Courting Chloe (Hudson Valley Heroes Book 1) (11 page)

“It can be dangerous. I know. Prince and I will keep an eye on him.”

He nodded. “All right. Good.” His voice matched his features: flat, empty, drained of all expression and emotion.

Unable to stop herself, Chloe laid a hand on his arm. “Hey,” she said. “What Preston’s going through... his seizures. They’re not your fault. You know that, right?”

She’d meant to comfort him. Instead, she’d done just the opposite.

He jerked away and moved for the door, but not before she saw the look in his eyes. Granted, a seizure was a traumatic event for those who witnessed it. She was accustomed to seeing panic, fear, anxiety—those were the typical emotions that played across the faces of people with children whose illnesses fell in the epileptic spectrum. But not… anger. Not the impotent rage and self-loathing that filled Ian’s gaze.

“You won’t leave him alone? You’ll stay with him?” he said.

“Of course.”

The door shut behind him and he was gone.

Chapter Eleven

Ian washed the last dish and passed it to Chloe, who dried the plate and tucked it away. They’d elected to stay at her place for dinner. Once Preston woke from his post-seizure nap, it had seemed far simpler to assemble and cook everything there, rather than traipse back to their cabin carting all the groceries.

While they’d made dinner Chloe had popped in a Prince CD, introducing Preston to the music of his new dog’s namesake. They’d danced around the kitchen to
1999
and
Little Red Corvette
while the spaghetti boiled and the meatballs baked. It had been a nothing moment, pure silliness, yet it had filled Ian with an unexpected surge of domestic contentment. The cabin was safe, Preston was happy, life was good.

Now that they’d eaten, they dialed the energy down just a bit. He glanced into the living room. Preston was stretched out in a bean bag chair, engrossed in
The Incredibles
, one of the many kid-friendly DVDs Chloe kept in her library. Prince lay curled on the floor beside him, companionably snoozing. Perfect.

The question was how to capture this moment and make it last. That was the dull drum he couldn’t silence, no matter how hard he tried: Fix This. Find a way to end Preston’s seizures. Find the right medication, the right therapy. Figure out how to permanently get their lives back on track. Normal. He just wanted everything normal again.

“All right,” Chloe said, interrupting his morose thoughts, “I’m sorry, but I can’t stand it. I have to ask.” Her gaze fell on his right hand and she gave a helpless laugh. “
Bad?
Really? I thought that was just a purple bruise until I saw it up close. You actually had the word BAD tattooed on your finger? What’s that about—a warning? Letting all the girls know you’re such a bad ass?”

A smile tugged his lips. “Not exactly. And it doesn’t say bad, either.” He rubbed his thumb along the inner knuckle of his ring finger. “It’s B, A, D. Initials.”

“Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere. So it wasn’t just a sixteen-year-old’s adolescent conceit.”

She removed a bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator, then turned and reached into a tall cabinet, standing on tiptoe as she grabbed two wine glasses from an upper shelf. As he had a good seven inches on her, Ian might have offered to help, but the view (her body gracefully twisting, her limbs straining, her t-shirt hiking up to reveal a narrow band of creamy flesh) was so engrossing he didn’t want to interfere.  

Once she’d secured the glasses, he poked around in a drawer for an opener, then sliced through the bottle’s foil wrap and removed the cork with a single swift tug.

“Impressive,” she said.

“I’ve had a little practice.”

“You’re a bartender,” she surmised.

“Among other things. I’ve been a bouncer, a bartender, a floor manager. Now I own a couple of properties, neighborhood bars back in Brooklyn.” He poured a single glass and passed it to her, then put the bottle aside.

She didn’t miss the gesture. “Can I get you something else? I might have a beer tucked away somewhere, or a bottle of red.”

“I don’t drink.”

“You own two bars but you don’t drink.”

“Never touched the stuff.”

“Ever?”

“Just once, actually. The night I got this tattoo.”

She studied him in silence for a beat, then her eyes twinkled playfully and her lips curved. “Now this is getting interesting.” Moving with lithe athleticism, she braced her palms on the kitchen counter behind her and hopped up, sitting atop it. She crossed her ankles, bouncing her heels lightly against a cabinet door. There was nothing remotely suggestive about her posture, yet Ian couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so physically pulled toward another human being. If attraction was magnetic, Chloe Edmonds was pure ferrous cobalt. 

