctant to leave that morning,
after all.

He swung the door open and his excitement deflated.

“Well, don’t look so damned sad that it’s only me,” Kelly said.
He was dressed in a tight Under Armour shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes, and shoved
his way into the room. Following along behind him was a thirty-pound, solid-black
mound of fur. The dog’s tongue lolled out and she immediately came over to
Lucas for a rub.

“I still can’t believe they let you keep her in the hotel.”
Lucas studied the animal, which would eventually grow into the size of a human
and wondered if Gracie needed a large dog or a small one.

Kelly had brought Mako with him, since she was only three months
old. He hadn’t wanted to leave her alone for two weeks, and had found a dog sitter
on the island to watch her while he was out during the day.

“I offered to stay at a different hotel,” Kelly said, “but
they wouldn’t hear of it.” Kelly stood in the middle of the room now, hands on
his hips and an irritated look smearing his pretty-boy face. His dog moved to a
corner, plopped down, and promptly forgot the both of them existed. “I need
your help,” he announced. “Can you put work aside this morning? Let’s go to the
gym in town today.”

They had been meeting in the hotel’s fitness center every
morning before going over to the convention center, but the equipment in there left
a little to be desired. Lucas glanced at the laptop still sitting open on the
desk. “I just finished, actually. Let me talk to Gracie first and I’m all
yours.” Gracie should be calling any minute. Lucas headed into the bedroom to
the dresser. “What’s up?” he asked as he rummaged through a drawer.

He replaced the T-shirt he’d pulled on when he’d gotten out
of bed with his own Under Armour.

“Today’s a year since we split.” The words were growled out
and Lucas poked his head back around the wall to study his friend. Kelly had
very carefully
not
mentioned anything about Becky the whole time they’d
been here. He ran a hand through his hair and a sigh sounded in the room.

“I’m sorry, man.”

Lucas had been at Kelly and Becky’s wedding five years ago,
and he still couldn’t believe they’d broken up. It had been love at first sight
when they’d both been sixteen.

“Yeah.” Kelly mumbled.

What else was there to say? Yeah. Breaking up sucked. Even when
you didn’t love her with your life. Lucas couldn’t imagine what Kelly had gone
through.

But then, he wondered if he could now. He glanced at the
rumpled bed and thought about not seeing Roni again. The mere idea didn’t sit
well.

It didn’t sit at all.

“Want to talk about it?” Lucas dragged his eyes from the bed
and plucked his shoes from the lined-up row of footwear at the bottom of the closet.
He thought about Roni making fun of his toiletries and figured she’d have about
the same thing to say about his shoes. “Or are we just going to pound out our
frustrations and pretend nothing else is bothering us?”

Kelly’s jaw tightened. “What good would talking about it do?”
He shrugged. “We fucked it up.” He shook his head and Lucas was at a loss as to
how to help. Finally, Kelly said, “I swear I keep seeing her on the island the last
couple of days. Everywhere I look. It’s making me insane. I should be over her
by now.”

And Lucas shouldn’t be falling for a woman that he wasn’t
sure could fit into his and Gracie’s life. But sometimes the heart was in
charge, apparently. Not that it made it any easier to accept.

“We’ll just pound out our frustrations, then.” Lucas
suggested.

A sound came from the computer speaker and he moved back to
the desk. He tapped his mouse and his daughter’s face appeared on his screen.

“Good morning, sweet Gracie,” he said.

She giggled and rocked back and forth, her legs crossed
Indian-style, only with both feet on top of her thighs. She was sitting on the
floor with the camera pointed down at her.

“Good morning, sweet Daddy!” she shouted. “Grandma says it’s
only five more days ’til I see you again.”

He smiled broadly. He missed his kid. “That’s right. Can you
count to five?”

She went immediately into counting, holding up a finger for
each number until she had four held up on one hand and one on the other. While
she counted, Lucas glanced at Kelly and motioned to the screen, silently asking
if he wanted to say hi to Gracie. It had been a couple of years since they’d
seen each other.

Kelly’s eyes shifted to the computer and his jaw hardened
even more. He shook his head.

“Then we can get the dog, right?” Gracie asked. At the word
“dog,” Mako lifted her head from the floor as if knowing that her type was being
talked about.

Lucas flailed in his mind. He didn’t want to talk about getting
a dog right then. And he certainly didn’t want Mako wandering over into
Gracie’s line of sight. He motioned to Kelly and then to the dog, trying to
tell him to keep her out of sight. “How about we wait and see if Santa brings
you one?”

Crap
. He cringed as the words left his mouth. That was
worse than letting Gracie see Mako.

“Oh.” Gracie’s eyes brightened. “I didn’t think of that. I
bets he’ll have the most beautiful dog in the world for me.”

Yep. He was about to be the proud owner of a dog.

“What’s your Grandma doing this morning, Gracie?” he asked.
He wanted to talk to his daughter about Roni, but he wanted to do it alone. If
things progressed and it looked like he might be able to talk Roni into coming to
Dallas, then he’d bring his mother into it. No need to hear her opinion until
he made up his own mind.

“She’s fixing me pancakes,” Gracie said. “And sausages. She
said I could dip the sausages in the syrup. But not in my orange juice.”

Lucas watched the screen as his daughter talked. When she
finished telling him about the pancakes and sausages, she began a rundown of
her evening from the night before. She’d made her grandparents watch
Lady
and the Tramp
, yet again.

She was Lucas’s joy. His life.

She was his everything.

