by A. J. Norris
Harry pursed his lips and leaned forward. “Cam claims she gave him a hummer in the parking lot. Pfft. A judge’s daughter.”
“And your point? Don’t matter who her daddy is. The woman flirted right back at him.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Harry waved away his preconceived notion Heidi acted all innocent that night.
Clearly, she was far from it. “You think Ned was a little too preoccupied with her too?”
“Yep. Maybe you oughta check Mr. Ponytail out or something. I don’t remember seeing him leave the party but I know he was gone before we left.”
Harry set his coffee cups on the low table in front of him. Cam was still at the restaurant helping clean up when Harry and Cedric had taken off. He scrubbed his face with his palms. Christ, had he ignored the obvious signs because he wanted Cam to be guilty?
“I don’t think it was just your lack of evidence that proved Cam was not the one who ran Grace off the road.”
“His car was beat to shit, but there wasn’t any paint from her car on his.” Shit, maybe he was right and someone was framing him, but who? His uncle, his own flesh and blood? That’s nuts…or was it? Harry rubbed his jawline.
“Did you tell her how you feel?”
Harry looked up with confusion on his face for a moment. “Oh, Natalie? Yeah…I, Christ, I may not have been as adamant as I needed to be.”
“Talk to her. And congrats, man.”
“Thanks. I never thought I’d have a chance to have another kid.” Harry snorted. “Didn’t think I wanted one after all this time. But yeah, it turns out I do.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
Mikey
Mikey sat up, stretching his arms over his head before his hands cramped up. He’d been crouched over his favorite hipster client for about two hours. Dylan was pretty cool despite his expensive name brand clothes and skinny jeans.
“Need to take a break?” Dylan asked.
“I need ten,” Mikey groaned. He got up and shook his legs out, cracked his back. It was times like this that he regretted quitting smoking. He could use a ciggy to unwind.
“Need a smoke?” Frankie, the new tattoo artist offered when Mikey paced by him.
He paused. “Better not.”
“Quit, eh?”
“Ten years smoke free.”
“Good for you, man.” Frankie had taken up the space Ned left behind nicely. Mikey hadn’t heard or seen from him for a while. The dude flaked. However, the new guy brought with him plenty of regular clients and his quality work spoke for itself. And heck, Frankie looked almost clean-cut apart from the neck ink. Mikey was considering having him do his next tat.
Mikey wandered outside. He walked to the end of the block and back. Harry’s Buick pulled up to the shop. The brakes squeaked. His expression appeared serious. Mikey raised his hand in greeting as Grace’s father got out of the car.
“What brings you by this time?” he smirked at Harry.
“Humph.” Harry waited for Mikey to open the way inside the shop.
“You’re in a stellar mood.”
“Cut the shit, I’m not in the mood.” Harry craned his head around the room, then stomped to the back, behind the velvet curtain.
“Did you lose something?” Frankie asked when Harry caught his foot on the man’s tattoo chair. Fortunately, he’d anticipated it and raised his gun from his client’s skin.
Harry ignored him and turned to Mikey. “Where’s Cam?”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Have you seen him or not?”
“Nope, I think he flaked like his uncle.”
“He’s gone too? Dammit!” Harry rubbed his forehead. “When was the last time you saw either of them?”
“What’s it worth to you?” Mikey grinned and gave Frankie a wink.
“Didn’t I ask you to cut the shit?”
Mikey snorted. “No. You told me.”
Harry splayed his hands in a what-gives motion.
“What? I got a tattoo to finish.” He snapped on a fresh pair of black latex gloves.
Harry inhaled sharply.
“All right, all right. Cam hasn’t been in for a couple of days. He called and said he had to take a few weeks off. He has business to take care of out west.”
“What kind of business?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“He didn’t tell you or are you trying to fucking kill me?”
Mikey held up his hands. “Easy, Harry. I didn’t ask. And before you ask, Ned hasn’t been around for a few weeks.”
“What date did you last see him?”
Mikey took one of the gloves off and took out his phone. He brought up the calendar, thumbed the screen. “March eighth or ninth, something like that.”
Harry noted the date in a small notebook and slipped it into his coat pocket. He stood there staring at the painted spot on the floor for a long moment. Gesturing at the paint he said, “You know you can have that cleaned.”
Mikey waved him into silence. At no point did he believe he’d be able to deal with discussing the attack. “I heard you knocked up Natalie. Viagra much?”
“Ha ha. I don’t use Viagra, funny man. And don’t think I didn’t notice your avoidance. Isn’t that what what’s-his-face at AA is always preaching?”
“Sam is wrong. I’m not avoiding, I’m ignoring. There’s a difference.”
Frankie glanced at the painted over area above the rim of his glasses he used for close-up work. “What’s up with the paint? I assume it’s hiding something?”
“Yeah, a bloodstain,” Harry blurted.
“Must’ve been a big mess.”
“Yeah, it was. Mikey bled a lot,” Dylan said with wide-eyed fascination, like it was the most interesting subject in the whole damn world.
Mikey’s heart pounded and a spear of worst-case scenario jitters stabbed him. He glared at Harry.
