Set the Night on Fire

by Laura Trentham

  “Why does that beast love me?” Ella asked in a creaky voice.

  “Bacon-scented soap?” Mack leaned in to sniff her. It was meant to be a joke to set her at ease, but he had to quell an impulse to gently bite her neck. Her hair was windblown and her cheeks were pink, and she smelled like a spring day.

  She gave a little laugh, her eyes rolling. “Why did I dab bacon-grease behind my ears?”

  “Sorry I had to send Jackson and Willa this morning. A potential project rolled in looking for an estimate.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I thought maybe you’d be upset.”

  She arched her eyebrows, one corner of her mouth hitching up in a way that made him feel both gauche and turned on. “I don’t expect your undivided attention.”

  “Did it take all morning to get Megan feeling human again?”

  “She’ll live. I left her with a bagel and ginger ale this morning and headed downtown to work on the car show.”

  “Any success?”

  “Some. I have the pizza place, the ice cream shop, and Rufus’s on board to sell food. Plus, Regan Fournette is going to send me a list of vendors she used for block parties when she was mayor.”

  “That’s fantastic.”

  “And not only that, but we have a nice start on a fund for Dave and Marigold.” She presented a fold of paper from her back pocket.

  Mack thumbed through the checks. “Good grief. This was kind of everyone.” He stopped at a business he didn’t recognize. “What is Magnolia Investments?”

  She plucked the checks out of his hand. “They prefer to stay anonymous. I’ll open a new account and get these deposited.”

  His curiosity about the anonymous donor faded. As long as the checks cleared and the money helped his friends, he didn’t care who signed along the dotted line. The car show felt real for the first time, and a shot of nerves had his stomach flip-flopping. “What’s next?”

  “I’m going to work up fliers for you boys to approve and line up advertising. Let me know if there are any websites or magazines you recommend I target.”

  “You’ve made an incredible amount of progress.” When she went to step around him, he blocked her. “Thank you. I would have never been able to pull this off.”

  Her smile was sweet and made her eyes sparkle. “I know.”

  A laugh burst out of him, startling River who barked and jumped around their legs. Ella gave a surprised yelp and shifted away. River calmed down with some well-placed rubs behind her ears, and she looked at Ella with her tongue out and adoration in her eyes.

  “Why don’t you try giving her a pat on the head?” Mack asked.

  “Isn’t that a little close to her mouth?” Ella held her fisted hands against her chest.

  “Give me your hand.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You don’t trust me?” The question reverberated around his head.

  “It’s not you I don’t trust.”

  “She won’t hurt you.” Mack rubbed down River’s nose, and the dog gave his wrist a little lick. River’s puppy-dog eyes begged for her attention. He hoped to God he didn’t look that pathetic.

  Ella took a step backward. “Okay. I get it, dog. You like me and aren’t going to eat my face, but I’m still not petting you.” She retreated to his office and pulled out her laptop.

  Mack was too agitated to sit behind a desk and enter numbers. What he really wanted was to hammer and shape metal until he couldn’t feel his arms. Couldn’t feel anything.

  He whistled for River and headed outside to play fetch. The magnolia tree in the front had certainly grown since he was a kid, yet it seemed smaller to his adult eyes. What was it about youth that distorted memories and made people and places seem bigger than life? But his pop had only been a man—as confused and fallible as Mack.

  A fundamental shift occurred like a dislocated joint popping into place. It was time to act.

  He strode back into the garage and stared at his brothers hard at work. While they meant everything to Mack, he needed to finish this alone. He glanced toward his office. Or did he?

  Ella was wearing her glasses as she twirled a pen between her fingers like a mini-drumstick. Maybe a spot in his truck was waiting for a smart, sassy-mouthed woman who’d stormed into his life like a hurricane.

  As if caught in her vortex, he moved closer. “Will you come with me?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ella looked up. If Mack’s roughened voice wasn’t clue enough that something was amiss, the stark emotion writ large on his face was. She stood and followed him to his truck without asking where they were going. The truth was she would go anywhere with him. Which scared the hell out of her.

  He steered them onto parish back roads, bypassing downtown Cottonbloom entirely. At first, she assumed they were headed south, but when the sun peeked out from the clouds she realized they were actually headed north.

  North toward Jackson?

  The atmosphere in the cab felt full of portent, and she was loathe to break the spell with the trivialness of words. Wherever they were headed, she trusted Mack had his reasons, and good ones too. The truck ate up the miles. She’d never known a comfortable silence with a man. She’d been taught her job was to fill the silence and make things easier. Smoother.

  But she wasn’t a smoother by nature, she was an agitator. That’s one thing she learned the hard way with Trevor.

  When they crossed the wide, muddy Mississippi, her curiosity got the better of her. “I’m all for a sightseeing trip, but may I ask if you have a destination in mind?”

  Mack sighed. It was a sad sound and she reached her hand out to touch his arm. A light touch before she pulled away, not sure if she was overstepping whatever bridge was under construction between them.

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked before dragging you off.”

