“I didn’t give you much of a chance.”
“You didn’t marry him until you graduated, so I had four years to tell you how I felt. Four years! It’s not like you were on the moon. At the very least I could have told you why I’d moved out west, and that I was saving what I earned for us, but I didn’t. It’s as if I set things up so I would fail. That’s not the behavior of someone who’s serious about a permanent relationship, but I didn’t want to admit it. Not even to myself.”
Silence fell as they both digested what he’d said. “So what changed?” Amelia asked finally. “Why the sudden realization now?”
It was a good question. He pondered it for another minute, then nodded toward the shadowed hall past the doorway. “Your nephews.”
“The boys? Why?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m confident Jenny will be fine, but seeing them in this situation reminds me of what happened after my mother died. My family wasn’t like yours. My father closed himself off from me when the going got tough. I guess I got used to doing the same. It made me unwilling to take risks. Then you came along and knocked me out of my comfort zone because you were so different. I thought I had opened up my heart with you, but as soon as you got serious, I found reasons to back off. You were right. Our breakup was my fault. I used my caution like a kid with a security blanket.”
It was an indication of how far they’d come that they could discuss the past without losing their tempers. In a way, Hank would have preferred to see Amelia get angry. It would have been easier to take than the sadness he saw on her face now. “We were both at fault, Hank,” she said. “I should have been patient. I should have tried to see things from your point of view.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”
She pushed to her feet, carried her mug to the sink and dumped the rest of her tea. Keeping her back to him, she braced her hands on the edge of the counter. “It doesn’t matter anymore. What happened when we were teenagers is over. It was only another illusion.”
“What was?”
“Our love. Our plans. Our dreams. They were as much a fantasy as my farce of a marriage. It was as much of a lost cause as chasing after my ticket, and believing the money would fix everything that was broken, and heal everything that hurt.”
“Amelia...”
“None of it was real. I’ve just been deluding myself.” She dipped her head. “But that’s my pattern, isn’t it?”
He shoved back his chair, closed the distance between them and then turned her to face him. “We all have our own ways to deal with pain. I’m sorry I’ve made you feel worse. I should have left the past alone.”
“No, it’s good we talked tonight, because it proved we were even more of a disaster as a couple than I’d realized. We were just too different. We still are.”
This was going all wrong. He was making a mess of things. Again. He slid his arms around her back and pulled her closer. “There was one aspect of our relationship we got right, even as teenagers.”
She placed her palms on his chest. “You’re not listening to me.”
He was listening well enough to guess what she was building up to say. He used his nose to nudge her hair aside and kissed her neck. “You still smell the same, you know that?”
“Hank...”
He kissed his way across her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “I never forgot how you tasted, either.”
Her nails curled into his shirt. Her breath hitched.
He fitted his lips over hers before she could say more.
The contact jolted him. He knew she was upset, and he’d meant to be gentle, but the feel of her breath on his cheek and her body pressed to his sent his pulse soaring. This wasn’t like the angry kiss in the stairwell. It wasn’t like the eager explorations of their youth, either. It was deep and rich and trembling with promise. He plowed one hand into her hair to hold her head steady and for a few precious moments there was only pleasure. Simple. Basic. Man to woman. Passion untainted by words or memories or regrets.
But then he felt the drop of moisture hit his jaw and he came back to reality with a thud. He lifted his head.
Tears sheened her eyes. There was more than sadness in her gaze now—there was determination. She pulled away from his embrace. “That kiss didn’t prove anything, Hank, except to show we’re still confusing chemistry for...something else.”
He wiped her cheek with his thumb. “Chemistry’s a good start, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to start anything.”
“I know things look bad now, but that’s because it’s late. We’re both tired. And it’s been a long night.” He dug in his pocket for his handkerchief. “I should know better than to push you. My timing sucks, which is nothing new. I have a knack for finding the most unromantic moments possible to kiss you.”
She lifted her palms and took another step back. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t be sweet or funny or give me your stupid handkerchief. Don’t start up some corny pep talk about how everything’s going to look better in the morning. It’s not. Without the ticket, I’m right back where I was when I moved in here, and things won’t get better unless I face that.” She blotted her eyes with her sleeve. “Thank you for your help with the boys, but I think it would be best if you leave.”
“Amelia—”
“I’ll need some time to reimburse you for my share of your expenses to date. Once I get another job, we could work out a payment schedule for what I owe.”
“Stop. You don’t owe me anything. And this isn’t over.”
“Do you agree that recovering the lottery ticket is impossible?”
He wanted to lie, because he knew what she was leading up to now, too. “There might be something we haven’t considered yet.”
“Tell the truth, Hank. Do you agree it’s impossible?”
He clamped his jaw and gave her a curt nod.
“Then it’s time to dissolve our partnership and get on with our lives.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT WASN’T THE first sleepless night that Amelia had spent since she’d moved into her brother’s house. It was the first one she’d spent in the living room, though. She watched as the dawn lightened the clouds beyond the front window. They were tinted red, and the air was already thick with humidity. A storm was building somewhere. Wasn’t there a rhyme about a red sky in the morning? A bad omen? A warning for sailors?
