The Perfect Match

  He loped in, Mac, rosy-cheeked, hanging onto his ears.

  Cash growled like a wolf and faked gobbling up her little arm. “Hey, kid. I need one of my ears.” He gestured with the phone. Mac let go, and Rowena gently grabbed her by the waist.

  “No!” Mac protested, wriggling in frustration. “I don’t want to get down! Tyler James’s crocodiles will eat me.”

  “It’s okay,” Cash told Rowena. “Just leave her where she is. This will only take a minute.”

  Rowena angled herself so only he could see her. “It’s Lisa.” Rowena mouthed the name, hauling Mac into her arms as Cash’s face turned grim. “Come on, sweetie,” she said aloud. “We need to figure out something for dessert.”

  “Can we make my daddy a cupcake?” Mac asked, distracted for the moment by the prospect of pink frosting and confetti cake.

  Rowena heard a voice, unintelligible through the phone receiver. Cash’s mouth pressed in a thin line.

  “How about if we go outside and ask your sister?” Rowena carried Mac through the back door and put her back in the wheelchair. Charlie gave her a probing look, as if she knew something wasn’t right when Rowena left the girls to discuss the merits of pink frosting over chocolate fudge.

  By the time Rowena entered the kitchen again, Cash was somewhere deeper in the house, his voice so harsh it didn’t seem possible it could belong to the man who had pushed one daughter in the swing and protected the other from imaginary crocodiles moments before.

  Rowena peered around the corner into the living room. Empty. She crept in and looked down the hall. His bedroom door was closed tight.

  Common courtesy demanded that she head back out to the yard. She had no right to eavesdrop on such a private conversation. And yet, Cash suddenly seemed a stranger, so hard, so angry. Almost…frightening.

  Rowena nibbled at her index finger, wavering as Mrs. Delaney’s warning haunted her, Bryony’s fears digging at Rowena’s nerves.

  For all you know she could be in hiding…he could have been abusing her…maybe leaving here was the only way Lisa could survive…

  His voice rose through the door, almost audible. Rowena bit down a little harder on her finger and edged farther down the hallway. The floorboard creaked, but she didn’t worry. She doubted if she banged two pot lids together he’d hear it.

  “Go to hell, Lisa. You can’t just waltz back in here and…you’re their mother? You think I don’t know that? I blame myself for that every day.”

  Rowena heard him pacing, could sense how caged he felt. “You left them, remember?” Cash snarled. “Sure, sure. I may be a rotten sonofabitch. But at least I’m here…Now you want to talk? After two years? You called, you visited. Hell, Mac and Charlie talk to my brother who’s serving in Germany more often than they talk to you.”

  He paused and Rowena knew Lisa was talking. When Cash replied his bitterness seared her.

  “You would prefer we settle this between us? You don’t want to go through a lawyer? Are you threatening me?”

  Rowena jumped at a crash against the bedroom wall, knew it was Cash’s fist slamming into the panel.

  “Don’t you dare take that tone as if I’m the one who…unreasonable? I’ll show you unreasonable if you…Maybe I’ve got something special planned for the weekend. Maybe we’re going to Disney World over Thanksgiving break—they’re in school, for cripes sake. You want me to yank them out for a week just because it’s convenient for you?”

  Rowena pressed her hand to her galloping heart. Was he refusing to let Lisa see the girls? Making it as difficult as possible for her? Was that what was really going on here?

  Bitterness and anger could make good people do bad things. Was Cash behaving this way because Lisa had deserted his girls? Or was this ugliness the side of him Lisa had seen every day?

  Bile rose in Rowena’s throat. She knew now what Charlie must have seen, must have heard, must have sensed. Knew what had put the soul-weary look in the sensitive little girl’s eyes.

  Reeling from all she’d heard, Rowena started to back away from Cash’s room, but her left shoulder swept against the wall behind her. Rowena whirled around. It was too late. Picture frames fell. Glass shattered, a horrific sound. Cash flung open the bedroom door, the phone in one hand, his face dark with rage.

  “What the hell?” he swore. But he knew what had happened. “Lisa, I have to go.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just hung up the portable phone.

  “I was just…I…” Rowena’s throat closed.

  “You were listening at the door to a private conversation?”

  “Actually, I didn’t have to get that close. I could pretty much hear you in the hall.”

  “You had no right to listen!” Cash roared.

  “I know,” Rowena said quietly. “And you have no right to keep Lisa away from those girls.”

  “Don’t you dare defend her! She deserted them! And now she wants to act like it was no big deal? She’s ready to have them back in her life? Ready? Well, I’m not ready to have her tear everything up again! I’ve already wiped up too many tears, dealt with too many nightmares.”

  “Cash—”

  “You know when she left, Charlie started wetting the bed? She was too scared to sleep. And Mac…Christ, do you have any idea what it was like when she’d wake up crying that she wanted her mommy and I couldn’t give even that small comfort to her?”

  “You can give it to her now.”

