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It meant a lot.
But there were some things a man had to do on his own.
* * *
“I’M TELLING YOU, that woman hates me,” Sadie Nixon said with such heartfelt drama, Harper glanced around to make sure they hadn’t been magically transported to a Broadway stage. Harper’s cousin always had had somewhat of a theatrical streak.
But, nope, they were still in Irene Ellison’s gourmet kitchen. The scent of roasting beef filled the air, mixed with the yeasty smell of the rolls in the second oven while potatoes bubbled on the back corner of the six-burner range. Speckled black granite counters topped white cabinets, and green-and-black accents kept the room from being too modern or austere.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Aunt Irene told her daughter as she spread whipped white frosting on a triple-layer coconut cake. “Rose is a lovely woman.”
“She’s a fabulous woman,” Sadie agreed, crossing her arms as she leaned back against the counter. “Wonderful, really. Kind. Caring. Considerate. And she hates my guts.”
Aunt Irene shook her head. “Now, Sadie—”
“It’s true. I’ve tried so hard to get her to like me. I bake her cookies. Pick up little gifts I think she’ll enjoy. Help with the dishes when we eat dinner there. I invite her out for coffee or shopping, just the two of us.” Sadie, in bright orange jeans that threatened to cause permanent eye damage, and a silky white top that fell from her shoulder, pouted prettily. Then again, everything Sadie did she did prettily. Hard not to when you looked like a blonde, blue-eyed fairy come to life. “She’s always busy.”
“Well, I imagine she is very busy, what with going back to school,” Aunt Irene said.
Lifting the lid from the potatoes, Harper frowned as steam heated her cheeks, probably curling her hair. “Mrs. Montesano is going to college?”
“She’s taking courses at Seton Hill.” Sadie swiped her finger through the frosting bowl when her mom’s back was turned. “She wants to be a social worker.”
Good to know at least one Montesano considered education important. Rose’s middle son could learn a lesson from his mother.
Harper gripped the fork like Norman Bates in Psycho and stabbed the potatoes with more force than necessary. Not that she was letting grumpy, stubborn Eddie affect the rest of her evening or anything. She’d let all that go. Her frustration with him. Her curiosity as to how someone who seemed so quiet and stoic could also be so blatantly antagonistic.
Her shock over the sense that he just hadn’t seemed to like her all that much.
She peeled her fingers from the utensil and laid it on the counter, replaced the lid on the not-quite-done vegetable. How could he not like her? They didn’t even know each other, for God’s sake. Yes, she’d tutored him, but it wasn’t as if they’d had many—or any—deep, meaningful conversations. There was no basis, none at all, for him to form what had seemed to be a distinct aversion to her.
Which was crazy. She happened to be extremely likable. Some would even say to know her was to love her.
Okay, so only her parents had ever said that but that didn’t make it any less true.
“Just be yourself,” Irene advised Sadie as she moved the remaining frosting out of her daughter’s reach. “I’m sure whatever problem Rose has with you will solve itself in good time.”
“Please. I broke her son’s heart. She refuses to forgive me.”
“And he broke yours. But you found your way back to each other and mended those breaks. Forgave each other. It’s the way of love.”
“It’s not that way for everyone.” Harper couldn’t help but point this out. “Beau and I never fought.” And her husband certainly would never have done anything to break her heart.
Sadie raised her eyebrows. “Never?”
“We argued once in a while but nothing major.”
Everything between her and Beau had been so easy. So right. They’d fallen hard for each other at first sight, were engaged within a year of that initial meeting and married six months later. They’d rented an apartment, scrimped and saved for two years until they’d had enough for the down payment on their house. Harper had gotten pregnant a few months after moving in and, after eight and a half months, gave birth to a perfect daughter in under nine hours.
They’d done everything right. Everything.
And still he’d been taken away from her.
“No fights means no makeup sex,” Sadie said. “Or in-the-heat-of-a-fight sex, which is even better.”
Harper sent her a smug grin. “We didn’t need to fight to make sex exciting.”
Sadie snorted out a laugh.
Irene retrieved a huge glass bowl of salad from the stainless steel fridge. “Before we delve any further into the sex lives of my daughter and my favorite niece—”
“Your only niece,” Harper and Sadie said at the same time.
