“Why isn’t he with his dad today?”
She saw where he was heading, but it was the wrong direction. “The kids—Nick’s little brother and sister—are sick. Yeah, Nick’s disappointed when Dean cancels, but it doesn’t happen that often. He wasn’t a great husband, but he’s a good dad.”
He held up his hands, as though surrendering. “Okay. Was just curious.”
She couldn’t believe she was defending Dean. Maybe it was just a knee-jerk reaction to the one person who’d known years ago that she and Dean were a bad idea. “Is this where you say I told you so?”
The question hung between them and she wished immediately she could take it back. It would have been so much better for them both to pretend that day had never happened. But she’d said it and now he stared into her eyes, his expression unreadable.
“You think I’m happy you’re divorced? Because I’m not. I’d rather be wrong every day of the week than for you to be unhappy.”
She believed him, but she told herself it didn’t matter. “It was a long time ago.”
And she knew that during that long time between then and now, he’d gotten married, then divorced. Built a successful business. It’s not as though he’d spent his life pining for her.
“I should go,” she said quickly, before he could continue the conversation. “Thank you for giving Nick the chance to make things right. Let me give you my cell number in case you have any problems with him. Not that I think you will, but just in case.”
He punched the number into his phone as she read it off, and then she did the same with his number. Then she started toward the car because it had to be getting stuffy in there by now, which was as good an excuse as any to get away from Ryan.
“I’ll see you Monday night when you pick him up,” he called after her, and she lifted her hand to let him know she’d heard him.
Thanks to her son’s stupidity, she’d be seeing him Monday night. And Tuesday night. And Wednesday night.
She got her car turned around and sped down the driveway as quickly as she could without kicking up gravel. And a couple of glances in the rearview mirror told her he watched her go until she was out of sight.
Chapter Four
“I can’t believe you did this.” Lauren forced herself to stop strangling the steering wheel before she drove into a ditch. She should probably wait until they were home to have this discussion, but she couldn’t keep it inside. “What were you thinking? And don’t you dare shrug your shoulders at me.”
“I dunno,” Nick mumbled.
“That doesn’t cut it. What you did was criminal, Nick. Criminal. Chief Miller could have arrested you.” She started shaking just thinking about it.
“Sorry.”
He could say he was sorry all day long, but that’s not what she wanted to know. “Why did you do it?”
“I dunno.”
She would have screamed if she thought she could vent her frustration and focus on the road at the same time. “That’s not an answer. You’ve been getting in trouble at school. You’ve already had detention. And now you’re destroying people’s property and breaking the law. There has to be a reason.”
“I’ll do better.”
“Damn straight you will. But I still want to know why this happened. Are you doing drugs?”
“No!” He took his eyes off his shoelaces, at least. “I swear.”
“If you don’t straighten up, I’ll buy every home drug test they have at the drugstore, Nicholas. I mean it.”
“I’m not, Mom.”
“Then what’s going on?”
He shrugged, gaze back on his feet. “I dunno. I just screwed up.”
“Well,” she said as she pulled into her driveway,”now you get to call your dad and tell him you screwed up.”
“Can’t you tell him?”
“I’m going to talk to him once you’re done, but you’re going to tell him yourself.”
She went through the mail while Nick made the phone call, though she didn’t really register the return addresses. Mostly bills, probably, so she tossed them on the counter unopened. Nick sounded on the verge of tears as he told Dean what he’d done, and she could hear her ex-husband’s voice, loud and angry, from halfway across the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” Nick said into the phone, and then he held it out to her. “Dad wants to talk to you.”
Lucky her. “Hello?”
“What the hell is this about Nick working for Ryan Kowalski?”
“He’s going to work off the damages.”
“Don’t you think you should have asked me first?”
She wasn’t in the mood to have a pissing contest with her ex. “No, I don’t. Since you cried poverty when I asked for extra child support for school clothes and supplies, I’m guessing you don’t have an extra grand in the cookie jar.”
“I don’t want my kid working for him.”
Through the anger, Lauren felt a familiar tiny poke of guilt. Dean had a lot of resentment toward Ryan, but it was for the wrong reason. He didn’t know the truth of why his best friend had left town and never looked back. “You don’t have any choice.”
“I don’t like it.”
“This isn’t about you, Dean. This is about Nick breaking the law and Drew and Ryan giving him a chance to make it right rather than pressing charges, and whether you like it or not, he’s going to do just that.”
“Why did it have to be him?” Dean muttered, and Lauren silently echoed the sentiment.
“I have to go,” she told him. “Needless to say, Nick’s grounded. I trust you and Jody will follow through with that when he’s at your house.”
“Yeah.”
With nothing left to say, Lauren ended the call and leaned against the counter. Nick was still sitting at the table, picking at his thumbnail. “Do you have anything else to say?”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, too frazzled to keep running in circles. “From now until I decide otherwise, your life is school and the Northern Star Lodge. No iPod, no video games, no anything that isn’t homework or work.”
