"How're you, Jack?"
He looked over her head at Daisy. "I've been better."
"This is Lily's son Pippen."
So, the kid belonged to Lily. For some reason, he was relieved that the boy with the mullet wasn't Daisy andSteven's. But he couldn't begin to understand why he should care.
Lily stepped back and shook her head. "You look as good as you always did."
"Thanks, Lily. You do too," he said, and meant it.
"Hey, Rhonda"- his sister-in-law had I haven't had sleep in five years smudges under her dark brown eyes _"You okay, girl? Billy tells me you had a hard night."
"I was up most of it with Tanya. She has an earache, but we got a bottle of the pink medicine today, so she'sfeeling better."
Billy pulled the baby's sock up her pudgy leg.
We yanked the 'Vette engine while you were gone today."
He pulled out a chair between Lacy and Rhonda and across from Daisy and Lily. "Did you get a look at theclutch?"
"You were right," Billy said. "It needs to be completely replaced."
"I found one in Reno," he told his brother.
"How was Tallahassee?" Daisy asked him.
"When were you in Tallahassee?" Billy wanted to know.
"Last year."
Daisy's eyes rounded and her mouth fell open. "You lied to me."
He smiled as he leaned forward and poured himself a Dr. Pepper from a pitcher. She gave him that grow upglare like she had the other night, then she turned to his brother.
"Do you mind if I hold Tanya?"
"Not at all." Billy handed her over the baby, and Daisy stood Tanya in her lap. Jack half expected the six-month-old to start screaming, instead she laughed and pinched Daisy's cheek.
"Look, Pippen," Daisy said to the kid in the high chair beside her. "Isn't Tanya just a sweet little love muffin?"
"No!"
"Can I open my pez-ent from Uncle Jack?" Lacy asked in her tiny three-year-old voice.
"It's okay with me if it's okay with your Uncle Jack," Rhonda answered.
"Have at it kid," he said, although he would have preferred that Daisy wasn't sitting across the table when thatstupid cat present was opened. Why he should give a shit, though, he didn't know that either.
Lacy tore off the bow and chucked it behind her shoulder. She ripped the paper and gasped as she tossed theshredded remains on the floor. "Kitty Magic! My fav-rut thing in the world!"
"Hey, that's what you said this morning when you got your Barbie Power Wheels," Billy reminded her.
Lily leaned across the table, and she and Rhonda chatted about what they'd been doing since high school. WhileLacy and Amy Lynn took the cat and her kittens out of the box, the two women talked about kids and theftlives; and when Lily said something about "Ronnie the Rat Bastard," Jack took it to mean she was getting adivorce. It also explained why she looked terminally pissed.
He took a long drink of his Dr. Pepper and sucked an ice cube into his mouth. He glanced across the table atDaisy and Tanya and Pippen. Tanya still stood in Daisy's lap, blowing raspberries. The little boy laughed andDaisy laughed, too. His gaze moved to her hands and her blood-red fingernails. A thin silver bracelet circled herslim wrist and a tiny heart rested against her pulse. The bracelet sparkled in the light, and as if she felt his gazeon her, she looked at him over the top of Tanya's dark head. Her smile fell and her brows drew together slightly.
She stared at him through brown eyes that he used to think looked like melted chocolate. But that had beenwhen he'd been ten years old and thought chocolate was the best thing in the world. Then he'd gotten older anddiscovered something better. Something darker and richer in those eyes. A knot twisted low in his belly. Hewouldn't call it desire, but it wasn't disinterest either.
Billy plugged the mother cat with batteries and set it on the table. Lacy stood in her chair again, andJack turned his attention to his niece. She stuck the kittens on the mother's side, and damn if it didn't makeweird sucking sounds.
"It's a... well it's a nursing kitty." Daisy looked up from the pink Persian and laughter lit up her eyes. "Jack, whythat's so sweet."
"Are those nipples on that thing?" Billy wanted to know.
"It looks like she has hearts instead of nipples," Jack told him.
"How come?" Amy Lynn wanted to know. They had a real mother cat at home, and she knew mommy catsdidn't have hearts there.
Neither Billy nor Jack could think of an answer. Daisy looked at Amy Lynn and said, "Because hearts are cuterthan nipples."
If they'd been alone, Jack might have told her exactly why she was wrong about that. Instead, he bit his ice cubein half and pushed it to one cheek.
"And they got some sunglasses, Lacy," Amy Lynn pointed out.
The center curtains on the stage parted and three big mechanical bears sprung to life, dancing and pretending toplay instruments. A song about a happy frog filled the dining room, and Lacy clapped her hands.
Lily's kid let out a scream at the top of his lungs.
Daisy handed Tanya back to Billy and she took the little boy from the high chair. She said something to Lilyand walked from the room with the boy still screaming. Jack's gaze slid down the back of her tank top to herbehind in those jean shorts.
"Did you see 'Monster Garage' the other night?" Billy asked over the music.
While Jack occasionally watched the show, Billy was a fanatic. "No, I missed that one."
"They turned a school bus into a pontoon boat?" he said, but the noise from the stage made it impossible for himto say any more.
Jack waited about five minutes before he followed Daisy and her nephew. He found the two of them in the playarea. She'd cleaned Pippen's face, and he was playing in a pit of multicolored balls surrounded by mesh thatwent clear to the ceiling. She stood outside the mesh watching him wade through the balls as if he were walkingupstream.
"How'd you manage to get yourself invited to Lacy's birthday party?" he asked as he came to stand beside her.
She glanced up into his face. "Lily and Pippen and I were already here when they walked in."
"And it was a complete surprise?"
She shook her head and her ponytail brushed her bare shoulders. "No. I knew you were going to be here, but Ididn't expect Rhonda and Billy to invite us to sit with them."
"What's it going to take for you to leave me alone?"
She turned her attention back to her nephew. He picked up a plastic bail and threw it. It missed a little girl byabout a foot. "You know what I want."
"To talk."
"Yes. There is something important we need to talk about."
"What?"
Sirens from a skeet-ball machine blared in the background. "Something too important to talk about in themiddle of Showtime."
"Then why are you here, tonight? Stalking me and my family?"
"I'm not stalking you. I just wanted to remind you that I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere until you talk tome." She glanced down at her feet. "I have a letter Steven wrote to you. I don't have it on me, though."
"What does it say?"
She shook her head again, then stared straight ahead. "I don't know. I haven't read it."
"Send it to the shop."
"I can't do that. He asked me to give it to you in person."
"If it's so damn important, why didn't he give it to me himself? Instead of sending you?"
"Pippen, don't throw that," she told her nephew before she turned to face Jack. Red and blue lights from a videogame to the right flashed on her bare shoulder, the side of her neck, and the corner of her mouth. "I think hemeant to at first. For the first year of his illness, he believed he'd beat his cancer. We knew all along that no onehad ever survived glioblastoma, but he was young and healthy and the early treatments seemed to be working.
He fought so hard, Jack." She turned back to Pippen and grasped the mesh with her hands. "By the time heaccepted that he was going to die, it was too late to talk to you in person." The little heart on her braceletdangled from her wrist. He stared at it, not wanting to feel anything for Steven or for her. Not wanting to give ashit.