Smiling, she took a sip of her wine, eyeing him over the rim of her glass. “I’m sensing a woman was involved. Probably the first woman to ever break your heart. Am I right?”

“Barbara Ann Donnelly. My sister.”

“Ah.” Her expression changed. Sobered. “She died in the accident that injured Preston?” 

“Yes.”

The moment might have spun into something maudlin, tedious. But Chloe was a far cry from the emotional vampires he’d met since the accident, women who seemed to love to suck the drama dry. She was simply too forthright for that. Maybe it was her medical background, her training in nursing. Whatever the cause, somehow she managed to maintain a demeanor that was both empathetic and straightforward.

“So I suppose my initial impression wasn’t too far off, after all. About your tattoo, that is. It’s like a permanent bruise.”

He brushed his thumb over Barbara’s initials. Although he’d never thought of it that way, there might be some truth there.

She said, “So tell me about that night.”

“Which night?”

“The night you got your tattoo.”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember much of it. From what I was told, I followed the basic belligerent drunken asshole script fairly well. I drank too much, got a tattoo, came on to a woman I didn’t know, got into a fight, broke a barstool or two, spent the night in jail.”

“Rough night.”

Ian took a breath and let it out slowly. Make it light. Keep it upbeat. No big deal. Impossible. Even now he could feel the emotion building. He rubbed his hand along the base of his neck. The muscles there were bunched, knotted.

“There might have been a little karaoke thrown in there as well,” he said. “
Don’t Stop Believing
sung in a tight falsetto—like I said, I don’t really remember.”

Chloe sipped her wine and waited a beat, refusing to allow him to sidestep the moment. “What do you remember?”

He shook his head, debating the depth of his honesty. Finally he said, “Barbara was my twin sister. I was closer to her I than I’ve ever been to anyone in my life. But after she died, when Preston was in the hospital—” He looked away. “I couldn’t feel anything but fury. Just this… all-consuming rage. I couldn’t even grieve; there was no room for it. I needed a release. I guess I thought I’d find it in a bottle. It was the only thing I hadn’t tried.”

He was aware of her steady gaze on him, but he wasn’t ready to meet her eyes. Instead he reached for the empty wine glass and idly rubbed it between his palms, rolling the smooth surface back and forth. Finally he set it aside and looked at her.

“Getting drunk would have been an idiotic response for anyone, but it was particularly stupid for me.”

“Why is that?”

He sighed, dragged a hand through his hair. “Have you ever been to the Jersey Shore?”

She nodded.

              “Then you’ve probably seen those stupid t-shirts they sell there. You know, the ones that say,
Instant asshole. Just add alcohol
. That was our dad. John J. Donnelly.” He shook his head. “The only emotion that came easily to our father was anger. Barb and I endured years of endless bullshit from him, all because of the bottle.”

“I see.” Chloe gave a thoughtful pause. “So naturally, given your background, you decided you wanted to make a living selling alcohol and surrounding yourself with drunks. That makes sense. Good thinking on your part.”

Ian didn’t miss the dry irony in her voice, the censure. Jesus, Chloe Edmonds was astute. “You would have made a good cop,” he said. “Or an IRS auditor.”

“Why bars?” she persisted. “Why didn’t you do something else with your life?”

“I don’t know…it just happened. We were young and stupid when we left home. Barely out of high school. The only things I had going for me were my size and the fact that I knew how to use my fists. I got a job as a bouncer and was good at it. Everything fell into place after that. I moved up the chain, made money, was able to invest in a couple of run-down bars. I fixed them up, hired good people, turned them around.” He rolled his shoulders, working out the kinks. “Anyway, it wasn’t like I had a lot of choices.”

“We all have choices.”

He gave a brusque laugh. “What the hell does that mean?”

“You didn’t just casually fall into the bar business. Frankly, I don’t think you do anything casually. That doesn’t seem like your style. You play to win. You went after it, didn’t you?” She cocked her head to one side, eyeing him shrewdly. “What were you trying to prove?” 

