Season of Change(67)
Christine couldn’t resist pushing her. “Nana, first you want me to get a life, and then you don’t. Slade and I are friends. Don’t go looking for romance where there is none.” Advice she’d best heed herself.
“I need to check something outside.” Ryan escaped down the stairs. The back door slammed.
“Honey, men don’t ask women over because they’re good with their daughters. They ask women over because they want to give them a test run.” Agnes crossed the room, took Christine by the arms, and gently shook her. “This is the perfect job for you. You’re in charge of everything for the first time. Don’t mess it up by kissing your boss.”
“Hey, no one said anything about kissing. This isn’t a date. We’ll talk business and I’ll help him with his girls. Consider it a pity mission. Poor things, they don’t seem to get enough attention. And Slade keeps throwing gifts at them. When I was at his house I saw they had an unlimited account online and they were ordering whatever they wanted on the internet. Without limits, they’re going to be uncontrollable in high school. What’ll it be like when they turn eighteen?”
The door below slammed again. No footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Ryan?” Christine called out.
No answer.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Christine moved aside the curtains and saw Slade disappear down the path toward the river.
“Crap.” Christine smoothed her hair away from her face. “What did I say just now? I think Slade heard every word.”
“Nothing really.” Her grandmother packed up her sewing machine. “Only that you were paying your boss a pity visit tonight and his daughters were heathens-in-waiting.”
Christine thunked herself on the head.
* * *
SLADE WAS PRETTY good at barbecuing. He wasn’t so good at taking criticism, especially when criticism involved his parenting skills. But he was willing to swallow his pride and learn, if it was good for his girls.
After asking Christine to dinner, he’d stopped in the tasting room to answer some emails and text messages before heading back out into the heat. Voices carried in the small house. It was impossible to miss Agnes’s opinion about his intentions for dinner, or Christine’s pity comment.
He stewed about dinner all afternoon. Should he text Christine and cancel? Should he take her aside when she arrived and admit he’d heard what she thought of his parenting skills? Should he blow her off and drive the girls into Cloverdale for dinner? Should he pretend he’d heard nothing?
It was hard waffling between cowardice and anger, stomping on his pride.
He took out his frustrations on the food he cooked. It was guy food. Salad he chopped himself. Baked potatoes he poked within inches of their lives. Seasoned tri-tip he pierced as he grilled. He’d put the twins in charge of the garlic bread, appropriate since they were wearing the colors of Italy—red-and-white striped blouses and green shorts.
A mistake, as it turned out. They burned the bread and set off the smoke alarm while he was in the backyard with the barbecue. Windows and doors were flung open. The bread came to rest in a severely singed lump on the stove, next to some deflated baked potatoes.
That was it. He was canceling their ramshackle dinner.
And that was when Christine appeared, in blue jeans, pink ballet slippers, and a flowery blouse, a far cry from the black Protect the Bears T-shirt and jean shorts she’d had on earlier. The sight of her in casual date clothes brightened up the drab, outdated kitchen and rendered him speechless.