by Angel Payne
As I handed over her device, I stated, “If you need me, I’ll be in the office.” During her physical therapy appointment, work had emailed over some briefs that needed my attention.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t hear a peep out of her after that. When Mom dove her imagination into a book, it was common for hours of silence to go by. I only let one hour pass before ducking back out to check on her and to get the final vote on dinner.
“Mom?”
A soft snore answered from the couch.
I smiled quietly while pulling the reader from her hands. Between starting PT and getting miffed with me, she was exhausted, even without the help of her pain meds. I took that as a good sign.
It also meant I’d have to guess on her preference for dinner. I decided on the pasta and set dishes on the table for when the food was ready.
While waiting, I stepped quietly out to the porch. The air was even frostier now, though the clouds over the next ridge looked like they’d be staying put for the night. The sun’s last rays stole across the valley, making the mist glow like Christmas lights were strung beneath it.
The poeticism was appropriate. Just this week, Carlo had brought in his seasonal crew to transform the orchard into a holiday wonderland with lights, piped music and moving character vignettes. They’d been hard at it today, proved by the weary smiles they flashed on their way to their cars. I waved back and bowed my head in thanks. The holiday displays, to be opened right before Thanksgiving, were popular with tourists and locals alike. More than that, Mom loved them. I was grateful for anything that spurred her recovery.
After the men left, the air was hushed and still.
Until a small chime sounded, somewhere behind me.
I swiveled around, forehead furrowing. Not the stove yet and it sounded nearer than that—like a phone notification of some kind. But I’d left mine on the desk in the office.
Another chime. A repeat of the first.
I dropped off the rail and walked to the swing, peering through the shadows. Sure enough, the cushion glowed from the light of Mom’s overturned phone. She must have forgotten it while getting impatient with me this afternoon.
The phone glowed with an incoming text. I grimaced and hurried to close the screen before seeing a message from Carlo that wouldn’t allow me to view the man in a wholesome light again. Mother definitely knew best where some matters were concerned. Whatever Carlo and she were up to was none of my damn business, and as long as he made her hap—
The thought vanished from my head.
Along with every other thought behind it, except for the one shoving three distinct words to my lips.
“What. The. Fuck?”
I hadn’t closed the screen fast enough to miss the originating number of the text.
Not Carlo’s cell number.
Margaux’s.
Like a Mohican on a Mohawk, I focused my stare on the words.
So glad to hear your PT went well—and that the bear behaved himself. Rest easy. I’ll check in tomorrow.
For at least a minute, I stared. The message implied that Mom had already texted first, probably after the PT appointment today. I’d caught a glimpse of her out in the waiting room while I confirmed her next appointment. She’d never looked up, intent on the message she tapped into her phone. Had she been sending a little update to Margaux then—literally behind my back—also talking about the bear in her message? Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who that little endearment was code for.
Just like it didn’t take a second of hesitation for me to swipe my thumb down the screen, instead—loading more texts between them. Then again. And again. And—
There were nearly ten days’ worth of messages. I didn’t read them all word for word. I didn’t have to. Their main themes were clear.
Saturday
My son is an idiot.
No, Di. He’s just scared.
Scared and stupid.
You can’t blame him. It was bad when they brought you to our door that morning.
And it’s over. And he needs you now.
He doesn’t want me.
He doesn’t know his own mind right now. Please don’t give up on him, Margaux.
Monday
No word from the bear yet?
His mind is made up, Di.
No, damn it. It’s not!
I miss him.
And honey, he misses you. Every time I look in his eyes, I’m reminded of it all over again.
Tuesday
The bear is on the prowl again.
Uh-oh. What now?
He heard some song on the radio, a sappy thing about moments and magic and forever, and turned feral on everyone.
Hell. I know that one.
Bet you do. He’s not pretty when he’s feral.
No. The song. I know the one you’re talking about. I’ll be back in a bit.
Shit. I upset you.
It’s okay. A lot of things still do that right now.
Thursday
I can’t do this anymore.
Di? Are you okay?
I’m fine. He’s driving me crazy.
LOL. I think. Breathe.
Call him, Margaux. Please. He’s miserable.
That makes two of us.
“Michael?”
I jerked my head up. Barked out, “Yeah.” Once I took a step back inside, the fucking Gettysburg battle of emotions flared across my chest again. There was my mom, laid up on the couch with a re-inflated lung, healing ribs and a half-mottled face because of my bullheadedness, but I couldn’t let go of the indignation and frustration now firing off round after round at my damn senses.
“What’s going on? Why were you on the porch, growling to yourself?”
I hauled in a deep breath. Held up her phone. “Isn’t that what bears do?”
Her eyes slammed shut. “Well, shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
The next second, she one-eightied her bearing, staring back up at me like I’d merely told her the petting zoo goats ate my homework. “Give me my phone, son. You have no right to be spying on my texts.”
I slid the phone behind my back. “And you have no right to be filling Margaux’s head with unrealistic expectations.”
