Caught Up in You

He glanced at his watch. Why were there never enough hours in the day? “Sure, but we need to get moving.”

He clasped his son’s small, warm and slightly sticky hand. There would be a time, not too far in the future, when Max would grimace and shrink away when Eddie offered his hand.

But not today.

Today, his son held on instead of running ahead. Today, his son still needed him.

They climbed into the truck.

“Want to know what else I like about Mrs. Kavanagh?” Max asked as he buckled his seat belt.

Not in the least.

“Sure,” Eddie said with a sigh.

“She’s pretty,” Max whispered, a blush coloring his fair skin. “And she smells good.”

Eddie turned on the ignition, slammed his foot onto the clutch and jammed the truck into first gear. He’d noticed both those things, too.

He wished like hell he hadn’t.

* * *

“HE HAD THE NERVE...the utter...utter...”

Harper tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling of Dr. Joan Crosby’s office in hope the word she was searching for would somehow magically appear in the air.

“Gall?” Joan asked from behind her neat desk.

Harper whirled on the older woman. Jabbed a finger in her direction. “Yes! The utter gall to threaten to take Max out of my class.”

She still couldn’t believe it. Pacing to burn off some of her temper before she picked up her daughter from day care, her quick, short strides took her to the far edge of the room and back in seconds. An easy enough task given the size of the office and the fact that there was nothing in there that wasn’t completely necessary. A desk and chair, three other chairs—two facing the desk, the third off to the side—and floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with books. A small, round table with two kid-sized chairs sat in the far corner along with a plastic bin Harper knew held drawing paper, crayons and colored pencils.

Joan didn’t believe in wasting space, materials, time or words.

Harper grabbed a handful of M&M’s—her third such handful—from a ceramic bowl on the desk and tossed several into her mouth. They didn’t help. She ate some more.

Stick with something long enough, and you were bound to get the results you wanted.

Naive? Perhaps. But it kept her happy and optimistic in the face of adversity. After Beau had been taken from her so suddenly, Harper had wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and die herself. She couldn’t, of course. She had people who counted on her, who needed her to be strong. Her daughter, Cassidy, for one.

Joan, Beau’s mother, for another.

So, yes, she lived a life of clichés. Chin up. Search out the good in life. The sun will come out tomorrow and all that jazz. Looking on the bright side had kept her sane during the past ten months. Believing in some greener pasture, in better days, helped to push her through each hour, every minute without her husband.

Convinced her things would get better.

Each day got a little easier. She no longer cried herself to sleep or felt as if there was a weight on her chest, one making it unbearable to breathe. She was living again, could see real hope for the future, could even imagine herself moving on. Dating. Possibly falling in love again.

Eventually. When the time was right. In another year or so when the idea of being with someone new didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. When it wouldn’t feel like a betrayal of her husband, of what they’d shared.

Someday she would move on. Fully. Without regrets or guilt. She had to. Even when you lost the man you loved with all your heart, life went on, day after day.

It was funny that way.

She ate a red M&M followed quickly by a blue one. She froze in the act of reaching for another handful, her fingers twitching, and glared at Joan. “What are you, a sadist?”

Her mother-in-law considered that, as if the question deserved real thought. “I don’t believe so.”

“Then why are you letting me eat these? You know I’m trying to lose this extra baby weight.” Baby weight she carried on her hips and thighs despite delivering said baby two and a half years ago.

Guess not everything worked out the way you wanted, no matter how hard or long you stuck with it.

“I was afraid to suggest you slow down,” Joan said. “Or take the bowl lest you chomped my hand off at the wrist.”

“Ha ha.” Harper flopped onto the chair as Joan reached for the candy. “Wait,” Harper cried, leaping back up. She took two more. “Last ones. I swear.”

She’d make up for the extra calories by getting on the treadmill tonight.

Feeling better, if not entirely virtuous about her choice, she sucked on the first M&M to make it last as long as possible.

Joan tucked the bowl into a side drawer then clasped her hands together on top of the desk. “Now that you’ve settled down, why don’t you tell me what’s got you so upset?”

