Good Guy Heroes Boxed Set

by Julie Ortolon

  “I said I’d take him, didn’t I?” Edward snapped defensively.

  “All right,” she sighed, wanting to believe him, but fearing Dylan’s disappointment at another letdown. “When will you pick him up?”

  “Will ten a.m. Saturday be convenient?”

  “Perfectly.” She hesitated. “Do you want to keep him overnight?”

  In the pause that followed she could almost hear Edward trying to think of a way to return Dylan directly after the game. That way, he could perform his fatherly duty without having to do anything strenuous, like communicate with his son beyond the confines of a ballpark. In truth, she hoped he would return Dylan right away, even though she knew her son would want the opposite.

  “Yes. I’d like to keep him overnight,” Edward said at last. “I always look forward to spending time with the little guy.”

  The statement had hope surging up inside her. “I know he’ll enjoy seeing you. He misses you, you know.”

  “Well, you tell him he’ll see me next weekend.”

  The words rang with so much sincerity, her eyes stung. “I will.”

  The minute she hung up, doubt crept in since she didn’t trust him to keep his promise. God, if he let Dylan down… Anger started to bubble as she imagined their next confrontation.

  Don’t go there , she told herself.

  Glancing at her computer, she decided work would provide the perfect distraction. She turned to it, determined to put in a few hours. Spending the day shopping with Mike had put her behind schedule. She had a column due on Monday that she hadn’t even started.

  Looking for inspiration, she scanned her incoming email. The first letter to catch her eye came from a farmer’s wife in Iowa who wanted to rekindle some spark of romance in her forty-year marriage. After reading the lengthy and heartbreaking letter, Kate realized the woman had suffered years of verbal abuse from a man who’d called her fat, dumb, and lazy so often the woman had all but forgotten her own name.

  Kate hit the reply command and typed in three words: Dump the bastard.

  After saving her response to review later, she scanned farther down the list and found a letter from a woman whose boyfriend of three years refused to marry her until she found a job that paid her as much as what he made because he feared she’d be a financial burden. Yet, at present the man lived in her house, ate her groceries, and graciously let her pay all the bills.

  Kate hit reply and typed: Dump the bastard. Then suddenly she realized what she was doing.

  No. No. Wrong! Shaking her head, she emptied her draft folder. Responses like these were exactly why Gwen wanted to dump her. Her advice was supposed to be pithy and insightful, but most of all romantic!

  With a sigh, she dropped her head into her hands. The problem was, after five minutes on the phone with Edward, she couldn’t think of a single positive thing to say about the male portion of the human race. Tomorrow, she thought, shutting down her computer. Maybe tomorrow some romantic inspiration will strike.

  Chapter 8

  *

  “DO YOU SPEAK Spanish?” a desperate voice asked the minute Kate picked up the phone.

  “What?” She thought she recognized the voice as Mike’s, but couldn’t quite imagine him being this rattled.

  “Please tell me you speak Spanish,” the voice begged. “Or at least tell me you know where to find your friend’s husband.”

  “Who, Jim?” she asked, glancing at her watch. How had three o’clock arrived so quickly? She couldn’t believe she’d worked at the computer all day. The fact that she had, though, and that she’d lost track of time, delighted her. That was how things used to be, when she’d started writing the column. “Isn’t he at your house? I thought they were going to start tearing out your wall today.”

  “They are. They did! That’s the problem. No, stop!” he shouted to someone else. “Don’t touch that. Don’t touch anything! Kate,” he said into the receiver. “I need you. Can you come right away?”

  With that, he hung up. She frowned at the dial tone coming from the handset, then glanced once more at her watch. As frantic as Mike sounded, he’d simply have to wait until she picked Dylan up from school. She didn’t even have time to change out of the baggy tank top and shorts she frequently wore when working at home. She just grabbed her purse, slipped on some sandals, and dashed out the door.

  In the car, she did at least take the plastic clip out of her hair then swipe on mascara and lipstick. She felt a little foolish for caring how she looked to Mike, but then a woman with red eyelashes and pale skin had no business being seen in public with a completely naked face.

