More Than Neighbors

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Not my business, he reminded himself, and set about backing the trailer into the barn.

  * * *

  CIARA HEARD MARK’S footsteps stop in the doorway to her workroom. A jangle of metal tags told her Watson had come, too. Even without having heard Mark coming, she’d swear she could feel him hovering.

  Her back to him, Ciara continued ironing open, newly stitched seams, even though she tensed, knowing what was coming. They’d had the same conversation repeatedly in the intervening days since her confrontation with Gabe.

  “I wish I could go to Gabe’s,” he said wistfully.

  Yep. Here they went again.

  “I don’t understand why I can’t.”

  She pressed down hard. Too hard. Steam burst from the iron, and she hastily lifted it. “I explained.”

  “I was making something. It was going to be really great.”

  Hearing his sadness, she closed her eyes but felt her face momentarily convulse. She had to take several slow, careful breaths before she could speak.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I know you don’t understand, but I’m trying to make the best decisions I can for both of us. Gabe was—” Oh, Lord, that sounded as if he was dead. “He’s probably a nice man.” Probably? “But I didn’t like the way he asked you all those questions when he had you alone. Those were the kind of things he should have talked to me about.”

  Mark shifted from foot to foot. Claws clicked on the wood floor. “It wasn’t like that, Mom. We were just talking. I’m the one who told him stuff.”

  She unplugged the iron and set it on the stand then turned to face him. “About?”

  “Just...stuff,” he mumbled. “You know.”

  She waited.

  “It makes you sad when I—” He screeched to a halt.

  Alarm flashed through her. Were there things he wasn’t telling her, because he thought she’d be upset?

  Stupid thing to think. Of course there were. He was almost a teenager. And a boy. What boy told his mother everything? Heck, she hadn’t told her mother everything, not by a long shot. Mildly chagrined, she thought, I still don’t. She talked with her parents weekly, but had been very careful to make any mention of Gabe casual. She sure hadn’t said anything about an earth-shattering kiss.

  But to Mark... What had he told Gabe but not her that had him looking so appalled right now, after his near-slip?

  Find the right words. “Of course I’m sad when I find out someone hurt your feelings, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to tell me. It’s easier for me to make the right decisions for you when I know how you really feel about a particular teacher or school or friend.”

  “You mean, like how I feel about Gabe?”

  Oh, dear God, no. Not about Gabe. She was too afraid she knew.

  “Sure,” she said, crossing her arms in a relaxed way. “I have to warn you, though. I won’t swear to change my mind about him because of what you say. Sometimes there are factors you don’t know about.”

  His chin jutted out in a way she recognized from her own mirror. “How come? If it has to do with me, shouldn’t you tell me?”

  “When you’re a parent, you’ll understand.” Oh, boy—how many times had she heard her mother say that?

  “You don’t want to hurt my feelings,” he said. “That’s why you won’t tell me everything.”

  It struck her, suddenly, what a startling conversation this was to be having with her son. His heart was always in the right place—he’d never hurt her feelings on purpose—but he definitely wore blinkers. He never noticed what anyone else thought or felt. She’d have said he had never had an insight into someone else’s behavior or motivations in his life.

  But apparently, she’d been wrong.

  “Sometimes that’s true,” she admitted.

  “Like when Dad said I’m a retard.” He shot it at her like a bullet, and she reeled as the words struck, her hands falling to her sides.

  “You heard?” she whispered.

  He looked down at his too-large feet and shrugged.

  “Oh, Mark. I’m sorry you heard. Especially since he didn’t mean it. Not the way it sounds.”

  He lifted his head, and his eyes looked older than his years. Too old. “How did he mean it?”

  “Only that—” The words stuck in her throat. “That—”

  His shoulders jerked again. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.” Damn, she had to blink hard to hold back tears. That bastard, she thought viciously. How could he do this to his own son?

  “He didn’t mean he thought you were dumb,” she managed finally.

