Or maybe it was simply the roil of dread, knowing that she’d have to corner her father and pry the truth out of him.
“Your dad came down to the jail and told me that you never wanted to see me again. That you were going to put the baby up for adoption and that I should leave.”
And then her father had neatly moved them away, shortly after Ben left, with the hope, maybe, that he could stop her from seeing him again.
How could you, Dad?
She hadn’t exactly thought that all the way through, her hands full of midnight feedings, dirty diapers, and figuring out how her life had turned from happily ever after to, well, blinding.
She’d never been cut out to be a mother—she’d told Ben as much. But he hadn’t believed her, made her question her own gut and stirred an unfamiliar desire to try.
Thankfully her parents had stepped in, helped her get back on her feet. No, they hadn’t loved the military idea, but at least it paid the bills. And she’d found a job she could actually excel at.
“That must have been so cool—hanging out with Benjamin King. Was he hot? I’ll bet he was hot.”
She glanced at her daughter, frowned. “I guess.”
“Did you like him?”
“Um . . . I don’t know,” she said, fighting a rising panic. “We were . . . just friends.”
Oh, what was she doing? But Audrey wasn’t ready for the truth—maybe neither of them were yet.
“Listen, what were you doing out with Nate, anyway?”
“Oh.”
And just like that, her daughter shut down.
Kacey glanced over at her. She’d turned toward the front, looked out the opposite window. “Audrey?”
“It’s nothing, Mom. Nate goes to my school. We’re just friends.”
Huh. Like Ben had been just a friend?
“Well, honey, the thing is, apparently you’ve been skipping classes, and you can’t do that in a private school. You’ll get expelled.”
She hadn’t exactly been around for the so-called change in her daughter that her mother had described, but suddenly, that girl emerged, a full-out clone of Kacey at that age. “That’s why you came home. I thought you were here because of my birthday!”
Oh. And that only drove the dagger a little deeper. Stellar mother she was. Kacey had completely forgotten her own daughter’s birthday just a week away.
“You’re only here because Grandma and Grandpa freaked out about Nate and school and said I was in trouble, didn’t they? Wow. That’s great, Mom. How about listening to my side of the story?”
Oh, how she wished that twelve years rescuing hurting, broken, scared soldiers might have kicked in to her response. Instead, she looked at Audrey and saw a girl who’d skipped class, probably for this Nate kid, and didn’t want an adult telling her how to live her life.
Because she was in love.
Just friends indeed.
“Audrey, I’m here because none of us want you to make a mistake. It wasn’t easy getting you into Glacier Christian Academy—”
“I get straight As. So I missed a couple classes. I wasn’t out getting stoned, I was in the music room practicing with my band.”
Her what? “You have a band?”
“Yeah. We call ourselves Stalemate.”
“Who’s in this band?”
“Me. And Nate. And sometimes Ally Marshall and a couple other people. I’m the lead singer.”
Of course she was. Kacey shook her head, looked away.
“What? Sierra knows about it. Willow is one of the youth organizers, and she thinks it’s great.”
“This is why you’re attending the youth group events in Mercy Falls, right? Because of this boy?”
“No. Mom, c’mon. It’s the band. And yeah, Nate plays in it, but they don’t have a youth group at the church Grandpa and Grandma go to. And I like the Mercy Falls church. Besides, half of the kids from the Academy go there—and it’s fun.”
“I just think you need to be careful about this, um, relationship with you and Nate. You’re too young to be hiking out to lookouts with him.” She looked at her daughter, raised an eyebrow, gave her a gimlet eye.
“Mom!”
“Well, am I right? Do you have a crush on him?”
Audrey folded her arms and looked away from Kacey, and Kacey’s heart fell.
This was how it started. Thirteen years old. A boy playing a guitar for a girl. Wooing her with his voice, his charm, the idea that nothing was right in his life until she came along.
Unbidden, a song rose softly inside.
When you need a friend
A shoulder you can cry on
Someone who understands what you’re going through
She shook it away, but the tune held on, and with it the memories.
Ben, sitting on the end of the pickup, his guitar over his knee. His smile as the last of the tones finished, something sweet, even husky, in it. The late-afternoon sun gilding his hair and sliding over his shoulders. He wore his faded jeans, his flannel shirt rolled up to the forearms, his cowboy boots, and looked every inch, even then, the megastar he’d become.
But then he’d put down the guitar, crawled over to where she sat, ran his thumb down her nose, her cheek, and around the back of her neck and cupped her face as he drew her lips toward his.
Sometimes, she could still taste him, feel his touch, sense herself sliding her arms around him, surrendering, wanting to belong to Ben King. Her Ben.
“Mom, are you crying?”
Kacey sucked in a breath, ran her thumb along her cheekbone. “I’m just tired.”
Well, she was tired. She’d dropped off last night into a hard sleep, only to awaken in a slick sweat, a scream on her lips.
She’d gulped it back before she could terrify Jess, got up in the wee hours, and headed out to the chopper.
Strangely, one of the few places she still felt safe.
“And . . .”—she reached out to touch her daughter’s hand—“I’m so glad to see you.”
