by Brenda Novak
“I have a job,” she said defiantly. She’d been lucky enough to land employment nearby, which was why she’d moved here. She’d be the medical professional at New Horizons Boys & Girls Ranch, a year-round school for troubled teens located not far outside of town, until she could save up enough money to once again open her own practice. She was overqualified for the position. Aiyana Turner, the woman who ran the school, had stated as much in her interview. Mrs. Turner had been looking for a nurse, not a doctor. But at least the school would have someone on hand who could provide expert medical care, and Natasha would soon have a steady income. She was grateful for the stopgap. And she’d pay Mack back as soon as she received her first paycheck.
“Your job doesn’t start for another week,” he pointed out. “And then it’ll take at least two weeks to get paid. You’re staring down the barrel of three weeks without income. You realize that.”
“I’ve got a few bucks in my purse.” She hoped he’d let it go at that, but he challenged her instead.
“Oh yeah? How much?”
“Enough to get by,” she retorted. No way was she going to reveal the specific figure; then he’d know just how poor she really was.
“Probably three bucks exactly,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “I don’t know who you hired to do your divorce, but your ex must’ve paid him a lot more than you did.”
“Her. It was a woman,” she said. “And that’s not funny. After what happened, there wasn’t much to divide between us.”
“I heard you on the phone yesterday when you were talking to your mother. You admitted you agreed to pay alimony, for heaven’s sake, even though you have primary custody of Lucas. Why would you ever agree to spousal support?”
Although she’d seen the scowl on Mack’s face when she’d made that revelation, he hadn’t said anything about it until now. “Once he told me he wanted out, I decided not to prolong the split by fighting over possessions.”
“Why would he fight over them? That’s my question. Especially after everything you’ve provided already—and everything you’ve been through?”
“Because they mean more to him, I guess.” And because he wasn’t working. He hadn’t worked for a number of years, which made it much less likely that he’d be able to replace those items—unless he found a job or another wife to take care of him. Ace wasn’t the most motivated person. He’d sold her on his dreams, droned on and on about all he was going to accomplish in the future. But once it became apparent that was all talk, that he’d probably never accomplish anything, she’d consoled herself with the fact that it would be nice to have him home with Lucas, and it didn’t really matter if he contributed financially as long as she could earn enough to support them.
It wasn’t until Lucas started preschool that it began to bug her that Ace was spending most of his time gaming. At that point, she’d asked him to come in and run her front office so that she wouldn’t have to hire someone else, but he did such a lackadaisical job she would’ve let him quit even if everything hadn’t gone to hell right about then for an entirely different reason.
“Is he unable to work?” Mack asked.
“No.” She lowered her voice so that Lucas wouldn’t be able to hear her. “He comes from a wealthy family and has never had to work for anything.”
“So he’s lazy.”
She checked Lucas again, who was, thankfully, still absorbed in examining that bug. “Stop. I don’t want to talk about Ace.” She’d just had a baby when she married him. Because she’d been frightened to be a single parent, especially one who was juggling so much, she’d made a bad decision. But she’d been willing to compromise as much as possible to make the marriage work. So it was pretty ironic that he ended up finding fault with her and felt he’d be better off on his own. “I can get by. And if I have to, I can sell what he did let me have to bring in some quick cash. It’s not as though I have any kind of sentimental attachment to these things. There’s no need to hold you up any longer.”
“God, you’re stubborn,” he said with a scowl. “I can see that hasn’t changed.”
“You’re just as stubborn as I am,” she retorted, pretending to be irritated, but really she was just trying not to admire the handsome face that’d fueled so many of her dreams over the years.
“Damn right,” he said with an unrepentant grin. “Did you bring any tools?”
She dragged her mind back to the focus of the conversation. She couldn’t allow herself to admire Mack, couldn’t fall into that trap again, especially after the Christmas before she got married. But it was difficult not to at least acknowledge that he’d only gotten better with time. Although he’d recently turned forty-one, he didn’t look that much older than when she’d first met him. “What do you think?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say Ace got those, too, which means I’ll have to buy some, because I’m not going to leave you like this.”
She wanted to tell him to just walk away. He was good at that. But she didn’t feel the barb was warranted—at least not right now, when he was trying to help. Maybe this was about penance for the pain he’d caused before. Maybe he was looking for forgiveness or something. But she didn’t dare let him into her life now—not in any big way. She couldn’t pile more hurt on top of what she’d endured so recently. “The truck has to be back by the end of the day, or they’ll charge me—er, you, until I can pay you back,” she said. “You don’t have time.”
“So I’ll pay the extra thirty bucks.” He shrugged as if it was nothing. “Give me the keys to your car. Lucas and I will go find a home improvement store.”
“What?” She blinked at him. Surely he wasn’t planning to stay any longer. She’d already let him off the hook. “Seriously,” she said. “You’ve spent three days getting me out of the house in LA. I appreciate your help—truly—but there’s no need to hold you up any longer.” She started for the door. “Come on. Let’s unload so that you can be on your way.”
