The Rebel's Return (Red River) (4 page)

His father’s pupils dilated, and had Aiden been a kid still, he’d probably have run in the other direction fearing his belt would be peeled off his pants. His father opened his mouth but stopped, his eyes going to the door. Aiden followed suit.

Natalia was standing there, glaring at him. God, she was the most beautiful thing he’d seen all day. She’d always been like that, a balm healing his wounds at a crappy time in his life. Except now she looked like she was going to inflict wounds instead of healing them. He released his grip on the door, and Eunice burst into his arms. Jeezus.

“Still up to your old tricks, Aiden?” Eunice said too loudly and too closely.

“Aiden, people need to be able to come and go from the bakery. This isn’t the place to stage a protest,” Natalia said with a huff. She could pretty much say whatever she damn well pleased, because the sound of her voice, pissy but still holding a soft lilt, reminded him of what he’d been missing. Then there was her hair, dark, shiny, piled up on her head, looking totally out of control making him want to run his fingers through it and pull her close. Then there was her mouth—that was currently in a frowning position, but a delicious muted red, which made him want to kiss her until she moaned against his lips and whispered his name in a plea, begging him for more. She was standing behind the counter, packing up an order of cannoli. It seemed the entire town was able to get some except him.

He cleared his throat and gripped Mrs. Jacobs’s shoulders, gently but firmly distancing himself from the woman, then looked at Nat. “Sorry. Not trying to impede business, just having a discussion with my father.”

She ignored him and focused her gaze on his dad. “Mr. McCann, I was about to start on your cappuccino. Did you miss your walk?”

His father swaggered over to the counter and then leaned against it as though he owned the place. “Apparently I had to go to the doctor.”

“No cannoli for him today. Yes to the capp. I’ll eat the cannoli,” he called out.

Her eyes narrowed on him. “That’s mean.”

Mrs. Jacobs nodded while his father chuckled. He was going to kill his brother for leaving him to deal with this on his own. Fine. If his father was going to play that game, then he wasn’t going to hide anything. “We’re back from the doctor’s. He’s diabetic.”

Mrs. Jacobs gasped as though this news was somehow earth-shattering for her.

Natalia looked sympathetic and patted his hand. “Oh, Mr. McCann. Don’t you worry, my dad has it, too. Have a seat. I’ll make you a cappuccino and then let you try the new biscotti I made especially for diabetics, okay?”

His father smiled like a child, and he was relieved.

“Speaking of your father, is, uh, he around?” Aiden asked, his gaze darting around the place. He ignored his father’s snicker.

Natalia’s eyes narrowed on him. “He’ll be here momentarily. Maybe Dominic, too.”

Dammit. The two people he was avoiding. Well, he wasn’t a coward. He’d deal with them and be civil. It bothered him a little to think he didn’t belong in this town anymore. He’d come back knowing that, but being here, around Nat, made him wish things could be different. Hell, he hated wishing for things. Kids wished for things—not adults who’d made fools of themselves. Acting on his feelings for Nat would mean taking a serious look at his life. He’d vowed never to come back to Red River permanently, but starting up again with Natalia would force him to decide whether to break that promise. It would mean having to open old wounds with his dad again. He’d have to see him daily probably. He realized he functioned best when he was far away from his father.

His phone rang, and he slipped it out of his pocket, checking the display. It was Dylan. He was probably wondering what the doctor had said. Speaking to his brother was a legitimate excuse for getting out of this potential reunion roast that was about to happen. He turned to leave only to find himself face-to-face with Dominic and Mr. Puccini. It was like a stone wall made up of overprotective Italian men. Neither father nor son said a word, but they both stood side by side, arms crossed, death glares set on him.

He cleared his throat and extended his hand to the senior Puccini. He wasn’t entirely sure the man with the brown-eyed death glare would accept it. After a moment, he did. “Nice to see you again, sir.”

Mr. Puccini gave him an almost imperceptible nod before walking into the back of the shop, which left him alone with his ex-best friend, Dominic, who was now, judging by the uniform he was sporting…a cop?

“Hey, Dom.”

Dominic gave him a similar look to his father. He was tall, built, and his stare was more intimidating than the weapons he was carrying. Not that Aiden had let on that he was intimidated. Dominic stood a little straighter. “Aiden.”

And then he turned around and walked out the door. Aiden stood there a moment, his back to the crowd of people in the bakery. The sting of being rejected by the guy who’d once been his best friend filled his gut with lead. No one seemed to notice or care; their voices, their laughter, wafting around like they were part of some club that didn’t include him. The sound of his father’s laughter was foreign to him. They all had a life here, one that didn’t include him anymore. That was his own fault.

