His Rebel Heart

by Amber Leigh Williams

  “Yes,” she said again. “I know that.”

  “We did that. Together. We made that. I mean, you raised him, of course. You’ve done all the heavy lifting. And the fact that’s he’s so amazing is due to you. But did you know that he has a knack for engines? And that he can remember everything? Literally, everything. And...” Here he stopped. He placed his hands on her shoulders and lowered his voice. “Adrian, he figured out that I’m his father.”

  Adrian’s breath left her on a tremulous rush. “Oh...”

  “I swear I didn’t drop any hints. He just said out of the blue, ‘I know you’re my dad.’ He’s smart. Really, really smart and intuitive.”

  Dear God. Kyle knew? How long had that been going on? More, how was she going to handle it?

  James went on, undeterred. “And he does this thing with his knuckles, rubbing them over his lips. Has he always done that? Because I’ve done that since I was a kid—”

  “Yes,” she said, raising her voice over his. “I know.”

  He stopped, reading her face closely. His expression fell and his shoulders seemed to deflate. “Right. You’ve had to live with this, haven’t you? You’ve looked at him every morning over breakfast and seen me.”

  She didn’t confirm it, but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

  At that moment, Kyle’s voice came floating in from the other room. “Hey, Mom! I’m done!”

  “Be right there,” she called back. She forced herself to look at James again. “Tomorrow he’s spending the night at the inn with his friend Gavin. We should have dinner, talk things over then.”

  James lifted his chin in a nod. “All right,” he said slowly, noting her dismissal.

  “Thank you for everything today,” she said. “He had a great day, and it’s all because he got to spend it with you. I’ll try to find some way to return the favor.”

  “No favor,” he said. “You’ve done me the favor. Trust me. So, I’ll see you tomorrow night. At my place?”

  She nodded, nerves stirring in her belly. She thought briefly about meeting somewhere else, somewhere public, but she owed him this. “Sounds fine.”

  “Good night, Adrian.”

  She had to stop herself from calling him back, to erase the sullen lines on his face. Tomorrow night, she promised herself. They had things to discuss. Important things. Whether or not she was ready for it, it was time for James Bracken to become somewhat of a fixture in her son’s life...and at the same time, hers.

  God help her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT WAS JUST DINNER, Adrian assured herself as she mounted the steps to the front door of James’s house. Dinner, discussion, done. Then she’d go back home to her empty nest for the night and pour herself a big glass of wine.

  Late that afternoon she had dropped Kyle off at the inn so that he and Cole’s son, Gavin, could have their prearranged sleepover. She’d sat by the phone for much of the day waiting for either Cole or Briar to call and cancel. Well, hoping they would, anyway. Having Kyle home for the evening would have been a great excuse to cancel dinner next door.

  Still, the time came. And Adrian knew she and James needed this time—to talk about Kyle and to set up some ground rules, both for James as a parent and for whatever was happening between him and her.

  No reason to be nervous, she told herself as she rang the doorbell. Waiting, she smoothed her hands over the breezy button-up blouse she had chosen to don with jeans and sandals. The outfit said casual. She sincerely hoped it in no way suggested sex or romance—or anything to do with either.

  She heard footsteps and straightened, licking her lips when she saw the shadow of him. “There you are,” James said as he walked into the entry hall and pushed the screen open. “I was starting to think you were going to stand me up.”

  Adrian frowned. She couldn’t be that predictable. “Sorry,” she said absently. He was also wearing jeans, although his were scuffed and faded. The shirt he wore with them was the lightest of blues and short sleeved, leaving the ink on his arm and hand in full view. Her eyes snagged for a moment on the open collar and the tattoos and hair just visible before her gaze fell to his feet.

  Flip-flops. Somehow, the sight of the brown leather thongs, his toes and feet bare, made him appear somewhat piratical. Blinking her eyes back into focus, she lifted her hands. “Kyle caught a flounder before I left the inn. I had to take a lot of pictures.”

