The same little girl he’d once blamed, along with her father and the rest of the world, for everything he’d lost. The one now moving in with him with two children in tow. Because she needed to, and he couldn’t say no to her if he tried.
“I came to say I’m sorry,” Joshua said to the floor. “Things were so messed up, and we both were drowning…making the same mistakes. Beating away at each other didn’t fix things, but maybe it was easier…. I don’t know. But whatever the excuse, I knew better, and I shouldn’t have let it happen. I shouldn’t have let you—”
“Let me!” Because the room had begun to tilt, because his head had chosen that moment to begin a new rumba, he dropped into the club chair beside the fireplace. Being dizzy and having a tantrum didn’t mix. “Let me what? Walk away from the community you still hold such stock in? Some community, when they still go out of their way to make someone as amazing as your daughter feel unwelcome, just because she sees the world differently. Don’t think I don’t hear the talk. I know what people are saying. What you don’t stop them from saying. And now they’re turning on her for helping a messed-up teenager.”
Joshua was nodding, but to what exactly was anyone’s guess.
“I let you think I didn’t care what you were going through,” he finally said, emotion roughing up his voice the way it had years ago when he’d dug into one of his better sermons. “Just like I let Jennifer think I didn’t want to understand. That I didn’t want to make it better somehow. Regardless of what I thought was right or wrong, I owed you both better than that, and I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
Sorry was the last word Nathan had expected to hear from anyone in this town. Coming from the last person he’d ever expected to hear from again, period.
“You gonna help that girl of yours?” he demanded.
“As much as she’ll let me.” Joshua was looking sorrier by the second. “As long as I’m in a position to do her some good.”
“Didn’t sound like things went too good at the church yesterday.”
“No.” Joshua shot him a rueful smile. “People are talking a lot more than they’re listening. I’m not sure I’m doing much good as their pastor right now. You know how that goes.”
And Nathan did.
It was odd how easy it was now to remember what the church and the community were like. Since this man’s daughter had barged back into his life, most of the memories weren’t so bad anymore.
“Well, who said pastors were supposed to be perfect?” he demanded. “You do right by your child, and that’s the best anyone can expect from you.”
Joshua nodded. Neither one of them were going to win father of the century.
“Thank you,” Joshua said. “For helping Jenn when I couldn’t.”
“She’s done more than that for me.” Nathan shrugged off the compliment and a rush of pride at earning his friend’s gratitude.
What did he have to be proud of?
“Who would have thought the two of us would end up in exactly the same place,” he said, putting words to the hateful reality of just how many mistakes they had in common. “Me, an alcoholic bum looking for every chance I can get to make the end come a little quicker. And you, a by-the-book preacher who played by the rules and expected that to save him. Meanwhile we both managed to lose our kids.”
It was Nathan’s old friend who looked up from the floor then. Not Pastor Gardner, but the good man who’d once shared every secret Nathan had.
“I just pray it’s not too late to get them back,” Joshua said. “I’d give anything to make things work here for Jenn this time.”
“And I’d give anything to make Neal leave,” Nathan replied, needing his friend in that moment. Needing to say it to someone. “Before he finds out just how much I want him to stay.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE BANGING WOKE NEAL out of a deep sleep. Deeper sleep than he’d ever remembered having. So deep, for a minute he had no idea where he was. Just the vague longing to make the noise stop so he could go on sleeping.
The next crash had other ideas.
He jerked awake to find himself sitting in his childhood bed, in a room overflowing with memories his father had held on to, the sheet twisted around his naked body. Sleeping naked was another post-prison luxury, one that came along with privacy and closed doors that people couldn’t see through.
A louder crash had him reaching for his jeans, thoughts of Jeremy Compton’s angry face and threats from last night propelling him out of the room and down the stairs. The ruckus was definitely coming from out back. Jenn and her daughter and Traci had moved in that afternoon, and he’d be damned if he’d let Jeremy keep making trouble for them.
