Andrew's door was closed and she smiled at the thought of finding him in there, hunched over his industrial engineering books while the party raged a hallway away. He'd told her it was the closest thing to getting a degree in boat building and when she'd flipped through his books and saw all the strange equations and graphs, she'd been so impressed.
She didn't knock. Why would she, when she'd spent so many hours in his bedroom? Her heartbeat kicked up again at the thought of what she was about to tell him as she turned the knob and opened the door. She already knew what his reaction would be, that he'd pull her into his arms and kiss her until she was breathless.
But as the door cracked open, instead of finding him at his desk, concentrating on homework, she saw two figures moving together in the semidarkness. The sheet had fallen off and there was so much naked skin, more than she'd ever seen. They were facing backward on the bed, as if they'd been in too much of a rush to figure out which way was up.
Her first thought was that it couldn't be him. But it was--oh God, how could he?--and all she could think around the despair, the betrayal that was rapidly taking over every cell in her body, was that it was supposed to be her beneath him, not some beautiful girl with long dark hair and deeply tanned skin writhing on the bed, calling out his name.
But ultimately it was the expression on his face that she knew she'd never get out of her head. The intense pleasure of release, of all those pent-up years of sexual frustration finally being relieved.
With another girl.
Josh found her there, propped up against the front door, feeling just as nauseous now as she had so many years ago.
"Mom, what are you doing?"
She blinked hard, had to work like hell to push away the vision of Andrew making love to someone else.
"Nothing," she finally managed. "Just getting ready to head off to work."
He looked at her like she was crazy. "Whatever."
Watching him head into the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal, she thought again how much she hated how strained things had been between them since that afternoon at the diner when he'd blown her off.
Forcing a smile, she asked, "Got any fun plans for today?"
He shrugged. "Nope. Just hanging out."
Of course he didn't want to talk to her. He never did anymore. She bit her tongue, knowing better by now than to try to force it. It only made him clam up more.
Her son was growing up. And there was nothing she could do about it. Besides, hadn't she wished her parents would get with the program when she was his age? What went around, she had often discovered over the years as a parent, had a disturbing tendency to come around. The solution was easy. She needed to chill out. Back off a bit.
Still, she couldn't leave without going over and giving him a kiss on his head, even if he pulled away mid smooch.
Grabbing her keys off the counter, she headed into town to open up the diner, working overtime, the entire way, to push memories of Andrew out of her head.
And to convince herself that it wasn't going to hurt like hell to see him again.
*
Andrew MacKenzie had planned never to come back to Poplar Cove. And yet he'd just flown into the Albany International airport, picked up a rental car and wound through the same back-country roads he'd driven so many times with his parents when he was a boy.
As a kid, he'd practically held his breath until their log cabin came into view, hurtling out of the car as soon as they parked. Now, just like then, his heart was pounding when he made the turn off the two-lane highway, but for entirely different reasons.
He wasn't a kid with his whole life ahead of him anymore. Instead, he was a man heading toward fifty with a bullet. And all he had to show for it was a failed marriage, forced retirement from the law firm he'd given a hundred twenty hours a week to, and a couple of kids he barely knew.
That was the worst part. Not knowing his sons, having to hear from strangers how heroic they were, that they were two in a million, the best of the best.
He should already know it, damn it, had made God a promise two years ago when his youngest son had ended up in the ICU, unconscious and burned, that if only Connor would be all right, if he would walk out of the hospital in one piece, Andrew would do anything. He would become a better husband. Spend less time at the office. Get close to his sons.
But it hadn't worked out like that at all. Connor was a survivor through and through, thank God, but Elise had served him with the divorce papers practically the same day Connor left the hospital. And although he'd reached out to Sam and Connor again and again, neither of them had wanted anything to do with him. Not until last year, when Sam had fallen in love with the beautiful TV personality from San Francisco. Suddenly, the lines had opened up. Andrew knew he had Dianna to thank for it, that she'd encouraged Sam to return some calls, to accept a couple of dinner invitations.
Connor, on the other hand, was a much tougher nut to crack. Through Sam, Andrew had learned just how much they identified with their jobs. Being a hotshot wasn't just something that paid the bills, it was who they were, all the way to the core. Which was why Andrew had repeatedly offered to help Connor with the Forest Service appeal process, but his son had never taken him up on it.
And then yesterday, Sam had told Andrew the bad news. The Forest Service thought Connor's accident was too extreme. He would never fight fire again.
Andrew picked up the phone and bought the first ticket out to Albany. Connor needed him. For once he wouldn't fail him.
The car drew closer to Poplar Cove and between the cabins, the lake shined so blue he almost thought he was imagining it. Even with sunglasses on he had to squint. Thirty years he'd spent in San Francisco, not once taking a long weekend to go hiking, to throw a fishing pole into the back of his car and find a well-stocked lake.
His chest squeezed. God, how he'd missed this place. He slowed the car so that he could take in the water, the mountains, the familiar old camps.
For a moment, he forgot everything except his intense pleasure at being back at Blue Mountain Lake.
