by Leigh Tudor
“So, you two know one another?” Mercy asked, pulling a tissue from the box and blotting the water on the sheets.
Madame answered, “I’m afraid so. He’s diabolical at cards. Cheats, no less.”
“I don’t cheat. I optimize opportunities.”
“Cheats,” she reiterated with a side-eye.
“The secret,” he whispered, leaning toward Mercy, “is to fly under the radar. Pretend you know nothing of this obscure game they play in some foreign country.” His eyes grow wide with feigned innocence. “Ask them to teach you this game. Act clueless. Suggest making a harmless bet. You know, to make it interesting. You start slow with a quarter, working you’re way up to some Alexander Hamiltons. And then”—he smacked his fist with his palm—“you execute a full-frontal attack with your quick wit and innate ability to count cards.”
“Grifter.” Madame harrumphed as she sipped her sewer water.
“Mom taught me everything I know,” he said to Madame with a wide grin.
Mercy needed to put a stop to this kid’s pipe dream. “I hate to break the news there, Einstein, but I never taught you to scam, and I’m not your mom.”
“It’s just a matter of time,” he said, patting her arm. “I’ve researched the process. Granted, there are some kinks, but I came up with a plan that has strong potential. I’ve also filled out all of the forms. By the way, have you ever committed a felony?”
Pursing her lips and moving her head side to side, she said, “Recent events might have uncovered a less than squeaky clean record.”
Madame had informed Mercy that Loren had struck some pretty hard-core deals and made sure everyone’s superior was on the phone so no one could cry foul. Expunging her sisters of any wrongdoing was high on the list. Right up there with Mercy getting her head straight. And her tubes untwisted.
But well-planned deals could go south fast, and she wasn’t going to stop holding her breath until they were back in Wilder and officially off the feds’ pseudo-wanted list.
Nate scoffed. “No matter, I can fix that. Trust me, I’ve got everything set in place.” Placing his Iron Man backpack on the floor, he pulled out what looked to be official paperwork. “You just need to hold up your end of the bargain and sign for Marleigh and me on the dotted line.”
Mercy caught Madame’s head tilt with raised eyebrows.
“What I promised,” she said, turning her focus back onto the miniature car salesman, “was to do everything in my power to make sure you and Marleigh stay together. And that once you got to know me, you’d realize I’m the last person you want as a mother. Trust me, I’m not built to coddle or nurture.”
“That’s why you adopting me and Marleigh is so perfect,” Nate said with his arms out wide for emphasis. “I can take care of all of us. Put me in front of a computer monitor, and I’ll day trade like a boss. Cook and clean? I’m your man. Wash clothes? Sure, I’ll even air dry your delicates. It’ll be like we’re not even there, except for everything gets done without you lifting a finger.”
“How do you propose to do all these things and attend school eight hours a day?”
His eyes lit up. “Glad you asked. I don’t need school. I’ve already aced the SATs and the ACTs. I can homeschool Marleigh while you lie on the sofa watching daytime soaps and eating my homemade bonbons . . .” He winked again. “With a chocolate ganache filling.”
“That’s enough, young man,” Madame interrupted. “Let’s allow Miss Mercy to heal before selling her the Suez Canal or ocean front property in Wyoming. We can address future parentage details at a later date.”
Mercy’s heart skipped a beat as the kid and future corporate tycoon looked down at the floor, scuffing his Converse shoes on the linoleum tiles. He looked back up at her with glassy eyes, and her heart instantly felt tight and conflicted. “Don’t you want to be my mom?”
And then she caught a devilish glint in his eyes.
Oh, he was good.
God, she loved that kid.
A commotion in the hallway turned all three heads toward the door where a stern nurse was advising someone that Mercy Ingalls wasn’t allowed more than two visitors at a time.
Madame quickly exited the room on a mission, and Mercy could hear her matronly voice turn surly and authoritarian. She almost felt sorry for the recipient of the elderly woman’s wrath.
