by Liz Crowe
She plunked the infamous swear jar down on the table then stood and met each of her sons in the eye before coming back to Aiden. He fidgeted in his seat. “I just have one question for you, Aiden, my sweet.”
“Yes ma’am?” He slammed back his second drink dreading the question.
“Is that Renee going to be presenting me with a grandbaby in the next few months?”
Aiden frowned. The men all snickered. He ran a hand through his wet hair. “Um. No ma’am. At least, not to my knowledge. I mean, the wedding’s not until June, the, uh, last I heard.” His face flushed hot when Dom nudged his arm.
“Oh, well then. What a relief.” She kept staring at him, saying more in those few, flat words than other women took paragraphs to state. She’d made her stance on Renee clear when he’d first returned home. A sick sort of dread rose in his throat.
“And you.” She faced Antony, who sat chuckling into his glass. “You’re the oldest, and meant to be an example. I operated under the apparent mistaken assumption you understood that.”
“Yes, ma’am, I do. I’ve understood that my entire life.” He scowled down the row at Aiden, who experienced a sudden flicker of sympathy for him.
“Really. Well then, perhaps you’d best start acting like the example. Rosalee Norris is a fine woman. And if I find out you are doing anything to disrespect her in any way whatsoever—” She let the other half hover, using one of her best guilt trips—the unspoken threat. They all knew it, and feared it.
“No, ma’am. But I will say you bringing her around to the pole barn to see us—”
“This is my house, Antony, and I will do what I see fit. She needed—they all needed—to get an idea what they were getting themselves into firsthand with you all sorry so-and-so’s.” Her eyes softened when they rested on Kieran. “Oh, my sweetheart, the peacemaker.” She reached across the table to brush a lock of red hair off his forehead. He smiled at her, his face a mask of hopefulness for getting off the hook. She cupped his chin. Resentment rose in Aiden’s gut at her coddling.
Lindsay smiled serenely, keeping her palm alongside Kieran’s face. “I sincerely hope that Melinda has some kinda special skills for you in the boudoir. Oh, and you should let her know now that she’d better not ever keep me from your babies, either. I have a feeling she’d be the mama to try it. She’s a right cunt, that one.”
Aiden blinked, not quite sure he’d heard her correctly. Dom burst out laughing so hard, he tipped his chair and landed on his back.
“Mama!” Angelique squealed. But her lips were twitching in an attempt not to laugh. Anton scowled down into his drink, but Aiden saw him shaking.
“As for you, young man.” She focused on Dominic then, once he’d managed to get up off the ground and sat once more between Aiden and a fuming Kieran. “Well, I just don’t know what to say. I’m not sorry that hippy girl left town, but I sure do wish I could meet your son someday.” Dom cleared his throat but wouldn’t meet her eyes. “There’s somebody right for you, Dominic Sean Love. I just know it. I wish it had been Diana Brantley. I’m not sure what your issue is with her.”
“Well, you chased my new girl off from here tonight, Mama,” he muttered into his drink, letting the comment about his on-again, off-again, oldest girlfriend go unaddressed. “She’s even a teacher.”
“Yeah, a yoga teacher.” Kieran nudged him.
Dom shot him a murderous look then tilted his half-empty glass at the rest of the group. “Yeah. Lucky me. I like ’em bendy.”
Everyone laughed. Peace, it seemed, would prevail, as it usually did after fists flew between them. Even Lindsay cracked a smile.
“I don’t believe that you know what you want yet. But you will some day.” She touched his face with her fingertips. “I’m tired, Anton.” She slumped against her husband. “Please go with me into the house. You all be sure and fill this thing.” Dropping her own dollar into it, she said, “Pardon my language. Make it overflow, Misters Love. I mean it.” She shot them one more glare. And like that, their family meeting concluded.
Their father left the bourbon bottle in the middle of the table. “Finish it off if it’ll help you all calm down.” He glowered at them before taking Lindsay’s arm. “Come on, Angelique,” he said, gesturing for his beloved daughter. She gave him a hug, and her mother a perfunctory peck on the cheek, but stepped away from them.
