A Crazy Kind of Love

by Maureen Child

  His hair was the same shade of brown as Jo’s. He was already tall, and judging by the size of his feet, he was destined to be a lot taller than Papa.

  But the most arresting thing about him were his eyes.

  Papa’s eyes.

  Marconi eyes.

  Mike swallowed hard. She’d been so hoping that this was a mistake. That maybe the woman had lied to Papa and he, being male and pretty much putty in a woman’s hands, had bought the whole story, hook, line, and sinker.

  But there was no mistake about this.

  That boy was her brother.

  And she was just going to have to learn to live with it.

  14

  Mike kept a solid grip on Lucas’s hand as she took the last few steps separating her from her sister, the boy, and his mother. As she got closer, her breath strangled in her chest and her heartbeat skittered wildly. She swallowed hard and clenched her coffee cup so tightly, she was vaguely surprised her fingers didn’t splinter through the cardboard.

  Sam turned as she joined them and Mike noted the acceptance that flashed in her eyes. But then, Sam had already been prepared to forgive Papa. To accept this boy. Because of her own past, she was naturally inclined to acknowledge this new and totally startling relationship.

  Mike didn’t know if she could do the same.

  Hell. Didn’t know if she wanted to.

  Then the boy turned to look up at her.

  His too long hair fell across his forehead, and as he swiped it aside, he blinked Marconi eyes and gave her a tremulous, wary smile.

  “You’re my sister Mike,” he said softly.

  It was that easy.

  And that hard.

  And that complicated.

  Whatever she and Papa would have to say to each other later, this boy wouldn’t be a part of it.

  “Yeah,” she said, swallowing hard and forcing the words out of a throat too tight to breathe. Blindly, she tightened her grip on Lucas’s hand and kept her gaze on Jack Marconi. “I’m your sister.”

  Hank Marconi opened his eyes and knew immediately that something was different. For starters, he was in a hospital room with tubes and plugs jutting out of his body and a roomful of machines burping, clattering, and beeping. For seconds, Grace was at his side, looking as if she were planning a funeral.

  “Hey,” he said, and cleared his throat when his voice sounded rusty.

  Grace’s head snapped up, her gaze shot to him, and a beatific smile creased her face. “Henry. Oh, thank God.”

  “Jesus, Grace.” He tried to move but found he didn’t have the energy, so he slumped back against the pillows. “What the hell am I doing here?”

  “You had a heart attack.”

  “I did?” Strange. He didn’t remember anything like that. Sure, he’d felt a little tired and maybe achy. But shouldn’t a man remember if his heart goes out on him? “Are you sure?”

  She laughed and the sound of it was great, the one normal thing in the midst of this confused mess.

  “Henry, you’re enough to make me old before my time.”

  “Not a chance,” he murmured and reached for the hand she held out to him. “When do I get outta here?”

  Grace moved closer, scooting around the machinery surrounding his bed as it continued to click and beep like a weird science experiment. He scowled and fought down a quick jolt of fear.

  He’d never liked hospitals. Especially not after what had happened to his Sylvia.

  “Go into a hospital alive and come out dead,” his father used to say. And back when Hank’s father was a kid, it had probably been true more often than not.

  These days, though, things were different. His head knew that. It was just his gut trying to tell him different.

  “The good news is,” Grace said, and Hank told himself to pay attention, “the doctor said it was a minor episode of angina.”

  “Minor?” He glanced down at his arms, with the IV tubes and the oxygen meter stuck to his finger, and at the array of machinery. “This is how minor is treated?”

  “Henry, be quiet.”

  His eyebrows shot straight up. When Grace got that “no nonsense” tone in her voice, a wise man settled back and waited for the storm to pass. “All right.”

  “You scared us all to death.” She pulled in a shaky breath and smiled again, stroking the back of his hand with her fingertips. “We know now that it was something minor. But we didn’t know. Not for hours. The doctors didn’t want to take any chances and rightly so. But . . .” She paused to look at him again, as if assuring herself that he really was alive and kicking, so to speak. “But the waiting was dreadful. We were all so worried.”