  Still in the doorway, Mark slouched, head down, body language saying, I’m not listening, and I don’t believe you anyway.

  “Really,” she tried, scrambling for a convincing yet nonhurtful way to explain. “The thing is parents always assume their kids will be like them. Especially since you’re a boy, he expected you to share his interests and abilities.”

  “Gabe says I kind of am like Dad,” Mark surprised her by saying.

  “What?”

  “The way I’m good at math. ’Cuz you’re not. So I must have gotten it from Dad, right?”

  “I...” She blinked. “I guess that’s true.”

  “He might have been bored by social studies and units on government, too.”

  “Actually...I think he was,” she said, groping for memories of Jeff talking about school.

  Mark lifted wounded eyes to her. “So why doesn’t he think I’m like him?”

  The pain in her chest made it hard to sound thoughtful instead of furious, but she’d had lots of practice. “Well, you know how big he is into football.”

  Mark nodded. Jeff could have accepted almost anything about his son, if only he’d loved watching NFL games with him and dreamed of playing himself. Mark being Mark, he’d never even pretended.

  “Your dad is a people person.” She explained what that meant. “It makes him uncomfortable when you don’t always say the right thing to his friends, or when we had teacher conferences because you were having trouble with other kids.” Trouble. A euphemism, in this case.

  “Gabe doesn’t mind when I don’t say the right thing.”

  Ciara closed her eyes. “Gabe is...” Oh, no. Had she been about to say different? Yes. Heaven help her. Gabe was different. And I told him I couldn’t trust him. I didn’t listen to what he was trying to tell me because I was afraid he might be right.

  Because she was afraid of him, and what he made her feel?

  “He’s different from Dad.” Mark sounded sad again. “He listens to me, and he doesn’t mind when I’m, I don’t know, dorky. You know?”

  She knew.

  Her throat tried to close, but she pushed an “I’m sorry” through anyway.

  “So...why can’t I see him?” He stared beseechingly at her.

  Ciara felt like the worst mother in the world.

  You’re a fool if you think it’s healthy for him to be locked up in that house with no friends and his mommy his only teacher.

  But...what else could she do?

  “Don’t you miss Gabe?” Mark asked in honest puzzlement.

  Yes. Desperately. Waking in the night with a rock in the pit of her stomach kind of missing.

  What had she done?

  Made us miserable, that’s what, she admitted, especially when she remembered Gabe’s last, brusque words.

  Fine. I have better things to do than let some kid hang around talking nonstop. And...he hadn’t wanted to be friendly with them, not when they first met. He’d made no secret of it. Maybe he really had been relieved that she’d given him an out.

  But...she had to try. She knew she could make him understand if she were willing to tell him things about her family, her childhood.

  She shivered at the mere thought. I can’t. No. If she did, he’d come to the same conclusions Jeff had. There was a reason she had such complicated feelings about her family and was glad, at least for now, to have distance as
a really good excuse for not seeing them.

  “I do miss Gabe,” she admitted. “Let me think about this, okay, Mark?”

  He opened his mouth to argue, took a long look at her face and closed his mouth. His restraint stunned her.

  “Okay, Mom. Can we have lunch?”

  Her smile trembled but was real. “We can.”

  “I gotta take Watson out.”

  “I’ll put lunch together while you do that. See if Daisy wants to go, too.”

  He agreed and bounded down the stairs. A thud suggested he’d tripped on one of the last few steps and fallen, but then she heard his voice talking to the dogs and figured he was all right.

  Now tears did sting in her eyes as she realized she wouldn’t want Mark to be any different from who he was, even if she could wave a magic wand.

  How many times had she told herself that? But she had an awful suspicion that she might have been lying to herself, while now she knew she meant it.

  Halfway down the stairs, she stopped, her hand tightening on the banister.

  Was there even the slightest possibility that her mother felt the same about Bridget, despite everything?

