by Beth Andrews
“I’m going to blame it on my never getting over Sparky running away and leave it at that.”
Unfortunately, Joan never left anything alone. Tenaciousness must have come with her Ph.D. “You’ve dealt with numerous parents on matters both big and small throughout the years without letting them upset you. It seems to me, the difference this time isn’t that Mr. Montesano was resistant to your help, but that he bruised your pride.”
Though the words were said gently, without reprimand or judgment, Harper flinched. “You think this is about my ego?”
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s annoying the way you answer a question with another question.”
Joan simply waited. As if she knew it was only a matter of time before Harper broke. She was right.
About everything.
Harper slouched farther into her seat, wished she could disappear into the fabric. “Maybe he poked at my pride a little.” Staring at her left hand, she slid her engagement ring and wedding band up and down her finger. Up and down. “What do I do now?”
“I think the best way to proceed is to give Mr. Montesano time to process your discussion, your concerns. After report cards are sent out next month, call him in for another meeting. Sam and I can sit in on it if you’d like.”
Harper wondered if that last bit was a reprimand for skirting the rules and meeting with Eddie on her own. “That would probably be for the best. Thanks.”
Having Joan and the principal there might be enough to persuade Eddie that she knew what she was talking about. Or it could get her in a boatload of trouble if she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
Like today.
Her mouth. From the time she’d said her first word at eight months old it’d been getting her into trouble.
She pressed her fingertips against her temples. She’d snapped at Eddie, had told him not to shrug at her again. Her stomach got queasy, embarrassment coated her throat. He had every right to complain about her to her superiors.
She wrinkled her nose. Maybe not every right. He had been incredibly stubborn and unreasonable. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t complain about their little meeting. She may as well have handed him the phone numbers of the principal, superintendent and president of the school board, and told him to have at it asking for her resignation. Or, more realistically, asking Max to be moved to another class.
Worse, instead of getting him to see he was hurting Max by ignoring her suggestions, she’d pushed him into digging in his heels even deeper.
She’d messed up. Royally. Now she had to make it right. Tonight she’d write up some ideas for strategies she could implement in her class, ways to help Max focus and succeed.
After all, she didn’t need to meet with Eddie or get his permission to try different teaching methods. To do what was best for one of the students in her class. He wasn’t the damn boss of her.
Joan shut off her computer and got her purse from the desk drawer. “Would you and Cass like to come for dinner? Steve’s making chicken pot pie.”
“We’d love to, but it’s Uncle Will’s birthday so we’re eating at Aunt Irene’s.”
Since Beau died, she and Cass never had a shortage of dinner invitations. It was as though her loved ones thought if they didn’t feed her and her daughter, they’d starve.
Not that she didn’t appreciate the support. She did. Really. It was just sometimes all she wanted after a long day was to pick up Cassidy from daycare, go home, put on sweatpants and play with her baby.
But she tried to make sure Cass saw Joan and Steve—Beau’s stepfather—a few times a week. It was important that her daughter have a connection to her paternal grandparents.
Keeping everyone happy—and convincing them she and Cassidy really were fine—was exhausting sometimes.
“Can we get a rain check?” she asked.
Joan came around the desk and walked with her to the door. “Of course,” she said, shutting off the lights. “How about tomorrow night?”
“That sounds great.” At least it would save her having to throw together something for dinner. “Thanks. For everything.”
“That’s what family is for. Try not to worry about Max. I’ve seen this before, parents who are reluctant to admit there’s a problem. They usually come around and I’m sure Mr. Montesano will be no different.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
Even if she wasn’t, it didn’t matter. Because Harper wasn’t about to let Eddie take Max away from her. She couldn’t. Max needed her.
And to help a child she’d gladly do battle against any opponent—including grumpy, taciturn Eddie Montesano.
3
WITH MAROON 5’S “Payphone” playing over the radio in Bradford House’s kitchen, Eddie crouched in front of the rough plumbing for the sink. He measured the distance from the floor to the hot water pipe, wrote the figure on a piece of scrap paper and repeated the action with the cold water pipe and drain. Then he measured them all again.
Measure twice, cut once. Good advice that had been drilled into his head since he started working for his father at the age of fifteen. Advice he heeded on the job literally—and in life figuratively.
Be careful, cautious, and you were less likely to make a mistake.
Behind him, the door opened. “If you’re not going to keep your phone on,” a familiar voice said as Eddie wrote down the last of the measurements, “why do you bother to have one?”
Straightening, Eddie stuck the carpenter pencil in his back pocket and laid the paper on top of the cherry cabinet he’d built for the sink base. “Who says it’s not on?”
“Me.” James Montesano, Eddie’s older brother, waved his own phone in the air. “And the fact that I’ve been calling you for the past hour.”
Eddie pulled out his phone and turned it on, then slid it into his pocket. “I had a meeting.”
He’d rather keep it off. He hated the damn thing. Had no desire to talk to most people face-to-face, why would he want the torture of trying to keep up a conversation over the phone? Or worse, send and receive text messages like some teenager? The only reason he even had one was in case of an emergency.