  “It’s too late! Lisa doesn’t deserve those girls.”

  “Maybe not. But Mac and Charlie deserve the chance to know their mother hasn’t forgotten them.”

  “They don’t miss her. They don’t even mention her anymore. I’m not going to let her rip my children apart again. What if she decides…”

  “Decides what?”

  Cash wheeled back to his bedroom, threw the phone onto the bed. When he turned back to Rowena his eyes burned black fire. “There was something different in Lisa’s voice. Something dangerous…I feel it in my gut.”

  “Maybe different is better this time. It would be good for the girls to know their mother hasn’t forgotten them. Cash, you’re a loving father, but you’re not their mother.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  “Give it a chance.”

  “The last time I took a chance with Lisa, it wrecked our lives. And my girls are still paying for that mistake.”

  “It’s just a week.”

  “What if she wants more?” Cash challenged. “What if she wants to keep them?”

  “You’ll deal with that if it happens. But in the meantime, Charlie and Mac will have two parents instead of a gaping hole where their mother should be. I know you’re doing the best you can, but there are problems with the girls, Cash. That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier.”

  “Then tell me, for God’s sake. What problems?”

  “Things that worry me. Especially where Charlie is concerned. You’ll know how scared she is, too, when you see what she’s got up in her tree house—this tub full of bandages and cans of food and everything she can think of in case some building falls on you.”

  “What?”

  “She’s seen bombed-out buildings on the news. She told me soldiers and policemen got killed there. She’s got pamphlets on brain damage from the doctor’s office, and she’s worried her brain’s going to break and she won’t be able to walk, and she’s scared that when you take her to Disney World, there’ll be a tidal wave.”

  “Kids get scared,” Cash said, but Rowena could see the unease in his face. “Monsters in the closet, that kind of stuff.”

  “These aren’t imaginary fears. They’re real ones. Every time she moves, she’s scared something terrible is going to happen to her, to you, to Mac. It makes me sick, thinking how scared she must feel inside.”

  “I thought getting that dog was supposed to make everything perfect for her, wasn’t it?” His lip curled, mocking her.

  “You didn’t get the dog for Charlie,” Rowena s
napped.

  “The hell I didn’t! He’s here, isn’t he?”

  “You brought Destroyer home because of Mac.”

  Cash’s cheeks darkened and she knew her words had struck someplace raw. He swore bitterly. “Maybe I should have let you talk to Lisa on the phone. The two of you could have made a list of everything I’m doing wrong.”

  “Cash, I’m on your side here. But Charlie’s not stupid. She wanted Destroyer to keep her company when you were busy with Mac’s therapy, but even I’ve noticed that you do everything possible to keep the dog inside with you.”

  “You’ve heard what those sessions are like when things go badly! So I keep the dog inside to distract Mac so she doesn’t melt down. If that’s a crime, then send me to jail.”

  Rowena’s fists knotted in frustration, empathy, anger. All overlaid by her need to make him understand. “I know why you do it. I understand the reasons. Maybe when Charlie’s older she will, too. But right now she feels…”

  Rowena hesitated, hating the anger in Cash’s face, hating the fact she was about to cut him even deeper.

  “She feels what? Just say it. Why not? You’ve said every other goddamned thing you wanted to.”

  “She told me she wished she had braces instead of Mac.”

  “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out! Charlie doesn’t want her sister hurting. Neither do I! Do you know how many times I’ve wished I was the one who’d come out of that crash with my legs broken? They could’ve sawed my legs off without anesthetic and I’d have laughed the whole time if I could have saved Mac that pain!”

  “At first that’s what I thought Charlie meant, too. But it wasn’t. She said she wished she’d gotten hurt because—because when your sister gets braces you get invisible.”

  “Invisible?” Cash scoffed. “It’s just some crazy kid game she’s got in her head. Like when she was three and I’d stick the tip of my thumb between two fingers and pretend that I’d stolen her nose. She’s squawk until I gave it back.”

  “It’s not a game,” Rowena insisted. “Charlie’s losing herself, Cash. She knows it. She doesn’t know how to make it stop.”

  “Losing herself?” Cash spat. “She’s nine years old! Not some wacko teenager with an identity crisis. This garbage is just more of that psychobabble bullshit you’ve been feeding me since the first day I met you.”

  “It’s not—”

  “First that dog is her destiny, now Charlie’s invisible. What are you going to lay on me tomorrow? That I should let Mac quit trying to walk because she’s tired of doing her exercises? Or maybe I should just tell Lisa to move back in and share Charlie’s bedroom. That way we wouldn’t have to involve a goddamned lawyer.”

  “Cash, I know how you feel—”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t have the first idea how I feel. And you never will.”

  “I want to understand. If we could just talk this out—”

  “There’s not a damned thing to say. Just because I was desperate enough to take you up on your offer to help babysit my kids doesn’t mean I’ve given you leave to butt into the rest of my life, Rowena.”

