by Mary Campisi
Mason turned three shades of red, shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Sometimes.”
Wow, the kid even squinted the same way Cash did. Did he have a cowlick on the crown of his head, too? Hard to tell with the longish hair, but if it were shorter, the cowlick would stick out. He had Stephanie’s chin and cheekbones, and Cash thought he’d spotted dimples but the boy hadn’t smiled much. What had he looked like as a baby, or when he was Anna Desantro’s age? Would it be weird to ask for pictures? He was pretty sure Stephanie wouldn’t mind, but what about Tess? Cash glanced at his wife, noticed the extra paleness of her usually pale skin. Yeah, this was going to be an adjustment for her.
“Mason.” Stephanie broke the silence with her soft voice and a hand on her son’s shoulder. “Maybe you can play for Cash and Tess sometime.”
He shrugged. “I guess.” His gaze landed on Cash, zeroed in. “Mom says you were a cop.” When Cash nodded, the boy’s eyes lit up. “She said you were in Philly.”
Cash nodded again, crossed his arms over his chest. “Yup.”
“I’ve never been to Philly…” He gave Cash a but-you-could-take-me-there look.
Cash opened his mouth, almost spit out the offer, but the boy’s mother stepped in and acted like a responsible parent, one who knew when she was getting played even if others didn’t. “You’re not going to start wheeling and dealing, young man. Cash and Tess are being kind and hospitable and you’re not going to take advantage of them.” She raised a brow, waited for him to make eye contact with her before she finished. “Are we clear?”
Mason pulled out his bottom lip and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
How about that? Steph took control of a situation Cash hadn’t even known was a situation. Hell, he’d been ready to schedule a trip, offer to head out as soon as Steph gave them permission. Road trips were fun, and a road trip with a kid who, according to his mother, had never been to a big city, especially one like Philly? What wasn’t to like about that? They could eat pizza, Philly cheesesteak, hang out at Independence Mall, and check out the Liberty Bell. Maybe they’d even see where Ben Franklin rested his head. But that would have been the last thing he should do, because it sounded like the boy was trying to play them. Huh. There was a whole lot about this parenting business that made no sense to him; maybe that’s why most people started with babies. It was all about practice and working up to knowing when your kid was playing you. Cash was still thinking about nine-year-olds and how they were a lot more sophisticated than babies, when Tess spoke up.
“Magdalena isn’t a city, but if you like to fish, camp, or explore in the woods, this is a great place to do those things. We had a small group of kids camp out a few weeks ago. They built a fire, set up tents, roasted hot dogs…”
Cash grinned. “Yeah, and one of the parents spent the whole night on guard duty because he was worried we’d get eaten by wild animals.” His laughter spilled into the room, pulled at Mason until the boy joined in.
“I only ever camped out once and it was in a church basement. It would be so cool to sleep outside and roast hot dogs.”
Harry Blacksworth hadn’t thought it was cool. Nate tried to convince the man to stay home in his king-size bed and eat his filet mignon, but Harry insisted he wanted to bond with his stepson and if sleeping in a tent and chomping on charred hot dogs did the trick, then he was in. Except Harry hadn’t anticipated the bugs, the night sounds, the cool mountain air. Harry had been the only one in the group of fourteen to visit the house for bathroom privileges, a move that earned him a lot of teasing. Mason should learn how to set up a tent, start a fire, roast a hot dog. Cash could show him. He was debating whether to offer a camp-out or keep his mouth shut when Stephanie spoke, reminding him there was a helluva lot more to think about than tents and campfires.
“We’ll have to see, Mason. There’s a lot your—” Steph paused, coughed, and continued “—I mean, there’s a lot Cash and I have to discuss.” Another pause, another cough. “And Tess.” She lowered her voice. “Remember we talked about this?”
