“Well, come in.” I stepped aside and nodded toward the kitchen.
Kael took his dad’s jacket and hung it on the coat-tree next to his. Both men left their stocking caps on. Dan headed to the kitchen first.
“After you, Mrs. Smith.” Kael smirked.
I glared at him for a few seconds before following Dan. My body stiffened with a tiny jerk when Kael’s hand slid under the back of my sweater, teasing my lower back with his cold fingertips.
Without turning around, I reached behind me and yanked it away.
“God … you’re feisty,” he whispered.
“Cream? Sugar?” Bella set two mugs of coffee on the kitchen table and then grabbed herself a cup of coffee as well.
I returned to my food prep.
“Are you in college, young lady?” Dan asked Bella.
“No. Senior in high school. I’m hoping to get accepted to a college next year in a place a little warmer. SoCal … Texas … Florida.”
Dan and Kael laughed.
“Where did you go to college?” Bella asked Kael.
“I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
With my back to the kitchen table, I continued stuffing the turkey and grinned at my daughter’s question, as if college was a forgone conclusion for every person. Some people made millions of dollars with no college degree. Some people started college and got pregnant with twins only to spend twenty-two years being a full-time mom.
Kael laughed a little. “I had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. Still don’t.” That made Dan laugh too.
“So I traveled like a nomad. Odd jobs. Hiked across Europe. Slept on any sofa someone was willing to offer me. Made wine and olive oil in Tuscany and learned to captain a sailboat on the Mediterranean.”
“That’s so cool. So then … why are you in Epperly?”
I snorted a laugh and glanced over my shoulder. Kael snagged my gaze for a few seconds with that Captain America grin of his. Bella’s sour voice, when she said Epperly, made it impossible to imagine she’d stay in such a small, Midwest town her whole life.
Like I did. Barefoot and pregnant.
“I was born in Epperly,” Kael replied.
That grabbed my full attention as I washed my hands and turned toward the kitchen table while drying them with the towel. There was so much you didn’t learn about someone when all you did was have sex with them. I learned about Kael through other people.
“You were?” Bella’s incredulity leaked through every response.
His dad chuckled. “Yes. My wife went into labor while we were on our way home from visiting my parents. Things progressed quickly on our four-hour drive, and Kael was born in the car with the help of a nice police officer while we waited for the paramedics. We spent two nights at the hospital here and then drove home.”
“And that made you want to start a business in Epperly? Two nights in a hospital?” I asked, letting my own curiosity have its voice in the safe company of my daughter and Kael’s dad.
Kael shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” He grinned before sipping his coffee. That grin … it said he knew what I looked like naked.
“The kid has always run on pure instinct.” Dan and Kael exchanged knowing glances at his father’s comment.
“I’m in the moment.” Kael set his coffee on the table, shifting his gaze to me again for a brief second.
“I love that. I mean … we’re only guaranteed this moment, right?”
Kael nodded once at Bella. “That’s how I figure it.”
“It’s why he won’t settle down and pass on the family name.”
“How long were you married before you lost your wife?” I asked Dan.
“Forty-one years. Three months. Five days.” Dan didn’t have to think. Not for one second. He knew because he cherished those forty-one years, three months, and five days.
I knew my stats with Craig too, but not because I cherished every single day—I kept track like a prisoner awaiting parole. “Is Kael your only child?”
Again … I knew nothing about the man I’d been screwing as the best part of my so-called midlife crisis. Not that I really believed in that, but what was the point of enduring the maturing transition of the forties if I couldn’t use all the excuses: midlife crisis, hormones, emotional burnout from raising a family? In my twenties, I used the “young and stupid” label to death. Basically, anything that wasn’t quite right about my kids was because I was such a young mother figuring stuff out on a day-to-day basis.