Always a Hero

by Justine Davis

  “Except she was pregnant,” she couldn’t help pointing out.

  “I never knew. I didn’t find out about Jordan until…she was dying. By then I wasn’t where I used to be, when she knew me. So she hired a private investigator to find me.”

  So she’d only contacted him when she’d had no other choice. Over a dozen years later. “Did you ever wonder?”

  He shifted then, as if uncomfortable. She was a little—no, more than a little—surprised that he was answering her at all.

  “Not much,” he said, in the tone of an admission. “And not at all after a few weeks had passed. I figured she’d let me know if…”

  “She knew where to find you, at first?”

  “She could have reached me, yes.”

  “All right.”

  “Just like that? ‘All right’?”

  She shrugged. “If she could have reached you to tell you, it was obviously her choice.”

  She looked up as Malmsteen sounded again. Enough, she thought. Snow Patrol next week.

  It was Craig Wilson, who waved and headed immediately for the bin of CDs.

  “So about those rules,” she said.

  Jordy’s father had glanced over as well, but when it was clear they weren’t about to be intruded on, he turned back.

  “So that’s it? No recriminations for not contacting her and asking?”

  “Wow,” she said. “Who chewed on you? I’m assuming she was a responsible adult with phone capabilities.”

  His mouth quirked yet again. “Guess I haven’t quite adjusted to the idea that I had a kid all those years I never knew about. Not that I know what I would have done if I had known.”

  “The right thing.”

  He blinked, clearly startled. “How do you know?”

  She gestured toward the room where Jordy was no doubt deep into practicing. “You’re doing it now. That tells me you probably would have done it then.”

  He looked, in a word, dumbstruck. And she wondered if no one had ever acknowledged that that was what he was doing.

  And then it hit her. How many people even knew what the real circumstances were? That he hadn’t even known Jordy existed until the boy’s mother had no other choice? Marilyn, who she had quickly learned was the root of the very active Deer Creek grapevine, had simply referred to him as a widower with a son.

  And she wondered if he wanted it that way, because it was easier, requiring no explanation.

  Or maybe because it was easier on Jordy.

  For the first time since she’d met the unhappy boy, she found herself willing to give his father at least that much credit.

  “May I ask one more question?”

  He gave her a sideways look that spoke volumes, pointing out without a word that she hadn’t once asked for permission so far.

  And yet, for the most part, he’d answered her, without much equivocation or even hesitation. She wondered if this might be the question that broke the string.

  “When did you and Jordy’s mom get married?”

  He went very still. At the same time, that intensity she’d always felt from him heightened as he shifted to stare directly at her. Finally, just when she thought he wouldn’t, he answered. And it was an answer that explained a great deal.

  “Three hours before she died.”

  Chapter 8

  When Mr. Wilson approached the counter, a CD in his hand, Wyatt was glad of the interruption. He backed up a step, indicating with a nod that the older man should go ahead.

  He couldn’t believe he’d told her that. But then, he couldn’t believe a lot of what he’d told her. His desperation for help must run deeper than he’d realized. He didn’t want to lose this fight, and a fight it was, for Jordy—Jordan, he corrected; he had to stop himself from using Jordy in his thoughts or he might slip up and use it aloud, and his son had made it quite clear he didn’t like it. Except, apparently, from this woman.

  “I’ve been thinking about ordering this,” Mr. Wilson said, clearly pleased, “and here you had already gotten it in.”

  “Just for you,” Kai said, smiling at the gray-haired man with the dapper goatee. “We share more tastes than just Segovia.”

  “Darlin’,” Mr. Wilson said with an exaggerated drawl, “if I were thirty years younger, I’d be asking you to come listen with me.”

  “If you were ten years younger, I couldn’t resist.”

  Craig Wilson laughed as she rang up the sale, and was whistling cheerfully as he walked out the door.

