The taxi drove by rows of triple-decker homes before turning down Maple Street. Didn't every city have a Maple Street that looked just like this? Probably, Mitch mused as he took in the sight of his old neighborhood.
They'd been cleaning it some, recalling the changes from his last visit about a year ago. Fresh paint, new porches, and patches of green turf brightened up the neighborhood in a way he hadn't thought possible. Mitch didn't often think about his time in Baltimore when he was out at the Double T. Steerage Rock had been his home for his whole adult life. Baltimore was just a place he lived in his youth.
Beside him, Jonathan blew saliva bubbles and giggled at himself as he discovered his own voice. Sara had been quiet.
A grin instantly split Mitch’s cheeks when he saw his mother standing on the porch in her cleaning duster while she talked to Mrs. Santini, who stood on the porch in the next house. More gossip and news traveled the distance of those two porches than the miles they'd traveled to get here.
Cynthia Broader saw the yellow taxi and squealed mid-sentence.
“They're here!” she screamed, then turning to Mrs. Santini, she added, “Oh, Claire, you just have to hold off watching Days of Our Lives long enough to come meet my grandbaby with me.”
“Course, I will. They'll just be dragging things out for weeks before anything new happens anyway. Besides I set the VCR as soon as you told me Mitchell was coming home.”
Laughing, Mrs. Santini gathered up her skirt and trotted down the porch steps with as much grace as a woman her size could. Overweight by some one hundred pounds in heart and size, Mrs. Santini had been Mitch's salvation on more occasions than he could remember. Cynthia and Claire had lived across a patch of grass for over thirty years and it didn't seem likely that would change unless death took one of them.
“Hi, Ma. Mrs. Santini,” Mitch said out the taxi window as he handed the driver the fare with tip. Minutes later he was stepping out of the taxi and collecting the bags while Sara unhooked the carseat.
Cynthia Broader had been on her own and sober for six years now. Mitch respected his mother for all it had taken to fight her alcoholism and to finally break free from the abusive relationship with his father. It had taken a while for the resentment of his childhood to wear thin, but they'd managed to build a somewhat stable relationship that had been too rocky for Mitch as a child.
“Let me see him, Mitchell.” His mother fluttered her hands and giggled like a schoolgirl as she danced on the sidewalk, waiting to meet her grandson for the first time. Mitch obliged by taking Jonathan right out of the car seat and handing him to his grandmother's waiting arms.
“Oh, would you just look at those blue eyes, Cindy,” Claire said.
“Why he's the spitting image of his daddy. Aren't you, Jonathan?” Cynthia said, tears filling her eyes.
Sara cast a wry glance at Mitch and he shrugged. “He's a good looking kid,” he whispered teasingly.
She smacked him on the shoulder playfully and retrieved the empty car seat while Mitch grabbed the luggage.
Cynthia and Claire were in a world of their own, carrying on as they brought the baby into the house.
“I've got your old room cleaned out just nice, Mitch. And Clair let me borrow the day crib she uses when her Mary comes over with the twins. It'll do for a bed for Jonathan until I can get one of my own.”
“You won't have much use for it if he's going to be living in Texas, Cindy. It's a waste of money. You can just borrow this one anytime. It'll give me an excuse to come over and see the baby myself.”
“Since when do you need an excuse?” Mitch said.
“I don't want to have to wait for an invitation.”
“And when did you ever need one of those,” Cindy said. “Heaven's, we live on each other's doorstep. You'll know as soon as I do when he's coming for a visit.”
Cynthia paraded the baby through the dining room, talking sweetly in a high-pitched, singsong voice reserved for dotting grandmothers. “Now I can to spoil my own grandbaby instead of having to share with Claire.”
Mrs. Santini had noticed Sara first. Mitch figured it would take at least a half hour for his mother, in her joy, to notice that a woman got out of the taxi with him and the baby. But Mrs. Santini had hawk eyes and did nothing to hide her appraisal of Sara.
“I know you're not the baby's momma,” she said directly.