Well, she didn’t need any help from the weather to mess up her life. She’d done a terrific job of that on her own. In fact, she’d been all set to hold herself one super-duper pity party after she’d sent Hank home, but her nephews had crashed it before it could get started.
Timmy stirred against her left side, his hand groping for his stuffed rabbit. She slid it against his fingers and waited until his eyelids stopped twitching, then picked a piece of popcorn out of his hair and lobbed it toward the bowl on the coffee table. It bounced off her feet, which were propped on the table alongside Owen’s. His head lolled against her right shoulder. Eric was sprawled sideways in the chair across from the couch, his legs over one arm and Toto snoring on his lap.
No matter how much the adults had tried to reassure them, her nephews had sensed the seriousness of their mother’s condition after all. One by one they had woken up, demanding their aunt’s attention, but there had been nothing more she could say that would help. They’d just needed to know they were loved. They were no different from grown-ups in that respect. Maybe adult troubles couldn’t be soothed by gorging on popcorn at 3:00 a.m., or by cuddling with a stuffed rabbit, but that basic need to be loved never went away.
Kids had a knack for knocking problems into perspective, didn’t they?
Amelia touched her fingertips to Timmy’s hair. She’d always wanted children. Spencer had wanted to wait, so she had channeled her yearning for a family into her devotion to her nephews. Hank had once said he wanted lots of children because he’d been an only child. With
his patience and his sense of fairness he would have made a great father. Not like Basil. She’d known they hadn’t gotten along. It had been one of those background facts she’d noticed but had never bothered to analyze. Same with the fact that Hank was still single. She’d never bothered to wonder why. It was perfectly clear to her now that losing his mother and growing up with a distant, critical father had profoundly influenced his outlook on life. She wished she’d figured it out years ago, but that was her, wasn’t it? Skimming right past anything that hurt. By pushing him to prove his love, she’d driven him away.
And maybe she’d driven Spencer away, too. Granted, he’d been dishonest and manipulative, but he would have had the same need to be loved as everyone else. He’d probably sensed she hadn’t really loved him. That could be why in the end he’d turned to his blonde bimbo. He’d been unfaithful to his wife, but hadn’t she broken their wedding vows first? She’d promised to love him, but deep down inside she must have realized that her heart belonged to someone else.
Does he know you still love him?
How many times now had she remembered Jenny’s words? There was a reason she hadn’t been able to shake them off. Sending Hank away might have been her biggest mistake of all.
But it had been the only sensible choice. She was in no position to consider jumping into a relationship. If she was ever going to trust her judgment again, she needed to put her life in order first. No more wallowing in what-might-have-beens. No more moaning about her fate or waiting for magic solutions to drop into her lap. As Hank had once told her, there were no shortcuts to the future. The only way to get there was to work at it one day at a time.
And maybe, once she had paid her debts and was back on her feet, she could risk dreaming again....
Her eyes burned. Now who was giving pep talks?
Moving carefully so as not to wake the boys, she extricated herself from the couch. She used the phone in the kitchen to call the hospital for an update, but the nurse she spoke to reported there had been no change in Jenny’s condition. Amelia returned to the living room and tiptoed to the computer desk in the corner. The click of the keyboard didn’t disturb her nephews, so she spent almost an hour cruising the job listing sites. The results weren’t encouraging. She was composing a résumé when the phone rang.
She made a dash for the kitchen, but the sound of the phone woke the dog. Toto jumped from Owen’s lap and scrabbled behind her, barking at her heels. She skidded to a stop at the kitchen threshold, keeping her gaze on the living room as she reached around the doorway for the receiver.
“Amelia?”
It was her brother’s voice. She ignored the teeny part of her that had thought it might have been Hank calling. She’d cut their ties and sent him away. He was only doing what she’d asked. She cupped her hand around the mouthpiece. “Will, I called earlier. The nurse said there was no change.”
Timmy’s head appeared above the back of the couch. Owen rubbed his eyes as he shifted to his knees to face her. Eric slid to his feet.
“The nurse was wrong,” Will said.
“What happened?”
“Are the boys okay?”
“They’re fine.”
“I heard the dog bark. Are they still asleep?”
Owen came over to stand in front of her, his expression solemn as he studied her face. Eric joined them next and slipped his fingers into her free hand. Timmy hugged her leg. He didn’t appear to notice when Toto trotted off with his rabbit.
“They’re all standing right here with me, Will,” Amelia said. “Sorry that I couldn’t keep them in bed.”
“No, that’s great. I’m glad they’re up. Their mom’ll want to talk to them.”
“Jenny’s awake? Is she okay?”
“She woke up ten minutes ago, more gorgeous than ever and hungrier than our daughter.”
