by Susan Fox
He went into the office to lock up the keys for the truck Hank had let him borrow. A phone sat on top of the counter. Mo stared at it, thinking Maribeth.
That was ridiculous. He wasn’t a guy who had people in his life to phone at nine o’clock on a night when a bunch of confusing stuff was going on. Mind you, last night he had asked Maribeth for assistance, and she’d offered exactly what he’d requested. She’d given him perspective and wisdom, and then spoken to Brooke on his behalf.
He could sure use some more perspective and wisdom. Not to mention a big mug of hot chocolate. Most especially not to mention big, expressive green eyes and a face and body that were pure pleasure to look at.
Okay, so that was what he’d like. But how about her? The woman had better things to do with her time than listen to him blather. Though when she’d phoned him at Hank’s around noon to tell him that Brooke had agreed to see him, she had said that she hoped things went well. Maybe she’d be curious.
Hell, if he phoned, she could always tell him she was busy.
Would it be stalkerish to look up her phone number in the customer file? Yeah, maybe. Instead, he trusted his fate to the Caribou Crossing Phone Directory that resided on a shelf in the office. Sure enough, she was listed.
Feeling more awkward than he had in a long time, he dialed her number and listened to the phone ring. When she said hello, he said, “Maribeth? It’s Mo Kincaid. I, uh, looked your number up in the phone book.”
“Mo?” She didn’t sound pissed off, and that was something. “Are you back from Brooke’s? How did it go?” In fact, she did sound curious, and almost . . . caring.
“It went okay.” He paused. “I wondered if maybe I could come by and tell you about it.” Quickly, he added, “Though you’re probably busy.”
“I was just, um, doing some research on the computer. It can wait. Sure, come on over.”
“I could pick something up. Bottle of wine?” He had no problem being around people who were drinking.
“Thanks, but don’t bother.”
“Okay. I’m at the garage. I’ll walk over now.”
“See you soon.”
Walking was good. Mo’d always been a physical guy, and he tended to walk a lot of miles every day. Tonight, striding along the drizzly, almost-deserted streets got his blood flowing. Not wanting to show up empty-handed, he stopped at a corner store that was still open and picked up a bunch of brightly colored flowers that reminded him of Maribeth.
Yesterday, she’d taken him into her house through the garage. Tonight, he went up the front walk, thinking how appealing her house looked with light glowing out an uncurtained front window and smoke rising from the chimney. It wasn’t just a house, it was a home, and again it struck him as strange that Maribeth didn’t have a husband and two or three kids sharing it with her.
On the porch, he shook like a dog, trying to rid his hair and jacket of some of the dampness before ringing the bell.
The door opened and Maribeth stood there like a vision of . . . well, of something he didn’t even recognize. Something warm and welcoming, like maybe the home that as a boy he used to dream about. A home that his ever-bickering, ever-demanding parents sure hadn’t provided.
Maribeth’s red hair gleamed, a coral zip-front top hugged her generous breasts, and gray leggings showcased her curvy hips and shapely legs. Sliding his gaze down all this perfection, he reached her feet and had to grin. The sexy, stylish woman wore fluffy slippers with puppy-dog faces. “Nice slippers,” he commented.
She stepped back, ushering him inside. “I love them. I wore them as a kid, and one of my old, good friends gives me a new pair every Christmas.”
“What do you give her?”
“Pajamas with moo-cows.”
He laughed, feeling almost lighthearted for the first time in forever. Optimism filled him in a tingly surge. Things with Brooke had gone as well as he could reasonably have wished. He and his ex had a long way to go—and she’d yet to agree to see him again, much less tell him she thought it was okay to contact Evan—but he was hopeful. And now here he was with one of the most attractive women he’d ever seen, who was ushering him into her home with a big smile and a pair of puppy-dog slippers.
“You’re all wet,” she commented. “Honestly, I don’t know what men have against umbrellas.”
“They’re not manly. We guys have to be macho,” he joked as he put down the flowers and peeled off his wet jacket.
