by Mary Campisi
IF THERE WAS one thing Tess could count on, it was her friends’ loyalty and support, no matter the situation. Christine hadn’t been around when JJ died and Tess thought she’d lost Cash forever. But the woman knew heartache, had gone through her own with the discovery of her father’s secret family, and later, the mess between Nate and Natalie Servetti. She might not have been part of the early years of Tess, Gina, and Bree’s friendship, but Christine Desantro was one of them; would always be one of them. It was Christine who spoke up as they sat in Gina’s living room, munching on Nate’s double fudge brownies—Gina settled for a few graham crackers—and tried to console an almost inconsolable Tess.
“It can’t be what it looked like.” Christine laid a hand on Tess’s forearm, said in a voice she used to soothe her small daughters, “How many times do we say things look worse than they are? That appearances deceive us?”
Tess gulped in air and shook her head. Too many tears had clogged her nose, forced her to breathe through her mouth. That’s when you knew you were over the limit of sadness, when your nose didn’t work the way it should. “I know what I saw.” Visions crashed over her, dragged her under in an attempt to blur what she’d witnessed, but it was no use. She couldn’t pretend or reinterpret what she’d seen: Cash sharing a meal with Stephanie and Mason at the kitchen table with Stephanie seated to his left, in Tess’s spot, and Mason to the right, where the highchair would have gone. He’d fixed a ham and cheese omelet and French toast, one of his signature dishes, and he’d even made what looked like the yogurt parfait Tess loved. Did Stephanie love it, too? And why that night, when he knew she was volunteering at the animal rescue center and wouldn’t be home for dinner?
“Maybe what you saw really was just dinner.” This from Bree who was so head-over-heels in love with Adam Brandon right now she’d think a hug was a handshake.
“It has happened,” Gina chimed in. “Not that I’m given to benefit-of-the-doubt situations, but I’ve had to learn you can’t judge before you have all the facts or more often than not, it’ll come back to bite you.”
Gina Reed had gone soft on them, offering kind words and forgiveness in situations where she’d once made snap judgments and pushed people out of her universe. All that changed the second she fell in love with Ben, and the deeper the love grew, the softer and more accepting Gina became.
Maybe that’s what happened when God gifted you a husband who loved you and children to fill your soul. And maybe when the husband’s love waned and the children didn’t come, you grew cold, your heart empty, your soul black. Maybe that’s when the man you loved more than your own breath turned to someone else, even if that someone else was dying, because at least she was alive now, at least she’d given him a child.
“Remember what happened between Nate and me?”
There was no need to add the part about the photographs or the fake seduction, courtesy of Natalie Servetti and Christine’s mother. Tess hadn’t lived in Magdalena then, but had heard all about it. “I know.” She nodded, turned to her friend. “Nate would never betray you.
“And Cash would never in fifteen million years betray you,” Bree said, her voice whisper-soft and coated with sadness. “He’s not a Brody Kinkaid, no siree, he certainly is not.” She shook her head and bit her lower lip. “Cash is a good person, with a heart full of love for you.” Her words spilled more sadness. “He might be a bit confused about the boy, but he’ll figure it out.”
“I would not want to wear that guilt on my shoulders.” Gina sighed. “Imagine how you’d feel if you learned you were a father nine years after it happened. And to make it worse, the woman is dying.” She shook her head, sighed again. “That’s soap opera stuff.”
Christine cleared her throat, sat up straight. “I think our husbands are imagining what that might be like.” She glanced at Bree. “I’m guessing Adam has a thought or two on that subject.”
“He says he’d want to know but at the same time a tiny piece of him wouldn’t because it changes your life forever. Kind of like when you’re a kid and you see your parents kissing in a way that’s about a whole lot more than kissing, but you’re not quite sure what. And every time you see them kiss after that, you wonder about that other thing.” She looked at her friends, whispered, “You know what I mean?”
“I wish I didn’t know,” Gina said, making a face. “How did we get on this subject and can we please change it, like now?”
