Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(77)
Lizzie’s laughter dimmed to a throat clearing, her cheeks flushing a violent red.
“The thing was twice your size,” Ryan added. Mary laughed next to him, smiling at the siblings. “I wonder what ever ended up happening to it?” Ryan asked, turning toward Claire with a smile.
“I threw it away,” Claire said, daintily cutting her vegetables. “She wouldn’t stop wearing it. Always demanding we pin it on … The fits she would throw if we told her no.” The woman let out a tinkling laugh, shaking her head. “Had to get rid of it to find some peace.”
Lizzie pushed her hair behind her ears, her cheeks heating to a deeper crimson as she blinked down at her plate again.
“It was the Hulk phase after that,” Ryan carried on, lost in the happiness of the memories and completely oblivious to the tension threatening to crack the room in half. Lizzie shot him a pleading glance across the table, and Mary gave his hand a squeeze, but he didn’t notice.
He turned his attention to Rake, all smiles. “She got ahold of a pair of scissors somehow and cut all her pants into knee shorts, like the Hulk wore.” Ryan laughed, and Rake couldn’t help but smile at the image of his Lizzie, a round-faced, freckled little girl, running around with frayed shorts pretending to be a big green monster.
He reached under the table and grabbed Lizzie’s hand from where she had them shoved under her thighs. He laced his fingers with hers.
“She even figured out that if she made tiny little cuts at the top of her shirts, she could rip them off when she’d ‘Hulk out.’” Ryan laughed even harder and grabbed his wineglass, taking a sip. “When she’d get upset, she’d tear her shirt straight down the middle and let out a yell like she saw in the cartoon. She’d crack herself up so much by doing it, I don’t think she remembered why she was even upset afterwards.”
“I hope our kids are as creative as you were, Lizzie,” Mary cut in, leaning forward a bit to catch Lizzie’s eyes. “Sounds like you were such a fun child.”
“That’s one way to phrase it,” Claire said, carefully cutting another bite of food.
“She certainly was an adventure,” Douglas added through a mouthful.
“Well, I think she sounds like a wonderful kid,” Rake said, not a trace of subtlety in his words. Lizzie squeezed their still-clasped hands, sending him a cautious glance.
“Must have been,” Rake continued, holding her eyes, “to become such a wonderful adult.”
“Yes, well … her father and I certainly did our best,” Claire said with a sigh and almost sorrowful smile.
Rake opened his mouth to say something—he wasn’t sure what, but he wanted it to be as subtly cutting as Claire’s words—but Lizzie cut him off, lobbing a question at her dad.
“How’s the firm, Dad? Business still good?”
Douglas launched into an incredibly boring and detailed account of his job as a lawyer, directing a great deal of the conversation to Rake as if he gave a damn. Rake couldn’t care less about Donna the paralegal or the influence of small-town politics on the practice. He didn’t care about some big catch Mr. Blake made in a contract. He didn’t even pay attention to what kind of law the man practiced.
All Rake cared about was Lizzie. Hurt seeped from her body like perfume. It wasn’t obvious; she kept a controlled smile plastered on her lips as she nodded at her father, but Rake could feel it. He wanted to pick her up, throw her in the car, and speed all the way back to the safety of their home. He wanted to erase her memory of the past few hours and build her up, layer by layer, until she knew how much she glowed as a person.
But instead, he sat there, holding her hand and trying to channel all those thoughts into the spot where their palms touched, wanting to heal the thousands of small cuts she was being subjected to at the table.
“And how’s work going for you, Lizzie?” Ryan asked, taking a bite of food. “Are you still at that place near Callowhill’s med school?”
“Your sister has found a new location to prepare coffee,” Claire said with a sip of wine.
“I’m a baker,” Lizzie corrected in a quiet tone Rake wouldn’t have guessed possible for her. “But it’s going well. I work for this older woman, and she’s given me a lot of creative freedom.”
“That’s great, Lizzie! You’ve always made the best treats,” Mary said. “I actually read the funniest article, and I meant to send it to you,” Mary continued, setting down her fork and knife. “It’s about this bakery in Philadelphia that sells these, shall we say, not-safe-for-work pastries. My jaw was on the floor looking at these things!”
Rake felt Lizzie stiffen next to him, and he scrambled for a conversation change.
“What do you mean, unsafe for work?” Claire asked before Rake could divert the topic.
“Well, they’re…” Mary blushed, “… erotic, I guess would be the best word for them. They’re subtly—well, some are subtle, some are just plain obvious—decorated baked goods to look like private parts. Mainly women’s.”
Claire’s silverware clattered to the table, and Rake felt waves of anxiety cascading off Lizzie’s skin.
“The depravity of people these days,” Claire said, shaking her head. “The overt need to oversexualize everything. Nudity is a private affair, not something for public”—she waved her hand, searching for a word—“consumption,” she landed on.