Chapter Nine
What the fuck was he doing with this woman?
Gus frowned and stared up at the ceiling. He’d spent the night slumped on the sofa, looking up at cracked drywall, thinking of long auburn hair and a mouth that had him hard as a rock.
Getting involved with Faith was not a good idea. He knew this. First off, the woman was hiding something. It was none of his business, and he shouldn’t care, but he was curious.
Secondly, he wasn’t sticking around this place.
Once his business with Porter was done, he’d head back to DC and the life he’d taken a vacation from.
And even if they fell into something casual, she wasn’t the kind of woman a man up and left.
Not a good man, anyway. Gus wasn’t perfect by any means, but he was honest.
He didn’t do relationships, for fuck’s sake.
Gus winced and got to his feet. Where the hell had the R-word come from? What was it about this woman that called to him? Sure, she was cute and funny, and her eyes changed color in the sun, but so what? He’d been with a lot of women, and none of them had ever made him feel like . . .
Like what?
He scowled and hopped into the shower. He let it run cold. He was digging a hole here and couldn’t seem to find his way out. Did he go along for the ride or man up, and end things before the situation became complicated?
And it would become complicated. He had no doubt. Could he do casual with Faith and then leave? A good guy would back off.
“Fuck me,” he muttered, leaning against the wall as the cold water poured over him. He decided not to think about her. Not now. He’d figure that shit out later. In the meantime, he had work to do. A family to deal with.
The parade started at 9 a.m. sharp, which meant the streets in and around the parade route were closed off to vehicles.
They were clogged with families pulling wagons, kids on bikes, and the elderly pushing walkers or being pushed in their wheelchairs.
For a town that boasted a population close to nine thousand, it felt as if every single one of them were there.
And that made navigating his way to the other side of town dicey.
Gus swore when he narrowly missed hitting a teenager who darted in front of his truck on a bike.
The young kid, barely out of braces and sporting a whisper of peach fuzz, cycled past without acknowledgment, trying his best to catch up to another group of teens headed downtown.
It brought back memories of another parade, in what seemed to be another lifetime. He had a clear vision of himself in a wagon that was decked out in red, white, and blue, along with Harrison and Ollie, being pulled by . . . he frowned as he took a left out of town.
Sunday? Ford? He couldn’t quite remember.
But the feel of that moment — the joy and anticipation were something he couldn’t forget.
It was at odds with the life he’d been told he’d lived here.
It made him uneasy, thinking that maybe he’d gotten things wrong.
But how could he have? His mother had taken him and his siblings in the middle of a night to escape a monster.
If his father was anything but what she’d said he was, wouldn’t he have come looking for them?
His cell pinged just as he was pulling into the Boone estate driveway, and he glanced at the caller ID.
Shit, it was his mother. He’d been avoiding her for so long, he knew his time was up.
He either took her call or confessed. Since he was pretty sure she’d be pissed to know where he was and what he was doing, he picked up on the second ring.
“Hey, Mom. What’s up?” As soon as the question popped out of his mouth, he knew he’d just opened himself up to the kind of hell only a mother could reign down on her son.
“What’s up? It’s been exactly three weeks since we last talked and that’s all you’ve got for me?”
“I talked to you last week.” He parked near the garage and cut the engine.
“No. We didn’t talk. You told me you were too busy to talk. Said that you were in the middle of a meeting with a new client and would call me back. Which you never did.”
“Sorry. It’s been crazy busy around here.”
“Has it? So busy that you can’t phone your mother?”
“I’ve been chasing my own tail for weeks and—”
“I know you’re not in DC.”
Shit. Fuck.
“Cat got your tongue?” Her tone changed, and Gus visualized her sitting in the chair out back of her place, eyes on the Pacific as she worked out whatever it was going on with her son. She’d always been a bit of a helicopter parent, and even though he was a grown man, she liked to be in the know.
“If I’m not in DC then where would I be?” he asked lightly, eyes on the house he’d spent his first seven years in.
“If I knew that I wouldn’t be calling you. What’s going on, August?”
He winced. Not good. Any sentence that included his given name usually meant the shit was going to hit.
