The Rebel's Return (Red River) (8 page)

No way.

Chapter Eight

Aiden stacked the last pink box in Natalia’s SUV and swallowed the last morsel of the cannoli she’d left for him. It was even better than he remembered. And sadly, this pink disaster he was going to have to drive was even worse than he’d thought.

Five minutes later, he was stopped at Red River’s only set of traffic lights. He stared straight ahead, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. It was proving to be difficult because he heard a horn blaring. With a curse, he turned his head to the right and saw Mrs. Jacobs in her Mini Cooper waving at him. He gave a reluctant wave and turned back to stare forward, when he heard the distinct low rumble of a motorcycle beside him on the other side.

This time he muttered a string of curses before turning to the left and making eye contact with Jake, who was motioning for him to power down the window.

Aiden shook his head and flipped him the finger, right before he noticed the police cruiser pulling up behind him. Dominic. Was this a showdown of his past? At least he knew his dad wasn’t in town, or he’d probably be walking across the road.

Thankfully the light turned green, and he sped through the intersection, grateful that this pink monstrosity had good acceleration. Then he remembered Dominic was behind him and would probably salivate at the opportunity to give him a fat speeding ticket. He let out a huge sigh of relief as he took one of the more obscure routes to the ballet academy.

It was fine. Doing all of this was fine, because once he was home tonight, he’d be able to plan his night with Natalia. He didn’t know what he was doing, so he was following his instincts. And all his instincts were pointing him back to her.

…

“Thanks for driving me. You didn’t have to. I could have taken a cab,” Aiden’s father said as they drove the last stretch leading into Red River.

Natalia smiled. “I was happy to do it.”

“I don’t know why my son insisted on me not driving.”

Natalia’s hands squeezed the steering wheel at the mention of Aiden, which of course triggered the image of him at My Sister’s Closet. That unmistakable glint of desire in his blue eyes. The way his gaze had become heated, the rush that had consumed her as she’d stood there. God. It was getting harder and harder for her to resist him. Natalia cleared her throat when she realized several minutes had passed and she hadn’t responded to Aiden’s father. Then on the bridge…the vulnerability that he was showing her was turning her into mush. That would be the only explanation for accepting a date with him, the only one, because there were no lingering feelings. None.

“Well, he wants to make sure you’re okay.”

“
Humph.
Well, if he were so concerned about me, he wouldn’t have left all those years ago. The only reason he’s coming back now is because he thinks I’m dying.”

Natalia increased the frequency of the windshield wipers as the light drizzle turned into a full downpour. She carefully thought about how to respond. She knew how complicated their relationship was, even without knowing all the details. “Aiden is back here to help you through this. You’re his father. He loves you and wants to be here for you,” she said, reaching across to pat his hand that was on the armrest between them.

He gave a little grump of disagreement. “He’s doing it out of duty.”

“Love. He’s doing it out of love.”

He was silent for a long while, and she drove in silence. The country road was quiet as they passed farmland. Rain beat down on the rolling hills and streamed down the windows. “He doesn’t have to be here. He doesn’t owe me anything,” he said, after several minutes.

Natalia gave him a quick glance. He was staring out the passenger window. Sometimes, despite his age and weathered appearance, she could see glimpses of Aiden in his features. The strong jaw was the same. So was the smirk. And, of course, the dimple. He’d gotten that from his father. “Aiden wants to be here. I know him.”

He let out a long sigh. “I don’t even know him anymore. He turned out to be a better man than I did.”

Natalia’s heart squeezed. She knew their home life had deteriorated rapidly after the boys’ mom died, but she didn’t know all the details. She knew Mr. McCann had had a drinking issue in the past, and she knew that because of it he hadn’t been able to be there for his sons. But she’d always had a soft spot for him, especially since Aiden and Dylan left town. He’d looked heartbroken and lost and had turned to drinking even harder. Her visits to him began once she started running the family bakery. He’d immediately treated her with kindness, and they had a kind of bond. Maybe it was that they both loved Aiden. Or maybe it was because Aiden had walked out on the both of them. “Aiden and Dylan both turned out great. You definitely had something to do with that.”

