A Baby for the Boss (11 page)

Jack lifted their joined hands and kissed her knuckles. “What’s important is that we found each other again before it was too late.”

“I don’t even know what to say,” Mike muttered. For twenty years, he and his father had sidestepped each other, neither of them willing to talk about the thing that had put a wedge between them.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“Because you wouldn’t have believed me,” Jack said.

“I guess that’s true enough,” Mike admitted. So much time being angry, letting old pains rule his life, believing that no one could be trusted because he had looked at a situation he didn’t understand through the eyes of a wounded thirteen-year-old boy.

“The point is, honey,” Peggy said, “you’ve been using your father as an excuse to keep everyone at a distance. You’re protecting yourself from being hurt by not letting anything at all touch you.” She shook her head. “That’s no way to live, sweetie.”

She was right, Mike thought. He had been using his father’s betrayal as a way to keep everything and everyone else at a distance. And even with the walls he’d erected around his heart, Jenny had found a way in.

“You never should have been aware of that bump in our marriage,” Peggy said. “And it breaks my heart to see the two of you so far apart.”

Mike looked to his father and in the older man’s eyes, he saw the same sorrow, the same sense of loss that Mike had felt for years. Now he was forced to do some serious thinking. Sean’s words still echoed in his head as he thought back on all the years of sitting in a position of judgment, so sure he was right and everyone else was wrong. He had shut down emotionally. At the ripe old age of thirteen, not knowing anything at all about the world or what adults had to do to survive, he’d made a decision that had affected his entire life.

He had been a kid making a child’s decisions, and he had allowed those decisions to rule him. If he’d once come down off his throne of righteousness and actually
talked
to the people around him, maybe this tightness around his heart could have been eased years ago.

“What happened wasn’t your fault,” his father said carefully. “You were a boy and you reacted how you had to at the time.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, rubbing his eyes to ease the throbbing headache settled behind them. “But I never let go of that decision. An angry, scared, thirteen-year-old boy chose that day to believe that no one could be trusted.”

His father reached out and laid one hand on Mike’s shoulder, and the heavy, solid strength of that touch seemed to ease away the last of that long-ago boy’s resolve. He looked at his dad and said simply, “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” Jack told him. “Parents aren’t supposed to give their kids burdens to carry. And I did that to you. I hurt you, your mother, all of us. It’s something I’ll never forgive myself for.”

Peggy sniffled and swiped tears off her cheeks. “It’s been long enough, hasn’t it?” she asked. “Can we all let it go now and be the family we should be?”

Mike looked at his mother, still holding her husband’s hand as she watched her oldest son with worry and hope at war in her eyes. The old hurts and fears and convictions dropped away, slipping into the past where they belonged, and Mike let them go. He felt as if a weight had been lifted from him and it surprised him to realize just how heavy that burden had been.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling first at his mother and then at his father. “I’d like that.”

Jack grinned, slapped Mike’s shoulder again and then looked at his wife. Peggy gave him a watery smile in return then reached for her son’s hand and held it tightly. “Good. This is good.”

She was right about that. It was good, to get past pain and anger and betrayal. But his father wasn’t the only one he’d judged. Mike thought back to that night in Phoenix when he’d spotted a beautiful blonde in a conference hotel bar. He remembered the rush, the pull toward her, and he remembered the next morning when he’d become judge, jury and executioner without once giving her a chance to explain.

Then those memories morphed into his last image of Jenny, at her house when he accused her of trying to trap him into marriage. He’d done the same damn thing to her all over again.

“Sean’s right,” he muttered. “I am an idiot.”

“What’s wrong, honey?”

He lifted his gaze to his mother’s and sighed. “A lot. I’ve got some thinking to do. About Jenny. The baby.” He stopped, smiled. “And you guys will have to get used to the idea of being grandparents.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Peggy exclaimed with a laugh. “With all the tumult I almost forgot that Jenny’s pregnant!”

“Grandfather?” Jack asked.

“This is wonderful news!” Peggy jumped to her feet and wagged her finger at her son. “I’m making a fresh pot of coffee and you, mister, are going to tell us everything.”

