laughed, too, just as hard, even though Aidan sincerely doubted she’d never heard the joke before. Then she launched into a series of truly terrible riddles, half of which the boys already knew—which only seemed to make them laugh harder—and the laughter and the barking crescendoed until it seemed the very room would burst.
Winnie’s eyes touched his, begging him to join in.
Barely able to breathe, Aidan got up from the table to refill his tea glass, at which point he realized the jollity had apparently infected his housekeeper, as well. Now this is more like it, he thought he heard her say, although it didn’t really sound like her voice, it sounded like—
He shook his head to clear it. He was knackered, was all, having not slept well in months. Which probably accounted for why the room suddenly seemed brighter than he remembered, the reds and golds and rich blues vibrant in the warm overhead light. He squinted at the fixture: Had Flo changed the bulbs to a higher wattage?
His glass refilled, Aidan returned to his seat. Winnie looked up, grinning full out, breathless, her cheeks flushed, and Thank God you’re leaving and Too bad you’re leaving collided underneath his skull like a pair of daft footballers.
“Dad! Dad! Guess what Winnie taught us?”
“Three-card monte?” Aidan said drily, and Robbie said, “Huh?” as Winnie said, “Honestly, Aidan, give me some credit,” and Robbie said, “No—chess!”
Aidan looked at Winnie. “Chess?”
“Yeah, he had that beautiful set on the shelf in his room, I asked him if he knew how to play and he said no, so I taught him. Him and Jacob,” she said with the kind of smile for Robbie’s friend that young boys had been falling in love with since God did that little hocus-pocus thing with Adam’s rib.
Aidan swallowed down the flare of annoyance, that June had ordered the Harry Potter set for Robbie for his eighth birthday with explicit instructions that Aidan teach their son how to play. That Winnie knew how to play chess.
Not to mention everyone who crossed her path.
Except Aidan, of course. Aidan was immune to being played—
“It’s so cool,” Robbie said. “Almost as cool as Mario Galaxy—Hey!” he squawked as a bit of black olive bounced off his nose. “Who did that?”
“Who did what?” Winnie said, all innocence as she took a sip of her iced tea, and Aidan opened his mouth, only to close it again, refusing to let himself feel…
Alive?
“Somebody threw an olive at me!”
“It was you!” Jacob yelled, eyes alight, pointing at Winnie. “I saw you!”
“Was not,” Winnie said, picking a pepperoni slice off her pizza and chucking it at Jacob, which set off a whole new round of giggles. Then a mushroom bounced off Aidan’s forehead and the boys roared, and from the other end of the kitchen Flo threw her hands up and muttered something in Spanish that Aidan only half heard, and when he met Winnie’s gaze she cocked her head at him, grinning, her eyes full of mischief and mayhem, and he thought, No.
But not before the sucker punch hit. With far more devastation than the mushroom. Because from somewhere deep, deep inside him, a funny, fuzzy feeling bubbled up, like inhaling helium.
Go with it, babe…
Aidan picked up the artillerized fungus. “Lose something?” he said, his gaze locked with hers.
She grinned, full of herself. Smug. Dangerous. “Consider it a gift,” she said.
Only to shriek with laughter when he threw it back.
An hour later, Aidan sneaked a glance at Winnie’s face as his truck jostled down the mountain to take Winnie and Annabelle back to the Old House, then Jacob home. Behind him, the boys squealed every time the truck hit a bump. Beside him, Winnie smiled, thinking more secret Winnie thoughts. Aidan jerked his head back around, telling himself he wasn’t interested. In her thoughts, or…anything else.
Now there’s a lie for you.
Feeling his nostrils flare, a certain swift, hot kick to his groin, Aidan shifted gears as they navigated a particularly steep part of the road. Two years ago he wouldn’t have believed it possible that the time would come when he wouldn’t miss sex. Until June got sick, and things changed, and Aidan basically put his libido in cold storage.
Then June died, and what would have been the point in taking it back out?
Not that he didn’t occasionally still think about That Side of Things, as his mother would say. But not so much about having sex—or not—as how strangely easy it had been to simply disconnect one or two crucial wires. That he hadn’t felt deprived so much as disinterested.
Until tonight.
Which was making him confused as all hell. Not to mention cranky. Crankier.
The truck bumped up in front of the Old House; when Winnie opened the door, Aidan told the boys to sit tight, he’d be back straightaway, and got out before he caught Winnie’s look. Because he knew there’d be a Look.
Sure enough, as soon as they were out of earshot her eyes slid to his. “Walkin’ me to the door’s kinda overkill, don’t you think?”
“I’m just setting a good example for the lads.”
“Ah.” She pulled the persimmon-colored jacket closed, shivering; nightfall had sucked all the warmth out of the air. At least, that provided by the sun.
“I just…wanted to thank you for watching the boys. And for the pizza, it was great.”
“You’re welcome—”
“And for gettin’ Robbie out of himself like that.”
Her grin was cautious. “Yeah, nothin’ like a good food fight to shake things up. Although Flo may never speak to any of us again.”
Aidan smiled back, telling himself that her lips were just lips. That this was a helluva time for That Side of Things to kick in again. “She’ll survive. Besides, the dog cleaned most of it up already.”
“Good old Annabelle,” Winnie said warmly to the beast, who barked up at her. Then burped.
“It should’ve been me, though,” he said.
“To lick the food off the floor?”
“No,” he said on a half laugh, then sighed, raking one hand through his hair. Which really was getting too long. “To teach Robbie how to play chess.” He paused. “To make him laugh again.”
He caught her gaze dipping from his hair to someplace below his neck. “I didn’t mean to step on any toes, honest—”
“And I didn’t mean to imply you had. Well, not too much anyway. What I mean to say is, what’s important is seeing Robbie happy. How that came about is immaterial. ” Tamping down the tremor of disloyalty, he said, “I think June would