“I’d like to get back to what I was saying, which is that you needn’t worry about Rose staying angry with you. She’ll eventually forgive you for hurting her child.”
“I don’t see you holding a grudge against James,” Sadie muttered.
“That’s because I was on James’s side the whole time.”
And with that piece of insight, Aunt Irene swept out of the kitchen and into the dining room where Harper’s mother, Mary Ann, was in charge of setting the table. Her Uncle Will and dad, Kurt, were entertaining Cassidy in the family room.
“Now that’s just mean,” Sadie called after her mother.
Harper rubbed her cousin’s arm. “Don’t worry. Aunt Irene’s right. Mrs. Montesano will get over whatever’s bothering her. No one can stay mad at you for long.”
“She’s giving it her best effort.” Sadie slid Harper an unreadable look. “Though I’m very glad to hear you say that.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. What did you do now?”
“Why does everyone insist on asking me that?”
“Because we know you?”
Harper loved her cousin like crazy but that didn’t mean she was immune to Sadie’s flaws. She tended to leap into situations feetfirst without looking left or right, laugh off the consequences of her actions and follow every whim that floated through her head.
“You know I only ever have the best of intentions,” Sadie said, laying her hand on her heart.
Her earnest expression sent a chill of trepidation up Harper’s spine. “Uh-huh. Why do I get the feeling those best intentions—” she used air quotes to mark the words “—somehow involve me this time?”
“Because you’re incredibly bright and intuitive.”
“You’re making me nervous, so why don’t you tell me what it is you have up your sleeve so we can both move on with our lives.”
“Actually, that’s what this is all about.” Sadie inhaled deeply and when she spoke, her voice was quiet, compassionate. “You moving on. And I know just the man to help you.”
Harper’s scalp tingled even as a laugh of disbelief escaped her throat. “No. No, no, no. And if that doesn’t cover it, let me add a no way, no how, not going to happen.”
“But Charlie is a great guy. He’s handsome,” Sadie said, ticking good ol’ Charlie’s traits off on her fingers, “charming, successful, funny—”
“Wow. Hard to believe such a man exists in this day and age. Or that he’s still single.”
“It is a shock,” Sadie said as if Harper had been serious. “Because he’s so sweet and really smart and—”
“Loves puppies? Takes his mother and grandmother to church every Sunday? Trained to be an Olympic gymnast but gave it up to become a neurosurgeon? Single-handedly stopped a busload of orphans from driving off a bridge and into a river?”
“He’s not a superhero, Harper.” Shaking her long, puffy hair back from her face, Sadie raised her chin and sniffed. “It wouldn’t hurt you to give Charlie a chance. I told him all about you—”
“Oh, Sadie, you didn’t.”
“And he was intrigued. Extremely intrigued. He’s interested in meeting you. It doesn’t have to be a blind date or even anything major. We could go out—you and Charlie, me and James—have a nice, casual dinner. If you and Charlie hit it off, wonderful. If not, no harm done.”
Irritation burrowed under Harper’s skin, rooted itself at the base of her spine. She did her best to ignore it, to keep her expression relaxed. To remind herself that Sadie meant well and was only trying to help Harper, to do what she thought was best for her.
But if she didn’t knock it off, Harper might very well smash the cake into Sadie’s pretty, interfering face. Except that would be a waste of a really delicious-looking cake.
“Look, I’m sure Charlie is as fabulous as you say.” Though Sadie’s track record with men before she and James became involved disputed that. “But I’m not in the market for any man. Besides, it would be greedy of me to snag Charlie after I already had the perfect guy. Let’s let some other woman have a turn.”
“I know it’s not easy, believe me, I know better than most how hard it is to get past losing someone you love. But if there’s one thing I’ve finally learned, it’s how important it is for those of us left behind to continue living. To move forward with our lives.”
Harper softened a bit—but only because Sadie had faced her own terrible loss. Her father died in a car accident when she was nine years old. She’d only recently been able to fully heal from it. “I am living my life.”
She didn’t have a choice.
“Yes, but are you happy?” Sadie asked gently.