  As clear as a bell, she heard something else Gabe had said: What’s normal anyway? Hell, what’s wrong with not being normal?

  CHAPTER NINE

  “WHAT THE HELL?” Gabe lifted his hand, holding the sandpaper away from the maple board, and scowled at the gouge he’d just put in it.

  That was what happened when he didn’t pay attention to what he was doing. He had let himself brood, and the more upset he got, the more pressure he put on the sandpaper.

  He swore and flung the sanding block away in a fit of temper unlike him. It hit with a clunk, bounced and rolled out of sight. Now he might as well put the beautifully grained board in his firewood bin. What a waste.

  Growling under his breath, he sawed it into two pieces that would fit in his stove and carried them toward the big double doors.

  That was when he heard a vehicle coming down his driveway, but not the familiar sound of a UPS truck. He didn’t remember ordering anything anyway.

  By the time he stepped out of the barn, he knew who was here, but not why. Without even looking toward Ciara’s red Caravan as it rolled to a stop, he strode toward the woodbox by his back steps, lifted the plywood lid, dumped the chunks of maple in and let the lid drop.

  Straightening, he braced himself and turned to see her getting out. No Mark, which meant she didn’t want her kid to hear what she had to say.

  He had the fleeting wish that he’d trimmed his beard. These past few days, he hadn’t expected to see anyone. Why bother?

  Not that long ago, he’d even been thinking of shaving the beard off. Lucky he hadn’t. He’d have had to start all over with the damn stubble that caught on his pillowcase.

  Gabe stood where he was and watched Ciara walk slowly toward him. She had her emotions tamped down tight; all he could read was wariness.

  But damn, she looked good. She didn’t walk like a woman who was trying to get men to notice her, but somehow that stride made him think of a model sauntering down a catwalk anyway. Leggy, loose, with just enough swing of her hips. Faded jeans fit snugly, and her sweater draped over a slim rib cage and breasts that were just the right size and shape to make him take notice whether he wanted to or not.

  Her hair caught fire in the midday sun, and her eyes were a deeper blue than the sky.

  He still didn’t move, not so much because he was deliberately being a jackass as because he was paralyzed by everything he felt at the sight of her.

  By hope.

  She wouldn’t have driven over here just to tell him she’d really meant it about never setting eyes on him again, would she?

  She stopped a few feet away and nibbled uncertainly on her lower lip.

  Gabe tore his gaze away. Out here in the bright light of day, she’d notice if he got aroused, and damned if his body wasn’t already stirring. He pretended to ponder the open door of the barn behind her.

  “Ciara.”

  “Gabe.” Her voice came out a little shaky. Her breasts rose with a deep breath. “It’s probably too little, too late, but I came to say I’m sorry. I...don’t think I meant most of what I said.”

  “Sure sounded like you meant it.” It was the hurt speaking. Had to be.

  “No, I—” Her gaze slid from his, until she made an equal pretense at concentrating on the boring white clapboard siding of his house. “There’s some backstory you don’t know.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I...some of it doesn’t matter.” She squeezed her hands together. “The thing is, I guess I kind of blow up when anyone suggests Mark is different, because he’s not! I mean, he’s smart, and kind and— He’s a good person.” She sounded desperate now. “Just because he’s smart...”

  Well, that was one explanation. And to a degree, Gabe thought she might be right. Mark did focus on interests that were more academic than the usual preoccupations of kids his age. But that wasn’t all of it, and he thought she knew it.

  “He is a good kid.” Gabe’s voice came out gravelly. “You’ve heard me say that.”

  “Yes.” She stole a look at him, a world of hurt and confusion in those beautiful eyes. “I got scared,” she said, really fast. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m not doing the right thing for him. I feel like I’m fighting the rest of the world. Everyone who dealt with him at the school, and then there was his father. But I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “Ciara.” He couldn’t help himself. He reached out and gently pried her hands apart. “It’s okay. You were right. I should have kept my mouth shut. Some of what I said... Well, I didn’t mean it, either. You made me mad.”

