Winning Over Skylar

“Melanie?” he called. “What do you want for dinner?”

After a long minute she appeared at the top of the stairs and stared at him coolly. “You mean you’re asking?”

Oh, God.

Pain throbbed in his temples. She was usually very sweet and accommodating—almost too accommodating—but apparently he couldn’t say anything right at the moment. Not that Melanie didn’t have cause to be touchy—he’d royally stuck his foot in his mouth—but if this was what it meant to be a parent, you could keep it.

“Yes, I’m asking,” he said as calmly as possible.

“Whatever I want?”

Yeah, she could have whatever she wanted...as long as it came from a restaurant that delivered or had a take-out menu. He didn’t cook. Toast, oatmeal and coffee in the morning were the extent of his culinary skills.

“Within reason.”

Melanie lifted her chin. “I’ll take a chicken sandwich and sweet-potato fries from the Nibble Nook.”

“That isn’t within reason. You know the Nibble Nook is closed for the day.”

“Then I don’t care. I have geometry problems and an English assignment to finish.” She turned and disappeared.

The afternoon just kept getting better and better. Aaron arched his back, trying to release the tension. He really had to deal with the yard. The neighborhood association had written, complaining about the length of the grass. Why anybody minded, he didn’t know. This wasn’t the garden district of New Orleans, it was a little town that rolled up its sidewalks at night and on Sundays.

Despite his grandfather’s expectations that he would eventually take over one day, Aaron had never wanted to live in Cooperton again...and yet here he was. Of course, coming back would have been easier if George Cooper had retired before the business had fallen apart. Once Aaron got it viable again he’d have to evaluate whether he was going to stay, or consider other options.

Putting on jeans and a work shirt, Aaron went out to the garage. The rented house hadn’t come furnished, but he’d seen a lawn mower and had a couple of hours of daylight left to work.

Forty minutes later he was hot, sweaty, and his shoulders ached. He gazed perplexed at the mower that refused to start; he was a novice at cutting grass, but it shouldn’t be tough to figure out. The mower had gas, and he didn’t think it was terribly old. Yet the damn thing wouldn’t go. Maybe the gardening service used to bring their own equipment because this one was broken.

Frustrated, Aaron shoved the mower back into the garage and headed into the house. The service had told him they were overextended with customers and regretted terminating him as a client, but their regrets didn’t help him get the lawn mowed.

In the kitchen he leafed through a stack of menus. They hadn’t ordered pizza in over a week, and Mama Gianni’s also had a decent chicken Greek salad. Pizza from Vittorino’s Italiano was better, but they didn’t deliver except on weekends. He dialed Mama Gianni’s and ordered the Meat Lover’s special and a family-size salad. Yet as he hung up the phone, he heard Skylar’s voice in his head.

Do you even know what pizza she likes?

Shut up, Skylar, he ordered silently.

She hadn’t changed much since high school—she still had that gorgeous auburn hair and green eyes...and a mouth that wouldn’t quit. She’d sassed the teachers, cussed out the principal, gotten suspended more than once for breaking every rule in the book, and finally dropped out before graduation. It was ironic that a girl who’d skated through classes by the skin of her teeth was now diligently overseeing her kid’s homework. And she wondered why he questioned if she might be a bad influence.

Yet a part of him didn’t blame Skylar for being antagonistic. She’d represented a challenge when they were kids—his pals had dared him to nail her and he wasn’t proud of his teenage self for taking that dare, or for dropping her once he’d done it. No woman, young or old, appreciated being treated that way. It was also hypocritical to think her sexual activity in high school was any more questionable than his own.

When the food came, Aaron ran upstairs to tell Melanie. She was in front of the television, watching a baseball game. She didn’t look up, just nodded and said she’d come down after a while.

“Don’t you want to eat together?” The question had nothing to do with Skylar; he’d already thought they should share more meals. At the same time, he didn’t want to force anything on Melanie—until recently they’d been little more than casual acquaintances.

“I don’t care.”

I don’t care... How many times a day did he hear that from her? Good Lord, teenagers were impossible, and Aaron felt a fleeting sympathy for his grandparents. He wasn’t close to them, though his grandfather had supposedly “groomed” him to take over the company...mostly with lectures about the value of hard work. Nonetheless, it couldn’t have been easy to take on a resentful kid, tired of being shuffled between his divorced parents and other relatives. That was one of the reasons he’d agreed to have Melanie live with him for the year. He could have refused, but he knew what it was like to be a Ping-Pong ball in someone else’s battle of wills.