He started for the door, aware there wasn’t one person in there that would even try and stop him from leaving. He glanced over his shoulder, and his stomach clenched as he made eye contact with Nat. She wasn’t laughing. She was standing behind the counter, her dark brown eyes on him. He didn’t stay long enough to figure out if she looked sympathetic or angry.

He walked out, the urge to at least make an attempt at speaking to Dominic seeming worth it.
“Dominic,” he called out. His gut twisted tighter. He hadn’t had a conversation with the guy he’d been inseparable with as a kid and early teen in years. Dom had been like another brother. He’d had his head screwed on properly, though, and had had no problem steering clear of Aiden when he’d turned into a screwup. It wasn’t a surprise he was a cop now.

Dominic stopped outside John’s Diner and Aiden wondered if he was going to keep walking. Finally, he slowed and turned. Dominic had always looked like he could beat the crap out of anyone if he were pissed off. He stalked back toward the bakery. Aiden held his ground. He wasn’t the same kid anymore, he wasn’t the same screwup, and Dominic still blamed him for things that he hadn’t been responsible for.

“Yeah?” Dominic said.

“I’m going to be back in town for a few weeks. Maybe we can get a beer sometime?”

His friend’s dark eyes narrowed slightly. “I would’ve thought you’d quit drinking.”

He stood a little straighter. He wasn’t going to get insulted. He deserved it. “I was never an alcoholic.”

Dominic nodded slightly. “You’ve seen my sister.”

His sister. The unforgettable image of Natalia trying to murder him with her dark eyes filled him. “I ran into her at my dad’s place.”

“She feels bad for him since he’s all alone.”

The censure in his friend’s voice made him bristle. “Well, not everyone is born into a giant Italian family with cousins and grandparents and siblings to help raise kids. My dad and I had issues.”

His friend shrugged, his eyes still cold and filled with judgment. “Family is family.”

Oh God. He felt the Red River noose begin to tighten around his neck. “Okay, well, I can see this is going well. I guess I’ll see you around.”

For a second it looked as though Dominic’s stony face showed a tiny hint at cracking but it didn’t. “Yeah. Stay away from my sister, and this will all be fine.”

Chapter Four

Aiden walked into his father’s garage and paused when he saw a cover over the car he and his brother had purchased for their father a year ago. He yanked it off and shoved it in an empty corner, unlocked the car, and got inside. He frowned as a growing suspicion formed. He started the engine and cursed as he looked at the odometer. His father had never driven it.

He pulled out of the garage and scowled as he parked next to his father who was waiting in the driveway. Once he was inside and the door was shut, Aiden turned out of the driveway and drove down Main Street. He didn’t even glance in the direction of Nat’s bakery, because chances were she’d be standing in the window and would give him the finger as he drove by. That almost brought a smile to his face. Except then he remembered how much she hated him. That knowledge gutted him every time he thought about it, about the look on her face when she walked into his dad’s house. He had hoped she’d moved on, found a great guy, got married, had kids…was happy. Hell no, he didn’t really want that. He was lying. He wanted her for himself, always had. And now that he saw her again, he wanted her even more. He wanted to be the one to give her all those things. But she thought he was a cheating loser, and he’d go on letting her think that. He couldn’t come back to Red River and start a life here. He couldn’t be that close to his father. He’d promised her older brother and his once best friend, Dom, that he’d stay away from her.

He also wasn’t going to let himself find out what had happened to her while he’d been gone. He still knew her on another level, completely able to read her. Some jerk had hurt her, even though she’d vehemently denied it. He needed to remember this wasn’t his business anymore. None of them were.

He was here for the disgruntled senior sitting beside him.

“Care to tell me why you never took this car out for even a drive?”

His father didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. He just gave a grunt and stared out the window. Aiden tried to control his temper, but it was pretty damn difficult.

“Seriously? Dylan and I buy you a car, and you don’t even bother to drive it? You kept on driving that P.O.S.?”

His father shifted in his seat and turned to look out the passenger window. “Don’t need my sons providing for me. Just trying to rub it in my face that I was a part-time mechanic while the two of you went on to build an empire.”

His father could have been more, if he’d been sober during regular business hours. Now wasn’t the time to get into that crap. “It’s not like that. We weren’t thinking of trying to make you feel bad. Besides, if we wanted to make you feel bad, we would’ve come up with a cheaper way. It was a gift, plain and simple.”

“Well, I only drive domestic.”

Aiden clenched his hands around the steering wheel and increased his speed once they were out of town and on the country roads. This…nothing ever would bring their father closer to them. They couldn’t figure the man out. Fine.

