Colton: Sweet Southern Charmers Book 4 Read online

  April and Nicole looked at each other in horror and responded as one. “The baby?”

  “Of course not!” Teresa blotted her eyes. She had a baby face herself, with large eyes and round cheeks. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as cute as a baby when she cried. Her eyes had become bloodshot, and her nose turned an uncomely shade of red. The young mother honked into the tissue. “I was talking about Will. He’s such a doofus when it comes to Liam. Last night he put honey on his pacifier!”

  April reluctantly returned the baby to Teresa’s outstretched arms. “Lots of people who don’t know any better have given honey to their babies. I’m sure a little bit didn’t hurt him any.”

  Teresa looked at her as if she were as untrainable as her husband. “But they told us in prenatal class that babies lack an enzyme that’s needed to digest honey. Liam could have gotten sick or … died!”

  She burst into renewed tears, and April watched in dumbstruck helplessness as the young woman raged against the ineptitude of her well-meaning husband.

  Nicole put an arm around her friend. “Don’t you think maybe you’re overreacting just a little?”

  Teresa lifted her head and wiped away a teardrop that had fallen onto Liam’s chubby arm. “That’s what Will keeps telling me. He says I’m having postpartum depression.” She fixed her gaze knowingly on them both. “As if he’s an expert on having babies. I think he’s just trying to shift the blame away from himself.”

  Nicole patted her arm. “It sounds like he’s just trying to help. Why don’t you give him a chance?”

  “A chance to do what? Inflict permanent damage?” When she didn’t get the sympathetic response she wanted, she added, “We keep having fights over the same kinds of things. For instance, I’ve told him and told him not to put the baby in the swing when he’s not sleepy. A couple of days ago, Will did it anyway! When I walked into the room, there was Liam with his eyes crossed because he was trying so hard to focus with the motion of the swing. If he needs glasses in a few years, I’ll know exactly why.”

  “Maybe you need a break,” April suggested. The young mom was probably overtired.

  “You’re right,” Teresa agreed. “I need a break from Will. As far as I’m concerned, he can just move back in with his mother.”

  “No, that’s not what I—”

  Nicole seemed just as shocked as April by the turn in the conversation. “I think what my aunt meant was that you need a break from the baby. Why don’t I come over and babysit tonight while you and Will go out to dinner and a movie? You two need some time alone together.”

  Teresa shook her head. “We used to fight some before the baby came, but now it’s like that’s all we ever do anymore. I don’t know if it’s even worth the effort.”

  Liam squirmed in his mother’s arms and gave a little squeak as if in protest to what Teresa had said. Instinctively, April reached out and stroked his warm head, and he quieted down. She felt inordinately pleased by the way he responded to her touch.

  “Sometimes, when you’ve had a big change in your life,” April said, “it’s easy to get confused. And that’s when you need to go back to the basics.”

  “You mean that I should move back home with my mother?”

  “No,” April hastened to assure her. “I meant that you should ask yourself how you feel about Will.”

  “I feel like he’s just one big screwup right now,” Teresa said emphatically.

  April probably should just shut up. She wasn’t a trained counselor. In fact, she’d already managed to make things worse, all quite by accident. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Do you love him?” she prompted.

  Teresa’s pause was long enough to make April worry that the answer might be no. Finally, the new mother nodded yes.

  “And does he love you?”

  Teresa nodded again.

  “I’ll bet he’d do anything to make sure you and the baby are happy and healthy. Wouldn’t he?”

  Another nod.

  “Then you should be together.” She gave Liam’s head another stroke. “Besides, the baby needs both of you.”

  Nicole wrote down her telephone number and gave the slip of paper to her friend with instructions to call whenever she needed a babysitter. And they agreed that they would take turns sitting for each other after Nicole’s baby was born.

  As for April, her own words were still ringing in her ears long after she returned home from her outing with Nicole.

  “I’m such a hypocrite,” she declared. Colton was at the campground taking care of a jammed cash register, so there was no one home to hear her except Maybelline. And the dog was currently occupied with carrying Colton’s sock from the bedroom to the dog bed in the living room.

  “Give me that.” When Maybelline relinquished her grip on the sock, April tossed it into the hamper where it belonged.

  The sock on the floor was evidence that Colton wasn’t perfect. But neither was she. She snored. He told her so, and then he laughed about it, saying it made him feel like he was camping out … in a bear’s cave. And she folded the towels in halves before hanging them over the rod even though—as Colton had pointed out—they looked neater when folded in thirds. But rather than make a fuss over it, he straightened her towel when she wasn’t looking.

  Yes, she was a hypocrite. The very things she’d asked Teresa could have been asked of her.

  Did she love Colton? As Teresa had done, April paused a long moment. As crazy as it might seem and regardless of how much she tried to deny it, she knew the answer was an unequivocal yes.

  And the thought frightened her. All these years Colton had been her best friend. Her comrade. Her ally. Her protector. And ever since her divorce from Eddie, she’d insisted that she and Colton remain “just friends” in order to avoid having a romance ruin their long-standing friendship.

