A Crazy Kind of Love (20 page)

Not Papa.

Not the one man in the world she’d always believed to be perfect. He was her hero. He’d been the one stable point in her universe, her whole damn life.

All those times she’d run away, when Mama was so sick. All those nights Papa had sat with her, holding her hand, telling her not to worry. That the family would survive. That Mama would
want
them all to survive.

He was bigger than life.

Stronger than Superman.

Now? Now, she finds out that Papa was just a man? How was she supposed to live with that? How would
any
of them get past this to reclaim their lives?

“We have to call now,” Grace said, an eerie calm to her voice, a soft shine of understanding in her dark eyes. “I know you don’t want to hear it. I know you’re still in shock. So I’ll do it if you want, but it’s the right thing to do.”

“How can it be right? How can any of this be
right
?”

“Jo, will you lower your voice?” Sam looked worried as she flicked a glance past Jo and Grace toward the double doors and the crowded hallways beyond.

“Oh yeah,” Jo said tightly. “Wouldn’t want anyone
to hear us talking about this.
That
would be the real tragedy.”

“You’re not helping,” Mike told her.

“There
is
no help for this, Mike. Weren’t you listening? And when the hell did
you
get so accepting? Why aren’t
you
as pissed as
I
am?” Jo blew out a breath and shook her head, her dark brown ponytail whipping from side to side at the back of her head. She lifted both hands again, palms out toward them, and backed up with long, uneven strides. “You do what you have to do,” she said. “I need some air. I’m—”

She turned fast and stomped toward the door leading out into the parking lot. She hit the door with both fists and kept right on moving.

In the sudden silence, the three women looked at each other like strangers.

Which is just how Mike felt. As if she’d been dropped into a world where she didn’t know anyone. Didn’t know the rules. Didn’t know what she was supposed to say and feel. And damn it, she didn’t like it.

Jo was wrong. She wasn’t
accepting
anything. She was just too lost to know what to do.

Last night, she’d been in Lucas’s arms and found more excitement, more tenderness, more . . .
everything
than she’d ever expected to find. Just remembering those few hours had Mike wishing she could turn back time, relive it all again and somehow . . . postpone what she was now dealing with.

But then, the night with Lucas hadn’t ended all that well this morning, and if she turned back time, she’d just have to relive
that
part of the festivities over again, as well. No, thanks.

She pulled in a breath and winced at the taste of antiseptic in the recycled air. Man, this weekend had gone to hell in a hurry.

“What now?” Sam ground the words out, biting each one off as if they tasted bitter.

“I’ll call Carol.”

“That’s her name?” Mike asked. “The bitch?”

“Mike . . .”

She shook her head as she felt her old standby, fury, rising up within her to drown all of her doubts and fears in a sea of righteous indignation. And she was grateful for it. A raging temper was so much easier to deal with than confusion.

“Sorry, Grace,” she said tightly, “but you’re telling me that this
woman
and our father were bouncing on sheets while Mama was dying. That doesn’t put her up for sainthood in my book.”

“People make mistakes.”

“They don’t generally
hide
them for ten years,” Mike countered and felt a twinge when she saw she’d scored a point. Damn it, she didn’t want to make points off Grace. The older woman hadn’t done anything to deserve it. It was Papa’s fault this was all coming down now, and they couldn’t even yell at him because he was hooked up to so many damn machines . . .

Oh God.

“Carol and Jack live in San Francisco,” Grace said quietly. “They can be here in an hour or so.”

San Francisco
.

All the weekend trips that Papa had made into the city over the last several years came rushing back to haunt Mike all at once. She’d wondered why he always
went to San Francisco instead of spreading his wings a little.

Hah.

Turns out he’d spread his wings
plenty
. Her stomach lurched, her heart ached anew, and her soul shriveled up and wept.

“Call them,” Sam said and stepped in front of Mike, preventing her from jumping back into the argument. “Papa would want them to know.”

Grace nodded and left, after one last, uneasy glance at the two of them.

Silence stretched out for what seemed forever before Mike said, “What Papa wants? Do we really
care
what Papa wants at the moment?”

