Helen winced. “But—”
He climbed into the front seat, pulling his seat belt on with one motion. “Don’t wait up. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He pulled out of his driveway and chanced a look back in his rearview mirror. Helen stood in the same place, her mouth slightly open, watching him drive away.
Steven grimaced. He probably could have handled that with more finesse. He shifted his body in the car seat, trying to relieve the pressure against his zipper. It was stupid, just plain foolish. Jenna Marshall had a nice pair of legs. That was all. No, that wasn’t nearly all. Her breasts were nice, too. His hands gripped the steering wheel, hard. And her rear end. He cracked his window to let in some of the cool night air. And her eyes. And her smile. He shifted in the seat again, the pressure unabated. Okay, he could admit it to himself. She was a tidy little package. He was . . . attracted to her.
He pulled his car from his subdivision onto the main highway. Be honest, Thatcher. She makes your mouth water. He frowned in the darkness. Be really honest, Thatcher. You want to jump that woman’s bones. He shuddered, able to imagine it all too well.
It was just that it had been such a long time. A very, very long time. Maybe he just needed to get it out of his system. A little honest sex, with no expectations for a long-term commitment. No promises made, no regrets when he walked away. Because he would walk away.
He’d almost made himself believe casual sex with Jenna Marshall was a feasible solution to his problems when he remembered the way her eyes softened in compassion over his son, then again over saving a puppy about to be put to sleep. A woman like that was not a candidate for a no-strings sexual relationship. She was just not that kind of woman.
Steven sighed. No more than he was that kind of man. That’s why it had been such a very, very long time since he’d been with a woman.
That’s why it would continue to be a very, very long time.
Frustrated and alone, he turned his thoughts to the subject of Samantha Eggleston. Her parents would want an update. Hoping Kent was still in the lab, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket.
Friday, September 30, 11:00 P.M.
“So they lost.”
Victor Lutz looked over his mostly empty glass with a sneer. His wife stood in the doorway of his study, dressed for bed in the same nightgown she’d worn every night of their miserable marriage. It wasn’t really the same nightgown, but one of ten identical gowns that hung in her closet, magically replicating themselves year after year. It had to be magic. No one in their right mind would buy such an ugly garment on purpose, much less ten of them year after year.
After year after year after year.
On top of being hopelessly stupid, Nora Lutz had absolutely no sense of style. Unlike Rudy’s teacher. Not that Miss Marshall had style either, but with a body like that he’d be willing to turn a blind eye to the prim suit. Unfortunately on top of having a great body, she also had guts.
Victor hated women with guts. Guts, brains—they only served to distract women from their sole purpose on this earth. Sex and servitude. In that order. He glared at Nora over his glass. She was a failure on both counts.
“Of course they lost.” Idiot. “Rudy sat on the bench the entire goddamn game.” He tossed back the last swallow of vodka, stood, and crossed the Aubusson carpet to pour himself another.
Nora pursed her lips, sending deep lines radiating from the corners of her mouth. “I thought you were going to straighten that out with the principal before the game started. Daddy isn’t going to be happy about this. He had to pull some strings to get that scout to come watch Rudy.”
He hated that mistress-of-the-household tone. She’d learned it from Daddy, the rich sonofabitch.
He tossed back half the glass. The rich sonofabitch whose money bought the Aubusson carpet under Victor’s feet, the roof over his head, the business that paid his salary. He eyed the clear liquid in the now half-empty glass. Whose money bought the hundred-dollar-a-bottle vodka that helped Victor drown out the reality of being married to the rich sonofabitch’s tired, ugly, whiny daughter.
Thank God for mistresses and whores, was all he could say. Of course, not out loud. Daddy wouldn’t like that. Thank God Daddy didn’t really know everything.
Nora crossed her arms over her scrawny bosom and leaned back against the wall with an air of superiority that she liked to remind him was born, not bought. The rich dark hair that had been her only notable attribute would once have blended into the black walnut wood that paneled his office. But she’d started to gray and never lifted a finger to halt the change. She, like Daddy, was a dried-up old prune. “I thought as much,” she said curtly. “Big man going to tell the stupid principal how to run his school.” She shook her head. “You are so full of hot air, Victor. You make me ill.”
