He wanted to reassure her. He wanted to take her in his arms. He wanted a whole lot of things that he was unlikely to get. “Look, it’s okay. If you want to be just friends, well, we can work with that. We can—”
She let out a soft cry. “Oh, damn you, Bowie Bravo. You know I want a whole lot more from you than friendship. But it’s just that I…well, it feels all wrong to me. To forget Matteo so easily, to turn my back on his memory, on everything he and I had and all he was to me…”
“Matteo.” He said her dead husband’s name carefully. “Not Johnny.”
“No.” Her big eyes held his. They begged for his understanding. “I see now, I do. Johnny’s okay, just like you said. He’ll be all right with it, however things work out.”
He prompted, “And it’s not what people in town will say, not what they’ll think about you?”
“Uh-uh, it’s me. It’s what I think. And I think…I feel like I’m betraying my husband every time I look at you.” A sad little laugh escaped her. “Which really says a lot about me, huh? I mean, because I did a lot more than just look at you on Friday night. Because I still want to do a lot more than look at you.…”
But she wouldn’t. He could see it in her eyes. What the hell was it about life? Why did it always have to be so damn unfair? “How am I supposed to fight a dead man, Glory?”
“You’re not. Of course you’re not.”
He fisted his hands at his sides and then forced his fists to open. It always helped when he wanted to punch something to remember that the choice was his. He didn’t have to be ruled by the heat of the moment.
“You’re angry.” Her mouth was trembling again.
Start with honesty, son, Wily always used to say. The truth is where all the important stuff begins. “Yeah, I’m angry, but I’m not going to start breaking things. I’m not that guy anymore.”
The sheen of tears made her eyes gleam like polished amber. “I know you’re not. You’re…good, Bowie. A truly good man.”
It was too much, standing there apart from her.
All the years he’d kept himself apart from her. And now he was finally ready to be the man she needed. Finally he’d broken free of the drinking, of the never-ending need to take on all comers with his two fists. He’d found work. Good work at which he excelled. He’d returned home and discovered he wanted to stay there. He’d earned the trust of the son he’d left behind. And every time he held Glory’s baby in his arms, he felt like a million bucks. He wanted to be something like a father to that little girl. He wanted that a lot.
And best of all, most of all, there was Glory. Or so he’d let himself believe there for a few magical hours on Friday night. He’d let himself hope that he finally had a real chance with Glory. He’d given her up once so she and Johnny could have a shot at a better life. But now, well, he had something real to offer her. His heart, his sobriety, the honest work of his two hands.
They could make something fine, the two of them. A good life together. A family.
Except that they couldn’t. Because Matteo Rossi’s ghost stood between them now.
No. No damn way.
He went to her, eating up the space that separated him from her in three long strides.
“Oh, Bowie.” She gazed up at him so intently. He saw her love there in her eyes. Saw her yearning, the same yearning he felt every time he looked at her, every time he heard her name.
He took her shoulders. She trembled at his touch but she didn’t pull away. He said, “I always thought well of Matteo. I respected him. I liked him. And back in the day, I didn’t find much to like in most people. You know that, right?”
Wordlessly, she nodded. A single tear got away from her, breaking the dam of her lower lid, sliding down her cheek. “I know.”
“But right now, I could almost hate him. He had four great years with you. I never envied him the time he had with you. Until tonight.”
“Don’t.” She said it softly.
“Don’t?” He gave the word back to her on a growl. “Don’t what? Don’t touch you? Don’t look at you in the same hungry way that you look at me? Don’t kiss you?”
“Bowie.” She said his name as a warning.
A warning he refused to heed. He pulled her into his arms.
She resisted, but only for a moment. And then she melted into him, her soft little body going pliant, her mouth lifted up.
He listened to the hot pounding of his blood, to the need that sang inside him, the heat that flared down low. He lowered his mouth to hers and he kissed her.
She kissed him back with a lost little cry, opening to him so he could sweep his greedy tongue inside. Her hands pressed against his heart and then slid up to link around his neck, to pull him even closer. He felt her fingers at his nape, in his hair. He touched her hair, too. He ran his fingers through it, loving the warmth of it, the silky texture of every separate strand.
He wanted to kiss her forever. While he was kissing her, he could almost forget that she refused to be with him.
Not in the real way.
Not in the way that lasts, the way that matters.
In the end, with another cry, she turned her mouth away from his and buried her face against his shoulder. “No,” she whispered on a torn husk of breath.
He opened his arms and stepped back from her. She swayed on her feet, and then caught herself and found her balance. He looked down at the crown of her bent head, waiting.
Until, finally, she lifted her chin and faced him, her mouth so soft and red from kissing him, her cheeks hot with color.
“How long?” he asked in a ragged growl. “Until you can let him go, until being with me doesn’t have to mean that you’re betraying him?”
Those whiskey-warm eyes pleaded for his understanding. “I don’t know. I’m so sorry.”