Sam whirled around to face her, eyes snapping, teeth bared. “We damn well better care, Mike, because for all we know—” She lifted one hand and jabbed her index finger toward the double doors. “Papa’s in there dying. Do you really want to prevent a little boy from seeing his father for the last time? Will that make this easier on us? Will that make everything okay?”

“No, but—”

“Hell,” Sam said, on a tear now and picking up speed, “maybe when they get here, you can take the kid outside and kick him for a while. And Jo can beat up his mother. That’ll be good. After all, the hospital’s right here.”

Mike shifted uncomfortably. “Jesus, Sam, get a grip.”

“I’ve got a grip,” she snapped and suddenly whirled around to face the lone man in the waiting room, now avidly watching
them
, the muted TV forgotten. “As for
you,” she shouted, “mind your own damn business. Watch your stupid TV and don’t you repeat a word of anything you heard today or I swear to
God
”—she paused to inhale sharply—“I will find a way to make you sorry.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the guy said, eyes wide and terrified.

Smart man, Mike thought, as he slumped down into his chair, making himself as small a target as possible. But strangers listening to the family secrets wasn’t real high up on her list of things to worry about at the moment.

“What the hell are we supposed to do with this, Sam?” Mike grabbed her sister’s arm, turning her back around to face her. “Are we supposed to greet this kid with open arms?” she demanded. “Tell his mother that all’s forgiven and aren’t we a happy family? Hey, Thanksgiving’s coming up! Well, forget it. I never wanted a brother, you know, and I still don’t.”

“You think I do?” Sam asked, peeling Mike’s fingers off her arm, one at a time. “But you know what? Unlike you and Saint Josefina out there, stomping around, filled with the Holy Glow of Certainty, I
know
what it’s like to make a mistake.” She lowered her voice and the words hissed at Mike, making them that much harder to listen to.

“I know what it is to do something so wrong, so heartbreakingly awful—” She paused again, to get the tremble out of her voice. “So awful that you can’t live with yourself.”

Mike knew where she was going with this and cut her off at the pass. Just a couple of months ago, Sam’s husband, Jeff “Weasel Dog” Hendricks, had come back
into her life. She’d been forced to relive old tragedies to eventually find a miraculous ending. And Mike understood how she felt. God, her heart hurt for Sam, but, “This isn’t about you. This is nothing like what happened to you.”

“Of course it is,” her sister said softly. “I was sad and miserable and empty and lonely for Jeff. Just as Papa was for Mama. And I did something stupid. Unforgivable, really.
I gave up my own child
.”

The raw pain in her sister’s voice stabbed at Mike and her eyes filled with tears of empathy. Around Mike, no one cried alone. Papa used to say she had the most sympathetic tear ducts in the world.

Papa.

Her heart ached.

“Trust me, Mike,” Sam said, stepping forward to wrap her arms around her sister for a fierce, brief hug. “I know what it is to do something you regret. Something you’d rather no one else ever knew about. And I know what it is to be so bone-deep lonely and scared that nothing makes sense.” With her arms still tightly locked around Mike, Sam continued. “I heard him, Mike. At night, I used to hear Papa crying, when he thought we were all asleep. The thought of losing Mama pushed him to the edge. Is it so hard to understand that he grabbed hold of
something
to keep from falling over?”

The images Sam drew were hard to stand against. The thought of her strong father giving in to tears was something that she’d never really thought about. Stupid, she guessed, but he’d always been the rock. And
frankly, she’d been too wrapped up in her own pain then to feel anyone else’s.

Mike held on for a long minute, reining in her tears and giving Sam time to do the same. When she was sure she could look at her sister without crying again, she freed herself and stepped back.

“Okay,” she said, “you understand. You get why Papa might have done what he did. And maybe . . . maybe I sort of do, too. But answer me this, Sam . . .”

She waited.

Mike took a deep breath and let it go again. “What about Mama?”

Sam’s mouth worked and her eyes filled up again.

But Mike kept going, determined to have her say. “Mama was dying and Papa was out with some bimbo, making the
son
he always wanted. What’s that say?”