“That makes two of us,” he muttered into his glass. “Excuse me?”
Victor looked up and focused his eyes on hers, saying nothing until she paled. There was more than one way to deal with Nora when she got too nasty for her own good. He rarely had to carry through on his threats. She usually backed down before he had to rouse himself into enough of a rage to raise his hand to her. Although the satisfaction at seeing her cowed and silenced was always well worth the effort. After the first time, years ago, he’d waited for Daddy to send a couple of thugs to put him in perpetual traction, but the thugs never came. Not that time, nor the times after. Victor guessed there were some things even Nora didn’t tell Daddy. He cleared his throat.
“I said, that makes two of us. I did visit the school today for your information. I might have gotten your son reinstated this afternoon if he hadn’t been such a fucking idiot.”
Nora frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked, her tone now significantly less belligerent.
“I mean, your idiot son pushed the wrong teacher. He handed in a test on which he’d written only his name. That and the smirk on his face are making his teacher dig in her heels. I gave the principal a week to fix this.”
“And if he doesn’t? What then?”
“Then we pull Daddy’s funding of Blackman’s new stadium.”
Nora smoothed her hair away from her face, one of her many nervous gestures. He knew every last one. Every last one drove him nuts. “Not everyone is motivated by money, Victor.”
Victor drained his glass. Not motivated by money. Hah. Only a person who’d grown up wanting nothing could actually believe that. “Of course they are. They just don’t always know it.”
Friday, September 30, 11:55 P.M.
The church’s old door handle was cool under Steven’s sweating hand. They didn’t make handles like this anymore. Doors either, Steven thought, feeling the cool night air on his hot face. Both were vintage 1923, as was the rest of the church. He’d lost track of how long he’d been standing there, telling himself to either go in or go home.
Hours of paperwork hadn’t cleared his mind, just served to stave off the worry gnawing at his gut for just a few more hours. He’d left his office and driven around aimlessly, not really surprised when he stopped in the parking lot of the old parish.
His old parish. He’d grown up here, served as an altar boy, been confirmed. Taken his first communion and planned to study the priesthood himself. His grip on the door handle tightened. Then his life had taken a sharp turn after a single night of . . . What would he call it, looking back now? Certainly not passion. They’d been seventeen in the back of his father’s Olds. Passion it certainly was not. Experimentation? It was that. Folly? In many ways it was that as well. Melissa had turned out to be the greatest folly of his life. Brad, on the other hand . . . He could never call creating his oldest son a folly, no matter how troubled Brad was at the moment.
Conceiving Brad that night in the back of his father’s Olds made him change his life path. Gone were plans for the priesthood, which had broken his mother’s heart until she’d held her first grandson in her arms. Steven had gone to college, become a cop. He and Melissa had two more beautiful sons. They’d been a ha
ppy family for a time. Melissa may have even been happy . . . for a time.
And look at me now, he thought. Successful career. Disastrous marriage. Unhappy children. A lonely widower. Lonely and . . . scared.
No, he was terrified. For years after Melissa died he’d held his family together. But now his family was unraveling and he had no clue what to do about it. The idle promise to confess the lie he’d told Helen pricked at him all night, bringing back a host of memories about this place, about the peace he’d always felt here. He tried to remember how long it had been. It hadn’t been a watershed moment, but a gradual thing. Week after week he sat in the pew, feeling the priest’s eyes on him, his priest’s disapproval of what he’d done. Knowing just as clearly there was not one iota he’d change. The cycle of guilt continued until he’d started finding all the reasons he couldn’t go to Mass. Then he just stopped going altogether.
So here he stood. “Go in or go home, Thatcher,” he said harshly.
God knew he didn’t want to go in. Devil of it was, he didn’t want to go home even more.
So he yanked at the heavy door and slipped inside. He’d known it would be open. It always was. He hesitated for a moment before pushing himself to the altar. He hesitated even longer before dropping to his knees. Crossing himself.
