Love Redefined

by Delancey Stewart

  Chance’s prediction was accurate. The main lot of the village got plowed by the afternoon, and the highway as well, but when we stopped into the diner for a late bite, Maddie echoed his warnings.

  “I wouldn’t risk it on the road. They plowed so late it’s already going to be icing over again. If they get the blacktop exposed in the morning, the sun can melt off the rest, but as it is, they just scraped clean a layer of ice. I predict lots of accidents on that highway tonight, and I hate to think about it.”

  I didn’t like thinking about it either. The road had been safe enough in the fair weather, but there were sheer drops off the side opposite the mountain, and I couldn’t imagine skidding on ice and spinning toward one of those hundred-foot drops. Especially with my son in the car.

  Chance managed to get his truck to the main parking lot, and he found me at the Inn after the roads had been plowed. Finn and I were in the lobby, Finn drawing in front of the big fire and me pretending to work but really staring into the distance and trying to imagine a way I could avoid dropping my son off at my abusive ex’s house in the morning.

  “Hey Michaela,” he said, striding confidently toward us. “What’s up, Finn?” He grinned at my son, and Finn gave him a thumbs up. When he turned back to me, there was none of this morning’s warm familiarity. He handed me a folder. “I worked up the formal contracting agreement. You don’t have to sign it now, but after you present, if all goes well, then you won’t need to make another trip up here.”

  “Oh, I…” I accepted the folder, and paged through the contents without really seeing them. “Thanks, Chance.”

  “I called in a few favors, got the roads clear,” Chance continued, his voice loud and confident. “I’m sorry it didn’t happen early enough to get you out of here. Here are the keys to the truck—I’ve got it outside for you.”

  I took the keys, but shook my head and held my hand back out, trying to give them back. “I can’t take your car, what—”

  Chance barely even seemed to register my protest. “I’ve got another truck at the office, and I’ll have one of my Fresno guys come grab it from you next week and drive it back up for me.”

  An unexpected disappointment settled in my chest. If I had his truck, I guess some part of me hoped it would mean I’d see him again soon—even though the rational part of me knew that was a bad idea. “Okay,” I said, wishing I could figure out how to tamp down the clashing emotions inside me. I was still half-dazed over the night I’d spent in this man’s arms, warmth flooding me whenever I thought about the tender way he’d gazed at me, the softness of his lips on my skin. But that warmth was pushed aside by the fear and worry spiking in my blood and settling into my chest in their usual place, turning circles and bedding down there like a dog in a familiar favorite spot.

  “I guess we’ll look to hear from you Monday? After the presentation?”

  The presentation. Right. Business. “Right. Probably. If they decide right then, I’ll let you know the outcome.”

  Chance glanced at Finn again, and the attitude of impervious charm slipped a fraction as his eyes warmed. He looked back at me, the warmth I’d felt before washing through me again, threatening to pull me nearer with promises of safety and security, of strength. “Are you guys going to be all right?”

  I couldn’t talk about it. If I let myself consider how it would be, losing Finn to a man I knew wouldn’t care for him like I did, wouldn’t look after him, wouldn’t put him first… I couldn’t let myself think about it, let alone discuss it. And if I allowed myself to lean into Chance’s strength, I knew I would crumble and I might never find the ability to do what I needed to do. “We’ll be fine,” I told him, my voice sharp and hard-edged. “Thanks for everything. I think we’ll head out as soon as we can in the morning.”

  The warmth left Chance’s eyes again, and I forced myself to resist the urge to touch him, to see if I could bring it back. This was over. We’d let it go too far, but now it had to be over. We both had our real lives to attend to. “You give me a call if you need anything.” He gave me one last long look and then approached Finn, squatting down to meet his eye. “Hey buddy. I want to hear right away when you figure out how to fly, okay?”

  Finn nodded, his eight-year old senses making him wary, telling him something wasn’t quite right, but he didn’t have the experience to understand exactly what it was.

