The Good Mom (3 page)

He glanced sideways at her. “Are you married?” he asked bluntly.

“No,” she murmured.

“Divorced?” he asked again, even though he knew it was over the line. Knew he was pushing it with his rudeness.

A small smile came to her lips, as if divorce was, for her, a silly thought. “No,” she said.

“Widowed?” He had to ask—he was curious now.

She shook her head, but she had a flush to her cheeks this time. The color just heightened the fact that she was pretty. It didn't matter at all to him that she was a single mother, and he might have told her so, if he didn't think it would embarrass her to hear it.

He opened the water bottle she'd brought him. It was good stuff; he'd been drinking boiled bracken tea for so long in the camp they'd set up that it felt good to have fresh, cold, bubbly water slide down his parched throat.

He couldn't stop drinking. He finished it greedily.

Then he sat and stared at the label on his bottle. He hadn't exactly chosen his situation in life, either, even before Fleur's death. She'd been the driver of the whirlwind, and he had tagged along for the adventure.

In the end, nothing had been what he wanted.

Maybe he and Ashley were in sort of the same boat.

“I never expected this to happen with Fleur,” he found himself muttering aloud.

“Losing someone I love would be my worst fear,” Ashley agreed.

He squinted at her, the harsh sunlight in his eyes. “You worry about your son, don't you?”

“All the time,” she confessed.

She was being honest with him. He got the sense that she wasn't being manipulative as he'd feared. He
hated
manipulative people. And it really did impress him that she cared so much about her boy.

Aidan wasn't usually sentimental. In fact, at Wellness Hospital, he'd been known as somewhat gruff. He knew what others said of him, and it didn't bother him. Usually.

He sighed. “Yeah, okay. I'll go back to the salon with you. I'll talk to the owner and make sure you don't get in trouble, if that's what you're worried about.”

“Actually, I have another suggestion. You see, Aidan, I'm really good at washing hair.” She gave him such a sweet smile that he didn't know how he could refuse her. “And this salon has a nice men's shampoo. You could face the world feeling cleaned up and relaxed. You could close your eyes and for fifteen minutes, forget about everyone else in there, including me.”

He just stared at her.

“No one will bother you, Aidan. I promise.”

It sounded appealing, actually. He was tired. He didn't want to go out to lunch with his grandmother right now, but he'd committed himself.

He stood. “I can't believe I'm going to say this, but okay. Just so you keep your job, so your kid's all right and you don't have to worry about him,” he clarified.

She smiled at him. “Thank you. But I really am very good at what I do. I'll take good care of you in there. You'll see.”

* * *

A
SHLEY
DID
ENJOY
taking care of other people. It was what she loved best. And Aidan was a doctor, someone who was doing something important with his life. In her opinion, he deserved to be treated well for it.

Upstairs in the salon, she led him down the narrow aisle to her station in the back. Her six new colleagues subtly or not so subtly turned their clients' chairs in order to be able to observe the rugged man who walked before them. His presence in their salon caused a stir, but she hoped he didn't realize it.

She looked over her shoulder and met his gaze. He kept his eyes trained only on her.

The trick was to do only as much as he was comfortable with while still doing a good enough job to please Ilana. At Ashley's old job, she'd cut men's hair all the time, so the simple task shouldn't be a problem. Usually she spritzed their short hair with a water bottle, then clipped it. But Aidan's situation was different.

Once at her chair in the far corner, she draped a blue plastic cape over him.

He glanced at the cape, then at her.

Smiling gently at him, she turned his chair so that he was facing away from the mirror and couldn't see himself or her. Without him realizing she was scrutinizing him, she touched his hair between her thumb and fingers. The texture was curly. Gorgeous hair, in her opinion, but he'd been washing it with a bar of soap, it appeared. He needed a deep-conditioning treatment, but that would have to wait for another day.

“I'm going to lower the back of the chair now,” she said softly.

He gave her a boyish smile that unnerved her. Especially since the rest of him was so manly. Strong, developed arms and shoulders that made his muscles strain against the thin cotton material of his shirt when she dipped the chair back. His top two buttons were open, and dark wisps of hair peeked through. His neck was wide, with a sexy Adam's apple. His chin was strong. He had a faint shadow of a beard. This was a man who could shave in the morning and have that shadow by afternoon. His brows were dark, too, and it gave him a serious expression, except when he smiled.

When he smiled, he was an angel.

Her hands stilled, cupping the back of his head. She'd been lowering him toward the sink and his eyes were open wide, watching her. Contrasting with the tan of his skin and the black of his brows, his eyes were arresting. Clear whites, with irises so deep and seeing, the color of rich chocolate.

