She gazed out the window as Mason drove down a narrow road and parked at the edge of an open field. A water tower loomed in the distance. He grabbed a backpack from the back seat and came around to the passenger side to help her out. The cool air brushed over her legs, but she was warm with her sweater and Mason’s hand pressing against her back.
“I assume you’ve never had the pleasure of climbing a water tower?” he said as he guided her into the field.
“I haven’t, but I’ve always wanted to. Isn’t it illegal?”
He flashed that grin again, and her pulse quickened. “A federal crime.”
She froze. “I can’t do that, and neither can you!”
“Do you really think I’d let you get in trouble? I’ve got your back, Princess.” He took her hand, tugging her toward the tower. “I told you I’d help you do wicked things and keep you safe. I have connections. We’re both cleared to climb. As long as you don’t fall off the tower, we’re cool.”
“Wow! Where were you when I was a teenager?”
She wasn’t surprised he didn’t respond. He was too busy scanning the grounds as they neared the tower. Ladders snaked up the side in long segments with landings in between, which made her much more comfortable than if it had been one continuous ladder that went straight from the ground to the top.
She gazed up at the massive tower, her heart racing. The rusted metal legs stirred memories of the children’s movie The Iron Giant. She imagined the tower morphing into a giant spider and scaling the chain-link fence surrounding it with its big metal legs. “It’s so much taller than it looks from the road.”
“Too high for you?” he asked. “We can go hang out on the high school football field, sneak into neighborhood pools to skinny-dip, or toilet paper one of your friend’s houses.”
“Have you done those things?”
“I’ll never tell.” He looked up at the tower and said, “You game, Rebellious Remi? I hear there’s a hell of a view of the lights of Harmony Pointe from the top.”
Her heart leapt that he’d remembered her love of lights. “I’m in. But how will we get past the fence?”
“We could climb over it.”
Visions of cutting herself on the barbed wire at the top danced in her head.
“Or we can walk through it.” He unhooked the lock and chain, dangling it before her.
“Smart-ass,” she said as she walked through.
“Told you I had your back. It’s called trusting me, Princess.”
Mason stayed close behind her as they scaled the ladder. She was nervous enough climbing so high, but it didn’t help knowing Mason had a view of her butt. She wasn’t wearing panties under her pajama shorts. He was probably too focused on being there to catch her if she fell to even notice.
They stopped at each landing, taking in the views. Each time they stopped, Mason asked if she was okay, making sure she was comfortable enough to continue their climb.
When they reached the top, the breeze was stronger and the view of the town was breathtaking. It was different from New York City, where the streets were constantly busy and big-city noises and smells filled the air. Remi could see all the way from the sleepy town of Harmony Pointe to the lights of Sweetwater and the mountains beyond. It was exhilarating knowing they were wide-awake when practically every house was dark. She felt safe up there, like she’d left all her troubles below, and being with Mason made it that much sweeter.
Mason stood beside her at the railing, watching her as she took in the view. He did that a lot, openly watching her. She wondered what he saw and what he was looking for, but she didn’t dare ask. She had a feeling he sensed all of her inner thoughts.
“This is seriously beautiful,” she said. “How did you even know this was here or that we could do this?”
“When your life and the lives of your teammates depend on knowing every possible place an enemy can hide from the second you land on the ground until you’re out of enemy airspace, you learn a thing or two.”
She reached out and traced the scar just below his left eye. His jaw clenched, his eyes holding hers captive as she touched his other scar, just above the scruff on his right cheek. “Is that how you got these?”
“Yeah,” he said roughly.
“What was that like for you, all those dangerous missions?”
He stood rigid and silent for a long moment, and then he shifted his eyes away, looking over the field as he said, “I needed the structure of the military, a direction that wasn’t going to land me in jail.” When he met her gaze again, she saw some of the tension in his face dissipate. “I’m not going to lie and say it wasn’t terrifying. It was. But I didn’t think about that out in the field. Out there, the only thing that mattered was the mission and the safety of my team, doing everything I could to make sure they made it back alive.” A shadow of sadness washed over his face and he said, “Many didn’t, but we all knew the risks.”
“Do you know a lot of kids like Brooklyn? Other families?” She had an idea of a way for Mason to see Brooklyn, but she didn’t want to bring it up and derail their conversation, and she hadn’t figured out all the pieces of that puzzle yet.
Mason pulled a blanket from his backpack and laid it on the metal floor as he said, “Unfortunately, there are lots of kids like Brooklyn and women like Krista, who have lost a parent or a spouse in the service. There are guys who have lost wives, parents who have lost their grown children. The fallout from war is ruthless, but with charities like Hearts for Heroes, those who are left behind don’t have to go it alone.”
“I didn’t realize you got to know them through Hearts for Heroes.” Hearts for Heroes helped grieving families who had lost family members in the service. They held quarterly get-togethers for the families. Remi gave generously to the cause.
“I didn’t. I was with my buddy Shelton, Brooklyn’s father, when he took his last breath. He asked me to make sure his little girl didn’t forget him, and I promised to be there for his family.”