“I don’t have all the answers, Mike,” Sam said wearily, and let her shoulders slump, as if she were a balloon with a slow leak. “I just know that there’s more here than a few stark facts. And I figure we owe it to Papa to hear his side of things. Just like we owe it to this boy to let him see his father.”

Mike’s teeth ground together and she swallowed back a sudden, tight knot of fear. She didn’t want to
owe
a child she’d never met. One who had as strong a claim on her father’s heart as she did herself.

“And if Papa dies? What then? We
never
find out why he did what he did?”

“Didn’t I just say I don’t have all the answers?”

“Right.” Mike nodded and shoved her hands into the pockets of her black slacks. “Well, since all we’ve got
are questions . . . here’s another one for you. How the hell do we know this kid is really Papa’s?”

Lucas felt trapped in his own home.

He couldn’t stay in the living room. Justin might be there. Bree had taken over the kitchen. And going to his office and pretending to work was pointless.

Only one thing left to do.

“I’m going out,” he said, and realized that it was the first time in four years that he’d had to say that to anyone. He’d lived alone for so long, doing what he pleased, when he pleased, that this habit of “checking in” felt . . . alien. But if he lived a sometimes lonely life, it was one he’d chosen deliberately.

“I’ll be gone a while,” he said abruptly, more to cut off his own thoughts than because he thought the Irish Warrior gave a good damn.

“Bring some ice cream back with you, then,” she said, stepping into the main room from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a blue and white checked dishtowel.

“Please?”
He stopped, hand on the doorknob, and looked at the woman who was still glaring at him.

“Your brother enjoys it and he doesn’t eat much anymore,” she said, instead of the one word he’d requested.

And Lucas felt like an ass.

Justin was dying and he was an ass.

Great.

“Fine.” He opened the door and stalked out, needing to be away from the house that he’d spent so much time planning. So much time looking forward to.

Now, it was as if he didn’t belong there. Justin was inside.

Dying.

The drive into Chandler didn’t take more than twenty minutes. Huge gray and black clouds raced across a deep blue sky and the wind pushed at the trees lining the lake road, making them bend toward him in elaborate bows. He hardly noticed.

Even on a Sunday morning, Main Street was busy. Tourists clogged the sidewalks and cars crawled as if in a parade.

But he was in no hurry.

Parking the car outside the Spirit Shop, he stepped into the morning sunlight and let the weak autumn warmth seep into his bones along with the chill, ocean wind. The roar of the waves was louder here and almost sounded like music. Maybe that’s what he needed, he thought. A walk on the sand. Clear his head. Get some perspective.

But first, coffee.

He stepped up onto the sidewalk, and weaved his way in and out of the mob of people strolling or simply stopping to window-shop. Hitting the door to the Leaf and Bean, he stepped inside and a wall of conversation rushed to greet him.

The place was packed. Lucas stalked across the gleaming wood floor to the counter, paying no attention at all to the people clustered at the scattering of round tables. But their voices and snatches of conversation followed him as he made his way through the store.

“So the recount’s over . . .”

“Yep, Jackson won again.”

“No chads?” A snort of laughter.

Lucas smiled in spite of his mood.

“Rachel Vickers is fit to be tied, I hear . . .”

“Feel sorry for Mayor Vickers. Living with a queen who’s been dethroned. Won’t be pretty . . .”

Life went on, Lucas thought, idly sorting through the chitchat for a few pieces of town news.

“High school’s first football game is next week . . .”

“Autumn Festival looks bigger this year . . .”

Lucas smiled to himself, waited his turn in line, then gratefully moved up to the counter to place his order.

“Lucas,” Stevie Candellano said, a worried smile on her face. “Here on a coffee run from the hospital?”

Small towns, he thought, and wondered how Mike’s father was doing. Hell, how was
she
doing?

Amazing how fast news got around this place, though. They were better than the CIA at intelligence gathering.

“No,” he said, finally answering Stevie’s question as he leaned both elbows on the shining glass countertop. “I just need one cup. For me.”

“Oh.”

One word and yet it held a world of disapproval. Seemed he couldn’t do
anything
right with women these days. As she started on his usual order of a latte, she looked up at him and asked, “Any word about Papa Marconi yet?”