There was a longer pause. “I guess that’s true,” she said grudgingly. “Fine. Let me talk to her.”
God, what if Rennie told her mom that Delaney had given her a bath? “Hold on.”
Rennie was giggling in her bedroom when he opened the door. She and Delaney both turned. Delaney’s smile faltered as she looked at him.
“Rennie, your mom is on the phone. Why don’t you tell her about show-and-tell at school today? And about recess.”
Delaney went white and backed out of the room. Rennie didn’t seem to notice as she grabbed the phone. “Hi, Mommy. I brought Fluffy to school today for show and tell.”
She chattered nonstop about school. When she said, “I just had my bath,” Sam took the phone.
“I’m going to get her to bed,” he said to Heather. “We’ll talk again, all right?” He turned off the phone without waiting for an answer.
Rennie looked confused. “I didn’t say goodbye to Mommy.”
“She’ll call again,” Sam said, drawing her close. “She’s in the hospital, remember? She shouldn’t talk too long. We want her to get better, don’t we?”
Rennie tilted her head. “Will Mommy give me a bath when she’s better?”
He tightened his hold on his niece. “If you want her to, she will.”
Leo stood in the door of the bedroom, clutching the guitar case in his arms. “Mom said she’s getting out of the hospital next week.” His fingers pressed into the leather. “She said she’d see us then.”
“We’re not going to make any plans before I talk to her doctor,” Sam replied. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But try not to worry about it, okay?”
Leo looked at him doubtfully. “She sounded pretty sure, Uncle Sam.”
Uncle Sam. He swallowed. “I promised you it will be all right, Leo. You’ll be all right. Do you trust me?”
Leo hesitated for a long moment, then slowly nodded.
Sam held out his hand to Rennie. “You guys want me to read you a story?” Leo acted scornful when he read aloud each night, but he’d seen the boy listening.
“I want Delaney to read,” Rennie announced. She picked up two books from her bed. “These.”
“Let’s go ask her.”
When Rennie ran to her with the books, Delaney smiled. But there was a shadow in her eyes. “I’d love to read to you, Rennie.” She glanced at Leo. “Do you want to sit with us, Leo?”
“Rennie’s probably upset. She needs me here.”
He crowded in next to his sister, and Sam sat on the other end of the couch. Leo was paying as much attention to Delaney as Rennie was.
After the second book, Rennie asked for another. Delaney glanced at him.
He stood up. “It’s bedtime,” he said.
When he returned to the living room a little while later, Delaney was still on the couch. She’d drawn her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, and was resting her chin on her knees.
“Hey,” he said softly as he sat next to her.
She tilted her head to face him. “This is a problem for you, isn’t it?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yeah, it is. I had no idea what being famous meant. No awareness of how the press hounded you.”
“Don’t you remember what it was like for Diesel?”
“No.” He shifted away from her and stared out the window into the darkness. “I was never around. You said Diesel barely mentioned me.”
“I was being snarky when I said that. He missed you. He told me about his big brother who’d practically raised him. Who always protected him.”
Didn’t she realize he hadn’t protected Diesel when it counted the most?
She smiled. “There was a time at school where one of the older kids tried to bully him. He said you kicked the kid’s ass around the playground twice.”
“He remembered that?” Diesel had been a scrawny kid with bright red hair and a swagger, trying to act as tough as his big brother.
“He remembered a lot of things, Sam.”
The ticking of the kitchen clock counted out the seconds as memories spilled through his head.
“Is that why you stayed away from him?” she finally asked. “Because you couldn’t handle the reporters and paparazzi?”
“I stayed away because I couldn’t bear watching him destroy himself. I tried to get him clean and dried out, but he wouldn’t let me help him. It was easier not to be around.”
“You couldn’t have saved him, Sam. He wouldn’t let me help him, either.” She studied the knees of her jeans as if they held the answer to everything. “That’s why we wrote those songs and made those demos. I thought it would steer him in another direction. Instead, that’s what killed him.”
“What do you mean? How could those demos have killed him?”
When she lifted her head, her eyes shimmered. “He told Heather about the music. How excited he was, how it was going to take our career in another direction. He told her she had to go to rehab, and he was taking the kids.”
Delaney wiped her face on her knee. “Heather got hysterical. She said if he left her to be with me, she’d make sure he never saw Leo or Rennie again. She hired a shark lawyer who explained that Diesel’s own drug use and infidelity would make him an unsuitable parent. A week later, he was dead.”
Sam shifted closer to her. He’d never heard any of that. “Are you sure? I know Heather was out of control, but…”
“Yes, I’m sure. We were living together. After the kids were asleep every night, he’d leave their house and come to me.” She watched him steadily. “He loved me, Sam. And I loved him. Enough that I was ready to leave the band. Leo and Rennie were everything to him. I couldn’t bear to be the reason he lost them.”
Speechless, he stared at her.
She slid off the couch, her eyes bruised. “I need to go.”
“Wait.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her back. “Don’t leave. Give me a minute to get my mind around all of this.”
