by Dani Collins
Watching his son was like looking at his wedding photo—without the dorky swooped hair and tightly tailored suit, of course—but Zack’s lanky six-foot height and swarthy dark coloring were pure Fogarty.
Homesickness struck L.C. He had left because he couldn’t face what had been coming at him, but he had missed his son. A lot. If women had maternal instincts of softness and nurturing, he had paternal instincts of readiness to protect. All his muscles and sinews tightened, followed with a slap of failure that he was getting good at sloughing off. He shrugged now, pulling away from everything except what was right in front of him.
“Thank you. I really appreciate that,” Zack was saying. “Ten o’clock. I’ll be there.” Without looking up, he pocketed his phone and turned to unlock his bike.
“Hey, jailbird,” L.C. greeted, coming up beside him.
Zack looked up, his frown blanking into surprise, then a wide smile of recognition. “Dad!”
He straightened and almost moved for a hug, which would have been natural a few years ago, but evaporated every time Zack remembered he was still mad at him. Zack faltered and L.C. ignored the pang that hit him, offering to shake.
“What are you doing here?” Zack asked, cautious as they dropped their grip.
“Heard you got yourself into hot water last night.”
Zack waved it off and turned to his bike lock. “I was trying to stop the other guys.”
L.C. rubbed his stubbled jaw. Sounded about right. Just like his Auntie Paige, Zack only ever got into trouble when his do-gooder instincts went too far.
“So you don’t need anything.” It was a let down, but not a massive one. His worst nightmare was that his son would make the same mistakes he had. He was disgusted he’d let Britta’s ‘he shouldn’t have to ask’ comment get to him. He could have saved himself this sense of irrelevance.
“Yeah, everything’s fine.” Zack strapped on his helmet. “You should have texted. Sorry it’s a wasted trip.”
“I did text. And it’s not a waste if you join me for breakfast. Or do you have class?”
“No, I, uh....” Zack mounted his bike than slouched on the seat. “I mean, I do have class, but I actually have to move out of the dorm right now.”
“Oh.” L.C. absorbed that. “So everything’s fine except you’re kicked out.”
“Just from rez. The other guys got expelled, but I talked the Dean into letting me stay in school.”
Impressive. “Where will you go?”
“Not sure, but I’ll figure it out.” Zack leaned his elbows on the handlebars and skiffed his feet as he rolled forward at a speed L.C. could pace. His shoes scrape-scraped and his tires ticked. He nodded at a girl they passed.
L.C. waited for Zack to ask for help moving, or money for rent.
Nothing.
L.C. dug for his keys. “Let’s get a coffee. Then I’ll help you pack.”
Zack pulled out his phone to check the screen, then said, “I don’t really have time. I, um, the other thing about letting me stay is, I have to repair the damage the guys did. And serve a hundred community hours. I’m going over at ten to make sure the people at the old folks home are okay with that.”
L.C. choked on a snort.
Zack braked to a stop. “What?”
Not about to voice his doubts, because he knew his son was capable of a lot when it came to swinging a hammer, L.C. said, “Getting expelled sounds like the easier punishment. Why do you have to do all that and the other guys don’t?”
“Because they don’t care if they stay. I do.” Zack kicked off again before L.C. could question him further.
“You’re passing my truck,” L.C. called and Zack braked again to look across the parking lot. “We might as well load your stuff. We can find you a place after your meeting, if you’re allowed to stay. Am I reading that right? These old folks have to agree, otherwise you’re gone?”
“They’ll agree.” Zack rolled his bike across the pavement, then swung it into the bed of the pickup. “My dorm is across—”
L.C. shook his head. “You drive.”
Zack closed his hand over the keys. His thick dark brows came together like anvil heads. For the first time, he took in his father’s appearance, scowling as he noted rumpled denim and red eyes.
“Should you have driven here?” Zack asked with a new, more mature sort of challenge than L.C. had ever seen in his son.
“I’m not drunk. Or hungover. I’m tired. I drove all night from New Mexico.”
Zack made a noise that suggested reasonable doubt.
