“A goofball?” Val shook her head, then winnowed her fingers through Josie’s waves. “I was much too busy being serious,” she said, making a snooty face, which made Josie laugh again. One day, maybe, she’d tell her daughters about her own childhood, but that day was way off in the future. Right now it was about them, about the present, not the past. And certainly not about Val’s past. “I’d like to think I’ve loosened up some since then, though.”
“Well, I think you’re just right,” Josie said, and Val’s chest ached. How was it possible that she somehow loved her babies more every day than she had the day before? And she prayed with all her heart that this one not lose sight of that amazing combination of sweetness and smarts and silliness that made her one incredible little kid.
“Well, I think you’re just right, too,” she said, giving her oldest daughter a hug and kiss. “You and Risa both.”
The same as she’d believed Tomas was just right, she thought as she—and the reluctant hound—left the room, making sure the door wasn’t closed all the way. Someone else who was sweet and smart and silly, who’d filled up a hole inside her she hadn’t even known was there. Or at least wouldn’t admit to. And she could still, even after all this time, remember when she first realized there this was someone who got her, someone she could trust without a moment’s hesitation. She’d never doubted his love. Or believed he’d ever give her a reason to. The way he’d looked at her, with that mixture of gratitude and amazement—that had never changed. And that, she would miss for the rest of her life.
But she’d also thought she understood him, that they were on the same page about what they wanted, what their goals were. Except then—
Stop. Just...stop.
Pulling her hoodie closed against the evening chill, Val went back down to the cramped kitchen to make herself some hot chocolate, gather the ingredients to make this pie, the dog keeping her hopeful company. She poured milk into a mug and set it in the old microwave on the disgusting laminate counter, berating herself for letting her thoughts go down this path. Because she knew full well she’d only get sucked right back into the rabbit hole of hurt and depression she had to fight like hell not to go near, for the kids’ sake.
But the nights were hard, silent and long and lonely, those thoughts whistling though her head like the wind in a cemetery.
The microwave beeped. She dumped Nesquik into the mug, swearing under her breath when half of it landed on the counter, the minor aggravation shoving her into the rabbit hole, anyway. And down she went, mad as hell but helpless to avoid it. Yes, her husband’s work—work he loved and was good at—had been work that had saved probably countless lives. But it wasn’t fair, that after everything she’d been through, everything she’d thought she’d finally won, that she’d had to spend so much of the past six years with her heart in her throat.
That he’d made her a widow before she was thirty.
Val shut her eyes, not only against the pain, but the frustration of not being able to get past it, to appreciate her husband’s sacrifice. Dammit, everything Tomas did was for other people. Why couldn’t she feel more proud of him? Why, no matter how hard she tried, couldn’t she feel something more than that he’d abandoned them, broken his promise to her, to their children?
Hideous, selfish thoughts she didn’t dare admit to anyone. Ever.
Radar nosed her hand; her eyes wet, she smiled down at that sweet face, a face she wouldn’t even be looking at if Tomas hadn’t rescued the dog. Much like he’d rescued Val. She couldn’t imagine—didn’t want to—what her life would have been like if he hadn’t. She wouldn’t have the girls, for one thing. Or his parents, who’d welcomed her as their own from the first time Tomas brought her home to meet them. And yet as grateful as she was for all of that—as in, her heart knew no bounds—none of it made up for what she’d lost.
For what—she took a sip of the hot chocolate, the taste cloying in her mouth—her husband’s friendship with Levi Talbot had stolen from her.
And because the person she was the most honest with was herself, that was something she doubted she’d ever get over.
The haunted look in those murky green eyes notwithstanding.
Chapter Four
“That should do it,” Levi said, testing the new kitchen faucet a couple of times to make sure it didn’t leak. He turned to see Val standing beside him in a baggy T-shirt and even baggier jeans, arms crossed and bare mouth set, as usual. Behind her at the kitchen table Josie was drawing—the little girl tossed him a grin that punched him right in the heart—while Risa pushed and batted at things on her walker, making a helluva racket. And sprawled in the middle of the crappy linoleum floor was the dog, softly whoop-whooping in his sleep.
