Wood U (Carved Hearts #4)

by L. G. Pace III

  Once the cops let us go, my brother and I cabbed it back to Mason’s. He looked pretty surprised when I followed him into the house. Robin was kicked back in the recliner drinking a glass of wine and watching Bravo. She took one look at our beat up faces, sighed, and slowly set her glass down.

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  Flipping her foot rest down, she went into full nurse mode. While she gathered her first aid kit, I followed after her. I needed to hear from her that she was really okay after the bomb Mason had dropped.

  I’d been a fan of Robin since she’d first taken care of Mason’s stupid ass in the ER. He’d been riding on an inner-tube while I pulled him behind the boat. He refused to put down his beer can. I’d been drinking a little myself, and I thought it would be a good idea to play ‘crack the whip’. I jammed the throttle down and whipped a tight turn by the beach. Mason lost his one handed grip on the rope, went flying into the shore, and came to an abrupt halt when he hit a metal garbage can. To his credit, he somehow didn’t spill a drop of beer. Dad had to drive us both to the hospital, since he was the only sober adult around.

  Robin hurried into the exam room, all blonde and sassy and uninterested in taking any crap. Mason waggled his eyebrows at me when she wasn’t looking, and I busted a gut. She looked like Marilyn Monroe in black scrubs, and Mason was practically drooling on her when she assessed him.

  When she started his IV, Mason winced like a little bitch and joked that she was the Angel of Death, not the Angel of Mercy. He asked for a sponge bath, and she told him she’d be back with a Brillo pad. Later, she returned to take his blood pressure. I’d been trying to find something to watch on television. I’m not sure what happened, but Mason winced loudly, and Robin told him to watch his hands or she’d give him an enema. Mason called her a kinky little minx as she left the room, and by the time the doctor decided he didn’t have any more brain damage than he’d been born with, Mason had Robin’s phone number in his wallet.

  Thinking back on all the times Robin had saved my bacon with Mac Junior (since my ex-wife was useless as tits on a boar), I got a little sentimental and gave her a big bear hug accompanied by a loud kiss on the cheek. She eyed me with suspicion, and her usual saucy disapproval.

  “Are you drunk or something?” she asked, her frown lines appearing instantly. “If you drove my husband here while intoxicated so help me Malcolm—”

  “We took a cab,” I replied. “Your husband told me about the lump.”

  Her face softened, and she looked a little surprised. “Oh.”

  “Explain how you know everything’s okay.” I insisted.

  “They did a diagnostic mammogram and a biopsy,” she replied, and I could see relief radiate from her as if she were outlined in neon. “It was benign.”

  “Shouldn’t you get a second opinion or something?”

  “Settle down, McDreamy. I’m a friggin’ nurse. I know when to worry and when not to.”

  “Good.” I kissed her on top of her bleached-blonde head. “Nothing better happen to you. You’re like the sister I always wanted before I got saddled with Molly.”

  “Shut up, Mac.” She slapped me on the arm, but she was grinning as she did it.

  After that night, things were pretty much back to normal all the way around. I threw myself back into making money, but Kelly was never far from my thoughts. Since her revelations about her childhood, I’d had a hard time being around Francis, and I’d been extra thankful that Joe had hired Nick so he could run interference.

  Molly signed her franchise deal for her restaurant, not only for a brick and mortar version of Wrapgasmic in Galveston, but one in New Orleans as well. It seemed to take some pressure off of Joe, knowing The Kid could stay home with her feet up. She’d be making lots of money without lifting a finger now that Robbie Wright had helped her iron out a solid contract. Knowing my sister like I did, I doubted she’d take advantage of the situation. She was a Hildebrandt, and we can’t ever just sit.

  Kelly didn’t come around the shop at all, but I did catch sight of her at Parent Night at M. J.’s school. I couldn’t approach her; Patty was there with me and that combination would have been disastrous. I don’t think Kelly noticed me, anyway. She was at the other end of the hall, and she seemed entirely focused on her students. I didn’t want to cause an issue at her job, but seeing her like that, all pretty smiles in a long red dress, made it hard to stay away. She looked especially beautiful with all those adoring kids around her, and bearing witness to it was like rock salt in a gaping wound.

