by Wendy Wax
“They were happy with the response in the small venues we played and seem to feel we can draw bigger crowds.”
She heard the hesitation in his voice, saw the uncertainty on his face. She had her own misgivings, which she was trying her best not to telegraph. She was happy for his success and wished him more, but as much as she enjoyed being with him, she couldn’t imagine their relationship surviving the Rock God status Will was on his way to reclaiming. “Don’t you want to go?”
“Part of me is thrilled. Part of me doesn’t want to have anything to do with it.” His smile was crooked. His tone was rueful. “I know what it’s like on the road. And it doesn’t bear any similarity to real life.”
“I’ve seen articles about performers who travel with personal trainers and chefs and, you know, whatever they need,” she said. “It could be different this time around.”
“Yeah. I have the file you’ve been amassing,” he said lightly. “I know it must be possible. For some.”
“You can do anything you set your mind to, Will. You’ve proved that already.” She looked down at the shadowy fish, the pie crumbs on the plate. Once he was back at the top, evenings like this would be a memory. “Not everyone gets a second chance like this.”
“No,” he said softly. “They don’t. I’m lucky to be alive. Alive and making music? That’s a total miracle and way more than I deserve. But . . .”
“But what?”
“But we’re looking at three to four months of nonstop travel and performing. I’d like . . . I’d like you to come with me. You know, for the whole tour. I trust myself.” He swallowed and met her eyes. “But I trust myself more when I’m with you.”
She saw what the admission cost him. He’d gotten sober and stayed that way through sheer dint of will and what might have been millions of laps in the swimming pool. But addictions didn’t disappear; they were overcome and fought off forever.
Maddie dropped her eyes to the empty plate, the taste of key lime tart on her tongue. The mother in her, the nurturer/caregiver wanted to say yes, wanted to be there for him. But she’d spent most of her life being there for others. For her husband. For her children. More recently for her grandson and the women who’d become her closest friends. She’d learned a lot of things about herself when her husband lost everything, including his job and himself, to Malcolm Dyer’s Ponzi scheme. She’d become far stronger than she’d ever imagined. What she had never learned to do was to put herself first.
“I don’t see how I can be gone that long.” She’d been here for two weeks and knew she had to get back to Bella Flora, the castle-like beachfront home that was all she, Avery, and Nikki had left after their losses to Malcolm Dyer and which now belonged to Maddie’s daughter, Kyra. The network they’d quit so publicly on Mermaid Point was suing them for breach of contract and claiming that the name Do Over did not belong to them. “We have the lawsuit to deal with and Kyra is trying to edit the special on the Sunshine Hotel together so it can be sold. And Nikki’s twins are due next month. I promised I’d be there to help. She and Joe are moving into his new cottage at the Sunshine Hotel soon.”
“I get it,” Will said. “Four months on the road is a lot to ask.”
She looked into Will’s eyes and wished once again that she could see herself the way he seemed to see her. But at midnight this New Year’s Eve, she had made a resolution. She had promised herself that she would learn to be more than an appendage. That she would live her own life and not just live to support others’.
She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I love being with you, Will. And I’m happy to come visit you here or on the road as often as possible. I want you in my life.” She swallowed and almost whispered, “But I can’t let you be my life. I’m fifty-two years old and I think it’s time I finally figure out who I am and what I want to be when I grow up.”
Will nodded but said nothing. It took every ounce of willpower Maddie possessed not to change her mind or her answer. It seemed that growing up could be painful no matter when you chose to do it.
Two
Nicole Grant no longer recognized herself. Her body had ballooned into a blimp-size storage facility for the two babies that floated inside it, fighting for elbow room. Her skin stretched tight across the massive protrusion that had once been her stomach. Her breasts were the size and consistency of overinflated basketballs, her face red and splotchy and dotted with pimples. Her auburn hair hung dull and lifeless while the brain it encased had taken to misfiring and short-circuiting without warning or apology.
And then there were her moods, which had stabilized during the middle months of her pregnancy, but which now swung this way and that like a metronome sprung from its housing. With a groan of effort, she attempted to roll onto her side. She was halfway there when a muscled arm reached out to pull her up against a rock-hard abdomen. That abdomen belonged to Special Agent Joe Giraldi. Whose gold medal sperm had found and fertilized the eggs she’d believed were way beyond their expiration date. His large hand curled protectively against her stomach as he placed a kiss on the top of her head. “Are you okay?”
“I’d be better if I could actually turn over on my own. Or think. Or stop peeing every two minutes,” she murmured. “Seeing my feet would be nice.”
“It won’t be long now,” he said, his hand lightly stroking her stomach, his tone meant to reassure.
But then Joe had none of the fears or doubts that stalked her. She was eight months pregnant. If nothing went wrong, she would be the thing she’d given up on long ago and failed at so spectacularly as far as her younger brother was concerned. She would be a mother.
As if in response to the thought, a soccer-strength kick landed beneath Joe’s hand. A second came swift and sure from the side. “They’re fighters.” His breath was warm against her ear. She could feel him smiling.
