by Francis Ray
Mama is gone. I’m not sure we could make it if we lost Daddy, too.
Paul had realized he was letting his children down, turning his back on them the same way his wife had turned her back on him. The next morning he’d poured the stashed whisky down the drain.
It hadn’t been easy turning his life around, but each day had been a little bit better than the one before. Yet, staying in the house he’d once shared with his ex-wife, knowing she was now married to another man, had been too much. Without telling the children, he’d sold the house, hoping to finally be free of the past.
He hadn’t been. He quickly learned the memories were in his mind, his heart. He could no more forget them than he could forget or stop loving the woman who’d betrayed him.
Paul stopped at the signal light outside the city limits of Santa Fe. He hadn’t been back since Faith’s wedding. He wouldn’t be back now if she hadn’t asked him to come visit this week, if he had the time. She never badgered, never made him feel guilty for all the times he’d stayed away because his ex had been visiting. That wasn’t Faith’s way.
The light turned to green and he pulled off. He could now admit to himself that he’d been selfish enough and injured enough to want his children to hate their mother for what she’d done to him as much as he’d tried to hate her. They might not have attended her wedding in New York, but he’d been well aware that they kept in touch with her.
He’d been angry when they hadn’t turned their backs on her. It was almost like another betrayal. If he hadn’t heard them talking that night, he might have kept being mad at them.
He had to admit that before his ex-wife asked him for a divorce, she’d been a wonderful wife and mother. The hotel was making a profit, but most of it went back into operations. She never complained, just worked hard and put him and the children first. At least until that snake Trevor had slithered into town.
Paul’s calloused hands clenched on the steering wheel. The anger was just as fresh and just as useless. She could have said no. Lord knows he’d begged her to stay. He’d never forget her reply. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Four words ended thirty years of marriage. For what? He’d tossed her aside for another woman. Soon afterward she was back in Santa Fe, as beautiful as ever. He’d seen her first. He’d walked past her as if she didn’t exist and checked out of the hotel. There was no way he’d ever let her into his life again.
Paul flicked on his signal, turned under the portico of Casa de Serenidad, and stopped in front of the valet. He’d barely opened his door when he heard Faith’s excited cry.
“Daddy!”
He thrust the painful memories of his ex aside. A broad smile on his face, he opened his arms wide and reached for his daughter, his joy. She was the reason he could still call himself a man. “Hi, Faith. How’s my baby girl doing?”
“Hi, Daddy. I’m fine now that you’re here.” She smiled up at him.
Paul smiled back, glad that he saw pride instead of worry. She and her brothers continued to be concerned about him at times. He wished there was some way to ease their minds.
“I knew you’d make it,” she said.
“I figured it was about time I paid you and Brandon a visit. Duncan and Cameron are next,” he told her. He’d already made sure his ex wouldn’t be there.
“Then we better get things rolling,” she said.
“Rolling? What are you talking about?” he asked, lines radiating across his forehead.
“You’ll see.” She looked over her shoulder and his gaze followed. He expected to see Brandon. “Mama, we can ride with Daddy.”
Paul’s gut clenched as he stared at his ex-wife. She looked as shocked as he felt. Unfortunately, she also looked beautiful in one of those fancy suits she’d started wearing after she came back.
It still ate at him that another man could give her what he couldn’t. She swallowed and stared back. He quickly jerked his gaze away before she saw the yearning that was becoming more and more difficult to hide. “Faith.”
“Please, Daddy. For me.” Her hand trembled on his chest. “I’ll ride in the front with you and Mama can ride in the back.”
Lord have mercy, he thought. He didn’t want to be within a hundred miles of his greatest regret, and greatest temptation. “Where?” It was the only word he could get out.
“Like I told Mama, to a new beginning.”
CHAPTER TWO
Faith kept the conversation going on the way to their destination. She wasn’t nervous, she was sad. It was so easy to see that her parents still cared. She just hoped what they’d planned was enough to help them find a way back to each other.
“We’re almost there,” Faith said.
Her father threw her a quick glance, the truck braking. “Please tell me you’re not…”
Faith gently placed her hand on his arm. “It’s something Brandon and I have talked about.”
After a long, intense moment of staring at her, her father eased off the brakes. Faith didn’t breathe easier until he continued down the street instead of turning around. He stopped in front of a single-story yellow adobe-and-wood home on a quiet street, and switched off the motor. An uneasy silence pervaded the truck.
Faith knew her mother in the backseat was probably having the same misgivings as her father. They’d shared so many good times here, but this was also the last place they’d been together just before her mother had left on a private jet with another man.
Paul’s hands flexed on the steering wheel as he fought painful memories and the need to drive away as fast as he could. How could Faith do this to him?
Faith got out of the truck and opened the back door. “Come on, Mama.”
In the rearview mirror, he saw his ex bite her lower lip. She didn’t want to be here either. Tough. She was the cause of this. Wrenching the door open, he got out and slammed it shut.
He thought he heard her gasp and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, ordering himself to keep calm. Anger meant he cared.