  “Are you kidnapping me? Are you taking me out in the boonies to dispose of me after you get me to sign papers selling you back the garage?” She kept her voice light and teasing because despite everything—their rocky beginning, her rocky past—she trusted him.

  “When I got up this morning, this was the last thing I expected to be doing.”

  “Where are we headed, Mack?”

  “Oak Grove to see my mother. I need to find Ford.”

  Ella swallowed past a lump. She’d interrupted enough discussions between the brothers to know what this meant. Was he ready to forgive Ford? Or did the plan call for a physical reckoning?

  “Are you sure you don’t want Jackson and Wyatt with you? This should be a family affair.”

  “I don’t want them with me. I want—”

  You. The unspoken word hung in the cab and stole her breath.

  “Do you want me to take you home?” Mack let off the gas, his hands tightening on the steering wheel, his gaze on the road stretching out between the pines.

  A turning point was upon them, the signposts indistinct.

  If she had any hope of protecting her heart, she should insist upon returning to Cottonbloom. Except all she had waiting was a bottle of wine and a cold house. She wanted to stay right where she was—by his side.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll gladly go with you if that’s what you want.”

  “I want.” The two words seemed to embody more than her accompanying him on a road trip to see his estranged mother and brother.

  Now that they were in agreement and barreling closer to Oak Grove by the minute, she filled the space with small talk. Although, it didn’t feel small. From his favorite movie (Braveheart) to his favorite food (chicken and dumplings) to his favorite color (green like the forest that backed up to the garage), every new thing she learned about him fascinated her.

  As they drew closer to Oak Grove, his body lost its relaxed state behind the wheel. He sat up straighter and clutched the wheel.

  “How much farther?”

  “Another half hour, I think.”

  “What are you expecting to find? Answers?”


  His laugh contained no humor. “I’m not even sure what the questions are.”

  “Is this all about Ford?”

  He laid his head back, his shoulders hunching. “I don’t know anymore. I mean, that’s how it started. But once Jackson met with our mother I couldn’t help but be curious.”

  She didn’t sense anger in him, but something potent simmered below the surface of his stoic attitude. Frustration perhaps. Resentment certainly.

  “You want to know why she left.” She didn’t pose it as a question.

  “How could a mother walk off and leave her kids without looking back?”

  “How do you know she didn’t look back? How do you know she didn’t want to come home but couldn’t?”

  “You sound like Jackson. He said she wanted to come back but Pop wouldn’t let her.” He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it as messy as his mood. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s better not to know. Maybe the past needs to stay there. This is crazy.” His foot eased off the accelerator.

  “It’s not crazy to want to reconnect with your mother, Mack.”

  “She doesn’t know I’m coming. I wasn’t sure I’d make it before turning around.”

  “If I were in her shoes, it wouldn’t matter. She’ll be happy to see you.”

  Ella ran her hand down his arm and linked their fingers. She didn’t know what they were to each other or what they might become, but in the moment, he’d chosen her to have his back, and she refused to let him down.

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive her.” While vitriol clung to his words, it was losing its grip.

  “Give her a chance to look into your eyes and explain before you decide if she’s worthy of your forgiveness. Either way, I’ll be here.”

  The tension in his body dissipated, his hand loosening around hers, but he didn’t pull away. Sitting next to him holding his hand felt scarily natural.

  “And if she’s not worthy?”

  “You move on, and she becomes a footnote to your life.” If it were only so simple. Ella shifted to watch the trees streak green past the passenger window.

  “Is that what your mom is? A footnote?” he asked.

  “Actually, she takes up an entire appendix.” She tried to laugh, but failed. Although, he didn’t press her, she could sense his curiosity. Considering their mission, did she owe him a piece of her past? “I tried to reconcile with my mom after the divorce.”

  “It didn’t go well.”

  “It did at first. My stepdad had left the year before on a trucking job out west and never came back.” She’d had to bite back a relieved “Good riddance” when her mom had shared the news. “I hoped, with him out of the picture, Mom and I could rediscover a mythical mother-daughter bond where we went shopping and watched movies together. Instead, all she wanted was money. And lots of it.”

  “Did you give it to her?”

  “Some. Even when I was writing the checks, I recognized money was our only bond. Once I quit bankrolling her, she got snippy and tried to guilt me into taking care of her. I’d had it by then and told her to come find me when she actually wanted to be my mom and not a leech. That was over a year ago.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She tracked down my stepdad out west and joined him. I guess he got tired of whatever sidepiece he had followed. We have no contact.”

  “And you’re good with that?”

  “I have to be. It was the family I was dealt. And I hit the jackpot with Grayson. I only wish I’d had him for longer. He was the best brother anyone could ask for.” A lump in her throat choked off the words. “I don’t have a family anymore.”

  It was a strange thing to be without family. Her divorce from Trevor, as necessary as it had been, had been yet another tether snapped. Being around the Abbotts reminded her how wonderful and stabilizing a family could be while highlighting her own loneliness.

  Mack lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss on the back of hers. The gesture was sweet and left her unable to speak for entirely different reasons. They travelled the roads together in silence, but a new level of understanding had been unlocked.