But even as he sat in his car in the middle of the road, it struck him, powerfully, that although he'd been experiencing a major sense of deja vu since landing in Albany, the fact of the matter was that nothing was the same as it had been thirty years ago.
Sure, the drive was mostly the same. The camps were still just as they always were. The lake was full of boats. But all of Andrew's dreams were buried down so deep that he could no longer say what it was that nineteen-year-old boy he'd once been had really wanted.
All he knew was that he hadn't gotten it.
A car honked behind him and he put his foot on the gas pedal, the gravel lot behind Poplar Cove finally coming into view. Pulling in, he saw a car and a truck. During the short chat he'd had with his parents, they'd told him they were renting the cabin out to a young woman. He assumed the truck belonged to Connor who, evidently, was working on the cabin for Sam's wedding.
Getting out of the car, he took the stairs to the screened porch and knocked on the door. When he looked in he could see a pretty young woman standing in front of an easel. She seemed to be dancing along to something, but he couldn't hear any music.
"Excuse me," he said, but she didn't look over, didn't seem to have heard him. "Excuse me," he said again, louder this time, and this time, she turned just as Connor walked out onto the porch.
"Dad," he said, not exactly looking pleased to see him.
But Andrew couldn't help smiling. To go from where his son had been, lying there under a thin white sheet hooked up to machines to this strong, young man ... it was a miracle.
"Connor, you're looking great," he said, still standing on the other side of the screen door.
The woman moved past Connor and opened the door. "Hi, I'm Ginger. Why don't you come in?"
He stepped inside and shook her outstretched hand. He thought about walking over to his son and hugging him, but the
y hadn't hugged since Connor was a little boy. Andrew quickly dismissed the idea as a bad one.
"How was your flight?" Ginger asked him as the silence drew on several beats too long.
"Good." He cleared his throat. "Great."
She shot a glance at Connor, and even from this distance, Andrew could feel a strong connection between the two of them.
"You must be exhausted."
"No, I'm fine. Managed a couple of hours on the plane."
Ginger's wristwatch beeped and she looked down at it in obvious consternation. "I'm sorry, but I've got to head into work." Another quick look at his son. "If you'd like something to eat, Connor knows where all the food is. I'm sure he could heat something up for you."
She turned to head into the house, brushing against Connor as she walked past. Andrew saw his son's reaction, the way his fingers stretched out to brush against hers.
Andrew remembered what it felt like to be with a girl that could take him down with nothing more than a glance, with the soft touch of her fingers on his skin. It had been the greatest feeling in the world.
"Want a Coke?" Connor asked.
"I've had enough caffeine already to last me the week."
Connor raised both eyebrows. "Okay. I'm going to get one."
Had he already put his foot in it, over nothing more than a soda? He should have taken whatever his son offered.
While Connor walked to the kitchen, Andrew looked around the old log cabin. It looked almost identical to the way it had when he was a kid. Some new furniture, a lighter shade of green on the porch, but otherwise like time was standing still.
Ginger came down the stairs, went into the kitchen, said something to Connor that he couldn't make out. Not wanting to be a peeping Tom, he moved back, but not before he caught a glimpse of her going up on her toes to kiss his son.
"I hope to see you later," she said to Andrew as she walked out the screen door.
Connor sat down with his Coke and Andrew dearly wished he had something to do with his hands, even if it was just opening the pop tab.
He'd been like this the day Connor had been born, his hands trembling as he went to pick him up. Newborns scared him. They were so small, so helpless, and every moment they depended on you. And although Connor was a couple of inches taller than him now, Andrew felt just as awkward, just as unsure of himself.
"How's the work on the cabin going?"
"The wiring was a mess. The logs are rotting. The roof is shot."
Andrew nodded, tried to think of what to say next. "Are you staying in town or--"
"Here. I'm staying here."
"That's great. Ginger seems like a beautiful girl."
Shit, another hard stare from his son. He was a lawyer, he should know how to lead a conversation in the direction he wanted it to go.
"Have you run into any of your old friends?"
"Let's cut the bull. Why are you here?"
Andrew bristled at his son's tone, forgot his intention to be the nice guy. "Poplar Cove isn't yours, it's your grandparents'. Which makes it mine too. I have every right to be here."
"Wrong." Connor stood, looked down on him. "This is Ginger's house now. You're only here because she let you in. And that's just because she doesn't know a damn thing about you."
Andrew stood up too, faced off with his son. He wasn't as broad from years of grueling physicality, but they had the same basic build. Apart from the twenty years between them, they were fairly evenly matched.
"How about we cut right to it, then?"
Andrew had thought he needed to tread gently. Fuck that. If Connor was going to come at him full speed ahead, he was going to see that his old man was tough enough to block him.
"Your brother called me. He told me what happened. That the Forest Service had turned down your final appeal. That's why I'm here. To take care of my own."
"I'm fine."
For the first time in a very long time, Andrew saw himself in his rugged son. He'd done that same thing once, worked like hell to convince everyone--but mostly himself--that the abrupt shift his life had taken was what he'd wanted.
"All my life I've worked on facts and facts alone," he told his son. "Here are the facts. You have always wanted to be a firefighter and nothing else. And now your future has been fucked over by a bunch of suits."