The boy shrugged, dipped his head in what looked like agreement. Damn, but Cash would have to learn the rules of promising stuff he shouldn’t just because the boy wanted it. No different than giving a kid his fifth brownie because he had his hand out, especially when you knew it would throw him into stomachache hell. He had a lot to learn about this parenting business, and Mason had a nine-year head start on the ins and outs of what to expect. Cash kept his mouth shut but the kid looked seriously bummed. “Hey, don’t worry about it, okay, Mason?”
“Okay.”
Damn, that sounded an awful lot like dejection rolled up into a juicy ball of doubt. Was it because the boy had never known a father? Was Cash responsible for that, even though he hadn’t known the boy existed? Or did it have to do with his mother’s illness? Did Mason know his mother was sick and not going to make it? He took a step toward his son, laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.” And then he said the words he knew he shouldn’t. “I promise.” That pulled a smile from Mason’s lips, made Cash ignore the warning signs of making promises.
“Okay.” The smile spread, reached the boy’s eyes. “So, should I call you Cash or Dad?”
NATE HAD NEVER BEEN one to go in for idle chitchat, exchanging air and sound to fill up space. It wasn’t necessary, at least not with the people he hung out with, and besides, it was downright annoying. Quiet helped a person think, make sense of the world and those meandering through it. He did enjoy the muted tones of his favorite rock-and-roll classics filtering through the workshop, but that was background stuff and didn’t require a response like a conversation did. That’s why he and Cash worked so well together. Fifteen minutes or a half hour could pass and they wouldn’t converse and then one of them would spit out a random comment, which the other could choose to answer or not. This morning, however, was different; Cash wasn’t just quiet, he was stone-cold catatonic.
What the hell was wrong with him?
“Hey.” Nate tossed a rag at him, waited for a response that didn’t come. “You look like crap. What’s going on?”
Cash kept his gaze fixed on the leg of an end table, muttered, “It’s a damn shitstorm and I’m in the middle of it.”
Huh. “I’ve been in my share of those. Not good.”
“Nope.”
Nate bet this had to do with baby stuff again. The whole deal was sad. Cash and Tess wanted a kid so bad that Tess had come a little unhinged lately, according to Christine. His wife said her friends were all worried about Tess and had talked about some sort of “intervention,” whatever the hell that meant. He guessed it would have to do with a psychologist or some sort of therapist and addressing “issues.” Yeah, that was a big no-thank-you, but then he’d never been one to dig too deep into the why or the why not behind his convictions. It either was or it wasn’t. Christine had helped him with his problems and occasional insecurities regarding their relationship. Okay, he was getting better but every now and again he did wonder why the hell she was still with him when he was so far out of her league. He didn’t like to overanalyze it because that’s when he got himself into trouble with the questions and the doubts. Christine loved him and he loved her. They had a family together, a life that mattered. End of story; end of analysis.
But Cash and Tess were another story, one that at the moment had a lot of curves, and they needed to find a way to straighten the road, even if it was through a therapist. Nate darted a glance at his buddy who’d started wiping a sanded table leg hard enough to remove a layer of varnish. Yeah, not good.
“Hey, you might want to ease up a bit unless you plan on recoating that leg.”
Cash swore and tossed the rag aside. “You ever feel like the damn world’s sitting on your chest?”
“A time or two.” Natalie Servetti’s fake seduction photos snaked through his brain. She might have straightened out and found a guy she cared about, but he’d never forget what she’d done to him. Of course, the
mastermind behind the whole ordeal was Gloria Blacksworth. The woman hadn’t cared who she took down or who she hurt. What kind of person did that? An evil one without a soul—otherwise known as his mother-in-law.
“I have a son.”
“What?” Nate had gotten spun around by memories of Gloria and was sure he hadn’t heard right. Son, what son? He scratched the back of his neck, squinted. “What did you say?”
Cash turned to him, his voice raw, his expression dark. “I have a son. Mason. He’s nine years old.”
“Damn.” Talk about a surprise coming out of left field. Why the hell had the woman waited nine years to contact him? Or had she been in touch before and Cash never told anyone? That didn’t sound like his friend, and yet, who knew the whole situation? Maybe the woman hadn’t known who the father was or maybe she thought she’d find a new daddy for her kid. Maybe she’d tried and failed. Maybe she needed financial help, was sick, or maybe the boy wanted to know about his father. There were a helluva lot of possibilities and Nate wasn’t going to guess when he could straight-out ask. “How’d you find out?”
