I’d be offended, but, the truth is, I’ve been craving Colt’s sarcasm. I’m behind five years’ worth, so I guess it’s a good start.
“Go ahead.” I’m not hungry. Not until Lee ends the mystery of the wedding ring or until I see Stella—my daughter. As much as I hate to admit it my entire body is flush with anxiety. That’s one reunion I never imagined.
Lee runs her hands up over my arms and snags on a wandering scar that jags up my skin like lightning.
“What’s this?” Her face clouds with concern as she tracks the deformity with her finger.
For a minute I think of telling her I got caught on a wire. I’d be in control of the scar that way, not hogtied and whipped like an animal the way it really went down.
“It’s nothing.” I meet her gaze, and she holds it strong as steel. I never could lie to Lee. “We don’t have to talk it about it right now,” it comes out almost inaudible, and I manage to bring the energy down in the room—all eyes on me. “I’m okay.” I hold up my hands. “The important thing is I’m sitting in the right place with all the right people.” I pull Lee in and melt a kiss over her cheek. She turns and kisses me square on the lips, airport style. She’s still hungry, chock full of passion, and I have a feeling it won’t be long until—
A brisk knock erupts at the door. Lee and Colt exchange stilted glances before bolting out of their seats.
“Is it Stella?” I’m hopeful as I follow them over to the entry.
Mom opens the door, and her face loses all color.
“Hey, Mom.” A tall dark-haired man strides in and kisses my mother on the cheek with a boldness that suggests he belongs here, calling her “Mom” of all things.
He turns to Lee, does the same without hesitating, and my stomach cycles because I have a feeling I’m about to meet the man that supplied my wife with the new rocks on her finger.
Shit. His frame, that shock of black hair, it all looks startlingly familiar. It’s not until he turns to the side that I make him out clearly—peg him for the bastard I was afraid he was.
The life drains from my body. The room fades to grey, and my head feels like it’s about to float off. I take in a series of shallow breaths and fight the urge to pass out—kill him, either or.
Max Shepherd.
“Let’s go,” he moans into Lee with his arms wrapped around her waist as if he’s done it a thousand times before. “My back is killing me.” He tucks a kiss over her temple. “Let’s jump in the hot tub. Start our night off right.” A greasy smile cinches up the side of cheek as he melts over her, not bothering to look in my direction once.
Max Shepherd. He so brazenly propositions my wife, right here in front of my mother, my brother, and nobody blinks.
“Actually…” Lee pulls his arm off her waist gently. Just when I think she’s going to push him away—out the door—she interlaces her fingers with his instead. “Look who’s here?” She glances over at me and apologizes for everything with one forlorn look. “It’s Mitch.”
He settles those blazing blue eyes over me, and his face bleaches out as he tries to make sense of what’s happening. He staggers a bit while leaning in to shake my hand and pulls me into a tight embrace instead.
“Mitch! What the hell happened?”
Lee strings out the story swift as a bee.
The air clots up with silence again. We just stand there, lost in this macabre reality—a real what-in-the-hell-now moment.
“You look great man.” Max has that fight or flight agitation happening.
“You, too.” I don’t put any emotion behind it just drag my eyes over to Lee as I say it. She could have warned me—hell, Colt should have said something—my mother.
Lee looks up at him, her eyes wide with a secret language all their own. “You want to get the kids?”
Kids?
I lean up against the wall for support. For sure I need a seat now.
“Sure.” His eyes round out. “Can I talk to you outside?”
Lee gives a quick glance in my direction before following him out.
Colton shakes his head at me. “You didn’t want to know, dude. I didn’t want to tell you.”
“Any other piece of crap I should be made aware of?”
Colt bears into me—his face cold as stone. “Lee gave him Townsend.”
Incomprehensible fucking nightmare.
Max
“I didn’t know, I swear to God.” Lee renews the surprise on her face and her lips quiver.