“What happened?” Frankie asked, looking from Harry to Dylan to Mikey.
He threw his hands up. “Can we not?”
Dylan recounted the story while Frankie listened intently. “This psychopath tried to filet Mikey because of some fixation he had on him. Fucking weird, man. Guy’s in prison. Heard he got two life sentences or some shit. He nearly bled out on the floor.”
Mikey grinned without humor.
“No shit?” Frankie said. “Two life sentences for that?”
“Naw, he killed several women Mikey had slept with too.”
Frankie looked at Mikey. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to talk about it. Respect.” He zipped his lips and Mikey nodded. A few seconds later his tattoo gun was buzzing again.
“If I hear from Cam, I’ll let him know you want to talk to him.”
“Please do,” Harry said and walked away.
Mikey caught him by the front door before he left. “Hey, Natalie will do the right thing,” he whispered.
Harry’s face tightened. “Grace told, huh?”
“Just give her a minute to process, you know. Having a kid is a huge commitment as Brayden pointed out to me recently.”
“Yeah, that sounds like him.”
“He wants a dog and he’s not letting up. I told him it was a big commitment and he said, ‘so was having me’.”
Harry chuckled. “Thanks. I needed the laugh. Gotta love that kid.”
* * *
Harry
Harry sat in the driveway with the engine idling for fifteen minutes, trying to figure out how to talk Natalie into having the baby. The garage door rolled up and she stood in the doorway to the kitchen. With the light coming from behind, all he saw was her hands-on-the-hips silhouette. She yelled something he couldn’t hear with his windows closed. It was probably something like, ‘You gonna stay out there all night?’.
He cut the car off and climbed out. By the time he got to the door, she’d slipped back inside. Coffee aroma filled his lungs as he entered the house. He went to the cupboard for a mug.
“Here, I al
ready poured you a cup.” She gestured to a mug sitting across from her at the kitchen table. The legs of the chair screeched when he pulled it out and sat down. There were tear tracks down her face.
“So you told Grace you’re considering not hav—”
“Harry,” she interrupted. “I haven’t made any decisions about…” Natalie looked at the mug she had her hands curled around, “…this baby.”
He inhaled deeply. “It’s our baby. We made it together.” He cringed. When had he become so girly? He sounded like a woman in his own head. What was she thinking?
“I know. That’s why I think you should—Grace made me realize that you should be a part of this decision.”
“What decision?” He ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he grumbled. “It’s your body and I can’t tell you what to do.”
“You want me—us to have the baby?”
“Of course I do, but not if it’s going to tear us apart.” By her expression, Harry knew right now would be an excellent time to say ‘I love you’, except the words wouldn’t form in his mouth. They were in his mind. They were always in his mind. What was his problem? Annie, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut. Sometimes he dreamed about her. She used to joke that if she died, she would haunt him if he got with Natalie. At the time, Harry had laughed it off and told her that would never happen. He’d pine for her until the day he passed. Now he felt like he was getting a second chance at true love and how lucky was that? Except this opportunity was slowly slipping away. Damn him.
Tell her you love her, stupid.
Harry reached for her hand. She didn’t pull away, a good sign that she didn’t totally hate him. Yet. She kept her gaze on the faux knots in the table. “I was serious when I said I’d marry you.”
“I know. And that’s a kind gesture, but I’m not sure it’s good enough.”
His face tightened. Guilt and fear surged through his body and landed in his left ventricle. “Tell me what you need. I’ll be whatever you want or need me to be.” Please, he wanted to add.
“I need you tell me you love me.” Her voice cracked.
“I know.”
Her mouth dropped open in a bewildered look. “You know? Then why don’t you say it?”
He pushed his chair backward and stood.
“Harry, what is it? I know that you care for me. Maybe even a lot. And it was enough until now.”
“I know.”
“You said that already. I need more from you. I need to know you’re committed to loving me if we are going to have this baby.”
“Are you blackmailing me?”
“No,” she said, leaning her back against the chair. She sat quietly for the amount of time it took for him to walk over to the sink and pour out his cup of coffee.
“Annie,” he whispered, gripping the edge of the counter in front of the sink.
“She still holds a large part of your heart.”
“Yeah,” he sighed and looked in her direction. “She still does.”
“I miss her too, but you can’t live your life in the past. Ask yourself if she would want that for you.” She wiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“No,” he mumbled, although he wasn’t exactly sure about that. He stared out the window above the sink. Natalie came up behind him, put her hands around him, and held her head to his back as if melting into him.
“I love you,” she whispered. “But I feel like we are a million miles apart even though we are in the same room.”
Natalie had waited for him. For so long she’d watched him parade a slew of sluts, as she called them, through his house and his miserable wreck of a life. Annie had died without warning. No one knew about the heart disease that had ravaged the vital organ until a cardiac arrest took her life. He covered her hands with his and intertwined their fingers. “I wish…” I could be free of this pain.
“Hmm?”
He brought one of her hands up to his lips for a kiss.
“Do you wish you could love me?” she asked.
