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“Yeah, I know.” He paused. “My mom died. Right before Halloween last year.”
“Oh, honey…I’m so sorry,” she said, like she really meant it. “My folks died, too, when I was about your age.”
He looked at her, curious.
“How?”
“In a car crash,” she said softly.
“Oh.”
He’d never known anybody else whose parents had died when they were still a kid. Maybe that’s why she didn’t go all stupid and act all embarrassed and stuff like a lot of other people did, either treating him all fake nice or refusing to look right at him. Before he knew what he was doing, he sat on the step beside her. The dog brought him a stick to throw.
“What’s her name?”
“Annabelle. Although sometimes I call her Dumbbell.”
Robbie almost laughed. He threw the stick for the dog, then heard himself say, “When Mom was sick, I’d come here a lot.”
“Just to be by yourself?”
“Yeah. And now it’s almost like…”
“What?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t believe he’d almost told her about feeling like Mom was here now. Like she’d moved into the Old House after she’d died. “Nothin’,” he said, shrugging. “I forgot what I was about to say.”
“I do that, too,” Winnie said. Robbie looked at her.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Lots. It used to drive my grandmother crazy. She raised me after my parents died. She’s dead, too, now. Hey—you want a banana? Or a granola bar? I mean, if you think it’s okay.”
“Yeah, it’s okay.” He thought. “Could I have both?”
“Sure,” Winnie said, getting up, her voice kinda shaky when she told the dog to stay outside with Robbie.
Her eyes burning, Winnie collapsed against the wall next to the door, the plaster rough through her cotton top as she willed the shakes to stop. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, she wasn’t supposed to fall so hard, so fast…
Oh, for heaven’s sake, girl, pull yourself together. Jerking in a sharp breath, she crossed to grab a couple of bananas and a granola bar off the table, then headed back outside. Half of her wished like hell her son would be gone, the other half…
The other half was laughing its fool head off.
Robbie had just tossed the stick for Annabelle again when she walked out onto the porch. He took the banana, started to peel it. Desperately trying for nonchalant, Winnie lowered herself beside him again, peeling her own, trying not to react to his innocent, dusty scent. The confusion seeping from his pores.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
“You got any brothers or sisters or anybody?” he asked around a full mouth.
“Nope.”
He looked at her. “You mean you’re really all alone?”
Thanks, kid. “I really am.”
Robbie frowned at his banana for a moment, then took another bite. “I have a Mam and Pap in Ireland. That’s what they call grandparents there. But I’ve only seen them a couple of times, and once was right after I was ‘dopted, so that doesn’t really count.”
The damn fruit was burning a hole in her stomach. Please don’t say anything more about being adopted, she prayed. Please. “It probably does for them.”
“I guess.” Robbie finished his banana, then ripped the wrapping off the granola bar. “Chocolate chips! Cool.”
“You didn’t strike me as a raisin kind of kid,” Winnie said, laughing when he made a face.
Annabelle sat in front of them, polite but doleful. “Can I give her a piece?” Robbie asked.
“She’d be cool with it, but chocolate isn’t good for dogs. So, no.”
The child gnawed off the end of his bar, frowning. “You know what really sucks?”
Winnie held her breath. “What?”
“The way people keep all the time saying that Dad’ll probably get married again some day, and then I’d have another mother.” When he looked at her, she could see how close the tears were to falling, and her heart broke. “And how dumb is that?”
“Pretty dumb,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t notice how shiny her eyes probably were, too. “Because nobody can ever take your mom’s place, right?”
“No way. I mean, when your mom died, did you ever think about having another one?”
Winnie shook her head. She’d been devastated when her parents died, naturally, but after all this time it was more about remembering the pain, not feeling it. “Not that there would have been any chance of that, but…no.”
“Dad would never marry somebody else. He’s too sad. And anyway, Florita says he’s such a grouch nobody else would have him.”
The laugh popped out before she knew it was there. Still, she said, “Sometimes when people are really sad, they get angry. So your dad might not be like that forever.” Then again, Aidan Black seemed to positively enjoy his crankiness, like a cup of good, hot coffee on a chilly day. She reached down to brush clay dust off her boot. “I bet your mom was a real special lady.”
Robbie frowned. “Why do you think that? Did you know her?”
“No. But it takes a special mom to raise a special kid.”
He frowned harder, almost comically. “You think I’m special?”
Dangerous ground, honey, she heard in her head. Proceed with extreme caution. “Well, I don’t know you very well, either, but I’m pretty good at reading people.”
“Reading people? Like a book?”
“Sort of. Except instead of reading words, I get these feelings about who people really are by watching their faces, listening to their voices, paying attention to how they act. I’m not always right, but mostly I am. And I’m guessing…” She looked at him with narrowed eyes, thinking, Will you even remember this conversation a year from now? Will you remember the crazy lady with the hyperactive dog and too many pumpkins on her porch? “That…you get in trouble sometimes, but never anything too serious. Just regular stuff, like most kids. That you probably do okay in school, but you like weekends better. That you still miss your mama a lot, but maybe…”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“No, seriously—what?”
His eyes were so blue, so earnest. So damn much like hers. “That maybe it’s hard for you to tell your daddy how you feel?” When he turned away, she sighed and said, “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t’ve said that. It’s that impulsive thing again. Saying something without thinking it through?”
Robbie scrubbed one shoulder over his eyes. “No, it’s okay.” Then he squinted up into the trees, mumbled, “I gotta go,” and sprang from the step and over to his fallen bike. He yanked it upright and straddled it. “C’n I come see you again tomorrow, maybe?”
Winnie folded her hands in front of her so tightly they hurt. “I thought you didn’t want me here?”
The kid blushed. “I guess it’s okay if you hang around.”
