He’d told Cherie that he had wanted a family when his ex-wife didn’t. However, it hadn’t always been that way; otherwise, he wouldn’t have married her. But after less than a year of marriage, Monica began complaining that she didn’t feel she was ready to become a mother. Reese told her they were young and had time to enjoy each other before starting a family. Then once they’d celebrated their third anniversary, she’d dropped a bombshell when she claimed she didn’t want childrenandshe didn’t want to be a military wife. It had taken time for him to process her complete one-eighty; after all, it was she who had proposed marriage, while claiming she wanted his babies. He’d suggested they see a marriage counselor, but Monica refused. At first, he’d believed she was having an affair, and when he’d confronted her with his suspicions, she said making love made her feel dirty. By that time, Reese knew there was nothing he could do to save his marriage and gave Monica what she wanted—a divorce. After it was finalized, she moved back to Fayetteville to take care of her widowed father.
He walked next to Cherie along the carpeted hallway to the bedroom at the end of the hall. There was a stained-glass casement window that overlooked the side of the house that he hadn’t noticed the first time he’d come. “This house is a lot larger inside than it appears from the street,” he said.
“It has a lot more room than I need, but I didn’t want to wait for a smaller house to come on the market. It’s twenty-six hundred square feet, and it has one more bedroom than what I’ll need. I wanted a master, a guest room, and a home office, but I suppose having two guest bedrooms will come in handy if my mother and brothers come to visit at the same time.”
“Should I assume your brothers are younger than you?”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m twelve years older than they are. They are recent graduates from West Point and the Air Force Academy.”
“You’re kidding!”
Cherie’s eyes sparkled in delight as she flashed what Reese had come to think of as her sensual smile. She’d slightly lower her head and look up at him through her lashes. “No, I’m not. David and Daniel are not only identical twins but are super competitive with each other. They’d graduated valedictorian and salutatorian at their high school, even though they’d earned the same grade point average. And because David is four minutes older than Daniel, he decided to defer to his younger brother and allow him to become the valedictorian.”
“They sound incredible.”
“They are. I’m so proud of them.”
“What about your parents, Cherie? They have to be proud that their children have superior intelligence.”
A beat passed. “There’s just my mother.”
“Well, she’s to be commended. It’s not every day a single mother can raise three exceptional children.”
Cherie opened the door to the bedroom, flipped on an overhead light, and walked in. “What you see will eventually become my office and library.” She pointed to boxes labeledBOOKSlining two walls.
“What the . . .” Reese swallowed the curse. “How many books do you have?”
“A couple of hundred—maybe three or four. A lot of them are textbooks, and the others are—”
“I know, Cherie,” Reese said, cutting her off. “And the others are romance novels.”
Her jaw dropped. “How did you know?”
“Because a lot of women read them. You would really get along with Miss Elizabeth at the station because that’s all she reads. She’s our clerk.”
“Do you think there’s something wrong with romance novels?”
He walked into the room and opened the shutter-styled blinds. “No, because my grandmother used to read them. After she passed away, I boxed up the books and stored them in a corner of the garage. But when I discovered our clerk read them, she was gifted with decades of Harlequins going as far back as the sixties.”
Cherie came over to stand next to him. “My grandmother was also addicted to Harlequins and daytime soaps. She’d set up the ironing board in the kitchen and iron while watching her favorite soaps on a tiny black-and-white television. If it wasn’t ironing, then it was folding laundry. Whether it was cooking, ironing, doing laundry, or reading, her hands were never still.”
“Is she still alive?” Reese questioned.
“No,” Cherie said after a swollen pause. “I was still in high school when she passed away. I miss her telling me that if I wanted a husband, then I had to learn to cook. She’d get so angry when I told her I didn’t need to learn because I could buy frozen foods from the supermarket and heat them up in the oven or microwave or order takeout from a restaurant.”
“You’re right, and so was your grandmother.”
“About me having to cook to land a husband?”
“A husband is optional. No, it’s about knowing how to cook for yourself.”
“And that is, Reese?”
“It’s a feeling of accomplishment that you were able to follow a recipe from the beginning to the end. A prime example is your loaded-baked-potato soup.”
“It’s not as if I’m completely helpless in the kitchen,” Cherie countered.
“Then what is it, Cherie?”
