Meant-to-Be Mum

“How is Diana?”

“Good. Bored, though, now that her two oldest are in college. Keeps making noises about going back to work. But anyway,” he said as the kids tromped up the porch steps, looking a little flushed but otherwise none the worse for wear, “we should get going.”

“C’n we get something to drink first?” Wes panted out.

“It’s five blocks, you can’t wait?”

The kid pantomimed clutching his throat, as if he’d been on a fifty-mile hike in the desert, and Bree smothered a laugh. Clearly eating it up, Wes grinned, then did his poor puppy dog face. “Man, I would kill for some Gatorade right now.”

“There’s tea and juice in the fridge,” the Colonel said. “Help yourself. Although in my day,” he said, shepherding them back inside, “we made do with drinking from the hose...”

Bree chuckled again as Cole’s phone buzzed—a text from his sister, wondering where they were. “You really shouldn’t encourage him,” he said, pocketing the phone.

“Pop?”

“No. Wes. Kid’s a master manipulator.”

“Yeah, I seem to remember somebody else like that.” She shoved her hair behind her ear. Flashed a smile. “This was nice, catching up.”

“Sure.”

Her eyes shadowed for a moment. “So...I’ll be seeing you guys again?”

“Maybe.” Because if he said no, then he’d have to explain why. And frankly, he wasn’t sure he could. “How long are you staying?”

Although her smile stayed put, the shadow darkened. “Not sure—”

“Dad!” Brooke burst back on to the porch, holding out her phone. “Aunt Di says if we don’t get over there right now—”

“You guys go on, tell her we’re on our way.”

But when he turned back around, Bree had wandered out into the yard to sit on one of the swings on the old play set, looking like the world’s most lost little girl as she stared off into space.

And Cole stood there far longer than he should have, watching her.

Full plate, he reminded himself, then turned to leave, telling himself the image would fade.

Eventually.

Chapter Two (#ulink_b2fc6ecf-2bfc-56f0-95e2-9afb866af0cb)

Her underwear dumped into the top drawer of her old dresser, Sabrina shoved it closed and sighed, missing Mom—who would have been right there with her, if not tucking things into drawers and hanging up stuff in the closet, at least sitting on the foot of the bed, listening, eyes soft with sympathy or bright with anger. Honestly—Sabrina zipped up the empty case and rammed it underneath the twin bed—more and more, her life felt like some artsy foreign film where bizarre crap kept happening but you had no idea why. And a happy ending was not a given. Chad used to drag her to those. And she’d go and pretend to enjoy them for his sake, but mostly she was just Huh?

Take the past twenty-four hours, for instance. As if having her future ripped from her in the space of a single conversation wasn’t bad enough, then to run into Cole Rayburn, of all people. After which they’d had this perfectly normal, totally weird conversation, as though nothing had happened.

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. There’d definitely been some heavy-duty skirting of the truth going on. Some people might call that civilized and mature. Because it was ancient history and all that. Except...this was Cole and her.

For whatever that was worth.

Which would be not a whole lot, Sabrina thought, starting downstairs. Dude obviously had his hands full. And, yes, that was her heart squeezing inside her chest, especially when she thought about his kids...

She released another breath. Only so much multitasking her poor brain could handle right now.

Through the open patio door, the scent of charbroiled meat floated in from the deck where Pop was grilling. Stalling, she got a diet soda out of the French-door fridge in the recently remodeled kitchen, all stainless steel and sparkly white quartz and cherrywood cabinets. Very pretty. Still, she missed the homeyness of the old seventies decor, the knotty pine and faux brick, the old gouged table where they’d eaten, done homework, spilled their guts to Mom. Even the kids who’d only been passing through.

The family room, however, she thought, popping the can’s tab as she peeked in the room, still bore the scars of having been a family room in every sense of the word. Probably one reason why the house was still on the market. The kitchen showed well, sure, but the rest of the house...not so much. Especially to buyers with no desire to take on a fixer-upper, even if most of the work was cosmetic. True, Pop had impulsively donated Mom’s vast, and eclectic, book collection to the library some months before. But since he hadn’t moved any further in that direction, Sabrina could only assume—since they’d never discussed it—that the action had paralyzed him instead of propelling him forward.

She tilted the can to her lips, remembering the beehive of activity this house had once been, of noisy meals and fights for the bathroom and never-ending chore lists, usually overseen by the man currently grilling their dinner. Now only an eerie stillness remained, a thousand memories whispering like ghosts every time Sabrina returned. For all she’d chomped at the bit to escape more than a decade before, seeing it this way—like a dying person halfway between this world and the next—made her very sad.

Sadder, anyway.

The can clutched to her chest, she finally went outside, smiling for her father.

“Smells great.”

Standing at the grill, Pop glanced over, then said, “All unpacked?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Good,” he said, not looking at her, and her eyes filled. Because all she wanted, she realized, was a hug.

Dumb.

She’d wondered sometimes, how, with their polar opposite natures, her parents had ever gotten together. Let alone enjoyed the kind of marriage that textbooks could point to and say, This. Mom had been the one who’d wrap Sabrina in her warm embrace, doing all the talking for both of them during those first few weeks after she and Matt had arrived and Sabrina wouldn’t, or couldn’t, find her words. The Colonel, however, hadn’t seemed to know what to do with the frightened little girl clinging to her grief like a tattered teddy bear. Oh, Sabrina eventually figured out that, despite his more reserved nature, Pop cared fiercely about every child in his care, that fostering had been his idea. There was no better man on earth. But sometimes Sabrina felt as if their initial interaction—or lack of one—had set the tone for their entire relationship.

That even after all these years, she still had no idea how to close the gap between them.

“Got some vegetable kebabs from the store to go with the burgers,” he said. “That okay?”

“Sure.”

Fragrant smoke billowed out when he lifted the lid to the grill, frowning again in her direction. “Sorry to spring Cole and the kids on you like that. If I’d known you were coming—”

“No, it’s okay. I should’ve warned you.”

Pop had known, of course, that things had fallen apart between her and Cole their senior year. Just not why. God willing, he never would.

“Always did like that boy,” Pop now said, flipping the burgers. “Missed him hanging around.”

“So you ran into him and invited him over.”

Shooting her another curious look, Pop closed the lid to the grill again. “For more than five years that kid was over here more than he was at his own house. Seemed like it, anyway. Invitation was out of my mouth before I even knew it was there.” He crossed his arms. “Couple of smart kids he’s got there.”

“So Cole said,” Sabrina said, walking to the edge of the deck jutting out into the large yard off the porch. Shards of dying, early evening sun sliced through the pine trees on one side of the yard, gilding the new grass and her mother’s prodigiously blooming rosebushes. A robin darted, stopped, darted again across the lawn, ignoring the chattering of an unseen squirrel nearby. Images flashed, of badminton and croquet games, of running through the sprinklers. That old Slip ’N Slide. Fireflies. Of lying in the grass on summer evenings, her and Cole and Kelly...

“You gonna go see the baby tonight?”

Releasing a breath, Sabrina turned, bracing her hands on the deck railing behind her and refusing to feel sorry for herself, that Matt was married and her younger brother, Tyler, was going to be in a week, that even her oldest brother, Ethan, had found love again after losing his wife three years ago. That things seemed to be working out fine for everyone but her.