He’d almost reached the kitchen door to the backyard when a shadow by the sink moved. Turning, he found himself face-to-face with the amazing sight of Jennifer Gardner in her nightshirt, standing in the puddle of moonlight streaming through the window.
And then it was as if he were still dreaming. As if walking toward her, taking her hand and laying it on his bare chest, over his heart, was the answer to eight years of feeling nothing. Just this once, just in this dream, he wouldn’t be alone anymore. In this moment, he could feel again, and the emotions wouldn’t destroy him.
There were tears in her eyes. He kissed them away, but more followed. Tears that broke his heart.
“Don’t be afraid, Jennifer,” he said. In his dreams, he could call her Jennifer. “Let me make you happy. We don’t have to be alone anymore.”
She shook her head.
“It’s too late,” she whispered. “It’s—”
His mouth covered the words that would break the spell, wanting this dream to be about what they both needed, rather than what they wouldn’t let themselves have.
Her hands came up to cup his face as his covered her breasts. Her soft moan, the fingers now tugging at his hair, tugging his mouth closer as their tongues began to dance, shot him to the edge of release—from just kissing her. And because it was a dream, he didn’t make himself stop. He pushed her against the counter instead. Let his hand roam down her side to her hip, and then around to the sweet feel of her bottom. Sweetness he’d once kissed every inch of and thought he’d have forever to memorize.
An enormous crash and the sound of glass breaking jerked them apart. Jenn strained against the counter beside the sink, the moon still shrouding her in dreamlike mystery, while he stumbled away until he bumped against the refrigerator, reality returning with a rush.
She still needed him; there was no way she could deny it now. But her wrecked expression said it all. There was also no way she could let herself have what the last few minutes promised.
It’s too late.
She needed to be free of the past too badly. And as he’d promised himself earlier, he couldn’t do anything but give her what she needed. He owed her at least that.
Crash!
He stalked toward the back door, sexual frustration and regret fueling the need to stomp Jeremy Compton into the ground.
“Neal, no!” Jenn grabbed his arm. “It… It’s Nathan. He’s in the garage.”
Her tears were back, this time for his father, whom she was strong enough to help even though it meant watching the man die. Compassion and strength. Amazing gifts in anyone, but especially someone who’d been through all she had. He’d shut down completely. He’d run from feeling anything. But her ability to love and protect had grown even stronger—even if she was caring for everyone but herself.
“Go back to bed,” he said, brushing a chaste kiss across the lips he wanted to still be devouring. “I’ll take care of him.”
And when he stepped into the yard and headed toward the clanging mess his father was making in the garage they’d once worked side by side in, he knew this time there’d be no running. This time, because it was important to Jenn—and because of her, important to him now, too—he and his…dad…were going to face each other and the past they’d both been running from for too long.
&
nbsp; NATHAN LIFTED the wooden mallet and took another swing at the vintage car he’d wasted years restoring. So many years of waiting, of not giving up hope that one day Neal would walk through the door, pick up a wrench and start helping him. Give the boy time, he’d reasoned. One day, Neal would be there and want this hunk of junk as much as he did. Want to fight for their relationship, even though Nathan didn’t deserve that kind of loyalty from the son he’d adandoned.
Wham! He broke through the passenger window he’d custom ordered from some body shop in Macon. Wham! He kept beating away at it, the way he should have two years ago when he’d finally finished the thing and Neal still hadn’t come back. When it had become clear he was never coming. That Nathan had gotten what he’d said he’d wanted. He was totally alone.
Wham! Only the boy was here now. Wham! Now that there was no time for anything but goodbye.
Why the hell had he kept this damn thing? That was the question. Polishing it. Hiding it away. Keeping it in top running condition while everything else in his world rotted away.
“Dad,” a quiet voice said from the door. “Dad? Are you all right?”
Nathan wielded the mallet at his boy.
Was he all right?