  “Flounder,” James said, brows raised. “Impressive. He might be eating better than we are tonight.”

  She glanced over his shoulder into the house. Did it look a bit hazy? “Did you burn something?”

  James flashed a grin. “I told you. The oven’s a bitch.” His grin stretched after a moment’s pause drifted between them. Then he said, “Are you going to come in?”

  She frowned, glancing down at her feet. Neither one lifted to carry her over the threshold and into his domain.

  “Adrian.”

  Lifting her gaze back to his, she saw understanding there and bit the inside of her lip. “Yes?”

  Sincerity blazed from those crazy, beautiful, Scandinavian blues as he said slowly, “I swear if you come into this house, I won’t lay a finger on you unless you tell me to.”

  How had he known she needed that exact reassurance? She searched his expression, admiring the truthfulness behind the words.

  James stepped back, edging up against the open wood door behind him. “Now...will you come in? Please?”

  Adrian hesitated once more before stepping toward him, bypassing the screen door into the entryway. Her arm brushed his chest and gooseflesh popped up on her skin.

  James followed her through the house, taking her purse and setting it on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room with its high, arched ceiling. For the first time, Adrian noted the exposed rafters and the yawning brick fireplace blackened by time. Although some clutter remained, the boxes had vanished and the furniture was set in place.

  “The house looks great,” she told him as she walked to the long line of windows. He’d finished the deck. She noticed that the dining room table made of raw wood hadn’t been set for dinner. Apparently, he was planning for them to dine outdoors because a new table and chairs had been set up just beyond the windows along with mosquito candles, dishes and flatware. Beyond the deck rail she saw that the yard had been raked and trimmed, the trees bordering the property cut back and the pool had been drained and retiled. The light hum of alternative music was floating from somewhere. She saw the speakers tucked into the recesses of the new deck roof.

  She couldn’t believe how far he had come in home improvements. She hated to admit it, but under the influence of James’s ambition, the house was actually starting to look less like an unmitigated disaster and more like a hidden neighborhood gem.

  “You’ve been busy,” she said when she felt him hovering at her elbow. Turning, she accepted a glass he’d filled with iced tea. “Thank you.” She took a long sip. “Did you ever find that armadillo at the bottom of the pool?”

  James groaned. “Yeah, along with a lot of other things I’d rather not discuss. I’m waiting for the filters to be changed before I fill it up again.”

  “It’ll be nice in the summer,” she mused. “The deck, the new pool...you’ll have a time keeping Kyle out of the water.”

  The comment seemed to catch James off guard. His face turned toward hers. His well-hewn features softened, his eyes going tender, warm. “You think so?”

  Adrian nodded. It was her first acquiescence. Thinking about the manila folder she’d brought in her purse, she ducked her head and drank again. She’d spent much of the morning carefully, painstakingly putting together its contents. She didn’t know when she was going to give it to him—or if she would be able to hand it over at all. It was a big step. An emotional one. S
he didn’t know if she was ready. Brushing her bangs across her brow, she pivoted toward the kitchen. “Did you burn dinner already?”

  “No,” James said, looking back at a plate of blackened potatoes. “Well, at least not all of it. The pork chops are still on the grill and I threw some squash on there when it became apparent that we aren’t having potatoes.”

  “Mmm. Do you need some help?”

  “Nope,” he said, turning to her again. “I want you to relax. It’s your night off.”

  Adrian lifted a shoulder. “I don’t mind.”

  “You’re going to let me wait on you,” James told her. “I feel like you deserve a good bit of pampering.”

  Adrian laughed, leaning against the windows. “I don’t think I’d know pampering if it hit me in the head, but all right.”

  James watched her as she sipped her tea. Slowly the grin on his face melted away. Setting his glass aside, he planted a hand on the sill next to her. “Adrian, while we’re waiting for dinner, there’s something we do need to talk about.”