He nodded, his shoulders sagging a little more.
“You can spend the rest of today cleaning your room.” He practically ran for his bedroom. “And don’t slam your door.”
She pulled a few fun-size candy bars out of her secret stash and sat down in the chair Nick had vacated. This was just the kind of day that had spawned the what-if fantasies. As stressful and worrisome as the day was, she was going to have a hell of a time nodding off and imagining Ryan’s hands on her had always been just the thing to soothe her to sleep.
It was a little different now that she’d actually seen Ryan and had a very real, not pretend reaction to the man. And, thanks to her son’s stupidity, she was going to be seeing a lot of him.
Popping chocolate into her mouth, Lauren walked to the fridge and slid the shopping list out from under a magnet. After rummaging on the counter for a pen, she wrote, Chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate, on the bottom of the list.
She had a feeling she was going to need it.
* * *
“I can’t believe it was Nick Carpenter,” Josh said. “His name never even popped into my head as a possibility.”
“He’s always been a good boy,” Rose agreed. “But I can tell you with some authority that teenage boys do really stupid things all the time.”
Three of them around the table had the good sense to keep their eyes on their plates. Ryan knew he was a major contributor to her knowledge of teenage stupidity, as were Josh and Mitch, who also developed a keen interest in their meatloaf.
As soon as Paige had called to tell Rosie that Mitch was on his way home from Miami, Rosie had rummaged through the pantry and started throwing together a fami
ly dinner. Ryan figured his brother would rather crawl into bed with his fiancée and stay there for a couple days, but you didn’t turn down Rosie’s meat loaf.
“How’s the house hunting going?” he asked before Rose could start trotting out some of their less intelligent, youthful moments.
Paige perked up immediately. “I think I found one! It’s a little further out of town than I wanted, so I’ll have to drive to work, but it has a big barn and some land and a room that will make a great home office.”
“She showed me pictures of the master bathroom, too,” Mitch said. “Huge shower.”
When Paige blushed to the roots of her hair, Ryan decided not to ask why the shower size ranked so high on Mitch’s list of important details.
“Why not just move in here?” It seemed like a good compromise. There was plenty of room, Paige wouldn’t be alone while Mitch traveled, and it would take some of the burden off Josh’s shoulders.
There were a few seconds of awkward silence, which made Ryan wonder if it was something they’d already talked about.
“We both own businesses,” Mitch finally said. “We can help with the lodge, but it can’t be a full-time thing. And it’s important to Paige—to us—that we have a home that’s ours to raise our kids in.”
“Kids?” Rosie asked.
Paige laughed. “Not yet.”
“But soon.”
Ryan concentrated on his mashed potatoes while Rosie tried to pin Paige down on how long they were going to wait before starting a family. The woman was desperate for a grandchild. The Kowalskis might not be her kids by birth, as Katie was, but they were close enough for her to claim their grandbabies as hers should they ever get around to giving her any.
“I talked to Aunt Mary,” Mitch said, probably to change the subject before Paige got so desperate to avoid interrogation that she dragged him off to make a baby for Rose right that very second. “They can all come Columbus Day weekend.”
“The whole weekend?” Rosie asked.
“They’re going to come Friday and stay until Monday. They were going to leave Sunday afternoon so the kids would have all of Monday to settle in and get ready to go back to school, but the Patriots are playing the four o’clock game Sunday and they don’t want to miss it. So they’ll leave early Monday morning.”
“So you’ll get married Saturday afternoon, then?”
“Yes,” Paige said. “I don’t want half the family sneaking off to get a score check during the ceremony.”
Ryan laughed. “You haven’t even met them yet and you’ve got their number.”
“Speaking of which,” Mitch said to Paige, “I have a quick trip to make this week, but next weekend, if you can get your shifts at the diner covered, I’d like to take a trip over to New Hampshire so you can meet everybody. Aunt Mary said it wouldn’t be right to see you for the first time when you’re walking up the aisle.”
“Will they all be there?”
“She didn’t say, but you can almost guarantee it.”
“It’s like jumping into the deep end of the pool,” Josh said. “There’s no dipping your toe in. You’ve gotta cannonball.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Paige said.
Ryan shoved his empty plate away and leaned back in his seat. “You can either make the drive over with Mitch or, at some point in the next two weeks, the entire family will show up at the diner. Trust me, you don’t want that.”
“He’s right,” Mitch agreed.
Paige threw up her hands in surrender. “Fine, I’ll make sure I can go.”
Ryan sat back and half-listened to the idle banter between the others, sneaking peaks at his phone under the table. An electrical inspection on a key project was supposed to have happened yesterday afternoon and he still hadn’t received a status update on it. He keyed in a second text to the foreman on the job and hit Send. He’d give the guy a couple of hours and then he’d call. After all, he’d been away for only five business days, so if things were falling apart down there, he’d be pissed. They should be able to do their jobs without him looking over their shoulders.
“Ryan, are you playing with your phone at the dinner table?” Rosie was giving him the look when he glanced up.