  “Bye, buddy,” Chance said in the soft voice he’d used with me that morning—a voice full of longing and affection.

  Finn leapt up and threw his arms around Chance’s neck, pressing his face to the big shoulder. I pushed down the desire to cry, swallowing the lump forming in my throat.

  Chance rose, gave a glowing smile to Sandra Piper who stood behind the reception desk, and then swept out of the room without another gaze my way. As soon as the door swung shut, a chill filled the room. Or maybe it was just my heart.

  I made arrangements from Kings Grove to drop Finn with Jeff the following afternoon, not mentioning our impromptu trip or the fact that we were snowed in. None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that I had to take my young vulnerable boy to San Jose and abandon him to a man I neither trusted nor liked. The only thing keeping me from taking Finn to Mexico and changing our names was the knowledge that Harvey was deeply involved in the situation. He had his fingers on the pulse of Jeff’s recovery and return to regular life, and he was invested in seeing him be successful as a human being, and as a father.

  Despite my dislike of the way Harvey handled things at work, he was a good man. He wasn’t warm or affectionate, not with me and not really with Finn—but I knew he’d look out for my son.

  Still, Harvey didn’t live with Jeff. He wouldn’t be there overseeing every second of their time together. No one would. And the judge believed that would be okay, but I couldn’t help but feel like I knew better.

  “There’s nothing I can do? Can’t I contest this decision?” I’d asked.

  My lawyer’s voice was calm on the phone as I guided Chance’s big truck down the final curve off the mountain and onto the valley floor. “Mike, no decision has been made. This is a trial. It may work in our favor. It’s much easier than reversing an actual decision if things don’t go well.”

  My stomach turned as I considered that “things” were not things at all. “Things” meant Finn. My son.

  Finn and I had talked on the trip down—once I’d gotten past the few icy patches that threatened to send the truck careening wildly around the road—about him going to stay with his dad. The arrangement was three nights—Thursday through Sunday. There was no school for Finn on Friday anyway (of course neither Jeff nor the judge knew that Finn had missed most of the week, thanks to my trip to Kings Grove). The idea was that those three nights would be long enough to see how Jeff was doing. I was to provide written and verbal instructions about any kind of specific requirements, any daily tasks we did that might help Finn feel at home. I’d prepared those instructions in the big front room at the Kings Grove Inn. I’d prepared them meticulously, mentioning tiny details, not because I wanted to help Jeff, but because Finn deserved it.

  And now, as I pulled up in front of the house Jeff was renting, as the sun began to melt into the horizon, my shredded heart threatened to dissolve entirely. How could I take my son in there and drive away? Tears were threatening as I thought about Finn’s little face watching me go, as I considered his confusion at being just left here, with a man he barely knows. The court systems might make sense to adults, though really, they didn’t make much sense to me, but how could an eight-year old be expected to understand?

  “Mom?” Finn asked, waking up from where he’d been sleeping in the back. “Is this Dad’s house?”

  I sucked in a breath and forced my spine straight. I had to be strong for us both. “It is,” I said. “Doesn’t it look nice?”

  Finn’s breath hitched and I turned around to see his face crumpling and his lip quivering. My heart threatened to betray me but I igno
red it. That particular organ had not been helpful these past few weeks.

  “It’ll be fine, buddy,” I crooned. “I bet your dad has all kinds of fun things planned for you guys, and I’ll be back on Sunday to pick you up. I want to hear all about everything, okay? And I have to work all weekend, so you have to have extra fun for me, okay?”

  He shook his head, but he didn’t cry.

  I unlatched my belt. “Come on, Finn.”

  We got out of the car and stood on the curb for a moment, both of us needing a breath.

  But Jeff didn’t give us that. The front door popped open and he appeared, a grin on his face that looked a lot like gloating to me. “Hey Finn,” he called as he walked down the cracked concrete path toward where we stood on the sidewalk. He looked at the truck parked behind me. “Nice truck,” he said.