  She pulled in a steadying breath, trying to force down the uneasy feeling the words gave her. Wasn’t this what she’d come here for? To discuss things with him and listen to what he had to say. “Okay. Shoot.”

  “I need to be honest with you,” he said, his eyes blazing sincerity and what she feared was need of another kind. Need for her. Whether that need manifested from his desire for her to simply trust him or something deeper and far more costly, she had no idea. “Since I came back home, I’ve tried to make a clean start. I’ve wanted a clean living. A clear mind. And since I found you on my doorstep, I’ve wanted nothing more than to convince you that I’ve changed and that I’m here for you.”

  “You mean Kyle,” she said quickly, and swallowed when he was silent on that score. “Here for Kyle. Right?”

  “For both of you,” he said in a deep, quiet tone that reverberated through her. As she glanced out the window, she heard him drag in an inhale. “I haven’t lied to you about where I’ve been these last eight years...but I haven’t been completely up front about the darker details of what happened when I initially left town.”

  Adrian licked her lips. She reached up to scratch the spot between her eyes. “I, uh, think I expected as much.” Seeing the slight, crestfallen reaction on his part, she shrugged. “What did you expect? Trust isn’t exactly my strong suit.”

  “Not with me,” he muttered. He rolled his shoulders back in a restless motion and straightened. “When I left Fairhope, I caught up with some of Dusty Harbuck’s cousins in north Alabama. Huntsville.”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “Huntsville?”

  “That’s right,” he said with a nod. “Your friend the cop’s old stomping ground.”

  “So that’s why Cole doesn’t like you,” she said, measuring him closely now. “You knew each other.”

  “No,” he said. “Not directly. Through his work with the Huntsville Police Department, he knew about some of my activities and recognized my name when we were introduced a couple of weeks ago.”

  She nodded slowly. “Makes sense.” Her arms crossed and she frowned. “You were saying something about the Harbucks?”

  “Cousins of theirs,” he said again. “I asked them to put some feelers out for me for mechanic work. They came back about a week later saying they might have a job for me. They’d heard from Clint and Dusty that I was a decent driver and that I knew sports cars.”

  “A decent driver?” she echoed in disbelief. “I’d say my parents’ nursery would disagree with you there.”

  A small smile moved across his face. “I was a decent driver when I wasn’t under the influence, I should say. Anyway, they asked me how far under the table I was willing to work. When I told them I’d do anything except deal or traffic drugs, they took me into the mountains. There, in the hills, they had an underground garage where they stored high-end cars.”

  “Stolen cars,” Adrian assumed.

  “Yes,” James said without hesitation.

  Adrian’s frown deepened. “Go on.”

  “There was a path through the mountains, mostly dangerous one-lane tracks that bordered on ravines and cliffs and that went through caves and such. Nothing your average soccer mom could negotiate. So I agreed, for a generous salary, to help drive these cars through the mountains and safely over the state line. There were rules, though.”

  “As there usually are amongst thieves,” she muttered with a roll of her eyes.

  “I couldn’t under any circumstances get caught,” James continued. “I couldn’t damage the car in any way. I had to cover up my identity in the event that I was sighted by police or civilians by wearing a mask. If I were ever caught, I had to bail. I also had to wear gloves so that if I did ditch the car, I’d leave no trace of DNA behind. And I had to have a call sign—mine was Ghostrider.”

  “Original,” she drawled.

  James pursed his lips. “Kyle isn’t the only kid who ever liked comic books.”

  Adrian tried to digest all the details. “It all sounds very James Bond—that is, if James Bond was a backwoods criminal.”

  The corner of James’s mouth lifted as mirth and mock hurt filled his eyes. “Okay, that stung a little.”

  “Did you enjoy it, at least?”

  “I loved it,” he told her. When she lifted a brow, he added, “I promised you the truth. I thought I was lucky to get that kind of work, that kind of money to do something I loved doing—driving the kind of cars I’d only ever seen in magazines and museums. The fact that it was all under the radar and illegal only intensified the excitement.”