  “Do all the men who come in flirt with you?” Where the hell had that come from? He’d wanted a diversion from her last question, but—

  “Not all,” she answered, her expression telling him she knew exactly what he’d done. “Some charge in like a raging bull,” she added, her tone so pointed he winced inwardly. “But enough flirt to keep me smiling, so I’m not complaining.”

  “You ordered that CD especially for him?”

  “I knew he’d want it as soon as they released it,” she said. “I try to anticipate.”

  On the words the musical door chime—although the harsh metal guitar couldn’t really be called a chime—sounded again. He had to give her points for cleverness on that; he had no idea what or who it was, but it had definitely caught his attention, just as it had the first time he’d come in here.

  This time the customer was a teenager who looked about Jordan’s age, eagerly picking up a CD Kai pulled from behind the counter. The girl, who gave him a sideways glance and a shy half smile, couldn’t wait to hand over her carefully folded bills. She waved off the offered bag and clutched the case tightly as she ran out.

  Wyatt lifted a brow.

  “Soundtrack from the latest tween movie rage,” Kai explained. “Clever marketing on their part, actually. You can download all the music, but they packaged the CD with exclusive stuff from the film, and a coupon for a free poster of the requisite heartthrob.”

  “You order that one ahead, too?”

  “That one was a no-brainer,” she said with a grin.

  That grin came so easily, it seemed, and it lit up her face, made you want to at least smile back, even if you were feeling miserable. Which it seemed he was most of the time these days.

  “I just hope I didn’t miscalculate. There might be a few closet fans I don’t know about.”

  Another customer, surprisingly Clark Bain, who ran the local gas station, arrived to pick up another item from behind the counter. The man nodded to him as Kai rang up something small and boxed. He focused on it, saw the image on the side of the box and realized it was a trumpet mouthpiece.

  “Wyatt,” Bain said.

  “Clark,” he returned.

  “How’s that SUV running?”

  “Fine, since you replaced that fuel filter. Thanks.”

  “Good. I’m like Ms. Reynolds here, I like happy customers.”

  “Who plays the trumpet?” Wyatt asked after the man had gone, knowing all of Clark’s kids were grown by now.

  “He does,” she said, startling him.

  “Clark Bain plays the trumpet?”

  “Dixieland jazz, from what he told me. He wanted that particular mouthpiece.”

  Wyatt shook his head. Of all the things he might have guessed, that wasn’t even on the list.

  Another customer came and went, again with Kai handing over an order that had been reserved, guitar strings this time.

  “Busy,” he said when she was done this time.

  “Special order Saturday,” Kai said.

  “You do a lot of special orders?

  “It’s my specialty.”

  He smiled in spite of himself at the wordplay. And somewhere in the back of his mind he was realizing this was the longest conversation he’d had with anyone in a very long time. And he was, much to his shock, enjoying it.

  “I’ve promoted that from the beginning,” she said. “There are advantages to being a bit remote, it makes people weigh the cost and time and hassle of a forty-mile trip to the
nearest mall or big box store against the convenience of being able to pick their items up here, usually only a day or two later.”

  She was, he realized, not just smart and perceptive, she was practical. And apparently had the good business sense to realize she couldn’t beat the huge competitors on their field, so she played on another one, personalized service. So far it had worked, and word of mouth had helped, even drawing people from well outside Deer Creek.

  “Especially when you know what they’ll want in advance?”

  She shrugged. “It’s all a matter of paying attention, learning people’s tastes. And then extrapolation.”

  “Extrapolation?”

  “You know, ‘If you like this, you might also like that,’” she said.

  He studied her for a moment. “That takes a lot of knowledge.”

  “A bit. And I didn’t know much about some things a few people in town like. I expected country, but I had no idea there was such a call for classical. Fell victim to my own stereotypes.” She admitted it so easily it charmed him.

  “It’s tough for most people to face that they have a bias, let alone to change it.”

  “But we should.”

  “Unless it’s a validly founded one,” he said. “I have a severe prejudice against black widow spiders.”