“They’re girls,” she reminded him.
“All the more reason for them to know how to fight,” he said. “Like their mother.”
“Do you have to see the bright side of everything?”
“Can’t help it,” he replied easily. “I can’t think how things could be better.”
“That’s because you aren’t carrying them around in your stomach. And they’re not sitting on your bladder.”
“True.” But he smiled as he said it.
Being married might be better, she thought but did not say. Because she had refused him one too many times and he’d taken the offer off the table with no sign of renegotiation.
Today they would drive up to Pass-a-Grille, a trip that would have only taken about four and a half hours if she didn’t need so many potty breaks. There they would move into the two-bedroom cottage Joe had purchased at the Sunshine Hotel, which she, Madeline and Kyra Singer, and Avery Lawford had recently renovated for what they’d hoped would be their own version of Do Over.
Joe slid out of bed naked and gorgeous. Not for the first time she wished that men carried the babies. That it was their skin that stretched to the breaking point and then sagged. She pulled on her robe as she struggled to sit up. She saw him bite back a smile as he reached out a hand to help her to her feet.
“It’s not funny.”
He headed to the kitchen while she padded into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. And, of course, to pee. When she got to the kitchen, her juice and prenatal vitamins awaited her. She downed the juice and the horse-size pills looking enviously at the cup of fresh-brewed coffee in Joe’s hand. She wasn’t a caffeine addict like Avery and had typically preferred a morning run to a morning coffee, but there was something about knowing you couldn’t have a thing that made you want it desperately. She sighed and barely resisted cozying up to him in order to steal a sniff of the dark roast.
“How long do you need to get ready?”
“Not long.” In truth she had no idea if this was true or not. Her sense of time an
d timing had decamped along with her brain cells. She’d spent the last two days dithering over what to take and what to leave behind. Often she got lost mid-thought or mid-task. She looked around Joe’s living room, at the spot where the Christmas tree had stood. At the dining room table where his large Italian family had gathered for large pasta-filled meals. His parents were excited about their new grandbabies; his Nonna Sofia had looked smug, as if it had in fact been her fertility curse that was responsible for Nikki’s pregnancy. Everyone had fed her and pampered her. Only Joe’s sister, Maria, had watched her carefully as if trying to understand how her brother had chosen Nikki and whether or not something should have been done about it.
She’d felt her guard slipping on occasion, imagining how it would feel to be a part of a large, loving, involved family like his. Her own childhood had been spent in poverty, and when her father had died, her mother had worked multiple jobs to keep a roof over their heads. Nicole had “mothered” her brother, Malcolm, while their mother worked. Thereby creating a conscienceless human being who currently resided in a correctional facility for the criminally greedy.
“Nikki?” Joe said, taking her by the shoulders and turning her gently toward the bedroom. “Why don’t you go finish packing? I’ll start loading the cars.”
“I think we should have just towed the Jag,” he said an hour later when both cars were ready. He’d wanted to leave the Jag in his garage, but she’d refused. The ’74 XKE had been her first splurge when Heart, Inc., had become successful, one of the few things she hadn’t sold when she was bankrupted by her brother’s Ponzi scheme. It had become a symbol for all that she’d achieved and who she’d managed to become. She’d vowed they’d have to pry the keys out of her cold, dead fingers. More than that, she needed to keep it for when things went south and she lost everything, including Joe and the life he envisioned for all of them.
“Seriously, Nikki. I’d feel better if we drove together.” He opened the door of the shiny new SUV and waited for her to get situated.
“I’m not an invalid. I’m capable of driving.” In truth, the SUV he’d insisted on buying had so many buttons and features, it could have launched a lunar probe and could undoubtedly have driven itself. “We’re caravanning. It’s not like I’m taking off to climb Kilimanjaro on my own.”
She saw the set of his jaw war with the flicker of amusement in his dark eyes. As an FBI agent, he’d sworn to protect and defend. The day he’d found out she was pregnant, which was far later than it should have been, his protective instincts had warped into overdrive. “I really think we should have planned to move directly into the cottage,” he said. “We could have furnished it ahead of time so it would be ready for us.”
“We can stay at Bella Flora as long as we like and take our time furnishing and moving in,” Nikki said for what might have been the hundredth time. “There’s no rush.” Kyra had made it clear they were always welcome. It was as close to a home as Nikki had at the moment.
“You’re thirty-two weeks, Nik. Most twin pregnancies don’t go past thirty-five or thirty-six.” Mercifully, he didn’t add that at forty-seven, she was unlikely to go even that long. Joe had read her copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting cover to cover as if it were a training manual, which she guessed it was. “We should at least furnish the nursery.”
She busied herself rearranging the things on the passenger seat. She was afraid that furnishing a nursery would tempt fate, that it would somehow trigger the ultimate karmic payback for all her failings. Because deep down she didn’t see how this could all work out. Not the babies. Not Joe’s love. Not having a real family of her own. These were things that she’d only seen from afar, things that other people had and that she did not deserve.