Happy? The question, the word alone, gave Harper pause enough to make her realize she didn’t want to answer it. Not if it meant facing the truth.
“I’m not unhappy,” she hedged, sounding way too defensive and unsure for her own peace of mind. “I’m content enough.”
Yes, that was it. She may not have chosen her current situation, but she’d adjusted to it quite nicely. And even though she may not be ecstatically, blissfully happy all the time, there were still periods of joy in her life—hearing her daughter’s laugh, teaching the kids in her class, being around her family. Moments she treasured all the more now that she had firsthand experience of how precious they truly were.
Of how easily they could be taken away.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything—”
“Hey, at least you got something right today.”
“And I hate that you’re mad at me—”
“I’m not mad,” Harper said, praying that one little fib wouldn’t mess up all the excellent karma she’d worked so hard for all these years.
Sadie clasped Harper’s hands. “You’ve been incredibly strong but I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to be alone.”
Harper’s fingers twitched and she tugged free of Sadie’s grasp.
And to think, she’d been so excited when Sadie had returned to town two months ago, thrilled when her cousin had moved in with James, settling down right here in Shady Grove after spending so many years flitting from place to place.
Maybe Sadie would get bored soon and go on another of her “life adventures.”
One could only dream.
“I’m not ready to date again.” Harper held up her hand when Sadie opened her mouth. “I promise when I am, I’ll let you know. I’ll even give you dibs on being the first person to fix me up. Until that day comes, I’d prefer if you didn’t bring this up again.”
She turned on her heel and walked out the door, stepping onto the small porch at the front of the house. Hugging her arms against the slight chill in the air, she sat on the top step and rested her head against the post.
Her chest was tight. Her throat scratchy and sore. She sniffed. She was fine. She was 100 percent, absolutely fine.
I don’t want you to be alone.
As if that would ever happen. Between her daughter, her family and work, she rarely had a moment by herself. Even as a kid she’d always been surrounded by people—her parents, her friends, teachers and classmates. She didn’t know what it was like to be alone.
But in the past year, she’d learned exactly what it was like to be lonely.
* * *
“HOW’S THAT HOMEWORK COMING?” Eddie asked Max, glancing at where his son sat hunched over his books at their kitchen table.
Max—for some reason standing to walk around and around the table—shrugged, a gesture Eddie recognized as one of his own. His brothers were right. It was annoying as hell, especially when he needed to get an answer and none was forthcoming.
Eddie popped a slice of carrot into his mouth then wiped his hands on the towel hanging from his belt. Checked the microwave clock. Almost eight. It would be another twenty minutes before they ate. And, if history proved correct, a good hour until Max was done with his math, reading and spelling.
He’d picked up Max from practice only to be three blocks from home before realizing he had nothing to make for dinner. They’d turned around and hit the grocery store—an errand that should have taken only a few minutes but had somehow dragged into half an hour thanks to Max racing all over the store.
Where the kid got his energy after skating around hell-bent for leather for two hours was beyond Eddie. That last time, when Max had taken off in the frozen food aisle, Eddie thought for sure he’d have to call the cops to hunt him down only to corral him—and the box of cupcakes in his hands—by the deli.
Max had been working on his math since they’d walked in the door twenty-five minutes ago. Eddie would like to blame the long time frame on the amount of work needed to be done but Harper only gave the kids a few addition problems to solve, told them to copy their spelling words and read from their assigned books.
He could blame her for other things, though. Such as him having to stand over his kid to make sure Max not only did his homework but also did it correctly. For Eddie worrying about what would happen if he let either of those things slip.
“Here,” Max said, shoving his math paper at Eddie when he reached his side.
Eddie picked it up, his chest tightening at the sight of the messy answers. “Double-check these,” he said, pointing to three problems that were incorrect. Three out of the five. Damn.
Sitting on the edge of the chair, his tongue caught between his teeth, Max erased the number he’d written in for the first problem. Frowning, he mumbled to himself. “Twenty-three?” he asked, looking so hopeful Eddie wished he could manipulate the formula for math just to make his kid right.
“Try again. What’s six plus six?”
Max swung his foot, his heel hitting the chair leg. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Should Eddie be worried it took Max so long to figure it out, that he didn’t know it automatically and had to count on his fingers?
