by Zoe York
She waited just long enough to let him know that she knew that wasn’t a complete answer. “How are the kids?”
“Sad. Scared. Acting out a bit.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Seriously? You couldn’t ask a more clichéd question?”
She laughed. “Sorry. Why don’t you tell me what you wanted to talk about today?”
He shook his head. “I don’t really know. The kids, I guess. Coping strategies for when they act out, when we have bad days.”
“Ahh.” She reached behind her and grabbed a sheet of paper. “Maybe this support group would be more your speed.”
He took the information sheet to be polite, but he wasn’t comfortable with his own grief—he definitely didn’t want to deal with other people’s sob stories.
“Ryan…” She trailed off, waiting until he looked at her. Her round, slightly lined face was dangerously close to sympathetic. He didn’t want empathy or sympathy or anything. He just wanted to know how to get his life back on track. “Okay. Maybe not an entire group. But the coordinator…her name is Faith. She’s a widow, about your age, and she’s not big on feelings. She’s a survivor. Email her and tell her you’re looking for tips on helping your kids, and she’ll give you just that, nothing more.”
— —
He didn’t email the woman from the support group, but he didn’t throw out her contact information, either. He took his kids south to Windsor for the weekend, for a visit with his parents and siblings and their spouses and children. His three sisters, all mothers, fussed over him. His mother and father were a bit better, knowing he still needed some distance. But the only real bright moment, other than seeing his kids happily playing with their cousins, was when his brother Finn came into the city from Wardham, the small lakeside town he’d moved to for love.
“How’s Beth?” Finn’s new wife was eight months pregnant with their first child. They’d met through his work as a marketing expert, and fallen in love when he did some consulting work at the winery she managed in Wardham.
“Good, working like crazy. She’s hired two people to replace her at the winery for the next year.”
“She didn’t let you take over?”
Finn gave him a baleful look. “I know better than to offer. Go West is her domain. Besides, I’ve got my plate full with other consulting work.”
“So that’s going well?”
“Really well. Might hire someone this year to help me.”
“Awesome, man.” Ryan grabbed two beers from his parents’ fridge and nodded to the side door leading to the driveway. It was after dark, and the kids were all in bed, but their parents were around and he didn’t want to talk, exactly, but if they did wander into any touchy subjects, he wanted to be able to vent without judgement.
Finn waited until their beers were half-drunk before asking if Ryan was okay. But he didn’t do it the same way as their sisters, or the counsellor, or any of the well-meaning residents of Pine Harbour. No, his brother just slid him a sideways glance and asked, “Don’t you ever want to get laid again?”
Damn. He laughed, because that was the point of the question, to shake him out of his funk. But it had quietly poked at him for a few weeks. The answer was complicated. Yes. No. Yes, in abstract, and no, not when he gave even half a thought to the logistics of that. “I wouldn’t even know where to look.”
“Dating sites?”
Ryan recoiled at the idea. No, he definitely wasn’t ready for dating. And since he wasn’t his brother, who’d been a bachelor-extraordinaire until Beth had tipped him sideways into unexpected monogamy the year before, that meant that de facto, he wasn’t ready for sex, either. “It’s more complicated with kids.” He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the look on his brother’s face when he admitted the next fact. “And it’s not like Lynn and I were super active in that regard, anyway. This hasn’t been the longest stretch of celibacy in my life.”
Finn didn’t say anything, and when Ryan finally looked his way, his brother was staring into the distance.
“What?”
“I don’t want to say anything ill of the dead, man.”
“I know you weren’t her biggest fan.”
“For you. She was nice, and a good mom, but you guys had trouble.”
“Sure we did. But I still loved her. And not just because we had three kids.”
“Okay.”
“What?”
Finn shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Don’t handle me with kid gloves. I may be battered and bruised, but I’m not fucking fragile.”
“She’s gone. You don’t have to keep being faithful to her.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” And if it was, that wouldn’t be a bad thing—he was still talking to her as if she wasn’t gone. She was still in his heart. “The God’s honest truth is that I’m just getting through the fucking day. I don’t have time to think about cologne and flowers and bear skin rugs and seduction. Or whatever the hell voodoo magic it was you worked to make women get naked with you. That’s all.”
“You don’t have any misplaced guilt?”
“No.” His guilt wasn’t misplaced, so the answer rolled right off his tongue.
His brother gave him a long, doubtful look before tipping his bottle back and draining the rest of his beer.
“It’s not about being faithful to Lynn, okay?” Ryan sucked in a painful breath. “It’s about being distracted from them.” He gestured to the house, where his kids slept in a pile in the guest room. “Lynn did everything for them. Lunches, homework, kissing sore knees…I was just the guy who would wrestle with them for a bit before bed, if I wasn’t at work.”
“You’ve always been more than that to them.”
“I’ve never been their mother.” As it always did, the thought closed up his throat and made his eyes itch.
Finn clapped his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be comforting, or if his brother was holding him in place for a lecture. “It’s not your fault she’s gone.”