“I’m gonna stay with the knuckleheads awhile longer.”
Aiden observed his brothers, sitting all in a row. Each of them wore his own version of dismay at the sight of their strong mother being helped into the house. He got up, walked over to the bar, and snagged more Woodford.
“This is gonna take more than one bottle, I think.” He glanced at Antony, who held up his glass by way of agreement. Angelique flipped on the music then grabbed her own glass and sat facing them.
“All right, assholes, let’s get drunk,” she said, dropping a dollar into the large, clear glass jar between them.
Chapter Twenty-One
After a solid five days of ignoring him, Renee finally responded to a text.
You can come over tonight.
Aiden looked at the message then up at the classroom full of mostly grown-ups waiting for his next bit of advice about their first chapters. It had taken him a full twenty-four hours to recover from the brawl and the bourbon. They’d even issued a rare cancellation of the weekly basketball game, given that his shoulder still ached like a rotten tooth, and they were all black and blue that Sunday.
His mind still refused to accept any of his current reality. So he operated mostly on autopilot, moving from his tiny apartment to his classroom, home to his laptop, to bed then up again. Antony expected him back at the garage—the first day after the mess they’d instigated at the Halloween party. Aiden’s stomach roiled the concept of facing Antony now. The hard fact of the matter that he didn’t give an honest shit if he never saw Renee again didn’t help his mood much.
Not a good frame of mind, considering you’ll be marrying the woman in a few months.
Her next message made him feel even worse.
I don’t forgive you, but I miss you more than I want to punish you. See you after the garage shift.
He dropped the phone on the desk, pondering how well she knew his schedule—many times better than he did—and focused on his job. As he headed toward Lucasville and the Love Garage, he sent her an answer.
Sure. See you then.
He parked around back and got out, noting the usual busyness of the shop on a Thursday afternoon. Antony had a reputation for brutal honesty with regard to car repairs, charged fairly, and fixed things right the first time. As a result, he had people come all the way out from the other side of Lexington to do business with him. Aiden admired it a lot, but when he saw his brother in one of the open bay doors, wiping his hands on a rag, he experienced a thrill of anger.
“Hey.” He walked past him, heading for his usual first task, unpacking the day’s worth of parts deliveries. Antony grabbed his arm and held him in place.
“You all right?” He nodded to Aiden’s other arm that rested in a sling.
“Yeah, it just keeps pressure off the shoulder so it can heal.” He took it off. “I can still work, don’t worry.”
“Good.” Antony let him go. “Sorry,” he spoke to the air slightly to Aiden’s left.
“What’s that?” Aiden asked, gritting his teeth.
“I said I’m sorry. You going up to the hospital tonight?”
Aiden blinked, trying to recall if he’d indicated he would, and coming up with nothing.
“Last night was a bad one.” Antony tucked the rag into his front jeans pocket.
“Is Rosalee there?”
“Only when I’m not.”
“Ah, well, okay. I can go if it’s my turn. I thought I had the weekend though.”
“Well, Daddy called and wants us to all go tonight.” Antony focused down at his work boots. “I guess he didn’t get a hold of you yet.”
“I don’t know.” Antony slouched in the bay doorway, his face grim. “Go on and get some work done. We can ride up there together when we close up.”
Aiden shot a quick text to Renee. Can’t come tonight. Need to go to hospital.
I’ll come with, she responded quickly. I hope everything is OK.
Don’t know if it is. I’m riding with Antony after work. I’ll let you know if you should come or not.
Waiting for her answer, expecting bossy indignation, he got nothing. He spent the rest of the day organizing the parts room after three large shipments were unpacked then helping one of the mechanics change the oil on a Volvo. After they shut the garage, he and Antony rode the thirty minutes to University Hospital in total silence.
