The Time in Between by Kristen Ashley
“Do you have butterly pie?” Janie asked.
Cady stared down at her.
Shannon bumped Kath with her shoulder.
The dust was again rising.
“I . . . no, honey. I don’t have any of that,” Cady answered.
“You made us butterly pie and it was yummy. Mommy and I loved it. Mommy said to be sure to say thanks, so thanks!”
Well thank God.
The ex said to say thanks.
It just kept getting better and better.
“You’re welcome, Janie. I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Cady replied softly. “Your mom too.”
Janie gave a short nod and continued, “But we had cinnamon, caramel French toast for breakfast so I didn’t get any today,” Janie told her.
Cady went visibly still.
“Oh shit,” Shannon whispered.
“You did? We had tha—!” Melanie started to shout.
“Right!” Pam said loudly, clapping. “Let’s get on cocoa and you can give Midnight a dog biscuit, Janie. How’s that sound?” Pam asked, reaching a hand out to Janie.
“We don’t have a dog,” Janie told her, walking toward her and taking her hand.
“Well, then, live it up,” Shannon put in, moving with them toward the kitchen.
“Hey, Mom, can we have cocoa too?” Ellie asked.
“Sure ’nuff, cute stuff,” Pam replied.
One faction broke off to move into the kitchen. Another broke off to throw themselves on the couches and chairs shoved to the walls. Melanie was still arranging the presents under the tree for Janie and Coert.
Kath went to Cady.
“You made him your French toast, I take it?” she said under her breath to Cady.
Cady turned her gaze to Kath. “We came up with the recipe together.”
Hmm.
Good?
Not good?
“And we came up with it on Christmas,” Cady finished.
Oh boy.
This was foreign territory.
So Kath treaded lightly.
“It’s fantastic French toast, Cady.” Kath brushed the back of her sister’s hand with the back of her own. “It’s good he gives it to his daughter.”
“I’ve been with him,” Cady stated.
Kath didn’t get it.
“Sorry?”
“This whole time, I’ve been with him. He’s kept me with him. And me him. Me giving that time he and I had to you guys making that for you this morning. Him giving that time we had to Janie and Kim. I mean, we both made that French toast for our families, Kath. Because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
So it was good.
Or at least Cady was making it that way.
Kath got closer. “That’s a good way to look at it.”
Cady looked confused. “What other way would I look at it?”
Kath wasn’t going to touch that one.
“Get your jacket off, babe,” she ordered instead. “There’s present unwrapping to be done.”
Cady spoke while shrugging off her coat, saying words she’d already said when she’d found out they’d done it.
“It really was great of you guys to go out and get some things for Coert and Janie yesterday.”
“Can’t welcome them into the family without at least spoiling a little princess rotten. Patrick would turn in his grave.”
Cady shot her a smile as she hung her coat over Bea’s, and since Bea’s was over Shannon’s which was over Dexter’s, it fell right off and landed on the floor.
Cady bent to pick it up and tossed it on the seat of the hall tree and a pile of more coats.
Then she looked to the door.
With this at least, since she’d been married to a member of the male species for twenty-two years, she could advise.
“He needs to get the lay of the land,” Kath told her. “It’ll be fine.”
Cady’s head turned her way. “Mike—”
Kath grabbed her hand. “It’ll be fine.”
Cady looked again to the door then she turned her attention to the kitchen and finally back to Kath. “She loves Midnight.”
Kath gave her a big grin. “Yeah.” She tugged her hand. “Let’s go make cocoa. Verity’s still pouting in the observation deck. I need to text her and get her over here so she can meet Janie and the family can be together for presents.”
They moved to the kitchen, Cady took over with Janie and cocoa and Kath texted her daughter.
The whoosh on her phone barely sounded before the men could be heard coming in.
Cady’s eyes went right to Kath.
So Kath walked right to Pat.
Pat and Coert were jacketless inside the door, and Coert was looking around when Kath made it to them.
Coert asked, “Where are my girls?”
His girls.
Plural.
God, she was thinking she totally loved this guy.
“Kitchen. Cocoa,” she answered.
He smiled.
Yep.
She was totally loving this guy.
“Thanks,” he murmured, dipped his chin to Pat, to her, and he moved toward the kitchen.
Kath bellied up to her husband.
Close up to her husband.
“Jesus, sweetheart,” he muttered as she crowded him, but he did it not moving from his spot and smiling down at her.
“That go okay?” she asked, shifting her eyes to the door and back to him to explain what he didn’t need explained. That she was talking about what happened outside.
“Uh, yeah,” Pat answered.
But he said no more.
“Can you elaborate?” she pushed.
Pat pulled her slightly to the side, turned a shoulder to the room and bent into his wife.
“Well, clearly he’s a take charge guy because he took charge. Said straight up he gets we won’t trust him with Cady and he gets why. He told us he knew he’d have to work for it and he was all in to do that. He told us he loves her. She loves him. They were going to make it work and he’s going to make her happy. And he thanked us for buying his daughter Christmas presents.”
After that, Pat stopped talking.
“That’s it?” Kath asked.
