Authors: EC Sheedy
“Buy it—and swallow it whole, because it’s the truth— and because feeling rotten about something you had no control over is a waste of time. Zero net.”
“Why does that sound like the voice of been-there-done-that talking?” She paused. “Phylly? Right?”
He opened his mouth then closed it, recognizing uncharted verbal territory when it hit him between the eyes. “You’re shivering. Let’s go inside.”
She didn’t move. “When you and Phylly met—before all this awfulness started—she fainted. Right into Noah’s arms. And you, you walked away, Joe. Just walked away. How could you do that?”
His throat felt as if there were a wire around it. “I . . . couldn’t do anything else.”
She frowned up at him, her lips twisting as though she were trying to understand.
“I was frozen.” This wasn’t coming out right.
April kept her curious gaze on him, said nothing.
He gripped the railing. “She fucking terrified me. Okay?”
“Why? She’s your mother.”
Turning to her, his chest full of gravel, he said, “Yeah, but I didn’t know that, until I saw her. Until then she was a ghost, a stranger I’d waited years for, then taught myself to forget, because it was easier to let go than feel I’d been dropped off because I wasn’t worth keeping.”
“Joe, that’s not—”
“Look, I was probably still mewling and wetting my damn pants when she dumped me. I grew up. I got that kids are a load of trouble, some of them more than others. I just figured I was one of them. Carried that load of crap around for quite a while, but then—like I said, guilt has zero net, so I traded it for not giving a damn. Telling myself it was no big deal not to have family, that maybe it was even kind of cool. I think I was about thirteen when I latched onto that idea—from there I moved on to her getting rid of me as being her damn loss. I was going to be an okay guy in spite of her—and she could go to hell.” He took a deep breath. Anyone who said this talking crap was easy once you got the hang of it was out of their damn mind. His mouth was dry and his brain sizzling. “I kind of stuck on that last one.”
“And now? After tonight?”
“You won’t let go, will you?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got a stake in you, Joe. And I’ve got a stake in Phylly. So, no, I won’t let go—unless I have to.” His brain spun around her words:
I’ve got a stake in you.
But it took him a nanosecond to respond. “Care to define ‘stake’?”
“It’s probably too early to say it, but hell, I’ll say it anyway. I’m falling in love with you, Joe Worth—”
He reached for her, wanting to drag her against him, to hold her, feel her—use her to stop his heart from jumping clean out of his chest—but she pushed him away. He wanted to tell her he was long past the falling; he was done. He was taken. All in. He’d hit the love ground hard. But before he could speak, she raised her hand.
“The operative word in that statement is
falling,
Joe.” She gave him a fierce look. “But I’ll grab the skinniest tree branch I can latch onto to stop that fall if you can’t—” Again she wrapped her arms around herself.
Against the chill? Against him? They faced each other, her chin lifted, him frowning, half in frustration because he couldn’t hold her and half in confusion over her stubbornness. He leaned back against the railing. “If I can’t what, April?”
She squared her shoulders and finished: “If you can’t resolve your feelings about Phylly.” She met his gaze. “You know how I feel about her, what she did for me. I want her to be part of my life forever. She’s my mother in every sense of the word. I can’t let myself . . . love someone who can’t—or won’t—feel the same. I can’t see a future with the two people I care about the most not caring about each other. I wouldn’t know how to make that work.”
He looked at her a long time, tried to read between the lines, see behind her eyes. Past her invincible loyalty to his mother. He wanted to say the right words, the words she wanted to hear, but he couldn’t find them. And he wasn’t about to offer glib promises—before he’d sorted some things out, talked to his mother.
April closed her eyes against his silence, drew in a breath.
“That’s not all of it, is it?” he asked. “It’s not just about Phylly and me.” He ran his knuckles along the smooth skin on her jaw.
“Maybe not. And maybe I can’t say exactly what I feel. I only know it makes me sad—and afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“To think you’re . . . an unforgiving man.”
April heard Joe on the phone when she passed his door on her way to the kitchen. She was busy making coffee when he joined her a few minutes later.
What light there was—the fog had thinned but loitered—was a cool pearl gray, but growing warmer as daylight broke behind the lingering mist.
He came up behind her and put his arms around her. Carrying the moisture and scent of his shower, he smelled as fresh as the cedars on the other side of the glass. “Good morning,” he said, nuzzling her neck.
