Imagine That

by Kristin Wallace

  “So, you did go to college?”

  He sent her a knowing look. “Don’t get excited, Miss My-Parents-Are-Renowned-Professors. I flunked out after only a year.”

  She deflated a bit. “Oh...”

  He’d disappointed her again. He should have been embarrassed or angry. Instead, a strange sort of tenderness welled up inside him. Poor Emily. Searching for something they might have in common. Something to explain their attraction.

  “You’re not going to suddenly discover I’m a genius, Em.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  He put a finger against her lips. “I’m just an average Joe, who barely made it out of high school.”

  Emily gazed up at him, her eyes shimmering pools of compassion. “I don’t think you’re average.”

  She looked at him like he was a hero in one of her books. He’d never been anyone’s idea of a hero. For the first time, he wished he could be. Tension gripped his chest. “You’d better stop looking at me like that, or you’ll be in a lot of danger. Your dog won’t save you.”

  She seemed to sense danger. The edge of a cliff they were nearing. “Right. Okay, then what happened after you quit college?”

  “Flunked out.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Whatever. What did you do? Did you come back home?”

  “No, I couldn’t face the humiliation. I didn’t even tell my mom right away. I got odd jobs. Handyman, construction, window washer, landscaping, cleaning gutters, cleaned the pool at the Y in exchange for a room. Then a couple years ago my mom—” he stopped. “Well, she needed me. I came home and got a job with Pete. He lived down the street from us, and I used to cut his lawn. He owned a house painting business, and he hired me.”

  “You went from employee to owner pretty quick.”

  “I took to it. I’d messed up everything else in my life, but painting I could handle. And I liked knowing I was helping people improve their homes. Then a year ago Pete decided to retire, so I bought him out.”

  “You had enough money saved?”

  A little bit of sunlight penetrated the grey fog around his life. “Sure,” he said, grinning at her. “I live with my mother, remember?”

  Eye roll. “You have to admit, it’s suspicious when a grown man still lives with his mother. Many of the best horror stories center on that scary premise.”

  “You thought I was some sort of Norman Bates?”

  “You know the movie?”

  “I don’t live under a rock. Of course I’ve heard of it.” He placed a hand over his heart. “And I’m hurt you put me in the same league as a crazed killer.”

  She swatted his arm. He grabbed her and tugged. With a little oomph she landed against his chest.

  “You’re fun to tease,” he said.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone tease me.”

  “How long has it been?”

  She started to answer and then paused. “I can’t remember.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I had anyone to tease.”

  She groaned and dropped her head to his shoulder. “My life should not be this complicated.”

  He laughed, and her head came up. She was so close now. Her lips only inches away. Sweet humming started up in his veins again.

  Polly’s extended nap came to an abrupt end as the dog let out a whumph and wobbled to her feet.

  Emily drew back and glared down at the dog. “Amazing how she does that.”

  Polly let out a quick, low bark. Nate held Emily’s gaze for a charged moment, and then she levered herself up. She helped him to his feet and started wiping grass off her shorts. The famous rainbow shorts, he noticed. He dragged his gaze up to her face before he got in trouble.

  “I have to go,” she said, leaning over the grab Polly’s leash. “Aurora Johnston probably has a timer set on me.”

  “I know. I’ll see you around.”

  A corner of her mouth quirked up. “We can’t seem to help it.”

  Neither of them moved.

  Finally, Emily took a step, but then hesitated by his shoulder. She rose up and kissed his cheek. “Your father was a Grade A fool, and you are definitely not average.”

  Complicated, she’d said. Emily Sinclair was a complication wrapped up in a tempting problem, and he didn’t know if he had the strength to resist.

  Chapter Twelve

  There are key points in every book known as a character turnaround. A moment when the story takes off in another direction or the character experiences something that transforms him or her in some indefinable way. The hero discovers the villain he’s been fighting is actually his long lost father. The defense attorney’s opposing counsel happens to be her love from a long-ago summer romance. The not-so-dead first husband shows up at his wife’s wedding.

  Emily loved turnarounds. So many fabulous ways to torment her characters. So much opportunity for character growth. So jarring when she was the character being turned inside out.

  Shock ripped through her when Nate strolled into Rachel’s house. Then the word Mom dropped from his lips, and she sucked in a breath as the earth tilted on its axis.

  Rachel Cooper. Miss Rachel. The mother who’d needed him. The battle he was fighting and could not win.

  Buzzing started in her ears, growing into a resounding clang.

  Nate came to an abrupt halt. “Emily? What are you—” He grunted. “The library van.”

  His gaze dropped for a moment. He massaged his chest and took a deep breath. Then he lifted his head in time for her to catch a moment of profound sadness, as if something had shifted in his world, too. Of course, everything they knew about each other had changed.

  Rachel Cooper remained the one person in the room who seemed unfazed. In fact, she smiled as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “Nathan, I believe you know Emily Sinclair.”

  Emily received her second shock upon realizing she’d been had. Miss Rachel must have known all along. Emily tried to remember everything she’d said about Nate, hoping she hadn’t revealed anything embarrassing… or insulting. “Why didn’t you mention the man who rescued me out at the lake was your son?”