“What are you doing?” Neal asked, wincing as he surveyed the destruction Nathan had achieved in the last half hour.
Just about anyone else could have accomplished more. But his throbbing head made every slam against the car excruciating—exactly the way he’d wanted it.
“I’m settling my estate,” he quipped, the mallet breaking off the rearview mirror this time, the momentum of the swing pitching him sideways. The tool slipped from his hand. He braced himself against his worktable—a table filled with tools he’d never use again. “Downsizing. Getting rid of crap so I don’t have to deal with it anymore. So no one else has to deal with it later.”
“I can’t believe you finished this car.” His son ran a reverent hand over the paint job Nathan had left several not-big-enough-to-be-satisfying dents in.
Letting the worktable take more of his weight so he could catch his breath, Nathan snorted. “Neither can I.”
“I never thought I’d see this place again.” The man his boy had become looked around him, memories of countless hours they’d tinkered out here together playing across his face.
“Neither did I,” Nathan responded carefully.
“If…” Neal took a step closer. “If I’d known you needed help…I’d have come back sooner…. I’ve been working on my own hunk of scrap for three years now.”
Nathan nodded.
I’d have come back sooner.
“Yeah, I saw your ride in the driveway. Looks like you’ve done a fine job with it.”
The kind of job any father would be proud of.
“I never forgot about this one, though.” His boy stooped and glanced inside at the vintage leather seats Nathan had bought off the Internet, from a junk dealer in Alaska, of all places. He straightened back up. “I…I just thought it was better that I stayed put in Atlanta. I thought you were doing fine on your own, so…”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” Nathan reached down for the mallet. The floor was suddenly rushing toward him.
Neal caught his arm and helped him back to the workbench.
“Well, I do want to talk about it,” his boy said. “If we don’t talk about it now, then when?”
“How about never!” Nathan managed to grab the mallet. Pushing to his feet, he took aim for the right front quarter panel. “Sometimes it’s just too late. Some things can’t be saved.”
Neal stopped his swing with ridiculously little effort and took the mallet away.
“You can beat away at this thing all you want, Dad, but it’s not going to disappear. And neither am I. I know you don’t want me here—”
“Don’t want you here!” Nathan jerked away from his grasp, then shoved his son back several feet. “I want this damn car. I want you. I want it all so badly I can’t stand to look at either one of you anymore!”
“Dad—”
“Damn it, get out!” He shoved again, only this time the kid was ready and he didn’t move an inch. “Get out! Take your car and the life you’ve built. You deserve to be happy. I don’t want you here watching…”
“Watching you die?”
Nathan turned and swept every tool off the workbench.
“Do you have any idea,” he rasped, “what it’s like to look at what you’d give anything to keep? Only it’s all slipping away right before your eyes, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it? Don’t you see? If you’re not here…”
The silence between them went on so long, Nathan finally turned back to his son.
“If I’m not here, then there’s nothing to lose?” his boy asked.
“Yeah,” was all Nathan could manage.
Neal nodded, staring down at the mallet he’d confiscated. “Prison was like that. As long as I had nothing, no one, it was okay. But remembering…seeing you every month when you came to visit. It was like dying every time you left. Being trapped in something like that can make a man want to destroy what he cares the most about.”
The understanding in his boy’s words, the perfect picture he’d painted of the ugliness raging through Nathan, reached out like a benediction. A bridge to the kind of understanding that shouldn’t be possible between them. Not after all this time.
“Yeah,” Nathan agreed again, finding a monkey wrench and testing its weight in his hand. “Like maybe destroying it will make you stop wanting it so much.”
He took a swing at the back fender. The impact shot pain through his skull at the same time that the wrench dented the lovingly hand-buffed chrome.
“It doesn’t work, you know,” his son said between his teeth as he wielded the mallet against the windshield, shattering it and sending shards of vintage glass everywhere. “Making what you want the most go away… In the long run, it only ends up making you want it even more.”
