The Rebel's Return (Red River) (10 page)

He let out a grunt. “I don’t think so.”

She reached out for his hand. “It means so much to him that you’re here, that you’re not letting him go through this alone. I think he has a hard time saying it and regrets so much. He doesn’t know how to act now.”

He stared at her and his eyes softened slightly. “I don’t even know what I’m doing. He’s going through hell…old memories. My mom.” He ran his hand over his face. “He misses her. He’s afraid of dying.” His voice caught slightly on that last part, and Natalia reached out to grab his hand.

“He’s going to be okay.”

Aiden gave a nod, at once looking formidable and vulnerable. “I spent so much of my life hating him, and now…he’s just this man who screwed up, you know? And hell if I don’t see myself in him, and that’s what scares me the most.”

She squeezed his hand. “Yes, there are similarities, but there are differences, too. You fixed up your life, at a much younger age.”

He shrugged. “But what if I had been him? What if I had been married to someone…that I loved more than anything, and she died? How do I know that I wouldn’t fall apart and screw up my kids?”

She quickly blinked back her tears, but it was hard, because she wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him. She wanted to comfort the man, the boy.

“Natalia, if you and I—”

She shook her head and then reached out to hug him. His arms went around her instantly, and he buried his face in her neck. She felt the shudder that wracked his hard body and held on tighter, she was falling for him all over again. She quickly pulled out of his arms.

“We should probably eat before it gets cold,” she whispered.

He opened the packages of food, and they started eating. Natalia knew she was falling for the one guy she swore she’d never give a second chance to.

…

“Do you remember that night after the Christmas Fest?”

His eyes locked onto hers, and he could swear they were right back there. How could he have forgotten that night? No woman had ever come as close to reaching his soul, or making him believe he had a soul, than Nat. She’d always had an innocence to her, or maybe it was an awareness, an insight that he had always lacked. She’d always believed in him. She’d always seen the good in him. Until he’d destroyed her.

He didn’t know what he was even doing. All he knew was that being back in Red River made him forget all the reasons he couldn’t be with Natalia. It made him want to believe that they could find a way to make it work.

“Of course I remember,” he said, clearing his throat.

“It was here. The old house.”

He grinned. “That’s why I wanted this place. That barn is in every single dream I’ve ever had about you,” he said, watching her eyes warm, and her cheeks turn a darker pink. He had no idea how he’d managed to earn her faith in him. She’d been a play-by-the-rules kind of girl. And she’d broken almost all of them to be with him. If her father had known they’d broken into this abandoned house every weekend…

“Me, too,” she whispered.

“So you dreamed about me?”

He expected her to flip him off or give a sarcastic retort, but she didn’t. Tears filled her eyes for a second, and she blinked rapidly until they almost disappeared. “I’ve thought about you every single day since you left. I thought about you. I cried for you. I wondered how my instincts could have been so wrong. I thought about that night—about how close we came to giving in to what we both wanted most. I regretted not sleeping with you. I blamed myself,” she whispered.

That was it for him. He swallowed up the space between them until he was within inches of her, and when he saw her pulse race at the base of her neck, he took that remaining space and framed her soft face with his hands. She didn’t move from him, she moved into him. But he needed to speak before he kissed her. “Not having you was the most difficult thing in the world. But you were worth waiting for, and I’d do it all over again. You were in no way responsible for what I did. That was all on me. The truth was that you were, and always will be, too good for me, Nat. The truth is that you were the best thing that ever happened to me. The truth is that you fill every fantasy I’ve ever had about a woman.”

He lowered his mouth and finally felt the lips that he knew so well. He kissed her softly, slowly at first, because he wanted to savor the moment he’d wanted so badly for so long. She tasted like he remembered. Sweet, like icing sugar and Natalia. Her lips fit his. He pulled her closer, so that her curves fit against him and suddenly, he couldn’t do slow anymore. Her hands climbed his chest, and she tugged him down closer, making a sweet moan as his tongue entered her mouth, tasting, claiming what had always been his. Soon that wasn’t enough. He backed her against the wall, and she squirmed against him. He let his hands roam her curves, taking all that she offered.

Somewhere deep in his subconscious, guilt started chipping through his desire-clouded head. The words he’d said to Natalia were all true, but…could he give her what she wanted? Could he move back here, start a family with her, live a life that he didn’t know he was capable of living? Five years down the road, if something happened, how would he be able to handle it? Would he be a good father? A good husband? Or would he cave like his dad? What if he turned into an alcoholic and hurt her…again, but only so much worse?

He pulled back from the only woman he’d ever loved. Her eyes slowly opened, still cloudy with desire, her lips swollen, her cheeks flushed. God, if it were anyone else, he wouldn’t have stopped. “Aiden?” she whispered.

