After Robbie was born, Fred demanded she get her tubes tied, and she’d refused. She was not only a devout Catholic, she wanted more children. When she had the fourth miscarriage, Fred openly celebrated while Maria’s heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. She mourned for the lost baby, and she cried alone. Weeks passed before she could work up the courage to tell her family what had happened.
She should have left him then, but she didn’t have the confidence to walk away. They were joined in Holy Matrimony, and no one in her family had ever gotten divorced. That changed when Nick and his first wife divorced. Lisa had committed the unpardonable sin. She’d had an abortion and didn’t tell her husband. Nick didn’t know until he got the bill. Now he had a wife and little boy he loved dearly, and he was such a good husband and father.
Everyone in her family loved kids, and this man sitting at the table in Nick’s office didn’t. Blade wouldn’t know the first thing about being a father, assuming he wanted to be one. But she couldn’t see him celebrating if his wife had a miscarriage.
Maria pulled out two more plans. The sprawling one-level home, what they called a rambler in this part of the country, had a casual, cottage look about it. The bigger two-story plan had a more formal exterior. She had a good idea what he wanted, and although neither of these plans would do, the combination of the two might work well. Al could figure out how to combine the best elements of each. Her youngest brother could do anything when it came to a building design.
In both plans, the living room and kitchen and master bedrooms were in the back, where they’d get the best views of the water. She pointed to a big bedroom on the second floor of the bigger plan. “You could make this bedroom the library, and if you put a porch on the corner downstairs, you could add a covered balcony over it for the library. What do you think?”
“That might work. This thing has how many bedrooms?”
“Seven, plus a study, and the plan has a big unfinished room over the garage that could be finished at some point.”
She watched him with his head bent over the plan. He was wondering how many bedrooms he’d need if Maria married him. “Don’t do that, Blade.”
He looked up. “How many?”
She called his bluff and counted them off on her fingers. “One for Jimmy and Andy, one for Robbie, one for Molly, one for the baby—”
His hand came up in the universal sign for stop. “Whoa there. Back up. What baby?”
“The one I’d want if I married again, of course, and I couldn’t leave my mother behind, so we’d need a room for her.”
“No problem with Sophia, as long as she cooks every now and then. It’s this crying and changing diapers part I’m not so sure about.” His eyes scanned her body.
Although I wouldn’t mind watching you feed my baby with those magnificent—
Maria cleared her throat and backed up a step. “Sorry I brought it up.”
Blade leaned back and looked up at her, thinking,
Sophia Loren never looked that good.
“So, does this mean you’d consider it?”
“Consider
what
?” She sat down and listened to his mind.
I’ve never been around kids. I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with them.
“Love them and teach them how to be good adults.”
“Why do I get the feeling they’d be teaching me?”
“It doesn’t matter, because I have no intention of marrying you, Blade.”
Story of my life. Nobody wants me.
Mr. Macho didn’t mean for her to hear that. He excused himself to use the restroom, and her heart went out to him. Down deep inside Blade was a good man, but he wasn’t right for her.
Surely there was a woman in Gig Harbor who was right for him. All she had to do was find her and set them up.
<>
An hour later, Blade sat in June Akiyama’s office going over the counter-offer from the sellers of that waterfront property. He’d offered four hundred thousand and they wanted four-fifty with no contingencies. They’d had a perk test done three years ago, and although the permit for a septic had expired, the sellers assured Blade that the property would handle a four-bedroom septic system.
Blade pulled out his cell phone and called Nick. “Did you do an engineering study on your property?”
“Yeah, all that land along there is safe to build on as long as you anchor the foundation properly.”
“What about septic?”
“We put in two, one on each side of the house.”
“I won’t have enough room for that. Would you sell me a piece of your property to put a drain field on?”
“Tell you what. If you clear that patch of blackberries when you clear your land and let me connect a bathroom and outdoor kitchen to your septic, we’ll call it even.”
“It’s a deal.” Blade closed his phone and turned back to June. “Same price, cash deal, no contingencies. If they don’t take it, tell them I’ll look elsewhere.”
June took care of the paperwork and Blade signed it. He asked for a response by nine this evening, and if this deal didn’t go through, he’d start looking around for something else. He wanted the property, but he wouldn’t pay a hundred thousand more than it was worth. The sellers must think that because Cara Andrews lived on that street, they could jack up the price another hundred thou, but he wouldn’t pay it.
Blade left the real estate office and started home. As he pulled around the corner into his street, he spotted Sunny’s car blocking his driveway. She was going through his mailbox. He stopped and punched in 911 on his cell phone. Sunny was so preoccupied, she hadn’t seen him yet.
“There’s a woman parked in front of my house, and she’s going through my mail,” he told the 911 operator.
After he disconnected, he nosed his Harley against Sunny’s car door so she couldn’t get in. How many hours would it take for the cops to get here?
“Blade, I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Find anything interesting in my mail, Sunny?”
She put the stack of mail on the hood of her car. “Now about the money. I’m broke, and I knew you’d want to help me out.” Her breath smelled like bourbon and her hands were shaking. She was coming down off something. If she was anyone else, he’d pity her, but this woman made his childhood a living nightmare.
