by Amy Olle
The next morning, Shea returned to the house early, but when he stepped through the back door, he stumbled.
A stack of dirty dishes teetered in the kitchen sink. Clutter littered the countertops, and for a moment he thought he’d walked into the wrong house. This couldn’t be Isobel’s home. Her house was spotless perfection. Always. No matter what.
“Hello?” His voice held the ring of his confusion.
Pounding footsteps greeted his call and Maisie erupted into the room from the hallway. Her rounded cheeks wet with tears, she launched herself into his arms and buried her face in his neck. Words tumbled from her in a rush but, as she often did when her emotions ran high, she’d switched to Spanish and he struggled to comprehend all that she was saying.
He hugged her tight to his chest. “What’s the matter, a stór?”
“The toof fairy forgot.” Maisie's little body shuddered with her ragged breaths.
Isobel emerged from the hall and Shea started at the sight of her. Her long dark hair a tangled mess, she wore an oversized pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt with a splotch of coffee on her left boob, and not a speck of makeup. He’d never seen her so rumpled and disheveled. Despite the look of tortured guilt on her face, she’d never appeared more adorably gorgeous.
He rubbed slow circles over Maisie’s small back. “What’s this now? Did you say the tooth fairy?”
Maisie pulled back and with the tip of her miniature finger, touched the hole in the row of her tiny teeth.
Shea’s dramatic gasp filled the air. “You lost a tooth?”
“Uh-huh.” Maisie laid her head on his shoulder. “And the toof fairy forgot about me.”
A quick glance at his guilt-stricken wife told Shea the whole story.
“Well, that explains it,” he said.
Maisie lifted her head. “What?”
“On my way over, just now, I saw a carrot on the dock and I thought to myself, ‘What is that carrot doing here? Bunnies don’t live at the beach.’” His eyes went wide. “Do you know what that means?”
Maisie shook her head. “Uh-uh.”
“That means the tooth fairy came to my boat last night. She must’ve been confused and thought you were sleeping there. I bet if we go look under your pillow, we’ll find your surprise. Should we go?”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
Maisie squirmed out of his arms and darted over to the coat rack where she sat to tug on her pink rain boots.
A smile played on his lips when he turned to Isobel.
“Omigod,” she whispered, edging close. “I’m a terrible mother.”
He choked down his low chuckle, but only because she appeared ready to cry. “Did you work all night?”
She nodded and shoved a hank of her hair behind one ear. “Then I fell asleep and forgot all about the tooth fairy.”
A light trace of her flowery scent teased his nostrils. “How is it going? Have you gotten a lot done?”
Dark circles smudged beneath her eyes. “Everything seems to be taking longer than I expected.”
“Has Vanessa called?”
“Not yet.”
“No need to panic, then.” The hair behind her ear came loose and he tucked it back. “I can tell you want to.”
“Ready!” Maisie bounded to her feet and charged toward the back door.
“Good girl. Will you tell Connor we’re leaving? I’ll bet he wants to see what the tooth fairy brought you.”
“Okay, Daddy.” Pink boots battered the hardwood floors as she plunged down the hall, calling her brother’s name as she ran.
“Jaysus, they run everywhere,” he muttered, pulling his cell phone from his hip pocket.
The soft peal of Isobel’s laughter startled him. Light and lyrical, the sound splashed over him as the sunshine after a storm. He laughed along with her. How long had it been since they’d shared something as simple as a laugh?
When she moved to study the paper covering the dining table, he tapped out a quick message on his cell phone, then hit Send just as the echo of frantic footsteps reverberated through the house.
Maisie burst into the room. “Can we go now?”
Shea hoisted her in his arms. “Where’s your brother?”
“Here.” Connor plopped his sippy cup on the dining table.
With a smooth lunge, Isobel swiped the cup off the tabletop. “No, no, mijo,” she murmured, then ran her palm over the markings she’d sketched onto the paper.
In his pocket, Shea’s cell phone vibrated. Leo was the first to reply to the emergency text and was on his way to the marina to leave a treasure from the tooth fairy under Maisie’s pillow.
Isobel helped him corral Connor and Maisie through the kitchen and toward the back door. As they passed by the kitchen sink, she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and drifted over to the dirty heap.
“Don’t you dare touch those dishes.”
Her steps halted.
“Or that pile of laundry. Or the toys scattered all over this place. You can clean in two weeks.”
Huge gray eyes filled with anxiety clamped onto his face.
A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “But if you want to take a shower, I’ll allow it.”
She pushed him through the back door.
Under her pillow, Maisie discovered a shiny silver dollar coin, which she immediately wanted to spend on a pair of plastic princess slippers she’d seen in the grocery store checkout lane. After they’d finished shopping, they played for a while at the beach. Then they headed back to the marina for a snack and a little rest before he took them home for dinner, bath, and bed.
As he loaded Connor and Maisie into his crew cab truck, his phone buzzed with an incoming text message from Isobel. Totally lost track of time. Can you pick up Finn at practice?
When Shea pulled into the school parking lot, a glower darkened Finn’s features. He collapsed in the passenger’s seat and yanked the door closed.