He closed his eyes for a second and then gently disengaged himself, putting a healthy distance between them. She immediately wrapped her arms around herself and wariness entered her eyes.

“Nat, I, uh…” He stopped to clear his throat, but she was already standing.

“Don’t even say it. It’s written all over your face. You’re about to screw me over a second time aren’t you?”

He had to look away for a moment because the hatred in her eyes made his stomach churn. “I’m not saying that. I just don’t want to do something we’re going to regret.”

“So you’d regret sleeping with me?”

He shook his head. “Uh,
never
. But I don’t want you to regret it. I know what you want. You want the house, the kids, the family, right?”

“Is that wrong?”

“Of course not.”

“You just can’t give it to me.”

“I’m not saying that.”

“So in the ten years that you stayed away, you couldn’t figure out if you wanted a family or not?”

He ran his hands down his face and searched for the words to explain something he didn’t even understand. “I have a shitty relationship with my dad. Coming back here, seeing him all the time…starting a family…it makes me feel claustrophobic.”

She was going to attempt to beat the shit out of him. It was probably better than tears. But then he deserved that torture, too.

“So starting a relationship with me makes you feel claustrophobic?”

He shook his head. “No…but I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.”

She smiled at him, and he wondered what was happening. “Oh right, because you’re the fabulous, irresistible Aiden McCann, and you don’t want to hurt poor little Natalia again. No worries, buddy, I’m outta here.”

“Nat,” he groaned catching her wrist and holding her still. She didn’t turn around.

“Unless you’re about to tell me that you aren’t chicken, and that you know you want me, let go of my hand.”

He couldn’t speak for a moment. She had a big heart, and she loved those closest to her with a fierce desperation, always wanting to believe the best of them—and that extended to him, especially at one time, and he was disappointing her again. “Aiden.”

He stared at her, and the backs of his eyes burned. He couldn’t handle what being back in this town meant. The pressure. He’d have to see the man who reminded him of loss and neglect of his childhood every day. He’d have to forgive him. All the freedom he felt from moving away from Red River would be gone. He’d left this town, ashamed, filled with hate and regret. He couldn’t come back…even for Natalia. And if he let her in completely…and something happened to her, he knew he wouldn’t survive. He wasn’t the man she needed. He cleared his throat. “Let me take you home.”

Chapter Eleven

Week Seven.

Okay so this was the week that all her training was for. This was the week it should all come together. Natalia adjusted the hoodie on her raincoat, glad that she’d splurged for the one that covered her from her head to her knees. She glanced down at her running shoes, making sure they were tied—it would be her luck to trip and fall when she was so close to actually completing her running program after so many failed attempts.

She took a deep breath and looked straight ahead, the path on her favorite river trail filled with puddles but otherwise empty. The clouds were gray and the sky was the same, but in many ways that was perfect. She loved the rain, and she had always admired the dedication of runners when she’d see them out here, splashing through puddles.

She was not going to think of Aiden, except she didn’t think of anyone but Aiden. And then she cried like a baby all night. She was an idiot. She would have to see him tonight at the wedding. She had avoided her brother and Sabrina. She avoided speaking to anyone—she was so embarrassed.

Okay, Nat. Enough dillydallying.
She glanced down at her phone, started the app, and began a brisk walk, just like the woman’s smug voice instructed. No one was going to break her. She was done with men—once again. She needed to face the facts—she was a woman destined to be alone. Really, there were so many advantages to that. She could lead a fulfilling life in the apartment she rented from her parents. She could eat loads of cannoli—no, she would never eat cannoli again. She would switch to tiramisu. Much better because it even had alcohol in it. So there, she could pour copious amounts of alcohol all over the already-rich tiramisu and sit on her couch and watch movies on Saturday nights.

She forced herself to walk, even though she realized she was doing more of a march.

Damp fall air surrounded her, along with the fog, as she began her half-hour journey. Inevitably, her thoughts went back to Aiden. She squeezed her eyes shut and then remembered she needed to keep them open in order to avoid catastrophic injuries. She kept her gaze focused on the horizon as the irritating prompt in her ear told her it was time to jog. She had this.

The wedding was tomorrow. Aiden would be leaving at the end of the weekend. Ugh. Aiden again. She needed to stop thinking about him. The thought of him rejecting her again filled her with an intense feeling of loss. It shouldn’t. She’d braced herself—she had thought she’d guarded her heart. She had known he wasn’t the guy to settle. But God, she didn’t want him to leave her life again. Somewhere along the way she’d learned to trust him again. That was stupid, right? She’d been burned twice, badly. Here she was ready to trust the only man who’d ever broken her spirit. But, even now, he knew her. After all these years, he had to walk back into her life and with one look, one smile, a tilt of his head, a flash of dimple…and then he’d let her down.