“My granddaughter’s condition requires mental and verbal stimulation. Please grant this gentleman and his children entry this very minute, or I will phone the chief of staff and advise him of the conversation you and your nurse mates had on your recent sexual encounter with a man who was, and I quote, ‘hung like a freaking horse.’”
Nate turned to look at Mercy. “Why would anyone hang a horse? That’s kinda mean.”
Mercy rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “And see, this is why I have no business being a mother. I’m not even equipped to field that question to a ten-year-old boy.”
His eyebrows came together. “I’m twelve.” And as if embarrassed, he added, “Just small for my age.”
Crap, she’d forgot.
Before she could respond or apologize, her astonishment grew as in walked a disheveled and determined Trevor Forrest, ushering Marleigh through the door with one hand and holding Haley on his hip while juggling a duffel bag in the other.
Mercy shrunk into the bed. Her hair was a mess, and she had yet to brush her teeth that morning, and in walked the one man who would make her care about any of that.
He, too, looked like he could use a haircut and a shave as dark stubble shadowed his perfectly chiseled face that made him look all the more swoony and edible. He easily held Haley in his arms, his biceps straining against the sleeve of his hoodie as Marleigh grabbed his leg, leaning her cheek against him as if suddenly shy.
Sweet baby Jesus. Who knew that secret operative guy Trevor Forrest was even hotter and more panty-melting as parental Trevor Forrest?
Mercy felt the magnetic pull to her ovaries as he lowered Haley to the floor while Marleigh continued to hold tight to his leg.
He nodded toward her. “Mercy,” as if also tongue-tied. “You’re looking well.”
“You are the foster parent . . . pro-temp?”
Trevor scowled at Nate. “That last part, totally made up by our mutual friend here. I hope he hasn’t caused you any problems.”
Nate growled, “I’m not the problem. I’m the solution. No one ever listens to me.”
Trevor responded, “I heard every word, Nate. Just because I don’t agree with your ‘master plan’ doesn’t mean I didn’t listen to it.”
“So what is this master plan?” Mercy asked. “Getting me to sign adoption papers? We already covered that.”
Trevor eyeballed Nate. “Did you tell her what you told the social worker?”
Nate grumbled, “I hadn’t gotten to it yet. I was warming her up to the idea, and then you had to show up.”
Mercy’s focus ping-ponged between a frustrated Trevor and a sheepish Nate who seemed crestfallen that his communication strategy had been compromised.
“Nate,” Mercy said, almost afraid to ask the question. “What did you tell the social worker?”
He did his best to distract her. “Do you need another blanket? I think it’s time to have your vitals checked . . .”
Trevor cleared his throat. “Nate told the social worker that you and I were engaged.”
Mercy’s eyes widened as she turned her focus toward Nate, who was now checking out the controls to her hospital bed.
“Nate?” Mercy said, waiting for his response.
His lip began to quiver, and then his head shot up. “Well, he must have liked the idea. He never told her I was wrong.”
Now Mercy’s wide eyes turned back to Trevor, who was now the one avoiding her gaze. “I guess it served both our purposes at that moment.”
“The stupid lady wasn’t going to let him have us, but when she heard he was engaged to be married, it seemed to change her mind.”
Trevor explained, “This particular woman prefers foster parents to be married. Something about providing a solid family unit.”
Nate lowered his voice. He was on a roll and in desperation mode. “Here’s the thing, you don’t have to marry him. I mean, it’s just a temporary thing until you can adopt Marleigh and me. But, frankly, I didn’t have a choice. Things weren’t going well.” He lowered his voice even more. “He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Somebody had to do something, or I was going to the Williamsons in the suburbs, and Marleigh was going to the Martins in midtown.”
Trevor glared at Nate. “You didn’t give me a chance to even talk to the social worker. You jumped in and began selling us as a de facto family.”
And that was when Madame clapped her hands. “All right, children. Let’s go get some ice cream in the lackluster cafeteria where they claim to understand the fundamentals of sound nutrition. Master Trevor and Miss Mercy need some privacy.”
