by Susan Gable
“Ronni.”
“Last thing before you fall asleep?”
“Ronni.” Those bedtime thoughts were usually X-rated, though. He’d had those about plenty of women.
“When you say you want more, what exactly does more look like? If you were going to draw a picture?” Greg asked.
“What you have with Shannon and Ryan. With Amelia and Jordan. They had empty spaces in their lives, empty spaces that you guys filled. It was like there was a hole there just waiting for you. Ronni and Nick have an empty space, too. And...”
“And you want to be the man who fits into that empty space?”
“Yeah. Does that sound as corny as I think it does?”
Finn and Greg exchanged grins.
“Totally.”
“Absofreakin’lutely.”
“Still...” Greg’s expression grew serious. “Not sure what you’re going to do about it. She was going to divorce Scott before the accident. What do you think the chances are she’ll do it now? Clear the way for you?”
Hayden shrugged. “Not good. She’s got major guilt. Obligation issues.” His cell phone rang, Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” spilling from the speakers. His face warmed. “Ronni,” he said to his brothers, who both burst into laughter.
“I rest my case, Your Honor,” said Greg.
Finn’s phone rang a moment later. Hayden rose from the chair, wandering over to Greg’s computer table, which featured a high-end printer and a massive flatbed scanner. The wheeled chair squeaked as he sat on it. “Yeah, Ronni, what’s up?”
“The police just called. They want me to come down to the roller rink. They’ve got Nick in custody. Something about him assaulting someone.” Her voice cracked. “Hayden...”
The anguish in her voice tore at him. He was already on his feet. “I’ll be right there. We’ll go together.” He crammed his phone into his pocket, rammed into Finn at the top of the stairs. “Sorry, guys, I’ve gotta go.”
“Me, too,” Finn said. “That was Amelia. Jordan called her from the roller rink. Something about a boy bugging her all night, and he ripped her mask off, and Nick let the kid have it, and now the police—”
“Have Nick.” Hayden sighed. “Ronni didn’t have that information about the other kid and Jordan. Guess I’ll see you at the roller rink.”
“Welcome to parenthood,” Finn said. “Fun stuff, huh?”
Greg followed them down the stairs. “Not an activity for the fainthearted, that’s for damn sure.”
###
Nick’s shoulders ached. Cold metal bit into the tender flesh around his wrists. His right cheek throbbed in time with his pulse and his knuckles burned. He struggled against the stupid moisture welling in his eyes. His mom was going to have a total fit. And what the hell would happen to him? Already on probation, he wasn’t supposed to be getting into trouble.
Still...the jerk had it coming. When he’d ripped Jordan’s mask off, and she’d started crying, Nick had lost it.
The crowd of people outside the squad car had grown larger and larger, but he still didn’t see his mom.
A short blonde woman cut through the crowd.
Nick groaned. Mandy Curtis, his probation officer. Well, she’d wasted no time getting down here. She corralled one of the officers and headed for the car.
The door he was leaning against opened, and Nick tilted, almost falling out. Mandy grabbed his elbow, which made pain shoot from his wrist to his shoulder. She helped him gain his balance.
“Nicholas,” she scolded. “You’ve been doing so great. What the hell is going on?”
He ducked his head, studied the scuffed tips of his sneakers in the light from the streetlamp in the roller rink parking lot. “Wasn’t my fault,” he mumbled. “That jerk started it. Put his hands on my cousin. If her blood counts aren’t good, she could die if she gets an infection.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. She had a transplant last fall. She wasn’t wearing the damn mask as a fashion statement.”
“Nick? Nick!” His mother’s voice cut through the chaos. With Unk at her side, she made her way over to him. She took one look at him, at his hands secured behind his back, and bit her lower lip.
“Don’t,” Unk warned her quietly.
She looked away for a minute, taking a deep breath. Then she glanced back. “Are those cuffs really necessary?” she demanded of the nearest cop.
“Until I find out if assault charges are being filed, they are,” he said.