  When I got a moment to breathe, Kelly usually slipped into my thoughts. With Joe burning the candle at both ends, I’d stepped up to take on extra work. Between that and M.J., about the only time I had to myself was the short period before I fell asleep each night. That was when the memories of that ruinous date tormented me. Saddened about how things had ended between us, I would lie there brooding before falling into dreams about her.

  I didn’t see Kelly again until a few weeks later when Molly and Joe moved into their new house. Mason and I were trying to help, and my sister was a bundle of hate and hormones. I was about to chew her out when Francis walked in with Kelly. They had their hands full, carrying a bunch of pizzas and some cases of Coke.

  I’d thought that seeing her at Parent’s Night was hard, but coming face to face with Kelly in the intimate foyer of Molly and Joe’s cottage knocked the wind out of me. She’d come ready to help in worn jeans, her hair pulled back in a braid. The sight of her, glossy lips with a light bead of sweat on her brow, was intoxicating. The memory of how she smelled and the tasted flooded my mind. She was water-boarding me just being in the same room. When she spotted me, she couldn’t leave my presence fast enough. She hurried out into the back yard, and in a fit of frustration, I nearly ran after her in front of my entire family. I wanted to lock her in a room until she talked to me, but kidnapping is a serious offense in these parts.

  Francis evidently picked up on her horror (and my psychosis), because he cornered me in the house when everyone else was outside eating.

  “Mac,” he started. “Can we talk?”

  “Do we have to?” I ran a hand over my beard and sighed.

  “I’d appreciate it. I think we have someone’s mutual interest at heart. Or at least I hope we do.”

  I had no desire to have a heart-to-heart with Francis. But it would have been rude to ignore him, and I had made enough of a spectacle of myself for the day. I nodded.

  “Son,” Francis said quietly, “I know I’m probably the last person you think should be offering advice on just about any topic under the sun. But if you really like her, try to do right by her. Please give it your all. She’s been failed by everyone she should have been able to rely on.”

  Stunned, I peered at him with nothing but admiration. His self-awareness was humbling. This seemed to bolster his confidence, and he proceeded.

  “That is one kind-hearted girl out there in the backyard, and she’s got a lot of love to give.” Francis’s dark eyes glistened as he spoke about his daughter.

  I can’t remember ever feeling as awkward or embarrassed, but I met his eyes. He wasn’t wrong. I knew Kelly was special. I’d known it since our beer run the night after we met. Truth be told, I probably knew it a hell of a lot better than he did.

  “Now, I don’t know what happened. All I know is she seemed excited that you were taking her out, and she’s been awfully quiet ever since.”

  I exhaled, as if the world was resting on my chest. “Francis, listen—”

  “No, you listen. I stopped by her apartment that day to talk and she was getting all dolled up for you.”

  This was news I hadn’t expected. “What?”

  The charged look he shot me shut me up.

  “I owed her some answers. I made a lot of mistakes…caused her a lot of pain over the years. I let her down, Mac. I can never take that back. Her life has been a lot harder than it needed to be because I wasn’t strong enough. I have no rig
ht to ask it of you, but I will anyway. If you don’t really have serious intentions, you ought to do the right thing and stay away.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, and he held up his hand.

  “If you are serious about her, you need to prove it. Her school is looking for volunteers to help with some facility projects. That kinda stuff is easy for you. I think the gesture would mean a whole lot to her.”

  The day ended without the conversation I wanted to have with Kelly. I tried to call her a couple more times, but she never answered. I was convinced she’d changed her number, but I didn’t have the guts to ask Francis for her new one.

  On the day of Molly’s baby shower, I showed up to meet Mason and Joe. As much of a team player as Joe is, he’d declined to be a part of the hen fest. We thought the shower would be a great excuse to go to The Drafthouse for a showing of the old movie, Roadhouse. It had been Mason’s idea, but Joe and I were on board for watching Swayze kick some ass while getting our buzz on. As we were leaving Joe’s, we crossed paths with Kelly, who was coming up their walk with a gift for the babies. Her panicked eyes and flushed cheeks broke my heart, and had I been alone, I’d have cornered her.

