Chapter 5
5
R ex followed Tilly across the tarmac toward a stretch limo, trying to diffuse the pain that tore through his heart. He couldn’t tell if Tilly had put it there or his family.
Or both.
His heart had taken a mini beating the moment he opened his eyes this morning to see her sprawled out on top of him in his bed. Her long hair flowed across his chest, and her arms and legs were tangled up with his. Visions of leisurely walks along the beach, children frolicking in the ocean waves, maybe even a dog chasing a Frisbee teased his mind.
Those were all dreams of the past and now he was walking right into where it had all begun.
The limo's back door opened, and his father stepped out into the humid air. His hair had thinned and grayed, but his muscular frame filled out his dress slacks and shirt exactly as Rex had remembered. His father held out his hand as a woman stepped from the vehicle. She wore a stunning light-blue pantsuit. Her short brown hair was perfectly styled. From a distance, he couldn’t even fathom a guess at her age, but she was in her early sixties from the few talks he’d had with his father and siblings.
“Judy is her name, right?” he whispered. His palms grew clammy, and his pulse jackhammered in his chest.
“That’s correct,” Tilly said, slowing her pace. She rested her hand in the crook of his elbow. Instinctively, he raised his forearm. “She was married to a banker for twenty years.”
“Do I have more stepsiblings I need to be aware of?”
Tilly let out a soft laugh. “No. She never had children.”
“Why’d she get divorced?”
“She didn’t. She was widowed.”
He swallowed. That was good information to know. Otherwise, he might go and make an ass of himself by saying something stupid.
The last ten paces, he took deep, calming breaths.
“Dad,” he said, extending his hand.
“Rex.” His father pushed his hand aside and pulled him in for a tight, slightly too long hug. “You look good, boy.”
“So do you, Dad.”
“Tilly. Dear Tilly. Thanks for talking him into coming home.” His father took Tilly into his arms, kissing her cheek.
“My pleasure,” Tilly said.
“Judy. I’d like you to meet my son, Rex.” His father beamed with pride just like the day Rex graduated from high school. His father had always been his biggest supporter, even when Rex said no to a prep school offer to play golf and even a chance to go professional. While Rex loved the sport, he didn’t want to make it his living, no matter how good at it he was, and he was still a scratch golfer. Not bad for a guy who only played on weekends, and not every weekend because that would cut into his fishing.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Rex said.
She took the hand he extended but leaned in for an awkward hug. “Please don’t call me ma’am or Mrs. Jordan because that would be more awkward than this. Judy is just fine.”
A nervous laugh trickled out of his mouth. “I’m sorry I was unable to make the wedding. I really was deployed at the time.” There was no reason he needed to qualify that, and by the wrinkled brow on his father’s head, Rex had not only insulted him by implying they didn’t believe his response, but it also reminded everyone that Rex hadn’t been home in ten years.
“Thank you for your service,” Judy said with a poised smile.
He wanted to hate the woman as much as he resented his parents for destroying what he believed had been the perfect marriage. The perfect family.
“You’re welcome.” His heart ached for what he had once been and what a fool he’d been. He hadn’t chased after Tilly because he wanted to follow his dream. No. He didn’t stay to make it work because he was afraid and made it impossible for her to come after him.
He swallowed. Hard.
But his parents had betrayed him, a thought that still burned a hole in his gut. Even now, he could perfectly recall the day he’d found his mother with Mr. Bettencourt. A son, no matter the age, doesn’t unsee something like that. He wondered if he’d found out some other way and didn’t have to be the one to tell his father if he would have reacted differently.
He slipped into the limo, Tilly sitting next to him, his father and Judy sitting across. His lungs burned with every breath he took. His father and his father’s wife were strangers to him. He had no idea what to say, much less how to act.
“Your father tells me you left the Air Force and now work for something called the Aegis Network.” She patted his father’s leg. “Gerry, did I get that right?”