Pat shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“You were out there longer than that,” she pointed out then narrowed her eyes. “What did Mike do?”
“Mike glared at him silently. Yeager was game and ignored it so I think Cady warned him about Mike. And Daly cracked about fifty stupid jokes about how it was good we didn’t have to use any of the research we’d done on how to make a body disappear that Yeager laughed at. Then, when it came clear he was restless to get back inside to his girl and Cady, we came back inside.”
Kath held her husband’s eyes.
Then she declared, “I love you.”
He smiled and moved farther into her. “Love you more.”
“Impossible,” she whispered.
He took her into his arms just as Janie cried out while dancing out of the kitchen, “Daddy says we can open presents!”
It was Christmas, so presents it was.
Verity showed, they all settled in, and for the next half an hour they discovered Janie wasn’t discerning when it came to presents. She loved everything.
But the purple Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven with its purple, cream and blue circles and swirls on the door still was hands down the winner.
And Mike didn’t miss it.
“Cady told Santa specifically you’d like that,” Mike announced.
From her place sitting on the floor, Janie turned huge eyes to Cady, who was also curled on the floor close to Janie.
And, of course, Coert, who wasn’t quite touching her, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t wrapped his long body around her to watch his daughter open presents over his woman’s shoulder.
“You did?” she asked.
Cady didn’t.
She’d told Kath, Pam and Shannon that Janie liked making cupcakes. Cady was so involved
So her family did.
But when Cady opened her mouth to answer, Mike got there first.
“She did. Sent a letter straight to the North Pole direct,” he shared.
“Wow,” Janie breathed. “You have Santa’s address too?”
Cady gave her a smile and a murmured, “I never forgot it from when I was a little girl like you.”
“Awesome!” Janie replied.
Cady kept smiling at her before she turned it to Mike.
Coert was gracious about his two new sweaters and lined leather gloves, regardless of how uninspired they were. But they’d learned, in Maine, you couldn’t have enough sweaters or gloves and they figured Coert very well knew that.
When Kath was about to announce it was time to peel potatoes, Janie proclaimed, “Now, Daddy. Santa’s presents are done. So you gotta do it now.”
“Maybe later, cupcake,” Coert murmured.
“No!” she cried, turning from her rump to her knees and bouncing up and down. “It’s present time! So it has to be now.”
Coert studied his little girl with an intensity that was a little bizarre.
Then he said, “Okay, Janie, baby. Go get it out of Daddy’s jacket.”
Janie was a streak of cream top with pink and green polka-dotted Christmas tree and red pants with pink and green polka-dotted hem, as she raced to her father’s jacket and came back with a small box wrapped in elegant green foil paper with a white velvet ribbon wrapped around it.
Store wrapped, but who cared?
The little present was gorgeous.
She dropped to her knees in front of Cady and held it out, stating, “That’s from Daddy and me. I don’t know what it is.” She glanced around before she looked back to Cady and went on, “We didn’t bring everyone prezzies but Daddy said it’d be okay, once everyone saw that.”
Cady took the box and sat in the curve of Coert’s body, Coert positioned in a way she could have leaned back against the leg he had bent up with wrist resting on it.
And this, Kath hoped, was what she would do during Christmas a year from now, then many more to come.
What she didn’t do was unwrap her present.
“Open it!” Janie nearly shrieked. “I can’t believe there’s a present that little that will make everyone happy and I can’t wait to see!”
“Oh, Christ, he’s not gonna give her a ring in front of his daughter, do you think?” Pat murmured.
Men.
“That’s not a ring box,” Kath shared in a whisper. “Maybe necklace. Maybe bracelet.”
“Right,” Pat muttered.
Cady twisted her neck to look at Coert.
“When did you have ti—?” she started.
“Just open it, honey, or Janie’ll burst,” he interrupted on a grin.
It was no ring.
But it was going to be something.
She kept her eyes on him then she looked to Janie, gave her a sweet smile and bent her head to unwrap the gift.
Kath looked at Pam.
Pam looked at Kath then looked at Shannon.
Shannon looked at both of them.
“Oh my goodness,” Cady breathed.
They looked at Cady.
“It’s a necklace,” Janie stated reverently, leaning forward on a hand to peer around Cady’s hands to the box. “A sparkly one!”
“It is,” Cady whispered, staring at it.
“I like sparkly things,” Janie informed her.
“I do too, honey,” Cady replied then looked back to the necklace. “Put it on,” she said, her voice sounding funny.
“Cady, you can—” Coert began.
She twisted to him. “Please. Will you put it on?”
They’d had a Christmas together.
One of them.
Kath didn’t know much about it just that one hadn’t been enough.
But she could guess it was nothing like this.
Cady pulled what looked like a delicate gold chain out of the box and handed the dangling thing to Coert.
She then put the box on the floor, lifted her hair and Coert’s hands came around in front of her, disappearing at the back of her neck.
And it was then Kath saw the simple solitaire diamond that hung from the chain. It fit snug in the indent of Cady’s throat.
It was perfect.