Faith, holding her mother’s arm, stopped midway up the walkway. She held out her other hand for him. He hesitated. He didn’t want to be that close to his ex, but the patience and love in his daughter’s eyes was stronger.
As soon as her arm curved around his, she began talking. “This is where you raised your children to be loving, strong, and independent. Duncan, Cameron, and I couldn’t have asked for better parents. I thought it was gone forever, and then Brandon told me he’d bought it because he had so many good memories of the house as well.” Her voice trembled, then firmed. “We both work long, crazy hours, trade off living at his place over the restaurant or in my suite at the hotel. We love what we do, but we’d like to be able to get away from it all with just the two of us. We both feel this house would be perfect.”
His ex didn’t say anything and neither did Paul. He’d once been fool enough to think the same thing.
Faith sighed. “There’s one catch. The house needs work. I’d like to take up the carpet, sand the hardwood floors, redo the kitchen. However, both of us are too busy, and the men I’d trust are booked through July. I wanted to invite everyone over for a Mother’s Day brunch to celebrate what wonderful and caring mothers Brandon and I are blessed to have. NASCAR will be in full swing, but as you know, they don’t race on Mother’s Day so Cameron could come and bring his family. The timing would be perfect.”
Paul knew what was coming. “Faith, I—”
“I know it’s asking a lot of both of you, but I’m asking anyway.” Faith paused. “To restore the house. You did a lot of the original work as newlyweds. I remember Mama telling me she’d used a sander for the first time.”
Paul loved his children, but this was asking too much. He couldn’t do this. This time he wouldn’t survive.
“Isn’t this going to be great, Daddy? I can already picture it in my mind.” Faith turned to her mother. “You’ll have the house restored in no time.”
Out of the corner of Paul’s eye, he saw
his ex-wife swallow. She didn’t want to be there any more than he did. Love had brought them here. But there hadn’t been enough love to keep him and his ex-wife together.
Faith, with her arms hooked though his and her mother’s, leaned first against him and then against her mother. “As I said, we know this is asking a lot, but with Brandon at his restaurant and me at the hotel, we don’t have time to oversee restoring the house ourselves. We trust you.”
“Are-are you sure you want to live here?” Stella asked quietly.
Paul felt the softly spoken words twist his insides. He shouldn’t care that this was difficult for her. She’d ripped his heart out and stomped on it. He’d been lost without her. Damn, there were times when he still felt the aching loneliness, but that was his own hellish secret.
“Yes,” Faith said with her usual bubbly enthusiasm. Her father looked at her, and despite the situation she was putting him in, his heart felt lighter. She was a good daughter. He couldn’t have asked for better.
She’d been the first daughter born in seven generations. She’d heralded the end of the McBride curse, lucky in business and unlucky in love, for her and her generation. For him and her mother, it had been too late.
“Neither one of us can think of any place better than where I grew up. Brandon came out here lots of times to see Cameron. He slept on the floor too many nights to count. He taught me how to dance here.”
Paul wished he could see his ex’s face, see how she was taking all this. There had been good times. He’d never suspected she would leave him. He’d known she’d been quiet during those last few months they were together, but he’d suspected she was just preoccupied with the hotel. He’d thought things would smooth out.
He’d been horribly wrong.
At least she’d waited until Faith graduated from college before she left. Somehow they’d managed to keep their pending divorce a secret from their children. With Faith busy with her senior year, Cameron a NASCAR driver and living in Charlotte, and Duncan at his ranch in Montana, it hadn’t been difficult.
The sound of a car’s motor had them turning. Brandon pulled up in Faith’s new red Porsche SUV. It had been his last Christmas present to her. Brandon stopped behind Paul’s truck. Before the motor died, Faith was hurrying to her husband.
Their happy laughter floated on the early afternoon breeze as he caught her to him, kissing her briefly on the lips, then staring down at her, his hand feathering over her face.
Paul turned away. He hadn’t planned to look at his ex, in fact, he’d made it a habit to look at her as little as possible. He never wanted her to know that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t completely erase her from his heart.
Their eyes caught, his lonely heart thumped. Her pretty brown eyes glistened with tears. He’d once loved looking into them. She bit her lower lip and had a death grip on the small, useless clutch she preferred to carry. It was as stuffed as a sausage. He used to tease her about—he snapped his mind away. Those days were long gone.
“Pau—”
“I don’t have time for this,” he said, cutting his ex off. He didn’t want to hear her call his name, to remember how he’d enjoyed the way she said his name, remember how he’d prayed she’d come back to him, whisper his name in that special way she had, and tell him she wasn’t marring some rich movie producer in New York.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. McBride. Sorry, I’m late.” Brandon hugged his mother-in-law, shook hands with Paul. “I guess Faith explained what this means to us. I sure hope you can help us out.”
Faith gave her father one of those special smiles and Paul squirmed. He loved his baby girl, would do anything for her, but not this. “She did, but I might be too tied up. I’m sure I can help you find a contractor to do the remodeling.”
Distress widened Faith’s eyes. “Daddy, I want you and Mama to do it. I admit I thought of Mr. Radford and Mr. Montgomery, but now I’m glad they’re busy. It would mean so much more to us and the children we hope to have one day if you and Mama did it.”