“So, do you like your oncologist?” He was going to try and make pleasant conversation. He was also going to silently curse his brother until he could make a phone call to him. At the very least, Dylan needed to suffer through him recounting the irritating details of the day.

His dad shrugged. “I wouldn’t go out for drinks with him, but he seems to know what he’s doing.”

“Okay, that’s good. We looked him up, and he has a great reputation. Evan also highly recommended him.” He kept his eyes on the road. “Any side effects?”

His father made a scoffing sound. “Who cares? My choices are basically radiation or death, as you pointed out the other day. So I don’t know why the hell they go on about side effects.”

“Uh, maybe so you know what to look out for? What’s normal?”

“Yeah. Go ahead and ask if you really want to know. Oh, I think they gave me some binder or something with a bunch of papers in it.”

He gritted his teeth. “Where is this binder?”

“Tossed it in the trunk of my car.”

“I guess you mean your other car?”

“Right.”

“And what if there’s something important in there? I would have liked to look through it so I could be more informed for this appointment.”

“All we have to do is show up at the times they give us. Every weekday for the next seven weeks. I already got the tattoos.”

“Tattoos?”

“Yeah, so they know where to point that damn beam. They’re not just going to be shooting laser beams everywhere like in those Star Wars movies you boys used to watch.”

Aiden told himself that pitching himself out of a moving vehicle wouldn’t solve his problems. He took a deep breath and tried to sort out the mangled details of what radiation entailed. He had a list of questions he wanted to ask the oncologist, and now he could add on a few more. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have driven you for that.”

“I don’t like pity.”

Not living in Red River meant he and Dylan didn’t have to be constantly reminded of how screwed up their relationship with their father was. Being here made it painfully clear, and he didn’t exactly have a solution. He didn’t know what to say to him. “Okay, well, when we get back, give me that binder.”

“Fine.”

They hadn’t said a word in half an hour by the time they pulled into the hospital. His father pointed out the entrance to the cancer center in the large hospital, and the tremor that ran through his body caught him unexpectedly. Yes, he knew his dad had cancer. He knew, judging by the packed parking lot, just how many people had it. He knew that his dad would be one of the lucky ones and should be just fine. What he hadn’t expected, though, was the fear that caught him. They had never been close. But he’d always known his father was there, in Red River. The idea, the reality, that one day things wouldn’t always be like that, hit him and suffocated him.

Sometimes life didn’t give you the opportunity to make amends. It didn’t give you second chances. Life didn’t wait for people to get their crap together, or to be perfect. The image of Natalia in front of him, accusing him of being an ass caused him to pause momentarily. What if something happened to him? Or her? What if she never knew the truth? What if she never knew how much he actually loved her? Or that the issue never had been her…it had all been him?

God, how badly did he want to tell her the truth? How much did it kill him to know that she hadn’t gotten over him? And how much did he want to beat the crap out of the guy who had actually cheated on her? He wanted to tell her the truth, beg her to forgive him, and then proceed to kiss her until she couldn’t stand up. He wanted to feel her body against his. He wanted to know if she still made the same sounds when he touched her. He wanted to know if she tasted the same, smelled the same, and kissed the same. God, he wanted to sink himself inside her and never leave her again. He regretted every damn day without her, but she wasn’t part of his plan. He was supposed to help his dad, then get the hell out of Red River. He was supposed to go back to run his company with his brother, Dylan.

“Hurry your ass up, Aiden, or we’ll be late.” His father’s snide comment, along with the fact that the man pushed past him to go through the automatic doors, jolted him back to reality. The main waiting room was quite large, many of the seats occupied. There were three signs with arrows. One was for radiation, one was for chemotherapy, the other for Tim Hortons—at least he’d be able to get a coffee. He stood beside his father as he checked in and watched silently as the woman behind the reception desk placed a printed hospital bracelet around his wrist.

“This is day one, Mr. McCann?” She was middle-aged with a kind face and smiled at his father.

His dad nodded.

She pointed somewhere behind them in the direction of the radiation department. “So you just grab a hospital gown from that stack, go to the changing room, and then sit in Reception, section B, okay?”

Aiden made a mental note of all this. “Thanks,” he said to the woman and followed his dad to the area she’d pointed them toward. They walked the perimeter of the waiting area, their footsteps muffled on the carpet. The distinct sterile hospital smell filled his nostrils, and he was reminded again of how much he hated hospitals. He stood there, not knowing what the hell he should be doing, while his father grabbed a gown and then disappeared inside a door.

A couple seated in the same waiting area made eye contact with him and smiled. She was wearing a hospital gown, and they were talking quietly. He gave them a nod and sat down across from them. A few minutes later, the woman was called in, and Aiden watched her walk through a glass door.