Uncle Finn, towing Jordan and her friend Shelby, joined the throng. “There better not be charges. If there are, we’re pressing charges against the other kid, too. The one who assaulted my daughter.”
All the adults started talking at once, until the cop held up his hands. Then Uncle Alan showed up. Suit, tie, the whole deputy district attorney nine yards. “Let’s get to the bottom of this, shall we?”
Ten minutes later, after discussions and negotiations with both sets of parents, the roller rink owners and the cops, it was agreed that no charges would be filed against either of them. The jerk was made to apologize to Jordan, who turned her nose up at him until Uncle Finn poked her in the back and forced her to accept his weak-ass apology.
The boys had to shake hands. Nick, just getting circulation back in his arms, probably squeezed too hard, but neither of them showed it in their faces.
After they separated to opposite sides of the parking lot, Shelby threw her arms around Nick’s neck and soundly kissed him on the lips. “You’re a hero, Nick.”
His face burned. Megan had dumped him again, calling him a loser, since he didn’t want to do anything that could mess up his probation. Part of him thought he’d never get another girl to look his way. Shelby’s attention had him hoping otherwise.
Jordan groaned behind the new medical mask, undoubtedly supplied by her father on his arrival. “Like his ego needs encouragement.”
“All right, I’ve got to get Jordan home. Amelia didn’t want to wake Chip, and she’s texted me eight times already.” Uncle Finn held out his hand. “Nick. Thank you for defending my daughter.”
“Uh, sure. No problem.” He shook his uncle’s hand, feeling ten feet tall.
Unk hooked his arm around Nick’s neck. “Let’s get you home, huh, sport?”
As they headed for Unk’s Camaro—Nick spent more and more time riding in Unk’s car than his mother’s Jetta, which was cool because Unk’s was an attention magnet, while his mom’s was boring—he turned to glance behind them. “Mom?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“You mad at me?” Nick shrugged off Unk’s arm, took a step toward his mother.
“No, sweetheart.” She gathered him into a brief hug. “I was terrified for you. For me.” She cupped his face in her hands. “You’re my life, Nicky. I was scared to death they were going to take you away from me.”
Ronni brushed Nick’s hair back from his forehead. She tried to hide her dismay at the angry red splotch on his cheek where he’d taken a punch from the other boy. The body-numbing fear had finally begun to fade.
Nick glanced down. “Aww, Mom. Sorry.”
“I’m not. I wish it hadn’t come to physical blows, but...sometimes you do what you have to do.” She glanced up at Hayden, who jerked his head in a quick nod of acknowledgment. He’d coached her during the whole ride over on how not to embarrass the life out of a teenage boy who’d gotten into a fistfight for a damn good reason, and didn’t need his mother making things worse.
“I need ice cream,” she declared, as she held the seat for Nick to squeeze into the back of the sports car.
Hayden laughed. “I’ll swing by the grocery store on our way home.”
On our way home...
The words resonated through Ronni. The second she’d hung up from the police, her instinct had been to call Hayden.
And just like that, he’d been there.
Just as she’d known he would be.
Back at the house, while Hayden and Nick created ice cr
eam sundaes in the kitchen, she wandered into the living room. Stood staring at Scott’s picture on the mantel.
Tomorrow morning, as always, she would return to the nursing home. Wash him, shave him, comb his hair...do the things she could. The medical stuff—dealing with his feeding tube, things like that, she couldn’t handle. So she did what she could for his care. He still wouldn’t know her from Angelina Jolie, or G.I. Jane. Wouldn’t know day from night, marriage from divorce... or, she suspected, life from death. Still, she knew the difference. Which was what had her tied in knots. She knew the right thing, but dear God, how she was tempted.
Hayden wasn’t just an apple.
He was a chocolate-coated, caramel-drizzled, giant apple on a stick.
And she wanted a bite in the worst way.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE BIRDS AWOKE even before the sky began to lighten. A chirrup here, a peep there. Then the black became gray. The morning stars faded. The gray turned to pink, revealing tall, puffy clouds across the sky.