“Faith,” her mother said, hugging her. “Your father can do the carpentry work and painting, and then I can come in later with the finishing touches.”
“If you work together, we could be in sooner.” Faith said. “I’d love to invite all the families over. All the other wives have had everyone over except me. The last get-together was Catherine’s Christmas party. My sister-in-law really knows how to give a party. It was better than the one the year before.”
“It sure was,” Brandon agreed. “It was nice getting everyone together. If all goes well, this year the party could be here.”
“But I don’t want to wait that long. If we can get the house remodeled in time I want to have everyone over for Mother’s Day.” Faith hooked her arms through her parents’. “All the utilities are on. Let’s go inside and take a look.”
“I’ve got the key.” Brandon went up the curved walkway. “I didn’t have to think twice when Sierra told me the house was back on the market. I remember coming over here, eating, staying over, hanging out.”
“You were a good boy, Brandon,” Paul said. He’d always liked Brandon, and had
been overjoyed to learn he and Faith were getting married.
“Thank you. I know I must have gotten underfoot, but you never seemed to mind.” Opening the door, Brandon stepped back.
Faith’s mother smiled for the first time. “Unlike Cameron and Duncan, you were willing to help in the kitchen and clean up afterwards.”
“Being here always felt like home.” He reached for Faith’s hand. “Guess I should have realized then that the people living here would always mean a lot to me.”
“The important thing is you found out.” She kissed him. “Let’s go see if the marks I made on the wall for my growth chart are still there.” Laughing, they left her parents in the entryway.
Paul shoved his hands back into his pockets. The house was as empty as he’d felt at times over the years. “You know what they’re trying to do, don’t you?”
She glanced away. “Yes.”
“It won’t do them any good,” he snapped, and saw her flinch. He clenched his hands to keep from reaching for her, saying he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant it to sound so harsh.
“We could take shifts,” Stella said, walking farther into the house. “Faith once spoke of wanting a mural of the French countryside where she and Brandon spent their honeymoon. I haven’t painted in years, but I’d like to try.”
“Mother’s Day is three weeks away. If we take shifts, we might finish in time.” He swept his hand over his face. “She hasn’t asked for anything in a long time. I don’t want to disappoint her.”
His ex-wife looked up at him and he realized he had been testing her to see if she remembered. From her tormented facial expression, he realized she did. Faith had asked, begged them not to get the divorce. She’d left anyway.
He shrugged carelessly and started toward the kitchen. “I’m going to see what other ideas Faith has.”
“Then-then we’re going to work together?” she asked, her voice strained.
He answered without turning. “I don’t see that we have a choice. It will give both of us an incentive to finish quickly so we don’t have to see each other for a long, long time.”
Stella briefly shut her eyes. What had she expected? Him to hold her, tell her he’d forgiven her? Never. She’d wounded him too badly.
And if she worked on remodeling their old home, each minute, each hour she’d have to see the scorn in his eyes where there once had been love and tenderness. Only she’d been too caught up in trying to make him jealous to realize what she was jeopardizing. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to endure his contempt on a daily basis.
“Mama, come into the kitchen,” Faith called.
Trying to smile, Stella joined them in the large kitchen. She’d wanted it big enough for them to be together as a family, for her to be able to help the children with their homework while she cooked or wa
shed. Paul had willingly obliged.
It was like stepping back in time. Her hand grazed over the faded Formica countertop. They hadn’t been able to afford marble and, when they could, she’d put the money into a college fund for the children instead.
“We want to replace that with Corian, Mother. I’m thinking glass-front cabinets. The oak is solid and in good shape so we’ll just have to replace the fronts and purchase new knobs,” Faith said. “I love Brandon’s glass cabinets.”
“They were her idea.” Arms folded, Brandon leaned back against the counter by the sink. “She can’t be touched when it comes to decorating.”
“I got it from Mama and Daddy,” she told her husband. “Daddy liked the idea, too.”
Stella wouldn’t look at Paul. “I do, too.”
Faith grabbed Brandon’s hand. “So, have you and Daddy come to a decision?”
Stella hoped her smile didn’t look as brittle as it felt. “When would you like for us to start?”
Faith squealed and hugged her mother, then it was her father’s turn. “Thank you! You’ve made me so happy!”
Brandon shook hands with his father-in-law and hugged his mother-in-law. “You couldn’t have done anything more special for us. This Mother’s Day will be even more meaningful to celebrate you and Mama. Thank you.” He pulled a credit card for a local home improvement store out of his shirt pocket and gave it to Paul. “We wanted you to have this so you can get anything you need.” He looked abashed. “I’m lost outside the kitchen.”
Faith pulled an American Express card from the pocket of her jacket, and gave it to her mother. “Same with this one. Let’s go celebrate. Mama, we can take my car back. I want to make a quick stop by this new store that has bath and kitchen fixtures.”
“We should probably count on an hour,” Brandon whispered to Paul, then handed the Porsche’s key to Faith.
“I heard that.” Taking the key, she kissed him and took her mother’s arm. “See you in thirty minutes at the most at the Mesa.”