Opening his heart.
He’d lost track of time, deep inside himself until a noise behind him brought his head up and his hand to the weapon in his holster.
“I wondered when you’d come home, Steven.”
Slowly standing, he turned and regarded the man sitting in the pew two rows back. Noted the silver at his temples. He was older now. They both were. They’d been children together, served in this very parish together. Been best friends together. Until four years ago when everything changed.
Four years ago when Melissa died and Steven found himself confessing one of the greatest sins of his life to the only man he knew he could trust to keep it secret. To the man sitting in the pew two rows back whose white collar was a stark contrast to the tanned column of his throat.
Steven swallowed. “Mike.”
Mike raised a bushy black brow. “That’s Father Mike to you.” He smirked. “My son.”
Steven felt the smile bending his lips despite the turmoil within him. “Stick it. Father.”
Mike shook his head in mock chagrin. “I should order you to say five Hail Marys for that.”
“For ‘stick it’?”
“No, for the impolite words you really wanted to say.” Steven met his friend’s eyes and both sobered. “I should say a whole lot more than five.”
“Why are you here, Steven?” Mike asked softly, his voice carrying in the quiet of the church.
Steven looked away, turned around to focus on the statue of the Madonna and Child. Tried to figure out the answer himself as he gazed on the serene countenances, so at odds with how he felt inside. “I don’t know,” he finally answered. “I guess I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”
“That’s as good an answer as any,” Mike said. “I’ve missed you, Steven. I thought I might see you after the trouble with Nicky last spring. I called . . . a number of times, but . . .”
Steven listened as his friend’s voice trailed away and Mike wasn’t Father Leone anymore, but the best friend of his heart. A friend he’d wounded through neglect. “But I didn’t return your calls,” Steven finished, dropping his chin to his chest. “I’m sorry, Mike.”
“I’m sorry, too. I should have tried harder. I should have come to you.”
Steven lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know that it would have done any good. You know.”
Mike sighed. “I’m sorry about that, too. How are they?” Steven looked over his shoulder to find Mike in the exact same position. That was one of the things Steven had always admired about his friend—his calm patience that seemed to settle the most anxious parishioner. “I wish I could say they’re fine, but they’re not. Of the three, Matt is the most normal.”
“Matt?” Mike tilted his head. “I find that hard to believe. What happened to Brad?”
The weight suddenly seemed heavier. “I don’t know.” Steven’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what to do, Mike. Brad changed . . . overnight.”
“People rarely change overnight,” Mike observed. “Brad did,” Steven insisted. “And I don’t know what I or anybody did to trigger it. I thought it would pass, but . . .”
“But it’s gotten worse.”
“I guess you hear this all the time.”
“Unfortunately, yes. Sit down, Steven. Please.” Mike leaned forward and patted the pew in front of him. “You’re making me nervous. You’re wound tighter than a spring.”
Steven dropped into the pew, sitting sideways and resting his arm along the wooden back. “I met one of Brad’s teachers today. He’s failing chemistry.”
“Ouch.”
Steven nodded. “I asked him about it when I got home and he acted like he . . . hated me,” he finished in a shaky whisper. “I don’t know what to do.” He flinched when Mike covered his hand with his own, but didn’t back away. It was so like . . . old times. Emotion welled up in his throat and Steven swallowed hard to force it down before it became overwhelming. He drew a deep breath and waited until he could speak normally. “Like I said, Matt is the normal one now and Nicky’s improving every day.” He made himself smile. “Helen’s the same as ever.”
Mike was quiet for a long time, then squeezed his hand. “So Brad is troubled, Matt is maturing, Nicky is improving, and Helen is the same old Helen. But how are you, my friend?” he asked softly. “How is your life?”
Again emotion pushed up his throat and again Steven shoved it back. “My life is . . . what it is.”
“You can do better than that, Steven,” Mike said dryly. Steven smiled in spite of himself. “It was a bit theatric, wasn’t it?”
“A bit.” Mike waited, and when Steven said nothing, trudged forward. “And your personal life? Have you changed your mind about taking another wife?”