She was shocked when the prompt told her it was time to walk. She stared, incredulous, at the screen on her display. She had jogged for fifteen minutes. She also wasn’t dying. Out of breath, but not on the verge of collapse. She walked for two minutes and then started jogging again.

Get your cute ass on the back of my bike.

Okay, so now it was getting difficult to breathe. That was the single best memory she’d had since Aiden had left town years ago. The way he spoke—his gruff voice with that unmistakable tenderness made her palms sweat, heat invade her body, and made her have premature hot flashes. She would have gotten on that bike and gone anywhere. The feel of his hard body against hers, the feeling of safety and adventure in one. No one had ever been able to give that to her.

But then the whole
I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep
line obliterated all feelings of desire and love. He had basically told her she wasn’t worth changing for. How could she have the rest of her life together and screw up like this again?

When the prompt told her it was time for a cooldown, she couldn’t believe it. She walked, her thoughts trapped in Aiden-land. Was he partly responsible for her newfound ability to jog? Thoughts of him were so intense, she actually forgot the time.

Or maybe it was time for a newfound independence. She had spent so many years wondering what was wrong with her. Instead, she should have been thinking: what’s wrong with everyone else? She shouldn’t be embarrassed for what she believed in. She shouldn’t be apologetic for wanting to do the right thing. If it made other people uncomfortable, then that was their problem, not hers.

She was done hiding. She was done faking everything. She could freaking jog, so she could do anything. She purposely stepped in a few puddles, breathed in the air with a renewed sense of purpose. The waterfront trail she had conquered. Her inability to build stamina was actually false. She had stamina. She had guts. She was going to go after what she wanted, and wherever that path took her, she’d be able to deal with it.

…

He was an ass of the worst kind, the kind that broke the same woman’s heart for a second time. Aiden glanced over at his father and tried to remember this day was about his father. It was Friday, his last day of radiation. His old man had made it through with flying colors.

“You must be relieved, eh, Dad?”

His father looked up at him and kind of shrugged. The truth was his dad had been kind of crusty all morning, not really what he’d have expected on the last day. When they called his name, he stood and walked into the radiation room without even a backward glance or a good-bye. Aiden hunched forward in his seat, glad there was no one else in the small waiting room this morning. He braced his forearms on his thighs and immediately let his thoughts wander to Natalia. She was probably busy today, running around doing last-minute errands for her cousin’s wedding tomorrow. He had no idea how the hell he’d face her tomorrow night. But that would be the last time in a long time he’d have to see her.

“Hey.”

Aiden looked up, shocked when he heard his brother’s voice. He stood up to greet Dylan. “What are you doing here, man?”

His brother shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess some of what you said got through to me. It’s a big deal. Maybe it’ll mean something to him that I’m here.”

Aiden slapped him on the back, happier than he thought was possible, given the fact that he’d screwed up so badly with Natalia. But he was happy for his dad. “He’ll be happy.”

Dylan nudged his chin out in the direction of the room their dad had gone in. “He in there?”

Aiden nodded. “He should be out any minute.”

Dylan nodded. “Thanks for doing this. We kind of made a joke about it, and you lost the coin toss, but I know I saddled you with this.”

Aiden didn’t say anything for a moment. “Yeah, well, you got saddled with a kid brother who was a notorious screwup. I guess I owed you.”

“Maybe we can take him out for lunch or something?” Dylan asked.

Aiden nodded. “That’d be good. You coming back to Red River?”

Dylan shook his head. “I think I’ll just go back to work after.”

Their dad appeared and froze, his gaze locked on Dylan. Aiden’s chest constricted when he saw tears in their father’s eyes. He walked forward slowly, looking thin and shaky in his hospital gown, and stood by the horn.

“Come on, Mr. McCann, this is your moment!” The nurse stood behind their father, beaming, and waited.

Their dad still didn’t do anything.

“What’s going on?” Dylan whispered to him.

“On the last day of radiation, you’re supposed to honk the horn. I don’t know what he’s waiting for.”

Their father just kept staring at them. Then their dad grinned and honked the horn. And then honked it again. And again. People stared. The nurse looked worried, like maybe he was going nuts.

“Holy crap, is he supposed to keep honking?” Dylan asked.

Aiden laughed. He had never seen their dad that happy. They walked forward, and their dad finally stopped honking the horn. “Congratulations,” Aiden said.

“Yeah, congratulations,” Dylan repeated.

Their father stepped forward, grin still on his face, and clutched both of their arms. “Thanks, boys.”

Aiden slammed the door and walked into his father’s house. To say he was pissed off was putting it mildly. After the hospital, things went downhill fast. His brother and father barely spoke. He’d actually had to play the role of peacekeeper. He didn’t know how Nat did it, because he barely made it through lunch.
Him
as the peacekeeper didn’t work. Fine—they all had their issues, but he had the most at the moment, because of his perpetual screwing up.

