by Ines Saint
“I don’t know that one.” Jake looked up at him.
“A guy who tells too many redheaded jokes.”
Jake giggled and Cassie bit her lip.
“Uncle Dan and Uncle Johnny didn’t tell me that one.”
“Probably because both your uncles and I ended up black and blue and lying in the park somewhere over telling Cassie here one too many redhead jokes.”
“You know her.” Jake looked surprised.
Again, Sam felt that nervous twitch in his stomach. “Yes. I know her.”
“Does Mom know her?”
Sam swore in his head. “Uh, no. Mom doesn’t know her.” It was mostly true, after all.
Mrs. Flannigan walked over to them wearing a rueful smile. “It’s depressing seeing you two together again. It makes me feel old,” she explained.
When Sam and Cassie didn’t respond, Mrs. Flannigan seemed to become aware of the awkwardness in the air. She looked from one to the other.
“What do redheads and razors have in common?” Jake piped up.
“The answer is, you handle both with care,” Mrs. Flannigan responded. “Now, that’s enough jokes out of both of you, Sam and Jake Amador.”
Cassie picked up a poster and began walking to the door. “It was really nice meeting you, Jake.” She smiled and waved good-bye with her poster and Sam knew she meant it. But that thought made him anxious in other ways, ways he didn’t want to examine too closely. He shouldn’t care whether Jake and Cassie got along.
Sam loved giving Jake a tour of the houses he was working on because his son seemed to enjoy it as much as he’d enjoyed doing the same thing with his own dad. It was only four thirty when he took Jake to Heather’s, but Jake was half-asleep and he asked to be carried in.
That was one memory Sam didn’t have. His dad had been interested and interesting, strict or easygoing as the situation called for, and had dedicated himself to his boys, but he hadn’t been a tender man. He’d kept himself to himself and Sam understood why. Whenever Sam held his boy to his chest, there was the pain of loving too much and too well. Unlike his father, Sam didn’t avoid the pain, but he kept himself to himself just the same. The only problem was he was surrounded by people who liked to poke and prod for a living.
Heather opened the door with a wide smile that reflected the same love Sam was feeling for Jake and Sam smiled at her.
She kissed Jake’s cheek, ruffled his hair, and asked, “How was school?”
Jake went from half-asleep to fully awake in the time it took him to blink. “I met Dad’s friend Cassie. She was funny.”
Heather’s eyes widened and Sam’s heart plummeted to see how excited his ex-wife looked. “I heard she was back.” He knew he had to leave before the poking and prodding could begin.
Jake frowned. “Dad said you didn’t know her.”
Sam and Heather exchanged a look. “Uh, no, I don’t. But I bet if I met her, I’d like her, too.”
Jake wiggled out of Sam’s arms. “Can I watch TV before dinner?” he asked before running to the living room and picking up the remote control.
“Half an hour only,” Heather called after him before turning to Sam.
“I’ve got to get back. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned the knob, but wasn’t quick enough.
Heather moved to lean on the door and block his way “Why are you in such a hurry?” Her eyes twinkled in a way Sam didn’t like. It was the twinkle of a meddler.
“Your apartment smells like new. It gives me hives,” he joked. His love of old and weathered and her love of shiny and new had been among their differences.
“So, Cassie and Jake met and he liked her. You don’t have to hide anything from me, Sam. I’d be thrilled if you two work things out.”
Sam raked a hand through his hair. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re my ex-wife. Can you please act like it?”
“I’m dating and you don’t mind. It makes things easier.” She shrugged. But when Sam turned the knob and gently tried to open the door, dragging her along with it, she leaned back, hard, and shut it again. “Whether it’s Cassie or someone else, I want you to find someone. I want you to be okay, and I want you to know I’ll be okay.”
Sam sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was make things awkward with Heather, too. Only honesty would do. “Cassie and I have a business partnership, as I’m sure you’ve heard,” he said, pointedly. “Anything else is long dead, okay? Including friendship. It’s been ten years.” Sam held Heather’s chin up and looked into her eyes. “And I haven’t been holding a torch.”