  “Well, somebody’s got to tell you what’s happening with that little girl! Cash, she—”

  “Go home.” Cold, hard, his voice lashed her. She reached out to touch him. He jerked free. “I said go home.”

  “At least let me help you clean up the glass.” She started to bend down to pick up the shards that scattered the photographs strewn across the floor. Cash caught her arm, pulled her up.

  “Don’t touch it,” he growled. “It’s my mess. All of this. It’s mine.”

  The back door banged, Charlie calling as she came through the kitchen. “Daddy, Mac’s crying. She says the alligators bit her and she’s supposed to make cupcakes.” Charlie entered the living room, looked down the hall.

  Her face paled at the wreckage. “My picture!” she cried, diving toward the glass-strewn floor, in spite of the obvious tension between the two grownups.

  “Charlie, stop it!” Cash snarled, scooping her up more roughly than Rowena had ever seen him. “You’re going to cut yourself.”

  “But my picture! Daddy, my tree house picture!”

  “It’s just a piece of paper, damn it! It’s not worth cutting yourself over.”

  Rowena watched him carry his daughter out to the kitchen, heard the back door slam. She picked up the image of the tree house and laid it on the kitchen table before she scooped up her purse and keys and slipped out of the house.

  She’d done what little she could, and yet she knew it wouldn’t matter.

  It was too late.

  Cash and Charlie were already bleeding.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CASH DUMPED the last dustpan full of glass shards into an old cardboard box he’d tape up and put out with the garbage on Tuesday. He only wished he could do the same thing with the emotions inside him—sweep up the sharp edges and stow them away where they couldn’t cut anymore.

  But Lisa’s call had ripped everything wide open, poison pouring out—his rage, his scorn, his hate…

  Hate.

  There it was. The stark truth. He hated Lisa.

  The woman who’d borne him two children. The woman who’d shared his bed for six years. The woman he’d tried so damn hard to make himself love, as if you could love someone the way you were supposed to just by force of will.

  He hated her for leaving him with all the wreckage to clean up when he was so damned tired he couldn’t even see straight. When his girls needed so much and he had so little left to give them.

  Like now, when the two of them were waiting out in the backyard, Mac with her therapy yet to get through, Charlie with her eyes so wide and worried.

  Charlie’s scared of everything… Rowena’s words raked at his fury. She feels invisible…. You didn’t get the dog for Charlie, you got it because of Mac….

  The damn dog is here, isn’t he? Cash argued in his head. What did it matter why he’d finally caved in and brought the animal home? As for being invisible, there were times Cash would pay his last red cent to disappear himself. Just sink into oblivion, where there weren’t small hands always reaching for him, little faces forever turning to him, wanting answers he couldn’t give.

  Times like this minute, when he had to go out to his kids and couldn’t let Mac and Charlie see what he was feeling. If Charlie had been scared before, she must be downright terrified now, after the scene in the hallway. He’d even scared himself.

  Cash hunkered down to put the dustpan in its place. But he didn’t rise again once he released its stubby handle. His head rocked back until it rested against the mudroom wall and he rubbed his face with both hands. Instinctively he reached for the one influence he’d depended on his whole life to help beat back his temper when it raged out of control.

  “Mom…I’m tired,” he whispered aloud. “I’m so tired…”

  It was as if he could feel the touch of Rose Lawless’ work-reddened hands, her no-nonsense voice. I know you are, son. But you’ve always been my strong one…strong and stubborn as the Rock of Cashel I named you for. And your babies need you.

  How many times had she told him how strong he was? That nothing on earth could defeat him? She’d believed in him as no one else ever had. Or ever would again.

  The knowledge dug into his chest. She’d hate that her loss still hurt him so. Knowing that single truth helped Cash straighten.

  He squared his shoulders and headed for the backyard. Somehow Charlie had wrestled her sister into the swing and was pushing Mac. Cash wondered if Charlie had done it for the same reason he had so many times before: so Mac couldn’t see the worry in her face. Destroyer sat on guard beside the empty wheelchair, the dog’s eyes following the children with that expression the bus driver had described. Strange, Cash thought, there was something of his own mother’s steadfastness in the Newfoundland’s gaze.

  Of course, Rose Lawless would’ve been horrified at the comparison. She?
??d as soon let a pig inside her house as a dog. It was still a wonder to Cash how neat she’d kept that house with six boys tramping in and out.

  “How about we head inside?” he called to his girls.

  Mac craned herself around, her swing wavering so wildly she almost took out her sister. “Where’s Rowena?” Mac cried, petulantly. “We been waiting forever an’ ever.”

  “Rowena had to go home.” The real question now was whether or not she’d ever set foot in the house again. Not to mention what he’d do tomorrow if she didn’t.

  “I’m starving for cupcakes,” Mac said as Cash grabbed the swing’s chain and pulled it to a stop. He plucked her from the seat and settled her on his hip. “Rowena promised we could make pink frosting and everything.”