Their father, Angelique, Dom, and Kieran were already there when they arrived. Aiden held back, his feet frozen at the sight of everyone gathered around their mother in a hospital bed. His heart thudded in his chest and his mouth dried up. Antony tugged him in.
“Come on,” he insisted, reminding Aiden of all the times he’d dragged him along when they were younger, shielding him from Dom, taking him bike or horseback riding. “Be brave,” he said, making Aiden do a double take at the sight of his encouraging face.
When their father looked at them, his expression made Aiden exhale.
“She’s turned a corner. You just missed the doc. He said she’s—” He stopped and Aiden came face-to-face with his very Italian, alpha male, in-control father, choking up with raw emotion.
Angelique flew to his side and buried her face in his chest. Anton held onto her, which seemed to calm him more than it did her. He sucked in a breath and swiped at his eyes. “They weren’t sure early this morning. But they did a scan and say they got it all and her temperature is normal again.”
“They were about to put her on a respirator I thought. That was some kind of miracle.” Antony voiced what Aiden had been thinking.
“Yeah.” Anton gave his daughter a squeeze then released her. “She’s not going out of this world without a fight. You know that.”
Aiden stood by the bed and watched her sleep. The beeps and pings of machines monitoring his mother’s heartbeat and pulse barely registered. Relief made him weak in the knees, but he grinned at her when her eyes fluttered open and found his.
“Aiden? Baby?” she croaked between dry lips. “Mama needs a drink of water.”
After a couple of hours, Lindsay shooed everyone away, insisting they sleep in their own beds. She’d bossed the nurses into giving her some real food, and had everyone declaring her a miracle, including her doctors.
Antony and Aiden walked to the elevator and rode down to the parking garage with their siblings. Aiden gave Angelique a hug before she got into their dad’s car.
“I’ll come back for him if he wants me to. I’m gonna stick around until at least the new year now, I think.” She kept chewing on her lip and tugging at her long black hair.
“Yeah, but then you go back. You have to finish your degree.”
“You should talk,” she said, climbing into the car. “Besides I hear I can make great money dancing on a cruise ship, or at one of the big parks.”
“I did finish, twice. I just didn’t this last one—yet. But hey, I got a positive response from a small agency. They want the full manuscript. And I’ve decided if they pass, I’m gonna self-publish the damn thing. See if that’ll work.” He frowned and crouched down next to the open car door. “And somehow, I think dancing in a Cinderella costume is kind of a waste of your talent, so get that idea right out of your fool head.”
She kept her eyes straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel. “I hope you’re sorting things out with Rosalee.”
“You mean Renee.”
Her knowing gaze was so like their mother’s it made him pause. “No, I don’t. Move. I need to go home and sleep.” He stood and waited until her car’s taillights disappeared around the corner then climbed into Antony’s truck and leaned his head back.
“Rosie still won’t talk to me. Won’t let me in the house, near her, or Jeffrey,” Antony said as they waited in line to pay the parking-garage attendant.
“Renee is just now talking to me. I’m supposed to go over there.” Aiden pulled his phone out of his pocket and switched it off. “But I think I’ll just go home.”
Antony raised an eyebrow at him. Aiden matched it. And the discussion choked and died from a lack of oxygen.
Chapter Twenty-Two
November
Rosalee watched from her kitchen window as Jeffrey climbed around on his Antony-installed backyard jungle gym. The warm weather so close to Thanksgiving gave her a welcome opportunity for her son to get outside and blow off steam. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. A sharp rap at the door startled her out of the morning’s fresh worry.
She opened it, leaving the screen door latched and looked at Antony without saying anything. The confusion in her heart and mind over him, Aiden, and that bizarre, ugly scene at the Halloween party still had her tied up in knots. She owed Antony a loosening, some forgiveness. She also owed him the truth.
“How’s your mama?” she asked.
Coming just short of scuffing his feet on the worn porch, he clutched a huge bouquet of roses in one hand. “Better. The chemo is tearing her up, but she won’t let Daddy check her back into the hospital. Wants to keep doing the outpatient. But it’s rough on ’em. Angelique is helping, but I know Mama misses you.”