Bree let out a huff and shrugged. “All I’m saying is that once that idea’s in your head, it’s cemented there and you can’t get rid of it no matter how hard you try.” She tilted her strawberry-blonde head, smiled. “And that was my comparison, not Adam’s.”
Gina raised a dark eyebrow. “No kidding.”
Christine hid a smile, cleared her throat, and steered the conversation back to Tess’s issue. “I think you’ve got to tell him how you feel. Men can be oblivious to the way their actions affect us. Maybe Cash looks at making dinner for Stephanie and Mason as just that: making dinner.”
“But Stephanie could think it’s much more,” Bree blurted out. “Or maybe she’s trying to turn it into more, you know, so she can grab all she can with the little time she has left.”
“Really, Bree?” Gina scowled, shifted in the recliner and settled her hands on her pregnant belly. “Tess has enough crap going through her head right now without you creating your own stories.”
“I’m sorry.” Bree reached out, patted Tess’s hand. “You’re one of my best friends and you deserve all the happiness in this universe. I just don’t want to see you get blindsided by some woman who shows up with a boy that might look almost exactly like Cash, but has no papers to prove it.”
“Oh, you mean like a dog and his breeding certificate?”
“No, Gina.” Bree’s voice shook as the words spilled out, letting them know she might not always say the words right, but her commitment to her friends was strong and true. “I mean proof. Anything other than the boy himself. He’s a dear; I’ve seen him, had occasion to chitchat a second or two, but he acts like he’s just hit the lottery. Who wouldn’t? Finding out who your father was, and then to learn it’s one of the coolest guys walking this earth? That’s hero material in anybody’s book.” She frowned, her brows pinching together. “But his mother is dying, for heaven’s sake, and he doesn’t even know she’s sick? How can that be? Doesn’t the woman have to work? Go to doctor appointments? Didn’t she throw up after chemo? I’m not judging because everyone handles personal tragedy differently and I’d do anything to protect my girls, but how could you hide it that well?” Bree leaned in, lowered her voice further. “Unless, you were hiding a whole lot more than an illness.”
“You think she’s making it up?” Gina’s logical reasoning kicked in, spread through the room.
But Tess hadn’t missed the vague note of something else in there, too. Doubt? Did Gina think Stephanie might have manufactured her illness? Why? To get to Cash?
“I guess it’s possible.” This from Christine, the other person in the room who was driven more by logic than random emotions. “But who knows how any of us would react if we learned we had a terminal illness? Would we really want to tell our children we were dying before we absolutely had to?”
Bree gasped, blinked hard. “Gracious, no. We would wish to spare them until the very last second.”
“Maybe that’s what this Stephanie is doing,” Gina said, her voice solemn. “I understand.”
“Except—” Christine swept a glance around the room “—would you really have no plan B? Nothing? She’s known she was ill for a while, had chemo, and later, a recurrence. Does she have no friends to turn to, no support system to look to for help? Was a man she hadn’t been in touch with for ten years really her only choice?”
Silence and possibilities filled the room, saturated it with questions until Bree spoke and said what Tess had been thinking since the first time she met Stephanie Richmond. “Maybe this wasn’t the first time they’d sp
oken in all those years.” She coughed, cleared her throat, and said in a small voice, “Maybe they’ve been in touch.”
Maybe so. Maybe conversations between Cash and his ex-lover had occurred and Tess had never known about it. If she really wanted to drive herself mad, she’d consider the possibility that the two had seen each other at some point in these past several years.
“If Cash said he hasn’t seen her, then he hasn’t seen her.” This from Gina who did not give up on a person once she put her loyalty in him. “This is Daniel Casherdon we’re talking about, the bad boy-turned-good since the day he met Tess. Do you really think he’d go through all he did to get Tess and then risk losing her?” She shook her head, her glossy hair swirling around the tops of her shoulders. “No way. Cash loves Tess and he’ll love her until he draws his last breath.”
