“The time for pretending is over.”
She blew out a breath and met his gaze. Pale blue eyes stared back at her. Misery shone in those familiar depths, along with hope.
She knew those feelings. She’d been so terrified yesterday, that they were going to lose him. She thought about Lucas at home, dealing with a brother he was going to lose, no matter what. And she felt . . . confused? Oh yeah. Grateful? That, too. And still, just a little hurt.
To protect herself, delay the inevitable, she said quickly, “The last time we were together in a hospital, I was the one in the bed.”
“I remember,” he said, his gaze locked on hers.
“I was scared then, too.” Her voice dropped to a hush as memories reared up, demanding to be noticed.
She didn’t remember the accident. That was probably a blessing. She did remember hitchhiking and a guy stopping to pick her up.
The minute she was in the car with him, she smelled the alcohol. The whole car reeked of it. He was happy. Celebrating some big business deal. And he’d told her she shouldn’t hitchhike. Too dangerous. But she was safe with him. She tried to make him stop—even runaways knew better than to drive with a drunk. He didn’t stop, though. Just kept driving and talking and laughing and then he shook a cigarette out of a pack and stuck it in his mouth.
The car weaved back and forth across the highway while he fumbled with a lighter. Mike yelled at him to be careful, but he laughed again. Then the car drifted farther, into oncoming traffic.
Headlights speared in through the windshield. The man screamed and that sound echoed in her brain over and over again as Mike slid into darkness.
When she woke up, the cops told her the drunk had died, along with the guy they’d hit. She was the lucky one. She lived. Of course, her internal injuries were so severe they’d had to remove most of her ovaries. And at seventeen, she’d had to look up into a kind doctor’s face as he told her there was a ninety-six percent chance she would never have children.
She’d paid a heavy price for running. Now Papa was paying a price of his own.
“I remember lying in the bed, feeling so damn sorry that I’d run again. That I’d disappointed you and scared Mama, again.”
“We understood, Michaela. We hurt because you hurt.”
She nodded, her grip on the bedrail tightening as the past faded and the present slammed hard into her heart.
“Did Mama know?” she blurted, surprised by the words because she really hadn’t known that question was inside her, waiting to come out.
“No.” He understood what she was talking about now and reassured her as fast as he could. Reaching for one of Mike’s hands, he said, “I would not have hurt her by telling her the truth only to make myself feel better. Confession is not always good for the soul.”
Mike shook her head and sighed. She knew he believed that. But the truth was, a woman always knew. Husbands might think they could keep indiscretions separate from their real lives. But wives always knew.
“Papa, even if she didn’t know—it hurt her.”
“Do you think I don’t know?” he asked quietly, his voice barely more than a breath. “Do you think I haven’t lived with my own guilt, my own shame, all these years?”
“Why, Papa?” Her eyes filled with tears and she lifted her free hand to brush them away. “Why would you do it?”
He sighed and it seemed to come from the bottom of his soul. “It was a hard time, Michaela. Your mama was sick. I was scared.”
“You? Scared?”
A brief, sad smile curved his mouth and was gone again in an instant. “More scared than I’ve ever been before in my life. I couldn’t help her. Couldn’t do anything for her. She was slipping away from me to a place I couldn’t reach.”
Oh God, she remembered it all so well. Mama sick, closing herself off in her room—her own pain and misery making her look for a cave to hide in.
Papa sleeping on the sofa, so he wouldn’t disturb her in the night. Him standing outside their bedroom door, wanting to at least see her, but unsure if he should bother her or not. If she’d welcome him or not.
She remembered she and her sisters creeping through the house, not wanting to make any noise. All of them afraid to admit that Mama was dying. Afraid to look at the crumbling world around them.
And God, she remembered how she ran.
All the times she ran and hid, wanting to escape. Wanting to run from the pain and the fear of losing Mama. Until that last time, when she’d ended up in a hospital and seen the fatigue and sorrow in Mama’s eyes.
In her own way, Mike had made it all so much harder. She hadn’t helped. She’d been that one last straw on the back of an already crippled camel.
“So you ran away, too,” she said quietly.
Surprise flashed in his eyes and she knew he was grateful that she could understand. “Yes. I ran. I’m ashamed. But I ran. I went to a bar in San Jose. Someplace to hear people talk about things other than death and sickness. To hear music and remember life was still going on. And I talked to a nice young woman—a waitress there—who was in college at night. She was alone. And I . . . felt alone.”
“Carol.” One word. One name. And it hung in the room like a neon banner flashing ADULTERER.
“Yes. Carol.” He scraped one hand across his face, smoothing his beard unnecessarily. “She had problems of her own. And we . . . talked. It helped. Talking to someone who didn’t need something from me. Someone who didn’t expect me to have all the answers.”
Mike’s insides twisted. She wanted to yell at him. To ask him if he really thought that explanation made everything okay. But she could see in his eyes that he didn’t.
“And it happened,” he said softly, letting it go at that, and Mike really didn’t need a picture drawn, thanks very much.
“When Carol found out she was pregnant, she told me,” he said. “She wanted the baby. And how could I ask her to get rid of a child?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t. So she went to San Francisco. Got a job. Had the baby. I went home to watch my Sylvia die and I helped Carol—and Jack—when I could.”