A heavy, stifling silence descended inside the truck, and yet Shea didn’t want the short ride to end. While he may be struggling to connect with his son, he wasn’t ready to give up even one second of their time together.
“We were about to get dinner.” He snuck a glance at Finn’s profile. “You mind if we stop for a bite to eat before someone has a meltdown?”
Finn flipped the hood of his sweatshirt up over his dark hair. “Whatever.”
At dinner, the meltdown Shea feared became reality when Connor dissolved into a puddle of hangry tears. Before Shea could intervene, Finn slipped his phone into his pocket and within moments had turned Connor’s tears into giggles with a deadly accurate imitation of Shea’s gruff voice and accent.
Shea couldn’t stem the kick of pride in his chest at Finn’s compassion for his little brother. It had been hard on him when, at twelve years old, his mom had had a baby, and less than a year later, yet another surprise pregnancy was on the way. Two years after that, his dad moved out of the house.
In a couple of weeks, Finn would turn eighteen, and it was obvious the kid sitting across the table from Shea would be a good man. For that, he owed Isobel.
“Why are you so hard on him? He’s just a little boy.”
With a shudder, the memory of Isobel’s heated words seared him. The truth of her words gutted him.
As a young dad, the fear had hounded Shea. Maybe it was a result of being Daniel Nolan’s son. Maybe it was due to watching his four brothers weave in and out of trouble. Shea knew the lesson well. A little trouble could alter the course of one’s life.
He could justify why he’d done it, but his excuses didn’t make it okay. He’d tried to control everything in their lives. He’d tried to control them. Anything to prevent a return to those chaotic, terrifying years after their mom died.
But instead of protecting them, he’d only succeeded in pushing them away.
Well, no more. It’d taken too long, but he’d finally gotten the message. They didn’t want or need him to control their lives
. He had a different role to play.
But what?
In the car on the way home, uncertainty churned in him. Nearly a man, what did his son need from him? Was there anything?
His hood in place, Finn tapped away on his phone while in the back seat, Connor and Maisie dozed. As Shea steered the vehicle along the quiet roads, he catalogued all the ways he was going to do things differently with them. The list was long.
But nothing on it would help him with Finn now.
A thought clicked in his mind. If he was unsure what Finn needed from him, maybe he should just ask.
Leaning forward, Shea shifted in the seat. “So, how’s football going?”
“Fine.”
Tap, tap.
“You, uh, need anything? From me?”
Tap… tap, tap.
“No.”
“Look, I’m sorry if I wasn’t there for you.”
“I’m over it.”
Tap, tap, tap.
“I’d be mad, too.”
“I’m not mad.”
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
What the hell was he doing? Dancing around the words like a nervous nelly? If nothing else, Finn deserved the truth from him.
“I’m proud of you.”
The tapping noise ceased.
“And for the record, I’m glad you took your mom’s side.”
“I didn’t take her side.” Finn turned his face toward the passenger side window. “I just know how she feels.”
In the fading daylight, Shea spotted a pedestrian walking along the side of the road and he eased the truck out over the center line, leaving a wide distance between the slight figure and the vehicle.
Finn straightened in his seat.
With a swipe of one hand, the hood came off and his head whipped around. “Stop the car.”
“What? Why?”
“Just stop.”
Alarmed by the bite in Finn’s voice, Shea steered onto the shoulder of the road.
“What is it?” he asked, peering through the car’s rear window.
“I think I know her.”
“That girl? Who is she?”
“She goes to my school.”
Unease prickled up Shea’s spine. “What is she doing out here by herself?”
“I don’t know.”
“You want to talk to her, or you want me to?”
Without a blink of hesitation, Finn flung open his car door. “I will.”
In the side mirror, Finn approached the girl with slow, cautious steps. Shea cut off the radio and eased his window down, hoping to pick up snippets of their conversation, but nothing reached him through the dusky shadows.
Just when he’d decided to get involved, they turned and walked back to the car together.
Finn’s gaze briefly touched Shea’s as he ducked inside the car. “Hey, Dad. This is Sidney. She needs a ride home.”
The girl was all huge eyes and exposed flesh in a revealing tank top and too-short shorts. But the scanty clothing didn’t bother him nearly as much as her split bottom lip. Beneath the truck’s dim interior light, he caught the splotch of dried blood in the corner of her mouth.
Finn helped her into the passenger seat and then climbed into the back, wedging his body between Connor’s and Maisie’s car seats.
“Where’s home?” Shea asked, then pulled back out onto the road, heading in the direction of Sidney’s house.
While Sidney mumbled her address, Shea caught Finn’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
The apprehension he felt reflected back at him.
Chapter Thirteen
In three short days, the perfection Isobel sought daily to attain had been ruined. Like red wine spilled over a pristine white wedding dress, chaos reigned. Ugly, regrettable chaos.
But since Vanessa Dubois threw her life into disarray, Isobel had selected four designs from the hundreds of sketches she’d created over the years and would attempt to make them all in the next two weeks. She’d spent hours online shopping for the perfect fabrics and had purchased several months’ worth of salary for the luxurious material, paying extra to have the orders shipped as quickly as possible.