  Mack straightened and pulled away, gripping the steering wheel in both hands. “We’re coming into Oak Grove.”

  Using the truck’s navigation system, she guided him to his mother’s house. Mack pulled the truck up to the curb across from a normal-looking middle-class one-story brick house similar to the one she’d grown up in.

  She pushed her car door open and was halfway out when she realized Mack hadn’t moved. “Do you want to do this?”

  He made a noise that might have been a bark of laughter. “Of course I don’t want to do this. I feel like I’m checking into the hospital for open-heart surgery.”

  “Then turn the truck around and let’s go home. It’s as easy as that.”

  Mack rested his forehead on the steering wheel. “Nothing’s been easy since Pop died,” he said softly.

  Ella wanted to curl herself around his back and lay her head on his hunched shoulders. But that’s not what he needed. He needed someone to give him a kick in the pants. “Get out of the truck, Mack. Let’s do this. Sitting here dreading it is worse than facing up to it.”

  * * *

  At a loss for a quick response, Mack blinked at Ella. Any empathy in her voice had been hacked away and replaced by determination and fire. She was right, of course. The longer he sat in the truck, the harder it would be to break the laws of inertia. Might as well get the painful process rolling even if it was like pulling a truck with his teeth.

  Best-case scenario, he got Ford’s address and was back in the truck in five minutes. Worst-case, he didn’t get Ford’s address, his mother turned out to be as selfish and hateful as his pop charged time and again, and he was back in the truck in five minutes.

  He forced himself out of the truck, gravity working double-time on his limbs. Ella met him at the bumper and threaded her fingers in his, giving them a slight squeeze.

  The hours he’d spent imagining his mother’s return had included hugs and apologies and promises to never leave. As he grew older, the bitterness that had infected his pop found a new host in Mack. “I can’t do this.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  Her statement shouldn’t mean anything to him, but it meant everything and lent him the strength he needed to walk across the street on legs that threatened collapse.

  Rosebushes lined the brick path to her front door. A memory surfaced. Multi-hued roses in a mason jar on the kitchen table, dropping petals onto the dark wood. He remembered taking a fallen petal and rubbing it against his lips, marveling at the softness with a new awareness of the amazingness of nature.

  From the budding rosebushes to the green ferns on the porch to the dark red bricks, the house exhibited a warm welcome. When she’d crossed his mind in recent years, he alternately pictured her in a cold, decrepit trailer or remarried with new kids to replace him.

  “I should’ve called,” he croaked out.

  “She’ll be happy to see you no matter what.”

  An Easter-themed welcome sign hung on the door. It was such a homey, motherly thing to have. A hot knife of emotion sliced through his chest. He was torn between resentment and a longing for something and someone lost forever.

  When he didn’t move, Ella held his gaze and pushed the doorbell. He balanced on a point of no return.

  Slightly discordant notes chimed, and the longer he waited, the more lightheaded he became. The door chain rattled and the door creaked open. His mother was revealed as if time had lost any relation to Einstein’s theories.

  The first thing he noticed was her hair. Once dark like Wyatt’s, it was shot through with gray, and hung to her shoulders in a thick mass. Her eyes belong to Wyatt too, but something about the set of her mouth, determined and a little cynical, was reminiscent of what stared back at him in the mirror every morning.

  She was a stranger yet eerily familiar from his dreams and memories.
/>   “Mack.” She breathed his name as if any sudden movement might scare him away.

  Actually, that wasn’t too far off the mark. He considered hightailing it back to his truck and hiding like the time she caught him eating all of the cookies she’d made for dessert. He couldn’t have been more than four. Instead of spanking him, she had made him sit at the table and read to her while she made another batch.

  “Hi,” he said inanely.

  His mother’s gaze ricocheted between him and Ella, but he was too far lost to attempt an introduction.

  Ella smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Ella Boudreaux.”

  “Nice to make your acquaintance. Come in. Please.” She stepped back and gestured them inside, never taking her eyes off Mack.

  Entering her house felt like a betrayal of his pop. His head and heart tried to reconcile his feelings as he slid one foot across the threshold. When nothing momentous happened—like getting struck by lightning—he stepped fully inside.

  The smell of fresh-baked goods cast him back almost thirty years, and he was a little kid again. A timer beeped, and his mother started as if coming out of a dream.

  “I need to check the cookies. Come in and make yourselves at home.” She hustled through a doorway to their left.

  Mack followed one slow step at a time. Ella gave him a push from behind, and he entered a wood-paneled den that opened into a remodeled kitchen. His mother was fanning a baking sheet of what appeared to be oatmeal raisin cookies—his favorite.

  The mantel was lined with photographs. They were a march through their family history from when they were babies to the final picture of the brothers in suits from their pop’s funeral. Hazel had taken the somber shot.

  He returned to the first picture. Ford and Mack stood on either side of a rocking chair grinning like fools. His mother was perched on the seat of the rocker, juggling two squalling newborns. Although she was young and pretty, her smile was so slight as to be missed and a desperation was aimed at the camera or perhaps at the man taking the picture, his pop presumably.

  “Those were hard days.” His mother’s voice came from behind him.