by Beth Andrews
“You told her Max was fine.”
She had no reason to worry. No right to. Not when she was the one who walked away from their son.
“She seemed relieved,” James said. “What’s going on? She still bugging you about more time with Max?”
“Nothing’s going on.” Nothing except his ex-wife changing the rules they’d lived by for the past five years. “I’ve got it handled.”
About four months ago, Lena had started calling several times a week instead of every other weekend. At first, Eddie hadn’t thought much of it, but then she’d started talking about spending more time with Max, how she wanted to be a bigger part of his life.
That was when the fear had set in. Ever since their divorce, ever since she’d willingly granted Eddie full custody, she’d never wanted to be more than a partial influence in their child’s life. Twice-yearly visits—always in Shady Grove—had been enough for her all this time. It should continue to be enough.
Or at least that’s what he’d thought until she’d admitted the reason for her change of heart.
Cancer.
Lena had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in January. Per her wishes, Eddie hadn’t told anyone, not even his family. Not Max. Lena was fine now, her prognosis excellent after a hysterectomy and chemo treatments.
No sense worrying Max needlessly. No point in letting him know it’d taken a near-death experience to make his mother want back in his life.
Eddie had agreed to let Lena see Max anytime she wanted. It was the right thing to do.
But that didn’t mean Eddie had to like being the good guy. Or that he had to answer every one of her phone calls.
Kneeling in front of the cabinet, Eddie inserted shims under the bottom to make the base level. As he worked, though, he felt James’s gaze on him, like an unreachable itch between his shoulder blades. Nagging. Irritating as hell.
“Everything okay with you?” James asked.
“Yep.”
But James remained rooted to his spot. “Let’s go to O’Riley’s. Grab a beer.” From the tapping going on behind him, James had his phone out again. “But it’s your turn to buy.”
“I’m working.”
“Fine. I’ll buy.”
Eddie tossed the shims aside. “I don’t want a beer.”
Actually, a beer didn’t sound half bad. If a quick drink had been all James was after, he might have gone along with it. But James was too perceptive to buy Eddie’s evasions about Lena. Too damned nosy to let it go. And spending any amount of time deflecting what was sure to be an interrogation sounded like pure hell.
“I’ll text Leo,” James said. “Have him meet us.”
Both brothers yakking at him, questioning him, wanting to know his every goddamn thought? More like pure hell with the flames set to High.
Eddie stood. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
Between putting in twelve-hour days for Montesano Construction, family obligations and his new live-in relationship with Sadie Nixon—his best friend since childhood—James always had somewhere to be. Something to do.
“Not for an hour.” He didn’t even look up from whatever he was typing. “Sadie and I are going to her parents’ house for Will’s birthday dinner.”
“You want to waste an hour while Leo hits on every pretty woman at O’Riley’s, that’s your choice. Me? I’m going to finish this, pick up my kid and go home.”
“You sure?” James asked quietly, but Eddie knew what his brother really wanted to know.
Are you really all right? Do you want to talk about it? What can I do to help?
He was grateful for the concern. He didn’t want it, didn’t need it, but he could appreciate it just the same. “I’m sure.”
Nodding, James stepped forward and slapped Eddie’s shoulder. Gave it an affectionate—if heavy-handed—squeeze. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
He walked out, his phone once again buzzing for his attention. Eddie turned to his work. He appreciated his brother’s concern. Knew James and the rest of their family were there for him and Max if they needed them. Whenever. Wherever.
It meant a lot.
But there were some things a man had to do on his own.
* * *
“I’M TELLING YOU, that woman hates me,” Sadie Nixon said with such heartfelt drama, Harper glanced around to make sure they hadn’t been magically transported to a Broadway stage. Harper’s cousin always had had somewhat of a theatrical streak.
But, nope, they were still in Irene Ellison’s gourmet kitchen. The scent of roasting beef filled the air, mixed with the yeasty smell of the rolls in the second oven while potatoes bubbled on the back corner of the six-burner range. Speckled black granite counters topped white cabinets, and green-and-black accents kept the room from being too modern or austere.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Aunt Irene told her daughter as she spread whipped white frosting on a triple-layer coconut cake. “Rose is a lovely woman.”
“She’s a fabulous woman,” Sadie agreed, crossing her arms as she leaned back against the counter. “Wonderful, really. Kind. Caring. Considerate. And she hates my guts.”
Aunt Irene shook her head. “Now, Sadie—”
“It’s true. I’ve tried so hard to get her to like me. I bake her cookies. Pick up little gifts I think she’ll enjoy. Help with the dishes when we eat dinner there. I invite her out for coffee or shopping, just the two of us.” Sadie, in bright orange jeans that threatened to cause permanent eye damage, and a silky white top that fell from her shoulder, pouted prettily. Then again, everything Sadie did she did prettily. Hard not to when you looked like a blonde, blue-eyed fairy come to life. “She’s always busy.”
“Well, I imagine she is very busy, what with going back to school,” Aunt Irene said.
