He parked the tractor and reached up for her hand. “Careful, the ground is slick.”
She eased down, careful of her now throbbing shoulder. When he gave her a questioning look, she managed a grimace that she hoped resembled a smile.
“Pretty sore?”
“A little,” she admitted.
“I have a heating pad inside. While I get some things moved, you can take a break, maybe have a cup of tea that will help.”
“Tea that will help?”
“Chamomile.” He walked off as he said it and she hurried to catch up, ducking through the door beneath his arm that held it open.
Big tough bull rider, scar down his left cheek and a broken voice, but he drank a tea known for its calming properties. He led her through the kitchen to the living room. The house was another surprise. It was sparsely furnished but cozy. The walls were shades of pale blue and a light gray. The furniture looked as if it belonged in a seaside cottage.
As she wandered, examining the paintings on the walls, he pulled a heating pad from the closet. She accepted it and followed him back to the kitchen to watch as he started a pot of coffee and made a cup of chamomile tea.
His movements were spare, efficient, controlled. Not once did he smile. He needed to smile. Oliver was a funny kid who liked to joke. What if Marcus didn’t understand that about his son?
What if Marcus lost his temper? What if he didn’t hug Oliver, tuck him in at night or comfort him when he was afraid?
She told herself to stop. She could go through dozens of “what if” questions. She could spend her life worrying. But what good did worry do?
“What happened to your voice?” She asked the question she’d been wondering about since she’d met him.
The microwave dinged. He pulled the cup of tea out, stirred in a spoonful of honey and handed it to her. “Let it steep a few minutes. And my voice is none of your concern.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Do you think it will affect my ability to be a dad? Is that the reason for all of the questions? Are you scoring me on my emotional state, my parenting, my ability to be an adult?”
“No, of course not.”
He gave her a long, steady look devoid of anger. “It isn’t something I talk about. Ever.”
“I see.”
He took the heating pad from her and plugged it in next to the table. “Sit down.”
She did as he ordered, sitting with the cup of chamomile tea between her hands, warming her. He adjusted the temperature on the heating pad and settled it on her shoulder. His touch was firm yet gentle. She thought she felt his fingers trace a path across her back. Maybe it was her imagination, that featherlight touch.
She glanced up at him. “I’m not scoring you. And my question wasn’t connected to your ability to parent. I genuinely wanted to know. Maybe the nurse in me. Or maybe—” she paused to think through the words she’d planned to say “—as a friend.”
“My dad did this,” he whispered close to her ear. “And I didn’t want to continue the cycle of abuse. I don’t want to take a chance that I would leave a child with scars. Oliver is a funny, happy kid. He should stay that way. Every time I get angry I worry that it might be the time I can’t control my temper.”
And then he walked out the back door, closing it firmly behind him. For the few seconds the door was open, she heard the rain coming down and in the distance the drone of an engine. With the closing door, there was silence once again.
She sat there alone, thinking back to what he’d told her. His father had maimed him, stolen his voice and left him emotionally scarred, as well.
She wanted to go after him, to tell him she was sorry. Sorry he’d been hurt. Sorry she’d pushed him for answers. But she knew when to let a man go. And this one needed to be set free.
Contemplating her next move, she sat there with the tea he’d made her and the heat soaking into her stiff shoulder. As she finished the tea, she realized Marcus didn’t know himself very well. He thought a damaged voice, a scarred body and a nightmarish childhood made him a bad person. He’d probably spent a lifetime living up to that reputation, to his past, making sure everyone knew he was damaged goods.
What he failed to see, what she saw, was that he cared. He cared enough about Oliver to turn him over to Lissa. He cared enough about her, a stranger who had shown up on his doorstep with news that had to be shocking, that he would care for her well-being.
As she sat in silent contemplation, the sun came out from behind the clouds. The golden light streamed through the kitchen. And outside she heard a child’s laughter. Oliver’s laughter.
She unplugged the heating pad and went out the back door in search of Oliver and Marcus. She found them in the front yard. Another man, a carbon copy of Marcus, and yet not, had joined them. Alex Palermo, his twin, had short hair, no jagged scar on his cheek. And he smiled. Truly smiled. He saw her and tipped his hat in a greeting.
A break in the clouds meant the rain had slowed to intermittent sprinkles. She spotted a patch of blue and rays of sunshine streaking across the sky. Maybe the forecast would be wrong and the rain would miss them this time.
“Lissa, did you see the dog?” Oliver hurried to her side, catching hold of her left hand. “He plays dead with his tongue out. And it’s funny. You have to watch.”
“I’ll watch,” she promised. “How did you get here?”
“Alex stopped at Aunt Essie’s and I wanted to see you and Marcus. She told me if I wore my seat belt I could ride along. But I’m supposed to stay out of the way.”
“He isn’t staying out of the way,” Marcus grumbled, but she saw the tug of his mouth, a hint of a smile.
There was hope for him yet. She’d never been one to give up on a challenge. But the challenge might be in keeping her perspective. She had to turn Marcus Palermo into a father and nothing more.