He didn’t feel all that sympathetic right then. “You really think he would want this, huh? Want you to be alone and unhappy just to be true to his memory?”
“Of course not. Matteo wasn’t like that.”
“No, he wasn’t. You ought to consider that, Glory, while you’re turning your back on the future, on what you and I could have together—on what both Johnny and Sera need.”
The next night, after Johnny was in bed, Bowie surprised her. He came in and sat at the table with her while she had her tea.
She watched his face across from her and tried not to wish he would kiss her again. But she did wish it. And that made her feel ridiculous and small-minded and pitiful, too. He wasn’t there for kissing. She knew that from just looking at him.
He said, “I signed the final papers on the Halstotter place today.”
“I’m…happy for you.”
“Thanks.” He shifted in his chair. “I’m moving out tomorrow.”
She felt slightly dizzy and then realized she’d forgotten to breathe. She sucked in a big breath and let it out in a rush. “Well, all right.”
“I wanted to touch base with you before I go.”
“Touch base,” she echoed. “Of course.”
He pushed a small square of paper across the table at her. “My new phone number at the house. I got lucky and managed to get them to install it today.”
“Great.” She took the paper, got up and pinned it to the corkboard next to the phone.
When she slid back into her chair, he said, “And also, I wanted to talk a little about Johnny.” Johnny. Her stomach knotted and a headache started pounding at her temples. She resisted the need to try and massage it away. He went on. “I mean, about where we go from here, as parents.”
She picked up her tea by rote, lifted it to her lips, took a careful swallow. “I see.”
“It’s just that there are several things we should start thinking about.”
She had a pretty good idea what those things might be. Still, she needed to let him speak for himself. “Such things as?”
“I want joint custody, Glory—no, not right this minute,” he reassured her. “You can…take your time about it, get used to the idea. But eventually, in the next year or two, I want you to consider letting me be equally responsible for him. I want us to talk it over with him, so he’ll know he can count on both of us as his parents.”
The headache squeezed harder. She had a powerful desire to shout at him, to tell him in no uncertain terms that he would never take her son from her.
But then he addressed her fear directly. “I’m not trying to take him from you, Glory. I would never do that. You have to know that by now.”
She did know that. And she believed him. What he asked was only fair. Only right. For Johnny’s sake. “It’s just…it’s what you said. Give me time. Let me get accustomed to it. Let’s play it by ear for a while. Okay?”
“Absolutely.”
She knew there was more. “What else?”
He had his hand on the table. He traced the patterns in the wood as he liked to do. She tried not to remember what it felt like to have that hand tracing other patterns, arousing patterns, on her naked skin. He glanced up at her. “We never talked about his last name. You just…gave him your last name when he was born.”
She heard a whooshing in her ears. Her own blood, pumping much too fast through her veins. Her mouth tasted of copper. Of defensiveness. Of guilt. She had to force her lips to form the truth. “I shouldn’t have done that. I was…bitter. You were drunk all the time and you wouldn’t even let me have our baby in peace. You came barging in while I was in labor, demanding that I marry you.…”
He nodded. She saw no judgment of her in his eyes. “I was a complete asshat.”
Asshat. The word made her laugh—a strangled sort of sound, with more pain than humor in it. “Yes, you were.”
“I’m not like that anymore, Glory.”
“I know you’re not. Not in the least.”
“I want my son to have my name.”
“And that’s…the right thing. I can see that. But you’ll give me time, the same as with the custody issue?”
“I will, yes. This is just the first step. You and me. Talking it over. Telling each other where we stand.”
“We need to be honest with each other,” she told him, although really, she was talking to herself. “To say the hard things, to get them out there. Like you did just now.”
He blew out a breath. “I’m glad you see it that way.”
“I do, Bowie. Even though we’re not together, we can…work together. To give Johnny the best possible start in life.”
The next day was a sunny one, warmer than usual for early March.
At breakfast, Johnny announced, “Bowie, I know you have a lot of work to do to get moved and I think you will need my help.”
Bowie replied, “I’d appreciate that. I can use all the help I can get—as long as your mom doesn’t mind?”
What could she say? “I don’t mind at all.”
An hour later, Glory saw the moving van pull up in front of the house. Burly moving men got out and went around to the barn to start loading the equipment Bowie had bought back in January.
His personal things weren’t a big deal. He could fit them all in his SUV and take them to his new home in one trip. Everything else he owned would arrive from Santa Cruz on Monday, he said.
Johnny went with Bowie out to his new place on Catalpa Way and came running in at lunchtime. He ate a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich and gulped down a glass of milk and reported, “It’s a big house that Bowie bought, did you know that, Mom? You can see the river from upstairs and there’s already one giant shed that Bowie will use to work in. There will be more buildings, too. And he will have people who come and work with him and also maybe hire some people from right here in town. And the house already has some furniture in it. So Bowie will have a bed and a table and stuff to use until he gets his own things.”