“Oh. Wow. Thanks. But…” Her heart cowered. “I think I’ve changed my mind. So I’m probably leaving in the morning.”
“But you’ll come back, right?”
“Oh, sugar…” Don’t, she thought, blinking back tears. Don’t…
Slowly, she shook her head, startled out of her wits when a hurt, angry “Fine! Do whatever you want to!” exploded out of the kid’s mouth, at the precise moment they both heard his father’s barked, “Robbie! What in the devil’s name are you doing here?”
Winnie jumped to her feet as Robbie started, just as Aidan emerged from the woods at the side of the house. And even through unshed tears, Winnie could tell he was one seriously pissed hombre.
Aidan barely caught Winnie’s surreptitious swipe at her eyes before he refocused his attention on his son, who looked more confused than guilty.
“Nothin’. I just…” He glanced at Winnie, then back at Aidan. “I just wanted to find out who she was, that’s all—”
“It’s okay,” Winnie started to say, but Aidan shot her a quelling look that, amazingly, actually shut her up. Then he looked back at Robbie.
“You know better than t’go anywhere without first checking in with Florita or me,” he said quietly. “Flo was beside herself with worry. So you get yourself back up to the house, right now. And except to go to school, don’t plan on leaving it for at least t’ree days.”
“Dad!”
“Go on.”
Grumbling, the lad took off; when he’d disappeared from sight, Winnie said, “That was a little harsh, wasn’t it?”
Aidan pivoted, almost grateful for a reason to be angry with her. “For breaking the one rule Junie and I insisted on from the time he could walk? I don’t think so. And where d’you get off criticizing my decisions?”
She dug in her pants pocket for a tissue, blew her nose. “Sorry,” she mumbled into the tissue, then crossed her arms. “You’re right, it’s not my place. Although if you notice I didn’t say anything in front of R-Robbie.”
Aidan looked away. “I suppose I should be grateful for that, at least.”
“Yes, you should,” she said, sounding stronger. “I swear I had no idea you didn’t know where he was—”
“And didja think I would have allowed him to come here?”
“How the hell should I know, Mr. Come Up to the House For Dinner Tonight—?”
“Didja tell him?”
“That I was his birth mother? Of course not,” she said in the manner of a woman who’s had it up to here. “I’m not that stupid. Or selfish. Or a liar. I said I wouldn’t say anything, and I didn’t. Besides, if I had, don’t you think that would’ve been the first thing out of his mouth when he saw you?”
“But he said—”
“He asked who I was. So I told him my name, I didn’t figure that could hurt anything. Especially since you told me he didn’t know.” Although she appeared to have recovered her equilibrium, her body language positively screamed her turmoil. An intuition confirmed when she added, “Maybe dinner tonight’s not such a good idea.”
“And here you’d sworn you’d changed,” Aidan said over an unaccountable surge of anger.
Her eyes widened, until, suddenly, he saw realization dawn. “I honestly didn’t think I’d feel any real connection,” she said in quiet amazement, looking away. “Not after all these years. And certainly not after two short conversations. ” She swiped a hand across her nose. “So, yeah, I guess I’m right back where I was eight and a half years ago.” Her eyes veered to his. “He’s a really great kid.”
Aidan swallowed. “You can thank June for that.”
She studied him for such a long time his face began to heat. “I wish I’d known her better.”
“You had your chance.”
“I know,” Winnie said softly, then released a breath. “I’m leaving in the morning. I won’t bother you again.”
The rush of relief wasn’t nearly as sweet as he might have expected. But then, nothing was these days. And probably never would be again, he thought as she added, “If Robbie wants to see me when he’s older—”
“How will you explain?”
“That we’ve already met? I don’t know.” She forked her bangs off her forehead. “If I’m lucky, maybe it won’t matter by then.” A chagrined half smile touched her mouth. “Sorry for the trouble.”
Unable to speak for reasons he couldn’t fully explain, Aidan simply nodded, then turned toward the path. He’d been so thrown, when he’d discovered Robbie’d gone missing, that he’d taken off on foot without thinking. Now he faced one helluva hike back up the mountain—
He frowned, noticing the pumpkins lined up on the porch. Not as many as June would have gathered, but enough to prick the treacherously thin membrane containing the memories. He twisted back around. “Did Robbie say anything else? Aside from asking who you were?”
Winnie gave him a strange look. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Neither do I, really. It’s just…I don’t know what he’s thinking anymore—”
The words had fallen from his mouth without his brain even giving a nod of approval. As if Winnie herself had somehow pulled them out of him. But that was crazy. Impossible. His gaze shifted again to the pumpkins, glowing in the last rush of daylight, and he could have sworn he saw faces in them already. Or at least, one face in particular—
“If you want to know what we talked about,” Winnie said softly, “maybe you should ask him yourself.” Then she disappeared inside the house before he could say, Have a safe trip.
Not that he would have, but he would have liked the chance.
That distant rooster’s crow keeping her company, Winnie thunked yet another pumpkin into the truck bed the next morning, her stomach none too chipper about the carton of Snickers ice cream she’d forced into it the night before in some lame attempt to staunch the ache. And not just for herself, or even the child she’d given up the right to call her son years before, but for the agony in Aidan’s eyes. The fear, that having already lost his wife, he might lose his child, as well.
Even if she doubted he knew that’s what he was feeling. But he was definitely aware of the communication break-down. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
Oh, and like you do?
Winnie sighed. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. She supposed she could call the man and say, “Two words: family counseling.” And she might yet…once she crossed the Texas border. Even so, whatever these people needed, she wasn’t the one to supply it. And not only because her timing couldn’t have been worse, but also because…
Because she couldn’t handle it.
Just like she hadn’t been able to handle it before, when she’d backed out of their arrangement. Aidan was right, she hadn’t changed at all. Or a’tall, as he might say.