“Jack knew about us.”
Papa frowned. “You’re his sisters. He should know you.”
“He’s our brother,” Mike said flatly. “We should have known him.”
Yes,” he admitted, his voice tired. “You should have . . . now you can.”
That was too much to think about at the moment, so she simply shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other and said, “Maybe.”
Papa cleared his throat and asked, “Where is Josefina? I haven’t seen her.”
Mike shifted her gaze to the far wall, where an oversized clock was ticking off the seconds. “Jo was here yesterday, waiting with us. She’s—”
“Mad at her papa.”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “And you, Michaela? How do you feel?”
She blew out a breath. “I’m still a little mad, too,” she admitted, wondering if that feeling would ever completely go away. “But maybe I understand better because of what happened to me when Mama was dying. And I love you, Papa. That doesn’t change.”
His eyes filled with tears and he bit down hard on his bottom lip to keep from giving in to them. When a strong man breaks, it’s not an easy thing to watch.
Carefully, she released the latch on the guard rail and leaned over him to lay her head on his chest. Mike felt Papa’s arms come around her and she closed her eyes on a silent prayer of thanks that he was still a part of her life.
The rest, they’d have to work on.
• • •
Bridget stomped down the back stairs, avoided the rocky path leading down to the lake’s edge, and instead walked through the grass toward the meadow. The storm had passed, the sky was clear, and the wind sharp with the scent of fresh rain.
But the storm inside her was still raging.
So mad she could spit, she kept moving until the hou
se was far behind her. Only then did she drop to the ground and stare back at the place. A lovely home, to be sure, but inside that lovely place lay a man more stubborn, more hardheaded, more exasperating than anyone she’d ever met.
“Who’s the fool, though?” she muttered, letting the wetness of the grass soak into her jeans. “The irritating man or the woman who loves him in spite of himself?”
“You know,” Mike said as she dropped to the ground beside her, “I’ve asked myself that very question a couple of times lately.”
Bridget scowled and flipped her head back, swinging her hair in a wild, fiery arc. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“Surprise.” Mike grinned, drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you—but in my own defense, if you hadn’t been talking to yourself, you probably would have heard me.”
She looked so at home, Bridget thought with a slight pang of envy and a wave of homesickness so thick she could almost taste it. Mike Marconi had an easy way about her, compassionate blue eyes and a temper to match her own. Under other circumstances, they might have been friends. But as Bridget loved a man being shunned by the man Mike loved, she doubted that would be happening now.
“I’ve come out to get a bit of distance between me and those two in there,” she said, careful to keep a tight rein on her temper.
Mike flicked a glance at the house behind her. “They’re arguing?”
“It would be better if they were,” Bridget scoffed. “Instead, Justin pretends to be strong and brave and Lucas pretends his brother isn’t there at all.”
“Family’s not easy,” Mike muttered.
“No, they’re not,” Bree said, thoughtful as she pictured her four older brothers and a mother who thought herself the queen matchmaker of County Mayo. “My own would drive the saints screaming right out of heaven. But to be without them would be worse, I think.”
“True, though the thought is tempting from time to time,” Mike said wistfully. Then her demeanor shifted and her eyes narrowed. “So I’m guessing that Justin’s making you nuts?”
“In a word.” Grabbing up a handful of wet grass, Bree shredded it between her fingers, making green confetti that she threw skyward as soon as she was finished. “The man’s a fool.”
“And you love him.”
“I do,” Bridget snapped. “So I don’t know which of us is the bigger dolt.”
“Never an easy question.”
“And you? Does that coldhearted man of yours make you happy?”
Mike stiffened. “He’s not cold, he’s just—”
“Heartless?”
“You know,” Mike said, her voice low and tight, “I came over to see if I could help and you’re just really starting to piss me off big time.”
Bree looked at her for a long minute, then blew out a disgruntled breath. “I’m sorry. It’s not you I’m furious with. Your only sin is being handy.”
“Been there, done that. Many times.”
Smiling a bit, Bree watched as Mike, too, pulled up a handful of wet grass and shredded it absently. “Why would you be offering to help?”
“Good question,” she said, taking her time about answering. “I guess Lucas is as important to me as Justin is to you. I thought maybe we could look at it like women versus men. Never hurts to have a little backup, does it?”
Some of the tension in Bridget’s chest eased a notch or two and she took a long, deep breath to enjoy it. “It’s kind of you,” she said, “and I’m glad to have the offer. But this problem with Justin is not so easily solved.”
“Why not tell me the problem and find out?”
“Fine, then.” Bridget ground her teeth together, feeling the anger creep back into her heart. She’d needed someone to talk to. Someone to understand. Mike’s offer of friendship had come at just the right time. “Justin’s not only dying, he’s dying stupid.”
“Well, he is a man,” Mike reminded her.
A reluctant smile curved Bridget’s lips briefly. “Too true.”
“What’s he done?”