Harry rotated in her arms. He searched her face. Did she really believe he didn’t love her? Gently, he raised her chin with his hand until she lifted her eyes to his. He tried willing all his love for her into his expression. The back of his eyes stung with tears and he blinked. He leaned in for a kiss.
“Please…don’t,” she said softly, shaking her head. “Sex isn’t love and right now I’m not feeling it either way.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
Harry
For almost a week now, Natalie had been avoiding Harry. He pulled onto the main road through town and spotted one of her tow trucks coming toward him, heading in the opposite direction. His heart rate sped up. Grace told him that she went to the doctor’s appointment with his girlfriend. Natalie was still talking to the family, so that was something. And she hadn’t made any “decisions” regarding the fate of his child. He breathed a little easier knowing this information, but he wanted to know how far along she was and the potential due date.
As the truck flew past, he looked out his side window. His chest ripped open and spilled everything onto the floor. Natalie was behind the wheel. She was lifting heavy chains and shit? While pregnant? Oh hell, no. Apparently, Harry had become a Neanderthal in the last week. He made a U-turn and raced after her. The light ahead turned red. Harry switched lanes so he could pull up next to her. He rolled down the window and honked the horn. She glanced over and her mouth fell open. When she didn’t roll her window down, he honked again and shouted. “Put your window down!”
She mouthed, Why?
He made a roll-your-window-down motion with his hand. She cracked the window. “Where you headed?”
“Pull a car out of the woods by the ravine. Just off the road.”
“Whose car?”
“Don’t know yet, it was empty. Rudy called me.”
“All right, I’ll follow you.”
She waved him off. “That’s not necessary.” The green light ended their conversation. She easily pulled ahead with the hemi under her hood.
“Dammit, Natalie, wait.” He pushed the accelerator to the floor and gripped the steering wheel tighter. Of all the places she was going, why did it have to be anywhere near that damn ravine? It was bad enough she had bailed his ass out of the snow back in January. He tailed her out of town, keeping right on her bumper, allowing no other cars to get between them. For some unknown reason, this seemed all important, like if he didn’t something was going to happen to her and his unborn child. Natalie’s eyes appeared in her rearview mirror every so often. At one point, she shook her head, and was likely giving him the mental finger.
They rounded the curve together. Rudy had parked on the opposite side of the road from where she parked her rig on the shoulder. The officer jogged across the street to meet her.
Harry stopped behind her. As he got out of his Buick, he lost sight of her when she rounded the front of her tow truck. “Nat!” She didn’t answer. “Where are you?” Sweat dampened his back and an irrational fear crept up on him. This damn spot messed with him every time. The very sight of the ravine made him crazy. “Natalie!” he shouted while he made his way toward the front of her vehicle. He hadn’t even bothered to look into the woods for the stuck car. Not until he saw she was okay. Harry had a flash of the one time he’d lost Grace at the mall for ten minutes. It had been the longest ten minutes of his life. The dread that someone had stolen her was so intense he nearly threw up. Fortunately he had trained Grace to find a security guard or policeman if she ever got separated from him. “Nat—”
“Over here,” she said.
“Where?” He came around the front. “Oh, thought I lost you for a moment.”
She chuckled. “Where did you think I went?” Bafflement washed over her features then she smirked. Harry wanted to hug her but his body wouldn’t cooperate. He froze and scrunched up his face. Perspiration beaded on his forehead. He wavered on his feet, reaching for the truck and placed hi
s hand on the hood. “What’s wrong, Harry?”
He rubbed near the base of his throat. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Looking kinda pale there,” Rudy remarked.
Harry couldn’t breathe well. He tried taking short inhales then long, nothing helped though. He leaned his butt on the bumper, bent at the waist with his hands on his knees. A hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed.
“What’s wrong? You’re scaring me,” Natalie said with concern in her voice.
“I’m…all right. I hate…this,” he said between gasps.
“What do you hate?”
He closed his eyes.
“Do we need the paramedics?” Rudy asked.
“No,” Harry wheezed. “Where’s the…car?”
“Forget the car,” she told him, leaning down so her head was close to his ear. “What do you hate?”
“I lost Gracie.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What happened to Grace? I just talked to her this morning.”
“At the mall.” He couldn’t look at Natalie’s face.
“You’re not making any sense.” She rubbed his back.
“I lost her at the mall once when she was six. All I could think about was finding her, saving her from God knows what. Then when I found her, I worried about what I would say to her mother if the worst had happened. That was the worst day of my life.”
“Oh, Harry.” She sniffled. When their eyes met, hers were shiny with unshed tears.
“Losing a child is something no parent should have to go through.”
“You hate this ravine, don’t you? That’s what this is about. No it’s not…not entirely. I hear what you’re saying. You never want to go through that.” She stroked his hair, which had an amazing calming effect on him.
Harry placed a palm on her lower belly. “How many weeks are you?”
“Not weeks, months. Just over three.”
He finally took a deep breath and stood upright. Second trimester meant no termination, right? They were going to have a baby in six months. Wow. How would Brayden take the news? He hoped well. Did he already know? “Is the baby…how’s the baby?”