Though she hadn’t skimped on her choices, she’d only spent half of the money Shea had loaned her. During their early years together, while Shea was in law school and she was teaching herself bridal design, they were so poor that she couldn’t afford to make many dresses and she certainly wasn’t able to splurge on things like crystal beading or lace overlays. Instead, she’d learned to use design elements to add sparkle and drama to her gowns. A dramatic neckline, a striking cut, a luxurious draping of fabric, she’d used them all to great effect and apparently still favored the style.
That morning, the first of three packages had arrived, and by the time Shea returned home with the kids that evening, she had cut out one dress, sewn the skirt, and had just started stitching together the intricate bodice when Finn steered a drowsy Maisie through the back door.
Isobel set aside her work and scooped Maisie up in her arms as Shea’s large frame filled the room. Connor’s slack form slung over his shoulder, he didn’t speak, but his vivid gaze grabbed hers and held, eliciting a shiver of awareness from her.
Down the hall, she settled Maisie into bed and slipped quietly through her bedroom door, pulling it shut behind her with a soft click. The door to Finn’s bedroom was barred, presumably with him behind it while Shea waited for her in the hallway.
For the first time in years, her foremost impulse wasn’t to retreat or lash out.
She sagged against the door and offered him a small smile. “How was your day?”
“It was great.” He leaned against the wall. “I think the life of leisure is for me after all.”
That startled a laugh from her. Curious, she searched his face and detected the slight strain at the corners of his eyes and mouth.
Something was troubling him, and he was trying to hide it from her.
Annoyance flared. It was so typical of him not to trust her. Did he think she was weak? Too inept or useless or stupid to be of any help? Why couldn’t he—
She slammed the brake on the train of her well-worn thoughts. The ugly suspicions replayed in her mind, and dark regret seeped over her. Like that day at the store, it both stunned and hurt her to realize how quickly she’d assumed the worst about him. How quickly she assumed his low opinion of her, and just how low that opinion delved.
Why did she do that? He was a lot of things—infuriating, stubborn, controlling—but he didn’t deserve her animosity. She didn’t deserve it.
For so long, she’d wanted things to be different between them, but without recognizing the role she’d played in their dysfunction, her attempts to bring about a change were doomed to fail. How could she fix something when she didn’t understand why it wasn’t working?
Overwhelmed and baffled by her broken marriage, she’d finally given up and chucked it in the trash, accepting that she’d have to either acquire a brand new one, or forever go without.
Remorse throbbed in her chest while she stared into Shea’s familiar yet foreign face. In how many and what other ways had she contributed to the breakdown of their relationship?
If she’d wanted things to be different before, now that she understood, and despite the fact she’d all but ended their marriage when she filed for divorce, shouldn’t she try to make it so?
A weak smile touched her lips. “You going to tell me what’s bothering you?”
His struggled played across his features. “I don’t want you to worry.”
“I’m too tired to worry.”
He dropped his head to stare at the floor, but the spot between his brows puckered. “Do you know Sidney Shaw?”
At the mention of Finn’s classmate, surprise swept over her. “I know of her. Why?”
When his head came up, his bright eyes glittered, and she was powerless to resist their magnetic pull. “We found her walking along the road out by the abandoned warehouse and gave
her a ride home.”
While he explained the roadside pickup and the fat lip, a frown crept across her face. “That doesn’t sound good at all. I’ll ask around and see what I can find out.”
“Her dad comes into the pub once in a while.” At his side, his hand curled into a fist and the muscles beneath his tattoo rippled. “I think I’ll have a chat with him the next time.”
His gaze snagged hers, and a soft, sensuous shimmer of light passed between them.
“How was your day?” he asked softly. “Did you get a lot done?”
Soft flutters stirred in her stomach. “I’ve pieced most of one dress together, and I’m about to start on the beadwork.”
“Can I see it?”
Pleasure warmed her cheeks. “Sure.”
She led him to her bedroom door—their bedroom door.
Her feet tripped to a stop. Through the doorway, her eyes fastened on the bed, their bed, and her pulse jumped with the surge of a thousand jumbled and conflicting emotions. Sorrow and regret. Guilt, resentment, rigidity. So much had gone wrong for them here. The memories assaulted her, even the ones from his boat only days ago. A whisper of arousal flickered.
Behind her, his size and heat reached out like a caress. Though he uttered no words, she could feel his questioning thoughts. With a mental shake, she slipped inside the room.
At the end of the bed, she’d set up the dress form in the open space and the gown’s lavish tulle skirt smashed against the wall. Stepping to the side, she watched his face as his eyes roamed over the ballgown.
His honeyed smile caused her heart to flip over in her chest.
“Now that’s a princess dress,” he said and then his eyes narrowed with his critical squint. “It’s a little dark in here.”
“I’ll bring in another lamp.”
He frowned at the floor, twisting at the waist to assess the entire space. “You’re not going to have room for any other dresses.”
“I could move to the basement, but it’s a little damp down there and I’m afraid it would harm the fabric.” She worried her bottom lip. “At least the other dresses aren’t as poufy as this one.”
His clouded expression cleared abruptly. “I know a place that might work.”