“Us?” Colton scans the ceiling as though there never were an us.
“You were my first boyfriend. You gave me a hickey the size of an apple that warranted a turtleneck in the month of June.”
“You want another?”
“No.”
“Are we about to have an argument?” His head ticks back a notch, amused.
“Maybe.” God knows I’m ripe for one.
“How long ago was this again?”
“Really? So I was just another face—nothing special? You don’t even remember that we dated.”
“I remember.” He rolls his eyes. “Of course, I remember. I teased Mitch the first few years you guys went out. Told ‘em I got the test drive. But you were good for a purchase, not so much a lease, and I wasn’t buying. I handed you off to my little bro because I thought we should keep you in the family.”
“Not funny.” I’m completely unmoved by his allegorical confession.
“Glad you approve.”
“What’s wrong with you anyway?”
“As in wrong with me because I didn’t choose you? I didn’t catch Lee fever, so I must be damaged?” He gives a slight laugh.
“No, because you never settled down. You know—family, kids.”
The floorboards creek from above, and he points up. “My version of settling.”
“You like this one?”
“She’s okay. I feel kind of bad I can’t understand her, but that comes in handy sometimes.”
“If it helps, I can’t understand men—mostly Mitch.” I shrug.
“So what happened? What perfect storm has you running for cover in my living room?”
“We went to see the doctor today. Mitch said he saw me with Max.” I dig through my purse for a tissue. “It was high school, right around when you and I stopped seeing each other.”
“You cheated on me?” He looks genuinely pissed.
“No. You had already been with like three other people simultaneously.”
“Yeah, but that was expected. This is you we’re talking about, and with Max? Wait, did you cheat on Mitch?”
“No, no—just you. In fact, I was drinking you away, and Max was there.”
“Right place, right time. Best place to be.” He winks. “So you never told Mitch?”
“Nope.”
“He dropped the bomb on you today? He knew all along.”
“All along,” I nod. “And I feel like shit. All those years we were together—I never told him. He knew, and he never pushed me. And do you know why he hated Max?”
“To keep you apart.”
“You knew?”
“He told me from the beginning, although, he omitted the little detail about you sleeping with Max. Makes sense, though. Max was after you, but Mitch wanted you more.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
“You’re his brother, you have to say that. Max wanted me plenty. And in the end…” I wag my wedding ring in the air.
“But Mitch is back. This time you have to choose him.” The smile melts from Colt’s face. “He’s running scared, Lee.”
“I chose him before.” A part of me wants to say I’m going to choose him again. But what if life is rectifying something that was meant to be in the first place?
“How do you really know you’re with the right person, Colt?” I wait for him to answer, garnish it with some sage advice, but nothing.
“Lee.” He lies back and closes his eyes. “I wouldn’t know the right person if she walked up and spit in my face.”
True. Who was Colton to offer advice on anything other than herding females into his bedroom by the dozen? He’s a marathon womanizer, something less than a gigolo who has a woman stashed upstairs and probably ten more penciled in for the night. I’m not even sure he knows how to spell her name, let alone say it.
“I love Mitch.” It comes out bland, so sad.
“And Max?” Colt wants me to say it out loud.
“I love Max.”
“Thought so.”
I take off from Colt’s and sit in my car a good long while before starting the engine. Mitch ended his relationship with Max as some stupid game of keep away. What would have happened if Max was around?
My stomach turns with the possibilities.
How different would life be today if Max was in the equation way back when?
Mitch
“You want to hit Black Cove?” I ask as we maneuver onto the highway.
“Sure.” Max flicks his eyes out the window.
Black Cove is technically the bluff above it. We used to hang out there with friends when we first started driving. I took Lee a few times to watch shooting stars.
The sun is still pretty high—summer sun. A slow trail of orange melts over the sky, making it look like someone left out a Popsicle too long. I pull into the lot and park against the overlook. Not a soul to be seen for miles. The fog rolls out over the ocean in sheets, taking the edge off the heat wave we’ve been sweltering in. If Lee were here she’d lose herself in the beauty of the clouds as they cover the shore. She’d rave about it, pull a notebook from her purse and start sketching. Those are the little things I love about her. The way she sees beauty in nature and doesn’t hesitate to share it with others, sketch it out to appreciate later.
I roll down the windows, and the haze seeps in. Max leans back and closes his eyes.
I can’t fucking believe I dug my grave today in front of Lee. That I told her what had really gone through my teenage mind at the time I booted Max out of my life. They say you should never let a girl get between you and a friend. But Lee was no ordinary girl. I needed to make sure what happened at the party never happened again. Didn’t really succeed, though. I wonder what would have happened if I let them run their course. If Lee would have dumped him—hated him. Then years later, when I went missing, she would have stayed single or married Colt. Never mind the fact Colt is allergic to commitment. He would have repelled from matrimony like an air bubble escaping the bottom of the ocean.
“So now what?” Max shifts in his seat. “You going to lure me to the edge and push me off?” He sounds resigned to pretty much anything right about now.
“Nope.” Not that I wouldn’t put it past him to lure me to the edge. “Just thought we could hang out for a second. Drink down the doctor’s special brand of advice.”