  “Because for some reason Nate chose not to tell you our situation,” Rachel said, tilting her head in apology. “I think he liked having someone in his life who didn’t know. With you every conversation didn’t have to start with, how is your mother doing today?”

  Nate closed his eyes. “Ma, please.”

  Rachel Cooper sent him a look of such tenderness. Her gray eyes — how had Emily missed the similarity when they both had those eyes — shone with love and pride. “He’s so used to doing everything on his own. Never asking for any help.”

  Nate’s foot scuffed the warn carpet as if he were a five year old hiding behind his mother’s skirt. “I’m no hero.”

  “He’s humble,” Rachel said, sending Emily a coy glance.

  “Ma!”

  Despite the extreme discomfort of the situation, the outburst brought a smile to Emily’s lips. Anyone could see how close mother and son were, and she marveled at their relationship. The bond they shared. She and her mother tolerated each other at best, and the thought left a hollow ache in her heart. Rachel let out a weak chuckle and then rested her head back against the chair. Her eyes closed, and she seemed to shrink right before Emily’s eyes.

  Instinct had Emily leaning forward, but Nate reached his mother first. “Ma, I’ll take you back to bed.”

  Her eyes opened. For a moment, reluctance to give in seemed to rise up in her. A brief flare of emotion. Of denial. Then her head dropped and she nodded. He lifted her in one effortless movement.

  He paused at the doorway. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  He disappeared with his burden, and for a moment Emily couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. How did he stand such pain? Watching a death by degrees had to be the most tortuous thing imaginable, and yet he took care of his mother with no complaints or a trace of self-pity. Another thought chilled her bl
ood. What must he think of her? Here she’d been complaining about a stalled imagination while he’d been dealing with a matter of life and death. How shallow she must seem to him.

  She gathered her shattered nerves and went in search of the kitchen.

  Anna stood at the sink, washing a pot. She took note of the time. “She’s already gone back to her room?”

  “Nate took her.”

  Anna’s dark eyes reflected a deep sorrow. “Only twenty minutes today.”

  “Last week it was forty,” Nate said as he came in.

  Anna lifted a tray with a bowl and a glass filled with water. “I should see if she will eat something.”

  Nate walked to the sink and stared out the window, but Emily knew he wasn’t seeing the rich kaleidoscope of colors in the back yard. His hand clenched around the counter until his knuckles were white. She understood so much now. His drooped shoulders, his reluctance to come home and face the awful truth hanging over his house. She’d judged him so harshly, and now she could only listen and offer whatever comfort was even possible.

  Emily waited, somehow knowing he’d speak when he found the words to say.

  “I remember when she called to tell me they’d found a tumor,” he said. “Ovarian cancer. It was like a punch in the gut. I packed a bag and booked a flight the next day. She kept insisting I didn’t need to come home. That she and Zach would be fine, but something in me knew I couldn’t listen.”

  “You told me you moved back two years ago. She’s been fighting that long?”

  He swiped a hand across his face, rubbing his eyes. “One year and eight months. Cancer likes to take its own sweet time. They took her insides, shot her up with drugs I can’t even pronounce, radiated her body. I watched her hair fall out and her body waste away. But it wasn’t enough. The real cruelty of cancer is it lets you think you’ve won. She went into remission. Her hair grew back, and she gained some weight. Then it showed up somewhere else. More drugs, more sickness, less hope. Until the bad cells outnumbered the good.”

  “You talk about cancer as if it’s a living thing.”

  He finally faced her. “It is to me. You write about monsters and fairies, but this disease is more frightening than any creature you could ever dream up. It feeds on bodies, and it takes an all-out war to defeat it. The day I met you we’d just been at the doctor’s office. He told us her prognosis was dire. He talked in numbers. Number of treatments they can give. Number of weeks she might have left.”

  Chills broke out along her arms, and she rubbed them to restore some warmth. “Is there any hope at all?”

  “According to her doctors they’ve done everything medically possible. Their term. Medically possible.”

  “I don’t know how you do it.”

  He straightened. “I do it because she’s my mother, and I have no other choice. Because she took care of Zach and me on her own without ever complaining. And because she deserves to have someone who loves her holding her hand when it’s time for her to go.”

  Emily’s vision blurred behind a veil of tears. The stinging didn’t come close to equaling the pain in her heart. She didn’t feel shame often, but she did now. The sensation pounded her being like waves hitting the shore. Shame for how she’d judged him. He’d come back to a place that held terrible memories to take care of his mother. He didn’t whine or ask for help. He simply and quietly did what needed to be done. She’d been so wrong about him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  What happens when preconceived notions about a person come crashing down? When up becomes down, and everything gets spun on its axis? Emily found the whole process unnerving.

  No, unnerving didn’t cover the crushing sense of guilt and embarrassment. She liked to think of herself as fair minded, and to realize she’d jumped to such erroneous conclusions about Nate shook her to the core.

  Still trembling from the earlier encounter, she drove back to the garage apartment. She wanted to hide out until she figured out who she’d become. She pulled into the driveway at the same moment Julia walked out of the house wearing biker shorts and a navy blue tank top.