“She showed up yesterday at the house.” Cash dragged a hand over his face, shook his head. “Tess answered the door. She saw Mason before I did.” He sighed, shrugged. “No denying that boy.”
“So, he’s yours?”
“Looks just like me and the timetable works, so my best guess is yes.”
Not good enough. People played games for various reasons and Nate didn’t care if the kid looked like Cash’s twin. Unless there was a DNA test involved, nothing was definite. “But…you are going to get a DNA test, right? Just to be sure.”
“I dunno. I guess. The kid has my eyes, my mouth, hell, he’s got my ears.”
“Get the test.” Nate gentled his words. “You wouldn’t be the first man to get roped into thinking he was a daddy.”
“Steph wouldn’t do that.” His scowl said he didn’t like the insinuation that she would.
“I’m thinking of you and Tess, that’s all. So, who’s the woman?” What he meant was how did she fit into Cash’s life. Had she been short-term parking or had he considered buying the property?
“She was the wife of one of my police buddies. Don’t give me that look; Steph and I never got together until after her husband died.” His voice drifted. “Lewis was a great guy. He died of a heart attack at thirty-eight. Can you believe it? No gun involved, no criminals, just a damn bad heart. Steph was pretty torn up and lost. When she turned to me, I should have sent her away. But the damn thing of it was, I couldn’t.” His eyes turned dark, shiny. “I guess in some bizarre way, we were trying to hold onto Lewis. Didn’t work. After a few times, we realized it was a mistake. A few weeks after that, Steph decided to start over and that’s when she packed up and left.”
“And that’s the last you heard of her?”
He nodded. “We said we’d stay in touch, but you know how that is. You mean it when you say it and then the days go by and before you know it, ten years are gone.”
Nate knew exactly what he meant. Factor in the guilt over sleeping with his buddy’s wife and he could see how twenty more years could pass without contact. But something had triggered the visit and that’s what Nate wanted to know about. “So, why is she here?”
“She’s sick.” Pause, a gulp of air. “Cancer, female stuff.” He coughed, cleared his throat, and studied the table leg in front of him. “Doctor gave her four or five months.”
“To live?”
Cash moved his head just enough to signify a nod. “There’s no family, nobody to take care of Mason...”
Nate tried to process what Cash said, but more importantly process what he hadn’t said. This was where Christine came in. She was the queen of deciphering and interpretation, and by the time news reached him, she’d already filtered and paraphrased it into a mini-abridged version. Just the way he liked it. “So, where do you and Tess come in?” He added Tess in the equation because whether the boy’s mother liked it or not, Cash’s wife was the deal breaker on whatever angle the woman was pushing.
“Steph was hoping we could get to know Mason and he could get to know us. She wants to stay three, maybe four weeks.” He glanced at Nate, his tanned face the color of a birch tree. “Then she’ll head back home.” He cleared his throat again, opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“She’ll die there?”
“Yeah.”
“And Mason? What happens to him?”
Cash looked away, blinked hard. “He’ll stay with us. We’ll try to be a family, I guess.”
“That’s a lot to ask of a kid. You think he’s going to just wave good-bye to his mother and then sit down to dinner with you and Tess like everything’s okay?”
“I don’t know what the hell the kid’s going to do, and I don’t know what Tess is going to do either.” He dragged a hand over his face. “Yesterday, I thought my biggest worry was getting Tess to see somebody about not being able to get pregnant. Imagine finding out I’ve got a son and you’ll get a picture of the stress level in our house.”
“If that happened to me, I’d still be in shock or on a good drunk.”
“Yeah, well, I’d go for the drunk but I had to meet my son and didn’t want him to think I’m a worthless piece of crap.” He shot a look at Nate. “Ever notice how I’m always right in the middle of a major screw-up?”
