She had driven out here with a plan to stay for at least a week. Heaven knew there were plenty of hotel rooms to choose from and she wouldn’t be lonely, either. Not with the security people and the hotel employees staying here, as well.
Besides, being on-site, she could oversee the other artists she’d hired to help with the murals. There were three of them, all talented, but artists were temperamental people and just as likely to go off plan and add their own visions to a design. But that couldn’t happen here. The designs had all been approved by Mike, Sean and Brady already, so there was no deviating from them.
“Hey, Jenny!”
She looked up at the friendly shout. Tim Ryerson, one of the hotel employees, stood at the front door. “What’s up, Tim?”
“Some of us are going into town for lunch. You up for it?”
They were all being so nice to her, but what Jenny really wanted was quiet and some time to herself. “Thanks, but I think I’ll stay here and get started on the dining room mural.”
“You’re allowed to have fun, too, you know,” he said with a sad shake of his head.
“Thanks, but for me, this is fun.”
“Okay, then.” He shrugged good-naturedly. “Can we bring you back anything?”
“A burger,” she said quickly. “And lots of fries.”
She was starting to get her appetite back—at least in the afternoons—and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. She was so short that if she kept eating like this, by the time the baby was born, she’d look like a soccer ball.
“You got it. Later.”
Once he and the others had gone, the hotel fell into blessed quiet. Lunchtime was the one time of the day she could count on a little peace. Even the crew’s ever-playing radio was silent as the men left to get something to eat. She had the place to herself for the next hour and Jenny relished it.
Leaving the main wall to dry, she walked into the dining room and studied the long partition that separated the room from the kitchen. She’d have Tony and Lena work this wall, setting out the characters and scenery from the “River Haunt” game that would bring the room to life. Christa could work on the vines that would trail around the windows at the front of the room. If they all worked together, they could knock this out in a few days and move upstairs to the hallways. According to the plans, there would be vines, flowers and a banshee or two in each of the long halls, and haunting trees, bent in an invisible wind, painted on to the elevator doors.
She looked around the dining room and saw it as it would be when finished. As in the castle in Ireland, this dining hall would consist of long, banquet-style tables and benches, forcing guests to intermingle during meals. The gamers who came here would huddle together, talking scores and routes and walk-throughs of the game itself.
Guests who were unfamiliar with the game would soon be drawn into the fantasy world of Celtic Knot and the plush environment of the hotel. Once again, Jenny was impressed by the foresight of the Ryans and Brady Finn. By expanding their company into other realms, they were going to build the brand that was already becoming known around the world. To have a small part in this expansion was both exhilarating and sad. Because she knew without a doubt that this project would be one of her last for Celtic Knot.
In the quiet, her mind drifted to thoughts of Mike and she wondered what he was doing. If he even knew she was gone. And if he would care. If only he’d trusted her. Believed in her. Her heart ached when she remembered the expression on his face when he learned about the baby.
He’d come to her concerned that she wasn’t feeling well and then left her, convinced that she was trying to use him. How could it all turn so bad so quickly? Why couldn’t he see that she loved him? That if given the chance, the two of them and their child could have something wonderful? Was he so hard, so accustomed to shutting down his heart to keep possible pain at bay that he couldn’t risk it for a chance for happiness?
Her own pain blossomed in her chest until it squeezed her heart and she had to force herself to stop thinking of what-ifs and of Mike, because there was no help there. Nothing was going to change and it was best if she got used to that as soon as possible.
Patting her belly, Jenny whispered, “Don’t worry, baby. We’re going to be okay. You’ll see.” She got back to work, pushing thoughts of Mike and her up-in-the-air life to the back of her mind. Time enough to worry when she was lying awake all night.
* * *
Mike almost called Jenny. Twice. And each time, he hung up before the call could connect. He was still on edge after having Sean ream him, so it probably wasn’t the best time to talk to her anyway. But she was there. In his thoughts. In his soul.
She was off in the desert and hadn’t bothered to tell him. Because when she told him about the baby, he’d turned on her.
That shamed him, but now, with Sean’s temper still burning his ears, Mike admitted that it was past time to settle a few things that had been guiding him for years. He drove to his parents’ house, determined to finally talk to his mother about what had happened so long ago. To figure out if that one day, that one secret, was worth steering his entire life by.
The house looked the same as it always had. No matter how successful he and his brother had become, Jack and Peggy Ryan hadn’t allowed their sons to buy them a bigger place in a more upscale neighborhood. They preferred staying in the house where they’d raised their family, where they knew their neighbors and where every room held a memory. On this familiar street, houses were well cared for, yards were neat and nearly every driveway sported a basketball hoop.
Mike parked the car, then let himself in the front door, yelling to announce his presence. “Hey, Mom! It’s me!”
The house was quiet but for the low murmur of the television, set to a 1960s music channel. He walked through the living room, past the neat kitchen and into the den, and still didn’t find her. “Mom?”
“Mike, is that you?”