Ronni sat on her deck, coffee mug cradled in her hands, and pondered the possibilities. An entire new day wide open before her. As yet unspoiled. So much potential.
“Happy birthday, Ian.” She saluted the dawn with lukewarm java and a stifled yawn.
She tried to imagine what he’d be like today, as a thirty-three-year-old man, instead of the nineteen-year-old boy. Would he have filled out, like Hayden? Or still be more lean, wiry?
One thing she didn’t doubt. He’d still be a firecracker who urged her to test her limits. Who convinced her, with a grin, to try it, ’cause she just might like it.
With a throaty caw-caw, Mr. Black swooped down from the tree, landing on the railing.
“You’re the early bird today. No breakfast yet, only coffee. And I’m not sharing that. Or the devil’s food cake I’m eating today.” Devil’s food had been Ian’s favorite cake. Appropriately so. Every year on his birthday, she ate it for breakfast in his honor.
Scott hadn’t appreciated that, but she hadn’t given any ground on how she spent Ian’s birthdays. Her line in the sand.
And since it was her day to do with as she pleased—after tossing a slice of bread to Mr. Black—she hacked into the cake she’d frosted last night before bed, poured skim milk into a fluted wineglass, and drew herself a bath complete with scented Dead Sea salts.
By candlelight, she soaked in the steaming water, eating chocolate cake and sipping milk from crystal. A fine start.
When her fingertips had shriveled, the water cooled, and there was nothing left but smears of icing on the plate, she climbed from the tub. Time for some serious primping.
Two hours later, shaved, plucked, and sporting a new pair of low-riding jeans, she stood in the driveway, while Nick threw some “essentials” into his overnight bag—his Xbox and controllers. Teenage boys had a seriously warped sense of essentials. While Lydia waited for him in her car, Ronni chatted with her once almost mother-in-law.
Wonders, apparently, never ceased.
“I left something for you on the kitchen table, Mom,” Nick said as he bounded past.
“Okay, sweetheart. See you tomorrow.” Ronni turned to go into the house.
Lydia leaned out the window, calling her back to the car while Nick loaded his bag in the backseat. “Ronni?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. All these years, having Nick on Ian’s birthday...” Lydia’s blue eyes got shiny. “Well...it’s meant a lot. Makes the day...easier.”
“Good. I’m glad.” And she was. The loss of a child had to be the most difficult thing a woman could experience. Ronni hoped never to know for sure.
Back in the kitchen, she found a DVD and a note on the table. “Mom,” the note read, “thought you might like this. I converted old home videos to digital and burned this. It’s a special collection I put together for you. Happy Dad’s Birthday. Love, Nick.”
Pleased, Ronni took the disk into the living room. Which was where Hayden found her sometime later, laughing and crying at the same time, a stack of crumpled tissues on the end table next to her, more in her hand.
Three weeks had passed since he’d come to her rescue, the night the police had taken Nick into custody. Three weeks during which he’d spent more and more time with them. Feeling more like a family.
More time with her feeling like...something she really wanted. The attraction between them had become damn hard to ignore. When she’d invited him to spend Ian’s birthday with her—and her alone—he’d jumped at the chance.
Hayden sank to the sofa beside her. “What’s going on?”
She blew her nose. “I’m mad. There’s no crying on Ian’s birthday. And Nick made me cry. He made this DVD of Ian and me, and Nick as a baby....”
“Horrible child. I’ll beat him immediately.” Hayden turned his attention to the screen—just in time to see the camera pan down to her butt.
She slapped him on the shoulder. “And who filmed that? Nice close-up of my ass.”
“Exactly. It was a nice ass. Is,” he amended, before she could smack him again. “What can I say? It caught my attention.”
Ignoring the flirtation, even though it made her heart beat faster, Ronni clicked off the television and stood up. “This wasn’t on the agenda today. Especially not the crying. But I’m glad Nick made it for me. Getting to see Ian again... So vibrant, so full of life. And that’s what we’re going to do today.”
