Shooting the Moon (24 page)

“Lauren won’t have to work unless she wants to,” Harley said.

“And you’re going to keep her in comfort, is that right?” her father shot back. “You’re going to maintain her standard of living? With
your
background? With
your
income?”

Harley drew an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her father. “There’s nothing wrong with my income,” he said. “You can see for yourself.”

“What’s this?” her father asked.

“Just a little something I had my manager fax me this morning.”

Her father opened the envelope, withdrew the documents inside, and smoothed them out so he could read them. Then he looked up at Harley, an expression of stunned surprise on his face. “This is a Profit and Loss Statement.”

“It’s
my
Profit and Loss Statement.”

“But…this says you own the Harley Davidson dealership in Burlingame, California.”

“I do. It also says I’m worth about five million dollars. Is that enough?”

Lauren felt her jaw drop. Harley was rich? He
owned
the dealership in California? “But you told me you were a salesman,” she said, confused.

“I never told you I was a salesman,” he said.

“But you let me think you didn’t have any money. Why?”

Harley scowled and ran a hand through his hair. “You said it earlier. Money doesn’t matter. I’m still the man I was ten years ago. And—”

“And what?” she prompted.

“And I think I wanted you from the moment you opened that door. If I was finally going to be good enough, I didn’t want it to be because of the money.”

Her father shoved the Profit and Loss Statement back at Harley. “You
are
still the man you were ten years ago. If Lauren’s willing to let you use her to get to Brandon, that’s up to her, but I’m not going to make the same mistake.”

“God, you always look for the worst in people,” Harley said. “I’m not marrying Lauren to get to Brandon. I’m his
father.
I’ll press my suit in either case. I’m marrying Lauren because…” He glanced at her. “I’m in love with her,” he finished, lowering his voice. “And I plan to do everything I can to make her happy.”

“As if you
could
—” Quentin began, but Marilee, who’d been standing silent and wringing her hands, stopped him by putting a restraining hand on his arm.

“Didn’t you hear that, Quentin?” she said. “Aren’t you listening? He loves Lauren. He loves our little girl.”

“I don’t care if he loves the man in the moon! We lost Audra because of him!”

“We lost Audra because of Audra,” Marilee said. “Will you let what happened ten years ago cost us another daughter?”

Quentin opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Looks like it already has,” he muttered. “But I won’t let it cost us our grandson, too.”

“Then stop shoving them all away,” she said. “Brandon’s talked about nothing but Harley since we returned. It’s obvious where his heart is. As soon as he’s old enough, he’ll leave us and go to them. We’re just his grandparents and we don’t hold the same appeal. That’s only natural. But Harley
is
Brandon’s father, and Lauren—” she paused “—well, Lauren’s his mother in every sense of the word. You should know that better than anyone.”

Lauren felt her knees go weak. She’d never seen her mother contradict her father before and doubted Quentin would tolerate it…but he did. He stood silent, his chest rising and falling as he stared at his wife. Suddenly all the fight seemed to drain out of him.

“You’re right,” he said at last. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You’re right.” And then he left the room.

Her mother frowned as she watched him go. Turning back to Lauren, she said, “I’ll have Brandon’s bags packed.” Her voice was resolute. “When will you be coming for him?”

“Is Friday after school okay?”

She nodded.

“Will you and Dad come to Vegas with us for the wedding?” Lauren asked.

Her mother cast another glance in the direction her father had disappeared. “Probably not,” she said. “Your father’s going to need some time to adjust to this, and I’m going to be here with him until he’s ready—provided he doesn’t take too long. You,” she said to Harley, “promise me you’ll take good care of my daughter and grandson, and that the three of you will come back and stay with us for Thanksgiving.”

“I promise,” Harley said.

Lauren smiled despite the tears streaming down her face. “Thanks, Mom.”

“I love you, honey,” she said. “Be happy.”

“D
O YOU THINK
you can come over tonight?” Scott asked Brandon just after the afternoon bell rang.

