Mending Fences

by Sherryl Woods

  “Go on in. Mom’s in the kitchen. Don’t worry though, she didn’t cook. Dinner will be edible.”

  Grady laughed again, but when he stepped inside he had to pause to gather his composure. Now that he’d met Dani and been entranced by her exuberance and sense of humor, the thought of Evan Carter harming her infuriated him almost as deeply as it did her dad. He wanted to believe that a girl capable of such teasing couldn’t possibly have such a dark secret, but experience had taught him otherwise. Knowing she was the same age Megan would have been made it even worse. He knew that from now on, the two girls would somehow be inextricably linked in his mind. It was going to make staying impartial and clear-eyed about Evan Carter that much more difficult.

  He was still standing in the foyer, when Emily came out of the kitchen and gave him a quizzical look. “I thought I heard your voice. Everything okay?”

  “Sure,” he said, shaking off his mood. “Your daughter’s a real handful, isn’t she?”

  “You have no idea,” she said. “Why do you say that, though? What did she do?”

  “Let’s just say that she’s charmingly direct and that she apparently bought into the whole date ruse, hook, line and sinker.”

  Color bloomed in Emily’s cheeks. “I am so sorry.”

  “Not a problem for me. I’m used to tough interrogations.”

  “But you’re usually on the other side of them,” she said.

  “True, but I think I held up okay with this one. You need any help with dinner?”

  “It’s under control. Just lasagna, which I didn’t make, by the way, and a salad, which I did.”

  “So eat the lasagna and avoid the salad,” he teased. “Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  “I see Dani had something to say about my culinary skills, too,” she said, her tone resigned.

  “Actually you warned me off yourself when we spoke earlier,” he said. “Is Josh here yet? Maybe he and I should chat before dinner, get the talk about Evan out of the way before Dani joins us.”

  She shook her head. “He just called. He’s on his way. Why don’t we get something to drink and sit in the kitchen? I’d suggest going out by the pool, but I’m not sure it would be a good idea.”

  “Too visible to the Carters,” he concluded.

  She looked relieved that he understood. “Exactly. What would you like to drink? I have iced tea, sodas, coffee, wine. There might even be a beer in there.”

  “You don’t strike me as a beer drinker.”

  “No, but I was away over the weekend and I’m sure some of Josh’s friends stopped by. A few of them are old enough to buy it.”

  He heard a rueful note in her voice. “You don’t sound too upset about that.”

  “He’s in college. I’m not blind or naive. The house was cleaner when I got home than it was when I left, proof positive that something went on here. Since none of the neighbors have called to complain about the noise and my son’s not in jail, I have to assume it was kept under control.”

  Grady chuckled. “You’d make a good detective.”

  “Nope. Just a mom who knows her kids. Now, what can I get you?”

  “What are you having?”

  “Tea, I think. I need a clear head.”

  “I’ll take a beer, if there is one.”

  He followed her into the cozy kitchen. He was right behind her at the refrigerator, prepared to accept the beer she was retrieving, when she turned unexpectedly. They were face-to-face, her eyes wide with surprise, her lips parted. It was too tempting to ignore, so Grady brushed a quick kiss across her mouth. When she didn’t jerk away or bolt, he dipped his head again and stole another kiss, this time lingering long enough to taste her, to satisfy the curiosity that had been taunting him since they’d met. Knowing they could easily be interrupted by her kids, though, he backed away.

  She regarded him with a dazed expression. “Why’d you do that?”

  “I could say it was all part of the charade that this is a date,” he said, “but it wasn’t. I just needed to do it. I’ve wanted to for a while now. You mad?”

  She shook her head, looking more rattled than annoyed.

  “Want to do it again?” he teased. “I’m willing. And Dani has given me a tentative stamp of approval.”

  Amusement danced in her blue eyes. “I warned you she’s a romantic. Watch yourself.”