  We were on our second beer when Joe got the call that Molly’d had a seizure, and they were rushing her to the hospital. Watching Joe go through that type of situation again, on top of my baby sister being in danger, was enough to make me light up my first cigarette in months. After coughing and hacking for about five minutes, I decided my body was done with smokes, even if my brain hadn’t caught up yet.

  The docs convinced Joe to let them take the babies by emergency C-section. Luckily, Molly and the twins were fine, though the babies were in the NICU, since they were still premature. Knowing everyone was out of the woods, I drove over to Molly and Joe’s house to pick up Mason and Robin’s kids, who’d been at the shower when all hell broke loose. I wasn’t expecting Kelly to be there, but apparently she’d hung around to help Molly’s friends keep an eye on the kids. The children were a little shell-shocked after witnessing Molly being hauled away by ambulance, and it took me a little while to reassure them that all was well. Without my having to ask, Kelly stepped in and helped me talk them down. After they were all buckled up and ready to go, Kelly and I stood awkwardly by the minivan for a few seconds. She broke the ice, reaching out to place a hand on my arm. I swear, the heat from her touch lit a fire inside me. When her welcoming and sympathetic eyes locked with mine, I knew I had to do whatever I could to earn a second chance.

  I took Francis’s advice the following week and contacted the school to inquire about volunteering. Turns out they needed people who were handy for a few small projects. The weather was starting to improve enough for the project manager to have a couple of things on his calendar, and the school secretary, a creepy lady who always leered at me when I came in to get M.J., was more than willing to pass along my information.

  On the first warm day of March, I went to help install some new windows in the school’s library. I was up on a ladder, loosening the trim around the old window, when I spotted Kelly unlocking her bike and climbing aboard. As always, she was a vision of fitness and the human form. I watched her eagerly as she waved to a couple of students. She looked so pure with her tidy ponytail and pleasant smile, that I couldn’t peel my eyes away from her.

  She just happened to look my way, and her eyes widened with shock. I waved, and she nearly rode right into some old folks walking their dog. Instead, she ended up ass over elbows at the bottom of a ditch.

  As I jumped down and ran in her direction, I had a growing sense of dread.

  Way to go, Numb Nuts. One look at you and she tries to off herself.

  WHEN I SAW Mac working on the ladder that Friday afternoon, I nearly had a heart attack. I knew the school board was asking for volunteers, but it hadn’t even occurred to me that Mac’s son was one of our students. The weather was beautiful, and I’d looked up to admire the sky and glimpsed him instead, all rugged and smoldering, waving to me. He took me by complete surprise, and I’d almost run an elderly couple down. I veered to the left, careening head first into a grassy ditch.

  The impact with the ground didn’t hurt, but the two thousand burs impaling me through my workout clothes did. I cried out, and when I saw Mac jump down off of his ladder and rush in my direction, I covered my face with both hands.

  This cannot be happening.

  “You okay, Sugar?” He blurted, and I felt his hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it away and struggled to push my bike off of me. I was desperate to escape before the humiliated tears brewing in my eyes began to fall. I hate that I cry when I’m angry, and I was furious that he’d witnessed my blunder.

  Standing in the ditch in front of my workplace covered from head to toe in dirt, I wished for the power of invisibility. Instead, Mac stood next to me, brushing grass off of my shirt and whistling at the bleeding pedal gouge in my calf.

  “We need a first aid kit. You think the nurse is still here?” He sounded a little frantic, so I snuck a peek up at him and nearly melted into the ground at the genuine concern I saw in his gorgeous eyes.

  “I’m fine. I gotta go,” I stammered and reached down to pick up my bike.

  “Let me drive you home.” He grabbed my bike one handed, as if it was made of cardboard. I shook my head.