Chapter Six
Marcus looked at the three people who had invaded his life. And his kitchen. His twin, Alex, had poured himself a cup of coffee and seemed to be settling in for a cozy visit. As if they had time to sit for a cup. If anything, they needed to be on the road, seeing who of their neighbors needed help getting to higher ground.
Oliver had brought Lucky in with them and he made quick work of trying to get the dog to learn to roll over. The dog plodded around, leaving muddy footprints everywhere. Marcus could have told the boy that the dog played dead because it was the easiest trick in the world for an aging hound dog who didn’t much care to get off the porch.
Instead of dissuading him, however, he got a box of dog treats out of the cabinet and handed them to his son. “Try this. Sometimes it just takes a treat.”
“Hmm,” Lissa murmured with meaning.
“Can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” he told her.
In response she laughed. “With a treat?”
“Probably not.” He managed to keep a straight face, but she caught his eye and winked, almost undoing any hold he had on his self-control.
Alex handed him a cup of coffee. “Well, what’s the plan?”
He didn’t have a plan, other than hitting the road and trying to figure out who needed help and how best to get things done. Those were the thoughts of a man who didn’t have a child. He realized that as he stood there with a cup of coffee, watching Oliver play with Lucky. The dog had sprawled out on the floor and occasionally raised a paw in something that resembled shaking.
He looked down at his coffee and wished, for the first time in a long time, that it was something a lot stronger than coffee. As if he knew, Alex poured milk into the cup and gave him a long and meaningful look.
Marcus raised the cup in salute. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
His phone rang. He grabbed it off the counter and walked out the back door. “Pastor?”
“Marcus, any chance you co
uld head your stock trailer to town and load up some belongings? We’ve got a couple of houses on West Street that are going to be under water by nightfall.”
“You got it.” He would gladly do something that would keep his mind off whatever other thoughts or temptations were running through his mind. “I’ll be there as soon as I can get Oliver and Lissa back to Essie’s.”
“She’s in town at the café, cooking like a madwoman and serving meals to the workers and those who are trying to pack up and get out.”
“I’ll bring Lissa to help her out. Hopefully, the water won’t get up to the café.”
“That’s our hope. And our prayer.” Pastor Matthews spoke as solemnly as Marcus had ever heard. “You’re doing okay?”
The question forced him to be honest. “I’ve been better. I could use a few of those prayers, if you’ve got some to spare.”
“You know I do. Marcus, you can handle this.”
“I guess I can handle whatever comes at me.”
The sun had gone behind the clouds again and he headed back inside as more rain began to fall. He caught Lissa in the act of straightening a picture that hung on the wall in the small dining area.
“It’s fine, leave it.” He looked for his brother and Oliver. Both were missing.
“You did this, didn’t you?” She touched the painting of a barn nestled in a field of wildflowers.
“Mighty nosy, aren’t you?”
“Curious, not nosy. I’d like to say the painting takes me by surprise, but maybe not. You’re not as tough as you’d like everyone to think, cowboy.”
“I’m tough enough.” He walked off, grabbing his coat from the hook by the door. “We have to go. The water is rising and a few houses will have water in them pretty soon. I’m taking my trailer to empty them out.”
“I can help.”
He shook his head. “Nope. You’re not going to do heavy lifting. And I don’t want Oliver there getting hurt. I’ll drop you off at Essie’s café. She will probably put you to work.”
She froze up as he spoke and he stopped, knowing he’d done something wrong. “What?”
“That’s very nice of you to want to keep us safe, but I prefer when men discuss things with me rather than giving me orders.”
He scratched his thumb along his chin and nodded. “I apologize.”
Her expression softened. “No, I’m sorry. I do understand why this is the best plan. We all have our pasts and it’s just...” She shrugged.
“Don’t apologize,” he assured her. “I get it. And if you seriously want to be out in the rain loading furniture into the back of a stock trailer...”
He gave her shoulder a meaningful look.
She grinned. “No, I don’t. Let me get Oliver.”
“I’m going to hook the trailer to my truck.” He nearly bumped into Alex on his way out the back door.
“Where’s the fire?” Alex asked, following him to his truck.
“No fire, just a flood. Pastor Matthews asked me to bring my trailer to West Street.”
Alex pulled keys out of his pocket. “I’ll head home and get mine. What about Oliver and Lissa?”
“I’ll drop them at the café.”
“Essie’s cooking like a madwoman, I imagine. I’d guess Lucy and Marissa are with her.”
Marcus shot his brother a look and wasn’t surprised to see that gooey love-struck expression on his face when he mentioned his wife. He wasn’t surprised that Alex had fallen, maybe surprised it had happened so quickly. They were different people, he and Alex. Twins but nothing alike.
A few minutes later he backed his truck up to the stock trailer, watching in the mirrors to get it lined up and close to the hitch in the bed of the truck. He jumped out, slipping in the mud as rain poured down. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could have a break just long enough that they didn’t have to do all of this in a downpour? But then, if that happened, they might not have to worry about a flood. Period.