She had to get a grip on herself.

“I can give you a choice,” she murmured, glancing away. “We have two shampoos. Neither of them smells girlie, as my son would say.”

“Give me whichever one he likes.” He smiled again, with those arresting eyes crinkling at the corners. “How old is Brandon?”

“Twelve. Almost thirteen.” Her hand shook—she felt nervous all of a sudden. “His voice is starting to change.”

Aidan chuckled. “Tough days ahead. I remember those.”

She inhaled. She'd promised to help him relax, and she was the one who needed to concentrate. Turning on the water, she tested it on her wrist. The salon was warm, so she calibrated the temperature of the spray so it was slightly cooler than normal. Carefully, with one hand shielding his eyes and ears from the spray, she wet his hair.

His eyes drifted closed.

She opened the bottle of moisturizing shampoo she'd chosen for him. The smell was fantastic. With her fingertips, she massaged his scalp, working up a lather.

He sighed. As the moments passed, layers of concern and worry seemed to be dropping from his face.

She couldn't help studying him. From his soft smile and calm breathing, he seemed to be enjoying her ministrations. And giving him pleasure made her feel good, too. It danced along the edge of feeling slightly sexual. A humming in her chest. Slight tingling in the juncture of her legs. She only touched his scalp, and in the presence of other people, so it was a safe feeling.

She could even fantasize a bit without any repercussions. She had no doubt that after today, she would never see him again. Their worlds simply never crossed.

His eyes were still closed. No one came near their space. Just a few short moments together in a bubble with a handsome, presumably decent man. No worries. Not about her son, her job, her insecurities.

Shampooing his hair was a harmless pleasure.

But she couldn't prolong it anymore. With regret, she tested the water again, then rinsed the suds. Sifted through his curls in the swirling water, her fingers tangled in him.

She lifted his chair and patted his wet hair with a fluffy towel. Then shaped his damp curls with her fingers so he could return to the world again.
Time to say goodbye.
He opened his eyes.

She'd barely had time to think of an appropriate farewell when she suddenly realized Ilana was standing beside her chair.

“Oh!” Ashley exclaimed.

“Dr. Lowe's grandmother is waiting for him out front,” Ilana said in a businesslike tone.

“Thank you. I...believe we're finished here,” Ashley said, rattled by her employer's sudden presence.

Ilana peered critically at Aidan's wet hair. He just stared back at her, as if challenging her assumptions.

“How is my grandmother doing?” Aidan asked Ilana, in a deep tone that rumbled.

“She's wonderful, as always.” Ilana smiled at him, then turned to look at Ashley, brow raised again, as if to ask why Aidan hadn't received a haircut.

Aidan stood, and Ashley took off the blue plastic cape.

“Ashley is great,” Aidan said quietly to Ilana. “My grandmother will be happy to hear about my shampoo. Definitely the best salon experience I've ever had.”

He met her gaze, and Ashley smiled at him, though she was sure she was likely Aidan's
only
salon experience. Ilana seemed mollified, however. Her serious expression toward Ashley cracked, the look replaced by a slight—very slight—smile.

Ashley exhaled.
Whew
, she thought.
I did it. Crisis over.

But instead of just leaving with Ilana, as she'd expected, Aidan instead faced her shelves and reached out his hand.

The photo of Brandon!
Mild alarm coursed through her as Aidan lifted the photo of her son, studying him.

“You didn't tell me he went to St. Bartholomew's School,” Aidan remarked.

“How do you know that?” she asked nervously.

“The blue blazer,” he explained. “The yellow patch.”

Her heart was hammering. His observation brought to mind the outing to buy the blazer, two weeks earlier, when her sister had turned to Ashley and murmured, “He asked me about his father. What do you want me to say to him?” And Ashley had handled it. She always handled it—his biological father was deceased, after all, as was her own—but still it rattled her.

None of this had anything to do with Aidan, though—he had nothing to do with her son's paternity, or her personal anxiety.

Aidan was looking at her quizzically, with unspoken questions she couldn't answer, so she just took the photo from him and quietly replaced it on her shelf. “Is there a problem?” she murmured.

“No.” But his gaze looked faraway. Everything about his body language screamed,
“Yes! It's a problem.”
She didn't know what to make of it, but the back of her neck tingled.

As Ilana led Aidan off to his grandmother—to Vivian Sharpe—Ashley could only wonder if she'd missed something important.

And worry, as she always did.