“Look, you said you have to move.” L.C. fought to keep his tone level, even though inside he was fuming and yeah, sick with guilt. His kid had every right to be suspicious, but he still hated it. “I’ll help you pack, then we’ll go to this meeting and I’ll look at the repairs with you. See what’s involved.” It was a fair offer. He’d been twisting wrenches all his life. He didn’t expect Zack to fall apart with relief, but a nod of thanks would be nice.
Jaw offset with indecision, Zack said, “You don’t need to. I’m handling this.”
The less than subtle Get Lost caused a twist of anguish in L.C.’s chest. He’d told himself Zack understood why he’d left Liebe Falls, but he had suspected, and now saw first hand, that Zack viewed his escape as running away from parenthood.
He was running from so much more than that.
But he loved his son and had never intended to run out on him. “I want to help, Zack.”
Edith Garvey couldn’t sleep for worrying last night’s pack of young criminals might return, seeking revenge. She said as much to Lindy Bellacerra, that busybody, when Lindy accosted her at Mercedes’s desk.
“That’s not likely, is it?” Lindy said, lunging to stretch. “They were all arrested.”
Honestly, this woman and her morning parade of flesh. Spandex didn’t belong on any female and Lindy was old enough to know it.
“Harrison said the police only wanted to put a scare into them,” Edith said, sorting the mail. “Which means they could be out by now. If Coconino is forced to hire private security, we’ll go bankrupt, not to mention the assaults they might perpetrate—” Edith glanced up, already worrying where she would go, and caught Lindy rolling her eyes, actually rolling her eyes at her.
Your imagination’s running away with you again, Edie, Thomas’s voice teased in her mind.
Setting aside the mail, Edith sipped the tea she’d purchased from the cantina, upset that no one, even the likes of Lindy Bellacerra, took her seriously. It wasn’t as if these fearful thoughts were unfounded. Those boys last night could be exactly like the ones who had swarmed and killed her husband.
Sorrow thickened in her throat. See, Thomas? Even my imagination is no match for what can really happen.
She set down her tea and tried to bring order to the files and sticky notes and clipboards. “That’s two prescription deliveries Mercedes has missed,” she told Lindy. “We’ll have another Frank Barclay situation on our hands if we aren’t careful.”
“Mercedes isn’t going to rob us blind!” Lindy stretched her arms above her head so her voluptuous figure thinned and her breasts mashed together. She held the pose as Harrison came through the sliding doors.
It was Edith’s turn to roll her eyes, but she refrained. She, at least, had been raised to show some manners. “Good morning, Harrison.”
“She thinks Mercedes is cooking the books like Frank,” Lindy told him.
Stirring the pot was so like Lindy. Edith searched out the scissors with more impatience than she wanted to show, but it was upsetting. Why was it the only person built to understand her had taken too long to come into her life and left far too early? And no children. She wasn’t one to cry about life not being fair, but when Harrison sighed like that, his disparagement directed right at her, the injustice was impossible to take. She straightened to offer Lindy a cold glare.
“Don’t let us keep you from walking before the heat.”
Lindy tw
itched her mouth and might have even flipped her hair as she turned, if she hadn’t had her gray locks secured in a small bun and wrapped in her green visor. “See you later, Harrison.”
“That is not what I said,” Edith clarified indignantly when Lindy was gone. “I meant that we may have to find a replacement for Mercedes, if she continues to leave us at loose ends. She should have been here last night.”
“It’s not something anyone could have predicted. You know that. And she’s on her way. I just spoke to her. She promised to be here by ten o’clock.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.” It showed the young woman had her head on straight after all. Finally things could settle back to normal.
Edith carefully cut the plastic away from the golf magazine that was subscribed for the lounge.
“We’ll ask her to start with quotes on installing higher fences. I can only imagine what an electric gate costs. Then there’s the aggravation of people forgetting the pass-code. This desk has been left empty too long, but I suppose it will stay neglected while Mercedes calls security comp—”
“We’re not turning this place into Stalag 13,” Harrison drawled.