“Ah, you’re a sweetheart for always trying to think the best of me. I’m afraid it’s not true on this. I wasn’t…I wasn’t a good father. After their mother died, I fell apart and couldn’t get it together again. I couldn’t cope with the demands of fatherhood.”

Natalia’s heart squeezed as she listened to his tortured voice.

“Their mother was the core of the family. She sort of ran the show. She told me what to do and when, and I did it. I loved those boys, but when she was gone…I couldn’t get back to that place she’d created for us. I’d rather spend my time drinking so I could forget for a while that she was not coming back and that I had to raise two kids on my own.”

“You did the best you could. I’m sure Aiden and Dylan know that.”

He slumped a little in his seat. “I didn’t do the best I could. That’s why they left. I failed them. They were greeted with a bottle of whiskey on the table and an empty fridge when they came home from school. When they were older, they did everything in the house: the laundry, the food, all of it. And they became angry. So many times…” His voice trailed off, and he swiped at his eyes.

She couldn’t make out if he was crying because he was looking out his window. Her heart squeezed, and she felt awful for all three of them. The little boys that had lost their home life, their mother, the love, and the man who had failed them, who had buckled under pressure and was now filled with deep regret. She knew Aiden’s father wasn’t a bad man, but he lacked the strength his sons had, and he knew it and tortured himself for it.

She took the last turn off into Red River, the town sign visible in the distance. “You know, as much as we’d like to, we can’t go back and change the past. Of course you regret what happened, but there’s nothing you can do about it. No amount of self-hatred will change what happened, but you do have today and tomorrow, and the rest of your life, to change your relationship with your sons.”

She drove over the lift bridge in silence and took the turn off to the small street filled with little bungalows.

She shut off the engine once she’d parked in the driveway.

“What if they don’t want that? What if they tell me they don’t want a relationship with me?”

The vulnerability on his face made compassion fill her heart. “Try. I know Aiden. He has a good heart.”

He didn’t say anything, and the sound of an approaching motorcycle caused him to turn and look in his side mirror. Natalia’s stomach flip-flopped excitedly. A minute later, a drenched Aiden, in jeans and black leather jacket, pulled up beside them. If she hadn’t stopped in the driveway so long, she would have been able to avoid this run-in. She didn’t need to see him so soon after their meeting on the bridge. Nor did she need to see him with his clothes plastered to…he walked over to them…all the hard lines of his body. The glass steamed up on the windows, and she could have died of mortification.

“I better go inside. Thanks again for taking me to the hospital today, Natalia. And thanks for listening to an old man’s ramblings. I…uh, you were the best thing that ever happened to Aiden,” he said, before getting out of the car.

She heard them exchange a few words, and then Aiden’s father walked inside the house. Aiden, on the other hand, had one hand perched on top of her car and the other on the door handle. She powered down her window. “Hi.”

“Hi. Thanks again for taking him today.”

“No problem. Everything went well. How was, um, that delivery this morning?”

He flashed her a grin and dangled her keys in the window. “Driving your car was the highlight of my day.”

She burst out laughing and quickly grabbed them, making sure not to make bodily contact. “You’re lying.”

He shrugged, his dimple still there. “So I’ll pick you up tomorrow night around seven?”

She hesitated.

He opened her door. “An agreement is an agreement, Nat.”

She tried not to look like it was a big deal at all, which it was. A huge deal. She needed to figure out what she was going to wear. She’d have to text Sabrina ASAP. She grabbed her purse and stepped out of the car.

“I can see all the machinations whirling in that gorgeous head of yours,” Aiden said, still smiling, his hand circling around her head. She swatted it away.

“You can see nothing. Fine. Seven. Park in the back lot.”

“Why, you don’t want to be seen with me on the street?”

She gave him a level stare. “Really? Do either of us really need to be seen together? Think of all the people and their reactions if they saw us together.”

Something flashed in his eyes before he nodded. “Good point.”

…

Aiden walked into the family room after saying good-bye to Natalia, frowning as he saw his father sitting in his favorite chair, hunched over a book.

“What are you looking at?”

His father visibly started, snapping the book shut. “Hell, boy, you don’t sneak up on a person like that.”

“Maybe you need to get your hearing checked, because I slammed the front door, yelled hello, and then walked in here,” he said, sitting on the couch opposite him.

