Joe’s whole heart, lungs, and gut clenched at the sight. Hallie looked so damned natural holding his daughter. So beautiful. He’d bet she’d glowed her way through this pregnancy the way she had when she was pregnant with her boys.
Disloyalty alighted uneasily on the lip of his conscience. It should be Mary rocking their baby in their bedroom, but he couldn’t imagine it. Never could. Even when she was alive. It probably didn’t mean anything, though, right? It wasn’t like he’d actually ever been able to imagine Hallie pregnant or parenting before Ben and Sam were born.
A stranger in this house where he’d always before felt comfortable and welcome, he swallowed, turned and went downstairs to the living room.
Despite their friendship, Mary had both envied and been jealous of Hallie when she was pregnant. Envious of Hallie’s healthy pregnancies, jealous of the way Joe looked at his best friend when Hallie was pregnant. And in his own defense, he couldn’t help it. All the guys on the squad had looked at Hallie the same way: besotted, protective, enthralled.
The only woman on the team, she’d worked twice as hard as any of the guys to earn her place and keep it. They tortured her incessantly, but she gave back as good as she got—no doubt the result, Joe had often mused, of her lifetime efforts to compete on the same level as “the guys.” She fitted into the department as few other women did; the guys accepted her as one of them: a rough-and-tumble platonic playmate, a brass-balls compatriot in the field.
The first time any of them had viewed her differently was at her wedding when their unglamorous, no-frills Hallie had shed her departmental image and become simply, heart-staggeringly beautiful. Certainly at the very least she’d stopped Joe’s heart, and left the rest of the guys stumbling over their tongues and feet at the reception. Joe could name at least three of them—probably himself included—who’d fallen half in love with Hallie at her wedding. Like Joe, who’d known her best and longest, none of the guys had ever thought about Hallie having a side to her they didn’t know.
It had taken days after she’d returned from her honeymoon and her verbally banging their heads together to finally get the department over the fact that she was literally built differently from the rest of them. On the job she was still Hallie. She just had a private side like any of the rest of them, that was all. The fact that her private side looked a heck of a lot better in satin and lace than any of theirs did was to her aredit and their tough cookies.
Still, for all his denials, Joe had never quite gotten over that image of her. He knew it was shallow of him not to have noticed all there was to Hallie before, but sometimes until you saw a thing in a dramatically different light, you didn’t see it at all. Didn’t get it.
In the end, watching her marry Zeke had made him uncomfortable for reasons he’d refused to consider. According to both his ethics and his religion, suddenly waking up and coveting a woman—a friend—who’d given her heart elsewhere was not only wrong, but also unproductive and stupid. So he hadn’t done it. He’d found Mary, fallen in love, gotten married and been outrageously happy for all of them.
The status quo had held until Hallie became pregnant with her oldest son, Ben.
He remembered the day he’d known distinctly. It was before she’d even told him. He’d known without being told because he’d had so much practice watching his five sisters and three sisters-in-law blossom, apparently from the moment they conceived. He had thirty-three nieces and nephews, and his entire family lived within the boundaries of Cuyahoga County. Which meant he’d had plenty of practice spotting pregnant women, sometimes before they knew about the pregnancy themselves.
He’d lied.
He’d lied to himself a lot where Hallie was concerned.
With Hallie, knowing had been the same and indescribably, uncomfortably different from recognizing when the women in his family were pregnant. Unfaithful-to-Mary different.
Wishing-Ben-were-his different.
Pregnant Hallie radiated something remarkable, elusive and vital. There was a sweetness in the way the air around her tasted, a glow beneath her skin, a vibrancy of being that was, somehow, not the same to him as the glow his sisters and sisters-in-law got.
He looked around, noting familiar Christmas decorations, the taste of autumn-winter spices in the air. Clove apples in a dish on the mantel over the set of built-in bookshelves that had taken the place of a crumbling hearth. The dolls of the world a favored aunt had made out of note cards and fabric scraps, then given her as a wedding present, and that she brought out only at Christmas. The Advent calendar he knew he’d see if he stepped around the corner into the dining room. The pieces of red-and-green this and that mixed in with Thanksgiving’s maize-orange-brown fitted precariously amid the eclectic blend of colors and furniture styles that somehow made this house a home.