The corner of Steven’s mouth quirked up. “Taking another wife. It sounds so archaic when you say it that way.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Steven.”
“No, I didn’t, did I?” Steven squared his shoulders, preparing for the argument he knew was just ahead. “No, I haven’t changed my mind. I won’t be marrying again. At least not until the boys are grown.”
“Nicky won’t be grown for ten more years, Steven,” Mike said quietly. “That’s too long for you to be alone.”
Steven narrowed his eyes. “You’re alone.”
Mike smiled. “That’s different and you know it. Besides, I have the Church.” Mike lifted a wry brow. “I’d bet it’s safe to say you don’t even have that.”
Steven looked away. “Below the belt, Mike.” But he was right. Of course.
“Wherever it does the most good. Ten more years is a long time for you to be alone.”
Steven stared at the Madonna and Child, knowing where this conversation was headed. “You said that already.”
“And I was right both times. Hasn’t Helen found anyone you like?”
Steven jerked his gaze back to where Mike still sat patiently. “What do you know about Helen’s matchmaking?”
Mike shrugged. “She and I chat from time to time.” Steven rolled his eyes. “I bet she’s confessing all the lies she’s told to set me up with every Tania, Dorothy, and Henrietta this side of the Mississippi.”
“That would be privileged,” Mike informed him archly. “Yeah, yeah,” Steven muttered and Mike grinned, then sobered.
“So tell me, Steven. You haven’t met anyone? In four years?”
A face flashed before his eyes. Black hair, violet eyes, kind smile. “No. Yes.” Steven closed his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said miserably.
“I like the ‘yes’ answer the best.”
“You would,” Steven muttered.
“What’s her name?”
Steven
stood up. “This is ridicu—”
“Sit down, Steven.” It was a soft roar, a command meant to be obeyed.
Steven sat.
Mike nodded and tilted his head. “So . . . Her name is . . . ?”
“Jenna.” Steven glared over the pew. “If Helen gets a word of this, I swear I’ll . . .”
“It’s privileged,” Mike said and leaned forward. “And you met her when?”
“Today,” Steven snapped and watched Mike’s eyes grow round. Looking at his watch Steven added, “Seven and a half hours ago, to be most accurate.”
Mike sat back in the pew. “Well, now your visit makes sense. So what do you plan to do about this woman? This . . . Jenna?”
Steven clenched his jaw. “Nothing.”
Mike pursed one side of his mouth. “Oh, please, Steven. You’re here. You’re troubled.” Mike folded his arms across his chest. “Not all women are Melissa, you know.”
“I know. But I refuse to expose my kids to any woman until I’m sure she’s not.”
Mike waved his hand. “And because you can’t afford time away from the boys, you don’t have the time it would take to get to know a woman well enough to bring her home to the boys. I seem to recall having heard this argument before.”
Steven shook his head stubbornly. “I can’t . . . no, I won’t put the boys through that again.”
“You didn’t put them through it the first time, Steven,” Mike reminded him. As if he could forget. “You brushed the truth under the rug and let the world believe what you wanted them to believe.” Mike frowned, his voice growing stern. “You lied to your children.”
Steven squeezed his eyes closed, clenched his fist tight. “I know. Dammit, don’t you think I know?” Then Mike covered Steven’s clenched fist with his steady hand and just held it there.
“I know you know, Steven,” he said softly. “And I know you believe you did the right thing by the boys by not telling them the truth about Melissa’s death.”
“I did do the right thing,” Steven hissed, feeling it all come back. Four years of hurt he’d so successfully buried came rushing back. Now he remembered why it had been so long since he’d been to church. “What good would it have done them to know she was deserting us? To tell them her lover smashed up her car because he was too drunk to walk, much less drive? That she was hurrying to the airport with her married lover?” He spat the word, knowing no other way to make it sound as bad as it really was. “What good would it have done to tell them she didn’t even intend to say good-bye to her own children, that she just left me a note?” He squeezed his eyes tighter and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “What good would it possibly have done, Mike?” he whispered, his voice shaking. “Tell me. Please, tell me.”