“Pfft.” She rolled her eyes and took the jacket from him gingerly. “Look up macho in a thesaurus. The synonym’s ‘stupid.’”
“I believe you.”
Taking a hanger from the hall closet, she put his jacket on it and hung the hanger on the doorknob, not in the closet where it would get her clothes wet. “Come on in and get warm.”
He picked up the flowers and handed them to her. “These are for you.”
“I kind of figured.” She took them. “They’re beautiful, but . . .” She tilted her head to look up at him. “Flowers seem kind of like a ‘date’ thing, and you don’t date, right?”
If he were going to date, she was the woman he’d want to go out with. He was in a new place, maybe building a new life. Why shouldn’t he have more than a one-nighter? Why shouldn’t he actually date a woman if he wanted to? If she wanted to, knowing that he wasn’t a guy who believed in long-term commitment? “I might be reconsidering that,” he said, letting a little of the old Mo show in his eyes and his slow smile.
Her face lit, warming until those green eyes danced. “I might be in favor of you reconsidering that.”
She walked off with the flowers and he followed her to the kitchen. She opened a big, pantry-type cupboard, went in, and emerged with a ceramic vase. Deftly, she arranged the flowers in it. “Thank you for these. Now, what can I get you to drink?”
“I wouldn’t turn down more hot chocolate, if you felt like making it. Seems to suit the night.”
As she took out the ingredients, he studied the photos on the fridge. She sure was one active, popular woman. Glancing at a picture of a man and woman with a pony-haired girl and a big black poodle, he commented idly, “That singing dog’s still hanging around.”
“Caruso?” She glanced over her shoulder. “Hanging around where?”
“The garage. Since he seemed determined to stay, I put a wooden box outside in a sheltered spot, with some rags in it to keep him warm.”
“You’re a soft touch.”
“Tell me you’d have done any different.”
“Nope. But then I don’t pretend to be macho.”
Damn, but the woman made him smile. “Just hope the stupid dog doesn’t get me fired. Can’t imagine Hank’s going to be too happy about having some stray hanging around the shop.”
“Tell him Caruso will be good for business. He can sing to the customers.”
She poured hot chocolate into two big mugs and held up a bag of fluffy marshmallows. “Want one?”
“Please.”
She popped a marshmallow onto the top of each drink and picked up the vase. “Come on into the sitting room. I have a fire going.”
Carrying both mugs, he followed her to a room at the front of the house, with a sofa, love seat, recliner chair, and a bunch of bookcases full of books and knickknacks. The base colors were neutral—pale gold walls and oak furniture—but there were lots of vivid accents: pillows and rugs, a multicolored blanket over the back of a chair, lush green plants. On the walls, framed color photographs looked like they’d been taken in Greece, Italy, maybe Spain, for all that he knew anything about Europe. They were a contrast to the music that was playing: Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
The fireplace was a big old brick one, but a black insert had been added, and the burning wood generated real heat. A framed photo on the mantel showed an attractive young couple with a redheaded girl maybe two or three years old, all of them sprawled on the floor beside a decorated Christmas tree and surrounded by gifts and wrapping paper.
A portion of that very same mantel showed in a top corner of the photo.
“Nice room,” Mo commented, sitting on the sofa and putting the mugs on coasters on the coffee table. She’d put the vase down there, beside a closed laptop computer. “You take those pictures on the wall?”
“Yes. Every two or three years, I go for a holiday someplace special.”
“You must be doing well with that thrift shop to afford a nice house like this and take fancy holidays.” Then he said, “Sorry. I’m not so good with the social graces. Guess that wasn’t the most polite thing to say.”
“It’s okay.” She pulled up the chair so it was across the coffee table from where he sat and then took off her slippers. Before she tucked her bare feet up under her, he caught a glimpse of sexy red toenails, painted to match her fingernails.
Cradling her own mug in both hands, she said, “Actually, I don’t take much money for myself from Days of Your. I have enough money to get by nicely, thanks to my folks. Dad was a civil engineer and Mom was a dentist, and they were both great with money management and financial planning. Sadly, they died when I was nineteen. I’m an only child and I inherited everything.”
