Page 24 of Love & Rockets

Shooting one last wistful glance at the piles of dishes and the respite they promised, she wagged her head silently.

Jake smiled, something hot and challenging igniting in his eyes as he held out his hand. “Well, then you’d better come, too.”

They made the obligatory oohs and ahhs over the discovery, but Darla hung back again. The angle allowed her to ogle Jake’s butt while feigning rapt attention to the proceedings. Her thoughts were all over the place, skipping like a flat rock across a still pond.

He knew, but that was okay. She knew, too.

There was no doubt in her wine-muddled mind he was every bit as aware of her as she was of him. But this was different. She hadn’t had her first post-Gracie date until her daughter was almost four. She’d agreed to go to a movie with Charlie Beatty, a very nice man who worked for the local restaurant supply company. They’d gone to see one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. She wasn’t sure exactly which one it was, because five minutes into the show a baby in the back of the theater began to fuss, and Darla burst into noisy, snuffly, sympathetic tears.

She’d gotten better at dating over the years, even going so far as to lay awake for nearly three quarters of the night in Steve Greer’s bed before shaking him awake and claiming parental emergency. She’d crept silent as a burglar into Connie Cade’s house and slipped into her daughter’s bed without making Gracie stir. She dubbed herself a ninja mother, and consigned her sex life to a few mutually agreeable short-term arrangements she kept far, far away from her daughter.

And here. Now. She’d invited a man into their home. Their sacred, heretofore unsullied-by-any-man-but-Harley, girl space. And Harley didn’t count. He only came over when they needed something lifted or fixed.

Tipping her head to the side, she watched Jake and wondered if he was any good with lifting and fixing. Grace had blabbed Jake was coming over when they’d had dinner at Connie’s house the night before. Darla cringed inwardly as she gave unnecessary explanations about Gracie’s project and Jake’s involvement in the Young Scientists Foundation. Nothing she said did anything to dull the speculative gleam in Delaney Tarrington’s sharp eyes or dim Connie’s hopeful smile. Only Harley seemed undisturbed by the announcement. He kept shoveling in the meatloaf and mumbled something about Jake being a good guy. When pressed, he added in a couple of comments about knowing his ass from a knothole and a ‘crazy’ ability to eyeball measurements with surprising accuracy.

One thing was for sure, he was turning out to be a lot harder to resist than Darla had prepped herself for. Yeah, she was keyed in on the physical attributes, and she knew he was kind and well-mannered, but she hadn’t counted on the punch of the total package. Particularly not when the heat that sizzled between them in the kitchen followed them into the living area.

Darla kept sneaking glances at her daughter, wondering if she was at all attuned to the buzz humming through the room. In the past year, her quiet, studious daughter had suddenly become more aware of the opposite sex. So far, Grace’s scrutiny hadn’t zeroed in on any one boy in particular—heaven help the one who caught her attention—but the signs were there. The heightened interest in haircuts and having the right jeans. The lightly padded training bras they’d picked out together. The heavy sighs came from the recliner whenever Peeta Mellark appeared on the screen during The Hunger Games. Thankfully, she seemed to be too wrapped up in the possibilities of space to worry about her mother’s earthier impulses.

Because acknowledging those would prove horrifying for both of them.

Oh, but she had those impulses and not one of them was on a leash. Damn Jake for not letting her hide in the kitchen. Now, all she could do was stand there and make nonsensical noises of approval as whatever Grace was saying drifted in one ear and out the other. She couldn’t focus on anything but the heavenly body standing right in front of her. And God, he was perfect. Not only in the way he looked or acted toward her, but in the easy camaraderie he seemed to have developed with her kid.

As a parent, she couldn’t help but appreciate the simple but non-condescending way he layered bits of instruction and insight with praise as he made minor adjustments to the instrument’s alignment. He talked with a thirteen-year-old girl with stars in her eyes as if she were a colleague, asking her opinion on things and offering his in return, but not forcing his thoughts on her. He pointed out barely visible objects in the evening sky with assurance and a boyish hint of wonder. The conversation between the two flew at warp speed, bouncing from one topic to another, and gaining an almost reckless momentum.

Darla dragged her focus away from the taper of Jake’s back and checked in for a conversational touchstone, in case either of them remembered she was there. She tuned in just in time to hear Grace accuse Jake of wanting a plastic lightsaber and Jake boasting he already had one.

“Seriously?” Darla pressed her fingers to her mouth, then let them fall as both dark heads turned in her direction. She couldn’t really take the question back.

“Seriously,” Jake replied as sober as a judge. “Both the original and the double-bladed.”

“Nerd alert,” Grace whispered in a singsong.

Feeling the need to atone for her blurt, Darla turned to Jake and said, “Gracie has a silver cape she claims is an invisibility cloak. When she’s mad at me, she puts it on and throws it over her head.”

“Mom!”

Darla turned to her daughter, unmoved. “You should know better than to nerd-shame someone.” Returning her attention to Jake, she smiled. “She also has a Sorting Hat. I’m a Hufflepuff.”

He grinned. “I can totally see that. I’m Ravenclaw.”

“Me, too!” Grace cried, the humiliation she’d suffered seconds before magically forgotten.

Jake stepped back from the telescope. “There. I think I sharpened things up a bit. Should we let your mom take a look?”

Grace bobbed her head enthusiastically. “Go ahead, Mama. Look.”

As always, her heart did a slow somersault when her baby reverted to Mama rather than the plain old ‘Mom’ she’d been using more and more lately. Her arm brushed Jake’s as she took the spot he’d vacated. Leaning down, she squeezed one eye shut, then caught herself at the moment Jake and Grace said, “Both eyes open,” in perfect unison.

She did as she was told. It took a second to gain her bearings, but once she focused in, her breath caught. “Oh.”

“Cool, huh?”

She didn’t have to look to know he was grinning his cover-model smile. “So cool.” She beamed at her daughter. “You can see the ring things.”

“I know!” Grace pressed in and nudged her with her hip. “Let me look again.”

“Hang on.” Darla took another look through the scope.

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