Criminy Christmas, how could he have loved anyone as much as he’d loved Mary and still have wanted to father his best friend’s children? How could he so fiercely want the woman with whom he’d slept only once—years ago, when they’d lost their virginity together—while he was still mourning his wife, seeking vengeance for her death?
The experience with Hallie had been memorable as a first, but not lightening the way future experience with Mary had taught him lovemaking could be. He and Hallie had been shy and clumsy, working hard at not putting a foot wrong. He’d finished early, she not at all, but she’d held him while he’d shivered with reaction in the cool steamed-up darkness of the back seat of his hand-me-down Dodge and had told him it didn’t matter; that from what she’d heard, most girls didn’t come the first time because they didn’t know how; that now, at least, because of him she understood what went where and why—and maybe a little better what to do with it.
Embarrassed, he had, for the first time in his life, avoided her for days afterward, big macho Mexican stud that he was supposed to be.
Or so his brothers had always said.
Sitting in the privacy of raucous family gatherings, his father, a big soft-spoken man who worked assembly at the local truck plant, used to try to tell him other things. About how being truly a man meant being more than the sum of his parts and physical abilities; that the word macho meant more than a man’s sexual potency, and was, in his opinion, a word often used by men who were afraid women might be stronger than they; that his brothers had wool between their ears; that it was not only okay to be weak, but right to be weak sometimes, with the woman who made you strong.
He’d tried to believe his father. Unfortunately he’d been young enough then to only believe his brothers.
He chose a spot on Hallie’s futon and sat. Winced and rose, carefully adjusting himself around the excruciating tightness in his crotch. Removed himself to the front hall and stared through the door glass at his truck. Slid a hand inside his jacket to finger the two packets of photographs tucked into his pocket: first the worn envelope containing the pictures that had lured him away from here a year ago; then the other still-clean folder encasing the photos that brought him back. Funny. It didn’t seem like he’d grown up much in the last seventeen years. Seemed he was still relying on his brothers’ definition of “macho” to get him through; that he was less a man than a hunger scrambling to find relief, putting the rest of his life on hold until he had.
And now he had a daughter, too.
The simultaneous scuffle of feet on the steps behind him and the squeaking of the door from the garage into the living room startled him. He turned to find Sam and Ben, his honorary nephews, halted together on the bottom step, eyeing him warily. In another moment, the huge retired Rottweiler police dog who lived with them bounded into the hallway and stopped dead in front of him, ears back, hackles raised; the barely discernible growl coming from its throat caused the floor beneath Joe’s feet to vibrate. The boys’ father, Hallie’s ex-husband Zeke, stepped into the entryway behind the dog. Decidedly hostile, he flicked his eyes to the Fugitive Retrieval patch on the sleeve of Joe’s jacket, then back to Joe’s face.
“Joe.” Zeke made a motion to the dog, who backed up and sat down by his knee, ears at alert. “Frank was afraid he’d wake the baby so instead of calling Hallie, he called me and said you were comin’. I didn’t think you’d have the nerve.”
Gut twisting, Joe shrugged. “Frank didn’t tell me what I’d find, but I always come for what’s mine, you know that, Zeke.”
What was his... He’d come for Hallie and the boys the night the shouting had gotten too ugly, and the day before Zeke and Hallie had split for good. Divorce had improved the Thompsons’ marriage immeasurably, for which they all—Hallie, Zeke, Mary, he, Sam, Ben, and the guys in the department—had been eternally grateful. That time, the definition of what was Joe’s was different, of course, but the history existed all the same. And until this moment, friendship had allowed history to live between the men without reminders.
Without macho posturing.
That word again. Macho. A muscle jumped in Joe’s jaw. Mary used to like his machismo. Hallie had flattened him on his ass once or twice for it.
From the steps Sam asked tentatively, “Uncle Joe?”
Joe nodded. “How ya doin’, Sam?”