His father gave a grunt and then tucked the book between the side of the chair and his body.

“What’s the book?”

“Nothing,” he growled, picking up the remote to unmute the television. The room was suddenly filled with the sound of the news.

Aiden grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. “What’s the book?”

“None of your business. A person is allowed privacy. What if I’m looking at porn?”

Aiden tried to control the bile working its way up his digestive tract. “If that’s porn, I’m going to puke all over this room and have to be admitted to some kind of mental hospital.”

His father gave a snort and an almost smile. “Relax.”

“So what’s the book?”

His father snatched it and then threw it at him. Drama. He looked down and realized it was a family photo album. Hell. He hadn’t seen that in years. Dylan had often taken it out when they were young. When they were little, his older brother would point out the different people in the album. He knew Dylan had always looked at it to see their mother. He’d never felt much, not remembering her. Apparently he had stopped talking for a year after their mother’s death, and his father had been worried he’d never talk again. He had no memory of that.

“So, aren’t you going to open it?”

He shrugged and stood up. He didn’t feel like taking a trip down a screwed-up memory lane with his father. “Nah. I think I’ll go up to bed.”

“You have the same smile as her, you know.”

He didn’t move, and the look in his father’s eyes made a pang of something go through his stomach. He sat back down. “Yeah. Dylan told me that.”

“Except hers was sweeter. Yours is more troublemaker.”

He tried to laugh.

“She sang to you every night.”

He sighed roughly and leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs. “Dad, what are you doing?”

“I’m telling you about your mother.”

“Why? Why now? You could have spoken about her when I was a kid, then maybe I would have remembered her.” He cringed at the anger in his voice, pissed at himself that he’d let that last line escape, because it gave away one of his vulnerabilities.

Dammit if his father’s eyes didn’t get a sheen in them. “I know. Give me the book.”

Oh God, he wasn’t prepared for this stuff. He couldn’t deal. Not with a man he was so sure he didn’t like and didn’t have redeeming qualities. It was much simpler to think of his father as closed-off and detached. A man who had tears in his eyes and looked defeated, sitting in a battered chair and going through radiation, didn’t seem like the same man who had raised them. He slowly passed the book to his father and waited.

He flipped a couple pages and then slid the book across the coffee table, pointing to a picture. It was his mother, holding him and standing beside Santa Claus. Dylan was sitting on Santa’s lap, beaming, while he was in his mother’s arms wailing. It meant nothing to him. He didn’t know his brother like that—smiling. His brother had always been serious, he’d been the one to make sure Aiden was okay, to make sure they had food, that they had clothes. That picture of his brother was like looking at a different person. And their mom…he didn’t remember what she felt like. What it felt like to be held by a parent.

“Christmas?” he said when his father didn’t offer an explanation.

“Yup, at a fancy mall in Toronto. Your mom insisted we take you boys for the day to see the city all decked out for the holidays. Dylan had the time of his life. You, on the other hand, didn’t want to sit on Santa’s lap, so your mother had to hold you. You were so scared, you crapped yourself, and it leaked through your diapers.”

He stared at his father for a moment, unable to speak right away. “That’s it? That’s the memory you decide to share with me after all these years? You’ve never spoken to me about Mom, and now you choose to tell me about the time I crapped myself on her?”

His father frowned at him. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. Babies do that. Your mother didn’t care. She doted on you boys.”

He didn’t say anything.

His father grumbled something and then turned the album back in his direction, flipping through pages. Then he turned the book back to him and pointed to another picture. Aiden looked down hesitantly. This time, he was hit with the unfamiliar jolt of recognition. He sat still, not even daring to breathe, in case it pulled him from the flash of the memory. He must have been three. It must have been months or days or weeks from his mother’s death because he knew she’d died when he was three. He was standing in front of a Ferris wheel holding his mother’s hand. The look on his face… Jeezus, he felt the sting of tears as he moved his focus from himself to his mother. They did have the same smile. He looked at his hand, so small, in hers. He looked at the way her brown hair looked as though it was blowing in the wind along with her floral printed dress. He looked, and he felt. He felt something that completely consumed him, robbed him of breath, of thought. Like she was here. Or in him. Or in the picture. Hell. He didn’t know. Oh God, did he remember her?