And if something had happened to his son, if he’d gotten hurt or sick at hockey practice, James would have told Eddie that immediately instead of laying into him about his lack of cell-phone manners. Besides, their mother was the secondary emergency contact for Max and she would have simply picked Max up if he’d needed her.
“Hand me the hole saw,” Eddie said, marking the measurements on the back of the sink base.
James sighed. “Aren’t you going to ask why I’ve been calling you for the past hour?”
“I figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.” No sense rushing a man when he had something on his mind. Eddie hated being pushed to speak before he was ready. “You going to give me the saw or not?”
“I’ve been calling,” James said as his phone buzzed, “because I’m tired of acting as your message service.”
“Customers wouldn’t bug you so often if you didn’t answer each call and respond to every text message.”
As if to prove him right, James checked the number of the incoming call. “Shit,” he muttered before answering it with a cheerful, “Meg, hi. How are you?”
Though their father, Frank, was the head of Montesano Construction, had built the business from the ground up thirty-five years ago, James was the one who kept the company running smoothly today. His anal tendencies, love for organization and rules and unnatural fondness for his smartphone made him the perfect man for the job.
Thank God. Eddie could handle coming up with the work schedules, and both he and Maddie wrote up estimates for potential jobs. But Eddie would rather shoot himself in the bare foot with a nail gun than have to deal with customers changing their minds, whining about costs and bitching about jobs taking too long.
And if Maddie, with her sharp tongue and take-no-prisoners attitude, was in charge of customer service?
Mo
ntesano Construction would be out of business in two months. Three, tops.
Better to keep things the way they were. Even if that meant putting up with James’s nagging, bossiness and him ceasing all conversation to stroke his phone.
Not that Eddie actually minded that last one. At least it got James to shut up for a few minutes.
Saving himself the time and trouble of asking for the hole saw again—no sense when James was absorbed in conversation—Eddie crossed to the corner cabinet and got the damn thing himself.
While he’d been at the parent/teacher thing, Heath had finished installing the two lower cabinets to the left of the sink base. Eddie could let the sink wait until tomorrow, but with Max at hockey practice, he had two hours on his hands. A good opportunity to make up for the time he’d missed.
Time he never should have missed, he thought, his irritation once again spiking when he remembered his conversation with Harper. He should have been working instead of listening to her try to convince him to go against his instincts.
The ones screaming at him to protect his son.
He cut through the back of the sink base, the loud whine of the saw and scent of sawdust filling the air. When he had three perfect circles, he tossed the scraps aside, set the tool on the floor out of the way and went to the front of the cabinet. Grabbing the corners, he wiggled the base into position then stepped back.
They still had a long way to go—three more lower cabinets along this wall needed installing as did a dozen upper cabinets, and he was putting the finishing touches on the large center island at the workshop. But the floor had been laid, the walls prepped and painted, the appliances were on order and the lighting fixtures were being delivered in two days.
“That woman is one hundred pages of crazy in a fifty-page book,” James grumbled, putting away his phone.
“That’s why God invented voice mail.”
“You should know, seeing as how most calls I make to you go straight to it. Mine and everyone else who dials that number.” James crossed his arms, braced his legs wide. Eddie knew that stance. It was the one James adopted when he was getting ready to do battle. “Including, apparently, your ex-wife.”
And there was the reason for it.
Eddie stilled. “What?”
“Lena phoned me. Told me she’s been trying to get ahold of you for the past five days but you haven’t answered any of her calls or returned them. I told her you and Max were both fine and that I’d relay her message.”
“What message?”
“To call her. What do you think she wants?”
He didn’t know. And that was the problem. The reason he’d been avoiding her calls.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll tell her not to bug you.”
“She didn’t bug me and I don’t mind that she called. Especially when she was obviously upset and worried something had happened to Max.”
“You told her Max was fine.”
She had no reason to worry. No right to. Not when she was the one who walked away from their son.
“She seemed relieved,” James said. “What’s going on? She still bugging you about more time with Max?”
“Nothing’s going on.” Nothing except his ex-wife changing the rules they’d lived by for the past five years. “I’ve got it handled.”
About four months ago, Lena had started calling several times a week instead of every other weekend. At first, Eddie hadn’t thought much of it, but then she’d started talking about spending more time with Max, how she wanted to be a bigger part of his life.
That was when the fear had set in. Ever since their divorce, ever since she’d willingly granted Eddie full custody, she’d never wanted to be more than a partial influence in their child’s life. Twice-yearly visits—always in Shady Grove—had been enough for her all this time. It should continue to be enough.
Or at least that’s what he’d thought until she’d admitted the reason for her change of heart.
Cancer.
Lena had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in January. Per her wishes, Eddie hadn’t told anyone, not even his family. Not Max. Lena was fine now, her prognosis excellent after a hysterectomy and chemo treatments.
No sense worrying Max needlessly. No point in letting him know it’d taken a near-death experience to make his mother want back in his life.
Eddie had agreed to let Lena see Max anytime she wanted. It was the right thing to do.