Brandon started gathering his books from his desk. “I hope so. I don’t like being home without Lauren. My grandma doesn’t know what to do with me. She keeps baking cookies and bringing them to my room and asking me if I want this or that, but I don’t want anything, except for Lauren to come back.”

“I thought you wanted to move to California with your father.”

Brandon shrugged. “I think my dad’s really cool. But I’ve never lived with him before. I don’t know what it’s going to be like. And I’ll miss Lauren even if she lives in the same city.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder and followed Scott out of the classroom, then grimaced when he nearly bumped into Travis and Theo hurrying down the hall.

“Thanks for getting me suspended, Worthington,” Theo said as they pushed toward the front steps, along with everyone else.

“I got put on restriction because of you,” Travis added, glowering. “Just because you’re so touchy about being a
bastard.
”

“Shut up,” Brandon said, “or I’ll land you on restriction again.”

“The fight was your fault, anyway,” Scott told them. “That guy by the fence last week
was
Brandon’s dad. I’ve met him. I’ve even ridden on his motorcycle.”

“And you think I’m stupid enough to believe that?” Travis rolled his eyes. “You’d say anything, Torrin. You’re his best friend.”

“Scott isn’t lying,” Brandon insisted, cutting the other
two boys off just as they exited the school. The rest of the children continued to flow around them, rushing off to catch their rides home, but Brandon wasn’t in any hurry to meet up with his grandfather. He was tired of Theo and Travis’s taunts and the snickering they’d done earlier in class, when they kept whispering the “b” word at him. He wanted to shut them up once and for all. After everything that had happened at home, getting suspended a second time seemed like the least of his problems.

“You’d better quit bothering me,” he said.

“Or what?” Travis said. “You’ll fall and get a bloody nose again?”

Theo started laughing and Brandon shucked off his backpack.

“Don’t,” Scott warned him, grabbing his arm. “Come on, school’s out. Let’s go home and see if my mom’ll take us miniature golfing.”

“I don’t want to go miniature golfing,” Brandon said, jerking away. “I want to make these guys mind their own business.”

“Ooh, I’m scared,” Theo said.

“You think you can do that, Worthington?” Travis asked.

“I’m ready to try,” he replied and drew back to give Theo a bloody nose this time, but a large male hand cupped his fist and stopped its forward motion.

“What’s going on here?”

It was his father. Brandon immediately recognized the voice and blinked up at Harley in surprise, then dropped his fist to his side. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

“I came to give you a ride home on the bike.”

“But Grandpa—”

“Gave his permission. So did Lauren. Only I don’t like what I’m seeing. This looks like another fight about to happen.”

“It wasn’t Brandon’s fault,” Scott volunteered. “They were calling him a bastard again, just like before.”

Eyes widening, Theo and Travis took a step backward. “We didn’t mean it,” they said. “We were just having fun.”

“Fun?” his father echoed, disgust apparent on his face. “So, you think it would be fun if Brandon called
you
names?”

They shook their heads. “No, sir.”

“And they said you weren’t Brandon’s father, that a guy like you wouldn’t want Brandon for a son,” Scott piped up.

Brandon stared down and scuffed his tennis shoe against the cement. Some of the last stragglers leaving the school were hanging around, hoping to find out what was going on; Melissa Hayes was one of them. He didn’t want her to see him getting in trouble again, didn’t want her to hear what Travis and Theo had been calling him. But he was penned in on all sides and couldn’t think of a quick escape.

“Well, now we know these guys don’t have a clue about anything,” his father was saying as he put a hand on Brandon’s shoulder. “Because Brandon’s about the best son a guy like me could have.”

“Sorry,” Travis mumbled.

“We didn’t mean anything by it,” Theo added.

And when Brandon said goodbye to Scott and climbed onto the back of his father’s bike a few minutes later, Melissa waved at him.

B
RANDON FELT BETTER
than he had in a long time. He’d known he would, if only he could be with Lauren. It felt pretty great that his dad was there, too. And the fact that Lauren wasn’t making him do his homework right away didn’t hurt, either.