Lecture. Right. He twisted his neck, staring into the darkness. “It’s my fault she wasn’t happy.”
His brother sighed. “She wasn’t killed because she was unhappy. She wasn’t at that grow-op because she was unhappy. It’s more complicated than that. And none of the blame for her death rests on your shoulders.”
“But—”
“No fucking buts.” Finn shoved him away, spinning him so they were face to face. Finn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes narrowed. “I will kick your ass if you wear that. Because your kids will sense the guilt. And if you think you’re responsible, what’s that going to teach them? Is it their fault their mother couldn’t cope with a medical diagnosis? That she was an addict, and had been her entire adult life?”
A red haze blurred Ryan’s vision. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
His brother stepped back. Out of smacking range. But Ryan had never been a fighter. “She was.”
“She smoked pot. You make her sound like she had track marks on her arms.”
“I didn’t say it in judgement. It’s just a contributing factor that had nothing to do with you.”
But Ryan judged. He hated that Lynn’s choices had put her in harm’s way, even if it was unexpected and mostly just terrible luck. And then he felt a whole new wave of guilt for that thought, blaming a dead woman who, separate from her faults, had been a wonderful mother and a loyal wife. “We never would have separated. I would have stood by her, supported her through whatever the illness looked like.” But maybe Lynn hadn’t known that. And the fact he’d never know ate him up inside. “I’ll never get to tell her that.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Ryan swallowed the rest of his beer, drowning out the rest of the useless words that didn’t matter anyway. “Tell me something good, Finn.”
His brother turned and faced the yard. The confrontation was over, and the tightness in Ryan’s
chest eased.
“Beth bought the baby a tiny suit.” Finn grinned in the darkness, his happiness palpable, and Ryan couldn’t help but laugh.
“Jesus, let him be a little kid.”
“Babies like calculators and PowerPoint presentations, right? Tiny briefcases and investment accounts?” Finn hopped backwards as Ryan swiped at him with his foot. “Definitely wine, right? Helps them sleep?”
“You’ve got so many sleepless nights ahead of you, brother. I can’t wait.”
“Same.” Ryan recognized that look in his brother’s eye—the love and pride of a father-to-be. And hell, Finn didn’t know the half of it.
“Let Beth be the boss, okay? She calls the shots on feeding.”
Finn nodded as he rubbed his knuckles along his jaw. “We’ve taken these classes, but yeah, there’s so much I don’t know.”
“You’ll figure it out. Shit has a way of working itself out.” Even as he said it, Ryan knew the reminder was true for himself as much as his brother. “Yeah, shut up. I know.”
Finn bumped his shoulder as he stepped toward the door. “Good. Let’s have another beer.”
That conversation with his brother rolled around in Ryan’s head for the rest of their visit.
The next night, once his kids were in bed, he powered up the computer and sent an email to the Bereaved Spouses group coordinator.
Then he went to the kitchen cupboard and poured himself a finger of scotch.
— —
Holly tossed her script across the empty living room. Emmett had gone up to his room to call his partner. She could text him and ask him to come down and run lines with her, and he would. But that would just be torturing them both, because she knew her scenes for the next day inside out—this nervous energy was about something else. The subtle strain of unspoken discord on the set, maybe. Everyone could feel it, but the source hadn’t yet made itself known. They were still in the early days of pleasantries and negotiating alliances.
The politics of a film set were something Holly would happily never experience again…except that would mean not acting. And despite the drama, she loved nothing more than sliding into the skin of another person and bringing a role to life.
Just thinking about being Kathleen made her legs tingle. She’d spent weeks in the wheelchair in L.A., working with a paraplegic choreographer to really nail what she could feel and do and what she couldn’t.
She’d already worked out tonight before dinner. But all last week, as they’d driven away from the cottage before dawn and returned after dark, she’d thought the slightly inclined lane up to the highway would be perfect for hill repeats. She hadn’t had the energy to actually do that, instead letting the elliptical drag her through her hour of mandatory calorie burn each night.
Tonight would be her last chance for the week, because she knew herself—hill repeats weren’t going to happen after a fourteen-hour day of filming.
She grabbed her shoes.
The first climb she kept her speed under control, but after walking back down, she let herself sprint hard on the second go. This wasn’t a workout, she didn’t have a trainer watching and judging, and it didn’t matter if she kept any energy in reserve.
And it felt good to pound against the gravel, pump her arms hard to drive herself faster, and hit that point where everything burned from the inside out. She’d been wound tight all week, waiting for something to crack on set—and now after a single day off, which was hardly enough of a break, they’d do it all over again. Long days of work, trying to make the vision of a crazy man happen.
At least, she assumed James Spencer was crazy. Her shoulders hunched together and she forced them to relax. The movie director was known for being difficult, but he created art. She needed to focus on that promised end result.
The house at the top of the lane was lit up again, after two nights of darkness. The Viking family had returned from wherever they went. She glanced through the kitchen window, but nobody was in there—the lights upstairs probably meant the kids were going to bed.
