Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Dennis
Dennis loved his mother. He really did.
But not when he got texts like Check the weather in the morning sweetie because a snowstorm might hit and we don’t want you to do a Colleen.
Yes, what had happened to his sister was cause for concern, but–
Because you haven’t driven on snow in years and you’re out of practice.
That.
That’s the part that made him grit his teeth.
“Something wrong?”
“My mom. Texting me.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Warning me to be careful in case it snows.”
“Careful?” His eyes caught the impression of her lips on the edge of her glass, the red lipstick lacy along the rim.
“On the road.”
“Where are you driving?”
“My hometown in Maine. And you?”
“Mass. Newburyport. What part of Maine?”
Hoo boy.
Dennis hated this question.
In fact, in some ways, it’s why he left his hometown twenty-four years ago and until now, hadn’t been back for more than a short R&R.
Because Dennis hated–with the passion of a thousand glittering hearts, ten thousand baby Cupids, and one horny moose–where he was from.
Not the people. People were great.
Not the weather. Snow was awesome.
The problem was the kitsch.
Dennis hated the lovesick tourist trap with his last name attached to it.
“Northwest.”
“Long drive ahead of you?”
“Tomorrow. Yeah.”
“Retiring and going back home? Do you have a job lined up?”
“Family business, actually. My dad was disappointed that none of my siblings wanted it. I’ll step in and he can slow down.”
“What kind of business?”
“Trees.”
“Trees?”
“Yeah.”
“Growing them or cutting them down?”
“Cutting. Climbing. Treating.”
“You’re leaving the Army to be a tree guy?”
“Yep.”
“Are you one of those people who can climb a tree with just the harnesses? Like a human cherry picker?”
“It’s more like cherry pickers are mechanical arborists, actually.”
“Wow. I could never do that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m terrified of heights.” She looked up and watched the moving glass elevators nervously. “I practically needed a Xanax to check into my room on the twenty-third floor.”
“That bad?”
“Yeah. Got dizzy and a little flushed on the way up.”
“You look good with some pink in your cheeks.”
His comment added more.
Bzzz
Dennis looked at the screen.
Please reply so I know you’re alive, Deanna Luview texted, a familiar line from her.
He took a picture of a slice of prosciutto on the charcuterie board and sent it to her, typing, Sorry. Donner party already got me.
Almost instantly, she replied:
DENNIS!
And then:
Who is the woman in the red shirt with the beautiful nails?
He looked at the picture again. Damn. Part of Ana was in the shot.
Suppressing a groan, he closed his eyes and tried to think of a clever response that would get his mom off his back.
“What’s wrong? Something at home?”
“My mother is interfering in my life.”
“Join the club,” Ana groaned. “My mom still feels like she has to make up for what happened to Dad when I was a teen, so she constantly hovers. I have a therapist’s license but she would cut my meat for me at dinner if I let her.”
He refrained from making a joke about sharing the same mother.
A ragged sigh escaped him as he stared at Deanna’s text. Rude to text with her during a date, of all things, he wanted to power off and ignore his mom.
But if he did that, she’d double down.
It was only now dawning on him that coming home meant he’d have his mother, who meant well and loved all her kids to pieces, butting into his life all the time.
Talking about that aspect of his retirement was off limits with his siblings, even Colleen.
While she was the one he was closest to, he knew he’d cross a line if he admitted that their warm, caring mother had been an obstacle in his decision to come back to Luview and help ease their father’s burden with running the tree company.
“Struggling to come up with a good reply?” Ana asked, watching him with amused eyes.
“Yes. Help me out here.”
“What’s your goal?”
“Goal?”
“Do you want to get her off your back? Mess with her head a little? Please her?”
His groan felt like an earthquake.
“I just want the interference to stop.”
“She does this all the time?”
“Actually, no. It’s just that I’ve almost always been out of contact in the field when she did it.”
“You mean you’d come back into communications contact and find a giant pile of texts asking about you?”
“Exactly.”
“Which meant you could batch your feelings and reactions.”
“Right,” he said slowly, amazed that she put it into words. Dennis had never had a phrase he could use to describe it before. “Batching. That’s very insightful.”
“It’s my training.”
“It’s more than your training.”
“Why do you say everything as if it’s a settled fact?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re very confident in your declarations about me, and yet you don’t know me.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“See? That’s what I mean!”
“Are you calling me arrogant?”
“No. It’s not that. Not at all.” Clearly wrestling with her words, she reached forward and plucked a tiny bunch of grapes from the board. “You don’t say these things to establish dominance, or to preen.”