“You look different.” Ben came forward to lace his hand in his dog’s ruff, stared him up and down consideringly. “You look mean, sorta like a bad guy. Maybe you should shave.”
“‘Mean’?” Fingering his beard, Joe looked down at him. Sam was quiet, intense and often secretive, but Ben was Hallie’s son, through and through: no minced words, no withheld opinions, no mountain too massive to conquer. Mary had titled him “Mr. ’est” when he was a baby, as in biggest, loudest, peskiest, curious-est. The taste of bitter laughter rose in his throat. Trust Ben to spot a truth Joe would have preferred to keep to himself. “You think I’m mean?”
“I said you look mean,” Ben corrected him, exasperated. “I don’t know if you are mean—except maybe to bad guys like Mom. I haven’t seen you recently—”
Word of the week, Joe thought wryly, guessing Ben had the same third-grade teacher he and Hallie had had. Use it in a sentence whenever you have the chance.
“Enough to know if you are. I said if you shave you’ll look different. Maybe not like a bad guy.”
“Some bad guys don’t have beards,” Sam told him.
“Duh.” Ben shrugged a face at his brother. “And some bad guys have mustaches and polish their fingernails, but I just said Uncle Joe—”
“Some bad guys don’t even intend to be bad guys,” Zeke interrupted his sons firmly, eyeing Joe. “They just get hotheaded and make irreversible choices and become bad guys by accident.”
Ben nodded blithely, understanding. “Like Uncle Joe did when he left and didn’t come back and made Mom cry a lot because she wanted him to be here with Maura and when he wasn’t, then she didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” Joe asked—tightly. Somewhere at the back of his mind it registered that his daughter’s name was Maura, the Irish version of Mary’s name.
“Didn’t want you to be here anymore,” Ben said—matter-of-factly.
“Neither do we,” Sam said—softly, intensely, drawing Joe’s guarded but undivided attention.
No secrets lay in the seven-year-old eyes staring up at him, only an animosity that shocked Joe more than the adult antagonism he’d already encountered. Ben might be the one who’d verbally knock Joe on his butt, but Sam was the one who would carry his mother’s grudge—whether his mother meant him to or not.
He swallowed. “Sam, I—” he began. And stopped. Gestured inadequately. Looked to Ben, the dog, then over their heads to Zeke for guidance. His once-longtime friend shrugged a mocking brow and quirked his mouth: This is your bed Lie in it.
Already awkward, the tableau became unendurable, left Joe involuntarily letting his gaze drift when he could no longer look Sam in the face. Left him feeling like one of the can’t-look-’em-in-the-eye bail jumpers he chased for a living. Guilty. Hiding something.
Looking for the way out.
There was a creak on the stairs. Joe raised his eyes to see Hallie descending and knew in that instant there was no way he’d escape. Whatever catharsis or destruction he’d unknowingly set in motion for all of them—regardless of the awkwardness or antagonism holding them hostage—as he’d intimated to Hallie upstairs, there really was no way out of this except through.
Chapter 3
Zeke spoke first. “Sorry, Hal. He went by the department. Frank didn’t want to wake the baby so he called me. Hoped I’d get here before he did. Give you some warning he was in town.”
Hallie put a hard finger to her lips, pointed upstairs and gave Zeke a teeth-gritted, cross-eyed warning. “Keep your voice down or you’ll wake her,” she commanded sotto voce, making shooing motions toward the back of the house.
When they had reached a distance where Maura was less likely to hear them, she turned once more to Zeke. “Did George get his rabies shot?”
Zeke pulled some papers and a metal tag from his jacket pocket. “Yeah, three-year, here’s the certificate. Now, about J—”
Hallie slashed a hand at him, cutting him off at the “J,” making a warning motion with her eyes toward the boys. “Whatever it is, I’ll handle it.” She turned to Sam and Ben, trying to make her voice bright. “You guys ready for practice? Got your homework and anything else you need to spend the night at Dad’s?”
Uncertain eyes on Joe, they nodded in unison, indicated backpacks piled together beside the living-room-to-garage door.
“Good.” She opened her arms wide and the boys piled into them. “Come give me kisses and hugs, then you guys better get going so you’re not late.”