He was letting Natalia down again. Marriage. Kids. Settling down in Red River. It’s not that he didn’t want that. It’s that he doubted himself. Was he enough for her? Could he be good enough for her? Could he be the husband she needed? Could he be the father he wished he’d had as a kid?

Hell, he didn’t know, but he did need to figure it out, fast.

“Hey! Don’t slam the door, I’m trying to watch TV.” That was the other thing. His dad. Being in Red River meant spending a helluva lot more time with his dad. He had very mixed feelings about that. Yes, things had gotten a lot less tense between them, but they were nowhere close to being good. Natalia’s family would be inviting him to all sorts of family events. Sunday lunch at the Puccini house. How was he going to sit with his father every Sunday with his in-laws on one side of the table and his father at the other? Just the thought of it made it feel like the walls were closing in on him.

And what about Dylan? Was he going to ditch him? He owed his brother everything, more than his father. His brother had looked out for him, practically raised him. He’d feel betrayed if Aiden told him he was moving back to Red River.

“Hey! Come in here.”

Aiden muttered under his breath and walked into the family room. Sure enough, his dad was sitting in his favorite chair. “Where were you tonight?”

“Out.”

“Where?”

Aiden scowled at him. “Seriously? You didn’t give a rat’s ass where I was when I was a teenager. It might have been nice at that stage to have a dad who gave a crap. It’s a little late now that I’m over thirty.”

His father looked pissed. It didn’t take much. “Go back to the city, Aiden.”

What the hell? He was in the mood for a fight. “I don’t get you, you’re just never happy. No matter what we do. I’m here. I’m here for seven weeks driving you back and forth, and you give me crap all the time for everything.”

His dad grunted. “Yeah? You wanted to come here? You and your no-good brother flipped a coin to see who was going to come and help me. Nothing says love like that.”

“Love? When the hell did you ever show us love? Was love when you left your bottle of Scotch on the table to greet us when we got home from school? Or your leather belt looped around the top of the chair in the kitchen?”

“You boys were out of control. What the hell else was I supposed to do?”

He threw up his hands. “Maybe talk to us?”

He expected his father to yell back at him, but he jerked his head toward the television. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“Really? I think some parents start with ‘how was your day.’”

His dad rubbed his hands over his face. “And what if you told me it was a bad day because you missed your mother? Or it was a bad day because I didn’t pack you a lunch. Or maybe it was a bad day because I was a lousy father.”

He stared at his father, who was still not looking at him. His chest felt tight as he really looked at him. Took in the thinned-out hair, the slightly ashen skin. The thin shoulders, the hunched posture. The lines on his face. Time had passed. He’d left home years ago, and even though he knew he was older, he physically hadn’t felt the passage of time. But standing here, looking at his father who was now battling cancer, he realized how much those years had impacted his father. They had given him bus tickets to come and visit. He had. Twice. They called, maybe once a month just to check in. Guilt stabbed him in the gut, and he was pissed off. His dad had been a negligent father, so why was he feeling guilty? Because of their mother? She probably wouldn’t have been too happy about the fact that they’d left. And if she’d still been around, they never would have stayed away for so long or let so much time go between phone calls.

He cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the lump that had formed. “We missed Mom every day.”

“I was a poor replacement for her.”

“No one expected you to be her, but we expected you to at least honor her, and you didn’t. You basically pissed on the family she built.”

His father hung his head, and he fought past the guilt of speaking to him this way. But if he was going to get anywhere, he had to get this out there.

“You’re right.” He reached for the bottle of whiskey that always sat on the side table, but Aiden intercepted.

“Are you freaking kidding me?”

His father scowled. “You’re telling me I’m a crappy father. What, I can’t have a drink?”

He held onto the bottle tightly. “You told us we were crappy kids.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Well, hell, Dad, it’s a little late for that now, don’t you think? We bought you a damn Beemer, and you refused to drive it.”

His father leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I only drive American.”

What was the point of this conversation? “You know what? Never mind,” he said, backing away from him. Maybe he’d just take the bottle up to his room and drink until he fell asleep.

His dad flung up his hands. “I didn’t deserve the car—that’s why I’m not driving it. What the hell did I do to deserve that car? My boys make more money than their old man. I was a lousy father.”

Ah, hell. Aiden looked down at his feet. He tried remembering when he was really little, tried to remember his mother’s voice, his father’s voice, when they were a real family. God, how he tried, but he’d been so little. He knew what she looked like because of the pictures. Dylan remembered her better. He just always remembered that he didn’t have a mom. And yeah, he remembered that his father was a lousy dad. He’d been a hard-ass. They’d rarely had conversations.