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The man looked relaxed and was reading a newspaper. Finally, his father came out wearing the gown, tan socks, and black dress shoes and sat down two seats over from him. Nice. “Don’t make a comment about the dress.”

“As if I would,” Aiden whispered, leaning in so no one would hear the idiocy.

He jumped out of his seat a second later as a horn sounded. His father snickered, and Aiden watched as a man honked a horn and a bunch of hospital staff clapped. The man in their reception area clapped, too.

“It’s his last day of radiation,” the man across from them said.

“That’s, uh, great,” Aiden managed to say. Hell, he didn’t know how to act here. All these sick people. He looked over at his dad, but he wasn’t making eye contact with him, he was just staring straight ahead at the plants on the coffee table.

“Are you, uh, okay?” Aiden asked, leaning toward him.

His father scowled at him and leaned back. “Let’s put it this way, if they screw up that beam placement, I may have other very important parts out of commission. How would you feel?”

“Mr. McCann?”

Aiden was still reeling from that comment when his father stood and walked with the woman. He, like the other lady, walked behind the glass door and disappeared.

Aiden watched him leave, his gut clenched tight, a trickle of sweat making its way down his back. He didn’t remember ever feeling this alone, this aware of his own mortality or his father’s. He sat there, leaning back in his chair, and watched as people walked by. Some wore hospital gowns, some were alone, some were with people. Some had no hair.

He covered his face, thinking about his mother, his father. Everyone here had someone supportive with them. Some were laughing. He hadn’t been able to make his father laugh. Hell, he could barely even look at him.

He shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. This was day one of thirty-five, and he’d never felt so alone or so completely clueless.

The only person he wished for was Natalia. She would have known what to say. She would have made his father laugh and smile, but Aiden had screwed that up, too.

Focus on the end game and then get the hell out of town.

…

Natalia glanced down at the lit display on her phone.
Day One, Week Three.

Week two and three always tripped her up. Something would always happen to make her get off the “learning to jog” bandwagon. Sure, some of the enthusiasm was gone by week three, but it was more than that. It got hard. Serious stamina was required. The jogging intervals were longer, and it never really felt like she’d made any progress by then. Running was hard. She hated it, which was why she was doing it so early in the blasted morning, or she’d come up with a thousand excuses as to why she couldn’t fit in a run today.

Natalia rolled her shoulders and looked down the river, trying to psych herself up before she started the jogging app. She took three deep breaths and then started. Right. Walking was always the easiest. She could handle walking. It was safe and predictable.

Nothing about the last three weeks had been safe or predictable, starting with Aiden McCann walking back into her life, looking hotter than ever. Dammit. Wasn’t she the cliché? She had never believed that people could truly change—no matter how good looking they were.

She hadn’t seen him since the day everyone had snubbed him at the bakery. She also didn’t want to admit how badly she’d felt. He’d stood there, looking invincible and tough to everyone, but she’d witnessed the flash of hurt, the vulnerability in his blue eyes. Before she could do or say anything, he’d walked out.

She groaned as the stupid, happy woman on the app told her it was time to jog. Fine. Jog. Her eyes bulged when she saw the required jogging time was five minutes straight.
Okay. Focus. You got this.

The tall figure in the distance, in perfect running form, was beginning to look horribly familiar. Tattered Blue Jays baseball cap, threadbare T-shirt hugging broad shoulders, shorts, tall, powerful…crap it was Aiden. Why was he here? This was
her
running space and time.
Just look straight ahead. Look like you’re not about to die as you approach minute five. Maybe even smile…or trip over your own two feet and choke on your own saliva as you go head first into the river rock bed.

“Holy crap, I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Are you okay, Nat?”

She was going to die. Why couldn’t she have hit the rock bed with her head first? Then at least she might have been knocked unconscious and have been spared the humiliation. She was lying on her side, fetal position, holding her knees to her chest and glaring at him. “Totally fine.”

His brow was furrowed as though he was trying to figure out what the heck she’d just done. “What the hell happened?”

She sat up and tried to regain some dignity. “Nothing. It’s so cloudy and dark still, I lost my footing because I thought you were actually a giant troll coming toward me.”

He was hunched down, trying to pry her hands off her knees. His beautiful mouth twitched at her explanation. “You find giant trolls jogging in Red River?”

She swatted his hands, and he sighed roughly then firmly grasped her hands and moved them aside. He made a noise under his breath. “Come back to my dad’s car, and I’ll clean this up for you.”

“Clean what up?” She struggled into a seated position and cringed when she saw her knees. Seriously, she was like a child who’d scraped her knees on the playground.