* * *

A
IDAN
SHOULD
HAVE
realized St. Bartholomew's School was so close—only two blocks away from the hair salon. From the windows he could see the distinctive spire of the small chapel, the tiny patch of greenery that was their courtyard in the city.

Likely, that's why Ashley had chosen to work here. She'd told him her life revolved around her son, and he believed her. It made him marvel to think of it. Such a foreign concept to the Sharpe-Lowe family.

He turned back for a moment, watching her reflection move across the windowpane. He could watch her all day. He felt calm and languid after her attentions. The dust of the desert had been washed down that golden sink of hers. It had felt nice to have her fingers sift through his hair. She was nothing like Fleur. Nothing. If two women could have completely opposite personalities, it was them.

He paid the young receptionist, then approached his grandmother, who was sitting on a sofa in the waiting area. She had a fancy black cane by her side—an antique, it looked like. That was new to him, Gram using a cane. When he'd gotten off the plane and met her at the town car, it had bothered him to see it because he preferred to think of her as forever strong. But now he couldn't help wondering—had she deliberately maneuvered him into meeting Ashley today?

Aidan had gone to St. Bartholomew's School as a boy, too. It was a tiny, elite school with exceedingly high expectations. He knew how difficult a place it could be.

Ashley didn't seem to understand that as well as he did. That was only natural.

You could help her
, a voice inside said.

He closed his eyes.
Nope
, he said to the voice. His life was too complicated and messed up as it was. His interest was the last thing Ashley needed as she tried to make a better life for her son. If that was at all in his grandmother's mind, then she could just forget it.

It was too bad, he reflected, on his way out the door and down the stairs. He liked Ashley. Liked her basic kindness.

And he really, really liked the way she'd given him that sexy shampoo.

CHAPTER TWO

A
SHLEY
THOUGHT
ABOUT
Aidan long after he left. Long after two more clients—a cut and color and then a set—had come and gone.

She couldn't shake the sense that she'd made a mistake in getting too personal with him. She really didn't know him that well, and what if there were repercussions? He'd recognized Brandon's school jacket, and that had unnerved her.

Her hands shaking, she stepped around Jordan, the young intern who was busily sweeping hair from Ashley's workspace.

“Thanks,” she said to Jordan. Maybe if she distracted herself from thinking about Aidan by helping someone else, she'd be okay. “Are you a student?” she asked Jordan.

Jordan flipped her long straight hair over one shoulder and smiled boldly at Ashley. Nothing shy about her. “I graduate in June. I'm hoping Ilana hires me after I pass my state exams.”

“That's great.” Ashley hesitated a beat. “I'll help, if you want. I know someone who sat on the state board for years and years.”

“No, thanks. I'm good,” Jordan said. “Thanks anyway.”

“Sure.” Ashley nodded, hiding her disappointment and gathering up her purse. She was finished for the day and had no reason to stay longer, other than to try to alleviate the general feeling of uneasiness that she wanted to shake.

“You'll get used to working here,” Sandie, the stylist who'd worked at the chair next to Ashley, murmured in her ear, causing Ashley to jump. “You just have to get past Ilana's probationary period, and then it'll get better.”

“It's not easy starting over someplace new,” Ashley admitted.

“You're very brave,” Sandie said. “I saw you earlier with Dr. Lowe.”

Had she? And what was brave about washing his hair? “He didn't want a haircut,” she explained. “I did what I could.”

“Well, you were a hit. I overheard what he said to Ilana. You impressed him, Ashley. He'll probably come back to you as a regular client now.”

Ashley froze. She hadn't even considered that could happen. That was...that was...

“How did you get this job, anyway?” Sandie asked her curiously. “Because Ilana is...particular. Turnover is high at Perceptions, but the stylists who stay—well, we have a good reputation. The pay is great, and the customers are loyal.”

Ashley sat reeling, still absorbing the information. “I won an industry award last March,” she said, “for styling the models' hair at the Museum of Art's Pompeii exhibition party.”

“That's great! But how would a hair stylist get involved with the Pompeii exhibition party?” Sandie asked.

“Through my younger sister.” Ashley smiled to herself. “She got me involved with the museum a few years ago. She has a big interest in archaeology.” Lisbeth, besides being a doctor, was also a history nerd. A big, lovable history nerd. “I learned to style hair for the Roman period using pictures my sister showed me. The women back then wore really intricate braids and headpieces. It was interesting. Some of the museum members commissioned period costumes for the party, and I designed the hairpieces for their outfits.”

“I could see where Ilana would be impressed with you.”