Heather brushed his hair out of his eyes and it pierced his heart. Tenderness always hurt, for some reason. “I know. But you two had a real spark, and it was based on a deep, long-standing friendship. I know you aren’t carrying a torch, but that doesn’t mean the spark was extinguished.”
They did still have a spark. But that didn’t mean much. A spark could light up or fizzle. Fizzling was safer.
He had to shut the meddlers in his life down. As much as he hated to hurt her, Heather would be the easiest to stop. “Of all people, I married you. A spark can’t survive that, Heather, and I’m more than okay with it. Thanks to you, I have everything I need or want.” He looked over at Jake.
“Have you guys even talked about the past yet? She borrowed your car and never returned with your uniform. You never told her you got kicked off the team and lost your baseball scholarship because of her. You’re adults now. Maybe if she knew that, she’d understand.”
“You’re biased. I’m not. One was an oversight, the other was a betrayal.”
“I’m not judging her, Sam, God knows I can’t, but it wasn’t an oversight. It was selfishness on her part. Whatever was going on in her life, she shouldn’t have let you down like that.”
Sam had nothing to say to that, because he’d never found out what exactly had been going on with Cassie to have her pull away so suddenly and completely. All he knew was that in the end, he’d been the one to cause the most pain.
Jessica was on her way out just as Cassie was getting back. “Sorry, I have to leave early today. Billy doesn’t have practice. How’d it go with the munchkins?”
“I met Sam’s son.” Cassie shrugged.
Jessica sat down, keys in hands. “Oh honey, was it tough?”
“You don’t have to sit or ‘oh honey’ me. I’m fine. It kind of came as a shock at first, though I knew he existed, but he’s such a little Amador . . . it’s hard not to adore him on sight. He had me smiling the moment he opened his mouth.”
“As I recall, it was hard for you not to adore their adult versions, too.” Her mother’s unmistakable voice came from the half-open door.
“Mom!”
“Mrs. McGillicuddy!”
“Why are you both acting so surprised?” Her mother stepped in and closed the door behind her. As always, she looked impeccable in a lime-green linen sheath and strappy-sandaled heels. “I may not agree with your choices, but I take an interest. I’m your mother.”
“I thought you were in Washington.” Cassie hugged her mom. To the world, Sandy McGillicuddy was her father’s bright, beautiful right hand and devoted mother to their only child. To other politicians, she was a one-woman public relations machine.
While none of it was false, Cassie knew the hidden truths: Botox and farming your only child out to your mother-in-law and babysitters had a way of diminishing the fine lines caused by stress and aging and of freeing up time to be the best at a game.
Still, Cassie had always liked spending time with her mom when she was being herself... and when she wasn’t complaining about her dad.
Jessica hugged Sandy, too, before heading toward the door. “I’ve got to go pick up Billy. Good to see you, Mrs. McGillicuddy.” She waved, a little too giddily. Jessica, like many, was a bit in awe of Cassie’s parents.
“For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would want to live in Spinning Hills. Many houses are perfectly charming, but most of th
em can’t be above twenty-five hundred square feet and there are no shopping malls or lifestyle centers within a five-mile radius.”
“No, but they’re within a six-mile radius, and that’s good enough for most.” It was the first time Cassie had heard her mom criticize Spinning Hills out loud, though she’d always known it didn’t suit her mother’s lifestyle. To her dad, Dayton was home. He loved the city, even though it was too small to contain him and his wife. Both were bigger than life.
Her parents’ careers and social lives both thrived first in Columbus, and then in DC, but her father would come back once in a while. He’d walk the streets of downtown Dayton with Cassie—she could still feel her small hand in his large one—and he’d say, “We’re walking on a street that was once a canal, you know.” He’d point out the beautiful old buildings and tell her about the Industrial Age and the genius minds that once inhabited the city and changed the world. The Wright brothers, Charles Kettering, John Patterson . . .