Lifting the lid from the potatoes, Harper frowned as steam heated her cheeks, probably curling her hair. “Mrs. Montesano is going to college?”
“She’s taking courses at Seton Hill.” Sadie swiped her finger through the frosting bowl when her mom’s back was turned. “She wants to be a social worker.”
Good to know at least one Montesano considered education important. Rose’s middle son could learn a lesson from his mother.
Harper gripped the fork like Norman Bates in Psycho and stabbed the potatoes with more force than necessary. Not that she was letting grumpy, stubborn Eddie affect the rest of her evening or anything. She’d let all that go. Her frustration with him. Her curiosity as to how someone who seemed so quiet and stoic could also be so blatantly antagonistic.
Her shock over the sense that he just hadn’t seemed to like her all that much.
She peeled her fingers from the utensil and laid it on the counter, replaced the lid on the not-quite-done vegetable. How could he not like her? They didn’t even know each other, for God’s sake. Yes, she’d tutored him, but it wasn’t as if they’d had many—or any—deep, meaningful conversations. There was no basis, none at all, for him to form what had seemed to be a distinct aversion to her.
Which was crazy. She happened to be extremely likable. Some would even say to know her was to love her.
Okay, so only her parents had ever said that but that didn’t make it any less true.
“Just be yourself,” Irene advised Sadie as she moved the remaining frosting out of her daughter’s reach. “I’m sure whatever problem Rose has with you will solve itself in good time.”
“Please. I broke her son’s heart. She refuses to forgive me.”
“And he broke yours. But you found your way back to each other and mended those breaks. Forgave each other. It’s the way of love.”
“It’s not that way for everyone.” Harper couldn’t help but point this out. “Beau and I never fought.” And her husband certainly would never have do
ne anything to break her heart.
Sadie raised her eyebrows. “Never?”
“We argued once in a while but nothing major.”
Everything between her and Beau had been so easy. So right. They’d fallen hard for each other at first sight, were engaged within a year of that initial meeting and married six months later. They’d rented an apartment, scrimped and saved for two years until they’d had enough for the down payment on their house. Harper had gotten pregnant a few months after moving in and, after eight and a half months, gave birth to a perfect daughter in under nine hours.
They’d done everything right. Everything.
And still he’d been taken away from her.
“No fights means no makeup sex,” Sadie said. “Or in-the-heat-of-a-fight sex, which is even better.”
Harper sent her a smug grin. “We didn’t need to fight to make sex exciting.”
Sadie snorted out a laugh.
Irene retrieved a huge glass bowl of salad from the stainless steel fridge. “Before we delve any further into the sex lives of my daughter and my favorite niece—”
“Your only niece,” Harper and Sadie said at the same time.
“I’d like to get back to what I was saying, which is that you needn’t worry about Rose staying angry with you. She’ll eventually forgive you for hurting her child.”
“I don’t see you holding a grudge against James,” Sadie muttered.
“That’s because I was on James’s side the whole time.”
And with that piece of insight, Aunt Irene swept out of the kitchen and into the dining room where Harper’s mother, Mary Ann, was in charge of setting the table. Her Uncle Will and dad, Kurt, were entertaining Cassidy in the family room.
“Now that’s just mean,” Sadie called after her mother.
Harper rubbed her cousin’s arm. “Don’t worry. Aunt Irene’s right. Mrs. Montesano will get over whatever’s bothering her. No one can stay mad at you for long.”
“She’s giving it her best effort.” Sadie slid Harper an unreadable look. “Though I’m very glad to hear you say that.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. What did you do now?”
“Why does everyone insist on asking me that?”
“Because we know you?”
Harper loved her cousin like crazy but that didn’t mean she was immune to Sadie’s flaws. She tended to leap into situations feetfirst without looking left or right, laugh off the consequences of her actions and follow every whim that floated through her head.
“You know I only ever have the best of intentions,” Sadie said, laying her hand on her heart.
Her earnest expression sent a chill of trepidation up Harper’s spine. “Uh-huh. Why do I get the feeling those best intentions—” she used air quotes to mark the words “—somehow involve me this time?”
“Because you’re incredibly bright and intuitive.”
“You’re making me nervous, so why don’t you tell me what it is you have up your sleeve so we can both move on with our lives.”
“Actually, that’s what this is all about.” Sadie inhaled deeply and when she spoke, her voice was quiet, compassionate. “You moving on. And I know just the man to help you.”
Harper’s scalp tingled even as a laugh of disbelief escaped her throat. “No. No, no, no. And if that doesn’t cover it, let me add a no way, no how, not going to happen.”
“But Charlie is a great guy. He’s handsome,” Sadie said, ticking good ol’ Charlie’s traits off on her fingers, “charming, successful, funny—”
“Wow. Hard to believe such a man exists in this day and age. Or that he’s still single.”
“It is a shock,” Sadie said as if Harper had been serious. “Because he’s so sweet and really smart and—”
“Loves puppies? Takes his mother and grandmother to church every Sunday? Trained to be an Olympic gymnast but gave it up to become a neurosurgeon? Single-handedly stopped a busload of orphans from driving off a bridge and into a river?”