  “My girls?” he asked, instantly picturing his three daughters, frantic, making the hospital staff’s lives a living nightmare. Hank knew his girls. “They know I’m all right now, don’t they?”

  “Yeesss . . .”

  He narrowed his gaze on her as a small worm of concern slithered through his insides. “Something’s wrong, Grace. Don’t treat me like a sick old man,” he ordered. “Tell me.”

  “I am. In my own way.”

  She let go of his hand and smoothed her hair in a nervous gesture he’d first picked up on two years ago. Whatever was up, it had Grace worried. And he figured it wasn’t just his health causing it.

  “The doctors said you’ll be fine. You have to stay here for a day or two—”

  “Stay here?”

  “—for observation,” she continued blithely as if she’d never heard the interruption. “And you’ll have to change your diet and maybe start on some blood thinners.”

  “That’s crazy,” he blustered, waving one hand despite the IV line attached to his arm, “I’m fine.”

  “Fine for a man hooked up to a heart monitor,” she snapped and he saw the flash of tears in her eyes and immediately felt contrite.

  He might not remember this heart attack, but clearly Grace did. And she’d been suffering while he’d been blissfully asleep. Best not to argue with a woman when she had too much on her side in the fight.

  “I’m sorry if I scared you, Grace. Scared the girls.” He watched her carefully. “But there’s something else you’re still not telling me. Are the girls all right? Are they here?”

  She swallowed hard and nodded. “They’re all fine and, yes, they’re outside in the waiting room. And so is someone else.”

  Now he felt a twinge in his heart. Along with a jolt of something surprisingly like panic. “Who?”

  She lifted her chin and straightened her spine. “Jack and Carol are here, too.”

  All the air left him in a rush. “Ah God . . .”

  “I called them, Henry,” she said, tilting her chin even higher in defiance, just in case he had it in his head to argue with her or yell at her for making such a decision on her own. “They had a right to know. Just as much as your girls did.”

  “You shouldn’t have told the girls,” he whispered, and for the first time, Hank Marconi felt like an old man.

  “You’re right,” she said, leaning over the metal bedrail to get close enough to plant a kiss on his forehead. When she pulled back, she looked directly in his eyes and said, “You should have. A long time ago.”

  He’d thought about it. Prayed over it. Had a million one-sided conversations with his long-dead Sylvia about it. But somehow, he’d never been able to have the confrontation he knew he should have. Because he simply couldn’t bring himself to risk his daughters’ love.

  And more.

  He couldn’t bear the thought of seeing disappointment—disapproval—in their eyes.

  “I couldn’t,” he muttered. “That’s just not something a man can tell his daughters.”

  “That’s the point, Henry,” Grace said, smoothing one hand over his neatly trimmed beard, “they are your daughters. You and Sylvia taught them how to love. How to forgive. You should have trusted them.”

  “I do,” he argued, idly plucking at the flannel sheet covering him. “I just—” />
  “They’re hurt and angry and confused. But they’ll find their way past it.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers and admitted his own selfishness. “I can’t lose them, Grace. I don’t think I could live without my girls.”

  “Foolish man, you couldn’t lose them if you tried. They love you. As I do.”

  Henry looked up into her shining dark eyes and, despite the fear of what his daughters were thinking of him, felt like a man who’d been blessed.

  Twice in his life, he’d known love. Real, honest, soul-deep love. First there’d been Sylvia, the love of his youth, the mother of his precious girls. When he was losing her, he’d felt his own soul following her. She died in inches and took pieces of him with her as she went. If not for his girls, he never would have been able to hold on to what was left of his life.

  And now, he loved Grace. This tiny, infuriating, exasperating woman had shown him that the heart never really grew old. She’d awakened his soul, enlivened his days, and filled his nights with a warmth he’d missed with a bone-deep need.

