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Dread knotted in his stomach.
Was she calling merely to check on the kids or had his brother worsened?
“Hey,” he said, as Addy reemerged from the house still wearing the dark dress and casting an apologetic glance at him. Something moved within him at that look in her eyes. Something weak. He turned away.
“Hey,” Courtney said, her voice weary...almost defeated. “Thought I better call and check on the kids while I had a chance. They’re changing Ben’s bedding and I’m in the waiting room.”
“The kids are fine.”
“Are they? I’ve been worried. I left without saying goodbye.”
“Wasn’t ideal.” He’d arrived early Monday morning. Courtney had taken a cab to the airport minutes later, leaving him with sleeping kids and a page of instructions that didn’t cover jack.
“No, it wasn’t but it was the best way.”
“Not sure about that, but you can smooth things over a bit if you tell the kids about Ben’s condition. It would be easier—”
“On you?” Her voice also held anger. “All I asked was for you to be their caretaker. That’s it. I’m truly grateful, but I can’t tell them their father may be dying over the phone, Luke.”
He hadn’t been called Luke in many years and the sound of his name on her lips confused him. On one hand it swept him back to a time when he’d loved hearing her say his name, and on the other hand, it caused the anger of betrayal to eat away at any pleasure left in hearing her voice. “And I complied, Courtney, but I’m a stranger. Not knowing what’s going on makes it harder on them. Not me. Them.”
Michael came around the corner of the house followed by Flora. He caught sight of Lucas on his phone and some kind of internal homing signal went off and the boy started walking toward where Lucas had slipped into the shadows.
“Hey, is that my mom?” Michael asked.
Courtney dropped a curse word. “Tell him no. Please, I’m not ready to talk to him about Ben.”
Lucas pulled the phone from his ear and turned to head off Michael. “This is my call and you’re being rude interrupting it.”
Michael’s chest expanded in outrage. “If that’s my mother, I have a right to talk to her. It’s her, isn’t it? Let me have the phone.”
Lucas shook his head and pointed toward where Chris held a stack of planters. Addy appeared, her forehead crinkled in concern. Chris watched his brother, mouth slightly open, anticipation of the confrontation in his eyes. Charlotte happily dug in the compost heap looking for worms, which she promptly dumped into a can sitting beside her. The girl didn’t seem to know there was anything else in the world except fat, squiggly earthworms that probably both fascinated and repelled her.
“Go help Addy’s aunt with the wheelbarrow.” When Michael didn’t budge, Lucas added, “Now.”
“This is bullshit. If that’s my mom, I want to talk to her. She won’t text me or call me. Her. Not you.”
Courtney said with a sigh, “Give him the phone.”
Lucas didn’t want to concede to Michael. He’d read in one of the parenting magazines consistency was the solution to many behavior problems in children of all ages. He wanted to stand firm on telling Michael no, but he wasn’t the kid’s parent. Courtney was, and maybe she’d finally tell the boy about his father’s condition.
“Mom, what’s going on? Why did you leave us with him?” Michael said into the receiver. He plodded toward the low screen of bushes lining Addy’s home.
Lucas watched as Michael nodded, made a defiant face then shook his head. Several heated words were exchanged before the boy’s shoulders sank in defeat.
Lucas knew Courtney hadn’t told him about Ben’s injury and complications from the surgery. If anything, Michael swelled even more with resentment as he handed Lucas the phone and stalked away.
“Courtney?”
“What?” She was crying.
“Why won’t you at least tell Michael about Ben? He’s old enough to understand.”
“Shut up, Luke. You don’t understand how vulnerable Michael is. He and his dad are close. If I tell him Ben might die, it will be real. So shut up, feed them, make sure they brush their teeth, but don’t tell them anything about their father. You hear me?”
“Avoiding reality doesn’t help Michael.”
“Ben is going to get better. I have faith. This can’t happen to me again, and I’m not going to put them through what I went through with Mom and Dad. You understand? Just tell them I’m with their father and everything is okay.”
“I know what you went through, Courtney. I was there. Remember?”
“Of course I remember. It was excruciating seeing my mother the way she was, seeing my daddy die. Those memories are in my head, Luke. I can’t get them out, and I don’t want my children to have that same hopelessness.”
“But what if you hadn’t been there? What if you’d been kept in the dark? It’s not pleasant to be lied to.”