“Why does everyone insist on interrupting me?” With sarcasm, as if interrupting wasn’t disrespectful enough.
“What you’re suggesting is a waste of time. We don’t have funds for it and that’s not why I asked her to come back. One of the punks wants to meet with us.”
Like a freight train coming to a violent stop, Edith’s heart jammed and thumped with hard, jarring beats. A horrified squeal seemed to drone in her ears.
“Absolutely not.” She meant to sound strong, but the constriction in her chest made the words breathy. Placing a hand below the notch in her collarbone, she wondered if this was what cardiac arrest felt like. Except her blood began moving again, pushing with headache-inducing force. She found her breath with equal suddenness. “We’re not meeting with any of those hooligans.”
“I already said we would.”
“You did not!” The scissors clattered to the floor, nearly hitting her foot. She couldn’t even bend to pick it up. She would fall over. “Without speaking to the board?”
“I’m speaking to you now. If you don’t want to see him, don’t come to the meeting.” He checked his watch. “I wonder if Pete’s out of his coma yet.”
“That’s unacceptable, Harrison,” she scolded as he walked away, but what could she do? He’d already invited the hoodlum. No! This was completely unacceptable.
“A place for family? Why does it say that, Auntie M?”
“Hmm?” Mercedes held open the gold-lettered door for the kids, her gaze going straight to her desk as they entered. The horseshoe shaped workspace had piled with paperwork in the three weeks she’d been gone. The pleasure of homecoming died under a sandbag of guilt.
Ayjia tugged on her hand, insistent.
“Pardon? Oh. Sorry, hon. I don’t know. It’s just what it says. Coconino Vista Adult Living Complex: A Place For Family.” At least there wasn’t a New Girl sitting behind the counter as Mercedes had half-expected. Deserved, maybe.
Rounding the desk, she slid her overstuffed beach bag off her shoulder onto her rolling chair, realizing they’d made worse time than she’d thought since lunch smells drifted from the cantina. Pea soup, if she wasn’t mistaken. Likely made from the ham leftover from Easter, something else she’d missed while babysitting her niece and nephew through Spring Break.
“But if it’s for families, how come only grown-ups are allowed to be here?” Ayjia lifted her face in consternation.
Mercedes really wished she hadn’t had words with Mrs. Garvey last Christmas. Ayjia was so worried.
“Kids are allowed to visit,” Mercedes assured her. “It’s fine that you’re here with me.” She hoped. She looked for one of the board members, wondering if Harrison had explained for her, dreading having to do it herself.
Lifting the nearly empty jar of jellybeans off her desk, she set it on the floor at Dayton’s feet. “Do you want to count those out for you and Ayjia?”
He nodded and knelt. She handed him a magazine to set the beans on.
“Why does he get to do it?” Ayjia asked.
“Because he’s older.” Mercedes spoke over her shoulder as she crossed to where she could see through the double doors into the cantina.
“I’m going to turn six in the summer,” Ayjia reminded.
“And Dayton will turn seven right after. No, don’t tip it, Dayton. Just reach in.”
No board members in the cantina. It held only its dozen or so regulars, sipping coffee and playing cards. One lifted a hand and Mercedes returned the wave with a smile.
In the lounge on the other side of the foyer, two elderly men watched golf on the big screen. Through the windows behind her desk, she saw an empty courtyard, not unusual for a Monday morning.
The board must be waiting for her in the meeting room. When Harrison had called again this morning, he’d said one of the young men had asked to meet with them and she needed to be here. Getting the kids off to school had turned into A New Plan. One road trip later, here she was, but no one else seemed to be. Glancing down the hall, she noted even the sunroom at the end appeared deserted.
Hmph. She’d promised to come straight from Porsha’s, but it looked like they had started without her. She tried not to see that as a bad sign.
Going back to where the kids were bickering over the remaining green jellybean, she popped it into her own mouth and crouched to say, “Remember when I said I need you both to be really quiet when we get here? Because I have an important meeting? Dayton, fingers out of your nose, please.”