She huffed. “We need to talk about this, Michael Adam.”
I stomped to the coffee table. Parked my ass on it. Squared both feet to the floor then braced my elbows to my knees. “You’re damn right we do.”
Chapter Fourteen
Margaux
“Lydia!”
My new secretary scurried into my office, looking like a bomb had gone off next to her desk. Her glasses were crooked on her beak of a nose, her hair tumbled from her once-tidy bun and her shirt was untucked from her one-size-too-large pleated skirt. What grown woman wore pleats in this era?
Ones who had school desks as living room décor and liked saying “Yes, Headmaster”?
So not the thought I needed today. Hadn’t needed any other day over the last three weeks, either.
“Yes, Ms. Asher?”
I rolled both shoulders, battling the tension of banishing Michael’s headmaster face to the back of my brain. After a deep breath, I shoved my coffee cup toward her like it was a snake with two heads.
“What the fuck is this?”
She pushed her glasses back up her nose. “That’s—ummmm—the latte you asked me to get for you on my way back from lunch.”
I took a brief look at the liquid in the cup. “Lydia?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Is this soy?”
“No, ma’am. You didn’t ask for soy.”
“I most certainly did.”
“But—”
“Did you write down my order like I told you to?”
“Yes, on my phone.”
Another rough breath. Christ help me, I was trying to be a kinder, gentler version of myself, if only to give the karma police a little help in getting me off this shit hill of heartbreak—but damn it, how in
stantly those pleats had reminded me of Michael.
Who the hell was I kidding?
Everything reminded me of Michael. Then gutted me again, just like this. And kept going until my soul was in shreds, just like this.
Which meant, at the moment, karma be damned. “Okay,” I spat, folding my arms, “perfect. I’m going to wait here, wasting more of my valuable time, while you go find your note and see that I wanted soy milk in my latte—just like I’ve had in every latte my entire adult life.”
She blinked. Then just stared.
“Lydia.”
“Ma’am?”
“Go! I’m aging here, for fuck’s sake.”
She whirled, tripped over something that wasn’t there, and bumped a shoulder into the door before making it past the portal. A few minutes later, she returned looking even worse than after the first bomb’s detonation.
“Well?”
“It—it should’ve been soy, Ms. Asher. I’m very sorry.”
“Well, hallelujah.” I was elbows-deep into a partnership contract by then, so didn’t look up as I muttered it. Too bad—for her—that the contract was a complete piece of shit and would have to be rewritten from word one. “You can both take notes and read, Lydia. See? This day wasn’t a complete waste.”
“Of—of course, ma’am.”
“But guess what? Now I’ve had to call Andre to go get me the right coffee, because if that pile of paperwork on your desk is any indication, you can’t leave again, can you?”
“N-no, ma’am. Ummmm…Andre?”
“My driver. You can deal with him when he gets here. Have you met him yet?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Perfect. Let me know when he gets here. I don’t want to miss a minute of it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Once more, she simply stood in place.
Growling out a huff, I rose and actually chased her out the door, slamming it behind her. At her distinct yeep on the other side, I was tempted to smirk.
I winced, instead.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded it of my reflection in the mirror behind the door, which I always used to make sure everything was in place before I left the room. Three seconds of perusal revealed nothing had been physically disturbed—but nothing felt in place anymore.
Nothing.
I jerked up my chin. This bullshit with Lydia was the crap icing on the shit-tastic cake. She was the fourth receptionist the agency had sent over in the past three weeks. Really, how hard was it to answer the phones and fetch a girl some coffee?
Best to focus on the things I did have answers for.
The pile on my desk was just as high as Lydia’s, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate. Wasn’t like I’d been sleeping or eating well for nearly twenty-one days.
At least Diana was out of the woods and recovering nicely—as I’d gone ahead and learned straight from the source. Michael was dreaming if he thought I’d wait for updates from him, relayed through Andre like we were in eighth grade passing notes down the hall. Di and I were grown women, for Christ’s sake. We’d been texting on a regular basis and I was comforted to know her mood was good—most of the time. Michael had her under close watch, a cliché but an appropriate one, and was driving her a little crazy. Maybe more than a little. He was determined to keep her safe, translated as rarely out of his sight.
My desk phone rang, cutting into my thoughts. Perfect. A blind transfer from super-receptionist. I wondered how many glares I’d get from HR if I put in a requisition for candidate number five today.
“Margaux Asher,” I barked into the receiver.
“Uh-oh. Is this a bad time?”
“Di.” I sank back. “Sorry for snapping. It’s been a shitty day.”
“I know.” Her tone, sympathetic but not sappy, grabbed my heart. She already knew how shitty most of my days were lately. “It’s okay.”
I blew off the melancholy with a little snort. “So, hey, you. How are you feeling today?”
“I’d be better if everyone stopped asking me that.”
“I know.” I used her exact tone for the echo. “But honestly, you have no idea what it was like that morning.”
“Well, if I’m reminded one more time, I may go batshit.”