He caught her by the wrist. “You need the help, Tash, and I’m standing here, offering it. Why won’t you let me? Are you really that angry with me? After seven years?”
Yes, she was. So angry that she couldn’t believe he’d even bring it up. She might forgive him. Since when had she ever been able to hold a grudge against Mack? But she would certainly never forget. “I just don’t want to inconvenience you any longer,” she said.
“It’s not an inconvenience. I’ve been planning to visit LA for a while now to scout a good location for another shop.”
He and his brothers had been talking about expanding into LA for years. Aaron, the second oldest, had opened an Amos Auto Body in Reno, Nevada, but he was the only one who’d broken away so far. “LA’s ninety minutes from here.”
“That’s not very far. I can take a week to get you set up before I go back.”
He still hadn’t let go of her wrist. Her whole arm tingled at his touch, and a memory danced around the edges of her mind—a memory she’d banished long ago. “Who would run the new shop?”
“I would.”
“You’d live in LA.”
“Yep.”
Which meant he’d be much closer to her. Whiskey Creek, where he and his brothers had grown up, and she’d once lived with them, since they’d taken her and her mother in while their father was in prison, was six hours away, not far from Sacramento.
“Are you going to stay with us, Uncle Mack?” Lucas cried, finally abandoning the poor bug so he could hurry over.
As soon as Mack let go of her, Natasha stepped out of reach.
“For a few more days,” he said.
“Yay!” Lucas yelled and launched himself into Mack’s legs.
Mack laughed as he tossed him up and over his shoulder like a sack of flour and her son squealed in delight. “You got those keys?” he asked her.
She almost refused. But on what grounds? That she wasn’
t sure she could deal with their history?
She’d die before she’d ever admit that—to him or anyone else—so she retrieved her purse and handed him the keys.
Two
Mack glanced at Natasha’s little boy in the rearview mirror, but he was driving, so he couldn’t let his gaze linger as he was tempted to do. This was the first time he’d ever been alone with Lucas, the first time he’d been able to study the child without having to worry that Natasha might figure out what he suspected.
Did the boy look like him?
It was hard to tell. He’d watched Natasha’s son carefully ever since he first met him three days ago, but it was hard to say. He’d never seen Natasha’s ex, hadn’t run across a single picture of the man while they were packing. Maybe the boy resembled Ace so much the answer would be apparent, but from what he’d seen so far, the boy was the spitting image of Natasha.
He pulled into HD Home Supply, parked and walked around to let Lucas out of the car.
The kid had already unfastened his booster seat.
“Good job,” Mack said. “Let’s go.”
Lucas insisted on taking a plastic sword into the store, and Mack couldn’t help smiling when he brandished it at everyone they encountered. Maybe the boy didn’t look a great deal like him, but he couldn’t hold still for two seconds, which was exactly how Dylan described Mack as a child.
Mack let his gaze run over the boy again. Was this his son?
“On guard!” Lucas yelled, frightening an old lady who was trying to purchase some paint.
“Let’s take it down a notch, okay, buddy?” Mack said with a chuckle, ignoring the dirty look the woman gave him.
“Why are we here?” Lucas asked, sword fighting with phantom opponents once they reached the main aisle, which was momentarily clear.
“We’re getting supplies, remember?” Mack told him.
“What kind of supplies?”
“A window, if we can find one that’s the right size. But as old as that house is, we’ll probably have to order a custom one. I’m also going to need a hammer and some nails. A socket wrench. A drill. A saw. A Shop-Vac. Those sorts of things.”
“My dad has a hammer,” he announced.
Mack wished he could borrow it and any other tools Ace had. It seemed silly to purchase everything again when it was unlikely Ace would need them in the near future. But he wasn’t going to ask, even if he was willing to make the drive to get them. Any guy who could leave his wife in the situation Natasha was—heartbroken over what’d happened to her practice, barely able to eat or sleep because of the pressure and worry of everything that was going on in her life, and alone with a child to care for and no money—was a total douchebag. That Natasha didn’t expect any more from her ex spoke volumes. Maybe that was why Mack felt completely justified when he took advantage of this opportunity to speak to her unsuspecting little boy and, hopefully, satisfy some of his curiosity. “What’s your dad like?”
“I dunno.”
“He nice?”
“Yeah.”
“What types of things does he do?”
“Plays video games on TV.”
Lucas would’ve knocked a stack of batteries off the shelf if Mack hadn’t reached out to redirect his sword. “Anything else?”
“No.”
“Where does he work?”
“I don’t know. On the TV, I guess.”
Ace should be set, then. Mack didn’t remember loading a TV into the truck, which meant any that Natasha and Ace had owned together had stayed with him.
The aisle where he could find the windows came up on their right. Mack took hold of Lucas’s free hand to guide him down it. “Can you tell me when your birthday is, buddy?”