Dayton stood and swiped his finger on the seat of his too short jeans. Either the kid grew by the minute or he had inherited the impossible Hertzog legs, like she had. Poor guy would suffer cold ankles the rest of his life. She gave him a quick, empathetic hug, then straightened before he could push her away.
“Can you do that?” she asked him. “Be quiet for a little bit?”
“I can,” Ayjia said.
Dayton said, “Can we go swimming?”
“After my meeting.” Setting the empty jar back on her desk, resisting the urge to finger through the mail, Mercedes collected the beach bag and led the kids down the hall. On one side, they passed a series of closed doors. On the other, a wall of windows showcased the gardens that bordered the courtyard.
“Why can’t we swim now?” Dayton asked, pressing hands and face to the window below the handrail, staring at the fenced pool.
“Because I have a meeting.” And she suspected attending it was a deal breaker as far as keeping her job went. She hurried them past the closed door of the meeting room and into the empty sunroom.
“What does that one say, Auntie M?” Ayjia pointed to a poster on the wall.
Mercedes glanced at the schedule she’d hung a month ago. Out of date and damn, she’d missed the flower arrangement classes. She had wanted to talk to the florist about bouquets for the Spring Swing Fling. Yet another beef she could take up with Porsha when she caught up to her.
“It’s a lot of writing,” Ayjia said. “Dayton can’t read it if it’s too much writing.”
“It’s not that interesting anyway. Just a list of what people can do, like card games and art classes and stuff.”
“What about the red one?”
“That’s an exit sign, sweetie, and don’t you dare go through that door. It will make a big noise if you do and I need you to stay here while I go into my meeting. Dayton, hon, do you have to go to the bathroom?”
“No.” He removed his flexing hand from his crotch.
“Okay.” Mercedes turned the two faux leather armchairs so they faced each other and tugged a side table so it stood between. When she slid the straps of the beach bag off her shoulder, her back wept in relief. “Can you two draw me a picture while I go in the next room for a few minutes?”
Dayton gave her The Look, his shaggy hair hanging over his l
owered brows, his chin crinkling with mutiny.
“Please,” Mercedes said.
“I’m hungry.”
“We just had a cream cheese bagel.”
“Can I have a soda?”
“You can have milk when I’m finished with my meeting.”
“Is it a party?” A six-year-old shouldn’t be capable of that level of cynicism.
“No, it’s a meeting, hon. Someone broke into a building here and I have to figure out how to fix it.”
“The building?” Ayjia asked.
“Well, that, and meet one of the kids who broke in.”
“Kids broke in?” Ayjia paused in spilling the contents of the bag, eyes wide.
“College kids. Teenagers.” Young adults, she’d since learned, who should have known better. “Keep the crayons on the table, ‘kay, hon?” If one of the seniors came in and rolled an ankle... Mercedes didn’t even want to think about it. “Dayton, will you watch Ayjia for me for a few minutes? You don’t have to color if you don’t want to.”
He swayed away from the hand she combed through his hair. “Why can’t we come?”
Because I want to keep my job. “It’s a meeting for grown-ups. I won’t be long. Just sit here quietly, okay?”
With serious misgivings, Mercedes left the sunroom and entered the meeting room where small private receptions were occasionally arranged for birthdays or anniversaries, and where card tables were set up for the monthly board meeting.
“Mercedes! Finally.” Mrs. Garvey’s Finishing School accent silenced the room as she broke away from the group beside the coffee service at the counter. Her teabag string waved from the edge of her cup and tea sloshed onto the saucer as she marched her thin frame across the room.
“I’m sorry.” Mercedes caught a brief glimpse of a fresh-faced college kid and a face that was definitely that of a man.
Her heart gave a teensy ba-boomp even before she got a proper look at him. Mrs. Yamamoto opened her arms for a hug and Mercedes had to bend way down over the woman’s tiny frame then turn to press a light kiss on Pete Dolinski’s cheek. Her vision was completely blocked by Harrison Michaels’s broad shoulders when she accepted his brief, back-patting hug. He smelled like cotton and cigars and love. Yeah, she loved this ol’ coot.