Was he really ready to risk interrupting that by bringing a
third party into the mix?

The picture of Roni lying in his bed that morning, the way she’d
been when he’d awoken, popped to mind. Her legs had been tangled with his, her
warm body curled against his side. Her head had rested on his shoulder, and her
palm had been planted dead center on his chest.

He’d lifted his head from his pillow and peered down at the
two of them, and he’d known that he needed to tell her about Gracie’s cancer.

Which mean that, yes, he was ready to bring her into
Gracie’s life.

The leukemia may not define his daughter, but it was a part
of who she was. It was a part of who
they
were. And he wanted to share
that with Roni.

He could trust her. She was the type who would be there for
the hard parts.

And she was the type who could love Gracie as much as he
did.

Which he would insist on if this was going to go anywhere.

“Hey, Gracie,” he interrupted his daughter, who was now
showing him her pink toenails and explaining how Grandma had let her do them
herself. He wanted his daughter’s thoughts on the matter before he did or
insisted on anything, but he also worried about getting her hopes up.

“What, Daddy?”

Bright eyes blinked at him in complete and utter trust and
his heart seized. He would do anything in the world to keep from hurting her.

“Do you remember my friend from the other day?” he began
slowly. He couldn’t believe he was asking this, but he couldn’t just spring
Roni on her, either. “The piano player that was here when we were talking?”

She nodded, her green barrette slipping to hang precariously
on the end of her fine hair. “She had pretty curls like me,” Gracie said. Gracie’s
hair had grown back curlier after the chemo. “Is she there? Did you learn to
play the piano?”

The child never quit talking. “I haven’t learned to play
yet,” he said. Nor had Roni played for him—which he was hoping to change. He
wanted a private showing. “I was thinking … how would you like to talk to
her again sometime?” He rushed his words now. “What if she stopped by the house
someday? Just to say hi.”

He caught the raised eyebrow on Kelly.

“Would she teach me to play the piano?”

He could imagine Roni sitting on the bench in his great room
with his daughter, showing her where to put her fingers on the keys. She would
be a patient teacher, he suspected. But taking her home with him wasn’t about
the piano.

“I don’t know, Gracie. Maybe. But how about if she just came
for a visit sometime?”

“Why?”

He smiled at her curiosity.

“Because she’s a special friend and I thought she might like
to meet you,” he explained. “And I thought you might like to meet her too.”

Gracie pursed her lips as she thought it through, her
eyebrows lowered. Her thinking took all of two seconds. “I think I might like
to,” she declared. “Would she play dolls with me?”

Lucas chuckled as the weight low in his stomach began to
ease slightly. “She might,” he said.

“When will she be here? Are you bringing her in five days
when you come home? Hey, Grandma.” Gracie suddenly shot up from the floor and
ran out of sight of the camera.

“Gracie—” he started, but stopped. She was gone. Nerves
tingled up his arms and around to the back of his neck.

“You’re taking Roni home with you?” Kelly asked quietly.

Lucas shrugged. “I’m thinking about it. If she’ll come.”

The line of his friend’s mouth shifted from the flat, hard mark
it had been in since he’d arrived, to a smile. It wasn’t huge, but Lucas could
see it was heartfelt. “Congrats,” he said. “She seems like a great gal.”

“Daddy’s bringing home a friend.” Gracie’s voice could be
heard offscreen.

Christ.
Lucas wasn’t ready to explain to his mother
that he might be risking bringing home another woman who wouldn’t stay.

“What’s that?” He heard his mother ask.

“A special friend,” Gracie said. “Daddy’s bringing her
home.”

Kelly snapped for Mako and the dog stood. They both headed
to the door. Kelly was giving him some privacy. “Meet me in the lobby in ten?”
he said.

Lucas nodded. He needed the extra-hard workout himself.

Gracie was suddenly in front of the monitor again, staring straight
into the screen. “Can she stay with us?” she asked. “I can share my room with
her.” She bit her bottom lip for a second before adding hesitantly, “I’ll sleep
in the top bunk if she’s scared to. I’m a big girl now.”

A flutter tickled just behind Lucas’s ribs. Up to this
point, Gracie had refused to spend more than a couple minutes on the top bunk.

His mother appeared behind Gracie. She was wiping her hands
on a pale-yellow dish towel and wore an apron, slightly frayed around the
edges, that he could remember seeing her wear when she’d fixed weekend pancakes
for him and his friends during his teens.

“What’s this, Lucas?” she asked. “You’re bringing a woman
home?”

“No, Mom.” Good grief. “I asked Gracie how she’d feel if I
invited a friend to come visit.”

“I said yes,” Gracie added for clarification. She nodded her
head.

Lucas ignored his mother to focus on his daughter. “I’m not
sure if she’ll come, Gracie. But I think I’m going to ask her, if that’s okay with
you.”

Gracie picked up on his more serious tone. Her exuberance
calmed and she tilted her head. “Does she have any little girls?” she finally
asked.

“No, baby. But she likes little girls.” They’d talked about
Gracie several times over the last few days and it had been apparent that Roni
loved kids.

“Do you think she would like me?” Gracie asked.

His mother twisted her hands together.

“I’m positive she would like you.” He wanted to say he couldn’t
imagine anyone not liking her, but Gracie had recently asked why she didn’t
have a mother. Someone at her dance class had told her that everyone had a
mother. And Gracie was a bright kid. She’d come home that day and asked if she
didn’t have a mother because her mother didn’t like her.