“He’s not a superhero, Harper.” Shaking her long, puffy hair back from her face, Sadie raised her chin and sniffed. “It wouldn’t hurt you to give Charlie a chance. I told him all about you—”
“Oh, Sadie, you didn’t.”
“And he was intrigued. Extremely intrigued. He’s interested in meeting you. It doesn’t have to be a blind date or even anything major. We could go out—you and Charlie, me and James—have a nice, casual dinner. If you and Charlie hit it off, wonderful. If not, no harm done.”
Irritation burrowed under Harper’s skin, rooted itself at the base of her spine. She did her best to ignore it, to keep her expression relaxed. To remind herself that Sadie meant well and was only trying to help Harper, to do what she thought was best for her.
But if she didn’t knock it off, Harper might very well smash the cake into Sadie’s pretty, interfering face. Except that would be a waste of a really delicious-looking cake.
“Look, I’m sure Charlie is as fabulous as you say.” Though Sadie’s track record with men before she and James became involved disputed that. “But I’m not in the market for any man. Besides, it would be greedy of me to snag Charlie after I already had the perfect guy. Let’s let some other woman have a turn.”
“I know it’s not easy, believe me, I know better than most how hard it is to get past losing someone you love. But if there’s one thing I’ve finally learned, it’s how important it is for those of us left behind to continue living. To move forward with our lives.”
Harper softened a bit—but only because Sadie had faced her own terrible loss. Her father died in a car accident when she was nine years old. She’d only recently been able to fully heal from it. “I am living my life.”
She didn’t have a choice.
“Yes, but are you happy?” Sadie asked gently.
Happy? The question, the word alone, gave Harper pause enough to make her realize she didn’t want to answer it. Not if it meant facing the truth.
“I’m not unhappy,” she hedged, sounding way too defensive and unsure for her own peace of mind. “I’m content enough.”
Yes, that was it. She may not have chosen her current situation, but she’d adjusted to it quite nicely. And even though she may not be ecstatically, blissfully happy all the time, there were still periods of joy in her life—hearing her daughter’s laugh, teaching the kids in her class, being around her family. Moments she treasured all the more now that she had firsthand experience of how precious they truly were.
Of how easily they could be taken away.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything—”
“Hey, at least you got something right today.”
“And I hate that you’re mad at me—”
“I’m not mad,” Harper said, praying that one little fib wouldn’t mess up all the excellent karma she’d worked so hard for all these years.
Sadie clasped Harper’s hands. “You’ve been incredibly strong but I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to be alone.”
Harper’s fingers twitched and she tugged free of Sadie’s grasp.
And to think, she’d been so excited when Sadie had returned to town two months ago, thrilled when her cousin had moved in with James, settling down right here in Shady Grove after spending so many years flitting from place to place.
Maybe Sadie would get bored soon and go on another of her “life adventures.”
One could only dream.
“I’m not ready to date again.” Harper held up her hand when Sadie opened her mouth. “I promise when I am, I’ll let you know. I’ll even give you dibs on being the first person to fix me up. Until that day comes, I’d prefer if you didn’t bring this up again.”
She turned on her heel and walked out the door, steppi
ng onto the small porch at the front of the house. Hugging her arms against the slight chill in the air, she sat on the top step and rested her head against the post.
Her chest was tight. Her throat scratchy and sore. She sniffed. She was fine. She was 100 percent, absolutely fine.
I don’t want you to be alone.
As if that would ever happen. Between her daughter, her family and work, she rarely had a moment by herself. Even as a kid she’d always been surrounded by people—her parents, her friends, teachers and classmates. She didn’t know what it was like to be alone.
But in the past year, she’d learned exactly what it was like to be lonely.
* * *
“HOW’S THAT HOMEWORK COMING?” Eddie asked Max, glancing at where his son sat hunched over his books at their kitchen table.
Max—for some reason standing to walk around and around the table—shrugged, a gesture Eddie recognized as one of his own. His brothers were right. It was annoying as hell, especially when he needed to get an answer and none was forthcoming.
Eddie popped a slice of carrot into his mouth then wiped his hands on the towel hanging from his belt. Checked the microwave clock. Almost eight. It would be another twenty minutes before they ate. And, if history proved correct, a good hour until Max was done with his math, reading and spelling.
He’d picked up Max from practice only to be three blocks from home before realizing he had nothing to make for dinner. They’d turned around and hit the grocery store—an errand that should have taken only a few minutes but had somehow dragged into half an hour thanks to Max racing all over the store.
Where the kid got his energy after skating around hell-bent for leather for two hours was beyond Eddie. That last time, when Max had taken off in the frozen food aisle, Eddie thought for sure he’d have to call the cops to hunt him down only to corral him—and the box of cupcakes in his hands—by the deli.
Max had been working on his math since they’d walked in the door twenty-five minutes ago. Eddie would like to blame the long time frame on the amount of work needed to be done but Harper only gave the kids a few addition problems to solve, told them to copy their spelling words and read from their assigned books.