She sighed and glanced at the family photo on the mantel. “Of course, I’d rather have them still alive, living in this house, with me coming over for Sunday dinner every week.” Her tone was utterly sincere.
“I can tell they were good people.”
“Oh? How?”
“Because of you. I mean, because you’re a good person.” Unlike him, who’d never been very nice. Nor had his parents, who’d cared more about appearances than about his or his sister’s happiness.
“That’s a sweet thing to say, Mo.”
He shrugged.
“So, tell me,” she said. “You saw Brooke.”
“Hank loaned me the truck and I drove out to her place.” He closed his eyes, remembering. “It was weird, walking through the gate in the white picket fence and up the walk to the front door of that immaculate little house in the country. Wondering what to expect. How she’d look. How she’d act. But it was a man who opened the door. Her husband, Jake.” Humor twitched his mouth. “In his RCMP uniform.”
“Oh, my. Was he on duty, or just being unsubtle?”
“The latter.” He opened his eyes and grinned. “Can’t say I blame the guy. He was looking out for his wife. I respect that. Anyhow, we introduced ourselves, he did some glaring and said he wasn’t so sure this was a good idea, but it was what Brooke wanted. I pretty much kept quiet. Then he said he’d leave us alone, but he’d be in the back of the house with their little girl.” It was still hard to believe that Brooke, who’d had Evan when she was in high school, had given birth to a second child when she was forty-three.
“And then you saw Brooke. Doesn’t she look fantastic?”
“Oh, man. Yeah, she sure does. She was one pretty girl, and now she’s a really lovely woman.”
* * *
Brooke Brannon was a lovely woman. It was crazy for Maribeth to feel a pang of jealousy when Mo commented on it. Holding on to her half-full mug with one hand, she uncurled her legs from underneath her and shifted to curl them up the other way.
Mo’s gaze didn’t follow her movement. He had picked up his mug and was staring into it, like he saw something in there other than a marshmallow melting on top of hot chocolate. “One thing I could see,” he said slowly, “was that even though she was tense about seeing me again, she was happy. I mean she’s happy with her life.” He glanced up, at Maribeth. “That’s the first time I’ve seen her like that.” A sense of wonder gave a softness to his rough-edged voice.
“Seriously?”
He nodded. “When we first started to date, she was, you know, excited. Happy in that keyed-up kind of way. She was dating this older guy, making her girlfriends jealous.”
Maribeth held back a grin. Mo would always be the kind of guy who drew female attention.
“Then she got pregnant and we got married. And again, she was excited, like suddenly she was a grown-up. But then she had the baby, and he was”—he shook his head—“I guess Evan wasn’t what she expected. She’d played with dolls not all that many years before. But a real baby, one who cried all the time and pooped just after you changed his diaper, well, that wasn’t so much fun.”
“And she was so young. Barely more than a child herself.”
“And I was no help. I was pissed off about suddenly being tied down, and I pretty much ignored the fact that I was a husband and father. I had too high an opinion of myself, but when it came to acting like an adult, taking on responsibility, I couldn’t cut it. I hung out with my old friends, cheated on Brooke, avoided looking after Evan.” He shrugged. “Like I said, I was a shit. And that kid, man, he was one unhappy, demanding baby. Maybe he knew he was a mistake.”
“Poor Evan.”
“I know.” His jaw tightened. “That’s something Brooke and I admitted tonight. We made no bones about letting that poor kid know that he’d ruined our lives. He shaped up real quick: being quiet, trying to please us. Doing well in school, once he reached that age. But Brooke and I were both so immature and miserable, we took our unhappiness out on him as well as on each other.”
Maribeth stared at him. “I don’t know what to say. It seems so inconceivable to me when parents don’t love their children.”
He sighed. “I think we both did, in some place in our hearts, but instead of showing it, we screwed him over. Brooke told me tonight that she’d never stopped loving Evan.” He met her gaze. “She told me other stuff, too. Not just her alcoholism, but that she has bipolar disorder. She said you know about that. She appreciated that you didn’t tell me.”