  She gave a twisted little smile. “I’m good at that. I think everyone at Mark’s last school did one of those end-zone dances when I pulled him out.”

  Man, the relief he felt seemed to fill his chest until there wasn’t any room left. Not until this minute had he let himself acknowledge how wretched he’d been. Self-defense.

  “Where is Mark?” he asked.

  “Home. I...told him I was going to the grocery store.”

  “Are you?”

  “I suppose I have to.” She wrinkled her nose. “He’ll notice if I don’t come home with anything. But I didn’t want him to know I was stopping here in case—” Her eyes shied from his again.

  In case he said, Go ahead and homeschool him, but leave me out of it.

  “You tell him we’ll take up where we left off tomorrow morning. Usual time.”

  “Really?”

  He’d never seen eyes that conveyed so much. Eyes were just eyes. But hers... He found himself staring into them, feeling like the oracle gazing into the water. Seeing more than any rational person would believe was there.

  “Really.” Damn, but he wanted to touch her. Just because she’d said she was sorry didn’t mean anything more than that, though. He cleared his throat. “I missed you both.” And cursed his discovery that a once satisfying life was now lonely.

  A smile trembled on her lips. “We missed you, too. Will you come to dinner tonight, Gabe?”

  His stomach growled, and he gave a low, rough chuckle at the same time as she laughed. “Thank you. If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Their gazes locked as seconds ticked past. What if she wanted...hoped...? No, he told himself sharply. Don’t blow it again. Take it for what it is—a casual friendship. He was doing her and her son a favor; she tried to balance the scales by giving him something he didn’t have: home-cooked meals.

  Part of him hoped she didn’t guess how much he looked forward to those meals, and not because of the food.

  “Ciara,” he heard himself say, and at the exact same moment she said, “Well.” Already she was backing away. “Um...six o’clock?”

  Staying rooted where he was, Gabe said, “Sounds good.”

  “Okay. Well, then...” She backed right into her
van, kind of bounced off it, blushed and grabbed for the door handle.

  When she drove away, he was still standing where he’d started, right in front of the wood bin, but he felt a hundred pounds lighter. So buoyant he was ready to play a superhero.

  Wincing, Gabe fingered his beard, grown scruffy this week, and decided he’d better at least trim it before dinnertime. Superheroes were always clean cut, weren’t they? Not that he’d shave it off, he decided; not yet. That would be too obvious.

  * * *

  MARK DIDN’T EVEN notice the constraint between the two adults, and his ebullience gradually relaxed it, to Ciara’s relief.

  “I can work on my box tomorrow, right?”

  Gabe agreed he could.

  Next thing she knew, Mark had not so subtly worked the topic around to birthdays. Specifically his. Which wasn’t far away.

  “It’s real soon. Huh, Mom?”

  July 3, he would officially become a teenager. Thank God there were as yet no signs of puberty, beyond the deepening voice that frequently cracked. Or maybe she shouldn’t be grateful; his being among the youngest in his class could have contributed to his social problems. Especially this last year, when a lot of the middle school students looked like teenagers, he’d been left behind.

  “And here I’d forgotten it,” she teased.

  He, of course, took her seriously. “You never forget my birthday.”

  She just laughed.

  She didn’t have to face the awkwardness of being left alone with Gabe. He didn’t offer to help her clear the table, and Mark and Watson walked him out to his truck, both bouncing in excitement.

  The last thing she heard was, “Can I ride tomorrow, too?” She couldn’t make out Gabe’s quiet rumble, but had no doubt of his answer.

  How could she have thought, even for a minute, that Mark was better off without Gabe Tennert in his life?

  Mark had barely come back inside when the phone rang. Ciara dried her hands and answered.

  “Ciara?” The voice was her ex-husband’s. “Just, uh, realized I hadn’t called in a while.”

  Jerk.

  “Mark will be glad to hear from you,” she said.