  Two women had touched his heart.

  But there’d been another. He hadn’t loved her. But he’d needed her and cared for her, in a dark and empty time. She hadn’t really touched his heart, his soul.

  But she’d touched his life in a profound way.

  She’d given him a son.

  Shown him life in the middle of death.

  And though he felt the shame of his actions, he couldn’t completely regret them—because to do that he would have to wish Jack away. Something he could never do.

  “They won’t forgive me,” he said quietly and admitted, if only to himself, that he wouldn’t be able to blame them for it.

  Grace’s heart was in her eyes as she said, “Maybe not at first. The hurt goes deep. But they will, Henry. Eventually, they will.”

  He clung to those words like a convert clutching a rosary during an earthquake.

  God, Mike hated hospitals.

  She’d spent more than enough time in them for one lifetime, thanks very much. All those days and weeks with Mama. Not to mention the weeks she’d spent stretched out on her own hospital bed.

  And she wished she hadn’t sent Lucas home an hour ago. But once they knew Papa was going to be all right, it hadn’t seemed fair to keep him there with her out of pure selfishness. Now of course, she was rethinking the whole selfish thing.

  Because at the moment, she really missed the warm strength she’d found in the grip of his hand on hers.

  “Is Papa okay now?”

  Mike shifted in the uncomfortable green plastic chair and looked down into her brother’s eyes—so much like her own. She wanted to not like him, damn it. By rights, he shouldn’t exist. By rights, her father would still be the paragon of perfection she’d always assumed him to be.

  But she couldn’t hate Jack.

  Couldn’t even resent him.

  He was just a kid. He hadn’t asked to be born. He hadn’t set out to break up a family.

  Now, he was only a frightened little boy, looking to his big sisters for comfort. And damn it, he had a right to expect it.

  “Yeah,” she said, forcing a smile. “Papa’s going to be fine. You can go in and see him as soon as Sam comes out if you want.”

  Jack nodded, let his gaze slide to the closed double doors, and then back again. “Mike, how come Jo doesn’t like me?”

  She blew out a breath. “It’s not that,” she lied, wishing her oldest sister were in front of her so she could kick a little ass. Jo hadn’t been mean to the kid, but being Jo, her emotions were written on her face, and even a little boy could see that something wasn’t right there. Still, Mike said, “Jo’s just . . . worried. About Papa.”

  “Oh.” His face scrunched up as he thought about it, but it said something about how he’d been raised that he accepted Mike’s word for the situation a moment later. “My mom says we shouldn’t stay, but I don’t wanna go yet. I wanna see Papa’s house here. And meet Bear. And—”

  “Jack, sweetie,” his mother said, coming up behind him to lay a protective arm around his shoulders. “Why don’t you go and get a soda from the machine in the hall?”

  She handed him a dollar and Jack shrugged before moving off, dragging each foot to make sure the women knew he was going reluctantly.

  The minute the boy left, Mike felt . . . exposed. She didn’t want to be this close to the woman who’d slept with her father. She didn’t want to be in the same room with her, if it came down to that.

  The air in the waiting room still stank of antiseptic and despair. The mint-green walls had closed in on them all hours ago and Mike wanted nothing more than to race outside and fill her lungs with the air of freedom. But she was stuck. Rooted to the spot as Carol Benedetto faced her.

  “Thank you,” the woman said stiffly.

  Mike stiffened, too. Jack’s existence wasn’t his fault, but nobody said she had to make nice to the woman standing in front of her right now. “For what?”

  “For being nice to my son.”

  “We rarely beat the shit out of little boys anymore,” Mike sneered.

  Carol’s wide, expressive mouth worked a minute or two, then she inhaled sharply and tucked her Prada bag under her arm. “Look, I know what you and your sisters must think of me—”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” Jo said, stepping up to join the little chitchat.

  “Jo . . .” Mike knew how her sister felt. But taking the elegant-looking woman by the throat and choking her for a few hours just wasn’t the answer. No matter how good it sounded.