After hooking the trailer to the truck, he turned to find Oliver and Lissa were there. They’d located an umbrella and were huddling together.
“Get in the truck.” He opened the door and motioned them inside. “This rain is crazy. The two of you don’t need to be out in it.”
“I wonder if this is how Noah felt?” Oliver asked as he buckled up in the back of the truck.
Marcus grinned at the serious look on his son’s face. Son. That was still going to take some time to get used to. And it made earlier temptations, old temptations, seem like the worst decisions ever. A few years ago he wouldn’t have been a candidate for fatherhood. Not in the condition he had been in.
The last thing this kid needed was a dad who climbed back in the bottle every time he felt a little bit stressed.
Fortunately he had put that life behind him.
If he was going to be a dad, he’d have to find a quick route to being the kind that Oliver deserved. He’d have to be a dad his son could trust. He just wasn’t certain how a man went from being footloose to tied down and dependable.
“I’m not sure about this,” he mumbled to himself more than to the woman sitting next to him.
She sighed. A quick look in the back seat and he knew why she wasn’t responding. Rule number two, don’t discuss stressful things in front of children. He had a lot to learn about parenting.
And from the tense woman sitting next to him, he had a lot to learn about Lissa Hart. He wanted her stories. What made her bristle when she thought someone was taking control? It should have bothered him more that she’d managed to get under his skin in such a short amount of time. Surprisingly, it didn’t.
* * *
Marcus let them out at Essie’s café. Lissa hurried up the steps of the café and through the front door with Oliver squeezing in ahead of her. The bell chimed at their entrance. Before she could think, Oliver was hurrying through the not-so-crowded diner in search of the woman who really was his aunt.
Sooner or later, preferably sooner, they’d have to tell him. For now, Essie was a sweet lady who had taken them in and given him permission to call her aunt, and she made yummy food.
Lissa pulled off the raincoat, mindful of her shoulder. Oliver had disappeared into the kitchen. She was alone and she could take a breath and figure out her next move. She shouldn’t have let it bother her, that Marcus wanted to tell her the plan. It had felt like taking over. She knew it had been more about what worked best.
It all went back to a childhood where she’d never felt in control of her situation. Life before Jane and Tom Simms had meant never knowing what would happen next. She’d wondered who she would come home to, what her mother’s mood would be and how she would get through a night without someone knocking on her door.
She wanted more for herself. She wanted more for Oliver. She wished he had better memories of his mother. Because Sammy had started to spiral out of control after she had her son. She had been clean and sober for years, and then something had happened.
At the back of Lissa’s mind she had always wondered if that something had been Marcus Palermo.
“Lissa, good morning. Oliver told us you were out here.” Marissa Palermo, Alex’s wife, smiled a greeting, but the smile dissolved. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.” She managed what she hoped was a cheerful expression. “I’m here to help.”
Marissa locked arms with her and they headed for the kitchen. “We can always use help. Essie is making chicken and noodles and she’s going to open in an hour. She wants potatoes mashed and biscuits cooked. I hope you’re up for a long day.”
“With plenty of coffee, I can handle it.”
For the next hour they worked hard. Even Oliver pitched in to help. He was the potato masher and Essie told him he mashed those potatoes even better than Bea Maxwell, the cook who seemed to have a penchant for saying whatever came to her min
d.
“You’re just saying that because he looks like the twins,” Bea grumbled. “And they always were your favorites.”
“I take exception to that,” Lucy Palermo Scott called out to Bea as she put the finishing touches on the pies they would serve for dessert.
“Watch yourself, Bea.” Essie hugged Bea. “We need to focus on cooking.”
“I know, I know.” Bea waddled off to the sink. “I hope I can wash my hands without getting in trouble.”
Lissa sneaked a peek at Oliver. He didn’t seem to be listening at all. He was busy mashing potatoes and eating pudding off the spoon Marissa had placed in front of his mouth. The moment cemented for her that this was a family. They were laughing, loving one another and teasing in a fun way. They weren’t at all what she’d expected from the offspring of cult leader Jesse Palermo.
His control over his church had been legendary. He’d been a world-famous bull rider, a minister of his own brand of the gospel and a father. What had been hidden had been the abuse of his family. But they’d survived. She could see that in this group of women. They were all survivors.
“Let’s get this on the buffet.” Essie called out the order and the women started to move, including a few from the community who had come in to help.
Lucy moved to Lissa’s side as the women worked to get food to the warming trays. Oliver was given serving spoons to carry out. Lissa was very aware that Lucy had something to say. It was obvious in the way she watched the others leave.
“Do you plan on taking him back to San Antonio?” Lucy finally asked. “If he’s my nephew, I want to know him. And he deserves to be here with his father, with aunts and uncles and cousins.”
Lissa blanched at her candor. Apparently, Lucy didn’t sugarcoat things. But neither did her brother.
“I don’t plan on taking him. I plan on honoring Sammy’s wishes. She wanted him to know his father. She just never got around to...”
Loss hit her again, the way it often did.
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