“Super.” He turns his head toward the water.
“So are you going to do it?” I ask. “You going to keep away from Lee? A month?” I doubt Max could keep away from her for a solid day, let alone thirty.
“Wouldn’t you love it.”
“I’m doing it.” If it only takes one more month before I can have Lee again, I’d stand on my head, douse myself in honey and let fire ants crawl all over me.
“I’ll do it.” It comes out disgruntled. “Lee gave that asshole her blessing to ratchet us however he wants. The sooner this is over, the better.”
“It’s the last assignment,” I offer. Only Max has no idea he gets the boot in the end. No dating Lee, no touching, kissing, or undercover action for one whole lifetime. “I bet you feel like you’re about to suffocate. At least you’re not an entire continent apart. It’s five weeks, not five years.”
“I know, Mitch.” He nods out the window. “Life fed you a shit sandwich, and now the whole world has to suffer because of it. And I damn well better be willing to cough up my wife.”
“Lee gets to decide whose wife she is.”
Max turns in his seat, switches off the radio. “You want her back?”
For a second I think he’s going to give her to me, gift-wrapped—concede and call it a day.
“Stupid question,” I say.
“If you do, you should know the way to get into her good graces is through me.” The hint of a sly smile appears.
“Yes, you.” I run my hand over the steering wheel. “I know.” Lee’s been saying, all along, the way to her heart is through Max. How fucking astute of h
im to realize. I doubt she clued him in. “I’m all yours, Max.” I hold out my hands. “I want to fix this, make it right—for Stella and Eli. I want Lee, but I know you do, too. Aside from Lee, we need to parent these kids.”
“You don’t need to fake some bond with my son to get on Lee’s good side.”
“You fake some bond with my daughter?”
“I was there the day Stella was born,” he roars. “I watched as she took her first step, her first word was daddy. I named her.”
That last point takes the air from my lungs—siphons it out by way of my stomach. “You named her?”
“Yes. Lee wanted to name her Mitch, but I suggested Stella. You know, from the play.”
Yes, I know. It was Lee and me who were in it. I was the one who got the whole school calling her Stella. I just assumed it was Lee who thought of it on her own in some serendipitous moment.
“Thanks. I like Stella.” Still stunned.
“Lee was tired. She was alone and depressed—really scared.”
“Sounds like a prime target.”
“Nobody else was there for her!” His voice echoes through my skull. “Your nitwit brother couldn’t tie his shoe if his life depended on it. Your mother had too damn much on her plate with the Townsend investors leaping off the nearest bridge every time she turned around. And, by the way, we’re up the creek again thanks to your talk show circus. There’s a meeting coming up in a few weeks that dictates whether or not we keep treading water or start inhaling to speed up suffocation. I’ll have to pull the cord and attach it to the slush fund at Shepherd just to keep it afloat.” He pushes his head into his seat. “You take care of that leak yet?”
“I’m talking to the plumber.” Slight exaggeration.
“You can’t wait for him to get back to you, Mitch.” He slaps his hand on the dash. “Get the hoses out tonight, let them run because half the crops are drying out. You’re going to lose everything.”
“I got it under control.” The truth is, Max took better care of the fields. Where’s my head been? I start up the engine. “Thanks for being there for Lee.” I mean it this time. No sarcasm.
“You know”—he locks eyes with me—“deep inside I wanted to believe you would have wanted it that way. I didn’t fight you for her back in the day.” He looks past me at the open sky. “Maybe I should have. But then again, you can’t fight what’s meant to be.”
I hope he remembers that when Lee brands her footprint over his ass.
Something tells me he won’t.
Max
Lee took to the idea right away. It was almost as if she needed a mental vacation, and she agreed to the ground rules set up by Dr. Van Guard. Minimal contact. Avoid being in the same room together with the exception of shared family meals, no going out with either one of us, no extracurricular chit-chat, just hello and goodbye for one solid month. Mitch and I are to leave the house in the evening for a few hours—if possible together. It’s been odd. The first week Mitch and I hung out on the beach teaching Eli and Stella how to throw a football, how to boogie board, and play a lousy game of volleyball.
And here we are again, building architectural testaments to the sandcastle. We’ve split into teams. Stella chose me, so Mitch and Eli are together by default. They’re across the sand trying to outdo us by slopping together a fort that looks more like a trench or a moat.
Stella wants a princess castle. I wonder what this will all mean to her someday. If she’ll look back and remember the time we built a castle together and wish she were building it with her “real” father instead. I wonder if by then Mitch will have stolen my daughter, wife, and son from underneath me like he thinks I did to him. It’s the last thing I did to him. I never once thought about swiping Lee when we were in school. I gave in like the pussy he was hoping I was, but in truth I cared about Mitch as much as, Lee. They looked so damned happy. Who the hell was I to get in their way?
“We should name it,” I say as we cut grooves into the towers with one of Eli’s sand shovels.
“Chalet Shepherd.” She gives a hard grin. She’s so beautiful, just like her mother.
“Chalet Shepherd it is.” Ironic. Mitch’s daughter and so-called wife both bear my moniker. Stella only knows herself as Stella Shepherd—Townsend being her middle name.