Audrey drew her hand away. “You just don’t understand, Mom. Nate and I—we’re, like, I don’t know. More than friends. We’re soul mates.”
“Oh, honey, you don’t even know what that means.”
“I do know! Just because my dad left you doesn’t mean that Nate will. Yeah, okay, I love him. And I’m going to marry him.”
“You’re thirteen years old! You shouldn’t even be thinking about boys.”
And great. Now she sounded like her mother.
“Why not? Just because you don’t want to fall in love and get married doesn’t mean I don’t! I don’t want to be you. Yeah, sure, you got a medal, but I don’t want that. I want a house in Whitefish and a dog and kids and Nate. That’s what I want. And you’re not going to make me break up with him, no matter what you say.”
“Honey—”
“And you know what? I almost wish I knew my dad. Because I’m probably more like him than I am you, and I’d bet he’d agree with me. He’d be on my side.”
That was just enough. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A dozen words gathered behind her pressed lips, fighting for release. “Yeah, you might be a little like your dad. But I guarantee that he’d say the same thing—you’re too young to date, to fall in love, and to think you’re going to marry Nate whoeverheis.”
Audrey folded her arms, stared out the window at the passing pastureland. “I wish you’d just go back to Florida and leave me alone.”
Kacey stayed perfectly still, refusing to flinch. Instead, her voice flat, she said, “Yeah, well, we don’t always get what we want.”
They drove in simmering silence all the way to her parents’ forested land, just northeast of Whitefish. She wound her way up their mountain, through the wooded pine forest, until she finally emerged on their circle drive.
The front of the whitewashed log house seemed unassuming; all the grandeur was located in the back, with the view of Big Mountain ski area, the smoky ou
tline of the Livingston range in the distance, and Haskill River running at the foot of the property. Snowy grazed in the pasture, and Kacey’s heart warmed to see the sweet palomino.
Audrey got out, slammed the door behind her.
Nice.
The front door opened then, and her daughter ran into the arms of her current, albeit fleeting, ally, her grandmother.
Laura Fairing looked up over the head of her granddaughter and frowned at Kacey.
Kacey shook her head, retrieving her duffel and Audrey’s backpack from her back hatch. Her daughter had pushed her way inside, probably running up to her room by the time Kacey lugged them both inside. She dropped the bundles in the entryway and met her mother’s embrace.
Her mother had easily dropped ten pounds since Kacey saw her last, and she felt feeble, despite the way she held on to Kacey. “I’m so glad you’re home.” She pressed a kiss to Kacey’s cheek, and for a moment, Kacey wondered if she knew.
Had her father betrayed her by himself, or was her mother a cohort?
She leaned back. “Is Dad home?”
“Not yet. He had a full docket today. But I have a nice roast in the Crock-Pot, and he’ll be home for dinner.” She stepped back, surveyed her. “Why don’t you get changed?”
“Um, okay. But you should know—I saw Ben King in town today.”
Her mother’s eyes widened. “Oh, Kacey.” She glanced up the stairs, then back to Kacey. Pitched her voice low. “Does Audrey know?”
“No, Mom, but the bigger question is—why didn’t Ben know?”
Her mother frowned. Shook her head. “Know what? That you were back in town?”
“No, Mom.” She barely kept the horror from her tone. “That he has a daughter.”
Any remnant suspicion that her mother had been in cahoots with her father died at the confusion on her face. “What are you talking about?”
“The fact that he didn’t know about Audrey. He told me that Dad told him that I was going to put her up for adoption. He told me that Dad said I didn’t want to see him.”
“Oh no. Kacey. Your father would never do something like that. He knew how much Ben meant to you.”
And now Kacey didn’t know what to think.
“Why wouldn’t he know about Audrey then, Mom?”
Laura took her hands. Gave her a sad, pitying look. “I don’t know. But it’s best that he left. Ben wasn’t cut out to be a father, and he knew it.”
She left off the rest: And you’re not cut out to be a mother.
Her mother gave a sad nod, then dropped her hands. “We both know that Audrey is better off without him. And so are you.” She cupped Kacey’s cheek. “You’ve done so well for yourself. We’re so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Listen, Audrey has softball practice this afternoon—their last game is Saturday, so I’m glad you’ll be home for it. But I can take her to practice if you want to get cleaned up. I made a bed in the guest room for you.”
Kacey picked up the bags, climbed the stairs, and found her daughter’s bedroom door closed. She knocked, but when she didn’t get an answer, she dropped the backpack in front of the door.
She found the guest room, aka, the room she’d occupied that summer after her parents moved. A picture of her and Audrey at Walt Disney World hung on the wall; another from two summers ago, at SeaWorld, sat on the hickory bureau.
She dropped the duffel on the floor, eyed the queen-sized bed with some envy, then opened the bag and dug out a T-shirt, a pair of jeans.
Then she turned on the shower in the guest bath.
The steam filled the room as she stared at herself in the mirror, her auburn hair unruly and wild after two days in the bush. She looked wrung out, circles under her eyes, her face sallow.
She could drop and sleep right here on the bathroom mat. Which probably accounted for the way her mother’s words needled her.
Ben wasn’t cut out to be a father, and he knew it.