I sighed. Just pulling up that scene at the condo made me shudder again. In some ways, I didn’t begrudge Michael his edginess. “So he’s still hovering?”
“Hovering?” Di laughed. “Honey, hovering I could handle. Suffocating is more like it.”
Yikes. “I wish I could do something to help you. Do you want me to send Andre to bring you into town for a few days?”
“I’d never be able to get out unnoticed. God, listen to me, I’m a prisoner in my own home. This is ridiculous.”
I smiled ruefully. “It is, isn’t it?”
The pause before her next words was significant. “Well…I’m afraid we have an even bigger problem.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
“This sounds bad.”
She filled the line with a throaty huff. “It’s all my fault. I just don’t know how to fix it.”
Strangely, my pulse beat at the base of my throat. “Repairs are usually best when done with teamwork. Tell me what happened. Maybe we’ll think of something with our heads together.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“Come on. You knew I’d say that.”
“Well, great minds, you know.”
I let out a full laugh. Damn, I adored this woman.
“Okay. Yesterday, after we got home from physical therapy, I fell asleep on the couch. It was a pretty tough session, and with these damn pain pills, too, I got really groggy.”
“Whoa. Hold on. What do you mean, a tough session? How are you going to heal if you’re already pushing yourself too hard?”
“Oh, God. Not you, too.” She sighed heavily. “Look, if you’re going to be mad at me, save it for the bad part. I haven’t even come to that yet.”
“I just care about you.”
“I know, honey.”
“Wait. What? The bad part?”
“Well, while I was on the sofa, you texted me. My cell was outside on the porch swing.”
My throat constricted. “And so was Michael.”
“And so was Michael.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Hmmmm, yyyeah.”
“So…how much of our text conversations did he see?”
“Pretty much all of them. I’m not really in the habit of deleting things. I’ve never had to hide anything from anyone before.” She filled the line with a tight huff. “I’m so sorry.”
“Okay,” I cut in. “Stop right there. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“The hell I don’t.” Another break, longer this time, ending in her more sheepish confession. “I should’ve been more careful. He’s not brushing this off. You didn’t see how mad he was.” She added in a mutter, “And thank God for that.”
I took a turn at the huff. “Please. I’ve seen the bear mad before. He doesn’t scare me.”
“Yet another reason why I love you, dear—and why he needs you in his life!” Her laugh was a sweet jingle. “We just need to convince him of that.”
As if compelled, my gaze fell—to the framed photo of him and me, still atop my desk, taken the day of Kil and Claire’s wedding. We were in our formal finery, smiling and a little flirty. Like an idiotic sap, I couldn’t stow it away. Not yet. Not while there was a sliver of hope that the man would wake up to sanity again.
Like I had any control over that alarm clock.
“I shouldn’t have to convince him of anything,” I stated. “The bonehead needs to realize it all on his own. Otherwise, it’s not worth having. I learned that a long time ago—the hard way.”
“You’re absolutely right about that, too,” Di countered. “Sadly.”
“So what now?”
“I’m not sure. He’s been storming around the farm like he
did when he was a boy and things didn’t go his way.”
“Must be fun for Carlo and the others.”
“Well, he gave us all a break today, thank God. He was out the door as soon as the gal from the nursing agency got here. He might have gone to the office. Long drives clear his head.”
That gave me a melancholy smile. “I know.” I’d turned him onto long drive therapy—he’d turned me on to the fun of hiking. Sort of.
Right now, I’d agree to scale Mount Whitney itself if it meant turning back time by just a month. An impossible dream.
“Diana…I’m sorry, too.”
“Oh, God. Whatever for?”
“It’s me who’s made things harder on you. It was selfish to sneak around and ask you to keep in contact with me after Michael forbade it.”
“Now you stop right there, young lady. I’m a woman of a certain age—and a successful business owner, at that. I can make my own decisions. That stubborn ass son of mine may think he knows what’s best for everyone, but his head’s jammed so far up his butt crack…”
As she let her heavy humph finish that, I giggled—and resisted the urge to inform Di that the subject of her son’s backside, in any form, was a sure-as-shit way to brighten my day.
“You think I’m kidding? That mule doesn’t know the gift he has in you, though, it’s right at his feet. So not another word of apology from your mouth, do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I managed a solemn tone.
“In fact, I think it’s high time you turn up the heat on this situation.”
My heart skipped a beat. Another. “Really?”
“Yes, damn it. Really.”
I grinned, declaring myself officially in love with her. This woman’s mind worked so wonderfully—just like my own. For days, I’d been debating just getting into the car and heading up the damn mountain, back to Julian, forcing the bear to at least acknowledge me again. He owed me that. No, he actually owed me more, a debt not satisfied by hiring Doug and his beef heads for my babysitting detail—though in a way, I had them to thank for this new resolve. Once I figured out the new form of tabs he was keeping on me, the decision solidified. It was time for a conversation with the man who truly thought he could save the world. With Di’s encouragement, my mind was made up.