Jack picked up a cookie and handed it to him. “Congratulations. I hope you do a better job of it than I did.”

Mike shook his head and took a bite of the cookie. He’d already made mistakes and his child wasn’t even born yet. “You didn’t do so badly, Dad. But for me, I swear I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

Jack laughed. “Welcome to parenthood. None of us know what we’re doing, Mike. And even trying our very best, we all make mistakes. The trick is to keep trying to fix them.”

* * *

Mike found Sean in his office the next morning. He’d thought about this all night, had worked out just what he wanted to say. But looking into his brother’s unforgiving stare threw him for a second. The two of them had always been close, but now, there was a wedge between them that Mike himself had put there. So it was up to him to tear it out.

“You were right.”

Surprised, Sean waved him to a chair. “Always a good start to a conversation. Continue.”

Mike laughed and sat down. “I’ve been protecting you since we were kids,” he said thoughtfully. He’d had all night to consider this situation from every angle. And no matter how he looked at it, he came off badly. That didn’t sit well with him. “It got to be a habit.”

“Okay,” Sean said, acknowledging that with a nod.

“But it was wrong to lie to you all those years.” Mike sighed, leaned forward and braced his forearms on his thighs. “Whenever you asked me what was wrong between me and Dad, I brushed it off. Covered it up, telling myself you were better off not knowing. So, yeah. I made that call and I shouldn’t have. You’ve been grown-up a long time, Sean, so shutting you out was the wrong call, but you should understand why I did it.”

“You’re really not very good at apologies, are you?”

Grumbling, Mike admitted, “No.”

“Well, points for effort anyway,” Sean said.

“Thanks.” Mike nodded and told him, “I stopped by the house yesterday. Saw Mom and Dad. We talked.”

“And...?”

“And,” Mike said with a rueful smile on his face, “I apparently interrupted an afternoon quickie.”

“Oh, man!” Laughing, Sean covered his eyes with one hand. “I didn’t need to know that.”

“Hey, you’re the one who doesn’t want me lying to him.”

“Discretion, man. There’s a difference between lies and discretion. Look it up.”

Glad things were smoothed out between his brother and him, Mike chuckled. “The point is, we finally straightened everything out. I think things will be all right now, between me and Dad.”

“Good to hear.” Sean sat forward, folded his hands on the desktop.

“They know you know,” Mike said. “I told them that I talked to you about it.”

“Great. When you decide to be honest, you go all out, don’t you?” A half smile curved Sean’s mouth. “Guess I’ll be having a talk with them, too, now. But as long as they’re good together, happy together, I’m fine with it. It’s all their business, Mike. Not mine. Not yours.”

“When did you get so rational?”

“When I grew up,” his brother said. “You missed that, I think.”

“Yeah, looks like.” Mike frowned. “I think I missed a lot.”

“Ah, now we get to the important part of the conversation. Jenny.”

Shooting his brother a hard look, Mike said, “You’ll butt out of what happens to our parents, but I’m fair game?”

“Hell, yes.” Sean grinned. “So, have you talked to her?”

“No.” He still hadn’t called, because talking to her on the phone wouldn’t be enough. He had to look into her eyes, read what she was thinking, feeling.

“Don’t you think you should?” Sean asked. “She’s pregnant with your baby.”

“I don’t need reminding,” Mike said and hopped out of the chair. Walking to the wide window on the far wall, he looked out at the garden and didn’t see a thing. How could he, when his mind was filled with images of Jenny.

“Maybe you do.” Sean waited until his brother looked at him again to continue. “You’ve been in charge of things so long, you’ve forgotten how to just be Mike.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? You talk to Jenny like she’s your employee...”

“She is.”

“She’s more, too,” Sean said. “And it’s the
more
you’re not getting. To get what you really want out of all of this, you’re going to have to get humble.”

Mike snorted. “And you think you know what I want?”

“Yep,” Sean mused. “Don’t you?”

Yeah, he did. He wanted Jenny. In his house. In his bed. He wanted to wake up in the morning reaching for her and have her curl up against him. But “humble” wasn’t the way to get it.

“You can’t just march up to Jenny and order her to forgive you,” Sean said.