“Someone needs to clean this place,” Pam mumbled, and Kath tore her gaze from Cady to look at Pam to see her swiping under her eye. “Dust everywhere.”
“I hear that,” Shannon mumbled.
“It seems clean to me,” Riley noted.
Shannon sent her nephew a watery smile and tugged him into a hug.
“Gross! Aunt cooties!” Riley shouted.
“You’ve got a big mouth, Riley,” Melanie told him.
“You’ve got a big face,” Riley shot back.
“That’ll do it,” Mike growled.
The kids shut up.
Kath looked back to Cady and Coert just in time to see Cady leaning toward Janie.
“What do you think? Does it look okay?” Cady asked.
Janie reached out a finger and said, “It’s real pretty.” She dropped her hand and her attention shifted to Cady’s face. “But maybe if we come for Christmas with your family next year we can get you one that’s bigger.”
Pat and Daly roared with laughter.
The startling sound made Midnight woof and for some reason shuffle toward Janie, who she was lying beside. She then got up on all fours and rained dog kisses on the little girl’s neck.
Janie giggled.
Cady turned to Coert and whispered something Kath couldn’t hear.
They needed a moment.
It was time to peel the potatoes.
So Kath pushed out of her place in the couch and shared that.
“Right, potato duty. Who bought it?” she asked.
“Me!” Riley cried, got up from his place and raced into the kitchen, this happening because Riley had always been a big fan of getting stuff done he hated so he could concentrate more time on doing stuff he liked.
“And me,” Corbin groused, pushing up from sitting on the arm of the chair his mother sat in and slunk into the kitchen, this happening because Corbin was a master procrastinator.
Verity just slunk into the kitchen.
Elijah heading to Bangor last night to be with his family and doing it after he had a conversation, just him and Verity, after they’d come back from getting coffees that had caused her to have a lot of alone time in the observation deck (and managing this by shouting at anyone who came up, “Can’t I just get a moment’s peace?”) meant a mother-daughter chat was imminent.
But not on Christmas.
Christmas was for family however that came, however it morphed and changed.
And this year, apparently, diamonds.
Kath smiled.
“You’re lucky. I got an Easy-Bake Oven when I was six, and the box says eight and up so Mom wouldn’t let me bake my own cakes without her around. Santa must like Auntie Cady a whole lot that you got one when you’re five,” Melanie declared.
“Maybe Daddy told her I’m real good at making cupcakes so Santa knows I’ll be good at baking real cakes in my own oven,” Janie suggested enthusiastically.
“Well, it’s something,” Melanie told her authoritatively. “Mom says Santa’s real stuck on giving toys at the right ages so she had to promise him she’d watch over me when I used mine.”
Janie turned to Cady and Coert. “Daddy, are you gonna hafta watch over me?”
Coert’s deep voice rumbled. “Absolutely.”
Janie made a face.
Then she made a face to Melanie.
Melanie giggled.
Janie’s face melted and she giggled too.
Pat’s lips came again to Kath’s ear.
“How ’bout you give Janie and Melanie something to do so Cady can suck face with her man after he gave her t
He pulled away and she turned her head to catch his gaze.
“Excellent thinking, Mr. Moreland.”
“I’m not just a pretty face, Mrs. Moreland.”
She grinned.
Then she pushed out of the couch. “Right, kids. How about we do real baking and get on Jesus’s birthday cake? Who’s with me?”
“Me!” Janie cried, jumping up, making Midnight dance and follow her as she raced toward Kath.
“Me too!” Melanie yelled.
“Me three!” Ellie shouted.
“Okay, you’re my cake troop. Let’s move out. Destination,” she pointed in that direction, “kitchen.”
The girls rushed to the kitchen.
Kath followed them but looked over her shoulder.
The table was in the way and Coert and Cady were still on the floor.
So the girls in the kitchen couldn’t see.
But Kath could.
And Coert knew his daughter couldn’t.
So they sucked face.
Of a sort.
It was short. It was soft. It was still wet.
And it was sweet.
Kath moved into the kitchen and she did it grinning.
“Time for assignments,” she proclaimed. “We need someone in charge of batter patrol. Someone in charge of icing patrol. And someone in charge of decorating patrol. We all help but you always gotta have the one in charge. Now, who’s batter?”
Three hands went up.
Kath’s lips again tipped up.
And they made a hella mess of the kitchen.
But they also made a delicious cake for Jesus.
The food was on the table. They were getting ready to pray.
And that was when Pat stood up, grabbing his glass of wine as he went.
Kath looked up at her husband, who was at her left side, then her eyes darted to Cady, who was staring up at Pat with eyes slightly wide, apprehension on her face.
“Something needs to be said,” Pat announced.
Kath could feel mixed emotions spring up around a table that had just been mayhem of laying food, filling glasses, finding seats, and the anticipation of feasting.
She looked to Coert, who sat to Cady’s left, and then Janie, who sat on a bunch of toss pillows to Coert’s left.
Janie was staring at the gravy.
Coert was looking benignly at Pat.
Pat cleared his throat and it wasn’t just because he was about to make a speech.