“Nope.” He set it on the table, since he was already busted. “I’m working with my phone at the dinner table.”
“It can wait until everybody’s done eating.”
He figured she should cut him a little slack since he was doing them a favor, but it wasn’t worth arguing with her. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I think we’re done anyway.” Mitch pushed back from the table and piled his silverware and napkin on his plate to carry it into the kitchen. “I have the preliminary workups for the new website and Facebook page for the lodge, so I thought we could all take a look at those and see what we think. We need to get them up ASAP, because people will be starting to think about reservations soon. It’s getting colder and guys’ll be pulling the sleds out of storage and tuning them up soon.”
“Sounds good,” Josh said. “I have some paperwork for the ATV trails, too. They need reading by somebody a little more fluent in legalese.”
One of their plans for getting the lodge back on its feet was to connect Whitford to the ATV trail system in the next town over. Not only would businesses like the diner benefit, but the lodge could possibly see more off-season business than the occasional hiker or passer-through. If they got the four-wheelers in the spring, summer and fall and got the sledders coming back in higher numbers in the winter, they could double the income. Whether they kept the lodge or ended up selling it, doubling the income wouldn’t hurt.
“Right after you boys are done cleaning the kitchen,” Rosie added.
Ryan groaned and shoved his phone in his pocket so he could carry dirty dishes. Sometimes it sucked being home.
* * *
Lauren was out of words. Because Nick wasn’t talking, any conversations they’d had since she’d gotten the phone call from Drew were more like one-sided lectures on her part. And she’d said everything she could think of to say.
She knew he was sorry. And she knew Ryan catching him and calling Drew had scared the crap out of him. But she still couldn’t figure out why he’d done it in the first place. Acting out, obviously, but why?
Sick of hearing “I dunno,” she’d let him go to his room to sulk, minus his iPod, which was zipped securely in her purse. If he wanted to stare at his ceiling, he could think while he did it, not listen to his music.
She’d thawed chicken breasts for dinner, but she didn’t really have time to cook them and she wasn’t in the mood for soup. Grabbing her purse, she knocked on Nick’s door. “I’m going to the market. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” At least he hadn’t said “whatever.”
The Whitford General Store & Service Station was still open, thankfully. Fran Benoit ran the grocery half of the business, while her husband ran the gas station and garage. They’d cornered the market on food and gas in town, but were smart enough to take advantage of that by putting the screws to the community.
Fran was sitting behind the counter, knitting what looked like a sweater for Butch, when Lauren walked in. Her gray hair was in its customary braid and she was wearing a blue flannel shirt that had seen better days. “You cut it close, honey. Ten more minutes and I’d have been gone.”
“I just need to grab a couple of things. I was going to bake chicken breasts for dinner, but I got held up and it’s too late.”
She grabbed a package of hot dogs, then a box of macaroni-and-cheese because she couldn’t remember if she had any in the cupboard. Not the most nutritious of dinners, but it was enough to fulfill her maternal obligations and that was about all her son deserved at the moment.
Grabbing a candy bar on the way, she walked to the register. She’d
eat the chocolate on the way home, because she wasn’t sharing.
“You look a little stressed,” Fran observed.
Because it was Fran, Lauren told her the entire story. “So now Nick has to work over there three days a week after school until Ryan feels he’s paid off the damages he caused.”
“Kids get crazy ideas in their heads sometimes. He wasn’t with Cody, was he?”
“No, he was alone. If he hadn’t been, I could have blamed Cody, so maybe it’s for the best. This way I can’t deny my kid’s heading toward a life of crime.”
Fran laughed at her exaggeration. “Nick’s a good boy and you know it. Maybe he’s bored or maybe there’s something bothering him, but sweating it out at the Northern Star won’t hurt him any. Might even do him some good.”
“Plus, Rose will be making him do his homework first so his grades are bound to go up.”
“That they will, because she doesn’t put up with any crap. And being around Josh and Ryan will be good for Nick, too. Not that Dean’s not a decent guy, but the Kowalskis have a work ethic he could learn something from.”
Lauren didn’t even want to think about Dean. It could be really tiresome, sharing a child with somebody you really didn’t like all that much anymore.
“It’s probably a good thing Ryan caught him now,” Fran said as she rang up the purchases. “Not only because he might have ended up costing so much money that his doing some odd jobs couldn’t make up for it, but because Paige seems pretty determined to get married there in a couple of weeks. The guys already have their hands full making sure the old lodge is spiffed up for that.”
“I heard he brought a couple of guys that work for him. And he’s got Andy there, plus Josh. His leg’s doing pretty good, so there’s quite a crew. Plus Nick, I guess.”
She was still having trouble wrapping her head around the fact her son would be spending that much time with Ryan Kowalski. While nobody knew it but her and Ryan, Nick could just as easily have grown up with Ryan as his stepdad if she’d packed her bags and left town with him.
All He Ever Desired (The Kowalskis) Page 5