Harper slid the second chocolate into her mouth. Perhaps she’d chosen the wrong person to vent to. Why did she have to have a psychologist for a mother-in-law? And vice versa?

But they’d known each other a few years before Joan had introduced her only child to Harper. Even though Beau no longer tied them together, they were still family. More than that, they were each other’s connection to the man—the husband, the son—they’d both lost. During the worst grief imaginable, they’d stuck together, had been there for each other.

That would never change.

Through it all, their relationship had grown and evolved into friendship, one Harper cherished. It was that friend she needed now.

She’d just have to put up with the therapist butting in with her two cents every once in a while.

“I’m upset because he wouldn’t even listen to reason.” Wouldn’t listen to her. “I explained that Max needed help, that he was dangerously behind in all subject areas, and the first step toward getting to the bottom of Max’s problems was for you to observe him, but Eddie...brushed all my reasons aside.”

Like she was some annoying gnat come to burrow in that mop of hair on his head.

“Uh-huh. Is that all?”

Harper gaped. “Didn’t you hear me? He threatened to take Max from my class.” The more she thought of it, the more upset she got. She started pacing again. “Not once, in all my years of teaching—”

“Sweetie,” Joan said not unkindly, “you don’t get to use in all my years of teaching until you’ve been here at least twenty years.”

“Well, in the ten years I’ve taught I’ve never had any parent ask to remove their child from my class. I’m the most requested teacher in second grade.”

Joan arched a perfect eyebrow. “Bragging, dear?”

Harper’s cheeks heated. Too bad the candy was put away. The best cure for the blues, bad temper and embarrassment was chocolate. It fixed what ailed you.

“I’m stating a fact.” She chewed on the inside of her lip. “Maybe I should have told him that. Then he could have realized what a mistake it would be for him to take Max away from me.”

“I’d like to make sure I have this straight.” Joan steepled her fingers under her chin, her reading glasses on top of her graying blond curls. “Mr. Montesano is reluctant to discuss the possible reasons behind Max’s struggles in school and became defensive when you stated your opinions.”

“Very defensive. And then he got offensive.”

Joan hummed in a way that made Harper feel as if she was being analyzed. Which, let’s be honest, she completely was. “And how did that make you feel?”

Harper’s lips twitched. “Please. I’m trying to keep a good mad going here.”

“And you’re doing an admirable job. But it might be better for your stress levels if you collect your thoughts and think of a solution to the problem.”

“I’d rather stay mad,” she grumbled.

“But mad doesn’t solve anything.”

True. She sighed. Stared at the framed photos on Joan’s desk—one of Harper and Beau on their wedding day, another of Beau holding their daughter, Cassidy, on his birthday last year.

Ten days later, Beau was gone.

“Eddie accused me of not doing my job.”

“Ah...”

“Oh, no. No.”

“What?”

“I know what you’re up to with that ah. You think you’ve got it all figured out, that there’s some deep-seated issue here causing me to be so upset. Probably something to do with my dog running away when I was four or my not getting enough love as a child.”

“Your parents adore you.”

“Exactly.” And, being an only child, she didn’t have to share that adoration with anyone else. “So there’s nothing to ah about here.”

“Hmm...”

With a groan, Harper flopped into the chair. “That’s even worse.”

“Seems to me,” Joan said in the same slow, thoughtful tone she employed when speaking with students, “the problem isn’t Mr. Montesano’s reaction—or at least, not only his reaction. It’s your reaction to that reaction.”

“He started it.”

Joan smiled. “Surprisingly, that’s not the first time I’ve heard those words uttered from someone sitting in that chair.”

Considering Joan’s usual clients were the under-twelve set, Harper wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or amused. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have let him get me so upset.”

“Have you considered the reason why you reacted the way you did?”

“I’m going to blame it on my never getting over Sparky running away and leave it at that.”

Unfortunately, Joan never left anything alone. Tenaciousness must have come with her Ph.D. “You’ve dealt with numerous parents on matters both big and small throughout the years without letting them upset you. It seems to me, the difference this time isn’t that Mr. Montesano was resistant to your help, but that he bruised your pride.”