“I agree.” Christine nodded, said in a matter-of-fact voice, “but he might not be the one driving this situation. Men are so gullible sometimes.” She sighed. “Even the supposed tough ones who should know better.”
Bree heaved a sigh on top of Christine’s, double-nodded her head. “It’s downright annoying how men don’t see the danger signs staring back at them.” She rolled her eyes, muttered, “Usually in a tight skirt and high heels.”
“And sometimes she even has a name,” Gina said. “Cynthia Carlisle.”
Gina still hadn’t forgotten how the woman tried to hook Ben before he and Gina realized they belonged together. According to Gina, Ben hadn’t considered the woman a threat; he’d simply not been interested in her because he had his eye on Gina. But that was the problem with most men. They didn’t see the threat in women like Cynthia and sometimes they even felt sorry for them. That’s when the real danger set in, snared them hard and fast and held on so tight there was no choice left but a walk down the aisle, usually in a daze and often pregnant.
“What we really want to find out is if Stephanie Richmond is another Cynthia Carlisle or if she’s really who and what she says she is,” Bree said in a voice filled with conviction. “And we are gonna find that out. You just watch us.”
5
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Nate threw him a look that said, “pissed off” and “not happy.”
“What?” Cash eyed him over his beer bottle, took a swig, and acted like he didn’t know what his friend was talking about. Actually, what was he talking about? So, he fixed Stephanie and Mason dinner while Tess was volunteering at the rescue center. So what?
“You don’t have a cozy family get-together with a woman from your past and her son when your wife isn’t around. You know better than that.” Nate muttered a curse under his breath. “Don’t you?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Why did everybody think he was up to no good just because he whipped up a ham and cheese omelet and French toast? Tess had a whole book to say about it, so did Ben, and damn, but Gina had to call him right after her husband hung up to chew him out on the difference between common sense and stupid. As if he didn’t know.
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong except invite a woman you slept with to have dinner with you.” Nate shook his head, scowled. “And did you get started on the DNA test yet or are you going to let that slide because you have the same color eyes?”
“Stop being such an asshole. Mason has a lot more than my eyes.”
“Uh-huh.” Another scowl. “If you weren’t so hell-bent on wanting this to be your kid, you’d use some of that police brain you used to have and see you still have to get the DNA test. You’re not the only guy walking this earth with brown eyes and hair that flips up.”
“He’s got my hands and my jaw.” Cash rubbed his jaw, thought about his son. “And he smiles like me, too.”
“Yeah, manufacture a smile and we’ll call the kid your son. Come on, Cash, get the test and then we’ll have a big party and I’ll apologize for doubting you. I hear you can order one of those at-home paternity tests. No fuss, no muss, just call a number and they’ll send it to you. It won’t count in a courtroom, but you only want to know for peace of mind.”
Cash sighed, set his beer on the workbench. Nate didn’t like to stay later than he needed to, said he liked to get home and see what Christine and the girls had gotten into, but Cash spotted the truth the first time Nate wriggled out of the beer he’d offered him. The guy loved his wife and his daughters and didn’t want to spend any more time away from them than necessary. Yeah, that was the real reason, even if Nate camouflaged it with words like “checking up on” and “gotten into” as though he were the boss and they were his employees. Right. Like the whole town didn’t know the truth. There’d been a time or two when Cash had watched him with Christine and the girls and thought, Why not me? Why can’t Tess and I have a piece of that? A family? And then Mason had appeared as if the Man Upstairs had given him an answer, only it hadn’t been the one Cash had expected. Still, it was something, and he was not going to throw it away just because his wife didn’t like him cooking dinner for a terminally ill woman.
“Cash? Will you get the test?” Nate paused, added, “and stop dancing around with your ex. Not cool. Wives don’t like it.”
“Stephanie’s dying, did you forget that? Tess can’t let this go and maybe see the bigger picture? Mason’s going to need something to hang onto when his mother’s gone. She hasn’t told him yet; not sure when she will.”