“Look, I needed some time away is all. Nothing’s going on.”
“Are you seeing a woman?”
An image of Faith flashed before him, but he pushed it away just as fast. He couldn’t afford a distraction.
“I’m doing some recon.”
“You’re not a SEAL anymore. What the hell is recon?”
“Research.” Goddamn was he digging a hole. “A new client and uh, I’m just doing my due diligence. The intelligence community is shady as hell Mom, you know that.”
“Are you in the country?”
Relieved that she had no clue of his whereabouts, Gus tossed his mother a bone. “No, but I’ll be home in a week or so. I promise to come out to California for a visit.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, August. Don’t disappoint me or I will track you down.”
“That I believe.” He grinned and relaxed a bit. “What are you doing for the holiday?”
His mother dug in and prattled on about her plans with Doug, the man she’d lived with for the past five years. There would be a regatta and then a barbecue at the club. She told him that Oliver was dropping by for a two-day visit on his way back from Mexico.
“He’s bringing a girl,” she said. “How does he have time for a girl, and you don’t?”
“Okay, I gotta go Mom. I promise I’ll call you within the next few weeks.”
“I don’t want a phone call. I want to see you in person. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for my children to come out and visit me more than twice a year.”
God, she was good with the guilt.
“I promise you’ll see me soon.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” Gone was the teasing tone, and Gus shifted a bit, uncomfortable because lying wasn’t his thing. Especially not to his mother. Until now.
“No,” he replied.
There was quiet for a few seconds and then she said goodbye.
“Fuck.” He tossed his cell and sank back in his seat. Gus felt like an absolute shit. When the hell had his life become so damn complicated?
It was because of the old box he’d found. And not for the first time, he wished he’d left it the hell alone. Maybe then he wouldn’t have looked back. Second guessed.
With a sigh, he slid from the truck and headed toward the treeline.
It was a holiday, and the men he hired for the cottage project were off, but a lot of supplies had been delivered the day before, and his plan was to work until early afternoon unloading the skids that had been placed in the first clearing by cottage number one. After that? A cold beer at The Dock.
And Faith.
She was one more layer he hadn’t anticipated when he’d come to Fire Lake, and he was pretty sure that getting involved with a woman like her wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
Faith wasn’t a placeholder. Wasn’t that woman a man screwed and then forgot about.
She was a mistake he should avoid because Gus was the guy who dated and dumped when things got serious.
He didn’t have the bandwidth for a relationship.
“Relationship?” he muttered. There was that damn word again.
He reached the edge of the clearing, and with the sun sitting pretty in a robin-egg blue sky, he pulled on his work gloves and got busy.
Physical labor was one thing he could count on to clear his mind, and for the next three hours, he lugged sheets of drywall, buckets of joint compound, cans of paint, and lumber.
He kept hydrated and ate a few granola bars, but by the time he was done, he was hot and sweaty and figured he’d reward himself with a dip in the lake.
He finished his last water bottle and walked to the nearest dock, then shed his boots, jeans, and T-shirt.
His shoulders were tight, and he rotated them a bit.
The water glittered like a million diamonds lay beneath the surface, and he figured the parade was over because Fire Lake was coming alive.
Boats zoomed back and forth, pulling skiers and tubers, while voices and music echoed across the water as excited kids jumped in the lake and parents relaxed with cold beers and barbecues at the ready.
There was something to be said about a place like this. It was about as far from DC as a man could get, and he wasn’t so sure he was going to be able to go back to that life without checking in here now and again.
Even if he had to come back as Gus, the guy with no last name.
He dove deep. He swam and floated for a good thirty minutes, and when he finally climbed back onto the dock he was refreshed, recharged and hungry as hell.
He squeezed the excess water from his boxers as best he could, then pulled his jeans back on.
He tied up his boots and grabbed his T-shirt, then turned to the path that led to the main house.
It didn’t take him long to exit the trees, and when he did, he spied a frail form down near the gardens on the far side of the house.
It was his father, and he appeared to be alone.
Gus took a few more steps toward his truck but stopped and glanced back.
It was a bit of a hike from the gardens up to the main house. What if he fell?