“Then I guess it’s my lucky day.” Nathan took aim at the roof, grinning at his boy as he did. “’Cause I ain’t got no long run to worry about anymore.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“MOMMY, ARE NATHAN and Neal making up?” Mandy asked Jenn while they took out garbage.
Traci had tried to make her first lasagna tonight, with questionable results. Which meant there were more scraps in the trash than there were leftovers in the fridge.
“They’re trying, honey.” Father and son had finally talked. They’d destroyed half the garage and Nathan’s remodeled car, but in the days since, there had been a lessening of tension between them, giving Jenn hope that their relationship was mending.
Neal had made a point of avoiding her since that night. Since their heartbreaking kiss in the kitchen. He worked over the phone or on his laptop, picked odd jobs around the house that he could do by himself or was off running for hours on end. Often running late at night because it seemed he wasn’t having any easier time sleeping than she was. He kept busy and kept out of her way. Exactly what she’d needed him to do.
He and Nathan were together inside, playing a quiet game of Monopoly while Nathan’s favorite Miles Davis album filled the den with jazz. The old man still glared at Neal every few minutes, as if he hated his son for being exactly where he needed him. They bickered over nonsense, what little they did speak. But Nathan was no longer telling Neal to leave. She’d even seen him smile at his son’s back more than once as Neal walked away. She’d seen light begin to shine in those old, dark eyes again.
Maybe they’d said everything they needed to the other night. Or maybe they’d agreed to avoid what needed to be said most of all. Either way, Nathan was being cared for—knew he was cared for—and that’s what mattered. Things were going so well in fact, if it weren’t for Traci still needing someplace to crash, Jenn would have quietly slipped away days ago.
From both the Cain men.
“So Neal came home to help his daddy?” Mandy asked. “The way
you did Grandpa?”
“Sort of.”
Mandy hadn’t wanted to move away from her Grandpa’s—a fact that had both charmed and alarmed Jenn’s father the morning he’d helped them pack to come here. Then Jenn had explained that Mr. Cain was still sick and needed a lot of help. After that, her little trouper had signed on, ready to do her part.
Ready to help her friend.
She threw both her and Mandy’s trash bags into the container at the curb. “Honey, you know how Grandpa’s getting better now?”
“Yeah, he was grumpy, too, when we first moved in. But the better he got the nicer he got.” The world’s most beautiful smile told Jenn just how much this child had fallen in love with the grandfather she would never have known if they hadn’t moved home to Rivermist. “That’s why I don’t mind Grandpa Nathan’s grumpy face so much. I know it’ll get better, just like my real grandpa’s did. I know he likes me, anyway.”
“Of course he likes you.” It had taken the child’s little finger less time to snag Nathan than it had Jenn’s dad. “But, honey, not everyone gets better like Grandpa. Sometimes the people we help get worse, no matter what we do.”
“Is Mr. Cain getting worse?” Mandy’s forehead wrinkled with worry. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to stop helping, does it?”
“No, we’re not going to stop helping.” Jenn knelt until they were eye-to-eye. “We’re going to stay for as long as Traci and Mr. Cain need us to. As long as that’s okay with you. Grandpa’s offered to let you stay with him while I’m here with Traci, if you want to go back.”
“But I want to stay,” Mandy insisted. “You get to help people all the time. It’s my turn.”
Jenn pulled her daughter into her arms. Held tight to the new beginning Mandy had found in Rivermist. A grandfather she hadn’t known before. New friends, and a growing desire to help other people, either through activities at her grandfather’s church or living with a grumpy old man, she didn’t seem to care which.
This was what Jenn had longed for when she’d decided to give this home of her childhood a chance to be more than somewhere she dreaded. She cuddled her child’s sweet-smelling body close, her miracle second chance that rivaled anything she could have dreamed of when she’d left. Even when Nathan and Traci no longer needed her, even when she had to leave this house and Neal behind, she’d have Mandy’s new beginning to hold on to.
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