He hadn’t intended to throw the extra meaning in, but it was there nevertheless. It would always be between them. Lucas had been in the dark, Courtney and Ben had kept their affair in the shadows, skulking around, betraying him.
No, it did not feel good being lied to.
Courtney’s crying grew louder. “Ben’s going to get better. I know it, Luke. He’s got to. Just give me a little more time, that’s all. Time will fix it. The doctors said the antibiotic might be working. His blood work looks better.”
“Is he still on the ventilator?”
A choked sob was his only answer.
“Okay, okay. I won’t say anything to the kids, but consider it...for Michael’s sake. He’s hurting with the unknown and somehow that seems worse than knowing the truth about his father.”
“The truth is not always best, Luke. Don’t you remember how much it can hurt?”
Oh, he remembered. The truth about Ben and Courtney had crushed him, not so much with what he lost in a future with Courtney, but in the loss of faith in his brother, in a girl he’d grown up loving. Yeah, the truth hurt, but it was a hell of a lot better than pretense. “Just think about it.”
“I will. How’s my girl?”
“Right now she’s digging for worms.”
“Worms?” The sob ended with a choke of laughter. “Well, I guess there are worse things. Why’s she digging for worms?”
“Well, Chris had a little accident a few days ago. Don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“An accident? How?”
“He forgot your neighbor had a greenhouse built in her yard and took the dirt bike for a spin while—”
“He’s not supposed to ride the bike without adult supervision.”
Lucas started to mutter No shit but bit down on the smart-assed comment. “I went inside to wipe Charlotte.”
“Charlotte knows how to wipe herself.”
He allowed silence to speak for itself.
“She likes attention.” Courtney sighed. “I wish I could have given you a handbook instead of a page.”
“Me, too.”
“I know it’s not easy, but I knew if any single guy could swoop in and take care of three kids, it was you. You’ve always been so competent, never messing up in life. Really, Luke, I don’t know what I would have done. With your parents in Europe, I—”
“I make plenty of mistakes, Courtney, and I don’t know shit from shinola about raising kids, but we’re all making do.”
“What about Flora and Addy? And the greenhouse?”
“We’re working together on the repairs now. Chris’s dirt bike is in the garage and I’ve hidden the key. We’re good.”
“Okay, apologize to Addy for me and keep the receipts for the repairs. I’ll make sure you’re reimbursed.”
Lucas said goodbye and hung up, not feeling at all comfortable with continuing to lie to his brother’s children. But he wasn’t their parent. He was merely their caretaker, not involved enough in their lives to offer an opinion. He opposed what Courtney was doing, but he understood.
When Courtney had been in high school, her parents had been shot in a convenience store theft. Neither had died in the actual robbery, but they’d been gravely injured. Courtney’s father died from his wounds the day after the robbery, but her mother had held on for days, undergoing several surgeries before succumbing. Courtney had lived at the hospital, Lucas with her, bringing her food and comforting her as best an eighteen-year-old kid could. The loss had devastated the sunny Courtney, turning her into a shell of what she’d been, maybe even driving the wedge between them that allowed for the betrayal.
Lucas walked to where Michael sat tapping on his phone. “Guess we better start demoing the damaged parts of the greenhouse. I’ll grab Chris. Can you dig the shears out of the bag so we can cut away the torn plastic?”
Michael looked up. “So you’re finally going to make him do something?”
The kid’s tone was feral.
Courtney’s secrecy had created an angry monster of a boy...one Lucas had to deal with. And he tired of dealing. “Why don’t you watch your tone, Michael?”
“Why don’t you leave?”
“I wish I could.” Lucas shoved his curled fist into his front pocket and walked away. Toward the front of the house. Away from Michael. Away from Chris and Charlotte and the dotty old lady trilling encouraging words to the kids. Away from Addy and her prickly demeanor.
He needed air. And space. And peace. And quiet.
And maybe a shot of bourbon.
* * *
ADDY SET THE ORCHIDS she’d gathered on the newspaper. She wrapped the roots in wet newspaper and tucked them beneath the blooming azalea bushes framing the back stoop. Thankfully, Cal, the guy who made gorgeous pottery along with inexpensive clay pots, had plenty of selection. She liked terra-cotta for the orchids.