  “Oh, I think I can hold my own with your daughter,” he said. “It’s you I’m a little worried about.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting that this date thing is supposed to be just for Dani’s benefit?”

  “Didn’t I mention that I tend to throw myself wholeheartedly into whatever I do?” he responded.

  She adopted a tolerant expression. “A convenient lapse of memory, I’m sure.”

  Grady was still feeling the heat of that kiss. To offset it, he took the beer she continued to clutch and popped the top off the bottle. He noted that Emily couldn’t seem to look away as he tilted the bottle for a long, slow drink of the cold beverage. It slaked his thirst, but not the heat.

  Emily looked away at last and when she turned back, her regard was steady. “Maybe we shouldn’t go too far with this whole make-believe date. I don’t want to give either of my kids false expectations.”

  “You so sure they’d be false?”

  She swallowed hard, then blinked and shook her head. “Stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?” he asked innocently.

  “Trying to rattle me.”

  “I’m not doing it on purpose,” he swore. “But when there’s something between two people, it’s hard to keep it in check.”

  “Well, try,” she said with exasperation, then whirled around. “I need to make sure the lasagna’s okay.”

  Grady had a hunch he could use a few minutes to remind himself that this evening wasn’t all about his growing attraction to Emily. He walked over to the sliding glass door and looked toward the Carters’ house. For the first time, he noticed the gap in the hedge, a sure sign of the bond between these two families.

  “How long has there been a path between your house and the Carters’?” he asked Emily.

  “Practically since the Carters moved to the neighborhood. Josh cut it, so he and Evan wouldn’t have to run all the way around the block. When the girls were old enough, it became their shortcut, too. Marcie and I have always taken advantage of it, as well.”

  “Your husbands?”

  “They never got along well enough to need easy access,” she said candidly. “I used to think that Ken looked up to Derek, but maybe it was more about his tendency to suck up to anyone he thought might be in a position to help him. Derek barely tolerated Ken. From the beginning, he saw through the charm and knew exactly the kind of man he was. Still, for the sake of harmony between the families, he did his best to get along with Ken.”

  “Then you all spent a lot of time together?”

  “Every holiday, birthdays, even a few day trips, though those didn’t go so well till we started leaving Ken and Derek at home. Marcie, the kids and I had a better time without the tension of having them scowling at each other half the time.” She studied him curiously. “How long were you married?”

  “Eight years.”

  “Whose idea was the divorce?”

  “Kathleen’s,” he admitted. “I didn’t contest it. She had grounds.”

  Her expression turned cautious. “Were you cheating on her?”

  He shook his head. “No, it was never anything like that. I loved her, at least as much as I was able to love anyone. I just loved my job more.” He was skirting the whole truth by a mile, but it was all he was willing to admit to.

  “You still do, don’t you?”

  “Sure, but not as obsessively. I’d like to think that I’ve learned something about balance. Did it the hard way, unfortunately. I had to lose the most important people in my life before I got the message.”

  Emily gave him an odd look. “People?”

  Grady never talke
d about Megan, not even with his own family. Luis mentioned her name from time to time at his own peril, but his parents never uttered it. Still, he knew if he was ever going to have any kind of relationship with this woman, she deserved to know everything, including all the mistakes he’d made, all the regrets that would haunt him till his dying day.

  “I’ll explain,” he said quietly. “Just not tonight, okay?”

  She hid whatever disappointment she might be feeling and nodded. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said easily. Then to his surprise, she gave his hand an understanding squeeze, as if she somehow sensed that whatever he was withholding had damaged his heart so deeply, talking about it simply wasn’t bearable.

  Ten years earlier

  Grady was hoping for the kind of deep, drugging sleep that only came when he was on the verge of sheer exhaustion. He’d worked yet another series of double shifts, determined to get the one last bit of cash he and Kathleen needed so they could buy that car for her without going into debt for it. His body craved rest, not the backyard barbecue that Kathleen wanted to have that evening. He knew she was annoyed with him over his lack of enthusiasm, but tonight he couldn’t muster up the energy to appease her.