Relief shot through him as he turned to watch her approach. Her light brown hair was in a tangle and she was tugging at the hem of a pale pink shirt.
“You okay?” he asked, since she looked harried and a little nervous.
“Fine. You just caught me in the middle of something.” Then his mother blushed.
Mike suddenly had the feeling that he’d walked in on something he’d rather not think about. “Look, I’ll come back another time and—”
“Don’t be silly,” his mother said, already walking. “Come into the kitchen. There’s coffee and I made cookies this morning.”
If she was willing to pretend she hadn’t blushed, Mike could do it, too. “Sold.”
“Good, good,” she said, smiling now as she smoothed her hair. “Come and tell me why you stopped by. Is everything all right?”
“That’s a good question.”
“Sit down,” she ordered when they were in the bright, sunny yellow kitchen. She poured coffee, set it in front of him, then brought a plate of cookies to the table, as well. Holding a cup of coffee, she sat down opposite him and said simply, “Tell me.”
How many times over the years had he sat at this table with a plate of cookies in front of him and his mother listening to whatever problem he’d brought her? It was at this table where he’d found her crying. Where his life had taken that abrupt turn from innocence into suspicion. It was only fitting, he supposed, to be sitting at this table again while making the attempt to turn back.
So he told her about Jenny, about the baby, about Sean now knowing what happened all those years ago and how pissed his little brother was to find out he’d been lied to for years.
“What about Jenny?” his mother asked. “She’s pregnant with your child. Do you love her?”
Mike shook his head. Of course she would zero in on that part of the story. “Another good question.”
> He pushed up from the table, walked to the counter, then turned around, bracing both hands on the granite countertop behind him. “But for right now, that doesn’t even matter.”
“Michael Patrick Ryan,” his mother said, drawing a reflexive wince from her son, “love is all that matters.”
“How can you say that, Mom, when—” He shook his head. “When you were cheated on. Lied to.”
“That’s it. I’ve had enough.” Peggy stood up, pointed at the kitchen table and ordered, “Sit down. I’ll be right back.”
He did as instructed mainly because he was too tired to keep standing. If he didn’t get some sleep soon, he’d go through life a zombie.
When his mother came back, she was dragging his father with her. Jack’s hair was messy and he was trying to button his shirt as he was pulled in his wife’s wake. And suddenly, Mike knew exactly what his parents had been doing when he dropped by. And yeah, he’d rather not think about that. Didn’t matter how old you got, nobody wanted to imagine their parents having sex.
Mike stiffened and he noticed that Jack Ryan did the same. His father was an older version of himself, with sharp blue eyes, and a sprinkling of gray at his temples. The two of them were still so uncomfortable with each other over something that had happened twenty years before. But damned if Mike knew how to get past it, get over it.
“Both of you sit down right now,” Peggy said and crossed her arms over her chest until her men complied. Then she looked from her husband to her son before saying softly, “Mike, I’ve tried to talk to you about this before, but you never wanted to listen. I could have made you hear me out, but your father wouldn’t allow that.” She spared Jack a glance and a smile. “He wanted you to come to us yourself when you were ready. Frankly, I thought it would never happen.”
“Mom...”
“I never should have burdened you with what I felt that day,” Peggy said. “But you came home early from practice and found me, crying, and somehow it all came out. And I hope you know that if I could wipe it from your mind, I would.”
“I know all that, Mom—” He shot a look at his father, who looked every bit as uncomfortable as he felt. “We don’t have to talk about it again.”
“That’s the problem,” Peggy said, pulling out a chair and taking a cookie that she began to crumble between her fingers. “We’ve never talked about it.” Her gaze softened as she looked at Mike. Then she took her husband’s hand and threaded her fingers through his. “Mike, you were just a little boy, so you don’t remember, but back then, your dad’s business was in trouble.”
Jack picked up the thread and Mike looked at his father as he spoke. “It’s not an excuse but we were under a lot of pressure and instead of talking to each other about it—” he paused and smiled sadly at his wife “—we each closed down, shut each other out.”
“We were wrong. We handled it all badly. But it takes two to make or break a marriage, Mike. So you were wrong to blame only your father all these years. We both made mistakes. We both nearly lost something most people never find.”
Mike heard them, saw how together they were on this, but he couldn’t let go. Turning to face his father, he said quietly, “You lied. You cheated.”
“I did lie,” Jack said. “I was hurt, worried about my family. Feeling like a damn failure and as if I were alone in the mess and missing your mother because we weren’t talking to each other anymore.”
“Oh, Jack...”
He squeezed her hand and then looked at Mike again. “I did lie, I give you that. And I cheated, too, I guess, but not the way you mean.”
“What?”
Jack sighed. “The woman your mother heard about—I did take her to dinner. We talked. She listened to me, laughed at my jokes, made me feel important.” He shook his head. “Stupid. It was stupid, but I didn’t sleep with her, Mike.” Jack’s gaze met his son’s squarely. “I never touched another woman from the day I married your mother.”