“It’s the easiest way,” Mike mumbled.

“Yeah, if you want to tick her off even more.”

He might have a point, but Mike didn’t want to think about it. “Can you handle things here at the office for a few days?”

“Sure,” Sean said. “Why?”

“Because,” Mike said, “I’m going to Laughlin.”

“It’s about time,” Sean told him.

* * *

Early the next afternoon, Jenny stood back from the wall to take an objective look at the finished painting. It was just as she’d imagined it. Hints of danger hidden among the trees, moonlight filtering through the leaves to dapple on the overgrown ground. A river wound through the back of the painting like a silver snake, a moonlit, watery path that only the brave would dare follow. The painting was vaguely menacing and intriguing and set just the right mood for the River Haunt hotel.

The other artists were doing a great job on the murals and already the dining room motif was coming together. Another day or two and they could move upstairs. While the construction crew were mostly huddled in the kitchen finishing the cabinets and the new countertops, Jenny walked through the lobby into what used to be the lounge.

Here, the plan was to have clusters of furniture scattered throughout and several game-playing stations set up, with four-flat screen TVs that invited guests to dive into Celtic Knot games. There would be a bar on the far wall where a battered old piano now stood and one section of the room would be set up with wide tables so guests could also play the role-playing board games as well.

It was going to be a gamer’s paradise, she told herself with a smile. And that wasn’t even taking into account the midnight pontoon rides on the river, where animatronic banshees, ghouls and hunters would lunge from their hiding places onshore. It was all going to be amazing.

Jenny hated knowing that she’d have to quit her job at Celtic Knot. She enjoyed being a part of something so fresh and interesting and fun. But working with Mike now was just impossible. She couldn’t see him every day and know she’d never have him. So she’d do her best on this project and then she’d walk away, head high. And one day, she promised herself, she’d come to the River Haunt hotel as a guest, just so she could see people enjoying what she’d helped to build.

Sighing, she stopped at the piano and idly stroked a few keys. She hadn’t really played since she was a girl and Uncle Hank had paid for the lessons she’d wanted so badly. That phase had lasted more than a year, Jenny remembered, and then she had discovered art and playing the piano had taken a backseat.

For an old instrument, the piano had good tone and as her fingers moved over the keys in a familiar piece from her childhood, the music lifted into the stillness. She sat down on the bench, closed her eyes and let her troubled thoughts slide away as she listened only to the tune she created.

* * *

Mike found her there. A small woman with a halo of golden hair, sitting in a patch of sunlight, teasing beautiful music from a piano that looked as old as time.

His heart gave one quick jolt in his chest. Damn, he’d missed her. Everything in him was drawn to her. How had she become so important to him in so short a time? She was talented, brilliant, argumentative and beautiful, and he wanted her so badly he could hardly breathe. Now that he was here, with her, he wasn’t about to wait another minute to touch her.

Wrapped up in the music that soared around her, she didn’t hear him approach. When Mike laid both hands on her shoulders, she jumped, spinning around on the bench, eyes wide.

“You
scared
me.”

He grinned at the glint in her eyes. He’d even missed her temper. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but with the music, you couldn’t hear me. I didn’t know you played piano.”

“I told you before, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said, and pulled her up from the scarred wooden bench. “But there’s plenty I do know.”

“Like what?” she asked, taking one short step backward.

“Like,” he said, closing the gap between them, “you’re so stubborn you’re probably getting ready to quit your job at Celtic Knot.”

Clearly surprised, she asked, “How did you know that?”

“Wasn’t hard to figure out, Jenny. You think it’ll be too hard for us to work together now.”

“I’m right and you know it, Mike.”

“No. You’re not,” he said, and watched hope bloom in her eyes. Sean had been wrong. All Mike had to do was lay out his plan and she’d see that it was the best thing for everyone. “I think we should work together and more. We both want our baby. We have great chemistry. Passion.”

His hands came down on her shoulders and he drew her closer. Looking down into those blue eyes of hers, he said, “We forget about the past. Let it all go and just move on from here. We’re going to get married, Jenny. It’s the right thing to do. For all of us.”