  “Hey there, neighbor,” Julia said. “Haven’t seen you in days. Aurora and the library van must be keeping you busy.”

  Escape route cut off. “Yeah, busy,” Emily said, stifling a groan.

  “I keep thinking I should apologize for hooking you up with Aurora,” Julia said as she walked down the steps.

  “She’s easier to deal with than just about anyone else. At least I know what to expect.”

  Right. No secret bombshells. No two-by-four to the head.

  Julia waved a hand in front of Emily’s face. “Earth to Emily… what’s wrong?”

  Emily fought the urge to stomp her foot. Why couldn’t she be allowed to dive under the covers and block out the world? She didn’t want to explain anything right now.

  Except she did have a bone to pick with her newfound friend.

  “You knew,” Emily said, accusation dripping like acid.

  Julia’s eyes widened in confusion. “Knew what?”

  “Nate. You told me about the painting business, but you left out the larger and more important detail concerning his dying mother. The same mother I’ve been bringing books to, only I didn’t know who she was.”

  “Ah, you finally found out.”

  Temper sparked low in Emily’s spine and raced up to the top of her head. “Ah, she says! How could you not tell me? I feel like such a fool. I thought— You should have told me.”

  “Who are you really angry at?” Julia asked, arms folded in challenge. “Me or yourself?”

  As quickly as her rage had begun, the storm receded. With the tension gone, Emily sank back against her car. “Right now, I hate myself.”

  “No need for such dramatics.” Julia dropped a hand on Emily’s shoulder and squeezed. “Come on. Walk with me and we can talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk. I want to forget today ever happened.”

  Julia’s eyes narrowed. “Tough.”

  “Fine,” Emily said with a huff of exasperation. “I should change, though.”

  “Nope, you’re good. Besides, you’d get up there and decide not to leave again. Come on.”

  They set off down the street. Emily took deep breaths and tried to regain her equilibrium.

  Julia slanted a glance from the corner of her eye. “So, how did you find out?”

  “Nate came home for lunch while I was there with Rachel. She’d known who I was right from the beginning, but she never said anything. Never told Nate she’d met me either.”

  “Sneaky of her.”

  “Don’t make jokes. I’m serious.”

  “Me too. Why are you so upset?”

  “You don’t know what I thought about Nate ever since he told me he lives with his mother.”

  “You don’t approve of the practice?”

  Emily glared at her friend. “Oh, come on. You’re telling me you think it’s natural for men of a certain age to still be living at home?”

  “I live with Grace. Seth lived here for two years.”

  “Extenuating circumstances.”

  “Exactly. You assumed the worst about Nate without asking why.”

  Man, the punches keep on coming. “I thought you were supposed to make me feel better.”

  Julia’s ponytail bounced in time with her shaking head. “No, I’m trying to get you to see where you went wrong.”

  “I know where I went wrong. In my defense, I have some experience with losers,” Emily said. “I once dated a guy who lived with his mother. He was number three on a string of losers I hooked up with, by the way. I thought it was sweet he was so close to her. Closeness was certainly not a quality cultivated in my household growing up. Turns out the guy couldn’t tie his shoes without asking his mother’s opinion on how he should do it. I think she might have tied the laces for him. We couldn’t go anywhere without him checking to make sure she didn’t need anything first, and if by some miracle we made it ou
t the door, she always managed to interrupt. There was a true Oedipus complex at work there.”

  “So you let one bad experience dictate how you see Nate Cooper?”

  “I didn’t — okay maybe I did a little. I’m not the only one who finds the arrangement suspect. Classic literature is chock full of twisted mother/son relationships.”

  “Emily, you’re talking about fiction. A book would be pretty boring if family members had normal relationships. What would be the point of writing about happy people?”

  She sighed. “True.”

  “Maybe it’s time you stepped out of the pages of a novel and into the reality of life.”

  “Oh, I am. The realization that I’m a shallow, judgmental person,” Emily said in self-disgust.

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Right. Do you know what I thought of him? I figured he was a loser, living off his mother. Only it turns out he gave up the new life he’d carved out for himself to care for his dying mother. He really is Mr. Darcy. He’s the bloody hero, and as it turns out I’m shady Mr. Whikam.”

  Julia stopped, her brows drawing together in bemusement. “Sorry, you lost me at Mr. Darcy.”

  “Nate is the hero. I am the ugly hag luring lost children into her candy-coated house so I can eat them.”

  “Emily, what did I say about changing your outlook?” Julia said, continuing down the street. “You’re not a witch. You jumped to some wrong conclusions. Maybe you used Nate’s perceived faults as a reason to push him away and deny what you were feeling.”

  “I don’t feel anything for Nate,” Emily said, balking at the notion. She couldn’t be falling for someone she’d just met.

  Julia laughed. “Oh, you sound so much like me. I came up with every excuse in the book to avoid facing my attraction to Seth. The memory of his wife, his faith, his profession, his connection to Grace through his father, my father, my father’s sins, my past. I closed my eyes to the truth because I didn’t want to see it.”

  “I projected my prejudices onto Nate so I could deny my heart?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”