They both voted yes.
In the kitchen, Richard murmured in Molly’s ear. “You’re a genius.”
Her smile was so close he could have kissed it. Wanted to know what it would feel like to kiss her when she was smiling.
Thank God she wasn’t looking at him. “Will you get the ice cream out of the freezer?” she asked, as she wielded the knife on a beautiful, obviously home-baked pie.
She let him dig out scoopfuls of ice cream to crown each slice of pie. Only when she handed him the first two plates to carry to the table did she murmur in turn, “I am, aren’t I?”
He was grinning when he set plates in front of Trevor and Cait. His son studied him with suspicion, but was easily distracted by food.
“This is awesome,” he exclaimed, after his first bite.
“I baked it,” Cait said shyly, earning a look of pure admiration from him.
“Really? My sister won’t bake at all because she’s always on a diet.”
Richard hadn’t known that. One more thing he didn’t know. “Why?” he asked. “Has she put on weight?”
Trevor shook his head. “She looks okay to me. She says she’d be fat if she wasn’t careful.”
Cait set down her fork.
“She’s not athletic,” he told her. “And she doesn’t dance or anything like you do. You’d be too skinny if you ate nothing more than a few green leaves like she does.”
Trevor could be accused of sensitivity. Did I raise a good kid after all? Reality check. Yeah, maybe not me. Maybe Alexa.
Richard backtracked. “Green leaves?”
“Don’t freak, Dad.”
“Is she starving herself?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes she pigs out.”
“Tell me she’s not bulimic.”
His son stared at him. “How do you know about things like that?”
“I read the paper. I watch TV.”
“No, she’s not bulimic. She doesn’t, like, stick her finger down her throat or anything.” He frowned. “At least, I don’t think so. She just worries every time she has something like pizza and eats nothing but salad the next day.”
Richard sat back, less than reassured. “Are there many girls at the high school with eating disorders?” he asked Molly.
“I don’t always know,” she said. “I’m aware of a couple.”
“There’s more than that,” Cait contributed. “Mostly they’re not that bad.”
“Will you tell me if they get that bad?”
Cait flicked a glance at Trevor. “Maybe. Probably. I mean, if I think they’re killing themselves.”
Her mother sighed. “Okay.”
Cait had only finished half her dessert when she set down her fork. “You want the rest?” she said, seeing Trevor’s avid gaze.
“Really? You’re done?”
Assured that she was, he inhaled it.
“You want to go upstairs?” Cait asked.
Richard could imagine how Molly felt about that. By all means, let the two close themselves in the girl’s bedroom. But she only looked at him. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
He helped her clear the table, then while she was filling two mugs nodded toward the ceiling. “You don’t mind?”
“Barn door? Anyway, I think the last thing they’re going to do with us in the house is have wild sex. So no. I don’t mind.”
“They were both on their best behavior. I wonder why.”
They headed toward the living room by unspoken agreement. “I issued a few threats. How about you?”
“Maybe one or two.”
She took one end of the sofa, him the other. He’d rather have sat in the middle, right next to her, but was as aware of his son and her daughter upstairs as Trev and Cait no doubt were of their parents down here.
“I don’t know if this accomplished anything.” She frowned toward the fireplace. “I don’t know what I thought it would accomplish.”
“An easing of tension,” Richard suggested. “And I think it worked.”
The lines on her forehead smoothed and her pretty, dove-gray eyes met his. “Maybe. I wonder what they’re talking about.”
“Better we don’t know.”
Molly wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t it awful when you suspect your own child, who not that long ago worshipped and adored you, now makes fun of you behind your back?”
His mouth curved. “I doubt if Trev makes fun of me. I’m going to guess anything he has to say is more obscene than that.”
She made another face. “In fairness, it’s hard for Cait. Imagine when you were in high school if your mother had been the vice principal.”