What would it be like to be tucked in? Have someone draw you a bath and read you a story?
Maggie must have done that for her when Holly was really little. But her earliest memories were of already being self-sufficient at ages five and six. Babysitters and roommates had been just as responsible for overseeing little Holly’s teeth brushing and face washing as much as the pretty young model who didn’t want to be a mother because being a party girl was so much more fun.
She sprinted hard on the last ten metres, jumping up to tap the stop sign before turning and walking back down the hill.
One more, she told herself. One more sprint, one more look inside the happy house. And then back to being the secretly sad rich girl who had no right to such feelings.
But this time, when she got to the top of the hill, she realized she wasn’t alone outside.
Ryan Howard sat on the steps, in the cool shadows of the house, the porch light not on. At first she wasn’t sure he was there and not just a figment of her imagination, but as she drew closer to the crest of the hill, he looked up and their gazes locked. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t been looking at him, watching him in his private moment.
“Hi,” she panted, slowing to a stop.
“Running in the dark, that’s not safe,” he said. His voice had a roughness to it that rubbed at her. It wasn’t unpleasant.
“Not a lot of traffic. Everyone’s tucked in for the night.” There weren’t any other houses on the lane, just his house and the cottages running down to the lake.
“Guess so.” He stood, turning to go inside.
“Wait.” She didn’t know why she said it—she was mid-run, and he obviously wanted to be alone. But as soon as the words were spoken, she knew why they’d burst out of her—she wanted a little bit more of this gruff, intriguing man. She’d thought of him each day as they drove past his house on the way to the film set and now that he was here, alone in the dark with her, she wanted to know more about him. “We’re not bothering you too much?”
He looked at her, brows drawn together, then shook his head. “Been pretty quiet all week, actually.”
“That’s good.”
“The cottages all seem to be in working order?”
She nodded. “Definitely.”
He lifted his glass to his mouth but didn’t take a sip. Instead he just held it there for a moment, then set it on the railing. “How’d you score a room in the biggest house, anyway?”
It took a few seconds for Holly to process the question and realize he didn’t know who she was. Tell him. But if she confessed she was the star of the film, this conversation would be over, she knew that in her bones. Because this man—private, grumpy, wary—didn’t want anything to do with Hollywood types. “Reward for good behaviour?”
He didn’t laugh—didn’t even smirk. But he sat back down on the step and gave her a long, appraising look as he finally took a sip from his glass. “Doesn’t seem likely.”
She shrugged, acknowledging his doubt as valid. “I have an assistant, and we work together in the evening. It’s just how the assignment worked out.” Not a complete lie.
“An assistant?”
“Sounds fancier than it is.” Emmett mostly kept track of her tea and fielded calls from her agent and manager. “How about you? How did you get saddled with taking care of us?”
“My in-laws own the cottages, and rented them out to the film. You’re sleeping in their house.”
Oh. “We booted them out?”
His lips twisted in a humourless smirk. “I think they’re being compensated well for the inconvenience.”
“So if your in-laws own the cottages, how did you got stuck with our complaints?”
“Well, the plan was…” He sighed and shifted his gaze into the distance. “The plan changed. They’ve headed out of town for a bit. Anyway, so far, you’re the only complainer.”
“Ah, but I fixed the problem myself!”
He lifted both brows at her declaration. “After I drew you a map to the furnace room.”
“Right. Thank you for that.”
“That’s my job.”
“Are you a full-time handyman?” She was babbling now, and couldn’t stop herself. Normally she could do this, talk to anyone and draw them into a conversation, but she’d lost that reserved poise she usually managed as Hope. She felt off-kilter and flustered. Get over yourself and leave the poor man alone.
He laughed, for real this time. “No.”
She wanted to poke him for more information, but who he was and what he did wasn’t any of her business. She stepped backwards toward the road. I’m going, she told herself. Damn slowly, her better half responded with a solid dose of snark.
Maybe that was because he was watching her. Even as the space between them stretched to meters, he held her gaze.
“Well, thanks again,” she said, lifting her voice.
He nodded, a small smile almost curling the corners of his mouth. “No problem. You see me again out here, feel free to stop and say thanks whenever you want. I don’t hear it often from my regular bosses.” He notched his thumb back toward the house. His kids.
Right. She had no business flirting with this man, even by accident.
She turned on her heel and joggled away, not looking back, even though she really wanted to.
— FOUR —
WEDNESDAY was always the kids’ favourite day of the week. Ryan paraded with his Army reserve unit in the evening, which meant the kids had a rotating pizza date with either Olivia or her sister-in-law, Dani—Ryan’s former co-worker from when he was a paramedic. Both of them were like family to the kids, the best kind of adopted aunts—pizza-serving, secret-keeping, and always fun. Their respective men were both in the infantry reserves with Ryan, and he appreciated the continued efforts of all his friends to shove him out the door, forcing him to be moderately social and productive.