“It’s your turn,” his aunt said as she tossed a nine of
spades onto the middle of the bed they were sitting on in her hotel room. “Don’t forget that the queen isn’t out yet.”

Brandon checked his cards. The queen wasn’t out because he was holding it, on purpose. They’d played three hands already, and he’d lost all three, but he was only losing by twenty points. If he could shoot the moon he’d win the game. He frowned, wondering if his hand was good enough. He didn’t have a lot of high cards, but he did have the ace and the king of hearts. The rest was mostly one suit, which improved his chances…

“Brandon?” his father prompted. Fortunately, Harley was just learning the game. Because he didn’t really know all the rules, there was a possibility he might not realize what Brandon was trying to do until it was too late.

What the heck,
he thought. He’d go for it. He threw one of his lowest spades on the pile to get rid of it before any of the point cards came out, and his father took the trick and led with a five of clubs. Then it was Lauren’s turn, but she was looking at him in a funny way, as though she wasn’t really paying attention to the game, and Brandon wasn’t sure he liked that. It made him nervous to see her preoccupied. Come to think of it, she’d been acting strange all afternoon….

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No, why?” she said.

“Because you keep looking at my dad, and he keeps looking at you, and you sort of smile when he does, and…I don’t know. Something’s different.”

His aunt glanced at Harley
again,
who nodded for her to continue, and she put her cards facedown in front of her. “Brandon, your father and I have something we want to tell you.”

Oh, no. He’d asked for it. What now? “What is it? Is it time to go home already?” he asked, knowing by the
tone of her voice that it wouldn’t be so simple. He just didn’t want to hear anything upsetting.

“No.”

“Then what? Is Grandpa mad at us? Did he and Grandma really give us permission to be together?”

“That’s not it, either,” she said. “They gave us permission. As a matter of fact, they’ve given their permission for us to be together from now on.”

This came as a surprise. Finally Brandon folded his own cards and forgot all about the strategy he’d been planning to use later in the game. “So they’re going to let us move to California?”

Lauren nodded.

“That was quick. I thought you said it would take a while.”

“It would have, if Grandpa and Grandma hadn’t agreed. Fortunately for all of us, they did. But there’s been one…small change to what we talked about.”

Brandon felt his stomach tense. What kind of change? Most of the changes lately hadn’t been good ones. “What’s that?” he asked hesitantly.

“Your father and I are going to get married.”

“Married?” he echoed, looking from one to the other.

“Is that okay with you?” Lauren asked.

He swallowed, feeling a flutter of excitement he was afraid to trust. “When?”

“Soon. This weekend in Vegas. We want you to be there. And we want you to come and live with us.” She searched his face before continuing, “And if you’d like this as much as I would, I want to adopt you, to be your mom instead of just your aunt.”

“Really?” he said.

“Really.”

“We’d still go to California?”

“Yes. Your father owns a Harley Davidson dealership out there, so he’ll be pretty busy, but I’ll be taking care
of you during the days, just like always. And he’ll be with us whenever he’s not at work….”

“And I’ll work from home a lot,” his father said, “or take you and Lauren with me. When you get older, you can work at the dealership if you want. And we’d like to have other children so you’ll have some brothers and sisters.”

“Wow, a real family,” Brandon breathed. He’d have a mom
and
a dad. And brothers and sisters. Just like the kids at school. Life couldn’t get any better than that.

A smile stretched across his face, a smile that felt wider than any he remembered, and he shoved the cards aside in favor of giving Lauren and his father a big hug. “I’d like that,” he said. “I’d really like that.”

His father ruffled his hair and kissed Lauren’s temple, and they made plans together for the next hour. They were going to live in a big house not far from San Francisco. Brandon would go to a school that was just as good as Mt. Marley, his father said, and he was going to fly back and see Scott over the summer. And they’d spend Thanksgiving with Grandma and Grandpa Worthington. He even got to call and talk to Harley’s mom, his new grandmother.

“Are you ready to finish the game?” Lauren asked, when he’d hung up and they’d finally stopped dreaming about what it was going to be like.