Sara held out her hand. “Sara Lightfoot. I'm Jonathan's nanny.”
Mrs. Santini's mouth twisted into a knowing grin. “Uh-huh. Nanny.” Ignoring Sara's extended hand, she squeezed Sara into her ample chest for an embrace. “In this house we don't do formalities,” she said, winking at Mitch.
“You didn't mention Sara coming with you,” Cynthia said as she came across the carpeted floor toward them. “It was nice of you to come all this way for Mitch.”
“I thought it would be easier...since the baby knows me.”
Cynthia nodded and smiled bright. “Claire, you take hold of Jonathan for a minute while I dig up some pictures of Mitch as a baby. But don't you think you're not going to give him right back to me when I find them.”
“I'll give him back alright as long as I get a good minute with the baby. Then I'll leave you alone to enjoy him all to yourself.”
Mitch groaned and dropped his straw hat on the coffee table. “Ma, we don't have to drag all that out now.”
“Yes, we do,” Sara said quietly, tossing him a wicked grin.
He shook his head of the lightheaded feeling, but it remained. This wasn't what he'd imagined his homecoming being like. The craziness, the joy of it. But Mitch did welcome it, because it kept the fear that had nagged at him throughout the last twenty-four hours at bay.
When Cynthia returned, Mitch got straight to the point.
“Lillian mentioned a will for Grandpa.”
His mother cast him a hard glance he'd seen more than a few times as a kid when he knew he was in trouble. “Not now, Mitchell. I don't want to be talking about such things while I'm enjoying my only grandchild for the first time.”
She plopped a photo album in front of him on the coffee table, then sat in the center of the sofa.
“Now Sara, you sit yourself right here on the other side of me. Claire are you going to hold that baby all day or are you going to give his Grandma a turn?”
“Oh, all right. He's just as precious as can be.”
“I know.”
Mrs. Santini handed the baby over to Cynthia and said her good-byes, saying she had meatballs and sauce on the stove and a tray of lasagna in the oven when everyone was hungry.
They spent a few minutes turning pages and laughing over pictures that had gone gray and fallen out of places where tape didn't hold them anymore. These pictures only told the story of the happy times.
He supposed it was good. He didn't really need to remember the moments after these snapshots were taken, when booze and anger got the better of either one of his parents. Happy times were best kept on these Polaroid pictures. The rest he could forget.
“I didn't know about the will, Mitch,” Cynthia finally said. “Seems your daddy dug it up before your grandpa died, but kept it hid. Probably because it's all yours, you know? It’s valid though. The lawyer dug up the witnesses.”
It was beginning to make sense, Mitch thought closing his eyes. “If Dad had the only copy, how did Lillian find out about it?”
Cynthia sniffed and lifted her shoulder idly. “Suppose she had someone dig it up in Texas. Don't know how she could have done it. The family just assumed there was no will because your grandfather always used the same lawyer here in Baltimore. No one thought to look in Texas. Now that one has been found...”
“Dad must be fit to be tied.” Mitch said the words to his mother and glanced at Sara. She'd gone quiet, not even looking at the pictures anymore.
“Lillian knew you were going to get a piece of something. I'm sure that's why she married you and why she's coming back now. No one dreamed your grandpa had done as well as he had in his l
ater years. He put all that money in trust for you. That’s why it never showed. But I have to tell you, your father is not likely to sit tight with it. I can almost guarantee he'll be fighting you for it,” she warned.
“He can have it. I don't want Grandpa's money. I'm doing just fine on my own.”
Cynthia snapped her eyes to him like it were a slap. “Your grandpa was good to you. He knew you had dreams. He knew even more you'd make your dreams come true if given long enough. He wanted you to have that money to make things easier for you. You take that money. Now that you have a child of your own, it’ll make things easier. Your daddy won't do anything but spend it on sin or gamble it away anyway.”
Sara got up from the sofa and took Jonathan from Cynthia's arms. “I should change his diaper,” she said quietly.