He nearly sprayed her with his drink.
“Right?” She laughed. “You and ‘preen’ don’t belong in the same sentence.”
“Insight. Again. You have a fluidity about you, Ana. I like it.”
“Fluidity?”
“Adaptability? Flexibility? Something more. You’re intuitive, but you’re also compassionate. Maybe I’m just not used to being around someone so caring and attuned to people from a position of helping them to be grounded.”
Her eyes flared again, this time with surprise.
“What other position would someone take?”
“You can be highly attuned to the people around you from a position of fear. Or violence.”
“Hypervigilance.”
“Yes, but the kind of hypervigilance where you have to focus on a specific goal. And it’s fatal if you don’t.”
“You have seen some stuff, haven’t you?” She pushed her drink aside, making a face and filling her mouth with the food in her hand instead.
“I’d use a worse word than stuff, but yes.”
As she nodded, he watched how her hands moved, the way she breathed, how all the parts of Ana were synchronized. The woman wasn’t cool as a cucumber, and certainly didn’t give off vibes of being a calibrated operative.
She was the real deal.
And the tops of her breasts were sprinkled with crumbs now.
Bzzz
He looked at his phone.
You don’t have to answer, his mom wrote. I’ll just find out when you come home tomorrow!
Whatever sound emerged from him was bad enough to make Ana laugh boisterously, her lovely throat bobbing as she swallowed.
“Oh, my. They have a special way of making us feel completely out of control with a single sentence, don’t they?”
“Sure do.”
K, was all he wrote back, knowing it would drive Deanna nuts.
Reaching for his double bourbon, he drank it down fast, savoring the heat that ran down his throat and exploded in his chest.
“What’s your mom like?” he asked her.
With a very loud snort, she began snickering, licking her lips with a cute little tongue maneuver that made him wonder how she kissed.
“My mother is fine. Busy with her life. Very independent.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a hospice nurse.”
“Mad props to her. Takes some serious backbone and lots of empathy to do that kind of work.”
“Yes. She started doing it as a volunteer–the hospice part, not the nursing–when my dad was still alive. Busy executive’s wife doing volunteer work.
Most of her friends were on charity boards, but Mom liked the actual work with the families and patients.
She had a biology degree already, so she slowly took nursing classes.
All her friends thought she was bizarre. ”
“And your dad?”
“He encouraged her. Loved it. She was in her final semester when he died.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” Ana spread some olive tapenade on a piece of bread, taking a bite. He knew what she was doing.
Stopping herself from sharing more.
“My mom works with my dad. Helps run the company,” he offered, getting the sense that sharing a piece of himself would put her more at ease.
The way her face relaxed told him he was right.
Warming up and getting loose, he felt the alcohol kick in, though he didn’t want more. Didn’t need more. Around them, the restaurant was beginning to fill, small groups and couples chattering animatedly, the occasional single at a table on a phone or reading a book.
Without Ana, he’d have been one of those singles, watching one of the televisions over the bar. A Bruins game was on, closed captioning letting patrons follow without sound.
Ana finished her mouthful and took a sip of her water, then asked, “Is the whole family involved?”
“No. Mom, Dad, and my brother Kell.”
“How many siblings do you have?”
“Three. I’m the oldest. Then my sister, who is a nurse. Brother who is a cop. Baby brother who works with my dad.”
“Big family!”
“What about you?”
She shook her head, her smile going wistful. “Only child. I always wished I had brothers and sisters.”
“Stepsiblings?”
“Nope. Just me.”
“Pressure.”
“What’s that?”
“A lot of pressure. All your parents’ hopes and dreams in one kid.”
“I–I never thought of it that way,” she said, stumbling over her words, giving him a look that said she’d underestimated him.
He shrugged. “You don’t strike me as someone who caves in to other people’s demands.”
“I don’t?”
“You seem to know yourself well.”
If a smile could truly light up a room, Dennis would need sunglasses right now.
“Thank you. I believe that’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever received.”
“You’re very welcome.”
Four musicians–they appeared to be a jazz quartet–began setting up around the piano player, who shifted to a slow song. Dennis recognized it as a show tune but couldn’t name it.
“I know that’s a Broadway song, but I can’t place it.”
“Sondheim,” Ana murmured.
The melody swelled into a chorus, Dennis’s heart rate picking up as they both sat poised, pattern-matching.
Together.
“Ahh! No one is alone!”
“What?” he asked, startled. What did she mean?