Her grandfather had been an engineer who’d loved old machines and the old city that had given birth to so many of them, and he’d passed that appreciation on to her father.
“Why did you send me here nearly every summer if you didn’t like it? You came down every other weekend, and you never said anything about not liking it.”
Her mother’s eyes gleamed. “Everyone loved that your father championed an aging Ohio town with a rich history. It was my idea, of course. I just didn’t think it would take twenty years for the town to look this good. Now, tell me, who is Jake Amador? Is he Sam’s or Dan’s? The thought of Johnny fathering a child is too much to handle.” Cassie laughed and her mother smiled. Johnny had always been Sandy’s favorite.
“He’s Sam’s boy.”
Her mother stiffened. “All I’ll say is I hope you learned your lesson on that front. Never trust a cheating bastard twice.”
Cassie held her mother’s eyes. As usual, her mother’s harsh words were really meant for her father. Cassie was tired of it. She’d been tired of it for years. But her mother always dismissed her complaints, telling her she was the only one she could talk to.
At first, she’d listened and consoled and loathed her father with her mom, believing that she was the only person in the world her mother could trust, understanding her proud mother couldn’t bare the humiliation of a scandal. But after a few years of her mother’s continuous, consistent bitterness, Cassie had just wanted her mother to get over it and to treat her like a daughter, not a best friend. To have her understand that Max McGillicuddy was not just a husband and senator, but that he was her father, too. She wanted her mother to forgive him or divorce him, no matter the consequences.
Time and time again, she’d told her mother to stop, but she wouldn’t. It was as if Sandy couldn’t. Her anger had become a poisonous compulsion. Cassie had gone as far as not speaking to her mother for a few months, twice, until her mother had sworn to stop complaining. The truce always lasted less than three months.
“As far as we know, Dad never strayed again, and he’s spent the last ten years trying to make it up to you, but you made the decision to only pretend to forgive and to make everyone else miserable.” The tenth anniversary of that day, when her mother had come to her dorm room at Ohio State, messed up and weak, was coming up in about a month. Cassie would never forget it. The first of her heroes had fallen off the pedestal she’d blindly built.
And one by one, they’d kept on falling.
“I guess neither of us is good at forgiving. That’s a good thing. It keeps you in charge.”
“You can’t compare us, Mom. I walked away.”
“You ran away. From all of us.”
“You’re impossible to run away from, Mom. And you know I can’t do anything halfway. If I’m going to walk, I might as well run.”
“Well, you had the option and I didn’t. There was too much at stake, you know that,” Sandy snapped. “And even though you ran, you’re right back where you started. Dreaming Sam’s dreams. I don’t get it.”
“I’m not living Sam’s dreams. I never did and I never wanted to. I’m where I want to be—where I’ve worked hard to be.” Cassie stood up, needing space. Apparently, she was good enough for her mom to confide in, but not good enough to be proud of. “And you may not understand that, but you understand numbers, and I’m so good at what I do that I’ll soon be number one.”
“Well, there’s that.” Sandy breathed in and out before calmly saying, “Let’s not bring up the past, Cassidy. It never ends well.”
I’m not the one who brings it up! Cassie wanted to shout, but she didn’t want to keep arguing.
“And this all started when you mentioned Sam. I knew the boy was trouble ever since the Barbie and Ken incident.” The sparkle was back in her mom’s eye.
Cassie tried to smile despite the tight knot in her chest. Turning the charm back on was her mother’s version of a truce, and Cassie was too tired to keep fighting. “You were the one with the dirty mind. We were pretending Barbie had been kidnapped by evil Barbie ninjas. We couldn’t understand why you asked Sam to go home.”
“What’s a mother supposed to think when she finds a Barbie blindfolded, bound, and gagged, with leather strips, mind you, and a naked Ken hovering over her with a blue, anatomically incorrect penis?”
“Well, you weren’t supposed to think we knew anything about S&M! We were only six.” Cassie shook her head and giggled. “Ken was rescuing Barbie, and we couldn’t find his clothes, so Sam drew briefs on him.”