“There's no need to run from the room, Sara. This is just family talk,” Claire said, dropping her now empty hands into her lap. “Why don’t you let me do it? I've been waiting a lot of years to be able to fuss over a grandchild. You just relax here with Mitch and he'll give you a good look at some of these pictures.”
“Okay,” Sara said, handing Jonathan back to Cynthia once she'd stood up. “Everything you need is right here in the diaper bag.”
“It'll come back to me soon enough.”
Cynthia started for the kitchen. From where he was sitting, Mitch could see her place a towel on the kitchen table and then lay Jonathan on top of it. Sara was already deep into going through the photo album when he turned his head back.
Every so often, she'd linger and then chuckle before turning a page.
“When was this one taken?” she asked, pointing to a picture of a dirty-faced Mitch in a dusty cowboy hat, chaps and boots. He straddled the porch rail outside as if he'd mounted a stallion. In his hand was a jump rope he'd turned into a lasso.
“I must have been about eight then, I guess.”
“You always wanted to be a cowboy?”
“Pretty much. Grandpa had moved to Texas by then. He used to send me postcards of rodeos and ranches he'd visited. He'd grown up in Dallas and once my grandmother passed away, he'd gone back to be closer to his sisters. We visited him there, my dad and I, a few times after my parents were divorced. But mostly he'd visit me here. I think he was the one who took this picture.”
“Dallas is a long way from Steerage Rock. How'd you end up there?”
“Grandpa moved in with his sister and her husband when I started high school. Things were getting pretty bad with both my parents around that time and he was visiting me a lot to make sure I was okay. On his last visit, my dad stopped by and grandpa saw firsthand just how hard living with two alcoholic parents, who could barely take care of themselves, could be on me. See, even though my parents were divorced, my dad would come around, sometimes staying with my mom for a month or two before the fighting would start all over again and he'd be hauled away by the cops. He could be quite a tyrant, and mom always defended him. Grandpa saw how bad things had deteriorated, packed my bags, and told my mom he'd had enough. He was taking me to Texas to live with him.
“Mom cried, but I think even she knew it was best. She pretended it was only going to be for a little while, that she was going to get some help and straighten herself out.”
“And I did.” Cynthia was standing in the doorway holding a clean Jonathan. Her face was unreadable and suddenly Sara felt uncomfortable having discussed something so personal. “Not right away mind you. It took me a few falls and lot of hard, scary looks in the mirror. I hope to God I never see that reflection again. Looking at ones mistakes and trying to find your way back is never easy.”
“But you did it, Ma. That's what counts. And I'm very proud of you for doing it. Not just for me, but for you.”
She smiled then and sheen of tears lit her eyes. “Thank you, son. Life is better now. I'm not about to go messing up a good thing a second time around.”
Cynthia sighed and settled into a wing chair opposite them in the living room. “Now that we have all that out of the way, what have you decided to do about this child?”
“We go to court tomorrow. I spoke with a family lawyer on the phone before we left Texas. I'll be meeting with her before the hearing.”
“Are you sure you want to go through with all this?” Cynthia said, nuzzling Jonathan. “He's such a precious baby. I can't bear to think of him caught between all this squabbling and screaming. Did you try to work something out with Lillian first?”
“She said she wants to take him back here. And she wants money. That part I knew.”
Cynthia's eyes lit brighter. “I can't say that I wouldn't be thrilled to death if you were to come back home to Baltimore. It would give me a chance to enjoy my grandbaby right. I know things are better with us these past few years but it would give us a second chance, too, Mitch.”
“In case you haven't looked around lately, Ma, there aren't a whole lot of cattle ranches for sale in Baltimore.”
“Maybe not in Baltimore. But there are places closer. It doesn't have to be Texas. You could still have a ranch or a farm out in the Virginia countryside and be closer to home. Have you thought about that?”
Sara watched Mitch as he mulled it over. It would make things easier for Jonathan to have both parents close by. It would shut her out of his life completely and she selfishly didn't want that.
It was then that he glanced at Sara and she knew the thought had crossed his mind.