“I hope so,” Ashley murmured.

“Well...” Sandie glanced back toward her station. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

Feeling uneasy again, Ashley clutched her purse and headed out the door to meet Brandon. As she passed the receptionist station, Kylie nodded at her. “Goodbye, Ashley. Are you coming back tomorrow?”

So uneasy.

* * *

O
UTSIDE
,
THE
SUN
had lowered behind the buildings enough that it wasn't as hot as it had been when Ashley had been outside with Aidan earlier.

She walked past the park where she'd sat with him, but she couldn't think of that right now. Feeling shaky again, she paused to take a breath. She'd been walking so fast, so lost in thought, that she almost bumped into a woman coming toward her on the sidewalk. The woman—with a little dog in tow, pulling on his leash—frowned at Ashley as she passed.

Ashley moved to the other side of the sidewalk. Put her hand over her stomach and took a deeper breath.

Almost home.
She was at the building next to theirs, which housed a liquor store on the street level. A “package store,” as they were known in New England terms, or at least, as people in her old neighborhood called them. “Packies” for short.

Her gait slowed. She couldn't help glancing in the window at the rows of bottles. Wine, her particular weakness, would be at the back of the store. She was no connoisseur, hadn't cared about vintages or grapes, she'd just sipped now and then to keep the edge off and to help her nerves. Shaky nerves, like she had now after her unsettling day of work. The vague sense of shame that she'd done something wrong, but wasn't quite sure what. The anxiety that she was an inadequate person and didn't quite know how to fix it, other than to do what she had to, which was to take care of her child. The child she'd been blessed with, a most precious person. The one person who always loved her back, and she couldn't screw him up, not like she and her sister had been screwed up by their mom and her alcohol-and-men problems.

Ashley touched the window, her hand trembling. A part of her, so raw and visceral, desperately wanted to go inside that package store. To hear the tinkling of the bell over the door. The cool feel of the bottle in her hand. The crinkling of the brown paper bag that covered it. And then, at home in her kitchen, to pop open the cork and pour the white wine into the large plastic cups that she and Brandon had used back when she'd last tasted a drink.

He'd been eight years old. Four years ago. She'd tossed those cups the day she'd come home from rehab. In her mind, she'd done the worst thing ever—she'd left her eight-year-old son for thirty days in the care of her shy younger sister who'd felt uncomfortable with children—and yet she'd also done the best thing, which had been to address her problems. Ashley had taken the steps she'd needed to take. She was a recovering alcoholic.

But why did her hand still shake? Why did she yearn to go inside?

Closing her eyes, she took a breath. And another. And another. All baby steps. All leading her away from temptation.

The only unwise part of her new life—moving into an apartment near a liquor store. But it couldn't be helped. She'd had to make a choice between Brandon's need to be closer to his new school and her own need to be farther away from her old addiction.

Brandon's needs had won. Brandon's needs would always win. As they must.

* * *

A
IDAN
ATE
HIS
meal silently, alone. His grandmother had been on her telephone for the past half hour.

First her stockbroker, then her lawyer. Then the general manager of her professional baseball team, the New England Captains. If he was lucky, Aidan thought with amusement, maybe he'd get the trifecta plus one, a ringside seat to her conversation with the head of the board at Wellness Hospital.

Finally, she hung up.

“Eighty-five years old,” he said to the legendary Vivian Sharpe. “Don't you think you should relax and enjoy yourself for once?”

She gave him a dark look. “You know better than to say that to me.”

He set down his fork on his luncheon plate. They were at a fancy seafood restaurant that just felt odd to him, after nearly a year out of the country and living in the situation he'd been in.

He sighed. Might as well come out and say what he'd been thinking. Delicacy had never been a part of his and Gram's relationship. “Dad mentioned in his last email that he and Mom were worried about you. He asked me to talk to you and give my opinion about the state of your, ah, mental faculties.”

And then Aidan softened the blow with the wry, comical smile that he and Gram alone liked to share. She snorted at him. He knew it was good-natured on her part, though the message surely had to sting.

She waved her hand. “I'm restructuring my estate, and William and Jane haven't been happy about that fact. Pay no attention to their insinuations. I don't.”

Aidan nodded. William, Aidan's dad, was a world-renowned heart surgeon. He and Jane—Aidan's mother, also a cardiologist—had enough money that they didn't ever need to worry about finances again. Even so, finances were the types of conversation they loved to concern themselves with.

Heart surgeons with no hearts
, Aidan thought, and not for the first time. He laughed out loud. It was darkly comical, and since he knew there was nothing he could change about it, dark humor with Gram was a fine way to cope.