Nate shrugged. “This could have happened to any one of us.” Saying that out loud made his stomach churn. What if Patrice hadn’t lost the baby he’d known nothing about when they divorced? What if she’d had the child and now, all these years later when he’d found Christine and they’d started their own family, Patrice returned with his child? The thought made him queasy and sweaty, like he might puke, pass out, maybe both. Or what if he’d gotten Natalie Servetti pregnant? Could he swear he’d always been one hundred percent careful about protection? He could swear to ninety-nine percent, but that one percent could have done him in. Nate sucked in a few breaths, tried to clear his head and steady his gut. A few bits of bad luck and he could be the one wearing the poleaxed expression and wondering if his wife could accept the news.
“Yeah, it could have been you, or Ben, or even Harry Blacksworth. But it wasn’t, was it?” His voice turned hard, his expression desperate. “It was me.”
Nate carried Cash’s words with him the rest of the day, finding an excuse to leave work early, something he rarely did. Cash didn’t seem to notice, but who could expect the guy to be on his game when he’d just gotten the shocker of a son he hadn’t known existed? How was it all going to work out? Would Tess be able to accept Cash’s son? Would the boy want to live here? How would he say good-bye to his mother knowing it would be the last time he’d see her? And how would she let him? Giving up her son so he could find a new life and happiness with his father and stepmother was the ultimate sacrifice of love. Nate wasn’t sure he’d be able to do that and hoped he’d never have to find out.
He couldn’t wait to get home and tell Christine about the boy, not that he liked gossip but he couldn’t get his head around the situation and needed his wife to make sense of it. Moreover, and maybe more important, he needed her reassurance that if something like this had happened to them, they’d get through it together. When Nate pulled up the drive and hopped out of the SUV, squeals and laughter met him from the backyard. Anna had taken to squealing when she spotted likes and dislikes. She gave an equal squeal for a spider as she did for a rabbit or a chocolate cupcake. This lack of differentiation made it hard to tell if he should go into protection mode or happiness mode.
Nate bounded up the front steps and into the house, sniffed, smelled the faint scent of vanilla mixed with char. It could be one of Christine’s candles, the ones she said she loved for the aroma but served to mask burn odors like charred banana bread or chocolate chip cookies. Or, maybe his wife really had baked with vanilla and he’d taste her efforts after dinner. Not likely, though. Christine had many talents, but cook
ing and baking were not among them.
He made his way through the kitchen and out the back door to stand on the deck. Anna squealed and tried to catch the bubbles from a large wand Christine waved in the air. Joy’s stroller sat next to the garden, a netting covering the baby from bugs and Anna’s curious fingers. The stroller was a new high-end contraption, courtesy of Harry and Greta Blacksworth. Harry had seen it in a specialty catalog and insisted it was a must-have that did everything but drive itself. Talk about easily influenced! Nate hadn’t wanted to accept yet another extravagance from Harry, but Christine insisted it would do more harm to reject the gift. Now they had a stroller that cost more than some of the men in his shop made in a week. One of these days he and Harry were going to have a long talk, starting with Nate taking Harry on a tour of ND Manufacturing.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Anna raced toward him, jumped into his outstretched arms. “Mommy’s blowing bubbles and I’m catching them!”
He kissed her cheek and laughed, swung his gaze to Christine, who swirled the wand in his direction, releasing a cloud of bubbles. “I see that,” he said, moving toward his wife. “Let’s go see Mommy so Daddy can say hello.”
Anna flung her arms around Nate’s neck, planted a wet kiss on his cheek. “Scratchy.”
“Yeah, scratchy.”
“Wanna see what Uncle Harry brought me today?” She unclasped her arms from his neck and looked at him, her Blacksworth eyes sparkling.
Nate raised a brow, met his wife’s gaze. “Do I want to see what Harry’s been up to this time?”
“Yes, I think you do.”
Nate released Anna and watched her scamper across the yard toward the garden. “How’s my best girl?” He pulled Christine toward him, kissed her.