But that didn’t mean Eddie had to like being the good guy. Or that he had to answer every one of her phone calls.
Kneeling in front of the cabinet, Eddie inserted shims under the bottom to make the base level. As he worked, though, he felt James’s gaze on him, like an unreachable itch between his shoulder blades. Nagging. Irritating as hell.
“Everything okay with you?” James asked.
“Yep.”
But James remained rooted to his spot. “Let’s go to O’Riley’s. Grab a beer.” From the tapping going on behind him, James had his phone out again. “But it’s your turn to buy.”
“I’m working.”
“Fine. I’ll buy.”
Eddie tossed the shims aside. “I don’t want a beer.”
Actually, a beer didn’t sound half bad. If a quick drink had been all James was after, he might have gone along with it. But James was too perceptive to buy Eddie’s evasions about Lena. Too damned nosy to let it go. And spending any amount of time deflecting what was sure to be an interrogation sounded like pure hell.
“I’ll text Leo,” James said. “Have him meet us.”
Both brothers yakking at him, questioning him, wanting to know his every goddamn thought? More like pure hell with the flames set to High.
Eddie stood. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
Between putting in twelve-hour days for Montesano Construction, family obligations and his new live-in relationship with Sadie Nixon—his best friend since childhood—James always had somewhere to be. Something to do.
“Not for an hour.” He didn’t even look up from whatever he was typing. “Sadie and I are going to her parents’ house for Will’s birthday dinner.”
“You want to waste an hour while Leo hits on every pretty woman at O’Riley’s, that’s your choice. Me? I’m going to finish this, pick up my kid and go home.”
“You sure?” James asked quietly, but Eddie knew what his brother really wanted to know.
Are you really all right? Do you want to talk about it? What can I do to help?
He was grateful for the concern. He didn’t want it, didn’t need it, but he could appreciate it just the same. “I’m sure.”
Nodding, James stepped forward and slapped Eddie’s shoulder. Gave it an affectionate—if heavy-handed—squeeze. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
He walked out, his phone once again buzzing for his attention. Eddie turned to his work. He appreciated his brother’s concern. Knew James and the rest of their family were there for him and Max if they needed them.
Whenever.
Wherever.
It meant a lot.
But there were some things a man had to do on his own.
* * *
“I’M TELLING YOU, that woman hates me,” Sadie Nixon said with such heartfelt drama, Harper glanced around to make sure they hadn’t been magically transported to a Broadway stage. Harper’s cousin always had had somewhat of a theatrical streak.
But, nope, they were still in Irene Ellison’s gourmet kitchen. The scent of roasting beef filled the air, mixed with the yeasty smell of the rolls in the second oven while potatoes bubbled on the back corner of the six-burner range. Speckled black granite counters topped white cabinets, and green-and-black accents kept the room from being too modern or austere.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Aunt Irene told her daughter as she spread whipped white frosting on a triple-layer coconut cake. “Rose is a lovely woman.”
“She’s a fabulous woman,” Sadie agreed, crossing her arms as she leaned back agai
nst the counter. “Wonderful, really. Kind. Caring. Considerate. And she hates my guts.”
Aunt Irene shook her head. “Now, Sadie—”
“It’s true. I’ve tried so hard to get her to like me. I bake her cookies. Pick up little gifts I think she’ll enjoy. Help with the dishes when we eat dinner there. I invite her out for coffee or shopping, just the two of us.” Sadie, in bright orange jeans that threatened to cause permanent eye damage, and a silky white top that fell from her shoulder, pouted prettily. Then again, everything Sadie did she did prettily. Hard not to when you looked like a blonde, blue-eyed fairy come to life. “She’s always busy.”
“Well, I imagine she is very busy, what with going back to school,” Aunt Irene said.
Lifting the lid from the potatoes, Harper frowned as steam heated her cheeks, probably curling her hair. “Mrs. Montesano is going to college?”
“She’s taking courses at Seton Hill.” Sadie swiped her finger through the frosting bowl when her mom’s back was turned. “She wants to be a social worker.”
Good to know at least one Montesano considered education important.
Rose’s middle son could learn a lesson from his mother.
Harper gripped the fork like Norman Bates in Psycho and stabbed the potatoes with more force than necessary. Not that she was letting grumpy, stubborn Eddie affect the rest of her evening or anything. She’d let all that go. Her frustration with him. Her curiosity as to how someone who seemed so quiet and stoic could also be so blatantly antagonistic.
Her shock over the sense that he just hadn’t seemed to like her all that much.
She peeled her fingers from the utensil and laid it on the counter, replaced the lid on the not-quite-done vegetable. How could he not like her? They didn’t even know each other, for God’s sake. Yes, she’d tutored him, but it wasn’t as if they’d had many—or any—deep, meaningful conversations. There was no basis, none at all, for him to form what had seemed to be a distinct aversion to her.
Which was crazy. She happened to be extremely likable. Some would even say to know her was to love her.
Okay, so only her parents had ever said that but that didn’t make it any less true.