His father nodded, staring at Rex with questioning eyes, though what they questioned, Rex didn’t know.
“He also tells me you’re in some training or school to be an arson investigator with the local fire department. That must be fascinating.”
Rex arched a brow. “How’d you know about that, Dad?”
“You’ve forgotten I know Decker Rigg’s father.”
“Keeping tabs on me?”
Tilly pinched him, and he flinched, though not necessarily at the physical pain.
He deserved more of a pinch since the words tumbled out of his mouth before he could think about how they would sound.
“Sorry, Dad. That’s not what I meant.” He rubbed the side of his leg and laced his fingers through Tilly’s.
She tried to pull back, but he didn’t let her. He needed her warmth and her strength if he was going to get through this without being too much of an ass.
“You meant it like that. I was always up your ass about everything when you were a teenager and worse when you went to college.” His father smiled, shaking his head. “Remember when I tried to bribe your academic advisor to give me your grades when you refused to sign off on them?”
“You were a bit of a control freak.” The corner of Rex’s mouth twitched into a smile. “I purposely maintained a status quo average just to annoy you.”
“I know. Smart-ass kid,” his father said.
“I know an adult who is just like that,” Judy said with a bright smile.
It was impossible to hate the woman. She seemed perfect for his dad, and he really had no reason to dislike her. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t broken up a marriage.
Fuck. He needed to change his attitude and his thinking.
A long, thick silence filled the limo. Rex looked out the window as they pulled into a familiar neighborhood. Not his old one, or Tilly’s, since his mom and her dad had bought a new place together, but it was only a couple of neighborhoods away and still within the country club. That had to be awkward at the Holiday Ball.
“Thanks for coming,” his father said with a throaty tone, his eyes glossed over, threatening to tear. “I won’t pretend to understand how you felt ten years ago. I had my pain to grapple with, and I don’t think I was a very good father to you or your siblings during the divorce. But I know what this will mean to your mother.”
“She doesn’t know I’m coming?”
Tilly squeezed his hand. “She’s been asking for you, and we all said we’d try to find you, but we didn’t want to get her hopes up.”
“I hope I don’t give her a heart attack,” Rex mumbled.
“That’s not funny,” his father said, though there was a lightness to the words.
“It’s inappropriately funny.” Rex coughed, nearly choking on the phrase his mother used to toss out whenever the locker room talk got out of hand or a sexist joke would be told in front of her.
The limo pulled into a house on the fifth tee box. “They bought old man Walker’s place?”
“You didn’t know that?” Tilly questioned.
“There are many things I don’t know,” he admitted, his insides fluttering like a dog’s tail. “I know this is no excuse, but my life in the Air Force was filled with more deployments than being Stateside. Even after I left the military, this organization I joined, the Aegis Network, has me traveling a lot. And then there is my work as a firefighter. I don’t have much downtime.”
“So we’ve been told.” His father’s voice boomed with pride once again.
Rex snapped his head, catching his father’s gaze. Rex expected a lecture on how easy it was in today’s age to maintain contact, not genuine delight from a man who seemed to relish in his son’s accomplishments, even if from a distance.
“Why don’t I go see how Louisa is doing?” Judy pushed open the limo door. “Should I prepare her for Rex’s visit?”
“No,” his father said, maintaining eye contact with Rex. “I’d like it if you told her you came to see her on your own. You can tell her I sent Tilly to talk you into it if you want, since we’ve had that conversation. But remember, when someone knows the end is near, they look back over their lives and all the regrets and pain that come with it, and it haunts their existence.” He leaned over, putting a strong hand on Rex’s knee. “What she did was wrong, and it hurt us all. This is no excuse, but our marriage had been over for years. We stayed together for you kids. Maybe that was a big mistake.”