Nate wasn’t having it. “But I haven’t even met the doctor yet. I need to know how long she was in a comatose state, how far the infection had spread, and whether her neocortex was compromised.”
“Come along, young man. I believe you’ve done enough. It’s time to allow the adults to converse.”
Nate turned to Mercy. “I won’t be long. Do you want me to bring you back anything? Give me thirty minutes, and I bet I could score you some pure grain alcohol.”
Mercy gave him a strained smile and shook her head, wondering if she were still experiencing ICU psychosis. “Go on, I’ll be fine.”
To say that Trevor felt out of sorts was an understatement. He owed this woman a debt of gratitude for handing Haley over to him but wasn’t sure what the etiquette was for crashing an unearthly amazon warrior’s hospital room after living through an execution attempt, battling a rare illness and waking from a coma.
She solved the problem for him.
“So what’s this I hear about our upcoming nuptials?”
He smiled, moving himself to the other side of the hospital room to sit in a straight back chair, setting the duffel bag filled with a ridiculous array of travel snacks, wet wipes, and hand-selected Barbie dolls on a nearby table.
“That’s a complicated question.”
“Oh, well, you came to the right jacked-up mess. I happen to be an expert on complicated.”
Her light humor wasn’t fooling him. She looked as if the world was hitching a ride on her shoulders and weighing her chin down to the floor.
“It began with night terrors,” he started.
“Well, that’s no surprise. Anyone taking on Nate as a foster parent would either suffer nightmares or substance abuse. Let me be the first to commend you on your choice of a coping mechanism.”
He grinned. Damn, she was cute, even if her smile was clouded with sadness.
“No, Haley was having the night terrors,” he explained, “and the reason was because she was suffering from abandonment issues.”
“Abandonment issues?”
He nodded. “She felt abandoned by Nate.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Son of Satan Nate? Lab rat Nate? Nate, the evil boy genius who probably built his own shark tank and strapped laser beams on their heads at the Center, Nate?”
Trevor leaned his elbows on his knees. What he had shared so far had only scratched the surface.
His hands closed over his knees, and then he slid his palms up his thighs.
“You also need to know that Haley is my daughter.”
“Yes,” she said, those amber eyes sweeping him from head to toe. “I got that impression when I saw you fall to your knees in front of her at the Center. The resemblance between the two of you sealed the deal. So, night terrors . . .?”
He continued, back on track, refusing the inadvertent distraction from his culpability for his daughter’s condition.“So, her abandonment issues probably stem even further back to when I . . . left her.”
She tilted her head to the side without offering platitudes or lame excuses for his decision to relinquish custody of Haley to his parents. He appreciated that. He only felt the warmth of her curious regard like it was a caress.
“I took Haley to see a psychiatrist, who explained that Nate was the only older brother figure she’d known since arriving at the Center at such a young age. I know the kid is frustrating as hell, but at the Center, he was Marleigh and Haley’s prominent caretaker and self-appointed protector.”
Mercy shook her head with amazement. “Wow, the little dude is kind of the bomb.”
Trevor nodded with equal disbelief.
“After a week of Haley screaming in the middle of the night and sobbing in my arms that she needed Nate.” Trevor didn’t mention these were the only words she had yet to verbalize, deciding she didn’t need to know what a full-blown failure he was as a parent. “I reached out to the Bureau, pulled some strings, and called in a couple of favors to allow Nate and Marleigh to stay with me as their foster parent.”
“Ahhh, and then in walks the evil social worker. Tell me the truth, was she wearing a puppy coat?”
Trevor released a sigh as he remembered the small round woman who glared judgmental daggers at him. “Suffice it to say, I was terrified of the woman. My daughter’s mental health depended on her allowing Nate and Marleigh to live with us, and the moment she walked into the two-bedroom apartment, she curled her lip and deemed my appallingly stark bachelor pad an unacceptable home for children.”