  For the first time, April admitted the truth to herself. It was romance that ruined her friendship with Eddie, all right. Problem was, the romantic feelings were the ones she had always harbored for her “best buddy.”

  At that thought she sat—no, collapsed—on the sofa. She had married the wrong man. That was why the marriage hadn’t worked.

  They’d been a threesome during high school; all of them best friends. Eddie had idolized Colton and tried to be like him. If Colton played baseball, so did Eddie, and he tried to outdo him on the diamond. If Colton dressed a certain way, Eddie was certain to show up a few days later wearing similar but better clothes.

  When Colton had gone away to college, she had naturally turned to Eddie to help fill the void that their friend had left in their hearts. She could see now that the more she had talked about how much she missed Colton, the harder Eddie had worked to sweep her off her feet. At the time, it had seemed that they had naturally turned to each other to fill the emptiness that Colton had left behind. With the clear focus that accompanies hindsight, April now saw that Eddie hadn’t idolized Colton as she’d first thought … he’d envied him. And his competitiveness had led him to pursue her and eventually marry her.

  At the time she may not have recognized that she’d been in love with Colton, but Eddie certainly had. Colton might have taken home the high school wrestling trophy, but she had been Eddie’s trophy. No wonder their marriage hadn’t worked. No wonder their friendship had turned so sour.

  April sighed. Maybelline’s ears lifted at the sound, and the big dog disobeyed the long-standing rule of staying off the furniture. April didn’t bother to reprimand the sympathetic retriever as it climbed up beside her and rested its muzzle on her shoulder. She patted her golden-haired friend, and they both sat facing straight ahead, looking for all the world like they were waiting for a bus.

  Her mind flitted back to the next question she had asked Teresa that morning. Does he love you?

  There was no question that he loved her. What she really needed to know was how he loved her. Like a sister? Possibly. Like a lifelong best friend? Definitely. Like a wife?

  Hmm. April stroked
her chin while she considered, and Maybelline breathed on her neck, watching to see if perhaps she was sneaking a bite of candy without offering to share.

  There was no doubt that he had physically loved her as a man would love his wife. Unfortunately, that didn’t tell her anything other than that he had needs, just as she did.

  He’d made it clear when he offered to marry her—and again the day of the wedding—that this was a marriage of convenience. He needed her at the campground. Colton was a savvy businessman, but not every owner would make such a personal sacrifice for his business.

  Could it be that he was as blind to his love as she had been to hers? True, he had offered to marry her in an effort to hold on to the successful fruits of their campground labors. But if, during the course of their marriage-for-show, he came to see how much he truly loved her, what would be the harm in foregoing the divorce? Their marriage of convenience could grow into a marriage of love and passion.

  Which led her to the next question. Would he do anything to make sure she and the baby were healthy and happy? Absolutely. There’d never been any doubt in her mind that he would always be there for her, married or not. And the same was true for the baby, whether it was genetically his or an anonymous donor’s.

  She thought back to the advice she had given Teresa. You should be together, she’d said with assurance. Besides, the baby needs both of you.

  It had been so easy to see this truth in Teresa’s case. Why had it taken her so long to realize the same for herself?

  Sure, April could raise the baby alone. A lot of single women did so and were quite successful at it. But in this case, there was a man in the picture … a man whom she loved very much. A man who would make the world’s best dad.

  It was one thing to be a single mom because it was necessary or because she had no other choice. However, it was nothing other than sheer foolishness to become a single mom when she already had a perfectly fine husband who was an excellent daddy candidate.

  Then it was settled. She just had to find a way to open Colton’s eyes to the love they’d always had between them. And she knew exactly how she would do it.

  She would seduce him. She would have to show him they weren’t just having sex. They weren’t just making a baby. They were making love.

  April threw her arms around the dog’s neck and gave her a hug. In return, she endured wet kisses on her chin.

  “I love him,” she said more to herself than to Maybelline. “Now all I have to do is make him see that he loves me, too.”

  For the first time since she and Colton had agreed on their baby making plan, she hoped she didn’t get pregnant right away. If it happened too soon, a pregnancy could spell the end of their relationship before it even began.

  April opened the shed door on the bathhouse roof and took out a speaker hooked up to her playlist and a bag of prizes for the winners of tonight’s dance contest. This was one of her favorite events, and the teens—many of whom considered family camping to be uncool—were grateful for the activity that catered to their interests.

  It was also for this that she had worked out a standing arrangement with the youth facility that allowed Steven to break his nighttime curfew. Although her main purpose in having him stay each Friday night was to allow him time to socialize in return for his hard work during the week, she had convinced the youth facility administrators that she needed the boy’s help. And though she wanted him to just relax and have a good time, Steven always insisted on helping her, as he did now.

  “Hey, what’s this?” he asked, pulling out a large box from the back of the shelf and setting it with the rest of the stuff.

  “Oh, don’t bring that out. It’s just some junk that the former owner left behind.”

  “Man, these are the biggest CDs I’ve ever seen.” Steven held up one of the cardboard covers and withdrew a slightly warped record album. “Who are Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller?”