Another reason to damn Harper. For making him doubt everything his kid did.
“Twelve.”
“Right. So when you take the six of sixteen and add six, the answer is twenty...” When Max remained silent—other than all that thumping—Eddie held up all the fingers on his left hand, the pointer finger on his right. “Sixteen...seventeen,” he said, folding his pointer finger down. “Eighteen.” The thumb on his left hand. “Nineteen.” Left pointer finger.
“Twenty.” Max folded Eddie’s middle finger down. “Twenty-one.” Ring finger, then pinky. “Twenty-two!”
“Good job. Now rework the other ones.”
While Max figured out the remaining problems, Eddie put their burgers on the grill, tossed frozen French fries into the oven and threw together a salad.
“Done,” Max said, digging into his backpack.
“This one is still wrong,” Eddie told him, tapping the incorrect answer.
With a weary sigh—as if Eddie was the one making this process last so damn long—Max slumped into his seat clutching his handheld video game. “I don’t know it.”
“You didn’t even look at which problem it is.”
He scanned the paper then shrugged.
“Nineteen plus eight is twenty-seven,” Eddie said, erasing the wrong answer. He held out the pencil but Max had his head bent over his game, his hair in his eyes.
Eddie wrote in the correct sum, doing his best to imitate his son’s handwriting.
And he could only imagine what kind of fresh hell he’d catch if Harper found out about it. Too bad. She didn’t get what it was like, being a single parent, trying to do it all on her own. Besides, he’d make up for it by going over Max’s addition flash cards with him this weekend. Twice.
“Put the game away and get your reading book out,” he told Max. “You can read to me while I get dinner on the table.”
Eddie grabbed plates, silverware and napkins. When he returned to the table, Max was still hunched over his game, his fingers flying across the buttons.
“I said, put the game away.” Max didn’t so much as blink. Eddie set the plates on the table with a sharp crack. “Max. Maximilian.”
Nothing.
He plucked the video game from his son’s hands.
“Hey,” Max said, jumping up and reaching for it.
Eddie easily held it out of reach. “You can play later. After you’ve done your reading and we’ve had dinner.”
In a full pout, Max flopped onto the chair, crossed his arms. “I don’t want to read it. Mrs. Kavanagh gave me a baby book.”
“She wants you to read a book about babies?”
Max rolled his eyes. “It’s a book that babies read.”
“Must be gifted babies. Reading before they can even talk.”
Another eye roll, this one worthy of a kid twice his age. “It’s a kindergarten book.”
“If it’s the book Mrs. Kavanagh assigned you to read, that’s what you’ll do.”
“I want to read Heroes of Olympus.”
They’d just discovered the series over the summer and were on the third book. But there was no way Max could read a book at that level.
Impatience and sympathy battled inside of Eddie with irritation giving them both a run for their money. Big-time. He dug deep so that patience won in the end. He was tired. They both were. Add in hungry, and the fact that one of them was a kid, and you had the potential for a major breakdown. One Eddie didn’t have the time for.
“If we get everything done by nine,” he said, “everything being dinner, your homework and your bath, I’ll read you two chapters of The Mark of Athena before we go to bed. Deal?”
Chewing on his thumbnail, Max nodded. Slid his book—Pie Rats Ahoy!—out of his backpack and opened it. “B...b...”
Eddie covered the second half of the word with his thumb. “Sound it out.”
“B...beh...”
“Be,” Eddie corrected, switching to cover the first two letters. “Now this part.”
“Wuh...” Max shook his head. “Ruh...”
“Ware. Now put them together.” He covered the second half again. “Be.”
“Be.”
Covered the first part. “Ware.”
“Ware.”
“Be,” Eddie said, drawing the word out as he slid his finger under the letters. “Ware. Beware.”
“Beware. Tuh...huh...”
Eddie curled his fingers into his palms, his nails digging into his skin, but he kept his voice mild as he read over Max’s shoulder. “Remember when t and h are together like that, they make a th sound.”
Max nodded. “The...there...”
“Good.”
“There wa...war...”
“Were. There were...”
Fifteen minutes later, their fries were rapidly cooling on the counter and their burgers overdone. And Max was only halfway through a learn-to-read book about a bunch of pie-stealing rats.