Though the words were said gently, without reprimand or judgment, Harper flinched. “You think this is about my ego?”

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s annoying the way you answer a question with another question.”

Joan simply waited. As if she knew it was only a matter of time before Harper broke. She was right.

About everything.

Harper slouched farther into her seat, wished she could disappear into the fabric. “Maybe he poked at my pride a little.” Staring at her left hand, she slid her engagement ring and wedding band up and down her finger. Up and down. “What do I do now?”

“I think the best way to proceed is to give Mr. Montesano time to process your discussion, your concerns. After report cards are sent out next month, call him in for another meeting. Sam and I can sit in on it if you’d like.”

Harper wondered if that last bit was a reprimand for skirting the rules and meeting with Eddie on her own. “That would probably be for the best. Thanks.”

Having Joan and the principal there might be enough to persuade Eddie that she knew what she was talking about. Or it could get her in a boatload of trouble if she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

Like today.

Her mouth. From the time she’d said her first word at eight months old it’d been getting her into trouble.

She pressed her fingertips against her temples. She’d snapped at Eddie, had told him not to shrug at her again. Her stomach got queasy, embarrassment coated her throat. He had every right to complain about her to her superiors.

She wrinkled her nose. Maybe not every right. He had been incredibly stubborn and unreasonable. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t complain about their little meeting. She may as well have handed him the phone numbers of the principal, superintendent and president of the school board, and told him to have at it asking for her resignation. Or, more realistically, asking Max to be moved to another class.

Worse, instead of getting him to see he was hurting Max by ignoring her suggestions, she’d pushed him into digging in his heels even deeper.

She’d messed up. Royally. Now she had to make it right. Tonight she’d write up some ideas for strategies she could implement in her class, ways to help Max focus and succeed.

After all, she didn’t need to meet with Eddie or get his permission to try different teaching methods. To do what was best for one of the students in her class. He wasn’t the damn boss of her.

Joan shut off her computer and got her purse from the desk drawer. “Would you and Cass like to come for dinner? Steve’s making chicken pot pie.”

“We’d love to, but it’s Uncle Will’s birthday so we’re eating at Aunt Irene’s.”

Since Beau died, she and Cass never had a shortage of dinner invitations. It was as though her loved ones thought if they didn’t feed her and her daughter, they’d starve.

Not that she didn’t appreciate the support. She did. Really. It was just sometimes all she wanted after a long day was to pick up Cassidy from day care, go home, put on sweatpants and play with her baby.

But she tried to make sure Cass saw Joan and Steve—Beau’s stepfather—a few times a week. It was important that her daughter have a connection to her paternal grandparents.

Keeping everyone happy—and convincing them she and Cassidy really were fine—was exhausting sometimes.

“Can we get a rain check?” she asked.

Joan came around the desk and walked with her to the door. “Of course,” she said, shutting off the lights. “How about tomorrow night?”

“That sounds great.” At least it would save her having to throw together something for dinner. “Thanks. For everything.”

“That’s what family is for. Try not to worry about Max. I’ve seen this before, parents who are reluctant to admit there’s a problem. They usually come around and I’m sure Mr. Montesano will be no different.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

Even if she wasn’t, it didn’t matter. Because Harper wasn’t about to let Eddie take Max away from her. She couldn’t. Max needed her.

And to help a child she’d gladly do battle against any opponent—including grumpy, taciturn Eddie Montesano.

CHAPTER THREE

WITH MAROON 5’S “Payphone” playing over the radio in Bradford House’s kitchen, Eddie crouched in front of the rough plumbing for the sink. He measured the distance from the floor to the hot water pipe, wrote the figure on a piece of scrap paper and repeated the action with the cold water pipe and drain. Then he measured them all again.

Measure twice, cut once. Good advice that had been drilled into his head since he started working for his father at the age of fifteen. Advice he heeded on the job literally—and in life figuratively.