  “No. Thank you.” It sounded like high-pitched squeak.

  “Kelly…” he started, but I snatched my bike with both hands, yanking it away from him.

  “I don’t need your help, Mac!” I hated the shrillness of my own voice. My face felt like it was on fire, and the retired couple I had nearly run down were pointing and whispering. Mac blinked at my outburst in surprise.

  “A...alright,” he whispered, and I didn’t wait for any more commentary before I straddled my bike and rode away as fast as my wounded leg would carry me. I made sure I was out of sight before I dismounted, pulling several burrs out of my backside.

  For the entire weekend after my embarrassing wipe out, I fought the urge to text Mac. I lounged in my yard, drinking iced tea and trying to get into the novel Oprah was raving about. When that failed to happen, I moved to the couch and ordered a new- release movie on demand. All I could think about was how much hotter Mac was than the Hollywood A-lister starring in the film. I buried my face in my throw pillow and groaned.

  I walked down to Whole Foods for some groceries and found myself scanning passing traffic for his bike. Sorting through my closet for Goodwill Donations, I decided to toss the shirt I’d worn on our first non-date. I played around on Facebook and saw a message from my friend Annette, asking about the good-looking guy with the hot dog and why I’d taken down the post. I paced the floor and bit my nails to the quick, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get Mac out of my head.

  I’d been avoiding him ever since I ditched him at Ginny’s, and the more time that passed, the more idiotic I felt about the way I’d handled things. I realized how tangled up my head had been with all my dad’s revelations, and leaving Mac there so abruptly was bitchy, even by my standards. I couldn’t hash out a way to make things right. As weeks passed, I struggled for a way to casually be in his presence again, but I’d not found a graceful solution.

  Since Dad had disclosed his past to me, I’d had a lot of soul searching to do. I’d called him up on Black Friday to ask him out to dinner. Over Tex Mex, I explained that I’d formulated a plan for us to work on this father/daughter thing. I wanted to work on getting to know him, but I could only handle so much at once. We agreed we’d do dinner one night a week, and we’d each get to ask three questions about the past. The rest of the time, I wanted to focus on our current lives…who we were now and our plans for the future. My idea was that though we needed to understand pieces of the past, the goal was to move forward. He happily agreed, and so far it’d been working out, except for the fact that when it came to the topic of my mom and their fights, he always clammed up. He refused to tell me much of anything about their relat
ionship.

  “I won’t speak badly about your mother, Kelly,” he’d say. “That doesn’t do anything but build resentment, and it’s not my place to tell her secrets. She picked up all of the slack with you after I was gone, and I’ll always love her for that.”

  The topic of Mac came up on more than one occasion. I was honest about how things hadn’t worked out, but that I wasn’t happy about it and that I really had liked him. Thankfully, my dad seemed to understand that any and all Mac conversations were protected by parent/child confidentiality.

  I’d been firmly ensconced in work, and loving every second of my new job. My classroom moms kept me hopping. I wasn’t used to such active parent involvement, and it was truly a breath of fresh air. If I even hinted that it would be nice to have something in the classroom, the following day some blinged-out mom would show up with the item in question.

  Molly and Joe had finally found a house, and I was eager to help them move, since Molly had no business doing anything strenuous in her condition. I told myself that if I ran into Mac, I’d just be civil until I could get away from him. There’s a quote about how the best laid plans survive until the moment of battle. When I’d run into Mac on moving day, he’d looked so damned good that I felt like someone had stabbed me in the chest. He seemed surprised that I was there, and when he opened his mouth to say something, I zipped out the back door before he had to come up with anything polite. I delivered the pizza to the back yard and kept the kids busy for the rest of the day so that I could avoid interacting with Mac all-together.

  Dad and I actually spent Christmas Day together, and I’d even gone to the trouble to bake a ham. I made him promise not to get anything, but on the sly I’d bought him some new seat covers for his new car. It was a multicolored travesty of an economy car, and only my father could think that it was anything to be proud of. Still, he’d worked hard and saved up for it, and it was a significant milestone for him.