“Sure. Thanks, Mom.” Franci grabbed Vivian’s coat from the back of the chair and helped her slip it on. “I’ll watch you walk home,” Franci said.
“I’m sure I won’t fall in the street. Or get mugged.”
“I’ll watch you just the same.”
Franci, Vivian and Rosie had lived together in this little two-bedroom house for a couple of years, Franci sharing her bed with Rosie. About a year ago Vivian had purchased a similar house at the end of the block. They’d always planned to have their own residences, both of them being independent, single women, but Rosie’s arrival was the impetus for them to remain close enough so they could join forces to take care of her. When Franci worked those twenty-four-hour shifts, or went out on that rare late-night date, Rosie spent the night at Grandma’s. If it wasn’t going to be a late night or an overnight for Franci, Grandma came to Rosie’s house so Rosie could fall asleep in her own bed. Now that Rosie was in preschool and day care, both her mother and grandmother could easily juggle child care and manage their jobs.
Franci watched her mom walk down the street and up the flower-lined walk that led to her own door. Once Vivian was inside, she flashed her porch light a few times to signal that she was all right, then Franci went in and closed her own front door.
Franci hung up her coat, scooped her redheaded daughter off the couch and carried her to bed. Her arms flopped; she was out cold. Her comforter was turned down and her bedside lamp glowed. Grandma had clearly been optimistic that Rosie would slip right into bed when it was time, rather than fall asleep on the couch, as she preferred. Franci tucked her daughter in, pressed the comforter around her and kissed her forehead. Rosie let out a sleepy snort.
“I saw your daddy tonight,” Franci whispered. “There’s a reason you’re so beautiful.”
Two
Sean hadn’t slept real well after seeing his old flame, so he beat the morning rush in the bathroom before there was so much as a sound from the bridal suite. He was halfway through his Wheaties when Shelby came into the kitchen in her jeans and sweater, ready to head over to Arcata to school. She was studying nursing at Humboldt U.
“Well, well. It’s rare to see you before I get home in the afternoon,” she remarked, going for the coffee. “When you’ve been out prowling till the wee hours, you usually need your beauty sleep.”
Sean grunted.
“I guess that was ‘good morning,’” she said. “And same to you.”
Luke came into the kitchen next. “Well, hey there, sunshine,” he said to his brother. Sean lifted his eyes but not his head. Luke laughed at the grim expression. “Lumpy mattress? Did we put out the scratchy toilet paper?”
“Bed’s fine.”
“You want to grab a couple of the general’s horses and ride along the—”
“I’m going to be tied up. I have some errands,” Sean said.
Shelby lifted a stack of thank-you notes from the table and gave her husband a glare. They’d been married a couple of weeks and he was supposed to be adding his gratitude and signature to the notes she’d all but completed. “Luke…” she began. “Before you think about riding or fishing—”
“I know, I know,” he said, glancing at the notes. “It’ll get done.”
“You really think he’s going to do that girlie shit, Shelby?” Sean asked.
Shelby sat down at the table, confusion knitting her brow. She’d known Sean for about a year; he was the playful brother—the flirt and the comedian. They used to joke that Sean would have fun at a train wreck; his mood was perpetually upbeat. Luke had been the grump, but she’d softened him up. This crankiness from Sean was so unexpected. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Fine,” he answered shortly.
Luke poured himself a coffee and sat down. “Fender bender? Speeding ticket? Pretty girl reject you? Food poisoning?”
Sean sat back in his chair. “I ran into Franci last night,” he grumbled. “Pure chance.”
Luke merely frowned; he didn’t remember her. Sean had dated prolifically.
“Franci Duncan,” he said in exasperation. “Who I practically lived with a few years ago. Remember? We broke up when she got out of the air force and I got assigned the U-2.”
“Oh, I remember her now,” Luke said. “Haven’t you seen her since then?”
“No,” Sean said impatiently, taking another spoonful of cereal. “I tried to see her, but she was gone. I tried to reach her mother to see where she was, and her mother had moved, which made no sense because she’d been in that house in Santa Rosa for at least ten years. Maybe twenty years, I don’t know.”
“You looked for her?” Luke asked. “This is the first I’ve heard about that.”
“Because I didn’t talk about it. And I didn’t find her,” Sean said. “Obviously.”
“What about her friends?” Shelby asked.
Sean was silent. He grimaced and finally said, “I checked with a couple of them, but they didn’t know anything.”
“That’s crazy,” Shelby said. “Women don’t give up women friends. Especially after they’ve broken up with a guy they’ve been with a while—that’s traumatic, even when it’s for the best. Who was her best friend? Her other best friend? I mean, it was kind of different with me—I was my mother’s caretaker and, while I had good friends, I had very little time for them. But I was always in touch with them when I—”
Luke put a hand over Shelby’s to stop her because Sean looked perfectly miserable.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Well, who’d you ask?”