“Thanks,” Val said, refusing to meet Levi’s gaze. “Did you put the receipt in the can?”
“I did. And you don’t have to keep asking—I’m a quicker study than you might think.”
She might’ve smiled, but she still wouldn’t look at him. So he glanced around the kitchen instead as he clunked and rattled his tools back in their metal box. In the past week, besides finishing up the porch, Levi had replaced a couple of the worst windows on the side of the house that got the most brutal winds, installed three new ceiling fans and changed out the disintegrating faucets. Except for the porch, all Band-Aid-type stuff until Val stopped dragging her feet about the more major projects. Like a sorely needed kitchen remodel. Hell, half the cabinets didn’t even close anymore, and the laminate counters were completely worn through in places. However, since Val seemed loath to talk to him for more than a minute at a time, there was no telling when that—or anything else—might actually happen.
So he prodded. A skill he’d inherited from both his parents, apparently.
“You decide yet what kind of cabinets you want?”
He heard her sigh. “Keep going back and forth between white and cherry. Or maybe maple?”
“And the counters?”
“Butcher block. Or quartz.” She pushed out another breath. “The family said it’s up to me, but...” Levi glanced over to see her bony shoulders hitch. “What’s the hurry, right?”
“Although you might as well take advantage of free labor as long as you can. Since I don’t know how long I’m gonna be around.”
Her brows, as pale as her hair, dipped. “I can afford to pay someone, Levi. I could afford to pay you. I’ve got my own money—”
“And you’ve got plenty better things to do with that money.” Meaning Tommy’s life insurance. As if there was any way in hell he’d take that. “Like put it away for the girls. For college or whatever. This is my gift, Val. To all of you. So let it go.”
She paused. “And how long... I mean—”
“Until I’m done or you throw me out. Whichever comes first.”
Pressing fingers into the base of her skull underneath her ponytail, she looked away again before offering another half-assed smile. “Well. Okay. Thanks.”
“So I take it you’re not throwing me out?”
“No. Not yet, anyway.”
“Then we’re good,” he said, even though they weren’t. Not by a long shot. He started toward the front door. The dog didn’t even bother to get up. Lazy butt mutt. “But since we can’t get going on the kitchen until you make a few decisions,” he said, facing her, “I may as well start digging up those dead bushes out front on Monday. Maybe we could go over to the nursery, pick out something to replace them?”
“Oh, um...no, that’s okay, I’ll take the girls one afternoon. That’ll save you some time, right?”
It was no skin off his nose whether they went to the nursery together or not. Especially since she was right, it would save time. But what rankled was how obvious she was being, that she didn’t want to be around him.
No, what rankled was why he even gave a damn. But all he said was, “Sure, no problem,” then called back down the hall, “Bye, Josie!”
“Bye, Levi! See you on Monday?”
“You bet,” he said, then walked through the door, across the newly stained porch and out to his truck, feeling unaccountably pissed.
Again.
At first, Levi thought maybe her reluctance to move forward was because the house wasn’t really hers. Except he eventually realized it wasn’t the house she was avoiding talking about as much as it was him she was avoiding talking to. So he’d apparently imagined things thawing between them, when he’d made her laugh...when he’d thought he’d caught her looking at him like maybe he wasn’t quite the slimeball she remembered.
Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time his imagination had played tricks on him. Not that she was snotty to him or anything, but she was cool. Careful. What he didn’t get was why that bugged him. Especially since he couldn’t remember the last time he’d given a rat’s ass whether or not somebody approved of him. Even so, he wouldn’t mind hearing that laugh again.
Being the cause of it.
Hell.