“I believe you.” It stutters out of me stilted as shit. There’s no way she’d be able to keep something like this from me. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep last night—sleep with me the way she did. “I called you six times. Did you shut your phone off?”
“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.” Her forehead erupts in a series of worry lines. “Besides, he didn’t know about you until just now.”
Lee didn’t tell him. I walked in, kissed Lee, and asked her to hop in a glorified bathtub with me. I went off like a bomb in his face and didn’t even know it.
There’s a slight satisfaction in that, although I know I shouldn’t feel that way. Guess old rivalries die hard even if it was mostly one-sided.
“He seemed to take it pretty well,” I say it for Lee’s sake. Poor bastard is probably dying in there right now. Me with Lee is like a lethal dose of arsenic right to the bloodstream. I’m sure he’s wringing his hatred for me, distilling it into a perfect brew of revenge.
“You think?” Lee shakes her head. “Go ahead and get the kids. I told Mitch he can meet Stella tonight.” She looks down at my chest. “We’ll talk to a child psychologist to figure out the best way to do this, but for now”—she shakes her head—“I think they should at least meet.” She looks off into the distance, fixing her gaze on nothing in particular. I’m thankful she used the phrase we’ll, hoping that idea of a we won’t evaporate before I get back from my mother’s.
The sting of fresh tears bites as I collapse my arms around her.
A band of sparrows bolts from a tree over by the car. That’s what it feels like. One moment you’re sitting comfortably in the nest, the next thing you know the owner comes back and blows your world to pieces.
“It’s going to be all right.” She presses into me and holds on tight.
I don’t think it’s going to be all right. I don’t think it’s even going to be mildly okay. I’m fairly certain it’s going to be a disaster. A violent struggle for Lee’s heart is about to ensue—it’s going to be nothing but an all out war.
Mitch Townsend is alive and well.
I drive to my mother’s stunted in a macabre, deafening silence that makes it feel as if a fog has settled in my brain. Lee shut her phone off, and I can’t stop ruminating over that fact. I think maybe it wasn’t so much her not wanting to scare the hell out of me—more that she didn’t want to ruin her moment with Mitch. Not that I blame her, but it doesn’t stop a wall of jealousy, wide as a mountain, to erect itself in my heart. Mitch coming back has shattered every delusion I ever had that Lee and I were solid. There’s only one thing in the universe that could ever cause her to entertain the thought of leaving me, and until thirty minutes ago, he was dead and buried, an entire continent away.
Mom’s car is tucked in the driveway. I bolt out of the truck and give a hard knock over the door. It swings open before I can fully release my frustration out on it.
“Where’s the fire?” Mom jumps aside as I rush on in.
“Mitch Townsend is back.” I barrel past her, looking for signs of Hudson. I’m not sure why I was hoping he’d be here. He rarely comes by. Today, though, of all days, I wouldn’t mind a little brotherly camaraderie.
“They had his remains shipped over?” Her voice softens. “Is Janice going to start a mausoleum? I hear that’s good for closure.” Her neck jets out. My mother is not really into Townsend family closure. Not after Janice blackballed her from all of Mono Bay society the rest of her natural days. Not that it was Janice’s fault at all.
But that’s the world according to my mother. It’s hard to deny her a grudge once she’s claimed it.
“He’s alive.” I pound my fist over the dining room table, unsettling the crystal arranged down the center in a tremor.
“What do you mean, alive? They found him?”
I recount the story Lee rattled out and hardly believe a damn word spewing from my lips.
“I feel bad for the guy.” I blow out a breath. “I really do. But fuck—what now?”
“You think he’s coming after Lee? Stella?” Fire rises in my mother’s eyes, nothing but desperation and fear.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Stella and Eli come running in and tackle me at the knees. “Go get your stuff.” I tousle Stella’s hair before she takes off and wonder if my days of holding her, calling her my daughter, are numbered.
“You’ve got all the cards, Max.” My mother’s eyes struggle to dislodge themselves from her skull. “Don’t forget who’s married to Lee, who runs Townsend, who owns Townsend. You’re a father to that little girl.” She presses her finger into my chest. “It’s all you.”