CHAPTER TWO

SKYLAR PULLED A casserole from the freezer and put it in the oven to heat. She liked cooking; she just didn’t enjoy it after spending hours over the Nibble Nook’s fryers—the volume of French fries and onion rings they went through never failed to astonish her. As the owner, she filled in wherever necessary, and today the fry cook had phoned in with a child-care problem.

Tiredly she pressed a hand to the aching small of her back. The long, hard days used to be more fun. Jimmie had made everything fun, no matter what they were doing.

The cat walked into the kitchen and stared at his empty bowl in dismay. He meowed plaintively.

“Karin?” she called. “Bennie has to be fed and his litter box scooped.”

“The first play-off game is on.”

“Then you’d better hurry,” Skylar said. “We’ve talked about this. You wanted a cat and he’s your responsibility.”

“But Mooommmm, I—”

“Now, Karin. He’s hungry.”

Karin stomped into the kitchen. “He isn’t mine, not really. Bennie always ends up with you in the morning. He’s supposed to sleep with me. It’s like I’m kryptonite or something.”

For an instant Skylar wished she could have a single evening free of teenage angst. “That’s because he keeps getting kicked off the bed. You thrash around and when he’s had enough, he goes someplace quieter.”

“I do not.”

“Trust me, I couldn’t keep a blanket on you, even as a baby. A professional soccer team doesn’t kick that much.”

Muttering under her breath, Karin poured food into the cat bowl and petted Bennie, despite her sulk. It wasn’t easy insisting she take care of her chores—she used to watch the baseball play-offs with her dad, and Skylar could see the weepy melancholy beneath her daughter’s defiant surface. The previous autumn Karin had sobbed straight through her favored team’s sweeping victory; hopefully this year wouldn’t be as bad.

“Here,” Skylar said. “I made a snack for you to eat during the game. And there’s caffeine-free cola in the fridge. I’ll bring dinner in when it’s ready.” Normally they ate meals at the table, but this wasn’t a normal night.

Karin brightened and took the bowl of fluffy buttered popcorn. “Gee, thanks, Mom.”

When Karin was back in the family room, Skylar sat at the kitchen table, feeling melancholy herself. She wasn’t a baseball fan, and it used to drive her crazy during the play-offs and World Series to have Jimmie and Karin riveted to the television. More than once, a game had gone into extra innings or there’d been a rain delay, and he’d let her stay up to the bitter end, even on a school night. When she fell asleep at school the next day, there would be the inevitable phone call from her teacher, who was always mollified by Jimmie’s abashed apology.

Skylar would give anything to have those days back.

Instead, she had Aaron Hollister and his sister and her temper getting her in trouble. She had to be more careful. Aaron hadn’t seemed interested in Karin in their encounters, but she couldn’t take any chances. She refused to think of him as Karin’s father. Jimmie was Karin’s dad. He’d soothed her as a teething baby, been scared stiff when she broke her collarbone in the fourth grade, saved for her education and welcomed each and every sticky child’s kiss and homemade Father’s Day card. Skylar ached at the memories—Jimmie romancing her as a new mother had been one of the biggest surprises of her life. They’d gotten married when Karin was four months old—he’d simply refused to see any reason they shouldn’t be together.

She glanced around the kitchen, shivering though it was warm. She’d had such a good life with Jimmie, so much better than she had ever expected to have. He’d loved Karin without reservation, and his family had accepted them both. The Gibsons must have been worried for their son in light of her youth and disreputable upbringing, but they hadn’t shown any hesitation. If Jimmie loved her, that was all they’d needed to know.

But Jimmie was gone now. If he were here, he would reassure her that Aaron or his family couldn’t possibly hope to get custody of Karin after such a long time. It was a worry that Skylar had harbored over the years, pushed into the background of their lives together, yet still there.

Bennie rubbed against her leg, purring madly, and she reached down to stroke him.

“Hey, boy,” she whispered. “You should go in with Karin. She needs you.”

He wandered toward the door. She could swear that he’d understood, though being a cat, he had to show his independence. Anybody who said felines were just selfish little beasts was wrong. No matter how egomaniacal, Bennie was fond of his humans. He just had to act as if everything was his idea—dogs were far more direct with their affections.

She got up and gathered a basket of laundry. The problem with housework was that it was never done, especially with a teenager in the house. Why her daughter had to change clothes ten times a day was beyond her. When she was that age she had been lucky to have four or five outfits, much less an overflowing closet.