Probably that was true. But she could still see him on one knee, holding out a ring, asking her to marry him.
See his face as he’d brought home a bassinet he’d found at a secondhand shop.
“We both know that Audrey is better off without him. And so are you.”
Kacey got into the shower and let the heat massage her sore, tired muscles. Then she leaned against the tile and simply hoped the water might wash away the last twenty-four hours.
Return her to the world where her heart didn’t feel freshly battered, kneaded, and stripped.
But maybe her mother was right. Of course her mother was right. Kacey well remembered how her own life had derailed when she was just about Audrey’s age. The last thing they needed was to drive Audrey into the arms of a boy who could, well, land her exactly where Kacey found herself now.
She finally shut off the shower, got out, dried off, and got dressed. She was standing at the sink, trying to untangle her mess of hair, when she heard a vehicle drive up.
She looked out to the driveway and froze.
No.
He did. Not.
She didn’t bother with shoes, just ran downstairs and straight outside, closing the door behind her just as Ben climbed out of the cab of his father’s truck.
“Go away,” she hissed and came off the porch, right onto the driveway. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You left and we weren’t finished.”
He looked like he’d showered too, although he hadn’t bothered to shave; the sun picked up the copper and gold in his whiskers. He wore a black T-shirt, jeans, and his fancy cowboy boots.
“We are finished. Listen, Ben—”
“You listen, Kacey. I kept my promise. I didn’t tell her—”
“Keep your voice down!”
“You’re the one shouting.”
Oh. She clenched her jaw, looked back at the house, and saw her mother at the window.
Thankfully, Audrey’s room looked out the back, toward the mountains. But she’d be leaving for practice any minute. “Get in,” Kacey snapped.
“No.”
She was already around the front of the truck. “Please, Ben.”
He tightened his jaw but climbed in.
She slid in on the passenger side. “Let’s just drive.”
He turned the truck over, put it into drive. “Talk and drive.”
“That’s what I meant.” Except she didn’t want to talk. Not yet.
She just wanted to sit here, in the cab, with him driving, and try to figure out the tumult of emotions.
They drove down the winding drive, back toward the highway.
He turned left, as if he had a plan.
“You told her you would teach her the guitar?” She didn’t know why she started there, but it felt like a betrayal, and frankly she needed all the ammunition she could get.
Or felt like it.
“That just came out.” He glanced at her, his blue eyes dark, clearly in a fighting mood. “But she wants to learn. She’s got pipes, and musical talent—my musical talent, Kace. I should teach her.”
She held up a hand. “Just let me think.”
He shook his head, then turned at the stop sign, crossing the railroad tracks.
Oh. He was bringing her here.
He stopped outside the chain link fence to the Glacier valley municipal airport, with the sleek private jets parked at their hangars.
“You’re not playing fair.” Of course he’d take her to the place where she’d first gotten the bug to fly. Remind her of the hours they’d spent here, watching the planes take off, land.
“This isn’t about fair,” Ben said. “It’s about the fact that I know you. And I should have realized you wouldn’t give your baby up for adoption. Especially not you. My dad didn’t know, Kacey. But he did suggest that he suspected something wasn’t right, and that I should have suspected that also. And he was right. I wasn’t thinking. I was hurt and angry and, well, scared.”
She leaned back, put her feet o
n the dashboard, watching as a plane began to taxi out to the runway. “My mom didn’t know either. Not to call you a liar, but my mom said my dad would never—”
“I was in jail because I beat up Cash Murdock. And I called your dad to help get me out.”
Oh.
She glanced at him. The name sparked old hurts and a strange sense of satisfaction at his revelation. “You did? Really?”
He nodded.
“I hope you broke his nose.”
That got a flicker of a smile. “I shouldn’t have called you a bad mother, Kacey. But you can’t shut me out of her life. Please. I get wanting to go slow. I agree the timing isn’t great, but when exactly will it be? When she’s eighteen and I’ve missed every major event of her teenage years?”
Kacey drew in a breath. “You’ll probably miss it anyway, Ben. You can’t have your career in Nashville and go to your daughter’s softball games in Montana.”
“She plays softball?” The smile grew.
“She is half mine too,” Kacey said, but felt her own smile blooming, something sweet passing between them.
Finally.
Then his expression turned solemn. “I haven’t figured it all out yet, but I’m not going to step into her life only to walk away, and don’t look at me like that.”
“I’m not—it’s just, you have a busy life.”
“And so do you. You’ve made it work.”
She looked away.
“Kacey?”
“I don’t know, Ben. I don’t know what I’m doing, really. I’ve always been, I dunno, Fun Mom. I get some leave, so I come home and we go skiing, or to Disney World, or off to Hawaii, and then I disappear again and leave the hard stuff for my parents. What kind of mother does that?”
“One trying to serve her country.”
She wanted to give him points for that, and when she looked over, he gave her an expression that urged a conceding laugh. “Stop it.”
“Well, you were right about that too. I know it’s not easy. I shouldn’t have been so—”
“Self-righteous?”
“Angry.”
Right.
“Okay. I agree we should tell her, but I’m not quite ready to drop the bomb on her yet. She already worships you.”
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