had been the compassionate one in the marriage, the one with the bottomless heart. But while Aidan had loved his wife beyond measure, and would do anything for his son…
Refusing to even finish the thought, he jabbed a fork into his now cold eggs. “Your antipathy sounds completely justified to me.”
“Maybe. But even I realized it wasn’t healthy. By the time Ida got sick, I’d come to terms with a thing or two. At least, I learned to channel the anger in more positive ways.”
“You forgave her?”
Winnie sighed. “The resentment gets to be a real bitch to lug around, you know? Her wanting more for my mother wasn’t a bad thing in itself. And I know it nearly killed her when Mama died. God knows it was no fun living with a woman who tended her disappointment and heartache like some prize orchid, but it wasn’t her fault she got sick. And if nothing else, I sure learned a lot from her example.”
“And what’s that?”
“Not to take out your own pain on anybody else. Least of all an innocent child.”
After a long moment, Aidan said, indicating her now empty plate, “Are you done?” When Winnie nodded, he signaled for Thea, pulling his credit card out of his wallet when she gave him the bill. “I suppose you think I’m being a hardnose by not wanting Robbie to know who you are.”
Winnie wiped her mouth on her napkin, demolishing what was left of her light-colored lipstick. “You’re his father, Aidan,” she said at last. “Like you said, I gave up any right to a say in the matter a long time ago, and I have to trust that you know what’s best for your own son.”
“And has it occurred to you,” Aidan bit out, “that since he’s already seen you, already knows you’re staying on our property, what might happen if and when he does ask about you down the road? You’ve put me in an untenable position, Winnie. You do realize that, don’t you?”
Her cheeks flushed scarlet. “I’m so sorry,” she muttered, getting up and grabbing her purse from the floor. “Here I’m telling you how far I’ve come, about learning that’s it not all about me, and then I go and do exactly the same thing I’ve always done.” She straightened, swiping a stray piece of hair out of her eyes as a markedly less bubbly Thea set the charge slip in front of Aidan. “All I wanted…” Shaking her head, she backed away, stumbling into an empty chair before turning and striding toward the door.
A sane man would have let her go, with her earnestness and regret and those damnably soulful eyes. Eyes that had shaken him nine years ago, even when he’d been happy and in love and she’d been little more than the means to his becoming a father. Ashamed, angry, Aidan scribbled his signature on the slip and took off after her. Already to her truck, she turned at his approach, her gaze wary. Embarrassed. He stopped a few feet away, breathing hard. Annoyed as all hell.
“Okay, look,” he said, determined to keep the blame for this whole mess firmly at her feet, “I still think the timing sucks, that tellin’ Robbie the truth right now…” The very thought made him ache, even if he couldn’t completely define the “why” behind it. “But maybe…”
Turning slightly to dodge the hope in her eyes, Aidan felt the ends of his too-long hair whip at his face. “Maybe if he got to know you a little first, we could somehow ease him into it.”
After too many beats passed, he looked at Winnie again. She was frowning, holding her own wind-blown hair out of her face.
“You sure about this?”
“Not a’tall.”
Her expression didn’t change. “What you really want is for me to say I’ve changed my mind, isn’t it?”
“You have no idea.”
She looked away then, frowning, then back at him. “I promise, I won’t tell him. Not until you give the go-ahead.”
“Come to supper tonight, then,” he said, feeling the none-too-solid ground he’d been navigating for the past year give way a bit more. “Around seven. Just follow the road up from the Old House. And keep an eye out for the chickens.”
An amused expression crossed her features before settling back into concern. “What are you going to tell him? About why I’m there?”
“I’ve no idea. I suppose I’ll figure something out.”
She nodded, then opened her door. Hugging the shimmying dog, she angled her head enough to say, “Thank you.”
But Aidan didn’t want her thanks. He didn’t want any of this, not the responsibility or the sympathy those damn blue eyes provoked or…any of it. Most of all, he didn’t want to be nice or kind or even civil unless absolutely necessary. So he spun around and strode to his own truck, parked on the other side of the small lot, thinking that she’d been dead wrong, about needing makeup in the daylight.
“So that’s the update,” Winnie said to Elektra later, leaning against her truck’s bumper, watching her creditcard bill soar as the little numbers flicked by on the gas pump faster’n she could read ‘em. Her nerves much too frayed to go back to the little house and sit there staring into space, Winnie had instead decided to do some sightseeing, immediately nixing Santa Fe—very pretty, way too crowded with looky-loos for her and Annabelle’s taste—for a nice, long meander along the back roads connecting any number of little towns like Tierra Rosa. The weather was almost embarrassingly gorgeous, the views of endless blue sky and color-splotched mountains definitely spirit-lifting. Not to mention head-clearing.
“Huh,” Elektra said, adding, “Hold on, baby.” Following the whirring of the credit card machine, Winnie heard E’s “Y’all have a safe trip, okay?” before she came back on the horn. “So tell me something…would you have gone out there if you’d’ve known June had passed?”
“I don’t know,” Winnie sighed out, frowning as the pump kept going…and going…and going…“All I know is, whatever’s gonna happen tonight, is gonna happen. Robbie and I are either gonna click or we won’t.”
Silence. “You could leave.”
“No,” Winnie said quietly. “I can’t. Not now.” When a great sigh sailed over the line, she said, “Aidan’s right, E—Robbie’s a lot less likely to freak when he finds out who I am if he already likes me. Right?” The pump finally stopped, exhausted; blowing out a relieved sigh of her own, Winnie plugged the nozzle back into place and took her receipt, not having the courage to look at it. She got back into her truck, dodging Annabelle’s kisses. Would she could do the same to Elektra’s heavy, meaningful silence. “It’ll be okay, E,” she said.
“Uh-huh. And maybe this’ll be the week I finally win the lottery.”
“Maybe it will, you never know. Gotta go,” Winnie said over the old engine’s growl. “They’re really serious about no driving while using a cell up here—”
“Baby?”
“Yeah?”
A pause. Then: “Be careful.”
I am, dammit, Winnie thought, tires crunching gravel as she pulled onto the road leading into Tierra Rosa, even as another voice snorted, Like hell.
“Who