He tucked the blanket over the edge, and then he took her hand and helped her sit with her legs dangling.
“If we were kids,” he said as he sat beside her, “we’d probably drink beer and smoke a joint. But since we’re too smart for that . . .” He pulled a bottle of sparkling water from the backpack and set it beside him. Then he withdrew a pack of Skittles and tore it open.
“I didn’t peg you as a joint kind of guy.”
“I got in a fair amount of trouble as a kid.” He held up the bag of Skittles and said, “I hope you like these. I figured chocolate had too many calories and chips were too salty since you’re filming tomorrow.”
Not many men would put that much thought into a snack. But as Mason had said, he wasn’t like other men. “I love them. Thank you.”
He poured Skittles into her hand and then doled out some for himself and set the package down, tossing a few candies into his mouth.
“I can’t imagine you getting into trouble.” She ate a Skittle.
“Nothing good comes from uprooting a kid every few months. Being the new kid in school sucks enough. Add trying to figure out new family dynamics at the same time, and that’s a lot of stress for kids. It was easier not to make friends in school or at home than to find a buddy and know at any time you could be moved away.”
“I can’t imagine how difficult that was.”
“It made me tougher. It’s all good.” He tossed a few more Skittles into his mouth.
“No, it’s not all good,” she said earnestly.
He half laughed, half scoffed, his eyes flicking up to hers as he said, “You’re right. It wasn’t.”
He ate the rest of his candy, and she had a feeling he was deciding if he should say more, so she waited patiently.
When he finished eating, he said, “It was hard, and as a kid I didn’t really understand why I was being moved around so much, so I acted out. As you can imagine, the more I acted out, the more often I was moved. I wasn’t smart enough to realize I
was the problem.”
Her heart ached for him. “I don’t think it had anything to do with lack of intelligence. You had to be angry and scared. You weren’t the issue. You were just a young boy. The adults who were supposed to be caring for you should have been focusing on helping you get through being taken away from your mother. Any kid would be hurt and angry and act out. The one person who should have put you above all else didn’t. How can a kid process that without help?”
“Yup.” He got a faraway look in his eyes and gazed into the distance.
She put her hand over his and said, “I guess we both know what it’s like to be separated from the people we love.”
He looked soulfully at her as he turned his hand over, lacing his fingers with hers, and said, “We’re stronger for it.”
She wondered if he meant their pasts or their connection.
They sat in silence for a while, sharing the rest of the candy, his past settling in around them.
“You know, Remi, when you said you wanted control of your life, I got that. As a foster kid you don’t have control of your life. Where you live, who you live with, the schools you attend, when everything will change, that’s all governed by others. It wasn’t until I was seventeen and one step away from juvie, when I met Chuck and his wife, Estelle, that I began to understand that I could control my life. Maybe not as a kid, but I could control what happened moving forward.”
He gazed up at the sky and said, “You were lucky to have Aiden step in after you lost your parents, and I got lucky when I met Chuck. I owe him a hell of a lot. When I lived in that building I took you to, my foster parents had three other foster kids and they fought a lot. I used to go up to the roof to escape the chaos. One day Chuck followed me up. It had been a particularly rotten week. The one thing I’d had from my mother, my grandfather’s silver pocket watch, went missing. I knew without a doubt that one of the other kids had taken it. It wasn’t particularly valuable, but it was the only link I had to my family. It had my grandfather’s initials on it, MS. I was named after him. I used to hold the damn thing when I went to sleep, and after it went missing, I looked it up online and found that it was a Junghans watch. After that I hit the pawnshops every week looking for it, but I never did find it. Anyway, when it went missing, I got in a fight with the kid who I thought took it and the other kids raced in, and we brawled. It was a mess. I went up to the roof to try to clear my head. When Chuck came up, he hung back at first, giving me space, not pushing me to talk. The very first thing he ever said to me was ‘Some people suck.’” Mason chuckled. “It was the perfect way to break the ice. It took him hours, but eventually he broke through my barriers and I told him what I’d been through and about the trouble I was getting in. He’d gone into the service at eighteen and was medically discharged at forty-eight. I’ll never forget the way he looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘You’ve got two choices, Mason. Be a loser and blame your mother, or make something of yourself, save lives instead of being part of the problem, and blame your mother.”
He cocked his head, looking at Remi with a serious expression, and said, “He probably saved my life that night, and he followed me up there nearly every night thereafter until I left for the service.”
“The family you lived with sounds awful. Thank goodness for Chuck. This is embarrassing to admit, but I was afraid of him when I first saw him. I thought he was homeless, and I didn’t know what to expect. That was horribly judgmental, and I’m ashamed to have thought it.”
“It’s not every day you’re dragged into a questionable area by a guy you’ve just met. Add in a disheveled man coming out of the shadows and I’d say you had a right to jump to assumptions. But he’s a good guy, and he saved my ass.”
“I’m glad you had him. Did you ever try to find your mother?”
He nodded. “When I was twenty-six I tracked her down, but she’d overdosed a few years earlier.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. You never got to make peace with her or say goodbye? Is that why you have Goodbye tattooed on your chest?”