  “Ew. Me, too. I avoid them scrupulously.”

  “Wise. Unless one gets in your house. Then you go after it.”

  She shivered, and he wasn’t sure if it was feigned or real. “Or stay up all night obsessing about where it’s hiding.”

  “I prefer a proactive approach,” he said. And there it was, he thought. The crux of the whole problem with his son; he’d forgotten one of the basic tenets. “Which is something I forgot about with Jordan. I just kept reacting to what he did.”

  “Or didn’t do?”

  He nodded. Made himself go on, feeling he owed her this. “You were right. I was focused so much on the bad things I was trying to keep him out of, I didn’t even think about what good things I could be getting him into.”

  “I… Thank you,” she said, as if his words had been the last thing she’d ever expected.

  “I can be reasonable, contrary to what my son has probably told you.” He sighed. “Contrary to what just about anybody has probably told you. Haven’t shown much reason since Jordan and I got back here.”

  “It’s hard to be reasonable when you’re scared,” she said.

  “Scared?” That wasn’t a word he’d often heard applied to himself.

  “Of losing him, to those bad things.”

  Something dark and bleak shadowed her eyes for a moment. He remembered what he’d read.

  “You know about that, don’t you.”

  It wasn’t a question, since he already knew the answer.

  “Do some checking up, did you?”

  He didn’t bother to deny it. “Yes.” And then, feeling he owed her this as well, he added, “Something I should have done before I…charged in here the first time.”

  “That would have been nice, yes,” she agreed. And then, with a rather decisive nod, she finished her computer entry, apparently on the change in her string inventory, and looked at him.

  “About that. There is somebody I wanted to tell you about.”

  He lifted a brow, staying silent this time.

  “He’s an older boy, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three, I’m not positive. But he’s been…friendly to Jordy.”

  Wyatt tensed. “Friendly?”

  “Not in a nasty way,” she said hastily. “Just odd. Since he’s so much older. And Jordy sort of…revels in it. He likes that an older boy, one he thinks is the height of cool, pays attention to him.”

  Wyatt frowned. “Who is this boy?”

  “His name is Max Middleton. He’s got a bit of a rough reputation, although he’s never done anything I can put my finger on. It’s just that it seems odd that he’s so friendly to a thirteen-year-old when most guys his age couldn’t be bothered. Like his two buddies he hangs with all the time, they act like you’d expect, impatient with him and annoyed that this little kid pesters them.”

  Wyatt filed the name away to be checked on later. “Thank you,” he said, finally, a little wary of saying anything else, now that she’d finally told him this. It seemed to work, because she went on.

  “I don’t know what his story is, so maybe there’s a reason, maybe he lost a little brother or something, but…” She shrugged. “I thought you should know.”

  He didn’t react to her too-nice speculation—women tended to do that, he thought, look for some way to understand rather than simply dealing with the action—just marveled a bit at the change from the woman who had challenged him at every turn the first time he’d…well, charged in here. And definitely a change from the woman who’d subtly warned him about minding his own business, he thought. Apparently she’d realized Jordan was his business. Right now his only business. Of course, now that they’d talked, civilly, for a while, she—

  “I’m not late!”

  Jordan’s exclamation came from the back of the store, and they both turned as the boy closed the door to the sound room and came toward them.

  “It’s one hour, exactly, so you can’t be mad.”

  Startled, Wyatt lifted his wrist to check his watch. He really should get something simpler, he thought; the multifunction chronograph was overkill for his life now. But it was also accurate to within the tiniest split of a second, and what it told him was that he’d been standing here talking for Jordan’s full hour. He wasn’t sure what shocked him more, that he’d done it, or that it had gone by so quickly.

  Jordan was looking at him warily, as if he expected him to erupt, even though he was right, it was one hour on the mark.

  “Then let’s go,” he said evenly, suddenly as eager to leave as Jordan was reluctant.