I’m holding all the cards. Then why can’t I shake the feeling that the rug of my entire existence has already been pulled from beneath me?
9
Picture Daddy
Lee
The sky over Townsend vineyards is dripping with crimson, nothing but a blood red backdrop, the final curtain draping over an unordinary day. I lean against the door for a moment and lay my hand over the smooth mahogany. What is going to come of this? Mitch is back—my Mitch—so what does this mean for Max and me?
I pluck my phone from my pocket and put a call in to Steve—tell him to break the news gently to my sister. The last thing I need is for her to come undone, lose those precious babies from the shock of it all. I could hear Kat pawing at him in the background, demanding to know what I’m saying—wondering what threw him in such an explicative-riddled tirade. The truth is, I really need Kat right now, her wisdom—her sarcasm, but I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to those babies.
I head back inside, and Janice wraps her arms around me in a long, strong hug.
“He’s back, honey,” she whispers sweetly through tears. “My baby is back.”
“Thank God,” I say, making my way into the living room. I spot him in the yard from the window so I head out and inspect the landscape until it gives up the effigy of my beautiful and definitely-not-dead husband.
Night falls around us as a sterile seam of light encircles the moon. It casts its illumination on the treetops, the hills, missing the shadow Mitch has buried himself in entirely.
“Hey.” I sit down next to him on the cool wood bench and slide over uneasily. Mitch remains rigid, his eyes focused on some invisible horizon, unmoved by my presence.
“Why didn’t you marry, Colt?” he says it without emotion, just words strung together in an effort to mask his anger.
“Colt?” I wrap my arms around him and lean my head on his shoulder. “Monogamy is not high on his list of priorities.”
“He would have given you back.”
A moment stilts by and neither of us breathe.
And there it is. He’s afraid Max won’t give me back. Oh God. I don’t know what to say to make the pain go away, so I opt for nothing. Instead, I look up and lose myself in those sage eyes I thought I’d never see again. I lean in and press my lips soft against his, pausing to savor the moment. My tongue swipes careful over his as I indulge in the hot of his mouth through a river of searing tears. I don’t have any answers for him and that makes kissing Mitch the only logical solution. It’s a holy exchange that aches to express something deeper than words, one that assures him of promises I’m not ready to make with my vocal cords.
I’m not sure at what point touching Mitch—pressing my lips to his, will start to feel morally wrong. For now it feels like nothing more than a dream—unreachable kisses that span the barrier of death we’ve somehow managed to cross. We found the loophole and just went with it.
“I love you so much.” I try to reassure him with words, with my mouth, but those are just words with no real solutions to back them.
“Hey,” Colt barks through the night. “Max and the kids are here.”
I lead Mitch by the hand as we head into the house, transferring my grip to his shoulders as we meet up with Max and the kids in the family room.
“Mitch”—my voice trembles while Stella steps forward as if she knows she’s the central focus of this entire exchange—“this is Stella and Eli.” I watch as he takes them in. First Stella with her large eyes set right on him, then a more scrutinizing look to Eli before breaking into a soft smile.
“Nice to meet you both.” He leans over and tousles Eli’s hair. “You look just like your dad.” Eli magnetizes to my leg and doesn’t let go. I can’t even imagine how much this hurts Mitch. Here he came back to me, and now I’m making him swim through razor blades by shoving my life with Max in his face—Max of all people.
“I know you,” Stella says with a sharp tone. Her little body postures a moment taking him in. “You’re Picture Daddy.”
The world stills. It’s the last thing that would have entered my mind, Stella pegging Mitch for who he really is—identifying him as her father in less than fifteen seconds.
I clear my throat. “Stella has your picture on her nightstand.” I glance over to Max for help.
Stella takes a bold step forward and picks up his hand. “I kiss you every night.” She bats her lashes at him and waits for him to make the next move.