  I hadn’t stopped to think what showing up in the Palmer Construction truck would look like, I’d been too distracted by everything else. Shit. Jeff’s sarcasm and his gloating eyebrow raise told me he knew exactly what it looked like, and what it probably meant. It would only help his case against me.

  “You ready, little man? I’ve got some movies all teed up for us, and we’re going to have pizza and ice cream and stay up super late.”

  Finn looked uncertain.

  “He needs to get to bed by nine,” I said.

  Jeff scowled at me. “The point of custody is that when I have him, I’m in charge,” he said. “I got your ninety page email on how to take care of my son.” He emphasized the word my in an ugly way. “I think I’ll do things my way.”

  I couldn’t cry or look uncertain in front of Finn. That wouldn’t help him. Instead, I stood on the sidewalk and forced myself to smile, to look sure about things that were breaking my heart and making me question whether the world made any sense at all. I took Finn’s things from the car and kissed my son goodbye with a smile and tight hug, and just when I was about to change my mind and whisk him back into the truck and away from here, Jeff surprised me.

  “Mike.” His voice was softer and the gloating was gone. “It’ll be fine, okay?”

  I stared at him, trying to reconcile the man in front of me with the one who’d made my life hell for so long now. It was hard to believe, but here was a glimpse of the man who’d talked me into bed in the first place.

  “I know we don’t know each other well now. And you have no reason to trust me. But I want to know my son. I really do. And I’m better. I promise.” His voice was quiet, like he didn’t want Finn to hear this part.

  “Okay,” I heard myself say. I wanted to believe him, to take him at face value. At least this little effort at being civil showed his humanity, made it easier to see that maybe he was actually trying. “Okay.”

  He smiled and turned, and I watched him walk up the sidewalk, taking my son—our son—with him. I climbed back into Chance Palmer’s truck, taking some strange comfort in the solid surroundings, drove away and fell apart.

  I made it to the motel I’d booked around the corner from Jeff’s neighborhood before the tears started in earnest. The checkin clerk gave me a strange look as she handed me the key card, no doubt wondering what would make a grown woman check into a cheap motel with mascara running down her face and her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

  I let myself into the room, locked the door behind me and leaned against it, my legs finally giving out below me as I slid to the ground, collapsing in a puddle on the cheap brown carpet. I cried for hours. I cried in anger over the unfairness of a court system that would let Jeff slide right back into the role of father before Finn or I was ready. I cried in pain over the loss of the child who had always been so close to the circle of my arms that when he was absent, I could still feel him there. I cried over my own inability to control my world, my life. And I cried in confusion and grief over the brief taste of happiness I’d stupidly allowed myself to have in a place that felt an awful lot like a childish fairytale with a man who seemed an awful lot like a fairytale prince.

  When I finally stood, I was drained. I had no tears left, no emotion at all. I knew I should call my mother, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The next two days stretched out ahead of me, their yawning emptiness a terrifying void into which I would have to wander alone until I could go get Finn back on Sunday. I sat on the edge of the hard mattress and stared into the blank television screen.

  I was utterly empty.

  Chapter 17

  Chance

  Mike was gone. She’d taken my truck as soon as the sun came up the following morning and gone back to face what she called her “real” life. A life I was not part of, a life I wasn’t included in.

  Whatever had happened, whatever I thought was happening between Michaela and me had felt like a revelation, and maybe a little like a fantasy, like a taste of something good and solid in a world that so often seemed engineered to break us down. It was the first time since Rebecca had been in my life that I’d felt certain I understood where my life was supposed to go, what I was supposed to do.

  I was not supposed to be alone. And no matter what my lingering image might be in Kings Grove, I wasn’t made to be a playboy or a womanizer. I cared way too much. And even if it wasn’t the most manly thing to admit to a world that pushed men to be manly—a world that practically encouraged and admired men who were too strong to need anyone—it was true. I hated being part of a world that taught little guys like Finn that men had to be tough and unbreakable, that we should never let our feelings show, never care too much.