Rex couldn’t stand to listen to reason for a second longer. “I’m here. Let’s just leave it at that.” As he stepped from the limo, the warm sun hit his face. Golf carts rolled across the cart path. The sound of an iron hitting a ball played like music in his ears. He ducked his head back into the limo. “What are the chances I could get a round of golf in after I visit with Mom?”
“I’ll set it up,” his father said.
“Thanks.” He turned and faced old man Walker’s house, which was now his mother’s house. “Well, here goes nothing.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stood at the front door. Did he knock? Ring the doorbell? Walk in? Thankfully, he didn’t have to make that decision as Judy appeared and opened the front door.
“She’s awake and knows something is up, but I doubt she knows you’re here.” Judy placed her hand on his shoulder. “She’s been hopeful that you would come home, but she also understands why you wouldn’t. She doesn’t blame you. Only herself.”
That damn near broke his heart. “Can I ask you a question?” He actually had a million of them, but he wasn’t sure half mattered anymore.
“What is it?” Judy stepped back, waving a hand into a sitting room to the right of the foyer. He recognized the white sofa from Tilly’s parents’ house, but only because they’d had sex on it once.
Or twice.
Pictures of both families lined the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. It was strange to see his family portrait, with both his parents in it, displayed next to one of Tilly’s with all of her siblings and parents.
“If you’ve more than one, why don’t we sit.”
He shook his head, reaching for the frame with a dozen small pictures of him and Tilly growing up as kids.
“Your mother has a collection of picture frames like that one throughout the house. She’s still holding out for a reunion with the two of you.”
Maybe he should tell his mother that his love for Tilly would be forever tainted because of her actions, and they’d get back together when hell froze over.
God, he was a mess. One minute he wanted nothing more than to be with Tilly. The next he just wanted to continue to hurt everyone.
Mostly himself.
Living a tormented life had become the only way he knew how to survive.
Being in this house, surrounded by images of family and love, made him want to run and scream naked through the neighborhood like a crazy person. But the worst part was that he was a grown man, not a child, and he had no right to begrudge his parents' happiness or to judge their decisions.
And none of it had to do with giving his mother some peace before she passed.
“I hope you don’t mind if I’m blunt,” he said.
“I’m your mother’s primary caregiver, I’m used to blunt.”
He let out a short laugh. “How do you do it? I mean, taking care of your husband’s ex-wife. That’s got to be hard.”
“It might have been if I knew them during the divorce, but I didn’t. I only saw two people who stopped loving each other but never stopped loving their kids.” Judy ran her fingers across an old Victorian desk. “Your parents have become friends. Close friends. I’d be a bitch if I stood between two people who have shared so much joy and heartache.” She closed the gap, reaching out and curling her fingers around his biceps. “They became close over their shared grief of hurting and losing you. Your father believes he was just as much at fault for that as your mother. They both love you very much, but they are about as stubborn as a baby that is unwilling to walk.”
“That’s a family trait.”
“Anything else?”
“Just point me in the direction of my mother,” he said. If he didn’t do this now, he’d never do it.
“Upstairs and down the hallway. You’ll walk right into the master bedroom. I should warn you, she’s weak and doesn’t look well. She’s lost a ton of weight and is quite pale.”
“That has to drive her insane. She always loved a good tan.”
“She demands tanning lotion every day.”
“That sounds like my mother.” He left Judy standing in the sitting room as he climbed the staircase. The hallway walls were filled with more photos and familiar furniture from both his childhood home and Tilly’s.
I slept with my stepsister.
Well, she was his girlfriend before that, and it didn’t matter anyway.
He raised his trembling hand and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” his mother’s voice rang out as soft and sweet as he remembered. At nine years old, he broke his wrist snow skiing on a family vacation. It had been displaced and had to be reset. His mother talked to him through the entire process, telling him stories of her childhood and the crazy things his grandfather used to do. By the time the doctor was done, he’d barely known he’d been hurt, thanks to his loving mother.
He sucked in a deep breath and told himself this would be easier than running into a burning building.
Right.