  She set down the bag she’d been about to put in the shed and walked over to examine his find. There were records of big band and folk artists from the nineteen-twenties, -thirties, and -forties. And although some of the covers were faded or layered with dust and mildew, the albums themselves were in pretty good shape.

  The nostalgic sight brought back memories of time spent at Grandma Hanson’s house when April was young. Her grandmother owned what was at the time a new record player but, with a little cajoling from April, would crank up the old Victrola and play the songs that had been old-fashioned even thirty years ago.

  “Wow, I haven’t heard these in years,” April said, remembering afternoon naps on top of the Hanson family quilt while listening to the scratchy tunes of “My Gal Sal” and “Indian Love Song.” She turned over one of the albums in her hands and examined the photo of the well-dressed man. “Glenn Miller did a lot of big band music in the forties.”

  “Gee, I didn’t know you were that old.” Steven jumped away when she feigned a motion to give him an affectionate swat.

  She sent him down to the camp store to get some Japanese lanterns to hang from the rooftop rails. While he was gone, April shoved the bagful of things she’d bought after her revelation last night into the shed and locked the door.

  There were scented candles, the white negligee that she hadn’t worn since their wedding night, and a small cooler containing a bottle of champagne and fresh strawberries. She was trying to remember if there’d been anything else she should have brought with her when Colton interrupted her train of thought.

  “Guess who I found downstairs?” he announced, stepping aside to make a flourish toward her cousin.

  Ardath giggled and moved closer, stubbing her toe against the box of old records.

  In her haste to hide the tools of her seduction, April had forgotten to put the ancient music away. Rather than open the shed again and risk having Ardath or Colton find her secret stash, she pushed the box to the corner and made a mental note to put it away later. “Sorry about that,” she apologized.

  Ardath shrugged it off. “You left your earrings at Nicole’s house yesterday. Since I was coming by this way to go home, I offered to drop them off.”

  “Thanks, but you didn’t need to go to the bother.” April took the dangly ornaments from her cousin. Normally she wore button-shaped earrings because they were more suited to the type of work she did, but yesterday she’d wanted to wear something a bit more feminine and frilly. However, she’d found the way they swung against her neck distracting and had laid them on Nicole’s coffee table.

  The pearl and gold shoulder dusters would look pretty with her white nightie. Tonight, nothing could distract her from her planned seduction. She dropped the earrings into her shorts pocket for later.

  “I’ve asked Ardath to stay and do the Electric Slide with us once the dancing begins,” Colton said.

  “Yes, please stay.” April made a little grimace. “But we might not do the Electric Slide. Most of the teenagers prefer the newer dances.”

  Ardath happily accepted their invitation and helped them string lights. A few minutes later, Steven’s voice could be heard on the loudspeaker, informing all teenagers that the dance contests would soon begin.

  Though it took some coordination and muscle, Colton and Steven brought Clyde and his wheelchair out onto the bathhouse deck where he performed his duties as disc jockey. The mix of music was eclectic, to say the least. Rap, folk ballads, oldies rock and roll, some country western, modern alternative rock, merengue. A little of this and a little of that. There was something for every teenage taste, and Clyde frequently spoke into the microphone, interjecting well-received jokes and teasing comments about the dancers.

  When the fun began, April tried to urge Colton out onto the dance floor for a fast number, but he refused, saying he was too tired. Rather than become discouraged by his apparent lack of interest, she tried again a few dances later when the tempo had slowed considerably.

  This time he hesitated but didn’t refuse. It was obvious, though, that h
e wasn’t thrilled about the idea of dancing with her. Despite his lackluster attitude, he held her tight, and April welcomed the closeness. It was warm out, but from their second-story altitude, the night breeze caressed their bare arms and legs.

  She inhaled his freshly showered male scent and was overcome with the urge to kiss him, long and hard. But a glance to her right showed Steven watching them as they swayed to the romantic tune. The thought of kissing Colton was tempting, but there would be plenty of time for that later. For now, however, she focused on teasing him out of his blue mood.

  “It’s only nine thirty,” she murmured near his ear. “If you’re this tired so early, maybe I should have set my sights on a younger stud.” She slanted a wicked grin up at her husband. “I hear nineteen-year-old boys are at their sexual prime.”

  He stiffened and pulled her closer. “You don’t want a mere boy,” he declared. “Besides, I’m always primed.”

  There was no doubt about that. He was a man of lusty appetites. All April had to do now was convince him that he wanted more than a tryst and a temporary marriage with her. She had to show him that he wanted forever.

  The door that led downstairs opened, shining a beacon of light across the dance floor. April squinted against the sudden brightness and barely made out the shadowed outline of someone helping another up the last step.

  “Oh, no,” Colton moaned. “It’s the dynamic duo.”

  10

  The door swung shut, blanketing them once again in the soothing softness of the muted lamplight. Sure enough, Mrs. Turner and the deputy were making their way across the dance floor toward them.

  “Sentimental Journey” ended, and a frenzied song followed. Squinting through the dim light, April could see Steven had commandeered the speaker and bumped the decibel level up another couple of notches. He’d obviously taken notice of their visitors, and this was his way of showing his displeasure.