She turned in his arms and kissed him, rubbed the pad of her thumb over his mouth. His eyes were dark, urgent—as she suspected her own were.
They hadn’t slept together. And wouldn’t until what was between them was fixed. That was Joe’s idea; she hadn’t felt quite so noble last night, especially when he’d walked into the shot-up bedroom, and she’d gone into the undamaged one where she’d tossed about in a sleepless night. Alone. What she’d wanted was to lose herself in Joe’s arms, push away the fog outside as well as the fog within. What she’d said surely hurt him, confused him as much as it confused her. But it hadn’t occurred to her to not say what had to be said.
“I’m ready to go. You?” he asked.
She gestured at her bag sitting by the table, then left his arms. “I found a Thermos. We’ll take the coffee with us. I put Chance in the car, and I called the doctor. They took Phylly and Noah out half an hour ago.”
“Good. I’ve arranged for the plane, so we’re right behind them.” With that, he grabbed her bag and his and headed outside. It was a while before he came back. “Somebody messed with the wires on the car, but I got it going, so—” His cell rang, and he pulled it from his pocket. When he heard who it was, an eyebrow shot up, and he looked at April. From that point on he listened, acknowledging what was said with the occasional uh-huh or murmur, finally saying, “It’s all good, so suck it up. And stop worrying.” He clicked off, smiling. “Want to take a guess who that was?”
She shook her head.
“The wise and terrible Cornie. She’s on her way to the hospital.”
“Oh, God.” And that was all there was to be said, because from here on in, it was up to the heavens to call the shots. It was Cornie, after all. “How did she—”
“Phylly called her last night, right after they got Noah settled. Must have been quite a call, because she knows everything. She says Noah’s her father. That true?”
“Yes, but damn it. I’m going to kill Phylly. That’s not something you tell a girl over the phone. Cornie must be half out of her mind.” April took a few steps, hoping to calm down. It didn’t work. “Sometimes that woman is so incredibly thoughtless, she makes me crazy.”
Joe raised a brow. “Be careful. That’s my mother you’re talking about.”
She looked at him, felt her eyes widen, a quick soft flutter near her heart. It was the first time Joe had openly acknowledged her as his mother.
“And as for Cornie,” he went on. “She’s as pissed off as you are. Seems Phylly’s good at bringing out the inner beast in people she cares about.”
“And who care about her.” She stared at him, hoping he wouldn’t look away. Maybe she was pushing it, maybe it was too soon to hope.
Silence filled the glass house, even as some early rays of sun bounced off its reflective surface. “Cornie’s not the only one who’s talked to her mother.” He looked at her, his expression grimly humorous. “She does good phone.”
“Yes, she does.” She held her breath.
“We’re going to—and here’s that word you love so much—
talk
when we get to the hospital. We’re going to goddamn Starbucks.”
“Phylly loves Starbucks.”
He came to her and took her face in his hands. “I wasn’t so good with the words last night. I’m sorry for that. But there’s one thing I want you to know. I might not get all soft and gooey about finding my mother—I’ll work on that— but that forgiveness thing you’re fretting about? I don’t think you should worry about that anymore.” He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, bent his head to brush his lips lightly across her own. “How could I not forgive a mother who not only saved my life but gifted me with a teenage sister who holds the record for the biggest mouth in America, and who”—he kissed her again—“rescued and kept safe for me the woman I love—and the woman I want to spend all my tomorrows with?”
Breathless now, April murmured, “That would be hard.”
“It would be impossible.”
Chapter 32
“How are you fixed for boiled oil-slick this morning, Riggs?”
Donny Riggs looked up from his morning newspaper. “Hey, Joe. Back from away are ya?” He swiveled his chair enough to deal with his coffeemaker. A big, new shiny one he’d ordered from Italy.
Grazie, Italia.
Riggs had finally figured out it was a felony to serve bad coffee in Seattle—which didn’t mean Joe had quit giving him a hard time.
“Where ya been, anyway?” Riggs asked.
“In the last couple of months—pretty much everywhere. Until a few days ago Mexico City.”
And when he wasn’t traveling for business, Joe was carving a mile-deep rut in 1-5 between Seattle and Portland, spending every possible moment with April. But in a couple of months, she’d be finished with her costume design internship then—hallelujah—they’d start planning a real life. Together.