“The most painful goodbyes are the ones we never get to say. My mom, my military buddies who lost their lives. It’s for all of them.”
Remi tried to swallow past the emotions clogging her throat, but thoughts of her own parents made it even more difficult. She finally managed to say, “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s life—and death.”
“I wish I had told my mom how much I loved her in the car that night.” Her eyes teared up. “That’s my biggest regret, not saying the important things before she died.”
He put his arm around her, pulling her closer. “I’m sure your mom knew. I’m sorry for making you sad.”
“It’s okay. My world can be so superficial, I appreciate you sharing some of your life with me. Can I ask you a stupid question?”
“Is there such a thing?”
She nudged him. “How bad does a tattoo hurt? I really want to get Just Breathe right here, but I’m afraid.” She ran her finger over the underside of her wrist.
“That spot will probably hurt, but not the way losing your parents did.”
She lay on her back, staring up at the stars, thinking about everything he’d said and gone through. “How do you feel about your mom now? Are you angry with her?”
“If I am, I don’t feel it anymore.” He lay down next to her and said, “Addiction is a beast. You know from the movie you’re filming that it’s a daily battle even for those who think they’ve beat it.”
Remi had researched for her role as the supportive and harried girlfriend of a recovering addict and had learned all about the complexities and struggles of addiction and the strains the disease put on those around them. To think that as a small child Mason had been around an addict was horrifying, but knowing how far he’d come spoke volumes about his strength and determination.
“The addiction was stronger than she was,” Mason explained. “She was a seventeen-year-old kid when I was born, and I really believe she tried to be a good mother.” He looked at Remi and said, “I remember her reading to me, holding me when I was sick. But I also remember strange men coming in and out of the places we stayed and finding her passed out cold more than once. I have no way of knowing how many of my memories are real, or if I fabricated the happier memories to make myself feel better. But that doesn’t matter. There are no do-overs or take-backs in life. All we can do is learn from our mistakes and move forward.”
“It sounds like you’ve learned from yours.”
“And it doesn’t sound like you had many chances to make mistakes. When you were growing up, Aiden held the reins pretty tight, didn’t he?”
“He never had to. I was always well behaved, afraid to do anything that might lead to either of us getting hurt. I don’t even like to drive, though I know how.”
Pain rose in his eyes and he said, “That’s understandable.”
“It’s only been the last couple of years that I started feeling too hemmed in. But also, I know what you meant about being unsure of how real your memories are. I wonder about that sometimes. Aiden did such a great job of keeping our parents alive for me—telling me stories about them, making birthdays and holidays as special as my parents always did. Sometimes I wonder if my memories are real or not, too. And that makes me wonder how those memories, real or fake, impacted how I turned out. I think about that a lot. Do you? Are you happy with your life now? Is your job and your life fulfilling?”
“Sure, my job is fulfilling in terms of accomplishments.”
“And are you pretty busy, or do you have a lot of downtime? I feel like I’m always busy, and even my downtime is broken up by events and appearances.”
“Downtime? I’m not sure what that is,” he said sarcastically. “When I stepped in to take over for your security, I was working with two PI clients and preparing to take on a bounty-hunting job, all of which I delegated to my staff. So, yeah, I’m pretty busy.”
“Do you ever meet your buddies for drinks?
Hang out and watch football games or do other guy stuff?”
“I’m not a sit-around-and-watch-football type of guy.”
She turned to face him. “Then it sounds like you live in a box, too, only you don’t have a bodyguard making sure you stay in it. It’s a self-imposed box.”
His brows slanted. “How do you figure?”
“You’re a workaholic. That’s your box. What do you do for fun?”
“Catch bad guys,” he said snarkily. “How about you, Ms. Divine? And while we’re sharing, how’d you come up with your screen name?”
“My parents loved old movies with Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth, and my mom used to say, ‘These ladies are so divine!’ When I started acting, Aiden suggested I not use my real name, but I love Remi and I didn’t want to give it up. I’d already lost enough of my family. But then my agent said Aldridge wasn’t a strong screen name, so I went with Divine, to honor my parents.”
“That’s a nice way to do so. And what makes you happy, Remington Aldridge?”
Loving that he used her real name, she said, “I’m still figuring that out. My friends and Aiden make me happy, even though he drives me bonkers sometimes. The stalker made Aiden even more protective, and the combination of the two are a big part of my decision to take time off after filming this movie. I’ll still have to do promotional engagements, but I’m not going to make another movie for a while. Acting makes me happy, but something’s still missing, and being stuck under a microscope isn’t helping me figure out what it is. That’s why I’m trying to get out of my virtual box more often. Thank you for tonight. I like being here with you.” She said with you softer, a little worried about admitting it but not wanting to hold it back.
They gazed into each other’s eyes, and Remi felt a light come on inside her, like she was finally exactly where she was meant to be—lying beside Mason on their secret-sharing perch over the town, their hands touching on the blanket between them. Maybe she was wrong for all these years thinking she had the world at her fingertips. She had the overwhelming sensation that she was only just discovering the world in which she belonged.
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