He pulled up in front of the nondescript ranch-style house his folks had been living in for the past year, a gift from Dad’s old boss after his father’s heart attack two years before forced him into early retirement. But the squat little house with its brown siding and white shutters seemed too small and plain to contain his parents’ boisterous personalities. Too...ordinary. Heart attack or no, Levi doubted Dad would go gently into that good night. And for sure his mother never would, he thought with a soft laugh. But he supposed it would do.
His father was making sandwiches in the kitchen—bright, cheery, reasonably updated—when Levi got home, so he guessed Mom was on call. But since Billie Talbot had been a midwife ever since her boys had been old enough to fend for themselves, this was hardly the first time Dad had been left to his own devices.
Half smiling, Levi dumped his toolbox by the back door. “Dad. Really?”
Heavy white eyebrows raised, Sam Talbot turned toward Levi, a slice of bologna dangling from his fingers. He’d definitely lost weight after his scare, but the vestiges of a beer gut still hung over belted jeans. “What?”
“You could at least fire up the grill.”
“Doc said I should avoid too much charbroiled meat.”
“But bologna’s okay?”
“It’s chicken. Or turkey. One of those. Disgusting, but at least on the approved list. Zach said you guys got together for dinner the other night?”
“We did.”
“How’d it go?”
“It went fine.” He chuckled at his father’s side eye. “We’re all grown up now, Dad. We can be around each for more than five minutes without coming to blows.”
“Those boys of theirs...they’re something else, aren’t they?”
“They are that.”
Levi was grateful for the easy, ordinary conversation, one that would’ve never happened a dozen years before. So unlike that excruciatingly long stretch when he and his dad never quite saw eye to eye. About anything. If Dad took one side, Levi invariably latched on to the other. In fact, he’d once heard his mother tell someone at church—laughing, at least—that Levi had been born fighting the world. Unlike his brothers, had been the unspoken addition to that sentence, who’d never seemed to struggle like Levi did to live up to their father’s high standards.
Not that Dad had ever actually said, “Why can’t you be more like them?” but Levi hadn’t been blind to the frustration in those smoky-gray eyes. Problem was, he’d had no idea how to do that. Hell, at that point he hadn’t clue one how to be himself—or what that even meant. Even now he wasn’t entirely sure if one of the reasons—among many—he’d enlisted was to prove something to himself or his dad, but considering how much better things were between them since Levi’s return, he’d achieved his goal. He and Dad might still be feeling their way with each other, but he knew his father was proud of him.
Levi opened the fridge to get a beer—light, of course, nothing else allowed in the house—spotting the defrosted, already seasoned chicken breasts sitting on a plate, right at eye level. Where, you know, even a man wouldn’t miss them. “There’s chicken in here, ready to go. Real chicken, I mean. Why don’t I cook ’em up for us—”
“And I swear if I eat one more piece of chicken I’ll start clucking.”
Levi looked over at the sandwich. Piled high with the fake bologna. “But...” He sighed. “Never mind,” he said, then pulled out the plate of chicken. Although frankly he’d kill for a steak. Or a hamburger. But these days the animal protein offerings at Casa Talbot were limited to things with feathers or fins. Didn’t seem fair to torment his father by bringing home something the poor man couldn’t have. So pan-broiled chicken it was.
For the third time this week.
“So how’re things progressing with the house?” Dad asked, sitting at the table with his sandwich and a glass of low-fat milk as, with much clanging and banging, Levi wrestled the cast-iron frying pan out of the stove’s bottom drawer.
“Okay.” He clunked the pan onto the gas burner. “Needs a boatload of work, though.”
“I can imagine. Place was falling apart thirty years ago.”
“You were inside it?”
“Oh, yeah.” Dad took a bite of the sandwich, made a face and grabbed his milk glass. “Pete Lopez and I used to hang out some, when we were kids. When we could, anyway, when he wasn’t working for his dad at the store and I wasn’t out at the ranch with mine.”
As usual, Levi heard the slight regret in his father’s voice, that out of four sons only one had followed in the family tradition of working at the Vista. But the ranching bug had only bitten Josh, who’d taken over as foreman after his dad’s retirement. Didn’t take a genius to figure out his father hated that a single wonky organ—albeit an important one—had ripped away from him the one thing, outside his wife and sons, he most loved.