For what felt like the hundredth time in the past day, her eyes filled, but this time it was with happy tears. She knelt on the floor, taking the phone away from her ear momentarily so she could put her arms around her nephews. “Oh, Will. That’s wonderful!”
“The doctor wants to keep her here for a while, but she—” He paused. Jenny’s voice sounded in the background. He laughed. “She told me to stop yakking and give her the phone, but I want to be the one to tell you.”
“What?”
“We’re naming the baby Hope.”
* * *
HANK SHOVED HIS hands in his pockets and turned to regard his father’s car lot. The rising sun glinted red on the streams of soapy water snaking over the pavement toward the sidewalk. Although it would be another three hours before the place opened for business, the student Basil had hired for the summer was hard at work, washing the inventory. Hank had held the same job for a few weeks when he was sixteen. He’d liked working outside, and he’d never minded the early mornings or how wet he’d get from the spray of the high-pressure hose. He’d done his best to polish each vehicle to a mirror shine, but as usual, his performance hadn’t met his father’s standards. And as usual, rather than finding a solution to a difficult situation, Hank had quit.
He had the urge to turn around now, too. After he’d walked home from the Goodfellows’ place, he’d been up most of the night, wrestling with his thoughts. He was tired. He wasn’t in the best of moods. Acknowledging his own responsibility for his breakup with Amelia all those years ago had been tough, so this likely wasn’t the ideal time to address another topic that he’d left simmering for decades. Yes, if he tried, he could come up with dozens of logical reasons to delay this confrontation. Before he could, though, he walked to the door at the side of the showroom that he knew would be unlocked and headed for his father’s glassed-in office.
Despite the early hour, Basil was already at his desk. His head was bent toward his computer screen as he clicked two-fingered at the keyboard. A pale gray suit jacket hung from a padded hanger that was hooked on the coat tree behind him. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows, and wire-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose, sure signs that he hadn’t expected company. He looked up, startled, when Hank rapped on the open door.
“Hello, Dad.”
“Hank! What are you doing here?”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
Basil glanced back at the computer screen. “As you can see, I’m rather busy at the moment.”
Hank stepped into the office and closed the door firmly behind him. “You don’t open for three hours. Aside from the kid out on the lot, there’s no one else here. You can spare me a few minutes.”
Basil hit several more keys, then took off his glasses and smoothed his sleeves to his wrists to fasten the cuffs. He rocked back in his chair, a new, ergonomically designed, imported leather one that had probably cost more than all of Hank’s office furniture combined. He studied his son. “You look terrible.”
“I suppose I do.”
“What’s wrong?”
“That’s a very good question. It’s exactly why I’m here, to figure out what’s wrong.”
“Do you need a loan? You told me you had a promising new case. Didn’t it work out?”
“This isn’t about my business, Dad. This is about the two of us.”
“I don’t understand.”
Hank dragged one of the extra chairs around the desk to Basil’s side and sat so that they were face-to-face. He studied his father’s wary expression, searching for the best way to begin.... No, it would be better simply to jump in rather than overanalyzing this, too. “It wasn’t all right when you pulled out of that father-son golf tournament the other weekend. I made out like I didn’t care, but I did.”
“All right then, if it was that important, we can play a few rounds next month once I get some free time.”
“I don’t want to play golf, Dad. That’s not the point. The truth is, I hate golf. I’d rather go fishing.”
“Fishing?”
“We used to go all the time, remember? Getting up early, drifting around on the lak
e, talking about whatever crossed our minds. That was great. It was fun. But it all changed after Mom died. Why?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It wasn’t just the fishing trips, it was everything. You didn’t have time for me anymore. We didn’t take vacations, we didn’t talk, we hardly ever saw each other.”
“It isn’t like you to whine, Hank. You’re grown up enough now to realize I was trying to make a living, aren’t you? A car dealership doesn’t run itself. I had to concentrate on my business to be successful.”
“Yes, I understand now, but I was seven years old when she died. I missed her.”
“We both did.”
“And that was why you were always here, wasn’t it?” Hank asked, although he didn’t really need an answer. He’d already figured out this part. He gestured toward the glass wall that separated the office from the showroom. “You closed yourself off from the hurt and threw yourself into your work.”
“It was difficult to be a single parent.”
“I get that, but try seeing the situation from my point of view. When Mom died and you buried yourself in your work, I felt as if I had lost both my parents.”
Basil flinched. “I did the best I could. You never complained before.”
“That’s true. And that’s my fault. Things could have been different if I’d told you how I’d felt, but I learned not to. I didn’t want to give you something else to criticize about me.”
“Criticize?”
“You’ve made it perfectly clear that I’ve been a disappointment to you because I don’t share your interest in making money, and I don’t devote myself to my career. I realize it must be hard for you to accept the fact I’ll never be as successful as you or your friends or the sons of your friends, but it might be nice if now and then you could swallow your aggravation with me long enough to have a conversation that doesn’t have to be scheduled into our day planners.”
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