Once Nikki had had her brain, her body, and a seemingly unlimited supply of ambition and persistence. She’d parlayed them into a career as an A-list matchmaker and dating guru with offices on both coasts. She’d excelled at assessing personal attributes and attraction. She’d brought people together, brokered their relationships, and paved their way to the altar. A belief in “Happily Ever After” had not been part of the job description. And she had never imagined that those words could ever apply to her.
• • •
Avery Lawford dropped the screwdriver into its slot in the worn leather tool belt that had belonged to her father. As she stepped back to look at the cabinet door she’d just rehung, she drew the scent of freshly sawn wood into her lungs then tilted her head to better hear the whir of the electric saw slicing through a two-by-four. Others might meditate, strike a happy baby pose on their yoga mat, or pour a stiff drink. Avery had grown up on her father’s construction sites. For her, the aromas and sounds of construction were automatic stress busters. Sometimes when Chase Hardin was nearby, those scents and sounds qualified as foreplay.
“You okay?” Chase turned off the saw and set it aside then removed his goggles. His bright blue eyes narrowed.
“Um-hmm.” She brushed a stray blond curl out of her eyes and had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. In her mind she might be tall and lanky, but in reality she was short and curvy, with a bust that was too large for the rest of her. That bust combined with Kewpie doll features caused strangers to automatically deduct IQ points and talk reeeeaaaal slowwwwllly.
“I know that look,” he said, taking a step toward her.
“You’re a smart man.”
Interest flared in his eyes. “Hmmm. A compliment. That can only mean . . .” He closed the distance between them and slid his arms around her waist. His hands cupped her bottom. “If Do Over doesn’t get figured out, I think we should move forward with the construction-scented perfume and cologne line.”
She tried to push the words Do Over out of her mind so that she could focus on the way he was nuzzling her. His lips nibbling her earlobe. The press of his body against hers.
But if construction scents were a turn-on, thinking about the remodeling-turned-reality TV show that seemed to be slipping through their fingers and could cost them what little they had was the anti-aphrodisiac. So was the slam of the front door and the heavy footsteps that thudded through the hall and toward the kitchen, where she and Chase had been lowering cabinets to accommodate his father’s wheelchair.
Jason, Chase’s youngest son, stomped into the kitchen. At sixteen he was even taller and broader than his father. Over the last months his open face had closed, his once sunny personality had turned increasingly dark and unpredictable. He snorted when they pulled apart, his expression making it clear that he thought them far too ancient to be caught in lip-lock.
“Where have you been?” Chase asked quietly, keeping one arm around her.
“Practice.”
Chase said nothing, but he’d gone still.
“Where else would I be?” Jason taunted. “Isn’t that where I always am?”
Jason and his older brother, Josh, had been in love with baseball practically from birth, or so family lore went. Jason had made varsity as a freshman and was now Hamden High School’s most efficient closer. Josh, a senior and first baseman, had been awarded a full ride to Clemson next fall.
“There was a time when I would have said yes,” Chase replied through tight lips. “But Coach Jenkins called. He wanted to see if you were feeling better. Given that you haven’t been at practice all week. A scout from Clemson was there today to watch you.”
Jason’s jaw clenched. His look said, “So what are you going to do about it?”
Avery put a cautioning hand on Chase’s arm. The blowups between father and son had become more frequent and explosive. Chase seethed with tension. “Whether you continue playing or not is up to you,” he finally said. “But you’re a member of a team and it’s wrong to let your coach and teammates down. If you want to quit, quit. Don’t go to college.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him one bit. She might have bought it if it weren’t for the quivering
of his muscles. His jaw had gone hard and his eyes had darkened to navy. “You have enough experience to work construction pretty much anywhere. But as long as you’re under my roof, you will be civil and you will keep your commitments.”
“And if I don’t want to live under your stupid roof anymore?” The challenge came out in a rush of anger. Jason’s chin shot up. His hands fisted at his sides.
“Chase . . .” She grasped his arm more tightly.
He shook her off.
“Chase. Please!”
“He’s my son,” he snapped. “I’ll deal with him.”
“Yeah, just like you deal with everything,” Jason taunted. “Just like you know what’s best for everybody all the frickin’ time.”
She took Chase’s arm again and this time she held on to it as she watched the hurt and anger suffuse his face. She wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him almost as much as she wanted to shake the two of them. But she knew from experience that this might only make things worse. She stood, feeling helpless, unable to help, unable to leave.
“Who died and put you in charge?” Jason sneered out his fury.
“Your mother,” Chase said, slowly spearing his son with his eyes. “And this is the first time I’ve been glad she’s not here to see how the baby she loved so dearly is turning out.”
Three
As far as Kyra Singer was concerned, being a grown-up was nowhere near as easy as her mother had always made it look. At twenty-seven, she was the single mother of three-year-old Dustin and the creator and producer of Do Over, which the network had hijacked and then refused to let them quit. She was also the current owner of Bella Flora, the 1920s Mediterranean-revival-style mansion Dustin’s movie star father had bought for them and which she had put at risk.