Games of the Heart (The 'Burg #4)(82)

He smiled. Big.

“June, July,” he repeated.

I smiled back. Big.

“Yeah.”

We kept smiling at each other like lovestruck idiots, we did this for a while and I loved every second of it.

Then, unfortunately, Mike ended it but, fortunately, he ended it with a plan.

“Right, you got time. No doubt about it, Fin’s up. It’s a year or two earlier than any kid should have to shoulder that responsibility but you know what you’re doin’ and you got your Dad on the line if you need him. Give him his head, take his back. This is about the farm, not the snow removal. With that, I’ll make a few calls, see who I can get to work with Fin if it snows again before spring comes. Yeah?”

I nodded.

“Rhonda, keep at her. Just keep talking to her. Do it steady, do it firm. Watch and take a read as you’re talkin’. You’ll know, she doesn’t snap out of it, when the time will be to shake her up a bit.”

I nodded again.

“In the meantime, until I feel it’s cool to introduce you to the mix of bodies sleepin’ under this roof when my kids are in their beds, every other Friday night to Sunday morning, you plan to sleep in this bed with me.”

I nodded again this time smiling.

“That a plan?” he asked.

“It’s a plan,” I whispered.

“As it goes, there’s shit you don’t like, anytime, honey, I want you to know you can talk it through with me.”

I figured that already but I loved having it confirmed.

“Thanks, Mike.”

“Anytime, Angel,” he said gently before he dropped his head and touched his mouth to mine.

Then he rolled back, shifting and adjusting so he could yank the covers from under us and we resumed our positions with the sheets up to our waists.

“TV, conversation or making out?” Mike offered me a selection and I lifted my head to look down at him.

“Audrey,” I picked a choice he didn’t offer and I saw the shadow of what appeared to be mild irritation drift through his face. Although I saw it, I knew he wasn’t feeling it about me.

Last Saturday I discovered the bad news about Audrey Haines was that she did not have horns, fangs, acid green eyes or matted hair. She was tall, trim but built and there was a reason her genes mixed with Mike’s made such gorgeous kids. She wasn’t a striking beauty like her daughter and I wasn’t a guy but I still knew she was a woman who a man would look at twice. Her thing definitely wasn’t my thing because her clothes were obviously top-of-the-line, classically fashionable and she wore them well. But, even though Mike was now with me, I hated it, but I could totally see him with her. If I didn’t know what happened behind the scenes, they were definitely a couple that fit. He was gorgeously handsome, she was exceptionally pretty. He wore clothes well and had a confident manner; she wore good clothes stylishly and had a remote bearing that was nonetheless attractive.

The weird news was that she seemed entirely removed from both her kids. At first I thought they were pissed about what she’d done regarding the party. But it wasn’t that. Their relationship with their Dad was obviously close, deep, warm, often-times teasing, definitely parent/child with a constant vibe of loving.

Audrey Haines had none of that with her kids.

And the last news was discomfiting. This being that she watched her kids and Mike nearly throughout the party in a pensive way that made me think she was planning something.

It didn’t help when Mike, who told me he never spoke to her, ended up on the back deck with her. Their conversation was short and clearly, from Mike’s expression upon return, not pleasant. But she’d broken the seal and she’d walked into the party planning to do just that.

I didn’t know her. What I did know was that she and Mike had been divorced for nearly three years, separated for some time before that so I found it not a coincidence that when another woman hit the scene, she instigated contact.

I’d let this slide mainly because we’d not had personal time to discuss it.

Now we needed to discuss it.

Mike didn’t hesitate laying it out.

“She informed me she has a new job, this was what took her away that day and made her f**k up her part of the party. She’s getting better pay and she’s moving to a bigger apartment in Indy.”

I didn’t think any of that was bad.

So I asked, “Isn’t all this good, including her melting the freeze on communication?”

“With Audrey I learned to be suspicious of everything, especially shit that on the surface seems good.”

I rubbed my lips together. Mike watched this for a second before his eyes came back to mine and he continued laying it out. This time, it was bad.

“Suspicious this time would include the fact that she hasn’t spoken to me in I don’t know how long but offered to meet me at her complex and show me her new place.”

There it was, bad.

“Oh boy,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” he replied. “She didn’t say shit. She didn’t act like a bitch. She didn’t pitch a fit. But she also made it clear she understood I was movin’ on with you and it wasn’t her favorite thing.”

“Oh boy,” I repeated on a mutter.

“Angel,” he said on an arm squeeze, “I hope you get I am never, ever goin’ back there.”