She shook her hand free. “It was stupid of me to think I could be a part of Leo and Rennie’s lives. A part of your life. It was stupid to fall in love with you,” she whispered. “Diesel was your brother. He was my lover. I should have realized this would never work.”
“What?” She thought she was in love with him? Panic rose inside him. This wasn’t about love. He didn’t do love anymore. Not since he’d failed Diesel. “Wait a minute. You can’t be…”
She stood up and backed away. “Don’t say it, Sam. I get to decide what I’m feeling, but I don’t expect you to love me back. I always knew my relationship with Diesel would be a problem for you. You need to take care of the kids, anyway. Protect them.” She edged toward the back door. “I’ll keep you posted about the demos. Goodbye, Sam.”
“Wait, Delaney. It’s not Diesel. With everything that’s happening, I never thought about falling in love with you.”
“I understand.” She paused at the kitchen door, quivering like a deer preparing to bolt. “You and the kids are leaving. This was always just a fling. I get it.”
He’d hurt her. Badly. “That didn’t come out right.” He ran to the kitchen door. “Delaney, come back.”
She didn’t answer, and it was too dark to see. Twigs cracked in the distance, leaves crunched under her feet. The sounds grew fainter, then faded completely.
He stepped out the door to go after her, then heard Leo whimper in his sleep. The phone call from Heather must have brought back memories for him.
Sam needed to get this straightened out with Delaney.
But Leo needed him.
With one last look out the door, he closed it and turned away.
SO MUCH FOR NEW beginnings.
“Together” hadn’t lasted very long.Delaney rolled over in bed the next morning and stared up at the ceiling. By this time, she should be in the kitchen, in her bathrobe, waiting for Sam.
No sexy games today.
Heather was getting out of the hospital soon. Sam and Leo and Re
nnie would go back to Miami.
She was staying in Otter Tail.
She crawled out of bed, her eyes gritty and barely open. Someone had knocked on her door an hour after she got home last night. Sam? One of the photographers? She hadn’t looked.
She hadn’t fallen asleep, either. She’d replayed her conversation with Sam over and over in her head.
I never thought about falling in love with you.
As the sun came up, she knew she didn’t regret any of it.
Not confronting him about the reporters. Not talking about Diesel.
Not telling him she loved him.
She’d been walled off for three long years, refusing to feel anything. Refusing to live. She wasn’t going back to that dark, cold place. She wouldn’t hide her feelings anymore.
If telling him she loved him could scare him away, it was good to find out early. Easier to cut him out of her life before she fell any more deeply in love with him. Better a surgical incision now than a sloppy, jagged wound later on.
She started the coffee. It was going to be a long day.
DELANEY FOCUSED ON finishing the table and bed she’d been working on, wearing earplugs when she was using her machines, playing music at full blast when she wasn’t. She’d promised delivery last weekend, and she was behind. Concentrating on work was good. Smoothing the wood, shaping it, forming it into furniture had always made her happy.
Maybe she couldn’t be happy today. But she could be busy.She’d locked the door, so she had no idea if any of the reporters knocked. She’d have to deal with them eventually. But not today.
Her phone was buzzing when she turned the music off. Was it Sam? She grabbed the phone and saw it was Paul. Swallowing her disappointment, she pressed the on button. “Hey, Paul.”
“How are you doing, Delaney?”
“I’m fine. What’s up?”
“I wanted you to know that it’s okay if you don’t come in to play tonight. Hank and Stu and I understand.”
Oh, God, it was Friday. She’d forgotten all about the band. She thought about the reporters clustered at the end of her driveway. The ones who would show up at the Harp tonight. She’d told Sam she could deal with them. That she’d expected this.
Time to put her money where her mouth was.
“I’ll be there, Paul.”
“Are you sure?” he asked after a moment.
“Positive. See you tonight.” Her hand shook as she turned off the phone, then she hesitated. Had Sam tried to call? She fumbled with the menu button and pulled up the missed-calls log.
Ten times. Starting early this morning.
She wanted to call him back. To hear his voice. Ask him to come to the Harp tonight. To stand with her when she faced the crowd.
Surgical incision. She turned off the power to the phone and headed back to the house.
Twenty minutes later, she stared at her computer screen, appalled. The pictures that the photographers had taken last night were already on the gossip sites. The kids were only shadowy faces in the windows, thank God. But Sam was clearly visible as he stood at her storm door.
Far worse was the shot of the two of them yesterday afternoon. She’d been right about the photographer hiding in front of the house when Sam arrived. In the photo, he was only holding her arm. But the expression on their faces was intimate. Private. The kind of look lovers would exchange.
Chantal’s Mystery Lover? the headline screamed.
She slammed the laptop closed. She hadn’t thought this could get worse. She’d been wrong.
SAM SAT IN THE CAR POOL line at school and watched kids pour out the door. Delaney hadn’t answered her phone. He’d sneaked through the woods to her house and heard the hard rock shaking the barn, but the door was locked. He’d stood outside for a long time, trying to catch a glimpse of her through the window.
She probably wasn’t dancing as she worked today.The music never stopped, and eventually he walked back through the woods. Part of him was glad he hadn’t been able to talk to her. What would he have said?