Rosalee gritted her teeth and tried not to respond. She missed Lindsay, too. The woman had always been like a second mother to her. She was smart, funny, and practical in ways her own mother had not been. But although Rosalee had visited her in the hospital after her second surgery, she could not bring herself to go out to the Love family house.
“I miss you, Rosie.” He kept dark eyes on hers. “I’m so sorry for how I behaved.”
“I know you are.” But she couldn’t let him in. Her body already reacted to his presence but she kept a grip on it, unwilling to give in to her base need for his arms around her. She would not be with Antony again, would not have sex with him until she told him the truth about Aiden—about what she had done with him. It had to be done, no matter how hard it would be or what might happen after.
“Mama wants me to bring Jeffrey out to my place. She’s spending the day with Daisy and Lucy.” He named Lindsay’s two favorite show horses. “She owes him a horse ride, and she’s feeling strong today, so she wants her animals. I guess. I don’t know.”
Rosalee smiled, softening despite her attempts not to do just that. He seemed lost, like a sad little boy in a large, nearly forty-year-old man’s body. Her heart flexed, but she forced her gaze away from him.
“All right, he’s around back.” She opened the door. Antony moved forward, but she held up her hand. “I’ll take those. And thank you.” He handed her the flowers. Their perfume overpowered her.
“Rosie, I’m…we’re still…shit. I don’t even know how to have this conversation with you.”
“I’ll grab Jeffrey a change of clothes in case he gets muddy.” Stepping back, she closed the door, cutting off her view of Antony’s miserable face, and quieting the clanging guilt in her brain. Something had certainly gone on with him and Margot Hamilton. But her own tumbled, conflicted feelings about Aiden hardly gave her room to accuse.
Her innate competitive nature refused to accept Antony might have feelings for another woman, or that he might have actually acted on those feelings. At the same time, her conscience kept her awake at night, reliving the moment she’d first kissed Aiden, let him touch her, touched him, let him enter her body and, apparently, her soul.
Jeffrey squealed with delight when Antony got around back and told him they were going horseback riding.
“Will Aiden be there?” His voice carried through the open window at the back of the house.
Rosalee sucked
in a breath and gripped the flowers so close the few remaining thorns poked through her shirt.
“No, but if you play your cards right, we’ll get ice cream on the way home. How’s that sound?”
“Yay! Ice cream!”
She put the flowers down and went to grab his spare clothes, noting she had a text on her phone as she passed by the hall table where she’d left it.
Aiden had messaged her: We need to talk.
She bit her lip and tucked the phone into her pocket. Antony had Jeffrey fastened into his car seat by the time she met him at the truck. Taking the backpack from her, he tossed it into the front seat then grabbed her so fast she squealed.
He held her close, his lips near her ear. “I love you, Rosie. Please forgive me. Please say we’re still gettin’ married. I can’t stand this. I acted like such an ass.”
She fought it a half second then went up tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. This is what she needed in her life, this man, not his immature little brother. They were good together—she and Antony. She knew it—or at least she wanted to know it. His hands slid down her back to cup her ass as their lips met.
“Horsies! Horsies! Jeffrey wants horsies!”
Her sense of Antony going through motions, doing what people expected of him, still remained. She broke away and touched his rough cheek, knowing she’d crossed a line, and had no choice about going back.
“Bring him home in one piece, please.”
Antony gripped her hand, kissed it, and looked so relieved, hysterical laughter threatened to burst from her lips. She closed her eyes a brief second, picturing Aiden. Guilt rose, choking off anything resembling happiness.
“I want to have a baby with you, Rosie,” he said, surprising her. More children had never been a topic of conversation between them. He held onto her, despite Jeffrey’s growing displeasure at the apparent delay of game. He put a hand on her stomach, and she got a chill, along with a strange surge of desire so strong she had to take a step back from him.