A Love So Strong

She looked at Beau. “Where’s your other coat?”

“In the hamper,” Beau mumbled, turning to Marcus. “Thanks for everything.”

“My pleasure.”

Beau escaped into the house, his backpack bumping Nicole and rocking her sideways. She looked to Marcus with her brows arched in question.

He cleared his throat and croaked, “Uh, if he doesn’t want it—the coat, that is—maybe you can give it to someone else. I never wear it.”

“All right. Are you feeling okay? You sound like you’re coming down with something.”

He seemed flushed to her, but he shook his head. “No, no. I’m fine. Just—” he swallowed “—something in my throat.”

“How’d it go with Beau?”

“Just fine.” He looked down, and she felt a spurt of unease, but then he looked up again, a smile crooking up one corner of his mouth. “I have one question, though. Do you have to work a second job to feed him?”

She laughed. “Sometimes. I hope he didn’t clean you out of groceries.”

“Impossible. I didn’t have anything in the house. We had pizza. And burgers.” He grinned. “Fries. Milk shakes. Cookies…”

She rolled her eyes. “What do I owe—”

“Don’t even say it,” Marcus warned, holding up a hand. “I was really glad of the company.”

A loud, slurred voice shouted from inside, “Shut that blasted door! You’re letting out all the heat!”

Nicole immediately stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind her. She folded her arms against the cold and said, “Thank you. And thank you for the coat. He likes it. I can tell.”

“Very fashionable for him,” Marcus quipped.

“Obviously. I—I just don’t want you to think that I routinely let him go to school without a proper coat. I have an early class on Fridays, so he rides with a friend. I can’t imagine why he didn’t take his coat. You know how kids are.”

“Too well. Speaking of coats. It’s too cold for you out here without one.”

“I’m okay. D-Did he say anything about, you know, Dad?”

“Yeah, but listen, we can’t talk standing out in the cold like this.” Marcus glanced around, then took her by the arm. “Come on. Let’s sit in the car.”

Nicole let him tug her toward his roomy sedan. “Good idea.”

He walked her swiftly around to the passenger side and handed her into the car’s interior. It was still warm from the drive over but rapidly cooling. Thankfully, after taking his seat behind the wheel, he started the engine and switched on the heater.

“There. That’s better.” For good measure, though, he lifted his scarf over his head and draped it around her shoulders, spreading it out like a shawl, a narrow one but surprisingly effective, warmed as it was from his body.

He started to shrug out of his coat, but she put a stop to that. “I’m quite comfortable now, thank you.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. So what did Beau say about Dad?”

“He said he was ‘sloppy hungover this morning,’” Marcus answered. “That’s why his other coat’s in the hamper.”

She grimaced, not even wanting to know what that meant. She’d find out soon enough anyway. Tossing one end of Marcus’s scarf across her throat, she inhaled. It smelled just as she’d imagined it would, just as she’d imagined he would.

“I thought he was just saying that so you wouldn’t know that he left it home on purpose. His old coat’s too small, and the other kids make fun of him because of it. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, well, the way things are these days, too small could actually mean that it fits, not that these kids would see it that way.”

She laughed. “True. I hate that we can’t afford new things for him, but the way he’s growing it’s all I can do to keep him covered.”

“There are worse things than not keeping up with fashion trends,” Marcus said.

“That’s the way I see it,” she agreed sincerely, but then he got this big grin on his face.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just glad to see that you have your priorities straight.”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad you think so. Beau doesn’t always agree.”

“He’s thirteen. I think agreement is a biological impossibility at this point.”

She chuckled. “You’re telling me! He’s not a bad kid, though.”

“I can see that. I meant it when I said I enjoyed his company.”

“I’m sure he enjoyed your company, too, a lot more than he would have the Cutlers. They’re wonderful people, but to Beau anyone over thirty is the enemy right now.” Marcus winced, and she quickly reached out a hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that literally. I just meant—”

“I know what you meant. Don’t worry about it. Guess I’m just feeling my age these days.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re arthritic or anything.” Now she winced. “Are you?”

He laughed. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

“Some young people are, you know. I mean, there’s a girl in one of my classes with juvenile arthritis. She’s stiff all the time, and you can, like, hear her joints popping when she moves.”

“No arthritic joints here,” he said merrily. “Not yet, anyway. Thank God.”

“I’d better go in before I wind up with the other foot in my mouth,” she muttered. And before her father took enough note of her absence to ask some awkward questions that she didn’t want to answer.

“Beau’s probably wondering what happened to you,” Marcus agreed softly.

Reluctantly she removed the scarf from around her neck and offered it to him, but he shook his head.

“No, you keep it for now. You can return it on Sunday. Right?”

Nicole draped the scarf around her shoulders and tossed one end across her throat, smiling. “Right. I won’t forget.”

“Okay. See you then.”

“See you then,” she confirmed, opening the door and quickly hopping out. “Thank you, Marcus,” she said just before she closed the door. “Bye.”

He waved and put the car into reverse, but he just sat there with his foot on the brake until she reached the house.

“See you Sunday,” Nicole whispered as she slipped inside.

It wouldn’t be wise to let her father find out what she was planning. He’d had a thing about church ever since her mom had fallen ill. But she knew that going was the right thing to do, if only because she’d promised Marcus. It wasn’t only that, though. Her mother would want them to go, her and Beau.

For too long Nicole had catered to her father’s anger on this subject. Somehow she’d allowed herself to fall into the trap of trying to appease him when she knew only too well that nothing could.

She hoped that Beau wouldn’t put up a fuss. He probably wouldn’t. She thought he’d go because he liked Marcus, but he was going even if she had to bully him. One way or another, Sunday morning was going to find them both sitting on a church pew again.

Her fingers slid over the soft wool draped about her shoulders. It took a moment for her to realize that the feeling growing inside her chest was hope.

It had always lived there. She couldn’t have kept on keeping on otherwise. Suddenly it seemed to be branching out, though, and in some surprising directions.

Smiling to herself, she fairly danced down the hall to her brother’s room.

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