“It’s what he hasn’t done that matters,” Bridget said, with a furious shake of her head. “What he refuses to do. I’ve told him. All I want from him is his name. I don’t give a flyin’ damn about his money or anything else. Just his name. I want to be his wife. But he won’t do it. Said he won’t make me a widow at twenty-six.”
She glared at the back of the house as if she could stare right through the walls and peel a layer of skin off the man she loved with just the heat of her stare. And then more words rushed from her as if they’d been dammed up too long, and now that her walls had been breached, there was no way to keep them locked away anymore.
“As if not being married will make me less of a widow when he leaves me. Does he think that I won’t mourn?” she demanded, wagging a finger at Mike. “Does he think that as long as I’m single, I’ll be fine? Doesn’t he know that by marrying me, he’ll be helping me?”
Her shoulders slumped, her chin hit her chest, and she felt every bit of air slide from her lungs, as if she were slowly deflating, disappearing.
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Mike whispered.
Bridget’s head whipped up and she stared open-mouthed. She considered denying it, but then asked herself why she should bother. It wasn’t as if she were ashamed. She loved Justin. Knowing that she would have his child—something of him after he was gone—was the only thing holding her together.
“Aye, I am. Justin doesn’t know,” she said before Mike could ask. “I thought to tell him, wanted him to know that something of him would live on. That something of us would live on. But I can’t. Can’t bring myself to tell him, knowing that he’ll never see his child. Never hold it. Never love it.” She inhaled sharply as if she couldn’t quite get enough air. “I don’t want to add to his misery. Isn’t it enough that he’s dying? Would he want to know that he was leaving a child who’ll never know him?”
“Oh God, Bree . . .” Mike’s heart broke.
She dropped both hands to her still flat abdomen and lifted her gaze to Mike’s again. “In Ireland, things’re changin’. Slowly. But still, an unwed mother has a hard road. If I had his name, the baby’s life would be that much easier.”
Mike went on instinct. Moving in close, she wrapped her arms around Bree and held on tight. The other woman cried, softly, desperately, and Mike wondered if life was ever going to right itself again. She wondered if there was a saturation point on pain. Bree’s tears soaked Mike’s shirt and all she could think of was Justin, dying, not knowing what he was leaving behind. And Lucas. What would he think, to know that his brother’s child was alive and well? When Justin was gone, would Lucas ignore the man’s child as he had the man himself?
She closed her eyes and said again, “God, Bree. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not,” she whispered, shaking her head even as tears clogged her voice. “Not about the baby. Only about losing Justin this way. And not being his wife.”
“Baby?” a deep voice asked from close by. “What baby?”
16
Lucas stared down at the two women and held his breath while this latest bit of news dropped to the pit of his stomach like a stone.
A baby?
Trust Justin.
Even dying, he’d not only managed to find love, he’d made a baby.
Bitterness filled his mouth, his heart, and he wanted to shout. To curse whatever fates were handing out joker cards, because he’d sure as hell been given a full deck of ’em.
“Didn’t hear you come up, Rocket Man,” Mike accused, as though he’d sneaked up on them deliberately.
“You were a little busy talking. About a baby.”
“Sounds as though you got an earful,” Bree snapped. “Do you often listen in on other people’s conversations?”
“Hey, I’m walking across my own damn lawn here.”
“Lucas, chill out.”
“Chill out?” He echoed Mike’s
words and felt the top of his head lifting off. “You expect me to relax? I find out Justin’s up to his old tricks again and I’m supposed to chill out?”
Mike glared at him. “What’s up with you?”
“You don’t know him,” he said, words rushing from him as anger pushed them out his throat. “This is just so damn typical. He does whatever the hell he feels like doing and screw the consequences.”
“Consequences?” Bree glared at him. “My baby is not a consequence.”
He shook his head and laughed. “Hell, you’re being left holding the bag and still you’re defending him.”
“I am, and I will,” she said, “to you and to anyone else who thinks they can say what they will about Justin.”
“Damn it, I’m on your side in this.”
“Who asked you to be on my side? And if you were, by the way, you’d be a damn sight kinder to your brother.”
“Kind? Justin doesn’t need kind. Justin needs his ass kicked,” Lucas told her hotly. “The man goes through life with a damn shield around him. Nothing gets through. Nothing hurts him. He just leaves misery and chaos in his wake like a . . . damn garbage scow, leaking crap into the ocean.”
“Crap now, is it?” Bree’s voice was thin and dangerous.
“Lucas, swear to God, you’re digging a hole you might not get out of.”
“Damn it, Mike, the man causes turmoil and never has to pick up the check. Nothing gets past his armor. He walks through minefields and comes out shining.”
“Not now he’s not,” Mike pointed out quietly.
The simple truth of those words plowed a hole through the middle of his gut and Lucas had to take a step back as reality crashed down on him. For years, he’d held a grudge against his twin. For years, he’d cursed the fact that no matter what, Justin sailed through life, untouched by the chaos that surrounded him.
But now . . .
“Your brother’s dying, man,” Bree said, ignoring Mike and focusing solely on the man she’d been taking little bites out of for days. “But he might as well already be a ghost as far as you’re concerned. He’s dying with every breath he takes and you won’t look at him.”
A Crazy Kind of Love Page 20