Nate dragged a hand over his face, shook his head. “Can you not see this is a train wreck waiting to happen? How can the kid not know his mother’s dying when she’s got less than five months to live? What’s she plan to do, tell him when she lands in hospice?” Another shake of his head, a deeper scowl. “Are you sure you’re not getting played? There’s a lot here that doesn’t add up.”
“I’m not getting played.” Didn’t anybody believe in decent people anymore? Since when did the town think everybody was out to cheat everybody else? He bet Tess was feeding them some sob story about feeling left out and alone. Damn, she should not do that.
“Uh-huh. If you say so. I just don’t want to see you get hurt and I sure as hell don’t want Tess hurt. That woman’s been through enough these past years. Can’t you finish up with Stephanie and send her back to wherever she came from to live out her days in peace? When it’s time, Mason can come back here. That way she has time to prepare him for the inevitable.”
“That’s cold. You want me to kick her out of town? I can’t do that.” He reached for the unopened beer on the bench and twisted the cap open. “I never should have touched her.”
“A lot of us never should have done things we’ve done.” Nate met his gaze, held it. “I’m not one to talk or judge, but I owe it to you to say what needs said.”
Cash rolled his eyes, spat out, “You going to start on the DNA test again, or do you want to roll right into how Stephanie could be making up this whole thing and Mason’s not my kid and she’s not dying. How about that? Is that what you want to tell me?”
Nate shrugged. “Pretty much. I’m not the only one. Ben vaguely remembers her, said she seemed pretty interested in what you were up to, even tried to grill him a few times on who you were seeing. But you know Ben; nobody’s getting information from him.”
“She was probably just curious.”
“Uh-huh. Ben might be curious, too, enough so that he runs a background check on her.”
“He better not.”
“Why are you so protective?”
“The woman’s dying,” Cash snarled. “Have some respect.”
“I was going to say the same thing about respecting your wife. Or have you forgotten you have one of those?”
“Go to hell.” Cash snatched his beer from the bench, took a healthy swallow, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Where’s the charity in this town? The compassion? Or is it only for the people who grew up here?”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“I don’t know it. I’m starting to think this whole town is prejudiced ag
ainst people they don’t understand or situations that make them uncomfortable.”
“Really?” Nate set down his beer, took a step toward Cash. “This town gave you a second chance, welcomed your sorry ass back when you were shot up and miserable. They cheered for you and Tess, came to your friggin’ wedding, prayed you’d have babies and years of happiness with each other. If you think this town is against you, then you better think again, and while you’re at it, spend a little time trying to imagine how Tess feels, because I sure as hell wouldn’t welcome one of Christine’s exes into my house for a meal and conversation.” He paused, his dark eyes shifting to black. “Kid or no kid.”
Cash was still ticked at Nate two hours later when Tess got home from babysitting Lucy Benito’s daughter. He’d decided to work out his agitation by splitting and stacking wood, but it wasn’t working. Why the hell did Nate have to butt in and start tossing out accusations so they’d burrow in Cash’s brain and refuse to leave? He was not doing wrong by his wife. He loved Tess. How could Nate not see that? Did Tess doubt him, too? Stephanie was dying, for chrissake, and he wanted to do right by her. Guilt and duty pulled at him, but compassion snuck in, too. What did Tess expect him to do? Keep Mason here and send Stephanie home alone now, knowing that soon she’d never see her son again? Tess was the one who’d taught him about compassion and now she expected him to forget what she’d taught him? Damn, even Ramona had an opinion about his “allegiance to the wrong queen,” as she called it, as though he’d ever choose anyone over Tess. Whack, he split a log in half, ignoring the sweat trickling down his back and the burn in his arms. Everybody had a damn opinion.
“Cash? What are you doing?”
He swung around, axe in his hands, and stared at his wife. “Hey. I didn’t expect you for another hour.”
She shrugged and Cash homed in on the tightness around her mouth, the furrowed brows, the flared nostrils. Yup, she was pissed, as in not happy—with him. Who else? Yeah, seemed nobody was happy with him or his decisions these days.