He caught her hand and pressed a kiss in her palm. “You, too.”
“I’m sure I will.” But she would miss him, she thought as she drove slowly home. Even though they had never shared a Christmas together, she knew she would miss having him there.
Chapter Eleven
“Why can’t we have Evan over for dinner?” Daniel demanded almost a month into the new year. “We always go somewhere to see him, and he never gets to come here. I still haven’t showed him all the stuff Santa brought me.”
“Me, neither,” Leslie seconded from her place at the dinner table. “Evan would like your cooking, Grammy. We should ask him for dinner.”
Renae figured if Lucy’s face tightened any further it would be in danger of cracking. “Maybe we will sometime. Are you two finished with your desserts? If so, carry your plates into the kitchen. Weren’t you going to play with that new video game you got for Christmas? Your mother said you could play for an hour after dinner.”
It was a blatant redirection of their attention, of course, but it worked. The twins hurriedly finished their puddings and carried their dishes into the kitchen, then raced to the living room to play the new game.
“I hope you’re satisfied,” Lucy said, turning immediately to Renae. “Those children are going to have their little hearts broken, just like you are. I did everything I knew how to convince you to protect them, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“Please don’t start this again, Lucy.”
They had maintained an uneasy truce about Evan for the past month, with Lucy stubbornly refusing to mention him and Renae trying to appease her by keeping her interactions with Evan separate from her life with Lucy. She had continued to see him on Wednesday evenings and occasionally took the kids to meet him somewhere on the weekends. But despite the steps she had taken to keep her mother-in-law appeased, she wouldn’t let Lucy criticize her maternal decisions. “Evan is not going to hurt the kids.”
“They’re getting fond of him. Trying to bring him into our family. How will they feel if it doesn’t work between you two?”
“You and I have had this talk. If Evan drifts away, I’ll encourage the twins to hold on to fond memories of the time we spent with him. They’ll be fine.”
“If all they do is go for pizza with him, perhaps, but if they start seeing him as a member of the family and then he disappears?”
Renae groaned. “All they want to do is ask him to dinner, Lucy. And I think it’s a good idea. The children accept Evan as my friend, and the four of us enjoy spending time together. I would like for you to join us.”
She held up a hand before her mother-in-law could speak. “I won’t ask you to cook for him. I’ll take care of that. All I ask is that you dine with us. You barely have to speak to him, though I would hope you’d be polite in front of the twins.”
Lucy grumbled.
Renae softened her voice. “I know it’s painful for you to see him, Lucy. He’s still here and Jason isn’t. But holding on to this anger is only hurting you.”
Lucy sighed shakily and shoved her chair back from the table. “Fine. Invite him for dinner. We’ll see how long he stays around when he sees how busy and ordinary your life is normally.”
That struck a little too close to Renae’s own secret conc
erns. Maybe it also explained her sudden decision to bring Evan into her home, she mused, fingering the bracelet on her right wrist. As close as she had been getting to him during the past weeks, maybe it was time to find out just how committed he was.
Because if it’s going to end, she thought, it’ll be easier now than later—for everyone involved.
* * *
Renae wouldn’t have called Friday night’s dinner a disaster. But it was hardly a glowing success, either. The twins were overly excited and competed fiercely for Evan’s attention. After greeting Evan with a cool courtesy she would have displayed toward a total stranger, Lucy responded to anything he said with such excruciating politeness that Renae could almost see him wince.
After dinner, Daniel all but dragged Evan into the living room to play a video game. Lucy sat on the couch, her knitting needles clicking sharply as she watched them with an intensity that obviously made Evan uncomfortable.
She walked him out to his car after dinner. It was cold, and she huddled into her coat, pulling her collar up to shield her neck. Her breath was a ghostly cloud in the pale security lighting. “I’m sorry about the way Lucy acted tonight.”
He chuckled, though without much humor. “She was perfectly polite.”
“Yes, I noticed,” Renae said dryly.
He shrugged. “It’s okay. I wasn’t expecting her to welcome me with open arms.”
“The kids were pretty hyper tonight, too. Daniel kept begging you to play that game again whenever you tried to stop.”
“I had a good time playing with Daniel. And before you apologize for them, too, I didn’t mind letting Leslie read me a book or rubbing Boomer’s ears.”