“You laugh now,” Gram said, a spark in her eyes, “but William spoke to me about you, as well.”

“He isn't worried about
my
finances, is he?”

“No.” She waved her hand again. But this time she met his gaze seriously. “I'm worried about you, too, Aidan, but I'm worried about your well-being.” She leaned forward and peered more closely at him. “You've been through a terrible situation. I wish you had come home last October when it happened. I don't know why you stayed.”

No more humor
, he thought sadly.

“How are you, Aidan? Honestly?”

“I'm fine, Gram,” he insisted.

She shook her head. “I may have been on my phone just now, but I noticed you've been ignoring your text messages. That isn't fine.”

His grandmother didn't miss a trick. Surely she'd also caught a glimpse of who the text messages were from—Fleur's parents. Right now, he just wasn't in a good place to speak with them. Eventually he would be. But not yet.

He gazed out the window at the view overlooking the blue Atlantic. Sailboats bobbed in the bay. In the distance was a faint smudge of land—one of the islands in the outer harbor.

“Aidan?”

He glanced at the water glass he'd been idly rubbing his finger around. “Yes, Gram?”

“It
is
nice to have you back. And to see you looking civilized again, even if your hair isn't quite short enough yet.” She reached out and touched his hair.

He smiled faintly at her. “You asked them to do that for me. It wasn't my idea.”

“Yes, I did ask them. Discreetly of course. And now you look much better. You look cared for.”

Ashley had washed it for him. “Cleaned it up,” she'd said. He could turn ninety, and he would never forget the feel of her fingers brushing his scalp. It had been one of the most sensual experiences of his life, and yet they'd both been fully clothed. Her breast near his face. The rustle of her skirt as she'd turned. The soft knock of her heels on the wooden floor. The pads of her fingers as she'd brushed a soap bubble from his brow.

“Aidan?”

Again he snapped to. Hadn't realized he'd been daydreaming. “It's strange to be in Boston,” he admitted.

“Home,” Gram amended.

Was it? Outside the windows near the street, Boston whizzed by. The buildings were familiar; the shops and restaurants in the same places with some facades and names changed. Always, though, the throngs of students—college kids—at the crosswalks.

“How do you feel?” she asked again.

He closed his eyes, ran his palms over his newly smooth hair.

“Honestly, it doesn't feel like home anymore.” He'd spent his childhood here, had gone to college and done his residency here. Now he'd been gone for a year, and it felt like a foreign country.

Gram rummaged inside her tote and pulled out a stack of mail secured with a rubber band. “Your mail. I suppose now that you're back, I'll no longer need to handle it for you.”

She'd done the job well for him. Periodically, he'd received an email from her assistant, detailing bills paid on his behalf, invitations answered and declined. “Thank you,” he said.

She waved her hand. “You may stay at my townhouse tonight, if you'd like. I had the guest suite made up for you.”

“I still have my condo.” The words came out gruffly.

There was a pause. She was being circumspect, his formidable grandmother, who had a big heart and who loved him with all of it. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, you do, Aidan.”

His condo was filled with Fleur's presence, of course. With her things and her memories. He'd toyed with the idea of turning his back on it, selling it as is. Hiring someone to empty it and never going inside again.

“You're welcome to stay with me tonight,” Gram said again. “In the morning I'm stopping by St. Bartholomew's School for a meeting of the board. It would be nice if you came along.”

He looked at her sharply. Of course, he'd suspected back at the hair salon that there might be some angle with St. Bartholomew's somewhere. With his grandmother, nothing was coincidental.

“Why did you really bring me to that hair salon today?” he asked. “Tell me the truth, Gram.”

She smiled at him. “To bring you back into civilization with me. Even if she didn't cut it, Ashley did a nice job.”

Gram was lying. Feeling sad, he took his napkin off his lap and placed it on the table. “How do you know Ashley? Be honest.”

“I've spoken to her only once before.”

“In what capacity?”

Gram folded her hands over her purse and looked him squarely in the eye. “Her son, Brandon, is the best fundraiser for the Sunshine Club we've ever had.”

Aidan swallowed his shock. The answer was cold and businesslike, even for her.

Yet the Sunshine Club was his grandmother's pet project—her fundraising arm for children's cancer research. The Sunshine Club was Gram's baby. She'd started it decades ago after her youngest child—an uncle Aidan had never known—had died of childhood leukemia. Gram often said that if Luke had been born today, with all the advances in medicine, then he would have lived.