“Look at me, Daddy!” Stella climbs up the mound of sand that supports the tallest tower. “I’m stuck in the castle, and I need a prince to save me!” She cups her hands around her mouth creating a megaphone, “Picture Daddy! Help me! Save me! There’s a nasty dragon, and he’s going to eat me!” She points in my direction.
Great. I’ve been relegated to the part of an overgrown reptile.
Mitch dashes over, swoops her in the air and she goes limp like a ragdoll. Stella laughs so hard she sounds like she’s in pain. He lands her soft in the sand in front of me.
“That’s no dragon.” Mitch glances up and offers a wry smile. “He’s a knight. He was just trying to rescue you.”
Stella lunges into me with a death-grip. Her bony elbows dig into my shoulders as she wraps her arms around me.
“A knight, huh?” I shoot Mitch a weary look.
“Yeah. I guess it’s easy to mistake a knight for a dragon from far away. Once you get to know them, you see the difference.” He gives a slow smile before catching Eli as he launches into him like a missile.
“Nice knight.” Stella pats my chest. “Just like when Picture Daddy was gone, you saved me and mommy. Then you put Eli in her tummy, so we can be a family. Did you put another baby in her tummy, so I can have a sister? Or is it Picture Daddy’s turn?”
Mitch and I exchange glances. We don’t say anything.
Eli starts destroying the castle, and we all join in.
“She’s fertile.” I plunk my bottle down on the bar.
Took Mitch out to the Winding Rope on highway 39 just south of Shepherd. Smells like cologne and whisky. Every now and again a barfly lands between us, and campaigns for our attention with her tits.
Stella opened a whole can of worms with her awkward observation on the beach this afternoon which sponsored our drive to the bar to begin with.
“Maybe she’s not.” Mitch can’t break his dead-on gaze to nowhere.
“Maybe.” I knock back the rest of my beer.
The bartender offers another, but I pass.
“Not too many things pan out for us, though,” I say. “If I had to guess I’d say it’s true.” Just another dart in the balloon of my life. Not that I wouldn’t love the child, help raise it, but Mitch—he’s not going anywhere. If she’s carrying his baby it’s just another point for team Townsend. “So congratulations.” I tip my empty bottle toward him.
“Funny how we both wanted Lee, and now we both sort of have her.”
“There’s nothing funny about this quasi-polygamous arrangement.” I pause a moment. “You know, I never thought about it—I mean really thought about it, but this has to be hard on her. To you and me it’s black and white, but to Lee…”
Mitch doesn’t say anything just swills his drink around in the bottle and watches it spin. “Lee’s coming back to me,” he says with the enthusiasm reserved for dental cleanings.
“You keep believing that.”
“I know it.” He doesn’t bother putting any inflection into it. He’s half-wasted, so I don’t push him on the subject.
A hard slap lands on my shoulder. “Hey, hey the gang’s all here.” Hudson sings it out like it’s his new favorite song. “Who’s up for some pool? I got my boys in the back.” He shoots me with his fingers.
“Sure.” Mitch abandons his drink, and we follow Hudson down the narrow hall like a pair of prisoners on death row. “Is this the part where you knife me and make it look like an accident?” He asks as we enter a large room filled with plumes of swirling smoke.
“Not tonight, Mitch.” Hudson slaps both hands on his shoulders. “We’re saving that fun for some other time.” He gives a hard laugh and winks in my direction.
I wonder if Mitch thinks I’m capable of putting a hit on him. I’ve thought about it—hinted to Hudson, but the last thing I’ll do is off Stella’s “Picture Daddy.” I’m not about to be hauled to prison for removing Mitch Townsend from the planet. Lee would never forgive me—hell, I’d never forgive me.
Hudson winks at me again when Mitch isn’t looking and has me spinning through the Rolodex of every conversation I’ve had with Hud since Mitch returned. Shit. Who knows what miscommunication I’ve had with my brother. For all I know there could be a half a dozen “accidents” waiting to happen.
Mitch shoots, and the balls split in twelve different directions, none of them in his favor. That’s Mitch all over. He plans life out one-way, and it crapshoots every which way but that. I almost feel sorry for him.
He steps aside, and I take over, call my shot, and it lands in the pocket like an obedient child.
Mitch arches a brow at me, feigns amusement, but you can tell he’s impressed as hell.
I say Lee is pregnant.
Looks to me the odds are in my favor.
18
The Deception
Lee
In the middle of the second week, Kat drags me along to her OBGYN appointment.
“They’re dating,” I say to her as the technician leads us to the ultrasound room to view my sister’s bundles of joy in triplicate.
“And you’re jealous?”
“Extremely.” I avert my gaze. “I want them to get along. I pray they’ll get along. But now it feels like they’re barhopping, picking up chicks on the side.”
“And you’re afraid they’re going to leave you for one another?” She flags down a girl from the back office.
“I think they already have.”
“Lani”—she squints into the svelte girl behind the counter—“my sister here thinks she might be knocked up. Could you possibly help us end this mystery? Pretty please?”
“Sure. It’ll have to be off the record, though.” She reaches into the cabinet and hands me a plastic cup. “You know the drill?”