“Anyway,” Dad was saying, “I spent a fair amount of time in that house. Big place. But dark. Gloomy.”
“And free, for as long as Val likes. It’ll be nice, once it’s fixed up.”
He could sense his father’s gaze lasering into his back. He turned to the same frown that used to scare the bejesus out of all of them when they were kids.
“How’s she doing?”
Even though he doubted either of his parents knew Val all that well—she’d only been over to the house a couple of times when they were kids, after Tommy’d started seeing her but before the bubble around them had set—his father’s interest didn’t really surprise him. That’s just the way it was in small towns. With his dad, especially, who’d tried poking around Levi’s head enough, after he got back, even if Levi wasn’t about to give him full access.
“On the surface?” Levi now said, not wanting to think about Val. Unable to think about much else. “As well as could be expected, I suppose. Although she doesn’t seem the type to go crying on people’s shoulders, in any case.”
“She always did strike me as a tough little thing.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
His dad was quiet for a moment, then said, “Her mother passed away four, five years ago now. Did she tell you?”
Levi turned back to the stove to flip the chicken sizzling away in the scant tablespoon of olive oil he’d poured into the pan. He supposed it wasn’t surprising that she hadn’t. Something they had in common, maybe, not being partial to exhuming the past. Examining it, dissecting it.
“No,” he said, rearranging the chicken. “But Tommy mentioned it.” At the beginning, even after their military careers took them in different directions, they’d kept up—emails, texts, the occasional phone call. Less and less, though, as time went on. Oddly, Levi remembered the text, partly because of its brevity. Only that Natalie Oswald had died, nothing more. “No reason, really, for Val to bring it up, though. I gathered there was no love lost there.”
“And I imagine you’d be right.” His sandwich done, his father crossed his arms high on his chest, frowning. “Your mother tried to make friends with her.
Val’s mother, I mean.”
Levi twisted around. “You’re joking.”
Dad snorted a soft laugh through his nose. “Nope. Because that’s your mother, determined to see the good in everybody. Or at least not get caught up in the gossip, which tends to get blown out of proportion. Especially in a town this small. Anyway, after Natalie got sick and that last boyfriend of hers took off, your mom and Tommy’s mother took it on themselves to go out there now and again, to make sure she had what she needed or take her to the doctor’s, whatever. Since there didn’t seem to be anybody else. And I know Billie felt bad for Natalie, that her daughter wasn’t around. Until she got to know the woman better and realized the gossips had missed half the story.”
“Half the story?”
“What’d you hear, when you guys were in school? About Val’s mother?”
“Not...nice things,” he said, and Dad chuckled.
“It’s okay, you can say it—that she was the town tramp. Not that it was anybody’s business how she conducted her personal life. And your mother figured, that was all there was to it. Not pretty, but hardly a punishable offense. At least in this century.
“But as time went on, your mother began to understand why the boyfriends never stuck around. Even making allowances for how sick the woman was in her last months, she never seemed to appreciate anything anybody did for her. Instead she snapped and snarled and griped about everything. And your mom finally realized the illness hadn’t made her mean—that’s just the way she was. So can you imagine the childhood Valerie must’ve had? How tough she’d had to be to survive? And we don’t even know what some of those men her mother brought home might’ve been like. Tomas ever say anything to you about it?”
His gut twisting, Levi shook his head. “Nothing beyond what everyone already knew. If Val said anything to him, he kept it to himself.”
“Not surprised. He was a good boy.”
“Yeah. He was.”
“Which makes it even worse, that Valerie should finally find some peace, only to have it snatched away from her like that.” Dad pushed out a breath. “It’s the tough ones—the ones who keep their feelings all wadded up inside them—who’re usually hurting the most. But if that hurt doesn’t find a way out...” His father got up to put his plate and glass in the dishwasher. “Things have a way of exploding.”
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