Ian had had this conversation just one other time, and that had been with Barbara. He hadn’t been surprised that his sister had seen through him. But he was more than slightly stunned that Chloe Edmonds had. Had he revealed too much, or was he really that easy to read? He briefly considered shutting down. Gathering up Preston and Prince, thanking her for dinner, and walking away. Then what? Where would that get him?

No. Better to get it over with and out of the way. Confess everything.

Keeping his voice deliberately detached, he said, “My agenda wasn’t any different than any other pissed-off teenage boy, I guess. So fucking desperate to prove I was a better man than my father. That I could be around alcohol and handle it. That it couldn’t touch me. And for a little while I actually believed that. I had money, a flashy car, women, two bars of my own and I was scouting around for a third. I was a big man, a big success—and so goddamned
pleased
with myself.” 

“What happened?”

“It’s an old story, isn’t it? Hubris. Arrogance. Tempting fate, the mighty brought low… all that shit.” Ian studied the ceiling. Flexed his shoulders. Nothing he could do to relieve the tension until he’d purged himself of the rest of the words. “I was driving Barbara and Preston home late one night. We were broadsided going through an intersection. A guy and his wife leaving a dinner party. The guy was so drunk he didn’t see the red light, didn’t see us, didn’t even touch his brakes.”

“And you blame yourself for that?” Chloe looked stricken. “That’s why you were so upset after Preston’s seizure? You think what happened was your fault?”

“Obviously it was my fault. I was driving, wasn’t I? What if I’d just—”

“
What if. What if.”

Until that moment, Chloe had been an attentive, sympathetic listener. Now she gave an impatient growl and thrust herself off the kitchen counter, pacing back and forth between the stove and the refrigerator. “God, I hate those words. Do you have any idea how often I hear them? What if I’d left the house five minutes later? What if she’d been wearing her bike helmet? What if he’d remembered to put the baby gate up in front of the stairs?” She stopped abruptly and looked at him. “If there are any two words in the English language more obscenely cruel than
What if?
I don’t know what they are.”

Ian felt himself go cold, mentally pull back. “You can’t possibly understand until you’ve been through it.”

“Oh, is that right? I can’t possibly understand, huh?” Anger flared in her gaze. “Exactly what do you think I do here week after week? Do you really think your case is different from anyone else’s?” She shook her head, drew in a ragged breath. “What did Matt do to deserve spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair? How about Angie—what was her crime? Was there a reason Olivia lost her sight at the age of twenty-two? Or are they all totally decent people and God just singled you out for punishment?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” he grit out. This wasn’t the way he’d anticipated the conversation would go. It was too raw, too real. He should have walked away earlier, when he’d had a chance. Now there was no way out. Chloe’s words seemed to have a life and a force of their own.

“Ian, listen to me. What happened wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t. We all live in houses with foundations built of sand. But if we’re really lucky, those foundations never come tumbling down and we get to believe all sorts of wonderful things: my marriage is solid. My children are healthy. I have a great job. Everything so perfectly, carefully constructed, until one day there’s a tremble in your pinky finger that you can’t control, an unexplained ache behind your brother’s left eye, a mysterious bruising along the spine of your two-year-old. One guy leaves happy hour convinced he’s perfectly safe to drive. One angry, mentally ill teenager walks into a McDonald’s with a loaded semi-automatic and everything comes crashing down.”

She sounded so much like Barbara it was killing him. So bright and beautiful and compassionate. So achingly honest. It was goddamned fucking killing him. He couldn’t do this. He could not do this.

He clenched his fists at his sides. “I’m not looking for excuses. I just want everything to get back to normal. I want—”

“Ian?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s already starting to get better. Significantly better. Can’t you see that?” Chloe stopped pacing and positioned herself in front of him. She brushed her palms over his arms, as though trying to ease the rigidity from his muscles. “Just look at Preston. Really look at him.”

Ian glanced into the living room. Not much had changed. Preston remained stretched out in the bean bag chair, smiling at something silly happening in the movie. Prince had shifted slightly and now rested his chin on Preston’s thigh. From time to time, Preston idly stroked the dog’s back, which in turn produced a lazy, contented tail thump.