Sandy laughed. “Did he have to make them blue? I nearly had a heart attack, thinking that my little girl knew what blue balls were.”
“It was the only permanent marker we could find. Can you believe Sam made me turn around while he drew them on?”
Sandy rolled her eyes. “Yes, and what a gentleman he turned out to be.”
Cassie stopped laughing. A good memory buried by a bad one. As usual.
Sam climbed up Cassie’s porch steps, carrying her old bike. Again. Fresh start with Cassie, take two. This time, he’d attached brand-new hand brakes. This time, he’d actually say the words, “Let’s start over.”
The front door opened and Cassie and her mother stepped out onto the front porch. Sam caught acting like a fool, take two, he thought.
Mrs. McGillicuddy wasn’t the type of woman who had to purse her lips and narrow her eyes to let you know she wasn’t happy to see you. She could smile and remain bright, but her presence was so forceful that whatever she was really feeling radiated around her. At the moment, Sam felt as if a python was wrapping itself around his manhood, cutting off all circulation.
“Why, hello, Samuel. I see you found Cassie’s old bike. How nice of you to bring it by. Good-bye now.”
Sam didn’t know if Sandy McGillicuddy was saying good-bye because she was leaving or because she was dismissing him. His gaze settled on Cassie and he raised an eyebrow.
Cassie caught the look. “Bye, Mom,” she said, kissing her cheek.
Mrs. McGillicuddy swept past him, shooting Cassie a significant look, before taking the cold front she carried off with her. “I fixed the hand brakes,” he said to Cassie the moment her mom slammed the door to her white Jag.
“Why?”
Sam could pretend she was referring to the hand brakes, but with her arms crossed and eyes hard, she was in confrontational mode.
He shrugged one shoulder and shifted from one leg to the other. “Peace offering.”
Cassie nodded. “I think we can manage peace.”
Sam took a step back, preparing to leave, his goal accomplished, but a long, drawn-out sigh and professional eye roll from Cassie stopped him. “What?”
“You think you can fix my old bike, grunt ‘peace offering,’ and we’re good?”
“You want to talk?” He should’ve known. Johnny was always saying women had a biological need to talk things out.
“I think we need to set boundaries if we’re going to be effective business partner
s, and that requires talking, yes.” She flashed him a halfhearted version of her old mocking grin and Sam looked away.
In his experience, everyone had a type, and Cassie had always been his. Eyes perpetually lit up with good intentions, pretty face sprinkled with freckles, and flaming hair that matched her vibrancy . . . she had always looked too damn loveable for his own good.
She peeled away at a layer of old paint on the porch post. “Jake looks just like you, and he has so much of Johnny and Dan in him, too. If what happened hadn’t happened, then Jake might not be here.” She sighed. “Meeting him made me realize that being mad over something that happened ten years ago doesn’t make sense. I’m also where I am because of what happened, and I like where I am.”
Sam stood very still, letting her words seep in. This was a new start indeed.
“But, like I said, we need to establish some boundaries,” she continued, when he didn’t speak. “We’re not friends anymore, either.”
“You picked up with Johnny and Dan exactly where you left off.” He looked up and shook his head when he saw the alarmed look in her eye. “I don’t mean to say we should pick up where we left off, but maybe we can be friends, too.”
Her smile was wide and genuine now. Her lips looked as soft as he remembered them. A zing shot from his chest out to his limbs and he shifted again. “It feels as if Dan and Johnny have been living next door all these years. But I don’t know about us trying to be friends again, and it’s not because you were once my boyfriend and you hurt me. The pain that still lingers is that you were my best friend and you hurt me, just when I needed you most.”
“I’m sorry.” Simple words, but he felt them deeply. Always had. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he took a chance and said, “For what it’s worth, I tried my damndest to reach out after you left, but your father wouldn’t tell me where you were and your mother wouldn’t even talk to me.”
Cassie’s eyes widened. “You went to my parents?”