“Hallie—” Zeke began, concerned.
She shook her head at him. “You’re the coach, you have to go. I’ve dealt with worse. I’ll be fine.”
In the circle of her left arm, Ben hugged her quickly, gave her a sloppy raspberry buss on the cheek, and dodged smoothly, laughingly away from her before she could Oh, yuck! him and wipe her face on his sweatshirt. “Bye, love you, Mom. See ya tomorrow.”
She shook a finger at him. “Behave or I’ll get you next time, smarty.”
From the safety of distance he grinned cheekily at her, picked up his backpack and headed out the garage door. “See ya later, Uncle Joe.”
“Later, Ben,” Joe agreed hollowly, watching Hallie.
Not if I can help it, his mother responded silently, glancing up to be sure Joe read that silence on her face. Her more serious, more astute younger son locked his arms around her neck, put his mouth to her ear.
“We don’t have to stay all night at Dad’s,” he whispered, and Hallie’s throat closed. He was too young. He shouldn’t understand. “We could come home after practice to—” he searched for the word “—protect you and Maura from him.”
“Oh, Sam.” She hugged him tight. “Sam-I-Am. We’ll be all right. Truly. I’ve been knocking him down since we were five years old, and George is here so don’t you worry about protecting us from him tonight.”
She turned him loose. He wasn’t quite ready to go.
“You won’t let him take Maura, will you, Mom?” he asked anxiously. “He wasn’t here and he didn’t come for her when he should have so she’s ours now, right?”
“She’s ours,” Hallie promised, then added to herself, at least for now. “He won’t take her.” She set Sam away, looked him in the eye. “I won’t let him take her.”
Sam relaxed to the faintest degree. “Okay.” He gave her a quick kiss. “Then I have to go. But if you need us, you call.” He looked up at his father. “You have your cell phone, don’cha, Dad?”
Zeke swallowed a grin. “I have my cell phone.”
“See.” Sam turned back to Hallie. “You can get hold of us anytime, anywhere.”
She huffed a rueful breath and nodded. “Yeah.” So this was what came of having children born into the electronic age. They knew how to keep track of you even as you kept t
rack of them. “If I need you, I’ll call. Now go, get out of here, enjoy practice.”
Happier now, Sam backed toward the door. “I will. We’re havin’ pizza and no veggies for dinner, right, Dad?”
“Zeke,” Hallie warned—lightly.
Zeke groaned, took three steps toward his son to stagewhisper, “That was a secret. You’re not supposed to tell her.” He turned back to his ex-wife. “We usually have veggies.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Hallie straightened from her crouch. “Get a bag of those little carrots or a garden salad with ranch dressing. They like those. You won’t have to be a bad guy.”
“I wasn’t afraid of being a bad guy,” Zeke lied. The grin playing about his mouth told a different story: caught in the act—again. He closed the distance to the door, paused with his hand on the knob. Glanced back at Hallie, at Joe. “Hal—”
She shook her head impatiently. “We’ll be fine, Zeke. Go.”
He filled his cheeks and puffed a breath, not quite believing. Hallie pointed an imperious finger at him.
“Go.”
“Just checkin’,” he said, meaning it. And went.
One of the problems in their marriage had been Hallie neither needing nor wanting him when he’d felt it was appropriate for her to do so. Which meant that now, one of the things that worked best about their divorce was that they accepted each other as they were, and he no longer had the proprietary right to try to tell her when she should or shouldn’t need anyone.
But what had or had not been right or wrong in her marriage was neither here nor there at the moment. In fact, the only things here and there just now were the jittery sensation in the pit of her stomach, the tingling of something she refused to identify down the column of her spine, the hard-jawed and intense-eyed man whose presence so unnerved her, and the infant upstairs who lay claim to him and her both.
A lot of baggage to pile onto one frail ten-pound body.
Left to themselves, Joe and Hallie stared everywhere but at each other, let the silence between them expand to encompass the sound of Zeke’s car departing, the faint whoosh of traffic along distant streets, the occasional rattle of a vehicle along the street beyond the foot of Hallie’s front walk.
Mary's Child Page 3