Peggy spoke up then. “Instead of being there for each other, your dad and I pulled apart until we were each so far from the other, it was as if we were two strangers living in this house together.”
Jack lifted their joined hands and kissed her knuckles. “What’s important is that we found each other again before it was too late.”
“I don’t even know what to say,” Mike muttered. For twenty years, he and his father had sidestepped each other, neither of them willing to talk about the thing that had put a wedge between them.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“Because you wouldn’t have believed me,” Jack said.
“I guess that’s true enough,” Mike admitted. So much time being angry, letting old pains rule his life, believing that no one could be trusted because he had looked at a situation he didn’t understand through the eyes of a wounded thirteen-year-old boy.
“The point is, honey,” Peggy said, “you’ve been using your father as an excuse to keep everyone at a distance. You’re protecting yourself from being hurt by not letting anything at all touch you.” She shook her head. “That’s no way to live, sweetie.”
She was right, Mike thought. He had been using his father’s betrayal as a way to keep everything and everyone else at a distance. And even with the walls he’d erected around his heart, Jenny had found a way in.
“You never should have been aware of that bump in our marriage,” Peggy said. “And it breaks my heart to see the two of you so far apart.”
Mike looked to his father and in the older man’s eyes, he saw the same sorrow, the same sense of loss that Mike had felt for years. Now he was forced to do some serious thinking. Sean’s words still echoed in his head as he thought back on all the years of sitting in a position of judgment, so sure he was right and everyone else was wrong. He had shut down emotionally. At the ripe old age of thirteen, not knowing anything at all about the world or what adults had to do to survive, he’d made a decision that had affected his entire life.
He had been a kid making a child’s decisions, and he had allowed those decisions to rule him. If he’d once come down off his throne of righteousness and actually talked to the people around him, maybe this tightness around his heart could have been eased years ago.
“What happened wasn’t your fault,” his father said carefully. “You were a boy and you reacted how you had to at the time.”
“Yeah,” Mike said, rubbing his eyes to ease the throbbing headache settled behind them. “But I never let go of that decision. An angry, scared, thirteen-year-old boy chose that day to believe that no one could be trusted.”
His father reached out and laid one hand on Mike’s shoulder, and the heavy, solid strength of that touch seemed to ease away the last of that long-ago boy’s resolve. He looked at his dad and said simply, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be,” Jack told him. “Parents aren’t supposed to give their kids burdens to carry. And I did that to you. I hurt you, your mother, all of us. It’s something I’ll never forgive myself for.”
Peggy sniffled and swiped tears off her cheeks. “It’s been long enough, hasn’t it?” she asked. “Can we all let it go now and be the family we should be?”
Mike looked at his mother, still holding her husband’s hand as she watched her oldest son with worry and hope at war in her eyes. The old hurts and fears and convictions dropped away, slipping into the past where they belonged, and Mike let them go. He felt as if a weight had been lifted from him and it surprised him to realize just how heavy that burden had been.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling first at his mother and then at his father. “I’d like that.”
Jack grinned, slapped Mike’s shoulder again and then looked at his wife. Peggy gave him a watery smile in return then reached for her son’s hand and held it tightly. “Good. This is good.”
She was right about t
hat. It was good, to get past pain and anger and betrayal. But his father wasn’t the only one he’d judged. Mike thought back to that night in Phoenix when he’d spotted a beautiful blonde in a conference hotel bar. He remembered the rush, the pull toward her, and he remembered the next morning when he’d become judge, jury and executioner without once giving her a chance to explain.
Then those memories morphed into his last image of Jenny, at her house when he accused her of trying to trap him into marriage. He’d done the same damn thing to her all over again.
“Sean’s right,” he muttered. “I am an idiot.”
“What’s wrong, honey?”
He lifted his gaze to his mother’s and sighed. “A lot. I’ve got some thinking to do. About Jenny. The baby.” He stopped, smiled. “And you guys will have to get used to the idea of being grandparents.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Peggy exclaimed with a laugh. “With all the tumult I almost forgot that Jenny’s pregnant!”
“Grandfather?” Jack asked.
“This is wonderful news!” Peggy jumped to her feet and wagged her finger at her son. “I’m making a fresh pot of coffee and you, mister, are going to tell us everything.”
Jack picked up a cookie and handed it to him. “Congratulations. I hope you do a better job of it than I did.”
Mike shook his head and took a bite of the cookie. He’d already made mistakes and his child wasn’t even born yet. “You didn’t do so badly, Dad. But for me, I swear I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
Jack laughed. “Welcome to parenthood. None of us know what we’re doing, Mike. And even trying our very best, we all make mistakes. The trick is to keep trying to fix them.”
* * *
Mike found Sean in his office the next morning. He’d thought about this all night, had worked out just what he wanted to say. But looking into his brother’s unforgiving stare threw him for a second. The two of them had always been close, but now, there was a wedge between them that Mike himself had put there. So it was up to him to tear it out.
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