  Sitting outside by the tiny backyard pool that they’d mortgaged themselves to the hilt to have, he took a few sips of beer and his eyes drifted shut. Two or three times he tried to jerk himself awake so he could help Kathleen get the hamburgers on the grill for dinner, but his eyelids were just too heavy, the allure of sleep too tempting. He gave up and sank into it.

  A scream jerked him awake. It could have been seconds later or an hour. He had no way of telling, but adrenaline was suddenly pumping through his body as if an alarm had gone off.

  “What?” he said, on his feet, looking around, still slightly dazed.

  Kathleen’s keening wails were coming from the shadowed end of the pool. “Oh, God, no,” she kept saying, her sobs finally snapping him back to reality.

  “What happened?” he asked, racing toward her, his heart thundering in his chest. “Are you hurt?”

  Only when he was practically beside her did he see the inert body of his little girl in her arms. He’d always thought it an exaggeration or an impossibility when someone said their heart stood still, but now he knew otherwise.

  On his knees beside them in an instant, his training kicked in. He took Megan from Kathleen and shifted into crisis mode. He started CPR, even as he began automatically snapping out directions at his wife, who was clearly in a state of shock. For the first time, he realized she was soaking wet and shivering in the cool evening breeze.

  “Have you called nine-one-one?” he asked.

  She shook her head, unable to tear her attention away from their child. “I just found her in the deep end of the pool. She…” She swallowed hard. “She must have hit her head. There was blood in the water. I jumped in and pulled her out,” she said. “She wasn’t breathing, Grady.” She covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t know what to do. How could we have a pool when I never learned CPR? All those years of swimming and being around water, and I never learned how to do CPR. What was wrong with me? I counted on you knowing.”

  She stared at him with such hate that Grady had to look away. “I thought you were watching her,” she said. “I told you she was coming outside, that she wanted to go in the water and you needed to go in with her. She’s only had a couple of swimming lessons. She still needs supervision. You know that!”

  Grady remembered none of that and he was too focused on performing CPR to respond. “Call nine-one-one,” he repeated between attempts to breathe life back into his daughter. “Do it, Kathleen. Do it now!”

  She finally ran for the portable phone. He could hear her barely coherent plea for help, but he already knew it was too late. Megan wasn’t responding. Her body was limp and she had yet to draw in a breath on her own. Her color was changing, too, and her eyes—staring accusingly at him, he thought—were lifeless.

  Still, he wouldn’t give up. When the EMTs arrived and tried to do what he’d been unable to do, he stood hovering over them. “Breathe, baby,” he whispered again and again. “You can do it, sweetheart. I know you can.”

  When the young man who was working on Megan looked up at him and shook his head, Grady felt as if his world had crashed to a stop. Beside him, Kathleen’s sobs had dwindled to nothing.

  “No,” she protested, her voice almost unrecognizable in its anguish. She turned and started beating on his chest. “This is your fault. You let this happen. You let our baby die.”

  As harsh as the words were, as filled with anger and hate, they were nothing compared to the loathing Grady turned on himself.

  After that awful night, no matter how many times anyone told him that it had been an accident, he reeled from guilt. No matter who reminded him that he’d been asleep when Kathleen had allowed Megan to come outside so that she shared at least some of the blame, Grady heaped it all on himself. He wouldn’t allow anyone to direct the blame—not even a portion of it—toward his wife.

  They tried for a while to get their marriage back on solid ground—at least he did—but it was a lost cause. Kathleen couldn’t forgive or forget.

  A few months later, when she finally said she could no longer bear the sight of him or live in the house because of the painful memories of that night, he watched her walk away from their marriage and did absolutely nothing to stop her. Her leaving was just part of the penance he felt he owed for letting his daughter die.