  Jo held up one hand for quiet and turned her steady gaze on Papa’s past fling. “If you did know what we think of you, you wouldn’t be standing so close.”

  “Look, think what you will,” Carol said hotly, fighting Jo’s fire with a little heat of her own. “But you know your father better than I do and even I know that he’s an exceptional man—”

  “We agree on that,” Sam said, arriving just in the nick of time to flank Jo’s other side.

  Mike didn’t doubt she could take her big sister down, but it wouldn’t be easy—especially since she sort of agreed with how Jo was feeling at the moment. So she was grateful to have Sam there, just in case.

  Carol shot a glance toward the hall to make sure her son was out of earshot. Then she faced the daughters of the man she’d known on the sly for more than ten years.

  “I don’t much care what you guys think of me, you know. But Jack’s been seeing pictures of the three of you since he was old enough to look at them.” She shifted her gaze from one to the other of them. “Your father was always so proud of you. He wanted Jack to know his . . . sisters.”

  Jo flinched.

  Mike moved closer.

  “If you want, we can talk,” Carol offered. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But not now. Not in front of Jack.” She worried at her bottom lip, scraping off a little of the dark peach lipstick she wore. “I don’t want him to know what you three think of me, if you don’t mind.”

  A long moment of silence passed. But it wasn’t completely silent. Mike actually heard the hum of tension rattling around them all. She felt it crackling in the air, like static electricity. She almost expected their hair to lift straight up.

  “That sounds fair,” Sam said quietly, glancing at her sisters.

  Mike nodded. “Works for me.” Thinking that at some point, yes, she would like to know how her father had slipped off his pedestal. And what he’d found in this woman that he couldn’t find at home. You know?

  With his wife?

  “Yeah. Whatever,” Jo said tightly, then looked over her shoulder, also checking to make sure Jack was nowhere near. Satisfied, she leaned in toward Carol, and keeping her voice at a low hiss of disapproval, she said, “Jack’s a kid. We keep him safe because . . .” She took a deep, ragged breath. “Because he’s family. He’s a Marconi and Marconis stand together.”

  Carol jerked a nod.

  “But make no mis
take,” Jo continued. “You are nothing to me. You are just the woman who stole a dying woman’s husband.”

  Carol winced, but took it.

  Mike felt a grudging admiration for her.

  “And as far as I’m concerned,” Jo finished, “that makes you less than just about everything on earth.”

  “Fine. Then we understand each other,” Carol said quietly.

  “Damn straight,” Jo muttered, just as the boy came back, clutching a dripping soda.

  “I spilled it,” he said. Unnecessarily, since orange soda was liberally sprinkled across his white T-shirt and dribbling down his arm.

  “No problem,” Jo told him. She dropped one arm around his shoulders, turned him around, and headed back to the hallway. “I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”

  Lucas saw the headlights streak across the darkness and knew Mike had arrived. And he’d never been more happy about seeing her.

  For two months, every time he saw her truck pull up in the driveway, it had irritated him, set him on edge, wondering what the hell she was going to do next. Now, he was so eager to see her he felt like a kid on Christmas Eve.

  Abandoning the book he’d been pretending to read, he stalked across the living room, opened the door, and stepped out onto the porch.

  Overhead, clouds pushed and shoved at each other as thunder rumbled ominously. The wind kicked up out of nowhere, rattling through the trees, making the dry leaves whisper together in a hush of sound that was horror-movie worthy.

  He went down the stairs, walked onto the damp grass, and stepped into the wind, enjoying the air moving over him. It made him feel alive. And after an afternoon of watching Justin die, he needed that simple, physical reassurance.

  Mike climbed out of her truck and instantly the wind lifted her long, loose blond hair and flew it around her head like a banner announcing her presence. She slammed the truck door and then leaned against it as if she were too tired to take another step.

  Not surprising. After no sleep the night before, she’d been running on pure adrenaline today. Bound to crash.