“Let’s eat,” Eddie said, taking the book from Max and setting it aside. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to rip the damn thing into confetti. “We’ll finish this after your bath.”
“You said we could read The Mark of Athena.”
“I said if we got done by nine.” Not likely now, not with half a book to go plus Max’s spelling homework.
Max’s eyes welled with tears and Eddie’s heart broke. Not because his kid was disappointed—disappointments were a fact of life, one you couldn’t hide from or protect your children from. But because Eddie knew exactly how Max felt.
Damn it, he hated that his son had to struggle. Knew all too well what Max was going through. The frustration. The self-doubt. But worse was the wanting—wanting to do better. Wanting to be smarter.
Unable to do either.
“We’ll read one chapter before you go to bed,” Eddie promised. “No matter how late it is.”
“Okay.” Grinning, Max lunged at Eddie, wrapped his arms around Eddie’s neck. “Thanks, Dad.”
Eddie held on tight. He didn’t want to let go. He wanted to keep his kid in his arms where nothing bad could happen to him. He wanted to promise him it would all be okay, that he’d be okay.
His cell phone buzzed.
“Put your stuff away and wash your hands,” he told Max then picked up his phone. “Hello?”
“Eddie,” a familiar female voice said. “Hi. How are you?”
He bit back a vicious curse. And wished like hell he’d never turned his cell phone on.
CHAPTER FOUR
“HEY,” EDDIE SAID, lowering his voice. Luckily, Max was busy washing his hands and had no interest in his dad’s phone call.
“I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
Tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear, he dished fries onto Max’s plate then his own. “We were just sitting down to eat.”
“At eight-thirty? Isn’t that a little late?”
He pressed his lips together, squeezed the spatula handle so hard, he was surprised it didn’t snap in two. Who the hell was she to question how he did things?
“We had a busy day,” he managed to say in a reasonable tone.
“Of course,” she said quickly as if trying to appease him. “Did you get my messages?”
Messages? There had been more than the one she left with James?
He grunted in affirmation as he motioned for Max to sit and start eating. “What did you need?”
He could picture her on the other end of the line. Even though it was late, she was probably still at her fancy office, her hair pulled back. When they’d been married, she’d often worked twelve-, fourteen-hour days, put in time on weekends and holidays. She’d had no time and little energy for anything or anyone but work.
Not even her own son.
“Actually,” she said, “I’d like to talk to Max.”
Eddie turned his back to Max, who now watched him with a frown. Must have picked up on Eddie’s tension. “Like I said, we’re just getting ready to—”
“I’ll only take a moment of his time. I promise.”
Your promises don’t mean much.
He kept that thought to himself.
“Your mom wants to talk to you,” he told Max, holding out the phone.
Max took it. Eddie couldn’t tell if the flush staining his son’s cheeks was from pleasure or nerves.
“Hello?” Max said.
Eddie plated up his dinner, tried not to listen in on the conversation. Not that there was much said on Max’s part other than a few yeses, noes, okays and uh-huhs.
After a few minutes, Max said goodbye and passed the phone to Eddie. “She wants to talk to you again.”
Eddie set down his burger. “Yeah?”
“I’d like to visit Max,” Lena said without preamble, obviously taking the hint that Eddie had no desire for pleasantries or to drag this conversation out longer than necessary.
His stomach churning, he stood, covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Finish eating,” he whispered to Max before walking into the living room. “Is that what you talked with him about?”
“No. I wanted to run it by you first.”
Thank God for small favors. She had no business saying anything to Max about visiting before she had Eddie’s permission.
“Is next weekend a good time for you?” she asked.
There was no good time. After Lena’s visits, Max always acted out. Fighting at school. Being disrespectful and angry at home.
How could it be anything other than a disruption? Lena had taken off when their son was two, claiming she couldn’t handle the responsibility of having a child, wanting to climb the career ladder more than to be a mother. She’d moved to Chicago and had been on the fast track with her job ever since. Until she got sick.
And now she wanted to see Max next week.
What choice did he have? She was his mother. She had a right to see him. Max had a right to have his mother in his life, even if it was on a temporary basis.