“It's a possibility. But I'm not making a move until the time is right. I'm not in any position to buy a spread just yet.”
“If you take your inheritance into consideration, you are. Mitch, your father and I spent the better part of our marriage and years beyond fighting about anything and everything. And if it meant using you to get to the other, we did it.”
It didn't take a great deal of thinking to know it had cost Cynthia a lot to admit that and that it hurt. She gazed down at her grandson with deep love and regret etched in her smile.
“I don't want this darling baby caught in a tug of war and hurt the way you were.”
“I'm not like my old man. I'm trying to keep him from getting hurt.”
Cynthia's laugh was bittersweet. “Honey, we all think we're doing things in the best interest of the child. Yet, somewhere along the way, we start believing that our way is the only way and the only one who ends up really hurt is the child. I thank God and your grandpa for helping to break this miserable cycle. The fact that you have turned your life into something positive is testament to someone else's caring of your “best” interest.”
“Lillian--”
With a wave of her hand, Cynthia cut him off. “Never mind Lillian. Think of Jonathan. Who are you really doing this for?”
* * *
Mitch slept very little that night. It wasn't only the court hearing that he worried about. By this time tomorrow his entire world could be changing.
Sara had been right. He hadn't really given Lillian a chance to explain. Mitch had been so afraid of losing Jonathan, and so bent on seeing that Lillian didn't hurt him, that he was blinded to how controlling he'd been. He wasn't much better than Sara's ex-husband on that matter.
Sara had spoken her mind at the ranch, but they hadn’t had a chance to talk about it since then. There had been time on the plane, and in the taxi ride over to his mother's house. But Mitch hadn't wanted to face his own failings here.
It had to weigh heavy on Sara's mind, but she didn't push. When she was ready, she'd speak her mind again, and let him know exactly how she felt. She wasn't one to keep her feelings hid and it was something he admired about her. There were no games. He liked that. More important, he needed that.
At three a.m., he paced down to the kitchen and pulled out a carton of orange juice, drinking it directly from the carton.
“I hope you don't do that back at the ranch.”
Mitch spun around and in the dim light coming from the lit match in her hand, he saw Sara. She touched the wick of the candle t
hat was placed on the table in front of her. An amber glow filled the space around them. The smell of the spent match she'd blown out and the burning wax filled the air. Sara sat at the kitchen table in her cotton bathrobe just staring up at him.
“I didn't realize anyone else was awake,” Mitch said.
“I got up just a few minutes before you came down. I couldn't sleep either.” She leaned over and pulled the chair beside her away from the table. “Join me?”
He dropped the carton of juice back in the fridge and joined her at the table. Instantly she placed her hand over his as he laced them in front of himself. They sat there in the quiet of the night.
“What's the candle for?”
“A prayer.”
He nodded. He knew so little about Sara's culture. How could he possibly know what it meant to her if he knew nothing about it?
“Zee tsa lit ni', a friendship prayer,” she continued quietly. She continued her prayer, speaking softly in her native language, her dark eyes closed to him. When she was done, she gave his hand a squeeze.
“That was nice,” he said, lamely, not understanding a word of what she'd said.
She chuckled softly. “Technically, the rite should be performed by a medicine man or woman or a very close blood relative. But Jonathan can't talk yet.”
She glanced at him as he stared at her.
Her lips tilted to a grin. “That was a joke.”
He nodded.
“It's a prayer of life long protection from evil.”
Mitch nodded his understanding then. “I'm going to need it then.”
* * *
Sara’s heart broke for what Mitch was going through. “It's going to be okay, you know,” Sara said, wishing to God she'd believe it herself if she said it enough.
“I...I'm scared.” It was a small voice, deep and strong, but oh, so very small at the same time. Sara wondered how many times Mitch had sat in this house in the dark and said those words. He'd come so far from the little boy who'd been hurt here. So much had happened, and yet, here he was again, feeling the same pain.
“I know you are. I am, too.”
His Heart for the Trusting (Book 2 - Texas Hearts (Contemporary Western Romance) Page 13