“Yeah.”
“So? When is it?”
The boy screwed up his face as though he was thinking hard but ultimately shook his head. “I can’t remember.”
It was in the fall. Mack knew that much. The instant he’d learned that Natasha had had a baby, he’d counted back the months, and would never forget how hard his heart had started to pound when he realized he’d been with her about the time she’d gotten pregnant. She’d returned to Whiskey Creek to see her mother for Christmas, they’d bumped into each other at the annual Victorian Christmas Days Celebration, and things had moved quickly from there—years of pent-up desire had exploded all at once.
“Look at all these windows,” Lucas said, obviously impressed.
“Pretty cool, right? Now we just need to see if we can find one that will fit.”
Before he could check the various sizes, Mack’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket.
He pulled it out to see that his oldest brother was trying to get hold of him.
He punched the talk button. “Hey, Dyl.”
“What’s up, man?”
“Not much. We made it to Silver Springs. But you should see the house.”
“Is it nice?”
“No, it’s a piece of shit.”
Lucas’s eyes widened. “Oh... I’m going to tell Mom!” he said, covering his mouth. “You’re not supposed to say that word.”
Mack gave the boy a sheepish look. “Don’t tell on me,” he whispered.
“Okay.” He grinned as though he liked having a secret, but then he started saying, “Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” to himself, as though he was practicing it.
“Who’s with you?” Dylan asked.
Hoping Lucas would forget what he’d learned before they got back to the house, Mack returned to his conversation. “Natasha’s boy.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s a cool little dude.” He didn’t add that Lucas might be his cool little dude. He wasn’t going to tell anyone that, not until he knew for sure.
“I’d like to meet him,” Dylan said. “I’m surprised that Natasha has never brought him back to Whiskey Creek.”
So was Mack. That she’d stayed away felt intentional, and he thought he knew why. “She was busy with her residency, then starting her practice.”
“It’s amazing what she’s achieved, especially considering what she started with. I thought she was in the clear, you know? I can’t believe what’s happened. How’s she handling everything?”
“She’s lost weight, isn’t sleeping well.” He’d heard her walking around the house late at night, could see the weariness in her movements and the dark circles under her eyes as they packed up the van. “What happened would be a nightmare for anyone. But she’s tough. She’ll pull through.” He planned to see to it. That was another reason he’d packed up and headed to LA almost as soon as he learned about her divorce.
“I wish there was something more we could do.”
“I’m doing what I can.”
“Whatever happened to the woman who destroyed her practice?”
“She’s in prison and she won’t be getting out.” He dodged a sword thrust that would’ve hit him in the nuts and couldn’t help laughing as he once again guided Lucas’s sword in a safer direction.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. This kid—Never mind. Has Natasha ever mentioned to you what went wrong in her marriage?”
“No. I called her when the news about her nurse first broke, and we discussed the stress it was putting on the relationship. She admitted things were getting rocky, but that’s it.”
“She didn’t say why they were rocky?”
“Even if she did, I couldn’t go into it, Mack. She wouldn’t like me discussing the details with you, and you know it.”
“With me specifically? Why not?”
“Come on. Things have always been...complicated between you two.”
That statement bothered Mack, but he didn’t want to examine why, so he let it go as Dylan followed up with, “When are you coming back?”
“Do
they have the window?” Lucas asked at the same time.
Mack smoothed the hair off the boy’s face. “We’ll check in a sec,” he told him. Into the phone, he said, “I’m not sure that I am coming back.”
“What? You live here, remember?” Dylan sounded shocked.
“I’ll get my stuff, of course, but I think it’s time we go ahead and expand into LA.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
“No reason, I guess. Just seems sort of sudden. It isn’t because Natasha would be close by and you could help her get back on her feet, is it?”
Mack heard the wry tone of his brother’s voice, but he wasn’t going to apologize for wanting to take care of Natasha. “That’s part of it. She needs me,” he said simply. “Her bastard ex took almost everything.”
“That makes me defensive, too, but I don’t know that you’ll be doing her any favors if you stay.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve always done my best to look out for her.” There was only that one time when he’d screwed up. Surely that night didn’t negate all the good things he’d tried to do over the years.
Or did it?
“You’ve done a lot,” Dylan conceded. “But all she’s ever really wanted was for you to love her.”
Mack straightened in surprise. His brother would say that now, after all the pressure he’d been under to stay away from her? “I couldn’t love her,” he said. “She was only sixteen when she came into our lives. I was twenty-five. And our father was married to her mother!”
“I know,” Dylan said with a sigh. “I’ve felt bad for you both from the beginning. And I’ve always admired you for not taking advantage of her feelings. You had to have known how much she adored you—there was no way you could miss it. She followed you around like a lost puppy, tried to get close to you at every opportunity. I’ll never forget one night I went into the kitchen to eat, and she told me dinner was gone. But then you came home and I found out the food wasn’t gone—she’d just saved all that was left for you.”