Sean shrugged uncomfortably. “We used to do things all the time with some couples—guys from my squadron and their wives or girls. We went four-wheeling, skiing, boating, camping, hiking…Two of them were married and one couple lived together. I asked the women. They hadn’t heard from her. I asked her former boss, the colonel in her old medical unit at the base hospital. I asked her neighbor.”
“Oh,” Shelby said again.
“Okay, she had a few girlfriends and I met them, but we didn’t get together with them and I couldn’t remember their last names. And it had been a while.”
“Um. A while?” Shelby asked.
“Okay, what happened was this—we had a fight. I got orders and she was going to get out of the air force, all at the same time. And she wanted to know…Thing was, I was transferring. I told her there was nothing stopping her from relocating to be closer to my next assignment and that pissed her off—that I didn’t exactly invite her to join me, that I didn’t make plans with her. I probably said I was sorry for that—I bet I did.”
“And you broke up over that?” Shelby asked.
“Sort of. Not exactly,” Sean admitted.
Luke put his elbow on the kitchen table and lazily leaned his chin into his hand, watching. Amused. And so glad some other Riordan male was taking the heat.
Sean took a breath. “She wanted to get married,” he said. “She said, either we at least get engaged and plan to get married, or I walk. Those were her words.” He made a slash in the air with his finger. “Line in the sand. Ultimatum.”
“Really,” Shelby said with a questionable tone. “After only two years of practically living together?”
“Okay, now you’re just making fun of me,” Sean said in a pout. “I admit, I shouldn’t have let her go. But I was younger. I was cocky then.”
“Oh, were you?” Luke asked.
Sean glowered.
“So, she said she was ready for marriage, you said you weren’t, you split up—is that right?” Shelby asked.
“That’s about it.” He made a face. “We might’ve said a few unnecessary things during the discussion. You know—angry things.”
“I’ll bet,” Luke said.
“And you tried to track her down? Later?” Shelby asked.
“After I transitioned into the new squadron. After training in the new jet. After I thought we both had time to simmer down a little bit. You know.”
Shelby looked at Luke and shook her head dismally. “Does this run in the family?” she asked. She and Luke had had a similar standoff, but she hadn’t let him get away with it and had pushed him hard. But Luke had been ready to be domesticated. All she knew about Sean was that he was considered a playboy by the brothers. This was the first time she’d heard about a steady girl.
“It’s possible,” Luke admitted with a shrug. “Except Aiden. He wants to get married, have a family, but if he didn’t have bad luck with women, he’d have no luck at all. He was married once. To a lunatic.”
“Lord,” Shelby said. “No wonder your mother is fed up with the lot of you. Sean, what happened when you ran into her?”
“She said I looked good and, no, she didn’t want to have coffee or anything else with me. She won’t talk to me. At all. And I even said I was wrong. Sort of.”
“Hm,” Shelby said. “Maybe she’s moved on.”
“Well, then, she has to tell me that. Explain that. Because—” He stopped. He couldn’t think of a reason why she owed him that, but he was sure she did.
“Now what?” Luke asked.
“I’m going to have to find her.”
“Why? You said you were done, she said okay, you caught up a few years later and it’s still done…I don’t see the issue.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Sean said in a very impatient huff. “Because you don’t know Franci.”
“Sure I do. We all knew Franci. Nice girl, Franci. Hottie.” He grinned. “We kind of all thought you’d marry her. But then when you didn’t and went to Beale alone, we all said, ‘There goes another Riordan.’”
“Here’s the thing—I shouldn’t have broken up with her. What I should have done was explain why we should stay together and why we didn’t need any kind of old-fashioned contract to be okay with that. We were young, only twenty-six and twenty-eight. There was lots of time to consider big leaps like marriage. There’s still lots of time, for that matter.” Luke, thirty-eight and barely through a similar crisis, lifted a brow toward his twenty-five-year-old wife. “We should have gone to Beale and worked it out. But I didn’t do that because she made me so frickin’ mad.”
It was silent in the kitchen for a moment. “Well,” Luke finally said with fake cheeriness, “I’d love to stay and chat about your pathetic love life, but I need to grab Art and get over to the hardware store before—”
Shelby was shaking her head dismally. “So you had a little hissy and said, ‘Fine, just go, then.’ Is that it? Kind of like, ‘My way or the highway,’ huh?”
“Aw, come on, Shelby,” Sean said pleadingly. “You know I’m not a guy with a temper! I’m a sweetheart. I’m not a fighter, I’m a lover. And I don’t have any problem seeing myself with one woman. You know? It’s just the whole marriage thing—it was not for me. Marriage scared the hell out of me. A couple of my brothers tried it and it screwed them up bad. And kids?” He shook his head. “Maybe when I’m old and worn out like Luke I’ll change my mind, but at the moment I don’t feel like being tied down like that.”
“Ah,” she said. “I see. So you’d like to have a nice chat with Franci and explain all this to her?”
“Something like that,” he said, making perfect sense to himself. “It’s no crime to have a fight, but we never should’ve given up what we had. We were good together.”