Hayden jumped to his feet. “What, exactly?”
“Live. One hundred and ten percent. Full throttle.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Full throttle?”
“Yep. You brought your bike, right?”
“Yes. Didn’t you hear me pull in?”
“I was sort of focused...” She gestured at the TV.
“When you said full throttle, I didn’t think you meant the bike.” He stepped toward her, consuming the space between them.
Despite the central air, the heat in the room spiked to match the heat wave outside. Breathing became difficult. She glanced up, meeting Hayden’s deep blue eyes. The meaning—and invitation—was clear.
“I, uh...” Though the day was about living to the fullest, enjoying every moment, she wasn’t sure she was prepared to cross that particular line. What the heck had she been thinking, inviting him to be with her today? It was like inviting a match-wielding arsonist into a fireworks warehouse.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“What makes me uncomfortable is we’re obviously both considering it.”
“I’m fighting it...have been fighting it.” He slid his hand along the side of her face, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “But I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you.”
Her heart jumped. This handsome rogue of a man, who could have any woman he wanted, wanted her. Defective Ronni Mangano, who couldn’t keep her husband happy enough to keep him home. “If you kiss me now,” she murmured, “I’m done for. And I don’t think I’m ready.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. He closed his eyes, groaning. “Woman, do you have any idea how much strength it’s going to take not to kiss you now?”
“Good thing you’re a superhero.”
For a few long heartbeats, he didn’t move, leaving her wrestling with her own impulses. Was he going to kiss her?
Or accede to her request?
And did she really want him to stop?
She stroked down his shoulder to his biceps. “And very strong.”
“Not helping.” He shrugged off her fingers, then dropped his arm and clenched both hands into fists at his sides. Opening his eyes, he took a determined step backward, drawing in a huge breath and slowly blowing it out. “Okay. Okay.” Another breath. “Well...if that’s not on the agenda for today, what is? A visit to Ian’s grave?” His brows drew together.
She shook her head. “No. Today is about life, not death. We’ll start with a cruise on your bike.”
###
Every time Hayden t
hought he had a handle on her, she surprised him. And every time he thought he couldn’t be more attracted, he was. Riding on his motorcycle, the incredible sense of freedom, the heightened sense of being in the open air—all of it was better with Ronni on the back. Every time he opened the bike up, she squeezed his ass and legs with her thighs. Which had him looking for routes specifically so he could go faster.
Just for the arousal factor.
He’d had plenty of other women on the back of the bike.
Plenty of other women in and out of his life.
So what was this thing between him and Ronni? Since his brothers had labeled it love, he’d been determined to prove them wrong. He’d gone on several exploratory dates over the last two weeks. Given the obligatory good-night kisses. And not a spark. Not even a hint of a spark.
He’d never kissed Ronni, and they were a powder keg.
She consumed his thoughts. Did she remember to eat? Had she had another migraine? How was business going?
Was there a snowball’s chance in hell for them?
And was he headed to hell himself for wondering? If his mother found out he was involved—or wanted to be—with a married woman, a much more personal hell awaited him. His earlobe throbbed in anticipation of her dragging him somewhere private for a scathing Mom lecture.
Ronni leaned against him, positioning her head near his ear to shout over the roar of the wind. “Head to Waldameer. I want to play Skee-Ball!”
Twenty minutes later, at Erie’s local amusement park, nine wooden balls clunked into the tray of his lane beside hers. “I don’t remember the last time I played Skee-Ball,” he confessed as she picked up the first ball. “No, wait. I think I might have played a round a few months ago at Chuck E. Cheese’s for Ryan’s birthday party.”
She grinned at him, merriment dancing in her eyes.
“What?”
“I’m just picturing you at Chuck E. Cheese’s, surrounded by screaming kids. I don’t think most single men who don’t have kids would be caught dead in that chaos. Actually, most men who have kids would rather die than enter the place.”
Hayden twitched his shoulders. “Probably helps that I’m still just a big kid at heart.”