“What about that pretty woman you got? She gonna like that—all that traveling you do?” He put the steaming coffee in front of Joe and watched him cap it.
“It’s what I do. She’s good with it.” He shoved a fiver across the counter. Like I’m good with her getting that job offer from Hollywood. Hell, if that’s what she wanted— where she wanted to be—that’s where they’d go. He could work from anywhere.
“So if you’ve been home for the last week, how come I haven’t seen ya?”
“Now you want to see my punch card?” No way was he going to explain to Riggs that he’d been spending his time checking out a special gift for April, making sure everything was exactly right.
He glanced at his watch. April said she’d be at his office by eleven, which meant he had twenty minutes, so he’d better move his ass. He headed down the street.
“Joe?”
Joe stopped, waited for the inevitable. “Yeah?”
Donny poked an index finger at the morning paper. “Says here you gotta be ready for the unexpected today. Says things aren’t going to go as planned. Says there’s only one right answer to a woman’s question.” He squinted at the paper. “And it says—and I’m not kidding—there’s going to be a new man in your life.” Grinning, he looked up. “You got something you’re not telling me?”
“No
ensnarling
snakes this time?”
“No snakes.”
Joe lifted his coffee cup in salute and turned the corner. He pulled out his phone, checked the time, and punched a number. “Hey, Julius. Are they there?”
“They’re here.”
“Good. If the 1-5 doesn’t do a number on April’s ETA, we should be right on time.”
He clicked off, shoved the cell into his inside pocket, and tried to ignore what else was in there. If he thought about
that,
he’d get the shakes. And today wasn’t about that. Today was about April. A minute later he was in the stairwell and starting up the first set of stairs leading to his office.
“Hey, big boy, wanna have a good time?”
The low, sultry voice came from behind him. Turning, he cocked his head. “Depends on whether the price is right.”
“The price is whatever you’re willing to pay.”
“And I can have it here? Now?”
“You can have it any way—and any time—you want it.”
“Now that’s a deal any man in his right mind wouldn’t refuse.” Joe pulled April into his arms and kissed her until neither of them could breathe. When his lungs got their groove back, he said, “You’re early.”
“I was worried about the traffic so I got an earlier start.” She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his shoulder. “You okay with that?”
His answer was to pull back so he could lift her face and kiss her senseless again.
“Hey, Joe. I guess saying have a good day would be overkill, huh?”
A man’s amused voice penetrated Joe’s brain fog, but he didn’t take his eyes from April, the laughter in her eyes. “My day couldn’t be better.” And it could only go up from here.
April stepped back and smoothed her hair behind her ear, still smiling. “A neighbor.”
“Office down the hall.” He copied her action and smoothed her hair. “You ready?”
“Where are we going exactly?” She tilted her head. “And why all the mystery?”
“Answer to first question—Julius’s for lunch. The second? You’ll see when we get there.” He kissed her nose. “No more questions. You’ve used up your quota.” He turned her toward the exit door. “Now move that miraculous butt of yours.”
“I love a man who takes charge—especially when they compliment my butt when they do it.” She moved.
They were on the street almost to his car when his phone rang. When he reached in to take it from his pocket, his hand brushed the other small package—sitting in his inside pocket like a hard, glowing coal. He clicked on, arched a brow in April’s direction, and said, “Yes, Mother Dearest, it’s definitely happening. Forty-five minutes tops . . . and, yes, I’ll call. . . . How’s Vegas—or more important—how’s Noah’s tolerance level? Is he missing his trees yet? . . . . Uh- huh.” He glanced down at April, ran a finger along her jaw. “She’s right here. I’ll ask her.” He dropped the hand holding the phone. “She wants to know if we’ll do a glass box weekend with them when you’re finished your internship.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re on,” he said into the phone. “Yes. I said I’d call and I will . . . . Now get back to taking care of that man of yours—while I take care of your daughter.” He clicked off. The phone rang again immediately. Joe looked at the call display. “Cornie,” he said, and clicked on. At this rate they’d never get to Jules. “Yes,
I’ll call.
I promise . . . . You think that’s a good idea? The guy’s leg isn’t a hundred percent, you know. You should take it easy on him . . . . Real easy.” He looked up at the sky, wondered how he’d got from minus zero in the family/female department to thrice blessed—and dazed and confused—in under three months. And he wouldn’t trade a second of it. “Bye, Cornball, see you soon.”