“But what about all that string pulling you did?”
“This woman was the last hoop I had to jump through to ensure Haley felt safe enough to get a decent night’s sleep, and the only hoop that didn’t owe me any favors and wasn’t in the least bit interested in the ultimate power of those who did.”
“That monster,” she fake scoffed. “Putting the children’s welfare above what I’m sure was a perfectly executed quid pro quo.”
God, she was adorable. Even with dark shadows under her gold-flecked amber eyes.
He forged ahead.
“She brought Nate and Marleigh with her to see how we interacted with one another. I admit, Nate wasn’t lying when he said things weren’t looking good. But before I could come to my own defense, he started in on this elaborate story about his mom-to-be who was in a coma, fighting a lethal brain infection.”
Mercy cracked up, laughing until she had to wipe the tears from under her eyes, and Trevor felt his mood spike exponentially.
“The social worker looked at me and said, ‘you’re engaged?’ With a crack of a smile, mind you. The first one since walking through my front door. Before I could even respond, Nate was telling her this fabricated story about how I had asked you to marry me before you had fallen sick from a rare tropical disease contracted while on a mission trip in Papua New Guinea. Told her my apartment was only a temporary residence as we were moving into a nice big house as soon as his mom came out of her coma. And then, the little hellhound quivered his bottom lip and said, ‘if she wakes up.’”
“Yeah, I, too, have fallen prey to his quivering lips. By the way, I don’t even know where Papua New Guinea is,” she said as if mentally trying to locate the elusive location on a map. “I have to say, I’m conflicted. I want to pat the little dude on the back and cut off his air supply at the same time.”
“When the woman looked at me for confirmation, some type of response, I could see she was cracking. That there was a glimmer of hope, and as much as I hated to admit it, I told her it was all true. I gave her your name and the hospital you were in, and she said she’d checked it out. She called the next day to let me know we were granted a trial period, and she expected to see the new house within the week.”
“You have to buy a house?”
He shook his head. “I bought a house.”
“Where is this house we’re supposed to live in once we tie the nonexistent totally pretend marital knot?”
He hesitated, not sure how she was going to react to this.
; “Wilder.”
“W. . . Wilder? You bought a home in Wilder, Texas?”
Desperation wasn’t an emotion Trevor was comfortable with, but he felt that he needed to make her understand how much he loved his daughter and the motherlode of regret and shame he harbored for leaving her with his parents.
“There’s not a line I wouldn’t cross for my daughter. God knows I owe it to her after everything she’s been through. And if raising Nate and Marleigh is the first step toward doing that, then I’ll gladly do it. With one eye open at night, of course.”
She nodded. “Goes without saying.”
Trevor rubbed one hand with the other with nervous energy as he stared at the floor.
“I realize that none of this is your problem, that you’re recovering from a fucking intense illness and unsure about you and your sisters’ futures. But if we could pretend to be engaged for just a little while, at least until the social worker sees us together and gives me the thumbs-up, I’d be forever grateful. Then we could have the breakup of your choosing, and both of us be on our way.”
“You’re asking me to pretend to be your fiancée for the unforeseeable future?”
He looked up and nodded, his heart battering around in his throat.
“Where we hold hands and canoodle and go on dates?”
“I’m not sure all that’s—”
She cut him off. “This is embarrassing, the lengths you’ll go to play tonsil hockey with me.”
Some of the tension left his shoulders. “I don’t think anybody uses that term anymore.”
“Suck face?”
He shook his head and contracted his lips. “Nope.”
“First base?”
“Maybe a few backward sixth graders?”
She hesitated, and for a moment, he thought she was going to bail, flop sweat pooling under his arms.
“Let’s do this, Sugarplum,” she said, crossing her arms with a serious expression and a brief lift to her chin.
“No one has used the endearment ‘Sugarplum’ since the Second World War.”
With one raised eyebrow, she responded, “We’ll work on it.”
Her demeanor hardened. “By the way, what’s in it for me?”