Be careful, cautious, and you were less likely to make a mistake.

Behind him, the door opened. “If you’re not going to keep your phone on,” a familiar voice said as Eddie wrote down the last of the measurements, “why do you bother to have one?”

Straightening, Eddie stuck the carpenter pencil in his back pocket and laid the paper on top of the cherry cabinet he’d built for the sink base. “Who says it’s not on?”

“Me.” James Montesano, Eddie’s older brother, waved his own phone in the air. “And the fact that I’ve been calling you for the past hour.”

Eddie pulled out his phone and turned it on, then slid it into his pocket. “I had a meeting.”

He’d rather keep it off. He hated the damn thing. Had no desire to talk to most people face-to-face, why would he want the torture of trying to keep up a conversation over the phone? Or worse, send and receive text messages like some teenager? The only reason he even had one was in case of an emergency.

And if something had happened to his son, if he’d gotten hurt or sick at hockey practice, James would have told Eddie that immediately instead of laying into him about his lack of cell-phone manners. Besides, their mother was the secondary emergency contact for Max and she would have simply picked Max up if he’d needed her.

“Hand me the hole saw,” Eddie said, marking the measurements on the back of the sink base.

James sighed. “Aren’t you going to ask why I’ve been calling you for the past hour?”

“I figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.” No sense rushing a man when he had something on his mind. Eddie hated being pushed to speak before he was ready. “You going to give me the saw or not?”

“I’ve been calling,” James said as his phone buzzed, “because I’m tired of acting as your message service.”

“Customers wouldn’t bug you so often if you didn’t answer each call and respond to every text message.”

As if to prove him right, James checked the number of the incoming call. “Shit,” he muttered before answering it with a cheerful, “Meg, hi. How are you?”

Though their father, Frank, was the head of Montesano Construction, had built the business from the ground up thirty-five years ago, James was the one who kept the company running smoothly today. His anal tendencies, love for organization and rules and unnatural fondness for his smartphone made him the perfect man for the job.

Thank God. Eddie could handle coming up with the work schedules, and both he and Maddie wrote up estimates for potential jobs. But Eddie would rather shoot himself in the bare foot with a nail gun than have to deal with customers changing their minds, whining about costs and bitching about jobs taking too long.

And if Maddie, with her sharp tongue and take-no-prisoners attitude, was in charge of customer service?

Montesano Construction would be out of business in two months. Three, tops.

Better to keep things the way they were. Even if that meant putting up with James’s nagging, bossiness and him ceasing all conversation to stroke his phone.

Not that Eddie actually minded that last one. At least it got James to shut up for a few minutes.

Saving himself the time and trouble of asking for the hole saw again—no sense when James was absorbed in conversation—Eddie crossed to the corner cabinet and got the damn thing himself.

While he’d been at the parent/teacher thing, Heath had finished installing the two lower cabinets to the left of the sink base. Eddie could let the sink wait until tomorrow, but with Max at hockey practice, he had two hours on his hands. A good opportunity to make up for the time he’d missed.

Time he never should have missed, he thought, his irritation once again spiking when he remembered his conversation with Harper. He should have been working instead of listening to her try to convince him to go against his instincts.

The ones screaming at him to protect his son.

He cut through the back of the sink base, the loud whine of the saw and scent of sawdust filling the air. When he had three perfect circles, he tossed the scraps aside, set the tool on the floor out of the way and went to the front of the cabinet. Grabbing the corners, he wiggled the base into position then stepped back.

They still had a long way to go—three more lower cabinets along this wall needed installing as did a dozen upper cabinets, and he was putting the finishing touches on the large center island at the workshop. But the floor had been laid, the walls prepped and painted, the appliances were on order and the lighting fixtures were being delivered in two days.

“That woman is one hundred pages of crazy in a fifty-page book,” James grumbled, putting away his phone.

“That’s why God invented voice mail.”

“You should know, seeing as how most calls I make to you go straight to it. Mine and everyone else who dials that number.” James crossed his arms, braced his legs wide. Eddie knew that stance. It was the one James adopted when he was getting ready to do battle. “Including, apparently, your ex-wife.”