  16

  Emily was a nervous wreck. Tonight suddenly felt a whole lot more like an actual date than she’d intended. The kiss had been totally unexpected, but not nearly as unwelcome as it should have been. Grady was the first man she’d kissed other than her husband in more than two decades. She’d forgotten the power and hint of mystery that a first kiss could pack. She’d forgotten its ability to awaken the senses and kick all sorts of cravings into high gear.

  She was so rattled she could barely get dinner on the table, much less look Grady in the eye. Apparently she wasn’t doing a very good job of covering, either, because both Josh and Dani were eyeing her speculatively. Dani, in particular, seemed to be making the connection between Emily’s distraction and Grady, thanks to their pretense that this evening was a date. Josh was clueless about the pretense, but clearly aware that there was some sort of tension between Emily and the detective. Hopefully he was still too young and naive to pin a label on it.

  Naturally, Dani was the one who couldn’t ignore it. “So, Mom, did you and Detective Rodriguez talk about anything interesting before Josh and I came in for dinner?” Dani inquired, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

  “Not really,” Emily replied, casting a pleading look in Grady’s direction for some help. The rat looked almost as amused as her daughter and remained stubbornly silent. To shift the attention away from them, she said, “Why don’t you tell us about the flowers you were planting?”

  “I don’t think Detective Rodriguez cares about my impatiens,” Dani replied.

  “Why don’t you call me Grady?” he suggested. “And I’d love to hear about the flowers. My yard’s a mess. Maybe you could give me some ideas.”

  To Emily’s relief, Dani’s expression brightened with interest, all thoughts of cross-examining the two of them forgotten, right along with whatever nervousness she’d been feeling about the prospect of having the detective sharing their dinner table with them.

  “Really?” she asked excitedly. “Could I see it? I’d love to plan a whole yard from scratch. You wouldn’t have to pay me or anything. You’d just have to go with me to pick out the plants and buy them.”

  “I’m not sure Detective Rodriguez was committing to anything, sweetie,” Emily said, trying to put the brakes on Dani’s runaway imagination. She’d have his yard looking like a microcosm of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, given the budget and the freedom to indulge her creativity.

  “Actually, I’d love to have the help,” he corre
cted, then turned to Dani. “And if you do the work, you get paid for the work. If it’s okay with your mom, we’ll pick a date and you can look things over.” He cast a questioning look in her direction. “Well, Mom?”

  “If you’re sure,” she said. She told herself she was agreeing primarily because it was so wonderful to see Dani excited about something, but the truth was she wasn’t nearly as displeased about the idea of spending more time with Grady as she probably should have been.

  “Wow, that is so awesome,” Dani said. “My first landscaping job. How cool is that, Mom?”

  “Very cool,” Emily agreed. She glanced at Grady. “Just be sure you give her a budget at the outset. Dani could spend your life’s savings at the nursery.”

  “We’ll work it out,” Grady said confidently. “Josh, what are you studying at UM?”

  “I started out in business, but I’m thinking of switching my major,” he said, startling Emily.

  “Really?” she said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I’ve been thinking about pre-med lately. I asked Dad what he thought, since I’d be in school a lot longer, and he said it was okay with him, if it’s what I really want. I’ll decide before the end of the semester.”

  “I think you’d make a wonderful doctor,” Emily told him. “You’re caring and curious, which would make you a good listener and a good diagnostician, two of the traits I value in a physician. What made you start to think about it?”

  “Jenny,” he admitted, his cheeks flushing. “She’s pre-med and we have that biology class together. We had to dissect this frog and my incision was way neater than hers. She said I’m a natural. My grades are as good as hers, too. At first I thought she was crazy, but then I got to thinking about it. I wouldn’t want to be a surgeon, no matter how great my incisions are, but I like the idea of helping people stay well or get well. I think I’d like to provide care for people who can’t afford to pay much.”

  Emily lifted a brow. “More of Jenny’s influence?”

  “Actually it was my idea, but she liked it, too. Who knows, maybe we could open a clinic in some rural area where there’s no decent medical care.”