For the past few minutes, she’d tried to forget about Lucas and the guilt she felt about being overly defensive. She hadn’t meant to be so forceful, but the fear inside her over the stupid wildflower tucked beneath her windshield wiper had hooked into her gut and seeped into her bones. When fear came knocking, it was hard to not open the door. So she’d lashed out at Lucas, which was ironic considering her first thought at discovering the “gift” was to call Lucas. Something about the man with broad shoulders and a hard jaw struck something within her, something that told her he could help her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Lucas pocketing his phone and approaching Michael who sat sullenly beside the lumber. A few words were exchanged then Lucas walked away, moving to the Finlay house. Toward his truck. Something in the slant of his shoulders had her dumping the orchids and following him.
Surely he wasn’t going to leave?
True, dealing with kids was tough, but he’d made a commitment, right?
He heard the crunching of the gravel beneath her feet as she followed him, but he didn’t slow or turn his head. She nearly breathed a sigh of relief when he passed his truck and hooked around the front of the house. Lucas climbed the porch steps and sank into a rocking chair that needed a new coat of paint.
Hesitating on the steps, she looked at him, not knowing what to say.
Lucas studied the floating clouds beyond her head. “This was a mistake. I’ve got to get out of here. I’m not the right person to take care of these kids.”
Addy started to deliver platitudes but snapped her mouth closed. “Maybe not, but right now you’re all they have.”
“I need clean air and a clear landscape sitting outside my door. I can’t breathe here.”
The longing in his voice touched her. He felt trapped by the world he now occupied. She knew a little about being confined to a smaller world.
A few minutes ticked by as the sounds of the neighborhood waned and an even smaller world was formed on the porch. A line of black ants squiggled across the top step. A spider clung to a web in the camellia bush, and the rocking chair creaked with the slight motion Lucas gave it. Small, closed in. Intimate in a way she hadn’t experienced the other night. Raw emotion pulsed and she knew it was seldom Lucas admitted defeat, admitted any weakness.
He didn’t look at her, at where she stood near the line of overgrown bushes that had needed pruning last fall. Addy knew Lucas was mentally picking up the scattered bits of his emotions and trying to tuck them into an airtight box he kept in his soul.
Like recognized like.
Something inside her stirred, then stilled. Certainty of what she needed to say settled in her gut.
“I’m sorry about the way I acted earlier. Something happened on Wednesday that shook me up, and I allowed a remnant of that emotion to spill over into today.”
He waved away her apology. “No problem. You were right. I don’t have any business prying into your life. We’re not friends, not really anything to each other. You’re a nice person trying to help me. Bottom line.”
The casual dismissal pricked her. She didn’t want to be nothing to him, and that surprised her all over again. “I’d like to think we are friends.”
His gaze swept to hers. “I suppose we are. In a way.”
“Then you should understand something about me. Not even Courtney or any of my other neighbors know this, but somehow, I think you need to know who I am.”
She saw the muscles in his neck move as he swallowed, as his eyes softened. She didn’t understand the need to tell him about Robbie, about the fear that sometimes ate at her. Just knew it would make things better.
“When I was senior in high school, a neighbor, a man I thought I knew, held a knife to my throat and tried to rape me.”
Lucas’s hands tightened on the rocker. “What?”
Acid ate at her stomach and her hands trembled. She tucked them behind her and met Lucas’s gaze. “I was stupid, a good girl, a quintessential overachiever with a pretty face and a bright future, but I had this need inside me, a little part of myself who wanted to rebel. Down the street lived this older guy. He was in his mid-twenties, cute in a boyish way, rode a Harley and sometimes hung out at my dad’s garage. He flirted with me, I flirted back and then one night I snuck out my bedroom window and climbed on his Harley with him.”
Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “You seem so levelheaded. I can’t imagine you sneaking out with an older guy.”
“Of course not. I’ve changed. But we all have some wildness inside us. I just chose to be wild with the totally wrong guy.”
Silence sat for a moment.
“Eventually, being a naughty girl got old. I didn’t really like him as much as I liked the feeling of being disobedient, of having some say-so in my own life. Eventually, I stopped opening that window. But Robbie wouldn’t accept I wasn’t into him. I tried to tell him I had prom coming up and college. I told him we had no future together. And it got ugly.”
“What did he do?” His voice was soft as the day, like sunlight falling on the emerging green of spring.
“At first he said ugly things. Then he showed up at my high school and watched me with my friends. He slashed my tires, wrote me violent letters and called my cell phone and hung up several times a day. I didn’t tell my parents because I knew they’d be so disappointed...and that I’d be grounded for life.” She offered him a wry smile.
He didn’t smile back.