He stepped through door, mentally preparing himself. “Hey, Ma,” he said as she came into view. She was propped up in her bed, a food tray over her legs. Her once long, thick hair had thinned and turned gray. She wasn’t as pale as he thought she’d be, but her frail body sucker punched his ability to take another step.
All the anger and resentment melted from his body.
She turned her head, raising a small sandwich. Her hand fell to the tray, sending the plate with the rest of the food onto the bed.
He raced to her side, quickly cleaning up the mess, thankful no liquid had been spilled. He set her food off to the side and sat on the edge of the bed. “Surprise?” He didn’t think his heart could ache more, but seeing his strong, sophisticated mother in such a vulnerable state drove home how much he’d missed out on during the last ten years.
She blinked a few times, shaking her head. “Now I’m delusional,” she whispered.
“No. I’m really here.” He took his mother’s feeble hand in his, rubbing gently.
“I can’t decide whether to hug or slap you.”
“How about both?”
She raised her arm and patted the side of his cheek. “If you weren’t so damned pretty, I’d really smack you.”
He leaned in, drawing his mother close, being careful not to hurt her, but she had other things in mind as she nearly crushed him with a hug and slobbered on his cheek with a million pecks like she used to do when he was a small boy and he’d run away trying to brush them off, totally embarrassed she’d done that in front of his friends.
“You need to shave.” His mother leaned back, folding her arms over her chest.
“I didn’t have much time this morning. We just landed less than an hour ago.”
“Tilly got you to come home.” Her mother waggled a finger under his nose. “And don’t lie to me. I’m not that fragile, and I’m not dead yet.”
He swallowed the sob that smacked the back of his throat and willed the tears glossing over his eyes to fade away. “She had something to do with it.”
“Your father sent her. He doesn’t think I know, even though I might have suggested she was the only one who could do it. He has it in his head that I needed you to come home on your own. But screw that. I’ll take it any way I can. Besides, you and Tilly belong together. Oh, the babies you two will make. They will be spectacular.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t think you could get any more candid, but you have, and you’ve developed a very dry sense of humor.”
“Losing your son, then your second husband, and now dying, will do that to a woman.”
“You didn’t lose me,” he mumbled, wondering if she was trying to hurt him, or just being inappropriately honest.
“Yeah. Actually, I did. After I got the last letter you sent me a year after you’d left, I realized how badly I handled the situation and that you would never forgive me. And don’t go saying that you do just because you think it’s what a dying woman wants to hear because it’s not. I just wanted to see you and have the chance to tell you I’m sorry. In person.”
“Apology accepted.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. Even in death, she still smelled like roses. “I’m sure I owe you a few.”
“You owe Tilly a lot more than me.” His mother tilted her head slightly to the left, pursed her lips, and gave him that look that dared him to argue with her.
“We talked.”
“And?”
“There is no and. Tilly and I were over long ago. We’ve both moved on.”
“Really? Do you have a girlfriend?”
He opened his mouth, but she didn’t let him speak.
“I bet you don’t, and if you lie to me, I’ll know it.”
“I’ve had girlfriends.”
“But they don’t last, do they? And Tilly has horrible taste in men. God-awful.”
He laughed. “I can’t speak for her, but I’m happy with my life and I don’t need a girlfriend for that.”
“Because anyone you date isn’t right for you. Tilly has always been the one, and I’m going to get the two of you back together if it’s the last thing I do. I owe you and her that. What I really want in my last days is to see the two of you together again. My actions destroyed that and now I’m going to fix it.”
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt his mother. But he couldn’t lie. Not now. Not ever. “I’m sorry, Ma, but it’s not going to happen. Tilly and I got the chance to talk about the way in which we hurt each other. But we’re different people now. There’s nothing there anymore.”
“Talk is cheap. How long are you here for?”
