Twelve
H
e wanted to get drunk. Rip-roaring, fried-to-thetonsils, drop-dead drunk. And he intended to. Just not yet. Right now he wanted to feel the pain, wanted to feel the sharp, deep bite of every lie. It fed his anger, fueled the rage inside him. That anger was the only thing he had to hold on to, the only thing that felt alive in him at the moment. The only thing that kept him going.
That and the knowledge he had a son.
Drew, with the big, dark eyes and shiny hair.
My
eyes. Nick swiped a hand across his desk, sent the phone flying across the office.
My
hair. A coffee mug with pencils was Nick's next victim. It exploded against the wall.
Drew was his son. His and Maggie's.
He'd gone numb when the truth had finally sunk in. Even while he'd been making the phone calls to the
newspapers where Maggie had worked, he'd told himself there had to be an explanation of some kind. That the whole situation was just some weird coincidence. He even expected they'd have a laugh about it later.
Some laugh.
Fists clenched, he turned at the sharp crunch of glass behind him. Lucas stood outside the office, hands on his hips while he inspected emptiness where the glass wall had been.
Lucas tipped his Stetson back and squinted at one jagged edge of glass protruding from its frame. “Remodeling?”
“My foot slipped,” Nick growled.
Lucas glanced around the office, at the strewn papers, broken mug and smashed phone, then looked calmly back at Nick.
Nick wanted Lucas to say something, anything, so that he could turn his anger on him. He suspected that was why he'd called Lucas to come over, to release some pent-up frustration with his fists. But they'd known each other too long. Lucas knew when to talk and when to wait. Right now he waited.
“Drew is my son.”
There. He'd just blurted it out. He realized it felt good to say it out loud.
Lucas raised his eyebrows and whistled softly. “I take it you didn't know?”
“How the hell could I have known?” he snapped. “Less than two hours ago, I didn't even know that Maggie and I had slept together.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes and tilted his head in disbelief. “You wanna talk about that one?”
Nick dragged both hands through his hair and sighed heavily. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I guess I do.”
He paced while he told Lucas everything he'd managed to piece together from his phone calls and Maggie's confession. How she'd ended up in his bed, how he hadn't known it was her. Her reasoning why she'd never told him. Here and there he'd punctuate his story by kicking the wall or smashing his fist on his desk. All the while, Lucas kept his head bent, listening.
“I've lost more than four years of my own son's life, dammit,” Nick said when he'd finished. “His first word, his first step, birthdays, Christmas. How the hell will I ever make up for that?”
Lucas shook his head. “That thinkin' won't take you any farther than a rocking horse, Nick. Seems to me you need to think about right now.”
“That's exactly what I'm doing,” Nick shot back. “I don't intend to miss one more day of Drew's life. He's coming to live with me.”
“What about Maggie?” Lucas asked quietly.
“What about her?” Nick felt a fresh stab of pain rip through him. “You think I give a damn now, after what she did?”
“Yeah, I do think you give a damn.” Lucas stared at the broken glass and disheveled office. “I think you give one big hell of a damn.”
“Don't tell me what I think,” Nick shouted. “You're supposed to be my friend, dammit. If I say I don't give a damn, you damn well better agree with me or you'll be picking your damn teeth out of your ears.”
Lucas grinned slowly, braced himself for what was about to come. “You're right, Nick. The woman's no good. She lies and she obviously sleeps around. You don't want to get mixed up with a woman like that. Whatever attraction you had, it was obviously just in
bed. With that face and body, what red-blooded man wouldn't want a toss in the sheets with her? Damn, if I wasn't married I sureâ”
Because he'd been ready for it, Lucas was able to dodge the fist that came at his face. But his foot slid on a chunk of glass when Nick rammed him, and they both went sliding across the concrete. Lucas's hat took flight with Nick's next punch, which riled Lucas to no end. Still, he let Nick have one more punch, then decided to put the boy out of his misery.
The hit to Nick's chin was solid and direct. His head snapped back, and he had to blink away the stars that exploded in front of his eyes. Certain that the room was moving around him, he decided to retain at least a modicum of dignity and sit rather than fall. He landed backward on his butt in a pile of tires. So much for dignity.
So much for pride.
“Now here's what I really think.” Lucas retrieved his hat, then brushed off his jeans and sat on a stack of tires beside Nick. “I think you're blind in love with Maggie. I think you should end all this misery you're in and just marry the woman. Any fool, and that most certainly includes you, Nickie boy, could see she's blind in love with you, too. Everything else will work itself out. Trust me on this one, pal. I've been there.”
Nick didn't believe it for a minute. His heart was in more pieces than the engine on his workbench, but at least an engine he knew how to put back together again and make it run. Better than before, even. He'd taken the edge off his anger with Lucas, but these other feelings were completely foreign to him. He hadn't a clue what to do with them.
White-knuckled, he raked his fingers through his
scalp. “She's going back to New York next week. Taking Drew with her. How the hell we supposed to work that out?”
“You talk to her, for a start.” Lucas jammed his hat on his head. “Where is she now?”
He remembered the look in her eyes when he'd told her that he was going to take Drew away from her. Her face had gone pale, her lips had trembled. At the moment, he'd enjoyed the pain, the terror he'd caused her. Now he felt sick.
He dropped his head into his hands. “She had a lunch date with Julianna, but she might have canceled. She was pretty upset when she left.”
“I can't imagine why,” Lucas said with enough sarcasm to make Nick want to hit him again. “Especially after you told her you were going to take Drew away. How do you know she didn't run?”