  All thoughts of Mike vanished when she pulled into the circular drive of Lake Travis Elementary. Dylan sat on the front steps with his backpack lying forgotten between his feet and his chin resting in both hands. All around him, children jumped and hollered as they dashed for parents’ cars or fell into lines for the various after-school daycare shuttles. Her heart twisted a little when Dylan spotted her and rose slowly. With shoelaces dragging, he made his way to her car.

  “Hi, sweetheart” She forced a smile as he climbed into the backseat. “How was your day?”

  “Okay,” he mumbled so low she could barely hear.

  After he dutifully fastened his seat belt, she eased the car back into the long line of vehicles waiting to exit the circular drive. “Care to tell me about it?”

  ” ’Bout what?”

  She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Whatever put that frown on your face.”

  He shrugged and turned toward the window.

  Okay , she thought and suppressed the urge to question him further, or worse, stop and pull him into her arms and smother him with motherly affection. She wondered what childish insult he’d suffered this time. Being so much smaller, paler, and more awkward than other boys his age made him a natural target for ridicule. Life could be so cruel to those who most needed kindness.

  “What would you think about stopping at Hamburger Haven for some fries and a Coke on the way home?” she asked, hoping to brighten his mood.

  He shrugged again.

  “Only one catch,” she added. “I need to run by my client’s house in Lakeway first. I think there might be a problem with Jim’s crew.”

  That finally got Dylan’s attention. “Will Jim be there?”

  Her heart sank at the hopeful spark in her son’s eyes. While Jim made a great substitute dad, he wasn’t Dylan’s father and never would be. “I don’t think so, honey, which may be the problem.” Dylan looked so dejected, she quickly added, “But, who knows. He might be there.”

  That hope died when she reached Mike’s house and found no sign of Jim’s truck. Climbing from the car, she heard Mike’s voice as he spoke in stilted English. Even with the front door standing wide open, his voice sounded muffled, and a strange, pink haze drifted outward.

  “Sweetie,” she said to Dylan when they reached the protection of the overhang by the front door, “can you wait for me here?”

  Dylan nodded, his eyes going round at the jumble of voices coming from within the house.

  Cautiously, she stepped over the threshold and into a cloud of pink and white dust. Covering her mouth, she moved into the living room and her jaw dropped. While the ceiling in the main room remained intact, a whole section of ceiling in the kitchen had fallen, scattering chunks of white gypsum and pink insulation over the cabinets, floor, and the four construction workers standing beneath it. With white filters covering their mouths, they worked to brace what remained of the ceiling with two-by-fours.

  “Good heavens,” she breathed through her fingers.

  Mike whirled at the sound of her voice, a red bandana tied over his mouth and nose. The eyes above it filled with relief. “Thank God you’re here!”

  “What happened?” she asked, her voice as muffled as his.

  “What does it look like?” He flung an arm out to encompass the debris that littered the kitchen. “They tore down a bearing wall.”


  “No, that can’t be,” she said, trying to keep one eye on Dylan and survey the damage at the same time. “Jim and I discussed it. He assured me the ceiling joists in the kitchen ran the other way.”

  “Well, something sure as hell went wrong.”

  “Where’s Jim?” she asked.

  “A damned good question.” Mike raked a hand through his hair. Pink and white dust drifted to the shoulders of his Eagles reunion T-shirt. “He came in here this morning, rattled off a bunch of Spanish to these guys, then told me not to worry about a thing, they’ll be out of here in a few hours. So I went downstairs to get some work done. The next thing I know, I hear shouting, so I run upstairs—and find this!”

  Kate turned to the men who had just finished securing the two-by-fours. “Where is Jim?” They stared back at her, blank-faced. She tried again, using some of the limited Tex-Mex she knew. “¿Dónde está el jefe?”

  This time she got a flood of response, none of which she understood. “Wait. Slow down. No comprendo.”