“Couple of days. But I’ll come back as often as I can.” Words he hadn’t expected to come out of his mouth, but he wouldn’t take them back. He desperately wanted to be there for his mother. For himself. He wanted to be at her bedside and he would do whatever he could to make that happen.
“I need you to do me a favor.”
“Whatever you need,” he said, thankful they were off the Tilly topic.
“While you’re here, take Tilly out on a couple of dates. See how?—”
“Mom. Do you really want to start a fight on my first day back in over ten years? Because I don’t. I’m here because I want to be. Not because Tilly asked me to, but because I realized I needed to make things right with you. I’m truly sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed away so long.”
She straightened her spine, sitting up taller. “What harm could it do to take her out and show her a good time?”
Little did his mother know that his heart was already bleeding out.
“And it will make a dying woman happy.”
“Fine,” he said a little too quickly, but it put a smile on his mother’s face, and he preferred that to a scowl.
“Good. Now, why don’t you go play some golf with your father? Then we can all have dinner together tonight. Afterward, you can take Tilly out for drinks, a movie, or maybe a romantic stroll.”
He kissed his mother’s cheek, helping her fluff her pillow as she shifted lower in the bed. He snagged the food tray and headed for the stairs with a funny tickle across his skin. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, but it certainly was an unwelcoming one.
When he got to the bottom of the stairs and rounded the corner, he was greeted by Tilly and his father.
“How’d things go?” his father asked.
“It was interesting. She forgives me and I can honestly say I’ve put the past behind me. I plan on coming home as often as possible until the bitter end. But she certainly knows how to play the dying card.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Tilly asked, snapping her hip to the side in an indignant gesture.
“She knew Dad sent you to get me, and her dying wish wasn’t for my forgiveness but for the two of us to get back together. While I’m here, I’ve been ordered to date you.”
His father bent over, slapped his leg, and burst out laughing.
“I don’t see what is so funny,” Rex said, scowling.
“Your mother always gets her way.” His father glanced between Rex and Tilly. “And she’s always right.”
“Not this time,” Tilly said. “I can’t believe I fell for her tricks!” She folded her arms. “I’m sorry, Gerry. I flew all the way to Florida because you asked me to since she so desperately wanted to make peace with her son. But no, the reality is she’s still trying to play matchmaker. How many times have I told her that ship has sailed? That he and I are over. We have absolutely no feelings left for one another. None. Zilch. This is crazy. She can’t make me date him. I’m not letting her play the death card. Again.”
His father stopped laughing.
Judy stared at Tilly with a perplexed expression.
Rex cleared his throat. “Okay. What am I missing? Why are you so pissed off?”
“I don’t like being manipulated.”
“You knew this was what she wanted?”
“She might have mentioned it a time or two.” Tilly cocked her head. “And come on, do you seriously want to date me while you’re here spending time with your mom?”
“Going out and seeing the old stomping grounds wouldn’t be the worst idea.” He shrugged.
“You are one big pain in my ass.” She turned and stomped out the front door.
Rex’s dad squeezed his shoulder. “Your mom has been putting some pressure on her about you. Pulling out old photo albums. Reminiscing about prom. Chatting about the time we caught you kids on the third fairway having?—”
“Don’t say it, Dad.” Rex stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it. “That’s not really fair of Mom to do to Tilly. It wasn’t easy for her to come to collect me, and I made it even harder.”
“I’m sure you did,” his dad said. “If I had known what your mother intended, I would have come myself.” He lowered his chin. “But let’s call the kettle black here, son. Would you have come if anyone other than Tilly had shown up?”
“I don’t know,” Rex answered honestly. “That woman is not only persuasive, but she’s also a stubborn mule who wouldn’t get off my boat until she either drowned in a storm or I agreed. I couldn’t let her ruin her expensive dress, so I relented.” He rubbed the back of his neck and let out a long breath. “For Mom’s sake, she’ll go out with me. But sadly, it’s going to be all for show.”
“If you say so, son.”