He shook his head. “She won't leave until her dad gets the okay to drive.”
His head went up as he remembered that she'd taken her father to the doctor this morning. He'd been too absorbed with discovering that Drew was his son, that she'd lied to him, to think about what she might do.
“Julianna was getting dressed when I left an hour ago. I'll call and see if she's still there. Good thing I carry my own phone,” Lucas said with a grin. “Seeing's how yours is in little pieces, kind of like your heart.”
Nick scowled at Lucas, but was just too damn tired to hit him now. There would always be later.
“Damn.” Lucas patted his shirt pocket where he carried his small cell phone.
“What?”
“My phone slipped out when you tackled me.”
They found it five minutes later behind an oil drum, but it took another ten to get the grease out of the buttons and make it work.
“No answer.” Lucas listened to his answering machine, left a message, then dialed the restaurant. They weren't there, either. Lucas frowned at the phone after he hung up. “Strange that Julianna didn't call and cancel. I think I'll go home and check it out. In the meantime, why don't you go find Maggie? Just talk to her, Nick. You've got nothing to lose.”
Nick sat there for a long time after Lucas left, staring blankly at the wall. Lucas was right about one thing, Nick thought miserably. He had nothing to lose, because he'd already lost it all.
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“Sweetheart, this isn't the answer,” Angela Smith folded the last sweater in the pile Maggie had made and handed it to her.
“It's the only answer, Mom.” Maggie closed the last suitcase, tucked her purse over her shoulder, then took her mother's hands. “I'm sorry I never told you any of this before. I didn't want to shame you any more than I already had. Please forgive me.”
“There's nothing to forgive, Maggie.” Tears were in Angela's eyes as she pulled her daughter into her arms. “We're so very proud of you. We always have been. We love you and Drew so much.”
Maggie wiped at her own tears. She'd been crying all the time she'd packed her and Drew's bags, all the time she'd told her mother the truth, the whole truth. She would have thought there were no tears left by now. Obviously she'd been wrong. But then, this was apparently her day to be wrong.
She was running. That might be wrong, too. But she
didn't know what else to do but get as far away from Nick as possible. She was certain he was furious enough to follow through on his threat to take Drew, and she could never let that happen. If she had to quit her job and move ten times, then she would. No one, not even Nick, would ever take her son away from her.
She'd rescheduled her flight, and it was leaving in one hour. It would be close, but she'd make it. She had to. She had to leave now, before there were any more ugly confrontations with Nick. The hatred, the anger, the disgust she'd seen in his eyes. She couldn't survive that again.
The only reason she would survive at all was Drew. He was her lifeline, her reason for living, her whole being. Nick had been, too, but that was gone now. She hoped that one day she'd be able to remember the good times they'd shared, the picnic, the mountaintop, making love.
One day, maybe. But not now. Now she could only think of leaving. Of being strong for Drew.
He'd cried all afternoon, too. He didn't want to leave. He'd wanted to stay with Grandma and Grandpa. With Nick. She had no idea how a heart already broken could break again, but hers had. She'd been thankful at least that he'd cried himself to sleep. Something she intended to do as soon as they were home.
When the suitcases were finally in the car, and a sleeping Drew buckled into the back seat, Maggie kissed her father goodbye. As usual, he said little, but she felt a fierceness when he pulled her into his arms, a strength she'd never noticed before.
There were more tears and hugs with her mother until Maggie finally drove away. She had almost passed the road leading to Blackhawk Circle Ranch when she
remembered her lunch date with Julianna. She had to say goodbye to her. Julianna had been a good friend, and no matter what happened, Maggie wanted her to know that she cared about her, that she appreciated her friendship.
She turned off the road, promised herself five minutes as she parked in front of the house and shut off the engine. The house was quiet, no answer to her knock or the doorbell. She'd turned to leave when a soft, muffled sound from inside caught her ear.
“Julianna?” She knocked again, then carefully opened the front door and called again.
There it was again, only louder this time. A soft cry. From the guest bedroom. Maggie hurried down the short hall, pushed open the door to the room.
“Julianna!”
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“Maggie! I know you're in there. Open the door!”
He'd been knocking for five minutes, pounding for two. She had to be here, he thought furiously. She wasn't with Julianna, and considering the frame of mind she'd been in when she'd left him, she wouldn't have gone anywhere else.
He held his finger down on the doorbell. Where was she, dammit!
And where were her parents? They were always home. They had to know the whole story by now, as well. They wouldn't have let Maggie drive anywhere in the condition she was in.
Cupping his hands around his face, he moved to the front window and peered in. He only had a view of the dining room and kitchen, but they were empty.
Swearing under his breath, he stormed to the garage to look for cars, but it was locked. The backyard, he
decided. Mrs. Smith was always out back working with her flowers. He was halfway to the side gate when he caught a movement at the edge of the fence between the Smiths and their neighbor.
He stepped up on a wooden crate beside the wood fence and looked over. It was Mrs. Potts, the elderly next door neighbor, holding a fat tabby in her arms while she tried to peek around the edge of the fence.
“Mrs. Potts?”
The fragile, slender woman jumped at Nick's call, then whirled, eyes wide behind her silver-framed glasses. “Y-yes?”
“Mrs. Potts, have you seen Maggie?”
The tabby meowed irritably when Mrs. Potts hugged her tighter. “I mind my own business, Nick Santos,” the woman said defensively. “I'm a good neighbor, keep to myself.”