  I did care. For the first time in a long time, I cared.

  And it hurt like hell.

  The gaping hole inside me ached and bled and pulsed like a black void nothing could ever fill. I’d planned to protect myself—meant to protect myself, and I’d failed. And when I realized I was in too deep to protect my own heart, I hoped maybe I could protect Mike and Finn instead. But if Mike was dropping Finn off with Jeff as I sat here and did nothing at all, well, I’d failed at that too.

  The snow melted swiftly, thanks to rising temperatures and a relentless sun washing Kings Grove with a cheerful yellow cast. I wished I could feel cheerful, but as the drifts around the house melted and diminished, it was almost as if that sun was washing away the time Mike and Finn had spent here, clearing the land of any evidence of the happiness I’d felt, the fulfillment I’d almost experienced.

  The pain inside me was a living thing, growling and expanding in my chest, distracting me from everything else.

  I sat in the chair in front of the fire that morning, watching the melting snow drip off the long eaves of my house, which felt like a cold empty shell once again, and I tried not to imagine what Mike was going through. I didn’t want to make things worse for her, didn’t want to give Finn any more reason than he already had to worry or be scared, but knowing she was going to take him and leave him with her ex—the idea practically killed me. It inspired a kind of crazy rage inside me I didn’t know I was capable of—one that wanted to rip the world apart to protect them, to keep them from this impossibly hard reality. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even comfort Michaela as I had watched the fear make her eyes wide and wild, watched her struggle to maintain a solid front for Finn.

  I poked at the fire, unable to keep my mind from cycling around everything that had happened between us, and I knew what I admired most about Mike. I was in awe of her ability to project strength even when she must have felt like she was breaking into pieces, all to buoy up her little boy. I’d never thought I wanted children in my life, but now I couldn’t imagine not seeing Finn again. I wanted to be right there as he made discoveries and grew—I wanted to be a part of that evolution, to be by his side as he turned into the intelligent and sensitive man I knew he would become. I wanted to watch him learn to fly—in his own way. I wanted to make sure he knew super heroes could bake cookies too.

  But that wasn’t reality. Finn and Mike were part of another world, one in which I wasn’t welcome. “
This isn’t my real life,” she’d said. And those five words made it clear where I fit. Or really—where I didn’t fit. In her world. In her life. In Finn’s universe.

  I leaned back in the chair and stared into the flames, letting them diminish and subside. I didn’t know how long I sat without moving, willing my brain to stop twisting, to stop looking for ways to fix things. Eventually, the fire gave up, snuffing itself out until barely a glowing red smolder remained. I rose from my chair and went upstairs to take a shower and head in to the office.

  In the end, I realized, nothing had really changed for me. I was here, where I’d always been.

  Alone.

  “Hey,” Sam said when I came through the front door. He’d been standing in front of Miranda’s desk, and the two of them stopped talking and widened their eyes at me when I entered, looking for the places where I was broken, no doubt.

  “Hey,” I said. I’d already decided not to discuss anything about Mike’s departure, or her announcement that I’d been a dalliance, not a part of her real life.

  “Did Mike get down to the valley okay?” Miranda asked.

  I shot her a look, cringing inside because I knew she didn’t deserve my anger. “As far as I know. She doesn’t exactly report to me.” I turned and stalked into my office, wishing I could stop picturing Mike in here, sitting up straight in the chair facing my desk, her eyes alight, her dark hair shining.

  “Right. Sorry,” Miranda called.

  I heard their whispered exchange, their worry or shock about my situation. I hated it. I kind of hated them.

  Though I’d spent my life in the Kings Grove spotlight, held up by my dad and my brother, and practically the whole town, as some model of masculinity, I didn’t want to be the one people talked about and discussed anymore. And not for this, not because my heart was broken and everyone could see the sharp edges poking through the facade I wore. This was why I’d never told a soul about Rebecca. I didn’t want prying eyes or pity.