  “So if this was your dream job, why did you get out of it?” she asked. “You did get out of it?”

  “Yeah. I got out.” His gaze dropped enough for the black curtain of his eyelashes to hide what was behind them. “I worked the same circuit for three years, but things began to escalate. I started to understand exactly who we were delivering cars to. I won’t say that I haven’t done bad things. I’ve leaped into shady situations with my eyes wide-open. But these guys...they had the wrong type of vibe, the kind that drips like ice down your spine when you look them in the eye. I didn’t want to owe them anything. So I finished my last run and I got out of the life while I could.”

  Thoughtfully, Adrian lifted her tea to her mouth. “Where’d you go from there?”

  “Saint Augustine,” he said. “There was a man there who knew who my dad was, who knew his old reputation as a charter fisherman. So he hired me to take tourists into the Atlantic and oversee the fishing.”

  Adrian glanced over at his arm, the waves, the doomed sea monster and the ocean wildlife circling the soon-to-be wreckage. “That would explain the tattoos.”

  James lifted a shoulder, smirked. “Well, some of them, at least.”

  She fought the urge to smile back. “Is that where you cleaned up?”

  “The captain saw the signs,” James said after a moment’s pause, reaching up to rub the skin over the nautical star on his throat. “He knew my dad’s alcoholic history, too, and how bad things got for him. He told me he was thinking about buying a second boat and making me captain, but he needed to know that I was on the level. He wanted my guarantee that I would straighten up and quit drinking.”

  “That’s all it took?” she asked. “You didn’t hit rock bottom first like everybody else?”

  Lowering his eyes again, he said quietly, “Adrian, my wake-up calls started when I was seventeen. I just spent the next four years ignoring them, one right after the other. Then...I had the wake-up call to end all wake-up calls.”

  “What happened?”

  James rubbed two fingers over his lips to hide a sheepish grin. “Ah...I sank a boat.”

  She groaned. “Oh, James. Please tell me it was your own boat.”

  “Not
so much,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’ve been lucky more than once. I’ve survived things that others haven’t or likely wouldn’t. Yeah, I’ve been luckier than I deserve. But this was the closest I’d ever come to dying.”

  “You almost drowned.”

  “No. There was a fire. That’s how she went down.”

  Adrian found her gaze stilling on the mottled skin of his right arm. It was starting to make sense, as was that doomed ship on his opposing arm. “You were lucky,” she acknowledged. She sucked in a breath and turned away to roam his living room. She looked around at the furniture. “The house...the garage...the cars...none of them could have come cheap. Did you use the money you got from being Ghostrider to pay for it all?”

  “No,” James said, his voice flat and dark behind her. “I ran through that cash before I sobered up, which is why I needed the work in Saint Augustine. I bought all this with what I earned designing stock cars and engines for NASCAR.”

  “How did you go from being a boat captain to working for NASCAR?”

  “Luck,” he said again with a rueful grin. “There was a well-known stock car designer in my AA group. We got to talking one night. I had some ideas. He liked what I had to say. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I was living in North Carolina and working on the team that designed stock cars for Sprint Cup drivers.”

  “That is lucky,” she said. Almost too lucky. “It paid well, by the looks of it.”

  “The only thing that mattered to me was that it was honest work,” he told her. “It’s true you work harder when it’s honest, but at the end of the day it felt great. I felt like I was doing some good for once, and eventually that need, that desire to do good, to be good, to show people I had that drive—it all led me back here.”

  Adrian clutched her tea glass. “Well, I’m happy for you.”

  His face went blank with surprise. “You are?”

  “Of course, I am,” she said. Honesty, she reminded herself. It went both ways. “I’m happy for you, not just for leaving the opportunities you had in Huntsville behind and making something honest of yourself. And not just for wanting to do good, which is amazing. I’m proud of you for that, James. But I know what it takes...to rebuild a life. To hit rock bottom and have to fight and claw your way back to make something of yourself again.”