She loved him. The thought put a block of ice in his stomach.
Love had never been part of the equation. He thought she’d understood that. He cared about her, sure. Liked her a lot. She’d been great with Leo and Rennie. And the sex…the sex had ruined him for other women.
He’d get over it. He had to.
He didn’t give a damn that she’d loved Diesel. He was glad, actually, that his brother had had her in his life. It sounded as if living with Heather had been hell.
Was he jealous? Of course he was. Who wouldn’t be? But Diesel was dead and Sam was alive. Delaney said she’d put Diesel behind her. She’d said she loved him.
Sam had hurt her deeply. Now she had to face everything on her own. Everything he’d brought down on her head.
Desperation ratcheted up inside him, and an overwhelming need to take care of Delaney.
But those feelings couldn’t be about love. They were about doing the right thing. About making sure she was safe.
He heard a sudden commotion behind him, and turned to see several people running toward the entrance of the school. Two of them held cameras.
Kids were pouring out of the building. The three men and a woman bumped into a young girl, knocking her down.
Sam scrambled out of the car and ran for the school door. Several teachers emerged, snatching the crying girl off the ground and herding the rest of the children back into the building.
“Get away from these children and off school property,” an older woman said. She stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at the reporters. “Immediately.”
Police sirens wailed in the distance. Sam pushed past the teacher. “They’re after my kids,” he said. “I need to get them.”
“Wait. You can’t go in the school.”
“Try to stop me.” He burst through the door and spotted Rennie’s red hair behind some older children. She was clinging to Leo.
Sam snatched her up and held out his hand to Leo. “Let’s go.”
As they ran out the door, Leo flipped off the reporters. “Don’t,” Sam said in a low voice. “Ignore them.”
“They scared Rennie,” Leo said. One woman tried to edge closer, and Leo turned to her, snarling. She took a step backward.
“In the car,” Sam said. “Quick.”
They were barely buckled in when he took off. The four members of the press were running for their cars when the police cruisers showed up. Thank God. They wouldn’t be able to follow him home.
As they left the town behind, he realized Rennie was sniffling behind him. “It’s okay, Rennie. They’re gone. You’re safe.”
“You saved us, Uncle Sam,” she said.
“Of course I did. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
He heard her fumbling with something. Suddenly, she stuck her head between the front seats. “That’s because you love us, Uncle Sam. Right?” She smiled up at him. “I love you, too.”
“Rennie, sit down and buckle your seat belt,” he said sharply. He swerved to the shoulder of the road and stopped the car.
She patted his cheek. “You love us, right?”
It felt as if an arrow pierced his heart. But instead of pain, warmth spread through him. “Yes, Ren, I love you. Leo, too.” He twisted around and lifted her back onto the upholstery. “But you can’t take off your seat belt. Okay?”
He pulled onto the road again, watching the kids in the rearview mirror. That’s because you love us, Uncle Sam.
He’d protected them because he loved them. Was that why he needed so badly to protect Delaney?
He hadn’t figured it out by the time he turned into their driveway. As they walked to the house, Rennie said, “Who were those people, Uncle Sam?”
“They were bad people,” Leo told her. “Don’t worry about them, Ren. I won’t let them get you.”
Sam took Leo’s hand. Surprisingly, the boy didn’t snatch it away. “I’ll make sure they don’t bother either of you. My
job, Leo. Remember?”
“They’re not going away,” Leo said. But he clung to Sam’s hand.
“We will be, though. We’re going back to Miami soon.”
Rennie sat on the floor, her arms around Fluffy’s neck. “Is Delaney coming?”
“No, sweetheart. She lives here. She has a business here.”
“Then I want to live here, too.” The dog barked, as if he agreed.
“No one asked you, Fluffy,” Sam said. “Sorry, Ren. Your home is back in Miami. Mine, too.”
Leo dropped Sam’s hand and kicked at the bottom of the bookcase. “We’re doing a unit on immigrants in social studies. I’m supposed to be a kid from Ireland. I can’t leave yet. I already did all the research.”
His nephew hadn’t said anything about this project. Sam needed to ask both kids more questions about school. “We’re not leaving tomorrow, Leo. I’m sure you’ll have a chance to finish your project.”
“I better.” He scowled. “If I’m not there, my group will get marked down.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, his cheeks flushed. “Do you think Delaney could show me how to play Dad’s guitar before we leave?”
So Delaney had captivated Leo, too. “We can ask her.” Sam put his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “You’ve been pretty rude to her. Do you think it’s right to ask her for a favor?”
“She said she’d show me.”
“I know.” He watched the boy, waiting. Finally Leo shrugged.
“I guess she’s not so bad.”
“Are you going to tell her that?”
“Yeah.” He kicked the bookcase again. “I’ll apologize.”
“I think that would be the right thing to do.”
“Can I go over there now?”
“It’s close to dinnertime. She’s probably…”
It was Friday night. She played at the Harp on Fridays. Oh, God. What would happen to her there?
“Leo, I’m going to call Mike’s mom across the road and ask her to watch you and Rennie for a little while. I have something to do.”
Life Rewritten Page 17