  One of the men said, “El jefe está en la casa en el campo de golf.” He made a motion with his body like a golfer hitting a tee shot.

  “He went to play golf!” Mike hollered. “I’m going to kill him.”

  “No, wait.” Kate waved a hand at him. “I think he said that Jim is at the house he’s remodeling over by the golf course.” At least she hoped that’s where he was.

  Mike’s eyes glazed over as he stared at the gaping hole in his ceiling. “I can’t deal with this right now. I have to finish inputting my wire-frame data. And the Alliance wants me to help with the final plans for the party tomorrow night.”

  “It’s okay,” she placated. “Why don’t you go on downstairs and let me take care of this.”

  After a bit more persuasion and soothing, he handed over his bandana and went back to his lair. Jeez, Kate thought, as she secured the makeshift mask into place. What a mess. At least Mike had managed to get them to brace what remained of the ceiling before the entire thing caved in. Now for the cleanup.

  Turning to the workers, she motioned toward the chunks of gypsum that littered the floor. “We need to clean—I mean, limpia, por favor. No in casa. Outside.” She racked her brain for the Spanish word for outside. Afuera! She pointed toward the front door. “Move all this—esto—afuera.”

  To her relief, the workers began picking up bits of debris and carrying them out onto the driveway. As for the pink fiberglass insulation, it would likely take days for all of it to settle. After asking Dylan to wait right where he was―it was too hot for him to wait in the car, but the airborne fiberglass particles inside the house would trigger an asthma attack for sure―she called Jim’s mobile number. His voice mail picked up, which probably meant he’d once again forgotten to recharge the battery. She called Linda next.

  “Wife for Hire, Linda speaking.”

  “Thank heavens you’re there,” Kate breathed through the bandana. “I’m over at Mike Cameron’s house and we have a major catastrophe on our hands.” After hearing the situation, Linda promised to hunt Jim down and send him over.

  Kate hung up and looked about her. She could either get upset, or clean up the mess. She opted for cleaning up the mess.

  As she bent to pick up some of the debris, she saw Dylan hurry toward her without even a hand covering his mouth. “No, honey, stay back.”

  “But I can help,” he said.

  “Dylan, no, it’s too dusty in here.” Yet she couldn’t very well expect him to stand in the doorway forever. “Come sit over here on the steps.” She led him to the stairs by the foyer, well away from the kitchen and near the fresh air that came through the open door. “Hold your T-shirt over your mouth and nose. Can you do that for Mommy?”

  “You never let me do anything!” he protested. “I’m not a baby, you know.”

  “I know that, Dylan,” she sighed. “But all this dust is bad for your lungs. Do you really want another trip to the hospital?”

  Muttering under his breath, he stomped over to the stairs and sat with his back to her as he pulled the neck of his T-shirt over his mouth and nose. At times like these, he made her feel like the world’s meanest mother. What choice did she have, though? She had no one handy she could call on to distract Dylan while she worked.

  For a brief second she thought of Mike, but dismissed the idea just as quickly. She’d seen the look on his face when he learned she had a son. Even if she hadn’t, she wanted to keep Dylan and her private life safely separate from this challenging assignment, which had just taken a turn for the worse.

  ***

  MIKE SAT STARING blindly at his computer screen. He’d never considered himself a man who cared about material things, but the thought of the mess upstairs made him so mad he couldn’t see straight. He tried to tell himself it was just a house; it could be fixed. Only, a house meant a lot more than mere walls and a roof.

  The house he’d grown up in certainly wasn’t as nice as this place. Yet, when he thought of that clapboard structure in the hills of Santa Monica, he didn’t think of the cracked driveway or the peeling paint. He thought of all the years of living that filled the rooms, the sound of sitcoms playing on the old TV, and the smell of his mom’s chocolate-chip cookies baking in the oven she’d complained about for years. He remembered her tears the day his dad had surprised her with a brand-new one; he could still hear the sound of his sisters’ voices coming from the one bathroom the four of them shared. He’d listened in fascination over the years as they talked about everything from boys to the mysteries of makeup.