Still sitting on his Harley, he waved toward his little rental house. “Does it look like I have money?”
Glancing toward the dumpy little house, she said, “It’s temporary, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, temporary like for the past twenty-five years.” She lived in a nice home, thanks to the Banner money, while he busted his butt to work his way through college and pay off a mountain of student loans. “What did you do with all the money my father gave you?”
“Used it to take care of you, of course. Blade, darling, I’ve been searching for you for the longest time.”
Yeah, for a whole month. She wouldn’t have looked for him if his grandfather hadn’t died. Sunny had no use for him until he inherited Edward’s estate. “Why didn’t you tell me I had a grandfather? Why did you lie to him and omit the truth from me?”
Her shaking hand went to her forehead. “I’m sick, Blade. I don’t have insurance, and I can’t afford medicine.”
“Oh, yeah? Does the medicine cost more than the stuff you gave me when I was a kid?”
“What did you expect me to do with a screaming child?”
“Take me to the doctor. I still have scars from John’s going away present. Did you know that?” He dropped his voice. “Do you care? Did you ever care about me, or did you keep me to get John’s money?”
Blade saw the patrol car coming down the street. He pushed the bike back, parked it behind Sunny’s car, and greeted the Pierce County Sheriff’s Deputy. “Officer, glad you could make it. This is the woman I caught going through my mail. I haven’t checked the house yet.”
Sunny lashed out with a bout of swearing that burned his ears. He hoped Maria’s kids weren’t around to hear it. The cop put Sunny through a sobriety test, searched her purse and her car, and pulled out several items of interest. She had an open container of Jack Black under the front seat of her car, several mostly empty vials of something, probably cocaine, in the glove box, and two pieces of Blade’s mail in her purse. One was a credit card statement and the other a letter from Colin Jacobs.
The officer cuffed Sunny and shoved her in the back of the patrol car. He returned to interview Blade. “Do you know her?”
“She’s my stepmother,” said Blade. “I ran away from her abuse when I was fifteen and never looked back. She called me the other day demanding thirty million dollars.”
The cop’s eyes took in the house and the bike. “Did you win the lottery or something?”
“Or something. I inherited some money from my grandfather.”
While Sunny screamed obscenities at Blade, he took the cop into the house. The front door had been pried open. Drawers and cabinets hung open in the kitchen, and the bedroom and his tiny study had been trashed. Blade swore softly when he saw his broken computer monitor. “I don’t give a shit what you do with that bitch as long as you keep her away from me.”
The officer took a bunch of pictures before he left. Blade put the Harley in the garage beside the pickup and picked up the clothes strewn all over his bedroom. Books in the study littered the floor, some with pages ripped. Sunny was looking for money and she didn’t care what she destroyed to find it. Did she find... No, the bank statements were in the file, and that hadn’t been touched.
His cell phone rang. “Blade, this is June. The sellers accepted your offer, and they’d like to close on it as soon as the escrow company can complete the paperwork.”
“That’s fine with me. The sooner the better.”
Blade was examining the broken front door when Maria drove past with the kids. She did a double take at the car in front of his driveway, but she didn’t stop. He closed the door and walked down to her house. Seeing Sunny again, knowing she’d searched his house and gone through his mail, had shaken him more than he cared to admit.
He needed a drink.
Only Sunny could do that to him.
<>
Maria gave the kids a snack and sent the boys outside to play with Daisy. She invited Blade inside and called after the kids. “Watch the dog.” Daisy usually stayed in the yard with the kids, but if she saw that white cat, she’d take off again.
Blade sat at the kitchen bar watching Maria clean up. “Hey, where’s my cookies and milk?”
She handed him two cookies, poured him a glass of milk, and sat beside him. “What’s wrong, Blade? Is that Sunny’s car in front of your driveway?”
“I caught her going through my mail, so I called the cops. She had some of my mail in her purse, and she had some things in her car that would have gotten her arrested without the mail theft. One was an open container. The vials of stuff in her glove box looked like cocaine, but they were nearly empty. And the bitch trashed my house.”
“Oh, no.”
Andy burst through the front door. “Blade, there’s a tow truck at your house.”
“It’s okay, Andy. He’s taking that car that broke down.”
“Oh.” The door slammed behind the kid as he ran back outside to watch.
“I hate lying to your kids, but they wouldn’t understand why I’d have my wicked stepmother arrested. Cinderella didn’t do that, did she?”
Maria stood behind Blade and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. No kid should have to grow up like he had, and the man shouldn’t have to relive it now.
He rubbed her arm and leaned back into her. “That feels good, honey.”
She wanted to tell him not to call her ‘honey,’ but she couldn’t tell him now, when he was hurting.
Jimmy ran inside. “Mommy, Daisy ran after Fluffy.”
“My turn, Mommy,” said Blade. He walked outside and whistled. “Daisy, c’mon girl. Get your buns home or I’ll give you another bath.”
Maria looked around Blade to see Daisy racing for home. Blade held out his arms and the dog flew into them. “You’re a bad dog.”
“It isn’t her fault,” said Andy. “She—”
One look from Blade and Andy closed his mouth. “She’s a bad dog for running off again. Maria, do you have a kennel?”