His stomach dropped. He should tell her how glad he was that she’d made it. That he’d been thinking of her the past few days. That he missed her.
“Hey” was all that came out. “You got my message. About the picnic,” he added.
“Uh...yeah. I mean, I’m here, aren’t I?” she asked, not sounding too happy about it.
“I didn’t think you were going to make it. You didn’t call me back.”
“I was at my soccer scrimmage.”
He groaned inwardly. Her scrimmage. The one she’d invited him to.
The one he’d totally forgotten about.
Shit.
His fingers tightened on the spatula, ached with the urge to whip it across the yard. “I had to do this thing at City Hall,” he told her, “or else I would’ve made it to your scrimmage.”
She lifted a shoulder. As if she couldn’t care less if he watched her play or not.
He cleared his throat. “What were you saying about not pressing on the burgers?”
“If you press on them, all the juice squirts out. And you should only flip them once.” She lifted her chin. “That’s how Uncle James does it.”
“Yeah? You think that’ll help from turning these into hockey pucks?”
She eyed him as if trying to decide if he seriously wanted her opinion or not. Studied him as if she could see inside his head and read his thoughts, judge them and then decide if he was worthy or not.
Just like her mother used to do.
He wanted her to smile at him, just once. Look at him like she used to, with respect and adoration and a bit of awe, as if he was some superhero. Her hero.
“It should,” she finally said, stepping closer to him. “Plus, you have the flame low enough that they’ll cook all the way through.” She edged even closer, glanced around then lowered her voice. “Papa Carl always keeps the heat up too high.”
“Carl’s not much of a cook. He used to ruin peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”
She nodded, not a hint of a grin in sight. Tough crowd.
“You do a lot of cooking?” he asked.
“No, but Mom said we’re gonna start making dinner at home more and that I can pick something to make by myself once a week. I like to bake stuff, though. I brought chocolate cupcakes I made myself.”
Maddie had actually listened to him? He hadn’t expected that. Had figured he’d have to fight her every step of the way about every damn thing.
Score one for him.
“Chocolate, huh? That’s my favorite.”
“It is?”
Did she have to be so suspicious of everything he said? “It is. Since you know so much about burgers, why don’t you help me with these?” he asked, holding out the spatula.
After what seemed like an eternity, she took it and stepped up to the grill.
“Don’t get too close,” he warned.
“I won’t.” Her tongue between her teeth, she checked one of the burgers then carefully flipped it. Flames leaped, grease sizzled. But she wasn’t burned and her hair hadn’t caught on fire.
“How come you call Papa Carl ‘Carl’ and not Dad?”
About to take a drink of his beer, he froze. Slowly lowered his arm. Where the hell had that come from? “He’s not my dad. Not my real dad.”
“But he and Grandma Gerry adopted you and Aunt Fay because your real mom died and your real dad left you.”
Leave it to a kid to be that succinct. “Yeah.”
“A girl in school was adopted from Russia and she calls her adopted mom ‘Mom.’ And Aunt Fay calls Papa Carl and Grandma Gerry ‘Dad’ and ‘Mom.’”
“That’s Aunt Fay’s choice.” It’d been easier for Fay, two years younger than Neil, to bond with the Pettits. To think of them as her parents.
To forget about the people she’d come from.
“I’m sorry your real mom died,” Bree said softly, laying her hand on his forearm. “I guess I never told you that, but I am.”
Her hand was small, a bit clammy and incredibly warm. He studied her. His child. Intellectual, polite, nonathletic...she was the complete opposite of everything he was, of everything he was familiar with. Comfortable with. He didn’t know what to do with her, how to connect with her. Ever since he’d been in town, he’d had the feeling that she was mad at him. That she hated him.
And yet here she was, offering him sympathy.
He wondered if his biggest mistake wasn’t getting Maddie pregnant or sleeping with that redhead.
But in staying away for so long.
* * *
“BREE!”
Her heart racing, Bree hunched her shoulders and shoved a dip-laden Dorito into her