Mitch drops down and wraps his arms around her. He closes his eyes and rains down kisses over her hair like he’s missed her with an indescribable ache.
“I prayed for you, Stella.” He pulls her in. “Every day I prayed that God would keep you safe.”
Stella pulls back and examines him. “Mommy said you kissed her and put me in her tummy.”
Mitch gives a gentle laugh. He glances up at me, and my stomach explodes with heat. This is what our family would have looked like. Seeing Mitch with his arms wrapped around Stella is more than a gift.
Stella presses her small hand into his chest. “Daddy kissed Mommy and put Eli in her tummy. My mommy says he’s going to kiss her again and give me a baby sister.”
Shit.
Janice gives a loud clap. “Guess what, Stella? I have a surprise for you and Eli upstairs.” She takes Eli by the hand, and the three of them traipse off.
“That went well.” Colt flops on the couch and folds his hands together as if settling in for the show—like he’s anticipating some big power finish, worthy of his time away from the strip club.
Both Max and Mitch shoot him a look before taking seats opposite one another. They exchange dangerous stares, rife with deadly implications. This was it, the moment of my discontent. Now it was just a matter of who would draw their weapon first.
“So how long did it take for you to close in on my wife?” Mitch doesn’t filter his hatred when it’s just us in the room. He doesn’t waver from his venom-filled glare.
Max takes in a deep breath. “All right, Lee.” He glides his hands over his knees. “We’d better go. Kids are tired, and we need to get to bed.” He makes his way over and slings his arm low around my waist.
Mitch appears in front of him quick as an apparition with his chest puffed out. He’s not opposed to a felony or two tonight, I can tell.
“We need to get to bed?” Mitch mimics the audacity while shoving Max into the wall.
“I meant the kids.” Max is quick with the correction.
“Mitch, don’t do this.” I step between them half-afraid I’m going to get clocked in the process. “He didn’t pull anything over on me. This isn’t some revenge-based marriage.”
“I’m sure there’s a butcher knife in the kitchen, Lee.” Mitch pulls a bleak smile. “Why don’t you slit my throat with it—finish me off.”
Janice reappears, panting from her effort as though she’
s missed something.
“Well”—Max broadens his chest—“it’s a miracle you’re back. Glad to see you again.” It comes off sarcastic like maybe he’s not so glad to see him after all—I’m betting he’s probably not. Max holds out a hand to Mitch.
Mitch glares down at it, doesn’t make a move. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to shake it—break it maybe.
“Mom, Colt, goodnight.” Max nods into them before heading for the door. “Stella, Eli, time to go.”
“Stay a little longer.” Janice coaxes while pulling him back inside.
Mitch opens his mouth then closes it, staring at his mother in disbelief.
“I’m so sorry.” Janice smooths her hand over Max’s chest. “He’s just tired. This is all new to him.”
Mitch chokes on a laugh. “It looks like you’ve all been drinking the Kool-Aid.” Mitch is beside himself. “This is Max. This is generational warfare infiltrating you on the frontlines.” His eyes expand as he takes me in. “Lee?”
Mitch—I’ve ground all of his hope down to nothing. There’s so much pain and hurt on his face, I can’t bear to look at him.
“How about breakfast in the morning?” My lips tremble as I make the offer. “We’ll pick you up around eight?”
His mouth falls open as if for the first time tonight he realizes he’s not coming home with me, to our home, to our bed.
“Sure.” He looks resigned to the fact I’m leaving, being ushered out the door with Max Shepherd’s hand in the small of my back.
Stella and Eli run out into the cool of the night as Max guides me with a gentle push, but I retract and make my way back to Mitch.
I collapse my arms around him, pulling him into a tight embrace that I hope will be enough to last all night. Not one part of me wants to go home. I’m afraid I’ll break the spell—that I’ll wake up in the morning and this will have been an impossible dream. But I know Max needs my reassurance tonight more than ever, and Mitch needs a moment to absorb all of these horrible truths.