  The boy was silent once they were back in the truck. He’d driven because they were going to the auto parts store on the far edge of town, with an oil change and tire rotation on the schedule for tomorrow. He could take it to Clark and have him do it, probably a lot more quickly and efficiently, but he collected these tasks to fill up his weekends the way his mother had collected recipes, certain there could never be too many. And he refused to admit it was to make sure he didn’t have too much time to think. About anything.

  And now he had one more thing to add to that not-thinking-about-it list—Kai Reynolds. And the fact that the hour spent with her had been the swiftest, and the most pleasant he’d passed in longer than he could remember.

  He told himself she was merely a puzzle. An interesting dichotomy, the savvy businesswoman and the flashy girl in the photograph.

  “Have you ever heard her play? Other than recordings, I mean?”

  He hadn’t meant to ask, but he’d been saying a lot of things he hadn’t meant to lately.

  Jordan gave him a sideways look, Wyatt guessed weighing his reluctance to talk to him at all against his eagerness to talk about all things Kai. He stayed silent, letting the calculations go on, until the eagerness won.

  “Yeah. It was amazing.”

  “She’s good?”

  “Better than good.”

  The boy hesitated, and again Wyatt stayed silent. It was the least contentious conversation they’d had in a while, and he didn’t want to disrupt it.

  “Once I thought the guitar was out of tune. She took it, checked it, then played this really wicked riff.”

  Jordan rubbed at his fingertips. Sore, no doubt, Wyatt thought, wondering if there was anything that would help toughen them up.

  “She said the main difference between what came out of it when she played and when I did was hours and hours of practice.”

  “And tougher fingers.” Wyatt thought he saw, for the briefest moment, the boy’s mouth move toward a smile.

  “Yeah,” Jordan admitted.

  He continued to rub at his fingers. Silently. But it was a whole different kind of silence than their usual straine
d hush. And after a couple of minutes, Jordan said, as if it meant nothing to him, “There are some videos up on YouTube. Of her band. She really rocked.”

  “I’ll bet,” Wyatt said, wondering if that had been a suggestion to check them out. He wouldn’t, of course. Kai Reynolds was already taking up too many brain cells, and he needed them all just to deal with his son.

  He wondered if he should ask about this Max. His instincts were telling him to push, while the boy was actually speaking to him.

  He didn’t.

  And when he realized that he didn’t follow those instincts because he didn’t want to lose even this tiny bit of peace they’d reached, however transitory it might be, he knew he was losing it.

  It’s a tough gig….

  Kai’s sympathetic words echoed in his head. And renewed his determination. Single parents all over the country handled it, managed, dealt. He would too, somehow.

  His inward pep talk helped, for about as long as it took them to pick up the supplies for the oil change and get home. When Jordan realized he was expected to help with the chore tomorrow, his protest was instant.

  “But my hands hurt!”

  “Your choice. That you’ve taken up playing doesn’t change the work that needs to be done here.”

  And just like that the brief, tentative cease-fire was over as Jordan mouthed a curse he wasn’t quite angry enough to say out loud.

  “That’s twice I’ve ignored that word,” Wyatt said. “You don’t get a third pass.”

  Jordan flushed. And lapsed into the sullen silence that seemed his predominant mood.

  Nice work, Blake, Wyatt muttered to himself.

  Tough gig indeed.

  Chapter 9

  Kai drew in a deep, happy breath; nothing soothed like the smell of fresh baked bread, especially on a rainy fall day. She was going to learn how to fill her own place with that luscious scent someday, but for now the little bakery filled her carb needs perfectly. She’d stopped for some of their wonderful garlic bread to go with her spaghetti tonight, and had been unable to resist a loaf of their signature sweet apple spice bread for breakfast.

  She dutifully asked about Mrs. Day’s daughter, who was away at college, and smiled attentively at the proud mother’s response. As she took the proffered bag, she thanked the woman and waved a cheerful goodbye.