“Sounds like it’s all working out just great,” she said, trying to keep her voice bright and cheerful, reminding herself yet again that she had made her choice and no way was she going to drag around being glum about it.
“There’s a room in that house just for me, Mom. It has a bed in it already, too.”
“That’s pretty cool.” She knew where this was going. It hurt. A lot. She steeled her heart against the pain and focused on the happiness she saw in her son’s eyes.
“Uh, Mom?”
“Hmm?”
“I was wondering if maybe I could stay over at Bowie’s tonight? You think that would be okay? Would you miss me too much?”
“I will miss you a whole lot. And yes, if Bowie says it’s all right, you can stay at his house tonight. Just tell him to get you home by noon tomorrow.”
“Sweet.” He got up and ran around the table to hug her. “Thanks, Mom.” He smelled of peanut butter and sunshine. She tried not to hug him too hard, and then forced herself not to hold on when he pulled away.
“You think Mom and Sera are missing us?” Johnny asked that night when Bowie tucked him in bed.
Bowie took the coward’s way out of that one. “What do you think?”
Johnny smoothed the sheet down a little and folded his hands on his stomach, outside the blankets. “Well, I think Sera prob’ly doesn’t even know that we’re gone. Maybe if she gets crying, she will miss you ’cause you are the one who can make her feel better. But Mom, well, yeah. I think she misses us. But she wants to give us our time to be together. Mom’s a good mom.”
“Yeah.” His throat felt tight. “She’s an excellent mom. The best.”
“Bowie?”
“Yeah?”
“When I’m real quiet up here in this room, I can hear the river. Can you?”
“Yes, I can.”
“It sounds like a friendly giant. Breathing.”
“It does, yeah. It really does.”
“The river’s by my mom’s house. How come I can’t hear it in my room there?”
“It’s deep in a canyon by your mom’s house. I’m guessing the sound doesn’t travel as well. Plus, your room’s in the back there. The walls of the house block sound, too.”
Johnny seemed to consider that explanation. “Well, I like to hear the river. I like this room.”
“Good. A guy should like his room.”
“And I’ve been thinking, Bowie. I’ve been thinking that because you really are my dad, I should maybe call you dad. You think?”
It was a big moment. One of the best moments. “I think that would be great. I would love it—if that’s what you want to do.”
“Well, there was still my other dad, wasn’t there?” Those eyes that were so much like Glory’s eyes gazed up at him, worried. Shadowed with doubt. Time was an ocean, especially to a kid. An ocean you floated away on. It got harder and harder to recall the geography of faces you didn’t see every day. It was eight months since Matteo’s death. To Johnny, it must feel like a lifetime.
“Yes,” Bowie said, “there was your other dad. He was a very good man and he loved you so much.”
Johnny turned his head on the pillow and peered at Bowie sideways. “Did you know him?”
“I did. Not real well, not like you did. But he was always kind to me. And he always said hi whenever I saw him.”
Johnny was looking straight at him now. “I’m glad you came back, Bow—Dad.”
“So am I. Very glad.”
“I don’t want you ever to go away again.”
“I won’t. Not for very long anyway. Sometimes I have to go places for my work. You know that, right?”
Johnny gave a swift,
eager nod. “Sometimes maybe I could come, too.”
“Yeah. We’ll talk it over with your mom. And now and then, when you don’t have school, maybe you can.”
“But you live here now,” Johnny insisted. “You’re staying here. In this house, where we can hear the river.”
“That’s right.” Bowie bent close to brush a kiss on his son’s smooth cheek. “I’m staying here. I live here. This is my home now.” It felt good to say it.
Really good.
What was it Glory had said when he asked her why she’d returned to their hometown?
I’m from the Flat. It’s a lot of who I am.
Well, it was lot of who he was, too. And he was glad to be back.
He turned off the light and paused in the doorway to say good-night to his son.
“’Night, Dad.”
He was halfway down the stairs when the phone started ringing.
Glory. Her name exploded in his mind like a bottle rocket on the Fourth of July.
Could it be?
He tried not to hope but he couldn’t help it.
He flew down the final few steps and grabbed the extension on the table by the newel post. “Hello?”
“So, then.” Ma’s voice. Hope shriveled to dust and ashes. “You moved. That was fast.”
He sank to the bottom step. “I couldn’t live in Glory’s barn forever.”
“Glory with you?”
“Come on, Ma, you and I both know that’s never going to happen.”
She was quiet for a moment. “She turned you down.” It wasn’t a question.
He started to deny it, but why lie? “Yeah. She doesn’t feel right about being with me. She still loves Matteo.”
“She said that?” Chastity demanded sharply.
“Not exactly, but that was what she meant.”
“What exactly did she say?”
“Sheesh, Ma. Nosy much?”
33 The Return of Bowie Bravo Page 17