  But most of all, he remembered the back deck that overlooked the ocean. How many nights had all of them sat on that deck with hamburgers sizzling on the grill as the fiery ball of the sun melted into the shimmering water? The day the real estate agent had shown him this house on Challenger Drive, the sun had been setting just like that over Lake Travis. He’d walked out onto the deck, looked across the water, and known this was the house where he wanted to raise a family of his own. He’d known it the same way he’d known that Kate was the woman he wanted to help him raise that family. He’d just known.

  Only now he had a giant hole in the middle of their house.

  Before that thought could make him even crazier, he tried again to concentrate on his work. He’d received approval on his sketches that morning, but wanted to get some more input from the special-effects supervisor before he started creating the skin that would cover the wire frame of the robot. Signing onto the studio’s site, he entered his password so he could upload a file.

  Behind him, something crashed to the floor.

  “What the hell!” He bolted out of his chair and whirled, expecting to find some new disaster. To his shock, he found a small boy standing by the built-in bookshelves. A spaceship model from the first Star Wars film lay at the kid’s feet, broken in two.

  “I didn’t do it!” the boy said frantically, his blue eyes wide.

  He hurried over to inspect the gift that George Lucas had presented to him at the end of their first project together. The boy stumbled backward.

  Mike drew up short, realizing he’d frightened the pint-sized intruder. Only, how had a kid gotten into his workroom in the first place? “Look, it’s okay.”

  “I didn’t mean to drop it,” the boy insisted. “Honest!”

  Mike wanted to yell. Not at the kid, but at the whole day. He wanted to stomp around the room, venting his frustration. Instead, he bent down and retrieved the model. His heart sank as it came up in two separate pieces. “Oh fu—” he cut the word off before it left his mouth.

  “I’m sorry.” The boy’s face crumpled with anguish.

  Mike felt a flash of panic as he saw the kid was about to cry. “Hey, it’s okay. Look, see, it can be fixed.”

  “Really?” A few blinks had the wetness in the kid’s eyes subsiding.

  “Yeah, no sweat.” Of course, the collectable value had just plummeted. Not that it mattered, since he didn’t plan to sell any of his movie
memorabilia. He loved every piece of it too much. Oh man, he thought. First his house, now one of his models. Maybe he should take a moment to cry. Instead, he eyed the kid, wondering again who he was. “What’s your name?”

  “Why do you want to know?” The kid gave him a wary look.

  Mike raised a brow. As an uncle, he knew all about pint-sized attitude. As much as he loved his nephews—in limited doses—they could be a handful. “Because you happen to be in my house, and I want to know what you’re doing here.”

  “I’m with my mom,” the boy said cautiously.

  Of course! Mike nearly smacked his forehead. Kate had a seven-year-old son. This boy looked a bit small for seven, though. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “School’s out for the day.” The boy smirked, apparently over his fear.

  Mike glanced at his watch. “So it is.”

  “Wow, is that yours?”

  “Hmm?” Mike followed the kid’s gaze to the massive, high-def monitor glowing over the piles of notes and drawings on his desk. With all the movie models in the room, the kid zeros in on a computer monitor? Not that Mike blamed him. The image quality was a thing of beauty! “Yeah, it’s mine.”

  The boy stood silently eyeing the screen, looking as if he’d sell his soul to get at the slick, state-of-the-art computer, but would also cut out his tongue before he’d ask permission.

  “You want to see it?” Mike finally asked.

  “Maybe.” The kid shrugged, trying but failing to look indifferent.

  Mike studied him, recognizing a fascination with technology that matched his own. “What’s your name?” he asked again, remembering it was something that started with a D.

  The boy hesitated, then glanced at the monitor again.

  “If you want to see the computer,” Mike said, “the least you can do is introduce yourself.”

  “I’m Dylan,” the boy said at last.

  “Glad to meet you, Dylan. I’m Mike.” He held out his hand and saw surprise flash across the boy’s face. After a moment, Dylan gave him a good, solid handshake.