And there was the reason for it.

Eddie stilled. “What?”

“Lena phoned me. Told me she’s been trying to get ahold of you for the past five days but you haven’t answered any of her calls or returned them. I told her you and Max were both fine and that I’d relay her message.”

“What message?”

“To call her. What do you think she wants?”

He didn’t know. And that was the problem. The reason he’d been avoiding her calls.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll tell her not to bug you.”

“She didn’t bug me and I don’t mind that she called. Especially when she was obviously upset and worried something had happened to Max.”

“You told her Max was fine.”

She had no reason to worry. No right to. Not when she was the one who walked away from their son.

“She seemed relieved,” James said. “What’s going on? She still bugging you about more time with Max?”

“Nothing’s going on.” Nothing except his ex-wife changing the rules they’d lived by for the past five years. “I’ve got it handled.”

About four months ago, Lena had started calling several times a week instead of every other weekend. At first, Eddie hadn’t thought much of it, but then she’d started talking about spending more time with Max, how she wanted to be a bigger part of his life.

That was when the fear had set in. Ever since their divorce, ever since she’d willingly granted Eddie full custody, she’d never wanted to be more than a partial influence in their child’s life. Twice-yearly visits—always in Shady Grove—had been enough for her all this time. It should continue to be enough.

Or at least that’s what he’d thought until she’d admitted the reason for her change of heart.

Cancer.

Lena had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in January. Per her wishes, Eddie hadn’t told anyone, not even his family. Not Max. Lena was fine now, her prognosis excellent after a hysterectomy and chemo treatments.

No sense worrying Max needlessly. No point in letting him know it’d taken a near-death experience to make his mother want back in his life.

Eddie had agreed to let Lena see Max anytime she wanted. It was the right thing to do.

But that didn’t mean Eddie had to like being the good guy. Or that he had to answer every one of her phone calls.

Kneeling in front of the cabinet, Eddie inserted shims under the bottom to make the base level. As he worked, though, he felt James’s gaze on him, like an unreachable itch between his shoulder blades. Nagging. Irritating as hell.

“Everything okay with you?” James asked.

“Yep.”

But James remained rooted to his spot. “Let’s go to O’Riley’s. Grab a beer.” From the tapping going on behind him, James had his phone out again. “But it’s your turn to buy.”

“I’m working.”

“Fine. I’ll buy.”

Eddie tossed the shims aside. “I don’t want a beer.”

Actually, a beer didn’t sound half bad. If a quick drink had been all James was after, he might have gone along with it. But James was too perceptive to buy Eddie’s evasions about Lena. Too damned nosy to let it go. And spending any amount of time deflecting what was sure to be an interrogation sounded like pure hell.

“I’ll text Leo,” James said. “Have him meet us.”

Both brothers yakking at him, questioning him, wanting to know his every goddamn thought? More like pure hell with the flames set to High.

Eddie stood. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

Between putting in twelve-hour days for Montesano Construction, family obligations and his new live-in relationship with Sadie Nixon—his best friend since childhood—James always had somewhere to be. Something to do.

“Not for an hour.” He didn’t even look up from whatever he was typing. “Sadie and I are going to her parents’ house for Will’s birthday dinner.”

“You want to waste an hour while Leo hits on every pretty woman at O’Riley’s, that’s your choice. Me? I’m going to finish this, pick up my kid and go home.”

“You sure?” James asked quietly, but Eddie knew what his brother really wanted to know.

Are you really all right? Do you want to talk about it? What can I do to help?

He was grateful for the concern. He didn’t want it, didn’t need it, but he could appreciate it just the same. “I’m sure.”

Nodding, James stepped forward and slapped Eddie’s shoulder. Gave it an affectionate—if heavy-handed—squeeze. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

He walked out, his phone once again buzzing for his attention. Eddie turned to his work. He appreciated his brother’s concern. Knew James and the rest of their family were there for him and Max if they needed them. Whenever. Wherever.