From a legal perspective, Andrew understood why the Forest Service couldn't risk having an injured man in the field who might freeze in a crucial moment.
"That's a brutal blow, Connor. One you're going to have to deal with sooner or later."
"I told you. I'm fine."
"I didn't just fly here on a godforsaken red-eye to hear you spout that denial crap."
Connor's mouth twisted up on one side. "Now that's real suffering. A red-eye flight."
A sound of frustration rippled out from Andrew's throat, two years of rejected invitations to connect with his son all coming at him at once.
"Your IQ tests were off the charts. You could have been anything you wanted to. You're only thirty. It's not too late to go back to school, to become a doctor or professor. Heck, I've heard you've been a hell of a teacher to the rookie hotshots these past couple of years."
"Think how much easier it would have been to tell me that over the phone instead of coming all this way."
"Damn it, Connor, I'm your father. I put aside everything else in my life to come here. To help you."
"Bullshit. You never wanted me and Sam to be firefighters, never got tired of saying it was a dead-end job. Must feel damn good to finally be right."
Andrew needed to call a break, reassess, approach Connor from a different angle, but before he could do any of that, Connor was saying, "Did you cheat on Mom?"
What the hell?
"Cheat on your mom? What are you talking about? I might have done a lot of things, but I never did that."
"I already know about Isabel."
Andrew opened his mouth, closed it hard enough that his teeth clacked together. Now it made sense why Connor had been so pissed off from the moment he'd set foot on the porch.
Through gritted teeth, he said, "I knew Isabel before--"
It was all so intertwined. Andrew was tempted to lie, but something told him that would only come back to bite him in the ass harder.
"We dated before your mom." And he'd desperately wanted Isabel back after. Even though it had been impossible.
"Was Isabel the reason you couldn't make your marriage work?"
"Yes." He shook his head. "No. It was all so long ago. We tried, Connor. I swear it. Your mother and I tried to make it work."
"She tried." Connor stood up. "You didn't."
Contrition slammed into Andrew as his son moved away, the rewind button in his head taking him through the last several minutes, highlighting every way he'd played it wrong.
Something told him that if he let his son go now, they'd be done. Completely. Which meant he'd have to play his final card. Connor's love for his brother.
"Please, Connor," he said, reaching out to grip his son's scarred arm. "I get that I'm not your favorite person in the world, that you'd love to shove me onto the next plane back to San Francisco. But Sam and Dianna asked if I'd walk her down the aisle and I want to be part of Sam's wedding, do whatever I can to help them get ready for it."
He swallowed everything else. I want to be a part of your life. Get to finally know the man you've become. Maybe stand up for you one day at your wedding. Connor didn't want to hear any of that.
The silence dragged on long enough for Andrew to feel rivulets of sweat begin to run down his chest. And then, finally, Connor shrugged.
"Do whatever floats your boat. Doesn't make any difference to me." Connor grabbed his running shoes from the porch. "I'm going to head out for a run."
Andrew stood alone on the cabin's porch, watching his son sprint across the sand, desperate to get away from him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
/> THE SKY was brilliant blue, the lake like glass as Josh untied his mom's speedboat from the dock in front of their house. Five friends--including Hannah Smiley--were already on board, popping soda cans open and talking about the huge flames at last night's bonfire. He'd known all of them, except Hannah, since he was five. Some of them were full-timers like him, others only came during the summer.
Getting behind the wheel, he ignored the five-mile-per-hour courtesy speed in the bay and shot away from the dock, his huge wake quickly washing up on the shore and knocking his neighbor's boats into their docks.
Hannah was the only reason this past week hadn't completely blown. Were it not for her, he would have much rather been back in his father's loft in the city, going to loud, busy restaurants, playing the latest video games on his father's sick gaming system, drinking beer with his father's friends on poker night while betting--and losing--real money on his shitty hands.
Returning to Blue Mountain Lake was like stepping into quicksand. Small. Boring. Could his mother's diner be any more different from his father's buzzing architecture design office downtown? Red and white fifties decor versus glass and steel.
How in hell had his parents ever gotten together? Sure, he loved his mom and everything, but she was so small-town. Whereas his dad had the sharpest suits, the coolest jeans and shoes, even several pairs of funky glasses that he changed throughout the week to match his moods.
He looked back over his shoulder at Hannah in a casual way, not so she'd notice he was checking her out, even though he definitely was. She looked good in her white shorts and yellow T-shirt. Better than good actually. He still couldn't believe she'd wanted to come out on his boat. Not that he was the town loser or anything, but he didn't hang with the partying crowd either. Hannah had the looks to fit in with that crew, but somehow, she'd chosen to hang with him instead.
Cool.
"Man, your boat is sweet," his friend Matt said. "I can't believe your mom lets you take it out without her."
Josh shrugged. Yeah, the boat was fine, but he'd been riding around this lake since he was five. He was almost sixteen. Not a kid anymore.
He was ready for a change, and for the chance to show Hannah what a badass he really was. Especially after that dude on the beach had freaked about their fireworks.