Maribeth nodded.
“See, she had excuses,” Mo said. “Excuses for being a crappy mother and, as she said herself tonight, a crappy wife.” He leaned forward to put his mug on the coffee table. “I didn’t.”
“Living with a wife who was bipolar and alcoholic couldn’t have been easy. Nor was having your own life turn out so differently from what you’d expected.”
The shadow of a smile played around his mouth, drawing her attention to the sensuality of his lips. “Aw, you’re being nice. Like I said, you’re a nice woman, Maribeth. But the truth is, I had no expectations about what my life would turn out like. I’d already dropped out of high school by the time I met Brooke. Did some drugs, shoplifted, even stole a couple cars and was lucky enough not to get caught. If there hadn’t been Brooke and Evan, I’d have found some other path that I’d surely have messed up. I was a loser. There’s no two ways about it.”
“What were your parents like?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Blame it on the parents? Nah, that’s not gonna wash. Look at Evan. Two shitty parents, and he turned out successful and well-balanced.”
“I’m not talking about blame. There’s no point to blame. I just wondered what it was like for you, growing up.”
He leaned back and rotated his neck as if he was trying to loosen tight, achy muscles. “We lived in Los Angeles. My dad was an Irish-American kid from a family of cops who broke family tradition and became a baker instead. Amma’s—that’s Hindi for mom—anyhow, her parents had come from India when she was in her teens. Her dad was a microbiologist who got a job with a company in L.A. They expected her to go along with an arranged marriage with a man back in India. Instead, my parents met, fell in love, and got married. Both their families were mad at them and pretty much disowned them.”
“That’s harsh.”
“Yeah, but their parents were right that they weren’t a good match. Oil and water. Or more like corned beef and cabbage versus saag paneer.” He added, “That’s a vegetarian dish, spinach and cheese.”
“I know. I’ve had it.”
“Anyhow, there was lots of squabbling. They were both very demanding of me and my sister, but what they demanded never matched up. Dad wanted to raise us Catholic; Amma wanted us to be Hindu. Dad wanted me to be a baker; Amma wante
d me to get a professional degree.”
“That must have been horrible for you and your sister.” And so different from the way Maribeth had been raised, with parents who respected and truly communicated with each other and with her.
“My sister Kaitlin,” he went on, “who’s four years older than me, was a good girl who walked the fence between our parents, trying to make both of them happy. Me, I wasn’t going to twist myself out of shape like that. They didn’t want to see who I really was and they didn’t care what I wanted. So why should I care what they thought? I rebelled and went my own way.” He shook his head. “How did I get onto this? I was gonna tell you about Brooke.”
“We did kind of get off track,” she agreed. Still, she’d found this glimpse into his past fascinating.
Mo rested his hands on his jean-clad thighs. “First thing Brooke did, which blew me away, was apologize. So then”—the humor was back, around his mouth and eyes—“we kind of had this competition over who could apologize the most.”
“I guess that’s better than railing at each other.”
“Yeah, for sure. There was a point where she started to laugh. It caught me off guard, but then I saw that she was right, we were being ridiculous. So I laughed, too.”
“That sounds good. You cleared the air between you?”
“We made a start. An awkward one. I asked if we could talk some more and she said she wanted to, but she needed a little time. She didn’t just, you know, listen to my apology and then tell me to get out of her life. So that’s good.”
“It is.” Maribeth hoped Brooke and Mo could find a resolution that was comfortable for both of them. But there was a third party to consider. “What about Evan?”
He sighed. “Brooke said she needs to think about that. Whether it’d be good for him to see me or not.”
If it was good for Brooke, why wouldn’t it be good for Evan? Maribeth frowned slightly. “It’s not up to her to decide,” she said gently, feeling a tug of disloyalty to Brooke. But Evan and Mo had rights, too. As far as Maribeth could tell, Mo had been doing penance for years and years—far longer than if he’d actually been convicted of an offense and sent to jail. He had earned a second chance. And Evan had a right to hear his father’s apology and learn what kind of man he’d become. “Evan’s an adult,” she pointed out.